the conquest of bread _by_ peter kropotkin _author of "fields, factories, and workshops" "the memoirs of a revolutionist," etc._ [illustration] new york vanguard press mcmxxvi printed in the united states of america the man ( - ): _prince peter alexeivitch kropotkin_, revolutionary and scientist, was descended from the old russian nobility, but decided, at the age of thirty, to throw in his lot with the social rebels not only of his own country, but of the entire world. he became the intellectual leader of anarchist-communism; took part in the labor movement; wrote many books and pamphlets; established _le révolté_ in geneva and _freedom_ in london; contributed to the _encyclopedia britannica_; was twice imprisoned because of his radical activities; and twice visited america. after the bolshevist revolution he returned to russia, kept himself apart from soviet activities, and died true to his ideals. the book: _the conquest of bread_ is a revolutionary idyl, a beautiful outline sketch of a future society based on liberty, equality and fraternity. it is, in kropotkin's own words, "a study of the needs of humanity, and of the economic means to satisfy them." read in conjunction with the same author's "fields, factories and workshops," it meets all the difficulties of the social inquirer who says: "the anarchist ideal is alluring, but how could you work it out?" contents chapter page i. our riches ii. well-being for all iii. anarchist communism iv. expropriation v. food vi. dwellings vii. clothing viii. ways and means ix. the need for luxury x. agreeable work xi. free agreement xii. objections xiii. the collectivist wages system xiv. consumption and production xv. the division of labour xvi. the decentralization of industry xvii. agriculture notes preface one of the current objections to communism, and socialism altogether, is that the idea is so old, and yet it has never been realized. schemes of ideal states haunted the thinkers of ancient greece; later on, the early christians joined in communist groups; centuries later, large communist brotherhoods came into existence during the reform movement. then, the same ideals were revived during the great english and french revolutions; and finally, quite lately, in , a revolution, inspired to a great extent with socialist ideals, took place in france. "and yet, you see," we are told, "how far away is still the realization of your schemes. don't you think that there is some fundamental error in your understanding of human nature and its needs?" at first sight this objection seems very serious. however, the moment we consider human history more attentively, it loses its strength. we see, first, that hundreds of millions of men have succeeded in maintaining amongst themselves, in their village communities, for many hundreds of years, one of the main elements of socialism--the common ownership of the chief instrument of production, the land, and the apportionment of the same according to the labour capacities of the different families; and we learn that if the communal possession of the land has been destroyed in western europe, it was not from within, but from without, by the governments which created a land monopoly in favour of the nobility and the middle classes. we learn, moreover, that the medieval cities succeeded in maintaining in their midst, for several centuries in succession, a certain socialized organization of production and trade; that these centuries were periods of a rapid intellectual, industrial, and artistic progress; while the decay of these communal institutions came mainly from the incapacity of men of combining the village with the city, the peasant with the citizen, so as jointly to oppose the growth of the military states, which destroyed the free cities. the history of mankind, thus understood, does not offer, then, an argument against communism. it appears, on the contrary, as a succession of endeavours to realize some sort of communist organization, endeavours which were crowned here and there with a partial success of a certain duration; and all we are authorized to conclude is, that mankind has not yet found the proper form for combining, on communistic principles, agriculture with a suddenly developed industry and a rapidly growing international trade. the latter appears especially as a disturbing element, since it is no longer individuals only, or cities, that enrich themselves by distant commerce and export; but whole nations grow rich at the cost of those nations which lag behind in their industrial development. these conditions, which began to appear by the end of the eighteenth century, took, however, their full development in the nineteenth century only, after the napoleonic wars came to an end. and modern communism has to take them into account. it is now known that the french revolution, apart from its political significance, was an attempt made by the french people, in and , in three different directions more or less akin to socialism. it was, first, _the equalization of fortunes_, by means of an income tax and succession duties, both heavily progressive, as also by a direct confiscation of the land in order to sub-divide it, and by heavy war taxes levied upon the rich only. the second attempt was a sort of _municipal communism_ as regards the consumption of some objects of first necessity, bought by the municipalities, and sold by them at cost price. and the third attempt was to introduce a wide _national system of rationally established prices of all commodities_, for which the real cost of production and moderate trade profits had to be taken into account. the convention worked hard at this scheme, and had nearly completed its work, when reaction took the upper hand. it was during this remarkable movement, which has never yet been properly studied, that modern socialism was born--fourierism with l'ange, at lyons, and authoritarian communism with buonarroti, babeuf, and their comrades. and it was immediately after the great revolution that the three great theoretical founders of modern socialism--fourier, saint simon, and robert owen, as well as godwin (the no-state socialism)--came forward; while the secret communist societies, originated from those of buonarroti and babeuf, gave their stamp to militant, authoritarian communism for the next fifty years. to be correct, then, we must say that modern socialism is not yet a hundred years old, and that, for the first half of these hundred years, two nations only, which stood at the head of the industrial movement, i.e., britain and france, took part in its elaboration. both--bleeding at that time from the terrible wounds inflicted upon them by fifteen years of napoleonic wars, and both enveloped in the great european reaction that had come from the east. in fact, it was only after the revolution of july, , in france, and the reform movement of - in this country, had begun to shake off that terrible reaction, that the discussion of socialism became possible for a few years before the revolution of . and it was during those years that the aspirations of fourier, st. simon, and robert owen, worked out by their followers, took a definite shape, and the different schools of socialism which exist nowadays were defined. in britain, robert owen and his followers worked out their schemes of communist villages, agricultural and industrial at the same time; immense co-operative associations were started for creating with their dividends more communist colonies; and the great consolidated trades' union was founded--the forerunner of both the labour parties of our days and the international working-men's association. in france, the fourierist considérant issued his remarkable manifesto, which contains, beautifully developed, all the theoretical considerations upon the growth of capitalism, which are now described as "scientific socialism." proudhon worked out his idea of anarchism and mutualism, without state interference. louis blanc published his _organization of labour_, which became later on the programme of lassalle. vidal in france and lorenz stein in germany further developed, in two remarkable works, published in and respectively, the theoretical conceptions of considérant; and finally vidal, and especially pecqueur, developed in detail the system of collectivism, which the former wanted the national assembly of to vote in the shape of laws. however, there is one feature, common to all socialist schemes of that period, which must be noted. the three great founders of socialism who wrote at the dawn of the nineteenth century were so entranced by the wide horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon it as a new revelation, and upon themselves as upon the founders of a new religion. socialism had to be a religion, and they had to regulate its march, as the heads of a new church. besides, writing during the period of reaction which had followed the french revolution, and seeing more its failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses, and they did not appeal to them for bringing about the changes which they thought necessary. they put their faith, on the contrary, into some great ruler, some socialist napoleon. he would understand the new revelation; he would be convinced of its desirability by the successful experiments of their phalansteries, or associations; and he would peacefully accomplish by his own authority the revolution which would bring well-being and happiness to mankind. a military genius, napoleon, had just been ruling europe. why should not a social genius come forward, carry europe with him and translate the new gospel into life? that faith was rooted very deep, and it stood for a long time in the way of socialism; its traces are even seen amongst us, down to the present day. it was only during the years - , when the approach of the revolution was felt everywhere, and the proletarians were beginning to plant the banner of socialism on the barricades, that faith in the people began to enter once more the hearts of the social schemers: faith, on the one side, in republican democracy, and on the other side in _free_ association, in the organizing powers of the working-men themselves. but then came the revolution of february, , the middle-class republic, and--with it, shattered hopes. four months only after the proclamation of the republic, the june insurrection of the paris proletarians broke out, and it was crushed in blood. the wholesale shooting of the working-men, the mass deportations to new guinea, and finally the napoleonian _coup d'êtat_ followed. the socialists were prosecuted with fury, and the weeding out was so terrible and so thorough that for the next twelve or fifteen years the very traces of socialism disappeared; its literature vanished so completely that even names, once so familiar before , were entirely forgotten; ideas which were then current--the stock ideas of the socialists before --were so wiped out as to be taken, later on, by our generation, for new discoveries. however, when a new revival began, about , when communism and collectivism once more came forward, it appeared that the conception as to the means of their realization had undergone a deep change. the old faith in political democracy was dying out, and the first principles upon which the paris working-men agreed with the british trade-unionists and owenites, when they met in and , at london, was that "the emancipation of the working-men must be accomplished by the working-men themselves." upon another point they also were agreed. it was that the labour unions themselves would have to get hold of the instruments of production, and organize production themselves. the french idea of the fourierist and mutualist "association" thus joined hands with robert owen's idea of "the great consolidated trades' union," which was extended now, so as to become an international working-men's association. again this new revival of socialism lasted but a few years. soon came the war of - , the uprising of the paris commune--and again the free development of socialism was rendered impossible in france. but while germany accepted now from the hands of its german teachers, marx and engels, the socialism of the french "forty-eighters" that is, the socialism of considérant and louis blanc, and the collectivism of pecqueur,--france made a further step forward. in march, , paris had proclaimed that henceforward it would not wait for the retardatory portions of france: that it intended to start within its commune its own social development. the movement was too short-lived to give any positive result. it remained communalist only; it merely asserted the rights of the commune to its full autonomy. but the working-classes of the old international saw at once its historical significance. they understood that the free commune would be henceforth the medium in which the ideas of modern socialism may come to realization. the free agro-industrial communes, of which so much was spoken in england and france before , need not be small phalansteries, or small communities of persons. they must be vast agglomerations, like paris, or, still better, small territories. these communes would federate to constitute nations in some cases, even irrespectively of the present national frontiers (like the cinque ports, or the hansa). at the same time large labour associations would come into existence for the inter-communal service of the railways, the docks, and so on. such were the ideas which began vaguely to circulate after amongst the thinking working-men, especially in the latin countries. in some such organization, the details of which life itself would settle, the labour circles saw the medium through which socialist forms of life could find a much easier realization than through the seizure of all industrial property by the state, and the state organization of agriculture and industry. these are the ideas to which i have endeavoured to give a more or less definite expression in this book. looking back now at the years that have passed since this book was written, i can say in full conscience that its leading ideas must have been correct. state socialism has certainly made considerable progress. state railways, state banking, and state trade in spirits have been introduced here and there. but every step made in this direction, even though it resulted in the cheapening of a given commodity, was found to be a new obstacle in the struggle of the working-men for their emancipation. so that we find growing amongst the working-men, especially in western europe, the idea that even the working of such a vast national property as a railway-net could be much better handled by a federated union of railway employés, than by a state organization. on the other side, we see that countless attempts have been made all over europe and america, the leading idea of which is, on the one side, to get into the hands of the working-men themselves wide branches of production, and, on the other side, to always widen in the cities the circles of the functions which the city performs in the interest of its inhabitants. trade-unionism, with a growing tendency towards organizing the different trades internationally, and of being not only an instrument for the improvement of the conditions of labour, but also of becoming an organization which might, at a given moment, take into its hands the management of production; co-operation, both for production and for distribution, both in industry and agriculture, and attempts at combining both sorts of co-operation in experimental colonies; and finally, the immensely varied field of the so-called municipal socialism--these are the three directions in which the greatest amount of creative power has been developed lately. of course, none of these may, in any degree, be taken as a substitute for communism, or even for socialism, both of which imply the common possession of the instruments of production. but we certainly must look at all these attempts as upon _experiments_--like those which owen, fourier, and saint simon tried in their colonies--experiments which prepare human thought to conceive some of the practical forms in which a communist society might find its expression. the synthesis of all these partial experiments will have to be made some day by the constructive genius of some one of the civilized nations. but samples of the bricks out of which the great synthetic building will have to be built, and even samples of some of its rooms, are being prepared by the immense effort of the constructive genius of man. brighton. _january, ._ the conquest of bread chapter i our riches i the human race has travelled a long way, since those remote ages when men fashioned their rude implements of flint and lived on the precarious spoils of hunting, leaving to their children for their only heritage a shelter beneath the rocks, some poor utensils--and nature, vast, unknown, and terrific, with whom they had to fight for their wretched existence. during the long succession of agitated ages which have elapsed since, mankind has nevertheless amassed untold treasures. it has cleared the land, dried the marshes, hewn down forests, made roads, pierced mountains; it has been building, inventing, observing, reasoning; it has created a complex machinery, wrested her secrets from nature, and finally it pressed steam and electricity into its service. and the result is, that now the child of the civilized man finds at its birth, ready for its use, an immense capital accumulated by those who have gone before him. and this capital enables man to acquire, merely by his own labour combined with the labour of others, riches surpassing the dreams of the fairy tales of the thousand and one nights. the soil is cleared to a great extent, fit for the reception of the best seeds, ready to give a rich return for the skill and labour spent upon it--a return more than sufficient for all the wants of humanity. the methods of rational cultivation are known. on the wide prairies of america each hundred men, with the aid of powerful machinery, can produce in a few months enough wheat to maintain ten thousand people for a whole year. and where man wishes to double his produce, to treble it, to multiply it a hundred-fold, he _makes_ the soil, gives to each plant the requisite care, and thus obtains enormous returns. while the hunter of old had to scour fifty or sixty square miles to find food for his family, the civilized man supports his household, with far less pains, and far more certainty, on a thousandth part of that space. climate is no longer an obstacle. when the sun fails, man replaces it by artificial heat; and we see the coming of a time when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation. meanwhile, by the use of glass and hot water pipes, man renders a given space ten and fifty times more productive than it was in its natural state. the prodigies accomplished in industry are still more striking. with the co-operation of those intelligent beings, modern machines--themselves the fruit of three or four generations of inventors, mostly unknown--a hundred men manufacture now the stuff to provide ten thousand persons with clothing for two years. in well-managed coal mines the labour of a hundred miners furnishes each year enough fuel to warm ten thousand families under an inclement sky. and we have lately witnessed the spectacle of wonderful cities springing up in a few months for international exhibitions, without interrupting in the slightest degree the regular work of the nations. and if in manufactures as in agriculture, and as indeed through our whole social system, the labour, the discoveries, and the inventions of our ancestors profit chiefly the few, it is none the less certain that mankind in general, aided by the creatures of steel and iron which it already possesses, could already procure an existence of wealth and ease for every one of its members. truly, we are rich--far richer than we think; rich in what we already possess, richer still in the possibilities of production of our actual mechanical outfit; richest of all in what we might win from our soil, from our manufactures, from our science, from our technical knowledge, were they but applied to bringing about the well-being of all. ii in our civilized societies we are rich. why then are the many poor? why this painful drudgery for the masses? why, even to the best paid workman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth inherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of production, which could ensure comfort to all, in return for a few hours of daily toil? the socialists have said it and repeated it unwearyingly. daily they reiterate it, demonstrating it by arguments taken from all the sciences. it is because all that is necessary for production--the land, the mines, the highways, machinery, food, shelter, education, knowledge--all have been seized by the few in the course of that long story of robbery, enforced migration and wars, of ignorance and oppression, which has been the life of the human race before it had learned to subdue the forces of nature. it is because, taking advantage of alleged rights acquired in the past, these few appropriate to-day two-thirds of the products of human labour, and then squander them in the most stupid and shameful way. it is because, having reduced the masses to a point at which they have not the means of subsistence for a month, or even for a week in advance, the few can allow the many to work, only on the condition of themselves receiving the lion's share. it is because these few prevent the remainder of men from producing the things they need, and force them to produce, not the necessaries of life for all, but whatever offers the greatest profits to the monopolists. in this is the substance of all socialism. take, indeed, a civilized country. the forests which once covered it have been cleared, the marshes drained, the climate improved. it has been made habitable. the soil, which bore formerly only a coarse vegetation, is covered to-day with rich harvests. the rock-walls in the valleys are laid out in terraces and covered with vines. the wild plants, which yielded nought but acrid berries, or uneatable roots, have been transformed by generations of culture into succulent vegetables or trees covered with delicious fruits. thousands of highways and railroads furrow the earth, and pierce the mountains. the shriek of the engine is heard in the wild gorges of the alps, the caucasus, and the himalayas. the rivers have been made navigable; the coasts, carefully surveyed, are easy of access; artificial harbours, laboriously dug out and protected against the fury of the sea, afford shelter to the ships. deep shafts have been sunk in the rocks; labyrinths of underground galleries have been dug out where coal may be raised or minerals extracted. at the crossings of the highways great cities have sprung up, and within their borders all the treasures of industry, science, and art have been accumulated. whole generations, that lived and died in misery, oppressed and ill-treated by their masters, and worn out by toil, have handed on this immense inheritance to our century. for thousands of years millions of men have laboured to clear the forests, to drain the marshes, and to open up highways by land and water. every rood of soil we cultivate in europe has been watered by the sweat of several races of men. every acre has its story of enforced labour, of intolerable toil, of the people's sufferings. every mile of railway, every yard of tunnel, has received its share of human blood. the shafts of the mine still bear on their rocky walls the marks made by the pick of the workman who toiled to excavate them. the space between each prop in the underground galleries might be marked as a miner's grave; and who can tell what each of these graves has cost, in tears, in privations, in unspeakable wretchedness to the family who depended on the scanty wage of the worker cut off in his prime by fire-damp, rock-fall, or flood? the cities, bound together by railroads and waterways, are organisms which have lived through centuries. dig beneath them and you find, one above another, the foundations of streets, of houses, of theatres, of public buildings. search into their history and you will see how the civilization of the town, its industry, its special characteristics, have slowly grown and ripened through the co-operation of generations of its inhabitants before it could become what it is to-day. and even to-day, the value of each dwelling, factory, and warehouse, which has been created by the accumulated labour of the millions of workers, now dead and buried, is only maintained by the very presence and labour of legions of the men who now inhabit that special corner of the globe. each of the atoms composing what we call the wealth of nations owes its value to the fact that it is a part of the great whole. what would a london dockyard or a great paris warehouse be if they were not situated in these great centres of international commerce? what would become of our mines, our factories, our workshops, and our railways, without the immense quantities of merchandise transported every day by sea and land? millions of human beings have laboured to create this civilization on which we pride ourselves to-day. other millions, scattered through the globe, labour to maintain it. without them nothing would be left in fifty years but ruins. there is not even a thought, or an invention, which is not common property, born of the past and the present. thousands of inventors, known and unknown, who have died in poverty, have co-operated in the invention of each of these machines which embody the genius of man. thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never have appeared. and these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. they have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. they have drawn their motive force from the environment. the genius of a séguin, a mayer, a grove, has certainly done more to launch industry in new directions than all the capitalists in the world. but men of genius are themselves the children of industry as well as of science. not until thousands of steam-engines had been working for years before all eyes, constantly transforming heat into dynamic force, and this force into sound, light, and electricity, could the insight of genius proclaim the mechanical origin and the unity of the physical forces. and if we, children of the nineteenth century, have at last grasped this idea, if we know now how to apply it, it is again because daily experience has prepared the way. the thinkers of the eighteenth century saw and declared it, but the idea remained undeveloped, because the eighteenth century had not grown up like ours, side by side with the steam-engine. imagine the decades that might have passed while we remained in ignorance of this law, which has revolutionized modern industry, had watt not found at soho skilled workmen to embody his ideas in metal, bringing all the parts of his engine to perfection, so that steam, pent in a complete mechanism, and rendered more docile than a horse, more manageable than water, became at last the very soul of modern industry. every machine has had the same history--a long record of sleepless nights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial improvements discovered by several generations of nameless workers, who have added to the original invention these little nothings, without which the most fertile idea would remain fruitless. more than that: every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry. science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle--all work together. each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present. by what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say--this is mine, not yours? iii it has come about, however, in the course of the ages traversed by the human race, that all that enables man to produce and to increase his power of production has been seized by the few. some time, perhaps, we will relate how this came to pass. for the present let it suffice to state the fact and analyze its consequences. to-day the soil, which actually owes its value to the needs of an ever-increasing population, belongs to a minority who prevent the people from cultivating it--or do not allow them to cultivate it according to modern methods. the mines, though they represent the labour of several generations, and derive their sole value from the requirements of the industry of a nation and the density of the population--the mines also belong to the few; and these few restrict the output of coal, or prevent it entirely, if they find more profitable investments for their capital. machinery, too, has become the exclusive property of the few, and even when a machine incontestably represents the improvements added to the original rough invention by three or four generations of workers, it none the less belongs to a few owners. and if the descendants of the very inventor who constructed the first machine for lace-making, a century ago, were to present themselves to-day in a lace factory at bâle or nottingham, and claim their rights, they would be told: "hands off! this machine is not yours," and they would be shot down if they attempted to take possession of it. the railways, which would be useless as so much old iron without the teeming population of europe, its industry, its commerce, and its marts, belong to a few shareholders, ignorant perhaps of the whereabouts of the lines of rails which yield them revenues greater than those of medieval kings. and if the children of those who perished by thousands while excavating the railway cuttings and tunnels were to assemble one day, crowding in their rags and hunger, to demand bread from the shareholders, they would be met with bayonets and grapeshot, to disperse them and safeguard "vested interests." in virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. he must sell his labour for a scant and uncertain wage. his father and his grandfather have toiled to drain this field, to build this mill, to perfect this machine. they gave to the work the full measure of their strength, and what more could they give? but their heir comes into the world poorer than the lowest savage. if he obtains leave to till the fields, it is on condition of surrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter to the government and the middlemen. and this tax, levied upon him by the state, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is always increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system of culture. if he turns to industry, he is allowed to work--though not always even that--only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds of the product to him whom the land recognizes as the owner of the machine. we cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. we called those the barbarous times. but if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. for, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger. the result of this state of things is that all our production tends in a wrong direction. enterprise takes no thought for the needs of the community. its only aim is to increase the gains of the speculator. hence the constant fluctuations of trade, the periodical industrial crises, each of which throws scores of thousands of workers on the streets. the working people cannot purchase with their wages the wealth which they have produced, and industry seeks foreign markets among the monied classes of other nations. in the east, in africa, everywhere, in egypt, tonkin or the congo, the european is thus bound to promote the growth of serfdom. and so he does. but soon he finds that everywhere there are similar competitors. all the nations evolve on the same lines, and wars, perpetual wars, break out for the right of precedence in the market. wars for the possession of the east, wars for the empire of the sea, wars to impose duties on imports and to dictate conditions to neighbouring states; wars against those "blacks" who revolt! the roar of the cannon never ceases in the world, whole races are massacred, the states of europe spend a third of their budgets in armaments; and we know how heavily these taxes fall on the workers. education still remains the privilege of a small minority, for it is idle to talk of education when the workman's child is forced, at the age of thirteen, to go down into the mine or to help his father on the farm. it is idle to talk of studying to the worker, who comes home in the evening wearied by excessive toil, and its brutalizing atmosphere. society is thus bound to remain divided into two hostile camps, and in such conditions freedom is a vain word. the radical begins by demanding a greater extension of political rights, but he soon sees that the breath of liberty leads to the uplifting of the proletariat, and then he turns round, changes his opinions, and reverts to repressive legislation and government by the sword. a vast array of courts, judges, executioners, policemen, and gaolers is needed to uphold these privileges; and this array gives rise in its turn to a whole system of espionage, of false witness, of spies, of threats and corruption. the system under which we live checks in its turn the growth of the social sentiment. we all know that without uprightness, without self-respect, without sympathy and mutual aid, human kind must perish, as perish the few races of animals living by rapine, or the slave-keeping ants. but such ideas are not to the taste of the ruling classes, and they have elaborated a whole system of pseudo-science to teach the contrary. fine sermons have been preached on the text that those who have should share with those who have not, but he who would carry out this principle would be speedily informed that these beautiful sentiments are all very well in poetry, but not in practice. "to lie is to degrade and besmirch oneself," we say, and yet all civilized life becomes one huge lie. we accustom ourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a double-faced morality. and since the brain is ill at ease among lies, we cheat ourselves with sophistry. hypocrisy and sophistry become the second nature of the civilized man. but a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth, or cease to exist. thus the consequences which spring from the original act of monopoly spread through the whole of social life. under pain of death, human societies are forced to return to first principles: the means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. all belongs to all. all things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth. all things for all. here is an immense stock of tools and implements; here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw matter to produce the marvels of our time. but nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say: "this is mine; if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products," any more than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the peasant: "this hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every brick you build." all is for all! if the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. no more of such vague formulas as "the right to work," or "to each the whole result of his labour." what we proclaim is the right to well-being: well-being for all! chapter ii well-being for all i well-being for all is not a dream. it is possible, realizable, owing to all that our ancestors have done to increase our powers of production. we know, indeed, that the producers, although they constitute hardly one-third of the inhabitants of civilized countries, even now produce such quantities of goods that a certain degree of comfort could be brought to every hearth. we know further that if all those who squander to-day the fruits of others' toil were forced to employ their leisure in useful work, our wealth would increase in proportion to the number of producers, and more. finally, we know that contrary to the theory enunciated by malthus--that oracle of middle-class economics--the productive powers of the human race increase at a much more rapid ratio than its powers of reproduction. the more thickly men are crowded on the soil, the more rapid is the growth of their wealth-creating power. thus, although the population of england has only increased from to by per cent., its production has grown, even at the lowest estimate, at double that rate--to wit, by per cent. in france, where the population has grown more slowly, the increase in production is nevertheless very rapid. notwithstanding the crises through which agriculture is frequently passing, notwithstanding state interference, the blood-tax (conscription), and speculative commerce and finance, the production of wheat in france has increased four-fold, and industrial production more than tenfold, in the course of the last eighty years. in the united states this progress is still more striking. in spite of immigration, or rather precisely because of the influx of surplus european labour, the united states have multiplied their wealth tenfold. however, these figures give but a very faint idea of what our wealth might become under better conditions. for alongside of the rapid development of our wealth-producing powers we have an overwhelming increase in the ranks of the idlers and middlemen. instead of capital gradually concentrating itself in a few hands, so that it would only be necessary for the community to dispossess a few millionaires and enter upon its lawful heritage--instead of this socialist forecast proving true, the exact reverse is coming to pass: the swarm of parasites is ever increasing. in france there are not ten actual producers to every thirty inhabitants. the whole agricultural wealth of the country is the work of less than seven millions of men, and in the two great industries, mining and the textile trades, you will find that the workers number less than two and one-half millions. but the exploiters of labour, how many are they? in the united kingdom a little over one million workers--men, women, and children, are employed in all the textile trades; less than nine hundred thousand work the mines; much less than two million till the ground, and it appeared from the last industrial census that only a little over four million men, women and children were employed in all the industries.[ ] so that the statisticians have to exaggerate all the figures in order to establish a maximum of eight million producers to forty-five million inhabitants. strictly speaking the creators of the goods exported from britain to all the ends of the earth comprise only from six to seven million workers. and what is the number of the shareholders and middlemen who levy the first fruits of labour from far and near, and heap up unearned gains by thrusting themselves between the producer and the consumer? nor is this all. the owners of capital constantly reduce the output by restraining production. we need not speak of the cartloads of oysters thrown into the sea to prevent a dainty, hitherto reserved for the rich, from becoming a food for the people. we need not speak of the thousand and one luxuries--stuffs, foods, etc., etc.--treated after the same fashion as the oysters. it is enough to remember the way in which the production of the most necessary things is limited. legions of miners are ready and willing to dig out coal every day, and send it to those who are shivering with cold; but too often a third, or even one-half, of their number are forbidden to work more than three days a week, because, forsooth, the price of coal must be kept up! thousands of weavers are forbidden to work the looms, although their wives and children go in rags, and although three-quarters of the population of europe have no clothing worthy the name. hundreds of blast-furnaces, thousands of factories periodically stand idle, others only work half-time--and in every civilized nation there is a permanent population of about two million individuals who ask only for work, but to whom work is denied. how gladly would these millions of men set to work to reclaim waste lands, or to transform ill-cultivated land into fertile fields, rich in harvests! a year of well-directed toil would suffice to multiply fivefold the produce of those millions of acres in this country which lie idle now as "permanent pasture," or of those dry lands in the south of france which now yield only about eight bushels of wheat per acre. but men, who would be happy to become hardy pioneers in so many branches of wealth-producing activity, must remain idle because the owners of the soil, the mines and the factories prefer to invest their capital--taken in the first place from the community--in turkish or egyptian bonds, or in patagonian gold mines, and so make egyptian fellahs, italian emigrants, and chinese coolies their wage-slaves. this is the direct and deliberate limitation of production; but there is also a limitation indirect and not of set purpose, which consists in spending human toil on objects absolutely useless, or destined only to satisfy the dull vanity of the rich. it is impossible to reckon in figures the extent to which wealth is restricted indirectly, the extent to which energy is squandered, while it might have served to produce, and above all to prepare the machinery necessary to production. it is enough to cite the immense sums spent by europe in armaments, for the sole purpose of acquiring control of markets, and so forcing her own goods on neighbouring territories, and making exploitation easier at home; the millions paid every year to officials of all sorts, whose function it is to maintain the "rights" of minorities--the right, that is, of a few rich men--to manipulate the economic activities of the nation; the millions spent on judges, prisons, policemen, and all the paraphernalia of so-called justice--spent to no purpose, because we know that every alleviation, however slight, of the wretchedness of our great cities is always followed by a considerable diminution of crime; lastly, the millions spent on propagating pernicious doctrines by means of the press, and news "cooked" in the interest of this or that party, of this politician or of that group of speculators. but over and above this we must take into account all the labour that goes to sheer waste,--here, in keeping up the stables, the kennels, and the retinue of the rich; there, in pandering to the caprices of society and the depraved tastes of the fashionable mob; there again, in forcing the consumer to buy what he does not need, or foisting an inferior article upon him by means of puffery, and in producing on the other hand wares which are absolutely injurious, but profitable to the manufacturer. what is squandered in this manner would be enough to double the production of useful things, or so to plenish our mills and factories with machinery that they would soon flood the shops with all that is now lacking to two-thirds of the nation. under our present system a full quarter of the producers in every nation are forced to be idle for three or four months in the year, and the labour of another quarter, if not of the half, has no better results than the amusement of the rich or the exploitation of the public. thus, if we consider on the one hand the rapidity with which civilized nations augment their powers of production, and on the other hand the limits set to that production, be it directly or indirectly, by existing conditions, we cannot but conclude that an economic system a trifle more reasonable would permit them to heap up in a few years so many useful products that they would be constrained to say--"enough! we have enough coal and bread and raiment! let us rest and consider how best to use our powers, how best to employ our leisure." no, plenty for all is not a dream--though it was a dream indeed in those days when man, for all his pains, could hardly win a few bushels of wheat from an acre of land, and had to fashion by hand all the implements he used in agriculture and industry. now it is no longer a dream, because man has invented a motor which, with a little iron and a few sacks of coal, gives him the mastery of a creature strong and docile as a horse, and capable of setting the most complicated machinery in motion. but, if plenty for all is to become a reality, this immense capital--cities, houses, pastures, arable lands, factories, highways, education--must cease to be regarded as private property, for the monopolist to dispose of at his pleasure. this rich endowment, painfully won, builded, fashioned, or invented by our ancestors, must become common property, so that the collective interests of men may gain from it the greatest good for all. there must be expropriation. the well-being of all--the end; expropriation--the means. ii expropriation, such then is the problem which history has put before the men of the twentieth century: the return to communism in all that ministers to the well-being of man. but this problem cannot be solved by means of legislation. no one imagines that. the poor, as well as the rich, understand that neither the existing governments, nor any which might arise out of possible political changes, would be capable of finding such a solution. they feel the necessity of a social revolution; and both rich and poor recognize that this revolution is imminent, that it may break out in a few years. a great change in thought has taken place during the last half of the nineteenth century; but suppressed, as it was, by the propertied classes, and denied its natural development, this new spirit must now break its bonds by violence and realize itself in a revolution. whence will the revolution come? how will it announce its coming? no one can answer these questions. the future is hidden. but those who watch and think do not misinterpret the signs: workers and exploiters, revolutionists and conservatives, thinkers and men of action, all feel that a revolution is at our doors. well, then,--what are we going to do when the thunderbolt has fallen? we have all been bent on studying the dramatic side of revolutions so much, and the practical work of revolutions so little, that we are apt to see only the stage effects, so to speak, of these great movements; the fight of the first days; the barricades. but this fight, this first skirmish, is soon ended, and it only after the breakdown of the old system that the real work of revolution can be said to begin. effete and powerless, attacked on all sides, the old rulers are soon swept away by the breath of insurrection. in a few days the middle-class monarchy of was no more, and while louis philippe was making good his escape in a cab, paris had already forgotten her "citizen king." the government of thiers disappeared, on the th of march, , in a few hours, leaving paris mistress of her destinies. yet and were only insurrections. before a popular revolution the masters of "the old order" disappear with a surprising rapidity. its upholders fly the country, to plot in safety elsewhere and to devise measures for their return. the former government having disappeared, the army, hesitating before the tide of popular opinion, no longer obeys its commanders, who have also prudently decamped. the troops stand by without interfering, or join the rebels. the police, standing at ease, are uncertain whether to belabour the crowd, or to cry: "long live the commune!" while some retire to their quarters to "await the pleasure of the new government." wealthy citizens pack their trunks and betake themselves to places of safety. the people remain. this is how a revolution is ushered in. in several large towns the commune is proclaimed. in the streets wander scores of thousands of men, and in the evening they crowd into improvised clubs, asking: "what shall we do?" and ardently discuss public affairs. all take an interest in them; those who yesterday were quite indifferent are perhaps the most zealous. everywhere there is plenty of good-will and a keen desire to make victory certain. it is a time when acts of supreme devotion are occurring. the masses of the people are full of the desire of going forward. all this is splendid, sublime; but still, it is not a revolution. nay, it is only now that the work of the revolutionist begins. doubtless there will be acts of vengeance. the watrins and the thomases will pay the penalty of their unpopularity; but these are mere incidents of the struggle--not the revolution. socialist politicians, radicals, neglected geniuses of journalism, stump orators--both middle-class people and workmen--will hurry to the town hall, to the government offices, to take possession of the vacant seats. some will decorate themselves with gold and silver lace to their hearts' content, admire themselves in ministerial mirrors, and study to give orders with an air of importance appropriate to their new position. how could they impress their comrades of the office or the workshop without having a red sash, an embroidered cap, and magisterial gestures! others will bury themselves in official papers, trying, with the best of wills, to make head or tail of them. they will indite laws and issue high-flown worded decrees that nobody will take the trouble to carry out--because revolution has come. to give themselves an authority which they have not they will seek the sanction of old forms of government. they will take the names of "provisional government," "committee of public safety," "mayor," "governor of the town hall," "commissioner of public safety," and what not. elected or acclaimed, they will assemble in boards or in communal councils, where men of ten or twenty different schools will come together, representing--not as many "private chapels," as it is often said, but as many different conceptions regarding the scope, the bearing, and the goal of the revolution. possibilists, collectivists, radicals, jacobins, blanquists, will be thrust together, and waste time in wordy warfare. honest men will be huddled together with the ambitious ones, whose only dream is power and who spurn the crowd whence they are sprung. all coming together with diametrically opposed views, all--forced to enter into ephemeral alliances, in order to create majorities that can but last a day. wrangling, calling each other reactionaries, authoritarians, and rascals, incapable of coming to an understanding on any serious measure, dragged into discussions about trifles, producing nothing better than bombastic proclamations; all giving themselves an awful importance while the real strength of the movement is in the streets. all this may please those who like the stage, but it is not revolution. nothing has been accomplished as yet. and meanwhile the people suffer. the factories are idle, the workshops closed; trade is at a standstill. the worker does not even earn the meagre wage which was his before. food goes up in price. with that heroic devotion which has always characterized them, and which in great crises reaches the sublime, the people will wait patiently. "we place these three months of want at the service of the republic," they said in , while "their representatives" and the gentlemen of the new government, down to the meanest jack-in-office received their salary regularly. the people suffer. with the childlike faith, with the good humour of the masses who believe in their leaders, they think that "yonder," in the house, in the town hall, in the committee of public safety, their welfare is being considered. but "yonder" they are discussing everything under the sun except the welfare of the people. in , while famine ravaged france and crippled the revolution; whilst the people were reduced to the depths of misery, although the champs elysées were lined with luxurious carriages where women displayed their jewels and splendour, robespierre was urging the jacobins to discuss his treatise on the english constitution. while the worker was suffering in from the general stoppage of trade, the provisional government and the national assembly were wrangling over military pensions and prison labour, without troubling how the people managed to live during the terrible crisis. and could one cast a reproach at the paris commune, which was born beneath the prussian cannon, and lasted only seventy days, it would be for this same error--this failure to understand that the revolution could not triumph unless those who fought on its side were fed: that on fifteen pence a day a man cannot fight on the ramparts and at the same time support a family. the people will suffer and say: "how is a way out of these difficulties to be found?" iii it seems to us that there is only one answer to this question: we must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, the right to live, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its disposal. we must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud, and act up to it. affairs must be managed in such a way that from the first day of the revolution the worker shall know that a new era is opening before him; that henceforward none need crouch under the bridges, while palaces are hard by, none need fast in the midst of plenty, none need perish with cold near shops full of furs; that all is for all, in practice as well as in theory, and that at last, for the first time in history, a revolution has been accomplished which considers the needs of the people before schooling them in their duties. this cannot be brought about by acts of parliament, but only by taking immediate and effective possession of all that is necessary to ensure the well-being of all; this is the only really scientific way of going to work, the only way which can be understood and desired by the mass of the people. we must take possession, in the name of the people, of the granaries, the shops full of clothing and the dwelling houses. nothing must be wasted. we must organize without delay a way to feed the hungry, to satisfy all wants, to meet all needs, to produce not for the special benefit of this one or that one, but so as to ensure to society as a whole its life and further development. enough of ambiguous words like "the right to work," with which the people were misled in , and which are still resorted to with the hope of misleading them. let us have the courage to recognise that _well-being for all_, henceforward possible, must be realized. when the workers claimed the right to work in , national and municipal workshops were organized, and workmen were sent to drudge there at the rate of s. d. a day! when they asked the "organization of labour," the reply was: "patience, friends, the government will see to it; meantime here is your s. d. rest now, brave toiler, after your life-long struggle for food!" and in the meantime the cannons were overhauled, the reserves called out, and the workers themselves disorganized by the many methods well known to the middle classes, till one fine day, in june, , four months after the overthrow of the previous government, they were told to go and colonize africa, or be shot down. very different will be the result if the workers claim the right to well-being! in claiming that right they claim the right to take possession of the wealth of the community--to take houses to dwell in according to the needs of each family; to socialize the stores of food and learn the meaning of plenty, after having known famine too well. they proclaim their right to all social wealth--fruit of the labour of past and present generations--and learn by its means to enjoy those higher pleasures of art and science which have too long been monopolized by the rich. and while asserting their right to live in comfort, they assert, what is still more important, their right to decide for themselves what this comfort shall be, what must be produced to ensure it, and what discarded as no longer of value. the "right to well-being" means the possibility of living like human beings, and of bringing up children to be members of a society better than ours, whilst the "right to work" only means the right to be always a wage-slave, a drudge, ruled over and exploited by the middle class of the future. the right to well-being is the social revolution, the right to work means nothing but the treadmill of commercialism. it is high time for the worker to assert his right to the common inheritance, and to enter into possession of it. footnote: [ ] , , now employed in all the branches of different industries, including the state ordnance works, and , workers engaged in the construction and maintenance of railways, their aggregate production reaching the value of £ , , , , and the net output being £ , , . chapter iii anarchist communism i every society, on abolishing private property will be forced, we maintain, to organize itself on the lines of communistic anarchy. anarchy leads to communism, and communism to anarchy, both alike being expressions of the predominant tendency in modern societies, the pursuit of equality. time was when a peasant family could consider the corn it sowed and reaped, or the woolen garments woven in the cottage, as the products of its own soil. but even then this way of looking at things was not quite correct. there were the roads and the bridges made in common, the swamps drained by common toil, the communal pastures enclosed by hedges which were kept in repair by each and all. if the looms for weaving or the dyes for colouring fabrics were improved by somebody, all profited; and even in those days a peasant family could not live alone, but was dependent in a thousand ways on the village or the commune. but nowadays, in the present state of industry, when everything is interdependent, when each branch of production is knit up with all the rest, the attempt to claim an individualist origin for the products of industry is absolutely untenable. the astonishing perfection attained by the textile or mining industries in civilized countries is due to the simultaneous development of a thousand other industries, great and small, to the extension of the railroad system, to inter-oceanic navigation, to the manual skill of thousands of workers, to a certain standard of culture reached by the working class as a whole--to the labours, in short, of men in every corner of the globe. the italians who died of cholera while making the suez canal, or of anchylosis in the st. gothard tunnel, and the americans mowed down by shot and shell while fighting for the abolition of slavery, have helped to develop the cotton industry of france and england, as well as the work-girls who languish in the factories of manchester and rouen, and the inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds in improving the looms. how then, shall we estimate the share of each in the riches which all contribute to amass? looking at production from this general, synthetic point of view, we cannot hold with the collectivists that payment proportionate to the hours of labour rendered by each would be an ideal arrangement, or even a step in the right direction. without discussing whether exchange value of goods is really measured in existing societies by the amount of work necessary to produce it--according to the teaching of adam smith and ricardo, in whose footsteps marx has followed--suffice it to say here, leaving ourselves free to return to the subject later, that the collectivist ideal appears to us untenable in a society which considers the instruments of labour as a common inheritance. starting from this principle, such a society would find itself forced from the very outset to abandon all forms of wages. the migrated individualism of the collectivist system certainly could not maintain itself alongside a partial communism--the socialization of land and the instruments of production. a new form of property requires a new form of remuneration. a new method of production cannot exist side by side with the old forms of consumption, any more than it can adapt itself to the old forms of political organization. the wage system arises out of the individual ownership of the land and the instruments of labour. it was the necessary condition for the development of capitalist production, and will perish with it, in spite of the attempt to disguise it as "profit-sharing." the common possession of the instruments of labour must necessarily bring with it the enjoyment in common of the fruits of common labour. we hold further that communism is not only desirable, but that existing societies, founded on individualism, _are inevitably impelled in the direction of communism_. the development of individualism during the last three centuries is explained by the efforts of the individual to protect himself from the tyranny of capital and of the state. for a time he imagined, and those who expressed his thought for him declared, that he could free himself entirely from the state and from society. "by means of money," he said, "i can buy all that i need." but the individual was on a wrong track, and modern history has taught him to recognize that, without the help of all, he can do nothing, although his strong-boxes are full of gold. in fact, along this current of individualism, we find in all modern history a tendency, on the one hand to retain all that remains of the partial communism of antiquity, and, on the other, to establish the communist principle in the thousand developments of modern life. as soon as the communes of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries had succeeded in emancipating themselves from their lords, ecclesiastical or lay, their communal labour and communal consumption began to extend and develop rapidly. the township--and not private persons--freighted ships and equipped expeditions, for the export of their manufacture, and the benefit arising from the foreign trade did not accrue to individuals, but was shared by all. at the outset, the townships also bought provisions for all their citizens. traces of these institutions have lingered on into the nineteenth century, and the people piously cherish the memory of them in their legends. all that has disappeared. but the rural township still struggles to preserve the last traces of this communism, and it succeeds--except when the state throws its heavy sword into the balance. meanwhile new organizations, based on the same principle--_to every man according to his needs_--spring up under a thousand different forms; for without a certain leaven of communism the present societies could not exist. in spite of the narrowly egoistic turn given to men's minds by the commercial system, the tendency towards communism is constantly appearing, and it influences our activities in a variety of ways. the bridges, for the use of which a toll was levied in the old days, have become public property and are free to all; so are the high roads, except in the east, where a toll is still exacted from the traveller for every mile of his journey. museums, free libraries, free schools, free meals for children; parks and gardens open to all; streets paved and lighted, free to all; water supplied to every house without measure or stint--all such arrangements are founded on the principle: "take what you need." the tramways and railways have already introduced monthly and annual season tickets, without limiting the number of journeys taken; and two nations, hungary and russia, have introduced on their railways the zone system, which permits the holder to travel five hundred or eight hundred miles for the same price. it is but a short step from that to a uniform charge, such as already prevails in the postal service. in all these innovations, and in a thousand others, the tendency is not to measure the individual consumption. one man wants to travel eight hundred miles, another five hundred. these are personal requirements. there is no sufficient reason why one should pay twice as much as the other because his need is twice as great. such are the signs which appear even now in our individualist societies. moreover, there is a tendency, though still a feeble one, to consider the needs of the individual, irrespective of his past or possible services to the community. we are beginning to think of society as a whole, each part of which is so intimately bound up with the others that a service rendered to one is a service rendered to all. when you go to a public library--not indeed the national library of paris, but, say, into the british museum or the berlin library--the librarian does not ask what services you have rendered to society before giving you the book, or the fifty books, which you require; he even comes to your assistance if you do not know how to manage the catalogue. by means of uniform credentials--and very often a contribution of work is preferred--the scientific society opens its museums, its gardens, its library, its laboratories, and its annual conversaziones to each of its members, whether he be a darwin, or a simple amateur. at st. petersburg, if you are elaborating an invention, you go into a special laboratory, where you are given a place, a carpenter's bench, a turning lathe, all the necessary tools and scientific instruments, provided only you know how to use them; and you are allowed to work there as long as you please. there are the tools; interest others in your idea; join with fellow workers skilled in various crafts, or work alone if you prefer it. invent a flying machine, or invent nothing--that is your own affair. you are pursuing an idea--that is enough. in the same way, those who man the lifeboat do not ask credentials from the crew of a sinking ship; they launch their boat, risk their lives in the raging waves, and sometimes perish, all to save men whom they do not even know. and what need to know them? "they are human beings, and they need our aid--that is enough, that establishes their right---- to the rescue!" thus we find a tendency, eminently communistic, springing up on all sides, and in various guises, in the very heart of theoretically individualist societies. suppose that one of our great cities, so egotistic in ordinary times, were visited to-morrow by some calamity--a siege, for instance--that same selfish city would decide that the first needs to satisfy were those of the children and the aged. without asking what services they had rendered, or were likely to render to society, it would first of all feed them. then the combatants would be cared for, irrespective of the courage or the intelligence which each had displayed, and thousands of men and women would outvie each other in unselfish devotion to the wounded. this tendency exists, and is felt as soon as the most pressing needs of each are satisfied, and in proportion as the productive power of the race increases. it becomes an active force every time a great idea comes to oust the mean preoccupations of everyday life. how can we doubt, then, that when the instruments of production are placed at the service of all, when business is conducted on communist principles, when labour, having recovered its place of honour in society, produces much more than is necessary to all--how can we doubt that this force (already so powerful), will enlarge its sphere of action till it becomes the ruling principle of social life? following these indications, and considering further the practical side of expropriation, of which we shall speak in the following chapters, we are convinced that our first obligation, when the revolution shall have broken the power upholding the present system, will be to realize communism without delay. but ours is neither the communism of fourier and the phalansteriens, nor of the german state socialists. it is anarchist communism, communism without government--the communism of the free. it is the synthesis of the two ideals pursued by humanity throughout the ages--economic and political liberty. ii in taking "anarchy" for our ideal of political organization we are only giving expression to another marked tendency of human progress. whenever european societies have developed up to a certain point, they have shaken off the yoke of authority and substituted a system founded more or less on the principles of individual liberty. and history shows us that these periods of partial or general revolution, when the old governments were overthrown, were also periods of sudden, progress both in the economic and the intellectual field. so it was after the enfranchisement of the communes, whose monuments, produced by the free labour of the guilds, have never been surpassed; so it was after the great peasant uprising which brought about the reformation and imperilled the papacy; and so it was again with the society, free for a brief space, which was created on the other side of the atlantic by the malcontents from the old world. and, if we observe the present development of civilized nations, we see, most unmistakably, a movement ever more and more marked tending to limit the sphere of action of the government, and to allow more and more liberty to the individual. this evolution is going on before our eyes, though cumbered by the ruins and rubbish of old institutions and old superstitions. like all evolutions, it only waits a revolution to overthrow the old obstacles which block the way, that it may find free scope in a regenerated society. after having striven long in vain to solve the insoluble problem--the problem of constructing a government "which will constrain the individual to obedience without itself ceasing to be the servant of society," men at last attempt to free themselves from every form of government and to satisfy their need for organization by free contacts between individuals and groups pursuing the same aim. the independence of each small territorial unit becomes a pressing need; mutual agreement replaces law in order to regulate individual interests in view of a common object--very often disregarding the frontiers of the present states. all that was once looked on as a function of the government is to-day called in question. things are arranged more easily and more satisfactorily without the intervention of the state. and in studying the progress made in this direction, we are led to conclude that the tendency of the human race is to reduce government interference to zero; in fact, to abolish the state, the personification of injustice, oppression, and monopoly. we can already catch glimpses of a world in which the bonds which bind the individual are no longer laws, but social habits--the result of the need felt by each one of us to seek the support, the co-operation, the sympathy of his neighbours. assuredly the idea of a society without a state will give rise to at least as many objections as the political economy of a society without private capital. we have all been brought up from our childhood to regard the state as a sort of providence; all our education, the roman history we learned at school, the byzantine code which we studied later under the name of roman law, and the various sciences taught at the universities, accustom us to believe in government and in the virtues of the state providential. to maintain this superstition whole systems of philosophy have been elaborated and taught; all politics are based on this principle; and each politician, whatever his colours, comes forward and says to the people, "give my party the power; we can and we will free you from the miseries which press so heavily upon you." from the cradle to the grave all our actions are guided by this principle. open any book on sociology or jurisprudence, and you will find there the government, its organization, its acts, filling so large a place that we come to believe that there is nothing outside the government and the world of statesmen. the press teaches us the same in every conceivable way. whole columns are devoted to parliamentary debates and to political intrigues; while the vast everyday life of a nation appears only in the columns given to economic subjects, or in the pages devoted to reports of police and law cases. and when you read the newspapers, your hardly think of the incalculable number of beings--all humanity, so to say--who grow up and die, who know sorrow, who work and consume, think and create outside the few encumbering personages who have been so magnified that humanity is hidden by their shadows, enlarged by our ignorance. and yet as soon as we pass from printed matter to life itself, as soon as we throw a glance at society, we are struck by the infinitesimal part played by the government. balzac already has remarked how millions of peasants spend the whole of their lives without knowing anything about the state, save the heavy taxes they are compelled to pay. every day millions of transactions are made without government intervention, and the greatest of them--those of commerce and of the exchange--are carried on in such a way that the government could not be appealed to if one of the contracting parties had the intention of not fulfilling his agreement. should you speak to a man who understands commerce, he will tell you that the everyday business transacted by merchants would be absolutely impossible were it not based on mutual confidence. the habit of keeping his word, the desire not to lose his credit, amply suffice to maintain this relative honesty. the man who does not feel the slightest remorse when poisoning his customers with noxious drugs covered with pompous labels, thinks he is in honour bound to keep his engagements. but if this relative morality has developed under present conditions, when enrichment is the only incentive and the only aim, can we doubt its rapid progress when appropriation of the fruits of others' labour will no longer be the basis of society? another striking fact, which especially characterizes our generation, speaks still more in favour of our ideas. it is the continual extension of the field of enterprise due to private initiative, and the prodigious development of free organizations of all kinds. we shall discuss this more at length in the chapter devoted to _free agreement_. suffice it to mention that the facts are so numerous and so customary that they are the essence of the second half of the nineteenth century, even though political and socialist writers ignore them, always preferring to talk to us about the functions of the government. these organizations, free and infinitely varied, are so natural an outcome of our civilization; they expand so rapidly and federate with so much ease; they are so necessary a result of the continual growth of the needs of civilized man; and lastly, they so advantageously replace governmental interference, that we must recognize in them a factor of growing importance in the life of societies. if they do not yet spread over the whole of the manifestations of life, it is that they find an insurmountable obstacle in the poverty of the worker, in the divisions of present society, in the private appropriation of capital, and in the state. abolish these obstacles, and you will see them covering the immense field of civilized man's activity. the history of the last fifty years furnishes a living proof that representative government is impotent to discharge all the functions we have sought to assign to it. in days to come the nineteenth century will be quoted as having witnessed the failure of parliamentarianism. this impotence is becoming so evident to all; the faults of parliamentarianism, and the inherent vices of the representative principle, are so self-evident, that the few thinkers who have made a critical study of them (j. s. mill, leverdays), did but give literary form to the popular dissatisfaction. it is not difficult, indeed, to see the absurdity of naming a few men and saying to them, "make laws regulating all our spheres of activity, although not one of you knows anything about them!" we are beginning to see that government by majorities means abandoning all the affairs of the country to the tide-waiters who make up the majorities in the house and in election committees; to those, in a word, who have no opinion of their own. mankind is seeking and already finding new issues. the international postal union, the railway unions, and the learned societies give us examples of solutions based on free agreement in place and stead of law. to-day, when groups scattered far and wide wish to organize themselves for some object or other, they no longer elect an international parliament of jacks-of-all-trades. they proceed in a different way. where it is not possible to meet directly or come to an agreement by correspondence, delegates versed in the question at issue are sent, and they are told: "endeavour to come to an agreement on such or such a question, and then return, not with a law in your pocket, but with a proposition of agreement which we may or may not accept." such is the method of the great industrial companies, the learned societies, and numerous associations of every description, which already cover europe and the united states. and such will be the method of a free society. a society founded on serfdom is in keeping with absolute monarchy; a society based on the wage system and the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists finds its political expression in parliamentarianism. but a free society, regaining possession of the common inheritance, must seek in free groups and free federations of groups, a new organization, in harmony with the new economic phase of history. every economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it would be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of political life be found at the same time. chapter iv expropriation i it is told of rothschild that, seeing his fortune threatened by the revolution of , he hit upon the following stratagem: "i am quite willing to admit," said he, "that my fortune has been accumulated at the expense of others; but if it were divided to-morrow among the millions of europe, the share of each would only amount to four shillings. very well, then, i undertake to render to each his four shillings if he asks me for it." having given due publicity to his promise, our millionaire proceeded as usual to stroll quietly through the streets of frankfort. three or four passers-by asked for their four shillings, which he disbursed with a sardonic smile. his stratagem succeeded, and the family of the millionaire is still in possession of its wealth. it is in much the same fashion that the shrewed heads among the middle classes reason when they say, "ah, expropriation! i know what that means. you take all the overcoats and lay them in a heap, and every one is free to help himself and fight for the best." but such jests are irrelevant as well as flippant. what we want is not a redistribution of overcoats, although it must be said that even in such a case, the shivering folk would see advantage in it. nor do we want to divide up the wealth of the rothschilds. what we do want is so to arrange things that every human being born into the world shall be ensured the opportunity, in the first instance of learning some useful occupation, and of becoming skilled in it; and next, that he shall be free to work at his trade without asking leave of master or owner, and without handing over to landlord or capitalist the lion's share of what he produces. as to the wealth held by the rothschilds or the vanderbilts, it will serve us to organize our system of communal production. the day when the labourer may till the ground without paying away half of what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators, the day when the worker in the factory produces for the community and not the monopolist--that day will see the workers clothed and fed, and there will be no more rothschilds or other exploiters. no one will then have to sell his working power for a wage that only represents a fraction of what he produces. "so far, so good," say our critics, "but you will have rothschilds coming in from the outside. how are you to prevent a person from amassing millions in china, and then settling amongst you? how are you going to prevent such a one from surrounding himself with lackeys and wage-slaves--from exploiting them and enriching himself at their expense? "you cannot bring about a revolution all over the world at the same time. well, then--are you going to establish custom-houses on your frontiers to search all who enter your country and confiscate the money they bring with them?--anarchist policemen firing on travellers would be a fine spectacle!" but at the root of this argument there is a great error. those who propound it have never paused to inquire whence come the fortunes of the rich. a little thought would, however, suffice to show them that these fortunes have their beginnings in the poverty of the poor. when there are no longer any destitute, there will no longer be any rich to exploit them. let us glance for a moment at the middle ages, when great fortunes began to spring up. a feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. but as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. his land brings him in nothing; he might as well possess a property in the moon. what does our baron do to enrich himself? he looks out for peasants--for poor peasants! if every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labour--who would plough the lands of the baron? everyone would look after his own. but there are thousands of destitute persons ruined by wars, or drought, or pestilence. they have neither horse nor plough. (iron was very costly in the middle ages, and a draught-horse still more so.) all these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition. one day they see on the road at the confines of our baron's estate a notice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension that the labourer who is willing to settle on his estate will receive the tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion of land rent free for a certain number of years. the number of years is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the peasant understands the meaning of these crosses. so the poor wretches come to settle on the baron's lands. they make roads, drain the marshes, build villages. in nine or ten years the baron begins to tax them. five years later he increases the rent. then he doubles it, and the peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere. little by little, with the aid of laws made by the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord's wealth. and it is not only the lord of the manor who preys upon him. a whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages, multiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. that is how these things happened in the middle ages. and to-day is it not still the same thing? if there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate if he pleased, would he pay £ to some "shabble of a duke"[ ] for condescending to sell him a scrap? would he burden himself with a lease which absorbed a third of the produce? would he--on the _métayer_ system--consent to give half of his harvest to the landowner? but he has nothing. so he will accept any conditions, if only he can keep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the landlord. so in the nineteenth century, just as in the middle ages, the poverty of the peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor. ii the landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the wealth of the capitalist comes from the same source. take the case of a citizen of the middle class, who somehow or other finds himself in possession of £ , . he could, of course, spend his money at the rate of £ , a year, a mere bagatelle in these days of fantastic, senseless luxury. but then he would have nothing left at the end of ten years. so, being a "practical person," he prefers to keep his fortune intact, and win for himself a snug little annual income as well. this is very easy in our society, for the good reason that the towns and villages swarm with workers who have not the wherewithal to live for a month, or even a fortnight. so our worthy citizen starts a factory. the banks hasten to lend him another £ , , especially if he has a reputation for "business ability"; and with this round sum he can command the labour of five hundred hands. if all the men and women in the countryside had their daily bread assured, and their daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our capitalist at a wage of half a crown a day, while the commodities one produces in a day sell in the market for a crown or more? unhappily--we know it all too well--the poor quarters of our towns and the neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children clamour for bread. so, before the factory is well finished, the workers hasten to offer themselves. where a hundred are required three hundred besiege the doors, and from the time his mill is started, the owner, if he only has average business capacities, will clear £ a year out of each mill-hand he employs. he is thus able to lay by a snug little fortune; and if he chooses a lucrative trade, and has "business talents," he will soon increase his income by doubling the number of men he exploits. so he becomes a personage of importance. he can afford to give dinners to other personages--to the local magnates, the civic, legal, and political dignitaries. with his money he can "marry money"; by and by he may pick and choose places for his children, and later on perhaps get something good from the government--a contract for the army or for the police. his gold breeds gold; till at last a war, or even a rumour of war, or a speculation on the stock exchange, gives him his great opportunity. nine-tenths of the great fortunes made in the united states are (as henry george has shown in his "social problems") the result of knavery on a large scale, assisted by the state. in europe, nine-tenths of the fortunes made in our monarchies and republics have the same origin. there are not two ways of becoming a millionaire. this is the secret of wealth: find the starving and destitute, pay them half a crown, and make them produce five shillings worth in the day, amass a fortune by these means, and then increase it by some lucky speculation, made with the help of the state. need we go on to speak of small fortunes attributed by the economists to forethought and frugality, when we know that mere saving in itself brings in nothing, so long as the pence saved are not used to exploit the famishing? take a shoemaker, for instance. grant that his work is well paid, that he has plenty of custom, and that by dint of strict frugality he contrives to lay by from eighteen pence to two shillings a day, perhaps two pounds a month. grant that our shoemaker is never ill, that he does not half starve himself, in spite of his passion for economy; that he does not marry or that he has no children; that he does not die of consumption; suppose anything and everything you please! well, at the age of fifty he will not have scraped together £ ; and he will not have enough to live on during his old age, when he is past work. assuredly this is not how fortunes are made. but suppose our shoemaker, as soon as he has laid by a few pence, thriftily conveys them to the savings bank and that the savings bank lends them to the capitalist who is just about to "employ labour," i.e., to exploit the poor. then our shoemaker takes an apprentice, the child of some poor wretch, who will think himself lucky if in five years' time his son has learned the trade and is able to earn his living. meanwhile our shoemaker does not lose by him, and if trade is brisk he soon takes a second, and then a third apprentice. by and by he will take two or three working men--poor wretches, thankful to receive half a crown a day for work that is worth five shillings, and if our shoemaker is "in luck," that is to say, if he is keen enough and mean enough, his working men and apprentices will bring him in nearly one pound a day, over and above the product of his own toil. he can then enlarge his business. he will gradually become rich, and no longer have any need to stint himself in the necessaries of life. he will leave a snug little fortune to his son. that is what people call "being economical and having frugal, temperate habits." at bottom it is nothing more nor less than grinding the face of the poor. commerce seems an exception to this rule. "such a man," we are told, "buys tea in china, brings it to france, and realizes a profit of thirty per cent. on his original outlay. he has exploited nobody." nevertheless the case is quite similar. if our merchant had carried his bales on his back, well and good! in early medieval times that was exactly how foreign trade was conducted, and so no one reached such giddy heights of fortune as in our days. very few and very hardly earned were the gold coins which the medieval merchant gained from a long and dangerous voyage. it was less the love of money than the thirst of travel and adventure that inspired his undertakings. nowadays the method is simpler. a merchant who has some capital need not stir from his desk to become wealthy. he telegraphs to an agent telling him to buy a hundred tons of tea; he freights a ship, and in a few weeks, in three months if it is a sailing ship, the vessels brings him his cargo. he does not even take the risks of the voyage, for his tea and his vessel are insured, and if he has expended four thousand pounds he will receive more than five or six thousand; that is to say, if he has not attempted to speculate in some novel commodities, in which case he runs a chance of either doubling his fortune or losing it altogether. now, how could he find men willing to cross the sea, to travel to china and back, to endure hardship and slavish toil and to risk their lives for a miserable pittance? how could he find dock labourers willing to load and unload his ships for "starvation wages"? how? because they are needy and starving. go to the seaports, visit the cook-shops and taverns on the quays, and look at these men who have come to hire themselves, crowding round the dock-gates, which they besiege from early dawn, hoping to be allowed to work on the vessels. look at these sailors, happy to be hired for a long voyage, after weeks and months of waiting. all their lives long they have gone to the sea in ships, and they will sail in others still, until they have perished in the waves. enter their homes, look at their wives and children in rags, living one knows not how till the father's return, and you will have the answer to the question. multiply examples, choose them where you will, consider the origin of all fortunes, large or small, whether arising out of commerce, finance, manufacturers, or the land. everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor. this is why an anarchist society need not fear the advent of a rothschild who would settle in its midst. if every member of the community knows that after a few hours of productive toil he will have a right to all the pleasures that civilization procures, and to those deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all who seek them, he will not sell his strength for a starvation wage. no one will volunteer to work for the enrichment of your rothschild. his golden guineas will be only so many pieces of metal--useful for various purposes, but incapable of breeding more. in answering the above objection we have at the same time indicated the scope of expropriation. it must apply to everything that enables any man--be he financier, mill-owner, or landlord--to appropriate the product of others' toil. our formula is simple and comprehensive. we do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack aught, that not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes. this is what we mean when we talk of expropriation; this will be our duty during the revolution, for whose coming we look, not two hundred years hence, but soon, very soon. iii the ideas of anarchism in general and of expropriation in particular find much more sympathy than we are apt to imagine among men of independent character, and those for whom idleness is not the supreme ideal. "still," our friends often warn us, "take care you do not go too far! humanity cannot be changed in a day, so do not be in to great a hurry with your schemes of expropriation and anarchy, or you will be in danger of achieving no permanent result." now, what we fear with regard to expropriation is exactly the contrary. we are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out expropriation on too small a scale to be lasting. we would not have the revolutionary impulse arrested in mid-career, to exhaust itself in half measures, which would content no one, and while producing a tremendous confusion in society, and stopping its customary activities, would have no vital power--would merely spread general discontent and inevitably prepare the way for the triumph of reaction. there are, in fact, in a modern state established relations which it is practically impossible to modify if one attacks them only in detail. there are wheels within wheels in our economic organization--the machinery is so complex and interdependent that no one part can be modified without disturbing the whole. this becomes clear as soon as an attempt is made to expropriate anything. let us suppose that in a certain country a limited form of expropriation is effected. for example, that, as it has been suggested more than once, only the property of the great landlords is socialized, whilst the factories are left untouched; or that, in a certain city, house property is taken over by the commune, but everything else is left to private ownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are communalized, but the land is not interfered with. the same result would follow in each case--a terrible shattering of the industrial system, without the means of reorganizing it on new lines. industry and finance would be at a deadlock, yet a return to the first principles of justice would not have been achieved, and society would find itself powerless to construct a harmonious whole. if agriculture were freed from great landowners, while industry still remained the bond-slave of the capitalist, the merchant, and the banker, nothing would be accomplished. the peasant suffers to-day not only in having to pay rent to the landlord; he is oppressed on all hands by existing conditions. he is exploited by the tradesman, who makes him pay half a crown for a spade which, measured by the labour spent on it, is not worth more than sixpence. he is taxed by the state, which cannot do without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds it necessary to maintain an expensive army, because the traders of all nations are perpetually fighting for the markets, and any day a little quarrel arising from the exploitation of some part of asia or africa may result in war. then again the peasant suffers from the depopulation of country places: the young people are attracted to the large manufacturing towns by the bait of high wages paid temporarily by the producers of articles of luxury, or by the attractions of a more stirring life. the artificial protection of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign countries, the prevalence of stock-jobbing, the difficulty of improving the soil and the machinery of production--all these agencies combine nowadays to work against agriculture, which is burdened not only by rent, but by the whole complex of conditions in a society based on exploitation. thus, even if the expropriation of land were accomplished, and every one were free to till the soil and cultivate it to the best advantage, without paying rent, agriculture, even though it should enjoy--which can by no means be taken for granted--a momentary prosperity, would soon fall back into the slough in which it finds itself to-day. the whole thing would have to be begun over again, with increased difficulties. the same holds true of industry. take the converse case: instead of turning the agricultural labourers into peasant-proprietors, make over the factories to those who work in them. abolish the master-manufacturers, but leave the landlord his land, the banker his money, the merchant his exchange; maintain the swarm of idlers who live on the toil of the workmen, the thousand and one middlemen, the state with its numberless officials,--and industry would come to a standstill. finding no purchasers in the mass of peasants who would remain poor; not possessing the raw material, and unable to export their produce, partly on account of the stoppage of trade, and still more so because industries spread all over the world, the manufacturers would feel unable to struggle, and thousands of workers would be thrown upon the streets. these starving crowds would be ready and willing to submit to the first schemer who came to exploit them; they would even consent to return to the old slavery, under promise of guaranteed work. or, finally, suppose you oust the landowners, and hand over the mills and factories to the worker, without interfering with the swarm of middlemen who drain the product of our manufacturers, and speculate in corn and flour, meat and groceries, in our great centres of commerce. then, as soon as the exchange of produce is slackened; as soon as the great cities are left without bread, while the great manufacturing centres find no buyers for the articles of luxury they produce,--the counter-revolution is bound to take place, and it would come, treading upon the slain, sweeping the towns and villages with shot and shell; indulging in orgies of proscriptions and deportations, such as were seen in france in , , and . all is interdependent in a civilized society; it is impossible to reform any one thing without altering the whole. therefore, on the day a nation will strike at private property, under any one of its forms, territorial or industrial, it will be obliged to attack them all. the very success of the revolution will impose it. besides, even if it were desired, it would be impossible to confine the change to a partial expropriation. once the principle of the "divine right of property" is shaken, no amount of theorizing will prevent its overthrow, here by the slaves of the field, there by the slaves of the machine. if a great town, paris for example, were to confine itself to taking possession of the dwelling houses of the factories, it would be forced also to deny the right of the bankers to levy upon the commune a tax amounting to £ , , , in the form of interest for former loans. the great city would be obliged to put itself in touch with the rural districts, and its influence would inevitably urge the peasants to free themselves from the landowner. it would be necessary to communalize the railways, that the citizens might get food and work, and lastly, to prevent the waste of supplies; and to guard against the trusts of corn-speculators, like those to whom the paris commune of fell a prey, it would have to place in the hands of the city the work of stocking its warehouses with commodities, and apportioning the produce. some socialists still seek, however, to establish a distinction. "of course," they say, "the soil, the mines, the mills, and manufacturers must be expropriated, these are the instruments of production, and it is right we should consider them public property. but articles of consumption--food, clothes, and dwellings--should remain private property." popular common sense has got the better of this subtle distinction. we are not savages who can live in the woods, without other shelter than the branches. the civilized man needs a roof, a room, a hearth, and a bed. it is true that the bed, the room, and the house is a home of idleness for the non-producer. but for the worker, a room, properly heated and lighted, is as much an instrument of production as the tool or the machine. it is the place where the nerves and sinews gather strength for the work of the morrow. the rest of the workman is the daily repairing of the machine. the same argument applies even more obviously to food. the so-called economists, who make the just-mentioned distinction, would hardly deny that the coal burnt in a machine is as necessary to production as the raw material itself. how then can food, without which the human machine could do no work, be excluded from the list of things indispensable to the producer? can this be a relic of religious metaphysics? the rich man's feast is indeed a matter of luxury, but the food of the worker is just as much a part of production as the fuel burnt by the steam-engine. the same with clothing. we are not new guinea savages. and if the dainty gowns of our ladies must rank as objects of luxury, there is nevertheless a certain quantity of linen, cotton, and woolen stuff which is a necessity of life to the producer. the shirt and trousers in which he goes to his work, the jacket he slips on after the day's toil is over, are as necessary to him as the hammer to the anvil. whether we like it or not, this is what the people mean by a revolution. as soon as they have made a clean sweep of the government, they will seek first of all to ensure to themselves decent dwellings and sufficient food and clothes--free of capitalist rent. and the people will be right. the methods of the people will be much more in accordance with science than those of the economists who draw so many distinctions between instruments of production and articles of consumption. the people understand that this is just the point where the revolution ought to begin; and they will lay the foundations of the only economic science worthy the name--a science which might be called: "_the study of the needs of humanity, and of the economic means to satisfy them_." footnote: [ ] "shabble of a duke" is an expression coined by carlyle; it is a somewhat free rendering of kropotkine's "monsieur le vicomte," but i think it expresses his meaning.--_trans._ chapter v food i if the coming revolution is to be a social revolution, it will be distinguished from all former uprisings not only by its aim, but also by its methods. to attain a new end, new means are required. the three great popular movements which we have seen in france during the last hundred years differ from each other in many ways, but they have one common feature. in each case the people strove to overturn the old regime, and spent their heart's blood for the cause. then, after having borne the brunt of the battle, they sank again into obscurity. a government, composed of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize a new regime: the republic in , labour in , the free commune in . imbued with jacobin ideas, this government occupied itself first of all with political questions, such as the reorganization of the machinery of government, the purifying of the administration, the separation of church and state, civic liberty, and such matters. it is true the workmen's clubs kept an eye on the members of the new government, and often imposed their ideas on them. but even in these clubs, whether the leaders belonged to the middle or the working classes, it was always middle-class ideas which prevailed. they discussed various political questions at great length, but forgot to discuss the question of bread. great ideas sprang up at such times, ideas that have moved the world; words were spoken which still stir our hearts, at the interval of more than a century. but the people were starving in the slums. from the very commencement of the revolution industry inevitably came to a stop--the circulation of produce was checked, and capital concealed itself. the master--the employer--had nothing to fear at such times, he fattened on his dividends, if indeed he did not speculate on the wretchedness around; but the wage-earner was reduced to live from hand to mouth. want knocked at the door. famine was abroad in the land--such famine as had hardly been seen under the old regime. "the girondists are starving us!" was the cry in the workmen's quarters in , and thereupon the girondists were guillotined, and full powers were given to "the mountain" and to the commune. the commune indeed concerned itself with the question of bread, and made heroic efforts to feed paris. at lyons, fouché and collot d'herbois established city granaries, but the sums spent on filling them were woefully insufficient. the town councils made great efforts to procure corn; the bakers who hoarded flour were hanged--and still the people lacked bread. then they turned on the royalist conspirators and laid the blame at their door. they guillotined a dozen or fifteen a day--servants and duchesses alike, especially servants, for the duchesses had gone to coblentz. but if they had guillotined a hundred dukes and viscounts every day, it would have been equally hopeless. the want only grew. for the wage-earner cannot live without his wage, and the wage was not forthcoming. what difference could a thousand corpses more or less make to him? then the people began to grow weary. "so much for your vaunted revolution! you are more wretched than ever before," whispered the reactionary in the ears of the worker. and little by little the rich took courage, emerged from their hiding-places, and flaunted their luxury in the face of the starving multitude. they dressed up like scented fops and said to the workers: "come, enough of this foolery! what have you gained by your revolution?" and, sick at heart, his patience at an end, the revolutionary had at last to admit to himself that the cause was lost once more. he retreated into his hovel and awaited the worst. then reaction proudly asserted itself, and accomplished a counter-revolutionary stroke. the revolution dead, nothing remained but to trample its corpse under foot. the white terror began. blood flowed like water, the guillotine was never idle, the prisons were crowded, while the pageant of rank and fashion resumed its old course, and went on as merrily as before. this picture is typical of all our revolutions. in the workers of paris placed "three months of starvation" at the service of the republic, and then, having reached the limit of their powers, they made, in june, one last desperate effort--an effort which was drowned in blood. in the commune perished for lack of combatants. it had taken measures for the separation of church and state, but it neglected, alas, until too late, to take measures for providing the people with bread. and so it came to pass in paris that _élégantes_ and fine gentlemen could spurn the confederates, and bid them go sell their lives for a miserable pittance, and leave their "betters" to feast at their ease in fashionable restaurants. at last the commune saw its mistake, and opened communal kitchens. but it was too late. its days were already numbered, and the troops of versailles were on the ramparts. "bread, it is bread that the revolution needs!" let others spend their time in issuing pompous proclamations, in decorating themselves lavishly with official gold lace, and in talking about political liberty!... be it ours to see, from the first day of the revolution to the last, in all the provinces fighting for freedom, that there is not a single man who lacks bread, not a single woman compelled to stand with the wearied crowd outside the bakehouse-door, that haply a coarse loaf may be thrown to her in charity, not a single child pining for want of food. it has always been the middle-class idea to harangue about "great principles"--great lies rather! the idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. and while middle-class citizens, and workmen infested with middle-class ideas admire their own rhetoric in the "talking shops," and "practical people" are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we, the "utopian dreamers"--we shall have to consider the question of daily bread. we have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of _bread for all_ the revolution will triumph. ii that we are utopians is well known. so utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all--an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger is satisfied. all the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for the people of the revolution, and the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions. if it is settled in the interests of the people, the revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of bread we must accept the principle of equality, which will force itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution. it is certain that the coming revolution--like in that respect to the revolution of --will burst upon us in the middle of a great industrial crisis. things have been seething for half a century now, and can only go from bad to worse. everything tends that way--new nations entering the lists of international trade and fighting for possession of the world's markets, wars, taxes ever increasing. national debts, the insecurity of the morrow, and huge colonial undertakings in every corner of the globe. there are millions of unemployed workers in europe at this moment. it will be still worse when revolution has burst upon us and spread like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. the number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as the barricades are erected in europe and the united states. what is to be done to provide these multitudes with bread? we do not know whether the folk who call themselves "practical people" have ever asked themselves this question in all its nakedness. but we do know that they wish to maintain the wage system, and we must therefore expect to have "national workshops" and "public works" vaunted as a means of giving food to the unemployed. because national workshops were opened in and ; because the same means were resorted to in ; because napoleon iii. succeeded in contenting the parisian proletariat for eighteen years by giving them public works--which cost paris to-day its debt of £ , , and its municipal tax of three or four pounds a-head;[ ] because this excellent method of "taming the beast" was customary in rome, and even in egypt four thousand years ago; and lastly, because despots, kings, and emperors have always employed the ruse of throwing a scrap of food to the people to gain time to snatch up the whip--it is natural that "practical" men should extol this method of perpetuating the wage system. what need to rack our brains when we have the time-honoured method of the pharaohs at our disposal? yet should the revolution be so misguided as to start on this path, it would be lost. in , when the national workshops were opened on february , the unemployed of paris numbered only , ; a fortnight later they had already increased to , . they would soon have been , , without counting those who crowded in from the provinces. yet at that time trade and manufacturers in france employed half as many hands as to-day. and we know that in time of revolution exchange and industry suffer most from the general upheaval. we have only to think, indeed, of the number of workmen whose labour depends directly or indirectly upon export trade, or of the number of hands employed in producing luxuries, whose consumers are the middle-class minority. a revolution in europe means, then, the unavoidable stoppage of at least half the factories and workshops. it means millions of workers and their families thrown on the streets. and our "practical men" would seek to avert this truly terrible situation by means of national relief works; that is to say, by means of new industries created on the spot to give work to the unemployed! it is evident, as proudhon had already pointed out more than fifty years ago, that the smallest attack upon property will bring in its train the complete disorganization of the system based upon private enterprise and wage labour. society itself will be forced to take production in hand, in its entirety, and to reorganize it to meet the needs of the whole people. but this cannot be accomplished in a day, or even in a month; it must take a certain time to reorganize the system of production, and during this time millions of men will be deprived of the means of subsistence. what then is to be done? there is only one really _practical_ solution of the problem--boldly to face the great task which awaits us, and instead of trying to patch up a situation which we ourselves have made untenable, to proceed to reorganize production on a new basis. thus the really practical course of action, in our view, would be that the people should take immediate possession of all the food of the insurgent communes, keeping strict account of it all, that none might be wasted, and that by the aid of these accumulated resources every one might be able to tide over the crisis. during that time an agreement would have to be made with the factory workers, the necessary raw material given them, and the means of subsistence assured to them, while they worked to supply the needs of the agricultural population. for we must not forget that while france weaves silks and satins to deck the wives of german financiers, the empress of russia, and the queen of the sandwich islands, and while paris fashions wonderful trinkets and playthings for rich folk all the world over, two-thirds of the french peasantry have not proper lamps to give them light, or the implements necessary for modern agriculture. lastly, unproductive land, of which there is plenty, would have to be turned to the best advantage, poor soils enriched, and rich soils, which yet, under the present system, do not yield a quarter, no, nor a tenth of what they might produce, would be submitted to intensive culture, and tilled with as much care as a market garden or a flower pot. it is impossible to imagine any other practical solution of the problem; and, whether we like it or not, sheer force of circumstances will bring it to pass. iii the most prominent characteristic of our present capitalism is _the wage system_, which in brief amounts to this:-- a man, or a group of men, possessing the necessary capital, starts some industrial enterprise; he undertakes to supply the factory or workshops with raw material, to organize production, to pay the employes a fixed wage, and lastly, to pocket the surplus value or profits, under pretext of recouping himself for managing the concern, for running the risks it may involve, and for the fluctuations of price in the market value of the wares. to preserve this system, those who now monopolize capital would be ready to make certain concessions; to share, for example, a part of the profits with the workers, or rather to establish a "sliding scale," which would oblige them to raise wages when prices were high; in brief they would consent to certain sacrifices on condition that they were still allowed to direct industry and to take its first fruits. collectivism, as we know, does not abolish the wage system, though it introduces considerable modifications into the existing order of things. it only substitutes the state, that is to say, some form of representative government, national or local, for the individual employer of labour. under collectivism it is the representatives of the nation, or of the commune, and their deputies and officials who are to have the control of industry. it is they who reserve to themselves the right of employing the surplus of production--in the interests of all. moreover, collectivism draws a very subtle but very far-reaching distinction between the work of the labourer and of the man who has learned a craft. unskilled labour in the eyes of the collectivist is _simple_ labour, while the work of the craftsman, the mechanic, the engineer, the man of science, etc., is what marx calls _complex_ labour, and is entitled to a higher wage. but labourers and craftsmen, weavers and men of science, are all wage-servants of the state--"all officials," as was said lately, to gild the pill. well, then, the coming revolution could render no greater service to humanity than by making the wage system, in all its forms, an impossibility, and by rendering communism, which is the negation of wage-slavery, the only possible solution. for even admitting that the collectivist modification of the present system is possible, if introduced gradually during a period of prosperity and peace--though for my part i question its practicability even under such conditions--it would become impossible in a period of revolution, when the need of feeding hungry millions would spring up with the first call to arms. a political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production. the millions of public money flowing into the treasury would not suffice for paying wages to the millions of out-of-works. this point cannot be too much insisted upon; the reorganization of industry on a new basis (and we shall presently show how tremendous this problem is) cannot be accomplished in a few days; nor, on the other hand, will the people submit to be half starved for years in order to oblige the theorists who uphold the wage system. to tide over the period of stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such cases--communization of supplies--the giving of rations. it will be in vain to preach patience. the people will be patient no longer, and if food is not forthcoming they will plunder the bakeries. then, if the people are not strong enough to carry all before them, they will be shot down, to give collectivism a fair field for experiment. to this end "_order_" must be maintained at any price--order, discipline, obedience! and as the capitalists will soon realize that when the people are shot down by those who call themselves revolutionists, the revolution itself will become hateful in the eyes of the masses, they will certainly lend their support to the champions of _order_--even though they are collectivists. in such a line of conduct, the capitalists will see a means of hereafter crushing the collectivists in their turn. and if "order is established" in this fashion, the consequences are easy to foresee. not content with shooting down the "marauders," the faction of "order" will search out the "ringleaders of the mob." they will set up again the law courts and reinstate the hangman. the most ardent revolutionists will be sent to the scaffold. it will be over again. do not let us forget how reaction triumphed in the last century. first the "hébertists" and "the madmen," were guillotined--those whom mignet, with the memory of the struggle fresh upon him, still called "anarchists." the dantonists soon followed them; and when the party of robespierre had guillotined these revolutionaries, they in their turn had to mount the scaffold; whereupon the people, sick of bloodshed, and seeing the revolution lost, threw up the sponge, and let the reactionaries do their worst. if "order is restored," we say, the social democrats will hang the anarchists; the fabians will hang the social democrats, and will in their turn be hanged by the reactionaries; and the revolution will come to an end. but everything confirms us in the belief that the energy of the people will carry them far enough, and that, when the revolution takes place, the idea of anarchist communism will have gained ground. it is not an artificial idea. the people themselves have breathed it in our ear, and the number of communists is ever increasing, as the impossibility of any other solution becomes more and more evident. and if the impetus of the people is strong enough, affairs will take a very different turn. instead of plundering the bakers' shops one day, and starving the next, the people of the insurgent cities will take possession of the warehouses, the cattle markets,--in fact of all the provision stores and of all the food to be had. the well-intentioned citizens, men and women both, will form themselves into bands of volunteers and address themselves to the task of making a rough general inventory of the contents of each shop and warehouse. if such a revolution breaks out in france, namely in paris, then in twenty-four hours the commune will know what paris has not found out yet, in spite of its statistical committees, and what it never did find out during the siege of --the quantity of provisions it contains. in forty-eight hours millions of copies will be printed of the tables giving a sufficiently exact account of the available food, the places where it is stored, and the means of distribution. in every block of houses, in every street, in every town ward, groups of volunteers will have been organized, and these commissariat volunteers will find it easy to work in unison and keep in touch with each other. if only the jacobin bayonets do not get in the way; if only the self-styled "scientific" theorists do not thrust themselves in to darken counsel! or rather let them expound their muddle-headed theories as much as they like, provided they have no authority, no power! and that admirable spirit of organization inherent in the people, above all in every social grade of the french nation, but which they have so seldom been allowed to exercise, will initiate, even in so huge a city as paris, and in the midst of a revolution, an immense guild of free workers, ready to furnish to each and all the necessary food. give the people a free hand, and in ten days the food service will be conducted with admirable regularity. only those who have never seen the people hard at work, only those who have passed their lives buried among the documents, can doubt it. speak of the organizing genius of the "great misunderstood," the people, to those who have seen it in paris in the days of the barricades, or in london during the great dockers' strike, when half a million of starving folk had to be fed, and they will tell you how superior it is to the official ineptness of bumbledom. and even supposing we had to endure a certain amount of discomfort and confusion for a fortnight or a month, surely that would not matter very much. for the mass of the people it would still be an improvement on their former condition; and, besides, in times of revolution one can dine contentedly enough on a bit of bread and cheese while eagerly discussing events. in any case, a system which springs up spontaneously, under stress of immediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented between four walls by hide-bound theorists sitting on any number of committees. iv the people of the great towns will be driven by force of circumstances to take possession of all the provisions, beginning with the barest necessaries, and gradually extending communism to other things, in order to satisfy the needs of all the citizens. the sooner it is done the better; the sooner it is done the less misery there will be and the less strife. but upon what basis must society be organized in order that all may have their due share of food produce? this is the question that meets us at the outset. we answer that there are no two ways of it. there is only one way in which communism can be established equitably, only one way which satisfies our instincts of justice and is at the same time practical; namely, the system already adopted by the agrarian communes of europe. take for example a peasant commune, no matter where, even in france, where the jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage. if the commune possesses woods and copses, then, so long as there is plenty of wood for all, every one can take as much as he wants, without other let or hindrance than the public opinion of his neighbours. as to the timber-trees, which are always scarce, they have to be carefully apportioned. the same with the communal pasture land; while there is enough and to spare, no limit is put to what the cattle of each homestead may consume, nor to the number of beasts grazing upon the pastures. grazing grounds are not divided, nor is fodder doled out, unless there is scarcity. all the swiss communes, and scores of thousands in france and germany, wherever there is communal pasture land, practise this system. and in the countries of eastern europe, where there are great forests and no scarcity of land, you will find the peasants felling the trees as they need them, and cultivating as much of the soil as they require, without any thought of limiting each man's share of timber or of land. but the timber will be allowanced, and the land parcelled out, to each household according to its needs, as soon as either becomes scarce, as is already the case in russia. in a word, the system is this: no stint or limit to what the community possesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of those commodities which are scarce or apt to run short. of the millions who inhabit europe, millions still follow this system of natural communism. it is a fact worth remarking that the same system prevails in the great towns in the distribution of one commodity at least, which is found in abundance, the water supplied to each house. as long as there is no fear of the supply running short, no water company thinks of checking the consumption of water in each house. take what you please! but during the great droughts, if there is any fear of the supply failing, the water companies know that all they have to do is to make known the fact, by means of a short advertisement in the papers, and the citizens will reduce their consumption of water and not let it run to waste. but if water were actually scarce, what would be done? recourse would be had to a system of rations. such a measure is so natural, so inherent in common sense, that paris twice asked to be put on rations during the two sieges which it underwent in . is it necessary to go into details, to prepare tables, showing how the distribution of rations may work, to prove that it is just and equitable, infinitely more just and equitable than the existing state of things? all these tables and details will not serve to convince those of the middle classes, nor, alas, those of the workers tainted with middle-class prejudices, who regard the people as a mob of savages ready to fall upon and devour each other, as soon as the government ceases to direct affairs. but those only who have never seen the people resolve and act on their own initiative could doubt for a moment that if the masses were masters of the situation, they would distribute rations to each and all in strictest accordance with justice and equity. if you were to give utterance, in any gathering of people, to the opinion that delicacies--game and such-like--should be reserved for the fastidious palates of aristocratic idlers, and black bread given to the sick in the hospitals, you would be hissed. but say at the same gathering, preach at the street corners and in the market places, that the most tempting delicacies ought to be kept for the sick and feeble--especially for the sick. say that if there are only five brace of partridge in the entire city, and only one case of sherry, they should go to sick people and convalescents. say that after the sick come the children. for them the milk of the cows and goats should be reserved if there is not enough for all. to the children and the aged the last piece of meat, and to the strong man dry bread, if the community be reduced to that extremity. say, in a word, that if this or that article of consumption runs short, and has to be doled out, to those who have most need most should be given. say that and see if you do not meet with universal agreement. the man who is full-fed does not understand this, but the people do understand, and have always understood it; and even the child of luxury, if he is thrown on the street and comes into contact with the masses, even he will learn to understand. the theorists--for whom the soldier's uniform and the barrack mess table are civilization's last word--would like no doubt to start a regime of national kitchens and "spartan broth." they would point out the advantages thereby gained, the economy in fuel and food, if such huge kitchens were established, where every one could come for their rations of soup and bread and vegetables. we do not question these advantages. we are well aware that important economies have already been achieved in this direction--as, for instance, when the handmill, or quern, and the baker's oven attached to each house were abandoned. we can see perfectly well that it would be more economical to cook broth for a hundred families at once, instead of lighting a hundred separate fires. we know, besides, that there are a thousand ways of preparing potatoes, but that cooked in one huge pot for a hundred families they would be just as good. we know, in fact, that variety in cooking being a matter of the seasoning introduced by each cook or housewife, the cooking together of a hundredweight of potatoes would not prevent each cook or housewife from dressing and serving them in any way she pleased. and we know that stock made from meat can be converted into a hundred different soups to suit a hundred different tastes. but though we are quite aware of all these facts, we still maintain that no one has a right to force a housewife to take her potatoes from the communal kitchen ready cooked if she prefers to cook them herself in her own pot on her own fire. and, above all, we should wish each one to be free to take his meals with his family, or with his friends, or even in a restaurant, if it seemed good to him. naturally large public kitchens will spring up to take the place of the restaurants, where people are poisoned nowadays. already the parisian housewife gets the stock for her soup from the butcher, and transforms it into whatever soup she likes, and london housekeepers know that they can have a joint roasted, or an apple or rhubarb tart baked at the baker's for a trifling sum, thus economizing time and fuel. and when the communal kitchen--the common bakehouse of the future--is established, and people can get their food cooked without the risk of being cheated or poisoned, the custom will no doubt become general of going to the communal kitchen for the fundamental parts of the meal, leaving the last touches to be added as individual taste shall suggest. but to make a hard and fast rule of this, to make a duty of taking home our food ready cooked, that would be as repugnant to our modern minds as the ideas of the convent or the barrack--morbid ideas born in brains warped by tyranny or superstition. who will have a right to the food of the commune? will assuredly be the first question which we shall have to ask ourselves. every township will answer for itself, and we are convinced that the answers will all be dictated by the sentiment of justice. until labour is reorganized, as long as the disturbed period lasts, and while it is impossible to distinguish between inveterate idlers and genuine workers thrown out of work, the available food ought to be shared by all without exception. those who have been enemies to the new order will hasten of their own accord to rid the commune of their presence. but it seems to us that the masses of the people, which have always been magnanimous, and have nothing of vindictiveness in their disposition, will be ready to share their bread with all who remain with them, conquered and conquerers alike. it will be no loss to the revolution to be inspired by such an idea, and, when work is set agoing again, the antagonists of yesterday will stand side by side in the same workshops. a society where work is free will have nothing to fear from idlers. "but provisions will run short in a month!" our critics at once exclaim. "so much the better," say we. it will prove that for the first time on record the people have had enough to eat. as to the question of obtaining fresh supplies, we shall discuss the means in our next chapter. v by what means could a city in a state of revolution be supplied with food? we shall answer this question, but it is obvious that the means resorted to will depend on the character of the revolution in the provinces, and in neighbouring countries. if the entire nation, or, better still, if all europe should accomplish the social revolution simultaneously, and start with thorough-going communism, our procedure would be simplified; but if only a few communities in europe make the attempt, other means will have to be chosen. the circumstances will dictate the measures. we are thus led, before we proceed further, to glance at the state of europe, and, without pretending to prophesy, we may try to foresee what course the revolution will take, or at least what will be its essential features. certainly it would be very desirable that all europe should rise at once, that expropriation should be general, and that communistic principles should inspire all and sundry. such a universal rising would do much to simplify the task of our century. but all the signs lead us to believe that it will not take place. that the revolution will embrace europe we do not doubt. if one of the four great continental capitals--paris, vienna, brussels, or berlin--rises in revolution and overturns its government, it is almost certain that the three others will follow its example within a few weeks' time. it is, moreover, highly probable that the peninsulas and even london and st. petersburg would not be long in following suit. but whether the revolution would everywhere exhibit the same characteristics is highly doubtful. it is more than probable that expropriation will be everywhere carried into effect on a larger scale, and that this policy carried out by any one of the great nations of europe will influence all the rest; yet the beginnings of the revolution will exhibit great local differences, and its course will vary in different countries. in - , the french peasantry took four years to finally rid themselves of the redemption of feudal rights, and the bourgeois to overthrow royalty. let us keep that in mind, and therefore be prepared to see the revolution develop itself somewhat gradually. let us not be disheartened if here and there its steps should move less rapidly. whether it would take an avowedly socialist character in all european nations, at any rate at the beginning, is doubtful. germany, be it remembered, is still realizing its dream of a united empire. its advanced parties see visions of a jacobin republic like that of , and of the organization of labour according to louis blanc; while the french people, on the other hand, want above all things a free commune, whether it be a communist commune or not. there is every reason to believe that, when the coming revolution takes place, germany will go further than france went in . the eighteenth-century revolution in france was an advance on the english revolution of the seventeenth, abolishing as it did at one stroke the power of the throne and the landed aristocracy, whose influence still survives in england. but, if germany goes further and does greater things than france did in , there can be no doubt that the ideas which will foster the birth of her revolution will be those of ; while the ideas which will inspire the revolution in russia will probably be a combination of those of with those of . without, however, attaching to these forecasts a greater importance than they merit, we may safely conclude this much: the revolution will take a different character in each of the different european nations; the point attained in the socialization of wealth will not be everywhere the same. will it therefore be necessary, as is sometimes suggested, that the nations in the vanguard of the movement should adapt their pace to those who lag behind? must we wait till the communist revolution is ripe in all civilized countries? clearly not! even if it were a thing to be desired, it is not possible. history does not wait for the laggards. besides, we do not believe that in any one country the revolution will be accomplished at a stroke, in the twinkling of an eye, as some socialists dream.[ ] it is highly probable that if one of the five or six large towns of france--paris, lyons, marseilles, lille, saint-etienne, bordeaux--were to proclaim the commune, the others would follow its example, and that many smaller towns would do the same. probably also various mining districts and industrial centres would hasten to rid themselves of "owners" and "masters," and form themselves into free groups. but many country places have not advanced to that point. side by side with the revolutionized communes such places would remain in an expectant attitude, and would go on living on the individualist system. undisturbed by visits of the bailiff or the tax-collector, the peasants would not be hostile to the revolutionaries, and thus, while profiting by the new state of affairs, they would defer the settlement of accounts with the local exploiters. but with that practical enthusiasm which always characterizes agrarian uprisings (witness the passionate toil of ) they would throw themselves into the task of cultivating the land, which, freed from taxes and mortgages, would become so much dearer to them. as to other countries, revolution would break out everywhere, but revolution under divers aspects; in one country state socialism, in another federation; everywhere more or less socialism, not conforming to any particular rule. vi let us now return to our city in revolt, and consider how its citizens can provide foodstuffs for themselves. how are the necessary provisions to be obtained if the nation as a whole has not accepted communism? this is the question to be solved. take, for example, one of the large french towns--take the capital itself, for that matter. paris consumes every year thousands of tons of grain, , head of oxen, , calves, , swine, and more than two millions of sheep, besides great quantities of game. this huge city devours, besides, more than million pounds of butter, million eggs, and other produce in like proportion. it imports flour and grain from the united states and from russia, hungary, italy, egypt, and the indies; live stock from germany, italy, spain--even roumania and russia; and as for groceries, there is not a country in the world that it does not lay under contribution. now, let us see how paris or any other great town could be revictualled by home-grown produce, supplies of which could be readily and willingly sent in from the provinces. to those who put their trust in "authority" the question will appear quite simple. they would begin by establishing a strongly centralized government, furnished with all the machinery of coercion--the police, the army, the guillotine. this government would draw up a statement of all the produce contained in france. it would divide the country into districts of supply, and then _command_ that a prescribed quantity of some particular foodstuff be sent to such a place on such a day, and delivered at such a station, to be there received on a given day by a specified official and stored in particular warehouses. now, we declare with the fullest conviction, not merely that such a solution is undesirable, but that it never could by any possibility be put into practice. it is wildly utopian! pen in hand, one may dream such a dream in the study, but in contact with reality it comes to nothing,--this was proved in ; for, like all such theories, it leaves out of account the spirit of independence that is in man. the attempt would lead to a universal uprising, to three or four _vendées_, to the villages rising against the towns, all the country up in arms defying the city for its arrogance in attempting to impose such a system upon the country. we have already had too much of jacobin utopias! let us see if some other form of organization will meet the case. during the great french revolution, the provinces starved the large towns, and killed the revolution. and yet it is a known fact that the production of grain in france during - had not diminished; indeed, the evidence goes to show that it had increased. but after having taken possession of the manorial lands, after having reaped a harvest from them, the peasants would not part with their grain for paper-money. they withheld their produce, waiting for a rise in the price, or the introduction of gold. the most rigorous measures of the national convention were without avail, and her executions failed to break up the ring, or force the farmers to sell their corn. for it is a matter of history that the commissaries of the convention did not scruple to guillotine those who withheld their grain from the market, and pitilessly executed those who speculated in foodstuffs. all the same, the corn was not forthcoming, and the townsfolk suffered from famine. but what was offered to the husbandman in exchange for his hard toil? _assignats_, scraps of paper decreasing in value every day, promises of payment, which could not be kept. a forty-pound note would not purchase a pair of boots, and the peasant, very naturally, was not anxious to barter a year's toil for a piece of paper with which he could not even buy a shirt. as long as worthless paper-money--whether called assignats or labour notes--is offered to the peasant-producer it will always be the same. the country will withhold its produce, and the towns will suffer want, even if the recalcitrant peasants are guillotined as before. we must offer to the peasant in exchange for his toil not worthless paper-money, but the manufactured articles of which he stands in immediate need. he lacks the proper implements to till the land, clothes to protect him from the inclemencies of the weather, lamps and oil to replace his miserable rushlight or tallow dip, spades, rakes, ploughs. all these things, under present conditions, the peasant is forced to do without, not because he does not feel the need of them, but because, in his life of struggle and privation, a thousand useful things are beyond his reach; because he has not money to buy them. let the town apply itself, without loss of time, to manufacturing all that the peasant needs, instead of fashioning geegaws for the wives of rich citizens. let the sewing machines of paris be set to work on clothes for the country folk workaday clothes and clothes for sunday too, instead of costly evening dresses for the english and russian landlords and the african gold-magnates' wives. let the factories and foundries turn out agricultural implements, spades, rakes, and such-like, instead of waiting till the english send them to france, in exchange for french wines! let the towns send no more inspectors to the villages, wearing red, blue, or rainbow-coloured scarves, to convey to the peasant orders to take his produce to this place or that, but let them send friendly embassies to the countryfolk and bid them in brotherly fashion: "bring us your produce, and take from our stores and shops all the manufactured articles you please."--then provisions would pour in on every side. the peasant would only withhold what he needed for his own use, and would send the rest into the cities, feeling _for the first time in the course of history_ that these toiling townsfolk were his comrades--his brethren, and not his exploiters. we shall be told, perhaps, that this would necessitate a complete transformation of industry. well, yes, that is true of certain departments; but there are other branches which could be rapidly modified in such a way as to furnish the peasant with clothes, watches, furniture, and the simple implements for which the towns make him pay such exorbitant prices at the present time. weavers, tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, and many other trades and crafts could easily direct their energies to the manufacture of useful and necessary articles, and abstain from producing mere luxuries. all that is needed is that the public mind should be thoroughly convinced of the necessity of this transformation, and should come to look upon it as an act of justice and of progress, and that it should no longer allow itself to be cheated by that dream, so dear to the theorists--the dream of a revolution which confines itself to taking possession of the profits of industry, and leaves production and commerce just as they are now. this, then, is our view of the whole question. cheat the peasant no longer with scraps of paper--be the sums inscribed upon them ever so large; but offer him in exchange for his produce the very _things_ of which he, the tiller of the soil, stands in need. then the fruits of the land will be poured into the towns. if this is not done there will be famine in our cities, and reaction and despair will follow in its train. vii all the great towns, we have said, buy their grain, their flour, and their meat, not only from the provinces, but also from abroad. foreign countries send paris not only spices, fish, and various dainties, but also immense quantities of corn and meat. but when the revolution comes these cities will have to depend on foreign countries as little as possible. if russian wheat, italian or indian rice, and spanish or hungarian wines abound in the markets of western europe, it is not that the countries which export them have a superabundance, or that such a produce grows there of itself, like the dandelion in the meadows. in russia for instance, the peasant works sixteen hours a day, and half starves from three to six months every year, in order to export the grain with which he pays the landlord and the state. to-day the police appears in the russian village as soon as the harvest is gathered in, and sells the peasant's last horse and last cow for arrears of taxes and rent due to the landlord, unless the victim immolates himself of his own accord by selling the grain to the exporters. usually, rather than part with his livestock at a disadvantage, he keeps only a nine-months' supply of grain, and sells the rest. then, in order to sustain life until the next harvest, he mixes birch-bark and tares with his flour for three months, if it has been a good year, and for six months if it has been bad, while in london they are eating biscuits made of his wheat. but as soon as the revolution comes, the russian peasant will keep bread enough for himself and his children; the italian and hungarian peasants will do the same; the hindoo, let us hope, will profit by these good examples; and the farmers of america will hardly be able to cover all the deficit in grain which europe will experience. so it will not do to count on their contributions of wheat and maize satisfying all the wants. since all our middle-class civilization is based on the exploitation of inferior races and countries with less advanced industrial systems, the revolution will confer a boon at the very outset, by menacing that "civilization," and allowing the so-called inferior races to free themselves. but this great benefit will manifest itself by a steady and marked diminution of the food supplies pouring into the great cities of western europe. it is difficult to predict the course of affairs in the provinces. on the one hand the slave of the soil will take advantage of the revolution to straighten his bowed back. instead of working fourteen or fifteen hours a day, as he does at present, he will be at liberty to work only half that time, which of course would have the effect of decreasing the production of the principal articles of consumption--grain and meat. but, on the other hand, there will be an increase of production as soon as the peasant realizes that he is no longer forced to support the idle rich by his toil. new tracts of land will be cleared, new and improved machines set a-going. "never was the land so energetically cultivated as in , when the peasant had taken back from the landlord the soil which he had coveted so long," michelet tells us speaking of the great revolution. of course, before long, intensive culture would be within the reach of all. improved machinery, chemical manures, and all such matters would soon be supplied by the commune. but everything tends to indicate that at the outset there would be a falling off in agricultural products, in france and elsewhere. in any case it would be wisest to count upon such a falling off of contributions from the provinces as well as from abroad.--how is this falling off to be made good? why! by setting to work ourselves! no need to rack our brains for far-fetched panaceas when the remedy lies close at hand. the large towns, as well as the villages, must undertake to till the soil. we must return to what biology calls "the integration of functions"--after the division of labour, the taking up of it as a whole--this is the course followed throughout nature. besides, philosophy apart, the force of circumstances would bring about this result. let paris see that at the end of eight months it will be running short of bread, and paris will set to work to grow wheat. land will not be wanting, for it is round the great towns, and round paris especially, that the parks and pleasure grounds of the landed gentry are to be found. these thousands of acres only await the skilled labour of the husbandman to surround paris with fields infinitely more fertile and productive than the steppes of southern russia, where the soil is dried up by the sun. nor will labour be lacking. to what should the two million citizens of paris turn their attention, when they would be no longer catering for the luxurious fads and amusements of russian princes, roumanian grandees, and wives of berlin financiers? with all the mechanical inventions of the century; with all the intelligence and technical skill of the worker accustomed to deal with complicated machinery; with inventors, chemists, professors of botany, practical botanists like the market gardeners of gennevilliers; with all the plant that they could use for multiplying and improving machinery; and, finally, with the organizing spirit of the parisian people, their pluck and energy--with all these at its command, the agriculture of the anarchist commune of paris would be a very different thing from the rude husbandry of the ardennes. steam, electricity, the heat of the sun, and the breath of the wind, will ere long be pressed into service. the steam plough and the steam harrow will quickly do the rough work of preparation, and the soil, thus cleaned and enriched, will only need the intelligent care of man, and of woman even more than man, to be clothed with luxuriant vegetation--not once but three or four times in the year. thus, learning the art of horticulture from experts, and trying experiments in different methods on small patches of soil reserved for the purpose, vying with each other to obtain the best returns, finding in physical exercise, without exhaustion or overwork, the health and strength which so often flags in cities,--men, women and children will gladly turn to the labour of the fields, when it is no longer a slavish drudgery, but has become a pleasure, a festival, a renewal of health and joy. "there are no barren lands; the earth is worth what man is worth"--that is the last word of modern agriculture. ask of the earth, and she will give you bread, provided that you ask aright. a district, though it were as small as the two departments of the seine and the seine-et-oise, and with so great a city as paris to feed, would be practically sufficient to grow upon it all the food supplies, which otherwise might fail to reach it. the combination of agriculture and industry, the husbandman and the mechanic in the same individual--this is what anarchist communism will inevitably lead us to, if it starts fair with expropriation. let the revolution only get so far, and famine is not the enemy it will have to fear. no, the danger which will menace it lies in timidity, prejudice, and half-measures. the danger is where danton saw it when he cried to france: "de l'audace, de l'audace, et encore de l'audace." the bold thought first, and the bold deed will not fail to follow. footnotes: [ ] the municipal debt of paris amounted in to , , , francs, and the charges for it were , , francs. [ ] no fallacy more harmful has ever been spread than the fallacy of a "one-day revolution," which is propagated in superficial socialist pamphlets speaking of the revolution of the th of march at berlin, supposed (which is absolutely wrong) to have given prussia its representative government. we saw well the harm made by such fallacies in russia in - . the truth is that up to prussia, like russia of the present day, had a scrap of paper which could be described as a "constitution," but it had no representative government. the ministry imposed upon the nation, up till , the budget it chose to propose. chapter vi dwellings i those who have closely watched the growth of socialist ideas among the workers must have noticed that on one momentous question--the housing of the people--a definite conclusion is being imperceptibly arrived at. it is a fact that in the large towns of france, and in many of the smaller ones, the workers are coming gradually to the conclusion that dwelling-houses are in no sense the property of those whom the state recognizes as their owners. this idea has evolved naturally in the minds of the people, and nothing will ever convince them again that the "rights of property" ought to extend to houses. the house was not built by its owner. it was erected, decorated and furnished by innumerable workers in the timber yard, the brick field, and the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage. the money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil. it was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds or only a half of what was their due. moreover--and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding becomes most glaring--the house owes its actual value to the profit which the owner can make out of it. now, this profit results from the fact that his house is built in a town--that is, in an agglomeration of thousands of other houses, possessing paved streets, bridges, quays, and fine public buildings, well lighted, and affording to its inhabitants a thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town in regular communication with other towns, and itself a centre of industry, commerce, science, and art; a town which the work of twenty or thirty generations has made habitable, healthy, and beautiful. a house in certain parts of paris is valued at many thousands of pounds sterling, not because thousands of pounds' worth of labour have been expended on that particular house, but because it is in paris; because for centuries workmen, artists, thinkers, and men of learning and letters have contributed to make paris what it is to-day--a centre of industry, commerce, politics, art, and science; because paris has a past; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are household words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations of the whole french nation. who, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the meanest building in such a city, without committing a flagrant injustice? who, then, has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest portion of the common heritage? on that point, as we have said, the workers begin to be agreed. the idea of free dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the siege of paris, when the cry was for an abatement pure and simple of the terms demanded by the landlords. it appeared again during the commune of , when the paris workmen expected the council of the commune to decide boldly on the abolition of rent. and when the new revolution comes, it will be the first question with which the poor will concern themselves. whether in time of revolution or in time of peace, the worker must be housed somehow or other; he must have some sort of roof over his head. but, however tumble-down and squalid his dwelling may be, there is always a landlord who can evict him. true, during the revolution the landlord cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw the workman's rags and chattels into the street, but who knows what the new government will do to-morrow? who can say that it will not call coercion to its aid again, and set the police pack upon the tenant to hound him out of his hovels? have we not seen the commune of paris proclaim the remission of rents due up to the first of april only![ ] after that, rent had to be paid, though paris was in a state of chaos, and industry at a standstill; so that the "federate" who had taken arms to defend the independence of paris had absolutely nothing to depend upon--he and his family--but an allowance of fifteen pence a day! now the worker must be made to see clearly that in refusing to pay rent to a landlord or owner he is not simply profiting by the disorganization of authority. he must understand that the abolition of rent is a recognized principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by popular assent; that to be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people. are we going to wait till this measure, which is in harmony with every honest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the few socialists scattered among the middle class elements, of which the provisionary government will be composed? if it were so, the people should have to wait long--till the return of reaction, in fact! this is why, refusing uniforms and badges--those outward signs of authority and servitude--and remaining people among the people, the earnest revolutionists will work side by side with the masses, that the abolition of rent, the expropriation of houses, may become an accomplished fact. they will prepare the ground and encourage ideas to grow in this direction; and when the fruit of their labours is ripe, the people will proceed to expropriate the houses without giving heed to the theories which will certainly be thrust in their way--theories about paying compensation to landlords, and finding first the necessary funds. on the day that the expropriation of houses takes place, on that day, the exploited workers will have realized that new times have come, that labour will no longer have to bear the yoke of the rich and powerful, that equality has been openly proclaimed, that this revolution is a real fact, and not a theatrical make-believe, like so many others preceding it. ii if the idea of expropriation be adopted by the people it will be carried into effect in spite of all the "insurmountable" obstacles with which we are menaced. of course, the good folk in new uniforms, seated in the official arm-chairs of the hôtel de ville, will be sure to busy themselves in heaping up obstacles. they will talk of giving compensation to the landlords, of preparing statistics, and drawing up long reports. yes, they would be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast the hopes of the people, who, after waiting and starving in enforced idleness, and seeing nothing come of all these official researches, would lose heart and faith in the revolution and abandon the field to the reactionaries. the new bureaucracy would end by making expropriation hateful in the eyes of all. here, indeed, is a rock which might shipwreck our hopes. but if the people turn a deaf ear to the specious arguments used to dazzle them, and realize that new life needs new conditions, and if they undertake the task themselves, then expropriation can be effected without any great difficulty. "but how? how can it be done?" you ask us. we shall try to reply to this question, but with a reservation. we have no intention of tracing out the plans of expropriation in their smallest details. we know beforehand that all that any man, or group of men, could suggest to-day would be far surpassed by the reality when it comes. man will accomplish greater things, and accomplish them better and by simpler methods than those dictated to him beforehand. thus we shall merely indicate the manner by which expropriation _might_ be accomplished without the intervention of government. we do not propose to go out of our way to answer those who declare that the thing is impossible. we confine ourselves to replying that we are not the upholders of any particular method of organization. we are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation _could_ be effected by popular initiative, and _could not_ be effected by any other means whatever. it seems very likely that, as soon as expropriation is fairly started, groups of volunteers will spring up in every district, street, and block of houses, and undertake to inquire into the number of flats and houses which are empty and of those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome slums, and the houses which are too spacious for their occupants and might well be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements. in a few days these volunteers would have drawn up complete lists for the street and the district of all the flats, tenements, family mansions and villa residences, all the rooms and suites of rooms, healthy and unhealthy, small and large, foetid dens and homes of luxury. freely communicating with each other, these volunteers would soon have their statistics complete. false statistics can be manufactured in board rooms and offices, but true and exact statistics must begin with the individual and mount up from the simple to the complex. then, without waiting for anyone's leave, those citizens will probably go and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets and hovels and will say to them simply: "it is a real revolution this time, comrades, and no mistake about it. come to such a place this evening; all the neighbourhood will be there; we are going to redistribute the dwelling-houses. if you are tired of your slum-garret, come and choose one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and when you have once moved in you shall stay, never fear. the people are up in arms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to answer to them." "but every one will want a fine house or a spacious flat!" we are told.--no, you are quite mistaken. it is not the people's way to clamour for the moon. on the contrary, every time we have seen them set about repairing a wrong we have been struck by the good sense and instinct for justice which animates the masses. have we ever known them demand the impossible? have we ever seen the people of paris fighting among themselves while waiting for their rations of bread or firewood during the two sieges or during the terrible years of - ? the patience and resignation which prevailed among them in was constantly presented for admiration by the foreign press correspondents; and yet these patient waiters knew full well that the last comers would have to pass the day without food or fire. we do not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in isolated individuals. we are quite aware of it. but we contend that the very way to revive and nourish these instincts would be to confine such questions as the housing of the people to any board or committee, in fact, to the tender mercies of officialism in any shape or form. then indeed all the evil passions spring up, and it becomes a case of who is the most influential person on the board. the least inequality causes wranglings and recriminations. if the smallest advantage is given to any one, a tremendous hue and cry is raised--and not without reason. but if the people themselves, organized by streets, districts, and parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the half-empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences, the little inequalities will be easily tided over. rarely has appeal been made to the good instincts of the masses--only as a last resort, to save the sinking ship in times of revolution--but never has such an appeal been made in vain; the heroism, the self-devotion of the toiler has never failed to respond to it. and thus it will be in the coming revolution. but, when all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable injustices, undoubtedly will remain. there are individuals in our societies whom no great crisis can lift out of the deep mire of egoism in which they are sunk. the question, however, is not whether there will be injustices or no, but rather how to limit the number of them. now all history, all the experience of the human race, and all social psychology, unite in showing that the best and fairest way is to trust the decision to those whom it concerns most nearly. it is they alone who can consider and allow for the hundred and one details which must necessarily be overlooked in any merely official redistribution. iii moreover, it is by no means necessary to make straightway an absolutely equal redistribution of all the dwellings. there will no doubt be some inconveniences at first, but matters will soon be righted in a society which has adopted expropriation. when the masons, and carpenters, and all who are concerned in house building, know that their daily bread is secured to them, they will ask nothing better than to work at their old trades a few hours a day. they will adapt the fine houses, which absorbed the time of a whole staff of servants, for giving shelter to several families, and in a few months homes will have sprung up, infinitely healthier and more conveniently arranged than those of to-day. and to those who are not yet comfortably housed the anarchist commune will be able to say: "patience, comrades! palaces fairer and finer than any the capitalists built for themselves will spring from the ground of our enfranchised city. they will belong to those who have most need of them. the anarchist commune does not build with an eye to revenues. these monuments erected to its citizens, products of the collective spirit, will serve as models to all humanity; they will be yours." if the people of the revolution expropriate the houses and proclaim free lodgings--the communalizing of houses and the right of each family to a decent dwelling--then the revolution will have assumed a communistic character from the first, and started on a course from which it will be by no means easy to turn it. it will have struck a fatal blow at individual property. for the expropriation of dwellings contains in germ the whole social revolution. on the manner of its accomplishment depends the character of all that follows. either we shall start on a good road leading straight to anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the mud of despotic individualism. it is easy to see the numerous objections--theoretic on the one hand, practical on the other--with which we are sure to be met. as it will be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of course protest "in the name of justice." "is it not a crying shame," they will exclaim, "that the people of paris should take possession of all these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only tumble-down huts to live in?" but do not let us make a mistake. these enthusiasts for justice forget, by a lapse of memory to which they are subject, the "crying shame" which they themselves are tacitly defending. they forget that in this same city the worker, with his wife and children, suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his window he sees the rich man's palace. they forget that whole generations perish in crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that to redress this injustice ought to be the first task of the revolution. do not let these disingenuous protests hold us back. we know that any inequality which may exist between town and country in the early days of the revolution will be transitory and of a nature that will right itself from day to day; for the village will not fail to improve its dwellings as soon as the peasant has ceased to be the beast of burden of the farmer, the merchant, the money-lender, and the state. in order to avoid an accidental and transitory inequality, shall we stay our hand from righting an ancient wrong? the so-called practical objections are not very formidable either. we are bidden to consider the hard case of some poor fellow who by dint of privation has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his family. and we are going to deprive him of his hard-earned happiness, to turn him into the street! certainly not. if his house is only just large enough for his family, by all means let him stay there. let him work in his little garden, too; our "boys" will not hinder him--nay, they will lend him a helping hand if need be. but suppose he lets lodgings, suppose he has empty rooms in his house; then the people will make the lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any more rent. stay where you are, but rent free. no more duns and collectors; socialism has abolished all that! or again, suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all to himself, and some poor woman lives near by with five children in one room. in that case the people would see whether, with some alterations, these empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor woman and her five children. would not that be more just and fair than to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret, while sir gorgeous midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? besides, good sir gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order. "so you are going to turn everything upside down," say the defenders of law and order. "there will be no end to the evictions and removals. would it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors and redistributing the houses by lot?" thus our critics; but we are firmly persuaded that if no government interferes in the matter, if all the changes are entrusted to these free groups which have sprung up to undertake the work, the evictions and removals will be less numerous than those which take place in one year under the present system, owing to the rapacity of landlords. in the first place, there are in all large towns almost enough empty houses and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums. as to the palaces and suites of fine apartments, many working people would not live in them if they could. one could not "keep up" such houses without a large staff of servants. their occupants would soon find themselves forced to seek less luxurious dwellings. the fine ladies would find that palaces were not well adapted to self-help in the kitchen. gradually people would shake down. there would be no need to conduct dives to a garret at the bayonet's point, or install lazarus in dives's palace by the help of an armed escort. people would shake down amicably into the available dwellings with the least possible friction and disturbance. have we not the example of the village communes redistributing fields and disturbing the owners of the allotments so little that one can only praise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they employ? fewer fields change hands under the management of the russian commune than where personal property holds sway, and is for ever carrying its quarrels into courts of law. and are we to believe that the inhabitants of a great european city would be less intelligent and less capable of organization than russian or hindoo peasants? moreover, we must not blink at the fact that every revolution means a certain disturbance to everyday life, and those who expect this tremendous climb out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so much as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves mistaken. it is true that governments can change without disturbing worthy citizens at dinner, but the crimes of society towards those who have nourished and supported it are not to be redressed by any such political sleight of parties. undoubtedly there will be a disturbance, but it must not be one of pure loss; it must be minimized. and again--it is impossible to lay too much stress on this maxim--it will be by addressing ourselves to the interested parties, and not to boards and committees, that we shall best succeed in reducing the sum of inconveniences for everybody. the people commit blunder on blunder when they have to choose by ballot some hare-brained candidate who solicits the honour of representing them, and takes upon himself to know all, to do all, and to organize all. but when they take upon themselves to organize what they know, what touches them directly, they do it better than all the "talking-shops" put together. is not the paris commune an instance in point? and the great dockers' strike? and have we not constant evidence of this fact in every village commune? footnote: [ ] the decree of the march: by this decree rents due up to the terms of october, , and january and april, , were annulled. chapter vii clothing when the houses have become the common heritage of the citizens, and when each man has his daily supply of food, another forward step will have to be taken. the question of clothing will of course demand consideration next, and again the only possible solution will be to take possession, in the name of the people, of all the shops and warehouses where clothing is sold or stored, and to throw open the doors to all, so that each can take what he needs. the communalization of clothing--the right of each to take what he needs from the communal stores, or to have it made for him at the tailors and outfitters--is a necessary corollary of the communalization of houses and food. obviously we shall not need for that to despoil all citizens of their coats, to put all the garments in a heap and draw lots for them, as our critics, with equal wit and ingenuity, suggest. let him who has a coat keep it still--nay, if he have ten coats it is highly improbable that any one will want to deprive him of them, for most folk would prefer a new coat to one that has already graced the shoulders of some fat bourgeois; and there will be enough new garments, and to spare, without having recourse to second-hand wardrobes. if we were to take an inventory of all the clothes and stuff for clothing accumulated in the shops and stores of the large towns, we should find probably that in paris, lyons, bordeaux, and marseilles, there was enough to enable the commune to offer garments to all the citizens, of both sexes; and if all were not suited at once, the communal outfitters would soon make good these shortcomings. we know how rapidly our great tailoring and dressmaking establishments work nowadays, provided as they are with machinery specially adapted for production on a large scale. "but every one will want a sable-lined coat or a velvet gown!" exclaim our adversaries. frankly, we do not believe it. every woman does not dote on velvet nor does every man dream of sable linings. even now, if we were to ask each woman to choose her gown, we should find some to prefer a simple, practical garment to all the fantastic trimmings the fashionable world affects. tastes change with the times, and the fashion in vogue at the time of the revolution will certainly make for simplicity. societies, like individuals, have their hours of cowardice, but also their heroic moments; and though the society of to-day cuts a very poor figure sunk in the pursuit of narrow personal interests and second-rate ideas, it wears a different air when great crises come. it has its moments of greatness and enthusiasm. men of generous nature will gain the power which to-day is in the hand of jobbers. self-devotion will spring up, and noble deeds beget their like; even the egotists will be ashamed of hanging back, and will be drawn in spite of themselves to admire, if not to imitate, the generous and brave. the great revolution of abounds in examples of this kind, and it is always during such times of spiritual revival--as natural to societies as to individuals--that the spring-tide of enthusiasm sweeps humanity onwards. we do not wish to exaggerate the part played by such noble passions, nor is it upon them that we would found our ideal of society. but we are not asking too much if we expect their aid in tiding over the first and most difficult moments. we cannot hope that our daily life will be continuously inspired by such exalted enthusiasms, but we may expect their aid at the first, and that is all we need. it is just to wash the earth clean, to sweep away the shards and refuse, accumulated by centuries of slavery and oppression, that the new anarchist society will have need of this wave of brotherly love. later on it can exist without appealing to the spirit of self-sacrifice, because it will have eliminated oppression, and thus created a new world instinct with all the feelings of solidarity. besides, should the character of the revolution be such as we have sketched here, the free initiative of individuals would find an extensive field of action in thwarting the efforts of the egotists. groups would spring up in every street and quarter to undertake the charge of the clothing. they would make inventories of all that the city possessed, and would find out approximately what were the resources at their disposal. it is more than likely that in the matter of clothing the citizens would adopt the same principle as in the matter of provisions--that is to say, they would offer freely from the common store everything which was to be found in abundance, and dole out whatever was limited in quantity. not being able to offer to each man a sable-lined coat and to every woman a velvet gown, society would probably distinguish between the superfluous and the necessary, and, provisionally at least class sable and velvet among the superfluities of life, ready to let time prove whether what is a luxury to-day may not become common to all to-morrow. while the necessary clothing would be guaranteed to each inhabitant of the anarchist city, it would be left to private activity to provide for the sick and feeble those things, provisionally considered as luxuries, and to procure for the less robust such special articles, as would not enter into the daily consumption of ordinary citizens. "but," it may be urged, "this means grey uniformity and the end of everything beautiful in life and art." "certainly not," we reply. and, still basing our reasonings on what already exists, we are going to show how an anarchist society could satisfy the most artistic tastes of its citizens without allowing them to amass the fortunes of millionaires. chapter viii ways and means i if a society, a city or a territory were to guarantee the necessaries of life to its inhabitants (and we shall see how the conception of the necessaries of life can be so extended as to include luxuries), it would be compelled to take possession of what is absolutely needed for production; that is to say--land, machinery, factories, means of transport, etc. capital in the hands of private owners would be expropriated, to be returned to the community. the great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling themselves to live without working, but that all production has taken a wrong direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well-being to all. there is the reason why it must be condemned. it is absolutely impossible that mercantile production should be carried on in the interest of all. to desire it would be to expect the capitalist to go beyond his province and to fulfil duties that he _cannot_ fulfil without ceasing to be what he is--a private manufacturer seeking his own enrichment. capitalist organization, based on the personal interest of each individual employer of labour, has given to society all that could be expected of it: it has increased the productive force of labour. the capitalist, profiting by the revolution effected in industry by steam, by the sudden development of chemistry and machinery, and by other inventions of our century, has worked in his own interest to increase the yield of human labour, and in a great measure he has succeeded so far. but to attribute other duties to him would be unreasonable. for example, to expect that he should use this superior yield of labour in the interest of society as a whole, would be to ask philanthropy and charity of him, and a capitalist enterprise cannot be based on charity. it now remains for society, first, to extend this greater productivity, which is limited to certain industries, and to apply it to the general good. but it is evident that to utilize this high productivity of labour, so as to guarantee well-being to all, society must itself take possession of all means of production. economists, as is their wont, will not fail to remind us of the comparative well-being of a certain category of young robust workmen, skilled in certain special branches of industry which has been obtained under the present system. it is always this minority that is pointed out to us with pride. but even this well-being, which is the exclusive right of a few, is it secure? to-morrow, maybe, negligence, improvidence, or the greed of their employers, will deprive these privileged men of their work, and they will pay for the period of comfort they have enjoyed with months and years of poverty or destitution. how many important industries--the textiles, iron, sugar, etc.--without mentioning all sorts of short-lived trades, have we not seen decline or come to a standstill on account of speculations, or in consequence of natural displacement of work, or from the effects of competition amongst the capitalists themselves! if the chief textile and mechanical industries had to pass through such a crisis as they have passed through in , we hardly need mention the small trades, all of which have their periods of standstill. what, too, shall we say to the price which is paid for the relative well-being of certain categories of workmen? unfortunately, it is paid for by the ruin of agriculture, the shameless exploitation of the peasants, the misery of the masses. in comparison with the feeble minority of workers who enjoy a certain comfort, how many millions of human beings live from hand to mouth, without a secure wage, ready to go wherever they are wanted; how many peasants work fourteen hours a day for a poor pittance! capital depopulates the country, exploits the colonies and the countries where industries are but little developed, dooms the immense majority of workmen to remain without technical education, to remain mediocre even in their own trade. this is not merely accidental, it is a _necessity_ of the capitalist system. in order well to remunerate certain classes of workmen, peasants _must_ become the beasts of burden of society; the country _must_ be deserted for the town; small trades must agglomerate in the foul suburbs of large cities, and manufacture a thousand little things for next to nothing, so as to bring the goods of the greater industries within reach of buyers with small salaries. that bad cloth may be sold to ill-paid workers, garments are made by tailors who are satisfied with a starvation wage! eastern lands in a backward state are exploited by the west, in order that, under the capitalist system, workers in a few privileged industries may obtain certain limited comforts of life. the evil of the present system is therefore not that the "surplus-value" of production goes to the capitalist, as rodbertus and marx said, thus narrowing the socialist conception and the general view of the capitalist system; the surplus-value itself is but a consequence of deeper causes. the evil lies _in the possibility of a surplus-value existing_, instead of a simple surplus not consumed by each generation; for, that a surplus-value should exist, means that men, women and children are compelled by hunger to sell their labour for a small part of what this labour produces, and still more so, of what their labour is capable of producing: but this evil will last as long as the instruments of production belong to the few. as long as men are compelled to pay a heavy tribute to property holders for the right of cultivating land or putting machinery into action, and the owners of the land and the machine are free to produce what bids fair to bring them in the largest profits--rather than the greatest amount of useful commodities--well-being can only be temporarily guaranteed to a very few; it is only to be bought by the poverty of a large section of society. it is not sufficient to distribute the profits realized by a trade in equal parts, if at the same time thousands of other workers are exploited. it is a case of producing the greatest amount of goods necessary to the well-being of all, with the least possible waste of human energy. this generalized aim cannot be the aim of a private owner; and this is why society as a whole, if it takes this view of production as its ideal, will be compelled to expropriate all that enhances well-being while producing wealth. it will have to take possession of land, factories, mines, means of communication, etc., and besides, it will have to study what products will promote general well-being, as well as the ways and means of an adequate production. ii how many hours a day will man have to work to produce nourishing food, a comfortable home, and necessary clothing for his family? this question has often preoccupied socialists, and they generally came to the conclusion that four or five hours a day would suffice, on condition, be it well understood, that all men work. at the end of last century, benjamin franklin fixed the limit at five hours; and if the need of comfort is greater now, the power of production has augmented too, and far more rapidly. in speaking of agriculture further on, we shall see what the earth can be made to yield to man when he cultivates it in a reasonable way, instead of throwing seed haphazard in a badly ploughed soil as he mostly does to-day. in the great farms of western america, some of which cover square miles, but have a poorer soil than the manured soil of civilized countries, only to english bushels per english acre are obtained; that is to say, half the yield of european farms or of american farms in the eastern states. and nevertheless, thanks to machines which enable men to plough english acres a day, men can produce in a year all that is necessary to deliver the bread of , people at their homes during a whole year. thus it would suffice for a man to work under the same conditions for _ hours, say half-days of five hours each, to have bread for a whole year_; and to work half-days to guarantee the same to a family of people. we shall also prove by results obtained nowadays, that if we took recourse to intensive agriculture, less than half-days' work could procure bread, meat, vegetables, and even luxurious fruit for a whole family. again, if we study the cost of workmen's dwellings, built in large towns to-day, we can ascertain that to obtain, in a large english city, a semi-detached little house, as they are built for workmen for £ , from to half-days' work of hours would be sufficient. and as a house of that kind lasts years at least, it follows that to half-days' work a year would provide well-furnished, healthy quarters, with all necessary comfort for a family. whereas when hiring the same apartment from an employer, a workman pays from to days' work per year. mark that these figures represent the maximum of what a house costs in england to-day, being given the defective organization of our societies. in belgium, workmen's houses in the _cités ouvrières_ have been built at a much smaller cost. so that, taking everything into consideration, we are justified in affirming that in a well-organized society or half-days' work a year will suffice to guarantee a perfectly comfortable home. there now remains clothing, the exact value of which is almost impossible to fix, because the profits realized by a swarm of middlemen cannot be estimated. let us take cloth, for example, and add up all the tribute levied on every yard of it by the landowners, the sheep owners, the wool merchants, and all their intermediate agents, then by the railway companies, mill-owners, weavers, dealers in ready-made clothes, sellers and commission agents, and we shall get then an idea of what we pay to a whole swarm of capitalists for each article of clothing. that is why it is perfectly impossible to say how many days' work an overcoat that you pay £ or £ for in a large london shop represents. what is certain is that with present machinery it is possible to manufacture an incredible amount of goods both cheaply and quickly. a few examples will suffice. thus in the united states, in cotton mills (for spinning and weaving), , men and women produce , , , yards of cotton goods, besides a great quantity of thread. on the average, more than , yards of cotton goods alone are obtained by a days' work of nine and one-half hours each, say yards of cotton in hours. admitting that a family needs yards a year at most, this would be equivalent to hours' work, say _ half-days of hours each_. and we should have thread besides; that is to say, cotton to sew with, and thread to weave cloth with, so as to manufacture woolen stuffs mixed with cotton. as to the results obtained by weaving alone, the official statistics of the united states teach us that in , if workmen worked or hours a day, they made , yards of white cotton goods in a year; sixteen years later ( ) they wove , yards by working only hours a week. even in printed cotton goods they obtained, weaving and printing included, , yards in hours of work a year--say about yards an hour. thus to have your yards of white and printed cotton goods _ hours' work a year_ would suffice. it is necessary to remark that raw material reaches these factories in about the same state as it comes from the fields, and that the transformations gone through by the piece before it is converted into goods are completed in the course of these hours. but to _buy_ these yards from the tradesman, a well-paid workman must give _at the very least_ to days' work of hours each, say to hours. and as to the english peasant, he would have to toil for a month, or a little more, to obtain this luxury. by this example we already see that by working _ half-days per year_ in a well-organized society we could dress better than the lower middle classes do to-day. but with all this we have only required half-days' work of hours each to obtain the fruits of the earth, for housing, and for clothing, which only makes half a year's work, as the year consists of working-days if we deduct holidays. there remain still half-days' work which could be made use of for other necessaries of life--wine, sugar, coffee, tea, furniture, transport, etc., etc. it is evident that these calculations are only approximative, but they can also be proved in another way. when we take into account how many, in the so-called civilized nations, produce nothing, how many work at harmful trades, doomed to disappear, and lastly, how many are only useless middlemen, we see that in each nation the number of real producers could be doubled. and if, instead of every men, were occupied in producing useful commodities, and if society took the trouble to economize human energy, those people would only have to work hours a day without production decreasing. and it would suffice to reduce the waste of human energy which is going on in the rich families with the scores of useless servants, or in the administrations which occupy one official to every ten or even six inhabitants, and to utilize those forces, to augment immensely the productivity of a nation. in fact, work could be reduced to four or even three hours a day, to produce all the goods that are produced now. after studying all these facts together, we may arrive, then, at the following conclusion: imagine a society, comprising a few million inhabitants, engaged in agriculture and a great variety of industries--paris, for example, with the department of seine-et-oise. suppose that in this society all children learn to work with their hands as well as with their brains. admit that all adults, save women, engaged in the education of their children, bind themselves to work _ hours a day_ from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they follow occupations they have chosen themselves in any one of those branches of human work which in this city are considered _necessary_. such a society could in return guarantee well-being to all its members, a well-being more substantial than that enjoyed to-day by the middle classes. and, moreover, each worker belonging to this society would have at his disposal at least hours a day which he could devote to science, art, and individual needs which do not come under the category of _necessities_, but will probably do so later on, when man's productivity will have augmented, and those objects will no longer appear luxurious or inaccessible. chapter ix the need for luxury i man is not a being whose exclusive purpose in life is eating, drinking, and providing a shelter for himself. as soon as his material wants are satisfied, other needs, which, generally speaking, may be described as of an artistic character, will thrust themselves forward. these needs are of the greatest variety; they vary with each and every individual; and the more society is civilized, the more will individuality be developed, and the more will desires be varied. even to-day we see men and women denying themselves necessaries to acquire mere trifles, to obtain some particular gratification, or some intellectual or material enjoyment. a christian or an ascetic may disapprove of these desires for luxury; but it is precisely these trifles that break the monotony of existence and make it agreeable. would life, with all its inevitable drudge and sorrows, be worth living, if, besides daily work, man could never obtain a single pleasure according to his individual tastes? if we wish for a social revolution, it is no doubt, first of all, to give bread to everyone; to transform this execrable society, in which we can every day see capable workmen dangling their arms for want of an employer who will exploit them; women and children wandering shelterless at night; whole families reduced to dry bread; men, women, and children dying for want of care and even for want of food. it is to put an end to these iniquities that we rebel. but we expect more from the revolution. we see that the worker, compelled to struggle painfully for bare existence, is reduced to ignore the higher delights, the highest within man's reach, of science, and especially of scientific discovery; of art, and especially of artistic creation. it is in order to obtain for all of us joys that are now reserved to a few; in order to give leisure and the possibility of developing everyone's intellectual capacities, that the social revolution must guarantee daily bread to all. after bread has been secured, leisure is the supreme aim. no doubt, nowadays, when hundreds and thousands of human beings are in need of bread, coal, clothing, and shelter, luxury is a crime; to satisfy it, the worker's child must go without bread! but in a society in which all have the necessary food and shelter, the needs which we consider luxuries to-day will be the more keenly felt. and as all men do not and cannot resemble one another (the variety of tastes and needs is the chief guarantee of human progress) there will always be, and it is desirable that there should always be, men and women whose desire will go beyond those of ordinary individuals in some particular direction. everybody does not need a telescope, because, even if learning were general, there are people who prefer to examine things through a microscope to studying the starry heavens. some like statues, some like pictures. a particular individual has no other ambition than to possess a good piano, while another is pleased with an accordion. the tastes vary, but the artistic needs exist in all. in our present, poor capitalistic society, the man who has artistic needs cannot satisfy them unless he is heir to a large fortune, or by dint of hard work appropriates to himself an intellectual capital which will enable him to take up a liberal profession. still he cherishes the _hope_ of some day satisfying his tastes more or less, and for this reason he reproaches the idealist communist societies with having the material life of each individual as their sole aim. "in your communal stores you may perhaps have bread for all," he says to us, "but you will not have beautiful pictures, optical instruments, luxurious furniture, artistic jewelry--in short, the many things that minister to the infinite variety of human tastes. and you suppress the possibility of obtaining anything besides the bread and meat which the commune can offer to all, and the drab linen in which all your lady citizens will be dressed." these are the objections which all communist systems have to consider, and which the founders of new societies, established in american deserts, never understood. they believed that if the community could procure sufficient cloth to dress all its members, a music-room in which the "brothers" could strum a piece of music, or act a play from time to time, it was enough. they forgot that the feeling for art existed in the agriculturist as well as in the burgher, and, notwithstanding that the expression of artistic feeling varies according to the difference in culture, in the main it remains the same. in vain did the community guarantee the common necessaries of life, in vain did it suppress all education that would tend to develop individuality, in vain did it eliminate all reading save the bible. individual tastes broke forth, and caused general discontent; quarrels arose when somebody proposed to buy a piano or scientific instruments; and the elements of progress flagged. the society could only exist on condition that it crushed all individual feeling, all artistic tendency, and all development. will the anarchist commune be impelled by the same direction?--evidently not, if it understands that while it produces all that is necessary to material life, it must also strive to satisfy all manifestations of the human mind. ii we frankly confess that when we think of the abyss of poverty and suffering that surrounds us, when we hear the heartrending cry of the worker walking the streets begging for work, we are loth to discuss the question: how will men act in a society, whose members are properly fed, to satisfy certain individuals desirous of possessing a piece of sèvres china or a velvet dress? we are tempted to answer: let us make sure of bread to begin with, we shall see to china and velvet later on. but as we must recognize that man has other needs besides food, and as the strength of anarchy lies precisely in that that it understands _all_ human faculties and _all_ passions, and ignores none, we shall, in a few words, explain how man can contrive to satisfy all his intellectual and artistic needs. we have already mentioned that by working or hours a day till the age of forty-five or fifty, man could easily produce _all_ that is necessary to guarantee comfort to society. but the day's work of a man accustomed to toil does not consist of hours; it is a hours' day for days a year, and lasts all his life. of course, when a man is harnessed to a machine, his health is soon undermined and his intelligence is blunted; but when man has the possibility of varying occupations, and especially of alternating manual with intellectual work, he can remain occupied without fatigue, and even with pleasure, for or hours a day. consequently, the man who will have done the or hours of manual work that are necessary for his existence, will have before him or hours which he will seek to employ according to his tastes. and these or hours a day will fully enable him to procure for himself, if he associates with others, all he wishes for, in addition to the necessaries guaranteed to all. he will discharge first his task in the field, the factory, and so on, which he owes to society as his contribution to the general production. and he will employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year, to satisfy his artistic or scientific needs, or his hobbies. thousands of societies will spring up to gratify every taste and every possible fancy. some, for example, will give their hours of leisure to literature. they will then form groups comprising authors, compositors, printers, engravers, draughtsmen, all pursuing a common aim--the propagation of ideas that are dear to them. nowadays an author knows that there is a beast of burden, the worker, to whom, for the sum of a few shillings a day, he can entrust the printing of his books; but he hardly cares to know what a printing office is like. if the compositor suffers from lead-poisoning, and if the child who sees to the machine dies of anæmia, are there not other poor wretches to replace them? but when there will be no more starvelings ready to sell their work for a pittance, when the exploited worker of to-day will be educated, and will have his _own_ ideas to put down in black and white and to communicate to others, then the authors and scientific men will be compelled to combine among themselves and with the printers, in order to bring out their prose and their poetry. so long as men consider fustian and manual labour a mark of inferiority, it will appear amazing to them to see an author setting up his own book in type, for has he not a gymnasium or games by way of diversion? but when the opprobrium connected with manual labor has disappeared, when all will have to work with their hands, there being no one to do it for them, then the authors as well as their admirers will soon learn the art of handling composing-sticks and type; they will know the pleasure of coming together--all admirers of the work to be printed--to set up the type, to shape it into pages, to take it in its virginal purity from the press. these beautiful machines, instruments of torture to the child who attends on them from morn till night, will be a source of enjoyment for those who will make use of them in order to give voice to the thoughts of their favourite author. will literature lose by it? will the poet be less a poet after having worked out of doors or helped with his hands to multiply his work? will the novelist lose his knowledge of human nature after having rubbed shoulders with other men in the forest or the factory, in the laying out of a road or on a railway line? can there be two answers to these questions? maybe some books will be less voluminous; but then, more will be said on fewer pages. maybe fewer waste-sheets will be published; but the matter printed will be more attentively read and more appreciated. the book will appeal to a larger circle of better educated readers, who will be more competent to judge. moreover, the art of printing, that has so little progressed since gutenberg, is still in its infancy. it takes two hours to compose in type what is written in ten minutes, but more expeditious methods of multiplying thought are being sought after and will be discovered.[ ] what a pity every author does not have to take his share in the printing of his works! what progress printing would have already made! we should no longer be using movable letters, as in the seventeenth century. iii is it a dream to conceive a society in which--all having become producers, all having received an education that enables them to cultivate science or art, and all having leisure to do so--men would combine to publish the works of their choice, by contributing each his share of manual work? we have already hundreds of learned, literary, and other societies; and these societies are nothing but voluntary groups of men, interested in certain branches of learning, and associated for the purpose of publishing their works. the authors who write for the periodicals of these societies are not paid, and the periodicals, apart from a limited number of copies, are not for sale; they are sent gratis to all quarters of the globe, to other societies, cultivating the same branches of learning. this member of the society may insert in its review a one-page note summarizing his observations; another may publish therein an extensive work, the results of long years of study; while others will confine themselves to consulting the review as a starting-point for further research. it does not matter: all these authors and readers are associated for the production of works in which all of them take an interest. it is true that a learned society, like the individual author, goes to a printing office where workmen are engaged to do the printing. nowadays, those who belong to the learned societies despise manual labour which indeed is carried on under very bad conditions; but a community which would give a generous philosophic and _scientific_ education to all its members, would know how to organize manual labour in such a way that it would be the pride of humanity. its learned societies would become associations of explorers, lovers of science, and workers--all knowing a manual trade and all interested in science. if, for example, the society is studying geology, all will contribute to the exploration of the earth's strata; each member will take his share in research, and ten thousand observers, where we have now only a hundred, will do more in a year than we can do in twenty years. and when their works are to be published, ten thousand men and women, skilled in different trades, will be ready to draw maps, engrave designs, compose, and print the books. with gladness will they give their leisure--in summer to exploration, in winter to indoor work. and when their works appear, they will find not only a hundred, but ten thousand readers interested in their common work. this is the direction in which progress is already moving. even to-day, when england felt the need of a complete dictionary of the english language, the birth of a littré, who would devote his life to this work, was not waited for. volunteers were appealed to, and a thousand men offered their services, spontaneously and gratuitously, to ransack the libraries, to take notes, and to accomplish in a few years a work which one man could not complete in his lifetime. in all branches of human intelligence the same spirit is breaking forth, and we should have a very limited knowledge of humanity could we not guess that the future is announcing itself in such tentative co-operation, which is gradually taking the place of individual work. for this dictionary to be a really collective work, it would have been necessary that many volunteer authors, printers, and printers' readers should have worked in common; but something in this direction is done already in the socialist press, which offers us examples of manual and intellectual work combined. it happens in our newspapers that a socialist author composes in lead his own article. true, such attempts are rare, but they indicate in which direction evolution is going. they show the road of liberty. in future, when a man will have something useful to say--a word that goes beyond the thoughts of his century, he will not have to look for an editor who might advance the necessary capital. he will look for collaborators among those who know the printing trade, and who approve the idea of his new work. together they will publish the new book or journal. literature and journalism will cease to be a means of money-making and living at the cost of others. but is there any one who knows literature and journalism from within, and who does not ardently desire that literature should at last be able to free itself from those who formerly protected it, and who now exploit it, and from the multitude, which, with rare exceptions, pays for it in proportion to its mediocrity, or to the ease with which it adapts itself to the bad taste of the greater number? letters and science will only take their proper place in the work of human development when, freed from all mercenary bondage, they will be exclusively cultivated by those who love them, and for those who love them. iv literature, science, and art must be cultivated by free men. only on this condition will they succeed in emancipating themselves from the yoke of the state, of capital, and of the bourgeois mediocrity which stifles them. what means has the scientist of to-day to make researches that interest him? should he ask help of the state, which can only be given to one candidate in a hundred, and which only he may obtain who promises ostensibly to keep to the beaten track? let us remember how the academy of sciences of france repudiated darwin, how the academy of st. petersburg treated mendeléeff with contempt, and how the royal society of london refused to publish joule's paper, in which he determined the mechanical equivalent of heat, finding it "unscientific."[ ] it was why all great researches, all discoveries revolutionizing science, have been made outside academies and universities, either by men rich enough to remain independent, like darwin and lyell, or by men who undermined their health by working in poverty, and often in great straits, losing endless time for want of a laboratory, and unable to procure the instruments or books necessary to continue their researches, but persevering against hope, and often dying before they had reached the end in view. their name is legion. altogether, the system of help granted by the state is so bad that science has always endeavoured to emancipate itself from it. for this very reason there are thousands of learned societies organized and maintained by volunteers in europe and america,--some having developed to such a degree that all the resources of subventioned societies, and all the wealth of millionaires, would not buy their treasures. no governmental institution is as rich as the zoological society of london, which is supported by voluntary contributions. it does not buy the animals which in thousands people its gardens: they are sent by other societies and by collectors of the entire world. the zoological society of bombay will send an elephant as a gift; another time a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros is offered by egyptian naturalists. and these magnificent presents are pouring in every day, arriving from all quarters of the globe--birds, reptiles, collections of insects, etc. such consignments often comprise animals that could not be bought for all the gold in the world; thus a traveller who has captured an animal at life's peril, and now loves it as he would love a child, will give it to the society because he is sure it will be cared for. the entrance fee paid by visitors, and they are numberless, suffices for the maintenance of that immense institution. what is defective in the zoological society of london, and in other kindred societies, is that the member's fee cannot be paid in work; that the keepers and numerous employes of this large institution are not recognized as members of the society, while many have no other incentive to joining the society than to put the cabalistic letters f.z.s (fellow of the zoological society) on their cards. in a word, what is needed is a more perfect co-operation. we may say the same about inventors, that we have said of scientists. who does not know what sufferings nearly all great inventions have cost? sleepless nights, families deprived of bread, want of tools and materials for experiments, this is the history of nearly all those who have enriched industry with inventions which are the truly legitimate pride of our civilization. but what are we to do to alter the conditions that everybody is convinced are bad? patents have been tried, and we know with what results. the inventor sells his patent for a few pounds, and the man who has only lent the capital pockets the enormous profits often resulting from the invention. besides, patents isolate the inventor. they compel him to keep secret his researches which therefore end in failure; whereas the simplest suggestion, coming from a brain less absorbed in the fundamental idea, sometimes suffices to fertilize the invention and make it practical. like all state control, patents hamper the progress of industry. thought being incapable of being patented, patents are a crying injustice in theory, and in practice they result in one of the great obstacles to the rapid development of invention. what is needed to promote the spirit of invention is, first of all, the awakening of thought, the boldness of conception, which our entire education causes to languish; it is the spreading of a scientific education, which would increase the number of inquirers a hundredfold; it is faith that humanity is going to take a step forward, because it is enthusiasm, the hope of doing good, that has inspired all the great inventors. the social revolution alone can give this impulse to thought, this boldness, this knowledge, this conviction of working for all. then we shall have vast institutes supplied with motor-power and tools of all sorts, immense industrial laboratories open to all inquirers, where men will be able to work out their dreams, after having acquitted themselves of their duty towards society; machinery palaces where they will spend their five or six hours of leisure; where they will make their experiments; where they will find other comrades, experts in other branches of industry, likewise coming to study some difficult problem, and therefore able to help and enlighten each other,--the encounter of their ideas and experience causing the longed-for solution to be found. and yet again, this is no dream. solanóy gorodók, in petersburg, has already partially realized it as regards technical matters. it is a factory well furnished with tools and free to all; tools and motor-power are supplied gratis, only metals and wood are charged for at cost price. unfortunately workmen only go there at night when worn out by ten hours' labour in the workshop. moreover, they carefully hide their inventions from each other, as they are hampered by patents and capitalism--that bane of present society, that stumbling-block in the path of intellectual and moral progress. v and what about art? from all sides we hear lamentations about the decadence of art. we are, indeed, far behind the great masters of the renaissance. the technicalities of art have recently made great progress; thousands of people gifted with a certain amount of talent cultivate every branch, but art seems to fly from civilization! technicalities make headway, but inspiration frequents artists' studios less than ever. where, indeed, should it come from? only a grand idea can inspire art. _art_ is in our ideal synonymous with creation, it must look ahead; but save a few rare, very rare exceptions, the professional artist remains too philistine to perceive new horizons. moreover, this inspiration cannot come from books; it must be drawn from life, and present society cannot arouse it. raphael and murillo painted at a time when the search of a new ideal could be pursued while retaining the old religious traditions. they painted to decorate churches which themselves represented the pious work of several generations of a given city. the basilic with its mysterious aspect, its grandeur, was connected with the life itself of the city, and could inspire a painter. he worked for a popular monument; he spoke to his fellow-citizens, and in return he received inspiration; he appealed to the multitude in the same way as did the nave, the pillars, the stained windows, the statues, and the carved doors. nowadays the greatest honour a painter can aspire to is to see his canvas, framed in gilded wood, hung in a museum, a sort of old curiosity shop, where you see, as in the prado, murillo's ascension next to a beggar of velasquez and the dogs of philip ii. poor velasquez and poor murillo! poor greek statues which _lived_ in the acropolis of their cities, and are now stifled beneath the red cloth hangings of the louvre! when a greek sculptor chiseled his marble he endeavored to express the spirit and heart of the city. all its passions, all its traditions of glory, were to live again in the work. but to-day the _united_ city has ceased to exist; there is no more communion of ideas. the town is a chance agglomeration of people who do not know one another, who have no common interest, save that of enriching themselves at the expense of one another. the fatherland does not exist.... what fatherland can the international banker and the rag-picker have in common? only when cities, territories, nations, or groups of nations, will have renewed their harmonious life, will art be able to draw its inspiration from _ideals held in common_. then will the architect conceive the city's monument which will no longer be a temple, a prison, or a fortress; then will the painter, the sculptor, the carver, the ornament-worker know where to put their canvases, their statues, and their decoration; deriving their power of execution from the same vital source, and gloriously marching all together towards the future. but till then art can only vegetate. the best canvases of modern artists are those that represent nature, villages, valleys, the sea with its dangers, the mountain with its splendours. but how can the painter express the poetry of work in the fields if he has only contemplated it, imagined it, if he has never delighted in it himself? if he only knows it as a bird of passage knows the country he soars over in his migrations? if, in the vigour of early youth, he has not followed the plough at dawn, and enjoyed mowing grass with a large sweep of the scythe next to hardy haymakers vying in energy with lively young girls who fill the air with their songs? the love of the soil and of what grows on it is not acquired by sketching with a paint-brush--it is only in its service; and without loving it, how paint it? this is why all that the best painters have produced in this direction is still so imperfect, not true to life, nearly always merely sentimental. there is no _strength_ in it. you must have seen a sunset when returning from work. you must have been a peasant among peasants to keep the splendour of it in your eye. you must have been at sea with fishermen at all hours of the day and night, have fished yourself, struggled with the waves, faced the storm, and after rough work experienced the joy of hauling a heavy net, or the disappointment of seeing it empty, to understand the poetry of fishing. you must have spent time in a factory, known the fatigues and the joys of creative work, forged metals by the vivid light of a blast furnace, have felt the life in a machine, to understand the power of man and to express it in a work of art. you must, in fact, be permeated with popular feelings, to describe them. besides, the works of future artists who will have lived the life of the people, like the great artists of the past, will not be destined for sale. they will be an integral part of a living whole that would not be complete without them, any more than they would be complete without it. men will go to the artist's own city to gaze at his work, and the spirited and serene beauty of such creations will produce its beneficial effect on heart and mind. art, in order to develop, must be bound up with industry by a thousand intermediate degrees, blended, so to say, as ruskin and the great socialist poet morris have proved so often and so well. everything that surrounds man, in the street, in the interior and exterior of public monuments, must be of a pure artistic form. but this can only be realized in a society in which all enjoy comfort and leisure. then only shall we see art associations, of which each member will find room for his capacity; for art cannot dispense with an infinity of purely manual and technical supplementary works. these artistic associations will undertake to embellish the houses of their members, as those kind volunteers, the young painters of edinburgh, did in decorating the walls and ceilings of the great hospital for the poor in their city. a painter or sculptor who has produced a work of personal feeling will offer it to the woman he loves, or to a friend. executed for love's sake,--will his work, inspired by love, be inferior to the art that to-day satisfies the vanity of the philistine, because it has cost much money? the same will be done as regards all pleasures not comprised in the necessaries of life. he who wishes for a grand piano will enter the association of musical instrument makers. and by giving the association part of his half-days' leisure, he will soon possess the piano of his dreams. if he is fond of astronomical studies he will join the association of astronomers, with its philosophers, its observers, its calculators, with its artists in astronomical instruments, its scientists and amateurs, and he will have the telescope he desires by taking his share of the associated work, for it is especially the rough work that is needed in an astronomical observatory--bricklayer's, carpenter's, founder's, mechanic's work, the last touch being given to the instrument of precision by the artist. in short, the five or seven hours a day which each will have at his disposal, after having consecrated several hours to the production of necessities, would amply suffice to satisfy all longings for luxury, however varied. thousands of associations would undertake to supply them. what is now the privilege of an insignificant minority would be accessible to all. luxury, ceasing to be a foolish and ostentatious display of the bourgeois class, would become an artistic pleasure. everyone would be the happier for it. in collective work, performed with a light heart to attain a desired end, a book, a work of art, or an object of luxury, each will find an incentive and the necessary relaxation that makes life pleasant. in working to put an end to the division between master and slave, we work for the happiness of both, for the happiness of humanity. footnotes: [ ] they _have_ already been discovered since the above lines were written. [ ] we know this from playfair, who mentioned it at joule's death. chapter x agreeable work i when socialists maintain that a society, freed from the rule of the capitalists, would make work agreeable, and would suppress all repugnant and unhealthy drudgery, they are laughed at. and yet even to-day we can see the striking progress that is being made in this direction; and wherever this progress has been achieved, employers congratulate themselves on the economy of energy obtained thereby. it is evident that a factory could be made as healthy and pleasant as a scientific laboratory. and it is no less evident that it would be advantageous to make it so. in a spacious and well-ventilated factory the work is better; it is easy to introduce many small ameliorations, of which each represents an economy of time or of manual labour. and if most of the workshops we know are foul and unhealthy, it is because the workers are of no account in the organization of factories, and because the most absurd waste of human energy is the distinctive feature of the present industrial organization. nevertheless, now and again, we already find, even now, some factories so well managed that it would be a real pleasure to work in them, if the work, be it well understood, were not to last more than four or five hours a day, and if every one had the possibility of varying it according to his tastes. there are immense works, which i know, in one of the midland counties, unfortunately consecrated to engines of war. they are perfect as regards sanitary and intelligent organization. they occupy fifty english acres of land, fifteen of which are roofed with glass. the pavement of fire-proof bricks is as clean as that of a miner's cottage, and the glass roof is carefully cleaned by a gang of workmen who do nothing else. in these works are forged steel ingots or blooms weighing as much as twenty tons; and when you stand thirty feet from the immense furnace, whose flames have a temperature of more than a thousand degrees, you do not guess its presence save when its great doors open to let out a steel monster. and the monster is handled by only three or four workmen, who now here, now there, open a tap causing immense cranes to move one way or another by the pressure of water. you enter these works expecting to hear the deafening noise of stampers, and you find that there are no stampers. the immense hundred-ton guns and the crank-shafts of transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic pressure, and the worker has but to turn a tap to give shape to the immense mass of steel, which makes a far more homogeneous metal, without crack or flaw, of the blooms, whatever be their thickness. i expected an infernal grating, and i saw machines which cut blocks of steel thirty feet long with no more noise than is needed to cut cheese. and when i expressed my admiration to the engineer who showed us round, he answered-- "a mere question of economy! this machine, that planes steel, has been in use for forty-two years. it would not have lasted ten years if its parts, badly adjusted, 'interfered' and creaked at each movement of the plane! "and the blast-furnaces? it would be a waste to let heat escape instead of utilizing it. why roast the founders, when heat lost by radiation represents tons of coal? "the stampers that made buildings shake five leagues off were also waste. is it not better to forge by pressure than by impact, and it costs less--there is less loss. "in these works, light, cleanliness, the space allotted to each bench, are but a simple question of economy. work is better done when you can see what you do, and have elbow-room. "it is true," he said, "we were very cramped before coming here. land is so expensive in the vicinity of large towns--landlords are so grasping!" it is even so in mines. we know what mines are like nowadays from zola's descriptions and from newspaper reports. but the mine of the future will be well ventilated, with a temperature as easily regulated as that of a library; there will be no horses doomed to die below the earth: underground traction will be carried on by means of an automatic cable put into motion at the pit's mouth. ventilators will be always working, and there will never be explosions. this is no dream, such a mine is already to be seen in england; i went down it. here again the excellent organization is simply a question of economy. the mine of which i speak, in spite of its immense depth ( yards), has an output of a thousand tons of coal a day, with only two hundred miners--five tons a day per each worker, whereas the average for the two thousand pits in england at the time i visited this mine in the early 'nineties, was hardly three hundred tons a year per man. if necessary, it would be easy to multiply examples proving that as regards the material organization fourier's dream was not a utopia. this question has, however, been so frequently discussed in socialist newspapers that public opinion should already be educated on this point. factory, forge and mine _can_ be as healthy and magnificent as the finest laboratories in modern universities, and the better the organization the more will man's labour produce. if it be so, can we doubt that work will become a pleasure and a relaxation in a society of equals, in which "hands" will not be compelled to sell themselves to toil, and to accept work under any conditions? repugnant tasks will disappear, because it is evident that these unhealthy conditions are harmful to society as a whole. slaves can submit to them, but free men will create new conditions, and their work will be pleasant and infinitely more productive. the exceptions of to-day will be the rule of to-morrow. the same will come to pass as regards domestic work, which to-day society lays on the shoulders of that drudge of humanity--woman. ii a society regenerated by the revolution will make domestic slavery disappear--this last form of slavery, perhaps the most tenacious, because it is also the most ancient. only it will not come about in the way dreamt of by phalansterians, nor in the manner often imagined by authoritarian communists. phalansteries are repugnant to millions of human beings. the most reserved man certainly feels the necessity of meeting his fellows for the purpose of common work, which becomes the more attractive the more he feels himself a part of an immense whole. but it is not so for the hours of leisure, reserved for rest and intimacy. the phalanstery and the familystery do not take this into account, or else they endeavour to supply this need by artificial groupings. a phalanstery, which is in fact nothing but an immense hotel, can please some, and even all at a certain period of their life, but the great mass prefers family life (family life of the future, be it understood). they prefer isolated apartments, anglo-saxons even going as far as to prefer houses of from six to eight rooms, in which the family, or an agglomeration of friends, can live apart. sometimes a phalanstery is a necessity, but it would be hateful, were it the general rule. isolation, alternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human nature. this is why one of the greatest tortures in prison is the impossibility of isolation, much as solitary confinement becomes torture in its turn, when not alternated with hours of social life. as to considerations of economy, which are sometimes laid stress on in favour of phalansteries, they are those of a petty tradesman. the most important economy, the only reasonable one, is to make life pleasant for all, because the man who is satisfied with his life produces infinitely more than the man who curses his surroundings.[ ] other socialists reject the phalanstery. but when you ask them how domestic work can be organized, they answer: "each can do 'his own work.' my wife manages the house; the wives of bourgeois will do as much." and if it is a bourgeois playing at socialism who speaks, he will add, with a gracious smile to his wife: "is it not true, darling, that you would do without a servant in the socialist society? you would work like the wife of our good comrade paul or the wife of john the carpenter?" servant or wife, man always reckons on woman to do the house-work. but woman, too, at last claims her share in the emancipation of humanity. she no longer wants to be the beast of burden of the house. she considers it sufficient work to give many years of her life to the rearing of her children. she no longer wants to be the cook, the mender, the sweeper of the house! and, owing to american women taking the lead in obtaining their claims, there is a general complaint of the dearth of women who will condescend to domestic work in the united states. my lady prefers art, politics, literature, or the gaming tables; as to the work-girls, they are few, those who consent to submit to apron-slavery, and servants are only found with difficulty in the states. consequently, the solution, a very simple one, is pointed out by life itself. machinery undertakes three-quarters of the household cares. you black your boots, and you know how ridiculous this work is. what can be more stupid than rubbing a boot twenty or thirty times with a brush? a tenth of the european population must be compelled to sell itself in exchange for a miserable shelter and insufficient food, and woman must consider herself a slave, in order that millions of her sex should go through this performance every morning. but hairdressers have already machines for brushing glossy or woolly heads of hair. why should we not apply, then, the same principle to the other extremity? so it has been done, and nowadays the machine for blacking boots is in general use in big american and european hotels. its use is spreading outside hotels. in large english schools, where the pupils are boarding in the houses of the teachers, it has been found easier to have one single establishment which undertakes to brush a thousand pairs of boots every morning. as to washing up! where can we find a housewife who has not a horror of this long and dirty work, that is usually done by hand, solely because the work of the domestic slave is of no account. in america they do better. there are already a number of cities in which hot water is conveyed to the houses as cold water is in europe. under these conditions the problem was a simple one, and a woman--mrs. cochrane--solved it. her machine washes twelve dozen plates or dishes, wipes them and dries them, in less than three minutes. a factory in illinois manufactures these machines and sells them at a price within reach of the average middle-class purse. and why should not small households send their crockery to an establishment as well as their boots? it is even probable that the two functions, brushing and washing up, will be undertaken by the same association. cleaning, rubbing the skin off your hands when washing and wringing linen; sweeping floors and brushing carpets, thereby raising clouds of dust which afterwards occasion much trouble to dislodge from the places where they have settled down, all this work is still done because woman remains a slave, but it tends to disappear as it can be infinitely better done by machinery. machines of all kinds will be introduced into households, and the distribution of motor-power in private houses will enable people to work them without muscular effort. such machines cost little to manufacture. if we still pay very much for them, it is because they are not in general use, and chiefly because an exorbitant tax is levied upon every machine by the gentlemen who wish to live in grand style and who have speculated on land, raw material, manufacture, sale, patents, and duties. but emancipation from domestic toil will not be brought about by small machines only. households are emerging from their present state of isolation; they begin to associate with other households to do in common what they did separately. in fact, in the future we shall not have a brushing machine, a machine for washing up plates, a third for washing linen, and so on, in each house. to the future, on the contrary, belongs the common heating apparatus that sends heat into each room of a whole district and spares the lighting of fires. it is already so in a few american cities. a great central furnace supplies all houses and all rooms with hot water, which circulates in pipes; and to regulate the temperature you need only turn a tap. and should you care to have a blazing fire in any particular room you can light the gas specially supplied for heating purposes from a central reservoir. all the immense work of cleaning chimneys and keeping up fires--and woman knows what time it takes--is disappearing. candles, lamps, and even gas have had their day. there are entire cities in which it is sufficient to press a button for light to burst forth, and, indeed, it is a simple question of economy and of knowledge to give yourself the luxury of electric light. and lastly, also in america, they speak of forming societies for the almost complete suppression of household work. it would only be necessary to create a department for every block of houses. a cart would come to each door and take the boots to be blacked, the crockery to be washed up, the linen to be washed, the small things to be mended (if it were worth while), the carpets to be brushed, and the next morning would bring back the things entrusted to it, all well cleaned. a few hours later your hot coffee and your eggs done to a nicety would appear on your table. it is a fact that between twelve and two o'clock there are more than twenty million americans and as many englishmen who eat roast beef or mutton, boiled pork, potatoes and a seasonable vegetable. and at the lowest figure eight million fires burn during two or three hours to roast this meat and cook these vegetables; eight million women spend their time preparing a meal which, taking all households, represents at most a dozen different dishes. "fifty fires burn," wrote an american woman the other day, "where one would suffice!" dine at home, at your own table, with your children, if you like; but only think yourself, why should these fifty women waste their whole morning to prepare a few cups of coffee and a simple meal! why fifty fires, when two people and one single fire would suffice to cook all these pieces of meat and all these vegetables? choose your own beef or mutton to be roasted if you are particular. season the vegetables to your taste if you prefer a particular sauce! but have a single kitchen with a single fire and organize it as beautifully as you are able to. why has woman's work never been of any account? why in every family are the mother and three or four servants obliged to spend so much time at what pertains to cooking? because those who want to emancipate mankind have not included woman in their dream of emancipation, and consider it beneath their superior masculine dignity to think "of those kitchen arrangements," which they have put on the shoulders of that drudge--woman. to emancipate woman, is not only to open the gates of the university, the law courts, or the parliaments to her, for the "emancipated" woman will always throw her domestic toil on to another woman. to emancipate woman is to free her from the brutalizing toil of kitchen and washhouse; it is to organize your household in such a way as to enable her to rear her children, if she be so minded, while still retaining sufficient leisure to take her share of social life. it will come. as we have said, things are already improving. only let us fully understand that a revolution, intoxicated with the beautiful words, liberty, equality, solidarity, would not be a revolution if it maintained slavery at home. half humanity subjected to the slavery of the hearth would still have to rebel against the other half. footnote: [ ] it seems that the communists of young icaria had understood the importance of a free choice in their daily relations apart from work. the ideal of religious communists has always been to have meals in common; it is by meals in common that early christians manifested their adhesion to christianity. communion is still a vestige of it. young icarians had given up this religious tradition. they dined in a common dining room, but at small separate tables, at which they sat according to the attractions of the moment. the communists of anama have each their house and dine at home, while taking their provisions at will at the communal stores. chapter xi free agreement i accustomed as we are by heredity prejudices and our unsound education and training to represent ourselves the beneficial hand of government, legislation and magistracy everywhere, we have come to believe that man would tear his fellow-man to pieces like a wild beast the day the police took his eye off him; that absolute chaos would come about if authority were overthrown during a revolution. and with our eyes shut we pass by thousands and thousands of human groupings which form themselves freely, without any intervention of the law, and attain results infinitely superior to those achieved under governmental tutelage. if you open a daily paper you find that its pages are entirely devoted to government transactions and to political jobbery. a man from another world, reading it, would believe that, with the exception of the stock exchange transactions, nothing gets done in europe save by order of some master. you find nothing in the paper about institutions that spring up, grow up, and develop without ministerial prescription! nothing--or almost nothing! even where there is a heading, "sundry events" (_faits divers_, a favorite column in the french papers), it is because they are connected with the police. a family drama, an act of rebellion, will only be mentioned if the police have appeared on the scene. three hundred and fifty million europeans love or hate one another, work, or live on their incomes; but, apart from literature, theatre, or sport, their lives remain ignored by newspapers if governments have not intervened in it in some way or other. it is even so with history. we know the least details of the life of a king or of a parliament; all good and bad speeches pronounced by the politicians have been preserved: "speeches that have never had the least influence on the vote of a single member," as an old parliamentarian said. royal visits, the good or bad humour of politicians, their jokes and intrigues, are all carefully recorded for posterity. but we have the greatest difficulty to reconstitute a city of the middle ages, to understand the mechanism of that immense commerce that was carried on between hanseatic cities, or to know how the city of rouen built its cathedral. if a scholar spends his life in studying these questions, his works remain unknown, and parliamentary histories--that is to say, the defective ones, as they only treat of one side of social life--multiply; they are circulated, they are taught in schools. in this way we do not even perceive the prodigious work, accomplished every day by spontaneous groups of men, which constitutes the chief work of our century. we therefore propose to point out some of these most striking manifestations, and to show how men, as soon as their interests do not absolutely clash, act in concert, harmoniously, and perform collective work of a very complex nature. it is evident that in present society, based on individual property--that is to say, on plunder, and on a narrow-minded, and therefore foolish individualism--facts of this kind are necessarily limited; agreements are not always perfectly free, and often they have a mean, if not execrable aim. but what concerns us is not to give examples which might be blindly followed, and which, moreover, present society could not possibly give us. what we have to do is to show that, in spite of the authoritarian individualism which stifles us, there remains in our life, taken as a whole, a very great part in which we only act by free agreement; and that therefore it would be much easier than is usually thought, to dispense with government. in support of our view we have already mentioned railways, and we will now return to them. we know that europe has a system of railways, over , miles long, and that on this network you can nowadays travel from north to south, from east to west, from madrid to petersburg, and from calais to constantinople, without delays, without even changing carriages (when you travel by express). more than that: a parcel deposited at a station will find its addressee anywhere, in turkey or in central asia, without more formality needed for sending it than writing its destination on a bit of paper. this result might have been obtained in two ways. a napoleon, a bismarck, or some potentate having conquered europe, would from paris, berlin, or rome, draw a railway map and regulate the hours of the trains. the russian tsar nicholas i. dreamt of such a power. when he was shown rough drafts of railways between moscow and petersburg, he seized a ruler and drew on the map of russia a straight line between these two capitals, saying, "here is the plan." and the road was built in a straight line, filling in deep ravines, building bridges of a giddy height, which had to be abandoned a few years later, after the railway had cost about £ , to £ , per english mile. this is one way, but happily things were managed differently. railways were constructed piece by piece, the pieces were joined together, and the hundred different companies, to whom these pieces belonged, gradually came to an understanding concerning the arrival and departure of their trains, and the running of carriages on their rails, from all countries, without unloading merchandise as it passes from one network to another. all this was done by free agreement, by exchange of letters and proposals, and by congresses at which delegates met to discuss well specified special points, and to come to an agreement about them, but not to make laws. after the congress was over, the delegates returned to their respective companies, not with a law, but with the draft of a contract to be accepted or rejected. of course difficulties were met in the way. there were obstinate men who would not be convinced. but a common interest compelled them to agree in the end, without invoking the help of armies against the refractory members. this immense network of railways connected together, and the enormous traffic it has given rise to, no doubt constitutes the most striking trait of the nineteenth century; and it is the result of free agreement. if somebody had foretold it eighty years ago, our grandfathers would have thought him idiotic or mad. they would have said: "never will you be able to make the shareholders of a hundred companies listen to reason! it is a utopia, a fairy tale. a central government, with an 'iron' dictator, can alone enforce it." and the most interesting thing in this organization is, that there is no european central government of railways! nothing! no minister of railways, no dictator, not even a continental parliament, not even a directing committee! everything is done by free agreement. so we ask the believers in the state, who pretend that "we can never do without a central government, were it only for regulating the traffic," we ask them: "but how do european railways manage without them? how do they continue to convey millions of travellers and mountains of luggage across a continent? if companies owning railways have been able to agree, why should railway workers, who would take possession of railways, not agree likewise? and if the petersburg-warsaw company and that of paris-belfort can act in harmony, without giving themselves the luxury of a common commander, why, in the midst of our societies, consisting of groups of free workers, should we need a government?" ii when we endeavour to prove by examples that even to-day, in spite of the iniquitous organization of society as a whole, men, provided their interests be not diametrically opposed, agree without the intervention of authority, we do not ignore the objections that will be put forth. all such examples have their defective side, because it is impossible to quote a single organization exempt from the exploitation of the weak by the strong, the poor by the rich. this is why the statists will not fail to tell us with their wonted logic: "you see that the intervention of the state is necessary to put an end to this exploitation!" only they forget the lessons of history; they do not tell us to what extent the state itself has contributed towards the existing order by creating proletarians and delivering them up to exploiters. they forget to prove us that it is possible to put an end to exploitation while the primal causes--private capital and poverty, two-thirds of which are artificially created by the state--continue to exist. when we speak of the accord established among the railway companies, we expect them, the worshippers of the bourgeois state, to say to us: "do you not see how the railway companies oppress and ill-use their employees and the travellers! the only way is, that the state should intervene to protect the workers and the public!" but have we not said and repeated over and over again, that as long as there are capitalists, these abuses of power will be perpetuated? it is precisely the state, the would-be benefactor, that has given to the companies that monopoly and those rights upon us which they possess to-day. has it not created concessions, guarantees? has it not sent its soldiers against railwaymen on strike? and during the first trials (quite lately we saw it still in russia), has it not extended the privilege of the railway magnates as far as to forbid the press to mention railway accidents, so as not to depreciate the shares it guaranteed? has it not favoured the monopoly which has anointed the vanderbilts and the polyakoffs, the directors of the p.l.m., the c.p.r., the st. gothard, "the kings of our days"? therefore, if we give as an example the tacit agreement come to between railway companies, it is by no means as an ideal of economical management, nor even an ideal of technical organization. it is to show that if capitalists, without any other aim than that of augmenting their dividends at other people's expense, can exploit railways successfully without establishing an international department,--societies of working men will be able to do it just as well, and even better, without nominating a ministry of european railways. another objection is raised that is more serious at first sight. we may be told that the agreement we speak of is not perfectly _free_, that the large companies lay down the law to the small ones. it might be mentioned, for example, that a certain rich german company, supported by the state, compel travellers who go from berlin to bâle to pass via cologne and frankfort, instead of taking the leipzig route; or that such a company carries goods a hundred and thirty miles in a roundabout way (on a long distance) to favour its influential shareholders, and thus ruins the secondary lines. in the united states travellers and goods are sometimes compelled to travel impossibly circuitous routes so that dollars may flow into the pocket of a vanderbilt. our answer will be the same: as long as capital exists, the greater capital will oppress the lesser. but oppression does not result from capital only. it is also owing to the support given them by the state, to monopoly created by the state in their favour, that the large companies oppress the small ones. the early english and french socialists have shown long since how english legislation did all in its power to ruin the small industries, drive the peasant to poverty, and deliver over to wealthy industrial employers battalions of men, compelled to work for no matter what salary. railway legislation did exactly the same. strategic lines, subsidized lines, companies which received the international mail monopoly, everything was brought into play to forward the interests of wealthy financiers. when rothschild, creditor to all european states, puts capital in a railway, his faithful subjects, the ministers, will do their best to make him earn more. in the united states, in the democracy that authoritarians hold up to us as an ideal, the most scandalous fraudulency has crept into everything that concerns railroads. thus, if a company ruins its competitors by cheap fares, it is often enabled to do so because it is reimbursed by land given to it by the state for a gratuity. documents recently published concerning the american wheat trade have fully shown up the part played by the state in the exploitation of the weak by the strong. here, too, the power of accumulated capital has increased tenfold and a hundredfold by means of state help. so that, when we see syndicates of railway companies (a product of free agreement) succeeding in protecting their small companies against big ones, we are astonished at the intrinsic force of free agreement that can hold its own against all-powerful capital favoured by the state. it is a fact that little companies exist, in spite of the state's partiality. if in france, land of centralization, we only see five or six large companies, there are more than a hundred and ten in great britain who agree remarkably well, and who are certainly better organized for the rapid transit of travellers and goods than the french and german companies. moreover, that is not the question. large capital, favoured by the state, can always, _if it be to its advantage_, crush the lesser one. what is of importance to us is this: the agreement between hundreds of capitalist companies to whom the railways of europe belong, _was established without intervention of a central government_ to lay down the law to the divers societies; it has subsisted by means of congresses composed of delegates, who discuss among themselves, and submit _proposals_, not _laws_, to their constituents. it is a new principle that differs completely from all governmental principle, monarchical or republican, absolute or parliamentarian. it is an innovation that has been timidly introduced into the customs of europe, but has come to stay. iii how often have we not read in the writings of state-loving socialists: "who, then, will undertake the regulation of canal traffic in the future society? should it enter the mind of one of your anarchist 'comrades' to put his barge across a canal and obstruct thousands of boats, who will force him to reason?" let us confess the supposition to be somewhat fanciful. still, it might be said, for instance: "should a certain commune, or a group of communes, want to make their barges pass before others, they might perhaps block the canal in order to carry stones, while wheat, needed in another commune, would have to stand by. who, then, would regulate the traffic if not the government?" but real life has again demonstrated that government can be very well dispensed with here as elsewhere. free agreement, free organization, replace that noxious and costly system, and do better. we know what canals mean to holland. they are its highways. we also know how much traffic there is on the canals. what is carried along our highroads and railroads is transported on canal-boats in holland. there you could find cause to fight, in order to make your boats pass before others. there the government might really interfere to keep the traffic in order. yet it is not so. the dutch settled matters in a more practical way, long ago, by founding guilds, or syndicates of boatmen. these were free associations sprung from the very needs of navigation. the right of way for the boats was adjusted by the order of inscription in a navigation register; they had to follow one another in turn. nobody was allowed to get ahead of the others under pain of being excluded from the guild. none could station more than a certain number of days along the quay; and if the owner found no goods to carry during that time, so much the worse for him; he had to depart with his empty barge to leave room for newcomers. obstruction was thus avoided, even though the competition between the private owners of the boats continued to exist. were the latter suppressed, the agreement would have been only the more cordial. it is unnecessary to add that the shipowners could adhere or not to the syndicate. that was their business, but most of them elected to join it. moreover, these syndicates offered such great advantages that they spread also along the rhine, the weser, the oder, and as far as berlin. the boatmen did not wait for a great bismarck to annex holland to germany, and to appoint an ober haupt general staats canal navigation's rath (supreme head councillor of the general states canal navigation), with a number of gold stripes on his sleeves, corresponding to the length of the title. they preferred coming to an international understanding. besides, a number of shipowners, whose sailing-vessels ply between germany and scandinavia, as well as russia, have also joined these syndicates, in order to regulate traffic in the baltic, and to bring about a certain harmony in the _chassé-croisé_ of vessels. these associations have sprung up freely, recruiting volunteer adherents, and have nought in common with governments. it is, however, more than probable that here too greater capital oppresses lesser. maybe the syndicate has also a tendency to become a monopoly, especially where it receives the precious patronage of the state that surely did not fail to interfere with it. let us not forget either, that these syndicates represent associations whose members have only private interests at stake, and that if at the same time each shipowner were compelled--by the socializing of production, consumption, and exchange--to belong to federated communes, or to a hundred other associations for the satisfying of his needs, things would have a different aspect. a group of shipowners, powerful on sea, would feel weak on land, and they would be obliged to lessen their claims in order to come to terms with railways, factories, and other groups. at any rate, without discussing the future, here is another spontaneous association that has dispensed with government. let us quote more examples. as we are talking of ships and boats, let us mention one of the most splendid organizations that the nineteenth century has brought forth, one of those we may with right be proud of--the english lifeboat association. it is known that every year more than a thousand ships are wrecked on the shores of england. at sea a good ship seldom fears a storm. it is near the coasts that danger threatens--rough seas that shatter her stern-post, squalls that carry off her masts and sails, currents that render her unmanageable, reefs and sand banks on which she runs aground. even in olden times, when it was a custom among inhabitants of the coasts to light fires in order to attract vessels on to reefs, in order to plunder their cargoes, they always strove to save the crew. seeing a ship in distress, they launched their boats and went to the rescue of shipwrecked sailors, only too often finding a watery grave themselves. every hamlet along the sea shore has its legends of heroism, displayed by woman as well as by man, to save crews in distress. no doubt the state and men of science have done something to diminish the number of casualties. lighthouses, signals, charts, meteorological warnings have diminished them greatly, but there remains a thousand ships and several thousand human lives to be saved every year. to this end a few men of goodwill put their shoulders to the wheel. being good sailors and navigators themselves, they invented a lifeboat that could weather a storm without being torn to pieces or capsizing, and they set to work to interest the public in their venture, to collect the necessary funds for constructing boats, and for stationing them along the coasts, wherever they could be of use. these men, not being jacobins, did not turn to the government. they understood that to bring their enterprise to a successful issue they must have the co-operation, the enthusiasm, the local knowledge, and especially the self-sacrifice of the local sailors. they also understood that to find men who at the first signal would launch their boat at night, in a chaos of waves, not suffering themselves to be deterred by darkness or breakers, and struggling five, six, ten hours against the tide before reaching a vessel in distress--men ready to risk their lives to save those of others--there must be a feeling of solidarity, a spirit of sacrifice not to be bought with galloon. it was therefore a perfectly spontaneous movement, sprung from agreement and individual initiative. hundreds of local groups arose along the coasts. the initiators had the common senses not to pose as masters. they looked for sagacity in the fishermen's hamlets, and when a rich man sent £ , to a village on the coast to erect a lifeboat station, and his offer was accepted, he left the choice of a site to the local fishermen and sailors. models of new boats were not submitted to the admiralty. we read in a report of the association: "as it is of importance that life-boatmen should have full confidence in the vessel they man, the committee will make a point of constructing and equipping the boats according to the life-boatmen's expressed wish." in consequence every year brings with it new improvements. the work is wholly conducted by volunteers organizing in committees and local groups; by mutual aid and agreement!--oh, anarchists! moreover, they ask nothing of the ratepayers, and in a year they may receive £ , in spontaneous subscriptions. as to the results, here they are: in the association possessed lifeboats. the same year it saved shipwrecked sailors and vessels. since its foundation it has saved , human beings. in , three lifeboats with all their men having perished at sea, hundreds of new volunteers entered their names, organized themselves into local groups, and the agitation resulted in the construction of twenty additional boats. as we proceed, let us note that every year the association sends to the fishermen and sailors excellent barometers at a price three times less than their sale price in private shops. it propagates meteorological knowledge, and warns the parties concerned of the sudden changes of weather predicted by men of science. let us repeat that these hundreds of committees and local groups are not organized hierarchically, and are composed exclusively of volunteers, lifeboatmen, and people interested in the work. the central committee, which is more of a centre for correspondence, in no wise interferes. it is true that when a voting on some question of education or local taxation takes place in a district, these committees of the national lifeboat association do not, as such, take part in the deliberations--a modesty, which unfortunately the members of elected bodies do not imitate. but, on the other hand, these brave men do not allow those who have never faced a storm to legislate for them about saving life. at the first signal of distress they rush to their boats, and go ahead. there are no embroidered uniforms, but much goodwill. let us take another society of the same kind, that of the red cross. the name matters little; let us examine it. imagine somebody saying fifty years ago: "the state, capable as it is of massacring twenty thousand men in a day, and of wounding fifty thousand more, is incapable of helping its own victims; consequently, as long as war exists private initiative must intervene, and men of goodwill must organize internationally for this humane work!" what mockery would not have met the man who would have dared to speak thus! to begin with, he would have been called a utopian, and if that did not silence him he would have been told: "what nonsense! your volunteers will be found wanting precisely where they are most needed, your volunteer hospitals will be centralized in a safe place, while everything will be wanting in the ambulances. utopians like you forget the national rivalries which will cause the poor soldiers to die without any help." such disheartening remarks would have only been equalled by the number of speakers. who of us has not heard men hold forth in this strain? now we know what happened. red cross societies organized themselves freely, everywhere, in all countries, in thousands of localities; and when the war of - broke out, the volunteers set to work. men and women offered their services. thousands of hospitals and ambulances were organized; trains were started carrying ambulances, provisions, linen, and medicaments for the wounded. the english committees sent entire convoys of food, clothing, tools, grain to sow, beasts of draught, even steam-ploughs with their attendants to help in the tillage of departments devastated by the war! only consult _la croix rouge_, by gustave moynier, and you will be really struck by the immensity of the work performed. as to the prophets ever ready to deny other men's courage, good sense, and intelligence, and believing themselves to be the only ones capable of ruling the world with a rod, none of their predictions were realized. the devotion of the red cross volunteers was beyond all praise. they were only too eager to occupy the most dangerous posts; and whereas the salaried doctors of the napoleonic state fled with their staff when the prussians approached, the red cross volunteers continued their work under fire, enduring the brutalities of bismarck's and napoleon's officers, lavishing their care on the wounded of all nationalities. dutch, italians, swedes, belgians, even japanese and chinese agreed remarkably well. they distributed their hospitals and their ambulances according to the needs of the occasion. they vied with one another especially in the hygiene of their hospitals. and there is many a frenchman who still speaks with deep gratitude of the tender care he received from the dutch or german volunteers in the red cross ambulances. but what is this to an authoritarian? his ideal is the regiment doctor, salaried by the state. what does he care for the red cross and its hygienic hospitals, if the nurses be not functionaries! here is then an organization, sprung up but yesterday, and which reckons its members by hundreds of thousands; possesses ambulances, hospital trains, elaborates new processes for treating wounds, and so on, and is due to the spontaneous initiative of a few devoted men. perhaps we shall be told that the state has something to do with this organization. yes, states have laid hands on it to seize it. the directing committees are presided over by those whom flunkeys call princes of the blood. emperors and queens lavishly patronize the national committees. but it is not to this patronage that the success of the organization is due. it is to the thousand local committees of each nation; to the activity of individuals, to the devotion of all those who try to help the victims of war. and this devotion would be far greater if the state did not meddle with it. in any case, it was not by the order of an international directing committee that englishmen and japanese, swedes and chinamen, bestirred themselves to send help to the wounded in . it was not by order of an international ministry that hospitals rose on the invaded territory and that ambulances were carried on to the battlefield. it was by the initiative of volunteers from each country. once on the spot, they did not get hold of one another by the hair as was foreseen by the jacobinists of all nations; they all set to work without distinction of nationality. we may regret that such great efforts should be put to the service of so bad a cause, and we may ask ourselves like the poet's child: "why inflict wounds if you are to heal them afterwards?" in striving to destroy the power of capitalist and middle-class authority, we work to put an end to the massacres called wars, and we would far rather see the red cross volunteers put forth their activity to bring about (with us) the suppression of war; but we had to mention this immense organization as another illustration of results produced by free agreement and free aid. if we wished to multiply examples taken from the art of exterminating men we should never end. suffice to quote the numerous societies to which the german army owes its force, that does not only depend on discipline, as is generally believed. i mean the societies whose aim is to propagate military knowledge. at one of the last congresses of the military alliance (kriegerbund), delegates from , federated societies, comprising , members, were present. but there are besides very numerous shooting, military games, strategical games, topographical studies societies--these are the workshops in which the technical knowledge of the german army is developed, not in regimental schools. it is a formidable network of all kinds of societies, including military men and civilians, geographers and gymnasts, sportsmen and technologists, which rise up spontaneously, organize, federate, discuss, and explore the country. it is these voluntary and free associations that go to make the real backbone of the german army. their aim is execrable. it is the maintenance of the empire. but what concerns us, is to point out that, in spite of military organization being the "great mission of the state," success in this branch is the more certain the more it is left to the free agreement of groups and to the free initiative of individuals. even in matters pertaining to war, free agreement is thus appealed to; and to further prove our assertion let us mention the volunteer topographers' corps of switzerland who study in detail the mountain passages, the aeroplane corps of france, the three hundred thousand british volunteers, the british national artillery association, and the society, now in course of organization, for the defence of england's coasts, as well as the appeals made to the commercial fleet, the bicyclists' corps, and the new organizations of private motorcars and steam launches. everywhere the state is abdicating and abandoning its holy functions to private individuals. everywhere free organization trespasses on its domain. and yet, the facts we have quoted give us only a glimpse of what free government has in store for us in the future when there will be no more state. chapter xii objections i let us now examine the principal objections put forth against communism. most of them are evidently caused by a simple misunderstanding, yet they raise important questions and merit our attention. it is not for us to answer the objections raised by authoritarian communism--we ourselves hold with them. civilized nations have suffered too much in the long, hard struggle for the emancipation of the individual, to disown their past work and to tolerate a government that would make itself felt in the smallest details of a citizen's life, even if that government had no other aim than the good of the community. should an authoritarian socialist society ever succeed in establishing itself, it could not last; general discontent would soon force it to break up, or to reorganize itself on principles of liberty. it is of an anarchist-communist society we are about to speak, a society that recognizes the absolute liberty of the individual, that does not admit of any authority, and makes use of no compulsion to drive men to work. limiting our studies to the economic side of the question, let us see if such a society, composed of men as they are to-day, neither better nor worse, neither more nor less industrious, would have a chance of successful development. the objection is known. "if the existence of each is guaranteed, and if the necessity of earning wages does not compel men to work, nobody will work. every man will lay the burden of his work on another if he is not forced to do it himself." let us first note the incredible levity with which this objection is raised, without even realizing that the real question raised by this objection is merely to know, on the one hand, whether you effectively obtain by wage-work, the results that are said to be obtained, and, on the other hand, whether voluntary work is not already now more productive than work stimulated by wages. a question which, to be dealt with properly, would require a serious study. but whereas in exact sciences men give their opinion on subjects infinitely less important and less complicated after serious research, after carefully collecting and analyzing facts--on this question they will pronounce judgment without appeal, resting satisfied with any one particular event, such as, for example, the want of success of some communist association in america. they act like the barrister who does not see in the counsel for the opposite side a representative of a cause, or an opinion contrary to his own, but a simple nuisance,--an adversary in an oratorical debate; and if he be lucky enough to find a repartee, does not otherwise care to justify his cause. therefore the study of this essential basis of all political economy, _the study of the most favourable conditions for giving society the greatest amount of useful products with the least waste of human energy_, does not advance. people either limit themselves to repeating commonplace assertions, or else they pretend ignorance of our assertions. what is most striking in this levity is that even in capitalist political economy you already find a few writers compelled by facts to doubt the axiom put forth by the founders of their science, that the threat of hunger is man's best stimulant for productive work. they begin to perceive that in production a certain _collective element_ is introduced, which has been too much neglected up till now, and which might be more important than personal gain. the inferior quality of wage-work, the terrible waste of human energy in modern agricultural and industrial labour, the ever-growing quantity of pleasure-seekers, who shift their burden on to others' shoulders, the absence of a certain animation in production that is becoming more and more apparent; all this is beginning to preoccupy the economists of the "classical" school. some of them ask themselves if they have not got on the wrong track: if the imaginary evil being, that was supposed to be tempted exclusively by a bait of lucre or wages, really exists. this heresy penetrates even into universities; it is found in books of orthodox economy. but this does not prevent a great many socialist reformers from remaining partisans of individual remuneration, and defending the old citadel of wagedom, notwithstanding that it is being delivered over stone by stone to the assailants by its former defenders. they fear that without compulsion the masses will not work. but during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed twice? once, by the anti-abolitionists in america before the emancipation of the negroes, and, for a second time, by the russian nobility before the liberation of the serfs? "without the whip the negro will not work," said the anti-abolitionist. "free from their master's supervision the serfs will leave the fields uncultivated," said the russian serf-owners. it was the refrain of the french noblemen in , the refrain of the middle ages, a refrain as old as the world, and we shall hear it every time there is a question of sweeping away an injustice. and each time actual facts give it the lie. the liberated peasant of ploughed with an eager energy, unknown to his ancestors; the emancipated negro works more than his fathers; and the russian peasant, after having honoured the honeymoon of his emancipation by celebrating fridays as well as sundays, has taken up work with an eagerness proportionate to the completeness of his liberation. there, where the soil is his, he works desperately; that is the exact word for it. the anti-abolitionist refrain can be of value to slave-owners; as to the slaves themselves, they know what it is worth, as they know its motive. moreover, who but the economists themselves taught us that while a wage-earner's work is very often indifferent, an intense and productive work is only obtained from a man who sees his wealth increase in proportion to his efforts? all hymns sung in honour of private property can be reduced to this axiom. for it is remarkable that when economists, wishing to celebrate the blessings of property, show us how an unproductive, marshy, or stony soil is clothed with rich harvests when cultivated by the peasant proprietor, they in nowise prove their thesis in favour of private property. by admitting that the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour--which is true--the economists only prove that man really produces most when he works in freedom, when he has a certain choice in his occupations, when he has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when he sees his work bringing in a profit to him and to others who work like him, but bringing in little to idlers. nothing else can be deducted from their argumentation, and this is what we maintain ourselves. as to the form of possession of the instruments of labour, the economists only mention it _indirectly_ in their demonstration, as a guarantee to the cultivator that he shall not be robbed of the profits of his yield nor of his improvements. besides, in support of their thesis in favour of _private property_ against all other forms of _possession_, should not the economists demonstrate that under the form of communal property land never produces such rich harvests as when the possession is private? but this they could not prove; in fact, it is the contrary that has been observed. take for example a commune in the canton of vaud, in the winter time, when all the men of the village go to fell wood in the forest, which belongs to them all. it is precisely during these festivals of labour that the greatest ardour for work and the most considerable display of human energy are apparent. no salaried labour, no effort of a private owner can bear comparison with it. or let us take a russian village, when all its inhabitants mow a field belonging to the commune, or farmed by it. there you will see what man _can_ produce when he works in common for communal production. comrades vie with one another in cutting the widest swathe, women bestir themselves in their wake so as not to be distanced by the mowers. it is a festival of labour, in which a hundred people accomplish in a few hours a work that would not have been finished in a few days had they worked separately. what a miserable contrast compared to them is offered by the work of the isolated owner! in fact, we might quote scores of examples among the pioneers of america, in swiss, german, russian, and in certain french villages; or the work done in russia by gangs (_artels)_ of masons, carpenters, boatmen, fishermen, etc., who undertake a task and divide the produce or the remuneration among themselves without it passing through an intermediary of middlemen; or else the amount of work i saw performed in english ship-yards when the remuneration was paid on the same principle. we could also mention the great communal hunts of nomadic tribes, and an infinite number of successful collective enterprises. and in every case we could show the unquestionable superiority of communal work compared to that of the wage-earner or the isolated private owner. well-being--that is to say, the satisfaction of physical, artistic, and moral needs, has always been the most powerful stimulant to work. and where a hireling hardly succeeds to produce the bare necessities with difficulty, a free worker, who sees ease and luxury increasing for him and for others in proportion to his efforts, spends infinitely far more energy and intelligence, and obtains products in a far greater abundance. the one feels riveted to misery, the other hopes for ease and luxury in the future. in this lies the whole secret. therefore a society aiming at the well-being of all, and at the possibility of all enjoying life in all its manifestations, will give voluntary work, which will be infinitely superior and yield far more than work has produced up till now under the goad of slavery, serfdom, or wagedom. ii nowadays, whoever can load on others his share of labour indispensable to existence does so, and it is believed that it will always be so. now, work indispensable to existence is essentially manual. we may be artists or scientists; but none of us can do without things obtained by manual work--bread, clothes, roads, ships, light, heat, etc. and, moreover, however highly artistic or however subtly metaphysical are our pleasures, they all depend on manual labour. and it is precisely this labour--the basis of life--that everyone tries to avoid. we understand perfectly well that it must be so nowadays. because, to do manual work now, means in reality to shut yourself up for ten or twelve hours a day in an unhealthy workshop, and to remain chained to the same task for twenty or thirty years, and maybe for your whole life. it means to be doomed to a paltry wage, to the uncertainty of the morrow, to want of work, often to destitution, more often than not to death in a hospital, after having worked forty years to feed, clothe, amuse, and instruct others than yourself and your children. it means to bear the stamp of inferiority all your life; because, whatever the politicians tell us, the manual worker is always considered inferior to the brain worker, and the one who has toiled ten hours in a workshop has not the time, and still less the means, to give himself the high delights of science and art, nor even to prepare himself to appreciate them; he must be content with the crumbs from the table of privileged persons. we understand that under these conditions manual labour is considered a curse of fate. we understand that all men have but one dream--that of emerging from, or enabling their children to emerge from this inferior state; to create for themselves an "independent" position, which means what?--to also live by other men's work! as long as there will be a class of manual workers and a class of "brain" workers, black hands and white hands, it will be thus. what interest, in fact, can this depressing work have for the worker, when he knows that the fate awaiting him from the cradle to the grave will be to live in mediocrity, poverty, and insecurity of the morrow? therefore, when we see the immense majority of men take up their wretched task every morning, we feel surprised at their perseverance, at their zeal for work, at the habit that enables them, like machines blindly obeying an impetus given, to lead this life of misery without hope for the morrow; without foreseeing ever so vaguely that some day they, or at least their children, will be part of a humanity rich in all the treasures of a bountiful nature, in all the enjoyments of knowledge, scientific and artistic creation, reserved to-day to a few privileged favourites. it is precisely to put an end to this separation between manual and brain work that we want to abolish wagedom, that we want the social revolution. then work will no longer appear a curse of fate: it will become what it should be--the free exercise of _all_ the faculties of man. moreover, it is time to submit to a serious analysis this legend about superior work, supposed to be obtained under the lash of wagedom. it would be sufficient to visit, not the model factory and workshop that we find now and again, but a number of the ordinary factories, to conceive the immense waste of human energy that characterizes modern industry. for one factory more or less rationally organized, there are a hundred or more which waste man's labour, without any more substantial motive than that of perhaps bringing in a few pounds more per day to the employer. here you see youths from twenty to twenty-five years of age, sitting all day long on a bench, their chests sunken in, feverishly shaking their heads and bodies, to tie, with the speed of conjurers, the two ends of worthless scraps of cotton, the refuse of the lace-looms. what progeny will these trembling and rickety bodies bequeath to their country? "but they occupy so little room in the factory, and each of them brings me in sixpence net every day," will say the employer. in an immense london factory we saw girls, bald at seventeen from carrying trays of matches on their heads from one room to another, when the simplest machine could wheel the matches to their tables. but "it costs so little, the work of women who have no special trade! why should we use a machine? when these can do no more, they will be easily replaced, there are so many of them in the street!" on the steps of a mansion on an icy night you will find a bare-footed child asleep, with its bundle of papers in its arms ... child-labour costs so little that it may be well employed, every evening, to sell tenpenny-worth of papers, of which the poor boy will receive a penny, or a penny halfpenny. and continually in all big cities you may see robust men tramping about who have been out of work for months, while their daughters grow pale in the overheated vapours of the workshops for dressing stuffs, and their sons are filling blacking-pots by hand, or spend those years during which they ought to have learned a trade, in carrying about baskets for a greengrocer, and at the age of eighteen or twenty become regular unemployed. and so it is everywhere, from san francisco to moscow, and from naples to stockholm. the waste of human energy is the distinguishing and predominant trait of our industry, not to mention trade where it attains still more colossal proportions. what a sad satire is that name, political _economy_, given to the science of waste and energy under the system of wagedom! this is not all. if you speak to the director of a well-organized factory, he will naively explain to you that it is difficult nowadays to find a skilful, vigorous, and energetic workman, who works with a will. "should such a man present himself among the twenty or thirty who call every monday asking us for work, he is sure to be received, even if we are reducing the number of our hands. we recognize him at the first glance, and he is always accepted, even though we have to get rid of an older and less active worker the next day." and the one who has just received notice to quit, and all those who will receive it to-morrow, go to reinforce that immense reserve-army of capital--workmen out of work--who are only called to the loom or the bench when there is pressure of work, or to oppose strikers. and those others--the average workers who are sent away by the better-class factories as soon as business is slackened? they also join the formidable army of aged and indifferent workers who continually circulate among the second-class factories--those which barely cover their expenses and make their way in the world by trickery and snares laid for the buyer, and especially for the consumer in distant countries. and if you talk to the workmen themselves, you will soon learn that the rule in such factories is--never to do your best. "shoddy pay--shoddy work!" this is the advice which the working man receives from his comrades upon entering such a factory. for the workers know that if in a moment of generosity they give way to the entreaties of an employer and consent to intensify the work in order to carry out a pressing order, this nervous work will be exacted in the future as a rule in the scale of wages. therefore in all such factories they prefer never to produce as much as they can. in certain industries production is limited so as to keep up high prices, and sometimes the pass-word, "go-canny," is given, which signifies, "bad work for bad pay!" wage-work is serf-work; it cannot, it must not, produce all that it could produce. and it is high time to disbelieve the legend which represents wagedom as the best incentive to productive work. if industry nowadays brings in a hundred times more than it did in the days of our grandfathers, it is due to the sudden awakening of physical and chemical sciences towards the end of last century; not to the capitalist organization of wagedom, but _in spite_ of that organization. iii those who have seriously studied the question do not deny any of the advantages of communism, on condition, be it well understood, that communism be perfectly free, that is to say, anarchist. they recognize that work paid with money, even disguised under the name of "labour cheques," to workers' associations governed by the state, would keep up the characteristics of wagedom and would retain its disadvantages. they agree that the whole system would soon suffer from it, even if society came into possession of the instruments of production. and they admit that, thanks to an "integral" complete education given to all children, to the laborious habits of civilized societies, with the liberty of choosing and varying their occupations and the attractions of work done by equals for the well-being of all, a communist society would not be wanting in producers who would soon make the fertility of the soil triple and tenfold, and give a new impulse to industry. this our opponents agree to. "but the danger," they say, "will come from that minority of loafers who will not work, and will not have regular habits, in spite of the excellent conditions that would make work pleasant. to-day the prospect of hunger compels the most refractory to move along with the others. the one who does not arrive in time is dismissed. but one black sheep suffices to contaminate the whole flock, and two or three sluggish or refractory workmen would lead the others astray and bring a spirit of disorder and rebellion into the workshop that would make work impossible; so that in the end we should have to return to a system of compulsion that would force such ringleaders back into the ranks. and then,--is not the system of wages, paid in proportion to work performed, the only one that enables compulsion to be employed, without hurting the feelings of independence of the worker? all other means would imply the continual intervention of an authority that would be repugnant to free men." this, we believe, is the objection fairly stated. to begin with, such an objection belongs to the category of arguments which try to justify the state, the penal law, the judge, and the gaoler. "as there are people, a feeble minority, who will not submit to social customs," the authoritarians say, "we must maintain magistrates, tribunals and prisons, although these institutions become a source of new evils of all kinds." therefore we can only repeat what we have so often said concerning authority in general: "to avoid a possible evil you have recourse to means which in themselves are a greater evil, and become the source of those same abuses that you wish to remedy. for, do not forget that it is wagedom, the impossibility of living otherwise than by selling your labour, which has created the present capitalist system, whose vices you begin to recognize." besides, this way of reasoning is merely a sophistical justification of the evils of the present system. wagedom was _not_ instituted to remove the disadvantages of communism; its origin, like that of the state and private ownership, is to be found elsewhere. it is born of slavery and serfdom imposed by force, and only wears a more modern garb. thus the argument in favour of wagedom is as valueless as those by which they seek to apologize for private property and the state. we are, nevertheless, going to examine the objection, and see if there is any truth in it. first of all,--is it not evident that if a society, founded on the principle of free work, were really menaced by loafers, it could protect itself without the authoritarian organization we have nowadays, and without having recourse to wagedom? let us take a group of volunteers, combining for some particular enterprise. having its success at heart, they all work with a will, save one of the associates, who is frequently absent from his post. must they on his account dissolve the group, elect a president to impose fines, and work out a code of penalties? it is evident that neither the one nor the other will be done, but that some day the comrade who imperils their enterprise will be told: "friend, we should like to work with you; but as you are often absent from your post, and you do your work negligently, we must part. go and find other comrades who will put up with your indifference!" this way is so natural that it is practiced everywhere, even nowadays, in all industries, in competition with all possible systems of fines, docking of wages, supervision, etc.; a workman may enter the factory at the appointed time, but if he does his work badly, if he hinders his comrades by his laziness or other defects, if he is quarrelsome, there is an end of it; he is compelled to leave the workshop. authoritarians pretend that it is the almighty employer and his overseers who maintain regularity and quality of work in factories. in reality, in every somewhat complicated enterprise, in which the goods produced pass through many hands before being finished, it is the factory itself, the workmen as a unity, who see to the good quality of the work. therefore the best factories of british private industry have few overseers, far less on an average than the french factories, and less than the british state factories. a certain standard of public morals is maintained in the same way. authoritarians say it is due to rural guards, judges, and policemen, whereas in reality it is maintained _in spite_ of judges, policemen, and rural guards. "many are the laws producing criminals!" was said long ago. not only in industrial workshops do things go on in this way; it happens everywhere, every day, on a scale that only bookworms have as yet no notion of. when a railway company, federated with other companies, fails to fulfil its engagements, when its trains are late and goods lie neglected at the stations, the other companies threaten to cancel the contract, and that threat usually suffices. it is generally believed, at any rate it is taught in state-approved schools, that commerce only keeps to its engagements from fear of lawsuits. nothing of the sort; nine times in ten the trader who has not kept his word will not appear before a judge. there, where trade is very active, as in london, the sole fact of having driven a creditor to bring a lawsuit suffices for the immense majority of merchants to refuse for good to have any dealings with a man who has compelled one of them to go to law. this being so, why should means that are used to-day among workers in the workshop, traders in the trade, and railway companies in the organization of transport, not be made use of in a society based on voluntary work? take, for example, an association stipulating that each of its members should carry out the following contract: "we undertake to give you the use of our houses, stores, streets, means of transport, schools, museums, etc., on condition that, from twenty to forty-five or fifty years of age, you consecrate four or five hours a day to some work recognized as necessary to existence. choose yourself the producing groups which you wish to join, or organize a new group, provided that it will undertake to produce necessaries. and as for the remainder of your time, combine together with whomsoever you like, for recreation, art, or science, according to the bent of your taste. "twelve or fifteen hundred hours of work a year, in one of the groups producing food, clothes, or houses, or employed in public sanitation, transport, and so on, is all we ask of you. for this amount of work we guarantee to you the free use of all that these groups produce, or will produce. but if not one, of the thousands of groups of our federation, will receive you, whatever be their motive; if you are absolutely incapable of producing anything useful, or if you refuse to do it, then live like an isolated man or like an invalid. if we are rich enough to give you the necessaries of life we shall be delighted to give them to you. you are a man, and you have the right to live. but as you wish to live under special conditions, and leave the ranks, it is more than probable that you will suffer for it in your daily relations with other citizens. you will be looked upon as a ghost of bourgeois society, unless some friends of yours, discovering you to be a talent, kindly free you from all moral obligation towards society by doing all the necessary work for you. "and finally, if it does not please you, go and look for other conditions elsewhere in the wide world, or else seek adherents and organize with them on novel principles. we prefer our own." this is what could be done in a communal society in order to turn away sluggards if they became too numerous. iv we very much doubt that we need fear this contingency in a society really based on the entire freedom of the individual. in fact, in spite of the premium on idleness offered by the private ownership of capital, the really lazy man is comparatively rare, unless his laziness be due to illness. among workmen it is often said that the bourgeois are idlers. there are certainly enough of them, but they, too, are the exception. on the contrary, in every industrial enterprise, you are sure to find one or more bourgeois who work very hard. it is true that the majority of bourgeois profit by their privileged position to award themselves the least unpleasant tasks, and that they work under hygienic conditions of air, food, etc., which permits them to do their business without too much fatigue. but these are precisely the conditions which we claim for all workers, without exception. it must also be said that if, thanks to their privileged position, rich people often perform absolutely useless or even harmful work in society, nevertheless the ministers, heads of departments, factory owners, traders, bankers, etc., subject themselves for a number of hours every day to work which they find more or less tiresome, all preferring their hours of leisure to this obligatory work. and if in nine cases out of ten this work is a harmful work, they find it none the less tiring for that. but it is precisely because the middle class put forth a great energy, even in doing harm (knowingly or not) and defending their privileged position, that they have succeeded in defeating the landed nobility, and that they continue to rule the masses. if they were idlers, they would long since have ceased to exist, and would have disappeared like the aristocracy. in a society that would expect only four or five hours a day of useful, pleasant, and hygienic work, these same middle-class people would perform their task perfectly well, and they certainly would not put up with the horrible conditions in which men toil nowadays without reforming them. if a huxley spent only five hours in the sewers of london, rest assured that he would have found the means of making them as sanitary as his physiological laboratory. as to the laziness of the great majority of workers, only philistine economists and philanthropists can utter such nonsense. if you ask an intelligent manufacturer, he will tell you that if workmen only put it into their heads to be lazy, all factories would have to be closed, for no measure of severity, no system of spying would be of any use. you should have seen the terror caused in among british employers when a few agitators started preaching the "_go-canny_" theory--"bad pay, bad work"; "take it easy, do not overwork yourselves, and waste all you can."--"they demoralize the worker, they want to kill our industry!" cried those same people who the day before inveighed against the immorality of the worker and the bad quality of his work. but if the workers were what they are represented to be--namely, the idler whom the employer is supposed continually to threaten with dismissal from the workshop--what would the word "demoralization" signify? so when we speak of possible idlers, we must well understand that it is a question of a small minority in society; and before legislating for that minority, would it not be wise to study the origin of that idleness? whoever observes with an intelligent eye, sees well enough that the child reputed lazy at school is often the one which simply does not understand, because he is being badly taught. very often, too, it is suffering from cerebral anæmia, caused by poverty and an anti-hygienic education. a boy who is lazy at greek or latin would work admirably were he taught science, especially if he were taught with the aid of manual labour. a girl who is stupid at mathematics becomes the first mathematician of her class if she by chance meets somebody who can explain to her the elements of arithmetic which she did not understand. and a workman, lazy in the workshop, cultivates his garden at dawn, while gazing at the rising sun, and will be at work again at nightfall, when all nature goes to its rest. somebody has said that dust is matter in the wrong place. the same definition applies to nine-tenths of those called lazy. they are people gone astray in a direction that does not answer to their temperament nor to their capacities. in reading the biography of great men, we are struck with the number of "idlers" among them. they were lazy so long as they had not found the right path; afterwards they became laborious to excess. darwin, stephenson, and many others belonged to this category of idlers. very often the idler is but a man to whom it is repugnant to spend all his life making the eighteenth part of a pin, or the hundredth part of a watch, while he feels he has exuberant energy which he would like to expend elsewhere. often, too, he is a rebel who cannot submit to being fixed all his life to a work-bench in order to procure a thousand pleasures for his employer, while knowing himself to be far the less stupid of the two, and knowing his only fault to be that of having been born in a hovel instead of coming into the world in a castle. lastly, an immense number of "idlers" are idlers because they do not know well enough the trade by which they are compelled to earn their living. seeing the imperfect thing they make with their own hands, striving vainly to do better, and perceiving that they never will succeed on account of the bad habits of work already acquired, they begin to hate their trade, and, not knowing any other, hate work in general. thousands of workmen and artists who are failures suffer from this cause. on the other hand, he who since his youth has learned to play the piano _well_, to handle the plane _well_, the chisel, the brush, or the file, so that he feels that what he does is _beautiful_, will never give up the piano, the chisel, or the file. he will find pleasure in his work which does not tire him, so long as he is not overdriven. under the one name, _idleness_, a series of results due to different causes have been grouped, of which each one could be a source of good, instead of being a source of evil to society. like all questions concerning criminality and related to human faculties, facts have been collected having nothing in common with one another. people speak of laziness or crime, without giving themselves the trouble to analyze the cause. they are in a hurry to punish these faults without inquiring if the punishment itself does not contain a premium on "laziness" or "crime."[ ] this is why a free society, if it saw the number of idlers increasing in its midst, would no doubt think of looking first for the _cause_ of laziness, in order to suppress it, before having recourse to punishment. when it is a case, as we have already mentioned, of simple bloodlessness, then before stuffing the brain of a child with science, nourish his system so as to produce blood, strengthen him, and, that he shall not waste his time, take him to the country or to the seaside; there, teach him in the open air, not in books--geometry, by measuring the distance to a spire, or the height of a tree; natural sciences, while picking flowers and fishing in the sea; physical science, while building the boat he will go to fish in. but for mercy's sake do not fill his brain with classical sentences and dead languages. do not make an idler of him!... or, here is a child which has neither order nor regular habits. let the children first inculcate order among themselves, and later on, the laboratory, the workshop, the work that will have to be done in a limited space, with many tools about, under the guidance of an intelligent teacher, will teach them method. but do not make disorderly beings out of them by your school, whose only order is the symmetry of its benches, and which--true image of the chaos in its teachings--will never inspire anybody with the love of harmony, of consistency, and method in work. do not you see that by your methods of teaching, framed by a ministry for eight million scholars, who represent eight million different capacities, you only impose a system good for mediocrities, conceived by an average of mediocrities? your school becomes a university of laziness, as your prison is a university of crime. make the school free, abolish your university grades, appeal to the volunteers of teaching; begin that way, instead of making laws against laziness which only serve to increase it. give the workman who cannot condemn himself to make all his life a minute particle of some object, who is stifled at his little tapping machine, which he ends by loathing, give him the chance of tilling the soil, of felling trees in the forest, sailing the seas in the teeth of a storm, dashing through space on an engine, but do not make an idler of him by forcing him all his life to attend to a small machine, to plough the head of a screw, or to drill the eye of a needle. suppress the cause of idleness, and you may take it for granted that few individuals will really hate work, especially voluntary work, and that there will be no need to manufacture a code of laws on their account. footnote: [ ] _kropotkin: in russian and french prisons._ london, . chapter xiii the collectivist wages system i in their plans for the reconstruction of society the collectivists commit, in our opinion, a twofold error. while speaking of abolishing capitalist rule, they intend nevertheless to retain two institutions which are the very basis of this rule--representative government and the wages' system. as regards so-called representative government, we have often spoken about it. it is absolutely incomprehensible to us that intelligent men--and such are not wanting in the collectivist party--can remain partisans of national or municipal parliaments after all the lessons history has given them--in france, in england, in germany, or in the united states. while we see parliamentary rule breaking up, and from all sides criticism of this rule growing louder--not only of its results, but also of _its principles_--how is it that the revolutionary socialists defend a system already condemned to die? built up by the middle classes to hold their own against royalty, sanctioning, and, at the same time strengthening, their sway over the workers, parliamentary rule is pre-eminently a middle-class rule. the upholders of this system have never seriously maintained that a parliament or a municipal council represent a nation or a city. the most intelligent among them know that this is impossible. the middle classes have simply used the parliamentary system to raise a protecting barrier against the pretensions of royalty, without giving the people liberty. but gradually, as the people become conscious of their real interests, and the variety of their interests is growing, the system can no longer work. therefore democrats of all countries vainly imagine various palliatives. the _referendum_ is tried and found to be a failure; proportional representation is spoken of, the representation of minorities, and other parliamentary utopias. in a word, they strive to find what is not to be found, and after each new experiment they are bound to recognize that it was a failure; so that confidence in representative government vanishes more and more. it is the same with the wages' system; because, once the abolition of private property is proclaimed, and the possession in common of all means of production is introduced,--how can the wages' system be maintained in any form? this is, nevertheless, what collectivists are doing when they recommend the use of the _labour-cheques_ as a mode of remuneration for labour accomplished for the great collectivist employer--the state. it is easy to understand why the early english socialists, since the time of robert owen, came to the system of labour-cheques. they simply tried to make capital and labour agree. they repudiated the idea of laying hands on capitalist property by means of revolutionary measures. it is also easy to understand why proudhon took up later on the same idea. in his mutualist system he tried to make capital less offensive, notwithstanding the retaining of private property, which he detested from the bottom of his heart, but which he believed to be necessary to guarantee individuals against the state. neither is it astonishing that certain economists, more or less bourgeois, admit labour-cheques. they care little whether the worker is paid in labour-notes or in coin stamped with the effigy of the republic or the empire. they only care to save from destruction the individual ownership of dwelling-houses, of land, of factories; in any case--that, at least, of dwelling-houses and the capital that is necessary for manufacturing. and labour-notes would just answer the purpose of upholding this private property. as long as labour-notes can be exchanged for jewels or carriages, the owner of the house will willingly accept them for rent. and as long as dwelling houses, fields, and factories belong to isolated owners, men will have to pay these owners, in one way or another, for being allowed to work in the fields or factories, or for living in the houses. the owners will agree to be paid by the workers in gold, in paper-money, or in cheques exchangeable for all sorts of commodities, once that toll upon labour is maintained, and the right to levy it is left with them. but how can we defend labour-notes, this new form of wagedom, when we admit that the houses, the fields, and the factories will no longer be private property,--that they will belong to the commune or the nation? ii let us closely examine this system of remuneration for work done, preached by the french, german, english, and italian collectivists (the spanish anarchists, who still call themselves collectivists, imply by collectivism the possession in common of all instruments of production, and the "liberty of each group to divide the produce, as they think fit, according to communist or any other principles"). it amounts to this: everybody works in field, factory, school, hospital, etc. the working-day is fixed by the state, which owns the land, the factories, the roads, etc. every work-day is paid for with a _labour-note_, which is inscribed with these words: _eight hours' work_. with this cheque the worker can procure all sorts of merchandise in the stores owned by the state or by divers corporations. the cheque is divisible, so that you can buy an hour's-work worth of meat, ten minutes' worth of matches, or half an hour of tobacco. after the collectivist revolution, instead of saying "twopence worth of soap," we shall say "five minutes' worth of soap." most collectivists, true to the distinction laid down by middle-class economists (and by marx as well) between _qualified_ work and _simple_ work, tell us, moreover, that _qualified_ or professional work must be paid a certain quantity more than _simple_ work. thus one hour's work of a doctor will have to be considered as equivalent to two or three hours' work of a hospital nurse, or to three or five hours' work of a navvy. "professional, or qualified work, will be a multiple of simple work," says the collectivist grönlund, "because this kind of work needs a more or less long apprenticeship." some other collectivists, such as the french marxist, guesde, do not make this distinction. they proclaim the "equality of wages." the doctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid (in labour-cheques) at the same rate as the navvy. eight hours visiting the sick in a hospital will be worth the same as eight hours spent in earthworks or else in mines or factories. some make a greater concession; they admit that disagreeable or unhealthy work--such as sewerage--could be paid for at a higher rate than agreeable work. one hour's work of a sewerman would be worth, they say, two hours of a professor's work. let us add that certain collectivists admit of corporations being paid a lump sum for work done. thus a corporation would say: "here are a hundred tons of steel. a hundred workmen were required to produce them, and it took them ten days. their work-day being an eight-hours day, it has taken them eight thousand working hours to produce a hundred tons of steel--eight hours a ton." for this the state would pay them eight thousand labour-notes of one hour each, and these eight thousand cheques would be divided among the members of the iron-works as they themselves thought proper. on the other hand, a hundred miners having taken twenty days to extract eight thousand tons of coal, coal would be worth two hours a ton, and the sixteen thousand cheques of one hour each, received by the guild of miners, would be divided among their members according to their own appreciation. if the miners protested and said that a ton of steel should only cost six hours' work instead of eight; if the professor wished to have his day paid four times more than the nurse, then the state would interfere and would settle their differences. such is, in a few words, the organization the collectivists wish to see arise out of the social revolution. as we see, their principles are: collective property of the instruments of production, and remuneration to each according to the time spent in producing, while taking into account the productivity of his labour. as to the political system, it would be the parliamentary system, modified by _positive instructions_ given to those elected, and by the _referendum_--a vote, taken by _noes_ or _ayes_ by the nation. let us own that this system appears to us simply unrealizable. collectivists begin by proclaiming a revolutionary principle--the abolition of private property--and then they deny it, no sooner than proclaimed, by upholding an organization of production and consumption which originated in private property. they proclaim a revolutionary principle, and ignore the consequences that this principle will inevitably bring about. they forget that the very fact of abolishing individual property in the instruments of work--land, factories, road, capital--must launch society into absolutely new channels; must completely overthrow the present system of production, both in its aim as well as in its means; must modify daily relations between individuals, as soon as land, machinery, and all other instruments of production are considered common property. they say, "no private property," and immediately after strive to maintain private property in its daily manifestations. "you shall be a commune as far as regards production: fields, tools, machinery, all that has been invented up till now--factories, railways, harbours, mines, etc., all are yours. not the slightest distinction will be made concerning the share of each in this collective property. "but from to-morrow you will minutely debate the share you are going to take in the creation of new machinery, in the digging of new mines. you will carefully weigh what part of the new produce belongs to you. you will count your minutes of work, and you will take care that a minute of your neighbours should not buy more than yours. "and as an hour measures nothing, as in some factories a worker can see to six power-looms at a time, while in another he only tends two, you will weigh the muscular force, the brain energy, and the nervous energy you have expended. you will accurately calculate the years of apprenticeship in order to appraise the amount each will contribute to future production. and this--after having declared that you do not take into account his share in _past_ production." well, for us it is evident that a society cannot be based on two absolutely opposed principles, two principles that contradict one another continually. and a nation or a commune which would have such an organization would be compelled to revert to private property in the instruments of production, or to transform itself into a communist society. iii we have said that certain collectivist writers desire that a distinction should be made between _qualified_ or professional work and _simple_ work. they pretend that an hour's work of an engineer, an architect, or a doctor, must be considered as two or three hours' work of a blacksmith, a mason, or a hospital nurse. and the same distinction must be made between all sorts of trades necessitating apprenticeship, and the simple toil of day labourers. well, to establish this distinction would be to maintain all the inequalities of present society. it would mean fixing a dividing line, from the beginning, between the workers and those who pretend to govern them. it would mean dividing society into two very distinct classes--the aristocracy of knowledge placed above the horny-handed lower orders--the one doomed to serve the other; the one working with its hands to feed and clothe those who, profiting by their leisure, study how to govern their fosterers. it would mean reviving one of the distinct peculiarities of present society and giving it the sanction of the social revolution. it would mean setting up as a principle an abuse already condemned in our ancient crumbling society. we know the answer we shall get. they will speak of "scientific socialism"; they will quote bourgeois economists, and marx too, to prove that a scale of wages has its _raison d'être_, as "the labour force" of the engineer will have cost more to society than the "labour-force" of the navvy. in fact--have not economists tried to prove to us that if an engineer is paid twenty times more than a navvy it is _because_ the "necessary" outlay to make an engineer is greater than that necessary to make a navvy? and has not marx asserted that the same distinction is equally logical between two branches of manual labour? he could not conclude otherwise, having taken up on his own account ricardo's theory of value, and upheld that goods _are_ exchanged in proportion to the quantity of work socially necessary for their production. but we know what to think of this. we know that if engineers, scientists, or doctors are paid ten or a hundred times more than a labourer, and if a weaver earns three times more than an agricultural labourer, and ten times more than a girl in a match factory, it is not by reason of their "cost of production," but by reason of a monopoly of education, or a monopoly of industry. engineers, scientists, and doctors merely exploit their capital--their diplomas--as middle-class employers exploit a factory, or as nobles used to exploit their titles of nobility. as to the employer who pays an engineer twenty times more than a labourer, it is simply due to personal interest; if the engineer can economize £ , a year on the cost of production, the employer pays him £ . and if the employer has a foreman who saves £ on the work by cleverly sweating workmen, he gladly gives him £ or £ a year. he parts with an extra £ when he expects to gain £ by it; and this is the essence of the capitalist system. the same differences obtain among different manual trades. let them, therefore, not talk to us of "the cost of production" which raises the cost of skilled labour, and tell us that a student who has gaily spent his youth in a university has a _right_ to a wage ten times greater than the son of a miner who has grown pale in a mine since the age of eleven; or that a weaver has a _right_ to a wage three or four times greater than that of an agricultural labourer. the cost of teaching a weaver his work is not four times greater than the cost of teaching a peasant his. the weaver simply benefits by the advantages his industry reaps in international trade, from countries that have as yet no industries, and in consequence of the privileges accorded by all states to industries in preference to the tilling of the soil. nobody has ever calculated the _cost of production_ of a producer; and if a noble loafer costs far more to society than a worker, it remains to be seen whether a robust day-labourer does not cost more to society than a skilled artisan, when we have taken into account infant-mortality among the poor, the ravages of anæmia, and premature deaths. could they, for example, make us believe that the s. d. paid to a paris workwoman, the d. paid to an auvergne peasant girl who grows blind at lace-making, or the s. d. paid to the peasant represent their "cost of production." we know full well that people work for less, but we also know that they do so exclusively because, thanks to our wonderful organization, they would die of hunger did they not accept these mock wages. for us the scale of remuneration is a complex result of taxes, of governmental tutelage, of capitalist monopoly. in a word, of state and capital. therefore, we say that all wages' theories have been invented after the event to justify injustices at present existing, and that we need not take them into consideration. neither will they fail to tell us that the collectivist scale of wages would be an improvement. "it would be better," so they say, "to see certain artisans receiving a wage two or three times higher than common labourers, than to see a minister receiving in a day what a workman cannot earn in a year. it would be a great step towards equality." for us this step would be the reverse of progress. to make a distinction between simple and professional work in a new society would result in the revolution sanctioning and recognizing as a principle a brutal fact we submit to nowadays, but that we nevertheless find unjust. it would mean imitating those gentlemen of the french assembly who proclaimed on august th, , the abolition of feudal rights, but who on august th sanctioned these same rights by imposing dues on the peasants to compensate the noblemen, placing these dues under the protection of the revolution. it would mean imitating the russian government, which proclaimed, at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, that certain lands should henceforth belong to the nobility, while formerly these lands were considered as belonging to the serfs. or else, to take a better known example, when the commune of decided to pay members of the commune council s. d. a day, while the federates on the ramparts received only s. d., this decision was hailed as an act of superior democratic equality. in reality, the commune only ratified the former inequality between functionary and soldier, government and governed. coming from an opportunist chamber of deputies, such a decision would have appeared admirable, but the commune doomed her own revolutionary principles when she failed to put them into practice. under our existing social system, when a minister gets paid £ , a year, while a workman must content himself with £ or less; when a foreman is paid two or three times more than a workman, and among workmen there is every gradation, from s. a day down to the peasant girl's d., we disapprove of the high salary of the minister as well as of the difference between the s. of the workman and the d. of the poor woman. and we say, '"down with the privileges of education, as well as with those of birth!" we are anarchists precisely because these privileges revolt us. they revolt us already in this authoritarian society. could we endure them in a society that began by proclaiming equality? this is why some collectivists, understanding the impossibility of maintaining a scale of wages in a society inspired by the breath of the revolution, hasten to proclaim equality of wage. but they meet with new difficulties, and their equality of wages becomes the same unrealizable utopia as the scale of wages of other collectivists. a society having taken possession of all social wealth, having boldly proclaimed the right of all to this wealth--whatever share they may have taken in producing it--will be compelled to abandon any system of wages, whether in currency or labour-notes. iv the collectivists say, "to each according to his deeds"; or, in other terms, according to his share of services rendered to society. they think it expedient to put this principle into practice, as soon as the social revolution will have made all instruments of production common property. but we think that if the social revolution had the misfortune of proclaiming such a principle, it would mean its necessary failure; it would mean leaving the social problem, which past centuries have burdened us with, unsolved. of course, in a society like ours, in which the more a man works the less he is remunerated, this principle, at first sight, may appear to be a yearning for justice. but in reality it is only the perpetuation of injustice. it was by proclaiming this principle that wagedom began, to end in the glaring inequalities and all the abominations of present society; because, from the moment work done began to be appraised in currency, or in any other form of wage, the day it was agreed upon that man would only receive the wage he should be able to secure to himself, the whole history of a state-aided capitalist society was as good as written; it was contained in germ in this principle. shall we, then, return to our starting-point, and go through the same evolution again? our theorists desire it, but fortunately it is impossible. the revolution, we maintain, must be communist; if not, it will be drowned in blood, and have to be begun over again. services rendered to society, be they work in factory or field, or mental services, _cannot be_ valued in money. there can be no exact measure of value (of what has been wrongly termed exchange value), nor of use value, in terms of production. if two individuals work for the community five hours a day, year in year out, at different work which is equally agreeable to them, we may say that on the whole their labour is approximately equivalent. but we cannot divide their work, and say that the result of any particular day, hour, or minute of work of the one is worth the result of one day, one hour, or one minute of the other. we may roughly say that the man, who during his lifetime has deprived himself of leisure during ten hours a day has given far more to society than the one who has only deprived himself of leisure during five hours a day, or who has not deprived himself at all. but we cannot take what he has done during two hours, and say that the yield of his two hours' work is worth twice as much as the yield of another individual, who has worked only one hour, and remunerate the two in proportion. it would be disregarding all that is complex in industry, in agriculture, in the whole life of present society; it would be ignoring to what extent all individual work is the result of the past and the present labour of society as a whole. it would mean believing ourselves to be living in the stone age, whereas we are living in an age of steel. if you enter a modern coal-mine you will see a man in charge of a huge machine that raises and lowers a cage. in his hand he holds a lever that stops and reverses the course of the machine; he lowers it and the cage reverses its course in the twinkling of an eye; he sends it upwards or downwards into the depths of the shaft with a giddy swiftness. all attention, he follows with his eyes fixed on an indicator which shows him, on a small scale, at which point of the shaft the cage is at each second of its progress; and as soon as the indicator has reached a certain level, he suddenly stops the course of the cage, not a yard higher nor lower than the required spot. and no sooner have the colliers unloaded their coal-wagonettes, and pushed empty ones instead, than he reverses the lever and again sends the cage back into space. during eight or ten consecutive hours every day he must keep the same strain of attention. should his brain relax for a moment, the cage would inevitably strike against the gear, break its wheels, snap the rope, crush men, and put a stop to all work in the mine. should he waste three seconds at each touch of the lever,--the extraction, in our modern, perfected mines, would be reduced from twenty to fifty tons a day. is it he who is the most necessary man in the mine? or, is it perhaps the boy who signals to him from below to raise the cage? is it the miner at the bottom of the shaft, who risks his life every instant, and who will some day be killed by fire-damp? or is it the engineer, who would lose the layer of coal, and would cause the miners to dig on rock by a simple mistake in his calculations? or is it the mine owner who has put his capital into the mine, and who has perhaps, contrary to expert advice, asserted that excellent coal would be found there? all those who are engaged in the mine contribute to the extraction of coal in proportion to their strength, their energy, their knowledge, their intelligence, and their skill. and we may say that all have the right to _live_, to satisfy their needs, and even their whims, when the necessaries of life have been secured for all. but how can we appraise the work of each one of them? and, moreover, is the coal they have extracted entirely _their_ work? is it not also the work of the men who have built the railway leading to the mine and the roads that radiate from all the railway stations? is it not also the work of those that have tilled and sown the fields, extracted iron, cut wood in the forests, built the machines that burn coal, slowly developed the mining industry altogether, and so on? it is utterly impossible to draw a distinction between the work of each of those men. to measure the work by its results leads us to an absurdity; to divide the total work, and to measure its fractions by the number of hours spent on the work also leads us to absurdity. one thing remains: to put the _needs_ above the _works_, and first of all to recognize _the right to live_, and later on _the right to well-being_ for all those who took their share in production. but take any other branch of human activity--take the manifestations of life as a whole. which one of us can claim the higher remuneration for his work? is it the doctor who has found out the illness, or the nurse who has brought about recovery by her hygienic care? is it the inventor of the first steam-engine, or the boy, who, one day getting tired of pulling the rope that formerly opened the valve to let steam under the piston, tied the rope to the lever of the machine, without suspecting that he had invented the essential mechanical part of all modern machinery--the automatic valve? is it the inventor of the locomotive, or the workman of newcastle, who suggested replacing the stones formerly laid under the rails by wooden sleepers, as the stones, for want of elasticity, caused the trains to derail? is it the engineer on the locomotive? the signalman who stops the trains, or lets them pass by? the switchman who transfers a train from one line to another? again, to whom do we owe the transatlantic cable? is it to the electrical engineer who obstinately affirmed that the cable would transmit messages while learned men of science declared it to be impossible? is it to maury, the learned physical geographer, who advised that thick cables should be set aside for others as thin as a walking cane? or else to those volunteers, come from nobody knows where, who spent their days and nights on deck minutely examining every yard of the cable, and removed the nails that the shareholders of steamship companies stupidly caused to be driven into the non-conducting wrapper of the cable, so as to make it unserviceable? and in a wider sphere, the true sphere of life, with its joys, its sufferings, and its accidents, cannot each one of us recall someone who has rendered him so great a service that we should be indignant if its equivalent in coin were mentioned? the service may have been but a word, nothing but a word spoken at the right time, or else it may have been months and years of devotion, and we are going to appraise these "incalculable" services in "labour-notes"? "the works of each!" but human society would not exist for more than two consecutive generations if everyone did not give infinitely more than that for which he is paid in coin, in "cheques," or in civic rewards. the race would soon become extinct if mothers did not sacrifice their lives to take care of their children, if men did not give continually, without demanding an equivalent reward, if men did not give most precisely when they expect no reward. if middle-class society is decaying, if we have got into a blind alley from which we cannot emerge without attacking past institutions with torch and hatchet, it is precisely because we have given too much to counting. it is because we have let ourselves be influenced into _giving_ only to _receive._ it is because we have aimed at turning society into a commercial company based on _debit_ and _credit_. after all, the collectivists know this themselves. they vaguely understand that a society could not exist if it carried out the principle of "each according to his deeds." they have a notion that _necessaries_--we do not speak of whims--the needs of the individual, do not always correspond to his _works_. thus de paepe tells us: "the principle--the eminently individualist principle--would, however, be _tempered_ by social intervention for the education of children and young persons (including maintenance and lodging), and by the social organization for assisting the infirm and the sick, for retreats for aged workers, etc." they understand that a man of forty, father of three children, has other needs than a young man of twenty. they know that the woman who suckles her infant and spends sleepless nights at its bedside, cannot do as much _work_ as the man who has slept peacefully. they seem to take in that men and women, worn out maybe by dint of overwork for society, may be incapable of doing as much _work_ as those who have spent their time leisurely and pocketed their "labour-notes" in the privileged career of state functionaries. they are eager to temper their principle. they say: "society will not fail to maintain and bring up its children; to help both aged and infirm. without doubt _needs_ will be the measure of the cost that society will burden itself with, to temper the principle of deeds." charity, charity, always christian charity, organized by the state this time. they believe in improving the asylums for foundlings, in effecting old-age and sick insurances--so as to _temper_ their principle. but they cannot yet throw aside the idea of "wounding first and healing afterwards"! thus, after having denied communism, after having laughed at their ease at the formula--"to each according to his needs"--these great economists discover that they have forgotten something, the needs of the producers, which they now admit. only it is for the state to estimate them, for the state to verify if the needs are not disproportionate to the work. the state will dole out charity. thence to the english poor-law and the workhouse is but a step. there is but a slight difference, because even this stepmother of a society against whom we are in revolt has also been compelled to _temper_ her individualist principles; she, too, has had to make concessions in a communist direction and under the same form of charity. she, too, distributes halfpenny dinners to prevent the pillaging of her shops; builds hospitals--often very bad ones, but sometimes splendid ones--to prevent the ravages of contagious diseases. she, too, after having paid the hours of labour, shelters the children of those she has wrecked. she takes their needs into consideration and doles out charity. poverty, we have said elsewhere, was the primary cause of wealth. it was poverty that created the first capitalist; because, before accumulating "surplus value," of which we hear so much, men had to be sufficiently destitute to consent to sell their labour, so as not to die of hunger. it was poverty that made capitalists. and if the number of the poor increased so rapidly during the middle ages, it was due to the invasions and wars that followed the founding of states, and to the increase of riches resulting from the exploitation of the east. these two causes tore asunder the bonds that kept men together in the agrarian and urban communities, and taught them to proclaim the principle of _wages_, so dear to the exploiters, instead of the solidarity they formerly practiced in their tribal life. and it is this principle that is to spring from a revolution which men dare to call by the name of social revolution,--a name so dear to the starved, the oppressed, and the sufferers! it can never be. for the day on which old institutions will fall under the proletarian axe, voices will cry out: "bread, shelter, ease for all!" and those voices will be listened to; the people will say: "let us begin by allaying our thirst for life, for happiness, for liberty, that we have never quenched. and when we shall have tasted of this joy, we will set to work to demolish the last vestiges of middle-class rule: its morality drawn from account books, its 'debit and credit' philosophy, its 'mine and yours' institutions. 'in demolishing we shall build,' as proudhon said; and we shall build in the name of communism and anarchy." chapter xiv consumption and production i looking at society and its political organization from a different standpoint than that of all the authoritarian schools--for we start from a free individual to reach a free society, instead of beginning by the state to come down to the individual--we follow the same method in economic questions. we study the needs of the individuals, and the means by which they satisfy them, before discussing production, exchange, taxation, government, and so on. at first sight the difference may appear trifling, but in reality it upsets all the canons of official political economy. if you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with production, _i. e._, by the analysis of the means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth: division of labour, the factory, its machinery, the accumulation of capital. from adam smith to marx, all have proceeded along these lines. only in the latter parts of their books do they treat of consumption, that is to say, of the means resorted to in our present society to satisfy the needs of the individuals; and even there they confine themselves to explaining how riches _are_ divided among those who vie with one another for their possession. perhaps you will say this is logical. before satisfying needs you must create the wherewithal to satisfy them. but, before producing anything, must you not feel the need of it? was it not necessity that first drove man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and later on to invent machinery? is it not the study of the needs that should govern production? to say the least, it would therefore be quite as logical to begin by considering the needs, and afterwards to discuss how production is, and ought to be, organized, in order to satisfy these needs. this is precisely what we mean to do. but as soon as we look at political economy from this point of view, it entirely changes its aspect. it ceases to be a simple description of facts, and becomes a _science_, and we may define this science as: "_the study of the needs of mankind, and the means of satisfying them with the least possible waste of human energy_". its true name should be, _physiology of society_. it constitutes a parallel science to the physiology of plants and animals, which is the study of the needs of plants and animals, and of the most advantageous ways of satisfying them. in the series of sociological sciences, the economy of human societies takes the place, occupied in the series of biological sciences by the physiology of organic bodies. we say, here are human beings, united in a society. all of them feel the need of living in healthy houses. the savage's hut no longer satisfies them; they require a more or less comfortable solid shelter. the question is, then: whether, taking the present capacity of men for production, every man can have a house of his own? and what is hindering him from having it? and as soon as we ask _this_ question, we see that every family in europe could perfectly well have a comfortable house, such as are built in england, in belgium, or in pullman city, or else an equivalent set of rooms. a certain number of days' work would suffice to build a pretty little airy house, well fitted up and lighted by electricity. but nine-tenths of europeans have never possessed a healthy house, because at all times common people have had to work day after day to satisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary leisure or money to build, or to have built, the home of their dreams. and they can have no houses, and will inhabit hovels as long as present conditions remain unchanged. it is thus seen that our method is quite contrary to that of the economists, who immortalize the so-called _laws_ of production, and, reckoning up the number of houses built every year, demonstrate by statistics, that as the number of the new-built houses _is_ too small to meet all demands, nine-tenths of europeans _must_ live in hovels. let us pass on to food. after having enumerated the benefits accruing from the division of labour, economists tell us the division of labour requires that some men should work at agriculture and others at manufacture. farmers producing so much, factories so much, exchange being carried on in such a way, they analyze the sale, the profit, the net gain or the surplus value, the wages, the taxes, banking, and so on. but after having followed them so far, we are none the wiser, and if we ask them: "how is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread, when every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and even a hundred people annually?" they answer us by droning the same anthem--division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital, etc.--arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient to satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the question: "can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs? and if he cannot, what is it that hinders him?" here are million europeans. they need so much bread, so much meat, wine, milk, eggs, and butter every year. they need so many houses, so much clothing. this is the minimum of their needs. can they produce all this? and if they can, will sufficient leisure be left them for art, science, and amusement?--in a word, for everything that is not comprised in the category of absolute necessities? if the answer is in the affirmative,--what hinders them going ahead? what must they do to remove the obstacles? is it time that is needed to achieve such a result? let them take it! but let us not lose sight of the aim of production--the satisfaction of the needs of all. if the most imperious needs of man remain unsatisfied now,--what must we do to increase the productivity of our work? but is there no other cause? might it not be that production, having lost sight of the _needs_ of man, has strayed in an absolutely wrong direction, and that its organization is at fault? and as we can prove that such is the case, let us see how to reorganize production so as to really satisfy all needs. this seems to us the only right way of facing things. the only way that would allow of political economy becoming a science--the science of social physiology. it is evident that so long as science treats of production, as _it is_ carried on at present by civilized nations, by hindoo communes, or by savages, it can hardly state facts otherwise than the economists state them now; that is to say, as a simple _descriptive_ chapter, analogous to the descriptive chapters of zoology and botany. but if this chapter were written so as to throw some light on the economy of the energy that is necessary to satisfy human needs, the chapter would gain in precision, as well as in descriptive value. it would clearly show the frightful waste of human energy under the present system, and it would prove that as long as this system exists, the needs of humanity will never be satisfied. the point of view, we see, would be entirely changed. behind the loom that weaves so many yards of cloth, behind the steel-plate perforator, and behind the safe in which dividends are hoarded, we should see man, the artisan of production, more often than not excluded from the feast he has prepared for others. we should also understand that the standpoint being wrong, the so-called "laws" of value and exchange are but a very false explanation of events, as they happen nowadays; and that things will come to pass very differently when production is organized in such a manner as to meet all needs of society. ii there is not one single principle of political economy that does not change its aspect if you look at it from our point of view. take, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in our ears. is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for academical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that economic crises are due to over-production--that at a given moment more cotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! have we not, all of us, thundered against the rapacity of the capitalists who are obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed! however, on careful examination all these reasonings prove unsound. in fact, is there one single commodity among those in universal use which is produced in greater quantity than need be. examine one by one all commodities sent out by countries exporting on a large scale, and you will see that nearly all are produced in _insufficient_ quantities for the inhabitants of the countries exporting them. it is not a surplus of wheat that the russian peasant sends to europe. the most plentiful harvests of wheat and rye in european russia only yield _enough_ for the population. and as a rule, the peasant deprives himself of what he actually needs when he sells his wheat or rye to pay rent and taxes. it is not a surplus of coal that england sends to the four corners of the globe, because only three-quarters of a ton, per head of population, annually, remains for home domestic consumption, and millions of englishmen are deprived of fire in the winter, or have only just enough to boil a few vegetables. in fact, setting aside useless luxuries, there is in england, which exports more than any other country, one single commodity in universal use--cottons--whose production is sufficiently great to _perhaps_ exceed the needs of the community. yet when we look upon the rags that pass for wearing apparel worn by over a third of the inhabitants of the united kingdom, we are led to ask ourselves whether the cottons exported would not, on the whole, suit the _real_ needs of the population? as a rule it is not a surplus that is exported, though it may have been so originally. the fable of the barefooted shoemaker is as true of nations as it was formerly of individual artisans. we export the _necessary_ commodities. and we do so, because the workmen cannot buy with their wages what they have produced, _and pay besides the rent and interest to the capitalist and the banker_. not only does the ever-growing need of comfort remain unsatisfied, but the strict necessities of life are often wanting. therefore, "surplus production" does _not_ exist, at least not in the sense given to it by the theorists of political economy. taking another point--all economists tell us that there is a well-proved law: "man produces more than he consumes." after he has lived on the proceeds of his toil, there remains a surplus. thus, a family of cultivators produces enough to feed several families, and so forth. for us, this oft-repeated sentence has no sense. if it meant that each generation leaves something to future generations, it would be true; thus, for example, a farmer plants a tree that will live, maybe, for thirty, forty, or a hundred years, and whose fruits will still be gathered by the farmer's grandchildren. or he clears a few acres of virgin soil, and we say that the heritage of future generations has been increased by that much. roads, bridges, canals, his house and his furniture are so much wealth bequeathed to succeeding generations. but this is not what is meant. we are told that the cultivator produces more than he _need_ consume. rather should they say that, the state having always taken from him a large share of his produce for taxes, the priest for tithe, and the landlord for rent, a whole class of men has been created, who formerly consumed what they produced--save what was set aside for unforeseen accidents, or expenses incurred in afforestation, roads, etc.--but who to-day are compelled to live very poorly, from hand to mouth, the remainder having been taken from them by the state, the landlord, the priest, and the usurer. therefore we prefer to say: the agricultural labourer, the industrial worker and so on _consume less than they produce_,--because they are _compelled_ to sell most of the produce of their labour and to be satisfied with but a small portion of it. let us also observe that if the needs of the individual are taken as the starting-point of our political economy, we cannot fail to reach communism, an organization which enables us to satisfy all needs in the most thorough and economical way. while if we start from our present method of production, and aim at gain and surplus value, without asking whether our production corresponds to the satisfaction of needs, we necessarily arrive at capitalism, or at most at collectivism--both being but two different forms of the present wages' system. in fact, when we consider the needs of the individual and of society, and the means which man has resorted to in order to satisfy them during his varied phases of development, we see at once the necessity of systematizing our efforts, instead of producing haphazard as we do nowadays. it becomes evident that the appropriation by a few of all riches not consumed, and transmitted from one generation to another, is not in the general interest. and we see as a fact that owing to these methods the needs of three-quarters of society are _not_ satisfied, so that the present waste of human strength in useless things is only the more criminal. we discover, moreover, that the most advantageous use of all commodities would be, for each of them, to go, first, for satisfying those needs which are the most pressing: that, in other words, the so-called "value in use" of a commodity does not depend on a simple whim, as has often been affirmed, but on the satisfaction it brings to _real_ needs. communism--that is to say, an organization which would correspond to a view of consumption, production, and exchange, taken as a whole--therefore becomes the logical consequence of such a comprehension of things--the only one, in our opinion, that is really scientific. a society that will satisfy the needs of all, and which will know how to organize production to answer to this aim will also have to make a clean sweep of several prejudices concerning industry, and first of all the theory often preached by economists--_the division of labour_ theory--which we are going to discuss in the next chapter. chapter xv the division of labour political economy has always confined itself to stating facts occurring in society, and justifying them in the interest of the dominant class. therefore, it pronounces itself in favour of the division of labour in industry. having found it profitable to capitalists, it has set it up as a _principle_. look at the village smith, said adam smith, the father of modern political economy. if he has never been accustomed to making nails he will only succeed by hard toil in forging two or three hundred a day, and even then they will be bad. but if this same smith has never made anything but nails, he will easily supply as many as two thousand three hundred in the course of a day. and smith hastened to the conclusion--"divide labour, specialize, go on specializing; let us have smiths who only know how to make heads or points of nails, and by this means we shall produce more. we shall grow rich." that a smith condemned for life to make the heads of nails would lose all interest in his work, that he would be entirely at the mercy of his employer with his limited handicraft, that he would be out of work four months out of twelve, and that his wages would fall very low down, when it would be easy to replace him by an apprentice, smith did not think of all this when he exclaimed--"long live the division of labour. this is the real gold-mine that will enrich the nation!" and all joined him in this cry. and later on, when a sismondi or a j. b. say began to understand that the division of labour, instead of enriching the whole nation, only enriches the rich, and that the worker, who is doomed for life to making the eighteenth part of a pin, grows stupid and sinks into poverty--what did official economists propose? nothing! they did not say to themselves that by a lifelong grind at one and the same mechanical toil the worker would lose his intelligence and his spirit of invention, and that, on the contrary, a variety of occupations would result in considerably augmenting the productivity of a nation. but this is the very issue we have now to consider. if, however, learned economists were the only ones to preach the permanent and often hereditary division of labour, we might allow them to preach it as much as they pleased. but the ideas taught by doctors of science filter into men's minds and pervert them; and from repeatedly hearing the division of labour, profits, interest, credit, etc., spoken of as problems long since solved, all middle-class people, and workers too, end by arguing like economists; they venerate the same fetishes. thus we see most socialists, even those who have not feared to point out the mistakes of economical science, justifying the division of labour. talk to them about the organization of work during the revolution, and they answer that the division of labour must be maintained; that if you sharpened pins before the revolution you must go on sharpening them after. true, you will not have to work more than five hours a day, but you will have to sharpen pins all your life, while others will make designs for machines that will enable you to sharpen hundreds of millions of pins during your life-time; and others again will be specialists in the higher branches of literature, science, and art, etc. you were born to sharpen pins while pasteur was born to invent the inoculation against anthrax, and the revolution will leave you both to your respective employments. well, it is this horrible principle, so noxious to society, so brutalizing to the individual, source of so much harm, that we propose to discuss in its divers manifestations. we know the consequences of the division of labour full well. it is evident that, first of all, we are divided into two classes: on the one hand, producers, who consume very little and are exempt from thinking because they only do physical work, and who work badly because their brains remain inactive; and on the other hand, the consumers, who, producing little or hardly anything, have the privilege of thinking for the others, and who think badly because the whole world of those who toil with their hands is unknown to them. then, we have the labourers of the soil who know nothing of machinery, while those who work at machinery ignore everything about agriculture. the idea of modern industry is a child _tending_ a machine that he cannot and must not understand, and a foreman who fines him if his attention flags for a moment. the ideal of industrial agriculture is to do away with the agricultural labourer altogether and to set a man who does odd jobs to tend a steam-plough or a threshing-machine. the division of labour means labelling and stamping men for life--some to splice ropes in factories, some to be foremen in a business, others to shove huge coal-baskets in a particular part of a mine; but none of them to have any idea of machinery as a whole, nor of business, nor of mines. and thereby they destroy the love of work and the capacity for invention that, at the beginning of modern industry, created the machinery on which we pride ourselves so much. what they have done for individuals, they also wanted to do for nations. humanity was to be divided into national workshops, having each its speciality. russia, we were taught, was destined by nature to grow corn; england to spin cotton; belgium to weave cloth; while switzerland was to train nurses and governesses. moreover, each separate city was to establish a specialty. lyons was to weave silk, auvergne to make lace, and paris fancy articles. in this way, economists said, an immense field was opened for production and consumption, and in this way an era of limitless wealth for mankind was at hand. however, these great hopes vanished as fast as technical knowledge spread abroad. as long as england stood alone as a weaver of cotton and as a metal-worker on a large scale; as long as only paris made artistic fancy articles, etc., all went well, economists could preach the so-called division of labour without being refuted. but a new current of thought induced bye and bye all civilized nations to manufacture for themselves. they found it advantageous to produce what they formerly received from other countries, or from their colonies, which in their turn aimed at emancipating themselves from the mother-country. scientific discoveries universalized the methods of production, and henceforth it was useless to pay an exorbitant price abroad for what could easily be produced at home. and now we see already that this industrial revolution strikes a crushing blow at the theory of the division of labour which for a long time was supposed to be so sound. chapter xvi the decentralization of industry[ ] i after the napoleonic wars britain had nearly succeeded in ruining the main industries which had sprung up in france at the end of the preceding century. she also became mistress of the seas and had no rivals of importance. she took in the situation, and knew how to turn its privileges and advantages to account. she established an industrial monopoly, and, imposing upon her neighbours her prices for the goods she alone could manufacture, accumulated riches upon riches. but as the middle-class revolution of the eighteenth century had abolished serfdom and created a proletariat in france, french industry, hampered for a time in its flight, soared again, and from the second half of the nineteenth century france ceased to be a tributary of england for manufactured goods. to-day she too has grown into a nation with an export trade. she sells far more than sixty million pounds' worth of manufactured goods, and two-thirds of these goods are fabrics. the number of frenchmen working for export or living by their foreign trade, is estimated at three millions. france is therefore no longer england's tributary. in her turn she has striven to monopolize certain branches of foreign industry, such as silks and ready-made clothes, and has reaped immense profits therefrom; but she is on the point of losing this monopoly for ever, just as england is on the point of losing the monopoly of cotton goods. travelling eastwards, industry has reached germany. fifty years ago germany was a tributary of england and france for most manufactured commodities in the higher branches of industry. it is no longer so. in the course of the last fifty years, and especially since the franco-german war, germany has completely reorganized her industry. the new factories are stocked with the best machinery; the latest creations of industrial art in cotton goods from manchester, or in silks from lyons, etc., are now realized in new german factories. it took two or three generations of workers, at lyons and manchester, to construct the modern machinery; but germany adopted it in its perfected state. technical schools, adapted to the needs of industry, supply the factories with an army of intelligent workmen--practical engineers, who can work with both hand and brain. german industry starts at the point which was only reached by manchester and lyons after fifty years of groping in the dark, of exertion and experiments. it follows that since germany manufactures so well at home, she diminishes her imports from france and england year by year. she has not only become their rival in manufactured goods in asia and in africa, but also in london and in paris. shortsighted people in france may cry out against the frankfort treaty; english manufacturers may explain german competition by little differences in railway tariffs; they may linger on the petty side of questions, and neglect great historical facts. but it is none the less certain that the main industries, formerly in the hands of england and france, have progressed eastward, and in germany they have found a country, young, full of energy, possessing an intelligent middle class, and eager in its turn to enrich itself by foreign trade. while germany has freed herself from subjection to france and england, has manufactured her own cotton-cloth, and constructed her own machines--in fact, manufactured all commodities--the main industries have also taken root in russia, where the development of manufacture is the more instructive as it sprang up but yesterday. at the time of the abolition of serfdom in , russia had hardly any factories. everything needed in the way of machines, rails, railway-engines, fine dress materials, came from the west. twenty years later she possessed already , factories, and the value of the goods manufactured in russia had increased fourfold. the old machinery was superseded, and now nearly all the steel in use in russia, three-quarters of the iron, two-thirds of the coal, all railway-engines, railway-carriages, rails, nearly all steamers, are made in russia. russia, destined--so wrote economists--to remain an agricultural territory, has rapidly developed into a manufacturing country. she orders hardly anything from england, and very little from germany. economists hold the customs responsible for these facts, and yet cottons manufactured in russia are sold at the same price as in london. capital taking no cognizance of father-lands, german and english capitalists, accompanied by engineers and foremen of their own nationalities, have introduced in russia and in poland manufactories whose goods compete in excellence with the best from england. if customs were abolished to-morrow, manufacture would only gain by it. not long ago the british manufacturers delivered another hard blow to the import of cloth and woolens from the west. they set up in southern and middle russia immense wool factories, stocked with the most perfect machinery from bradford, and already now russia imports only the highest sorts of cloth and woolen fabrics from england, france and austria. the remainder is fabricated at home, both in factories and as domestic industries. the main industries not only move eastward, they are spreading also to the southern peninsulas. the turin exhibition of already demonstrated the progress made in italian manufactured produce; and, let us not make any mistake about it, the mutual hatred of the french and italian middle classes has no other origin than their industrial rivalry. spain is also becoming an industrial country; while in the east, bohemia has suddenly sprung into importance as a new centre of manufactures, provided with perfected machinery and applying the best scientific methods. we might also mention hungary's rapid progress in the main industries, but let us rather take brazil as an example. economists sentenced brazil to cultivate cotton forever, to export it in its raw state, and to receive cotton-cloth from europe in exchange. in fact, forty years ago brazil had only nine wretched little cotton factories with spindles. to-day there are cotton-mills, possessing , , spindles and , looms, which throw million yards of textiles on the market annually. even mexico is now very successful in manufacturing cotton-cloth, instead of importing it from europe. as to the united states they have quite freed themselves from european tutelage, and have triumphantly developed their manufacturing powers to an enormous extent. but it was india which gave the most striking proof against the specialization of national industry. we all know the theory: the great european nations need colonies, for colonies send raw material--cotton fibre, unwashed wool, spices, etc., to the mother-land. and the mother-land, under pretense of sending them manufactured wares, gets rid of her damaged stuffs, her machine scrap-iron and everything which she no longer has any use for. it costs her little or nothing, and none the less the articles are sold at exorbitant prices. such was the theory--such was the practice for a long time. in london and manchester fortunes were made, while india was being ruined. in the india museum in london unheard of riches, collected in calcutta and bombay by english merchants, are to be seen. but other english merchants and capitalists conceived the very simple idea that it would be more expedient to exploit the natives of india by making cotton-cloth in india itself, than to import from twenty to twenty-four million pounds' worth of goods annually. at first a series of experiments ended in failure. indian weavers--artists and experts in their own craft--could not inure themselves to factory life; the machinery sent from liverpool was bad; the climate had to be taken into account; and merchants had to adapt themselves to new conditions, now fully mastered, before british india could become the menacing rival of the mother-land she is to-day. she now possesses more than cotton-mills which employ about , workmen, and contain more than , , spindles and , looms, and jute-mills, with , spindles. she exports annually to china, to the dutch indies, and to africa, nearly eight million pounds' worth of the same white cotton-cloth, said to be england's specialty. and while english workmen are often unemployed and in great want, indian women weave cotton by machinery, for the far east at wages of six-pence a day. in short, the intelligent manufacturers are fully aware that the day is not far off when they will not know what to do with the "factory hands" who formerly wove cotton-cloth for export from england. besides which it is becoming more and more evident that india will no import a single ton of iron from england. the initial difficulties in using the coal and the iron-ore obtained in india have been overcome; and foundries, rivalling those in england, have been built on the shores of the indian ocean. colonies competing with the mother-land in its production of manufactured goods, such is the factor which will regulate economy in the twentieth century. and why should india not manufacture? what should be the hindrance? capital?--but capital goes wherever there are men, poor enough to be exploited. knowledge? but knowledge recognizes no national barriers. technical skill of the worker?--no. are, then, hindoo workmen inferior to the hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, not eighteen years old, at present working in the english textile factories? ii after having glanced at national industries it would be very interesting to turn to some special branches. let us take silk, for example, an eminently french produce in the first half of the nineteenth century. we all know how lyons became the emporium of the silk trade. at first raw silk was gathered in southern france, till little by little they ordered it from italy, from spain, from austria, from the caucasus, and from japan, for the manufacture of their silk fabrics. in , out of five million kilos of raw silk converted into stuffs in the vicinity of lyons, there were only four hundred thousand kilos of french silk. but if lyons manufactured imported silk, why should not switzerland, germany, russia, do as much? consequently, silk-weaving began to develop in the villages round zurich. bâle became a great centre of the silk trade. the caucasian administration engaged women from marseilles and workmen from lyons to teach georgians the perfected rearing of silk-worms, and the art of converting silk into fabrics to the caucasian peasants. austria followed. then germany, with the help of lyons workmen, built great silk factories. the united states did likewise at paterson. and to-day the silk trade is no longer a french monopoly. silks are made in germany, in austria, in the united states, and in england, and it is now reckoned that one-third of the silk stuffs used in france are imported. in winter, caucasian peasants weave silk handkerchiefs at a wage that would mean starvation to the silk-weavers of lyons. italy and germany send silks to france; and lyons, which in - exported million francs' worth of silk fabrics, exports now only one-half of that amount. in fact, the time is not far off when lyons will only send higher class goods and a few novelties as patterns to germany, russia and japan. and so it is in all industries. belgium has no longer the cloth monopoly; cloth is made in germany, in russia, in austria, in the united states. switzerland and the french jura have no longer a clockwork monopoly; watches are made everywhere. scotland no longer refines sugar for russia: refined russian sugar is imported into england. italy, although neither possessing coal nor iron, makes her own iron-clads and engines for her steamers. chemical industry is no longer an english monopoly; sulphuric acid and soda are made even in the urals. steam-engines, made at winterthur, have acquired everywhere a wide reputation, and at the present moment, switzerland, which has neither coal nor iron, and no sea-ports to import them--nothing but excellent technical schools--makes machinery better and cheaper than england. so ends the theory of exchange. the tendency of trade, as for all else, is toward decentralization. every nation finds it advantageous to combine agriculture with the greatest possible variety of factories. the specialization, of which economists spoke so highly, certainly has enriched a number of capitalists, but is now no longer of any use. on the contrary, it is to the advantage of every region, every nation, to grow their own wheat, their own vegetables, and to manufacture at home most of the produce they consume. this diversity is the surest pledge of the complete development of production by mutual co-operation, and the moving cause of progress, while specialization is now a hindrance to progress. agriculture can only prosper in proximity to factories. and no sooner does a single factory appear than an infinite variety of other factories _must_ spring up around, so that, mutually supporting and stimulating one another by their inventions, they increase their productivity. iii it is foolish indeed to export wheat and to import flour, to export wool and import cloth, to export iron and import machinery; not only because transportation is a waste of time and money, but, above all, because a country with no developed industry inevitably remains behind the times in agriculture; because a country with no large factories to bring steel to a finished condition is doomed to be backward in all other industries; and lastly, because the industrial and technical capacities of the nation remain undeveloped, if they are not exercised in a variety of industries. nowadays everything holds together in the world of production. cultivation of the soil is no longer possible without machinery, without great irrigation works, without railways, without manure factories. and to adapt this machinery, these railways, these irrigation engines, etc., to local conditions, a certain spirit of invention, and a certain amount of technical skill must be developed, while they necessarily lie dormant so long as spades and ploughshares are the only implements of cultivation. if fields are to be properly cultivated, if they are to yield the abundant harvests that man has the right to expect, it is essential that workshops, foundries, and factories develop within the reach of the fields. a variety of occupations, and a variety of skill arising therefrom, both working together for a common aim--these are the true forces of progress. and now let us imagine the inhabitants of a city or a territory--whether vast or small--stepping for the first time on to the path of the social revolution. we are sometimes told that "nothing will have changed": that the mines, the factories, etc., will be expropriated, and proclaimed national or communal property, that every man will go back to his usual work, and that the revolution will then be accomplished. but this is a mere dream: the social revolution cannot take place so simply. we have already mentioned that should the revolution break out to-morrow in paris, lyons, or any other city--should the workers lay hands on factories, houses, and banks, present production would be completely revolutionized by this simple fact. international commerce will come to a standstill; so also will the importation of foreign bread-stuffs; the circulation of commodities and of provisions will be paralyzed. and then, the city or territory in revolt will be compelled to provide for itself, and to reorganize its production, so as to satisfy its own needs. if it fails to do so, it is death. if it succeeds, it will revolutionize the economic life of the country. the quantity of imported provisions having decreased, consumption having increased, one million parisians working for exportation purposes having been thrown out of work, a great number of things imported to-day from distant or neighbouring countries not reaching their destination, fancy-trade being temporarily at a standstill,--what will the inhabitants have to eat six months after the revolution? we think that when the stores containing food-stuffs are empty, the masses will seek to obtain their food from the land. they will see the necessity of cultivating the soil, of combining agricultural production with industrial production in the suburbs of paris itself and its environs. they will have to abandon the merely ornamental trades and consider their most urgent need--bread. a great number of the inhabitants of the cities will have to become agriculturists. not in the same manner as the present peasants who wear themselves out, ploughing for a wage that barely provides them with sufficient food for the year, but by following the principles of the intensive agriculture, of the market gardeners, applied on a large scale by means of the best machinery that man has invented or can invent. they will till the land--not, however, like the country beast of burden: a paris jeweller would object to that. they will organize cultivation on better principles; and not in the future, but at once, during the revolutionary struggles, from fear of being worsted by the enemy. agriculture will have to be carried out on intelligent lines, by men and women availing themselves of the experience of the present time, organizing themselves in joyous gangs for pleasant work, like those who, a hundred years ago, worked in the champ de mars for the feast of the federation--a work of delight, when not carried to excess, when scientifically organized, when man invents and improves his tools and is conscious of being a useful member of the community. of course, they will not only cultivate wheat and oats--they will also produce those things which they formerly used to order from foreign parts. and let us not forget that for the inhabitants of a revolted territory, "foreign parts" may include all districts that have not joined in the revolutionary movement. during the revolutions of and paris was made to feel that "foreign parts" meant even the country district at her very gates. the speculator in grains at troyes starved in and the sansculottes of paris as badly, and even worse, than the german armies brought on to french soil by the versailles conspirators. the revolted city will be compelled to do without these "foreigners," and why not? france invented beet-root sugar when sugar-cane ran short during the continental blockade. parisians discovered saltpetre in their cellars when they no longer received any from abroad. shall we be inferior to our grandfathers, who hardly lisped the first words of science? a revolution is more than a mere change of the prevailing political system. it implies the awakening of human intelligence, the increasing of the inventive spirit tenfold, a hundredfold; it is the dawn of a new science--the science of men like laplace, lamarck, lavoisier. it is a revolution in the minds of men, as deep, and deeper still, than in their institutions. and there are still economists, who tell us that once the "revolution is made," everyone will return to his workshop, as if passing through a revolution were going home after a walk in the epping forest! to begin with, the sole fact of having laid hands on middle-class property will imply the necessity of completely reorganizing the whole of economic life in the workshops, the dockyards, the factories. and the revolution surely will not fail to act in this direction. should paris, during the social revolution, be cut off from the world for a year or two by the supporters of middle-class rule, its millions of intellects, not yet depressed by factory life--that city of little trades which stimulate the spirit of invention--will show the world what man's brain can accomplish without asking for help from without, but the motor force of the sun that gives light, the power of the wind that sweeps away impurities, and the silent life-forces at work in the earth we tread on. we shall see then what a variety of trades, mutually cooperating on a spot of the globe and animated by a revolution, can do to feed, clothe, house, and supply with all manner of luxuries millions of intelligent men. we need write no fiction to prove this. what we are sure of, what has already been experimented upon, and recognized as practical, would suffice to carry it into effect, if the attempt were fertilized, vivified by the daring inspiration of the revolution and the spontaneous impulse of the masses. footnote: [ ] a fuller development of these ideas will be found in my book, _fields, factories, and workshops_, published by messrs. thomas nelson and sons in their popular series in . chapter xvii agriculture i political economy has often been reproached with drawing all its deductions from the decidedly false principle, that the only incentive capable of forcing a man to augment his power of production is personal interest in its narrowest sense. the reproach is perfectly true; so true that epochs of great industrial discoveries and true progress in industry are precisely those in which the happiness of all was inspiring men, and in which personal enrichment was least thought of. the great investigators in science and the great inventors aimed, above all, at giving greater freedom of mankind. and if watt, stephenson, jacquard, etc., could have only foreseen what a state of misery their sleepless nights would bring to the workers, they certainly would have burned their designs and broken their models. another principle that pervades political economy is just as false. it is the tacit admission, common to all economists, that if there is often over-production in certain branches, a society will nevertheless never have sufficient products to satisfy the wants of all, and that consequently the day will never come when nobody will be forced to sell his labour in exchange for wages. this tacit admission is found at the basis of all theories and all the so-called "laws" taught by economists. and yet it is certain that the day when any civilized association of individuals would ask itself, _what are the needs of all, and the means of satisfying them_, it would see that, in industry, as in agriculture, it already possesses sufficient to provide abundantly for all needs, on condition that it knows how to apply these means to satisfy real needs. that this is true as regards industry no one can contest. indeed, it suffices to study the processes already in use to extract coals and ore, to obtain steel and work it, to manufacture on a great scale what is used for clothing, etc., in order to perceive that we could already increase our production fourfold or more, and yet use for that _less_ work than we are using now. we go further. we assert that agriculture is in the same position: those who cultivate the soil, like the manufacturers, already could increase their production, not only fourfold but tenfold, and they can put it into practice as soon as they feel the need of it,--as soon as a socialist organization of work will be established instead of the present capitalistic one. each time agriculture is spoken of, men imagine a peasant bending over the plough, throwing badly assorted corn haphazard into the ground and waiting anxiously for what the good or bad season will bring forth; they think of a family working from morn to night and reaping as reward a rude bed, dry bread, and coarse beverage. in a word, they picture "the savages" of la bruyère. and for these men, ground down to such a misery, the utmost relief that society proposes, is to reduce their taxes or their rent. but even most social reformers do not care to imagine a cultivator standing erect, taking leisure, and producing by a few hours' work per day sufficient food to nourish, not only his own family, but a hundred men more at the least. in their most glowing dreams of the future socialists do not go beyond american extensive culture, which, after all, is but the infancy of agricultural art. but the thinking agriculturist has broader ideas to-day--his conceptions are on a far grander scale. he only asks for a fraction of an acre in order to produce sufficient vegetables for a family; and to feed twenty-five horned beasts he needs no more space than he formerly required to feed one; his aim is to make his own soil, to defy seasons and climate, to warm both air and earth around the young plant; to produce, in a word, on one acre what he used to gather from fifty acres, and that without any excessive fatigue--by greatly reducing, on the contrary, the total of former labour. he knows that we will be able to feed everybody by giving to the culture of the fields no more time than what each can give with pleasure and joy. this is the present tendency of agriculture. while scientific men, led by liebig, the creator of the chemical theory of agriculture, often got on the wrong tack in their love of mere theories, unlettered agriculturists opened up new roads to prosperity. market-gardeners of paris, troyes, rouen, scotch and english gardeners, flemish and lombardian farmers, peasants of jersey, guernsey, and farmers on the scilly isles have opened up such large horizons that the mind hesitates to grasp them. while up till lately a family of peasants needed at least seventeen to twenty acres to live on the produce of the soil--and we know how peasants live--we can now no longer say what is the minimum area on which all that is necessary to a family can be grown, even including articles of luxury, if the soil is worked by means of intensive culture. twenty years ago it could already be asserted that a population of thirty million individuals could live very well, without importing anything, on what could be grown in great britain. but now, when we see the progress recently made in france, in germany, in england, and when we contemplate the new horizons which open before us, we can say that in cultivating the earth as it is already cultivated in many places, even on poor soils, fifty or sixty million inhabitants to the territory of great britain would still be a very feeble proportion to what man could extract from the soil. in any case (as we are about to demonstrate) we may consider it as absolutely proved that if to-morrow paris and the two departments of seine and of seine-et-oise organized themselves as an anarchist commune, in which all worked with their hands, and if the entire universe refused to send them a single bushel of wheat, a single head of cattle, a single basket of fruit, and left them only the territory of the two departments, they could not only produce all the corn, meat, and vegetables necessary for themselves, but also vegetables and fruit which are now articles of luxury, in sufficient quantities for all. and, in addition, we affirm that the sum total of this labour would be far less than that expended at present to feed these people with corn harvested in auvergne and russia, with vegetables produced a little everywhere by extensive agriculture, and with fruit grown in the south. it is self-evident that we in nowise desire all exchange to be suppressed, nor that each region should strive to produce that which will only grow in its climate by a more or less artificial culture. but we care to draw attention to the fact that the theory of exchange, such as is understood to-day, is strangely exaggerated--that exchange is often useless and even harmful. we assert, moreover, that people have never had a right conception of the immense labour of southern wine growers, nor that of russian and hungarian corn growers, whose excessive labour could also be very much reduced if they adopted intensive culture, instead of their present system of extensive agriculture. ii it would be impossible to quote here the mass of facts on which we base our assertions. we are therefore obliged to refer our readers who want further information to another book, "fields, factories, and workshops."[ ] above all we earnestly invite those who are interested in the question to read several excellent works published in france and elsewhere, and of which we give a list at the close of this book[ ]. as to the inhabitants of large towns, who have as yet no real notion of what agriculture can be, we advise them to explore the surrounding market-gardens. they need but observe and question the market-gardeners, and a new world will be open to them. they will then be able to see what european agriculture may be in the twentieth century; and they will understand with what force the social revolution will be armed when we know the secret of taking everything we need from the soil. a few facts will suffice to show that our assertions are in no way exaggerated. we only wish them to be preceded by a few general remarks. we know in what a wretched condition european agriculture is. if the cultivator of the soil is not plundered by the landowner, he is robbed by the state. if the state taxes him moderately, the money-lender enslaves him by means of promissory notes, and soon turns him into the simple tenant of soil belonging in reality to a financial company. the landlord, the state, and the banker thus plunders the cultivator by means of rent, taxes, and interest. the sum varies in each country, but it never falls below the quarter, very often the half of the raw produce. in france and in italy agriculturists paid the state quite recently as much as per cent. of the gross produce. moreover, the share of the owner and of state always goes on increasing. as soon as the cultivator has obtained more plentiful crops by prodigies of labour, invention, or initiative, the tribute he will owe to the landowner, the state, and the banker will augment in proportion. if he doubles the number of bushels reaped per acre, rent will be doubled, and taxes too, and the state will take care to raise them still more if the prices go up. and so on. in short, everywhere the cultivator of the soil works twelve to sixteen hours a day; these three vultures take from him everything he might lay by; they rob him everywhere of what would enable him to improve his culture. this is why agriculture progresses so slowly. the cultivator can only occasionally make some progress, in some exceptional regions, under quite exceptional circumstances, following upon a quarrel between the three vampires. and yet we have said nothing about the tribute every cultivator pays to the manufacturer. every machine, every spade, every barrel of chemical manure, is sold to him at three or four times its real cost. nor let us forget the middleman, who levies the lion's share of the earth's produce. this is why, during all this century of invention and progress, agriculture has only improved from time to time on very limited areas. happily there have always been small oases, neglected for some time by the vulture; and here we learn what intensive agriculture can produce for mankind. let us mention a few examples. in the american prairies (which, however, only yield meagre spring wheat crops, from to bushels acre, and even these are often marred by periodical droughts), men, working only during eight months, produce the annual food of , people. with all the improvements of the last three years, one man's yearly labour ( days) yields, delivered in chicago as flour, the yearly food of men. here the result is obtained by a great economy in manual labour: on those vast plains, ploughing, harvesting, thrashing, are organized in almost military fashion. there is no useless running to and fro, no loss of time--all is done with parade-like precision. this is agriculture on a large scale--extensive agriculture, which takes the soil from nature without seeking to improve it. when the earth has yielded all it can, they leave it; they seek elsewhere for a virgin soil, to be exhausted in its turn. but here is also "intensive" agriculture, which is already worked, and will be more and more so, by machinery. its object is to cultivate a limited space well, to manure, to improve, to concentrate work, and to obtain the largest crop possible. this kind of culture spreads every year, and whereas agriculturists in the south of france and on the fertile plains of western america are content with an average crop of to bushels per acre by extensive culture, they reap regularly , even , and sometimes bushels per acre in the north of france. the annual consumption of a man is thus obtained from less than a quarter of an acre. and the more intense the culture is, the less work is expended to obtain a bushel of wheat. machinery replaces man at the preliminary work and for the improvements needed by the land--such as draining, clearing of stones--which will double the crops in future, once and for ever. sometimes nothing but keeping the soil free of weeds, without manuring, allows an average soil to yield excellent crops from year to year. it has been done for forty years in succession at rothamstead, in hertfordshire. however, let us not write an agricultural romance, but be satisfied with a crop of bushels per acre. that needs no exceptional soil, but merely a rational culture; and let us see what it means. the , , individuals who inhabit the two departments of seine and seine-et-oise consume yearly for their food a little less than million bushels of cereals, chiefly wheat; and in our hypothesis they would have to cultivate, in order to obtain this crop, , acres out of the , , acres which they possess. it is evident they would not cultivate them with spades. that would need too much time-- work-days of hours per acre. it would be preferable to improve the soil once for all--to drain what needed draining, to level what needed levelling, to clear the soil of stones, were it even necessary to spend million days of hours in this preparatory work--an average of work-days to each acre. then they would plough with the steam-digger, which would take one and three-fifths of a day per acre, and they would give another one and three-fifths of a day for working with the double plough. seeds would be sorted by steam instead of taken haphazard, and they would be carefully sown in rows instead of being thrown to the four winds. now all this work would not take days of hours per acre if the work were done under good conditions. but if million work-days are given to good culture during or years, the result will be that later on crops of to bushels per acre will be obtained by only working half the time. fifteen million work-days will thus have been spent to give bread to a population of , , inhabitants. and the work would be such that everyone could do it without having muscles of steel, or without having even worked the ground before. the initiative and the general distribution of work would come from those who know the soil. as to the work itself, there is no townsman of either sex so enfeebled as to be incapable of looking after machines and of contributing his share to agrarian work after a few hours' apprenticeship. well, when we consider that in the present chaos there are, in a city like paris, without counting the unemployed of the upper classes, there are always about , workmen out of work in their several trades, we see that the power lost in our present organization would alone suffice to give, with a rational culture, all the bread that is necessary for the three or four million inhabitants of the two departments. we repeat, this is no fancy dream, and we have not yet spoken of the truly intensive agriculture. we have not depended upon the wheat (obtained in three years by mr. hallett) of which one grain, replanted, produced , or , , and occasionally , grains, which would give the wheat necessary for a family of five individuals on an area of square yards. on the contrary, we have only mentioned what is being already achieved by numerous farmers in france, england, belgium, etc., and what might be done to-morrow with the experience and knowledge acquired already by practice on a large scale. but without a revolution, neither to-morrow, nor after to-morrow will see it done, because it is not to the interest of landowners and capitalists; and because peasants who would find their profit in it have neither the knowledge nor the money, nor the time to obtain what is necessary to go ahead. the society of to-day has not yet reached this stage. but let parisians proclaim an anarchist commune, and they will of necessity come to it, because they will not be foolish enough to continue making luxurious toys (which vienna, warsaw, and berlin make as well already), and to run the risk of being left without bread. moreover, agricultural work, by the help of machinery, would soon become the most attractive and the most joyful of all occupations. "we have had enough jewelery and enough dolls' clothes," they would say; "it is high time for the workers to recruit their strength in agriculture, to go in search of vigour, of impressions of nature, of the joy of life, that they have forgotten in the dark factories of the suburbs." in the middle ages it was alpine pasture lands, rather than guns, which allowed the swiss to shake off lords and kings. modern agriculture will allow a city in revolt to free itself from the combined bourgeois forces. iii we have seen how the three and one-half million inhabitants of the two departments round paris could find ample bread by cultivating only a third of their territory. let us now pass on to cattle. englishmen, who eat much meat, consume on an average a little less than pounds a year per adult. supposing all meats consumed were oxen, that makes a little less than the third of an ox. an ox a year for five individuals (including children) is already a sufficient ration. for three and one-half million inhabitants this would make an annual consumption of , head of cattle. to-day, with the pasture system, we need at least five million acres to nourish , head of cattle. this makes nine acres per each head of horned cattle. nevertheless, with prairies moderately watered by spring water (as recently done on thousands of acres in the southwest of france), one and one-fourth million acres already suffice. but if intensive culture is practiced, and beet-root is grown for fodder, you only need a quarter of that area, that is to say, about , acres. and if we have recourse to maize and practice ensilage (the compression of fodder while green) like arabs, we obtain fodder on an area of , acres. in the environs of milan, where sewer water is used to irrigate the fields, fodder for two to three horned cattle per each acre is obtained on an area of , acres; and on a few favoured fields, up to tons of hay to the acres have been cropped, the yearly provender of milch cows. nearly nine acres per head of cattle are needed under the pasture system, and only two and one-half acres for nine oxen or cows under the new system. these are the opposite extremes in modern agriculture. in guernsey, on a total of , acres utilized, nearly half ( , acres) are covered with cereals and kitchen-gardens; only , acres remain as meadows. on these , acres, , horses, , head of cattle, sheep, and , pigs are fed, which makes more than three head of cattle per two acres, without reckoning the sheep or the pigs. it is needless to add that the fertility of the soil is made by seaweed and chemical manures. returning to our three and one-half million inhabitants belonging to paris and its environs, we see that the land necessary for the rearing of cattle comes down from five million acres to , . well, then, let us not stop at the lowest figures, let us take those of ordinary intensive culture; let us liberally add to the land necessary for smaller cattle which must replace some of the horned beasts and allow , acres for the rearing of cattle-- , if you like, on the , , acres remaining after bread has been provided for the people. let us be generous and give five million work-days to put this land into a productive state. after having therefore employed in the course of a year twenty million work-days, half of which are for permanent improvements, we shall have bread and meat assured to us, without including all the extra meat obtainable in the shape of fowls, pigs, rabbits, etc.; without taking into consideration that a population provided with excellent vegetables and fruit consumes less meat than englishmen, who supplement their poor supply of vegetables by animal food. now, how much do twenty million work-days of five hours make per inhabitant? very little indeed. a population of three and one-half millions must have at least , , adult men, and as many women capable of work. well, then, to give bread and meat to all, it would need only seventeen half-days of work a year per man. add three million work-days, or double that number if you like, in order to obtain milk. that will make twenty-five work-days of five hours in all--nothing more than a little pleasureable country exercise--to obtain the three principal products: bread, meat, and milk. the three products which, after housing, cause daily anxiety to nine-tenths of mankind. and yet--let us not tire of repeating--these are not fancy dreams. we have only told what is, what been, obtained by experience on a large scale. agriculture could be reorganized in this way to-morrow if property laws and general ignorance did not offer opposition. the day paris has understood that to know what you eat and how it is produced, is a question of public interest; the day when everybody will have understood that this question is infinitely more important than all the parliamentary debates of the present times--on that day the revolution will be an accomplished fact. paris will take possession of the two departments and cultivate them. and then the parisian worker, after having laboured a third of his existence in order to buy bad and insufficient food, will produce it himself, under his walls, within the enclosure of his forts (if they still exist), and in a few hours of healthy and attractive work. and now we pass on to fruit and vegetables. let us go outside paris and visit the establishment of a market-gardener who accomplishes wonders (ignored by learned economists) at a few miles from the academies. let us visit, suppose, m. ponce, the author of a work on market-gardening, who makes no secret of what the earth yields him, and who has published it all along. m. ponce, and especially his workmen, work like niggers. it takes eight men to cultivate a plot a little less than three acres ( . ). they work twelve and even fifteen hours a day, that is to say, three times more than is needed. twenty-four of them would not be too many. to which m. ponce will probably answer that as he pays the terrible sum of £ rent a year for his . acres of land, and £ for manure bought in the barracks, he is obliged to exploit. he would no doubt answer, "being exploited, i exploit in my turn." his installation has also cost him £ , , of which certainly more than half went as tribute to the idle barons of industry. in reality, this establishment represents at most , work-days, probably much less. but let us examine his crops: nearly ten tons of carrots, nearly ten tons of onions, radishes, and small vegetables, , heads of cabbage, , heads of cauliflower, , baskets of tomatoes, , dozen of choice fruit, , salads; in short, a total of tons of vegetables and fruit to . acres-- yards long by yards broad, which makes more than forty-four tons of vegetables to the acre. but a man does not eat more than pounds of vegetables and fruit a year, and two and one-half acres of a market-garden yield enough vegetables and fruit to richly supply the table of adults during the year. thus twenty-four persons employed a whole year in cultivating . acres of land, and only five working hours a day, would produce sufficient vegetables and fruit for adults, which is equivalent at least to individuals. to put it another way: in cultivating like m. ponce--and his results have already been surpassed-- adults should each give a little more than hours a year ( ) to produce vegetables and fruit necessary for people. let us mention that such a production is not the exception. it takes place, under the walls of paris, on an area of , acres, by , market-gardeners. only these market-gardeners are reduced nowadays to a state of beasts of burden, in order to pay an average rent of £ per acre. but do not these facts, which can be verified by every one, prove that , acres (of the , remaining to us) would suffice to give all necessary vegetables, as well as a liberal amount of fruit to the three and one-half million inhabitants of our two departments? as to the quantity of work necessary to produce these fruits and vegetables, it would amount to fifty million work-days of five hours ( days per adult male), if we measure by the market-gardeners' standard of work. but we could reduce this quantity if we had recourse to the process in vogue in jersey and guernsey. we must also remember that the paris market-gardener is forced to work so hard because he mostly produces early season fruits, the high prices of which have to pay for fabulous rents, and that this system of culture entails more work than is necessary for growing the ordinary staple-food vegetables and fruit. besides, the market-gardeners of paris, not having the means to make a great outlay on their gardens, and being obliged to pay heavily for glass, wood, iron, and coal, obtain their artificial heat out of manure, while it can be had at much less cost in hothouses. iv the market-gardeners, we say, are forced to become machines and to renounce all joys of life in order to obtain their marvellous crops. but these hard grinders have rendered a great service to humanity in teaching us that the soil can be "made." they _make_ it with old hot-beds of manure, which have already served to give the necessary warmth to young plants and to early fruit; and they make it in such great quantity that they are compelled to sell it in part, otherwise it would raise the level of their gardens by one inch every year. they do it so well (so barral teaches us, in his "dictionary of agriculture," in an article on market-gardeners) that in recent contracts, the market-gardener stipulates that he will carry away his soil with him when he leaves the bit of ground he is cultivating. loam carried away on carts, with furniture and glass frames--that is the answer of practical cultivators to the learned treatises of a ricardo, who represented rent as a means of equalizing the natural advantages of the soil. "the soil is worth what the man is worth," that is the gardeners' motto. and yet the market-gardeners of paris and rouen labour three times as hard to obtain the same results as their fellow-workers in guernsey or in england. applying industry to agriculture, these last make their climate in addition to their soil, by means of the greenhouse. fifty years ago the greenhouse was the luxury of the rich. it was kept to grow exotic plants for pleasure. but nowadays its use begins to be generalized. a tremendous industry has grown up lately in guernsey and jersey, where hundreds of acres are already covered with glass--to say nothing of the countless small greenhouses kept in every little farm garden. acres and acres of greenhouses have lately been built also at worthing ( acres in ), in the suburbs of london, and in several other parts of england and scotland. they are built of all qualities, beginning with those which have granite walls, down to those which represent mere shelters made in planks and glass frames, which cost, even now, with all the tribute paid to capitalists and middlemen, less than s. d. per square yard under glass. most of them are heated for at least three of four months every year; but even the cool greenhouses, which are not heated at all, give excellent results--of course, not for growing grapes and tropical plants, but for potatoes, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and so on. in this way man emancipates himself from climate, and at the same time he avoids also the heavy work with the hot-beds, and he saves both in buying much less manure and in work. three men to the acre, each of them working less than sixty hours a week, produce on very small spaces what formerly required acres and acres of land. the result of all these recent conquests of culture is, that if one-half only of the adults of a city gave each about fifty half-days for the culture of the finest fruit and vegetables _out of season_, they would have all the year round an unlimited supply of that sort of fruit and vegetables for the whole population. but there is a still more important fact to notice. the greenhouse has nowadays a tendency to become a mere _kitchen garden under glass_. and when it is used to such a purpose, the simplest plank-and-glass unheated shelters already give fabulous crops--such as, for instance, bushels of potatoes per acre as a first crop, ready by the end of april; after which a second and a third crop are obtained in the extremely high temperature which prevails in the summer under glass. i gave in my "fields, factories, and workshops," most striking facts in this direction. sufficient to say here, that at jersey, thirty-four men, with one trained gardener only, cultivate thirteen acres under glass, from which they obtain tons of fruit and early vegetables, using for this extraordinary culture less than , tons of coal. and this is done now in guernsey and jersey on a very large scale, quite a number of steamers constantly plying between guernsey and london, only to export the crops of the greenhouses. nowadays, in order to obtain that same crop of bushels of potatoes, we must plough every year a surface of four acres, plant it, cultivate it, weed, it, and so on; whereas with the glass, even if we shall have to give perhaps, to start with, half a day's work per square yard in order to build the greenhouse--we shall save afterwards at least one-half, and probably three-quarters of the yearly labour required formerly. these are _facts_, results which every one can verify himself. and these facts are already a hint as to what man could obtain from the earth if he treated it with intelligence. v in all the above we have reasoned upon what already withstood the test of experience. intensive culture of the fields, irrigated meadows, the hot-house, and finally the kitchen garden under glass are realities. moreover, the tendency is to extend and to generalize these methods of culture, because they allow of obtaining more produce with less work and with more certainty. in fact, after having studied the most simple glass shelters of guernsey, we affirm that, taking all in all, far less work is expended for obtaining potatoes under glass in april, than in growing them in the open air, which requires digging a space four times as large, watering it, weeding it, etc. work is likewise economized in employing a perfected tool or machine, even when an initial expense had to be incurred to buy the tool. complete figures concerning the culture of common vegetables under glass are still wanting. this culture is of recent origin, and is only carried out on small areas. but we have already figures concerning the fifty years old culture of early season grapes, and these figures are conclusive. in the north of england, on the scotch frontier, where coal only costs s. a ton at the pit's mouth, they have long since taken to growing hot-house grapes. thirty years ago these grapes, ripe in january, were sold by the grower at s. per pound and resold at s. per pound for napoleon iii.'s table. to-day the same grower sells them at only s. d. per pound. he tells us so himself in a horticultural journal. the fall in the prices is caused by the tons and tons of grapes arriving in january to london and paris. thanks to the cheapness of coal and an intelligent culture, grapes from the north travel now southwards, in a contrary direction to ordinary fruit. they cost so little that in may, english and jersey grapes are sold at s. d. per pound by the gardeners, and yet this price, like that of s. thirty years ago, is only kept up by slack production. in march, belgium grapes are sold at from d. to d., while in october, grapes cultivated in immense quantities--under glass, and with a little artificial heating in the environs of london--are sold at the same price as grapes bought by the pound in the vineyards of switzerland and the rhine, that is to say, for a few halfpence. yet they still cost two-thirds too much, by reason of the excessive rent of the soil and the cost of installation and heating, on which the gardener pays a formidable tribute to the manufacturer and the middleman. this being understood, we may say that it costs "next to nothing" to have delicious grapes under the latitude of, and in our misty london in autumn. in one of the suburbs, for instance, a wretched glass and plaster shelter, nine feet ten inches long by six and one-half feet wide, resting against our cottage, gave us about fifty pounds of grapes of an exquisite flavour in october, for nine consecutive years. the crop came from a hamburg vine-stalk, six year old. and the shelter was so bad that the rain came through. at night the temperature was always that of outside. it was evidently not heated, for it would have been as useless as heating the street! and the care which was given was: pruning the vine, half an hour every year; and bringing a wheel-barrowful of manure, which was thrown over the stalk of the vine, planted in red clay outside the shelter. on the other hand, if we estimate the amount of care given to the vine on the borders of the rhine of lake leman, the terraces constructed stone upon stone on the slopes of the hills, the transport of manure and also of earth to a height of two or three hundred feet, we come to the conclusion that on the whole the expenditure of work necessary to cultivate vines is more considerable in switzerland or on the banks of the rhine than it is under glass in london suburbs. this may seem paradoxical, because it is generally believed that vines grow of themselves in the south of europe, and that the vine-grower's work costs nothing. but gardeners and horticulturists, far from contradicting us, confirm our assertions. "the most advantageous culture in england is vine culture," wrote a practical gardener, editor of the "english journal of horticulture" in the _nineteenth century_. prices speak eloquently for themselves, as we know. translating these facts into communist language, we may assert that the man or woman who takes twenty hours a year from his leisure time to give some little care--very pleasant in the main--to two or three vine-stalks sheltered by simple glass under any european climate, will gather as many grapes as their family and friends can eat. and that applies not only to vines, but to all fruit trees. the commune that will put the processes of intensive culture into practice on a large scale will have all possible vegetables, indigenous or exotic, and all desirable fruits, without employing more than about ten hours a year per inhabitant. in fact, nothing would be easier than to verify the above statements by direct experiment. suppose acres of a light loam (such as we have at worthing) are transformed into a number of market gardens, each one with its glass houses for the rearing of the seedlings and young plants. suppose also that fifty more acres are covered with glass houses, and the organization of the whole is left to practical experienced french _maraîchers_, and guernsey or worthing greenhouse gardeners. in basing the maintenance of these acres on the jersey average, requiring the work of three men per acre under glass--which makes less than , hours of work a year--it would need about , , hours for the acres. fifty competent gardeners could give five hours a day to this work, and the rest would be simply done by people who, without being gardeners by profession, would soon learn how to use a spade, and to handle the plants. but this work would yield at least--we have seen it in a preceding chapter--all necessaries and articles of luxury in the way of fruit and vegetables for at least , or , people. let us admit that among this number there are , adults, willing to work at the kitchen garden; then, each one would have to give hours a year distributed over the whole year. these hours of work would become hours of recreation spent among friends and children in beautiful gardens, more beautiful probably than those of the legendary semiramis. this is the balance sheet of the labour to be spent in order to be able to eat to satiety fruit which we are deprived of to-day, and to have vegetables in abundance, now so scrupulously rationed out by the housewife, when she has to reckon each half-penny which must go to enrich capitalists and landowners[ ]. if only humanity had the consciousness of what it can, and if that consciousness only gave it the power to will! if it only knew that cowardice of the spirit is the rock on which all revolutions have stranded until now. vi we can easily perceive the new horizons opening before the social revolution. each time we speak of revolution, the face of the worker who has seen children wanting food darkens and he asks--"what of bread? will there be sufficient, if everyone eats according to his appetite? what if the peasants, ignorant tools of reaction, starve our towns as the black bands did in france in --what shall we do?" let them do their worst. the large cities will have to do without them. at what, then, should the hundreds of thousands of workers, who are asphyxiated to-day in small workshops and factories, be employed on the day they regain their liberty? will they continue to shut themselves up in factories after the revolution? will they continue to make luxurious toys for export when they see their stock or corn getting exhausted, meat becoming scarce, and vegetables disappearing without being replaced? evidently not! they will leave the town and go into the fields! aided by a machinery which will enable the weakest of us to put a shoulder to the wheel, they will carry revolution into previously enslaved culture as they will have carried it into institutions and ideas. hundreds of acres will be covered with glass, and men, and women with delicate fingers, will foster the growth of young plants. hundreds of other acres will be ploughed by steam, improved by manures, or enriched by artificial soil obtained by the pulverization of rocks. happy crowds of occasional labourers will cover these acres with crops, guided in the work and experiments partly by those who know agriculture, but especially by the great and practical spirit of a people roused from long slumber and illumined by that bright beacon--the happiness of all. and in two or three months the early crops will receive the most pressing wants, and provide food for a people who, after so many centuries of expectation, will at least be able to appease their hunger and eat according to their appetite. in the meanwhile, popular genius, the genius of a nation which revolts and knows its wants, will work at experimenting with new processes of culture that we already catch a glimpse of, and that only need the baptism of experience to become universal. light will be experimented with--that unknown agent of culture which makes barley ripen in forty-five days under the latitude of yakutsk; light, concentrated or artificial, will rival heat in hastening the growth of plants. a mouchot of the future will invent a machine to guide the rays of the sun and make them work, so that we shall no longer seek sun-heat stored in coal in the depths of the earth. they will experiment the watering of the soil with cultures of micro-organisms--a rational idea, conceived but yesterday, which will permit us to give to the soil those little living beings, necessary to feed the rootlets, to decompose and assimilate the component parts of the soil. they will experiment.... but let us stop here, or we shall enter into the realm of fancy. let us remain in the reality of acquired facts. with the processes of culture in use, applied on a large scale, and already victorious in the struggle against industrial competition, we can give ourselves ease and luxury in return for agreeable work. the near future will show what is practical in the processes that recent scientific discoveries give us a glimpse of. let us limit ourselves at present to opening up the new path that consists in _the study of the needs of man, and the means of satisfying them_. the only thing that may be wanting to the revolution is the boldness of initiative. with our minds already narrowed in our youth and enslaved by the past in our mature age, we hardly dare to think. if a new idea is mentioned--before venturing on an opinion of our own, we consult musty books a hundred years old, to know what ancient masters thought on the subject. it is not food that will fail, if boldness of thought and initiative are not wanting to the revolution. of all the great days of the french revolution, the most beautiful, the greatest, was the one on which delegates who had come from all parts of france to paris, worked all with the spade to plane the ground of the champ de mars, preparing it for the fête of the federation. that day france was united: animated by the new spirit, she had a vision of the future in the working in common of the soil. and it will again be by the working in common of the soil that the enfranchised societies will find their unity and will obliterate the hatred and oppression which has hitherto divided them. henceforth, able to conceive solidarity--that immense power which increases man's energy and creative forces a hundredfold--the new society will march to the conquest of the future with all the vigour of youth. ceasing to produce for unknown buyers, and looking in its midst for needs and tastes to be satisfied, society will liberally assure the life and ease of each of its members, as well as that moral satisfaction which work give when freely chosen and freely accomplished, and the joy of living without encroaching on the life of others. inspired by a new daring--born of the feeling of solidarity--all will march together to the conquest of the high joys of knowledge and artistic creation. a society thus inspired will fear neither dissensions within nor enemies without. to the coalitions of the past it will oppose a new harmony, the initiative of each and all, the daring which springs from the awakening of a people's genius. before such an irresistible force "conspiring kings" will be powerless. nothing will remain for them but to bow before it, and to harness themselves to the chariot of humanity, rolling towards new horizons opened up by the social revolution. footnotes: [ ] a new enlarged edition of it has been published by thomas nelson and sons in their "shilling library." [ ] consult "la répartition métrique des impôts," by a. toubeau, two vols., published by guillaumin in . (we do not in the least agree with toubeau's conclusions, but it is a real encyclopædia, indicating the sources which prove what can be obtained from the soil.) "la culture maraîchere," by m. ponce, paris, . "le potager gressent," paris, , an excellent practical work. "physiologie et culture du blé," by risler, paris, . "le blé, sa culture intensive et extensive," by lecouteux, paris, . "la cité chinoise," by eugène simon. "le dictionnaire d'agriculture," by barral (hachette, editor). "the rothamstead experiments," by wm. fream, london, --culture without manure, etc. (the "field" office, editor). "fields, factories, and workshops," by the author. (thomas nelson & sons.) [ ] summing up the figures given on agriculture, figures proving that the inhabitants of the two departments of seine and seine-et-oise can live perfectly well on their own territory by employing very little time annually to obtain food, we have:-- departments of seine and seine-et-oise number of inhabitants in , , area in acres , , average number of inhabitants per acre . areas to be cultivated to feed the inhabitants (in acres):-- corn and cereals , natural and artificial meadows , vegetables and fruit from , to , leaving a balance for houses, roads, parks, forests , quantity of annual work necessary to improve and cultivate the above surfaces in five-hour workdays:-- cereals (culture and crop) , , meadows, milk, rearing of cattle , , market-gardening culture, high-class fruit , , extras , , ---------- total , , if we suppose that only half of the able-bodied adults (men and women) are willing to work at agriculture, we see that million work-days must be divided among , , individuals, which gives us fifty-eight work-days of hours for each of these workers. with that the population of the two departments would have all necessary bread, meat, milk, vegetables, and fruit, both for ordinary and even luxurious consumption. to-day a workman spends for the necessary food of his family (generally less than what is necessary) at least one-third of his work-days a year, about , hours be it, instead of . that is, he thus gives about hours too much to fatten the idle and the would-be administrators, because he does not produce his own food, but buys it of middlemen, who in their turn buy it of peasants who exhaust themselves by working with bad tools, because, being robbed by the landowners and the state, they cannot procure better ones. +-------------------------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: | | | |obvious typographical errors have been corrected | +-------------------------------------------------+ vol. i. june, no. mother earth [illustration] contents page mrs. grundy viroqua daniels a greeting alexander berkman henrik ibsen m. b. observations and comments a letter emma goldman libertarian instruction emile janvion the antichrist friedrich nietzsche brain work and manual work peter kropotkin motherhood and marriage henriette fuerth object lesson for advocates of governmental control arthur g. everett, n--m. the genius of war john francis valter dignity speaks paternalistic government (continuation) theodore schroeder aim and tactics of the trade-union movement max baginski refined cruelty anna mercy "the jungle" veritas the game is up sadakichi hartmann c. a copy $ a year mother earth monthly magazine devoted to social science and literature published every th of the month emma goldman, publisher, p. o. box , madison square station, new york, n. y. entered as second-class matter april , , at the post office at new york, n. y., under the act of congress of march , . vol. i june, no. mrs. grundy. by viroqua daniels. _her will is law. she holds despotic sway. her wont has been to show the narrow way wherein must tread the world, the bright, the brave, from infancy to dotard's gloomy grave._ _"obey! obey!" with sternness she commands the high, the low, in great or little lands. she folds us all within her ample gown. a forward act is met with angry frown._ _the lisping babes are taught her local speech; her gait to walk; her blessings to beseech. they laugh or cry, as mistress says they may,-- in everything the little tots obey._ _the youth know naught save mrs. grundy's whims. they play her games. they sing her holy hymns. they question not; accept both truth and fiction,_ _(the_ old _is right, within her jurisdiction!)._ _maid, matron, man unto her meekly bow. she with contempt or ridicule may cow. they dare not speak, or dress, or love, or hate, at variance with the program on her slate._ _her subtle smile, e'en men to thinkers grown, are loath to lose; before its charm they're prone. with great ado, they publicly conform-- vain, cowards, vain; revolt_ must _raise a storm!_ _the "indiscreet," when hidden from her sight, attempt to live as they consider "right." lo! walls have ears! the loyal everywhere the searchlight turn, and loudly shout, "beware!"_ _in tyranny the mistress is supreme. "obedience," that is her endless theme. al countries o'er, in city, town and glen, her aid is sought by bosses over men._ _of greed, her brain is cunningly devised. from ignorance, her bulky body's sized. when at her ease, she acts as judge and jury. but she's the mob when 'roused to fighting fury._ _dame grundy is, by far, the fiercest foe to ev'ry kind of progress, that we know. so freedom is, to her, a poison thing. who heralds it, he must her death knell ring._ [illustration] a greeting. by alexander berkman. dear friends:-- i am happy, inexpressibly happy to be in your midst again, after an absence of fourteen long years, passed amid the horrors and darkness of my pennsylvania nightmare. * * * methinks the days of miracles are not past. they say that nineteen hundred years ago a man was raised from the dead after having been buried for three days. they call it a great miracle. but i think the resurrection from the peaceful slumber of a three days' grave is not nearly so miraculous as the actual coming back to life from a living death of fourteen years duration;--'tis the twentieth century resurrection, not based on ignorant credulity, nor assisted by any oriental jugglery. no travelers ever return, the poets say, from the land of shades beyond the river styx--and may be it is a good thing for them that they don't--but you can see that there is an occasional exception even to that rule, for i have just returned from a hell, the like of which, for human brutality and fiendish barbarity, is not to be found even in the fire-and-brimstone creeds of our loving christians. it was a moment of supreme joy when i felt the heavy chains, that had bound me so long, give way with the final clang of the iron doors behind me and i suddenly found myself transported, as it were, from the dreary night of my prison-existence into the warm sunshine of the living day; and then, as i breathed the free air of the beautiful may morning--my first breath of freedom in fourteen years--it seemed to me as if a beautiful nature had waved her magic wand and marshalled her most alluring charms to welcome me into the world again; the sun, bathed in a sea of sapphire, seemed to shed his golden-winged caresses upon me; beautiful birds were intoning a sweet paean of joyful welcome; green-clad trees on the banks of the allegheny were stretching out to me a hundred emerald arms, and every little blade of grass seemed to lift its head and nod to me, and all nature whispered sweetly "welcome home!" it was nature's beautiful springtime, the reawakening of life, and joy, and hope, and the spirit of springtime dwelt in my heart. i had been told before i left the prison that the world had changed so much during my long confinement that i would practically come back into a new and different world. i hoped it were true. for at the time when i retired from the world, or rather when i _was_ retired from the world--that was a hundred years ago, for it happened in the nineteenth century--at that time, i say, the footsteps of the world were faltering under the heavy cross of oppression, injustice and misery, and i could hear the anguish-cry of the suffering multitudes, even above the clanking of my own heavy chains. * * * but all that is different now--i thought as i left the prison--for have i not been told that the world had changed, changed so much that, as they put it, "its own mother wouldn't know it again." and that thought made me _doubly_ happy: happy at the recovery of my own liberty, and happy in the fond hope that i should find my own great joy mirrored in, and heightened by the happiness of my fellow-men. then i began to look around, and indeed, i found the world changed; so changed, in fact, that i am now afraid to cross the street, lest lightning, in the shape of a horseless car, overtake me and strike me down; i also found a new race of beings, a race of red devils--automobiles you call them--and i have been told about the winged children of thought flying above our heads--talking through the air, you know, and sometimes also through the hat, perhaps--and here in new york you can ride on the ground, overground, above ground, underground, and without any ground at all. these and a thousand and one other inventions and discoveries have considerably changed the face of the world. but alas! its face _only_. for as i looked further, past the outer trappings, down into the heart of the world, i beheld the old, familiar, yet no less revolting sight of mammon, enthroned upon a dais of bleeding hearts, and i saw the ruthless wheels of the social juggernaut slowly crushing the beautiful form of liberty lying prostrate on the ground. * * * i saw men, women and children, without number, sacrificed on the altar of the capitalistic moloch, and i beheld a race of pitiful creatures, stricken with the modern st. vitus's dance at the shrine of the golden calf. with an aching heart i realized what i had been told in prison about the changed condition of the world was but a miserable myth, and my fond hope of returning into a new, regenerated world lay shattered at my feet.... no, the world has not changed during my absence; i can find no improvement in the twentieth-century society over that of the nineteenth, and in truth, it is not capable of any real improvement, for this society is the product of a civilization so self-contradictory in its essential qualities, so stupendously absurd in its results, that the more we advance in this would-be civilization the less rational, the less human we become. your twentieth-century civilization is fitly characterized by the fact that, paradoxical as it may seem, the more we produce, the less we have, and the richer we get, the poorer we are. your pseudo-civilization is of that quality which defeats its own ends, so that notwithstanding the prodigious mechanical aids we possess in the production of all forms of wealth, the struggle for existence is more savage, more ferocious to-day than it has been ever since the dawn of our civilization. but what is the cause of all this, what is wrong with our society and our civilization? simply this:--a lie can not prosper. our whole social fabric, our boasted civilization rests on the foundations of a lie, a most gigantic lie--the religious, political and economic lie, a triune lie, from whose fertile womb has issued a world of corruption, evils, shams and unnameable crimes. there, denuded of its tinsel trappings, your civilization stands revealed in all the evil reality of its unadorned shame; and 'tis a ghastly sight, a mass of corruption, an ever-spreading cancer. your false civilization is a disease, and capitalism is its most malignant form; 'tis the acute stage which is breeding into the world a race of cowards, weaklings and imbeciles; a race of mannikins, lacking the physical courage and mental initiative to think the thought and do the deed not inscribed in the book of practice; a race of pigmies, slaves to tradition and superstition, lacking all force of individuality and rushing, like wild maniacs, toward the treacherous eddies of that social cataclysm which has swallowed the far mightier and greater nations of the ancient world. it is because of these things that i address myself to you, fellow-men. society has not changed during my absence, and yet, to be saved, it needs to be changed. it needs, above all, real men, men and women of originality and individuality; men and women, not afraid to brave the scornful contempt of the conventional mob, men and women brave enough to break from the ranks of custom and lead into new paths, men and women strong enough to smash the fatal social lock-step and lead us into new and happier ways. and because society has not changed, neither will i. though the bloodthirsty hyena of the law has, in its wild revenge, despoiled me of the fourteen most precious blossoms in the garden of my life, yet i will, henceforth as heretofore, consecrate what days are left to me in the service of that grand ideal, the wonderful power of which has sustained me through those years of torture; and i will devote all my energies and whatever ability i may have to that noblest of all causes of a new, regenerated and free humanity; and it shall be more than my sufficient reward to know that i have added, if ever so little, in breaking the shackles of superstition, ignorance and tradition, and helped to turn the tide of society from the narrow lane of its blind selfishness and self-sufficient arrogance into the broad, open road leading toward a true civilization, to the new and brighter day of freedom in brotherhood. [illustration] henrik ibsen. m. b. i shall not attempt to confine him within the rigid lines of any literary circle; nor shall i press him into the narrow frame of school or party; nor stamp upon him the distinctive label of any particular ism. he would break such fetters; his free spirit, his great individuality would overflow the arbitrary confines of "the _sole_ truth," "the _only_ true principle." the waves of his soul would break down all artificial barriers and rush out to join the ever-moving currents of life. a seer has died. he carried the flaming torch of his art behind the scenes of society--he found there nothing but corruption. he tested the strength of our social foundations--its pillars shook: they were rotten. the rays of his genius penetrated the darkness of popular ideals; the hollow pretences of philistinism filled his ardent soul with disgust, and pain. in this mood he wrote "the league of youth," in which he exposed the pettiness of bourgeois aspirations and the poverty of their ideals. in "the enemy of the people" ibsen thunders his powerful protest against the democracy of stupidity, the tyrannous vulgarity of majority rule. doctor stockmann--that is ibsen himself. how willing and eager the pigmies and yahoos would have been to stone him. "what shameless unconventionality, what shocking daring!" cried the philistines when they beheld the characters portrayed in "nora" (the doll's house), "wild duck," and in "the ghosts"--living pictures revealing all the evil hidden by the mask of "our sacred institutions," "our holy hearthstone." in "rosmersholm" ibsen ignored even the inviolability of conscience; for there ibsen showed how the sick conscience of rosmer worked the ruin of rebecca and himself, by robbing them of the joy of life. the moralists howled long and loud. "has ibsen no ideals? does the accursed midas-touch of his mind dissolve everything, one very holy of holies, into the ashes of nothing?" thus spoke self-sufficient arrogance. but can one read "brand" or "peer gynt" and ask such questions? no heart so overflowed with human yearning, no soul ever breathed grander, nobler ideals than henrik ibsen. true, he did not prostrate himself before the idols of the conventional mob, nor did his sacrificial fires burn on the altar of mediocrity and cretinism. he did not bow the proud head before the craven images that the state and church have created for the subjugation of the masses. to ibsen's free soul the morality of slaves was a nightmare. his ideal was individuality, the development of character. he loved the man that was brave enough to be himself. he immeasurably hated all that was false; he abhorred all that was petty and small. he loved that true naturalness which, when most real, requires no effort. the most severe critic of ibsen and his art was ibsen himself. his attitude towards himself in his last work, "when we dead awaken," is that of the most unprejudiced judge. what is the result? we long for life; yet we are eternally chasing will-o'-the-wisps. we sacrifice ourselves for things which rob us of our self. the castles we build prove houses made of cards, upon the first touch falling down. instead of living, we philosophize. our life is an esthetic counterfeit. a mind of great depth, a soul of prophetic vision has passed away; yet not without leaving its powerful impress--for henrik ibsen stood upon the heights, and from their loftiest peaks we beheld, with him, the heavy fogs of the present, and through the rifts we saw the bright rays of a new sun, the promise of the dawn of a freer, stronger humanity. [illustration] observations and comments. schopenhauer's advice to ignore fools and knaves and not to speak to them, as the best method of keeping them at a distance, does not seem drastic enough in these days of the modern newspaper-reporter nuisance. one may throw them out of the house, nail all the doors and windows, and stuff up all key-holes; still he will come; he will slide down through the chimney, squeeze through the sewer-pipes--which, by the way, is the real field of activity of the journalistic profession. we anarchists are usually poor business men, with a few "happy" exceptions, of course; still, we shall have to form an insurance company against the slugging system of the reporters. alexander berkman barely had a chance to breathe free air, when the newspaper scarecrows were let loose at his heels. every suspicious-looking man, woman and child in new york was assailed as to berkman's whereabouts, without avail. finally these worthy gentlemen hit upon east thirteenth street--there the reporters made some miraculous discoveries. two lonely hermits, utterly innocent of the ways of the world and the impertinence of reporters, were marked by the latter. they triumphed. never before had they hit upon such simpletons, of whom they could so easily learn all the secrets of the fraternity of the reds. "is it not the custom of your clan to delegate every three days one of your members to take the life of some ruler?" they asked. one of the reds smiled, knowingly. "only one insignificant life in three days?! how little you know the anarchists. i want you to understand, sirs, it is our wont to use just five minutes for each act, which means lives in three days." this was more than the most hardened press detective could stand. they fled in terror. [illustration] carl schurz, politician and career hunter by profession, died may th. he was met at the gate of hell by the secretary of that institution with the following question, "were you not one of the enthusiasts for the battle of freedom, in your young days?" "yes," said carl. "if the reports of my men are correct--and i am confident my men are more reliable than the majority of the newspaper men on your planet--you were even a revolutionist?" carl schurz nodded. "and why have you thrown your ideals and convictions overboard?" "there was no money in them," carl replied, sulkily. the satanic secretary nodded to one of his stokers, saying, "add , tons of hard coal to our fires. here we have a man that sold his soul for money. he deserves to roast a thousand times more than the ordinary sinner." [illustration] no one considers a thief the patron saint of honesty, nor is a liar expected to champion the truth. the hangman is not elected as president of a society for the preservation of human life; why, then, in the name of common sense, do people continue to see in the state the seat of justice and the patron saint of those whom it wrongs and outrages daily? if people would only look closer into the elements of the state, they would soon behold this trinity--the thief, the liar, and the hangman. [illustration] free love is condemned; prostitution flourishes. the moralist, who is the best patron of the dens of prostitution, loudly proclaims the sanctity and purity of monogamy. the free expression of life's greatest force--love--must never be tolerated. on the other hand, it is perfectly respectable to receive a large sum of money from a millionaire father-in-law for marrying his daughter. [illustration] rudolph von jhering, one of the most distinguished theoreticians of jurisprudence in europe, wrote, many years ago, "the way in which one utilizes his wealth is the best criterion of his character and degree of culture. the purpose that prompts the investment of his money is the safest characterization of him. the accounts of expenditures speak louder of a man's true nature than his diary." how well these words apply to the richest of the rich and to their methods of disposing of their capital! take philanthropy, for instance, with its loud and common display. how it humiliates those that receive, and how it overestimates the importance of those that give. philanthropy that steals in large quantities and returns of its bounty in medicine drops, that snatches the last bite from the mouth of the people and graciously gives them a few crumbs or a gnawed bone! again, philanthropy as a money mania--in one instance it feeds the clergy on fat salaries, so that they might proclaim the virtue of self-denial, sobriety and prudence; in another instance it builds sunday schools for young numbskulls and political aspirants who pretend to listen to the commonplace discourse about our father in heaven who gives every true christian an opportunity to make money; rather would these milk-sops appreciate the advice of the young nabob as to how to turn a hundred-dollar bill into a thousand. philanthropy, establishing scientific societies for the investigation of the mode of life of fleas, or philanthropy excremating libraries, maintaining missionaries in china or fostering the research of breeding sea horses. mrs. vanderbilt has the heels of her shoes set in diamonds, while another great philanthropist has established a pension for aged parrots. indeed, the stupidity and sad lack of imagination of our philanthropists are pitiful. however, when one realizes that they are responsible for the distress, the poverty, and despair of the great masses of humanity, pity turns into anger and disgust with a society that will endure it all. [illustration] the chicago papers report a blood-curdling story, which has affected the philistines like red affects a turkey. knowing the keen sense of humor of our readers, we herewith reprint the story: "treason and blasphemy as an outburst of anarchism all but broke up a meeting held last night in the masonic temple under the auspices of the spencer-whitman center, at which the subject of "crime in chicago" was discussed by various speakers. the rev. john roach straton, pastor of the second baptist church, was in the midst of the discourse detailing his theories with reference to the subject in hand when a voice from the doorway shouted out a blasphemous expression. the cry was greeted by hisses, but it was only a moment later that the same voice called: "down with america! up with anarchy!" there was a rush for the door. a tall young man was the first to reach the offender, who is said to have been carl havel, associate editor of a german newspaper. there was a blow and the blasphemer reeled and fell against the wall. at the same moment a man, said to be terence carlin, a member of a prominent chicago family, struck havel's assailant. he in turn was seized by parker h. sercombe, chairman of the meeting, and a man who gave the name of ben bansig. the party struggled back and forth in the doorway, and the disturbers were forced back to an ante-room. blows were struck in a lusty fashion and cries of "police!" "they're murdering them!" "help!" rang out. finally the two disturbers made as if to get out, and the arrival of a watchman in uniform quieted them and their pursuers. it was, however, with ill grace that the disturbers of the meeting were allowed to leave, and as they passed through a door, cursing the law, the country, and god, a girl, still in her teens, broke through the crowd and turning to havel, said: "that's all right, father." ben bansig saved chicago,--there can be no dispute about that. as to sercombe, the editor of _to-morrow_, he deserves recognition. i suggest that he be awarded a tooth brush at the expense of city hall. our three friends, terence carlin, havel, mary latter--who, as i can authentically prove, is not the daughter of hyppolite havel--can console themselves with the fact that their protest has done the names of whitman and spencer more honor than the gas of the baptist preacher. [illustration] that the suspiciously-red noses of the newspaper men should have smelt the "immoral conduct" of maxim gorky, was really very fortunate for the latter. he is now relieved from the impertinence of interviewers and prominent personages. he must feel as if he had recovered from some loathsome disease. immorality has after all many desirable qualities. what if chickens gaggle, pharisaic goats piously turn up their eyes, and the dear little piggies grunt! [illustration] well-meaning people are horrified that justice is making use of such creatures as orchard and mcparland against moyer, haywood and pettibone. there is nothing unusual in that. the record of the american government in its persecution against socialists and anarchists is by no means so clean that one need be astonished that it employs spies and perjurers as its helpmates. [illustration] the lord has developed from a good christian into a good banker: he destroyed more churches than vaults in san francisco. a letter. chicago, june nd, . dear editor:--i hope you have not been trying to relieve your feelings by using language dangerous to your soul's salvation. i can sympathize with you, though. however, it was impossible for me to send the promised article for "m. e." who, indeed, could expect a bride of two weeks to waste time upon magazine articles?! i hope you have read the reports of my marriage, though your silence would indicate that you have either neglected to read the important news, or that your usual lack of faith in the truth and honesty of the press has not permitted you to credit the story. it is high time, dear friend, that you get rid of your german skepticism; you know, i esteem your judgment, but when it comes to doubting anything the newspapers say, i draw the line. what reporters do not know about anarchists, and especially about your publisher, is not worth knowing. according to their great wisdom i not only incited men to remove the crowned heads of various countries, but i have done worse--i have incited them to marry me, and when they proved unwilling to love, honor and obey the order of our secret societies to blow up all sacred institutions, i sent them about their business. much as i realize the importance of my articles for mother earth, you cannot expect me to sacrifice my wifely duty to my lord and master for earth's sake. i have always held to the opinion that there must be absolute confidence between publisher and editor on all matters except the receipts; therefore i have to confess that my newly-wedded husband, who has just graduated from the university of the western penitentiary--the curriculum of which is lots of liberty, leisure and enjoyment--objects to the drudgery of an agitator and publisher. in justice to him, i dare not do more than write letters all day, address meetings every evening, and enjoy the love and kindness of the comrades till early morning hours. where, then, shall i find time to write articles for mother earth? but to be in keeping with the serious and dignified tone of our valuable magazine, and especially with you dear editor, i want to say that my meetings were very successful, and that mother earth is being received with great favor in every city. nearly copies were sold here. after reading the brilliant reports in the chicago papers and seeing the handsome, refined policemen at the various meetings, i am not surprised that our magazine is being appreciated. apropos of the chicago police, just fancy, i have actually forced them out of their uniforms. i hope this will not conjure up the horrible picture of chicago's finest parading the city in adam's costume. not that! only, chief of police collins was so outraged over my gentle criticism of his dear little boys at one of the woodworkers' meetings, that he gave strict orders, "no officer should again appear at a public meeting in uniform where that awful emma goldman is humiliating and degrading the emblem of authority and law." after this, i hope you will never again doubt the importance of public meetings and the great and far-reaching influence of my speaking. i shall soon be with you, if i survive my tour, the police, and the press. i shall then try to make up for my sins, in the july number of mother earth, provided you will let me recuperate in your editorial care and affection. emma goldman. [illustration] libertarian instruction. by emile janvion. among the important duties of anarchists libertarian instruction should occupy the first place. as revolutionary propaganda it is the most effective. tolstoi in yasnaia-poliana, reclus at bruxelles, paul robin at cempius, the group of the free school at paris have inaugurated attempts during the period of daring we have witnessed of late years. far from mixing education with instruction, the former should be considered as the natural consequence of the latter. our ideas should never be imposed by an education too specialized, narrow or sectarian, but by means of full and all-round instruction which opens the mind to criticism and makes it accessible to the power of truth which is our strength and which will complete the forming of the character. our instruction should be _integral_, _rational_, and _mixed_. _integral_--because it will tend to develop the whole being and make a complete, free _ensemble_, equally progressive in all knowledge, intellectual, physical, manual and professional, and this from the earliest age. _rational_--because it will be based on reason and in conformity with actual science and not on faith; on the development of personal freedom and independence and not on that of piety and obedience; on the abolition of the fiction _god_, the eternal and absolute cause of subjection. _mixed_--because it favors the coeducation of the sexes in a constant, fraternal, familiar company of children, boys and girls, which gives to the character of their manners a special earnestness. to the scientific instruction must be added manual apprenticeship, instruction with which it is in a constant connection of balance and reciprocity, and also esthetic instruction (music, art, etc.), which in point of view of an integral development has certainly not a small importance. to turn our attention towards the child, to encourage the development of its initiative, to impress it with a sentiment of its dignity, to preserve it from cowardice and falsehood, to make it observe the _pros_ and _cons_ of all social conceptions, to educate it for the struggle, that is the great work, scarcely yet begun, which awaits us. that will be the task of the nearest future if we will act logically and firmly. [illustration] the antichrist. from "the antichrist," by friedrich nietzsche. edited by alexander tille, translated by thomas common. publishers: macmillan & co. new york. i make war against this theological instinct: i have found traces of it everywhere. whoever has theological blood in his veins is from the very beginning ambiguous and disloyal with respect to everything. the pathos which develops therefrom calls itself belief: the closing of the eye once for all with respect to one's self, so as not to suffer from the sight--of incurable falsity. a person makes for himself a morality, a virtue, a sanctity out of this erroneous perspective towards all things, he unites the good conscience to the _false_ mode of seeing,--he demands that no _other_ mode of perspective be any longer of value, after he has made his own sacrosanct with the names of "god," "salvation," and "eternity." i have digged out the theologist-instinct everywhere; it is the most diffused, the most peculiarly _subterranean_ form of falsity that exists on earth. what a theologian feels as true, _must_ needs be false: one has therein almost a criterion of truth. it is his most fundamental self-preservative instinct which forbids reality to be held in honor, or even to find expression on any point. as far as theologist-influence extends, the _judgment of value_ is turned right about, the concepts of "true" and "false" are necessarily reversed: what is most injurious to life is here called "true," what raises, elevates, affirms, justifies, and makes it triumph is called "false." * * * let us not underestimate this: _we ourselves_, we free spirits, are already a "transvaluation of all values," an incarnate declaration of war against and triumph over all old concepts of "true" and "untrue." the most precious discernments into things are the latest discovered: the most precious discernments, however, are the _methods_. _all_ methods, _all_ presuppositions of our present-day science, have for millenniums been held in the most profound contempt: by reason of them a person was excluded from intercourse with "honest" men--he passed for an "enemy of god," a despiser of truth, a "possessed" person. as a scientific man, a person was a chandala.... we have had the entire pathos of mankind against us--their concept of that which truth _ought_ to be, which the service of truth _ought_ to be: every "thou shalt" has been hitherto directed _against_ us. our objects, our practices, our quiet, prudent, mistrustful mode--all appeared to mankind as absolutely unworthy and contemptible.--in the end one might, with some reasonableness, ask one's self if it was not really an esthetic taste which kept mankind in such long blindness: they wanted a _picturesque_ effect from truth, they wanted in like manner the knowing ones to operate strongly on their senses. our _modesty_ was longest against the taste of mankind.... oh how they made that out, these turkey-cocks of god----. * * * the christian concept of god--god as god of the sick, god as cobweb-spinner, god as spirit--is one of the most corrupt concepts of god ever arrived at on earth; it represents perhaps the gauge of low water in the descending development of the god-type. god degenerated to the _contradiction of life_, instead of being its transfiguration and its eternal _yea_! in god, hostility announced to life, to nature, to the will to life! god as the formula for every calumny of "this world," for every lie of "another world!" in god nothingness deified, the will to nothingness declared holy! * * * that the strong races of northern europe have not thrust from themselves the christian god, is verily no honor to their religious talent, not to speak of their taste. they ought to have got the better of such a sickly and decrepit product of _décadence_. there lies a curse upon them, because they have not got the better of it: they have incorporated sickness, old age and contradiction into all their instincts--they have _created_ no god since! two millenniums almost, and not a single new god! but still continuing, and as if persisting by right, as an _ultimatum_ and _maximum_ of the god-shaping force, of the _creator spiritus_ in man, this pitiable god of christian monotono-theism! this hybrid image of ruin, derived from nullity, concept and contradiction in which all _décadence_ instincts, all cowardices and lassitudes of soul have their sanction! * * * has the celebrated story been really understood which stands at the commencement of the bible--the story of god's mortal terror of _science_? it has not been understood. this priest-book _par excellence_ begins appropriately with the great inner difficulty of the priest: he has only one great danger, consequently "god" has only one great danger.-- the old god, entire "spirit," entire high priest, entire perfection, promenades in his garden: he only wants pastime. against tedium even gods struggle in vain. what does he do? he contrives man--man is entertaining.... but behold, man also wants pastime. the pity of god for the only distress which belongs to all paradises has no bounds: he forthwith created other animals besides. the _first_ mistake of god: man did not find the animals entertaining--he ruled over them, but did not even want to be an "animal"--god consequently created woman. and, in fact, there was now an end of tedium--but of other things also! woman was the _second_ mistake of god.--"woman is in her essence a serpent, hera"--every priest knows that: "from woman comes _all_ the mischief in the world"--every priest knows that likewise. _consequently_, _science_ also comes from her.... only through woman did man learn to taste of the tree of knowledge.--what had happened? the old god was seized by a mortal terror. man himself had become his _greatest_ mistake, he had created a rival, science makes _godlike_; it is at an end with priests and gods, if man becomes scientific!--_moral_: science is the thing forbidden in itself--it alone is forbidden. science is the _first_ sin, the germ of all sin, _original_ sin. _this alone is morality._--"thou shalt _not_ know:"--the rest follows therefrom.--by his mortal terror god was not prevented from being shrewd. how does one _defend_ one's self against science? that was for a long time his main problem. answer: away with man, out of paradise! happiness and leisure lead to thoughts,--all thoughts are bad thoughts.... man _shall_ not think--and the "priest in himself" contrives distress, death, the danger of life in pregnancy, every kind of misery, old age, weariness, and above all _sickness_,--nothing but expedients in the struggle against science! distress does not _permit_ man to think.... and nevertheless! frightful! the edifice of knowledge towers aloft, heaven-storming, dawning on the gods,--what to do!--the old god contrives _war_, he separates the peoples, he brings it about that men mutually annihilate one another (the priests have always had need of war ...). war, among other things, a great disturber of science!--incredible! knowledge, the _emancipation from the priest_, augments even in spite of wars.--and a final resolution is arrived at by the old god: "man has become scientific,--_there is no help for it, he must be drowned!_" ... * * * --i have been understood. the beginning of the bible contains the _entire_ psychology of the priest.--the priest knows only one great danger: that is science,--the sound concept of cause and effect. but science flourishes on the whole only under favorable circumstances,--one must have _superfluous_ time, one must have _superfluous_ intellect in order to "perceive" ... _consequently_ man must be made unfortunate,--this has at all times been the logic of the priest.--one makes out _what_ has only thereby come into the world in accordance with this logic:--"sin".... the concepts of guilt and punishment, the whole "moral order of the world," have been devised _in opposition_ to science,--_in opposition_ to a severance of man from the priest.... man is _not_ to look outwards, he is to look inwards into himself, he is _not_ to look prudently and cautiously into things like a learner, he is not to look at all, he is to _suffer_.... and he is so to suffer as to need the priest always. _a saviour is needed._--the concepts of guilt and punishment, inclusive of the doctrines of "grace," of "salvation," and of "forgiveness"--_lies_ through and through, and without any psychological reality--have been contrived to destroy the _causal sense_ in man, they are an attack on the concepts of cause and effect!--and _not_ an attack with the fists, with the knife, with honesty in hate and love! but springing from the most cowardly, most deceitful, and most ignoble instincts! a _priest's_ attack! a _parasite's_ attack! a vampirism of pale, subterranean blood-suckers! when the natural consequences of a deed are no longer "natural," but are supposed to be brought about by the conceptual spectres of superstition, by "god," by "spirits," by "souls," as mere "moral" consequences, as reward, punishment, suggestion, or means of education, the pre-requisite of perception has been destroyed--_the greatest crime against mankind has been committed._ sin, repeated once more, this form of human self-violation _par excellence_, has been invented for the purpose of making impossible science, culture, every kind of elevation and nobility of man; the priest _rules_ by the invention of sin.-- * * * i _condemn_ christianity, i bring against the christian church the most terrible of all accusations that ever an accuser has taken into his mouth. it is to me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions, it has had the will to the ultimate corruption that is at all possible. the christian church has left nothing untouched with its depravity, it has made a worthlessness out of every value, a lie out of every truth, a baseness of soul out of every straight-forwardness. let a person still dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! to _do away with_ any state of distress whatsoever was counter to its profoundest expediency, it lived by states of distress, it _created_ states of distress in order to perpetuate _itself_ eternally.... the worm of sin for example; it is only the church that has enriched mankind with this state of distress!-- ...."humanitarian" blessings of christianity! to breed out of _humanitas_ a self-contradiction, an art of self-violation, a will to the lie at any price, a repugnance, a contempt for all good and straight-forward instincts! those are for me blessing of christianity!--parasitism as the _sole_ praxis of the church; drinking out all blood, all love, all hope for life, with its anæmic ideal of holiness; the other world as the will to the negation of every reality; the cross as the rallying sign for the most subterranean conspiracy that has ever existed,--against healthiness, beauty, well-constitutedness, courage, intellect, _benevolence_ of soul, _against life itself_.... this eternal accusation of christianity i shall write on all walls, wherever there are walls,--i have letters for making even the blind see.... i call christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, _mean_,--i call it the one immortal blemish of mankind! brain work and manual work. by peter kropotkin. in olden times men of science, and especially those who have done most to forward the growth of natural philosophy, did not despise manual work and handicraft. galileo made his telescopes with his own hands. newton learned in his boyhood the art of managing tools; he exercised his young mind in contriving most ingenious machines, and when he began his researches in optics he was able himself to grind the lenses for his instruments, and himself to make the well-known telescope, which, for its time, was a fine piece of workmanship. leibnitz was fond of inventing machines: windmills and carriages to be moved without horses preoccupied his mind as much as mathematical and philosophical speculations. linnæus became a botanist while helping his father--a practical gardener--in his daily work. in short, with our great geniuses handicraft was no obstacle to abstract researches--it rather favored them. on the other hand, if the workers of old found but few opportunities for mastering science, many of them had, at least, their intelligences stimulated by the very variety of work which was performed in the then unspecialized workshops; and some of them had the benefit of familiar intercourse with men of science. watt and rennie were friends with professor robinson; brindley, the road-maker, despite his fourteen-pence-a-day wages, enjoyed intercourse with educated men, and thus developed his remarkable engineering faculties; the son of a well-to-do family could "idle" at a wheelwright's shop, so as to become later on a smeaton or a stephenson. we have changed all that. under the pretext of division of labor, we have sharply separated the brain worker from the manual worker. the masses of the workmen do not receive more scientific education than their grandfathers did; but they have been deprived of the education of even the small workshop, while their boys and girls are driven into a mine or a factory from the age of thirteen, and there they soon forget the little they may have learned at school. as to the men of science, they despise manual labor. how few of them would be able to make a telescope, or even a plainer instrument? most of them are not capable of even designing a scientific instrument, and when they have given a vague suggestion to the instrument-maker they leave it with him to invent the apparatus they need. nay, they have raised the contempt of manual labor to the height of a theory. "the man of science," they say, "must discover the laws of nature, the civil engineer must apply them, and the worker must execute in steel or wood, in iron or stone, the patterns devised by the engineer. he must work with machines invented for him, not by him. no matter if he does not understand them and cannot improve them: the scientific man and the scientific engineer will take care of the progress of science and industry." it may be objected that nevertheless there is a class of men who belong to none of the above three divisions. when young they have been manual workers, and some of them continue to be; but, owing to some happy circumstances, they have succeeded in acquiring some scientific knowledge, and thus they have combined science with handicraft. surely there are such men; happily enough there is a nucleus of men who have escaped the so-much-advocated specialization of labor, and it is precisely to them that industry owes its chief recent inventions. but in old europe at least, they are the exceptions; they are the irregulars--the cossacks who have broken the ranks and pierced the screens so carefully erected between the classes. and they are so few, in comparison with the ever-growing requirements of industry--and of science as well, as i am about to prove--that all over the world we hear complaint about the scarcity of precisely such men. what is the meaning, in fact, of the outcry for technical education which has been raised at one and the same time in england, in france, in germany, in the states, and in russia, if it does not express a general dissatisfaction with the present division into scientists, scientific engineers, and workers? listen to those who know industry, and you will see that the substance of their complaint is this: "the worker whose task has been specialized by the permanent division of labor has lost the intellectual interest in his labor, and it is especially so in the great industries: he has lost his inventive powers. formerly, he invented very much. manual workers--not men of science nor trained engineers--have invented, or brought to perfection, the prime motors and all that mass of machinery which has revolutionized industry for the last hundred years. but since the great factory has been enthroned, the worker, depressed by the monotony of his work, invents no more. what can a weaver invent who merely supervises four looms, without knowing anything either about their complicated movements or how the machines grew to be what they are? what can a man invent who is condemned for life to bind together the ends of two threads with the greatest celerity, and knows nothing beyond making a knot? "at the outset of modern industry, three generations of workers _have_ invented; now they cease to do so. as to the inventions of the engineers, specially trained for devising machines, they are either devoid of genius or not practical enough. those "nearly to nothings," of which sir frederick bramwell spoke once at bath, are missing in their inventions--those nothings which can be learned in the workshop only, and which permitted a murdoch and the soho workers to make a practical engine of watt's schemes. none but he who knows the machine--not in its drawings and models only, but in its breathing and throbbings--who unconsciously thinks of it while standing by it, can really improve it. smeaton and newcomen surely were excellent engineers; but in their engines a boy had to open the steam valve at each stroke of the piston; and it was one of those boys who once managed to connect the valve with the remainder of the machine, so as to make it open automatically, while he ran away to play with other boys. but in the modern machinery there is no room left for naïve improvements of that kind. scientific education on a wide scale has become necessary for further inventions, and that education is refused to the workers. so that there is no issue out of the difficulty unless scientific education and handicraft are combined together--unless integration of knowledge takes the place of the present divisions." such is the real substance of the present movement in favor of technical education. but, instead of bringing to public consciousness the, perhaps, unconscious motives of the present discontent, instead of widening the views of the discontented and discussing the problem to its full extent, the mouth-pieces of the movement do not mostly rise above the shopkeeper's view of the question. some of them indulge in jingo talk about crushing all foreign industries out of competition, while the others see in technical education nothing but a means of somewhat improving the flesh-machine of the factory and of transferring a few workers into the upper class of trained engineers. such an ideal may satisfy them, but it cannot satisfy those who keep in view the combined interests of science and industry, and consider both as a means for raising humanity to a higher level. we maintain that in the interests of both science and industry, as well as of society as a whole, every human being, without distinction of birth, ought to receive such an education as would enable him, or her, to combine a thorough knowledge of science with a thorough knowledge of handicraft. we fully recognize the necessity of specialization of knowledge, but we maintain that specialization must follow general education, and that general education must be given in science and handicraft alike. to the division of society into brain-workers and manual workers we oppose the combination of both kinds of activities; and instead of "technical education," which means the maintenance of the present division between brain work and manual work, we advocate the _éducation intégrale_, or complete education, which means the disappearance of that pernicious distinction. plainly stated, the aims of the school under this system ought to be the following: to give such an education that, on leaving school at the age of eighteen or twenty, each boy and each girl should be endowed with a thorough knowledge of science--such a knowledge as might enable them to be useful workers in science--and, at the same time, to give them a general knowledge of what constitutes the bases of technical training, and such a skill in some special trade as would enable each of them to take his or her place in the grand world of the manual production of wealth. i know that many will find that aim too large, or even impossible to attain, but i hope that if they have the patience to read the following pages, they will see that we require nothing beyond what can be easily attained. in fact, _it has been attained_; and what has been done on a small scale could be done on a wider scale, were it not for the economical and social causes which prevent any serious reform from being accomplished in our miserably organized society. the experiment has been made at the moscow technical school for twenty consecutive years with many hundreds of boys; and, according to the testimonies of the most competent judges at the exhibitions of brussels, philadelphia, vienna and paris, the experiment has been a success. the moscow school admits boys not older than fifteen, and it requires from boys of that age nothing but a substantial knowledge of geometry and algebra, together with the usual knowledge of their mother tongue; younger pupils are received in the preparatory classes. the school is divided into two sections--the mechanical and the chemical; but as i personally know better the former, and as it is also the more important with reference to the question before us, so i shall limit my remarks to the education given in the mechanical section. after a five or six years' stay at the school, the students leave it with a thorough knowledge of higher mathematics, physics, mechanics, and connected sciences--so thorough, indeed, that it is not second to that acquired in the best mathematical faculties of the most eminent european universities. when myself a student of the mathematical faculty of the st. petersburg university, i had the opportunity of comparing the knowledge of the students at the moscow technical school with our own. i saw the courses of higher geometry some of them had compiled for the use of their comrades; i admired the facility with which they applied the integral calculus to dynamical problems, and i came to the conclusion that while we, university students, had more knowledge of a general character, they, the students of the technical school, were much more advanced in higher geometry, and especially in the applications of higher mathematics to the most intricate problems of dynamics, the theories of heat and elasticity. but while we, the students of the university, hardly knew the use of our hands, the students of the technical school fabricated _with their own hands_, and without the help of professional workmen, fine steam-engines, from the heavy boiler to the last finely turned screw, agricultural machinery, and scientific apparatus--all for the trade--and they received the highest awards for the work of their hands at the international exhibitions. they were scientifically educated skilled workers--workers with university education--highly appreciated even by the russian manufacturers who so much distrust science. now, the methods by which these wonderful results were achieved were these: in science, learning from memory was not in honor, while independent research was favored by all means. science was taught hand in hand with its applications, and what was learned in the schoolroom was applied in the workshop. great attention was paid to the highest abstractions of geometry as a means for developing imagination and research. as to the teaching of handicraft, the methods were quite different from those which proved a failure at the cornell university, and differed, in fact, from those used in most technical schools. the student was not sent to a workshop to learn some special handicraft and to earn his existence as soon as possible, but the teaching of technical skill was prosecuted--according to a scheme elaborated by the founder of the school, m. dellavos, and now applied also at chicago and boston--in the same systematical way as laboratory work is taught in the universities. it is evident that drawing was considered as the first step in technical education. then the student was brought, first, to the carpenter's workshop, or rather laboratory, and there he was thoroughly taught to execute all kinds of carpentry and joinery. no efforts were spared in order to bring the pupil to a certain perfection in that branch--the real basis of all trades. later on, he was transferred to the turner's workshop, where he was taught to make in wood the patterns of those things which he would have to make in metal in the following workshops. the foundry followed, and there he was taught to cast those parts of machines which he had prepared in wood; and it was only after he had gone through the first three stages that he was admitted to the smith's and engineering workshops. as for the perfection of the mechanical work of the students i cannot do better than refer to the reports of the juries at the above-named exhibitions. in america the same system has been introduced, in its technical part, first, in the chicago manual training school, and later on in the boston technical school--the best, i am told, of the sort; and in this country, or rather in scotland, i found the system applied with full success, for some years, under the direction of dr. ogilvie at gordon's college in aberdeen. it is the moscow or chicago system on a limited scale. while receiving substantial scientific education, the pupils are also trained in the workshops--but not for one special trade, as it unhappily too often is the case. they pass through the carpenter's workshop, the casting in metals, and the engineering workshop; and in each of these they learn the foundations of each of the three trades sufficiently well for supplying the school itself with a number of useful things. besides, as far as i could ascertain from what i saw in the geographical and physical classes, as also in the chemical laboratory, the system of "through the hand to the brain," and _vice versa_, is in full swing, and it is attended with the best success. the boys _work_ with the physical instruments, and they study geography in the field, instruments in hands, as well as in the class-room. some of their surveys filled my heart, as an old geographer, with joy. it is evident that the gordon's college industrial department is not a mere copy of any foreign school; on the contrary, i cannot help thinking that if aberdeen has made that excellent move towards combining science with handicraft, the move was a natural outcome of what has been practised long since, on a smaller scale, in the aberdeen daily schools. the moscow technical school surely is not an ideal school.[ ] it totally neglects the humanitarian education of the young men. but we must recognize that the moscow experiment--not to speak of hundreds of other partial experiments--has perfectly well proved the possibility of combining a scientific education of a very high standard with the education which is necessary for becoming an excellent skilled laborer. it has proved, moreover, that the best means for producing really good skilled laborers is to seize the bull by the horns, and to grasp the educational problem in its great features, instead of trying to give some special skill in some handicraft, together with a few scraps of knowledge in a certain branch of some science. and it has shown also what can be obtained, without over-pressure, if a rational economy of the scholar's time is always kept in view, and theory goes hand in hand with practice. viewed in this light, the moscow results do not seem extraordinary at all, and still better results may be expected if the same principles are applied from the earliest years of education. waste of time is the leading feature of our present education. not only are we taught a mass of rubbish, but what is not rubbish is taught so as to make us waste over it as much time as possible. our present methods of teaching originate from a time when the accomplishments required from an educated person were extremely limited; and they have been maintained, notwithstanding the immense increase of knowledge which must be conveyed to the scholar's mind since science has so much widened its former limits. hence the over-pressure in schools, and hence, also, the urgent necessity of totally revising both the subjects and the methods of teaching, according to the new wants and to the examples already given here and there, by separate schools and separate teachers. it is evident that the years of childhood ought not to be spent so uselessly as they are now. german teachers have shown how the very plays of children can be made instrumental in conveying to the childish mind some concrete knowledge in both geometry and mathematics. the children who have made the squares of the theorem of pythagoras out of pieces of colored cardboard, will not look at the theorem, when it comes in geometry, as on a mere instrument of torture devised by the teachers; and the less so if they apply it as the carpenters do. complicated problems of arithmetic, which so much harassed us in our boyhood, are easily solved by children seven and eight years old if they are put in the shape of interesting puzzles. and if the _kindergarten_--german teachers often make of it a kind of barrack in which each movement of the child is regulated beforehand--has often become a small prison for the little ones, the idea which presided at its foundation is nevertheless true. in fact, it is almost impossible to imagine, without having tried it, how many sound notions of nature, habits of classification, and taste for natural sciences can be conveyed to the children's minds; and, if a series of concentric courses adapted to the various phases of development of the human being were generally accepted in education, the first series in all sciences, save sociology, could be taught before the age of ten or twelve, so as to give a general idea of the universe, the earth and its inhabitants, the chief physical, chemical, zoological, and botanical phenomena, leaving the discovery of the _laws_ of those phenomena to the next series of deeper and more specialised studies. on the other side, we all know how children like to make toys themselves, how they gladly imitate the work of full-grown people if they see them at work in the workshop or the building-yard. but the parents either stupidly paralyze that passion, or do not know how to utilize it. most of them despise manual work and prefer sending their children to the study of roman history, or of franklin's teachings about saving money, to seeing them at a work which is good for the "lower classes only." they thus do their best to render subsequent learning the more difficult. * * * * * * * * * the so-called division of labor has grown under a system which condemned the masses to toil all the day long, and all the life long, at the same wearisome kind of labor. but if we take into account how few are the real producers of wealth in our present society, and how squandered is their labor, we must recognize that franklin was right in saying that to work five hours a day would generally do for supplying each member of a civilized nation with the comfort now accessible for the few only, provided everybody took his due share in production. but we have made some progress since franklin's times. more than one-half of the working day would thus remain to every one for the pursuit of art, science, or any hobby he might prefer; and his work in those fields would be the more profitable if he spent the other half of the day in productive work--if art and science were followed from mere inclination, not for mercantile purposes. moreover, a community organized on the principles of all being workers would be rich enough to conclude that every man and woman, after having reached a certain age--say of forty or more--ought to be relieved from the moral obligation of taking a direct part in the performance of the necessary manual work, so as to be able entirely to devote himself or herself to whatever he or she chooses in the domain of art, or science, or any kind of work. free pursuit in new branches of art and knowledge, free creation, and free development thus might be fully guaranteed. and such a community would not know misery amidst wealth. it would not know the duality of conscience which permeates our life and stifles every noble effort. it would freely take its flight towards the highest regions of progress compatible with human nature. footnote: [ ] what this school is now, i don't know. in the last years of alexander ii.'s reign it was wrecked, like so many other good institutions of the early part of his reign. [illustration] motherhood and marriage by henriette fuerth. (_translated from the german for_ mother earth by anny mali hicks.) knowledge becomes understanding only when its scope includes the origin, the development and the conclusion of things.--bachofen, "right to motherhood." "the future will endeavor to extend its power through its own ideas of facts and appearances, however unfamiliar these may seem, rather than to be influenced by a past and submerged civilization with a spirit far removed from its own." there could hardly be a more appropriate introduction to our remarks on motherhood and marriage than these words of bachofen's, for there are few human relations whose traditional stages, taking through outside causes and effects an established form, have become eternal law and sacrament, as is the case in the realm of sex relations. motherhood and marriage! for most people these two conceptions are inseparably bound together, or, rather, are in ratio connected as their ideas of morality and religion are synonymous. marriage in the romish church is a religious sacrament, and in the collective christian and jewish worlds the only sex relation acknowledged as customary and possible, is the one based on a monogamous union. to work out logically from this standpoint, the only condition of motherhood which is socially justified, is that one which is the result of marital relations. in consequence motherhood without the consent of the state or the benefit of the clergy is just as logically condemned. and they who thus sit in judgment, flatter themselves to be the prophets of an advanced and enlightened era,--ingrafting their personal feelings and rights on the religious and lawful order of the universe. or, in common parlance, and as our introduction so aptly put it, these good people wish to intend the domination of the ideas of their own time over all the past and into all the future. marriage seems to them an everlasting institution, a godly regulation, through which they can lend to their individual bias, the dignity of that which is humanly purest and highest. consequently it also seems to them that the present form of marriage and its accompanying conditions for motherhood, resting as these do on the mutual consent of god and man, that these are to be in all eternity the permanent form of sex relation. but when we stop one moment only, to free ourselves from preconceived and obsolete ideas, and look at motherhood and marriage from the calm and unprejudiced standpoint of historical development and growth, how differently do these in reality appear. many advanced thinkers have done this, and their views have here and there found adherents. not so, however, with the average seeker for light and truth, who if he wish to succeed must stem the tide of prejudiced opinion. but the day has come when, if all signs do not fail, spring is here, and a thousand and one buds of promise are pushing toward the light, when a wider and saner understanding of motherhood and marriage is at hand. and it is not an untimely spring either, not one which the treacherous sun of january calls forth only to blight with later snow and frost. no, it is the real light and life-giving spring, which comes when the sap begins to run, when the sun calls up smoky mists from out the brown earth, ready to enclose the seed, which shall bring forth summer flowers and autumn fruits. and this same brown, misty earth, what a different aspect shall she present to her children, for whom conditions are so changed, with truer sex relations, encompassing the ethical and spiritual needs of the free individual. then only will it be _possible_ to base these needs and demands on the surrounding world of realities filled with material and spiritual phenomena. but first it must be proven that the present form of marriage and its effect on motherhood is not necessarily permanent, but, like all else, subject to natural development and change. what indeed is the much talked of marriage bond of to-day,--which is considered the cornerstone of both church and state? is it something towards which the steps of development in nature and history all go? no seriously minded person could in truth make such a statement. in the plant and animal kingdoms, whose species evoke as do those of the human race, we find no examples of sex relations to which the term marriage would apply. and this is also true of the historical development of man and social conditions. it is not marriage but motherhood which has given permanence to sex relations wherever they appear. motherhood standing at the source of life with its creative and ever recreative force. "goddesses enthroned in solitude, surrounded not by time or place, these are the mothers! about them formed and formless, eternal stability and endless change in images of all created life." thus does goethe describe the depths of being which enclose the eternal mystery of motherhood, leading not into known, but unknown paths. and truly, how far have we strayed from the path of true and natural feeling when we seek to justify motherhood from the standpoint of expediency and custom! it is something in itself holy, and is its own reason for being. i ask all mothers, all real mothers, when their child comes to them, with eyes brimming with childlike love and affection, against which all else counts for naught, i ask them do they think whether that child is legitimate or what is called an illegitimate child? no! the joy of motherhood completely fills the heart, there is no room for other feelings, and truly the answer comes, nature does not discriminate between the legitimate and illegitimate mothers, any more than she labels the children brought into the world as such. and this alone is the foundation to which we must hold fast. nature acknowledges motherhood only, wisely providing for its needs. not so marriage, which is a form men have given their sex relations, and established from the standpoint of social and economic exigencies and considerations, it is consequently subject to limitations and changes. motherhood is an eternal force lying at the root of life, not subjected to time or change. [illustration] object lesson for advocates of governmental control. by arthur g. everett, n--m. the best literary efforts possible have been exhausted in a vain effort to convey to those fortunately not in san francisco on the morning of april , , what terrible things resulted from the earthquake and the fire which left that city a complete ruin; likewise has the kodak and the camera--though busy at work while the flames roared around the operator driving him, from one vantage point to another, before its resistless power--failed to depict in its entirety the horrors, the tragedies that followed in the wake of the crumbling walls, the crackling flames that licked up alike palatial mansions and the squalid homes of the poor, not content to feast upon the products of the forests of california and the eastern states alone, but, with the strategy of a warrior, surrounded and penned within four walls hundreds of human beings, stalwart men, delicate women, and babes at the breast, who were then slowly roasted to death upon the funeral pyre of san francisco. upon the minds and hearts of the survivors, alone, who walked between the walls of fire those days, who escaped the frightful holocaust but by a miracle while loved ones perished before their eyes, are written, are recorded, too complete, too vivid, those terrible scenes, and fain would they efface from their mind's negative those pictures of horrors which now turn their dreams of the night into such a frightful nightmare that they dread to close their eyes in slumber. while the horrors of the earthquake and fire were so terrible, yet there was something far worse, for the earthquake and fire were beyond human control, but the still worse acts of the soldiers into whose hands the control of the city were delegated could have been restrained by the authorities had they so chosen; now that the world is being made aware of the fact that the soldiers ruthlessly shot down men and women--yes, women as well as men; in one case a woman was shot down by a soldier because she dared to light a match to see where to lay her little sick baby down--and that without any justification other than the order of their superiors who likewise were so ordered by the authorities--a natural result of governmental control--hence they are doing all they can to controvert the facts regarding the brutal murders and worse of the soldiers. in one case they went so far as to threaten the confiscation of a printery if the editor did not call in and suppress an issue in which was printed an article by a marine telling of seeing the soldiers shoot down the inmates of a hotel so surrounded by fire it seemed they else must be burned up--the excuse the soldiers gave for shooting them--and so the soldiers shot them down to save (?) them. the marine in this article did not tell how many of those thus shot down by the soldiers were only wounded and writhed in agony on the increasing heated floor until the fiery fiend ended their misery from the gun shot wounds. brevity precludes going into details of what is already a matter of history; of the soldiers shooting the inmates of an improvised hospital that were unable to be moved when the fire surrounded the building; of the soldiers shooting an old man for refusing to work, though so infirm with age that he had to walk with a cane; of the shooting of a red cross man while in his auto on a deed of mercy bent; of the man shot in the back for talking back to a soldier, and that after he had turned away from the drunken brute; of the shooting of a man for having whisky in his possession and refusing to give it up--that the soldiers had plenty is in evidence from the fact that a large per cent. were so drunk that they could walk with but difficulty--of their insulting women, and even far worse than mere insult also; of shooting persons for looting while they themselves did the same; all this and much more and worse are known to be true, and, in the language of another writer on this same subject, "strive as they may the authorities will never be able to whitewash the military abominations inflicted upon san francisco and vicinity." in this regard the same writer says most truly: "the rulers of the state furnished us an example of 'anarchy,' according to their own definition of the term." in times like these it brings out what is in the man, and these murders and lesser brutalities of the soldiers while policing san francisco tell us that the soldier is but an infuriated thug, ready to do murder and rapine at the first opportunity; the civic authorities of oakland recognized this as a fact when they finally allowed the reopening of the saloons, for the barkeepers were specially interdicted from selling or giving liquor to soldiers; they were already loaded too heavy with murderous instincts and propensities and it would not do to run the risk of touching off that magazine of murder with the match of whisky. these brutal butcheries and rapine by the soldiers while thus in control of san francisco are the legitimate fruits of governmental control, and it would be well for those who are so strenuously advocating militarism--the true name for governmental control--to bear these things in mind, for such horrors would be the daily menu under such system, for there is lots of the savage in the most of us and it needs but to put a gun in the hands of some and decorate them with brass buttons with u. s. inscribed thereon to bring to the surface--like a plaster on a boil--all the native savagery there is in the man; personally, i would prefer to run my chances among the head hunters on the isle of borneo than among uniformed thugs protected and encouraged by martial law to carry out their natural murderous propensities as was the case in san francisco, following the earthquake on the morning of april , . the genius of war by john francis valter. _i am the genius of war. my standard's the skull and the bones. i raise my voice--i stamp my foot, and legions rise out of the ground._ _armies advance and retreat, poisoned, diseased and maimed: all that is left is a grewsome aspect to the moonlight, the ghouls and me._ _all this to a laudable end:-- the general has his star; shylock his four per cent; the contractor's wife a costly gem to enhance her vulgar charms; the mother a harvest of tears; the wife a broken heart; the unborn babe a prenatal curse; while i have my surfeit of blood_. [illustration] dignity speaks. "hark ye, millions, and tremble! i am more powerful than the law. together with my sister, respectability, i reach far beyond the boundary of the authority of governments. i am supreme. behold the miserable criminal, desperately resisting the brutal treatment of the police officer. i shall force him to his knees. i shall subdue him. enthroned upon the seat of justice, robed in the solemn black of my sacred office, i shall break the rebel's spirit. 'tis in this that the highest refinement of tyranny manifests itself--it enters into the very innermost depths of the human mind and there it ravages, till its foul breath has withered the last resistance of the unfortunate soul, and the consciousness of self is destroyed; this accomplished, the man himself is dead. the law! see how the timid masses cower at the mere mention of my name. see them tremble as i enter the arena of the legislature. the dignity of the law! the majesty of the law! it must forever remain my great secret that the law is the cerberus that guards the portals of our earthly paradise against the common herd--we must not be disturbed in our orgies. the law! 'tis our beastly greediness, our bloodthirsty rapacity expressed in statutes. 'tis the insatiety of the human beasts of prey immortalized in jurisprudence, and i, dignity, sanctify all that. as a captain of industry, as a prince of commerce, or as a king of finance, i speak with solemn face of the heavy responsibilities that rest upon those to whose care god, in his infinite wisdom, has entrusted the wealth of the universe; i speak with zeal of the sacred duty of the rich to lend a helping hand to our less fortunate brothers; i never tire to emphasize the necessity of wise stewardship. in the meantime, i exploit the "poor brothers" and i appropriate the lion's share of the fruit of his labor; he is made to pay me an usurious profit on my investments. i fill my shops and factories with men, women and children, and i transmute the base metal of their bones into the noble coin of the realm; my coffers grow fat, my slaves grow lean, but i acquire the reputation of a public benefactor, a public-spirited citizen, a noble humanitarian. as military commander, as a great general, i eulogize the heroism and self-sacrifice of my blind slaves and hirelings that have returned from a successful campaign against a weaker nation. i speak of the great benefit that the success of our arms will confer upon the people, i emphasize its stimulating effect upon the progress of our country and upon our civilization. yet while my anointed lips pour forth these solemn lies, my mind travels over the bloody fields of carnage; i behold the thousands of the slain, the mutilated bodies, the torn limbs, the streams of human blood.... i stand in the pulpit and call the faithful to prayer. i thunder eternal curses upon the heads of the unbelievers; i threaten the people with the torments of hell and i try to bribe them by the promise of heaven. believe, live and be saved, i cry. or else you will die and be damned! for i am the visible representative on earth of those invisible, extra-mundane spirits whom man, in his fear and ignorance, created to his own continued mental enslavement. terrified, sin lies prostrate at my feet. it does not know that a sick conscience is a characteristic trait of all slaves. it is the universal self-accuser. were the people--individually and collectively--to sin on a grand scale, were they to refuse to be the puppets of the man-made idols--were that to happen, masters and slaves would cease to be. the tyrants of the world are under great obligations to me. they must not forget this. for if they should, i will unfold my solemn black robe, i will smooth the hypocritical lines on my face--then shall the world behold all the filth and corruption that i, dignity, hide." [illustration] paternalistic government. by theodore schroeder. (_continuation._) here is paternal solicitude with a vengeance in a law i requote from wordsworth donisthorpe: "they shall have bows and arrows, and use the same of sundays and holidays; and leave all playing at tennis or foot-ball and other games called quoits, dice, casting of stone, kailes, and other such importune games. forasmuch as labourers and grooms keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the holidays when good christians be at church hearing divine service, they go hunting in parks, warrens, and connigries, it is ordained that no manner of layman which hath not lands to the value of forty shillings a year, shall from henceforth keep any greyhound or other dog to hunt, nor shall he use ferrets, nets, heys, harepipes nor cords, nor any engines for to take or destroy deer, hares, nor conies, nor other _gentlemen's game_, under pain of twelve months imprisonment. "for the great dearth that is in many places of the realm of poultry, it is ordained that the price of a young capon shall not pass threepence, and of an old fourpence, of a hen twopence, of a pullet a penny, of a goose fourpence. "esquires and gentlemen under the estate of a knight shall not wear cloth of a higher price than four and a half marks, they shall wear no cloth of gold nor silk nor silver, nor no manner of clothing embroidered, ring button nor brooch of gold nor of silver, nor nothing of stone nor no manner of fur; and their wives and daughters shall be of the same condition as to their vesture and apparel, without any turning-up or purfle or apparel of gold, silver nor of stone. "because that servants and labourers will not nor by long season would, serve and labour without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more than hath been given to such servants and labourers in any time past, so that for scarcity of the said servants and labourers the husbands and land-tenants may not pay their rent nor live upon their lands, to the great damage and loss as well of the lords as of the commons, it is accorded and assented that the bailiff for husbandry shall take by the years s. d. and his clothing once by the year at most; the master hind s., the carter s., the shepherd s., the oxherd s. d., the swineherd s., a woman labourer s., a dey s., a driver of the plough s. at the most, and every other labourer and servant according to his degree; and less in the country where less was wont to be given, without clothing, courtesy, or other reward by covenant. if any give or take by covenant more than is above specified, at the first that they shall be thereof attained, as well the givers as the takers, shall pay the value of the excess so taken, and at the second time of their attainer the double value of such excess, and at the third time the treble value of such excess, and if the taker so attained have nothing whereof to pay the said excess, he shall have forty days imprisonment." our puritan fathers had the same paternal solicitude as all other tyrants. they made it a crime to disregard the sabbath, or to deny scripture, or the truth of christianity or of the trinity. in the records of the colony for september it is written: "for as much as it is evident unto this court that the common custom of drinking one to another, is a mere useless ceremony, and draweth on that abominable practice of drinking healths, and is also an occasion of much waste of the good creatures, and of many other sin," etc. then it declares that such is a reproach to a christian commonwealth, "wherein the least evils are not to be tolerated." in the instructions of the massachusetts company to endicott and his council, the trade in tobacco is only allowed to the "old planters," "if they conceive that they cannot otherwise provide for their livelihood." it is left to the discretion of endicott and his council "to give way for the present to their planting of it, in such manner and with such restrictions" as they may think fitting. "but," it is added, "we absolutely forbid the sale of it or the use of it by any of our own particular (private) men's servants, unless upon urgent occasion, for the benefit of health, and taken privately." in the records of the colony of massachusetts for september , , "it is ordered that victuallers or keepers of an ordinary shall not suffer any tobacco to be taken into their houses, under penalty of s. for every offence to be paid by the victualler, and d. by the party that takes it." "further it is ordered that no person shall take tobacco publicly under the penalty of s. d., nor privately in his own house or in the house of another before strangers, and that two or more shall not take it together anywhere, under the aforesaid penalty for every offence." the laws which our colonial fathers enacted against "excess and bravery in apparel" are fitted to excite a smile. but there is something more than ludicrous in the aspect of grave lawmakers passing judgment on all the minutiæ of dress, and finding matter of offence in an extra "slash," or a needless garniture of "lace." against this last-named article the zeal of our puritan fathers seems to have been especially stirred up. in it was ordered "that no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen, silk, or linen with any lace on it, silver, gold, silk, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of such clothes." in it was enacted "that no person, after one month, shall make or sell any bone-lace or other lace, to be worn upon any garment or linen, upon pain of s. the yard for every yard of such lace so made, or sold, or set on; neither shall any tailor set any lace upon any garment, upon pain of s. for every offence,--provided that binding or small edging laces may be used upon garments or linen." again, three years later, a new edict was launched at this obnoxious material, because "there is much complaint of the excessive wearing of lace and other superfluities, tending to little use or benefit, but to the nourishing of pride and the exhausting of men's estates, and also of evil example to others." the law of was indeed repealed in ; but in the court, to their great grief, are compelled to try their hand at the work again, though frankly confessing the impotence of all previous legislation, and evidently awakening to a sense of the inherent difficulties of the subject. "we acknowledge it," say they, "to be a matter of much difficulty, in regard of the blindness of men's minds and the stubbornness of their wills, to set down exact rules to confine all sorts of persons"; and so, leaving the wealthier class to their own conscience of fancy, they undertake to prescribe for "people of mean condition." it was therefore ordered (in ) that no one whose estate is not of the value of £ "shall wear any gold or silver lace, or gold or silver buttons, or any bone-lace above s. per yard or silk hoods or scarfs"; and moreover, the selectmen of the town are required to fine anybody whom "they shall judge to exceed their rank and ability in the costliness or fashion of their apparel, in any respect"! and finally, a law passed in forbids "children and servants" to wear any apparel "exceeding the quality and condition of their persons or estate," "the grand jury and country court of the shire" being judges of the offence. one provision of the law of against "new and immodest fashions" is too remarkable to be omitted. it reads as follows: "moreover, it is agreed, if any man shall judge the wearing of any the forenamed particulars, new fashions, or long hair, or anything of the like nature, to be uncomely or prejudicial to the common good, and the party offending reform not the same, upon notice given him, that then the next assistant, being informed thereof, shall have power to bind the party so offending to answer it at the next court, if the case so requires; provided, and it is the meaning of the court, that men and women shall have liberty to wear out such apparel as they are now provided of (except the immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate great veils, long wings, etc.)." what intolerable tyranny of private surveillance is indicated in the phrase, "what any man shall judge to be uncomely"! in the second letter of instructions (dated june, ) to endicott and his council, they are exhorted to prevent the sale of "strong waters" to the indians, and to punish any of their own people who shall become drunk in the use of them. in the preamble to a law enacted in , one is led to expect an enforcement of the modern principles of abstinence and prohibition; since, after declaring that "drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those which hold out and profess the gospel of christ jesus," it goes on to assert that "any strict laws against the sin will not prevail unless the cause be taken away." but it would seem that "the cause," in the eyes of our puritan lawmakers, was an indiscriminate sale of spirituous drinks; for the law chiefly enacts that none but "vintners" shall have permission to retail wine and "strong water." it is also permitted to constables to search any tavern, or even any private house, "suspected to sell wine contrary to this order." moreover, no person is "to drink or tipple at unseasonable times in houses of entertainment,"--the "unseasonable" time being declared to be after nine in the evening. but these laws were of small avail, for, in , the court is grieved to confess: "it is found by experience that a great quantity of wine is spent, and much thereof abused to excess of drinking and unto drunkenness itself, notwithstanding all the wholesome laws provided and published for the preventing thereof." it therefore orders, that those who are authorized to sell wine and beer shall not harbor a drunkard in their houses, but shall forthwith give him up to be dealt with by the proper officer, under penalty of five pounds for disobedience. in one "peter bussaker was censured for drunkenness to be whipped and to have twenty stripes sharply inflicted, and fined £ for slighting the magistrates," etc. in march, , it was ordered, "that robert coles, for drunkenness by him committed at roxbury, shall be disfranchised, wear about his neck and so to hangg upon his outward garment a d made of red cloth and set upon white; to continue this for a year, and not to leave it off at any time when he comes amongst company, under penalty of s. for the first offence and £ for the second." what was the efficacy of the whipping or the "scarlet letter," we are not informed. of course, people capable of such legislation must frame fantastic definitions of liberty. here is an old one whose sentiments have been often parroted by unthinking humans of modern times. it reads: "true liberty consists in a freedom of doing and receiving good under the protection of a government solicitous for the people's good." such has always been the tyrant's conception of freedom, and, strange to say, finds many endorsements even to this day. it has recently been solemnly announced from the judicial bench that the only liberty an american has is the liberty to do the right thing, of course according to other people's conception of right. that is precisely the kind of tyranny or liberty that was enjoyed by the victims of the paternalistic laws above described. persons afflicted with newspaper intelligence express their conception that the individual has no rights that government may not invade, by that hollow phrase, "liberty under the law." liberty under the law is what the government-ridden peasants of russia enjoy. liberty under the law was the pleasure of those who expired with indescribable agony on the rack and amid the flames. liberty under the law was meted out to the millions of victims of the witchcraft delusion. liberty under the law was also the liberty of our southern chattel slaves before as well as after the war. liberty under the law is the same old idea of liberty which every tyrant has ever advanced. as for myself, i shouldn't object to a little liberty in spite of the law, when that does not conform to the rule of liberty as laid down by herbert spencer in these words: "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." aim and tactics of the trade-union movement. by max baginski. trade unionism represents to the working man the most natural form of association with his fellow-brother. this medium became a necessity to him when he was confronted by modern industrialism and the power of capitalism. it dawned on him that the individual producer had not a shadow of a chance with the owner of the means of production, who, together with the economic power, enjoyed the protection of the state with its various weapons of warfare and coercion. in the face of such a giant master all the appeals of the workingman to the love of justice and common humanity went up into smoke. the beginning of modern industry found the producer in abject slavery and without the understanding of an organized form of resistance. exploitation reigned supreme, ever seeking to sap the last drop of strength of its victims. no mercy for the common man, nor any consideration shown for his life, his health, growth and development. capitalism's only aim was the accumulation of profits, of wealth and power, and to this moloch everything else was ruthlessly sacrificed. this spirit of accumulation did not admit of the right of the masses to think, feel, or demand; it merely considered them a class of coolies, specially created, as it were, for their masters' use. this notion is still in vogue to-day, and if the conditions of the workers at this moment are somewhat better, somewhat more endurable, it is not thanks to the milk of human kindness of the money power. whatsoever the workingmen have achieved in the way of better human conditions,--a higher standard of living, or a partial recognition of their rights,--they have wrenched from their enemies through a hard and bitter struggle that required great endurance, tremendous courage and many sacrifices. the tendency to treat the people as a herd of sheep the purpose of which is to serve as food for parasites is still very strong; but this tendency no longer goes unchallenged; it is being met with tremendous opposition; increased social knowledge and revolutionary ideas have taught the workingmen to unite their efforts against those who have been comfortably seated on their backs for centuries past. the first unskilled attempt on the part of the people to gain a clear conception of their position brought out blind hatred against the technical methods of exploitation instead of hatred against the latter. in england, for instance, the workingmen considered machinery their deadly foe, to be gotten rid of by all means. the simple axiom that machinery, factories, mines, land, together with every other means of production, if only in the hands of the entire community, would serve for the comfort and happiness of all, instead of being a curse, was a book of seven seals for the people in those days. and even at this late hour this simple truth is entertained by a comparative few, though more than one decade of socialistic and anarchistic enlightenment has passed. the first trade-unionistic attempts have met with the same ferocious persecution that anarchism is being met with to-day. even as to-day capital avails itself of the strongest weapons of government in its attack upon labor. the authorities were not slow in passing laws against trade unionism and every effort for organization was at that time considered high treason, organizers and all those who participated in strikes were considered aides and abettors of crime and conspiracy, punishable with long years of imprisonment and, in many cases, even with death. at the behest of money, the state sent human bloodhounds on the trail of the man who in any way was suspected in participating in the trade-union movement. the most villainous and brutal methods were employed to counteract the growth and success of labor organizations. the powers that be recognized the great force that is contained in organized labor as the means of the regeneration of society much quicker than the workingmen themselves. they felt this force hanging like a damocles sword over their heads, which danger made them dread the future, and nothing was left undone to nip this force in the bud. the fundamental principle of trade unionism is of a revolutionary character and, as such, it never was and never can be a mere palliative for the adjustment of labor to capital. hence, it must aim at the social and economic reconstruction of society. many labor leaders in this country, who consider their duty performed when they sit themselves at the table of wealth and authority, trying to bring about peace and harmony between capital and labor, might greatly profit by the history of trade-unionism and the various economic struggles it has fought. only ignorance can account for the birth of such superficial stuff on the labor question as the book of john mitchell that has been launched upon the market through loud and vulgar advertisement. nothing could have disproved the fitness of mr. mitchell for a labor leader so drastically as this book. as already stated, the violent attempt to kill trade unionism or its organizations have proven futile. the swelling tide of the labor movement could not be stopped. the social and economic problem brought to light by modern industry demanded a hearing, produced various theories and an extensive literature on the subject--a literature that spoke with a tongue of fire of the awful existence of the oppressed millions, their trials, their tribulations, the uncertainty, the dangers surrounding them; it spoke of the terrible results of their conditions, of the lives crippled, of the hopes marred; a literature that demanded to know why it is that those who toil are condemned to want and poverty, while those who never produced were living in affluence and extravagance. well-meaning people have even attempted to prove that capital and labor are twins, and that in order to maintain their common interests they ought to live in harmony; or, that if sister labor had a grievance against its big brother it ought to be settled in a calm and peaceful way. meanwhile the dear sister was fleeced and bled by brother capital, and every time the abused and slaved and outraged creature would turn to her brother for justice the dear fellow would whip the rebellious child into submission. along with the forcible subjection of organized labor, the minds of the people were confused and blurred by the sugar-coated promises of politicians who assured them that the trade unions ought to be organized by the law, and that all labor quarrels ought to be settled by political and legal means. indeed, legislatures even discussed a few labor-protective laws that either never saw the light of day, or, if really enacted, were set aside or overridden by the possessing class as an obstacle to profit-making. every government, no matter what political basis it rests upon, acts in unison with wealth, and therefore it never passed any legislation in behalf of the producing element of the country that would seriously benefit the great bulk of the people or in any way aim at any change of wage-slaving or economic subjugation. every step of improvement the workingmen have made is due solely to their own economic efforts and not to any legal or political aid ever given them, and through their own endeavors only can ever come the reconstruction of the economic and social conditions of society. just as little as the workingmen can expect from legislative methods can they gain from trade-unionistic efforts that attempt to better economic conditions along the basic lines of the present industrial system. the cardinal fault of the trade-union movement of this country lies in the fact that its hopes and ideals rest upon the present social status; these ideals ever rotate in the same circle and, therefore, cannot bear intellectual and material fruit. condemned to pasture in the lean meadows of capitalistic economy, trade-unionism drags on a miserable existence, satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the heavily laden tables of their lordly masters. true social science has amply proved the futility of a reconciliation between the two opposing forces; the existence of the one force representing possession, wealth and power inevitably has a paralyzing effect upon its opposing force--labor. trade-unionistic tactics of to-day unfortunately still travel the path marked out for labor by the powers that be, while the majority of the labor leaders waste the time paid for by their organizations in listening to or discussing with capitalists sweet nothings in the form of arbitration or reconciliation, and are apparently unaware of the fundamental difference between the body they represent and the powers they bow to. and thus it happens that labor organizations are being brutally attacked, that the militia and soldiers are maiming their brothers in the various strike regions while the leaders are being dined and wined. the american federation of labor is lobbying in washington, begging for legal protection, and in return venal justice sends winchester rifles and drunken militiamen into the disturbed labor districts. recently the american federation of labor made an alleged radical step in deciding to put up labor candidates for congress--an old and threadbare political move--thereby sacrificing whatever honest men and clear heads they may have in their ranks. such tactics are not worth a single drop of sweat of the workingmen, since they are not only contradictory to the basic principles of trade unionism, but even useless and impractical. pity for and indignation against the workers fill one's soul at the spectacle of the ridiculous strike methods so often employed and that as often frustrate the possible success of every large labor war. or is it not laughable, if it were not so deadly serious, that the producers publicly discuss for months in advance where and when they might strike, and therewith give the enemy a chance to prepare his means of combat. for months the papers of the money power bring long interviews with labor leaders, giving detailed descriptions of the ways and means of the proposed strikes, or the results of negotiations with this or that mine magnate. the more often these negotiations are reported, the more glory to the so-called leaders, for the more often their names appear in the papers; the more "reasonable" the utterances of these gentlemen (which means that they are neither fish nor flesh, neither warm nor cold), the surer they grow of the sympathy of the most reactionary element in the country or of an invitation to the white house to join the chief magistrate at dinner. labor leaders of such caliber fail to consider that every strike is a labor event upon the success or failure of which thousands of lives depend; rather do they see in it an opportunity to push their own insignificant personalities into prominence. instead of leading their organized hosts to victory, they disclose their superficiality in their zeal not to injure their reputation for "respectability." the workingmen? be it victory or defeat, they must take up the reins of every strike themselves; as it is, they play the dupes of the shrewd attorneys on both sides, unaware of the price the trickery and cunning of these men cost them. as i said before, the unions negotiate strikes for days and weeks and months beforehand, even allowing their men to work overtime in order to produce all the commodities to continue business while the strike is going on. the printers, for instance, worked late into the night on magazines that were being got ready four months in advance, and the miners who discussed the strike so long until every remnant of enthusiasm was gone. what wonder, then, that strikes fail? as long as the employer is in a position to say, "strike if you will; i do not need you; i can fill my orders; i know that hunger will drive _you_ back into the mine and factory, _i_ can wait," there is no hope for the success of the strike. such have been the results of the legal trade union methods. the history of the labor struggle of this country shows an incident that warrants the hope for an energetic, revolutionary trade union agitation. that is the eight-hour movement of which culminated in the death of five labor leaders. that movement contained the true element of the proletarian and revolutionary spirit, the lack of which makes organized labor of to-day a ball in the hands of selfish aspirants, know-nothings and politicians. that which specifically characterized the event of as a revolutionary factor was the fact that the eight-hour workday could never be accomplished through lobbying with politicians, but through the direct and economic weapon, the general strike. the desire to demonstrate the efficacy of this weapon gave birth to the idea of celebrating the first of may as an appropriate day for labor's festival. on that day the workingmen were to give the first practical demonstration of the power of the general strike as an at least one-day protest against oppression and tyranny, and which day were gradually to become the means for the final overthrow of economic and social dependence. one may suggest that the tragedy of the th of november of has stamped the general strike as a futile method, but this is not true. the battle of liberation cannot be put a stop to by the brutality and rascality of the ruling powers. the vicious anger and the wild hatred that strangled our brothers in chicago are the safest guarantee that their activity struck a potentially fatal blow to government and capital. neither mr. mitchell nor mr. gompers run the risk of dying upon the gallows of sacred capitalistic justitia; her ladyship is not at all as blind as some suppose her to be; on the contrary, she has a very keen eye for all that may prove beneficial or dangerous to the society that draws its subsistence from the lives' blood of its people. she has quite made up her mind that the gentlemen in the ranks of labor to-day lead the people about in a circle and never will urge them out into the open, towards liberation. (_to be continued._) [illustration] refined cruelty. by anna mercy. civilization has eliminated none of the qualities that marked the age of savagery. the cruelties which especially characterized primitive man is exercised as much to-day as in the days of cannibalism. civilization has been the refining agent of our qualities. just as a number of chemicals put into a crucible are refined by a certain acid, while yet the original substances remain, though in different forms, so has civilization refined and remolded the crude elements of our nature, leaving the essence of our primitive qualities the same. the subtlety with which cruelty is exercised to-day makes of it a far-reaching and far more destructive force than formerly. instead of attacking our neighbors with sticks and stones and tomahawks, and forcing them into captivity in order that they may work for us, we obtain the same or even better results by numerous subtle methods. we instill respect for law, wealth and morality. we withdraw the land and other natural resources from general use. with a show of generous sentiment, we allow the lambs we have shorn to assist us in the shearing of other lambs. every morning and every evening we see a long procession of men and women going or coming from the work, at which they have given up their life force for the sake of a mere pittance. look at these men and women! there they go, evidently free! no shackles are on their hands or feet, no overseer keeps them in check by club or gun. there they go voluntarily to their prison factories, offices, stores, in the morning; and in the evening, when the glorious sun is hidden from sight, they come out again, haggard and worn, to creep to their prison homes. when the savage desires to rob you, he may attempt to strangle and maim you. but the civilized man scorns such crude methods. he builds cheap tenements in which you may gradually and surely choke to death; and not satisfied with that, he, with a great show of kindness, prepares your foods for you, that they may slowly, very slowly, but surely, hasten your deliverance. babies are not frankly murdered any more, but they are served with nice, adulterated milk, which accomplishes the same purpose in a quieter way. under the name of law many atrocious crimes are committed. imprisonment, capital punishment and war are yet crude in their methods. they are still susceptible of more refining. here cruelty has rather a thin garment on and needs to be covered up a little more. even in our every-day relations with each other, we use many and varied forms of refined cruelty. when displeased, we no longer beat each other, but we use the subtler forces of sarcasm, irony, slander, neglect. we regard directness a rudeness, when in reality it is the greatest kindness imaginable. instead of being positive and direct in our dealings with each other, we constantly exercise a passive cruelty, in other words, the cruelty of refinement. we are evasive, delusive, subdued, falsified. but we deceive with dignity, tell falsehoods fluently, use words and cold behavior as daggers. to-day we do not turn away an unwelcome visitor, but we announce that we are not at home; or we slander him behind his back. when we love we pretend to be modest and indifferent, while, in an indirect way, we attempt to build walls around the person we love. there is nothing free in the expression of our emotions, for we are subdued, crushed; we are civilized! everything is sham and hypocrisy, and hidden daggers are everywhere, in one form or another. these daggers are concealed under kindness, charity, benevolence, morality, law, and are, therefore, difficult to deal with. the blades are thrust into the back; you can feel them, but you cannot grapple with them. our inherent cruelty is best illustrated in the treatment we give those who are absolutely in our power--little children and the dumb animals. with what authority do we elicit respect and obedience from our little people! with rod in hand and with venomous tongues we begin the process of subjugating and civilizing our little free, emotional people. in the name of "their highest good" do we mould them to be actors, that they may properly enact the tragedy of life as we had enacted it before them! the dumb animals receive the cream of our refined cruelty. in order to appear civilized, we drive in carriages pulled by horses whose spinal columns have been docked, whose necks are held stiff by tight check reins, whose eyes are blinded by "fashionable" devices. there used to be cannibalism and human sacrifices; there used to be religious prostitution and the murder of weak children and of girls; there used to be bloody revenge and the slaughter of whole populations, judicial tortures, quarterings, burnings at the stake, the lash, and slavery, which have disappeared. but if we have outlived these dreadful customs and institutions, this does not prove that there do not exist institutions and customs amongst us which have become as abhorrent to enlightened reason and conscience as those which have in their time been abolished and have become for us only a dreadful remembrance. the way of human perfecting is endless, and at every moment of historical life there are superstitions, deceits, pernicious and evil institutions already outlived by men and belonging to the past; there are others which appear to us in the far mists of the future; and there are some which we are now living through and whose over-living forms the object of our life. such in our time is capital punishment and all punishment in general. such is prostitution, such is the work of militarism, war, and such is the nearest and most obvious evil, private property in land. [illustration] "the jungle." a recension by veritas. "the jungle," a recent story by upton sinclair, is a nightmare of horrors, of which the worst horror is that it is not a phantom of the night, but claims to be true history of one phase of our twentieth-century civilization. nothing but the book itself could represent its own tragic power. in my opinion it is the most terrible book ever written. it is for the most part a tale of the abattoirs, those unspeakable survivals in our christendom in which man reeks his savage and sensual will on the lesser animals; and indirectly it is a story of the moral abattoirs of politics, economics, society, religion and the home, where the victims are of the species human, and where man's inhumanity to man is as selfish and relentless as his age-long cruelty to his brothers and sisters just behind him in the great procession. possibly the title is inappropriate. there is a "law of the pack," which is observed in the genuine jungle, but these human beasts appear to have all of the jungle's vices and few of its virtues. the author might have called his history, "the slaughter house," or, perhaps, plain "hell." it is a common saying about a packing house, "we use all of the hog except the squeal." this author uses the squeal, or, rather, the wild death shrieks of agony of the ten millions of living creatures tortured to death every year in chicago and the other tens of millions elsewhere, to pander to the old brutal, inhuman thirst of humanity for a diet of blood. the billions of the slain have found a voice at last, and if i mistake not this cry of anguish from the "killing-beds" shall not sound on until men, whose ancestors once were cannibals, shall cease to devour even the corpses of their murdered animal relatives. but while "the jungle" will undoubtedly make more vegetarians, it would take more than the practice of universal vegetarianism to cause the book to fulfil its mission; for this is a story of civilization's inferno and of the crisis of the world, a recital of conditions for which, when once comprehended, there can be no remedy but the revolution of revolutions, the event toward which the ages ran, the establishment of a genuine political, industrial and social democracy.[ ] if the story be dramatized and mrs. fiske take the part of ona, her presentation will make tess seem like a pastoral idyll in comparison. the book is great even from a political standpoint. but more than this, it is a great moral appeal. not in victor hugo or charles dickens does the moral passion burn with purer or intenser light than in these pages. i should not advise children or very delicately constituted women to read it. i have said it is a book of horrors. i started to mark the passages of peculiar tragedy and found that i was marking every page, and yet it is a justifiable book and a necessary book. the author tells as facts the story of "diseased meat," and worse, the preparation in the night time of the bodies of the cattle which have died from known and unknown causes before reaching the slaughter pens, and the distribution of the effects, with the rest of the intentional killing of the day; he describes the preparation of "embalmed beef" from cattle covered with boils; he even narrates the story of "men who fell into the vats," and "sometimes they would be overlooked for days till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as durham's pure leaf lard"; he writes of the making of smoked sausage out of waste potatoes by the use of chemicals and out of spoiled meat as well; and he further speaks of rats which were "nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread and meat would go into the hoppers together. this is no fairy story and no joke; the meat would be shovelled into carts and the man who did the shovelling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one--there were things which went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit." but the worst of the story is a tale of the condition of the workers at packingtown and elsewhere. it is the story of strong men who justly hated their work; of men, for no fault of their own, cast out in middle life to die; of weeping children driven with whips to their ignoble toil; of disease-producing conditions in winter, only surpassed by the deadly summer; of people working with their feet upon the ice and their heads enveloped in hot steam; of the perpetual stench which infests their nostrils, the sores which universally covered their bodies; of the terrible pace set by the continual "speeding up" of the pace makers, goaded to a pitch of frenzy; of accidents commonplace in every family; of the garbage pile of refuse from the tables of more fortunate citizens, from which many were forced to satisfy their hunger; of the terrors of the black list, the shut-down, the strike and the lockout; and of the universal swindle, whether a man bought a house, or doctored tea, coffee, sugar or flour. it is still further a story of the moral enormities and monstrosities of the almost universal graft, "the plants honeycombed with rottenness. the bosses grafted off the men and they grafted off each other, and some day the superintendent would find out about the boss, and then he would graft off the boss." when the men were set to perform some peculiarly immoral act, they would say, "now we are working for the church," referring to the benefactions of the proprietors to religious institutions. it tells the story of the training of the children in vice, of girls forced into immorality, so that a girl without virtue would stand a better chance than a decent one. it is a tale of the terrible ending of old antanas by saltpeter poisoning; of jonas, no one knows how, possibly he fell into the vats; of little kristoforas by convulsions; of little antanas by falling into a pit before the door of his house; of marija, in a house of shame; of stanislovas, who was eaten by rats; and of beautiful little ona, to the description of whose ending no other than the author's pen could do justice. the book shows how men graft everywhere, not only in the packing house, but how the slime of the serpent is over almost all of our modern commercial and political practises. no one can justly hold the meat kings responsible for all of this. nothing less than a thorough reconstruction of our whole social organism will suffice. palliative philanthropy is, as the author says, "like standing upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwing snow balls in to lower the temperature." "the jungle" is the boiling over of our social volcano and shows us what is in it. it is a danger signal! we are all indicted and must stand our trial. there rests upon us the obligation to ascertain the facts. the author of "the jungle" lived in packingtown for months, and the eminently respectable publishers who are now issuing the book sent a shrewd lawyer to chicago to report as to whether the statements in it were exaggerated, and his report confirmed the assertions of the author. this book is a call to immediate action. the lithuanian hero found his solution of the problems suggested in socialism. the solution lies either in that direction or in something better, and it behooves those who warn us against socialistic experiments to tell us if they know of any other effective remedy. surely all thoughtful men should study these theories of social redemption and learn why their advocates claim that putting them in practice would modify or abolish the evils of our modern conditions. "the masters, lords and rulers of all lands," the thinkers and workers of our time must speedily give themselves to the understanding and application of some adequate remedy, or there will be blood, woe and tears almost without end, "when this dumb terror shall reply to god, after the silence of the centuries." footnote: [ ] genuine or not genuine: we live right now in a democracy. if, in spite of that, such diabolical crimes as sinclair describes them are committed daily, then this only proves that democracy is no panacea for them. why should it, if criminals of the armour kind realize profits out of their wholesale poisoning of such dimensions that they can easily buy all the glory of the people's sovereignty.--editor. the game is up. by sadakichi hartmann. "hello, morrison, may i come in?" the door stood slightly ajar. morrison came to the door--the complexion of his face was sallow and his eyes had a peculiar look--he recognized his visitor, hesitated for a moment whether he should admit him, then opened the door and made a sort of mock courtesy. "cleaning up?" the tall, lean man asked as he entered the little hall room. "yes," and a wistful smile glided over morrison's pale face; "cleaning up for good." the room had a peculiar appearance. there was no disorder and yet a lot of things were lying about; it looked as if the lodger intended to go away on a long journey and had tried to straighten up matters previous to his departure. the visitor gazed curiously about the room. he had a strange foreboding, but forced himself to ask in a jocular mood: "going to egypt again?" "farther than that this time, but it won't take so long; the journey i am contemplating will be over by to-morrow evening, i hope." "what do you mean?" "the game is up." the tall, lean man made no immediate reply, he merely gazed steadily into the face of his friend. he had always suspected that it would come to this some day. he really wondered that morrison had not done it long ago. if any man had a right to dispose of his life it was surely morrison. he had endured more than most human beings. his case was absolutely hopeless. "is there no way out of it?" morrison shook his head. he wanted to say something, but his voice failed him. he stepped to the dresser near the window, looked into the mirror and arranged his faded, threadbare tie. it was pitiful to see how shabbily he was dressed. he no longer set the fashion as in his days of success, years ago in boston. "would money help you?" and the tall, lean visitor fumbled in his pockets. although fairly well dressed, he was hard up most of the time and only ventured to broach the subject as he just happened to have a few dollars to spare that day. "no, what good would the little do that you could give me?" and he continued to adjust matters and tuck things away in his trunk. "there, you are right again, not much. but i won forty dollars on the track; i sometimes go out there," he added as a sort of excuse, "as it is impossible to live on literature alone. i could spare ten." "can you really spare them? i won't be able to return them, you know. i would like to have them. i suppose you will refuse to let me buy a revolver with them. i have all sorts of poisons," he pointed to some little bottles, "but i would prefer not to use them, it wouldn't be esthetical, and then i want to go away to some place where nobody knows me. i don't want to be identified." the literary man slowly pulled a small roll out of his pocket. he thought of his wife and children who needed the money. it was really foolish to have made that offer. well, it was probably the last service he could render his friend. morrison was serious about his departure, there was no doubt about that. "here!" "thanks," morrison answered, though he did not take the money right away. he looked about absentmindedly, as in a dream. this was friendship indeed. he had not believed that anybody could so completely enter another man's state of mind. not a word of opposition. this was glorious! they had known each other for more than seventeen years. they had often drifted apart and, somehow, had always met again. they had never been very intimate, they had merely respected each other for the work they had accomplished, each in his profession; although they differed largely in ideas. morrison was a sculptor, and almost an ancient greek in his feelings for the beauty of lines. the tall, lean man, on the other hand, was a strange mixture of a visionary and brutal realist. they both were cynics, however, that found life rather futile. with the literary man this was merely a theoretical view point, while morrison was really embittered with life. the incidents of this afternoon had surprised him. he was deeply moved and felt as if he should give utterance to his emotions. he remembered that his attitude towards his friend had been rather arrogant at times. he now felt sorry for it, but somehow could not form his sentiments and thoughts into coherent sentences. "thanks," he simply repeated, "has anybody seen you enter the house?" "no, the door was open and i walked right up. why do you ask?" "i don't want anybody to be mixed up in this affair, as it only concerns me." the literary man smiled: "could any man influence you one way or another? as far as i can make out you are beyond mortal influence." a pause ensued. morrison threw the last thing into his trunk. "well, i am ready. everything is settled." "how about your statues?" "pshaw!" morrison shrugged his shoulders. "nobody was interested in them while i lived. why should i bother to think what might become of them after my death?" the author nodded and scowled at the same time. he was not satisfied with the answer. but there were still other things on his mind. he was used to analyze everything to shreds and tatters. "are you not afraid that you might make a botch out of the whole job?" morrison weighed the question in his mind, then shook his head and answered: "no, there is hardly a chance for it now. i have been tuned up to it, trained myself to it, so to speak. the fruit is ripe. it has to fall. it would be awful, though--" he added, with an after-thought. "do you remember my emerald ring? i had to pawn it, but i kept the poison which was hidden under the stone. i will take that if anything goes wrong." "would you object to my company?" asked the tall, lean man, "i mean until all is over. i, myself, am not quite ready yet for any such heroical performances." "oh, don't think of it," the sculptor ejaculated; notwithstanding, the tone of his voice indicated that he would not object, that he would even prefer a traveling companion for the last few hours of his life. "well, i'll go with you. where are you going?" "to new haven. it's a nice trip." morrison carefully brushed his hair and clothes, there came a flush to his face as he realized how shabby his clothes really were. the tall, lean man was delicate enough to look away as if he had not noticed anything. a few moments later they left the room. morrison locked the door and they went out into the street. they did not talk much, merely commonplace phrases that did not bear upon the subject. both were occupied with their own thoughts, and strange thoughts they must have been. they leisurely strolled to a store of sporting outfits, bought a revolver and cartridges, had their shoes shined at the next corner, and slowly wended their way toward the depot. their actions were almost mechanical. suicide is an attack of insanity, a sort of mental plague. if one has caught the fever, one is doomed. there is no escape from it. at the same time it is contagious. the literary man was somewhat infected by it. all his interests in life seemed to be dulled, obliterated as it were. he could only think the one thought, "morrison is going to kill himself. but who knows, he may, after all, turn up next week with the excuse that he had changed his mind. no, not he!--it was really too bad!" morrison, on the other hand, grew quite cheerful. with him the idea that he would do it, had become so matter-of-fact, that he ceased to think of it. nothing could influence him any more. even if some vague current of soul activity should revolt at the very last moment, he was certain that his hand would mechanically perform the task. "only one return ticket," he whispered as he approached the ticket office. "oh, i almost forgot," replied his friend. during the trip they silently sat opposite each other, smoking. now and then morrison pointed out the beautiful sights. he seemed to be familiar with the scenery. at their arrival in new haven, at dusk, they at once adjourned to a hotel and sat down at a table in the bar-room. they began to talk about art, they discussed commercialism, the lack of appreciation and the vanity of all serious work, at least as far as art is concerned. they began to relate reminiscences of their student years, and reviewed the hopes and ambitions of their youth. if they had been realized, what wonders they would have accomplished! "i gave the other side a chance. they never responded. i waited for ten long years, and now, it's all up. let us have another drink, waiter, the last." they clinked glasses. "and now for a decent departure as in the good old times, when hegesias, the cyrenaic, preached suicide in alexandria--" they arose. it had grown dark. they sauntered forth into the night. morrison seemed to know where he was going. "i once spent very pleasant days out here," he explained, "years, i hardly remember how many years ago." after that they did not converse any more. they finally arrived at a beautiful avenue of old elms that extended far into the country. its deep, dark vista was lit up only by the shimmer of a distant lake. morrison stopped, seized his friend's hand, shook it, and said in a firm voice: "good-bye." "good-bye." and morrison walked away. it was so dark that in a few moments his form became invisible. only his footsteps could still be heard. they grew fainter and fainter. the tall, lean man stared after his friend into the blackness of the night. his eyes grew dim. a few rain drops fell on his face and hands. "i hope it won't rain," he murmured, "it might make dying more difficult, but no--the sky is clear." then he slightly bent forward and listened eagerly. everything was calm, motionless, as in suspense. nobody passed through the avenue. only in the adjoining side streets pedestrians flitted by like ghosts. so this was the end! after having struggled bravely for years, after living up to high ideals as well as one could, to go down a long, dark avenue--a falling star flashed across the tree tops. the tall, lean man pressed his hand to his heart, although he was not certain of having heard a report, he felt, that his friend had arrived at the goal of his life's journey. the game was up! * * * * * +books to be had through mother earth+ +the doukhobors:+ their history in russia; their migration to canada. by joseph elkins +$ . + +moribund society and anarchism.+ by jean grave + c.+ +education and heredity.+ by j. m. guyau +$ . + +a sketch of morality+--independent of obligation and sanction. by j. m. guyau +$ . + +american communities:+ new and old communistic, semi-communistic, and co-operative. by w. a. hinds +$ . + +history of the french revolution.+ (an excellent work for students. it begins with a sketch of history of the earliest times; the decline of the ancient empires, the rise of the french monarchy, and traces the causes which made the revolution inevitable. the philosophic conclusion is unsurpassed, and the position taken, laying a foundation for the philosophy of freedom, is bound to attract the attention of thinkers.) by c. l. james. reduced to + c.+ +origin of anarchism.+ by c. l. james + c.+ +fields, factories, and workshops.+ by peter kropotkin + c.+ +mutual aid: a factor of evolution.+ by peter kropotkin. reduced to +$ . + +memoirs of a revolutionist.+ by peter kropotkin. reduced to +$ . + +modern science and anarchism.+ by peter kropotkin + c.+ +ideals of russian literature.+ by peter kropotkin +$ . + +the state:+ its role in history. by peter kropotkin + c.+ +anarchism:+ its philosophy and ideal. by peter kropotkin + c.+ +the wage system.+ by p. kropotkin + c.+ +anarchist morality.+ by p. kropotkin + c.+ +history of civilization in england.+ by henry thomas buckle +$ . + +england's ideal+ and other papers on social subjects. by ed. carpenter +$ . + +civilization:+ its cause and cure. by ed. carpenter +$ . + +love's coming of age.+ by ed. carpenter +$ . + +towards democracy.+ by ed. carpenter +$ . + +the chicago martyrs:+ the famous speeches of the eight anarchists in judge gary's court, and gov. altgeld's reasons for pardoning fielden, neebe and schwab + c.+ * * * * * +books to be had through mother earth+ +essays on the materialistic conception of history.+ by antonio labriola +$ . + +wealth against commonwealth.+ by h. d. lloyd +$ . + +woman's share in primitive culture.+ by o. mason. leather, reduced to $ . . cloth, reduced to +$ . + +superstition in all ages.+ by jean meslier. cloth +$ . + +news from nowhere;+ or, an epoch of rest. by william morris + c.+ +thus spake zarathustra:+ a book for all and none. friedrich nietzsche +$ . + +rights of man.+ by thomas paine + c.+ +the martyrdom of man.+ by winwood reade +$ . + +the science of life.+ by j. arthur thomson + c.+ +pages of socialist history.+ by w. tcherkesoff + c.+ +the slavery of our times.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +bethink yourself.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +church and state.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +volney's ruins:+ or, meditation on the revolutions of empires and the law of nature + c.+ +the ballad of reading gaol.+ by oscar wilde + c.+ +the soul of man under socialism.+ by oscar wilde + c.+ +de profundis.+ by oscar wilde +$ . + +intentions.+ by oscar wilde +$ . + +plays.+ by oscar wilde. vols +$ . + +life without a master.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +the new dispensation.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +living thoughts.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +paris and the social revolution.+ by j. sanborn +$ . + +anarchism:+ is it all a dream? by e. malatesta and j. f. morton, m.a. + c.+ +who is the enemy;+ anthony comstock or you? a study of the censorship. by edwin c. walker + c.+ all orders, money prepaid, to be sent to e. goldman, box , madison square station, new york city. * * * * * +the books of ernest crosby+ +garrison the non-resistant.+ mo, cloth, pages, with photogravure portrait, c.; by mail + c.+ +plain talk in psalm and parable.+ a collection of chants in the cause of justice and brotherhood. mo, cloth, pages, $ . ; by mail, $ . . paper, c.; by mail + c.+ +captain jinks, hero.+ a keen satire on our recent wars, in which the parallel between savagery and soldiery is unerringly drawn. profusely illustrated by dan beard. mo, cloth, pages, postpaid +$ . + +swords and plowshares.+ a collection of poems filled with the hatred of war and the love of nature. 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"to the generation knocking at the door." by john davidson. _break--break it open; let the knocker rust; consider no "shalt not," nor no man's "must"; and, being entered, promptly take the lead, setting aside tradition, custom, creed; nor watch the balance of the huckster's beam; declare your hardiest thought, your proudest dream; await no summons; laugh at all rebuff; high hearts and you are destiny enough. the mystery and the power enshrined in you are old as time and as the moment new; and none but you can tell what part you play, nor can you tell until you make assay, for this alone, this always, will succeed, the miracle and magic of the deed._ [illustration] observations and comments. whoever severs himself from mother earth and her flowing sources of life goes into exile. a vast part of civilization has ceased to feel the deep relation with our mother. how they hasten and fall over one another, the many thousands of the great cities; how they swallow their food, everlastingly counting the minutes with cold hard faces; how they dwell packed together, close to one another, above and beneath, in dark gloomy stuffed holes, with dull hearts and insensitive heads, from the lack of space and air! economic necessity causes such hateful pressure. economic necessity? why not economic stupidity? this seems a more appropriate name for it. were it not for lack of understanding and knowledge, the necessity of escaping from the agony of an endless search for profit would make itself felt more keenly. must the earth forever be arranged like an ocean steamer, with large, luxurious rooms and luxurious food for a select few, and underneath in the steerage, where the great mass can barely breathe from dirt and the poisonous air? neither unconquerable external nor internal necessity forces the human race to such life; that which keeps it in such condition are ignorance and indifference. [illustration] since turgenieff wrote his "fathers and sons" and the "new generation," the appearance of the revolutionary army in russia has changed features. at that time only the intellectuals and college youths, a small coterie of idealists, who knew no distinction between class and caste, took part in the tremendous work of reconstruction. the revolutionist of those days had delicate white hands, lots of learning, æstheticism and a good portion of nervousness. he attempted to go among the people, but the people understood him not, for he did not speak the people's tongue. it was a great effort for most of those brave ones to overcome their disgust at the dirt and dense ignorance they met among the peasants, who absolutely lacked comprehension of new ideas; therefore, there could be no understanding between the intellectuals, who wanted to help, and the sufferers, who needed help. these two elements were brought in closer touch through industrialism. the russian peasant, robbed of the means to remain on his soil, was driven into the large industrial centres, and there he learned to know those brave and heroic men and women who gave up their comfort and career in their efforts for the liberation of their people. these ideas that have undergone such great changes in russia within the last decade should serve as good material for study for those who claim the russian revolution is dead. nicholas tchaykovsky, one of russia's foremost workers in the revolutionary movement, and one who, through beauty of character, simplicity of soul and great strategical ability, has been the idol of the russian revolutionary youth for many years, is here as the delegate of the russian revolutionary socialist party, to raise funds for a new uprising. he was right when he said, at the meeting in grand central palace, "the russian revolution will live until the decayed and cowardly regime of tyranny in russia is rooted out of existence." [illustration] the french have a new president. loubet was succeeded by fallières. the father of the new one was a great gormandizer of pantagruelian dimensions. he died of overloading his stomach. the son made his career like a cautious upstart. he is well enough acquainted with himself to know that he is not a machiavelli. therefore, he does not boast of his sagacity, but rather of his integrity. a politician is irresistible to a crowd when he cries out to them: "my opponents express the suspicion that i am a numskull. i do not care to argue the point with them, but this i will say by the way of explanation, fellow citizens, that i am a thoroughly honest man to the very roots of my hair." by this method one can attain the presidency of a republic. as secretary of the interior, fallières caused the arrest of the socialist poet, clovis hugues. at another time he declared: "as long as i am in office, i will not tolerate the red flag on the open street." the french bourgeois have found in fallières their fitting man of straw for seven years. [illustration] the only genuine democrat of these times is death. he does not admit of any class distinctions. he mows down a proletarian and a marshall field with the same scythe. how imperfectly the world is arranged. it should be possible to shift the bearing of children and the dying from the rich to the poor--for good pay, of course. [illustration] whosoever believes that the law is infallible and can bring about order in the chaotic social conditions, knows the curative effect of law to the minutest detail. the question how things might be improved is met with this reply: "all criminals should be caught in a net like fish and put away for safe keeping, so that society remains in the care of the righteous." hallelujah! people with a capacity to judge for themselves think differently. mr. charlton t. lewis, president of the national prison association, maintains: "our county jails everywhere are the schools and colleges of crime. in the light of social science it were better for the world if every one of them were destroyed than that this work should be continued. experience shows that the system of imprisonment of minor offenders for short terms is but a gigantic measure for the manufacture of criminals. freedom, not confinement, is the natural state of man, and the only condition under which influences for reformation can have their full efficiency.... prison life is unnatural at best. man is a social creature. confinement tends to lower his consciousness of dignity and responsibility, to weaken the motives which govern his relations to his race, to impair the foundations of character and unfit him for independent life. to consign a man to prison is commonly to enrol him in the criminal class.... with all the solemnity and emphasis of which i am capable, i utter the profound conviction, after twenty years of constant study of our prison population, that more than nine-tenths of them ought never to have been confined." government and authority are responsible for the conditions in the western mining districts. is not the existence of government considered as a necessity on the grounds that it is here to maintain peace, law and order? this is an oft-repeated song. let us see how the government of colorado has lived up to its calling within the last few years. it has permitted that the labor protective laws that have passed the legislature should be broken and trampled upon by the mine owners. the money powers care little for the eight-hour law, and when the mine workers insisted upon keeping that law, the authorities of colorado immediately went to the rescue of the exploiters. not only were police and soldiers let loose upon the western federation of miners; but the government of colorado permitted the mine owners to recruit an army to fight the labor organizations. hirelings were formed into a so-called citizens' committee, that inaugurated a reign of terror. these legal lawbreakers invaded peaceful homes during the day and night, and those that were in the least suspected of belonging to or sympathizing with the western federation of miners were torn out of bed, arrested and dragged off to the bull pen, or transported into the desert, without food or shelter, many miles from other living beings. some of these victims were crippled for life and died as a result thereof. when it became known that the w. f. m. continued to stand erect, regardless of brutal attacks, it was decided to strike the last violent blow against it. orchard, the man of honor, confessed, and the lawbreakers appealed to the law against haywood, moyer and pettibone. this time the government did not hesitate. the eight-hour and protective labor law was too insignificant to enforce, but to bring the officers of the w. f. m. to account, that, of course, is the duty and the function of the state. there is not the slightest hope that the authorities who, for a number of years, have permitted the violation of the law, will be put on trial, but the crime they have perpetrated is a weighty argument in favor of those who maintain that the state is not an independent institution, but a tool of the possessing class. [illustration] many radicals entertain the queer notion that they cannot arrange their own lives, according to their own ideas, but that they have to adapt themselves to the conditions they hate, and which they fight in theory with fire and sword. anything rather than arouse too much public condemnation! the lives they lead are dependent upon the opinion of the philistines. they are revolutionists in theory, reactionists in practice. [illustration] the words of louis xiv, "i am the state," have been taken up as a motto by the american policeman. one of the new york papers contains the following account: "in discharging some seventy prisoners in the jefferson market police court yesterday morning, the magistrate said to the police in charge of the cases: 'i am amazed that you men should bring these prisoners before me without a shred of evidence on which they can be held.'" such is the blessing of this republic. we are not confronted by one czar of the size of an elephant, but by a hundred thousand czars, as small as mosquitoes, but equally disagreeable and annoying. [illustration] friends of mother earth in various western cities have proposed a lecture tour in behalf of the magazine. so far i have heard from cleveland, detroit, st. louis and chicago. those of other cities who wish to have me lecture there, will please communicate with me as to dates at once. the tour is to begin may th and last for a month or six weeks. emma goldman, box , madison square station. the child and its enemies. by emma goldman. is the child to be considered as an individuality, or as an object to be moulded according to the whims and fancies of those about it? this seems to me to be the most important question to be answered by parents and educators. and whether the child is to grow from within, whether all that craves expression will be permitted to come forth toward the light of day; or whether it is to be kneaded like dough through external forces, depends upon the proper answer to this vital question. the longing of the best and noblest of our times makes for the strongest individualities. every sensitive being abhors the idea of being treated as a mere machine or as a mere parrot of conventionality and respectability, the human being craves recognition of his kind. it must be borne in mind that it is through the channel of the child that the development of the mature man must go, and that the present ideas of the educating or training of the latter in the school and the family--even the family of the liberal or radical--are such as to stifle the natural growth of the child. every institution of our day, the family, the state, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist. if one, nevertheless, meets with real spontaneity (which, by the way, is a rare treat,) it is not due to our method of rearing or educating the child: the personality often asserts itself, regardless of official and family barriers. such a discovery should be celebrated as an unusual event, since the obstacles placed in the way of growth and development of character are so numerous that it must be considered a miracle if it retains its strength and beauty and survives the various attempts at crippling that which is most essential to it. indeed, he who has freed himself from the fetters of the thoughtlessness and stupidity of the commonplace; he who can stand without moral crutches, without the approval of public opinion--private laziness, friedrich nietzsche called it--may well intone a high and voluminous song of independence and freedom; he has gained the right to it through fierce and fiery battles. these battles already begin at the most delicate age. the child shows its individual tendencies in its plays, in its questions, in its association with people and things. but it has to struggle with everlasting external interference in its world of thought and emotion. it must not express itself in harmony with its nature, with its growing personality. it must become a thing, an object. its questions are met with narrow, conventional, ridiculous replies, mostly based on falsehoods; and, when, with large, wondering, innocent eyes, it wishes to behold the wonders of the world, those about it quickly lock the windows and doors, and keep the delicate human plant in a hothouse atmosphere, where it can neither breathe nor grow freely. zola, in his novel "fecundity," maintains that large sections of people have declared death to the child, have conspired against the birth of the child,--a very horrible picture indeed, yet the conspiracy entered into by civilization against the growth and making of character seems to me far more terrible and disastrous, because of the slow and gradual destruction of its latent qualities and traits and the stupefying and crippling effect thereof upon its social well-being. since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other. the ideal of the average pedagogist is not a complete, well-rounded, original being; rather does he seek that the result of his art of pedagogy shall be automatons of flesh and blood, to best fit into the treadmill of society and the emptiness and dulness of our lives. every home, school, college and university stands for dry, cold utilitarianism, overflooding the brain of the pupil with a tremendous amount of ideas, handed down from generations past. "facts and data," as they are called, constitute a lot of information, well enough perhaps to maintain every form of authority and to create much awe for the importance of possession, but only a great handicap to a true understanding of the human soul and its place in the world. truths dead and forgotten long ago, conceptions of the world and its people, covered with mould, even during the times of our grandmothers, are being hammered into the heads of our young generation. eternal change, thousandfold variations, continual innovation are the essence of life. professional pedagogy knows nothing of it, the systems of education are being arranged into files, classified and numbered. they lack the strong fertile seed which, falling on rich soil, enables them to grow to great heights, they are worn and incapable of awakening spontaneity of character. instructors and teachers, with dead souls, operate with dead values. quantity is forced to take the place of quality. the consequences thereof are inevitable. in whatever direction one turns, eagerly searching for human beings who do not measure ideas and emotions with the yardstick of expediency, one is confronted with the products, the herdlike drilling instead of the result of spontaneous and innate characteristics working themselves out in freedom. "no traces now i see whatever of a spirit's agency. 'tis drilling, nothing more." these words of faust fit our methods of pedagogy perfectly. take, for instance, the way history is being taught in our schools. see how the events of the world become like a cheap puppet show, where a few wire-pullers are supposed to have directed the course of development of the entire human race. and the history of _our own_ nation! was it not chosen by providence to become the leading nation on earth? and does it not tower mountain high over other nations? is it not the gem of the ocean? is it not incomparably virtuous, ideal and brave? the result of such ridiculous teaching is a dull, shallow patriotism, blind to its own limitations, with bull-like stubbornness, utterly incapable of judging of the capacities of other nations. this is the way the spirit of youth is emasculated, deadened through an over-estimation of one's own value. no wonder public opinion can be so easily manufactured. "predigested food" should be inscribed over every hall of learning as a warning to all who do not wish to lose their own personalities and their original sense of judgment, who, instead, would be content with a large amount of empty and shallow shells. this may suffice as a recognition of the manifold hindrances placed in the way of an independent mental development of the child. equally numerous, and not less important, are the difficulties that confront the emotional life of the young. must not one suppose that parents should be united to children by the most tender and delicate chords? one should suppose it; yet, sad as it may be, it is, nevertheless, true, that parents are the first to destroy the inner riches of their children. the scriptures tell us that god created man in his own image, which has by no means proven a success. parents follow the bad example of their heavenly master; they use every effort to shape and mould the child according to their image. they tenaciously cling to the idea that the child is merely part of themselves--an idea as false as it is injurious, and which only increases the misunderstanding of the soul of the child, of the necessary consequences of enslavement and subordination thereof. as soon as the first rays of consciousness illuminate the mind and heart of the child, it instinctively begins to compare its own personality with the personality of those about it. how many hard and cold stone cliffs meet its large wondering gaze? soon enough it is confronted with the painful reality that it is here only to serve as inanimate matter for parents and guardians, whose authority alone gives it shape and form. the terrible struggle of the thinking man and woman against political, social and moral conventions owes its origin to the family, where the child is ever compelled to battle against the internal and external use of force. the categorical imperatives: you shall! you must! this is right! that is wrong! this is true! that is false! shower like a violent rain upon the unsophisticated head of the young being and impress upon its sensibilities that it has to bow before the long established and hard notions of thoughts and emotions. yet the latent qualities and instincts seek to assert their own peculiar methods of seeking the foundation of things, of distinguishing between what is commonly called wrong, true or false. it is bent upon going its own way, since it is composed of the same nerves, muscles and blood, even as those who assume to direct its destiny. i fail to understand how parents hope that their children will ever grow up into independent, self-reliant spirits, when they strain every effort to abridge and curtail the various activities of their children, the plus in quality and character, which differentiates their offspring from themselves, and by the virtue of which they are eminently equipped carriers of new, invigorating ideas. a young delicate tree, that is being clipped and cut by the gardener in order to give it an artificial form, will never reach the majestic height and the beauty as when allowed to grow in nature and freedom. when the child reaches adolescence, it meets, added to the home and school restrictions, with a vast amount of hard traditions of social morality. the cravings of love and sex are met with absolute ignorance by the majority of parents, who consider it as something indecent and improper, something disgraceful, almost criminal, to be suppressed and fought like some terrible disease. the love and tender feelings in the young plant are turned into vulgarity and coarseness through the stupidity of those surrounding it, so that everything fine and beautiful is either crushed altogether or hidden in the innermost depths, as a great sin, that dares not face the light. what is more astonishing is the fact that parents will strip themselves of everything, will sacrifice everything for the physical well-being of their child, will wake nights and stand in fear and agony before some physical ailment of their beloved one; but will remain cold and indifferent, without the slightest understanding before the soul cravings and the yearnings of their child, neither hearing nor wishing to hear the loud knocking of the young spirit that demands recognition. on the contrary, they will stifle the beautiful voice of spring, of a new life of beauty and splendor of love; they will put the long lean finger of authority upon the tender throat and not allow vent to the silvery song of the individual growth, of the beauty of character, of the strength of love and human relation, which alone make life worth living. and yet these parents imagine that they mean best for the child, and for aught i know, some really do; but their best means absolute death and decay to the bud in the making. after all, they are but imitating their own masters in state, commercial, social and moral affairs, by forcibly suppressing every independent attempt to analyze the ills of society and every sincere effort toward the abolition of these ills; never able to grasp the eternal truth that every method they employ serves as the greatest impetus to bring forth a greater longing for freedom and a deeper zeal to fight for it. that compulsion is bound to awaken resistance, every parent and teacher ought to know. great surprise is being expressed over the fact that the majority of children of radical parents are either altogether opposed to the ideas of the latter, many of them moving along the old antiquated paths, or that they are indifferent to the new thoughts and teachings of social regeneration. and yet there is nothing unusual in that. radical parents, though emancipated from the belief of ownership in the human soul, still cling tenaciously to the notion that they own the child, and that they have the right to exercise their authority over it. so they set out to mould and form the child according to their own conception of what is right and wrong, forcing their ideas upon it with the same vehemence that the average catholic parent uses. and, with the latter, they hold out the necessity before the young "to do as i tell you and not as i do." but the impressionable mind of the child realizes early enough that the lives of their parents are in contradiction to the ideas they represent; that, like the good christian who fervently prays on sunday, yet continues to break the lord's commands the rest of the week, the radical parent arraigns god, priesthood, church, government, domestic authority, yet continues to adjust himself to the condition he abhors. just so, the freethought parent can proudly boast that his son of four will recognize the picture of thomas paine or ingersoll, or that he knows that the idea of god is stupid. or that the social democratic father can point to his little girl of six and say, "who wrote the capital, dearie?" "karl marx, pa!" or that the anarchistic mother can make it known that her daughter's name is louise michel, sophia perovskaya, or that she can recite the revolutionary poems of herwegh, freiligrath, or shelley, and that she will point out the faces of spencer, bakunin or moses harmon almost anywhere. these are by no means exaggerations; they are sad facts that i have met with in my experience with radical parents. what are the results of such methods of biasing the mind? the following is the consequence, and not very infrequent, either. the child, being fed on one-sided, set and fixed ideas, soon grows weary of re-hashing the beliefs of its parents, and it sets out in quest of new sensations, no matter how inferior and shallow the new experience may be, the human mind cannot endure sameness and monotony. so it happens that that boy or girl, over-fed on thomas paine, will land in the arms of the church, or they will vote for imperialism only to escape the drag of economic determinism and scientific socialism, or that they open a shirt-waist factory and cling to their right of accumulating property, only to find relief from the old-fashioned communism of their father. or that the girl will marry the next best man, provided he can make a living, only to run away from the everlasting talk on variety. such a condition of affairs may be very painful to the parents who wish their children to follow in their path, yet i look upon them as very refreshing and encouraging psychological forces. they are the greatest guarantee that the independent mind, at least, will always resist every external and foreign force exercised over the human heart and head. some will ask, what about weak natures, must they not be protected? yes, but to be able to do that, it will be necessary to realize that education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and training. if education should really mean anything at all, it must insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and tendencies of the child. in this way alone can we hope for the free individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make interference and coercion of human growth impossible. [illustration] hope and fear.[a] (translated from the jewish of l. i. peretz.) ...my heart is with you. my eye does not get weary looking at your flaming banner; my ear does not get tired listening to your powerful song.... my heart is with you; man's hunger must be appeased, and he must have light; he must be free, and he must be his own master, master over himself and his work. and when you snap at the fist which is trying to strangle you, your voice, and your ardent protest, preventing you from being heard--i rejoice, praying that your teeth may be sharpened. and when you are marching against sodom and gomorrah, to tear down the old, my soul is with you, and the certainty that you must triumph fills and warms my heart and intoxicates me like old wine.... and yet.... and yet you frighten me. i am afraid of the bridled who conquer, for they are apt to become the oppressors, and every oppressor transgresses against the human soul.... do you not talk among yourselves of how humanity is to march, like an army in line, and you are going to sound for it the march on the road? and yet humanity is not an army. the strong are going forward, the magnanimous feel more deeply, the proud rise higher, and yet will you not lay down the cedar in order that it may not outgrow the grass? or will you not spread your wings over mediocrity, or will you not shield indifference, and protect the gray and uniformly fleeced herd? * * * you frighten me. as conquerors you might become the bureaucracy: to dole out to everybody his morsel, as is the usage in the poor-house; to arrange work for everybody as it is done in the galleys. and you will thus crush the creator of new worlds--the free human will, and fill up with earth the purest spring of human happiness--human initiative, the power which braves one against thousands, against peoples, and against generations? and you will systematize life and bid it to remain on the level of the crowd. and will you not be occupied with regulations: registrating, recording, estimating--or will you not prescribe how fast and how often the human pulse must beat, how far the human eye may look ahead, how much the ear may perceive, and what kinds of dreams the languishing heart may entertain? * * * with joy in my heart i look at you when you tear down the gates of sodom, but my heart trembles at the same time, fearing that you might erect on its ruins new ones--more chilling and darker ones. there will be no houses without windows; but fog will envelop the souls.... there will be no empty stomachs, but souls will starve. no ear will hear cries of woe, but the eagle--the human intellect--will stand at the trough with clipped wings together with the cow and the ox. and justice, which has accompanied you on the thorny and bloody path to victory, will forsake you, and you will not be aware of it, for conquerors and tyrants are always blind. you will conquer and dominate. and you will plunge into injustice, and you will not feel the quagmire under your feet.... every tyrant thinks he stands on firm ground so long as he has not been vanquished. and you will build prisons for those who dare to stretch out their hands, pointing to the abyss into which you sink; you will tear out the tongues of the mouths that warn you against those who come after you, to destroy you and your injustice.... cruelly will you defend the equality of rights of the herd to use the grass under its feet and the salt in the ground,--and your enemies will be the free individuals, the overmen, the ingenious inventors, the prophets, the saviors, the poets and artists. * * * everything that comes to pass occurs in space and time.... the present is the existing: the stable, the firm, and therefore the rigid and frozen--the to-day, which will and must perish.... time is change--it varies and develops; it is the eternally sprouting, the blossoming, the eternal morning.... and as your "morning," to which you aspire, will become the "to-day," you will become the upholders of the "yesterday," of that which is lifeless--dead. you will trample the sproutings of to-morrow and destroy its blossoms, and pour streams of cold water upon the heads that nestle your prophecies, your dreams, and your new hopes. the to-day is unwilling to die, bloody is every sunset.... i yearn and hope for your victory, but i fear and tremble for your victory. you are my hope, and you are my fear. [illustration] nietzsche--zarathustra spake thus: "he who wishes to say something should be silent a long while." if the makers of public opinion would only carry out this hint for about a lifetime! [illustration] according to the latest researches, it has been brought to light that the grim angel who drove adam and eve out of paradise was named comstock. [illustration] as long as there are women who must fear to become mothers on account of economic difficulties or moral prejudices, the emancipation of woman is only a phrase. footnote: [a] this sketch the writer had addressed to jewish social democrats. john most. by m. b. john most suddenly died in cincinnati, march . he was on an agitation trip, and when he reached cincinnati he took sick with erysipelas and died within a few days, surrounded by his comrades. shortly before that he had the fortune to taste of the kindness and good breeding of the police once more. some friends in philadelphia arranged a meeting to celebrate most's sixtieth birthday. he was one of the speakers; but the police of that city interpreted the american constitution, which speaks of the right to free speech and assembly, as giving the right to forcibly disperse the meeting. conscious misrepresentation and ignorance, the twin angels that hover over the throne of the newspaper kingdom of this country, have made john most a scarecrow. organized police authorities and police justices that can neither be accused of a surplus of intelligence nor even of the shadow of love of fairness, made him their target whenever they felt the great calling to save their country from disaster. naturally the mob of law-abiding citizens must be assured from time to time that their masters have a sacred duty to perform, that they earn the right of graft. most was born at augsburg, bavaria, february , . according to his memoirs, he early found it necessary to resist the tyranny of a stepmother and the miserable treatment of his master. as a bookbinder apprentice, at a very early age, he took to his heels and went on the road of the world, where he soon came in contact with revolutionary ideas in the labor movement that greatly inspired him and urged him to read and study. it might be more appropriately said that he developed a ravenous appetite for knowledge and research of all the works of human science. at that time socialistic ideas had just begun to exercise great influence upon the thinking mind of the european continents. the zeal and craving for knowledge displayed by the working people of those days can hardly be properly estimated, especially by the proletariat of this country, whose literature and source of knowledge chiefly consists of the daily papers. workingmen, who worked ten and twelve hours in factories and shops, spent their evenings in study and reading of economic, political and philosophic works--ferdinand lassalle, karl marx, engels, bakunin and, later, kropotkin; also henry george's "progress and poverty." added to these were the works of the materialistic-natural science schools, such as darwin, huxley, molleschot, karl vogt, ludwig buechner, haeckel, that constituted the mental diet of a large number of workingmen of that period. just as the revolutionary economists were hailed as the liberators of physical slavery, so were the materialistic, naturalistic sciences accepted as the saviors from mental narrowness and darkness. most was untiring in his work of popularizing these ideas, and as he could quickly grasp things he was tremendously successful in simplifying scientific books into pamphlets and essays, accessible to the ordinary intelligence of the working people. he possessed a marvelous memory, and once he got hold of an amount of data he could easily avail himself of it at any moment. this was particularly true in the domain of history, with its compilation of bloodcurdling events, from which he drew his conclusions of how the human race ought _not to live_. together with his journalistic activity, he combined oral propaganda. his power of delivery was marvelous, and those who heard him in his early days will understand why the powers of the world stood in awe before him. he not only had a very convincing way, but he succeeded in keeping his audiences spellbound or to bring them up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. the scene of his first great activity was in vienna, where he was soon met with many indictments and persecutions from the authorities, who mercilessly pursued him for the rest of his life. after a term of imprisonment in several american prisons, he went to germany, where he became the editor of the "free press" in berlin, but his original and biting criticism of bureaucracy again brought him in conflict with the powers that be. the berlin prison, ploetzensee, soon closed its doors on the culprit. even to-day those who visit that famous institution of civilization are still shown most's cell. at that time bismarck carried an unsuccessful battle against the power of the catholic church, eager to subordinate her to the state authority. it happened that the famous leader of the catholic party, majunke, was sent for a term of imprisonment to ploetzensee. when the prisoners were led out for their daily walk, the leader of the reds, john most, met the leader of the blacks, majunke. the situation was comical enough to cause amusement to both; both being brilliant, they found enough interesting material for conversation, which helped them over the dreariness and monotony of prison life. several years later bismarck succeeded in enacting the muzzle law against social democracy, which destroyed the freedom of the press and assembly. the question arose then what could be done. most had been elected to the reichstag, representing the famous factory town chemnitz, but his experience in parliament only served him to despise the representative system and professional lawmaking more than ever. when leaders of social democracy, like bebel and liebknecht, thought it more expedient to adapt themselves to conditions, most went to london, where he continued his revolutionary literary crusade in the "freiheit." he came in contact with karl marx, engels and various other refugees who lived in england. marx assured most that his sharp pen in the "freiheit" was not likely to cause him any trouble in england so long as the conservative party was in power, but that nothing good was to be expected of a liberal government. marx was right. shortly after most's arrival in london his paper was seized and he was arrested on the indictment for inciting to murder because he paid a glowing tribute to the revolutionists of russia, who, on the first of march, , executed alexander ii. he was tried and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment to one of the barbarous english prisons. most gradually developed into an anarchist, representing communist anarchism, the organization of production and consummation, based on free industrial groups, and which would exclude state and bureaucratic interference. his ideas were related to those of kropotkin and elisée reclus. he often assured me that he considered kropotkin his teacher, and that he owed much of his mental development to him. the next aim of the hounded man was america, but it does not appear that he was followed across the ocean by his lucky star. he soon was made to feel that free speech and free press in this great republic was but a myth. time and again he was arrested, brutally treated by the police, and sentenced to serve time in the penitentiary. added to this came the fearful attacks and misrepresentations of most and his ideas by the press, many of the articles making him appear as a wild beast ever plotting destruction. the last sentence inflicted upon him was after the czolgosz act. he was arrested for an article by the radical karl heinzen, that had been written many years ago and the author of which had been dead a long time. the article had not the slightest relation to the act, did not contain a single reference to the conditions of this country, and treated altogether of european conditions of fifty years ago. in the face of this sentence one cannot but help think of tolstoi's "power of darkness." only the power of darkness in the minds of the judges before whom most was tried and the newspaper men, who helped in arousing public opinion against him, were responsible for the sentence inflicted upon him. taking most's life superficially, it would appear that his road was hard and thorny, but looking at it from a thorough view point, one will realize that all his hardships and injustices had made of him a relentless, uncompromising rebel, who continued to wage war against the enemies of the people. [illustration] with but few exceptions the american journalists censure the immoral profession of "mrs. warren." is it not heavenly irony that god pressed the headman's sword of morals into the hands of the newspaper writers? perhaps the great god pan thought they would be the fittest to handle the sword, since they are so intimately associated with mental prostitution. civilization in africa. a large, strong man, dressed in a uniform and armed to the teeth, knocked at the door of a hut on the west coast of africa. "who are you and what do you want?" said a voice from the inside. "in the name of civilization, open your door or i'll break it down for you and fill you full of lead." "but what do you want here?" "my name is christian civilization. don't talk like a fool, you black brute; what do you suppose i want here but to civilize you and make a reasonable human being out of you if it is possible." "what are you going to do?" "in the first place you must dress yourself like a white man. it is a shame and disgrace the way you go about. from now on you must wear underclothing, a pair of pants, vest, coat, plug hat, and a pair of yellow gloves. i will furnish them to you at reasonable rates." "what shall i do with them?" "wear them, of course. you did not expect to eat them, did you? the first step to civilization is in wearing proper clothes." "but it is too hot here to wear such garments. i'm not used to them. i'll perish from the heat. do you want to murder me?" "not particularly. but if you do die you will have the satisfaction of being a martyr to civilization." "how kind!" "don't mention it. what do you do for a living?" "when i am hungry i eat a banana; i eat, drink or sleep just as i feel like it." "what horrible barbarity! you must settle down to some occupation, my friend. if you don't it will be my duty to lock you up as a vagrant." "if i have to follow some occupation i think i'll start a coffee house. i've got a considerable amount of coffee and sugar stored here and there." "oh, you have, have you? why, you are not such a hopeless case as i thought you were. in the first place you want to pay me the sum of fifty dollars." "what for?" "as an occupation tax, you ignorant heathen. do you expect all the blessings of civilization for nothing?" "but i have no money." "that makes no difference. i'll take it out in tea and coffee. if you don't pay up like a christian man, i'll put you in jail for the rest of your life." "what is jail?" "jail is a progressive word. you must be prepared to make some sacrifices for civilization, you know." "what a great and glorious thing is civilization." "you cannot possibly realize the benefits of it, but you will before i get through with you, my fine fellow." the unfortunate native took to the woods and has not been seen since--_waverly magazine_. [illustration] our purpose. by mary hansen. _i come, not with the blaring of trumpet, to herald the birth of a king; i come, not with traditional story, the life of a savior to sing; i come, not with jests for the silly, i come, not to worship the strong, but to question the powers that govern, to point out a world-old wrong._ _to kiss from the starved lips of childhood the lies that are sapping its breath, and brighten the brief cheerless valley that leads to the darkness of death; with reason and sympathy blended, and a hope that all mankind shall see, untrammeled by creed, law or custom-- the attainable goal of the free._ marriage and the home. by john r. coryell. you remember _punch's_ advice to the young man about to be married--don't. there is a jest nearly half a century old, and yet ever fresh and poignant. why? can it be that the secret, serious voice of mankind proclaims the jest truth in masquerade? can it be that marriage, as an institution, has indeed proved itself in experience such a terrible failure? we worship many fetishes, we of the superior civilization, and the institution of marriage is the chief of them. few of us but bow before that; before that and the home of which it is the foundation. and i know what scorn and obloquy and denunciation await that man who stands unawed before it, seeing in it but an ugly little idol. and i guess what will be dealt out to him who not only refuses to bow the head, but openly scoffs. and yet i am going to scoff and say ugly words about this fetish of ours. i am going to say that it represents ignorance, hides and causes hypocrisy, stands in the way of progress, drags low the standard of individual excellence, perpetuates many foul practices. let me admit at the outset that i recognize in the institution of marriage a perfectly legitimate result of the working of the law of evolution. of course it is; and the same may be said of everything that exists whether good or evil. every vile and filthy thing, crime, disease, misery, are all equally legitimate products of the working of this law. evolution is simply the process of the logical working of things; it explains how things come to be; and there is nothing in the nature of the law to enable it to give to its results the hall mark of sterling. a thing is because of something else that was. marriage is because of a primeval club. man craved woman and he procured her. considering the beginnings of the institution of marriage, it is interesting, if nothing more, to consider the efforts of the priest to give it an attribute of sanctity, to call it a sacrament. in truth, marriage is the most artificial of the relations which exist in the social body. it is a device of man at his worst--a mixture of slavery, savage egotism and priestcraft. it is indicated by nothing in the physical constitution of either male or female. it is an anomaly; a contract which can be freely entered into by the most unfit, but which cannot be broken, though both parties wish it, though absolute unfitness be patent, though hell on earth be its result. the pretense must be abandoned that men and women marry in order to reproduce their kind. nothing could be less true. marriage legalizes reproduction, but is not caused by desire for it. marriage is the hard and fast tying together of a man and a woman without the least regard to moral or physiological conditions. marriage may be for pecuniary gain, or for social advancement; it may be at the will of a controlling parent, or, more commonly for st. paul's reason, that it is better to marry than to burn; but never for the reason that the parties to it are fitted to each other for parenthood. that supreme consideration not only does not enter into either the preliminary or after-thought of the matter, but is even held to be an indecent topic of conversation between persons not already married to each other. the constituents of the average marriage are a man over-stimulated sexually by mystery and ignorance, and a woman abnormally undersexed by the course of self-repression and self-mutilation which have been taught her from her earliest childhood as necessities of modesty, purity and virtue. and then out of the carefully cultivated repugnance of the woman and the savage, exulting, unrelenting passion of the man are produced children, frequently welcome, seldom premeditated. and we are asked to believe that out of such elements are created the best foundation for a race or nation. surely, surely, that combination of conditions is the best for a race or a nation which produces the best individuals; and quite as surely we should strive to bring about those conditions which tend to produce the best individuals. then there is home. home, sweet home! the perfect flower, we are told, that blooms on the fair stem of marriage. yet it is the very citadel of ignorance, when it should be the school in which are taught the beautiful phenomena of physical life. home! where the simplest, purest facts of life are converted into a nasty mystery and deliberately endowed with the characteristics of impurity and sin; for what else is the meaning of that solemn formula, which most of us have been taught, that we were conceived in sin? what else is the meaning of the hush and blush that go to any reference to sex, sign or manifestation of sex? is it not awful beyond the power of words to express that a man and a woman come together in ignorance and beget children who are not even to obtain the benefit of such knowledge as their unfortunate parents pick up by the way, but must themselves begin the most responsible functions of life, not only in equal ignorance, but with an added load of misconceptions, sex-superstitions, immoral dogmas and probably physical disabilities? a short time since a father was speaking to me of his son, fourteen years of age, and plainly at an age when some of the beautiful phenomena of sex-life were beginning to crowd upon him for notice. i asked the man if he had talked with his son about the matter. his answer was peculiar only in that he put into words a description of the attitude of the average parent: "talked to him about that? not i. let him learn as i did. no one ever told me." but some one had told him, as his unpleasantly reminiscent smile advised me! he had been told by ignorant companions, by ignorant servants, and, quite likely, by books, whose grossness would have been harmless but for the child's piteous ignorance. no, the man would not talk with his son about such things, but he would go into his club and talk into the small hours over a glass of whiskey with his friends there, turning the beauty and purity of sex manifestation into shabby jest and impure ridicule. he would exchange stories based on sex relation with any stranger with whom he might ride for two hours in a smoking car. every man knows that i speak well within bounds. and the girl child! what of her? does her mother, the victim of misinformation and no information, of misuse and self-mutilation, in the sweet privacy of this home, which is called the cradle of peace and the nestling place of purity, save her by taking warning of her own ruined life and giving her the benefit of such little knowledge as she has gained in physical, mental and moral misery? we know she does not. on the contrary, the same terrible old lies are told, the same hideous practices are resorted to; and another poor creature is launched into that awful life of legalized prostitution which is called marriage. motherhood is woman's highest function, and, moreover, it is a function which it is unwise not to exercise; for it is infinitely more perilous for a healthy woman not to be a mother than it is for her to bear children. motherhood, too, is the most markedly indicated function of a woman's body. she is specialized for it; it is the thing indicated. and yet we never say to a woman, be a mother when you will; we hold up our hands in horror at the very thought of motherhood itself, and we say, marry; marry anything; get another name for yourself; merge your very identity into that of some man; get a home; never mind about children; you don't have to have them; they have nothing to do with your respectability. is it not so? is it not so that that woman who prefers her own name and her freedom, and who exercises her highest function of motherhood, thereby becomes a thing of scorn and contumely? and yet, how in this world can a woman do a finer, wiser, braver, truer thing than to bear a child in freedom by a carefully chosen father? it is true that we have moralists who urge wives to breed for the good of the country, but even they, while declaring that it is the duty of women to have large families, roll their eyes in horror at the thought of a woman exercising her plainest right, without first having some man, whose only interest in the matter is his fee, say some magic words over her and her master. oh, that marriage ceremony! and is it not pathetic to hear the women, dimly conscious of their backbones, declaring that they will not promise to obey? they will promise vehemently to love and honor, which they absolutely cannot be sure of doing, but they refuse to obey--the only thing they could safely promise to do, and which, in fact, most of them do. for, writhe and twist as they may, defy never so bravely, the conventions of the world are against them, and conform they must. down, down they sink until they are on their knees in the mire of tradition, their heads bowed to the ugly little fetish. a woman may be a thousand times the superior of her husband, and yet she must be his slave. and what puerile fables, what transparent lies are told to reconcile the poor slave to her lot! a man's rib! and she is the weaker vessel! nevertheless, she is the power behind the throne. and if the man possess her, does she not equally possess him? is not monogamy the mainstay of our morals? is not god to be thanked that he has given us light to see the horrors of polygamy? oh, that shocking thing, polygamy! how the husbands of the land rise up to defend their firesides from it! no smoots shall get into our senate. that virtuous senate! why if every practising polygamist went home from the congress there would not be a quorum left to do business. monogamy! why it is the most shocking phase of the hypocrisy due to marriage. there is no such condition known in this country. of course, there may be sporadic cases of it, but that is all. if monogamy be the practice of the men of this country, why the hundreds of thousands of prostitutes, why divorces for adultery, why those secret establishments where unhappily married men indemnify themselves for the appearance of monogamy by an association which can be ended at will? whence come the mulattoes and the half-breeds of all sorts? who so credulous as to believe the fable of monogamy? what has monogamy or polygamy or polyandry to do with this matter? i assume that it is undeniable that motherhood is woman's most manifest function. if that be so, how can there be any more immorality in the exercise of it than in the process of digestion? what can be clearer than that a woman has the inherent right to bear children if she wish? and there is nothing in experience or morals which demands one father for all her children. it should be for her to say whether she will have one father for all her children or one for each. and if the question be asked how, under such conditions, the interests of the children would be safe-guarded, i ask if they are safe-guarded now. the right-minded man provides as he can for them; as would be the case always; while the wrong-minded man does not now provide properly for them. besides, is the mother not to be considered? do we not all know of women who in widowhood take care of their families? do we not know of women who take care of their husbands as well as of their children? women, of course, should, in any case, be economically free. but at least let them be sex free; let them decide for themselves whether they will have many or few or no children. teach woman to be economically independent, give her the opportunity for full knowledge of all that pertains to motherhood; make the motherhood a pure and beautiful manifestation of physical activity if you will, but without forgetting that it is only simple and natural; avoiding that hysterical glorification of the function in poetry and the hiding of it in actual life as if it were an unclean thing. but the important matter is to understand that a woman has a right to bear a child if she wish. nothing is more distinctly pointed out by the constitution of her body, and therefore it is impossible that there can be any immorality in the exercise of the function. to put my idea in as few and as bold words as i can: motherhood is a right and has no proper relation to marriage. marriage is a purely artificial relation, and not only is it not justified by its results, but distinctly it is discredited by them. by it a man becomes a vile hypocrite since he loudly avows a moral standard and a course of conduct which in private by his acts he denies and puts to scorn; by it a woman becomes a slave, giving up her rights in her own body; submitting to ravishment, and becoming the accidental mother to unwished, unwelcome children; by it children are robbed of their plain right to the best equipment that can be given them; and which cannot be given them under the prevailing system. it is only when a woman is free to choose the father of her child that the child can hope for even a partial payment of the debt that was due it from its parents from the moment they took the responsibility of calling it from the nowhere into the here. this doctrine of the responsibility of the parent to the child is comparatively new and goes neither with marriage nor with the home. the old and current notion is that the child is a chattel. abraham never offers an apology for making little isaac carry wood and then mount the sacrificial pile. indeed we are asked to marvel at the heroism of the father. then we are told that god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. as if the child were the property of the parent. and yet there must always have been naughty children asking pointed questions, for it was long ago found necessary to try to scare them by a divine fulmination. honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long! it seems that even so long ago parents were afraid they could not win honor from their children. abraham's place was on the pile, just as it is the place of the modern parent who looks upon his child as his chattel; disposing of him as he will; arbitrarily making rules for his conduct which he would not dream of observing for himself; stifling his natural demands for knowledge; converting what is pure and most beautiful in the world into a mire of filth and ignorance; wilfully robbing him of his birthright of individuality by forcing him to conform to methods of thought and conduct which his own experience tells him no man can or does conform to from the moment he wins his freedom or learns the hideous lesson of that hypocrisy which he is sure in the end to discover that his father practices. what right has any father to make a sacrifice of his child? what is his title to the love or gratitude or self-abnegation of his child? is it that the child is the unconsidered consequence of the legal rape of some poor woman who has been unfitted for the office forced upon her, by a life mentally dwarfed, morally twisted and physically mutilated? is it that the child is haled out of nothingness to be inoculated, perhaps, with germs of disease in the first instance and then half nourished for nine months in a body which has been robbed of its vitality by the mutilation and torture to which it has been subjected at the behest of fashion? the highest duty of a parent is to so treat his child that it will enter upon the struggle of life prepared to obtain the utmost happiness from it. if anyone fancies i have been too severe in my strictures i would ask him to read what mrs. gilman has to say on the subject of home. it is true that she does not come to the same conclusion that i do. she would have women economically independent, and she would have children taken care of by those especially fitted for the task, leaving mothers and fathers free to go their separate ways. but how could there be separate ways so long as the slavery of marriage remained? woman must be not only economically free, but altogether free. as i have said, motherhood is not an affair of morals; it is a function. marriage, on the other hand, is a matter of morals; and hideously immoral it is, too. then why not have motherhood without its immoral, artificial adjunct, marriage? you see i do not ask for easy divorce as a solution of the problem of marriage. i set my face sternly against divorce. i am one with the church in that. i only demand that there shall be no marriage at all, that there shall be no fastening of life-long slavery on woman. let woman mother children or not, as she will. let her say who shall be the father of her child and of each child. let motherhood be deemed not even honorable, but only natural. can anyone believe that if men and women were free to decide whether or not they would be parents, they would not in the end, seeing their duty in the light of their knowledge, fit themselves for parenthood before taking upon themselves its responsibilities? i would like to say that i have no fear of the odium of the designation of iconoclast. nor do i quake lest some one triumphantly ask me what i will put in the place of marriage and the home. as well might one demand what i would give in the place of smallpox if i were able to eradicate it. i am not concerned to find a substitute for such perversion of sex activity. if men and women choose to live together in freedom, fathering and mothering their children according to a rule grown out of freedom, and directed by expediency, i fancy they would be, at least, as happy as they can be now, tied together by a hard, unpleasant knot. and if an economically free woman chose to have six children by six different fathers, as a wise woman might well do, i believe she could be trusted to secure those children from want quite as well as the mother-slave of to-day, who bears her children at the will of an irresponsible man, and then, often enough, has to take care of them and him too. [illustration] "wealth protects and animates art and literature, as the dew enlivens the fields." nonsense! wealth animates art and literature, as the whistle of the master animates the dog and makes him wag his tail. the modern newspaper. let me describe to you, very briefly, a newspaper day. figure first, then, a hastily erected, and still more hastily designed, building in a dirty, paper-littered back street of london, and a number of shabbily dressed men coming and going in this with projectile swiftness. within this factory companies of printers, tensely active with nimble fingers--they were always speeding up the printers--ply their typesetting machines, and cast and arrange masses of metal in a sort of kitchen inferno, above which, in a beehive of little, brightly lit rooms, disheveled men sit and scribble. there is a throbbing of telephones and a clicking of telegraph instruments, a rushing of messengers, a running to and fro of heated men, clutching proofs and copy. then begins a roar of machinery catching the infection, going faster and faster, and whizzing and banging. engineers, who have never had time to wash since their birth, fly about with oil cans, while paper runs off its rolls with a shudder of haste. the proprietor you must suppose arriving explosively on a swift motor car, leaping out before the thing is at a standstill, with letters and documents clutched in his hand, rushing in, resolute to "hustle," getting wonderfully in everybody's way. at the sight of him even the messenger boys who are waiting get up and scamper to and fro. sprinkle your vision with collisions, curses, incoherencies. you imagine all the parts of this complex, lunatic machine working hysterically toward a crescendo of haste and excitement as the night wears on. at last, the only things that seem to travel slowly in those tearing, vibrating premises, are the hands of the clock. slowly things draw on toward publication, the consummation of all those stresses. then, in the small hours, in the now dark and deserted streets comes a wild whirl of carts and men, the place spurts paper at every door; bales, heaps, torrents of papers, that are snatched and flung about in what looks like a free fight, and off with a rush and clatter east, west, north and south. the interest passes outwardly; the men from the little rooms are going homeward, the printers disperse, yawning, the roaring presses slacken. the paper exists. distribution follows manufacture, and we follow the bundles. our vision becomes a vision of dispersal. you see those bundles hurling into stations, catching trains by a hair's breadth, speeding on their way, breaking up, smaller bundles of them hurled with a fierce accuracy out upon the platforms that rush by, and then everywhere a division of these smaller bundles into still smaller bundles, into dispersing parcels, into separate papers. the dawn happens unnoticed amidst a great running and shouting of boys, a shoving through letter-slots, openings of windows, spreading out upon book-stalls. for the space of a few hours, you must figure the whole country dotted white with rustling papers. placards everywhere vociferate the hurried lie for the day. men and women in trains, men and women eating and reading, men by study fenders, people sitting up in bed, mothers and sons and daughters waiting for father to finish--a million scattered people are reading--reading headlong--or feverishly ready to read. it is just as if some vehement jet had sprayed that white foam of papers over the surface of the land. nonsense! the whole affair is a noisy paroxysm of nonsense, unreasonable excitement, witless mischief, and waste of strength--signifying nothing. --from h. g. wells "in the days of the comet." [illustration] a visit to sing sing. by a moralist. i was ennuyé; the everlasting decency and respectability of my surroundings bored me. on whichever side of me i looked, i saw people doing the same things for the same reasons; or for the same lack of reasons. and they were uninteresting. "oh," said i to myself, "these are the people of the ruts; they go that way because others have gone; they are conforming. but there must be some persons who do not conform. where are they?" now you can understand why it was that my thoughts turned toward that monument of our civilization on the hudson river, and why finally i made up my mind to visit it. i knew that neither my citizenship, nor yet my philosophic and human interest in the working of that great school would avail to obtain me entrance there, so i sought out one of the politicians of my district, who at that time at least exercised his activities outside of the walls of the building, and i exchanged with him a five-dollar bill for an order to admit me. "i suppose," i said to the attendant who did the honors of the place for me, "that these persons who are garbed alike and who affect the same tonsorial effect are those who have been unskillful in their non-conformity." "they are prisoners," he replied. i bit my lip and looked as smug as i remembered one should who as yet has the right of egress as well as ingress in an institution of that character. at that moment my eyes fell on a face that seemed familiar to me, and as i studied it i saw with surprise that i had come upon a man who had once been a schoolmate of mine. now i had always believed that if a person had done wrong, he would be conscious of it; and that if he were found out he would at least try to appear penitent. but in this case my theory did not seem to be working; for my former chum, whom i remembered as a quiet, unobtrusive fellow, met my startled glance with a twinkle of suppressed humor. i confess that such a blow to my theory filled me with indignation. i stepped toward him, all my moral superiority betraying itself in the self-satisfied smirk which fixed itself on my face in accordance with the sense of duty which the philistine feels so keenly in his relations with others. "why are you here?" i asked him. "are you not a little impertinent?" he asked. "i do not inquire of you why you are here." "that is obvious, to say the least," i answered loftily. "obvious from your pharisaical expression, perhaps," he said good-naturedly. "but never mind! we look at the matter from different points of view. to me it is a greater indiscretion to annoy a helpless prisoner with 'holier-than-thou' questions than it would be to attend the charity ball in pajamas. but of course you do not see it in the same light." "pardon me if i annoyed you," i said stiffly. "don't mention it," he replied, with the humorous twinkle still playing in his eyes. "and to prove that i bear no hard feeling, i will ask you some questions." naturally i was embarrassed at such an exhibition of hardihood in one in his situation, but i said i would be pleased to answer him to the best of my ability. "it is some time since i was away from this retreat on a vacation," he said, with an easy assurance that was indescribably shocking to one of correct principles, "and i would like to know if all the rascals have yet been put in prison." i pushed my insurance policy a little deeper into my pocket and replied, with conviction: "certainly not; but you must not forget that no man is guilty until he has been proven so." "ah, yes," he said; "and that a man may pride himself on his honesty on the secure ground that he has not yet reached the penitentiary. yes, of course, you are right. but, tell me, is it true, according to a rumor which has reached us in our seclusion, that these good christians _pro tem_, are considering the advisability of having rat poison served to us in place of the delicious stale bread and flat water which now comprise our bill of fare?" "oh," i answered vaguely, "there are still reformers of all sorts in the world." "reformers!" he cried, his face lighting up with a new interest. "ah! you mean those profound thinkers who seek to cure every disease of the social body by means of legislation. yes, yes! tell me about them! society still believes in them?" "believes in them!" i cried indignantly. "surely it does. why, the great political parties are responding to the cry of the downtrodden masses, and--" "oh," he said dreamily, "they are still responding?" "what do you mean by still responding?" i demanded curtly. "why, i remember that in my time, too, the people always responded. the party leaders would say to them that they were in a bad way and needed help. the people would cry out in joy to think their leaders had discovered this. then the leaders would wink at each other and jump upon the platforms and explain to the people that what was needed was a new law of some sort. the people would weep for happiness at such wisdom and would beg their leaders to get together and make the law. and the law that the leaders would make when they got together was one that would put the people still more in their power. so that is still going on?" i recognized that he was ironical, but i answered with a sneer: "the people get what they deserve, and what they wish. they have only to demand through the ballot box, you know." "ah, yes," he murmured with a grin, "i had forgotten the ballot box. dear me! how could i have forgotten the ballot box?" providentially the keeper came to notify me that my time was up, and i turned away. "one thing more," cried the prisoner; "is it still the case that the american people enjoy their freedom best when they are enslaved in some way?" "you are outrageous," i exclaimed; "the american people are not enslaved in any way. it is true they are restricted for their own good by those more capable of judging than they. that must always be the case." "i don't know about must," he sighed, "but i am sure it will always be the case as long as a man's idea of freedom is his ability to impose some slavish notion on his brother." "good-bye," i said, with a recurrence to my smirk of pharisaical pity, "i am sorry to see you here." "oh, don't be troubled on my account," he answered; "on the whole, i am satisfied." "satisfied! impossible!" i cried. "why impossible? consider that i shall never again be compelled to associate with decent, honest folk. oh, i have cause to be satisfied; i am here on a life sentence." the old and the new drama. by max baginski. the inscription over the drama in olden times used to be, "man, look into this mirror of life; your soul will be gripped in its innermost depths, anguish and dread will take possession of you in the face of this rage of human desire and passion. go ye, atone and make good." even schiller entertained this view when he called the stage a moral institution. it was also from this standpoint that the drama was expected to show the terrible consequences of uncontrolled human passion, and that these consequences should teach man to overcome himself. "to conquer oneself is man's greatest triumph." this ascetic tendency, incidentally part of chastisement and acquired resignation, one can trace in every investigation of the value and meaning of the drama, though in different forms. the avenging nemesis, always at the heels of the sinner, may be placated by means of rigid self-control and self-denial. this, too, was schopenhauer's idea of the drama. in it, his eye perceived with horror that human relation became disastrously interwoven; that guilt and atonement made light of the human race, which merely served as a target for the principles of good and evil. guilt and atonement reign because the blind force of life will not resign itself, but, on the contrary, is ever ready to yield itself to the struggle of the passions. mountains of guilt pile themselves on the top of each other, while purifying fires ever flame up into the heavens. in the idea that life in itself is a great guilt, schopenhauer coincides with the teachings of christ, though otherwise he has little regard for them. with christ, he recognized in the chastisement of the body a purification of the mind; the inner man, who thus escapes from close physical intimacy, as if from bad company. the spiritual man appears before the physical as a saint and a pharisee. in reality, he is the intellectual cause of the so-called bad deeds of the human body, its path indicator and teacher. but, once the mischief is accomplished, he puts on a pious air and denies all responsibility for the deed. wherever the idea of guilt, the fear of sin prevails, the mind becomes traitor to the body: "i know him not and will have nothing to do with him." whenever man entertains the belief in good and evil, he is bound to pretend the good and do the evil. and yet the understanding of all human occurrences begins, as with the zarathustra philosopher, beyond good and evil. the modern drama is, in its profoundest depths, an attempt to ignore good and evil in its analysis of human manifestations. it aims to get at a complete whole, out of each strong, healthy emotion, out of each absorbing mood that carries and urges one forward from the beginning to the end. it represents the world as it reflects itself in each passion, in each quivering life; not trying to confine and to judge, to condemn or to praise; not acting merely in the capacity of a cold observer; but striving to grow in oneness with life; to become color, tone and light; to absorb universal sorrow as one's own; universal joy as one's own; to feel every emotion as it manifests itself in a natural way; to be one's self, yet oblivious of self. the modern dramatist tries to understand and to explain. goodness is no longer entitled to a reward, like a pupil who knows his lesson; nor is evil condemned to an eternal hell. both belong together in the sphere of all that is human. often enough it is seen that evil triumphs over good, while virtue, ever highly praised in words, is rarely practiced. it is set aside to become dusty and dirty in some obscure corner. only at some opportune moment is it brought forward from its hiding place to serve as a cover for some vile deed. we can no longer believe that beyond and above us there is some irrevocable, irresistible fate, whose duty it is to punish all evil and wrong and to reward all goodness; an idea so fondly cherished by our grandfathers. to-day we no longer look for the force of fate outside of human activity. it lives and weaves its own tragedies and comedies with us and within us. it has its roots in our social, political and economic surroundings, in our physical, mental and psychic capacities. (did not the fate of cyrano de bergerac lie in his gigantic nose?) with others, fate lies in their vocation in life, in their mental and emotional tendencies, which either submerge them into the hurry and rush of a commonplace existence, or bring them into the most annoying conflicts with the _dicta_ of society. indeed, it is often seen that a human being, apparently of a cheerful nature, but who has failed to establish a durable relation with society, often leads a most tragic inner life. should he find the cause in his own inclinations, and suffer agonizing reproaches therefrom, he becomes a misanthrope. if, however, he feels inwardly robust and powerful, living truly, if he crave complete assertion of a self that is being hampered by his surroundings at every step, he must inevitably become a revolutionist. and, again, his life may become tragic in the struggle with our powerful institutions and traditions, the leaden weight of which will, apparently, not let him soar through space to ever greater heights. apparently, because it sometimes occurs that an individual rises above the average, and waves his colors over the heads of the common herd. his life is that of the storm bird, anxiously making for distant shores. the efforts of the deepest, truest and freest spirits of our day tend toward the conscious formation of life, toward that life which will make the blind raging of the elements impossible; a life which will show man his sovereignity and admit his right to direct his own world. the old conception of the drama paid little or no attention to the importance of the influences of social conditions. it was the individual alone who had to carry the weight of all responsibility. but is not the tragedy greater, the suffering of the individual increased, by influences he cannot control, the existing social and moral conditions? and is it not true that the very best and most beautiful in the human breast cannot and will not bow down to the commands of the commonplace and everyday conditions? out of the anachronisms of society and its relation to the individual grow the strongest motives of the modern drama. pure personal conflicts are no longer considered important enough to bring about a dramatic climax. a play must contain the beating of the waves, the deep breath of life; and its strong invigorating breeze can never fail in bringing about a dramatic effect upon our emotions. the new drama means reproduction of nature in all its phases, the social and psychological included. it embraces, analyzes and enriches all life. it goes hand in hand with the longing for materially and mentally harmonious institutions. it rehabilitates the human body, establishes it in its proper place and dignity, and brings about the long deferred reconciliation between the mind and the body. full of enthusiasm, with the pulse of time throbbing in his veins, the modern dramatist compiles mountains of material for the better understanding of man, and the influences that mould and form him. he no longer presents capital acts, extraordinary events, or melodramatic expressions. it is life in all its complexity, that is being unfolded before us, and so we come closer to the source of the forces that destroy and build up again, the forces that make for individual character and direct the world at large. life, as a whole, is being dealt with, and not mere particles. formerly our eyes were dazzled by a display of costumes and scenery, while the heart remained unmoved. this no longer satisfies. one must feel the warmth of life, in order to respond, to be gripped. the sphere of the drama has widened most marvellously in all directions, and only ends where human limitations begin. together with this, a marked deepening of the inner world has taken place. still there are those who have much to say about the vulgarity contained in the modern drama, and how its inaugurators and following present the ugly and untruthful. untrue and ugly, indeed, for those who are buried under a mass of inherited views and prejudices. the growth of the scope of the drama has increased the number of the participants therein. formerly it was assumed that the fate of the ordinary man, the man of the masses, was altogether too obscure, too indifferent to serve as material for anything tragic; since those who had never dwelt in the heights of material splendor could not go down to the darkest and lowest abyss. because of that assumption, the low and humble never gained access to the center of the stage; they were only utilized to represent mobs. those that were of importance were persons of high position and standing, persons who represented wealth and power with superiority and dignity, yet with shallow and superficial airs. the ensemble was but a mechanism and not an organism; and each participant was stiff and lifeless; each movement was forced and strained. the old fate and hero drama did not spring from within man and the things about him; it was merely manufactured. most remarkable incidents, unheard of situations had to be invented, if only to produce, externally, an appearance of coinciding cause and effect; and not a single plot could be without secret doors and vaults, terrible oaths and perjury. if ibsen, gorky, hauptmann, gabrielle d'annunzio and others had brought us nothing else but liberation from such grotesque ballast, from such impossibilities as destroy every illusion as to the life import of a play, they would still be entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of posterity. but they have done more. out of the confusion of trap doors, secret passages, folding screens, they have led us into the light of day, of undisguised events, with their simple distinct outlines. in this light, the man of the heap gains in life force, importance and depth. the stage no longer offers a place for impossible deeds and the endless monologues of the hero, the important feature is harmonious concert of action. the hero, on a stage that conscientiously stands for real art and aims to produce life, is about as superfluous as the clown who amused the audience between the acts. after all the spectacle of one star display, one cannot help but hail the refreshing contrast, shown in the "man of destiny," by the clever bernard shaw, where he presents the legend-hero, napoleon, as a petty intriguer, with all the inner fear and uneasiness of a plotter. in these days of concerted energy, of the co-operation of numerous hands and brains; in the days when the most far-reaching effect can only be accomplished through the summons of a manifold physical and mental endeavor, the existence of these loud heroes is circumscribed within rather limited lines. previous generations could never have grasped the deep tragedy in that famous painting of millet that inspired edwin markham to write his "man with the hoe." our generation, however, is thrilled by it. and is there not something terribly tragic about the lives of the great masses who pierced the colossal stone cliffs of the simplon, or who are building the panama canal? they have and are performing a task that may safely be compared with the extraordinary achievements of hercules; works which, according to human conception, will last into eternity. the names and the characters of these workmen are unknown. the historians, coldly and disinterestedly, pass them by. the new drama has unveiled this kind of tragedy. it has done away with the lie that sought to produce a violent dramatic effect through a plunge from the sublime to the ridiculous. those who understand tolstoy's "power of darkness," wherein but those of the lowest strata appear, will be overwhelmed by the terrible tragedy in their lives, in comparison with which the worries of some crowned head or the money troubles of some powerful speculator will appear insignificant indeed. that which this master unfolds before us is no longer a plunge from heaven to hell; the entire life of these people is an inferno. the terrible darkness and ignorance of these people, forced on them by the social misery of dull necessity, produces greater soul sensations in the spectator than the stilted tragedy of a corneille. those who witness a performance of gerhart hauptmann's "hannele" and fail to be stirred by the grandeur and depth of that masterpiece, regardless of its petty poorhouse atmosphere, deserve to see nothing else than the "wizard of oz." and again is not the long thunderous march of hungry strikers in zola's "germinal" as awe-inspiring to those who feel the heart beat of our age even as the heroic deeds of hannibal's warriors were to his contemporaries? the world stage ever represents a change of participants. the one who played the part of leading man in one century, may become a clown in another. entire social classes and casts that formerly commanded first parts, are to-day utilized to make up stage decorations or as figurantes. plays representing the glory of knighthood or minnesingers would only amuse to-day, no matter how serious they were intended to appear. once anything lies buried under the bulk of social changes, it can affect coming generations only so far as the excavated skeleton affects the geologist. this must be borne in mind by sincere stage art, if it is not to remain in the stifling atmosphere of tradition, if it does not wish to degrade a noble method, that helps to recognize and disclose all that is rich and deep in the human into a commonplace, hypocritical and stupid method. if the artist's creation is to have any effect, it must contain elements of real life, and must turn its gaze toward the dawn of the morn of a more beautiful and joyous world, with a new and healthy generation, that feels deeply its relationship with all human beings over the universe. [illustration] in a report of the russian government, it is stated that the conduct of the soldiers in the struggles of the streets was such, that in no instance did they transgress the limit which is prescribed to them in their oath as soldiers. this is true. the soldier's oath prescribes murder and cruelty as their patriotic duty. [illustration] if government, were it even an ideal revolutionary government, creates no new force and is of no use whatever in the work of demolition which we have to accomplish, still less can we count on it for the work of reorganization which must follow that of demolition. the economic change which will result from the social revolution will be so immense and so profound, it must so change all the relations based to-day on property and exchange, that it is impossible for one or any individual to elaborate the different social forms, which must spring up in the society of the future. this elaboration of new social forms can only be made by the collective work of the masses. to satisfy the immense variety of conditions and needs which will spring up as soon as private property shall be abolished, it is necessary to have the collective suppleness of mind of the whole people. any authority external to it will only be an obstacle, only a trammel on the organic labor which must be accomplished, and beside that a source of discord and hatred. kropotkine. [illustration] a sentimental journey.--police protection. chicago's pride are the stockyards, the standard oil university, and miss jane addams. it is, therefore, perfectly natural that the sensibility of such a city would suffer as soon as it became known that an obscure person, by the common name of e. g. smith, was none other than the awful emma goldman, and that she had not even presented herself to mayor dunne, the platonic lover of municipal ownership. however, not much harm came of it. the chicago newspapers, who cherish the truth like a costly jewel, made the discovery that the shrewd miss smith compromised a number of chicago's aristocracy and excellencies, among others also baron von schlippenbach, consul of the russian empire. we consider it our duty to defend this gentleman against such an awful accusation. miss smith never visited the house of the baron, nor did she attend any of his banquets. we know her well and feel confident that she never would put her foot on the threshold of a representative of a government that crushes every free breath, every free word; that sends her very best and noblest sons and daughters to prison or the gallows; that has the children of the soil, the peasants, publicly flogged; and that is responsible for the barbarous slaughter of thousands of jews. miss jane addams, too, is quite safe from miss smith. true, she invited her to be present at a reception, but, knowing the weak knees of the soup kitchen philanthropy from past experience, miss smith called her up on the 'phone and told her that e. g. s. was the dreaded emma goldman. it must have been quite a shock to the lady; after all, one cannot afford to hurt the sensibilities of society, so long as one has political and public aspirations. miss e. g. smith, being a strong believer in the prevention of cruelty, preferred to leave the purity of the hull house untouched. after her return to new york, e. g. smith sent smith about its business, and started on a lecture tour in her own right, as emma goldman. cleveland. dear old friends and co-workers: the work you accomplished was splendid, also the comradely spirit of the young. but why spoil it by bad example of applying for protection from the city authorities? it does not behoove us, who neither believe in their right to prohibit free assembly, nor to permit it, to appeal to them. if the authorities choose to do either, they merely prove their autocracy. those who love freedom must understand that it is even more distasteful to speak under police protection than it is to suffer under their persecution. however, the meetings were very encouraging and the feeling of solidarity sweet and refreshing. buffalo. the shadow of september still haunts the police of that city. their only vision of an anarchist is one who is forever lying in wait for human life, which is, of course, very stupid; but stupidity and authority always join forces. capt. ward, who, with a squad of police, came to save the innocent citizens of buffalo, asked if we knew the law, and was quite surprised that that was not our trade; that we had not been employed to disentangle the chaos of the law,--that it was his affair to know the law. however, the captain showed himself absolutely ignorant of the provisions of the american constitution. of course, his superiors knew what they were about when they set the constitution aside, as old and antiquated, and, instead, enacted a law which gives the average officer a right to invade the head and heart of a man, as to what he thinks and feels. capt. ward added an amendment to the anti-anarchist law. he declared any other language than english a felony, and, since max baginski could only avail himself of the german language, he was not permitted to speak. how is that for our law-abiding citizens? a man is brutally prevented from speaking, because he does not know the refined english language of the police force. emma goldman delivered her address in english. it is not likely that capt. ward understood enough of that language. however, the audience did, and if the police of this country were not so barefaced, the saviour of buffalo would have wished himself anywhere rather than to stand exposed as a clown before a large gathering of men and women. the meeting the following evening was forcibly dispersed before the speakers had arrived. ignorance is always brutal when it is backed by power. toronto. king edward hotel, queen victoria manicuring parlor. it was only when we read these signs that we realized that we were on the soil of the british empire. however, the monarchical authorities of canada were more hospitable and much freer than those of our free republic. not a sign of an officer at any of the meetings. the city? a gray sky, rain, storms. altogether one was reminded of one of heine's witty, drastic criticisms in reference to a well-known german university town. "dogs on the street," heine writes, "implore strangers to kick them, so that they may have some change from the awful monotony and dulness." rochester. the neighborly influence of the buffalo police seems to have had a bad effect upon the mental development of the rochester authorities. the hall was packed with officers at both meetings. the government of rochester, however, was not saved--the police kept themselves in good order. some of them seem to have benefited by the lectures. that accounts for the familiarity of one of rochester's "finest," who wanted to shake emma goldman's hand. e. g. had to decline. baron von schlippenbach or an american representative of law and disorder,--where is the difference? syracuse. the city where the trains run through the streets. with tolstoy, one feels that civilization is a crime and a mistake, when one sees nerve-wrecking machines running through the streets, poisoning the atmosphere with soft coal smoke. what! anarchists within the walls of syracuse? o horror! the newspapers reported of special session at city hall, how to meet the terrible calamity. well, syracuse still stands on its old site. the second meeting, attended largely by "genuine" americans, brought by curiosity perhaps, was very successful. we were assured that the lecture made a splendid impression, which led us to think that we probably were guilty of some foolishness, as the greek philosopher, when his lectures were applauded, would turn to his hearers and ask, "gentlemen, have i committed some folly?" au revoir. e. g. and m. b. the moral demand. a comedy, in one act, by otto erich hartleben. translated from the german for "mother earth." cast. rita revera, concert singer. friedrich stierwald, owner of firm of "c. w. stierwald sons" in rudolstadt. bertha, rita's maid. _time._--end of the nineteenth century. _place._--a large german fashionable bathing resort. * * * * * scene.--_rita's boudoir. small room elegantly furnished in louis xvi. style. in the background, a broad open door, with draperies, which leads into an antechamber. to the right, a piano, in front of which stands a large, comfortable stool._ * * * * * rita (_enters the antechamber attired in an elaborate ball toilette. she wears a gray silk cloak, a lace fichu, and a parasol. gaily tripping toward the front, she sings_): "les envoyées du paradis sont les mascottes, mes amis...." (_she lays the parasol on the table and takes off her long white gloves, all the while singing the melody. she interrupts herself and calls aloud_) bertha! bertha! (_sings_) o bertholina, o bertholina! bertha (_walks through the middle_): my lady, your pleasure? (_rita has taken off her cloak and stands in front of the mirror. she is still humming the melody absentmindedly_). (_bertha takes off rita's wraps._) rita (_turns around merrily_): tell me, bertha, why does not the electric bell ring? i must always sing first, must always squander all my flute notes first ere i can entice you to come. what do you suppose that costs? with that i can immediately arrange another charity matinée. terrible thing, isn't it? bertha: yes. the man has not yet repaired it. rita: o, bertholina, _why_ has the man not yet repaired it? bertha: yes. the man intended to come early in the morning. rita: the man has often wanted to do so. he does not seem to possess a strong character. (_she points to her cloak_) dust it well before placing it in the wardrobe. the dust is simply terrible in this place ... and this they call a fresh-air resort. has anybody called? bertha: yes, my lady, the count. he has---- rita: well, yes; i mean anyone else? bertha: no. no one. rita: hm! let me have my dressing gown. (_bertha goes to the sleeping chamber to the left._) rita (_steps in front of the mirror, singing softly_): "les envoyées du paradis...." (_suddenly raising her voice, she asks bertha_) how long did he wait? bertha: what? rita: i would like to know how long he waited. bertha: an hour. rita (_to herself_): he does not love me any more. (_loudly_) but during that time he might have at least repaired the bell. he is of no use whatever. (_she laughs._) bertha: the count came directly from the matinée and asked me where your ladyship had gone to dine. naturally i did not know. rita: did he ask--anything else? bertha: no, he looked at the photographs. rita (_in the door_): well? and does he expect to come again to-day? bertha: yes, certainly. at four o'clock. rita (_looks at the clock_): oh, but that's boring. now it is already half-past three. one cannot even drink coffee in peace. hurry, bertha, prepare the coffee. (_bertha leaves the room, carrying the articles of attire._) (_rita, after a pause, singing a melancholy melody._) (_friedrich stierwald, a man very carefully dressed in black, about thirty years of age, with a black crêpe around his stiff hat, enters from the rear into the antechamber, followed by bertha._) bertha: but the lady is not well. friedrich: please tell the lady that i am passing through here, and that i must speak with her about a very pressing matter. it is absolutely necessary. please! (_he gives her money and his card._) bertha: yes, i shall take your card, but i fear she will not receive you. friedrich: why not? o, yes! just go---- bertha: this morning she sang at a charity matinée and so---- friedrich: i know, i know. listen! (_rita's singing has grown louder_) don't you hear how she sings? oh, do go! bertha (_shaking her head_): well, then--wait a moment. (_she passes through the room to the half-opened door of the sleeping apartment, knocks_) dear lady! rita (_from within_): well? what's the matter? bertha (_at the door_): oh, this gentleman here--he wishes to see you very much. he is passing through here. rita (_within; laughs_): come in. (_bertha disappears._) (_friedrich has walked up to the middle door, where he remains standing._) rita: well. who is it? friedrich---- hmm---- i shall come immediately. bertha (_comes out and looks at friedrich in surprise_): my lady wishes you to await her. (_she walks away, after having taken another glance at friedrich._) (_friedrich looks about embarrassed and shyly._) (_rita enters attired in a tasteful dressing gown, but remains standing in the door._) friedrich (_bows; softly_): good day. (_rita looks at him with an ironical smile and remains silent._) friedrich: you remember me? don't you? rita (_quietly_): strange. you--come to see me? what has become of your good training? (_laughs._) have you lost all sense of shame? friedrich (_stretches out his hand, as if imploring_): oh, i beg of you, i beg of you; not this tone! i really came to explain everything to you, everything. and possibly to set things aright. rita: you--with me! (_she shakes her head._) incredible! but, please, since you are here, sit down. with what can you serve me? friedrich (_seriously_): miss hattenbach, i really should---- rita (_lightly_): pardon me, my name is revera. rita revera. friedrich: i know that you call yourself by that name now. but you won't expect me, an old friend of your family, to make use of this romantic, theatrical name. for me you are now, as heretofore, the daughter of the esteemed house of hattenbach, with which i---- rita (_quickly and sharply_): with which your father transacts business, i know. friedrich (_with emphasis_): with which i now am myself associated. rita: is it possible? and your father? friedrich (_seriously_): if i had the slightest inkling of your address, yes, even your present name, i should not have missed to announce to you the sudden death of my father. rita (_after pause_): oh, he is dead. i see you still wear mourning. how long ago is it? friedrich: half a year. since then i am looking for you, and i hope you will not forbid me to address you now, as of yore, with that name, which is so highly esteemed in our native city. rita (_smiling friendly_): your solemnity--is delightful. golden! but sit down. friedrich (_remains standing; he is hurt_): i must confess, miss hattenbach, that i was not prepared for such a reception from you. i hoped that i might expect, after these four or five years, that you would receive me differently than with this--with this--how shall i say? rita: toleration. friedrich: no, with this arrogance. rita: how? friedrich (_controlling himself_): i beg your pardon. i am sorry to have said that. rita (_after a pause, hostile_): you wish to be taken seriously? (_she sits down, with a gesture of the hand_) please, what have you to say to me? friedrich: much. oh, very much. (_he also sits down._) but--you are not well to-day? rita: not well? what makes you say so? friedrich: yes, the maid told me so. rita: the maid--she is a useful person. that makes me think. you certainly expect to stay here some time, do you not? friedrich: with your permission. i have much to tell you. rita: i thought so. (_calling loudly_) bertha! bertha! do you suppose one could get an electric bell repaired here? impossible. bertha (_enters_): my lady? rita: bertha, when the count comes--now i am really sick. bertha (_nods_): very well. (_she leaves._) rita (_calls after her_): and where is the coffee? i shall famish. bertha (_outside_): immediately. friedrich: the--the count--did you say? rita: yes, quite a fine fellow otherwise, but--would not fit in now. i wanted to say: i am passionately fond of electric bells. you know they have a fabulous charm for me. one only needs to touch them softly, ever so softly, with the small finger, and still cause a terrible noise. fine--is it not? you wanted to talk about serious matters. it seems so to me. friedrich: yes. and i beg of you, miss erna---- rita: erna? friedrich: erna! rita: oh, well! friedrich (_continuing_): i beg of you; be really and truly serious. yes? listen to what i have to say to you. be assured that it comes from an honest, warm heart. during the years in which i have not seen you, i have grown to be a serious man--perhaps, too serious for my age--but my feelings for you have remained young, quite young. do you hear me, erna? rita (_leaning back in the rocking chair, with a sigh_): i hear. friedrich: and you know, erna, how i have always loved you from my earliest youth, yes, even sooner than i myself suspected. you know that, yes? (_rita is silent and does not look at him_.) friedrich: when i was still a foolish schoolboy i already called you my betrothed, and i could not but think otherwise than that i would some day call you my wife. you certainly know that, don't you? rita (_reserved_): yes, i know it. friedrich: well, then you ought to be able to understand what dreadful feelings overcame me when i discovered, sooner than you or the world, the affection of my father for you. that was--no, you cannot grasp it. rita (_looks at him searchingly_): sooner than i and all the world? friedrich: oh, a great deal sooner ... that was.... that time was the beginning of the hardest innermost struggles for me. what was i to do? (_he sighs deeply_.) ah, miss erna, we people are really---- rita: yes, yes. friedrich: we are dreadfully shallow-minded. how seldom one of us can really live as he would like to. must we not always and forever consider others--and our surroundings? rita: must? friedrich: well, yes, we do so, at least. and when it is our own father! for, look here, erna, i never would have been able to oppose my father! i was used, as you well know, from childhood to always look up to my father with the greatest respect. he used to be severe, my father, proud and inaccessible, but--if i may be permitted to say so, he was an excellent man. rita: well? friedrich (_eagerly_): yes, indeed! you must remember that it was he alone who established our business by means of his powerful energy and untiring diligence. only now i myself have undertaken the management of the establishment. i am able to see what an immense work he has accomplished. rita (_simply_): yes, he was an able business man. friedrich: in every respect! ability personified, and he had grown to be fifty-two years of age and was still, still--how shall i say? rita: still able. friedrich: well, yes; i mean a vigorous man in his best years. for fifteen years he had been a widower, he had worked, worked unceasingly, and then--the house was well established--he could think of placing some of the work upon younger shoulders. he could think of enjoying his life once more. rita (_softly_): that is---- friedrich (_continuing_): and he thought he had found, in you, the one who would bring back to him youth and the joy of life. rita (_irritated_): yes, but then you ought to--(_breaks off._) oh, it is not worth while. friedrich: how? i should have been man enough to say: no, i forbid it; that is a folly of age. i, your son, forbid it. i demand her for myself. the young fortune is meant for me--not for you?----no, erna, i could not do that. i could not do that. rita: no. friedrich: i, the young clerk, with no future before me! rita: no! friedrich: my entire training and my conceptions urged me to consider it my duty to simply stand aside and stifle my affection, as i did--as i already told you even before any other person had an idea of the intentions of my father. i gradually grew away from you. rita (_amused_): gradually--yes, i recollect. you suddenly became formal. indeed, very nice! friedrich: i thought---- (_bertha comes with the coffee and serves._) rita: will you take a cup with me? friedrich (_thoughtlessly_): i thought----(_correcting himself_) pardon me! i thank you! rita: i hope it will not disturb you if i drink my coffee while you continue. friedrich: please (_embarrassed_). i thought it a proper thing. i hoped that my cold and distant attitude would check a possible existing affection for me. rita: possible existing affection! fie! now you are beginning to lie! (_she jumps up and walks nervously through the room._) as though you had not positively known that! (_stepping in front of him_) or what did you take me for when i kissed you? friedrich (_very much frightened, also rises_): o, erna, i always---- rita (_laughs_): you are delightful! delightful! still the same bashful boy--who does not dare--(_she laughs and sits down again_.) delightful. friedrich (_after a silence, hesitatingly_): well, are you going to allow me to call you erna again, as of yore? rita: as of yore. (_she sighs, then gaily_) if you care to. friedrich (_happy_): yes? may i? rita (_heartily_): o, yes, fritz. that's better, isn't it? it sounds more natural, eh? friedrich (_presses her hand and sighs_): yes, really. you take a heavy load from me. everything that i want to say to you can be done so much better in the familiar tone. rita: oh! have you still so much to say to me? friedrich: well--but now tell me first: how was it possible for you to undertake such a step. what prompted you to leave so suddenly? erna, erna, how could you do that? rita (_proudly_): how i could? can you ask me that? do you really not know it? friedrich (_softly_): oh, yes; i do know it, but--it takes so much to do that. rita: not more than was in me. friedrich: one thing i must confess to you, although it was really bad of me. but i knew no way out of it. i felt relieved after you had gone. rita: well, then, that was _your_ heroism. friedrich: do not misunderstand me. i knew my father had---- rita: yes, yes--but do not talk about it any more. friedrich: you are right. it was boyish of me. it did not last long, and then i mourned for you--not less than your parents. oh, erna! if you would see your parents now. they have aged terribly. your father has lost his humor altogether, and is giving full vent to his old passion for red wine. your mother is always ailing, hardly ever leaves the house, and both, even though they never lose a word about it, cannot reconcile themselves to the thought that their only child left them. rita (_after a pause, awakens from her meditation, harshly_): perhaps you were sent by my father? friedrich: no--why? rita: then i would show you the door. friedrich: erna! rita: a man, who ventured to pay his debts with me---- friedrich: how so; what do you mean? rita: oh--let's drop that. times were bad. but to-day the house of hattenbach enjoys its good old standing, as you say, and has overcome the crisis. then your father must have had some consideration--without me. well, then.----and rudolstadt still stands--on the old spot. that's the main thing. but now let us talk about something else, i beg of you. friedrich: no, no, erna. what you allude to, that----do you really believe my father had---- rita: your father had grown used to buy and attain everything in life through money. why not buy me also? and he had already received the promise--not from me, but from my father. but i am free! i ran away and am my own mistress! (_with haughtiness._) a young girl, all alone! down with the gang! (_friedrich is silent and holds his head._) rita (_steps up to him and touches his shoulder, in a friendly manner_): don't be sad. at that time your father was the stronger, and----life is not otherwise. after all, one must assert oneself. friedrich: but he robbed you of your happiness. rita (_jovially_): who knows? it is just as well. friedrich (_surprised_): is that possible? do you call that happiness, this being alone? rita: yes. that is my happiness--my freedom, and i love it with jealousy, for i fought for it myself. friedrich (_bitterly_): a great happiness! outside of family ties, outside the ranks of respectable society. rita (_laughs aloud, but without bitterness_): respectable society! yes. i fled from that--thank heaven. (_harshly_) but if you do not come in the name of my father, what do you want here? why do you come? for what purpose? what do you want of me? friedrich: erna, you ask that in a strange manner. rita: well, yes. i have a suspicion that you--begrudge me my liberty. how did you find me, anyway? friedrich: yes, that was hard enough. rita: rita revera is not so unknown. friedrich: rita revera! oh, no! how often i have read that name these last years--in the newspapers in berlin, on various placards, in large letters. but how could i ever have thought that you were meant by it? rita (_laughs_): why did you not go to the "winter garden" when you were in berlin? friedrich: i never frequent such places. rita: pardon me! oh, i always forget the old customs. friedrich: oh, please, please, dear erna; not in this tone of voice! rita: which tone? friedrich: erna! do not make matters so difficult for me. see, after i had finally discovered, through an agency in berlin, and after hunting a long time, that you were the famous revera, i was terribly shocked at first, terribly sad, and, for a moment, i thought of giving up everything. my worst fears were over. i had the assurance that you lived in good, and as i now see, in comfortable circumstances. but, on the other hand, i had to be prepared that you might have grown estranged to the world in which i live--that we could hardly understand each other. rita: hm! shall i tell you what was your ideal--how you would have liked to find me again? as a poor seamstress, in an attic room, who, during the four years, had lived in hunger and need--but respectably, that is the main point. then you would have stretched forth your kind arms, and the poor, pale little dove would have gratefully embraced you. will you deny that you have imagined it thus and even wished for it? friedrich (_looks at her calmly_): well, is there anything wrong about it? rita: but how did it happen that, regardless of this, of this disappointment, you, nevertheless, continued to search for me? friedrich: thank goodness, at the right moment i recollected your clear, silvery, childlike laughter. right in the midst of my petty scruples it resounded in my ears, as at the time when you ridiculed my gravity. do you still remember that time, erna? (_rita is silent._) bertha (_enters with an enormous bouquet of dark red roses_): my lady--from the count. rita (_jumps up, nervously excited_): roses! my dark roses! give them to me! ah! (_she holds them toward friedrich and asks_) did he say anything? bertha: no, said nothing, but---- friedrich (_shoves the bouquet, which she holds up closely to his face, aside_): i thank you. rita (_without noticing him, to bertha_): well? bertha (_pointing to the bouquet_): the count has written something on a card. rita: his card? where? (_she searches among the flowers_) oh, here! (_she reads; then softly to bertha_) it is all right. (_bertha leaves_.) rita (_reads again_): "pour prendre congé." (_with an easy sigh_) yes, yes. friedrich: what is the matter? rita: sad! his education was hardly half finished and he already forsakes me. friedrich: what do you mean? i do not understand you at all. rita (_her mind is occupied_): too bad. now he'll grow entirely stupid. friedrich (_rises importantly_): erna, answer me. what relationship existed between you and the count? rita (_laughs_): what business is that of yours? friedrich (_solemnly_): erna! whatever it might have been, this will not do any longer. rita (_gaily_): no, no; you see it is already ended. friedrich: no, erna, that must all be ended. you must get out of all this--entirely--and forever. rita (_looks at him surprised and inquiringly_): hm! strange person. friedrich (_grows more eager and walks up and down in the room_): such a life is immoral. you must recognize it. yes, and i forbid you to live on in this fashion. i have the right to demand it of you. rita (_interrupts him sharply_): demand? you demand something of me? friedrich: yes, indeed, demand! not for me--no--in the name of morals. that which i ask of you is simply a moral demand, do you understand, a moral demand, which must be expected of every woman. rita: "must!" and why? friedrich: because--because--because--well, dear me--because--otherwise everything will stop! rita: what will stop? life? friedrich: no, but morals. rita: ah, i thank you. now i understand you. one must be moral because--otherwise morality will stop. friedrich: why, yes. that is very simple. rita: yes--now, please, what would i have to do in order to fulfill your demand? i am curious like a child now, and shall listen obediently. (_she sits down again._) friedrich (_also sits down and grasps her hand, warmly_): well, see, my dear erna, everything can still be undone. in rudolstadt everybody believes you are in england with relatives. even if you have never been there---- rita: often enough. my best engagements. friedrich: so much the better. then you certainly speak english? rita: of course. friedrich: and you are acquainted with english customs. excellent. oh, erna. your father will be pleased, he once confessed to me, when he had a little too much wine. you know him: he grows sentimental then. rita (_to herself_): they are all that way. friedrich: how? rita: oh, nothing. please continue. well--i could come back? friedrich: certainly! fortunately, during these last years, since you have grown so famous, nobody has---- rita: i have grown notorious only within a year. friedrich: well, most likely nobody in rudolstadt has ever seen you on the boards. in one word, you _must_ return. rita: from england? friedrich: yes, nothing lies in the way. and your mother will be overjoyed. rita: nay, nay. friedrich: how well that you have taken a different name. rita: ah, that is it. yes, i believe that. then they know that i am rita revera. friedrich: i wrote them. they will receive you with open arms. erna! i beg of you! i entreat you; come with me! it is still time. to-day. you cannot know, but anybody from rudolstadt who knows might come to the theatre and---- rita (_decidedly_): no one from rudolstadt will do that. they are too well trained for that. you see it by your own person. but go on! if i would care to, if i really would return--what then? friedrich: then? well, then, you would be in the midst of the family and society again--and then---- rita: and then? friedrich: then, after some time has elapsed and you feel at home and when all is forgotten, as though nothing had ever happened---- rita: but a great deal has happened. friedrich: erna, you must not take me for such a philistine that i would mind that. at heart i am unprejudiced. no, really, i know (_softly_) my own fault, and i know life. i know very well, and i cannot ask it of you, that you, in a career like yours, you---- rita: hm? friedrich: well, that you should have remained entirely faultless. and i do not ask it of you either. rita: you do well at that. friedrich: i mean, whatever has happened within these four years--lies beyond us, does not concern me--but shall not concern you any longer either. rita revera has ceased to be--erna hattenbach returns to her family. rita: lovely, very lovely. hm!--but then, what then? shall i start a cooking school? friedrich (_with a gentle reproach_): but, erna! don't you understand me? could you think of anything else than---- of course, i shall marry you then. (_rita looks at him puzzled._) friedrich: but that is self-evident. why should i have looked you up otherwise? why should i be here? but, dear erna, don't look so stunned. rita (_still stares at him_): "simply--marry." strange. (_she turns around towards the open piano, plays and sings softly_) farilon, farila, farilette. friedrich (_has risen_): erna! do not torment me! rita: torment? no. that would not be right. you are a good fellow. give me a kiss. (_she rises._) friedrich (_embraces and kisses her_): my erna! oh, you have grown so much prettier! so much prettier! (_rita leans her head on his shoulder._) friedrich: but now come. let us not lose one moment. (_rita does not move_.) friedrich: if possible let everything be.... come! (_he pushes her with gentle force_) you cry? rita (_hastily wipes the tears from her eyes, controls herself_): o, nonsense. rita revera does not cry--she laughs. (_laughs forcedly._) friedrich: erna, do not use that name. i do not care to hear it again! rita: oh--you do not want to hear it any more. you would like to command me. you come here and assume that that which life and hard times have made of me you can wipe out in a half hour! no! you do not know life and know nothing of me. (_harshly_) my name is revera, and i shall not marry a merchant from rudolstadt. friedrich: how is that? you still hesitate? rita: do i look as though i hesitated? (_she steps up closer to him._) do you know, fred, that during the years after my escape i often went hungry, brutally hungry? do you know that i ran about in the most frightful dives, with rattling plate, collecting pennies and insults? do you know what it means to humiliate oneself for dry bread? you see; that has been my school. do you understand that i had to become an entirely different person or go to ruin? one who owes everything to himself, who is proud of himself, but who no longer respects anything, above all, no conventional measures and weights? and do you understand, fred, that it would be base on my part were i to follow you to the philistine? friedrich (_after a pause, sadly_): no, i do not understand that. rita (_again gaily_): i thought so. shall i dread there every suspicion and tremble before every fool, whereas i can breathe free air, enjoy sunshine and the best conscience. you know that pretty part in the walküre? (_she sings_): "greet rudolstadt for me, greet my father and mother and all the heroes.... i shall not follow you to them!" now you know. (_she sits down at the piano again._) friedrich (_after silence_): even if you have lived through hard times, that still does not give you the right to disregard the duties of morals and customs. rita (_plays and sings_): "farilon, farila, farilette--" friedrich: i cannot understand how you can refuse me, when i offer you the opportunity of returning to ordered circumstances. rita: i do not love the "ordered" circumstances. on the contrary, i must have something to train. friedrich: and i? i shall never be anything to you any more? you thrust me also aside in your stubbornness. rita: but not at all. why? friedrich: how so? did you not state just now that you would never marry a merchant from rudolstadt. rita: certainly---- friedrich: do you see? you cannot be so cold and heartless towards me? (_flattering_) why did you kiss me before? i know you also yearn in your innermost heart for those times in which we secretly saw and found each other. you also, and, even if you deny it, i felt it before when you cried. (_softly_) erna! come along, come along with me! come! become my dear wife! rita (_looks at him quietly_): no, i shall not do such a thing. friedrich (_starts nervously; after a pause_): erna! is that your last word? rita: yes. friedrich: consider well what you say! rita: i know what i am about. friedrich: erna! you want--to remain what you are? rita: yes. that's just what i want. friedrich (_remains for some time struggling, then grasps his hat_): then--adieu! (_he hurries toward the left into the bedroom._) rita (_calls smiling_): halt! not there. friedrich (_returns, confused_): pardon me, i---- rita: poor fred, did you stray into my bedroom? there is the door. (_long pause. several times he tries to speak. she laughs gently. then she sings and plays the song from "mamselle nitouche"_): a minuit, après la fête, rev'naient babet et cadet; cristi! la nuit est complète, faut nous dépêcher, babet. tâche d'en profiter, grosse bête! farilon, farila, farilette. j'ai trop peur, disait cadet-- j'ai pas peur, disait babet-- larirette, larire, larirette, larire.-- -- -- (_friedrich at first listens against his will, even makes a step toward the door. by and by he becomes fascinated and finally is charmed. when she finishes, he puts his stiff hat on the table and walks toward her with a blissful smile._) rita: now? you even smile? did i impress you? friedrich (_drops down on his knees in front of her_): oh, erna, you are the most charming woman on earth. (_he kisses her hands wildly._) rita (_stoops down to him, softly and merrily_): why run away? why? if you still love me, can you run off--you mule? friedrich: oh, i'll remain--i remain with you. rita: it was well that you missed the door. friedrich: oh, erna---- rita: but now you'll call me rita--do you understand? well? are you going to--are you going to be good? friedrich: rita! rita! everything you wish. rita: everything i wish. (_she kisses him._) and now tell me about your moral demand. yes? you are delightful when you talk about it. so delightful. * * * * * benj. r. tucker publisher and bookseller has opened a book store at fourth ave., room , new york city here will be carried, ultimately, the most complete line of advanced literature to be found anywhere in the world. more than one thousand titles in the english language already in stock. a still larger stock, in foreign languages, will be put in gradually. a full catalogue will be ready soon of the greatest interest to all those in search of the literature. which, in morals, leads away from superstition, which, in politics, leads away from government, and which, in art, leads away from tradition. * * * * * "liberty" benj. r. tucker, editor an anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in equal liberty is to be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that majority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial of equal liberty. * * * * * appreciations g. bernard shaw, author of "man and superman": "'liberty' is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable deal of balderdash are reversed." william douglas o'connor, author of "the good gray poet": "the editor of 'liberty' would be the gavroche of the revolution, if he were not its enjolras." frank stephens, well-known single-tax champion, philadelphia: "'liberty' is a paper which reforms reformers." bolton hall, author of "even as you and i": "'liberty' shows us the profit of anarchy, and is the prophet of anarchy." allen kelly, formerly chief editorial writer on the philadelphia "north american": "'liberty' is my philosophical polaris. i ascertain the variations of my economic compass by taking a sight at her whenever she is visible." samuel w. cooper, counsellor at law, philadelphia: "'liberty' is a journal that thomas jefferson would have loved." edward osgood brown, judge of the illinois circuit court: "i have seen much in 'liberty' that i agreed with, and much that i disagreed with, but i never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes it an almost unique publication." * * * * * published bimonthly. twelve issues, $ . single copies, cents address: r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * m. n. maisel's book store e. broadway new york special sale +herbert spencer.+ the authorized copyright works. 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"daughter of a nobleman and earnest philanthropist; then revolutionist, hard-labor convict, and exile for twenty-three years in siberia; and now a heroic old woman of sixty-one, she has plunged again into the dangerous struggle for freedom." paper + c.+ all orders, money prepaid, to be sent to e. goldman, box , madison square station, new york city. violence and the labor movement [illustration: logo] the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas atlanta · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto violence and the labor movement by robert hunter author of "poverty," "socialists at work," etc. new york the macmillan company printed in the united states of america copyright, by the macmillan company set up and electrotyped. published march, . ferris printing company new york city this volume is affectionately dedicated by the author to eugene v. debs "one who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break," and d. douglas wilson who, though paralyzed and blind, has so long and faithfully blazed the trail for labor preface this volume is the result of some studies that i felt impelled to make when, about three years ago, certain sections of the labor movement in the united states were discussing vehemently political action _versus_ direct action. a number of causes combined to produce a serious and critical controversy. the industrial workers of the world were carrying on a lively agitation that later culminated in a series of spectacular strikes. with ideas and methods that were not only in opposition to those of the trade unions, but also to those of the socialist party, the new organization sought to displace the older organizations by what it called the "one big union." there were many in the older organizations who firmly believed in industrial unionism, and the dissensions which arose were not so much over that question as over the antagonistic character of the new movement and its advocacy here of the violent methods employed by the revolutionary section of the french unions. the most forceful and active spokesman of these methods was mr. william d. haywood, and, largely as a result of his agitation, _la grève générale_ and _le sabotage_ became the subjects of the hour in labor and socialist circles. in mr. haywood and mr. frank bohn published a booklet, entitled _industrial socialism_, in which they urged that the worker should "use any weapon which will win his fight."[a] they declared that, as "the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists, the workers should not hesitate to break them."[b] the advocacy of such doctrines alarmed the older socialists, who were familiar with the many disasters that had overtaken the labor movement in its earlier days, and nearly all of them assailed the direct actionists. mr. eugene v. debs, mr. victor l. berger, mr. john spargo, mr. morris hillquit, and many others, less well known, combated "the new methods" in vigorous language. mr. hillquit dealt with the question in a manner that immediately awakened the attention of every active socialist. condemning without reserve every resort to lawbreaking and violence, and insisting that both were "ethically unjustifiable and tactically suicidal," mr. hillquit pointed out that whenever any group or section of the labor movement "has embarked upon a policy of 'breaking the law' or using 'any weapons which will win the fight,' whether such policy was styled 'terrorism,' 'propaganda of the deed,' 'direct action,' 'sabotage,' or 'anarchism,' it has invariably served to demoralize and destroy the movement, by attracting to it professional criminals, infesting it with spies, leading the workers to needless and senseless slaughter, and ultimately engendering a spirit of disgust and reaction. it was this advocacy of 'lawbreaking' which marx and engels fought so severely in the international and which finally led to the disruption of the first great international parliament of labor, and the socialist party of every country in the civilized world has since uniformly and emphatically rejected that policy."[c] there could be no better introduction to the present volume than these words of mr. hillquit, and it will, i think, be clear to the reader that the history of the labor movement during the last half-century fully sustains mr. hillquit's position. the problem of methods has always been a vital matter to the labor movement, and, for a hundred years at least, the quarrels now dividing syndicalists and socialists have disturbed that movement. in the chartist days the "physical forcists" opposed the "moral forcists," and later dissensions over the same question occurred between the bakouninists and the marxists. since then anarchists and social democrats, direct actionists and political actionists, syndicalists and socialists have continued the battle. i have attempted here to present the arguments made by both sides of this controversy, and, while no doubt my bias is perfectly clear, i hope i have presented fairly the position of each of the contending elements. fortunately, the direct actionists have exercised a determining influence only in a few places, and everywhere, in the end, the victory of those who were contending for the employment of peaceable means has been complete. already in this country, as a result of the recent controversy, it is written in the constitution of the socialist party that "any member of the party who opposes political action or advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class to aid in its emancipation shall be expelled from membership in the party."[d] adopted by the national convention of the party in , this clause was ratified at a general referendum of all the membership of the party. it is clear, therefore, that the immense majority of socialists are determined to employ peaceable and legal methods of action. it is, of course, perfectly obvious that the methods to be employed in the struggles between classes, as between nations, cannot be predetermined. and, while the socialists everywhere have condemned the use of violent measures and are now exercising every power at their command to keep the struggle between labor and capital on legal ground, events alone will determine whether the great social problems of our day can be settled peaceably. the entire matter is largely in the hands of the ruling classes. and, while the socialists in all countries are determined not to allow themselves to be provoked into acts of despair by temporary and fleeting methods of repression, conditions may of course arise where no organization, however powerful, could prevent the masses from breaking into an open and bloody conflict. on one memorable occasion (march , ), august bebel uttered some impressive words on this subject in the german reichstag. "herr von puttkamer," said bebel, "calls to mind the speech which i delivered in in the debate on the socialist law a few days after the murder of the czar. i did not then glorify regicide. i declared that a system like that prevailing in russia necessarily gave birth to nihilism and must necessarily lead to deeds of violence. yes, i do not hesitate to say that if you should inaugurate such a system in germany it would of necessity lead to deeds of violence with us as well. (a deputy called out: 'the german monarchy?') the german monarchy would then certainly be affected, and i do not hesitate to say that i should be one of the first to lend a hand in the work, for all measures are allowable against such a system."[e] i take it that bebel was, in this instance, simply pointing out to the german bureaucracy the inevitable consequences of the russian system. at that very moment he was restraining hundreds of thousands of his followers from acts of despair, yet he could not resist warning the german rulers that the time might come in that country when no considerations whatever could persuade men to forego the use of the most violent retaliative measures. this view is, of course, well established in our national history, and our declaration of independence, as well as many of our state constitutions, asserts that it is both the right and the duty of the people to overthrow by any means in their power an oppressive and tyrannical government. this was, of course, always the teaching of what marx liked to call "the bourgeois democrats." it was, in fact, their only conception of revolution. the socialist idea of revolution is quite a different one. insurrection plays no necessary part in it, and no one sees more clearly than the socialist that nothing could prove more disastrous to the democratic cause than to have the present class conflict break into a civil war. if such a war becomes necessary, it will be in spite of the organized socialists, who, in every country of the world, not only seek to avoid, but actually condemn, riotous, tempestuous, and violent measures. such measures do not fit into their philosophy, which sees, as the cause of our present intolerable social wrongs, not the malevolence of individuals or of classes, but the workings of certain economic laws. one can cut off the head of an individual, but it is not possible to cut off the head of an economic law. from the beginning of the modern socialist movement, this has been perfectly clear to the socialist, whose philosophy has taught him that appeals to violence tend, as engels has pointed out, to obscure the understanding of the real development of things. the dissensions over the use of force, that have been so continuous and passionate in the labor movement, arise from two diametrically opposed points of view. one is at bottom anarchistic, and looks upon all social evils as the result of individual wrong-doing. the other is at bottom socialistic, and looks upon all social evils as in the main the result of economic and social laws. to those who believe there are good trusts and bad trusts, good capitalists and bad capitalists, and that this is an adequate analysis of our economic ills, there is, of course, after all, nothing left but hatred of individuals and, in the extreme case, the desire to remove those individuals. to those, on the other hand, who see in certain underlying economic forces the source of nearly all of our distressing social evils, individual hatred and malice can make in reality no appeal. this volume, on its historical side, as well as in its survey of the psychology of the various elements in the labor movement, is a contribution to the study of the reactions that affect various minds and temperaments in the face of modern social wrongs. if one's point of view is that of the anarchist, he is led inevitably to make his war upon individuals. the more sensitive and sincere he is, the more bitter and implacable becomes that war. if one's point of view is based on what is now called the economic interpretation of history, one is emancipated, in so far as that is possible for emotional beings, from all hatred of individuals, and one sees before him only the necessity of readjusting the economic basis of our common life in order to achieve a more nearly perfect social order. in contrasting the temperaments, the points of view, the philosophy, and the methods of these two antagonistic minds, i have been forced to take two extremes, the bakouninist anarchist and the marxian socialist. in the case of the former, it has been necessary to present the views of a particular school of anarchism, more or less regardless of certain other schools. proudhon, stirner, warren, and tucker do not advocate violent measures, and tolstoi, ibsen, spencer, thoreau, and emerson--although having the anarchist point of view--can hardly be conceived of as advocating violent measures. it will be obvious to the reader that i have not dealt with the philosophical anarchism, or whatever one may call it, of these last. i have confined myself to the anarchism of those who have endeavored to carry out their principles in the democratic movement of their time and to the deeds of those who threw themselves into the active life about them and endeavored to impress both their ideas and methods upon the awakening world of labor. it is the anarchism of these men that the world knows. by deeds and not by words have they written their definition of anarchism, and i am taking and using the term in this volume in the sense in which it is used most commonly by people in general. if this offends the anarchists of the non-resistant or passive-resistant type, it cannot be helped. it is the meaning that the most active of the anarchists have themselves given it. i have sought to take my statements from first-hand sources only, although in a few cases i have had to depend on secondary sources. i am deeply indebted to mr. herman schlueter, editor of the _new yorker volkszeitung_, for lending me certain rare books and pamphlets, and also for reading carefully and critically the entire manuscript. with his help i have managed to get every document that has seemed to me essential. at the end of the volume will be found a complete list of the authorities which i have consulted. i have to regret that i could not read, before sending this manuscript to the publisher, the four volumes just published of the correspondence between marx and engels (_der briefwechsel zwischen friedrich engels und karl marx bis , herausgegeben von a. bebel und ed. bernstein_, j. h. w. dietz, stuttgart, ). i must also express here my gratitude to mr. morris hillquit and to miss helen phelps stokes for making many valuable suggestions, as well as my indebtedness to miss helen bernice sweeney and mr. sidney s. bobbé for their most capable secretarial assistance. special appreciation is due my wife for her helpfulness and painstaking care at many difficult stages of the work. highland farm, noroton heights, connecticut. november , . footnotes: [a] p. . [b] p. . [c] the new york _call_, november , . [d] article ii, section . [e] quoted by dawson, "german socialism and ferdinand lassalle," p. . contents preface vii part i terrorism in western europe chapter i. the father of terrorism ii. a series of insurrections iii. the propaganda of the deed iv. johann most in america v. a series of tragedies vi. seeking the causes part ii struggles with violence vii. the birth of modern socialism viii. the battle between marx and bakounin ix. the fight for existence x. the newest anarchism xi. the oldest anarchism xii. visions of victory authorities index part i terrorism in western europe [illustration: michael bakounin] violence and the labor movement chapter i the father of terrorism "dante tells us," writes macaulay, "that he saw, in malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. the enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. a great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. the serpent's tail divided into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. the body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his body. at length the serpent stood up a man, and spake; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away."[ ] something, i suppose, not unlike this appalling picture of dante's occurs in the world whenever a man's soul becomes saturated with hatred. it will be remembered, for instance, that even shelley's all-forgiving and sublime prometheus was forced by the torture of the furies to cry out in anguish, "whilst i behold such execrable shapes, methinks i grow like what i contemplate." it would not be strange, then, if here and there a man's entire nature were transfigured when he sees a monster appear, cruel, pitiless, and unyielding, crushing to the earth the weak, the weary, and the heavy-laden. nor is it strange that in russia--the blackest malebolge in the modern world--a litter of avengers is born every generation of the savage brutality, the murderous oppression, the satanic infamy of the russian government. and who does not love those innumerable russian youths and maidens, driven to acts of defiance--hopeless, futile, yet necessary--if for no other reason than to fulfill their duty to humanity and thus perhaps quiet a quivering conscience? there is something truly promethean in the struggle of the russian youth against their overpowering antagonist. they know that the price of one single act of protest is their lives. yet, to the eternal credit of humanity, thousands of them have thrown themselves naked on the spears of their enemy, to become an example of sacrificial revolt. and can any of us wonder that when even this tragic seeding of the martyrs proved unfruitful, many of the russian youth, brooding over the irremediable wrongs of their people, were driven to insanity and suicide? and, if all that was possible, would it be surprising if it also happened that at least one flaming rebel should have developed a philosophy of warfare no less terrible than that of the russian bureaucracy itself? i do not know, nor would i allow myself to suggest, that michael bakounin, who brought into western europe and planted there the seeds of terrorism, came to be like what he contemplated, or that his philosophy and tactics of action were altogether a reflection of those he opposed. yet, if that were the case, one could better understand that bitter and bewildering character. that there is some justification for speculation on these grounds is indicated by the heroes of bakounin. he always meant to write the story of prometheus, and he never spoke of satan without an admiration that approached adoration. they were the two unconquerable enemies of absolutism. he was "the eternal rebel," bakounin once said of satan, "the first free-thinker and emancipator of the worlds."[ ] in another place he speaks of proudhon as having the instinct of a revolutionist, because "he adored satan and proclaimed anarchy."[ ] in still another place he refers to the proletariat of paris as "the modern satan, the great rebel, vanquished, but not pacified."[ ] in the statutes of his secret organization, of which i shall speak again later, he insists that "principles, programs, and rules are not nearly as important as that the persons who put them into execution shall have the devil in them."[ ] although an avowed and militant atheist, bakounin could not subdue his worship of the king of devils, and, had anyone during his life said that bakounin was not only a modern satan incarnate, but the eight other devils as well, nothing could have delighted him more. and no doubt he was inspired to this demon worship by his implacable hatred of absolutism--whether it be in religion, which he considered as tyranny over the mind, or in government, which he considered as tyranny over the body. to bakounin the two eternal enemies of man were the government and the church, and no weapon was unworthy of use which promised in any measure to assist in their entire and complete obliteration. absolutism was to bakounin a universal destroyer of the best and the noblest qualities in man. and, as it stands as an effective barrier to the only social order that can lift man above the beast--that of perfect liberty--so must the sincere warrior against absolutism become the universal destroyer of any and everything associated with tyranny. how far such a crusade leads one may be gathered from bakounin's own words: "the end of revolution can be no other," he declares, "than the destruction of all powers--religious, monarchical, aristocratic, and bourgeois--in europe. consequently, the destruction of all now existing states, with all their institutions--political, juridical, bureaucratic, and financial."[ ] in another place he says: "it will be essential to destroy everything, and especially and before all else, all property and its inevitable corollary, the state."[ ] "we want to destroy all states," he repeats in still another place, "and all churches, with all their institutions and their laws of religion, politics, jurisprudence, finance, police, universities, economics, and society, in order that all these millions of poor, deceived, enslaved, tormented, exploited human beings, delivered from all their official and officious directors and benefactors, associations, and individuals, can at last breathe with complete freedom."[ ] all through life bakounin clung tenaciously to this immense idea of destruction, "terrible, total, inexorable, and universal," for only after such a period of destructive terror--in which every vestige of "the institutions of tyranny" shall be swept from the earth--can "anarchy, that is to say, the complete manifestation of unchained popular life,"[ ] develop liberty, equality, and justice. these were the means, and this was the end that bakounin had in mind all the days of his life from the time he convinced himself as a young man that "the desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[ ] even so brief a glimpse into bakounin's mind is likely to startle the reader. but there is no fiction here; he is what carlyle would have called "a terrible god's fact." he was a very real product of russia's infamy, and we need not be surprised if one with bakounin's great talents, worshiping satan and preaching ideas of destruction that comprehended cosmos itself, should have performed in the world a unique and never-to-be-forgotten rôle. it was inevitable that he should have stood out among the men of his time as a strange, bewildering figure. to his very matter-of-fact and much annoyed antagonist, karl marx, he was little more than a buffoon, the "amorphous pan-destroyer, who has succeeded in uniting in one person rodolphe, monte cristo, karl moor, and robert macaire."[ ] on the other hand, to his circle of worshipers he was a mental giant, a flaming titan, a russian siegfried, holding out to all the powers of heaven and earth a perpetual challenge to combat. and, in truth, bakounin's ideas and imagination covered a field that is not exhausted by the range of mythology. he juggled with universal abstractions as an alchemist with the elements of the earth or an astrologist with the celestial spheres. his workshop was the universe, his peculiar task the refashioning of cosmos, and he began by declaring war upon the almighty himself and every institution among men fashioned after what he considered to be the absolutism of the infinite. it is, then, with no ordinary human being that we must deal in treating of him who is known as the father of terrorism. yet, as he lived in this world and fought with his faithful circle to lay down the principles of universal revolution, we find him very human indeed. of contradictions, for instance, there seems to be no end. although an atheist, he had an idol, satan. although an eternal enemy of absolutism, he pleaded with alexander to become the czar of the people. and, although he fought passionately and superbly to destroy what he called the "authoritarian hierarchy" in the organization of the international, he planned for his own purpose the most complete hierarchy that can well be imagined. his only tactic, that of _lex talionis_, also worked out a perfect reciprocity even in those common affairs to which this prodigy stooped in order to conquer, for he seemed to create infallibly every institution he combated and to use every weapon that he execrated when employed by others. the most fertile of law-givers himself, he could not tolerate another. pope of popes in his little inner circle, he could brook no rival. machiavelli's prince was no richer in intrigue than bakounin; yet he always fancied himself, with the greatest self-compassion, as the naïve victim of the endless and malicious intrigues of others. however affectionate, generous, and open he seemed to be with those who followed him worshipfully, even they were not trusted with his secrets, and, if he was always cunning and crafty toward his enemies, he never had a friend that he did not use to his profit. volatile in his fitful changes toward men and movements, rudderless as he often seemed to be in the incoherence of his ideas and of his policies, there nevertheless burned in his soul throughout life a great flaming, and perhaps redeeming, hatred of tyranny. at times he would lead his little bands into open warfare upon it, dreaming always that the world once in motion would follow him to the end in his great work of destruction. at other times he would go to it bearing gifts, in the hope, as we must charitably think, of destroying it by stealth. in general outline, this is the father of terrorism as i see him. how he developed his views is not entirely clear, as very little is known of his early life, and there are several broken threads at different periods both early and late in his career. the little known of his youth may be quickly told. he was born in russia in , of a family of good position, belonging to the old nobility. he was well educated and began his career in the army. shortly after the polish insurrection had been crushed, militarism and despotism became abhorrent to him, and the spectacle of that terrorized country made an everlasting impression upon him. in he renounced his military career and returned to moscow, where he gave himself up entirely to the study of philosophy, and, as was natural at the period, he saturated himself with hegel. from moscow he went to st. petersburg and later to berlin, constantly pursuing his studies, and in he published under the title, "_la réaction en allemagne, fragment, par un français_," an article ending with the now famous line: "the desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[ ] this article appeared in the _deutsche jahrbücher_, in which publication he soon became a collaborator. the authorities, however, were hostile to the paper, and he went into switzerland in , only to be driven later to paris. there he made the acquaintance of proudhon, "the father of anarchism," and spent days and nights with him discussing the problems of government, of society, and of religion. he also met marx, "the father of socialism," and, although they were never sympathetic, yet they came frequently in friendly and unfriendly contact with each other. george sand, george herwegh, arnold ruge, frederick engels, william weitling, alexander herzen, richard wagner, adolf reichel, and many other brilliant revolutionary spirits of the time, bakounin knew intimately, and for him, as for many others, the period of the forties was one of great intellectual development. in the insurrectionary period that began in he became active, but he appears to have done little noteworthy before january, , when he went secretly to leipsic in the hope of aiding a group of young czechs to launch an uprising in bohemia. shortly afterward an insurrection broke out in dresden, and he rushed there to become one of the most active leaders of the revolt. it is said that he was "the veritable soul of the revolution," and that he advised the insurrectionists, in order to prevent the prussians from firing upon the barricades, to place in front of them the masterpieces from the art museum.[ ] when that insurrection was suppressed, he, richard wagner, and some others hurried to chemnitz, where bakounin was captured and condemned to death. austria, however, demanded his extradition, and there, for the second time, he was condemned to be hanged. eventually he was handed over to russia, where he again escaped paying the death penalty by the pardon of the czar, and, after six years in prison, he was banished to siberia. great efforts were made to secure a pardon for him, but without success. however, through his influential relatives, he was allowed such freedom of movement that in the end he succeeded in escaping, and, returning to europe through japan and america, he arrived in england in . the next year is notable for the appearance of two of his brochures, "_aux amis russes, polonais, et à tous les amis slaves_," and "_la cause du peuple, romanoff, pougatchoff, ou pestel?_" one would have thought that twelve years in prison and in siberia would have made him more bitter than ever against the state and the czar; but, curiously, these writings mark a striking departure from his previous views. for almost the only time in his life he expressed a desire to see russia develop into a magnificent "state," and he urged the russians to drive the tartars back to asia, the germans back to germany, and to become a free people, exclusively russian. by coöperative effort between the military powers of the russian government and the insurrectionary activities of the slavs subjected to foreign governments, the russian peoples could wage a war, he argued, that would create a great united empire. the second of the above-mentioned volumes was addressed particularly to alexander ii. in this bakounin prophesies that russia must soon undergo a revolution. it may come through terrible and bloody uprisings on the part of the masses, led by some fierce and sanguinary popular idol, or it will come through the czar himself, if he should be wise enough to assume in person the leadership of the peasants. he declared that "alexander ii. could so easily become the popular idol, the first czar of the peasants.... by leaning upon the people he could become the savior and master of the entire slavic world."[ ] he then pictures in glowing terms a united russia, in which the czar and the people will work harmoniously together to build up a great democratic state. but he threatens that, if the czar does not become the "savior of the slavic world," an avenger will arise to lead an outraged and avenging people. he again declares, "we prefer to follow romanoff (the family name of the czar), if romanoff could and would transform himself from the _petersbourgeois_ emperor into the czar of the peasants."[ ] despite much flattery and ill-merited praise, the czar refused to be converted, and bakounin rushed off the next year to stockholm, in the hope of organizing a band of russians to enter poland to assist in the insurrection which had broken out there. the next few years were spent mostly in italy, and it was here that he conceived his plan of a secret international organization of revolutionists. little is known of how extensive this secret organization actually became, but bakounin said in that it included a number of italian, french, scandinavian, and slavic revolutionists. as a scheme this secret organization is remarkable. it included three orders: i. the international brothers; ii. the national brothers; iii. the semi-secret, semi-public organization of the international alliance of social democracy. without bakounin's intending it, doubtless, the international brothers resembled the circle of gods in mythology; the national brothers, the circle of heroes; while the third order resembled the mortals who were to bear the burden of the fighting. the international brothers were not to exceed one hundred, and they were to be the guiding spirits of the great revolutionary storms that bakounin thought were then imminent in europe. they must possess above all things "revolutionary passion," and they were to be the supreme secret executive power of the two subordinate organizations. in their hands alone should be the making of the programs, the rules, and the principles of the revolution. the national brothers were to be under the direction of the international brothers, and were to be selected because of their revolutionary zeal and their ability to control the masses. they were "to have the devil in them." the semi-secret, semi-public organization was to include the multitude, and sections were to be formed in every country for the purpose of organizing the masses. however, the masses were not to know of the secret organization of the national brothers, and the national brothers were not to know of the secret organization of the international brothers. in order to enable them to work separately but harmoniously, bakounin, who had chosen himself as the supreme law-giver, wrote for each of the three orders a program of principles, a code of rules, and a plan of methods all its own. the ultimate ends of this movement were not to be communicated to either the national brothers or to the alliance, and the masses were to know only that which was good for them to know, and which would not be likely to frighten them. these are very briefly the outlines of the extraordinary hierarchy that was to form throughout all europe and america an invisible network of "the real revolutionists." this organization was "to accelerate the universal revolution," and what was understood by the revolution was "the unchaining of what is to-day called the bad passions and the destruction of what in the same language is called 'public order.' we do not fear, we invoke anarchy, convinced that from this anarchy, that is to say, from the complete manifestation of unchained popular life, must come forth liberty, equality, justice ..."[ ] it was clearly foreseen by bakounin that there would be opponents to anarchy among the revolutionists themselves, and he declared: "we are the natural enemies of these revolutionists ... who ... dream already of the creation of new revolutionary states."[ ] it was admitted that the brothers could not of themselves create the revolution. all that a secret and well-organized society can do is "to organize, not the army of the revolution--the army must always be the people--but a sort of revolutionary staff composed of individuals who are devoted, energetic, intelligent, and especially sincere friends of the people, not ambitious nor self-conceited--capable of serving as intermediaries between the revolutionary idea and the popular instincts. the number of these individuals does not have to be immense. for the international organization of all europe, one hundred revolutionists, strongly and seriously bound together, are sufficient. two or three hundred revolutionists will be sufficient for the organization of the largest country."[ ] the idea of a secret organization of revolutionary leaders proved to be wholly repugnant to many of even the most devoted friends of bakounin, and by the organization is supposed to have been dissolved, because, it was said, secrets had leaked out and the whole affair had been subjected to much ridicule.[ ] the idea of the third order, however, that of the international alliance, was not abandoned, and it appears that bakounin and a number of the faithful brothers felt hopeful in of capturing a great "bourgeois" congress, called the "league of peace and of liberty," that had met that year in geneva. bakounin, Élisée reclus, aristide rey, victor jaclard, and several others in the conspiracy undertook to persuade the league to pass some revolutionary resolutions. bakounin was already a member of the central committee of the league, and, in preparation for the battle, he wrote the manuscript afterward published under the title, "_fédéralisme, socialisme, et antithéologisme_." but the congress of dashed their hopes to the ground, and the revolutionists separated from the league and founded the same day, september th, a new association, called _l'alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_. the program now adopted by the alliance, although written by bakounin, expressed quite different views from those of the international brothers. but it, too, began its revolutionary creed by declaring itself atheist. its chief and most important work was "to abolish religion and to substitute science for faith; and human justice for divine justice." second, it declared for "the political, economic, and social equality of the classes" (which, it was assumed, were to continue to exist), and it intended to attain this end by the destruction of government and by the abolition of the right of inheritance. third, it assailed all forms of political action and proposed that, in place of the community, groups of producers should assume control of all industrial processes. fourth, it opposed all centralized organization, believing that both groups and individuals should demand for themselves complete liberty to do in all cases whatever they desired.[ ] the same revolutionists who a short time before had planned a complete hierarchy now appeared irreconcilably opposed to any form of authority. they now argued that they must abolish not only god and every political state, but also the right of the majority to rule. then and then only would the people finally attain perfect liberty. these were the chief ideas that bakounin wished to introduce into the international working men's association. that organization, founded in in london, had already become a great power in europe, and bakounin entered it in , not only for the purpose of forwarding the ideas just mentioned, but also in the hope of obtaining the leadership of it. failing in to convert the czar, in - to organize into a hierarchy the revolutionary spirits of europe, in to capture the bourgeoisie, he turned in to seek the aid of the working class. on each of these occasions his views underwent the most magical of transformations. with more bitterness than ever he now declared war upon the political and economic powers of europe, but he was unable to prosecute this war until he had destroyed every committee or group in the international which possessed, or sought to possess, any power. he assailed marx, engels, and all those who he thought wished to dominate the international. the beam in his own eye he saw in theirs, and he now expressed an unspeakable loathing for all hierarchical tendencies and authoritarian methods. the story of the great battle between him and marx must be left for a later chapter, and we must content ourselves for the present with following the history of bakounin as he gradually developed in theory and in practice the principles and tactics of terrorism. while struggling to obtain the leadership of the working classes of western europe, bakounin was also busy with russian affairs. "i am excessively absorbed in what is going on in russia," he writes to a friend, april , . "our youth, the most revolutionary in the world perhaps, in theory and in practice, are so stirred up that the government has been forced to close the universities, academies, and several schools at st. petersburg, moscow, and kazan. i have here now a specimen of these young fanatics, who hesitate at nothing and who fear nothing.... they are admirable, ... believers without god and heroes without phrase!"[ ] he who called forth this eulogy was the young russian revolutionist, sergei nechayeff. whether admirable or not we shall leave the reader to judge. but, if bakounin bewilders one, nechayeff staggers one. and, if bakounin was the father of terrorism, nechayeff was its living embodiment. he was not complex, mystical, or sentimental. he was truly a revolutionist without phrase, and he can be described in the simplest words. he was a liar, a thief, and a murderer--the incarnation of hatred, malice, and revenge, who stopped at no crime against friend or foe that promised to advance what he was pleased to call the revolution. bakounin had for a long time sought his coöperation, and now in switzerland they began that collaboration which resulted in the most extraordinary series of sanguinary revolutionary writings known to history. in the summer of there was printed at geneva "words addressed to students," signed by them both; the "formula of the revolutionary question"; "the principles of the revolution"; and the "publications of the people's tribunal"--the three last appearing anonymously. all of them counsel the most infamous doctrines of criminal activity. in "words addressed to students," the russian youth are exhorted to leave the universities and go among the people. they are asked to follow the example of stenka razin, a robber chieftain who, in the time of alexis, placed himself at the head of a popular insurrection.[f] "robbery," declare bakounin and nechayeff, "is one of the most honorable forms of russian national life. the brigand is the hero, the defender, the popular avenger, the irreconcilable enemy of the state, and of all social and civil order established by the state. he is the wrestler in life and in death against all this civilization of officials, of nobles, of priests, and of the crown.... he who does not understand robbery can understand nothing in the history of the russian masses. he who is not sympathetic with it, cannot sympathize with the popular life, and has no heart for the ancient, unbounded sufferings of the people; he belongs in the camp of the enemy, the partisans of the state.... it is through brigandage only that the vitality, passion, and force of the people are established undeniably.... the brigand in russia is the veritable and unique revolutionist--revolutionist without phrase, without rhetoric borrowed from books, a revolutionist indefatigable, irreconcilable, and irresistible in action.... the brigands scattered in the forests, the cities, and villages of all russia, and the brigands confined in the innumerable prisons of the empire, form a unique and indivisible world, strongly bound together, the world of the russian revolution. in it, in it alone, has existed for a long time the veritable revolutionary conspiracy."[ ] once again the principles of the revolution appear to be complete and universal destruction. "there must 'not rest ... one stone upon a stone.' it is necessary to destroy everything, in order to produce 'perfect amorphism,' for, if 'a single one of the old forms' were preserved, it would become 'the embryo' from which would spring all the other old social forms."[ ] the same leaflet preaches systematic assassination and declares that for practical revolutionists all speculations about the future are "criminal, because they hinder _pure destruction_ and trammel the march of the revolution. we have confidence only in those who show by their acts their devotion to the revolution, without fear of torture or of imprisonment, and we disclaim all words unless action should follow immediately." ...[ ] "words have no value for us unless followed at once by action. but all is not action that goes under that name: for example, the modest and too-cautious organization of secret societies without some external manifestations is in our eyes merely ridiculous and intolerable child's play. by external manifestations we mean a series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people. without sparing our lives, without pausing before any threat, any obstacle, any danger, etc., we must break into the life of the people with a series of daring, even insolent, attempts, and inspire them with a belief in their own power, awake them, rally them, and drive them on to the triumph of their own cause."[ ] the most remarkable of this series of writings is "the revolutionary catechism." this existed for several years in cipher, and was guarded most carefully by nechayeff. altogether it contained twenty-six articles, classified into four sections. here it is declared that if the revolutionist continues to live in this world it is only in order to annihilate it all the more surely. "the object remains always the same: the quickest and surest way of destroying this filthy order." ... "for him exists only one single pleasure, one single consolation, one reward, one satisfaction: the success of the revolution. night and day he must have but one thought, but one aim--implacable destruction." ... "for this end of implacable destruction a revolutionist can and often must live in the midst of society, feigning to be altogether different from what he really is. a revolutionist must penetrate everywhere: into high society as well as into the middle class, into the shops, into the church, into the palaces of the aristocracy, into the official, military, and literary worlds, _into the third section_ (the secret police), and even into the imperial palace."[ ] "all this unclean society must be divided into several categories, the first composed of those who are condemned to death without delay." (sec. .) ... "in the first place must be destroyed the men most inimical to the revolutionary organization and whose violent and sudden death can frighten the government the most and break its power in depriving it of energetic and intelligent agents." (sec. .) "the second category must be composed of people to whom we concede life provisionally, in order that by a series of monstrous acts they may drive the people into inevitable revolt." (sec. .) "to the third category belong a great number of animals in high position or of individuals who are remarkable neither for their mind nor for their energy, but who, by their position, have wealth, connections, influence, power. we must exploit them in every possible manner, overreach them, deceive them, and, _getting hold of their dirty secrets_, make them our slaves." (sec. .) ... "the fourth class is composed of sundry ambitious persons in the service of the state and of liberals of various shades of opinion. with them we can conspire after their own program, pretending to follow them blindly. we must take them in our hands, _seize their secrets, compromise them completely_, in such a way that retreat becomes impossible for them, so as to make use of them in bringing about disturbances in the state." (sec. .) "the fifth category is composed of doctrinaires, conspirators, revolutionists, and of those who babble at meetings and on paper. we must urge these on and draw them incessantly into practical and perilous manifestations, which will result in making the majority of them disappear, while making some of them genuine revolutionists." (sec. .) "the sixth category is very important. they are the women, who must be divided into three classes: the first, frivolous women, without mind or heart, which we must use in the same manner as the third and fourth categories of men; the second, the ardent, devoted, and capable women, but who are not ours because they have not reached a practical revolutionary understanding, without phrase--we must make use of these like the men of the fifth category; finally, the women who are entirely with us, that is to say, completely initiated and having accepted our program in its entirety. we ought to consider them as the most precious of our treasures, without whose help we can do nothing." (sec. .)[ ] the last section of the "catechism" treats of the duty of the association toward the people. "the society has no other end than the complete emancipation and happiness of the people, namely, of the laborers. but, convinced that this emancipation and this happiness can only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular revolution, _the society will use every means and every effort to increase and intensify the evils and sorrows_, which must at last exhaust the patience of the people and excite them to insurrection _en masse_. by a popular revolution the society does not mean a movement regulated according to the classic patterns of the west, which, always restrained in the face of property and of the traditional social order of so-called civilization and morality, has hitherto been limited merely to exchanging one form of political organization for another, and to the creating of a so-called revolutionary state. the only revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly annihilates every idea of the state and overthrows all traditions, orders, and classes in russia. with this end in view, the society has no intention of imposing on the people any organization whatever coming from above. the future organization will, without doubt, proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the business of future generations. our task is terrible, total, inexorable, and universal destruction."[ ] these are in brief the tactics and principles of terrorism, as understood by bakounin and nechayeff. as only the criminal world shared these views in any degree, the "catechism" ends: "we have got to unite ourselves with the adventurer's world of the brigands, who are the veritable and unique revolutionists of russia."[ ] it is customary now to credit most of these writings to nechayeff, although bakounin himself, i believe, never denied that they were his, and no one can read them without noting the ear-marks of both bakounin's thought and style. in any case, nechayeff was constantly with bakounin in the spring and summer of , and the most important of these brochures were published in geneva in the summer of that year. and, while it may be said for bakounin that he nowhere else advocates all the varied criminal methods advised in these publications, there is hardly an argument for their use that is not based upon his well-known views. furthermore, nechayeff was primarily a man of action, and in a letter, which is printed hereafter, it appears that he urgently requested bakounin to develop some of his theories in a russian journal. evidently, then, nechayeff had little confidence in his own power of expression. we must, however, leave the question of paternity undecided and follow the latter to russia, where he went late in the summer, loaded down with his arsenal of revolutionary literature and burning to put into practice the principles of the "catechism." without following in detail his devious and criminal work, one brief tale will explain how his revolutionary activities were brought quickly to an end. there was in moscow, so the story runs, a gentle, kindly, and influential member of nechayeff's society. of ascetic disposition, this iwanof spent much of his time in freely educating the peasants and in assisting the poorer students. he starved himself to establish cheap eating houses, which became the centers of the revolutionary groups. the police finally closed his establishments, because nechayeff had placarded them with revolutionary appeals. iwanof, quite unhappy at this ending of his usefulness, begged nechayeff to permit him to retire from the secret society. nechayeff was, however, in fear that iwanof might betray the secrets of the society, and he went one night with two fellow conspirators and shot iwanof and threw the corpse into a pond. the police, in following up the murder, sought out nechayeff, who had already fled from russia and was hurrying back to bakounin in switzerland. from january until july, , he was constantly with bakounin, but quarrels began to arise between them in june, and bakounin writes in a letter to ogaref: "our _boy_ (nechayeff) is very stubborn, and i, when once i make a decision, am not accustomed to change it. therefore, the break with him, on my side at least seems inevitable."[ ] in the middle of july it was discovered that nechayeff was once more carrying out the ethics they had jointly evolved, and, in order to make bakounin his slave, had recourse to all sorts of "jesuitical maneuvers, of lies and of thefts." suddenly he disappeared from geneva, and bakounin and other russians discovered that they had been robbed of all their papers and confidential letters. soon it was learned that nechayeff had presented himself to talandier in london, and bakounin hastened to write to his friend an explanation of their relations. "it may appear strange to you that we advise you to repulse a man to whom we gave letters of recommendation, written in the most cordial terms. but these letters date from the month of may, and there have happened since some events so serious that they have forced us to break all connections with nechayeff." ... "it is perfectly true that nechayeff is more persecuted by the russian government than any other man.... it is also true that nechayeff is one of the most active and most energetic men that i have ever met. when it is a question of serving what he calls _the_ cause, he does not hesitate, he stops at nothing, and is as pitiless toward himself as toward all others. that is the principal quality which attracted me to him and which made me for a long time seek his coöperation. there are those who pretend that he is nothing but a sharper, but that is a lie. he is a devoted fanatic, but at the same time a dangerous fanatic, with whom an alliance could only prove very disastrous for everyone concerned. this is the reason: he first belonged to a secret society which, in reality, existed in russia. this society exists no more; all its members have been arrested. nechayeff alone remains, and alone he constitutes to-day what he calls the 'committee.' the russian organization in russia having been destroyed, he is forced to create a new one in a foreign country. all that was perfectly natural, legitimate, very useful--but the means by which he undertakes it are detestable.... he will spy on you and will try to get possession of all your secrets, and to do that, in your absence, left alone in your room, he will open all your drawers, will read all your correspondence, and whenever a letter appears interesting to him, that is to say, compromising you or one of your friends from one point of view or another, he will steal it, and will guard it carefully as a document against you or your friend.... if you have presented him to a friend, his first care will be to sow between you seeds of discord, scandal, intrigue--in a word, to set you two at variance. if your friend has a wife or a daughter, he will try to seduce her, to lead her astray, and to force her away from the conventional morality and throw her into a revolutionary protest against society.... do not cry out that this is exaggeration. it has all been fully developed and proved. seeing himself unmasked, this poor nechayeff is indeed so childlike, so simple, in spite of his systematic perversity, that he believed it possible to convert me. he has even gone so far as to beg me to consent to develop this theory in a russian journal which he proposed to me to establish. he has betrayed the confidence of us all, he has stolen our letters, he has horribly compromised us--in a word, he has acted like a villain. his only excuse is his fanaticism. he is a terribly ambitious man without knowing it, because he has at last completely identified the revolutionary cause with his own person. but he is not an egoist in the worst sense of that word, because he risks his own person terribly and leads the life of a martyr, of privations, and of unheard-of work. he is a fanatic, and fanaticism draws him on, even to the point of becoming an accomplished jesuit. at moments he becomes simply stupid. most of his lies are sewn with white thread.... in spite of this relative naïveté, he is very dangerous, because he daily commits acts, abuses of confidence, and treachery, against which it is all the more difficult to safeguard oneself because one hardly suspects the possibility. with all that, nechayeff is a force, because he is an immense energy. it is with great pain that i have separated from him, because the service of our cause demands much energy, and one rarely finds it developed to such a point."[ ] the irony of fate rarely executes itself quite so humorously. although perfectly familiar with nechayeff's philosophy of action for over a year, the viciousness of it appeared to bakounin only when he himself became a victim. when nechayeff arrived in london he began the publication of a russian journal, the _commune_, where he bitterly attacked bakounin and his views. early in the seventies, he was arrested and taken back to russia, where he and over eighty others, mostly young men and women students, were tried for belonging to secret societies. for the first time in russian history the court proceeding took place before a jury and in public. most of those arrested were condemned for long periods to the mines of siberia at forced labor, while nechayeff was kept in solitary imprisonment until his death, some years later. bakounin, on the other hand, remained in switzerland and became the very soul of that element in italy, spain, and switzerland which fought the policies of marx in the international. at the same time he was training a group of youngsters to carry out in western europe the principles of revolution as laid down in his russian publications. over young middle-class youths, especially, bakounin's magnetic power was extraordinary, and his followers were the faithful of the faithful. a very striking picture of bakounin's hypnotic influence over this circle is to be found in the memoirs of madame a. bauler. she tells us of some sundays she spent with bakounin and his friends. "at the beginning," she says, "being unfamiliar with the italian language, i did not even understand the general drift of the conversation, but, observing the faces of those present, i had the impression that something extraordinarily grave and solemn was taking place. the atmosphere of these conferences imbued me; it created in me a state of mind which i shall call, for want of a better term, an '_état de grâce_.' faith increased; doubts vanished. the value of bakounin became clear to me. his personality enlarged. i saw that his strength was in the power of taking possession of human souls. beyond a doubt, all these men who were listening to him were ready to undertake anything, at the slightest word from him. i could picture to myself another gathering, less intimate, that of a great crowd, and i realized that there the influence of bakounin would be the same. only the enthusiasm, here gentle and intimate, would become incomparably more intense and the atmosphere more agitated by the mutual contagion of the human beings in a crowd. "at bottom, in what did the charm of bakounin consist? i believe that it is impossible to define it exactly. it was not by the force of persuasion that he agitated. it was not his thought which awakened the thought of others. but he aroused every rebellious heart and awoke there an 'elemental' anger. and this anger, transplendent with beauty, became creative and showed to the exalted thirst for justice and happiness an issue and a possibility of accomplishment. 'the desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire,' bakounin has repeated to the end of his life."[ ] footnote: [f] this formidable peasant insurrection occurred in - . when pougatchoff, a century later, in - , urged the cossacks and serfs to insurrection against catherine ii, the russian people saw in him a new stenka razin; and they expected in russia, in and the following years, a third centennial apparition of the legendary brigand who, in the minds of the oppressed people, personified revolt. chapter ii a series of insurrections at the beginning of the seventies bakounin and his friends found opening before them a field of practical activity. on the whole, the sixties were spent in theorizing, in organizing, and in planning, but with the seventies the moment arrived "to unchain the hydra of revolution." on the th of september, , the third republic was proclaimed in paris, and a few days afterward there were many uprisings in the other cities of france. it was, however, only in lyons that the bakouninists played an important part. bakounin had a fixed idea that, wherever there was an uprising of the people, there he must go, and he wrote to adolphe vogt on september : "my friends, the revolutionary socialists of lyons, are calling me there. i am resolved to take my old bones thither and to play there what will probably be my last game. but, as usual, i have not a sou. can you, i do not say lend me, but give me or , or or , or even francs, for my voyage?"[ ] guillaume does not state where the money finally came from, but bakounin evidently raised it somehow, for he left locarno on september . the night of the th he spent in neuchâtel, where he conferred with guillaume regarding the publication of a manuscript. on the th he arrived in geneva, and two days later set out for lyons, accompanied by two revolutionary enthusiasts, ozerof and the young pole, valence lankiewicz. since the th of september a committee of public safety had been installed at the hôtel de ville composed of republicans, radicals, and some militants of the international. gaspard blanc and albert richard, two intimate friends of bakounin, were not members of this committee, and in a public meeting, september , richard made a motion, which was carried, to name a standing commission of ten to act as the "intermediaries between the people of lyons and the committee of public safety." three of these commissioners, richard, andrieux, and jaclard, were then appointed to go as delegates to paris in order to come to some understanding with the government. andrieux, in the days of the empire, had acquired fame as a revolutionist by proposing at a meeting to burn the ledger of the public debt. it seems, however, that these close and trusted friends of bakounin began immediately upon their arrival in paris to solicit various public positions remunerative to themselves,[ ] and, although they succeeded in having general cluseret sent to take command of the voluntary corps then forming in the department of the rhone, that proved, as we shall see, most disastrous of all. this is about all that had happened previous to bakounin's arrival in lyons, and, when he came, there was confusion everywhere. even the members of the alliance had no clear idea of what ought to be done. bakounin, however, was an old hand at insurrections, and in a little lodging house where he and his friends were staying a new uprising was planned. he lost no time in getting hold of all the men of action. under his energetic leadership "public meetings were multiplied and assumed a character of unheard-of violence. the most sanguinary motions were introduced and welcomed with enthusiasm. they openly provoked revolt in order to overthrow the laws and the established order of things."[ ] on september bakounin wrote to ogaref: "there is so much work to do that it turns my head. the real revolution has not yet burst forth here, but it will come. everything possible is being done to prepare for it. i am playing a great game. i hope to see the approaching triumph."[ ] a great public meeting was held on the th, presided over by eugène saignes, a plasterer and painter, and a man of energy and influence among the lyons workmen, at which various questions relative to proposed political changes were voted upon. but it was the following day, the th, that probably the most notable event of the insurrection took place. "the next day, sunday, was employed," guillaume says, "in the drawing up and printing of a great red placard, containing the program of the revolution which the central committee of safety of france proposed to the people...."[ ] the first article of the program declares: "the administrative and governmental machinery of the state, having become powerless, is abolished. the people of france once again enter into full possession of themselves." the second article suspends "all civil and criminal courts," and replaces them "by the justice of the people." the third suspends "the payment of taxes and of mortgages." the fourth declares that "the state, having decayed, can no longer intervene in the payment of private debts." the fifth states that "all existing municipal organizations are broken up and replaced in all the federated communes by committees of safety of france, which will exercise all powers under the immediate control of the people." the revolution was at last launched, and the placard ends, "_aux armes!!!_"[ ] while the bakouninists were decreeing the revolution by posters and vainly calling the people to arms, an event occurred in lyons which brought to them a very useful contingent of fighters. the lyons municipality had just reduced the pay of the workers in the national dock yards from three to two and a half francs a day, and, on this account, these laborers joined the ranks of the insurgents. on the evening of september a meeting of the central committee of safety of france took place, and there a definite plan of action for the next day was decided upon. velay, a tulle maker and municipal councillor, bakounin, and others advised an armed manifestation, but the majority expressed itself in favor of a peaceful one. an executive committee composed of eight members signed the following proclamation, drawn up by gaspard blanc, which was printed during the night and posted early the next morning: "the people of lyons ... are summoned, through the organ of their assembled popular committees, to a popular manifestation to be held to-day, september , at noon, on the _place des terreaux_, in order to force the authority to take immediately the most energetic and efficacious measures for the national defense."[ ] turning again to guillaume, we find "at noon many thousands of men pressed together on the _place des terreaux_. a delegation of sixteen of the national dock-yard workmen entered the hôtel de ville to demand of the municipal council the reëstablishment of their wage to three francs a day, but the council was not in session. very soon a movement began in the crowd, and a hundred resolute men, saignes at their head, forcing the door of the hôtel de ville, penetrated the municipal building. some members of the central committee of safety of france, bakounin, parraton, bastelica, and others, went in with them. from the balcony, saignes announced that the municipal council was to be compelled to accept the program of the red proclamation of september or to resign, and he proposed to name cluseret general of the revolutionary army. cluseret, cheered by the crowd, appeared in the balcony, thanked them, and announced that he was going to croix-rousse" (the working-class district).[ ] he went there, it is true, but not to call to arms the national guards of that quarter. indeed, his aim appears to have been to avoid a conflict, and he simply asked the workers "to come down _en masse_ and without arms."[ ] in the meantime the national guards of the wealthier quarters of the city hastened to the hôtel de ville and penetrated the interior court, while the committee of safety of france installed itself inside the building. there they passed two or three hours in drawing up resolutions, while bakounin and others in vain protested: "we must act. we are losing time. we are going to be invaded by the national bourgeois guard. it is necessary to arrest immediately the prefect, the mayor, and general mazure."[ ] but their words went unheeded. and all the while the bourgeois guards were massing themselves before the hôtel de ville, and cluseret and his unarmed manifestants were yielding place to them. in fact, cluseret even persuaded the members of the committee of safety to retire and those of the municipal council to return to their seats, which they consented to do. bakounin made a last desperate effort to save the situation and to induce the insurgents to oppose force to force, but they would not. even albert richard failed him. the revolutionary committee, after parleying with the municipal councillors, then evacuated the hôtel de ville and contented itself with issuing a statement to the effect that "the delegates of the people have not believed it their duty to impose themselves on the municipal council by violence and have retired when it went into session, leaving it to the people to fully appreciate the situation."[ ] "at the moment," says guillaume, "when ... mayor hénon, with an escort of national bourgeois guards, reëntered the hôtel de ville, he met bakounin in the hall of the _pas-perdus_. the mayor immediately ordered his companions to take him in custody and to confine him at once in an underground hiding-place."[ ] the municipal councillors then opened their session and pledged that no pursuit should be instituted in view of the happenings of the day. they voted to reëstablish the former wage of the national dock-yard workers, but declared themselves unable to undertake the revolutionary measures proposed by the committee of safety of france, as these were outside their legal province. in the meantime bakounin was undergoing an experience far from pleasant, if we are to judge from the account which he gives in a letter written the following day: "some used me brutally in all sorts of ways, jostling me about, pushing me, pinching me, twisting my arms and hands. i must, however, admit that others cried: 'do not harm him.' in truth the bourgeoisie showed itself what it is everywhere: brutal and cowardly. for you know that i was delivered by some sharpshooters who put to flight three or four times their number of these heroic shopkeepers armed with their rifles. i was delivered, but of all the objects which had been stolen from me by these gentlemen i was able to find only my revolver. my memorandum book and my purse, which contained francs and some sous, without doubt stayed in the hands of these gentlemen.... i beg you to reclaim them in my name. you will send them to me when you have recovered them."[ ] as a matter of fact, it was at the instance of his follower, ozerof, that bakounin was finally delivered. when he came forth from the hôtel de ville, the committee of safety of france and its thousands of sympathizers had disappeared, and he found himself practically alone. he spent the night at the house of a friend, and departed for marseilles the next day, after writing the following letter to palix: "my dear friend, i do not wish to leave lyons without having said a last word of farewell to you. prudence keeps me from coming to shake hands with you for the last time. i have nothing more to do here. i came to lyons to fight or to die with you. i came because i am profoundly convinced that the cause of france has become again, at this supreme hour, ... the cause of humanity. i have taken part in yesterday's movement, and i have signed my name to the resolutions of the committee of safety of france, because it is evident to me that, after the real and certain destruction of all the administrative and governmental machinery, there is nothing but the immediate and revolutionary action of the people which can save france.... the movement of yesterday, if it had been successful ... could have saved lyons and france.... i leave lyons, dear friend, with a heart full of sadness and somber forebodings. i begin to think now that it is finished with france.... she will become a viceroyalty of germany. _in place of her living and real socialism,[g] we shall have the doctrinaire socialism of the germans_, who will say no more than the prussian bayonets will permit them to say. the bureaucratic and military intelligence of prussia, combined with the knout of the czar of st. petersburg, are going to assure peace and public order for at least fifty years on the whole continent of europe. farewell, liberty! farewell, socialism! farewell, justice for the people and the triumph of humanity! all that could have grown out of the present disaster of france. all that would have grown out of it if the people of france, if the people of lyons, had wished it."[ ] the insurrection at lyons and bakounin's decree abolishing the state amounted to very little in the history of the french republic. writing afterward to professor edward spencer beesly, karl marx comments on the events that had taken place in lyons: "at the beginning everything went well," he writes. "under the pressure of the section of the international, the republic had been proclaimed at lyons before it had been at paris. a revolutionary government was immediately established, namely the _commune_, composed in part of workmen belonging to the international, in part of bourgeois radical republicans.... but those blunderers, bakounin and cluseret, arrived at lyons and spoiled everything. both being members of the international, they had unfortunately enough influence to lead our friends astray. the hôtel de ville was taken, for a moment only, and very ridiculous decrees on the _abolition of the state_ and other nonsense were issued. you understand that the fact alone of a russian--whom the newspapers of the bourgeoisie represented as an agent of bismarck--pretending to thrust himself at the head of a _committee of safety of france_ was quite sufficient to change completely public opinion. as to cluseret, he behaved at once like an idiot and a coward. these two men left lyons after their failure."[ ] bakounin's so-called abolition of the state appealed to the humor of marx. he speaks of it in another place in these words: "then arrived the critical moment, the moment longed for since many years, when bakounin was able to accomplish the most revolutionary act the world has ever seen: he decreed the _abolition of the state_. but the state, in the form and aspect of two companies of national bourgeois guards, entered by a door which they had forgotten to guard, swept the hall, and caused bakounin to hasten back along the road to geneva."[ ] such indeed was the humiliating and vexatious ending of bakounin's dream of an immediate social revolution. his sole reward was to be jostled, pinched, and robbed. this was perhaps most tragic of all, especially when added to this injury there was the further indignity of allowing the father of terrorism to keep his revolver. the incident is one that george meredith should have immortalized in another of his "tragic comedians." however, although the insurrection at lyons was a complete failure, the commune of paris was really a spontaneous and memorable working-class uprising. the details of that insurrection, the legislation of the commune itself, and its violent suppression on may , , are not strictly germane to this chapter, because, in fact, the bakouninists played no part in it. in the case of lyons, the revolution maker was at work; in the case of paris, "the working class," says marx, "did not expect miracles from the commune. they have no ready-made utopias to introduce _par décret du peuple_. they know that in order to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that higher form to which present society is irresistibly tending, by its own economic agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of historic processes, transforming circumstances and men."[h] but, while marx wrote in this manner of the paris commune, he evidently had in mind men of the type of bakounin when he declared: "in every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of a different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, ... others mere bawlers, who by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declamations against the government of the day have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water. after the th of march some such men turned up, and in some cases contrived to play preeminent parts. as far as their power went, they hampered the real action of the working class, exactly as men of that sort have hampered the full development of every previous revolution. they are an unavoidable evil; with time they are shaken off; but time was not allowed to the commune."[ ] the despair of bakounin over the miserable ending of his great plans for the salvation of france had, of course, disappeared long before the revolution broke out in spain, and he easily persuaded himself that his presence there was absolutely necessary to insure its success. "i have always felt and thought," he wrote in the _mémoire justificatif_, "that the most desirable end for me would be to fall in the midst of a great revolutionary storm."[ ] consequently, in the summer of the year , when the uprising gave promise of victory to the insurgents, bakounin decided that he must go and, to do so, that he must have money. bakounin then wrote to his wealthy young disciple, cafiero, in a symbolic language which they had worked out between them, declaring his intention of going to spain and asking him to furnish the necessary money for his expenses. as usual, bakounin became melodramatic in his effort to work upon the impressionable cafiero, and, as he put it afterward in the _mémoire justificatif_, "i added a prayer that he would become the protector of my wife and my children, in case i should fall in spain."[ ] cafiero, who at this time worshiped bakounin, pleaded with him not to risk his precious life in spain. he promised to do everything possible for his family in case he persisted in going, but he sent no money, whether because he did not have it or because he did not wish bakounin to go is not clear. bakounin now wrote to guillaume that he was greatly disappointed not to be able to take part in the spanish revolution, but that it was impossible for him to do so without money. guillaume admits that he was not convinced of the absolute necessity of bakounin's presence in spain, but, nevertheless, since he desired to go there, guillaume offered to secure for him fifteen hundred francs to make the journey. on the receipt of this news, bakounin answered guillaume that the sum would be wholly insufficient. if, however, the spanish revolution was forced to proceed without bakounin, his influence in that country was not wanting. in the year the spanish sections of the international were among the largest and most numerous in europe. at the time of the congress of cordova, which assembled at the close of the year , three hundred and thirty-one sections with over twenty-five thousand members expressed themselves in favor of "anarchist and collectivist" principles. the trade unions were very active, and they formed the basis of the spanish movement. they had numerous organs of propaganda, and the general unrest, both political and economic, led for a time to an extraordinary development in revolutionary ideas. on february , , the king abdicated and a republic was proclaimed. insurrections broke out in all parts of spain. at barcelona, cartagena, murcia, cadiz, seville, granada, and valencia there existed a state of civil war, while throughout the industrial districts strikes were both frequent and violent. demands were made on all sides for shorter hours and increase of wages. at alcoy ten thousand workingmen declared a general strike, and, when the municipal authorities opposed them, they took the town by storm. in some cases the strikers lent their support to the republicans; in other cases they followed the ideas of bakounin, and openly declared they had no concern for the republic. the changes in the government were numerous. indeed, for three years spain, politically and industrially, was in a state of chaos. at times the revolt of the workers was suppressed with the utmost brutality. their leaders were arrested, their papers suppressed, and their meetings dispersed with bloodshed. at other times they were allowed to riot for weeks if the turbulence promised to aid the intrigues of the politicians. a lively discussion took place as to the wisdom of the tactics employed by the anarchists in spain. frederick engels severely criticised the position of the bakouninists in two articles which he published in the _volksstaat_. he reviewed the events that had taken place during the summer of , and he condemned the folly of the anarchists, who had refused to coöperate with the other revolutionary forces in spain. in his opinion, the workers were simply wasting their energy and lives in pursuit of a distant and unattainable end. "spain is a country so backward industrially," he wrote, "that it cannot be a question there of the immediate complete emancipation of the workers. before arriving at that stage, spain will still have to pass through diverse phases of development and struggle against a whole series of obstacles. the republic furnished the means of passing through these phases most rapidly and of removing these obstacles most quickly. but, to accomplish that, the spanish proletariat would have had to launch boldly into active _politics_. the mass of the working people realized this, and everywhere demanded that they should take part in what was happening, that they should profit by the opportunities to act, instead of leaving, as formerly, the field free to the action and intrigues of the possessing classes. the government ordered elections for the cortès members. what position should the international take? the leaders of the bakouninists were in the greatest dilemma. a continued political inactivity appeared more ridiculous and more impossible from day to day. the workers wanted to 'see deeds.' on the other hand, the _alliancistes_ (bakouninists) had preached for years that one ought not to take part in any revolution that had not for its end the immediate and entire emancipation of the workers, that participation in any political action constituted an acceptance of the principle of the state, that source of all evil, and that especially taking part in any election was a mortal sin."[ ] the anarchists were of course very bitter over this attack on their policies, and they concluded that the socialists had become reactionaries who no longer sought the emancipation of the working class. they were more than incensed at the reference engels had made to an act of the insurgents of cartagena, who, in order to gain allies in their struggle, had armed the convicts of a prison, "eighteen hundred villains, the most dangerous robbers and murderers of spain."[ ] according to engels' information, this infamous act had been undertaken upon the advice of bakounin, but, whether or not that is true, it was a fatal mistake that brought utter disaster to the insurgents. certainly of this fact there can be no question--the divisions among the revolutionary forces in spain, which engels deplored, resulted, after many months of fighting, in returning to power the most reactionary elements in spain. and this was foreseen, as even before the end of the summer bakounin had despaired of success. in his opinion, the spanish revolution miscarried miserably, "for want," as he afterward wrote, "of energy and revolutionary spirit in the leaders as well as in the masses. and all the rest of the world was plunged," he lamented, "into the most dismal reaction."[ ] france and spain, having now failed to launch the universal revolution, bakounin's hopes turned to italy, where a series of artificial uprisings among the almost famished peasants was being stirred up by his followers. their greatest activity was during the first two weeks in august of the next year, , and the three main centers were bologna, romagna, and apulia. in spite of the fact that the followers of mazzini were opposed to the international, an attempt was made in the summer of by some italian socialists (celso cerretti among others), to effect a union in order that by common action they might work more advantageously against the monarchy. garibaldi, to whom these socialists appealed, at first disapproved of any reconciliation with bakounin and his friends, but later allowed himself to be persuaded. a meeting of the mazzinian leaders to discuss the matter convened august at the village of ruffi. the older members were opposed to all common action, while the younger elements desired it. however, before an agreement was reached, twenty-eight mazzinians were arrested, among them saffi, fortis, and valzania. three days later, the police succeeded in arresting andrea costa, for whom they had been searching for more than a year on account of his participation in the international congress at geneva. although these events were something of a setback, the revolutionists decided that they had gone too far to retreat. it was then that bakounin wrote: "and now, my friends, there remains nothing more for me but to die. farewell!"[ ] on the way to italy he wrote to his friend, guillaume, saying good-by to him and announcing, without explanation, that he was journeying to italy to take part in a struggle from which he would not return alive. on his arrival in that country, however, he carefully concealed himself in a small house where only the revolutionary "intimates" could see him. the nights of august and had been chosen for the insurrection which was to burst forth in bologna and thence to extend, first to romagna, and afterward to the marches and tuscany. a group of bologna insurgents, reinforced by about three thousand others from romagna, were to enter bologna by the san felice gate. another group would enter the arsenal, the doors of which would be opened by two non-commissioned officers, and take possession of the arms and ammunition, carrying them to the church of santa annunziata, where all the guns should be stored. at certain places in the city material was already gathered with which to improvise barricades. one hundred republicans had promised to take part in the movement, not as a group, but individually. on the th copies of the proclamation of the italian committee for the social revolution were distributed throughout the city, calling the masses to arms and urging the soldiers to make common cause with the people. during the nights of the th and th, groups from bologna assembled at the appointed places of meeting outside the walls, but the romagna comrades did not come, or at least came in very small numbers. those from imola were surrounded in their march, some being arrested and others being forced to retreat. at dawn the insurgents who had gathered under the walls of bologna dispersed, some taking refuge in the mountains. bakounin had been alone during the night, and became convinced that the insurrection had failed. he was trying to make up his mind to commit suicide, when his friend, silvio, arrived and told him that all was not lost and that perhaps other attempts might yet be made. the following day bakounin was removed to another retreat of greater safety, as numerous arrests had been made at bologna, imola, romagna, the marches, as well as in florence, rome, and other parts of italy. about the same time a conspiracy similar to that undertaken at bologna was launched by enrico malatesta and some friends in apulia. a heavy chest of guns had been dispatched from tarentum to a station in the province of bari, from which it was carried on a cart to the old château of _castel del monte_, which had been chosen as the rendezvous. "many hundreds of conspirators," malatesta recounts, "had promised to meet at _castel del monte_. i arrived, but of all those who had sworn to be there we found ourselves six. no matter. we opened the box of arms and found it was filled with old percussion guns, but that made no difference. we armed ourselves and declared war on the italian army. we roamed the country for some days, trying to gain over the peasants, but meeting with no response. the second day we met eight _carabinieri_, who opened fire on us and imagined that we were very numerous. three days later we discovered that we were surrounded by soldiers. there remained only one thing to do. we buried the guns and decided to disperse. i hid myself in a load of hay, and thus succeeded in escaping from the dangerous region."[ ] an attempt at insurrection also took place in romagna, but it appears to have been limited to cutting the telegraph wires between bologna and imola. back of all the italian riots lay a serious economic condition. the peasants were in very deep distress, and it was not difficult for the bakouninists to stir them to revolt. the _bulletin_ of the jura federation of august informs us: "during the last two years there have been about sixty riots produced by hunger; but the rioters, in their ignorance, only bore a grudge against the immediate monopolists, and did not know how to discern the fundamental causes of their misery."[ ] this is all too plainly shown in the events of . beyond giving the bakouninists a chance to play at revolution, there is little significance in the italian uprisings of that year. the failure of the various insurrections in france, spain, and italy was, naturally enough, discouraging to bakounin and his followers. the commune of paris was the one uprising that had made any serious impression upon the people, and it was the one wherein the bakouninists had played no important part. the others had failed miserably, with no other result than that of increasing the power of reaction, while discouraging and disorganizing the workers. even bakounin had now reached the point where he was thoroughly disillusioned, and he wrote to his friends that he was exhausted, disheartened, and without hope. he desired, he said, to withdraw from the movement which made him the object of the persecutions of the police and the calumnies of the jealous. the whole world was in the evening of a black reaction, he thought, and he wrote to the truest and most devoted of all that loyal circle of swiss workmen, james guillaume, that the time for revolutionary struggles was past and that europe had entered into a period of profound reaction, of which the present generation would probably not see the end. "he urged me," relates guillaume, "to imitate himself and 'to make my peace with the bourgeoisie.'"[ ] "it is useless," are bakounin's words, "to wish obstinately to obtain the impossible. it is necessary to recognize reality and to realize that, for the moment, the popular masses do not wish socialism. and, if some tipplers of the mountains desire on this account to accuse you of treason, you will have for yourself the witness of your conscience and the esteem of your friends."[ ] in july, , bakounin retired to an estate that had been bought for him through the generosity of cafiero, on the route from locarno to bellinzona, and for the next few months lavish expenditures were made in the construction and reconstruction of an establishment where the "intimates" could be entertained. that fall bakounin wrote to the jura federation, announcing his retreat from public life and requesting it to accept his resignation. "for acting in this way," he wrote, "i have many reasons. do not believe that it is principally on account of the personal attacks of which i have been made the object these last years. i do not say that i am absolutely insensible to such. however, i would feel myself strong enough to resist them if i thought that my further participation in your work and in your struggles could aid in the triumph of the cause of the proletariat. but i do not think so. "by my birth and my personal position, and doubtless by my sympathies and my tendencies, i am only a bourgeois, and, as such, i could not do anything else among you but propaganda. well, i have a conviction that the time for great theoretical discourses, whether printed or spoken, is past. in the last nine years there have been developed within the international more ideas than would be necessary to save the world, if ideas alone could save it, and i defy anybody to invent a new one."[ ] this letter in reality marks the end of bakounin's activity in the revolutionary movement. after squandering most of cafiero's fortune, bakounin sought a martyr's death in italy, but in this, as in all his other exploits, he was unsuccessful. and from that time on to his death his life is a humiliating story as he sought here and there the necessary money for his livelihood. nearly always he had been forced to live from hand to mouth. money, money, money was the burden of hundreds of his letters. in order to obtain funds he had resorted to almost every possible plan. he had accepted money in advance from publishers for books which he had never had time to write. from time to time he would find an almoner to care for him, only in the end to lose him through his importunate and exacting demands. an account is given by guillaume of what i believe is the last meeting between bakounin and certain of his old friends in september, . ross, cafiero, spichiger, and guillaume met bakounin in a hotel at neuchâtel. guillaume, it appears, was cold and unfeeling; cafiero and ross said nothing, while spichiger wept silently in a corner. "the explicit declaration made by me ..." says guillaume, "took away from bakounin at the very beginning all hope of a change in our estimation of him. it was also a question of money in this last interview. we offered to assure to our old friend a monthly pension of francs, expressing the hope that he would continue to write, but he refused to accept anything. as a set-off, he asked cafiero to loan him , francs (no longer , ), ... and cafiero replied that he would do it. then we separated sadly."[ ] on the first of july, , bakounin, after a brief illness, died at bern at the house of his old friend, dr. vogt. the press of europe printed various comments upon his life and work. the anarchists wrote their eulogies, while the socialists generally deplored the ruinous and disrupting tactics that bakounin had employed in the international working men's association. this story will be told later, but it is well to mention here that since an unbridgeable chasm had opened itself between the anarchists and the socialists. when they first came together in the international there was no clear distinction between them, but, after bakounin was expelled from that organization in , at the hague, his followers frankly called themselves anarchists, while the followers of marx called themselves socialists. in principles and tactics they were poles apart, and the bitterness between them was at fever heat. the anarchists took the principles of bakounin and still further elaborated them, while his methods were developed from conspiratory insurrections to individual acts of violence. while the idea of the propaganda of the deed is to be found in the writings of bakounin and nechayeff, it was left to others to put into practice that doctrine. for the next thirty years the principles and ideals of anarchism made no appreciable headway, but the deeds of the anarchists became the talk and, to a degree, the terror of the world. footnotes: [g] previous to , socialism was used by robert owen and his followers, as well as by many french idealists, to mean phalansteries, colonies, or other voluntary communal undertakings. marx and engels at first called themselves "communists," and were thus distinguished from these earlier socialists. during the period of the international all its members began more and more to call themselves "socialists." the word, anarchism, was rarely used. as a matter of fact, it was the struggle in the international which eventually clarified the views of both anarchists and socialists and made clear the distinctions now recognized between communism, anarchism, and socialism. see chapter viii, _infra_. [h] this is from "the commune of paris," which was read by marx to the general council of the international on may , two days after the last of the combatants of the commune were crushed by superior numbers on the heights of belleville. chapter iii the propaganda of the deed the insurrections in france and spain were on the whole spontaneous uprisings, but those disturbances in italy in which the anarchists played a part were largely the result of agitation. of course, adverse political and economic conditions were the chief causes of that general spirit of unrest which was prevalent in the early seventies in all the latin countries, but after the numerous riots in which the anarchists were active were almost entirely the work of enthusiasts who believed they could make revolutions. the results of the previous uprisings had a terribly depressing effect upon nearly all the older men, but there were four youths attached to bakounin's insurrectionary ideas whose spirits were not bowed down by what had occurred. carlo cafiero, enrico malatesta, paul brousse, and prince kropotkin were at the period of life when action was a joyous thing, and they undertook to make history. cafiero we know as a young italian of very wealthy parents. malatesta "had left the medical profession and also his fortune for the sake of the revolution."[ ] paul brousse was of french parentage, and had already distinguished himself in medicine, but he cast it aside in his early devotion to anarchism. he had rushed to spain when the revolution broke out there, and he was always ready to go where-ever an opportunity offered itself for revolutionary activity. the russian prince, kropotkin, the fourth member of the group, was a descendant of the ruriks, and it was said sometimes, in jest, that he had more right to the russian throne than czar alexander ii. the fascinating story of his life is told in the "memoirs of a revolutionist," but modesty forbade him to say that no one since bakounin has exercised so great an influence as himself over the principles and tactics of anarchism. kropotkin first visited switzerland in , when he came in close contact with the men of the jura federation. a week's stay with the bakouninists converted him, he says, to anarchism.[ ] he then returned to st. petersburg, and shortly after entered the famous circle of tchaykovsky, and, as a result of his revolutionary activity, he was arrested and imprisoned in the fortress of st. peter and st. paul. after his thrilling escape from prison, in , kropotkin returned to switzerland, and for several years gave himself up entirely to the cause of anarchism. these four young men, all far removed by training and position from the working class, after the death of bakounin, devised the propaganda of the deed, a method of agitation that was destined to become famous throughout the world. hitherto the bakouninists had all been firmly convinced that the masses were ready to rise at a moment's notice in order to tear down the existing governments. they were obsessed with the idea that only a spark was needed to set the whole world into a general conflagration. but repeated failures taught them that the masses were inclined to make very little sacrifice for the sake of communism and that stupendous efforts were needed to create a revolution. it appeared to them, therefore, that the propaganda of words and of theories was of little avail. consequently, these four youths, with their friends, set out to spread knowledge by acts of violence. of course, they had not entirely given up the hope that a minority could, by a series of well-planned assaults, gradually sweep in after them the masses. but even should they fail in that, they felt that they must strike at the enemy, though they stood alone. whatever happened, they argued, the acts themselves would prove of great propaganda value. even the trials would enable them to use the courts as a tribune, and the bourgeois press itself would print their words and spread throughout the world their doctrines. in the _bulletin_ of the jura federation, december , , cafiero and malatesta wrote: "the great majority of italian socialists are grouped about the program of the italian federation--a program which is anarchist, collectivist, and revolutionary. and the small number who, up to the present, have remained on the outside--the dupes of intrigues and lies--are all beginning to enter our organization. we do not refer to a small group who, influenced by personal considerations and reactionary ends, are trying to establish a propaganda which they call 'gradual and peaceful.' these have already been judged in the opinion of the italian socialists and represent nothing but themselves. "the italian federation believes that the _insurrectionary deed_, destined to affirm socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious means of propaganda."[ ] the next year paul brousse originated the famous phrase, the propaganda of the deed. he reviews in the _bulletin_ the various methods of propaganda which had previously been employed. "propaganda from individual to individual, propaganda by mass meeting or conference, propaganda by newspaper, pamphlet, or book--these means," he declares, "are adapted only to theoretical propaganda. besides, they become more and more difficult to employ in any efficacious fashion in the presence of those means possessed by the bourgeoisie, with its orators, trained at the bar and knowing how to wheedle the popular assemblies, and with its venal press which calumniates and disguises everything."[ ] in the opinion of brousse, the workers, "laboring most of the time eleven and twelve hours a day ... return home so exhausted by fatigue that they have little desire to read socialist books and newspapers."[ ] rejecting thus all other methods of propaganda, brousse concludes that "the propaganda of the deed is a powerful means of awakening the popular conscience."[ ] kropotkin was even more enthusiastic over this new method of education. "a single deed," he declared, "makes more propaganda in a few days than a thousand pamphlets. the government defends itself, it rages pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. one deed brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too late; the revolution breaks out."[ ] here at last is the famous propaganda of the deed, destined to such tragic ends. it owes its inspiration, of course, to the teachings of bakounin, and we find among these youths the same contempt for words and theories that bakounin himself had, and they proposed, in the words of bakounin, "to destroy something--a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people."[ ] consequently, they undertook immediately to carry into effect these new theories of propaganda, and during the year they organized two important demonstrations, the avowed purpose of which was to show anarchism in action. the first event, which occurred at bern, march , under the leadership of paul brousse, was a manifestation to celebrate the anniversary of the proclamation of the commune. all the members of the jura federation were invited to take part, and the red flag was to be unfurled. among the most conspicuous in this demonstration were brousse, werner, chopard, schwitzguébel, kropotkin, pindy, jeallot, ferré, spichiger, guillaume, and george plechanoff, recently arrived from st. petersburg. the participants became mixed up in a violent affray in the streets, blows were exchanged between them and the police, but in the effort to tear away the red flags many of the gendarmes were wounded. the climax came on august of the same year, when twenty-five of the _manifestants_ appeared before the correctional tribunal of bern, accused "( ) of participation in a brawl with deadly instruments, ( ) of resisting, by means of force, the employees of the police." most of the prisoners were condemned to imprisonment, the terms varying from ten days to two months. james guillaume was condemned to forty days, brousse to a month. the latter and five other convicted foreigners were also banished for three years from the canton of bern.[ ] the second of these demonstrations took place in april in the form of an insurrectionary movement of the internationalists of italy. they chose the massive group of mountains which border on the province of bénévent for the scene of their operations, and made naples their headquarters. during the whole of the preceding winter they were occupied in making their preparations, and endeavoring to gain the support of the peasants of the near-by villages. they instructed all those who joined their cause from emilia, romagna, and tuscany to be ready for action the beginning of april, as soon as the snow disappeared from the summits of the apennines. according to information furnished by malatesta to guillaume, on april and they journeyed from san lupo (province of bénévent) into the region at the south of the malta mountains (province of caserte). on the th they attacked the communes of letino and gallo, burned the archives of the first named, pillaged the treasury of the preceptor, and burned the parish house of the second. on the th and th they tried to penetrate the other communes, but in vain, for they found them all occupied by troops sent directly by the government to oppose them. their provisions were exhausted, and they would have bought a fresh supply in the village of venafro, only the soldiers gave the alarm and pursued the band as far as a wood, in which they hid themselves. all of the th was spent in a long march through rain and snow. the jaded band was finally surprised and captured in a sheepfold, where they had sought shelter for that night. two of the revolutionists escaped, but were recaptured a short time afterward. they were confined in the prison of santa-maria capua visere, to the number of thirty-seven, among them being cafiero, malatesta, ceccarelli, lazzari, fortini (curé of letino), tomburri vincenzo (curé of gallo), starnari, and others. on december the chamber of arraignment of naples rendered its decision. the two priests and a man who had served as guide to the insurgents were exempted from punishment, but the thirty-four others were sent before the court of assizes on the charge of conspiracy against the security of the state. as these were political crimes, which were covered by a recent amnesty, there remained only the murder of a carabineer, of which the court of assizes of bénévent finally acquitted cafiero, malatesta, and their friends in august, .[ ] by the above series of events the propaganda of the deed was launched, and from this day on it became a recognized method of propaganda. neither money, nor organization, nor literature was any longer absolutely necessary. one human being in revolt with torch or dynamite was able to instruct the world. bakounin and nechayeff had written their principles, and had, in fact, in some measure, endeavored to carry them into effect. but the propaganda of the deed was no more evolved as a principle of action than these four daring youths put it into practice. in the next few years it became the chief expression of anarchism, and little by little it made the very name of anarchism synonymous with violence and crime. surely these four zealous youths could hardly have devised a method of propaganda that could have served more completely to defeat their purpose. the year witnessed a series of violent acts which brought in their train serious consequences. in that year an attempt was made upon the life of king humbert of italy; and, while driving in berlin with his daughter, the grand duchess of baden, emperor william was shot at by a half-witted youth named hödel. three weeks later dr. karl nobiling fired at the emperor from an upper window overlooking the _unter den linden_. these assaults were made to serve as the pretext for a series of brutally repressive measures against the german socialists, although the authorities were unable to connect either hödel or nobiling with the anarchists or with the socialists. an excellent opportunity, however, had arrived to deal a crushing blow to socialism, and "bismarck used his powerful influence with the press," august bebel says, "in order to lash the public into a fanatical hatred of the social-democratic party. others who had an interest in the defeat of the party joined in, especially a majority of the employers. henceforth our opponents spoke of us exclusively as the party of assassins, or the 'ruin all' party--a party that wished to rob the masses of their faith in god, the monarchy, the family, marriage, and property."[ ] the attempt to destroy the german socialist organization was only one of the many repressive measures that were taken by the governments of europe in the midst of the panic. to the terrorism of the anarchists the governments responded by a terrorism of repression, and this in itself helped to establish murderous assaults as a method of propaganda. up to this time germany had been comparatively free from anarchist teachings. a number of the lassalleans had advocated violent methods. hasselmann had several years before launched the _red flag_, which advocated much that was not in harmony with socialism, and eventually the german socialist congress requested him to cease the publication of his paper. a few individuals without great influence had endeavored at various times to import bakounin's philosophy and methods into germany, but their propaganda bore no fruit whatever. it was only when the german government began to imitate the terrorism of the russian bureaucracy that a momentary passion for retaliation arose among the socialists. in fact, a few notable socialists went over to anarchism, frankly declaring their belief in terrorist tactics. and one of the most striking characters in the history of terrorism, johann most, was a product of bismarck's man-hunting policies and legal tyranny. nevertheless, those policies failed utterly to provoke the extensive retaliation which bismarck expected, although it was a german who, after five attempts had been made on the life of czar alexander ii. of russia--the last being successful--proposed at an anarchist congress in paris, in , the forcible removal of all the potentates of the earth. this was rejected by the paris conference as "at present not yet suitable,"[ ] although the idea proved attractive to some anarchists who even believed that a few daring assaults could so terrify the royal families of europe that they would be forced to abdicate their power. during the same period the anarchist movement was developing in austria-hungary. a number of anarchist newspapers were launched, and a ceaseless agitation was in progress under the guidance of peukert, stellmacher, and kammerer. most's _freiheit_ was smuggled into the country in large quantities and was read greedily. at the trial of merstallinger it was shown that the money for anarchist agitation was obtained by robbery. this discovery added to the bitterness of the fight going on between the socialists and the anarchists. the anarchists, however, overpowered their opponents, and everywhere secret printing presses were busily producing incendiary literature which advocated the murder of police officials and otherwise developed the tactics of terrorism. "at a secret conference at lang enzersdorf," says zenker, "a new plan of action was discussed and adopted, namely, to proceed with all means in their power to take action against 'exploiters and agents of authority,' to keep people in a state of continual excitement by such acts of terrorism, and to bring about the revolution in every possible way. this program was immediately acted upon in the murder of several police agents. on december , , at floridsdorf, a police official named hlubek was murdered, and the condemnation of rouget, who was convicted of the crime, on june , , was immediately answered the next day by the murder of the police agent blöct. the government now took energetic measures. by order of the ministry, a state of siege was proclaimed in vienna and district from january , , by which the usual tribunals for certain crimes and offences were temporarily suspended, and the severest repressive measures were exercised against the anarchists, so that anarchism in austria rapidly declined, and at the same time it soon lost its leaders. stellmacher and kammerer were executed, peukert escaped to england, most of the other agitators were fast in prison, the journals were suppressed and the groups broken up."[ ] while these events were taking place in austria, anarchist agitation was manifesting itself in several great strikes that broke out in the industrial centers of southern france. at lyons, fournier, who shot his employer in the open street, was honored in a public meeting by the presentation of a revolver. a great demonstration was planned for paris, but, as there happened to be a review of troops on the day set, the anarchists decided to abandon the demonstration. in the autumn of the same year ( ), troubles arose in monceau-les-mines and at blanzy, where the workers were bent under a terrible capitalist and clerical domination. under the circumstances, the anarchist propaganda was very welcome, and it was only a short time until it produced an anti-religious demonstration. three or four hundred men, armed with pitchforks and revolvers, spread over the country, breaking the crosses and the statues of the virgin which were placed at the junctions of the roads. they called the working classes to arms and took as hostages landlords, curés, and functionaries. these riots were the childlike manifestations of exasperated and miserable men, destined in advance to failure. numerous arrests followed, and in the mines the workers suffered increased oppression. in the great silk industry of lyons was undergoing a serious crisis, and the misery among the weavers was intense. the anarchists were carrying on a big agitation led by kropotkin, gautier, bordas, bernard, and others. in the center of this city reduced almost to starvation there was, says kropotkin, an "underground café at the théâtre bellecour, which remained open all night, and where, in the small hours of the morning, one could see newspaper men and politicians feasting and drinking in company with gay women. not a meeting was held but some menacing allusion was made to that café, and one night a dynamite cartridge was exploded in it by an unknown hand. a worker who was occasionally there, a socialist, jumped to blow out the lighted fuse of the cartridge, and was killed, while a few of the feasting politicians were slightly wounded. next day a dynamite cartridge was exploded at the doors of a recruiting bureau, and it was said that the anarchists intended to blow up the huge statue of the virgin which stands on one of the hills of lyons."[ ] a panic seized the wealthier classes of the city, and some sixty anarchists were arrested, including kropotkin. a great trial, known as the _procès des anarchistes de lyons_, ensued, which lasted many weeks. at the conclusion only three out of the entire number were acquitted. although nearly all the anarchists were condemned, the police of lyons were still searching for the author of the explosion. at last, cyvoct, a militant anarchist of lyons, was identified as the one who had thrown the bomb. cyvoct had first gone to switzerland, then to brussels, in the suburbs of which city he was finally arrested. he was given over to the french police, appeared before the court of assizes of the rhone, and was condemned to death. his sentence was afterward commuted to that of enforced labor, and in he was pardoned. on march , , the carpenters' union of paris called the unemployed to a meeting to be held on the _esplanade des invalides_. two groups of anarchists formed. one started toward the _Élysée_ and was scattered on its way by the police. the second went toward the suburb of saint-antoine. on the march many bakeries were robbed by the manifestants. arrived at _place maubert_, they clashed with a large force of police. as a result, many arrests were made. accused of inciting to pillage, louise michel and Émile pouget were condemned to several years' imprisonment. the same month, at monceau-les-mines and in paris, great demonstrations of the "unemployed" took place in the streets, combined with robbery and dynamite outrages, while in july there were sanguinary encounters with the armed forces in roubaix and elsewhere. again and again the populace was incited to rise against the bourgeoisie, "who (it was said) were indulging in festivities while they had condemned louise michel, the champion of the proletariat, to a cruel imprisonment."[ ] these are but a few instances of the activity of the anarchists at the end of the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties. they are perhaps sufficient to show that the propaganda of the deed was making headway in western europe. certainly in germany and austria its course was soon run, but in france, italy, spain, and even in belgium every strike was attended with violence. insurrections, dynamite outrages, assassinations--all played their part. at the same time the governments carried on a ferocious persecution, and the chief anarchists were driven from place to place and hunted as wild animals. police spies and _agents provocateurs_ swarmed over the labor, socialist, and anarchist movements, and at the slightest sign of an uprising the soldiers were brought out to shoot down the people. hardly a month went by without some "anarchist trouble," and many harmless strikes resulted in dreadful massacres. it was a tragic period, that reminds one again of the picture in dante in which the two bitter enemies inflict upon each other cruel wounds in a fight that on both sides was inspired by the deepest hatred. chapter iv johann most in america while the above events were transpiring in the latin countries, the bakouninists were keeping a sharp eye on america as a land of hopeful possibilities. as early as bakounin himself considered the matter of coming here, while kropotkin and guillaume followed with interest the labor disturbances that were at that time so numerous and so violent in this country. the panic of had caused widespread suffering among the working classes. for several years afterward hordes of unemployed tramped the country. the masses were driven to desperation and, in their hunger, to frequent outbreaks of violence. when later a measure of prosperity returned, both the trade-union and the socialist movements began to attract multitudes of the discontented. the news of two important events in the labor world of america reached the anarchists of the jura and filled them, guillaume says, "with a lively emotion." in june, , kropotkin called attention to the act of the supreme court of the united states in declaring unconstitutional the eight-hour law on government work. he was especially pleased with an article in the _labor standard_ of new york, which declared: "this will teach the workers not to put their confidence in congress and to trust only in their own efforts. no law of congress could be of any use to the worker if he is not so organized that he can enforce it. and, if the workers are strong enough to do that, if they succeed in solidly forming the federation of their trade organizations, then they will be able, not only to force the legislators to make efficacious laws on the hours of work, on inspection, etc., but they will also be able to make the law themselves, deciding that henceforth no worker in the country shall work more than eight hours a day." "it is the good, practical sense of an american which says that,"[ ] comments kropotkin. this act of the supreme court and this statement of the _labor standard_ were very welcome news to the anarchists. they were convinced that the americans had abandoned political action and were turning to what they had already begun to call "direct action." another event, a month later, added to this conviction. in its issue of july the _bulletin_ published this article: "'following a strike of the machinists of the baltimore & ohio railroad, a popular insurrection has burst forth in the states of maryland, west virginia, pennsylvania, and ohio. if at martinsburg (west virginia) the workmen have been conquered by the militia, at baltimore (maryland), a city of , inhabitants, they have been victorious. they have taken possession of the station and have burned it, together with all the wagons of petroleum which were there. at pittsburgh (pennsylvania), a city of , inhabitants, the workers are at the present time masters of the city, after having seized guns and cannon.... the strike is extending to the near-by railroads and is gaining in the direction of the pacific. great agitation reigns in new york. it is announced that the troops will concentrate, that sheridan has been named commander, and that the western states have offered their help.' in the following number, a detailed article, written by kropotkin, recounted the _dénouement_ of the crisis, the recovery of pittsburgh, where two thousand wagons loaded with merchandise had been burned, the repression and the disarray of the strikers following the treachery of the miserable false brothers, and the final miscarriage of the movement. but if there had been, in this attempt of popular insurrection, weak sides that had brought about the failure, kropotkin rightly praised the qualities of which the american working people had just given proof: 'this movement will have certainly impressed profoundly the proletariat of europe and excited its admiration. its spontaneity, its simultaneousness at so many distant points communicating only by telegraph, the aid given by the workers of different trades, the resolute character of the uprising from the beginning, call forth all our sympathies, excite our admiration, and awaken our hopes.... but the blood of our brothers of america shall not have flowed in vain. their energy, their union in action, their courage will serve as an example to the proletariat of europe. but would that this flowing of noble blood prove once again the blindness of those who amuse the people with the plaything of parliamentarism when the powder magazine is ready to take fire, unknown to them, at the fall of the least spark.'"[ ] the news of industrial troubles, such as the above, convinced the anarchist elements of europe that america was ripe for direct action and the revolution. and it was indeed this period of profound industrial unrest that gave a forward impulse to all radical movements in the late seventies. socialist newspapers sprang up in all parts of the country, and both socialist and trade-union organizations took on an immense development. riots, minor insurrections, and strikes were symptoms of an all-pervading discontent. simultaneously with this, many revolutionists, upon being expelled from germany, were injected into the ferment. with many other refugees, the germans then began to form revolutionary clubs, and, in , johann most appeared in the united states scattering broadcast the terrorist ideas of bakounin and nechayeff. most was perhaps the most fiery personality that appeared in the ranks of the anarchists after the death of bakounin. a cruel stepmother, a pitiless employer, a long sickness, and an operation which left his face deformed forever are some of the incidents of his unhappy childhood. he received a poor education, but read extensively, and as a bookbinder worked at his trade in germany, austria, italy, and switzerland. he became attached to the labor movement toward the end of the sixties, and was elected to the german reichstag in . forced to leave germany as a result of the anti-socialist law, he went to london, where he established _die freiheit_, at first a social-democratic paper, which was smuggled into germany. he became, however, more and more violent, and in , at a secret gathering of the german socialists at wyden in switzerland, he and his friend hasselmann were expelled from the germany party. after this he no longer attempted to conceal his anarchist sympathies, and in the _freiheit_, on the platform, and on every possible occasion he preached principles almost identical with those of nechayeff and bakounin. in a pamphlet on the scientific art of revolutionary warfare and of dynamiters he prescribes in detail where bombs should be placed in churches, palaces, and ball-rooms.[i] he advises wholly individual action, in order that the groups may suffer as little harm as possible. his pamphlet also contains a dictionary of poisons which may be usefully employed against politicians, traitors, and spies. "extirpate the miserable brood!" he writes in _die freiheit_; "extirpate the wretches! thus runs the refrain of a revolutionary song of the working classes, and this will be the exclamation of the executive of a victorious proletariat army when the battle has been won. for at the critical moment the executioner's block must ever be before the eyes of the revolutionist. either he is cutting off the heads of his enemies or his own is being cut off. science gives us means which make it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts quietly and deliberately." elsewhere he says, "those of the reptile brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to annihilate utterly this race of parasites."[ ] it was this cheerful individual who, after being expelled from the german socialist party, made prodigious efforts to establish revolutionary organizations all over europe. in london he captured the communist working men's educational society, despite the protest of a considerable minority, and through it he undertook to launch other revolutionary clubs. the parliamentary socialists were bitterly assailed, and a congress was held in paris and a later one in london for the purpose of uniting the revolutionists of all countries. according to zenker, the headquarters of the association were at london, and sub-committees were formed to act in paris, geneva, and new york. money was to be collected "for the purchase of poison and weapons, as well as to find places suitable for laying mines, and so on. to attain the proposed end, the annihilation of all rulers, ministers of state, nobility, the clergy, the most prominent capitalists, and other exploiters, any means are permissible, and therefore great attention should be given specially to the study of chemistry and the preparation of explosives, as being the most important weapons. together with the chief committee in london there will also be established an executive bureau, whose duty is to carry out the decisions of the chief committee and to conduct correspondence."[ ] after these attempts to establish an anarchist international, most sailed for new york. some of his ideas had preceded him, and when he arrived he was met and greeted by masses of german workingmen. miss emma goldman, in "anarchism and other essays," tells us of the impression he made upon her. "some twenty-one years ago," she says, "i heard the first great anarchist speaker--the inimitable john most. it seemed to me then, and for many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased from the human mind and soul. how could any one of all the multitudes who flocked to most's meetings escape his prophetic voice!"[ ] at the time of most's arrival the american socialist movement was hopelessly divided over questions of methods and tactics. already there had been bitter quarrels between those in the movement who had formed secret drilling organizations which were preparing for a violent revolution, and those others who sought by education, organization, and political action to achieve their demands. in the year a number of new york members had left the socialist organization and formed a revolutionary group, and in october of the following year a convention was held to organize the various revolutionary groups into a national organization. everything was favorable for most, and when he arrived it was not long, with his magnetic personality and fiery agitation, until he had swept out of existence the older socialist organizations. in representatives from twenty-six cities met in pittsburgh to form the revolutionary socialist and anarchist groups into one body, called the "international working people's association." the same year a dismal socialist convention was held in baltimore with only sixteen delegates attending. they attempted to stem the tide to terrorism by declaring: "we do not share the folly of the men who consider dynamite bombs as the best means of agitation. we know full well that a revolution must take place in the heads and in the industrial life of men before the working class can achieve lasting success."[ ] the tide, however, was not stayed. the advocates of direct action continued headlong toward the bitter climax at the haymarket in chicago in . just previous to that fatal catastrophe, a series of great strikes had occurred in and about that city. at the mccormick reaper works a crowd of men was being addressed by spies, an anarchist, when the "scabs" left the factory. a pitched battle ensued. the police were called, and, when they were assaulted with stones, they opened fire on the crowd, shooting indiscriminately men, women, and children, killing six and wounding many more. spies, full of rage, hurried to the office of _arbeiter zeitung_, the anarchist paper, and composed the proclamation to the workingmen of chicago which has since become famous as "the revenge circular." it called upon the workingmen to arm themselves and to avenge the brutal murder of their brothers. five thousand copies of the circular, printed in english and german, were distributed in the streets. the next evening, may , , a mass meeting was called at the haymarket. about two thousand working people attended the meeting. the mayor of the city went in person to hear the addresses, and later testified that he had reported to captain bonfield, at the nearest police station, that "nothing had occurred nor was likely to occur to require interference." nevertheless, after mayor harrison had gone, captain bonfield sent one hundred and seventy-six policemen to march upon the little crowd that remained. captain ward, the officer in charge, commanded the meeting to disperse, and, as fielden, one of the speakers, retorted that the meeting was a peaceable one, a dynamite bomb was thrown from an adjoining alley that killed several policemen and wounded many more. in the agitation that led up to the haymarket tragedy, dynamite had always been glorified as the poor man's weapon. it was the power that science had given to the weak to protect them from injustice and tyranny. as powder and the musket had destroyed feudalism, so dynamite would destroy capitalism. in the issue of the _freiheit_, march , , most printed an article called "revolutionary principles." many of the phrases are evidently taken from the "catechism" of bakounin and nechayeff, and the sentiments are identical. during all this period great meetings were organized to glorify some martyr who, by the propaganda of the deed, had committed some great crime. for instance, vast meetings were organized in honor of stellmacher and others who had murdered officers of the viennese police. at one of these meetings most declared that such acts should not be called murder, because "murder is the killing of a human being, and i have never heard that a policeman was a human being."[ ] when august reinsdorf was executed for an attempt on the life of the german emperor, most's _freiheit_ appeared with a heavy black border. "one of our noblest and best is no more," he laments. "in the prison yard at halle under the murderous sword of the criminal hohenzollern band, on the th of february, august reinsdorf ended a life full of battle and of self-sacrificing courage, as a martyr to the great revolution."[ ] it was inevitable that such views should lead sooner or later to a tragedy, and, while most of the chicago anarchists were plain workingmen, simple and kindly, at least one fanatic in the group deserves to rank with nechayeff and most as an irreconcilable enemy of the existing order. this was louis lingg, whose last words as he was taken from the court were: "i repeat that i am the enemy of the 'order' of to-day, and i repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in me, i shall combat it. i declare again, frankly and openly, that i am in favor of using force. i have told captain schaack, and i stand by it, 'if you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you.' you laugh! perhaps you think, 'you'll throw no more bombs'; but let me assure you that i die happy on the gallows, so confident am i that the hundreds and thousands to whom i have spoken will remember my words; and, when you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb-throwing! in this hope i say to you: i despise you. i despise your order, your laws, your force-propped authority. hang me for it!"[ ] there are many minor incidents now quite forgotten that played a part in this american terrorism. benjamin r. tucker, of new york, himself an anarchist, but not an advocate of terrorist tactics, had in the midst of this period to cry out in protest against the acts of those who called themselves anarchists. in his paper, _liberty_, march , , tucker wrote on "the beast of communism."[ ] he began by quoting henri rochefort, who was reported to have said: "anarchists are merely criminals. they are robbers. they want no government whatever, so that, when they meet you on the street, they can knock you down and rob you."[ ] "this infamous and libelous charge," says tucker, "is a very sweeping one; i only wish that i could honestly meet it with as sweeping a denial. and i can, if i restrict the word anarchist as it always has been restricted in these columns, and as it ought to be restricted everywhere and always. confining the word anarchist so as to include none but those who deny all external authority over the individual, whether that of the present state or that of some industrial collectivity or commune which the future may produce, i can look henri rochefort in the face and say: 'you lie!' for of all these men i do not recall even one who, in any ordinary sense of the term, can be justly styled a robber. "but unfortunately, in the minds of the people at large, this word anarchist is not yet thus restricted in meaning. this is due principally to the fact that within a few years the word has been usurped, in the face of all logic and consistency, by a party of communists who believe in a tyranny worse than any that now exists, who deny to the laborer the individual possession of his product, and who preach to their followers the following doctrine: 'private property is your enemy; it is the beast that is devouring you; all wealth belongs to everybody; take it wherever you can find it; have no scruples about the means of taking it; use dynamite, the dagger, or the torch to take it; kill innocent people to take it; but, at all events, take it.' this is the doctrine which they call anarchy, and this policy they dignify with the name of 'propagandism by deed.' "well, it has borne fruit with most horrible fecundity. to be sure, it has gained a large mass of adherents, especially in the western cities, who are well-meaning men and women, not yet become base enough to practice the theories which they profess to have adopted. but it has also developed, and among its immediate and foremost supporters, a gang of criminals whose deeds for the past two years rival in 'pure cussedness' any to be found in the history of crime. were it not, therefore, that i have first, last, and always repudiated these pseudo-anarchists and their theories, i should hang my head in shame before rochefort's charge at having to confess that too many of them are not only robbers, but incendiaries and murderers. but, knowing as i do that no _real_ anarchist has any part or lot in these infamies, i do not confess the facts with shame, but reiterate them with righteous wrath and indignation, in the interest of my cause, for the protection of its friends, and to save the lives and possessions of any more weak and innocent persons from being wantonly destroyed or stolen by cold-blooded villains parading in the mask of reform. "yes, the time has come to speak. it is even well-nigh too late. within the past fortnight a young mother and her baby boy have been burned to death under circumstances which suggest to me the possibility that, had i made this statement sooner, their lives would have been saved; and, as i now write these lines, i fairly shudder at the thought that they may not reach the public and the interested parties before some new holocaust has added to the number of those who have already fallen victims. others who know the facts, well-meaning editors of leading journals of so-called communistic anarchism, may, from a sense of mistaken party fealty, bear longer the fearful responsibility of silence, if they will; for one i will not, cannot. i will take the other responsibility of exposure, which responsibility i personally and entirely assume, although the step is taken after conference upon its wisdom with some of the most trusted and active anarchists in america. "now, then, the facts. and they _are_ facts, though i state them generally, without names, dates, or details. "the main fact is this: that for nearly two years a large number of the most active members of the german group of the international working people's association in new york city, and of the social revolutionary club, another german organization in that city, have been persistently engaged in getting money by insuring their property for amounts far in excess of the real value thereof, secretly removing everything that they could, setting fire to the premises, swearing to heavy losses, and exacting corresponding sums from the insurance companies. explosion of kerosene lamps is usually the device which they employ. some seven or eight fires, at least, of this sort were set in new york and brooklyn in by members of the gang, netting the beneficiaries an aggregate profit of thousands of dollars. in nearly twenty more were set, with equally profitable results. the record for has reached six already, if not more. the business has been carried on with the most astonishing audacity. one of these men had his premises insured, fired them, and presented his bill of loss to the company within twenty-four hours after getting his policy, and before the agent had reported the policy to the company. the bill was paid, and a few months later the same fellow, under another name, played the game over again, though not quite so speedily. in one of the fires set in a woman and two children were burned to death. the two guilty parties in this case were members of the bohemian group and are now serving life sentences in prison. another of the fires was started in a six-story tenement house, endangering the lives of hundreds, but fortunately injuring no one but the incendiary. in one case in the firemen have saved two women whom they found clinging to their bed posts in a half-suffocated condition. in another a man, woman, and baby lost their lives. three members of the gang are now in jail awaiting trial for murdering and robbing an old woman in jersey city. two others are in jail under heavy bail and awaiting trial for carrying concealed weapons and assaulting an officer. they were walking arsenals, and were found under circumstances which lead to the suspicion that they were about to perpetrate a robbery, if not a murder. "the profits accruing from this 'propagandism by deed' are not even used for the benefit of the movement to which the criminals belong, but go to fill their own empty pockets, and are often spent in reckless, riotous living. the guilty parties are growing bolder and bolder, and, anticipating detection ultimately, a dozen or so of them have agreed to commit perjury in order to involve the innocent as accomplices in their crimes. it is their boast that the active anarchists shall all go to the gallows together." the history of terrorist tactics in america largely centers about the career of johann most. in august bebel's story of his life he speaks in high terms of the unselfish devotion and sterling character of most in his early days. "if later on," says bebel, "under the anti-socialist laws, he went astray and became an anarchist and an advocate of direct action, and finally, although he had been a model of abstinence, ended in the united states as a drunkard, it was all due to the anti-socialist laws, laws which drove him and many others from the country. had he remained under the influence of the men who were able to guide him and restrain his passionate temper, the party would have possessed in him a most zealous, self-sacrificing, and indefatigable fighter."[ ] most, then, was one of the victims of bismarck's savage policies, as were also nearly all the other germans who took part in the sordid crimes related by tucker. and the haymarket--the greatest of all american tragedies--leads directly back to the iron chancellor and his ferocious inquisition. a few minor incidents of anarchist activity may be recorded for the following years, but the only acts of importance were the shooting of president mckinley by czolgosz and the shooting of henry c. frick by alexander berkman. in the "prison memoirs of an anarchist," berkman has now told us that as a youth he became a disciple of bakounin and a fiery member of the nihilist group. it was after the homestead strike that berkman saw a chance to propagate his gospel by a deed. leaving his home in new york, he went to pittsburgh for the purpose of killing henry c. frick, then head of the carnegie steel company. berkman made his way into frick's office, shot at and slightly wounded him. in explanation of this act he says: "in truth, murder and _attentat_ (that is, political assassination) are to me opposite terms. to remove a tyrant is an act of liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed people."[ ] for this attempt on the life of frick, berkman was condemned to a term of imprisonment of twenty-two years. despite a few isolated outbreaks, it may be said, therefore, that the seeds of anarchism have never taken root in america, just as they have never taken root in germany or in england. to-day there are no active american terrorists and only a handful of avowed anarchists. in the latin countries, however, the deeds of terrorism still played a tragic part in the history of the next few years. footnote: [i] see _revolutionäre kriegswissenschaft_. chapter v a series of tragedies while johann most was sowing the seeds of terrorism in america, his comrades were actively at work in europe. and, if the tactics of most led eventually to petty thievery, somewhat the same degeneration was overtaking the propaganda of the deed in europe. up to robbery had not yet been adopted as a weapon of the latin revolutionists. in america, in austria, and in russia, the doctrine had been preached and, to a certain extent, practiced, but _l'affaire duval_ was responsible for its introduction into france. unlike most of the preceding demonstrations, the act of duval was essentially an individual one. on october , , a large house situated at rue de monceau, paris, and occupied by mme. herbelin and her daughter, mme. madeleine lemaire, the well-known artist, was robbed and half burned. some days later, clément duval and two accomplices, didier and houchard, were arrested as the perpetrators of this act. at first the matter was treated by the newspapers as an ordinary robbery. the _cri du peuple_ called it a simple burglary, followed by an incendiary attempt. but after some days, duval announced himself an anarchist and declared that his act was in harmony with his faith. on january and , , the case came before the court. the discussions were very heated. after m. fernand labori, then a very young advocate, who had been appointed to defend duval, had made his plea, duval became anxious to defend himself. he threatened, in leaving the prison, to blow up with dynamite the jury and the court, and heaped upon them most abusive language. the president ordered that he should be removed from the court. an enormous tumult then ensued in that part of the hall where the anarchists were massed. "help! help! comrades! long live anarchy!" cried duval. "long live anarchy!" answered his comrades. thirty guards led duval away, and the verdict was read in the presence of an armed force with fixed bayonets. he was condemned to death and his two accomplices acquitted. eight days afterward, on january , an indignation meeting against the condemnation of duval was organized by the anarchists, at which nearly , were present. tennevin, leboucher, and louise michel spoke in turn, glorifying duval. the opposition was taken by a blanquist, a normandy citizen, who censured the act of duval, because such acts, he said, throw discredit on the revolutionists and so retard the hour of the social revolution. duval's case was appealed to the highest court in france, but the appeal was rejected. the president of the republic, however, commuted his sentence of capital punishment to enforced labor. then followed a long period of discussions and violent controversies between the anarchists and the socialists over the whole affair. the anarchists claimed the right of theft on the grounds that it was the beginning of capitalist expropriation and that stolen wealth could aid in propaganda and action. the socialists, on the other hand, protested against this theory with extreme vigor. after duval, there is little noteworthy in the terrorist movement for a period of four years, but with may , , there began what is known as _la période tragique_. five notable figures, decamps, ravachol, vaillant, henry, and caserio, within a period of three years, performed a series of terrorist acts that cannot be forgotten. their utter desperation and abandon, the terrible solemnity of their lives, and the almost superhuman efforts they made to bring society to its knees mark the most tragic and heroic period in the history of anarchism. at levallois-perret a demonstration was organized by the anarchists for may . they brought out their red and black flags, and, when the police attempted to interfere and to take away their banners, they opened fire upon them. several fell injured, while others returned the fire. the fight continued for some time, until finally reinforcements arrived and the anarchists were subdued. six of the police and three of the anarchists were severely injured, one of the latter being decamps, who had received severe blows from a sword. the trial took place in august, and, when decamps attempted to defend himself, the judge refused to hear him. finally he and his friends were condemned to prison. the next year, , the avenger of decamps appeared. it was the famous ravachol, who for a time kept all paris in a state of terror. in the night of february there was a theft of dynamite from the establishment of _soisy-sous-etioles_. on march an explosion shook the house on boulevard saint-germain, in which lived m. benoît, the judge who had presided in august, , at the trial of decamps at levallois. on march a bomb was discovered on the window of the lobau barracks. on march a bomb was exploded on the first floor of a house on rue de clichy, occupied by m. bulot, who had held the office of public minister at the trial in levallois. it was only by chance, on the accusation of a boy by the name of lhérot, who was employed in a restaurant, that the police eventually captured ravachol. he admitted having exploded the bombs in rue de clichy and boulevard saint-germain, "in order to avenge," he said, "the abominable violences committed against our friends, decamps, léveillé, and dardare."[ ] on april a bomb was exploded in the restaurant where lhérot, the informer, worked, killing the proprietor and severely wounding one of the patrons. the public was thrown into a state of dreadful alarm. the next day, when ravachol was brought to trial, some awful foreboding seemed to possess those who were present. all paris was guarded. in spite of the efforts of the public minister, the jury spared ravachol on the ground of extenuating circumstances. it is difficult to say whether it was fear or pity that determined the decision of the jurors. in any case, ravachol was acquitted, only to be condemned to death a few months later for strangling the hermit of chambles, and he was then executed. "what shall one think of ravachol?" says prolo in _les anarchistes_. "he assassinated a mendicant, he broke into tombs in order to steal jewels, he manufactured counterfeit money, or, more exactly, substituting himself for the state, he cast five-franc pieces in silver, with the authentic standard, and put them in circulation. lastly, he dynamited some property. he is of mystical origin. profoundly religious in his early youth, he embraces with the same ardor, the same passion, and the same spirit of sacrifice the new political theory of equality. he throws himself deliberately outside the limits of the society which he abhors--kills, robs, and avenges his brothers. and let anyone question him, he replies: 'a begging hermit, he is a parasite and should be suppressed. one ought not to bury jewels when children are hungry, when mothers weep, and when men suffer from misery. the state makes money. is it of good alloy? i make it as the state makes it and of the same alloy! as to dynamite, it is the arm of the weak who avenge themselves or avenge others for the humiliating oppression of the strong and their unconscious accomplices.'"[ ] although the anarchists accepted duval and defended his acts, ravachol was variously appreciated by them. jean grave, the french anarchist, and merlino, the italian anarchist, both condemned ravachol. "he is not one of us," declared the latter, "and we repudiate him. his explosions lose their revolutionary character because of his personality, which is unworthy to serve the cause of humanity."[ ] Élisée reclus, on the contrary, wrote of ravachol in the _sempre avanti_ as follows: "i admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his grandeur of soul, the generosity with which he has pardoned his enemies. i know few men who surpass him in generosity. i pass over the question of knowing up to what point it is always desirable to push one's own right to the extreme and whether other considerations, actuated by a sentiment of human solidarity, ought not to make it yield. but i am none the less of those who recognize in ravachol a hero of a rare grandeur of soul."[ ] in the _entretiens politiques et littéraires_, under the title, _eloge de ravachol_, paul adam wrote: "whatever may have been the invectives of the bourgeois press and the tenacity of the magistrates in dishonoring the act of the victim, they have not succeeded in persuading us of his error. after so many judicial debates, chronicles, and appeals to legal murder, ravachol remains the propagandist of the grand idea of the ancient religions which extolled the quest of individual death for the good of the world, the abnegation of self, of one's life, and of one's fame for the exaltation of the poor and the humble. he is definitely the renewer of the essential sacrifice."[ ] museux, in _l'art social_, said: "ravachol has remained what he at first showed himself, a rebel. he has made the sacrifice of his life for an idea and to cause that idea to pass from a dream into reality. he has recoiled before nothing, claiming the responsibility for his acts. he has been logical from one end to the other. he has given example of a fine character and indomitable energy, at the same time that he has summed up in himself the vague anger of the revolutionists."[ ] hardly had the people of paris gotten over their terror of the deeds of ravachol when august vaillant endeavored to blow up with dynamite the french chamber of deputies. he was a socialist, almost unknown among the anarchists. he said afterward that political-financial scandals were arousing popular anger and that it was necessary to thrust the sword into the heart of public powers, since they could not be conquered peaceably. in order to carry out his plan, he went to _palais-bourbon_, and, when the session opened, vaillant arose in the gallery to throw his bomb. a woman, perceiving the intentions of the thrower, grasped his arm, causing the bomb to strike a chandelier, with the result that only abbé lemire and some spectators were injured. in the midst of commotion, with men stupefied with terror, the president of the chamber, m. charles dupuy, called out the memorable words, "the session continues." arraigned before the court, vaillant was condemned to death. he said in explanation of his act, "i carried this bomb to those who are primarily responsible for social misery."[ ] "gentlemen, in a few minutes you are to deal your blow, but in receiving your verdict i shall have at least the satisfaction of having wounded the existing society, that cursed society in which one may see a single man spending, uselessly, enough to feed thousands of families; an infamous society which permits a few individuals to monopolize all the social wealth, while there are hundreds of thousands of unfortunates who have not even the bread that is not refused to dogs, and while entire families are committing suicide for want of the necessities of life....[ ] "i conclude, gentlemen, by saying that a society in which one sees such social inequalities as we see all about us, in which we see every day suicides caused by poverty, prostitution flaring at every street corner--a society whose principal monuments are barracks and prisons--such a society must be transformed as soon as possible, on pain of being eliminated, and that speedily, from the human race. hail to him who labors, by no matter what means, for this transformation! it is this idea that has guided me in my duel with authority, but as in this duel i have only wounded my adversary, it is now its turn to strike me."[ ] the abbé lemire, deputy from the north, the only member of the chamber who had been slightly wounded by the explosion of the bomb, urged the pardon of the condemned man. the socialist deputies likewise decided to appeal to the pardoning power of the president of the republic and signed the following petition: "the undersigned, members of the chamber of deputies which was made the object of the criminal attempt of december , have the honor to address to the president of the republic a last appeal in favor of the condemned."[ ] it has long been the custom in france not to punish an abortive crime with the death penalty, and it was generally believed that vaillant's sentence would be changed to life imprisonment. president carnot, however, refused to extend any mercy, and vaillant was guillotined. a few days after the execution of vaillant, a bomb was thrown among some guests who were quietly assembled, listening to the music, in the café of the hotel terminus. several persons were severely wounded. after a fierce struggle with the police, Émile henry was arrested. in the trial it was learned that he had been responsible for a number of other explosions that had taken place in the two or three years previous. he had attempted to avenge the miners who had been on strike at carmaux by blowing up the manager of the company. he had deposited the bomb in the office of the company, where it was discovered by the porter. it was brought to the police, where it exploded, killing the secretary and three of his agents. henry was a silent, lonely man, wholly unknown to the police. mystical, sentimental, and brooding, he believed that the rich were individually responsible for misery and social wrong. "i had been told that life was easy and with abundant opportunity for all intellects and all energies," he declared at his trial, "but experience has shown me that only the cynics and the servile can make a place for themselves at the banquet. i had been told that social institutions were based on justice and equality, and i have seen about me only lies and deceit. each day robbed me of an illusion. everywhere i went i was witness of the same sorrows about us, of the same joys about others. therefore i was not long in understanding that the words which i had been taught to reverence--honor, devotion, duty--were nothing but a veil concealing the most shameful baseness.... "for an instant i was attracted by socialism; but i was not long in withdrawing myself from that party. i had too much love for liberty, too much respect for individual initiative, too much dislike for incorporation to take a number in the registered army of the fourth estate. i brought into the struggle a profound hatred, every day revived by the repugnant spectacle of this society in which everything is sordid, ... in which everything hinders the expansion of human passions, the generous impulses of the heart, the free flight of thought. i have, however, wished, as far as i was able, to strike forcibly and justly.... in this pitiless war which we have declared on the bourgeoisie we ask no pity. we give death and know how to suffer it. that is why i await your verdict with indifference."[ ] in the case of henry appeals were also made to president carnot for mercy, but they, too, were ignored, and henry was guillotined a few days after vaillant. a month or so later, june , president carnot arrived at lyons to open an exposition. that evening, while on his way to a theater, he was stabbed to death by the italian anarchist, caserio, on the handle of whose stiletto was engraved "vaillant." this was the climax to the series of awful tragedies. it would be impossible to picture the utter consternation of the entire french nation. the characters that had figured in this terrible drama were not ordinary men. their addresses before condemnation were so eloquent and impressive as to awaken lively emotions among the most thoughtful and brilliant men in france. they challenged society. the judge refused decamps a hearing, and ravachol undertook individually to destroy the judge. vaillant, deciding that the lawmakers were responsible for social injustice, undertook with one bomb to destroy them. henry, feeling that it was not the lawmakers who were responsible, but the rich, careless, and sensual, who in their mastery over labor caused poverty, misery, and all suffering, sought with his bomb to destroy them. utterly blind to the sentiments which moved these men, the president of the republic allowed them to be guillotined, and caserio, stirred to his very depths by what he considered to be the sublime acts of his comrades, stabbed to death the president. it is hard to pass judgment on lives such as these. one stands bewildered and aghast before men capable of such deeds; and, if they defy frivolous judgment, even to explain them seems beyond the power of one who, in the presence of the same wrongs that so deeply moved them, can still remain inert. yet is there any escape to the conclusion that all this was utter waste of life and devotion? far from awakening in their opponents the slightest thought of social wrong, these men, at the expense of their lives, awakened only a spirit of revenge. "an eye for an eye" was now the sentiment of the militants on both sides. all reason and sympathy disappeared, and, instead, every brutal passion had play. politically and socially, the reactionaries were put in the saddle. every progressive in france was placed on the defensive. anyone who hinted of social wrong was ostracized. cæsarism ruled france, and, through _les lois scélérates_, every bush was beaten, every hiding-place uncovered, until every anarchist was driven out. the acts of vaillant and henry, like the acts of the chicago anarchists, not only failed utterly as propaganda, they even closed the ear and the heart of the world to everything and anything that was associated, or that could in any manner be connected, with anarchism. they served only one purpose--every malign influence and reactionary element took the acts of these misguided prodigies as a pretext to fasten upon the people still more firmly both social and political injustice. to no one were they so useful as to their enemy. for three years after this tragic period little noteworthy occurred in the history of terrorism. in barcelona, spain, a bomb was thrown, and immediately three hundred men and women were arrested. they were all thrown into prison and subjected to torture. some were killed, others driven insane, although after a time some were released upon appeals made by the press and by many notables of other countries of europe. the prime minister of spain, canovas del castillo, was chiefly responsible for the torture of the victims. and in a young italian, angiolillo, went to spain, and, at an interview which he sought with the prime minister, shot him. the same year an attempt was made on the life of the king of greece, and in the empress of austria was assassinated in switzerland by an italian named luccheni. the latter had gone there intending to kill the duke of york, but, not finding him, decided to destroy the empress. in king humbert of italy was assassinated by gaetano bresci. the latter had been working as a weaver in america, where he had also edited an anarchist paper. he was deeply moved when the story reached him of some soldiers who had shot and killed some peasants, who through hunger had been driven to riot. he demanded money of his comrades in paterson, new jersey, and, when he obtained it, hurried back to his native land, where, at monza, on the th of july he shot the king. the next year on september , president mckinley was shot in buffalo by leon czolgosz. no other striking figure appears among the anarchists until . in the early months of that year all paris was terrified by a series of crimes unexampled, it is said, in western history. the deeds of bonnot and his confederates were so reckless, daring, and openly defiant, their escapes so miraculous, and the audacity of their assaults so incredible, that the people of paris were put in a state bordering on frenzy. just before the previous christmas, in broad daylight, on a busy street, the band fell upon a bank messenger. they shot him and took from his wallet $ , . they then jumped in an automobile and disappeared. a short time later a police agent called upon a chauffeur who was driving at excess speed to stop. it was in the very center of paris, but instead of slackening his pace one of the occupants of the car drew a revolver, and, firing, killed the officer. a pursuit was organized, but the murderers escaped. several other crimes were committed by the band in the next few days, but perhaps the most daring was that of march . in the forest of senart, at eight o'clock in the morning, a band of five men stopped a chauffeur driving a powerful new motor car. they shot the chauffeur and injured his companion. the five men then took the car, and proceeded at great speed to the famous racing center of chantilly. they went directly to a bank, descended from the car, and shot down the three men in charge of the bank. they then seized from the safe $ , . a crowd which had gathered was kept back by one of the bandits with a rifle. the others came out, opened fire on the spectators, started the car at its utmost speed, and disappeared. not long after, monsieur jouin, deputy chief of the sûreté, and chief inspector colmar were making a domiciliary search in a house near paris. instead of finding what they thought, a man crouching beneath a bed sprang upon them, and in the fight jouin was killed and colmar severely injured. bonnot, although injured, escaped by almost miraculous means. at last, on april , the band, which had defied the police force of paris for four months, was discovered concealed in a garage said to belong to a wealthy anarchist. a body of police besieged the place, and after two police officers were killed a dynamite cartridge was exploded that destroyed the garage. bonnot was then captured, fighting to the last. the police reported the finding of bonnot's will, in which he says: "i am a celebrated man.... ought i to regret what i have done? yes, perhaps; but i must live my life. so much the worse for idiotic and imbecile society.... i am not more guilty," he continues, "than the sweaters who exploit poor devils."[ ] his final thought, it is said, was for his accomplices, both of whom were women, one his mistress, the other the manager of the _journal anarchie_. chapter vi seeking the causes such is the tragic story of barely forty years of terrorism in western europe. it reads far more like lurid fiction than the cold facts of history. yet these amazing irreconcilables actually lived--in our time--and fought, at the cost of their lives, the entire organization of society. surely few other periods in history can show a series of characters so daring, so bitter, so bent on destruction and annihilation. bakounin, nechayeff, most, lingg, duval, decamps, ravachol, henry, vaillant, caserio, and luccheni--these bewildering rebels--individually waged their deadly conflict with the world. with the weakness of their one single life in revolt against society--protected as it is by countless thousands of police, millions of armed men, and all its machinery for defense--these amazing creatures fought their fight and wrote their page of protest in the world's history. think of it as we will, this we know, that the world cannot utterly ignore men who lay down their lives for any cause. men may write and agitate, they may scream never so shrilly about the wrongs of the world, but when they go forth to fight single-handed and to die for what they preach they have at least earned the right to demand of society an inquiry. what was it that drove these men to violence? was it the teachings of bakounin, of nechayeff, and of most? their writings have been read and pondered over by thousands of yearning and impressionable minds. they have been drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. yet one anarchist at least denies that the writings of these terrorists have moved men to violence. "my contention is," says emma goldman, "that they were impelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the tremendous pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive natures."[ ] returning again to the same thought, she exclaims, "how utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of political violence."[ ] to this indefatigable propagandist of anarchist doctrine, those who have been led into homicidal violence are "high strung, like a violin string." "they weep and moan for life, so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. in a desperate moment the string breaks."[ ] yet, if it be true that doctrines have naught to do with the spread of terrorism, why is it that among many million socialists there are almost no terrorists, while among a few thousand anarchists there are many terrorists? the pressure of adverse social conditions is felt as keenly by the socialists as by the anarchists. the one quite as much as the other is a rebel against social ills. the indictment made by the socialists against political and economic injustice is as far-reaching as that of the anarchists. why then does not the socialist movement produce terrorists? is it not that the teachings of marx and of all his disciples dwell upon the folly of violence, the futility of riots, the madness of assassination, while, on the other hand, the teachings of bakounin, of nechayeff, of kropotkin, and of most advocate destructive violence as a creative force? "extirpate the wretches!" cries most. "make robbers our allies!" says nechayeff. "propagate the gospel by a deed!" urges kropotkin, and throughout bakounin's writings there appears again and again the plea for "terrible, total, inexorable, and universal destruction." both socialists and anarchists preach their gospel to the weary and heavy-laden, to the despondent and the outraged, who may readily be led to commit acts of despair. they have, after all, little to lose, and their life, at present unbearable, can be made little worse by punishment. yet millions of the miserable have come into the socialist movement to hear the fiercest of indictments against capitalism, and it is but rare that one becomes a terrorist. what else than the teachings of anarchism and of socialism can explain this difference? unquestionably, socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types, who are in many ways alien to each other. their mental processes differ. their nervous systems jar upon each other. even physically they have been known to repel each other. born of much the same conditions, they fought each other in the cradle. from the very beginning they have been irreconcilable, and with perfect frankness they have shown their contempt for each other. about the kindest criticism that the socialist makes of the anarchist is that he is a child, while the anarchist is convinced that the socialist is a philistine and an inbred conservative who, should he ever get power, would immediately hang the anarchists.[j] they are traditional enemies, who seem utterly incapable of understanding each other. intellectually, they fail to grasp the meaning of each other's philosophy. it is but rare that a socialist, no matter how conscientious a student, will confess he fully understands anarchism. on the other hand, no one understands the doctrines of socialism so little as the anarchist. it is possible, therefore, that the same conditions which drive the anarchist to terrorist acts lead the socialist to altogether different methods, but the reasonable and obvious conclusion would be that teachings and doctrines determine the methods that each employ. the anarchist is, as emma goldman says, "high strung." his ear is tuned to hear unintermittently the agonized cry. to follow the imagery of shelley, he seems to be living in a "mind's hell,"[ ] wherein hate, scorn, pity, remorse, and despair seem to be tearing out the nerves by their bleeding roots. björnstjerne björnson, françois coppée, Émile zola, and many other great writers have sought to depict the psychology of the anarchist, but i think no one has approached the poet shelley, who had in himself the heart of the anarchist. he was a son-in-law and a disciple of william godwin, one of the fathers of anarchism. "prometheus unbound," "the revolt of islam," and "the mask of anarchy," are expressions of the very soul of godwin's philosophy. shelley was "cradled into poetry by wrong," as a multitude of other unhappy men are cradled into terrorism by wrong. he was "as a nerve o'er which do creep the else unfelt oppressions of this earth," and he "could moan for woes which others hear not." he, too, "could ... with the poor and trampled sit and weep."[ ] there is in nearly all anarchists this supersensitiveness, this hyperæsthesia that leads to ecstasy, to hysteria, and to fanaticism. it is a neuropathy that has led certain scientists, like lombroso and krafft-ebbing, to suggest that some anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide. they are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. it is a type of insanity that leads to acts which seem sublime to others in a state of like torture both of mind and of nerves. this explains no doubt the acts of some terrorists, and at the same time it condemns the present attitude of society toward the terrorist. think of hanging the tormented soul who could say as he was taken to the gallows: "i went away from my native place because i was frequently moved to tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. young women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily for a mockery of remuneration.... "i have observed that there are a great many people who are hungry, and many children who suffer, while bread and clothes abound in the towns. i saw many and large shops full of clothing and woolen stuffs, and i also saw warehouses full of wheat and indian corn, suitable for those who are in want."[ ] when such a tortured spirit is driven to homicide, how is it possible for society to demand and take that life? shall we admit that there is a duel between society and these souls deranged by the wrongs of society? "in this duel," said vaillant, "i have only wounded my adversary, it is now his turn to strike me."[ ] it is tragic enough that a poor and desperate soul, like vaillant, should have felt himself in deadly combat with society, but how much more tragic it is for society to admit that fact, accept the challenge, and take that life! "if you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you," said louis lingg.[ ] and we answer, "if you dynamite us, we shall cannonade you." and in so far as this is our sole attitude toward these rebels, wherein are we superior? for lingg to say that was at least heroic. for us so to answer is not even heroic. our paid men see to it. it is done as a matter of course and forgotten. these men say that justice exists only for the powerful, that the poor are robbed, and that "the lamp of their soul" is put out. they beg us to listen, and we will not. they ask us to read, and we will not. "it takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear," said vaillant. they then give all they have to execute one dreadful deed of propaganda in order to awaken us. must even this fail? we can hang them, but can we forget them? after every deed of the anarchists the press, the police, and the pulpit carry on for weeks a frenzied discussion over their atrocities. the lives of these propagandists of the deed are then crushed out, and in a few months even their names are forgotten. there seems to be an innate dread among us to seek the causes that lie at the bottom of these distressing symptoms of our present social régime. we prefer, it seems, to become like that we contemplate. we seek to terrorize them, as they seek to terrorize us. as the anarchist believes that oppression may be ended by the murder of the oppressor, so society cherishes the thought that anarchism may be ended by the murder of the anarchist. are not our methods in truth the same, and can any man doubt that both are equally futile and senseless? both the anarchy of the powerful and the anarchy of the weak are stupid and abortive, in that they lead to results diametrically opposed to the ends sought. tennyson was never nearer a great social truth than when he wrote: "he that roars for liberty faster binds a tyrant's power; and the tyrant's cruel glee forces on the freer hour."[ ] no one perhaps is better qualified than lombroso to speak on the present punitive methods of society as a direct cause of terrorism. "punishment," he says, "far from being a palliative to the fanaticism and the nervous diseases of others, exalts them, on the contrary, by exciting their altruistic aberration and their thirst for martyrdom. in order to heal these anarchist wounds there is, according to some statesmen, nothing but hanging on the gallows and prison. for my part, i consider it just indeed to take energetic measures against the anarchists. however, it is not necessary to go so far as to take measures which are merely the result of momentary reactions, measures which thus become as impulsive as the causes which have produced them and in their turn a source of new violence. "for example, i am not an unconditional adversary of capital punishment, at least when it is a question of the criminal born, whose existence is a constant danger to worthy people. consequently, i should not have hesitated to condemn pini[k] and ravachol. on the other hand, i believe that capital punishment or severe or merely ignominious penalties are not suited to the crimes and the offenses of the anarchists in general. first, many of them are mentally deranged, and for these it is the asylum, and not death or the gallows, that is fitting. it is necessary also to take account, in the case of some of these criminals, of their noble altruism which renders them worthy of certain regard. many of these people are souls that have gone astray and are hysterical, like vaillant and henry, who, had they been engaged in some other cause, far from being a danger, would have been able to be of use in this society which they wished to destroy.... "as to indirect suicides, is it not to encourage them and to make them attain the end that they desire when we inflict on all those so disposed a spectacular death?... for many criminals by passion, unbalanced by an inadequate education, and whose feeling is aroused by either their own misery or at the sight of the misery of others, we would no more award the death penalty if the motive has been exclusively political, because they are much less dangerous than the criminal born. on the other hand, commitment to the asylum of the epileptic and the hysteric would be a practical measure, especially in france, where ridicule kills them. martyrs are venerated and fools are derided."[ ] of course, lombroso is endeavoring to prescribe a method of treatment for the terrorist that will not breed more terrorists. he sees in the present punitive methods an active cause of violence. however, it is perhaps impossible to hope that society will adopt any different attitude than that which it has taken in the past toward these unbalanced souls. in fact, it seems that a savage _lex talionis_ is wholly satisfying to the feudists on both sides. neither the one nor the other seeks to understand the forces driving them both. they are bent on destroying each other, and they will probably continue in that struggle for a long time to come. however, if we learn little from those actually engaged in the conflict, there are those outside who have labored earnestly to understand and explain the causes of terrorism. ethics, religion, psychology, criminal pathology, sociology, economics, jurisprudence--all contribute to the explanation. and, while it is not possible to go into the entire matter as exhaustively as one could wish, there are several points which seem to make clear the cause of this almost individual struggle between the anarchists above and the anarchists below. some of those who have written of the causes of terrorism have a partisan bias. there are those among the catholic clergy, for instance, who have sought to place the entire onus on the doctrines of modern socialism. this has, in turn, led august bebel to point out that the teachings of certain famous men in the church have condoned assassination. he reminds us of mariana, the jesuit, who taught under what circumstances each individual has a right to take the life of a tyrant. his work, _de rege et rege constitutione_, was famous in its time. lombroso tells us that "the jesuits ... who even to-day sustain the divine right of kings, when the kings themselves believe in it no longer, revolted at one time against the princes who were not willing to follow them in their _misonéique_ and retrograde fanaticism and hurled themselves into regicide. thus three jesuits were executed in england in for complicity in a conspiracy against the life of elizabeth, and two others in in connection with the powder plot. in france, père guignard was beheaded for high treason against henry iv. ( ). some jesuits were beheaded in holland for the conspiracies against maurice de nassau ( ); and, later in portugal, after the attempt to assassinate king joseph ( ), three of the jesuits were implicated; and in spain ( ) still others were condemned for their conspiracy against ferdinand iv. "during the same period two jesuits were hanged in paris as accomplices in the attempt against louis xv. when they did not take an active part in political crimes, they exercised indirectly their influence by means of a whole series of works approving regicide or tyrannicide, as they were pleased to distinguish it in their books. mariana, in his book, _de rege et rege constitutione_, praises clément and apologizes for regicide; and that, in spite of the fact that the council of constance had condemned the maxim according to which it was permitted to kill a tyrant."[l][ ] that the views of mariana were very similar to those of the terrorists will be seen by the following quotation from his famous book: "it is a question," he writes, in discussing the best means of killing a king, "whether it is more expedient to use poison or the dagger. the use of poison in the food has a great advantage in that it produces its effect without exposing the life of the one who has recourse to this method. but such a death would be a suicide, and one is not permitted to become an accomplice to a suicide. happily, there is another method available, that of poisoning the clothing, the chairs, the bed. this is the method that it is necessary to put into execution in imitation of the mauritanian kings, who, under the pretext of honoring their rivals with gifts, sent them clothes that had been sprinkled with an invisible substance, with which contact alone has a fatal effect."[ ] it has also been pointed out that, although catholics have rarely been given to revolutionary political and economic theories, the mafia and the camorra in italy, the fenians in ireland, and the molly maguires in america were all organizations of catholics which pursued the same terrorist tactics that we find in the anarchist movement. these are unquestionable facts, yet they explain nothing. certainly zenker is justified in saying, "the deeds of people like jacques clément, ravaillac, corday, sand, and caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that sand's action followed from the views of the _burschenschaft_, or clément's from catholicism, even when we learn that sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was charlotte corday and clément, or even when learned jesuits like sa, mariana, and others, _cum licentia et approbatione superiorum_, in connection with clément's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of nechayeff or most."[ ] it therefore ill becomes the catholic clergy to attack socialism on the ground of regicide, as not one socialist book or one socialist leader has ever yet been known to advocate even tyrannicide. on the other hand, while terrorism has been extraordinarily prevalent in catholic countries, such as france, italy, and spain, no socialist will seriously seek to lay the blame on the catholic church. the truth is that the forces which produce terrorism affect the catholic mind as they affect the protestant mind. in every struggle for liberty and justice against religious, political, or industrial oppression, some men are moved to take desperate measures regardless of whether they are catholics, protestants, or pagans. still other seekers after the causes of terrorism have pointed out that the ethics of our time appear to justify the terrorist and his tactics. history glorifies the deeds of numberless heroes who have destroyed tyrants. the story of william tell is in every primer, and every schoolboy is thrilled with the tale of the hero who shot from ambush gessler, the tyrant.[m] from the old testament down to even recent history, we find story after story which make immortal patriots of men who have committed assassination in the belief that they were serving their country. and can anyone doubt that booth when he shot president lincoln[n] or that czolgosz when he murdered president mckinley was actuated by any other motive than the belief that he was serving a cause? it was the idea of removing an industrial tyrant that actuated young alexander berkman when he shot henry c. frick, of the carnegie company. these latter acts are not recorded in history as heroic, simply and solely because the popular view was not in sympathy with those acts. yet had they been committed at another time, under different conditions, the story of these men might have been told for centuries to admiring groups of children. in carlyle's "hero worship" and in his philosophy of history, the progress of the world is summarized under the stories of great men. certain individuals are responsible for social wrongs, while other individuals are responsible for the great revolutions that have righted those wrongs. in the building up, as well as in the destruction of empires, the individual plays stupendous rôles. this egocentric interpretation of history has not only been the dominant one in explaining the great political changes of the past, it is now the reasoning of the common mind, of the yellow press, of the demagogue, in dealing with the causes of the evils of the present day. the republican party declared that president mckinley was responsible for prosperity; by equally sound reasoning czolgosz may have argued that he was responsible for social misery. according to this theory, rockefeller is the giant mind that invented the trusts; political bosses such as croker and murphy are the infamous creatures who fasten upon a helpless populace of millions of souls a tammany hall; bismarck created modern germany; lloyd george created social reform in england; while tom mann in england and samuel gompers in america are responsible for strikes; and keir hardie and eugene debs responsible for socialism. the individual who with great force of ability becomes the foremost figure in social, political, or industrial development is immediately assailed or glorified. he becomes the personification of an evil thing that must be destroyed or of a good thing that must be protected. it is a result of such reasoning that men ignorant of underlying social, political, or industrial forces seek to obstruct the processes of evolution by removing the individual. on this ground the anarchists have been led to remove hundreds of police officials, capitalists, royalties, and others. they have been poisoned, shot, and dynamited, in the belief that their removal would benefit humanity. yet nothing would seem to be quite so obvious as the fact that their removal has hardly caused a ripple in the swiftly moving current of evolution. others, often more forceful and capable, have immediately stepped into their places, and the course of events has remained unchanged. speaking on this subject, august bebel refers to the hero-worship of bismarck in germany: "there is no other person whom the social democracy had so much reason to hate as him, and the social democracy was not more hated by anybody than by just that bismarck. our love and our hatred were, as you see, mutual. but one would search in vain the entire social democratic press and literature for an expression of the thought that it would be a lucky thing if that man were removed.... but how often did the capitalist press express the idea that, were it not for bismarck, we would not, to this day, have a united germany? there cannot be a more mistaken idea than this. the unity of germany would have come without bismarck. the idea of unity and liberty was in the sixties so powerful among all the german people that it would have been realized, with or without the assistance of the hohenzollerns. the unity of germany was not only a political but an _economic necessity_, primarily in the interests of the capitalist class and its development. the idea of unity would have ultimately broken through with elementary force. at this juncture bismarck made use of the tendency, in _his own fashion, in the interest of the hohenzollern dynasty_, and at the same time _in the interest of the capitalist class and of the junkers_, the landed nobility. the offspring of this compromise is the constitution of the german empire, the provisions of which strive to reconcile the interests of these three factors. finally, even a man like bismarck had to leave his post. 'what a misfortune for germany!' cried the press devoted to him. well, what has happened to germany since then? even bismarck himself could not have ruled it much differently than it has been ruled since his days."[ ] this egoistic conception of history is carried to its most violent extreme by the anarchists. the principles of nechayeff are a series of prescriptions by which fearless and reckless individuals may destroy other individuals. ravachol, vaillant, and henry seemed obsessed with the idea that upon their individual acts rested the burden of deliverance. bonnot's last words were, "i am a celebrated man." from the gallows in chicago fischer declared, "this is the happiest moment of my life."[ ] "call your hangman!" exclaimed august spies. "truth crucified in socrates, in christ, in giordano bruno, in huss, in galileo, still lives--they and others whose name is legion have preceded us on this path. we are ready to follow!"[ ] fielden said: "i have loved my fellowmen as i have loved myself. i have hated trickery, dishonesty, and injustice. the nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend."[ ] it is singularly impressive, in reading the literature of anarchism, to weigh the last words of men who felt upon their souls the individual responsibility of saving humanity. they have uttered memorable words because of their inherent sincerity, their devout belief in the individual, in his power for evil, and in his power to remove that evil. in many anarchists, however, this deification of the individual induces a morbid and diseased egotism which drives them to the most amazing excesses; among others, the yearning to commit some memorable act of revolt in order to be remembered. in fact, the ego in its worst, as well as in its best aspect, dominates the thought and the literature of anarchism. max stirner, considered by some the founder of philosophical anarchism, calls his book "the ego and his own." "whether what i think and do is christian," he writes, "what do i care? whether it is human, liberal, humane, whether unhuman, illiberal, inhuman, what do i ask about that? if only it accomplishes what i want, if only i satisfy myself in it, then overlay it with predicates as you will; it is all alike to me."[ ] "consequently my relation to the world is this: i no longer do anything for it 'for god's sake,' i do nothing 'for man's sake,' but what i do i do 'for my sake.'"[ ] "where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--i consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. for me you are nothing but--my food, even as i, too, am fed upon and turned to use by you."[ ] here society is conceived of as merely a collection of egos. the world is a history of gods and of devils. all the evils of the time are embodied in individual tyrants. some of these individuals control the social forces, others the political, still others the industrial forces. as individuals, they overpower and enslave their individual enemies. remove a man and you destroy the source of tyranny. a judge commits a man to death, and the judge is dynamited. a prime minister sends the army to shoot down striking workmen and the prime minister is shot. a law is passed violating the rights of free speech, and, following that, an emperor is shot. the rich exploit the poor, and a fanatic throws a bomb in the first café he passes to revenge the poor. wicked and unjust laws are made, and vaillant goes in person to the chamber of deputies to throw his bomb. the police of chicago murder some hungry strikers, and an avenger goes to the haymarket to murder the police. in all these acts we find a point of view in harmony with the dominant one of our day. it is the one taught in our schools, in our pulpits, on our political platforms, and in our press. it is the view, carried to an extreme, of that man or group of men who believes that the ideas of individuals determine social evolution. nothing could be more logical to the revolutionist who holds this view than to seek to remove those individuals who are responsible for the existing order of society. as a rule, the socialist stands almost alone in combating this ideological interpretation of history and of social evolution. there is something in the nature of poetic irony in the fact that the anarchist should take the very ethics of capitalism and reduce them to an absurdity. it is something in the nature of a satire, sordid and terrible, which the realism of things has here written. the very most cherished ethical ideals of our society are used by the bitterest enemies of that society to arouse the wronged to individual acts of revenge. quite a number of notable anarchists have been the product of misery and oppression. their souls were warped, and their minds distorted in childhood by hunger and brutality. they were wronged terribly by the world, and anarchism came to them as a welcome spirit, breathing revenge. it taught that the world was wrong, that injustice rode over it like a nightmare, that misery flourished in the midst of abundance, that multitudes labored with bent backs to produce luxuries for the few. their eyes were opened to the wrong of hunger, poverty, unemployment, of woman and child labor, and of all the miseries that press heavily upon human souls. and in their revolt they saw kings, judges, police officials, legislators, captains of industry, who were said to be directly responsible for these social ills. it was not society or a system or even a class that was to blame; it was mckinley, or carnot, or frick. and those whom some worshiped as heroes, these men loathed as tyrants. the powerful have thought to deprive the poor of souls. they have liked to think that they would forever bear their cross in peace. yet when anarchism comes and touches the souls of the poor it finds not dead blocks of wood or mere senseless cogs in an industrial machine; it finds the living, who can pray and weep, love and hate. no matter how scared their souls become, there is yet a possibility that their whole beings may revolt under wrong. when the anarchist deifies even the veriest wreck of society--this individual, "this god, though in the germ"--when he inflames it with dignity and with pride, when he fills its whole being with a thirst for awful and incredible vengeance, you have duval, lingg, ravachol, luccheni, and bonnot. add to their desire for revenge the philosophy of anarchism and of our schoolbooks, that individuals are the makers of history, and the result is terrorism. other students of terrorism have noted the prevalence of violence in those countries and times where the courts are corrupt, where the law is brutal and oppressive, or where men are convinced that no available machinery exists to execute the ends of justice. this latter is the explanation given for the numerous lynchings in america and also for the practices of "popular justice" that used to be a common feature of frontier life. in the absence of a properly constituted legal machinery groups of men undertake to shoot, hang, or burn those whom they consider dangerous to the public weal. in russia it was inevitable that a terrorist movement should arise. the courts were corrupt, the bureaucracy oppressive. furthermore, no form of freedom existed. men could neither speak nor write their views. they could not assemble, and until recently they did not possess the slightest voice in the affairs of government. borne down by a most hideous oppression, the terrorist was the natural product. the same conditions have existed to an extent in italy, and probably no other country has produced so many violent anarchists. caserio, luccheni, bresci, and angiolillo have been mentioned, but there are others, such as santoro, mantica, benedicti, although these latter are accused of being police agents. in italy the people have for centuries individually undertaken to execute their conception of equity. official justice was too costly to be available to the poor, and the courts were too corrupt to render them justice. for centuries, therefore, men have been considered justified in murdering their personal enemies. among all classes it has long been customary to deal individually with those who have committed certain crimes. the horrible legal conditions existing in both spain and italy have developed among these peoples the idea of "self-help." they have taken law into their own hands, and, according to their lights and passions, have meted out their rude justice. assassination has been defended in these countries, as lynching has been defended recently, as some will remember, by a most eminent american anarchist, the governor of south carolina. lombroso says in his exhaustive study of the causes of violence, _les anarchistes_: "history is rich in examples of the complicity of criminality and politics, and where one sees in turn political passion react on criminal instinct and criminal instinct on political passion. while pompey has on his side all honest people--cato, brutus, cicero; cæsar, more popular than he, has as his followers only degenerates--antony, a libertine and drunkard; curio, a bankrupt; clelius, a madman; dolabella, who made his wife die of grief and who wanted to annul all debts; and, above all, catiline and clodius. in greece the clefts, who are brigands in time of peace, have valiantly championed the independence of their country. in italy, in , the papacy and the bourbons hired brigands to oppose the national party and its troops; the mafia of sicily rose up with garibaldi; and the camorra of naples coöperated with the liberals. and this shameful alliance with the camorra of naples is not yet dissolved; the last parliamentary struggles relative to the acts of the government of naples have given us a sad echo of it--which, alas, proves that it still lasts without hope of change for the future. it is especially at the initial stages of revolutions that these sorts of people abound. it is then, indeed, that the abnormal and unhealthy spirits predominate over the faltering and the weak and drag them on to excesses by an actual epidemic of imitation."[ ] marx and engels saw very clearly the part that the criminal elements would play in any uprising, and as early as they wrote in the communist manifesto: "the 'dangerous class,' the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue."[ ] the truth of this statement has been amply illustrated in the numerous outbreaks that have occurred since it was written. the use by the bakouninists in spain of the criminal elements there, the repeated exploits of the police agents in discrediting every uprising by encouraging the criminal elements to outrageous acts, and the terrible barbarities of the criminal classes at the time of the paris commune are all examples of how useful to reaction the rotting layers of old society may become. even when they do not serve as a bribed tool of the reactionary elements, their atrocities, both cruel and criminal, repel the self-respecting and conscientious elements. they discredit the real revolutionists, who must bear the stigma that attaches to the inhuman acts of the "dangerous class." that the european governments have used the terrorists in exactly this manner in order to discredit popular movements, is not, i think, open to any question. the money of the anarchists' bitterest enemy has helped to make anarchy so well known. the politics of machiavelli is the politics of nearly every old established european government. it is the politics of families who have been trained in the profession of rulership. and this mastership, as william morris has said, has many shifts. and one that has been most useful to them is that of subsidizing those persons or elements who by their acts promote reaction. in russia it is an old custom to foment and provoke minor insurrections. police agents enter a discontented district and do all possible to irritate the troublesome elements and to force them "to come into the street." in this manner the agitators and leaders are brought to the front, where at one stroke they may all be shot. furthermore, the police agents themselves commit or provoke such atrocious crimes that the people are terrified and welcome the strong arm of the government. literally scores of instances might be given where, by well-planned work of this sort, the active leaders are cut down, the sources of agitation destroyed, and through the robberies, murders, and dynamite outrages of police agents the people are so terrified that they welcome the intervention of even tyranny itself. an immense sensation throughout europe was created by an address by jules guesde in the french chamber of deputies, the th of july, . the deeds of ravachol, vaillant, and henry were still the talk of europe, and, three weeks before, the president of the republic had been stabbed to death by caserio. it was in that critical period, amidst commotions, interruptions, protests, and exclamations of amazement, that guesde brought out his evidence that the chief of police of paris had paid regular subsidies to promote and extend both the preaching and the practice of violent anarchism. he introduced, in support of his remarks, portions from the memoirs of m. andrieux, our old friend of lyons and later the head of the paris police. "the anarchists," says andrieux, "wished to have a newspaper to spread their doctrines. if i fought their propaganda of the deed, i at least favored the spread of their doctrines by means of the press, and i have no reasons for depriving myself longer of their gratitude.[o] the companions were looking for some one to advance funds, but infamous capital was in no hurry to reply to their appeal. i shook it up and succeeded in persuading it that it was for its own interest to aid in the publication of an anarchist newspaper.... "but do not think that i boldly offered to the anarchists the encouragement of the prefect of police.... i sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them. he explained that, having acquired a fortune in the drug business, he desired to devote a part of his income to help their propaganda. this bourgeois, anxious to be devoured, awakened no suspicion among the companions. through his hands, i deposited the caution money in the coffers of the state, and the paper, _la révolution sociale_, made its appearance.... every day, about the table of the editors, the authorized representatives of the party of action assembled; they looked over the international correspondence; they deliberated on the measures to be taken to end 'the exploitation of man by man'; they imparted to each other the recipes which science puts at the disposal of revolution. i was always represented in the councils, and i gave my advice in case of need.... the members had decided in the beginning that the palais-bourbon must be blown up. they deliberated on the question as to whether it would not be more expedient to commence with some more accessible monument. the bank of france, the _palais de l'Élysée_, the house of the prefect of police, the office of the minister of the interior were all discussed, then abandoned, by reason of the too careful surveillance of which they were the object."[ ] toward the end of his address, guesde turned to the reactionaries, and said: "i have shown you that everywhere, from the beginning of the anarchist epidemic in france, you find either the hand or the money of one of your prefects of police.... that is how you have fought in the past this anarchistic danger of which you make use to-day to commit, what shall i say?... real crimes, not only against socialism, but against the republic itself."[ ] for the last forty years police agents have swarmed into the socialist, the anarchist, and the trade-union movements for the purpose of provoking violence. the conditions grew so bad in russia that every revolutionist suspected his comrade. many loyal revolutionists were murdered in the belief that they were spies. in the belief that they were comrades, the faithful intrusted their innermost secrets to the agents of the police. every plan they made was known. every undertaking proved abortive, because the police knew everything in advance and frequently had in charge of every plot their own men. criminals were turned into the movement under the surveillance of the police.[p] all through the days of the international it was a common occurrence to expose police spies, and in every national party agents of the police have been discovered and driven out. it has become almost a rule, in certain sections of the socialist and labor movements, that the man who advocates violence must be watched, and there are numerous instances where such men have been proved to be paid agents of the police. joseph peukert was for many years one of the foremost leaders of the anarchists. he was in vienna with stellmacher and kammerer, and devoted much of his time to translating into german the works of foreign anarchists. it was only discovered toward the end of his life that during all this time he was in the employ of the austrian police. these and similar startling facts were brought out by august bebel in an address delivered in berlin, november , . luccheni had just murdered the empress of austria, and the german reactionaries attempted, of course, to connect him with the socialists. bebel created utter consternation in their camp when, as a part of his address, he showed the active participation of high officials in crimes of the anarchists. "and how often," said bebel, "police agents have helped along in the attempted or executed assassinations of the last decades. when bismarck was federal ambassador at frankfort-on-the-main he wrote to his wife: 'for lack of material the police agents lie and exaggerate in a most inexcusable manner.' these agents are engaged to discover contemplated assassinations. under these circumstances, the bad fellows among them ... come easily to the idea: 'if other people don't commit assassinations, then we ourselves must help the thing along.' for, if they cannot report that there is something doing, they will be considered superfluous, and, of course, they don't want that to happen. so they 'help the thing along' by 'correcting luck,' as the french proverb puts it. or they play politics on their own score. "to demonstrate this i need only to remind you of the 'reminiscences' of andrieux, the former chief of police of paris, in which he brags with the greatest cynicism of how he, by aid of police funds, subsidized extreme anarchist papers and organized anarchist assassinations, just to give a thorough scare to rich citizens. and then there is that notorious police inspector melville, of london, who also operated on these lines. that was revealed by the investigation of the so-called walsall attempt at assassination. among the assassinations committed by the fenians there were also some that were the work of the police, as was shown at the parnell trial. everybody remembers how much of such activity was displayed in belgium during the eighties by that prince of scoundrels, pourbaix. even the minister bernaard himself was compelled to admit before the parliament that pourbaix was paid to arrange assassinations in order to justify violent persecutions of the _social democracy_. likewise was baron von ungern-sternberg, nicknamed the 'bomb-baron,' unmasked as a police agent at the trial of the luttich anarchists. "and then--our own good friends at the time of the [anti-] socialist law. about them i myself could tell you some interesting stories, for i was among those who helped to unmask them. there is schroeder-brennwald, of zurich, the chap who was receiving from molkenmarkt, through police counsellor krueger, a monthly salary of at first and then marks. at every meeting in zurich this schroeder was stirring up people and putting them up to commit acts of violence. but to guard against expulsion from switzerland by the authorities of that country, he first acquired _citizenship in switzerland_, presumably by means of funds furnished by the police of prussia. during the summer of schroeder and the police-anarchist kaufman called and held in zurich a conference participated in by thirteen persons. schroeder acted as chairman. at that conference plans were laid for the assassinations which were later committed in vienna, stuttgart, and strassburg by stellmacher, kammerer, and kumitzsch. i am not informed that these unscrupulous scoundrels, although they were in the service of the police, had informed the police commissioner that those murders were being contemplated.... men like stellmacher and kammerer paid for their acts with their lives on the gallows. when [johann] most was serving a term in a prison in england, this same police spy schroeder had most's 'freiheit' published at schaffhausen, switzerland, at his own expense. the money surely did not come out of his own pocket. "that was a glorious time when [we unmasked this schroeder and the other police organizer of plots, haupt, to whom] the police counsellor krueger wrote that he knew the next attempt on the life of the czar of russia would be arranged in geneva, and he should send in reports. was this demand not remarkable in the highest degree? and now herr von ehrenberg, the former colonel of artillery of baden!... this fellow was unquestionably for good reason suspected of having betrayed to the general staff of italy the fortifications of switzerland at st. gotthard. when his residence was searched it was brought to light that herr von ehrenberg worked also in the employ of the prussian police. he gave regularly written reports of conversations which he claimed to have had with our comrades, including me. only in those alleged conversations the characters were reversed. we were represented as advocating the most reckless criminal plans, which in reality he himself suggested and defended, while he pictured himself in those reports as opposing the plans.... what would have happened if some day those reports had fallen into the hands of certain persons--and that was undoubtedly the purpose--and, if accused, we had no witnesses to prove the spy committed perfidy? thus, for instance, he attempted to convince me--but in his records claimed that it was i who proposed it--that it would be but child's play to find out the residences of the higher military officers in all the greater cities of germany, then, in one night, send out our best men and have all those officers murdered simultaneously. in four articles published in the 'arbeiterstimme,' of zurich, he explained in a truly classical manner how to conduct a modern street battle, what to do to get the best of artillery and cavalry. at meetings he urged the collection of funds to buy arms for our people. as soon as war broke out with france our comrades from switzerland, according to him, should break into baden and wuerttemberg, should there tear up the tracks and confiscate the contents of the postal and railroad treasuries. and this man, who urged me to do all that, was, as i said, in the employ of the prussian police. "another police preacher and organizer of violent plots was that well-known friedeman who was driven out of berlin, and, at the gatherings of comrades in zurich, appealed to them, in prose and poetry, to commit acts of violence. a certain weiss, a journeyman tinsmith, was arrested in the vicinity of basel for having put up posters in which the deeds of kammerer and stellmacher were glorified. he, too, was in the employ of the german police, as was afterward established during the court proceedings. "a certain schmidt, who had to disappear from dresden on account of his crooked conduct, came to zurich and urged the establishment of a _special fund for assassinations_, contributing twenty francs to start the fund. correspondence which he had carried on with chief of police weller, of dresden, and which later fell into our hands, proved that he was in the employ of the police, whom he kept informed of his actions. and then the unmasked secret police agent ihring-mahlow, here in berlin, who announced that he was prepared to teach the manufacture of explosives, for 'the parliamentary way is too slow.'"[ ] here certainly is a great source of violence and crime, and, in view of such revelations, no one can be sure that any anarchist outrage is wholly voluntary and altogether free from the manipulation of the secret police. with _agents provocateurs_ swarming over the movement and working upon the minds of the weak, the susceptible, and the criminal, there is reason to believe that their influence in the tragedies of terrorism is far greater than will ever be known. to discredit starving men on strike, to defeat socialists in an election, to promote a political intrigue, to throw the entire legislature into the hands of the reaction, to conceal corruption, or to take the public mind from too intently watching the nefarious schemes of a political-financial conspiracy--for all these and a multitude of other purposes thousands of secret police agents are at work. the sordid facts of this infamous commerce are no longer in doubt, and one wonders how the anarchists can delude themselves into the belief that they are serving the weak and lowly when they commit exactly the same crimes that professional assassins are hired to commit. this certainly _is_ madness. to be thus used by their bitterest enemies, the police and the state, to serve thus voluntarily the forces of intrigue, of reaction, and of tyranny--surely nothing can be so near to unreason as this. when bismarck's personal organ declared again and again, "there is nothing left to be done but to provoke the social democrats to commit acts of despair, to draw them out into the open street, and there to shoot them down,"[ ] a reasoning opponent would have seen that this was just what he would not allow himself to be drawn into. yet bismarck hardly says this and sets his police to work before the anarchist freely, voluntarily, and with tremendous exaltation of spirit attempts to carry it out. strange to say, the desire of the powerful to promote anarchy seems to be well enough understood by the anarchists themselves. kropotkin, in his "memoirs," tells of two cases where police agents were sent to him with money to help establish anarchist papers, and there was hardly a moment of his revolutionary career when there were not police agents about him. emma goldman also appreciates the fact that the police are always ready to lend a hand in anarchist outrages. "for a number of years," she says, "acts of violence had been committed in spain, for which the anarchists were held responsible, hounded like wild beasts, and thrown into prison. later it was disclosed that the perpetrators of these acts were not anarchists, but members of the police department. the scandal became so widespread that the conservative spanish papers demanded the apprehension and punishment of the gang leader, juan rull, who was subsequently condemned to death and executed. the sensational evidence, brought to light during the trial, forced police inspector momento to exonerate completely the anarchists from any connection with the acts committed during a long period. this resulted in the dismissal of a number of police officials, among them inspector tressols, who, in revenge, disclosed the fact that behind the gang of police bomb-throwers were others of far higher position, who provided them with funds and protected them. this is one of the many striking examples of how anarchist conspiracies are manufactured."[ ] with knowledge such as this, is it possible that a sane mind can encourage the despairing to undertake riots and insurrections? yet when we turn to the anarchists for our answer, they tell us "that the accumulated forces in our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in storm and lightning. to thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are daily made to endure. indeed, unless we have become a part of humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that accumulates in a human soul, the burning, surging passion that makes the storm inevitable."[ ] such explosions of rage one would expect from the unreasonable and the childlike. they are bursts of passion that end in the knocking of one's head against a stone wall. this may in truth be the psychology of the violent, yet it cannot be the psychology of a reasoning mind. this may explain the action of those who have lost all control over themselves or even the action of a class that has not advanced beyond the stages of futile outbursts of passion, of aimless and suicidal violence, and of self-destructive rage. but it is incredible that it should be considered by anyone as reasonable or intelligent, or, least of all, revolutionary. probably still other causes of terrorism exist, but certainly the chief are those above mentioned. the writings of bakounin, nechayeff, kropotkin, and most; the miserable conditions which surround the life of a multitude of impoverished people; the often savage repression of any attempts on the part of the workers to improve their conditions; corrupt courts and parliaments and unjust laws; a false conception of ethics; a high-wrought nervous tension combined with compassion; the egocentric philosophy which deifies the individual and would press its claims even to the destruction of all else in the world; these are no doubt the chief underlying causes of the terrorism of the last forty years. yet, as i have said, there is one force making for terrorism that throws a confusing light on the whole series of tragedies. why should the governments of europe subsidize anarchy? why should their secret police encourage outrages, plant dynamite, and incite the criminal elements to become anarchists, and in that guise to burn, pillage, and commit murder? why should that which assumes to stand for law and order work to the destruction of law and order? what is it that leads the corrupt, vicious, and reactionary elements in the official world to turn thus to its use even anarchy and terrorism? what end do the governments of europe seek? i have already suggested the answers to the above questions, but they will not be understood by the reader unless he realizes that throughout all of last century the democratic movement has been to the privileged classes the most menacing spectacle imaginable. again and again it arose to challenge existing society. in some form, however vague, it lay back of every popular movement. at moments the powerful seemed actually to fear that it was on the point of taking possession of the world, and repeatedly it has been pushed back, crushed, subdued, almost obliterated by their repressive measures. yet again and again it arose responsive to the actual needs of the time, and became toward the end of the century one of the most impressive movements the world has ever known. filled with idealism for a new social order, and determined to change fundamentally existing conditions, the working class has fought onward and upward toward a world state and a socialized industrial life. there can be no doubt that the amazing growth of the modern socialist movement has terrified the powers of industrial and political tyranny. to them it is an incomparable menace, and superhuman efforts have been made to turn it from its path. they have endeavored to divide it, to misinterpret it, to divert it, to corrupt it, and the greatest of all their efforts has been made toward forcing it to become a movement of terrorists, in order ultimately to discredit and destroy it. "we have always been of the opinion," declared an unknown opponent of socialism, "that it takes the devil to drive out beelzebub and that socialism must be fought with anarchy. as a corn louse and similar insects are driven out by the help of other insects that devour them and their eggs, so the government should cultivate and rear anarchists in the principal nests of socialism, leaving it to the anarchists to destroy socialism. the anarchists will do that work more effectively than either police or district attorneys."[ ] has this been the chief motive in helping to keep terrorism alive? footnotes: [j] kropotkin, in "the conquest of bread," p. , suggests that in the revolution the socialists will probably hang the anarchists. [k] pini declared that he had committed robberies amounting to over three hundred thousand francs from the bourgeoisie in order to avenge the oppressed. cf. lombroso, "_les anarchistes_," p. . [l] "the work of mariana was afterward approved by sola (_tractus de legibus_), by gretzer (_opera omnia_), by becano (_opuscula theologica summa theologicæ scholasticæ_). "père emanuel (_aphorismi confessariorum_), grégoire de valence (_comment. theolog._), keller (_tyrannicidium_), and suarez (_defentio fidei cathol._) hold similar ideas, while azor (_institut. moral._), lorin (_comm. in librum psalmorum_), comitolo (_responsa morala_), etc., recognized the right of every individual to kill the prince for his own defense."--_les anarchistes_, p. . [m] bakounin, when endeavoring to save nechayeff from being arrested by the swiss authorities and sent back to russia, defends him on precisely these grounds, claiming that nechayeff had taken the fable of william tell seriously. cf. _oeuvres_, vol. ii, p. . [n] booth wrote, a day or so after killing lincoln: "after being hunted like a dog through swamps and woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till i was forced to return, wet, cold, and starving, with every man's hand against me, i am here in despair. and why? for doing what brutus was honored for--what made william tell a hero; and yet i, for striking down an even greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat." cf. "the death of lincoln," laughlin, p. . [o] kropotkin tells of the effort made by the agents of andrieux to persuade him and elisée reclus to collaborate in the publication of this so-called anarchist paper. he also says it was a paper of "unheard-of violence; burning, assassination, dynamite bombs--there was nothing but that in it."--"memoirs of a revolutionist," pp. - . [p] in "the terror in russia" kropotkin tells of bands of criminals who, under pretense of being revolutionists and wanting money for revolutionary purposes, forced wealthy people to contribute under menace of death. the headquarters of the bands were at the office of the secret police. part ii struggles with violence [illustration: karl marx] chapter vii the birth of modern socialism while terrorism was running its tragic course, the socialists grew from a tiny sect into a world-wide movement. and, as terrorist acts were the expression of certain uncontrollably rebellious spirits, so coöperatives, trade unions, and labor parties arose in response to the conscious and constructive effort of the masses. as a matter of fact, the terrorist groups never exercised any considerable influence over the actual labor movement, except for a brief period in spain and america. indeed, they did not in the least understand that movement. the followers of bakounin were largely young enthusiasts from the middle class, who were referred to scornfully at the time as "lawyers without cases, physicians without patients and knowledge, students of billiards, commercial travelers, and others."[ ] yet it cannot be denied that violence has played, and still in a measure plays, a part in the labor movement. i mean the violence of sheer desperation. it rises and falls in direct relation to the lawlessness, the repression, and the tyranny of the governments. furthermore, where labor organizations are weakest and the masses most ignorant and desperate, the very helplessness of the workers leads them into that violence. this is made clear enough by the historic fact that in the early days of the modern industrial system nearly every strike of the unorganized laborers was accompanied by riots, machine-breaking, and assaults upon men and property. no small part of this early violence was directly due to the brutal opposition of society to every form of labor organization. the workers were fought violently, and they answered violence with violence. it must not be forgotten that the trade unions and the socialist parties grew, in spite of every menace, in the very teeth of that which forbade them, and under the eye of that which sought to destroy them. and, like other living things in the midst of a hostile environment, they covered themselves with spurs to ward off the enemy. the early movements of labor were marked by a sullen, bitter, and destructive spirit; and some of the much persecuted propagandists of early trade unionism and socialism thought that "implacable destruction" was preferable to the tyranny which the workers then suffered. not the philosophy, but the rancor of bakounin, of nechayeff, and of most represented, three-quarters of a century ago, the feeling of great masses of workingmen. riots, insurrections, machine-breaking, incendiarism, pillage, and even murder were then more truly expressive of the attitude of certain sections of the brutalized poor toward the society which had disinherited them than most of us to-day realize. in every industrial center, previous to , the working-class movement, such as it was, yielded repeatedly to self-exhausting expressions of blind and sullen rage. the resentment of the workers was deep, and, without program or philosophy, a spirit of destruction often ran riot in nearly every movement of the workers. during the first fifty years, then, of last century, little building was done. a mob spirit prevailed, and the great body of toilers was divided into innumerable bands, who fought their battles without aim, and, after weeks of rioting, left nothing behind them. toward the middle of the century the real building of the labor movement commenced. in every country men soberly and seriously set to work, and everywhere throughout the entire industrial world the foundations were laid for the great movement that exists to-day. yet the present world-wide movement, so harmonious in its principles and methods and so united in doctrines, could not have been all that it is had there not come to its aid in its most critical and formative period several of the ablest and best-schooled minds of europe. at the period when the workers were finding their feet and beginning their task of organization on a large scale, there was also in europe much revolutionary activity in "intellectual" circles. the forties was a germinating period for many new social and economic theories. in france, germany, and england there were many groups discussing with heat and passion every theory of trade unionism, anarchism, and socialism. on the whole, they were middle-class "intellectuals," battling in their sectarian circles over the evils of our economic life, the problems of society, and the relations between the classes. suddenly the revolution was upon them--the moment which they all instinctively felt was at hand--but, when it came, most of them were able to play no forceful part in it. it was a movement of vast masses, over which the social revolutionists had little influence, and the various groups found themselves incapable of any really effective action. to be sure, many of those seeking a social revolution played a creditable part in the uprisings throughout europe during ' and ' , but the time had not yet arrived for the working classes to achieve any striking reforms of their own. the only notable result of the period, so far as the social revolutionary element was concerned, was that it lost once again, nearly everywhere, its press, its liberty of speech, and its right of association. it was driven underground; but there germinated, nevertheless, in the innumerable secret societies, some of the most important principles and doctrines upon which the international labor movement was later to be founded. in france socialist theories had never been wholly friendless from the time of the great revolution. the memory of the _enragés_ of and of babeuf and his conspiracy of had been kept green by buonarotti and maréchal. the ruling classes had very cunningly lauded liberty and fraternity, but they rarely mentioned the struggle for equality, which, of course, appeared to them as a regrettable and most dangerous episode in the great revolution. yet, despite that fact, this early struggle for economic equality had never been wholly forgotten. besides, there were fourier and saint-simon, who, with very great scholarly attainments, had rigidly analyzed existing society, exposed its endless disorders, and advocated an entire social transformation. there were also considérant, leroux, vidal, pecqueur, and cabet. all of these able and gifted men had kept the social question ever to the front, while louis blanc and blanqui had actually introduced into politics the principles of socialism. blanqui was an amazing character. he was an incurable, habitual insurrectionist, who came to be called _l'enfermé_ because so much of his life was spent in prison.[q] the authorities again and again released him, only to hear the next instant that he was leading a mob to storm the citadels of the government. his life was a series of unsuccessful assaults upon authority, launched in the hope that, if the working class should once install itself in power, it would reorganize society on socialist lines. he was a man of the street, who had only to appear to find an army of thousands ready to follow him. blanqui used to say--according to kropotkin--that there were in paris fifty thousand men ready at any moment for an insurrection. again and again he arose like an apparition among them, and on one occasion, at the head of two hundred thousand people, he offered the dictatorship of france to louis blanc. the latter was an altogether different person. his stage was the parliamentary one. he was a powerful orator, who, throughout the forties, was preaching his practical program of social reform--the right to work, the organization of labor, and the final extinction of capitalism by the growth of coöperative production fostered by the state. in he played a great rôle, and all europe listened with astonishment to the revolutionary proposals of this man who, for a few months, occupied the most powerful position in france. at the same time proudhon was developing the principles of anarchism and earning everlasting fame as the father of that philosophy. in truth, the whole gamut of socialist ideas and the entire range of socialist methods had been agitated and debated in peace and in war for half a century in france. in england the same questions had disturbed all classes for nearly fifty years. there had been no great revolutionary period, but from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the extinction of chartism in every doctrine of trade unionism, syndicalism, anarchism, and socialism had been debated passionately by groups of workingmen and their friends. the principles and methods of trade unionism were being worked out on the actual battlefield, amid riots, strikes, machine-breaking, and incendiarism. instinctively the masses were associating for mutual protection and, almost unconsciously, working out by themselves programs of action. nevertheless, joseph hume, francis place, robert owen, and a number of other brilliant men were lending powerful intellectual aid to the workers in their actual struggle. a group of radical economists was also defending the claims of labor. charles hall, william thompson, john gray, thomas hodgskin, and j. f. bray were all seeking to find the economic causes of the wrongs suffered by labor and endeavoring, in some manner, to devise remedies for the immense suffering endured by the working classes. together with robert owen, a number of them were planning labor exchanges, voluntary communities, and even at one time the entire reorganization of the world through the trade unions. in this ferment the coöperative movement also had its birth. the rochdale pioneers began to work out practically some of the coöperative ideas of robert owen. with £ a pathetic beginning was made that has led to the immensely rich coöperative movement of to-day. furthermore, the chartists were leading a vast political movement of the workers. in support of the suffrage and of parliamentary representation for workingmen, a wonderful group of orators and organizers carried on in the thirties and forties an immense agitation. william lovett, feargus o'connor, joseph rayner stephens, ernest jones, thomas cooper, and james bronterre o'brien were among the notable and gifted men who were then preaching throughout all england revolutionary and socialist ideas. such questions as the abolition of inheritances, the nationalization of land, the right of labor to the full product of its toil, the necessity of breaking down class control of parliament--these and other subversive ideas were germinating in all sections of the english labor movement. it was a heroic period--altogether the most heroic period in the annals of toil--in which the most advanced and varied revolutionary ideas were hurtling in the air. the causes of the ruin that overcame this magnificent beginning of a revolutionary working-class movement cannot be dwelt upon here. quarrels between the leaders, the incoherence of their policies, and divisions over the use of violence utterly wrecked a movement that anticipated by thirty years the social democracy of germany. the tragic fiasco in was the beginning of an appalling working-class reaction from years of popular excesses and mob intoxications, from which the wiser leadership of the german movement was careful to steer clear. and, after ' , solemn and serious men settled down to the quiet building of trade unions and coöperatives. revolutionary ideas were put aside, and everywhere in england the responsible men of the movement were pleading with the masses to confine themselves to the practical work of education and organization. although germany was far behind england in industrial development and, consequently, also in working-class organization, the beginnings of a labor and socialist movement were discernible. a brief but delightful description of the early communist societies is given by engels in his introduction to the _révélations sur le procès des communistes_. as early as there were secret societies in germany discussing socialist ideas. the "league of the just" became later the "league of the righteous," and that eventually developed into the "communist league." the membership cards read, "all men are brothers." karl schapper, heinrich bauer, and joseph moll, all workingmen, were among those who made an imposing impression upon engels. even more notable was weitling, a tailor, who traveled all over germany preaching a mixture of christian communism and french utopian socialism. he was a simple-hearted missionary, delivering his evangel. "the world as it is and as it might be" was the moving title of one of his books that attracted to him not only many followers among the workers, but also notable men from other classes. most of the communists were of course always under suspicion, and many of them were forced out of their own countries. as a result, a large number of foreigners--scandinavians, dutch, hungarians, germans, and italians--found themselves in paris and in london, and astonished each other by the similarity of their views. all europe in this period was discussing very much the same things, and not only the more intelligent among the workers but the more idealistic among the youth from the universities were in revolt, discussing fervently republican, socialist, communist, and anarchist ideas. in "young germany," george brandes gives a thrilling account of the spiritual and intellectual ferment that was stirring in all parts of the fatherland during the entire forties.[ ] it was in this agitated period that marx and engels, both mere youths, began to press their ideas in revolutionary circles. they met each other in paris in , and there began their lifelong coöperative labors. engels, although a german, was living in england, occupied in his father's cotton business at manchester. he had taken a deep interest in the condition of the laboring classes, and had followed carefully the terrible and often bloody struggles that so frequently broke out between capital and labor in england during the thirties and forties. arriving by an entirely different route, he had come to opinions almost identical with those of marx; and the next year he persuaded marx to visit the factory districts of lancashire, in order to acquaint himself actually with the enraged struggle then being fought between masters and men. engels had not gone to a university, although he seems somehow to have acquired, despite his business cares and active association with the men and movements of his time, a thorough education. on the other hand, marx was a university man, having studied at jena, bonn, and berlin. like most of the serious young men of the period, marx was a devoted hegelian. when his university days were over, he became the editor of the _rheinische zeitung_ of cologne, but at the age of twenty-four he found his paper suppressed because of his radical utterances. he went to paris, only to be expelled in . he found a refuge in belgium until , when the government evidently thought it wise that he should move on. shortly after, he returned to germany to take up his editorial work once more, but in , his _neue rheinische zeitung_ was suppressed, and he was forced to return to paris. the authorities, not wishing him there, sent him off to london, where he remained the rest of his life. by the irony of fate, even the governments of europe seemed to be conspiring to force marx to become the best equipped man of his time. to the leisure and travel enforced upon him by the european governments was due in no small measure his long schooling in economic theory, revolutionary political movements, and working-class methods of action. both he and engels penetrated into every nest of discontent. they came personally in touch with every group of dissidents. they spent many weary but invaluable weeks in the greatest libraries of europe, with the result that they became thoroughly schooled in philosophy, economics, science, and languages. they pursued, to the minutest detail, with an inexhaustible thirst, the theories not only of the "authorities" but also of nearly every obscure socialist, radical, and revolutionist in england, france, russia, and germany. in brussels, paris, and london, around the forties, a number of brilliant minds seemed somehow or other to come frequently in contact with each other. many of them had been driven out of their own countries, and, as exiles abroad, they had ample leisure to plan their great conspiracies or to debate their great theories. some of the notable radicals of the period were heine, freiligrath, herwegh, willich, kinkel, weitling, bakounin, ruge, ledru-rollin, blanc, blanqui, cabet, proudhon, ernest jones, eccarius, marx, engels, and liebknecht; and many of them came together from time to time and, in great excitement and passion, fought as "roman to roman" over their panaceas. marx and engels knew most of them and spent innumerable hours, not infrequently entire days and nights, at a sitting, in their intellectual battles. it was a most fortunate thing for marx that the french government should have driven him in to london. "capital" might never have been written had he not been forced to study for a long period the first land in all europe in which modern capitalism had obtained a footing. on his earlier visit in he had spent a few weeks with engels in the great factory centers, and he had been deeply impressed with this new industrialism and no less, of course, with the english labor movement. nothing to compare with it then existed in france or germany. as early as many of the trades were well organized, and repeated efforts had been made to bring them together into a national federation. how thoroughly engels knew this movement and its varied struggles to better the status of labor is shown in his book, "the condition of the working class in england in ." how thoroughly and fundamentally marx later came to know not only the actual working-class movement, but every economic theory from adam smith to john stuart mill, and every insurgent economist and political theorist from william godwin to bronterre o'brien, is shown in "capital." in fact, not a single phase of insurgent thought seemed to escape marx and engels, nor any trace of revolt against the existing order, whether political or industrial. in germany they were schooled in philosophy and science; in france they found themselves in a most amazing fermentation of revolutionary spirit and idealism; and in england they studied with the minutest care the coöperative movement and self-help, the trade-union movement with its purely economic aims and methods, the chartist movement with its political action, and the owenite movement, both in its purely utopian phases and in its later development into syndicalist socialism. this long and profound study placed marx and engels in a position infinitely beyond that of their contemporaries. possessed as they were of unusual mental powers, it was inevitable that such a training should have placed them in a position of intellectual leadership in the then rapidly forming working-class organizations of europe. the study of english capitalism convinced marx of the truthfulness of certain generalizations which he had already begun to formulate in . it became more and more evident to him that economic facts, to which history had hitherto attributed no rôle or a very inferior one, constituted, at least in the modern world, a decisive historic force. "they form the source from which spring the present class antagonisms. these antagonisms in countries where great industry has carried them to their complete development, particularly in england, are the bases on which parties are founded, are the sources of political struggles, are the reasons for all political history."[ ] although marx had arrived at this opinion earlier and had generalized this point of view in "french-german annals," his study of english economics swept away any possible doubt that "in general it was not the state which conditions and regulates civil society, but civil society which conditions and regulates the state, that it was then necessary to explain politics and history by economic relations, and not to proceed inversely."[ ] "this discovery which revolutionized historical science was essentially the work of marx," says engels, and, with his customary modesty, he adds: "the part which can be attributed to me is very small. it concerned itself directly with the working-class movement of the period. communism in france and germany and chartism in england appeared to be something more than mere chance which could just as well not have existed. these movements became now a movement of the oppressed class of modern times, the working class. henceforth they were more or less developed forms of the historically necessary struggle which this class must carry on against the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. they were forms of the struggle of the classes, but which were distinguished from all preceding struggles by this fact: the class now oppressed, the proletariat, cannot effect its emancipation without delivering all society from its division into classes, without freeing it from class struggles. _no longer did communism consist in the creation of a social ideal as perfect as possible; it resolved itself into a clear view of the nature, the conditions, and the general ends of the struggle carried on by the working class._"[ ] it was not the intention of marx and engels to communicate their new scientific results to the intellectual world exclusively by means of large volumes. on the contrary, they plunged into the political movement. besides having intercourse with well-known people, particularly in the western part of germany, they were also in contact with the organized working classes. "our duty was to found our conception scientifically, but it was just as important that we should win over the european, and especially the german, working classes to our convictions. when it was all clear in our eyes, we set to work."[ ] a new german working-class society was founded in brussels, and the support was enlisted of the _deutsche brüsseler zeitung_, which served as an organ until the revolution of february. they were in touch with the revolutionary faction of the english chartists under the leadership of george julian harney, editor of _the northern star_, to which engels contributed. they also had intercourse with the democrats of brussels and with the french social democrats of _la réforme_, to which engels contributed news of the english and german movements. in short, the relations that marx and engels had established with the radical and working-class organizations fully served the great purposes they had in mind. it was in the communist league that marx and engels saw their first opportunity to impress their ideas on the labor movement. at the urgent request of joseph moll, a watchmaker and a prominent member of the league, marx consented, in , to present to that organization his views, and the result was the famous communist manifesto. every essential idea of modern socialism is contained in that brief declaration. unfortunately, however, outside of germany, the communist league was an exotic organization that could make little use of such a program. its members were mostly exiles, who, by the very nature of their position, were hopelessly out of things. little groups, surrounded by a foreign people, exiles are rarely able to affect the movement at home or influence the national movement amid which they are thrust. there is little, therefore, noteworthy about the communist league. it had, to be sure, gathered together a few able and energetic spirits, and some of these in later years exercised considerable influence in the international. but, as a rule, the groups of the communist league were little more than debating societies whose members were filled with sentimental, visionary, and insurrectionary ideas. marx himself finally lost all patience with them, because he could not drive out of their heads the idea that they could revolutionize the entire world by some sudden dash and through the exercise of will power, personal sacrifice, and heroic action. the communist league, therefore, is memorable only because it gave marx and engels an opportunity for issuing their epoch-making manifesto, that even to-day is read and reread by the workers in all lands of the world. translated into every language, it is the one pamphlet that can be found in every country as a part of the basic literature of socialism. there are certain principles laid down in the communist manifesto which time cannot affect, although the greater part of the document is now of historic value only. the third section, for instance, is a critique of the various types of socialism then existing in europe, and this part can hardly be understood to-day by those unacquainted with those sectarian movements. it deals with reactionary socialism, feudal socialism, clerical socialism, petty bourgeois socialism, german socialism, conservative or bourgeois socialism, critical-utopian socialism, and communism. the mere enumeration of these types of socialist doctrine indicates what a chaos of doctrine and theory then existed, and it was in order to distinguish themselves from these various schools that marx and engels took the name of communists. beginning with the statement, "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,"[ ] the manifesto treats at length the modern struggle between the working class and the capitalist class. after tracing the rise of capitalism, the development of a new working class, and the consequences to the people of the new economic order, marx and engels outline the program of the communists and their relation to the then existing working-class organizations and political parties. they deny any intention of forming a new sect, declaring that they throw themselves whole-heartedly into the working-class movement of all countries, with the one aim of encouraging and developing within those groups a political organization for the conquest of political power. they outline certain measures which, in their opinion, should stand foremost in the program of labor, all of them having to do with some modification of the institution of property. in order to achieve these reforms, and eventually "to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state,"[ ] they urge the formation of labor parties as soon as proper preparations have been made and the time is ripe for effective class action. all through the manifesto runs the motif that every class struggle is a political struggle. again and again marx and engels return to that thought in their masterly survey of the historical conflicts between the classes. they show how the bourgeoisie, beginning as "an oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility," gradually ... "conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway," until to-day "the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."[ ] tracing the rise of the modern working class, they tell of its purely retaliative efforts against the capitalists; how at first "they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze"; how they fight in "incoherent" masses, "broken up by their mutual competition";[ ] even their unions are not so much a result of their conscious effort as they are the consequence of oppression. furthermore, the workers "do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies."[ ] "now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. the real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers."[ ] it is when their unions grow national in character and the struggle develops into a national struggle between the classes that it naturally takes on a political character. then begins the struggle for conquering political power. but, while "all previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities, the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority."[ ] returning again to the underlying thought, it is pointed out that the working class must "win the battle of democracy."[ ] it must acquire "political supremacy." it must raise itself to "the position of ruling class," in order that it may sweep away "the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally."[ ] such were the doctrines and tactics proclaimed by marx and engels in . the manifesto is said to have been received with great enthusiasm by the league, but, whatever happened at the moment, it is clear that the members never understood the doctrines manifested. in any case, various factions in the movement were still clamoring for insurrection and planning their conspiracies, wholly faithful to the revolution-making artifices of the period. two of the most prominent, willich and schapper, were carried away with revolutionary passion, and "the majority of the london workers," engels says, "refugees for the most part, followed them into the camp of the bourgeois democrats, the revolution-makers."[ ] they declined to listen to protests. "they wanted to go the other way and to make revolutions," continues engels. "we refused absolutely to do this and the schism followed."[ ] on the th of september, , marx decided to resign from the central council of the organization, and, feeling that such an act required some justification, he prepared the following written declaration: "the minority[r] [_i. e._, his opponents] have substituted the dogmatic spirit for the critical, the idealistic interpretation of events for the materialistic. simple will power, instead of the true relations of things, has become the motive force of revolution. while we say to the working people: 'you will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years of civil wars and wars between nations not only to change existing conditions, but to change yourselves and make yourselves worthy of political power,' you, on the contrary, say, 'we ought to get power at once, or else give up the fight.' while we draw the attention of the german workman to the undeveloped state of the proletariat in germany, you flatter the national spirit and the guild prejudices of the german artisans in the grossest manner, a method of procedure without doubt the more popular of the two. just as the democrats made a sort of fetish of the words 'the people,' so you make one of the word 'proletariat.' like them, you substitute revolutionary phrases for revolutionary evolution."[ ] this statement of marx is one of the most significant documents of the period and certainly one of the most illuminating we possess of marx's determination to disavow the insurrectionary ideas then so prevalent throughout europe. although he had said the same thing before in other words, there could be no longer any doubt that he cherished no dreams of a great revolutionary cataclysm, nor fondled the then prevalent theory that revolutions could be organized, planned, and executed by will power alone. it is clear, therefore, that marx saw, as early as , little revolutionary promise in sectarian organizations, secret societies, and political conspiracies. the day was past for insurrections, and a real revolution could only arrive as a result of economic forces and class antagonisms. and it is quite obvious that he was becoming more and more irritated by the sentimentalism and dress-parade revolutionism of the socialist sects. he looked upon their projects as childish and theatrical, that gave as little promise of changing the world's history as battles between tin soldiers on some nursery floor. he seemed no longer concerned with ideals, abstract rights, or "eternal verities." those who misunderstood him or were little associated with him were horrified at what they thought was his cynical indifference to such glorious visions as liberty, fraternity, and equality. like darwin, marx was always an earnest seeker of facts and forces. he was laying the foundations of a scientific socialism and dissecting the anatomy of capitalism in pursuit of the laws of social evolution. the gigantic intellectual labors of marx from to are to-day receiving due attention, and, while one after another of the later economists has been forced reluctantly to acknowledge his genius, few now will take issue with professor albion w. small when he says, "i confidently predict that in the ultimate judgment of history marx will have a place in social science analogous with that of galileo in physical science."[ ] in exile, and often desperate poverty, marx worked out with infinite care the scientific basis of the generalization--first given to the world in the communist manifesto--that social and political institutions are the product of economic forces. in all periods there have been antagonistic economic classes whose relative power is determined by struggles between them. "freedman and slave," he says, "patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."[ ] here is a summary of that conflict which professor small declares "is to the social process what friction is to mechanics."[ ] it may well be that "the fact of class struggle is as axiomatic to-day as the fact of gravitation,"[ ] yet, when marx first elaborated his theory, it was not only a revolutionary doctrine among the socialist sects, but like darwin's theory of evolution it was assailed from every angle by every school of economists. the important practical question that arises out of this scientific work, and which particularly concerns us here, is that this theory of the class struggle forever destroyed the old ideas of revolution, scrap-heaped conspiracies and insurrections, and laid the theoretical foundations for the modern working-class movement. actually, it was utopian socialism that was destroyed by this new theory. it expressed itself in at least three diverse ways. there were groups of conspirators and revolutionists who believed that the world was on the eve of a great upheaval and that the people should prepare for the moment when suddenly they could seize the governments of europe, destroy ancient institutions, and establish a new social order. another form of utopianism was the effort to persuade the capitalists themselves to abolish dividends, profits, rent, and interest, to turn the factories over to the workers, to become themselves toilers, and to share equally, one with another, the products of their joint labor. still another form of utopian socialism was that of owen, fourier, and cabet, who contemplated the establishment of ideal communities in which a new world should be built, where all should be free and equal, and where fraternity would be based upon a perfect economic communism. some really noble spirits in france, england, and america had devoted time, love, energy, and wealth to this propaganda and in actual attempts to establish these utopias. but after ' the upper classes were despaired of. their brutal reprisals, their suppression of every working-class movement, their ferocious repression of the unions, of the press, and of the right of assembly--all these materially aided marx's theory in disillusioning many of the philanthropic and tender-hearted utopians. and from then on the hope of every sincere advocate of fundamental social changes rested on the working class--on its organizations, its press, and its labors--for the establishment of the new order. the most striking characteristic of the period which follows was the attempt of all the socialist and anarchist sects to inject their ideas into the rising labor movement. with the single exception of robert owen in england, the earlier socialists had ignored the working classes. all their appeals were made to well-to-do men, and some of them even hoped that the monarchs of europe might be induced to take the initiative. but marx and engels made their appeal chiefly to the working class. the profound reaction which settled over europe in the years following ' ended all other dreams, and from this time on every proposal for a radical change in the organization of society was presented to the workers as the only class that was really seeking, by reason of its economic subjection, basic alterations in the institutions of property and the constitution of the state. the working classes of germany, france, england, and other countries had already begun to form groups for the purpose of discussing political questions, and the ideas of marx began to be propagated in all the centers of working-class activity. the blending of labor and socialism in most of the countries of europe was not, however, a work of months, but of decades. the first great effort to accomplish that task occurred in , when the international working men's association was launched in st. martin's hall in london. during the years from ' to ' , marx and engels, with their little coterie in london and their correspondents in other countries, spent most of their time in study, reading, and writing, with little opportunity to participate in the actual struggles of labor. marx was at work on "capital" and schooling, in his leisure hours, a few of the notable men who were later to become leaders of the working class in europe. it was a dull period, wearisome and vexatious enough to men who were boldly prophesying that industrial conditions would create a world-wide solidarity of labor. the first glimmer of hope came with the london international exhibition of , which brought together by chance groups of workingmen from various countries. the visit to london enabled them to observe the british trade unions, and they left deeply impressed by their strength. furthermore, the exhibition brought the english workers and those of other nationalities into touch with each other. how much this meant was shown in . when the polish uprising was being suppressed, the english workers sent to their french comrades a protest, in answer to which the paris workmen sent a delegation to london. this gathering in sympathy with poland laid the foundations for the international. nearly every important revolutionary sect in europe was represented: the german communists, the french blanquists and proudhonians, and the italian mazzinians; but the only delegates who represented powerful working-class organizations were the english trade unionists. the other organizations, even as late as this, were still little more than coteries, of hero-worshiping tendencies, fast developing into sectarian organizations that seemed destined to divide hopelessly and forever the labor movement. it was perhaps inevitable that the more closely the sects were brought together, the more clearly they should perceive their differences, although marx had exercised every care to draft a policy that would allay strife. mazzini and his followers could not long endure the policies of the international, and they soon withdrew. the proudhonians never at any time sympathized with the program and methods adopted by the international. the german organizations were not able to affiliate, by reason of the political conditions in that country, although numerous individuals attended the congresses. nearly all the germans were supporters of the policies of marx, while most of the leading trade unionists of england completely understood and sympathized with marx's aim of uniting the various working-class organizations of europe into an international association. they all felt that such a movement was an historic and economic necessity and that the time for it had arrived. they intended to set about that work and to knit together the innumerable little organizations then forming in all countries. they sought to institute a meeting ground where the social and political program of the workers could be formulated, where their views could be clarified, and their purposes defined. it was not to be a secret organization, but entirely open and above board. it was not for conspiratory action, but for the building up of a great movement. it was not intended to encourage insurrection or to force ahead of time a revolution. in the opinion of marx, as we know, a social revolution was thought to be inevitable, and the international was to bide its time, preparing for the day of its coming, in order to make that revolution as peaceable and as effective as possible. the preamble of the provisional rules of the international--entirely the work of marx--expresses with sufficient clearness the position of the international. it was there declared: "that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; "that the economic subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor, that is, the sources of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; "that the economic emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means; "that all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries; "that the emancipation of labor is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries; "that the present revival of the working classes in the most industrial countries of europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors and calls for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements."[ ] in this brief declaration we find the essence of marxian socialism: that the working classes must themselves work out their own salvation; that their servitude is economic; and that all workers must join together in a political movement, national and international, in order to achieve their emancipation. unfortunately, the proudhonian anarchists were never able to comprehend the position of marx, and in the first congress at geneva, in , the quarrels between the various elements gave marx no little concern. he did not attend that congress, and he afterward wrote to his young friend, dr. kugelmann: "i was unable to go, and i did not wish to do so, but it was i who wrote the program of the london delegates. i limited it on purpose to points which admit of an immediate understanding and common action by the workingmen, and which give immediately strength and impetus to the needs of the class struggle and to the organization of the workers as a class. the parisian gentlemen had their heads filled with the most empty proudhonian phraseology. they chatter of science, and know nothing of it. they scorn all revolutionary action, that is to say, proceeding from the class struggle itself, every social movement that is centralized and consequently obtainable by legislation through political means (as, for example, the legal shortening of the working day)."[ ] these words indicate that marx considered the chief work of the international to be the building up of a working-class political movement to obtain laws favorable to labor. furthermore, he was of the opinion that such work was of a revolutionary nature. the clearest statement, perhaps, of marx's idea of the revolutionary character of political activity is to be found in the address which he prepared at the request of the public meeting that launched the international. he traces there briefly the conditions of the working class in england. after depicting the misery of the masses, he hastily reviews the growth of the labor movement that ended with the chartist agitation. although from to was a period when the english working class seemed, he says, "thoroughly reconciled to a state of political nullity,"[ ] nevertheless two encouraging developments had taken place. one was the victory won by the working classes in carrying the ten hours bill. it was "not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class."[ ] the other victory was the growth of the coöperative movement. "the value of these great social experiments cannot be overrated," he says. "by deed, instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands."[ ] arguing that coöperative labor should be developed to national dimensions and be fostered by state funds, he urges working-class political action as the means to achieve this end. "to conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes."[ ] this is the conclusion of marx concerning revolutionary methods; and it is clear that his conception of "revolutionary action" differed not only from that of the proudhonians and mazzinians, but also from that of "the bourgeois democrats, the revolution-makers,"[ ] who "extemporized revolutions."[ ] at the end of marx's letter to kugelmann, he tells of the beginning already made by the international in london in actual political work. "the movement for electoral reform here," he writes, "which our general council (_quorum magna pars_) created and launched, has assumed dimensions that have kept on growing until now they are irresistible."[ ] the general council threw itself unreservedly into this agitation. an electoral reform conference was held in february, , attended by two hundred delegates from all parts of england, scotland, and ireland. later, gigantic mass meetings were held throughout the country to bring pressure upon the government. frederic harrison and professor e. s. beesly, well known for their sympathy with labor, were appealing to the working classes to throw their energies into the fight. "nothing will compel the ruling classes," wrote harrison in , "to recognize the rights of the working classes and to pay attention to their just demands until the workers have obtained political power."[ ] professor beesly, the intimate friend of marx, was urging the unions to enter politics as an independent force, on the ground that the difference between the tories and the liberals was only the difference between the upper and nether millstones. in all this agitation marx saw, of course, the working out of his own ideas for the upbuilding of a great independent political organization of the working class. all the energies of the general council of the international were, therefore, devoted to the political struggle of the british workers. however, in all this campaign, emphasis was placed upon the central idea of the association--that political power was wanted, in order, peaceably and legally, to remedy economic wrongs. the wretched condition of the workers in the industrial towns and the even greater misery of the irish peasants and english farm laborers were the bases of all agitation. while occupied at this time chiefly with the economic and political struggles in britain, the general council was also keeping a sharp eye on similar conditions in europe and america. when lincoln was chosen president for the second time, a warm address of congratulation was sent to the american people, expressing joy that the sworn enemy of slavery had been again chosen to represent them. more than once the international communicated with lincoln, and perhaps no words more perfectly express the ideal of the labor movement than those that lincoln once wrote to a body of workingmen: "_the strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds._"[ ] to unite thus the workers of all lands and to organize them into great political parties were the chief aims of marx in the international. and in it seemed that this might actually be accomplished in a few years. in france, belgium, switzerland, germany, austria, italy, and other countries the international was making rapid headway. nearly all the most important labor bodies of europe were actually affiliated, or at least friendly, to the new movement. at all the meetings held there was enthusiasm, and the future of the international seemed very promising indeed. it was recognized as the vehicle for expressing the views of labor throughout europe. it had formulated its principles and tactics, and had already made a creditable beginning in the gigantic task before it of systematically carrying on its agitation, education, and organization. marx's energies were being taxed to the utmost. nearly all the immense executive work of the international fell on him, and nearly every move made was engineered by him. yet at that very time he was on the point of publishing the first volume of "capital," the result of gigantic researches into industrial history and economic theory. this great work was intended to be, in its literal sense, the bible of the working class, as indeed it has since become. certainly, jaurès' tribute to marx is well deserved and fairly sums up the work accomplished by him in the period - . "to marx belongs the merit," he says, " ... of having drawn together and unified the labor movement and the socialist idea. in the first third of the nineteenth century labor struggled and fought against the crushing power of capital; but it was not conscious itself toward what end it was straining; it did not know that the true objective of its effort was the common ownership of property. and, on the other hand, socialism did not know that the labor movement was the living form in which its spirit was embodied, the concrete practical force of which it stood in need. marx was the most clearly convinced and the most powerful among those who put an end to the empiricism of the labor movement and the utopianism of the socialist thought, and this should always be remembered to his credit. by a crowning application of the hegelian method, he united the idea and the fact, thought and history. he enriched the practical movement by the idea, and to the theory he added practice; he brought the socialist thought into proletarian life, and proletarian life into socialist thought. from that time on socialism and the proletariat became inseparable."[ ] footnotes: [q] the dramatic story of his life is wonderfully told in _l'enfermé_ by gustave geffroy. (paris, .) [r] in the authority cited below this appears as "the minority," but i notice that in jaurès' "studies in socialism," p. , it appears as "the majority." chapter viii the battle between marx and bakounin at the moment when the future of the international seemed most promising and the political ideas of marx were actually taking root in nearly all countries, an application was received by the general council in london to admit the alliance of social democracy. this, we will remember, was the organization that bakounin had formed in and was the popular section of that remarkable secret hierarchy which he had endeavored to establish in . the general council declined to admit the alliance, on grounds which proved later to be well founded, namely, that schisms would undoubtedly be encouraged if the international should permit an organization with an entirely different program and policies to join it in a body. nevertheless, the general council declared that the members of the alliance could affiliate themselves as individuals with the various national sections. after considerable debate, bakounin and his followers decided to abandon the alliance and to join the international. whether the alliance was in fact abolished is still open to question, but in any case bakounin appeared in the international toward the end of the sixties, to challenge all the theories of marx and to offer, in their stead, his own philosophy of universal revolution. anarchism as the end and terrorism as the means were thus injected into the organization at its most formative period, when the laboring classes of all europe had just begun to write their program, evolve their principles, and define their tactics. with great force and magnetism, bakounin undertook his war upon the general council, and those who recall the period will realize that nothing could have more nearly expressed the occasional spirit of the masses--the very spirit that marx and engels were endeavoring to change--than exactly the methods proposed by bakounin. whether it were better to move gradually and peacefully along what seemed a never-ending road to emancipation or to begin the revolution at once by insurrection and civil war--this was in reality the question which, from that moment on, agitated the international. it had always troubled more or less the earlier organizations of labor, and now, aided by bakounin's eloquence and fiery revolutionism, it became the great bone of contention throughout europe. the struggles in the international between those who became known later as the anarchists and the socialists remind one of certain greek stories, in which the outstanding figures seem to impersonate mighty forces, and it is not impossible that one day they may serve as material for a social epic. we all know to-day the interminable study that engages the theologians in their attempts to describe the battles and schisms in the early christian church. and there can be no doubt that, if socialism fulfills the purpose which its advocates have in mind, these early struggles in its history will become the object of endless research and commentary. the calumnies, the feuds, the misunderstandings, the clashing of doctrines, the antagonism of the ruling spirits, the plots and conspiracies, the victories and defeats--all these various phases of this war to the death between socialists and anarchists--will in that case present to history the most vital struggle of this age. but, whatever may be the outcome of the socialist movement, it is hardly too much to say that to both anarchists and socialists these struggles seemed, at the time they were taking place, of supreme importance to the destinies of humanity. the contending titans of this war were, of course, karl marx and michael bakounin. it is hardly necessary to go into the personal feud that played so conspicuous a part in the struggle between them. perhaps no one at this late day can prove what marx and his friends themselves were unable to prove--although they never ceased repeating the allegations--that bakounin was a spy of the russian government, that his life had been thrice spared through the influence of that government, that he was treacherous and dishonest, and that his sole purpose was to disrupt and destroy the international working men's association. nor is it necessary to consider the charges made against marx--some of them time has already taken care of--that he was domineering, malicious, and ambitious, that his spirit was actuated by intrigue, and that, when he conceived a dislike for anyone, he was merciless and conscienceless in his warfare on that one. incompatibility of temperament and of personality played its part in the battles between these two, but, even had there been no mutual dislike, the differences between their principles and tactics would have necessitated a battle _à outrance_. for twenty years before the birth of the international, marx and bakounin had crossed and recrossed each other's circle. they had always quarreled. there was a mutual fascination, due perhaps to an innate antagonism, that brought them again and again together at critical periods. at times there seemed a chance of reconciliation, but they no more touched each other than immediately there flared forth the old animosity. when bakounin left russia in , he met proudhon and marx in paris. at that period the doctrines of all three were germinating. bakounin had already written, "the desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[ ] proudhon had begun to formulate the principles of anarchism, and marx the principles of socialism. "he was much more advanced than i was," wrote bakounin of marx at this period. "i knew nothing then of political economy, i was not yet freed from metaphysical abstraction, and my socialism was only instinctive.... it was precisely at this epoch that he elaborated the first fundamentals of his present system. we saw each other rather often, for i respected him deeply for his science and for his passionate and serious devotion, although always mingled with personal vanity, to the cause of the proletariat, and i sought with eagerness his conversation, which was always instructive and witty--when it was not inspired with mean hatred, which, too often, alas, was the case. never, however, was there frank intimacy between us. our temperaments did not allow that. he called me a sentimental idealist, and he was right; i called him a vain man, perfidious and artful, and i was right also."[ ] this mutual dislike and even distrust subsisted to the end. certain events in widened the gulf between them. at the news of the outbreak of the revolution in paris, hundreds of the restless spirits hurried there to take a hand in the situation. and after the proclamation of the republic they began to consider various projects of carrying the revolution into their own countries. plans were being discussed for organizing legions to invade foreign countries, and a number of the german communists entered heartily into the plan of herwegh, the erratic german poet--"the iron lark"--who led a band of revolutionists into baden. "we arose vehemently against these attempts to play at revolution," says engels, speaking for himself and marx. "in the state of fermentation which then existed in germany, to carry into our country an invasion which was destined to import the revolution by force, was to injure the revolution in germany, to consolidate the governments, and ... to deliver the legions over defenseless to the german troops."[ ] wilhelm liebknecht, then twenty-two years of age, who was in favor of herwegh's project, wrote afterward of marx's opposition. marx "understood that the plan of organizing 'foreign legions' for the purpose of carrying the revolution into other countries emanated from the french bourgeois-republicans, and that the 'movement' had been artificially inspired with the twofold intention of getting rid of troublesome elements and of carrying off the foreign laborers whose competition made itself doubly felt during this grave business crisis."[ ] undeterred by marx, herwegh marshaled his "legions" and entered baden, to be utterly crushed, exactly as marx had foreseen. a quarrel then arose between marx and bakounin over herwegh's project. far from changing marx's mind, however, it made him suspect bakounin as perhaps in the pay of the reactionaries. in any case, he made no effort to prevent the _neue rheinische zeitung_ from printing shortly after the following: "yesterday it was asserted that george sand was in possession of papers which seriously compromised the russian who has been banished from here, _michael bakounin_, and represented him as an instrument or an _agent of russia_, newly enrolled, to whom is attributed the leading part in the recent arrest of the unfortunate poles. george sand has shown these papers to some of her friends."[ ] marx later printed bakounin's answer to these charges--which were, in fact, groundless--and in his letters to the new york _tribune_ ( ) even commended bakounin for his services in the dresden uprising of .[ ] nevertheless, there is no doubt that to the end marx believed bakounin to be a tool of the enemy. these quarrels are important only as they are prophetic in thus early disclosing the gulf between marx and bakounin in their conception of revolutionary activity. although profoundly revolutionary, marx was also rigidly rational. he had no patience, and not an iota of mercy, for those who lost their heads and attempted to lead the workers into violent outbreaks that could result only in a massacre. on this point he would make no concessions, and anyone who attempted such suicidal madness was in marx's mind either an imbecile or a paid _agent provocateur_. the failure of herwegh's project forced bakounin to admit later that marx had been right. yet, as we know, with bakounin's advancing years the passion for insurrections became with him almost a mania. if this quarrel between bakounin and marx casts a light upon the causes of their antagonism, a still greater illumination is shed by the differences between them which arose in . bakounin, in that year, had written a brochure in which he developed a program for the union of the revolutionary slavs and for the destruction of the three monarchies, russia, austria, and prussia. he advocated pan-slavism, and believed that the slavic people could once more be united and then federated into a great new nation. when marx saw the volume, he wrote in the _neue rheinische zeitung_ (february , ), "aside from the poles, the russians, and perhaps even the slavs of turkey, no slavic people has a future, for the simple reason that there are lacking in all the other slavs the primary conditions--historical, geographical, political, and industrial--of independence and vitality."[ ] this cold-blooded statement infuriated bakounin. he absolutely refused to look at the facts. possessed of a passion for liberty, he wanted all nations, all peoples--civilized, semi-civilized, or savage--to be entirely free. what had historical, geographical, political, or industrial conditions to do with the matter? all this is typical of bakounin's revolutionary sentimentalism. he clashed again with marx on very similar grounds when the latter insisted that only in the more advanced countries is there a possibility of a social revolution. modern capitalist production, according to marx, must attain a certain degree of development before it is possible for the working class to hope to carry out any really revolutionary project. bakounin takes issue with him here. he declares his own aim to be "the complete and real emancipation of all the proletariat, not only of some countries, but of all nations, civilized and non-civilized."[ ] in these declarations the differences between marx and bakounin stand forth vividly. marx at no time states what he wishes. he expresses no sentiment, but confines himself to a cold statement of the facts as he sees them. bakounin, the dreamer, the sentimentalist, and the revolution-maker, wants the whole world free. whether or not marx wants the same thing is not the question. he rigidly confines himself to what he believes is possible. he says certain conditions must exist before a people can be free and independent. among them are included historical, geographical, political, and industrial conditions. marx further states that, before the working-class revolution can be successful, certain economic conditions must exist. marx is not stating here conclusions which are necessarily agreeable to him. he states only the results of his study of history, based on his analysis of past events. in the one case we find the idealist seeking to set the world violently right; in the other case we find the historian and the scientist--influenced no doubt, as all men must be, by certain hopes, yet totally regardless of personal desire--stating the antecedent conditions which must exist previous to the birth of a new historic or economic period. in speaking of the antagonism between marx and bakounin in this earlier period, i do not mean to convey the impression that it was the cause of the dissensions that arose later. the slightest knowledge of bakounin's philosophy and methods is enough to make one realize that neither the international nor any considerable section of the labor or socialist movements had anything in common with those ideas. certainly the thought and policies of marx were directly opposed to everything from first to last that bakounin stood for. nothing could be more grotesque than the idea that marxism and bakouninism could be blended, or indeed exist together, in any semblance of harmony. every thought, policy, and method of the two clashed furiously. it would be impossible to conceive of two other minds that were on so many points such worlds apart. both bakounin and marx instinctively felt this essential antagonism, yet the former wrote marx, in december, , when he was preparing to enter the international, assuring him that he had had a change of heart and that "my country, now, _c'est l'internationale_, of which you are one of the principal founders. you see then, dear friend, that i am your disciple and i am proud to be it."[ ] he then signs himself affectionately, "your devoted m. bakounin."[ ] with an olive branch such as that arrived the new "disciple" of marx. he then set to work without a moment's delay to capture the international congress which was to be held at basel, september, . and it was there that the first battle occurred. from the very moment that the congress opened it was clear that on every important question there was to be a division. most unexpectedly, the first struggle arose over a question that seemed not at all fundamental at the time, but which, as the later history of socialism shows, was really basic. the father of direct legislation, rittinghausen, was a delegate to the congress from germany. he begged the congress for an opportunity to present his ideas, and he won the support, quite naturally, of the marxian elements. in his preliminary statement to the congress he said: "you are going to occupy yourselves at length with the great social reforms that you think necessary in order to put an end to the deplorable situation of the labor world. is it then less necessary for you to occupy yourselves with methods of execution by which you may accomplish these reforms? i hear many among you say that you wish to attain your end by _revolution_. well, comrades, revolution, as a matter of fact, accomplishes nothing. if you are not able to formulate, after the revolution, by legislation, your legitimate demands, the revolution will perish miserably like that of . you will be the prey of the most violent reaction and you will be forced anew to suffer years of oppression and disgrace. "what, then, are the means of execution that democracy will have to employ in order to realize its ideas? legislation by an individual functions only to the advantage of that individual and his family. legislation by a group of capitalists, called representatives, serves only the interests of this class. it is only by taking their interests into their own hands, by direct legislation, that the people can ... establish the reign of social justice. i insist, then, that you put on the program of this congress the question of direct legislation by the people."[ ] the forces led by bakounin and professor hins, of belgium, opposed any consideration of this question. the latter, in elaborating the remarks of bakounin, declared: "they wish, they say, to accomplish, by representation or direct legislation, the transformation of the present governments, the work of our enemies, the bourgeois. they wish, in order to do this, to enter into these governments, and, by persuasion, by numbers, and by new laws, to establish a new state. comrades, do not follow this line of march, for we would perish in following it in belgium or in france as elsewhere. rather let us leave these governments to rot away and not prop them up with our morality. this is the reason: the international is and must be a state within states. let these states march on as they like, even to the point where our state is the strongest. then, on their ruins, we will place ours, all prepared, all made ready, such as it exists in each section."[ ] the result of this debate was that the father of direct legislation was not allowed time to present his views, and it is significant that this first clash of the congress resulted in a victory for the anarchists, despite all that could be done by liebknecht and the other socialists. the chief question on the program was the consideration of the right of inheritance. this was the main economic change desired by the alliance. for years bakounin had advocated the abolition of the right of inheritance as the most revolutionary of his economic demands. "the right of inheritance," declared bakounin, "after having been the natural consequence of the violent appropriation of natural and social wealth, became later the basis of the political state and of the legal family.... it is necessary, therefore, to vote the abolition of the right of inheritance."[ ] it was left to george eccarius, delegate of the association of tailors of london, to present to that congress the views of marx and the general council. the report of the general council was, of course, prepared in advance, but bakounin's views were well known, and it was intended as a crushing rejoinder. "_inheritance_," it declared, "does not _create_ that power of transferring the produce of one man's labor into another man's pocket--it only relates to the change in the individuals who yield (_sic_) that power. like all other civil legislation, the laws of inheritance are not the _cause_, but the _effect_, the _juridical consequence_ of the _existing economical organization of society_, based upon private property in the means of production, that is to say, in land, raw material, machinery, etc. in the same way the right of inheritance in the slave is not the cause of slavery, but, on the contrary, slavery is the cause of inheritance in slaves.... to proclaim the abolition of the _right of inheritance_ as the _starting point_ of the social revolution would only tend to lead the working class away from the true point of attack against present society. it would be as absurd a thing as to abolish the laws of contract between buyer and seller, while continuing the present state of exchange of commodities. it would be a thing false in theory and reactionary in practice."[ ] despite the opposition of the marxians at the congress, the proposition of bakounin received thirty-two votes as against twenty-three given to the proposition of the general council. as thirteen of the delegates abstained from voting, bakounin's resolution did not obtain an absolute majority, and the question was thus left undecided. another important discussion at the congress was on landed property. some of the delegates were opposed to the collective ownership of land, believing that it should be divided into small sections and left to the peasants to cultivate. others advocated a kind of communism, in which associations of agriculturists were to work the soil. still others believed that the state should own the land and lease it to individuals. indeed, almost every phase of the question was touched, including the means of obtaining the land from the present owners and of distributing it among the peasants or of owning it collectively while allowing them the right to cultivate it for their profit. on this subject, again, eccarius presented the views of marx. to bakounin, who expressed his terror of the state, no matter of what character, eccarius said "that his relations with the french have doubtless communicated to him this conception (for it appears that the french workingmen can never think of the state without seeing a napoleon appear, accompanied by a flock of cannon), and he replied that the state can be reformed by the coming of the working class into power. all great transformations have been inaugurated by a change in the form of landed property. the allodial system was replaced by the feudal system, the feudal system by modern private ownership, and the social transformation to which the new state of things tends will be inaugurated by the abolition of individual property in land. as to compensations, that will depend on the circumstances. if the transformation is made peacefully, the present owners will be indemnified.... if the owners of slaves had yielded when lincoln was elected, they would have received a compensation for their slaves. their resistance led to the abolition of slavery without compensation...."[ ] the congress, after debating the question at length, contented itself with voting the general proposition that "society has the right to abolish private property in land and to make land the property of the community."[ ] the last important question considered by the congress was that dealing with trade unions. the debate aroused little interest, although liebknecht opened the discussion. he pointed out the great extension of trade-union organization in england, germany, and america, and he tried to impress upon the congress the necessity for vastly extending this form of solidarity. and, indeed, it seems to have been generally admitted that trade-union organization was necessary. no practical proposals were, however, made for actually developing such organizations. the interesting part of the discussion came upon the function of trade unionism in future society. the socialists were little concerned as to what might happen to the trade unions in future society, but professor hins outlined at that congress the program of the modern syndicalists. it is, therefore, especially interesting to read what professor hins said as early as : "societies _de résistance_ (trade unions) will subsist after the suppression of wages, not in name, but in deed. they will then be the organization of labor, ... operating a vast distribution of labor from one end of the world to the other. they will replace the ancient political systems: in place of a confused and heterogeneous representation, there will be the representation of labor. "they will be at the same time agents of decentralization, for the centers will differ according to the industries which will form, in some manner, each one a separate state, and will prevent forever the return to the ancient form of centralized state, which will not, however, prevent another form of government for local purposes. as is evident, if we are reproached for being indifferent to every form of government, it is ... because we detest them all in the same way, and because we believe that it is only on their ruins that a society conforming to the principles of justice can be established."[s][ ] the congress at basel was the turning point in the brief history of the international. although the marxists were reluctant to admit it, the bakouninists had won a complete victory on every important issue. some of the decisions future congresses might remedy, but in refusing even to discuss the question of direct legislation many of the delegates clearly showed their determination to have nothing to do with politics or with any movement aiming at the conquest of political power. in all the discussions the anarchist tendencies of the congress were unmistakable, and the immense gulf between the marxists and the bakouninists was laid bare. the very foundation principles upon which the international was based had been overturned. political action was to be abandoned, while the discussion on trade unions introduced for the first time in the international the idea of a purely economic struggle and a conception of future society in which groups of producers, and not the state or the community, should own the tools of production. this syndicalist conception of socialism was not new. developed for the first time by robert owen in , it had led the working classes into the most violent and bitter strikes, that ended in disaster for all participants. born again in , it was destined to lie dormant for thirty years, then to be taken up once more--this time with immense enthusiasm--by the french trade unions. needless to say, the decisive victory of the bakouninists at basel was excessively annoying and humiliating to marx. he did not attend in person, but it was evident before the congress that he fully expected that his forces would, on that occasion, destroy root and branch the economic and political fallacies of bakounin. he rather welcomed the discussion of the differences between the program of the alliance and that of the international, in order that eccarius, liebknecht, and others might demolish, once and for all, the reactionary proposals of bakounin. to marx, much of the program of the alliance seemed a remnant of eighteenth-century philosophy, while the rest was pure utopianism, consisting of unsound and impractical reforms, mixed with atheism and schoolboy declamation. altogether, the policies and projects of bakounin seemed so vulnerable that the general council evidently felt that little preparation was necessary in order to defeat them. they seemed to have forgotten, for the moment, that bakounin was an old and experienced conspirator. in any case, he had left no stone unturned to obtain control of the congress. week by week, previous to the congress, _l'egalité_, the organ of the swiss federation, had published articles by bakounin which, while professedly explaining the principles of the international, were in reality attacking them; and most insidiously bakounin's own program was presented as the traditional position of the organization. liberty, fraternity, and equality were, of course, called into service. the treason of certain working-class politicians was pointed out as the natural and inevitable result of political action, while to those who had given little thought to economic theory the abolition of inheritances seemed the final word. nor did bakounin limit his efforts to his pen. all sections of the alliance undertook to see that friends of bakounin were sent as delegates to the congress, and it was charged that credentials were obtained in various underhanded ways. however that may have been, the "practical," "cold-blooded" marx was completely outwitted by his "sentimental" and "visionary" antagonist. instead of a great victory, therefore, the marxists left the congress of basel utterly dejected, and eccarius is reported to have said, "marx will be terribly annoyed."[ ] that marx was annoyed is to put it with extraordinary moderation, and from that moment the fight on bakouninism, anarchism, and terrorism developed to a white heat. immediately after the adjournment of the congress, moritz hess, a close friend of marx and a delegate to the congress, published in the _réveil_ of paris what he called "the secret history" of the congress, in which he declared that "between the collectivists of the international and the russian communists [meaning the bakouninists] there was all the difference which exists between civilization and barbarism, between liberty and despotism, between citizens condemning every form of violence and slaves addicted to the use of brutal force."[ ] even this gives but a faint idea of the bitterness of the controversy. marx, engels, liebknecht, hess, outine, the general council in london, and every newspaper under the control of the marxists began to assail bakounin and his circle. they no longer confined themselves to a denunciation of the "utopian and bourgeois" character of the anarchist philosophy. they went into the past history of bakounin, revived all the accusations that had been made against him, and exposed every particle of evidence obtainable concerning his "checkered" career as a revolutionist. it will be remembered that it was in that nechayeff appeared in switzerland. when the marxists got wind of him and his doctrine, their rage knew no bounds. and later they obtained and published in _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_ the material from which i have already quoted extensively in my first chapter. no useful purpose, however, would be served in dealing with the personal phases of the struggle. bakounin became so irate at the attacks upon him, several of which happened to have been written by jews, that he wrote an answer entitled "study upon the german jews." he feared to attack marx; and this "study," while avoiding a personal attack, sought to arouse a racial prejudice that would injure him. he writes to herzen, a month after the congress at basel, that he fully realizes that marx is "the instigator and the leader of all this calumnious and infamous polemic."[ ] he was reluctant, however, to attack him personally, and even refers to marx and lassalle as "these two jewish giants," but besides them, he adds, "there was and is a crowd of jewish pigmies."[ ] "nevertheless," he writes, "it may happen, and very shortly, too, that i shall enter into conflict with him, not over any personal offense, of course, but over a question of principle, regarding state communism, of which he himself and the english and german parties which he directs are the most ardent partisans. then it will be a fight to the finish. but there is a time for everything, and the hour for this struggle has not yet sounded.... do you not see that all these gentlemen who are our enemies are forming a phalanx, which must be disunited and broken up in order to be the more easily routed? you are more erudite than i; you know, therefore, better than i who was the first to take for principle: _divide and rule_. if at present i should undertake an open war against marx himself, three-quarters of the members of the international would turn against me, and i would be at a disadvantage, for i would have lost the ground on which i must stand. but by beginning this war with an attack against the rabble by which he is surrounded, i shall have the majority on my side.... but, ... if he wishes to constitute himself the defender of their cause, it is he who would then declare war openly. in this case, i shall take the field also and i shall play the star rôle."[ ] this was written in october, , a month after the basel congress. on the st of january, , the general council at london sent a private communication to all sections of the international, and on the th of march it was followed by another. these, together with various circulars dealing with questions of principle, but all consisting of attacks upon bakounin personally or upon his doctrines, finally goaded him into open war upon marx, the general council, all their doctrines, and even upon the then forming socialist party of germany, with bebel and liebknecht at its head. during the year bakounin was preparing for the great controversy, but his friends of lyons interrupted his work by calling him there to take part in the uprising of that year. he hastened to lyons, but, as we know, he was soon forced to flee and conceal himself in marseilles. it was there, in the midst of the blackest despair, that bakounin wrote: "i have no longer any faith in the revolution in france. this nation is no longer in the least revolutionary. the people themselves have become doctrinaire, as insolent and as bourgeois as the bourgeois.... the bourgeois are loathsome. they are as savage as they are stupid--and as the police blood flows in their veins--they should be called policemen and attorneys-general in embryo. i am going to reply to their infamous calumnies by a good little book in which i shall give everything and everybody its proper name. i leave this country with deep despair in my heart."[ ] he then set to work at last to state systematically his own views and to annihilate utterly those of the socialists. many of these documents are only fragmentary. some were started and abandoned; others ended in hopeless confusion. with the most extraordinary gift of inspirited statement, he passes in review every phase of history, leaping from one peak to another of the great periods, pointing his lessons, issuing his warnings, but all the time throwing at the reader such a niagara of ideas and arguments that he is left utterly dazed and bewildered as by some startling military display or the rushing here and there of a military maneuver. in _lettres à un français_; _manuscrit de pages, écrit à marseille_; _lettre à esquiros_; _préambule pour la seconde livraison de l'empire knouto-germanique_; _avertissement pour l'empire knouto-germanique_; _au journal la liberté, de bruxelles_; and _fragment formant une suite de l'empire knouto-germanique_, he returns again and again to the charge, always seeking to deal some fatal blow to marxian socialism, but never apparently satisfying himself that he has accomplished his task. he touches the border of practical criticism of the socialist program in the fragment entitled _lettres à un français_. it ends, however, before the task is done. again he takes it up in the _manuscrit écrit à marseille_. but here also, as soon as he arrives at the point of annihilating the socialists, his task is discontinued. in truth, he himself seems to have realized the inconclusive character of his writings, as he refused in some cases to complete them and in other cases to publish them. nevertheless, we find in various places of his fragmentary writings not only a statement of his own views, but his entire critique upon socialism. as i have made clear enough, i think, in my first chapter, there are in bakounin's writings two main ideas put forward again and again, dressed in innumerable forms and supported by an inexhaustible variety of arguments. these ideas are based upon his antagonism to religion and to government. it was always _dieu et l'etat_ that he was fighting, and not until both the ideas and the institutions which had grown up in support of "these monstrous oppressions" had been destroyed and swept from the earth could there arise, thought bakounin, a free society, peopled with happy and emancipated human souls. when one has once obtained this conception of bakounin's fundamental views, there is little necessity for dealing with the infinite number of minor points upon which he was forced to attack the men and movements of his time. on the one hand, he was assailing mazzini, whose every move in life was actuated by his intense religious and political faith, while, on the other hand, he was attacking marx as the modern moses handing down to the enslaved multitudes his table of infamous laws as the foundation for a new tyranny, that of state socialism. in bakounin ceased all maneuvering. bringing out his great guns, he began to bombard both mazzini and marx. never has polemic literature seen such another battle. with a weapon in each hand, turning from the one to the other of his antagonists, he battled, as no man ever before battled, to crush "these enemies of the entire human race." there is, of course, no possibility of adequately summarizing, in such limited space as i have allotted to it, the thought of one who traversed the history of the entire world of thought and action in pursuit of some crushing argument against the socialism of marx. this perverted form of socialism, bakounin maintained, contemplated the establishment of a _communisme autoritaire_, or state socialism. "the state," he says, "having become the sole owner--at the end of a certain period of transition which will be necessary in order to transform society, without too great economic and political shocks, from the present organization of bourgeois privilege to the future organization of official equality for all--the state will also be the sole capitalist, the banker, the money lender, the organizer, the director of all the national work, and the distributor of its products. such is the ideal, the fundamental principle of modern communism."[ ] this is, of all bakounin's criticisms of socialism, the one that has had the greatest vitality. it has gone the round of the world as a crushing blow to socialist ideals. the same thought has been repeated by every politician, newspaper, and capitalist who has undertaken to refute socialism. and every socialist will admit that of all the attempts to misrepresent socialism and to make it abhorrent to most people the idea expressed in these words of bakounin has been the most effective. to state thus the ideal of socialism is sufficient in most cases to end all argument. add to this program military discipline for the masses, barracks for homes, and a ruling bureaucracy, and you have complete the terrifying picture that is held up to the workers of every country, even to-day, as the nefarious, world-destroying design of the socialists. it is, therefore, altogether proper to inquire if these were in reality the aims of the marxists. many sincere opponents of socialism actually believe that these are the ends sought, while the casual reader of socialist literature may see much that appears to lead directly to the dreadful state tyranny that bakounin has pictured. but did marx actually advocate state socialism? in the communist manifesto marx proposed a series of reforms that the state alone was capable of instituting. he urged that many of the instruments of production should be centralized in the hands of the state. moreover, nothing is clearer than his prophecy that the working class "will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state."[ ] indeed, in this program, as in all others that have developed out of it, the end of socialism would seem to be state ownership. "with trusts or without," writes engels, "the official representative of capitalist society--the state--will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production." commenting himself upon this statement, he adds in a footnote: "i say 'have to.' for only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the state has become economically inevitable, only then--even if it is the state of to-day that effects this--is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself." "this necessity," he continues, "for conversion into state property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication--the post-office, the telegraphs, the railways."[ ] here is the entire position in a nutshell. but engels says the state will "have to." thus engels and marx are not stating necessarily what they desire. and it must not be forgotten that in all such statements both were outlining only what appeared to them to be a natural and inevitable evolution. in state ownership they saw an outcome of the necessary centralization of capital and its growth into huge monopolies. society would be forced to use the power of the state to control, and eventually to own, these menacing aggregations of capital in the hands of a few men. both marx and engels saw clearly enough that state monopoly does not destroy the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. "the modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine.... the more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, ... the more citizens does it exploit. the workers remain wage workers--proletarians. the capitalist relation is not done away with. it is rather brought to a head. but, brought to a head, it topples over. _state ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution._"[ ] state ownership, then, was not considered by marx and engels in itself a solution of the problem. it is only a necessary preliminary to the solution. the essential step, either subsequent or precedent, is the capture of political power by the working class. by this act the means of production are freed "from the character of capital they have thus far borne, ..." and their "socialized character" is given "complete freedom to work itself out."[ ] "socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. the development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. in proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the state dies out. man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over nature, his own master--free. "to accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. to thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the new oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific socialism."[ ] engels declares that the state, such as we have known it in the past, will die out "as soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. the first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society--the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society--this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. state interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. the state is not 'abolished.' _it dies out._ this gives the measure of the value of the phrase 'a free state,' both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the state out of hand."[ ] this conception of the rôle of the state is one that no anarchist can comprehend. he is unwilling to admit that social evolution necessarily leads through state socialism to industrial democracy, or even that such an evolution is possible. to him the state seems to have a corporeal, material existence of its own. it is a tyrannical machine that exists above all classes and wields a legal, military, and judicial power all its own. that the state is only an agency for representing in certain fields the power of a dominant economic class--this is something the anarchist will not admit. in fact, bakounin seems to have been utterly mystified when eccarius answered him at basel in these words: "the state can be reformed by the coming of the working class into power."[ ] that the state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the capitalist class can neither be granted nor understood by the anarchists. nor can it be comprehended that, when the capitalist class has no affairs of its own to manage, the coercive character of the state will gradually disappear. state ownership undermines and destroys the economic power of private capitalists. when the railroads, the mines, the forests, and other great monopolies are taken out of their hands, their control over the state is by this much diminished. the only power they possess to control the state resides in their economic power, and anything that weakens that tends to destroy the class character of the state itself. the inherent weakness of bakounin's entire philosophy lay in this fact, that it begins with the necessity of abolishing god and the state, and that it can never get beyond that or away from that. and, as a necessary consequence, bakounin had to oppose every measure that looked toward any compromise with the state, or that might enable the working class to exercise any influence in or through the state. when, therefore, the german party at its congress at eisenach demanded the suffrage and direct legislation, when it declared that political liberty is the most urgent preliminary condition for the economic emancipation of the working class, bakounin could see nothing revolutionary in such a program. when, furthermore, the party declared that the social question is inseparable from the political question and that the problems of our economic life could be solved only in a democratic state, bakounin, of course, was forced to oppose such heresies with all his power. and these were indeed the really vital questions, upon which the anarchists and the socialists could not be reconciled. it is in his _lettres à un français_, written just after the failure of his own "practical" efforts at lyons, that bakounin undertakes his criticism of the program of the german socialists. preparatory to this task, he first terrifies his french readers with the warning that if the german army, then at their doors, should conquer france, it would result in the destruction of french socialism (by which he means anarchism), in the utter degradation and complete slavery of the french people, and make it possible for the knout of germany and russia to fall upon the back of all europe. "if, in this terrible moment, ... [france] does not prefer the death of all her children and the destruction of all her goods, the burning of her villages, her cities, and of all her houses to slavery under the yoke of the prussians, if she does not destroy, by means of a popular and revolutionary uprising, the power of the innumerable german armies which, victorious on all sides up to the present, threaten her dignity, her liberty, and even her existence, if she does not become a grave for all those six hundred thousand soldiers of german despotism, if she does not oppose them with the one means capable of conquering and destroying them under the present circumstances, if she does not reply to this insolent invasion by the social revolution no less ruthless and a thousand times more menacing--it is certain, i maintain, that then france is lost, her masses of working people will be slaves, and french socialism will have lived its life."[ ] approaching his subject in this dramatic manner, bakounin turns to examine the degenerate state of socialism in italy, switzerland, and germany to see "what will be the chances of working-class emancipation in all the rest of europe."[ ] in the first country socialism is only in its infancy. the italians are wholly ignorant of the true causes of their misery. they are crushed, maltreated, and dying of hunger. they are "led blindly by the liberal and radical bourgeois."[ ] altogether, there is no immediate hope of socialism there. in switzerland the people are asleep. "if the human world were on the point of dying, the swiss would not resuscitate it."[ ] only in germany is socialism making headway, and bakounin undertakes to examine this socialism and to put it forward as a horrible example. to be sure, the german workers are awakening, but they are under the leadership of certain cunning politicians, who have abandoned all revolutionary ideas, and are now undertaking to reform the state, hoping that that could be done as a result of "a great peaceful and legal agitation of the working class."[ ] the very name liebknecht had taken for his paper, the _volksstaat_, was infamous in bakounin's eyes, while all the leaders of the labor party had become merely appendages to "their friends of the bourgeois _volkspartei_."[ ] he then passes in review the program of the german socialists, and points to their aim of establishing a democratic state by the "direct and secret suffrage for all men" and its guidance by direct legislation, as the utter abandonment of every revolutionary idea. he dwells upon the folly of the suffrage and of every effort to remodel, recast, and change the state, as "purely political and bourgeois."[ ] democracies and republics are no less tyrannical than monarchies. the suffrage cannot alter them. in england, switzerland, and america, he declares, the masses now have political power, yet they remain in the deepest depths of misery. universal suffrage is only a new superstition, while the referendum, already existing in switzerland, has failed utterly to improve the condition of the people. the working-class slaves, even in the most democratic countries, "have neither the instruction; nor the leisure, nor the independence necessary to exercise freely and with full knowledge of the case their rights as citizens. they have, in the most democratic countries, which are governed by representatives elected by all the people, a ruling day or rather a day of saturnalian celebration: that is election day. then the bourgeois, their oppressors, their every-day exploiters, and their masters, come to them, with hats off, talk to them of equality and of fraternity, and call them the ruling people, of whom they (the bourgeois) are only very humble servants, the representatives of their will. this day over, fraternity and equality evaporate in smoke, the bourgeois become bourgeois once more, and the proletariat, the sovereign people, remain slaves. "such is the real truth about the system of representative democracy, so much praised by the radical bourgeois, even when it is amended, completed, and developed, with a popular intention, by the _referendum_ or by that 'direct legislation of the people' which is extolled by a german school that wrongly calls itself socialist. for very nearly two years, the _referendum_ has been a part of the constitution of the canton of zurich, and up to this time it has given absolutely no results. the people there are called upon to vote, by yes or by no, on all the important laws which are presented to them by the representative bodies. they could even grant them the initiative without real liberty winning the least advantage."[ ] it is a discouraging picture that bakounin draws here of the ignorance and stupidity of the people as they are led in every election to vote their enemies into power. what, then, is to be done? what shall these hordes of the illiterate and miserable do? if by direct legislation they cannot even vote laws in their own interest, how, then, will it be possible for them ever to improve their condition? such questions do not in the least disturb bakounin. he has one answer, revolution! as he said in the beginning, so he repeats: "to escape its wretched lot, the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. the first two are the rum shop and the church, ... the third is the social revolution."[ ] "a cure is possible only through the social revolution,"[ ] that is, through "the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality."[ ] however, if bakounin's idea of the social revolution never altered, the methods by which it was to be carried out suffered a change as a result of his experience in the international. in he no longer advocated, openly at any rate, secret conspiracies, the "loosening of evil passions," or some vague "unchaining of the hydra." he begins then to oppose to political action what he calls economic action.[ ] in the fragment--not published during bakounin's life--the _protestation de l'alliance_, he covers for the hundredth time his arguments against the _volksstaat_, which is a "ridiculous contradiction, a fiction, a lie."[ ] "the state ... will always be an institution of domination and of exploitation ... a permanent source of slavery and of misery."[ ] how, then, shall the state be destroyed? bakounin's answer is "first, by the organization and the federation of strike funds and the international solidarity of strikes; secondly, by the organization and international federation of trade unions; and, lastly, by the spontaneous and direct development of philosophical and sociological ideas in the international.... "let us now consider these three ways in their special action, differing one from another, but, as i have just said, inseparable, and let us commence with the organization of strike funds and strikes. "strike funds have for their sole object to provide the necessary money in order to make possible the costly organization and maintenance of strikes. and the strike is the beginning of the social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, while still within the limits of legality.[t] strikes are a valuable weapon in this twofold connection; first, because they electrify the masses, give fresh impetus to their moral energy, and awaken in their hearts the profound antagonism which exists between their interests and those of the bourgeoisie, by showing them ever clearer the abyss which from this time irrevocably separates them from that class; and, second, because they contribute in large measure to provoke and to constitute among the workers of all trades, of all localities, and of all countries the consciousness and the fact itself of solidarity: a double action, the one negative and the other positive, which tends to constitute directly the new world of the proletariat by opposing it, almost absolutely, to the bourgeois world."[ ] in another place he says: "once this solidarity is seriously accepted and firmly established, it brings forth all the rest--all the principles--the most sublime and the most subversive of the international, the most destructive of religion, of juridical right, and of the state, of authority divine as well as human--in a word, the most revolutionary from the socialist point of view, being nothing but the natural and necessary developments of this economic solidarity. and the immense practical advantage of the trade sections over the central sections consists precisely in this--that these developments and these principles are demonstrated to the workers not by theoretical reasoning, but by the living and tragic experience of a struggle which each day becomes larger, more profound, and more terrible. in such a way that the worker who is the least instructed, the least prepared, the most gentle, always dragged further by the very consequences of this conflict, ends by recognizing himself to be a revolutionist, an anarchist, and an atheist, without often knowing himself how he has become such."[ ] this is as far as bakounin gets in the statement of his new program of action, as this article, like many others, was discontinued and thrown aside at the moment when he comes to clinching his argument. the mountain, however, had labored, and this was its mouse. it is chiefly remarkable as a forecast of the methods adopted by the syndicalists a quarter of a century later. nevertheless, one cannot escape the thought that bakounin's advocacy of a purely economic struggle was only a last desperate effort on his part to discover some method of action, aside from his now discredited riots and insurrections, that could serve as an effective substitute for political action. in reality, bakounin found himself in a vicious circle. again and again he tried to find his way out, but invariably he returned to his starting point. in despair he tore to pieces his manuscript, immediately, however, to start a new one; then once more to rush round the circle that ended nowhere. marx and engels ignored utterly the many and varied assaults that bakounin made upon their theoretical views. they were not the least concerned over his attacks upon _their_ socialism. they had not invented it, and economic evolution was determining its form. it was not, indeed, until that engels deals with the tendencies to state socialism, and then it was in answer to dr. eugene duehring, _privat docent_ at berlin university, who had just announced that he had become "converted" to socialism. like many another distinguished convert, he immediately began to remodel the whole theory and to create what he supposed were new and original doctrines of his own. but no sooner were they put in print than they were found to be a restatement of the old and choicest formulas of proudhon and bakounin. engels therefore took up the cudgels once again, and, no doubt to the stupefaction of duehring, denied that property is robbery,[ ] that slaves are kept in slavery by force,[ ] and that the root of social and economic inequality is political tyranny.[ ] furthermore, he deplored this method of interpreting history, and pointed out that capitalism would exist "if we exclude the possibility of force, robbery, and cheating absolutely...." furthermore, "the monopolization of the means of production ... in the hands of a single class few in numbers ... rests on purely economic grounds without robbery, force, or any intervention of politics or the government being necessary." to say that property rests on force "_merely serves to obscure the understanding of the real development of things_."[ ] i mention engels' argument in answer to dr. duehring, because word for word it answers also bakounin. of course, bakounin was a much more difficult antagonist, because he could not be pinned down to any systematic doctrines or to any clear and logical development or statement of his thought. indeed, marx and engels seemed more amused than concerned and simply treated his essays as a form of "hyper-revolutionary dress-parade oratory," to use a phrase of liebknecht's. they ridiculed him as an "amorphous pan-destroyer," and made no attempt to refute his really intangible social and economic theories. however, they met bakounin's attacks on the international at every point. on the method of organization which bakounin advocated, namely, that of a federalism of autonomous groups, which was to be "in the present a faithful image of future society," marx replied that nothing could better suit the enemies of the international than to see such anarchy reign amidst the workers. furthermore, when bakounin advocated insurrections, uprisings, and riots, or even indeed purely economic action as a substitute for political action, marx undertook extraordinary measures to deal finally with bakounin and his program of action. a conference was therefore called of the leading spirits of the international, to be held in london in september, . the whole of bakounin's activity was there discussed, and a series of resolutions was adopted by the conference to be sent to every section of the international movement. a number of these resolutions dealt directly with bakounin and the alliance, which it was thought still existed, despite bakounin's statement that it had been dissolved.[u] but by far the most important work of the conference was a resolution dealing with the question of political action. it is perhaps as important a document as was issued during the life of the international, and it stands as the answer of marx to what bakounin called economic action and to what the syndicalists now call direct action. the whole international organization is here pleaded with to maintain its faith in the efficacy of political means. political action is pointed out as the fundamental principle of the organization, and, in order to give authority to this plea, the various declarations that had been made during the life of the international were brought together. once again, the old motif of the communist manifesto appeared, and every effort was made to give it the authority of a positive law. although rather long, the resolution is too important a document not to be printed here almost in full. "considering the following passage of the preamble to the rules: 'the economic emancipation of the working classes is the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate _as a means_;' "that the inaugural address of the international working men's association ( ) states: 'the lords of land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. so far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labor.... to conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes;' "that the congress of lausanne ( ) has passed this resolution: 'the social emancipation of the workmen is inseparable from their political emancipation;' "that the declaration of the general council relative to the pretended plot of the french internationals on the eve of the plébiscite ( ) says: 'certainly by the tenor of our statutes, all our branches in england, on the continent, and in america have the special mission not only to serve as centers for the militant organization of the working class, but also to support, in their respective countries, every political movement tending toward the accomplishment of our ultimate end--the economic emancipation of the working class;' * * * * * "considering that against this collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes; "that this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end--the abolition of classes; "that the combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economic struggles ought at the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of landlords and capitalists. "the conference recalls to the members of the _international_: "that, in the militant state of the working class, its economic movement and its political action are indissolubly united."[ ] from the congress at basel in to the conference at the hague in , little was done by the international to realize its great aim of organizing politically the working class of europe. it had been completely sidetracked, and all the energies of its leading spirits were wasted in controversy and in the various struggles of the factions to control the organization. it was a period of incessant warfare. nearly every local conference was a scene of dissension; many of the branches were dissolved; and disruption in the latin countries was gradually obliterating whatever there was of actual organization. it all resolved itself into a question of domination between bakounin and marx. the war between germany and france prevented an international gathering, and it was not until september, , that another congress of the international was held. it was finally decided that it should gather at the hague. the commune had flashed across the sky for a moment. insurrection had broken out and had been crushed in various places in europe. strikes were more frequent than had ever been known before. and, because of these various disturbances, the international had become the terror of europe. its strength and influence were vastly overestimated by the reactionary powers. its hand was seen in every act of the discontented masses. it became the "red spectre," and all the powers of europe were now seeking to destroy it. looming thus large to the outside world, those within the international knew how baseless were the fears of its opponents. they realized that internecine war was eating its heart out. during all this time, when it was credited and blamed for every revolt in europe, there were incredible plotting and intrigue between the factions. endless documents were printed, assailing the alleged designs of this or that group, and secret circulars were issued denouncing the character of this or that leader. sections were formed and dissolved in the maneuvers of the two factions to control the approaching congress. and, when finally the congress gathered at the hague, there was a gravity among the delegates that foreboded what was to come. the marxists were in absolute control. on the resolution to expel michael bakounin from the international the vote stood twenty-seven for and six against, while seven abstained. the expulsion of bakounin, however, occurred only after a long debate upon his entire history and that of his secret alliance. nearly all the amazing collection of "documentary proof," afterward published in _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, was submitted to the congress, and a resolution was passed that all the documents should be published, together with such others as might tend to enlighten the membership concerning the purposes of bakounin's organization. two other important actions were taken at the congress. one was to introduce into the actual rules of the association part of the resolution, which was passed by the conference in london the year before, dealing with political action, and this was adopted by thirty-six votes against five. the other action was to remove the seat of the general council from london to new york. although this was suggested by marx, it was energetically fought on the ground that it meant the destruction of the international. by a very narrow vote the resolution was carried, twenty-six to twenty-three, a number of marx's oldest and most devoted followers voting against the proposition. no really satisfactory explanation is given for this extraordinary act, although it has been thought since that marx had arrived at the decision, perhaps the hardest of his life, to destroy the international in order to save it from the hands of the anarchists. to be sure, bakounin was now out of it, and there was little to be feared from his faction, segregated and limited to certain places in the latin countries; but everywhere the name of the international was being used by all sorts of elements that could only injure the actual labor movement. the exploits of nechayeff, of bakounin, and of certain spanish and italian sections had all conveyed to the world an impression of the international which perhaps could never be altogether erased. furthermore, in germany and other countries the seeds of an actual working-class political movement had been planted, and there was already promise of a huge development in the national organizations. what moved marx thus to destroy his own child, the concrete thing he had dreamed of in his thirty years of incessant labor, profound study, and ceaseless agitation, will perhaps never be fully known, but in any case no act of marx was ever of greater service to the cause of labor. it was a form of surgery that cut out of the socialist movement forever an irreconcilable element, and from then on the distinction between anarchist and socialist was indisputably clear. they stood poles apart, and everyone realized that no useful purpose would be served in trying to bring them together again. largely because of bakounin, the international as an organization of labor never played an important rôle; but, as a melting pot in which the crude ideas of many philosophies were thrown--some to be fused, others to be cast aside, and all eventually to be clarified and purified--the international performed a memorable service. during its entire life it was a battlefield. in the beginning there were many separate groups, but at the end there were only two forces in combat--socialists and anarchists. when the quarrel began there was among the masses no sharply dividing line; their ideas were incoherent; and their allegiance was to individuals rather than to principles. without much discrimination, they called themselves "communists," "internationalists," "collectivists," "anarchists," "socialists." even these terms they had not defined, and it was only toward the end of the international that the two combatants classified their principles into two antagonistic schools, socialism and anarchism. anarchism was no longer a vague, undefined philosophy of human happiness; it now stood forth, clear and distinct from all other social theories. after this no one need be in doubt as to its meaning and methods. on the other hand, no thoughtful person need longer remain in doubt as to the exact meaning and methods of socialism. this work of definition and clarification was the immense service performed by the international in its eight brief years of life. throughout europe and america, after , these two forces openly declared that they had nothing in common, either in method or in philosophy. to them at least the international had been a university. footnotes: [s] in the english report of the discussion professor hins's remarks are summarized as follows: "hins said he could not agree with those who looked upon trade societies as mere strike and wages' societies, nor was he in favor of having central committees made up of all trades. the present trades unions would some day overthrow the present state of political organization altogether; they represented the social and political organization of the future. the whole laboring population would range itself, according to occupation, into different groups, and this would lead to a new political organization of society. he wanted no intermeddling of the state; they had enough of that in belgium already. as to the central committees, every trade ought to have its central committee at the principal seat of manufacture. the central committee of the cotton trades ought to be at manchester; that of the silk trades at lyons, etc. he did not consider it a disadvantage that trade unions kept aloof more or less from politics, at least in his country. by trying to reform the state, or to take part in its councils, they would virtually acknowledge its right of existence. whatever the english, the swiss, the germans, and the americans might hope to accomplish by means of the present political state the belgians repudiated theirs."--pp. - . [t] these are almost the exact words that aristide briand uses in his argument for the general strike. see "_la grève générale_," compiled by lagardelle, p. . [u] one of the resolutions prohibited the formation of sectarian groups or separatist bodies within the international, such as the _alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, that pretended "to accomplish special missions, distinct from the common purposes of the association." another resolution dealt with what was called the "split" among the workers in the french-speaking part of switzerland. still another resolution formally declared that the international had nothing in common with the infamies of nechayeff, who had fraudulently usurped and exploited the name of the international. furthermore, outine was instructed to prepare a report from the russian journals on the work of nechayeff. cf. _resolutions_ ii, xvii, xiii, xiv, respectively, of the conference of delegates of the international working men's association, assembled at london from th to d september, . chapter ix the fight for existence after the hague congress the socialists and anarchists, divided into separate and antagonistic groups--with principles as well as methods of organization that were diametrically opposed to each other--were forced to undergo a terrific struggle for existence. marx had clearly enough warned the followers of bakounin that their methods were suicidal. "the alliance proceeds the wrong way," he declared. "it proclaims anarchy in the working-class ranks as the surest means of destroying the powerful concentration of social and political forces in the hands of the exploiters. on this pretext it asks the international, at the moment when the old world is striving to crush it, to replace its organization by anarchy."[ ] and, as strange as it may seem, this was in fact what bakounin was actually striving for. in the name of liberty he was demanding that the international be broken up into thousands of isolated, autonomous groups, which were to do whatever they pleased, in any way they pleased, at any time they pleased. this may have been, and doubtless was, in perfect harmony with the philosophy of anarchism, but it had nothing in harmony with the idea of a solidified, international organization of workingmen that marx was striving to bring into existence. anarchism when advocated as an ideal for some distant social order of the future, concerned marx and engels very little; indeed, they did not even discuss it from this point of view. it was only when bakounin counseled anarchy as a method of working-class organization that both marx and engels protested, on the ground that such tactics could lead only to self-destruction. neither bakounin nor his followers were convinced, however, and they set out bravely after to put into practice their ideas. their revolt against authority was carried to its ultimate extreme. how far the anarchists were prepared to go in their revolt is indicated by a letter which bakounin wrote to _la liberté_ of brussels a few days after his expulsion from the international. although not finished, and consequently not sent to that journal, it is especially interesting because he attacks the general council as a new incarnation of the state. here his lively imagination pictures the international as the germ of a new despotic social order, already fallen under the domination of a group of dictators, and he exclaims: "a state, a government, a universal dictatorship! the dream of gregory vii., of boniface viii., of charles v., and of napoleon is reproduced in new forms, but ever with the same pretensions, in the camp of social democracy."[ ] this is an altogether new point of view as to the character of the state. we now learn that it means any form of centralized organization; a committee, a chairman, an executive body of any sort is a state. the general council in london was a state. marx and engels were a state. any authority--no matter what its form, nor how controlled, appointed, or elected--is a state. i am not sure that this marks the birth of the repugnance of the anarchists to even so innocent a form of authority as that of a chairman. nor am i certain that this was the origin of those ideas of organization that make of an anarchist meeting a modern babel, wherein all seems to be utter confusion. in any case, the bakouninists, after the hague congress, undertook to revive the international and to base this new organization on these ideas of anarchism. after a conference at saint-imier in the jura, where bakounin and his friends outlined the policies of a new international, a call was sent out for a congress to be held in geneva in . the congress that assembled there was not a large one, but, with no exaggeration whatever, it was one of the most remarkable gatherings ever held. for six entire days and nights the delegates struggled to create by some magic means a world-wide organization of the people, without a program, a committee, a chairman, or a vote. no longer oppressed by the "tyranny" of marx, or baffled by his "abominable intrigues," they set out to create their "faithful image" of the new world--an organization that was not to be an organization; a union that was to be made up of fleeting and constantly shifting elements, agreeing at one moment to unite, at the next moment to divide. this was the insolvable problem that now faced the first congress of the anarchists. there were only two heretics among them. both had come from england; but hales was a "voice crying in the wilderness," while eccarius sat silent throughout the congress. the first great debate took place upon whether there should be any central council. the english delegates believed that there should be one, but that its power should be limited. other delegates believed that there might be various commissions to perform certain necessary executive services. john hales declared, in support of a central commission, that it will promote economy and facilitate the work, and that it will be easy to prevent such a commission from usurping power.[ ] paul brousse, guillaume, and others opposed this view with such heat, however, that hales was forced to respond: "i combat anarchy because the word and the thing that it represents are the synonyms of dissolution. anarchy spells individualism, and individualism is the basis of the existing society that we desire to destroy.... let us suppose, for example, a strike. can one hope to triumph with an anarchist organization? under this régime each one, being able to do what he pleases, can, according to his will, work or not work. the general interest will be sacrificed to individual caprice. the veritable application of the anarchist principle would be the dissolution of the international, and this congress has precisely an opposite end, which is to reorganize the international. one should not confound authority and organization. we are not authoritarians, but we must be organizers. far from approving anarchy, which is the present social state, we ought to combat it by the creation of a central commission and by the organization of collectivism. anarchy is the law of death; collectivism, that of life."[ ] this was, as hales soon discovered, the very essence of heresy, and, when the vote was taken, he was overwhelmed by those opposed to any centralized organization. the anarchists were not, however, content merely with having no central council, and they began to discuss whether or not the various federations should vote upon questions of principle. the commission that was dealing with the revision of the by-laws recommended that views should be harmonized by discussion and that any decisions made by the congress should be enforced only among those federations which accepted its decisions. costa of italy approved of these ideas. "for that which concerns theory, we can only discuss and seek to persuade each other, ... but we cannot enforce, for example, ... a certain political program."[ ] brousse vigorously opposed the process of voting in any form. it appeared to him that the true means of action was to obtain the opinion of everyone. "the vote," he declared, "simply divides an assembly into a majority and a minority.... the only truly practical means of obtaining a consensus of opinions is to have them placed in the minutes without voting."[ ] that view seemed to prevail, and the amendment to this question suggested by hales of england was _voted down by the majority_! these two decisions of the congress will convey an idea of the anarchist conception of organization. there was to be no executive or administrative body. nor were the decisions of the congress to have any authority. anybody could join, believing anything he liked and doing anything he liked. only those federations which voluntarily accepted the decisions of the congress were expected to obey them. matters of principle were in no-wise to be voted upon, and each individual was allowed to accept or reject them according to his wishes. the actual rules, adopted unanimously, ran as follows: "federations and sections, composing the association, will conserve their complete autonomy, that is to say, the right to organize themselves according to their will, to administer their own affairs without any exterior interference, and to determine themselves the path they wish to follow in order to arrive at the emancipation of labor."[ ] it was fully expected that, in addition to its work of reorganization, if we may so speak of it, the congress would definitely devise some method, other than a political one, for the emancipation of labor. the general strike had been put down upon the agenda for discussion. in the report of the jura section it was declared: "if the workers affiliated with the association could fix a certain day for the general strike, not only to obtain a reduction of hours and a diminution[v] of wages, but also to find the means of living in the coöperative workshops, by groups and by colonies, we could not decline to lend them our assistance, and we would make appeal to the members of all nations to lend them both moral and material aid."[ ] unfortunately, the congress had little time to discuss this part of its program. in the _compte-rendu officiel_ there is no report of whatever discussion took place. but guillaume, in his _documents et souvenirs_, gives us a brief account of what occurred. after two resolutions had been put on the subject they were withdrawn because of opposition, and finally guillaume introduced the following: "whereas partial strikes can only procure for the workers momentary and illusory relief, and whereas, by their very nature, wages will always be limited to the strictly necessary means of subsistence in order to keep the worker from dying of hunger, "the congress, without believing in the possibility of completely renouncing partial strikes, recommends the workers to devote their efforts to achieving an international organization of trade bodies, which will enable them to undertake some day a general strike, the only really efficacious strike to realize the complete emancipation of labor."[ ] all the delegates approved the resolution, excepting hales, who voted against it, and van den abeele, who abstained from voting because the matter would be later discussed in holland. it was of course inevitable that such an "organization" should soon disappear. vigorous efforts were made by a few of the devoted to keep the movement alive, but it is easy to see that an aggregation so loosely united, and without any really definite purpose, was destined to dissolution. during the next few years various small congresses were held, but they were merely beating a corpse in the effort to keep it alive. and, while the bakouninists were engaged in this critical struggle with death, the spirit that had animated all their battles with marx withdrew himself. bakounin was tired and discouraged, and he left his friends of the jura without advice or assistance in their now impossible task. thus precipitately ended the efforts of the anarchists to build up a new international. george plechanoff illuminates the insolvable problem of the anarchists with his powerful statement: "error has its logic as well as truth. once you reject the political action of the working class, you are fatally driven--provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the vaillants and the henrys."[ ] that this is terribly true is open to no question whatever. and the anarchists now found themselves in a veritable _cul-de-sac_. like the poor in sidney lanier's poem, they were pressing "against an inward-opening door that pressure tightens evermore." the more they fretted and stormed and crushed each other, the more hopelessly impossible became the chance of egress. the more desperately they threw themselves against that door, the more securely they imprisoned themselves. it was the very logic of their tactics that they could not circumvent so small an obstacle as that inward-opening door. it meant self-destruction. and that, of course, was exactly what happened, as we know, to those who followed the vicious round of logic from which bakounin could not extricate himself. their struggle for an organized existence was brief, and at the end of the seventies it was entirely over. naturally, the complete failure of all their projects did not improve their temper, and they lost no opportunity to assail the marxists. the jura _bulletin_ of december , , translated an article entitled _poco à poco_, written by andrea costa, who labeled the "pacific" socialists "apostles of conciliation and ambiguity." they wish, said costa, to march slowly on the road of progress. "otherwise, indeed, what would become of them and their newspapers? for them the field of fruitful study and of profound observations on the phenomena of industrial life would be closed. for the journalists the means of earning money would have likewise disappeared.... finding the satisfaction of their own aspirations in the present state of misery, they end by becoming, often without wishing it, profoundly egotistic and bad.... while calling themselves socialists, they are more dangerous than the declared enemies of the popular cause."[ ] about this time a new journal appeared at florence under the name of _l'anarchia_ and announced the following program: "we are not _armchair (katheder) socialists_. we will speak a simple language in order that the proletariat may understand once for all what road it must follow in order to arrive at its complete emancipation. _l'anarchia_ will fight without truce not only the exploiting bourgeoisie, but also _the new charlatans of socialism_, for the latter are the most dangerous enemies of the working class."[ ] the following year kropotkin wrote two articles in the _bulletin_, july and , which vigorously attacked socialist parliamentary tactics. "at what price does one succeed in leading the people to the ballot boxes?" he asks in the first article. "have the frankness to acknowledge, gentlemen politicians, that it is by inculcating this illusion, that in sending members to parliament the people will succeed in freeing themselves and in bettering their lot, that is to say, by telling them what one knows to be an absolute lie. it is certainly not for the pleasure of getting their education that the german people give their pennies for parliamentary agitation. it is because, from hearing it repeated each day by hundreds of 'agitators,' they come to believe that truly by this method they will be able to realize, in part at least, if not completely, their hopes. acknowledge it for once, politicians of to-day, formerly socialists, that we may say aloud what you think in silence: 'you are liars!' yes, liars, i insist upon the word, since you lie to the people when you tell them that they will better their lot by sending you to parliament. you lie, for you yourselves, but a few years since, have maintained absolutely the contrary."[ ] what infuriated the anarchists was the amazing growth of the socialist political parties. it was only after the hague congress that the socialist movement was in reality free to begin its actual work. with ideas diametrically opposed to those of the anarchists, the socialists set out to build up their national movements by uniting the various elements in the labor world. there were now devoted disciples of marx in every country of europe, and in the next few years, in france, belgium, holland, norway, sweden, and germany, the foundations were laid for the great national movements that exist to-day. in france, jules guesde, paul lafargue, and gabriel deville launched a socialist labor party in . a danish socialist labor party was formed the same year by an agreement with the trade unions. in the early eighties the social-democratic federation was founded in england, and in a congress of various groups of radicals, socialists, and republicans launched a political movement in italy. in germany the socialists had already built up a great political organization. this had been done directly under the guidance of marx and engels through liebknecht and bebel. marx's ideas were there perfectly worked out, and nothing so much as that living, growing thing incensed the anarchists. indeed, they seemed to be convinced that there was more of menace to the working class in these growing organizations of the socialists than in the power of the bourgeoisie itself. the controversial literature of this period is not pleasant reading. the socialists and anarchists were literally at each other's throats, and the spirit of malignity that actuated many of their assaults upon each other is revolting to those of to-day who cannot appreciate the intensity of this battle for the preservation of their most cherished ideas. and in all this period the socialist and labor movement was overrun with _agents provocateurs_, and every variety of paid police agents sent to disrupt and destroy these organizations. and, as has always been the case, these "reptiles," as they were called, were advocating among the masses those deeds which the chief anarchists were proclaiming as revolutionary methods. riots, insurrections, dynamite outrages, the shooting of individuals, and all forms of violence were being preached to the poor and hungry men who made up the mass of the labor movement. under the guise of anarchists, these "reptiles" were often looked upon as heroic figures, and everywhere, even when they did not succeed in winning the confidence of the masses, they were able to awaken suspicion and distrust that demoralized the movement. the socialists were assailed as traitors to the cause of labor, because they were preaching peaceable methods. they were accused of alliances with other parties, because they sought to elect men to parliament. they were denounced as in league with the government and even the police, because they disapproved of dynamite. on the other hand, the socialists were equally bitter in their attacks upon the anarchists. they denounced their methods as suicidal and the propaganda of the deed as utter madness. in _la période tragique_, when duval, decamps, ravachol, and the other anarchists in france were committing the most astounding crimes, jules guesde and other socialist leaders condemned these outrages and protested against being associated in the public mind with those who advocated theft and murder as a method of propaganda. indeed, the anarchists in the late seventies and in the eighties lost many who had been formerly friendly to them. guesde and plechanoff, both of whom had been influenced in their early days by the bakouninists, had broken with them completely. later paul brousse and andrea costa left them. and, in fact, the anarchists were now incapable of any effective action or even education. without committees, executives, laws, votes, or chairmen, they could not undertake any work which depended on organized effort, and, except as they managed from time to time to gain a prominent position in some labor or radical organization built up by others, they had no influence over any large body of people. they were fighting desperately to prevent extinction, and in their struggle a number of extraordinarily brilliant and daring characters came to the front. but during the next decade their tragic desperation, instead of advancing anarchism, served only to strengthen the reactionary elements of europe in their effort to annihilate the now formidable labor and socialist movements. turning now to the struggle for existence of the socialist parties of the various countries, there is one story that is far too important in the history of socialism to be passed over. it was a magnificent battle against the terrorists above and the terrorists below, that ended in complete victory for the socialists. strangely enough, the greatest provocation to violence that has ever confronted the labor movement and the greatest opportunity that was ever offered to anarchy occurred in precisely that country where it was least expected. nowhere else in all europe had socialism made such advances as in germany; and nowhere else was the movement so well organized, so intelligently led, or so clear as to its aims and methods. an immense agitation had gone on during the entire sixties, and working-class organizations were springing up everywhere. besides possessing the greatest theorists of socialism, marx and engels, the german movement was rich indeed in having in its service three such matchless agitators as lassalle, bebel, and liebknecht. lassalle certainly had no peer, and those who have written of him exhaust superlatives in their efforts to describe this prodigy. he, also, was a product of that hero-producing period of ' . he had been arrested in düsseldorf at the same time that marx and his circle had been arrested at cologne. he was then only twenty-three years of age. yet his defense of his actions in court is said to have been a masterpiece. even the critic george brandes has spoken of it as the most wonderful example of manly courage and eloquence in a youth that the history of the world has given us. precocious as a child, proud and haughty as a youth, gifted with a critical, penetrating, and brilliant mind, and moved by an ambition that knew no bounds, lassalle, with all his powerful passion and dramatic talents, could not have been other than a great figure. when a man possesses qualities that call forth the wonder of heine, humboldt, bismarck, and brandes, when bakounin calls him a "giant," and even george meredith turns to him as a personality almost unequaled in fiction and makes a novel out of his career, the plain ordinary world may gain some conception of this "father of the german labor movement." this is no place to deal with certain deplorable and contradictory phases of his life nor even with some of his mad dreams that led bismarck, after saying that "he was one of the most intellectual and gifted men with whom i have ever had intercourse, ..." to add "and it was perhaps a matter of doubt to him whether the german empire would close with the hohenzollern dynasty or the lassalle dynasty."[ ] such was the proud, unruly, ambitious spirit of the man, who, in , came actively to voice the claims of labor. setting out to regenerate society and appealing directly to the working classes, lassalle lashed them with scorn. "you german workingmen are curious people," he said. "french and english workingmen have to be shown how their miserable condition may be improved; but you have first to be shown that you _are_ in a miserable condition. so long as you have a piece of bad sausage and a glass of beer, you do not notice that you want anything. that is a result of your accursed absence of needs. what, you will say, is this, then, a virtue? yes, in the eyes of the christian preacher of morality it is certainly a virtue. absence of needs is the virtue of the indian pillar saint and of the christian monk, but in the eyes of the student of history and the political economist it is quite a different matter. ask all political economists what is the greatest misfortune for a nation? the absence of wants. for these are the spurs of its development and of civilization. the neapolitan lazaroni are so far behind in civilization, because they have no wants, because they stretch themselves out contentedly and warm themselves in the sun when they have secured a handful of macaroni. why is the russian cossack so backward in civilization? because he eats tallow candles and is happy when he can fuddle himself on bad liquor. to have as many needs as possible, but to satisfy them in an honorable and respectable way, that is the virtue of the present, of the economic age! and, so long as you do not understand and follow that truth, i shall preach in vain."[ ] other nations may be slaves, he added, recalling the words of ludwig börne; they may be put in chains and be held down by force, but the germans are flunkies--it is not necessary to lay chains on them--they may be allowed to wander free about the house. yet, while thus shaming the working classes, he pleaded their cause as no other one has pleaded it, and, after humiliating them, he held them spellbound, as he traced the great rôle the working classes were destined to play in the regeneration of all society. the socialism of lassalle had much in common with that of louis blanc, and his theory of coöperative enterprises subsidized by the state was almost identical. chiefly toward this end he sought to promote working-class organization, although he also believed that the working classes would eventually gain control of the entire state and, through it, reorganize production. he agitated for universal suffrage and even plotted with bismarck to obtain it. he was confident that an industrial revolution was inevitable. the change "will either come in complete legality," he said, "and with all the blessings of peace--if people are only wise enough to resolve that it shall be introduced in time and from above--or it will one day break in amid all the convulsions of violence, with wild, flowing hair, and iron sandals upon its feet. in one way or the other it will come at all events, and when, shutting myself from the noise of the day, i lose myself in history--then i hear its tread. but do you not see, then, that, in spite of this difference in what we believe, our endeavors go hand in hand? you do not believe in revolution, and therefore you want to prevent it. good, do that which is your duty. but i do believe in revolution, and, because i believe in it, i wish, not to precipitate it--for i have already told you that according to my view of history the efforts of a tribune are in this respect necessarily as impotent as the breath of my mouth would be to unfetter the storm upon the sea--but in case it should come, and from below, i will humanize it, civilize it beforehand." [ ] thus lassalle saw that "to wish to make a revolution is the foolishness of immature men who have no knowledge of the laws of history."[ ] yet he stated also that, if a revolution is imminent, it is equally childish for the powerful to think they can stem it. "revolution is an overturning, and a revolution always takes place--whether it be with or without force is a matter of no importance ... when an entirely new principle is introduced in the place of the existing order. reform, on the other hand, takes place when the principle of the existing order is retained, but is developed to more liberal or more consequent and just conclusions. here, again, the question of means is of no importance. a reform may be effected by insurrection and bloodshed, and a revolution may take place in the deepest peace."[ ] through the agitation of lassalle, the universal german working men's association was organized, and it was his work for that body that won him fame as the founder of the german labor movement. not a laborer himself, nor indeed speaking to them as one of themselves, he led a life that would probably have ended disastrously, even to the cause itself, had it not been for his dramatic ending through the love affair and the duel. fate was kind to lassalle in that he lived only so long as his influence served the cause of the workers, and in that death took him before life shattered another idol of the masses. "one of two things," said lassalle once before his judges. "either let us drink cyprian wine and kiss beautiful maidens--in other words, indulge in the most common selfishness of pleasure--or, if we are to speak of the state and morality, let us dedicate all our powers to the improvement of the dark lot of the vast majority of mankind, out of whose night-covered floods we, the propertied class, only rise like solitary pillars, as if to show how dark are those floods, how deep is their abyss."[ ] with such marvelous pictures as this lassalle created a revolution in the thought and even in the action of the working classes of germany. at times he drank cyprian wines, and what might have happened had he lived no one can tell. but he was indeed at the time a "solitary pillar," rising out of "night-covered floods," a heroic figure, who is even to-day an unforgettable memory. bebel and liebknecht appeared in the german movement as influential figures only after the disappearance of lassalle. and, while the labor movement was already launched, it was in a deplorable condition when these two began their great work of uniting the toilers and organizing a political party. one of the first difficult tasks placed before them was to root out of the labor movement the corruption which bismarck had introduced into it. that great and rising statesman was a practical politician not excelled even in america. in the most cold-blooded manner he sought to buy men and movements. for various reasons of his own he wanted the support of the working-class; and, as early as , he employed lothar bucher, an old revolutionist who had been intimately associated with marx. possessed of remarkable intellectual gifts and an easy conscience, bucher was of invaluable service to bismarck, both in his knowledge of the inside workings of the labor and socialist movement and as a go-between when the iron chancellor had any dealings with the socialists. through bucher, bismarck tried to bribe even marx, and offered him a position on the government official newspaper, the _staats anzeiger_. bucher was also an intimate friend of lassalle's, and it was doubtless through him that bismarck arranged his secret conferences with lassalle. the latter left no account of their relations, and it is difficult now to know how intimate they were or who first sought to establish them. about all that is known is what bismarck himself said in the reichstag when bebel forced him to admit that he had conferred frequently with lassalle: "lassalle himself wanted urgently to enter into negotiations with me."[ ] it is known that lassalle sent to the chancellor numerous communications, and that one of his letters to the secretary of the universal association reads, "the things sent to bismarck should go in an envelope" marked "personal."[ ] liebknecht later exposed august brass as in the employ of bismarck, although he was a "red republican," who had started a journal and had obtained liebknecht's coöperation. furthermore, when he was tried for high treason in , liebknecht declared that bismarck's agents had tried to buy him. "bismarck takes not only money, but also men, where he finds them. it does not matter to what party a man belongs. that is immaterial to him. he even prefers renegades, for a renegade is a man without honor and, consequently, an instrument without will power--as if dead--in the hands of the master."[ ] "i do not need to say ... that i repelled bismarck's offers of corruption with the scorn which they merited," liebknecht continues. "if i had not done so, if i had been infamous enough to sacrifice my principles to my personal interest, i would be in a brilliant position, instead of on the bench of the accused where i have been sent by those who, years ago, tried in vain to buy me."[ ] as early as marx and engels had to withdraw from their collaboration with von schweitzer in his journal, the _sozialdemokrat_, because it was suspected that he had sold out to bismarck. this was followed by bebel's and liebknecht's war on von schweitzer because of his relations to bismarck. von schweitzer, as the successor of lassalle at the head of the universal working men's association, occupied a powerful position, and the quarrels between the various elements in the labor movement were at this time almost fatal to the cause. however, various representatives of the working class already sat in parliament, and among them were bebel and liebknecht. the exposures of liebknecht and bebel proved not only ruinous to von schweitzer, but excessively annoying to bismarck, and as early as he wanted to begin a war upon the marxian socialists. in he actually began his attempts to crush what he could no longer corrupt or control. he became more and more enraged at the attitude of the socialists toward him personally. moreover, they were no longer advocating coöperative associations subsidized by the state; they were now propagating everywhere republican and socialist ideas. he tried in various ways to rid the country of the two chief malcontents, bebel and liebknecht, but even their arrests seemed only to add to their fame and to spread more throughout the masses their revolutionary views. he says himself that he was awakened to the iniquity of their doctrines when they defended the republican principles of the paris workmen in . at his trial in liebknecht stated with perfect frankness his republican principles. "gentlemen judges and jurors, i do not disown my past, my principles, and my convictions. i deny nothing; i conceal nothing. and, in order to show that i am an adversary of monarchy and of present society, and that when duty calls me i do not recoil before the struggle, there was truly no need of the foolish inventions of the policemen of giessen. i say here freely and openly: _since i have been capable of thinking i have been a republican, and i shall die a republican._[ ] ... if i have had to undergo unheard of persecutions and if i am poor, that is nothing to be ashamed of--no, i am proud of it, for that is the most eloquent witness of my political integrity. yet, once more, i am not a conspirator by profession. _call me, if you will, a soldier of the revolution--i do not object to that._ "from my youth a double ideal has soared above me: germany free and united and the emancipation of the working people, that is to say, the suppression of class domination, which is synonymous with the liberation of humanity. for this double end i have struggled with all my strength, and for this double end i will struggle as long as a breath of life remains in me. duty wills it!"[ ] such doctrines must of course be suppressed, and the exposure of those who had relations with bismarck made it impossible for him longer to deal even with a section of the labor movement. the result was that persecutions were begun on both the lassalleans and the marxists. and it was largely this new policy of repression that forced the warring labor groups in to meet in conference at gotha and to unite in one organization. in the following election, , the united party polled nearly five hundred thousand votes, or about ten per cent. of all the votes cast in germany. it now had twelve members in the reichstag, and bismarck saw very clearly that a force was rising in germany that threatened not only him but his beloved hohenzollern dynasty itself. for years most of its opponents comforted themselves with the belief that socialism was merely a temporary disturbance which, if left alone, would run its course and eventually die out. again and again its militant enemies had discussed undertaking measures against it, but the wiser heads prevailed until , when the socialists polled a great vote. and, of course, when it was once decided that socialism must be stamped out, a really good pretext was soon found upon which repressive measures might be taken. i have already mentioned that on may , , emperor william was shot at by hödel. it was, of course, natural that the reactionaries should make the most possible of this act of the would-be assassin, and, when photographs of several prominent socialists were found on his person, a great clamor arose for a coercive law to destroy the social democrats. the question was immediately discussed in the reichstag, but the moderate forces prevailed, and the bill was rejected. hardly, however, had the discussion ended before a second attempt was made on the life of the aged sovereign. this time it was dr. karl nobiling who, on june , , fired at the emperor from an upper window in the main street of berlin. in this case, the emperor was severely wounded, and, in the panic that ensued, even the moderate elements agreed that social democracy must be suppressed. various suggestions were made. some proposed the blacklisting of all workmen who avowed socialist principles, while others suggested that all socialists should be expelled from the country. to exile half a million voters was, however, a rather large undertaking, and, in any case, bismarck had his own plans. first he precipitated a general election, giving the socialists no time to prepare their campaign. as a result, their members in the reichstag were diminished in number, and their vote throughout the country decreased by over fifty thousand. when the reichstag again assembled, bismarck laid before it his bill against "the publicly dangerous endeavors of social-democracy." the statement accompanying the bill sought to justify its repressive measures by citing in the preamble the two attempts made upon the emperor, and by stating the conviction of the federal government that extraordinary measures must be taken. a battle royal occurred in the reichstag between bismarck on the one side and bebel and liebknecht on the other. nevertheless, the bill became a law in october of that year. the anti-socialist law was intended to cut off every legal and peaceable means of advancing the socialist cause. it was determined that the german social democrats must be put mentally, morally, and physically upon the rack. even the briefest summary of the provisions of the anti-socialist law will illustrate how determined the reactionaries were to annihilate utterly the socialist movement. the chief measures were as follows: _i. prohibitory_ . the formation or existence of organizations which sought by social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic movements to subvert the present state and social order was prohibited. the prohibition was also extended to organizations exhibiting tendencies which threatened to endanger the public peace and amity between classes. . the right of assembly was greatly restricted. all meetings in which social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic tendencies came to light were to be dissolved. public festivities and processions were regarded as meetings. . social-democratic, socialistic, and communistic publications of all kinds were to be interdicted, the local police dealing with home publications and the chancellor with foreign ones. . stocks of prohibited works were to be confiscated, and the type, stones, or other apparatus used for printing might be likewise seized, and, on the interdict being confirmed, be made unusable. . the collection of money in behalf of social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic movements was forbidden, as were public appeals for help. _ii. penal_ . any person associating himself as member or otherwise with a prohibited organization was liable to a fine of marks or three months' imprisonment, and a similar penalty was incurred by anyone who gave a prohibited association or meeting a place of assembly. . the circulation or printing of a prohibited publication entailed a fine not exceeding one thousand marks or imprisonment up to six months. . convicted agitators might be expelled from a certain locality or from a governmental district, and foreigners be expelled from federal territory. . innkeepers, printers, booksellers, and owners of lending libraries and reading rooms who circulated interdicted publications might, besides being imprisoned, be deprived of their vocations. . persons who were known to be active socialists, or who had been convicted under this law, might be refused permission publicly to circulate or sell publications, and any violation of the provision against the circulation of socialistic literature in inns, shops, libraries, and newsrooms was punishable with a fine of one thousand marks or imprisonment for six months. _iii. power conferred upon authorities._ . meetings may only take place with the previous sanction of the police, but this restriction does not extend to meetings held in connection with elections to the reichstag or the diets. . the circulation of publications may not take place without permission in public roads, streets, squares, or other public places. . persons from whom danger to the public security or order is apprehended may be refused residence in a locality or governmental district. . the possession, carrying, introduction, and sale of weapons within the area affected are forbidden, restricted, or made dependent on certain conditions. all ordinances issued on the strength of this section were to be notified at once to the reichstag and to be published in the official _gazette_.[ ] when this law went into effect, the outlook for the labor movement seemed utterly black and hopeless. every path seemed closed to it except that of violence. immediately many places in germany were put under martial law. societies were dissolved, newspapers suppressed, printing establishments confiscated, and in a short time fifty agitators had been expelled from berlin alone. a reign of official tyranny and police persecution was established, and even the employers undertook to impoverish and to blacklist men who were thought to hold socialist views. within a few weeks every society, periodical, and agitator disappeared, and not a thing seemed left of the great movement of half a million men that had existed a few weeks before. there have been many similar situations that have faced the socialist and labor movements of other countries. england and france had undergone similar trials. even to-day in america we find, at certain times and in certain places, a situation altogether similar. in colorado during the recent labor wars and in west virginia during the early months of every tyranny that existed in germany in was repeated here. infested with spies seeking to encourage violence, brutally maltreated by the officials of order, their property confiscated by the military, masses thrown into prison and other masses exiled, even the right of assemblage and of free speech denied them--these are the exactly similar conditions which have existed in all countries when efforts have been made to crush the labor movement. and in all countries where such conditions exist certain minds immediately clamor for what is called "action." they want to answer violence with violence; they want to respond to the terrorism of the government with a terrorism of their own. and in germany at this time there were a number who argued that, as they were in fact outlaws, why should they not adopt the tactics of outlaws? should men peaceably and quietly submit to every insult and every form of tyranny--to be thrown in jail for speaking the dictates of their conscience and even to be hung for preaching to their comrades the necessity of a nobler and better social order? if bismarck and his police forces have the power to outlaw us, have we not the right to exercise the tactics of outlaws? "all measures," cried most from london, "are legitimate against tyrants;"[ ] while hasselmann, his friend, advised an immediate insurrection, which, even though it should fail, would be good propaganda. it was inevitable that in the early moments of despair some of the german workers should have listened gladly to such proposals. and, indeed, it may seem somewhat of a miracle that any large number of the german workers should have been willing to have listened to any other means of action. what indeed else was there to do? it is too long a story to go into the discussions over this question. perhaps a principle of bebel's gives the clearest explanation of the thought which eventually decided the tactics of the socialists. bebel has said many times that he always considered it wise in politics to find out what his opponent wanted him to do, and then not to do it. and, to the minds of bebel, liebknecht, and others of the more clear-headed leaders, there was no doubt whatever that bismarck was trying to force the socialists to commit crimes and outrages. again and again bismarck's press declared: "what is most necessary is to provoke the social-democrats to commit acts of despair, to draw them into the open street, and there to shoot them down."[ ] well, if this was actually what bismarck wanted, he failed utterly, because, as a matter of fact, and despite every provocation, no considerable section of the socialist party wavered in the slightest from its determination to carry on its work. there was a moment toward the end of ' when the situation seemed to be getting out of hand, and a secret conference was held the next year at wyden in switzerland to determine the policies of the party. in the report published by the congress no names were given, as it was, of course, necessary to maintain complete secrecy. however, it seemed clear to the delegates that, if they resorted to terrorist methods, they would be destroyed as the russians, the french, the spanish, and the italians had been when similar conditions confronted them. in view of the present state of their organization, violence, after all, could be merely a phrase, as they were not fitted in strength or in numbers to combat bismarck. one of the delegates considered that johann most had exercised an evil influence on many, and he urged that all enlightened german socialists turn away from such men. "between the people of violence and the true revolutionists there will always be dissension."[ ] another speaker maintained that most could be no more considered a socialist. he is at best a blanquist and, indeed, one in the worst sense of the word, who had no other aim than to pursue the bungling work of a revolution. it is, therefore, necessary that the congress should declare itself decidedly against most and should expel him from the party.[ ] the word "revolution" has been misunderstood, and the socialist members of the reichstag have been reproved because they are not revolutionary. as a matter of fact, every socialist is a revolutionist, but one must not understand by revolution the expression of violence. the tactics of desperation, as the nihilists practice them, do not serve the purpose of germany.[ ] as a result of the wyden congress, most and hasselmann were ejected from the party, and the tactics of bebel and liebknecht were adopted. after there developed an underground socialist movement that was most baffling and disconcerting to the police. socialist papers, printed in other countries, were being circulated by the thousands in all parts of germany. funds were being raised in some mysterious manner to support a large body of trusted men in all parts of the country who were devoting all their time to secret organization and to the carrying on of propaganda. the socialist organizations, which had been broken up, seemed somehow or other to maintain their relations. and, despite all that could be done by the authorities, socialist agitation seemed to be going on even more successfully than ever before. there was one loophole which bismarck had not been able to close, and this of course was developed to the extreme by the socialists. private citizens could not say what they pleased, nor was it allowed to newspapers to print anything on socialist lines. nevertheless, parliamentary speeches were privileged matter, and they could be sent anywhere and be published anywhere. bismarck of course tried to suppress even this form of propaganda, and two of the deputies were arrested on the ground that they were violating the new law. however, the reichstag could not be induced to sanction this interference with the freedom of deputies. bismarck then introduced a bill into the reichstag asking for power to punish any member who abused his parliamentary position. there was to be a court established consisting of thirteen deputies, and this was to have power to punish refractory delegates by censuring them, by obliging them to apologize to the house, and by excluding them from the house. it was also proposed that the reichstag should in certain instances prevent the publicity of its proceedings. this bill of bismarck's aroused immense opposition. it was called "the muzzle bill," and, despite all his efforts, it was defeated. the anti-socialist law had been passed as an exceptional measure, and it was fully expected that at the end of two years there would be nothing left of the socialists in germany. but, when the moment came for the law to expire, emperor alexander ii. of russia was assassinated by nihilists. the german emperor wrote to the chancellor urging him to do his utmost to persuade the governments of europe to combine against the forces of anarchy and destruction. prince bismarck immediately opened up negotiations with russia, austria, france, switzerland, and england. the russian government, being asked to take the initiative, invited the powers to a council at brussels. as england did not accept the invitation, france and switzerland also declined. austria later withdrew her acceptance, with the result that germany and russia concluded an extradition and dynamite treaty for themselves, while on march , , the anti-socialist law was reënacted for another period. in the niederwald plot against the imperial family was discovered. various arrests were made, and three men avowedly anarchists were sentenced to death in december, . in a high police official at frankfort was murdered, and an anarchist named lieske was executed as an accomplice. these terrorist acts materially aided bismarck in his warfare on the social democrats. again and again large towns were put in a minor state of siege, with the military practically in control. meetings were dispersed, suspected papers suppressed, and all tyranny that can be conceived of exercised upon all those suspected of sympathy with the socialists. yet everyone had to admit that the socialists had not been checked. not only did their organization still exist, but it was all the time carrying on a vigorous agitation, both by meetings and by the circulation of literature. papers printed abroad were being smuggled into the country in great quantities; socialist literature was even being introduced into the garrisons; and there seemed to be no dealing with associations, because no more was one dissolved than two arose to take its place. von puttkamer himself reported to the reichstag in , "it is undoubted that it has not been possible by means of the law of october, , to wipe social-democracy from the face of the earth or even to shake it to the center."[ ] indeed, liebknecht was bold enough to say in : "you have not succeeded in destroying our organization, and i am convinced that you will never succeed. i believe, indeed, it would be the greatest misfortune for you if you did succeed. the anarchists, who are now carrying on their work in austria, have no footing in germany--and why? because in germany the mad plans of those men are wrecked on the compact organization of social-democracy, because the german proletariat, in view of the fruitlessness of your socialist law, has not abandoned hope of attaining its ends peacefully by means of socialistic propaganda and agitation. if--and i have said this before--if your law were not _pro nihilo_, it would be _pro nihilismo_. if the german proletariat no longer believed in the efficacy of our present tactics; if we found that we could no longer maintain intact the organization and cohesion of the party, what would happen? we should simply declare--we have no more to do with the guidance of the party; we can no longer be responsible. the men in power do not wish that the party should continue to exist; it is hoped to destroy us--well, no party allows itself to be destroyed, for there is above all things the law of self-defense, of self-preservation, and, if the organized direction fails, you will have a condition of anarchy, in which everything is left to the individual. and do you really believe--you who have so often praised the bravery of the germans up to the heavens, when it has been to your interest to do so--do you really believe that the hundreds of thousands of german social-democrats are cowards? do you believe that what has happened in russia would not be possible in germany if you succeeded in bringing about here the conditions which exist there?"[ ] both bebel and liebknecht taunted the chancellor with his failure to drive the socialists to commit acts of violence. "the government may be sure," said liebknecht in , "that we shall not, now or ever, go upon the bird-lime, that we shall never be such fools as to play the game of our enemies by attempts ... the more madly you carry on, the sooner you will come to the end; the pitcher goes to the well until it breaks."[ ] at the end of this year the reports given from the several states of the working out of the anti-socialist law were most discouraging to the chancellor. from everywhere the report came that agitation was unintermittent, and being carried on with zeal and success. and bebel said publicly that nowhere was the socialist party more numerous or better organized than in the districts where the minor state of siege had been proclaimed. the year was a sensational one. nine of the socialists, including bebel, dietz, auer, von vollmar, frohme--all deputies--were charged with taking part in a secret and illegal organization. all the accused were sentenced to imprisonment for six or nine months, bebel and his parliamentary associates receiving the heavier penalty. the reichstag asked for reports upon the working of the law. again the discouraging news came that the movement seemed to be growing faster than ever before. the crushing by repressive measures did not, however, exhaust bismarck's plans for annihilating the socialists. at the same time he outlined an extraordinary program for winning the support of the working classes. early in the eighties he proposed his great scheme of social legislation, intended to improve radically the lot of the toilers. compulsory insurance against accident, illness, invalidity, and old age was instituted as a measure for giving more security in life to the working classes. insurance against unemployment was also proposed, and bismarck declared that the state should guarantee to the toilers the right to work. this began an era of immense social reforms that actually wiped out some of the worst slums in the great industrial centers, replaced them with large and beautiful dwellings for the working classes, and made over entire cities. the discussions in the reichstag now seemed to be largely concerned with the problem of the working classes and with devising plans to obliterate the influence of the socialists over the workers and to induce them once more to ally themselves to the monarchy and to the _junkers_. for some reason wholly mysterious to bismarck, all his measures against the socialists failed. every assault made upon them seemed to increase their power, while even the great reforms he was instituting seemed somehow to be credited to the agitation of the socialists. instead of proving the good will of the ruling class, these reforms seemed only to prove its weakness; and they were looked upon generally as belated efforts to remedy old and grievous wrongs which, in fact, made necessary the protests of the socialists. the result was that tens of thousands of workingmen were flocking each year into the camp of the socialists, and at each election the socialist votes increased in a most dreadful and menacing manner. when the anti-socialist law was put into effect, the party polled under , votes. after twelve years of underground work as outlaws, the party polled , , votes. despite all the efforts of bismarck and all the immense power of the government, socialism, instead of being crushed, was , , souls stronger after twelve years of suffering under tyranny than it was in the beginning. this of course would not do at all, and everyone saw it clearly enough except the iron chancellor. infuriated by his own failure and unwilling to confess defeat, he pleaded once more, in , for the reënactment of the anti-socialist law and, indeed, that it should be made a permanent part of the penal code of the empire. he even sought further powers and asked the reichstag to give him a law that would enable him to expel not only from districts proclaimed to be in a state of siege, but from germany altogether, those who were known to hold socialist views. the reichstag, however, refused to grant him either request, and on september , , just twelve years after its birth, the anti-socialist law was repealed. that night was a glorious one for the socialists, as well as a very dreadful one for bismarck and those others who had made prodigious but futile efforts to destroy socialism. berlin was already a socialist stronghold, and its entire people that night came into the streets to sing songs of thanksgiving. streets, parks, public places, cafés, theaters were filled with merrymakers, rejoicing with songs, with toasts to the leading socialists, and with boisterous welcomes to the exiles who were returning. all night long the red flag waved, and the marseillaise was sung, as all that passion of love, enthusiasm, and devotion for a great cause, which, for twelve long years, had been brutally suppressed, burst forth in floods of joy. "he [bismarck] has had at his entire disposal for more than a quarter of a century," said liebknecht, "the police, the army, the capital, and the power of the state--in brief, all the means of mechanical force. _we had only our just right, our firm conviction, our bared breasts to oppose him with, and it is we who have conquered! our arms were the best. in the course of time brute power must yield to the moral factors, to the logic of things._ bismarck lies crushed to the earth--and social democracy is the strongest party in germany!... _the essence of revolution lies not in the means, but in the end. violence has been, for thousands of years, a reactionary factor._"[ ] certainly, the moral victory was immense. there had been a twelve-years-long torture of a great party, in which every man who was known to be sympathetic was looked upon as a criminal and an outlaw. yet, despite every effort made to drive the socialists into outrages, they never wavered the slightest from their grim determination to depend solely upon peaceable methods. it is indeed marvelous that the german socialists should have stood the test and that, despite the most barbarous persecution, they should have been able to hold their forces together, to restrain their natural anger, and to keep their faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable, legal, and political methods. prometheus, bound to his rock and tortured by all the furies of a malignant jupiter, did not rise superior to his tormentor with more grandeur than did the social democracy of germany. violence does indeed seem to be a reactionary force. the use of it by the anarchists against the existing régime seems to have deprived them of all sympathy and support. more and more they became isolated from even those in whose name they claimed to be fighting. so the violence of bismarck, intended to uproot and destroy the deepest convictions of a great body of workingmen, deprived him and his circle of all popular sympathy and support. year by year he became weaker, and the futility of his efforts made him increasingly bitter and violent. at last even those for whom he had been fighting had to put him aside. on the other hand, those he fought with his poisoned weapons became stronger and stronger, their spirit grew more and more buoyant, their confidence in success more and more certain. and, when at last the complete victory was won, it was heralded throughout the world, and from thousands of great meetings, held in nearly every civilized country, there came to the german social democracy telegrams and resolutions of congratulation. the mere fact that the germany party polled a million and a half votes was in itself an inspiration to the workers of all lands, and in the elections which followed in france, italy, belgium, denmark, sweden, and other countries the socialists vastly increased their votes and more firmly established their position as a parliamentary force. in france polled nearly half a million votes, little belgium followed with three hundred and twenty thousand, while in denmark and switzerland the strength of the socialists was quadrupled. instead of a mere handful of theorists, the socialists were now numbered by the million. their movement was world-wide, and the program of every political party in the various countries was based upon the principles laid down by marx. the doctrines which he had advocated from ' to ' , and fought desperately to retain throughout all the struggles with bakounin, were now the foundation principles of the movement in germany, france, italy, austria, switzerland, belgium, holland, denmark, norway, sweden, britain, and even in other countries east and west of europe. footnote: [v] probably intended for "increase of wages," but this is as it reads in the official report. chapter x the newest anarchism at the beginning of the nineties the socialists were jubilant. their great victory in germany and the enormous growth of the movement in all countries assured them that the foundations had at last been laid for the great world-wide movement that they had so long dreamed of. internal struggles had largely disappeared, and the mighty energies of the movement were being turned to the work of education and of organization. great international socialist congresses were now the natural outgrowth of powerful and extensive national movements. yet, almost at this very moment there was forming in the latin countries a new group of dissidents who were endeavoring to resurrect what bakounin called in french socialism, and what our old friend guillaume recognized to be a revival of the principles and methods of the anarchist international.[w] and, indeed, in , what may perhaps be best described as the renascence of anarchism appeared in france under an old and influential name. up to that time syndicalism signified nothing more than trade unionism, and the french _syndicats_ were merely associations of workmen struggling to obtain higher wages and shorter hours of labor. but in the term began to have a different meaning, and almost immediately it made the tour of the world as a unique and dreadful revolutionary philosophy. it became a new "red specter," with a menacing and subversive program, that created a veritable furore of discussion in the newspapers and magazines of all countries. rarely has a movement aroused such universal agitation, awakened such world-wide discussions, and called forth such expressions of alarm as this one, that seemed suddenly to spring from the depths of the underworld, full-armed and ready for battle. everywhere syndicalism was heralded as an entirely new philosophy. nothing like it had ever been known before in the world. multitudes rushed to greet it as a kind of new revelation, while other multitudes instinctively looked upon it with suspicion as something that promised once more to introduce dissension into the world of labor. what is syndicalism? whence came it and why? the first question has been answered in a hundred books written in the last ten years. in all languages the meaning of this new philosophy of industrial warfare has been made clear. there is hardly a country in the world that has not printed several books on this new movement, and, although the word itself cannot be found in our dictionaries, hardly anyone who reads can have escaped gaining some acquaintance with its purport. the other question, however, has concerned few, and almost no one has traced the origin of syndicalism to that militant group of anarchists whom the french government had endeavored to annihilate. after the series of tragedies which ended with the murder of carnot, the french police hunted the anarchists from pillar to post. their groups were broken up, their papers suppressed, and their leaders kept constantly under the surveillance of police agents. every man with anarchist sympathies was hounded as an outlaw, and in they were broken, scattered, and isolated. scorning all relations with the political groups and indeed excluded from them, as from other sections of the labor movement, by their own tactics, they found themselves almost alone, without the opportunity even of propagating their views. facing a blank wall, they began then to discuss the necessity of radically changing their tactics, and in that year one of the most militant of them, Émile pouget, who had been arrested several times for provoking riots, undertook to persuade his associates to enter actively into the trade unions. in his peculiar argot he wrote in _père peinard_: "if there is a group into which the anarchists should thrust themselves, it is evidently the trade union. the coarse vegetables would make an awful howl if the anarchists, whom they imagine they have gagged, should profit by the circumstance to infiltrate themselves in droves into the trade unions and spread their ideas there without any noise or blaring of trumpets."[ ] this plea had its effect, and more and more anarchists began to join the trade unions, while their friends, already in the unions, prepared the way for their coming. pelloutier, a zealous and efficient administrator, had already become the dominant spirit in one entire section of the french labor movement, that of the _bourses du travail_. in another section, the carpenter tortellier, a roving agitator and militant anarchist, had already persuaded a large number of unions to declare for the general strike as the _sole_ effective weapon for revolutionary purposes. moreover, guérard, griffuelhes, and other opponents of political action were preparing the ground in the unions for an open break with the socialists. by the strength of the anarchists in the trade unions was so great that the french delegates to the international socialist congress at london were divided into two sections: one in sympathy with the views of the anarchists, the other hostile to them. such notable anarchists as tortellier, malatesta, grave, pouget, pelloutier, delesalle, hamon, and guérard were sent to london as the representatives of the french trade unions. although the anarchists had been repeatedly expelled from socialist congresses, and the rules prohibited their admittance, these men could not be denied a hearing so long as they came as the representatives of _bona fide_ trade unions. as a result, the anarchists, speaking as trade unionists, fought throughout the congress against political action. a typical declaration was that of tortellier, when he said: "if only those in favor of political action are admitted to congresses, the latin races will abandon the congresses. the italians are drifting away from the idea of political action. properly organized, the workers can settle their affairs without any intervention on the part of the legislature."[ ] guérard, of the railway workers, holding much the same views, urged the congress to adopt the general strike, on the ground that it is "the most revolutionary weapon we have."[ ] despite their threats and demands, the anarchists were completely ignored, although they were numerous in the french, italian, spanish, and dutch delegations. at last it became clear to the anarchists that the international socialist congresses would not admit them, if it were possible to keep them out, nor longer discuss with them the wisdom of political action. consequently, the anarchists left london, clear at last on this one point, that the socialists were firmly determined to have no further dealings with them. the same decision had been made at the hague in , again in at the international congress at paris, then in at brussels, again in at zurich, and finally at london in . the anarchists that returned to paris from the london congress were not slow in taking their revenge. they had already threatened in london to take the workers of the latin countries out of the socialist movement, but no one apparently had given much heed to their remarks. in reality, however, they were in a position to carry out their threats, and the insults which they felt they had just suffered at the hands of the socialists made them more determined than ever to induce the unions to declare war on the socialist parties of france, italy, spain, and holland. plans were also laid for the building up of a trade-union international based largely on the principles and tactics of what they now called "revolutionary syndicalism." the year before ( ) the general confederation of labor had been launched at limoges. except for its declaration in favor of the general strike as a revolutionary weapon, the congress developed no new syndicalist doctrines. it was at tours, in , that the french unions, dominated by the anarchists, declared they would no longer concern themselves with reforms; they would abandon childish efforts at amelioration; and instead they would constitute themselves into a conscious fighting minority that was to lead the working class with no further delay into open rebellion. in their opinion, it was time to begin the bitter, implacable fight that was not to end until the working class had freed itself from wage slavery. the state was not worth conquering, parliaments were inherently corrupt, and, therefore, political action was futile. other means, more direct and revolutionary, must be employed to destroy capitalism. as the very existence of society depends upon the services of labor, what could be more simple than for labor to cease to serve society until its rights are assured? thus argued the french trade unionists, and the strike was adopted as the supreme war measure. partial strikes were to broaden into industrial strikes, and industrial strikes into general strikes. the struggle between the classes was to take the form of two hostile camps, firmly resolved upon a war that would finish only when the one or the other of the antagonists had been utterly crushed. when john brown marched with his little band to attack the slave-owning aristocracy of the south, he became the forerunner of our terrible civil war. it was the same spirit that moved the french trade unionists. although pitiably weak in numbers and poor in funds, they decided to stop all parleyings with the enemy and to fire the first gun. the socialist congress in london was held in july, and the french trade-union congress at tours was held in september of the same year. the anarchists were out in their full strength, prepared to make reprisals on the socialists. it was after declaring: "the conquest of political power is a chimera,"[ ] that guérard launched forth in his fiery argument for the revolutionary general strike: "the partial strikes fail because the workingmen become demoralized and succumb under the intimidation of the employers, protected by the government. the general strike will last a short while, and its repression will be impossible; as to intimidation, it is still less to be feared. the necessity of defending the factories, workshops, manufactories, stores, etc., will scatter and disperse the army.... and then, in the fear that the strikers may damage the railways, the signals, the works of art, the government will be obliged to protect the , kilometers of railroad lines by drawing up the troops all along them. the , men of the active army, charged with the surveillance of million meters, will be isolated from one another by meters, and this can be done only on the condition of abandoning the protection of the depots, of the stations, of the factories, etc. ... and of abandoning the employers to themselves, thus leaving the field free in the large cities to the rebellious workingmen. the principal force of the general strike consists in its power of imposing itself. a strike in one branch of industry must involve other branches. the general strike cannot be decreed in advance; it will burst forth suddenly; a strike of the railway men, for instance, if declared, will be the signal for the general strike. it will be the duty of militant workingmen, when this signal is given, to make their comrades in the trade unions leave their work. those who continue to work on that day will be compelled, or forced, to quit.... the general strike will be the revolution, peaceful or not."[ ] here is a new program of action, several points of which are worthy of attention. it is clear that the general strike is here conceived of as a panacea, an unfailing weapon that obviates the necessity of political parties, parliamentary work, or any action tending toward the capture of political power. it is granted that it must end in civil war, but it is thought that this war cannot fail; it must result in a complete social revolution. even more significant is the thought that it will burst forth suddenly, without requiring any preliminary education, extensive preparations, or even widespread organization. in one line it is proposed as an automatic revolution; in another it is said that the militant workingmen are expected to force the others to quit work. out of , , toilers in france, about , , are organized. out of this million, about , belong to the confederation, and, out of this number, it is doubtful if half are in favor of a general strike. the proposition of guérard then presents itself as follows: that a minority of organized men shall force not only the vast majority of their fellow unionists but twenty times their number of unorganized men to quit work in order to launch the war for emancipation. under the compulsion of , men, a nation of , , is to be forced immediately, without palaver or delay, to revolutionize society. the next year, at toulouse, the french unions again assembled, and here it was that pouget and delesalle, both anarchists, presented the report which outlined still another war measure, that of sabotage. the newly arrived was there baptized, and received by all, says pouget, with warm enthusiasm. this sabotage was hardly born before it, too, made a tour of the world, creating everywhere the same furore of discussion that had been aroused by syndicalism. it presents itself in such a multitude of forms that it almost evades definition. if a worker is badly paid and returns bad work for bad pay, he is a _saboteur_. if a strike is lost, and the workmen return only to break the machines, spoil the products, and generally disorganize a factory, they are _saboteurs_. the idea of sabotage is that any dissatisfied workman shall undertake to break the machine or spoil the product of the machines in order to render the conduct of industry unprofitable, if not actually impossible. it may range all the way from machine obstruction or destruction to dynamiting, train wrecking, and arson. it may be some petty form of malice, or it may extend to every act advocated by our old friends, the terrorists. the work of one other congress must be mentioned. at lyons ( ) it was decided that an inquiry should be sent out to all the affiliated unions to find out exactly how the proposed great social revolution was to be carried out. for several years the confederation had sought to launch a revolutionary general strike, but so many of the rank and file were asking, "what would we do, even if the general strike were successful?" that it occurred to the leaders it might be well to find out. as a result, they sent out the following list of questions: "( ) how would your union act in order to transform itself from a group for combat into a group for production? "( ) how would you act in order to take possession of the machinery pertaining to your industry? "( ) how do you conceive the functions of the organized shops and factories in the future? "( ) if your union is a group within the system of highways, of transportation of products or of passengers, of distribution, etc., how do you conceive of its functioning? "( ) what will be your relations to your federation of trade or of industry after your reorganization? "( ) on what principle would the distribution of products take place, and how would the productive groups procure the raw material for themselves? "( ) what part would the _bourses du travail_ play in the transformed society, and what would be their task with reference to the statistics and to the distribution of products?"[ ] the report dealing with the results of this inquiry contains such a variety of views that it is not easy to summarize it. it seems, however, to have been more or less agreed that each group of producers was to control the industry in which it was engaged. the peasants were to take the land. the miners were to take the mines. the railway workers were to take the railroads. every trade union was to obtain possession of the tools of its trade, and the new society was to be organized on the basis of a trade-union ownership of industry. in the villages, towns, and cities the various trades were then to be organized into a federation whose duty would be to administer all matters of joint interest in their localities. the local federations were then to be united into a general confederation, to whose administration were to be left only those public services which were of national importance. the general confederation was also to serve as an intermediary between the various trades and locals and as an agency for representing the interests of all the unions in international relations. this is in brief the meaning of syndicalism. it differs from socialism in both aim and methods. the aim of the latter is the control by the community of the means of production. the aim of syndicalism is the control by autonomous trade unions of that production carried on by those trades. it does not seek to refashion the state or to aid in its evolution toward social democracy. it will have nothing to do with political action or with any attempt to improve the machinery of democracy. the masses must arise, take possession of the mines, factories, railroads, fields, and all industrial processes and natural resources, and then, through trade unions or industrial unions, administer the new economic system. furthermore, the syndicalists differ from the socialists in their conception of the class struggle. to the socialist the capitalist is as much the product of our economic system as the worker. no socialist believes that the capitalist is individually to blame for our economic ills. the syndicalist dissents from this view. to him the capitalist is an individual enemy. he must be fought and destroyed. there is no form of mediation or conciliation possible between the worker and his employer. conditions must, therefore, be made intolerable for the capitalist. work must be done badly. machines must be destroyed. industrial processes must be subjected to chaos. every worker must be inspired with the one end and aim of destruction. without the coöperation of the worker, capitalist production must break down. therefore, the revolutionary syndicalist will fight, if possible, openly through his union, or, if that is impossible, by stealth, as an individual, to ruin his employer. the world of to-day is to be turned into incessant civil war between capital and labor. not only the two classes, but the individuals of the two classes, must be constantly engaged in a deadly conflict. there is to be no truce until the fight is ended. the loyal workman is to be considered a traitor. the union that makes contracts or participates in collective bargaining is to be ostracized. and even those who are disinclined to battle will be forced into the ranks by compulsion. "those who continue to work will be compelled to quit," says guérard. the strike is not to be merely a peaceable abstention from work. the very machines are to be made to strike by being rendered incapable of production. these are the methods of the militant revolutionary syndicalists.[x] toward the end of the nineties another element came to the aid of the anarchists. it is difficult to class this group with any certainty. they are neither socialists nor anarchists. they remind one of those bakouninists that marx once referred to as "lawyers without cases, physicians without patients and knowledge, students of billiards, etc."[ ] "they are good-natured, gentlemanly, cultured people," says sombart; "people with spotless linen, good manners and fashionably dressed wives; people with whom one holds social intercourse as with one's equals; people who would at first sight hardly be taken as the representatives of a new movement whose object it is to prevent socialism from becoming a mere middle-class belief."[ ] in a word, they appear to be individuals wearied with the unrealities of life and seeking to overcome their _ennui_ by, at any rate, discussing the making of revolutions. with their "myths," their "reflections on violence," their appeals to physical vigor and to the glory of combat, as well as with their incessant attacks on the socialist movement, they have given very material aid to the anarchist element in the syndicalist movement. for a number of years i have read faithfully _le mouvement socialiste_, but i confess that i have not understood their dazzling metaphysics, and i am somewhat comforted to see that both levine[ ] and lewis[ ] find them frequently incomprehensible. without injustice to this group of intellectuals, i think it may be truthfully said that they have contributed nothing essential to the doctrines of syndicalism as developed by the trades unionists themselves; and edward berth, in _les nouveaux aspects du socialisme_, has partially explained why, without meaning to do so. "it has often been observed," he says, "that the anarchists are by origin artisan, peasant, or aristocrat. rousseau represents, obviously, the anarchism of the artisan. his republic is a little republic of free and independent craftsmen.... proudhon is a peasant in his heart ... and, if we finally take tolstoi, we find here an anarchism of worldly or aristocratic origin. tolstoi is a _blasé_ aristocrat, disgusted with civilization by having too much eaten of it."[ ] whether or not this characterization of tolstoi is justified, there can be no question that many of this type rushed to the aid of syndicalism. its savage vigor appeals to some artists, decadents, and _déclassés_. neurotic as a rule, they seem to hunger for the stimulus which comes by association with the merely physical power and vigor of the working class. the navvy, the coalheaver, or "yon rower ... the muscles all a-ripple on his back,"[ ] awakens in them a worshipful admiration, even as it did in the effete cleon. such a theory as syndicalism, declares sombart, "could only have grown up in a country possessing so high a culture as france; that it could have been thought out only by minds of the nicest perception, by people who have become quite _blasé_, whose feelings require a very strong stimulus before they can be stirred; people who have something of the artistic temperament, and, consequently, look disdainfully on what has been called 'philistinism'--on business, on middle-class ideals, and so forth. they are, as it were, the fine silk as contrasted with the plain wool of ordinary people. they detest the common, everyday round as much as they hate what is natural; they might be called 'social sybarites.' such are the people who have created the syndicalist system."[ ] on one point sombart is wrong. all the essential doctrines of revolutionary syndicalism, as a matter of fact, originated with the anarchists in the unions, and the most that can be said for the "sybarites" is that they elaborated and mystified these doctrines. there are those, of course, who maintain that syndicalism is wholly a natural and inevitable product of economic forces, and, so far as the actual syndicalist movement is concerned, that is unquestionably true. but in all the maze of philosophy and doctrine that has been thrown about the actual french movement, we find the traces of two extraneous forces--the anarchists who availed themselves of the opportunity that an awakening trade unionism gave them, and those intellectuals of leisure, culture, and refinement who found the methods of political socialism too tame to satisfy their violent revolt against things bourgeois. and the philosophical syndicalism that was born of this union combines utopianism and anarchism. the yearning esthetes found satisfaction in the rugged energy and physical daring of the men of action, while the latter were astonished and flattered to find their simple war measures adorned with metaphysical abstractions and arousing an immense furore among the most learned and fashionable circles of europe. however, something in addition to personality is needed to explain the rise of syndicalist socialism in france. like anarchism, syndicalism is a natural product of certain french and italian conditions. it is not strange that the latin peoples have in the past harbored the ideas of anarchism, or that now they harbor the ideas of syndicalism. the enormous proportion of small property owners in the french nation is the economic basis for a powerful individualism. anything which interferes with the liberty of the individual is abhorred, and nothing awakens a more lively hatred than centralization and state power. the vast extent of small industry, with the apprentice, journeyman, and master-workman, has wielded an influence over the mentality of the french workers. berth, for instance, follows proudhon in conceiving of the future commonwealth as a federation of innumerable little workshops. gigantic industries, such as are known in germany, england, and america, seem to be problems quite foreign to the mind of the typical latin worker. he believes that, if he can be left alone in his little industry, and freed from exploitation, he, like the peasant, will be supreme, possessing both liberty and abundance. he will, therefore, tolerate willingly neither the interference of a centralized state nor favor a centralized syndicalism. industry must be given into the hands of the workers, and, when he speaks of industry, he has in mind workshops, which, in the socialism of the germans, the english, and the americans, might be left for a long time to come in private hands. in harmony with the above facts, we find that the strongest centers of syndicalism in france, italy, and spain are in those districts where the factory system is very backward. where syndicalism and anarchism prevail most strongly, we find conditions of economic immaturity which strikingly resemble those of england in the time of owen. in all these districts trade unionism is undeveloped. when it exists at all, it is more a feeling out for solidarity than the actual existence of solidarity. it is the first groping toward unity that so often brings riots and violence, because organization is absent and the feeling of power does not exist. carl legien, the leader of the great german unions, said at the international socialist congress at stuttgart ( ): "as soon as the french have an actual trade-union organization, they will cease discussing blindly the general strike, direct action, and sabotage."[ ] vliegen, the dutch leader, went even further when he declared at the previous congress, at amsterdam ( ), that it is not the representatives of the strong organizations of england, germany, and denmark who wish the general strike; it is the representatives of france, russia, and holland, where the trade-union organization is feeble or does not exist.[ ] still another factor forces the french trade unions to rely upon violence, and that is their poverty. the trade-unionists in the latin countries dislike to pay dues, and the whole organized labor movement as a result lives constantly from hand to mouth. "the fundamental condition which determines the policy of direct action," says dr. louis levine in his excellent monograph on "the labor movement in france," "is the poverty of french syndicalism. except for the _fédération du livre_, only a very few federations pay a more or less regular strike benefit; the rest have barely means enough to provide for their administrative and organizing expenses and cannot collect any strike funds worth mentioning.... the french workingmen, therefore, are forced to fall back on other means during strikes. quick action, intimidation, sabotage, are then suggested to them by their very situation and by their desire to win."[ ] that this is an accurate analysis is, i think, proved by the fact that the biggest strikes and the most unruly are invariably to be found at the very beginning of the attempts to organize trade unions. that is certainly true of england, and in our own country the great strikes of the seventies were the birth-signs of trade unionism. in france, italy, and spain, where trade unionism is still in its infancy, we find that strikes are more unruly and violent than in other countries. it is a mistake to believe that riots, sabotage, and crime are the result of organization, or the product of a philosophy of action. they are the acts of the weak and the desperate; the product of a mob psychology that seems to be roused to action whenever and wherever the workers first begin to realize the faintest glimmering of solidarity. history clearly proves that turbulence in strikes tends to disappear as the workers develop organized strength. in most countries violence has been frankly recognized as a weakness, and tremendous efforts have been made by the workers themselves to render violence unnecessary by developing power through organization. but in france the very acts that result from weakness and despair have been greeted with enthusiasm by the anarchists and the effete intellectuals as the beginning of new and improved revolutionary methods. both, then, in their philosophy and in their methods, anarchism and syndicalism have much in common, but there also exist certain differences which cannot be overlooked. anarchism is a doctrine of individualism; syndicalism is a doctrine of working-class action. anarchism appeals only to the individual; syndicalism appeals also to a class. furthermore, anarchism is a remnant of eighteenth-century philosophy, while syndicalism is a product of an immature factory system. marx and engels frequently spoke of anarchism as a petty-bourgeois philosophy, but in the early syndicalism of robert owen they saw more than that, considering it as the forerunner of an actual working-class movement. when these differences have been stated, there is little more to be said, and, on the whole, yvetot was justified in saying at the congress of toulouse ( ): "i am reproached with confusing syndicalism and anarchism. it is not my fault if anarchism and syndicalism have the same ends in view. the former pursues the integral emancipation of the individual; the latter the integral emancipation of the workingman. i find the whole of syndicalism in anarchism."[ ] when we leave the theories of syndicalism to study its methods, we find them identical with those of the anarchists. the general strike is, after all, exactly the same method that bakounin was constantly advocating in the days of the old international. the only difference is this, that bakounin sought the aid of "the people," while the syndicalists rely upon the working class. furthermore, when one places the statement of guérard on the general strike[y] alongside of the statement of kropotkin on the revolution,[z] one can observe no important difference. while it is true that some syndicalists believe that the general strike may be solely a peaceable abstention from work, most of them are convinced that such a strike would surely meet with defeat. as buisson says: "if the general strike remains the revolution of folded arms, if it does not degenerate into a violent insurrection, one cannot see how a cessation of work of fifteen, thirty, or even sixty days could bring into the industrial régime and into the present social system changes great enough to determine their fall."[ ] to be sure, the syndicalists do not lay so much emphasis on the abolition of government as do the anarchists, but their plan leads to nothing less than that. if "the capitalist class is to be locked out"--whatever that may mean--one must conclude that the workers intend in some manner without the use of public powers to gain control of the tools of production. in any case, they will be forced, in order to achieve any possible success, to take the factories, the mines, and the mills and to put the work of production into the hands of the masses. if the state interferes, as it undoubtedly will in the most vigorous manner, the strikers will be forced to fight the state. in other words, the general strike will necessarily become an insurrection, and the people without arms will be forced to carry on a civil war against the military powers of the government. if the general strike, therefore, is only insurrection in disguise, sabotage is but another name for the propaganda of the deed. only, in this case, the deed is to be committed against the capitalist, while with the older anarchists a crowned head, a general, or a police official was the one to be destroyed. to-day property is to be assailed, machines broken and smashed, mines flooded, telegraph wires cut, and any other methods used that will render the tools of production unusable. this deed may be committed _en masse_, or it may be committed by an individual. it is when pouget grows enthusiastic over sabotage that we find in him the same spirit that actuated brousse and kropotkin when they despaired of education and sought to arouse the people by committing dramatic acts of violence. in other words, the _saboteur_ abandons mass action in favor of ineffective and futile assaults upon men or property. this brief survey of the meaning of syndicalism, whence it came, and why, explains the antagonism that had to arise between it and socialism.[aa] not only was it frankly intended to displace the socialist political parties of europe, but every step it has taken was accompanied with an attack upon the doctrines and the methods of modern socialism. and, in fact, the syndicalists are most interesting when they leave their own theories and turn their guns upon the socialist parties of the present day. in reading the now extensive literature on syndicalism, one finds endless chapters devoted to pointing out the weaknesses and faults of political socialism. like the bakouninists, the chief strength of the revolutionary unionists lies in criticism rather than in any constructive thought or action of their own. the battle of to-day is, however, a very unequal one. in the international, two groups--comparatively alike in size--fought over certain theories that, up to that time, were not embodied in a movement. they quarreled over tactics that were yet untried and over theories that were then purely speculative. to-day the syndicalists face a foe that embraces millions of loyal adherents. at the international gatherings of trade-union officials, as well as at the immense international congresses of the socialist parties, the syndicalists find themselves in a hopeless minority.[ab] socialism is no longer an unembodied project of marx. it is a throbbing, moving, struggling force. it is in a daily fight with the evils of capitalism. it is at work in every strike, in every great agitation, in every parliament, in every council. it is a thing of incessant action, whose mistakes are many and whose failures stand out in relief. those who have betrayed it can be pointed out. those who have lost all revolutionary fervor and all notion of class can be held up as a tendency. those who have fallen into the traps of the bureaucrats and have given way to the flattery or to the corruption of the bourgeoisie can be listed and put upon the index. even working-class political action can be assailed as never before, because it now exists for the first time in history, and its every weakness is known. moreover, there are the slowness of movement and the seemingly increasing tameness of the multitude. all these incidents in the growth of a vast movement--the rapidity of whose development has never been equaled in the history of the world--irritate beyond measure the impatient and ultra-revolutionary exponents of the new anarchism. naturally enough, the criticisms of the syndicalists are leveled chiefly against political action, parliamentarism, and statism. it is professor arturo labriola, the brilliant leader of the italian syndicalists, who has voiced perhaps most concretely these strictures against socialism, although they abound in all syndicalist writings. according to labriola, the socialist parties have abandoned marx. they have left the field of the class struggle, foresworn revolution, and degenerated into weaklings and ineffectuals who dare openly neither to advocate "state socialism" nor to oppose it. in the last chapter of his "karl marx" labriola traces some of the tendencies to state socialism. he observes that the state is gradually taking over all the great public utilities and that cities and towns are increasingly municipalizing public services. in the more liberal and democratic countries "the tendency to state property was greeted," he says, "as the beginning of the socialist transformation. to-day, in france, in italy, and in austria socialism is being confounded with statism (_l'étatisme_).... the socialist party, almost everywhere, has become the party of state capitalism." it is "no more the representative of a movement which ranges itself against existing institutions, but rather of an evolution which is taking place now in the midst of present-day society, and by means of the state itself. the socialist party, by the very force of circumstances, is becoming a conservative party which is declaring for a transformation, the agent of which is no longer the proletariat itself, but the new economic organism which is the state.... even the desire of the workingmen themselves to pass into the service of the state is eager and spontaneous. we have a proof of it in italy with the railway workers, who, however, represent one of the best-informed and most advanced sections of the working class. " ... where the marxian tradition has no stability, as in italy, the socialist party refused to admit that the state was an exclusively capitalist organism and that it was necessary to challenge its action. and with this pro-state attitude of the socialist party all its ideas have unconsciously changed. the principles of state enterprise (order, discipline, hierarchy, subordination, maximum productivity, etc.) are the same as those of private enterprise. wherever the socialist party openly takes its stand on the side of the state--contrary even to its intentions--it acquires an entirely capitalist viewpoint. its embarrassed attitude in regard to the insubordination of the workers in private manufacture becomes each day more evident, and, if it were not afraid of losing its electoral support, it would oppose still more the spirit of revolt among the workers. it is thus that the socialist party--the conservative party of the future transformed state--is becoming the conservative party of the present social organization. but even where, as in germany, the marxian tradition still assumes the form of a creed to all outward appearance, the party is very far from keeping within the limits of pure marxian theory. its anti-state attitude is not one of inclination. it is imposed by the state itself, ... the adversary, through its military and feudal vanity, of every concession to working-class democracy."[ ] all this sounds most familiar, and i cannot resist quoting here our old friend bakounin in order to show how much this criticism resembles that of the anarchists. if we turn to "statism and anarchy" we find that bakounin concluded this work with the following words: "upon the pangermanic banner" (_i. e._, also upon the banner of german social democracy, and, consequently, upon the socialist banner of the whole civilized world) "is inscribed: the conservation and strengthening of the state at all costs; on the socialist-revolutionary banner" (read bakouninist banner) "is inscribed in characters of blood, in letters of fire: the abolition of all states, the destruction of bourgeois civilization; free organization from the bottom to the top, by the help of free associations; the organization of the working populace (_sic!_) freed from all the trammels, the organization of the whole of emancipated humanity, the creation of a new human world."[ac] thus frantically bakounin exposed the antagonism between his philosophy and that of the marxists. it would seem, therefore, that if labriola knew his marx, he would hardly undertake at this late date to save socialism from a tendency that marx himself gave it. the state, it appears, is the same bugaboo to the syndicalists that it is to the anarchists. it is almost something personal, a kind of monster that, in all ages and times, must be oppressive. it cannot evolve or change its being. it cannot serve the working class as it has previously served feudalism, or as it now serves capitalism. it is an unchangeable thing, that, regardless of economic and social conditions, must remain eternally the enemy of the people. evidently, the syndicalist identifies the revolutionist with the anti-statist--apparently forgetting that hatred of the state is often as strong among the bourgeoisie as among the workers. the determination to limit the power of the government was not only a powerful factor in the french and american revolutions, but since then the slaveholders of the southern states in america, the factory owners of all countries, and the trusts have exhausted every means, fair and foul, to limit and to weaken the power of the state. what difference is there between the theory of _laissez-faire_ and the antagonism of the anarchists and the syndicalists to every activity of the state? however, it is noteworthy that antagonism to the state disappears on the part of any group or class as soon as it becomes an agency for advancing their material well-being; they not only then forsake their anti-statism, they even become the most ardent defenders of the state. evidently, then, it is not the state that has to be overcome, but the interests that control the state. it must be admitted that labriola sketches accurately enough the prevailing tendency toward state ownership, but he misunderstands or willfully misinterprets, as bakounin did before him, the attitude of the avowed socialist parties toward such evolution. when he declares that they confuse their socialism with statism, he might equally well argue that socialists confuse their socialism with monopoly or with the aggregation of capital in the hands of the few. because socialists recognize the inevitable evolution toward monopoly is no reason for believing that they advocate monopoly. nowhere have the socialists ever advised the destruction of trusts, nor have they anywhere opposed the taking over of great industries by the state. they realize that, as monopoly is an inevitable outcome of capitalism, so state capitalism, more or less extended, is an inevitable result of monopoly. that the workers remain wage earners and are exploited in the same manner as before has been pointed out again and again by all the chief socialists. however, if socialists prefer monopoly to the chaos of competition and to the reactionary tendencies of small property, and if they lend themselves, as they do everywhere, to the promotion of the state ownership of monopoly, it is not because they confuse monopoly, whether private or public, with socialism. it is of little consequence whether the workers are exploited by the trusts or by the government. as long as capitalism exists they will be exploited by the one or the other. if they themselves prefer to be exploited by the government, as labriola admits, and if that exploitation is less ruinous to the body and mind of the worker, the socialist who opposed state capitalism in favor of private capitalism would be nothing less than a reactionary. without, however, leaving the argument here, it must be said that there are various reasons why the socialist prefers state capitalism to private capitalism. it has certain advantages for the general public. it confers certain benefits upon the toilers, chief of all perhaps the regularity of work. and, above and beyond this, state capitalism is actually expropriating private capitalists. the more property the state owns, the fewer will be the number of capitalists to be dealt with, and the easier it will be eventually to introduce socialism. indeed, to proceed from state capitalism to socialism is little more than the grasp of public powers by the working class, followed by the administrative measures of industrial democracy. all this, of course, has been said before by engels, part of whose argument i have already quoted. unfortunately, no syndicalist seems to follow this reasoning or excuse what he considers the terrible crime of extending the domain of the state. not infrequently his revolutionary philosophy begins with the abolition of the state, and often it ends there. marx, engels, and eccarius, as we know, ridiculed bakounin's terror of the state; and how many times since have the socialists been compelled to deal with this bugaboo! it rises up in every country from time to time. the anarchist, the anarchist-communist, the _lokalisten_, the anarcho-socialist, the young socialist, and the syndicalist have all in their time solemnly come to warn the working class of this insidious enemy. but the workers refuse to be frightened, and in every country, including even russia, italy, and france, they have less fear of state ownership of industry than they have of that crushing exploitation which they know to-day. even in germany, where labriola considers the socialists to be more or less free from the taint of state capitalism, they have from the very beginning voted for state ownership. as early as the german socialists, upon a resolution presented by bebel, adopted by a large majority the proposition that the state should retain in its hands the state lands, church lands, communal lands, the mines, and the railroads.[ad] when adopting the new party program at erfurt in , the congress struck out the section directed against state socialism and adopted a number of propositions leading to that end. again, at breslau in , the germans adopted several state-socialist measures. "at this time," says paul kampffmeyer, "a proposition of the agrarian commission on the party program, which had a decided state-socialist stamp, was discussed. it contained, among other things, the retaining and the increase of the public land domain; the management of the state and community lands on their own account; the giving of state credit to coöperative societies; the socialization of mortgages, debts, and loans on land; the socialization of chattel and real estate insurance, etc. bebel agreed to all these state-socialist propositions. he recalled the fact, that the nationalizing of the railroads had been accomplished with the agreement of the social-democracy."[ ] "that which applies to the railways applies also to the forestry," said bebel. "have we any objections to the enlarging of the state forests and thereby the employment of workers and officials? the same thing applies to the mines, the salt industry, road-making, the post office, and the telegraphs. in all of these industries we have hundreds of thousands of dependent people, and yet we do not want to advocate their abolition but rather their extension. in this direction we must break with all our prejudices. we ought only to oppose state industry where it is antagonistic to culture and where it restricts development, as, for instance, is the case in military matters. indeed, we must even compel the state constantly to take over means of culture, because by that means we will finally put the present state out of joint. and, lastly, even the strongest state power fails in that degree in which the state drives its own officers and workers into opposition to itself, as has occurred in the case of the postal service. the attitude which would refuse to strengthen the power of the state, because this would entrust to it the solution of the problems of culture, smacks of the manchester school. we must strip off these manchesterian egg-shells."[ ] wilhelm liebknecht also dealt with those who opposed the strengthening of the class state. "we are concerned," he said, " ... first of all about the strengthening of the state power. in all similar cases we have decided in favor of practical activity. we allowed funds for the northeast sea canal; we voted for the labor legislation, although the proposed laws did decidedly extend the state power. we are in favor of the state railways, although we have thereby brought about ... the dependence of numerous livings upon the state."[ ] as early, indeed, as liebknecht saw that the present state was preparing the way for socialism. speaking of the compulsory insurance laws proposed by bismarck, he refers to such legislation as embodying "in a decisive manner the principle of state regulation of production as opposed to the _laissez-faire_ system of the manchester school. the right of the state to regulate production supposes the duty of the state to interest itself in labor, and state control of the labor of society leads directly to state organization of the labor of society."[ ] further even than this goes karl kautsky, who has been called the "acutest observer and thinker of modern socialism." "among the social organizations in existence to-day," he says, "there is but one that possesses the requisite dimensions, and may be used as the framework for the establishment and development of the socialist commonwealth, and that is the _modern state_."[ ] without going needlessly far into this subject, it seems safe to conclude that the state is no more terrifying to the modern socialist than it was to marx and engels. there is not a socialist party in any country that has not used its power to force the state to undertake collective enterprise. indeed, all the immediate programs of the various socialist parties advocate the strengthening of the economic power of the state. they are adding more and more to its functions; they are broadening its scope; and they are, without question, vastly increasing its power. but, at the same time, they are democratizing the state. by direct legislation, by a variety of political reforms, and by the power of the great socialist parties themselves, they are really wresting the control of the state from the hands of special privilege. furthermore--and this is something neither the anarchists nor the syndicalists will see--state socialism is in itself undermining and slowly destroying the class character of the state. according to the view of marx, the state is to-day "but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole capitalist class."[ ] and it is this because the economic power of the capitalist class is supreme. but by the growth of state socialism the economic power of the private capitalists is steadily weakened. the railroads, the mines, the forests, and other great monopolies are taken out of their hands, and, to the extent that this happens, their control over the state itself disappears. their only power to control the state is their economic power, and, if that were entirely to disappear, the class character of the state would disappear also. "the state is not abolished. _it dies out_"; to repeat engels' notable words. "as soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection, ... nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary."[ ] the syndicalists are, of course, quite right when they say that state socialism is an attempt to allay popular discontent, but they are quite wrong when they accept this as proof that it must inevitably sidetrack socialism. they overlook the fact that it is always a concession granted grudgingly to the growing power of democracy. it is a point yielded in order to prevent if possible the necessity of making further concessions. yet history shows that each concession necessitates another, and that state socialism is growing with great rapidity in all countries where the workers have developed powerful political organizations. even now both friends and opponents see in the growth of state socialism the gradual formation of that transitional stage that leads from capitalism to socialism. the syndicalist and anarchist alone fail to see here any drift toward socialism; they see only a growing tyranny creating a class of favored civil servants, who are divorced from the actual working class. at the same time, they point out that the condition of the toilers for the state has not improved, and that they are exploited as mercilessly by the state as they were formerly exploited by the capitalist. to dispute this would be time ill spent. if it be indeed true, it defeats the argument of the syndicalist. if the state in its capitalism outrageously exploits its servants, tries to prevent them from organizing, and penalizes them for striking, it will only add to the intensity of the working-class revolt. it will aid more and more toward creating a common understanding between the workers for the state and the workers for the private capitalist. in any case, it will accelerate the tendency toward the democratization of the state and, therefore, toward socialism. as an alternative to this actual evolution toward socialism, the syndicalists propose to force society to put the means of production into the hands of the trade unions. it is perhaps worth pointing out that owen, proudhon, blanc, lassalle, and bakounin all advocated what may be called "group socialism."[ ] this conception of future society contemplates the ownership of the mines by the miners, of the railroads by the railway workers, of the land by the peasants. all the workers in the various industries are to be organized into unions and then brought together in a federation. several objections are made to this outline of a new society. in the first place, it is artificial. except for an occasional coöperative undertaking, there is not, nor has there ever been, any tendency toward trade-union ownership of industry. in addition, it is an idea that is to-day an anachronism. it is conceivable that small federated groups might control and conduct countless little industries, but it is not conceivable that groups of "self-governing," "autonomous," and "independent" workmen could, or would, be allowed by a highly industrialized society to direct and manage such vast enterprises as the trusts have built up. if each group is to run industry as it pleases, the standard oil workers or the steel workers might menace society in the future as the owners of those monopolies menace it in the present. there is no indication in the literature of the syndicalists, and certainly no promise in a system of completely autonomous groups of producers, of any solution of the vast problems of modern trustified industry. it may be that such ideas corresponded to the state of things represented in early capitalism. but the socialist ideas of the present are the product of a more advanced state of capitalism than owen, proudhon, lassalle, and bakounin knew, or than the syndicalists of france, italy, and spain have yet been forced seriously to deal with. indeed, it was necessary for marx to forecast half a century of capitalist development in order to clarify the program of socialism and to emphasize the necessity for that program. it is a noteworthy and rather startling fact that sidney and beatrice webb had pointed out the economic fallacies of syndicalism before the french confederation of labor was founded or sorel, berth, and lagardelle had written a line on the subject. in their "history of trade unionism" they tell most interestingly the story of owen's early trade-union socialism. the book was published in , two or three years before the theories of the french school were born. nevertheless, their critique of owenism expresses as succinctly and forcibly as anything yet written the attitude of the socialists toward the economics of modern syndicalism. "of all owen's attempts to reduce his socialism to practice," write the webbs, "this was certainly the very worst. for his short-lived communities there was at least this excuse: that within their own area they were to be perfectly homogeneous little socialist states. there were to be no conflicting sections, and profit-making and competition were to be effectually eliminated. but in 'the trades union,' as he conceived it, the mere combination of all the workmen in a trade as coöperative producers no more abolished commercial competition than a combination of all the employers in it as a joint stock company. in effect, his grand lodges would have been simply the head offices of huge joint stock companies owning the entire means of production in their industry, and subject to no control by the community as a whole. they would, therefore, have been in a position at any moment to close their ranks and admit fresh generations of workers only as employees at competitive wages instead of as shareholders, thus creating at one stroke a new capitalist class and a new proletariat.[ ] ... in short, the socialism of owen led him to propose a practical scheme which was not even socialistic, and which, if it could possibly have been carried out, would have simply arbitrarily redistributed the capital of the country without altering or superseding the capitalist system in the least."[ ] although this "group socialism" would certainly necessitate a parliament in order to harmonize the conflicting interests of the various productive associations, there is nothing, it appears, that the syndicalist so much abhors. he is never quite done with picturing the burlesque of parliamentarism. while, no doubt, this is a necessary corollary to his antagonism to the state, it is aggravated by the fact that one of the chief ends of a political party is to put its representatives into parliament. the syndicalist, in ridiculing all parliamentary activity, is at the same time, therefore, endeavoring to prove the folly of political action. that you cannot bring into the world a new social order by merely passing laws is something the syndicalist never wearies of pointing out. parliamentarism, he likes to repeat, is a new superstition that is weakening the activity and paralyzing the mentality of the working class. "the superstitious belief in parliamentary action," leone says, " ... ascribes to acts of parliament the magic power of bringing about new social forces."[ ] sorel refers to the same thing as the "belief in the magic influence of departmental authority,"[ ] while labriola divines that "parties may elect members of parliament, but they cannot set one machine going, nor can they organize one business undertaking."[ ] all this reminds one of what marx himself said in the early fifties. he speaks in "revolution and counter-revolution," a collection of some articles that were originally written for the new york _tribune_, of "parliamentary _crétinism_, a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are governed and determined by a majority of votes in that particular representative body which has the honor to count them among its members, and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their house--wars, revolutions, railway constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, california gold discoveries, central american canals, russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind--is nothing compared with the incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable house."[ ] no one can read this statement of marx's without realizing its essential truthfulness. but it should not be forgotten that marx himself believed, and every prominent socialist believes, that the control of the parliaments of the world is essential to any movement that seeks to transform the world. the powerlessness of parliaments may be easily exaggerated. to say that they are incapable of constructive work is to deny innumerable facts of history. laws have both set up and destroyed industries. the action of parliaments has established gigantic industries. the schools, the roads, the panama canal, and a thousand other great operations known to us to-day have been set going by parliaments. tariff laws make and destroy industries. prohibition laws have annihilated industries, while legality, which is the peculiar product of parliaments, has everything to do with the ownership of property, of industry, and of the management of capital. for one who is attacking a legal status, who is endeavoring to alter political, juridical, as well as industrial and social relations, the conquering of parliaments is vitally necessary. the socialist recognizes that the parliaments of to-day represent class interests, that, indeed, they are dominated by class interests, and, as such, that they do not seek to change but to conserve what now exists. as a result, there _is_ a parliamentary _crétinism_, because, in a sense, the dominant elements in parliament are only managing the affairs of powerful influences outside of parliament. they are not the guiding hand, but the servile hand, of capitalism. for the above reason, chiefly, the syndicalists are on safe ground when they declare that parliaments are corrupt. corruption is a product of the struggle of the classes. to obtain special privilege, class laws, and immunity from punishment, the "big interests" bribe and corrupt parliaments. however, corruption does not stop there. the trade unions themselves suffer. labor leaders are bought just as labor representatives are bought. insurrection itself is often controlled and rendered abortive by corruption. numberless violent uprisings have been betrayed by those who fomented them. the words of fruneau at basel in are memorable. "bakounin has declared," he said, "that it is necessary to await the revolution. ah, well, the revolution! away with it! not that i fear the barricades, but, when one is a frenchman and has seen the blood of the bravest of the french running in the streets in order to elevate to power the ambitious who, a few months later, sent us to cayenne, one suspects the same snares, because the revolution, in view of the ignorance of the proletarians, would take place only at the profit of our adversaries."[ ] there is no way to escape the corrupting power of capitalism. it has its representatives in every movement that promises to be hostile. it has its spies in the labor unions, its _agents provocateurs_ in insurrections; and its money can always find hands to accept it. one does not escape corruption by abandoning parliament. and bordat, the anarchist, was the slave of a mania when he declared: "to send workingmen to a parliament is to act like a mother who would take her daughter to a brothel."[ ] parliaments are perhaps more corrupt than trade unions, but that is simply because they have greater power. to no small degree bribery and campaign funds are the tribute that capitalism pays to the power of the state. the consistent opposition of the syndicalists to the state is leading them desperately far, and we see them developing, as the anarchists did before them, a contempt even for democracy. the literature of syndicalism teems with attacks on democracy. "syndicalism and democracy," says Émile pouget, "are the two opposite poles, which exclude and neutralize each other.... democracy is a social superfluity, a parasitic and external excrescence, while syndicalism is the logical manifestation of a growth of life, it is a rational cohesion of human beings, and that is why, instead of restraining their individuality, it prolongs and develops it."[ ] democracy is, in the view of sorel, the régime _par excellence_, in which men are governed "by the magical power of high-sounding words rather than by ideas; by formulas rather than by reasons; by dogmas, the origin of which nobody cares to find out, rather than by doctrines based on observation."[ ] lagardelle declares that syndicalism is post-democratic. "democracy corresponds to a definite historical movement," he says, "which has come to an end. syndicalism is an anti-democratic movement."[ ] these are but three out of a number of criticisms of democracy that might be quoted. although natural enough as a consequence of syndicalist antagonism to the state, these ideas are nevertheless fatal when applied to the actual conduct of a working-class movement. it means that the minority believes that it can drive the majority. we remember that guérard suggested, in his advocacy of the general strike, that, if the railroad workers struck, many other trades "would be compelled to quit work." "a daring revolutionary minority conscious of its aim can carry away with it the majority."[ ] pouget confesses: "the syndicalist has a contempt for the vulgar idea of democracy--the inert, unconscious mass is not to be taken into account when the minority wishes to act so as to benefit it...."[ ] he refers in another place to the majority, who "may be considered as human zeros. thus appears the enormous difference in method," concludes pouget, "which distinguishes syndicalism and democracy: the latter, by the mechanism of universal suffrage, gives direction to the unconscious ... and stifles the minorities who bear within them the hopes of the future."[ ] this is anarchism all over again, from proudhon to goldman.[ ] but, while the bakouninists were forced, as a result of these views, to abandon organized effort, the newest anarchists have attempted to incorporate these ideas into the very constitution of the french confederation of labor. and at present they are, in fact, a little clique that rides on the backs of the organized workers, and the majority cannot throw them off so long as a score of members have the same voting power in the confederation as that of a trade union with ten thousand members. all this must, of course, have very serious consequences. opposition to majority rule has always been a cardinal principle of the anarchists. it is also a fundamental principle of every american political machine. to defeat democracy is obviously the chief purpose of a tammany hall. but, when this idea is actually advocated as an ideal of working-class organization, when it is made to stand as a policy and practice of a trade union, it can only result in suspicion, disruption, and, eventually, in complete ruin. it appears that the militant syndicalist, like the anarchist, realizes that he cannot expect the aid of the people. he turns, then, to the minority, the fighting inner circle, as the sole hope. it is inevitable, therefore, that syndicalism and socialism should stand at opposite poles. they are exactly as far apart as anarchism and socialism. and, if we turn to the question of methods, we find an antagonism almost equally great. how are the workers to obtain possession of industry? on this point, as well as upon their conception of socialism, the syndicalists are not advanced beyond owenism. "one question, and that the most immediately important of all," say the webbs, speaking of owen's projects, "was never seriously faced: how was the transfer of the industries from the capitalists to the unions to be effected in the teeth of a hostile and well-armed government? the answer must have been that the overwhelming numbers of 'the trades union' would render conflict impossible. at all events, owen, like the early christians, habitually spoke as if the day of judgment of the existing order of society was at hand. the next six months, in his view, were always going to see the 'new moral world' really established. the change from the capitalist system to a complete organization of industry under voluntary associations of producers was to 'come suddenly upon society like a thief in the night.'... it is impossible not to regret that the first introduction of the english trade unionist to socialism should have been effected by a foredoomed scheme which violated every economic principle of collectivism, and left the indispensable political preliminaries to pure chance."[ ] little need be added to what the webbs have said on the utopian features of syndicalism or even upon the haphazard method adopted to achieve them. "no politics in the unions" follows logically enough from an avowed antagonism to the state. if one starts with the assumption that nothing can be done through the state--as owen, bakounin, and the syndicalists have done--one is, of course, led irretrievably to oppose parliamentary and other political methods of action. when the syndicalists throw over democracy and foreswear political action, they are fatally driven to the point where they must abandon the working class. in the meantime, they are sadly misleading it. it is when we touch this phase of the syndicalist movement that we begin to discover real bitterness. here direct action stands in opposition to political action. the workers must choose the one method or the other. the old clash appears again in all its tempestuous hate. jules guesde was early one of the adherents of bakounin, but in all his later life he has been pitiless in his warfare on the anarchists. as soon, therefore, as the direct-actionists began again to exercise an influence, guesde entered the field of battle. i happened to be at limoges in to hear guesde speak these memorable words at the french socialist congress: "political action is necessarily revolutionary. it does not address itself to the employer, but to the state, while industrial action addresses itself to the individual employer or to associations of employers. industrial action does not attack the employer _as an institution_, because the employer is the effect, the result of capitalist property. as soon as capitalist property will have disappeared, the employer will disappear, and not before. it is in the socialist party--because it is a political party--that one fights against the employer class, and that is why the socialist party is truly an economic party, tending to transform social and political economy. at the present moment words have their importance. and i should like to urge the comrades strongly never to allow it to be believed that trade-union action is economic action. no; this latter action is taken only by the political organization of the working class. it is the party of the working class which leads it--that is to say, the socialist party--because property is a social institution which cannot be transformed except by the exploited class making use of political power for this purpose.... "i realize," he continued, "that the direct-actionists attempt to identify political action with parliamentary action. no; electoral action as well as parliamentary action may be forms; pieces of political action. they are not political action as a whole, which is the effort to seize public powers--the government. political action is the people of paris taking possession of the hôtel de ville in . it is the parisian workers marching upon the national assembly in .... to those who go about claiming that political action, as extolled by the party, reduces itself to the production of public officials, you will oppose a flat denial. political action is, moreover, not the production of laws. it is the grasping by the working class of the manufactory of laws; it is the political expropriation of the employer class, which alone permits its economic expropriation.... i wish that someone would explain to me how the breaking of street lights, the disemboweling of soldiers, the burning of factories, can constitute a means of transforming the ownership of property.... supposing that the strikers were masters of the streets and should seize the factories, would not the factories still remain private property? instead of being the property of a few employers or stockholders, they would become the property of the or the , workingmen who had taken them, and that is all. the owners of the property will have changed; the system of ownership will have remained the same. and ought we not to consider it necessary to say that to the workers over and over again? ought we to allow them to take a path that leads nowhere?... no; the socialists could not, without crime, lend themselves to such trickery. it is our imperative duty to bring back the workers to reality, to remind them always that one can only be revolutionary if one attacks the government and the state."[ ] "trade-union action moves within the circle of capitalism without breaking through it, and that is necessarily reformist, in the good sense of the word. in order to ameliorate the conditions of the victims of capitalist society, it does not touch the system. all the revolutionary wrangling can avail nothing against this fact. even when a strike is triumphant, the day after the strike the wage earners remain wage earners and capitalist exploitation continues. it is a necessity, a fatality, which trade-union action suffers."[ ] any comment of mine would, i think, only serve to mar this masterly logic of guesde's. there is nothing perhaps in socialist literature which so ably sustains the traditional position of the socialist movement. the battles in france over this question have been bitterly fought for over half a century. the most brilliant of minds have been engaged in the struggle. proudhon, bakounin, briand, sorel, lagardelle, berth, hervé, are men of undoubted ability. opposed to them we find the marxists, led in these latter years by guesde and jaurès. and while direct action has always been vigorously supported in france both by the intellectuals and by the masses, it is the policy of guesde and jaurès which has made headway. at the time when the general strike was looked upon as a revolutionary panacea, and the french working class seemed on the point of risking everything in one throw of the dice, jaurès uttered a solemn warning: "toward this abyss ... the proletariat is feeling itself more and more drawn, at the risk not only of ruining itself should it fall over, but of dragging down with it for years to come either the wealth or the security of the national life."[ ] "if the proletarians take possession of the mine and the factory, it will be a perfectly fictitious ownership. they will be embracing a corpse, for the mines and factories will be no better than dead bodies while economic circulation is suspended and production is stopped. so long as a class does not own and govern the whole social machine, it can seize a few factories and yards, if it wants to, but it really possesses nothing. to hold in one's hand a few pebbles of a deserted road is not to be master of transportation."[ ] "the working class would be the dupe of a fatal illusion and a sort of unhealthy obsession if it mistook what can be only the tactics of despair for a method of revolution."[ ] the struggle, therefore, between the syndicalists and the socialists is, as we see, the same clash over methods that occurred in the seventies and eighties between the anarchists and the socialists. in abandoning democracy, in denying the efficacy of political action, and in resorting to methods which can only end in self-destruction, the syndicalist becomes the logical descendant of the anarchist. he is at this moment undergoing an evolution which appears to be leading him into the same _cul-de-sac_ that thwarted his forefather. his path is blocked by the futility of his own weapons. he is fatally driven, as plechanoff said, either to serve the bourgeois politicians or to resort to the tactics of ravachol, henry, vaillant, and most. the latter is the more likely, since the masses refuse to be drawn into the general strike as they formerly declined to participate in artificial uprisings.[ae] the daring conscious minority more and more despair, and they turn to the only other weapon in their arsenal, that of sabotage. there is a kind of fatality which overtakes the revolutionist who insists upon an immediate, universal, and violent revolution. he must first despair of the majority. he then loses confidence even in the enlightened minority. and, in the end, like the bakouninist, he is driven to individual acts of despair. what will doubtless happen at no distant date in france and italy will be a repetition of the congress at the hague. when the trade-union movement actually develops into a powerful organization, it will be forced to throw off this incubus of the new anarchism. it is already thought that a majority of the french trade unionists oppose the anarchist tendencies of the clique in control, and certainly a number of the largest and most influential unions frankly class themselves as reformist syndicalists, in order to distinguish themselves from the revolutionary syndicalists. what will come of this division time only can tell. in any case, it is becoming clear even to the french unionists that direct action is not and cannot be, as guesde has pointed out, revolutionary action. it cannot transform our social system. it is destined to failure just as insurrection as a policy was destined to failure. rittinghausen said at basel in : "revolution, as a matter of fact, accomplishes nothing. if you are not able to formulate, after the revolution, by legislation, your legitimate demands, the revolution will perish miserably."[ ] this was true in , in , and even in the great french revolution itself. nothing would have seemed easier at the time of the french revolution than for the peasants to have directly possessed themselves of the land. they were using it. their houses were planted in the midst of it. their landlords in many cases had fled. yet kropotkin, in his story of "the great french revolution," relates that the redistribution of land awaited the action of parliament. to be sure, some of the peasants had taken the land, but they were not at all sure that it might not again be taken from them by some superior force. their rights were not defined, and there was such chaos in the entire situation that, in the end, the whole question had to be left to parliament. it was only after the action of the convention, june , , that the rights of ownership were defined. it was only then, as kropotkin says, that "everyone had a right to the land. it was a complete revolution."[ ] that the greatest of living anarchists should be forced to pay this tribute to the action of parliament is in itself an assurance. for masses in the time of revolution to grab whatever they desire is, after all, to constitute what jaurès calls a fictitious ownership. some legality is needed to establish possession and a sense of security, and, up to the present, only the political institutions of society have been able to do that. for this precise reason every social struggle and class struggle of the past has been a political struggle. there remains but one other fundamental question, which must be briefly examined. the syndicalists do not go back to owen as the founder of their philosophy. they constantly reiterate the claim that they alone to-day are marxists and that it is given to them to keep "pure and undefiled" the theories of that giant mind. they base their claim on the ground of marx's economic interpretation of history and especially upon his oft-repeated doctrine that upon the economic structure of society rises the juridical and political superstructure. they maintain that the political institutions are merely the reflex of economic conditions. alter the economic basis of society, and the political structure must adjust itself to the new conditions. as a result of this truly marxian reasoning, they assert that the revolutionary movement must pursue solely economic aims and disregard totally the existing and, to their minds, superfluous political relations. they accuse the socialists of a contradiction. claiming to be marxists and basing their program upon the economic interpretation of history, the socialists waste their energies in trying to modify the results instead of obliterating the causes. political institutions are parasitical. why, therefore, ignore economic foundations and waste effort remodeling the parasitical superstructure? there _is_ a contradiction here, but not on the part of the socialists. proudhon was entirely consistent when he asked: "can we not administer our goods, keep our accounts, arrange our differences, look after our common interests?"[ ] and, moreover, he was consistent when he declared: "i want you to make the very institutions which i charge you to abolish, ... so that the new society shall appear as the spontaneous, natural, and necessary development of the old."[ ] if that were once done the dissolution of government would follow, as he says, in a way about which one can at present make only guesses. but proudhon urged his followers to establish coöperative banks, coöperative industries, and a variety of voluntary industrial enterprises, in order eventually to possess themselves of the means of production. if the working class, through its own coöperative efforts, could once acquire the ownership of industry, if they could thus expropriate the present owners and gradually come into the ownership of all natural resources and all means of production--in a word, of all social capital--they would not need to bother themselves with the state. if, in possessing themselves thus of all economic power, they were also to neglect the state, its machinery would, of course, tumble into uselessness and eventually disappear. as the great capitalists to-day make laws through the stock exchange, through their chambers of commerce, through their pools and combinations, so the working class could do likewise if they were in possession of industry. but the working class to-day has no real economic power. it has no participation in the ownership of industry. it is claimed that it might withdraw its labor power and in this manner break down the entire economic system. it is urged that labor alone is absolutely necessary to production and that if, in a great general strike, it should cease production, the whole of society would be forced to capitulate. and in theory this seems unassailable, but actually it has no force whatever. in the first place, this economic power does not exist unless the workers are organized and are practically unanimous in their action. furthermore, the economic position of the workers is one of utter helplessness at the time of a universal strike, in that they cannot feed themselves. as they are the nearest of all classes to starvation, they will be the first to suffer by a stoppage of work. there is still another vital weakness in this so-called economic theory. the battles that result from a general strike will not be on the industrial field. they will be battles between the armed agents of the state and unarmed masses of hungry men. whatever economic power the workers are said to possess would, in that case, avail them little, for the results of their struggles would depend upon the military power which they would be able to manifest. the individual worker has no economic power, nor has the minority, and it may even be questioned if the withdrawal of all the organized workers could bring society to its knees. multitudes of the small propertied classes, of farmers, of police, of militiamen, and of others would immediately rush to the defense of society in the time of such peril. it is only the working class theoretically conceived of as a conscious unit and as practically unanimous in its revolutionary aims, in its methods, and in its revolt which can be considered as the ultimate economic power of modern society. the day of such a conscious and enlightened solidarity is, however, so far distant that the syndicalism which is based upon it falls of itself into a fantastic dream. footnotes: [w] his words are: "what is the general confederation of labor, if not the continuation of the international?" _documents et souvenirs_, vol. iv, p. vii. [x] in justice to the french unions it must be said that a large number, probably a considerable majority, do not share these views. the views of the latter are almost identical with those of the american and english unions; but at present the new anarchists are in the saddle, although their power appears to be waning. [y] see pp. , , _supra_. [z] see p. , _supra_. [aa] i have not dealt in this chapter with the industrial workers of the world, which is the american representative of syndicalist ideas. first, because the american organization has developed no theories of importance. their chief work has been to popularize some of the french ideas. second, because the i. w. w. has not yet won for itself a place in the labor movement. it has done much agitation, but as yet no organization to speak of. furthermore, there is great confusion of ideas among the various factions and elements, and it would be difficult to state views which are held in common by all of them. it should be said, however, that all the american syndicalists have emphasized industrial unionism, that is to say, organization by industries instead of by crafts--an idea that the french lay no stress upon. [ab] at the sixth international conference of the national trade union centers, held in paris, , the french syndicalists endeavored to persuade the trade unions to hold periodical international trade-union congresses that would rival the international socialist congresses. the proposition was so strongly opposed by all countries except france that the motion was withdrawn. [ac] the comments are by plechanoff.[ ] [ad] it should, however, be pointed out that the german social democrats voted at first against the state ownership of railroads, because it was considered a military measure. [ae] the committee on the general strike of the french confederation said despairingly in : "the idea of the general strike is sufficiently understood to-day. in repeatedly putting off the date of its coming, we risk discrediting it forever by enervating the revolutionary energies." quoted by levine, "the labor movement in france," p. . chapter xi the oldest anarchism it is perhaps just as well to begin this chapter by reminding ourselves that anarchy means literally no government. consequently, there will be no laws. "i am ready to make terms, but i will have no laws," said proudhon; adding, "i acknowledge none."[ ] however revolutionary this may seem, it is, after all, not so very unlike what has always existed in the affairs of men. without the philosophy of the idealist anarchist, with no pretense of justice or "nonsense" about equality, there have always been in this old world of ours those powerful enough to make and to break law, to brush aside the state and any and every other hindrance that stood in their path. "laws are like spiders' webs," said anacharsis, "and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them." he might have said, with equal truth, that, with or without laws, the rich and powerful have been able in the past to do very much as they pleased. for the poor and the weak there have always been, to be sure, hard and fast rules that they could not break through. but the rich and powerful have always managed to live more or less above the state or, at least, so to dominate the state that to all intents and purposes, other than their own, it did not exist. when bakounin wrote his startling and now famous decree abolishing the state, he created no end of hilarity among the marxists, but had bakounin been napoleon with his mighty army, or morgan and rockefeller with their great wealth, he could no doubt in some measure have carried out his wish. without, however, either wealth or numbers behind him, bakounin preached a polity that, up to the present, only the rich and powerful have been able even partly to achieve. the anarchy of proudhon was visionary, humanitarian, and idealistic. at least he thought he was striving for a more humane social order than that of the present. but this older anarchism is as ancient as tyranny, and never at any moment has it ceased to menace human civilization. based on a real mastery over the industrial and political institutions of mankind, this actual anarchy has never for long allowed the law, the constitution, the state, or the flag to obstruct its path or thwart its avarice. moreover, under the anarchism proposed by proudhon and bakounin, the maintenance of property rights, public order, and personal security would be left to voluntary effort, that is to say, to private enterprise. as all things would be decided by mutual agreement, the only law would be a law of contracts, and that law would need to be enforced either by associations formed for that purpose or by professionals privately employed for that purpose. so far as one can see, then, the methods of the feudal lords would be revived, by which they hired their own personal armies or went shares in the spoils with their bandits, buccaneers, and assassins. by organizing their own military forces and maintaining them in comfort, they were able to rob, burn, and murder, in order to protect the wealth and power they had, or to gain more wealth and power. for them there was no law but that of a superior fighting force. there was an infinite variety of customs and traditions that were in the nature of laws, but even these were seldom allowed to stand in the way of those who coveted, and were strong enough to take, the land, the money, or the produce of others. indeed, the feudal duke or prince was all that nechayeff claimed for the modern robber. he was a glorified anarchist, "without phrase, without rhetoric." he could scour europe for mercenaries, and, when he possessed himself of an army of marauders, he became a law unto himself. the most ancient and honorable anarchy is despotism, and its most effective and available means of domination have always been the employment of its own personal military forces. it will be remembered that bakounin developed a kind of robber worship. the bandit leaders stenka razin and pougatchoff appeared to him as national heroes, popular avengers, and irreconcilable enemies of the state. he conceived of the brigands scattered throughout russia and confined in the prisons of the empire as "a unique and indivisible world, strongly bound together--the world of the russian revolution." the robber was "the wrestler in life and in death against all this civilization of officials, of nobles, of priests, and of the crown." of course, bakounin says here much that is historically true. thieves, marauders, highwaymen, bandits, brigands, villains, mendicants, and all those other elements of mediæval life for whom society provided neither land nor occupation, often organized themselves into guerilla bands in order to war upon all social and civil order. but bakounin neglects to mention that it was these very elements that eagerly became the mercenaries of any prince who could feed them. they were lawless, "without phrase, without rhetoric," and, if anyone were willing to pay them, they would gladly pillage, burn, and murder in his interest. they would have served anybody or anything--the state, society, a prince, or a tyrant. they had no scruples and no philosophies. they were in the market to be bought by anyone who wanted a choice brand of assassins. and the feudal duke or prince bought, fed, and cared for these "veritable and unique revolutionists," in order to have them ready for service in his work of robbery and murder. to be sure, when these marauders had no employer they were dangerous, because then they committed crimes and outrages on their own hook. but the vast majority of them were hirelings, and many of them achieved fame for the bravery of their exploits in the service of the dukes, the princes, and the priests of that time. there were even guilds of mercenaries, such as the _condottieri_ of italy; and the swiss were famous for their superior service. they were, it seems, revolutionists in bakounin's use of the term, and every prince knew "no money, no swiss" ("_point d'argent, point de suisse_"). a very slight acquaintance with history teaches us that this anarchy has been checked and that the history of recent times consists largely of the struggles of the masses to harness and subdue this anarchy of the powerful. and perhaps the most notable step in that direction was that development of the state which took away the right of the nobles to employ and maintain their own private armies. in england, policing by the state began as late as , when sir robert peel passed the law establishing the metropolitan force in london, and these agents of order are even now called "bobbies" and "peelers," in memory of him. throughout all europe the military, naval, and police forces are to-day in the hands of the state. we have, then, in contradistinction to the old anarchy, the state maintenance of law and order, and of protection to life and property. even in russia the coercive forces are under the control of the government, and nowhere are individuals--be they grand dukes or princes--allowed to employ their own military forces. when trouble arises without, it is the state that calls together its armed men for aggression or for defense. when trouble arises within--such as strikes, riots, and insurrections--it is the state that is supposed to deal with them. individuals, no matter how powerful, are not to-day permitted to organize armies to invade a foreign land, to subdue its people, and to wrest from them their property. in the case of uprisings within a country, the individual is not allowed to raise his armies, subdue the troublesome elements, and make himself master. within the last few centuries the state has thus gradually drawn to itself the powers of repression, of coercion, and of aggression, and it is the state alone that is to-day allowed to maintain military forces. at any rate, this is true of all civilized countries except the united states. this is the only modern state wherein coercive military powers are still wielded by individuals. in the united states it is still possible for rich and powerful individuals or for corporations to employ their own bands of armed men. if any legislator were to propose a law allowing any man or group of men to have their own private battleships and to organize their own private navies and armies, or if anyone suggested the turning over of the coercive powers of the state to private enterprise, the masses would rise in rebellion against the project. no congressman would, of course, venture to suggest such a law, and few individuals would undertake to defend such a plan. yet the fact is that now, without legal authority, private armies may be employed and are indeed actually employed in the united states. in the most stealthy and insidious manner there has grown up within the last fifty years an extensive and profitable commerce for supplying to the lords of finance their own private police. and the strange fact appears that the newest, and supposedly the least feudal, country is to-day the only country that allows the oldest anarchists to keep in their hands the power to arm their own mercenaries and, in the words of an eminent justice, to expose "the lives of citizens to the murderous assaults of hireling assassins."[ ] it is with these "hireling assassins," who, for the convenience of the wealthy, are now supplied by a great network of agencies, that we shall chiefly concern ourselves in this chapter. we must here leave europe, since it is in the united states alone that the workings of this barbarous commerce in anarchy can be observed. robert a. pinkerton was the originator of a system of extra-legal police agents that has gradually grown to be one of the chief commercial enterprises of the country. according to his own testimony,[ ] he began in to supply armed men to the owners of large industries, and ever since his firm has carried on a profitable business in that field. envious of his prosperity, other individuals have formed rival agencies, and to-day there exist in the united states thousands of so-called detective bureaus where armed men can be employed to do the bidding of any wealthy individual. while, no doubt, there are agencies that conduct a thoroughly legitimate business, there are unquestionably numerous agencies in this country where one may employ thugs, thieves, incendiaries, dynamiters, perjurers, jury-fixers, manufacturers of evidence, strike-breakers and murderers. a regularly established commerce exists, which enables a rich man, without great difficulty or peril, to hire abandoned criminals, who, for certain prices, will undertake to execute any crime. if one can afford it, one may have always at hand a body of highwaymen or a small private army. such a commerce as this was no doubt necessary and proper in the middle ages and would no doubt be necessary and proper in a state of anarchy, but when individuals are allowed to employ private police, armies, thugs, and assassins in a country which possesses a regularly established state, courts, laws, military forces, and police the traffic constitutes a menace as alarming as the black hand, the camorra, or the mafia. the story of these hired terrorists and of this ancient anarchy revived surpasses in cold-blooded criminality any other thing known in modern history. that rich and powerful patrons should be allowed to purchase in the market poor and desperate criminals eager to commit any crime on the calendar for a few dollars, is one of the most amazing and incredible anachronisms of a too self-complaisant republic. for some reason not wholly obscure the american people generally have been kept in such ignorance of the facts of this commerce that few even dream that it exists. and i am fully conscious of the need for proof in support of what to many must appear to be unwarranted assertions. indeed, it is rare to find anyone who suspects the character of the private detective. the general impression seems to be that he performs a very useful and necessary service, that the profession is an honorable one, and that the mass of detectives have only one ambition in life, and that is to ferret out the criminal and to bring him to justice. to denounce detectives as a class appears to most persons as absurdly unreasonable. to speak of them with contempt is to convey the impression that detectives stand in the way of some evil schemes of their detractor. fiction of a peculiarly american sort has built up among the people an exalted conception of the sleuth. and it must appear with rather a shock to those persons who have thus idealized the detective to learn that thousands of men who have been in the penitentiaries are constantly in the employ of the detective agencies. in a society which makes it almost impossible for an ex-convict to earn an honorable living it is no wonder that many of them grasp eagerly at positions offered them as "strike-breakers" and as "special officers." the first and most important thing, then, in this chapter is to prove, with perhaps undue detail, the ancient saying that "you must be a thief to catch a thief," and that possibly for that proverbial reason many private detectives are schooled and practiced in crime. so far as i know, the first serious attempt to inform the general public of the real character of american detectives and to tell of their extensive traffic in criminality was made by a british detective, who, after having been stationed in america for several years, was impelled to make public the alarming conditions which he found. this was thomas beet, the american representative of the famous john conquest, ex-chief inspector of scotland yard, who, in a public statement, declared his astonishment that "few ... recognize in them [detective agencies] an evil which is rapidly becoming a vital menace to american society. ostensibly conducted for the repression and punishment of crime, they are in fact veritable hotbeds of corruption, trafficking upon the honor and sacred confidences of their patrons and the credulity of the public, and leaving in their wake an aftermath of disgrace, disaster, and even death."[ ] he pointed out the odium that must inevitably attach itself to the very name "private detective," unless society awakens and protects in some manner the honest members of the profession. "it may seem a sweeping statement," he says, "but i am morally convinced that fully ninety per cent. of the private detective establishments, masquerading in whatever form, are rotten to the core and simply exist and thrive upon a foundation of dishonesty, deceit, conspiracy, and treachery to the public in general and their own patrons in particular."[ ] the statements of thomas beet are, however, not all of this general character, and he specifically says: "i know that there are detectives at the head of prominent agencies in this country whose pictures adorn the rogues' gallery; men who have served time in various prisons for almost every crime on the calendar.... thugs and thieves and criminals don the badge and outward semblance of the honest private detective in order that they may prey upon society.... private detectives such as i have described do not, as a usual thing, go out to learn facts, but rather to make, at all costs, the evidence desired by the patron."[ ] he shows the methods of trickery and deceit by which these detectives blackmail the wealthy, and the various means they employ for convicting any man, no matter how innocent, of any crime. "we shudder when we hear of the system of espionage maintained in russia," he adds, "while in the great american cities, unnoticed, are organizations of spies and informers."[ ] it is interesting to get the views of an impartial and expert observer upon this rapidly growing commerce in espionage, blackmail, and assault, and no less interesting is the opinion of the most notable american detective, william j. burns, on the character of these men. speaking of detectives he declared that, "as a class, they are the biggest lot of blackmailing thieves that ever went unwhipped of justice."[ ] only a short time before burns made this remark the late magistrate henry steinert, according to reports in the new york press, grew very indignant in his court over the shooting of a young lad by these private officers. "i think it an outrage," he declared, "that the police commissioner is enabled to furnish police power to these special officers, many of them thugs, men out of work, some of whom would commit murder for two dollars. most of the arrests which have been made by these men have been absolutely unwarranted. in nearly every case one of these special officers had first pushed a gun into the prisoner's face. the shooting last night when a boy was killed shows the result of giving power to such men. it is a shame and a disgrace to the police department of the city that such conditions are allowed to exist."[ ] anyone who will take the time to search through the testimony gathered by various governmental commissions will find an abundance of evidence indicating that many of these special officers and private detectives are in reality thugs and criminals. as long ago as an inquiry was made into the character of the men who were sent to deal with a strike at homestead, pennsylvania. a well-known witness testified: "we find that one is accused of wife-murder, four of burglary, two of wife-beating, and one of arson."[ ] a thoroughly reliable and responsible detective, who had been in the united states secret service, also gave damaging testimony. "they were the scum of the earth.... there is not one out of ten that would not commit murder; that you could not hire him to commit murder or any other crime." furthermore, he declared, "i would not believe any detective under oath without his evidence was corroborated." he spoke of ex-convicts being employed, and alleged that the manager of one of the large agencies "was run out of cincinnati for blackmail."[ ] similar statements were made by another detective, named le vin, to the industrial commission of the united states when it was investigating the chicago labor troubles of . he declared that the contractors' association of chicago had come to him repeatedly to employ sluggers, and that on one occasion the employers had told him to put winchesters in the hands of his men and to manage somehow to get into a fight with the pickets and the strikers. the commission, evidently surprised at this testimony, asked mr. le vin whether it was possible to hire detectives to beat up men. his answer was: "you cannot hire every man to do it." "q. 'but can they hire men?' a. 'yes, they could hire men.' "q. 'from other private detective agencies?' a. 'unfortunately, from some, yes.'"[ ] in the hearing before a subcommittee of the committee on the judiciary, united states senate, august , , lengthy testimony was given concerning a series of two hundred assaults that had been made upon the union molders of milwaukee during a strike in . one of the leaders of the union was killed, while others were brutally attacked by thugs in the employ of a chicago detective agency. a serious investigation was begun by attorney w. b. rubin, acting for the molders' union, and in court the evidence clearly proved that the chicago detective agency employed ex-convicts and other criminals for the purposes of slugging, shooting, and even killing union men. when some of these detectives were arrested they testified that they had acted under strict instructions. they had been sent out to beat up certain men. sometimes these men were pointed out to them, at other times they were given the names of the men that were to be slugged. they told the amounts that they had been paid, of the lead pipe, two feet long, which they had used for the assault, and of the fact that they were all armed. there was also testimony given that nearly twenty-two thousand dollars had been paid by one firm to this one detective agency for services of this character. it was also shown that immediately after the assaults were committed the thugs were, if possible, shipped out of town for a few days; but, if they were arrested, they were defended by able attorneys and their fines paid. although many assaults were committed where no arrests could be made, over forty "detectives" were actually arrested, and, when brought into court, were found guilty of crimes ranging from disturbing the peace and carrying concealed weapons to aggravated assault and shooting with intent to kill. many of these detectives convicted in milwaukee had been previously convicted of similar crimes committed in other cities. although some of them had long criminal records, they were, nevertheless, regularly in the employ of the detective agency. it appeared in one trial that one of the men employed was very much incensed when he saw three of his associates attack a union molder with clubs, knocking him down and beating him severely. with indignation he protested against the outrage. when the head of the agency heard of this the man was discharged. the court records also show that the head of the detective agency had gone himself to chicago to secure two men to undertake what proved to be a fatal assault upon a trade-union leader named peter j. cramer. when arrested and brought into court they testified that they received twenty dollars per day for their services. equally direct and positive evidence concerning the character of the men supplied by detective agencies for strike-breaking and other purposes is found in the annual report of the chicago & great western railway for the period ending in the spring of the year . "to man the shops and roundhouses," says the report, "the company was compelled to resort to professional strike-breakers, a class of men who are willing to work during the excitement and dangers of personal injury which attend strikes, but who refuse to work longer than the excitement and dangers last.... perhaps ten per cent. of the first lot of strike-breakers were fairly good mechanics, but fully per cent, knew nothing about machinery, and had to be gotten rid of. to get rid of such men, however, is easier said than done. "the first batch which was discharged, consisting of about men, refused to leave the barricade, made themselves a barricade within the company's barricade, and, producing guns and knives, refused to budge. the company's fighting men, after a day or two, forced them out of the barricade and into a special train, which carried them under guard to chicago." here was one gang of hired criminals, "the company's fighting men," called into service to fight another gang, the company's strike-breakers. the character of these "detectives," as testified to in this case by the employers, appears to have been about the same as that of those described by "kid" hogan, who, after an experience as a strike-breaker, told the new york sunday _world_: "there was the finest bunch of crooks and grafters working as strike-breakers in those american express company strikes you would ever want to see. i was one of 'em and know what i am talking about. that gang of grafters cost the express company a pile of money. why, they used to start trouble themselves just to keep their jobs a-going and to get a chance to swipe stuff off the wagons. "it was the same way down at philadelphia on the street car strike. those strike-breakers used to get a car out somewhere in the suburbs and then get off and smash up the windows, tip the car over, and put up an awful holler about being attacked by strikers, just so they'd have to be kept on the job."[ ] thus we see that some american "detective" agencies have many and varied trades. but they not only supply strike-breakers, perjurers, spies, and even assassins, they have also been successful in making an utter farce of trial by jury. it appears that even some of the best known american detectives are not above the packing of a jury. at least, such was the startling charge made by attorney-general george w. wickersham, may , . in the report to president taft mr. wickersham accused the head of one of the chief detective agencies of the country of fixing a jury in california. the agents of this detective, with the coöperation of the clerk of the court, investigated the names of proposed jurors. in order to be sure of getting a jury that would convict, the record of each individual was carefully gone into and a report handed to the prosecuting attorneys. some of the comments on the jurors follow: "convictor from the word go." "socialist. anti-mitchell." "convictor from the word go; just read the indictment. populist." "think he is a populist. if so, convictor. good, reliable man." "convictor. democrat. hates hermann." "hidebound democrat. not apt to see any good in a republican." "would be apt to be for conviction." "he is apt to wish mitchell hung. think he would be a fair juror." "would be likely to convict any republican politician." "convictor." "would convict christ." "convict christ. populist." "convict anyone. democrat."[ ] this great detective even had the audacity, it seems, to telegraph william scott smith, at that time secretary to the hon. e. a. hitchcock, the secretary of the interior: "jury commissioners cleaned out old box from which trial jurors were selected and put in names, _every one of which was investigated before they were placed in the box. this confidential._"[ ] it is impossible to reproduce here some of the language of this great detective. the foul manner in which he comments upon the character of the jurors is altogether worthy of his vocation. that, however, is unimportant compared to the more serious fact that a well-paid detective can so pervert trial by jury that it would "convict christ." i shall be excused in a matter so devastating to republican institutions as this if i quote further from the disclosures of thomas beet: "there is another phase," he says, "of the private detective evil which has worked untold damage in america. this is the private constabulary system by which armed forces are employed during labor troubles. it is a condition akin to the feudal system of warfare, when private interests can employ troops of mercenaries to wage war at their command. ostensibly, these armed private detectives are hurried to the scene of the trouble to maintain order and prevent destruction of property, although this work always should be left to the official guardians of the peace. that there is a sinister motive back of the employment of these men has been shown time and again. have you ever followed the episodes of a great strike and noticed that most of the disorderly outbreaks were so guided as to work harm to the interests of the strikers?... private detectives, unsuspected in their guise of workmen, mingle with the strikers and by incendiary talk or action sometimes stir them up to violence. when the workmen will not participate, it is an easy matter to stir up the disorderly faction which is invariably attracted by a strike, although it has no connection therewith. "during a famous strike of car builders in a western city some years ago, ... to my knowledge much of the lawlessness was incited by private detectives, who led mobs in the destruction of property. in one of the greatest of our strikes, that involving the steel industry, over two thousand armed detectives were employed supposedly to protect property, while several hundred more were scattered in the ranks of strikers as workmen. many of the latter became officers in the labor bodies, helped to make laws for the organizations, made incendiary speeches, cast their votes for the most radical movements made by the strikers, participated in and led bodies of the members in the acts of lawlessness that eventually caused the sending of state troops and the declaration of martial law. while doing this, these spies within the ranks were making daily reports of the plans and purposes of the strikers. to my knowledge, when lawlessness was at its height and murder ran riot, these men wore little patches of white on the lapels of their coats that their fellow detectives of the 'two thousand' would not shoot them down by mistake.... in no other country in the world, with the exception of china, is it possible for an individual to surround himself with a standing army to do his bidding in defiance of law and order."[ ] that the assertions of thomas beet are well founded can, i think, be made perfectly clear by three tragic periods in the history of labor disputes in america. at homestead in , in the railway strikes of , and in colorado during the labor wars of - detectives were employed on a large scale. for reasons of space i shall limit myself largely to these cases, which, without exaggeration, are typical of conditions which constantly arise in the united states. within the last year west virginia has been added to the list. incredible outrages have been committed there by the mine guards. they have deliberately murdered men in some cases, and, on one dark night in february last, they sent an armored train into holly grove and opened fire with machine guns upon a sleeping village of miners. they have beaten, clubbed, and stabbed men and women in the effort either to infuriate them into open war, or to reduce them to abject slavery. unfortunately, at this time the complete report of the senate investigation has not been issued, and it seems better to confine these pages to those facts only that careful inquiry has proved unquestionable. we are fortunate in having the reports of public officials--certainly unbiased on the side of labor--to rely upon for the facts concerning the use of thugs and hirelings in pennsylvania, illinois, and colorado during three terrible battles between capital and labor. the story of the shooting of henry c. frick by alexander berkman is briefly referred to in the first chapter, but the events which led up to that shooting have well-nigh been forgotten. certainly, nothing could have created more bitterness among the working classes than the act of the carnegie steel company when it ordered a detective agency to send to homestead three hundred men armed with winchester rifles. there was the prospect of a strike, and it appears that the management was in no mood to parley with its employees, and that nineteen days before any trouble occurred the carnegie steel company opened negotiations for the employment of a private army. it had been the custom of the carnegie company to meet the representatives of the amalgamated association of iron and steel workers from time to time and at these conferences to agree upon wages. on june , , the agreement expired, and previous to that date the company announced a reduction of wages, declaring that the new scale would terminate in january instead of june. the employees rejected the proposed terms, principally on the ground that they could not afford to strike in midwinter and in that case they would not be able to resist a further reduction in wages. upon receiving this statement the company locked out its employees and the battle began. the steel works were surrounded by a fence three miles long, fifteen feet in height, and covered with barbed wire. it was called "fort frick," and the three hundred detectives were to be brought down the river by boat and landed in the fort. morris hillquit gives the following account of the pitched battle that occurred in the early morning hours of july : "as soon as the boat carrying the pinkertons was sighted by the pickets the alarm was sounded. the strikers were aroused from their sleep and within a few minutes the river front was covered with a crowd of coatless and hatless men armed with guns and rifles and grimly determined to prevent the landing of the pinkertons. the latter, however, did not seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation. they sought to intimidate the strikers by assuming a threatening attitude and aiming the muzzles of their shining revolvers at them. a moment of intense expectation followed. then a shot was fired from the boat and one of the strikers fell to the ground mortally wounded. a howl of fury and a volley of bullets came back from the line of the strikers, and a wild fusillade was opened on both sides. in vain did the strike leaders attempt to pacify the men and to stop the carnage--the strikers were beyond control. the struggle lasted several hours, after which the pinkertons retreated from the river bank and withdrew to the cabin of the boat. there they remained in the sweltering heat of the july sun without air or ventilation, under the continuing fire of the enraged men on the shore, until they finally surrendered. they were imprisoned by the strikers in a rink, and in the evening they were sent out of town by rail. the number of dead on both sides was twelve, and over twenty were seriously wounded."[ ] these events aroused the entire country, and the state of mind among the working people generally was exceedingly bitter. it was a tension that under certain circumstances might have provoked a civil war. both the senate and the house of representatives immediately appointed committees to inquire into this movement from state to state of armed men, and the employment by corporations of what amounted to a private army. it seems to have been clearly established that the employers wanted war, and that the attorney of the carnegie company had commanded the local sheriff to deputize a man named gray, who was to meet the mercenaries and make all of them deputy sheriffs. this plan to make the detectives "legal" assassins did not carry, and the result was that a band of paid thugs, thieves, and murderers invaded homestead and precipitated a bloody conflict. this was, of course, infamous, and, compared with its magnificent anarchy, berkman's assault was child-like in its simplicity. yet the enthusiastic and idealistic berkman spent seventeen years in prison and is still abhorred; while no one responsible for the murder of twelve workingmen and the wounding of twenty others, either among the mercenaries or their employers, has yet been apprehended or convicted. with such equality of justice do we treat these agents of the two anarchies! however, if berkman spent seventeen years in prison, the other anarchists were mildly rebuked by the committee of investigation appointed by the senate. "your committee is of the opinion," runs the report, "that the employment of the private armed guards at homestead was unnecessary. there is no evidence to show that the slightest damage was done, or attempted to be done, to property on the part of the strikers...."[ ] "it was claimed by the pinkerton agency that in all cases they require that their men shall be sworn in as deputy sheriffs, but it is a significant circumstance that in the only strike your committee made inquiry concerning--that at homestead--the fact was admitted on all hands that the armed men supplied by the pinkertons were not so sworn, and that as private citizens acting under the direction of such of their own men as were in command they fired upon the people of homestead, killing and wounding a number."[ ] "every man who testified, including the proprietors of the detective agencies, admitted that the workmen are strongly prejudiced against the so-called pinkertons, and that their presence at a strike serves to unduly inflame the passions of the strikers. the prejudice against them arises partly from the fact that they are frequently placed among workmen, in the disguise of mechanics, to report alleged conversations to their agencies, which, in turn, is transmitted to the employers of labor. your committee is impressed with the belief that this is an utterly vicious system, and that it is responsible for much of the ill-feeling and bad blood displayed by the working classes. no self-respecting laborer or mechanic likes to feel that the man beside him may be a spy from a detective agency, and especially so when the laboring man is utterly at the mercy of the detective, who can report whatever he pleases, be it true or false....[ ] whether assumedly legal or not, the employment of armed bodies of men for private purposes, either by employers or employees, is to be deprecated and should not be resorted to. such use of private armed men is an assumption of the state's authority by private citizens. if the state is incapable of protecting citizens in their rights of person and property, then anarchy is the result, and the original law of force should neither be approved, encouraged, nor tolerated until all known legal processes have failed."[ ] we must leave this black page in american history with such comfort as we can wring from the fact that the modern exponents of the oldest anarchy have been at least once rebuked, and with the further satisfaction that the homestead tragedy brought momentarily to the attention of the entire nation a practice which even at that time was a source of great alarm to many serious men. in the great strikes which occurred in the late eighties and early nineties there was a great deal of violence, and c. h. salmons, in his history of "the burlington strike" of , relates how private detectives systematically planned outrages that destroyed property and how others committed murder. a few cases were fought out in the courts with results very disconcerting to the railroads who had hired these private detectives. in the strike on the new york central railroad which occurred in many detectives were employed. they were, of course, armed, and, as a result of certain criminal operations undertaken by them, congress was asked to consider the drafting of a bill "to prevent corporations engaged in interstate-commerce traffic from employing unjustifiably large bodies of armed men denominated 'detectives,' but clothed with no legal functions."[ ] roger a. pryor, then justice of the supreme court of new york, vigorously protested against these "watchmen." "i mean," he said, "the enlistment of banded and armed mercenaries under the command of private detectives on the side of corporations in their conflicts with employees. the pretext for such an extraordinary measure is the protection of the corporate property; and surely the power of this great state is adequate to the preservation of the public order and security. at all events, in this particular instance, it was not pretended either that the strikers had invaded property or person, or that the police or militia in albany had betrayed reluctance or inability to cope with the situation. on the contrary, the facts are undisputed that the moment the men went out mr. pinkerton and his myrmidons appeared on the scene, and the police of albany declared their competency to repel any trespass on person or property. the executive of the state, too, denied any necessity for the presence of the military. "i do not impute to the railroad officials a purpose, without provocation, to precipitate their ruffians upon a defenseless and harmless throng of spectators; but the fact remains that the ruffians in their hire did shoot into the crowd without occasion, and did so shed innocent blood. and it is enough to condemn the system that it authorizes unofficial and irresponsible persons to usurp the most delicate and difficult functions of the state and exposes the lives of citizens to the murderous assaults of hireling assassins, stimulated to violence by panic or by the suggestion of employers to strike terror by an appalling exhibition of force. if the railroad company may enlist armed men to defend its property, the employees may enlist armed men to defend their persons, and thus private war be inaugurated, the authority of the state defied, the peace and tranquillity of society destroyed, and the citizens exposed to the hazard of indiscriminate slaughter."[ ] perhaps the most extensive use of these so-called detectives was at the time of the great railway strike of . the strike of the workers at pullman led to a general sympathetic strike on all the railroads entering chicago, and from may to july there was waged one of the greatest industrial battles in american history. a railway strike is always a serious matter, and in a short time the government came to the active support of the railroads. at one time over fourteen thousand soldiers, deputy marshals, deputy sheriffs, and policemen were on duty in chicago. during the period of the strike twelve persons were shot and fatally wounded. a number of riots occurred, cars were burned, and, as a result of the disturbances, no less than seven hundred persons were arrested, accused of murder, arson, burglary, assault, intimidation, riot, and other crimes. the most accurate information we have concerning conditions in chicago during the strike is to be found in the evidence which was taken by the united states strike commission appointed by president cleveland july , . there seems to be no doubt that during the early days of the strike perfect peace reigned in chicago. at the very beginning of the trouble three hundred strikers were detailed by the unions to guard the property of the pullman company from any interference or destruction. "it is in evidence, and uncontradicted," reports the commission, "that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or sympathizers took place at pullman."[ ] it also appears that no violence occurred in chicago in connection with the strike until after several thousand men were made united states deputy marshals. these "united states deputy marshals," says the commission, "to the number of , , were selected by and appointed at the request of the general managers' association, and of its railroads. they were armed and paid by the railroads."[ ] in other words, the united states government gave over its police power directly into the hands of one of the combatants. it allowed these private companies, through detective agencies, to collect as hastily as possible a great body of unemployed, to arm them, and to send them out as officials of the united states to do whatsoever was desired by the railroads. they were not under the control of the army or of responsible united states officials, and their intrusion into a situation so tense and critical as that then existing in chicago was certain to produce trouble. and the fact is, the lawlessness that prevailed in chicago during that strike began only after the appearance of these private "detectives." it will astonish the ordinary american citizen to read of the character of the men to whom the maintenance of law and order was entrusted. superintendent of police brennan referred to these deputy marshals in an official report to the council of chicago as "thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts," and in his testimony before the commission itself he said: "some of the deputy marshals who are now over in the county jail ... were arrested while deputy marshals for highway robbery."[ ] several newspaper men, when asked to testify regarding the character of these united states deputies, referred to them variously as "drunkards," "loafers," "bums," and "criminals." the now well-known journalist, ray stannard baker, was at that time reporting the strike for the _chicago record_. he was asked by commissioner carroll d. wright as to the character of the united states deputy marshals. his answer was: "from my experience with them i think it was very bad indeed. i saw more cases of drunkenness, i believe, among the united states deputy marshals than i did among the strikers."[ ] benjamin h. atwell, reporter for the _chicago news_, testified: "many of the marshals were men i had known around chicago as saloon characters.... the first day, i believe, after the troops arrived ... the deputy marshals went up into town and some of them got pretty drunk."[ ] malcomb mcdowell, reporter for the _chicago record_, testified that the deputy marshals and deputy sheriffs "were not the class of men who ought to be made deputy marshals or deputy sheriffs.... they seemed to be hunting trouble all the time.... at one time a serious row nearly resulted because some of the deputy marshals standing on the railroad track jeered at the women that passed and insulted them.... i saw more deputy sheriffs and deputy marshals drunk than i saw strikers drunk."[ ] harold i. cleveland, reporter for the _chicago herald_, testified: "i was ... on the western indiana tracks for fourteen days ... and i suppose i saw in that time a couple of hundred deputy marshals.... i think they were a very low, contemptible set of men."[ ] in mr. baker's testimony he speaks of seeing in one of the riots "a big, rough-looking fellow, whom the people called 'pat.'"[ ] he was the leader of the mob, and when the riot was over, "he mounted a beer keg in front of one of the saloons and advised men to go home, get their guns, and come out and fight the troops, fire on them.... the same man appeared two nights later at whiting, indiana, and made quite a disturbance there, roused the people up. in all that mob that had hold of the ropes i do not think there were many american railway union men. i think they were mostly roughs from chicago.... the police knew well enough all about this man i have mentioned who was the ringleader of the mob, but they did nothing and the deputy marshals were not any better."[ ] for some inscrutable reason, certain men, none of whom were railroad employees, were allowed openly to provoke violence. fortunately, however, they were not able to induce the actual strikers to participate in their assaults upon railroad property, and every newspaper man testified that the riots were, in the main, the work of the vicious elements of chicago. they were, said one witness, "all loafers, idlers, a petty class of criminals well known to the police."[ ] malcomb mcdowell testified concerning one riot which he had reported for the papers: "the men did not look like railroad men.... most of them were foreigners, and one of the men in the crowd told me afterward that he was a detective from st. louis. he gave me the name of the agency at the time."[ ] mr. eugene v. debs, the leader of that great strike, in a pamphlet entitled _the federal government and the chicago strike_, calls particular attention to the following declaration of the united states strike commission: "there is no evidence before the commission that the officers of the american railway union at any time participated in or advised intimidation, violence or destruction of property. _they knew and fully appreciated that, as soon as mobs ruled, the organized forces of society would crush the mobs and all responsible for them in the remotest degree, and that this means defeat._"[ ] commenting upon this statement, mr. debs asks: "to whose interest was it to have riots and fires, lawlessness and crime? to whose advantage was it to have disreputable 'deputies' do these things? why were only freight cars, largely hospital wrecks, set on fire? why have the railroads not yet recovered damages from cook county, illinois, for failing to protect their property?... the riots and incendiarism turned defeat into victory for the railroads. they could have won in no other way. they had everything to gain and the strikers everything to lose. the violence was instigated in spite of the strikers, and the report of the commission proves that they made every effort in their power to preserve the peace."[ ] this history is important in a study of the extensive system of subsidized violence that has grown up in america. nearly every witness before the commission testified that the strikers again and again gave the police valuable assistance in protecting the property of the railroads. no testimony was given that the workingmen advocated violence or that union men assisted in the riots. the ringleaders of all the serious outbreaks were notorious toughs from chicago's vicious sections, and they were allowed to go for days unmolested by the deputy marshals--who, although representatives of the united states government, were in the pay of the railroads. in fact, the evidence all points to the one conclusion, that the deputy marshals encouraged the violence of ruffians and tried to provoke the violence of decent men by insulting, drunken, and disreputable conduct. the strikers realized that violence was fatal to their cause, and the deputy marshals knew that violence meant victory for the railroads. and that proved to be the case. before leaving this phase of anarchy i want to refer as briefly as possible to that series of fiercely fought political and industrial battles that occurred in colorado in the period from to . the climax of the long-drawn-out battles there was perhaps the most unadulterated anarchy that has yet been seen in america. it was a terrorism of powerful and influential anarchists who frankly and brutally answered those who protested against their many violations of the united states constitution: "to hell with the constitution!"[ ] the story of these colorado battles is told in a report of an investigation made by the united states commissioner of labor ( ). the reading of that report leaves one with the impression that present-day society rests upon a volcano, which in favorable periods seems very harmless indeed, but, when certain elemental forces clash, it bursts forth in a manner that threatens with destruction civilization itself. the trouble in colorado began with the effort on the part of the miners' union to obtain through the legislature a law limiting the day's work to eight hours in all underground mines and in all work for reducing and refining ores. that was in . the next year an eight-hour bill was presented in the legislature. expressing fear that such a bill might be unconstitutional, the legislature, before acting upon it, asked the supreme court to render a decision. the supreme court replied that, in its opinion, such a bill would be unconstitutional. in , as a result of further agitation by the miners, an eight-hour law was enacted by the legislature--a large majority in both houses voting for the bill. by unanimous decision the same year the supreme court of colorado declared the statute unconstitutional. the miners were not, however, discouraged, and they began a movement to secure the adoption of a constitutional amendment which would provide for the enactment of an eight-hour law. all the political parties in the state of colorado pledged themselves in convention to support such a measure. in the general election of the constitutional amendment providing for an eight-hour day was adopted by the people of the state by , votes against , . this was a great victory for the miners, and it seemed as if their work was done. according to all the traditions and pretensions of political life, they had every reason to believe that the next session of the legislature would pass an eight-hour law. it appears, however, that the corporations had determined at all cost to defeat such a bill. they set out therefore to corrupt wholesale the legislature, and as a result the eight-hour bill was defeated. after having done everything in their power, patiently, peacefully, and legally to obtain their law, and only after having been outrageously betrayed by corrupt public servants, the miners as a last resort, on the d of july, , declared a strike to secure through their own efforts what a decade of pleading and prayers had failed to achieve. i suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question that the political machines of colorado had sold themselves body and soul to the mine owners. there can surely be no other explanation for their violation of their pledges to the people and to the miners. and further evidence of their perfidy was given on the night of september , , at a conference between some of the state officials and certain officers of the mine owners' association. although the strike up to this time had been conducted without any violence, the state officials agreed that the mine owners could have the aid of the militia, provided they would pay the expenses of the soldiers while they remained in the strike district. two days later over one thousand men were encamped in cripple creek. all the strike districts were at once put under martial law; the duly elected officials of the people were commanded to resign from office; hundreds of unoffending citizens were arrested and thrown into "bull pens"; the whole working force of a newspaper was apprehended and taken to the "bull pen"; all the news that went out concerning the strike was censored, the manager of one of the mines acting as official censor. at the same time this man, together with other mine managers and friends, organized mobs to terrorize union miners and to force out of town anyone whom they thought to be in sympathy with the strikers. in the effort to determine whether the courts or the military powers were supreme, a writ of _habeas corpus_ was obtained for four men who had been sent by the military authorities to the "bull pen." the court sent an order to produce the men. ninety cavalrymen were then sent to the court house. they surrounded it, permitting no person to pass through the lines unless he was an officer of the court, a member of the bar, a county official, or a press representative. a company of infantrymen then escorted the four prisoners to the court, while fourteen soldiers with loaded guns and fixed bayonets guarded the prisoners until the court was called to order. when the court was adjourned, after an argument upon the motion to quash the return of the writ, the soldiers took the prisoners back to the "bull pen." the next day judge seeds was forced to adjourn the court, because the prisoners were not present. an officer of the militia was ordered to have them in court at two o'clock in the afternoon, but, as they did not appear at that time, a continuance was granted until the following day. on september a large number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, surrounded the court house. a gatling gun was placed in position nearby, and a detail of sharpshooters was stationed where they could command the streets. the court, in the face of this military display, cited the constitution of colorado, which declares that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil power, and pointed out that this did not specify sometimes but always, declaring: "there could be no plainer statement that the military should never be permitted to rise superior to the civil power within the limits of colorado."[ ] the judge then ordered the military authorities to release the prisoners, but this they refused to do. at victor certain mine owners commanded the sheriff to come to their club rooms, where his resignation was demanded. when he refused to resign, guns were produced, a coiled rope was dangled before him, and on the outside several shots were fired. he was told that unless he resigned the mob outside the building would be admitted and he would be taken out and hanged. he then signed a written resignation, and a member of the mine owners' association was appointed sheriff. with this new sheriff in charge, the mine owners, mine managers, and all they could employ for the purpose arrested on all hands everybody that seemed unfriendly to their anarchy. the new sheriff and a militia officer commanded the portland mine, which was then having no trouble with its employees, to shut down. by this order four hundred and seventy-five men were thrown out of employment. in these various ways the mobs organized by the mine owners were allowed to obliterate the government and abolish republican institutions, under the immediate protection of their leased military forces. at telluride, also, the military overpowered the civil authorities. when judge theron stevens came there to hold the regular session of court he was met by soldiers and a mob of three hundred persons. seeing that it was impossible for the civil authorities to exercise any power, he decided to adjourn the court until the next term, declaring: "the demonstration at the depot last night upon the arrival of the train could only have been planned and executed for the purpose of showing the contempt of the militia and a certain portion of this community for the civil authority of the state and the civil authority of this district. i had always been led to suppose from such research as i have been able to make that in a republic like ours the people were supreme; that the people had expressed their will in a constitution which was enacted for the government of all in authority in this state. that constitution provides that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil authorities."[ ] while this terrorism of the powerful was in full sway in colorado, the entire world was being told through the newspapers of the infamous crimes being committed daily by the western federation of miners. countless newspaper stories were sent out telling in detail of mines blown up, of trains wrecked, of men murdered through agents of this federation of toilers engaged day in and day out at a dangerous occupation in the bowels of the earth. not loafers, idlers, or drunkards, but men with calloused hands and bent backs. stories were sent around the world of these laborers being arraigned in court charged with the most infamous and dastardly crimes. yet hardly once has it been reported in the press of the world that in "every trial that has been held in the state of colorado during the present strike where the membership has been charged with almost every perfidy in the catalogue of crime, a jury has brought in a verdict of acquittal."[ ] on the other hand, a multitude of murders, wrecks, and dynamite explosions have been brought to the door of the detectives employed by the mine owners' association. it was found that many ex-convicts and other desperate characters were employed by the detective agencies to commit crimes that could be laid upon the working miners. the story of orchard and the recital of his atrocious crimes have occupied columns of every newspaper, but the fact is rarely mentioned that many of the crimes that he committed, and which the world to-day attributes to the officials of the western federation of miners, were paid for by detective agencies. the special detective of one of the railroads and a detective of the mine owners' association were known to have employed orchard and other criminals. when orchard first went to denver to seek work from the officials of the western federation of miners he was given a railroad pass by these detectives and the money to pay his expenses.[ ] during the three months preceding the blowing up of the independence depot orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the mine owners' association, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the railroad detective already mentioned. previous to all this--in september and in november, --attempts were made to wreck trains. a delinquent member of the western federation of miners was charged with these crimes. he involved in his confession several prominent members of the western federation of miners. on cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter and that he had come to cripple creek under an assumed name. he further testified that $ was his price for wrecking a train carrying two hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $ for this job, as another man would have to work with him. two detectives had promised him that amount. an associate of this man was discovered to have been a detective who had later joined the western federation of miners. he testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as to the progress of the plot to derail the train. the detective of the mine owners' association admitted that he and the other detectives had endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work pulling the spikes from the rails. an engineer on the florence and cripple creek railroad testified that the railroad detective had, a few days before, asked him where there was a good place for wrecking the train. the result of the case was that all were acquitted except the ex-prize-fighter, who was held for a time, but eventually released on $ bond, furnished by representatives of the mine owners.[ ] on june , , when about twenty-five non-union miners were waiting at the independence depot for a train, there was a terrible explosion which resulted in great loss of life. it has never been discovered who committed the crime, though the mine owners lost no time in attributing the explosion to the work of "the assassins" of the federation of miners. when, however, bloodhounds were put on the trail, they went directly to the home of one of the detectives in the employ of the mine owners' association. they were taken back to the scene of the disaster and again followed the trail to the same place. a third attempt was made with the hounds and they followed a trail to the powder magazine of a nearby mine. the western federation of miners offered a reward of $ , for evidence which would lead to the arrest and conviction of the criminal who had perpetrated the outrage at independence. unfortunately, the criminal was never found. orchard, a year or so later, confessed that he had committed the crime and was paid for it by the officials of the western federation of miners. the absurdity of that statement becomes clear when it is known that the court in denver was at the very moment of the explosion deciding the _habeas corpus_ case of moyer, president of the western federation of miners. in fact, a few hours after the explosion the decision of the court was handed down. as the action of the court was vital not only to moyer but to the entire trade-union movement, and, indeed, to republican institutions, it is inconceivable that he or his friends should have organized an outrage that would certainly have prejudiced the court at the very moment it was writing its decision. on the other hand, there was every reason why the mine owners should have profited by such an outrage and that their detectives should have planned one for that moment.[af] the atrocities of the congo occurred in a country without law, in the interest of a great property, and in a series of battles with a half-savage people. history has somewhat accustomed us to such barbarity; but when, in a civilized country, with a written constitution, with duly established courts, with popularly elected representatives, and apparently with all the necessary machinery for dealing out equal justice, one suddenly sees a feudal despotism arise, as if by magic, to usurp the political, judicial, and military powers of a great state, and to use them to arrest hundreds without warrant and throw them into "bull pens"; to drive hundreds of others out of their homes and at the point of the bayonet out of the state; to force others to labor against their will or to be beaten; to depose the duly elected officials of the community; to insult the courts; to destroy the property of those who protest; and even to murder those who show signs of revolt--one stands aghast. it makes one wonder just how far in reality we are removed from barbarism. is it possible that the likelihood of the workers achieving an eight-hour day--which was all that was wanted in colorado--could lead to civil war? yet that is what might and perhaps should have happened in colorado in , when, for a few months, a military despotism took from the people there all that had been won by centuries of democratic striving and thrust them back into the middle ages. chaotic political and industrial conditions are, of course, occasionally inevitable in modern society--torn as it is by the very bitter struggle going on constantly between capital and labor. when this struggle breaks into war, as it often does, we are bound to suffer some of the evils that invariably attend war. certainly, it is to be expected that the owners of property will exercise every power they possess to safeguard their property. they will, whenever possible, use the state and all its coercive powers in order to retain their mastery over men and things. the only question is this, must people in general continue to be the victims of a commerce which has for its purpose the creation of situations that force nearly every industrial dispute to become a bloody conflict? when men combine to commit depredations, destroy property, and murder individuals, society must deal with them--no matter how harshly. but it is an altogether different matter to permit privately paid criminals to create whenever desired a state of anarchy, in order to force the military to carry out ferocious measures of repression against those who have been in no wise responsible for disorder. if we will look into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. it is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. one very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime."[ ] kropotkin himself, in telling the story of "the terror in russia," points out that a certain azeff, who for sixteen years was an agent of the russian police, was also the chief organizer of acts of terrorism among the social revolutionists.[ ] every conceivable crime was committed under his direct instigation, including even the murder of some officials and nobles. the purpose of the work of this police agent was, of course, to serve the russian reactionaries and to furnish them a pretext and excuse for the most bloody measures of repression. in america "hireling assassins," ex-convicts, and thugs in the employ of detective agencies commit very much the same crimes for the same purpose. and the men on strike, who have neither planned nor dreamed of planning an outrage, suddenly find themselves faced by the military forces, who have not infrequently in the past shot them down. that the lawless situations which make these infamous acts possible, and to the general public often excusable, are the deliberate work of mercenaries, is, to my mind, open to no question whatever. anyone who cares to look up the history of the labor movement for the last hundred years will find that in every great strike private detectives and police agents have been at work provoking violence. it is almost incredible what a large number of criminal operations can be traced to these paid agents. from to the present day the bitterness of nearly every industrial conflict of importance has been intensified by the work of these spies, thugs, and _provocateurs_. "it was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes--distracting, misleading, and betraying--that physical force was mentioned among us," says bamford, speaking of the trade-union activity of - . "after that our moral power waned, and what we gained by the accession of demagogues we lost by their criminal violence and the estrangement of real friends."[ ] some of the notable police agents that appear in the history of labor are powell, mitchell, legg, stieber, greif, fleury, baron von ungern-sternberg, schroeder-brennwald, krueger, kaufmann, peukert, haupt, von ehrenberg, friedeman, weiss, schmidt, and ihring-mahlow. in addition we find andré, andrieux, pourbaix, melville, and scores of other high police officials directing the work of these agents. in america, mcpartland, schaack, and orchard--to mention the most notorious only--have played infamous rôles in provoking others, or in undertaking themselves, to commit outrages. there were and are, of course, thousands of others besides those mentioned, but these are historic characters, who planned and executed the most dastardly deeds in order to discredit the trade-union and socialist movements. the space here is too limited to go into the historic details of this commerce in violence. but he who is curious to pursue the study further will find a list of references at the end of the volume directing him to some of the sources of information.[ ] he will there discover an appalling record of crime, for, as thomas beet points out, hardly a strike occurs where these special officers are not sent to make trouble. there are sometimes thousands of them at work, and, if one undertook to go into the various trials that have arisen as a result of labor disputes, one could prepare a long list of murders committed by these "hireling assassins." the pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is immense. it is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. the more that people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. nothing proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of robberies and murders. the heyday of their prosperity comes in that moment when assaults upon men and property are most frequent. nothing would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to enlarge their patronage. when a trade or profession has not only every pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well exceed the powers of imagination. and it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great and growing business, actuated by exactly the same economic interests as any other business. with the agencies making so much per day for each man employed, the way to improve business is to get more men employed. rumors of trouble or actual deeds, such as an explosion of dynamite or an assault, help to make the detective indispensable to the employer. it is with an eye to business, therefore, that the private detective creates trouble. it is with a keen sense of his own material interest that he keeps the employer in a state of anxiety regarding what may be expected from the men. and, naturally enough, the modern employer, unlike a trained ruler such as bismarck, never seems to realize that most of the alarming reports sent him are masses of lies. nothing appears to have been clearer to the iron chancellor than that his own police forces, in order to gain favor, "lie and exaggerate in the most shameful manner."[ ] but such an idea seems never to enter the minds of the great american employers, who, although becoming more and more like the ruling classes of europe, are not yet so wise. however, the great employer, like the great ruler, is unable now to meet his employees in person and to find out their real views. consequently, he must depend upon paid agents to report to him the views of his men. this might all be very well if the returns were true. but, when it happens that evil reports are very much to the pecuniary advantage of the man who makes them, is it likely that there will be any other kind of report? thousands of employers, therefore, are coming more and more to be convinced that their workmen spend most of their time plotting against them. it seems unreasonable that sane men could believe that their employees, who are regularly at work every day striving with might and main to support and bring up decently their families, should be at the same time planning the most diabolical outrages. nothing is rarer than to find criminals among workingmen, for if they were given to crime they would not be at work. but with the great modern evil--the separation of the classes--there comes so much of misunderstanding and of mistrust that the employer seems only too willing to believe any paid villain who tells him that his tired and worn laborers have murder in their hearts. the class struggle is a terrible fact; but the class hatred and the personal enmity that are growing among both masters and men in the united states are natural and inevitable results of this system of spies and informers. how widespread this evil has become is shown by the fact that nearly every large corporation now employs numerous spies, informers, and special officers, from whom they receive daily reports concerning the conversations among their men and the plans of the unions. thousands of these detectives are, in fact, members of the unions. the employers are, of course, under the impression that they are thus protecting themselves from misinformation and also from the possibility of injury, but, as we have seen, they are in reality placing themselves at the mercy of these spies in the same manner as every despot in the past has placed himself at the mercy of those who brought him information. it may, perhaps, be possible that the carnegie company in , the railroads in , and the mine owners in were convinced that their employees were under the influence of dangerous men. very likely they were told that their workmen were planning assaults upon their lives and property. it would not be strange if these large owners of property had been so informed. indeed, the economics of this whole wretched commerce becomes clear only when we realize that the terror that results from such reports leads these capitalists to employ more and more hirelings, to pay them larger and larger fees, and in this manner to reward lies and to make even assaults prove immensely profitable to the detectives. so it happens that the great employers are chiefly responsible for introducing among their men the very elements that are making for riot, crime, and anarchy. close and intimate relations with the employers and with the men during several fiercely fought industrial conflicts have convinced me that the struggle between them rarely degenerates to that plane of barbarism in which either the men or the masters deliberately resort to, or encourage, murder, arson, and similar crimes. so far as the men are concerned, they have every reason in the world to discourage violence, and nothing is clearer to most of them than the solemn fact that every time property is destroyed, or men injured, the employers win public support, the aid of the press, the pulpit, the police, the courts, and all the powers of the state. men do not knowingly injure themselves or persist in a course adverse to their material interests. it is true, as i think i have made clear in the previous chapters, that some of the workers do advocate violence, and, in a few cases that instantly became notorious, labor leaders have been found guilty of serious crimes. that these instances are comparatively rare is explained, of course, by the fact that violence is known invariably to injure the cause of the worker. it would be strange, therefore, if the workers did systematically plan outrages. on the other hand, it would be strange if the employers did not at times rejoice that somebody--the workmen, the detectives, or others--had committed some outrage and thus brought the public sentiment and the state's power to the aid of the employers. one cannot escape the thought that the employers would hardly finance so readily these so-called detectives, and inquire so little into their actual deeds, if they were not convinced that violence at the time of a strike materially aids the employer. yet, despite evidence to the contrary, it may, i think, be said with truth that the lawlessness attending strikes is not, as a rule, the result of deliberate planning on the part of the men or of the masters. there are, of course, numerous exceptions, and if we find the mcnamaras on the one side, we also find some unscrupulous employers on the other. to the latter, violence becomes of the greatest service, in that it enables them to say with apparent truth that they are not fighting reasonable, law-abiding workmen, but assassins and incendiaries. no course is easier for the employer who does not seek to deal honestly with his men, and none more secure for that employer whose position is wholly indefensible on the subject of hours and wages, than to sidetrack all these issues by hypocritically declaring that he refuses to deal with men who are led by criminals. and it is quite beyond question that some such employers have deliberately urged their "detectives" to create trouble. positive evidence is at hand that a few such employers have themselves directed the work of incendiaries, thugs, and rioters. with such amazing evidence as we have recently had concerning the systematically lawless work of the manufacturers' association, it is impossible to free the employers of all personal responsibility for the outrages committed by their criminal agents. there are many different ways in which violence benefits the employer, and it may even be said that in all cases it is only to the interest of the employer. as a matter of fact, with the systems of insurance now existing, any injury to the property of the employer means no loss to him whatever. the only possible loss that he can suffer is through the prolongation and success of the strike. if the workers can be discredited and the strike broken through the aid of violence, the ordinary employer is not likely to make too rigid an investigation into whether or not his "detectives" had a hand in it. curiously enough, the general public never dreams that special officers are responsible for most of the violence at times of strike, and, while the men loudly accuse the employers, the employers loudly accuse the men. the employers are, of course, informed by the detectives that the outrages have been committed by the strikers, and the detectives have seen to it that the employers are prepared to believe that the strikers are capable of anything. on the other hand, the men are convinced that the employers are personally responsible. they see hundreds and sometimes thousands of special officers swarming throughout the district. they know that these men are paid by somebody, and they are convinced that their bullying, insulting talk and actions represent the personal wishes of the employers. when they knock down strikers, beat them up, arrest them, or even shoot them, the men believe that all these acts are dictated by the employers. it is utterly impossible to describe the bitterness that is aroused among the men by the presence of these thugs. and the testimony taken by various commissions regarding strikes proves clearly enough that strikes are not only embittered but prolonged by the presence of detectives. again and again, mediators have declared that, as soon as thugs are brought into the conflict, the settlement of a strike is made impossible until either the employers or the men are exhausted by the struggle. a number of reputable detectives have testified that the chief object of those who engage in "strike-breaking" is to prolong strikes in order to keep themselves employed as long as possible. thus, the employers as well as the men are the victims of this commerce in violence. it will, i am sure, be obvious to the reader that it would require a very large volume to deal with all the various phases of the work of the detective in the numerous great strikes that have occurred in recent years. i have endeavored merely to mention a few instances where their activities have led to the breaking down of all civil government. it is important, however, to emphasize the fact that there is no strike of any magnitude in which these hirelings are not employed. i have taken the following quotation as typical of numerous circulars which i have seen, that have been issued by detective agencies: "this bureau has made a specialty of handling strikes for over half a century, and our clients are among the largest corporations in the world. during the recent trouble between the steamboat companies and the striking longshoremen in new york city this office ... supplied one thousand guards.... our charges for guards, motormen, conductors, and all classes of men during the time of trouble is $ . per day, your company to pay transportation, board, and lodge the men."[ ] here is another agency that has been engaged in this business for half a century, and there are thousands of others engaged in it now. one of them is known to have in its employ constantly five thousand men. and, if we look into the deeds of these great armies of mercenaries, we find that there is not a state in the union in which they have not committed assault, arson, robbery, and murder. several years ago at lattimer, pennsylvania, a perfectly peaceable parade of two hundred and fifty miners was attacked by guards armed with winchester rifles, with the result that twenty-nine workers were killed and thirty others seriously injured. this was deliberate and unprovoked slaughter. recently, in the westmoreland mining district, no less than twenty striking miners have been murdered, while several hundred have been seriously injured. on one occasion deputies and strike-breakers became intoxicated and "shot up the town" of latrobe. in the recent strike against the lake carriers' association six union men were killed by private detectives. in tampa, florida, in columbus, ohio, in birmingham, alabama, in lawrence, massachusetts, in bethlehem, pennsylvania, in the mining districts of west virginia, and in innumerable other places many workingmen have been murdered, not by officers of the law, but by privately paid assassins. even while writing these lines i notice a telegram to the _appeal to reason_ from adolph germer, an official of the united mine workers of america, that some thugs, formerly in west virginia, are now in colorado, and that their first work there was to shoot down in cold blood a well-known miner. john walker, a district president of the united mine workers of america, telegraphs the same day to the labor press that two of the strikers in the copper mines in michigan were shot down by detectives, in the effort, he says, to provoke the men to violence. anyone who cares to follow the labor press for but a short period will be astonished to find how frequently such outrages occur, and he will marvel that men can be so self-controlled as the strikers usually are under such terrible provocation. i mention hastily these facts in order to emphasize the point that the cases in which i have gone into detail in this chapter are more or less typical of the bloody character of many of the great strikes because of the deeds of the so-called detectives. brief, however, as this statement is of the work of these anarchists "without phrase" and of the great commerce they have built up, it must, nevertheless, convince anyone that republican institutions cannot long exist in a country which tolerates such an extensive private commerce in lawlessness and crime. government by law cannot prevail in the same field with a widespread and profitable traffic in disorder, thuggery, arson, and murder. here is a whole brood of mercenaries, the output of hundreds of great penitentiaries, that has been organized and systematized into a great commerce to serve the rich and powerful. here is a whole mess of infamy developed into a great private enterprise that militates against all law and order. it has already brought the united states on more than one occasion to the verge of civil war. and, despite the fact that numerous judges have publicly condemned the work of these agencies, and that various governmental commissions have deprecated in the most solemn words this traffic in crime, it continues to grow and prosper in the most alarming manner. certainly, no student of history will doubt that, if this commerce is permitted to continue, it will not be long until no man's life, honor, or property will be secure. and it is a question, even at this moment, whether the legislators have the courage to attack this powerful american mafia that has already developed into a "vested interest." as i said at the beginning, no other country has this form of anarchy to contend with. in all countries, no doubt, there are associations of criminals, and everywhere, perhaps, it is possible for wealthy men to employ criminals to work for them. but even the mafia, the camorra, and the black hand do not exist for the purpose of collecting and organizing mercenaries to serve the rich and powerful. nor anywhere else in the world are these criminals made special officers, deputy sheriffs, deputy marshals, and thus given the authority of the state itself. the assumption is so general that the state invariably stands behind the private detective that few seem to question it, and even the courts frequently recognize them as quasi-public officials. thus, the state itself aids and abets these mercenary anarchists, while it sends to the gallows idealist anarchists, such as henry, vaillant, lingg, and their like. that the state fosters this "infant industry" is the only possible explanation for the fact that in every industrial conflict of the past the real provokers and executors of arson, riot, and murder have escaped prison, while in every case labor leaders have been put in jail--often without warrant--and in many cases kept there for many months without trial. even the writ of _habeas corpus_ has been denied them repeatedly. without the active connivance of the state such conditions could not exist. however, the state goes even further in its opposition to labor. the power of a state governor to call out the militia, to declare even a peaceful district in a state of insurrection, and to abolish the writ of _habeas corpus_ is a very great power indeed and one that is unquestionably an anomaly in a republic. if that power were used with equal justice, it might not create the intense bitterness that has been so frequently aroused among the workers by its exercise. again and again it has been used in the interest of capital, but there is not one single case in all the records where this extraordinary prerogative has been exercised to protect the interest of the workers. it is not, then, either unreasonable or unjustifiable that among workmen the sentiment is almost unanimous that the state stands invariably against them. the three instances which i have dealt with here at some length prove conclusively that there is now no penalty inflicted upon the capitalist who hires thugs to invade a community and shoot down its citizens, or upon those who hire him these assassins, or upon the assassins themselves. nor are the powerful punished when they collect a great army of criminals, drunkards, and hoodlums and make them officials of the united states to insult and bully decent citizens. nor does there seem to be any punishment inflicted upon those who manage to transform the government itself into a shield to protect toughs and criminals in their assaults upon men and property, when those assaults are in the interest of capital. moreover, what could be more humiliating in a republic than the fact that a governor who has leased to his friends the military forces of an entire state should end his term of office unimpeached? these various phases of the class conflict reveal a distressing state of industrial and political anarchy, and there can be no question that, if continued, it has in it the power of making many mcnamaras, if not bakounins. it will be fortunate, indeed, if there do not arise new johann mosts, and if the united states escapes the general use in time of that terrible, secretive, and deadly weapon of sabotage. sabotage is the arm of the slave or the coward, who dares neither to speak his views nor to fight an open fight. as someone has said, it may merely mean the kicking of the master's dog. yet no one is so cruel as the weak and the cowardly. and should it ever come about that millions and millions of men have all other avenues closed to them, there is still left to them sabotage, assassination, and civil war. these can neither be outlawed nor even effectively guarded against if there are individuals enough who are disposed to wield them. and it is not by any means idle speculation that a country which can sit calmly by and face such evils as are perpetrated by this vast commerce in violence, by this class use of the state, and by such monstrous outrages as were committed in homestead, in chicago, and in colorado, will find one day its composure interrupted by a working class that has suffered more than human endurance can stand. the fact is that society--the big body of us--is now menaced by two sets of anarchists. there are those among the poor and the weak who preach arson, dynamite, and sabotage. they are the products of conditions such as existed in colorado--as bakounin was the product of the conditions in russia. these, after all, are relatively few, and their power is almost nothing. they are listened to now, but not heeded, because there yet exist among the people faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable means and the hope that men and not property will one day rule the state. the other set of anarchists are those powerful, influential terrorists who talk hypocritically of their devotion to the state, the law, the constitution, and the courts, but who, when the slightest obstacle stands in the path of their greed, seize from their corrupt tools the reins of government, in order to rule society with the black-jack and the "bull pen." the idealist anarchist and even the more practical syndicalist, preaching openly and frankly that there is nothing left to the poor but war, are, after all, few in number and weak in action. yet how many to-day despair of peaceable methods when they see all these outrages committed by mercenaries, protected and abetted by the official state, in the interest of the most sordid anarchism! as a matter of fact, the socialist is to-day almost alone, among those watching intently this industrial strife, in keeping buoyant his abiding faith in the ultimate victory of the people. he has fought successfully against bakounin. he is overcoming the newest anarchists, and he is already measuring swords with the oldest anarchists. he is confident as to the issue. he has more than dreams; he knows, and has all the comfort of that knowledge, that anarchy in government like anarchy in production is reaching the end of its rope. outlawry for profit, as well as production for profit, are soon to be things of the past. the socialist feels himself a part of the growing power that is soon to rule society. he is conscious of being an agent of a world-wide movement that is massing into an irresistible human force millions upon millions of the disinherited. he has unbounded faith that through that mass power industry will be socialized and the state democratized. no longer will its use be merely to serve and promote private enterprise in foul tenements, in sweatshops, and in all the products that are necessary to life and to death. all these vast commercial enterprises that exist not to serve society but to enrich the rich--including even this sordid traffic in thuggery and in murder--are soon to pass into history as part of a terrible, culminating epoch in commercial, financial, and political anarchy. the socialist, who sees the root of all anti-social individualism in the predominance of private material interests over communal material interests, knows that the hour is arriving when the social instincts and the life interests of practically all the people will be arrayed against anarchy in all its forms. commerce in violence, like commerce in the necessaries of life, is but a part of a social régime that is disappearing, and, while most others in society seem to see only phases of this gigantic conflict between capital and labor, and, while most others look upon it as something irremediable, the socialist, standing amidst millions upon millions of his comrades, is even now beginning to see visions of victory. footnote: [af] the supreme court sustained the action of the military authorities, chief justice william h. gabbert, associate justice john campbell, concurring, associate justice robert w. steele dissenting. the dissenting opinion of justice steele deserves a wider reading than it has received, and no doubt it will rank among the most important statements that have been made against the anarchy of the powerful and the tyranny of class government. see report, u. s. bureau of labor, , p. . chapter xii visions of victory we left the socialists, on september , , in the midst of jubilation over the great victory they had just won in germany. the iron chancellor, with all the power of state and society in his hands, had capitulated before the moral force and mass power of the german working class. and, when the sensational news went out to all countries that the german socialists had polled , , votes, the impulse given to the political organizations of the working class was immense. once again the thought of labor throughout the world was centered upon those stirring words of marx and engels: "workingmen of all countries, unite!" first uttered by them in ' , repeated in ' , and pleaded for once again in ' , this call to unity began to appear in the nineties as the one supreme commandment of the labor movement. and, in truth, it is an epitome of all their teachings. it is the pith of their program and the marrow of their principles. nearly all else can be waived. other principles can be altered; other programs abandoned; other methods revolutionized; but this principle, program, and method must not be tampered with. it is the one and only unalterable law. in unity, and in unity alone, is the power of salvation. and under the inspiration of this call more and more millions have come together, until to-day, in every portion of the world, there are multitudes affiliated to the one and only international army. in ' it was not yet born. in ' efforts were made to bring it into being. in ' it was broken into fragments. in ' it won its first battle--its right to exist. now, twenty-three years later, nothing could be so eloquent and impressive as the figures themselves of the rising tide of international socialism. the socialist and labor vote, - . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- germany , , , , , , , , , france , , , , , , austria , , , , united states , , , , , italy , , , , australia , belgium , , , [ag] , great britain , , , finland , , russia , sweden , , norway , , , denmark , , , , , switzerland , , , , , holland , , , , new zealand , spain , , , , bulgaria , argentina , chile , greece , canada , servia , luxembourg , portugal , roumania , ------- --------- --------- --------- ---------- total , , , , , , , , , ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- the above table explains, in no small measure, the quiet patience and supreme confidence of the socialist. he looks upon that wonderful array of figures as the one most significant fact in the modern world. within a quarter of a century his force has grown from , to , , . and, while no other movement in history has grown so rapidly and traversed the entire world with such speed, the socialist knows that even this table inadequately indicates his real power. for instance, in great britain the labor party has over one million dues-paying members, yet its vote is here placed at , . owing to the peculiar political conditions existing in that country, it is almost impossible for the labor party to put up its candidates in all districts, and these figures include only that small proportion of workingmen who have been able to cast their votes for their own candidates. the two hundred thousand socialist votes in russia do not at all represent the sentiment in that country. everything there militates against the open expression, and, indeed, the possibility of any expression, of the actual socialist sentiment. in addition, great masses of workingmen in many countries are still deprived of the suffrage, and in nearly all countries the wives of these men are deprived of the suffrage. leaving, however, all this aside, and taking the common reckoning of five persons to each voter, the socialist strength of the world to-day cannot be estimated at less than fifty million souls. coming to the parliamentary strength of the socialists, we find the table on the following page illuminating. socialist and labor representatives in parliament. number of seats per in lower house. cent. total socialist. socialist ---------------------------------------------- australia . finland . sweden . denmark . germany . belgium . norway . holland . austria . italy . luxembourg . france . switzerland . great britain . russia . greece . argentina . servia . portugal . bulgaria . spain . ---------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- it appears that labor is in control of australia, that per cent. of the finnish parliament is socialist, while in sweden more than a third, and in germany and denmark somewhat less than a third, is socialist. in several of the northern countries of europe the parliamentary position of the socialists is stronger than that of any other single party. in addition to the representatives here listed, belgium has seven senators, denmark four, and sweden twelve, while in the state legislatures austria has thirty-one, germany one hundred and eighty-five, and the united states twenty. here again the strength of socialism is greatly understated. in the united states, for instance, the astonishing fact appears that, with a vote of nearly a million, the socialist party has not one representative in congress. on the basis of proportional representation it would have at least twenty-five congressmen; and, if it were a sectional party, it could, with its million votes, control all the southern states and elect every congressman and senator from those states. the socialists in the german reichstag are numerous, but on a fair system of representation they would have two or three score more representatives than at present. however, this, too, is of little consequence, and in no wise disturbs the thoughtful socialist. the immense progress of his cause completely satisfies him, and, if the rate of advance continues, it can be only a few years until a world victory is at hand. if, now, we turn from the political aspects of the labor movement to examine the growth of coöperatives and of trade unions, we find a progress no less striking. in actual membership the trade unions of twenty nations in had amassed over eleven million men and women. and the figures sent out by the international secretary do not include countries so strongly organized as canada, new zealand, and australia. unfortunately, it is impossible to add here reliable figures regarding the wealth of the great and growing coöperative movement. in britain, germany, belgium, france, italy, and switzerland, as well as in the northern countries of central europe, the coöperative movement has made enormous headway in recent years. the british coöperators, according to the report of the federation of coöperative societies, had in a turnover amounting to over six hundred millions of dollars. they have over twenty-four hundred stores scattered throughout the cities of great britain. the coöperative productive society and the coöperative wholesale society produced goods in their own shops to a value of over sixty-five millions of dollars; while the goods produced by the coöperative provision stores amounted to over forty million dollars. seven hundred and sixty societies have children's penny banks, with a total balance in hand of about eight million dollars. the members of these various coöperative societies number approximately three million.[ah] throughout all europe, through coöperative effort, there have been erected hundreds of splendid "houses of the people," "labor temples," and similar places of meeting and recreation. the entire labor, socialist, and coöperative press, numbering many thousands of monthly and weekly journals, and hundreds of daily papers, is also usually owned coöperatively. unfortunately, the statistics dealing with this phase of the labor movement have never been gathered with any idea of completeness, and there is little use in trying even to estimate the immense wealth that is now owned by these organizations of workingmen. america lags somewhat behind the other countries, but nowhere else have such difficulties faced the labor movement. with a working class made up of many races, nationalities, and creeds, trade-union organization is excessively difficult. moreover, where the railroads secretly rebate certain industries and help to destroy the competitors of those industries, and where the trusts exercise enormous power, a coöperative movement is well-nigh impossible. furthermore, where vast numbers of the working class are still disfranchised, and where elections are notoriously corrupt and more or less under the control of a hireling class of professional political manipulators, an independent political movement faces almost insurmountable obstacles. nor is this all. no other country allows its ruling classes to employ private armies, thugs, and assassins; and no other country makes such an effort to prevent the working classes from acting peaceably and legally. while nearly everywhere else the unions may strike, picket, and boycott, in america there are laws to prevent both picketing and boycotting, and even some forms of strikes. the most extraordinary despotic judicial powers are exercised to crush the unions, to break strikes, and to imprison union men. and, if paid professional armies of detectives deal with the unions, so paid professional armies of politicians deal with the socialists. by every form of debauchery, lawlessness, and corruption they are beaten back, and, although it is absolutely incredible, not a single representative of a great party polling nearly a million votes sits in the congress of the united states. nevertheless, the american socialist and labor movement is making headway, and the day is not far distant when it will exercise the power its strength merits. although somewhat more belated, the various elements of the working class are coming closer and closer together, and it cannot be long until there will be perfect harmony throughout the entire movement. in many other countries this harmony already exists. the trade-union, coöperative, and socialist movements are so closely tied together that they move in every industrial, political, and commercial conflict in complete accord. so far as the immediate aims of labor are concerned, they may be said to be almost identical in all countries. professor werner sombart, who for years has watched the world movement more carefully perhaps than anyone else, has pointed out that there is a strong tendency to uniformity in all countries--a "tendency," in his own words, "of the movement in all lands toward socialism."[ ] indeed, nothing so much astonishes careful observers of the labor movement as the extraordinary rapidity with which the whole world of labor is becoming unified, in its program of principles, in its form of organization, and in its methods of action. the books of marx and engels are now translated into every important language and are read with eagerness in all parts of the world. the communist manifesto of is issued by the socialist parties of all countries as the text-book of the movement. indeed, it is not uncommon nowadays to see a socialist book translated immediately into all the chief languages and circulated by millions of copies. and, if one will take up the political programs of the party in the twenty chief nations of the world, he will find them reading almost word for word alike. for these various reasons no informed person to-day questions the claims of the socialist as to the international, world-wide character of the movement. perhaps there is no experience quite like that of the socialist who attends one of the great periodical gatherings of the international movement. he sees there a thousand or more delegates, with credentials from organizations numbering approximately ten million adherents. they come from all parts of the world--from mills, mines, factories, and fields--to meet together, and, in the recent congresses, to pass in utmost harmony their resolutions in opposition to the existing régime and their suggestions for remedial action. not only the countries of western europe, but russia, japan, china, and the south american republics send their representatives, and, although the delegates speak as many as thirty different languages, they manage to assemble in a common meeting, and, with hardly a dissenting voice, transact their business. when we consider all the jealousy, rivalry, and hatred that have been whipped up for hundreds of years among the peoples of the various nations, races, and creeds, these international congresses of workingmen become in themselves one of the greatest achievements of modern times. although marx was, as i think i have made clear, and still is, the guiding spirit of modern socialism, the huge structure of the present labor movement has not been erected by any great architect who saw it all in advance, nor has any great leader molded its varied and wonderful lines. it is the work of a multitude, who have quarreled among themselves at every stage of its building. they differed as to the purpose of the structure, as to the materials to be used, and, indeed, upon every detail, big and little, that has had to do with it. at times all building has been stopped in order that the different views might be harmonized or the quarrels fought to a finish. again and again portions have been built only to be torn down and thrown aside. some have seen more clearly than others the work to be done, and one, at least, of the architects must be recognized as a kind of prophet who, in the main, outlined the structure. but the architects were not the builders, and among the multitude engaged in that work there have been years of quarrels and decades of strife. the story of terrorism, as told, is that of a group who had no conception of the structure to be erected. they were a band of dissidents, without patience to build. they and their kind have never been absent from the labor movement, and, in fact, for nearly one hundred years a battle has raged in one form or another between those few of the workers who were urging, with passionate fire, what they called "action" and that multitude of others who day and night were laying stone upon stone. no individual--in fact, nothing but a force as strong and compelling as a natural law--could have brought into existence such a vast solidarity as now exists in the world of labor. like food and drink, the organization of labor satisfies an inherent necessity. the workers crave its protection, seek its guidance, and possess a sense of security only when supported by its solidarity. only something as intuitively impelling as the desire for life could have called forth the labor and love and sacrifice that have been lavishly expended in the disheartening and incredibly tedious work of labor organization. the upbuilding of the labor movement has seemed at times like constructing a house of cards: often it was hardly begun before some ill wind cast it down. it has cost many of its creators exile, imprisonment, starvation, and death. with one mighty assault its opponents have often razed to the ground the work of years. yet, as soon as the eyes of its destroyers were turned, a multitude of loving hands and broken hearts set to work to patch up its scattered fragments and build it anew. the labor movement is unconquerable. unlike many other aggregations, associations, and benevolent orders, unlike the church, to which it is frequently compared, the labor movement is not a purely voluntary union. no doubt there is a _camaraderie_ in that movement, and unquestionably the warmest spirit of fellowship often prevails, but the really effective cause for working-class unity is economic necessity. the workers have been driven together. the unions subsist not because of leaders and agitators, but because of the compelling economic interests of their members. they are efforts to allay the deadly strife among workers, as organizations of capital are efforts to allay the deadly strife among capitalists. the coöperative movement has grown into a vast commerce wholly because it served the self-interest of the workers. the trade unions have grown big in all countries because of the protection, they offer and the insurance they provide against low wages, long hours, and poverty. the socialist parties have grown great because they express the highest social aspirations of the workers and their antagonism toward the present régime. moreover, they offer an opportunity to put forward, in the most authoritative places, the demands of the workers for political, social, and economic reform. the whole is a struggle for democracy, both political and industrial, that is by no means founded merely on whim or caprice. it has gradually become a religion, an imperative religion, of millions of workingmen and women. chiefly because of their economic subjection, they are striving in the most heroic manner to make their voice heard in those places where the rules of the game of life are decided. thus, every phase of the labor movement has arisen in response to actual material needs. and, if the labor movement has arisen in response to actual material needs, it is now a very great and material actuality. the workingmen of the world are, as we have seen, uniting at a pace so rapid as to be almost unbelievable. there are to-day not only great national organizations of labor in nearly every country, but these national movements are bound closely together into one unified international power. the great world-wide movement of labor, which marx and engels prophesied would come, is now here. and, if they were living to-day, they could not but be astonished at the real and mighty manifestation of their early dreams. to be sure, engels lived long enough to be jubilant over the massing of labor's forces, but marx saw little of it, and even the german socialists, who started out so brilliantly, were at the time of his death fighting desperately for existence under the anti-socialist law. indeed, in , the year of his death, the labor movement was still torn by quarrels and dissensions over problems of tactics, and in america, france, and austria the terrorists were more active than at any time in their history. it was still a question whether the german movement could survive, while in the other countries the socialists were still little more than sects. that was just thirty years ago, while to-day, as we have seen, over ten millions of workingmen, scattered throughout the entire world, fight every one of their battles on the lines laid down by marx. the tactics and principles he outlined are now theirs. the unity of the workers he pleaded for is rapidly being achieved throughout the entire world, and everywhere these armies are marching toward the goal made clear by his life and labor. "although i have seen him to-night," writes engels to liebknecht, march , , "stretched out on his bed, the face rigid in death, i cannot grasp the thought that this genius should have ceased to fertilize with his powerful thoughts the proletarian movement of both worlds. whatever we all are, we are through him; and whatever the movement of to-day is, it is through his theoretical and practical work; without him we should still be stuck in the mire of confusion."[ ] what was this mire? if we will cast our eyes back to the middle of last century we cannot but realize that the ideas of the world have undergone a complete revolution. when marx began his work with the labor movement there was absolute ignorance among both masters and men concerning the nature of capitalism. it was a great and terrible enigma which no one understood. the working class itself was broken up into innumerable guerilla bands fighting hopelessly, aimlessly, with the most antiquated and ineffectual weapons. they were in misery; but why, they knew not. they left their work to riot for days and weeks, without aim and without purpose. they were bitter and sullen. they smashed machines and burned factories, chiefly because they were totally ignorant of the causes of their misery or of the nature of their real antagonist. not seldom in those days there were meetings of hundreds of thousands of laborers, and not infrequently mysterious epidemics of fires and of machine-breaking occurred throughout all the factory districts. again and again the soldiers were brought out to massacre the laborers. in all england--then the most advanced industrially--there were few who understood capitalism, and among masters or men there was hardly one who knew the real source of all the immense, intolerable economic evils. the class struggle was there, and it was being fought more furiously and violently than ever before or since. the most striking rebels of the time were those that marx called the "bourgeois democrats." they were forever preaching open and violent revolution. they were dreaming of the glorious day when, amid insurrection and riot, they should stand at the barricades, fighting the battle for freedom. in their little circles they "were laying plans for the overthrow of the world and intoxicating themselves day by day, evening by evening, with the hasheesh-drink of: 'to-morrow it will start;'"[ ] before and after the revolutionary period of ' there were innumerable thousands of these fugitives, exiles, and men of action obsessed with the dream that a great revolutionary cataclysm was soon to occur which would lay in ruins the old society. that a crisis was impending everyone believed, including even marx and engels. in fact, for over twenty years, from to , the "extemporizers of revolutions" fretfully awaited the supreme hour. toward the end of the period appeared bakounin and nechayeff with their robber worship, conspiratory secret societies, and international network of revolutionists. wherever capitalism made headway the workers grew more and more rebellious, but neither they nor those who sought to lead them, and often did, in fact, lead them, had much of any program beyond destruction. bakounin was not far wrong, at the time, in thinking that he was "spreading among the masses ideas corresponding to the instincts of the masses,"[ ] when he advocated the destruction of the government, the church, the mills, the factories, and the palaces, to the end that "not a stone should be left upon a stone." this was the mire of confusion that engels speaks of. there was not one with any program at all adequate to meet the problem. the aim of the rebels went little beyond retaliation and destruction. what were the weapons employed by the warriors of this period? street riots and barricades were those of the "bourgeois democrats"; strikes, machine-breaking, and incendiarism were those of the workers; and later the terrorists came with their robber worship and propaganda of the deed. in the midst of this veritable passion for destruction marx and engels found themselves. here was a period when direct action was supreme. there was nothing else, and no one dreamed of anything else. the enemies of the existing order were employing exactly the same means and methods used by the upholders of that order. among the workers, for instance, the only weapons used were general strikes, boycotts, and what is now called sabotage. these were wholly imitative and retaliative. it is clear that the strike is, after all, only an inverted lockout; and as early as a general strike was parried by a general lockout. the boycott is identical with the blacklist. the employer boycotts union leaders and union men. the employees boycott the non-union products of the employer; while sabotage, the most ancient weapon of labor, answers poor pay with poor work, and broken machines for broken lives. and, if the working class was striking back with the same weapons that were being used against it, so, too, were the "pan-destroyers," except that for the most part their weapons were incredibly inadequate and ridiculous. sticks and stones and barricades were their method of combating rifles and trained armies. all this again is more evidence of the mire of confusion. however, if the weapons of the rebellious were utterly futile and ineffectual, there were no others, for every move the workers or their friends made was considered lawless. all political and trades associations were against the law. peaceable assembly was sedition. strikes were treason. picketing was intimidation; and the boycott was conspiracy in restraint of trade. such associations as existed were forced to become secret societies, and, even if a working-class newspaper appeared, it was almost immediately suppressed. and, if all forms of trade-union activity were criminal, political activity was impossible where the vast majority of toilers had no votes. with methods mainly imitative, retaliative, and revengeful; with no program of what was wanted; in total ignorance of the causes of their misery; and with little appreciation that in unity there is strength, the workers and their friends, in the middle of the last century, were stuck in the mire--of ignorance, helplessness, and confusion. this was the world in which marx and engels began their labor. direct action was at its zenith, and the struggle of the classes was ferocious. indeed, all europe was soon to see barricades in every city, and thrones and governments tumbling into apparent ruin. yet in the midst of all this wild confusion, and even touching elbows with the leaders of these revolutionary storms, marx and engels outlined in clear, simple, and powerful language the nature of capitalism--what it was, how it came into being, and what it was yet destined to become. they pointed out that it was not individual employers or individual statesmen or the government or even kings and princes who were responsible for the evils of society, but that unemployment, misery, and oppression were due to an economic system, and that so long as capitalism existed the mass of humanity would be sunk in poverty. they called attention to the long evolutionary processes that had been necessary to change the entire world from a state of feudalism into a state of capitalism; and how it was not due to man's will-power that the great industrial revolution occurred, but to the growth of machines, of steam, and of electrical power; and that it was these that have made the modern world, with its intense and terrible contrasts of riches and of poverty. they also pointed out that little individual owners of property were giving way to joint-stock companies, and that these would in turn give way to even greater aggregations of capital. an economic law was driving the big capitalists to eat up the little capitalists. it was forcing them to take from the workers their hand tools and to drive them out of their home workshops; it was forcing them also to take from the small property owners their little properties and to appropriate the wealth of the world into their own hands. as a result of this economic process, "private property," they said, "is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population."[ ] but they also pointed out that capitalism had within itself the seeds of its own dissolution, that it was creating a new class, made up of the overwhelming majority, that was destined in time to overthrow capitalism. "what the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers."[ ] in the interest of society the nine-tenths would force the one-tenth to yield up its private property, that is to say, its "power to subjugate the labor of others."[ ] taking their stand on this careful analysis of historic progress and of economic evolution, they viewed with contempt the older fighting methods of the revolutionists, and turned their vials of satire and wrath upon herwegh, willich, schapper, kinkel, ledru-rollin, bakounin, and all kinds and species of revolution-makers. they deplored incendiarism, machine destruction, and all the purely retaliative acts of the laborers. they even ridiculed the general strike.[ai] and, while for thirty years they assailed anarchists, terrorists, and direct-actionists, they never lost an opportunity to impress upon the workers of europe the only possible method of effectually combating capitalism. there must first be unity--world-wide, international unity--among all the forces of labor. and, secondly, all the energies of a united labor movement must be centered upon the all-important contest for control of political power. they fought incessantly with their pens to bring home the great truth that every class struggle is a political struggle; and, while they were working to emphasize that fact, they began in actually to organize the workers of europe to fight that struggle. the first great practical work of the international was to get votes for workingmen. it was the chief thought and labor of marx during the first years of that organization to win for the english workers the suffrage, while in germany all his followers--including lassalle as well as bebel and liebknecht--labored throughout the sixties to that end. up to the present the main work of the socialist movement throughout the world has been to fight for, and its main achievement to obtain, the legal weapons essential for its battles. let us try to grasp the immensity of the task actually executed by marx. first, consider his scientific work. during all the period of these many battles every leisure moment was spent in study. while others were engaged in organizing what they were pleased to call the "revolution" and waiting about for it to start, marx, engels, liebknecht, and all this group were spending innumerable hours in the library. we see the result of that labor in the three great volumes of "capital," in many pamphlets, and in other writings. by this painstaking scientific work of marx the nature of capitalism was made known and, consequently, what it was that should be combated, and how the battle should be waged. in addition to these studies, which have been of such priceless value to the labor and socialist movements of the world, marx, by his pitiless logic and incessant warfare, destroyed every revolution-maker, and then, by an act of surgery that many declared would prove fatal, cut out of the labor movement the "pan-destroyers." once more, by a supreme effort, he turned the thought of labor throughout the world to the one end and aim of winning its political weapons, of organizing its political armies, and of uniting the working classes of all lands. here, then, is a brief summary of the work of this genius, who fertilized with his powerful thoughts the proletarian movements of both worlds. the most wonderful thing of all is that, in his brief lifetime, he should not only have planned this gigantic task, but that he should have obtained the essentials for its complete accomplishment. and, as we look out upon the world to-day, we find it actually a different world, almost a new world. the present-day conflict between capital and labor has no more the character of the guerilla warfare of half a century ago. it is now a struggle between immense organizations of capital and immense organizations of labor. and not only has there been a revolution in ideas concerning the nature of capitalism but there has been as a consequence a revolution in the methods of combat between labor and capital. while all the earlier and more brutal forms of warfare are still used, the conflict as a whole is to-day conducted on a different plane. the struggle of the classes is no longer a vague, undefined, and embittered battle. it is no longer merely a contest between the violent of both classes. it is now a deliberate, and largely legal, tug-of-war between two great social categories over the _ends_ of a social revolution that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable. the representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and labor now faces capital with a program, clear, comprehensive, world-changing; with an international army of so many millions that it is almost past contending with; while its tactics and methods of action can neither be assailed nor effectively combated. from one end of the earth to the other we see capital with its gigantic associations of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, mine owners, and mill owners striving to forward and to protect its economic interests. on the other hand, we see labor with its millions upon millions of organized men all but united and solidified under the flag of international socialism. and, most strange and wondrous of all--as a result of the logic of things and of the logic of marx--the actual positions of the two classes have been completely transposed. marx persuaded the workers to take up a weapon which they alone can use. like siegfried, they have taken the fragments of a sword and welded them into a mighty weapon--so mighty, indeed, that the working class alone, with its innumerable millions, is capable of wielding it. the workers are the only class in society with the numerical strength to become the majority and the only class which, by unity and organization, can employ the suffrage effectively. while fifty years ago the workers had every legal and peaceable means denied them, to-day they are the only class which can assuredly profit through legal and peaceable means. it is obvious that the beneficiaries of special privilege can hope to retain their power only so long as the working class is divided and too ignorant to recognize its own interests. as soon as its eyes open, the privileged classes must lose its political support and, with that political support, everything else. that is absolutely inevitable. the interests of mass and class are too fundamentally opposed to permit of permanent political harmony. nobody sees this more clearly than the intelligent capitalist. as the workers become more and more conscious of their collective power and more and more convinced that through solidarity they can quietly take possession of the world, their opponents become increasingly conscious of their growing weakness, and already in europe there is developing a kind of upper-class syndicalism, that despairs of parliaments, deplores the bungling work of politics, and ridicules the general incompetence of democratic institutions. at the same time, however, they exercise stupendous efforts, in the most devious and questionable ways, to retain their political power. facing the inevitable, and realizing that potentially at least the suffrages of the immense majority stand over them as a menace, they are beginning to seek other methods of action. of course, in all the more democratic countries the power of democracy has already made itself felt, and in america, at any rate, the powerful have long had resort to bribery, corruption, and all sorts of political conspiracy in order to retain their power. much as we may deplore the debauchery of public servants, it nevertheless yields us a certain degree of satisfaction, in that it is eloquent testimony of this agreeable fact, that the oldest anarchists are losing their control over the state. they hold their sway over it more and more feebly, and even when the state is entirely obedient to their will, it is not infrequently because they have temporarily purchased that power. when the manufacturers, the trusts, and the beneficiaries of special privilege generally are forced periodically to go out and purchase the state from the robin hoods of politics, when they are compelled to finance lavishly every political campaign, and then abjectly go to the very men whom their money has put into power and buy them again, their bleeding misery becomes an object of pity. this really amounts to an almost absolute transposition of the classes. in the early nineties engels saw the beginning of this change, and, in what sombart rightly says may be looked upon as a kind of "political last will and testament" to the movement, engels writes: "the time for small minorities to place themselves at the head of the ignorant masses and resort to force in order to bring about revolutions is gone. a complete change in the organization of society can be brought about only by the conscious coöperation of the masses; they must be alive to the aim in view; they must know what they want. the history of the last fifty years has taught that. but, if the masses are to understand the line of action that is necessary, we must work hard and continuously to bring it home to them. that, indeed, is what we are now engaged upon, and our success is driving our opponents to despair. the irony of destiny is turning everything topsy-turvy. we, the 'revolutionaries,' are profiting more by lawful than by unlawful and revolutionary means. the parties of order, as they call themselves, are being slowly destroyed by their own weapons. their cry is that of odilon barrot: 'lawful means are killing us.'... we, on the contrary, are thriving on them, our muscles are strong, and our cheeks are red, and we look as though we intend to live forever!"[ ] and if lawful means are killing them, so are science and democracy. we no longer live in an age when any suggestion of change is deemed a sacrilege. the period has gone by when political, social, and industrial institutions are supposed to be unalterable. no one believes them fashioned by divinity, and there is nothing so sacred in the worldly affairs of men that it cannot be questioned. there is no law, or judicial decision, or decree, or form of property, or social status that cannot be critically examined; and, if men can agree, none is so firmly established that it cannot be changed. it is agreed that men shall be allowed to speak, write, and propagate their views on all questions, whether religious, political, or industrial. in theory, at least, all authority, law, administrative institutions, and property relations are decided ultimately in the court of the people. through their press these things may be discussed. on their platform these things may be approved or denounced. in their assemblies there is freedom to make any declaration for or against things as they are. and through their votes and representatives there is not one institution that cannot be molded, changed, or even abolished. upon this theory modern society is held together. it is a belief so firmly rooted in the popular mind that, although everything goes against the people, they peacefully submit. so firmly established, indeed, is this tradition that even the most irate admit that where wrong exists the chief fault lies with the people themselves. whatever may be said concerning its limitations and its perversions, this, then, is an age of democracy, founded upon a widespread faith in majority rule. whether it be true or not, the conviction is almost universal that the majority can, through its political power, accomplish any and every change, no matter how revolutionary. our whole western civilization has had bred into it the belief that those who are dissatisfied with things as they are can agitate to change them, are even free to organize for the purpose of changing them, and can, in fact, change them whenever the majority is won over to stand with them. this, again, is the theory, although there is no one of us, of course, but will admit that a thousand ways are found to defeat the will of the majority. there are bribery, fraudulent elections, and an infinite variety of corrupting methods. there is the control of parliaments, of courts, and of political parties by special privilege. there are oppressive and unjust laws obtained through trickery. there is the overwhelming power exercised by the wealthy through their control of the press and of nearly all means of enlightenment. through their power and the means they have to corrupt, the majority is indeed so constantly deceived that, when one dwells only on this side of our political life, it is easy to arrive at the conviction that democracy is a myth and that, in fact, the end may never come of this power of the few to divert and pervert the institutions for expressing the popular will. but there is no way of achieving democracy in any form except through democracy, and we have found that he who rejects political action finds himself irresistibly drawn into the use of means that are both indefensible and abortive. curiously enough, in this use of methods, as in other ways, extremes meet. both the despot and the terrorist are anti-democrats. neither the anarchist of bakounin's type nor the anarchist of the wall street type trusts the people. with their cliques and inner circles plotting their conspiracies, they are forced to travel the same subterranean passages. the one through corruption impresses the will of the wealthy and powerful upon the community. the other hopes that by some dash upon authority a spirited, daring, and reckless minority can overturn existing society and establish a new social order. the method of the political boss, the aristocrat, the self-seeker, the monopolist--even in the use of thugs, private armies, spies, and _provocateurs_--differs little from the methods proposed by bakounin in his alliance. and it is not in the least strange that much of the lawlessness and violence of the last half-century has had its origin in these two sources. in all the unutterably despicable work of detective agencies and police spies that has led to the destruction of property, to riots and minor rebellions that have cost the lives of many thousands in recent decades, we find the sordid materialism of special privilege seeking to gain its secret ends. in all the unutterably tragic work of the terrorists that has cost so many lives we find the rage and despair of self-styled revolutionists seeking to gain their secret ends. after all, it matters little whether the aim of a group of conspirators is purely selfish or wholly altruistic. it matters little whether their program is to build into a system private monopoly or to save the world from that monopoly. their methods outrage democracy, even when they are not actually criminal. the oldest anarchist believes that the people must be _deceived_ into a worse social order, and that at least is a tribute to their intelligence. on the other hand, the bakouninists, old and new, believe that the people must be _deceived_ into a better social order, and that is founded upon their complete distrust of the people. and, rightly enough, the attitude of the masses toward the secret and conspiratory methods of both the idealist anarchist and the materialist anarchist is the same. if the latter distrust the people, the people no less distrust them. if the masses would mob the terrorist who springs forth to commit some fearful act, the purpose of which they cannot in the least understand, they would, if possible, also mob the individual responsible for manipulation of elections, for the buying of legislatures, and for the purchasing of court decisions. they fear, distrust, and denounce the terrorist who goes forth to commit arson, pillage, or assassination no less than the anarchist who purchases private armies, hires thugs to beat up unoffending citizens, and uses the power of wealth to undermine the government. in one sense, the acts of the materialist anarchist are clearer even than those of the other. the people know the ends sought by the powerful. on the other hand, the ends sought by the terrorist are wholly mysterious; he has not even taken the trouble to make his program clear. we find, then, that the anarchist of high finance, who would suppress democracy in the interest of a new feudalism, and the anarchist of a sect, who would override democracy in the hope of communism, are classed together in the popular mind. the man who in this day deifies the individual or the sect, and would make the rights of the individual or the sect override the rights of the many, is battling vainly against the supreme current of the age. democracy may be a myth. yet of all the faiths of our time none is more firmly grounded, none more warmly cherished. if any man refuses to abide by the decisions of democracy and takes his case out of that court, he ranges against himself practically the entire populace. on the other hand, the man who takes his case to that court is often forced to suffer for a long time humiliating defeats. if the case be a new one but little understood, there is no place where a hearing seems so hard to win as in exactly that court. universal suffrage, by which such cases are decided, appears to the man with a new idea as an obstacle almost overwhelming. he must set out on a long and dreary road of education and of organization; he must take his case before a jury made up of untold millions; he must wait maybe for centuries to obtain a majority. to go into this great open court and plead an entirely new cause requires a courage that is sublime and convictions that have the intensity of a religion. one who possesses any doubt cannot begin a task so gigantic, and certainly one who, for any reason, distrusts the people cannot, of course, put his case in that court. it was with full realization of the difficulties, of the certainty of repeated defeats, and of the overwhelming power against them that the socialists entered this great arena to fight their battle. universal suffrage is a merciless thing. how often has it served the purpose of stripping the socialist naked and exposing him to a terrible humiliation! again and again, in the history of the last fifty years, have the socialists, after tremendous agitation, gigantic mass meetings, and widespread social unrest, marched their followers to the polls with results positively pitiful. a dozen votes out of thousands have in more cases than one marked their relative power. there is no other example in the world of such faith, courage, and persistence in politics as that of the socialists, who, despite defeat after defeat, humiliation after humiliation, have never lost hope, but on every occasion, in every part of the modern world, have gone up again and again to be knocked down by that jury. and let it be said to their credit that never once anywhere have the socialists despaired of democracy. "_socialism and democracy ... belong to each other, round out each other, and can never stand in contradiction to each other. socialism without democracy is pseudo-socialism, just as democracy without socialism is pseudo-democracy. the democratic state is the only possible form of a socialised society._"[ ] the inseparableness of democracy and socialism has served the organized movement as an unerring guide at every moment of its struggle for existence and of its fight against the ruling powers. it has served to keep its soul free from that cynical distrust of the people which is evident in the writings of the anarchists and of the syndicalists--in bakounin, nechayeff, sorel, berth, and pouget. it has also served to keep it from those emotional reactions which have led nearly every great leader of the direct-actionists in the last century to become in the end an apostate. feargus o'connor, joseph rayner stephens, the fierce leaders of chartism; bakounin, blanc, richard, jaclard, andrieux, bastelica, the flaming revolutionists of the alliance; briand, sorel, berth, the leading propagandists and philosophers of modern syndicalism; every one of them turned in despair from the movement. cobden, bonaparte, clémenceau, the empire, the "new monarchy," or a comfortable berth, claimed in the end every one of these impatient middle-class intellectuals, who never had any real understanding of the actual labor movement. and, if the union of democracy and socialism has saved the movement from reactions such as these, it has also saved it from the desperation that gives birth to individual methods, such as the propaganda of the deed and sabotage. that is what the inseparableness of democracy and socialism has done for the movement in the past; and it has in it an even greater service yet to perform. it has the power of salvation for society itself in the not remote future, when it will be face to face, throughout the world, with an irresistible current toward state socialism. industrial democracy and political democracy are indissolubly united; their union cannot be sundered except at the cost of destruction to them both. in adopting, then, the methods of education, of organization, and of political action the socialists rest their case upon the decision of democracy. they accept the weapons that civilization has put into their hands, and they are testing the word of kings and of parliaments that democracy can, if it wishes, alter the bases of society. and in no small measure this is the secret of their immense strength and of their enormous growth. there is nothing strange in the fact that the socialists stand almost alone to-day faithful to democracy. it simply means that they believe in it even for themselves, that is to say, for the working class. they believe in it for industry as well as for politics, and, if they are at war with the political despot, they are also at war with the industrial despot. everyone is a socialist and a democrat within his circle. no capitalist objects to a group of capitalists coöperatively owning a great railroad. the fashionable clubs of both city and country are almost perfect examples of group socialism. they are owned coöperatively and conducted for the benefit of all the members. even some reformers are socialists in this measure--that they believe it would be well for the community to own public utilities, provided skilled, trained, honorable men, like themselves, are permitted to conduct them. indeed, the only democracy or socialism that is seriously combated is that which embraces the most numerous and most useful class in society, "the only class that is not a class";[ ] the only class so numerous that it "cannot effect its emancipation without delivering all society from its division into classes."[ ] in any case, here it is, "the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority,"[ ] already with its eleven million voters and its fifty million souls. it has slowly, patiently, painfully toiled up to a height where it is beginning to see visions of victory. it has faith in itself and in its cause. it believes it has the power of deliverance for all society and for all humanity. it does not expect the powerful to have faith in it; but, as jesus came out of despised nazareth, so the new world is coming out of the multitude, amid the toil and sweat and anguish of the mills, mines, and factories of the world. it has endured much; suffered ages long of slavery and serfdom. from being mere animals of production, the workers have become the "hands" of production; and they are now reaching out to become the masters of production. and, while in other periods of the world their intolerable misery led them again and again to strike out in a kind of torrential anarchy that pulled down society itself, they have in our time, for the first time in the history of the world, patiently and persistently organized themselves into a world power. where shall we find in all history another instance of the organization in less than half a century of eleven million people into a compact force for the avowed purpose of peacefully and legally taking possession of the world? they have refused to hurry. they have declined all short cuts. they have spurned violence. the "bourgeois democrats," the terrorists, and the syndicalists, each in their time, have tried to point out a shorter, quicker path. the workers have refused to listen to them. on the other hand, they have declined the way of compromise, of fusions, and of alliances, that have also promised a quicker and a shorter road to power. with the most maddening patience they have declined to take any other path than their own--thus infuriating not only the terrorists in their own ranks but those greeks from the other side who came to them bearing gifts. nothing seems to disturb them or to block their path. they are offered reforms and concessions, which they take blandly, but without thanks. they simply move on and on, with the terrible, incessant, irresistible power of some eternal, natural force. they have been fought; yet they have never lost a single great battle. they have been flattered and cajoled, without ever once anywhere being appeased. they have been provoked, insulted, imprisoned, calumniated, and repressed. they are indifferent to it all. they simply move on and on--with the patience and the meekness of a people with the vision that they are soon to inherit the earth. footnotes: [ag] the vote for belgium is estimated. the liberals and the socialists combined at the last election in opposition to the clericals, and together polled over , , votes. the british socialist year book, , estimates the total socialist vote at about , . [ah] above data taken from international news letter of national trade union centers, berlin, may , . [ai] "the general strike," engels said, "is in bakounin's program the lever which must be applied in order to inaugurate the social revolution.... the proposition is far from being new; some french socialists, and, after them, some belgian socialists have since shown a partiality for riding this beast of parade." this appeared in a series of articles written for _der volksstaat_ in and republished in the pamphlet "_bakunisten an der arbeit_." authorities chapter i [ ] macaulay, critical, historical, and miscellaneous essays: the earl of chatham, p. . [ ] bakounin, _oeuvres_, vol. iii, p. . (p. v, stock, paris, - .) [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. xiv. [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. xlvii. [ ] _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_, p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) a. darson, london, and otto meissner, hamburg, . [ ] _idem_, p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] _idem_, p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] _idem_, p. . (the secret alliance.) [ ] _idem_, p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. viii. [ ] _l'alliance_, etc., p. . [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. viii. [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. xxiii. [ ] quoted in _l'alliance_, etc., p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _l'alliance_, etc., p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] _idem_, pp. - . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] _idem_, p. . (secret statutes of the alliance.) [ ] _cf._ guillaume, _l'internationale; documents et souvenirs_ ( - ). vol. i, p. . (Édouard cornély et cie., paris, - .) [ ] _cf. idem_, vol. i, pp. - , for entire program. [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. v, p. . [ ] _l'alliance_, etc., pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. (quotations from the principles of the revolution). [ ] _idem_, p. (the principles of the revolution). [ ] _idem_, p. (the principles of the revolution). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . chapter ii [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. . [ ] lefrançais, _mémoires d'un révolutionnaire_, p. (paris). [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. (oscar testut). [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii. pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] quoted by _idem_, vol. ii, p. . cf. the social democrat, april , . [ ] _l'alliance_, etc., p. . [ ] marx, the commune of paris (bax's translation), p. . (twentieth century press, ltd., london, .) [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _bakunisten an der arbeit_, i, by frederick engels, printed in _der volksstaat_, october , , no. . [ ] quoted by guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . chapter iii [ ] kropotkin, memoirs of a revolutionist, p. . (houghton, mifflin & co., boston, .) [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] kropotkin, _paroles d'un révolté_, pp. - (e. flammarion, paris, ). [ ] _l'alliance_, etc., p. (the principles of the revolution). [ ] prolo, _les anarchistes_, pp. - (marcel rivière et cie., paris, ); _or_ guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] prolo, _op. cit._, pp. - ; _or_ guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] bebel, my life, p. (chicago university press, ). [ ] zenker, anarchism: a criticism and history of the anarchist theory, p. (g. p. putnam's sons, new y ork, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] kropotkin, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] zenker, _op. cit._, p. . chapter iv [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] quoted by zenker, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] zenker, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] emma goldman, anarchism and other essays, p. (mother earth publishing co., new york, ). [ ] quoted in history of socialism in the united states, p. (funk & wagnalls, new york, ), by morris hillquit, who gives a fuller account of this period. [ ] quoted by ely, the labor movement in america, p. (thomas y. crowell, new york, d ed., ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] the chicago martyrs, p. (free society publishing co., san francisco, ). [ ] reprinted in instead of a book, by benjamin r. tucker, pp. - (benj. r. tucker, new york, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] bebel, my life, p. . [ ] alexander berkman, prison memoirs of an anarchist, p. (mother earth publishing company, new york, ). chapter v [ ] quoted by prolo, _les anarchistes_, p. . [ ] prolo, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] quoted from _l'Éclair_ by prolo, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] quoted by prolo, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] quoted by _idem_, p. . [ ] quoted by _idem_, p. . [ ] emma goldman, anarchism and other essays, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] prolo, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _pall mall gazette_, april , . chapter vi [ ] emma goldman, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] percy bysshe shelley, julian and maddalo. [ ] _idem._ [ ] angiolillo, quoted by goldman, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] goldman, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] the chicago martyrs, p. . [ ] alfred tennyson, the vision of sin, iv. [ ] lombroso, _les anarchistes_, pp. , - , (flammarion, paris, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] quoted by lombroso, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] zenker, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] bebel, _attentate und sozialdemokratie_, p. , a speech delivered at berlin, november , (_vorwärts_, berlin, ). [ ] the chicago martyrs, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] max stirner, the ego and his own, p. (a. c. fifield, london, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] lombroso, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] marx and engels, the communist manifesto, p. (c. h. kerr & co., chicago, ). [ ] reprinted in guesde's _quatre ans de lutte des classes_, pp. - (g. jacques et cie., paris, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] bebel, _attentate und sozialdemokratie_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] goldman, anarchism and other essays, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] this is a translation of an editorial that has appeared in various foreign newspapers and also, it is said, in the _illinois staats-zeitung_; _cf._ de leon, socialism _versus_ anarchism, p. (new york labor news company, new york). chapter vii [ ] _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, etc., p. . [ ] george brandes, main currents in nineteenth century literature, vol. vi (the macmillan company, new york, ). [ ] engels in the introduction to _révélations sur le procès des communistes_, published together with, and under the title of, marx's _l'allemagne en _, p. (schleicher frères, paris, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . my italics. [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] communist manifesto, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. , . [ ] engels, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] quoted by engels in _op. cit._, p. . [ ] albion w. small, socialism in the light of social science, reprinted from the _american journal of sociology_, vol. xvii, no. (may, ), p. . [ ] communist manifesto, pp. , . [ ] albion w. small, article cited, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] address and provisional rules of the international working men's association (london, ), p. . [ ] letter of marx's of october , , published in the _neue zeit_, april , . [ ] address and provisional rules of the international working men's association (london, ), p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] engels, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] marx, _l'allemagne en _, p. . [ ] letter of october , , published in the _neue zeit_, april , . [ ] quoted by jaeckh, the international, p. (twentieth century press, ltd., london). [ ] nicolay and hay, complete works of abraham lincoln, vol. x, p. (francis d. tandy co., new york). my italics. [ ] jaurès, studies in socialism, p. (g. p. putnam's sons, new york, , translated by mildred minturn). chapter viii [ ] bakounin, _oeuvres_, vol. ii, p. viii. [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, pp. xi-xii. [ ] _l'allemagne en _, p. . [ ] liebknecht, karl marx: biographical memoirs, pp. - (c. h. kerr, chicago, ). [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. xvii. [ ] _cf._ marx, revolution and counter-revolution, p. (scribner's, new york, ). [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. xx. [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. i, p. . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fourth international congress of the international working men's association, basel, , pp. - (bruxelles, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. . [ ] i am following here the english version, published by the general council, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fourth international congress of the international working men's association, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. . [ ] quoted by bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. v, p. . [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. v, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. v, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. v, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. i, pp. xxxii-xxxiii. [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] communist manifesto, p. . [ ] engels, socialism, utopian and scientific, pp. - (scribner's, new york, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . italics mine. [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fourth international congress of the international working men's association, p. . [ ] bakounin, _op. cit._, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. vi, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. vi, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. vi, p. . [ ] engels, landmarks of scientific socialism, p. (kerr, chicago, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . my italics. [ ] resolutions of the conference of delegates of the international working men's association, assembled at london from the th to the d of september, , no. ix (london, ). chapter ix [ ] _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, etc., p. . [ ] bakounin, _oeuvres_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _cf._ _compte-rendu officiel_ of the geneva congress, , p. (locle, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iii, p. . [ ] plechanoff, anarchism and socialism, p. (the twentieth century press, ltd., london, ; trans, by eleanor marx aveling). [ ] guillaume, _op. cit._, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. iv, pp. - . [ ] dawson, german socialism and ferdinand lassalle, p. , (scribner's sons, new york, ). [ ] ferdinand lassalle, _reden und schriften_, vol. ii, pp. - (_vorwärts_, berlin, ). [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] _idem_, vol. ii, p. . [ ] quoted by dawson, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. ; _cf._ also, bernstein, ferdinand lassalle as a social reformer, pp. - (scribner's sons, new york, ). [ ] quoted by dawson, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] quoted by milhaud, _la démocratie socialiste allemande,_ p. (félix alcan, paris, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] these sections are reduced from dawson's summary in _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] quoted in dawson, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] bebel, _attentate und sozialdemokratie_, p. . [ ] _protokoll_ of the congress of the german social-democracy, wyden, , p. (zurich, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] quoted by dawson, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] speech in the reichstag, march , ; quoted by dawson, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] speech in the reichstag, april , ; quoted by dawson, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _protokoll_ of the proceedings of party conferences of the german social-democracy, erfurt, , p. (berlin, ). chapter x [ ] quoted by prolo, _les anarchistes_, p. . [ ] international socialist workers and trade union congress, london, , p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] de seilhac, _les congrès ouvriers en france_, p. (armand colin et cie., paris, ). [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu du congrès national corporatif_, montpelier, . [ ] _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, etc., pp. - . [ ] sombart, socialism and the socialist movement, pp. - (e. p. dutton & co., new york, ; trans, from th german edition). [ ] louis levine, the labor movement in france, p. (columbia university, new york, ). [ ] arthur d. lewis, syndicalism and the general strike, p. (t. fisher unwin, london, ). [ ] berth, _les nouveaux aspects du socialisme_, p. (marcel rivière et cie., paris, ). [ ] robert browning, cleon. [ ] sombart, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the seventh international socialist congress, stuttgart, , p. . [ ] _cf._ _compte-rendu_ of the sixth international socialist congress, amsterdam, , p. . [ ] levine, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _compte-rendu du congrès national corporatif_, toulouse, , p. . [ ] Étienne buisson, _la grève générale_, p. (librairie george bellais, paris, ). [ ] labriola, karl marx, pp. - (marcel rivière et cie., paris, ). [ ] plechanoff, anarchism and socialism, p. . [ ] kampffmeyer, changes in the theory and tactics of the german social democracy, pp. - (c. h. kerr, chicago, ). [ ] quoted in kampffmeyer, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] quoted in jaurès, studies in socialism, pp. - . [ ] kautsky, _das erfurter programm_, pp. - ( th edition, stuttgart, ); _cf._ also the socialist republic, by kautsky, pp. - . [ ] communist manifesto, p. . [ ] engels, socialism, utopian and scientific, p. . [ ] _cf._ menger, the right to the whole produce of labor, p. (macmillan & co., london, ). [ ] webb, the history of trade unionism, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] quoted by sombart, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] sombart, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] marx, revolution and counter-revolution, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fourth international congress of the international working men's association, p. . [ ] quoted by plechanoff, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] Émile pouget, _le syndicat_, p. (Émile pouget, paris, d edition). [ ] sorel, _illusions du progrès_, p. (marcel rivière et cie., paris, ). [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fifth national congress of the french socialist party, , p. . [ ] _xie. congrès national corporatif_, paris, , p. ; quoted by levine, _op. cit._, p. . [ ] _la confédération générale du travail_; ii _la tactique_. [ ] _idem._ [ ] _cf._ proudhon, _la révolution sociale et le coup d'État_, (ernest flammarion, paris); goldman, minorities _versus_ majorities, in anarchism and other essays; and kropotkin, _les minorités révolutionnaires_, in _paroles d'un révolté_. [ ] webb, the history of trade unionism, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the third national congress of the french socialist party, , pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] jaurès, studies in socialism, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _compte-rendu_ of the fourth international congress of the international working men's association, basel, , p. . [ ] kropotkin, the great french revolution, p. (g. p. putnam's sons, new york, ). [ ] proudhon, _idée générale de la révolution au xixe. siècle_, p. (garnier frères, paris, ). [ ] _idem_, p. . chapter xi [ ] proudhon, _idée générale de la révolution_, p. . [ ] roger a. pryor, quoted in the report of the investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives: house special committee report, , p. . [ ] investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives: senate special committee report, , p. . [ ] thomas beet, methods of american private detective agencies, _appleton's magazine_, october, . [ ] _idem._ [ ] _idem._ [ ] _idem._ [ ] _new york sun_, may , . [ ] _new york call_, september , . [ ] investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives: house special committee report, , p. . [ ] see his testimony, pp. - of the senate report. [ ] report of the industrial commission, , vol. viii, pp. - , (chicago labor disputes). [ ] _american federationist_, november, , vol. xviii, p. . [ ] limiting federal injunction: hearings before a subcommittee of the committee on the judiciary, united states senate, jan. , , part i, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _appleton's magazine_, october, . [ ] hillquit, history of socialism in the united states, pp. - . [ ] investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives, senate special committee report, , p. xiii. [ ] _idem_, p. ii. [ ] _idem_, p. xii. [ ] _idem_, p. xv. [ ] investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives: house special committee report, , p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] report on the chicago strike of june-july, , by the united states strike commission, p. xxxviii. [ ] _idem_, p. xliv. [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, pp. - . [ ] _idem_, p. (from the testimony of harold i. cleveland). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] debs, the federal government and the chicago strike, p. (standard publishing co., terre haute, ind., ). [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] emma f. langdon, the cripple creek strike, p. (the great western publishing co., denver, ). [ ] report of the commissioner of labor, , on labor disturbances in colorado, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] cf. clarence s. darrow, speech in the haywood case, p. (_wayland's monthly_, girard, kan., october, ). [ ] report of the commissioner of labor, , on labor disturbances in colorado, p. . [ ] c. dobrogeaunu-gherea, socialism _vs._ anarchism, _new york call_, february , . [ ] kropotkin, the terror in russia, p. (methuen & co., london, ). [ ] bamford, passages in the life of a radical, vol. ii, p. (t. fisher unwin, london, ). [ ] in bamford's "passages in the life of a radical" (t. fisher unwin, london, ), we find that spies and _provocateurs_ were sent into the labor movement as early as . in holyoake's "sixty years of an agitator's life" (unwin, ), in howell's "labor legislation, labor movements, labor leaders" (unwin, ), and in webb's "history of trade unionism" (longmans, green & co., london, ), the work of several noted police agents is spoken of. in gammage's "history of the chartist movement" (truslove & hanson, london, ) and in davidson's "annals of toil" (f. r. henderson, london, n.d.) we are told of one police agent who gave balls and ammunition to the men and endeavored to persuade them to commit murder. marx, in "revolution and counter-revolution" (scribner's sons, ), and engels, in _révélations sur le procès des communistes_ (schleicher frères, paris, ), tell of the work of the german police agents in connection with the communist league; while bebel, in "my life" (chicago university press, ), and in _attentate und sozialdemokratie_ (_vorwärts_, berlin, ), tells of the infamous work of _provocateurs_ sent among the socialists at the time of bismarck's repression. kropotkin, in "the memoirs of a revolutionist" (houghton, mifflin & co., boston, ), and in "the terror in russia" (methuen & co., london, ), devotes many pages to the crimes committed by the secret police of russia, not only in that country but elsewhere. mazzini, marx, bakounin, and nearly all prominent anarchists, socialists, and republicans of the middle of the last century, were surrounded by spies, who made every effort to induce them to enter into plots. in the "investigation of the employment of pinkerton detectives: house and senate special committee reports, "; in the "report on chicago strike of june-july, ; u. s. strike commission, "; in the "report of the commissioner of labor on labor disturbances in colorado, "; in the "report of the industrial commission, , vol. viii", there is a great mass of evidence on the work of detectives, both in committing violence themselves and in seeking to provoke others to violence. in "conditions in the paint creek district of west virginia: hearings before a subcommittee of the committee on education and labor, u. s. senate; "; in "hearings before the committee on rules, house of representatives, on conditions in the westmoreland coal fields"; in the "report on the strike at bethlehem, senate document no. "; in "peonage in western pennsylvania: hearings before the committee on labor, house of representatives, ," considerable evidence is given of the thuggery and murder committed by detectives, guards, and state constabularies. some of this evidence reveals conditions that could hardly be equaled in russia. "history of the conspiracy to defeat striking molders" (internatl. molders' union of n. america); "limiting federal injunction: hearings before the subcommittee of the committee on the judiciary, u. s. senate, , part v"; the report of the same hearings for january, , part i, "united states steel corporation: hearings before committee on investigation, house of representatives, feb. , "; the "report on strike of textile workers in lawrence, mass.: commissioner of labor, "; and "strike at lawrence, mass.: hearings before the committee on rules, house of representatives, march - , ," also contain a mass of evidence concerning the crimes of detectives and the terrorist tactics used by those employed to break strikes. alexander irvine's "revolution in los angeles" (los angeles, ); f. e. wolfe's "capitalism's conspiracy in california" (the white press, los angeles, ); debs's "the federal government and the chicago strike" (standard publishing co., terre haute, ind., ); ben lindsey's "the rule of plutocracy in colorado"; the "reply of the western federation of miners to the 'red book' of the mine operators"; "anarchy in colorado: who is to blame?" (the bartholomew publishing co., denver, colo., ); the _american federationist_, april, ; the _american federationist_, november, ; job harriman's "class war in idaho" (_volks-zeitung_ library, new york, ), emma f. langdon's "the cripple creek strike" (the great western publishing co., denver, ); c. h. salmons' "the burlington strike" (bunnell & ward, aurora, ill., ); and morris friedman's "the pinkerton labor spy" (wilshire book co., new york, ), contain the statements chiefly of labor leaders and socialists upon the violence suffered by the unions as a result of the work of the courts, of the police, of the militia, and of detectives. "the pinkerton labor spy" gives what purports to be the inside story of the pinkerton agency and the details of its methods in dealing with strikes. clarence s. darrow's "speech in the haywood case" (_wayland's monthly_, girard, kan., oct., ) is the plea made before the jury in idaho that freed haywood. only the oratorical part of it was printed in the daily press, while the crushing evidence darrow presents against the detective agencies and their infamous work was ignored. capt. michael j. schaack's "anarchy and anarchists" (f. j. schulte & co., chicago, ); and pinkerton's "the molly maguires and detectives" (g. w. dillingham co., new york, ) are the naïve stories of those who have performed notable rôles in labor troubles. they read like "wild-west" stories written by overgrown boys, and the manner in which these great detectives frankly confess that they or their agents were at the bottom of the plots which they describe is quite incredible. "the chicago martyrs: the famous speeches of the eight anarchists in judge gary's court and altgeld's reasons for pardoning fielden, neebe and schwab" (free society, san francisco, ), contains the memorable message of governor altgeld when pardoning the anarchists. in his opinion they were in no small measure the dupes of police spies and the victims of judicial injustice. i have dealt at length with thomas beet's article on "methods of american private detectives" in _appleton's magazine_ for october, , but it will repay a full reading. "coeur d'alene mining troubles: the crime of the century" (senate document) and "statement and evidence in support of charges against the u. s. steel corporation by the american federation of labor" are perhaps worth mentioning. i have not attempted to give an exhaustive list of references, but only to call attention to a few books and pamphlets which have found their way into my library. [ ] quoted by august bebel in _attentate und sozialdemokratie_, p. . [ ] limiting federal injunctions: hearings before a subcommittee of the committee on the judiciary, united states senate, , part i, p. . chapter xii [ ] sombart, socialism and the socialist movement, p. . [ ] liebknecht, karl marx: biographical memoirs, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, etc., p. (secret statutes of the alliance). [ ] communist manifesto, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] _idem_, p. . [ ] engels' introduction to struggle of the social classes in france; quoted by sombart, _op. cit._, pp. - . [ ] liebknecht, no compromise, no political trading, p. ; my italics. [ ] frederic harrison, quoted in davidson's annals of toil, p. (f. r. henderson, london, n.d.). [ ] engels in _l'allemagne en _, p. . [ ] communist manifesto, p. . index a adam, paul, quoted concerning case of ravachol, - . _agents provocateurs_, work of, in popular uprisings and socialist and labor movements, - , - , ; use of private detectives as, in united states, - , - . alexander ii of russia, assassination of, , . america. _see_ united states. anarchism, introduction of doctrines of, in western europe by bakounin, ff.; secret societies founded in interests of, - ; insurrections under auspices of, - ; criticism of, by socialists, ; uprisings in italy fathered by, - ; unbridgeable chasm between socialism and, - ; with the propaganda of the deed becomes synonymous with violence and crime, ; foothold secured by, in germany, - ; in austria-hungary, - ; agitation in france, - ; doctrines of, carried to america by johann most, - ; the haymarket tragedy, - ; defense of, by benjamin r. tucker, and disowning of terrorist tactics, - ; responsibility for deeds of leaders of, laid at bismarck's door, - ; assassination of president mckinley and shooting of h. c. frick, ; failure of, to take firm root in america any more than in germany and england, - ; in the latin countries, ; acts of violence in name of, in europe, - ; question of responsibility of, for acts of violence committed by terrorists, ff.; different types attracted by socialism and, - ; the psychology of devotees of, - ; causes of terrorist tactics assigned by catholic church to doctrines of socialism, - ; source of, traceable to great-man theory, ff.; work of police agents in connection with, - ; the battle between socialism and, - ; emergence of, as a distinct philosophy, ; history of, after hague congress of , ff.; congress in geneva in , - ; insolvable problem created by, in rejecting political action of the working class, ; assaults on the marxists by adherents of, - ; bitter warfare between socialism and, - ; appearance of syndicalism as an aid to, - ; ignoring of, in socialist congresses, ; appearance of the "intellectuals" in ranks of, - ; similarities between philosophies and methods of syndicalism and, - ; differences between syndicalism and, - ; consideration of the oldest form of, that of the wealthy and ruling classes, - ; of the powerful in the united states, ff. andrieux, french revolutionist, . angiolillo, italian terrorist, . anti-socialist law, bismarck's, responsible for most's career as a terrorist, - ; passage of, and chief measures contained in, - ; growth of socialist vote under, ; failure and repeal of, - . arson practiced by revolutionists in america, - . assassination, preaching of, by bakounin and nechayeff, ; practice of, by anarchists in france, - ; the catholic church and, - ; glorification of, in history, - . atwell, b. a., on character of deputy marshals in chicago railway strike, . australia, parliamentary power of socialists in, , . austria, empress of, assassinated by italian anarchist, . austria-hungary, development and checking of anarchist movement in, - ; growth of socialist and labor vote in, . b baker, ray stannard, quoted on character of deputy marshals in chicago railway strike, - . bakounin, michael, father of terrorism, ; admiration of, for satan, ; views held by, on absolutism, - ; destruction of all states and all churches advocated by, ; varying opinions of, ; shown to be human in his contradictions, - ; chief characteristics and qualities of his many-sided nature, ; birth, family, and early life, - ; leaves russia for germany, switzerland, and france, ; meets proudhon, marx, george sand, and other revolutionary spirits, ; leads insurrectionary movements, - ; captured, sentenced to death, and finally banished to siberia, ; escapes and reaches england, ; change in views shown in writings of, - ; spends some time in italy, - ; forms secret organization of revolutionists, - ; the international brothers, the national brothers, and the international alliance of social democracy, - ; enters the international working men's association, with the hope of securing leadership, ; declares war on political and economic powers of europe and assails marx, engels, and other leaders, - ; interest of, in russian affairs, ; collaborates with sergei nechayeff, - ; expounds doctrines of criminal activity, - ; the "words addressed to students," - ; the "revolutionary catechism," - ; quarrel between nechayeff and, - ; remains in switzerland and trains young revolutionists, - ; takes part in unsuccessful insurrection at lyons, - ; marx quoted concerning action of, at lyons, - ; influence of, felt in spanish revolution of , - ; in italy, during uprisings of , - ; retires from public life, - ; humiliating experiences of last years, - ; opinions expressed by anarchists and by socialists concerning, upon death of, - ; teachings of, the inspiration of the propaganda of the deed, ; principles of, preached by johann most, ; spread of terrorist ideas of, in america, ; history of the battle between marx and, - ; suspected and charged with being a russian police agent, , ; quoted on marx, ; victory won over marx by, at basel congress of international in , - ; attack of marx and his followers on, and reply by, in the "study upon the german jews," - ; flood of literature by, based on his antagonism to religion and to government, - ; inability of, to comprehend doctrines of marxian socialism, - ; irreconcilability of doctrines of, with those of socialists, - ; expulsion of, from the international, ; attacks the general council of the international as a new incarnation of the state, ; quoted to show antagonism between his doctrines and those of marxists, ; the robber worship of, - . barcelona, bomb-throwing in, . barrot, odilon, . basel, congress of international at ( ), - . bauer, heinrich, . bauler, madame a., quoted on influence of bakounin, - . bebel, august, quoted on bismarck's repressive measures, - ; quoted on johann most, - ; on the condoning of assassination by the catholic church, - ; reveals participations of high officials in crimes of the anarchists, - ; mentioned, , - ; account of struggle between bismarck and party of, - ; state-socialist propositions favored by, - . beesby, e. s., ; urges political activity on early trade unions, . beet, thomas, exposure by, of evils attending use of detectives in united states, - , - , . berkman, alexander, shooting of h. c. frick by, ; motive which actuated, ; events which led up to action of, - ; fate of, contrasted with that of agents of the anarchy of the wealthy during homestead strike, . bern, revolutionary manifestation at ( ), . berth, edward, quoted in connection with the "intellectuals," - ; mentioned, , . bismarck, stirs up germany against social-democratic party on account of anarchistic acts, ; effect of action of, on anarchism in germany, ; responsibility of, for johann most and other terrorists, and for haymarket tragedy, - ; bebel quoted in connection with the hero-worship of, in germany, - ; admiration of, for lassalle, ; corruption introduced into german labor movement by, - ; exposed by liebknecht and bebel, begins war upon marxian socialists, - ; futile efforts of, to provoke social democrats to violence, - ; reaction of his violent measures upon himself, . blanc, gaspard, , . blanc, louis, , , ; lassalle's views compared with those of, . blanqui, socialist insurrectionist, - . bonnot, french motor bandit, - , . booth, j. wilkes, motive which actuated, in killing of lincoln, . brandes, george, "young germany" by, ; quoted on lassalle, - . brass, august, tool of bismarck, . bray, j. f., . bresci, gaetano, assassin of king humbert, . briand, aristide, n., , . brousse, paul, , - , ; originates phrase, "the propaganda of the deed," - ; leads revolutionary manifestation at bern, ; leaves the bakouninists, . bucher, lothar, tool of bismarck, . burlington strike, outrages by private detectives during, . burns, william j., quoted on character of detectives as a class, - . c cabet, utopian socialism of, . cafiero, carlo, italian revolutionist, disciple of bakounin, , , , , , , , . camorra, an organization of italians which pursues terrorist tactics, . "capital," marx's work, , . capitalism, workingmen's ignorance concerning, previous to advent of karl marx, - . carnot, president, assassination of, . caserio, assassin of president carnot, , - . castillo, canovas del, torture of suspected terrorists by, . catholic church, burden of anarchism laid on doctrines of socialism by, ; right of assassination upheld by clergy of, - ; terrorist tactics pursued by organizations of, . cerretti, celso, italian insurrectionist, . chartists, the, , , , . cluseret, general, , , . colorado, governmental tyranny during labor wars in, ; political and industrial battles in ( - ), - . commune of paris, viewed as a spontaneous uprising of the working class, - . communist league, marx presents his views to, resulting in the communist manifesto, - . communist manifesto, of marx and engels, - ; the universal text-book of the socialist movement, . communist societies in germany, . congress of united states, socialists not represented in, , . congresses, international, of socialists, . cooper, thomas, . coöperative movement, beginning of, in england, ; progress in growth of, - . corruption, the omnipresence of, - . costa, andrea, ; at anarchist congress in geneva ( ), - ; article by, attacking socialists, ; leaves the bakouninists, . courts, prevalence of violence set down to corruption of, , . cramer, peter j., union leader killed by special police, . criminal elements, part played by, in uprisings, - ; use of, as the tool of reactionary intrigue, ff., - . cripple creek, colo., strike, - . cyvoct, militant anarchist of lyons, - . czolgosz, assassin of president mckinley, , ; motive which actuated, . d debs, eugene v., on instigation to violence by deputies in chicago railway strike, - . decamps, french terrorist, . delesalle, french anarchist, a sponsor of sabotage as a war measure of trade unionists, . democracy, attacks of syndicalism on, - ; view of the present day as the age of, ; to be achieved only through democracy, , ; eternal faith of socialists in, . detectives, employment of, as weapons of anarchists of the wealthy class in the united states, ff.; character of the so-called, employed during big strikes in united states, - ; use of, as instigators and perpetrators of acts of violence, - , - , - ; pecuniary interest of, in provoking crime, ; intentional misleading of employers by, - ; prolongation of strikes by, - ; a few of the outrages committed by, - . deville, gabriel, . direct action, opposed by syndicalists to the political action of socialists, ff.; cannot be revolutionary action and is destined to failure, . duehring, eugene, mistaken views of socialism held by, . duval, clément, french anarchist and robber, - . dynamite, glorifying of, by terrorists, as the poor man's weapon against capitalism, . e eccarius, reply of, to bakounin at basel congress, ; at anarchist congress in geneva ( ), . egoistic conception of history, carried to its extreme by anarchism, ff. engels, frederick, ; criticism by, of position of bakouninists in spanish revolution, , ; description by, of early communist societies in germany, ; first meeting of marx and, and beginning of their coöperative labors, - ; reply of, to dr. duehring, ; socialist view of the state as expressed by, - ; on the lasting power exercised by marx over the labor movement, ; on the reorganization of society through the conscious coöperation of the masses, - . f fenians, an organization of irishmen which pursued terrorist tactics, . feudal lords, anarchism of the, - , . fortis, italian revolutionist, . fourier, ; utopian socialism of, . france, anarchist activities in ( ), - ; deeds of terrorists in, - ; effects of terrorist tactics in, - ; crimes of motor bandits in, - ; early days of socialism in, - ; launching of socialist labor party in ( ), - ; individualism in, one cause for rise of syndicalism, - ; poverty as a cause for reliance upon violence of trade unions in, . frick, henry c., shooting of, ; events which led up to shooting of, - . fruneau, quoted on corruption in revolutions, . g general confederation of labor, organization of, . general strike, inauguration of idea, by french trade unionists, - ; guérard's argument for, - ; notable points in program of action of, - ; program of trade unionists in case of success in, - ; conditions which produce agitation for, - ; doubts of syndicalists as to success of a peaceable strike, - ; jaurès' warning against the, ; ridicule of, by marx and engels, . geneva, congress of anarchists at, in , - . germany, beginning of anarchist activity in, - ; great political organization built up by socialists in, ; meteoric career of lassalle in, - ; history of bismarck's losing battle with social democracy in, - ; state ownership favored by socialists in, - ; growth of socialist and labor vote in, ; strong parliamentary position of socialists in, - . goldman, emma, quoted on johann most, ; quoted on causes of violent acts by terrorists, ; on the connection of police with anarchist outrages, . grave, jean, french anarchist, . gray, john, . great-man theory, terrorist deeds of violence traceable to, ff. guérard, argument of, for revolutionary general strike, - . guesde, jules, , ; quoted on direct action vs. political action, - . guillaume, james, swiss revolutionist, friend of bakounin, , , , , , , , , ; takes part in manifestation at bern ( ), . h hales, john, at anarchist congress in geneva ( ), - . hall, charles, . harney, george julian, . harrison, frederic, quoted, . hasselmann, german revolutionist, , ; ejection of, from socialist party, . haymarket catastrophe, chicago, - . henry, Émile, french terrorist, , - , . herwegh, german poet and revolutionist, - . hess, moritz, secret history of basel congress of by, - . hillquit, morris, description by, of battle between strikers and detectives at homestead, - . hins, follower of bakounin, quoted, ; outlines, in , program of modern syndicalists, - . hödel, assassin of emperor william, , . hodgskin, thomas, . hogan, "kid," quoted on strike-breakers, - . homestead strike, character of pinkertons employed in, - ; account of battle between strikers and special police, - . houses of the people, in europe, . humbert, king, attempt upon life of, ; assassination of, . hume, joseph, . i individualism in france a contributing cause to rise of syndicalism, - . industrial workers of the world, american syndicalism, n. inheritance, abolition of right of, advocated by bakounin, - . intellectuals, appearance of, as an aid to anarchism, - ; lack of real understanding of labor movement by, and fate of, . international alliance of social democracy, - . international brothers, - . international working men's association (the "international"), bakounin's attempt to inject his ideas into, , ; launching of the, - ; beginning made by, in actual political work, - ; struggles in, between followers of marx and followers of bakounin's anarchist doctrines, ff.; congress of, at basel in the turning-point in its history, - ; overturning of foundation principles of, owing to anarchist tendencies of the congress, ; period of slight accomplishment, from to , - ; congress of at the hague, ; expulsion of bakounin and removal of seat of general council to new york, - ; motives of marx in destroying, ; one chief result of existence of, the distinct separation of anarchism and socialism, - ; attempts of bakouninists to revive, after hague congress, ff.; end of efforts of anarchists to build a new, . international working people's association, anarchist society in america, , . italy, anarchist uprisings in, in , - ; demonstration under doctrines of propaganda of the deed in ( ), - ; reasons for individual execution of justice in, found in expense of official justice and corruptness of courts, ; conditions in, leading to rise of syndicalism, , ; socialist and labor vote in, ; parliamentary strength of socialists in, . iwanoff, russian revolutionist, - . j jaclard, victor, , . jaurès, tribute paid to marx by, - ; warning pronounced by, against the general strike, . jesuits and doctrine of assassination, - . jones, ernest, . k kammerer, anarchist in austria-hungary, , . kampffmeyer, paul, quoted on state-socialist propositions in germany, . kautsky, karl, on the statism of the socialist party, . kropotkin, prince, - ; enthusiasm of, over the propaganda of the deed, ; quoted on anarchist activities at lyons, ; on act of united states supreme court declaring unconstitutional the eight-hour law on government work, - ; quoted on the pittsburgh strike, - ; on treatment of anarchists by socialists, n.; quoted on russian secret police system, n.; articles by, attacking socialist parliamentary tactics, - ; on the necessity of parliamentary action in distribution of land after the french revolution, . l labor movement, violence characteristic of early years of the, - ; beginning of real building of, in the middle of the last century, ; profit to, from aid of "intellectual" circles, ; in france, - ; in england, - ; setback to, in england due to various causes, ; beginnings of, in germany, - ; beginning of work of marx and engels in connection with, ff.; attempt of early socialist and anarchist sects to inject their ideas into, ; launching of the international, ff.; entrance of the international into actual political work, - ; the ideal of the labor movement as expressed by lincoln, ; part played by the international as an organization of labor, ; origins of, in germany, ; bismarck's persecution of social democrats in germany, - ; entrance of anarchism into, in france, ff.; illegitimate activities of capital against, in united states, - ; process of building structure of the present, - ; position as a great and material actuality, ; tracing of work done by marx in connection with, ff.; progress of, as indicated by socialist and labor vote, - ; parliamentary strength of, - ; growth of coöperations and trade unions, - . _labor standard_ article on united states supreme court decision, - . labor temples in europe, . labriola, arturo, syndicalist criticism of socialism by, - ; views of, on parliamentarism, . lafargue, paul, . lagardelle, on the antagonism of syndicalism and democracy, - . lankiewicz, valence, . lassalle, german socialist agitator, ff.; by organizing the universal german working men's association, becomes founder of german labor movement, ; relations between bismarck and, . legien, carl, quoted on french labor movement, . le vin, detective, quoted on character of special police, . levine, louis, "the labor movement in france" by, quoted, . liebknecht, wilhelm, quoted on marx's opposition to insurrection led by herwegh, ; mentioned, , - ; efforts of bismarck to corrupt, ; persecution of, by bismarck, - ; frank statement of republican principles by, - ; quoted on defeat of bismarck by socialists, ; quoted as in favor of state-socialist propositions in germany, . lincoln, abraham, ideal of the labor movement as expressed by, . lingg, louis, chicago anarchist, , . lombroso, on corrective measures to be used with anarchists, - ; on the complicity of criminality and politics, . lovett, william, . luccheni, italian assassin, . lynchings, an explanation given for, , . lyons, unsuccessful insurrection at, in , - . m mcdowell, malcomb, on character of deputy marshals in chicago railway strike, - . mckinley, president, assassination of, , . mcnamaras, the, , . mafia, the, an organization of italians which pursues terrorist tactics, . malatesta, enrico, italian revolutionist, - , , . manufacturers' association, lawless work of the, . mariana, jesuit who upheld assassination of tyrants, , . marx, karl, view of bakounin held by, ; meeting of bakounin and, ; assailed by bakounin upon latter's entrance into the international, - ; quoted on the insurrection at lyons in , - ; on bakounin's "abolition of the state," ; on the commune of paris, ; education and early career of, - ; the communist manifesto, - ; resignation of, from central council of communist league, - ; gives evidence of perception of lack of revolutionary promise in sectarian organizations, secret societies, and political conspiracies, ; gigantic intellectual labors of, in laying foundations of a scientific socialism, ; the international launched by, - ; essence of socialism of, in preamble of the provisional rules of the international, - ; statement of idea of, as to revolutionary character of political activity, - ; immense work of, in connection with the international, and publishing of "capital" by, ; summing up of services of, by jaurès, - ; the battle between bakounin and, ff.; annoyance and humiliation of, by victory of bakouninists at basel congress, - ; bitter attack made on bakounin and his circle by, - ; motives of, in destroying the international by moving seat of general council to new york, - ; bismarck's attempt to corrupt, ; view held by, of the state and its functions, ; quoted on "parliamentary crétinism," - ; battles of workingmen fought on lines laid down by, ; immensity of task actually executed by, - . merlino, italian anarchist, . michel, louise, french anarchist, . milwaukee, character of special police employed during molders' strike in, - . mine owners' association, anarchism of, in colorado, - . moll, joseph, , . molly maguires, an organization of irishmen which pursued terrorist tactics, . most, johann, a product of bismarck's man-hunting policy and legal tyranny, ; the freiheit of, , ; brings terrorist ideas of bakounin and nechayeff to america, - ; early history of, - ; emma goldman's description of, ; effect of agitation and doctrines of, on socialism in america, - ; climax of theories of, reached in the haymarket tragedy, chicago, - ; article on "revolutionary principles" by, - ; history of terrorist tactics in america centers about career of, ; responsibility of anti-socialist laws for misguided efforts and final downfall of, - ; ejected from socialist party for advocating violence in war with bismarck, - . motor bandits, career of, in france, - . museux, quoted on ravachol, . "muzzle bill," bismarck's, . n national brothers, the, - . nechayeff, sergei, young russian revolutionist, ; collaboration of, with bakounin, ff.; question of share of "words addressed to students" and "the revolutionary catechism" to be attributed to, ; activities of, in russia, - ; murder of iwanoff by, ; quarrels with bakounin, steals his papers, and flees to london, ; subsequent career and death, - . nobiling, dr. karl, , . o o'brien, j. b., . o'connor, feargus, , . orchard, harry, crimes of, paid for by detective agencies, - . owen, robert, ; utopian socialism of, ; in the webbs' critique of, the economic fallacies of syndicalism are revealed, - . ozerof, revolutionary enthusiast, friend of bakounin, , , . p paris, anarchist movement in ( ), ; acts of violence in, - . parliamentarism, criticism of, by syndicalists, , ; attitude of socialism toward, - . parliamentary strength of socialism at present day, - . pelloutier, leader in french labor movement, . peukert, anarchist in austria-hungary, , ; found to be a police spy, - . pinkerton detectives, the tools of anarchists of the capitalist class in the united states, ff. place, francis, . plechanoff, george, ; quoted, ; breaks with the bakouninists, . pini, french anarchist and robber, . police agents, work of, against anarchism, socialism, and trade-union movements, - , - ; infamous rôles played by, in united states, - , - , - ; list of notable, who have played a double part in labor movements, . policing by the state, a check on anarchism of individuals, . political action, dependence of marx's program on, - ; fight of anarchists against, ; criticism of, by syndicalists, ff.; direct action placed over against, by the syndicalists, ff. pougatchoff, bakounin's idealizing of, . pouget, Émil, french anarchist, ; origin of modern syndicalism with, ; sabotage introduced by, at trade-union congress in toulouse, ; attack of syndicalism on democracy voiced by, ; on the syndicalist's contempt for democracy, . poverty, as a cause of reliance upon violence by french trade-unions, . propaganda of the deed, origin of the, - ; inspiration of, found in the teachings of bakounin, ; revolutionary demonstrations organized under doctrines of, - ; as the chief expression of anarchism, makes the name anarchism synonymous with violence and crime, ; progress of, as shown by anarchist activities in germany, austria-hungary, and france, - ; influence of, in italy, spain, and belgium, - ; bringing of, to america by johann most, - . _see_ terrorism. proudhon, acquaintance between bakounin and, ; the father of anarchism, . proudhonian anarchists, inability of, to comprehend socialism of marx, - . pryor, judge roger a., condemnation by, of use of private detectives by corporations, - . pullman strike, employment and character of private detectives in, - . r ravachol, french terrorist, - , . razin, stenka, leader of russian peasant insurrection, ; bakounin's robber worship of, . reclus, Élisée, ; quoted concerning ravachol, . _red flag_, hasselmann's paper, . reinsdorf, august, assassin of german emperor, - . "revolutionary catechism," by bakounin and nechayeff, - . rey, aristide, . richard, albert, , . rittinghausen, delegate to congress of the international, quoted, - ; on the futility of insurrection as a policy, . robber-worship, bakounin's, , . rochdale pioneers, the, . rochefort, henri, remarks of, on anarchists, - . rubin, w. b., investigation of character of special police by, - . rull, juan, spanish gang leader, . s sabotage, danger of use of, in united states, - ; appearance of, and explanation, ; as really another name for the propaganda of the deed, . saffi, italian revolutionist, . saignes, eugène, , . saint-simon, . salmons, c. h., on outrages by private detectives during burlington strike, . sand, george, , . schapper, karl, , . secret societies organized by bakounin, - . shelley, p. b., psychology of the anarchists depicted by, . small, albion w., estimate of marx by, . socialism, early use of word, n.; split between anarchism and, in , - , - ; rapid spread of, in america after panic of , - ; disastrous effect on, of most's agitation in america, - ; contrasted with anarchism on the point of the latter's inspiring deeds of violence by terrorists, - ; different types attracted by anarchism and, - ; burden of anarchism placed on, by catholic clergy, ; growth of, ff., - ; early days of, in france, - ; in england, - ; in germany, - ; communist manifesto of marx and engels a part of the basic literature of, ; the utopian, destroyed by marx's scientific theory, - ; the blending of labor and, a matter of decades, ; essence of marx's, found in the preamble of the provisional rules of the international, - ; routing of, by anarchist doctrines in congress of international at basel in , - ; inquiry into and exposition of the aims of the marxian, - ; attacks on, by anarchists after hague congress of , ff.; fruitless war waged on german social democracy by bismarck, - ; defeat and humiliation of bismarck by, - ; strength of, throughout europe shown in elections of , - ; difference between aims and methods of, and those of syndicalism, - ; antagonism between syndicalism and, ff., ; statism of, criticised by syndicalists, - , ; real position of, regarding state ownership and state capitalism, - ; criticism of, by syndicalists on grounds of parliamentarism, ; real attitude of, toward control of parliaments, - ; battle of, is against both the old anarchists, and the new anarchists of the wealthy class in the united states, - ; statistics of increase in vote of, - ; parliamentary strength of, - ; conditions which retard progress of, in united states, - ; tendency of labor movement in all lands toward, - ; international congresses of party, ; results of inseparableness of democracy and, - ; slow but sure and steady progress of, - . sombart, werner, quoted on syndicalism and the "social sybarites," ; quoted on tendency of labor movement in all lands toward socialism, . sorel, quoted to show hostility of syndicalism to democracy, . spain, revolution of in, - ; repression of terrorist tactics in, . spies, august, "revenge circular" of, . state, check placed on anarchism of the individual by the, - ; activity of, in opposition to labor in united states, - . statism, criticism of, of the socialist party, by syndicalists, - ; statement of attitude of socialism toward, - ; economic fallacies of syndicalists regarding, pointed out by the webbs on their critique of owen's trade-union socialism, - . steinert, henry, quoted on special police and detectives, . stellmacher, anarchist in austria-hungary, , . stephens, joseph rayner, , . stirner, max, "the ego and his own" by, quoted, . "study upon the german jews," bakounin's, - . supreme court of united states, act of, declaring unconstitutional the eight-hour law on government work, - . syndicalism, program of, outlined at congress of international in , - ; forecast of, contained in bakounin's arguments, ; revival in of anarchism under name of, ; explanation of, and reason for existence, ff.; wherein aim and methods differ from those of socialism, - ; connection of the "intellectuals" with, - ; reasons found for, in certain french and italian conditions, - ; essential differences between anarchism and, - ; necessary antagonism between socialism and, ff.; objections to the outline of a new society contemplated by, ff.; criticism of parliamentarism of socialism by, ; attacks of, on democracy, - ; antagonism of socialism and, in aim and methods, ff.; proven to be the logical descendant of anarchism, - ; its fate to be the same as that of anarchism, - ; claim of, that revolutionary movement must pursue economic aims and disregard political relations, . t tennyson, quotation from, . terrorism, doctrine of, brought into western europe by bakounin, , - , ff.; set forth in "revolutionary catechism" by bakounin and nechayeff, - ; practical introduction of, in insurrections of the early seventies, ff., - ; criticism of, by socialists, ; advent of the propaganda of the deed, and resultant acts of violence in italy, - ; carried into germany, austria-hungary, and france, - ; doctrine of, spread in america by johann most, - ; protest voiced by tucker, american anarchist, against terrorist tactics, - ; failure of, to take deep root in america, - ; acts of, committed by anarchists in france, - ; causes of, ff.; due to hysteria and pseudo-insanity, - ; wrong attitude of society as to corrective measures, - ; burden of, placed by catholics on socialism, - ; glorification of, in annals of history, ; egoistic conception of history carried to an extreme in, - ; caused by corruption of courts and oppressive laws, - ; complicity of criminality and, ; use of, by european governments, - , ff.; introduced into the international by bakounin, and struggles of marxists against, - ; part played by, in bismarck's war on social democracy, , , ; attempts of bismarck to provoke, ff.; reaction of, on bismarck, ; employed by ruling class in america, by means of private detectives and special police, - . thompson, william, . tolstoi, berth's characterization of, . tortellier, french agitator and anarchist, ; declaration of, against political action, . trade unions, at basis of spanish revolution of , ; entrance into, of anarchism, resulting in syndicalism, ff. _see_ labor movement. tucker, benjamin r., new york anarchist, quoted on "the beast of communism," - . u united states, unsettled conditions in, after panic of , - ; development of socialist and trade-union organizations in, ; bakounin's terrorist ideas brought to, by johann most, ; acts of violence in, - ; protests of anarchists of, against terrorism, - ; failure of anarchism to take firm root in, ; anarchism of the powerful in, ff.; system of extra-legal police agents in, - , ff.; account of tragic episodes in history of labor disputes in, - ; abetting by the state of mercenary anarchists in, - ; figures of socialist and labor vote in, ; socialists of, wholly lacking in representation in congress, , ; conditions in, calculated to retard progress of socialist and labor movement, - . universal german working men's association, organization of, . utopian socialism destroyed by marx's scientific socialism, . v vaillant, august, french terrorist, , - , . valzania, italian revolutionist, . vincenzo, tomburri, italian revolutionist, . violence, analysis of causes of, - . _see_ terrorism. vliegen, dutch labor leader, on the general strike, - . von schweitzer, leader in german labor movement, reported to have sold out to bismarck, . vote of socialists and laborites ( - ), , . w webb, sidney and beatrice, economic fallacies of syndicalism indicated by, - . weitling, early german socialist agitator, . western federation of miners, crimes falsely attributed to, - . west virginia, governmental tyranny during labor troubles in, ; outrages committed by special police in, . wickersham, george w., testimony of, as to packing of a jury by private detectives, . william i., emperor, attempts on life of, , - . "words addressed to students," bakounin and nechayeff's, . wyden, secret conference of german social democrats at, - . y yvetot, quoted on syndicalism and anarchism, . z zenker, quoted on anarchist movement in austria-hungary, - ; on association formed by most for uniting revolutionists, ; on motives behind deeds of violence, . zola, psychology of the anarchist depicted by, . +-------------------------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: | | | |obvious typographical errors have been corrected | +-------------------------------------------------+ vol. i. march, no. mother earth [illustration] p. o. box emma goldman, publisher c. a copy madison sq. station, n. y. contents. page mother earth e. goldman and m. baginski the song of the storm-finch maxim gorky observations and comments the tragedy of women's emancipation e. goldman try love grace potter without government max baginski vive le roi frances wauls bjorkman reflections of a rich man comstockery john r. coryell don quixote and hamlet turgenieff on the banks of acheron edwin bjorkman the british elections and the labor parties h. kelly and you? bolton hall national atavism internationalist mine owners' revenge m. b. international review literary notes advertisements c. a copy $ . per year mother earth emma goldman, publisher p. o. box madison sq. station, n. y. city vol. i march, no. [illustration] mother earth there was a time when men imagined the earth as the center of the universe. the stars, large and small, they believed were created merely for their delectation. it was their vain conception that a supreme being, weary of solitude, had manufactured a giant toy and put them into possession of it. when, however, the human mind was illumined by the torch-light of science, it came to understand that the earth was but one of a myriad of stars floating in infinite space, a mere speck of dust. man issued from the womb of mother earth, but he knew it not, nor recognized her, to whom he owed his life. in his egotism he sought an explanation of himself in the infinite, and out of his efforts there arose the dreary doctrine that he was not related to the earth, that she was but a temporary resting place for his scornful feet and that she held nothing for him but temptation to degrade himself. interpreters and prophets of the infinite sprang into being, creating the "great beyond" and proclaiming heaven and hell, between which stood the poor, trembling human being, tormented by that priest-born monster, conscience. in this frightful scheme, gods and devils waged eternal war against each other with wretched man as the prize of victory; and the priest, self-constituted interpreter of the will of the gods, stood in front of the only refuge from harm and demanded as the price of entrance that ignorance, that asceticism, that self-abnegation which could but end in the complete subjugation of man to superstition. he was taught that heaven, the refuge, was the very antithesis of earth, which was the source of sin. to gain for himself a seat in heaven, man devastated the earth. yet she renewed herself, the good mother, and came again each spring, radiant with youthful beauty, beckoning her children to come to her bosom and partake of her bounty. but ever the air grew thick with mephitic darkness, ever a hollow voice was heard calling: "touch not the beautiful form of the sorceress; she leads to sin!" but if the priests decried the earth, there were others who found in it a source of power and who took possession of it. then it happened that the autocrats at the gates of heaven joined forces with the powers that had taken possession of the earth; and humanity began its aimless, monotonous march. but the good mother sees the bleeding feet of her children, she hears their moans, and she is ever calling to them that she is theirs. to the contemporaries of george washington, thomas paine and thomas jefferson, america appeared vast, boundless, full of promise. mother earth, with the sources of vast wealth hidden within the folds of her ample bosom, extended her inviting and hospitable arms to all those who came to her from arbitrary and despotic lands--mother earth ready to give herself alike to all her children. but soon she was seized by the few, stripped of her freedom, fenced in, a prey to those who were endowed with cunning and unscrupulous shrewdness. they, who had fought for independence from the british yoke, soon became dependent among themselves; dependent on possessions, on wealth, on power. liberty escaped into the wilderness, and the old battle between the patrician and the plebeian broke out in the new world, with greater bitterness and vehemence. a period of but a hundred years had sufficed to turn a great republic, once gloriously established, into an arbitrary state which subdued a vast number of its people into material and intellectual slavery, while enabling the privileged few to monopolize every material and mental resource. during the last few years, american journalists have had much to say about the terrible conditions in russia and the supremacy of the russian censor. have they forgotten the censor here? a censor far more powerful than him of russia. have they forgotten that every line they write is dictated by the political color of the paper they write for; by the advertising firms; by the money power; by the power of respectability; by comstock? have they forgotten that the literary taste and critical judgment of the mass of the people have been successfully moulded to suit the will of these dictators, and to serve as a good business basis for shrewd literary speculators? the number of rip van winkles in life, science, morality, art, and literature is very large. innumerable ghosts, such as ibsen saw when he analyzed the moral and social conditions of our life, still keep the majority of the human race in awe. mother earth will endeavor to attract and appeal to all those who oppose encroachment on public and individual life. it will appeal to those who strive for something higher, weary of the commonplace; to those who feel that stagnation is a deadweight on the firm and elastic step of progress; to those who breathe freely only in limitless space; to those who long for the tender shade of a new dawn for a humanity free from the dread of want, the dread of starvation in the face of mountains of riches. the earth free for the free individual! emma goldman, max baginski. [illustration] the song of the storm-finch[a] by maxim gorky the strong wind is gathering the storm-clouds together above the gray plain of the ocean so wide. the storm-finch, the bird that resembles dark lightning, between clouds and ocean is soaring in pride. now skimming the waves with his wings, and now shooting up, arrow-like, into the dark clouds on high, the storm-finch is clamoring loudly and shrilly; the clouds can hear joy in the bird's fearless cry. in that cry is the yearning, the thirst for the tempest, and anger's hot might in its wild notes is heard; the keen fire of passion, the faith in sure triumph-- all these the clouds hear in the voice of the bird.... the storm-wind is howling, the thunder is roaring; with flame blue and lambent the cloud-masses glow o'er the fathomless ocean; it catches the lightnings, and quenches them deep in its whirlpool below. like serpents of fire in the dark ocean writhing, the lightnings reflected there quiver and shake as into the blackness they vanish forever. the tempest! now quickly the tempest will break! the storm-finch soars fearless and proud 'mid the lightnings, above the wild waves that the roaring winds fret; and what is the prophet of victory saying? "oh, let the storm burst! fiercer yet--fiercer yet!" footnote: [a] from "songs of russia," rendered into english by alice stone blackwell [illustration] to the readers the name "open road" had to be abandoned, owing to the existence of a magazine by that name. observations and comments +the importance+ of written history for the people can easily be compared with the importance of a diary for the individual. it furnishes data for recollections, points of comparison between the past and present. but as most diaries and auto-biographies show a lack of straight-forward, big, simple, sincere self-analyses, so does history seldom prove a representation of facts, of the truth, of reality. the way history is written will depend altogether on whatever purpose the writers have in view, and what they hope to achieve thereby. it will altogether depend upon the sincerity or lack thereof, upon the broad or narrow horizon of the historian. that which passes as history in our schools, or governmentally fabricated books on history, is a forgery, a misrepresentation of events. like the old drama centering upon the impossible figure of the hero, with a gesticulating crowd in the background. quacks of history speak only of "great men" like bonapartes, bismarcks, deweys, or rough riders as leaders of the people, while the latter serve as a setting, a chorus, howling the praise of the heroes, and also furnishing their blood money for the whims and extravagances of their masters. such history only tends to produce conceit, national impudence, superciliousness and patriotic stupidity, all of which is in full bloom in our great republic. our aim is to teach a different conception of historical events. to define them as an ever-recurring struggle for freedom against every form of might. a struggle resultant from an innate yearning for self-expression, and the recognition of one's own possibilities and their attitude toward other human beings. history to us means a compilation of experiences, out of which the individual, as well as the race, will gain the right understanding how to shape and organize a mode of life best suited to bring out the finest and strongest qualities of the human race. * * * * * +the american brutus+ is, of course, a business man and has no time to overthrow cæsar. recently, however, the imperialistic stew became hot and too much for him. the marriage of miss alice roosevelt produced such a bad odor of court gossip, as to make the poor american brutus ill with nausea. he grew indignant, draped his sleeve in mourning, and with gloomy mien and clenched fists, went about prophesying the downfall of the republic. between ourselves, the number of those who still believe in the american republic can be counted on one's fingers. one has either pierced through the lie, all for the people and by the people--in that case one must become a revolutionist; or, one has succeeded in putting one's bounty in safety--then he is a conservative. "no disturbances, please. we are about to close a profitable contract." modern bourgeoisie is absolutely indifferent as to who is to be their political boss, just so they are given opportunity to store their profits, and accumulate great wealth. besides, the cry about the decline of the great republic is really meaningless. as far as it ever stood for liberty and well-being of the people, it has long ceased to be. therefore lamentations come too late. true, the american republic has not given birth to an aristocracy. it has produced the power of the parvenu, not less brutal than european aristocracy, only narrower in vision and not less vulgar in taste. instead of mourning one ought to rejoice that the latest display of disgusting servility has completely thrown off the mantle of liberty and independence of dame columbia, now exposed before the civilized world in all her slavish submissiveness. * * * * * +the storm in russia+ has frightened many out of their warm bed-clothes. a real revolution in these police-regulated times. more than one voice was raised against the possibility of a revolution, and they who dared to predict it were considered fit for the lunatic asylum. the workingmen, peasants and students of russia, however, have proven that the calculations of the "wise" contained a hitch somewhere. a revolution swept across the country and did not even stop to ask permission of those in authority. authority and power are now taking revenge on their daring sons and daughters. the cossacks, at the command of the "good czar" are celebrating a bloody feast--knouting, shooting, clubbing people to death, dragging great masses to prisons and into exile, and it is not the fault of that vicious idiot on the throne, nor that of his advisors, witte and the others, if the revolution still marches on, head erect. were it in their power, they would break her proud neck with one stroke, but they cannot put the heads of a hundred million people on the block, they cannot deport eighty millions of peasants to siberia, nor can they order all the workingmen in the industrial districts shot. were the working bees to be killed, the drones would perish of starvation--that is why the czar of the peace treaty still suffers some of his people to live?---- * * * * * +in mayville, wis.+, a transvaluation society has been formed, the purpose of which is, to bring about the transvaluation of all values in matters of love and the relations of the sexes. the members of this society are to contribute by word and deed towards the breaking of all barriers that prevent an ideal and healthy conception of love. the president of this society, emil ruedebusch, known in this country through his work, "the old and new ideal," which, by the way, was confiscated upon the grounds of obscenity and the author put on trial. it is an undisputed fact that robust, graft-greedy columbia abhors every free expression on love or marriage. emil ruedebusch, like many others who have dared to lift the veil of hypocrisy, was condemned to a heavy fine. a second work of the author, "die eigenen," was published in germany. his idea, that the relation of the sexes must be freed from the oppressing fetters of a lame morality that degrades every human emotion to the plane of utility and purpose, i heartily endorse. his method of achieving the ideal seems to me too full of red tape. however, i welcome every effort against the conspiracy of ignorance, hypocrisy and stupid prudery, against the simplest manifestation of nature. [illustration] the tragedy of woman's emancipation by emma goldman i begin my article with an admission: regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of the fundamental differences between the various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between woman's rights and man's rights, i hold that there is a point where these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole. with this i do not mean to propose a peace treaty. the general social antagonism which has taken hold of our entire public life to-day, brought about through the force of opposing and contradictory interests, will crumble to pieces when the reorganization of our social life, based upon the principles of economic justice, shall have become a reality. peace and harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits or peculiarities. the problem that confronts us to-day, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be oneself, and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own innate qualities. this seems to me the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat and the true individuality, man and woman can meet without antagonism and opposition. the motto should not be forgive one another; it should be, understand one another. the oft-quoted sentence of mme. de stael: "to understand everything means to forgive everything," has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow being conveys the idea of pharisaical superiority. to understand one's fellow being suffices. this admission partly represents the fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire sex. emancipation should make it possible for her to be human in the truest sense. everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; and all artificial barriers should be broken and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery. this was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. but the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being who reminds one of the products of french arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs--pyramids, wheels and wreaths; anything except the forms which would be reached by the expression of their own inner qualities. such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life. liberty and equality for woman! what hopes and aspirations these words awakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest and bravest souls of those days. the sun in all its light and glory was to rise upon a new world; in this world woman was to be free to direct her own destiny, an aim certainly worthy of the great enthusiasm, courage, perseverance and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men and women, who staked everything against a world of prejudice and ignorance. my hopes also move towards that goal, but i insist that the emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically applied to-day, has failed to reach that great end. now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. this may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only too true. what has she achieved through her emancipation? equal suffrage in a few states. has that purified our political life, as many well-meaning advocates have predicted? certainly not. incidentally it is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone. corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals or the laxity of morals of various political personalities. its cause is altogether a material one. politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottoes of which are: "to take is more blessed than to give"; "buy cheap and sell dear"; "one soiled hand washes the other." there is no hope that even woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics. emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is, she can choose her own profession and trade, but as her past and present physical training have not equipped her with the necessary strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use up her vitality and strain every nerve in order to reach the market value. very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers are neither met with the same confidence, nor do they receive the same remuneration. and those that do reach that enticing equality generally do so at the expense of their physical and psychical well-being. as to the great mass of working girls and women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? in addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a "home, sweet home"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a day's hard work. glorious independence! no wonder that hundreds of girls are so willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and tired of their independence behind the counter, or at the sewing or typewriting machine. they are just as ready to marry as girls of middle class people who long to throw off the yoke of parental dependence. a so-called independence which leads only to earning the merest subsistence is not so enticing, not so ideal that one can expect woman to sacrifice everything for it. our highly praised independence is, after all, but a slow process of dulling and stifling woman's nature, her love instinct and her mother instinct. nevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural and human than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the more cultured professional walk of life. teachers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, straightened and proper appearance, while the inner life is growing empty and dead. the narrowness of the existing conception of woman's independence and emancipation; the dread of love for a man who is not her social equal; the fear that love will rob her of her freedom and independence; the horror that love or the joy of motherhood will only hinder her in the full exercise of her profession--all these together make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom life, with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing joys, rolls on without touching or gripping her soul. emancipation as understood by the majority of its adherents and exponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless joy and ecstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart, mother, in freedom. the tragic fate of the self-supporting or economically free woman does not consist of too many, but of too few experiences. true, she surpasses her sister of past generations in knowledge of the world and human nature; and it is because of that that she feels deeply the lack of life's essence, which alone can enrich the human soul and without which the majority of women have become mere professional automatons. that such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those who realized that in the domain of ethics, there still remained many decaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man; ruins that are still considered useful. and, which is more important, a goodly number of the emancipated are unable to get along without them. every movement that aims at the destruction of existing institutions and the replacement thereof with such as are more advanced, more perfect, has followers, who in theory stand for the most extreme radical ideas, and who, nevertheless, in their every-day practice, are like the next best philistine, feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. there are, for example, socialists, and even anarchists, who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of a half-dozen pins. the same philistine can be found in the movement for woman's emancipation. yellow journalists and milk and water literateurs have painted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. every member of the women's rights movement was pictured as a george sand in her absolute disregard of morality. nothing was sacred to her. she had no respect for the ideal relation between man and woman. in short, emancipation stood only for a reckless life of lust and sin; regardless of society, religion and morality. the exponents of woman's rights were highly indignant at such a misrepresentation, and, lacking in humor, they exerted all their energy to prove that they were not at all as bad as they were painted, but the very reverse. of course, as long as woman was the slave of man, she could not be good and pure, but now that she was free and independent she would prove how good she could be and how her influence would have a purifying effect on all institutions in society. true, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also established new ones. the great movement of true emancipation has not met with a great race of women, who could look liberty in the face. their narrow puritanical vision banished man as a disturber and doubtful character out of their emotional life. man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father. fortunately, the most rigid puritanism never will be strong enough to kill the innate craving for motherhood. but woman's freedom is closely allied to man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman. about fifteen years ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant norwegian writer, laura marholm, called "woman, a character study." she was one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of the existing conception of woman's emancipation and its tragic effect upon the inner life of woman. in her work she speaks of the fate of several gifted women of international fame: the genius, eleanora duse; the great mathematician and writer, sanja kovalevskaja; the artist and poet nature, marie bashkirzeff, who died so young. through each description of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality, runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate, who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character. the average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior airs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for woman, as depicted in the "character study" by laura marholm. equally impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her mentality and genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature. a rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. in the case of the modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete assertion of her being. for over a hundred years, the old form of marriage, based on the bible, "till death us do part" has been denounced as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the woman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands and the absolute dependence upon his name and support. time and again it has been conclusively proven that the old matrimonial relation restricted woman to the function of man's servant and the bearer of his children. and yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage with all its deficiencies to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature. the cause for such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of emancipation. they thought that all that was needed was independence from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth, such as ethical and social conventions, were left to take care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. they seem to get along beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active exponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our grandmothers. these internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt or relative of any sort; what will mrs. grundy, mr. comstock, the employer, the board of education say? all these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the human spirit, what will they say? until woman has learned to defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it call for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself emancipated. how many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts demanding to be heard, to be satisfied. the french novelist, jean reibrach, in one of his novels, "new beauty," attempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. this ideal is embodied in a young girl, a physician. she talks very clearly and wisely of how to feed infants, she is kind and administers medicines free to poor mothers. she converses with a young man of her acquaintance about the sanitary conditions of the future and how various bacilli and germs shall be exterminated by the use of stone walls and floors, and the doing away of rugs and hangings. she is, of course, very plainly and practically dressed, mostly in black. the young man, who, at their first meeting was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend, gradually learns to understand her, and recognizes one fine day that he loves her. they are young and she is kind and beautiful, and though always in rigid attire, her appearance is softened by spotlessly clean white collar and cuffs. one would expect that he would tell her of his love, but he is not one to commit romantic absurdities. poetry and the enthusiasm of love cover their blushing faces before the pure beauty of the lady. he silences the voice of his nature and remains correct. she, too, is always exact, always rational, always well behaved. i fear if they had formed a union, the young man would have risked freezing to death. i must confess that i can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty, who is as cold as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. rather would i have the love songs of romantic ages, rather don juan and madame venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by a father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. if love does not know how to give and take without restriction it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus. the greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life. i once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper relationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess, ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she loved and the truly new woman, than between the latter and her average emancipated sister. the disciples of emancipation pure and simple declared me heathen, merely fit for the stake. their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness and simplicity than the majority of our emancipated professional women who fill our colleges, halls of learning, and various offices. this does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the nursery. salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. we are in need of unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. the movement for woman's emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction. it is to be hoped that it will gather strength to make another. the right to vote, equal civil rights, are all very good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. it begins in woman's soul. history tells us that every oppressed class gained its true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. it is necessary that woman learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. it is therefore far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs. the demand for various equal rights in every vocation in life is just and fair, but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. indeed if the partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonomous with being slave or subordinate. it will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds. pettiness separates, breadth unites. let us be broad and big. let us not overlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. a true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one's self boundlessly in order to find oneself richer, deeper, better. that alone can fill the emptiness and replace the tragedy of woman's emancipation with joy, limitless joy. [illustration] try love by grace potter in the human heart it lies. the key to happiness men call the key love. in the sweet time of youth, every man and every maid knows where lies the key that will unlock happiness. sometimes, they, laughing, hold the key in eager, willing hands and will not put it in the door for very bliss and waiting. just outside they laugh and play and blow wild kisses to the world. the whole world of men and women, who in their youth found happiness in just that way, is gathered round to see it found again. when at last the man and maid unlock the door and go in joy to find their happiness, the men and women who have been watching them bury their faces in their hands and weep. why do they weep? because they are thinking that soon other doors in life will be met by this man and maid and that there will be no keys to unlock them. they, themselves, could find no key. they never thought of trying the key of love in all the doors of life. long and wearily, eyes searching wide, hands eagerly groping, they have spent their time trying to find other keys. they have looked for and found knowledge. and tried that. looked for and found fame. and tried that. looked for and found wealth. and tried that. looked for and found many, many other keys. and tried them all. and when at last they have lain down on their deathbeds, they have turned gray hopeless faces to the world and died saying, "we could not find the right key." some few, some very few, there are, who try the key of love in all life's doors. radiant, they turn to the men and women about and cry, "try love! it unlocks all other doors as surely as it does the first in life. try love!" and though their fellow beings see that these are the only ones in all the world who find happiness, they turn doubting from them. "it cannot be," they say, "that the key we used in youth should be used again in all the other doors of life." and so they keep on trying the keys that every disappointed, dying man calls out in warning voice will fail. only a few there are who learn--a very few--that love unlocks all other doors in life as surely as it does the first. try love! [illustration] +japan.+--a new civilization. the land of a new culture! was the cry of every penny-a-liner at the time when she began to display her battleships, cannon, and her accomplished method of drilling her soldiers. they were mocking themselves and did not know how. they talk of culture and civilization and their criterion thereof is the development of the technique of murder. again, japan a modern state. she can take her place in the ranks of other civilized countries. rejoice! and then learn that victorious japan is on the threshold of a famine. nearly a million people, it is laconically reported, are in danger of dying of starvation. surely, no one will possibly doubt now that japan is a civilized country. without government by max baginski the gist of the anarchistic idea is this, that there are qualities present in man, which permit the possibilities of social life, organization, and co-operative work without the application of force. such qualities are solidarity, common action, and love of justice. to-day they are either crippled or made ineffective through the influence of compulsion; they can hardly be fully unfolded in a society in which groups, classes, and individuals are placed in hostile, irreconcilable opposition to one another. in human nature to-day such traits are fostered and developed which separate instead of combining, call forth hatred instead of a common feeling, destroy the humane instead of building it up. the cultivation of these traits could not be so successful if it did not find the best nourishment in the foundations and institutions of the present social order. on close inspection of these institutions, which are based upon the power of the state that maintains them, mankind shows itself as a huge menagerie, in which the captive beasts seek to tear the morsels from each other's greedy jaws. the sharpest teeth, the strongest claws and paws vanquish the weaker competitors. malice and underhand dealing are victorious over frankness and confidence. the struggle for the means of existence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire space of the menagerie with an infernal noise. among the methods which are used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ones are the hangman, the judge with his mechanical: "in the name of the king," or his more hypocritical: "in the name of the people i pass sentence"; the soldier with his training for murder, and the priest with his: "authority comes from god." the exteriors of prisons, armories, and churches show that they are institutions in which the body and soul are subdued. he whose thoughts reach beyond this philosophy of the menagerie sees in them the strongest expression of the view, that it is not possible to make life worth living the more with the help of reason, love, justice, solidarity. the family and school take care to prepare man for these institutions. they deliver him up to the state, so to speak, blindfolded and with fettered limbs. force, force. it echoes through all history. the first law which subjected man to man was based upon force. the private right of the individual to land was built up by force; force took way the claims upon homesteads from the majority and made them unsettled and transitory. it was force that spoke to mankind thus: "come to me, humble yourself before me, serve me, bring the treasures and riches of the earth under my roof. you are destined by providence to always be in want. you shall be allowed just enough to maintain strength with which to enrich me infinitely by your exertions and to load me down with superfluity and luxury." what maintains the material and intellectual slavery of the masses and the insanity of the autocracy of the few? force. workingmen produce in the factories and workshops the most varied things for the use of man. what is it that drives them to yield up these products for speculation's sake to those who produce nothing, and to content themselves with only a fractional part of the values which they produce? it is force. what is it that makes the brain-worker just as dependent in the intellectual realm as the artisan in the material world? force. the artist and the writer being compelled to gain a livelihood dare not dream of giving the best of their individuality. no, they must scan the market in order to find out what is demanded just then. not any different than the dealer in clothes who must study the style of the season before he places his merchandise before the public. thus art and literature sink to the level of bad taste and speculation. the artistic individuality shrinks before the calculating reckoner. not that which moves the artist or the writer most receives expression; the vacillating demands of mediocrity of every-day people must be satisfied. the artist becomes the helper of the dealer and the average men, who trot along in the tracks of dull habit. the state socialists love to assert that at present we live in the age of individualism; the truth, however, is that individuality was never valued at so low a rate as to-day. individual thinking and feeling are incumbrances and not recommendations on the paths of life. wherever they are found on the market they meet with the word "adaptation." adapt yourself to the demands of the reigning social powers, act the obedient servant before them, and if you produce something be sure that it does not run against the grain of your "superiors," or say adieu to success, reputation and recompense. amuse the people, be their clown, give them platitudes about which they can laugh, prejudices which they hold as righteousness and falsehoods which they hold as truths. paint the whole, crown it with regard for good manners, for society does not like to hear the truth about itself. praise the men in power as fathers of the people, have the devourers of the common wealth parade along as benefactors of mankind. of course, the force which humbles humanity in this manner is far from openly declaring itself as force. it is masked, and in the course of time it has learned to step forward with the least possible noise. that diminishes the danger of being recognized. the modern republic is a good example. in it tyranny is veiled so correctly, that there are really great numbers of people who are deceived by this masquerade, and who maintain that what they perceive is a true face with honest eyes. no czar, no king. but right in line with these are the landowners, the merchants, manufacturers, landlords, monopolists. they all are in possession, which is as strong a guarantee for the continuance of their power, as a castle surrounded by thick walls. whoever possesses can rob him who possesses nothing of his independence. if i am dependent for a living on work, for which i need contrivances and machines, which i my self cannot procure, because i am without means, i must sacrifice my independence to him who possesses these contrivances and machines. you may work here, he will tell me, but only under the condition that you will deliver up the products of your labor to me, that i may trade with and make profit on them. the one without possessions has no choice. he may appeal to the declaration of human rights; he may point to his political rights, the equality before the law, before god and the archangels--if he wants to eat, drink, dress and have a home he must choose such work as the conditions of the industrial mercantile or agricultural plants impose upon him. through organized opposition the workingmen can somewhat improve this condition; by the help of trade unions they can regulate the hours of work and hinder the reduction of wages to a level too low for mere living. the trade unions are a necessity for the workingmen, a bulwark against which the most unbearable demands of the class of possessors rebound; but a complete freeing of labor--be it of an intellectual or of a physical nature--can be brought about only through the abolition of wage work and the right of private ownership of land and the sources of maintenance and nourishment of mankind. there are heart-rending cries over the blasphemous opinion that property is not as holy a thing as its possessors would like to make it. they declare that possessions must not be less protected than human life, for they are necessary foundations of society. the case is represented as though everybody were highly interested in the maintenance of the right of private property, whereas conditions are such that non-possession is the normal condition of most people. because few possess everything, therefore the many possess nothing. so far as possession can be considered as an oppressive measure in the hands of a few, it is a monopoly. set in a paradox it would read: the abolition of property will free the people from homelessness and non-possession. in fact, this will happen when the earth with its treasures shall cease to be an object of trade for usurers; when it shall vouchsafe to all a home and a livelihood. then not only the bent bodies will straighten; the intellect free itself as might the bound prometheus rid himself of his fetters and leave the rock to which he is chained, but we shall look back on the institutions of force, the state, the hangman, et al, as ghosts of an anxious fantasy. in free unions the trades will organize themselves and will produce the means of livelihood. things will not be produced for profit's sake, but for the sake of need. the profit-grabber has grown superfluous just as his patron, the state, which at present serves by means of its taxes and revenues, his anti-humanitarian purposes and hinders the reasonable consumption of goods. from the governing mania the foundation will be withdrawn; for those strata in society will be lacking which therefore had grown rich and fat by monopolizing the earth and its production. they alone needed legislatures to make laws against the disinherited. they needed courts of justice to condemn; they needed the police to carry out practically the terrible social injustice, the cause of which lay in their existence and manner of living. and now the political corruptionists are lacking who served the above-mentioned classes as helpers, and therefore had to be supported as smaller drones. what a pleasant surprise! we see now that the production and distribution of means of livelihood are a much simpler matter without government than with government. and people now realize that the governments never promoted their welfare, but rather made it impossible, since with the help of force they only allowed the right of possession to the minority. life is really worth living now. it ceases to be an endless, mad drudgery, a repugnant struggle for a mere existence. truth and beauty are enthroned upon the necessity of procuring the means of existence in a co-operative organized manner. the social motives which to-day make man ambitious, hypocritical, stealthy, are ineffective. one need not sell his individuality for a mess of pottage, as esau sold his primogeniture. at last the individuality of man has struck a solid social foundation on which it can prosper. the individual originality in man is valued; it fructifies art, literature, science, which now, in so far as they are dependent upon the state and ownership--which is far-reaching--must take the direction of prescribed models that are acknowledged, and must not be directed against the continuance of the leisure classes. love will be free. love's favor is a free granting, a giving and taking without speculation. no prostitution; for the economic and social power of one person over another exists no longer, and with the falling off of external oppression many an internal serfdom of feeling will be done away with, which often is only the reflex of hard external compulsion. then the longing of large hearts may take tangible shape. utopias are arrows aimed into the future, harbingers of a new reality. rabelais, in his description of life in the "thelemite abbey," wrote: "all their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. they rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. none did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing. in all their rule and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed: 'do what thou wilt.' "because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honor. those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable to the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us. by this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation, to do all of them what they saw did please one. if any of the gallants or ladies should say, 'let us drink,' they would all drink. if any one of them said, 'let us play,' they all played. if one said, 'let us go a walking into the fields,' they went all. if it were to go a hawking, or a hunting, the ladies mounted upon dainty well-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle, carried on their lovely fists either a sparhawk, or a lanneret, or a marlin, and the young gallants carried the other kinds of hawks. so nobly were they taught, that there was neither he nor she amongst them, but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical instruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and skilful both on foot and horseback, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons, than were there. never were seen ladies so proper and handsome, so miniard and dainty, less forward, or more ready with their hand, and with their needle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, than were there." [illustration] +a few days ago+ the red ghost of revolution showed itself in the white house. the president saw it and threatened it with his boxing fists: "what are you looking for here, be off to russia." "you are comical in your excitement," answered revolution. "you must know, i am not only russian, i am international, at home here as well as on the other side of the great water." +a proposition.+--would it not be wiser to explain theories out of life and not life out of theories? vive le roi by frances maule bjorkman aye, vive le roi. the king is dead-- so move our lives from day to day. the triumph of to-morrow's lord meets for our former chief's decay. then love and live and laugh and sing-- the world is good and life is free-- there's not a single care i know that's worth a single tear from me. what's love or fame or place or power? what's wealth when we shall come to die? what matters anything on earth so long as only i am i? the joy or grief or love or shame that holds its little hour of sway is only worth its destined time-- what use to try to make it stay? aye, let it go. the monarch dead, a better king our shouts may hail and if a worse--well, still be glad; he too will pass behind the vail. they all must pass--fame, joy and love, the sting of grief, the blot of shame; the only thing that really counts is how we bear the praise or blame. i'll take the good the while it lasts and when it goes i'll learn to sing, all eager for the coming joy-- "the king is dead, long live the king." reflections of a rich man +if god were not in existence+ we would have to order one from the professors of theology. the fear, instilled in the majority of the poor, with the god, devil, heaven and hell idea, is greater than their dread of a hundred thousand policemen. had we not given god the place of chief gendarme of the universe, we would need twice as many soldiers and police as we have to-day. * * * * * +a poor devil+ who owns but one million dollars said to me the other day: "i, in your place, would rather contribute money towards art and literature than to donate it to the baptist church." what an impracticable fellow! art and literature, among the common people, only tends to cause mischief. they are to remain our privilege. we know the demands of good taste and we can afford to pay for the æsthetic pleasures of life. the majority is unable to do that; besides, to teach them the beauty of art only means to make them discontented and rebellious against our authority. * * * * * +i frankly admit+ i never had a great admiration for jesus of nazareth. a man of disordered circumstances arouses my disgust. jesus was neither engaged in any kind of a business, nor did he possess as much as a bank account, nor even a steady home. he preached to the poor. what for? the poor should work and not philosophize. the scriptures tell nowhere that jesus returned the mule, upon which he made his entry into jerusalem, to the owner, or that he paid him for it. i strongly suspect he did not do it. one thing is certain, i never would have taken this dreamer of the abolition of profits as my business partner. * * * * * +it was very hot+ yesterday. i walked through my park, intending to betake myself to my favorite place for rest and reverie. suddenly i stood still, arrested by the sight of a man lying under a tree. in my park? and how the fellow looked! in rags and dirty! i have been told i was kind-hearted, and i realized this myself at the moment. i walked over to the man and inquired interestedly: "are you ill?" he grunted in reply. the wretch must have thought, in his sleep, that i was one of his kind. my generosity did not cease. "if you need money, do not feel shy about telling me. how much do you need. i am the rich x y z, who has a fabulous fortune, as you have undoubtedly heard." at this remark the scoundrel turned on the other side, with his back toward me, and said, while yawning: "what i want? i want to sleep. will you be good enough to keep the mosquitoes away for two hours?" within five minutes i had my servant kick this impertinent and ungrateful wretch out of my park. if all of the low class think as this fellow, i fear our charitable efforts in their behalf will accomplish little. [illustration] +eleven million+, nine hundred and seventeen thousand, nine hundred and forty-six dollars and fifty-eight cents is what the gallant gen. bingham asks us for protecting us from each other for the ensuing year. with a population of four million and . members to a family, we pay a fraction less than $ per head, and about $ . for a family, a year for police protection in this enlightened christian ( , of us are jews, but ours is a christian city) city of ours. i'd give that silver watch of mine away and mind my own business if i thought it would come cheaper, but it won't do. h. h. rogers is my brother and keeper, and he insists he needs protection, and i must pay for it, so what can i do? i've told him i'm a peaceful, propertyless man with no higher ambition than to love my fellow-man--and woman, and mind my own business; but his reply has invariably been, "i'm dr. tarr, and my system prevails in this lunatic asylum!" i recognize the logic of his argument all right and continue to pay for his protection and feel grateful for the privilege of grumbling a little now and again. comstockery by john r. coryell be it understood that the shocking thing which we know as comstockery, goes back into the centuries for its origin; being, indeed, the perfect flower of that asceticism, which was engrafted on the degraded christianity which took its name from christ without in the least comprehending the spirit of his lofty conception. the man comstock, who has the shameful distinction of having lent his name to the idea of which he is the willing and probably the fit exponent, may be dismissed without further consideration, since he is, after all, only the inevitable as he is the deplorable result of that for which he stands; seemingly without any sense of the shame and the awfulness of it. it may be said, too, in dismissing him, that it is of no consequence whether the very unpleasant stories current concerning him are true or not. it is altogether probable that a man who stands for what he does and who glories in proclaiming the things he does, will also do things for which he does not stand and which he does not proclaim. that is a characteristic of most of us and only proves that, after all, he is not less than human. the only point that need be made in regard to the man who is proud of representing comstockery is, that if he had not done so, some other lost soul would. in that sad stage of our social growth when death was the penalty for most infractions of the law, an executioner could always be found who took pride in his work and who seemed to be beyond the reach of the scorn, the abhorrence and the contempt of his fellows. comstockery, as we know it, is apparently an organized effort to regulate the morals of the people. if it were nothing more than this, it would be absurd and negligible, because futile; for what we call morals are only the observances which the conditions of life impose upon a people; and an act depends, for its moral status, upon its relation to those conditions. as, for example, horse-stealing in a closely settled community, which has its railroads and other means of communication, is a crime to be punished by a brief period of imprisonment; while in the sparsely settled sections of a country, where the horse is an imperative necessity of life, its theft becomes a hanging matter, whatever the written law for that section of the country may be as to the punishment of the crime. and men, brought up in law-abiding communities in the deepest respect for the law, will, under the changed conditions of life, not merely condone the infliction of a penalty in excess of that provided by law, but will themselves assist, virtuously satisfied with their conduct because the society of which they form a part has decided that horse-stealing shall be so punished. on the other hand, there are numerous laws on the statute books, still unrepealed and unenforceable because the acts treated of are no longer held to be offences against morality. in other words, the morals of a people can be regulated only by themselves. what comstockery does is bad enough, but its real awfulness lies in the fact that it seems to fairly enough represent us in our attitude toward a certain class of ideas and things. it is the expression of our essential immorality--using that word in its conventional sense--having its roots deep down in pruriency, hypocrisy and ignorance. like the blush on the cheek of the courtesan, it deceives no one, but is none the less a truthful expression, not of the thing it simulates, but of the character of the simulator. comstockery was probably brought to this country by the first anglo-saxon, whether pirate or minister of the gospel, who set foot on this soil; certainly it was a finely blooming plant on the mayflower, and was soon blossoming here as never elsewhere in the world, giving out such a fragrance that the peculiar odor of it has become a characteristic of this land of liberty. when the so-called comstock laws were passed there was a real disease to be treated: the symptoms of the disease were obscene books and pictures which were being freely circulated among the children of the land, boarding-schools, whether for girls or boys, being fairly flooded with the pernicious literature. the work of confiscation, suppression and of imprisonment was done thoroughly and conscientiously, so that in the course of a comparatively short time it was difficult to find books or pictures of the kind in question. it is said that the effectiveness of the work done is best shown by the one or more libraries of obscene books which the society, or some of its officers, have collected. the value of the work done and the efficiency of the workers were recognized in the passage from time to time of laws giving extraordinary powers not alone to the popularly so-called "comstock society," but to officers of the government. a perfect fury of purity took possession of our legislators; they were determined to stamp out impurity. and perhaps they were establishing reputations for themselves. it is recorded that in the days of the inquisition men established their orthodoxy by the loudness of their cries against heresy; that in the times of the french revolution, men proved their patriotism by making charges of treason against their neighbors; that practicing polygamists have purified themselves by hounding a theoretical polygamist out of their legislative body. anyhow, the laws were passed, the thing was done. and what was the thing that was done? a moral inquisition had been established. arguing from a wrong premise a hideous conclusion had been reached. it was voiced only a few weeks ago by an official of the postoffice in chicago, when confiscating a publication. he said in substance, if not literally: "any discussion of sex is obscene." there it is in a few words--a complete and perfect treatise on comstockery! in the early days in some parts of new england, a man might not kiss his wife on a sunday. on common days, the filthy act was permissible, but the sabbath must not be so defiled. and now, any discussion of sex is obscenity! pause a while and consider what this means and whither it will lead, where it has already led. discussion of sex is obscene; then sex, itself, must be obscene; life and all that pertains to it must be filthy. that is, providing it be the life of man. the sex of flowers may be discussed frankly and freely either for the pleasure of knowledge, or in order to use knowledge for the purpose of improving the flower. the sex of animals may be discussed; it is discussed in government publications and in the many farm journals published throughout the country, because it is necessary to improve the breed of our domestic animals, because these animals are valuable. but discussion of the sex of man is obscene! there have been some changes in public sentiment, some changes, perhaps, in the grey matter on the judicial bench, since the early days in new york when comstockery was most rampant: for what was tolerated then is not tolerated now; some things that were judicially wrong then are judicially right now. and in this change there is hope and the promise of greater change. in those early days a confectioner on fulton street sought to attract customers by exhibiting in his window a painting by a great artist. if memory serves, it was "the triumph of charles v." by hans makart. figures of nude females were in the picture, and comstockery established in its censorship of art and solemnly unconscious of its appalling ignorance, but true to its fundamental pruriency, ordered the picture removed from the window. and it was removed. just as boston, finding its bronze bacchante immodest, rejected the brazen hussey. and now she stands on her pedestal in the metropolitan museum in new york, giving joy to the beholder, and--not ordered down by comstockery. why? and why is not the whole museum purged of its nude figures? it is a puzzle not even to be solved by the theory of change in public sentiment; for it is only a few months ago that the art censor in chief of comstockery saw in the window of an art dealer on fifth avenue a landscape in which figured several nude children discreetly wandering away from the beholder. the picture was ordered out of the window forthwith. and went. a few blocks below, on broadway, there were then and are now exhibited in a window, numerous photographs of nude children, not all of them discreet as to way of their going. why? has the art censor decided that the photographs are innocuous, or that they are art? but these instances and the amazing expeditions made by the censor into the realm of literature are hardly more than ludicrous; and they can and will correct themselves. but the frightful results of comstockery, as applied to life and to real purity, cannot be so lightly passed over. and let it not be forgotten that an indictment of comstockery is an indictment of ourselves, for the prurient, hypocritical, degrading thing can exist not one instant after we have declared that it shall perish. it is no exaggeration to say that comstockery is the arch enemy of society. it seeks to make hypocrisy respectable; it would convert impurity into a basic virtue; it labels ignorance, innocence; it has legislated knowledge into a crime; and it seeks its perpetuation in the degradation of an enfeebled human race. and that these are not over-statements can easily be established to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind. the most creditable work ever done by comstockery was the practical suppression and elimination of the obscene book; but when that is said, all is said. how worse than fatuous, how absolutely fiendish that physician would be deemed who hid the signs of small-pox with paint and powder and permitted his patient to roam at will among his fellows, unwarned even of the nature of the fell disease that was devouring his life. nay, worse! what if the physician should have himself clothed with plenary powers and should compel the poor wretch to refrain from making his case known after he had discovered its nature? but this is precisely what comstockery does. the obscene book was removed from circulation. in other words, the symptom of the disease was hidden. but was anything done to eliminate the disease, or to remove its cause? on the contrary, everything possible was done to perpetuate the disease; everything possible was done to prevent anyone who had suffered from the disease or who knew anything about it, from imparting his knowledge. for the disease was ignorance; ignorance of self, of life, of sex. and not only does comstockery strive to perpetuate ignorance, not only does it glorify ignorance and miscall it innocence, not only does it elevate it into a virtue, but it has legislated knowledge into a crime. the offence of the book it had eliminated was not its vicious misinformation, but its use of sex as a subject. the postoffice has said that any discussion of sex is obscene and the courts have put one noble old man of over seventy years into prison at hard labor, and have punished an aged woman physician in some other way because they sought, in all purity and right-mindedness, to help their brothers and sisters to a knowledge of themselves. it is true that, at last, there is a rift within the lute; or would it better be called a leak in the sewer? comstockery has not quite the standing that it once had. when it was made generally known that a postoffice official had said that any discussion of sex was obscene, there followed such a rattling fire of reprobation and condemnation even from many startled conventionalists, who could support the thing but could not look it in the face, that the maker of the now historic phrase was moved to deny that he had said it officially. in fact, there are many signs, most of them still small, on the distant horizon, it is true, which indicate that we are becoming alive to the fact that it is imperative that sex should be discussed. this is an age of radical ideas. radicalism in politics, in religion, in ethics is ripe; which is only another way of saying that we are beginning to dare to think. probably the most apparent, if not the most significant, sign of the general radicalism, is the tendency to exalt the science of life to an even higher plane than that which it occupied in the days of hellenic supremacy. we are beginning to understand that right living is a purely physical matter, and that morals are only laws of health; and if there are yet but few who dare take so radical a view of morals as that, still there are quite as few who will not admit freely that nothing can be immoral which is beneficial to the human body. of course, it is unthinkable, even from the point of view of the most conventional of orthodox christians, that there can be any immorality in sex, for sex in itself is absolutely a work of the deity, hence of the highest morality, if it can have any such attribute at all. as well might one give digestion a moral quality. morality is surely a matter of personal conduct. one may say that it is immoral to eat so much as to injure one's health, but it is not a matter of record that any considerable body of persons declares the stomach to be an immoral organ, or the digestive function to be an immoral one, or any discussion of digestion immoral. then why sex or sex functions? it is true that comstockery has us to designate our legs, limbs, though not at the present time with any legal penalty for not doing so; it prescribes the word stomach for polite usage in describing that part of the body which lies subjacent to the actual stomach, anterior to the spinal column and posterior to the abdominal wall; it forbids a visible bifurcated garment for the "limbs" of a female; and it does a variety of other absurd things, all going to show that in some singular fashion it has confounded acts with things; as one might call all knives immoral because a few knives had been used to do murder with. by what extraordinary process does comstockery conjure decency into the stomach and indecency into the bowels? but how rejoiced we should be that it is no worse than indecent to speak of the receptacle of the intestines by its common name. by some hocus pocus of which comstockery is easily capable it might have been obscene to speak of the digestive process or of any of the digestive organs. we might easily have been taught that digestion was a moral matter, not to be talked of, not to be studied; ignorance of which was a virtue, knowledge of which a crime. and then, under those conditions, if a person, possessed of a little knowledge such as might have crept stealthily down the ages, were in a fine humanitarian spirit to dare to publish some of the things he knew in order to help dyspeptic humanity, he would have been robbed of his worldly goods and clapped forthwith into jail. fancy that under such circumstances a man who had lived his three score and ten years and had learned something from his own suffering and experience, something from the secretly imparted information of others, might not say a word to help his fellows. is it not too absurd to contemplate without both tears and laughter that that man who should plead with his fellow men to abstain from habitually living on butter cakes and coffee, should be charged with obscenity and imprisoned in consequence? and imagine some sapient postoffice official solemnly declaring that any discussion of digestion is obscene! consider how the land would be flooded with literature describing the pleasures of gluttony and depicting impossible gastronomic feats! consider, too, trying to cure indigestion and to suppress the orgies of our children in pies, crullers, fritters and butter cakes by the naïve device of forbidding all knowledge of the digestive function and making the utterance of the name of a digestive organ an obscenity punishable by fine and imprisonment! digestion is a matter to be considered in the light of hygiene. so is sex. digestion is not in itself either moral or immoral. neither is sex. but there is the most hideous immorality in the ascription of obscenity to sex, sex function or any phase of sex life. and this is the crime of comstockery. it has reared an awful idol to which have been sacrificed the best of our youth; with hypocrisy the high-priest, ignorance the creed, and pruriency the detective. comstockery strikes at the very root of life. it forbids that we shall know how to live our best; it forbids that we shall know how to save our children from the perils we have so discreditably passed through; it raises barriers of false modesty between parents and children by branding the very science of life an obscenity. owing to the shocking suggestions of comstockery all that relates to life is degraded into the gutter; and that which would be pure and sweet and wholesome in the home or in the school, becomes filthy comstockery on the snickering lips of ignorant play-fellows. the wonder is that we have endured the nasty thing for so long a time. we have been boys and girls and have gone from our parents to our school-mates and play-fellows for the information to which we are entitled by very reason of living, but, more than all; because of our need to live right. we all know the hideous untruths we were told because of comstockery; we all know how much we had to unlearn, and how great the suffering mentally, how great the deterioration physically in the unlearning; we all know our unfitness for parentage at the time we entered it; every man knows how the brothels kept open doors and beckoning inmates by the thousand for his undoing. and yet we endure it--comstockery. it is such a subtly pervasive thing, this comstockery, it steals in wherever it can and puts the taint of its own uncleanness on whatever it touches. clothing becomes a matter of comstockery. we do not always see it, but such is the fact. we do not wear clothing for convenience, but to cover our nakedness. you see nakedness is obscene. not in itself, but only in man. you may take a naked dog on the street, but not a naked human being. the summer previous to the last one was a very hot one in new york, and a poor wretch of a boy of fourteen years of age, being on the top floor of a crowded tenement was half crazed by the heat and the lack of fresh air, of which there was absolutely none in the closet in which he was trying to sleep. he ran down into the street nude at two o'clock in the morning in the hope of finding a surcease of his distress. a policeman saw him, remembered his blushing comstockery in time and haled the poor lad off to a cell. the next morning the magistrate in tones of grimmest virtue sent the boy to the reformatory, remarking with appropriate jest that the young scoundrel might have seven years in which to learn to keep his clothes on. theodore roosevelt, who is at once the greatest president and the wisest man of whom we have any record, tells us that we must breed more children. but how shall our women bear more children, or presently bear any, if they are to be continually made more and more unfit for motherhood by the pitfalls into which their ignorance of the science of life leads them? because of the comstockery which has its felt grip upon our throats we may not instruct the little child in the way of health; or if it be said that there is nothing to prevent the parent from instructing the child, yet it must be insisted that the parent has no means of knowing since comstockery prescribes ignorance as the only way to innocence; and innocent our girls must be at any cost. besides, the average mother, if she will but admit the truth, is ashamed to talk with her daughter about comstockery things. we all know that this is so. our parents treated us in such fashion, and we are so treating our children. the knowledge which each generation acquires at the cost of health, yes, at the cost of life even, dies with it, for the most part. the one thing we most need to know is how to live; the science of life begins with sex, goes on with sex, ends with sex; but sex we may not discuss; thus we go on in ignorance of life. shall it remain so? is comstockery to be our best expression of the most vital matter of existence? life, sex, should be and is when we recognize it, the purest, sweetest, simplest subject of discussion; and we make of it a filthy jest. we will not tell our sons the things we have learned through bitter experience, because we cannot bear the shame of discussing sex subjects with them, because of the accursed comstockery that is within us; but we will go to the club and the bar room, or anywhere behind locked doors in the select company of our fellows, and there pour out the real essence of our comstockery in stories which make a filthy jest of sex. every man knows this is the truth. perhaps women, in their comstockery, know it too. as has been already said, treat digestion as sex is treated, and it will be sniggered over behind locked doors in precisely the same way. let us rid ourselves of the fatal, prurient restrictions on sex discussion and in a marvellously short time we shall have a store of sweet knowledge on the subject that will enable us to live well ourselves and fit us to bring into the world such children as will amaze us with their health of body and purity of mind. no alteration of the facts of life is necessary, but only a change of attitude. why, when trilby brought the bare foot into prominence, it was gravely debated whether or not such an indecency should be permitted. it was assumed that a naked foot was indecent. why a foot more than a hand? why any one part of the body more than another? comstockery! comstockery! [illustration] don quixote and hamlet in peter kropotkin's book: "russian literature" (published by mcclure, phillips & company), there is a quotation from turgenieff's works, which shows the russian poet's genius and psychological insight in all its wonderful depth. here it is: "don quixote is imbued with devotion towards his ideal, for which he is ready to suffer all possible privations, to sacrifice his life; life itself he values only so far as it can serve for the incarnation of the ideal, for the promotion of truth, of justice on earth.... he lives for his brothers, for opposing the forces hostile to mankind: the witches, the giants--that is, the oppressors.... therefore he is fearless, patient; he is satisfied with the most modest food, the poorest cloth: he has other things to think of. humble in his heart, he is great and daring in his mind.... and who is hamlet? analysis, first of all, and egotism, and therefore no faith. he lives entirely for himself, he is an egotist; but to believe in one' self--even an egotist cannot do that: we can believe only in something which is outside us and above us.... as he has doubts of everything, hamlet evidently does not spare himself; his intellect is too developed to remain satisfied with what he finds in himself; he feels his weakness, but each self-consciousness is a force where-from results his irony, the opposite of the enthusiasm of don quixote.... don quixote, a poor man, almost a beggar, without means and relations, old, isolated--undertakes to redress all the evils and to protect oppressed strangers over the whole world. what does it matter to him that his first attempt at freeing the innocent from his oppressor falls twice as heavy upon the head of the innocent himself?... what does it matter that, thinking that he has to deal with noxious giants, don quixote attacks useful windmills?... nothing of the sort can ever happen with hamlet: how could he, with his perspicacious, refined, sceptical mind, ever commit such a mistake! no, he will not fight with windmills, he does not believe in giants ... but he would not have attacked them even if they did exist.... and he does not believe in evil. evil and deceit are his inveterate enemies. his scepticism is not indifferentism.... but in negation, as in fire, there is a destructive power, and how to keep it in bounds, how to tell it where to stop, when that which it must destroy, and that which it must spare are often inseparably welded together? here it is that the often-noticed tragical aspect of human life comes in: for action we require will, and for action we require thought; but thought and will have parted from each other, and separate every day more and more.... "and thus the native hue of resolution is sickled o'er by the pale cast of thought...." [illustration] on the banks of acheron by edwin bjorkman the air was still and full of a gray melancholy light, yet the waters of the river boiled angrily as if touched by a raging tempest. the billows rose foaming above its surface, all white with the whiteness of fear. when they sank back again, they were black--black as despair that knows of no hope. steep hills mounted abruptly on either side of the river until they touched the sullen, colorless cloud-banks overhead. their sides were seamed with numberless paths, running on narrow ledges, one above the other, from the river's edge to the crest of the hill. men were moving along those paths: they swarmed like ants across the hillside, but i could not see whence they were coming nor whither they were going. all were pushing and jostling and scratching and howling and fighting. every one's object seemed to be to raise himself to the path above his own and to prevent all others from doing the same. down at the water's edge, they moved in a solid mass, arms pinned down, shoulder to shoulder and chest to back. at times a man got an arm out of the press and began to claw the up-turned, tear-stained faces of his neighbors in wild endeavors to lift his whole body. but soon his madness subsided, the writhing arm sank back, and the man vanished out of sight. the mass once more moved stolidly, solidly onward. once in a great while its surface of heads would begin to boil like the waters of the river near by, and a man would be spouted into the air, landing on one of the paths above. then each face would be turned toward him for a breathless moment, at the end of which the mass glided slowly onward as before. the crush on the paths higher up on the hillside was not so great, but the fighting of man against man was incessant and bitter. i could see them clambering up the steep sides of the ledges, with bleeding nails, distorted features and locked teeth. waving arms and clutching fingers pursued them from below; ironshod heels trampled them from above. ninety-nine out of the hundred ended their struggles with a fall, and in their rapid descent they swept others with them. but rising or falling, they all pushed onward, onward--from nowhere to nowhere, as it seemed to me. i watched them for hours, for days, for years--always the same wandering, the same scrambling, the same tumbling, without apparent purpose or result. then my blood rose hotly to my heart and head. a scarlet mist floated before my eyes and my soul swelled within me almost unto bursting. "why?" i cried, and the word rolled back and forth between the hillsides until its last echo was swallowed by the murmur that hovered over the wrathful river. the strugglers on the hillside paths, each and all, turned toward me. on every face i read astonishment. "why?" i yelled at them again, and the sound of my voice lingered above the waters like a distant thunder. gradually the expression on all those staring faces changed from wonder to scorn. a man on one of the paths near the crest of the hill laughed aloud. two more joined him. it became contagious and spread like wildfire. all those millions were laughing into my face, laughing like demons rather than men. my frown only increased the mirth of that grinning multitude. i shook my clenched, up-stretched fists against them. and when at last their ghastly merriment ceased, i raised my voice once more in defiance. "why?" as when on a bleak winter day the black snow clouds suddenly begin to darken the sky, so hatred and rage spread over their faces. crooked, bony fingers were pointed at me. men leaned recklessly from their narrow ledges to shout abuse at me. stones and mud were flung at me. a hundred arms seized me and tossed my body in a wide curve from the hillside out over the river. for one long minute i struggled to keep myself above the yawning waters. then i sank. all grew dark about me. a strange fullness in my chest seemed to rise up toward my head. there was a last moment of consciousness in which i heard a single word uttered by a ringing, bell-like voice that came from within myself. that last word was: "why?" [illustration] the british elections and the labor parties by h. kelly "we are a left-center country; we live by compromise." the above statement was made by an aged member of parliament to kropotkin some years ago, and the present elections testify strongly to the truth of that remark. for a country which produced the father of political economy, adam smith--for scotland is included in our generalization--robert owen, the father of libertarian socialism, which in the forties stood almost at the head of the socialist movement in europe, which has been the scene of so many socialist and workingmen's congresses and has furnished a refuge for so many distinguished exiles, it is passing strange, to say the least, that up to the present no one has been elected to parliament on a purely socialist platform; this notwithstanding that, in the elections just past, of forty-three labor members elected nineteen are members of the independent labor party and one of the social democratic federation. john burns was elected to parliament just after the great dock strike on his trade-union record and has been elected regularly ever since, although he has long since ceased to be a socialist. keir hardie was elected for west ham as a radical, and when he stood for re-election as a socialist was defeated. in he was elected again as member for merthyr tydfill, a radical mining district in wales, on a trade union-socialist platform, and undoubtedly received a large number of votes on the ground of having been a miner once himself. r. b. cunningham-graham, probably the ablest socialist who has yet sat in the british parliament, was elected as a radical, announcing himself a socialist some time after his election. the british workman, true to his traditions, has consistently demanded compromise before electing anyone, and where that has been refused, the candidates have gone down to defeat. hyndman, founder of the social democratic federation and the ablest socialist in public life; quelch, editor of "justice," the official organ of that party, for more than a decade, and geo. lansbury, one of their oldest, ablest and most respected members, refused to compromise in the recent election, and paid the inevitable penalty. hyndman's case was really remarkable, he is a man of exceptional ability, has devoted himself for twenty-five years to the socialist and labor movement, was endorsed by all the labor bodies of burnley, and mr. phillip stanhope, recently created a lord and one of the ablest liberal politicians in the country, did him the honor of declining to stand against him. still he was defeated--while politicians of an inferior stamp like john burns, keir hardie, j. r. macdonald and two score of others were triumphantly elected on a labor platform. therein lies the secret, they were elected on a "labor platform!" eight-hour day, trade-union rate of wages, better factory legislation, secular education, annual sessions of parliament, paid members, one man, one vote, etc. all excellent things in themselves, but not socialism and in no way disputing the right of one man to exploit another and leaving untouched the basic principle of socialism, real socialism, the right of labor to the fruits of its toil. under conditions such as those described, is it to be wondered at that many anarchists are frankly cynical as to the benefits labor will derive from the labor parties? there will be at least two, that have suddenly forced the gilded doors of the "mother of parliaments" and about which the guilty middle class grew nervous. we know that men like t. burt, h. broadhurst, w. abraham, f. madison and a score of others are but nominal labor men not having worked at their various trades for years and are middle class by training and income, that others like keir hardie, j. r. macdonald, john ward and many more are at best labor politicians so steeped in political bargaining and compromising that the net results to labor from them will be very small indeed. it is not necessary nor would it be just to question the honesty or well-meaning of many of the forty-three labor members, to prove that a distinct disappointment awaits those who elected them. past history foretells the future clearly enough. we have seen john burns, hero of the dock strike, who entered parliament as a revolutionary socialist, becoming in a few short years as docile as a lamb to those above him in power and as autocratic as a russian provincial governor to those who needed his assistance, finally enter a liberal cabinet with the "hero of featherstone," h. h. asquith, by whose orders striking miners were shot down in real american fashion, sir edward grey, and other jingo imperialists--and the end is not yet. there are our other friends (?). h. broadhurst, special favorite of the king; w. abraham, ex-coal miner, who so endeared himself to the coal operators of wales in his capacity as official of the miners' union and scale committee that when his daughter was married several years ago she received a cheque for £ from one of the aforesaid operators, and others whom space forbids mentioning. such is the material of which the labor parties now in the house of commons is formed, and it requires a violent stretch of imagination to see any real, lasting benefit can accrue from the forty-three men now sitting there as representatives of the oppressed masses. an inability to see this, however, by no means implies a lack of inherent good in the formation of the labor representation committee and the miners' federation, their fraternization with the socialists and the forces which impelled that organization and fraternization. it is the agitation which preceded it, and we hope will continue, and the growing desire on the part of the workers for a larger share of the product of their toil and a part in the management of industry that we see hope. the form that movement has taken or the beneficial results from the efforts of the elected are details. it is scarcely five years since the labor representation committee sprang into existence, and it says much for the solidarity of labor that over a million trade unionists, thirteen thousand members of the independent labor party and eight hundred fabians could be got together on a political program in so short a time. for good or ill the british workingman has gone in for political action and will have a try at that before he listens to the anarchists. slow of thought and used to compromise, he is a stern taskmaker and will exact a rigid account of the stewardship entrusted to those who sought his suffrage. when the disillusionment comes, as it surely will, real progress may come. the process of disillusionment does not come with geometrical precision. to some it comes over night, to others it is a process of years, and to some it is denied altogether. for years the anarchists have been scoffed at as impossible dreamers for advocating the general strike as the only effective means of overthrowing the present system. the glorious fight of the russian people for freedom has changed all this, and we find even bebel threatening the german government with a general strike if they attempt to withdraw the franchise; and hyndman, who opposed it for years, has finally admitted its effectiveness. the effect has been felt in great britain in the shape of the unemployed agitations and demonstrations, and although temporarily allayed by the elections, it will blossom forth again. if the advent of the liberal party to power, backed by the home rule and labor parties, causes an undoing of the harm of the balfour-chamberlain government, it will be more than can reasonably be expected. the trade unions can never be restored to quite the same legal immunity they had previously. the forty thousand chinese imported into south africa to take the places of white miners will remain even if no more are brought in. the education act, passed with the assistance of the irish archbishops and attacking secular education, will be amended and not repealed. the endowment of the brewers will continue, and my lords bass, burton and the rest will merely await future opportunities to plunder the british public. in short, little constructive legislation, even of that mild and tentative character one might expect from a liberal party, made up of capitalistic units can be expected after the ten years of corrupt and extravagant rule of this band of modern pirates. they who advocate the complete reconstruction of society are under no illusions as to the time and trouble required to overcome the superstitions of the past. being imbued, however, with the belief in what christians call "the eternal righteousness of their cause," they meet the future with smiling face; and far from being downcast over the turn of events in great britain, see hope in the formation of the labor parties. [illustration] and you? bolton hall "what would you do," asked the idealist, "if you were czar of russia?" "i would first abolish monopoly of land, for that is fundamental," said the reformer, "and then resign. what would you do?" "i would first resign, and then teach the people to abolish monopoly of land, the same as now," answered the idealist. "but what would you do, teacher?" "i would teach the people from the throne that they were oppressed by their system of monopoly--and by their czar." national atavism by internationalist the jewish circles in new york, boston, philadelphia and other cities of america are aroused over the visit of a spectre called nationalism, alias territorialism. like all spectres, it is doing a lot of mischief and causing much confusion in the heads of the jewish population. the spirit of our ancestor, abraham, has come to life again. like abraham, when jehovah commanded him to go in quest of the promised land, the jewish nationalists make themselves and others believe that they long for the moment, when with wife and child and all possessions, they will migrate to that spot on earth, which will represent the jewish state, where jewish traits will have a chance to develop in idyllic peace. natural science calls retrogression of species, which shows signs of a former state already overcome, atavism. the same term may be applied to the advanced section of the jewish population, which has listened to the call of the nationalists. they have retrogressed from a universal view of things to a philosophy fenced in by boundary lines; from the glorious conception that "the world is my country" to the conception of exclusiveness. they have abridged their wide vision and have made it narrow and superficial. the zionism of max nordau and his followers never was more than a sentimental sport for the well-to-do in the ranks of the jews. the latter-day nationalists, however, are bent on reaching those circles of the jewish race that have so far followed the banner of internationalism and revolution; and this at a moment when revolutionists of all nationalities and races are most in need of unity and solidarity. nothing could be more injurious to the russian revolution, nothing prove a lack of confidence in its success, so much as the present nationalistic agitation. the most encouraging and glorious feature of revolutions is that they purify the atmosphere from the thick, poisonous vapors of prejudices and superstition. from time immemorial revolutions have been the only hope and refuge of all the oppressed from national and social yokes. the radical nationalistic elements seem to have forgotten that all their enthusiasm, their faith and hope in the power of a great social change, now falters before the question: will it give us our own territory where we can surround ourselves with walls and watch-towers? yes, the very people, who once spoke with a divine fire of the beauty of the solidarity of all individuals and all peoples, now indulge in the shallow phrases that the jew is powerless, that he is nowhere at home, and that he owns no place on earth, where he can do justice to his nature, and that he must first obtain national rights, like all nations, ere he can go further. these lamentations contain more fiction than truth, more sentimentality than logic. the poles have their own territory; still this fact does not hinder russia from brutalizing poland or from flogging and killing her children; neither does it hinder the prussian government from maltreating her polish subjects and forcibly obliterating the polish language. and of what avail is native territory to the small nations of the balkans, with russian, turkish and austrian influences keeping them in a helpless and dependent condition. various raids and expeditions by the powerful neighboring states forced on them, have proven what little protection their territorial independence has given them against brutal coercion. the independent existence of small peoples has ever served powerful states as a pretext for venomous attacks, pillage and attempts at annexation. nothing is left them but to bow before the superior powers, or to be ever prepared for bitter wars that might, in a measure, temporarily loosen the tyrannical hold, but never end in a complete overthrow of the powerful enemy. switzerland is often cited as an example of a united nation which is able to maintain itself in peace and neutrality. it might be advisable to consider what circumstances have made this possible. it is an indisputable fact that switzerland acts as the executive agent of european powers, who consider her a foreign detective bureau which watches over, annoys and persecutes refugees and the dissatisfied elements. italian, russian and german spies look upon switzerland as a hunting ground, and the swiss police are never so happy, as when they can render constable service to the governments of surrounding states. it is nothing unusual for the swiss police to carry out the order of germany or italy to arrest political refugees and forcibly take them across the frontier, where they are given over into the hands of the german or italian gendarmes. a very enticing national independence, is it not? is it possible that former revolutionists and enthusiastic fighters for freedom, who are now in the nationalistic field, should long for similar conditions? those who refuse to be carried away by nationalistic phrases and who would rather follow the broad path of internationalism, are accused of indifference to and lack of sympathy with the sufferings of the jewish race. rather is it far more likely that those who stand for the establishment of a jewish nation show a serious lack of judgment. especially the radicals among the nationalists seem to be altogether lost in the thicket of phrases. they are ashamed of the label "nationalist" because it stands for so much retrogression, for so many memories of hatred, of savage wars and wild persecutions, that it is difficult for one who claims to be advanced and modern to adorn himself with the name. and who does not wish to appear advanced and modern? therefore the name of nationalist is rejected, and the name of territorialist taken instead, as if that were not the same thing. true, the territorialists will have nothing to do with an organized jewish state; they aim for a free commune. but, if it is certain that small states are subordinated to great powers and merely endured by them, it is still more certain that free communes within powerful states, built on coercion and land robbery, have even less chance for a free existence. such cuckoos' eggs the ruling powers will not have in their nests. a community, in which exploitation and slavery do not reign, would have the same effect on these powers, as a red rag to a bull. it would stand an everlasting reproach, a nagging accusation, which would have to be destroyed as quickly as possible. or is the national glory of the jews to begin after the social revolution? if we are to throw into the dust heap our hope that humanity will some day reach a height from which difference of nationality and ancestry will appear but an insignificant speck on earth, well and good! then let us be patriots and continue to nurse national characteristics; but we ought, at least, not to clothe ourselves in the mantel of faust, in our pretentious sweep through space. we ought at least declare openly that the life of all peoples is never to be anything else but an outrageous mixture of stupid patriotism, national vanities, everlasting antagonism, and a ravenous greed for wealth and supremacy. might it not be advisable to consider how the idea of a national unity of the jews can live in the face of the deep social abysses that exist between the various ranks within the jewish race? it is not at all a mere accident that the bund, the strongest organization of the jewish proletariat, will have nothing to do with the nationalistic agitation. the social and economic motives for concerted action or separation are of far more vital influence than the national. the feeling of solidarity of the working-people is bound to prove stronger than the nationalistic glue. as to the remainder of the adherents of the nationalistic movement, they are recruited from the ranks of the middle jewish class. the jewish banker, for instance, feels much more drawn to the christian or mohammedan banker than to his jewish factory worker, or tenement house dweller. equally so will the jewish workingman, conscious of the revolutionizing effect of the daily struggle between labor and money power, find his brother in a fellow worker, and not in a jewish banker. true, the jewish worker suffers twofold: he is exploited, oppressed and robbed as one of suffering humanity, and despised, hated, trampled upon, because he is a jew; but he would look in vain toward the wealthy jews for his friends and saviors. the latter have just as great an interest in the maintenance of a system that stands for wage slavery, social subordination, and the economic dependence of the great mass of mankind, as the christian employer and owner of wealth. the jewish population of the east side has little in common with the dweller of a fifth avenue mansion. he has much more in common with the workingmen of other nationalities of the country--he has sorrows, struggles, indignation and longings for freedom in common with them. his hope is the social reconstruction of society and not nationalistic scene shifting. his conditions can be ameliorated only through a union with his fellow sufferers, through human brotherhood, and not by means of separation and barriers. in his struggles against humiliating demands, inhuman treatment, economic pressure, he can depend on help from his non-jewish comrades, and not on the assistance of jewish manufacturers and speculators. how then can he be expected to co-operate with them in the building of a jewish commonwealth? certain it is that the battle which is to bring liberty, peace and well-being to humanity is of a mental, social, economic nature and not of a nationalistic one. the former brightens and widens the horizon, the latter stupefies the reasoning faculties, cripples and stifles the emotions, and sows hatred and strife instead of love and tenderness in the human soul. all that is big and beautiful in the world has been created by thinkers and artists, whose vision was far beyond the lilliputian sphere of nationalism. only that which contains the life's pulse of mankind expands and liberates. that is why every attempt to establish a national art, a patriotic literature, a life's philosophy with the seal of the government attached thereto is bound to fall flat and to be insignificant. it were well and wholesome if all works dealing with national glory and victory, with national courage and patriotic songs could be used for bonfires. in their place we could have the poems of shelley and whitman, essays of emerson or thoreau, the book of the bees, by maeterlink, the music of wagner, beethoven and tschaikovsky, the wonderful art of eleanore duse. i can deeply sympathize with the dread of massacres and persecutions of the jewish people; and i consider it just and fair that they should strain every effort to put a stop to such atrocities as have been witnessed by the civilized world within a few years. but it must be borne in mind that it is the russian government, the russian reactionary party, including the russian church, and not the russian people, that are responsible for the slaughter of the jews. jewish socialists and anarchists, however, who have joined the ranks of the nationalists and who have forgotten to emphasize the fundamental distinction between the people of russia and the reactionary forces of that country, who have fought and are still fighting so bravely for their freedom and for the liberation of all who are oppressed, deserve severe censure. they have thrown the responsibility of the massacres upon the russian people and have even blamed the revolutionists for them, whereas it is an undisputed fact that the agitation against the jews has been inaugurated and paid for by the ruling clique, in the hope that the hatred and discontent of the russian people would turn from them, the real criminals, to the jews. it is said, "we have no rights in russia, we are being robbed, hounded, killed, let the russian people take care of themselves, we will turn our backs on them." would it not show deeper insight into the condition of affairs if my jewish brethren were to say, "our people are being abused, insulted, ill-treated and killed by the hirelings of russian despotism. let us strengthen our union with the intellectuals, the peasants, the rebellious elements of the people for the overthrow of the abominable tyranny; and when we have accomplished that let us co-operate in the great work of building a social structure upon which neither the nation nor the race but humanity can live and grow in beauty." prejudices are never overcome by one who shows himself equally narrow and bigoted. to confront one brutal outbreak of national sentiment with the demand for another form of national sentiment means only to lay the foundation for a new persecution that is bound to come sooner or later. were the retrogressive ideas of the jewish nationalists ever to materialize, the world would witness, after a few years, that one jew is being persecuted by another. in one respect the jews are really a "chosen people." not chosen by the grace of god, nor by their national peculiarities, which with every people, as well as with the jews, merely prove national narrowness. they are "chosen" by a necessity, which has relieved them of many prejudices, a necessity which has prevented the development of many of those stupidities which have caused other nations great efforts to overcome. repeated persecution has put the stamp of sorrow on the jews; they have grown big in their endurance, in their comprehension of human suffering, and in their sympathy with the struggles and longings of the human soul. driven from country to country, they avenged themselves by producing great thinkers, able theoreticians, heroic leaders of progress. all governments lament the fact that the jewish people have contributed the bravest fighters to the armies for every liberating war of mankind. owing to the lack of a country of their own, they developed, crystallized and idealized their cosmopolitan reasoning faculty. true, they have not their own empire, but many of them are working for the great moment when the earth will become the home for all, without distinction of ancestry or race. that is certainly a greater, nobler and sounder ideal to strive for than a petty nationality. it is this ideal that is daily attracting larger numbers of jews, as well as gentiles; and all attempts to hinder the realization thereof, like the present nationalistic movement, will be swept away by the storm that precedes the birth of the new era--mankind clasped in universal brotherhood. [illustration] mine owners' revenge by m. b. +charles h. moyer+, president of the western federation of miners, william d. haywood, secretary of that organization, and g. a. pettibone, former member of the same, were arrested in denver, february th. they are accused of having participated in the murder of the ex-governor of idaho, mr. steunenberg. various other arrests have taken place in cripple creek and haines, oregon. the events during and after the arrest leave no doubt that the authorities of colorado and idaho are in the most beautiful accord in their attempt to kill the miners' union. this accord and harmony is so apparent that thoughtful citizens cannot fail to see that the governments of colorado and idaho are aiding in the conspiracy of the mine owners against the miners. requisition papers and a special train seem to have been prepared in advance, for immediately after the arrest they were expelled and taken to boise city, idaho, and within a few moments the whole matter was settled by the authorities of colorado, not even pretending to show the slightest fairness. nor did they display the least desire to investigate the grounds upon which requisition papers were granted. this process usually takes several days. in the case of moyer, haywood and pettibone a few moments sufficed to close the whole proceedings. since the papers were issued before the arrest, it is not at all unlikely that the death sentence has already been decided upon. optimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal murder of , that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of the upper ten thousand, is impossible--that the authorities would shrink from such an outrage, such an awful crime. that which has happened in colorado and idaho warrants no such hope. the evidence against the leaders of the western federation of miners consists largely of one individual, who is supposed to have known and witnessed everything. the gentleman seems to fairly long for the moment when he can take the witness stand and furnish the material that the district attorney needs to prove the guilt of the accused. an expert perjurer, it seems. the governor of idaho, mr. gooding, has already given him a good character. the man acknowledged his firm belief in the existence of a supreme being, which touched the governor's heart deeply. does he not know that it has ever been the mission of the supreme being to serve as impresario to falsehood and wretchedness? the accusation against the three prisoners is the best affidavit of the miner magnates of the courageous stand of the western federation of miners during the reign of terror of the money powers. for years everything was done to disrupt them, but without results. the latest outrage is a renewed and desperate attack on that labor organization. are the working people of america going to look on coolly at a repetition of the black friday in chicago? perhaps there will also be a labor leader, á la powderly, who will be willing to carry faggots to the stake? or are they going to awaken from their lethargy, ere america becomes thoroughly russified? international review +a painting+ from the "good old times" represents two peasants wrangling about a cow. one holds on to the horns of the animal, the other tightly clutches its tail, a third figure is in a crouched position underneath. it is the lawyer milking the cow, while the other two are quarreling. here we have the beauty of the representative system. while groups are bargaining about their rights, their official advisers and lawmakers are skimming the cream off the milk. not justice, but social injustice is the incentive of these worthy gentlemen. human justice, and legal representation thereof, are two different things. one who seeks for a representation places his rights in the hands of another. he does not struggle for them himself, he must wait for a decision thereupon from such quarters as are never inspired by love for justice, but by personal gain and profit. the working people are beginning to recognize this. it is also beginning to dawn upon them that they will have to be their own liberators. they have the power to refuse their material support to a society that degrades them into a state of slavery. this power was already recognized in , when, at the french national convention, mirabeau thundered: "look out! do not enrage the common people, who produce everything, who only need to fold their arms to terrify you!" the general strike is still at the beginning of its activity. it has gone through the fire in russia. in spain and italy it has helped to demolish the belief in the sovereignity of property and the state. altogether the general strike idea, though relatively young, has made a deeper impression on friend and foe than several million votes of the working people could have achieved. indeed, it is no joke for the pillars of society. what, if the workers, conscious of their economic power, cease to store up great wealth in the warehouses of the privileged? it was not difficult to get along with the would-be labor leaders in the legislative bodies, these worthy ones, experienced through the practice of manufacturing laws to maintain law and disorder, rapidly develop into good supporters of the existing conditions. now, however, the workingmen have entered upon the battlefield themselves, refusing their labor, which has always been the foundation of the golden existence of the haute volée. they demand the possibility to so organize production and distribution as to make it impossible for the minority to accumulate outrageous wealth, and to guarantee to each economic well-being. the expropriateurs are in danger of expropriation. capitalism has expropriated the human race, the general strike aims to expropriate capitalism. a new and invigorating breath of life is also felt in this country, through the formation of the "industrial workers of the world." it awakens the hope of a transformation of the present trade-union methods. in their present form they serve the money powers more than the working class. * * * * * +robert koch+, the world-renowned scientist, who was awarded the nobel prize in recognition of his work in the direction of exterminating tuberculosis, delivered a lecture at stockholm at the time of receiving the mark of distinction. in the course of his speech he said: "we may not conceal the fact, that the struggle against tuberculosis requires considerable sums of money. it is really only a question of money. the greater the number of free places for consumptives in well-equipped and well-conducted hospitals, the better the families of these are supported, so that the sick are not prevented from going to these hospitals on account of the care of their relations; and the oftener such places are established, the more rapidly tuberculosis will cease to be a common disease." where are the governments which are supposed to serve as benefactors of suffering mankind? they have milliards at their disposal, but use most of it for the maintenance of armies, bureaucracies, police forces. with these vast sums, which they extort from the people, they increase instead of diminish suffering. * * * * * +on the th of january+ it was years since wolfgang amadeus mozart was born. a grandmaster of music, a magician who leads the soul from the depths of life to its sunary heights. mozart transposed life into music, wagner and his pupils transposed problems of life. wagner questions and receives no answer. mozart affirms life. his "don juan" liberates, "tannhäuser" leads into the labyrinth of bothersome renunciation. the study of mozart's biography may be recommended to those who believe that the artistic individuality has freer scope to-day than it would have with communism. mozart was always forced to look about for patrons of his art, for he lacked the means to put his works before the public. a biographer says of him: "mozart's life makes us feel the tragedy of an artist's life most painfully. in his youth he was fondled and idealized as a wonder child, but his circumstances deteriorated as he matured in his art and the more accomplished the works of his fantasy grew. when he died he left a wife and children behind in great poverty. there was not enough money on hand to bury him. the corpse was placed in the potters' field. when his wife, who had been sick at the time of the burial, wanted to look up the grave, it could not be exactly designated." the genius of the artist, however, permeates the world on waves of light. * * * * * +the czar knows+ his mission. he addressed a deputation of peasants from the province of kursk thus: "my brothers, i am most glad to see you. you must know very well that every right of property is sacred to the state. the owner has the same right to his land as you peasants have to yours. communicate this to your fellows in the villages. in my solicitude for the country i do not forget the peasants, whose needs are dear to me, and i will look after them continually as did my late father. the national assembly will soon assemble and in co-operation with me discuss the best measures for your relief. have confidence in me, i will assist you. but i repeat, remember always that right of property is holy and inviolable." the commentaries to this fatherly address are furnished by the czaristic cossacks who hasten to the peasants' aid with the knout, sword and incendiarism. [illustration] literary notes "letters of henrik ibsen," published by fox duffield & co., new york. price, $ . . these letters do not belong among those of great men which prove to be disappointments. in reading them one is not inclined to ask as of schopenhauer's letters, why a philosophic genius of such depth should be laden with thousands of philistine trivialities. ibsen reaches far beyond his surroundings in his letters. what he writes is a continual protest against shallowness and mediocrity. the misery of petty state affairs, of patriotism with a board on the forehead bothered him greatly. this is shown on every page. whatever he expresses, he always aims at expanding the horizon; as he himself once remarked: the revolutionizing of brains. his sentiments are european, and he must often hear that even the wish for combining the scandinavian countries borders on treason. thus he becomes a "solitary soul." he has even nothing in common with the radicals; he not only hates the state, the enemy of individuality, but he is averse to all attempts which aim at the drilling of the masses. he loves björnson as a poet, but he wants to have nothing to do with him as a politician. in a letter to brandes he writes: "björnson says: '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, but i mean that minority which leads the van, and urges on to points which the majority has not yet reached. i mean that man is right who has allied himself most closely with the future." * * * * * +"under the wheel"+ is the title of a german story by hermann hesse, in which he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school system to fully develop the youth. the characterization of the teachers' profession as hesse puts it, does not only serve for germany, but for all modern states in which governments strive to train the young for the purpose of making patient subjects and hurrah-screaming patriots of them. the author says with fine irony of the teacher: "it is his duty and vocation, entrusted to him by the state, to hinder and exterminate the rough forces and passions of nature in the young people and to put in place of them quiet moderation and ideals recognized by the state. many a one who at present is a contented citizen or an ambitious official, would have become without these endeavors of the school an unmanageable innovator or a hopeless dreamer. there was something in him, something wild, lawless, which first had to be broken, a flame which had to be extinguished. the school must break and forcibly restrict the natural being; it is its duty to make a useful member of society out of him, according to principles approved by the state's authority. the wonderful work is crowned with the careful training in the barracks." * * * * * we regret that several of the contributions, while having merits, were not of the form to be used for a magazine. * * * * * benj. r. tucker publisher and bookseller has opened a book store at fourth ave., room , new york city here will be carried, ultimately, the most complete line of advanced literature to be found anywhere in the world. more than one thousand titles in the english language already in stock. a still larger stock, in foreign languages, will be put in gradually. a full catalogue will be ready soon of the greatest interest to all those in search of the literature. which, in morals, leads away from superstition, which, in politics, leads away from government, and which, in art, leads away from tradition. * * * * * liberty benj. r. tucker, editor an anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in equal liberty is to be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that majority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial of equal liberty. * * * * * appreciations g. bernard shaw, author of "man and superman": "liberty is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable deal of balderdash are reversed." william douglas o'connor, author of "the good gray poet": "the editor of liberty would be the gavroche of the revolution, if he were not its enjolras." frank stephens, well-known single-tax champion, philadelphia: "liberty is a paper which reforms reformers." bolton hall, author of "even as you and i": "liberty shows us the profit of anarchy, and is the prophet of anarchy." allen kelly, formerly chief editorial writer on the philadelphia "north american": "liberty is my philosophical polaris. i ascertain the variations of my economic compass by taking a sight at her whenever she is visible." samuel w. cooper, counsellor at law, philadelphia: "liberty is a journal that thomas jefferson would have loved." edward osgood brown, judge of the illinois circuit court: "i have seen much in liberty that i agreed with, and much that i disagreed with, but i never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes it an almost unique publication." * * * * * published bimonthly. twelve issues, $ . single copies, cents address: benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * m. n. maisel's book store e. broadway new york special sale +herbert spencer.+ the authorized copyright works. (appleton's edition.) first principles, vol.; principles of biology, vols.; principles of psychology, vols.; principles of sociology, vols.; principles of ethics, vols. vo. vols., cloth, new published at $ . . my price $ . +charles darwin.+ the authorized copyright works. descent of man, vol.; origin of species, vols.; emotional expressions, vol.; animals and plants under domestication, vols.; insectivorous plants, vol.; vegetable mould, vol.; life and letters of charles darwin, vols. vols., cloth, new published at $ . . my price, $ . i have only a few series of these sets and will not be able to supply at these prices after stock is gone. * * * * * +more than , volumes always on hand.+ * * * * * fine sets; reference works; general literature; scientific, philosophical, liberal, progressive and reform books. * * * * * most of the books in stock, new or second-hand, are sold at from to per cent discount from publishers price. * * * * * +weekly importations from germany, russia, france and england.+ * * * * * meetings +progressive library+ forsyth street. meeting every sunday evening. * * * * * +hugh o. pentecost+ lectures every sunday, a. m., at lyric hall, sixth ave. (near nd street.) * * * * * +brooklyn philosophical association.+ meets every sunday, p. m., at long island business college, s. th street. * * * * * +sunrise club.+ meets every other monday for dinner and after discussion at some place designated by the president. * * * * * +manhattan liberal club.+ meets every friday, p. m., at german masonic hall, east th street. * * * * * +harlem liberal alliance.+ every friday, p. m., in madison hall, madison avenue. * * * * * +liberal art society.+ meets every friday, . p. m., at terrace lyceum, east broadway. * * * * * "mother earth" for sale at all the above mentioned places + cents a copy+ +one dollar a year+ anarchism anarchism a criticism and history of the anarchist theory by e. v. zenker g. p. putnam's sons new york and london the knickerbocker press copyright, by g. p. putnam's sons the knickerbocker press, new york preface on the day of the bomb outrage in the french parliament i gave an impromptu discourse upon anarchism to an intelligent audience anxious to know more about it, touching upon its intellectual ancestry, its doctrines, propaganda, the lines of demarcation that separate it from socialism and radicalism, and so forth. the impression which my explanations of it made upon my audience was at the same time flattering and yet painful to me. i felt almost ashamed that i had told these men, who represented the pick of the middle-class political electorate, something entirely new to them in speaking of matters which, considering their reality and the importance of the question, ought to be familiar to every citizen. having thus had my attention drawn to this _lacuna_ in the public mind, i was induced to make a survey of the most diverse circles of the political and socialist world, both of readers and writers, and the result was the resolve to extend my previous studies of anarchism (which had not extended much beyond the earliest theorists), and to develop my lecture into a book. this book i now present to my readers. the accomplishment of my resolve has been far from easy. what little literature exists upon the subject of anarchism is almost exclusively hostile to it, which is a great drawback for one who is seeking not the objects of a partisan, but simply and solely the truth. one had constantly to gaze, so to speak, through a forest of prejudices and errors in order to discover the truth like a little spot of blue sky above. in this respect i found it mattered little whether i applied to the press, or to the so-called scientific socialists, or to fluent pamphleteers. "in vielen worten wenig klarheit, ein fünkchen witz und keine wahrheit."[ ] [ ] many words, but little light; a spark of wit, but no truth. laveleye, for instance, does not even know of proudhon; for him bakunin is the only representative of anarchism and the most characteristic; socialism, nihilism, and anarchism mingle together in wild confusion in the mind of this social historian. garin, who wrote a big book, entitled _the anarchists_, is not acquainted with a single anarchist author, except some youthful writings of proudhon's and a few agitationist placards and manifestoes of the modern period. the result of this ignorance is that he identifies anarchism completely with collectivism, and carries his ridiculous ignorance so far as to connect the former austrian minister schäffle, who was then the chief adviser of count hohenwart, in some way or other with the anarchists. professor enrico ferri, again, exposes his complete ignorance of the question at issue sufficiently by branding herbert spencer as an anarchist. in fact, the only work that can be called scientifically useful is the short article on "anarchism" in the _cyclopædia of political science_, from the pen of professor george adler. all pamphlets, articles, and essays which have since appeared on the same subject are, conveniently but uncritically, founded upon this short but excellent essay of adler's. since the extraordinary danger of anarchist doctrines is firmly fixed as a dogma in the minds of the vast majority of mankind, it is apparently quite unnecessary to obtain any information about its real character in order to pronounce a decided, and often a decisive, judgment upon it. and so almost all who have hitherto written upon or against anarchism, with a few very rare exceptions, have probably never read an anarchist publication, even cursorily, but have contented themselves with certain traditional catchwords. as a contrast to this, it was necessary, for the purposes of a critical work upon anarchism, to go right back to its sources and to the writings of those who represented it. but here i found a further difficulty, which could not always be overcome. where was i to get these writings? our great public libraries, whose pride it is to possess the most complete collections possible of all the texts of herodotus or sophocles, have of course thought it beneath their dignity to place on their shelves the works of anarchist doctrinaires, or even to collect the pamphlet literature for or against anarchism--productions which certainly cannot take a very high rank from the point of view either of literature or of fact. the consequence of this foresight on the part of our librarians is that, to-day, anyone who inquires into the development of the social question in these great libraries devoted to science and public study has nothing to find, and therefore nothing to seek. i have thus been compelled to procure the materials i wanted partly through the kindness of friends and acquaintances, and partly by purchase of books--often at considerable expense,--but always by roundabout means and with great difficulty. and here i should like specially to emphasise the fact that it was the literary representatives of anarchism themselves who, although i never concealed my hostility to anarchism, placed their writings at my disposal in the kindest and most liberal manner; and for this i hereby beg to offer them my heartiest thanks, and most of all professor elisée reclus, of brussels. but if i thus enter into details of the difficulties which met me in writing the present book, it is not with the object of surrounding myself with the halo of a pioneer. i only wish to lay my hand on a sore which has no doubt troubled other authors also; and, at the same time, to explain to my critics the reason why there are still so many _lacunæ_ in this work. i have, for instance, been quite unable to procure any book or essay by tucker, or a copy of his journal _liberty_, although several booksellers did their best to help me, and although i applied personally to mr. tucker at boston. it was all in vain. _ut aliquid fecisse videatur_, i ordered from chicago m. j. schaack's book, _anarchy and anarchists, a history of the red terror and the social revolution in america and europe: communism, socialism, and nihilism, in doctrine and in deed_. after waiting four months, and repeatedly urging things on, i at last received it, and soon perceived that i had merely bought a pretty picture book for my library for my five dollars. the book contains, in spite of its grandiloquent title, its six hundred and ninety-eight large octavo pages, and its "numerous illustrations from authentic photographs and from original drawings," not a single word about the doctrine of anarchism in general, or american anarchism in particular. the author, a police official, takes up a standpoint which is certainly quite explicable in one of his position, but which is hardly suitable for a social historian. to him "all socialists are anarchists as a first step, although all anarchists are not precisely socialists" (see page ),--which is certainly praiseworthy moderation in a police officer. he calls ferdinand lassalle "the father of german anarchism as it exists to-day" (page ); on the other hand he has no knowledge of tucker (of boston), the most prominent exponent of theoretical anarchism in america. this, then, was the literature which was at my disposal. as regards the standpoint which i have taken in this book upon questions of fact, it is strictly the coldly observant and critical attitude of science and no other. i was not concerned to write either for or against anarchism, but only to tell the great mass of the people that concerns itself with public occurrences for the first time what anarchism really is, and what it wishes to do, and whether anarchist views are capable of discussion like other opinions. the condemnation of anarchism, which becomes necessary in doing this, proceeds exclusively from the exercise of scientific criticism, and has nothing to do with any partisan judgment, be it what it may. it would be a contradiction to adopt a partisan attitude at the very time when one is trying to remind public opinion of a duty which has been forgotten in the heat of party conflict. but i do not for a moment allow myself to be deluded into thinking that, with all my endeavours to be just to all, i have succeeded in doing justice to all. elisée reclus wrote to me, when i informed him of my intention to write the present book, and of my opinion of anarchism, that he wished me well, but doubted the success of my work, for (he said) _on ne comprend rien que ce qu'on aime_. of this remark i have always had a keen recollection. if that great savant and gentle being, the st. john of the anarchists, thinks thus, what shall i have to expect from his passionate fellow-disciples, or from the terror-blinded opponents of anarchism? "we cannot understand what we do not love," and unfortunately we do not love unvarnished truth. anarchists will, therefore, simply deny my capacity to write about their cause, and call my book terribly reactionary; socialists will think me too much of a "manchester economist"; liberals will think me far too tolerant towards the socialistic disturbers of their peace; and reactionaries will roundly denounce me as an anarchist in disguise. but this will not dissuade me from my course, and i shall be amply compensated for these criticisms which i have foreseen by the knowledge of having advanced real and serious discussion on this subject. for only when we have ceased to thrust aside the theory of anarchism as madness from the first, only when we have perceived that one can and must understand many things that we certainly cannot like, only then will anarchists also place themselves on a closer human footing with us, and learn to love us as men even though they often perhaps cannot understand us, and of their own accord abandon their worst argument, the bomb. e. v. zenker. contents. part i.--early anarchism. page preface v chap. i. precursors and early history forerunners and early history -- definitions -- is anarchism a pathological phenomenon? -- anarchism considered sociologically --anarchist movements in the middle ages -- the theory of the social contract with reference to anarchism -- anarchist movements during the french revolution -- the philosophic premises of the anarchist theory -- the political and economic assumptions of anarchism. ii. pierre joseph proudhon biography -- his philosophic standpoint -- his early writings -- the "contradictions of political economy" -- proudhon's federation -- his economic views -- his theory of property -- collectivism and mutualism -- attempts to put his views into practice -- proudhon's last writings -- criticism. iii. max stirner and the german proudhonists germany in - and france -- stirner and proudhon -- biography of stirner -- _the individual and his property_ (_der einzige und sein eigenthum_) -- the union of egoists -- the philosophic contradiction of the _einziger_ -- stirner's practical error -- julius faucher -- moses hess -- karl grün -- wilhelm marr. part ii.--modern anarchism. chap. page iv. russian influences the earliest signs of anarchist views in russia in -- the political, economic, mental, and social circumstances of anarchism in russia -- michael bakunin -- biography -- bakunin's anarchism -- its philosophic foundations -- bakunin's economic programme -- his views as to the practicability of his plans -- sergei netschajew -- the revolutionary catechism -- the propaganda of action -- paul brousse. v. peter kropotkin and his school biography -- kropotkin's main views -- anarchist communism and the "economics of the heap" (_tas_) -- kropotkin's relation to the propaganda of action -- elisée reclus: his character and anarchist writings -- jean grave -- daniel saurin's _order through anarchy_ -- louise michel and g. eliévant -- a. hamon and the psychology of anarchism -- charles malato and other french writers on anarchist communism -- the italians: cafiero, merlino, and malatesta. vi. germany, england, and america individualist and communist anarchism -- arthur mülberger -- theodor hertzka's _freeland_ -- eugen dühring's "anticratism" -- moritz von egidy's "united christendom" -- john henry mackay -- nietzsche and anarchism -- johann most -- auberon herbert's voluntary state -- r. b. tucker. part iii.--the relation of anarchism to science and politics. chap. page vii. anarchism and sociology: herbert spencer spencer's views on the organisation of society -- society conceived from the nominalist and realist standpoint -- the idealism of anarchists -- spencer's work: _from freedom to restraint_. viii. the spread of anarchism in europe first period ( - ): the peace and freedom league -- the democratic alliance and the jurassic bund -- union with and separation from the "international" -- the rising at lyons -- congress at lausanne -- the members of the alliance in italy, spain, and belgium -- second period (from ): the german socialist law -- johann most -- the london congress -- french anarchism since -- anarchism in switzerland -- the geneva congress -- anarchism in germany and austria -- joseph penkert -- anarchism in belgium and england -- organisation of the spanish anarchists -- italy -- character of modern anarchism -- the group -- numerical strength of the anarchism of action. ix. concluding remarks legislation against anarchists -- anarchism and crime -- tolerance towards anarchist theory -- suppression of anarchist crime -- conclusion. part i early anarchism "a hundred fanatics are found to support a theological or metaphysical statement, but not one for a geometric theorem." cesare lombroso. chapter i precursors and early history forerunners and early history definitions -- is anarchism a pathological phenomenon? -- anarchism considered sociologically --anarchist movements in the middle ages -- the theory of the social contract with reference to anarchism -- anarchist movements during the french revolution -- the philosophic premises of the anarchist theory -- the political and economic assumptions of anarchism. "die welt wird alt und wird wieder jung doch der mensch hofft immer auf besserung." anarchy means, in its ideal sense, the perfect, unfettered self-government of the individual, and, consequently, the absence of any kind of external government. this fundamental formula, which in its essence is common to all actual and real theoretical anarchists, contains all that is necessary as a guide to the distinguishing features of this remarkable movement. it demands the unconditional realisation of freedom, both subjectively and objectively, equally in political and in economic life. in this, anarchism is distinct from liberalism, which, even in its most radical representatives, only allows unlimited freedom in economic affairs, but has never questioned the necessity of some compulsory organisation in the social relationships of individuals; whereas anarchism would extend the liberal doctrine of _laisser faire_ to all human actions, and would recognise nothing but a free convention or agreement as the only permissible form of human society. but the formula stated above distinguishes anarchism much more strongly (because the distinction is fundamental) from its antithesis, socialism, which out of the celebrated trinity of the french revolution has placed another figure, that of equality, upon a pedestal as its only deity. anarchism and socialism, in spite of the fact that they are so often confused, both intentionally and unintentionally, have only one thing in common, namely, that both are forms of idolatry, though they have different idols, both are religions and not sciences, dogmas and not speculations. both of them are a kind of honestly meant social mysticism, which, anticipating the partly possible and perhaps even probable results of yet unborn centuries, urge upon mankind the establishment of a terrestrial eden, of a land of the absolute ideal, whether it be freedom or equality. it is only natural, in view of the difficulty of creating new thoughts, that our modern seekers after the millennium should look for their eden by going backwards, and should shape it on the lines of stages of social progress that have long since been passed by; and in this is seen the irremediable internal contradiction of both movements: they intend an advance, but only cause retrogression. * * * * * are we, then, to take anarchism seriously, or shall we pass it by merely with a smile of superiority and a deprecating wave of our hand? shall we declare war to the knife against anarchists, or have they a claim to have their opinions discussed and respected as much as those of the liberals or social democrats, or as those of religious or ecclesiastical bodies? these questions we can only answer at the conclusion of this book; but at this point i should like to do away with one conception of anarchism which is frequently urged against it. those who wish nowadays to seem particularly enlightened and tolerant as regards this dangerous movement, describe it as a "pathological phenomenon." we have done our best to make some sense of this mischievous, though modern, analogy, but have never succeeded, in spite of lombroso, kraft-ebing, and others undeniably capable in their own department. the former, in his clever book on this subject,[ ] has confused individual with social pathology. when lombroso completely identified the anarchist theory and idea--with which he is by no means familiar--with the persons engaged in anarchist actions, and made an attempt (which is certainly successful) to trace the political methods of thought and action of a great many of them to pathological premises, he reached the false conclusion that anarchism itself was a pathological phenomenon. but in reality the only conclusion from his demonstration is that many unhealthy and criminal characters adopt anarchism, a conclusion which he himself admits in this remark, that "criminals take part specially in the beginnings of insurrections and revolutions in large numbers, for, at a time when the weak and undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive activity of abnormal and unhealthy characters preponderates, and their example then produces epidemics of excesses." this fact we fearlessly acknowledge; and it gains a special significance for us in that the anarchists themselves base their system of "propaganda by action" upon this knowledge. but if we are therefore to call this phenomenon a symptom that anarchism itself is a pathological phenomenon, to what revolutionary movement might we not then apply this criterion, and what would it imply if we did? [ ] cesare lombroso, _the anarchists, a study in criminal psychology and sociology_. (german translation by dr. hans kneller, after the d edition of the original. hamburg, .) i have stated, and (i hope) have shown elsewhere[ ] what may be understood by "pathological" social phenomena, namely, an abnormal unhealthy condition of the popular mind in the sense of a general aberration of the intellect of the masses, as is possibly the case in what is known as anti-semitism. but even in this limited sense it appears quite inadmissible and incorrect to call anarchism a pathological phenomenon. let us be fair and straightforward, if we wish to learn; let us be just, even if we are to benefit our most dangerous enemies; for in the end we shall benefit ourselves. with anarchism there is no question of transitory anomalies of the public mind, but of a well defined condition which is visibly increasing and which is necessarily connected with all previous and accompanying conditions; it is a question of ideas and opinions which are the logical, even if in practice inadmissible, development of views that have long been well known and recognised by the majority of civilised men. a further test of every unhealthy phenomenon, namely, its local character, is entirely lacking in anarchism; for we meet with it to-day extending all over the world, wherever society has developed in a manner similar to our own; we meet it not merely in one class, but see members of all classes, and especially members of the upper classes, attach themselves to it. the fathers, as we may call them, of the anarchist theory are almost entirely men of great natural gifts, who rank high both intellectually and morally, whose influence has been felt for half a century, who have been born in russia, germany, france, italy, england, and america, men who are as different one from another as are the circumstances and environment of their respective countries, but who are all of one mind as regards the theory which we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. [ ] _rupticism, pietism, and anti-semitism at the close of the nineteenth century_, a study in social history. vienna, . and that is what anarchism undoubtedly is: a theory, an idea, with all the failings and dangers, but also with all the advantages which a theory always possesses, with just as much, and only as much, validity as a theory can demand as its due, but at any rate a theory which is as old as human civilisation, because it goes back to the most powerful civilising factor in humanity. * * * * * the care for the bare necessities of life, the inexorable struggle for existence, has aroused in mankind the desire for fellow-strugglers, for companions. in the tribe his power of resistance was increased, and his prospect of self-support grew in proportion as he developed together with his fellows into a new collective existence. but the fact that, notwithstanding this, he did not grow up like a mere animal in a flock, but in such a way that he always--even if often only after long and bitter experience--found his proper development in the tribe--this has made him a man and his tribe a society. which is the more ancient and more sacred, the unfettered rights of the individual or the welfare of the community? can anyone take this question seriously who is accustomed to look at the life and development of society in the light of facts? individualism and altruism are as inseparably connected as light and darkness, as day and night. the individualistic and the social sense in human society correspond to the centrifugal and centripetal forces in the universe, or to the forces of attraction and repulsion that govern molecular activity. their movements must be regarded simply as manifestations of forces in the direction of the resultants, whose components are individualism and altruism. if, to use a metaphor from physics, one of these forces was excluded, the body would either remain stock-still, or would fly far away into infinity. but such a case is, in society as in physics, only possible in imagination, because the distinction between the two forces is itself only a purely mental separation of one and the same thing. this is all that can be said either for or against the exclusive accentuation of any one single social force. all the endeavours to create a realm of unlimited and absolute freedom have only as much value as the assumption, in physics, of space absolutely void of air, or of a direction of motion absolutely uninfluenced by the force of gravity. the force which sets a bullet in motion is certainly something actual and real; but the influence which would correspond to this force, this direction in the sense in which the physicist distinguishes it, exists only in theory, because the bullet will, as far as all actual experience goes, only move in the direction of a resultant, in which the impetus given to it and the force of gravity are inseparably united and appear as one. if, therefore, it is also clear that the endeavour to obtain a realm of unconditional freedom contradicts _ipso facto_ the conception of life, yet all such endeavours are by no means valueless for our knowledge of human society, and consequently for society itself; and even if social life is always only the resultant of different forces, yet these forces themselves remain something real and actual, and are no mere fiction or hypothesis; while the growing differentiation of society shows how freedom, conceived as a force, is something actual, although as an ideal it may never attain full realisation. the development of society has proceeded hand in hand with a conscious or more often unconscious assertion of the individual, and the philosopher hegel could rightly say that the history of the world is progress in the consciousness of freedom. at all events, it might be added, the statement that the history of the world is progress in the consciousness of the universal interdependence of mankind would have quite as much justification, and practically also just the same meaning. the circumstance that, apart from the events of what is comparatively a modern period, the great social upheavals of history have not taken place expressly in the name of freedom, although they have indisputably implied it, only proves that in this case we have to deal not with a mere word or idea, but with an actual force which is active and acting, without reference to our knowledge or consciousness of it. the recognition of individual freedom, and much more the endeavour to make it the only object of our life, are certainly of quite recent date. but these presuppose a certain amount of progress in the actual process of setting the individual free in his moral and political relationships, which is not to be found in the whole of antiquity, and still less in the middle ages. * * * * * it is not possible to point to clearer traces of anarchist influences in the numberless social religious revolutions of the close of the middle ages, without doing violence to history, although, as in all critical periods, even in that of the reformation,--which certainly implied a serious revolt against authority,--there was no lack of isolated attempts to make the revolt against authority universal, and to abolish authority of every kind. we find, for instance, in the thirteenth century, a degenerate sect of the "beghards," who called themselves "brothers and sisters of the free spirit," or were also called "amalrikites," after the name of their founder.[ ] they preached not only community of goods but also of women, a perfect equality, and rejected every form of authority. their anarchist doctrines were, curiously enough, a consequence of their pantheism. since god is everything and everywhere, even in mankind, it follows that the will of man is also the will of god; therefore every limitation of man is objectionable, and every person has the right, indeed it is his duty, to obey his impulses. these views are said to have spread fairly widely over the east of france and part of germany, and especially among the beghards on the rhine.[ ] the "brothers and sisters of the free spirit" also appear during the hussite wars under the name of "adamites"; this name being given them because they declared the condition of adam to be that of sinless innocence. their enthusiasm for this happy state of nature went so far that they appeared in their assemblies, called "paradises," literally in adamite costume, that is, quite naked. [ ] amalrich of bena, near chartres, was, about a.d., a professor of theology at paris. he had to defend himself before pope innocent iii. on a charge of pantheistic teaching, and then recanted. his follower, david of dinant, however, continued his work after his master's death (in or ), and this caused a condemnation of amalrich's teaching by the synod of paris in , and by the lateran council in , and also led to a severe persecution of the amalrikites. [ ] e. bernstein and k. kautsky, _die vorläufer des neueren socialismus_, stuttgart, . part i., pp. and . but that, in spite of all this, the real communism of this sect went no farther than a kind of patriarchal republicanism, certainly not as far as actual anarchy, is proved by the information given by Æneas sylvius: that they certainly had community of women, but that it was nevertheless forbidden to them to have knowledge of any woman without the permission of their leader. there is one other sect met with during the hussite wars in bohemia, which bears some similarity to the anarchical communism of the present day, that of the chelcicians.[ ] peter of chelcic, a peaceful taborite, preached equality and communism; but this universal equality should not (he said) be imposed upon society by the compulsion of the state, but should be realised without its intervention. the state is sinful, and an outcome of the evil one, since it has created the inequality of property, rank, and place. therefore the state must disappear; and the means of doing away with it consists not in making war upon it, but in simply ignoring it. the true follower of this theory is thus neither allowed to take any office under the state nor call in its help; for the true christian strives after good of his own accord, and must not compel us to follow it, since god desires good to be done voluntarily. all compulsion is from the evil one; all dignities or distinctions of classes offend against the law of brotherly love and equality. this pious enthusiast easily found a small body of followers in a time when men were weary of war after the cruelties of the hussite conflicts; but here, too, his theory developed in practice into a kind of quietism under priestly control, an austere puritanism, which is the very opposite of the personal freedom of anarchism. [ ] _vorläufer des neueren socialismus_, pt. i., p. . once more the anarchist views of the amalrikite appear at the beginning of the sixteenth century among the anabaptists in the sect of the "free brothers," who considered themselves set free from all laws by christ, had wives and property in common, and refused to pay either taxes or tithes, or to perform the duties of service or serfdom.[ ] the "free brothers" had a following in the zürich highlands, but they were of no more importance than the other sect, we have mentioned; utterly incomprehensible to those of their own time, they formed the extreme wings of the widespread communist movement which, coming at the same time as the reformation in the church, separates the (so-called) middle ages from modern times like a boundary line. we observe in it nothing but the naïvely logical development of a belief that is common to most religions: the assumption of a happy age in the childhood of mankind (golden age, paradise, and so on), when men followed merely the laws of reason (morality, god, or nature, or whatever else it is called), and needed no laws or punishments to tell them to do right and avoid wrong; when mankind, as every schoolboy knows from his ovid,-- "vindice nullo sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat; poena metusque aberant, nec verba minacia fixo Ære legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat judicis ora sui, sed erant sine judice tuti." [ ] "_der wideräufferen vosprung, fürgang, secten v.s.w. ... beschreiben durch heinerrychen bullingern...._" zurich, . fol. . the transition from this primeval anarchy to the present condition of society has been presented by religion, both græco-roman and judaic-christian, as the consequence of a deterioration of mankind ("the fall"), and as a condition of punishment, which is to be followed, in a better world and after the work of life has been well performed, by another life as eden-like as the first state of man, and eternal. but it must not be forgotten that christianity was at first a proletarian movement, and that a great part of its adherents certainly did not join it merely with the hope of a return to the original state of paradise in a future world. perhaps (thought they) this paradise might be attainable in this world. it can be seen that the church had originally nothing to lose by at least not opposing this hope of a millennium[ ]; and so we see not only heretics like kerinthos, but also pillars of orthodoxy, like papios of hieropolis, irenæus, justin martyr, and others, preaching the doctrine of the millennium. in later times, indeed, when the church had long since ceased to be a mainly proletarian movement, and when christianity had risen from the catacombs to the palace and the throne, the hopes of the poor and oppressed for an approaching millennial reign lost their harmless character, and "millennialism" became _ipso facto_ heresy. but this heresy was, as may be understood, not so easy to eradicate; and when, in the closing centuries of the middle ages, the material position of large classes of people had again become, in spite of christianity, most serious and comfortless, millennialism awoke again actively in men's minds, and formed the prelude, as well as the socialist undercurrent, of the reformation. some radical offshoots of this medieval millennialism we have already noticed in the "brothers and sisters of the free spirit," the adamites, chelcicians, and "free brothers." [ ] or, from the greek, chiliad; and hence the word _chiliasm_, expressing the belief in a millennium. * * * * * the presuppositions of this flattering superstition are so deeply founded in the optimism of mankind, that it remained the same even when divested of its religious, or rather its confessional, garment; and could be no more eradicated by the rationalistic tendency that arose after the reformation than by the interdict of rome or the brutal cruelties of ecclesiastical justice. if we look more closely into the doctrine of the so-called _contrat social_, which was destined to form the programme of the french revolution, we again recognise without much difficulty the fundamental ideas of the millennialists, hardly altered at all. a paradise without laws, existing before civilisation, which is considered as a curse, and another like unto it, when "this cursed civilisation" is abolished, is what a modern anarchist would say. the names only are different, and are taken from the vocabulary of rationalism, instead of from that of religious mythology. instead of divine rights men spoke now of the everlasting and unalterable rights of man; instead of paradise, of a happy state of nature, in which there is, however, an exact resemblance to ovid's golden age, the transition into the present form of society was represented to be due to a social contract or agreement, occasioned, however, by a certain moral degeneracy in mankind, only differing in name from the "fall." in this case, also, anarchy is regarded as underlying society as the ideal state of nature; every form of society is only the consequence of the degeneration of mankind, a _pis aller_, or, at any rate, only a voluntary renunciation of the original, inalienable, and unalterable rights of man and nature, the chief of which is freedom. in the further development of this main idea the believers in the _contrat social_ have been divided. while some, foremost among whom is hobbes, declared the contract thus formed once and for all as permanent and unbreakable, and hence that the authority of the sovereign was irrevocable and without appeal, and thus arrived at monarchism pure and simple; others, and these the great majority, regarded the contract merely as provisional, and the powers of the sovereign as therefore limited. in this case everyone is not only free to annul the contract at any time and place himself outside the limits of society,[ ] but the contract is also regarded as broken if the sovereign--whether a person or a body corporate--oversteps his authority. here the return to the primeval state of anarchy not only shines, as it were, afar off as a future ideal, but appears as the permanently normal state of mankind, only occasionally disturbed by some transitory form of social life. this idea cannot be more clearly expressed than in the words which the poet schiller--certainly not an advocate of bombs--puts into the mouth of stauffacher in _william tell_: "when the oppressed . . . . . . makes appeal to heaven and thence brings down his everlasting rights, which there abide, inalienably his, and indestructible as are the stars, nature's primeval state returns again, where man stands hostile to his fellow-man." how nearly the doctrine of the "social contract" corresponds to the idea of anarchy is shown by the circumstance that one of the first (and what is more, one of the ecclesiastical) representatives of this doctrine, hooker, declared, that "it was in the nature of things not absolutely impossible that men could live without any public form of government." elsewhere he says that for men it is foolish to let themselves be guided, by authority, like animals; it would be a kind of fettering of the judgment, though there were reasons to the contrary, not to pay heed to them, but, like sheep, to follow the leader of the flock, without knowing or caring whither. on the other hand, it is no part of our belief that the authority of man over men shall be recognised against or beyond reason. assemblies of learned men, however great or honourable they may be, must be subject to reason. this refers, of course, only to spiritual and ecclesiastical authority; but locke, who followed hooker most closely, discovered only too clearly what the immediate consequences of such assumptions would be, and tried to avoid them by affirming that the power of the sovereign, being merely a power entrusted to him, could be taken away as soon as it became forfeited by misuse, but that the break-up of a government was not a break-up of society. in france, on the other hand, Étienne de la boëtie had already written, when oppressed by the tyranny of henry ii., a _discours de la servitude volontaire, ou contr'un_ (in ), containing a glowing defence of freedom, which goes so far that the sense of the necessity of authority disappears entirely. the opinion of la boëtie is that mankind does not need government; it is only necessary that it should really wish it, and it would find itself happy and free again, as if by magic. [ ] "cette liberté commun est une consequence de la nature de l'homme. sa première loi est de veiller à sa propre conservation, ses premiers soins sont ceux qu'il se doit à lui-même: et sitôt qu'il est en âge de raison, lui seul étant juge des moyens propres à le conserver, devient par là son propre maitre."--_rousseau._ so we see how the upholders of the social contract are separated into a right, central, and left party. at the extreme right stands hobbes, whom the defenders of absolutism follow; in the centre is locke, with the republican liberals; and on the extreme left stand the pioneers of anarchism, with hooker the ecclesiastic at their head. but of all the theoretical defenders of the "social contract," only one has really worked out its ultimate consequences. william godwin, in his _inquiry concerning political justice_,[ ] demanded the abolition of every form of government, community of goods, the abolition of marriage, and self-government of mankind according to the laws of justice. godwin's book attracted remarkable attention, from the novelty and audacity of his point of view. "soon after his book on political justice appeared," writes a young contemporary, "workmen were observed to be collecting their savings together, in order to buy it, and to read it under a tree or in a tavern. it had so much influence that godwin said it must contain something wrong, and therefore made important alterations in it before he allowed a new edition to appear. there can be no doubt that both government and society in england have derived great advantage from the keenness and audacity, the truth and error, the depth and shallowness, the magnanimity and injustice of godwin, as revealed in his inquiry concerning political justice." [ ] london, , vols. * * * * * our next business is to turn from theoretical considerations of the =contrat social= to the practice based upon this catchword; and to look for traces of anarchist thought upon the blood-stained path of the great french revolution--that typical struggle of the modern spirit of freedom against ancient society. we are the more desirous to do this, because of the frequent and repeated application of the word anarchist to the most radical leaders of the democracy by the contemporaries, supporters, and opponents of the revolution. as far as we in the present day are able to judge the various parties from the history of that period,--and we certainly do not know too much about it,--there were not apparently any real anarchists[ ] either in the convention or the commune of paris. if we want to find them, we must begin with the girondists and not with the jacobins, for the anarchists of to-day recognise--and rightly so--no sharper contrast to their doctrine than jacobinism; while the anarchism of proudhon is connected in two essential points with its girondist precursors--namely, in its protest against the sanction of property and in its federal principle. but, nevertheless, neither vergniaud nor brissot was an anarchist, even though the latter, in his _philosophical examination of property and theft_ ( ), uttered a catchword, afterwards taken up by proudhon. at the same time, they have no cause and no right to reproach the "mountain" with anarchist tendencies. [ ] jean grave says in his book, _la société mourante_, p. : "in the year one talked of anarchists. only jacques roux and the '_suragés_' appear to have been those who saw the revolution most clearly, and wished to turn it to the benefit of the people; and, therefore, the bourgeois historian has left them in the background; their history has still to be written; the documents buried in archives and libraries are waiting for one who shall have time and courage to exhume them, and bring to light the secrets of events that are to us almost incomprehensible. meanwhile, we can pass no judgment on their programme." of course _we_ can do so still less. neither danton nor robespierre, the two great lights of the "mountain," dreamed of making a leap into the void of a society without government. their ideal was rather the omnipotence of society, the all-powerful state, before which the interests of the individual were scattered like the spray before the storm; and the great maximilian, the "chief rabbi" of this deification of the state, accordingly called himself "a slave of freedom." robespierre and danton, on their side, called the hebertists anarchists. if one can speak of a principle at all among these people, who placed all power in the hands of the masses who had no votes, and the whole art of politics in majorities and force, it was certainly not directed against the abolition of authority. the maxims of these people were chaos and the right of the strongest. marat, the party saint, had certainly, on occasion, inveighed against the laws as such, and desired to set them aside; but marat all the time wanted the dictatorship, and for a time actually held it. the marat of after thermidor was the infamous caius gracchus baboeuf, who is now usually regarded as the characteristic representative of anarchism during the french revolution--and regarded so just as rightly, or rather as wrongly, as those mentioned above. baboeuf was a more thorough-going socialist than robespierre; indeed he was a radical communist, but no more. in the proclamation issued by baboeuf for the d of floreal, the day of the insurrection against the directoire, he says: "the revolutionary authority of the people will announce the destruction of every other existing authority." but that means nothing more than the dictatorship of the mob; which is rejected in theory by anarchists of all types, just as much as any other kind of authority. that the followers of baboeuf had nothing else in view is shown by the two placards prepared for this day, one of which said, "those who usurp the sovereignty ought to be put to death by free men," while the other, explaining and limiting the first, demanded the "constitution of , liberty, equality, and universal happiness." this constitution of was, however, robespierre's work, and certainly did not mean the introduction of anarchy. echoes and traditions of baboeuf's views, often passing through intermediaries like buonarotti, are found in the carbonarists of the first thirty years of our own century, and applied to this (as to so many other popular movements) the epithet "anarchical," so glibly uttered by the lips of the people. but among the chiefs, at least, of that secret society that was once so powerful, we find no trace of it; on the contrary they declared absolute freedom to be a delusion which could never be realised. yet even here, though the fundamental dogma of anarchism is rejected, we notice a step forward in the extension of the anarchist idea. it was indeed rejected by the members of that society, but it was known to them, and what is more, they take account of it, and support every effort which, by encouraging individualism to an unlimited extent, is hostile to the union of society as such. thus we even find individual carbonarists with pronounced anarchist views and tendencies. malegari, for instance, in , described the _raison d'être_ of the organisation in these words[ ]: "we form a union of brothers in all parts of the earth; we all strive for the freedom of mankind; we wish to break every kind of yoke." [ ] j. a. m. brühle: _die geheimbunde gegen rom. zur genesis der italien. revolution._ prague, . between the time when these words were spoken and the appearance of the famous _what is property?_ and the _individual and his property_, there elapsed only about ten years. how much since then has been changed, whether for better or worse, how much has been cleared up and confused, in the life and thought of the nations! * * * * * feuerbach described the development which he had passed through as a thinker in the words: "god was my first thought, reason my second, man my third and last." not only feuerbach, but all modern philosophy, has gone through these stages; and feuerbach is only different from other philosophers, in having himself assisted men to reach the third and final stage. the epoch of philosophy that was made illustrious by the brilliant trinity of descartes, spinoza, and leibnitz, however far it may have departed or emancipated itself from the traditions of religion, not only never deposed the idea of god, but actually for the first time made the conception of the deity the starting-point of all thought and existence. the philosophy which abolished this, whether we consider locke and hume the realists, or kant and hegel the idealists, is philosophy of intellect; absolute reason has taken the place of an absolute god, criticism and dialectics the place of ontology and theocracy. but in philosophy we find the very opposite of the mythological legend, for in it chronos instead of devouring his children is devoured by them. the critical school turned against its masters, who were already sinking into speculative theology again, quite forgetting that its great leader had introduced a new epoch with a struggle against ontology; and losing themselves in the heights of non-existence, just as if they had never taken their start from the thesis, that no created mind can comprehend the nature of the being that is behind all phenomena. from such heights a descent had to be made to our earth; instead of immortal individuals, as conceived by fichte, hegel, and schelling, the school of feuerbach, strauss, and bauer postulated "human beings, sound in mind and body, for whom health is of more importance than immortality." concentration upon this life took the place of vague trancendentalism, and anthropology the place of theology, ontology, and cosmology. idealism became bankrupt; god was regarded no longer as the creator of man, but man as the creator of god. humanity now took the place of the godhead. the new principle was now a universal or absolute one; but, as with hegel, universal or absolute only in words, for to sense it is extremely real, just as art in a certain sense is more real than the individual. it was the "generic conception of humanity, not something impersonal and universal but forming persons, inasmuch as only in persons have we reality." (d. f. strauss.) if philosophic criticism were to go still farther than this, there remained nothing more for it than to destroy this generalisation, and instead of humanity to make the individual, the person, the centre of thought. a strong individualistic and subjective feature, peculiar to the kantian and post-kantian philosophy, favoured such a process. although in the case of fichte, hegel, and schelling this feature had never outstepped the limits of the purely comprehensible, yet such a trait makes philosophy infer a similarly strongly developed feature of individualism in the people, especially as at that time it was so closely connected with popular life. moreover, at that period there was a great desire (as we see in fichte and his influence on the nation) to translate philosophy at once into action; and so it was not remarkable that a thinker regardless of consequences should introduce the idea of individualism into the field of action, and regard this also as suitable for "concentration of thought upon this present life." herewith began a new epoch; just as formerly human thought had proceeded from the individual up to the universal, so now it descended from the highest generalisation down again to the individual; to the process of getting free from self followed the regaining of self. here was the point at which an anarchist philosophy could intervene, and, as a matter of fact did intervene, in stirner. * * * * * in another direction also, and about the same time, the critical philosophy had reached a point beyond which it could not go without attacking not only the changing forms, but also the very foundations of all organisations of society which were then possible. however far the aufklärer, the encyclopædists, the heedless fighters in the political revolution, and the leading personages in the spiritual revolution, had gone in their unsparing criticism of all institutions and relationships of life, they had not as yet, except in a few isolated cases, attacked religion, the state, and property, as such in the abstract. however manifold and transitory their various forms might be, these three things themselves still seemed to be the incontrovertible and necessary conditions of spiritual, political, and social life, merely the different concrete formulæ for the one absolute idea which could not be banished from the thought of that age. but if we approach these three fundamental ideas with the probe of scientific criticism, and resolutely tear away the halo of the absolute, it does not on that account seem necessary for us to declare that they are valueless or even harmful in life. we read strauss's _life of jesus_, and put it down perhaps with the conviction that the usually recognised sources of inspired information as to revealed religion and the divine mission of christianity are an unskilful compilation of purely apocryphal documents; but are we on that account to deny the importance of judaism and christianity in social progress and ethics? or again, i may read e. b. tyler's _primitive culture_ and see the ideas of the soul and god arise from purely natural and (for the most part) physiological origins, just as we can trace the development of the skilful hand of raphael or liszt from the fore-limbs of an ape; but am i from that to conclude that the idea of religion is harmful to society? it is just the same with the ideas of the state and property. modern science has shown us beyond dispute the purely historical origin of both these forms of social life; and both are, at least as we find them to-day, comparatively recent features of human society. this, of course, settles the question as to the state and property being inviolable, or being necessary features of human society from everlasting to everlasting; but the further question as to how far these forms are advantages and _relatively_ necessary for society in general, or for a certain society, has nothing to do with the above, and cannot be answered by the help of a simple logical formula. but though this fact seems so clear to us, it is even to-day not by any means clear to a great portion of mankind. and how much less clear it must have been to thinkers at the beginning of this century when thought was still firmly moulded upon the conception of the absolute. to them there could only be either absolute being or absolute not-being; and as soon as ever critical philosophy destroyed the idea of the "sacredness" of the institutions referred to (property and the state), it was almost unavoidable that it should declare them to be "unholy," _i. e._, radically bad and harmful. the logic which underlies this process of thought is similar to that which concludes that if a thing is not white it must be black. but it cannot be denied that just at this time--during the celebrated _dix ans_ after the revolution of july--many circumstances seemed positively to favour such an inference. not only were economic conditions unsatisfactory (though pauperism alone will never produce anarchism), but even hope and faith had gone. idealism was bankrupt, not only in the political but also in the economic world. full of the noblest animation, and with the most joyous confidence, the french nation had entered upon the great revolution, and all europe had looked full of hope towards france, whence they expected to see the end of all tyranny and--since such things at that time were not well understood--the end of all misery. we may be spared the detailed description of the transition by which this hope and these childish expectations, this millennialism, were bitterly disillusioned, and how the excitement of to ended in a great wail of woe; and that too not only in france, where absolute monarchy _post tot discrimina verum_ had merely changed into an absolute empire, but also in germany, whose princes hastened to recall the concessions made under the pressure of the revolution. the monarchs of europe then celebrated an orgie of promise-breaking, from which even to-day the simple mind of the people revolts with deep disgust. it need only be remembered how in the napoleonic wars of germany noble princes exploited the flaming enthusiasm and the naïve confidence of their people for their own dynastic purposes, and then, after the downfall of the corsican, drove them back again through the old caudine yoke. if, after such unfortunate experiences, the people, and especially the insatiate elements amongst them, had retained any remains of confidence in help from above, it must have perished in the sea of disgust and bitterness at the revolution of july. in a struggle for a free form of the state, which lasted almost half a century, the proletariat and its misery had grown without cessation. they had fought for constitutional monarchy, for the republic, and for the empire; they had tried bourbons and bonapartes and orleanists; they had gone to the barricades and to the field of battle for robespierre, napoleon, and finally for thiers; but of course their success was always the same: not only their economic position, but also the social condition of the lower masses of the people had remained unchanged. it was recognised more and more that between the proletariate and the upper classes there was something more than a separation of mere constitutional rights; in fact, that the privileges of wealth had taken the place of the privileges of birth; and the more the masses recognised this the more did their interest in purely political questions, and, above all, the question as to the form of the state, sink into the background, while it became more and more clearly seen that the equality of constitutional rights was no longer real equality, and that the attainment of equality necessitated the abolition of all privileges, including also the privilege of free possession or of property. henceforth, therefore, every revolutionary power attacks no longer political points but the question of property, and even though all movements did not proceed so far as to open communism, yet they were animated by the main idea that the question of human poverty was to be solved only by limitation of the right of free acquisition, possession, and disposal of property. the dogma of the sanctity of property was in any case gone for ever. but still the last dogma, that of the inviolability of the state, remained. the franco-german socialists of the third and fourth decades of our century, saint-simon, cabet, weitling, rodbertus, down to louis blanc himself, did not think of denying the state as such, but had thought of it as playing the principal part in the execution of their new scheme of organisation of industry and society. but the very character of the new reforming tendencies necessitated an unlimited preponderance of state authority which would crush out the freedom of decision in the individual. and a directly opposite tendency, opposed to all authority, could appear, therefore,--though certainly from the nature of the case necessary,--at first only as a very feeble opposition. the principle of equality was not disputed, but the use of brute force through the power of the state was regarded with horror in the form in which the followers of baboeuf, the enthusiasts for utopianism, preached it. the necessity for an organisation of industry was not denied, but men began to ask the question whether this organisation could not proceed from below upwards till it reached freedom? already fourier's phalanxes might be regarded as such an attempt to organise industry through the formation of free groups from below upwards; an attempt to which the monarchists and omniarchists are merely an exterior addition. if we leave out of consideration the rapid failure of the various socialistic attempts at institutions based upon the foundation of authority, yet the sad experiences of half a century filled with continual constitutional changes would have sufficed to undermine the respect for authority as such. absolute monarchy as well as constitutional, the republic just as much as imperialism, the dictatorship of an individual just as much as that of the mob, had all alike failed to remove pauperism, misery, and crime, or even to alleviate them; was it not then natural for superficial minds to conclude that the radical fault lay in the authoritative form of society in the state as such? did not the thought at once suggest itself that a further extension of fourier's system of the formation of groups on the basis of the free initiative of the individual might be attempted without taking the state into account at all? but here was a further point at which a system of social and political anarchism might begin with some hope of success, and here it actually did begin with proudhon. chapter ii pierre joseph proudhon biography -- his philosophic standpoint -- his early writings -- the "contradictions of political economy" -- proudhon's federation -- his economic views -- his theory of property -- collectivism and mutualism -- attempts to put his views into practice -- proudhon's last writings -- criticism. the man who had such a powerful, not to say fateful, influence upon the progress of the proletarian movement of our century was himself one of the proletariat class by birth and calling. pierre joseph proudhon was born th january, , in a suburb of besançon. his father was a cooper, his mother a cook; and pierre joseph, in spite of his thirst for knowledge, had to devote himself to hard work, instead of completing his studies; he became a proofreader in some printing works at besançon, and as a journeyman printer wandered all through france. having returned to besançon, he entered the printing house again as a factor. in the year he founded, with a fellow-workman in the same town, a little printing shop, which, however, he wound up after his partner had died in , being determined to change the occupation he had followed so far, for another for which he had already long been preparing by diligent study both during his wanderings and in his leisure hours in past years. proudhon's activity as an author began in the year . the academy at besançon had to award a three years' scholarship, which had been founded by suard, the secretary of the french academy, for poor young men of franche-comte who wished to devote themselves to a literary or scientific career. proudhon entered as a competitor, and won the scholarship. in the memoir of his life, which he drew up for the academy, he said: "born and reared in the midst of the working classes, to which i belong with my heart and in my affections, and above all by the community of sufferings and aspirations, it will be my greatest joy, if i receive the approval of the academy, to work unceasingly with the help of philosophy and science, and with the whole energy of my will and all my mental powers, for the physical, moral, and intellectual improvement of those whom i call brothers and companions, in order to sow amongst them the seeds of a doctrine which i consider as the law of the moral world, and hoping to succeed in my endeavours, to appear before you, gentlemen, as their representative." as to the studies to which he devoted himself in paris for several years after receiving the scholarship, proudhon relates himself that he received light, not from the socialistic schools which then existed and were coming into fashion, not from partisans or from journalists, but that he began with a study of the antiquities of socialism, a study which, according to his opinion, was absolutely necessary in order to determine the theoretical and practical laws of the social movement. it gives us a somewhat strange sensation to learn that proudhon, the father of anarchism, made these sociological studies in the bible; and this book of books is even to-day the most important source of empiric sociology. for no other book reflects so authentically and elaborately the development of an important social individualism, and in proudhon's time the bible (in view of the complete lack of ethnographic observations which then prevailed) was also almost the only source of studies of this kind. and if also it must be admitted that these studies could not fail to be one-sided, yet it cannot be denied that proudhon proceeded in a way incomparably more correct than most social philosophers have done either before or since, for they have built up their systems generally by deductive and dogmatic methods. an essay which proudhon wrote upon the introduction of sunday rest, from the point of view of morality, health, and the relations of a family estate, brought him a bronze medal from the academy, and he was able afterwards to say with truth: "my socialism received its baptism from a learned society, and i have an academy as sponsor"; certainly a remarkable boast for one who denied all authority. proudhon appears to have travelled very quickly along the road which led from the regions of faith to the metaphysics prevailing at that time; and already he took for his criterion--as he tells us later in his _confessions_--the proposition (drawn up according to the hegelian theory, that everything when it is legalised at the same time brings its opposite with it), "that every principle which is pursued to its farthest consequence arrives at a contradiction when it must be considered false and repudiated; and that, if this false principle has given rise to an institution, this institution itself must be regarded as an artificial product and as a utopia." this proposition proudhon later on formulated as follows: "every true thought is conceived in time once, and breaks up in two directions. as each of these directions is the negation of the other and both can only disappear in a higher idea, it follows that the negation of law is itself the law of life and progress, and the principle of continual movement." here, indeed, we have proudhon's whole teaching; with this magic wand of negation of law he thought he could open the magic world of social problems, and heal up the wounds of the social organisation. "my masters," said proudhon to his friend langlois in the year , "that is those who woke fruitful ideas in me, are three: first of all, the bible, then adam smith, and finally hegel." proudhon always boasted of being hegel's pupil, and karl marx maintained that it was he who, during his stay in paris in the year , in debates which often lasted all night long, inoculated proudhon (to the latter's great disadvantage) with hegelianism, which he nevertheless could not properly study owing to his ignorance of the german language. a well-known anecdote attributes to hegel the witty saying that only one scholar understood him and he misunderstood him. we do not know who this scholar was, but it might just as well have been marx as proudhon, for that which both of them took from the great philosopher, and applied as and how and when they did, is common to both: namely, the dialectic method applied to the problems of social philosophy. the similarity between them in this respect is so striking that one might call both these embittered opponents the personal antitheses of the great master, hegel. as for the rest, proudhon's inoculation with hegelianism, which was afterwards continued by k. grün and bakunin, must have been very marked and continuous, for we shall constantly be meeting with traces of it as we go on. powerful as was the influence of hegel upon proudhon, the anarchist was but little affected by the fashionable philosophy of his contemporary and fellow-countryman, a. comte; which is all the more remarkable since it is comte's positivism which, proceeding along the lines of spencer's philosophy, has in no small degree influenced modern anarchism, while echoes of the comtian individualist doctrine are even to be found in the german contemporary of proudhon, stirner; echoes which, although numerous, are perhaps unconscious. proudhon attached himself, as already mentioned, specially to the hegelian dialectic and to the doctrine of antitheses. using this criterion, proudhon proceeded to the consideration and criticism of social phenomena; and just as beginners and pupils in the difficult art of philosophy, instead of contenting themselves with preliminary questions, attack the very kernel of problems, with all the rashness of ignorance, so proudhon also attacked, as his first problem, the fundamental social question of property, taking it up for the subject of his much-quoted though much less read work, _what is property?_ (_qu'est-ce que la propriété?_--first essay in _recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement_). proudhon has been judged and condemned, though, and wrongly, yet almost exclusively, by this one essay, written at the beginning of his literary career. friends and foes alike have always contented themselves with regarding the celebrated dictum there uttered, property is theft, as the alpha and the omega of proudhon's teaching, without reading the book itself. and because it has been thought sufficient to catch up a phrase dragged from all its context, so it has happened that proudhon to-day, although he is one of the most frequently mentioned authors, is hardly either known or read. although the question of property forms the corner-stone of all proudhon's teaching, yet it would be wrong to identify it with his doctrine entirely. and it is no less wrong to represent the first attempt which proudhon made to solve so great a problem as the whole of his views about property, as unfortunately even serious authors have hitherto done almost without exception, and especially those who make a special study of him, such as diehl. as a matter of fact, proudhon has carefully and elaborately set forth his theory of property in several other works which are mixed up for the most part with his other numerous writings, and has left behind a fragment of a book on the theory of property, in which he meant to produce a comprehensive theory of property as the foundation of his whole work. we must, therefore, in order not to anticipate, leave a complete exposition of proudhon's theory of property to a later portion of this book, hence we will merely glance at the work, _what is property?_ and also at another study which appeared in called _the creation of order in humanity_, which shows the second, or i might say, the political side of proudhon's train of thought in its first beginnings, and of which proudhon himself said later, that it satisfied neither him nor the public, and was worse than mediocre, although he had very little to retract in its contents. "this book, a veritable infernal machine, which contains all the implements of creation and destruction," he said in his _confessions_, "is badly done, and is far below that which i could have produced if i had taken time to choose and arrange properly my materials. but however full of faults my work may now appear, it was then sufficient for my purpose. its object was to make me understand myself. just as contradiction had been useful to me to destroy, so now the processes of development served me to build up. my intellectual education was completed, the _creation of order_ had scarcely seen the light, when, with the application of the creative method which followed immediately upon it, i understood that in order to obtain an insight into the revolution of society the first thing must be to construct the whole series of its antitheses, or the system of opposites." this was done in the book which appeared at paris in two volumes in , _the system of economic contradictions, or the philosophy of misery_, which deserves to be called his masterpiece, both because it contains the philosophic and economic foundations of his theory in a perfectly comprehensive and clear exposition, and because it is impossible to understand proudhon without a knowledge of these contradictions. in his first work upon property, proudhon had represented it as something equivalent to theft. but now we have another doctrine proposed: that property is liberty. these two propositions were thought by proudhon to be proved in the same way. "property considered in the totality of social institutions has, so to speak, two current accounts. one is the thought of the good which it produces, and which flows directly from its nature; the other is the disadvantages which it produces, and the sacrifices which it causes, and which also result directly, just as much as the good, from its nature. in property evil, or the abuse of it, is inseparable from the good, just as in book-keeping by double entry the debtor is inseparable from the creditor side. the one necessarily implies the other. to suppress the abuse of property means to extinguish it, just as much as to strike out an entry on the debtor side means also striking it out on the creditor side of an account." he proceeded in the same way with all "economic categories." labour, he tells us in the _contradictions_ more explicitly, is the principle of wealth, the power which creates or abolishes values, or puts them in proportion one to another, and also distributes them. labour thus in itself, at the same time, is a force that makes for equilibrium and productivity, which one might think should secure mankind against every want. but in order to work, labour must define and determine itself--that is, organise itself. what are, then, the organs of labour, that is, the forms in which human labour produces and fixes values and keeps off want? these forms or categories are: division of labour, machinery, competition, monopoly, the state or centralisation, free exchange, credit, property, and partnership. however much labour in itself is the source of wealth, yet those means which are invented for the purpose of increasing wealth, become, through their antagonism and through that antithetical character, which, according to proudhon, lies in the very nature of all social forms, just as many causes of want and pauperism. labour gains by its division a more than natural fertility, but, at the same time, this divided labour, which debases the workman, sinks, owing to the manner in which this division is carried out, with great rapidity below its own level and only creates an insufficient value. after it has increased consumption by the superfluity of products, it leaves them in the lurch owing to the low rate of pay; instead of keeping off want it actually produces it. the deficiency caused by the division of labour is said to be filled by machinery, which not only increases and multiplies the productivity of labour, but also compensates for the moral deficiency caused by the division of labour, and supplies a higher unity and synthesis in place of the division of labour. but according to proudhon this is not the case; with machinery begins the distinction between masters and wage-earners, between capitalists and workmen. thus mankind, instead of being raised up by machinery from degradation, sinks deeper and deeper. man loses both his character as a man, and freedom, and becomes only a tool. prosperity increases for the masters, poverty for the men; the distinction of caste begins, and a terrible struggle becomes manifest, which consists in increasing men in order to be able to do without them. and so the general pressure becomes more and more severe; poverty, already heralded by the division of labour, at last makes its appearance in the world, and henceforth becomes the soul and sinews of society. as opposed to its aristocratic tendencies, society places freedom or competition. competition emancipates the workman and produces an incalculable growth in wealth. by competition the productions of labour continually sink in price, or (what comes to the same thing) continually increase in quality: and since the sources of competition, just like mechanical improvements and combinations of the division of labour, are infinite, it may be said that the productive force of competition is unlimited as regards intensity and scope. at last, by competition, the production of wealth gets definitely ahead of the production of men, by which statement proudhon destroys the dogma of malthus, which, we may remark, was no more proved than his own. but this competition is also a new source of pauperism, because the lowering of prices which it brings with it only benefits, on the one hand, those who succeed, and, on the other, leaves those who fail without work and without means of subsistence. the necessary consequence, and, at the same time, the natural antithesis of competition is monopoly. it is that form of social possession without which no labour, no production, no exchange, and no wealth would be possible. it is most intimately connected with individualism and freedom, so that without it we can hardly imagine society, and yet it is, quite as much as competition, anti-social and harmful. for monopoly attracts everything to itself--land, labour, and the implements of labour, productions and the distribution thereof--and annihilates them; or it annihilates the natural equilibrium of production and consumption; it causes the labourer to be deceived in the amount of his reward, and it causes progress in prosperity to be changed into a continual progress in poverty. finally, it inverts all ideas of justice in commerce. the state, in its economic relations, should, according to proudhon, eventuate in an equalisation between the patricians and the proletariat; its regulations (such as taxation) should, in the first place, be an antidote against the arrogance and excessive power of monopoly; but even the institution of the state fails in its purpose, since taxes, instead of being paid by those who have wealth, are almost exclusively paid by those who have not; the army, justice, peace, education, hospitals, workhouses, public offices, even religion,--in short, everything which is intended for the advance, emancipation, and the relief of the proletariat being first paid for and supported by the proletariat, and then either turned against it or lost to it altogether. it would be useless to repeat what proudhon says about the beneficial, and at the same time fateful, consequences both of free-trade and its opposite. who does not know the arguments which even to-day are used by politicians and savants in the still undecided controversy for and against it? in this system of contradiction, then, in this antithesis of society, proudhon believed he had discovered the law of social progress, while as a matter of fact he had only given a very negative proof (though he certainly would hardly have acknowledged it) that there is not in economics any more than in ethics anything absolute, and that "benefit" and "harm" are relative terms which have nothing in common with the essence of things; and it is just as wrong in the one case to regard the existing social order as the best of all possible worlds, as it is in the other to regard any one economic institution as a social panacea, or to blame one or the other for all the evils of an evil world. such a confession of faith might easily be considered trivial, and it might even give rise to a supercilious smile if it required nothing less than the doctrine of antithesis taught by kant and hegel to be brought in to prove what are obviously matters of fact. but perhaps it is just this superficial smile which is the justification of proudhon, who had to fight a severe and not always victorious battle for an apparently trivial cause. we do not forget how helplessly the age in which he lived was tossed to and fro in all social questions, from casuistical agnosticism to arbitrary dogmatism; from extreme individualism to communism, from the standpoint of absolute _laisser faire_ to the uttermost reliance on authority. in placing these two worlds in sharp contrast one to another, _contradictions_, with all its acknowledged faults and errors, performed an undeniable service; and this book--against which karl marx has written a severe attack--will retain for all time its value as one of the most important and thorough works of social philosophy. in any case, the net result of the lengthy discussion, in view of the purpose which proudhon had before him, was absolutely nil. proudhon certainly endeavoured in his dialectic method to find a solution of antitheses, and to come to some positive result; but even this solution, which was to have been the great social remedy, is, when divested of its philosophical garments, such a general and indefinite draft upon the bank of social happiness that it could never be properly paid. "i have shewn," said proudhon, at the close of his _contradictions_, "how society seeks in formula after formula, institution after institution, that equilibrium which always escapes it, and at every attempt always causes its luxury and its poverty to grow in equal proportion. since equilibrium has never yet been reached, it only remains to hope something from a complete solution which synthetically unites theories, which gives back to labour its effectiveness and to each of its organs its power. hitherto pauperism has been so inextricably connected with labour, and want with idleness, and all our accusations against providence only prove our weakness." this solution of the great problem of our century by the synthetic union of economic and social antithesis, or, as proudhon calls it in another place, by a scientific, legal, immortal, and inseparable combination, is certainly a beautiful and noble philosophy. it cannot be denied that herewith proudhon, who, in all his works, raged furiously against utopians, has none the less created a utopia of his own, not, indeed, by forcibly urging mankind through an ideal change, but by attempting to mould life into an ideal shape without, like others, appealing to force, or venturing to organise the forces of terror, in order to accomplish his ideal. * * * * * just as proudhon differed from the ready-made socialism of his age by a conception which he opposed to pauperism, so, too, he differed in the method which he recommended should be adopted for the removal of pauperism. he certainly accepted the proposition that poverty could only be removed by the labourer receiving the entire result of his labour, and that social reform must, accordingly, consist of an organisation of labour. in this he was quite at one with louis blanc, but only in this; for while louis blanc claimed for the organisation of labour the full authority of the state, proudhon desired it to arise from the free initiative of the people, without the interference of the state in any way. this is the parting of the roads between anarchism and authoritative socialism; here they separate once for all, never to meet again, except in the most violent opposition. this was the starting-point of proudhon's anarchist views. the experiences of the revolution of , which, from the social standpoint, failed entirely, might well have fitted in with these views of his. proudhon had taken a very active part in the occurrences of this remarkable year, as editor of the _people_, and as a representative of the department of the seine, and in other capacities, and thought that the cause of the fruitlessness of all attempts to solve the social problem and to reap the fruits of the revolution lay in the fact that the revolution had been initiated from above instead of from below, and because the revolutionary principle had been installed in power, and therefore had destroyed itself. but ultimately the opposition of proudhon to blanc goes back to the fundamental difference alluded to above. society, as proudhon explains in his _contradictions_, and as he applies his doctrine of politics in his book called the _confessions of a revolutionary_, written in prison in , is essentially of a dialectic nature and is founded upon opposites, which are all mingled one with another, and the combinations of which are infinite. the solution of the social problem he finds in placing the different expressions of the problem no longer in contradiction but in their "dialectic developments," so that for example the right to work, to credit, and to assistance, rights whose realisation under an antagonistic legislation is impossible or dangerous, gradually result from an already established, realised, and undoubted right; and so instead of being stumbling-blocks one to another they find in their mutual connection their most lasting guarantee. but since such guarantees should lie in the institutions themselves the authority of the state becomes neither necessary nor justifiable for the carrying out of this revolution. but why should revolution from above be impossible? the doctrine of antithesis, applied to politics, implies freedom and order. the first is realised by revolution, the second by government. thus there is here a contradiction; for the government can never become revolutionary for the very simple reason that it is a government. but society alone--that is, the masses of the people when permeated by intelligence--can revolutionise itself, because it alone can express its free will in a rational manner, can analyse and develop and unfold the secret of its destination and its origin, and alter its beliefs and its philosophy. "governments are the scourge of god, introduced in order to keep the world in discipline and order. and do you demand that they should annihilate themselves, create freedom, and make revolutions? that is impossible. all revolutions, from the anointing of the first king to the declaration of the rights of man, have been freely accomplished by the spirit of the people. governments have always hindered, oppressed, and crushed them to the ground. they have never made a revolution. it is not their function to produce movements but to keep them back. and even if they possessed revolutionary science--which is a contradiction of terms--they would be justified in not making use of it. they must first let their knowledge be absorbed by the people in order to receive the support of the citizens, and that would mean to refuse to acknowledge the existence of authority and power." it follows through this that the organisation of work by the state--as was attempted by fourier, louis blanc, and their followers in a more or less remote degree--is an illusion, and on this theory revolution can only take place through the initiative of the people itself--"through the unanimous agreement of the citizens, through the experience of the workmen, and through the progress and growth of enlightenment." we here have laid bare the yawning gulf which lies between proudhon and the state socialism of his time, and over this gulf there is no bridge. we see how from these premises has been developed gradually and logically that which proudhon himself has called anarchy (_an-arche_, without government). the socialists have made the statement that the political revolution is the means of which the social revolution is the end. proudhon has inverted this statement and regards the social revolution as the means and a political revolution as the end. it is therefore a great mistake to consider him, as is always done, as a political economist, for he was first and foremost a social politician. the socialists place as the ultimate object of revolution, the welfare of all, enjoyment; but for proudhon the principle of revolution is freedom, that is: ( ) political freedom by the organisation of universal suffrage, by the independent centralisation of social functions, and by the continual and unceasing revision of the constitution. ( ) industrial freedom through the mutual guarantee of credit and sale. in other words "no government by men by means of the accumulation of power, no exploitation of men by means of the accumulation of capital." * * * * * proudhon thought that the fault of every political or social constitution, whether it was the work of political or social radicalism, that which produces conflicts, and sets up antagonism in society, lies in the fact that on the one hand the division of powers, or rather of functions, is badly and incompletely performed, while on the other hand centralisation is insufficient. the necessary consequence of this is that the chief power is inactive and the "thought of the people," or universal suffrage, is not exercised. division of functions then must be completed, and centralisation must increase; universal suffrage must regain its prerogative and therewith give back to the people the energy and activity which is lacking to them. the manner in which proudhon proposed this constitution of society by the initiative of the masses and the organisation of universal suffrage cannot be better or more simply explained than in the words and examples which he himself has used in the _confessions_ in order to interpret his views. he says: "for many centuries the spiritual power, according to the traditional conception of it, has been separated from the temporal power. i remark, by the way, that the political principle of the division of powers, or functions, is the same as the principle of the division of the departments of industry or of labour. here already we see a glimpse of the identity of the political and social constitution. but now i say that the division of the two powers, the spiritual and temporal, has never been complete; and that their centralisation, which was a great disadvantage both for ecclesiastical administration and for the followers of religion, was never sufficient. a complete division would take place if the temporal power never mingled in religious solemnities, in the administration of the sacraments, in the government of parishes, and especially in the nomination of bishops. there would then be a much greater centralisation, and consequently still more regular government, if in every parish the people had the right to choose their clergymen and chaplains themselves, or even not to have any at all; if the priests in every diocese chose their bishops; if the assembly of bishops alone regulated religious affairs in theological education and in divine worship. by this division the clergy would cease to be a tool of tyranny in the hands of the political power against the people; and by this application of universal suffrage the church government, centralised in itself, would receive its inspiration from the people, and not from the government or from the pope: it would continually find itself in harmony with the needs of society and with the spiritual condition of the citizens. in order thus to return to organic, economic, and social truth, it is necessary ( ) to do away with the constitutional accumulation of power, by taking away the nomination of bishops from the state, and separating once for all spiritual from temporal affairs; ( ) to centralise the church in itself by a system of elective grades; ( ) to give to the ecclesiastical power, as to all other powers of the state, the right of voting as its foundation. by this system, that which to-day is 'government' becomes nothing more than administration. and it will be understood if it is possible to organise the whole country in all its temporal affairs, according to the rules which we have just laid down for its spiritual organisation, the most perfect order and the most powerful centralisation would exist without there being anything of what we now call the constituted authority of a government. "one other example: formerly there existed besides the legislative and executive powers a third, the judicial power. this was an abolition of the dividing dualism, a first step towards the complete separation of political functions as of the departments of industry. the judicial functions--with their different specialties, their hierarchy, their irremovability, their union in a single ministry--testify undoubtedly to their privileged position and their efforts towards centralisation. but these functions do not arise from the people upon whom they are exercised; their purpose is the administration of executive power; they are not subordinated to the country by election, but to the government, president, or princes, by nomination. the consequence is that the liberties of the people who are judged are given into the hands of those who are supposed to be their natural judges, like parishioners into the hands of their pastor, so that the people belong to the magistrates as an inheritance, while the litigants exist for the sake of the judge, and not the judge for the sake of the litigants. apply universal suffrage and the system of elective grades to judicial functions in the same way as to ecclesiastic; take away their irremovability which is the denial of the right of election; take away from the state all action and influence upon the judges; let this order, centralised in and for itself, arise solely from the people, and you have taken away from the state its most powerful implement of tyranny. you have made out of justice a principle of freedom and order, and unless you suppose that the people from whom, by means of universal suffrage, all power must proceed is in contradiction with itself, and that it does not wish in the case of justice what it wishes in the case of religion, or _vice versa_, you may rest assured that the division of power can produce no conflict. you can confidently establish the principle that division and equilibrium will in future be synonymous. "i pass over to another case, to the military power. it belongs to the citizens to nominate their military commanders in due order, by advancing simple privates and national guards to the lower grades and officers to the higher grades in the army. thus organised the army maintains its citizen-like sentiment. there is no longer a nation in a nation, a country in a country, a kind of wandering colony where the citizen is a citizen amongst soldiers, and learns to fight against his own country. the nation itself, centralised in its strength and youth, can, independently of the power of the state, appeal to the public power in the name of the law, just like a judge or police official, but cannot command it or exercise authority over it. in the case of a war the army owes obedience only to the representative assembly of the nation, and to the leaders appointed by it. "it is clear that in this, no judgment is passed upon the necessity of these great manifestations of the social mind, and that if we wish to abide by the judgment of the people, which alone is competent to decide as to the importance and duration of its institutions, we can do nothing better (as has just been said) than to constitute them in a democratic manner. "societies have at all times experienced the need of protecting their trade and industry against foreign imports; the power or function which protects native labour in each country and guarantees it a national market, is taxation in the shape of customs. i will not here say anything at all about the morality, or want of it, the usefulness or the harm of customs duties. i take it as i see it in society, and confine myself to examining it from the point of view of the constitution of powers. taxation, by the very fact that it exists, is a centralised function. its origin like its action, excludes every idea of division or dismemberment. but how does it happen that this function, which belongs specially to the province of merchants and those concerned with industry, and proceeds exclusively from the authority of the chambers of commerce, yet belongs to the state? who can know better than industry itself wherein and to what extent it requires protection, where the compensation for the taxation which has to be raised must come from, and what products require bounties and encouragement? and as for the customs service itself, is it not obvious that it is the business of those interested to reckon up the expenses of it, while it is not at all suitable for the government to make of it a source of emolument for its favourites by procuring an income for its extravagances by differential taxes? "besides the ministries of justice, religion, war, and international trade, the government appoints yet others; the ministry for agriculture, public works, public instruction, and finally to pay for all these, the ministry of finance. our so-called division of powers is only an accumulation of all kinds of powers, our centralisation is an absorption. do you not think that the agriculturists, who are already all organised in their communities and committees, would perform their own centralisation very well, and could guide their common interests without this being done by the state? do you not think that the merchants, manufacturers, agriculturists, the industrial population of every kind, who have their books open before them in the chambers of commerce, could in the same way, without the help of the state, without expecting their salvation from its good-will, or their ruin from its inexperience, organise at their own cost a central administration for themselves; could debate their own affairs in general assemblies; could correspond with other administrations; could pass all their useful decisions without waiting for the sanction of the president of the republic; and could entrust the execution of their will to one amongst themselves, who would be chosen by his fellows to be the minister? it is clear that the public works which concern agricultural industry and trade, or the departments and the communes, might in future be assigned to the local and central administrations which have an interest in them; and should no more be a special corporation in the hands of the state than is the army, the customs, or monopolies. or should the state have its hierarchy, its privileges, its ministry, so that it may carry on a trade in mining, canals, or railways, may speculate on the stock exchange, grant leases for ninety-nine years, and leave the building of streets, bridges, dams, water-ways, excavations, sluices, etc., to a legion of contractors, speculators, usurers, destroyers of morality, and extortioners, who live upon the public wealth by the exploitation of workmen and wage-earners, and upon the folly of the state? "can it not be believed that public instruction could be just as well made universal, be administered, directed, and that the teachers, professors, and inspectors could be just as well elected, and the system of studies would be just as much in harmony with the habits and interests of the nation if it was the business of municipal and general councils to appoint teachers, while the universities only had to grant them their diplomas; if in public instruction, as in the military career, merit in the lower grades was necessary for promotion to the higher, if our dignitaries of the university must first have gone through the duties of an elementary teacher and supervisor of studies? "does one imagine that this perfectly democratic system would do harm to the discipline of schools, to morality, education, the dignity of instruction, or the peace of the family? "and as the sinews of every administration are money, as the budget is made for the country and not the country for the budget, as the taxes must every year be granted freely by the representatives of the people, as this is the original and inalienable right of the people both under a monarchy and a republic, since the country must first sanction the income and expenditure before it can be applied by the government,--does it not follow that the consequence of this financial initiative, which is formally recognised as belonging to the citizens in all our constitutions, will consist in the fact that the finance minister, or, in a word, the whole fiscal organisation, belongs to the country and not to its ruler; that it depends directly upon those who pay the budget and not upon those who spend it; that there would be infinitely fewer abuses in the administration of public money, fewer extravagances and deficits, if the state had just as little power over public finances as over religion, justice, the army, taxes, public works, and public instruction? "supposing the heads of the different branches of administration were grouped together, we should have then a council of ministry or an executive power which would serve just as well as a state council. place over this a great 'jury,' legislative body, or national assembly, elected and commissioned directly by the whole of the country, whose duty it is not to nominate the ministers, for these receive their office from the members of their special departments, but to look through accounts, to make laws, to draw up the budget, and to decide the differences between the different administrations after having received the report of the public minister or the minister of the interior, to which in the future the whole government will be reduced,--and there you would have a centralisation which would be all the stronger the more its different centres were multiplied. you would have responsibility, which is all the more real because the separation between various powers is more sharply defined; you would have a constitution which at the same time is political and social." here we have the picture of the society of the future, as proudhon imagined it when the principles of democracy and, above all, of universal suffrage have become a reality--the celebrated federative principle of proudhon, the inheritance of the most talented party of any age, the girondists, locally developed, and to some extent not without a profound knowledge of politics. it cannot be denied that the federal principle, as proudhon here explains it, means the integration of social force, which in its differentiation meets us sometimes as a special and sometimes as the common interest, sometimes as individualism or again as altruism. according to this, federation is nothing more than the translation into politics of the metaphor (which we formerly used from physics) of the resultants of several component forces; a metaphor which not only suits the genius of proudhon, but also is frequently found in his language. proudhon was deeply permeated by the reality of collectivism, but saw it in the light both of physics and physiology, so that the word "resultants" is with him more than a metaphor. in this respect proudhon far surpassed in insight all the social philosophers of his age, and anticipated the pioneers of modern sociology. but he contradicted himself, and lost his special merits by wishing to make out of a social law an absolute formula; by abandoning the scientific standpoint which he once attained, and falling back again into dogmatism. if we conceive all society in the mechanical manner in which proudhon did; or if we think (as he did) that we have at least partially discovered the laws of its movement, then all further politics exhaust themselves in an experimental verification of the laws in question. but to anticipate any point of the development which one expects, and to regard it as something absolute, is a process irreconcilable with an exact scientific method. in brief, proudhon's federalism is a political principle; his anarchism is a dogma, or at best an hypothesis which cannot even be logically proved from the first-named, for it is not true, as proudhon maintains, that the idea of agreement excludes that of lordship. * * * * * but if proudhon conceives all society in a mechanical manner, it is to be expected that he would again seek--and find--the same laws that he saw operating in the political constitution also in economic life. this is, as a matter of fact, the case. "agreement solves every problem"; only agreement in economic life means with him exchange. "social agreement," he says, "is in its essence like the agreement of exchange." therefore the corner-stone in his economic system is exchange. but proudhon transposed into this purely empiric idea a moral element, by presupposing equality and justice as necessary to exchange. economic freedom, he reasons, is free exchange; but an exchange can only be called free which presupposes the equality of values, or, in other words, equality and justice. this again presupposes a just balance and constitution of values--a mutual balance of all economic and social forces. what, then, is economic freedom? it is equality and justice. and what is the opposite--the hindrance of these principles? it is inequality, injustice, slavery, which means property. this is the reason why proudhon's doctrine of property stands at the centre of his system, which it by no means exhausts; it is the reason why he always proceeded from this point, and always returned to it again. here we have clearly the reason for all his numberless and endless mistakes in the province of economics, the weak point of this otherwise great and noble mind. as we already have remarked about the _contradictions_, proudhon did not attack property in itself; he tried to ennoble it and bring it into harmony with the claims of justice and equality by taking away from it what to-day is a _jus utendi et abutendi_, that is, its rights over the substance of a thing, and the right of devolving it for ever. the ominous statement "property is theft" was directed only against this. this kind of property (_propriété_, _dominium_) was to be replaced by individual possession (_possession individuelle_): as to which one must take care to understand the distinction between "property" and "possession" in the legal sense. proudhon sought in his first and larger work, which is mainly of a critical nature, to put forward the negative proof that property is impossible, by inverting all the proofs hitherto brought forward in its favour, so that instead of justifying the possession of property they seemed rather to make for freedom. it is, however, quite wrong to regard this dialectic jugglery as the essence of proudhon's system. a proof, such as that here proposed by proudhon, is not only quite inadmissible as logic, but it cannot even be said that proudhon himself (usually so accurate in this respect) turned out here a really good piece of work. on the one hand he attacks the defenders of property, who, after all, are not very difficult to controvert; while, at the same time, his attempt itself does not always succeed. of course it does not mean very much when he cleverly riddles the old argument for property drawn from divine right or the right of nature; for in any case he was only attacking dead theories. in the attack on really living arguments, as in the case of his theory of labour, he does not succeed. property cannot be explained by labour because ( ) the land cannot be appropriated, ( ) labour leads to equality, and in the sight of justice labour, on the contrary, abolishes property. the proposition that property, _i. e._, the right to the substance of the thing appropriated, cannot be created by labour, because the land cannot be appropriated, is at least a _petitio principii_ or tautology. but, leaving that, let us suppose that the land really cannot be appropriated; yet there is always some kind of property which has nothing to do with the land. it will not do always to speak of landed property only, as proudhon invariably does. movable property (in weapons, utensils, ornaments, animals, etc.) precedes immovable property, owing to its origin, which was only created in imitation of the other much later, and is entirely property due to work; thus not only property, but not even the origin of the idea of property in men, can be explained from the point of view of social history otherwise than by work. if it is right, as one of our most acute thinkers says, to declare that mankind has placed his tools between himself and the animal world, then another proposition follows directly from this, namely, that man has placed property between himself and animals. it is true that the animal develops as far as the family, for if this also is founded merely upon thought, it cannot be a conscious one. property presupposes a definite mental equipment, which even in the case of primitive men must be important, implying subjectively an already clear consciousness of self; objectively a certain capacity for measuring even the remoter consequences of an action; for the desire for special possession could only exist with reference to a pronounced consciousness of the self, and to the recognised purpose and further utility of an object. neither of these mental presuppositions are anywhere fulfilled in the animal world. it need hardly be mentioned that labour in the technical sense has developed naturally and gradually from physiological labour and the bodily functions; that is, that even between the natural implement and the artificial there is no hiatus. espinas says (_animal communities_, by a. espinas, p. ): "every living being, however lonely its life may be, can in case of need build itself some protective covering, and that is the beginning of the artistic impulse (_kunst-trieb_), unless, perhaps, this is to be found in the formation of the organism itself. leaving out of consideration the tubicolous annelidæ, the mussels and stone-boring molluscs, the weaving caterpillars, and finally spiders, even the non-social hymenoptera present, among many insects, examples of a very skilful adaptation of materials. but it is equally undeniable that, since the appearance of communities whose purpose is the rearing of their offspring, the artistic tendency receives a considerable impulse and produces unexpected marvels. here it decidedly abandons its usual procedure in order to take up a new one. hitherto the lower animals have, to a great extent, taken the materials for their places of refuge and their implements from their own bodies: the former an extension of the organism that produces it; the latter, as in the case of the spider, only an enlargement of the animal itself which forms the centre. the productions of the social artistic impulse, on the other hand, are made out of materials which are more and more foreign to the substance of the artificer, and are worked up externally by means which become more and more exclusively mechanical. hence it follows that the living body is no longer so directly interested in the preservation of its work; it can alter and again build up this structure to an almost infinite extent--in short, the structure becomes more and more an implement instead of an organ. that was the inevitable result of animal life, which, being essentially capable of transference, and presupposing an intercourse of several separate existences, must necessarily raise itself above external substances, or else organise them according to the purposes of its life. but must we now conceive its operations as altogether distinct from those of physiological life? "if one reflects that unnoticed steps connect the unconscious work which produces the organ with the conscious work which produces the implement, then it does not appear so. speaking exactly, the waxen cell in which the larvæ of the bee wait for their daily food is external for every individual of the race, but internal for the whole of the community; since this forms one single consciousness, or a collective individuality. the mind of the race is to some extent a common function, its body a common apparatus; the one is only the material translation of the other, and the implement performs its function as faithfully as does the organ. one might even go farther and maintain that the implement in the full sense of the word is an organ; for it serves a function that is vital for the community, and this is exposed to every change, and derives benefit from every growth which circumstances bring to it." the work of animals, therefore, only differs in its highest developments from purely physiological functions, in that the animal becomes more independent of its implements and of the product of its labour. notice, for instance, the progress which is shown in the series of the mussel's shell, the spider's web, the bee's cell, the bird's nest, and the mole's burrow. the progressive differentiation of the products of labour keeps step with the progressive individualisation of the labourer and with the growing material independence of the body from its products. mussel shell, cobweb, and bee's cell are still produced from the secretions of the body; but while the mussel is inseparable from its shell, the spider, at least without immediate harm, can be detached from its web; while the bee is still further emancipated from its structure of cells. the bird's nest and the mole's burrow have been formed already by a manipulation of materials foreign to the body, though in the case of the first still by the help of secretions from the body. in both cases the animal is almost completely independent of its product. still the most complicated product of animal labour is, after all, connected inseparably with the body of the worker; and to a much less extent can the animal be separated from its implements; therefore complete emancipation never takes place in the animal world. even in the case of the anthropoid apes the transition to the instrument and to a product of labour entirely artificial and perfectly independent of the animal's own body, is only very slowly completed. this is clear from a consideration of the slow process by which man has progressed in perfecting the implements which he has invented. from the action of the bird which beats open a nut with its beak, or the squirrel which cracks it with its teeth, up to that of man who, in order to open the nut, makes use of a stone lying near him, is only a step, and yet by that step the destiny of the _genus homo_ is settled. the application of natural objects, such as sticks and stones, to the purposes of daily life, to defence against animals and men, to hunting, to cutting down fruits, and so on, does not certainly become a habit all at once. indeed, a very long time elapsed before this adaptation became a general and even a conscious one, and it was only possible when the advantages of such objects had been perceived through many experiences. it needed a still longer time before man learned to choose between the various objects offered to him by nature, and understood how to distinguish a more pointed and sharper or a harder stone from one of those less useful for his purpose. perhaps it required the experience and disappointments of uncounted ages to bring the consciousness of purpose even up to this point. but when this was once done, when man could judge as to the usefulness of the implement which nature offered him, then a further step of progress, and certainly the most important in this series of developments, was taken. to natural selection follows immediately artificial. the need for suitable and useful implements became more general and greater, and at the same time it became more difficult to satisfy, since nature is not so generous with objects of this kind, and (as was soon seen) only very few substances united all these qualities which hitherto had been recognised as necessary or useful. but by this time individuals who were already better provided for had made other discoveries; they had, for example, in cracking a nut, broken a stone with which they cracked it, and noticed that the broken pieces had greater sharpness and pointedness on their edges than those which nature afforded; or they had found the pieces of some tree split by lightning, and discovered their greater hardness and capacity for resistance. what was more natural under the pressure of the necessity, than to produce intentionally those processes by which the objects afforded by nature became more usable--to break the stone in pieces or to burn the wood? and now at last the artificial implement was produced, and all future progress was but a trifle compared to the development which had gone before. the wonders of modern technical art are child's-play compared to the difficulties with which the anthropoid ape succeeded in making the first stone celt. the most urgent need of primitive life, the bitterest competition for the necessities of existence, and the concentration of the highest mental gifts then possessed, were necessary to guide the sight of primitive man to the remoter consequences of an action or of a quality. that his sight became sharper and sharper in proportion as the implement once invented showed itself to be insufficient, and became more and more differentiated in its adaptation to the different kinds of labour, follows as a matter of course. but the decisive action occurred when the anthropoid ape for the first time mechanically worked up natural objects, for by doing so he was enabled to exploit nature rationally, according to his desires and requirements, to emancipate himself from the limitations of existence as regards place and climate, to break those chains of partial action which weigh upon everything belonging to the animal world. one must take fully into consideration the difficulties under which primitive man made his first tools; but one must, however, realise still more the immeasurable advantages which proceed from the possession, and the disadvantages which arise from the want, of a tool, in order to perceive that man had a vital interest in preserving permanently by him the objects which he had produced. if in his inexperience he at first threw away his laboriously acquired treasure after using it, yet soon the oft-recurring need for it, and the trouble of remaking it, must have taught him better. and by not leaving the tool behind him for someone else, he made not only a tremendous step in advance in the satisfaction of his needs, but also took a step higher in the social scale of his tribe. the others had need of him, admired him, feared or flattered him; they perhaps sought to take his treasured tool away from him; he had therefore to defend himself against others, and all these facts formed still more strongly the desire to keep it for himself permanently and exclusively. the conception of property flashed upon the human mind. it sprang from the sweat of labour; and human culture begins not with equality but with property. this rather lengthy digression has been necessary in order that we may be able to oppose actual facts to the logical subtlety of proudhon, which appears to-day to have a greater power than ever of leading men astray. the question whether the producer of a stone celt was merely the user of its advantages (latin, _possessor_) or its actual owner and master; whether he also had the right to the substances of which it was composed, appears, after what we have said above, to be simply childish. the property, which was absolutely labour-property, was at once perceived to be such, to be _dominium_ and not merely _possessio_; it never occurred to anybody either to doubt it or to believe it. now, proudhon declares that general consent cannot justify property, because general consent to an injustice cannot form the basis of justice. but apart from the fact that the innate sense of justice in society is merely a fiction of proudhon's, as of all earlier or later utopians, this proposition may perhaps belong to metaphysics or ethics, but certainly not to the empirical science of sociology. for he who puts on the crown, and whom all agree to obey, is really king, even if he has waded to the throne through seas of blood. the question, in so far as it is neither political nor a justification of his mode of action, is not a legal one but purely ethical. the answer to this question prejudges nothing either as to life or society, and history knows cases enough of actions which cannot be approved from the moral standpoint, and yet have turned out to the advantage of the community. the opinion that agrarian communism, or the village community, is the most primitive form of property and the natural form of society, is also quite untenable. in the first place, because the word _naturally_ cannot be taken in the sense that it implies an unalterable normal condition, or something fixed; for, in reality, _naturally_ means that which develops itself, and therefore something in the highest degree changeable. in the second place, because tribal communism is by no means such a primitive condition as the socialists, from rousseau's time downwards, seem to believe, and wish to make others believe. rather, a state preceded it, in which only movable property, the _jus utendi atque abutendi re_, was known to man. races have been found which possess very scanty conceptions of religion, which have not recognised the family in the widest implication of the idea; whereas, on the other hand, no race has been found to whom the idea of property was not known. certainly in this case it was only a question of the possession of weapons and ornaments, and so forth; possession of land, especially as a communal possession, has only been found among a comparatively small number of primitive peoples, and implies a very advanced state of social culture. but, however little this condition is the natural one, [greek: kat' exochên], still less is it particularly moral or just. we know to-day for certain that the rise of communal possession in land was always inseparably connected with the introduction of slavery, and that one cannot be thought of without the other. but to wish to imagine equality in addition to the collective possession of primitive society is to a great extent a distortion of the facts of history. whatever facts we may produce from the actual and not merely imaginary primitive history of property would be so many arguments against proudhon's contention. his economic argument is just as untenable, that labour should lead to equality. all work, according to proudhon, is the effective of a collective force, which is equal to the resultants of the forces of the single individuals who form the labour group. consequently, the product of labour is the property of the whole community, and every worker has an equal claim to it. this is, briefly, the argument which, from premises that are possibly correct, draws conclusions that are entirely false. proudhon gives the following example: "two hundred grenadiers placed the obelisk of luxor on its pedestal in a few hours, and yet we do not believe that one man could have performed the same work in two hundred days. the collective force is greater than the sum of individual forces and individual efforts. therefore the capitalist has not rewarded the labourer fairly when he pays wages for one day multiplied by the number of day-labourers employed by him." it will be seen that proudhon here proceeds from the assumption that the value of a product of a labour is a firmly established and easily fixed amount, as john grey and rodbertus had taught before him; for only in this case could it be exactly stated how great the claim is which belongs to a labourer. in fact, the characteristic feature of proudhon's theory of value lies in his endeavour to determine and fix values; that is, to use his own dialectic jargon, according to the synthetic solution of the antithesis of value in use and value in exchange, in which our economic life fluctuates. supply and demand, considered by others as the factors which regulate and determine value, are to him only forms which serve to contrast with one another the value in use and value in exchange, and to cause these values to combine. from justice, which ought to be the foundation of society, he concludes the necessity, and from general obedience of life to law the possibility, of a determination of values. even this value, thus determined, will be a variable amount, a proportionate figure, similar to the index which in the case of chemical elements gives their combining weights. "but this value will none the less be strictly fixed. value may alter, but the law of values is unalterable; indeed, the fact that value is capable of alteration only results from its being subject to a law whose principle is essentially fluctuating, for it is labour measured by time." (_contradictions_, i., "on the theory of value.") value is thus brought into consideration within the community which producers form among themselves by means of the division of labour and exchange, the relation of the proportion of the products which compose riches, and that which is specially termed the value of a product is a formula which assigns a proportion of this product in coins in the general wealth. leaving out of the question the moral arrangement of the world, which even here has contributed to this definition of double meaning, we may ask, how is this formula, which assigns in coins the proportion of the product in the general wealth, reckoned? proudhon has always appealed only to the realisation of the idea through the actual circulation of values on the one hand, and to the law-abiding character of nature on the other. upon the point of "realisation" we shall have something to say later. but the law-abiding character of life is, however, just as much an algebraical expression as the "proportion of the product." supposing both are not disputed, what follows, then? if i know the exact formula for the direction and velocity of a projectile, shall i now be able to protect myself from every bullet by merely getting out of its way? the introduction of statistical methods into the general formula for special values proudhon has himself excluded as incorrect. the question settles itself. society goes on of its own accord--_laissez aller, laissez faire_--everything remains in the old way. in addition to this mistake, we find that there is in proudhon's mind great confusion with regard to the two ideas of time of labour and value of labour. "adam smith takes as a measure of value sometimes the time necessary to produce a commodity and sometimes the value of labour," says marx in his celebrated polemic against proudhon.[ ] "ricardo discovered this error by clearly proving the difference between these two modes of measurement. proudhon, however, goes even farther than the error of adam smith, by identifying two things which smith has only brought into juxtaposition. to find the right proportion according to which the labourers should have their share in the products of their labour, or, in other words, to determine the relative value of labour, proudhon seeks some measure for the relative value of commodities. to determine the measure for the relative value of commodities he cannot invent anything better than to give us as an equivalent for a certain quantity of work, the total of the products made by it; which leaves us to suppose that the whole of society consists of nothing but labourers, who receive as wages what they themselves produce. in the second place, he maintains the equal value of the working days of different labourers as an actual fact; in a word, he seeks the measure for the relative value of commodities in order to discover the equal payment of labourers, and assumes the equality of payment as a settled fact, in order to proceed to search for the relative value of commodities." [ ] _das elend der philosophie: an answer to proudhon's philosophie des elends._ stuttgart, (german ed.). if we turn back to the question, what is property? we find this confusion of ideas is answerable for his unsuccessful attempt to prove that labour must create equality and annihilate property. here, too, the equality of the working days is assumed, and therefore the equality of wages is demanded. but, then, immediately this working day is changed into his work done in a day (_tâche sociale journalière_). "let us assume," says he, "that this social day's work amounts to the cultivation or weeding or harvesting of two square decametres, and the mean average of all the time necessary for these amounts to seven hours. one labourer will finish it in six hours; another in eight hours; the majority will work seven hours; but so long as each performs the amount of work required of him, he deserves the same wages as all the others, however long he may have worked at it." here time of work has imperceptibly changed into quantity of work, and wages are given, not according to the measure of equal working times but according to the measure of equal performances. proudhon here seeks for a solution by saying that the more capable workman, who performs his day's work in six hours, should never have the right to usurp the day's work of a less capable labourer, under the pretext of greater strength and activity, and thus rob him of work and bread; it is advantage enough derived from his greater capacities that, by this shortening of his time of labour, he has greater opportunity to work for his own personal education and culture, or to enjoy himself, and so on. but proudhon must be driven even from this last corner of refuge by the question, what will take place if anyone will perform only the half of his day's work? proudhon says: "that is all right; obviously half of his wages are sufficient for that man. what has he to complain of if he is rewarded according to the work which he has performed? and what does it matter to others? in this sense it is right and proper to apply the text, 'to each according to his work'; that is the law of equality."[ ] [ ] _qu'est-ce que la propriété?_ p. . but this is to retract all along the line. proudhon, who assumes the equality of all working days, and has made it the basis of his theory of value, must now admit the dependence of wages upon the performance of work, and admit also, although reluctantly, the statement of st. simon, "to each according to his work," which he had set out to refute. he ought to have gone still farther and said: "if anyone will not do any work, what happens then? obviously the man needs no wages; why should the others then trouble about it?--it is the law of equality." but what becomes then of the equality to which work was said to lead? further, what about the impossibility of proving the right of property through work? all proudhon's arguments in proof of the impossibility of property are mere dialectic sword-play which hardly anyone takes seriously. proudhon does not even criticise actual circumstances, but proves that, following his ideal assumptions (which in any case exclude property), property is impossible. the supposed result of his book he sums up in the hegelian formula: "communism, the first form and the final destiny of society, is the first terminus of social development, the thesis; property, the contradictory opposite to communism, forms the second terminus, the antithesis; it remains for us to determine the third terminus, the synthesis, and then we have the required solution. the synthesis results necessarily from the correction of the thesis by the antithesis. it is therefore necessary to examine closely its peculiarities, and to exclude that which there is in them hostile to society. the two that remain will, when united, form the true formula of human social life."[ ] [ ] _qu'est-ce que la propriété?_ p. . karl marx, who made very merry over proudhon's dialectic, thought he had played his trump card against the capitalistic method of production in almost the same way, namely, with the hegelian proposition of the negation of negation. if they both explained themselves by bringing forward, besides the dialectic proof, also an historical and economic one for their contentions, the answer is that historic proof cannot be brought forward for proudhon's synthetic conception of property or for marx's method of production, since history only concerns itself with the past or the present; whereas such conditions as they imagine exist only in the future, and can only be derived from the past or present conditions by the dialectic method, and only can be assumed as hypotheses. this standpoint unites proudhon and karl marx, the anarchists and the social democrats; they both call each other utopians, and both are right. * * * * * proudhon in his book upon property did not answer the question put in its title, _what is property?_ as he had promised in the introduction. from his statement "property is theft," which was uttered with so much _éclat_, and of which, according to his own account at least, he was prouder than if he had possessed all the millions of rothschild--from this paradox one might conclude, and certainly the great majority of his readers do conclude usually that proudhon was an enemy of property in general. that is not at all the case. "what i have been seeking since in defining property," said he much later (in _justice_, i., p. ), "and what i wish to-day, as i have repeated over and over again, is certainly not abolition of property. for this would be to fall into communism with plato, rousseau, louis blanc, and other opponents of property, against whom i protest with all my strength. what i demand from property is _a balance_." but all his life proudhon was unable to dispel the misunderstanding which he carelessly brought upon his doctrine in his first writing by a talented paradox. we say carelessly, for the concluding answer which proudhon gives to the question, "what is property?" was, even in his first work, not "property is theft" but "property is liberty;" only the use of all his great scientific apparatus was quite superfluous, because it was in no way connected with the chief purpose of his book. proudhon might just as well have placed the supposed conclusion, the ten commandments of his economic doctrine, at the beginning of his book, for they were arrived at not by the method of science but of speculation. these ten commandments run: ( ) individual possession is the fundamental condition of social life; five thousand years of the history of property prove it; property is the suicide of society. possession is a right; property is against all right; suppress property and maintain possession, and you would by this one main alteration transform everything--laws, government, economy, statesmanship; you would make evil disappear from the earth. ( ) since the right of occupation is the same for all, possession changes according to the number of possessors; thus property can no longer be created. ( ) since the result of labour remains the same for the whole of the community, property, which arising from the exploitation of others and from rent, disappears. ( ) since every human work necessarily arises from a collective force, every piece of property becomes both collective and indivisible--to be exact, labour annihilates property. ( ) since every capacity for any occupation, including all the instruments of labour and capital, is collective property, the inequality of treatment and of goods, which rests upon the inequality of capabilities, is injustice and theft. ( ) trade necessarily presupposes the freedom of the contracting parties and the equivalence of the products exchanged; but since value is determined by the amount of time and expense which each product costs, and since freedom is inviolable, the workers remain necessarily equal in reward as also in rights and duties. ( ) products are only exchanged again for products; but since every bargain presupposes the equality of products, profit is impossible and unjust. take heed to this, the first and the most elementary principle of economics, and pauperism, luxury, servitude, vice, crime, and hunger will disappear from our midst. ( ) men are already, before they fully agreed to do so, associated from the physical and mathematical law of production; the equality of external conditions of existence is thus a demand of the justice of social right, of strict right; friendship, respect, admiration, and recognition alone enter into the province of equity or proportion. ( ) free association, or freedom which limits itself to expressing equality in the means of production and equivalence in articles of exchange, is the only possible, the only right, and the only true form of society. ( ) politics is the science of freedom; the government of men by men, under whatever name it may be concealed, is servitude; the highest consummation of society is found in the union of order and anarchy. we will only select from this decalogue of collectivist anarchism one dogma, the seventh; because it contains a fundamental error of proudhon's, which must continually produce other errors. "products," he says, "are only exchanged for products; but since every bargain presupposes the equality of products, profit is impossible and not right." by this proposition the question of pauperism and everything evil is to be solved, and, in fact, proudhon even made some attempts to realise the theory contained therein. but that every bargain presupposes the equality of products in any other than the sense determined by supply and demand, is untrue; yet even this equality is not regarded by proudhon as such. he understands thereby equivalence or the equality of values, which again is determined by the time of labour, and accordingly he makes it a presupposition of a free bargain that only products which represent equal times of labour can be exchanged. thus a hat which took six hours to make, should be exchanged for a poem which was written in the same time. and if we are startled by the incorrectness of this assumption, what can be said for the converse of this statement, namely, that products of equal value, _i. e._, such as represent equal times of labour, must be accepted at any time in place of payment, just as money is accepted to-day? proudhon ascribed the utility of money as a universal medium of exchange to the supposed circumstance that its value was fixed or established, and concluded therefrom that whenever the value of other commodities was determined, they would have the same utility as money; thus, that it would be possible to exchange at any time a watch which represented three days' work for a pair of boots which had been made in the same time. and to complete this economic and logical confusion, proudhon once again inverts history, and makes the just and free exchange of products and the circulation of values the starting-point for the determination of values, and thereby also the foundation of his realm of justice, freedom, and equality, in which economic forces have free play. if values circulate themselves, then too they determine themselves, and thus only is there a just bargain; profit is impossible, so too is the accumulation of capital and property. since all have equal share in production as in consumption, commodities will always be where they are needed, and they will always be needed where they exist; supply and demand will equal one another, value in use and value in exchange will be the same, value is determined, and the circle (which is in any case a vicious circle) is completed. land, like all the means of labour, is a collective possession. every one will enjoy the full results of his labour, but no one will be able to heap up riches because profit in any form is impossible. men will collect through their own free choice in productive groups, which again will be in direct intercourse one with another, and will exchange their products as may be required, without profit. common interests will be determined by boards of experts, who will be chosen by the members of these groups by means of universal suffrage. the total of all these boards, which are completely autonomous, forms the only existing and only possible administration. governments become superfluous, since the economic life must entirely absorb political life. and since there will be no property and no distinction of rich and poor, there will also be no rule of one man over another, there will be no criminals, judicial and civil power, militarism and bureaucracy become superfluous and disappear of themselves. in spite of anarchy (_i. e._, no government), or rather because of it, the greatest, the only order will prevail. in fact, if anything ever deserved the name ideal it is this reform of society sketched by proudhon, to which he himself has given the name "mutualism." he did not suspect or notice that he had done nothing more than express the abstract formula of existing relationships, the most general conception of the liberal scheme of economics. things happen in our own world just as proudhon wished in his kingdom of the future, only there are a few insignificant factors of friction, extensions of co-efficients, and so on, which he, if he had been familiar with scientific methods, would have added as "corrections" to his universal formula. the present world is related to his as any one triangle is to the triangle absolute. the triangle which is neither obtuse-angled, nor acute-angled, nor right-angled, neither equilateral nor isosceles, nor of unequal sides, whose sides and angles are not confined to any particular measurement, may certainly be a real triangle and contain no contradiction in itself (which is by no means the case in proudhon's realm of justice), but this triangle cannot be drawn or even imagined. this is the old dispute of nominalists and realists, a piece of scholasticism long since obsolete applied to the problems of modern society, and not even worth refutation, least of all worthy of any man who has once correctly recognised the reality of human society, and made it the guiding motive of his thought. on two occasions proudhon seemed to have the alluring opportunity of being able to realise his utopian visions. the first was in the time of the revolution. in february, , he founded the people's bank (_banque du peuple_),[ ] which was to take the initiative in free economic organisation, and, according to proudhon's expectations, would have introduced "free society" if, at the decisive moment, he had not been sent for three years to the prison of saint pélagie for a political offence, and the bank was therefore compelled to liquidate. the second opportunity occurred in the year . napoleon had asked for opinions as to how the _palais de l'industrie_, in which the paris exhibition had been held, could be used after its close as an institution of public utility. among those to whom this question was addressed we find proudhon, who answered it with the project of a permanent exhibition,[ ] which was to be conducted by a society proceeding from very much the same point of view as the people's bank. this project was, of course, left unnoticed, and proudhon became deeply disgusted and discouraged at this new disappointment. [ ] after proudhon's paper, _le réprésentant du peuple_, had published the statutes of the exchange bank, he tried in numerous articles to explain the mechanism and necessity of it. these articles have been collected in a book, and appeared under the title, _résumé de la question sociale, banque d'Échange_. [ ] the scheme appeared in proudhon's posthumous works. the people's bank, like its subsequent second edition, the permanent exhibition company, was to be founded (in proudhon's hegelian method of expression) upon the identity of the shareholders and their clients. the producers who had a share in the people's bank were to deliver their products to the bank, which would control and determine the prices of those commodities by assessors, the prices being determined only with reference to the time of labour spent upon them and the necessary expenses of production; profit was forbidden since the bank was not to operate upon its own account. the producer received upon delivery of his goods "exchange bonds," in return for which he then could take from the bank other commodities. as the bank also granted its customers loans without charging interest, money and interest would become unnecessary, trade would gradually be carried on only by means of the bonds of the bank, and thus would be brought about the harmony of social intercourse of which proudhon dreamed. the permanent exhibition company was to be a new edition of the people's bank, perfected and enlarged in every direction. since the shareholders of this company consisted of producers, and their purpose was above all the sale and interchange of products, so therefore the subscription for the formation of the capital was not to be, as in the case of other companies, merely in money, but was to be nine-tenths in products, which were to be sold by the company, and the receipts of the sale were then to be credited to the shareholders. as the state was to become surety for the interest on these shares, proudhon thought that these must become actual money, representing rights to dividend, which could only lose their value by the destruction of the company's depot for goods. against the goods which were deposited with it or the sale of which it undertook, as well as against the bills which were given to it to discount, the company was to issue, together with the cash which it had at disposal, general bonds of exchange (_la bons généraux d'échange_) which would represent the goods stored in it and realised by it, and should give the claim to an equal value in goods which the holder of the bond could take from the storehouses as he wished. these bonds were to be the circulating money of the company, and were to be accepted by it instead of cash payments in all transactions with goods or with bills. the circulating paper of the company, held by it at par, owing to the fact that it could be exchanged into money or the goods of the company upon presentation, would become the great lever of its operations and the irresistible instrument of its power. the company was to undertake banking and commission business of all kinds, grant credit in money and goods, and support industry, trade, and agriculture. all objects deposited with this society, including gold and silver, and especially all articles composing its balance, were to be arranged in an exchange tariff, which would be continually changeable, and the object of which was to secure the equivalence of values. "certainly every rise in the exchange of an article would be balanced by an equivalent fall of exchange in one or more articles, if one regards the existing total sum, one-tenth being allowed in fluctuations either up or down. the differences in time in the balance would be entered in a special balance book which would finally equalise itself from time to time." that is the project; and its author gives the following example: since the company carries on no business on its own account, and neither acquires nor possesses products itself, and thus does not lose money on the rise or fall, it is only guided in directing the course of prices by one object, viz., to moderate one by the other, and to create a permanent and a daily compensation; thus, if demand arises for one product while it falls off for one or several others, the company raises the price of the first per cent., and at the same time lowers, according to the quantity of the first, the price of the other in such a way that the compensation is as exact as possible. because it is difficult to reach this mathematical exactitude, a certain margin is allowed, which again, compensating itself from time to time, never can amount to the assets of the society. if we assume, for the sake of example, that the price of gold has fallen--that is, that gold is freely offered, while silver has risen, that is, is more in demand--the company, since its bills are discounted with its own notes, will give francs of its money for francs of gold, equal to francs in silver; or, to express myself more exactly, for a weight of gold which is only one-twentieth higher than five twenty-five franc pieces, and the weight of silver which is only one-twentieth lower than twenty-five franc pieces. from this compensation no profit accrues to the company; it has only intervened with its own money in order again to re-establish equilibrium. from this process of compensation carried on by the company, which was to be applied in like manner to all products, raw materials and food stuffs, and so on, proudhon hoped for that much talked of and much promising fixity of values, since all products would (so to speak) be monetised and made into money, and would maintain the highest degree of circulating power. branches of the company over all france and a complete public administration were to complete the system, which should have as its object the organisation and centralisation of exchange of products in return for products, according to the formulæ of j. b. say, with as little money as possible, as few intermediaries as possible, with the least possible expense, and for the exclusive benefit of producers and consumers. it hardly need be observed that the rise and prosperity of these institutions must stand or fall by the correctness of the assumption of fixed values and of the monetisation of all products. proudhon's opponents wished to make out, that in view of this knowledge his sudden arrest and imprisonment in saint pélagie, by which he was divested of all responsibility for the liquidation of the company, was not altogether unwished for by him. but this is contradicted by the attempt which was renewed later on to realise the project of the people's bank. we have, indeed, no cause to suspect proudhon's good faith in the matter; on the other hand, the supposed originality of this idea of his is all the more open to suspicion, because in all essential particulars it reminds us too closely of the "labour paper money" of rodbertus that was to be issued by the state after the determination of values, an idea with which proudhon's economics had many points in common. there is a still greater similarity between proudhon's projects and the boards of trade thought of by bray ten years before the beginning of the people's bank; and it is also like john gray's central bank. * * * * * in later years proudhon not only outwardly, owing either to compulsion or prudence, renounced all immediate realisation of his intentions, but even became convinced and expressed his conviction in his work upon the federative principle (_du principe fédératif_, ), that ordered anarchy was an ideal, and as such could never be realised, but that nevertheless human society should strive to attain it by means of federative organisations, as he had sketched it in his earlier writings. even in this period of mental maturity, when removed from political agitation, he remained the sworn enemy and direct opponent of the communists, and wished to see the great problem of the best arrangement of society solved, not by universal levelling down, but by the general perfection and development of society; not by revolution from which he had gained nothing but disgust and disillusionment, but by evolution. "if ideas will rise up," he used to say, "then even the paving stones would rise up themselves if the government were so imprudent as to wait for this." with true prophetic insight proudhon perceived the fact that even in human society revolution is everything; with a clearness of vision such as none before him, and only very few after him, have possessed, he always insisted upon the organic character of human society and the natural continuity between animal and human social life; and in this lies his greatness, which will never be diminished by any of his numerous errors. but while he thus with one foot for the first time trod upon the ground of a new discovery, with the other he stood on the standpoint of social philosophy of previous centuries. he could neither externally nor internally disassociate himself from its baseless assumptions of a social contract, the absolute rights of man, a moral order of the universe, and similar ethical views of politics; and herein lies the contradiction upon which his great mental talents were shipwrecked. if we once regard human society as proudhon did, as something real, the product of nature which is moved and develops itself according to the laws of the rest of nature, then we have once for all given up the right to mark out for it a line of development determined merely by speculation, or to demand from it that it should move towards any particular goal, however well-intentioned it may be. a breeder may produce in his pigeons or fowls a certain kind of feather or a certain form of pouting, but he cannot change the pigeon into a hen. the artificial selection of breeding is all that man can do (_pour corriger la nature_) against the free progress of natural development. this is not so insignificant as one may be inclined to believe at the first glance. the latter belongs to the category of ovid's _metamorphoses_, and of that utopian social philosophy which began with plato, and in all human probability will not end for a long time. proudhon wished to unite both, one with another,--to unite water with fire. like all utopians, he desired--he who all his life, in his numerous writings, so frequently confuted and sneered at them--that the human race might be metamorphosed in order to accept unanimously his ideas about society. for that the men of his day were not fit for a true democracy--that is, for anarchy--he was honest enough to admit. "nothing is in reality less democratic than the people," said he, occasionally, and he did not allow himself the least delusion as regards their slavish love for authority. for that very reason, he thought democracy must be changed into "demopædy," and a complete revolution of a popular spirit must be caused by education. but to prove that, even with the help of democracy, people would not be ripe for pure democracy, or, rightly speaking, for anarchy, we can quote an authority which he never doubted, namely, himself. in an access of pessimism, he said once, "i have thought i have noticed (may philosophy pardon me for it!) that the more reason develops in us the more brutal becomes passion when once it is let loose. it appears then that the angel and the biped brute which together compose our human nature in their intimate union, instead of mingling their attributes, only live side by side with one another. if progress leads us to that, of what use is it?" this is a bad look-out for the great moral revolution upon which proudhon more and more based all his hopes. proudhon has had the most varied judgment passed upon him. some have treated him as an obscure pamphlet writer. louis blanc calls him a prizefighter; laveleye, in a history of socialism, only considers him worth mentioning in order to call his ideas "the dreams of a raving idiot"; karl marx denies him either talent or knowledge; many have considered him as a jesuitical hypocrite; others, again, his followers and representatives, have called him the greatest man of the century. ludwig pfau called him the clearest thinker that france had produced since descartes. but the spectacle is by no means new. in reality, but little courage and wit are to-day needed to acquire the applause of an ignorant multitude which has no idea of proudhon's train of thought by the condemnation of the father of anarchism. "justice must be done to all, even to louis napoleon," exclaimed proudhon, to the great astonishment _orbis et urbis_ after the _coup d'état_; and not to take a lower standard than the father of anarchism, we exclaim also, "justice must be done to all, even to proudhon." the most usual reproach which is cast against proudhon is that he is contradictory and confused. this reproof is generally made by people who know no more about proudhon than the paradox "property is theft," and from this one expression call him confused and contradictory. proudhon saw very clearly the end before his eyes, strove to attain it unfalteringly and steadily, and amid all the variety of the developments in which he preached his ideas to the world for a quarter of a century, never betrayed one iota of its contents. the contradiction from which his work suffered lay deeper. it lay in the form of his thought, and partly in the period to which he belonged. placed on the boundary line between two epochs of social science and of social forms, one of which is marked by dogma and the other by induction, he had not the strength to break completely with one or give himself up completely to the other. his whole life and thought was a constant fight against dogma in every form. he fought against social utopianism as against religious dogmatism, and fought against the dogmatism of property as against political authority; he sought to transform socialism upon severely scientific and realistic lines, and to free it from all the fetters of dogmatic religion; and yet, just as rousseau did, he placed at the head of his system a dogma: "man is born free"; and at the conclusion of it the teleological phrase of a moral order of society--two propositions which can never be proved by experience, but rather contradict all experience. in the same way this internal contradiction is shown in the principal work of his last period, the _justice dans le révolution et dans l'Église_, in which proudhon endeavours to show these two separate worlds in their marked difference one from another without suspecting that he himself fluctuated between both. after he, as a logical idealist, had denied all external force and all authority, and nevertheless as a realist had supported society as the unalterable condition of human life and civilisation, he seeks at the same time to save anarchy and society by a new bond between individuals who have been set free and find this in some internal necessity and internal authority, in a principle which acts upon the will like a force, and determines it in the direction of the general interest independently of all consideration of self-interest. and so the man, who had put away from himself everything of an absolute and _a priori_ nature because he declared a purely empirical foundation of social science to be the source of all immorality, arrived at the assumption of an innate, immanent justice as the first principle of society which he, with the arbitrariness of a catechism writer, declared to be "the first and most essential of our faculties; a sovereign faculty which, by that very fact, is the most difficult to know, the faculty of feeling and affirming our dignity, and consequently of wishing it and defending it as well in the person of others as in our own person." as proudhon, in spite of the fact that he was always opposing utopianism, nevertheless fell into the chief error of the utopians, so, too, finally he shared the destiny of auguste comte, upon whom during his life he had rather looked down. both had started with a sworn antagonism to every speculative foundation of social philosophy, and both finally adopted a _deus ex machina_ in order to preserve the world that was falling into individual pieces before them from a complete atomisation. with comte it is called "love," with proudhon "justice." the distinction between the two is somewhat childish. both perceived the standpoint of evolution, the mechanical conception which overcomes all deviations, without assigning to it the part which it deserves. one may safely say that if proudhon had been brought into connection with the doctrine of evolution, he would have been one of the leading sociologists. he had an infinitely keen sense of the most secret motions of the social soul, but he believed that he might not approach it lovingly in its nudity of nature, and therefore degraded it to a platonic idea, after having affirmed its utmost reality. this was an action like that of kronos, the curse of which never departed from his thought. to this was added a very scanty and transitory acquaintance with political economy which allowed the practicability of his ideas to appear to him in the easiest light, but which, when he was opposed to one so thoroughly acquainted with it as karl marx, placed him in the most piteous position. one of the commonest reproaches which is made against proudhon, and which is partly a personal one, refers to his attitude towards napoleon iii. in the little political catechism which is found in his _justice_, proudhon answered the question "whether anarchy can be united with the dynastic principle," in the following way: "it is clear that france till now was not of opinion that freedom and dynasty were incompatible ideas. when the old monarchy called together the states general it kindled the revolution. the constitution of and those of and , proved the desire of the country to reconcile a monarchical principle with the democracy. the popularity of the first empire was one argument more for the possibility of this supposition; the people believed they found in it all their preconceived ideas, and apparently surrender was reconciled with progress. thus men satisfied their habits of subjection under a lordship, and their need for unity; they exercised the danger of a president dictator or an oligarchy. when in lafayette defined the new order of affairs as 'a monarchy surrounded by republican arrangements,' he perceived the identity of the political and economic order. while the true republic consists in the equilibrium of forces and efforts, people pleased themselves by seeing a new dynasty hold the balance and guaranteeing justice. and finally, this theory is confirmed by the example of england (although equality is unknown there), and by the new constitutional states. no doubt the union of the dynastic principle with that of freedom and equality in france has not produced the fruits that were expected from it, but that was the fault of governmental fatalism; the mistake was made just as much by the princes as by the people. although dynastic parties since have shown themselves by no means friendly to revolution, the force of circumstances will again bring them to it, and as france at all stages of her fortunes has always liked to give herself a ruler and to manifest her unity by a symbol, so it would be exaggeration to deny even now the possibility of a restoration of the dynasty. we have heard republicans say, 'he will be my master who shall wear the purple robe of equality,' and those who speak thus form neither the smallest nor the least intelligent portion; but it is also true that they did not wish for a dictatorship. at any rate, one must admit that there are no symptoms of a restoration in the near future. and what makes us suppose that the dynastic principle is, at least, under a cloud, is the fact that the pretenders and their advisers have no heart for the affair. 'after you, gentlemen,' they appear to say to the democrats. but after the democracy there will not remain much for a dynasty to pick up, or the economic equilibrium would be false. _non datur regnum aut imperium in oeconomiæ._" this certainly reasonable and moderate point of view, which proceeds from the perception that in an organic society the caprice of one individual cannot possibly stop or disturb the course of the social function, and that king or emperor accordingly could at most be a symbol, is also at the bottom of the book on social revolution. in the _coup d'état_ of the d of december, proudhon only saw a stage of the great social revolution, the manifestation of the will of the people, striving in the direction of social equalisation; although perhaps mistakenly, and challenged louis napoleon, whose _coup d'état_ he had prophesied, condemned, and sought to prevent, to show himself worthy of public opinion, and to use the mandate given him by destiny and by the french people in the sense that it was entrusted to him.[ ] proudhon probably did not believe, when he was writing the _sociale révolution_, by any means too much in the willingness of napoleon to take upon himself such a mission as he assigned to him. the language of the book is in any case very reserved, and there is no trace of the apotheosis of the author of the _coup d'état_. [ ] it must not be forgotten that the people expected in louis napoleon "the social emperor," and that he had in earlier times played upon this expectation. compare his work on _the abolition of pauperism_, german translation by r. v. richard. leipsic, . volume ii. nevertheless some have wished to represent this as proudhon's intention; his early release from the prison in which the little book was written as the immediate effect, and as being the thanks of the emperor, thus representing proudhon as a mercenary time-server. but this is not in accordance with the facts. proudhon remained in his imprisonment almost till the very last day of his sentence, and the attitude of the authorities towards his writings afterwards does not seem to show that any relationship, even a secret one, existed between proudhon and napoleon. proudhon might write what he liked, it was confiscated; in vain he applied for permission to be allowed to issue his paper, _justice_; a book which no longer showed the violence of his youth brought him three more years' imprisonment again, which he only escaped by a rapid flight to belgium, and in the general amnesty of the year he was specially excepted from its conditions. when the emperor in , as a special favour, granted him permission to return home before the proper time, proudhon proudly refused this favour, much as he wished to be in paris, and only returned there at the expiration of the three years' period, at the end of . these, at least, are no proofs that the author of _what is property?_ allowed himself to be brought over by the man on the d december. but proudhon was not to breathe the air of his native land much longer. broken by the troubles of persecution, he died, after a long illness, on the th june, , in the arms of his wife, who, like himself, belonged to the working classes, and with whom he had led a life full of harmony and love. chapter iii max stirner and the german followers of proudhon germany in - and france -- stirner and proudhon -- biography of stirner -- _the individual and his property_ (_der einzige und sein eigenthum_) -- the union of egoists -- the philosophic contradiction of the _einziger_ -- stirner's practical error -- julius faucher -- moses hess -- karl grün -- wilhelm marr. in the first half of the forties, almost about the same time, but completely independent one from another, there appeared, on each side of the rhine, two men who preached a new revolution in a manner totally different from the ordinary revolutionist, and one from which at that time even the most courageous hearts and firmest minds shrank back. both were followers of the "royal prussian court philosopher" hegel, and yet took an entirely different direction one from the other: but both met again at the end of their journey in their unanimous renunciation of all political and economic doctrines hitherto held; in their thorough opposition to every existing and imagined organisation of society upon whatever compulsion of right it might be founded; and in their desire for free organisation upon the simple foundation of rules made by convention or agreement--in their common desire for anarchy. the contemporaneous appearance of proudhon and stirner is of as much importance as their, in many ways, fundamental difference. the first circumstance shows their appearance was symptomatic, and raises it above any supposed or probable outcome of chance; stirner and proudhon support each other mutually with all their independence, and with all their difference one from another. as to this, it cannot be denied that it is to be traced, first and foremost, to the totally different environment in which the two authors grew up. ludwig pfau, in a talented essay, has sought to derive the literary peculiarities of proudhon from the gallic character and from his french _milieu_. but even besides the purely literary aspect, proudhon shows all the gifts and all the weaknesses of his people and of his time; he shares with all frenchmen their small inclination to real criticism, but also their faculty of never separating themselves from the stream of practical life; and thus, before everything, we perceive in proudhon's earlier works a strong tendency towards the part of an agitator. l. pfau asserts that it is a specific peculiarity of the french nation, with all their notorious sentiment for freedom, "to discipline their own reluctant personality, and subject it to the common interest"; and therein lies, perhaps, the reason why proudhon, although an enthusiastic advocate of personal freedom, never wished this to be driven to the point of the disintegration of collective unity and to the sacrifice of the idea of society. stirner is the german thinker who is carried away by the unchecked flow of his thoughts far from the path of the actual life into a misty region of "cloud-cuckoo-land," where he actually remains as the "only individual," because no one can follow him. there is no trace in stirner's book of any intention of being an agitator. as far as political parties are mentioned in it, they do appear as such, but merely as corollaries of certain tendencies of philosophic thought. stirner keeps himself even anxiously apart from politics, and a certain dislike to them is unmistakable in him. all parties have in his eyes only this in common, that they all strive to actualise conceptions and ideas which lie beyond them, whether these be called god, state, or humanity. stirner stands in the same relation to the philosophic tendencies of his own and earlier times. he sees them all run into the great ocean of generality the absolute, nothingness. the distinction between saint augustine and l. feuerbach is for him purely a superficial and not an essential one; for the "man" of the latter is as foreign to him as the "god" of the former. and so stirner carries his disinclination to politics, as being inimical to the philosophy of his time, almost to disgust, being herein a genuine son of his country and of his period. upon the philosophic exaltation and the speculative "foundation period" of the beginning of the century there had followed a severe depression; to the over-eager expectations which had been placed in philosophy there followed just as severe a disappointment; to the metaphysical orgy there followed a moral headache, which might be designated not inaptly by the motto which schopenhauer gave in mockery to feuerbach's philosophy, so well suited to his time-- "edite, bibite, collegiales! post multa sæcula pocula nulla." the political attitude of the forties was very much the same. the national enthusiasm, the wars of freedom, and the sanguine hopes which had attended the downfall of the corsican, had, like the expectations aroused by the revolutionists of the days of july, ended in miserable disaster. the touching confidence which a nation, all too naïve in politics, had placed in its princes had been shamefully deceived and abused. all dreams of union and freedom seemed to be extinguished for a long time, and the flunkeyism which was unfortunately only too rampant in the nation, ran riot, while frank souls stood aside in disgust. the more eager the spiritual enthusiasm had been on the threshold of two centuries, the deeper now did apathy weigh upon men's spirits in the period of the forties. the fuller men's souls had been of surging and stormy ideals, and wishings and vague longings of all kinds, the emptier did they now become, and not only stirner could with justice give to his "only individual" the motto, "i have placed my all on nothing," but it was the motto of all germany at that time. and yet in one thing stirner is the type of his people as contrasted with proudhon. he is the most complete example of the german who lacks that proud self-sacrificing view of the life of the community, that feeling of the inseparability of the individual from the mass of his people--which is the token of the french,--but who at all times has suffered from a separatism that destroys everything. he is the typical representative of that nation to whom its best sons have denied the capacity of being a nation, but which has therefore been able to produce more striking individualities than all other civilised nations of the time. * * * * * caspar schmidt--for this is stirner's real name[ ]--was born at baireuth on the th october, , and, like strauss, feuerbach, bruno bauer, and other thinkers of the same kind, devoted his time to theological and philosophic studies. after completing these, he took the modest position of a teacher in a high school, and in a girls' school in berlin. in there appeared, under the pseudonym "max stirner," a book called _the individual_ _and his property_, with the dedication which, under these circumstances, is touching: "to my darling, marie döhnhardt." the book appeared like a meteor; it caused for a short time a great deal of talk, and then sank into oblivion for ten years, till the growing stream of anarchist thought again came back to it in more recent times. a _history of the reaction_, written after the year , is esteemed as a good piece of historical work; and, besides this, caspar schmidt also produced translations of say, adam smith, and other english economists. on the th of june, , he ended his life, poor in external circumstances, rich in want and bitterness. that is all that we know of the personality of the man who has raised the idea of personality to a titanic growth that has oppressed the world. [ ] stirner's chief work, _the individual and his property_ (_der einzige und sein eigenthum_, leipsic, ), has been reprinted by p. reclam, at leipsic, with a good introduction by paul lauterbach. the literature about stirner is almost exclusively confined to a few scattered remarks in larger works, which are not always very appropriate. j. h. mackay is said to be working at a biography of stirner. the monograph by robert schellwien, _max stirner und friedrich nietzsche_ (leipsic, ), is quite worthless for our purpose. stirner proceeds from the fact, the validity of which we have placed in the right light at the beginning of this book, that the development of mankind and of human society has hitherto proceeded in a decidedly individualistic direction, and has consisted predominantly in the gradual emancipation of the individual from his subjection to general ideas and their corresponding correlatives in actual life, in the return of the ego to itself. starting from the school of fichte and hegel, he pursued this special individualistic tendency till close upon the limits of caricature; he formally founded a cultus of the ego, all the while being anxious that it should not return again to the region of metaphysical soap-bubbles, and leave its psychological and practical sphere. on the contrary, stirner appears to be rather inclined to positivism, and to consider the details of life and of perception as real, and as the only ones whose existence is justified. all that is comprehensible and general is secondary, a product of the individual, the subject turned into an object, a creation that is looked upon and honoured by the creator as the only actual reality, the highest end--indeed, as something sacred. in the origin of this generalisation, as well as in emancipation from it, stirner perceives the course of progressive culture. the ancients only got so far as generalisations of the lower order; they lived in the feeling that the world and worldly relationships (for example, the natural bond of blood) were the only true things before which their powerless self must bow down. man, in the view of life taken by the ancient world, lived entirely in the region of perception, and therefore all his general ideas, even the highest type of them, not excluding plato's, retained a strongly sensuous character. christianity only went a step higher with its generalisations out of the region of the senses; ideas became more spiritual and less corporeal in proportion as they became more general. antiquity sought the true pleasure of life, enjoyment of life; christianity sought the true life; antiquity sought complete sensuousness, christianity complete morality and spirituality; the first a happy life here, the latter a happy life hereafter; antiquity postulated as the highest moral basis, the state, the laws of the world; christianity postulated god, imperishable, everlasting law. the ancient world did not get beyond the rule of formal reason, the sophists; christianity put the heart in the place of reason, and cultivation of sentiment in that of one-sided cultivation of the intellect. nevertheless, this is, according to stirner (as has already been mentioned), the same process, the objectivisation of the self, which comes out of itself, and considers itself as some foreign body striving upwards--unconscious self-deification. even in the reformation stirner recognises nothing more than the continuation of the same process. up to the time of the period preceding the reformation, reason, that was condemned as heathenish, lay under the dominion of dogma; shortly before the reformation, however, it was said, "if only the heart remains christianly minded, reason may after all have its way." but the reformation at last places the heart in a more serious position, and since then hearts have become visibly less christian. when men began with luther "to take the matter to heart," this step of the reformation led to the heart being lightened from the heavy burden of christianity. the heart becomes from day to day less christian; it loses the contents with which it occupies itself, until at last nothing remains to it but empty "heartiness," general love of man, the love of humanity, the consciousness of freedom. it need hardly be mentioned that this view of history is quite arbitrary and distorted. who requires to be told that the reformation was, perhaps, the greatest historical act in favour of the individual, because it freed him from the most powerful of all authorities, from the omnipotence of the roman dogma? with the reformation the conscious movement for freedom received its first great impulse. but stirner places the reverence of the ancients for the state, the reverence of the christian for god, and of modern times for humanity and freedom, all upon the same level,--they all seem to him ghosts, spectres, possession by spirits and hauntings,--and he seeks to establish the same conclusion as regards the ideas of truth, right, morality, property, and love,--the so-called sacred foundations of human society. they are all ghost-imaginations of our own mind, creations of our own ego, before which the creator of them bows in the impotence of ignorance, considering them as something unalterable, eternal, and sacred, to which every activity of the creative idea is placed in contrast as egoism. "men have got something into their heads which they think ought to be actualised. they have ideas of love, goodness, and so on, which they would like to see realised; and therefore they wish for a kingdom of love upon earth in which no one acts out of self-interest, but everyone from love. love shall rule. but what they have placed in their heads, how can it be called other than 'a fixed idea' (_idée fixe_)? their heads are haunted by spectres. the most persistently haunting spectre is man himself. remember the proverb, 'the way to ruin is paved with good intentions.' the proposal to actualise humanity in itself, to become wholly human, is of just the same disastrous character, and to it belong the intentions of becoming good, noble, loving, and so forth." the dominion of the idea, whether it is religious or humanitarian or moral, is for stirner mere priest-craft; philanthropy is merely a heavenly, spiritual, but priest-imagined love. man must be restored, and in doing so we poor wretches have ruined ourselves. it is the same ecclesiastic principle as that celebrated motto, _fiat justitia, pereat mundus_; humanity and justice are ideas and ghosts to which everything is sacrificed. the enthusiast for humanity leaves out of consideration persons as far as his enthusiasm extends, and walks in a vague ideal of sacred interest. humanity is not a person but an ideal--an imagination. all progress of public opinion or emancipation of the human mind, as hitherto proceeding, is accordingly for stirner worthless labour, a mere scene-shifting. as christianity not only did not free mankind from the power of ancient spectres, but rather strengthened and increased them, so too the reformation did not remove the chains of mankind a hair's-breadth. "because protestantism broke down the medieval hierarchy, the opinion gained ground that hierarchy in general had been broken down by it, while it was quite overlooked that the reformation was even a restoration of a worn-out hierarchy. the hierarchy of the middle ages had been only a feeble one, since it had to allow all possible barbarity to persons to go on unchecked with it, and the reformation first steeled the strength of the hierarchy. when bruno bauer said: 'as the reformation was principally the abstract separation of the religious principle from art, government, and science, and thus was its liberation from those powers with which it had been connected in the antiquity of the church and in the hierarchy of the middle ages, so also the theological and ecclesiastical movements that proceeded from the reformation were only the logical carrying out of this abstraction or separation of the religious principle from other powers of humanity';--and so i see on the contrary that which is right, and think that rule of the mind or mental freedom (which comes to the same thing) has never been before so comprehensive and powerful as at the present time, because now, instead of separating the religious principle from art, government, and science, it is rather raised entirely from the kingdom of this world into the realm of the spirit and made religious." from the same point of view he considers the whole of the mental attitude introduced by the reformation. "how can one," he says, "maintain of modern philosophy and of the modern period that they have accomplished freedom when it has not freed us from the power of objectivity? or am i free from despots when i no longer fear a personal tyrant, but am afraid of every outrage upon the loyalty which i owe to him?" this is just the case in the modern period. it only changes existing objects, the actual ruler and so on, to an imagined one, that is, into ideas for which the old respect not only has not been lost but has increased in intensity. if a piece was taken off the idea of god and the devil in their former gross realism, nevertheless only so much the more attention has been devoted to our conceptions of them. "they are free from devils, but evil has remained." to revolutionise the existing state, to upset the existing laws, was once thought little of, when it had once been determined to allow oneself to be no longer imposed upon by what was tangible and existing; but to sin against the conception of the state and not to submit to the conception of law--who has ventured to do that? so men remained "citizens" and "law-abiding, loyal men"; indeed, men thought themselves all the more law-abiding in proportion as they more rationalistically did away with the previous faulty law in order to do homage to the spirit of law. in all this it is only the objects that have changed but which have remained in their supremacy and authority; in short, men still followed obedience, lived in reflection, and had an object upon which they reflected, which they respected, and for which they felt awe and fear. men have done nothing else but changed things into ideas of things, into thoughts and conceptions, and thus their dependence became all the more innate and irrevocable. it is, for example, not difficult to emancipate oneself from the commands of one's parents, or to pay no heed to the warnings of an uncle or an aunt, or to refuse the request of a brother or a sister; but the obedience thus given up lies easily upon one's conscience, and the less one gives way to individual sentiments, because one recognises them from a rational point of view, and from our own reason to be unreasonable, the more firmly does one cleave conscientiously to piety and family love, and with greater difficulty does one forgive an offence against the idea which one has conceived of family love and the duty of piety. released from our dependence upon the existing family life, we fall into the more binding submission to the idea of the family; we are governed by family spirit. and the family, thus raised up to an idea or conception, is now regarded as something "sacred," and its despotism is ten times worse, because its power lies in my conscience. this despotism is only broken when even the ideal conception of the family becomes nothing to me. and as it is with the family, so it is with morality. many people free themselves from customs, but with difficulty do they get free from the idea of morality. morality is the "idea" of custom, its spiritual power, its power over the conscience; on the other hand, custom is something too material to have power over the spirit, and does not fetter a man who is independent, a "free spirit." humanity strives for independence, and strives to overcome everything which is not a self, says stirner; but how does this agree with the above-mentioned spread of the power of the mental conception and of the idea? to-day mankind is less free than before; so-called liberalism only brings other conceptions forward; that is, instead of the divine, the human; instead of ecclesiastical ideas, those of the state; instead of those of faith, those of science; or general statements, instead of the rough phrases and dogmas, actual ideas and everlasting laws. in the movement for emancipation in modern times stirner distinguishes three different varieties, the political, social, and humanitarian liberalism. political liberalism, according to stirner, culminates in the thought that the state is all in all, and is the true conception of humanity; and that the rights of man for the individual consist in being the citizen of the state. political liberalism did away with the inequality of rights of feudal times, and broke the chains of servitude which at that period one man had forced upon another, the privilege upon him who was less privileged. it did away with all special interests and privileges, but it by no means created freedom; it only made one independent of the other, but yet made all the most absolute slaves to the state. it gave all power of right to the state, the individual only becomes something as a citizen, and only has those rights which the state gives him. political liberalism, says stirner, created a few people, but not one free individual. absolute monarchy only changed its name, being known formerly as "king," now as "people," "state," or "nation." "political freedom says that the _polis_, the state, is free; and religious freedom says that religion is free, just as freedom of conscience means that the conscience is free; but not that i am free from the state, from religion, or from conscience. it does not mean my freedom, but the freedom of some power which governs and compels me; it means that one of my masters, such as state, religion, or conscience, is free. state, religion, and conscience, these despots make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery." "if the principle is that only facts shall rule mankind, namely, the fact of morality or of legality, and so on, then no personal limitations of one individual by the other can be authorised--that is, there must be free competition. only by actual fact can one person injure another, as the rich may injure the poor by money--that is, by a fact, but not as a person. there is henceforth only one authority, the authority of the state; personally no one is any longer lord over another. but to the state, all its children stand exactly in the same position; they possess 'civic or political equality,' and how they get on one with another is their own affair; they must compete. free competition means nothing else than that everyone may stand up against someone else, make himself felt, and fight against him." at this point (wherein stirner by no means recognises immediate or economic individualism) social liberalism--that which we to-day call social democracy or communal socialism--separates from the political. with a cleverness which we cannot sufficiently admire, stirner proceeds to show that these directions which are so totally opposed are essentially the same, and regards the latter merely as the logical outcome from the former. "the freedom of man is, in political liberalism, the freedom from persons, from personal rule, from masters; security of any individual person, as regards other persons, is personal freedom. no one can give any commands; the law alone commands. but if persons have become equal, their positions certainly have not. and yet the poor man needs the rich, and the rich man needs the poor; the former needs the money of the rich, the latter the work of the poor. thus no one needs anyone else as a person; but he needs him as a giver, or as one who has something to give, as a proprietor or possessor. thus what he has, that makes a man. and in having or in possession people are unequal. consequently, so social liberalism concludes, no one must possess, just as, according to political liberalism, no one must command--that is, as here the state alone has the power of command, so now society alone has the power of possessing." as in political liberalism, the state is the source of all right; the individual only enjoys so much of it as the state gives him, so the social state, now called society, is also the only master of all possessions, and the individual must only have so much as society lets him share in. "before the highest ruler," says stirner in his rough language, "before the only commander, we all become equal--equal persons, that is, nonentities. before the highest owner of property we all become vagabonds alike. and now one person is, in the estimation of another, a vagabond, a 'havenought,' but then this estimate of each other stops, we are all at once vagabonds, and we can only call the totality of communist society 'a conglomeration of vagabonds.'" that which stirner, finally, under the name of humanitarian liberalism, places side by side with the two tendencies just mentioned has nothing to do, generally speaking, with the political and material relations of mankind, and is the philosophical liberalism of feuerbach, who places freedom of thought in the same position as his predecessors put freedom of the person. "in the human society which humanitarianism promises," says stirner, "nothing can be recognised which any person has as something 'special,' nothing shall have any value which bears the mark of a 'private' individual. in this way the circle of liberalism completes itself, having in humanity its good principle, in the egotist and every 'private' person its evil one; in the former its god, in the latter its devil. if the special or private person lost his value in the state, and if special or private property ceased to be recognised in the community of workers or vagabonds, then in human society everything special or private is left out of consideration, and when pure criticism shall have performed its difficult work, then we shall know what is private, and what one must leave alone in _seines nichts durchbohrendem gefühle_." political liberalism regulated the relations of might and right, social liberalism wishes to regulate those of property and labour, humanitarian liberalism lays down the ethical principles of modern society. * * * * * as may be seen, stirner does not recognise the efforts and endeavours of all these tendencies to which we ascribe the complete transformation of europe in the last century, but, on the contrary, is prepared to perceive in them rather an intensification of the servitude in which the free ego is held. the more spiritual, the more interesting, the more sublime and the more sacred ideas become for men, the greater becomes their respect for them, and the less becomes the freedom of the ego as regards them. but as these ideas are merely creations of man's own spirit,--fiction and unreal forms,--all the so-called progress made by liberalism is regarded by stirner as nothing else than increasing self-delusion and constant retrogression. true progress evidently lies for him only in the complete emancipation of the ego from this dominion of ideas that is in the triumph of egotism. "for individualism (egotism) is the creator of everything, just as already genius [a definite egotism] which is always originality, is regarded as the creator of new historical productions. freedom teaches us: set yourselves free, get rid of everything burdensome; but it does not teach you who you yourselves are. free! free! so sounds its cry, and you eagerly follow it; become free from yourselves, and renounce yourselves. but individualism calls you back to yourselves, and says: 'come to yourself!' under the ægis of freedom you become free from many things, but become subject again to some new thing; you are free from the evil one, but abstract evil still remains. as individuals you are really free from everything, and what clings to you you have accepted. that is your choice and your wish. the individual is the one who is born free, the man who is free by birth. the 'free man,' on the other hand, is he who only looks for freedom, the dreamer, the enthusiast." freedom is only possible together with the power to acquire it and to maintain it; but this power only resides in the individual. "my power is my property; my power gives me property; i am myself my own power, and am thereby my own property." this is, in a nutshell, stirner's positive doctrine. right is power or might. "what you have the power to be, that you have the right to be. i derive all right and justification from myself alone; for i am entitled to everything which i have power to take or to do. i am entitled to overthrow zeus, jehovah or god, if i can; if i can _not_, these gods will always retain their rights and power over me; but i shall stand in awe of their rights and their power in impotent reverence, and shall keep their commands and believe i am doing right in everything that i do, according to their ideas of right, just as a russian frontier sentry considers himself justified in shooting dead a suspicious person who runs away, because he relies upon a 'higher authority,' in other words, commits murder legally. but i am justified in committing a murder by myself, if i do not forbid it to myself, if i am not afraid of murder in the abstract as of 'something wrong.' i am only not justified in what i do not do of my own free will, that is, that which i do not give myself the right to do. i decide whether the right resides in me; for there is some right external to myself. if it is right to me, then it is right. it is possible that others may not regard it as right, but that is their affair, not mine, and they must take their own measures against it. and if something was in the eyes of the whole world not right, and yet seemed right to me, that is, if i wished it, even then i should ask nothing from the world: thus does everyone who knows how to value himself, and each does it to the extent that he is an egotist, for might goes before right, and quite rightly too." all existing right is external to the ego; no one can give me my right, neither god, nor reason, nor nature, nor the state; as to whether i am right or not there is only one judge and that is myself; others at most can pass a judgment and decide whether they support my right and whether it also exists as a right for them. law is the will of the dominating power in a community. every state is a despotism, whether the dominant power belongs to one, to many, or to all. a despotism would remain then, if, for example, in the national assembly the national will, that is to say, the individual wills of each person, really had overwhelmingly expressed itself, including also my own will; if then this wish becomes law i am bound to-morrow by what i wished yesterday, and then i thus become a servant, even though it be only the servant of myself. how can this be changed? "only by my recognising no duty, neither letting myself bind nor be bound. if i have no duty then i also know no law." wrong goes side by side with right, crime with legality. the unfettered ego of stirner is the never-ceasing criminal in the state; for only he who denies his "self," and who practises self-denial is acceptable to the state. and thus with the disappearance of right comes also the disappearance of crime. "the dispute about the right of property is violently waged. the communists maintain that the earth belongs properly to him who cultivates it; and the products of the same to those who produce them. i maintain it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him or let himself be deprived of it; if he appropriates it, not merely the earth but also the right to it belongs to him. this is the egotistical right, that is, it is right for me, and therefore it is right." how far stirner is separated from proudhon is shown most clearly in the question of property. proudhon denied property because it was incompatible with justice. stirner denies justice, and maintains property upon the grounds of the right of occupation. proudhon declared that property was theft, but stirner entirely reverses the phrase, and answers to the question, what is my property?--"nothing but what is in my power." to what property am i entitled?--"to that which i entitle myself." "i give myself the right to property by taking property or by giving myself the power of the proprietor, a full power or title." the theory of occupation or seizure here appears to us in all its brutality. nevertheless, even here stirner is not frightened at the most extreme consequences of this theory, nor at the thought that one would have to defend one's property daily and hourly with a weapon in one's hand; and he is therefore inclined to make some concession to a voluntary form of organisation. "if men reach the point of losing respect for property, each will have property; just as all slaves become freemen as soon as they regard their master no longer as master. union will then multiply the means of the individual, and secure for him the property he has acquired by fighting. in the opinion of the communists the community should be the only proprietor. the converse of this is, i am the proprietor, and merely come to some agreement with others about my property. if the community does not do right by me, i revolt against it, and defend my property. i am an owner of property, but property is not sacred." the regulation of society by itself is accepted by stirner just as little as in the question of property, when it comes to the question of obtaining for the labourers a full reward of their labour. "they must rely upon themselves and ask nothing from the state," he answers. only to a third very difficult question does this thoroughgoing theorist fail in an answer. he declares pauperism to be "lack of value of myself, when i cannot make my value felt; and, therefore, i can only get free from pauperism if i make my value felt as an individual, if i give myself value, and put my own price upon myself. all attempts at making the masses happy, and philanthropic associations arising from the principle of love, must come to grief, for help can only come to the masses through egotism, and this help they must and will procure for themselves. the question of property cannot be solved in such a legal way as the socialists, and even the communists, imagine. it can only be solved by the war of all against all. the poor will only become free and be owners of property by revolting, rising, and raising themselves. however much is given them, they will always wish to have more; for they wish nothing less than that, at last, there shall remain nothing more to give. it will be asked: but what will happen then, when those who have nothing take courage and rise? what kind of equalisation will be made? one might just as well ask me to determine a child's nativity; what a slave will do when he has broken his chains one can only wait and see." step by step stirner departs from proudhon; the latter demands, in order to create his paradise, a balance, the former lays down the principle of natural selection as the highest and only law in social matters. the fight, the struggle for existence, which proudhon strove to recognise in economic life, here enters upon its rights in all its brutality. the realisation of the self is, for stirner, the key to the solution of the problems of work, property, and pauperism. he will have no division of goods, no organisation of labour. for proudhon every piece of work is the result of a collective force, for stirner the most valuable works are those of "individual" artists, savants, and so on, and their value is always to be determined only from the egoist standpoint. to the question whether money should be maintained or done away with among egoists, he answers: "if you know a better medium of exchange, all right; but it will always be 'money.' it is not money that does you harm, but your lack of power to take it. let your power be felt, nerve yourselves, and you will not lack money--_your_ money, the money of your own coining. but working i do not call letting your power be felt. those who only 'seek for work, and are willing to work hard,' prepare for themselves inextinguishable lack of work." what we now-a-days call free competition, stirner refuses to regard as free, since everyone has not the means for competing. "to abolish competition only means to favour members of some craft. the distinction is this: in a craft, such as baking, baking is the business of the members of the craft; under a system of competition it is the business of anyone who likes to compete; but in societies it is the business of those who use what is baked; thus, my or your business, not the business of the members of the craft, nor of the baker who has a concession given him, but of those in the union or society." here for the second time we meet with the idea of a union, without stirner expressing himself exactly about its character. only in one other place does he happen to speak about the ideas of this union. he says the end of society is agreement or union. a society also certainly arises through union, but only in the same way as a fixed idea arises from a thought, namely, by the fact that the energy of the thought, thinking itself the restless absorption of all rising thoughts, disappears from thought. when a union has crystallised itself into a society, it has ceased to be an active union; for the act of union is a ceaseless uniting of individuals, it has become a united existence, has come to a standstill, has degenerated into a fixity; it is dead as a union; it is the corpse of union, and of the act of union; that is, it is a society or community. what is known as "party" is a striking example of this. stirner admits that union cannot exist without freedom, being limited in all manner of ways. but absolute freedom is merely an ideal, a spectre, and the object of the union is not freedom, which it, on the contrary, sacrifices to individualism, but its object is only individualism. "union is my creation, my implement, sacred to me, but has no spiritual power over my mind, and does not make me bow down to it; but i make it bow down to me, and use it for my own purposes. as i may not be a slave of my maxims, but without any guarantee expose them to my own continual criticism, and give no guarantee of their continuance, so, still less, do i pledge myself to the union for my future, or bind my soul to it; but i am and remain to myself more than state or church, and consequently infinitely more than the union." just as we again recognise in this loose and always breakable union (although stirner does not say so) that union whose mission he had declared it to be "to render secure property gained by force," to arrange the relations of production and consumption, and at the same time to create a certain unity of the means of payment; so, too, we have in this "union of egoists," as its author called it, all the constructive thought that stirner's book either can or does contain. for a man who only acknowledges one dimension, and only operates with one, considering everything not contained therein as non-existing, cannot form any of the combinations of which life consists, without coming into hopeless conflict with his principles. this stirner has done, in spite of the vague and imaginary nature of his "union of egoists." as stirner had to acknowledge that this union or society cannot exist without freedom being limited in every way, he declared--since after all he requires union for some things--"absolute freedom" a creature of the imagination, as the opposite to "individuality," which is the main thing. but can it be believed that stirner has set up an "absolute freedom" all of his own making, to place it in contrast with individuality. in other words, freedom is merely the possibility of living one's individuality, of being an "individual" in stirner's sense. freedom is the absence of every outside influence; it may be understood in an exoteric or esoteric sense; and throughout his whole book stirner has done nothing but strip the "ego" from every sign of outside compulsion; he has made it the "only one" by freeing it with relentless logic from everything external. he has depicted this act of liberation as the goal of all culture; and it finally emerges that all this story of the "only ego" is a delusion, for "union" excludes "absolute individuality" as well as "absolute freedom"--because the two are identical. stirner, indeed, only spoke of an "absolute freedom" to represent it as a fiction of the imagination, and on the other hand only of an individuality. now his union does not exclude individuality and freedom, but only absolute individuality. but this last stirner cannot admit, because it also he regards merely as a "spectre," an "obsession," a "fixed idea." but whether he admits it or not, what is stirner's "individual" but an idea, something absolute? stirner had begun with the intention of slaying feuerbach's idea of "man" as a retrograde idealist fallacy, and of creating, like prometheus, a new man, the _unmensch_, in the ego completed into a microcosm, and, as such, complete in itself, separate and independent. but that is, as a matter of fact, not the "no-man" but the superhuman prometheus himself, the idea of man which he attacked in feuerbach. "might," he says in one part of his book, "goes before right, and rightly too." this is exactly the logical scheme of the whole book. away with everything absolute! individuality goes before every idea, just because it is itself the absolute idea of the much-despised hegel. but suppose we do not take into consideration this fundamental contradiction. let us suppose there is none, and that all stirner's other assumptions are indisputable, that god, humanity, society, right, the state, the family are all classed in one category, as were abstractions and creations of my own "ego," what follows? that these ideas, now that they have lost their absolute character, are no longer to be reckoned as factors in the organisation of life? it is so, if one regards only that which is absolute as entitled to exist; but stirner would drive everything absolute from its very last positions. and does it follow further from the circumstance that one of these factors has lost its controlling influence over mankind that all the others, because they too are not absolute, should be denied all practical significance? put in concrete form, the question stands thus: ( ) has the idea of deity lost its practical significance, because it has been divested of its absolute character, and its purely empiric origin has been recognised? and ( ) if the idea of right is no more an absolute one than the idea of deity, does it follow that the influence of right must be placed upon the same plane as the influence of conscience? as to the first point, i am relieved from any answer in view of the thorough treatment of these questions by the light of modern investigation. the second question i prefer to leave to some professional jurist, who knows the nature of law, and at the same time has every intention of doing justice to stirner. dr. rudolf stammler says,[ ] after showing that the necessity of the influence of law for human society cannot be proved _a priori_: "it is the theory of anarchism which must lead us with special force to a train of thought that has never yet appeared in the literature of legal philosophy, although it makes clear, in a manner universally valid, the necessity of legal compulsion in itself and justifies legal organisation. for the antithesis of our present mode of social life, based on law and right, is, as conceived by anarchism as its ideal and goal, the union and ordering of men in freely formed communities, and entirely under rules framed by convention. though the individual anarchist may regard a union of egoists as a postulate, or may desire fraternal communism, yet each must determine for himself his connection with such a community. let him enter freely into the supposed agreement and break it again as seems good to him, it is still the stipulations of the agreement that bind him as long as the agreement exists; an agreement which he must first enter into and can at any time break regardless of conditions by a new expression of his will. from this it is that this kind of organisation, which forms the core of the theory of anarchism, is only possible for such of mankind as are actually qualified and capable of uniting with others in some form of agreement. those who are not capable of acting for themselves, as we jurists say, such as the little child, those who are of unsound mind, incapacitated by illness and old age, all these would be entirely excluded from such an organisation and from all social life. for as soon as, for example, an infant has been taken into this society and subjected to its rules, the compulsion of law would have been again introduced, and authority would have been exercised over a human being without the proper rules for his assent being observed. the anarchist organisation of man's social life therefore fails, inasmuch as it is possible only for certain special persons, qualified empirically, and excludes others who lack these qualifications. i therefore conclude the necessity of legal compulsion, not from the fact that without it the small and weak would fare but badly; for i cannot know this for certain beforehand and as a general rule. nor do i deduce the recognised and justified existence of legal arrangements from the fact that only by these can the 'true' freedom of each individual be attained without the interference of any third person; for that would not be justified by the facts of history, and would certainly not follow from formal legal compulsion in itself. rather, i base the lawfulness of law and the rightness of right, in its formal state, upon the consideration that a legal organisation is the only one open to all human beings without distinction of special fortuitous qualifications. to organise means to unite under rules. such a regulation of human relationships is a means to an end, an instrument serving the pursuit of the final end of the highest possible perfection of man. hence only that regulation of human society can be universally justified which can embrace universally all human beings without reference to their subjective or different peculiarities. law alone can do this. so even under a bad law legal compulsion in itself retains its sound foundation. its existence does not cease to be justified, nor is it even touched, by any chance worthlessness of the concrete law in question: it is firmly founded, because it alone offers the possibility of a universally valid, because universally human, organisation. therefore social progress can only be made by perfecting law as handed down by history, according to its content, and not by abolishing legal compulsion as such." [ ] stammler, _die theorie des anarchismus_, berlin, , p. . these conclusions block the way for the mischievous misapplications of distorted expressions of an exact thinker such as ihering. ihering certainly took away ruthlessly the ideological basis of law, but he never denied or attacked necessity of legal compulsion as stirner did. we might just as well ascribe to darwin the intention of disowning man because he set forth man's natural descent. it is of just as little use to claim that past master of sociology, herbert spencer, in support of stirner's views, because spencer too recognises the purely egoistical origin of law and of social organisation. egoism and anarchism are not so mutually interchangeable as stirner thinks. the question is, first of all, whether egoism after all really finds its account in the "union of egoists." it has been already more than once remarked that here too, as in the case of proudhon, we only have to do, at bottom, with the logical extension of the present order of society that rests on free competition. "make your value felt" is still to-day the highest economic principle; and he whose value, whose individuality consists in knowledge alone without an adequate admixture of worldly wisdom, would probably fare no better in the more perfect anarchist world than the poor schoolmaster caspar schmidt in our _bourgeois_ society, who suffered all the pangs of hunger and greeted death as his redeemer. * * * * * stirner did not form any school of followers in germany in his own time, but julius faucher ( - ) who was known as a publicist and a rabid freetrader, represented his ideas in his newspaper _die abendpost_ (_the evening post_), published in berlin in . this paper was, of course, soon suppressed, and the only apostle of stirner's gospel thereupon left the continent and went to england, to turn to something more practical than anarchism, or (to use stirner's own jargon) to realise his "ego" more advantageously. how strange and anomalous stirner's individualism appeared even to the most advanced radicals of germany in that period appears very clearly from a conversation recorded by max wirth,[ ] which faucher had with the stalwart republican schlöffel, in an inn frequented by the left party in the parliament of frankfort. "schlöffel loved to boast of his radical opinions, just as at that time many men took a pride in being as extreme as possible among the members of the left. he expressed his astonishment that faucher held aloof from the current of politics. 'it is because you are too near the right party for me,' answered faucher, who delighted in astonishing people with paradoxes. schlöffel stroked his long beard proudly, and replied, 'do you say that to _me_?' 'yes,' continued faucher, 'for you are a republican incarnate; you still want a state. now _i_ do not want a state at all, and, consequently, i am a more extreme member of the left than you.' it was the first time schlöffel had heard these paradoxes, and he replied: 'nonsense; who can emancipate us from the state?' 'crime,' was faucher's reply, uttered with an expression of pathos. schlöffel turned away, and left the drinking party without saying a word more. the others broke out laughing at the proud demagogue being thus outdone: but no one seems to have suspected in the words of faucher more than a joke in dialectics." this anecdote is a good example of the way in which stirner's ideas were understood, and shows that faucher was the only individual "individual" among the most radical politicians of that time.[ ] on the other hand, proudhon's doctrines, which in their native france could not find acceptance, gained a few proselytes among the radical democrats, and especially among the communists of switzerland and the rhine. [ ] "zur geschicte des anarchismus," _neue freie press_, th july (no. , ). [ ] it is characteristic that even the german followers of proudhon, as, _e. g._, marr, grün, and others, had a very poor opinion of stirner, and never dreamed of any connection between his views and those of proudhon. moses hess was, among germans, the first to seize hold upon the word "anarchy" fearlessly and spread it abroad. this was in , thus shortly after the appearance of proudhon's sensational book on property, where the word was first definitely adopted as the badge of a party. hess was born at bonn in , and was meant for a merchant's life, but turned his attention to studies picked up later, more especially to hegelian philosophy, and entered upon the career of literature. in the beginning of the forties he propounded in his works on _the philosophy of action_ and _socialism_ a confused programme, in which the communism of weitling was curiously intermingled with the views of proudhon. in he expressed his views in a paper called _the mirror of society_ (_gesellschaftspiegel_), that appeared later in , under the title of _the social conditions of the civilised world_, and represented the extreme views of rhenish socialism. moses hess died in obscurity in . hess went farther than proudhon, in that he differed from proudhon's carefully thought-out and measured organisation of society by demanding, under anarchy, the abolition of the influence, in social, mental, and moral life, not only of the state and the church, but also in like manner of any or all external dominion. all action, he declared, must proceed exclusively from the internal decision of the individual acting upon the external world, and not _vice versa_. action which did not proceed from internal impulse, but from external--whether from external compulsion, necessity, desire for gain, or enjoyment--was "not free," and thus merely "a burden or a vice." this cannot be the case under anarchy, for there every work will bring its own reward in itself. the manner and duration of a man's work will depend entirely on his inclination, thus introducing an individual arbitrary will unknown as yet to proudhon. society will offer to each just as much as he "reasonably" needs for self-development and the satisfaction of his wants. as the means of introducing "anarchism" hess mentions the improvement of the system of education, the introduction of universal suffrage, and--a thing which proudhon always opposed--the erection of national workshops. karl grün, however, was not only in friendly personal relationship with proudhon, but also perfectly imbued with his ideas. born on september , , at ludenscheid, in westphalia, he studied at bonn and berlin, and later became a teacher of german at the college of colmar. later he founded in mannheim the radical newspaper, the _mannheimer zeitung_, and when expelled from baden and bavaria went to cologne, where for some time he continued active as a lecturer and journalist. during the winter of and he had made the acquaintance of proudhon personally in paris, and had inoculated him with hegelian philosophy, and in return brought back proudhon's views with him to germany. the result of this first visit to paris was the work entitled, _the social movement in france and belgium_,[ ] one of the most important works on advanced socialism in germany, which made known the socialist views of frenchmen, and especially of proudhon, to the german public in an attractive form. in grün made another stay in paris. returning thence to germany, he was elected a member of the prussian national assembly; then, being arrested for alleged complicity in the palatinate rising, was at length acquitted after eight months' imprisonment. he then lived in belgium and italy, engaged actively in literary work; later on became a teacher at the school of commerce in frankfort, visited the rhine towns on a lecturing tour from to ' , and migrated in to vienna, where he resided till his death in . [ ] grün wrote many works on literature and the history of art, and also _louis napoleon bonaparte, the sphinx on the french throne_ ( d ed., ); _france before the judgment seat of europe_ ( ); italy ( ), etc. grün goes farther than his master proudhon, and, like hess, sowed the seed of the communist anarchy which has only attained its full growth as a doctrine in quite recent years. in this he totally rejected the principle of reward or wages maintained by proudhon. "proudhon never got beyond this obstacle," he says; "he anticipates it, seeks it, he would like it, he introduces it: the farther association extends, the greater the number of workmen, the less becomes the work of each, the more distinction between them disappears. that is a mathematical proceeding, not social or human. what distinction is to disappear? the distinction among producers is to become progressively smaller. the natural distinction of capacity which society abolishes by the social equality of wages. preach the social freedom of consumption, and then you have at once the true freedom of production. reverse the case: are you so anxious about lack of production? recent progress in science may assure you. perhaps children up to fifteen years of age would be able to perform all necessary household duties as mere guides of machineryeven in holiday attire, as a game of play! everyone is paid according to what he produces, and the production of each is limited by the right of all. but no! no limitation! let us have no right of all against the right of the individual. on the contrary, the consumption of each is guaranteed by the consumption of all. the production of one is not paid for by the product of another, but each pays out of the common product."[ ] we shall meet with the same ideas in kropotkin, only more definite. [ ] die sociale bewegung, p. . darmstadt, . proudhon found an ardent disciple in wilhelm marr, who at that time stood at the head of the german democratic union of manual workmen of "young germany" in switzerland. born on may , , at magdeburg, marr was originally intended for a merchant's calling, but after his stay in switzerland ( ) gave it up entirely, and turned his attention to a political and literary career. at first, attracted by weitling's communism, he later on came into decided opposition to it from his accentuation of the individualist standpoint, which he, as an ardent follower of feuerbach, pursued according to proudhon's rather than stirner's views. in conjunction with a certain hermann döleke, marr endeavoured to instil these views into the above-mentioned swiss workmen's unions. his programme was quite of a negative character; as he himself describes it: "the abolition of all prevailing ideas of religion, state, and society was the aim, which we followed with a full knowledge of its logical consequences." döleke called it the "theory of no consolation"[ ] (_trostlosigkeits-theorie_). in december, , marr published a journal in lausanne called _pages of the present for social life (blätter der gegenwart für sociales leben)_, to promote the literary acceptance of this theory. "with remorseless logic," says marr himself (_das junge deutschland_, p. ) "we attacked not only existing institutions in state and church, but state and church themselves in general; and as a first attempt, which we in the second number made in the shape of an article upon the tschech outrage, produced no ill consequences for us, our audacity grew to such a pitch that döleke often preached atheism, and the word 'atheism' was to be seen at the head of his articles. i did the same in the department of social criticism, while, following the example of proudhon, i put before my readers at the very beginning the final consequences of my argument." for a time the government did not interfere with marr's propaganda, but in july, , it stopped the publication of his journal, and marr was soon after expelled from the country. this was the end of the results of his propaganda in switzerland; for in the popular reflex of marr's doctrines we can hardly find more than the radicalism of german democrats, as preached by börne, coloured by a few traces of proudhon's teaching. this shade of opinion was then quite modern; we recognise it in alfred meisener, ludwig pfau, and the vienna group, even in börne, who died in the forties; the doctrine was part of the spirit of the age, and did not need to be derived from proudhon. [ ] wilhem marr, _das junge deutschland in der schweiz_, p. . leipsic, . wilhelm marr, after many and various political metamorphoses, took sides with the anti-semites, and acquired the unenviable reputation of being one of the literary fathers of this questionable movement. recently he has again abandoned this movement, and living embittered in retirement in hamburg, has once more devoted the flabby sympathies of his old age to the anarchist ideals of his youth. marr forms the link between the pure theory of anarchism and active anarchist agitation, between the older generation who laid down the principles and the modern anarchists. the acute reaction following upon the years and ' extinguished the scanty growth that had sprung from the seed sown by proudhon and stirner. only when in the sixties, with the reviving social-democratic movement there naturally arose also its opposite, the "anti-authoritative socialism," did men proceed to complete the work begun by proudhon and stirner. recent proceedings in this direction have, however, not only not added any essential feature to the theory of anarchism, but rather have obscured the former sharp outlines of its ideas, and introduced into its theory elements which are really quite foreign and contradictory to it, and have prevented that peaceful discussion of it which might be advantageous to all parties. this distinction between the older and the more modern theorists of anarchism is most clearly marked in bakunin with his introduction of "russian influence"; with bakunin begins the theory of active agitation. part ii modern anarchism chapter iv russian influences the earliest signs of anarchist views in russia in -- the political, economic, mental, and social circumstances of anarchism in russia -- michael bakunin -- biography -- bakunin's anarchism -- its philosophic foundations -- bakunin's economic programme -- his views as to the practicability of his plans -- sergei netschajew -- the revolutionary catechism -- the propaganda of action -- paul brousse. "l'Église et l'État sont mes deux bêtes noires."--bakunin. in russia traces of anarchist views are found as far back as the stormy period of - . the extent of poverty, both mental and material, in the vast dominion of the czar caused the russian people to be less ready to accept and propagate political ideals of freedom than to comprehend the socialist doctrines that were then first springing up in western europe. the great movement that seized upon and shook all central and western europe died down in russia to a few isolated centres of life, and was felt chiefly in secret debating societies which eagerly received and disseminated the writings of considerant, fourier, saint-simon, blanc, and proudhon. the reading of proudhon's works was even undertaken as a duty by the most important of these societies, the so-called "association of petraschewski." the extent to which his teaching impressed the thoughtful members of this society, which included among others dostojewski, cannot easily be determined, since the companions of petraschewski, like the nihilists of to-day, have always liked to preserve a certain electicism. however, one trace of the influence of proudhon's doctrines upon its members is distinctly visible. thus, an associate, lieutenant palma of the guards, had designed a book of laws, in which we are surprised to meet the following passage, quite in the anarchist vein: "the chief distinctive feature of man is that he is a being endowed with a personality, _i. e._, with reason and freedom, which is an end in itself, and ought not under any circumstances to be regarded as a means or end for others. from the idea of personality is derived the idea of right. i may do everything that i please, because each of my actions is the result of my reason." petraschewski himself, in a satirical _dictionary_ which he published under the pseudonym of kirilow, praised as one of the merits of early christianity the abolition of private property and so on. we can easily recognise here the elements of proudhon's and stirner's anarchism. in spite of the severe prohibitive system that came in force after , the teachings of english and french socialists penetrated into russia even in this period, and were disseminated by such eminent men as tschernichevsky, dobrolinbow, herzen, ogarjow, and others, to wider circles, and again we see that interest is chiefly taken in proudhon's doctrines. these found their way deep into the heart of the masses, even to the peasants. it must not be forgotten that to the russian peasants, with their already existing collectivist village communities, proudhon's ideas were far more easy to understand than an educated frenchman or german found them. there is probably no country in the world where the principles of "federative socialism," as taught by proudhon and later by bakunin, were better understood than in russia, and bakunin even denied the necessity of a socialist propaganda among russian peasants, because he said that they already possessed a knowledge of its elements. the broad, subterranean stream of nihilism, which, swelling from these small beginnings to a dread power and strength, has undermined both feet of the colossus of the russian empire, disappears here from our view. we can only notice individual men who, separated from the main body of the movement, made ready the path of revolution in their native land while living as voluntary or involuntary exiles in western europe. it may appear superfluous to remark upon the important _rôle_ played by russians on the revolutionary committees of every country. and in no revolutionary movement have they gained such a disastrous influence or played such a leading part as in anarchism. when, in the sixties, socialism, with its organisation of the working-class movement, grew up side by side with the revival of political liberalism, then, too, by a natural law, arose the extreme form of protest against the aggregation of human society by communism; the anarchist doctrine naturally rose up from the complete oblivion in which it had lain for ten years. but modern anarchism celebrated its renascence in a totally different form: times and men had changed; the philosophic period was passed, stirner was dead, and proudhon near his end; russian godfathers stood round the cradle of modern anarchism. men of lofty idealism, who, impregnated with western culture, with bold violence, wished to anticipate by several ages the natural development of mankind, have given up to anarchy, as the empire of perfect and free personality, their whole heart and mind. but those who gave to this doctrine--justified to some extent, like every other one-sided view, in spite of all its extravagance, contradictions, and inherent impossibility--the sanction of the dagger, the revolver, petroleum, and dynamite, were neither frenchmen nor germans, but the half-civilised barbarians of the east. the older form of anarchism is marked by that lofty idealism which was the general mental attitude of civilised western europe in the first half of this century. the modern anarchism of bakunin, netschajew, kropotkin, and others, is branded by the semi-civilised culture of russia, whose only object is the destruction of every existing state of things, and indeed under existing circumstances it cannot be otherwise. dislike of, and discontent with real or fancied grievances, combined with a stiff-necked, _doctrinaire_ attitude unprepared for any _sacrificio del intelletto_, may indeed lead the children of western civilisation to a logical denial of the existing order of society. but from this to the actual overthrow of all existing conditions is a still farther step; and the positive intention of annihilating the infinite mental and material inheritance which is the outcome of civilisation, and which is not even denied by anarchists themselves, could only be conceived by a few degenerate individuals who could only wish to see themselves _vis-à-vis de rien_ because of their own utter lack of moral, intellectual, or material possessions. against these individuals there will always be arrayed an overwhelming majority, who are ready to pledge the whole weight of their superiority in culture for these possessions and guarantees of the undeniable progress of mankind. it is different in russia. the political and social, the mental and moral conditions of this large but barbarian empire do not afford much opportunity for the growth even of a moderate amount of conservatism. for what can there be to conserve, to maintain, or to improve in those lives that depend on the mere sign of a bloodthirsty and savage despotism, in that society that has hardly raised itself from the primitive tribal level, in those rotten national economics, trade and industry, in a spiritual life groaning under the banner of orthodoxy and an arbitrary police, of popes and tschinowniks? must not the only possible way, the inevitable presupposition of any possible improvement be a desire for a total and universal overthrow, a radical annihilation of all these conditions that render life and development impossible? the russian need not shrink from the thought that all present conditions should be annihilated, for when he looks round about him he finds nothing that his heart would care to preserve; and the higher he ranks in the mental or social sphere, the stronger must this "nihilist" feeling naturally become. we who are citizens of a state that, with all its faults, is yet richly blessed by civilisation, show our comprehension of these facts by regarding with a milder and more sympathetic glance the acts of a few desperate men in russia, which we should condemn severely if they occurred under the happier circumstances that surround ourselves. in fact, nothing is more natural--lamentable as it may be--than that, under circumstances such as those of russia, revolutionary radicalism should assume this purely negative "nihilist" and murderously destructive character in the desperate struggle of the individual against a society that is totally degenerate. "among us," says stepniak,[ ] "a revolution or even a rising of any importance, such as those in paris, is absolutely impossible. our towns contain barely a tenth of the total population, and most of them are merely great villages, miles and miles away one from another. the real towns, such as, _e. g._, those of from , or , inhabitants, contain only or per cent. of the total population--that is, about three or four million people. and the government which rules over the military contingent of the whole people--that is, over , , soldiers--can transform the five or six chief towns, the only places where any movement would be possible, into veritable camps, as is indeed the case. against such a government any means are permissible; for it is no longer the guardian of the people's will or even of the will of a majority. it is injustice organised; a citizen need respect it no more than a band of highway robbers. but how can we shake off this camarilla that shelters itself behind a forest of bayonets? how can we free the country from it? since it is absolutely impossible to remove this hindrance by force, as in other more fortunate countries, a flank movement was necessary in order to attack this camarilla before it could make use of its power, which thus was made useless in fruitless positions. thus terrorism arose. nurtured in hatred, suckled by patriotism and hope, it grew up in an electric atmosphere, filled by the enthusiasm that is awakened by a noble deed." [ ] _underground russia_, d edition, pp. ff. and . london, . these same features were necessarily assumed in russia by anarchist doctrines, which from their very nature found a friendly and (as we have seen) an early reception, and were practically incorporated with nihilism, but, as must be distinctly noted, without becoming identical with it, or even forming an essential and integral part of it. in fact, we find in avowed nihilists and panslavists, such as herzen, the fundamental anarchist ideas present just as much as in bakunin and kropotkin, whose anarchism was superior to their panslavism. in his book, _after the storm (après la tempête)_, composed under the impression made by the disappointed hopes and expectations of , herzen exclaimed: "let all the world perish! long live chaos and destruction"; and in a work that appeared almost at the same time, _the republic one and indivisible_, he attacked the republican form of government as "the last dream of the old world," which yet could not succeed in carrying out the great fundamental law of social justice. only when this has become really a truth, only when there is an end of men being devoured by men, will humanity, born again, rise free and happy from the ruins of this present cursed social structure: "spring will come; young, fresh life will blossom on the graves of the races who have died as victims of injustice; nations will rise up full of chaotic but healthy forces. a new volume of the world's history will begin." the share of nihilism in such ideas cannot be borrowed altogether from western anarchism. there was perhaps a mutual interaction of intellectual growth. but one gift anarchism certainly did receive from nihilism: "the propaganda of action" does not spring from the logical development of proudhon's and stirner's ideas, and cannot be extorted or extracted from it in any way; it is rather the consequence of the mixture of these ideas with nihilism, a result of russian conditions. this was the pretty embellishment with which the west received back anarchism from russian hands in the era of the sixties and seventies. bakunin was entrusted with the gloomy mission of handing this gift over to us, and it is noticeable that in bakunin--as in nihilism generally--anarchism by no means takes up that exclusively commanding position as in proudhon, with whom he yet is so closely connected. * * * * * michael bakunin was born in at torschok in the russian province of tver, being a scion of a family of good position belonging to the old nobility. an uncle of bakunin's was an ambassador under catherine ii., and he was also connected by marriage with muravieff. he was educated at the college of cadets in st. petersburg, and joined the artillery in as an ensign. but either, as some say, because he did not get into the guards, or, as others say, because he could not endure the rough terrorism of military life, he left the army in , and returned first to his father's house, where he devoted himself to scientific studies. in bakunin went to berlin, and next year to dresden, where he studied philosophy, chiefly hegel's but was also introduced by ruge into the german democratic movement. even at that time he had come to the conclusion (in an essay in the _deutschen jahrbücher_ on "the reaction in germany") that democracy must proceed to the denial of everything positive and existing, without regard for consequences. pursued by russian agents, he went in to paris, and thence to switzerland, where he became an active member of the communist-socialist movement. the russian government now refused him permission to stay abroad any longer, and as he did not obey repeated commands to return to his native land, it confiscated his property. from zürich, bakunin returned a second time to paris, and made the acquaintance of proudhon. if here was laid the foundation for his later anarchist views, we still find him active in another political direction. in a high-flown speech made at the polish banquet on the anniversary of the warsaw revolution ( th november, ), bakunin recommended the union of russia and poland in order to revolutionise the former. the russian government thereupon demanded his extradition, and set a price of ten thousand silver roubles on his head. in spite of this, bakunin escaped safely to brussels. after the revolution of february, he returned to paris, then went in march to berlin, and in june to attend the slav congress in prague. the question has not unnaturally been raised, what had bakunin the cosmopolitan to do at such an institution of national chauvinism as the congress? what had the ultra-radical democrat and sworn enemy of the czar to do with a congress held by the favour of nicholas, and visited by orthodox archimandrites, by the envoys of slav princes, and privy councillors decorated with russian orders? when the drama at prague ended with a sanguinary insurrection and the bombardment of prague, bakunin disappeared, only to re-appear again, now in saxony and now in thuringia, under all kinds of disguises, and (as those who are well-informed maintain)[ ] constantly occupied with the intention of causing a new insurrection at prague. here too he was in contradiction with the attitude that he had adopted both before and after this event, for he must have known what a sorry part the czechs had played and still were playing as regards the vienna democracy and the efforts for hungarian emancipation. [ ] karl blind, "väter des anarchismus" (persönliche erinnerungen), feuilletons in the _neue freie presse_, . during the insurrection in may, , we find bakunin in dresden, as a member of the provisional government, and taking a prominent part in the defence of the city against the prussian troops. bakunin here appears as a champion of the very same cause that he had attacked at the prague congress. after the fall of dresden he went with the provisional government to chemnitz, where on the th of may he was captured and condemned to death by martial law. the sentence, however, was not carried out, since austria had demanded his extradition. here he was also condemned at olmutz to be hanged; but austria handed this offender, who was so much in request, over to russia, which country also wished to get hold of him. by a remarkable chance, bakunin escaped the death to which here also he was condemned, by receiving a pardon from the czar; he was imprisoned first in the fortress of ss. peter and paul, and then at that of schlüsselburg; and in , through the exertions of his influential relatives, was banished to siberia. at that time a report had generally gained credence in europe, although lacking any foundation, that bakunin had by no means owed his life, that three countries had already condemned, to the chance favour of a monarch usually far from gracious; and the distrust of the apostle of revolution was still more greatly increased when, in , he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in the amur district, and returned to europe _via_ japan and america. now the otherwise mysterious success of this escape has been explained. the governor of the amur (muravieff-amurski) happened to be a cousin of bakunin's relation, muravieff, and moreover (according to bakunin's own statement),[ ] a secret adherent of the revolutionary movement. he appears to have lived on a very intimate footing with bakunin, and granted the exile all kinds of favours and freedom; and thus bakunin was entrusted with the mission of travelling through siberia in order to describe its natural resources. while on this journey he succeeded in embarking on a ship in the harbour of nikolajewsk, and escaping. in he arrived in england, and settled in london, where he entered into relations with the members of the "international." as to the part that bakunin played here, as he did later, as an agitator for anarchist ideas, we will speak later when we come to the history of the spread of anarchism. [ ] there is a kind of autobiography for the period - , by bakunin himself in a letter, dated from irkutsk ( th december, ) to herzen. _michael bakunin's social-political correspondence with alexander iw. herzen and ogarjow_, with a biographical introduction, appendices, and notes by professor michael dragomanoff. authorised translation from the russian, by dr. boris minzés, stuttgart, (_bibl. russischer denkwürdigkeiten_, edited by dr. th. schiemann, vol. vi.), no. , pp. and . when the revolution broke out in poland in , bakunin was one of the leaders of the expedition of polish and russian emigrants that was planned in stockholm, and which was to revolutionise russia from the baltic coast. when this attempt also failed, he stayed sometimes in russia and sometimes in italy, devoting himself to socialist agitation, and being always on every favourable opportunity active either as an apostle of anarchist doctrine or as an agitator in the preparations and _mise-en-scène_ of a revolution. we shall speak of this later. the last years of his life were spent alternately in geneva, locarno, and bern, where he died on july , , at the hospital, after refusing all nourishment, and thus hastening his end. the anarchist epoch of his life is included mainly in the last ten years of his career, so fertile in mistakes and changes of opinion. anarchism owes its renascence to his active agitation, regardless of all consequences; and even in his writings the thinker lags far behind the agitator. bakunin at best could only be called the theorist of action; his activity as an author was limited to scattered articles in journals and a few (mostly fragmentary) pamphlets. he was right in his answer to those critics who reproached him with this: "my life itself is but a fragment." where could he have found in his life-long wanderings the peaceful leisure in which to develop his thoughts quietly or to express them in a work such as proudhon's _justice_ or stirner's _einziger_? besides, he lacked the gift of mental depth and firmly grounded knowledge. his style possesses something of his fluency as a demagogue, but his procedure in science reminds of the soaring dialectics of the revolutionary orator, full of repetitions, and attractive rather than convincing. in his case a pose always takes the place of an argument. it is said that during the period of his association with the "international" bakunin had had the intention of setting forth his ideas in two large works, one of which would have been a criticism of the existing arrangements of the state, property, and religion, while the other would have treated of the problems of the european nations, especially the slavs, and have shown their solution by social revolution and anarchy. but, of course, these two works were never written, and there remain to us only some remnants of numerous fragmentary and formless manuscripts, originating in the period of - . among these is a _catechism of modern freemasonry_, the _revolutionary catechisms_, not to be compared with the later catechism of netschajew, which was wrongly ascribed to bakunin; also the wordy essay on _federation, socialism, and anti-theology_, which as a proposal designed for the central committee of the league of freedom and peace at geneva, but never published, presents a short reprint of proudhon's _justice_; and lastly, a fragment published in by c. cafiero and elisée reclus, after his manuscript, _dieu et l'État_, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for bakunin's anarchism. this fragment, in which bakunin follows the lead of the great materialists and darwinians, begins with hegelianism. man (it says) is of animal origin; all development proceeds from the "animal nature" of man, and strives to reach the negation of this, or humanity. "animality" is the starting-point; "humanity," its opposite, is the goal of development. the first human being, the pitheco-anthropus, distinguished itself, according to bakunin, from other apes, by two gifts: the capacity for thinking, and, thereby, for raising itself. bakunin, therefore, distinguishes three elements in all life: ( ) animality; ( ) thought; and ( ) rising. to the first corresponds social and private economy; to the second, science; to the third, freedom. after establishing these peculiar categories, bakunin never troubles about them again throughout his book, and does not know what use to make of them; they were nothing but a pretty philosophic pose, sand thrown in one's eyes. he goes farther, and declares next that he intends to penetrate into the reason "of the idealism of mazzini, michelet, quinet, and [_sic!_] stuart mill." again we hear nothing more throughout this fragmentary work of the thus announced refutation of mill's idealism. it is limited to giving a rather shallow reproduction of proudhon's contrast between religion and revolution. "the idea of god," says bakunin, "implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive denial of human freedom, and leads necessarily to the enslaving of humanity, both in theory and practice.... the freedom of man consists solely in following natural laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether divine or human, collective or individual.... we reject all legislation, every authority, and every privileged, recognised official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling and exploiting minority against the interests of the great enslaved majority." and so forth. here already, in this partial repetition of proudhon's views, we see bakunin go far beyond proudhon in an essential point, the question of universal suffrage. proudhon had already perceived in "the organisation of universal suffrage" the only possible means of realising his views. bakunin rejects this view, and, as will be shown later, this question formed the chief stumbling-block in his differences with the "international." but in a much more important and decisive point bakunin goes farther than proudhon, or rather sinks behind him. proudhon always based all his hopes on the diffusion of knowledge; the demo-cracy was to be changed into a demo-pædy, and thus gradually led up to anarchy of its own accord. bakunin anathematises knowledge just as much as religion; for it also enslaves men. "what i preach," he says in the book quoted, "is to a certain extent the revolt of life against knowledge, or rather against the domination of knowledge, not in order to do away with knowledge--that would be a crime of high treason against humanity (_læsæ humanitatis_)--but in order to bring it back to its place so surely that it would never leave it again.... the only vocation of knowledge is to illuminate our path; life alone, in its full activity, can _create_, when freed from all fetters of dominion and doctrine." he also thinks that knowledge should become the common possession of all, but to the question as to whether men should, until this takes place, follow the directions of knowledge, he answers at once, "no, not at all." in these two divergences from proudhon lies the essential difference between the modern and the older anarchism. bakunin rejects the proposal to bring about anarchy gradually by a process of political transformation by means of the use of universal suffrage, equally with the gradual education of mankind up to this form of society by knowledge. not by evolution, but by revolt, revolution, and similar means is anarchy to be installed to-day--anarchy in the sense of the setting free of all those elements which we now include under the name of evil qualities, and the annihilation of all that is termed "public order." everything else will look after itself. bakunin wisely did not enter into descriptions of the future: "all talk about the future is criminal, for it hinders pure destruction, and steers the course of revolution." his views as to the nearest goal, after general expropriation and the annihilation of all powers, are almost exclusively derived from proudhon's, and at most go beyond them only in so far as bakunin does not recognise as obligatory that coalescence of "productive" groups into a higher collective entity, which proudhon regarded as an organic society, but merely allows them to remain as groups. if several such local groups wish to unite into a larger association, this might be done, but no compulsion must thereby be exercised upon individuals. the influence of stirner, with whom bakunin was acquainted before , must account for this. we recognise bakunin's theory best and most authentically from the following extract, in which he comprises it in the programme of the "alliance de la democratie socialiste" of geneva,[ ] founded by himself. it runs thus: [ ] compare the chapter on "the spread of anarchy." . the alliance professes atheism; it aims at the abolition of religious services; the replacement of belief by knowledge, and divine by human justice; and the abolition of marriage as a political, religious, judicial, and civic arrangement. . before all it aims at the definite and complete abolition of all classes, and the political, economic, and social equality of the individual, of either sex; and to attain this end it demands, before all, the abolition of inheritance, in order that for the future usufruct may depend on what each produces, and that, in accordance with the decision of the last congress of workmen at brussels [in ], the land, the instruments of production, as well as all other capital, can only be used by the workers, _i. e._, by the agricultural and industrial communities. . it demands for all children of both sexes, from their birth onwards, equality of the means of development, education, and instruction in all stages of knowledge, industry, and art, with the general object that this equality, at first only economic and social, will ultimately result in producing more and more a greater natural equality of individuals, by causing to disappear all those artificial inequalities which are the historic products of a social organisation which is as false as it is unjust. . as an enemy of all despotism, recognising no other form of policy than republicanism, and rejecting unconditionally every reactionary alliance, it rejects all political action that does not aim directly and immediately at the triumph of the cause of labour against capital. . it recognises that all existing political states, having authority, by gradually confining themselves to merely administrative functions of the public service in their respective countries, will be immerged into the universal union of free associations, both agricultural and industrial. . since the social question can only be solved, definitely and effectively, on the basis of the universal and international solidarity of the workmen of all countries, the alliance rejects any policy founded on so-called patriotism and the rivalry of nations. . it desires the universal association of all local associations by means of freedom.[ ] the question as to how this anarchist condition of society, which bakunin himself described as "amorphism," was to be brought about has been answered in no dubious fashion by bakunin and his adherents in deeds of violence, such as that attempted by the leader himself in the lyons riot of and the occurrences in spain in .[ ] bakunin tried to deceive himself into thinking that he deplored the violence that was sometimes necessary, and wrapped himself in the protecting cloak of the believer in evolution, who would wake up some fine morning and find that anarchy had become an accomplished fact. by passive resistance in politics and economics, by complete abstention from politics, and by a "universal strike," anarchy would suddenly come into being of itself. at the proper time all the workmen of every industry of a country, or indeed of the whole world, would stop work, and thereby, in at most a month, would compel the "possessing" classes either to enter voluntarily into a new form of social order, or else to fire upon the workmen, and thus give them the right to defend themselves, and at this opportunity to upset entirely the whole of the old order of society. again we see that force is the ultimate resort; nor could it be otherwise after bakunin had uncompromisingly rejected every attempt to arrive gradually at his ideal end by means of political and intellectual progress. in the _letter to a frenchman_ he confesses the true character of the revolution which he advocates: [ ] testut oscar, _die internationale, ihr wesen und ihre bestrebungen_. [ ] friedrich engels, _die bakunisten an der arbeit_, denkschrift über den aufstand in spanien im winter, ; reprinted in _internationales aus dem volkstaate_ ( - ), berlin, . "of course matters will not be settled quite peacefully at first," he says; "there will be battles; public order, the sacred _arche_ of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the first facts that will emerge from such a state of affairs can only end in what people like to call a civil war. for the rest, do not be afraid that the peasants will mutually devour each other; even if they attempt to do so at first, it will not be long before they are convinced of the obvious impossibility of continuing in this way, and then we may be certain that they will attempt to unite among themselves, to agree and to organise. the need of food and of feeding their families, and (as a consequence of this) of protecting their houses, family, and their own life against unforeseen attacks--all this will compel them to enter upon the path of mutual adjustment. nor need we believe, either, that in this adjustment, that has been come to without any public guardianship of the state, the strongest and richest will exert a preponderating influence by the mere force of circumstances. the wealth of the rich will cease to be a power as soon as it is no longer secured by legal arrangements. as to the strongest and most cunning, they will be rendered harmless by the collective power of the multitude of small and very small peasants: so, too, in the case of the rural proletariat, who are to-day merely a multitude given over to dumb misery, but who will be provided by the revolutionary movement with an irresistible power. i do not assert that the rural districts that will thus have to reorganise themselves from top to bottom will create all at once an ideal organisation which will in all respects correspond to our dreams. but of this i am convinced, that it will be a living organisation, and, as such, a thousand times superior to that which now exists. besides, this new organisation, since it is always open to the propaganda of the towns, and can no longer be fettered and so to speak petrified by the legal sanctions of the state, will advance freely and develop and improve itself, in ways that are uncertain, yet always with life and freedom, and never merely by decrees and laws, till it reaches a standpoint that is as rational as we could possibly hope at the present day." bakunin has expressly excepted secret societies and plots from the means of bringing about this revolution. but this did not hinder him from becoming himself, as occasion suited, the head of a secret society, formed according to all the rules of the conspirator's art. fundamentally opposed as our minds must be to men like proudhon and stirner, we yet readily recognise in them their undoubted personal talents, both of mind, spirit, and character, and, above all, have never questioned their good faith. but we cannot speak thus of bakunin. in all the changes and chances of a life that was singularly rich in change, there were far too many dark points, to which evil report had ample opportunity to attach itself. we do not see in bakunin that proletarian in wooden sabots and blouse, with the eager thirst for knowledge and keen desire to raise himself, who dreams as he works before the compositor's frame of a juster order of things in this world, yet more for others than for himself, and would like to arrange society itself laboriously in a well-ordered compositor's case; nor do we see in bakunin that plain german schoolmaster who would people society with mere sons of prometheus, while he himself totters starving to the grave; who dedicates his gospel of a doctrine that would overthrow the world from pole to pole "to his darling, marie donhardt," as though it were a tender love-song. bakunin remains to us for ever as the commercial traveller of eternal revolution in a magnificent pose, and from the red cloak so picturesquely cast around him peeps out unpleasantly the dagger of caserio. * * * * * we cannot leave bakunin without a passing mention of his favourite pupil sergei netschajew,[ ] although he was still less of a pure anarchist than bakunin, and can still less easily be separated from russian nihilism. [ ] for netschajew, cf. the article "anarchism" in wurm's _volks-lexicon_, vol. i., and in the _handwörterbuch der staatswissenschaften_, jena, , vol. i.; also e. von laveleye, _socialism of the present_ (german ed. by ch. jasper, halle, a.d. s., ). all these, however, are based almost exclusively on the information in the memoir, _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_: report and documents published by order of the international congress at the hague (london and hamburg, )--a very one-sided party brochure of the marxists against the bakuninists, which has been proved wrong on more points than one. we regret all the more that we are limited to this source of information. but a picture of this pair of twin brothers will show us better than long essays how much of the total phenomenon of modern anarchism is a product of western hyper-philosophy, and how much is an inheritance of russian nihilism. sergei netschajew, the apostle and saint of nihilist poesy, was born at st. petersburg in , the son of a court official, and in time became teacher at a parish school in his native town. in he went to moscow, where he became associated with the students of the academy of agriculture, and founded a secret society that called itself "the people's tribunal," and formed ostensibly the "russian branch of the international workers' union." both in st. petersburg and elsewhere he appeared as the founder of such branch societies, attached to the bakuninist section of the "international," and chiefly recruited from the ranks of youthful students. in a pamphlet issued later ( ), in conjunction with his master, bakunin, called _words addressed to students_, he exhorted the students not to trouble about this "empty knowledge" in whose name it was meant to bind their hands, but to leave the university and go among the people.[ ] the russian people, he said, were now in the same condition as in the time of alexis, the father of peter the great, when stenka razin, a robber chieftain, placed himself at the head of a terrible insurrection. the young people who now leave their place in society and lead the life of the people would form an invincible, collective stenka razin, who would put themselves at the head of the fight for emancipation, and carry it through successfully. for this purpose they should not merely turn to the peasants and make them revolt, but also call in the help of robbers. "robbery," he said, "was one of the most honourable forms of russian national life." the robber is a hero, the protector and avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the state, and of all civic and social order founded by the state, who fights to the death against all this civilisation of officials, nobles, priests, and the crown. the russian robber is the true and only revolutionary, the revolutionary _sans phrase_, without rhetoric derived from books, indefatigable, irreconcilable, and in action irresistible, a social revolutionary of the people, not a political revolutionary of the classes. [ ] the expression "go among the people" has since become a well-known nihilist term. this was the programme of the society called "the people's tribunal," as it was that of nihilism generally, and, transferred from this into western conditions, became the active programme of the "propaganda of action." at the same time as the _words_, there were circulating in the circles influenced by netschajew other writings, either written exclusively by himself or in conjunction with bakunin, such as the _formula of the revolutionary question, the principles of revolution, the publications of the people's tribunal_,--all of which preached "total destruction" and anarchism. the opponents of the bakuninists maintain that the only purpose of these writings was, by their bloodthirsty tone, to compromise genuine revolutionaries, and give the police a weapon against them. but the whole spirit of bakunin is expressed in the revolutionary _catechism_,[ ] first made accessible to the public in the trial of netschajew. it was formerly thought that bakunin was the author, but now it is pretty well agreed that it was netschajew. [ ] the _catechism_ is reproduced in the before-mentioned memoir, _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste_, viii. (_l'alliance en russie et le catéchisme révolutionnaire_), pp. - . the catechism, a condensation of revolutionary fanaticism, commands the revolutionary to break with all that is dear to him, and, troubling nought about law or morality, family or state, joy or sorrow, to devote himself wholly to his task of total _bouleversement_. "if he continues to live in this world, it is only in order to annihilate it all the more surely. a revolutionary despises everything _doctrinaire_, and renounces the science and knowledge of this world in order to leave it to future generations; he knows but one science: that of destruction. for that, and that only, he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and even medicine. for the same purpose he studies day and night living science--men, their character, positions, and all the conditions of the existing social order in all imaginary spheres. the object remains always the same: the quickest and most effective way possible of destroying the existing order" (§§ , ). "for him exists only one pleasure, one consolation, one reward, one satisfaction, the reward of revolution. day and night he must have but one thought--inexorable destruction" (§ ). "for the purpose of irrevocable destruction a revolutionary can, and may, often live in the midst of society and appear to have the most complete indifference as to his surroundings. a revolutionary may penetrate everywhere, into high society, among the nobility, among shopkeepers, into the military, official, or literary world, into the 'third section' [the secret police], and even into the imperial palace" (§ ). the catechism divides society into several categories: those in the first of these categories are condemned to death without delay. "in the first place we must put out of the world those who stand most in the way of the revolutionary organisation and its work" (§ ). the members of the second category are to be allowed to live "provisionally," in order that, "by a series of abominable deeds they may drive the people into unceasing revolt" (§ ). the third class, the rich and influential, must be exploited for the sake of the revolution, and made to become "our slaves." with the fourth class, liberals of various shades of opinion, arrangements must be made on the basis of their programme, they must be initiated and compromised, and made use of for the perturbation of the state. the fifth class, the doctrinaires, must be urged forward; while the sixth and most important class consists of the women, for making use of whom for the purposes of the revolution netschajew gives explicit directions. it is the tactics of the jesuits in all their details that are here recommended for the inauguration of the most moral ordering of the universe. the last section of the catechism, which treats of the duty of the people's tribunal society towards the people, reads: "the society has no other purpose but the complete emancipation and happiness of the people, _i. e._, of hardworking humanity. but proceeding from the conviction that this emancipation and this happiness can only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular revolution, the society will use every effort and every means to heighten and increase the evils and sorrows which at length will wear out the patience of the people and encourage an insurrection _en masse_. by a popular revolution the society does not mean a movement regulated according to the classic patterns of the west, which is always restrained in face of property and of the traditional social order of so-called civilisation and morality, and which has hitherto been limited merely to exchanging one form of politics for another, and at most to founding a so-called revolutionary state. the only revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly annihilates every political idea. with this end in view, the people's tribunal has no intention of imposing on the people an organisation coming from above. the future organisation will, without doubt, proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the business of future generations. our task is terrible, inexorable, and universal destruction." the views thus expressed are quite in harmony with what netschajew has written about revolutionary action in the writings mentioned above. "words," he exclaims, "have no value for us, unless followed at once by action. but all is not action that is so-called: for example, the modest and too-cautious organisation of secret societies without external announcements to outsiders is in our eyes merely ridiculous and intolerable child's-play. by external announcements we mean a series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people. without sparing our lives, we must break into the life of the people with a series of rash, even senseless, actions, and inspire them with a belief in their powers, awake them, unite them, and lead them on to the triumph of their cause." the tendency which here develops into the recommendation of violence should be carefully noticed; outrage is no longer recommended, because the purposes of revolution can be served thereby directly, but indirectly, as a kind of sanguinary advertisement to the indolent masses, who would thus have their attention drawn to the theory by such terrible events. that is the diabolical basis of the "propaganda of action," which was defined by another follower of bakunin--paul brousse, the man of the jura federation (see the chapter on "the spread of anarchy"). "deeds," says brousse, "are talked of on all sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay attention to the new doctrine, and discuss it. let men once get as far as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them." therefore he recommended revolution and outrage, not in order to upset existing society thereby, but for the purpose of the "propaganda." brousse only had to borrow the thought, as we see, from netschajew; and it is not difficult to say whence the latter got it. the opinion which ascribes the authorship of the _catechism of revolution_, and of the other writings above mentioned not to netschajew but to bakunin himself, has perhaps some foundation. but it matters little who is the author of these works. netschajew is thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit, and he might even say to him (p. ): "... what thou hast thought in thy mind that i do, that i perform. and e'en though years may pass away i never rest, until to fact is changed the word that thou did'st say, 't is thine to think and mine to act. thou art the judge, the headsman i; and as a servant i obey; the sentence which thou dost imply, e'en though unjust, i never stay. in ancient rome, a lictor dark an axe before the consul bore; thou hast a lictor too, but mark! the axe comes after, not before. i am thy lictor; and alway with bare, bright axe behind thee tread; i am the deed, be what it may, begotten from thy thought unsaid." in the year a sudden end was put to netschajew's activity in russia. among his most trusted friends in moscow was a certain iwanow, one of the most respected and influential members of the secret society. iwanow himself lived in ascetic seclusion, and in his leisure time gave the peasants instruction gratis, establishing classes of poor students, and so forth. he was a fanatic in his belief in the social revolution. he had also established cheap eating-houses for poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their founder vanished, because netschajew had placarded revolutionary appeals in them. in despair at this, iwanow wished to retire from the secret society. netschajew, believing that he might betray its secrets, enticed iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the help of two fellow-conspirators, pryow and nicolajew, shot him, and threw the corpse into a pond. he then fled, and arrived safely in switzerland, where, in conjunction with bakunin, he produced the literary efforts referred to above. soon, however, he quarrelled with bakunin, owing to certain sharp practices of which he was guilty, went to london, edited a paper called _the commonwealth_ (_die giemeinde_), in which he bitterly attacked his former master, and at last, in , was handed over to russia at the request of the russian government. since then nothing more was heard of him; netschajew disappeared, like the demon in a pantomime, "down below." chapter v peter kropotkin and his school biography -- kropotkin's main views -- anarchist communism and the "economics of the heap" (_tas_) -- kropotkin's relation to the propaganda of action -- elisée reclus: his character and anarchist writings -- jean grave -- daniel saurin's _order through anarchy_ -- louise michel and g. eliévant -- a. hamon and the psychology of anarchism -- charles malato and other french writers on anarchist communism -- the italians: cafiero, merlino, and malatesta. "seek not to found your comfort and freedom on the servitude of another; so long as you rule others, you will never be free yourself. increase your power of production by studying nature; your powers will grow a thousandfold, if you put them at the service of humanity. free the individual: for without the freedom of the individual, it is impossible for society to become free. if you wish to emancipate yourselves, set not your hope on any help from this life or the next: help yourselves! next you must free yourselves from all your religious and political prejudices. be free men and trust the nature of a free man: all his faults proceed from the power which he exercises over his own kind or under which he groans."--p. kropotkin. one more russian, a _déclassé_, as bakunin was, has exercised considerable influence on the development of modern anarchism; and, in fact, although he has introduced but few new doctrines into it, has made, in the truest sense, a school of his own. kropotkin, is regarded everywhere as the father of "anarchist communism," which is, to some extent, directly opposed both to the collectivist and evolutionist anarchism of proudhon and to the other philosophic and individual anarchism of stirner. in future we must carefully discriminate between these two directions of individual and communal anarchism; moreover they are sharply distinguished not only in their intellectual but also their actual form. the former tendency seems more adapted to the teutonic races in germany, england, and america, whilst the anarchists of the romance nations, but especially the french, are devoted to the latter--the communist doctrine of kropotkin. peter alexandriewitsch kropotkin is a descendant of the royal house of the ruriks, and it used to be said in jest in the revolutionary circles of st. petersburg that he had more right to the russian throne than the czar alexander ii., who was only a german. born at moscow in , he was first a page at court, then an officer in the amur cossacks, and next, chamberlain to the czarina. in this atmosphere grew up the man who is now developing a perfectly feverish activity not only in the realm of intellect and science, but also in propaganda of the most destructive character. prince kropotkin studied mathematics in his youth at the high school, and during his extensive travels, which led him to siberia and even to china, acquired a great knowledge of geography. the dreaded anarchist is and has always been active as a writer of geographical and geological works, and enjoys a considerable reputation in these sciences, apart from his activity as a socialist teacher and agitator. during a journey to switzerland and belgium in the year , prince kropotkin became more closely connected with the "international," and especially with men of bakunin's school; and so shortly as a year later we find him in his native land compromised and arrested because of nihilist intrigues. he spent three years as a prisoner in the fortress of ss. peter and paul, where, however, he was allowed to pursue his scientific studies.[ ] in the year he succeeded in escaping from there and reaching switzerland. here kropotkin devoted himself to a feverish activity in the service of the new doctrines by which he is known. in geneva he immediately joined the leaders of the anarchist agitation known as the "jurassic union" (see the chapter on the "spread of anarchy"), founded the paper _révolt_, and greatly assisted in extending the union so widely in switzerland and the south of france. after a short stay in england we find him at the beginning of the eighties in france, busy here and there with the founding of "groups," delivery of lectures, and so forth. in the sensational anarchist trial at lyons in he was also involved, and was condemned to five years' imprisonment upon his own confession of having been the "intellectual instigator" of the bloody demonstrations and riots at montceau-les-mines and lyons in . kropotkin was, however, set free after only three years' imprisonment, and betook himself to london, where he has lived till recently.[ ] but the more watchful supervision of anarchists that has been exercised since the murder of president sadi carnot, appears to have disgusted him with london, for his present place of abode is not known. [ ] see his life in stepniak, _u. s._, pp. - . [ ] he was living in kent in .--trans. kropotkin's anarchism rests upon the most scientific and humane foundations, and yet assumes the most unscientific and brutal forms. to him the anarchist theory appears to be nothing but a necessary adaptation of social science to that modern tendency in all other sciences which, leaving on one side abstract and collective generality, turn to the individual, as, _e. g._, the cellular theory, the study of molecular forces, and so on. just as all great discoveries of modern science have proceeded by rejecting the unfruitful deductive method and beginning to build up from below, so also, kropotkin maintains, society must be built up afresh by realising all power, all reality, all purpose in individuals, and can only arise again new-born synthetically, from the free grouping of these individuals. with unconscious self-irony, kropotkin remarks that he would like to call this system the "synthetic," if herbert spencer had not already applied that name "to another system." anyone who would conclude from this that the learned prince would build up scientifically a well-founded system, as his earlier predecessors tried to do, would be mistaken. with a few exceptions, kropotkin has only published short works, though certainly numerous, in which he uses epithets rather than arguments, and those in an intentionally trivial tone; indeed he sometimes mocks at the "wise and learned theorists," and regards one deed as worth more than a thousand books.[ ] the same internal contrast is seen in him in another direction. he is apparently a philanthropist of the purest water, wishing to see the foundation of an universal brotherhood of humanity, based upon what he regards as the innate feeling of solidarity in man; we seem to see in this proudhon's "justice," comte's "love," in short, the moral order of the world, however materialist kropotkin may be in action, and however much he may deny all moral element therein. but how does he mean to bring about this moral order? by any means that is suitable, even by the sanguinary "propaganda of action," and finally by the re-establishment of the actual conditions of the primeval ape-man, or tribal life on the level of the inhabitants of tierra del fuego. [ ] the chief work of kropotkin is _la conquête du pain_, paris, . (the chapter on agriculture was printed separately as a pamphlet in .) we quote below his numerous smaller writings in the editions which we possess, without vouching for the chronological order or completeness of the list. _les paroles d'un révolté_, ; _revolutionary governments_ (trans. from german to french, anarchist library, vol. i.); _un siècle d'attente_, - , paris, ; _la grande révolution_, paris, ; _les temps nouveaux_ (conference at london), paris, ; _jeunes gens_, th ed., paris, ' ; _la loi et l'autorité_, th ed., paris, ' ; _les prisons_, d ed., paris, ' ; _l'anarchie dans l'Évolution socialiste_, d ed., paris, ' ; _esprit de révolte_, paris, ' , th ed.; _le salariat_, d ed., paris, ' ; _la morale anarchiste_, ; "anarchist communion: its basis and principles" (republished by permission of the editor of the _nineteenth century_), london, . for kropotkin anarchy consists in ( ) the liberation of the producer from the yoke of capital, in production in common, and the free enjoyment of all products of common work; ( ) in freedom from any yoke of government, in the free development of individuals in groups, of groups in federations, in free organisation rising from the simple to the complex according to men's needs and mutual endeavours; and ( ) in liberation from religious morality, and a free morality without duty or sanctions proceeding and becoming customary from the life of the community itself.[ ] [ ] _l'anarchie_, p. . the postulate of the abolition of the authority of the state is the well-known, old stock proposal of the anarchists. but it is noticeable that kropotkin attacks the state among other things, because it does not carry out the maxim of _laisser faire_ so often imposed upon it by another party. kropotkin thinks that the state acts rather on the principle of _not laisser faire_, and is always intervening in favour of the exploiter as against the exploited (_les temps nouveaux_, p. ). the state is accordingly a purely civic idea (_l'idée bourgeoise_), utterly rotten and decaying, only held together by the plague of laws. all law and dominion, including parliamentary government, must therefore be put aside, and be replaced by the "system of no government" and free arrangement (_la libre entente_). kropotkin sees everywhere already, even at present in public, and especially in economic life, germs of this free understanding or _entente_, in which government never intervenes; what, for example, in isolated cases two railway companies do in making a free arrangement about fares and time-tables, is to be the universal form of society. in this society the feeling of solidarity alone, which kropotkin assumes as a sort of _à priori_ axiom of society, will determine men's actions: "each must retain the right of acting as he thinks best, and the right of society to punish any one for a social action in any way must be denied...." "we are not afraid of doing without judges and their verdicts," says he, in _la morale anarchiste_. "with guyon we renounce each and every approval of morality or any duties to morality. we do not shrink from saying: do what pleases you! act as you think fit! for we are convinced that the great majority of mankind, in proportion to their enlightenment and to the completeness with which they throw off their present fetters, will always act in a manner beneficial to society--just as we are certain that some day or other a child will walk upon its two feet and not on all fours, because it is born of parents that belong to the genus _homo_." but the comparison is incorrect. there are, as a matter of fact, degenerate children of human kind who, deprived of all understanding, creep on all fours quite unconcernedly. equally insufficient is another proof adduced by kropotkin, who is a great friend of animals, from the animal world. looking around among animals, he finds in them also an innate feeling of sympathy with their own species, expressed in mutual assistance in time of need or danger. by this he wishes to prove that men likewise would act in the same way to their fellow-men merely from the feeling of solidarity, and without laws or government. elsewhere certainly, in a later work, he has to confess that there are among men an enormous number of individuals who do not understand that the welfare of the individual is identical with that of the race. but supposing that man were exactly like the animals, then--speaking in kropotkin's manner--he would stand no higher in morality than they. but then do we really find that, in the animal world, the number of cases in which they act from a feeling of solidarity is greater than those in which they simply make use of brute force or blind want of forethought, and have animals the sense to do away with organised solidarity, the state, in order to replace it by something unorganised and consequently less valuable? but prince kropotkin, who appears to be such a stern materialist, is a very enthusiast, who gives way to utter self-deception as to human nature. "we do not want to be governed!" he says; "and do we not thereby declare that we ourselves wish to rule no one? we do not wish to be deceived; we always would hear nothing but the truth. do we not declare by this that we ourselves wish to deceive no one, and that we promise to speak always the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" who can fail to recognise here the exact opposite to the real facts of the case? the anarchists, and especially those who acknowledge kropotkin as their highest "authority," do not wish force used against them, yet use it themselves; they do not wish to be killed, and yet kill others. can there be a stronger refutation of anarchist morality? * * * * * kropotkin has finally broken with the communism of proudhon, and placed anarchist communism in its stead. proudhon, and, to a certain extent, bakunin also--who always called himself a collectivist, and repelled the charge of communism[ ]--certainly attacked property as _rente_ or profit derived from the appropriation of the forces of nature; but they have also not only not denied the right to individual possession of property, but even sought to make it general. everyone should become a possessor of property; only land and the means of labour, which must be accessible to all, may not be appropriated; they are collective property, and are applied to employment in a proportion equal to the quotient of the amount of land at disposal, or the means of production on the one hand and the number of members of free "groups" on the other. we have already seen to what a complicated organisation of economic life this led in the case of proudhon's theory; but he did not entrust the maintenance of this economic order to the strong hand of the state, but believed that life, when once brought into equilibrium or "balance," could never fall away from it again. we will not repeat here what an illusion is contained in this. collectivism left to itself must degenerate again at once into a state of economic inequality, and accordingly those collectivists who make the maintenance of economic equilibrium the business of the state, possess at least the merit of consistency. but then the very foundation idea of anarchism is hereby lost. [ ] at the peace congress at bern in , bakunin defended himself against the reproach of communist tendencies, saying: "i abominate communism, because it is a denial of freedom, and i cannot understand anything human without freedom. i am no communist, because communism concentrates all the forces of society in the state, and lets them be absorbed by it, because it necessarily results in the centralisation of property in the hands of the state; whereas i wish to do away with the state, to utterly root out the principle of the authority and guardianship of the state, which, under the pretence of improving and idealising men, has hitherto enslaved, oppressed, exploited, and ruined them. i wish for the organisation of society and of collective and social property from below upwards, by means of free association, and not from above downwards by means of authority, be it what it may. in demanding the abolition of the state, i mean to abolish the inheritance of property by an individual, _i. e._, of property that is only a matter of the state's arrangement, and is only a consequence of the principle of the state itself. in this sense i am a collectivist and by no means a communist." this irreconcilable contradiction between anarchism and collectivism decided kropotkin to give up the latter entirely, and to set up in its stead anarchist communism, thus attaching himself to the lines already indicated by hess and grün. he criticised unsparingly (in _la conquête du pain_ and _le salariat_) every system of reward or wages, whether based on saint-simon's principle of "to each according to his capacity, and to every capacity according to its results"; or on proudhon's rule, "to each according to his powers, to each according to his needs." with the reward of labour he rejects the period of labour, possession even in the form of collective possession, and also the payment of labour (_les bons du travail_), equally with other forms of property, capital, or exploitation. he even attacks the theory of the full result of labour that ought to accrue to every labourer, this most stalwart hobby-horse of socialism. "it would mean the annihilation of the race," he says, "if the mother would not sacrifice her life to save the life of her children; if man would not give where he could expect no recompense." kropotkin's motto, that has been so eagerly accepted by the anarchists of romance nationality, is on the contrary: "everything belongs to all," _tout est à tous; i. e._, no one is any longer a possessor; if after the revolution all goods and property were expropriated and given back to the community, then everybody would take what he pleased, according to his needs. anyone might just as well appropriate the land as another object or commodity. "heap together all the means of life, and let them be divided according to each man's need," he cries[ ]; "let each choose freely from this heap everything of which there is a superfluity, and let only those commodities be divided of which there might be some lack. that is a solution of the problem according to the wish of the people." again, "free choice from the heap in all means of life that are abundant, proper division (_rationement_) of all those things the production of which is limited; division according to needs, with special regard to children, old people, and the weak generally. the enjoyment of all this not in a social feeding-institution (_dans la marmite sociale_), but at home in the family circle with our friends, according to the taste of the individual, that is the ideal of the masses, whose mouthpiece we are." [ ] in _anarchy_, p. . it is interesting to see how all attempts to do away with individual property come back again at once in thought to that same property, and in opposition proudhon might on this basis write a very pretty retort to _what is property?_ kropotkin wishes first of all a general expropriation, and then each person is to have what he likes. but what is the use of an expropriation, which only means one thing, if a division to all is to follow it? would it not be simpler as the inauguration of anarchist communism, to do away with the guarantee of property at once, and then to watch quietly and see how individuals deprived each other of their possessions? the result would be just the same, but there is a well-understood contradiction in first declaring all property as a common possession--in which the reality of society which kropotkin denies is thereby recognised--and then giving to each person the right to dispose as he pleases of everything. stirner was at least logical when he declared: "all belongs to me!" as a matter of fact the statements, "all belongs to me," "all belongs to all," "nothing belongs to me," and "nothing belongs to all," are perfectly identical. the difference between all these conceptions of property according to the principles of individualist or communist anarchism, and the relations of property as they exist to-day, merely reduces itself to this, that with us the state affords the guarantee of property, while anarchy, at most, places the guarantee of it in free association or agreement, proceeding from a "group" or a "union of egotists." here we come face to face with the purely formal question of whether right is derived from convention or compulsion; but as regards individual property as such no alteration is thereby made. but kropotkin's "economics of the heap" (_la mise au tas, la prise au tas_) has another fault besides this matter of logic. its talented inventor proceeds from two assumptions, which characterise him as a utopian of the first water; on the one hand the old and incorrect assumption of the inexhaustible productivity of the earth, and on the other the assumption of the innate solidarity of mankind. kropotkin maintains that production now already outweighs consumption, and that the former is growing with unsuspected rapidity together with scientific insight into the methods of production and with freedom of production. a piece of land which to-day is cultivated by ten persons, and feeds one hundred, would with rational cultivation feed one thousand people, and with the general employment of machinery would only require five persons to cultivate it. in fact, diminution of labour, with increase of production under rational cultivation, is perhaps the quintessence of kropotkin's argument. men will then quickly leave the less productive countries to settle in the most suitable and most productive districts, and from these they will extract with proportionately little labour a never-ending superfluity, so that the economic arrangement proposed by kropotkin will become not only possible, but there will even be too much to distribute. here again we have the land of idleness in the disguise of science, the millennium of the revolution. let us listen to the description of this return to paradise in kropotkin's own words: "the workers will [after the revolution] go away from the city and return to the country. with the help of machinery which will enable the weakest among us to support it, they will introduce the revolution into the methods of cultivation, as they had previously with the ideas and conditions, of those who were before but slaves. here hundreds of acres will be covered with glass houses, and men and women will tend with gentle hands the young plants. elsewhere hundreds of acres will be cleared and broken up by machinery worked by steam, improved by manures and enriched by phosphates. laughing troops of workers will in due time cover these fields with seeds, guided in their work and in their experiments by those who understand agriculture, but all of them continually animated by the powerful and practical spirit of a people that has waked up from a long sleep and sees before it the happiness of all, that light-house of humanity shedding its rays afar. and in two or three months an early harvest will relieve their most pressing needs, and provide with food a people who after centuries of silent hope will at last be able to satisfy its hunger or eat as its appetite desires. meanwhile the popular genius, the genius of a people that is rising and knows its own requirements, will seek new means of production which only need the test of experiment in order to come into general use. attempts will be made to concentrate light, that well-known factor in agriculture, which in the latitude of yakutsk ripens barley in forty-five days, and to produce it artificially, and with light rival heat in promoting the growth of plants. some genius of the future will invent an instrument to guide the rays of the sun, and compel them to do work without it being necessary to seek in the depths of the earth for the heat contained in coal. efforts will be made to water the ground with solutions of minute organisms--an idea of yesterday that will make it possible to introduce into the ground the little living cells that are necessary for plants in order to feed the young roots, and to decompose the component parts of the earth, and make them fit to be assimilated." kropotkin adds, rendering criticism unnecessary: "we shall make experiments, but we need go no farther, for we should enter upon the realms of romance." we need not now consider whether the statement that production is already surpassing the capacity of consumption is really quite true; the vast majority of economists is of a different opinion. but even if it were so, and if production should further increase, kropotkin himself admits that the necessary presupposition of abundant production is rational cultivation. but the first condition of such rational agriculture is fixed organisation. this condition is to-day fulfilled; but in kropotkin's scheme there would only be cultivation by robbery, and that invariably leads at last to want, and a lack of production. kropotkin has seen this himself, for otherwise his proposal to distribute those products, the growth of which is limited, and of which there might be a lack, would be most superfluous; for in the land of lotus-eaters there is no want. this admission that such a case might happen is, however, not only a relapse from the promised land of the future into the sober reality of to-day, but it is the negation of anarchy. where is the line to be drawn between the superfluous and the non-superfluous? who is to draw it, and still more, who would recognise it? who will undertake the distribution, and who will respect it? every form of authority is abolished, and no one is pledged to anything. what if i simply refuse to recognise the limits made by the commission of distribution or to obey their decisions? will anyone compel me? in that case anarchy would be a fraud; but if i am allowed to do as i like, distribution is impossible and communism a fraud. from this dilemma kropotkin has endeavoured to extricate himself, in the fashion of certain celebrated examples, by invoking a _deus ex machina_. comte called it love, proudhon justice, and kropotkin calls it "the solidarity of the human race,"--three different words, but they imply one and the same thing: the moral order of the universe--a dogma which anyone may believe or not, as he likes. kropotkin assures us that, when once the great revolution has taken place, human solidarity will arise like a phoenix from the smoking ashes of the old order. we do not consider ourselves better or worse than other men, but we doubt very seriously whether we ourselves, if confronted on the one hand by want, and on the other by kropotkin's famous "heap of commodities," would give up the chief necessaries of life (and it is these in which want must first be felt, just because they are the most necessary) merely out of a feeling of solidarity with a man who next moment, if he is stronger than i, might turn me out of my house, kill me, or part with my books or pictures as if they were his own, with impunity. this sort of communism would only be possible under the rule of a despotic authority, such as the social-democratic state of the future must inevitably possess; but it would never be possible for a _libre entente_ of perfectly free individuals; "free" men in the anarchist sense will never let themselves be made equal and never have done so. but kropotkin thinks otherwise. he goes back to those dear, good, and too happy savages of rousseau, and tells us[ ] that primitive peoples, so long as they submit to no authority but live in anarchy, lead a most enviably happy life. "apart from the occurrences of natural forces, such as sudden changes of weather, earthquakes, frost, etc., and apart from war and accidents, primitive races lead a rich and full life out of their own resources, following their own wishes, at the cost of the minimum of labour. read the descriptions left by the great voyagers of early centuries, read certain modern records of travel, and you will see that where society has not yet sunk under the yoke of priests and warriors, plenty prevails among savages. like gregarious birds they spend the morning in common labour; in the evening they rest in common and enjoy themselves. they have none of the troubles of life known to the proletariat in the great centres of industry of our time. misery only overtakes them when they fall under the yoke of some form of authority." [ ] _les temps nouveaux_, p. . here we have the golden age existing before any form of society, just as previously we heard the description of a golden age after the fall of forms of society, and that the misery of this "cursed civilisation" can only be removed by doing away with such a society and returning again to the same primitive condition. it is the same old tale of the "social-contract" theory to which our anarchists one and all invariably recur after manifold scientific toil and trouble. in fact this primitive paradise described by kropotkin is just as much a figment of his imagination as the anarchist paradise of the future. he speaks of early travellers. now, as regards the ethnographic observations of old travellers, they are a very doubtful source of information. formerly it was frequently declared off-hand that this or that people had no idea of religion or lived in anarchy. the reason was that travellers completely underrated primitive forms in comparison with their own preconceived religious or political ideas and regarded them as naught. exact observations have shown that a complete lack of all religious conceptions is as rare in primitive races as complete lack of all social organisation or form of authority. kropotkin unfortunately does not mention the "certain new travellers" in whose books he has read those descriptions of the happy state of primitive peoples produced by anarchy. as far as we know, anarchy in the proper sense can only be stated of a very small number of races like the tierra del fuegans, the eskimos, etc.; but the life of these people is, to their disadvantage, exceedingly different from the fancied paradise of kropotkin. if we read the unanimous descriptions given by fitzroy, darwin, topinard, and others about the inhabitants of tierra del fuego, we shall very quickly abjure our belief--if we ever held it--that they lead such an eden-like existence as kropotkin's anarchist savages. we find, rather, misery and hunger as permanent conditions, that appear here as consequences of anarchy, and the blame cannot be laid entirely upon the lack of fertility of the soil. narborough[ ] says of the tierra del fuegans: "if any desire for civilisation arose, the forests that cover the country would not be an obstacle thereto, for in many parts there appear open, grassy spots, which are frequently regarded by seamen as the remnants of attempts at agriculture by the spaniards." but in general the statements of all travellers and ethnographers agree in showing that the existence of these so-called "savages" is a continual and bitter struggle against nature and against each other for the barest necessaries of life, and that if hunger is not a constant guest, their mode of living is a very irregular alternation between surfeit and prolonged fast. how difficult it is to rear children among these primitive people and even among others more advanced in civilisation is proved by the terrible custom, common to all parts of the globe, of infanticide, which has no other object than artificial selection for breeding in view of the harsh conditions of existence. persons who are regarded by the community only as mouths to feed and not as actual workers, the old and weak, are simply killed off by many races--even by those who, in other respects, do not stand upon a low level; and the murder of the parents and the aged appears to be as widespread among primitive races as infanticide. but these are facts which not only contradict the anarchist assumption of a golden age of anarchy, but still more contradict that of an innate feeling of solidarity in the human race. [ ] quoted in ratzel's _f. völkerkunde_, vol. ii., p. . leipsic and vienna, . a further remark remains to be made as to kropotkin's attitude toward the "propaganda of action." it is often said that he rejects it. but that is quite contrary to the facts. in his _psychology of revolution_ (_l'esprit de révolte_, p. ) he takes up quite a decisive attitude in reply to the question how words must be translated into deeds: "the answer is easy," says he; "it is action, the continual, incessantly renewed action of the minority that will produce this transformation. courage, devotion, self-sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice, subjection, and terror. what forms is action to take? any form--as different as are circumstances, means, and temperaments. sometimes arousing sorrow, sometimes scorn, but always bold; sometimes isolated, sometimes in common, it despises no means ready to hand, it neglects no opportunity of public life to propagate discontent, and to clothe it in words, to arouse hatred against the exploiter, to make the ruling powers ridiculous, to show their weakness, and ever to excite audacity, the spirit of revolt, by the preaching of example. if a feeling of revolution awakes in a country, and the spirit of open revolt is already sufficiently alive among the masses to break out in tumultuous disorders in the streets, _émeutes_ and risings,--then it is 'action' alone by which the minority can create this feeling of independence and that atmosphere of audacity without which no revolution can be completed. men of courage who do not stop at words but seek to transform them into deeds, pure characters for whom the action and the idea are inseparable, who prefer prison, exile, or death, rather than a life not in accordance with their principles, fearless men, who know what must be risked in order to win success,--those are the devoted outposts who begin the battle long before the masses are sufficiently moved to unfurl the standard of insurrection, and to march sword in hand to the conquest of their rights. amid complaints, speeches, theoretical discussions, an act of personal or general revolt takes place. it cannot be otherwise than that the great mass at first remains indifferent; those especially who admire the courage of the person or group that took the initiative will apparently follow the wise and prudent in hastening to describe this act as folly, and in speaking of the fools and hot-headed people who compromise everything. these wise and prudent ones had fully calculated that their party, if it slowly pursued its objects, would perhaps have conquered the world in one, two, or three centuries, and now the unforeseen intrudes! the unforeseen is that which was not foreseen by the wise and prudent. but those who know history and can lay claim to any well-ordered reasoning power, however small, know quite well that a theoretical propaganda of revolution must necessarily be translated into action long before theorists have decided that the time for it has come. none the less the theorists are enraged with the 'fools' and excommunicate and ban them. but the fools find sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their boldness, and they find imitators. in proportion as the first of them fill the prisons, others come forward to continue their work. the acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of revenge, increase. indifference becomes impossible. those who at first only asked what on earth the fools meant, are compelled to take them seriously, to discuss their ideas, and to take sides for or against. by acts which are done under the notice of the people, the new idea communicates itself to men's minds and finds adherents. one such act makes in a few days more proselytes than thousands of books." this is precisely the view of the followers of bakunin, only obscured and founded on a psychological basis. kropotkin forms the centre of a large number of anarchist authors, who are working at the development or the popularising of anarchist theory on the same lines as he is doing. from the mass of unimportant writers two rise up prominently, both essentially differing one from the other, elisée reclus, the savant, and jean grave, editor of the _révolte_. jean jacques elisée reclus[ ] was born on march , , at ste. foy la grande, in the gironde, the son of a protestant minister. he was the eldest but one of twelve children, and early became acquainted with want and distress, a circumstance which, in conjunction with his warm and affectionate heart, sufficiently explains his later social views. educated in rhenish prussia, he attended the protestant faculty at montauban, in southern france, and then the university of berlin, where he studied geography under ritter. at present reclus is regarded as one of the best geographers, and is the author of the famous and much admired _nouvelle géographie universelle_, in nineteen volumes, and of the great popular physical geography _la terre_, which has also been translated into german. his student life and also his stay at berlin coincided with the stormy period of the revolution of , and reclus eagerly accepted the views of the political and social radicalism of that day. the _coup d'état_ of december , , compelled him to leave france; he fled to england, visited ireland, and then from to travelled in the united states, north america, central america, and colombia. returning to paris, he devoted himself to a scientific arrangement of his studies during his travels, but at the same time took a more and more active part in the social and political movements of the day. thus he was one of the first authors in france who eagerly supported the war of the northern states of america for freedom, and defended lincoln. when the american minister in paris wished to express his recognition to the savant, then living in extremely modest circumstances, by the present of a considerable sum of money, reclus angrily rejected it. during the siege of paris in , elisée reclus joined the national guard, and was one of the crew of the balloon under nadar who endeavoured to convey news outside paris. as a member of the international association of workmen, he published in the _cri du peuple_, at the time of the outbreak of the th march, , a hostile manifesto against the government at versailles. still belonging to the national guard, which had now risen, he took part in a reconnaissance on the plateau of chatillon, in which he was taken prisoner on the th of april. after seven months' imprisonment in brest, during which he taught his fellow-prisoners mathematics, the court-martial in st. germain condemned him, on th november, , to be transported. this sentence caused a great outcry in scientific circles, and from different quarters, especially from eminent english statesmen and men of letters, among them being darwin, wallace, and lord amberley, the president of the french republic was urged to mitigate his punishment. accordingly, thiers commuted the sentence of transportation on th january, , to one of simple banishment. reclus then proceeded to lugano, but soon afterwards lost his young wife there, whom he loved passionately, and who had followed him into banishment. later on he went to switzerland, where he settled at clarens, near montreux, on the lake of geneva, and devoted himself again to communist and geographical studies. in , reclus returned to paris, was appointed in professor of geography at brussels, but in was again deprived of his post on account of anarchist outrages, in which he was quite unjustly supposed to be implicated. the students thereupon left the university, and founded a free university, in which reclus is at present a professor. [ ] _cf._ wolkenhauer, _elisée reclus_ (_globus_, vol. lxv., no. , feb., ). reclus's anarchist writings are: _produit de la terre et de l'industrie_, ; _richesse et misère; Évolution et révolution_, th ed., paris, ; and _À mon frère le paysan_, geneva, . elisée reclus's anarchism is explained externally not only by his intimate friendship with kropotkin, but still more from his connexion with an "anarchist family," for his brother, the eminent anthropologist elié, and several of his nephews as well as their wives are devoted adherents of anarchism. but while the younger members of the reclus family are more closely connected with the "propaganda of action" (the engineer paul reclus was accused of being an accomplice of vaillant), the older members, especially elisée, are learned dreamers who have nothing in common with the folly of the dynamitard. "the idea of anarchism is beautiful, is great," says elisée, "but these miscreants sully our teaching: he who calls himself an anarchist should be one of a good and gentle sort. it is a mistake to believe that the anarchist idea can be promoted by acts of barbarity." and in the preface to the last volume of his _universal geography_ he says of his travels: "i have everywhere found myself at home, in my own country, among men, my brothers. i have never allowed myself to be carried away by sentiment, except that of sympathy and respect for all the inhabitants of the one great fatherland. on this round earth that revolves so rapidly in space, a grain of sand amid infinity, is it worth while for us to hate one another?" reclus has no special doctrine, but shares generally the views of his friend kropotkin, although his greater scientific insight on many points leads him to incline rather to the collectivism of proudhon and bakunin. the "economy of the heap" (_tas_) appears to reclus, at any rate in the province of agriculture, to be unworkable. he prefers a distribution of land among individuals, family groups, and communities, according to the proposition of individual and collective power of labour. "the moment a piece of landed property surpasses the limits which can be properly cultivated, the holder should have no right to claim the surplus for himself; it will fall to the share of another worker." the russian _mir_ is always before his thoughts as the patron of peasant organisation. nothing is more remarkable than the affection of the anarchist followers of proudhon and bakunin for the russian _mir_ system. it would be a meritorious piece of sociological work to show the fundamental errors which underlie the agricultural systems that have been tried and have failed in modern attempts to revive them. the endeavour to revive them is now so general that it is no longer to be wondered at that we see those who are apparently most extreme, and even anarchists, following the same reactionary stream as the socialist catholics and their followers. the folly of their proceedings is best seen in those people who angrily reject a revival of the guilds, but by no means object to the revival of the old village communism, which implies a far earlier stage of development. we are, however, digressing, but must add one further remark. the anarchists are accustomed to say that their free economic organisation will quite absorb and devour politics, authority, and government, so that nothing of them remains; while, on the other hand, they represent the _mir_ as the pattern of such an organisation. but how comes it that, in the very country where the _mir_, this "just" village communism, exists, in russia itself, on the one hand famine is never absent,[ ] and on the other the czar's bureaucracy and cossack tyranny flourish so exceedingly, and that the peasant population itself is the most powerful support of the arbitrary rule of their "little father," the czar? [ ] this is seen, _inter alia_, by the number of persons wandering about seeking food--"a vagabond proletariat." in no less than , , were wandering more than thirty versts from their dwellings. even the women have to leave the villages to seek support elsewhere, and the number of women and children who thus are compelled to seek work at a distance is increasing every year. thus, _e. g._, in the district of the government of wjatka, in , . per cent.; in , . per cent.; in , . per cent. of the women capable of work did this. often whole families wander about, and women with children at the breast are no uncommon sight among the troops of wandering workmen. (westländer, a., _russland vor einem regime-wechsel_, stuttgart, , p. .) it might seem surprising that a savant of reclus's calibre does not himself perceive a refutation that is so obvious. but reclus is a type: who does not know the figure--even here not seldom seen--of the earnest savant, full of the purest love and devotion for mankind, who dabbles in politics in his leisure hours? it is as if in this time of leisure his spirit seeks to free itself from the severe discipline of his professional life. the man who, in his capacity as a doctor, a geographer, or physicist, would never allow subjective influences to trouble his method, deals with politics quite apart, as if there were not also a science of politics that, like any other science, regards freedom from the subjective standpoint, or from love and hatred as the first condition of the validity of its propositions. reclus, the celebrated geographer, goes so far, as a politician, as to deny the value of political economy and to assert that every workman knows more, and is better acquainted with social laws, than the learned economist. on the other hand, it is just this circumstance that gives this aged savant an importance in anarchist theory, to which the originality and the teaching of his anarchist writings could give him no claim. the pamphlet _evolution and revolution_ is nothing but a _rechauffé_ of the well-known commonplaces of anarchism; but the noble personality of reclus that stands out before us at every sentence, the honourable intention, the high moral desire, the inspired hope which make even the errors of opponents so touching, give the little book the same importance for his followers as the _contrat social_ once possessed, and makes his decoction the quintessence of anarchist thought, in its noblest, purest, and also--as a consequence--its most nebulous form. * * * * * a man of quite a different stamp is jean grave, the soul of the chief anarchist organ, the parisian _révolte_, which originated from the earlier paper, the _révolte_ of kropotkin, which appeared previously in geneva, and was suppressed there in . among the multitude of _déclassés_ who gave up their millions, their rank, and their estates in order to preach anarchy, grave has been, since proudhon, the only member of the proletariat who has made any important contributions to the theoretical edifice of the new doctrine. he was first a cobbler and then a printer, before becoming editor of the parisian weekly journal. grave is the netschajew of kropotkin. in the year he published, under the name of jehan levagre, a production entitled _publication du groupe de se et e arrondissements_, wherein he maintained the thesis that public propaganda must serve the secret "propaganda of action" as a means of defence; it must offer it the means of action, namely, men, money, and influence; and especially must contribute to place these actions in the right light by commenting upon them. that is also the method in which grave edits the _révolte_. he is every inch the man of action, both in his journal and in his other writings, most of all in his book _la société mourante et l'anarchie_ (printed in london; the original edition is suppressed in france), which in brought upon its author a sentence of two years' imprisonment on account of its provocative tone. on the other hand, in his latest work, _la société au lendemain de la révolution_ ( d ed., paris, ), grave endeavours not only to write as a theorist, but has even sketched a definite picture of the anarchist paradise. adorned with the exterior drapery of the modern doctrine of descent and by the influence of h. spencer, who has been totally misunderstood by grave as by all other anarchists, the teaching of kropotkin here meets us without essential addition, but clear and precise. grave only admits an organisation in the society of the future in the sense of a friendly agreement, formed by the identity of interests among individuals who group themselves together for the common execution of some task. these societies, which are formed and dissolved again merely according to the needs of the moment, are the _alpha_ and _omega_ of social organisation. from the group will proceed the production of shoes and the construction of further railways; there may be co-operation of groups, but no centralisation in the shape of commissions, delegations, or similar "parasitic" institutions. the ticklish question of the position of children under anarchy is solved (with the resolute optimism peculiar to grave) by a _libre entente_. naturally there can be no right to any child, since there will be at most merely a "family group," and not a family. those who wish to nurse and look after their children can, of course, do so; and those who do not wish to, can probably find some enthusiast who will with pleasure relieve them of the burden of humanity to which they have certainly given life, but which concerns them no more from the moment when the umbilical cord between mother and child is severed. of course there can be no talk of education under anarchy, because education and discipline presuppose authority; and therefore education will be a matter of "individual initiative." on the other hand, education will flourish luxuriantly because every one will perceive its value; and so on. the internal contradiction of anarchism is nowhere so clearly seen as when it is a question of children, who form the most important group of "the weak." we have already touched upon this in connection with stirner's union of egoists. but the more one attempts to understand this state of society in detail, the more violent becomes the contradiction between its supposed purpose and its actual consequences. for what purpose are we to overthrow the present order of society, and make any other form of society resting upon authority impossible? is it in order to make the oppression of the weak by the strong, of minorities by majorities, of one man by another, impossible; to give each individual his full "integral" freedom? and what, as a matter of fact, would be the consequences of anarchy? imagine wanton, idle mothers, without conscience and seeking only enjoyment--and grave admits that such exist to-day, and that in a future society they cannot be compelled to support their children,--imagine that such persons are set free from the duty of caring for their own offspring, of suckling and attending to them, and that it is to be left to mere chance and the "enthusiasm" of others, whether a child gets milk, or even is fed and cared for. how many children would perish? how many "weaker ones" would fall victims to the brutality of the stronger in the valuation of their individuality? we cannot be deceived with the "innate harmony or solidarity, justice or love of mankind," or whatever other name may be given to this figment of the imagination; still less with the land of indolence, overflowing with plenty, promised by kropotkin and his followers. both of these suppositions must first of all be proved actually to exist; at present they are only maintained obstinately because, as a matter of fact, they cannot be proved. nature and life speak another language, perhaps more sorrowful and more convincing. the appeals to darwin and büchner are, in the language of darwinism, the society of to-day, and any other form of society based upon the principle of the state implies a softening of the struggle for existence by artificial selection; but anarchy would be natural selection, and thus would be a step lower in development. the return to primitive stages, which have long since been passed through, would be the external form in which this fact would appear; thus, for example, the conditions described by grave in "the sexual group" would mean a return to the times and conditions which, in all races of a primitive type living in total or partial anarchy, have led to the dreadful custom of murdering children and old people. but this would mean a return to artificial selection in its most primitive and sanguinary form. anarchists want us to undergo once again all the errors, terrors, and madness associated with the results won by human culture; and that there will not be even a respectable minority prepared to do. but they wish to do it in order to introduce "happiness for all" (_le bonheur de l'humanité_), to change the "struggle for existence" into a general "struggle with nature," as all anarchists from proudhon to grave have dreamed; and in this lies the incomprehensible and ineffable contradiction. * * * * * more original than reclus and grave, if only after the fashion of the eclectic who can quicken the various ancient and modern elements of thought into a new spirit, is daniel saurin, who, in his work on _order through anarchy_ (_l' ordre par l'anarchie_, paris, ), tries to find a philosophic foundation for anarchism. for saurin, humanity is something substantial and real, not that _tohuwabohn_ from which even reclus cannot rescue kropotkin's "economics of the heap." according to saurin the normal man combines two elements: a constant something that is permanent throughout the centuries, and, surpassing space and time, comes back again in all nations and persons; and a variable. the first is "man," the latter the individual. the human average (_le minimum humain_) appears in the bodily, moral, and mental equality of men; the individual is determined by the relation of these constants to an environment (_milieu_). above the individual stands man, and man includes all individuals in himself. the laws of each individual are thus the laws of humanity; the law of society resides in ourselves; to recognise the essential conditions of our being is to recognise the essential form of society; to realise them, to be what man is, is to respect the reality of others, is to be "sociable." the most perfect form of society, therefore, is found in the fullest freedom of the ego; for this no human laws are needed. "to what purpose is it to re-enact natural laws and to wish to confirm their powerful commands by the ridiculous sanctions of men? our obedience to them can add nothing to them; without our knowing or wishing it, we must obey them. anarchy is thus not lack of order but the most natural order.... from the real society which binds us individuals together springs the universal law, the irrevocable moral order, to which each existence is bound and which it follows, without thereby belying the principle of anarchy; for anarchy cannot possibly be a mere unconditioned loosing of all bonds, the unreal absolute.... man is higher than the individual; at least he stands before the individual, and in him is the passing of phenomena. thus, also, morals must come before sociology, and form the foundation of a society which seeks to be permanent." here, _post tot discrimina rerum_, we have again the moral order of the universe, to which we may apply the words of a celebrated englishman, who said of certain moralists: "it would be thought absurd to say the planets must move in circles because the circle is the most perfect figure, and yet the dogmas of certain politicians are just as absurd as this assertion." as the caricature of the social revolutionist in petticoats, louise michel[ ] has, perhaps wrongly, obtained a kind of celebrity as a type. her memoirs show her, as zetkin proves, as a noble, self-sacrificing, unselfish, and mild character. "like all sharply-defined characters, louise michel suffers from the defects of her qualities. she is courageous to the point of aimless recklessness, so full of character that she might be termed obstinate; sympathetic and soft-hearted to the verge of sentimentality. her idealism often loses itself in the misty regions of indistinctness, and borders on mysticism; her kindness degenerates into weakness, her trustfulness into credulity. but all these faults cannot weaken the general impression of this pure and noble character; on the contrary, they are the shadows which show up the lights more clearly and distinctly. her anarchism, socialism, or whatever else it may be called, has nothing in common with modern scientific socialism, except its unsparing criticism of the modern form of society and its persistent attempt to transform it and to produce a state of things more suitable to modern conditions. but her criticism finds support in quite different arguments; an idealist lack of clearness enfolds the end to be attained, and still more the means to it. she knows historical facts well enough, but lacks insight into the historical process of development; and still less does she possess a clear comprehension of economic relationships. to her a social transformation is not the natural and necessary product of historical and economic development, but the demand made by a passionate feeling of justice, a categorical imperative. if louise michel had lived in the middle ages, she would, without doubt, have been the foundress of a new religious order; as a child of the nineteenth century, as an atheist, who cannot postpone the redress of injustice into another life, she became a social revolutionary." [ ] her books, _le livre de misères_ and _prise de possession_, were not procurable by me, and i had to depend upon ossip zetkin's sketch of her in _charakterköpfen aus der französischen arbeiterbewegung_, pp. - , berlin, , and the _volkslexikon, l. c._ her career shows the unselfishness and self-sacrifice with which louise michel carried out her ideas. she was born in at the french castle of broncourt; she calls herself "a bastard"; her mother was a simple peasant girl, an orphan without either brothers or sisters, brought up in the castle, and seduced by the son of its owner. the young man's parents decided that louise and her mother should remain in the castle, as an act of justice, not of kindness. after the death of her grandparents louise left the castle with her mother in , passed her examination as a teacher, and, as she would not take the oath necessary for holding office in napoleonic france, she opened a "free school," _i. e._, a private school in a little village. in she came to paris as assistant teacher in another private school, lived in extreme poverty, took a most active part in the struggles of the commune in may, , was taken prisoner and was to have been shot, but was condemned in december, , to be transported to new caledonia, whence she returned in , in consequence of the general amnesty then given. she took part in editing anarchist journals, and was condemned in to five years' imprisonment "for incitement to plunder." after three years she was pardoned by the president, but "she regarded this as a disgraceful insult," against which she protested violently, and absolutely refused to accept it, so that she had to be turned out of prison by force. since then she has lived in london, where she acts as head of the "_réveil international des femmes_," an organisation possessing a journal and preaching an exceedingly confused and old-maidish form of female emancipation. * * * * * around these figures of modern french anarchism are grouped a number of theorists of inferior rank, partly belonging to the literary aftergrowth and bohemia, partly learned persons, contributors to the _révolté_, the _père peinard_, the _revue anarchiste_, the _l'en dehors_, and other anarchist prints in paris,[ ] mostly of a very ephemeral character. [ ] _cf._ f. dubois, _le péril anarchiste_, pp. - ; mostly superficial, but good on this topic. thus we have g. eliévant, who wrote a declaration of anarchist principles (_déclarations_, paris, ), in consequence of a charge made against him in in connection with the dynamite robbery at soisy-sous-etiolles, a book regarded by the anarchists as one of the standard works of their literature. a. hamon, a learned sociologist, has written a pamphlet, _les hommes et les théories de l'anarchie_ (paris, ), which has enjoyed a wide circulation; and is preparing a large _psychology of anarchists_, of which he has already published a short summary (see dubois, _u. s._, pp. - ). hamon, in order to gain a knowledge empirically of the assumptions of psychology, has set on foot an inquiry (enquête), and put to several anarchists the question, how and why they have become anarchists. an examination of the confessions thus obtained showed that the chief peculiarity of the anarchist mind is the inclination to revolt, which displays itself in the most various forms, such as a desire for opposition, criticism, and love of modernity (_philoneismus_); and that this tendency is combined with a remarkable love of freedom and strongly developed individuality. "the anarchist must be free: he hates laws and authority"--all three traits unite in one; but hamon's investigations completely confirm our assertion, that anarchism is principally an emphasising of the sentiment of individuality and freedom, and cannot be explained sufficiently--perhaps not at all--by mere pauperism; in other words, anarchism is not an economic but a political question. but to this predisposition to individualism, says hamon, there must be united, in order to produce an anarchist, also a strongly developed sentiment of altruism, a fanatical love of humanity, a strong sense of justice, and finally, a keen faculty for logic. we do not wish to deny this; but we have seen that cosmopolitanism, an over-excited sense of justice, and a certain tendency to dialectic _jeux d'esprit_, has been a common quality of all the doctrines we have hitherto described. charles malato (de corné), of the old italian nobility, the son of a communist, with whom he went to new caledonia, is one of the chief literary representatives and more eager supporters of the propaganda of anarchism in paris. besides a _philosophy of anarchy_, a book called _révolution chrétienne et révolution sociale_, and the widely circulated pamphlet, _les travailleurs des villes aux travailleurs des campagnes_ (issued anonymously in , and recently again at lyons in ), he has written a long-winded diary, _de la commune à l'anarchie_ (paris, ), a kind of family history of anarchism in paris, its press, its groups, and its representatives, from doctrinaires like grave and kropotkin to the men of action like pini, ravachol, and vaillant. other names of some note in the anarchist world are zo d'axa (his real name is galland), the former editor of _l'en dehors_, a literary adventurer who has wandered into the camp of every party; sebastian faure, the father of the _père peinard_ and author of _le manchinisme et ses conséquences_; bernard lazare, octave mirbeau, françois guy, author of _les préjugés et l'anarchie_ (béziers, ); emil darnaud, author of _la société future_ ( ), _mendiants et vagabonds, une revolution à foix_, and others. the programme of these men is almost without exception that of kropotkin, which they water down and popularise in numerous newspaper articles and pamphlets. some of them, like faure and duprat, are decidedly men of action; others, like saurin and mirbeau, condemn bombs as the most sanguinary of all forms of authority. france does not to-day possess any representatives of individualist anarchism. an isolated adherent of the anarchist collectivism of proudhon is adolphe bonthons, for some time business manager of an anarchist paper in lyons, showing himself an eager collectivist and opponent of rent and profit in many writings (_e. g._, _menace à la bourgeoisie_, lyons, , and _la répartition des produits du travail_, ; of garin, _die anarchisten_, p. ), and demanding quite in the style of the anarchist agitator the absolute abolition of all authority. to-day bonthons is quite behind the times, and does not himself regard himself as an anarchist. finally, we note as eager defenders of anarchist communism the italians carlo cafiero, the former friend of bakunin, who devoted the whole of his great wealth to the anarchist cause; merlino, and malatesta[ ]--all of them men of action of the most reckless character, who have become acquainted with the prisons of many lands, and still wander through life as homeless revolutionaries. [ ] i have only seen malatesta's dialogue _between peasants_ in a french translation: _entre paysans, traduit de l'italien_, th ed., paris, . chapter vi germany, england, and america individualist and communist anarchism -- arthur mülberger -- theodor hertzka's _freeland_ -- eugen dühring's "anticratism" -- moritz von egidy's "united christendom" -- john henry mackay -- nietzsche and anarchism -- johann most -- auberon herbert's "voluntary state" -- r. b. tucker. there is a well-marked geographical division, not only in the anarchism of agitation, but also in anarchist theory. the anarchist communism, to which the "propaganda of action" is allied, appears to be almost exclusively confined to the romance peoples, the french, spaniards, and italians; while the teutonic nations appear to incline more towards individualist anarchism. if this geographical division is not quite exact, it must be remembered that these views themselves are not so clearly separated, and that the ideas of proudhon rarely develop into pure individualism as proclaimed by stirner. the external distinction between individualists and communists is certainly marked most clearly by the condemnation of the foolish propaganda of action of the former; and in order to prevent the disagreeable confusion of their views with the perpetrators of bomb outrages, the theorists of germany and england give their systems more harmless names, such as free land, anticratism, united christianity, voluntarism, and so on. it is perhaps owing to this circumstance that states which supervise mental movements in the minds of their citizens so closely, so anxiously, as do austria and germany, allow the extension of the theoretical propaganda of a movement which is only distinguished from the doctrines of kropotkin, as explained above, by a difference in formulating the common axiom on which they are based. * * * * * in the beginning of the seventies there appeared in germany an eager worshipper of proudhon, named arthur mülberger, born in , who has practised since as a physician, and lately as medical officer in crailsheim, and who has explained with great clearness separate portions of proudhon's teaching in various articles in magazines and reviews.[ ] mülberger's writings have certainly chiefly an historical value; but he is one of the few who have not merely written about and criticised proudhon, but have thoroughly studied him. he is accordingly, in spite of his somewhat partisan attitude as a supporter of proudhon, certainly his most trustworthy and faithful interpreter. [ ] now collected as _studien über proudhon_, stuttgart, . of all modern phenomena, which, according to proudhon's assumption that complete economic freedom must absorb all political authority, should introduce anarchy by means of economic institutions, the most important is undoubtedly the so-called "free land" movement, whose "father" is theodor hertzka. born on the th july, , at buda pesth, hertzka studied law, but afterwards turned to journalism, in which he gained the reputation of the most brilliant journalist in vienna. in the seventies he was editor of the _neue freie presse_, and in he founded the vienna _allgemeine zeitung_; but since he has been editor of the _zeitschrift für staatsund volkwirthschaft_. his book _freeland_, a picture of the society of the future (_freiland, ein sociales zukunftsbild_), which appeared in , had an extraordinary success, and produced a movement for the realisation of the demands and ideas therein expressed. the expedition which was sent out to "freeland," after years of agitation, prepared at great expense and watched with the eager curiosity of all europe, appears to-day, however--as was hardly to be wondered at--to have failed. "freeland," as depicted by hertzka in his social romance, is a community founded upon the principle of unlimited publicity combined with unlimited freedom. everyone throughout "freeland" must be able to know at any time what commodities are in greater or less demand, and what branches of work produce greater or less profit. thus in "freeland" everybody has the right and the power to apply himself, as far as he is capable, to those forms of production that are at any time most profitable. a careful department of statistics publishes in an easily read and rapid form every movement of production and consumption, and thus the movement of prices in all commodities is quickly brought to everyone's notice. but in order that everyone may undertake that branch of production most suitable and profitable to him, from the information thus obtained, the necessary means of production, including the forces of nature, are freely at the disposal of all, without interest, but a repayment has to be made out of the result of production. each has a right to the full return from his labour; this is obtained by free association of the workers. the entrance into each association is free to everyone, and anyone can leave any association at any time. each member has a right to a share in the net product of the association corresponding to the work done by him. the work done is reckoned for each member in proportion to the number of hours worked. the work done by the freely elected and responsible managers or directors is reckoned, by means of free agreement made with each member of the union, as equal to a certain number of hours' work per day. the profit made by the community is reckoned up at the close of each working year, and after deduction for repayment of capital, and the taxes payable to the "freeland" commonwealth, is divided amongst its members. the members, in case of the failure or liquidation of the association, are liable for its debts in proportion to their share of the profits. this liability for the debts of the association corresponds, in case of dissolution, to the claim of the guarantor members on the property available. the highest authority of the association is the general assembly, in which every member possesses the same voting power, active and passive. the conduct of the business of the company is placed in the hands of a directorate, chosen by the general assembly for a certain period, whose appointment is, however, revocable at any time. besides this the general assembly elects every year an overseer who has to watch over the conduct of the directors. there are neither masters nor servants; only free workers; there are also no proprietors, only employers of the capital of the association. the forms of capital necessary for production are therefore as free from owners as is the land. the most extensive publicity of all business proceedings is the prime supposition for the proper working of this organisation, which can only exist by the removal of all hindrances to the free activity of the individual will guided by enlightened self-interest. there can and need be no business secrets; on the contrary, it is the highest interest of all to see that everyone's capacity for work is directed to where it will produce the best results. the working-statements of the producers are therefore published; the purchase and sale of all imaginable products and commodities of "freeland" trade takes place in large warehouses, managed and supervised for the benefit of the community. the highest authority in "freeland" is at the same time the banker of the whole population. not merely every association, but every person has his account in the books of the central bank, which looks after all payments inwards as well as all money paid out from the greatest to the smallest by means of a comprehensive clearing system. all the expenditure of the community is defrayed by all in common, and by each person singly, exactly in proportion to its income; for which purpose the central bank debits each with his share in the total. the chief item in the budget of "freeland" expenditure is "maintenance"; which includes everything spent on account of persons incapacitated for work or excused from it, and who therefore have a right to free support, such as all women, children, sick persons, defectives, and men over sixty years of age. on the other hand, justice, police, military, and finance arrangements cost nothing in "freeland." there are no paid judges or police officials, still fewer soldiers, and the taxes, as seen above, come in of their own accord. there is not even a code of criminal or civil law. for the settlement of any disputes that may arise, arbitrators are chosen, who make their decisions verbally, and from whom there is an appeal to the board of arbitrators. but they have practically nothing to do, for there is neither robbery nor theft in "freeland"; since "men who are normal in mind and morals cannot possibly commit any violences against other people in a community in which all proper interests of each member are equally regarded." criminals are therefore treated as people who are suffering from mental or moral disease. we need not point out that we here have to deal with an attempt to revive proudhon's thoughts and plans, and that our criticisms on these apply equally to _freeland_. if to-day extravagant praise is lavished on hertzka's originality, that only proves that people who criticise and condemn proudhon so readily have not read him; and even when archdukes give the "freeland" project their moral and financial support, that only proves again how little, even now, the real meaning of anarchism is understood, and how slavishly people submit to words. * * * * * eugen dühring has raved against "the state founded on force" as often as against anarchism, in his various writings; he has as often pronounced a scornful judgment upon the literary connections of anarchism as he has sought to ally himself with the so-called "honourable" anarchists in his little paper (_the modern spirit--der moderen völkergeist_, in berlin) that is apparently brought out for the sake of a dühring cult. there appears at least to be a contradiction between the theory of anarchism and dühring's anti-semitism. nevertheless, dühring undoubtedly belongs to the anarchists, and has never very seriously defended himself against this charge. his haughty and biassed criticisms of proudhon, stirner, and kropotkin (he excepts only bakunin, the enemy of the "hebrew" marx) are sufficiently explained by his own unexampled weakness and love of belittling others, without seeking any further motives; "it must be night where his own stars shine"; and as his followers have generally read nothing else beside his lucubrations, it is very easy to explain the great influence which dühring exercises at present upon the youth of germany, and why he is regarded by some people as the only man of genius since socrates, and as a man of the most unparalleled originality, which he is not, by a long way. however much dühring may belittle proudhon, he is himself, at least as a social politician, and certainly as an economist, merely a weak dilution of proudhon. in _the modern spirit_ proudhon's anarchism was recently credited with the intention of abolishing not only all government, but all organisation. dühring, it was said, had reduced this mistaken view to its proper origin, and in place of anarchism had set up "anticratism," which does not intend to overthrow direction and organisation, but merely to abolish all unjust force, "the state founded on force." we who know proudhon, know that what is here ascribed to dühring is exactly what proudhon taught as "no-government" (_an-arche_); and there was nothing left to the great dühring but to bluff his half-fledged scholars with a new word that means nothing more or less than anarchy. that which is dühring's own, namely, the so-called "theory of force," has not an origin of any great profundity. he takes as the elements of society two human beings--not at all the sexual pair--but the celebrated "two men" of herr dühring, one of whom oppresses the other, uses force to him, and makes him work for him. these "two men" explain, for him, all economic functions and social problems; the origin of social distinctions, of political privileges, of property, capital, betterment, exploitation, and so on. by these two famous men he lets himself be guided directly into proudhon's path. "wealth," declares dühring, "is mastery over men and things." proudhon would never have been so silly--although dühring means the same as he does--as to call wealth the mastery over men and things, and engel formulates the proposition more correctly as: "wealth is the mastery over men, by means of mastery over things"; although this deserves the name of a definition neither in the logical nor economic sense. but dühring uses his ambiguous proposition in order to be able to represent riches on the one hand as being something quite justifiable and praiseworthy (the mastery over things), and on the other as robbery (mastery over men), as "property due to force." here we have a miserable degradation and commonplace expression of the antimony of proudhon: "property is theft," and "property is liberty." we also find proudhon, again distorted, in dühring's statement that the time spent in work by various workers, whether they be navvies or sculptors, is of equal value. the "personalist sociality" of dühring, as its creator terms it elsewhere, is the conception of arrangements and organisations by means of which every individual person may satisfy all the necessities and luxuries of life, from the lowest to the highest, through the mutual working together and combination with every other individual. this personalist sociality is, of course, anti-monarchical, and opposed to all privileges of position and birth; it is also "anti-religionist," for it recognises no authorities that are beyond control, except only conformity to nature. it starts from the actual condition of the individual; but this can only be known by its actions, and is not determined by birth. as regards public affairs, positions that are technically prominent should be given by universal, direct, and equal suffrage to persons who have shown by their actions that they possess the necessary qualifications for them. as regards the anti-religious element, which in dühring's case really implies anti-semitism, the place of all religion and everything religious is taken by dühring's philosophy of actuality or being. among the just claims of the individual person dühring reckons not only bodily freedom and immunity from injury, but also immunity from economic injury. just as on the one hand every kind of slavery or limitation by united action or social forms must be unhesitatingly rejected, so, on the other hand, unlimited power of disposal over the means of production and natural capital must be limited by suitable public laws in such a way that no one can be excluded from the means supplied by nature, and reduced to a condition of starvation. the right to labour, as well as freedom of choice in labour, must everywhere be maintained. the economic corner-stones of personalist sociality are, as dühring's follower, emil döle,[ ] explains, "metallic currency as the foundation of all economic relationships, and individual property, especially capital, as the necessary and inviolable foundation for every condition that is not based on robbery and violence. the logic and necessity of any form of society rests on private property, and that is also the basis of dühring's system; but his reforms are directed to rejecting the ingredients of injustice, robbery, and violence towards persons that are commingled with these fundamental forms. to bring this about, the principle under which the merely economic mechanics of values have free play must be rejected; and instead of it, the original personal and political rights of men must be recognised. dühring therefore regards a general association of workers as far more essential than strikes, and would wish political means (in the narrower sense of politics) brought once more into the foreground, and extended much farther than before. he certainly rejects the trickery of parliament, but not a representation of the working classes seriously meant and honourably carried out. he also does not yield to that logic of wretchedness which expects every reform to arise from ever-increasing misery, but takes into account material and mental progress and the condition of the masses." [ ] döle, _eugen dühring, etwas von dessen charakter, leistungen, und reformatorischen beruf_, leipzig, . compare also fr. engel's, dühring's _umwälzung der wissenschaft_, d ed. stuttgart, . in all this it is easy to recognise proudhon's views; even sometimes his theory of property. and even if their views are not alike formally, and dühring does not quite understand proudhon's "mutualism," yet he ought to have regarded the french social reformer somewhat less condescendingly and confusedly. but he has also had a very low opinion of stirner; yet, however persistently he and his followers may deny it, dühring's "personalism" is not only exactly the same as stirner's "individual" (_einziger_), but dühring himself is the most repellent illustration of the egoist-individual of stirner. both stirner and proudhon have assumed as the necessary pre-supposition of the abolition of government, individuals who are able to govern themselves, _i. e._, moral individuals, which means "persons." when, finally, dühring apparently seeks to limit the anarchist phrase of the abolition of all government, by saying that anticratism is the denial of all unrighteous exercise of force and usurpation of authority, this is palpable fencing. dühring would tell the masses which form of force is right and which wrong; which should be maintained, and which not; and the masses will hasten to follow his dictates. dühring, the great opponent of all metaphysics and _a priori_ conceptions, at once sets up, just like jean jacques rousseau, "the modern hebrew," an absolute concept "justice," and transforms the world according to it. who can help laughing at this? dühring has tried to reconcile his prejudice against the jews with the foregoing doctrine, by distinguishing nations from the standpoint of personalism, and regarding the existence of higher races side by side with lower races as a hindrance--indeed the most serious hindrance--to the realisation of "personalist sociality." "nothing is easier than to make a wise grimace." * * * * * perhaps the most peculiar of the circle of theoretical anarchists is herr von egidy. if dühring has succeeded in enlivening anarchism by an admixture of anti-jewish persecution, herr von egidy has accomplished the far greater success of enlivening anarchism with a new religious cult, called "united christianity," added to the spirit of prussian militarism and squiredom. when the new apostle stood as a candidate for the reichstag in , supporting his new christianity and the military programme rejected by the dissolved parliament, he was able to secure votes. this is a piece of statistics that shows the confusion of ideas existing in so-called intelligence. moritz von egidy[ ] was born at mainz on th august, , served in the prussian army, and reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel. afterwards he exchanged his military command for an apostleship, after gaining knowledge by private study. his christianity is a religion without dogma or confession, _a lucus a non lucendo_, but deserves respect as a social phenomenon in view of conditions in germany. [ ] see, for a study of his views, the popular publication, _einiges christenthum_, berlin, , and the weekly paper (since ), _versöhrung_ (_reconciliation_). the "united christendom" is to be the union of all men in the idea of time and applied christianity, in the sense of a humanity that approaches more nearly to god. the new religion only values and lays stress on life, on "morality lived"; doctrine and dogma must be laid aside; and thus von egidy arrives at the remarkable paradox of "a religion without dogma or confession." the purpose of religion is practical, and in dogmas he sees forms, among which each individual may choose for himself, forms which (according to the main principle of development which he places in the forefront of all his arguments) are in a state of continual flux and change. what religion has to offer is to be expressed not in dogmas, but only in points of view; not in institutions, but in directions for guidance. for this purpose it is not necessary that egidy's disciples should form themselves into a church, for that even contradicts the spirit of this religion; their master rather tells them "to organise nothing, to actualise nothing." not parties, nor unions, but only persons and actions, is what he wants, and these will each in his own way lead men into the earthly paradise of which egidy speaks with truly prophetic confidence. the state, as we now know it, is for egidy, who goes to work very cautiously, no more and no less than a link in the eternal chain of development; a stage, beyond which he looks into a divinely appointed kingdom of the future, that will no longer rest upon the pillars of force and fear, which "contradict the consciousness of god, wherein there will be no difference between governed and government." he quickly disposes of the objection that men are not fit for such an ideal state. "once we have created conditions in accordance with the divine will, the men for them will be there. if there was a paradise for the first primitive man, why should there not be one for civilised man of to-day? we only need to create it for ourselves; and once we have gained entrance to it we shall not be driven out of it a second time--we have had our warning. of course the 'old adam' must be left outside." of course! but egidy forgets in the ardour of inspiration that it is not so easy to leave the old adam outside, and that his assumption of a primitive paradise for mankind, for the _homme sauvage_ of the "social contract," directly contradicts the theory of evolution which he has just unhesitatingly accepted. he also contradicts himself when he at first maintains that the "conditions in accordance with the divine will" will produce men fitted for them, and afterwards says: "do not let us trouble about programmes and systems, or modes of execution; only get the right men, and we need not trouble ourselves about how to realise our proposals." as may be seen, his "united christianity" not only has a socialist side, but it is sheer socialism, the main basis of which is moral and intellectual self-consciousness. egidy has certainly not drawn up a definite programme, and could not draw it up; "since we are all at the present moment, without exception, undergoing a thorough transformation of 'the inner man,' it is more reasonable to defer single efforts till the general consciousness has become enlightened on essential points." egidy can thus only open up "points of view" on the social question, leaving everything else to the individual and to natural evolution. hence a definite social doctrine is excluded. thus, upon the question of property, he says that property is "not so much the source as the logical consequence of the immature ideas of human rights and duties which we still hold. with the progressive transformation of our ideas generally, with the adoption of a totally different view of life, with the dawn of a new view of the world, our conceptions of property will also alter; not sooner, but surely. this new view of life will give a direction and aim to our endeavours for improvement. the new treatment of the question of property, however, will only be one of the results of the general new tendencies. certainly it will be one of the most important; but we do not need beforehand to recognise any one of the manifold tendencies indicated as a binding law; just as we may generally take what is called socialism into consideration, as soon as it is offered to us on a firmly defined form, but never accept it without further demur as a new law. "instead of the words 'equality' and 'freedom,' i say 'self-reliance' and 'independence.' they express better that which concerns the individual; and they also avoid the objection of being 'impossible.' that even self-reliance and independence may experience a certain limitation from the demands of our life in common one with another, i know quite well; but they do not mislead us beforehand to the same erroneous ideas and especially not to the same demands, so impossible of fulfilment, as the word equality. the highest attainable is always merely that we create for the individual equal, _i. e._, equally good, conditions of existence. but owing to the inequality of individuals similar conditions do not always produce by any means the same result of well-being; the utilisation of the conditions is a matter for the individual, and is unequal. thus we should have to arrange these conditions as _un_equal for each individual in order to give all individuals really equal conditions of existence. apart from the fundamental impossibility in our human imperfection, of doing absolute justice to these requirements, the equality thus restored would the very next moment be impaired in a thousand different directions." egidy is a pure anarchist, perhaps the purest of all, but he is certainly not the wisest. "the greatest fault in anarchism," he says, "in the eyes of the opponent whom it has to overcome, is its name. this, however, is not quite fair to the representatives of these ideas; for why must everything have a name, and why must names be sought which annihilate what at present exists, instead of choosing names which indicate the highest connotation of meanings so far recognised? why say, 'without government'? why not rather, 'self-discipline, self-government'? discipline and government mean things of great value; without which we could not imagine human existence. the only question is, who exercises government over us, and who wields the rod of discipline: whether it is others or we ourselves?" to be sure, he draws a distinction between "anarchists of blood" and "noble anarchists"; he condemns the former and associates himself with the latter. but that does not hinder this remarkable man from having a bismarckian patriotism, sullen prejudices against the jews, and, above all, incomprehensible zeal on behalf of prussian militarism and monarchy. "the monarchical idea in itself," says this most remarkable of all anarchists, "by no means contradicts the idea of the self-reliance and independence of the individual. the prince will not be lacking in the comprehension necessary for a redrafting of the monarchical idea to suit the people when they have attained their majority. the prince belongs to the people; the prince the foremost of the people; the prince in direct intercourse with the people. the prince neither absolute ruler nor constitutional regent; but the prince a personality, an ego; with a right to execute his will as equal as that of any one of the people. no confused responsibility of ministers thrust in between people and prince. there is no 'crown' as a conception; there is only a living wearer of the crown--the king, the prince--as responsible head of the people. the present servants of the crown become commissioners of the people." compare these expressions with proudhon's attitude in regard to the dynastic question described above, and consider, in order to do justice to each, that egidy as well as proudhon had in view when speaking a monarch who knew how to surround himself at least with the appearance of "social imperialism." if, indeed, egidy were one day to be disillusioned by his "social prince," just as proudhon was by _his_ monarch, yet it should not be forgotten that the "social prince" might also likewise be greatly disillusioned some day as to the loyalty of egidy's followers. * * * * * germany possesses an honest and upright anarchist of a strongly individualist tendency in the naturalised scot, john henry mackay, who was born at greenock on th february, . in mackay we find again one of those numerous persons who have descended from that sphere of society where want and distress are only known by name, into the habitations of human pity, and have risen from these upon the wings of poetic fancy and warmheartedness into the "regions where the happy gods do dwell," and where anarchy does not need to be brought into being. mackay is of an essentially artistic nature; like cafiero, he is also a millionaire, which means a completely independent man. both these circumstances are needed to explain his individualist anarchism. his novel, which created some sensation, entitled _the anarchist: a picture of society at the close of the nineteenth century_,[ ] which appeared in , is a pendant to theodor hertzka's novel, _freeland_, to which it is also not inferior in genuinely artistic effects, as _e. g._, the development of the character of auban, an egoist of stirner's kind, and in touching description, as that of poverty in whitechapel. the book does not contain any new ideas: but is nevertheless important as making a thorough and clear distinction between individualist and communist anarchism; while, on the other hand, the glaring colouring of the descriptions of misery possesses a certain provocative energy which the author certainly did not intend, for he rejects the "propaganda of action." [ ] _die anarchisten_, etc.; _zürich verlagsmagazin_; a popular edition has also appeared in berlin; also an english translation. boston, ; and in french, paris, . it is only to be expected as a matter of course that in germany as in france, that literary bohemia, certain "advanced minds" should prefer to give themselves out as anarchists and individualists, as _einzige_; but it must not therefore be concluded that it is our duty to concern ourselves with writers such as pudor, bruno wille, and others. we might indeed utter a warning against extending too widely the boundaries of anarchist theory, and thus obliterating them altogether. in our opinion it is quite incorrect to regard as a theoretical anarchist every author who, like nietzsche,[ ] preached a purely philosophic individualism or egotism, without ever having given a thought to the reformation of society. to what does this lead? some even include ibsen among theoretical anarchists because in a letter to brandes he exclaims: "the state is the curse of the individual. the state must go. i will take part in this revolution. let us undermine the idea of the state; let us set up free will and affinity of spirit as the only conditions for any union: that is the beginning of a freedom that is worth something." such expressions may certainly show ibsen's anarchist tendencies, but they by no means elevate him to the position of a teacher; for that position one might sooner quote one of his own most powerful characters, brand, that modern faust after the style of stirner. but brand is a gloomy figure, who would not make many converts to individualism. [ ] even in a philosophic sense, nietzsche's anarchism is a mere fable. schellwien truly remarks: "max stirner replaces freedom by individuality, by the evolution of the individual as such, but he cannot shew that anything else would happen but the oppression of the weaker individuality by the stronger; a state of things in which not individuality but brute force would reign. friedrich nietzsche draws this conclusion, and would have this oppression of the weak by the strong; he would have the aristocratic will of the stronger, who in his eyes are alone the good. he raises the 'will for power' to a world-principle." elsewhere nietzsche positively advocates, _e. g._, the reduction of some men to slavery for the benefit of the aristocracy of the strong. this sort of thing is hardly anarchism. * * * * * we may here cursorily notice the position of johann most in the theory of anarchism, although this man, fateful and gloomy as has been his rôle in the history of anarchist action, can hardly be taken into account as a theorist, and, moreover,--which is more important,--he is not even a pure anarchist. johann most forms the link between social democracy, to which he formerly attached himself, and anarchism, to which he now devotes his baleful talents. but, as a matter of fact, most goes no farther than ancient and modern followers of baboeuf have gone at all times; the "decision of society" is the authoritative boundary which separates him from the communist anarchists. land and all movable and immovable capital should, in his opinion, be the property of the whole of society,--here we perceive a very conservative notion as compared with kropotkin,--but should be given up for the use of the single groups of producers, which may be formed by free agreement (_libre entente_) among themselves. the products of industry should remain the property of those organisations whose work and creation they are, thus becoming collective property. to determine value and price, bureaux of experts should be formed by society--an arrangement which grave considers highly reactionary, because implying authority,--and these bureaux are to calculate how much work is represented in each community, and what is its value on this basis. the price thus determined cannot be altered, because consumers will also form free groups, for the purpose of buying, just as the producers did. other free groups will look after the bringing up of children. marriage becomes a free contract between man and woman, and can be entered into or dissolved at pleasure. there are no laws, but only a "decision of society" in each case. if with these views most must be regarded among anarchist theorists--if he is an anarchist at all--as a representative of extreme conservatism, yet, on the other hand, there is not the slightest doubt that he must be looked upon as the theorist of force, the apostle of the most violent propaganda of action. in his notorious journal, _freiheit_ (_freedom_), as well as in numberless pamphlets, johann most has drawn up an inexhaustible compendium for "the men of action." the little groups, which are to-day characteristic of anarchism, are his idea, and his, too, are the tactics of bomb-throwing. in the pamphlet[ ] on the scientific art of revolutionary warfare and dynamiters, he explains exactly where bombs should be placed in churches, palaces, ballrooms, and festive gatherings. never more than one anarchist should take charge of the attempt, so that in case of discovery the anarchist party may suffer as little harm as possible. the book contains also a complete dictionary of poisons, and preference is given to.... poison should be employed against politicians, traitors, and spies. _freedom_, his journal, is distinguished from the rest of the anarchist press--which is mostly merely _doctrinaire_--by its constant provocation to a war of classes, to murder and incendiarism. "extirpate the miserable brood!" says _freedom_, speaking of owners of property--"extirpate the wretches! thus runs the refrain of a revolutionary song of the working classes, and this will be the exclamation of the executive of a victorious proletariate army when the battle has been won. for at the critical moment the executioner's block must ever be before the eyes of the revolutionary. either he is cutting off the heads of his enemies or his own is being cut off. science gives us means which make it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts quietly and deliberately." elsewhere he says, "those of the reptile brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to annihilate utterly this race of parasites," and so forth. [ ] die _wissenschaftliche revolutionäre kriegskunst und der dynamit führer._ these are only a few specimens of the jargon of "anarchism of action," of which johann most is the classic representative; we shall refer elsewhere to his varied activity as such. * * * * * most, whose special anarchist influence is exercised on english soil, is also the link between german and english anarchism. england possesses a theorist of a higher type in auberon herbert, who, like bakunin and kropotkin, is a scion of a noble house. herbert began as a representative of democracy in the seventies, and to-day edits in london a paper called _the free life_, in which he preaches an individualist anarchism of his own, or, as he himself calls it, "voluntarism." he does not wish constituted society, as such, to be abolished; his "voluntary state" is distinguished from the present compulsory state in that it is absolutely free to any individual to enter or leave the state as he wishes. "i demand," says herbert,[ ] "that the individual should be self-owner, the actual owner of his bodily and mental capacities, and in consequence owner of all that he can acquire by these capacities, only assuming that he treats his fellow-men as his equals and as owners of their own capacities." [ ] anarchy and voluntarism (_the free life_), vol. ii., p. , october, . "if thus the individual is legally master of himself and legally owner of all that he has won by the aid of his own capabilities, then we must further conclude that the individual as such has the right to defend what is his own, even by force against force (understanding by force those forms of deception which are in reality only an equivalent of force); and since he now has this right of defence by force, he can transfer it to a corporation and to men who undertake to watch over the practical application of this right on his behalf; which corporation may be denoted by the practical term of 'state.' the state is rightfully born, only if the individuals have the choice of handing over to it their right of defence, and that no individual is compelled to take part in it when once formed, or to maintain it. when we consider that every force must be set in action for some definite purpose, the state or the sphere of society's force must be organised; yet every individual must retain his natural right of deciding for himself whether he will join the state and maintain it or not. if then the state is legitimate as an agreement to defend one's self-ownership against all attacks, there are sufficient reasons for creating such an organisation and placing the exercise of the forces mentioned in its hands, instead of keeping them in our hands as individuals.... i fully admit that the right of exercising force in self-defence belongs to the individual and is transferred by him to the state; but the moral pressure on the individual to transfer this right is overwhelming. who of us would care to be judge and executioner at once in one's own person? who would wish to exercise lynch law?[ ] what is to be gained thereby? it is not a question of right, for, as we have seen, the individual, who may exercise force in self-defence, can also transfer this exercise of his power, and if he can do this legally, is it not a hundred times better if he also does so actually? i willingly admit that, when it is solely a question of a group, even the group, as the source of law, may, if it wishes, organise its own defence, and isolate itself from the general organisation of other groups. but i do not admit that the group can also separate itself, when the question directly concerns other groups besides itself. i would not, for example, allow a group the right to conduct its sewers to a certain point in a stream, because this directly affects the interests of other groups at other points of the stream. the first group must come to an understanding with the other groups concerned; in other words, it must enter into a common organisation with other groups. or again: group a decides to punish those who instigate to murder, while group b is of opinion that one need not trouble about words, but only about deeds. such a difference of views and procedure is unimportant, so long as the members of group a merely associate with one another; but suppose a member of group b were to incite a person to murder a member of group a, it is clear that we should be confronted by a civil war between the two groups the moment that group a seeks to seize and punish the instigator. it also happens that in all cases where force has to be exercised against persons outside their own group as well as in it, some organisation must exist between the groups--a state--in order to determine the conditions under which force can be exercised.... for these reasons i consider pure anarchy an impossibility; it rests upon a misunderstanding, and is founded upon the mingling of two things which are by nature entirely different.... anarchy is the rule of an individual over himself; but the actions of an individual in self-defence, however just they may be, are not founded entirely upon self-ownership, but are of a mixed nature, since they include rule over one's self and over others. the object of anarchy is self-government, but we exceed the sphere of self-government as soon as we stretch out our hand to exercise force. the error which pure anarchists commit lies in the fact that they apply the ideas of self-government, self-ownership, or freedom to force. between actions of freedom and actions involving force a line must necessarily be drawn, which separates them for ever. as far as concerns a question of free will, _e. g._, the posting of letters, arrangements for education, all contracts of labour and capital, we can dispense with any authority; we can be anarchists, because in these cases it is not necessary for me or for you to exercise or to undergo compulsion. we may leave the group whose actions we do not approve of, we may stand alone as individuals, we may follow exclusively the law of our nature; but the moment we proceed to measures of defence, to actions implying limitation or discipline, to actions which encroach upon the self-ownership of others, the whole state of things is altered. the moment force has to be exercised, an apparatus of force must be set up; if we wish to exercise force, it must be publicly proclaimed, and we must publicly agree upon what conditions it is to be applied; it must be surrounded by guarantees and so on. force and the unconditional freedom of the individual, or anarchy, are incompatible ideas, and therefore i am a voluntarist, not an anarchist--a voluntarist in all questions where voluntarism is admissible; but i return into the state when by the nature of things some organisation is necessary." [ ] the answer is obvious: the inhabitants of texas. practically auberon herbert's distinction of terms is merely playing with words; for the "voluntary state," which i can leave at any moment, from which i can withdraw my financial support if i do not approve of its actions, is proudhon's federation of groups in its strictest form; perhaps it is even the practical outcome of stirner's _union of egoists_; at any rate herbert, like stirner, prefers the unconditional acceptance of the principle of _laisser faire_, without reaching it, like proudhon, by means of the thorny circumlocution of a complicated organisation of work. carried into practice, voluntarism would be as like anarchism as two peas. none the less we must not undervalue the theoretical progress shown in the distinction quoted above. herbert approaches within a hair's-breadth of the standpoint of sociology, and what separates him from it is not so much the logical accentuation of the social-contract theory as the indirect assumption of it. * * * * * in america we find views similar to auberon herbert's. the traces of anarchist ideas in the united states go back as far as the fifties. joseph dejacque, an adherent of proudhon, and compromised politically in , edited in new york, from - , a paper, _le libertaire_, in which he at first preached the collective anarchism of his master, but later--though long before kropotkin--drifted into communist anarchism. side by side there also arose, almost, as it seems, independently of europe, an individualist school, the origin of which goes back somewhere to the beginning of the century. here the ideas of a free society, such as thompson had imagined and taught, found rapid and willing acceptance, and were expanded, by men like josiah warren, stephen pearl andrews, lysander spooner, and others, to the idea of "individual sovereignty," which to-day possesses its most important champion in r. b. tucker, the editor of the journal, _liberty_, in boston, and which approaches most closely to herbert's idea of the "voluntary state." part iii the relation of anarchism to science and politics chapter vii anarchism and sociology: herbert spencer spencer's views on the organisation of society -- society conceived from the nominalist and realist standpoint -- the idealism of anarchists -- spencer's work: _from freedom to restraint_. when vaillant was before his judges he mentioned herbert spencer, among others, as one of those from whom he had derived his anarchist convictions. anarchists refer not seldom to the gray-headed master of sociology as one of themselves; and still more often do the socialists allude to him as an anarchist. people like laveleye, lafarque, and (lately) professor enrico ferri,[ ] have allowed themselves to speak of spencer's anarchist and individualist views in his book, _the individual versus the state_. if vaillant, the bomb-thrower, rejoiced in such ignorance of persons and things as to quote spencer, without thinking, as a fellow-thinker, we need hardly say much about it; but when men who are regarded as authorities in so-called scientific socialism, do the same, we can only perceive the small amount either of conscientiousness or science with which whole tendencies of the social movement are judged, and judged too by a party which, before all others, is interested in procuring correct and precise judgments on this matter. for those who number herbert spencer among the anarchists, either do not understand the essence of anarchism, or else do not understand spencer's views; or both are to them a _terra incognita_. [ ] _socialismus und moderne wissenschaft_, p. . leipsic, . as far as concerns the book, _the individual versus the state_ (london, ), this is really only a closely printed pamphlet of some thirty pages, in which spencer certainly attacks socialism severely as an endeavour to strengthen an organisation of society, based on compulsion, at the expense of individual freedom and of voluntary organisations already secured; but not a single anarchist thought is to be found in his pages, unless any form of opposition to forcing human life into a social organisation of regimental severity is to be called anarchism. we may remark _en passant_ that here we have a splendid example of freedom of thought as understood by the socialists; in their (so-called) free people's state the elements of anarchism would assume a much more repulsive form than under the present _bourgeois_ conditions. and that is just what spencer prophesies in his little book. spencer appeals in this work to his views upon a possible organisation of society better than the present, as he has indicated in _the study of sociology_, _political institutions_, and elsewhere; and we think we ought to permit the appeal and present spencer's views, not for the sake of herbert spencer--for we cannot undertake to defend everyone who is suspected of anarchism,--but because he is the most important representative of a school of thought which some day or other will be called upon to say the last word in the scientific discussion of the so-called social question, and because we now wish to set forth clearly, once for all, what anarchism is, in whatever disguise it may cloak itself, and what anarchism is not, however far it may go in accentuating freedom of development. * * * * * the quintessence of spencer's views upon the organisation of society--the point from which the pamphlet so misused by ferri proceeds--is something like this. the organisation which is the necessary preliminary to any form of united social endeavour is, whether regarded historically or _a priori_, not of a single but of a twofold nature, a nature essentially different both in origin and conditions. the one arises immediately from the pursuit of individual aims, and only contributes indirectly to the social welfare; it develops unconsciously, and is not of a compulsory character. the other, which proceeds directly from the pursuit of social aims, and only contributes indirectly to the welfare of the individual, develops consciously, and is of a compulsory character (_cf. principles_, iii., p. ). spencer calls the first, voluntary, organisation the industrial type, because it always accompanies the appearance of industrial and commercial interests; but the second, compulsory, organisation the warlike type, because it is a consequence of the need of external defence for the community. the industrial type of spencer, based upon the individualist sentiment, results in what we have come to know as convention; the military or warlike type, which addresses itself exclusively to altruistic feelings, leads to the state (status). the "social" question, when solved exclusively by the first method, we know already as anarchy; solved by the second, it is socialism in the narrower sense. however much these two types may seem to exclude each other in their conception, and actually do so when translated into the jargon of party, in reality they are by no means mutually exclusive. those forms of human society which we see both in the present and the past are by no means pure types, but show the most varied gradation and interpenetration of both types; according as the need for common defence or for individual interests comes to the fore, the military type, that rules and regulates everything, or the industrial, that aims at free union, will preponderate. the vast majority of all forms of society, including the modern great powers, are still of the military type, for obvious reasons. the "idea of the state" is powerful within them, but only some of the most advanced, which from their peculiar circumstances are less threatened by the danger of war, and therefore devote themselves more largely to industry and commerce, such as england and america, are now inclining more to the industrial type. which of the two forms deserves the preference cannot, of course, be determined _a priori_. spencer gives it evidently to the industrial type, as being a higher form of development, and he thinks that, in the more or less distant future, this will acquire the supremacy (_principles_, iii., § ). but he recognises also, as was only to be expected, that it has only rarely been possible to dispense with the military and compulsory organisation, whether in the present or the past, and that even in the future it will still in many cases be necessary for social development according to local conditions; and that accordingly a universal acceptance of co-operative work by convention, on the anarchist's plan, cannot be imagined as possible, because, in social organisms as well as in individual organisms, the development of higher forms by no means implies the extirpation of lower forms. if we miss already, at this point, one of the most essential traits of anarchist doctrine, viz., its absolute character, spencer's so-called anarchism shrinks still more into nothingness, when we approach the industrial type as he describes it in its complete state. while the requirements of the industrial type (he says) simply exclude a despotic authority, they demand on the other hand, as the only suitable means of carrying out the requisite actions of common benefit, an assembly of representatives to express the will of the whole body. the duty of this controlling agency, which may be denoted in general terms as the administration of justice, merely consists in seeing that every citizen receives neither more nor less benefit than his own efforts normally afford him. hence public efforts to effect any artificial division of the result of labour is of itself excluded. when the _régime_ peculiar to militarism, the status, has disappeared, the _régime_ of convention appears in its stead, and finds more and more general acceptance, and this forbids any disturbance of the relations of exchange between the performance and the product of labour by arbitrary division. looked at from another standpoint, the industrial type is distinguished from the military by the fact that it has a regulating influence, not simultaneously, both positive and negative, but only negative (_cf. principles_, iii., § ). in this ever-increasing limitation of the influence of constituted society lies another sharply defined line of demarcation, from even the most conservative forms of anarchism, whether it be proudhon's federal society or auberon herbert's "voluntary state." for spencer recognises even for the most perfect form of his society the necessity of some administration of law; he speaks of a head of the state, even though he be merely elected (_principles_, § ); he would like to see development continued along the beaten track of the representative system (which the anarchists mainly reject), and even in certain circumstances would retain the principle of a second chamber (_ib._, p. ). for however high may be the degree of development reached by an industrial society, yet the difference between high and low, between rulers and ruled, can never be done away with. all the new improvements which the coming centuries may have in store for industry cannot fail to admit the contrast between those whose character and abilities raise them to a higher rank and those who remain in a lower sphere. even if any mode of production and distribution of goods was carried out exclusively by corporations of labourers working together, as is done even now in some cases to a certain extent, yet all such corporations must have their chief directors and their committees of administration. a senate might then be formed either from an elective body that was taken, not from a class possessing permanent privileges, but from a group including all leaders of industrial associations, or it might be formed from an electorate consisting of all persons who took an active share in the administration; and finally it might be so composed as to include the representatives of all persons engaged in governing, as distinguished from the second chamber of representatives of the governed. moreover, spencer himself claims no sort of dogmatic obligatory force for these deductions with regard to the most favourable possible form of future organisation; rather he expressly warns us that different organisations are possible, by means of which the general agreement of the whole community in sentiment and views might make itself felt, and declares that it is rather a question of expediency than of principle which of the different possible organisations should finally be accepted (_principles_, p. ). * * * * * incomprehensible as it may seem that spencer, holding such views, should be regarded as an anarchist, and that too by men who ought to have understood him as well as the anarchists, yet this has been the case. therefore we must guard against his lack of radicalism (as shown in the foregoing remarks) being regarded by various parties less as a necessary result of his first premises than as the result of personal qualities of opportunism, of a lack of courage in facing the ultimate consequences of his reasoning. we should like, therefore, briefly to note the wide differences which separate the purely sociological standpoint of spencer from the unscientific standpoint of the anarchists. it may be considered as indifferent whether we are accustomed to regard society as a natural thing or only as a product of my thought, as something real and concrete or as a mere conception, and yet the range of this first assumption far surpasses the value of academic contention. no bridge leads from one of these standpoints to the other, and as deep a gulf separates the conclusions which are drawn from these premises. if society is a thing, something actual like the individual, then it is subject to the same laws as the rest of nature; it changes and develops, grows and decays, like all else. if, on the other hand, it is a mere conception, then it stands and falls with myself, with my wish to set it up or destroy it. indeed, if society is nothing but an idea, a child of my thought, what hinders me from throwing it away as soon as i have recognised its nothingness, since it is no more use to me? have not some already done so with the idea of god, because they thought it merely a product of their own mind? here we may remember stirner's argument, which was only rendered possible because he placed society upon exactly the same level as the deity, _i. e._, regarding both as mere conceptions. but, on the other hand, if society exists apart from me, apart from my thought about it, then it will also develop without reference to my personal opinions, views, ideas, or wishes. in other words: if society is nothing but the summary idea of certain institutions, such as the family, property, religion, law, and so on, then society stands or falls with their sanctity, expediency and utility; and to deny these institutions is to deny society itself. on the other hand, if society is the aggregate of individuals forming it, then the institutions just mentioned are only functions of this collective body, and the denial or abolition of them means certainly a disturbance, though not an annihilation of society. society then can no more be got rid of, as long as there are individuals, than matter or force. we can destroy or upset an aggregation, but can never hinder the individuals composing it from again uniting to form another aggregation. from these two divergent points of view follows the endless series of irreconcilable divergencies between realists and idealists. for the former, evolution is a process that is accomplished quite unconsciously, and is determined exclusively by the condition at any time of the elements forming the aggregate, and their varying relations. the idealist also likes to talk of an evolution of society, but since this is only the evolution of an idea, there can be no contradiction, and it is only right and fair for him to demand that this evolution should be accomplished in the direction of other and (as he thinks) higher ideas, the realisation of which is the object of society. so he comes to demand that society should realise the ideas of freedom, equality, and the like. a society which does not wish, or is unfitted to do this, can and must be overthrown and annihilated. when we hear these destructive opinions, which are continually spreading, characterised as a lack of idealism, we cannot restrain a smile at the confusion of thought thus betrayed. as a matter of fact, the social revolutionaries of the present day, and especially the anarchists, are idealists of the first rank, and that too not merely because of their nominalist way of regarding society, but they are idealists also in a practical sense. the society of the present is in their eyes utterly bad and incapable of improvement, because it does not correspond to the ideas of freedom and equality. but the fault of this does not lie in men as such, or in their natural attributes and defects, but in society, that is (since it is merely an idea), in the faulty conceptions and prejudices which men have as to the value of society. men in themselves are good, noble, and possess the most brotherly sentiments; and not only that, but they are diligent and industrious from an innate impulse; society alone has spoiled them. these assumptions we have seen in all anarchists; they are the inevitable premises of their ideal of the future, an ideal of a free, just, and brotherly form of society; but they are the necessary consequence of the first assumption, of the idealist conception of society itself, which is common to all anarchists, with the single exception of proudhon, whose peculiarities and contradictions we have dealt with above. herbert spencer, and with him the sociological school generally, cannot of course accept the conclusions of a premise which they do not assume. comparative study of the life of primitive races, scientific anthropology, and exact psychology, all show this well-meaning assumption to be a mere delusion. philoneism may be nobler and more humane, but, unfortunately, it is only misoneism that is true. generally speaking, every man only works in order to avoid unpleasantness. one man is urged on by his experience that hunger hurts him, the other by the whip of the slave-driver. what he fears is either the punishment of circumstances, or the punishment given by someone set over him (_cf._ spencer, _from freedom to restraint_, p. ). work is the enemy of man; he struggles with it because he must do so in order to live; his life is a continual struggle but not (as all the anarchists from proudhon down to grave try to persuade themselves and others) a united struggle of man against nature, but a struggle of men one against the other, a murderous, fratricidal conflict, from which in the end only the most suitable and capable emerges ("the survival of the fittest"). short-sighted people and one-sided doctrinaires can never be convinced of the fact that in this brutal fact lies not only the end but also the proper beginning of unfeigned morality. and so too in social relations. conflict, war, and persecution stand at the beginning of every civilisation and every social development; but the ceaseless hostilities of man with man have populated the earth from pole to pole with those who are most capable, powerful, and most fitted for evolution; we owe to man's hatred and fear of work the rich blessings of civilisation; and only from the swamp of servitude can spring the flower of freedom. but we must return once more to our idealists. according to the view common to all anarchists, the fault of our present circumstances, which scorn freedom and equality, lies not in the natural limitation of mankind, but in the limitation entailed upon him by society, that is, by his own faulty conceptions and ideas. it is therefore only a question of convincing men that they hitherto have erred, that they should see in the state their enemy and not their protector and champion--and the world is at once turned upside down "like an omelet," society as now constituted is annihilated, and anarchy is triumphant. anarchists since bakunin are of the opinion that, in order to reach this end, there is no need of weary evolution or of an education of the human race for anarchy; on the contrary, it can be set up at once, immediately, with these same men; it merely requires the trifling circumstance that men should be convinced of its truth. therefore they despise every political means, and their whole strategy, not excepting the propaganda of action, only aims at convincing men of the nothingness of society as such, and of the harm done by its institution. this fact can only be understood in view of the purely idealist starting-point from which the anarchists proceed. the man to whom society is a fact, a reality, only recognises an evolution that excludes any sudden leap, and above all, the leap into annihilation. a radical error (as herbert spencer remarks in the very book which ferri adduces as a proof of his anarchist tendency) which prevails in the mode of thought of almost all political and social parties, is the delusion that there exist immediate and radical remedies for the evils that oppress us. "only do thus, and the evil will disappear"; or "act according to my method and want will cease"; or "by such and such regulations the trouble will undoubtedly be removed"--everywhere we meet such fancies, or modes of action resulting from them. but the foundation of them is wrong. you may remove causes that increase the evil, you may change one evil into another, and you may, as frequently occurs, even increase the evil by trying to cure it: but an immediate cure is impossible. in the course of centuries mankind, owing to the increase of numbers, has been compelled to expand from the original, ancient condition, wherein small groups of men supported themselves upon the free gifts of nature, into a civilised condition, in which the things necessary to support life for such great masses can only be acquired by ceaseless toil. the nature of man in this latter mode of existence is very different from what it was in the first period; and centuries of pain have been necessary to transform it sufficiently. a human constitution that is no longer in harmony with its environment is necessarily in a miserable position, and a constitution inherited from primitive man does not harmonise with the circumstances to which those of to-day have to adapt themselves. consequently it is impossible to create immediately a social condition that shall bring happiness to all. a state of society which even to-day fills europe with millions of armed warriors, eager for conquest or thirsting for revenge; which impels so-called christian nations to vie with one another all over the world in piratical enterprises without any regard to the rights of the aborigines, while thousands of their priests and pastors watch them with approval; which, in intercourse with weaker races, goes far beyond the primitive law of revenge, "a life for a life," and for one life demands seven--such a state of human society, says spencer, cannot under any circumstances be ripe for a harmonious communal existence. the root of every well-ordered social activity is the sense of justice, resting, on the one hand, on personal freedom, and, on the other on the sanctity of similar freedom for others; and this sense of justice is so far not present in sufficient quantity. therefore a further and longer continuance of a social discipline is necessary, which demands from each that he should look after his own affairs with due regard to the equal rights of others, and insists that everyone shall enjoy all the pleasures which naturally flow from his efforts, and, at the same time, not place upon the shoulders of others the inconveniences that arise from the same cause, in so far as others are not ready to undertake them. and therefore it is spencer's conviction that the attempts to remove this form of discipline will not only fail, but will produce worse evils than those which it is sought to avoid. we need not discuss spencer's views further in a book about anarchism. but to those representatives of so-called scientific socialism, as well as to those liberals who are so ready to condemn as "anarchist" any inconvenient critic of their own opinions, we should like to remark that anarchism will only be overcome by free and fearless scientific treatment, and not by violent measures dictated by stupidity and hatred. chapter viii the spread of anarchism in europe first period ( - ) -- the peace and freedom league -- the democratic alliance and the jurassic bund -- union with and separation from the "international" -- the rising at lyons -- congress at lausanne -- the members of the alliance in italy, spain, and belgium -- second period (from ) -- the german socialist law -- johann most -- the london congress -- french anarchism since -- anarchism in switzerland -- the geneva congress -- anarchism in germany and austria -- joseph penkert -- anarchism in belgium and england -- organisation of the spanish anarchists -- italy -- character of modern anarchism -- the group -- numerical strength of the anarchism of action. it is the custom to represent bakunin as the st. paul of modern anarchism. it may be so. the anarchism of violence only acquired significance, owing to later circumstances in which bakunin had no share; but the kind of prelude of the anarchist movement, which was noticeable at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies, may certainly be attributed to the influence of bakunin. with the growth of the organisation of the proletariat in its international relations in the second half of the sixties, it was only too readily understood that a part of this organisation rested upon an anarchist basis, especially as the opposition to the social democratic tendency had not yet been developed in practice. among workmen using the romance languages, the free-collectivist doctrines of proudhon gained much ground; prominent labour journals, such as the geneva _egalité_, the _progrès du locle_, and others, often represented these views, and switzerland especially was the chief country in which the working classes had always inclined to radical opinions. we call to mind, for example, the union of handicraftsmen of the forties, the young germany, and the _lemanbund_ (lake of geneva union) which had been led by marr and döleke, to however small an extent, into an anarchist channel. the same field was open to bakunin as suitable for his operations, after he had long enough sought for one. after his return from his siberian exile, bakunin had looked out for an organisation, by the help of which he could translate his anarchist ideas into action and agitation, the which were the proper domain of his spirit. when, after restless wanderings, he came from italy into switzerland, it appeared as if this wish were to be fulfilled. in geneva there happened to be a meeting of the peace congress, which then had merely philanthropic aims, and was attended by members of the most diverse classes of society and most different nations. bakunin hoped to win over to his ideas this company, consisting for the most part of amiable enthusiasts, doctrinaires and congress haunters, and to create in it a background for his own activity. he, therefore, appeared at the congress and made a speech that was highly applauded in which he came to the conclusion that international peace was impossible as long as the following principle, together with all its consequences, was not accepted; namely: "every nation, feeble or strong, small or great, every province, every community has the absolute right to be free and autonomous, to live according to its interests and private needs and to rule itself; and in this right all communities and all nations have a certain solidarity to the extent that this principle cannot be violated for one of them without at the same time involving all the others in danger. so long as the present centralised states exist, universal peace is impossible; we must, therefore, wish for their dismemberment, in order that, on the ruins of these unities based on force and organised from above downwards by despotism and conquest, free unities organised from below upwards may develop as a free federation of communities with provinces, provinces with nations, and nations with the united states of europe." in another speech at the same congress he sums up the principles upon which alone peace and justice rest, in the following:--( ) "the abolition of everything included in the term of 'the historic and political necessity of the state,' in the name of any larger or smaller, weak or strong population, as well as in the name of all individuals who are said to have full power to dispose of themselves in complete freedom independently of the needs and claims of the state, wherein this freedom ought only to be limited by the equal rights of others; ( ) annulling of all the permanent contracts between the individual and the collective unity, associations, departments or nations; in other words, every individual must have the right to break any contract, even if entered into freely; ( ) every individual, as well as every association, province and nation, must have the right to quit any union or alliance, with, however, the express condition that the party thus leaving it must not menace the freedom and independence of the state which it has left by alliance with a foreign power." although these utterances of the wily agitator implied a complete diversion of the views of the congress from purely philanthropic intentions to open collectivist anarchism, yet they found support in the numerous radical elements which took part in the congress. bakunin, who now settled in switzerland, was elected a permanent member of the central committee of the newly-founded "peace and freedom league," with its headquarters in bern, and he prepared for it his "proposal" already mentioned. bakunin was feverishly active in trying to lead the league into an anarchist channel. already in the session of the bern central committee, he proposed to the committee, with the support of ogarjow, jukowsky, the poles mrockowski and zagorski, and the frenchman naquet, to accept a programme similar to that which he had laid before the geneva congress. then he carried, by the aid of this submissive committee, a resolution, demanding the affiliation of the league with the international union of workers. but this demand of the league was refused by the congress of the "international" at brussels; but, already greatly compromised by its position in regard to the league, the "international" still further left the path of safety when bakunin recommended his socialist programme to the congress of the league which sat at bern in . bakunin found himself in the minority, retired from the congress, and, with a small band of faithful adherents, including the brothers réclus, albert richard, jukowsky, mentioned above, and others, betook himself to geneva. these faithful followers formed the nucleus of the socialist democratic alliance formed in geneva in , the first society with avowedly anarchist tendencies. we have already quoted its official programme. it is an unimportant variation of proudhon's collectivism. the "alliance" was a union of public societies, as far as possible autonomous federations, such as the jurassic bund; and, like the "international," it was divided into a central committee and national bureaus. but together with this division went a secret organisation. bakunin, the pronounced enemy of all organisations in theory, created in practice a secret society quite according to the rules of carbonarism--a hierarchy which was in total contradiction to the anti-authority tendencies of the society. according to the secret statutes of the "alliance" three grades were recognised--( ) "the international brethren," one hundred in number, who formed a kind of sacred college, and were to play the leading parts in the soon expected, immediate social revolution, with bakunin at their head. ( ) "the national brethren," who were organised by the international brethren into a national association in every country, but who were allowed to suspect nothing of the international organisation. ( ) lastly came the secret international alliance, the pendant to the public alliance, operating through the permanent central committee. if the "alliance" made rapid progress in the first year of its existence, and quickly spread into switzerland, the south of france, and large parts of spain and italy, and even found adherents in belgium and russia, this was certainly not due to the playing at secret societies affected by the international brethren. it is probably not a mistake to see in the growth of the first anarchist organisation first and foremost a natural reaction against the stiff rule of the london general council; but at the same time the anarchism of proudhon contained (contradictory as it may sound) in many respects an element of moderation, and was far more adapted to the limits of the _bourgeois_ intellect than the tendencies of the social democracy, which demand a full participation in party interests and party life. just as we find later, so also we find now at the time of the "alliance," numerous elements in the anarchist ranks belonging to the superior artisan and lower middle class. we therefore find strong anarchist influences even within the "international" before the "alliance" flourished. thus one of the main events of the brussels congress early in september, , was a proposal of albert richard, a follower of bakunin, to found a bank of mutual credit and exchange quite after the manner of proudhon. in the discussion upon it prominent representatives of anarchist ideas took part, such as eccarius, tolain, and others. the congress, however, buried the proposed statute in its sections--the last honor for proudhon's much harassed project. but in the congress of the next year the anarchists made quite another kind of influence felt. in the meantime the "alliance" had been absorbed in the "international." a first attempt of bakunin to affiliate the "alliance" to the great international association of workmen, and thereby to secure for himself a leading part in it, was a failure. the general council, in which the influence of the clever agitator was evidently feared, refused in december, , to associate itself with the "alliance." some months later the "alliance" again approached the general council upon the question of affiliation, and declared itself ready to fulfil all its conditions. the chief of these was the dissolution of the "alliance" as such and the division of its sections into those of the "international," as well as the abolition of its secret organisation. thereupon the bakuninist sections were in july, , declared to be "international," although in london it was never believed that the members of the "alliance" would keep the conditions. not only the central committee continued as before, but also the secret organisation and bakunin's leadership. if the amalgamation of both parties was at length completed, it only happened because at this stage each was in need of the other, and perhaps feared the other. but the very origin of the union, as will readily be understood, did not permit it to work together very harmoniously. and, moreover, apart from the main points of difference, there were also a series of minor divergencies of opinion, chiefly on the subject of tactics. the followers of marx strove for greater centralisation of the directorate, the bakuninists more for the autonomy of the separate sections. the men of the general council eagerly urged the adoption of universal suffrage as the most prominent means of agitation for the purpose of proletariat emancipation; bakunin entirely rejected any political action, including the exercise of the suffrage, since, in his opinion, this would only become an instrument of reaction, and since the workers could only use their rights by force and not votes. it will be easily understood that the result of such differences of opinion was a sharp divergence inside the "international" between the "marxists" and "bakuninists"--a divergence that became irremediable at the basle congress of . at this congress the "alliance" succeeded, if not in securing a decisive majority, yet in obtaining sufficient influence to give the congress a decidedly anarchist character. as the first item on the programme, the belgian proudhonist, de pæpe, proposed to the congress to declare ( ) that society had the right to abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the community; ( ) that it was necessary to make the land common property. albert richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source of all social inequalities and all poverty. "it arose from force and from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land must be regulated by the federally organised communes." bakunin himself supported de pæpe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand that opposition made itself felt in the anarchist ranks. several pronounced anarchists, especially murat and tolain, supported individual property with great decision and warmth. nevertheless de pæpe's collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or fifty-three) votes to four. but the bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next question, concerning the right of inheritance. this was a question quite characteristic of bakunin. the proposal ran: "in consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further, inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the individual having the same means of moral and material development; considering, finally, that the congress has pronounced in favour of collective property in land, and that this declaration would be illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration: the congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary conditions of the emancipation of labour." one might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" institution as inheritance. but it appears that it was desired to let bakunin (whose hobby the struggle against inheritance was well known to be) plainly see that the congress wished to have none of him, although they had not ventured to oppose the views of his adherents upon the far more important question. the proposal only received thirty-two votes for it, twenty-three against it, and seventeen delegates refrained from voting. therefore the resolution was lost, since it could not obtain a decisive majority. this procedure of the basle congress was calculated to embitter both parties. open rupture could not be long delayed. already, at the romance congress[ ] at chaux-de-fonds on april , , the admission of the bakuninist sections had raised a veritable storm--twenty-one delegates voting for the admission, and eighteen against it, and the latter withdrew immediately from the congress in consequence of the decision. nevertheless, at this congress bakunin's views practically prevailed, for the congress declared in favour of taking part in politics, and putting up working-men candidates at elections as a means of agitation. [ ] the first groups of the "international" in the romance-speaking portions of switzerland had increased so quickly that at a congress in geneva in they united themselves into a league of their own, the "romance federation," in harmony with the "international," to which members of the "alliance" and marxists belonged in almost equal numbers. the day on which the third republic was proclaimed in paris (the th september, ) was considered by the "alliance" to be the right moment "to unchain the hydra of revolution." this was first done in switzerland, where manifestoes were issued calling to the formation of a free corps against the prussians. the manifestoes were seized, and the head of the revolutionary hydra cut off, as far as switzerland was concerned. on september th, bakunin tried to organise a riot at lyons. albert richard, bastelica, and gaspard blanc began it; the mob took possession of the town hall; bakunin installed himself there, and decreed "abolition of the state." he had perhaps hoped that the example of lyons would encourage other cities in the circumstances then prevailing, and these would likewise declare themselves to be free communes, and the state to be abolished. but the state,--as the opponents of the "alliance" maliciously said,--in the shape of two companies of the national guard, found a way into lyons through a gate which the rioters had forgotten to watch, swept the anarchists out of the town hall, and caused bakunin to seek his way back to geneva in great haste. this intermezzo, the only historical moment which the "alliance" had, did not, of course, contribute to strengthen any friendship between the bakuninists and marxists. the latter had a suitable excuse for shaking off bakunin, and making the anarchists subservient to them. in the conference at london (september, ) the sections of the jura were recommended to join the "romance union," and in case this was not done, the conference determined the mountain sections should unite into the jurassic federation. the conference passed a severe resolution against bakunin's tactics, and a resolution against netschajew's proceedings was also really directed against the leader of the "alliance." bakunin was right in taking this as a declaration of war, and his followers accepted the challenge. on november , , the jura sections met at a congress in souvillier, in which they certainly accepted the name "jurassic union," but declared the "romance union" to be dissolved; appealed against the decisions of the london conference as well as against their legality, and appealed to a general congress, to be called immediately. these endless disputes came to a climax at the congress held at the hague in , when bakunin was excluded from the "international"; whereupon the anarchist sections finally separated from the social democrats, and in the same year called an "international labour congress" at st. imier. here a provisional union of "anti-authority socialists" was resolved upon, and it was decided ( ) that the annihilation of every political power was the first duty of the proletariat; ( ) that every organisation of the political power, both provisory and revolutionary, was merely a delusion, and was as dangerous for the proletariat as any of the governments now existing. in the following year, , another congress took place at geneva, which founded a new "international," which placed all power completely in the hands of the sections, while the "bureau" only was to serve as a link between the autonomous unions, and to give information. this first international anarchist organisation never became of practical importance; only the "jurassic union" formed for almost ten years a much feared centre of anarchism in romance-speaking switzerland and southern france. indeed it became the cradle of the "anarchism of action" generally. "the jura federation,"[ ] wrote kropotkin, "has played a most important part in the development of the revolutionary idea. if, in speaking of anarchy to-day, we can say that there are three thousand anarchists in lyons, and five thousand in the valley of the rhone, and several thousands in the south, that is the work mainly of the jura federation. indeed i must ask, how was this possible? is anarchy in europe only ten years old? of course the _zeitgeist_ has carried us along with it; but this was first openly manifest in a group, the jura federation, which thus must gain credit for it." the jurassic union was in fact the anarchist party. the head and soul of this union was the bakuninist, paul brousse, a zealous and reckless anarchist and clever journalist, who in his paper _avantgarde_ was one of the first to preach the "propaganda of action." in december, , this paper was suppressed by the swiss government because it had approved the attempts of hödel and nobeling. brousse himself was arrested and condemned to two months' imprisonment and ten years' banishment, but after undergoing his imprisonment he completely gave up anarchism. kropotkin, who had already helped him with the _avantgarde_, took his place, and founded in geneva the _révolte_, directing with a feverish activity the work originally begun by bakunin into new channels, and afterwards doing so from london. [ ] _révolte_, july , . in the year the french anarchists at the congress at lausanne had finally separated themselves from every party, by declaring the parisian commune to be only another form of government by authority. the congress of at freiburg was of similar importance. elisée reclus moved for the appointment of a commission, which was to answer the following questions: ( ) "why we are revolutionaries"; ( ) "why we are anarchists"; ( ) "why we are collectivists." "we are revolutionaries," said reclus, "because we desire justice. progress has never been marked by mere peaceful development; it has always been called forth by a sudden resolution. we are anarchists, and as such recognise no master. morality resides only in freedom. we are international collectivists, because we perceive that an existence without social grouping is impossible." the congress accepted reclus's motion, and decided ( ) in favour of the general appropriation of social wealth; ( ) for the abolition of the state in any form, even in that of a so-called central point of public administration. further, the congress declared in favour of the propaganda of theory, of insurrectionary and revolutionary activity, and against universal suffrage, since this was not adapted to secure the sovereignty of the multitude. at a congress held in the following year ( ) at chaux-de-fonds, kropotkin definitely urged the policy of the propaganda of action, and the anarchist labour congress at marseilles in the same year declared itself unhesitatingly in favour of universal expropriation. at the next swiss anarchist congress in kropotkin finally demanded the abolition of the term "collectivism" which had hitherto been retained, and proposed to replace it by the term "anarchist communism." here we can see, even upon a point of theory, the deep divergence which was proceeding at this time. hitherto anarchism--and at least in this first period of its development we can speak of a party--has proceeded quite on the lines of proudhon's collectivism. its main representative is the "alliance," or rather michael bakunin, and after him the jurassic federation. this period is, with the exception of a few revolutionary attempts, free from outrage and crime. but all this was changed at the london congress. before speaking of this, however, we must just glance at the branches of the "alliance" in spain, italy, and elsewhere. the italian peninsula has always been one of the chief centres of anarchism. it has been said that this is the fault of the weakness and deficiency of the police, although the italian government repeatedly, both in and , and again recently, has required and supported the strengthening of the executive power in every possible way against certain phenomena of political and social passion. the police alone, whether zealous or lax, is here, as elsewhere, only the most subordinate factor in history. but if we remember the proletariat that swarms in the numerous cities of italy, in its economic misery and moral degradation; if we consider the peculiar tendency of this nation towards political crime and the paraphernalia of secret conspiracy; if we remember the days of the carbonari, the black brothers, the acoltellatori, and others,--we shall find in italy, quite apart from the police and their work, sufficient other reasons for the growth of anarchism. during the war of independence, revolutionary literature in general, and especially the works of herzen and michael bakunin, had a great sale among the younger generation, and so it came to pass that the idea of nationalism was imperceptibly fostered by socialist and nihilist influences. the leading part taken by a number of italian revolutionaries, especially cipriani,--afterwards the leader of the apennine anarchists,--in the commune of , contributed very considerably to promote socialist demagogy in the revolutionary centres of italy, in the romagna, and the marches. closer contact with bakunin proved to be the decisive touch. in those memorable days when the "international" separated into two heterogeneous parts, we already find the majority of the italian socialists adopting the standpoint of bakunin; indeed the italians, even before the hague congress, took sides in favour of bakunin against the "authority-communists" of marx. this first anarchist movement became no more important in italy than elsewhere, and an attempt at riot in april, , near benevento, headed by cafiero and malatesta, gave an impression of childishness and comicality rather than of menace. it was put down by a handful of soldiers; malatesta and cafiero were taken prisoners, but set free. the severe repressive measures afterwards adopted by the government kept anarchism down for some time. in spain, also, at the beginning of the seventies, there was--as was the case with all the romance countries--a strong bakuninist party, which was said to have amounted to , men in . during the federalist risings the anarchists made common cause with the intransigeants, and succeeded in taking possession of several cities for a short time. their successes, however, did not last long, and they were only able to hold out till in new carthagena, where they had finally to surrender after a regular siege by the government troops. the anarchist societies and newspapers were suppressed, and the severest measures taken against anarchists, which only roused them to the most sanguinary form of propaganda. the anarchists declared that if they were to be treated as wild beasts, they would act as such, and cause death and destruction to the government and to any existing form of society at any time, in any place, and by any means. in belgium about this period there was also a great increase of proudhonish anarchism, which, later on, as in switzerland, italy, and spain, attached itself to bakunin, and at the congress at the hague formed the centre of the opposition to the marxists. the rapid growth of social democracy in belgium during the second half of the seventies almost extinguished anarchism there. * * * * * if we wish to characterise briefly this first period of the anarchism of action, a period terminated decisively by the year , we should define it as the process of separation between the socialist and the anarchist tendency. karl marx, who had already come into opposition with the "father of anarchism," and had attacked his "philosophy of want" with the bitter criticism of "want of philosophy," noted the far greater danger which threatened socialism from the clever agitator bakunin, and entered into a life-and-death struggle against him. although there was a large personal element in this conflict, it was really more than a personal struggle between two opponents. there was a deep division among the proletariat themselves, separating them--unconsciously for the most part--into two great and irreconcilable camps; the first battle had been fought, and the result was decidedly not in favour of the anarchists. towards the end of the seventies we notice everywhere, except perhaps in france, where social parties were strongly marked, a remarkable retrogression in anarchism. it appeared as if, after playing the part of an episode, it was to disappear from the political stage. in view of the fact that the history both of practical and theoretical anarchism is a history pure and simple of the most violent opposition to social democracy inside its own camp, it shows both ignorance and unfairness to make socialists bear the blame of anarchist propaganda. it is undeniable that anarchism can only flourish where socialism is generally prevalent. but that does not imply much, and no special wisdom is needed to find the reason for this phenomenon. but that is all. it is just as indisputable a fact, that anarchism only flourishes where social democracy is feeble, divided, and weak, and that it always is unsuccessful in its efforts where the social democratic party is strong and united, as in germany. all attempts to plant anarchism in germany have failed, not because of the preventive and repressive measures of the government, but because of the strength of the party of social democracy. in england where there is a socialist movement among the working classes, with a definite aim, anarchism has remained merely an imported article; in austria both parties have for years fought fiercely, and in proportion as one rises the other sinks. in italy there are notorious centres of the anarchism of action in leghorn, lugo, forli, rome, and sicily. in milan and turin, where social democracy has established itself on the german pattern, and has great influence among the lower classes, there are hardly any "anarchists of action." on the other hand, france, where the socialist party by being broken up into numerous small fragments is condemned to lose its influence, is the headquarters of anarchism. but anyone who is not satisfied with these facts need only look at the causes of the most significant turning-points which the history of modern anarchism has to offer, the london congress of , when the anarchism of action raised its gorgon head, officially adopted the programme of the propaganda of action, when the system of groups in every country was accepted, and that era of outrages began which, instead of promoting the work of the self-improvement of society, rather alienates it under the pressure of a dreadful terrorism. to-day a small group, which in number hardly equals a single one of the famous twelve nationalities of austria, has succeeded in making the whole world talk of them, while the parliaments of every nation pass their laws with reference to this group, and often in aiming their blows against anarchists strike those who are merely followers of a natural evolution. and, it may be asked, on what day or by what act was so fortunate a chance offered to anarchism? the occasion was the german socialist law. this fact is indisputable. it was only in the natural order of things that, in , when the german policy of force happened partially to paralyse the legal agitation of the social democrats by exceptional legislation, a radical group arose among the socialist working classes which, led by the agitator most, always an extremist, and hasselmann, drew from these circumstances the lesson that now, being excluded from constitutional agitation, they must devote all their powers to prepare for revolution. this preparation, most declared, should consist in the arming of all socialists, energetic secret agitation to excite the masses, and, above all, revolutionary acts and outrages. the agitation was to be carried on by quite small groups of at most five men. like bakunin, most, who, on being expelled from berlin early in , emigrated to london, where he founded his journal _freedom_, had gone on in advance of the general socialist movement, and for a time proceeded with it; but, like bakunin too, he had been disowned and violently attacked by the social democratic party, when he showed the anarchist in him so openly. the immediate consequence of most and hasselmann's programme was the formal expulsion of both agitators from the party by the secret congress at wyden, near ossingen, in switzerland. but just because of the disposition engendered by the socialist law, this decision was quite powerless to stifle the most and hasselmann movement. on the contrary, most's following grew from day to day, aided in no small degree by his paper _freedom_, written in the glowing language of the demagogue, and now calling itself openly an "anarchist organ." when most came to london, he soon took the lead of the "social democratic working men's club," then a thousand strong, the majority of which, after the separation of the more moderate members who did not like the new programme, went over to most's side. from these adherents most formed an organisation of the "united socialists," in which the "international" was to be revived again upon the most radical basis. the seat of this organisation was to be london, and from thence a central committee of seven persons was to look after the linking together of revolutionary societies abroad. side by side with this public organisation, most formed a secret "propagandist club," to carry on an international revolutionary agitation and to prepare directly for the general revolution which most thought was near at hand. for this purpose a committee was to be formed in every country in order to form groups after the nihilist pattern, and at the proper time to take the lead of the movement. the activity of all these national organisations was to be united in the central committee in london, which was an international body. the organ of the organisation was to be the _freedom_. the following of this new movement grew rapidly in every country, and already in a great demonstration of most's ideas took place at the memorable international revolutionary congress in london, the holding of which was mainly due to the initiative of most and the well-known nihilist, hartmann. already, in april, , a preliminary congress had been held in paris, at which the procedure of the "parliamentary socialists" had been rejected, since only a social revolution was regarded as a remedy; in the struggle against present-day society all and any means were looked upon as right and justifiable; and in view of this the distribution of leaflets, the sending of emissaries, and the use of explosives were recommended. a german living in london had proposed an amendment involving the forcible removal of all potentates after the manner of the assassination of the russian czar, but this was rejected as "at present not yet suitable." the congress following this preliminary one took place in london on july to , , and was attended by about forty delegates, the representatives of several hundred groups. "the revolutionaries of all countries are uniting into an 'international social revolutionary working men's association' for the purpose of a social revolution. the headquarters of the association is at london, and sub-committees are formed in paris, geneva, and new york. in every place where like-minded supporters exist, sections and an executive committee of three persons are to be formed. the committees of a country are to keep up with one another, and with the central committee, regular communication by means of continual reports and information, and have to collect money for the purchase of poison and weapons, as well as to find places suitable for laying mines, and so on. to attain the proposed end, the annihilation of all rulers, ministers of state, nobility, the clergy, the most prominent capitalists, and other exploiters, any means are permissible, and therefore great attention should be given specially to the study of chemistry and the preparation of explosives, as being the most important weapons. together with the chief committee in london there will also be established an executive committee of international composition and an information bureau, whose duty is to carry out the decisions of the chief committee and to conduct correspondence." this congress and the decisions passed thereat had very far-reaching and fateful consequences for the development of the anarchism of action. the executive committee set to work at once, and sought to carry out every point of the proposed programme, but especially to utilise for purposes of demonstration and for feverish agitation every revolutionary movement of whatever origin or tendency it might be, whether proceeding from russian nihilism or irish fenianism. how successful their activity was, was proved only too well by now unceasing outrages in every country. the london congress operated as a beacon of fire; scarcely had it uttered its terrible concluding words when it found in all parts of europe an echo multiplied a thousand-fold. anarchism, which was thought to be dead, celebrated a dread resurrection, and in places where it had never existed it suddenly raised its gorgon head aloft. the reason is mainly to be found in the fact that all the numerous radical-social elements which had not agreed with the tactics of the social democrats in view of government prosecutions, now adopted most's programme without asking in the least what the anarchist theory was or whether they believed in it. the two catchwords of the anarchism of action, communism and anarchy, did not fail to have their usual effect upon the most radical and confused elements of discontent. communism is, to speak plainly, only "the absolute average"; and as there are large numbers of men who fall even below the average both mentally, morally, and materially, communism can have at any time nothing terrible in it for these people, and even represents to them a highly desirable eldorado. collectivism is the impractical invention of a man of genius, that may be compared to a mechanical invention that consists of so many screws, wheels, and springs that it never can be set going. but communism seems an easy expedient for the average man; it can always reckon upon a public; certainly one is always to be found. by anarchy, of course, the mob understands always only its own dictatorship, and this remedy, too, always has a great attraction for the uneducated masses. but as regards the tactics commended by the london congress, it was completely adapted to the mental capacities of the representatives of "darkest europe." the "new movement" could thus count upon success, especially as skilful agitators like kropotkin, most, penkert, gautier, and others devoted to it all their remarkable powers. this success was gained with surprising rapidity. in paris in anarchism was almost extinguished; its organ, the _révolution sociale_, had to cease when andrieux, the prefect of police, who had supplied it with money, left his appointment, and supplies were stopped. the party was disorganised both in paris and the provinces, and the jurassic federation was nearly extinct. immediately after the london congress, the "revolutionary international league" was established, an active intercommunication was kept up with london, and an eager agitation was developed. in consequence, however, of the strong opposition of the other socialists, this league remained weak, and scarcely numbered a hundred members. on the other hand, anarchism increased all the more in the great industrial centres of the provinces. in the south were founded the _féderation lyonnaise_ and the _féderation stéphanoise_, which, especially after kropotkin took over the leadership and cleverly took advantage of the discords prevailing among other socialists (_e. g._, at the congress of st. etienne), made astonishing progress in lyons, the main centre of the movement, st. etienne, roanne, narbonne, nîmes, bordeaux, and other places. according to kropotkin, these unions already numbered in a year's time members. in lyons they possessed an organ, which, like most's _freedom_, appeared under all kinds of titles in order to elude the police, and which openly advocated outrages and gave recipes for the manufacture of explosives. the consequences of this unchecked agitation soon became visible. the first opportunity was given by the great strikes which broke out at the beginning of in roanne, bezières, molières, and other industrial centres of southern france, and were used by the anarchists for their own purposes. a workman, fournier, who shot his employer in the open street, was honoured in lyons by the summoning of a meeting to present him with a presentation revolver. for the national fête on the th july, , a larger riot was planned to take place in paris, for which purpose help was also sought from london. but as there happened to be a review of troops in paris on that date, the anarchists contented themselves with issuing a manifesto "to the slaves of labour," concluding with the words: "no fêtes! death to the exploiters of labour! long live the social revolution!" in autumn, , riots broke out in montceau-les-mines and lyons, in which violent means were employed, including dynamite. next spring (march, ), there and in paris great demonstrations of the "unemployed" took place in the streets, combined with robbery and dynamite outrages, and on july th there were sanguinary encounters with the armed forces of the state in roubaix and elsewhere, when the populace was incited to arise against the _bourgeoisie_, "who" (it was said) "were indulging in festivities while they had condemned louise michel, the champion of the proletariat, to a cruel imprisonment." the french government now thought it no longer possible to look on quietly at these proceedings, and sought to secure the agitators, which proved no light task. of the fourteen prisoners accused of complicity in the riots of montceau-les-mines, only nine were condemned to terms of imprisonment of one to five years or less important counts. on the other hand, at the lyons trial of th january, , only three out of sixty-six were acquitted; the others, including kropotkin, his follower gautier, a brilliant orator and fanatical propagandist, bordas, bernard, and others, were condemned to imprisonment with the full penalty on the strength of the law of march , , against the "international." almost all the accused, including kropotkin, openly confessed that both intellectually and in deed they were the originators of the excesses at lyons and montceau-les-mines, and that they were anarchists, but denied the existence of an international organisation, and protested against the application of the law of the th march, . similarly the government succeeded in securing the ringleaders of the demonstrations in paris. at the same time the government endeavoured to check the anarchist agitation by administrative methods; but nothing could stay the progress of the new movement that had started since the london congress. france is the headquarters of anarchism, paris contains its leading journals, over all france there exists a network of groups; the propaganda of action here celebrated its saddest triumphs, as is only too well shown by the cases of ravachol, henry, and caserio. switzerland, the original home of the anarchism of action, now gives rise to but little comment. immediately after the london congress kropotkin developed his most active agitation in the old anarchist centre, the lake of geneva district. on july , , at lausanne, at an annual congress of some thirty delegates, kropotkin estimated the number of his adherents at two thousand. lausanne congress adopted the same attitude as the london congress, and took the opportunity on the occasion of the international musical festival at geneva, august to , , to hold a secret international congress there. at this the question of the separation of the anarchists from every other party was discussed. as a matter of fact this separation had long since taken place; the long-drawn struggle between marxists and bakuninists had caused a complete division between the social democrats and anarchists; latterly even the adherents of collectivism, the possibilists, and other groups had separated from the anarchists; and thus the geneva congress merely gave expression to the complete individualisation of the new movement, and it was decided to make the new programme officially known in a manifesto. this manifesto ran: "our ruler is our enemy. we anarchists, _i. e._, men without any rulers, fight against all those who have usurped any power, or who wish to usurp it. our enemy is the owner who keeps the land for himself, and makes the peasant work for his advantage. our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with wage-slaves; our enemy is the state, whether monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, with its officials and staff of officers, magistrates, and police spies. our enemy is every thought of authority, whether men call it god or devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled honest people. our enemy is the law which always oppresses the weak by the strong, to the justification and apotheosis of crime. but if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the state, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are also theirs, and we boldly oppose them. we intend to reconquer the land and the factory from the landowner and the manufacturer; we mean to annihilate the state, under whatever name it may be concealed; and we mean to get our freedom back again in spite of priest or law. according to our strength, we will work for the annihilation of all legal institutions, and are in accord with everyone who defies the law by a revolutionary act. we despise all legal means because they are the negation of our rights; we do not want so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty, and cannot make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. between us anarchists and all political parties, whether conservatives or moderates, whether they fight for freedom or recognise it by their admissions, a deep gulf is fixed. we wish to remain our own masters and he among us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. of course we know that individual freedom cannot exist without a union with other free associates. we all live by the support one of another, that is the social life which has created us, that is the work of all, which gives to each the consciousness of his rights and the power to defend them. every social product is the work of the whole community, to which all have a claim in equal manner. for we are communists; we recognise that unless patrimonial, communal, provincial, and national limits are abolished, the work must be begun anew. it is ours to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called." in spite of the severe repressive measures taken against the swiss anarchists in consequence of the outrages in the south of france, in which they were rightly supposed to be implicated, they held their annual congress from july to , , at chaux-de-fonds, at which the establishment of an international fund "for the sacrifice of the reactionary _bourgeoisie_," the disadvantage from the anarchist standpoint of a union of revolutionary groups, and the necessity of the propaganda of action were decided upon. the beginnings of german anarchism in switzerland date from the characteristic year , when the division among german socialists (arising from most's influence) was felt among the swiss working classes also. in the summer of most himself was in switzerland, and succeeded in collecting round him a small following, which, as early as october, felt itself strong enough to hold on the lake of geneva a sort of opposition congress to the one at wyden, in order to declare its decisions null and void. at the same time the _freedom_ was recognised as the organ of the party. the london congress gave a new impulse to the agitation. proceedings were at once taken to realise in switzerland the london programme; groups were formed, and connection made between them by special correspondents (_trimardeurs_), a propaganda fund established, and messages sent to germany inciting to commit outrages as opportunity offered. in consequence of this active agitation, the anarchist groups in france and n. e. switzerland continually increased, and when in most's _freedom_ no longer could be published in london, it appeared in switzerland under the editorship of stellmacher, who was afterwards executed in vienna, until most, after performing his sentence of imprisonment in london, transferred it with him to new york. in this year ( ) the growth of anarchism was so rapid that its adherents even succeeded in gaining the majority in many of the german working-men's clubs or in breaking them up. in august, , the anarchists held a secret conference in zürich, which declared most's system of groups to be satisfactory; drew up a new plan for extending, as far as possible and with all possible safety, the spread of anarchist literature; and considered the establishment of a secret printing-press. the activity of the swiss anarchists consisted mainly in smuggling anarchist literature into germany and austria, while the jurassic federation again concerned itself chiefly with doing the same for southern france. both parties now had the most friendly relations one with another. swiss anarchism leads us directly to germany and austria. germany may be termed the most free from anarchists of any country in europe. in the seventies a few groups had been founded here from switzerland, and by means of the _arbeiterzeitung_ (_working-mens' journal_), appearing in bern, and conducted by reinsdorf, a former compositor and enthusiastic agitator, an attempt was made to convert the working classes of germany to anarchism. but owing to the strength of social democracy in this country, all reinsdorf's efforts at agitation were in vain. even the superior skill of johann most could only produce very feeble and transitory results. when he openly professed anarchism, and was expelled from the social democratic party, a small following remained to him in germany; but in the german empire only a dozen or so groups were formed (chiefly in berlin and hamburg) which adopted most's programme; but their numbers did not rise above two hundred, and they remained quite unimportant. the effects, however, of most's agitation in switzerland were all the more strongly felt in austria, the classic land of political immaturity and insecurity. to-day the austrian empire is almost free from anarchists; other elements have come to take up the _rôle_ of fishing in troubled waters. but at the time of the general increase of anarchism, after the london congress, austria-hungary was one of the strongholds of anarchism. a former house painter, josef penkert, a man who had given himself a very fair education by his own efforts, and was most's most eager pupil, conducted the agitation in vienna and pesth. groups sprang up, and the agitation was so strong that the new social democratic party was soon relegated to the background. everywhere anarchist papers arose--in vienna the _zukunft_ (_future_) and the _delnicke listy_, in reichenberg the _radical_, in prague the _socialist_ and the _communist_, in lemberg the _praca_, in cracow the _robotnik_ and the _przedswit_, imported from switzerland. the chief organs of austrian anarchism, however, flourished on the other side of the river leitha, where the press laws were interpreted more liberally than in the west of the kingdom. in hungary there were numerous anarchist journals, some of which, like the pesth _socialist_, preached the most sanguinary and merciless propaganda. this was acted upon in vienna, under the guidance of penkert, stellmacher, and kammerer, in such a way that most's _freedom_, which was smuggled in in large quantities, was delighted at it. in anarchist meetings had collisions with the authorities. the money for the agitation was obtained by robbery, as the trial of merstallinger proved. the most prominent anarchist speakers were examined judicially in consequence of this trial, which took place in march, , but had to be acquitted, which naturally only increased the confidence of the propagandists. the socialists succeeded no better in making headway against this rapidly increasing movement. the "general workmen's conference," sitting at brünn on the th and th of october, , certainly passed an open vote of want of confidence against the anarchist minority, but a resolution to the effect that merstallinger's offence was a common crime, that the tactics preached by the anarchists ought to be rejected as unworthy of social democrats, and that all adherents of such tactics were to be regarded as enemies and traitors to the people--this was rejected after a hot debate. all this naturally increased the confidence and recklessness of the anarchist agitation. secret printing-presses were busily engaged spreading incendiary literature, which advocated the murder of police officials and explained the tactics suitable for this purpose. on the th and th october, , at a secret conference at lang enzersdorf, a new plan of action was discussed and adopted, namely, to proceed with all means in their power to take action against "exploiters and agents of authority," to keep people in a state of continual excitement by such acts of terrorism, and to bring about the revolution in every possible way. this programme was immediately acted upon in the murder of several police agents. on december , , at floridsdorf, a police official named hlubek was murdered, and the condemnation of rouget, who was convicted of the crime, on june , , was immediately answered the next day by the murder of the police agent blöct. the government now took energetic measures. by order of the ministry, a state of siege was proclaimed in vienna and district from january , , by which the usual tribunals for certain crimes and offences were temporarily suspended, and the severest repressive measures were exercised against the anarchists, so that anarchism in austria rapidly declined, and at the same time it soon lost its leaders. stellmacher and kammerer were executed, penkert escaped to england, most of the other agitators were fast in prison, the journals were suppressed and the groups broken up. the same occurred in hungary, which had only followed the fashion in austria, for in hungary the social question is by no means so acute and the public movement in it is merely political. at present anarchism in germany and austria is confined to an (at most) harmless doctrinaireism, and it will be well to accept with great reserve any statements to the contrary; for neither those who were condemned at the last anarchist trial at vienna, nor the bohemian anarchist and omladinist trials, nor the suspected persons who have recently migrated to germany, appear to have been more than half conscious of anarchism, nor do they appear to have had any international associations. in belgium, also, after the passing of the german socialist laws, a difference of opinion became manifest among the working classes, which gave new life to anarchism, almost extinct as it was at the end of the seventies. the "german reading union" in brussels split into two parties, the more radical of which was filled with most's ideas and eagerly agitated for the dissemination of his _freedom_. as this radical tendency had found many supporters among the german socialists, it made itself noticeable at the brussels congress of . the keener became the struggle between the most-hasselmann and the bebel-liebknecht parties, the more sharply defined became the opposition in the ranks of the belgian working classes. the radicals united into a "union révolutionnaire"; founded their own party organ, _la persévérance_, at verviers; and declared themselves in favour of the london congress as against that at coire. the others held quarterly advisory congresses at brussels, verviers, and ceresmes, at which it was agreed to revive the "international working-men's association" on a revolutionary basis and not to limit the various groups in their autonomy. these meetings also adopted the resolution which the german members in brussels had suggested about the employment of explosives. but in spite of the active agitation, and the founding of the "republican league" to show the activity of the anarchists as opposed to the socialist "electoral reform league," anarchism in belgium made no progress, mainly on account of internal dissension, and the annual congress arranged for did not even take place. in spite of the most active propaganda, circumstances have not altered in belgium during the last ten years. we must be careful not to set down to the anarchists the repeated dynamite outrages which are so common during the great strikes in belgium, although in certain isolated cases, as in the dynamite affair at gomshoren, near brussels, in , the hand of the anarchists cannot be mistaken. england, the ancient refuge of political offenders, although it has sheltered bakunin, kropotkin, reclus, most, penkert, louise michel, cafiero, malatesta, and other anarchist leaders, and still shelters some of them; although london is rich in anarchist clubs and newspapers, meetings and congresses, yet possesses no anarchism "native to the soil," and has formed at all times rather a kind of exchange or market-place for anarchist ideas, motive forces, and the literature of agitation. london is especially the headquarters of german anarchism; the english working classes have, however, always regarded their ideas very coldly, while the government have always regarded the eccentric proceedings of the anarchists, as long as they confined themselves merely to talking and writing, in the most logical spirit of the doctrine of _laisser faire_. certainly, when most went a little too far in his _freedom_, the full power of the english law was put in motion against him, and condemned him on one occasion to sixteen, and on another to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. but of greater effect than this punishment was the fact that in all london no printer could be found to set up the type for _freedom_. thereupon most left thankless old england grumbling, and went to the new world, where, however, he was, if possible, taken even less seriously. spain was the only country where anarchism, even under the new impulse of the london congress, really kept in the main to its old collectivist principles. in consequence of the movement proceeding from the london congress, the spanish anarchists called a national congress at barcelona on september and , , at which, in the presence of one hundred and forty delegates, a programme and statutes of organisation were drawn up and a "spanish federation of the international working-men's association" was founded. its aim was to be the political, economic, and social emancipation of all the working classes by the establishment of a form of society founded upon a collectivist basis, and guaranteeing the unconditional autonomy of the free and federally united communes. the only means of reaching this aim was declared to be a revolutionary upheaval carried out by force. the organisation sketched out at the barcelona congress is quite in proudhon's spirit; the arrangement of its members was to be a double one, both by trades and districts, and both divisions had mutually to enlarge each other. the basis of the trade organisation was to be formed by the single local groups; these were to be united into local associations, these into provincial associations, and these again into a national association, the "union." monthly, quarterly, and yearly conferences, and the committees attached to them, were to form the decisive and executive organs of these associations. parallel with the arrangement by trades was to be the territorial arrangement, all the local trade associations of the same district being formed into one united local association, this again into provincial associations, these into the national association of the whole country, _i. e._, into the "federation"; and here again local, provincial, and national congresses performed all executive functions as local, provincial, and national committees. the national committee established by the congress developed immediately an active agitation, so that at the next congress at seville ( th to th september, ), attended by delegates, the federation numbered already provincial, local unions, and sections, with , members. their organ, the _revista social_, which appeared in madrid, possessed about , subscribers, although besides this there were several local journals. but this rapid growth of the anarchist movement in spain was followed by a retrogression, mainly caused by the increased severity of the measures taken by the government in consequence of the terrorism created by the andalusian secret society of "the black hand" (mano negra), and proceedings were taken against the anarchists. their examination, however, failed to reveal the supposed connection between the mano negra and anarchism, and the anarchists, who had been arrested wholesale, had to be acquitted. the federation itself had expressed to every society its disapproval of the "secret actions of those assassins," and had pointed to the legality and public nature of their organisation and agitation, as well as to their statutes, which had received the approval of the authorities. the congress at valencia ( ) repeated this declaration. henceforth spanish anarchism proceeded on peaceful lines, and only in the last few years did it have recourse to force after the example of the french, as, _e. g._, in the attack on campos, and the outrage in the liceo theatre at barcelona. as to italy, here also after anarchism awoke to new life, as it did everywhere else, and at the same time broke finally with the democratic socialists. in december, , the anarchists held a secret congress at chiasso, at which fifteen delegates of cities of north italy took part. these professed anarchist communism, viewed with horror any division _au choix_, and recommended "the use of every favorable opportunity for seriously disturbing public order." in agreement with this the italians, represented by cafiero and malatesta, took part in the london congress in the following year. on their return these two men developed an active agitation, and began a bitter campaign against the moderate socialists, especially when their leader costa was elected to parliament, which the anarchists regarded as a betrayal of the proletariat to the _bourgeoisie_. in the year malatesta was arrested at florence, and, with several companions, condemned by the royal courts, on february , , to several years' imprisonment, it being proved that groups had already been formed in rome, florence, and naples on the basis of the london programme, and that these groups had planned and prepared dynamite outrages. leghorn, which in the time of the romans was a refuge for criminals, may be regarded as the centre of modern italian anarchism. "in leghorn," writes one who knows his facts, "the number of the anarchists of action is legion. the idea of slaking their inborn thirst for blood on the 'fat _bourgeoisie_' could not fail to gain many adherents among the descendants of that sciolla, who at the time of the last grand duke founded the celebrated dagger-band and slew people; how many adherents it gained may be seen from the figures of the last election (march, ), when electors voted for the anarchist murderer merga." lugo (the home of lega), forli, and cesena form important centres of italian anarchism. the _rôle_ which it has played in the international propaganda is fresh in the memory of all, and is sufficiently indicated by the names of lega and caserio. * * * * * it will be seen from the foregoing that anarchism, after retrograding till the end of the seventies, made unexpectedly rapid progress in every country after , lasting till about , but after that a new reaction, or at least a diminution of propaganda, is to be noticed. the renewed force with which the anarchism of action has during the last three years or so made itself felt in the latin countries, appears already to present new features; this may be termed the third epoch of anarchism. the epoch dating from the london congress is characterised by certain party features (federations, alliances, etc.), which have now quite disappeared. with most's departure for america, the central government created by him--if we can speak of a central government in view of the complete autonomy of the groups--appears to have completely lost its power, and when, at the congresses of chicago ( ) and london ( ), merlino and malatesta moved that some form of leadership of the party should be established, their motion was rejected, it being pointed out that it was inconsistent with the main anarchist principle: "do as thou wilt." when nowadays we hear talk of an "international organisation" of an anarchist party and so forth, this must be taken merely in the very wide meaning of a completely free _entente_ between single groups. everything at present rests with the "group," which is, at the same time, very small and of an extremely fluctuating character. five, seven, or at most a dozen men unite in a group according to occupation, personal relationships, propinquity of dwelling, or other causes; only after a certain time to separate again. the groups are only connected with each other almost entirely by means of moving intermediaries, called _trimardeurs_, a slang expression borrowed from the thieves. this organisation completely corresponds to the purely individual character of their actions; anarchist riots and conspiracies are out of fashion; and the outrages of recent years have arisen almost exclusively from the initiative of individuals. this circumstance, as well as the whole organisation of the anarchists, of course renders difficult any summary proceedings on the part of the government of the country; which is probably by no means the least important reason for the adoption of these tactics by the anarchists. as to the numerical strength of anarchism, different estimates are given by the anarchists and their opponents; but all of them are very untrustworthy. kropotkin, in , gave the numbers of those living at lyons at ; those in the basin of the rhone at ; and spoke of thousands of others living in the south of france. one of the sixty-six defendants at the lyons trial wrote: "we are _all_ captured"--a remarkable difference of numbers compared with kropotkin's . lately, the paris _figaro_ has published some data, said to be from an authentic source, about the strength of the anarchists, and, according to this journal, about anarchists are known to the police in france, among whom are about frenchmen and foreigners. the majority of these foreign anarchists consists of the italians ( per cent.), then come the swiss ( per cent.), the germans and russians ( per cent., each), belgians and austrians ( per cent., each), spaniards and bulgarians (each per cent.), and the natives of several minor states. this proportionate percentage of course only refers to anarchists living in france or known there, and cannot be taken as trustworthy for international numbers. we have in fact practically no knowledge of its present strength, for it is as often undervalued as overrated. when this is done by those who are not anarchists, it cannot be wondered at, since one of the leaders of the anarchism of action in paris confessed his own ignorance by the remark: "there are in the world some thousands of us, perhaps some millions." chapter ix concluding remarks legislation against anarchists -- anarchism and crime -- tolerance towards anarchist theory -- suppression of anarchist crime -- conclusion. when about a year ago ( ) the italian caserio, a baker's apprentice, assassinated the amiable and respected president of the french republic, probably thinking that he was thereby ridding the world of a tyrant, the public, in a mood perfectly comprehensible if not justifiable, was ready to take the severest measures against anyone suspected of anarchism. an international convention against the anarchists was demanded, but this was almost unanimously rejected by european diplomatists. parliaments, however, showed themselves more subservient to the anxiety of the public than the diplomatists. italy gave its government full powers over administrative dealings with all suspected persons, and france passed a press law limiting very considerably, not only the anarchist press, but the press generally. spain had already anticipated this action. germany took all manner of trouble to frame exceptional laws, although one cannot quite see how this country was concerned in the matter. england alone, true to its traditions, rejected the proposal of the house of lords to pass exceptional laws against the anarchists, lord rosebery, who was then premier, declaring that the ordinary law and the existing executive organisation were amply sufficient to cope with the anarchists. the question as to which state has pursued the better policy appears at first extremely difficult to answer. it is believed that we have in anarchism something quite new, which has never occurred before, something monstrous and not human, against which quite extraordinary measures are permissible. to judge whether this standpoint is correct, we must, before everything, distinguish carefully the theory from the propaganda. the common view--or prejudice--soon disposes of the anarchist theory: the anxious possessor of goods thinks it is nothing less than a direct incitement to robbery and murder; the practical politician merely regards the anarchist theory as not worth debate, because it could not be carried out in practice; and even men of science, as we have seen in the case of laveleye, and could prove by other examples, look upon anarchist theories merely as the mad and feverish fancies of extravagant minds. none of them would much mind if all anarchist literature were consumed in an _auto da fé_ and the authors thereof rendered harmless by being sent off to siberia or new caledonia. such judgments are easily passed, but whether one could settle the question permanently thereby is another matter. that the theory of anarchism is not merely a systematic incitement to robbery and murder we need hardly repeat, now that we have concluded an exhaustive statement of it. proudhon and stirner, the men who have laid down the basis of the new doctrine, never once preached force. "if ideas once have originated," said proudhon once, "the very paving-stones would rise of themselves, unless the government has sense enough to avert this. and if such is not the case, then nothing is of any use." it will be admitted that, for a revolutionary, this is a very moderate speech. the doctrine of propaganda, which since proudhon's time has always accompanied a certain form of anarchist theory, is a foreign element, having no necessary or internal connection with the fundamental ideas of anarchism. it is simply a piece of tactics borrowed from the circumstances peculiar to russia, and accepted moreover only by one fraction of the anarchists, and approved by very few indeed in its most crude form; it is merely the old tactics of all revolutionary parties in every age. the deeds of people like jacques clement, ravaillac, corday, sand, and caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that sand's action followed from the views of the _burschenschaft_, or clement's from catholicism, even when we learn that sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was charlotte corday and clement, or even when learned jesuits like sa, mariana, and others, _cum licentia et approbatione superiorum_, in connection with clement's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of netschajew or most. we may quote the remarks of a specialist[ ] upon the connection between politics and criminality. "history is rich in examples of the combination of criminal acts with politics, wherein sometimes political passion and sometimes a criminal disposition forms the chief element. while pompeius the sober has all honest people on his side, his talented contemporaries, cicero, cæsar, and brutus have as followers all the baser sort, men like clodius and cataline,[ ] libertines and drunkards like antonius, the bankrupt curio, the mad clelius, dolabella the spendthrift, who wanted to repudiate all his debts by passing a law. the greek clephts, those brave champions of the independence of their home, were, in times of peace, brigands. in italy the papacy and the bourbons in kept the brigands in their pay against the national party and its troops; and garibaldi had on his side in sicily the maffia, just as in naples the liberals were supported by the camorra. this alliance with the camorra is not even yet quite dissolved, as the occurrences in naples at the time of the recent disturbances in the italian parliament have shown, nor will matters probably improve. criminals usually take a large share in the initial stages of insurrections and revolutions, for at a time when the weak and undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive force of abnormal and unhealthy natures preponderates, and their example calls forth epidemics of excesses. [ ] lombroso, _die anarchisten_, p. . hamburg, . [ ] cataline as a follower of cicero is a new version of the supposed facts.--trans. "chenn, in his remarks upon revolutionary movements in france before , has shown that political passion gradually degenerated into unconcealed criminal attempts; thus the precursors of anarchism at that time had for leader a certain coffirean, who finally became a raving communist, and exalted thieving into a socio-political principle, plundered the merchants with the aid of his adherents, because in his opinion they cheated their customers; by thus doing they believed they were only making perfectly justifiable reprisals, and at the same time converting the plundered ones into discontented men who would join the revolutionary cause. this group also occupied themselves in the manufacture of forged bank notes, which led in to their being discovered and severely punished after the real republicans had disowned them. in england at the time of the conspiracies against cromwell, bands of robbers collected in the neighbourhood of london, and the number of thieves increased; the robber-bands assumed a political colouring and asked those whom they attacked whether they had sworn an oath of fidelity to the republic, and according to their answer they let them go or robbed and ill-treated them. companies of soldiers had to be sent to repress them, nor were the soldiers always victorious. hordes of vagabonds, bands of robbers, and societies of thieves in unheard-of numbers also appeared as forerunners of the french revolution. mercier states that in an army of , vagabonds gradually approached paris and penetrated into the city; these were the rabble that attended the wholesale executions during the reign of terror and later took part in the fusilades at toulon and the wholesale drownings at nantes; at the same time the revolutionary troops and militia were, according to meissner, merely organised bands who committed every kind of murder, robbery, and extortion. the criminals who happened to be caught occasionally during the revolution sought to save themselves by the cry of _à l'aristocrate_; when on trial they behaved in the most audacious manner, and grinned at the judges when condemned, and the women behaved most shamelessly. in only accused, and in not more than , were sent to the conciergerie. a similar state of affairs prevailed in the commune of . among the population then in paris, deceived as they were in their patriotic hopes, unnerved by inglorious combats, weakened by hunger and alcohol, no one cared to bestir themselves but the unruly elements, the _déclassés_, the criminals, the madmen, and the drunkards who imposed their will upon the city; that these were the main elements in the rising is shown by the slaughter of helpless captives, by the refined cruelty of the murderers, who compelled their victims to jump over a wall, and shot them while doing so, while others were riddled by bullets; thus one citizen received sixty-nine bullets, and abbé bengy had sixty-two bayonet wounds." the foregoing examples could easily be increased in order to show that the criminal tactics of the anarchists are nothing new. if they are more formidable and more monstrous than those of the religious dissenters of the renaissance or the political criminals of the revolutionary period, the reason lies in the age in which we live. we mean that those who use the progress of modern mechanics, chemistry, technical science, and so on, solely in order to increase the terror inspired by organised murder, and to make the furies of war invincible, ought not to be so surprised if the revolutionaries in their turn no longer content themselves with old-fashioned weapons, but seek to utilise also the achievements of modern chemistry. _exampla trahunt._ the anarchist propaganda should not be judged so severely; new and wonderful as it appears to the majority, it is by no means so in reality; it is the stock piece of all revolutionaries, somewhat modernised and adapted to a new age and a new doctrine. certainly the anarchist doctrine is something new, if you will; but we consider this means little if it merely expresses the fact that these new demands exceed all previous changes in society. this is too trivial to justify the application of exceptional measures and the suspension of the principle of tolerance to all opinions. the anarchists are not, after all, so very original; they are a modernised version of the chiliasts of more than a thousand years ago, and differ from them only as the mental conception of the present differs from that of irenæus. for he sought to justify his dreams by an appeal to religion, while the anarchists appeal to modern science. that is all. but if we blame for its intolerance, and stigmatise as belonging to the "dark ages," the age that persecuted the chiliasts with fire and sword, we certainly ought not to show a still greater intolerance to the chiliasts of our own day. but it may be said that this fantasy, this anarchist theory, is far more dangerous than all the other errors that have preceded it; it wishes to abolish property, reduce the family to hetairism, and so forth. we hope we have shown clearly in the preceding pages that, at bottom, all anarchist theories, even kropotkin's, are very harmless, and would merely result in leaving everything as before, merely changing the present compulsory system into a voluntary one. a large group of anarchists, indeed the most extreme, are pure individualists, even maintaining individual property; how this could be maintained without some legal guarantee is a question for themselves; but it is evident that the anarchist theory would alter the existing state of things much less than the social-democratic theory; for the latter demands the cessation of individualist economy, and would punish any opposition to its views as a crime, just as we punish theft to-day. it is the same with marriage. anarchists of all parties merely wish the family to be changed into the "family group"; but that means that everything could practically remain unchanged; only the legal guarantees and privileges associated with marriage must be abolished. we will neither discuss the morality, or lack of it, nor the practicability or impracticability of this idea; but in this the anarchists go no further than what fichte, or that moderate liberal, wilhelm von humboldt, or even f. a. schlegel, the poet of lucinde, have demanded as regards natural marriage; and schlegel certainly is somewhat of the national-christian-socialism type. in any case, here, too, socialism with its more drastic measures is more formidable, for even if it would respect the sexual group--which may be doubted in view of the artificial organisation of work in the social state--yet the character of the "family" would quite disappear owing to the socialists' violent interference with the care and bringing up of children. it is certainly characteristic in this respect that the authoritative socialists regard even anarchism as merely a modern form of the manchester liberal school, sneering at anarchists as "small _bourgeoisie_," and representing them as quite harmless against the reforms planned by themselves. but whether it is more or less dangerous need not be considered, when it is a question of whether an opinion is worth discussion. if an opinion contains elements which are useful, serviceable, or necessary for the majority of the members of society, these opinions will be realised in practice without regard to whether danger thereby threatens or does not threaten single forms or arrangements of present society. exceptional legislation may check criticism of unhealthy or obsolete forms of society, but cannot hinder the organic development of society itself; for society will then only develop through a series of painful catastrophes instead of by a gradual evolution; catastrophes which are the consequence of opinions which have not had free discussion. it would be more than sad if we had to demonstrate the truth of these views again to-day, although our own age, or at least, we continentals, seem in our condemnation of anarchism to have lost all calmness, and to have abandoned those principles of toleration and liberalism of which we are generally so proud. it has been rightly said that the freedom of conscience must include not only the freedom of belief, but also the freedom of unbelief. in that case the right of freedom of opinions must not be confined merely to the forms of the state: one should be equally free to deny the state itself. without this extension of the principle, freedom of thought is a mockery. we therefore demand for the anarchist doctrine, as long as it does not incite to crime, the right of free discussion and the tolerance due to every opinion, quite without regard to whether it is more dangerous, or more probable, or more practicable than any other opinion; and this we do not merely from _a priori_ and academic reasons, but in the best interests of the community. we consider the anarchist idea unrealisable, just as is any other scheme based only on speculation; we think proudhon's picture of society quite as utopian as plato's, and certainly none the less a product of genius. moreover, we are convinced that grave complications have already arisen in society owing to the fanatical pursuit of these utopian ideas, and still greater ones will arise; and yet we do not belong to those who deplore the appearance of these ideas, or who believe that serious and permanent danger is threatened to the development of society by the anarchist idea. this, indeed, would be the place in which to write a chapter on the value of the error; but we must leave this to writers on ethics, and content ourselves with pointing out that the development of culture does not depend mainly upon the truth or falsehood of ruling ideas. as we have often said in these pages in our criticism of the anarchists, life is not merely the fulfilment of philosophic dreams or the embodiment of absolute truths; on the contrary, it can easily be proved from history that error and superstition have rather been the most potent factors in human development. when discussing stirner's views, we have shewn the cardinal error that lies in the conclusion that only the absolutely true is useful and admissible in practice. certainly, philosophy has taught us the insufficiency of all _a priori_ proofs of the truth of the conception of god; critical science has shown us its empirical origin, and taught us that our ideas of the soul, god, and the future life have proceeded from the most erroneous and crudest attempts to explain certain physiological and psychological phenomena: but even if the conception of the deity were the greatest error committed by mankind, it is yet incontestable that this conception has produced and still produces the greatest blessings for mankind. we have taken up this standpoint against the anarchists, and now it may turn out in their favour; for, if it is not a question of doing away with the state altogether, merely because (as stirner discovered, though he was not the first to do so) it is not sacred, nor absolute, nor real in the philosophic sense, so one need not consider an idea absolutely worthless, and therefore unworthy of discussion merely because it arises from and leads to errors. anarchism is certainly one of the greatest errors ever imagined by man, for it proceeds from assumptions and leads to conclusions which entirely contradict human nature and the facts of life. nevertheless, it also has its purpose in social evolution, and that not a small one, however frightened at this certain timid spirits may be. what is this mission? in so small a space as is now left us, it is hard to answer this without causing misunderstandings to arise on every side. but after what has been said, it will readily be perceived that anarchism will be a factor in overcoming socialism, if not by anarchy yet at least by freedom. a military trait runs through the whole world; the great wars and conquests of the last few decades and present international relations which compel most european states to keep their weapons always ready; all this has called forth a military strain of character, a necessity for defence based upon guardianship and compulsory organisation, which is increased by a similar need for defence in the province of economics, as a consequence of previous economic and social phenomena. this feature is seen in the universal endeavour to increase the power of the state at the expense of the individual, and to solve economic problems in the same way as one organises an army. state socialism, the socialism of the chair, and the christian social movement prove the simultaneity of this characteristic of the age in every circle of modern society; the social democratic party merely represents the group to whose impulse we must ascribe the fact of governments including socialism in their programme, of professors inoculating young intelligences therewith from their chairs, of rome eagerly seizing it as a welcome instrument wherewith to revive her faded popularity; and the fact of politicians, who still call themselves liberal, giving up, often without a struggle, one position after the other in the defence of economic freedom. we will not go so far as to brand every concession to the socialist spirit of our time as blamable and harmful. after almost a century of continually increasing economic freedom, after the old form of society, with its ranks and institutions, has been completely broken up by liberalism, an increase of social discipline, a rallying of mankind round new social standpoints, is perfectly natural. but it is just as natural that evolution will not be able to proceed in the one-sided direction begun by socialism. already the most unpleasant phenomena are visible. the power of the state profits most of all by the socialist movement, which it combats as social democracy; the rights of the individual retire to the background; in the "industrial army," as in the military force, the individual is only a number, a unit; the sense of freedom has almost disappeared from our age. freedom in its signification as to culture and civilisation is now completely misunderstood and underrated, and even considered an idle dream. but the gloomiest feature of socialism is a renaissance of the _religiose_ spirit and all the disadvantages it entails. the _religiose_ attitude, as i have shown elsewhere,[ ] is connected with an inclination for tutelage, and places the individual in quite a secondary position. in an age when the weak are only too surely convinced of the impossibility of maintaining themselves in the midst of the social whirlwind, when everyone seeks to join some community or society, it is easy to make religious proselytes. people mostly console a nation that has a low position in the economic scale with religion, as we console the sick. to those who suffer so bitterly from the inequality of power and wealth in our social system, there is shown a prospect of a future eternal recompense; and those who are continually seeking the support of some power higher than themselves are referred to the highest power of all. that always convinces them. the socialist and the religious view of the world are one and the same; the former is the religion of the absolute, infallible, all-mighty, and ever-present state. the reawakening of the religious spirit simultaneously with the growth of socialist parties is no mere chance. socialism has slipped on the cowl and cassock with the greatest ease, and we have every reason to believe that this sad companionship is by no means ended; the regard for personal freedom will decrease more and more; the tendency towards authority and religion will increase; the comprehension of purely mental effort will continue to disappear in proportion as society endeavours to transform itself into an industrial barrack. whether the end of it all will be the social democratic popular state, or the socialist absolute monarchy, matters but little. in any case, before things reach this point, a counteracting tendency will make itself felt from the needs of the people, which will endeavour to force evolution back into the opposite path. the old implacable struggle between the gironde and the mountain will again be renewed; and the impulse in this contest of the future will come from anarchism, which is already preparing and sharpening the weapons for it. that socialism will be overthrown by the introduction of anarchism we do not believe; but the conquest will be won under the banner of individual freedom. the centralising tendency and the coercive character of the system of doing everything in common, without which socialism cannot have the least success, will naturally and necessarily be replaced by federalism and free association. in these two distinctive features of a future reaction against a socialism that would turn everything into one vast army, we recognise those two demands of theoretical anarchism which are capable of realisation, and capable of it because they are not dogmas, like absolute freedom, but only methods. [ ] _mysticismus, pietismus, anti-semitismus, am ende des xixten jahrhunderts_, p. , foll. wien, . thus it appears not _a priori_ but _a posteriori_, that the anarchist theory must not be considered as absolutely worthless because in itself it is an error and in its main demand is impracticable. our opinion is that it contains at least as many useful elements as socialism; and if to-day governments, men of learning, and even bishops proceed without alarm upon the path of socialism, then a discussion of anarchist theory should not be so coolly waved aside. * * * * * but it is entirely different as regards the criminal propaganda of action. if anarchists wish to spread their opinions abroad, there are quite sufficient means for doing so in civilised society. no one can be allowed the right of giving a sanguinary advertisement to his views by the murder of innocent visitors to a café or a theatre; still less have anarchists the right, when they appeal to force, to complain if force is used against them. it is perfectly fair that the state should proceed against criminal propaganda by legal measures, and that anarchist criminals should suffer for their action, the punishment which a country inflicts even if it be the death penalty. there is no difference of opinion[ ] as regards this view except among anarchists themselves, who arrogate to themselves the right to kill, but deny it to the state. there remain only two points that we might add. [ ] the opinion which would relegate anarchist criminals to the madhouse instead of to the guillotine deserves mention. in this connection, in spite of neo-buddhist peculiarities, the little work _anarchismus und seine heilung_, by emanuel (leipsic, ), gives fresh points of view. first of all, exceptional legislation should be avoided. it is in no way justified. just as the motive of anarchism to any offence affords no extentuating circumstances, so, too, it should not make matters worse. secondly, we should not indulge in the vain hope that anarchism itself, or the criminal results of it, can be combated by mere condemnation of anarchist criminals, however just or unjust the sentence may be. punishment appears to fanatics who long for the martyr's crown, no longer a deterrent but an atonement. in france in less than two years, ravachol, henry, and vaillant were guillotined; but that did not deter caserio in the least from his mad act. numerous anarchist crimes are to be regarded merely as means to indirect suicide, a method by which those who commit them may end lives that are a burden to them, while they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. lombroso, krafft, ebbing, and others cite a long list of political criminals who must certainly be regarded as such indirect suicides. we will not enter the controversial province of criminal pathology, although it seems certain that in the criminal deeds of the anarchism of action a large share is taken by persons pathologically diseased or mentally affected. for these also punishment loses its deterrent effect. taken all in all, one cannot expect any other result from the punishment of anarchist criminals, except the moral one of having defended the rights of society. on the other hand, the anarchists regard the justification of one of their own party as the strongest means of propaganda, and it cannot be denied that the ravachol cult resulting from the execution of that common criminal, ravachol, caused a considerable accession of strength to communist anarchism. the state cannot, of course, allow itself to look on at anarchist crimes and "to shorten its arm"; but it must not delude itself that it will remove such crime or stop the anarchist movement by means of the guillotine. does this mean that society is helpless in face of anarchism? it is, if it possesses only force to suppress and not the power to convince; if society is only held together by compulsion, as the present state partly is, and the socialist state would be still more, and threatens to fall to pieces if the apparatus of compulsion were given up; if the state, instead of trying to redress the unfortunately unalterable natural inequality of its members, only intensifies them by legalising all kinds of new inequalities, and if it regards its institutions, and especially the law, as instruments for the unalterable conservation of all present forms of society with all their imperfections and injustices. if right is done, and right is uttered arbitrarily, in a partisan and protectionist method; if equality before the law is disregarded by those who are called to defend the law; if belief in the reliability of the indispensable institutions of authority is lightly shaken by these very institutions themselves, then it is no wonder if men despair of the capability of the state to practice or to maintain right; and if the masses, always ready to generalise, deny right, law, state, and authority together. we have already pointed out repeatedly that anarchism cannot be explained by pauperism alone. pauperism justifies socialism; but this movement against authority, which certainly does not bear in all cases the name of anarchism, but which is to-day more widely spread than is often imagined, can only be explained by a confused mass of injustice and wrongdoing, of which the _bourgeois_ state is daily and hourly guilty towards the weak. the average man does not much mind his rich fellow-man riding in his carriage while he himself cannot even pay his tram fare; but that he should be abandoned by society to every chance official of justice, as a prey that has no rights, while justice often falters anxiously before those who are shielded by coats of arms and titles,--that makes his blood boil, and causes him to seek the origin of this injustice in the institution itself instead of in the way it works. how many anarchists have become so merely because they were treated as common criminals when they happened to have the misfortune to be suspected of anarchism? 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(in preparation.) =the nicaragua canal and the monroe doctrine.= a political history of the various projects of interoceanic transit across the american isthmus, with special reference to the nicaragua canal, and the attitude of the united states government thereto. by lindley m. keasbey, associate professor of political science, bryn mawr college. with maps. vo. =international law.= a simple statement of its principles. by herbert wolcott bowen, united states consul-general at barcelona, spain. mo. g. p. putnam's sons, new york and london. transcriber's notes . passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. . passages in bold are indicated by =bold=. . the words phoenix, poena, baboeuf and oeconomiæ use an oe ligature in the original. . the words chelcicians and chelcic use c with caron in the original. . some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. obvious ones have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have been left open. . the original text includes greek characters. for this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. . the following misprints have been corrected: "divison" corrected to "division" (page ) "agains" corrected to "against" (page ) "from" corrected to "form" (page ) "that" corrected to "than" (page ) "russicher" corrected to "russischer" (page ) "the the" corrected to "the" (page ) "arbeiterfwegung" corrected to "arbeiterbewegung" (page ) "socialty" corrected to "sociality" (page ) "pesecution" corrected to "persecution" (page ) "edigy" corrected to "egidy" (page ) "aer" corrected to "der" (page ) "completly" corrected to "completely" (page ) "iself" corrected to "itself" (page ) . other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustration. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) god and the state by michael bakunin mother earth publishing association [illustration: michael bakunin] god and the state by michael bakunin with a preface by carlo cafiero and elisée reclus first american edition mother earth publishing association east th street new york city preface to the first french edition one of us is soon to tell in all its details the story of the life of michael bakunin, but its general features are already sufficiently familiar. friends and enemies know that this man was great in thought, will, persistent energy; they know also with what lofty contempt he looked down upon wealth, rank, glory, all the wretched ambitions which most human beings are base enough to entertain. a russian gentleman related by marriage to the highest nobility of the empire, he was one of the first to enter that intrepid society of rebels who were able to release themselves from traditions, prejudices, race and class interests, and set their own comfort at naught. with them he fought the stern battle of life, aggravated by imprisonment, exile, all the dangers and all the sorrows that men of self-sacrifice have to undergo during their tormented existence. a simple stone and a name mark the spot in the cemetery of berne where was laid the body of bakunin. even that is perhaps too much to honor the memory of a worker who held vanities of that sort in such slight esteem. his friends surely will raise to him no ostentatious tombstone or statue. they know with what a huge laugh he would have received them, had they spoken to him of a commemorative structure erected to his glory; they knew, too, that the true way to honor their dead is to continue their work--with the same ardor and perseverance that they themselves brought to it. in this case, indeed, a difficult task demanding all our efforts, for among the revolutionists of the present generation not one has labored more fervently in the common cause of the revolution. in russia among the students, in germany among the insurgents of dresden, in siberia among his brothers in exile, in america, in england, in france, in switzerland, in italy, among all earnest men, his direct influence has been considerable. the originality of his ideas, the imagery and vehemence of his eloquence, his untiring zeal in propagandism, helped too by the natural majesty of his person and by a powerful vitality, gave bakunin access to all the revolutionary groups, and his efforts left deep traces everywhere, even upon those who, after having welcomed him, thrust him out because of a difference of object or method. his correspondence was most extensive; he passed entire nights in preparing long letters to his friends in the revolutionary world, and some of these letters, written to strengthen the timid, arouse the sluggish, and outline plans of propagandism or revolt, took on the proportions of veritable volumes. these letters more than anything else explain the prodigious work of bakunin in the revolutionary movement of the century. the pamphlets published by him, in russian, french, and italian, however important they may be, and however useful they may have been in spreading the new ideas, are the smallest part of bakunin's work. the present memoir, "god and the state," is really a fragment of a letter or report. composed in the same manner as most of bakunin's other writings, it has the same literary fault, lack of proportion; moreover it breaks off abruptly: we have searched in vain to discover the end of the manuscript. bakunin never had the time necessary to finish all the tasks he undertook. one work was not completed when others were already under way. "my life itself is a fragment," he said to those who criticised his writings. nevertheless, the readers of "god and the state" certainly will not regret that bakunin's memoir, incomplete though it be, has been published. the questions discussed in it are treated decisively and with a singular vigor of logic. rightly addressing himself only to his honest opponents, bakunin demonstrates to them the emptiness of their belief in that divine authority on which all temporal authorities are founded; he proves to them the purely human genesis of all governments; finally, without stopping to discuss those bases of the state already condemned by public morality, such as physical superiority, violence, nobility, wealth, he does justice to the theory which would entrust science with the government of societies. supposing even that it were possible to recognize, amid the conflict of rival ambitions and intrigues, who are the pretenders and who are the real savants, and that a method of election could be found which would not fail to lodge the power in the hands of those whose knowledge is authentic, what guarantee could they offer us of the wisdom and honesty of their government? on the contrary, can we not foresee in these new masters the same follies and the same crimes found in those of former days and of the present time? in the first place, science is not: it is becoming. the learned man of to-day is but the know-nothing of to-morrow. let him once imagine that he has reached the end, and for that very reason he sinks beneath even the babe just born. but, could he recognize truth in its essence, he can only corrupt himself by privilege and corrupt others by power. to establish his government, he must try, like all chiefs of state, to arrest the life of the masses moving below him, keep them in ignorance in order to preserve quiet, and gradually debase them that he may rule them from a loftier throne. for the rest, since the _doctrinaires_ made their appearance, the true or pretended "genius" has been trying his hand at wielding the sceptre of the world, and we know what it has cost us. we have seen them at work, all these savants: the more hardened the more they have studied; the narrower in their views the more time they have spent in examining some isolated fact in all its aspects; without any experience of life, because they have long known no other horizon than the walls of their cheese; childish in their passions and vanities, because they have been unable to participate in serious struggles and have never learned the true proportion of things. have we not recently witnessed the foundation of a whole school of "thinkers"--wretched courtiers, too, and people of unclean lives--who have constructed a whole cosmogony for their sole use? according to them, worlds have been created, societies have developed, revolutions have overturned nations, empires have gone down in blood, poverty, disease, and death have been the queens of humanity, only to raise up an _élite_ of academicians, the full-blown flower, of which all other men are but the manure. that these editors of the _temps_ and the _debats_ may have leisure to "think," nations live and die in ignorance; all other human beings are destined for death in order that these gentlemen may become immortal! but we may reassure ourselves: all these academicians will not have the audacity of alexander in cutting with his sword the gordian knot; they will not lift the blade of charlemagne. government by science is becoming as impossible as that of divine right, wealth, or brute force. all powers are henceforth to be submitted to pitiless criticism. men in whom the sentiment of equality is born suffer themselves no longer to be governed; they learn to govern themselves. in precipitating from the heights of the heavens him from whom all power is reputed to descend, societies unseat also all those who reigned in his name. such is the revolution now in progress. states are breaking up to give place to a new order, in which, as bakunin was fond of saying, "human justice will be substituted for divine justice." if it is allowable to cite any one name from those of the revolutionists who have taken part in this immense work of renovation, there is not one that may be singled out with more justice than that of michael bakunin. carlo cafiero. elisée reclus. god and the state who are right, the idealists or the materialists? the question once stated in this way hesitation becomes impossible. undoubtedly the idealists are wrong and the materialists right. yes, facts are before ideas; yes, the ideal, as proudhon said, is but a flower, whose root lies in the material conditions of existence. yes, the whole history of humanity, intellectual and moral, political and social, is but a reflection of its economic history. all branches of modern science, of true and disinterested science, concur in proclaiming this grand truth, fundamental and decisive: the social world, properly speaking, the human world--in short, humanity--is nothing other than the last and supreme development--at least on our planet and as far as we know--the highest manifestation of animality. but as every development necessarily implies a negation, that of its base or point of departure, humanity is at the same time and essentially the deliberate and gradual negation of the animal element in man; and it is precisely this negation, as rational as it is natural, and rational only because natural--at once historical and logical, as inevitable as the development and realization of all the natural laws in the world--that constitutes and creates the ideal, the world of intellectual and moral convictions, ideas. yes, our first ancestors, our adams and our eves, were, if not gorillas, very near relatives of gorillas, omnivorous, intelligent and ferocious beasts, endowed in a higher degree than the animals of any other species with two precious faculties--_the power to think_ and _the desire to rebel_. these faculties, combining their progressive action in history, represent the essential factor, the negative power in the positive development of human animality, and create consequently all that constitutes humanity in man. the bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty--jehovah had just created adam and eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. he generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. he expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. he wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal god, his creator and his master. but here steps in satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. he makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge. we know what followed. the good god, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers. our catholic and protestant theologians look upon that as very profound and very just, precisely because it is monstrously iniquitous and absurd. then, remembering that he was not only a god of vengeance and wrath, but also a god of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men. that is called the mystery of the redemption, the basis of all the christian religions. still, if the divine savior had saved the human world! but no; in the paradise promised by christ, as we know, such being the formal announcement, the elect will number very few. the rest, the immense majority of the generations present and to come, will burn eternally in hell. in the meantime, to console us, god, ever just, ever good, hands over the earth to the government of the napoleon thirds, of the william firsts, of the ferdinands of austria, and of the alexanders of all the russias. such are the absurd tales that are told and the monstrous doctrines that are taught, in the full light of the nineteenth century, in all the public schools of europe, at the express command of the government. they call this civilizing the people! is it not plain that all these governments are systematic poisoners, interested stupefiers of the masses? i have wandered from my subject, because anger gets hold of me whenever i think of the base and criminal means which they employ to keep the nations in perpetual slavery, undoubtedly that they may be the better able to fleece them. of what consequence are the crimes of all the tropmanns in the world compared with this crime of treason against humanity committed daily, in broad day, over the whole surface of the civilized world, by those who dare to call themselves the guardians and the fathers of the people? i return to the myth of original sin. god admitted that satan was right; he recognized that the devil did not deceive adam and eve in promising them knowledge and liberty as a reward for the act of disobedience which he had induced them to commit; for, immediately they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, god himself said (see bible): "behold, the man is become as one of the gods, to know good and evil; prevent him, therefore, from eating of the fruit of eternal life, lest he become immortal like ourselves." let us disregard now the fabulous portion of this myth and consider its true meaning, which is very clear. man has emancipated himself; he has separated himself from animality and constituted himself a man; he has begun his distinctively human history and development by an act of disobedience and science--that is, by _rebellion_ and by _thought_. * * * * * three elements or, if you like, three fundamental principles constitute the essential conditions of all human development, collective or individual, in history: ( ) _human animality_; ( ) _thought_; and ( ) _rebellion_. to the first properly corresponds _social and private economy_; to the second, _science_; to the third, _liberty_. * * * * * idealists of all schools, aristocrats and _bourgeois_, theologians and metaphysicians, politicians and moralists, religionists, philosophers, or poets, not forgetting the liberal economists--unbounded worshippers of the ideal, as we know--are much offended when told that man, with his magnificent intelligence, his sublime ideas, and his boundless aspirations, is, like all else existing in the world, nothing but matter, only a product of _vile matter_. we may answer that the matter of which materialists speak, matter spontaneously and eternally mobile, active, productive, matter chemically or organically determined and manifested by the properties or forces, mechanical, physical, animal, and intelligent, which necessarily belong to it--that this matter has nothing in common with the _vile matter_ of the idealists. the latter, a product of their false abstraction, is indeed a stupid, inanimate, immobile thing, incapable of giving birth to the smallest product, a _caput mortuum_, an _ugly_ fancy in contrast to the _beautiful_ fancy which they call _god_; as the opposite of this supreme being, matter, their matter, stripped by them of all that constitutes its real nature, necessarily represents supreme nothingness. they have taken away from matter intelligence, life, all its determining qualities, active relations or forces, motion itself, without which matter would not even have weight, leaving it nothing but impenetrability and absolute immobility in space; they have attributed all these natural forces, properties, and manifestations to the imaginary being created by their abstract fancy; then, interchanging _rôles_, they have called this product of their imagination, this phantom, this god who is nothing, "supreme being," and, as a necessary consequence, have declared that the real being, matter, the world, is nothing. after which they gravely tell us that this matter is incapable of producing anything, not even of setting itself in motion, and consequently must have been created by their god. at the end of this book i exposed the fallacies and truly revolting absurdities to which one is inevitably led by this imagination of a god, let him be considered as a personal being, the creator and organizer of worlds; or even as impersonal, a kind of divine soul spread over the whole universe and constituting thus its eternal principle; or let him be an idea, infinite and divine, always present and active in the world, and always manifested by the totality of material and definite beings. here i shall deal with one point only. the gradual development of the material world, as well as of organic animal life and of the historically progressive intelligence of man, individually or socially, is perfectly conceivable. it is a wholly natural movement from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior; a movement in conformity with all our daily experiences, and consequently in conformity also with our natural logic, with the distinctive laws of our mind, which being formed and developed only by the aid of these same experiences, is, so to speak, but the mental, cerebral reproduction or reflected summary thereof. the system of the idealists is quite the contrary of this. it is the reversal of all human experiences and of that universal and common good sense which is the essential condition of all human understanding, and which, in rising from the simple and unanimously recognized truth that twice two are four to the sublimest and most complex scientific considerations--admitting, moreover, nothing that has not stood the severest tests of experience or observation of things and facts--becomes the only serious basis of human knowledge. very far from pursuing the natural order from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior, and from the relatively simple to the more complex; instead of wisely and rationally accompanying the progressive and real movement from the world called inorganic to the world organic, vegetables, animal, and then distinctively human--from chemical matter or chemical being to living matter or living being, and from living being to thinking being--the idealists, obsessed, blinded, and pushed on by the divine phantom which they have inherited from theology, take precisely the opposite course. they go from the higher to the lower, from the superior to the inferior, from the complex to the simple. they begin with god, either as a person or as divine substance or idea, and the first step that they take is a terrible fall from the sublime heights of the eternal ideal into the mire of the material world; from absolute perfection into absolute imperfection; from thought to being, or rather, from supreme being to nothing. when, how, and why the divine being, eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect, probably weary of himself, decided upon this desperate _salto mortale_ is something which no idealist, no theologian, no metaphysician, no poet, has ever been able to understand himself or explain to the profane. all religions, past and present, and all the systems of transcendental philosophy hinge on this unique and iniquitous mystery.[ ] holy men, inspired lawgivers, prophets, messiahs, have searched it for life, and found only torment and death. like the ancient sphinx, it has devoured them, because they could not explain it. great philosophers, from heraclitus and plato down to descartes, spinoza, leibnitz, kant, fichte, schelling, and hegel, not to mention the indian philosophers, have written heaps of volumes and built systems as ingenious as sublime, in which they have said by the way many beautiful and grand things and discovered immortal truths, but they have left this mystery, the principal object of their transcendental investigations, as unfathomable as before. the gigantic efforts of the most wonderful geniuses that the world has known, and who, one after another, for at least thirty centuries, have undertaken anew this labor of sisyphus, have resulted only in rendering this mystery still more incomprehensible. is it to be hoped that it will be unveiled to us by the routine speculations of some pedantic disciple of an artificially warmed-over metaphysics at a time when all living and serious spirits have abandoned that ambiguous science born of a compromise--historically explicable no doubt--between the unreason of faith and sound scientific reason? it is evident that this terrible mystery is inexplicable--that is, absurd, because only the absurd admits of no explanation. it is evident that whoever finds it essential to his happiness and life must renounce his reason, and return, if he can, to naive, blind, stupid faith, to repeat with tertullianus and all sincere believers these words, which sum up the very quintessence of theology: _credo quia absurdum_. then all discussion ceases, and nothing remains but the triumphant stupidity of faith. but immediately there arises another question: _how comes an intelligent and well-informed man ever to feel the need of believing in this mystery?_ nothing is more natural than that the belief in god, the creator, regulator, judge, master, curser, savior, and benefactor of the world, should still prevail among the people, especially in the rural districts, where it is more widespread than among the proletariat of the cities. the people, unfortunately, are still very ignorant, and are kept in ignorance by the systematic efforts of all the governments, who consider this ignorance, not without good reason, as one of the essential conditions of their own power. weighted down by their daily labor, deprived of leisure, of intellectual intercourse, of reading, in short of all the means and a good portion of the stimulants that develop thought in men, the people generally accept religious traditions without criticism and in a lump. these traditions surround them from infancy in all the situations of life, and artificially sustained in their minds by a multitude of official poisoners of all sorts, priests and laymen, are transformed therein into a sort of mental and moral habit, too often more powerful even than their natural good sense. there is another reason which explains and in some sort justifies the absurd beliefs of the people--namely, the wretched situation to which they find themselves fatally condemned by the economic organization of society in the most civilized countries of europe. reduced, intellectually and morally as well as materially, to the minimum of human existence, confined in their life like a prisoner in his prison, without horizon, without outlet, without even a future if we believe the economists, the people would have the singularly narrow souls and blunted instincts of the bourgeois if they did not feel a desire to escape; but of escape there are but three methods--two chimerical and a third real. the first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution. hence i conclude this last will be much more potent than all the theological propagandism of the freethinkers to destroy to their last vestige the religious beliefs and dissolute habits of the people, beliefs and habits much more intimately connected than is generally supposed. in substituting for the at once illusory and brutal enjoyments of bodily and spiritual licentiousness the enjoyments, as refined as they are real, of humanity developed in each and all, the social revolution alone will have the power to close at the same time all the dram-shops and all the churches. till then the people, taken as a whole, will believe; and, if they have no reason to believe, they will have at least a right. there is a class of people who, if they do not believe, must at least make a semblance of believing. this class, comprising all the tormentors, all the oppressors, and all the exploiters of humanity; priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, public and private financiers, officials of all sorts, policemen, gendarmes, jailers and executioners, monopolists, capitalists, tax-leeches, contractors and landlords, lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades, down to the smallest vendor of sweetmeats, all will repeat in unison those words of voltaire: "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." for, you understand, "the people must have a religion." that is the safety-valve. there exists, finally, a somewhat numerous class of honest but timid souls who, too intelligent to take the christian dogmas seriously, reject them in detail, but have neither the courage nor the strength nor the necessary resolution to summarily renounce them altogether. they abandon to your criticism all the special absurdities of religion, they turn up their noses at all the miracles, but they cling desperately to the principal absurdity; the source of all the others, to the miracle that explains and justifies all the other miracles, the existence of god. their god is not the vigorous and powerful being, the brutally positive god of theology. it is a nebulous, diaphanous, illusory being that vanishes into nothing at the first attempt to grasp it; it is a mirage, an _ignis fatuus_ that neither warms nor illuminates. and yet they hold fast to it, and believe that, were it to disappear, all would disappear with it. they are uncertain, sickly souls, who have lost their reckoning in the present civilization, belonging to neither the present nor the future, pale phantoms eternally suspended between heaven and earth, and occupying exactly the same position between the politics of the bourgeois and the socialism of the proletariat. they have neither the power nor the wish nor the determination to follow out their thought, and they waste their time and pains in constantly endeavoring to reconcile the irreconcilable. in public life these are known as bourgeois socialists. with them, or against them, discussion is out of the question. they are too puny. but there are a few illustrious men of whom no one will dare to speak without respect, and whose vigorous health, strength of mind, and good intention no one will dream of calling in question. i need only cite the names of mazzini, michelet, quinet, john stuart mill.[ ] generous and strong souls, great hearts, great minds, great writers, and the first the heroic and revolutionary regenerator of a great nation, they are all apostles of idealism and bitter despisers and adversaries of materialism, and consequently of socialism also, in philosophy as well as in politics. against them, then, we must discuss this question. first, let it be remarked that not one of the illustrious men i have just named nor any other idealistic thinker of any consequence in our day has given any attention to the logical side of this question properly speaking. not one has tried to settle philosophically the possibility of the divine _salto mortale_ from the pure and eternal regions of spirit into the mire of the material world. have they feared to approach this irreconcilable contradiction and despaired of solving it after the failures of the greatest geniuses of history, or have they looked upon it as already sufficiently well settled? that is their secret. the fact is that they have neglected the theoretical demonstration of the existence of a god, and have developed only its practical motives and consequences. they have treated it as a fact universally accepted, and, as such, no longer susceptible of any doubt whatever, for sole proof thereof limiting themselves to the establishment of the antiquity and this very universality of the belief in god. this imposing unanimity, in the eyes of many illustrious men and writers to quote only the most famous of them who eloquently expressed it, joseph de maistre and the great italian patriot, giuseppe mazzini--is of more value than all the demonstrations of science; and if the reasoning of a small number of logical and even very powerful, but isolated, thinkers is against it, so much the worse, they say, for these thinkers and their logic, for universal consent, the general and primitive adoption of an idea, has always been considered the most triumphant testimony to its truth. the sentiment of the whole world, a conviction that is found and maintained always and everywhere, cannot be mistaken; it must have its root in a necessity absolutely inherent in the very nature of man. and since it has been established that all peoples, past and present, have believed and still believe in the existence of god, it is clear that those who have the misfortune to doubt it, whatever the logic that led them to this doubt, are abnormal exceptions, monsters. thus, then, the _antiquity_ and _universality_ of a belief should be regarded, contrary to all science and all logic, as sufficient and unimpeachable proof of its truth. why? until the days of copernicus and galileo everybody believed that the sun revolved about the earth. was not everybody mistaken? what is more ancient and more universal than slavery? cannibalism perhaps. from the origin of historic society down to the present day there has been always and everywhere exploitation of the compulsory labor of the masses--slaves, serfs, or wage-workers--by some dominant minority; oppression of the people by the church and by the state. must it be concluded that this exploitation and this oppression are necessities absolutely inherent in the very existence of human society? these are examples which show that the argument of the champions of god proves nothing. nothing, in fact, is as universal or as ancient as the iniquitous and absurd; truth and justice, on the contrary, are the least universal, the youngest features in the development of human society. in this fact, too, lies the explanation of a constant historical phenomenon--namely, the persecution of which those who first proclaim the truth have been and continue to be the objects at the hands of the official, privileged, and interested representatives of "universal" and "ancient" beliefs, and often also at the hands of the same masses who, after having tortured them, always end by adopting their ideas and rendering them victorious. to us materialists and revolutionary socialists, there is nothing astonishing or terrifying in this historical phenomenon. strong in our conscience, in our love of truth at all hazards, in that passion for logic which of itself alone constitutes a great power and outside of which there is no thought; strong in our passion for justice and in our unshakable faith in the triumph of humanity over all theoretical and practical bestialities; strong, finally, in the mutual confidence and support given each other by the few who share our convictions--we resign ourselves to all the consequences of this historical phenomenon, in which we see the manifestation of a social law as natural, as necessary, and as invariable as all the other laws which govern the world. this law is a logical, inevitable consequence of the _animal origin_ of human society; for in face of all the scientific, physiological, psychological, and historical proofs accumulated at the present day, as well as in face of the exploits of the germans conquering france, which now furnish so striking a demonstration thereof, it is no longer possible to really doubt this origin. but from the moment that this animal origin of man is accepted, all is explained. history then appears to us as the revolutionary negation, now slow, apathetic, sluggish, now passionate and powerful, of the past. it consists precisely in the progressive negation of the primitive animality of man by the development of his humanity. man, a wild beast, cousin of the gorilla, has emerged from the profound darkness of animal instinct into the light of the mind, which explains in a wholly natural way all his past mistakes and partially consoles us for his present errors. he has gone out from animal slavery, and passing through divine slavery, a temporary condition between his animality and his humanity, he is now marching on to the conquest and realization of human liberty. whence it results that the antiquity of a belief, of an idea, far from proving anything in its favor, ought, on the contrary, to lead us to suspect it. for behind us is our animality and before us our humanity; human light, the only thing that can warm and enlighten us, the only thing that can emancipate us, give us dignity, freedom, and happiness, and realize fraternity among us, is never at the beginning, but, relatively to the epoch in which we live, always at the end of history. let us, then, never look back, let us look ever forward; for forward is our sunlight, forward our salvation. if it is justifiable, and even useful and necessary, to turn back to study our past, it is only in order to establish what we have been and what we must no longer be, what we have believed and thought and what we must no longer believe or think, what we have done and what we must do nevermore. so much for _antiquity_. as for the _universality_ of an error, it proves but one thing--the similarity, if not the perfect identity, of human nature in all ages and under all skies. and, since it is established that all peoples, at all periods of their life, have believed and still believe in god, we must simply conclude that the divine idea, an outcome of ourselves, is an error historically necessary in the development of humanity, and ask why and how it was produced in history and why an immense majority of the human race still accept it as a truth. until we shall account to ourselves for the manner in which the idea of a supernatural or divine world was developed and had to be developed in the historical evolution of the human conscience, all our scientific conviction of its absurdity will be in vain; until then we shall never succeed in destroying it in the opinion of the majority, because we shall never be able to attack it in the very depths of the human being where it had birth. condemned to a fruitless struggle, without issue and without end, we should for ever have to content ourselves with fighting it solely on the surface, in its innumerable manifestations, whose absurdity will be scarcely beaten down by the blows of common sense before it will reappear in a new form no less nonsensical. while the root of all the absurdities that torment the world, belief in god, remains intact, it will never fail to bring forth new offspring. thus, at the present time, in certain sections of the highest society, spiritualism tends to establish itself upon the ruins of christianity. it is not only in the interest of the masses, it is in that of the health of our own minds, that we should strive to understand the historic genesis, the succession of causes which developed and produced the idea of god in the consciousness of men. in vain shall we call and believe ourselves atheists, until we comprehend these causes, for, until then, we shall always suffer ourselves to be more or less governed by the clamors of this universal conscience whose secret we have not discovered; and, considering the natural weakness of even the strongest individual against the all-powerful influence of the social surroundings that trammel him, we are always in danger of relapsing sooner or later, in one way or another, into the abyss of religious absurdity. examples of these shameful conversions are frequent in society to-day. * * * * * i have stated the chief practical reason of the power still exercised to-day over the masses by religious beliefs. these mystical tendencies do not signify in man so much an aberration of mind as a deep discontent at heart. they are the instinctive and passionate protest of the human being against the narrowness, the platitudes, the sorrows, and the shame of a wretched existence. for this malady, i have already said, there is but one remedy--social revolution. in the meantime i have endeavored to show the causes responsible for the birth and historical development of religious hallucinations in the human conscience. here it is my purpose to treat this question of the existence of a god, or of the divine origin of the world and of man, solely from the standpoint of its moral and social utility, and i shall say only a few words, to better explain my thought, regarding the theoretical grounds of this belief. all religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed--that is, _divinized_. the history of religions, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. as fast as they discovered, in the course of their historically progressive advance, either in themselves or in external nature, a power, a quality, or even any great defect whatever, they attributed them to their gods, after having exaggerated and enlarged them beyond measure, after the manner of children, by an act of their religious fancy. thanks to this modesty and pious generosity of believing and credulous men, heaven has grown rich with the spoils of the earth, and, by a necessary consequence, the richer heaven became, the more wretched became humanity and the earth. god once installed, he was naturally proclaimed the cause, reason, arbiter, and absolute disposer of all things: the world thenceforth was nothing, god was all; and man, his real creator, after having unknowingly extracted him from the void, bowed down before him, worshipped him, and avowed himself his creature and his slave. christianity is precisely the religion _par excellence_, because it exhibits and manifests, to the fullest extent, the very nature and essence of every religious system, which is _the impoverishment, enslavement, and annihilation of humanity for the benefit of divinity_. god being everything, the real world and man are nothing. god being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. god being master, man is the slave. incapable of finding justice, truth, and eternal life by his own effort, he can attain them only through a divine revelation. but whoever says revelation says revealers, messiahs, prophets, priests, and legislators inspired by god himself; and these, once recognized as the representatives of divinity on earth, as the holy instructors of humanity, chosen by god himself to direct it in the path of salvation, necessarily exercise absolute power. all men owe them passive and unlimited obedience; for against the divine reason there is no human reason, and against the justice of god no terrestrial justice holds. slaves of god, men must also be slaves of church and state, _in so far as the state is consecrated by the church_. this truth christianity, better than all other religions that exist or have existed, understood, not excepting even the old oriental religions, which included only distinct and privileged nations, while christianity aspires to embrace entire humanity; and this truth roman catholicism, alone among all the christian sects, has proclaimed and realized with rigorous logic. that is why christianity is the absolute religion, the final religion; why the apostolic and roman church is the only consistent, legitimate, and divine church. with all due respect, then, to the metaphysicians and religious idealists, philosophers, politicians, or poets: _the idea of god implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice._ unless, then, we desire the enslavement and degradation of mankind, as the jesuits desire it, as the _mômiers_, pietists, or protestant methodists desire it, we may not, must not make the slightest concession either to the god of theology or to the god of metaphysics. he who, in this mystical alphabet, begins with a will inevitably end with z; he who desires to worship god must harbor no childish allusions about the matter, but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity. if god is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, god does not exist. i defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; now, therefore, let all choose. is it necessary to point out to what extent and in what manner religions debase and corrupt the people? they destroy their reason, the principal instrument of human emancipation, and reduce them to imbecility, the essential condition of their slavery. they dishonor human labor, and make it a sign and source of servitude. they kill the idea and sentiment of human justice, ever tipping the balance to the side of triumphant knaves, privileged objects of divine indulgence. they kill human pride and dignity, protecting only the cringing and humble. they stifle in the heart of nations every feeling of human fraternity, filling it with divine cruelty instead. all religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice--that is, on the perpetual immolation of humanity to the insatiable vengeance of divinity. in this bloody mystery man is always the victim, and the priest--a man also, but a man privileged by grace--is the divine executioner. that explains why the priests of all religions, the best, the most humane, the gentlest, almost always have at the bottom of their hearts--and, if not in their hearts, in their imaginations, in their minds (and we know the fearful influence of either on the hearts of men)--something cruel and sanguinary. none know all this better than our illustrious contemporary idealists. they are learned men, who know history by heart; and, as they are at the same time living men, great souls penetrated with a sincere and profound love for the welfare of humanity, they have cursed and branded all these misdeeds, all these crimes of religion with an eloquence unparalleled. they reject with indignation all solidarity with the god of positive religions and with his representatives, past, present, and on earth. the god whom they adore, or whom they think they adore, is distinguished from the real gods of history precisely in this--that he is not at all a positive god, defined in any way whatever, theologically or even metaphysically. he is neither the supreme being of robespierre and j. j. rousseau, nor the pantheistic god of spinoza, nor even the at once immanent, transcendental, and very equivocal god of hegel. they take good care not to give him any positive definition whatever, feeling very strongly that any definition would subject him to the dissolving power of criticism. they will not say whether he is a personal or impersonal god, whether he created or did not create the world; they will not even speak of his divine providence. all that might compromise him. they content themselves with saying "god" and nothing more. but, then, what is their god? not even an idea; it is an aspiration. it is the generic name of all that seems grand, good, beautiful, noble, human to them. but why, then, do they not say, "man." ah! because king william of prussia and napoleon iii. and all their compeers are likewise men: which bothers them very much. real humanity presents a mixture of all that is most sublime and beautiful with all that is vilest and most monstrous in the world. how do they get over this? why, they call one _divine_ and the other _bestial_, representing divinity and animality as two poles, between which they place humanity. they either will not or cannot understand that these three terms are really but one, and that to separate them is to destroy them. they are not strong on logic, and one might say that they despise it. that is what distinguishes them from the pantheistical and deistical metaphysicians, and gives their ideas the character of a practical idealism, drawing its inspiration much less from the severe development of a thought than from the experiences, i might almost say the emotions, historical and collective as well as individual, of life. this gives their propaganda an appearance of wealth and vital power, but an appearance only; for life itself becomes sterile when paralyzed by a logical contradiction. this contradiction lies here: they wish god, and they wish humanity. they persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other. they say in a single breath: "god and the liberty of man," "god and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity of men"--regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if god exists, all these things are condemned to non-existence. for, if god is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. in vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, do they represent their god as animated by the tenderest love of human liberty: a master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire to show himself, remains none the less always a master. his existence necessarily implies the slavery of all that is beneath him. therefore, if god existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty--by ceasing to exist. a jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, i reverse the phrase of voltaire, and say that, _if god really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him_. the severe logic that dictates these words is far too evident to require a development of this argument. and it seems to me impossible that the illustrious men, whose names so celebrated and so justly respected i have cited, should not have been struck by it themselves, and should not have perceived the contradiction in which they involve themselves in speaking of god and human liberty at once. to have disregarded it, they must have considered this inconsistency or logical license _practically_ necessary to humanity's well-being. perhaps, too, while speaking of _liberty_ as something very respectable and very dear in their eyes, they give the term a meaning quite different from the conception entertained by us, materialists and revolutionary socialists. indeed, they never speak of it without immediately adding another word, _authority_--a word and a thing which we detest with all our heart. what is authority? is it the inevitable power of the natural laws which manifest themselves in the necessary concatenation and succession of phenomena in the physical and social worlds? indeed, against these laws revolt is not only forbidden--it is even impossible. we may misunderstand them or not know them at all, but we cannot disobey them; because they constitute the basis and fundamental conditions of our existence; they envelop us, penetrate us, regulate all our movements, thoughts, and acts; even when we believe that we disobey them, we only show their omnipotence. yes, we are absolutely the slaves of these laws. but in such slavery there is no humiliation, or, rather, it is not slavery at all. for slavery supposes an external master, a legislator outside of him whom he commands, while these laws are not outside of us; they are inherent in us; they constitute our being, our whole being, physically, intellectually, and morally: we live, we breathe, we act, we think, we wish only through these laws. without them we are nothing, _we are not_. whence, then, could we derive the power and the wish to rebel against them? in his relation to natural laws but one liberty is possible to man--that of recognizing and applying them on an ever-extending scale in conformity with the object of collective and individual emancipation or humanization which he pursues. these laws, once recognized, exercise an authority which is never disputed by the mass of men. one must, for instance, be at bottom either a fool or a theologian or at least a metaphysician, jurist, or bourgeois economist to rebel against the law by which twice two make four. one must have faith to imagine that fire will not burn nor water drown, except, indeed, recourse be had to some subterfuge founded in its turn on some other natural law. but these revolts, or, rather, these attempts at or foolish fancies of an impossible revolt, are decidedly the exception; for, in general, it may be said that the mass of men, in their daily lives, acknowledge the government of common sense--that is, of the sum of the natural laws generally recognized--in an almost absolute fashion. the great misfortune is that a large number of natural laws, already established as such by science, remain unknown to the masses, thanks to the watchfulness of these tutelary governments that exist, as we know, only for the good of the people. there is another difficulty--namely, that the major portion of the natural laws connected with the development of human society, which are quite as necessary, invariable, fatal, as the laws that govern the physical world, have not been duly established and recognized by science itself. once they shall have been recognized by science, and then from science, by means of an extensive system of popular education and instruction, shall have passed into the consciousness of all, the question of liberty will be entirely solved. the most stubborn authorities must admit that then there will be no need either of political organization or direction or legislation, three things which, whether they emanate from the will of the sovereign or from the vote of a parliament elected by universal suffrage, and even should they conform to the system of natural laws--which has never been the case and never will be the case--are always equally fatal and hostile to the liberty of the masses from the very fact that they impose upon them a system of external and therefore despotic laws. the liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has _himself_ recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual. suppose a learned academy, composed of the most illustrious representatives of science; suppose this academy charged with legislation for and the organization of society, and that, inspired only by the purest love of truth, it frames none but laws in absolute harmony with the latest discoveries of science. well, i maintain, for my part, that such legislation and such organization would be a monstrosity, and that for two reasons: first, that human science is always and necessarily imperfect, and that, comparing what it has discovered with what remains to be discovered, we may say that it is still in its cradle. so that were we to try to force the practical life of men, collective as well as individual, into strict and exclusive conformity with the latest data of science, we should condemn society as well as individuals to suffer martyrdom on a bed of procrustes, which would soon end by dislocating and stifling them, life ever remaining an infinitely greater thing than science. the second reason is this: a society which should obey legislation emanating from a scientific academy, not because it understood itself the rational character of this legislation (in which case the existence of the academy would become useless), but because this legislation, emanating from the academy, was imposed in the name of a science which it venerated without comprehending--such a society would be a society, not of men, but of brutes. it would be a second edition of those missions in paraguay which submitted so long to the government of the jesuits. it would surely and rapidly descend to the lowest stage of idiocy. but there is still a third reason which would render such a government impossible--namely that a scientific academy invested with a sovereignty, so to speak, absolute, even if it were composed of the most illustrious men, would infallibly and soon end in its own moral and intellectual corruption. even to-day, with the few privileges allowed them, such is the history of all academies. the greatest scientific genius, from the moment that he becomes an academician, an officially licensed _savant_, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. he loses his spontaneity, his revolutionary hardihood, and that troublesome and savage energy characteristic of the grandest geniuses, ever called to destroy old tottering worlds and lay the foundations of new. he undoubtedly gains in politeness, in utilitarian and practical wisdom, what he loses in power of thought. in a word, he becomes corrupted. it is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. the privileged man, whether politically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart. that is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to entire nations as to classes, corporations, and individuals. it is the law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. the principal object of this treatise is precisely to demonstrate this truth in all the manifestations of human life. a scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction. but that which is true of scientific academies is also true of all constituent and legislative assemblies, even those chosen by universal suffrage. in the latter case they may renew their composition, it is true, but this does not prevent the formation in a few years' time of a body of politicians, privileged in fact though not in law, who, devoting themselves exclusively to the direction of the public affairs of a country, finally form a sort of political aristocracy or oligarchy. witness the united states of america and switzerland. consequently, no external legislation and no authority--one, for that matter, being inseparable from the other, and both tending to the servitude of society and the degradation of the legislators themselves. does it follow that i reject all authority? far from me such a thought. in the matter of boots, i refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, i consult that of the architect or engineer. for such or such special knowledge i apply to such or such a _savant_. but i allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the _savant_ to impose his authority upon me. i listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. i do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; i consult several; i compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. but i recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect i may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, i have no absolute faith in any person. such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others. if i bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed upon me by no one, neither by men nor by god. otherwise i would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me. i bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason. i am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. the greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. i receive and i give--such is human life. each directs and is directed in his turn. therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination. this same reason forbids me, then, to recognize a fixed, constant, and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life. and if such universality could ever be realized in a single man, and if he wished to take advantage thereof to impose his authority upon us, it would be necessary to drive this man out of society, because his authority would inevitably reduce all the others to slavery and imbecility. i do not think that society ought to maltreat men of genius as it has done hitherto; but neither do i think it should indulge them too far, still less accord them any privileges or exclusive rights whatsoever; and that for three reasons: first, because it would often mistake a charlatan for a man of genius; second, because, through such a system of privileges, it might transform into a charlatan even a real man of genius, demoralize him, and degrade him; and, finally, because it would establish a master over itself. to sum up. we recognize, then, the absolute authority of science, because the sole object of science is the mental reproduction, as well-considered and systematic as possible, of the natural laws inherent in the material, intellectual, and moral life of both the physical and the social worlds, these two worlds constituting, in fact, but one and the same natural world. outside of this only legitimate authority, legitimate because rational and in harmony with human liberty, we declare all other authorities false, arbitrary and fatal. we recognize the absolute authority of science, but we reject the infallibility and universality of the _savant_. in our church--if i may be permitted to use for a moment an expression which i so detest: church and state are my two _bêtes noires_--in our church, as in the protestant church, we have a chief, an invisible christ, science; and, like the protestants, more logical even than the protestants, we will suffer neither pope, nor council, nor conclaves of infallible cardinals, nor bishops, nor even priests. our christ differs from the protestant and christian christ in this--that the latter is a personal being, ours impersonal; the christian christ, already completed in an eternal past, presents himself as a perfect being, while the completion and perfection of our christ, science, are ever in the future: which is equivalent to saying that they will never be realized. therefore, in recognizing _absolute science_ as the only absolute authority, we in no way compromise our liberty. i mean by the words "absolute science," the truly universal science which would reproduce ideally, to its fullest extent and in all its infinite detail, the universe, the system or co-ordination of all the natural laws manifested by the incessant development of the world. it is evident that such a science, the sublime object of all the efforts of the human mind, will never be fully and absolutely realized. our christ, then, will remain eternally unfinished, which must considerably take down the pride of his licensed representatives among us. against that god the son in whose name they assume to impose upon us their insolent and pedantic authority, we appeal to god the father, who is the real world, real life, of which he (the son) is only a too imperfect expression, whilst we real beings, living, working, struggling, loving, aspiring, enjoying, and suffering, are its immediate representatives. but, while rejecting the absolute, universal, and infallible authority of men of science, we willingly bow before the respectable, although relative, quite temporary, and very restricted authority of the representatives of special sciences, asking nothing better than to consult them by turns, and very grateful for such precious information as they may extend to us, on condition of their willingness to receive from us on occasions when, and concerning matters about which, we are more learned than they. in general, we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exercise over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted, and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial. we accept all natural authorities and all influences of fact, but none of right; for every authority or every influence of right, officially imposed as such, becoming directly an oppression and a falsehood, would inevitably impose upon us, as i believe i have sufficiently shown, slavery and absurdity. in a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them. this is the sense in which we are really anarchists. the modern idealists understand authority in quite a different way. although free from the traditional superstitions of all the existing positive religions, they nevertheless attach to this idea of authority a divine, an absolute meaning. this authority is not that of a truth miraculously revealed, nor that of a truth rigorously and scientifically demonstrated. they base it to a slight extent upon quasi-philosophical reasoning, and to a large extent on vaguely religious faith, to a large extent also on sentiment, ideally, abstractly poetical. their religion is, as it were, a last attempt to divinize all that constitutes humanity in men. this is just the opposite of the work that we are doing. in behalf of human liberty, dignity, and prosperity, we believe it our duty to recover from heaven the goods which it has stolen and return them to earth. they, on the contrary, endeavoring to commit a final religiously heroic larceny, would restore to heaven, that divine robber, finally unmasked, the grandest, finest, and noblest of humanity's possessions. it is now the freethinkers' turn to pillage heaven by their audacious impiety and scientific analysis. the idealists undoubtedly believe that human ideas and deeds, in order to exercise greater authority among men, must be invested with a divine sanction. how is this sanction manifested? not by a miracle, as in the positive religions, but by the very grandeur or sanctity of the ideas and deeds: whatever is grand, whatever is beautiful, whatever is noble, whatever is just, is considered divine. in this new religious cult every man inspired by these ideas, by these deeds, becomes a priest, directly consecrated by god himself. and the proof? he needs none beyond the very grandeur of the ideas which he expresses and the deeds which he performs. these are so holy that they can have been inspired only by god. such, in few words, is their whole philosophy: a philosophy of sentiments, not of real thoughts, a sort of metaphysical pietism. this seems harmless, but it is not so at all, and the very precise, very narrow, and very barren doctrine hidden under the intangible vagueness of these poetic forms leads to the same disastrous results that all the positive religions lead to--namely, the most complete negation of human liberty and dignity. to proclaim as divine all that is grand, just, noble, and beautiful in humanity is to tacitly admit that humanity of itself would have been unable to produce it--that is, that, abandoned to itself, its own nature is miserable, iniquitous, base, and ugly. thus we come back to the essence of all religion--in other words, to the disparagement of humanity for the greater glory of divinity. and from the moment that the natural inferiority of man and his fundamental incapacity to rise by his own effort, unaided by any divine inspiration, to the comprehension of just and true ideas, are admitted, it becomes necessary to admit also all the theological, political, and social consequences of the positive religions. from the moment that god, the perfect and supreme being, is posited face to face with humanity, divine mediators, the elect, the inspired of god spring from the earth to enlighten, direct, and govern in his name the human race. may we not suppose that all men are equally inspired by god? then, surely, there is no further use for mediators. but this supposition is impossible, because it is too clearly contradicted by the facts. it would compel us to attribute to divine inspiration all the absurdities and errors which appear, and all the horrors, follies, base deeds, and cowardly actions which are committed, in the world. but perhaps, then, only a few men are divinely inspired, the great men of history, the _virtuous geniuses_, as the illustrious italian citizen and prophet, giuseppe mazzini, called them. immediately inspired by god himself and supported upon universal consent expressed by popular suffrage--_dio e popolo_--such as these should be called to the government of human societies.[ ] but here we are again fallen back under the yoke of church and state. it is true that in this new organization, indebted for its existence, like all the old political organizations, to the _grace of god_, but supported this time--at least so far as form is concerned, as a necessary concession to the spirit of modern times, and just as in the preambles of the imperial decrees of napoleon iii.--on the (pretended) _will of the people_, the church will no longer call itself church; it will call itself school. what matters it? on the benches of this school will be seated not children only; there will be found the eternal minor, the pupil confessedly forever incompetent to pass his examinations, rise to the knowledge of his teachers, and dispense with their discipline--the people.[ ] the state will no longer call itself monarchy; it will call itself republic: but it will be none the less the state--that is, a tutelage officially and regularly established by a minority of competent men, _men of virtuous genius or talent_, who will watch and guide the conduct of this great, incorrigible, and terrible child, the people. the professors of the school and the functionaries of the state will call themselves republicans; but they will be none the less tutors, shepherds, and the people will remain what they have been hitherto from all eternity, a flock. beware of shearers, for where there is a flock there necessarily must be shepherds also to shear and devour it. the people, in this system, will be the perpetual scholar and pupil. in spite of its sovereignty, wholly fictitious, it will continue to serve as the instrument of thoughts, wills, and consequently interests not its own. between this situation and what we call liberty, the only real liberty, there is an abyss. it will be the old oppression and old slavery under new forms; and where there is slavery there is misery, brutishness, real social _materialism_, among the privileged classes as well as among the masses. _in deifying human things the idealists always end in the triumph of a brutal materialism._ and this for a very simple reason: the divine evaporates and rises to its own country, heaven, while the brutal alone remains actually on earth. yes, the necessary consequence of theoretical idealism is practically the most brutal materialism; not, undoubtedly, among those who sincerely preach it--the usual result as far as they are concerned being that they are constrained to see all their efforts struck with sterility--but among those who try to realize their precepts in life, and in all society so far as it allows itself to be dominated by idealistic doctrines. to demonstrate this general fact, which may appear strange at first, but which explains itself naturally enough upon further reflection, historical proofs are not lacking. compare the last two civilizations of the ancient world--the greek and the roman. which is the most materialistic, the most natural, in its point of departure, and the most humanly ideal in its results? undoubtedly the greek civilization. which on the contrary, is the most abstractly ideal in its point of departure--sacrificing the material liberty of the man to the ideal liberty of the citizen, represented by the abstraction of judicial law, and the natural development of human society to the abstraction of the state--and which became nevertheless the most brutal in its consequences? the roman civilization, certainly. it is true that the greek civilization, like all the ancient civilizations, including that of rome, was exclusively national and based on slavery. but, in spite of these two immense defects, the former none the less conceived and realized the idea of humanity; it ennobled and really idealized the life of men; it transformed human herds into free associations of free men; it created through liberty the sciences, the arts, a poetry, an immortal philosophy, and the primary concepts of human respect. with political and social liberty, it created free thought. at the close of the middle ages, during the period of the renaissance, the fact that some greek emigrants brought a few of those immortal books into italy sufficed to resuscitate life, liberty, thought, humanity, buried in the dark dungeon of catholicism. human emancipation, that is the name of the greek civilization. and the name of the roman civilization? conquest, with all its brutal consequences. and its last word? the omnipotence of the cæsars. which means the degradation and enslavement of nations and of men. to-day even, what is it that kills, what is it that crushes brutally, materially, in all european countries, liberty and humanity? it is the triumph of the cæsarian or roman principle. compare now two modern civilizations--the italian and the german. the first undoubtedly represents, in its general character, materialism; the second, on the contrary, represents idealism in its most abstract, most pure, and most transcendental form. let us see what are the practical fruits of the one and the other. italy has already rendered immense services to the cause of human emancipation. she was the first to resuscitate and widely apply the principle of liberty in europe, and to restore to humanity its titles to nobility: industry, commerce, poetry, the arts, the positive sciences, and free thought. crushed since by three centuries of imperial and papal despotism, and dragged in the mud by her governing bourgeoisie, she reappears to-day, it is true, in a very degraded condition in comparison with what she once was. and yet how much she differs from germany! in italy, in spite of this decline--temporary let us hope--one may live and breathe humanly, surrounded by a people which seems to be born for liberty. italy, even bourgeois italy, can point with pride to men like mazzini and garibaldi. in germany one breathes the atmosphere of an immense political and social slavery, philosophically explained and accepted by a great people with deliberate resignation and free will. her heroes--i speak always of present germany, not of the germany of the future; of aristocratic, bureaucratic, political and bourgeoise germany, not of the germany of the _prolétaires_--her heroes are quite the opposite of mazzini and garibaldi: they are william i., that ferocious and ingenuous representative of the protestant god, messrs. bismarck and moltke, generals manteuffel and werder. in all her international relations germany, from the beginning of her existence, has been slowly, systematically invading, conquering, ever ready to extend her own voluntary enslavement into the territory of her neighbors; and, since her definitive establishment as a unitary power, she has become a menace, a danger to the liberty of entire europe. to-day germany is servility brutal and triumphant. to show how theoretical idealism incessantly and inevitably changes into practical materialism, one needs only to cite the example of all the christian churches, and, naturally, first of all, that of the apostolic and roman church. what is there more sublime, in the ideal sense, more disinterested, more separate from all the interests of this earth, than the doctrine of christ preached by that church? and what is there more brutally materialistic than the constant practice of that same church since the eighth century, from which dates her definitive establishment as a power? what has been and still is the principal object of all her contests with the sovereigns of europe? her temporal goods, her revenues first, and then her temporal power, her political privileges. we must do her the justice to acknowledge that she was the first to discover, in modern history, this incontestable but scarcely christian truth that wealth and power, the economic exploitation and the political oppression of the masses, are the two inseparable terms of the reign of divine ideality on earth: wealth consolidating and augmenting power, power ever discovering and creating new sources of wealth, and both assuring, better than the martyrdom and faith of the apostles, better than divine grace, the success of the christian propagandism. this is a historical truth, and the protestant churches do not fail to recognize it either. i speak, of course, of the independent churches of england, america, and switzerland, not of the subjected churches of germany. the latter have no initiative of their own; they do what their masters, their temporal sovereigns, who are at the same time their spiritual chieftains, order them to do. it is well known that the protestant propagandism, especially in england and america, is very intimately connected with the propagandism of the material, commercial interests of those two great nations; and it is known also that the objects of the latter propagandism is not at all the enrichment and material prosperity of the countries into which it penetrates in company with the word of god, but rather the exploitation of those countries with a view to the enrichment and material prosperity of certain classes, which in their own country are very covetous and very pious at the same time. in a word, it is not at all difficult to prove, history in hand, that the church, that all the churches, christian and non-christian, by the side of their spiritualistic propagandism, and probably to accelerate and consolidate the success thereof, have never neglected to organize themselves into great corporations for the economic exploitation of the masses under the protection and with the direct and special blessing of some divinity or other; that all the states, which originally, as we know, with all their political and judicial institutions and their dominant and privileged classes, have been only temporal branches of these various churches, have likewise had principally in view this same exploitation for the benefit of lay minorities indirectly sanctioned by the church; finally and in general, that the action of the good god and of all the divine idealities on earth has ended at last, always and everywhere, in founding the prosperous materialism of the few over the fanatical and constantly famishing idealism of the masses. we have a new proof of this in what we see to-day. with the exception of the great hearts and great minds whom i have before referred to as misled, who are to-day the most obstinate defenders of idealism? in the first place, all the sovereign courts. in france, until lately, napoleon iii. and his wife, madame eugénie; all their former ministers, courtiers, and ex-marshals, from rouher and bazaine to fleury and piétri; the men and women of this imperial world, who have so completely idealized and saved france; their journalists and their _savants_--the cassagnacs, the girardins, the duvernois, the veuillots, the leverriers, the dumas; the black phalanx of jesuits and jesuitesses in every garb; the whole upper and middle bourgeoisie of france; the doctrinaire liberals, and the liberals without doctrine--the guizots, the thiers, the jules favres, the pelletans, and the jules simons, all obstinate defenders of the bourgeoise exploitation. in prussia, in germany, william i., the present royal demonstrator of the good god on earth; all his generals, all his officers, pomeranian and other; all his army, which, strong in its religious faith, has just conquered france in that ideal way we know so well. in russia, the czar and his court; the mouravieffs and the bergs, all the butchers and pious proselyters of poland. everywhere, in short, religious or philosophical idealism, the one being but the more or less free translation of the other, serves to-day as the flag of material, bloody, and brutal force, of shameless material exploitation; while, on the contrary, the flag of theoretical materialism, the red flag of economic equality and social justice, is raised by the practical idealism of the oppressed and famishing masses, tending to realize the greatest liberty and the human right of each in the fraternity of all men on the earth. who are the real idealists--the idealists not of abstraction, but of life, not of heaven, but of earth--and who are the materialists? it is evident that the essential condition of theoretical or divine idealism is the sacrifice of logic, of human reason, the renunciation of science. we see, further, that in defending the doctrines of idealism one finds himself enlisted perforce in the ranks of the oppressors and exploiters of the masses. these are two great reasons which, it would seem, should be sufficient to drive every great mind, every great heart, from idealism. how does it happen that our illustrious contemporary idealists, who certainly lack neither mind, nor heart, nor good will, and who have devoted their entire existence to the service of humanity--how does it happen that they persist in remaining among the representatives of a doctrine henceforth condemned and dishonored? they must be influenced by a very powerful motive. it cannot be logic or science, since logic and science have pronounced their verdict against the idealistic doctrine. no more can it be personal interests, since these men are infinitely above everything of that sort. it must, then, be a powerful moral motive. which? there can be but one. these illustrious men think, no doubt, that idealistic theories or beliefs are essentially necessary to the moral dignity and grandeur of man, and that materialistic theories, on the contrary, reduce him to the level of the beasts. and if the truth were just the opposite! every development, i have said, implies the negation of its point of departure. the basis or point of departure, according to the materialistic school, being material, the negation must be necessarily ideal. starting from the totality of the real world, or from what is abstractly called matter, it logically arrives at the real idealization--that is, at the humanization, at the full and complete emancipation--of society. _per contra_ and for the same reason, the basis and point of departure of the idealistic school being ideal, it arrives necessarily at the materialization of society, at the organization of a brutal despotism and an iniquitous and ignoble exploitation, under the form of church and state. the historical development of man according to the materialistic school, is a progressive ascension; in the idealistic system it can be nothing but a continuous fall. whatever human question we may desire to consider, we always find this same essential contradiction between the two schools. thus, as i have already observed, materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality. materialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority. materialism rejects the principle of authority, because it rightly considers it as the corollary of animality, and because, on the contrary, the triumph of humanity, the object and chief significance of history, can be realized only through liberty. in a word, you will always find the idealists in the very act of practical materialism, while you will see the materialists pursuing and realizing the most grandly ideal aspirations and thoughts. history, in the system of the idealists, as i have said, can be nothing but a continuous fall. they begin by a terrible fall, from which they never recover--by the _salto mortale_ from the sublime regions of pure and absolute idea into matter. and into what kind of matter! not into the matter which is eternally active and mobile, full of properties and forces, of life and intelligence, as we see it in the real world; but into abstract matter, impoverished and reduced to absolute misery by the regular looting of these prussians of thought, the theologians and metaphysicians, who have stripped it of everything to give everything to their emperor, to their god; into the matter which, deprived of all action and movement of its own, represents, in opposition to the divine idea, nothing but absolute stupidity, impenetrability, inertia and immobility. the fall is so terrible that divinity, the divine person or idea, is flattened out, loses consciousness of itself, and never more recovers it. and in this desperate situation it is still forced to work miracles! for from the moment that matter becomes inert, every movement that takes place in the world, even the most material, is a miracle, can result only from a providential intervention, from the action of god upon matter. and there this poor divinity, degraded and half annihilated by its fall, lies some thousands of centuries in this swoon, then awakens slowly, in vain endeavoring to grasp some vague memory of itself, and every move that it makes in this direction upon matter becomes a creation, a new formation, a new miracle. in this way it passes through all degrees of materiality and bestiality--first, gas, simple or compound chemical substance, mineral, it then spreads over the earth as vegetable and animal organization till it concentrates itself in man. here it would seem as if it must become itself again, for it lights in every human being an angelic spark, a particle of its own divine being, the immortal soul. how did it manage to lodge a thing absolutely immaterial in a thing absolutely material; how can the body contain, enclose, limit, paralyze pure spirit? this, again, is one of those questions which faith alone, that passionate and stupid affirmation of the absurd, can solve. it is the greatest of miracles. here, however, we have only to establish the effects, the practical consequences of this miracle. after thousands of centuries of vain efforts to come back to itself, divinity, lost and scattered in the matter which it animates and sets in motion, finds a point of support, a sort of focus for self-concentration. this focus is man, his immortal soul singularly imprisoned in a mortal body. but each man considered individually is infinitely too limited, too small, to enclose the divine immensity; it can contain only a very small particle, immortal like the whole, but infinitely smaller than the whole. it follows that the divine being, the absolutely immaterial being, mind, is divisible like matter. another mystery whose solution must be left to faith. if god entire could find lodgment in each man, then each man would be god. we should have an immense quantity of gods, each limited by all the others and yet none the less infinite--a contradiction which would imply a mutual destruction of men, an impossibility of the existence of more than one. as for the particles, that is another matter; nothing more rational, indeed, than that one particle should be limited by another and be smaller than the whole. only, here another contradiction confronts us. to be limited, to be greater and smaller are attributes of matter, not of mind. according to the materialists, it is true, mind is only the working of the wholly material organism of man, and the greatness or smallness of mind depends absolutely on the greater or less material perfection of the human organism. but these same attributes of relative limitation and grandeur cannot be attributed to mind as the idealists conceive it, absolutely immaterial mind, mind existing independent of matter. there can be neither greater nor smaller nor any limit among minds, for there is only one mind--god. to add that the infinitely small and limited particles which constitute human souls are at the same time immortal is to carry the contradiction to a climax. but this is a question of faith. let us pass on. here then we have divinity torn up and lodged, in infinitely small particles, in an immense number of beings of all sexes, ages, races, and colors. this is an excessively inconvenient and unhappy situation, for the divine particles are so little acquainted with each other at the outset of their human existence that they begin by devouring each other. moreover, in the midst of this state of barbarism and wholly animal brutality, these divine particles, human souls, retain as it were a vague remembrance of their primitive divinity, and are irresistibly drawn towards their whole; they seek each other, they seek their whole. it is divinity itself, scattered and lost in the natural world, which looks for itself in men, and it is so demolished by this multitude of human prisons in which it finds itself strewn, that, in looking for itself, it commits folly after folly. beginning with fetichism, it searches for and adores itself, now in a stone, now in a piece of wood, now in a rag. it is quite likely that it would never have succeeded in getting out of the rag, if _the other_ divinity which was not allowed to fall into matter and which is kept in a state of pure spirit in the sublime heights of the absolute ideal, or in the celestial regions, had not had pity on it. here is a new mystery--that of divinity dividing itself into two halves, both equally infinite, of which one--god the father--stays in the purely immaterial regions, and the other--god the son--falls into matter. we shall see directly, between these two divinities separated from each other, continuous relations established, from above to below and from below to above; and these relations, considered as a single eternal and constant act, will constitute the holy ghost. such, in its veritable theological and metaphysical meaning, is the great, the terrible mystery of the christian trinity. but let us lose no time in abandoning these heights to see what is going on upon earth. god the father, seeing from the height of his eternal splendor that the poor god the son, flattened out and astounded by his fall, is so plunged and lost in matter that even having reached human state he has not yet recovered himself, decides to come to his aid. from this immense number of particles at once immortal, divine, and infinitely small, in which god the son has disseminated himself so thoroughly that he does not know himself, god the father chooses those most pleasing to him, picks his inspired persons, his prophets, his "men of virtuous genius," the great benefactors and legislators of humanity: zoroaster, buddha, moses, confucius, lycurgus, solon, socrates, the divine plato, and above all jesus christ, the complete realization of god the son, at last collected and concentrated in a single human person; all the apostles, saint peter, saint paul, and saint john before all, constantine the great, mahomet, then charlemagne, gregory vii., dante, and, according to some, luther also, voltaire and rousseau, robespierre and danton, and many other great and holy historical personages, all of whose names it is impossible to recapitulate, but among whom i, as a russian, beg that saint nicholas may not be forgotten. then we have reached at last the manifestation of god upon earth. but immediately god appears, man is reduced to nothing. it will be said that he is not reduced to nothing, since he is himself a particle of god. pardon me! i admit that a particle of a definite, limited whole, however small it be, is a quantity, a positive greatness. but a particle of the infinitely great, compared with it, is necessarily infinitely small. multiply milliards of milliards by milliards of milliards--their product compared to the infinitely great, will be infinitely small, and the infinitely small is equal to zero. god is everything; therefore man and all the real world with him, the universe, are nothing. you will not escape this conclusion. god appears, man is reduced to nothing; and the greater divinity becomes, the more miserable becomes humanity. that is the history of all religions; that is the effect of all the divine inspirations and legislations. in history the name of god is the terrible club with which all divinely inspired men, the great "virtuous geniuses," have beaten down the liberty, dignity, reason, and prosperity of man. we had first the fall of god. now we have a fall which interests us more--that of man, caused solely by the apparition of god manifested on earth. see in how profound an error our dear and illustrious idealists find themselves. in talking to us of god they purpose, they desire, to elevate us, emancipate us, ennoble us, and, on the contrary, they crush and degrade us. with the name of god they imagine that they can establish fraternity among men, and, on the contrary, they create pride, contempt; they sow discord, hatred, war; they establish slavery. for with god come the different degrees of divine inspiration; humanity is divided into men highly inspired, less inspired, uninspired. all are equally insignificant before god, it is true; but, compared with each other, some are greater than others; not only in fact--which would be of no consequence, because inequality in fact is lost in the collectivity when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or institution--but by the divine right of inspiration, which immediately establishes a fixed, constant, petrifying inequality. the highly inspired _must_ be listened to and obeyed by the less inspired, and the less inspired by the uninspired. thus we have the principle of authority well established, and with it the two fundamental institutions of slavery: church and state. of all despotisms that of the _doctrinaires_ or inspired religionists is the worst. they are so jealous of the glory of their god and of the triumph of their idea that they have no heart left for the liberty or the dignity or even the sufferings of living men, of real men. divine zeal, preoccupation with the idea, finally dry up the tenderest souls, the most compassionate hearts, the sources of human love. considering all that is, all that happens in the world from the point of view of eternity or of the abstract idea, they treat passing matters with disdain; but the whole life of real men, of men of flesh and bone, is composed only of passing matters; they themselves are only passing beings, who, once passed, are replaced by others likewise passing, but never to return in person. alone permanent or relatively eternal in men is humanity, which steadily developing, grows richer in passing from one generation to another. i say _relatively_ eternal, because, our planet once destroyed--it cannot fail to perish sooner or later, since everything which has begun must necessarily end--our planet once decomposed, to serve undoubtedly as an element of some new formation in the system of the universe, which alone is really eternal, who knows what will become of our whole human development? nevertheless, the moment of this dissolution being an enormous distance in the future, we may properly consider humanity, relatively to the short duration of human life, as eternal. but this very fact of progressive humanity is real and living only through its manifestations at definite times, in definite places, in really living men, and not through its general idea. the general idea is always an abstraction and, for that very reason, in some sort a negation of real life. i have stated in the appendix that human thought and, in consequence of this, science can grasp and name only the general significance of real facts, their relations, their laws--in short, that which is permanent in their continual transformations--but never their material, individual side, palpitating, so to speak, with reality and life, and therefore fugitive and intangible. science comprehends the thought of the reality, not reality itself; the thought of life, not life. that is its limit, its only really insuperable limit, because it is founded on the very nature of thought, which is the only organ of science. upon this nature are based the indisputable rights and grand mission of science, but also its vital impotence and even its mischievous action whenever, through its official licensed representatives, it arrogantly claims the right to govern life. the mission of science is, by observation of the general relations of passing and real facts, to establish the general laws inherent in the development of the phenomena of the physical and social world; it fixes, so to speak, the unchangeable landmarks of humanity's progressive march by indicating the general conditions which it is necessary to rigorously observe and always fatal to ignore or forget. in a word, science is the compass of life; but it is not life. science is unchangeable, impersonal, general, abstract, insensible, like the laws of which it is but the ideal reproduction, reflected or mental--that is cerebral (using this word to remind us that science itself is but a material product of a material organ, the _brain_). life is wholly fugitive and temporary, but also wholly palpitating with reality and individuality, sensibility, sufferings, joys, aspirations, needs, and passions. it alone spontaneously creates real things and beings. science creates nothing; it establishes and recognizes only the creations of life. and every time that scientific men, emerging from their abstract world, mingle with living creation in the real world, all that they propose or create is poor, ridiculously abstract, bloodless and lifeless, still-born, like the _homunculus_ created by wagner, the pedantic disciple of the immortal doctor faust. it follows that the only mission of science is to enlighten life, not to govern it. the government of science and of men of science, even be they positivists, disciples of auguste comte, or, again, disciples of the _doctrinaire_ school of german communism, cannot fail to be impotent, ridiculous, inhuman, cruel, oppressive, exploiting, maleficent. we may say of men of science, _as such_, what i have said of theologians and metaphysicians: they have neither sense nor heart for individual and living beings. we cannot even blame them for this, for it is the natural consequence of their profession. in so far as they are men of science, they have to deal with and can take interest in nothing except generalities; that do the laws[ ] ... they are not exclusively men of science, but are also more or less men of life.[ ] * * * * * nevertheless, we must not rely too much on this. though we may be well nigh certain that a _savant_ would not dare to treat a man to-day as he treats a rabbit, it remains always to be feared that the _savants_ as a body, if not interfered with, may submit living men to scientific experiments, undoubtedly less cruel but none the less disagreeable to their victims. if they cannot perform experiments upon the bodies of individuals, they will ask nothing better than to perform them on the social body, and that is what must be absolutely prevented. in their existing organization, monopolizing science and remaining thus outside of social life, the _savants_ form a separate caste, in many respects analogous to the priesthood. scientific abstraction is their god, living and real individuals are their victims, and they are the consecrated and licensed sacrificers. science cannot go outside of the sphere of abstractions. in this respect it is infinitely inferior to art, which, in its turn, is peculiarly concerned also with general types and general situations, but which incarnates them by an artifice of its own in forms which, if they are not living in the sense of real life, none the less excite in our imagination the memory and sentiment of life; art in a certain sense individualizes the types and situations which it conceives; by means of the individualities without flesh and bone, and consequently permanent and immortal, which it has the power to create, it recalls to our minds the living, real individualities which appear and disappear under our eyes. art, then, is as it were the return of abstraction to life; science, on the contrary, is the perpetual immolation of life, fugitive, temporary, but real, on the altar of eternal abstractions. science is as incapable of grasping the individuality of a man as that of a rabbit, being equally indifferent to both. not that it is ignorant of the principle of individuality: it conceives it perfectly as a principle, but not as a fact. it knows very well that all the animal species, including the human species, have no real existence outside of an indefinite number of individuals, born and dying to make room for new individuals equally fugitive. it knows that in rising from the animal species to the superior species the principle of individuality becomes more pronounced; the individuals appear freer and more complete. it knows that man, the last and most perfect animal of earth, presents the most complete and most remarkable individuality, because of his power to conceive, concrete, personify, as it were, in his social and private existence, the universal law. it knows, finally, when it is not vitiated by theological or metaphysical, political or judicial _doctrinairisme_, or even by a narrow scientific pride, when it is not deaf to the instincts and spontaneous aspirations of life--it knows (and this is its last word) that respect for man is the supreme law of humanity, and that the great, the real object of history, its only legitimate object, is the humanization and emancipation, the real liberty, the prosperity and happiness of each individual living in society. for, if we would not fall back into the liberticidal fiction of the public welfare represented by the state, a fiction always founded on the systematic sacrifice of the people, we must clearly recognize that collective liberty and prosperity exist only so far as they represent the sum of individual liberties and prosperities. science knows all these things, but it does not and cannot go beyond them. abstraction being its very nature, it can well enough conceive the principle of real and living individuality, but it can have no dealings with real and living individuals; it concerns itself with individuals in general, but not with peter or james, not with such or such a one, who, so far as it is concerned, do not, cannot, have any existence. its individuals, i repeat, are only abstractions. now, history is made, not by abstract individuals, but by acting, living and passing individuals. abstractions advance only when borne forward by real men. for these beings made, not in idea only, but in reality of flesh and blood, science has no heart: it considers them at most as _material for intellectual and social development_. what does it care for the particular conditions and chance fate of peter or james? it would make itself ridiculous, it would abdicate, it would annihilate itself, if it wished to concern itself with them otherwise than as examples in support of its eternal theories. and it would be ridiculous to wish it to do so, for its mission lies not there. it cannot grasp the concrete; it can move only in abstractions. its mission is to busy itself with the situation and the _general_ conditions of the existence and development, either of the human species in general, or of such a race, such a people, such a class or category of individuals; the _general_ causes of their prosperity, their decline, and the best _general_ methods of securing their progress in all ways. provided it accomplishes this task broadly and rationally, it will do its whole duty, and it would be really unjust to expect more of it. but it would be equally ridiculous, it would be disastrous to entrust it with a mission which it is incapable of fulfilling. since its own nature forces it to ignore the existence of peter and james, it must never be permitted, nor must anybody be permitted in its name, to govern peter and james. for it were capable of treating them almost as it treats rabbits. or rather, it would continue to ignore them; but its licensed representatives, men not at all abstract, but on the contrary in very active life and having very substantial interests, yielding to the pernicious influence which privilege inevitably exercises upon men, would finally fleece other men in the name of science, just as they have been fleeced hitherto by priests, politicians of all shades, and lawyers, in the name of god, of the state, of judicial right. what i preach then is, to a certain extent, the _revolt of life against science_, or rather against the _government of science_, not to destroy science--that would be high treason to humanity--but to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it again. until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction--god, country, power of state, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare. such has been up to to-day the natural, spontaneous, and inevitable movement of human societies. we cannot undo it; we must submit to it so far as the past is concerned, as we submit to all natural fatalities. we must believe that that was the only possible way to educate the human race. for we must not deceive ourselves: even in attributing the larger part to the machiavellian wiles of the governing classes, we have to recognize that no minority would have been powerful enough to impose all these horrible sacrifices upon the masses if there had not been in the masses themselves a dizzy spontaneous movement which pushed them on to continual self-sacrifice, now to one, now to another of these devouring abstractions, the vampires of history, ever nourished upon human blood. we readily understand that this is very gratifying to the theologians, politicians, and jurists. priests of these abstractions, they live only by the continual immolation of the people. nor is it more surprising that metaphysics, too, should give its consent. its only mission is to justify and rationalize as far as possible the iniquitous and absurd. but that positive science itself should have shown the same tendencies is a fact which we must deplore while we establish it. that it has done so is due to two reasons: in the first place, because, constituted outside of life, it is represented by a privileged body; and in the second place, because thus far it has posited itself as an absolute and final object of all human development. by a judicious criticism, which it can and finally will be forced to pass upon itself, it would understand, on the contrary, that it is only a means for the realization of a much higher object--that of the complete humanization of the _real_ situation of all the _real_ individuals who are born, who live, and who die, on earth. the immense advantage of positive science over theology, metaphysics, politics, and judicial right consists in this--that, in place of the false and fatal abstractions set up by these doctrines, it posits true abstractions which express the general nature and logic of things, their general relations, and the general laws of their development. this separates it profoundly from all preceding doctrines, and will assure it for ever a great position in society: it will constitute in a certain sense society's collective consciousness. but there is one aspect in which it resembles all these doctrines: its only possible object being abstractions, it is forced by its very nature to ignore real men, outside of whom the truest abstractions have no existence. to remedy this radical defect positive science will have to proceed by a different method from that followed by the doctrines of the past. the latter have taken advantage of the ignorance of the masses to sacrifice them with delight to their abstractions, which, by the way, are always very lucrative to those who represent them in flesh and bone. positive science, recognizing its absolute inability to conceive real individuals and interest itself in their lot, must definitely and absolutely renounce all claim to the government of societies; for if it should meddle therein, it would only sacrifice continually the living men whom it ignores to the abstractions which constitute the sole object of its legitimate preoccupations. the true science of history, for instance, does not yet exist; scarcely do we begin to-day to catch a glimpse of its extremely complicated conditions. but suppose it were definitely developed, what could it give us? it would exhibit a faithful and rational picture of the natural development of the general conditions--material and ideal, economical, political and social, religious, philosophical, æsthetic, and scientific--of the societies which have a history. but this universal picture of human civilization, however detailed it might be, would never show anything beyond general and consequently _abstract_ estimates. the milliards of individuals who have furnished the _living and suffering materials_ of this history at once triumphant and dismal--triumphant by its general results, dismal by the immense hecatomb of human victims "crushed under its car"--those milliards of obscure individuals without whom none of the great abstract results of history would have been obtained--and who, bear in mind, have never benefited by any of these results--will find no place, not even the slightest, in our annals. they have lived and been sacrificed, crushed for the good of abstract humanity, that is all. shall we blame the science of history? that would be unjust and ridiculous. individuals cannot be grasped by thought, by reflection, or even by human speech, which is capable of expressing abstractions only; they cannot be grasped in the present day any more than in the past. therefore social science itself, the science of the future, will necessarily continue to ignore them. all that we have a right to demand of it is that it shall point us with faithful and sure hand to the _general causes of individual suffering_--among these causes it will not forget the immolation and subordination (still too frequent, alas!) of living individuals to abstract generalities--at the same time showing us the _general conditions necessary to the real emancipation of the individuals living in society_. that is its mission; those are its limits, beyond which the action of social science can be only impotent and fatal. beyond those limits being the _doctrinaire_ and governmental pretentions of its licensed representatives, its priests. it is time to have done with all popes and priests; we want them no longer, even if they call themselves social democrats. once more, the sole mission of science is to light the road. only life, delivered from all its governmental and _doctrinaire_ barriers, and given full liberty of action, can create. how solve this antinomy? on the one hand, science is indispensable to the rational organization of society; on the other, being incapable of interesting itself in that which is real and living, it must not interfere with the real or practical organization of society. this contradiction can be solved only in one way: by the liquidation of science as a moral being existing outside the life of all, and represented by a body of breveted _savants_; it must spread among the masses. science, being called upon to henceforth represent society's collective consciousness, must really become the property of everybody. thereby, without losing anything of its universal character, of which it can never divest itself without ceasing to be science, and while continuing to concern itself exclusively with general causes, the conditions and fixed relations of individuals and things, it will become one in fact with the immediate and real life of all individuals. that will be a movement analogous to that which said to the protestants at the beginning of the reformation that there was no further need of priests for man, who would henceforth be his own priest, every man, thanks to the invisible intervention of the lord jesus christ alone, having at last succeeded in swallowing his good god. but here the question is not of jesus christ, nor good god, nor of political liberty, nor of judicial right--things all theologically or metaphysically revealed, and all alike indigestible. the world of scientific abstractions is not revealed; it is inherent in the real world, of which it is only the general or abstract expression and representation. as long as it forms a separate region, specially represented by the _savants_ as a body, this ideal world threatens to take the place of a good god to the real world, reserving for its licensed representatives the office of priests. that is the reason why it is necessary to dissolve the special social organization of the _savants_ by general instruction, equal for all in all things, in order that the masses, ceasing to be flocks led and shorn by privileged priests, may take into their own hands the direction of their destinies.[ ] but until the masses shall have reached this degree of instruction, will it be necessary to leave them to the government of scientific men? certainly not. it would be better for them to dispense with science than allow themselves to be governed by _savants_. the first consequence of the government of these men would be to render science inaccessible to the people, and such a government would necessarily be aristocratic, because the existing scientific institutions are essentially aristocratic. an aristocracy of learning! from the practical point of view the most implacable, and from the social point of view the most haughty and insulting--such would be the power established in the name of science. this _régime_ would be capable of paralyzing the life and movement of society. the _savants_ always presumptuous, ever self-sufficient and ever impotent, would desire to meddle with everything, and the sources of life would dry up under the breath of their abstractions. once more, life, not science, creates life; the spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty. undoubtedly it would be a very fortunate thing if science could, from this day forth, illuminate the spontaneous march of the people towards their emancipation. but better an absence of light than a false and feeble light, kindled only to mislead those who follow it. after all, the people will not lack light. not in vain have they traversed a long historic career, and paid for their errors by centuries of misery. the practical summary of their painful experiences constitutes a sort of traditional science, which in certain respects is worth as much as theoretical science. last of all, a portion of the youth--those of the bourgeois students who feel hatred enough for the falsehood, hypocrisy, injustice, and cowardice of the bourgeoisie to find courage to turn their backs upon it, and passion enough to unreservedly embrace the just and human cause of the proletariat--those will be, as i have already said, fraternal instructors of the people; thanks to them, there will be no occasion for the government of the _savants_. if the people should beware of the government of the _savants_, all the more should they provide against that of the inspired idealists. the more sincere these believers and poets of heaven, the more dangerous they become. the scientific abstraction, i have said, is a rational abstraction, true in its essence, necessary to life, of which it is the theoretical representation, or, if one prefers, the conscience. it may, it must be, absorbed and digested by life. the idealistic abstraction, god, is a corrosive poison, which destroys and decomposes life, falsifies and kills it. the pride of the idealists, not being personal but divine, is invincible and inexorable: it may, it must, die, but it will never yield, and while it has a breath left it will try to subject men to its god, just as the lieutenants of prussia, these practical idealists of germany, would like to see the people crushed under the spurred boot of their emperor. the faith is the same, the end but little different, and the result, as that of faith, is slavery. it is at the same time the triumph of the ugliest and most brutal materialism. there is no need to demonstrate this in the case of germany; one would have to be blind to avoid seeing it at the present hour. but i think it is still necessary to demonstrate it in the case of divine idealism. man, like all the rest of nature, is an entirely material being. the mind, the facility of thinking, of receiving and reflecting upon different external and internal sensations, of remembering them when they have passed and reproducing them by the imagination, of comparing and distinguishing them, of abstracting determinations common to them and thus creating general concepts, and finally of forming ideas by grouping and combining concepts according to different methods--intelligence, in a word, sole creator of our whole ideal world, is a property of the animal body and especially of the quite material organism of the brain. we know this certainly, by the experience of all, which no fact has ever contradicted and which any man can verify at any moment of his life. in all animals, without excepting the wholly inferior species, we find a certain degree of intelligence, and we see that, in the series of species, animal intelligence develops in proportion as the organization of a species approaches that of man, but that in man alone it attains to that power of abstraction which properly constitutes thought. universal experience,[ ] which is the sole origin, the source of all our knowledge, shows us, therefore, that all intelligence is always attached to some animal body, and that the intensity, the power, of this animal function depends upon the relative perfection of the organism. the latter of these results of universal experience is not applicable only to the different animal species; we establish it likewise in men, whose intellectual and moral power depends so clearly upon the greater or less perfection of their organism as a race, as a nation, as a class, and as individuals, that it is not necessary to insist upon this point.[ ] on the other hand, it is certain that no man has ever seen or can see pure mind, detached from all material form, existing separately from any animal body whatsoever. but if no person has seen it, how is it that men have come to believe in its existence? the fact of this belief is certain, and if not universal, as all the idealists pretend, at least very general, and as such it is entirely worthy of our closest attention, for a general belief, however foolish it may be, exercises too potent a sway over the destiny of men to warrant us in ignoring it or putting it aside. the explanation of this belief, moreover, is rational enough. the example afforded us by children and young people, and even by many men long past the age of majority, shows us that man may use his mental faculties for a long time before accounting to himself for the way in which he uses them, before becoming clearly conscious of it. during this working of the mind unconscious of itself, during this action of innocent or believing intelligence, man, obsessed by the external world, pushed on by that internal goad called life and its manifold necessities, creates a quantity of imaginations, concepts, and ideas necessarily very imperfect at first and conforming but slightly to the reality of the things and facts which they endeavor to express. not having yet the consciousness of his own intelligent action, not knowing yet that he himself has produced and continues to produce these imaginations, these concepts, these ideas, ignoring their wholly _subjective_--that is, human--origin, he must naturally consider them as _objective_ beings, as real beings, wholly independent of him, existing by themselves and in themselves. it was thus that primitive peoples, emerging slowly from their animal innocence, created their gods. having created them, not suspecting that they themselves were the real creators, they worshipped them; considering them as real beings infinitely superior to themselves, they attributed omnipotence to them, and recognized themselves as their creatures, their slaves. as fast as human ideas develop, the gods, who, as i have already stated, were never anything more than a fantastic, ideal, poetical reverberation or an inverted image, become idealized also. at first gross fetiches, they gradually become pure spirits, existing outside of the visible world, and at last, in the course of a long historic evolution, are confounded in a single divine being, pure, eternal, absolute spirit, creator and master of the worlds. in every development, just or false, real or imaginary, collective or individual, it is always the first step, the first act that is the most difficult. that step once taken, the rest follows naturally as a necessary consequence. the difficult step in the historical development of this terrible religious insanity which continues to obsess and crush us was to posit a divine world as such, outside the world. this first act of madness, so natural from the physiological point of view and consequently necessary in the history of humanity, was not accomplished at a single stroke. i know not how many centuries were needed to develop this belief and make it a governing influence upon the mental customs of men. but, once established, it became omnipotent, as each insane notion necessarily becomes when it takes possession of man's brain. take a madman, whatever the object of his madness--you will find that obscure and fixed idea which obsesses him seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and that, on the contrary, the real things which contradict this idea seem to him ridiculous and odious follies. well, religion is a collective insanity, the more powerful because it is traditional folly, and because its origin is lost in the most remote antiquity. as collective insanity it has penetrated to the very depths of the public and private existence of the peoples; it is incarnate in society; it has become, so to speak, the collective soul and thought. every man is enveloped in it from his birth; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, absorbs it with all that he touches, all that he sees. he is so exclusively fed upon it, so poisoned and penetrated by it in all his being, that later, however powerful his natural mind, he has to make unheard-of efforts to deliver himself from it, and even then never completely succeeds. we have one proof of this in our modern idealists, and another in our _doctrinaire_ materialists--the german communists. they have found no way to shake off the religion of the state. the supernatural world, the divine world, once well established in the imagination of the peoples, the development of the various religious systems has followed its natural and logical course, conforming, moreover, in all things to the contemporary development of economical and political relations of which it has been in all ages, in the world of religious fancy, the faithful reproduction and divine consecration. thus has the collective and historical insanity which calls itself religion been developed since fetichism, passing through all the stages from polytheism to christian monotheism. the second step in the development of religious beliefs, undoubtedly the most difficult next to the establishment of a separate divine world, was precisely this transition from polytheism to monotheism, from the religious materialism of the pagans to the spiritualistic faith of the christians. the pagan gods--and this was their principal characteristic--were first of all exclusively national gods. very numerous, they necessarily retained a more or less material character, or, rather, they were so numerous because they were material, diversity being one of the principal attributes of the real world. the pagan gods were not yet strictly the negation of real things; they were only a fantastic exaggeration of them. we have seen how much this transition cost the jewish people, constituting, so to speak, its entire history. in vain did moses and the prophets preach the one god; the people always relapsed into their primitive idolatry, into the ancient and comparatively much more natural and convenient faith in many good gods, more material, more human, and more palpable. jehovah himself, their sole god, the god of moses and the prophets, was still an extremely national god, who, to reward and punish his faithful followers, his chosen people, used material arguments, often stupid, always gross and cruel. it does not even appear that faith in his existence implied a negation of the existence of earlier gods. the jewish god did not deny the existence of these rivals; he simply did not want his people to worship them side by side with him, because before all jehovah was a very jealous god. his first commandment was this: "i am the lord thy god, and thou shalt have no other gods before me." jehovah, then, was only a first draft, very material and very rough, of the supreme deity of modern idealism. moreover, he was only a national god, like the russian god worshipped by the german generals, subjects of the czar and patriots of the empire of all the russias; like the german god, whom the pietists and the german generals, subjects of william i. at berlin, will no doubt soon proclaim. the supreme being cannot be a national god; he must be the god of entire humanity. nor can the supreme being be a material being; he must be the negation of all matter--pure spirit. two things have proved necessary to the realization of the worship of the supreme being: ( ) a realization, such as it is, of humanity by the negation of nationalities and national forms of worship; ( ) a development, already far advanced, of metaphysical ideas in order to spiritualize the gross jehovah of the jews. the first condition was fulfilled by the romans, though in a very negative way no doubt, by the conquest of most of the countries known to the ancients and by the destruction of their national institutions. the gods of all the conquered nations, gathered in the pantheon, mutually cancelled each other. this was the first draft of humanity, very gross and quite negative. as for the second condition, the spiritualization of jehovah, that was realized by the greeks long before the conquest of their country by the romans. they were the creators of metaphysics. greece, in the cradle of her history, had already found from the orient a divine world which had been definitely established in the traditional faith of her peoples; this world had been left and handed over to her by the orient. in her instinctive period, prior to her political history, she had developed and prodigiously humanized this divine world through her poets; and when she actually began her history, she already had a religion ready-made, the most sympathetic and noble of all the religions which have existed, so far at least as a religion--that is, a lie--can be noble and sympathetic. her great thinkers--and no nation has had greater than greece--found the divine world established, not only outside of themselves in the people, but also in themselves as a habit of feeling and thought, and naturally they took it as a point of departure. that they made no theology--that is, that they did not wait in vain to reconcile dawning reason with the absurdities of such a god, as did the scholastics of the middle ages--was already much in their favor. they left the gods out of their speculations and attached themselves directly to the divine idea, one, invisible, omnipotent, eternal, and absolutely spiritualistic but impersonal. as concerns spiritualism, then, the greek metaphysicians, much more than the jews, were the creators of the christian god. the jews only added to it the brutal personality of their jehovah. that a sublime genius like the divine plato could have been absolutely convinced of the reality of the divine idea shows us how contagious, how omnipotent, is the tradition of the religious mania even on the greatest minds. besides, we should not be surprised at it, since, even in our day, the greatest philosophical genius which has existed since aristotle and plato, hegel--in spite even of kant's criticism, imperfect and too metaphysical though it be, which had demolished the objectivity or reality of the divine ideas--tried to replace these divine ideas upon their transcendental or celestial throne. it is true that hegel went about his work of restoration in so impolite a manner that he killed the good god for ever. he took away from these ideas their divine halo, by showing to whoever will read him that they were never anything more than a creation of the human mind running through history in search of itself. to put an end to all religious insanities and the divine _mirage_, he left nothing lacking but the utterance of those grand words which were said after him, almost at the same time, by two great minds who had never heard of each other--ludwig feuerbach, the disciple and demolisher of hegel, in germany, and auguste comte, the founder of positive philosophy, in france. these words were as follows: "metaphysics are reduced to psychology." all the metaphysical systems have been nothing else than human psychology developing itself in history. to-day it is no longer difficult to understand how the divine ideas were born, how they were created in succession by the abstractive faculty of man. man made the gods. but in the time of plato this knowledge was impossible. the collective mind, and consequently the individual mind as well, even that of the greatest genius, was not ripe for that. scarcely had it said with socrates: "know thyself!" this self-knowledge existed only in a state of intuition; in fact, it amounted to nothing. hence it was impossible for the human mind to suspect that it was itself the sole creator of the divine world. it found the divine world before it; it found it as history, as tradition, as a sentiment, as a habit of thought; and it necessarily made it the object of its loftiest speculations. thus was born metaphysics, and thus were developed and perfected the divine ideas, the basis of spiritualism. it is true that after plato there was a sort of inverse movement in the development of the mind. aristotle, the true father of science and positive philosophy, did not deny the divine world, but concerned himself with it as little as possible. he was the first to study, like the analyst and experimenter that he was, logic, the laws of human thought, and at the same time the physical world, not in its ideal, illusory essence, but in its real aspect. after him the greeks of alexandria established the first school of the positive scientists. they were atheists. but their atheism left no mark on their contemporaries. science tended more and more to separate itself from life. after plato, divine ideas were rejected in metaphysics themselves; this was done by the epicureans and skeptics, two sects who contributed much to the degradation of human aristocracy, but they had no effect upon the masses. another school, infinitely more influential, was formed at alexandria. this was the school of neo-platonists. these, confounding in an impure mixture the monstrous imaginations of the orient with the ideas of plato, were the true originators, and later the elaborators, of the christian dogmas. thus the personal and gross egoism of jehovah, the not less brutal and gross roman conquest, and the metaphysical ideal speculation of the greeks, materialized by contact with the orient, were the three historical elements which made up the spiritualistic religion of the christians. * * * * * before the altar of a unique and supreme god was raised on the ruins of the numerous altars of the pagan gods, the autonomy of the various nations composing the pagan or ancient world had to be destroyed first. this was very brutally done by the romans who, by conquering the greatest part of the globe known to the ancients, laid the first foundations, quite gross and negative ones no doubt, of humanity. a god thus raised above the national differences, material and social, of all countries, and in a certain sense the direct negation of them, must necessarily be an immaterial and abstract being. but faith in the existence of such a being, so difficult a matter, could not spring into existence suddenly. consequently, as i have demonstrated in the appendix, it went through a long course of preparation and development at the hands of greek metaphysics, which were the first to establish in a philosophical manner the notion of _the divine idea_, a model eternally creative and always reproduced by the visible world. but the divinity conceived and created by greek philosophy was an impersonal divinity. no logical and serious metaphysics being able to rise, or, rather, to descend, to the idea of a personal god, it became necessary, therefore, to imagine a god who was one and very personal at once. he was found in the very brutal, selfish, and cruel person of jehovah, the national god of the jews. but the jews, in spite of that exclusive national spirit which distinguishes them even to-day, had become in fact, long before the birth of christ, the most international people of the world. some of them carried away as captives, but many more even urged on by that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principal traits of their character, they had spread through all countries, carrying everywhere the worship of their jehovah, to whom they remained all the more faithful the more he abandoned them. in alexandria this terrible god of the jews made the personal acquaintance of the metaphysical divinity of plato, already much corrupted by oriental contact, and corrupted her still more by his own. in spite of his national, jealous, and ferocious exclusivism, he could not long resist the graces of this ideal and impersonal divinity of the greeks. he married her, and from this marriage was born the spiritualistic--but not spirited--god of the christians. the neo-platonists of alexandria are known to have been the principal creators of the christian theology. nevertheless theology alone does not make a religion, any more than historical elements suffice to create history. by historical elements i mean the general conditions of any real development whatsoever--for example in this case the conquest of the world by the romans and the meeting of the god of the jews with the ideal of divinity of the greeks. to impregnate the historical elements, to cause them to run through a series of new historical transformations, a living, spontaneous fact was needed, without which they might have remained many centuries longer in the state of unproductive elements. this fact was not lacking in christianity: it was the propagandism, martyrdom, and death of jesus christ. we know almost nothing of this great and saintly personage, all that the gospels tell us being contradictory, and so fabulous that we can scarcely seize upon a few real and vital traits. but it is certain that he was the preacher of the poor, the friend and consoler of the wretched, of the ignorant, of the slaves, and of the women, and that by these last he was much loved. he promised eternal life to all who are oppressed, to all who suffer here below; and the number is immense. he was hanged, as a matter of course, by the representatives of the official morality and public order of that period. his disciples and the disciples of his disciples succeeded in spreading, thanks to the destruction of the national barriers by the roman conquest, and propagated the gospel in all the countries known to the ancients. everywhere they were received with open arms by the slaves and the women, the two most oppressed, most suffering, and naturally also the most ignorant classes of the ancient world. for even such few proselytes as they made in the privileged and learned world they were indebted in great part to the influence of women. their most extensive propagandism was directed almost exclusively among the people, unfortunate and degraded by slavery. this was the first awakening, the first intellectual revolt of the proletariat. * * * * * the great honor of christianity, its incontestable merit, and the whole secret of its unprecedented and yet thoroughly legitimate triumph, lay in the fact that it appealed to that suffering and immense public to which the ancient world, a strict and cruel intellectual and political aristocracy, denied even the simplest rights of humanity. otherwise it never could have spread. the doctrine taught by the apostles of christ, wholly consoling as it may have seemed to the unfortunate, was too revolting, too absurd from the standpoint of human reason, ever to have been accepted by enlightened men. according with what joy the apostle paul speaks of the _scandale de la foi_ and of the triumph of that _divine folie_ rejected by the powerful and wise of the century, but all the more passionately accepted by the simple, the ignorant, and the weak-minded! indeed there must have been a very deep-seated dissatisfaction with life, a very intense thirst of heart, and an almost absolute poverty of thought, to secure the acceptance of the christian absurdity, the most audacious and monstrous of all religious absurdities. this was not only the negation of all the political, social, and religious institutions of antiquity: it was the absolute overturn of common sense, of all human reason. the living being, the real world, were considered thereafter as nothing; whereas the product of man's abstractive faculty, the last and supreme abstraction in which this faculty, far beyond existing things, even beyond the most general determinations of the living being, the ideas of space and time, having nothing left to advance beyond, rests in contemplation of his emptiness and absolute immobility. that abstraction, that _caput mortuum_, absolutely void of all contents, the true nothing, god, is proclaimed the only real, eternal, all-powerful being. the real all is declared nothing, and the absolute nothing the all. the shadow becomes the substance, and the substance vanishes like a shadow.[ ] all this was audacity and absurdity unspeakable, the true _scandale de la foi_, the triumph of credulous stupidity over the mind for the masses; and--for a few--the triumphant irony of a mind wearied, corrupted, disillusioned, and disgusted in honest and serious search for truth; it was that necessity of shaking off thought and becoming brutally stupid so frequently felt by surfeited minds: _credo quod absurdum._ i believe in the absurd; i believe in it, precisely and mainly, because it is absurd. in the same way many distinguished and enlightened minds in our day believe in animal magnetism, spiritualism, tipping tables, and--why go so far?--believe still in christianity, in idealism, in god. the belief of the ancient proletariat, like that of the modern, was more robust and simple, less _haut goût_. the christian propagandism appealed to its heart, not to its mind; to its eternal aspirations, its necessities, its sufferings, its slavery, not to its reason, which still slept and therefore could know nothing about logical contradictions and the evidence of the absurd. it was interested solely in knowing when the hour of promised deliverance would strike, when the kingdom of god would come. as for theological dogmas, it did not trouble itself about them because it understood nothing about them. the proletariat converted to christianity constituted its growing material but not its intellectual strength. as for the christian dogmas, it is known that they were elaborated in a series of theological and literary works and in the councils, principally by the converted neo-platonists of the orient. the greek mind had fallen so low that, in the fourth century of the christian era, the period of the first council, the idea of a personal god, pure, eternal, absolute mind, creator and supreme master, existing outside of the world, was unanimously accepted by the church fathers; as a logical consequence of this absolute absurdity, it then became natural and necessary to believe in the immateriality and immortality of the human soul, lodged and imprisoned in a body only partially mortal, there being in this body itself a portion which, while material, is immortal like the soul, and must be resurrected with it. we see how difficult it was, even for the church fathers, to conceive pure minds outside of any material form. it should be added that, in general, it is the character of every metaphysical and theological argument to seek to explain one absurdity by another. it was very fortunate for christianity that it met a world of slaves. it had another piece of good luck in the invasion of the barbarians. the latter were worthy people, full of natural force, and, above all, urged on by a great necessity of life and a great capacity for it; brigands who had stood every test, capable of devastating and gobbling up anything, like their successors, the germans of to-day; but they were much less systematic and pedantic than these last, much less moralistic, less learned, and on the other hand much more independent and proud, capable of science and not incapable of liberty, as are the bourgeois of modern germany. but, in spite of all their great qualities, they were nothing but barbarians--that is, as indifferent to all questions of theology and metaphysics as the ancient slaves, a great number of whom, moreover, belonged to their race. so that, their practical repugnance once overcome, it was not difficult to convert them theoretically to christianity. for ten centuries christianity, armed with the omnipotence of church and state and opposed by no competition, was able to deprave, debase, and falsify the mind of europe. it had no competitors, because outside of the church there were neither thinkers nor educated persons. it alone thought, it alone spoke and wrote, it alone taught. though heresies arose in its bosom, they affected only the theological or practical developments of the fundamental dogma, never that dogma itself. the belief in god, pure spirit and creator of the world, and the belief in the immateriality of the soul remained untouched. this double belief became the ideal basis of the whole occidental and oriental civilization of europe; it penetrated and became incarnate in all the institutions, all the details of the public and private life of all classes, and the masses as well. after that, is it surprising that this belief has lived until the present day, continuing to exercise its disastrous influence even upon select minds, such as those of mazzini, michelet, quinet, and so many others? we have seen that the first attack upon it came from the _renaissance_ of the free mind in the fifteenth century, which produced heroes and martyrs like vanini, giordano bruno, and galileo. although drowned in the noise, tumult, and passions of the reformation, it noiselessly continued its invisible work, bequeathing to the noblest minds of each generation its task of human emancipation by the destruction of the absurd, until at last, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, it again reappeared in broad day, boldly waving the flag of atheism and materialism. the human mind, then, one might have supposed, was at last about to deliver itself from all the divine obsessions. not at all. the divine falsehood upon which humanity had been feeding for eighteen centuries (speaking of christianity only) was once more to show itself more powerful than human truth. no longer able to make use of the black tribe, of the ravens consecrated by the church, of the catholic or protestant priests, all confidence in whom had been lost, it made use of lay priests, short-robed liars and sophists, among whom the principal _rôles_ devolved upon two fatal men, one the falsest mind, the other the most doctrinally despotic will, of the last century--j. j. rousseau and robespierre. the first is the perfect type of narrowness and suspicious meanness, of exaltation without other object than his own person, of cold enthusiasm and hypocrisy at once sentimental and implacable, of the falsehood of modern idealism. he may be considered as the real creator of modern reaction. to all appearance the most democratic writer of the eighteenth century, he bred within himself the pitiless despotism of the statesman. he was the prophet of the doctrinaire state, as robespierre, his worthy and faithful disciple, tried to become its high priest. having heard the saying of voltaire that, if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, j. j. rousseau invented the supreme being, the abstract and sterile god of the deists. and it was in the name of the supreme being, and of the hypocritical virtue commanded by this supreme being, that robespierre guillotined first the hébertists and then the very genius of the revolution, danton, in whose person he assassinated the republic, thus preparing the way for the thenceforth necessary triumph of the dictatorship of bonaparte i. after this great triumph, the idealistic reaction sought and found servants less fanatical, less terrible, nearer to the diminished stature of the actual bourgeoisie. in france, chateaubriand, lamartine, and--shall i say it? why not? all must be said if it is truth--victor hugo himself, the democrat, the republican, the quasi-socialist of to-day! and after them the whole melancholy and sentimental company of poor and pallid minds who, under the leadership of these masters, established the modern romantic school; in germany, the schlegels, the tiecks, the novalis, the werners, the schellings, and so many others besides, whose names do not even deserve to be recalled. the literature created by this school was the very reign of ghosts and phantoms. it could not stand the sunlight; the twilight alone permitted it to live. no more could it stand the brutal contact of the masses. it was the literature of the tender, delicate, distinguished souls, aspiring to heaven, and living on earth as if in spite of themselves. it had a horror and contempt for the politics and questions of the day; but when perchance it referred to them, it showed itself frankly reactionary, took the side of the church against the insolence of the freethinkers, of the kings against the peoples, and of all the aristocrats against the vile rabble of the streets. for the rest, as i have just said, the dominant feature of the school of romanticism was a quasi-complete indifference to politics. amid the clouds in which it lived could be distinguished two real points--the rapid development of bourgeois materialism and the ungovernable outburst of individual vanities. to understand this romantic literature, the reason for its existence must be sought in the transformation which had been effected in the bosom of the bourgeois class since the revolution of . from the renaissance and the reformation down to the revolution, the bourgeoisie, if not in germany, at least in italy, in france, in switzerland, in england, in holland, was the hero and representative of the revolutionary genius of history. from its bosom sprang most of the freethinkers of the fifteenth century, the religious reformers of the two following centuries, and the apostles of human emancipation, including this time those of germany, of the past century. it alone, naturally supported by the powerful arm of the people, who had faith in it, made the revolution of and ' . it proclaimed the downfall of royalty and of the church, the fraternity of the peoples, the rights of man and of the citizen. those are its titles to glory; they are immortal! soon it split. a considerable portion of the purchasers of national property having become rich, and supporting themselves no longer on the proletariat of the cities, but on the major portion of the peasants of france, these also having become landed proprietors, had no aspiration left but for peace, the re-establishment of public order, and the foundation of a strong and regular government. it therefore welcomed with joy the dictatorship of the first bonaparte, and, although always voltairean, did not view with displeasure the concordat with the pope and the re-establishment of the official church in france: "_religion is so necessary to the people!_" which means that, satiated themselves, this portion of the bourgeoisie then began to see that it was needful to the maintenance of their situation and the preservation of their newly-acquired estates to appease the unsatisfied hunger of the people by promises of heavenly manna. then it was that chateaubriand began to preach.[ ] napoleon fell and the restoration brought back into france the legitimate monarchy, and with it the power of the church and of the nobles, who regained, if not the whole, at least a considerable portion of their former influence. this reaction threw the bourgeoisie back into the revolution, and with the revolutionary spirit that of skepticism also was re-awakened in it. it set chateaubriand aside and began to read voltaire again; but it did not go so far as diderot: its debilitated nerves could not stand nourishment so strong. voltaire, on the contrary, at once a freethinker and a deist, suited it very well. béranger and p. l. courier expressed this new tendency perfectly. the "god of the good people" and the ideal of the bourgeois king, at once liberal and democratic, sketched against the majestic and thenceforth inoffensive background of the empire's gigantic victories--such was at that period the daily intellectual food of the bourgeoisie of france. lamartine, to be sure, excited by a vain and ridiculously envious desire to rise to the poetic height of the great byron, had begun his coldly delirious hymns in honor of the god of the nobles and of the legitimate monarchy. but his songs resounded only in aristocratic salons. the bourgeoisie did not hear them. béranger was its poet and courier was its political writer. the revolution of july resulted in lifting its tastes. we know that every bourgeois in france carries within him the imperishable type of the bourgeois gentleman, a type which never fails to appear immediately the parvenu acquires a little wealth and power. in the wealthy bourgeoisie had definitely replaced the old nobility in the seats of power. it naturally tended to establish a new aristocracy. an aristocracy of capital first of all, but also an aristocracy of intellect, of good manners and delicate sentiments. it began to feel religious. this was not on its part simply an aping of aristocratic customs. it was also a necessity of its position. the proletariat had rendered it a final service in once more aiding it to overthrow the nobility. the bourgeoisie now had no further need of its co-operation, for it felt itself firmly seated in the shadow of the throne of july, and the alliance with the people, thenceforth useless, began to become inconvenient. it was necessary to remand it to its place, which naturally could not be done without provoking great indignation among the masses. it became necessary to restrain this indignation. in the name of what? in the name of the bourgeois interest bluntly confessed? that would have been much too cynical. the more unjust and inhuman an interest is, the greater need it has of sanction. now, where find it if not in religion, that good protectress of all the well-fed and the useful consoler of the hungry? and more than ever the triumphant bourgeoisie saw that religion was indispensable to the people. after having won all its titles to glory in religious, philosophical, and political opposition, in protest and in revolution, it at last became the dominant class and thereby even the defender and preserver of the state, thenceforth the regular institution of the exclusive power of that class. the state is force, and for it, first of all, is the right of force, the triumphant argument of the needle-gun, of the _chassepot_. but man is so singularly constituted that this argument, wholly eloquent as it may appear, is not sufficient in the long run. some moral sanction or other is absolutely necessary to enforce his respect. further, this sanction must be at once so simple and so plain that it may convince the masses, who, after having been reduced by the power of the state, must also be induced to morally recognize its right. there are only two ways of convincing the masses of the goodness of any social institution whatever. the first, the only real one, but also the most difficult to adopt--because it implies the abolition of the state, or, in other words, the abolition of the organized political exploitation of the majority by any minority whatsoever--would be the direct and complete satisfaction of the needs and aspirations of the people, which would be equivalent to the complete liquidation of the political and economical existence of the bourgeois class, or, again, to the abolition of the state. beneficial means for the masses, but detrimental to bourgeois interests; hence it is useless to talk about them. the only way, on the contrary, harmful only to the people, precious in its salvation of bourgeois privileges, is no other than religion. that is the eternal _mirage_ which leads away the masses in a search for divine treasures, while, much more reserved, the governing class contents itself with dividing among all its members--very unequally, moreover, and always giving most to him who possesses most--the miserable goods of earth and the plunder taken from the people, including their political and social liberty. there is not, there cannot be, a state without religion. take the freest states in the world--the united states of america or the swiss confederation, for instance--and see what an important part is played in all official discourses by divine providence, that supreme sanction of all states. but whenever a chief of state speaks of god, be he william i., the knouto-germanic emperor, or grant, the president of the great republic, be sure that he is getting ready to shear once more his people-flock. the french liberal and voltairean bourgeoisie, driven by temperament to a positivism (not to say a materialism) singularly narrow and brutal, having become the governing class of the state by its triumph of , had to give itself an official religion. it was not an easy thing. the bourgeoisie could not abruptly go back under the yoke of roman catholicism. between it and the church of rome was an abyss of blood and hatred, and, however practical and wise one becomes, it is never possible to repress a passion developed by history. moreover, the french bourgeoisie would have covered itself with ridicule if it had gone back to the church to take part in the pious ceremonies of its worship, an essential condition of a meretorious and sincere conversion. several attempted it, it is true, but their heroism was rewarded by no other result than a fruitless scandal. finally, a return to catholicism was impossible on account of the insolvable contradiction which separates the invariable politics of rome from the development of the economical and political interests of the middle class. in this respect protestantism is much more advantageous. it is the bourgeois religion _par excellence_. it accords just as much liberty as is necessary to the bourgeois, and finds a way of reconciling celestial aspirations with the respect which terrestrial conditions demand. consequently it is especially in protestant countries that commerce and industry have been developed. but it was impossible for the french bourgeoisie to become protestant. to pass from one religion to another--unless it be done deliberately, as sometimes in the case of the jews of russia and poland, who get baptised three or four times in order to receive each time the remuneration allowed them--to seriously change one's religion, a little faith is necessary. now, in the exclusive positive heart of the french bourgeois, there is no room for faith. he professes the most profound indifference for all questions which touch neither his pocket first nor his social vanity afterwards. he is as indifferent to protestantism as to catholicism. on the other hand, the french bourgeois could not go over to protestantism without putting himself in conflict with the catholic routine of the majority of the french people, which would have been great imprudence on the part of a class pretending to govern the nation. there was still one way left--to return to the humanitarian and revolutionary religion of the eighteenth century. but that would have led too far. so the bourgeoisie was obliged, in order to sanction its new state, to create a new religion which might be boldly proclaimed, without too much ridicule and scandal, by the whole bourgeois class. thus was born _doctrinaire_ deism. others have told, much better than i could tell it, the story of the birth and development of this school, which had so decisive and--we may well add--so fatal an influence on the political, intellectual, and moral education of the bourgeois youth of france. it dates from benjamin constant and madame de staël; its real founder was royer-collard; its apostles, guizot, cousin, villemain, and many others. its boldly avowed object was the reconciliation of revolution with reaction, or, to use the language of the school, of the principle of liberty with that of authority, and naturally to the advantage of the latter. this reconciliation signified: in politics, the taking away of popular liberty for the benefit of bourgeois rule, represented by the monarchical and constitutional state; in philosophy, the deliberate submission of free reason to the eternal principles of faith. we have only to deal here with the latter. we know that this philosophy was specially elaborated by m. cousin, the father of french eclecticism. a superficial and pedantic talker, incapable of any original conception, of any idea peculiar to himself, but very strong on commonplace, which he confounded with common sense, this illustrious philosopher learnedly prepared, for the use of the studious youth of france, a metaphysical dish of his own making, the use of which, made compulsory in all schools of the state under the university, condemned several generations one after the other to a cerebral indigestion. imagine a philosophical vinegar sauce of the most opposed systems, a mixture of fathers of the church, scholastic philosophers, descartes and pascal, kant and scotch psychologists, all this a superstructure on the divine and innate ideas of plato, and covered up with a layer of hegelian immanence, accompanied, of course, by an ignorance, as contemptuous as it is complete, of natural science, and proving, just as two times two make _five_, the existence of a personal god.... footnotes: [ ] i call it "iniquitous" because, as i believe i have proved in the appendix alluded to, this mystery has been and still continues to be the consecration of all the horrors which have been and are being committed in the world; i call it unique, because all the other theological and metaphysical absurdities which debase the human mind are but its necessary consequences. [ ] mr. stuart mill is perhaps the only one whose serious idealism may be fairly doubted, and that for two reasons: first, that, if not absolutely the disciple, he is a passionate admirer, an adherent of the positive philosophy of auguste comte, a philosophy which, in spite of its numerous reservations, is really atheistic; second, that mr. stuart mill is english, and in england to proclaim oneself an atheist is to ostracise oneself, even at this late day. [ ] in london i once heard m. louis blanc express almost the same idea. "the best form of government," said he to me, "would be that which would invariably call _men of virtuous genius_ to the control of affairs." [ ] one day i asked mazzini what measures would be taken for the emancipation of the people, once his triumphant unitary republic had been definitely established. "the first measure," he answered, "will be the foundation of schools for the people." "and what will the people be taught in these schools?" "the duties of man--sacrifice and devotion." but where will you find a sufficient number of professors to teach these things, which no one has the right or power to teach, unless he preaches by example? is not the number of men who find supreme enjoyment in sacrifice and devotion exceedingly limited? those who sacrifice themselves in the service of a great idea obey a lofty passion, and, _satisfying this personal passion_, outside of which life itself loses all value in their eyes, they generally think of something else than building their action into doctrine, while those who teach doctrine usually forget to translate it into action, for the simple reason that doctrine kills the life, the living spontaneity, of action. men like mazzini, in whom doctrine and action form an admirable unity, are very rare exceptions. in christianity also there have been great men, holy men, who have really practised, or who, at least, have passionately tried to practice all that they preached, and whose hearts, overflowing with love, were full of contempt for the pleasures and goods of this world. but the immense majority of catholic and protestant priests who, by trade, have preached and still preach the doctrines of chastity, abstinence, and renunciation belie their teachings by their example. it is not without reason, but because of several centuries' experience, that among the people of all countries these phrases have become by-words: _as licentious as a priest; as gluttonous as a priest; as ambitious as a priest; as greedy, selfish, and grasping as a priest._ it is, then, established that the professors of the christian virtues, consecrated by the church, the priests, _in the immense majority of cases_, have practised quite the contrary of what they have preached. this very majority, the universality of this fact, show that the fault is not to be attributed to them as individuals, but to the social position, impossible and contradictory in itself, in which these individuals are placed. the position of the christian priest involves a double contradiction. in the first place, that between the doctrine of abstinence and renunciation and the positive tendencies and needs of human nature--tendencies and needs which, in some individual cases, always very rare, may indeed be continually held back, suppressed, and even entirely annihilated by the constant influence of some potent intellectual and moral passion; which at certain moments of collective exaltation, may be forgotten and neglected for some time by a large mass of men at once; but which are so fundamentally inherent in our nature that sooner or later they always resume their rights: so that, when they are not satisfied in a regular and normal way, they are always replaced at last by unwholesome and monstrous satisfaction. this is a natural and consequently fatal and irresistible law, under the disastrous action of which inevitably fall all christian priests and especially those of the roman catholic church. it cannot apply to the professors, that is to the priests of the modern church, unless they are also obliged to preach christian abstinence and renunciation. but there is another contradiction common to the priests of both sects. this contradiction grows out of the very title and position of master. a master who commands, oppresses, and exploits is a wholly logical and quite natural personage. but a master who sacrifices himself to those who are subordinated to him by his divine or human privilege is a contradictory and quite impossible being. this is the very constitution of hypocrisy, so well personified by the pope, who, while calling himself _the lowest servant of the servants of god_--in token whereof, following the example of christ, he even washes once a year the feet of twelve roman beggars--proclaims himself at the same time vicar of god, absolute and infallible master of the world. do i need to recall that the priests of all churches, far from sacrificing themselves to the flocks confided to their care, have always sacrificed them, exploited them, and kept them in the condition of a flock, partly to satisfy their own personal passions and partly to serve the omnipotence of the church? like conditions, like causes, always produce like effects. it will, then, be the same with the professors of the modern school divinely inspired and licensed by the state. they will necessarily become, some without knowing it, others with full knowledge of the cause, teachers of the doctrine of popular sacrifice to the power of the state and to the profit of the privileged classes. must we, then, eliminate from society all instruction and abolish all schools? far from it! instruction must be spread among the masses without stint, transforming all the churches, all those temples dedicated to the glory of god and to the slavery of men, into so many schools of human emancipation. but, in the first place, let us understand each other; schools, properly speaking, in a normal society founded on equality and on respect for human liberty, will exist only for children and not for adults; and, in order that they may become schools of emancipation and not of enslavement, it will be necessary to eliminate, first of all, this fiction of god, the eternal and absolute enslaver. the whole education of children and their instruction must be founded on the scientific development of reason, not on that of faith; on the development of personal dignity and independence, not on that of piety and obedience; on the worship of truth and justice at any cost, and above all on respect for humanity, which must replace always and everywhere the worship of divinity. the principle of authority, in the education of children, constitutes the natural point of departure; it is legitimate, necessary, when applied to children of a tender age, whose intelligence has not yet openly developed itself. but as the development of everything, and consequently of education, implies the gradual negation of the point of departure, this principle must diminish as fast as education and instruction advance, giving place to increasing liberty. all rational education is at bottom nothing but this progressive immolation of authority for the benefit of liberty, the final object of education necessarily being the formation of free men full of respect and love for the liberty of others. therefore the first day of the pupils' life, if the school takes infants scarcely able as yet to stammer a few words, should be that of the greatest authority and an almost entire absence of liberty; but its last day should be that of the greatest liberty and the absolute abolition of every vestige of the animal or divine principle of authority. the principle of authority, applied to men who have surpassed or attained their majority, becomes a monstrosity, a flagrant denial of humanity, a source of slavery and intellectual and moral depravity. unfortunately, paternal governments have left the masses to wallow in an ignorance so profound that it will be necessary to establish schools not only for the people's children, but for the people themselves. from these schools will be absolutely eliminated the smallest applications or manifestations of the principle of authority. they will be schools no longer; they will be popular academies, in which neither pupils nor masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if they need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience, they will teach in their turn many things to the professors who shall bring them knowledge which they lack. this, then, will be a mutual instruction, an act of intellectual fraternity between the educated youth and the people. the real school for the people and for all grown men is life. the only grand and omnipotent authority, at once natural and rational, the only one which we may respect, will be that of the collective and public spirit of a society founded on equality and solidarity and the mutual human respect of all its members. yes, this is an authority which is not at all divine, wholly human, but before which we shall bow willingly, certain that, far from enslaving them, it will emancipate men. it will be a thousand times more powerful, be sure of it, than all your divine, theological, metaphysical, political, and judicial authorities, established by the church and by the state; more powerful than your criminal codes, your jailers, and your executioners. the power of collective sentiment or public spirit is even now a very serious matter. the men most ready to commit crimes rarely dare to defy it, to openly affront it. they will seek to deceive it, but will take care not to be rude with it unless they feel the support of a minority larger or smaller. no man, however powerful he believes himself, will ever have the strength to bear the unanimous contempt of society; no one can live without feeling himself sustained by the approval and esteem of at least some portion of society. a man must be urged on by an immense and very sincere conviction in order to find courage to speak and act against the opinion of all, and never will a selfish, depraved, and cowardly man have such courage. nothing proves more clearly than this fact the natural and inevitable solidarity--this law of sociability--which binds all men together, as each of us can verify daily, both on himself and on all the men whom he knows. but, if this social power exists, why has it not sufficed hitherto to moralize, to humanize men? simply because hitherto this power has not been humanized itself; it has not been humanized because the social life of which it is ever the faithful expression is based, as we know, on the worship of divinity, not on respect for humanity; on authority, not on liberty; on privilege, not on equality; on the exploitation, not on the brotherhood of men; on iniquity and falsehood, not on justice and truth. consequently its real action, always in contradiction of the humanitarian theories which it professes, has constantly exercised a disastrous and depraving influence. it does not repress vices and crimes; it creates them. its authority is consequently a divine, anti-human authority; its influence is mischievous and baleful. do you wish to render its authority and influence beneficent and human? achieve the social revolution. make all needs really solidary, and cause the material and social interests of each to conform to the human duties of each. and to this end there is but one means: destroy all the institutions of inequality; establish the economic and social equality of all, and on this basis will arise the liberty, the morality, the solidary humanity of all. i shall return to this, the most important question of socialism. [ ] here three pages of bakunin's manuscript are missing. [ ] the lost part of this sentence perhaps said: "if men of science, in their researches and experiments are not treating men actually as they treat animals, the reason is that" they are not exclusively men of science, but are also more or less men of life. [ ] science, in becoming the patrimony of everybody, will wed itself in a certain sense to the immediate and real life of each. it will gain in utility and grace what it loses in pride, ambition, and _doctrinaire_ pedantry. this, however, will not prevent men of genius, better organized for scientific speculation than the majority of their fellows, from devoting themselves exclusively to the cultivation of the sciences, and rendering great services to humanity. only, they will be ambitious for no other social influence than the natural influence exercised upon its surroundings by every superior intelligence, and for no other reward than the high delight which a noble mind always finds in the satisfaction of a noble passion. [ ] universal _experience_, on which all science rests, must be clearly distinguished from universal _faith_, on which the idealists wish to support their beliefs: the first is a real authentication of facts; the second is only a supposition of facts which nobody has seen, and which consequently are at variance with the experience of everybody. [ ] the idealists, all those who believe in the immateriality and immortality of the human soul, must be excessively embarrassed by the difference in intelligence existing between races, peoples, and individuals. unless we suppose that the various divine particles have been irregularly distributed, how is this difference to be explained? unfortunately there is a considerable number of men wholly stupid, foolish even to idiocy. could they have received in the distribution a particle at once divine and stupid? to escape this embarrassment the idealists must necessarily suppose that all human souls are equal, but that the prisons in which they find themselves necessarily confined, human bodies, are unequal, some more capable than others of serving as an organ for the pure intellectuality of soul. according to this, such a one might have very fine organs at his disposition, such another very gross organs. but these are distinctions which idealism has not the power to use without falling into inconsistency and the grossest materialism; for in the presence of absolute immateriality of soul all bodily differences disappear, all that is corporeal, material, necessarily appearing indifferent, equally and absolutely gross. the abyss which separates soul from body, absolute immateriality from absolute materiality, is infinite. consequently all differences, by the way inexplicable and logically impossible, which may exist on the other side of the abyss, in matter, should be to the soul null and void, and neither can nor should exercise any influence over it. in a word, the absolutely immaterial cannot be constrained, imprisoned, and much less expressed in any degree whatsoever by the absolutely material. of all the gross and materialistic (using the word in the sense attached to it by the idealists) imaginations which were engendered by the primitive ignorance and stupidity of men, that of an immaterial soul imprisoned in a material body is certainly the grossest, the most stupid, and nothing better proves the omnipotence exercised by ancient prejudices even over the best minds than the deplorable sight of men endowed with lofty intelligence still talking of it in our days. [ ] i am well aware that in the theological and metaphysical systems of the orient, and especially in those of india, including buddhism, we find the principle of the annihilation of the real world in favor of the ideal and of absolute abstraction. but it has not the added character of voluntary and deliberate negation which distinguishes christianity; when those systems were conceived, the world of human thought, of will and of liberty, had not reached that stage of development which was afterwards seen in the greek and roman civilization. [ ] it seems to me useful to recall at this point an anecdote--one, by the way, well known and thoroughly authentic--which sheds a very clear light on the personal value of this warmer-over of the catholic beliefs and on the religious sincerity of that period. chateaubriand submitted to a publisher a work attacking faith. the publisher called his attention to the fact that atheism had gone out of fashion, that the reading public cared no more for it, and that the demand, on the contrary, was for religious works. chateaubriand withdrew, but a few months later came back with his _genius of christianity_. * * * * * the only anarchist monthly in america mother earth ¶ a revolutionary literary magazine devoted to anarchist thought in sociology, economics, education, and life. ¶ articles by leading anarchists and radical thinkers.--international notes giving a summary of the revolutionary activities in various countries.--reviews of modern books and the drama. ten cents a copy one dollar a year emma goldman, editor and publisher east th street new york bound volumes - , two dollars per volume * * * * * anarchism the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary. free communism voluntary economic cooperation; a social arrangement based on the principle: to each according to his needs; from each according to his ability. headquarters for anarchist literature library of anarchism the literature of anarchism is very extensive. numerous books and pamphlets have been written, treating of the various phases of anarchist thought, and many publications, both here and abroad, are devoted to this philosophy of life. no well-informed man or woman can afford to ignore this vital subject. your library is not complete unless it includes works on anarchism. mother earth publishing association east th street, new york new york orders for literature should be accompanied by check or money order. special discount on large quantities. * * * * * anarchism _and other essays_ by emma goldman ¶ including a biographic sketch of the author's interesting career, a splendid portrait, and twelve of her most important lectures, some of which have been suppressed by the police authorities of various cities. this book expresses the most advanced ideas on social questions--economics, politics, education and sex. _second revised edition_ emma goldman--the notorious, insistent, rebellious, enigmatical emma goldman--has published her first book, "anarchism and other essays." in it she records "the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years," and recites all the articles of that strange and subversive creed in behalf of which she has suffered imprisonment, contumely and every kind of persecution. the book is a vivid revelation of a unique personality. it appears at a time when anarchistic ideas are undoubtedly in the ascendant throughout the world.--_current literature._ emma goldman's book on "anarchism and other essays" ought to be read by all so-called respectable women, and adopted as a text-book by women's clubs throughout the country.... for courage, persistency, self-effacement, self-sacrifice in the pursuit of her object, she has hitherto been unsurpassed among the world's women.... repudiating as she does practically every tenet of what the modern state holds good, she stands for some of the noblest traits in human nature.--_life._ every thoughtful person ought to read this volume of papers by the foremost american anarchist. in whatever way the book may modify or strengthen the opinion already held by its readers, there is no doubt that a careful reading of it will tend to bring about greater social sympathy. it will help the public to understand a group of serious-minded and morally strenuous individuals, and also to feel the spirit that underlies the most radical tendencies of the great labor 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"the limitation of offspring," by dr. william j. robinson . c "the small family system," by dr. c. v. drysdale . c "the right to be well born," by moses harman . c "what every mother should know," by margaret sanger . c "what every girl should know," by margaret sanger . c "the awakening of spring," by frank wedekind (paper) . c mother earth east th street, new york * * * * * the ego and his own by max stirner the book contains the most revolutionary philosophy ever written, its purpose being to destroy the idea of duty and assert the supremacy of the will, and from this standpoint to effect a "transvaluation of all values" and displace the state by a union of conscious egoists. price cents, postage cents for sale by mother earth pub. co., e. th st., n. y. * * * * * to be had through mother earth, e. th st., new york famous speeches of the chicago anarchists delivered in court in reply to why sentence of death should not be passed upon them c postpaid * * * * * do you believe in the social revolution? do you know what took place in the great social revolution of - ? read the great french revolution by peter kropotkin the best way to prepare for the new revolution is to be familiar with the old. now reduced to $ . , postage c. * * * * * gov. altgeld's reasons for pardoning fielden, neebe and schwab c postpaid * * * * * the bomb by frank harris a powerful novel, while not giving the facts of the haymarket tragedy, yet gives a vivid and sympathetic portrayal of the event and personalities involved. cloth, c postpaid * * * * * transcriber's note: the following corrections were made to the text: page | original word | correction -----------+---------------+------------- | viwes | views | infalliby | infallibly | judcial | judicial | up to-day | up to to-day | burgeoisie | bourgeoisie | singuarly | singularly footnote | onself | oneself freedom pamphlet. price one penny. the right to ignore the state. by herbert spencer. (_reprinted from "social statics," edition._) london. freedom press, ossulston street, n. w. . * * * * * [it is only fair to the memory of mr. herbert spencer that we should warn the reader of the following chapter from the original edition of mr. spencer's "social statics," written in , that it was omitted by the author from the revised edition, published in . we may legitimately infer that this omission indicates a change of view. but to repudiate is not to answer, and mr. spencer never answered his arguments for the right to ignore the state. it is the belief of the anarchists that these arguments are unanswerable.] * * * * * the right to ignore the state. § . as a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. if every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state,--to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying towards its support. it is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one, and, whilst passive, he cannot become an aggressor. it is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will is an infringement of his rights. government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. if any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said, except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment,--a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. he cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he _can_ withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw. § . "no human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature: and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original." thus writes blackstone, to whom let all honour be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time,--and, indeed, we may say of our time. a good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely prevail. a good check upon that sentiment of power-worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. let men learn that a legislature is _not_ "our god upon earth," though, by the authority they ascribe to it and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is, at the best, borrowed. nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral? is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its parentage? does it not exist because crime exists? is it not strong, or, as we say, despotic, when crime is great? is there not more liberty--that is, less government--as crime diminishes? and must not government cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform its function? not only does magisterial power exist _because_ of evil, but it exists _by_ evil. violence is employed to maintain it; and all violence involves criminality. soldiers, policemen, and gaolers; swords, batons, and fetters,--are instruments for inflicting pain; and all infliction of pain is, in the abstract, wrong. the state employs evil weapons to subjugate evil, and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals and the means by which it works. morality cannot recognise it; for morality, being simply a statement of the perfect law, can give no countenance to anything growing out of, and living by, breaches of that law. wherefore legislative authority can never be ethical--must always be conventional merely. hence there is a certain inconsistency in the attempt to determine the right position, structure, and conduct of a government by appeal to the first principles of rectitude. for, as just pointed out, the acts of an institution which is, in both nature and origin, imperfect cannot be made to square with the perfect law. all that we can do is to ascertain, firstly, in what attitude a legislature must stand to the community to avoid being by its mere existence an embodied wrong; secondly, in what manner it must be constituted so as to exhibit the least incongruity with the moral law; and, thirdly, to what sphere its actions must be limited to prevent it from multiplying those breaches of equity it is set up to prevent. the first condition to be conformed to before a legislature can be established without violating the law of equal freedom is the acknowledgment of the right now under discussion--the right to ignore the state. § . upholders of pure despotism may fitly believe state-control to be unlimited and unconditional. they who assert that men are made for governments and not governments for men may consistently hold that no one can remove himself beyond the pale of political organisation. but they who maintain that the people are the only legitimate source of power--that legislative authority is not original, but deputed--cannot deny the right to ignore the state without entangling themselves in an absurdity. for, if legislative authority is deputed, it follows that those from whom it proceeds are the masters of those on whom it is conferred: it follows further that as masters they confer the said authority voluntarily: and this implies that they may give or withhold it as they please. to call that deputed which is wrenched from men whether they will or not is nonsense. but what is here true of all collectively is equally true of each separately. as a government can rightly act for the people only when empowered by them, so also can it rightly act for the individual only when empowered by him. if a, b, and c debate whether they shall employ an agent to perform for them a certain service, and if, whilst a and b agree to do so, c dissents, c cannot equitably be made a party to the agreement in spite of himself. and this must be equally true of thirty as of three: and, if of thirty, why not of three hundred, or three thousand, or three millions? § . of the political superstitions lately alluded to, none is so universally diffused as the notion that majorities are omnipotent. under the impression that the preservation of order will ever require power to be wielded by some party, the moral sense of our time feels that such power cannot rightly be conferred on any but the largest moiety of society. it interprets literally the saying that "the voice of the people is the voice of god," and, transferring to the one the sacredness attached to the other, it concludes that from the will of the people--that is, of the majority--there can be no appeal. yet is this belief entirely erroneous. suppose, for the sake of argument, that, struck by some malthusian panic, a legislature duly representing public opinion were to enact that all children born during the next ten years should be drowned. does any one think such an enactment would be warrantable? if not, there is evidently a limit to the power of a majority. suppose, again, that of two races living together--celts and saxons, for example--the most numerous determined to make the others their slaves. would the authority of the greatest number be in such case valid? if not, there is something to which its authority must be subordinate. suppose, once more, that all men having incomes under £ a year were to resolve upon reducing every income above that amount to their own standard, and appropriating the excess for public purposes. could their resolution be justified? if not, it must be a third time confessed that there is a law to which the popular voice must defer. what, then, is that law, if not the law of pure equity--the law of equal freedom? these restraints, which all would put to the will of the majority, are exactly the restraints set up by that law. we deny the right of a majority to murder, to enslave, or to rob, simply because murder, enslaving, and robbery are violations of that law--violations too gross to be overlooked. but, if great violations of it are wrong, so also are smaller ones. if the will of the many cannot supersede the first principle of morality in these cases, neither can it in any. so that, however insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible. when we have made our constitution purely democratic, thinks to himself the earnest reformer, we shall have brought government into harmony with absolute justice. such a faith, though perhaps needful for the age, is a very erroneous one. 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 is tyranny also, only of a less intense kind. "you shall do as we will, and not as you will," is in either case the declaration; and, if the hundred make it to ninety-nine, instead of the ninety-nine to the hundred, it is only a fraction less immoral. of two such parties, whichever fulfils this declaration necessarily breaks the law of equal freedom: the only difference being that by the one it is broken in the persons of ninety-nine, whilst by the other it is broken in the persons of a hundred. and the merit of the democratic form of government consists solely in this,--that it trespasses against the smallest number. the very existence of majorities and minorities is indicative of an immoral state. the man whose character harmonises with the moral law, we found to be one who can obtain complete happiness without diminishing the happiness of his fellows. but the enactment of public arrangements by vote implies a society consisting of men otherwise constituted--implies that the desires of some cannot be satisfied without sacrificing the desires of others--implies that in the pursuit of their happiness the majority inflict a certain amount of _un_happiness on the minority--implies, therefore, organic immorality. thus, from another point of view, we again perceive that even in its most equitable form it is impossible for government to dissociate itself from evil; and further, that, unless the right to ignore the state is recognised, its acts must be essentially criminal. § . that a man is free to abandon the benefits and throw off the burdens of citizenship, may indeed be inferred from the admissions of existing authorities and of current opinion. unprepared as they probably are for so extreme a doctrine as the one here maintained, the radicals of our day yet unwittingly profess their belief in a maxim which obviously embodies this doctrine. do we not continually hear them quote blackstone's assertion that "no subject of england can be constrained to pay any aids or taxes even for the defence of the realm or the support of government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his representative in parliament"? and what does this mean? it means, say they, that every man should have a vote. true: but it means much more. if there is any sense in words, it is a distinct enunciation of the very right now contended for. in affirming that a man may not be taxed unless he has directly or indirectly given his consent, it affirms that he may refuse to be so taxed; and to refuse to be taxed is to cut all connection with the state. perhaps it will be said that this consent is not a specific, but a general, one, and that the citizen is understood to have assented to every thing his representative may do, when he voted for him. but suppose he did not vote for him; and on the contrary did all in his power to get elected some one holding opposite views--what then? the reply will probably be that by taking part in such an election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. and how if he did not vote at all? why then he cannot justly complain of any tax, seeing that he made no protest against its imposition. so, curiously enough, it seems that he gave his consent in whatever way he acted--whether he said "yes," whether he said "no," or whether he remained neuter! a rather awkward doctrine, this. here stands an unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain proffered advantage; and, whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees, if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. and thus we are introduced to the novel principle that a's consent to a thing is not determined by what a says, but by what b may happen to say! it is for those who quote blackstone to choose between this absurdity and the doctrine above set forth. either his maxim implies the right to ignore the state, or it is sheer nonsense. § . there is a strange heterogeneity in our political faiths. systems that have had their day, and are beginning here and there to let the daylight through, are patched with modern notions utterly unlike in quality and colour; and men gravely display these systems, wear them, and walk about in them, quite unconscious of their grotesqueness. this transition state of ours, partaking as it does equally of the past and the future, breeds hybrid theories exhibiting the oddest union of bygone despotism and coming freedom. here are types of the old organisation curiously disguised by germs of the new--peculiarities showing adaptation to a preceding state modified by rudiments that prophesy of something to come--making altogether so chaotic a mixture of relationships that there is no saying to what class these births of the age should be referred. as ideas must of necessity bear the stamp of the time, it is useless to lament the contentment with which these incongruous beliefs are held. otherwise it would seem unfortunate that men do not pursue to the end the trains of reasoning which have led to these partial modifications. in the present case, for example, consistency would force them to admit that, on other points besides the one just noticed, they hold opinions and use arguments in which the right to ignore the state is involved. for what is the meaning of dissent? the time was when a man's faith and his mode of worship were as much determinable by law as his secular acts; and, according to provisions extant in our statute-book, are so still. thanks to the growth of a protestant spirit, however, we have ignored the state in this matter--wholly in theory, and partly in practice. but how have we done so? by assuming an attitude which, if consistently maintained, implies a right to ignore the state entirely. observe the positions of the two parties. "this is your creed," says the legislator; "you must believe and openly profess what is here set down for you." "i shall not do anything of the kind," answers the nonconformist; "i will go to prison rather." "your religious ordinances," pursues the legislator, "shall be such as we have prescribed. you shall attend the churches we have endowed, and adopt the ceremonies used in them." "nothing shall induce me to do so," is the reply; "i altogether deny your power to dictate to me in such matters, and mean to resist to the uttermost." "lastly," adds the legislator, "we shall require you to pay such sums of money toward the support of these religious institutions as we may see fit to ask." "not a farthing will you have from me," exclaims our sturdy independent; "even did i believe in the doctrines of your church (which i do not), i should still rebel against your interference; and, if you take my property, it shall be by force and under protest." what now does this proceeding amount to when regarded in the abstract? it amounts to an assertion by the individual of the right to exercise one of his faculties--the religious sentiment--without let or hindrance, and with no limit save that set up by the equal claims of others. and what is meant by ignoring the state? simply an assertion of the right similarly to exercise _all_ the faculties. the one is just an expansion of the other--rests on the same footing with the other--must stand or fall with the other. men do indeed speak of civil and religious liberty as different things: but the distinction is quite arbitrary. they are parts of the same whole, and cannot philosophically be separated. "yes they can," interposes an objector; "assertion of the one is imperative as being a religious duty. the liberty to worship god in the way that seems to him right, is a liberty without which a man cannot fulfil what he believes to be divine commands, and therefore conscience requires him to maintain it." true enough; but how if the same can be asserted of all other liberty? how if maintenance of this also turns out to be a matter of conscience? have we not seen that human happiness is the divine will--that only by exercising our faculties is this happiness obtainable--and that it is impossible to exercise them without freedom? and, if this freedom for the exercise of faculties is a condition without which the divine will cannot be fulfilled, the preservation of it is, by our objector's own showing, a duty. or, in other words, it appears not only that the maintenance of liberty of action _may_ be a point of conscience, but that it _ought_ to be one. and thus we are clearly shown that the claims to ignore the state in religious and in secular matters are in essence identical. the other reason commonly assigned for nonconformity admits of similar treatment. besides resisting state dictation in the abstract, the dissenter resists it from disapprobation of the doctrines taught. no legislative injunction will make him adopt what he considers an erroneous belief; and, bearing in mind his duty toward his fellow-men, he refuses to help through the medium of his purse in disseminating this erroneous belief. the position is perfectly intelligible. but it is one which either commits its adherents to civil nonconformity also, or leaves them in a dilemma. for why do they refuse to be instrumental in spreading error? because error is adverse to human happiness. and on what ground is any piece of secular legislation disapproved? for the same reason--because thought adverse to human happiness. how then can it be shown that the state ought to be resisted in the one case and not in the other? will any one deliberately assert that, if a government demands money from us to aid in _teaching_ what we think will produce evil, we ought to refuse it, but that, if the money is for the purpose of _doing_ what we think will produce evil, we ought not to refuse it? yet such is the hopeful proposition which those have to maintain who recognise the right to ignore the state in religious matters, but deny it in civil matters. § . the substance of this chapter once more reminds us of the incongruity between a perfect law and an imperfect state. the practicability of the principle here laid down varies directly as social morality. in a thoroughly vicious community its admission would be productive of anarchy.[ ] in a completely virtuous one its admission will be both innocuous and inevitable. progress toward a condition of social health--a condition, that is, in which the remedial measures of legislation will no longer be needed--is progress toward a condition in which those remedial measures will be cast aside, and the authority prescribing them disregarded. the two changes are of necessity co-ordinate. that moral sense whose supremacy will make society harmonious and government unnecessary is the same moral sense which will then make each man assert his freedom even to the extent of ignoring the state--is the same moral sense which, by deterring the majority from coercing the minority, will eventually render government impossible. and, as what are merely different manifestations of the same sentiment must bear a constant ratio to each other, the tendency to repudiate governments will increase only at the same rate that governments become needless. let not any be alarmed, therefore, at the promulgation of the foregoing doctrine. there are many changes yet to be passed through before it can begin to exercise much influence. probably a long time will elapse before the right to ignore the state will be generally admitted, even in theory. it will be still longer before it receives legislative recognition. and even then there will be plenty of checks upon the premature exercise of it. a sharp experience will sufficiently instruct those who may too soon abandon legal protection. whilst, in the majority of men, there is such a love of tried arrangements, and so great a dread of experiments, that they will probably not act upon this right until long after it is safe to do so. * * * * * anarchist communism.[ ] its aims and principles. anarchism may be briefly defined as the negation of all government and all authority of man over man; communism as the recognition of the just claim of each to the fullest satisfaction of all his needs--physical, moral, and intellectual. the anarchist, therefore, whilst resisting as far as possible all forms of coercion and authority, repudiates just as firmly even the suggestion that he should impose himself upon others, realising as he does that this fatal propensity in the majority of mankind has been the cause of nearly all the misery and bloodshed in the world. he understands just as clearly that to satisfy his needs without contributing, to the best of his ability, his share of labour in maintaining the general well-being, would be to live at the expense of others--to become an exploiter and live as the rich drones live to-day. obviously, then, government on the one hand and private ownership of the means of production on the other, complete the vicious circle--the present social system--which keeps mankind degraded and enslaved. there will be no need to justify the anarchist's attack upon _all_ forms of government: history teaches the lesson he has learned on every page. but that lesson being concealed from the mass of the people by interested advocates of "law and order," and even by many social democrats, the anarchist deals his hardest blows at the sophisms that uphold the state, and urges workers in striving for their emancipation to confine their efforts to the economic field. it follows, therefore, that politically and economically his attitude is purely revolutionary; and hence arises the vilification and misrepresentation that anarchism, which denounces all forms of social injustice, meets with in the press and from public speakers. rightly conceived, anarchism is no mere abstract ideal theory of human society. it views life and social relations with eyes disillusioned. making an end of all superstitions, prejudices, and false sentiments, it tries to see things as they really are; and without building castles in the air, it finds by the simple correlation of established facts that the grandest possibilities of a full and free life can be placed within the reach of all, once that monstrous bulwark of all our social iniquities--the state--has been destroyed, and common property declared. by education, by free organisation, by individual and associated resistance to political and economic tyranny, the anarchist hopes to achieve his aim. the task may seem impossible to many, but it should be remembered that in science, in literature, in art, the highest minds are with the anarchists or are imbued with distinct anarchist tendencies. even our bitterest opponents admit the beauty of our "dream," and reluctantly confess that it would be well for humanity if it were "possible." anarchist communist propaganda is the intelligent, organised, determined effort to realise the "dream," and to ensure that freedom and well-being for all _shall_ be possible. * * * * * modern science and anarchism. by peter kropotkin. a new and revised translation, with three additional chapters, and a useful and interesting glossary. pages; paper covers, d. net; also in art cambric, s. d. net. postage, paper ½d., cloth d. "as a survey of modern science in relation to society ... this book would be hard to beat.... the glossary of about crowded pages is alone worth the price of the volume."--_maoriland worker._ * * * * * the conquest of bread. by peter kropotkin. a new and cheaper edition. cloth, s. net; postage ½d. * * * * * god and the state. by michael bakunin. _a new edition, revised from the original manuscript._ with a new portrait. paper cover, d. net; cloth, s. net. postage d. and d. * * * * * liberty and the great libertarians. an anthology on liberty. edited and compiled, with preface, introduction, and index, by charles t. sprading. presenting quickly and succinctly the best utterances of the greatest thinkers on every phase of human freedom. many valuable quotations from suppressed, ignored, and hitherto inaccessible sources. price s. d. net, postage d. * * * * * freedom press, ossulston street, london, n.w. * * * * * _transcriber's note: on the image used for this edition, this page was partly obscured by binding tape. unrealisable sections are marked ..._ freedom. a journal of anarchist communism. (_established ._) _monthly, d. annual subscription, s. d. post free_ * * * * * pamphlet and book list. anarchist communism. by peter kropotkin. d. anarchism. by peter kropotkin. d. anarchist morality. by peter kropotkin. d. the wage system. by peter kropotkin. d. a talk about anarchist communism between two workers. by e. malatesta. d. the state: its historic role. by peter kropotkin. ... expropriation. by peter kropotkin. d. law and authority. by peter kropotkin. d. the pyramid of tyranny. by d. nieuwenhuis. ... the place of anarchism in socialistic evolution. by peter kropotkin. d. an appeal to the young. by peter kropotkin ... the commune of paris. by peter kropotkin ... evolution and revolution. by elisÉe reclus ... the social general strike. by a. roller ... the chicago martyrs. with portraits. d. direct action _v._ legislation. by j. blair smith. ... wars and capitalism. by p. kropotkin. d * * * * * the great french revolution, - by peter kropotkin. s. net; postage d. mutual aid. by peter kropotkin. s. d. postage ... fields, factories, and workshops. by peter kropotkin. cloth, s. net, postage d. anarchism. by dr. paul eltzbacher. with ... s. d. net, postage d. news from nowhere. by wm. morris. cloth ... paper s.; postage d. famous speeches of the eight chicago anarchists. s. d., postage d. * * * * * orders, with cash (postage ½d. each pamphlet), to freedom press, ossulston street, london, n.w. * * * * * notes [ ] mr. spencer here uses the word "anarchy" in the sense of disorder. [ ] it would be only fair to state that the individualist school of anarchism, which includes many eminent writers and thinkers, differs from us mainly on the question of communism--_i.e._, on the holding of property, the remuneration of labour, etc. anarchism, however, affords the opportunity for experiment in all these matters, and in that sense there is no dispute between us. transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). anarchy by errico malatesta published by the free society library in anarchy. ---------- anarchy is a word which comes from the greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, _without government:_ the state of a people without any constituted authority, that is, without government. before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a party (which party has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word anarchy was taken universally in the sense of disorder and confusion; and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth. we shall not enter into philological discussions; for the question is not philological but historical. the common meaning of the word does not misconceive its true etymological signification, but is derived from this meaning, owing to the prejudice that government must be a necessity of the organization of social life; and that consequently a society without government must be given up to disorder, and oscillate between the unbridled dominion of some and the blind vengeance of others. the existence of this prejudice, and its influence on the meaning which the public has given the word, is easily explained. man, like all living beings, adapts and habituates himself to the conditions in which he lives, and transmits by inheritance his acquired habits. thus being born and having lived in bondage, being the descendant of a long line of slaves, man, when he began to think, believed that slavery was an essential condition of life; and liberty seemed to him an impossible thing. in like manner, the workman, forced for centuries, and thus habituated, to depend upon the good will of his employer for work, that is, for bread, and accustomed to see his own life at the disposal of those who possess the land and the capital, has ended in believing that it is his master who gives him to eat, and demands ingenuously how it would be possible to live, if there were no master over him? in the same way, a man who had had his limbs bound from his birth, but had nevertheless found out how to hobble about, might attribute to the very hands that bound him his ability to move, while, on the contrary, they would be diminishing and paralyzing the muscular energy of his limbs. if, then, we add to the natural effect of habit the education given him by his masters, the parson, teacher, etc., who are all interested in teaching that the employer and the government are necessary; if also we add the judge and the bailiff to force those who think differently--and might try to propagate their opinions --to keep silence, we shall understand how the prejudice as to the utility and necessity of masters and governments has become established. suppose a doctor brings forward a complete theory, with a thousand ably invented illustrations, to persuade that man with the bound limb whom we were describing, that, if his limb were freed, he could not walk, could not even live. the man would defend his bands furiously, and consider any one his enemy who tried to tear them off. thus, since it is believed that government is necessary, and that without government there must be disorder and confusion, it is natural and logical to suppose that anarchy, which signifies without government, must also mean absence of order. nor is this fact without parallel in the history of words. in those epochs and countries where people have considered government by one man (monarchy) necessary, the word republic (that is, the government of many) has been used precisely like anarchy, to imply disorder and confusion. traces of this signification of the word are still to be found in the popular language of almost all countries. when this opinion is changed, and the public convinced that government is not necessary, but extremely harmful, the word anarchy, precisely because it signifies without government, will become equal to saying natural order, harmony of the needs and interests of all, complete liberty with complete solidarity. therefore, those are wrong who say that anarchists have chosen their name badly, because it is erroneously understood by the masses and leads to a false interpretation. the error does not come from the word, but from the thing. the difficulty which anarchists meet with in spreading their views does not depend upon the name they have given themselves, but upon the fact that their conceptions strike at all the inveterate prejudices that people have about the function of government, or the _state_, as it is called. before proceeding further, it will be well to explain this last word (the state) which, in our opinion, is the real cause of much misunderstanding. anarchists, and we among them, have made use, and still generally make use of the word state, meaning thereby that collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which the management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals. and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end. in this case the word state means government, or, if you like, it is the impersonal expression, abstracted from the state of things, of which the government is the personification. then such expressions as abolition of the state, or society without the state, agree perfectly with the conception which anarchists wish to express of the destruction of every political institution based on authority, and of the constitution of a free and equal society, based upon harmony of interests, and the voluntary contribution of all to the satisfaction of social needs. however, the word state has many other significations, and among these some which lend themselves to misconstruction, particularly when used among men whose sad social position has not afforded them leisure to become accustomed to the delicate distinctions of scientific language, or, still worse, when adopted treacherously by adversaries, who are interested in confounding the sense, or do not wish to comprehend. thus the word state is often used to indicate any given society, or collection of human beings, united on a given territory and constituting what is called a social unit, independently of the way in which the members of the said body are grouped, or of the relations existing between them. state is used also simply as a synonym for society. owing to these significations of the word, our adversaries believe, or rather profess to believe, that anarchists wish to abolish every social relation and all collective work, and to reduce man to a condition of isolation, that is, to a state worse than savagery. by state again is meant only the supreme administration of a country, the central power, distinct from provincial or communal power; and therefore others think that anarchists wish merely for a territorial decentralization, leaving the principle of government intact, and thus confounding anarchy with cantonal or communal government. finally, state signifies condition, mode of living, the order of social life, etc., and therefore we say, for example, that it is necessary to change the economic state of the working classes, or that the anarchical state is the only state founded on the principles of solidarity, and other similar phrases. so that if we say also in another sense that we wish to abolish the state, we may at once appear absurd or contradictory. for these reasons, we believe it would be better to use the expression _abolition of the state_ as little as possible, and to substitute for it another clearer and more concrete--_abolition of government_. in any case, the latter will be the expression used in the course of this little work. -------------------- we have said that anarchy is society without government. but is the suppression of government possible, desirable, or wise? let us see. what is the government? there is a disease of the human mind called the metaphysical tendency, causing man, after he has by a logical process abstracted the quality from an object, to be subject to a kind of hallucination which makes him take the abstraction for the real thing. this metaphysical tendency, in spite of the blows of positive science, has still strong root in the minds of the majority of our contemporary fellow men. it has such an influence that many consider government an actual entity, with certain given attributes of reason, justice, equity, independently of the people who compose the government. for those who think in this way, government, or the state, is the abstract social power, and it represents, always in the abstract, the general interest. it is the expression of the right of all, and considered as limited by the rights of each. this way of understanding government is supported by those interested, to whom it is an urgent necessity that the principle of authority should be maintained, and should always survive the faults and errors of the persons who succeed to the exercise of power. for us, the government is the aggregate of the governors; and the governors--kings, presidents, ministers, members of parliament, and what not--are those who have the power to make laws, to regulate the relations between men, and to force obedience to these laws. they are those who decide upon and claim the taxes, enforce military service, judge and punish transgressions of the laws. they subject men to regulations, and supervise and sanction private contracts. they monopolize certain branches of production and public services, or, if they wish, all production and public service. they promote or hinder the exchange of goods. they make war or peace with the governments of other countries. they concede or withhold free trade and many things else. in short, the governors are those who have the power, in a greater or less degree, to make use of the collective force of society, that is, of the physical, intellectual, and economic force of all, to oblige each to do the said governor's wish. and this power constitutes, in our opinion, the very principle of government, the principle of authority. but what reason is there for the existence of government? why abdicate one's own liberty, one's own initiative in favor of other individuals? why give them the power to be the masters, with or contrary to the wish of each, to dispose of the forces of all in their own way? are the governors such very exceptionally gifted men as to enable them, with some show of reason, to represent the masses, and act in the interest of all men better than all men would be able to do for themselves? are they so infallible and incorruptible that one can confide to them, with any semblance of prudence, the fate of each and all, trusting to their knowledge and their goodness? and even if there existed men of infinite goodness and knowledge, even if we assume what has never been verified in history, and what we believe it would be impossible to verify, namely, that the government might devolve upon the ablest and best, would the possession of governmental power add anything to their beneficent influence? would it not rather paralyze or destroy it? for those who govern find it necessary to occupy themselves with things which they do not understand, and, above all, to waste the greater part of their energy in keeping themselves in power, striving to satisfy their friends, holding the discontented in check, and mastering the rebellious. again, be the governors good or bad, wise or ignorant, who is it that appoints them to their office? do they impose themselves by right of war, conquest, or revolution? then, what guarantees have the public that their rulers have the general good at heart? in this case it is simply a question of usurpation; and if the subjects are discontented, nothing is left to them but to throw off the yoke, by an appeal to arms. are the governors chosen from a certain class or party? then certainly the ideas and interests of that class or party will triumph, and the wishes and interests of the others will be sacrificed. are they elected by universal suffrage? now numbers are the sole criterion; and numbers are certainly no proof of reason, justice or capacity. under universal suffrage, the elected are those who know best how to take in the masses. the minority, which may happen to be half minus one, is sacrificed. and that without considering that there is another thing to take into account. experience has shown it is impossible to hit upon an electoral system which really ensures election by the actual majority. many and various are the theories by which men have sought to justify the existence of government. all, however, are founded, confessedly or not, on the assumption that the individuals of a society have contrary interests, and that an external superior power is necessary to oblige some to respect the interests of others, by prescribing and imposing a rule of conduct, according to which the interests at strife may be harmonized as much as possible, and according to which each obtains the maximum of satisfaction with the minimum of sacrifice. if, say the theorists of the authoritarian school, the interests, tendencies, and desires of an individual are in opposition to those of another individual, or mayhap all society, who will have the right and the power to oblige the one to respect the interests of the others? who will be able to prevent the individual citizen from offending the general will? the liberty of each, say they, has for its limit the liberty of others; but who will establish those limits, and who will cause them to be respected? the natural antagonism of interests and passions creates the necessity for government, and justifies authority. authority intervenes as moderator of the social strife, and defines the limits of the rights and duties of each. this is the theory; but the theory, to be sound, ought to be based upon facts, and to explain them. we know well how in social economy theories are too often invented to justify facts, that is, to defend privilege and cause it to be accepted tranquilly by those who are its victims. let us here look at the facts themselves. in all the course of history, as at the present epoch, government is either the brutal, violent, arbitrary domination of the few over the many, or it is an instrument ordained to secure domination and privilege to those who, by force, or cunning, or inheritance, have taken to themselves all the means of life, and first and foremost the soil, whereby they hold the people in servitude, making them work for their advantage. governments oppress mankind in two ways, either directly, by brute force, that is physical violence, or indirectly, by depriving them of the means of subsistence and thus reducing them to helplessness at discretion. political power originated in the first method; economic privilege arose from the second. governments can also oppress man by acting on his emotional nature, and in this way constitute religious authority. but there is no reason for the propagation of religious superstitions except that they defend and consolidate political and economic privileges. in primitive society, when the world was not so densely populated as now, and social relations were less complicated, when any circumstance prevented the formation of habits and customs of solidarity, or destroyed those which already existed, and established the domination of man over man, the two powers, the political and the economical, were united in the same hands --and often also in those of one single individual. those who had by force conquered and impoverished the others, constrained them to become their servants, and perform all things for them according to their caprice. the victors were at once proprietors, legislators, kings, judges, and executioners. but with the increase of population, with the growth of needs, with the complication of social relationships, the prolonged continuance of such despotism became impossible. for their own security, the rulers, often much against their will, were obliged to depend upon a privileged class, that is, a certain number of co-interested individuals, and were also obliged to let each of these individuals provide for his own sustenance. nevertheless they reserved to themselves the supreme or ultimate control. in other words, the rulers reserved to themselves the right to exploit all at their own convenience, and so to satisfy their kingly vanity. thus private wealth was developed under the shadow of the ruling power, for its protection and--often unconsciously--as its accomplice. thus the class of proprietors rose. and they, concentrating little by little the means of wealth in their own hands, all the means of production, the very fountains of life--agriculture, industry, and exchange--ended by becoming a power in themselves. this power, by the superiority of its means of action, and the great mass of interests it embraces, always ends by more or less openly subjugating the political power, that is, the government, which it makes its policeman. this phenomenon has been reproduced often in history. every time that, by invasion or any military enterprise whatever, physical brute force has taken the upper hand in society, the conquerors have shown the tendency to concentrate government and property in their own hands. in every case, however, as the government cannot attend to the production of wealth, and overlook and direct everything, it finds it needful to conciliate a powerful class, and private property is again established. with it comes the division of the two sorts of power, that of the persons who control the collective force of society, and that of the proprietors, upon whom these governors become essentially independent, because the proprietors command the sources of the said collective force. but never has this state of things been so accentuated as in modern times. the development of production, the immense extension of commerce, the extensive power that money has acquired, and all the economic results flowing from the discovery of america, the invention of machinery, etc., have secured such supremacy to the capitalist class that it is no longer content to trust to the support of the government, and has come to wish that the government shall emanate from itself; a government composed of members of its own class, continually under its control and especially organized to defend its class against the possible revenge of the disinherited. hence the origin of the modern parliamentary system. today the government is composed of proprietors, or people of their class so entirely under their influence that the richest of them do not find it necessary to take an active part in it themselves. rothschild, for instance, does not need to be either m.p. or minister, it is enough for him to keep m.p.'s and ministers dependent upon himself. in many countries, the proletariat participates nominally, more or less, in the election of the government. this is a concession which the _bourgeois_ (_i. e._, proprietory) class have made, either to avail themselves of popular support in the strife against royal or aristocratic power, or to divert the attention of the people from their own emancipation by giving them an apparent share in political power. however, whether the _bourgeoisie_ foresaw it or not, when first they conceded to the people the right to vote, the fact is that the right has proved in reality a mockery, serving only to consolidate the power of the _bourgeois_, while giving to the most energetic only of the proletariat the illusory hope of arriving at power. so also with universal suffrage--we might say, especially with universal suffrage--the government has remained the servant and police of the _bourgeois_ class. how could it be otherwise? if the government should reach the point of becoming hostile, if the hope of democracy should ever be more than a delusion deceiving the people, the proprietory class, menaced in its interests, would at once rebel, and would use all the force and influence which come from the possession of wealth, to reduce the government to the simple function of acting as policeman. in all times and in all places, whatever may be the name that the government takes, whatever has been its origin, or its organization, its essential function is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, and of defending the oppressors and exploiters. its principal characteristic and indispensable instruments are the bailiff and the tax collector, the soldier and the prison. and to these are necessarily added the time-serving priest or teacher, as the case may be, supported and protected by the government, to render the spirit of the people servile and make them docile under the yoke. certainly, in addition to this primary business, to this essential department of governmental action other departments have been added in the course of time. we even admit that never, or hardly ever, has a government been able to exist in a country that was at all civilized without adding to its oppressing and exploiting functions others useful and indispensable to social life. but this fact makes it none the less true that government is in its nature oppressive and a means of exploitation, and that its origin and position doom it to be the defence and hot-bed of a dominant class, thus confirming and increasing the evils of domination. the government assumes the business of protecting, more or less vigilantly, the life of citizens against direct and brutal attacks; acknowledges and legalizes a certain number of rights and primitive usages and customs, without which it is impossible to live in society. it organizes and directs certain public services, as the post, preservation and construction of roads, care of the public health, benevolent institutions, workhouses and such like; and it pleases it to pose as the protector and benefactor of the poor and weak. but it is sufficient to notice how and why it fulfils these functions to prove our point. the fact is that everything the government undertakes it is always inspired with the spirit of domination, and ordained to defend, enlarge, and perpetuate the privileges of property, and those classes of which government is the representative and defender. a government cannot rule for any length of time without hiding its true nature behind the pretence of general utility. it cannot respect the lives of the privileged without assuming the air of wishing to respect the lives of all. it cannot cause the privileges of some to be tolerated without appearing as the custodian of the rights of everybody. "the law" (and, of course, those that have made the law, that is, the government) "has utilized," says kropotkin, "the social sentiments of man, working into them those precepts of morality, which man has accepted, together with arrangements useful to the minority--the exploiters--and opposed to the interests of those who might have rebelled, had it not been for this show of a moral ground." a government cannot wish the destruction of the community, for then it and the dominant class could not claim their exploitation-gained wealth; nor could the government leave the community to manage its own affairs; for then the people would soon discover that it (the government) was necessary for no other end than to defend the proprietory class who impoverish them, and would hasten to rid themselves of both government and proprietory class. today in the face of the persistent and menacing demands of the proletariat, governments show a tendency to interfere in the relations between employers and work people. thus they try to arrest the labor movement, and to impede with delusive reforms the attempts of the poor to take to themselves that which is due to them, namely an equal share of the good things of life which others enjoy. we must also remember that on the one hand the bourgeois, that is, the proprietory class, make war among themselves, and destroy one another continually, and on the other hand that the government, although composed of the _bourgeois_ and, acting as their servant and protector, is still, like every other servant or protector, continually striving to emancipate itself and to domineer over its charge. thus this see-saw game, this swaying between conceding and withdrawing, this seeking allies among the people against the classes, and among the classes against the masses, forms the science of the governors, and blinds the ingenuous and phlegmatic, who are always expecting that salvation is coming to them from on high. with all this, the government does not change its nature. if it acts as regulator or guarantor of the rights and duties of each, it perverts the sentiment of justice. it justifies wrong and punishes every act which offends or menaces the privileges of the governors and proprietors. it declares just, _legal_, the most atrocious exploitation of the miserable, which means a slow and continuous material and moral murder, perpetrated by those who have on those who have not. again, if it administrates public services, it always considers the interests of the governors and proprietors, not occupying itself with the interests of the working masses, except in so far as is necessary to make the masses willing to endure their share of taxation. if it instructs, it fetters and curtails the truth, and tends to prepare the mind and heart of the young to become either implacable tyrants or docile slaves, according to the class to which they belong. in the hands of the government everything becomes a means of exploitation, everything serves as a police measure, useful to hold the people in check. and it must be thus. if the life of mankind consists in strife between man and man, naturally there must be conquerors and conquered; and the government, which is the prize of the strife, or is a means of securing to the victors the results of their victory, and perpetuating those results, will certainly never fall to those who have lost, whether the battle be on the grounds of physical or intellectual strength, or in the field of economics. and those who have fought to conquer, that is, to secure to themselves better conditions than others can have, to conquer privilege and add dominion to power, and have attained the victory, will certainly not use it to defend the rights of the vanquished, and to place limits to their own power and to that of their friends and partizans. the government--or the state, if you will--as judge, moderator of social strife, impartial administrator of the public interests, is a lie. it is an illusion, a utopia, never realized and never realizable. if in truth, the interests of men must always be contrary to one another; if indeed, the strife between mankind has made laws necessary to human society, and the liberty of the individual must be limited by the liberty of other individuals; then each one would always seek to make his interests triumph over those of others. each would strive to enlarge his own liberty at the cost of the liberty of others, and there would be government. not simply because it was more or less useful to the totality of the members of society to have a government, but because the conquerors would wish to secure to themselves the fruits of victory. they would wish effectually to subject the vanquished, and relieve themselves of the trouble of being always on the defensive, and they would appoint men, specially adapted to the business, to act as police. were this indeed actually the case, then humanity would be destined to perish amidst periodical contests between the tyranny of the dominators and the rebellion of the conquered. but fortunately the future of humanity is a happier one, because the law which governs it is milder. this law is the law of _solidarity_. -------------------- i. man has two necessary fundamental characteristics, _the instinct of his own preservation_, without which no being could exist, and _the instinct of the preservation of his species_, without which no species could have been formed or have continued to exist. he is naturally driven to defend his own existence and well-being and that of his offspring against every danger. in nature, living beings find two ways of securing their existence, and rendering it pleasanter. the one is in individual strife with the elements, and with other individuals of the same or different species; the other is _mutual support_, or _co-operation_, which might also be described as association for strife against all natural factors, destructive to existence, or to the development and well-being of the associated. we do not need to investigate in these pages--and we cannot for lack of space--what respective proportions in the evolution of the organic world these two principles of strife and co-operation take. it will suffice to note how co-operation among men (whether forced or voluntary) has become the sole means of progress, of improvement or of securing safety; and how strife--relic of an earlier stage of existence--has become thoroughly unsuitable as a means of securing the well-being of individuals, and produces instead injury to all, both the conquerors and the conquered. the accumulated and transmitted experience of successive generations has taught man that by uniting with other men his preservation is better secured and his well-being increased. thus out of this same strife for existence, carried on against surrounding nature, and against individuals of their own species, the social instinct has been developed among men, and has completely transformed the conditions of their life. through co-operation man has been enabled to evolve out of animalism, has risen to great power, and elevated himself to such a degree above the other animals, that metaphysical philosophers have believed it necessary to invent for him an immaterial and immortal soul. many concurrent causes have contributed to the formation of this social instinct, that starting from the animal basis of the instinct for the preservation of the species, has now become so extended and so intense that it constitutes the essential element of man's moral nature. man, however he evolved from inferior animal types, was a physically weak being, unarmed for the fight against carnivorous beasts. but he was possessed of a brain capable of great development, and a vocal organ, able to express the various cerebral vibrations, by means of diverse sounds, and hands adapted to give the desired form to matter. he must have very soon felt the need and advantages of association with his fellows. indeed it may even be said that he could only rise out of animalism when he became social, and had acquired the use of language, which is at the same time a consequence and a potent factor of sociability. the relatively scanty number of the human species rendered the strife for existence between man and man, even beyond the limits of association, less sharp, less continuous, and less necessary. at the same time, it must have greatly favored the development of sympathetic sentiments, and have left time for the discovery and appreciation of the utility of mutual support. in short, social life became the necessary condition of man's existence, in consequence of his capacity to modify his external surroundings and adapt them to his own wants, by the exercise of his primeval power in co-operation with a greater or less number of associates. his desires have multiplied with the means of satisfying them, and have become needs. and division of labor has arisen from man's methodical use of nature for his own advantage. therefore, as now evolved, man could not live apart from his fellows without falling back into a state of animalism. through the refinement of sensibility, with the multiplication of social relationships, and through habit impressed on the species by hereditary transmission for thousands of centuries, this need of social life, this interchange of thought and of affection between man and man, has become a mode of being necessary for our organism. it has been transformed into sympathy, friendship and love, and subsists independently of the material advantages that association procures. so much is this the case, that man will often face suffering of every kind, and even death, for the satisfaction of these sentiments. the fact is that a totally different character has been given to the strife for existence between man and man, and between the inferior animals, by the enormous advantages that association gives to man; by the fact that his physical powers are altogether disproportionate to his intellectual superiority over the beasts, so long as he remains isolated; by his possibility of associating with an ever increasing number of individuals, and entering into more and more intricate and complex relationships, until he reaches association with all humanity; and, finally, perhaps more than all, by his ability to produce, working in co-operation with others, more than he needs to live upon. it is evident that these causes, together with the sentiments of affection derived from them, must give quite a peculiar character to the struggle for existence among human beings. although it is now known--and the researches of modern naturalists bring us every day new proofs--that co-operation has played, and still plays, a most important part in the development of the organic world, nevertheless, the difference between the human struggle for existence and that of the inferior animals is enormous. it is in fact proportionate to the distance separating man from the other animals. and this is none the less true because of that darwinian theory, which the _bourgeois_ class have ridden to death, little suspecting the extent to which mutual co-operation has assisted in the development of the lower animals. the lower animals fight either individually, or, more often, in little permanent or transitory groups, against all nature, the other individuals of their own species included. some of the more social animals, such as ants, bees, etc., associate together in the same anthill, or beehive, but are at war with, or indifferent towards, other communities of their own species. human strife with nature, on the contrary, tends always to broaden association among men, to unite their interests, and to develop each individual's sentiments of affection towards all others, so that united they may conquer and dominate the dangers of external nature by and for humanity. all strife directed towards obtaining advantages independently of other men, and in opposition to them, contradicts the social nature of modern man, and tends to lead it back to a more animal condition. _solidarity_, that is, harmony of interests and sentiments, the sharing of each in the good of all, and of all in the good of each, is the state in which alone man can be true to his own nature, and attain to the highest development and happiness. it is the aim towards which human development tends. it is the one great principle, capable of reconciling all present antagonisms in society, otherwise irreconcilable. it causes the liberty of each to find not its limits, but its complement, the necessary condition of its continual existence--in the liberty of all. "no man," says michael bakunin, "can recognize his own human worth, nor in consequence realize his full development, if he does not recognize the worth of his fellow men, and in co-operation with them, realize his own development through them. no man can emancipate himself, unless at the same time he emancipates those around him. my freedom is the freedom of all; for i am not really free--free not only in thought, but in deed--if my freedom and my right do not find their confirmation and sanction in the liberty and right of all men my equals. "it matters much to me what all other men are, for however independent i may seem, or may believe myself to be, by virtue of my social position, whether as pope, czar, emperor, or prime minister, i am all the while the product of those who are the least among men. if these are ignorant, miserable, or enslaved, my existence is limited by their ignorance, misery, or slavery. i, though an intelligent and enlightened man, am made stupid by their stupidity; though brave, am enslaved by their slavery; though rich, tremble before their poverty; though privileged, grow pale at the thought of possible justice for them. i, who wish to be free, cannot be so, because around me are men who do not yet desire freedom, and, not desiring it, become, as opposed to me, the instruments of my oppression." solidarity, then, is the condition in which man can attain the highest degree of security and of well-being. therefore, egoism itself, that is, the exclusive consideration of individual interests, impels man and human society towards solidarity. or rather egoism and altruism (consideration of the interests of others) are united in this one sentiment, as the interest of the individual is one with the interests of society. however, man could not pass at once from animalism to humanity; from brutal strife between man and man to the collective strife of all mankind, united in one brotherhood of mutual aid against external nature. guided by the advantages that association and the consequent division of labor offer, man evolved towards solidarity, but his evolution encountered an obstacle which led him, and still leads him, away from his aim. he discovered that he could realize the advantages of co-operation, at least up to a certain point, and for the material and primitive wants that then comprised all his needs, by making other men subject to himself, instead of associating on an equality with them. thus the ferocious and anti-social instincts, inherited from his bestial ancestry, again obtained the upper hand. he forced the weaker to work for him, preferring to domineer over rather than to associate fraternally with his fellows. perhaps also in most cases it was by exploiting the conquered in war that man learnt for the first time the benefits of association and the help that can be obtained from mutual support. thus it has come about that the establishment of the utility of co-operation, which ought to lead to the triumph of solidarity in all human concerns, has turned to the advantage of private property and of government; in other words, to the exploitation of the labor of the many, for the sake of the privileged few. there has always been association and co-operation, without which human life would be impossible; but it has been co-operation imposed and regulated by the few in their own particular interest. from this fact arises a great contradiction with which the history of mankind is filled. on the one hand, we find the tendency to associate and fraternize for the purpose of conquering and adapting the external world to human needs, and for the satisfaction of the human affections; while, on the other hand we see the tendency to divide into as many separate and hostile factions as there are different conditions of life. these factions are determined, for instance, by geographical and ethnological conditions, by differences in economic position, by privileges acquired by some and sought to be secured by others, or by suffering endured, with the ever recurring desire to rebel. the principle of each for himself, that is, of war of all against all, has come in the course of time to complicate, lead astray, and paralyze the war of all combined against nature, for the common advantage of the human race, which could only be completely successful by acting on the principle of all for each, and each for all. great have been the evils which humanity has suffered by this intermingling of domination and exploitation with human association. but in spite of the atrocious oppression to which the masses submit, of the misery, vice, crime, and degradation which oppression and slavery produce, among the slaves and their masters, and in spite of the hatreds, the exterminating wars, and the antagonisms of artificially created interests, the social instinct has survived and even developed. co-operation, having been always the necessary condition for successful combat against external nature, has therefore been the permanent cause of men's coming together, and consequently of the development of their sympathetic sentiments. even the oppression of the masses has itself caused the oppressed to fraternize among themselves. indeed it has been solely owing to this feeling of solidarity, more or less conscious and more or less widespread among the oppressed, that they have been able to endure the oppression, and that man has resisted the causes of death in his midst. in the present, the immense development of production, the growth of human needs which cannot be satisfied except by the united efforts of a large number of men in all countries, the extended means of communication, habits of travel, science, literature, commerce, even war itself--all these have drawn and are still drawing humanity into a compact body, every section of which, closely knit together, can find its satisfaction and liberty only in the development and health of all other sections composing the whole. the inhabitant of naples is as much interested in the amelioration of the hygienic condition of the peoples on the banks of the ganges, from whence the cholera is brought to him, as in the improvement of the sewerage of his own town. the well-being, liberty, or fortune of the mountaineer, lost among the precipices of the appenines, does not depend alone on the state of well-being or of misery in which the inhabitants of his own village live, or even on the general condition of the italian people, but also on the condition of the workers in america, or australia, on the discovery of a swedish scientist, on the moral and material conditions of the chinese, on war or peace in africa; in short, it depends on all the great and small circumstances which affect the human being in any spot whatever of the world. in the present condition of society, the vast solidarity which unites all men is in a great degree unconscious, since it arises spontaneously from the friction of particular interests, while men occupy themselves little or not at all with general interests. and this is the most evident proof that solidarity is the natural law of human life, which imposes itself, so to speak, in spite of all obstacles, and even those artificially created by society as at present constituted. on the other hand, the oppressed masses, never wholly resigned to oppression and misery, who today more than ever show themselves ardent for justice, liberty, and well-being, are beginning to understand that they cannot emancipate themselves except by uniting, through solidarity with all the oppressed and exploited over the whole world. and they understand also that the indispensable condition of their emancipation is the possession of the means of production, of the soil and of the instruments of labor, and further the abolition of private property. science and the observation of social phenomena show that this abolition would be of immense advantage in the end, even to the privileged classes, if only they could bring themselves to renounce the spirit of domination, and concur with all their fellow men in laboring for the common good. ---------- now, should the oppressed masses some day refuse to work for their oppressors, should they take possession of the soil and the instruments of labor, and apply them for their own use and advantage, and that of all who work, should they no longer submit to the domination, either of brute force or economic privilege; should the spirit of human fellowship and the sentiment of human solidarity, strengthened by common interests, grow among the people, and put an end to strife between nations; then what ground would there be for the existence of a government? private property abolished, government--which is its defender --must disappear. should it survive, it would continually tend to reconstruct, under one form or another, a privileged and oppressive class. and the abolition of government does not, nor cannot, signify the doing away with human association. far otherwise, for that co-operation which today is enforced, and directed to the advantage of the few, would be free and voluntary, directed to the advantage of all. therefore it would become more intense and efficacious. the social instinct and the sentiment of solidarity would develop to the highest degree; and every individual would do all in his power for the good of others, as much for the satisfaction of his own well understood interests as for the gratification of his sympathetic sentiments. by the free association of all, a social organization would arise through the spontaneous grouping of men according to their needs and sympathies, from the low to the high, from the simple to the complex, starting from the more immediate to arrive at the more distant and general interests. this organization would have for its aim the greatest good and fullest liberty to all; it would embrace all humanity in one common brotherhood, and would be modified and improved as circumstances were modified and changed, according to the teachings of experience. this society of _free men_, this society of _friends_ would be _anarchy_. -------------------- ii. we have hitherto considered government as it is, and as it necessarily must be in a society founded upon privilege, upon the exploitation and oppression of man by man, upon antagonism of interests and social strife, in a word, upon private property. we have seen how this state of strife, far from being a necessary condition of human life, is contrary to the interests of the individual and of the species. we have observed how co-operation, solidarity (of interest) is the law of human progress, and we have concluded that, with the abolition of private property and the cessation of all domination of man over man, there, would be no reason for government to exist--therefore it ought to be abolished. but, it may be objected, if the principle on which social organization is now founded were to be changed, and solidarity substituted for strife, common property for private property, the government also would change its nature. instead of being the protector and representative of the interests of one class, it would become, if there were no longer any classes, representative of all society. its mission would be to secure and regulate social co-operation in the interests of all, and to fulfil public services of general utility. it would defend society against possible attempts to re-establish privilege, and prevent or repress all attacks, by whomsoever set on foot, against the life, well-being, or liberty of each. there are in society certain matters too important, requiring too much constant, regular attention, for them to be left to the voluntary management of individuals, without danger of everything getting into disorder. if there were no government, who would organize the supply and distribution of provisions? who regulate matters pertaining to public hygiene, the postal, telegraph, and railway services, etc.? who would direct public instruction? who undertake those great works of exploration, improvement on a large scale, scientific enterprise, etc., which transform the face of the earth and augment a hundredfold the power of man? who would care for the preservation and increase of capital, that it might be transmitted to posterity, enriched and improved? who would prevent the destruction of the forests, or the irrational exploitation, and therefore impoverishment of the soil? who would there be to prevent and repress crimes, that is, anti-social acts? what of those who, disregarding the law of solidarity, would not work? or of those who might spread infectious disease in a country, by refusing to submit to the regulation of hygiene by science? or what again could be done with those who, whether insane or no, might set fire to the harvest, injure children, or abuse and take advantage of the weak? to destroy private property and abolish existing government, without reconstituting a government that would organize collective life and secure social solidarity, would not be to abolish privilege, and bring peace and prosperity upon earth. it would be to destroy, every social bond, to leave humanity to fall back into barbarism, to begin again the reign of "each for himself;" which would establish the triumph, firstly, of brute force, and, secondly, of economic privilege. ---------- such are the objections brought forward by authoritarians, even by those who are socialists, that is, who wish to abolish private property, and class government founded upon the system of private property. we reply: in the first place, it is not true that with a change of social conditions, the nature of the government and its functions would also change. organs and functions are inseparable terms. take from an organ its function, and either the organ will die, or the function will reinstate itself. place an army in a country where there is no reason for or fear of foreign war, and this army will provoke war, or, if it do not succeed in doing that, it will disband. a police force, where there are no crimes to discover, and delinquents to arrest, will provoke or invent crimes, or will cease to exist. for centuries, there existed in france an institution, now included in the administration of the forests, for the extermination of the wolves and other noxious beasts. no one will be surprised to learn that, just on account of this institution, wolves still exist in france, and that, in rigorous seasons, they do great damage. the public take little heed of the wolves, because there are the appointed officials, whose duty it is to think about them. and the officials do hunt them, but in an _intelligent_ manner, sparing their caves, and allowing time for reproduction, that they may not run the risk of entirely destroying such an _interesting_ species. the french peasants have indeed little confidence in these official wolf-hunters, and regard them rather as the wolf-preservers. and, of course, what would these officials do if there were no longer any wolves to exterminate? a government, that is, a number of persons deputed to make the laws, and entitled to use the collective forces of society to make every individual to respect these laws, already constitutes a class privileged and separated from the rest of the community. such a class, like every elected body, will seek instinctively to. enlarge its powers; to place itself above the control of the people; to impose its tendencies, and to make its own interests predominate. placed in a privileged position, the government always finds itself in antagonism to the masses, of whose force it disposes. furthermore, a government, with the best intention, could never satisfy everybody, even if it succeeded in satisfying some. it must therefore always be defending itself against the discontented, and for that reason must ally itself with the satisfied section of the community for necessary support. and in this manner will arise again the old story of a privileged class, which cannot help but be developed in conjunction with the government. this class, if it could not again acquire possession of the soil, would certainly monopolize the most favored spots, and would not be in the end less oppressive, or less an instrument of exploitation than the capitalist class. the governors, accustomed to command, would never wish to mix with the common crowd. if they could not retain the power in their own hands, they would at least secure to themselves privileged positions for the time when they would be out of office. they would use all the means they have in their power to get their own friends elected as their successors, who would in their turn be supported and protected by their predecessors. and thus the government would pass and repass into the same hands, and the _democracy_, that is, the government presumably of the whole people, would end, as it always has done, in becoming an _oligarchy_, or the government of a few, the government of a class. and this all-powerful, oppressive, all-absorbing oligarchy would have always in its care, that is, at its disposition, every bit of social capital, all public services, from the production and distribution of provisions to the manufacture of matches, from the control of the university to that of the music hall. ---------- but let us even suppose that the government did not necessarily constitute a privileged class, and could exist without forming around itself a new privileged class. let us imagine that it could remain truly representative, the servant--if you will--of all society. what purpose would it then serve? in what particular and in what manner would it augment the power, intelligence, spirit of solidarity, care of the general welfare, present and to come, that at any given moment existed in a given society? it is always the old story of the man with bound limbs, who, having managed to live in spite of his bands, believes that he lives by means of them. we are accustomed to live under a government, which makes use of all that energy, that intelligence, and that will which it can direct to its own ends; but which hinders, paralyzes and suppresses those that are useless or hostile to it. and we imagine that all that is done in society is done by virtue of the government, and that without the government there would be neither energy, intelligence, nor good will in society. so it happens (as we have already said) that the proprietor who has possessed himself of the soil, has it cultivated for his own particular profit, leaving the laborer the barest necessities of life for which he can and will continue to labor. while the enslaved laborer thinks that he could not live without his master, as though it were _he_ who created the earth and the forces of nature. what can government of itself add to the moral and material forces which exist in a society? unless it be like the god of the bible, who created the universe out of nothing? as nothing is created in the so-called material world, so in this more complicated form of the material world, which is the social world, nothing can be created. and therefore governors can dispose of no other force than that which is already in society. and indeed not by any means of all of that, as much force is necessarily paralyzed and destroyed by governmental methods of action, while more again is wasted in the friction with rebellious elements, inevitably great in such an artificial mechanism. whenever governors originate anything of themselves, it is as men and not as governors, that they do so. and of that amount of force, both material and moral, which does remain at the disposition of the government, only an infinitesimally small part achieves an end really useful to society. the remainder is either consumed in actively repressing rebellious opposition, or is otherwise diverted from the aim of general utility, and turned to the profit of the few, and to the injury of the majority of men. so much has been made of the part that individual initiative and social action play respectively in the life and progress of human society; and such is the confusion of metaphysical language, that those who affirm that individual initiative is the source and agency of all action seem to be asserting something quite preposterous. in reality, it is a truism, which becomes apparent directly we begin to explain the actual facts represented by these words. the real being is the man, the individual; society or the collectivity, and the state or government which professes to represent it, if not hollow abstractions, can be nothing else than aggregates of individuals. and it is within the individual organism that all thoughts and all human action necessarily have their origin. originally individual, they become collective thoughts and actions, when shared in common by many individuals. social action, then, is not the negation, nor the complement of individual initiative, but it is the sum total of the initiatives, thoughts and actions of all the individuals composing society: a result which, other things equal, is more or less great according as the individual forces tend toward the same aim, or are divergent and opposed. if, on the other hand, as the authoritarians make out, by social action is meant governmental action, then it is again the result of individual forces, but only of those individuals who either form part of the government, or by virtue of their position are enabled to influence the conduct of the government. thus, in the contest of centuries between liberty and authority, or, in other words, between social equality and social castes, the question at issue has not really been the relations between society and the individual, nor the increase of individual independence at the cost of social control, or _vice versa_. rather it has had to do with preventing any one individual from oppressing the others; with giving to everyone the same rights and the same means of action. it has had to do with substituting the initiative of all, which must naturally result in the advantage of all, for the initiative of the few, which necessarily results in the suppression of all the others. it is always, in short, the question of putting an end to the domination and exploitation of man by man in such a way that all are interested in the common welfare; and that the individual force of each, instead of oppressing, combating or suppressing others, will find the possibility of complete development, and every one will seek to associate with others for the greater advantage of all. from what we have said, it follows that the existence of a government, even upon the hypothesis that the ideal government of authoritarian socialists were possible, far from producing an increase of productive force, would immensely diminish it; because the government would restrict initiative to the few. it would give these few the right to do all things, without being able, of course, to endow them with the knowledge or understanding of all things. in fact, if you divest legislation and all the operations of government of what is intended to protect the privileged, and what represents the wishes of the privileged classes alone, nothing remains but the aggregate of individual governors. "the state," says sismondi, "is always a conservative power that authorizes, regulates and organizes the conquests of progress (and history testifies that it applies them to the profit of its own and the other privileged classes) but never does inaugurate them. new ideas always originate from beneath, are conceived in the foundations of society, and then, when divulged, they become opinion and grow. but they must always meet on their path, and combat the constituted powers of tradition, custom, privilege and error." ---------- in order to understand how society could exist without a government, it is sufficient to turn our attention for a short space to what actually goes on in our present society. we shall see that in reality the most important social functions are fulfilled even now-a-days outside the intervention of government. also that government only interferes to exploit the masses, or defend the privileged class, or, lastly, to sanction, most unnecessarily, all that has been done without its aid, often in spite of and in opposition to it. men work, exchange, study, travel, follow as they choose the current rules of morality, or hygiene; they profit by the progress of science and art, have numberless mutual interests without ever feeling the need of anyone to direct them how to conduct themselves in regard to these matters. on the contrary, it is just those things in which there is no governmental interference that prosper best, and that give rise to the least contention, being unconsciously adapted to the wish of all in the way found most useful and agreeable. nor is government more necessary in the case of large undertakings, or for those public services which require the constant co-operation of many people of different conditions and countries. thousands of these undertakings are even now the work of voluntarily formed associations. and these are, by the acknowledgment of every one, the undertakings which succeed the best. nor do we refer to the association of capitalists, organized by means of exploitation, although even they show capabilities and powers of free association, which may extend _ad libitum_ until it embraces all the peoples of all lands, and includes the widest and most varying interests. but we speak rather of those associations inspired by the love of humanity, or by the passion for knowledge, or even simply by the desire for amusement and love of applause, as these better represent such grouping as will exist in a society where, private property and internal strife between men being abolished, each will find his interests synonymous with the interests of every one else, and his greatest satisfaction in doing good and pleasing others. scientific societies and congresses, international life-boat and red cross associations, etc., laborers' unions, peace societies, volunteers who hasten to the rescue at times of great public calamity are all examples, among thousands, of that power of the spirit of association, which always shows itself when a need arises, or an enthusiasm takes hold, and the means do not fail. that voluntary associations do not cover the world, and do not embrace every branch of material and moral activity, is the fault of the obstacles placed in their way by governments, of the antagonisms created by the possession of private property, and of the impotence and degradation to which the monopolizing of wealth on the part of the few reduces the majority of mankind. the government takes charge, for instance, of the postal and telegraphic services. but in what way does it really assist them? when the people are in such a condition as to be able to enjoy, and feel the need of such services, they will think about organizing them; and the man with the necessary technical knowledge will not require a certificate from the government to enable him to set to work. the more general and urgent the need, the more volunteers will offer to satisfy it. would the people have the ability necessary to provide and distribute provisions? oh! never fear, they will not die of hunger, waiting for a government to pass laws on the subject. wherever a government exists, it must wait until the people have first organized everything, and then come with its laws to sanction and exploit that which has been already done. it is evident that private interest is the great motive for all activity. that being so, when the interest of every one becomes the interest of each (and it necessarily will become so as soon as private property is abolished) then all will be active. and if now they work in the interest of the few, so much the more and so much the better will they work to satisfy the interests of all. it is hard to understand how anyone can believe that public services indispensable to social life can be better secured by order of a government than through the workers themselves, who by their own choice or by agreement made with others, carry them out under the immediate control of all interested. certainly in every collective undertaking on a large scale, there is need for division of labor, for technical direction, administration, etc. but the authoritarians are merely playing with words, when they deduce a reason for the existence of government, from the very real necessity for organization of labor. the government, we must repeat, is the aggregate of the individuals who have had given them, or have taken the right or the means to make laws, and force the people to obey them. the administrators, engineers, etc., on the other hand, are men who receive or assume the charge of doing a certain work, and who do it. government signifies delegation of power, that is, abdication of the initiative and sovereignty of every one into the hands of the few. administration signifies delegation of work, that is, a charge given and accepted, the free exchange of services founded on free agreement. a governor is a privileged person, because he has the right to command others, and to avail himself of the force of others, to make his own ideas and desires triumph. an administrator or technical director is a worker like others, in a society, of course, where all have equal opportunities of development, and all are, or can be, at the same time intellectual and manual workers; when there are no other differences between men than those derived from diversity of talents, and all work and all social functions give an equal right to the enjoyment of social advantages. the functions of government are, in short, not to be confounded with administrative functions, as they are essentially different. that they are today so often confused is entirely on account of the existence of economic and political privilege. ---------- but let us hasten to pass on to those functions for which government is thought indispensable by all who are not anarchists. these are the internal and external defence of society, that is, war, police and justice. government being abolished, and social wealth at the disposal of every one, all antagonism between various nations would soon cease; and there would consequently be no more cause for war. moreover, in the present state of the world, in any country where the spirit of rebellion is growing, even if it do not find an echo throughout the land, it will be certain of so much sympathy that the government will not dare to send all its troops to a foreign war, for fear the revolution should break out at home. but even supposing that the rulers of countries not yet emancipated would wish and could attempt to reduce a free people to servitude, would these require a government to enable them to defend themselves? to make war, we need men who have the necessary geographical and technical knowledge, and, above all, people willing to fight. a government has no means of augmenting the ability of the former, or the willingness or courage of the latter. and the experience of history teaches that a people really desirous of defending their own country are invincible. in italy every one knows how thrones tremble, and regular armies of hired soldiers vanish before troops of volunteers, that is, armies anarchically formed. ---------- and as to the police and justice, many imagine that if it were not for the police and the judges, everybody would be free to kill, violate or injure others as the humor took him; that anarchists, if they are true to their principles, would like to see this strange kind of liberty respected; "liberty" that violates or destroys the life and freedom of others unrestrained. such people believe that we, having overthrown the government and private property, shall then tranquilly allow the re-establishment of both, out of respect for the "liberty" of those who may feel the need of having a government and private property. a strange mode indeed of construing our ideas! in truth, one may better answer such notions with a shrug of the shoulders than by taking the trouble to confute them. the liberty we wish for, for ourselves and others, is not an absolute, abstract, metaphysical liberty, which in practice can only amount to the oppression of the weak. but we wish for a tangible liberty, the possible liberty, which is the conscious communion of interests, that is, voluntary solidarity. we proclaim the maxim: _do as you will;_ and in this our program is almost entirely contained, because, as may be easily understood, we hold that in a society without government or property, each one _will wish that which he should_. but if, in consequence of a false education, received in the present society, or of physical disease, or whatever other cause, an individual should wish to injure others, you may be sure we should adopt all the means in our power to prevent him. as we know that a man's character is the consequence of his physical organism, and of the cosmic and social influences surrounding him, we certainly shall not confound the sacred right of self-defence, with the absurdly assumed right to punish. also, we shall not regard the delinquent, that is, the man who commits anti-social acts, as the rebel he seems in the eyes of the judges nowadays. we shall regard him as a sick brother in need of cure. we therefore shall not act towards him in the spirit of hatred, when repressing him, but shall confine ourselves solely to self-protection. we shall not seek to revenge ourselves, but rather to rescue the unfortunate one by every means that science suggests. in theory, anarchists may go astray like others, losing sight of the reality under a semblance of logic; but it is quite certain that the emancipated people will not let their dearly bought liberty and welfare be attacked with impunity. if the necessity arose, they would provide for their own defence against the anti-social tendencies of certain amongst them. but how do those whose business it now is to make the laws, protect society? or those others who live by seeking for and inventing new infringements of law? even now, when the masses of the people really disapprove of anything and think it injurious, they always find a way to prevent it very much more effectually than all the professional legislators, constables or judges. during insurrections, the people, though very mistakenly, have enforced the respect for private property; and they have secured this respect far better than an army of policemen could have done. customs always follow the needs and sentiments of the majority; and they are always the more respected, the less they are subject to the sanction of law. this is because every one sees and comprehends their utility, and because the interested parties, not deluding themselves with the idea that government will protect them, are themselves concerned in seeing the custom respected. the economical use of water is of very great importance to a caravan crossing the deserts of africa. under these circumstances, water is a sacred thing; and no sane man dreams of wasting it. conspirators are obliged to act secretly; so secrecy is preserved among them, and obloquy rests on whosoever violates it. gambling debts are not guaranteed by law; but among gamblers it is considered dishonorable not to pay them, and the delinquent feels himself dishonored by not fulfilling his obligations. is it on account of the police that more people are not murdered? the greater part of the italian people never see the police except at long intervals. millions of men go over the mountains and through the country, far from the protecting eye of authority, where they might be attacked without the slightest fear of their assailants being traced; but they run no greater risk than those who live in the best guarded spots. statistics show that the number of crimes rise in proportion to the increase of repressive measures; while they vary rapidly with the fluctuations of economic conditions and with the state of public opinion. preventive laws, however, only concern unusual, exceptional acts. every-day life goes on beyond the limits of the criminal code, and is regulated almost unconsciously by the tacit and voluntary assent of all, by means of a number of usages and customs much more important to social life than the dictates of law. and they are also much better observed, although completely divested of any sanction beyond the natural odium which falls upon those who violate them, and such injury as this odium brings with it. when disputes arise, would not voluntarily accepted arbitration or the pressure of public opinion be far more likely to bring about a just settlement of the difficulties in question than an irresponsible magistrate, who has the right to pass judgment upon everybody and everything, and who is necessarily incompetent and therefore unjust? as every form of government only serves to protect the privileged classes, so do police and judges only aim at repressing those crimes, often not considered criminal by the masses, which offend only the privileges of the rulers or property-owners. for the real defence of society, the defence of the welfare and liberty of all, there can be nothing more pernicious than the formation of this class of functionaries, who exist on the pretence of defending all, and therefore habitually regard every man as game to be hunted down, often striking at the command of a superior officer, without themselves even knowing why, like hired assassins and mercenaries. ---------- all that you have said may be true, say some; anarchy may be a perfect form of social life; but we have no desire to take a leap in the dark. therefore, tell us how your society will be organized. then follows a long string of questions, which would be very interesting if it were our business to study the problems that might arise in an emancipated society, but of which it is useless and absurd to imagine that we could now offer a definite solution. according to what method will children be taught? how will production and distribution be organized? will there still be large cities, or will people spread equally over all the surface of the earth? will all the inhabitants of siberia winter at nice? will every one dine on partridges and drink champagne? who will be the miners and sailors? who will clear the drains? will the sick be nursed at home or in hospitals? who will arrange the railway time-table? what will happen if the engine-driver falls ill while the train is on its way? and so on, without end, as though we could prophesy all the knowledge and experience of the future time, or could, in the name of anarchy, prescribe for the coming man what time he should go to bed, and on what days he should cut his nails! indeed if our readers expect from us an answer to these questions, or even to those among them really serious and important, which cannot be anything more than our own private opinion at this present hour, we must have succeeded badly in our endeavor to explain what anarchy is. we are no more prophets than other men; and should we pretend to give an official solution to all the problems that will arise in the life of the future society, we should have indeed a curious idea of the abolition of government. we should then be describing a government, dictating, like the clergy, a universal code for the present and all future time. seeing that we have neither police nor prisons to enforce our doctrine, humanity might laugh with impunity at us and our pretensions. nevertheless, we consider seriously all the problems of social life which now suggest themselves, on account of their scientific interest, and because, hoping to see anarchy realized, we wish to help towards the organization of the new society. we have therefore our own ideas on these subjects, ideas which are to our minds likely to be permanent or transitory, according to the respective cases. and did space permit, we might add somewhat more on these points. but the fact that we today think in a certain way on a given question is no proof that such will be the mode of procedure in the future. who can foresee the activities which may develop in humanity when it is emancipated from misery and oppression? when all have the means of instruction and self-development? when the strife between men, with the hatred and rancour it breeds, will be no longer a necessary condition of existence? who can foresee the progress of science, the new sources of production, means of communication, etc.? the one essential is that a society be constituted in which the exploitation and domination of man by man are impossible. that the society, in other words, be such that the means of existence and development of labor be free and open to every one, and all be able to co-operate, according to their wishes and their knowledge, in the organization of social life. under such conditions, everything will necessarily be performed in compliance with the needs of all, according to the knowledge and possibilities of the moment. and everything will improve with the increase of knowledge and power. in fact, a program which would touch the basis of the new social constitution could not do more, after all, than indicate a method. and method, more than anything else, defines parties and determines their importance in history. method apart, every one says he wishes for the good of mankind; and many do truly wish for it. as parties disappear, every organized action directed to a definite end disappears likewise. it is therefore necessary to consider anarchy as, above all, a method. there are two methods by which the different parties, not anarchistic, expect, or say they expect, to bring about the greatest good of each and all. these are the authoritarian or state socialist and the individualist methods. the former entrusts the direction of social life to a few; and it would result in the exploitation and oppression of the masses by that few. the second party trusts to the free initiative of individuals, and proclaims, if not the abolition, the reduction of government. however, as it respects private property, and is founded on the principle of each for himself, and therefore on competition, its liberty is only the liberty of the strong, the license of those who have, to oppress and exploit the weak who have nothing. far from producing harmony, it would tend always to augment the distance between the rich and the poor, and end also through exploitation and domination in authority. this second method, individualism, is in theory a kind of anarchy without socialism. it is therefore no better than a lie, because liberty is not possible without equality, and true anarchy cannot be without solidarity, without socialism. the criticism which individualists pass on government is merely the wish to deprive it of certain functions, to virtually hand them over to the capitalist. but it cannot attack those repressive functions which form the essence of government; for without an armed force the proprietary system could not be upheld. nay, even more, under individualism, the repressive power of government must always increase, in proportion to the increase, by means of free competition, of the want of equality and harmony. anarchists present a new method; the free initiative of all and free agreement; then, after the revolutionary abolition of private property, every one will have equal power to dispose of social wealth. this method, not admitting the re-establishment of private property, must lead, by means of free association, to the complete triumph of the principles of solidarity. thus we see that all the problems put forward to combat the anarchistic idea are on the contrary arguments in favor of anarchy; because it alone indicates the way in which, by experience, those solutions which correspond to the dicta of science, and to the needs and wishes of all, can best be found. how will children be educated? we do not know. what then? the parents, teachers and all who are interested in the progress of the rising generation, will meet, discuss, agree and differ, and then divide according to their various opinions, putting into practice the methods which they respectively hold to be best. that method which, when tried, produces the best results, will triumph in the end. and so for all the problems that may arise. ---------- according to what we have so far said, it is evident that anarchy, as the anarchists conceive it, and as alone it can be comprehended, is based on socialism. furthermore, were it not for that school of socialists who artificially divide the natural unity of the social question, considering only some detached points, and were it not also for the equivocations with which they strive to hinder the social revolution, we might say right away that anarchy is synonymous with socialism. because both signify the abolition of exploitation and of the domination of man over man, whether maintained by the force of arms or by the monopolization of the means of life. anarchy, like socialism, has for its basis and necessary point of departure _equality of conditions_. its aim is _solidarity_, and its method _liberty_. it is not perfection, nor is it the absolute ideal, which, like the horizon, always recedes as we advance towards it. but it is the open road to all progress and to all improvement, made in the interest of all humanity. ---------- there are authoritarians who grant that anarchy is the mode of social life which alone opens the way to the attainment of the highest possible good for mankind, because it alone can put an end to every class interested in keeping the masses oppressed and miserable. they also grant that anarchy is possible, because it does nothing more than release humanity from an obstacle--government--against which it has always had to fight its painful way towards progress. nevertheless, these authoritarians, reinforced by many warm lovers of liberty and justice in theory, retire into their last entrenchments, because they are afraid of liberty, and cannot be persuaded that mankind could live and prosper without teachers and pastors; still, hard pressed by the truth, they pitifully demand to have the reign of liberty put off for a while, indeed for as long as possible. such is the substance of the arguments that meet us at this stage. a society without a government, which would act by free, voluntary co-operation, trusting entirely to the spontaneous action of those interested, and founded altogether on solidarity and sympathy, is certainly, they say, a very beautiful ideal, but, like all ideals, it is a castle in the air. we find ourselves placed in a human society, which has always been divided into oppressors and oppressed; and if the former are full of the spirit of domination, and have all the vices of tyrants, the latter are corrupted by servility, and have those still worse vices, which are the result of enslavement. the sentiment of solidarity is far from being dominant in man at the present day; and if it is true that the different classes of men are becoming more and more unanimous among themselves, it is none the less true that that which is most conspicuous and impresses itself most on human character today is the struggle for existence. it is a fact that each fights daily against every one else, and competition presses upon all, workmen and masters, causing every man to become a wolf towards every other man. how can these men, educated in a society based upon antagonism between individuals as well as classes, be transformed in a moment and become capable of living in a society in which each shall do as he likes, and as he should, without external coercion, caring for the good of others, simply by the impulse of their own nature? and with what heart or what common sense can you trust to a revolution on the part of an ignorant, turbulent mass, weakened by misery, stupefied by priestcraft, who are today blindly sanguinary and tomorrow will let themselves be humbugged by any knave, who dares to call himself their master? would it not be more prudent to advance gradually towards the anarchistic ideal, passing through republican, democratic and socialistic stages? will not an educative government, composed of the best men, be necessary to prepare the advancing generations for their future destiny? these objections also ought not to appear valid if we have succeeded in making our readers understand what we have already said, and in convincing them of it. but in any case, even at the risk of repetition, it may be as well to answer them. we find ourselves continually met by the false notion that government is in itself a new force, sprung up one knows not whence, which of itself adds something to the sum of the force and capability of those whom it is composed and of those who obey it. while, on the contrary, all that is done is done by individual men. the government, as a government, adds nothing save the tendency to monopolize for the advantage of certain parties or classes, and to repress all initiative from beyond its own circle. to abolish authority or government does not mean to destroy the individual or collective forces, which are at work in society, nor the influence men exert over one another. that would be to reduce humanity to an aggregate of inert and separate atoms; an impossibility which, if it could be performed, would be the destruction of any society, the death blow to mankind. to abolish authority, means to abolish the monopoly of force and of influence. it means to abolish that state of things by which social force, that is, the collective force of all in a society, is made the instrument of the thought, will and interests of a small number of individuals. these, by means of the collective force, suppress the liberty of every one else, to the advantage of their own ideas. in other words, it means to destroy a mode of organization by means of which the future is exploited, between one revolution and another, to the profit of those who have been the victors of the moment. michael bakunin, in an article published in , asserts that the great means of action of the international were the propagating of their ideas, and the organization of the spontaneous action of its members in regard to the masses. he then adds: "to whoever might pretend that action so organized would be an outrage on the liberty of the masses, or an attempt to create a new authoritative power, we would reply that he is a sophist and a fool. so much the worse for those who ignore the natural, social law of human solidarity, to the extent of imagining that an absolute mutual independence of individuals and of masses is a possible or even desirable thing. to desire it, would be to wish for the destruction of society; for all social life is nothing else than this mutual and incessant interdependence among individuals and masses. all individuals, even the most gifted and strongest, indeed most of all the most gifted and strongest, are at every moment of their lives, at the same time, producers and products. equal liberty for every individual is only the resultant, continually reproduced, of this mass of material, intellectual and moral influence exercised on him by all the individuals around him, belonging to the society in which he was born, has developed and dies. to wish to escape this influence in the name of a transcendental liberty, divine, absolutely egoistic and sufficient to itself, is the tendency to annihilation. to refrain from influencing others, would mean to refrain from all social action, indeed to abstain from all expression of one's thoughts and sentiments, and simply to become non-existent. this independence, so much extolled by idealists and metaphysicians, individual liberty conceived in this sense would amount to self-annihilation. "in nature, as in human society, which is also a part of this same nature, all that exists lives only by complying with the supreme conditions of interaction, which is more or less positive and potent with regard to the lives of other beings, according to the nature of the individual. and when we vindicate the liberty of the masses, we do not pretend to abolish anything of the natural influences that individuals or groups of individuals exert upon one another. what we wish for is the abolition of artificial influences, which are privileged, legal and official." certainly, in the present state of mankind, oppressed by misery, stupefied by superstition and sunk in degradation, the human lot depends upon a relatively small number of individuals. of course, all men will not be able to rise in a moment to the height of perceiving their duty, or even the enjoyment of so regulating their own action that others also will derive the greatest possible benefit from it. but because nowadays the thoughtful and guiding forces at work in society are few, that is no reason for paralyzing them still more, and for the subjection of many individuals to the direction of a few. it is no reason for constituting society in such a manner that the most active forces, the highest capacities are, in the end, found outside the government, and almost deprived of influence on social life. all this now happens owing to the inertia that secured positions foster, to heredity, to protectionism, to party spirit and to all the mechanism of government. for those in government office, taken out of their former social position, primarily concerned in retaining power, lose all power to act spontaneously, and become only an obstacle to the free action of others. with the abolition of this negative potency constituting government, society will become that which it can be, with the given forces and capabilities of the moment. if there are educated men desirous of spreading education, they will organize the schools, and will be constrained to make the use and enjoyment to be derived from education felt. and if there are no such men, or only a few of them, a government cannot create them. all it can do, as in fact it does nowadays, is to take these few away from practical, fruitful work in the sphere of education, and put them to direct from above what has to be imposed by the help of a police system. so they make out of intelligent and impassionate teachers mere politicians, who become useless parasites, entirely absorbed in imposing their own hobbies, and in maintaining themselves in power. if there are doctors and teachers of hygiene, they will organize themselves for the service of health. and if there are none, a government cannot create them; all that it can do is to discredit them in the eyes of the people, who are inclined to entertain suspicions, sometimes only too well founded, with regard to everything which is imposed upon them. if there are engineers and mechanics, they will organize the railways, etc; and if there are none, a government cannot create them. the revolution, by abolishing government and private property, will not create force which does not exist; but it will leave a free field for the exercise of all available force and of all existent capacity. while it will destroy every class interested in keeping the masses degraded, it will act in such a way that every one will be free to work and make his influence felt, in proportion to his own capacity, and in conformity with his sentiments and interests. and it is only thus that the elevation of the masses is possible; for it is only with liberty that one can learn to be free, as it is only by working that one can learn to work. a government, even had it no other advantages, must always have that of habituating the governed to subjection, and must also tend to become more oppressive and more necessary, in proportion as its subjects are more obedient and docile. but suppose government were the direction of affairs by the best people. who are the best? and how shall we recognize their superiority. the majority are generally attached to old prejudices, and have ideas and instincts already outgrown by the more favored minority. but of the various minorities, who all believe themselves in the right, as no doubt many of them are in part, which shall be chosen to rule? and by whom? and by what criterion? seeing that the future alone can prove which among them is the must superior. if you choose a hundred partisans of dictatorship, you will discover that each one of the hundred believes himself capable of being, if not sole dictator, at least of assisting very materially in the dictatorial government. the dictators would be those who, by one means or another, succeeded in imposing themselves on society. and, in course of time, all their energy would inevitably be employed in defending themselves against the attacks of their adversaries, totally oblivious of their desire, if ever they had had it, to be merely an educative power. should government be, on the other hand, elected by universal suffrage, and so be the emanation, more or less sincere, of the wish of the majority? but if you consider these worthy electors as incapable of providing for their own interests, how can they ever be capable of themselves choosing directors to guide them wisely? how solve this problem of social alchemy: to elect a government of geniuses by the votes of a mass of fools? and what will be the lot of the minority, who are the most intelligent, most active and most advanced in society? ---------- to solve the social problem to the advantage of all, there is only one way. to expel the government by revolutionary means, to expropriate the holders of social wealth, putting everything at the disposition of all, and to leave all existing force, capacity and good-will among men free to provide for the needs of all. we fight for anarchy and for socialism; because we believe that anarchy and socialism ought to be brought into operation as soon as possible. which means that the revolution must drive away the government, abolish private property, and entrust all public service, which will then embrace all social life, to the spontaneous, free, unofficial and unauthorized operation of all those interested and all those willing volunteers. there will certainly be difficulties and inconveniences; but the people will be resolute; and they alone can solve all difficulties anarchically, that is, by direct action of those interested and by free agreement. we cannot say whether anarchy and socialism will triumph after the next revolutionary attempt; but this is certain, that if any of the so-called transition programs triumph, it will be because we have been temporarily beaten, and never because we have thought it wise to leave in existence any one part of that evil system under which humanity groans. whatever happens, we shall have some influence on events, by our numbers, our energy, our intelligence and our steadfastness. also, even if we are now conquered, our work will not have been in vain; for the more decided we shall have been in aiming at the realization of all our demands, the less there will be of government and of private property in the new society. and we shall have done a great work; for human progress is measured by the degree in which government and private property are administered. if today we fall without lowering our colors, our cause is certain of victory tomorrow. -------------------- anarchism and other essays emma goldman with biographic sketch by hippolyte havel contents biographic sketch preface anarchism: what it really stands for minorities versus majorities the psychology of political violence prisons: a social crime and failure patriotism: a menace to liberty francisco ferrer and the modern school the hypocrisy of puritanism the traffic in women woman suffrage the tragedy of woman's emancipation marriage and love the drama: a powerful disseminator of radical thought emma goldman propagandism is not, as some suppose, a "trade," because nobody will follow a "trade" at which you may work with the industry of a slave and die with the reputation of a mendicant. the motives of any persons to pursue such a profession must be different from those of trade, deeper than pride, and stronger than interest. george jacob holyoake. among the men and women prominent in the public life of america there are but few whose names are mentioned as often as that of emma goldman. yet the real emma goldman is almost quite unknown. the sensational press has surrounded her name with so much misrepresentation and slander, it would seem almost a miracle that, in spite of this web of calumny, the truth breaks through and a better appreciation of this much maligned idealist begins to manifest itself. there is but little consolation in the fact that almost every representative of a new idea has had to struggle and suffer under similar difficulties. is it of any avail that a former president of a republic pays homage at osawatomie to the memory of john brown? or that the president of another republic participates in the unveiling of a statue in honor of pierre proudhon, and holds up his life to the french nation as a model worthy of enthusiastic emulation? of what avail is all this when, at the same time, the living john browns and proudhons are being crucified? the honor and glory of a mary wollstonecraft or of a louise michel are not enhanced by the city fathers of london or paris naming a street after them--the living generation should be concerned with doing justice to the living mary wollstonecrafts and louise michels. posterity assigns to men like wendel phillips and lloyd garrison the proper niche of honor in the temple of human emancipation; but it is the duty of their contemporaries to bring them due recognition and appreciation while they live. the path of the propagandist of social justice is strewn with thorns. the powers of darkness and injustice exert all their might lest a ray of sunshine enter his cheerless life. nay, even his comrades in the struggle--indeed, too often his most intimate friends--show but little understanding for the personality of the pioneer. envy, sometimes growing to hatred, vanity and jealousy, obstruct his way and fill his heart with sadness. it requires an inflexible will and tremendous enthusiasm not to lose, under such conditions, all faith in the cause. the representative of a revolutionizing idea stands between two fires: on the one hand, the persecution of the existing powers which hold him responsible for all acts resulting from social conditions; and, on the other, the lack of understanding on the part of his own followers who often judge all his activity from a narrow standpoint. thus it happens that the agitator stands quite alone in the midst of the multitude surrounding him. even his most intimate friends rarely understand how solitary and deserted he feels. that is the tragedy of the person prominent in the public eye. the mist in which the name of emma goldman has so long been enveloped is gradually beginning to dissipate. her energy in the furtherance of such an unpopular idea as anarchism, her deep earnestness, her courage and abilities, find growing understanding and admiration. the debt american intellectual growth owes to the revolutionary exiles has never been fully appreciated. the seed disseminated by them, though so little understood at the time, has brought a rich harvest. they have at all times held aloft the banner of liberty, thus impregnating the social vitality of the nation. but very few have succeeding in preserving their european education and culture while at the same time assimilating themselves with american life. it is difficult for the average man to form an adequate conception what strength, energy, and perseverance are necessary to absorb the unfamiliar language, habits, and customs of a new country, without the loss of one's own personality. emma goldman is one of the few who, while thoroughly preserving their individuality, have become an important factor in the social and intellectual atmosphere of america. the life she leads is rich in color, full of change and variety. she has risen to the topmost heights, and she has also tasted the bitter dregs of life. emma goldman was born of jewish parentage on the th day of june, , in the russian province of kovno. surely these parents never dreamed what unique position their child would some day occupy. like all conservative parents they, too, were quite convinced that their daughter would marry a respectable citizen, bear him children, and round out her allotted years surrounded by a flock of grandchildren, a good, religious woman. as most parents, they had no inkling what a strange, impassioned spirit would take hold of the soul of their child, and carry it to the heights which separate generations in eternal struggle. they lived in a land and at a time when antagonism between parent and offspring was fated to find its most acute expression, irreconcilable hostility. in this tremendous struggle between fathers and sons--and especially between parents and daughters--there was no compromise, no weak yielding, no truce. the spirit of liberty, of progress--an idealism which knew no considerations and recognized no obstacles--drove the young generation out of the parental house and away from the hearth of the home. just as this same spirit once drove out the revolutionary breeder of discontent, jesus, and alienated him from his native traditions. what role the jewish race--notwithstanding all anti-semitic calumnies the race of transcendental idealism--played in the struggle of the old and the new will probably never be appreciated with complete impartiality and clarity. only now are we beginning to perceive the tremendous debt we owe to jewish idealists in the realm of science, art, and literature. but very little is still known of the important part the sons and daughters of israel have played in the revolutionary movement and, especially, in that of modern times. the first years of her childhood emma goldman passed in a small, idyllic place in the german-russian province of kurland, where her father had charge of the government stage. at the time kurland was thoroughly german; even the russian bureaucracy of that baltic province was recruited mostly from german junkers. german fairy tales and stories, rich in the miraculous deeds of the heroic knights of kurland, wove their spell over the youthful mind. but the beautiful idyl was of short duration. soon the soul of the growing child was overcast by the dark shadows of life. already in her tenderest youth the seeds of rebellion and unrelenting hatred of oppression were to be planted in the heart of emma goldman. early she learned to know the beauty of the state: she saw her father harassed by the christian chinovniks and doubly persecuted as petty official and hated jew. the brutality of forced conscription ever stood before her eyes: she beheld the young men, often the sole supporter of a large family, brutally dragged to the barracks to lead the miserable life of a soldier. she heard the weeping of the poor peasant women, and witnessed the shameful scenes of official venality which relieved the rich from military service at the expense of the poor. she was outraged by the terrible treatment to which the female servants were subjected: maltreated and exploited by their barinyas, they fell to the tender mercies of the regimental officers, who regarded them as their natural sexual prey. the girls, made pregnant by respectable gentlemen and driven out by their mistresses, often found refuge in the goldman home. and the little girl, her heart palpitating with sympathy, would abstract coins from the parental drawer to clandestinely press the money into the hands of the unfortunate women. thus emma goldman's most striking characteristic, her sympathy with the underdog, already became manifest in these early years. at the age of seven little emma was sent by her parents to her grandmother at konigsberg, the city of emanuel kant, in eastern prussia. save for occasional interruptions, she remained there till her th birthday. the first years in these surroundings do not exactly belong to her happiest recollections. the grandmother, indeed, was very amiable, but the numerous aunts of the household were concerned more with the spirit of practical rather than pure reason, and the categoric imperative was applied all too frequently. the situation was changed when her parents migrated to konigsberg, and little emma was relieved from her role of cinderella. she now regularly attended public school and also enjoyed the advantages of private instruction, customary in middle class life; french and music lessons played an important part in the curriculum. the future interpreter of ibsen and shaw was then a little german gretchen, quite at home in the german atmosphere. her special predilections in literature were the sentimental romances of marlitt; she was a great admirer of the good queen louise, whom the bad napoleon buonaparte treated with so marked a lack of knightly chivalry. what might have been her future development had she remained in this milieu? fate--or was it economic necessity?--willed it otherwise. her parents decided to settle in st. petersburg, the capital of the almighty tsar, and there to embark in business. it was here that a great change took place in the life of the young dreamer. it was an eventful period--the year of --in which emma goldman, then in her th year, arrived in st. petersburg. a struggle for life and death between the autocracy and the russian intellectuals swept the country. alexander ii had fallen the previous year. sophia perovskaia, zheliabov, grinevitzky, rissakov, kibalchitch, michailov, the heroic executors of the death sentence upon the tyrant, had then entered the walhalla of immortality. jessie helfman, the only regicide whose life the government had reluctantly spared because of pregnancy, followed the unnumbered russian martyrs to the etapes of siberia. it was the most heroic period in the great battle of emancipation, a battle for freedom such as the world had never witnessed before. the names of the nihilist martyrs were on all lips, and thousands were enthusiastic to follow their example. the whole intelligenzia of russia was filled with the illegal spirit: revolutionary sentiments penetrated into every home, from mansion to hovel, impregnating the military, the chinovniks, factory workers, and peasants. the atmosphere pierced the very casemates of the royal palace. new ideas germinated in the youth. the difference of sex was forgotten. shoulder to shoulder fought the men and the women. the russian woman! who shall ever do justice or adequately portray her heroism and self-sacrifice, her loyalty and devotion? holy, turgeniev calls her in his great prose poem, on the threshold. it was inevitable that the young dreamer from konigsberg should be drawn into the maelstrom. to remain outside of the circle of free ideas meant a life of vegetation, of death. one need not wonder at the youthful age. young enthusiasts were not then--and, fortunately, are not now--a rare phenomenon in russia. the study of the russian language soon brought young emma goldman in touch with revolutionary students and new ideas. the place of marlitt was taken by nekrassov and tchernishevsky. the quondam admirer of the good queen louise became a glowing enthusiast of liberty, resolving, like thousands of others, to devote her life to the emancipation of the people. the struggle of generations now took place in the goldman family. the parents could not comprehend what interest their daughter could find in the new ideas, which they themselves considered fantastic utopias. they strove to persuade the young girl out of these chimeras, and daily repetition of soul-racking disputes was the result. only in one member of the family did the young idealist find understanding--in her elder sister, helene, with whom she later emigrated to america, and whose love and sympathy have never failed her. even in the darkest hours of later persecution emma goldman always found a haven of refuge in the home of this loyal sister. emma goldman finally resolved to achieve her independence. she saw hundreds of men and women sacrificing brilliant careers to go v narod, to the people. she followed their example. she became a factory worker; at first employed as a corset maker, and later in the manufacture of gloves. she was now years of age and proud to earn her own living. had she remained in russia, she would have probably sooner or later shared the fate of thousands buried in the snows of siberia. but a new chapter of life was to begin for her. sister helene decided to emigrate to america, where another sister had already made her home. emma prevailed upon helene to be allowed to join her, and together they departed for america, filled with the joyous hope of a great, free land, the glorious republic. america! what magic word. the yearning of the enslaved, the promised land of the oppressed, the goal of all longing for progress. here man's ideals had found their fulfillment: no tsar, no cossack, no chinovnik. the republic! glorious synonym of equality, freedom, brotherhood. thus thought the two girls as they travelled, in the year , from new york to rochester. soon, all too soon, disillusionment awaited them. the ideal conception of america was punctured already at castle garden, and soon burst like a soap bubble. here emma goldman witnessed sights which reminded her of the terrible scenes of her childhood in kurland. the brutality and humiliation the future citizens of the great republic were subjected to on board ship, were repeated at castle garden by the officials of the democracy in a more savage and aggravating manner. and what bitter disappointment followed as the young idealist began to familiarize herself with the conditions in the new land! instead of one tsar, she found scores of them; the cossack was replaced by the policeman with the heavy club, and instead of the russian chinovnik there was the far more inhuman slave-driver of the factory. emma goldman soon obtained work in the clothing establishment of the garson co. the wages amounted to two and a half dollars a week. at that time the factories were not provided with motor power, and the poor sewing girls had to drive the wheels by foot, from early morning till late at night. a terribly exhausting toil it was, without a ray of light, the drudgery of the long day passed in complete silence--the russian custom of friendly conversation at work was not permissible in the free country. but the exploitation of the girls was not only economic; the poor wage workers were looked upon by their foremen and bosses as sexual commodities. if a girl resented the advances of her "superiors", she would speedily find herself on the street as an undesirable element in the factory. there was never a lack of willing victims: the supply always exceeded the demand. the horrible conditions were made still more unbearable by the fearful dreariness of life in the small american city. the puritan spirit suppresses the slightest manifestation of joy; a deadly dullness beclouds the soul; no intellectual inspiration, no thought exchange between congenial spirits is possible. emma goldman almost suffocated in this atmosphere. she, above all others, longed for ideal surroundings, for friendship and understanding, for the companionship of kindred minds. mentally she still lived in russia. unfamiliar with the language and life of the country, she dwelt more in the past than in the present. it was at this period that she met a young man who spoke russian. with great joy the acquaintance was cultivated. at last a person with whom she could converse, one who could help her bridge the dullness of the narrow existence. the friendship gradually ripened and finally culminated in marriage. emma goldman, too, had to walk the sorrowful road of married life; she, too, had to learn from bitter experience that legal statutes signify dependence and self-effacement, especially for the woman. the marriage was no liberation from the puritan dreariness of american life; indeed, it was rather aggravated by the loss of self-ownership. the characters of the young people differed too widely. a separation soon followed, and emma goldman went to new haven, conn. there she found employment in a factory, and her husband disappeared from her horizon. two decades later she was fated to be unexpectedly reminded of him by the federal authorities. the revolutionists who were active in the russian movement of the 's were but little familiar with the social ideas then agitating western europe and america. their sole activity consisted in educating the people, their final goal the destruction of the autocracy. socialism and anarchism were terms hardly known even by name. emma goldman, too, was entirely unfamiliar with the significance of those ideals. she arrived in america, as four years previously in russia, at a period of great social and political unrest. the working people were in revolt against the terrible labor conditions; the eight-hour movement of the knights of labor was at its height, and throughout the country echoed the din of sanguine strife between strikers and police. the struggle culminated in the great strike against the harvester company of chicago, the massacre of the strikers, and the judicial murder of the labor leaders, which followed upon the historic haymarket bomb explosion. the anarchists stood the martyr test of blood baptism. the apologists of capitalism vainly seek to justify the killing of parsons, spies, lingg, fischer, and engel. since the publication of governor altgeld's reason for his liberation of the three incarcerated haymarket anarchists, no doubt is left that a fivefold legal murder had been committed in chicago, in . very few have grasped the significance of the chicago martyrdom; least of all the ruling classes. by the destruction of a number of labor leaders they thought to stem the tide of a world-inspiring idea. they failed to consider that from the blood of the martyrs grows the new seed, and that the frightful injustice will win new converts to the cause. the two most prominent representatives of the anarchist idea in america, voltairine de cleyre and emma goldman--the one a native american, the other a russian--have been converted, like numerous others, to the ideas of anarchism by the judicial murder. two women who had not known each other before, and who had received a widely different education, were through that murder united in one idea. like most working men and women of america, emma goldman followed the chicago trial with great anxiety and excitement. she, too, could not believe that the leaders of the proletariat would be killed. the th of november, , taught her differently. she realized that no mercy could be expected from the ruling class, that between the tsarism of russia and the plutocracy of america there was no difference save in name. her whole being rebelled against the crime, and she vowed to herself a solemn vow to join the ranks of the revolutionary proletariat and to devote all her energy and strength to their emancipation from wage slavery. with the glowing enthusiasm so characteristic of her nature, she now began to familiarize herself with the literature of socialism and anarchism. she attended public meetings and became acquainted with socialistically and anarchistically inclined workingmen. johanna greie, the well-known german lecturer, was the first socialist speaker heard by emma goldman. in new haven, conn., where she was employed in a corset factory, she met anarchists actively participating in the movement. here she read the freiheit, edited by john most. the haymarket tragedy developed her inherent anarchist tendencies: the reading of the freiheit made her a conscious anarchist. subsequently she was to learn that the idea of anarchism found its highest expression through the best intellects of america: theoretically by josiah warren, stephen pearl andrews, lysander spooner; philosophically by emerson, thoreau, and walt whitman. made ill by the excessive strain of factory work, emma goldman returned to rochester where she remained till august, , at which time she removed to new york, the scene of the most important phase of her life. she was now twenty years old. features pallid with suffering, eyes large and full of compassion, greet one in her pictured likeness of those days. her hair is, as customary with russian student girls, worn short, giving free play to the strong forehead. it is the heroic epoch of militant anarchism. by leaps and bounds the movement had grown in every country. in spite of the most severe governmental persecution new converts swell the ranks. the propaganda is almost exclusively of a secret character. the repressive measures of the government drive the disciples of the new philosophy to conspirative methods. thousands of victims fall into the hands of the authorities and languish in prisons. but nothing can stem the rising tide of enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice and devotion to the cause. the efforts of teachers like peter kropotkin, louise michel, elisee reclus, and others, inspire the devotees with ever greater energy. disruption is imminent with the socialists, who have sacrificed the idea of liberty and embraced the state and politics. the struggle is bitter, the factions irreconcilable. this struggle is not merely between anarchists and socialists; it also finds its echo within the anarchist groups. theoretic differences and personal controversies lead to strife and acrimonious enmities. the anti-socialist legislation of germany and austria had driven thousands of socialists and anarchists across the seas to seek refuge in america. john most, having lost his seat in the reichstag, finally had to flee his native land, and went to london. there, having advanced toward anarchism, he entirely withdrew from the social democratic party. later, coming to america, he continued the publication of the freiheit in new york, and developed great activity among the german workingmen. when emma goldman arrived in new york in , she experienced little difficulty in associating herself with active anarchists. anarchist meetings were an almost daily occurrence. the first lecturer she heard on the anarchist platform was dr. a. solotaroff. of great importance to her future development was her acquaintance with john most, who exerted a tremendous influence over the younger elements. his impassioned eloquence, untiring energy, and the persecution he had endured for the cause, all combined to enthuse the comrades. it was also at this period that she met alexander berkman, whose friendship played an important part throughout her life. her talents as a speaker could not long remain in obscurity. the fire of enthusiasm swept her toward the public platform. encouraged by her friends, she began to participate as a german and yiddish speaker at anarchist meetings. soon followed a brief tour of agitation taking her as far as cleveland. with the whole strength and earnestness of her soul she now threw herself into the propaganda of anarchist ideas. the passionate period of her life had begun. through constantly toiling in sweat shops, the fiery young orator was at the same time very active as an agitator and participated in various labor struggles, notably in the great cloakmakers' strike, in , led by professor garsyde and joseph barondess. a year later emma goldman was a delegate to an anarchist conference in new york. she was elected to the executive committee, but later withdrew because of differences of opinion regarding tactical matters. the ideas of the german-speaking anarchists had at that time not yet become clarified. some still believed in parliamentary methods, the great majority being adherents of strong centralism. these differences of opinion in regard to tactics led in to a breach with john most. emma goldman, alexander berkman, and other comrades joined the group autonomy, in which joseph peukert, otto rinke, and claus timmermann played an active part. the bitter controversies which followed this secession terminated only with the death of most, in . a great source of inspiration to emma goldman proved the russian revolutionists who were associated in the group znamya. goldenberg, solotaroff, zametkin, miller, cahan, the poet edelstadt, ivan von schewitsch, husband of helene von racowitza and editor of the volkszeitung, and numerous other russian exiles, some of whom are still living, were members of this group. it was also at this time that emma goldman met robert reitzel, the german-american heine, who exerted a great influence on her development. through him she became acquainted with the best writers of modern literature, and the friendship thus begun lasted till reitzel's death, in . the labor movement of america had not been drowned in the chicago massacre; the murder of the anarchists had failed to bring peace to the profit-greedy capitalist. the struggle for the eight-hour day continued. in broke out the great strike in pittsburg. the homestead fight, the defeat of the pinkertons, the appearance of the militia, the suppression of the strikers, and the complete triumph of the reaction are matters of comparatively recent history. stirred to the very depths by the terrible events at the seat of war, alexander berkman resolved to sacrifice his life to the cause and thus give an object lesson to the wage slaves of america of active anarchist solidarity with labor. his attack upon frick, the gessler of pittsburg, failed, and the twenty-two-year-old youth was doomed to a living death of twenty-two years in the penitentiary. the bourgeoisie, which for decades had exalted and eulogized tyrannicide, now was filled with terrible rage. the capitalist press organized a systematic campaign of calumny and misrepresentation against anarchists. the police exerted every effort to involve emma goldman in the act of alexander berkman. the feared agitator was to be silenced by all means. it was only due to the circumstance of her presence in new york that she escaped the clutches of the law. it was a similar circumstance which, nine years later, during the mckinley incident, was instrumental in preserving her liberty. it is almost incredible with what amount of stupidity, baseness, and vileness the journalists of the period sought to overwhelm the anarchist. one must peruse the newspaper files to realize the enormity of incrimination and slander. it would be difficult to portray the agony of soul emma goldman experienced in those days. the persecutions of the capitalist press were to be borne by an anarchist with comparative equanimity; but the attacks from one's own ranks were far more painful and unbearable. the act of berkman was severely criticized by most and some of his followers among the german and jewish anarchists. bitter accusations and recriminations at public meetings and private gatherings followed. persecuted on all sides, both because she championed berkman and his act, and on account of her revolutionary activity, emma goldman was harassed even to the extent of inability to secure shelter. too proud to seek safety in the denial of her identity, she chose to pass the nights in the public parks rather than expose her friends to danger or vexation by her visits. the already bitter cup was filled to overflowing by the attempted suicide of a young comrade who had shared living quarters with emma goldman, alexander berkman, and a mutual artist friend. many changes have since taken place. alexander berkman has survived the pennsylvania inferno, and is back again in the ranks of the militant anarchists, his spirit unbroken, his soul full of enthusiasm for the ideals of his youth. the artist comrade is now among the well-known illustrators of new york. the suicide candidate left america shortly after his unfortunate attempt to die, and was subsequently arrested and condemned to eight years of hard labor for smuggling anarchist literature into germany. he, too, has withstood the terrors of prison life, and has returned to the revolutionary movement, since earning the well deserved reputation of a talented writer in germany. to avoid indefinite camping in the parks emma goldman finally was forced to move into a house on third street, occupied exclusively by prostitutes. there, among the outcasts of our good christian society, she could at least rent a bit of a room, and find rest and work at her sewing machine. the women of the street showed more refinement of feeling and sincere sympathy than the priests of the church. but human endurance had been exhausted by overmuch suffering and privation. there was a complete physical breakdown, and the renowned agitator was removed to the "bohemian republic"--a large tenement house which derived its euphonious appellation from the fact that its occupants were mostly bohemian anarchists. here emma goldman found friends ready to aid her. justus schwab, one of the finest representatives of the german revolutionary period of that time, and dr. solotaroff were indefatigable in the care of the patient. here, too, she met edward brady, the new friendship subsequently ripening into close intimacy. brady had been an active participant in the revolutionary movement of austria and had, at the time of his acquaintance with emma goldman, lately been released from an austrian prison after an incarceration of ten years. physicians diagnosed the illness as consumption, and the patient was advised to leave new york. she went to rochester, in the hope that the home circle would help restore her to health. her parents had several years previously emigrated to america, settling in that city. among the leading traits of the jewish race is the strong attachment between the members of the family, and, especially, between parents and children. though her conservative parents could not sympathize with the idealist aspirations of emma goldman and did not approve of her mode of life, they now received their sick daughter with open arms. the rest and care enjoyed in the parental home, and the cheering presence of the beloved sister helene, proved so beneficial that within a short time she was sufficiently restored to resume her energetic activity. there is no rest in the life of emma goldman. ceaseless effort and continuous striving toward the conceived goal are the essentials of her nature. too much precious time had already been wasted. it was imperative to resume her labors immediately. the country was in the throes of a crisis, and thousands of unemployed crowded the streets of the large industrial centers. cold and hungry they tramped through the land in the vain search for work and bread. the anarchists developed a strenuous propaganda among the unemployed and the strikers. a monster demonstration of striking cloakmakers and of the unemployed took place at union square, new york. emma goldman was one of the invited speakers. she delivered an impassioned speech, picturing in fiery words the misery of the wage slave's life, and quoted the famous maxim of cardinal manning: "necessity knows no law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread." she concluded her exhortation with the words: "ask for work. if they do not give you work, ask for bread. if they do not give you work or bread, then take bread." the following day she left for philadelphia, where she was to address a public meeting. the capitalist press again raised the alarm. if socialists and anarchists were to be permitted to continue agitating, there was imminent danger that the workingmen would soon learn to understand the manner in which they are robbed of the joy and happiness of life. such a possibility was to be prevented at all cost. the chief of police of new york, byrnes, procured a court order for the arrest of emma goldman. she was detained by the philadelphia authorities and incarcerated for several days in the moyamensing prison, awaiting the extradition papers which byrnes intrusted to detective jacobs. this man jacobs (whom emma goldman again met several years later under very unpleasant circumstances) proposed to her, while she was returning a prisoner to new york, to betray the cause of labor. in the name of his superior, chief byrnes, he offered lucrative reward. how stupid men sometimes are! what poverty of psychologic observation to imagine the possibility of betrayal on the part of a young russian idealist, who had willingly sacrificed all personal considerations to help in labor's emancipation. in october, , emma goldman was tried in the criminal courts of new york on the charge of inciting to riot. the "intelligent" jury ignored the testimony of the twelve witnesses for the defense in favor of the evidence given by one single man--detective jacobs. she was found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in the penitentiary at blackwell's island. since the foundation of the republic she was the first woman--mrs. surratt excepted--to be imprisoned for a political offense. respectable society had long before stamped upon her the scarlet letter. emma goldman passed her time in the penitentiary in the capacity of nurse in the prison hospital. here she found opportunity to shed some rays of kindness into the dark lives of the unfortunates whose sisters of the street did not disdain two years previously to share with her the same house. she also found in prison opportunity to study english and its literature, and to familiarize herself with the great american writers. in bret harte, mark twain, walt whitman, thoreau, and emerson she found great treasures. she left blackwell's island in the month of august, , a woman of twenty-five, developed and matured, and intellectually transformed. back into the arena, richer in experience, purified by suffering. she did not feel herself deserted and alone any more. many hands were stretched out to welcome her. there were at the time numerous intellectual oases in new york. the saloon of justus schwab, at number fifty, first street, was the center where gathered anarchists, litterateurs, and bohemians. among others she also met at this time a number of american anarchists, and formed the friendship of voltairine de cleyre, wm. c. owen, miss van etton, and dyer d. lum, former editor of the alarm and executor of the last wishes of the chicago martyrs. in john swinton, the noble old fighter for liberty, she found one of her staunchest friends. other intellectual centers there were: solidarity, published by john edelman; liberty, by the individualist anarchist, benjamin r. tucker; the rebel, by harry kelly; der sturmvogel, a german anarchist publication, edited by claus timmermann; der arme teufel, whose presiding genius was the inimitable robert reitzel. through arthur brisbane, now chief lieutenant of william randolph hearst, she became acquainted with the writings of fourier. brisbane then was not yet submerged in the swamp of political corruption. he sent emma goldman an amiable letter to blackwell's island, together with the biography of his father, the enthusiastic american disciple of fourier. emma goldman became, upon her release from the penitentiary, a factor in the public life of new york. she was appreciated in radical ranks for her devotion, her idealism, and earnestness. various persons sought her friendship, and some tried to persuade her to aid in the furtherance of their special side issues. thus rev. parkhurst, during the lexow investigation, did his utmost to induce her to join the vigilance committee in order to fight tammany hall. maria louise, the moving spirit of a social center, acted as parkhurst's go-between. it is hardly necessary to mention what reply the latter received from emma goldman. incidentally, maria louise subsequently became a mahatma. during the free silver campaign, ex-burgess mcluckie, one of the most genuine personalities in the homestead strike, visited new york in an endeavor to enthuse the local radicals for free silver. he also attempted to interest emma goldman, but with no greater success than mahatma maria louise of parkhurst-lexow fame. in the struggle of the anarchists in france reached its highest expression. the white terror on the part of the republican upstarts was answered by the red terror of our french comrades. with feverish anxiety the anarchists throughout the world followed this social struggle. propaganda by deed found its reverberating echo in almost all countries. in order to better familiarize herself with conditions in the old world, emma goldman left for europe, in the year . after a lecture tour in england and scotland, she went to vienna where she entered the allgemeine krankenhaus to prepare herself as midwife and nurse, and where at the same time she studied social conditions. she also found opportunity to acquaint herself with the newest literature of europe: hauptmann, nietzsche, ibsen, zola, thomas hardy, and other artist rebels were read with great enthusiasm. in the autumn of she returned to new york by way of zurich and paris. the project of alexander berkman's liberation was on hand. the barbaric sentence of twenty-two years had roused tremendous indignation among the radical elements. it was known that the pardon board of pennsylvania would look to carnegie and frick for advice in the case of alexander berkman. it was therefore suggested that these sultans of pennsylvania be approached--not with a view of obtaining their grace, but with the request that they do not attempt to influence the board. ernest crosby offered to see carnegie, on condition that alexander berkman repudiate his act. that, however, was absolutely out of the question. he would never be guilty of such forswearing of his own personality and self-respect. these efforts led to friendly relations between emma goldman and the circle of ernest crosby, bolton hall, and leonard abbott. in the year she undertook her first great lecture tour, which extended as far as california. this tour popularized her name as the representative of the oppressed, her eloquence ringing from coast to coast. in california emma goldman became friendly with the members of the isaak family, and learned to appreciate their efforts for the cause. under tremendous obstacles the isaaks first published the firebrand and, upon its suppression by the postal department, the free society. it was also during this tour that emma goldman met that grand old rebel of sexual freedom, moses harman. during the spanish-american war the spirit of chauvinism was at its highest tide. to check this dangerous situation, and at the same time collect funds for the revolutionary cubans, emma goldman became affiliated with the latin comrades, among others with gori, esteve, palaviccini, merlino, petruccini, and ferrara. in the year followed another protracted tour of agitation, terminating on the pacific coast. repeated arrests and accusations, though without ultimate bad results, marked every propaganda tour. in november of the same year the untiring agitator went on a second lecture tour to england and scotland, closing her journey with the first international anarchist congress at paris. it was at the time of the boer war, and again jingoism was at its height, as two years previously it had celebrated its orgies during the spanish-american war. various meetings, both in england and scotland, were disturbed and broken up by patriotic mobs. emma goldman found on this occasion the opportunity of again meeting various english comrades and interesting personalities like tom mann and the sisters rossetti, the gifted daughters of dante gabriel rossetti, then publishers of the anarchist review, the torch. one of her life-long hopes found here its fulfillment: she came in close and friendly touch with peter kropotkin, enrico malatesta, nicholas tchaikovsky, w. tcherkessov, and louise michel. old warriors in the cause of humanity, whose deeds have enthused thousands of followers throughout the world, and whose life and work have inspired other thousands with noble idealism and self-sacrifice. old warriors they, yet ever young with the courage of earlier days, unbroken in spirit and filled with the firm hope of the final triumph of anarchy. the chasm in the revolutionary labor movement, which resulted from the disruption of the internationale, could not be bridged any more. two social philosophies were engaged in bitter combat. the international congress in , at paris; in , at zurich, and in , at london, produced irreconcilable differences. the majority of social democrats, forswearing their libertarian past and becoming politicians, succeeded in excluding the revolutionary and anarchist delegates. the latter decided thenceforth to hold separate congresses. their first congress was to take place in , at paris. the socialist renegade, millerand, who had climbed into the ministry of the interior, here played a judas role. the congress of the revolutionists was suppressed, and the delegates dispersed two days prior to their scheduled opening. but millerand had no objections against the social democratic congress, which was afterwards opened with all the trumpets of the advertiser's art. however, the renegade did not accomplish his object. a number of delegates succeeded in holding a secret conference in the house of a comrade outside of paris, where various points of theory and tactics were discussed. emma goldman took considerable part in these proceedings, and on that occasion came in contact with numerous representatives of the anarchist movement of europe. owing to the suppression of the congress, the delegates were in danger of being expelled from france. at this time also came the bad news from america regarding another unsuccessful attempt to liberate alexander berkman, proving a great shock to emma goldman. in november, , she returned to america to devote herself to her profession of nurse, at the same time taking an active part in the american propaganda. among other activities she organized monster meetings of protest against the terrible outrages of the spanish government, perpetrated upon the political prisoners tortured in montjuich. in her vocation as nurse emma goldman enjoyed many opportunities of meeting the most unusual and peculiar characters. few would have identified the "notorious anarchist" in the small blonde woman, simply attired in the uniform of a nurse. soon after her return from europe she became acquainted with a patient by the name of mrs. stander, a morphine fiend, suffering excruciating agonies. she required careful attention to enable her to supervise a very important business she conducted,--that of mrs. warren. in third street, near third avenue, was situated her private residence, and near it, connected by a separate entrance, was her place of business. one evening, the nurse, upon entering the room of her patient, suddenly came face to face with a male visitor, bull-necked and of brutal appearance. the man was no other than mr. jacobs, the detective who seven years previously had brought emma goldman a prisoner from philadelphia and who had attempted to persuade her, on their way to new york, to betray the cause of the workingmen. it would be difficult to describe the expression of bewilderment on the countenance of the man as he so unexpectedly faced emma goldman, the nurse of his mistress. the brute was suddenly transformed into a gentleman, exerting himself to excuse his shameful behavior on the previous occasion. jacobs was the "protector" of mrs. stander, and go-between for the house and the police. several years later, as one of the detective staff of district attorney jerome, he committed perjury, was convicted, and sent to sing sing for a year. he is now probably employed by some private detective agency, a desirable pillar of respectable society. in peter kropotkin was invited by the lowell institute of massachusetts to deliver a series of lectures on russian literature. it was his second american tour, and naturally the comrades were anxious to use his presence for the benefit of the movement. emma goldman entered into correspondence with kropotkin and succeeded in securing his consent to arrange for him a series of lectures. she also devoted her energies to organizing the tours of other well known anarchists, principally those of charles w. mowbray and john turner. similarly she always took part in all the activities of the movement, ever ready to give her time, ability, and energy to the cause. on the sixth of september, , president mckinley was shot by leon czolgosz at buffalo. immediately an unprecedented campaign of persecution was set in motion against emma goldman as the best known anarchist in the country. although there was absolutely no foundation for the accusation, she, together with other prominent anarchists, was arrested in chicago, kept in confinement for several weeks, and subjected to severest cross-examination. never before in the history of the country had such a terrible man-hunt taken place against a person in public life. but the efforts of police and press to connect emma goldman with czolgosz proved futile. yet the episode left her wounded to the heart. the physical suffering, the humiliation and brutality at the hands of the police she could bear. the depression of soul was far worse. she was overwhelmed by realization of the stupidity, lack of understanding, and vileness which characterized the events of those terrible days. the attitude of misunderstanding on the part of the majority of her own comrades toward czolgosz almost drove her to desperation. stirred to the very inmost of her soul, she published an article on czolgosz in which she tried to explain the deed in its social and individual aspects. as once before, after berkman's act, she now also was unable to find quarters; like a veritable wild animal she was driven from place to place. this terrible persecution and, especially, the attitude of her comrades made it impossible for her to continue propaganda. the soreness of body and soul had first to heal. during - she did not resume the platform. as "miss smith" she lived a quiet life, practicing her profession and devoting her leisure to the study of literature and, particularly, to the modern drama, which she considers one of the greatest disseminators of radical ideas and enlightened feeling. yet one thing the persecution of emma goldman accomplished. her name was brought before the public with greater frequency and emphasis than ever before, the malicious harassing of the much maligned agitator arousing strong sympathy in many circles. persons in various walks of life began to get interested in her struggle and her ideas. a better understanding and appreciation were now beginning to manifest themselves. the arrival in america of the english anarchist, john turner, induced emma goldman to leave her retirement. again she threw herself into her public activities, organizing an energetic movement for the defense of turner, whom the immigration authorities condemned to deportation on account of the anarchist exclusion law, passed after the death of mckinley. when paul orleneff and mme. nazimova arrived in new york to acquaint the american public with russian dramatic art, emma goldman became the manager of the undertaking. by much patience and perseverance she succeeded in raising the necessary funds to introduce the russian artists to the theater-goers of new york and chicago. though financially not a success, the venture proved of great artistic value. as manager of the russian theater emma goldman enjoyed some unique experiences. m. orleneff could converse only in russian, and "miss smith" was forced to act as his interpreter at various polite functions. most of the aristocratic ladies of fifth avenue had not the least inkling that the amiable manager who so entertainingly discussed philosophy, drama, and literature at their five o'clock teas, was the "notorious" emma goldman. if the latter should some day write her autobiography, she will no doubt have many interesting anecdotes to relate in connection with these experiences. the weekly anarchist publication, free society, issued by the isaak family, was forced to suspend in consequence of the nation-wide fury that swept the country after the death of mckinley. to fill out the gap emma goldman, in co-operation with max baginski and other comrades, decided to publish a monthly magazine devoted to the furtherance of anarchist ideas in life and literature. the first issue of mother earth appeared in the month of march, , the initial expenses of the periodical partly covered by the proceeds of a theater benefit given by orleneff, mme. nazimova, and their company, in favor of the anarchist magazine. under tremendous difficulties and obstacles the tireless propagandist has succeeded in continuing mother earth uninterruptedly since --an achievement rarely equalled in the annals of radical publications. in may, , alexander berkman at last left the hell of pennsylvania, where he had passed the best fourteen years of his life. no one had believed in the possibility of his survival. his liberation terminated a nightmare of fourteen years for emma goldman, and an important chapter of her career was thus concluded. nowhere had the birth of the russian revolution aroused such vital and active response as among the russians living in america. the heroes of the revolutionary movement in russia, tchaikovsky, mme. breshkovskaia, gershuni, and others visited these shores to waken the sympathies of the american people toward the struggle for liberty, and to collect aid for its continuance and support. the success of these efforts was to a considerable extent due to the exertions, eloquence, and the talent for organization on the part of emma goldman. this opportunity enabled her to give valuable services to the struggle for liberty in her native land. it is not generally known that it is the anarchists who are mainly instrumental in insuring the success, moral as well as financial, of most of the radical undertakings. the anarchist is indifferent to acknowledged appreciation; the needs of the cause absorb his whole interest, and to these he devotes his energy and abilities. yet it may be mentioned that some otherwise decent folks, though at all times anxious for anarchist support and co-operation, are ever willing to monopolize all the credit for the work done. during the last several decades it was chiefly the anarchists who had organized all the great revolutionary efforts, and aided in every struggle for liberty. but for fear of shocking the respectable mob, who looks upon the anarchists as the apostles of satan, and because of their social position in bourgeois society, the would-be radicals ignore the activity of the anarchists. in emma goldman participated as delegate to the second anarchist congress, at amsterdam. she was intensely active in all its proceedings and supported the organization of the anarchist internationale. together with the other american delegate, max baginski, she submitted to the congress an exhaustive report of american conditions, closing with the following characteristic remarks: "the charge that anarchism is destructive, rather than constructive, and that, therefore, anarchism is opposed to organization, is one of the many falsehoods spread by our opponents. they confound our present social institutions with organization; hence they fail to understand how we can oppose the former, and yet favor the latter. the fact, however, is that the two are not identical. "the state is commonly regarded as the highest form of organization. but is it in reality a true organization? is it not rather an arbitrary institution, cunningly imposed upon the masses? "industry, too, is called an organization; yet nothing is farther from the truth. industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against the poor. "we are asked to believe that the army is an organization, but a close investigation will show that it is nothing else than a cruel instrument of blind force. "the public school! the colleges and other institutions of learning, are they not models of organization, offering the people fine opportunities for instruction? far from it. the school, more than any other institution, is a veritable barrack, where the human mind is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation and oppression. "organization, as we understand it, however, is a different thing. it is based, primarily, on freedom. it is a natural and voluntary grouping of energies to secure results beneficial to humanity. "it is the harmony of organic growth which produces variety of color and form, the complete whole we admire in the flower. analogously will the organized activity of free human beings, imbued with the spirit of solidarity, result in the perfection of social harmony, which we call anarchism. in fact, anarchism alone makes non-authoritarian organization of common interests possible, since it abolishes the existing antagonism between individuals and classes. "under present conditions the antagonism of economic and social interests results in relentless war among the social units, and creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a co-operative commonwealth. "there is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of individuality. in reality, however, the true function of organization is to aid the development and growth of personality. "just as the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his highest form of development. "an organization, in the true sense, cannot result from the combination of mere nonentities. it must be composed of self-conscious, intelligent individualities. indeed, the total of the possibilities and activities of an organization is represented in the expression of individual energies. "it therefore logically follows that the greater the number of strong, self-conscious personalities in an organization, the less danger of stagnation, and the more intense its life element. "anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,--the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. in short, anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all. "the germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on the part of its members." the very considerable progress of anarchist ideas in america can best be gauged by the remarkable success of the three extensive lecture tours of emma goldman since the amsterdam congress of . each tour extended over new territory, including localities where anarchism had never before received a hearing. but the most gratifying aspect of her untiring efforts is the tremendous sale of anarchist literature, whose propagandist effect cannot be estimated. it was during one of these tours that a remarkable incident happened, strikingly demonstrating the inspiring potentialities of the anarchist idea. in san francisco, in , emma goldman's lecture attracted a soldier of the united states army, william buwalda. for daring to attend an anarchist meeting, the free republic court-martialed buwalda and imprisoned him for one year. thanks to the regenerating power of the new philosophy, the government lost a soldier, but the cause of liberty gained a man. a propagandist of emma goldman's importance is necessarily a sharp thorn to the reaction. she is looked upon as a danger to the continued existence of authoritarian usurpation. no wonder, then, that the enemy resorts to any and all means to make her impossible. a systematic attempt to suppress her activities was organized a year ago by the united police force of the country. but like all previous similar attempts, it failed in a most brilliant manner. energetic protests on the part of the intellectual element of america succeeded in overthrowing the dastardly conspiracy against free speech. another attempt to make emma goldman impossible was essayed by the federal authorities at washington. in order to deprive her of the rights of citizenship, the government revoked the citizenship papers of her husband, whom she had married at the youthful age of eighteen, and whose whereabouts, if he be alive, could not be determined for the last two decades. the great government of the glorious united states did not hesitate to stoop to the most despicable methods to accomplish that achievement. but as her citizenship had never proved of use to emma goldman, she can bear the loss with a light heart. there are personalities who possess such a powerful individuality that by its very force they exert the most potent influence over the best representatives of their time. michael bakunin was such a personality. but for him, richard wagner had never written die kunst und die revolution. emma goldman is a similar personality. she is a strong factor in the socio-political life of america. by virtue of her eloquence, energy, and brilliant mentality, she moulds the minds and hearts of thousands of her auditors. deep sympathy and compassion for suffering humanity, and an inexorable honesty toward herself, are the leading traits of emma goldman. no person, whether friend or foe, shall presume to control her goal or dictate her mode of life. she would perish rather than sacrifice her convictions, or the right of self-ownership of soul and body. respectability could easily forgive the teaching of theoretic anarchism; but emma goldman does not merely preach the new philosophy; she also persists in living it,--and that is the one supreme, unforgivable crime. were she, like so many radicals, to consider her ideal as merely an intellectual ornament; were she to make concessions to existing society and compromise with old prejudices,--then even the most radical views could be pardoned in her. but that she takes her radicalism seriously; that it has permeated her blood and marrow to the extent where she not merely teaches but also practices her convictions--this shocks even the radical mrs. grundy. emma goldman lives her own life; she associates with publicans--hence the indignation of the pharisees and sadducees. it is no mere coincidence that such divergent writers as pietro gori and william marion reedy find similar traits in their characterization of emma goldman. in a contribution to la questione sociale, pietro gori calls her a "moral power, a woman who, with the vision of a sibyl, prophesies the coming of a new kingdom for the oppressed; a woman who, with logic and deep earnestness, analyses the ills of society, and portrays, with artist touch, the coming dawn of humanity, founded on equality, brotherhood, and liberty." william reedy sees in emma goldman the "daughter of the dream, her gospel a vision which is the vision of every truly great-souled man and woman who has ever lived." cowards who fear the consequences of their deeds have coined the word of philosophic anarchism. emma goldman is too sincere, too defiant, to seek safety behind such paltry pleas. she is an anarchist, pure and simple. she represents the idea of anarchism as framed by josiah warrn, proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tolstoy. yet she also understands the psychologic causes which induce a caserio, a vaillant, a bresci, a berkman, or a czolgosz to commit deeds of violence. to the soldier in the social struggle it is a point of honor to come in conflict with the powers of darkness and tyranny, and emma goldman is proud to count among her best friends and comrades men and women who bear the wounds and scars received in battle. in the words of voltairine de cleyre, characterizing emma goldman after the latter's imprisonment in : the spirit that animates emma goldman is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny--the spirit which is willing to dare and suffer. hippolyte havel. new york, december, . preface some twenty-one years ago i heard the first great anarchist speaker--the inimitable john most. it seemed to me then, and for many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased from the human mind and soul. how could any one of all the multitudes who flocked to most's meetings escape his prophetic voice! surely they had but to hear him to throw off their old beliefs, and see the truth and beauty of anarchism! my one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of john most,--that i, too, might thus reach the masses. oh, for the naivety of youth's enthusiasm! it is the time when the hardest thing seems but child's play. it is the only period in life worth while. alas! this period is but of short duration. like spring, the sturm und drang period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of resistance against a thousand vicissitudes. my great faith in the wonder worker, the spoken word, is no more. i have realized its inadequacy to awaken thought, or even emotion. gradually, and with no small struggle against this realization, i came to see that oral propaganda is at best but a means of shaking people from their lethargy: it leaves no lasting impression. the very fact that most people attend meetings only if aroused by newspaper sensations, or because they expect to be amused, is proof that they really have no inner urge to learn. it is altogether different with the written mode of human expression. no one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother with serious books. that leads me to another discovery made after many years of public activity. it is this: all claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves. already this truth is recognized by most modern educators in relation to the immature mind. i think it is equally true regarding the adult. anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than musicians. all that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought. whether something vital will develop depends largely on the fertility of the human soil, though the quality of the intellectual seed must not be overlooked. in meetings the audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials. the speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness of the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike root. in all probability he will not even do justice to himself. the relation between the writer and the reader is more intimate. true, books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read into them. that we can do so demonstrates the importance of written as against oral expression. it is this certainty which has induced me to gather in one volume my ideas on various topics of individual and social importance. they represent the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years,--the conclusions derived after many changes and inner revisions. i am not sanguine enough to hope that my readers will be as numerous as those who have heard me. but i prefer to reach the few who really want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused. as to the book, it must speak for itself. explanatory remarks do but detract from the ideas set forth. however, i wish to forestall two objections which will undoubtedly be raised. one is in reference to the essay on anarchism; the other, on minorities versus majorities. "why do you not say how things will be operated under anarchism?" is a question i have had to meet thousands of times. because i believe that anarchism can not consistently impose an iron-clad program or method on the future. the things every new generation has to fight, and which it can least overcome, are the burdens of the past, which holds us all as in a net. anarchism, at least as i understand it, leaves posterity free to develop its own particular systems, in harmony with its needs. our most vivid imagination can not foresee the potentialities of a race set free from external restraints. how, then, can any one assume to map out a line of conduct for those to come? we, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must guard against the tendency to fetter the future. if we succeed in clearing the soil from the rubbish of the past and present, we will leave to posterity the greatest and safest heritage of all ages. the most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or personality. friedrich nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a hater of the weak because he believed in the uebermensch. it does not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of the uebermensch also called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves. it is the same narrow attitude which sees in max stirner naught but the apostle of the theory "each for himself, the devil take the hind one." that stirner's individualism contains the greatest social possibilities is utterly ignored. yet, it is nevertheless true that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society. these examples bring me to the objection that will be raised to minorities versus majorities. no doubt, i shall be excommunicated as an enemy of the people, because i repudiate the mass as a creative factor. i shall prefer that rather than be guilty of the demagogic platitudes so commonly in vogue as a bait for the people. i realize the malady of the oppressed and disinherited masses only too well, but i refuse to prescribe the usual ridiculous palliatives which allow the patient neither to die nor to recover. one cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; besides, the extreme thing is generally the true thing. my lack of faith in the majority is dictated by my faith in the potentialities of the individual. only when the latter becomes free to choose his associates for a common purpose, can we hope for order and harmony out of this world of chaos and inequality. for the rest, my book must speak for itself. emma goldman anarchism: what it really stands for anarchy. 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, o word, so clear, so strong, so pure, thou 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! wherefore i will not rule, and also ruled i will not be! john henry mackay. the history of human growth and development is at the same time the history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn. in its tenacious hold on tradition, the old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means to stay the advent of the new, in whatever form or period the latter may have asserted itself. nor need we retrace our steps into the distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea. the rack, the thumbscrew, and the knout are still with us; so are the convict's garb and the social wrath, all conspiring against the spirit that is serenely marching on. anarchism could not hope to escape the fate of all other ideas of innovation. indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising innovator, anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and venom of the world it aims to reconstruct. to deal even remotely with all that is being said and done against anarchism would necessitate the writing of a whole volume. i shall therefore meet only two of the principal objections. in so doing, i shall attempt to elucidate what anarchism really stands for. the strange phenomenon of the opposition to anarchism is that it brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and ignorance. and yet this is not so very strange when we consider the relativity of all things. the ignorant mass has in its favor that it makes no pretense of knowledge or tolerance. acting, as it always does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a child. "why?" "because." yet the opposition of the uneducated to anarchism deserves the same consideration as that of the intelligent man. what, then, are the objections? first, anarchism is impractical, though a beautiful ideal. second, anarchism stands for violence and destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous. both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false interpretation. a practical scheme, says oscar wilde, is either one already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. the true criterion of the practical, therefore, is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish; rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the stagnant waters of the old, and build, as well as sustain, new life. in the light of this conception, anarchism is indeed practical. more than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and foolish; more than any other idea, it is building and sustaining new life. the emotions of the ignorant man are continuously kept at a pitch by the most blood-curdling stories about anarchism. not a thing too outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents. therefore anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing everything; in short, destruction and violence. destruction and violence! how is the ordinary man to know that the most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of destruction is the very thing anarchism is combating? nor is he aware that anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that feed on the life's essence of society. it is merely clearing the soil from weeds and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy fruit. someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. the widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society, proves this to be only too true. rather than to go to the bottom of any given idea, to examine into its origin and meaning, most people will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial or prejudicial definition of non-essentials. anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not taxed too much, i also shall begin with a definition, and then elaborate on the latter. anarchism:--the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary. the new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis of life; but while all anarchists agree that the main evil today is an economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be brought about only through the consideration of every phase of life,--individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well as the external phases. a thorough perusal of the history of human development will disclose two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that are only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other, but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper environment: the individual and social instincts. the individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of the other. the individual and social instincts,--the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being. the explanation of the storm raging within the individual, and between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. the primitive man, unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life, felt himself absolutely dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready to mock and taunt him. out of that attitude grew the religious concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers on high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. all the early sagas rest on that idea, which continues to be the leit-motif of the biblical tales dealing with the relation of man to god, to the state, to society. again and again the same motif, man is nothing, the powers are everything. thus jehovah would only endure man on condition of complete surrender. man can have all the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of himself. the state, society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: man can have all the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of himself. anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that god, the state, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man. there is no conflict between the individual and the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and strong. the individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence--that is, the individual--pure and strong. "the one thing of value in the world," says emerson, "is the active soul; this every man contains within him. the soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth and creates." in other words, the individual instinct is the thing of value in the world. it is the true soul that sees and creates the truth alive, out of which is to come a still greater truth, the re-born social soul. anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. to accomplish that unity, anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social instincts, the individual and society. religion, the dominion of the human mind; property, the dominion of human needs; and government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. religion! how it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. god is everything, man is nothing, says religion. but out of that nothing god has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. break your mental fetters, says anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress. property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to satisfy his needs. time was when property claimed a divine right, when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "sacrifice! abnegate! submit!" the spirit of anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. he now stands erect, with his face toward the light. he has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead. "property is robbery," said the great french anarchist, proudhon. yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. the a b c student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. but what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? the only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. america is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. poor america, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? if they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey. it is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. but those engaged in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this simple lesson. every year the cost of production in human life is growing larger ( , killed, , wounded in america last year); the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting smaller. yet america continues to be blind to the inevitable bankruptcy of our business of production. nor is this the only crime of the latter. still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron. man is being robbed not merely of the products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is making. real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in. but if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no talk of wealth. what he gives to the world is only gray and hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too weak to live, too cowardly to die. strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening method of centralized production as the proudest achievement of our age. they fail utterly to realize that if we are to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete than was our bondage to the king. they do not want to know that centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere. anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of production: its goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual. oscar wilde defines a perfect personality as "one who develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in danger." a perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. one to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,--the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force. that being the ideal of anarchism, its economic arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best means of producing with the least waste of human energy. anarchism, however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in harmony with their tastes and desires. such free display of human energy being possible only under complete individual and social freedom, anarchism directs its forces against the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the state, organized authority, or statutory law,--the dominion of human conduct. just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or the monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has the state enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct. "all government in essence," says emerson, "is tyranny." it matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. in every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual. referring to the american government, the greatest american anarchist, david thoreau, said: "government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single living man. law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice." indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. with the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the king who could do no wrong, governments ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty. thus ouida is right when she maintains that "the state only aims at instilling those qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. in its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably dry up and perish. the state requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two walls." yet even a flock of sheep would resist the chicanery of the state, if it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive methods it employs to serve its purposes. therefore bakunin repudiates the state as synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the individual or small minorities,--the destruction of social relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life itself, for its own aggrandizement. the state is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice. in fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that government, organized authority, or the state, is necessary only to maintain or protect property and monopoly. it has proven efficient in that function only. even george bernard shaw, who hopes for the miraculous from the state under fabianism, nevertheless admits that "it is at present a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute force." this being the case, it is hard to see why the clever prefacer wishes to uphold the state after poverty shall have ceased to exist. unfortunately there are still a number of people who continue in the fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it maintains social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that it prevents the lazy man from fleecing his fellows. i shall therefore examine these contentions. a natural law is that factor in man which asserts itself freely and spontaneously without any external force, in harmony with the requirements of nature. for instance, the demand for nutrition, for sex gratification, for light, air, and exercise, is a natural law. but its expression needs not the machinery of government, needs not the club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison. to obey such laws, if we may call it obedience, requires only spontaneity and free opportunity. that governments do not maintain themselves through such harmonious factors is proven by the terrible array of violence, force, and coercion all governments use in order to live. thus blackstone is right when he says, "human laws are invalid, because they are contrary to the laws of nature." unless it be the order of warsaw after the slaughter of thousands of people, it is difficult to ascribe to governments any capacity for order or social harmony. order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only "order" that governments have ever maintained. true social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. in a society where those who always work never have anything, while those who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth. the only way organized authority meets this grave situation is by extending still greater privileges to those who have already monopolized the earth, and by still further enslaving the disinherited masses. thus the entire arsenal of government--laws, police, soldiers, the courts, legislatures, prisons,--is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the most antagonistic elements in society. the most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. aside from the fact that the state is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. it has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. crime is naught but misdirected energy. so long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. what does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation. who that knows this terrible process can fail to see the truth in these words of peter kropotkin: "those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the judge even, and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which ought to be brought to an end." the deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit consideration. if society were only relieved of the waste and expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual. besides, it is well to consider that laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and mental abnormalities. our present insane system of production fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people should want to work at all now. anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. it aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope. to achieve such an arrangement of life, government, with its unjust, arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with. at best it has but imposed one single mode of life upon all, without regard to individual and social variations and needs. in destroying government and statutory laws, anarchism proposes to rescue the self-respect and independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by authority. only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in him. only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social bonds which knit men together, and which are the true foundation of a normal social life. but what about human nature? can it be changed? and if not, will it endure under anarchism? poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. the greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? john burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. with human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities. anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. this is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. it is the conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine and true in man. as to methods. anarchism is not, as some may suppose, a theory of the future to be realized through divine inspiration. it is a living force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions. the methods of anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad program to be carried out under all circumstances. methods must grow out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of the intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual. the serene, calm character of a tolstoy will wish different methods for social reconstruction than the intense, overflowing personality of a michael bakunin or a peter kropotkin. equally so it must be apparent that the economic and political needs of russia will dictate more drastic measures than would england or america. anarchism does not stand for military drill and uniformity; it does, however, stand for the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that hinders human growth. all anarchists agree in that, as they also agree in their opposition to the political machinery as a means of bringing about the great social change. "all voting," says thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers, or backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never exceeds that of expediency. even voting for the right thing is doing nothing for it. a wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority." a close examination of the machinery of politics and its achievements will bear out the logic of thoreau. what does the history of parliamentarism show? nothing but failure and defeat, not even a single reform to ameliorate the economic and social stress of the people. laws have been passed and enactments made for the improvement and protection of labor. thus it was proven only last year that illinois, with the most rigid laws for mine protection, had the greatest mine disasters. in states where child labor laws prevail, child exploitation is at its highest, and though with us the workers enjoy full political opportunities, capitalism has reached the most brazen zenith. even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for which our good socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good faith? one has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve success. added to that is a complete demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict. time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find themselves betrayed and cheated. it may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in the political grinding mill. perhaps not; but such men would be absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. the state is the economic master of its servants. good men, if such there be, would either remain true to their political faith and lose their economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly unable to do the slightest good. the political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue. the political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more to do with it. instead, they believe with stirner that man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. but defiance and resistance are illegal. therein lies the salvation of man. everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and courage. in short, it calls for free, independent spirits, for "men who are men, and who have a bone in their backs which you cannot pass your hand through." universal suffrage itself owes its existence to direct action. if not for the spirit of rebellion, of the defiance on the part of the american revolutionary fathers, their posterity would still wear the king's coat. if not for the direct action of a john brown and his comrades, america would still trade in the flesh of the black man. true, the trade in white flesh is still going on; but that, too, will have to be abolished by direct action. trade-unionism, the economic arena of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action. it is but recently that law and government have attempted to crush the trade-union movement, and condemned the exponents of man's right to organize to prison as conspirators. had they sought to assert their cause through begging, pleading, and compromise, trade-unionism would today be a negligible quantity. in france, in spain, in italy, in russia, nay even in england (witness the growing rebellion of english labor unions) direct, revolutionary, economic action has become so strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to make the world realize the tremendous importance of labor's power. the general strike, the supreme expression of the economic consciousness of the workers, was ridiculed in america but a short time ago. today every great strike, in order to win, must realize the importance of the solidaric general protest. direct action, having proven effective along economic lines, is equally potent in the environment of the individual. there a hundred forces encroach upon his being, and only persistent resistance to them will finally set him free. direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of anarchism. will it not lead to a revolution? indeed, it will. no real social change has ever come about without a revolution. people are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action. anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every phase of human endeavor. science, art, literature, the drama, the effort for economic betterment, in fact every individual and social opposition to the existing disorder of things, is illumined by the spiritual light of anarchism. it is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. it is the theory of social harmony. it is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the dawn. minorities versus majorities if i were to give a summary of the tendency of our times, i would say, quantity. the multitude, the mass spirit, dominates everywhere, destroying quality. our entire life--production, politics, and education--rests on quantity, on numbers. the worker who once took pride in the thoroughness and quality of his work, has been replaced by brainless, incompetent automatons, who turn out enormous quantities of things, valueless to themselves, and generally injurious to the rest of mankind. thus quantity, instead of adding to life's comforts and peace, has merely increased man's burden. in politics, naught but quantity counts. in proportion to its increase, however, principles, ideals, justice, and uprightness are completely swamped by the array of numbers. in the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. that is the only god,--success. as to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment. we have not far to go in search of proof to verify this sad fact. never before did the corruption, the complete rottenness of our government stand so thoroughly exposed; never before were the american people brought face to face with the judas nature of that political body, which has claimed for years to be absolutely beyond reproach, as the mainstay of our institutions, the true protector of the rights and liberties of the people. yet when the crimes of that party became so brazen that even the blind could see them, it needed but to muster up its minions, and its supremacy was assured. thus the very victims, duped, betrayed, outraged a hundred times, decided, not against, but in favor of the victor. bewildered, the few asked how could the majority betray the traditions of american liberty? where was its judgment, its reasoning capacity? that is just it, the majority cannot reason; it has no judgment. lacking utterly in originality and moral courage, the majority has always placed its destiny in the hands of others. incapable of standing responsibilities, it has followed its leaders even unto destruction. dr. stockman was right: "the most dangerous enemies of truth and justice in our midst are the compact majorities, the damned compact majority." without ambition or initiative, the compact mass hates nothing so much as innovation. it has always opposed, condemned, and hounded the innovator, the pioneer of a new truth. the oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, the socialists included, that ours is an era of individualism, of the minority. only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be led to entertain this view. have not the few accumulated the wealth of the world? are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the situation? their success, however, is due not to individualism, but to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass. the latter wants but to be dominated, to be led, to be coerced. as to individualism, at no time in human history did it have less chance of expression, less opportunity to assert itself in a normal, healthy manner. the individual educator imbued with honesty of purpose, the artist or writer of original ideas, the independent scientist or explorer, the non-compromising pioneers of social changes are daily pushed to the wall by men whose learning and creative ability have become decrepit with age. educators of ferrer's type are nowhere tolerated, while the dietitians of predigested food, a la professors eliot and butler, are the successful perpetuators of an age of nonentities, of automatons. in the literary and dramatic world, the humphrey wards and clyde fitches are the idols of the mass, while but few know or appreciate the beauty and genius of an emerson, thoreau, whitman; an ibsen, a hauptmann, a butler yeats, or a stephen phillips. they are like solitary stars, far beyond the horizon of the multitude. publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. as a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output. need i say that in art we are confronted with the same sad facts? one has but to inspect our parks and thoroughfares to realize the hideousness and vulgarity of the art manufacture. certainly, none but a majority taste would tolerate such an outrage on art. false in conception and barbarous in execution, the statuary that infests american cities has as much relation to true art, as a totem to a michael angelo. yet that is the only art that succeeds. the true artistic genius, who will not cater to accepted notions, who exercises originality, and strives to be true to life, leads an obscure and wretched existence. his work may some day become the fad of the mob, but not until his heart's blood had been exhausted; not until the pathfinder has ceased to be, and a throng of an idealless and visionless mob has done to death the heritage of the master. it is said that the artist of today cannot create because prometheus-like he is bound to the rock of economic necessity. this, however, is true of art in all ages. michael angelo was dependent on his patron saint, no less than the sculptor or painter of today, except that the art connoisseurs of those days were far away from the madding crowd. they felt honored to be permitted to worship at the shrine of the master. the art protector of our time knows but one criterion, one value,--the dollar. he is not concerned about the quality of any great work, but in the quantity of dollars his purchase implies. thus the financier in mirbeau's les affaires sont les affaires points to some blurred arrangement in colors, saying "see how great it is; it cost , francs." just like our own parvenues. the fabulous figures paid for their great art discoveries must make up for the poverty of their taste. the most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought. that this should be so terribly apparent in a country whose symbol is democracy, is very significant of the tremendous power of the majority. wendell phillips said fifty years ago: "in our country of absolute democratic equality, public opinion is not only omnipotent, it is omnipresent. there is no refuge from its tyranny, there is no hiding from its reach, and the result is that if you take the old greek lantern and go about to seek among a hundred, you will not find a single american who has not, or who does not fancy at least he has, something to gain or lose in his ambition, his social life, or business, from the good opinion and the votes of those around him. and the consequence is that instead of being a mass of individuals, each one fearlessly blurting out his own conviction, as a nation compared to other nations we are a mass of cowards. more than any other people we are afraid of each other." evidently we have not advanced very far from the condition that confronted wendell phillips. today, as then, public opinion is the omnipresent tyrant; today, as then, the majority represents a mass of cowards, willing to accept him who mirrors its own soul and mind poverty. that accounts for the unprecedented rise of a man like roosevelt. he embodies the very worst element of mob psychology. a politician, he knows that the majority cares little for ideals or integrity. what it craves is display. it matters not whether that be a dog show, a prize fight, the lynching of a "nigger," the rounding up of some petty offender, the marriage exposition of an heiress, or the acrobatic stunts of an ex-president. the more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass. thus, poor in ideals and vulgar of soul, roosevelt continues to be the man of the hour. on the other hand, men towering high above such political pygmies, men of refinement, of culture, of ability, are jeered into silence as mollycoddles. it is absurd to claim that ours is the era of individualism. ours is merely a more poignant repetition of the phenomenon of all history: every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass. today, as ever, the few are misunderstood, hounded, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. the principle of brotherhood expounded by the agitator of nazareth preserved the germ of life, of truth and justice, so long as it was the beacon light of the few. the moment the majority seized upon it, that great principle became a shibboleth and harbinger of blood and fire, spreading suffering and disaster. the attack on the omnipotence of rome was like a sunrise amid the darkness of the night, only so long as it was made by the colossal figures of a huss, a calvin, or a luther. yet when the mass joined in the procession against the catholic monster, it was no less cruel, no less bloodthirsty than its enemy. woe to the heretics, to the minority, who would not bow to its dicta. after infinite zeal, endurance, and sacrifice, the human mind is at last free from the religious phantom; the minority has gone on in pursuit of new conquests, and the majority is lagging behind, handicapped by truth grown false with age. politically the human race would still be in the most absolute slavery, were it not for the john balls, the wat tylers, the tells, the innumerable individual giants who fought inch by inch against the power of kings and tyrants. but for individual pioneers the world would have never been shaken to its very roots by that tremendous wave, the french revolution. great events are usually preceded by apparently small things. thus the eloquence and fire of camille desmoulins was like the trumpet before jericho, razing to the ground that emblem of torture, of abuse, of horror, the bastille. always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort. not so the mass, the leaden weight of which does not let it move. the truth of this is borne out in russia with greater force than elsewhere. thousands of lives have already been consumed by that bloody regime, yet the monster on the throne is not appeased. how is such a thing possible when ideas, culture, literature, when the deepest and finest emotions groan under the iron yoke? the majority, that compact, immobile, drowsy mass, the russian peasant, after a century of struggle, of sacrifice, of untold misery, still believes that the rope which strangles "the man with the white hands"[ ] brings luck. in the american struggle for liberty, the majority was no less of a stumbling block. until this very day the ideas of jefferson, of patrick henry, of thomas paine, are denied and sold by their posterity. the mass wants none of them. the greatness and courage worshipped in lincoln have been forgotten in the men who created the background for the panorama of that time. the true patron saints of the black men were represented in that handful of fighters in boston, lloyd garrison, wendell phillips, thoreau, margaret fuller, and theodore parker, whose great courage and sturdiness culminated in that somber giant, john brown. their untiring zeal, their eloquence and perseverance undermined the stronghold of the southern lords. lincoln and his minions followed only when abolition had become a practical issue, recognized as such by all. about fifty years ago, a meteor-like idea made its appearance on the social horizon of the world, an idea so far-reaching, so revolutionary, so all-embracing as to spread terror in the hearts of tyrants everywhere. on the other hand, that idea was a harbinger of joy, of cheer, of hope to the millions. the pioneers knew the difficulties in their way, they knew the opposition, the persecution, the hardships that would meet them, but proud and unafraid they started on their march onward, ever onward. now that idea has become a popular slogan. almost everyone is a socialist today: the rich man, as well as his poor victim; the upholders of law and authority, as well as their unfortunate culprits; the freethinker, as well as the perpetuator of religious falsehoods; the fashionable lady, as well as the shirtwaist girl. why not? now that the truth of fifty years ago has become a lie, now that it has been clipped of all its youthful imagination, and been robbed of its vigor, its strength, its revolutionary ideal--why not? now that it is no longer a beautiful vision, but a "practical, workable scheme," resting on the will of the majority, why not? with the same political cunning and shrewdness the mass is petted, pampered, cheated daily. its praise is being sung in many keys: the poor majority, the outraged, the abused, the giant majority, if only it would follow us. who has not heard this litany before? who does not know this never-varying refrain of all politicians? that the mass bleeds, that it is being robbed and exploited, i know as well as our vote-baiters. but i insist that not the handful of parasites, but the mass itself is responsible for this horrible state of affairs. it clings to its masters, loves the whip, and is the first to cry crucify! the moment a protesting voice is raised against the sacredness of capitalistic authority or any other decayed institution. yet how long would authority and private property exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen. the socialist demagogues know that as well as i, but they maintain the myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of life means the perpetuation of power. and how could the latter be acquired without numbers? yes, power, authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom, never the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society. not because i do not feel with the oppressed, the disinherited of the earth; not because i do not know the shame, the horror, the indignity of the lives the people lead, do i repudiate the majority as a creative force for good. oh, no, no! but because i know so well that as a compact mass it has never stood for justice or equality. it has suppressed the human voice, subdued the human spirit, chained the human body. as a mass its aim has always been to make life uniform, gray, and monotonous as the desert. as a mass it will always be the annihilator of individuality, of free initiative, of originality. i therefore believe with emerson that "the masses are crude, lame, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. i wish not to concede anything to them, but to drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. masses! the calamity are the masses. i do not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet, accomplished women only." in other words, the living, vital truth of social and economic well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not through the mass. [ ] the intellectuals. the psychology of political violence to analyze the psychology of political violence is not only extremely difficult, but also very dangerous. if such acts are treated with understanding, one is immediately accused of eulogizing them. if, on the other hand, human sympathy is expressed with the attentater,[ ] one risks being considered a possible accomplice. yet it is only intelligence and sympathy that can bring us closer to the source of human suffering, and teach us the ultimate way out of it. the primitive man, ignorant of natural forces, dreaded their approach, hiding from the perils they threatened. as man learned to understand nature's phenomena, he realized that though these may destroy life and cause great loss, they also bring relief. to the earnest student it must be apparent that the accumulated forces in our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in storm and lightning. to thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are daily made to endure. indeed, unless we have become a part of humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that accumulates in a human soul, the burning, surging passion that makes the storm inevitable. the ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. yet nothing is further from the truth. as a matter of fact, those who have studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. the most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? certainly not. theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause. bjornstjerne bjornson, in the second part of beyond human power, emphasizes the fact that it is among the anarchists that we must look for the modern martyrs who pay for their faith with their blood, and who welcome death with a smile, because they believe, as truly as christ did, that their martyrdom will redeem humanity. francois coppee, the french novelist, thus expresses himself regarding the psychology of the attentater: "the reading of the details of vaillant's execution left me in a thoughtful mood. i imagined him expanding his chest under the ropes, marching with firm step, stiffening his will, concentrating all his energy, and, with eyes fixed upon the knife, hurling finally at society his cry of malediction. and, in spite of me, another spectacle rose suddenly before my mind. i saw a group of men and women pressing against each other in the middle of the oblong arena of the circus, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, while from all the steps of the immense amphitheatre went up the terrible cry, ad leones! and, below, the opening cages of the wild beasts. "i did not believe the execution would take place. in the first place, no victim had been struck with death, and it had long been the custom not to punish an abortive crime with the last degree of severity. then, this crime, however terrible in intention, was disinterested, born of an abstract idea. the man's past, his abandoned childhood, his life of hardship, pleaded also in his favor. in the independent press generous voices were raised in his behalf, very loud and eloquent. 'a purely literary current of opinion' some have said, with no little scorn. it is, on the contrary, an honor to the men of art and thought to have expressed once more their disgust at the scaffold." again zola, in germinal and paris, describes the tenderness and kindness, the deep sympathy with human suffering, of these men who close the chapter of their lives with a violent outbreak against our system. last, but not least, the man who probably better than anyone else understands the psychology of the attentater is m. hamon, the author of the brilliant work, une psychologie du militaire professionel, who has arrived at these suggestive conclusions: "the positive method confirmed by the rational method enables us to establish an ideal type of anarchist, whose mentality is the aggregate of common psychic characteristics. every anarchist partakes sufficiently of this ideal type to make it possible to differentiate him from other men. the typical anarchist, then, may be defined as follows: a man perceptible by the spirit of revolt under one or more of its forms,--opposition, investigation, criticism, innovation,--endowed with a strong love of liberty, egoistic or individualistic, and possessed of great curiosity, a keen desire to know. these traits are supplemented by an ardent love of others, a highly developed moral sensitiveness, a profound sentiment of justice, and imbued with missionary zeal." to the above characteristics, says alvin f. sanborn, must be added these sterling qualities: a rare love of animals, surpassing sweetness in all the ordinary relations of life, exceptional sobriety of demeanor, frugality and regularity, austerity, even, of living, and courage beyond compare.[ ] "there is a truism that the man in the street seems always to forget, when he is abusing the anarchists, or whatever party happens to be his bete noire for the moment, as the cause of some outrage just perpetrated. this indisputable fact is that homicidal outrages have, from time immemorial, been the reply of goaded and desperate classes, and goaded and desperate individuals, to wrongs from their fellowmen, which they felt to be intolerable. such acts are the violent recoil from violence, whether aggressive or repressive; they are the last desperate struggle of outraged and exasperated human nature for breathing space and life. and their cause lies not in any special conviction, but in the depths of that human nature itself. the whole course of history, political and social, is strewn with evidence of this fact. to go no further, take the three most notorious examples of political parties goaded into violence during the last fifty years: the mazzinians in italy, the fenians in ireland, and the terrorists in russia. were these people anarchists? no. did they all three even hold the same political opinions? no. the mazzinians were republicans, the fenians political separatists, the russians social democrats or constitutionalists. but all were driven by desperate circumstances into this terrible form of revolt. and when we turn from parties to individuals who have acted in like manner, we stand appalled by the number of human beings goaded and driven by sheer desperation into conduct obviously violently opposed to their social instincts. "now that anarchism has become a living force in society, such deeds have been sometimes committed by anarchists, as well as by others. for no new faith, even the most essentially peaceable and humane the mind of man has yet accepted, but at its first coming has brought upon earth not peace, but a sword; not because of anything violent or anti-social in the doctrine itself; simply because of the ferment any new and creative idea excites in men's minds, whether they accept or reject it. and a conception of anarchism, which, on one hand, threatens every vested interest, and, on the other, holds out a vision of a free and noble life to be won by a struggle against existing wrongs, is certain to rouse the fiercest opposition, and bring the whole repressive force of ancient evil into violent contact with the tumultuous outburst of a new hope. "under miserable conditions of life, any vision of the possibility of better things makes the present misery more intolerable, and spurs those who suffer to the most energetic struggles to improve their lot, and if these struggles only immediately result in sharper misery, the outcome is sheer desperation. in our present society, for instance, an exploited wage worker, who catches a glimpse of what work and life might and ought to be, finds the toilsome routine and the squalor of his existence almost intolerable; and even when he has the resolution and courage to continue steadily working his best, and waiting until new ideas have so permeated society as to pave the way for better times, the mere fact that he has such ideas and tries to spread them, brings him into difficulties with his employers. how many thousands of socialists, and above all anarchists, have lost work and even the chance of work, solely on the ground of their opinions. it is only the specially gifted craftsman, who, if he be a zealous propagandist, can hope to retain permanent employment. and what happens to a man with his brain working actively with a ferment of new ideas, with a vision before his eyes of a new hope dawning for toiling and agonizing men, with the knowledge that his suffering and that of his fellows in misery is not caused by the cruelty of fate, but by the injustice of other human beings,--what happens to such a man when he sees those dear to him starving, when he himself is starved? some natures in such a plight, and those by no means the least social or the least sensitive, will become violent, and will even feel that their violence is social and not anti-social, that in striking when and how they can, they are striking, not for themselves, but for human nature, outraged and despoiled in their persons and in those of their fellow sufferers. and are we, who ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and coldly condemn these piteous victims of the furies and fates? are we to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject submission to injustice and wrong? are we to join the ignorant and brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness, gratuitously running amuck in a harmonious and innocently peaceful society? no! we hate murder with a hatred that may seem absurdly exaggerated to apologists for matabele massacres, to callous acquiescers in hangings and bombardments, but we decline in such cases of homicide, or attempted homicide, as those of which we are treating, to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole responsibility of the deed upon the immediate perpetrator. the guilt of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that drive human beings to despair. the man who flings his whole life into the attempt, at the cost of his own life, to protest against the wrongs of his fellow men, is a saint compared to the active and passive upholders of cruelty and injustice, even if his protest destroy other lives besides his own. let him who is without sin in society cast the first stone at such an one."[ ] that every act of political violence should nowadays be attributed to anarchists is not at all surprising. yet it is a fact known to almost everyone familiar with the anarchist movement that a great number of acts, for which anarchists had to suffer, either originated with the capitalist press or were instigated, if not directly perpetrated, by the police. for a number of years acts of violence had been committed in spain, for which the anarchists were held responsible, hounded like wild beasts, and thrown into prison. later it was disclosed that the perpetrators of these acts were not anarchists, but members of the police department. the scandal became so widespread that the conservative spanish papers demanded the apprehension and punishment of the gang-leader, juan rull, who was subsequently condemned to death and executed. the sensational evidence, brought to light during the trial, forced police inspector momento to exonerate completely the anarchists from any connection with the acts committed during a long period. this resulted in the dismissal of a number of police officials, among them inspector tressols, who, in revenge, disclosed the fact that behind the gang of police bomb throwers were others of far higher position, who provided them with funds and protected them. this is one of the many striking examples of how anarchist conspiracies are manufactured. that the american police can perjure themselves with the same ease, that they are just as merciless, just as brutal and cunning as their european colleagues, has been proven on more than one occasion. we need only recall the tragedy of the eleventh of november, , known as the haymarket riot. no one who is at all familiar with the case can possibly doubt that the anarchists, judicially murdered in chicago, died as victims of a lying, bloodthirsty press and of a cruel police conspiracy. has not judge gary himself said: "not because you have caused the haymarket bomb, but because you are anarchists, you are on trial." the impartial and thorough analysis by governor altgeld of that blotch on the american escutcheon verified the brutal frankness of judge gary. it was this that induced altgeld to pardon the three anarchists, thereby earning the lasting esteem of every liberty loving man and woman in the world. when we approach the tragedy of september sixth, , we are confronted by one of the most striking examples of how little social theories are responsible for an act of political violence. "leon czolgosz, an anarchist, incited to commit the act by emma goldman." to be sure, has she not incited violence even before her birth, and will she not continue to do so beyond death? everything is possible with the anarchists. today, even, nine years after the tragedy, after it was proven a hundred times that emma goldman had nothing to do with the event, that no evidence whatsoever exists to indicate that czolgosz ever called himself an anarchist, we are confronted with the same lie, fabricated by the police and perpetuated by the press. no living soul ever heard czolgosz make that statement, nor is there a single written word to prove that the boy ever breathed the accusation. nothing but ignorance and insane hysteria, which have never yet been able to solve the simplest problem of cause and effect. the president of a free republic killed! what else can be the cause, except that the attentater must have been insane, or that he was incited to the act. a free republic! how a myth will maintain itself, how it will continue to deceive, to dupe, and blind even the comparatively intelligent to its monstrous absurdities. a free republic! and yet within a little over thirty years a small band of parasites have successfully robbed the american people, and trampled upon the fundamental principles, laid down by the fathers of this country, guaranteeing to every man, woman, and child "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." for thirty years they have been increasing their wealth and power at the expense of the vast mass of workers, thereby enlarging the army of the unemployed, the hungry, homeless, and friendless portion of humanity, who are tramping the country from east to west, from north to south, in a vain search for work. for many years the home has been left to the care of the little ones, while the parents are exhausting their life and strength for a mere pittance. for thirty years the sturdy sons of america have been sacrificed on the battlefield of industrial war, and the daughters outraged in corrupt factory surroundings. for long and weary years this process of undermining the nation's health, vigor, and pride, without much protest from the disinherited and oppressed, has been going on. maddened by success and victory, the money powers of this "free land of ours" became more and more audacious in their heartless, cruel efforts to compete with the rotten and decayed european tyrannies for supremacy of power. in vain did a lying press repudiate leon czolgosz as a foreigner. the boy was a product of our own free american soil, that lulled him to sleep with, my country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. who can tell how many times this american child had gloried in the celebration of the fourth of july, or of decoration day, when he faithfully honored the nation's dead? who knows but that he, too, was willing to "fight for his country and die for her liberty," until it dawned upon him that those he belonged to have no country, because they have been robbed of all that they have produced; until he realized that the liberty and independence of his youthful dreams were but a farce. poor leon czolgosz, your crime consisted of too sensitive a social consciousness. unlike your idealless and brainless american brothers, your ideals soared above the belly and the bank account. no wonder you impressed the one human being among all the infuriated mob at your trial--a newspaper woman--as a visionary, totally oblivious to your surroundings. your large, dreamy eyes must have beheld a new and glorious dawn. now, to a recent instance of police-manufactured anarchist plots. in that bloodstained city, chicago, the life of chief of police shippy was attempted by a young man named averbuch. immediately the cry was sent to the four corners of the world that averbuch was an anarchist, and that anarchists were responsible for the act. everyone who was at all known to entertain anarchist ideas was closely watched, a number of people arrested, the library of an anarchist group confiscated, and all meetings made impossible. it goes without saying that, as on various previous occasions, i must needs be held responsible for the act. evidently the american police credit me with occult powers. i did not know averbuch; in fact, had never before heard his name, and the only way i could have possibly "conspired" with him was in my astral body. but, then, the police are not concerned with logic or justice. what they seek is a target, to mask their absolute ignorance of the cause, of the psychology of a political act. was averbuch an anarchist? there is no positive proof of it. he had been but three months in the country, did not know the language, and, as far as i could ascertain, was quite unknown to the anarchists of chicago. what led to his act? averbuch, like most young russian immigrants, undoubtedly believed in the mythical liberty of america. he received his first baptism by the policeman's club during the brutal dispersement of the unemployed parade. he further experienced american equality and opportunity in the vain efforts to find an economic master. in short, a three months' sojourn in the glorious land brought him face to face with the fact that the disinherited are in the same position the world over. in his native land he probably learned that necessity knows no law--there was no difference between a russian and an american policeman. the question to the intelligent social student is not whether the acts of czolgosz or averbuch were practical, any more than whether the thunderstorm is practical. the thing that will inevitably impress itself on the thinking and feeling man and woman is that the sight of brutal clubbing of innocent victims in a so-called free republic, and the degrading, soul-destroying economic struggle, furnish the spark that kindles the dynamic force in the overwrought, outraged souls of men like czolgosz or averbuch. no amount of persecution, of hounding, of repression, can stay this social phenomenon. but, it is often asked, have not acknowledged anarchists committed acts of violence? certainly they have, always however ready to shoulder the responsibility. my contention is that they were impelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the tremendous pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive natures. obviously, anarchism, or any other social theory, making man a conscious social unit, will act as a leaven for rebellion. this is not a mere assertion, but a fact verified by all experience. a close examination of the circumstances bearing upon this question will further clarify my position. let us consider some of the most important anarchist acts within the last two decades. strange as it may seem, one of the most significant deeds of political violence occurred here in america, in connection with the homestead strike of . during that memorable time the carnegie steel company organized a conspiracy to crush the amalgamated association of iron and steel workers. henry clay frick, then chairman of the company, was intrusted with that democratic task. he lost no time in carrying out the policy of breaking the union, the policy which he had so successfully practiced during his reign of terror in the coke regions. secretly, and while peace negotiations were being purposely prolonged, frick supervised the military preparations, the fortification of the homestead steel works, the erection of a high board fence, capped with barbed wire and provided with loopholes for sharpshooters. and then, in the dead of night, he attempted to smuggle his army of hired pinkerton thugs into homestead, which act precipitated the terrible carnage of the steel workers. not content with the death of eleven victims, killed in the pinkerton skirmish, henry clay frick, good christian and free american, straightway began the hounding down of the helpless wives and orphans, by ordering them out of the wretched company houses. the whole country was aroused over these inhuman outrages. hundreds of voices were raised in protest, calling on frick to desist, not to go too far. yes, hundreds of people protested,--as one objects to annoying flies. only one there was who actively responded to the outrage at homestead,--alexander berkman. yes, he was an anarchist. he gloried in that fact, because it was the only force that made the discord between his spiritual longing and the world without at all bearable. yet not anarchism, as such, but the brutal slaughter of the eleven steel workers was the urge for alexander berkman's act, his attempt on the life of henry clay frick. the record of european acts of political violence affords numerous and striking instances of the influence of environment upon sensitive human beings. the court speech of vaillant, who, in , exploded a bomb in the paris chamber of deputies, strikes the true keynote of the psychology of such acts: "gentlemen, in a few minutes you are to deal your blow, but in receiving your verdict i shall have at least the satisfaction of having wounded the existing society, that cursed society in which one may see a single man spending, uselessly, enough to feed thousands of families; an infamous society which permits a few individuals to monopolize all the social wealth, while there are hundreds of thousands of unfortunates who have not even the bread that is not refused to dogs, and while entire families are committing suicide for want of the necessities of life. "ah, gentlemen, if the governing classes could go down among the unfortunates! but no, they prefer to remain deaf to their appeals. it seems that a fatality impels them, like the royalty of the eighteenth century, toward the precipice which will engulf them, for woe be to those who remain deaf to the cries of the starving, woe to those who, believing themselves of superior essence, assume the right to exploit those beneath them! there comes a time when the people no longer reason; they rise like a hurricane, and pass away like a torrent. then we see bleeding heads impaled on pikes. "among the exploited, gentlemen, there are two classes of individuals: those of one class, not realizing what they are and what they might be, take life as it comes, believe that they are born to be slaves, and content themselves with the little that is given them in exchange for their labor. but there are others, on the contrary, who think, who study, and who, looking about them, discover social iniquities. is it their fault if they see clearly and suffer at seeing others suffer? then they throw themselves into the struggle, and make themselves the bearers of the popular claims. "gentlemen, i am one of these last. wherever i have gone, i have seen unfortunates bent beneath the yoke of capital. everywhere i have seen the same wounds causing tears of blood to flow, even in the remoter parts of the inhabited districts of south america, where i had the right to believe that he who was weary of the pains of civilization might rest in the shade of the palm trees and there study nature. well, there even, more than elsewhere, i have seen capital come, like a vampire, to suck the last drop of blood of the unfortunate pariahs. "then i came back to france, where it was reserved for me to see my family suffer atrociously. this was the last drop in the cup of my sorrow. tired of leading this life of suffering and cowardice, i carried this bomb to those who are primarily responsible for social sufferings. "i am reproached with the wounds of those who were hit by my projectiles. permit me to point out in passing that, if the bourgeois had not massacred or caused massacres during the revolution, it is probable that they would still be under the yoke of the nobility. on the other hand, figure up the dead and wounded on tonquin, madagascar, dahomey, adding thereto the thousands, yes, millions of unfortunates who die in the factories, the mines, and wherever the grinding power of capital is felt. add also those who die of hunger, and all this with the assent of our deputies. beside all this, of how little weight are the reproaches now brought against me! "it is true that one does not efface the other; but, after all, are we not acting on the defensive when we respond to the blows which we receive from above? i know very well that i shall be told that i ought to have confined myself to speech for the vindication of the people's claims. but what can you expect! it takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear. too long have they answered our voices by imprisonment, the rope, rifle volleys. make no mistake; the explosion of my bomb is not only the cry of the rebel vaillant, but the cry of an entire class which vindicates its rights, and which will soon add acts to words. for, be sure of it, in vain will they pass laws. the ideas of the thinkers will not halt; just as, in the last century, all the governmental forces could not prevent the diderots and the voltaires from spreading emancipating ideas among the people, so all the existing governmental forces will not prevent the reclus, the darwins, the spencers, the ibsens, the mirbeaus, from spreading the ideas of justice and liberty which will annihilate the prejudices that hold the mass in ignorance. and these ideas, welcomed by the unfortunate, will flower in acts of revolt as they have done in me, until the day when the disappearance of authority shall permit all men to organize freely according to their choice, when we shall each be able to enjoy the product of his labor, and when those moral maladies called prejudices shall vanish, permitting human beings to live in harmony, having no other desire than to study the sciences and love their fellows. "i conclude, gentlemen, by saying that a society in which one sees such social inequalities as we see all about us, in which we see every day suicides caused by poverty, prostitution flaring at every street corner,--a society whose principal monuments are barracks and prisons,--such a society must be transformed as soon as possible, on pain of being eliminated, and that speedily, from the human race. hail to him who labors, by no matter what means, for this transformation! it is this idea that has guided me in my duel with authority, but as in this duel i have only wounded my adversary, it is now its turn to strike me. "now, gentlemen, to me it matters little what penalty you may inflict, for, looking at this assembly with the eyes of reason, i can not help smiling to see you, atoms lost in matter, and reasoning only because you possess a prolongation of the spinal marrow, assume the right to judge one of your fellows. "ah! gentlemen, how little a thing is your assembly and your verdict in the history of humanity; and human history, in its turn, is likewise a very little thing in the whirlwind which bears it through immensity, and which is destined to disappear, or at least to be transformed, in order to begin again the same history and the same facts, a veritably perpetual play of cosmic forces renewing and transferring themselves forever." will anyone say that vaillant was an ignorant, vicious man, or a lunatic? was not his mind singularly clear, analytic? no wonder that the best intellectual forces of france spoke in his behalf, and signed the petition to president carnot, asking him to commute vaillant's death sentence. carnot would listen to no entreaty; he insisted on more than a pound of flesh, he wanted vaillant's life, and then--the inevitable happened: president carnot was killed. on the handle of the stiletto used by the attentater was engraved, significantly, vaillant! santa caserio was an anarchist. he could have gotten away, saved himself; but he remained, he stood the consequences. his reasons for the act are set forth in so simple, dignified, and childlike manner that one is reminded of the touching tribute paid caserio by his teacher of the little village school, ada negri, the italian poet, who spoke of him as a sweet, tender plant, of too fine and sensitive texture to stand the cruel strain of the world. "gentlemen of the jury! i do not propose to make a defense, but only an explanation of my deed. "since my early youth i began to learn that present society is badly organized, so badly that every day many wretched men commit suicide, leaving women and children in the most terrible distress. workers, by thousands, seek for work and can not find it. poor families beg for food and shiver with cold; they suffer the greatest misery; the little ones ask their miserable mothers for food, and the mothers can not give them, because they have nothing. the few things which the home contained have already been sold or pawned. all they can do is beg alms; often they are arrested as vagabonds. "i went away from my native place because i was frequently moved to tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. young women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily, for a mockery of remuneration. and that happens not only to my fellow countrymen, but to all the workers, who sweat the whole day long for a crust of bread, while their labor produces wealth in abundance. the workers are obliged to live under the most wretched conditions, and their food consists of a little bread, a few spoonfuls of rice, and water; so by the time they are thirty or forty years old, they are exhausted, and go to die in the hospitals. besides, in consequence of bad food and overwork, these unhappy creatures are, by hundreds, devoured by pellagra--a disease that, in my country, attacks, as the physicians say, those who are badly fed and lead a life of toil and privation. "i have observed that there are a great many people who are hungry, and many children who suffer, whilst bread and clothes abound in the towns. i saw many and large shops full of clothing and woolen stuffs, and i also saw warehouses full of wheat and indian corn, suitable for those who are in want. and, on the other hand, i saw thousands of people who do not work, who produce nothing and live on the labor of others; who spend every day thousands of francs for their amusement; who debauch the daughters of the workers; who own dwellings of forty or fifty rooms; twenty or thirty horses, many servants; in a word, all the pleasures of life. "i believed in god; but when i saw so great an inequality between men, i acknowledged that it was not god who created man, but man who created god. and i discovered that those who want their property to be respected, have an interest in preaching the existence of paradise and hell, and in keeping the people in ignorance. "not long ago, vaillant threw a bomb in the chamber of deputies, to protest against the present system of society. he killed no one, only wounded some persons; yet bourgeois justice sentenced him to death. and not satisfied with the condemnation of the guilty man, they began to pursue the anarchists, and arrest not only those who had known vaillant, but even those who had merely been present at any anarchist lecture. "the government did not think of their wives and children. it did not consider that the men kept in prison were not the only ones who suffered, and that their little ones cried for bread. bourgeois justice did not trouble itself about these innocent ones, who do not yet know what society is. it is no fault of theirs that their fathers are in prison; they only want to eat. "the government went on searching private houses, opening private letters, forbidding lectures and meetings, and practicing the most infamous oppressions against us. even now, hundreds of anarchists are arrested for having written an article in a newspaper, or for having expressed an opinion in public. "gentlemen of the jury, you are representatives of bourgeois society. if you want my head, take it; but do not believe that in so doing you will stop the anarchist propaganda. take care, for men reap what they have sown." during a religious procession in , at barcelona, a bomb was thrown. immediately three hundred men and women were arrested. some were anarchists, but the majority were trade unionists and socialists. they were thrown into that terrible bastille, montjuich, and subjected to most horrible tortures. after a number had been killed, or had gone insane, their cases were taken up by the liberal press of europe, resulting in the release of a few survivors. the man primarily responsible for this revival of the inquisition was canovas del castillo, prime minister of spain. it was he who ordered the torturing of the victims, their flesh burned, their bones crushed, their tongues cut out. practiced in the art of brutality during his regime in cuba, canovas remained absolutely deaf to the appeals and protests of the awakened civilized conscience. in canovas del castillo was shot to death by a young italian, angiolillo. the latter was an editor in his native land, and his bold utterances soon attracted the attention of the authorities. persecution began, and angiolillo fled from italy to spain, thence to france and belgium, finally settling in england. while there he found employment as a compositor, and immediately became the friend of all his colleagues. one of the latter thus described angiolillo: "his appearance suggested the journalist rather than the disciple of guttenberg. his delicate hands, moreover, betrayed the fact that he had not grown up at the 'case.' with his handsome frank face, his soft dark hair, his alert expression, he looked the very type of the vivacious southerner. angiolillo spoke italian, spanish, and french, but no english; the little french i knew was not sufficient to carry on a prolonged conversation. however, angiolillo soon began to acquire the english idiom; he learned rapidly, playfully, and it was not long until he became very popular with his fellow compositors. his distinguished and yet modest manner, and his consideration towards his colleagues, won him the hearts of all the boys." angiolillo soon became familiar with the detailed accounts in the press. he read of the great wave of human sympathy with the helpless victims at montjuich. on trafalgar square he saw with his own eyes the results of those atrocities, when the few spaniards, who escaped castillo's clutches, came to seek asylum in england. there, at the great meeting, these men opened their shirts and showed the horrible scars of burned flesh. angiolillo saw, and the effect surpassed a thousand theories; the impetus was beyond words, beyond arguments, beyond himself even. senor antonio canovas del castillo, prime minister of spain, sojourned at santa agueda. as usual in such cases, all strangers were kept away from his exalted presence. one exception was made, however, in the case of a distinguished looking, elegantly dressed italian--the representative, it was understood, of an important journal. the distinguished gentleman was--angiolillo. senor canovas, about to leave his house, stepped on the veranda. suddenly angiolillo confronted him. a shot rang out, and canovas was a corpse. the wife of the prime minister rushed upon the scene. "murderer! murderer!" she cried, pointing at angiolillo. the latter bowed. "pardon, madame," he said, "i respect you as a lady, but i regret that you were the wife of that man." calmly angiolillo faced death. death in its most terrible form--for the man whose soul was as a child's. he was garroted. his body lay, sun-kissed, till the day hid in twilight. and the people came, and pointing the finger of terror and fear, they said: "there--the criminal--the cruel murderer." how stupid, how cruel is ignorance! it misunderstands always, condemns always. a remarkable parallel to the case of angiolillo is to be found in the act of gaetano bresci, whose attentat upon king umberto made an american city famous. bresci came to this country, this land of opportunity, where one has but to try to meet with golden success. yes, he too would try to succeed. he would work hard and faithfully. work had no terrors for him, if it would only help him to independence, manhood, self-respect. thus full of hope and enthusiasm he settled in paterson, new jersey, and there found a lucrative job at six dollars per week in one of the weaving mills of the town. six whole dollars per week was, no doubt, a fortune for italy, but not enough to breathe on in the new country. he loved his little home. he was a good husband and devoted father to his bambina, bianca, whom he adored. he worked and worked for a number of years. he actually managed to save one hundred dollars out of his six dollars per week. bresci had an ideal. foolish, i know, for a workingman to have an ideal,--the anarchist paper published in paterson, la questione sociale. every week, though tired from work, he would help to set up the paper. until later hours he would assist, and when the little pioneer had exhausted all resources and his comrades were in despair, bresci brought cheer and hope, one hundred dollars, the entire savings of years. that would keep the paper afloat. in his native land people were starving. the crops had been poor, and the peasants saw themselves face to face with famine. they appealed to their good king umberto; he would help. and he did. the wives of the peasants who had gone to the palace of the king, held up in mute silence their emaciated infants. surely that would move him. and then the soldiers fired and killed those poor fools. bresci, at work in the weaving mill at paterson, read of the horrible massacre. his mental eye beheld the defenceless women and innocent infants of his native land, slaughtered right before the good king. his soul recoiled in horror. at night he heard the groans of the wounded. some may have been his comrades, his own flesh. why, why these foul murders? the little meeting of the italian anarchist group in paterson ended almost in a fight. bresci had demanded his hundred dollars. his comrades begged, implored him to give them a respite. the paper would go down if they were to return him his loan. but bresci insisted on its return. how cruel and stupid is ignorance. bresci got the money, but lost the good will, the confidence of his comrades. they would have nothing more to do with one whose greed was greater than his ideals. on the twenty-ninth of july, , king umberto was shot at monzo. the young italian weaver of paterson, gaetano bresci, had taken the life of the good king. paterson was placed under police surveillance, everyone known as an anarchist hounded and persecuted, and the act of bresci ascribed to the teachings of anarchism. as if the teachings of anarchism in its extremest form could equal the force of those slain women and infants, who had pilgrimed to the king for aid. as if any spoken word, ever so eloquent, could burn into a human soul with such white heat as the life blood trickling drop by drop from those dying forms. the ordinary man is rarely moved either by word or deed; and those whose social kinship is the greatest living force need no appeal to respond--even as does steel to the magnet--to the wrongs and horrors of society. if a social theory is a strong factor inducing acts of political violence, how are we to account for the recent violent outbreaks in india, where anarchism has hardly been born. more than any other old philosophy, hindu teachings have exalted passive resistance, the drifting of life, the nirvana, as the highest spiritual ideal. yet the social unrest in india is daily growing, and has only recently resulted in an act of political violence, the killing of sir curzon wyllie by the hindu, madar sol dhingra. if such a phenomenon can occur in a country socially and individually permeated for centuries with the spirit of passivity, can one question the tremendous, revolutionizing effect on human character exerted by great social iniquities? can one doubt the logic, the justice of these words: "repression, tyranny, and indiscriminate punishment of innocent men have been the watchwords of the government of the alien domination in india ever since we began the commercial boycott of english goods. the tiger qualities of the british are much in evidence now in india. they think that by the strength of the sword they will keep down india! it is this arrogance that has brought about the bomb, and the more they tyrannize over a helpless and unarmed people, the more terrorism will grow. we may deprecate terrorism as outlandish and foreign to our culture, but it is inevitable as long as this tyranny continues, for it is not the terrorists that are to be blamed, but the tyrants who are responsible for it. it is the only resource for a helpless and unarmed people when brought to the verge of despair. it is never criminal on their part. the crime lies with the tyrant."[ ] even conservative scientists are beginning to realize that heredity is not the sole factor moulding human character. climate, food, occupation; nay, color, light, and sound must be considered in the study of human psychology. if that be true, how much more correct is the contention that great social abuses will and must influence different minds and temperaments in a different way. and how utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of political violence. anarchism, more than any other social theory, values human life above things. all anarchists agree with tolstoy in this fundamental truth: if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life. that, however, nowise indicates that anarchism teaches submission. how can it, when it knows that all suffering, all misery, all ills, result from the evil of submission? has not some american ancestor said, many years ago, that resistance to tyranny is obedience to god? and he was not an anarchist even. i would say that resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal. so long as tyranny exists, in whatever form, man's deepest aspiration must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe. compared with the wholesale violence of capital and government, political acts of violence are but a drop in the ocean. that so few resist is the strongest proof how terrible must be the conflict between their souls and unbearable social iniquities. high strung, like a violin string, they weep and moan for life, so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. in a desperate moment the string breaks. untuned ears hear nothing but discord. but those who feel the agonized cry understand its harmony; they hear in it the fulfillment of the most compelling moment of human nature. such is the psychology of political violence. [ ] a revolutionist committing an act of political violence. [ ] paris and the social revolution. [ ] from a pamphlet issued by the freedom group of london. [ ] the free hindustan. prisons: a social crime and failure in , feodor dostoyevsky wrote on the wall of his prison cell the following story of the priest and the devil: "'hello, you little fat father!' the devil said to the priest. 'what made you lie so to those poor, misled people? what tortures of hell did you depict? don't you know they are already suffering the tortures of hell in their earthly lives? don't you know that you and the authorities of the state are my representatives on earth? it is you that make them suffer the pains of hell with which you threaten them. don't you know this? well, then, come with me!' "the devil grabbed the priest by the collar, lifted him high in the air, and carried him to a factory, to an iron foundry. he saw the workmen there running and hurrying to and fro, and toiling in the scorching heat. very soon the thick, heavy air and the heat are too much for the priest. with tears in his eyes, he pleads with the devil: 'let me go! let me leave this hell!' "'oh, my dear friend, i must show you many more places.' the devil gets hold of him again and drags him off to a farm. there he sees workmen threshing the grain. the dust and heat are insufferable. the overseer carries a knout, and unmercifully beats anyone who falls to the ground overcome by hard toil or hunger. "next the priest is taken to the huts where these same workers live with their families--dirty, cold, smoky, ill-smelling holes. the devil grins. he points out the poverty and hardships which are at home here. "'well, isn't this enough?' he asks. and it seems as if even he, the devil, pities the people. the pious servant of god can hardly bear it. with uplifted hands he begs: 'let me go away from here. yes, yes! this is hell on earth!' "'well, then, you see. and you still promise them another hell. you torment them, torture them to death mentally when they are already all but dead physically! come on! i will show you one more hell--one more, the very worst.' "he took him to a prison and showed him a dungeon, with its foul air and the many human forms, robbed of all health and energy, lying on the floor, covered with vermin that were devouring their poor, naked, emaciated bodies. "'take off your silken clothes,' said the devil to the priest, 'put on your ankles heavy chains such as these unfortunates wear; lie down on the cold and filthy floor--and then talk to them about a hell that still awaits them!' "'no, no!' answered the priest, 'i cannot think of anything more dreadful than this. i entreat you, let me go away from here!' "'yes, this is hell. there can be no worse hell than this. did you not know it? did you not know that these men and women whom you are frightening with the picture of a hell hereafter--did you not know that they are in hell right here, before they die?'" this was written fifty years ago in dark russia, on the wall of one of the most horrible prisons. yet who can deny that the same applies with equal force to the present time, even to american prisons? with all our boasted reforms, our great social changes, and our far-reaching discoveries, human beings continue to be sent to the worst of hells, wherein they are outraged, degraded, and tortured, that society may be "protected" from the phantoms of its own making. prison, a social protection? what monstrous mind ever conceived such an idea? just as well say that health can be promoted by a widespread contagion. after eighteen months of horror in an english prison, oscar wilde gave to the world his great masterpiece, the ballad of reading goal: the vilest deeds, like poison weeds, bloom well in prison air; it is only what is good in man that wastes and withers there. pale anguish keeps the heavy gate, and the warder is despair. society goes on perpetuating this poisonous air, not realizing that out of it can come naught but the most poisonous results. we are spending at the present $ , , per day, $ , , , per year, to maintain prison institutions, and that in a democratic country,--a sum almost as large as the combined output of wheat, valued at $ , , , and the output of coal, valued at $ , , . professor bushnell of washington, d.c., estimates the cost of prisons at $ , , , annually, and dr. g. frank lydston, an eminent american writer on crime, gives $ , , , annually as a reasonable figure. such unheard-of expenditure for the purpose of maintaining vast armies of human beings caged up like wild beasts![ ] yet crimes are on the increase. thus we learn that in america there are four and a half times as many crimes to every million population today as there were twenty years ago. the most horrible aspect is that our national crime is murder, not robbery, embezzlement, or rape, as in the south. london is five times as large as chicago, yet there are one hundred and eighteen murders annually in the latter city, while only twenty in london. nor is chicago the leading city in crime, since it is only seventh on the list, which is headed by four southern cities, and san francisco and los angeles. in view of such a terrible condition of affairs, it seems ridiculous to prate of the protection society derives from its prisons. the average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist. the time is past when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is "ordained by divine right," or by the majesty of the law. the widespread prison investigations, agitation, and education during the last few years are conclusive proof that men are learning to dig deep into the very bottom of society, down to the causes of the terrible discrepancy between social and individual life. why, then, are prisons a social crime and a failure? to answer this vital question it behooves us to seek the nature and cause of crimes, the methods employed in coping with them, and the effects these methods produce in ridding society of the curse and horror of crimes. first, as to the nature of crime: havelock ellis divides crime into four phases, the political, the passional, the insane, and the occasional. he says that the political criminal is the victim of an attempt of a more or less despotic government to preserve its own stability. he is not necessarily guilty of an unsocial offense; he simply tries to overturn a certain political order which may itself be anti-social. this truth is recognized all over the world, except in america where the foolish notion still prevails that in a democracy there is no place for political criminals. yet john brown was a political criminal; so were the chicago anarchists; so is every striker. consequently, says havelock ellis, the political criminal of our time or place may be the hero, martyr, saint of another age. lombroso calls the political criminal the true precursor of the progressive movement of humanity. "the criminal by passion is usually a man of wholesome birth and honest life, who under the stress of some great, unmerited wrong has wrought justice for himself."[ ] mr. hugh c. weir, in the menace of the police, cites the case of jim flaherty, a criminal by passion, who, instead of being saved by society, is turned into a drunkard and a recidivist, with a ruined and poverty-stricken family as the result. a more pathetic type is archie, the victim in brand whitlock's novel, the turn of the balance, the greatest american expose of crime in the making. archie, even more than flaherty, was driven to crime and death by the cruel inhumanity of his surroundings, and by the unscrupulous hounding of the machinery of the law. archie and flaherty are but the types of many thousands, demonstrating how the legal aspects of crime, and the methods of dealing with it, help to create the disease which is undermining our entire social life. "the insane criminal really can no more be considered a criminal than a child, since he is mentally in the same condition as an infant or an animal."[ ] the law already recognizes that, but only in rare cases of a very flagrant nature, or when the culprit's wealth permits the luxury of criminal insanity. it has become quite fashionable to be the victim of paranoia. but on the whole the "sovereignty of justice" still continues to punish criminally insane with the whole severity of its power. thus mr. ellis quotes from dr. richter's statistics showing that in germany, one hundred and six madmen, out of one hundred and forty-four criminal insane, were condemned to severe punishment. the occasional criminal "represents by far the largest class of our prison population, hence is the greatest menace to social well-being." what is the cause that compels a vast army of the human family to take to crime, to prefer the hideous life within prison walls to the life outside? certainly that cause must be an iron master, who leaves its victims no avenue of escape, for the most depraved human being loves liberty. this terrific force is conditioned in our cruel social and economic arrangement. i do not mean to deny the biologic, physiologic, or psychologic factors in creating crime; but there is hardly an advanced criminologist who will not concede that the social and economic influences are the most relentless, the most poisonous germs of crime. granted even that there are innate criminal tendencies, it is none the less true that these tendencies find rich nutrition in our social environment. there is close relation, says havelock ellis, between crimes against the person and the price of alcohol, between crimes against property and the price of wheat. he quotes quetelet and lacassagne, the former looking upon society as the preparer of crime, and the criminals as instruments that execute them. the latter find that "the social environment is the cultivation medium of criminality; that the criminal is the microbe, an element which only becomes important when it finds the medium which causes it to ferment; every society has the criminals it deserves."[ ] the most "prosperous" industrial period makes it impossible for the worker to earn enough to keep up health and vigor. and as prosperity is, at best, an imaginary condition, thousands of people are constantly added to the host of the unemployed. from east to west, from south to north, this vast army tramps in search of work or food, and all they find is the workhouse or the slums. those who have a spark of self-respect left, prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the emaciated, degraded position of poverty. edward carpenter estimates that five-sixths of indictable crimes consist in some violation of property rights; but that is too low a figure. a thorough investigation would prove that nine crimes out of ten could be traced, directly or indirectly, to our economic and social iniquities, to our system of remorseless exploitation and robbery. there is no criminal so stupid but recognizes this terrible fact, though he may not be able to account for it. a collection of criminal philosophy, which havelock ellis, lombroso, and other eminent men have compiled, shows that the criminal feels only too keenly that it is society that drives him to crime. a milanese thief said to lombroso: "i do not rob, i merely take from the rich their superfluities; besides, do not advocates and merchants rob?" a murderer wrote: "knowing that three-fourths of the social virtues are cowardly vices, i thought an open assault on a rich man would be less ignoble than the cautious combination of fraud." another wrote: "i am imprisoned for stealing a half dozen eggs. ministers who rob millions are honored. poor italy!" an educated convict said to mr. davitt: "the laws of society are framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and calculation, thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights and chances. why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar means from those who have taken more than they had a right to?" the same man added: "religion robs the soul of its independence; patriotism is the stupid worship of the world for which the well-being and the peace of the inhabitants were sacrificed by those who profit by it, while the laws of the land, in restraining natural desires, were waging war on the manifest spirit of the law of our beings. compared with this," he concluded, "thieving is an honorable pursuit."[ ] verily, there is greater truth in this philosophy than in all the law-and-moral books of society. the economic, political, moral, and physical factors being the microbes of crime, how does society meet the situation? the methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. in practice, society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is, revenge. it has also adopted the theologic idea; namely, punishment; while the legal and "civilized" methods consist of deterrence or terror, and reform. we shall presently see that all four modes have failed utterly, and that we are today no nearer a solution than in the dark ages. the natural impulse of the primitive man to strike back, to avenge a wrong, is out of date. instead, the civilized man, stripped of courage and daring, has delegated to an organized machinery the duty of avenging his wrongs, in the foolish belief that the state is justified in doing what he no longer has the manhood or consistency to do. the majesty-of-the-law is a reasoning thing; it would not stoop to primitive instincts. its mission is of a "higher" nature. true, it is still steeped in the theologic muddle, which proclaims punishment as a means of purification, or the vicarious atonement of sin. but legally and socially the statute exercises punishment, not merely as an infliction of pain upon the offender, but also for its terrifying effect upon others. what is the real basis of punishment, however? the notion of a free will, the idea that man is at all times a free agent for good or evil; if he chooses the latter, he must be made to pay the price. although this theory has long been exploded, and thrown upon the dustheap, it continues to be applied daily by the entire machinery of government, turning it into the most cruel and brutal tormentor of human life. the only reason for its continuance is the still more cruel notion that the greater the terror punishment spreads, the more certain its preventative effect. society is using the most drastic methods in dealing with the social offender. why do they not deter? although in america a man is supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the instruments of law, the police, carry on a reign of terror, making indiscriminate arrests, beating, clubbing, bullying people, using the barbarous method of the "third degree," subjecting their unfortunate victims to the foul air of the station house, and the still fouler language of its guardians. yet crimes are rapidly multiplying, and society is paying the price. on the other hand, it is an open secret that when the unfortunate citizen has been given the full "mercy" of the law, and for the sake of safety is hidden in the worst of hells, his real calvary begins. robbed of his rights as a human being, degraded to a mere automaton without will or feeling, dependent entirely upon the mercy of brutal keepers, he daily goes through a process of dehumanization, compared with which savage revenge was mere child's play. there is not a single penal institution or reformatory in the united states where men are not tortured "to be made good," by means of the blackjack, the club, the straightjacket, the water-cure, the "humming bird" (an electrical contrivance run along the human body), the solitary, the bullring, and starvation diet. in these institutions his will is broken, his soul degraded, his spirit subdued by the deadly monotony and routine of prison life. in ohio, illinois, pennsylvania, missouri, and in the south, these horrors have become so flagrant as to reach the outside world, while in most other prisons the same christian methods still prevail. but prison walls rarely allow the agonized shrieks of the victims to escape--prison walls are thick, they dull the sound. society might with greater immunity abolish all prisons at once, than to hope for protection from these twentieth century chambers of horrors. year after year the gates of prison hells return to the world an emaciated, deformed, willless, ship-wrecked crew of humanity, with the cain mark on their foreheads, their hopes crushed, all their natural inclinations thwarted. with nothing but hunger and inhumanity to greet them, these victims soon sink back into crime as the only possibility of existence. it is not at all an unusual thing to find men and women who have spent half their lives--nay, almost their entire existence--in prison. i know a woman on blackwell's island, who had been in and out thirty-eight times; and through a friend i learn that a young boy of seventeen, whom he had nursed and cared for in the pittsburg penitentiary, had never known the meaning of liberty. from the reformatory to the penitentiary had been the path of this boy's life, until, broken in body, he died a victim of social revenge. these personal experiences are substantiated by extensive data giving overwhelming proof of the utter futility of prisons as a means of deterrence or reform. well-meaning persons are now working for a new departure in the prison question,--reclamation, to restore once more to the prisoner the possibility of becoming a human being. commendable as this is, i fear it is impossible to hope for good results from pouring good wine into a musty bottle. nothing short of a complete reconstruction of society will deliver mankind from the cancer of crime. still, if the dull edge of our social conscience would be sharpened, the penal institutions might be given a new coat of varnish. but the first step to be taken is the renovation of the social consciousness, which is in a rather dilapidated condition. it is sadly in need to be awakened to the fact that crime is a question of degree, that we all have the rudiments of crime in us, more or less, according to our mental, physical, and social environment; and that the individual criminal is merely a reflex of the tendencies of the aggregate. with the social consciousness awakened, the average individual may learn to refuse the "honor" of being the bloodhound of the law. he may cease to persecute, despise, and mistrust the social offender, and give him a chance to live and breathe among his fellows. institutions are, of course, harder to reach. they are cold, impenetrable, and cruel; still, with the social consciousness quickened, it might be possible to free the prison victims from the brutality of prison officials, guards, and keepers. public opinion is a powerful weapon; keepers of human prey, even, are afraid of it. they may be taught a little humanity, especially if they realize that their jobs depend upon it. but the most important step is to demand for the prisoner the right to work while in prison, with some monetary recompense that would enable him to lay aside a little for the day of his release, the beginning of a new life. it is almost ridiculous to hope much from present society when we consider that workingmen, wage slaves themselves, object to convict labor. i shall not go into the cruelty of this objection, but merely consider the impracticability of it. to begin with, the opposition so far raised by organized labor has been directed against windmills. prisoners have always worked; only the state has been their exploiter, even as the individual employer has been the robber of organized labor. the states have either set the convicts to work for the government, or they have farmed convict labor to private individuals. twenty-nine of the states pursue the latter plan. the federal government and seventeen states have discarded it, as have the leading nations of europe, since it leads to hideous overworking and abuse of prisoners, and to endless graft. rhode island, the state dominated by aldrich, offers perhaps the worst example. under a five-year contract, dated july th, , and renewable for five years more at the option of private contractors, the labor of the inmates of the rhode island penitentiary and the providence county jail is sold to the reliance-sterling mfg. co. at the rate of a trifle less than cents a day per man. this company is really a gigantic prison labor trust, for it also leases the convict labor of connecticut, michigan, indiana, nebraska, and south dakota penitentiaries, and the reformatories of new jersey, indiana, illinois, and wisconsin, eleven establishments in all. the enormity of the graft under the rhode island contract may be estimated from the fact that this same company pays / cents a day in nebraska for the convict's labor, and that tennessee, for example, gets $ . a day for a convict's work from the gray-dudley hardware co.; missouri gets cents a day from the star overall mfg. co.; west virginia cents a day from the kraft mfg. co., and maryland cents a day from oppenheim, oberndorf & co., shirt manufacturers. the very difference in prices points to enormous graft. for example, the reliance-sterling mfg. co. manufactures shirts, the cost of free labor being not less than $ . per dozen, while it pays rhode island thirty cents a dozen. furthermore, the state charges this trust no rent for the use of its huge factory, charges nothing for power, heat, light, or even drainage, and exacts no taxes. what graft! it is estimated that more than twelve million dollars' worth of workingmen's shirts and overalls is produced annually in this country by prison labor. it is a woman's industry, and the first reflection that arises is that an immense amount of free female labor is thus displaced. the second consideration is that male convicts, who should be learning trades that would give them some chance of being self-supporting after their release, are kept at this work at which they can not possibly make a dollar. this is the more serious when we consider that much of this labor is done in reformatories, which so loudly profess to be training their inmates to become useful citizens. the third, and most important, consideration is that the enormous profits thus wrung from convict labor are a constant incentive to the contractors to exact from their unhappy victims tasks altogether beyond their strength, and to punish them cruelly when their work does not come up to the excessive demands made. another word on the condemnation of convicts to tasks at which they cannot hope to make a living after release. indiana, for example, is a state that has made a great splurge over being in the front rank of modern penological improvements. yet, according to the report rendered in by the training school of its "reformatory," were engaged in the manufacture of chains, in that of shirts, and in the foundry--a total of in three occupations. but at this so-called reformatory occupations were represented by the inmates, of which were connected with country pursuits. indiana, like other states, professes to be training the inmates of her reformatory to occupations by which they will be able to make their living when released. she actually sets them to work making chains, shirts, and brooms, the latter for the benefit of the louisville fancy grocery co. broom making is a trade largely monopolized by the blind, shirt making is done by women, and there is only one free chain factory in the state, and at that a released convict can not hope to get employment. the whole thing is a cruel farce. if, then, the states can be instrumental in robbing their helpless victims of such tremendous profits, is it not high time for organized labor to stop its idle howl, and to insist on decent remuneration for the convict, even as labor organizations claim for themselves? in that way workingmen would kill the germ which makes of the prisoner an enemy to the interests of labor. i have said elsewhere that thousands of convicts, incompetent and without a trade, without means of subsistence, are yearly turned back into the social fold. these men and women must live, for even an ex-convict has needs. prison life has made them anti-social beings, and the rigidly closed doors that meet them on their release are not likely to decrease their bitterness. the inevitable result is that they form a favorable nucleus out of which scabs, blacklegs, detectives, and policemen are drawn, only too willing to do the master's bidding. thus organized labor, by its foolish opposition to work in prison, defeats its own ends. it helps to create poisonous fumes that stifle every attempt for economic betterment. if the workingman wants to avoid these effects, he should insist on the right of the convict to work, he should meet him as a brother, take him into his organization, and with his aid turn against the system which grinds them both. last, but not least, is the growing realization of the barbarity and the inadequacy of the definite sentence. those who believe in, and earnestly aim at, a change are fast coming to the conclusion that man must be given an opportunity to make good. and how is he to do it with ten, fifteen, or twenty years' imprisonment before him? the hope of liberty and of opportunity is the only incentive to life, especially the prisoner's life. society has sinned so long against him--it ought at least to leave him that. i am not very sanguine that it will, or that any real change in that direction can take place until the conditions that breed both the prisoner and the jailer will be forever abolished. out of his mouth a red, red rose! out of his heart a white! for who can say by what strange way christ brings his will to light, since the barren staff the pilgrim bore bloomed in the great pope's sight. [ ] crime and criminals. w. c. owen. [ ] the criminal, havelock ellis. [ ] the criminal. [ ] the criminal. [ ] the criminal. patriotism: a menace to liberty what is patriotism? is it love of one's birthplace, the place of childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? is it the place where, in childlike naivety, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? the place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one "an eye should be," piercing the very depths of our little souls? is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? or the place where we would sit at mother's knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests? in short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood? if that were patriotism, few american men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief. what, then, is patriotism? "patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said dr. johnson. leo tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman. gustave herve, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. the superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. that is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit. indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. let me illustrate. patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. it is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others. the inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that, from early infancy, the mind of the child is poisoned with blood-curdling stories about the germans, the french, the italians, russians, etc. when the child has reached manhood, he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. it is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. it is for that purpose that america has within a short time spent four hundred million dollars. just think of it--four hundred million dollars taken from the produce of the people. for surely it is not the rich who contribute to patriotism. they are cosmopolitans, perfectly at home in every land. we in america know well the truth of this. are not our rich americans frenchmen in france, germans in germany, or englishmen in england? and do they not squander with cosmopolitan grace fortunes coined by american factory children and cotton slaves? yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like the russian tsar, when any mishap befalls him, as president roosevelt did in the name of his people, when sergius was punished by the russian revolutionists. it is a patriotism that will assist the arch-murderer, diaz, in destroying thousands of lives in mexico, or that will even aid in arresting mexican revolutionists on american soil and keep them incarcerated in american prisons, without the slightest cause or reason. but, then, patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and power. it is good enough for the people. it reminds one of the historic wisdom of frederic the great, the bosom friend of voltaire, who said: "religion is a fraud, but it must be maintained for the masses." that patriotism is rather a costly institution, no one will doubt after considering the following statistics. the progressive increase of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle every thoughtful student of economic problems. it may be briefly indicated by dividing the time from to into five-year periods, and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy purposes during the first and last of those periods. from the first to the last of the periods noted the expenditures of great britain increased from $ , , , to $ , , , , those of france from $ , , , to $ , , , , those of germany from $ , , to $ , , , , those of the united states from $ , , , to $ , , , , those of russia from $ , , , to $ , , , , those of italy from $ , , , to $ , , , , and those of japan from $ , , to $ , , . the military expenditures of each of the nations mentioned increased in each of the five-year periods under review. during the entire interval from to great britain's outlay for her army increased fourfold, that of the united states was tripled, russia's was doubled, that of germany increased per cent., that of france about per cent., and that of japan nearly per cent. if we compare the expenditures of these nations upon their armies with their total expenditures for all the twenty-five years ending with , the proportion rose as follows: in great britain from per cent. to ; in the united states from to ; in france from to ; in italy from to ; in japan from to . on the other hand, it is interesting to note that the proportion in germany decreased from about per cent. to , the decrease being due to the enormous increase in the imperial expenditures for other purposes, the fact being that the army expenditures for the period of - were higher than for any five-year period preceding. statistics show that the countries in which army expenditures are greatest, in proportion to the total national revenues, are great britain, the united states, japan, france, and italy, in the order named. the showing as to the cost of great navies is equally impressive. during the twenty-five years ending with naval expenditures increased approximately as follows: great britain, per cent.; france per cent.; germany per cent.; the united states per cent.; russia per cent.; italy per cent.; and japan, per cent. with the exception of great britain, the united states spends more for naval purposes than any other nation, and this expenditure bears also a larger proportion to the entire national disbursements than that of any other power. in the period - , the expenditure for the united states navy was $ . out of each $ appropriated for all national purposes; the amount rose to $ . for the next five-year period, to $ . for the next, to $ . for the next, and to $ . for - . it is morally certain that the outlay for the current period of five years will show a still further increase. the rising cost of militarism may be still further illustrated by computing it as a per capita tax on population. from the first to the last of the five-year periods taken as the basis for the comparisons here given, it has risen as follows: in great britain, from $ . to $ . ; in france, from $ . to $ . ; in germany, from $ . to $ . ; in the united states, from $ . to $ . ; in russia, from $ . to $ . ; in italy, from $ . to $ . , and in japan from cents to $ . . it is in connection with this rough estimate of cost per capita that the economic burden of militarism is most appreciable. the irresistible conclusion from available data is that the increase of expenditure for army and navy purposes is rapidly surpassing the growth of population in each of the countries considered in the present calculation. in other words, a continuation of the increased demands of militarism threatens each of those nations with a progressive exhaustion both of men and resources. the awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. yet patriotism demands still more. the people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their "defenders," but even by sacrificing their own children. patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister. the usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion. every intelligent man and woman knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish. the governments of the world, knowing each other's interests, do not invade each other. they have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest. indeed, as carlyle said, "war is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village; stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other." it does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. let us take our own spanish-american war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the united states. how our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious spaniards! true, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. it was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after butcher weyler had killed off many noble cubans and outraged many cuban women. still, in justice to the american nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. but when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree--it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the spanish-american war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the american people were used to protect the interests of american capitalists, which were threatened by the spanish government. that this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the american government to cuban labor. when cuba was firmly in the clutches of the united states, the very soldiers sent to liberate cuba were ordered to shoot cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war. nor do we stand alone in waging war for such causes. the curtain is beginning to be lifted on the motives of the terrible russo-japanese war, which cost so much blood and tears. and we see again that back of the fierce moloch of war stands the still fiercer god of commercialism. kuropatkin, the russian minister of war during the russo-japanese struggle, has revealed the true secret behind the latter. the tsar and his grand dukes, having invested money in corean concessions, the war was forced for the sole purpose of speedily accumulating large fortunes. the contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. the experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. the same is historically true of governments. really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained. however, the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any foreign danger. it is owing to the dread of the growing discontent of the masses and of the international spirit among the workers. it is to meet the internal enemy that the powers of various countries are preparing themselves; an enemy, who, once awakened to consciousness, will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader. the powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. they know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. and the more gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it will appeal to the million-headed child. an army and navy represents the people's toys. to make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of these toys. that was the purpose of the american government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the pacific coast, that every american citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the united states. the city of san francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; los angeles, sixty thousand; seattle and tacoma, about one hundred thousand. to entertain the fleet, did i say? to dine and wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to get sufficient food. yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price. two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! what could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum? but instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory for the child." a wonderful thing to remember, is it not? the implements of civilized slaughter. if the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood? we americans claim to be a peace-loving people. we hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. we are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that america is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. such is the logic of patriotism. considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself,--that poor, deluded victim of superstition and ignorance. he, the savior of his country, the protector of his nation,--what has patriotism in store for him? a life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a life of danger, exposure, and death, during war. while on a recent lecture tour in san francisco, i visited the presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the bay and golden gate park. its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens and music for the recreation of the weary. instead it is made ugly, dull, and gray by barracks,--barracks wherein the rich would not allow their dogs to dwell. in these miserable shanties soldiers are herded like cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the boots and brass buttons of their superior officers. here, too, i saw the distinction of classes: sturdy sons of a free republic, drawn up in line like convicts, saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant. american equality, degrading manhood and elevating the uniform! barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual perversion. it is gradually producing along this line results similar to european military conditions. havelock ellis, the noted writer on sex psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject. i quote: "some of the barracks are great centers of male prostitution.... the number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to believe. it is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men.... on summer evenings hyde park and the neighborhood of albert gate are full of guardsmen and others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or out.... in most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to tommy atkins' pocket money." to what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for this form of prostitution. the practice is not limited to england; it is universal. "soldiers are no less sought after in france than in england or in germany, and special houses for military prostitution exist both in paris and the garrison towns." had mr. havelock ellis included america in his investigation of sex perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in our army and navy as in those of other countries. the growth of the standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the barracks are the incubators. aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. men, skilled in a trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a military experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their former occupations. having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them. released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. but it is usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks. these, their military term over, again turn to their former life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. it is a well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of ex-soldiers; while on the other hand, the army and navy are to a great extent supplied with ex-convicts. of all the evil results, i have just described, none seems to me so detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced in the case of private william buwalda. because he foolishly believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely. true, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his record was unimpeachable. according to gen. funston, who reduced buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not." thus funston stamps the true character of allegiance. according to him, entrance into the army abrogates the principles of the declaration of independence. what a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine! in justification of this most outrageous sentence of buwalda, gen. funston tells the american people that the soldier's action was a "serious crime equal to treason." now, what did this "terrible crime" really consist of? simply in this: william buwalda was one of fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in san francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, emma goldman. a terrible crime, indeed, which the general calls "a great military offense, infinitely worse than desertion." can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him of the results of fifteen years of faithful service? buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very manhood. but all that was as nothing. patriotism is inexorable and, like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. it does not admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. no, patriotism can not admit of that. that is the lesson which buwalda was made to learn; made to learn at a rather costly, though not at a useless, price. when he returned to freedom, he had lost his position in the army, but he regained his self-respect. after all, that is worth three years of imprisonment. a writer on the military conditions of america, in a recent article, commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in germany. he said, among other things, that if our republic had no other meaning than to guarantee all citizens equal rights, it would have just cause for existence. i am convinced that the writer was not in colorado during the patriotic regime of general bell. he probably would have changed his mind had he seen how, in the name of patriotism and the republic, men were thrown into bull-pens, dragged about, driven across the border, and subjected to all kinds of indignities. nor is that colorado incident the only one in the growth of military power in the united states. there is hardly a strike where troops and militia do not come to the rescue of those in power, and where they do not act as arrogantly and brutally as do the men wearing the kaiser's uniform. then, too, we have the dick military law. had the writer forgotten that? a great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are absolutely ignorant on current events, or that, lacking honesty, they will not speak of these matters. and so it has come to pass that the dick military law was rushed through congress with little discussion and still less publicity,--a law which gives the president the power to turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man-killer, supposedly for the defense of the country, in reality for the protection of the interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the president happens to be. our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in america as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in the old world. two very important facts, however, the gentleman forgets to consider. first, that conscription has created in europe a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society. thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the army, they will use every possible means to desert. second, that it is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by european powers far more than anything else. after all, the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. the very moment the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. true, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments? the trade of militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable, but it is better than tramping the country in search of work, standing in the bread line, or sleeping in municipal lodging houses. after all, it means thirteen dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood. no wonder our military authorities complain of the "poor material" enlisting in the army and navy. this admission is a very encouraging sign. it proves that there is still enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the average american to risk starvation rather than don the uniform. thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time. the centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world; a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of interests between the workingman of america and his brothers abroad than between the american miner and his exploiting compatriot; a solidarity which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, "go and do your own killing. we have done it long enough for you." this solidarity is awakening the consciousness of even the soldiers, they, too, being flesh of the flesh of the great human family. a solidarity that has proven infallible more than once during past struggles, and which has been the impetus inducing the parisian soldiers, during the commune of , to refuse to obey when ordered to shoot their brothers. it has given courage to the men who mutinied on russian warships during recent years. it will eventually bring about the uprising of all the oppressed and downtrodden against their international exploiters. the proletariat of europe has realized the great force of that solidarity and has, as a result, inaugurated a war against patriotism and its bloody spectre, militarism. thousands of men fill the prisons of france, germany, russia, and the scandinavian countries, because they dared to defy the ancient superstition. nor is the movement limited to the working class; it has embraced representatives in all stations of life, its chief exponents being men and women prominent in art, science, and letters. america will have to follow suit. the spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. indeed, i am convinced that militarism is growing a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy. the beginning has already been made in the schools. evidently the government holds to the jesuitical conception, "give me the child mind, and i will mould the man." children are trained in military tactics, the glory of military achievements extolled in the curriculum, and the youthful minds perverted to suit the government. further, the youth of the country is appealed to in glaring posters to join the army and navy. "a fine chance to see the world!" cries the governmental huckster. thus innocent boys are morally shanghaied into patriotism, and the military moloch strides conquering through the nation. the american workingman has suffered so much at the hands of the soldier, state, and federal, that he is quite justified in his disgust with, and his opposition to, the uniformed parasite. however, mere denunciation will not solve this great problem. what we need is a propaganda of education for the soldier: anti-patriotic literature that will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his trade, and that will awaken his consciousness to his true relation to the man to whose labor he owes his very existence. it is precisely this that the authorities fear most. it is already high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting. no doubt they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to read a radical pamphlet. but then, has not authority from time immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable? those, however, who earnestly strive for social reconstruction can well afford to face all that; for it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the barracks than into the factory. when we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for that great structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal brotherhood,--a truly free society. francisco ferrer and the modern school experience has come to be considered the best school of life. the man or woman who does not learn some vital lesson in that school is looked upon as a dunce indeed. yet strange to say, that though organized institutions continue perpetrating errors, though they learn nothing from experience, we acquiesce, as a matter of course. there lived and worked in barcelona a man by the name of francisco ferrer. a teacher of children he was, known and loved by his people. outside of spain only the cultured few knew of francisco ferrer's work. to the world at large this teacher was non-existent. on the first of september, , the spanish government--at the behest of the catholic church--arrested francisco ferrer. on the thirteenth of october, after a mock trial, he was placed in the ditch at montjuich prison, against the hideous wall of many sighs, and shot dead. instantly ferrer, the obscure teacher, became a universal figure, blazing forth the indignation and wrath of the whole civilized world against the wanton murder. the killing of francisco ferrer was not the first crime committed by the spanish government and the catholic church. the history of these institutions is one long stream of fire and blood. still they have not learned through experience, nor yet come to realize that every frail being slain by church and state grows and grows into a mighty giant, who will some day free humanity from their perilous hold. francisco ferrer was born in , of humble parents. they were catholics, and therefore hoped to raise their son in the same faith. they did not know that the boy was to become the harbinger of a great truth, that his mind would refuse to travel in the old path. at an early age ferrer began to question the faith of his fathers. he demanded to know how it is that the god who spoke to him of goodness and love would mar the sleep of the innocent child with dread and awe of tortures, of suffering, of hell. alert and of a vivid and investigating mind, it did not take him long to discover the hideousness of that black monster, the catholic church. he would have none of it. francisco ferrer was not only a doubter, a searcher for truth; he was also a rebel. his spirit would rise in just indignation against the iron regime of his country, and when a band of rebels, led by the brave patriot, general villacampa, under the banner of the republican ideal, made an onslaught on that regime, none was more ardent a fighter than young francisco ferrer. the republican ideal,--i hope no one will confound it with the republicanism of this country. whatever objection i, as an anarchist, have to the republicans of latin countries, i know they tower high above the corrupt and reactionary party which, in america, is destroying every vestige of liberty and justice. one has but to think of the mazzinis, the garibaldis, the scores of others, to realize that their efforts were directed, not merely towards the overthrow of despotism, but particularly against the catholic church, which from its very inception has been the enemy of all progress and liberalism. in america it is just the reverse. republicanism stands for vested rights, for imperialism, for graft, for the annihilation of every semblance of liberty. its ideal is the oily, creepy respectability of a mckinley, and the brutal arrogance of a roosevelt. the spanish republican rebels were subdued. it takes more than one brave effort to split the rock of ages, to cut off the head of that hydra monster, the catholic church and the spanish throne. arrest, persecution, and punishment followed the heroic attempt of the little band. those who could escape the bloodhounds had to flee for safety to foreign shores. francisco ferrer was among the latter. he went to france. how his soul must have expanded in the new land! france, the cradle of liberty, of ideas, of action. paris, the ever young, intense paris, with her pulsating life, after the gloom of his own belated country,--how she must have inspired him. what opportunities, what a glorious chance for a young idealist. francisco ferrer lost no time. like one famished he threw himself into the various liberal movements, met all kinds of people, learned, absorbed, and grew. while there, he also saw in operation the modern school, which was to play such an important and fatal part in his life. the modern school in france was founded long before ferrer's time. its originator, though on a small scale, was that sweet spirit, louise michel. whether consciously or unconsciously, our own great louise felt long ago that the future belongs to the young generation; that unless the young be rescued from that mind and soul destroying institution, the bourgeois school, social evils will continue to exist. perhaps she thought, with ibsen, that the atmosphere is saturated with ghosts, that the adult man and woman have so many superstitions to overcome. no sooner do they outgrow the deathlike grip of one spook, lo! they find themselves in the thralldom of ninety-nine other spooks. thus but a few reach the mountain peak of complete regeneration. the child, however, has no traditions to overcome. its mind is not burdened with set ideas, its heart has not grown cold with class and caste distinctions. the child is to the teacher what clay is to the sculptor. whether the world will receive a work of art or a wretched imitation, depends to a large extent on the creative power of the teacher. louise michel was pre-eminently qualified to meet the child's soul cravings. was she not herself of a childlike nature, so sweet and tender, unsophisticated and generous. the soul of louise burned always at white heat over every social injustice. she was invariably in the front ranks whenever the people of paris rebelled against some wrong. and as she was made to suffer imprisonment for her great devotion to the oppressed, the little school on montmartre was soon no more. but the seed was planted, and has since borne fruit in many cities of france. the most important venture of a modern school was that of the great, young old man, paul robin. together with a few friends he established a large school at cempuis, a beautiful place near paris. paul robin aimed at a higher ideal than merely modern ideas in education. he wanted to demonstrate by actual facts that the bourgeois conception of heredity is but a mere pretext to exempt society from its terrible crimes against the young. the contention that the child must suffer for the sins of the fathers, that it must continue in poverty and filth, that it must grow up a drunkard or criminal, just because its parents left it no other legacy, was too preposterous to the beautiful spirit of paul robin. he believed that whatever part heredity may play, there are other factors equally great, if not greater, that may and will eradicate or minimize the so-called first cause. proper economic and social environment, the breath and freedom of nature, healthy exercise, love and sympathy, and, above all, a deep understanding for the needs of the child--these would destroy the cruel, unjust, and criminal stigma imposed on the innocent young. paul robin did not select his children; he did not go to the so-called best parents: he took his material wherever he could find it. from the street, the hovels, the orphan and foundling asylums, the reformatories, from all those gray and hideous places where a benevolent society hides its victims in order to pacify its guilty conscience. he gathered all the dirty, filthy, shivering little waifs his place would hold, and brought them to cempuis. there, surrounded by nature's own glory, free and unrestrained, well fed, clean kept, deeply loved and understood, the little human plants began to grow, to blossom, to develop beyond even the expectations of their friend and teacher, paul robin. the children grew and developed into self-reliant, liberty loving men and women. what greater danger to the institutions that make the poor in order to perpetuate the poor. cempuis was closed by the french government on the charge of co-education, which is prohibited in france. however, cempuis had been in operation long enough to prove to all advanced educators its tremendous possibilities, and to serve as an impetus for modern methods of education, that are slowly but inevitably undermining the present system. cempuis was followed by a great number of other educational attempts,--among them, by madelaine vernet, a gifted writer and poet, author of l'amour libre, and sebastian faure, with his la ruche,[ ] which i visited while in paris, in . several years ago comrade faure bought the land on which he built his la ruche. in a comparatively short time he succeeded in transforming the former wild, uncultivated country into a blooming spot, having all the appearance of a well kept farm. a large, square court, enclosed by three buildings, and a broad path leading to the garden and orchards, greet the eye of the visitor. the garden, kept as only a frenchman knows how, furnishes a large variety of vegetables for la ruche. sebastian faure is of the opinion that if the child is subjected to contradictory influences, its development suffers in consequence. only when the material needs, the hygiene of the home, and intellectual environment are harmonious, can the child grow into a healthy, free being. referring to his school, sebastian faure has this to say: "i have taken twenty-four children of both sexes, mostly orphans, or those whose parents are too poor to pay. they are clothed, housed, and educated at my expense. till their twelfth year they will receive a sound, elementary education. between the age of twelve and fifteen--their studies still continuing--they are to be taught some trade, in keeping with their individual disposition and abilities. after that they are at liberty to leave la ruche to begin life in the outside world, with the assurance that they may at any time return to la ruche, where they will be received with open arms and welcomed as parents do their beloved children. then, if they wish to work at our place, they may do so under the following conditions: one third of the product to cover his or her expenses of maintenance, another third to go towards the general fund set aside for accommodating new children, and the last third to be devoted to the personal use of the child, as he or she may see fit. "the health of the children who are now in my care is perfect. pure air, nutritious food, physical exercise in the open, long walks, observation of hygienic rules, the short and interesting method of instruction, and, above all, our affectionate understanding and care of the children, have produced admirable physical and mental results. "it would be unjust to claim that our pupils have accomplished wonders; yet, considering that they belong to the average, having had no previous opportunities, the results are very gratifying indeed. the most important thing they have acquired--a rare trait with ordinary school children--is the love of study, the desire to know, to be informed. they have learned a new method of work, one that quickens the memory and stimulates the imagination. we make a particular effort to awaken the child's interest in his surroundings, to make him realize the importance of observation, investigation, and reflection, so that when the children reach maturity, they would not be deaf and blind to the things about them. our children never accept anything in blind faith, without inquiry as to why and wherefore; nor do they feel satisfied until their questions are thoroughly answered. thus their minds are free from doubts and fear resultant from incomplete or untruthful replies; it is the latter which warp the growth of the child, and create a lack of confidence in himself and those about him. "it is surprising how frank and kind and affectionate our little ones are to each other. the harmony between themselves and the adults at la ruche is highly encouraging. we should feel at fault if the children were to fear or honor us merely because we are their elders. we leave nothing undone to gain their confidence and love; that accomplished, understanding will replace duty; confidence, fear; and affection, severity. "no one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of the child. the effort of every true educator should be to unlock that treasure--to stimulate the child's impulses, and call forth the best and noblest tendencies. what greater reward can there be for one whose life-work is to watch over the growth of the human plant, than to see its nature unfold its petals, and to observe it develop into a true individuality. my comrades at la ruche look for no greater reward, and it is due to them and their efforts, even more than to my own, that our human garden promises to bear beautiful fruit."[ ] regarding the subject of history and the prevailing old methods of instruction, sebastian faure said: "we explain to our children that true history is yet to be written,--the story of those who have died, unknown, in the effort to aid humanity to greater achievement."[ ] francisco ferrer could not escape this great wave of modern school attempts. he saw its possibilities, not merely in theoretic form, but in their practical application to every-day needs. he must have realized that spain, more than any other country, stands in need of just such schools, if it is ever to throw off the double yoke of priest and soldier. when we consider that the entire system of education in spain is in the hands of the catholic church, and when we further remember the catholic formula, "to inculcate catholicism in the mind of the child until it is nine years of age is to ruin it forever for any other idea," we will understand the tremendous task of ferrer in bringing the new light to his people. fate soon assisted him in realizing his great dream. mlle. meunier, a pupil of francisco ferrer, and a lady of wealth, became interested in the modern school project. when she died, she left ferrer some valuable property and twelve thousand francs yearly income for the school. it is said that mean souls can conceive of naught but mean ideas. if so, the contemptible methods of the catholic church to blackguard ferrer's character, in order to justify her own black crime, can readily be explained. thus the lie was spread in american catholic papers, that ferrer used his intimacy with mlle. meunier to get possession of her money. personally, i hold that the intimacy, of whatever nature, between a man and a woman, is their own affair, their sacred own. i would therefore not lose a word in referring to the matter, if it were not one of the many dastardly lies circulated about ferrer. of course, those who know the purity of the catholic clergy will understand the insinuation. have the catholic priests ever looked upon woman as anything but a sex commodity? the historical data regarding the discoveries in the cloisters and monasteries will bear me out in that. how, then, are they to understand the co-operation of a man and a woman, except on a sex basis? as a matter of fact, mlle. meunier was considerably ferrer's senior. having spent her childhood and girlhood with a miserly father and a submissive mother, she could easily appreciate the necessity of love and joy in child life. she must have seen that francisco ferrer was a teacher, not college, machine, or diploma-made, but one endowed with genius for that calling. equipped with knowledge, with experience, and with the necessary means; above all, imbued with the divine fire of his mission, our comrade came back to spain, and there began his life's work. on the ninth of september, , the first modern school was opened. it was enthusiastically received by the people of barcelona, who pledged their support. in a short address at the opening of the school, ferrer submitted his program to his friends. he said: "i am not a speaker, not a propagandist, not a fighter. i am a teacher; i love children above everything. i think i understand them. i want my contribution to the cause of liberty to be a young generation ready to meet a new era." he was cautioned by his friends to be careful in his opposition to the catholic church. they knew to what lengths she would go to dispose of an enemy. ferrer, too, knew. but, like brand, he believed in all or nothing. he would not erect the modern school on the same old lie. he would be frank and honest and open with the children. francisco ferrer became a marked man. from the very first day of the opening of the school, he was shadowed. the school building was watched, his little home in mangat was watched. he was followed every step, even when he went to france or england to confer with his colleagues. he was a marked man, and it was only a question of time when the lurking enemy would tighten the noose. it succeeded, almost, in , when ferrer was implicated in the attempt on the life of alfonso. the evidence exonerating him was too strong even for the black crows;[ ] they had to let him go--not for good, however. they waited. oh, they can wait, when they have set themselves to trap a victim. the moment came at last, during the anti-military uprising in spain, in july, . one will have to search in vain the annals of revolutionary history to find a more remarkable protest against militarism. having been soldier-ridden for centuries, the people of spain could stand the yoke no longer. they would refuse to participate in useless slaughter. they saw no reason for aiding a despotic government in subduing and oppressing a small people fighting for their independence, as did the brave riffs. no, they would not bear arms against them. for eighteen hundred years the catholic church has preached the gospel of peace. yet, when the people actually wanted to make this gospel a living reality, she urged the authorities to force them to bear arms. thus the dynasty of spain followed the murderous methods of the russian dynasty,--the people were forced to the battlefield. then, and not until then, was their power of endurance at an end. then, and not until then, did the workers of spain turn against their masters, against those who, like leeches, had drained their strength, their very life-blood. yes, they attacked the churches and the priests, but if the latter had a thousand lives, they could not possibly pay for the terrible outrages and crimes perpetrated upon the spanish people. francisco ferrer was arrested on the first of september, . until october first, his friends and comrades did not even know what had become of him. on that day a letter was received by l'humanite, from which can be learned the whole mockery of the trial. and the next day his companion, soledad villafranca, received the following letter: "no reason to worry; you know i am absolutely innocent. today i am particularly hopeful and joyous. it is the first time i can write to you, and the first time since my arrest that i can bathe in the rays of the sun, streaming generously through my cell window. you, too, must be joyous." how pathetic that ferrer should have believed, as late as october fourth, that he would not be condemned to death. even more pathetic that his friends and comrades should once more have made the blunder in crediting the enemy with a sense of justice. time and again they had placed faith in the judicial powers, only to see their brothers killed before their very eyes. they made no preparation to rescue ferrer, not even a protest of any extent; nothing. "why, it is impossible to condemn ferrer; he is innocent." but everything is possible with the catholic church. is she not a practiced henchman, whose trials of her enemies are the worst mockery of justice? on october fourth ferrer sent the following letter to l'humanite: the prison cell, oct. , . my dear friends--notwithstanding most absolute innocence, the prosecutor demands the death penalty, based on denunciations of the police, representing me as the chief of the world's anarchists, directing the labor syndicates of france, and guilty of conspiracies and insurrections everywhere, and declaring that my voyages to london and paris were undertaken with no other object. with such infamous lies they are trying to kill me. the messenger is about to depart and i have not time for more. all the evidence presented to the investigating judge by the police is nothing but a tissue of lies and calumnious insinuations. but no proofs against me, having done nothing at all. ferrer. october thirteenth, , ferrer's heart, so brave, so staunch, so loyal, was stilled. poor fools! the last agonized throb of that heart had barely died away when it began to beat a hundredfold in the hearts of the civilized world, until it grew into terrific thunder, hurling forth its malediction upon the instigators of the black crime. murderers of black garb and pious mien, to the bar of justice! did francisco ferrer participate in the anti-military uprising? according to the first indictment, which appeared in a catholic paper in madrid, signed by the bishop and all the prelates of barcelona, he was not even accused of participation. the indictment was to the effect that francisco ferrer was guilty of having organized godless schools, and having circulated godless literature. but in the twentieth century men can not be burned merely for their godless beliefs. something else had to be devised; hence the charge of instigating the uprising. in no authentic source so far investigated could a single proof be found to connect ferrer with the uprising. but then, no proofs were wanted, or accepted, by the authorities. there were seventy-two witnesses, to be sure, but their testimony was taken on paper. they never were confronted with ferrer, or he with them. is it psychologically possible that ferrer should have participated? i do not believe it is, and here are my reasons. francisco ferrer was not only a great teacher, but he was also undoubtedly a marvelous organizer. in eight years, between - , he had organized in spain one hundred and nine schools, besides inducing the liberal element of his country to organize three hundred and eight other schools. in connection with his own school work, ferrer had equipped a modern printing plant, organized a staff of translators, and spread broadcast one hundred and fifty thousand copies of modern scientific and sociologic works, not to forget the large quantity of rationalist text books. surely none but the most methodical and efficient organizer could have accomplished such a feat. on the other hand, it was absolutely proven that the anti-military uprising was not at all organized; that it came as a surprise to the people themselves, like a great many revolutionary waves on previous occasions. the people of barcelona, for instance, had the city in their control for four days, and, according to the statement of tourists, greater order and peace never prevailed. of course, the people were so little prepared that when the time came, they did not know what to do. in this regard they were like the people of paris during the commune of . they, too, were unprepared. while they were starving, they protected the warehouses, filled to the brim with provisions. they placed sentinels to guard the bank of france, where the bourgeoisie kept the stolen money. the workers of barcelona, too, watched over the spoils of their masters. how pathetic is the stupidity of the underdog; how terribly tragic! but, then, have not his fetters been forged so deeply into his flesh, that he would not, even if he could, break them? the awe of authority, of law, of private property, hundredfold burned into his soul,--how is he to throw it off unprepared, unexpectedly? can anyone assume for a moment that a man like ferrer would affiliate himself with such a spontaneous, unorganized effort? would he not have known that it would result in a defeat, a disastrous defeat for the people? and is it not more likely that if he would have taken part, he, the experienced entrepreneur, would have thoroughly organized the attempt? if all other proofs were lacking, that one factor would be sufficient to exonerate francisco ferrer. but there are others equally convincing. for the very date of the outbreak, july twenty-fifth, ferrer had called a conference of his teachers and members of the league of rational education. it was to consider the autumn work, and particularly the publication of elisee reclus' great book, l'homme et la terre, and peter kropotkin's great french revolution. is it at all likely, is it at all plausible that ferrer, knowing of the uprising, being a party to it, would in cold blood invite his friends and colleagues to barcelona for the day on which he realized their lives would be endangered? surely, only the criminal, vicious mind of a jesuit could credit such deliberate murder. francisco ferrer had his life-work mapped out; he had everything to lose and nothing to gain, except ruin and disaster, were he to lend assistance to the outbreak. not that he doubted the justice of the people's wrath; but his work, his hope, his very nature was directed toward another goal. in vain are the frantic efforts of the catholic church, her lies, falsehoods, calumnies. she stands condemned by the awakened human conscience of having once more repeated the foul crimes of the past. francisco ferrer is accused of teaching the children the most blood-curdling ideas,--to hate god, for instance. horrors! francisco ferrer did not believe in the existence of a god. why teach the child to hate something which does not exist? is it not more likely that he took the children out into the open, that he showed them the splendor of the sunset, the brilliancy of the starry heavens, the awe-inspiring wonder of the mountains and seas; that he explained to them in his simple, direct way the law of growth, of development, of the interrelation of all life? in so doing he made it forever impossible for the poisonous weeds of the catholic church to take root in the child's mind. it has been stated that ferrer prepared the children to destroy the rich. ghost stories of old maids. is it not more likely that he prepared them to succor the poor? that he taught them the humiliation, the degradation, the awfulness of poverty, which is a vice and not a virtue; that he taught the dignity and importance of all creative efforts, which alone sustain life and build character. is it not the best and most effective way of bringing into the proper light the absolute uselessness and injury of parasitism? last, but not least, ferrer is charged with undermining the army by inculcating anti-military ideas. indeed? he must have believed with tolstoy that war is legalized slaughter, that it perpetuates hatred and arrogance, that it eats away the heart of nations, and turns them into raving maniacs. however, we have ferrer's own word regarding his ideas of modern education: "i would like to call the attention of my readers to this idea: all the value of education rests in the respect for the physical, intellectual, and moral will of the child. just as in science no demonstration is possible save by facts, just so there is no real education save that which is exempt from all dogmatism, which leaves to the child itself the direction of its effort, and confines itself to the seconding of its effort. now, there is nothing easier than to alter this purpose, and nothing harder than to respect it. education is always imposing, violating, constraining; the real educator is he who can best protect the child against his (the teacher's) own ideas, his peculiar whims; he who can best appeal to the child's own energies. "we are convinced that the education of the future will be of an entirely spontaneous nature; certainly we can not as yet realize it, but the evolution of methods in the direction of a wider comprehension of the phenomena of life, and the fact that all advances toward perfection mean the overcoming of restraint,--all this indicates that we are in the right when we hope for the deliverance of the child through science. "let us not fear to say that we want men capable of evolving without stopping, capable of destroying and renewing their environments without cessation, of renewing themselves also; men, whose intellectual independence will be their greatest force, who will attach themselves to nothing, always ready to accept what is best, happy in the triumph of new ideas, aspiring to live multiple lives in one life. society fears such men; we therefore must not hope that it will ever want an education able to give them to us. "we shall follow the labors of the scientists who study the child with the greatest attention, and we shall eagerly seek for means of applying their experience to the education which we want to build up, in the direction of an ever fuller liberation of the individual. but how can we attain our end? shall it not be by putting ourselves directly to the work favoring the foundation of new schools, which shall be ruled as much as possible by this spirit of liberty, which we forefeel will dominate the entire work of education in the future? "a trial has been made, which, for the present, has already given excellent results. we can destroy all which in the present school answers to the organization of constraint, the artificial surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life, the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose ready-made ideas upon them, beliefs which deprave and annihilate natural bent. without fear of deceiving ourselves, we can restore the child to the environment which entices it, the environment of nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves, and in which impressions of life will replace fastidious book-learning. if we did no more than that, we should already have prepared in great part the deliverance of the child. "in such conditions we might already freely apply the data of science and labor most fruitfully. "i know very well we could not thus realize all our hopes, that we should often be forced, for lack of knowledge, to employ undesirable methods; but a certitude would sustain us in our efforts--namely, that even without reaching our aim completely we should do more and better in our still imperfect work than the present school accomplishes. i like the free spontaneity of a child who knows nothing, better than the world-knowledge and intellectual deformity of a child who has been subjected to our present education."[ ] had ferrer actually organized the riots, had he fought on the barricades, had he hurled a hundred bombs, he could not have been so dangerous to the catholic church and to despotism, as with his opposition to discipline and restraint. discipline and restraint--are they not back of all the evils in the world? slavery, submission, poverty, all misery, all social iniquities result from discipline and restraint. indeed, ferrer was dangerous. therefore he had to die, october thirteenth, , in the ditch of montjuich. yet who dare say his death was in vain? in view of the tempestuous rise of universal indignation: italy naming streets in memory of francisco ferrer, belgium inaugurating a movement to erect a memorial; france calling to the front her most illustrious men to resume the heritage of the martyr; england being the first to issue a biography:--all countries uniting in perpetuating the great work of francisco ferrer; america, even, tardy always in progressive ideas, giving birth to a francisco ferrer association, its aim being to publish a complete life of ferrer and to organize modern schools all over the country; in the face of this international revolutionary wave, who is there to say ferrer died in vain? that death at montjuich,--how wonderful, how dramatic it was, how it stirs the human soul. proud and erect, the inner eye turned toward the light, francisco ferrer needed no lying priests to give him courage, nor did he upbraid a phantom for forsaking him. the consciousness that his executioners represented a dying age, and that his was the living truth, sustained him in the last heroic moments. a dying age and a living truth, the living burying the dead. [ ] the beehive. [ ] mother earth, . [ ] ibid. [ ] black crows: the catholic clergy. [ ] mother earth, december, . the hypocrisy of puritanism speaking of puritanism in relation to american art, mr. gutzen burglum said: "puritanism has made us self-centered and hypocritical for so long, that sincerity and reverence for what is natural in our impulses have been fairly bred out of us, with the result that there can be neither truth nor individuality in our art." mr. burglum might have added that puritanism has made life itself impossible. more than art, more than estheticism, life represents beauty in a thousand variations; it is, indeed, a gigantic panorama of eternal change. puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed and immovable conception of life; it is based on the calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of god. in order to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty. puritanism celebrated its reign of terror in england during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, destroying and crushing every manifestation of art and culture. it was the spirit of puritanism which robbed shelley of his children, because he would not bow to the dicta of religion. it was the same narrow spirit which alienated byron from his native land, because that great genius rebelled against the monotony, dullness, and pettiness of his country. it was puritanism, too, that forced some of england's freest women into the conventional lie of marriage: mary wollstonecraft and, later, george eliot. and recently puritanism has demanded another toll--the life of oscar wilde. in fact, puritanism has never ceased to be the most pernicious factor in the domain of john bull, acting as censor of the artistic expression of his people, and stamping its approval only on the dullness of middle-class respectability. it is therefore sheer british jingoism which points to america as the country of puritanic provincialism. it is quite true that our life is stunted by puritanism, and that the latter is killing what is natural and healthy in our impulses. but it is equally true that it is to england that we are indebted for transplanting this spirit on american soil. it was bequeathed to us by the pilgrim fathers. fleeing from persecution and oppression, the pilgrims of mayflower fame established in the new world a reign of puritanic tyranny and crime. the history of new england, and especially of massachusetts, is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous lies and hypocrisies. the ducking-stool and whipping post, as well as numerous other devices of torture, were the favorite english methods for american purification. boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of puritanism as the "bloody town." it rivaled salem, even, in her cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. on the now famous common a half-naked woman, with a baby in her arms, was publicly whipped for the crime of free speech; and on the same spot mary dyer, another quaker woman, was hanged in . in fact, boston has been the scene of more than one wanton crime committed by puritanism. salem, in the summer of , killed eighteen people for witchcraft. nor was massachusetts alone in driving out the devil by fire and brimstone. as canning justly said: "the pilgrim fathers infested the new world to redress the balance of the old." the horrors of that period have found their most supreme expression in the american classic, the scarlet letter. puritanism no longer employs the thumbscrew and lash; but it still has a most pernicious hold on the minds and feelings of the american people. naught else can explain the power of a comstock. like the torquemadas of ante-bellum days, anthony comstock is the autocrat of american morals; he dictates the standards of good and evil, of purity and vice. like a thief in the night he sneaks into the private lives of the people, into their most intimate relations. the system of espionage established by this man comstock puts to shame the infamous third division of the russian secret police. why does the public tolerate such an outrage on its liberties? simply because comstock is but the loud expression of the puritanism bred in the anglo-saxon blood, and from whose thraldom even liberals have not succeeded in fully emancipating themselves. the visionless and leaden elements of the old young men's and women's christian temperance unions, purity leagues, american sabbath unions, and the prohibition party, with anthony comstock as their patron saint, are the grave diggers of american art and culture. europe can at least boast of a bold art and literature which delve deeply into the social and sexual problems of our time, exercising a severe critique of all our shams. as with a surgeon's knife every puritanic carcass is dissected, and the way thus cleared for man's liberation from the dead weights of the past. but with puritanism as the constant check upon american life, neither truth nor sincerity is possible. nothing but gloom and mediocrity to dictate human conduct, curtail natural expression, and stifle our best impulses. puritanism in this the twentieth century is as much the enemy of freedom and beauty as it was when it landed on plymouth rock. it repudiates, as something vile and sinful, our deepest feelings; but being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions, puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices. the entire history of asceticism proves this to be only too true. the church, as well as puritanism, has fought the flesh as something evil; it had to be subdued and hidden at all cost. the result of this vicious attitude is only now beginning to be recognized by modern thinkers and educators. they realize that "nakedness has a hygienic value as well as a spiritual significance, far beyond its influences in allaying the natural inquisitiveness of the young or acting as a preventative of morbid emotion. it is an inspiration to adults who have long outgrown any youthful curiosities. the vision of the essential and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in all the world, with its vigor and its beauty and its grace, is one of the prime tonics of life."[ ] but the spirit of purism has so perverted the human mind that it has lost the power to appreciate the beauty of nudity, forcing us to hide the natural form under the plea of chastity. yet chastity itself is but an artificial imposition upon nature, expressive of a false shame of the human form. the modern idea of chastity, especially in reference to woman, its greatest victim, is but the sensuous exaggeration of our natural impulses. "chastity varies with the amount of clothing," and hence christians and purists forever hasten to cover the "heathen" with tatters, and thus convert him to goodness and chastity. puritanism, with its perversion of the significance and functions of the human body, especially in regard to woman, has condemned her to celibacy, or to the indiscriminate breeding of a diseased race, or to prostitution. the enormity of this crime against humanity is apparent when we consider the results. absolute sexual continence is imposed upon the unmarried woman, under pain of being considered immoral or fallen, with the result of producing neurasthenia, impotence, depression, and a great variety of nervous complaints involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life, sleeplessness, and preoccupation with sexual desires and imaginings. the arbitrary and pernicious dictum of total continence probably also explains the mental inequality of the sexes. thus freud believes that the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression. having thus suppressed the natural sex desires of the unmarried woman, puritanism, on the other hand, blesses her married sister for incontinent fruitfulness in wedlock. indeed, not merely blesses her, but forces the woman, oversexed by previous repression, to bear children, irrespective of weakened physical condition or economic inability to rear a large family. prevention, even by scientifically determined safe methods, is absolutely prohibited; nay, the very mention of the subject is considered criminal. thanks to this puritanic tyranny, the majority of women soon find themselves at the ebb of their physical resources. ill and worn, they are utterly unable to give their children even elementary care. that, added to economic pressure, forces many women to risk utmost danger rather than continue to bring forth life. the custom of procuring abortions has reached such vast proportions in america as to be almost beyond belief. according to recent investigations along this line, seventeen abortions are committed in every hundred pregnancies. this fearful percentage represents only cases which come to the knowledge of physicians. considering the secrecy in which this practice is necessarily shrouded, and the consequent professional inefficiency and neglect, puritanism continuously exacts thousands of victims to its own stupidity and hypocrisy. prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of puritanism. it is its most cherished child, all hypocritical sanctimoniousness notwithstanding. the prostitute is the fury of our century, sweeping across the "civilized" countries like a hurricane, and leaving a trail of disease and disaster. the only remedy puritanism offers for this ill-begotten child is greater repression and more merciless persecution. the latest outrage is represented by the page law, which imposes upon new york the terrible failure and crime of europe; namely, registration and segregation of the unfortunate victims of puritanism. in equally stupid manner purism seeks to check the terrible scourge of its own creation--venereal diseases. most disheartening it is that this spirit of obtuse narrow-mindedness has poisoned even our so-called liberals, and has blinded them into joining the crusade against the very things born of the hypocrisy of puritanism--prostitution and its results. in wilful blindness puritanism refuses to see that the true method of prevention is the one which makes it clear to all that "venereal diseases are not a mysterious or terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a sort of shameful evil branded by purist malediction, but an ordinary disease which may be treated and cured." by its methods of obscurity, disguise, and concealment, puritanism has furnished favorable conditions for the growth and spread of these diseases. its bigotry is again most strikingly demonstrated by the senseless attitude in regard to the great discovery of prof. ehrlich, hypocrisy veiling the important cure for syphilis with vague allusions to a remedy for "a certain poison." the almost limitless capacity of puritanism for evil is due to its intrenchment behind the state and the law. pretending to safeguard the people against "immorality," it has impregnated the machinery of government and added to its usurpation of moral guardianship the legal censorship of our views, feelings, and even of our conduct. art, literature, the drama, the privacy of the mails, in fact, our most intimate tastes, are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant. anthony comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest creation of nature--the human form. books dealing with the most vital issues of our lives, and seeking to shed light upon dangerously obscured problems, are legally treated as criminal offenses, and their helpless authors thrown into prison or driven to destruction and death. not even in the domain of the tsar is personal liberty daily outraged to the extent it is in america, the stronghold of the puritanic eunuchs. here the only day of recreation left to the masses, sunday, has been made hideous and utterly impossible. all writers on primitive customs and ancient civilization agree that the sabbath was a day of festivities, free from care and duties, a day of general rejoicing and merry-making. in every european country this tradition continues to bring some relief from the humdrum and stupidity of our christian era. everywhere concert halls, theaters, museums, and gardens are filled with men, women, and children, particularly workers with their families, full of life and joy, forgetful of the ordinary rules and conventions of their every-day existence. it is on that day that the masses demonstrate what life might really mean in a sane society, with work stripped of its profit-making, soul-destroying purpose. puritanism has robbed the people even of that one day. naturally, only the workers are affected: our millionaires have their luxurious homes and elaborate clubs. the poor, however, are condemned to the monotony and dullness of the american sunday. the sociability and fun of european outdoor life is here exchanged for the gloom of the church, the stuffy, germ-saturated country parlor, or the brutalizing atmosphere of the back-room saloon. in prohibition states the people lack even the latter, unless they can invest their meager earnings in quantities of adulterated liquor. as to prohibition, every one knows what a farce it really is. like all other achievements of puritanism it, too, has but driven the "devil" deeper into the human system. nowhere else does one meet so many drunkards as in our prohibition towns. but so long as one can use scented candy to abate the foul breath of hypocrisy, puritanism is triumphant. ostensibly prohibition is opposed to liquor for reasons of health and economy, but the very spirit of prohibition being itself abnormal, it succeeds but in creating an abnormal life. every stimulus which quickens the imagination and raises the spirits, is as necessary to our life as air. it invigorates the body, and deepens our vision of human fellowship. without stimuli, in one form or another, creative work is impossible, nor indeed the spirit of kindliness and generosity. the fact that some great geniuses have seen their reflection in the goblet too frequently, does not justify puritanism in attempting to fetter the whole gamut of human emotions. a byron and a poe have stirred humanity deeper than all the puritans can ever hope to do. the former have given to life meaning and color; the latter are turning red blood into water, beauty into ugliness, variety into uniformity and decay. puritanism, in whatever expression, is a poisonous germ. on the surface everything may look strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until the entire fabric is doomed. with hippolyte taine, every truly free spirit has come to realize that "puritanism is the death of culture, philosophy, humor, and good fellowship; its characteristics are dullness, monotony, and gloom." [ ] the psychology of sex. havelock ellis. the traffic in women our reformers have suddenly made a great discovery--the white slave traffic. the papers are full of these "unheard of conditions," and lawmakers are already planning a new set of laws to check the horror. it is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from a great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency, gambling, saloons, etc. and what is the result of such crusades? gambling is increasing, saloons are doing a lively business through back entrances, prostitution is at its height, and the system of pimps and cadets is but aggravated. how is it that an institution, known almost to every child, should have been discovered so suddenly? how is it that this evil, known to all sociologists, should now be made such an important issue? to assume that the recent investigation of the white slave traffic (and, by the way, a very superficial investigation) has discovered anything new, is, to say the least, very foolish. prostitution has been, and is, a widespread evil, yet mankind goes on its business, perfectly indifferent to the sufferings and distress of the victims of prostitution. as indifferent, indeed, as mankind has remained to our industrial system, or to economic prostitution. only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested--for a while at least. the people are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. the "righteous" cry against the white slave traffic is such a toy. it serves to amuse the people for a little while, and it will help to create a few more fat political jobs--parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth. what is really the cause of the trade in women? not merely white women, but yellow and black women as well. exploitation, of course; the merciless moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. with mrs. warren these girls feel, "why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?" naturally our reformers say nothing about this cause. they know it well enough, but it doesn't pay to say anything about it. it is much more profitable to play the pharisee, to pretend an outraged morality, than to go to the bottom of things. however, there is one commendable exception among the young writers: reginald wright kauffman, whose work, the house of bondage, is the first earnest attempt to treat the social evil, not from a sentimental philistine viewpoint. a journalist of wide experience, mr. kauffman proves that our industrial system leaves most women no alternative except prostitution. the women portrayed in the house of bondage belong to the working class. had the author portrayed the life of women in other spheres, he would have been confronted with the same state of affairs. nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. it is therefore almost inevitable that she should pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with sex favors. thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. whether our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution. just at present our good people are shocked by the disclosures that in new york city alone, one out of every ten women works in a factory, that the average wage received by women is six dollars per week for forty-eight to sixty hours of work, and that the majority of female wage workers face many months of idleness which leaves the average wage about $ a year. in view of these economic horrors, is it to be wondered at that prostitution and the white slave trade have become such dominant factors? lest the preceding figures be considered an exaggeration, it is well to examine what some authorities on prostitution have to say: "a prolific cause of female depravity can be found in the several tables, showing the description of the employment pursued, and the wages received, by the women previous to their fall, and it will be a question for the political economist to decide how far mere business consideration should be an apology on the part of employers for a reduction in their rates of remuneration, and whether the savings of a small percentage on wages is not more than counter-balanced by the enormous amount of taxation enforced on the public at large to defray the expenses incurred on account of a system of vice, which is the direct result, in many cases, of insufficient compensation of honest labor."[ ] our present-day reformers would do well to look into dr. sanger's book. there they will find that out of , cases under his observation, but few came from the middle classes, from well-ordered conditions, or pleasant homes. by far the largest majority were working girls and working women; some driven into prostitution through sheer want, others because of a cruel, wretched life at home, others again because of thwarted and crippled physical natures (of which i shall speak later on). also it will do the maintainers of purity and morality good to learn that out of two thousand cases, were married women, women who lived with their husbands. evidently there was not much of a guaranty for their "safety and purity" in the sanctity of marriage.[ ] dr. alfred blaschko, in prostitution in the nineteenth century, is even more emphatic in characterizing economic conditions as one of the most vital factors of prostitution. "although prostitution has existed in all ages, it was left to the nineteenth century to develop it into a gigantic social institution. the development of industry with vast masses of people in the competitive market, the growth and congestion of large cities, the insecurity and uncertainty of employment, has given prostitution an impetus never dreamed of at any period in human history." and again havelock ellis, while not so absolute in dealing with the economic cause, is nevertheless compelled to admit that it is indirectly and directly the main cause. thus he finds that a large percentage of prostitutes is recruited from the servant class, although the latter have less care and greater security. on the other hand, mr. ellis does not deny that the daily routine, the drudgery, the monotony of the servant girl's lot, and especially the fact that she may never partake of the companionship and joy of a home, is no mean factor in forcing her to seek recreation and forgetfulness in the gaiety and glimmer of prostitution. in other words, the servant girl, being treated as a drudge, never having the right to herself, and worn out by the caprices of her mistress, can find an outlet, like the factory or shopgirl, only in prostitution. the most amusing side of the question now before the public is the indignation of our "good, respectable people," especially the various christian gentlemen, who are always to be found in the front ranks of every crusade. is it that they are absolutely ignorant of the history of religion, and especially of the christian religion? or is it that they hope to blind the present generation to the part played in the past by the church in relation to prostitution? whatever their reason, they should be the last to cry out against the unfortunate victims of today, since it is known to every intelligent student that prostitution is of religious origin, maintained and fostered for many centuries, not as a shame but as a virtue, hailed as such by the gods themselves. "it would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found primarily in a religious custom, religion, the great conserver of social tradition, preserving in a transformed shape a primitive freedom that was passing out of the general social life. the typical example is that recorded by herodotus, in the fifth century before christ, at the temple of mylitta, the babylonian venus, where every woman, once in her life, had to come and give herself to the first stranger, who threw a coin in her lap, to worship the goddess. very similar customs existed in other parts of western asia, in north africa, in cyprus, and other islands of the eastern mediterranean, and also in greece, where the temple of aphrodite on the fort at corinth possessed over a thousand hierodules, dedicated to the service of the goddess. "the theory that religious prostitution developed, as a general rule, out of the belief that the generative activity of human beings possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the fertility of nature, is maintained by all authoritative writers on the subject. gradually, however, and when prostitution became an organized institution under priestly influence, religious prostitution developed utilitarian sides, thus helping to increase public revenue. "the rise of christianity to political power produced little change in policy. the leading fathers of the church tolerated prostitution. brothels under municipal protection are found in the thirteenth century. they constituted a sort of public service, the directors of them being considered almost as public servants."[ ] to this must be added the following from dr. sanger's work: "pope clement ii. issued a bull that prostitutes would be tolerated if they pay a certain amount of their earnings to the church. "pope sixtus iv. was more practical; from one single brothel, which he himself had built, he received an income of , ducats." in modern times the church is a little more careful in that direction. at least she does not openly demand tribute from prostitutes. she finds it much more profitable to go in for real estate, like trinity church, for instance, to rent out death traps at an exorbitant price to those who live off and by prostitution. much as i should like to, my space will not admit speaking of prostitution in egypt, greece, rome, and during the middle ages. the conditions in the latter period are particularly interesting, inasmuch as prostitution was organized into guilds, presided over by a brothel queen. these guilds employed strikes as a medium of improving their condition and keeping a standard price. certainly that is more practical a method than the one used by the modern wage slave in society. it would be one-sided and extremely superficial to maintain that the economic factor is the only cause of prostitution. there are others no less important and vital. that, too, our reformers know, but dare discuss even less than the institution that saps the very life out of both men and women. i refer to the sex question, the very mention of which causes most people moral spasms. it is a conceded fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity, and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex. everything dealing with the subject is suppressed, and persons who attempt to bring light into this terrible darkness are persecuted and thrown into prison. yet it is nevertheless true that so long as a girl is not to know how to take care of herself, not to know the function of the most important part of her life, we need not be surprised if she becomes an easy prey to prostitution, or to any other form of a relationship which degrades her to the position of an object for mere sex gratification. it is due to this ignorance that the entire life and nature of the girl is thwarted and crippled. we have long ago taken it as a self-evident fact that the boy may follow the call of the wild; that is to say, that the boy may, as soon has his sex nature asserts itself, satisfy that nature; but our moralists are scandalized at the very thought that the nature of a girl should assert itself. to the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. that this is no mere statement is proved by the fact that marriage for monetary considerations is perfectly legitimate, sanctified by law and public opinion, while any other union is condemned and repudiated. yet a prostitute, if properly defined, means nothing else than "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated to gain."[ ] "those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise of the sexual act and make of this a profession."[ ] in fact, banger goes further; he maintains that the act of prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economic reasons." of course, marriage is the goal of every girl, but as thousands of girls cannot marry, our stupid social customs condemn them either to a life of celibacy or prostitution. human nature asserts itself regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality. society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor and of all that is good and noble in a human being. this double standard of morality has played no little part in the creation and perpetuation of prostitution. it involves the keeping of the young in absolute ignorance on sex matters, which alleged "innocence," together with an overwrought and stifled sex nature, helps to bring about a state of affairs that our puritans are so anxious to avoid or prevent. not that the gratification of sex must needs lead to prostitution; it is the cruel, heartless, criminal persecution of those who dare divert from the beaten paths, which is responsible for it. girls, mere children, work in crowded, over-heated rooms ten to twelve hours daily at a machine, which tends to keep them in a constant over-excited sex state. many of these girls have no home or comforts of any kind; therefore the street or some place of cheap amusement is the only means of forgetting their daily routine. this naturally brings them into close proximity with the other sex. it is hard to say which of the two factors brings the girl's over-sexed condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natural thing that a climax should result. that is the first step toward prostitution. nor is the girl to be held responsible for it. on the contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the fault of our lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the making; especially is it the criminal fault of our moralists, who condemn a girl for all eternity, because she has gone from the "path of virtue"; that is, because her first sex experience has taken place without the sanction of the church. the girl feels herself a complete outcast, with the doors of home and society closed in her face. her entire training and tradition is such that the girl herself feels depraved and fallen, and therefore has no ground to stand upon, or any hold that will lift her up, instead of dragging her down. thus society creates the victims that it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of. the meanest, most depraved and decrepit man still considers himself too good to take as his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even though he might thereby save her from a life of horror. nor can she turn to her own sister for help. in her stupidity the latter deems herself too pure and chaste, not realizing that her own position is in many respects even more deplorable than her sister's of the street. "the wife who married for money, compared with the prostitute," says havelock ellis, "is the true scab. she is paid less, gives much more in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master. the prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, she retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled to submit to a man's embrace." nor does the better-than-thou woman realize the apologist claim of lecky that "though she may be the supreme type of vice, she is also the most efficient guardian of virtue. but for her, happy homes would be polluted, unnatural and harmful practice would abound." moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one-half of the human race for the sake of some miserable institution which they can not outgrow. as a matter of fact, prostitution is no more a safeguard for the purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against prostitution. fully fifty per cent. of married men are patrons of brothels. it is through this virtuous element that the married women--nay, even the children--are infected with venereal diseases. yet society has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no law is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim. she is not only preyed upon by those who use her, but she is also absolutely at the mercy of every policeman and miserable detective on the beat, the officials at the station house, the authorities in every prison. in a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of a "house," are to be found the following figures: "the authorities compelled me to pay every month fines between $ . to $ . , the girls would pay from $ . to $ . to the police." considering that the writer did her business in a small city, that the amounts she gives do not include extra bribes and fines, one can readily see the tremendous revenue the police department derives from the blood money of its victims, whom it will not even protect. woe to those who refuse to pay their toll; they would be rounded up like cattle, "if only to make a favorable impression upon the good citizens of the city, or if the powers needed extra money on the side. for the warped mind who believes that a fallen woman is incapable of human emotion it would be impossible to realize the grief, the disgrace, the tears, the wounded pride that was ours every time we were pulled in." strange, isn't it, that a woman who has a kept a "house" should be able to feel that way? but stranger still that a good christian world should bleed and fleece such women, and give them nothing in return except obloquy and persecution. oh, for the charity of a christian world! much stress is laid on white slaves being imported into america. how would america ever retain her virtue if europe did not help her out? i will not deny that this may be the case in some instances, any more than i will deny that there are emissaries of germany and other countries luring economic slaves into america; but i absolutely deny that prostitution is recruited to any appreciable extent from europe. it may be true that the majority of prostitutes in new york city are foreigners, but that is because the majority of the population is foreign. the moment we go to any other american city, to chicago or the middle west, we shall find that the number of foreign prostitutes is by far a minority. equally exaggerated is the belief that the majority of street girls in this city were engaged in this business before they came to america. most of the girls speak excellent english, are americanized in habits and appearance,--a thing absolutely impossible unless they had lived in this country many years. that is, they were driven into prostitution by american conditions, by the thoroughly american custom for excessive display of finery and clothes, which, of course, necessitates money,--money that cannot be earned in shops or factories. in other words, there is no reason to believe that any set of men would go to the risk and expense of getting foreign products, when american conditions are overflooding the market with thousands of girls. on the other hand, there is sufficient evidence to prove that the export of american girls for the purpose of prostitution is by no means a small factor. thus clifford g. roe, ex-assistant state attorney of cook county, ill., makes the open charge that new england girls are shipped to panama for the express use of men in the employ of uncle sam. mr. roe adds that "there seems to be an underground railroad between boston and washington which many girls travel." is it not significant that the railroad should lead to the very seat of federal authority? that mr. roe said more than was desired in certain quarters is proved by the fact that he lost his position. it is not practical for men in office to tell tales from school. the excuse given for the conditions in panama is that there are no brothels in the canal zone. that is the usual avenue of escape for a hypocritical world that dares not face the truth. not in the canal zone, not in the city limits,--therefore prostitution does not exist. next to mr. roe, there is james bronson reynolds, who has made a thorough study of the white slave traffic in asia. as a staunch american citizen and friend of the future napoleon of america, theodore roosevelt, he is surely the last to discredit the virtue of his country. yet we are informed by him that in hong kong, shanghai, and yokohama, the augean stables of american vice are located. there american prostitutes have made themselves so conspicuous that in the orient "american girl" is synonymous with prostitute. mr. reynolds reminds his countrymen that while americans in china are under the protection of our consular representatives, the chinese in america have no protection at all. every one who knows the brutal and barbarous persecution chinese and japanese endure on the pacific coast, will agree with mr. reynolds. in view of the above facts it is rather absurd to point to europe as the swamp whence come all the social diseases of america. just as absurd is it to proclaim the myth that the jews furnish the largest contingent of willing prey. i am sure that no one will accuse me of nationalistic tendencies. i am glad to say that i have developed out of them, as out of many other prejudices. if, therefore, i resent the statement that jewish prostitutes are imported, it is not because of any judaistic sympathies, but because of the facts inherent in the lives of these people. no one but the most superficial will claim that jewish girls migrate to strange lands, unless they have some tie or relation that brings them there. the jewish girl is not adventurous. until recent years she had never left home, not even so far as the next village or town, except it were to visit some relative. is it then credible that jewish girls would leave their parents or families, travel thousands of miles to strange lands, through the influence and promises of strange forces? go to any of the large incoming steamers and see for yourself if these girls do not come either with their parents, brothers, aunts, or other kinsfolk. there may be exceptions, of course, but to state that large numbers of jewish girls are imported for prostitution, or any other purpose, is simply not to know jewish psychology. those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them; besides, the american glass house is rather thin, it will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight. to ascribe the increase in prostitution to alleged importation, to the growth of the cadet system, or similar causes, is highly superficial. i have already referred to the former. as to the cadet system, abhorrent as it is, we must not ignore the fact that it is essentially a phase of modern prostitution,--a phase accentuated by suppression and graft, resulting from sporadic crusades against the social evil. the procurer is no doubt a poor specimen of the human family, but in what manner is he more despicable than the policeman who takes the last cent from the street walker, and then locks her up in the station house? why is the cadet more criminal, or a greater menace to society, than the owners of department stores and factories, who grow fat on the sweat of their victims, only to drive them to the streets? i make no plea for the cadet, but i fail to see why he should be mercilessly hounded, while the real perpetrators of all social iniquity enjoy immunity and respect. then, too, it is well to remember that it is not the cadet who makes the prostitute. it is our sham and hypocrisy that create both the prostitute and the cadet. until very little was known in america of the procurer. then we were attacked by an epidemic of virtue. vice was to be abolished, the country purified at all cost. the social cancer was therefore driven out of sight, but deeper into the body. keepers of brothels, as well as their unfortunate victims, were turned over to the tender mercies of the police. the inevitable consequence of exorbitant bribes, and the penitentiary, followed. while comparatively protected in the brothels, where they represented a certain monetary value, the girls now found themselves on the street, absolutely at the mercy of the graft-greedy police. desperate, needing protection and longing for affection, these girls naturally proved an easy prey for cadets, themselves the result of the spirit of our commercial age. thus the cadet system was the direct outgrowth of police persecution, graft, and attempted suppression of prostitution. it were sheer folly to confound this modern phase of the social evil with the causes of the latter. mere suppression and barbaric enactments can serve but to embitter, and further degrade, the unfortunate victims of ignorance and stupidity. the latter has reached its highest expression in the proposed law to make humane treatment of prostitutes a crime, punishing any one sheltering a prostitute with five years' imprisonment and $ , fine. such an attitude merely exposes the terrible lack of understanding of the true causes of prostitution, as a social factor, as well as manifesting the puritanic spirit of the scarlet letter days. there is not a single modern writer on the subject who does not refer to the utter futility of legislative methods in coping with the issue. thus dr. blaschko finds that governmental suppression and moral crusades accomplish nothing save driving the evil into secret channels, multiplying its dangers to society. havelock ellis, the most thorough and humane student of prostitution, proves by a wealth of data that the more stringent the methods of persecution the worse the condition becomes. among other data we learn that in france, "in , charles ix. abolished brothels through an edict, but the numbers of prostitutes were only increased, while many new brothels appeared in unsuspected shapes, and were more dangerous. in spite of all such legislation, or because of it, there has been no country in which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part."[ ] an educated public opinion, freed from the legal and moral hounding of the prostitute, can alone help to ameliorate present conditions. wilful shutting of eyes and ignoring of the evil as a social factor of modern life, can but aggravate matters. we must rise above our foolish notions of "better than thou," and learn to recognize in the prostitute a product of social conditions. such a realization will sweep away the attitude of hypocrisy, and insure a greater understanding and more humane treatment. as to a thorough eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all accepted values--especially the moral ones--coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery. [ ] dr. sanger, the history of prostitution. [ ] it is a significant fact that dr. sanger's book has been excluded from the u. s. mails. evidently the authorities are not anxious that the public be informed as to the true cause of prostitution. [ ] havelock ellis, sex and society. [ ] guyot, la prostitution. [ ] banger, criminalite et condition economique. [ ] sex and society. woman suffrage we boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetich worship? true, our fetiches have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. our modern fetich is universal suffrage. those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity! woman, even more than man, is a fetich worshipper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her hands, ever blind to the fact that her god has feet of clay. thus woman has been the greatest supporter of all deities from time immemorial. thus, too, she has had to pay the price that only gods can exact,--her freedom, her heart's blood, her very life. nietzsche's memorable maxim, "when you go to woman, take the whip along," is considered very brutal, yet nietzsche expressed in one sentence the attitude of woman towards her gods. religion, especially the christian religion, has condemned woman to the life of an inferior, a slave. it has thwarted her nature and fettered her soul, yet the christian religion has no greater supporter, none more devout, than woman. indeed, it is safe to say that religion would have long ceased to be a factor in the lives of the people, if it were not for the support it receives from woman. the most ardent churchworkers, the most tireless missionaries the world over, are women, always sacrificing on the altar of the gods that have chained her spirit and enslaved her body. the insatiable monster, war, robs woman of all that is dear and precious to her. it exacts her brothers, lovers, sons, and in return gives her a life of loneliness and despair. yet the greatest supporter and worshiper of war is woman. she it is who instills the love of conquest and power into her children; she it is who whispers the glories of war into the ears of her little ones, and who rocks her baby to sleep with the tunes of trumpets and the noise of guns. it is woman, too, who crowns the victor on his return from the battlefield. yes, it is woman who pays the highest price to that insatiable monster, war. then there is the home. what a terrible fetich it is! how it saps the very life-energy of woman,--this modern prison with golden bars. its shining aspect blinds woman to the price she would have to pay as wife, mother, and housekeeper. yet woman clings tenaciously to the home, to the power that holds her in bondage. it may be said that because woman recognizes the awful toll she is made to pay to the church, state, and the home, she wants suffrage to set herself free. that may be true of the few; the majority of suffragists repudiate utterly such blasphemy. on the contrary, they insist always that it is woman suffrage which will make her a better christian and homekeeper, a staunch citizen of the state. thus suffrage is only a means of strengthening the omnipotence of the very gods that woman has served from time immemorial. what wonder, then, that she should be just as devout, just as zealous, just as prostrate before the new idol, woman suffrage. as of old, she endures persecution, imprisonment, torture, and all forms of condemnation, with a smile on her face. as of old, the most enlightened, even, hope for a miracle from the twentieth century deity,--suffrage. life, happiness, joy, freedom, independence,--all that, and more, is to spring from suffrage. in her blind devotion woman does not see what people of intellect perceived fifty years ago: that suffrage is an evil, that it has only helped to enslave people, that it has but closed their eyes that they may not see how craftily they were made to submit. woman's demand for equal suffrage is based largely on the contention that woman must have the equal right in all affairs of society. no one could, possibly, refute that, if suffrage were a right. alas, for the ignorance of the human mind, which can see a right in an imposition. or is it not the most brutal imposition for one set of people to make laws that another set is coerced by force to obey? yet woman clamors for that "golden opportunity" that has wrought so much misery in the world, and robbed man of his integrity and self-reliance; an imposition which has thoroughly corrupted the people, and made them absolute prey in the hands of unscrupulous politicians. the poor, stupid, free american citizen! free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. the reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. yet all these disastrous results of the twentieth century fetich have taught woman nothing. but, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured. needless to say, i am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. i see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. but that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. if she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. to assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers. since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? the most ardent suffragists would hardly maintain such a folly. as a matter of fact, the most advanced students of universal suffrage have come to realize that all existing systems of political power are absurd, and are completely inadequate to meet the pressing issues of life. this view is also borne out by a statement of one who is herself an ardent believer in woman suffrage, dr. helen l. sumner. in her able work on equal suffrage, she says: "in colorado, we find that equal suffrage serves to show in the most striking way the essential rottenness and degrading character of the existing system." of course, dr. sumner has in mind a particular system of voting, but the same applies with equal force to the entire machinery of the representative system. with such a basis, it is difficult to understand how woman, as a political factor, would benefit either herself or the rest of mankind. but, say our suffrage devotees, look at the countries and states where female suffrage exists. see what woman has accomplished--in australia, new zealand, finland, the scandinavian countries, and in our own four states, idaho, colorado, wyoming, and utah. distance lends enchantment--or, to quote a polish formula--"it is well where we are not." thus one would assume that those countries and states are unlike other countries or states, that they have greater freedom, greater social and economic equality, a finer appreciation of human life, deeper understanding of the great social struggle, with all the vital questions it involves for the human race. the women of australia and new zealand can vote, and help make the laws. are the labor conditions better there than they are in england, where the suffragettes are making such a heroic struggle? does there exist a greater motherhood, happier and freer children than in england? is woman there no longer considered a mere sex commodity? has she emancipated herself from the puritanical double standard of morality for men and women? certainly none but the ordinary female stump politician will dare answer these questions in the affirmative. if that be so, it seems ridiculous to point to australia and new zealand as the mecca of equal suffrage accomplishments. on the other hand, it is a fact to those who know the real political conditions in australia, that politics have gagged labor by enacting the most stringent labor laws, making strikes without the sanction of an arbitration committee a crime equal to treason. not for a moment do i mean to imply that woman suffrage is responsible for this state of affairs. i do mean, however, that there is no reason to point to australia as a wonder-worker of woman's accomplishment, since her influence has been unable to free labor from the thralldom of political bossism. finland has given woman equal suffrage; nay, even the right to sit in parliament. has that helped to develop a greater heroism, an intenser zeal than that of the women of russia? finland, like russia, smarts under the terrible whip of the bloody tsar. where are the finnish perovskaias, spiridonovas, figners, breshkovskaias? where are the countless numbers of finnish young girls who cheerfully go to siberia for their cause? finland is sadly in need of heroic liberators. why has the ballot not created them? the only finnish avenger of his people was a man, not a woman, and he used a more effective weapon than the ballot. as to our own states where women vote, and which are constantly being pointed out as examples of marvels, what has been accomplished there through the ballot that women do not to a large extent enjoy in other states; or that they could not achieve through energetic efforts without the ballot? true, in the suffrage states women are guaranteed equal rights to property; but of what avail is that right to the mass of women without property, the thousands of wage workers, who live from hand to mouth? that equal suffrage did not, and cannot, affect their condition is admitted even by dr. sumner, who certainly is in a position to know. as an ardent suffragist, and having been sent to colorado by the collegiate equal suffrage league of new york state to collect material in favor of suffrage, she would be the last to say anything derogatory; yet we are informed that "equal suffrage has but slightly affected the economic conditions of women. that women do not receive equal pay for equal work, and that, though woman in colorado has enjoyed school suffrage since , women teachers are paid less than in california." on the other hand, miss sumner fails to account for the fact that although women have had school suffrage for thirty-four years, and equal suffrage since , the census in denver alone a few months ago disclosed the fact of fifteen thousand defective school children. and that, too, with mostly women in the educational department, and also notwithstanding that women in colorado have passed the "most stringent laws for child and animal protection." the women of colorado "have taken great interest in the state institutions for the care of dependent, defective, and delinquent children." what a horrible indictment against woman's care and interest, if one city has fifteen thousand defective children. what about the glory of woman suffrage, since it has failed utterly in the most important social issue, the child? and where is the superior sense of justice that woman was to bring into the political field? where was it in , when the mine owners waged a guerilla war against the western miners' union; when general bell established a reign of terror, pulling men out of beds at night, kidnapping them across the border line, throwing them into bull pens, declaring "to hell with the constitution, the club is the constitution"? where were the women politicians then, and why did they not exercise the power of their vote? but they did. they helped to defeat the most fair-minded and liberal man, governor waite. the latter had to make way for the tool of the mine kings, governor peabody, the enemy of labor, the tsar of colorado. "certainly male suffrage could have done nothing worse." granted. wherein, then, are the advantages to woman and society from woman suffrage? the oft-repeated assertion that woman will purify politics is also but a myth. it is not borne out by the people who know the political conditions of idaho, colorado, wyoming, and utah. woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigotted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be. thus, in idaho, she has disfranchised her sister of the street, and declared all women of "lewd character" unfit to vote. "lewd" not being interpreted, of course, as prostitution in marriage. it goes without saying that illegal prostitution and gambling have been prohibited. in this regard the law must needs be of feminine nature: it always prohibits. therein all laws are wonderful. they go no further, but their very tendencies open all the floodgates of hell. prostitution and gambling have never done a more flourishing business than since the law has been set against them. in colorado, the puritanism of woman has expressed itself in a more drastic form. "men of notoriously unclean lives, and men connected with saloons, have been dropped from politics since women have the vote."[ ] could brother comstock do more? could all the puritan fathers have done more? i wonder how many women realize the gravity of this would-be feat. i wonder if they understand that it is the very thing which, instead of elevating woman, has made her a political spy, a contemptible pry into the private affairs of people, not so much for the good of the cause, but because, as a colorado woman said, "they like to get into houses they have never been in, and find out all they can, politically and otherwise."[ ] yes, and into the human soul and its minutest nooks and corners. for nothing satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal. and when did she ever enjoy such opportunities as are hers, the politician's? "notoriously unclean lives, and men connected with the saloons." certainly, the lady vote gatherers can not be accused of much sense of proportion. granting even that these busybodies can decide whose lives are clean enough for that eminently clean atmosphere, politics, must it follow that saloon-keepers belong to the same category? unless it be american hypocrisy and bigotry, so manifest in the principle of prohibition, which sanctions the spread of drunkenness among men and women of the rich class, yet keeps vigilant watch on the only place left to the poor man. if no other reason, woman's narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to liberty wherever she has political power. man has long overcome the superstitions that still engulf woman. in the economic competitive field, man has been compelled to exercise efficiency, judgment, ability, competency. he therefore had neither time nor inclination to measure everyone's morality with a puritanic yardstick. in his political activities, too, he has not gone about blindfolded. he knows that quantity and not quality is the material for the political grinding mill, and, unless he is a sentimental reformer or an old fossil, he knows that politics can never be anything but a swamp. women who are at all conversant with the process of politics, know the nature of the beast, but in their self-sufficiency and egotism they make themselves believe that they have but to pet the beast, and he will become as gentle as a lamb, sweet and pure. as if women have not sold their votes, as if women politicians can not be bought! if her body can be bought in return for material consideration, why not her vote? that it is being done in colorado and in other states, is not denied even by those in favor of woman suffrage. as i have said before, woman's narrow view of human affairs is not the only argument against her as a politician superior to man. there are others. her life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the meaning of equality. she clamors for equal rights with men, yet we learn that "few women care to canvas in undesirable districts."[ ] how little equality means to them compared with the russian women, who face hell itself for their ideal! woman demands the same rights as man, yet she is indignant that her presence does not strike him dead: he smokes, keeps his hat on, and does not jump from his seat like a flunkey. these may be trivial things, but they are nevertheless the key to the nature of american suffragists. to be sure, their english sisters have outgrown these silly notions. they have shown themselves equal to the greatest demands on their character and power of endurance. all honor to the heroism and sturdiness of the english suffragettes. thanks to their energetic, aggressive methods, they have proved an inspiration to some of our own lifeless and spineless ladies. but after all, the suffragettes, too, are still lacking in appreciation of real equality. else how is one to account for the tremendous, truly gigantic effort set in motion by those valiant fighters for a wretched little bill which will benefit a handful of propertied ladies, with absolutely no provision for the vast mass of workingwomen? true, as politicians they must be opportunists, must take half measures if they can not get all. but as intelligent and liberal women they ought to realize that if the ballot is a weapon, the disinherited need it more than the economically superior class, and that the latter already enjoy too much power by virtue of their economic superiority. the brilliant leader of the english suffragettes, mrs. emmeline pankhurst, herself admitted, when on her american lecture tour, that there can be no equality between political superiors and inferiors. if so, how will the workingwoman of england, already inferior economically to the ladies who are benefited by the shackleton bill,[ ] be able to work with their political superiors, should the bill pass? is it not probable that the class of annie keeney, so full of zeal, devotion, and martyrdom, will be compelled to carry on their backs their female political bosses, even as they are carrying their economic masters. they would still have to do it, were universal suffrage for men and women established in england. no matter what the workers do, they are made to pay, always. still, those who believe in the power of the vote show little sense of justice when they concern themselves not at all with those whom, as they claim, it might serve most. the american suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people. thus susan b. anthony, no doubt an exceptional type of woman, was not only indifferent but antagonistic to labor; nor did she hesitate to manifest her antagonism when, in , she advised women to take the places of striking printers in new york.[ ] i do not know whether her attitude had changed before her death. there are, of course, some suffragists who are affiliated with workingwomen--the women's trade union league, for instance; but they are a small minority, and their activities are essentially economic. the rest look upon toil as a just provision of providence. what would become of the rich, if not for the poor? what would become of these idle, parasitic ladies, who squander more in a week than their victims earn in a year, if not for the eighty million wage workers? equality, who ever heard of such a thing? few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as america. particularly this is true of the american woman of the middle class. she not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality. small wonder that the american suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. in her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly notions and traditions. suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does. one of the great american women leaders claims that woman is entitled not only to equal pay, but that she ought to be legally entitled even to the pay of her husband. failing to support her, he should be put in convict stripes, and his earnings in prison be collected by his equal wife. does not another brilliant exponent of the cause claim for woman that her vote will abolish the social evil, which has been fought in vain by the collective efforts of the most illustrious minds the world over? it is indeed to be regretted that the alleged creator of the universe has already presented us with his wonderful scheme of things, else woman suffrage would surely enable woman to outdo him completely. nothing is so dangerous as the dissection of a fetich. if we have outlived the time when such heresy was punishable at the stake, we have not outlived the narrow spirit of condemnation of those who dare differ with accepted notions. therefore i shall probably be put down as an opponent of woman. but that can not deter me from looking the question squarely in the face. i repeat what i have said in the beginning: i do not believe that woman will make politics worse; nor can i believe that she could make it better. if, then, she cannot improve on man's mistakes, why perpetuate the latter? history may be a compilation of lies; nevertheless, it contains a few truths, and they are the only guide we have for the future. the history of the political activities of men proves that they have given him absolutely nothing that he could not have achieved in a more direct, less costly, and more lasting manner. as a matter of fact, every inch of ground he has gained has been through a constant fight, a ceaseless struggle for self-assertion, and not through suffrage. there is no reason whatever to assume that woman, in her climb to emancipation, has been, or will be, helped by the ballot. in the darkest of all countries, russia, with her absolute despotism, woman has become man's equal, not through the ballot, but by her will to be and to do. not only has she conquered for herself every avenue of learning and vocation, but she has won man's esteem, his respect, his comradeship; aye, even more than that: she has gained the admiration, the respect of the whole world. that, too, not through suffrage, but by her wonderful heroism, her fortitude, her ability, will power, and her endurance in the struggle for liberty. where are the women in any suffrage country or state that can lay claim to such a victory? when we consider the accomplishments of woman in america, we find also that something deeper and more powerful than suffrage has helped her in the march to emancipation. it is just sixty-two years ago since a handful of women at the seneca falls convention set forth a few demands for their right to equal education with men, and access to the various professions, trades, etc. what wonderful accomplishment, what wonderful triumphs! who but the most ignorant dare speak of woman as a mere domestic drudge? who dare suggest that this or that profession should not be open to her? for over sixty years she has molded a new atmosphere and a new life for herself. she has become a world power in every domain of human thought and activity. and all that without suffrage, without the right to make laws, without the "privilege" of becoming a judge, a jailer, or an executioner. yes, i may be considered an enemy of woman; but if i can help her see the light, i shall not complain. the misfortune of woman is not that she is unable to do the work of man, but that she is wasting her life force to outdo him, with a tradition of centuries which has left her physically incapable of keeping pace with him. oh, i know some have succeeded, but at what cost, at what terrific cost! the import is not the kind of work woman does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. she can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. first, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by refusing to be a servant to god, the state, society, the husband, the family, etc.; by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. that is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities, by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life giving; a creator of free men and women. [ ] equal suffrage. dr. helen sumner. [ ] equal suffrage. [ ] dr. helen a. sumner. [ ] mr. shackleton was a labor leader. it is therefore self-evident that he should introduce a bill excluding his own constituents. the english parliament is full of such judases. [ ] equal suffrage. dr. helen a. sumner. the tragedy of woman's emancipation i begin with an admission: regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of the fundamental differences between various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between woman's rights and man's rights, i hold that there is a point where these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole. with this i do not mean to propose a peace treaty. the general social antagonism which has taken hold of our entire public life today, brought about through the force of opposing and contradictory interests, will crumble to pieces when the reorganization of our social life, based upon the principles of economic justice, shall have become a reality. peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities. the problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities. this seems to me to be the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet without antagonism and opposition. the motto should not be: forgive one another; rather, understand one another. the oft-quoted sentence of madame de stael: "to understand everything means to forgive everything," has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow-being conveys the idea of pharisaical superiority. to understand one's fellow-being suffices. the admission partly represents the fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire sex. emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery. this was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. but the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being, who reminds one of the products of french arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels, and wreaths; anything, except the forms which would be reached by the expression of her own inner qualities. such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life. liberty and equality for woman! what hopes and aspirations these words awakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest and bravest souls of those days. the sun in all his light and glory was to rise upon a new world; in this world woman was to be free to direct her own destiny--an aim certainly worthy of the great enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men and women, who staked everything against a world of prejudice and ignorance. my hopes also move towards that goal, but i hold that the emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically applied today, has failed to reach that great end. now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. this may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only too true. what has she achieved through her emancipation? equal suffrage in a few states. has that purified our political life, as many well-meaning advocates predicted? certainly not. incidentally, it is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone. corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. its cause is altogether a material one. politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are: "to take is more blessed than to give"; "buy cheap and sell dear"; "one soiled hand washes the other." there is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics. emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is, she can choose her own profession and trade; but as her past and present physical training has not equipped her with the necessary strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use up her vitality, and strain every nerve in order to reach the market value. very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and engineers are neither met with the same confidence as their male colleagues, nor receive equal remuneration. and those that do reach that enticing equality, generally do so at the expense of their physical and psychical well-being. as to the great mass of working girls and women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? in addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a "home, sweet home"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a day's hard work. glorious independence! no wonder that hundreds of girls are willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and tired of their "independence" behind the counter, at the sewing or typewriting machine. they are just as ready to marry as girls of the middle class, who long to throw off the yoke of parental supremacy. a so-called independence which leads only to earning the merest subsistence is not so enticing, not so ideal, that one could expect woman to sacrifice everything for it. our highly praised independence is, after all, but a slow process of dulling and stifling woman's nature, her love instinct, and her mother instinct. nevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural and human than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the more cultured professional walks of life--teachers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, proper appearance, while the inner life is growing empty and dead. the narrowness of the existing conception of woman's independence and emancipation; the dread of love for a man who is not her social equal; the fear that love will rob her of her freedom and independence; the horror that love or the joy of motherhood will only hinder her in the full exercise of her profession--all these together make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom life, with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing joys, rolls on without touching or gripping her soul. emancipation, as understood by the majority of its adherents and exponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless love and ecstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart, mother, in freedom. the tragedy of the self-supporting or economically free woman does not lie in too many but in too few experiences. true, she surpasses her sister of past generations in knowledge of the world and human nature; it is just because of this that she feels deeply the lack of life's essence, which alone can enrich the human soul, and without which the majority of women have become mere professional automatons. that such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those who realized that, in the domain of ethics, there still remained many decaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man; ruins that are still considered useful. and, what is more important, a goodly number of the emancipated are unable to get along without them. every movement that aims at the destruction of existing institutions and the replacement thereof with something more advanced, more perfect, has followers who in theory stand for the most radical ideas, but who, nevertheless, in their every-day practice, are like the average philistine, feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. there are, for example, socialists, and even anarchists, who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of a half-dozen pins. the same philistine can be found in the movement for woman's emancipation. yellow journalists and milk-and-water litterateurs have painted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. every member of the woman's rights movement was pictured as a george sand in her absolute disregard of morality. nothing was sacred to her. she had no respect for the ideal relation between man and woman. in short, emancipation stood only for a reckless life of lust and sin; regardless of society, religion, and morality. the exponents of woman's rights were highly indignant at such representation, and, lacking humor, they exerted all their energy to prove that they were not at all as bad as they were painted, but the very reverse. of course, as long as woman was the slave of man, she could not be good and pure, but now that she was free and independent she would prove how good she could be and that her influence would have a purifying effect on all institutions in society. true, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones. the great movement of true emancipation has not met with a great race of women who could look liberty in the face. their narrow, puritanical vision banished man, as a disturber and doubtful character, out of their emotional life. man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father. fortunately, the most rigid puritans never will be strong enough to kill the innate craving for motherhood. but woman's freedom is closely allied with man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman. about fifteen years ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant norwegian, laura marholm, called woman, a character study. she was one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of the existing conception of woman's emancipation, and its tragic effect upon the inner life of woman. in her work laura marholm speaks of the fate of several gifted women of international fame: the genius, eleonora duse; the great mathematician and writer, sonya kovalevskaia; the artist and poet-nature, marie bashkirtzeff, who died so young. through each description of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete, and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character. the average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior airs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for woman as depicted in the character study by laura marholm. equally impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her mentality and her genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature. a rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. in the case of the modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete assertion of her being. for over a hundred years the old form of marriage, based on the bible, "till death doth part," has been denounced as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the woman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands, and absolute dependence on his name and support. time and again it has been conclusively proved that the old matrimonial relation restricted woman to the function of a man's servant and the bearer of his children. and yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage, with all its deficiencies, to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature. the explanation of such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of emancipation. they thought that all that was needed was independence from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth--ethical and social conventions--were left to take care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. they seem to get along as beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active exponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our grandmothers. these internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt, or relative of any sort; what will mrs. grundy, mr. comstock, the employer, the board of education say? all these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the human spirit, what will they say? until woman has learned to defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it call for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself emancipated. how many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts, demanding to be heard, to be satisfied. the french writer, jean reibrach, in one of his novels, new beauty, attempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. this ideal is embodied in a young girl, a physician. she talks very cleverly and wisely of how to feed infants; she is kind, and administers medicines free to poor mothers. she converses with a young man of her acquaintance about the sanitary conditions of the future, and how various bacilli and germs shall be exterminated by the use of stone walls and floors, and by the doing away with rugs and hangings. she is, of course, very plainly and practically dressed, mostly in black. the young man, who, at their first meeting, was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend, gradually learns to understand her, and recognizes one fine day that he loves her. they are young, and she is kind and beautiful, and though always in rigid attire, her appearance is softened by a spotlessly clean white collar and cuffs. one would expect that he would tell her of his love, but he is not one to commit romantic absurdities. poetry and the enthusiasm of love cover their blushing faces before the pure beauty of the lady. he silences the voice of his nature, and remains correct. she, too, is always exact, always rational, always well behaved. i fear if they had formed a union, the young man would have risked freezing to death. i must confess that i can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty, who is as cold as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. rather would i have the love songs of romantic ages, rather don juan and madame venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. if love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus. the greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life. i once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper relationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess, ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she loved, and the truly new woman, than between the latter and her average emancipated sister. the disciples of emancipation pure and simple declared me a heathen, fit only for the stake. their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness, and simplicity, than the majority of our emancipated professional women who fill the colleges, halls of learning, and various offices. this does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the nursery. salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. we are in need of unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. the movement for woman's emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction. it is to be hoped that it will gather strength to make another. the right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. it begins in woman's soul. history tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. it is necessary that woman learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. it is, therefore, far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs. the demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. it will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds. pettiness separates; breadth unites. let us be broad and big. let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. a true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one's self boundlessly, in order to find one's self richer, deeper, better. that alone can fill the emptiness, and transform the tragedy of woman's emancipation into joy, limitless joy. marriage and love the popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition. marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. no doubt some marriages have been the result of love. not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. there are today large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. at any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, i maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it. on the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage. on rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. certainly the growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman and the man. marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. it differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments. in taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. if, however, woman's premium is her husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, "until death doth part." moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social. man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. he feels his chains more in an economic sense. thus dante's motto over inferno applies with equal force to marriage. "ye who enter here leave all hope behind." that marriage is a failure none but the very stupid will deny. one has but to glance over the statistics of divorce to realize how bitter a failure marriage really is. nor will the stereotyped philistine argument that the laxity of divorce laws and the growing looseness of woman account for the fact that: first, every twelfth marriage ends in divorce; second, that since divorces have increased from to for every hundred thousand population; third, that adultery, since , as ground for divorce, has increased . per cent.; fourth, that desertion increased . per cent. added to these startling figures is a vast amount of material, dramatic and literary, further elucidating this subject. robert herrick, in together; pinero, in mid-channel; eugene walter, in paid in full, and scores of other writers are discussing the barrenness, the monotony, the sordidness, the inadequacy of marriage as a factor for harmony and understanding. the thoughtful social student will not content himself with the popular superficial excuse for this phenomenon. he will have to dig deeper into the very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves so disastrous. edward carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each other that man and woman must remain strangers. separated by an insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has not the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for, each other, without which every union is doomed to failure. henrik ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to realize this great truth. nora leaves her husband, not--as the stupid critic would have it--because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. can there be anything more humiliating, more degrading than a life-long proximity between two strangers? no need for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. as to the knowledge of the woman--what is there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance? we have not yet outgrown the theologic myth that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man, made out of his rib just for the convenience of the gentleman who was so strong that he was afraid of his own shadow. perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is responsible for her inferiority. at any rate, woman has no soul--what is there to know about her? besides, the less soul a woman has the greater her asset as a wife, the more readily will she absorb herself in her husband. it is this slavish acquiescence to man's superiority that has kept the marriage institution seemingly intact for so long a period. now that woman is coming into her own, now that she is actually growing aware of herself as being outside of the master's grace, the sacred institution of marriage is gradually being undermined, and no amount of sentimental lamentation can stay it. from infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that. yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his trade. it is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize. yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. the prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field--sex. thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. it is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. nor is it at all an exaggeration when i say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact. if, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex without the sanction of state or church, she will stand condemned as utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness consisting of an empty brain and plenty of money. can there be anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman, full of life and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience until a "good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife? that is precisely what marriage means. how can such an arrangement end except in failure? this is one, though not the least important, factor of marriage, which differentiates it from love. ours is a practical age. the time when romeo and juliet risked the wrath of their fathers for love, when gretchen exposed herself to the gossip of her neighbors for love, is no more. if, on rare occasions, young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, they are taken in care by the elders, drilled and pounded until they become "sensible." the moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has aroused her love, but rather is it, "how much?" the important and only god of practical american life: can the man make a living? can he support a wife? that is the only thing that justifies marriage. gradually this saturates every thought of the girl; her dreams are not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of shopping tours and bargain counters. this soul poverty and sordidness are the elements inherent in the marriage institution. the state and church approve of no other ideal, simply because it is the one that necessitates the state and church control of men and women. doubtless there are people who continue to consider love above dollars and cents. particularly this is true of that class whom economic necessity has forced to become self-supporting. the tremendous change in woman's position, wrought by that mighty factor, is indeed phenomenal when we reflect that it is but a short time since she has entered the industrial arena. six million women wage workers; six million women, who have equal right with men to be exploited, to be robbed, to go on strike; aye, to starve even. anything more, my lord? yes, six million wage workers in every walk of life, from the highest brain work to the mines and railroad tracks; yes, even detectives and policemen. surely the emancipation is complete. yet with all that, but a very small number of the vast army of women wage workers look upon work as a permanent issue, in the same light as does man. no matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught to be independent, self-supporting. oh, i know that no one is really independent in our economic treadmill; still, the poorest specimen of a man hates to be a parasite; to be known as such, at any rate. the woman considers her position as worker transitory, to be thrown aside for the first bidder. that is why it is infinitely harder to organize women than men. "why should i join a union? i am going to get married, to have a home." has she not been taught from infancy to look upon that as her ultimate calling? she learns soon enough that the home, though not so large a prison as the factory, has more solid doors and bars. it has a keeper so faithful that naught can escape him. the most tragic part, however, is that the home no longer frees her from wage slavery; it only increases her task. according to the latest statistics submitted before a committee "on labor and wages, and congestion of population," ten per cent. of the wage workers in new york city alone are married, yet they must continue to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world. add to this horrible aspect the drudgery of housework, and what remains of the protection and glory of the home? as a matter of fact, even the middle-class girl in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is the man who creates her sphere. it is not important whether the husband is a brute or a darling. what i wish to prove is that marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband. there she moves about in his home, year after year, until her aspect of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow, and drab as her surroundings. small wonder if she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house. she could not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go. besides, a short period of married life, of complete surrender of all faculties, absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the outside world. she becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements, dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a weight and a bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. wonderfully inspiring atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not? but the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? after all, is not that the most important consideration? the sham, the hypocrisy of it! marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of children destitute and homeless. marriage protecting the child, yet orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the society for the prevention of cruelty to children keeping busy in rescuing the little victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care, the gerry society. oh, the mockery of it! marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it ever made him drink? the law will place the father under arrest, and put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of the child? if the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity, what does marriage do then? it invokes the law to bring the man to "justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to the child, but to the state. the child receives but a blighted memory of his father's stripes. as to the protection of the woman,--therein lies the curse of marriage. not that it really protects her, but the very idea is so revolting, such an outrage and insult on life, so degrading to human dignity, as to forever condemn this parasitic institution. it is like that other paternal arrangement--capitalism. it robs man of his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in ignorance, in poverty, and dependence, and then institutes charities that thrive on the last vestige of man's self-respect. the institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute dependent. it incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human character. if motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman's nature, what other protection does it need, save love and freedom? marriage but defiles, outrages, and corrupts her fulfillment. does it not say to woman, only when you follow me shall you bring forth life? does it not condemn her to the block, does it not degrade and shame her if she refuses to buy her right to motherhood by selling herself? does not marriage only sanction motherhood, even though conceived in hatred, in compulsion? yet, if motherhood be of free choice, of love, of ecstasy, of defiant passion, does it not place a crown of thorns upon an innocent head and carve in letters of blood the hideous epithet, bastard? were marriage to contain all the virtues claimed for it, its crimes against motherhood would exclude it forever from the realm of love. love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little state and church-begotten weed, marriage? free love? as if love is anything but free! man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. high on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. and if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. in freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. all the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root. if, however, the soil is sterile, how can marriage make it bear fruit? it is like the last desperate struggle of fleeting life against death. love needs no protection; it is its own protection. so long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection. i know this to be true. i know women who became mothers in freedom by the men they loved. few children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing. the defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood, lest it will rob them of their prey. who would fight wars? who would create wealth? who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? the race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. the race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine,--and the marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex awakening of woman. but in vain these frantic efforts to maintain a state of bondage. in vain, too, the edicts of the church, the mad attacks of rulers, in vain even the arm of the law. woman no longer wants to be a party to the production of a race of sickly, feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings, who have neither the strength nor moral courage to throw off the yoke of poverty and slavery. instead she desires fewer and better children, begotten and reared in love and through free choice; not by compulsion, as marriage imposes. our pseudo-moralists have yet to learn the deep sense of responsibility toward the child, that love in freedom has awakened in the breast of woman. rather would she forego forever the glory of motherhood than bring forth life in an atmosphere that breathes only destruction and death. and if she does become a mother, it is to give to the child the deepest and best her being can yield. to grow with the child is her motto; she knows that in that manner alone can she help build true manhood and womanhood. ibsen must have had a vision of a free mother, when, with a master stroke, he portrayed mrs. alving. she was the ideal mother because she had outgrown marriage and all its horrors, because she had broken her chains, and set her spirit free to soar until it returned a personality, regenerated and strong. alas, it was too late to rescue her life's joy, her oswald; but not too late to realize that love in freedom is the only condition of a beautiful life. those who, like mrs. alving, have paid with blood and tears for their spiritual awakening, repudiate marriage as an imposition, a shallow, empty mockery. they know, whether love last but one brief span of time or for eternity, it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for a new race, a new world. in our present pygmy state love is indeed a stranger to most people. misunderstood and shunned, it rarely takes root; or if it does, it soon withers and dies. its delicate fiber can not endure the stress and strain of the daily grind. its soul is too complex to adjust itself to the slimy woof of our social fabric. it weeps and moans and suffers with those who have need of it, yet lack the capacity to rise to love's summit. some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. what fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. if the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent. the modern drama: a powerful disseminator of radical thought so long as discontent and unrest make themselves but dumbly felt within a limited social class, the powers of reaction may often succeed in suppressing such manifestations. but when the dumb unrest grows into conscious expression and becomes almost universal, it necessarily affects all phases of human thought and action, and seeks its individual and social expression in the gradual transvaluation of existing values. an adequate appreciation of the tremendous spread of the modern, conscious social unrest cannot be gained from merely propagandistic literature. rather must we become conversant with the larger phases of human expression manifest in art, literature, and, above all, the modern drama--the strongest and most far-reaching interpreter of our deep-felt dissatisfaction. what a tremendous factor for the awakening of conscious discontent are the simple canvasses of a millet! the figures of his peasants--what terrific indictment against our social wrongs; wrongs that condemn the man with the hoe to hopeless drudgery, himself excluded from nature's bounty. the vision of a meunier conceives the growing solidarity and defiance of labor in the group of miners carrying their maimed brother to safety. his genius thus powerfully portrays the interrelation of the seething unrest among those slaving in the bowels of the earth, and the spiritual revolt that seeks artistic expression. no less important is the factor for rebellious awakening in modern literature--turgeniev, dostoyevsky, tolstoy, andreiev, gorki, whitman, emerson, and scores of others embodying the spirit of universal ferment and the longing for social change. still more far-reaching is the modern drama, as the leaven of radical thought and the disseminator of new values. it might seem an exaggeration to ascribe to the modern drama such an important role. but a study of the development of modern ideas in most countries will prove that the drama has succeeded in driving home great social truths, truths generally ignored when presented in other forms. no doubt there are exceptions, as russia and france. russia, with its terrible political pressure, has made people think and has awakened their social sympathies, because of the tremendous contrast which exists between the intellectual life of the people and the despotic regime that is trying to crush that life. yet while the great dramatic works of tolstoy, tchechov, gorki, and andreiev closely mirror the life and the struggle, the hopes and aspirations of the russian people, they did not influence radical thought to the extent the drama has done in other countries. who can deny, however, the tremendous influence exerted by the power of darkness or night lodging. tolstoy, the real, true christian, is yet the greatest enemy of organized christianity. with a master hand he portrays the destructive effects upon the human mind of the power of darkness, the superstitions of the christian church. what other medium could express, with such dramatic force, the responsibility of the church for crimes committed by its deluded victims; what other medium could, in consequence, rouse the indignation of man's conscience? similarly direct and powerful is the indictment contained in gorki's night lodging. the social pariahs, forced into poverty and crime, yet desperately clutch at the last vestiges of hope and aspiration. lost existences these, blighted and crushed by cruel, unsocial environment. france, on the other hand, with her continuous struggle for liberty, is indeed the cradle of radical thought; as such she, too, did not need the drama as a means of awakening. and yet the works of brieux--as robe rouge, portraying the terrible corruption of the judiciary--and mirbeau's les affaires sont les affaires--picturing the destructive influence of wealth on the human soul--have undoubtedly reached wider circles than most of the articles and books which have been written in france on the social question. in countries like germany, scandinavia, england, and even in america--though in a lesser degree--the drama is the vehicle which is really making history, disseminating radical thought in ranks not otherwise to be reached. let us take germany, for instance. for nearly a quarter of a century men of brains, of ideas, and of the greatest integrity, made it their life-work to spread the truth of human brotherhood, of justice, among the oppressed and downtrodden. socialism, that tremendous revolutionary wave, was to the victims of a merciless and inhumane system like water to the parched lips of the desert traveler. alas! the cultured people remained absolutely indifferent; to them that revolutionary tide was but the murmur of dissatisfied, discontented men, dangerous, illiterate troublemakers, whose proper place was behind prison bars. self-satisfied as the "cultured" usually are, they could not understand why one should fuss about the fact that thousands of people were starving, though they contributed towards the wealth of the world. surrounded by beauty and luxury, they could not believe that side by side with them lived human beings degraded to a position lower than a beast's, shelterless and ragged, without hope or ambition. this condition of affairs was particularly pronounced in germany after the franco-german war. full to the bursting point with its victory, germany thrived on a sentimental, patriotic literature, thereby poisoning the minds of the country's youth by the glory of conquest and bloodshed. intellectual germany had to take refuge in the literature of other countries, in the works of ibsen, zola, daudet, maupassant, and especially in the great works of dostoyevsky, tolstoy, and turgeniev. but as no country can long maintain a standard of culture without a literature and drama related to its own soil, so germany gradually began to develop a drama reflecting the life and the struggles of its own people. arno holz, one of the youngest dramatists of that period, startled the philistines out of their ease and comfort with his familie selicke. the play deals with society's refuse, men and women of the alleys, whose only subsistence consists of what they can pick out of the garbage barrels. a gruesome subject, is it not? and yet what other method is there to break through the hard shell of the minds and souls of people who have never known want, and who therefore assume that all is well in the world? needless to say, the play aroused tremendous indignation. the truth is bitter, and the people living on the fifth avenue of berlin hated to be confronted with the truth. not that familie selicke represented anything that had not been written about for years without any seeming result. but the dramatic genius of holz, together with the powerful interpretation of the play, necessarily made inroads into the widest circles, and forced people to think about the terrible inequalities around them. sudermann's ehre[ ] and heimat[ ] deal with vital subjects. i have already referred to the sentimental patriotism so completely turning the head of the average german as to create a perverted conception of honor. duelling became an every-day affair, costing innumerable lives. a great cry was raised against the fad by a number of leading writers. but nothing acted as such a clarifier and exposer of that national disease as the ehre. not that the play merely deals with duelling; it analyzes the real meaning of honor, proving that it is not a fixed, inborn feeling, but that it varies with every people and every epoch, depending particularly on one's economic and social station in life. we realize from this play that the man in the brownstone mansion will necessarily define honor differently from his victims. the family heinecke enjoys the charity of the millionaire muhling, being permitted to occupy a dilapidated shanty on his premises in the absence of their son, robert. the latter, as muhling's representative, is making a vast fortune for his employer in india. on his return robert discovers that his sister had been seduced by young muhling, whose father graciously offers to straighten matters with a check for , marks. robert, outraged and indignant, resents the insult to his family's honor, and is forthwith dismissed from his position for impudence. robert finally throws this accusation into the face of the philanthropist millionaire: "we slave for you, we sacrifice our heart's blood for you, while you seduce our daughters and sisters and kindly pay for their disgrace with the gold we have earned for you. that is what you call honor." an incidental side-light upon the conception of honor is given by count trast, the principal character in the ehre, a man widely conversant with the customs of various climes, who relates that in his many travels he chanced across a savage tribe whose honor he mortally offended by refusing the hospitality which offered him the charms of the chieftain's wife. the theme of heimat treats of the struggle between the old and the young generations. it holds a permanent and important place in dramatic literature. magda, the daughter of lieutenant colonel schwartz, has committed an unpardonable sin: she refused the suitor selected by her father. for daring to disobey the parental commands she is driven from home. magda, full of life and the spirit of liberty, goes out into the world to return to her native town, twelve years later, a celebrated singer. she consents to visit her parents on condition that they respect the privacy of her past. but her martinet father immediately begins to question her, insisting on his "paternal rights." magda is indignant, but gradually his persistence brings to light the tragedy of her life. he learns that the respected councillor von keller had in his student days been magda's lover, while she was battling for her economic and social independence. the consequence of the fleeting romance was a child, deserted by the man even before birth. the rigid military father of magda demands as retribution from councillor von keller that he legalize the love affair. in view of magda's social and professional success, keller willingly consents, but on condition that she forsake the stage, and place the child in an institution. the struggle between the old and the new culminates in magda's defiant words of the woman grown to conscious independence of thought and action: "...i'll say what i think of you--of you and your respectable society. why should i be worse than you that i must prolong my existence among you by a lie! why should this gold upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase my infamy? have i not worked early and late for ten long years? have i not woven this dress with sleepless nights? have i not built up my career step by step, like thousands of my kind? why should i blush before anyone? i am myself, and through myself i have become what i am." the general theme of heimat was not original. it had been previously treated by a master hand in fathers and sons. partly because turgeniev's great work was typical rather of russian than universal conditions, and still more because it was in the form of fiction, the influence of fathers and sons was limited to russia. but heimat, especially because of its dramatic expression, became almost a world factor. the dramatist who not only disseminated radicalism, but literally revolutionized the thoughtful germans, is gerhardt hauptmann. his first play vor sonnenaufgang[ ], refused by every leading german theatre and first performed in a wretched little playhouse behind a beer garden, acted like a stroke of lightning, illuminating the entire social horizon. its subject matter deals with the life of an extensive landowner, ignorant, illiterate, and brutalized, and his economic slaves of the same mental calibre. the influence of wealth, both on the victims who created it and the possessor thereof, is shown in the most vivid colors, as resulting in drunkenness, idiocy, and decay. but the most striking feature of vor sonnenaufgang, the one which brought a shower of abuse on hauptmann's head, was the question as to the indiscriminate breeding of children by unfit parents. during the second performance of the play a leading berlin surgeon almost caused a panic in the theatre by swinging a pair of forceps over his head and screaming at the top of his voice: "the decency and morality of germany are at stake if childbirth is to be discussed openly from the stage." the surgeon is forgotten, and hauptmann stands a colossal figure before the world. when die weber[ ] first saw the light, pandemonium broke out in the land of thinkers and poets. "what," cried the moralists, "workingmen, dirty, filthy slaves, to be put on the stage! poverty in all its horrors and ugliness to be dished out as an after-dinner amusement? that is too much!" indeed, it was too much for the fat and greasy bourgeoisie to be brought face to face with the horrors of the weaver's existence. it was too much because of the truth and reality that rang like thunder in the deaf ears of self-satisfied society, j'accuse! of course, it was generally known even before the appearance of this drama that capital can not get fat unless it devours labor, that wealth can not be hoarded except through the channels of poverty, hunger, and cold; but such things are better kept in the dark, lest the victims awaken to a realization of their position. but it is the purpose of the modern drama to rouse the consciousness of the oppressed; and that, indeed, was the purpose of gerhardt hauptmann in depicting to the world the conditions of the weavers in silesia. human beings working eighteen hours daily, yet not earning enough for bread and fuel; human beings living in broken, wretched huts half covered with snow, and nothing but tatters to protect them from the cold; infants covered with scurvy from hunger and exposure; pregnant women in the last stages of consumption. victims of a benevolent christian era, without life, without hope, without warmth. ah, yes, it was too much! hauptmann's dramatic versatility deals with every stratum of social life. besides portraying the grinding effect of economic conditions, he also treats of the struggle of the individual for his mental and spiritual liberation from the slavery of convention and tradition. thus heinrich, the bell-forger, in the dramatic prose-poem, die versunkene glocke[ ], fails to reach the mountain peaks of liberty because, as rautendelein said, he had lived in the valley too long. similarly dr. vockerath and anna maar remain lonely souls because they, too, lack the strength to defy venerated traditions. yet their very failure must awaken the rebellious spirit against a world forever hindering individual and social emancipation. max halbe's jugend[ ] and wedekind's fruhling's erwachen[ ] are dramas which have disseminated radical thought in an altogether different direction. they treat of the child and the dense ignorance and narrow puritanism that meet the awakening of nature. particularly this is true of fruhling's erwachen. young boys and girls sacrificed on the altar of false education and of our sickening morality that prohibits the enlightenment of youth as to questions so imperative to the health and well-being of society,--the origin of life, and its functions. it shows how a mother--and a truly good mother, at that--keeps her fourteen-year-old daughter in absolute ignorance as to all matters of sex, and when finally the young girl falls a victim to her own ignorance, the same mother sees her daughter killed by quack medicines. the inscription on her grave states that she died of anaemia, and morality is satisfied. the fatality of our puritanic hypocrisy in these matters is especially illumined by wedekind in so far as our most promising children fall victims to sex ignorance and the utter lack of appreciation on the part of the teachers of the child's awakening. wendla, unusually developed and alert for her age, pleads with her mother to explain the mystery of life: "i have a sister who has been married for two and a half years. i myself have been made an aunt for the third time, and i haven't the least idea how it all comes about.... don't be cross, mother, dear! whom in the world should i ask but you? don't scold me for asking about it. give me an answer.--how does it happen?--you cannot really deceive yourself that i, who am fourteen years old, still believe in the stork." were her mother herself not a victim of false notions of morality, an affectionate and sensible explanation might have saved her daughter. but the conventional mother seeks to hide her "moral" shame and embarrassment in this evasive reply: "in order to have a child--one must love--the man--to whom one is married.... one must love him, wendla, as you at your age are still unable to love.--now you know it!" how much wendla "knew" the mother realized too late. the pregnant girl imagines herself ill with dropsy. and when her mother cries in desperation, "you haven't the dropsy, you have a child, girl," the agonized wendla exclaims in bewilderment: "but it's not possible, mother, i am not married yet.... oh, mother, why didn't you tell me everything?" with equal stupidity the boy morris is driven to suicide because he fails in his school examinations. and melchior, the youthful father of wendla's unborn child, is sent to the house of correction, his early sexual awakening stamping him a degenerate in the eyes of teachers and parents. for years thoughtful men and women in germany had advocated the compelling necessity of sex enlightenment. mutterschutz, a publication specially devoted to frank and intelligent discussion of the sex problem, has been carrying on its agitation for a considerable time. but it remained for the dramatic genius of wedekind to influence radical thought to the extent of forcing the introduction of sex physiology in many schools of germany. scandinavia, like germany, was advanced through the drama much more than through any other channel. long before ibsen appeared on the scene, bjornson, the great essayist, thundered against the inequalities and injustice prevalent in those countries. but his was a voice in the wilderness, reaching but the few. not so with ibsen. his brand, doll's house, pillars of society, ghosts, and an enemy of the people have considerably undermined the old conceptions, and replaced them by a modern and real view of life. one has but to read brand to realize the modern conception, let us say, of religion,--religion, as an ideal to be achieved on earth; religion as a principle of human brotherhood, of solidarity, and kindness. ibsen, the supreme hater of all social shams, has torn the veil of hypocrisy from their faces. his greatest onslaught, however, is on the four cardinal points supporting the flimsy network of society. first, the lie upon which rests the life of today; second, the futility of sacrifice as preached by our moral codes; third, petty material consideration, which is the only god the majority worships; and fourth, the deadening influence of provincialism. these four recur as the leitmotif in ibsen's plays, but particularly in pillars of society, doll's house, ghosts, and an enemy of the people. pillars of society! what a tremendous indictment against the social structure that rests on rotten and decayed pillars,--pillars nicely gilded and apparently intact, yet merely hiding their true condition. and what are these pillars? consul bernick, at the very height of his social and financial career, the benefactor of his town and the strongest pillar of the community, has reached the summit through the channel of lies, deception, and fraud. he has robbed his bosom friend, johann, of his good name, and has betrayed lona hessel, the woman he loved, to marry her step-sister for the sake of her money. he has enriched himself by shady transactions, under cover of "the community's good," and finally even goes to the extent of endangering human life by preparing the indian girl, a rotten and dangerous vessel, to go to sea. but the return of lona brings him the realization of the emptiness and meanness of his narrow life. he seeks to placate the waking conscience by the hope that he has cleared the ground for the better life of his son, of the new generation. but even this last hope soon falls to the ground, as he realizes that truth cannot be built on a lie. at the very moment when the whole town is prepared to celebrate the great benefactor of the community with banquet praise, he himself, now grown to full spiritual manhood, confesses to the assembled townspeople: "i have no right to this homage-- ... my fellow-citizens must know me to the core. then let everyone examine himself, and let us realize the prediction that from this event we begin a new time. the old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum, open for instruction." with a doll's house ibsen has paved the way for woman's emancipation. nora awakens from her doll's role to the realization of the injustice done her by her father and her husband, helmer torvald. "while i was at home with father, he used to tell me all his opinions, and i held the same opinions. if i had others i concealed them, because he would not have approved. he used to call me his doll child, and play with me as i played with my dolls. then i came to live in your house. you settled everything according to your taste, and i got the same taste as you, or i pretended to. when i look back on it now, i seem to have been living like a beggar, from hand to mouth. i lived by performing tricks for you, torvald, but you would have it so. you and father have done me a great wrong." in vain helmer uses the old philistine arguments of wifely duty and social obligations. nora has grown out of her doll's dress into full stature of conscious womanhood. she is determined to think and judge for herself. she has realized that, before all else, she is a human being, owing the first duty to herself. she is undaunted even by the possibility of social ostracism. she has become sceptical of the justice of the law, the wisdom of the constituted. her rebelling soul rises in protest against the existing. in her own words: "i must make up my mind which is right, society or i." in her childlike faith in her husband she had hoped for the great miracle. but it was not the disappointed hope that opened her vision to the falsehoods of marriage. it was rather the smug contentment of helmer with a safe lie--one that would remain hidden and not endanger his social standing. when nora closed behind her the door of her gilded cage and went out into the world a new, regenerated personality, she opened the gate of freedom and truth for her own sex and the race to come. more than any other play, ghosts has acted like a bomb explosion, shaking the social structure to its very foundations. in doll's house the justification of the union between nora and helmer rested at least on the husband's conception of integrity and rigid adherence to our social morality. indeed, he was the conventional ideal husband and devoted father. not so in ghosts. mrs. alving married captain alving only to find that he was a physical and mental wreck, and that life with him would mean utter degradation and be fatal to possible offspring. in her despair she turned to her youth's companion, young pastor manders who, as the true savior of souls for heaven, must needs be indifferent to earthly necessities. he sent her back to shame and degradation,--to her duties to husband and home. indeed, happiness--to him--was but the unholy manifestation of a rebellious spirit, and a wife's duty was not to judge, but "to bear with humility the cross which a higher power had for your own good laid upon you." mrs. alving bore the cross for twenty-six long years. not for the sake of the higher power, but for her little son oswald, whom she longed to save from the poisonous atmosphere of her husband's home. it was also for the sake of the beloved son that she supported the lie of his father's goodness, in superstitious awe of "duty and decency." she learned, alas! too late, that the sacrifice of her entire life had been in vain, and that her son oswald was visited by the sins of his father, that he was irrevocably doomed. this, too, she learned, that "we are all of us ghosts. it is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. it is all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. they have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same and we can't get rid of them.... and then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of light. when you forced me under the yoke you called duty and obligation; when you praised as right and proper what my whole soul rebelled against as something loathsome; it was then that i began to look into the seams of your doctrine. i only wished to pick at a single knot, but when i had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled out. and then i understood that it was all machine-sewn." how could a society machine-sewn, fathom the seething depths whence issued the great masterpiece of henrik ibsen? it could not understand, and therefore it poured the vials of abuse and venom upon its greatest benefactor. that ibsen was not daunted he has proved by his reply in an enemy of the people. in that great drama ibsen performs the last funeral rites over a decaying and dying social system. out of its ashes rises the regenerated individual, the bold and daring rebel. dr. stockman, an idealist, full of social sympathy and solidarity, is called to his native town as the physician of the baths. he soon discovers that the latter are built on a swamp, and that instead of finding relief the patients, who flock to the place, are being poisoned. an honest man, of strong convictions, the doctor considers it his duty to make his discovery known. but he soon learns that dividends and profits are concerned neither with health nor principles. even the reformers of the town, represented in the people's messenger, always ready to prate of their devotion to the people, withdraw their support from the "reckless" idealist, the moment they learn that the doctor's discovery may bring the town into disrepute, and thus injure their pockets. but doctor stockman continues in the faith he entertains for has townsmen. they would hear him. but here, too, he soon finds himself alone. he cannot even secure a place to proclaim his great truth. and when he finally succeeds, he is overwhelmed by abuse and ridicule as the enemy of the people. the doctor, so enthusiastic of his townspeople's assistance to eradicate the evil, is soon driven to a solitary position. the announcement of his discovery would result in a pecuniary loss to the town, and that consideration induces the officials, the good citizens, and soul reformers, to stifle the voice of truth. he finds them all a compact majority, unscrupulous enough to be willing to build up the prosperity of the town on a quagmire of lies and fraud. he is accused of trying to ruin the community. but to his mind "it does not matter if a lying community is ruined. it must be levelled to the ground. all men who live upon lies must be exterminated like vermin. you'll bring it to such a pass that the whole country will deserve to perish." doctor stockman is not a practical politician. a free man, he thinks, must not behave like a blackguard. "he must not so act that he would spit in his own face." for only cowards permit "considerations" of pretended general welfare or of party to override truth and ideals. "party programmes wring the necks of all young, living truths; and considerations of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside down, until life is simply hideous." these plays of ibsen--the pillars of society, a doll's house, ghosts, and an enemy of the people--constitute a dynamic force which is gradually dissipating the ghosts walking the social burying ground called civilization. nay, more; ibsen's destructive effects are at the same time supremely constructive, for he not merely undermines existing pillars; indeed, he builds with sure strokes the foundation of a healthier, ideal future, based on the sovereignty of the individual within a sympathetic social environment. england with her great pioneers of radical thought, the intellectual pilgrims like godwin, robert owen, darwin, spencer, william morris, and scores of others; with her wonderful larks of liberty--shelley, byron, keats--is another example of the influence of dramatic art. within comparatively a few years, the dramatic works of shaw, pinero, galsworthy, rann kennedy, have carried radical thought to the ears formerly deaf even to great britain's wondrous poets. thus a public which will remain indifferent reading an essay by robert owen, on poverty, or ignore bernard shaw's socialistic tracts, was made to think by major barbara, wherein poverty is described as the greatest crime of christian civilization. "poverty makes people weak, slavish, puny; poverty creates disease, crime, prostitution; in fine, poverty is responsible for all the ills and evils of the world." poverty also necessitates dependency, charitable organizations, institutions that thrive off the very thing they are trying to destroy. the salvation army, for instance, as shown in major barbara, fights drunkenness; yet one of its greatest contributors is badger, a whiskey distiller, who furnishes yearly thousands of pounds to do away with the very source of his wealth. bernard shaw, therefore, concludes that the only real benefactor of society is a man like undershaft, barbara's father, a cannon manufacturer, whose theory of life is that powder is stronger than words. "the worst of crimes," says undershaft, "is poverty. all the other crimes are virtues beside it; all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison. poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very soul of all who come within sight, sound, or smell of it. what you call crime is nothing; a murder here, a theft there, a blow now and a curse there: what do they matter? they are only the accidents and illnesses of life; there are not fifty genuine professional criminals in london. but there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill-fed, ill-clothed people. they poison us morally and physically; they kill the happiness of society; they force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into their abyss.... poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles; they will not stand up to my machine guns. don't preach at them; don't reason with them. kill them.... it is the final test of conviction, the only lever strong enough to overturn a social system.... vote! bah! when you vote, you only change the name of the cabinet. when you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders, and set up new." no wonder people cared little to read mr. shaw's socialistic tracts. in no other way but in the drama could he deliver such forcible, historic truths. and therefore it is only through the drama that mr. shaw is a revolutionary factor in the dissemination of radical ideas. after hauptmann's die weber, strife, by galsworthy, is the most important labor drama. the theme of strife is a strike with two dominant factors: anthony, the president of the company, rigid, uncompromising, unwilling to make the slightest concession, although the men held out for months and are in a condition of semi-starvation; and david roberts, an uncompromising revolutionist, whose devotion to the workingman and the cause of freedom is at white heat. between them the strikers are worn and weary with the terrible struggle, and are harassed and driven by the awful sight of poverty and want in their families. the most marvellous and brilliant piece of work in strife is galsworthy's portrayal of the mob, its fickleness, and lack of backbone. one moment they applaud old thomas, who speaks of the power of god and religion and admonishes the men against rebellion; the next instant they are carried away by a walking delegate, who pleads the cause of the union,--the union that always stands for compromise, and which forsakes the workingmen whenever they dare to strike for independent demands; again they are aglow with the earnestness, the spirit, and the intensity of david roberts--all these people willing to go in whatever direction the wind blows. it is the curse of the working class that they always follow like sheep led to slaughter. consistency is the greatest crime of our commercial age. no matter how intense the spirit or how important the man, the moment he will not allow himself to be used or sell his principles, he is thrown on the dustheap. such was the fate of the president of the company, anthony, and of david roberts. to be sure they represented opposite poles--poles antagonistic to each other, poles divided by a terrible gap that can never be bridged over. yet they shared a common fate. anthony is the embodiment of conservatism, of old ideas, of iron methods: "i have been chairman of this company thirty-two years. i have fought the men four times. i have never been defeated. it has been said that times have changed. if they have, i have not changed with them. it has been said that masters and men are equal. cant. there can be only one master in a house. it has been said that capital and labor have the same interests. cant. their interests are as wide asunder as the poles. there is only one way of treating men--with the iron rod. masters are masters. men are men." we may not like this adherence to old, reactionary notions, and yet there is something admirable in the courage and consistency of this man, nor is he half as dangerous to the interests of the oppressed, as our sentimental and soft reformers who rob with nine fingers, and give libraries with the tenth; who grind human beings like russell sage, and then spend millions of dollars in social research work; who turn beautiful young plants into faded old women, and then give them a few paltry dollars or found a home for working girls. anthony is a worthy foe; and to fight such a foe, one must learn to meet him in open battle. david roberts has all the mental and moral attributes of his adversary, coupled with the spirit of revolt, and the depth of modern ideas. he, too, is consistent, and wants nothing for his class short of complete victory. "it is not for this little moment of time we are fighting, not for our own little bodies and their warmth; it is for all those who come after, for all times. oh, men, for the love of them don't turn up another stone on their heads, don't help to blacken the sky. if we can shake that white-faced monster with the bloody lips that has sucked the lives out of ourselves, our wives, and children, since the world began, if we have not the hearts of men to stand against it, breast to breast and eye to eye, and force it backward till it cry for mercy, it will go on sucking life, and we shall stay forever where we are, less than the very dogs." it is inevitable that compromise and petty interest should pass on and leave two such giants behind. inevitable, until the mass will reach the stature of a david roberts. will it ever? prophecy is not the vocation of the dramatist, yet the moral lesson is evident. one cannot help realizing that the workingmen will have to use methods hitherto unfamiliar to them; that they will have to discard all those elements in their midst that are forever ready to reconcile the irreconcilable, namely capital and labor. they will have to learn that characters like david roberts are the very forces that have revolutionized the world and thus paved the way for emancipation out of the clutches of that "white-faced monster with bloody lips," towards a brighter horizon, a freer life, and a deeper recognition of human values. no subject of equal social import has received such extensive consideration within the last few years as the question of prison and punishment. hardly any magazine of consequence that has not devoted its columns to the discussion of this vital theme. a number of books by able writers, both in america and abroad, have discussed this topic from the historic, psychologic, and social standpoint, all agreeing that present penal institutions and our mode of coping with crime have in every respect proved inadequate as well as wasteful. one would expect that something very radical should result from the cumulative literary indictment of the social crimes perpetrated upon the prisoner. yet with the exception of a few minor and comparatively insignificant reforms in some of our prisons, absolutely nothing has been accomplished. but at last this grave social wrong has found dramatic interpretation in galworthy's justice. the play opens in the office of james how and sons, solicitors. the senior clerk, robert cokeson, discovers that a check he had issued for nine pounds has been forged to ninety. by elimination, suspicion falls upon william falder, the junior office clerk. the latter is in love with a married woman, the abused, ill-treated wife of a brutal drunkard. pressed by his employer, a severe yet not unkindly man, falder confesses the forgery, pleading the dire necessity of his sweetheart, ruth honeywill, with whom he had planned to escape to save her from the unbearable brutality of her husband. notwithstanding the entreaties of young walter, who is touched by modern ideas, his father, a moral and law-respecting citizen, turns falder over to the police. the second act, in the court-room, shows justice in the very process of manufacture. the scene equals in dramatic power and psychologic verity the great court scene in resurrection. young falder, a nervous and rather weakly youth of twenty-three, stands before the bar. ruth, his married sweetheart, full of love and devotion, burns with anxiety to save the young man whose affection brought about his present predicament. the young man is defended by lawyer frome, whose speech to the jury is a masterpiece of deep social philosophy wreathed with the tendrils of human understanding and sympathy. he does not attempt to dispute the mere fact of falder having altered the check; and though he pleads temporary aberration in defense of his client, that plea is based upon a social consciousness as deep and all-embracing as the roots of our social ills--"the background of life, that palpitating life which always lies behind the commission of a crime." he shows falder to have faced the alternative of seeing the beloved woman murdered by her brutal husband, whom she cannot divorce; or of taking the law into his own hands. the defence pleads with the jury not to turn the weak young man into a criminal by condemning him to prison, for "justice is a machine that, when someone has given it a starting push, rolls on of itself.... is this young man to be ground to pieces under this machine for an act which, at the worst, was one of weakness? is he to become a member of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred ships called prisons?... i urge you, gentlemen, do not ruin this young man. for as a result of those four minutes, ruin, utter and irretrievable, stares him in the face.... the rolling of the chariot wheels of justice over this boy began when it was decided to prosecute him." but the chariot of justice rolls mercilessly on, for--as the learned judge says--"the law is what it is--a majestic edifice, sheltering all of us, each stone of which rests on another." falder is sentenced to three years' penal servitude. in prison, the young, inexperienced convict soon finds himself the victim of the terrible "system." the authorities admit that young falder is mentally and physically "in bad shape," but nothing can be done in the matter: many others are in a similar position, and "the quarters are inadequate." the third scene of the third act is heart-gripping in its silent force. the whole scene is a pantomime, taking place in falder's prison cell. "in fast-falling daylight, falder, in his stockings, is seen standing motionless, with his head inclined towards the door, listening. he moves a little closer to the door, his stockinged feet making no noise. he stops at the door. he is trying harder and harder to hear something, any little thing that is going on outside. he springs suddenly upright--as if at a sound--and remains perfectly motionless. then, with a heavy sigh, he moves to his work, and stands looking at it, with his head down; he does a stitch or two, having the air of a man so lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a coming to life. then, turning abruptly, he begins pacing his cell, moving his head, like an animal pacing its cage. he stops again at the door, listens, and, placing the palms of his hands against it with his fingers spread out, leans his forehead against the iron. turning from it, presently, he moves slowly back towards the window, holding his head, as if he felt that it were going to burst, and stops under the window. but since he cannot see out of it he leaves off looking, and, picking up the lid of one of the tins, peers into it, as if trying to make a companion of his own face. it has grown very nearly dark. suddenly the lid falls out of his hand with a clatter--the only sound that has broken the silence--and he stands staring intently at the wall where the stuff of the shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness--he seems to be seeing somebody or something there. there is a sharp tap and click; the cell light behind the glass screen has been turned up. the cell is brightly lighted. falder is seen gasping for breath. a sound from far away, as of distant, dull beating on thick metal, is suddenly audible. falder shrinks back, not able to bear this sudden clamor. but the sound grows, as though some great tumbril were rolling towards the cell. and gradually it seems to hypnotize him. he begins creeping inch by inch nearer to the door. the banging sound, traveling from cell to cell, draws closer and closer; falder's hands are seen moving as if his spirit had already joined in this beating, and the sound swells till it seems to have entered the very cell. he suddenly raises his clenched fists. panting violently, he flings himself at his door, and beats on it." finally falder leaves the prison, a broken ticket-of-leave man, the stamp of the convict upon his brow, the iron of misery in his soul. thanks to ruth's pleading, the firm of james how and son is willing to take falder back in their employ, on condition that he give up ruth. it is then that falder learns the awful news that the woman he loves had been driven by the merciless economic moloch to sell herself. she "tried making skirts ... cheap things.... i never made more than ten shillings a week, buying my own cotton, and working all day. i hardly ever got to bed till past twelve.... and then ... my employer happened--he's happened ever since." at this terrible psychologic moment the police appear to drag him back to prison for failing to report himself as ticket-of-leave man. completely overwhelmed by the inexorability of his environment, young falder seeks and finds peace, greater than human justice, by throwing himself down to death, as the detectives are taking him back to prison. it would be impossible to estimate the effect produced by this play. perhaps some conception can be gained from the very unusual circumstance that it had proved so powerful as to induce the home secretary of great britain to undertake extensive prison reforms in england. a very encouraging sign this, of the influence exerted by the modern drama. it is to be hoped that the thundering indictment of mr. galsworthy will not remain without similar effect upon the public sentiment and prison conditions of america. at any rate, it is certain that no other modern play has borne such direct and immediate fruit in wakening the social conscience. another modern play, the servant in the house, strikes a vital key in our social life. the hero of mr. kennedy's masterpiece is robert, a coarse, filthy drunkard, whom respectable society has repudiated. robert, the sewer cleaner, is the real hero of the play; nay, its true and only savior. it is he who volunteers to go down into the dangerous sewer, so that his comrades "can 'ave light and air." after all, has he not sacrificed his life always, so that others may have light and air? the thought that labor is the redeemer of social well-being has been cried from the housetops in every tongue and every clime. yet the simple words of robert express the significance of labor and its mission with far greater potency. america is still in its dramatic infancy. most of the attempts along this line to mirror life, have been wretched failures. still, there are hopeful signs in the attitude of the intelligent public toward modern plays, even if they be from foreign soil. the only real drama america has so far produced is the easiest way, by eugene walter. it is supposed to represent a "peculiar phase" of new york life. if that were all, it would be of minor significance. that which gives the play its real importance and value lies much deeper. it lies, first, in the fundamental current of our social fabric which drives us all, even stronger characters than laura, into the easiest way--a way so very destructive of integrity, truth, and justice. secondly, the cruel, senseless fatalism conditioned in laura's sex. these two features put the universal stamp upon the play, and characterize it as one of the strongest dramatic indictments against society. the criminal waste of human energy, in economic and social conditions, drives laura as it drives the average girl to marry any man for a "home"; or as it drives men to endure the worst indignities for a miserable pittance. then there is that other respectable institution, the fatalism of laura's sex. the inevitability of that force is summed up in the following words: "don't you know that we count no more in the life of these men than tamed animals? it's a game, and if we don't play our cards well, we lose." woman in the battle with life has but one weapon, one commodity--sex. that alone serves as a trump card in the game of life. this blind fatalism has made of woman a parasite, an inert thing. why then expect perseverance or energy of laura? the easiest way is the path mapped out for her from time immemorial. she could follow no other. a number of other plays could be quoted as characteristic of the growing role of the drama as a disseminator of radical thought. suffice to mention the third degree, by charles klein; the fourth estate, by medill patterson; a man's world, by ida croutchers,--all pointing to the dawn of dramatic art in america, an art which is discovering to the people the terrible diseases of our social body. it has been said of old, all roads lead to rome. in paraphrased application to the tendencies of our day, it may truly be said that all roads lead to the great social reconstruction. the economic awakening of the workingman, and his realization of the necessity for concerted industrial action; the tendencies of modern education, especially in their application to the free development of the child; the spirit of growing unrest expressed through, and cultivated by, art and literature, all pave the way to the open road. above all, the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. [ ] honor. [ ] magda. [ ] before sunrise. [ ] the weavers. [ ] the sunken bell. [ ] youth. [ ] the awakening of spring. note: images of the original pages are available by viewing project gutenberg's html version of this file. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) anarchism and socialism by george plechanoff translated with the permission of the author by eleanor marx aveling chicago charles h. kerr & company contents. publishers' note preface i. the point of view of the utopian socialists ii. the point of view of scientific socialism iii. the historical development of the anarchist doctrine iv. proudhon v. bakounine vi. bakounine--(concluded) vii. the smaller fry viii. the so-called anarchist tactics. their morality ix. the bourgeoisie, anarchism, and socialism publishers' note in reprinting _anarchism and socialism_, by george plechanoff, we realize that there is not the same need for assailing and exposing anarchism at present as there has been at different times in the past. yet the book is valuable, not merely because of its historic interest but also to workers coming into contact with the revolutionary movement for the first time. the general conception of anarchism that a beginner often gets is that it is something extremely advanced. it is often expressed somewhat as follows: "after capitalism comes socialism and then comes anarchism." plechanoff very ably explodes such notions. within the pages of this work the author shows not only the reactionary character of anarchism, but he exposes its class bias and its empty philosophic idealism and utopian program. he shows anarchism to be just the opposite of scientific socialism or communism. it aims at a society dominated by individualism, which is simply a capitalist ideal. such ideals as "liberty," "equality," "fraternity," first sprang from the ranks of the petty property owners of early capitalism, as plechanoff shows. he also points out that while proudhon is usually credited with being "the father of anarchism" that actually max stirner comes closer to being its "father." stirner's "league of egoists," he says, "is only the utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt. in this sense one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism." bakounine and kropotkine, the famous russian anarchists, are exposed as confused idealists, who have not aided but rather hindered the development of the working-class movement. lenin speaks highly of the book in this relation, but takes plechanoff severely to task for his failure properly to set forth the marxian concepts of the state, and for his total evasion of the form the state must take during the time it is in the hands of the workers. when writing on the "vulgarisation of marx by the opportunists," in his _state and revolution_, lenin said: "plechanoff devoted a special pamphlet to the question of the relation of socialism to anarchism entitled _anarchism and socialism_, published in german in . he managed somehow to treat the question without touching on the most vital, controversial point, the essential point _politically_, in the struggle with the anarchists: the relation of the revolution to state, and the question of the state in general. his pamphlet may be divided into two parts: one, historico-literary, containing valuable material for the history of the ideas of stirner, proudhon, and others; the second, ignorant and narrow-minded, containing a clumsy disquisition on the theme 'that an anarchist cannot be distinguished from a bandit,' an amusing combination of subjects and most characteristic of the entire activity of plechanoff on the eve of revolution and during the revolutionary period in russia. indeed, in the years to plechanoff showed himself to be half doctrinaire and half philistine, walking, politically, in the wake of the bourgeoisie. "we saw how marx and engels, in their polemics against the anarchists, explained most thoroughly their views on the relation of the revolution to the state. engels, when editing in , marx's _criticism of the gotha program_, wrote that 'we'--that is, engels and marx--'were then in the fiercest phase of our battle with bakounine and his anarchists; hardly two years had then passed since the hague congress of the international' (the first). the anarchists had tried to claim the paris commune as their 'own,' as a confirmation of their teachings, thus showing that they had not in the least understood the lessons of the commune or the analysis of those lessons by marx. anarchism has given nothing approaching a true solution of the concrete political problems: are we to _break_ up the old state machine, and what shall we put in its place? "but to speak of _anarchism and socialism_, leaving the whole question of the state out of account and taking no notice at all of the whole development of marxism before and after the commune--that meant an inevitable fall into the pit of opportunism. for that is just what opportunism wants--to keep these two questions in abeyance. to secure this is, in itself, a victory of opportunism." the anarchist desire to abolish the state at one blow, and to abolish money, etc., in much the same way, springs from their inability to understand the institutions of capitalist society. to many of them the state is simply the result of people having faith in authority. give up this belief and the state will cease to exist. it is a myth like god and rests entirely on faith. the anarchist's desire for the abolition of the state arises from entirely different concepts to that of the communists. to these anarchist anti-authoritarians the state is simply bad. it is the most authoritarian thing in sight. it interferes with individual freedom and consequently is the greatest obstruction to "absolute liberty" and other utopian desires of the champions of individualism. communists also want a society without a state but realize that such can only come about when society is without classes. the aim of the communist movement is to destroy the capitalist form of the state and substitute a proletarian form during the time in which society is undergoing its classless transformation. when all property is centralized into the hands of this working-class "state" and when the administration of things has taken the place of political dominance, the state, in its final form, will have withered away. therefore, the communist realizes that the state cannot be abolished in the manner visualized by anarchists, but that it must be used, that is, the proletariat must be raised "to the position of ruling class," for the purpose of expropriating the capitalists and putting an end to the exploitation of the producing class. the state is not abolished. only its capitalist form is abolished. the state dies out in the hands of the workers when there is no longer an opposing class to coerce. preface. the work of my friend george plechanoff, "anarchism and socialism," was written originally in french. it was then translated into german by mrs. bernstein, and issued in pamphlet form by the german social-democratic publishing office "vorwärts." it was next translated by myself into english, and so much of the translation as exigencies of space would permit, published in the _weekly times and echo_. the original french version is now appearing in the _jeunesse socialiste_, and will be issued in book form shortly. the complete english translation is now given to english readers through the twentieth century press. i have to thank the editor of the _weekly times and echo_, mr. kibblewhite, for his kindness in allowing me to use those portions of the work that appeared in his paper. as to the book itself. there are those who think that the precious time of so remarkable a writer, and profound a thinker as george plechanoff is simply wasted in pricking anarchist wind-bags. but, unfortunately, there are many of the younger, or of the more ignorant sort, who are inclined to take words for deeds, high-sounding phrases for acts, mere sound and fury for revolutionary activity, and who are too young or too ignorant to know that such sound and fury signify nothing. it is for the sake of these younger, or for the sake of the more ignorant, folk, that men like plechanoff deal seriously with this matter of anarchism, and do not feel their time lost if they can, as this work must, help readers to see the true meaning of what is called "anarchism." and a work like this one of plechanoff's is doubly necessary in england, where the socialist movement is still largely disorganised, where there is still such ignorance and confusion on all economic and political subjects; where, with the exception, among the larger socialist organisations, of the social-democratic federation (and even among the younger s.d.f. members there is a vague sort of idea that anarchism is something fine and revolutionary), there has been no little coquetting with anarchism under an impression that it was very "advanced," and where the old unionist cry of "no politics!" has unconsciously played the reactionary anarchist game. we cannot afford to overlook the fact that the socialist league became in time--when some of us had left it--an anarchist organisation, and that since then its leaders have been, or still are, more or less avowed anarchists. while quite recently the leader of a "new party"--and that a would-be political one!--did not hesitate to declare his anarchist sympathies or to state that "the methods of the anarchists might differ from those of the socialists, but that might only prove that the former were more zealous than the latter." it is also necessary to point out once again that anarchism and nihilism have no more in common than anarchism and socialism. as plechanoff said at the zürich international congress: "we (_i.e._, the russians) have had to endure every form of persecution, every thinkable misery; but we have been spared one disgrace, one humiliation; we, at least, have no anarchists." a statement endorsed and emphasised by other russian revolutionists, and notably by the american delegate, abraham cahan--himself a russian refugee. the men and women who are waging their heroic war in russia and in poland against czarism have no more in common with anarchism than had the founders of the modern socialist movement--carl marx and frederick engels. this little book of plechanoff will assuredly convince the youngest even that under any circumstances anarchism is but another word for reaction; and the more honest the men and women who play this reactionist game, the more tragic and dangerous it becomes for the whole working class movement. finally, there is a last reason why the issuing of this work at the present moment is timely. in the next international socialist and trade union congress meets in london. it is well that those who may attend this great congress as delegates, and that the thousands of workers who will watch its work, should understand why the resolutions arrived at by the paris, brussels, and zürich international congresses with regard to the anarchists should be enforced. the anarchists who cynically declare workers' congresses "absurd, motiveless, and senseless" must be taught once and for all, that they cannot be allowed to make the congresses of the revolutionary socialists of the whole world a playground for reaction and international spydom. eleanor marx aveling. green street green, orpington, kent. august, . anarchism and socialism chapter i the point of view of the utopian socialists the french materialists of the th century while waging relentless war against all the "_infâmes_" whose yoke weighed upon the french of this period, by no means scorned the search after what they called "perfect legislation," _i.e._, the best of all possible legislations, such legislation as should secure to "human beings" the greatest sum of happiness, and could be alike applicable to all existing societies, for the simple reason that it was "perfect" and therefore the most "natural." excursions into this domain of "perfect legislation" occupy no small place in the works of a d'holbach and a helvétius. on the other hand, the socialists of the first half of our century threw themselves with immense zeal, with unequalled perseverance, into the search after the best of possible social organisations, after a perfect social organisation. this is a striking and notable characteristic which they have in common with the french materialists of the last century, and it is this characteristic which especially demands our attention in the present work. in order to solve the problem of a perfect social organisation, or what comes to the same thing, of the best of all possible legislation, we must eventually have some criterion by the help of which we may compare the various "legislations" one with the other. and the criterion must have a special attribute. in fact, there is no question of a "legislation" _relatively_ the best, _i.e._, _the best legislation under given conditions_. no, indeed! we have to find a _perfect_ legislation, a legislation whose perfection should have nothing relative about it, should be entirely independent of time and place, should be, in a word, absolute. we are therefore driven to make abstraction from history, since everything in history is relative, everything depends upon circumstance, time, and place. but abstraction made of the history of humanity, what is there left to guide us in our "legislative" investigations? humanity is left us, man in general, human nature--of which history is but the manifestation. here then we have our criterion definitely settled, a perfect legislation. the best of all possible legislation is that which best harmonises with human nature. it may be, of course, that even when we have such a criterion we may, for want of "light" or of logic, fail to solve this problem of the best legislation. _errare humanum est_, but it seems incontrovertible that this problem _can_ be solved, that we can, by taking our stand upon an exact knowledge of human nature, find a perfect legislation, a perfect organisation. such was, in the domain of social science, the point of view of the french materialists. man is a sentient and reasonable being, they said; he avoids painful sensations and seeks pleasurable ones. he has sufficient intelligence to recognise what is useful to him as well as what is harmful to him. once you admit these axioms, and you can in your investigations into the best legislation, arrive, with the help of reflection and good intentions, at conclusions as well founded, as exact, as incontrovertible as those derived from a mathematical demonstration. thus condorcet undertook to construct deductively all precepts of healthy morality by starting from the truth that man is a sentient and reasonable being. it is hardly necessary to say that in this condorcet was mistaken. if the "philosophers" in this branch of their investigations arrived at conclusions of incontestable though very relative value, they unconsciously owed this to the fact that they constantly abandoned their abstract standpoint of human nature in general, and took up that of a more or less idealised nature of a man of the third estate. this man "felt" and "reasoned," after a fashion very clearly defined by his social environment. it was his "nature" to believe firmly in bourgeois property, representative government, freedom of trade (_laissez-faire, laissez passer!_ the "nature" of this man was always crying out), and so on. in reality, the french philosophers always kept in view the economic and political requirements of the third estate; this was their real criterion. but they applied it unconsciously, and only after much wandering in the field of abstraction did they arrive at it. their conscious method always reduced itself to abstract considerations of "human nature," and of the social and political institutions that best harmonise with this nature. their method was also that of the socialists. a man of the th century, morelly, "to anticipate a mass of empty objections that would be endless," lays down as an incontrovertible principle "that in morals nature is one, constant, invariable ... that its laws never change;" and that "everything that may be advanced as to the variety in the morals of savage and civilised peoples, by no means proves that nature varies;" that at the outside it only shows "that from certain accidental causes which are foreign to it, some nations have fallen away from the laws of nature; others have remained submissive to them, in some respects from mere habit; finally, others are subjected to them by certain reasoned-out laws that are not always in contradiction with nature;" in a word, "man may abandon the true, but the true can never be annihilated!"[ ] fourier relies upon the analysis of the human passions; robert owen starts from certain considerations on the formation of human character; saint simon, despite his deep comprehension of the historical evolution of humanity, constantly returns to "human nature" in order to explain the laws of this evolution; the saint-simonians declared their philosophy was "based upon a new conception of human nature." the socialists of the various schools may quarrel as to the cause of their different conceptions of human nature; all, without a single exception, are convinced that social science has not and cannot have, any other basis than an adequate concept of this nature. in this they in no wise differ from the materialists of the th century. human nature is the one criterion they invariably apply in their criticism of existing society, and in their search after a social organisation as it should be, after a "perfect" legislation. morelly, fourier, saint simon, owen--we look upon all of them to-day as utopian socialists. since we know the general point of view that is common to them all, we can determine exactly what the utopian point of view is. this will be the more useful, seeing that the opponents of socialism use the word "utopian" without attaching to it any, even approximately, definite meaning. the _utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organisation_. the abstract principle which served as starting point of the utopians was that of human nature. of course there have been utopians who applied the principle indirectly through the intermediary of concepts derived from it. thus, _e.g._, in seeking for "perfect legislation," for an ideal organisation of society, one may start from the concept of the rights of man. but it is evident that in its ultimate analysis this concept derives from that of human nature. it is equally evident that one may be a utopian without being a socialist. the bourgeois tendencies of the french materialists of the last century are most noticeable in their investigations of a perfect legislation. but this in no wise destroys the utopian character of these enquires. we have seen that the method of the utopian socialist does not in the least differ from that of d'holbach or helvétius, those champions of the revolutionary french bourgeoisie. nay, more. one may have the profoundest contempt for all "music of the future," one may be convinced that the social world in which one has the good fortune to live is the best possible of all social worlds, and yet in spite of this one may look at the structure and life of the body social from the same point of view as that from which the utopians regarded it. this seems a paradox, and yet nothing could be more true. take but one example. in there appeared morelly's work, _les isles flottantes ou la basiliade du célébre pelpai, traduit de l'indien_.[ ] now, note the arguments with which a review, _la bibliothèque impartiale_, combated the communistic ideas of the author:--"one knows well enough that a distance separates the finest speculations of this kind and the possibility of their realisation. for in theory one takes imaginary men who lend themselves obediently to every arrangement, and who second with equal zeal the views of the legislator; but as soon as one attempts to put these things into practice one has to deal with men as they are, that is to say, submissive, lazy, or else in the thraldom of some violent passion. the scheme of equality especially is one that seems most repugnant to the nature of man; they are born to command or to serve, a middle term is a burden to them." men are born to command or to serve. we cannot wonder, therefore, if in society we see masters and servants, since human nature wills it so. it was all very well for _la bibliothèque impartiale_ to repudiate these communist speculations. the point of view from which it itself looked upon social phenomena, the point of view of human nature, it had in common with the utopian morelly. and it cannot be urged that this review was probably not sincere in its arguments, and that it appealed to human nature with the single object of saying something in favour of the exploiters, in favour of those who "command." but sincere or hypocritical in its criticism of morelly, the _bibliothèque impartiale_ adopted the standpoint common to all the writers of this period. they all of them appeal to human nature conceived of in one form or another, with the sole exception of the retrogrades who, living shadows of passed times, continued to appeal to the will of god. as we know, this concept of human nature has been inherited by the th century from its predecessor. the utopian socialists had no other. but here again it is easy to prove that it is not peculiar to the utopians. even at the period of the restoration, the eminent french historian, guizot, in his historical studies, arrived at the remarkable conclusion that the political constitution of any given country depended upon the "condition of property" in that country. this was an immense advance upon the ideas of the last century which had almost exclusively considered the action of the "legislator." but what in its turn did these "conditions of property" depend on? guizot is unable to answer this question, and after long, vain efforts to find a solution of the enigma in historical circumstances, he returns, falls back _nolens volens_, upon the theory of human nature. augustin thierry, another eminent historian of the restoration, found himself in almost the same case, or rather he would have done so if only he had tried to investigate this question of the "condition of property" and its historical vicissitudes. in his concept of social life, thierry was never able to go beyond his master saint simon, who, as we have seen above, held firmly to the point of view of human nature. the example of the brilliant saint simon, a man of encyclopædic learning, demonstrates more clearly perhaps than any other, how narrow and insufficient was this point of view, in what confusion worse confounded of contradictions it landed those who applied it. says saint simon, with the profoundest conviction: "the future is made up of the last terms of a series, the first of which consist of the past. when one has thoroughly mastered the first terms of any series it is easy to put down their successors; thus from the past carefully observed one can easily deduce the future." this is so true that one asks oneself at the first blush why a man who had so clear a conception of the connection between the various phases of historical evolution, should be classed among the utopians. and yet, look more closely at the historical ideas of saint simon, and you will find that we are not wrong in calling him a utopian. the future is deducible from the past, the historical evolution of humanity is a process governed by law. but what is the impetus, the motive power that sets in motion the human species, that makes it pass from one phase of its evolution to another? of what does this impetus consist? where are we to seek it? it is here that saint simon comes back to the point of view of all the utopians, to the point of view of human nature. thus, according to him, the essential fundamental cause of the french revolution was a change in the temporal and spiritual forces, and, in order to direct it wisely and conclude it rightly, it "was necessary to put into direct political activity the forces which had become preponderant." in other words, the manufacturers and the _savants_ ought to have been called upon to formulate a political system corresponding to the new social conditions. this was not done, and the revolution which had began so well was almost immediately directed into a false path. the lawyers and metaphysicians became the masters of the situation. how to explain this historical fact? "it is in the nature of man," replies saint simon, "to be unable to pass without some intermediate phase from any one doctrine to another. this law applies most stringently to the various political systems, through which the natural advance of civilisation compels the human species to pass. thus the same necessity which in industry has created the element of a new temporal power, destined to replace military power, and which in the positive sciences, has created the element of a new spiritual power, called upon to take the place of theological power, must have developed and set in activity (before the change in the conditions of society had begun to be very perceptible) a temporal or spiritual power of an intermediary, bastard, and transitory nature, whose only mission was to bring about the transition from one social system to another." so we see that the "historical series" of saint simon really explained nothing at all; they themselves need explanation, and for this we have again to fall back upon this inevitable human nature. the french revolution was directed along a certain line, because human nature was so and so. one of two things. either human nature is, as morelly thought, invariable, and then it explains nothing in history, which shows us constant variations in the relations of man to society; or it does vary according to the circumstances in which men live, and then, far from being the _cause_, it is itself the _effect_ of historical evolution. the french materialists knew well enough that man is the product of his social surroundings. "man is all education," said helvétius. this would lead one to suppose that helvétius must have abandoned the human nature point of view in order to study the laws of the evolution of the environment that fashion human nature, giving to socialised man such or such an "education." and indeed helvétius did make some efforts in this direction. but not he, nor his contemporaries, nor the socialists of the first half of our century, nor any representatives of science of the same period, succeeded in discovering a new point of view that should permit the study of the evolution of the social environment; the cause of the historical "education" of man, the cause of the changes which occur in his "nature." they were thus forced back upon the human nature point of view as the only one that seemed to supply them with a fairly solid basis for their scientific investigations. but since human nature in its turn varied, it became indispensable to make abstraction from its variations, and to seek in nature only stable properties, fundamental properties preserved in spite of all changes of its secondary properties. and in the end all that these speculations resulted in was a meagre abstraction, like that of the philosophers, _e.g._, "man is a sentient and reasonable being," which seemed all the more precious a discovery in that it left plenty of room for every gratuitous hypothesis, and every fantastical conclusion. a guizot had no need to seek for the best of social organisations for a perfect legislation. he was perfectly satisfied with the existing ones. and assuredly the most powerful argument he could have advanced to defend them from the attacks of the malcontents would still have been human nature, which he would have said renders every serious change in the social and political constitution of france impossible. the malcontents condemned this same constitution, making use of the same abstraction. and since this abstraction, being completely empty, left, as we have said, full room for every gratuitous hypothesis and the logical consequences resulting therefrom, the "scientific" mission of these reformers assumed the appearance of a geometrical problem; given a certain nature, find what structure of society best corresponds with it. so morelly complains bitterly because "our old teachers" failed to attempt the solution of "this excellent problem"--"to find the condition in which it should be almost impossible for men to be depraved, or wicked, or at any rate, _minima de malis_." we have already seen that for morelly human nature was "one, constant, invariable." we now know what was the "scientific" method of the utopians. before we leave them let us remind the reader that in human nature, an extremely thin and therefore not very satisfying abstraction, the utopians really appealed, not to human nature in general, but to the idealised nature of the men of their own day, belonging to the class whose social tendencies they represented. the social reality, therefore, inevitably appears in the words of the utopians, but the utopians were unconscious of this. they saw this reality only across an abstraction which, thin as it was, was by no means translucent. footnotes: [ ] see "code de la nature," paris, . villegardelle's edition, note to p. . [ ] "the floating islands or the basiliades of the celebrated pelpai, translated from the indian." chapter ii the point of view of scientific socialism the great idealistic philosophers of germany, schelling and hegel, understood the insufficiency of the human nature point of view. hegel, in his "philosophy of history," makes fun of the utopian bourgeoisie in search of the best of constitutions. german idealism conceived history as a process subject to law, and sought the motive-power of the historical movement _outside the nature of man_. this was a great step towards the truth. but the idealists saw this motive-power in the absolute idea, in the "weltgeist;" and as their absolute idea was only an abstraction of "our process of thinking," in their philosophical speculation upon history, they reintroduced the old love of the materialist philosophers--human nature--but dressed in robes worthy of the respectable and austere society of german thinkers. drive nature out of the door, she flies in at the window! despite the great services rendered to social science by the german idealists, the great problem of that science, its essential problem, was no more solved in the time of the german idealists than in the time of the french materialists. what is this hidden force that causes the historic movement of humanity? no one knew anything about it. in this field there was nothing to go upon save a few isolated observations, more or less accurate, more or less ingenious--sometimes indeed, very accurate and ingenious--but always disjointed and always incomplete. that social science at last emerged from this no thoroughfare, it owes to karl marx. according to marx, "legal relations, like forms of state, can neither be understood in themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but are rather rooted in those material conditions of life, whose totality hegel, following the english and the french of the th century, summed up under the name of 'bourgeois society.'" this is almost the same as guizot meant when he said that political constitutions had their roots in "the condition of property." but while for guizot "the condition of property" remained a mystery which he vainly sought to elucidate with the help of reflections upon human nature, for marx this "condition" had nothing mysterious; it is determined by the condition of the productive forces at the disposal of a given society. "the anatomy of bourgeois society is to be sought in political economy." but marx himself shall formulate his own conception of history. "in the social production of their lives, men enter upon certain definite, necessary relations, relations independent of their will, relations of production that correspond with definite degrees of development of their material productive forces. the totality of these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society, the true basis from which arises a juridical and political superstructure to which definite social forms of consciousness correspond. the mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual processes of life. it is not the consciousness of mankind that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. in a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production of society come into contradiction with the existing relations of production, or, which is only a juridical expression for the same thing, with the relations of property within which they had hitherto moved. from forms for the development of these forces of production, they are transformed into their fetters. we then enter upon an epoch of social revolution."[ ] this completely materialist conception of history is one of the greatest discoveries of our century, so rich in scientific discoveries. thanks to it alone sociology has at last, and for ever, escaped from the vicious circle in which it had, until then, turned; thanks to it alone this science now possesses a foundation as solid as natural science. the revolution made by marx in social science may be compared with that made by kopernicus in astronomy. in fact, before kopernicus, it was believed that the earth remained stationary, while the sun turned round it. the polish genius demonstrated that what occurred was the exact contrary. and so, up to the time of marx, the point of view taken by social science, was that of "human nature;" and it was from this point of view that men attempted to explain the historical movement of humanity. to this the point of view of the german genius is diametrically opposed. while man, in order to maintain his existence, acts upon nature outside himself, he alters his own nature. the action of man upon the nature outside himself, pre-supposes certain instruments, certain means of production; according to the character of their means of production men enter into certain relations within the process of production (since this process is a social one), and according to their relations in this social process of production, their habits, their sentiments, their desires, their methods of thought and of action, in a word, their nature, vary. thus it is not human nature which explains the historical movement; it is the historical movement which fashions diversely human nature. but if this is so, what is the value of all the more or less laborious, more or less ingenious enquiries into "perfect legislation" and the best of possible social organisations? none; literally none! they can but bear witness to the lack of scientific education in those who pursue them. their day is gone for ever. with this old point of view of human nature must disappear the utopias of every shade and colour. the great revolutionary party of our day, the international social-democracy, is based not upon some "new conception" of human nature, nor upon any abstract principle, but upon a scientifically demonstrable economic necessity. and herein lies the real strength of this party, making it as invincible as the economic necessity itself. "the means of production and exchange on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. at a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property become no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces, they become so many fetters. they had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class. a similar movement is going on before our own eyes. modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. for many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and its rule. it is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society.... the weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself."[ ] the bourgeoisie destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property. between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie a struggle, an implacable war, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as, was in its way, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. _but every class war is a political war._ in order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. in order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration. it is a remarkable fact that it is only since karl marx that socialism has taken its stand upon the class war. the utopian socialists had no notion--even an inexact one--of it. and in this they lagged behind their contemporary theorists of the bourgeoisie, who understood very well the historical significance at any rate of the struggle of the third estate against the nobles. if every "new conception" of human nature seemed to supply very definite indications as to the organisation of "the society of the future," scientific socialism is very chary of such speculations. the structure of society depends upon the conditions of its productive forces. what these conditions will be when the proletariat is in power we do not know. we now know but one thing--that the productive forces already at the disposal of civilised humanity imperatively demand the socialisation and systematised organisation of the means of production. this is enough to prevent our being led astray in our struggle against "the reactionary mass." "the communists, therefore, are practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country ... theoretically they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."[ ] these words, written in , are to-day incorrect only in one sense: they speak of "working class parties" independent of the communist party; there is to-day no working class party which does not more or less closely follow the flag of scientific socialism, or, as it was called in the manifesto, "communism." once again, then, the point of view of the utopian socialists, as indeed of all social science of their time, was human nature, or some abstract principle deriving from this idea. the point of view of the social science, of the socialism of our time is that of economic reality, and of the immanent laws of its evolution. it is easy, therefore, to form an idea of the impression made upon modern socialists by the arguments of the bourgeois theorists who sing ceaselessly the same old song of the incompatibility of human nature and communism. it is as though one would wage war upon the darwinians with arms drawn from the scientific arsenal of cuvier's time. and a most noteworthy fact is that the "evolutionists" like herbert spencer, themselves are not above piping to the same tune.[ ] and now let us see what relation there may be between modern socialism and what is called anarchism. footnotes: [ ] "zur kritik der politischen oekonomie," berlin, . preface iv. v. [ ] "manifesto of the communist party." by karl marx and frederick engels. authorised english translation by s. moore, pp. - . [ ] "communist manifesto," p. . [ ] "the belief not only of the socialists, but also of those so-called liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working institutions. it is a delusion. the defective nature of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. there is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts."--herbert spencer's "the man _versus_ the state," p. . chapter iii the historical development of the anarchist doctrine the point of view of anarchism. "i have often been reproached with being the father of anarchism. this is doing me too great an honour. the father of anarchism is the immortal proudhon, who expounded it for the first time in ." thus spoke peter kropotkin in his defence before the correctional tribunal of lyons at his trial in january, . as is frequently the case with my amiable compatriot, kropotkin has here made a statement that is incorrect. for "the first time" proudhon spoke of anarchism was in his celebrated book "_qu'est-ce que le propriété, ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement_," the first edition of which had already appeared in . it is true that he "expounds" very little of it here; he only devotes a few pages to it.[ ] and before he set about expounding the anarchist theory "in ," the job had already been done by a german, max stirner (the pseudonym of caspar schmidt) in , in his book "der einzige und sein eigenthum."[ ] max stirner has therefore a well defined claim to be the father of anarchism. "immortal" or not, it is by him that the theory was "expounded" _for the first time_. max stirner the anarchist theory of max stirner has been called a caricature of the "philosophy of religion" of ludwig feuerbach. it is thus, _e.g._, that ueberweg in his "grundzüge der geschichte der philosophie," ( rd. part, "philosophie der neu zeit") speaks of it. some have even supposed that the only object stirner had in writing his book was to poke fun at this philosophy. this supposition is absolutely gratuitous. stirner in expounding his theory was not joking. he is in deadly earnest about it, though he now and again betrays a tendency, natural enough in the restless times when he wrote, to outdo feuerbach and the radical character of his conclusions. for feuerbach, what men call divinity, is only the product of their phantasy, of a psychological aberration. it is not divinity that has created man, but man who creates divinity in his own image. in god man only adores his own being. god is only a fiction, but a very harmful fiction. the christian god is supposed to be all love, all pity for poor suffering humanity. but in spite of this, or rather _because of it_, every christian really worthy the name, hates, and must hate, the atheists, who appear to him the living negation of all love and all pity. thus the god of love becomes the god of hate, the god of persecution; the product of the phantasy of man becomes a real cause of his suffering. so we must make an end of this phantasmagoria. since in divinity man adores only his own being, we must once for all rend and scatter to the winds the mystic veil beneath which this being has been enveloped. the love of humanity must not extend beyond humanity. "der mensch ist dem menschen das höchste wesen" (man is the highest being for man). thus feuerbach. max stirner is quite at one with him, but wishes to deduce what he believes to be the final, the most radical consequences of his theory. he reasons in this fashion. god is only the product of phantasy, is only a _spook_. agreed. but what is this humanity the love of which you prescribe to me? is not this also a spook, an abstract thing, a creature of the imagination? where is this humanity of yours? where does it exist but in the minds of men, in the minds of individuals? the only reality, therefore, is the _individual_, with his wants, his tendencies, his will. but since this is so, how can the _individual_, the reality, sacrifice himself for the happiness of man, an abstract being? it is all very well for you to revolt against the old god; you still retain the religious point of view, and the emancipation you are trying to help us to is absolutely theological, _i.e._, "god-inspired." "the highest being is certainly that of man, but because it is his _being_ and is not he himself, it is quite indifferent if we see this being outside of him as god, or find it in him and call it the 'being of mankind' or 'man.' _i_ am neither god nor man, neither the highest being, nor my own being, and therefore it is essentially a matter of indifference if i imagine this being in myself or outside myself. and, indeed, we do always imagine the highest being in the two future states, in the internal and external at once; for the 'spirit of god' is, according to the christian conception, also 'our spirit' and 'dwells within us.' it dwells in heaven and dwells in us; but we poor things are but its 'dwelling-place,' and if feuerbach destroys its heavenly dwelling-place and forces it to come down to us bag and baggage, we, its earthly abode, will find ourselves very over-crowded."[ ] to escape the inconveniences of such over-crowding, to avoid being dominated by any spook, to at last place our foot upon actual ground, there is but one way: to take as our starting-point the only real being, our own ego, "away then with everything that is not wholly and solely my own affair! you think my own concerns must at least be 'good ones?' a fig for good and evil! i am i, and i am neither good nor evil. neither has any meaning for me. the godly is the affair of god, the human that of humanity. my concern is neither the godly nor the human, is not the true, the good, the right, the free, etc., but simply my own self, and it is not general, it is individual, as i myself am individual. for me there is nothing above myself."[ ] religion, conscience, morality, right, law, family, state, are but so many fetters forced upon me in the name of an abstraction, but so many despotic lords whom "i," the individual conscious of my own "concerns," combat by every means in my power. your "_morality_," not merely the morality of the bourgeois philistines, but the most elevated, the most humanitarian morality is only religion which has changed its supreme beings. your "_right_," that you believe born with man, is but a ghost, and if you respect it, you are no farther advanced than the heroes of homer who were afraid when they beheld a god fighting in the ranks of their enemies. right is might. "whoever has might, he has right; if you have not the former you have not the latter. is this wisdom so difficult of attainment?"[ ] you would persuade me to sacrifice my interests to those of the state. i, on the contrary, declare war to the knife to all states, even the most democratic. "every state is a despotism, whether it is the despotism of one or many, or whether, as one might suppose would be the case in a republic, all are masters, _i.e._, one tyrannises over the rest. for this is the case whenever a given law, the expressed will perhaps of some assemblage of the people, is immediately to become a law to the individual, which he must obey, and which it is his _duty_ to obey. even if one were to suppose a case in which every individual among the people had expressed the same will, and thus a perfect "will of all" had easily been arrived at, the thing would still be the same. should i not to-day and in the future be bound by my will of yesterday? in this event my will would be paralyzed. fatal stagnation! my creation, _i.e._, a certain expression of will would have become my master. but i, in my will should be constrained, i, the creator should be constrained in my development, my working out. because i was a fool yesterday, i must remain one all my life. so that in my life in relation to the state i am at best--i might as well say at worst--a slave to my own self. because yesterday i had a will, i am to-day without one; yesterday free, to-day bound."[ ] here a partisan of the "people's state" might observe to stirner, that his "i" goes a little too far in his desire to reduce democratic liberty to absurdity; further, that a bad law may be abrogated as soon as a majority of citizens desire it, and that one is not forced to submit to it "all one's life." but this is only an insignificant detail, to which, moreover, stirner would reply that the very necessity for appealing to a majority proves that "i" am no longer the master of my own conduct. the conclusions of our author are irrefutable, for the simple reason that to say, i recognize nothing above myself, is to say, i feel oppressed by every institution that imposes any duty upon me. it is simply tautology. it is evident that no "ego" can exist quite alone. stirner knows this perfectly, and this is why he advocates "leagues of egoists," that is to say, free associations into which every "ego" enters, and in which he remains when and so long as it suits his interests. here let us pause. we are now face to face with an "egoist" system _par excellence_. it is, perhaps, the only one that the history of human thought has to chronicle. the french materialists of the last century have been accused of preaching egoism. the accusation was quite wrong. the french materialists always preached "virtue," and preached it with such unlimited zeal that grimm could, not without reason, make fun of their _capucinades_ on the subject. the question of egoism presented to them a double problem. ( ) man is all sensation (this was the basis of all their speculations upon man); by his very nature he is forced to shun suffering and to seek pleasure; how comes it then that we find men capable of enduring the greatest sufferings for the sake of some idea, that is to say, in its final analysis, in order to provide agreeable sensations for their fellow-men. ( ) since man is all sensation he will harm his fellow-man if he is placed in a social environment where the interests of an individual conflict with those of others. what form of legislation therefore can harmonise public good and that of individuals? here, in this double problem, lies the whole significance of what is called the materialist ethics of the th century. max stirner pursues an end entirely opposed to this. he laughs at "virtue," and, far from desiring its triumph, he sees reasonable men only in egoists, for whom there is nothing above their own "ego." once again, he is the theorist _par excellence_ of egoism. the good bourgeois whose ears are as chaste and virtuous as their hearts are hard; they who, "drinking wine, publicly preach water," were scandalised to the last degree by the "immorality" of stirner. "it is the complete ruin of the moral world," they cried. but as usual the virtue of the philistines showed itself very weak in argument. "the real merit of stirner is that he has spoken the last word of the young atheist school" (_i.e._, the left wing of the hegelian school), wrote the frenchman, st. réné taillandier. the philistines of other lands shared this view of the "merits" of the daring publicist. from the point of view of modern socialism this "merit" appears in a very different light. to begin with, the incontestable merit of stirner consists in his having openly and energetically combated the sickly sentimentalism of the bourgeois reformers and of many of the utopian socialists, according to which the emancipation of the proletariat would be brought about by the virtuous activity of "devoted" persons of all classes, and especially of those of the possessing-class. stirner knew perfectly what to expect from the "devotion" of the exploiters. the "rich" are harsh, hard-hearted, but the "poor" (the terminology is that of our author) are wrong to complain of it, since it is not the rich who create the poverty of the poor, but the poor who create the wealth of the rich. they ought to blame themselves then if their condition is a hard one. in order to change it they have only to revolt against the rich; as soon as they seriously wish it, they will be the strongest and the reign of wealth will be at an end. salvation lies in struggle, and not in fruitless appeals to the generosity of the oppressors. stirner, therefore, preaches the class war. it is true that he represents it in the abstract form of the struggle of a certain number of egoist "egos" against another smaller number of "egos" not less egoist. but here we come to another merit of stirner's. according to taillandier, he has spoken the last word of the young atheist school of german philosophers. as a matter of fact he has only spoken the last word of idealist speculation. but that word he has incontestably the merit of having spoken. in his criticism of religion feuerbach is but half a materialist. in worshipping god, man only worships his own being idealised. this is true. but religions spring up and die out, like everything else upon earth. does this not prove that the human being is not immutable, but changes in the process of the historical evolution of societies? clearly, yes. but, then, what is the cause of the historical transformation of the "human being?" feuerbach does not know. for him the human being is only an abstract notion, as human nature was for the french materialists. this is the fundamental fault of his criticism of religion. stirner said that it had no very robust constitution. he wished to strengthen it by making it breathe the fresh air of reality. he turns his back upon all phantoms, upon all things of the imagination. in reality, he said to himself, these are only individuals. let us take the individual for our starting-point. but _what_ individual does he take for his starting-point? tom, dick, or harry? neither. he takes the _individual in general_--he takes a new abstraction, the thinnest of them all--he takes the "ego." stirner naïvely imagined that he was finally solving an old philosophical question, which had already divided the nominalists and the realists of the middle ages. "no idea has an existence," he says, "for none is capable of becoming corporeal. the scholastic controversy of realism and nominalism had the same content." alas! the first nominalist he came across could have demonstrated to our author by the completest evidence, that his "ego" is as much an "idea" as any other, and that it is as little real as a mathematical unit. tom, dick and harry have relations with one another that do not depend upon the will of their "ego," but are imposed upon them by the structure of the society in which they live. to criticise social institutions in the name of the "ego," is therefore to abandon the only profitable point of view in the case, _i.e._, that of society, of the laws of its existence and evolution, and to lose oneself in the mists of abstraction. but it is just in these mists that the "nominalist" stirner delights. i am i--that is his starting-point; not i is not i--that is his result. i+i+i+etc.--is his social utopia. it is subjective idealism, pure and simple applied to social and political criticism. it is the suicide of idealist speculation. but in the same year ( ) in which "der einzige" of stirner appeared, there appeared also, at frankfort-on-maine the work of marx and engels, "die heilige familie, oder kritik der kritischen kritik, gegen bruno bauer und consorten."[ ] in it idealist speculation was attacked and beaten by materialist dialectic, the theoretical basis of modern socialism. "der einzige" came too late. we have just said that i+i+i+etc. represents the social utopia of stirner. his league of egoists is, in fact, nothing but a mass of abstract quantities. what are, what can be the basis of their union? their interests, answers stirner. but what will, what can be the true basis of any given combination of their interests? stirner says nothing about it, and he can say nothing definite since from the abstract heights on which he stands, one cannot see clearly economic reality, the mother and nurse of all the "egos," egoistic or altruistic. nor is it surprising that he is not able to explain clearly even this idea of the class struggle, of which he nevertheless had a happy inkling. the "poor" must combat the "rich." and after, when they have conquered these? then every one of the former "poor," like every one of the former "rich," will combat every one of the former poor, and against every one of the former rich. there will be the war of all against all. (these are stirner's own words.) and the rules of the "leagues of egoists" will be so many partial truces in this colossal and universal warfare. there is plenty of fight in this idea, but of the "realism" max stirner dreamed of, nothing. but enough of the "leagues of egoists." a utopian may shut his eyes to economic reality, but it forces itself upon him in spite of himself; it pursues him everywhere with the brutality of a natural force not controlled by force. the elevated regions of the abstract "i" do not save stirner from the attacks of economic reality. he does not speak to us only of the "individual"; his theme is "the individual _and his property_." now, what sort of a figure does the property of the "individual" cut? it goes without saying, that stirner is little inclined to respect property as an "acquired right." "only that property will be legally and lawfully another's which it suits _you_ should be his property. when it ceases to suit you, it has lost its legality for you, and any absolute right in it you will laugh at."[ ] it is always the same tune: "for me there is nothing above myself." but his scant respect for the property of others does not prevent the "ego" of stirner from having the tendencies of a property-owner. the strongest argument against communism, is, in his opinion, the consideration that communism by abolishing individual property transforms all members of society into mere beggars. stirner is indignant at such an iniquity. "communists think that the commune should be the property-owner. on the contrary, _i_ am a property-owner, and can only agree with others as to my property. if the commune does not do as i wish i rebel against it, and defend my property, i am the owner of property, but property _is not sacred_. should i only be the holder of property (an allusion to proudhon)? no, hitherto one was only a holder of property, assured of possession of a piece of land, because one left others also in possession of a piece of land; but now _everything_ belongs to me, i am the owner of _everything i need_, and can get hold of. if the socialist says, society gives me what i need, the egoist says, i take what i want. if the communists behave like beggars, the egoist behaves like an owner of property."[ ] the property of the egoist seems pretty shaky. an "egoist," retains his property only as long as the other "egoists" do not care to take it from him, thus transforming him into a "beggar." but the devil is not so black as he is painted. stirner pictures the mutual relations of the "egoist" proprietors rather as relations of exchange than of pillage. and force, to which he constantly appeals, is rather the economic force of a producer of commodities freed from the trammels which the state and "society" in general impose, or seem to impose, upon him. it is the soul of a producer of commodities that speaks through the mouth of stirner. if he falls foul of the state, it is because the state does not seem to respect the "property" of the producers of commodities sufficiently. he wants _his_ property, his _whole_ property. the state makes him pay taxes; it ventures to expropriate him for the public good. he wants a _jus utendi et abutendi_; the state says "agreed"--but adds that there are abuses and abuses. then stirner cries "stop thief!" "i am the enemy of the state," says he, "which is always fluctuating between the alternative: he or i.... with the state there is no property, _i.e._, no individual property, only state property. only through the state have i what i have, as it is only through the state that i am what i am. my private property is only what the state leaves me of its own, while it deprives other citizens of it: that is state property." so down with the state and long live full and complete individual property! stirner translated into german j. b. say's "traité d'economie politique pratique" (leipsic, - ). and although he also translated adam smith, he was never able to get beyond the narrow circle of the ordinary bourgeois economic ideas. his "league of egoists" is only the utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt. in this sense one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism. stirner has also a third merit--that of the courage of his opinions, of having carried through to the very end his individualist theories. he is the most intrepid, the most consequent of the anarchists. by his side proudhon, whom kropotkin, like all the present day anarchists, takes for the father of anarchism, is but a straight-laced philistine. footnotes: [ ] see pages - of the edition. [ ] "the individual and his property." [ ] "der einzige und sein eigenthum." nd ed., leipzig, , pp. - . (american translation: "the ego and his own." new york: .) [ ] ibid. pp. - . [ ] ibid. pp. - . [ ] ibid. p. . [ ] "the holy family, or criticism of critical criticism, against bruno bauer and company." [ ] der einzige und sein eigenthum. [ ] ibid. p. . chapter iv proudhon if stirner combats feuerbach, the "immortal" proudhon imitates kant. "what kant did some sixty years ago for religion, what he did earlier for certainty of certainties; what others before him had attempted to do for happiness or supreme good, the 'voice of the people' proposes to do for the government," pompously declares "the father of anarchism." let us examine his methods and their results. according to proudhon, before kant, the believer and the philosopher moved "by an irresistible impulse," asked themselves, "what is god?" they then asked themselves "which, of all religions, is the best?" "in fact, if there does exist a being superior to humanity, there must also exist a system of the relations between this being and humanity. what then is this system? the search for the best religion is the second step that the human mind takes in reason and in faith. kant gave up these insoluble questions. he no longer asked himself what is god, and which is the best religion, he set about explaining the origin and development of the idea of god; he undertook to work out the biography of this idea." and the results he attained were as great as they were unexpected. "what we seek, what we see, in god, as malebranche said ... is our own ideal, the pure essence of humanity.... the human soul does not become conscious of its ego through premeditated contemplation, as the psychologists put it; the soul perceives something outside itself, as if it were a different being face to face with itself, and it is this inverted image which it calls god. thus morality, justice, order, law, are no longer things revealed from above, imposed upon our free will by a so-called creator, unknown and ununderstandable; they are things that are proper and essential to us as our faculties and our organs, as our flesh and our blood. in two words religion and society are synonymous terms, man is as sacred to himself as if he were god." belief in authority is as primitive, as universal as belief in god. whenever men are grouped together in societies there is authority, the beginning of a government. from time immemorial men have asked themselves, what is authority? which is the best form of government? and replies to these questions have been sought for in vain. there are as many governments as there are religions, as many political theories as systems of philosophy. is there any way of putting an end to this interminable and barren controversy? any means of escape from this _impasse_! assuredly! we have only to follow the example of kant. we have only to ask ourselves whence comes this idea of authority, of government? we have only to get all the information we can upon the legitimacy of the political idea. once safe on this ground and the question solves itself with extraordinary ease. "like religion, government is a manifestation of social spontaneity, a preparation of humanity for a higher condition." "what humanity seeks in religion and calls god, is itself." "what the citizen seeks in government and calls king, emperor, or president, is again himself, is liberty." "outside humanity there is no god; the theological concept has no meaning:--outside liberty no government, the political concept has no value." so much for the "biography" of the political idea. once grasped it must enlighten us upon the question as to which is the best form of government. "the best form of government, like the most perfect of religions, taken in a literal sense, is a contradictory idea. the problem is not to discover how we shall be best governed, but how we shall be most free. liberty commensurate and identical with order,--this is the only reality of government and politics. how shall this absolute liberty, synonymous with order, be brought about? we shall be taught this by the analysis of the various formulas of authority. for all the rest we no more admit the governing of man by man than the exploitation of man by man."[ ] we have now climbed to the topmost heights of proudhon's political philosophy. it is from this that the fresh and vivifying stream of his anarchist thought flows. before we follow the somewhat tortuous course of this stream let us glance back at the way we have climbed. we fancied we were following kant. we were mistaken. in his "critique of pure reason" kant has demonstrated the impossibility of proving the existence of god, because everything outside experience must escape us absolutely. in his "critique of practical reason" kant admitted the existence of god in the name of morality. but he has never declared that god was a topsy-turvy image of our own soul. what proudhon attributes to kant, indubitably belongs to feuerbach. thus it is in the footsteps of the latter that we have been treading, while roughly tracing out the "biography" of the political idea. so that proudhon brings us back to the very starting point of our most unsentimental journey with stirner. no matter. let us once more return to the reasoning of feuerbach. it is only itself that humanity seeks in religion. it is only himself, it is liberty that the citizen seeks in government.... then the very essence of the citizen is liberty? let us assume this is true, but let us also note that our french "kant" has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to prove the "legitimacy" of such an "idea." nor is this all. what is this liberty which we are assuming to be the essence of the citizen? is it political liberty which ought in the nature of things to be the main object of his attention? not a bit of it! to assume this would be to make of the "citizen" an "authoritarian" democrat. it is the _absolute liberty of the individual_, which is at the same time _commensurate and identical with_ order, that our citizen seeks in government. in other words, it is the anarchism of proudhon which is the essence of the "citizen." it is impossible to make a more pleasing discovery, but the "biography" of this discovery gives us pause. we have been trying to demolish every argument in favour of the idea of authority, as kant demolished every proof of the existence of god. to attain this end we have--imitating feuerbach to some extent, according to whom man adored his own being in god--assumed that it is liberty which the citizen seeks in government. and as to liberty we have in a trice transformed this into "absolute" liberty, into anarchist liberty. eins, zwei, drei; geschwindigkeit ist keine hexerei![ ] since the "citizen" only seeks "absolute" liberty in government the state is nothing but a fiction ("this fiction of a superior person, called the 'state'"), and all those formulas of government for which people and citizens have been cutting one another's throats for the last sixty centuries, are but the "phantasmagoria of our brain, which it would be the first duty of free reason to relegate to the museums and libraries." which is another charming discovery made _en passant_. so that the political history of humanity has, "for sixty centuries," had no other motive power than a phantasmagoria of our brain! to say that man adores in god his own essence is to indicate the _origin_ of religion, but it is not to work out its "biography." to write the biography of religion is to write its history, explaining the evolution of this essence of man which found expression in it. feuerbach did not do this--could not do it. proudhon, trying to imitate feuerbach, was very far from recognising the insufficiency of his point of view. all proudhon has done is to take feuerbach for kant, and to ape his kant-feuerbach in a most pitiful manner. having heard that divinity was but a fiction, he concluded that the state is also a figment: since god does not exist, how can the state exist? proudhon wished to combat the state and began by declaring it non-existent. and the readers of the "voix du peuple" applauded, and the opponents of m. proudhon were alarmed at the profundity of his philosophy! truly a tragi-comedy! it is hardly necessary for modern readers to add that in taking the state for a fiction we make it altogether impossible to understand its "essence" or to explain its historical evolution. and this was what happened to proudhon. "in every society i distinguish two kinds of constitution," says he; "the one which i call _social_, the other which is its _political_ constitution; the first innate in humanity, liberal, necessary, its development consisting above all in weakening, and gradually eliminating the second, which is essentially factitious, restrictive, and transitory. the social constitution is nothing but the equilibration of interests based upon free contract and the organisation of the economic forces, which, generally speaking, are labour, division of labour, collective force, competition, commerce, money, machinery, credit, property, equality in transactions, reciprocity of guarantees, etc. the principle of the political constitution is authority. its forms are: distinction of classes, separation of powers, administrative centralisation, the judicial hierarchy, the representation of sovereignty by elections, etc. the political constitution was conceived and gradually completed in the interest of order, for want of a social constitution, the rules and principles of which could only be discovered as a result of long experience, and are even to-day the object of socialist controversy. these two constitutions, as it is easy to see, are by nature absolutely different and even incompatible: but as it is the fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth and produce the social constitution something of the latter enters into the former, which, soon becoming inadequate, appears contradictory and odious, is forced from concession to concession to its final abrogation."[ ] the social constitution is innate in humanity, necessary. yet it could only be discovered as the result of long experience, and for want of it humanity had to invent the political constitution. is not this an entirely utopian conception of human nature, and of the social organisation peculiar to it? are we not coming back to the standpoint of morelly who said that humanity in the course of its history has always been "outside nature?" no--there is no need to come back to this standpoint, for with proudhon we have never, for a single instant, got away from it. while looking down upon the utopians searching after "the best form of government," proudhon does not by any means censure the utopian point of view. he only scoffs at the small perspicacity of men who did not divine that the best political organisation is the absence of all political organisation, is the social organisation, proper to human nature, necessary, immanent in humanity. the nature of this social constitution is absolutely different from, and even incompatible with, that of the political constitution. nevertheless it is the fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth and produce the social constitution. this is tremendously confusing! yet one might get out of the difficulty by assuming that what proudhon meant to say was that the political constitutions act upon the evolution of the social constitution. but then we are inevitably met by the question. is not the political constitution in its turn rooted--as even guizot admitted--in the social constitution of a country? according to our author _no_; the more emphatically _no_, that the social organisation, the true and only one, is only a thing of the future, for want of which poor humanity has "invented" the political constitution. moreover, the "political constitution" of proudhon covers an immense domain, embracing even "class distinctions," and therefore "non-organised" property, property as it ought not to be, property as it is to-day. and since the whole of this political constitution has been invented as a mere stop-gap until the advent of the anarchist organisation of society, it is evident that all human history must have been one huge blunder. the state is no longer exactly a fiction as proudhon maintained in ; "the governmental formulas" for which people and citizens have been cutting one another's throats for sixty centuries are no longer a "mere phantasmagoria of our brain," as the same proudhon believed at this same period; but these formulas, like the state itself, like every political constitution, are but the product of human ignorance, the mother of all fictions and phantasmagorias. at bottom it is always the same. the main point is that anarchist ("social") organisation could only be discovered as the result of "many experiences." the reader will see how much this is to be regretted. the political constitution has an unquestionable influence upon the social organisation; at any rate it calls it forth, for such is its "fate" as revealed by proudhon, master of kantian philosophy and social organisation. the most logical conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that the partisans of social organisation must make use of the political constitution in order to attain their end. but logical as this deduction is, it is not to the taste of our author. for him it is but a phantasmagoria of our brain. to make use of the political constitution is to offer a burnt offering to the terrible god of authority, to take part in the struggle of parties. proudhon will have none of this. "no more parties," he says; "no more authority, absolute liberty of the man and the citizen--in three words, such is our political and social profession of faith."[ ] every class-struggle is a political struggle. whosoever repudiates the political struggle by this very act, gives up all part and lot in the class-struggle. and so it was with proudhon. from the beginning of the revolution of he preached the reconciliation of classes. here _e.g._, is a passage from the circular which he addressed to his electors in doubs, which is dated rd april of this same year: "the social question is there; you cannot escape from it. to solve it we must have men who combine extreme radicalism of mind with extreme conservatism of mind. workers, hold out your hands to your employers; and you, employers, do not deliberately repulse the advances of those who were your wage-earners." the man whom proudhon believed to combine this extreme radicalism of mind with extreme conservatism of mind, was himself--p. j. proudhon. there was, on the one hand, at the bottom of this belief, a "fiction," common to all utopians who imagine they can rise above classes and their struggles, and naïvely think that the whole of the future history of humanity will be confined to the peaceful propagation of their new gospel. on the other hand, this tendency to combine radicalism and conservatism shows conclusively the very "essence" of the "father of anarchy." proudhon was the most typical representative of petty bourgeois socialism. now the "fate" of the petty bourgeois--in so far as he does not adopt the proletarian standpoint--is to constantly oscillate between radicalism and conservatism. to make more understandable what we have said, we must bear in mind what the plan of social organisation propounded by proudhon was. our author shall tell us himself. it goes without saying that we shall not escape a more or less authentic interpretation of kant. "thus the line we propose to follow in dealing with the political question and in preparing the materials for a constitution will be the same as that we have followed hitherto in dealing with the social question." the _voix du peuple_ while completing the work of its predecessors, the two earlier journals, will follow faithfully in their footsteps.[ ] what did we say in these two publications, one after the other of which fell beneath the blows of the reaction and the state of siege? we did not ask, as our precursors and colleagues had done, which is the best system of community? the best organisation of property? or again: which is the better, property or the community? the theory of st. simon or that of fourier? the system of louis blanc or that of cabet? following the example of kant we stated the question thus: "how is it that man possesses? how is property acquired? how lost? what is the law of its evolution and transformation? whither does it tend? what does it want? what, in fine, does it represent?... then how is it that man labours? how is the comparison of products instituted? by what means is circulation carried out in society? under what conditions? according to what laws?" and the conclusion arrived at by this monograph of property was this: property indicates function or attribution; community; reciprocity of action; usury ever decreasing, the identity of labour and capital (_sic!_). in order to set free and to realise all these terms, until now hidden beneath the old symbols of property, what must be done? the workers must guarantee one another labour and a market; and to this end must accept as money their reciprocal pledges. good! to-day we say that political liberty, like industrial liberty, will result for us from our mutual guarantees. it is by guaranteeing one another liberty that we shall get rid of this government, whose destiny is to symbolise the republican motto: _liberty_, _equality_, _fraternity_, while leaving it to our intelligence to bring about the realisation of this. now, what is the formula of this political and liberal guarantee? at present universal suffrage; later on free contract.... economic and social reform through the mutual guarantee of credit; political reform through the inter-action of individual liberties; such is the programme of the "_voix du peuple_."[ ] we may add to this that it is not very difficult to write the "biography" of this programme. in a society of producers of commodities, the exchange of commodities is carried out according to the labour socially necessary for their production. labour is the source and the measure of their exchange-value. nothing could seem more "just" than this to any man imbued with the ideas engendered by a society of producers of commodities. unfortunately this "justice" is no more "eternal" than anything else here below. the development of the production of commodities necessarily brings in its train the transformation of the greater part of society into proletarians, possessing nothing but their labour-power, and of the other part into capitalists, who, buying this power, the only commodity of the proletarians, turn it into a source of wealth for themselves. in working for the capitalists the proletarian produces the income of his exploiter, at the same time as his own poverty, his own social subjection. is not this sufficiently unjust? the partisan of the rights of the producer of commodities deplores the lot of the proletarians; he thunders against capital. but at the same time he thunders against the revolutionary tendencies of the proletarians who speak of expropriating the exploiter and of a communistic organisation of production. communism is unjust, it is the most odious tyranny. what wants organising is not _production_ but _exchange_, he assures us. but how organise exchange? that is easy enough, and what is daily going on before our eyes may serve to show us the way. labour is the source and the measure of the _value_ of commodities. but is the _price_ of commodities always determined by their value? do not prices continually vary according to the rarity or abundance of these commodities? the value of a commodity and its price are two different things; and this is the misfortune, the great misfortune of all of us poor, honest folk, who only want justice, and only ask for our own. to solve the social question, therefore we must put a stop to the _arbitrariness of prices_, and to the anomaly of value (proudhon's own expressions). and in order to do this we must "constitute" value; _i.e._, see that every producer shall always, in exchange for his commodity, receive exactly what it costs. then will private property not only cease to be theft, it will become the most adequate expression of justice. to constitute value is to constitute small private property, and small private property once constituted, everything will be justice and happiness in a world now so full of misery and injustice. and it is no good for proletarians to object, they have no means of production: by guaranteeing themselves _credit gratis_, all who want to work will, as by the touch of a magic wand, have everything necessary for production. small property and small parcelled-out production, its economic basis, was always the dream of proudhon. the huge modern mechanical workshop always inspired him with profound aversion. he says that labour, like love, flies from society. no doubt there are some industries--proudhon instances railways--in which _association_ is essential. in these, the isolated producer must make way for "companies of workers." but the exception only proves the rule.[ ] small private property must be the basis of "social organization." small private property is tending to disappear. the desire not merely to preserve it, but to transform it into the basis of a new social organisation is extreme conservatism. the desire at the same time to put an end to "the exploitation of man by man," to the wage-system, is assuredly to combine with the most conservative the most radical aspirations. we have no desire here to criticise this petty bourgeois utopia. this criticism has already been undertaken by a master hand in the works of marx: "la misère de la philosophie," and "zur kritik der politischen oekonomie." we will only observe the following:-- the only bond that unites the producers of commodities upon the domain of economics is exchange. from the juridical point of view, exchange appears as the relation between two wills. the relation of these two wills is expressed in the "contract." the production of commodities duly "constituted" is therefore the reign of "absolute" individual liberty. by finding myself bound through a contract that obliges me to do such and such a thing, i do not renounce my liberty. i simply use it to enter into relations with my neighbours. but at the same time this contract is the regulator of my liberty. in fulfilling a duty that i have freely laid upon myself when signing the contract, i render justice to the rights of others. it is thus that "absolute" liberty becomes "commensurate with order." apply this conception of the contract to the "political constitution" and you have "anarchy." "the idea of the contract excludes that of government. what characterises the contract, reciprocal convention, is that by virtue of this convention the liberty and well-being of man are increased, while by the institution of authority both are necessarily decreased.... contract is thus essentially synallagmatic; it lays upon the contracting parties no other obligation than that which results from their personal promise of reciprocal pledges; it is subject to no external authority; it alone lays down a law common to both parties, and it can be carried out only through their own initiative. if the contract is already this in its most general acceptation and in its daily practice, what will the social contract be--that contract which is meant to bind together all the members of a nation by the same interest? the social contract is the supreme act by which every citizen pledges to society his love, his intellect, his labour, his service, his products, his possessions, in exchange for the affection, the ideas, the labour, products, service, and possessions of his fellows; the measure of right for each one being always determined by the extent of his own contribution, and the amount recoverable being in accordance with what has been given.... the social contract must be freely discussed, individually consented to, signed _manu propriâ_, by all who participate in it. if its discussion were prevented, curtailed or burked; if consent to it were filched; if the signature were given to a blank document in pure confidence, without a reading of the articles and their preliminary explanation; or even if, like the military oath, it were all predetermined and enforced, then the social contract would be nothing but a conspiracy against the liberty and well-being of the most ignorant, the most weak, and most numerous individuals, a systematic spoliation, against which every means of resistance or even of reprisal might become a right and a duty.... the social contract is of the essence of the reciprocal contract; not only does it leave the signer the whole of his possessions; it adds to his property; it does not encroach upon his labour; it only affects exchange.... such, according to the definitions of right and universal practice, must be the social contract."[ ] once it is admitted as an incontestable fundamental principle that the contract is "the only moral bond that can be accepted by free and equal human beings" nothing is easier than a "radical" criticism of the "political constitution." suppose we have to do with justice and the penal law, for example? well, proudhon would ask you by virtue of what contract society arrogates to itself the right to punish criminals. "where there is no compact there can be, so far as any external tribunal is concerned, neither crime nor misdemeanour. the law is the expression of the sovereignty of the people; that is, or i am altogether mistaken, the social contract and the personal pledge of the man and the citizen. so long as i did not want this law, so long as i have not consented to it, voted for it, it is not binding upon me, it does not exist. to make it a precedent before i have recognised it, and to use it against me in spite of my protests is to make it retroactive, and to violate this very law itself. every day you have to reverse a decision because of some formal error. but there is not a single one of your laws that is not tainted with nullity, and the most monstrous nullity of all, the very hypothesis of the law. soufflard, lacenaire, all the scoundrels whom you send to the scaffold turn in their graves and accuse you of judicial forgery. what answer can you make them?"[ ] if we are dealing with the administration and the police proudhon sings the same song of contract and free consent. "cannot we administer our goods, keep our accounts, arrange our differences, look after our common interests at least as well as we can look after our salvation and take care of our souls?" "what more have we to do with state legislation, with state justice, with state police, and with state administration than with state religion?"[ ] as to the ministry of finance, "it is evident that its _raison d'être_ is entirely included in that of the other ministries.... get rid of all the political harness and you will have no use for an administration whose sole object is the procuring and distribution of supplies."[ ] this is logical and "radical;" and the more radical, that this formula of proudhon's--constituted value, free contract--is a universal one, easily, and even necessarily applicable to all peoples. "political economy is, indeed, like all other sciences; it is of necessity the same all over the world; it does not depend upon the arrangements of men or nations, it is subject to no one's caprice. there is no more a russian, english, austrian, tartar, or hindoo political economy than there is a hungarian, german, or american physics or geometry. truth is everywhere equal to itself: science is the unity of the human race. if science, therefore, and no longer religion or authority is taken in all countries as the rule of society, the sovereign arbiter of all interests, government becomes null and void, the legislators of the whole universe are in harmony."[ ] but enough of this! the "biography" of what proudhon called his programme is now sufficiently clear to us. economically it is but the utopia of a petty bourgeois, who is firmly convinced that the production of commodities is the most "just" of all possible modes of production, and who desires to eliminate its bad sides (hence his "radicalism") by retaining to all eternity its good sides (hence his "conservatism"). politically the programme is only the application to public relations of a concept (the "contract") drawn from the domain of the private right of a society of producers of commodities. "constituted value" in economics, the "contract" in politics--these are the whole scientific "truth" of proudhon. it is all very well for him to combat the utopians; he is a utopian himself to his finger tips. what distinguishes him from men like saint simon, fourier, and robert owen is his extreme pettiness and narrowness of mind, his hatred of every really revolutionary movement and idea. proudhon criticised the "political constitution" from the point of view of private right. he wished to perpetuate private property, and to destroy that pernicious "fiction" the state, for ever. guizot had already said that the political constitution of a country has its root in the conditions of property existing there. for proudhon the political constitution owes its origin only to human ignorance, has only been "imagined" in default of the "social organisation" at last "invented" by him, proudhon, in the year of our lord so and so. he judges the political history of mankind like a utopian. but the utopian negation of all reality by no means preserves us from its influence. denied upon one page of a utopian work, it takes its revenge on another, where it often appears in all its nakedness. thus proudhon "denies" the state. "the state--no, no--i will none of it, even as servant; i reject all government, even direct government," he cries _ad nauseam_. but, oh! irony of reality! do you know how he "invents" the constitution of value? it is very funny. the constitution of value is the selling at a fair price, at the cost price.[ ] if a merchant refuses to supply his merchandise at cost price it is because he is not certain of selling a sufficient quantity to secure a due return, and further he has no guarantee that he will get _quid pro quo_ for his purchases. so he must have guarantees. and there may be "various kinds" of these guarantees. here is one. "let us suppose that the provisional government or the constituent assembly ... had seriously wished to help along business, encourage commerce, industry, agriculture, stop the depreciation of property, assure work to the workers--it could have been done by guaranteeing, _e.g._, to the first , contractors, factory owners, manufacturers, merchants, etc., in the whole republic, an interest of per cent. on the capital, say, on the average, , francs, that each of them had embarked in his competitive business. for it is evident that the state" ... enough! it is evident that the state has forced itself upon proudhon, at least "as servant." and it has done this with such irresistible force that our author ends by surrendering, and solemnly proclaiming: "yes, i say it aloud: the workers' associations of paris and the departments hold in their hands the salvation of the people, the future of the revolution. they can do everything, if they set about it cleverly. renewed energy on their part must carry the light into the dullest minds, and at the election of [he wrote this in the summer of ] must place on the order of the day, and at the head of it, the constitution of value."[ ] thus "no more parties! no politics!" when it is a question of the class struggle--and "hurrah for politics! hurrah for electoral agitation! hurrah for state interference!" when it is a question of realising the vapid and meagre utopia of proudhon! "_destruam et ædificabo_," says proudhon, with the pompous vanity peculiar to him. but on the other hand--to use the phrase of figaro--it is the truest truth of all he has ever uttered in his life. he destroys and he builds. only the mystery of his "destruction" reveals itself completely in his formula, "the contract solves all problems." the mystery of his "_ædificatio_" is in the strength of the social and political bourgeois reality with which he reconciled himself, the more readily in that he never managed to pluck from it any of its "secrets." proudhon will not hear of the state at any price. and yet--apart from the political propositions such as the constitution of value, with which he turns to the odious "fiction"--even theoretically he "builds up" the state as fast as he "destroys" it. what he takes from the "state" he bestows upon the "communes" and "departments." in the place of one great state we see built up a number of small states; in the place of one great "fiction" a mass of little ones. to sum up, "anarchy" resolves itself into federalism, which among other advantages has that of making the success of revolutionary movements much more difficult than it is under a centralised state.[ ] so endeth proudhon's "general idea of the revolution." it is a curious fact that saint simon is the "father" of proudhon's anarchy. saint simon has said that the end of social organisation is production, and that, therefore, political science must be reduced to economics, the "art of governing men" must give way to the art of "administration of things." he has compared mankind to the individual, who, obeying his parents in childhood, in his ripe age ends by obeying no one but himself. proudhon seized upon this idea and this comparison, and with the help of the constitution of value, "built up" anarchy. but saint simon, a man of fertile genius, would have been the very first to be alarmed at what this socialistic petty bourgeois made of his theory. modern scientific socialism has worked out the theory of saint simon very differently, and while explaining the historical origin of the state, shows in this very origin, the conditions of the future disappearance of the state. "the state was the official representative of society as a whole, the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. but it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole; in ancient times the state of slave-owning citizens; in the middle ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie. when at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. as soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule and the individual struggle for existence based on our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. the first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society, the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society, this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. state interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. the state is not 'abolished.' _it dies out._"[ ] footnotes: [ ] for all these quotations see the preface to the third edition of the "confessions d'un révolutionnaire." this preface is simply an article reprinted from the _voix du peuple_, november, . it was not till that proudhon began to "expound" his anarchist theory. in , _pace_ kropotkine, he only expounded his theory of exchange, as anyone can see for himself by reading the sixth volume of his complete works (paris, ). this "critique" of democracy, written in march, , did not yet expound his anarchist theory. this "critique" forms part of his work, "solution du problème social," and proudhon proposes to bring about this solution "without taxes, without loans, without cash payments, without paper-money, without maximum, without levies, without bankruptcy, without agrarian laws, without any poor tax, without national workshops, without association (!), without any participation or intervention by the state, without any interference with the liberty of commerce and of industry, without any violation of property," in a word and above all, without any class war. a truly "immortal" idea and worthy the admiration of all bourgeois, peace-loving, sentimental, or bloodthirsty--white, blue, or red! [ ] "one, two, three; legerdemain isn't witchcraft." [ ] "les confessions d'un révolutionnaire." vol. ix., edition of the complete works of proudhon, pages and . [ ] "confessions," pp. - . [ ] he is speaking of the two papers _le peuple_ and _le réprésentant du peuple_, which he had published in - before the _voix du peuple_. [ ] "confessions," pp. - . [ ] for proudhon the principle of association invoked by most schools (he means the various socialist schools), "a principle essentially sterile, is neither an industrial force nor an economic law ... it supposes government and obedience, two terms excluded by the revolution." (_idée générale de la révolution au xix siècle_, ed., paris , p. ). [ ] "idée générale de la revolution." paris, , pp. - . [ ] "idée générale," pp. - . [ ] "idée générale," p. . [ ] ibid. p. . [ ] ibid. p. . [ ] it was thus that proudhon understood the determining of value by labour. he could never understand a ricardo. [ ] "idée générale," p. . [ ] see his book, "du principe fédératif." [ ] _socialism: utopian and scientific._ by f. engels. translated by edward aveling. pp. - . chapter v bakounine we have seen that in their criticism of the "political constitution," the "fathers" of anarchy always based themselves on the utopian point of view. each one of them based his theories upon an abstract principle. stirner upon that of the "ego," proudhon upon that of the "contract." the reader has also seen that these two "fathers" were individualists of the first water. the influence of proudhonian individualism was, for a time, very strong in the romance countries (france, belgium, italy, spain) and in the slaav countries, especially russia. the internal history of the international working men's association is the history of this struggle between proudhonism and the modern socialism of marx. not only men like tolain, chemalé or murat, but men very superior to them, such as de paepe, _e.g._, were nothing but more or less opinionated, more or less consistent "mutualists." but the more the working class movement developed, the more evident it became that "mutualism" could not be its theoretical expression. at the international congresses the mutualists were forced by the logic of facts to vote for the communist resolutions. this was the case, _e.g._, at brussels in the discussion on landed property.[ ] little by little the left wing of the proudhonian army left the domain of individualism to intrench itself upon that of "collectivism." the word "collectivism" was used at this period in a sense altogether opposed to that which it now has in the mouths of the french marxists, like jules guesde and his friends. the most prominent champion of "collectivism" was at this time michel bakounine. in speaking of this man we shall pass over in silence his propaganda in favour of the hegelian philosophy, as far as he understood it, the part he played in the revolutionary movement of , his panslavist writings in the beginning of the sixties, and his pamphlet, "roumanow, pougatchew or pestel"[ ] (london, ), in which he proposed to go over to alexander ii., if the latter would become the "tzar of the moujiks." here we are exclusively concerned with his theory of anarchist collectivism. a member of the "league of peace and liberty," bakounine, at the congress of this association at berne in , called upon the league--an entirely bourgeois body--to declare in favour of "the economical and social equalisation of classes and of individuals." other delegates, among whom was chaudey, reproached him with advocating communism. he indignantly protested against the accusation. "because i demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and individuals, because, with the workers' congress of brussels, i have declared myself in favour of collective property, i have been reproached with being a communist. what difference, i have been asked, is there between communism and collectivism. i am really astounded that m. chaudey does not understand this difference, he who is the testamentary executor of proudhon! i detest communism, because it is the negation of liberty, and i cannot conceive anything human without liberty. i am not a communist, because communism concentrates and causes all the forces of society to be absorbed by the state, because it necessarily ends in the centralisation of property in the hands of the state, while i desire the abolition of the state--the radical extirpation of this principle of the authority and the tutelage of the state, which, under the pretext of moralising and civilising men, has until now enslaved, oppressed, exploited, and depraved them. i desire the organisation of society and of collective or social property from below upwards, by means of free association, and not from above downwards by means of some authority of some sort. desiring the abolition of the state, i desire the abolition of property individually hereditary, which is nothing but an institution of the state, nothing but a result of the principle of the state. this is the sense, gentlemen, in which i am a collectivist, and not at all a communist." in another speech at the same congress bakounine reiterates what he had already said of "statist" communism. "it is not we, gentlemen," he said, "who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers, and who in the name of liberty demand the very abolition of the "authoritarian" principle of the state; it is not we who will recognise any sort of political and social organisation whatever, that is not founded upon the most complete liberty of every one.... but i am in favour of collective property, because i am convinced that so long as property, individually hereditary, exists, the equality of the first start, the realisation of equality, economical and social, will be impossible."[ ] this is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles. but it is sufficiently significant from the "biographical" point of view. we do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression "the economic and social equalisation of classes;" the general council of the international dealt with that long ago.[ ] we would only remark that the above quotations show that bakounine-- . combats the state and "communism" in the name of "the most complete liberty of everybody;" . combats property, "individually hereditary," in the name of economic equality; . regards this property as "an institution of the state," as a "consequence of the very principles of the state;" . has no objection to individual property, if it is not hereditary; has no objection to the right of inheritance, if it is not individual. in other words: . bakounine is quite at one with proudhon so far as concerns the negation of the state and communism; . to this negation he adds another, that of property, individually hereditary; . his programme is nothing but a total arrived at by the adding up of the two abstract principles--that of "liberty," and that of "equality;" he applies these two principles, one after the other, and independently one of the other, in his criticism of the existing order of things, never asking himself whether the results of these two negations are reconcilable with one another. . he understands, just as little as proudhon, the origin of private property and the causal connection between its evolution and the development of political forms. . he has no clear conception of the meaning of the words "individually hereditary." if proudhon was a utopian, bakounine was doubly so, for his programme was nothing but a utopia of "liberty," reinforced by a utopia of "equality." if proudhon, at least to a very large extent, remained faithful to his principle of the contract, bakounine, divided between liberty and equality, is obliged from the very outset of his argument constantly to throw over the former for the benefit of the latter, and the latter for the benefit of the former. if proudhon is a proudhonian _sans reproche_, bakounine is a proudhonian adulterated with "detestable" communism, nay even by "marxism." in fact, bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of the "master" proudhon, which tolain seems to have preserved intact. according to bakounine "proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a foothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and metaphysician. his starting point is the abstract side of law; it is from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while marx, on the contrary, has enunciated and proved the truth, demonstrated by the whole of the ancient and modern history of human societies, of peoples and of states, that economic facts preceded and precede the facts of political and civil law. the discovery and demonstration of this truth is one of the greatest merits of m. marx."[ ] in another of his writings he says, with entire conviction, "all the religions, and all the systems of morals that govern a given society are always the ideal expression of its real, material condition, that is, especially of its economic organisation, but also of its political organisation, the latter, indeed, being never anything but the juridical and violent consecration of the former." and he again mentions marx as the man to whom belongs the merit of having discovered and demonstrated this truth.[ ] one asks oneself with astonishment how this same bakounine could declare that private property was only a consequence of the principle of authority. the solution of the riddle lies in the fact that he did not understand the materialist conception of history; he was only "adulterated" by it. and here is a striking proof of this. in the russian work, already quoted, "statism and anarchy," he says that in the situation of the russian people there are two elements which constitute the conditions necessary for the social (he means socialist) revolution. "the russian people can boast of excessive poverty, and unparalleled slavery. their sufferings are innumerable, and they bear these, not with patience, but with a profound and passionate despair, that twice already in our history has manifested itself in terrible outbursts: in the revolt of stephan razine, and in that of pougatschew."[ ] and that is what bakounine understood by the material conditions of a socialist revolution! is it necessary to point out that this "marxism" is a little too _sui generis_? while combating mazzini from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history, bakounine himself is so far from understanding the true import of this conception, that in the same work in which he refutes the mazzinian theology, he speaks, like the thorough-faced proudhonian that he is, of "absolute" human morality, and he bolsters up the idea of this morality--the morality of "solidarity,"--with such arguments as these: "every actual being, so long as he exists, exists only by virtue of a principle which is inherent in himself, and which determines his particular nature; a principle that is not imposed upon him by a divine law-giver of any sort" (this is the "materialism" of our author!), "but is the protracted and constant result of combinations of natural causes and effects; that is not, according to the ludicrous idea of the idealists, shut up in him like a soul within its body, but is, in fact, only the inevitable and constant form of his real existence. the human, like all other species, has inherent principles quite special to itself, and all these principles are summed up in, or are reducible to, a single principle, which we call _solidarity_. this principle may be formulated thus: no human individual can recognise his own humanity, nor, therefore, realise it in his life except by recognising it in others, and by helping to realise it for others. no man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating with him all the men around him. my liberty is the liberty of everyone, for i am not truly free, free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men, my equals."[ ] as a moral precept, solidarity, as interpreted by bakounine, is a very excellent thing. but to set up this a morality, which by the way is not at all "absolute," as principle "inherent" in humanity and determining human nature, is playing with words, and completely ignoring what materialism is. humanity only exists "by virtue" of the principle of solidarity. this is coming it a little too strong. how about the "class war," and the cursed state, and property, "individually hereditary"--are these only manifestations of "solidarity," inherent in humanity, determining its special nature, etc., etc? if this is so, everything is all right, and bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a "social" revolution. if this is not so, this proves that humanity may have existed "by virtue" of other principles than that of solidarity, and that this latter principle is by no means "inherent" in it. indeed, bakounine only enunciated his "absolute" principle in order to arrive at the conclusion that "no people could be completely free, free with solidarity, in the human sense of the word, if the whole of humanity is not free also."[ ] this is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat, and it is true in the sense that--as the rules of the international workingmen's association put it--the emancipation of the workers is not a merely local or national problem, but, on the contrary, a problem concerning every civilised nation, its solution being necessarily dependent upon their theoretical and practical cooperation. it is easy enough to prove this truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised humanity. but nothing is less conclusive, here as elsewhere, than a "demonstration" founded upon a utopian conception of "human nature." the "solidarity" of bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible utopian, although he became acquainted with the historical theory of marx. footnotes: [ ] " ... among those who call themselves mutualists, and whose economic ideas incline, on the whole, to the theories of proudhon, in the sense that they, like the great revolutionary writer, demand the suppression of all levies of capital upon labour, the suppression of interest, reciprocity of service, equal exchange of products on the basis of cost price, free reciprocal credit, several voted for the collective ownership of the land. such, _e.g._, are the four french delegates, aubry of rouen, delacour of paris, richard of lyons, lemonnier of marseilles, and among the belgians, companions a. moetens, verricken, de paepe, marichal, etc. for them there is no contradiction between mutualism applicable to the exchange of services and the exchange of products on the basis of cost price, that is to say, the quantity of labour contained in the services and the products, and collective property applicable to the land, which is not a product of labour, and therefore does not seem to them to come under the law of exchange, under the law of circulation."--reply to an article by dr. coullery in the "voix de l'avenir," september, , by the belgians vanderhouten, de paepe, delasalle, hermann, delplanque, roulants, guillaume brasseur, printed in the same newspaper and reprinted as a document in the "mémoire of the fédération jurasienne," souvillier, , pp. - . [ ] "roumanow" is the name of the reigning family in russia--derived (if we overlook the adultery of catherine ii., admitted by herself in her memoirs) from peter iii., the husband of catherine ii., and prince of holstein-gottorp. pougatchew, the pretended peter iii., was a cossack, who placed himself at the head of a russian peasant rising in . pestel was a republican conspirator, hanged by nicolas in . [ ] see the documents published with the "mémoire de la fédération jurasienne," pp. , , . [ ] "the equalisation of classes," wrote the general council to the "alliance" of bakounine, who desired to be admitted into the international working men's association, and had sent the council its programme in which this famous "equalisation" phrase occurs, "literally interpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labour, so pertinaciously advocated by bourgeois socialists. it is not the equalisation of classes, logically a contradiction, impossible to realise, but on the contrary, the abolition of classes, the real secret of the proletarian movement, which is the great aim of the international working men's association." [ ] "statism and anarchy, " (the russian place of publication is not given), pp. - (russian). we know the word "statism" is a barbarism, but bakounine uses it, and the flexibility of the russian language lends itself to such forms. [ ] "la théologie politique de mazzini et l'internationale, neuchatel, ," pp. and . [ ] ibid. appendix a, p. . [ ] "la théologié politique de mazzini," p. . [ ] ibid. pp. , . chapter vi bakounine--(concluded) we have said that the principal features of bakounine's programme originated in the simple addition of two abstract principles: that of liberty and that of equality. we now see that the total thus obtained might easily be increased by the addition of a third principle, that of solidarity. indeed, the programme of the famous "alliance," adds several others. for example, "the alliance declares itself atheist; it desires the abolition of religions, the substitution of science for faith, of human for divine justice." in the proclamation with which the bakounists placarded the walls of lyons, during the attempted rising at the end of september, , we read (article ) that "the state, fallen into decay, will no longer be able to intervene in the payment of private debts." this is incontestably logical, but it would be difficult to deduce the non-payment of private debts from principles inherent in human nature. since bakounine in tacking his various "absolute" principles together does not ask himself, and does not need to ask himself--thanks to the "absolute" character of his method--whether one of these principles might not somewhat limit the "absolute" power of others, and might not in its turn be limited by them, he finds it an "absolute" impossibility to harmonise the various items of his programme whenever words no longer suffice, and it becomes necessary to replace them by more precise ideas. he "desires" the abolition of religion. but, "the state having fallen into decay," who is to abolish it? he "desires" the abolition of property, individually hereditary. but what is to be done if, "the state having fallen into decay," it should continue to exist? bakounine himself feels the thing is not very clear, but he consoles himself very easily. in a pamphlet written during the franco-german war, "lettres à un français sur la crise actuelle," while demonstrating that france can only be saved by a great revolutionary movement, he comes to the conclusion that the peasants must be incited to lay hands upon the land belonging to the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. but so far, the french peasants have been in favour of property, "individually hereditary," so this unpleasant institution would be bolstered up by the new social revolution? "not at all," answers bakounine, "_once the state is abolished they_" (_i.e._, the peasants) "_will no longer have the juridical and political consecration, the guarantee of property by the state. property will no longer be a right, it will be reduced to the condition of a simple fact._" (the italics are bakounine's own.) this is very reassuring. "the state having fallen into decay," any fellow that happens to come along, stronger than i, will incontinently possess himself of my field, without having any need to appeal to the principal of "solidarity;" the principle of "liberty" will sufficiently answer his purpose. a very pleasant "equalisation of individuals"! "it is certain," bakounine admits, "that at first things won't work in an absolutely peaceful manner; there will be struggles; public order, that arch saint of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the just deeds which will result from such a state of things may constitute what one is agreed to call a civil war. but do you prefer to hand over france to the prussians?... moreover, do you fear that the peasants will devour one another; even if they tried to do so in the beginning, they would soon be convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course, and then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding, to come to terms, to organise among themselves. the necessity of eating, of providing for their families, and the necessity therefore of safeguarding their houses, their families, and their own lives against unforeseen attacks, all this would soon force them individually to enter into mutual arrangements. and do not believe, either, that in these arrangements, _arrived at outside all official tutelage_" (italicised by bakounine), "by the mere force of events, the strongest, the richest, will exercise a predominant influence. the wealth of the wealthy, no longer guaranteed by juridical institutions, will cease to be a power.... as to the most cunning, the strongest, they will be rendered innocuous by the collective strength of the mass of the small, and very small peasants, as well as by the agricultural proletarians, a mass of men to-day reduced to silent suffering, but whom the revolutionary movement will arm with an irresistible power. please note that i do not contend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise themselves, from below upwards, will immediately create an ideal organisation, agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream. what i am convinced of is that this will be a _living_ organisation, and as such, one a thousand times superior to what exists now. moreover, this new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns, as it can no longer be held down, so to say petrified by the juridical sanction of the state, it will progress freely, developing and perfecting itself indefinitely, but always living and free, never decreed nor legalised, until it attains as reasonable a condition as we can hope for in our days." the "idealist" proudhon was convinced that the political constitution had been invented for want of a social organisation "immanent in humanity." he took the pains to "discover" this latter, and having discovered it, he could not see what further _raison d'être_ there was for the political constitution. the "materialist" bakounine has no "social organisation" of his own make. "the most profound and rational science," he says, "cannot divine the future forms of social life."[ ] this science must be content to distinguish the "living" social forms from those that owe their origin to the "petrifying" action of the state, and to condemn these latter. is not this the old proudhonian antithesis of the social organisation "immanent in humanity," and of the political constitution "invented" exclusively in the interests of "order?" is not the only difference that the "materialist" transforms the utopian programme of the "idealist," into something even more utopian, more nebulous, more absurd? "to believe that the marvellous scheme of the universe is due to chance, is to imagine that by throwing about a sufficient number of printers' characters at hazard, we might write the iliad." so reasoned the deists of the th century in refuting the atheists. the latter replied that in this case everything was a question of time, and that by throwing about the letters an infinite number of times, we must certainly, at some period, make them arrange themselves in the required sequence. discussions of this kind were to the taste of the th century, and we should be wrong to make too much fun of them now-a-days. but it would seem that bakounine took the atheist argument of the good old times quite seriously, and used it in order to make himself a "programme." destroy what exists; if only you do this often enough you are bound at last to produce a social organisation, approaching at any rate the organisation you "dream" of. all will go well when once the revolution has come to stay. is not this sufficiently "materialist?" if you think it is not, you are a metaphysician, "dreaming" of the impossible! the proudhonian antithesis of the "social organisation" and the "political constitution" reappears "living" and in its entirety in what bakounine is for ever reiterating as to the "social revolution" on the one hand, and the "political revolution" on the other. according to proudhon the social organisation has unfortunately, up to our own days, never existed, and for want of it humanity was driven to "invent" a political constitution. according to bakounine the social revolution has never yet been made, because humanity, for want of a good "social" programme had to content itself with political revolutions. now that this programme has been found, there is no need to bother about the "political" revolution; we have quite enough to do with the "social revolution." every class struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is evident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social revolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class struggling to emancipate itself. bakounine anathematises all political action by the proletariat; he extols the "social" struggle exclusively. now what is this social struggle? here our proudhonian once again shows himself adulterated by marxism. he relies as far as possible upon the rules of the international workingmen's association. in the preamble of these rules it is laid down that the subjection of the worker to capital lies at the bottom of all servitude, political, moral and material, and that therefore the economic emancipation of the workers is the great end to which all political movements must be subordinated as a means. bakounine argues from this that "every political movement which has not for its immediate and direct object the final and complete economic emancipation of the workers, and which has not inscribed upon its banner quite definitely and clearly, the principle of _economic equality_, that is, the integral restitution of capital to labour, or else the social liquidation--every such political movement is a bourgeois one, and as such must be excluded from the international." but this same bakounine has heard it said that the historical movement of humanity is a process in conformity with certain laws, and that a revolution cannot be improvised at a moment's notice. he is therefore forced to ask himself, what is the policy which the international is to adopt during that "more or less prolonged period of time which separates us from the terrible social revolution which everyone foresees to-day?" to this he replies, with the most profound conviction, and, as if quoting the rules of the international: "without mercy the policy of the democratic bourgeois, or bourgeois-socialists, must be excluded, which, when these declare that political freedom is a necessary condition of economic emancipation, can only mean this: political reforms, or political revolutions must precede economic reforms or economic revolutions; the workers must therefore join hands with the more or less radical bourgeois, in order to carry out the former together with them, then, being free, to turn the latter into a reality against them. we protest loudly against this unfortunate theory, which, so far as the workers are concerned, can only result in their again letting themselves be used as tools against themselves, and handing them over once more to bourgeois exploitation." the international "commands" us to disregard all national or local politics; it must give the working-class movement in all countries an "essentially economic" character, by setting up as final aim "the shortening of the hours of labour, and the increase of wages," and as a means "the association of the working masses, and the starting of funds for fighting." it is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of labour must, of course, be obtained without any intervention from the accursed state.[ ] bakounine cannot understand that the working class in its political action can completely separate itself from all the exploiting parties. according to him, there is no other _rôle_ in the political movement for the workers than that of satellite of the radical bourgeoisie. he glorifies the "essentially economic" tactics of the old english trade unions, and has not the faintest idea that it was these very tactics that made the english workers the tail of the liberal party. bakounine objects to the working class lending a hand in any movement whose object is the obtaining or the extension of political rights. in condemning such movements as "bourgeois," he fancies himself a tremendous revolutionist. as a matter of fact he thus proves himself essentially conservative, and if the working class were ever to follow this line of inaction the governments could only rejoice.[ ] the true revolutionists of our days have a very different idea of socialist tactics. they "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things;"[ ] which does not prevent them (but quite the contrary) from forming the proletariat into a party separate from all the exploiter parties, opposed to the whole "reactionary mass." proudhon, who we know had not any overwhelming sympathy for "politics," nevertheless advised the french workers to vote for the candidates who pledged themselves to "constitute value." bakounine would not have politics at any price. the worker cannot make use of political liberty: "in order to do so he needs two little things--leisure and material means." so it is all only a bourgeois lie. those who speak of working-class candidates are but mocking the proletariat. "working-class candidates, transferred to bourgeois conditions of life, and into an atmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas, ceasing to be actually workers in order to become statesmen, will become bourgeois, and possibly will become even more bourgeois than the bourgeois themselves. for it is not the men who make positions, but, on the contrary, positions which make the men."[ ] this last argument is about all bakounine was able to assimilate of the materialist conception of history. it is unquestionably true that man is the product of his social environment. but to apply this incontestable truth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old, metaphysical method of thought which considers things _one after the other, and independently one of the other_. now bakounine, like his master, proudhon, in spite of his flirtation with the hegelian philosophy, all his life remained a metaphysician. he does not understand that the environment which makes man may change, thus changing man its own product. the environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the political action of the proletariat, is the bourgeois parliamentary environment, that environment which must necessarily fatally corrupt labour representatives. but the environment of the _electors_, the environment of a working-class party, conscious of its aim and well organised, would this have no influence upon the elected of the proletariat? no! economically enslaved, the working class must always remain in political servitude; in this domain it will always be the weakest; to free itself it must begin by an economic revolution. bakounine does not see that by this process of reasoning he inevitably arrives at the conclusion that a victory of the proletariat is absolutely impossible, unless the owners of the means of production voluntarily relinquish their possessions to them. in effect the subjection of the worker to capital is the source not only of political but of moral servitude. and how can the workers, morally enslaved, rise against the bourgeoisie? for the working class movement to become possible, according to bakounine, it must therefore first make an economic revolution. but the economic revolution is only possible as the work of the workers themselves. so we find ourselves in a vicious circle, out of which modern socialism can easily break, but in which bakounine and the bakounists are for ever turning with no other hope of deliverance than a logical _salto mortale_. the corrupting influence of the parliamentary environment on working-class representatives is what the anarchists have up to the present considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the political activity of social-democracy. we have seen what its _theoretical_ value amounts to. and even a slight knowledge of the history of the german socialist party will sufficiently show how in practical life the anarchist apprehensions are answered. in repudiating all "politics" bakounine was forced to adopt the tactics of the old english trade unions. but even he felt that these tactics were not very revolutionary. he tried to get out of the difficulty by the help of his "alliance," a kind of international secret society, organised on a basis of frenetic centralisation and grotesque fancifulness. subjected to the dictatorial rule of the sovereign pontiff of anarchy, the "international" and the "national" brethren were bound to accelerate and direct the "essentially economic" revolutionary movement. at the same time bakounine approved of "riots," of isolated risings of workers and peasants which, although they must inevitably be crushed out, would, he declared, always have a good influence upon the development of the revolutionary spirit among the oppressed. it goes without saying that with such a "programme" he was able to do much harm to the working class movement, but he was not able to draw nearer, even by a single step, to that "immediate" economic revolution of which he "dreamed."[ ] we shall presently see the result of the bakounist theory of "riots." for the present let us sum up what we have said of bakounine. and here, he shall help us himself. "upon the pangermanic banner" [_i.e._, also upon the banner of german social-democracy, and consequently upon the socialist banner of the whole civilised world] "is inscribed: the conservation and strengthening of the state at all costs; on the socialist-revolutionary banner" (read bakounist banner) "is inscribed in characters of blood, in letters of fire: the abolition of all states, the destruction of bourgeois civilisation; free organisation from the bottom to the top, by the help of free associations; the organisation of the working populace (_sic!_) freed from all trammels, the organisation of the whole of emancipated humanity, the creation of a new human world." it is with these words that bakounine concludes his principal work "statism and anarchy" (russian). we leave our readers to appreciate the rhetorical beauties of this passage. for our own part we shall be content with saying that it contains absolutely no human meaning whatsoever. the absurd, pure and simple--that is what is inscribed upon the bakounist "banner." there is no need of letters of fire and of blood to make this evident to any one who is not hypnotised by a phraseology more or less sonorous, but always void of sense. the anarchism of stirner and of proudhon was completely individualist. bakounine did not want individualism, or to speak more correctly, one particular phase of individualism. he was the inventor of "collectivist-anarchism." and the invention cost him little. he completed the "liberty" utopia, by the "equality" utopia. as these two utopias would not agree, as they cried out at being yoked together, he threw both into the furnace of the "permanent revolution" where they were both at last forced to hold their tongues, for the simple reason that they both evaporated, the one as completely as the other. bakounine is the _décadent_ of utopism. footnotes: [ ] "statism and anarchy," appendix a. but for russia the "science" of bakounine was quite equal to divining the future forms of social life; there is to be the commune, whose ulterior development will start from the actual rural commune. it was especially the bakounists who in russia spread the notion about the marvellous virtues of the russian rural commune. [ ] see bakounine's articles on the "politics of the international" in the _egalité_ of geneva, august, . [ ] the anathemas pronounced by bakounine against political liberty for a time had a very deplorable influence upon the revolutionary movement in russia. [ ] communist manifesto, p. . [ ] _egalité_, th august, . [ ] on the action of bakounine in the international, see the two works published by the general council of that organisation: _les prétendus scissions dans l'internationale_, and _l'alliance de la democratic sociale_. see also engels' article _die bakunisten an der arbeit_, reprinted in the recently published pamphlet, _internationales aus dem volkstaat_ (_i.e._, a series of articles published in the _volkstaat_,) - . berlin, . chapter vii the smaller fry among our present-day anarchists some, like john mackay, the author of "die anarchisten, kulturgemälde aus dem ende des xix. jahrhunderts," declare for individualism, while others--by far the more numerous--call themselves communists. these are the descendants of bakounine in the anarchist movement. they have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the "propaganda by deed." the prophet of this school is the russian refugee, p. a. kropotkine. i shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the individualist-anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the communist-anarchists, look upon as "bourgeois."[ ] we will go straight on to the anarchist-"communist." what is the standpoint of this new species of communism? "as to the method followed by the anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the utopists," kropotkine assures us. "the anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties of the state' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. he follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution.... he studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species. he studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes."[ ] so the anarchist-communists have nothing in common with the utopians. they do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical conceptions like "natural rights," the "duties of the state," etc. is this really so? so far as the "duties of the state" are concerned, kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the anarchists invited the state to disappear in the name of its own "duties." but as to "natural rights" he is altogether mistaken. a few quotations will suffice to prove this. already in the _bulletin de la fédération jurasienne_ (no. , ), we find the following very significant declaration: "the sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups." this "most complete autonomy," is it not also a "metaphysical conception?" the _bulletin de la fédération jurasienne_ was an organ of collectivist anarchism. at bottom there is no difference between "collectivist" and "communist" anarchism. and yet, since it might be that we are making the communists responsible for the collectivists, let us glance at the "communist" publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. in the autumn of a few "companions" appeared before the assize court of versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at soisy-sous-etiolles. among others there was one g. etiévant, who drew up a declaration of anarchist-communist principles. the tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the anarchists, _la révolte_, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. the "declaration of g. etiévant" made a sensation in the anarchist world, and even "cultured" men like octave mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the "theorists," bakounine, kropotkine, the "unequalled proudhon," and the "aristocratic spencer!" now this is the line of etiévant's reasoning: no idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. the man is not therefore responsible. in order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. but as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. "thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. now no such criterion exists. at any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. it is with laws as with all the rest (!). for if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? and if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?" having thus "demonstrated" "liberty," etiévant passes on to "equality." from the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them. all these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother nature. "so for our legs we have the right to all the space they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this constitutes life. these are the true rights of man! no need to decree them, they exist as the sun exists. they are written in no constitution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of nature and are imprescriptible. from the cheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of grass to the oak, from the atom to the star, everything proclaims it." if these are not "metaphysical conceptions," and of the very worst type, a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century, if this is the "philosophy of evolution," then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day. let us hear another authority, and quote the now famous book of jean grave, "la société mourante et l'anarchie," which was recently condemned by french judges, who thought it dangerous, while it is only supremely ridiculous. "anarchy means the negation of authority. now, government claims to base the legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social institutions: the family, religion, property, etc. it has created a vast machinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction. the chief are: the law, the magistracy, the army, the legislature, executive powers, etc. so that the anarchist idea, forced to reply to everything, was obliged to attack all social prejudices, to become thoroughly penetrated by all human knowledge, in order to demonstrate that its conceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man, and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while our actual organisation has been established in contravention of all logic and all good sense.... thus, in combating authority, it has been necessary for the anarchists to attack all the institutions which the government defends, the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in order to legitimate its own existence."[ ] you see what was "the development" of the "anarchist idea." this idea "denied" authority. in order to defend itself, authority appealed to the family, religion, property. then the "idea" found itself forced to attack institutions, which it had not, apparently, noticed before, and at the same time the "idea," in order to make the most of its "conceptions," penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge (it is an ill wind that does not blow some good!) all this is only the result of chance, of the unexpected turn given by "authority" to the discussion that had arisen between itself and the "idea." it seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now, the "anarchist idea" is not at all communistic; it keeps its knowledge to itself, and leaves the poor "companions" in complete ignorance. it is all very well for kropotkine to sing the praises of the "anarchist thinker"; he will never be able to prove that his friend grave has been able to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics. kropotkine should read over again the anarchist pamphlets of elisée reclus--a great "theorist" this--and then, quite seriously tell us if he finds anything else in them but appeals to "justice," "liberty," and other "metaphysical conceptions." finally, kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he fancies he is. far from it! here, _e.g._, is what he said at the general meeting of the federation of the jura, on the th october, , at chaux-de-fonds:-- "there was a time when they denied anarchists even the right to existence. the general council of the international treated us as factious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this time is past. the anarchist party has proved its _vitality_; it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development; to-day it is _accepted_." [by whom?] "to attain to this, it has been necessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain of _theory_, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to prove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this--to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas. this work has been done," etc.... this hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this the utopian method _par excellence_? it is true that kropotkine tries to prove "that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas." but what utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself? everything depends upon the value of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science. but before examining the value of these "proofs," let us make the acquaintance of the "ideal" itself. what is kropotkine's conception of anarchist society? pre-occupied with the reorganising of the governmental machine, the revolutionist-politicians, the "jacobins" (kropotkine detests the jacobins even more than our amiable empress, catherine ii., detested them) allowed the people to die of hunger. the anarchists will act differently. they will destroy the state, and will urge on the people to the expropriation of the rich. once this expropriation accomplished, an "inventory" of the common wealth will be made, and the "distribution" of it organised. everything will be done by the people themselves. "just give the people elbow room, and in a week the business of the food supply will proceed with admirable regularity. only one who has never seen the hard-working people at their labour, only one who has buried himself in documents, could doubt this. speak of the organising capacity of the great misunderstood, the people, to those who have seen them at paris on the days of the barricades" (which is certainly not the case of kropotkine) "or in london at the time of the last great strike, when they had to feed half a million starving people, and they will tell you how superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials."[ ] the basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food supply is to be organised will be very fair, and not at all "jacobin." there is but one, and only one, which is consistent with sentiments of justice, and is really practical. the taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance of! rationing out what must be measured, divided! out of millions who inhabit europe, millions still follow this perfectly natural practice--which proves, among other things, that the anarchist ideal "flows from the popular aspirations." it is the same with regard to housing and clothing. the people will organise everything according to the same rule. there will be an upheaval; that is certain. only this upheaval must not become mere loss, it must be reduced to a minimum. and it is again--we cannot repeat it too often--by turning to those immediately interested and not to bureaucrats that the "least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted upon everybody."[ ] thus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an _organisation_; the whims of sovereign "individuals" will be kept within reasonable bounds by the wants of society, by the logic of the situation. and, nevertheless, we shall be in the midst of full-blown anarchy; individual liberty will be safe and sound. this seems incredible, but it is true; there is anarchy, and there is organisation, there are obligatory rules for everyone, and yet everyone does what he likes. you do not follow. 'tis simple enough. this organisation--it is not the "authoritarian" revolutionists who will have created it;--these rules, obligatory upon all, and yet anarchical, it is the people, the great misunderstood, who will have proclaimed them, and the people are very knowing as anyone who has seen,--what kropotkine never had the opportunity of seeing--days of barricade riots, knows.[ ] but if the great misunderstood had the stupidity to create the "bureaux" so detested of kropotkine? if, as it did in march, , it gave itself a revolutionary government? then we shall say the people is mistaken, and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind, and if need be we will throw a few bombs at the "hide bound officials." we will call upon the people to organise, and will destroy all the organs it may provide itself with. this then is the way in which we realise the excellent anarchist ideal--in imagination. in the name of the liberty of individuals all action of the individuals is done away with, and in the name of the people we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists; the individuals are drowned in the mass. if you can only get used to this logical process, you meet with no more difficulties, and you can boast that you are neither "authoritarian" nor "utopian." what could be easier, what more pleasant? but in order to consume, it is necessary to produce. kropotkine knows this so well that he reads the "authoritarian" marx a lesson on the subject. "the evil of the present organisation is not in that the 'surplus value' of production passes over to the capitalist--as rodbertus and marx had contended--thus narrowing down the socialist conception, and the general ideas on the capitalist regime. surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. the evil is that there can be any kind of 'surplus value,' instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation; for, in order that there may be 'surplus value,' men, women, and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labour powers, for a trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what they are capable of producing" (poor marx, who knew nothing of all these profound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned prince!)... "it does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realised in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to exploit thousands of other workers. the point is to _produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labour power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all_." (italicised by kropotkine himself.) ignorant marxists that we are! we have never heard that a socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organisation of production. since it is kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organisation will be like. on this subject also he has some very interesting things to say. "imagine a society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries--paris, for example, with the department of seine-et-oise. imagine that in this society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work _five hours a day_ from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labour considered _necessary_. such a society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, _i.e._, far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day. and every worker in this society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of _necessities_, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day looked upon as a luxury or unattainable."[ ] in anarchist society there will be no authority, but there will be the _contract_ (oh! immortal monsieur proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals "agree" to work in such or such a "free commune." the contract is justice, liberty, equality; it is proudhon, kropotkine, and all the saints. but, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract! it is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem. indeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty? he is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs the risk of dying of hunger--which is not a particularly gay outlook. "i suppose a group or a certain number of volunteers, combining in some enterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal, with the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from his post. should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a president who would inflict fines, or else, like the academy, distribute attendance-counters? it is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardise the enterprise will be told: 'my friend, we should have been glad to work with you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work negligently, we must part. go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways.'"[ ] this is pretty strong at bottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very "anarchist" is his language. really, we should not be at all surprised if in the "anarchist-communist" society people were guillotined by persuasion, or, at any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract. but farther, this very anarchist method of dealing with lazy "free individuals" is perfectly "natural," and "is practised everywhere to-day in all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines, stoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is all over. he is obliged to leave the workshop."[ ] thus is the anarchist "ideal" in complete harmony with the "tendencies" of capitalist society. for the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare. delivered from the yoke of the state and capitalist exploitation, individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great all of society. everything will be done by means of "free arrangement." "well, citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent of "authoritarian" communism, we declare that the _tendency_ of societies is in the opposite direction. we see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by houses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of frontiers, of oceans. all made up of human beings freely seeking one another, and having done their work as producers, associating themselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn science into a new direction. this is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely, without let or hindrance on the part of governments. liberty for the individual!" "take some pebbles," said fourier, "put them into a box and shake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously."[ ] a wit has said that the profession of faith of the anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law: ( ) there shall be nothing. ( ) no one is charged with carrying out the above article. this is not correct. the anarchists say: ( ) there shall be everything. ( ) no one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all. this is a very seductive "ideal," but its realisation is unfortunately very improbable. let us now ask, what is this "free agreement" which according to kropotkine, exists even in capitalist society? he quotes two kinds of examples by way of evidence: (_a_) those connected with production and the circulation of commodities; (_b_) those belonging to all kinds of societies of amateurs--learned societies, philanthropic societies, etc. "take all the great enterprises: the suez canal, _e.g._, trans-atlantic navigation, the telegraph that unites the two americas. take, in fine, this organisation of commerce, which provides that when you get up in the morning you are sure to find bread at the bakers' ... meat at the butchers', and everything you want in the shops. is this the work of the state? certainly, to-day we pay middlemen abominably dearly. well, all the more reason to suppress them, but not to think it necessary to confide to the government the care of providing our goods and our clothing."[ ] remarkable fact! we began by snapping our fingers at marx, who only thought of suppressing surplus value, and had no idea of the organisation of production, and we end by demanding the suppression of the profits of the middleman, while, so far as production is concerned, we preach the most bourgeois _laissez-faire, laissez passer_. marx might, not without reason, have said, he laughs best who laughs last! we all know what the "free agreement" of the bourgeois _entrepreneur_ is, and we can only admire the "absolute" naïvété of the man who sees in it the precursor of communism. it is exactly this anarchic "arrangement" that must be got rid of in order that the producers may cease to be the slaves of their own products.[ ] as to the really free societies of _savants_, artists, philanthropists, etc., kropotkine himself tells us what their example is worth. they are "made up of human beings freely seeking one another after having done their work as producers." although this is not correct--since in these societies there is often not a single _producer_--this still farther proves that we can only be free after we have settled our account with production. the famous "tendency of the nineteenth century," therefore, tells us nothing on the main question--how the unlimited liberty of the individual can be made to harmonise with the economic requirements of a communistic society. and as this "tendency" constitutes the whole of the scientific equipment of our "anarchist thinker," we are driven to the conclusion that his appeal to science was merely verbiage, that he is, in spite of his contempt for the utopians, one of the least ingenious of these, a vulgar hunter in search of the "best ideal." the "free agreement" works wonders, if not in anarchist society, which unfortunately does not yet exist, at least in anarchist arguments. "our present society being abolished, individuals no longer needing to hoard in order to make sure of the morrow, this, indeed being made impossible, by the suppression of all money or symbol of value--all their wants being satisfied and provided for in the new society, the stimulus of individuals being now only that ideal of always striving towards the best, the relations of individuals or groups no longer being established with a view to those exchanges in which each contracting party only seeks to 'do' his partner" (the "free agreement" of the bourgeois, of which kropotkine has just spoken to us) "these relations will now only have for object the rendering of mutual services, with which particular interests have nothing to do, the agreement will be rendered easy, the causes of discord having disappeared."[ ] question: how will the new society satisfy the needs of its members? how will it make them certain of the morrow? answer: by means of free agreements. question: will production be possible if it depends solely upon the free agreement of individuals? answer: of course! and in order to convince yourself of it, you have only to _assume_ that your morrow is certain, that all your needs are satisfied, and, in a word, that production, thanks to free agreement, is getting on swimmingly. what wonderful logicians these "companions" are, and what a beautiful ideal is that which has no other foundation than an illogical assumption! "it has been objected that in leaving individuals free to organise as they like, there would arise that competition between groups which to-day exists between individuals. this is a mistake, for in the society we desire money would be abolished, consequently there would no longer be any exchange of products, but exchange of services. besides, in order that such a social revolution as we contemplate can have been accomplished we must assume that a certain evolution of ideas will have taken place in the mind of the masses, or, at the least, of a considerable minority among them. but if the workers have been sufficiently intelligent to destroy bourgeois exploitation, it will not be in order to re-establish it among themselves, especially when they are assured all their wants will be supplied."[ ] it is incredible, but it is incontestably true: the only basis for the "ideal" of the anarchist-communists, is this _petitio principii_, this "assumption" of the very thing that has to be proved. companion grave, the "profound thinker," is particularly rich in assumptions. as soon as any difficult problem presents itself, he "assumes" that it is already solved, and then everything is for the best in the best of ideals. the "profound" grave is less circumspect than the "learned" kropotkine. and so it is only he who succeeds in reducing the "ideal" to "absolute" absurdity. he asks himself what will be done if in "the society of the day after the revolution" there should be a papa who should refuse his child _all education_. the papa is an individual with unlimited rights. he follows the anarchist rule, "do as thou wouldst." no one has any right, therefore, to bring him to his senses. on the other hand, the child also may do as he likes, and he wants to learn. how to get out of this conflict, how resolve the dilemma without offending the holy laws of anarchy? by an "assumption." "relations" (between citizens) "being much wider and more imbued with fraternity than in our present society, based as it is upon the antagonism of interests, it follows that the child by means of what he will see passing before his eyes, by what he will daily hear, will escape from the influence of the parent, and will find every facility necessary for acquiring the knowledge his parents refuse to give him. nay more, if he finds himself too unhappy under the authority they try to force upon him, he would abandon them in order to place himself under the protection of individuals with whom he was in greater sympathy. the parents could not send the gendarmes after him to bring back to their authority the slave whom the law to-day gives up to them."[ ] it is not the child who is running away from his parents, but the utopian who is running away from an insurmountable logical difficulty. and yet this judgment of solomon has seemed so profound to the companions that, it has been literally quoted by emil darnaud in his book "la société future" (foix. , p. )--a book especially intended to popularise the lucubrations of grave. "anarchy, the no-government system of socialism, has a double origin. it is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical and the political fields which characterise our century, and especially its second part. in common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites of production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. and, in common with the most advanced representatives of political radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organisation of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations--freely constituted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being. as regards socialism, most of the anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion, that is, at a complete negation of the wage-system, and at communism. and with reference to political organisation, by giving a farther development to the above-mentioned part of the radical programme, they arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the functions of governments to _nil_--that is, to a society without government, to anarchy. the anarchists maintain, moreover, that such being the ideal of social and political organisation they must not remit it to future centuries, but that only those changes in our social organisation which are in accordance with the above double ideal, and constitute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be beneficial for the commonwealth."[ ] kropotkine here reveals to us, with admirable clearness, the origin and nature of his "ideal." this ideal, like that of bakounine, is truly "double;" it is really born of the connection between bourgeois radicalism, or rather that of the manchester school, and communism; just as jesus was born in connection between the holy ghost and the virgin mary. the two natures of the anarchist ideal are as difficult to reconcile as the two natures of the son of god. but one of these natures evidently gets the better of the other. the anarchists "want" to begin by immediately realising what kropotkine calls "the ultimate aim of society," that is to say, by destroying the "state." their starting point is always the unlimited liberty of the individual. manchesterism before everything. communism only comes in afterwards.[ ] but in order to reassure us as to the probable fate of this second nature of their ideal, the anarchists are constantly singing the praises of the wisdom, the goodness, the forethought of the man of the "future." he will be so perfect that he will no doubt be able to organise communist production. he will be so perfect that one asks oneself, while admiring him, why he cannot be trusted with a little "authority." footnotes: [ ] the few individualists we come across are only strong in their criticism of the state and of the law. as to their constructive ideal, a few preach an idyll that they themselves would never care to practise, while others, like the editor of _liberty_, boston, fall back upon an actual bourgeois system. in order to defend their individualism they reconstruct the state with all its attributes (law, police, and the rest) after having so courageously denied them. others, finally, like auberon herbert, are stranded in a "liberty and property defence league"--a league for the defence of landed property. _la révolte_, no. , , "a lecture on anarchism." [ ] "anarchist-communism; its basis and principles," by peter kropotkine, republished by permission of the editor of the _nineteenth century_. february and august, , london. [ ] _l.c._, pp. - . [ ] "la conquête du pain." paris, . pp. - . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] as, however, kropotkine was in london at the time of the great dock strike, and therefore had an opportunity of learning how the food supply was managed for the strikers, it is worth pointing out that this was managed quite differently from the method suggested above. an organised committee, consisting of trade unionists helped by state socialists (champion) and social-democrats (john burns, tom mann, eleanor marx aveling, etc.) made _contracts_ with shopkeepers, and distributed stamped tickets, for which could be obtained certain articles of food. the food supplied was paid for with the money that had been raised by subscriptions, and to these subscriptions the _bourgeois_ public, encouraged by the _bourgeois_ press, had very largely contributed. direct distributions of food to strikers, and those thrown out of work through the strike, were made by the salvation army, an essentially centralised, bureaucratically organised body, and other philanthropic societies. all this has very little to do with the procuring and distributing of the food supply, "the day after the revolution;" with the organising of the "service for supplying food." the food was there, and it was only a question of buying and dividing it as a means of support. the "people," _i.e._, the strikers, by no means helped themselves in this respect; they were helped by others. [ ] "la conquête du pain," pp. - . [ ] ibid., pp. - . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] "_l'anarchie dans l'evolution socialiste._" lecture at the salle levis, paris, , pp. - . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] kropotkine speaks of the suez canal! why not the panama canal? [ ] "la société au lendemain de la révolution." j. grave, , paris, pp. - . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] anarchist communism, p. . [ ] "l'anarchia è il funzionamento armonico di tutte le autonomie, risolventesi nella eguaglianza totale delle condizioni umane." l'anarchia nella scienza e nelle evoluzione. (traduzione dello spagnuolo) piato, toscana, , p. . "anarchy is the harmonious functioning of all autonomy resolved in the complete equalisation of all human conditions." "anarchy in science and evolution."--italian, translated from the spanish. chapter viii the so-called anarchist tactics. their morality the anarchists are utopians. their point of view has nothing in common with that of modern scientific socialism. but there are utopias and utopias. the great utopians of the first half of our century were men of genius; they helped forward social science, which in their time was still entirely utopian. the utopians of to-day, the anarchists, are the abstracters of quintessence, who can only fully draw forth some poor conclusions from certain mummified principles. they have nothing to do with social science, which, in its onward march, has distanced them by at least half a century. their "profound thinkers," their "lofty theorists," do not even succeed in making the two ends of their reasoning meet. they are the decadent utopians, stricken with incurable intellectual anæmia. the great utopians did much for the development of the working class movement. the utopians of our days do nothing but retard its progress. and it is especially their so-called tactics that are harmful to the proletariat. we already know that bakounine interpreted the rules of the international in the sense that the working class must give up all political action, and concentrate its efforts upon the domain of the "immediately economic" struggle for higher wages, a reduction of the hours of labour, and so forth. bakounine himself felt that such tactics were not very revolutionary. he tried to complete them through the action of his "alliance;" he preached riots.[ ] but the more the class consciousness of the proletariat develops, the more it inclines towards political action, and gives up the "riots," so common during its infancy. it is more difficult to induce the working men of western europe, who have attained a certain degree of political development, to riot, than, for example, the credulous and ignorant russian peasants. as the proletariat has shown no taste for the tactics of "riot," the companions have been forced to replace it by "individual action." it was especially after the attempted insurrection at benevento in italy in that the bakounists began to glorify the "propaganda of deed." but if we glance back at the period that separates us from the attempt of benevento, we shall see that this propaganda too assumed a special form: very few "riots," and these quite insignificant, a great many personal attempts against public edifices, against individuals, and even against property--"individually hereditary," of course. it could not be otherwise. "we have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms," says louise michel, in an interview with a correspondent of the _matin_, on the occasion of the vaillant attempt. "what was the result? the people were shot down. well, we think the people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the government and the bourgeois."[ ] this is exactly what we have said--only in slightly different words. louise michel has forgotten to say that revolts, causing the bloodshed of the people, figured at the head of the anarchists' programme, until the anarchists became convinced, not that these partial risings in no way serve the cause of the workers, but that the workers, for the most part, will not have anything to do with these risings. error has its logic as well as truth. once you reject the political action of the working-class, you are fatally driven--provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the vaillants and the henrys. the so-called "independent" (unabhängige) members of the german socialist party have proved this in their own persons. they began by attacking "parliamentarism," and to the "reformist" tactics of the "old" members they opposed--on paper, of course--the "revolutionary struggle," the purely "economic" struggle. but this struggle, developing naturally, must inevitably bring about the entry of the proletariat into the arena of political struggles. not wishing to come back to the very starting-point of their negation, the "independents," for a time, preached what they called "political demonstrations," a new kind of old bakounist riots. as riots, by whatever name they are called, always come too late for the fiery "revolutionists," there was only left to the independents to "march forward," to become converts to anarchy, and to propagate--in words--the propaganda of deed. the language of the "young" landauers and co. is already as "revolutionary" as that of the "oldest" anarchists. "reason and knowledge only thou despise the highest strength in man that lies! let but the lying spirit bind thee, with magic works and shows that blind thee, and i shall have thee fast and sure." as to the "magic work and shows," they are innumerable in the arguments of the anarchists against the political activity of the proletariat. here hate becomes veritable witchcraft. thus kropotkine turns their own arm--the materialist conception of history--against the social-democrats. "to each new economical phase of life corresponds a new political phase," he assures us. "absolute monarchy--that is court-rule--corresponded to the system of serfdom. representative government corresponds to capital-rule. both, however, are class-rule. but in a society where the distinction between capitalist and labourer has disappeared, there is no need of such a government; it would be an anachronism, a nuisance."[ ] if social-democrats were to tell him they know this at least as well as he does, kropotkine would reply that possibly they do, but that then they will not draw a logical conclusion from these premises. he, kropotkine, is your real logician. since the political constitution of every country is determined by its economic condition, he argues, the political action of socialists is absolute nonsense. "to seek to attain socialism or even (!) an agrarian revolution by means of a political revolution, is the merest utopia, because the whole of history shows us that political changes flow from the great economic revolutions, and not _vice versâ_."[ ] could the best geometrician in the world ever produce anything more exact than this demonstration? basing his argument upon this impregnable foundation, kropotkine advises the russian revolutionists to give up their political struggle against tzarism. they must follow an "immediately economic" end. "the emancipation of the russian peasants from the yoke of serfdom that has until now weighed upon them, is therefore the first task of the russian revolutionist. in working along these lines he directly and immediately works for the good of the people ... and he moreover prepares for the weakening of the centralised power of the state and for its limitation."[ ] thus the emancipation of the peasants will have prepared the way for the weakening of russian tzarism. but how to emancipate the peasants before overthrowing tzarism? absolute mystery! such an emancipation would be a veritable "witchcraft." old liscow was right when he said, "it is easier and more natural to write with the fingers than with the head." however this may be, the whole political action of the working-class must be summed up in these few words: "no politics! long live the purely economic struggle!" this is bakounism, but perfected bakounism. bakounine himself urged the workers to fight for a reduction of the hours of labour, and higher wages. the anarchist-communists of our day seek to "make the workers understand that they have nothing to gain from such child's play as this, and that society can only be transformed by destroying the institutions which govern it."[ ] the raising of wages is also useless. "north america and south america, are they not there to prove to us that whenever the worker has succeeded in getting higher wages, the prices of articles of consumption have increased proportionately, and that where he has succeeded in getting francs a day for his wages, he needs to be able to live according to the standard of the better class workman, so that he is always below the average?"[ ] the reduction of the hours of labour is at any rate superfluous since capital will always make it up by a "systematic intensification of labour by means of improved machinery. marx himself has demonstrated this as clearly as possible."[ ] we know, thanks to kropotkine, that the anarchist ideal has a double origin. and all the anarchist "demonstrations" also have a double origin. on the one hand they are drawn from the vulgar hand books of political economy, written by the most vulgar of bourgeois economists, _e.g._, grave's dissertation upon wages, which bastiat would have applauded enthusiastically. on the other hand, the "companions," remembering the somewhat "communist" origin of their ideal, turn to marx and quote, without understanding, him. even bakounine has been "sophisticated" by marxism. the latter-day anarchists, with kropotkine at their head, have been even more sophisticated. the ignorance of grave, "the profound thinker," is very remarkable in general, but it exceeds the bounds of all probability in matters of political economy. here it is, only equalled by that of the learned geologist kropotkine, who makes the most monstrous statements whenever he touches upon an economic question. we regret that space will not allow us to amuse the reader with some samples of anarchist economics. they must content themselves with what kropotkine has taught them about marx's "surplus-value." all this would be very ridiculous, if it were not too sad, as the russian poet lermontoff says. and it is sad indeed. whenever the proletariat makes an attempt to somewhat ameliorate its economic position, "large-hearted people," vowing they love the proletariat most tenderly, rush in from all points of the compass, and depending on their halting syllogisms, put spokes into the wheel of the movement, do their utmost to prove that the movement is useless. we have had an example of this with regard to the eight hours day, which the anarchists combated, whenever they could, with a zeal worthy of a better cause. when the proletariat takes no notice of this, and pursues its "immediately economic" aims undisturbed--as it has the fortunate habit of doing--the same "large-hearted people" re-appear upon the scene armed with bombs, and provide the government with the desired and sought for pretext for attacking the proletariat. we have seen this at paris on may , ; we have seen it often during strikes. fine fellows these "large-hearted men!" and to think that among the workers themselves there are men simple enough to consider as their friends, these personages who are, in reality, the most dangerous enemies of their cause! an anarchist will have nothing to do with "parliamentarism," since it only lulls the proletariat to sleep. he will none of "reforms," since reforms are but so many compromises with the possessing classes. he wants the revolution, a "full, complete, immediate, and immediately economic" revolution. to attain this end he arms himself with a saucepan full of explosive materials, and throws it amongst the public in a theatre or a café. he declares this is the "revolution." for our own part it seems to us nothing but "immediate" madness. it goes without saying that the bourgeois governments, whilst inveighing against the authors of these attempts, cannot but congratulate themselves upon these tactics. "society is in danger!" _caveant consules!_ and the police "consuls" become active, and public opinion applauds all the reactionary measures resorted to by ministers in order to "save society." "the terrorist saviours of society in uniform, to gain the respect of the philistine masses must appear with the halo of true sons of 'holy order,' the daughter of heaven rich in blessings, and to this halo the school-boy attempts of these terrorists help them. such a silly fool, lost in his fantastical imaginings, does not even see that he is only a puppet, whose strings are pulled by a cleverer one in the terrorist wings; he does not see that the fear and terror he causes only serve to so deaden all the senses of the philistine crowd, that it shouts approval of every massacre that clears the road for reaction."[ ] napoleon iii. already indulged from time to time in an "outrage" in order once again to save society menaced by the enemies of order. the foul admissions of andrieux,[ ] the acts and deeds of the german and austrian _agents provocateurs_, the recent revelations as to the attempt against the madrid parliament, etc., prove abundantly that the present governments profit enormously by the tactics of the "companions," and that the work of the terrorists in uniform would be much more difficult if the anarchists were not so eager to help in it. thus it is that spies of the vilest kind, like joseph peukert, for long years figured as shining lights of anarchism, translating into german the works of foreign anarchists; thus it is that the french bourgeois and priests directly subvention the "companions," and that the law-and-order ministry does everything in its power to throw a veil over these shady machinations. and so, too, in the name of the "immediate revolution," the anarchists become the precious pillars of bourgeois society, inasmuch as they furnish the _raison d'être_ for the most immediately reactionary policy. thus the reactionary and conservative press has always shown a hardly disguised sympathy for the anarchists, and has regretted that the socialists, conscious of their end and aim, will have nothing to do with them. "they drive them away like poor dogs," pitifully exclaims the paris _figaro, à propos_ of the expulsion of the anarchists from the zurich congress.[ ] an anarchist is a man who--when he is not a police agent--is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve. "to send working men to a parliament," said bordat, before the lyons tribunal in , "is to act like a mother who would take her daughter to a brothel." thus it is also in the name of _morality_ that the anarchists repudiate political action. but what is the outcome of their fear of parliamentary corruption? the glorification of theft, ("put money in thy purse," wrote most in his _freiheit_, already in ), the exploits of the duvals and ravachols, who in the name of the "cause" commit the most vulgar and disgusting crimes. the russian writer, _herzen_, relates somewhere how on arriving at some small italian town, he met only priests and bandits, and was greatly perplexed, being unable to decide which were the priests and which the bandits. and this is the position of every impartial person to-day; for how are you going to divine where the "companion" ends and the bandit begins? the anarchists themselves are not always sure, as was proved by the controversy caused in their ranks by the ravachol affair. thus the better among them, those whose honesty is absolutely unquestionable, constantly fluctuate in their views of the "propaganda of deed." "condemn the propaganda of deed?" says elysée reclus. "but what is this propaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by example? those who call the "propaganda of deed" acts of violence prove that they have not understood the meaning of this expression. the anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make "propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all those whom he may meet."[ ] we will not ask what is left of the anarchist who has divorced himself from the tactics of "deeds." we only ask the reader to consider the following lines: "the editor of the _sempre avanti_ wrote to elysée reclus asking him for his true opinion of ravachol. 'i admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his greatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or rather his betrayers. i hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in nobleness of conduct. i reserve the question as to how far it is always desirable to push to extremities one's own right, and whether other considerations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to prevail. still i am none the less one of those who recognise in ravachol a hero of a magnanimity but little common.'"[ ] this does not at all fit in with the declaration quoted above, and it proves irrefutably that citizen reclus fluctuates, that he does not know exactly where his "companion" ends and the bandit begins. the problem is the more difficult to solve that there are a good many individuals who are at the same time "bandits" and anarchists. ravachol was no exception. at the house of the anarchists, oritz and chiericotti, recently arrested at paris, an enormous mass of stolen goods were found. nor is it only in france that you have the combination of these two apparently different trades. it will suffice to remind the reader of the austrians kammerer and stellmacher. kropotkine would have us believe that anarchist morality, a morality free from all obligations or sanction, opposed to all utilitarian calculations, is the same as the natural morality of the people, "the morality from the habit of well doing."[ ] the morality of the anarchists is that of persons who look upon all human action from the abstract point of view of the unlimited rights of the individual, and who, in the name of these rights, pass a verdict of "not guilty" on the most atrocious deeds, the most revolting arbitrary acts. "what matter the victims," exclaimed the anarchist poet laurent tailhade, on the very evening of vaillant's outrage, at the banquet of the "plume" society, "provided the gesture is beautiful?" tailhade is a decadent, who, because he is _blasé_ has the courage of his anarchist opinions. in fact the anarchists combat democracy because democracy, according to them, is nothing but the tyranny of the majority as against the minority. the majority has no right to impose its wishes upon the minority. but if this is so, in the name of what moral principle do the anarchists revolt against the bourgeoisie? because the bourgeoisie are not a minority? or because they do not do what they "will" to do? "do as thou would'st," proclaim the anarchists. the bourgeoisie "want" to exploit the proletariat, and do it remarkably well. they thus follow the anarchist precept, and the "companions" are very wrong to complain of their conduct. they become altogether ridiculous when they combat the bourgeoisie in the name of their victims. "what matters the death of vague human beings"--continues the anarchist logician tailhade--"if thereby the individual affirms himself?" here we have the true morality of the anarchists; it is also that of the crowned heads. _sic volo, sic jubeo!_[ ] _thus, in the name of the revolution, the anarchists serve the cause of reaction; in the name of morality they approve the most immoral acts; in the name of individual liberty they trample under foot all the rights of their fellows._ and this is why the whole anarchist doctrine founders upon its own logic. if any maniac may, because he "wants" to, kill as many men as he likes, society, composed of an immense number of individuals, may certainly bring him to his senses, not because it is its caprice, but because it is its duty, because such is the _conditio sine quâ non_ of its existence. footnotes: [ ] in their dreams of riots and even of the revolution, the anarchists, burn, with real passion and delight, all title-deeds of property, and all governmental documents. it is kropotkine especially who attributes immense importance to these _auto-da-fe_. really, one would think him a rebellious civil servant. [ ] republished in the _peuple_ of lyons, december , . [ ] "anarchist communism," p. . [ ] kropotkine's preface to the russian edition of bakounine's pamphlet "la commune de paris et la notion de l'etat." geneva, , p. . [ ] ibid., same page. [ ] j. grave "la société mourante et l'anarchie," p. . [ ] ibid., p. . [ ] ibid., pp. - . [ ] _vorwärts_, january , . [ ] "the companions were looking for someone to advance funds, but infamous capital did not seem in a hurry to reply to their appeal. i urged on infamous capital, and succeeded in persuading it that it was to its own interest to facilitate the publication of an anarchist paper.... but don't imagine that i with frank brutality offered the anarchists the encouragement of the prefect of police. i sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them. he explained that having made a fortune in the druggist line, he wanted to devote a part of his income to advancing the socialist propaganda. this bourgeois, anxious to be devoured, inspired the companions with no suspicion. through his hands i placed the caution-money" [caution-money has to be deposited before starting a paper in france] "in the coffers of the state, and the journal, _la révolution sociale_, made its appearance. it was a weekly paper, my druggist's generosity not extending to the expenses of a daily."--"souvenirs d'un préfet de police." "memoirs of a prefect of police." by j. andrieux. (jules rouff et cie, paris, .) vol. i., p. , etc. [ ] in passing, we may remark that it is in the name of freedom of speech that the anarchists claim to be admitted to socialist congresses. yet this is the opinion of the french official journal of the anarchists upon these congresses:--"the anarchists may congratulate themselves that some of their number attended the troyes congress. absurd, motiveless, and senseless as an anarchist congress would be, just as logical is it to take advantage of socialist congresses in order to develop our ideas there."--_la révolte_, - january, . may not we also, in the name of freedom, ask the "companions" to leave us alone? [ ] see in the _l'etudiant socialiste_ of brussels, no. ( ) the republication of the declaration made by elysée reclus, to a "correspondent" who had questioned him upon the anarchist attempts. [ ] the _twentieth century_, a weekly radical magazine, new york, september, , p. . [ ] see kropotkine's _anarchist communism_, pp. - ; also his _anarchie dans l'evolution socialiste_, pp. - , and many passages in his _morale anarchiste_. [ ] the papers have just announced that tailhade was wounded by an explosion at the restaurant foyot. the telegram (_la tribune de genève_, th april, ) adds--"m. tailhade is constantly protesting against the anarchist theories he is credited with. one of the house surgeons, having reminded him of his article and the famous phrase quoted above, m. tailhade remained silent, and asked for chloral to alleviate his pain." chapter ix--conclusion the bourgeoisie, anarchism, and socialism the "father of anarchy," the "immortal" proudhon, bitterly mocked at those people for whom the revolution consisted of acts of violence, the exchange of blows, the shedding of blood. the descendants of the "father," the modern anarchists, understand by revolution only this brutally childish method. everything that is not violence is a betrayal of the cause, a foul compromise with "authority."[ ] the scared bourgeoisie does not know what to do against them. in the domain of theory they are absolutely impotent with regard to the anarchists, who are their own _enfants terribles_. the bourgeoisie was the first to propagate the theory of _laissez faire_, of dishevelled individualism. their most eminent philosopher of to-day, herbert spencer, is nothing but a conservative anarchist. the "companions" are active and zealous persons, who carry the bourgeois reasoning to its logical conclusion. the magistrates of the french bourgeois republic have condemned grave to prison, and his book, "la société mourante et l'anarchie" to destruction. the bourgeois men of letters declare this puerile book a profound work, and its author a man of rare intellect. and not only has the bourgeoisie[ ] no theoretical weapons with which to combat the anarchists; they see their young folk enamoured of the anarchist doctrine. in this society, satiated and rotten to the marrow of its bones, where all faiths are long since dead, where all sincere opinions appear ridiculous, in this _monde où l'on s'ennui_, where after having exhausted all forms of enjoyment they no longer know in what new fancy, in what fresh excess to seek novel sensations, there are people who lend a willing ear to the song of the anarchist siren. amongst the paris "companions" there are already not a few men quite _comme il faut_, men about town who, as the french writer, raoul allier, says, wear nothing less than patent leather shoes, and put a green carnation in their button-holes before they go to meetings. decadent writers and artists are converted to anarchism and propagate its theories in reviews like the _mercure de france_, _la plume_, etc. and this is comprehensible enough. one might wonder indeed if anarchism, an essentially bourgeois doctrine, had not found adepts among the french bourgeoisie, the most _blasée_ of all bourgeoisies. by taking possession of the anarchist doctrine, the decadent, _fin-de-siècle_ writers restore to it its true character of bourgeois individualism. if kropotkine and reclus speak in the name of the worker, oppressed by the capitalist, _la plume_ and the _mercure de france_ speak in the name of the _individual_ who is seeking to shake off all the trammels of society in order that he may at last do freely what he "wants" to. thus anarchism comes back to its starting-point. stirner said: "nothing for me goes beyond myself." laurent tailhade says: "what matters the death of vague human beings, if thereby the individual affirms himself." the bourgeoisie no longer knows where to turn. "i who have fought so much for positivism," moans emile zola, "well, yes! after thirty years of this struggle, i feel my convictions are shaken. religious faith would have prevented such theories from being propagated; but has it not almost disappeared to-day? who will give us a new ideal?" alas, gentlemen, there is no ideal for walking corpses such as you! you will try everything. you will become buddhists, druids, sârs, chaldeans, occultists, magi, theosophists, or anarchists, whichever you prefer--and yet you will remain what you are now--beings without faith or principle, bags, emptied by history. the ideal of the bourgeois has lived. for ourselves, social-democrats, we have nothing to fear from the anarchist propaganda. the child of the bourgeoisie, anarchism, will never have any serious influence upon the proletariat. if among the anarchists there are workmen who sincerely desire the good of their class, and who sacrifice themselves to what they believe to be the good cause, it is only thanks to a misunderstanding that they find themselves in this camp. they only know the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat under the form which the anarchists are trying to give it. when more enlightened they will come to us. here is an example to prove this. during the trial of the anarchists at lyons in , the working man desgranges related how he had become an anarchist, he who had formerly taken part in the political movement, and had even been elected a municipal councillor at villefranche in november, . "in , in the month of september, when the dyers' strike broke out at villefranche, i was elected secretary of the strike committee, and it was during this memorable event ... that i became convinced of the necessity of suppressing authority, for authority spells despotism. during this strike, when the employers refused to discuss the matter with the workers, what did the prefectural and communal administrations do to settle the dispute? fifty gendarmes, with sword in hand, were told off to settle the question. that is what is called the pacific means employed by governments. it was then, at the end of this strike, that some working men, myself among the number, understood the necessity of seriously studying economic questions, and, in order to do so, we agreed to meet in the evening to study together."[ ] it is hardly necessary to add that this group became anarchist. that is how the trick is done. a working man, active and intelligent, supports the programme of one or the other bourgeois party. the bourgeois talk about the well-being of the people, the workers, but betray them on the first opportunity. the working man who has believed in the sincerity of these persons is indignant, wants to separate from them, and decides to study seriously "economic questions." an anarchist comes along, and reminding him of the treachery of the bourgeois, and the sabres of the gendarmes, assures him that the political struggle is nothing but bourgeois nonsense, and that in order to emancipate the workers political action must be given up, making the destruction of the state the final aim. the working man who was only beginning to study the situation thinks the "companion" is right, and so he becomes a convinced and devoted anarchist! what would happen, if pursuing his studies of the social question further, he had understood that the "companion" was a pretentious ignoramus, that he talked twaddle, that his "ideal" is a delusion and a snare, that outside bourgeois politics there is, opposed to these, the political action of the proletariat, which will put an end to the very existence of capitalist society? he would have become a social-democrat. thus the more widely our ideas become known among the working classes, and they are thus becoming more and more widely known, the less will proletarians be inclined to follow the anarchist. anarchism, with the exception of its "learned" housebreakers, will more and more transform itself into a kind of bourgeois sport, for the purpose of providing sensations for "individuals" who have indulged too freely in the pleasures of the world, the flesh and the devil. and when the proletariat are masters of the situation, they will only need to look at the "companions," and even the "finest" of them will be silenced; they will only have to breathe to disperse all the anarchist dust to the winds of heaven. footnotes: [ ] it is true that men like reclus do not always approve of such notions of the revolution. but again we ask, what is left of the anarchist when once he rejects the "propaganda of deed"? a sentimental, visionary bourgeois--nothing more. [ ] in order to obtain some idea of the weakness of the bourgeois theorists and politicians in their struggle against the anarchists, it suffices to read the articles of c. lombroso and a. bérard in the _revue des revues_, th february, , or the article of j. bourdeau in the _revue de paris_, th march, . the latter can only appeal to "human nature" which, he thinks, "will not be changed through the pamphlets of kropotkine and the bombs of ravachol." [ ] see report of the anarchist trial before the correctional police and the court of appeal of lyons; lyons, , pp. - . anarchism by dr. paul eltzbacher gerichtsassessor and privatdozent in halle an der saale translated by steven t. byington je ne propose rien, je ne suppose rien, j'expose [illustration] new york: benj. r. tucker. london: a. c. fifield. . copyright, , by benjamin r. tucker _gratefully dedicated to the memory of my father_ dr. salomon eltzbacher - contents page translator's preface vii books referred to xvii introduction chapter i. the problem . general . the starting-point . the goal . the way to the goal chapter ii. law, the state, property . general . law . the state . property chapter iii. godwin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter iv. proudhon's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter v. stirner's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter vi. bakunin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter vii. kropotkin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter viii. tucker's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter ix. tolstoi's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter x. the anarchistic teachings . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter xi. anarchism and its species . errors about anarchism and its species . the concepts of anarchism and its species conclusion translator's preface every person who examines this book at all will speedily divide its contents into eltzbacher's own discussion and his seven chapters of classified quotations from anarchist leaders; and, if he buys the book, he will buy it for the sake of the quotations. i do not mean that the book might not have a sale if it consisted exclusively of eltzbacher's own words, but simply that among ten thousand people who may value eltzbacher's discussion there will not be found ten who will not value still more highly the conveniently-arranged reprint of what the anarchists themselves have said on the cardinal points of anarchistic thought. nor do i feel that i am saying anything uncomplimentary to eltzbacher when i say that the part of his work to which he has devoted most of his space is the part that the public will value most. and yet there is much to be valued in the chapters that are of eltzbacher's own writing,--even if one is reminded of sir arthur helps's satirical description of english lawyers as a class of men, found in a certain island, who make it their business to write highly important documents in closely-crowded lines on such excessively wide pages that the eye is bound to skip a line now and then, but who make up for this by invariably repeating in another part of the document whatever they have said, so that whatever the reader may miss in one place he will certainly catch in another. the fact is that eltzbacher's work is an admirable model of what should be the mental processes of an investigator trying to determine the definition of a term which he finds to be confusedly conceived. not only is his method for determining the definition of anarchism flawless, but his subsidiary investigation of the definitions of law, the state, and property is conducted as such things ought to be, and (a good test of clearness of thought) his illustrations are always so exactly pertinent that they go far to redeem his style from dullness, if one is reading for the sense and therefore cares for pertinence. the only weak point in this part of the book is that he thinks it necessary to repeat in print his previous statements wherever it is necessary to the investigation that the previous statement be mentally renewed. but, however tiresome this may be, one gets a steady progress of thought, and the introductory part of the book is not very long at worst. the collection of quotations, which form three-fourths of the book both in bulk and in importance, is as much the best part as it is the biggest. here the prime necessity is impartiality, and eltzbacher has attained this as perfectly as can be expected of any man. positively, one comes to the end of all this without feeling sure whether eltzbacher is himself an anarchist or not; it is not until we come to the last dozen pages of the book that he lets his opposition to anarchism become evident. to be sure, one feels that he is more journalistic than scientific in selecting for special mention the more sensational points of the schemes proposed (the journalistic temper certainly shows itself in his habit of picking out for his german public the references to germany in anarchist writers). yet it is hard to deny that there is legitimate scientific importance in ascertaining how much of the sensational is involved in anarchism; and, on the other hand, eltzbacher recognizes his duty to present the strongest points of the anarchist side, and does this so faithfully that one often wonders if the man can repeat these words without feeling their cogency. so far as any bias is really felt in this part of the book it is the bias of over-methodicalness; now and then a quotation is made to go into the classification at a place where it will not go in without forcing, and perspective is distorted when some _obiter dictum_ that had never seemed to its author to be worth repeating a second time is made to serve as illuminant now for this division of the "teaching," now for that, till it seems to the reader like a favorite topic of the anarchist. however, the bias of methodicalness is as nearly non-partisan as any bias can be, and its effect is to put the matter into a most convenient form for consultation and comparison. next to impartiality, if not even before it, we need intelligence in our compiler; and we have it. few men, even inside the movement, would have been more successful than eltzbacher in picking out the important parts of the anarchist doctrines, and the quotations that will show these important parts as they are. i do not mean that this accuracy has not exceptions--many exceptions, if you count such things as the failure to give due weight to some clause which might restrict or modify the application of the words used; a few serious exceptions, of which we reap the fruit in his final summary. but in admitting these errors i do not retract my statement that eltzbacher has made his compilation as accurate as any man could be expected to. more than this, it may well be said that he has, except in three or four points, made it as accurate as is even useful for ordinary reading; he has overlooked nothing but what his readers would have been sure to overlook if he had presented it. as a gun is advertised to shoot "as straight as any man can hold," so eltzbacher has, with three or four exceptions, told his story as straight as any man with ordinary attention can read. the net result is that we have here, without doubt, the most complete and accurate presentation of anarchism that ever has been given or ever will be given in so short a space. if any one wants a fuller and more trustworthy account, he will positively have to go direct to the writings of the anarchists themselves; nowhere else can he find anything so good as eltzbacher. withal, this main part of the book is decidedly readable. eltzbacher's repetitiousness has no opportunity to become prominent here, and the man is not at all dull in choosing and translating his quotations. on the contrary, his fondness for apt illustrations is a great help toward making the compilation constantly readable, as well as toward making the reader's impressions of the anarchistic teachings vivid and definite. i do not mean to say that this book can take the place of a consultation of the original sources. for instance, the bakunin chapter follows next after the stirner chapter; but the exquisite contrariness of almost every word of bakunin to stirner's teaching can be appreciated only by those who have read stirner's book--eltzbacher's quotations are on a different aspect of stirner's teaching from that which applies against bakunin. (stirner and bakunin, it will be noted, are the only anarchist leaders against whom eltzbacher permits himself a disrespectful word before he has presented their doctrines.) it is to be hoped that many who read this book will go on to examine the sources themselves. meanwhile, here is an excellent introduction, and the chronological arrangement makes it easy to watch the historical development and see whether the later schools of anarchism assail the state more effectively than the earlier. i have not reserved any expressions of praise for the small part of the book which comes after the compiled chapters, because it calls for none. all eltzbacher's weak points come out in this concluding summary; the best that can be said for it is that it deserves careful attention, and that the author continues to be oftener right than wrong. but now that he has gathered all his knowledge he wants it to amount to omniscience, and most imprudently shuts his eyes to the places where there is nothing under his feet. he charges men with error for not using in his sense a term whose definition he has not undertaken to determine. he accepts all too unquestioningly such statements as fit most conveniently into his scheme of method. his most glaring offence in this direction is his classification of the anarchist-communist doctrines as mere prediction and not the expression of a will or demand or approval or disapproval of anything, simply because the fashionableness of evolutionism and of fatalism has led the leaders of that school to prefer to state their doctrine in terms of prediction. eltzbacher has forgotten to compare his judgment with the actions of the men he judges; _solvitur ambulando_; if kropotkin's proposition were merely predictive and not pragmatic, it would have less trouble with the police than it has. again, he does one of the most indiscreet things that are possible to a votary of strict method when he asserts repeatedly that he has listed not merely all that is to be found but all that could possibly exist under a certain category. for instance, he declares that every possible affirmative doctrine of property must be either private property, or common property in the wherewithal for production and private property in the wherewithal for consumption, or common property. why should not a scheme of common property in the things that are wanted by all men and private property in the things that are wanted only by some men have as high a rank in the classification as has eltzbacher's second class? a look at the quotations from kropotkin will show that i have not drawn much on my own ingenuity in conceiving such a scheme as supposable. he claims to have listed all the standpoints from which anarchism has been or can be propounded or judged, yet he has omitted legitimism, the doctrine that a political authority which is to claim our respect and obedience must appear to have originated by a legitimate foundation and not by usurpation. the great part that legitimism has played in history is notorious; and it lends itself very readily to the anarchist's purpose, since some governments are so well known to have originated in usurpation and others are so easily suspected of it. nay, legitimism is in fact a potent factor in shaping the most up-to-date anarchism of our time; for it is largely concerned in lysander spooner's doctrine of juries, of which some slight account is given in eltzbacher's quotations from tucker. and he claims to have recited all the important arguments that sustain anarchism: where has he mentioned the argument from the evil that the state does in interfering with social and economic experimentation? or the argument from the fact that reforms in the state are necessarily in a democracy, and ordinarily in a monarchy, very slow in coming to pass, and when they do come to pass they necessarily come with all-disturbing suddenness? or the argument from the evil of separating people by the boundary lines which the state involves? or the fact that war would be almost inconceivable if the states were replaced by voluntary and non-monopolistic organizations, since such organizations could have no "jurisdiction" or control of territory to fight for, and war for any other cause has long been unknown among civilized nations? by these and other such unwarranted claims of absolute completeness, and by the conclusions based on these pasteboard premises, eltzbacher makes it necessary to read his final chapters with all possible independence of judgment. it remains for me to say something of my own work on this book. i have consulted the originals of some of the works cited--such as circumstances have permitted--and given the quotations not by translation from eltzbacher's german but direct from the originals. the particulars are as follows: of godwin's "political justice" i used an american reprint of the second british edition. this second edition is greatly revised and altered from the first, which eltzbacher used. godwin calls our attention to this, and especially informs us that the first edition did not in some important respects represent the views which he held at the time of its publication, since the earlier pages were printed before the later were written, and during the writing of the book he changed his mind about some of the principles he had asserted in the earlier chapters. in the second edition, he says, the views presented in the first part of the book have been made consistent with those in the last part, and all parts have been thoroughly revised. it will astonish nobody, therefore, that i found it now and then impossible to identify in my copy the passages translated by eltzbacher from the first edition. in particular, i got the impression that what eltzbacher quotes about promises, from the first part of the book, is one of those sections which godwin says he retracts and no longer believed in even at the time he wrote the later chapters of the first edition. if so, a bit of the foundation for eltzbacher's ultimate classification disappears. besides giving the pages of the first edition as in eltzbacher, i have added in brackets the page numbers of the copy i used, wherever i could identify them. throughout the book brackets distinguish footnotes added by me from eltzbacher's own, and in a few places i have used them in the text to indicate eltzbacher's deviations from the wording of his original, of which matter i will speak again in a moment. the passages from proudhon's works i translated from the original french as given in the collected edition of his "_oeuvres complètes_." in this edition some of the works differ only in pagination from the editions which eltzbacher used, while others have been extensively revised. i know of no changes of essential doctrine. since in stirner's case german is the original language, i have accepted as my original the quotations given by eltzbacher. it is probable that they are occasionally condensed; but a fairly faithful memory, and the fact that it is less than a year since i was reading the proofs of my translation of stirner's book, enable me to be confident that there is no change amounting to distortion. i have here made no use of that translation of mine[ ] except from memory, because i well knew that in dealing with stirner there is no assurance that the best possible translation of the continuous whole will be made up of the best possible translations of the individual parts. neither have i used the extant english translations of bakunin's "god and the state," kropotkin's "conquest of bread," tolstoi's works, or any of the other books cited. i have not had at hand any originals of bakunin or tolstoi, nor any of kropotkin except "anarchist communism." of this i had the first edition, and eltzbacher, contrary to his habit, the second; but i judge that the two are from the same plates, for all the page-numbers cited agree. toward the tucker chapter i have taken a special attitude. i am myself one of tucker's followers and collaborators; i may claim to be an "authority" on the exposition of his doctrine-- _nennt man die besten namen, so wird auch der meine genannt_-- and i have tried to have an eye to the precise correctness of everything in that chapter. that i used the original of "instead of a book" is a matter of course; and i have not only taken tucker's words where eltzbacher had translated the whole, but have had an eye to all points where eltzbacher had condensed anything in a way that could affect the sense, and have restored the words that made the passage mean something a little bit different from what eltzbacher made it mean. (i did about the same in this respect with kropotkin's "anarchist communism"; and indeed something of the kind is inevitable if one is to consult originals at all.) on the other hand, i have not, in general, drawn attention to passages where eltzbacher makes merely formal changes for the purpose of inserting in a sentence of a certain grammatical structure what tucker had said in a sentence of different structure. the renderings of tolstoi's biblical quotations are taken from the "corrected english new testament," a conservative version which is now spoken of as the best english new testament extant. it fits well into tolstoi, at least so far as the present quotations go. i have spoken above of eltzbacher's qualities as compiler; it here becomes necessary to say something of his work as translator. his translation is that of a very intelligent man, trusting to his intelligence to justify him in translating quite freely. he is confident that he knows what the idea to be presented is, and his main concern is to express that in the language best suited to the purpose. he even avows, as will be seen, that he has "cautiously revised" other people's translations from the russian, without himself claiming to be familiar with the russian language. i would as soon entrust this extremely delicate task to eltzbacher as to anybody i know, for he is in general remarkably correct in his re-wordings. the justification of his confidence in his knowledge of the author's thought may be seen in the fact that in passages which happen not to affect the main thought he makes a few such slips as _zahlen mit ihrer vergiftung_ for "pay to be poisoned," _willkuer_ for "arbitrament," and even _eine blutige revolution ruecksichtslos niederwuerfe_ for "would do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution" (can he have been misled by the chemist's use of "precipitate"?), but in passages where these blunders would do real harm he keeps clear of them, being safeguarded by his knowledge of the sense. but it makes a difference whom you translate in this way. tucker is a man who uses language with especial precision: every phrase in a sentence of his may be presumed to contribute something definite to the thought; and eltzbacher treats him as if the less conspicuous phrases were merely ornamental work which might safely be omitted or amended when they seemed not to be advantageous for ornamental purposes. i must confess that i have little faith in the eltzbacher method of translation for the rendering of any author; but it works especially ill with an author like tucker. of course all defects of translation are cured, silently, by substituting the original english. therefore, at the expense of slightly increasing the bulk of the tucker chapter, this edition gives american readers a much more accurate presentation of the utterances of the american champion of anarchism than can be had in eltzbacher's german; and, since i have the same advantage as regards godwin, i think i may claim in general terms that mine is the best edition of eltzbacher for those who read both english and german. besides looking out for the accurate presentation of the passages quoted from tucker, i have kept watch of the correctness of the subject-matter. whatever seemed to me to represent tucker's book unfairly, either by misrepresenting his doctrine or by misapplying the quotations, has been corrected by a note. this will be useful to the reader not only by giving him a better tucker, but also by giving a sample from which he may judge what amount of fault the followers of kropotkin or tolstoi or the rest would be likely to find with the chapters devoted to them. the merely popular reader will probably get the impression that eltzbacher is really a rather unreliable man. the competent student, who knows what must be looked out for in all work of this sort, will have his confidence in eltzbacher increased by seeing how little of serious fault appears in such a search. the index is compiled independently for this translation. omitting such entries as merely duplicate the utility of the table of contents, and making an effort to head every entry with the word under which the reader will actually seek it, i hope i have bettered eltzbacher's index; and i hope the index will be not only a place-finder but a help toward the appreciation of the anarchistic teachings. i have not in general undertaken to criticise those features of the book which embody eltzbacher's own opinions. whether it was in fact right to select these seven men as the touchstone of anarchism,--whether eltzbacher is right in discussing the definition of the state as he does, or whether he might better simply have taken as authoritative that definition which has legal force in international law,--whether he ought to have added any other feature to his book,--are points on which the reader does not care for my judgment, nor am i eager to express a judgment. having had to work over the book very carefully in detail, i have felt entitled to express an opinion as to how well eltzbacher has done the work that he did choose to do; i have also told what work i as translator claim to have done; and it is time this preface ended. steven t. byington. _ballardvale, mass., august , ._ books referred to by abbreviated titles adler, "handwoerterbuch" = georg adler, "anarchismus," in _handwoerterbuch der staatswissenschaften_, d ed. (jena ), vol. pp. - . adler, "nord und sued" = georg adler, "die lehren der anarchisten," in _nord und sued_ (breslau) vol. ( ) pp. - . ba. "articles" = "articles écrits par bakounine dans l'egalité de ," in _mémoire présenté par la fédération jurassienne de l'association internationale des travailleurs à toutes les fédérations de l'internationale_ (sonvillier, n. d.), "pièces justificatives" pp. - . ba. "briefe" = "briefe bakunins," in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . ba. "dieu" = michel bakounine, _dieu et l'etat_, d ed. (paris ). ba. "dieu" oeuvres = "dieu et l'etat," in michel bakounine, _oeuvres_, d ed. (paris ), pp. - . ba. "discours" = "discours de bakounine au congrès de berne," in _mémoire présenté par la fédération jurassienne de l'association internationale des travailleurs à toutes les fédérations de l'internationale_ (sonvillier, n. d.), "pièces justificatives" pp. - . ba. "programme" = bakounine, "programme de la section slave à zurich," in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . ba. "proposition" = "fédéralisme, socialisme et antithéologisme. proposition motivée au comité central de la ligue de la paix et de la liberté," in michel bakounine, _oeuvres_, d ed. (paris ), pp. - . ba. "statuts" = "statuts secrets de l'alliance" and "programme et règlement de l'alliance publique," in "l'alliance" (see below) pp. - . ba. "volkssache" = m. bakunin, "die volkssache. romanow, pugatschew oder pestel?" in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . bernatzik = bernatzik, "der anarchismus," in _jahrbuch fuer gesetzgebung, verwaltung und volkswirtschaft im deutschen reich_ (leipzig) vol. ( ) pp. - . bernstein = eduard bernstein, "die soziale doktrin des anarchismus," in _die neue zeit_ (stuttgart) year ( - ) vol. pp. - , - ; vol. pp. - , - , - , - , - . crispi = francesco crispi, "the antidote for anarchy," in _daily mail_ (london) no. ( ) p. . "der anarchismus und seine traeger" = _der anarchismus und seine traeger. enthuellungen aus dem lager der anarchisten von [**symbol: circle in triangle], verfasser der londoner briefe in der koelnischen zeitung_ (berlin ). "die historische entwickelung des anarchismus" = _die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_ (new york ). diehl = karl diehl, _p.-j. proudhon_. _seine lehre und sein leben._ ( vol., jena - .) dragomanoff = michail dragomanow, _michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow, deutsch von boris minzès_ (stuttgart ). dubois = felix dubois, _le péril anarchiste_ (paris ). ferri = "discours de ferri" in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . garraud = r. garraud, _l'anarchie et la répression_ (paris ). godwin = william godwin, _an enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on general virtue and happiness_ ( vol., london ). [bracketed references are to the "first american from the second london edition, corrected," philadelphia, .] "hintermaenner" = _die hintermaenner der sozialdemokratie. von einem eingeweihten_ (berlin ). kr. "anarchist communism" = peter kropotkine, _anarchist communism: its basis and principles_, d ed. (london ). [reprinted from the _nineteenth century_.] kr. "conquête" = pierre kropotkine, _la conquête du pain_, th ed. (paris ). kr. "l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste" = pierre kropotkine, _l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_ (paris ). kr. "l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal" = pierre kropotkine, _l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal_ (paris ). kr. "morale" = pierre kropotkine, _la morale anarchiste_ (paris ). kr. "paroles" = pierre kropotkine, _paroles d'un révolté, ouvrage publié par elisée réclus, nouv. éd_. (paris, n. d.) kr. "prisons" = pierre kropotkine, _les prisons_ (paris ). kr. "siècle" = pierre kropotkine, _un siècle d'attente. - _ (paris ). kr. "studies" = _revolutionary studies, translated from "la révolte" and reprinted from "the commonweal"_ (london ). kr. "temps nouveaux" = pierre kropotkine, _les temps nouveaux (conférence faite à londres)_ (paris ). "l'alliance" = _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_ (londres et hambourg ). lenz = adolf lenz, _der anarchismus und das strafrecht. sonderabdruck aus der zeitschrift fuer die gesamte strafrechtswissenschaft, bd. , heft _ (berlin, n. d.). lombroso = c. lombroso, _gli anarchici_, d ed. (torino ). mackay, "anarchisten" = john henry mackay, _die anarchisten. kulturgemaelde aus dem ende des . jahrhunderts_. volksausgabe (berlin ). mackay, "magazin" = john henry mackay, "der individualistische anarchismus: ein gegner der propaganda der that," in _das magazin fuer litteratur_ (berlin und weimar) vol. ( ) pp. - . mackay, "stirner" = john henry mackay, _max stirner. sein leben und sein werk_ (berlin ). merlino = f. s. merlino, _l'individualismo nell'anarchismo_ (roma ). pfau = "proudhon und die franzosen," in ludwig pfau, _kunst und kritik_, vol. of _aesthetische schriften_, d ed. (stuttgart, leipzig, berlin, ), pp. - . plechanow = georg plechanow, _anarchismus und sozialismus_ (berlin ). pr. "banque" = p.-j. proudhon, _banque du peuple, suivie du rapport de la commission des délégués du luxembourg_ (paris ). (in proudhon's _oeuvres complètes_, paris - , this forms part of the volume "solution.") pr. "contradictions" = p.-j. proudhon, _système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère_ ( vol., paris ). pr. "confessions" = p.-j. proudhon, _les confessions d'un révolutionnaire, pour servir à l'histoire de la révolution de février_ (paris ). pr. "droit" = p.-j. proudhon, _le droit au travail et le droit de propriété_ (paris ). (in the _oeuvres_ this forms part of the volume "la révolution sociale.") pr. "idée" = p.-j. proudhon, _idée générate de la révolution au xixe siècle (choix d'études sur la pratique révolutionnaire et industrielle)_ (paris ). pr. "justice" = p.-j. proudhon, _de la justice dans la révolution et dans l'eglise. nouveaux principes de philosophie pratique_ ( vol., paris ). pr. "organisation" = p.-j. proudhon, _organisation du crédit et de la circulation, et solution du problème social_ (paris ). (in the _oeuvres_ this forms part of the volume "solution.") pr. "principe" = p.-j. proudhon, _du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution_ (paris ). pr. "propriété" = p.-j. proudhon, _qu'est-ce que la propriété? ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. premier mémoire_ (paris ). pr. "solution" = p.-j. proudhon, _solution du problème social_ (paris ). proal = louis proal, _la criminalité politique_ (paris ). reichesberg = naum reichesberg, _sozialismus und anarchismus_ (bern und leipzig ). rienzi = rienzi, _l'anarchisme, traduit du néerlandais par august dewinne_ (bruxelles ). sernicoli = e. sernicoli, _l'anarchia e gli anarchici. studio storico e politico di e. sernicoli_ ( vol., milano ). shaw = george bernard shaw, _the impossibilities of anarchism_ (london ). silio = cesar silio, "el anarquismo y la defensa social," in _la espana moderna_ (madrid) vol. ( ) pp. - . stammler = rudolf stammler, _die theorie des anarchismus_ (berlin ). stirner = max stirner, _der einzige und sein eigentum_ (leipzig ). stirner "vierteljahrsschrift" = m. st., "rezensenten stirners," in _wigands vierteljahrsschrift_ (leipzig) vol. ( ) pp. - . to. "confession" = graf leo tolstoj, _bekenntnisse. was sollen wir denn thun? deutsch von h. von samson-himmelstjerna_ (leipzig ), pp. - . to. "gospel" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _kurze darlegung des evangeliums, deutsch von paul lauterbach_ (leipzig, n. d.). to. "kernel" = "das korn," in graf leo n. tolstoj, _volkserzaehlungen, deutsch von wilhelm goldschmidt_ (leipzig, n. d.), pp. - . to. "kingdom" = leo n. tolstoj, _das reich gottes ist in euch, oder das christentum als eine neue lebensauffassung, nicht als mystische lehre, deutsch von r. loewenfeld_ (stuttgart, leipzig, berlin, wien, ). to. "linen-measurer" = "leinwandmesser. die geschichte eines pferdes," in _leo n. tolstoj_, _gesammelte werke, deutsch herausgegeben von raphael loewenfeld_, vol. (berlin ) pp. - . to. "money" = graf leo tolstoj, _geld! soziale betrachtungen, deutsch von august scholz_ (berlin ). to. "morning" = "der morgen des gutsherrn," in leo n. tolstoj, _gesammelte werke, deutsch herausgegeben von raphael loewenfeld_, vol. , d ed. (leipzig, n. d.), pp. - . to. "on life" = graf leo tolstoj, _ueber das leben, deutsch von sophie behr_ (leipzig ). to. "patriotism" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _christentum und vaterlandsliebe, deutsch von l. a. hauff_ (berlin n. d.). to. "persecutions" = _russische christenverfolgungen im kaukasus. mit einem vor- und nachwort von leo tolstoj_ (dresden und leipzig ) pp. - , - . to. "reason and dogma" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _vernunft und dogma. eine kritik der glaubenslehre, deutsch von l. a. hauff_ (berlin n. d.). to. "religion and morality" = graf leo tolstoj, _religion und moral. antwort auf eine in der "ethischen kultur" gestellte frage, deutsch von sophie behr_ (berlin ). to. "what i believe" = graf leo tolstoj, _worin besteht mein glaube? eine studie, deutsch von sophie behr_ (leipzig ). to. "what shall we do" = graf leo tolstoj, _was sollen wir also thun? deutsch von august scholz_ (berlin ). tripels = "discours de tripels," in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . tucker = benj. r. tucker, _instead of a book. by a man too busy to write one. a fragmentary exposition of philosophical anarchism_ (new york ). van hamel = van hamel, "l'anarchisme et le combat contre l'anarchisme au point de vue de l'anthropologie criminelle," in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . zenker = e. v. zenker, _der anarchismus. kritische geschichte der anarchistischen theorie_ (jena ). footnote: [ ] entitled "the ego and his own." n. y., benj. r. tucker, . introduction . we want to know anarchism scientifically, for reasons both personal and external. we wish to penetrate the essence of a movement that dares to question what is undoubted and to deny what is venerable, and nevertheless takes hold of wider and wider circles. besides, we wish to make up our minds whether it is not necessary to meet such a movement with force, to protect the established order or at least its quiet progressive development, and, by ruthless measures, to guard against greater evils. . at present there is the greatest lack of clear ideas about anarchism, and that not only among the masses but among scholars and statesmen. now it is a historic law of evolution[ ] that is described as the supreme law of anarchism, now it is the happiness of the individual,[ ] now justice.[ ] now they say that anarchism culminates in the negation of every programme,[ ] that it has only a negative aim;[ ] now, again, that its negating and destroying side is balanced by a side that is affirmative and creative;[ ] now, to conclude, that what is original in anarchism is to be found exclusively in its utterances about the ideal society,[ ] that its real, true essence consists in its positive efforts.[ ] now it is said that anarchism rejects law,[ ] now that it rejects society,[ ] now that it rejects only the state.[ ] now it is declared that in the future society of anarchism there is no tie of contract binding persons together;[ ] now, again, that anarchism aims to have all public affairs arranged for by contracts between federally constituted communes and societies.[ ] now it is said in general that anarchism rejects property,[ ] or at least private property;[ ] now a distinction is made between communistic and individualistic,[ ] or even between communistic, collectivistic, and individualistic anarchism.[ ] now it is asserted that anarchism conceives of its realization as taking place through crime,[ ] especially through a violent revolution[ ] and by the help of the propaganda of deed;[ ] now, again, that anarchism rejects violent tactics and the propaganda of deed,[ ] or that these are at least not necessary constituents of anarchism.[ ] . two demands must be made of everybody who undertakes to produce a scientific work on anarchism. first, he must be acquainted with the most important anarchistic writings. here, to be sure, one meets great difficulties. anarchistic writings are very scantily represented in our public libraries. they are in part so rare that it is extremely difficult for an individual to acquire even the most prominent of them. so it is not strange that of all works on anarchism only one is based on a comprehensive knowledge of the sources. this is a pamphlet which appeared anonymously in new york in , "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" which in sixteen pages gives a concise presentation that attests an astonishing acquaintance with the most various anarchistic writings. the two large works, _"l'anarchia e gli anarchici, studio storico e politico di e. sernicoli_" vol., milano, , and "_der anarchismus, kritische geschichte der anarchistischen theorie von e. v. zenker_," jena, , are at least in part founded on a knowledge of anarchistic writings. second, he who would produce a scientific work on anarchism must be equally at home in jurisprudence, in economics, and in philosophy. anarchism judges juridical institutions with reference to their economic effects, and from the standpoint of some philosophy or other. therefore, to penetrate its essence and not fall a victim to all possible misunderstandings, one must be familiar with those concepts of philosophy, jurisprudence, and economics which it applies or has a relation to. this demand is best met, among all works on anarchism, by rudolf stammler's pamphlet, "_die theorie des anarchismus_," berlin, . footnotes: [ ] "_der anarchismus und seine traeger_" pp. , , ; reichesberg p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] bernatzik pp. , . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] crispi. [ ] van hamel p. . [ ] adler p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] stammler pp. , , , ; lenz pp. , . [ ] silió p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; tripels p. . [ ] bernstein p. ; bernatzik p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] silió p. ; dubois p. . [ ] lombroso p. ; proal p. . [ ] rienzi p. ; stammler pp. - ; merlino pp. , ; shaw p. . [ ] "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" p. ; zenker p. . [ ] garraud p. ; lenz p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; van hamel p. . [ ] garraud pp. , ; lombroso p. ; ferri p. . [ ] mackay "_magazin_" pp. - ; "_anarchisten_" pp. - . [ ] zenker pp. , . chapter i the problem .--general the problem for our study is, to get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. as soon as such determinate concepts are attained, anarchism is scientifically known. for their determination is not only conditioned on a comprehensive view of all the individual phenomena of anarchism; it also brings together the results of this comprehensive view, and assigns to them a place in the totality of our knowledge. the problem of getting determinate concepts of anarchism and its species seems at a first glance perfectly clear. but the apparent clearness vanishes on closer examination. for there rises first the question, what shall be the starting-point of our study? the answer will be given, "anarchistic teachings." but there is by no means an agreement as to what teachings are anarchistic; one man designates as "anarchistic" these teachings, another those; and of the teachings themselves a part designate themselves as anarchistic, a part do not. how can one take any of them as anarchistic teachings for a starting-point, without applying that very concept of anarchism which he has yet to determine? then rises the further question, what is the goal of the study? the answer will be given, "the concepts of anarchism and its species." but we see daily that different men define in quite different ways the concept of an object which they yet conceive in the same way. one says that law is the general will; another, that it is a mass of precepts which limit a man's natural liberty for other men's sake; a third, that it is the ordering of the life of the nation (or of the community of nations) to maintain god's order of the world. they all know that a definition should state the proximate genus and the distinctive marks of the species, but this knowledge does them little good. so it seems that the goal of the study does still require elucidation. lastly rises the question, what is the way to this goal? any one who has ever observed the conflict of opinions in the intellectual sciences knows well, on the one hand, how utterly we lack a recognized method for the solution of problems; and, on the other hand, how necessary it is in any study to get clearly in mind the method that is to be used. . our study can come to a more precise specification of its problem. the problem is to put concepts in the place of non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. every concept-determining study faces the problem of comprehending conceptually an object that was first comprehended non-conceptually, and therefore of putting a concept in the place of non-conceptual notions of an object. this problem finds a specially clear expression in the concept-determining judgment (the definition), which puts in immediate juxtaposition, in its subject some non-conceptual notion of an object, and in its predicate a conceptual notion of the same object. accordingly, the study that is to determine the concepts of anarchism and its species has for its problem to comprehend conceptually objects that are first comprehended in non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species; and therefore, to put concepts in the place of these non-conceptual notions. . but our study may specify its problem still more precisely, though at first only on the negative side. the problem is not to put concepts in the place of all notions that appear as non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. any concept can comprehend conceptually only one object, not another object together with this. the concept of health cannot be at the same time the concept of life, nor the concept of the horse that of the mammal. but in the non-conceptual notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species there are comprehended very different objects. to be sure, the object of all these notions is on the one hand a genus that is formed by the common qualities of certain teachings, and on the other hand the species of this genus, which are formed by the addition of sundry peculiarities to these common qualities. but still these notions have in view very different groups of teachings with their common and special qualities, some perhaps only the teachings of kropotkin and most, others only the teachings of stirner, tucker, and mackay, others again the teachings of both sets of authors. if one proposed to put concepts in the place of all the non-conceptual notions which appear as notions of anarchism and its species, these concepts would have to comprehend at once the common and special qualities of quite different groups of teachings, of which groups one might embrace only the teachings of kropotkin and most, another only those of stirner, tucker, and mackay, a third both. but this is impossible: the concepts of anarchism and its species can comprehend only the common and special qualities of a single group of teachings; therefore our study cannot put concepts in the place of all the notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species. . by completing on the affirmative side this negative specification of its problem, our study can arrive at a still more precise specification of this problem. the problem is to put concepts in the place of those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species, having in view one and the same group of teachings, which are most widely diffused among the men who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. because the only possible problem for our study is to put concepts in the place of part of the notions that appear as non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species,--to wit, only in the place of such notions as have in view one and the same group of teachings with its common and special qualities,--therefore we must divide into classes, according to the groups of teachings that they severally have in view, the notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species, and we must choose the class whose notions are to be replaced by concepts. the choice of the class must depend on the kind of men for whom the study is meant. for the study of a concept is of value only for those who non-conceptually apprehend the object of the concept, since the concept takes the place of their notions only. for those who form a non-conceptual notion of space, the concept of morality is so far meaningless; and just as meaningless, for those who mean by anarchism what the teachings of proudhon and stirner have in common, is the concept of what is common to the teachings of proudhon, stirner, bakunin, and kropotkin. but the men for whom this study is meant are those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. if all these, in their notions of anarchism and its species, had in view one and the same group of teachings, then the problem for our study would be to put concepts in the place of this set of notions. since this is not the case, the only possible problem for our study is to put concepts in the place of that set of notions which has in view a group of teachings that the greatest possible number of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view in their non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. .--the starting-point in accordance with what has been said, the starting-point of our study must be those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species, having in view one and the same group of teachings, which are most widely diffused among the men who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. . how can it be known what group of teachings the non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view? first and foremost, this may be seen from utterances regarding particular anarchistic teachings, and from lists and descriptions of such teachings. we may assume that a man regards as anarchistic those teachings which he designates as anarchistic, and, further, those teachings which are likewise characterized by the common qualities of these. we may further assume that a man does not regard as anarchistic those teachings which he in any form contrasts with the anarchistic teachings, nor, if he undertakes to catalogue or describe the whole body of anarchistic teachings, those teachings unknown to him which are not characterized by the common qualities of the teachings he catalogues or describes. what group of teachings those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species which are most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view, may be seen secondly from the definitions of anarchism and from other utterances about it. we may doubtingly assume that a man regards as anarchistic those teachings which come under his definition of anarchism, or for which his utterances about anarchism hold good; and, on the contrary, that he does not regard as anarchistic those teachings which do not come under that definition, or for which these utterances do not hold good. when these two means of knowledge lead to contradictions, the former must be decisive. for, if a man so defines anarchism, or so speaks of anarchism, that on this basis teachings which he declares non-anarchistic manifest themselves to be anarchistic,--and perhaps other teachings, which he counts among the anarchistic, to be non-anarchistic,--this can be due only to his not being conscious of the scope of his general pronouncements; therefore it is only from his treatment of the individual teachings that one can find out his opinion of these. . these means of knowledge inform us what group of teachings the non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view. we learn, first, that the teachings of certain particular men are recognized as anarchistic teachings by the greater part of those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. we learn, second, that by the greater part of those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism the teachings of these men are recognized as anarchistic teachings only in so far as they relate to law, the state, and property; but not in so far as they may be concerned with the law, state, or property of a particular legal system or a particular group of legal systems, nor in so far as they regard other objects, such as religion, the family, art. among the recognized anarchistic teachings seven are particularly prominent: to wit, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and tolstoi. they all manifest themselves to be anarchistic teachings according to the greater part of the definitions of anarchism, and of other scientific utterances about it. they all display the qualities that are common to the doctrines treated of in most descriptions of anarchism. some of them, be it one or another, are put in the foreground in almost every work on anarchism. of no one of them is it denied, to an extent worth mentioning, that it is an anarchistic teaching. .--the goal in accordance with what has been said, the goal of our study must be to determine, first, the concept of the genus which is constituted by the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings; second, the concepts of the species of this genus, which are formed by the accession of any specialties to those common qualities. . the first thing toward a concept is that an object be apprehended as clearly and purely as possible. in non-conceptual notions an object is not apprehended with all possible clearness. in our non-conceptual notions of gold we most commonly make clear to ourselves only a few qualities of gold; one of us, perhaps, thinks mainly of the color and the lustre, another of the color and malleability, a third of some other qualities. but in the concept of gold color, lustre, malleability, hardness, solubility, fusibility, specific gravity, atomic weight, and all other qualities of gold, must be apprehended as clearly as possible. nor is an object apprehended in all possible purity in our non-conceptual notions. we introduce into our non-conceptual notions of gold many things that do not belong among the qualities of gold; one, perhaps, thinks of the present value of gold, another of golden dishes, a third of some sort of gold coin. but all these alien adjuncts must be kept away from the concept of gold. so the first goal of our study is to describe as clearly as possible on the one side, and as purely as possible on the other, the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings, and the specialties of all the teachings which display these common qualities. . it is further requisite for a concept that an object should have its place assigned as well as possible in the total realm of our experience,--that is, in a system of species and genera which embraces our total experience. in non-conceptual notions an object does not have its place assigned in the total realm of our experience, but arbitrarily in one of the many genera in which it can be placed according to its various qualities. one of us, perhaps, thinks of gold as a species of the genus "yellow bodies," another as a species of the genus "malleable bodies," a third as a species of some other genus. but the concept of gold must assign it a place in a system of species and genera that embraces our whole experience,--a place in the genus "metals." so a further goal of our study is to assign a place as well as possible in the total realm of our experience (that is, in a system of species and genera which embraces our total experience) for the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings, and for the specialties of all the teachings that display these common qualities. .--the way to the goal in accordance with what has been said, the way that our study must take to go from its starting-point to its goal will be in three parts. first, the concepts of law, the state, and property must be determined. next, it must be ascertained what the anarchistic teachings assert about law, the state, and property. finally, after removing some errors, we must get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. . first, we must get determinate concepts of law, the state, and property; and this must be of law, the state, and property in general, not of the law, state, or property of a particular legal system or a particular family of legal systems. law, the state, and property, in this sense, are the objects about which the doctrines which are to be examined in their common and special qualities make assertions. before the fact of any assertions about an object can be ascertained,--not to say, before the common and special qualities of these assertions can be brought out and assigned to a place in the total realm of our experience,--we must get a determinate concept of this object itself. hence the first thing that must be done is to determine the concepts of law, the state, and property (chapter ii). . next, it must be ascertained what the anarchistic teachings assert about law, the state, and property;--that is, the recognized anarchistic teachings, and also those teachings which likewise display the qualities common to these. what the recognized anarchistic teachings say, must be ascertained in order to determine the concept of anarchism. what all the teachings that display the common qualities of the recognized anarchistic teachings say, must be ascertained in order that we may get determinate concepts of the species of anarchism. so each of these teachings must be questioned regarding its relation to law, the state, and property. these questions must be preceded by the question on what foundation the teaching rests, and must be followed by the question how it conceives the process of its realization. it is impossible to present here all recognized anarchistic teachings, not to say all anarchistic teachings. therefore our study limits itself to the presentation of seven especially prominent teachings (chapters iii to ix), and then, from this standpoint, seeks to get a view of the totality of recognized anarchistic teachings and of all anarchistic teachings (chapter x). the teachings presented are presented in their own words,[ ] but according to a uniform system: the first, for security against the importation of alien thoughts; the second, to avoid the uncomparable juxtaposition of fundamentally different courses of thought. they have been compelled to give definite replies to definite questions; it was indeed necessary in many cases to bring the answers together in tiny fragments from the most various writings, to sift them so far as they contradicted each other, and to explain them so far as they deviated from ordinary language. thus tolstoi's strictly logical structure of thought and bakunin's confused talk, kropotkin's discussions full of glowing philanthropy and stirner's self-pleasing smartness, come before our eyes directly and yet in comparable form. . finally, after removing widely diffused errors, we are to get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. we must, therefore, on the basis of that knowledge of the anarchistic teachings which we have acquired, clear away the most important errors about anarchism and its species; and then we must determine what the anarchistic teachings have in common, and what specialties are represented among them, and assign to both a place in the total realm of our experience. then we have the concepts of anarchism and its species (chapter xi). footnote: [ ] russian writings are cited from translations, which are cautiously revised where they seem too harsh. chapter ii law, the state, property .--general _in this discussion we are to get determinate concepts of law, the state, and property in general, not of the law, state, and property of a particular legal system or of a particular family of legal systems. the concepts of law, state, and property are therefore to be determined as concepts of general jurisprudence, not as concepts of any particular jurisprudence._ . by the concepts of law, state, and property one may understand, first, the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a particular legal system. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the substance of a particular legal system. they embrace only the substance of this system. they may, therefore, be called concepts of the science of this system. for we may designate as the science of a particular legal system that part of jurisprudence which concerns itself exclusively with the norms of a particular legal system. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a legal system are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of other legal systems by this characteristic,--that they are concepts of norms of this particular system. from this characteristic we may deduce all the characteristics that result from the special substance of this system of law in contrast to other such systems. the concepts of property in the present laws of the german empire, of france, and of england are distinguished by the fact that they are concepts of norms of these three different legal systems. consequently they are as different as are the norms of the present imperial-german, french, and english law on the subject of property. the concepts of law, state, and property in different legal systems are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept. . second, one may understand by the concepts of law, state, and property the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a particular family of laws. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family. they embrace only the common substance of the different systems of this family. they may, therefore, be called concepts of the science of this family of laws. for we may designate as the science of a particular family of laws that part of jurisprudence which deals exclusively with the norms of a particular family of legal systems, so far as these are not already dealt with by the sciences of the particular legal systems of this family. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of the legal systems that form the family by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of these systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of one or another legal system. the concept of the state in the science of present european law is distinguished from the concepts of the state in the sciences of present german, russian, and belgian law by not being a concept of norms of any one of these systems, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that result from the special substance of the constitutional norms in force in germany, russia, and belgium. its relation to the concepts of the state in the science of these systems is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of other such families by this characteristic,--that they are concepts of norms of this particular family. from this characteristic we may deduce all the characteristics that are peculiar to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family in contrast to the common substance of the different legal systems of other families. the concept of the state in the science of present european law and the concept of the state in the science of european law in the year are distinguished by the fact that the one is a concept of constitutional norms that are in force in europe to-day, the other of such as were in force in europe then; consequently they are different in the same way as what the constitutional norms in force in europe to-day have in common is different from what was common to the constitutional norms in force in europe then. these concepts are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept. . third, one may understand by the concepts of law, state, and property the concepts of law, state, and property in general jurisprudence. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the most different systems and families of laws. they embrace only what the norms of the most different systems and families of laws have in common. they may, therefore, be called concepts of general jurisprudence. for that part of jurisprudence which treats of legal norms without limitation to any particular system or family of laws, so far as these norms are not already treated by the sciences of the particular systems and families, may be designated as general jurisprudence. the concepts of law, state, and property in general jurisprudence are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the particular jurisprudences by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of one of these systems or at least one of these families of systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of some system or family of laws. the concept of law _per se_ is distinguished from the concept of law in present european law and from the concept of law in the present law of the german empire by not being a concept of norms of that family of laws, not to say that particular system, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that might belong to any peculiarities which might be common to all legal norms at present in force in europe or in germany. its relation to the concepts of law in these particular jurisprudences is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts. . in which of the senses here distinguished the concepts of law, state, and property should be defined in a particular case, and what matters should accordingly be taken into consideration in defining them, depends on the purpose of one's study. if, for example, the point is to describe scientifically the constitutional norms of the present law of the german empire, then the concept of the state as defined on this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular legal system. for scientific work on the norms of a particular legal system requires that concepts be formed of the norms of just this system. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the constitutional norms of the present law of the german empire.--that the concepts defined in the scientific description of a system of law are in fact concepts of the science of this system may indeed seem obscure. for every concept of the science of any particular system of law may be defined as the concept of a species under the corresponding generic concept of general jurisprudence. we define this generic concept, say the concept of the state in general jurisprudence, and add the distinctive characteristic of the species-concept, that it is a concept of norms of this particular system of law, say of the present law of the german empire. and then we often leave this additional characteristic unexpressed, where we think we may assume (as is the case in the scientific description of the norms of any particular system of law) that everybody will regard it as tacitly added. the consequence is that the definition given in the scientific description of a particular system of law looks, at a superficial glance, like the definition of a concept of general jurisprudence. or, if the point is to compare scientifically the norms of present european law regarding property, the concept of property as defined on this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular family of laws. for the scientific comparison of norms of different legal systems demands that concepts of the sciences of these different legal systems be subordinately arranged under the corresponding concept of the science of the family of laws which is made up of these systems. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the norms of this family of laws.--here again, indeed, it may seem obscure that the concepts defined are really concepts of the science of this family of laws. for the concepts that belong to the science of a family of laws may likewise be defined by defining the corresponding concepts of general jurisprudence and tacitly adding the characteristic of being concepts of norms of this particular family of laws. finally, if it comes to pass that the point is to compare scientifically what the norms of the most diverse systems of law have in common, the concept of law as defined on this occasion must be a concept of general jurisprudence. for the scientific comparison of norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts which belong to the sciences of the most diverse systems and families of laws be subordinately arranged under the corresponding concept of general jurisprudence. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be the norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws. here,--where the point is to take the first step toward a scientific comprehension of teachings which pass judgment on law, the state, and property in general, not only on the law, state, or property of a particular system or family of laws,--the concepts of law, state, and property must necessarily be defined as concepts of general jurisprudence. for a scientific comprehension of teachings which deal with the common substance of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts of this common substance--consequently concepts belonging to general jurisprudence--be formed. therefore we have to take into consideration, as our material, the norms (especially regarding the state and property) of the most diverse systems and families of laws. .--law _law is the body of legal norms. a legal norm is a norm which is based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves._ . a legal norm is a norm. a norm is the idea of a correct procedure. a correct procedure means one that corresponds either to the final purpose of all human procedure (unconditionally correct procedure,--for instance, respect for another's life), or at any rate to some accidental purpose (conditionally correct procedure,--for instance, the skilled handling of a picklock). and the idea of a correct procedure means that the unconditionally or conditionally correct procedure is to be thought of not as a fact but as a task, not as something real but as something to be realized; it does not mean that i shall in fact spare my enemy's life, but that i am to spare it--not how the thief really did use the picklock, but how he should have used it. the idea of a correct procedure is what we designate as an "ought": when i think of an "ought," i think of what has to be done in order to realize either the final purpose of all human procedure or some accidental personal purpose. all passing of judgment on past procedure is conditioned upon the idea of a correct procedure--only with regard to this idea can past procedure be described as good or bad, expedient or inexpedient; and so is all deliberation on future procedure--only with regard to this idea does one inquire whether it will be right, or at any rate expedient, to proceed in a given manner. every legal norm represents a procedure as correct, declares that it corresponds to a particular purpose. and it represents this correct procedure as an idea, designates it not as a fact but as a task, does not say that any one does proceed so but that one is to proceed so. hence a legal norm is a norm. . a legal norm is a norm based on a human will. a norm based on a human will is a norm by virtue of which one must proceed in a certain way in order that he may not put himself in opposition to the will of some particular men, and so be apprehended by the power which is at the service of these men. such a norm, therefore, represents a procedure only as conditionally correct; to wit, as a means to the end (which we are perhaps pursuing or perhaps despising) of remaining in harmony with the will of certain men, and so being spared by the power which serves this will. every legal norm tells us that we must proceed in a certain way in order that we may not contravene the will of some particular men and then suffer under their power. therefore it represents a procedure only as conditionally correct, and instructs us not as to what is good but only as to what is prescribed. hence a legal norm is a norm based on a human will. . a legal norm is a norm based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others. a norm is based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others when the will on which the norm is based has reference not only to others who do not will, but also, at the same time, to the willers themselves also; when, therefore, these not only will that others be subject to the norm but also will to be subject to it themselves. every legal norm, and of all norms only the legal norm, has the characteristic that the will on which it is based reaches beyond those whose will it is, and yet embraces them too. the rule, "whoever takes from another a movable thing that is not his own, with the intent to appropriate it illegally, is punished with imprisonment for theft," is not only based on the will of men, but each of these men is also conscious that, while on the one hand the rule applies to other men, on the other hand it applies to himself. here it might be alleged that, after all, the mere fact of men's will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others does not always establish law; for example, the efforts of the bonapartists do not establish the empire in france. but it is not when this bare will exists that law is established, but only when a norm is based on this will; that is, when it has in its service so great a power that it is competent to affect the behavior of the men to whom it relates. as soon as bonapartism spreads so widely and in such circles that this takes place, the republic will fall and the empire will indeed become law in france. one might further appeal to the fact that in unlimited monarchies (in russia, for instance) the law is based solely on the will of one man, who is not himself subject to it. but russian law is not based on the czar's will at all; the czar is a weak individual man, and his will in itself is totally unqualified to affect many millions of russians in their procedure. russian law is based rather on the will of all those russians--peasants, soldiers, officials--who, for the most various reasons--patriotism, self-interest, superstition--will that what the czar wills shall be law in russia. their will is qualified to affect the procedure of the russians; and, if they should ever grow so few that it would no longer have this qualification, then the czar's will would no longer be law in russia, as the history of revolutions proves. . it has been asserted that legal norms have still other qualities. it has been said, first, that it belongs to the essence of a legal norm to be enforceable, or even to be enforceable in a particular way, by judicial procedure, governmental force. if by this we are to understand that conformity can always be enforced, we are met at once by the great number of cases in which this cannot be done. when a debtor is insolvent, or a murder has been committed, conformity to the violated legal norms cannot now be enforced after the fact, but their validity is not impaired by this. if by enforceability we mean that conformity to a legal norm must be insured by other legal norms providing for the case of its violation, we need only go on from the insured to the insuring norms for a while, to come to norms for which conformity is not insured by any further legal norms. if one refuses to recognize these norms as legal norms, then neither can the norms which are insured by them rank as legal norms, and so, going back along the series, one has at last no legal norms left. only if one would understand by the enforceability of the legal norm that a will must have at its disposal a certain power in order that a legal norm may be based on it, one might certainly say in this sense that enforceability belongs to the essence of a legal norm. but this quality of the legal norm would be only such a quality as would be derivable from its quality of being a norm, and would therefore have no claim to be added as a further quality. again, it has been named an essential quality of a legal norm that it should be based on the will of a state. but even where we cannot speak of a state at all, among nomads for instance, there are yet legal norms. besides, every state is itself a legal relation, established by legal norms, which consequently cannot be based on its will. and lastly, the norms of international law, which are intended to bind the will of states, cannot be based on the will of a state. finally, it has been asserted that it was essential to a legal norm that it should correspond to the moral law. if this were so, then among the different legal norms which to-day are in force one directly after the other in the same territory, or at the same time in different territories under the same circumstances, only one could in each case be regarded as a legal norm; for under the same circumstances there is only one moral right. nor could one speak then of unrighteous legal norms, for if they were unrighteous they would not be legal norms. but in reality, even when legal norms determine conduct quite differently under the same circumstances, they are all nevertheless recognized as legal norms; nor is it doubted that there are bad legal norms as well as good. . as a norm based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, the legal norm is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it. by being based on the will of men it is distinguished from the moral law (the commandment of morality); this is not based on men's willing a certain procedure, but on the fact that this procedure corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure. the maxim, "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse and persecute you," is a moral law; so is the maxim, "act so that the maxims of your will might at all times serve as the principles of a general legislation." for the correctness of such a procedure is not founded on the fact that other men will have it, but on the fact that it corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure. by being based on the will of men the legal norm is distinguished also from good manners; these are not based on the fact that men will a certain procedure, but on the fact that they themselves proceed in a certain way. it is manners that one goes to a ball in a dress coat and white gloves, uses his knife at table only for cutting, begs the daughter of the house for a dance or at least one round, takes leave of the master and mistress of the house, and lastly presses a tip into the servant's hand; for the correctness of such a behavior is not based on the fact that other men ask this of us,--to those who start a new fashion it is often actually unpleasant to find that the fashion is spreading to more extensive circles,--but solely on the fact that other men themselves behave so, and that we want "not to be peculiar," "not to make ourselves conspicuous," "to do like the rest," etc. by being based on a will which relates at once to those whose will it is and to others whose will it is not, it is distinguished on the one hand from an arbitrary command, in which one's will applies only to others, and on the other from a resolution, in which it applies only to himself. it is an arbitrary command when cortes with his spaniards commands the mexicans to bring out their gold, or when a band of robbers forbids a frightened peasantry to betray their hiding-place; here a human will decides, indeed, but a will that relates only to other men, and not at the same time to those whose will it is. a resolution is presented when i have decided to get up at six every morning, or to leave off smoking, or to finish a piece of work within a specified time--here a human will is indeed the standard, but it relates only to him whose will it is, not at all to others. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of the legal norm may, if one takes into account the explanations which have been given with this definition, be expanded as follows: men will that a given procedure be generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, and their power is so great that their will is competent to affect the men of this circle in their procedure. when such is the condition of things, a legal norm exists. .--the state _the state is a legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a certain territory._ . the state is a legal relation. a legal relation is the relation, determined by legal norms, of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. thus, for instance, the legal relation of a loan is a relation of the borrower, who is bound by the legal norms concerning loans, to the lender, for whose sake he is bound. the state is the legal relation of all the men who by legal norms are subjected to a supreme territorial authority, to all those for whose sake they are subjected to it. here the circle of the entitled and the obligated is one and the same; the state is a bond upon all in favor of all. to this it might perhaps be objected that the state is not a legal relation but a person. but the two propositions, that an association of men is a person in the legal sense and that it is a legal relation, are quite compatible; nay, its attribute of personality is based mainly on its attribute of being a legal relation of a particular kind; law, in viewing the association in its outward relationships as a person, starts from the fact that men are bound together by a particular legal relation. a joint-stock corporation is a person not although, but because, it is a legal relation of a peculiar kind. and similarly, the fact that the state is a person is not only reconcilable with its being a legal relation, but is founded on its being a peculiar legal relation. . as to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary. a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; for instance, entrance into the relation of tenancy is conditioned on agreeing to a lease. _per contra_, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party, as, for instance, a patent is not conditioned on any action of those who are bound by it, and the sentence of a criminal is at least not conditioned on any action whereby he intended to bring it about. if the state were a voluntary legal relation, a supreme authority could exist only for those inhabitants of a territory who had acknowledged it. but the supreme authority exists for all inhabitants of the territory, whether they have acknowledged it or not; the legal relation is therefore involuntary. . the substance of this legal relation is, that a supreme authority exists in a territory. an authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when, according to the legal norms which found the relation, the will of some men--or even merely of a man--is regulative for the inhabitants of this territory. a supreme authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when according to those norms the will of some men is finally regulative for the inhabitants of the territory,--that is, is decisive when authorities disagree. what we here designate as a supreme authority, therefore, is not the men on whose will the legal norms in force in a territory are based, but rather their highest agents, whose will they would have finally regulative within the territory. what men it is whose will is finally regulative for the inhabitants of a territory by virtue of a legal relation--for instance, members of a royal family according to a certain order of inheritance, or persons elected according to a certain election law--depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. on these legal norms, too, depends the question within what limits the will of these men is regulative. but this limited nature of the authority does not stand in the way of its being a supreme authority; the highest agent need not be an agent with unrestricted powers. here one might perhaps object that in federal states, in the german empire for instance, the individual states have not supreme authority. but in reality they have it. for, even if there are a multitude of subjects in reference to which the highest authority of the individual states of the german empire has to bow to the imperial authority, yet there are also subjects enough about which the highest authority of the individual states gives a final decision. as long as there are such subjects, a supreme authority exists in the individual states; if some day there should no longer be such, one could no longer speak of individual states. . as a legal relation, by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a territory, the state is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it. by being a legal relation it is distinguished on the one hand from institutions such as would exist in a conceivable kingdom of god or of reason, on the basis of the moral law, and on the other hand from the dominion of a conqueror in the conquered country, which can never be anything but an arbitrary dominion. being an involuntary legal relation, the state is distinguished from a conceivable association of men who should set up a supreme authority among themselves by an agreement, as well as from leagues under international law, in which a supreme authority exists on the basis of an agreement. the fact that by virtue of a legal relation an authority over a territory is given distinguishes the state from the tribal community of nomads and from the church; for in the former there is given an authority over people of a certain descent, in the latter over people of a certain faith, but in neither over people of a certain territory. and finally, in the fact that this territorial authority is a supreme authority lies the difference between the state and towns, counties, or provinces; in the latter there is indeed a territorial authority instituted, but one that by the very intent of its institution must bow to a higher authority. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of the state may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previous definition of a legal norm and on the other hand the above explanations of the definition of the state: some inhabitants of a territory are so powerful that their will is competent to affect the inhabitants of this territory in their procedure, and these men will have it that for all the inhabitants of the territory, for themselves as well as for the rest, the will of men picked out in a certain way shall within certain limits be finally regulative. when such is the condition of things, a state exists. .--property _property is a legal relation, by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing._ . property is a legal relation. as has already been stated, a legal relation is the relation of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed by legal norms, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. property is the legal relation of all the members of a group of men who by legal norms are excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing, to him--or to those--for whose sake they are excluded from it. here the circle of the obligated is much broader than that of the entitled; the former embraces, say, all the inhabitants of a territory or all who belong to a tribe, the latter only those among them in whom certain further conditions (for instance, transfer, prescription, appropriation) are fulfilled. . as to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary. as discussion has already shown, a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; _per contra_, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party. if property were a voluntary legal relation, then there could be excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing only those members of a group of men who had consented to this exclusion. but all members of the group--for instance, all the inhabitants of a territory, all who belong to a tribe--are excluded, whether they have consented or not. . the substance of this legal relation consists in some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing. some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing means that this group is excluded from the thing in his favor; that is, they must not hinder him from dealing with the thing according to his will, nor may they themselves deal with it against his will. now, the exclusive disposition of a thing within a certain group of men may by virtue of a legal relation belong to several, part by part, in this way: that some--or one--of them have it in this or that particular respect (for instance, as to the usufruct), and one--or some--in all other respects which are not individually alienated. whoever thus has, within a group of men, the exclusive disposition of a thing in all those respects which are not individually alienated, to him belongs, within that group, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of the thing. to whom this belongs by virtue of the legal relation--whether, for instance, it belongs among others to him who by labor has made a thing into some new thing--depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. on them also depends the question, within what limits this belongs to him: the dispository authority of him to whom the exclusive disposition of a thing within a group of men ultimately belongs is limited not only by the dispository authority of those to whom the exclusive disposition within the group proximately belongs, but also by the limits within which such dispository authority is at all allowed to anybody in the group. especially, it depends on these legal norms whether a privilege of exclusive ultimate disposition belongs to individuals as well as to corporations, or only to corporations, and whether it applies to every kind of things or only to one kind or another. . as a legal relation by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, property is distinguished from all other objects, even from those which most resemble it. by being a legal relation it is distinguished from all the relations in which one has the exclusive ultimate disposition of a thing guaranteed to him solely by the reasonableness of the men who surround him, or solely by his own might, as might be the case in a conceivable kingdom of god or of reason, and as is often the case in a conquered country. being an involuntary legal relation, it is distinguished from those legal relations by virtue of which the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing belongs to some one solely on the ground of a contract, and solely as against the other contracting parties. that by virtue of this legal relation some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, distinguishes property from copyright, by virtue of which some one has exclusively, within a group of men, not the disposition of a thing, but somewhat else; and furthermore from rights in the property of others, by virtue of which some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of disposing of a thing, but not of ultimately disposing of it. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of property may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previously given definition of a legal norm, and on the other the above explanations of the definition of property. some men are so powerful that their will is able to affect in its procedure a group of men which embraces them, and these men will have it that no member of this group shall, within certain limits, hinder a member picked out in a certain way from dealing with a thing according to his will, nor, within these limits, himself deal with the thing against the will of that member, so far as the will of another member is not already in particular respects regulative with respect to that thing equally with the will of that member. when such is the condition of things, property exists. * * * * * [distinguishing the state from arbitrary dominion as he here does (p. ), and then saying that anarchism consists solely in the negation of the state, eltzbacher implies the unsound conclusion that anarchism does not involve the negation of arbitrary dominion. this is because he incautiously takes the word of the learned public that the only cardinal points of anarchism are law, the state, and property, without making sure that those who say this are using the term "state" in the precise sense defined by him. but are not many of his "arbitrary commands" law and state by his definitions? every robber in his band (p. ) is as much required to keep the secret as are the peasantry, and under the same penalties. in restraining a subject population i restrict my liberty of emigration or investment, and forbid myself to be an accomplice in certain things.] chapter iii godwin's teaching .--general . william godwin was born in at wisbeach, cambridgeshire. he studied theology at hoxton, beginning in . in he became preacher at ware, hertfordshire; in , preacher at stowmarket, suffolk. in he gave up this position. from this time on he lived in london as an author. he died there in . godwin published numerous works in the departments of philosophy, economics, and history; also stories, tragedies, and juvenile books. . godwin's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained mainly in the two-volume work "an enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on general virtue and happiness" ( ). "the printing of this treatise," says godwin himself, "was commenced long before the composition was finished. the ideas of the author became more perspicuous and digested as his inquiries advanced. this circumstance has led him into some inaccuracies of language and reasoning, particularly in the earlier part of the work. he did not enter upon the subject without being aware that government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of individual intellect; but he understood the proposition more completely as he proceeded, and saw more distinctly into the nature of the remedy."[ ] godwin's teaching is here presented exclusively in the developed form which it shows in the second part of the work. . godwin does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." yet this word causes him no terror. "anarchy is a horrible calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. where anarchy has slain its hundreds, despotism has sacrificed millions upon millions, with this only effect, to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices, and the misery of mankind. anarchy is a short-lived mischief, while despotism is all but immortal. it is unquestionably a dreadful remedy, for the people to yield to all their furious passions, till the spectacle of their effects gives strength to recovering reason: but, though it be a dreadful remedy, it is a sure one."[ ] .--basis _according to godwin, our supreme law is the general welfare._ what is the general welfare? "its nature is defined by the nature of mind."[ ] it is unchangeable; as long as men are men it remains the same.[ ] "that will most contribute to it which expands the understanding, supplies incitements to virtue, fills us with a generous consciousness of our independence, and carefully removes whatever can impede our exertions."[ ] the general welfare is our supreme law. "duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual, which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit."[ ] "justice is the sum of all moral duty;"[ ] "if there be such a thing, i am bound to do for the general weal everything in my power."[ ] "virtue is a desire to promote the benefit of intelligent beings in general, the quantity of virtue being as the quantity of desire;"[ ] "the last perfection of this feeling consists in that state of mind which bids us rejoice as fully in the good that is done by others, as if it were done by ourselves."[ ] "the truly wise man"[ ] strives only for the welfare of the whole. he is "actuated neither by interest nor ambition, the love of honor nor the love of fame. [he knows no jealousy. he is not disquieted by the comparison of what he has attained with what others have attained, but by the comparison with what ought to be attained.] he has a duty indeed obliging him to seek the good of the whole; but that good is his only object. if that good be effected by another hand, he feels no disappointment. all men are his fellow laborers, but he is the rival of no man."[ ] .--law i. _looking to the general good, godwin rejects law, not only for particular local and temporary conditions, but altogether._ "law is an institution of the most pernicious tendency."[ ] "the institution once begun, can never be brought to a close. no action of any man was ever the same as any other action, had ever the same degree of utility or injury. as new cases occur, the law is perpetually found deficient. it is therefore perpetually necessary to make new laws. the volume in which justice records her prescriptions is for ever increasing, and the world would not contain the books that might be written."[ ] "the consequence of the infinitude of law is its uncertainty. law was made that a plain man might know what he had to expect, and yet the most skilful practitioners differ about the event of my suit."[ ] "a farther consideration is that it is of the nature of prophecy. its task is to describe what will be the actions of mankind, and to dictate decisions respecting them."[ ] "law we sometimes call the wisdom of our ancestors. but this is a strange imposition. it was as frequently the dictate of their passion, of timidity, jealousy, a monopolizing spirit, and a lust of power that knew no bounds. are we not obliged perpetually to revise and remodel this misnamed wisdom of our ancestors? to correct it by a detection of their ignorance, and a censure of their intolerance?"[ ] "legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. reason is [our sole legislator, and her decrees are unchangeable and everywhere the same.]"[ ] "men cannot do more than declare and interpret law; nor can there be an authority so paramount, as to have the prerogative of making that to be law, which abstract and immutable justice had not made to be law previously to that interposition."[ ] to be sure, "it must be admitted that we are imperfect, ignorant, and slaves of appearances."[ ] but "whatever inconveniences may arise from the passions of men, the introduction of fixed laws cannot be the genuine remedy."[ ] "as long as a man is held in the trammels of obedience, and habituated to look to some foreign guidance for the direction of his conduct, his understanding and the vigor of his mind will sleep. do i desire to raise him to the energy of which he is capable? i must teach him to feel himself, to bow to no authority, to examine the principles he entertains, and render to his mind the reason of his conduct."[ ] ii. _the general welfare requires that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law._ "if every shilling of our property, [every hour of our time,] and every faculty of our mind, have received their destination from the principles of unalterable justice,"[ ] that is, of the general good,[ ] then no other decree can any longer control it. "the true principle which ought to be substituted in the room of law, is that of reason exercising an uncontrolled jurisdiction upon the circumstances of the case."[ ] "to this principle no objection can arise on the score of wisdom. it is not to be supposed that there are not men now existing, whose intellectual accomplishments rise to the level of law. but, if men can be found among us whose wisdom is equal to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained, that the truths they have to communicate will be the worse for having no authority, but that which they derive from the reasons that support them."[ ] "the juridical decisions that were made immediately after the abolition of law, would differ little from those during its empire. they would be the decisions of prejudice and habit. but habit, having lost the centre about which it revolved, would diminish in the regularity of its operations. those to whom the arbitration of any question was entrusted would frequently recollect that the whole case was committed to their deliberation, and they could not fail occasionally to examine themselves, respecting the reason of those principles which had hitherto passed uncontroverted. their understandings would grow enlarged, in proportion as they felt the importance of their trust, and the unbounded freedom of their investigation. here then would commence an auspicious order of things, of which no understanding man at present in existence can foretell the result, the dethronement of implicit faith, and the inauguration of unclouded justice."[ ] .--the state i. _since godwin unconditionally rejects law, he necessarily has to reject the state as unconditionally. nay, he regards it as a legal institution peculiarly repugnant to the general welfare._ some base the state on force, others on divine right, others on contract.[ ] but "the hypothesis of force appears to proceed upon the total negation of abstract and immutable justice, affirming every government to be right, that is possessed of power sufficient to enforce its decrees. it puts a violent termination upon all political science, and is calculated for nothing farther than to persuade men, to sit down quietly under their present disadvantages, whatever they may be, and not exert themselves to discover a remedy for the evils they suffer. the second hypothesis is of an equivocal nature. it either coincides with the first, and affirms all existing power to be alike of divine derivation; or it must remain totally useless, till a criterion can be found, to distinguish those governments which are approved by god, from those which cannot lay claim to that sanction."[ ] the third hypothesis would mean that one "should make over to another the control of his conscience and the judging of his duties."[ ] "but we cannot renounce our moral independence; it is a property that we can neither sell nor give away; and consequently no government can derive its authority from an original contract."[ ] "all government corresponds in a certain degree to what the greeks denominated a tyranny. the difference is, that in despotic countries mind is depressed by a uniform usurpation; while in republics it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion."[ ] "by its very nature positive institution has a tendency to suspend the elasticity and progress of mind."[ ] "we should not forget that government is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind."[ ] ii. _the general welfare demands that a social human life based solely on its precepts should take the place of the state._ . men are to live together in society even after the abolition of the state. "a fundamental distinction exists between society and government. men associated at first for the sake of mutual assistance."[ ] it was not till later that restraint appeared in these associations, in consequence of the errors and perverseness of a few. "society and government are different in themselves, and have different origins. society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. society is in every state a blessing; government even in its best state but a necessary evil."[ ] but what is to hold men together in "society without government"?[ ] not a promise,[ ] at any rate. no promise can bind me; for either what i have promised is good, then i must do it even if there had been no promise; or it is bad, then not even the promise can make it my duty.[ ] "the fact that i have committed an error does not oblige me to make myself guilty of a second also."[ ] "suppose i had promised a sum of money for a good and worthy object. in the interval between the promise and its fulfilment a greater and nobler object presents itself to me, and imperiously demands my co-operation. to which shall i give the preference? to the one that deserves it. my promise can make no difference. i must be guided by the value of things, not by an external and alien point of view. but the value of things is not affected by my having taken upon me an obligation."[ ] "common deliberation regarding the general good"[ ] is to hold men together in societies hereafter. this is highly in harmony with the general welfare. "that a nation should exercise undiminished its function of common deliberation, is a step gained, and a step that inevitably leads to an improvement of the character of individuals. that men should agree in the assertion of truth, is no unpleasing evidence of their virtue. lastly, that an individual, however great may be his imaginary elevation, should be obliged to yield his personal pretensions to the sense of the community, at least bears the appearance of a practical confirmation of the great principle, that all private considerations must yield to the general good."[ ] . the societies are to be small, and to have as little intercourse with each other as possible. small territories are everywhere to administer their affairs independently.[ ] "no association of men, so long as they adhered to the principles of reason, could possibly have any interest in extending their territory."[ ] "whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of government, are all of them extremely aggravated by the extensiveness of its jurisdiction, and softened under circumstances of an opposite species. ambition, which may be no less formidable than a pestilence in the former, has no room to unfold itself in the latter. popular commotion is like the waves of the sea, capable where the surface is large of producing the most tragical effects, but mild and innocuous when confined within the circuit of a humble lake. sobriety and equity are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle."[ ]--"the desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighboring states, to surpass them in arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error. power is not happiness. security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble. mankind are brethren. we associate in a particular district or under a particular climate, because association is necessary to our internal tranquillity, or to defend us against the wanton attacks of a common enemy. but the rivalship of nations is a creature of the imagination."[ ] the little independently-administered territories are to have as little to do with each other as possible. "individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited intercourse with each other; but societies of men have no interests to explain and adjust, except so far as error and violence may render explanation necessary. this consideration annihilates at once the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked policy which has hitherto occupied the attention of governments. before this principle officers of the army and the navy, ambassadors and negotiators, and all the train of artifices that has been invented to hold other nations at bay, to penetrate their secrets, to traverse their machinations, to form alliances and counter-alliances, sink into nothing."[ ] . but how are the functions that the state performs at present to be performed in the future societies? "government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community" (which includes the settling of controversies between different districts[ ]), "and the common defence against external invasion."[ ] "the first of these purposes, which alone can have an uninterrupted claim upon us, is sufficiently answered by an association of such an extent as to afford room for the institution of a jury, to decide upon the offences of individuals within the community, and upon the questions and controversies respecting property which may chance to arise."[ ] this jury would decide not according to any system of law, but according to reason.[ ]--"it might be easy indeed for an offender to escape from the limits of so petty a jurisdiction; and it might seem necessary at first that the neighboring parishes or jurisdictions should be governed in a similar manner, or at least should be willing, whatever was their form of government, to co-operate with us in the removal or reformation of an offender whose present habits were alike injurious to us and to them. but there will be no need of any express compact, and still less of any common centre of authority, for this purpose. general justice and mutual interest are found more capable of binding men than signatures and seals."[ ] the second function would present itself to us only from time to time. "however irrational might be the controversy of parish with parish in such a state of society, it would not be the less possible. such emergencies can only be provided against by the concert of several districts, declaring and, if needful, enforcing the dictates of justice."[ ] foreign invasions too would make such a concert necessary, and would to this extent resemble those controversies.[ ] therefore it would be "necessary upon certain occasions to have recourse to national assemblies, or in other words assemblies instituted for the joint purpose of adjusting the differences between district and district, and of consulting respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion."[ ]--but they "ought to be employed as sparingly as the nature of the case will admit."[ ] for, in the first place, the decision is given by the number of votes, and "is determined, at best, by the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less frequently happens, by the most corrupt and dishonorable intentions."[ ] in the second place, as a rule the members are guided in their decisions by all sorts of external reasons, and not solely by the results of their free reflection.[ ] in the third place, they are forced to waste their strength on petty matters, while they cannot possibly let themselves be quietly influenced by argument.[ ] therefore national assemblies should "either never be elected but upon extraordinary emergencies, like the dictator of the ancient romans, or else sit periodically, one day for example in a year, with a power of continuing their sessions within a certain limit. the former is greatly to be preferred."[ ] but what would be the authority of these national assemblies and those juries? mankind is so corrupted by present institutions that at first the issuing of commands, and some degree of coercion, would be necessary; but later it would be sufficient for juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, and for national assemblies to invite their constituencies to co-operate for the common advantage.[ ] "if juries might at length cease to decide and be contented to invite, if force might gradually be withdrawn and reason trusted alone, shall we not one day find that juries themselves, and every other species of public institution, may be laid aside as unnecessary? will not the reasonings of one wise man be as effectual as those of twelve? will not the competence of one individual to instruct his neighbors be a matter of sufficient notoriety, without the formality of an election? will there be many vices to correct and much obstinacy to conquer? this is one of the most memorable stages of human improvement. with what delight must every well-informed friend of mankind look forward to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its substance, and no otherwise to be removed than by its utter annihilation!"[ ] .--property i. _in consequence of his unconditional rejection of law, godwin necessarily has to reject property also without any limitation. nay, property, or, as he expresses himself, "the present system of property,"_[ ]--_that is, the distribution of wealth at present established by law,--appears to him to be a legal institution that is peculiarly injurious to the general welfare._ "the wisdom of law-makers and parliaments has been applied to creating the most wretched and senseless distribution of property, which mocks alike at human nature and at the principles of justice."[ ] the present system of property distributes commodities in the most unequal and most arbitrary way. "on account of the accident of birth, it piles upon a single man enormous wealth. if one who has been a beggar becomes a well-to-do man, we usually know that he has not precisely his honesty or usefulness to thank for this change. it is often hard enough for the most diligent and industrious member of society to preserve his family from starvation."[ ] "and if i receive the reward of my work, they give me a hundred times more food than i can eat, and a hundred times more clothes than i can wear. where is the justice in this? if i am the greatest benefactor of the human race, is that a reason for giving me what i do not need, especially when my superfluity might be of the greatest use to thousands?"[ ] this unequal distribution of commodities is altogether opposed to the general welfare. it hampers intellectual progress. "accumulated property treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares, beside depriving the rich of the most salubrious and effectual motives to activity."[ ] and the rich man can buy with his superfluity "nothing but glitter and envy, nothing but the dismal pleasure of restoring to the poor man as alms that to which reason gives him an undeniable right."[ ] but the unequal distribution of commodities is also a hindrance to moral perfection. in the rich it produces ambition, vanity, and ostentation; in the poor, oppression, servility, and fraud, and, in consequence of these, envy, malice, and revenge.[ ] "the rich man stands forward as the principal object of general esteem and deference. in vain are sobriety, integrity, and industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind and the most ardent benevolence, if their possessor be narrowed in his circumstances. to acquire wealth and to display it, is therefore the universal passion."[ ] "force would have died away as reason and civilization advanced, but accumulated property has fixed its empire."[ ] "the fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute."[ ] ii. _the general welfare demands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ when godwin uses the expression "property" for that portion of commodities which is assigned to an individual by these precepts, he does so only in a transferred sense; only a portion assigned by law can be designated as property in the strict sense. now, according to the decrees of the general welfare, every man should have the means for a good life. . "how is it to be decided whether an object that may be used for the benefit of man shall be my property or yours? there is only one answer; according to justice."[ ] "the laws of different countries dispose of property in a thousand different ways; but only one of them can be most consonant with justice."[ ] justice demands in the first place that every man have the means for life. "our animal needs, it is well known, consist in food, clothing, and shelter. if justice means anything, nothing can be more unjust than that any man lacks these and at the same time another has too much of them. but justice does not stop here. so far as the general stock of commodities holds out, every one has a claim not only to the means for life, but to the means for a good life. it is unjust that a man works to the point of destroying his health or his life, while another riots in superfluity. it is unjust that a man has not leisure to cultivate his mind, while another does not move a finger for the general welfare."[ ] . such a "state of equality"[ ] would advance the general welfare in the highest degree. in it labor would become "so light, as rather to assume the appearance of agreeable relaxation, and gentle exercise."[ ] "every man would have a frugal, yet wholesome diet; every man would go forth to that moderate exercise of his corporal functions that would give hilarity to the spirits; none would be made torpid with fatigue, but all would have leisure to cultivate the kindly and philanthropical affections, and to let loose his faculties in the search of intellectual improvement."[ ] "how rapid would be the advances of intellect, if all men were admitted into the field of knowledge! it is to be presumed that the inequality of mind would in a certain degree be permanent; but it is reasonable to believe that the geniuses of such an age would far surpass the greatest exertions of intellect that are at present known."[ ] and the moral progress would be as great as the intellectual. the vices which are inseparably joined to the present system of property "would inevitably expire in a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all shared alike the bounties of nature. the narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. no man being obliged to guard his little store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. no man would be an enemy to his neighbor, for they would have no subject of contention; and of consequence philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her."[ ] . but how could such a distribution of commodities be effected in a particular case? "as soon as law was abolished, men would begin to inquire after equity. in this situation let us suppose a litigated succession brought before them, to which there were five heirs, and that the sentence of their old legislation had directed the division of this property into five equal shares. they would begin to inquire into the wants and situation of the claimants. the first we will suppose to have a fair character and be prosperous in the world: he is a respectable member of society, but farther wealth would add little either to his usefulness or his enjoyments. the second is a miserable object, perishing with want, and overwhelmed with calamity. the third, though poor, is yet tranquil; but there is a situation to which his virtue leads him to aspire and in which he may be of uncommon service, but which he cannot with propriety accept, without a capital equal to two-fifths of the whole succession. one of the claimants is an unmarried woman past the age of child-bearing. another is a widow, unprovided, and with a numerous family depending on her succor. the first question that would suggest itself to unprejudiced persons having the allotment of this succession referred to their unlimited decision, would be, what justice is there in the indiscriminate partition which has hitherto prevailed?"[ ] and their answer could not be doubtful. .--realization. _the change which is called for by the general welfare should, according to godwin, be effected by those who have recognized the truth persuading others how necessary the change is for the general welfare, so that law, the state, and property would spontaneously disappear and the new condition would take their place._ i. the sole requirement is to convince men that the general welfare demands the change. . every other way is to be rejected. "our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides. therefore we should regard all force with aversion. when we enter the lists of battle, we quit the sure domain of truth and leave the decision to the caprice of chance. the phalanx of reason is invulnerable; it moves forward with calm, sure step, and nothing can withstand it. but, when we lay aside arguments, and have recourse to the sword, the case is altered. amidst the clamorous din of civil war, who shall tell whether the event will be prosperous or adverse? we must therefore distinguish carefully between instructing the people and exciting them. we must refuse indignation, rage, and passion, and desire only sober reflection, clear judgment, and fearless discussion."[ ] . the point is to convince men as generally as possible. only when this is accomplished can acts of violence be avoided. "why did the revolution in france and america find all sorts and conditions of men almost unanimous, while the resistance to charles the first divided our nation into two equal parties? because the latter occurred in the seventeenth century, the former at the end of the eighteenth. because at the time of the revolutions in france and america philosophy had already developed some of the great truths of political science, and under the influence of sydney and locke, of montesquieu and rousseau, a number of strong and thoughtful minds had perceived what an evil force is. if these revolutions had taken place still later, not a drop of civic blood would have been shed by civic hands, not in a single case would force have been used against persons or things."[ ] . the means to convince men as generally as possible of the necessity of a change consist in "proof and persuasion. the best warrant of a happy outcome lies in free, unrestricted discussion. in this arena truth must always be victor. if, therefore, we would improve the social institutions of mankind, we must seek to convince by spoken and written words. this activity has no limits; this endeavor admits of no interruption. every means must be used, not so much to draw men's attention and bring them over to our opinion by persuasion, as rather to remove every barrier to thought and to open to everybody the temple of science and the field of study."[ ] "therefore the man who has at heart the regeneration of his species should always bear in mind two principles, to regard hourly progress in the discovery and dissemination of truth as essential, and calmly to let years pass before he urges the carrying into effect of his teaching. with all his prudence, it may be that the boisterous multitude will hurry ahead of the calm, quiet progress of reason; then he will not condemn the revolution that takes place some years before the time set by wisdom. but if he is ruled by strict prudence he can without doubt frustrate many over-hasty attempts, and considerably prolong the general quietness."[ ] "this does not mean, as one might think, that the changing of our conditions lies at an immeasurable distance. it is the nature of human affairs that great alterations take place suddenly, and great discoveries are made unexpectedly, as it were accidentally. when i cultivate a young person's mind, when i exert myself to influence that of an older person, it will long seem as if i had accomplished little, and the fruits will show themselves when i least expect them. the kingdom of truth comes quietly. the seed of virtue may spring up when it was fancied to be lost."[ ] "if the true philanthropist but tirelessly proclaims the truth and vigilantly opposes all that hinders its progress, he may look forward, with heart at rest, to a speedy and favorable outcome."[ ] ii. as soon as the conviction that the general welfare demands a change in our condition has made itself generally felt, law, the state, and property will disappear spontaneously and give way to the new condition. "reform, under this meaning of the term, can scarcely be considered as of the nature of action. [it is a general enlightenment.] men feel their situation; and the restraints that shackled them before, vanish like a deception. when such a crisis has arrived, not a sword will need to be drawn, not a finger to be lifted up in purposes of violence. the adversaries will be too few and too feeble, to be able to entertain a serious thought of resistance against the universal sense of mankind."[ ] in what way may the change of our conditions take place? . "the opinion most popular in france at the time that the national convention entered upon its functions, was that the business of the convention extended only to the presenting a draft of a constitution, to be submitted in the sequel to the approbation of the districts, and then only to be considered as law."[ ] "the first idea that suggests itself respecting this opinion is, that, if constitutional laws ought to be subjected to the revision of the districts, then all laws ought to undergo the same process. [but if the approbation of the districts to any declarations is not to be delusive, the discussion of these declarations in the districts must be unlimited. then] a transaction will be begun to which it is not easy to foresee a termination. some districts will object to certain articles; and, if these articles be modeled to obtain their approbation, it is possible that the very alteration introduced to please one part of the community may render the code less acceptable to another."[ ] "this principle of a consent of districts has an immediate tendency, by a salutary gradation perhaps, to lead to the dissolution of all government."[ ] it is indeed "desirable that the most important acts of the national representatives should be subject to the approbation or rejection of the districts whose representatives they are, for exactly the same reason as it is desirable that the acts of the districts themselves should, as speedily as practicability will admit, be in force only so far as relates to the individuals by whom those acts are approved."[ ] . this system would have the effect, first, that the constitution would be very short. the impracticability of obtaining the free approbation of a great number of districts to an extensive code would speedily manifest itself; and the whole constitution might consist of a scheme for the division of the country into parts equal in their population, and the fixing of stated periods for the election of a national assembly, not to say that the latter of these articles may very probably be dispensed with.[ ] a second effect would be, that it would soon be found a proceeding unnecessarily circuitous to send laws to the districts for their revision, unless in cases essential to the general safety, and that in as many instances as possible the districts would be suffered to make laws for themselves. "thus, that which was at first a great empire with legislative unity would speedily be transformed into a confederacy of lesser republics, with a general congress or amphictyonic council, answering the purpose of a point of co-operation upon extraordinary occasions."[ ] a third effect would consist in the gradual cessation of legislation. "a great assembly collected from the different provinces of an extensive territory, and constituted the sole legislator of those by whom the territory is inhabited, immediately conjures up to itself an idea of the vast multitude of laws that are necessary. a large city, impelled by the principles of commercial jealousy, is not slow to digest the volume of its by-laws and exclusive privileges. but the inhabitants of a small parish, living with some degree of that simplicity which best corresponds with nature, would soon be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary, and would adjudge the causes that came before them, not according to certain axioms previously written, but according to the circumstances and demands of each particular cause."[ ] a fourth effect would be that the abrogation of property would be favored. "all equalization of rank and station strongly tends toward an equalization of possessions."[ ] so not only the lower orders, but also the higher, would see the injustice of the present distribution of property.[ ] "the rich and great are far from callous to views of general felicity, when such views are brought before them with that evidence and attraction of which they are susceptible."[ ] but even so far as they might think only of their own emolument and ease, it would not be difficult to show them that it is in vain to fight against truth, and dangerous to bring upon themselves the hatred of the people, and that it might be to their own interest to make up their minds to concessions at least.[ ] footnotes: [ ] godwin pp. ix-x [ . vi-vii]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , - ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ?]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ? ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ; bracketed words omitted in ed. ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. - [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ; credited to paine's "common sense," p. ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ? ?]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ; but see _per contra_ p. ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . . obviously eltzbacher has misunderstood this passage. his german translation shows that he mistook "interests" for "interest" in the sense of "incentive." note also that godwin expressly restricts the application of this paragraph, even in its right sense, on pp. , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , , - [ . , - ] [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - , - [ . , ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , --but the words "in the poor" seem to be added out of eltzbacher's head]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . - .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin p. [ , , only the two sentences beginning at "but"]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ; bracketed words a paraphrase]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [cf. . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. chapter iv proudhon's teaching .--general . pierre-joseph proudhon was born at besançon in . at first he followed the occupation of a printer there and in other cities. in a stipend of the academy of besançon enabled him to go to paris for scientific studies. in he took a mercantile position at lyons. in he gave it up and moved to paris. here, in the years from to , proudhon published several periodicals, one after the other. in he became a member of the national assembly. in he founded a people's bank. soon after this he was condemned to three years' imprisonment for an offence against the press laws, and served his time without having to interrupt his activity as an author. in proudhon was released from prison. he remained in paris till, in , he was again condemned to three years' imprisonment for an offence against the press laws. he fled and settled in brussels. in he was pardoned, and returned to france. thenceforth he lived at passy. he died there in . proudhon published many books and other writings, especially in the fields of jurisprudence, political economy, and politics. . of special importance for proudhon's teaching about law, the state, and property are, among the writings before , the book "_qu'est-ce que la propriété? ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement_" ( ) and the two-volume work "_système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère_" ( ); among the writings from to the "_confessions d'un révolutionnaire_" ( ) and the "_idée générale de la révolution au xixe siècle_" ( ); and lastly, among the writings after , the three-volume work "_de la justice dans la révolution et dans l'eglise, nouveaux principes de philosophie pratique_" ( ) and the book "_du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution_" ( ).[ ] proudhon's teaching regarding law, the state, and property underwent changes in minor points, but remained the same in its essentials; the opinion that it changed also in essentials is caused by proudhon's arbitrary and varying use of language. since no history of the evolution of proudhon's teaching can be given here, i shall present, so far as concerns such minor points, only the teaching of - , in which years proudhon developed his views with especial clearness and did especially forcible work for them. . proudhon calls his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." "'what form of government shall we prefer?' 'can you ask?' replies one of my younger readers without doubt; 'you are a republican.' 'republican, yes; but this word makes nothing definite. _res publica_ is "the public thing"; now, whoever wants the public thing, under whatever form of government, may call himself a republican. even kings are republicans.' 'well, you are a democrat.' 'no.' 'what? can you be a monarchist?' 'no.' 'a constitutionalist?' 'i should hope not.' 'you are an aristocrat then?' 'not a bit.' 'you want a mixed government, then?' 'still less.' 'what are you then?' 'i am an anarchist.'"[ ] .--basis _according to proudhon the supreme law for us is justice._ what is justice? "justice is respect, spontaneously felt and mutually guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person and under whatever circumstances we find it compromised, and to whatever risk its defence may expose us."[ ] "i ought to respect my neighbor, and make others respect him, as myself; such is the law of my conscience. in consideration of what do i owe him this respect? in consideration of his strength, his talent, his wealth? no, what chance gives is not what makes the human person worthy of respect. in consideration of the respect which he in turn pays to me? no, justice assumes reciprocity of respect, but does not wait for it. it asserts and wills respect for human dignity even in an enemy, which causes the existence of _laws of war_; even in the murderer whom we kill as having fallen from his manhood, which causes the existence of _penal laws_. it is not the gifts of nature or the advantages of fortune that make me respect my neighbor; it is not his ox, his ass, or his maid-servant, as the decalogue says; it is not even the welfare that he owes to me as i owe mine to him; it is his manhood."[ ] "justice is at once a reality and an idea."[ ] "justice is a faculty of the soul, the foremost of all, that which constitutes a social being. but it is more than a faculty; it is an idea, it indicates a relation, an equation. as a faculty it may be developed; this development is what constitutes the education of humanity. as an equation it presents nothing antinomic; it is absolute and immutable like every law, and, like every law, very intelligible."[ ] justice is for us the supreme law. "justice is the inviolable yardstick of all human actions."[ ] "by it the facts of social life, by nature indeterminate and contradictory, become susceptible of definition and arrangement."[ ] "justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole about which the political world revolves, the principle and rule of all transactions. nothing is done among men that is not in the name of _right_; nothing without invoking justice. justice is not the work of the law; on the contrary, the law is never anything but a declaration and application of what is _just_."[ ] "suppose a society where justice is outranked, however little, by another principle, say religion; or in which certain individuals are regarded more highly, by however little, than others; i say that, justice being virtually annulled, it is inevitable that the society will perish sooner or later.[ ] "it is the privilege of justice that the faith which it inspires is unshakable, and that it cannot be dogmatically denied or rejected. all peoples invoke it; reasons of state, even while they violate it, profess to be based on it; religion exists only for it; skepticism dissembles before it; irony has power only in its name; crime and hypocrisy do it homage. [if liberty is not an empty phrase, it acts only in the service of right; even when it rebels against right, at bottom it does not curse it.]"[ ] "all the most rational teachings of human wisdom about justice are summed up in this famous adage: _do to others what you would have done to you; do not to others what you would not have done to you._"[ ] .--law i. _in the name of justice proudhon rejects, not law indeed, but almost all individual legal norms, and the state laws in particular._ the state makes laws, and "as many laws as the interests which it meets with; and, since interests are innumerable, the legislation-machine must work uninterruptedly. laws and ordinances fall like hail on the poor populace. after a while the political soil will be covered with a layer of paper, and all the geologists will have to do will be to list it, under the name of _papyraceous formation_, among the epochs of the earth's history. the convention, in three years one month and four days, issued eleven thousand six hundred laws and decrees; the constituent and legislative assemblies had produced hardly less; the empire and the later governments have wrought as industriously. at present the '_bulletin des lois_' contains, they say, more than fifty thousand; if our representatives did their duty this enormous figure would soon be doubled. do you believe that the populace, or the government itself, can keep its sanity in this labyrinth?"[ ] "but what am i saying? laws for him who thinks for himself, and is responsible only for his own acts! laws for him who would be free, and feels himself destined to become free! i am ready to make terms, but i will have no laws; i acknowledge none; i protest against every order which an ostensibly necessary authority shall please to impose on my free will. laws! we know what they are and what they are worth. cobwebs for the powerful and the rich, chains which no steel can break for the little and the poor, fishers' nets in the hands of the government."[ ] "you say they shall make _few_ laws, make them _simple_, make them _good_. but it is impossible. must not government adjust all interests, decide all disputes? now interests are by the nature of society innumerable, relationships infinitely variable and mobile; how is it possible that only a few laws should be made? how can they be simple? how can the best law escape soon being detestable?"[ ] ii. _justice requires that only one legal norm be in force: to wit, the norm that contracts must be lived up to._ "what do we mean by a _contract_? a contract, says the civil code, art. , is an agreement whereby one or more persons bind themselves to one or more others to do or not to do something."[ ] "that i may remain free, that i may be subjected to no law but my own, and that i may govern myself, the edifice of society must be rebuilt upon the idea of contract."[ ] "we must start with the idea of contract as the dominant idea of politics."[ ] this norm, that contracts must be lived up to, is to be based not only on its justice, but at the same time on the fact that among men who live together there prevails a will to enforce the keeping of contracts, if necessary, with violence;[ ] so it is to be not only a commandment of morality, but also a legal norm. "several of your fellow-men have agreed to treat each other with good faith and fair play,--that is, to respect those rules of action which the nature of things points out to them as being alone capable of assuring to them, in the fullest measure, prosperity, safety, and peace. are you willing to join their league? to form a part of their society? do you promise to respect the honor, the liberty, the goods, of your brothers? do you promise never to appropriate to yourself, neither by violence, by fraud, by usury, nor by speculation, another's product or possession? do you promise never to lie and deceive, neither in court, in trade, nor in any of your dealings? you are free to accept or to refuse. "if you refuse, you form a part of the society of savages. having left the fellowship of the human race, you come under suspicion. nothing protects you. at the least insult anybody you meet may knock you down, without incurring any other charge than that of cruelty to animals. "if you swear to the league, on the contrary, you form a part of the society of free men. all your brothers enter into an engagement with you, promising you fidelity, friendship, help, service, commerce. in case of infraction on their part or on yours, through negligence, hot blood, or evil intent, you are responsible to one another, for the damage and also for the scandal and insecurity which you have caused; this responsibility may extend, according to the seriousness of the perjury or the repetition of the crime, as far as to excommunication and death."[ ] .--the state i. since proudhon approves only the single legal norm that contracts must be lived up to, he can sanction only a single legal relation, that of parties to a contract. hence he must necessarily reject the state; for it is established by particular legal norms, and, as an involuntary legal relation, it binds even those who have not entered into any contract at all. _proudhon does accordingly reject the state absolutely, without any spatial or temporal limitation; he even regards it as a legal relation which offends against justice to an unusual degree._ "the government of man by man is slavery."[ ] "whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant; i declare him my enemy."[ ] "in a given society the authority of man over man is in inverse ratio to the intellectual development which this society has attained, and the probable duration of this authority may be calculated from the more or less general desire for a true--that is, a scientific--government."[ ] "royalty is never legitimate. neither heredity, election, universal suffrage, the excellence of the sovereign, nor the consecration of religion and time, makes royalty legitimate. in whatever form it may appear, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic,--royalty, or the government of man by man, is illegal and absurd."[ ] democracy in particular "is nothing but a constitutional arbitrary power succeeding another constitutional arbitrary power; it has no scientific value, and we must see in it only a preparation for the republic, one and indivisible."[ ] "authority was no sooner begun on earth than it became the object of universal competition. authority, government, power, state,--these words all denote the same thing,--each man sees in it the means of oppressing and exploiting his fellows. absolutists, doctrinaires, demagogues, and socialists, turned their eyes incessantly to authority as their sole cynosure."[ ] "all parties without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism; and there will be no liberty for citizens, no order for societies, no union among workingmen, till in the political catechism the renunciation of authority shall have replaced faith in authority. _no more parties, no more authority, absolute liberty of man and citizen_,--there, in three words, is my political and social confession of faith."[ ] ii. _justice demands, in place of the state, a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ proudhon calls this social life "anarchy"[ ] and later "federation"[ ] also. . after the abrogation of the state, men are still to live together in society. as early as proudhon says that the point is "to discover a system of absolute equality, in which all present institutions, minus property or the sum of the abuses of property, might not only find a place, but be themselves means to equality; individual liberty, the division of powers, the cabinet, the jury, the administrative and judiciary organization."[ ] but men are not to be kept together in society by any supreme authority, but only by the legally binding force of contract. "when i bargain for any object with one or more of my fellow-citizens, it is clear that then my will alone is my law; it is i myself who, in fulfilling my obligation, am my government. if then i could make that contract with all, which i do make with some; if all could renew it with each other; if every group of citizens, commune, canton, department, corporation, company, etc., formed by such a contract and considered as a moral person, could then, always on the same terms, treat with each of the other groups and with all, it would be exactly as if my will was repeated _ad infinitum_. i should be sure that the law thus made on all points that concern the republic, on the various motions of millions of persons, would never be anything but my law; and, if this new order of things was called government, that this government would be mine. the _régime of contracts_, substituted for the _régime of laws_, would constitute the true government of man and of the citizen, the true sovereignty of the people, the republic."[ ] "the republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the people, by the very divergence of opinions and of wills, thinks and acts as a single man. in the republic every citizen, in doing what he wishes and nothing but what he wishes, participates directly in legislation and government, just as he participates in the production and circulation of wealth. there every citizen is king; for he has plenary power, he reigns and governs. the republic is a positive anarchy. it is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the constitutional monarchy, nor liberty imprisoned in order, as the provisional government would have it. it is liberty delivered from all its hobbles, superstition, prejudice, sophism, speculation, authority; it is mutual liberty, not self-limiting liberty; liberty, not the daughter but the mother of order."[ ] . anarchy may easily seem to us "the acme of disorder and the expression of chaos. they say that when a parisian burgher of the seventeenth century once heard that in venice there was no king, the good man could not get over his astonishment, and thought he should die of laughing. such is our prejudice."[ ] as against this, proudhon draws a picture of how men's life in society under anarchy might perhaps shape itself in detail, to execute the functions now belonging to the state. he begins with an example. "for many centuries the spiritual power has been separated, within traditional limits, from the temporal power. [but there has never been a complete separation, and therefore, to the great detriment of the church's authority and of believers, centralization has never been sufficient.] there would be a complete separation if the temporal power not only did not concern itself with the celebration of mysteries, the administration of sacraments, the government of parishes, etc., but did not intervene in the nomination of bishops either. there would ensue a greater centralization, and consequently a more regular government, if in each parish the people had the right to choose for themselves their vicars and curates, or to have none at all; if in each diocese the priests elected their bishop; if the assembly of bishops, or a primate of the gauls, had sole charge of the regulation of religious affairs, theological instruction, and worship. by this separation the clergy would cease to be, in the hands of political power, an instrument of tyranny over the people; and by this application of universal suffrage the ecclesiastical government, centralized in itself, receiving its inspirations from the people and not from the government or the pope, would be in constant harmony with the needs of society and with the moral and intellectual condition of the citizens. we must, then, in order to return to truth, organic, political, economic, or social (for here all these are one), first, abolish the constitutional cumulation by taking from the state the nomination of the bishops, and definitively separating the spiritual from the temporal; second, centralize the church in itself by a system of graded elections; third, give to the ecclesiastical power, as we do to all the other powers in the state, the vote of the citizens as a basis. by this system what to-day is government will no longer be anything but _administration_; all france is centralized, so far as concerns ecclesiastical functions; the country, by the mere fact of its electoral initiative, governs itself in matters of eternal life as well as in those of this world. and one may already see that if it were possible to organize the entire country in temporal matters on the same bases, the most perfect order and the most vigorous centralization would exist without there being anything of what we to-day call constituted authority or government."[ ] proudhon gives a second example in judicial authority. "the judicial functions, by their different specialties, their hierarchy, [their permanent tenure of office,] their convergence under a single departmental head, show an unequivocal tendency to separation and centralization. but they are in no way dependent on those who are under their jurisdiction; they are all at the disposal of the executive power, which is appointed by the people once in four years with authority that cannot be diminished; they are subordinated not to the country by election, but to the government, president or prince, by appointment. it follows that those who are under the jurisdiction of a court are given over to their 'natural' judges just as are parishioners to their vicars; that the people belong to the magistrate like an inheritance; that the litigant is the judge's, not the judge the litigant's. apply universal suffrage and graded election to the judicial as well as the ecclesiastical functions; suppress the permanent tenure of office, which is an alienation of the electoral right; take away from the state all action, all influence, on the judicial body; let this body, separately centralized in itself, no longer depend on any but the people,--and, in the first place, you will have deprived power of its mightiest instrument of tyranny; you will have made justice a principle of liberty as well as of order. and, unless you suppose that the people, from whom all powers should spring by universal suffrage, is in contradiction with itself,--that what it wants in religion it does not want in justice,--you are assured that the separation of powers can beget no conflict; you may boldly lay it down as a principle that _separation_ and _equilibrium_ are henceforth synonymous."[ ] then proudhon goes on to the army, the customhouses, the public departments of agriculture and commerce, public works, public education, and finance; for each of these administrations he demands independence and centralization on the basis of general suffrage.[ ] "that a nation may manifest itself in its unity, it must be centralized in its religion, centralized in its justice, centralized in its army, centralized in its agriculture, industry, and commerce, centralized in its finances,--in a word, centralized in all its functions and faculties; the centralization must work from the bottom to the top, from the circumference to the centre; all the functions must be independent and severally self-governing. "would you then make this invisible unity perceptible by a special organ, preserve the image of the old government? group these different administrations by their heads; you have your cabinet, your _executive_, which can then very well do without a council of state. "set up above all this a grand jury, legislature, or national assembly, appointed directly by the whole country, and charged not with appointing the cabinet officers,--they have their investiture from their particular constituents,--but with auditing the accounts, making the laws, settling the budget, deciding controversies between the administrations, all after having heard the reports of the public department, or department of the interior, to which the whole government will thenceforth be reduced; and you will have a centralization the stronger the more you multiply its foci, a responsibility the more real the more clear-cut is the separation between the powers; you have a constitution at once political and social."[ ] .--property i. since proudhon sanctions only the one legal norm that contracts must be kept, he can approve only one legal relation, that between contracting parties. hence he must necessarily reject property as well as the state, since it is established by particular legal norms, and, as an involuntary legal relation, binds even such as have in no way entered into a contract. _and he does reject property[ ] absolutely, without any spatial or temporal limitation; nay, it even appears to him to be a legal relation which is particularly repugnant to justice._ "according to its definition, property is the right of using and abusing; that is to say, it is the absolute, irresponsible domain of man over his person and his goods. if property ceased to be the right to abuse, it would cease to be property. has not the proprietor the right to give his goods to whomever he will, to let his neighbor burn without crying fire, to oppose the public good, to squander his patrimony, to exploit the laborer and hold him to ransom, to produce bad goods and sell them badly? can he be judicially constrained to use his property well? can he be disturbed in the abuse of it? what am i saying? is not property, precisely because it is full of abuse, the most sacred thing in the world for the legislator? can one conceive of a property whose use the police power should determine, whose abuse it should repress? is it not clear, in fine, that if one undertook to introduce justice into property, one would destroy property, just as the law, by introducing propriety into concubinage, destroyed concubinage?"[ ] "men steal: first, by violence on the highway; second, alone or in a band; third, by burglary; fourth, by embezzlement; fifth, by fraudulent bankruptcy; sixth, by forgery; seventh, by counterfeiting. eighth, by pocket-picking; ninth, by swindling; tenth, by breach of trust; eleventh, by gambling and lotteries.--twelfth, by usury. thirteenth, by rent-taking.--fourteenth, by commerce, when the profits are more than fair wages for the trader's work.--fifteenth, by selling one's own product at a profit, and by accepting a sinecure or a fat salary."[ ] "in theft such as the laws forbid, force and fraud are employed alone and openly; in authorized theft they are disguised under a produced utility, which they use as a device for plundering their victim. the direct use of violence and force was early and unanimously rejected; no nation has yet reached the point of delivering itself from theft when united with talent, labor, and possession."[ ] in this sense property is "theft,"[ ] "the exploitation of the weak by the strong,"[ ] "contrary to right,"[ ] "the suicide of society."[ ] ii. _justice demands, in place of property, a distribution of goods based on the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ proudhon calls that portion of goods which is assigned to the individual by contract, "property." in he had demanded that individual possession be substituted for property; with this one change evil would disappear from the earth.[ ] but in he is already explaining that by property he means only its abuses;[ ] nay, he even then describes as necessary the creation of an immediately applicable social system in which the rights of barter and sale, of direct and collateral inheritance, of primogeniture and bequest, should find their place.[ ] in he says, "some day transformed property will be an idea positive, complete, social, and true; a property which will abolish the old property and will become equally effective and beneficent for all."[ ] in he is declaring that "property, as to its principle or substance, which is human personality, must never perish; it must remain in man's heart as a perpetual stimulus to labor, as the antagonist whose absence would cause labor to fall into idleness and death."[ ] and in he announces: "what i sought for as far back as , in defining property, what i am wanting now, is not a destruction; i have said it till i am tired. that would have been to fall with rousseau, plato, louis blanc himself, and all the adversaries of property, into _communism_, against which i protest with all my might; what i ask for property is a balance,"[ ]--that is, "justice."[ ] in all these pronouncements property means nothing else than that portion of goods which falls to the individual on the basis of contracts, on which society is to be built up.[ ] the property which proudhon sanctions cannot be a special legal relation, but only a possible part of the substance of the one legal relation which he approves, the relation of contract. it can afford no protection against a group of men whose extent is determined by legal norms, but only against a group of men who have mutually secured a certain portion of goods to each other by contract. proudhon, therefore, is here using the word "property" in an inexact sense; in the strict sense it can denote only a portion of goods set apart in an involuntary legal relation by particular legal norms. accordingly, when in the name of justice proudhon demands a certain distribution of property, this means nothing more than that the contracts on which society is to be built should make a certain sort of provision with respect to the distribution of goods. and the way in which they should determine it is this: that every man is to have the product of his labor. "let us conceive of wealth as a mass whose elements are held together permanently by a chemical force, and into which new elements incessantly enter and combine in different proportions, but according to a definite law: value is the proportion (the measure) in which each of these elements forms a part of the whole."[ ] "i suppose, therefore, a force which combines the elements of wealth in definite proportions and makes of them a homogeneous whole."[ ] "this force is labor. it is labor, labor alone, that produces all the elements of wealth and combines them, to the last molecule, according to a variable but definite law of proportionality."[ ] "every product is a representative sign of labor."[ ] "every product can consequently be exchanged for another."[ ] "if then the tailor, in return for furnishing the value of one day of his work, consumes ten times the weaver's day, it is as if the weaver gave ten days of his life for one day of the tailor's. this is precisely what occurs when a peasant pays a lawyer twelve francs for a document that it costs one hour to draw up; and this inequality, this iniquity in exchange, is the mightiest cause of poverty. every error in commutative justice is an immolation of the laborer, a transfusion of a man's blood into another man's body."[ ] "what i demand with respect to property is a balance. it is not for nothing that the genius of nations has equipped justice with this instrument of precision. justice applied to economy is in fact nothing but a perpetual balance; or, to express myself still more precisely, justice as regards the distribution of goods is nothing but the obligation which rests upon every citizen and every state, in their business relations, to conform to that law of equilibrium which manifests itself everywhere in economy, and whose violation, accidental or voluntary, is the fundamental principle of poverty."[ ] . that every man should enjoy the product of his labor is possible only through reciprocity, according to proudhon; therefore he calls his doctrine "the theory of _mutuality_ or of the _mutuum_."[ ] "reciprocity is expressed in the precept, 'do to others what you would have done to you,' a precept which political economy has translated into its celebrated formula, 'products exchange for products.' now the evil which is devouring us results from the fact that the law of reciprocity is unrecognized, violated. the remedy consists altogether in the promulgation of this law. the organization of our mutual and reciprocal relations is the whole of social science."[ ] and so proudhon, in the solemn declaration which he prefixed to the constitution of the people's bank when he first published it, gives the following assurance: "i protest that in criticising property, or rather the whole body of institutions of which property is the pivot, i never meant either to attack the individual rights recognized by previous laws, or to dispute the legitimacy of acquired possessions, or to instigate an arbitrary distribution of goods, or to put an obstacle in the way of the free and regular acquisition of properties by bargain and sale; or even to prohibit or suppress by sovereign decree land-rent and interest on capital. i think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and optional for all; i would admit no other modifications, restrictions, or suppressions of them than naturally and necessarily result from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity and of the law of synthesis which i propound. this is my last will and testament. i allow only him to suspect its sincerity, who could tell a lie in the moment of death."[ ] .--realization _the change which justice calls for is to come about in this way, that those men who have recognized the truth are to convince others how necessary the change is for the sake of justice, and that hereby, spontaneously, law is to transform itself, the state and property to drop away, and the new condition to appear._ the new condition will appear "as soon as the idea is popularized";[ ] that it may appear, we must "popularize the idea."[ ] i. nothing is requisite but to convince men that justice commands the change. . proudhon rejects all other methods. his doctrine is "in accord with the constitution and the laws."[ ] "accomplish the revolution, they say, and after this everything will be cleared up. as if the revolution itself could be accomplished without a leading idea!"[ ] "to secure justice to one's self by bloodshed is an extremity to which the californians, gathered since yesterday to seek for gold, may be reduced; but may the luck of france preserve us from it!"[ ] "despite the violence which we witness, i do not believe that hereafter liberty will need to use force to claim its rights and avenge its wrongs. reason will serve us better; and patience, like the revolution, is invincible."[ ] . but how shall we convince men, "how popularize the idea, if the _bourgeoisie_ remains hostile; if the populace, brutalized by servitude, full of prejudices and bad instincts, remains plunged in indifference; if the professors, the academicians, the press, are calumniating you; if the courts are truculent; if the powers that be muffle your voice? don't worry. just as the lack of ideas makes one lose the most promising games, war against ideas can only push forward the revolution. do you not see already that the _régime_ of authority, of inequality, of predestination, of eternal salvation, and of reasons of state, is daily becoming still more intolerable for the well-to-do classes, whose conscience and reason it tortures, than for the mass, whose stomach cries out against it?"[ ] . the most effective means for convincing men, according to proudhon, is to present to the people, within the state and without violating its law, "an example of centralization spontaneous, independent, and social," thus applying even now the principles of the future constitution of society.[ ] "rouse that collective action without which the condition of the people will forever be unhappy and its efforts powerless. teach it to produce wealth and order with its own hands, without the help of the authorities."[ ] proudhon sought to give such an example by the founding of the people's bank.[ ] the people's bank was to "insure work and prosperity to all producers by organizing them as beginning and end of production with regard to one another,--that is, as capitalists and as consumers."[ ] "the people's bank was to be the property of all the citizens who accepted its services, who for this purpose furnished money to it if they thought that it could not yet for some time do without a metallic basis, and who, in every case, promised it their preference in discounting paper, and received its notes as cash. accordingly the people's bank, working for the profit of its customers themselves, had no occasion to take interest for its loans nor to charge a discount on commercial paper; it had only to take a very slight allowance to cover salaries and expenses. so credit was gratuitous!--the principle being realized, the consequences unfolded themselves ad _infinitum_."[ ] "so the people's bank, giving an example of popular initiative alike in government and in public economy, which thenceforth were to be identified in a single synthesis, was becoming for the _prolétariat_ at once the principle and the instrument of their emancipation; it was creating political and industrial liberty. and, as every philosophy and every religion is the metaphysical or symbolic expression of social economy, the people's bank, changing the material basis of society, was ushering in the revolution of philosophy and religion; it was thus, at least, that its founders had conceived of it."[ ] all this can best be made clear by reproducing some provisions from the constitution of the people's bank. art. . by these presents a commercial company is founded under the name of _société de la banque du peuple_, consisting of citizen proudhon, here present, and the persons who shall give their assent to this constitution by becoming stockholders. art. .... for the present the company will exist as a partnership in which citizen proudhon shall be general partner, and the other parties concerned shall be limited partners who shall in no case be responsible for more than the value of their shares. art. .... the firm name shall be p. j. proudhon & co. art. . besides the members of the company proper, every citizen is invited to form a part of the people's bank as a co-operator. for this it suffices to assent to the bank's constitution and to accept its paper. art. . the people's bank company being capable of indefinite extension, its virtual duration is endless. however, to conform to the requirements of the law, it fixes its duration at ninety-nine years, which shall commence on the day of its definitive organization. art. .... the people's bank, having as its _basis_ the essential gratuitousness of credit and exchange, as its _object_ the circulation, not the production, of values, and as its _means_ the mutual consent of producers and consumers, can and should work without capital. this end will be reached when the entire mass of producers and consumers shall have assented to the constitution of the company. till then the people's bank company, having to conform to established custom and the requirements of law, and especially in order more effectively to invite citizens to join it, will provide itself with capital. art. . the capital of the people's bank shall be five million francs, divided into shares of five francs each. ... the company shall be definitively organized, and its business shall begin, when ten thousand shares are taken. art. . stock shall be issued only at par. it shall bear no interest. art. . the principal businesses of the people's bank are, , to increase its cash on hand by issuing notes; , discounting endorsed commercial paper; , discounting accepted orders (_commandes_) and bills (_factures_); , loans on personal property; , loans on personal security; , advances on annuities and collateral security; , payments and collections; , advances to productive and industrial enterprises (_la commande_). to these departments the people's bank will add: , the functions of a savings bank and endowment insurance; , insurance; , safe deposit vaults; , the service of the budget.[ ] art. . in distinction from ordinary bank notes, payable in _specie_ to some one's _order_, the paper of the people's bank is an order for goods, vested with a social character, rendered perpetual, and is payable at sight by every stockholder and co-operator in the _products_ or _services_ of his industry or profession. art. . every co-operator agrees to trade by preference, for all goods which the company can offer him, with the co-operators of the bank, and to reserve his orders exclusively for his fellow stockholders and fellow co-operators. in return, every producer or tradesman co-operating with the bank agrees to furnish his goods to the other co-operators at a reduced price. art. . the people's bank has its headquarters in paris. its aim is, in the course of time, to establish a branch in every _arrondissement_ and a correspondent in every commune. art. . as soon as circumstances permit, the present company shall be converted into a corporation, since this form allows us to realize, according to the wish of the founders, the threefold principle, first, of election; second, of the separation and the independence of the branches of work; third, of the personal responsibility of every employee.[ ] ii. if once men are convinced that justice commands the change, then will "despotism fall of itself by its very uselessness."[ ] the state and property disappear, law is transformed, and the new condition of things begins. "the revolution does not act after the fashion of the old governmental, aristocratic, or dynastic principle. it is right, the balance of forces, equality. it has no conquests to pursue, no nations to reduce to servitude, no frontiers to defend, no fortresses to build, no armies to feed, no laurels to pluck, no preponderance to maintain. the might of its economic institutions, the gratuitousness of its credit, the brilliancy of its thought, are its sufficient means for converting the universe."[ ] "the revolution has for allies all who suffer oppression and exploitation; let it appear, and the universe stretches its arms to it."[ ] "i want the peaceable revolution. i want you to make the very institutions which i charge you to abolish, and the principles of law which you will have to complete, serve toward the realization of my wishes, so that the new society shall appear as the spontaneous, natural, and necessary development of the old, and that the revolution, while abrogating the old order of things, shall nevertheless be the progress of that order."[ ] "when the people, once enlightened regarding its true interests, declares its will not to reform the government but to revolutionize society,"[ ] then "the dissolution of government in the economic organism"[ ] will follow in a way about which one can at present only make guesses.[ ] footnotes: [ ] not (as stated by diehl vol. p. , zenker p. ) . [ ] proudhon "_propriété_" p. [ . bracketed references under proudhon are to the collected edition of his "_oeuvres complètes_," paris, - .--the passage quoted above is probably the first case in history where anybody called himself an anarchist, though the word had long been in use as a term of reproach for enemies]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ ? but there he says _must be_, not _is_]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . , but with the bracketed sentence much abridged. for the phrase "rebel against right," remember that in french _right_ and _common law_ are one and the same word]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" - [ - ] [ ] _ib._ [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ], "_confessions_" p. [ ], "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ].--proudhon's teaching was not, as asserted by diehl vol. p. , vol. pp. - , and zenker p. , anarchism till and federalism thenceforward; his anarchism was federalism from the start, only he later gave it the additional name of federalism. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. xix-xx [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ; bracketed words a paraphrase.] [ ] pr. "_confessions_" pp. - [ - , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pfau pp. - , adler p. , zenker pp. , , fail to see this, being influenced by the improper sense in which proudhon uses the word "property" for a contractually guaranteed share of goods. [eltzbacher's statement, on the other hand, is not so much drawn from proudhon himself as deduced from a comparison of eltzbacher's definition of property with the statement that proudhon admits no law but the law of contract. i do not think this last statement is correct; i think proudhon would have his voluntary contractual associations protect their members in certain definable respects--among others, in the possession of goods--against those who stood outside the contract as well as against those within. then this would be, by eltzbacher's definitions, both law and property.] [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. xviii-xix [ ; consult the passage]. [ ] _ib._ pp. xix-xx [ ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . - [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_droit_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]; "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . . [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_organisation_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_banque_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" , [ , . eltzbacher finds the sense "all will be enlightened" where i translate "everything will be cleared up." eltzbacher's view of the sense--that to those who say "enlightenment must come by the revolution" proudhon replies, "no, the revolution must come by enlightenment"--correctly gives the thought brought out in the context]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] [french dictionaries leave us somewhat in the lurch as to commercial usages which differ from the english. eltzbacher translates , "investment as silent partner"; , "balancing accounts."] [ ] pr. "_banque_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ - ]. chapter v stirner's teaching .--general . johann kaspar schmidt was born in , at bayreuth in bavaria. he studied philosophy and theology at berlin from to , at erlangen from to . in he interrupted his studies, made a prolonged tour through germany, and then lived alternately at koenigsberg and kulm till . from to he studied at berlin again; in he passed his tests there as _gymnasiallehrer_. he received no government appointment, however, and in became teacher in a young ladies' seminary in berlin. he gave up this place in , but continued to live in berlin, and died there in . in part under the pseudonym max stirner, in part anonymously, schmidt published a small number of works, mostly of a philosophical nature. . stirner's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained chiefly in his book "_der einzige und sein eigentum_" ( ). --but here arises the question, can we speak of such a thing as a "teaching" of stirner's? stirner recognizes no _ought_. "men are such as they should be--can be. what should they be? surely not more than they can be! and what can they be? not more, again, than they--can, _i. e._ than they have the ability, the strength, to be."[ ] "a man is 'called' to nothing, and has no 'proper business,' no 'function,' as little as a plant or beast has a 'vocation.' he has not a vocation; but he has powers, which express themselves where they are, because their being consists only in their expression, and which can remain idle as little as life, which would no longer be life if it 'stood still' but for a second. now one might cry to man, 'use your power.' but this imperative would be given the meaning that it was man's proper business to use his power. it is not so. rather, every one really does use his power, without first regarding this as his vocation; every one uses in every moment as much power as he possesses."[ ] nay, stirner acknowledges no such thing as truth. "truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words (_logos_); brought into connection, or arranged by ranks and files, they form logic, science, philosophy."[ ] "nor is there a truth,--not right, not liberty, humanity, etc.,--which could subsist before me, and to which i would submit."[ ] "if there is a single truth to which man must consecrate his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc.; he is a man in service."[ ] "as long as you believe in truth, you do not believe in yourself; you are a--servant, a--religious man. you alone are truth; or rather, you are more than truth, which is nothing at all before you."[ ] if one chose to draw the extreme inference from this, stirner's book would be only a self-avowal, an expression of thoughts without any claim to general validity; in it stirner would not be informing us what he thinks to be true, or what in his opinion we ought to do, but only giving us an opportunity to observe the play of his ideas. stirner did not draw this inference,[ ] and one should not let the style of the book, which speaks mostly of stirner's "i," lead him to think that stirner did draw it. he calls that man "blinded, who wants to be only 'man'."[ ] he takes the floor against "the erroneous consciousness of not being able to entitle myself to as much as i want."[ ] he mocks at our grandmothers' belief in ghosts.[ ] he declares that "penalty must make room for satisfaction,"[ ] that man "should defend himself against man."[ ] and he asserts that "over the door of our time stands not apollo's 'know thyself,' but a 'turn yourself to account!'"[ ] so stirner intends not only to give us information about his inward condition at the time he composed his book, but to tell us what he thinks to be true and what we ought to do; his book is not a mere self-avowal, but a scientific teaching. . stirner does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." he prefers to use the epithet "anarchic" to designate political liberalism, which he combats.[ ] .--basis _according to stirner the supreme law for each one of us is his own welfare._ what does one's own welfare mean? "let us seek out the enjoyment of life!"[ ] "henceforth the question is not how one can acquire life, but how he can expend it, enjoy it; not how one is to produce in himself the true ego, but how he is to dissolve himself, to live himself out."[ ] "if the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the longing or hope for life, it must overcome it in its double significance which schiller brings out in 'the ideal and life'; it must crush spiritual and temporal poverty, abolish the ideal and--the want of daily bread. he who must lay out his life in prolonging life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it; both are poor."[ ] our own welfare is our supreme law. stirner recognizes no duty.[ ] "whether what i think and do is christian, what do i care? whether it is human, humane, liberal, or unhuman, inhumane, illiberal, what do i ask about that? if only it aims at what i would have, if only i satisfy myself in it, then fit it with predicates as you like; it is all one to me."[ ] "so then my relation to the world is this: i no longer do anything for it 'for god's sake', i do nothing 'for man's sake', but what i do i do 'for my sake'."[ ] "where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--i devour it to appease the hunger of my egoism. you are to me nothing but--my food, just as i also am fed upon and used up by you. we have only one relation to each other, that of utility, of usableness, of use."[ ] "i too love men, not merely individuals, but every one. but i love them with the consciousness of egoism; i love them because love makes me happy, i love because love is natural to me, because it pleases me. i know no 'commandment of love'."[ ] .--law i. _looking to each one's own welfare, stirner rejects law, and that without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions._ law[ ] exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his interests, but by his holding it sacred. "who can ask about 'right' if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people? is not 'right' a religious concept, _i. e._ something sacred?"[ ] "when the revolution stamped liberty as a 'right' it took refuge in the religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."[ ] "i am to revere the sultanic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics, the canon law in catholic communities, etc. i am to subordinate myself to these laws, i am to count them sacred."[ ] "the law is sacred, and he who outrages it is a criminal."[ ] "there are no criminals except against something sacred";[ ] crime falls when the sacred disappears.[ ] punishment has a meaning only in relation to something sacred.[ ] "what does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? he sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that which was hallowed by the state, its property (in which, you will see, the lives of those who belong to the state must be included)."[ ] but law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's welfare. "right--is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost."[ ] men have "not recovered the mastery over the thought of 'right,' which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them."[ ] "let the individual man claim ever so many rights; what do i care for his right and his claim?"[ ] i do not respect them.--"what you have the might to be you have the right to be. i deduce all right and all entitlement from myself; i am entitled to everything that i have might over. i am entitled to overthrow zeus, jehovah, god, etc., if i can; if i cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as against me."[ ] "right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by force,"[ ] "but with the concept the word too loses its meaning."[ ] "the people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against blasphemy. shall i therefore not blaspheme? is this law to be more to me than an order?"[ ] "he who has might 'stands above the law'."[ ] "the earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. if he appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it, belongs to him. this is egoistic right; _i. e._, it suits me, therefore it is right."[ ] ii. _self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law._ each of us is "unique,"[ ] "a world's history for himself,"[ ] and, when he "knows himself as unique,"[ ] he is a "self-owner."[ ] "god and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. let me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as god, the nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the unique."[ ] "away then with every business that is not altogether my business! you think at least the 'good cause' must be my business? what good, what bad? why, i myself am my business, and i am neither good nor bad. neither has meaning for me. what is divine is god's business, what is human 'man's.' my business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is not what is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no general business, but is--unique, as i am unique. nothing is more to me than myself!"[ ] "what a difference between freedom and self-ownership! i am free from what i am rid of; i am owner of what i have in my power."[ ] "my freedom becomes complete only when it is my--might; but by this i cease to be a mere freeman and become a self-owner."[ ] "each must say to himself, i am all to myself and i do all for my sake. if it ever became clear to you that god, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from you just as the christians once condemned apollo or minerva or heathen morality."[ ] "how one acts only from himself, and asks no questions about anything further, the christians have made concrete in the idea of 'god.' he acts 'as pleases him'."[ ] "might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for 'one gets farther with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' you long for freedom? you fools! if you took might, freedom would come of itself. see, he who has might 'stands above the law.' how does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? but you have no taste!"[ ] .--the state i. _together with law stirner necessarily has to reject also, just as unconditionally, the legal institution which is called state._ without law the state is not possible. "'respect for the statutes!' by this cement the whole fabric of the state is held together."[ ] the state as well as the law, then, exists, not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but rather by his counting it sacred, by "our being entangled in the error that it is an i, as which it applies to itself the name of a 'moral, mystical, or political person.' i, who really am i, must pull off this lion's skin of the i from the parading thistle-eater."[ ] the same holds good of the state as of the family. "if each one who belongs to the family is to recognize and maintain that family in its permanent existence, then to each the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of family piety, of respect for the ties of blood, whereby every blood-relative becomes hallowed to him. so, also, to every member of the state-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is supreme to the state must be supreme to him too."[ ] the state is "not only entitled, but compelled, to demand" this.[ ] but the state is not sacred. "the state's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence 'law', but that of the individual 'crime'."[ ] if i do not do what it wishes, "then the state turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-talons; for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle."[ ] "even if you do overpower your opponent as a power, it does not follow that you are to him a hallowed authority, unless he is a degenerate. he does not owe you respect, and reverence, even if he will be wary of your might."[ ] nor is the state favorable to the individual's welfare. "i am the mortal enemy of the state."[ ] "the general welfare as such is not my welfare, but only the extremity of self-denial. the general welfare may exult aloud while i must lie like a hushed dog; the state may be in splendor while i starve."[ ] "every state is a despotism, whether the despot be one or many, or whether, as people usually conceive to be the case in a republic, all are masters, _i. e._ each tyrannizes over the others."[ ] "doubtless the state leaves the individuals as free play as possible, only they must not turn the play to earnest, must not forget it. the state has never any object but to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and is only the clear-cut limitation of me, my limitedness, my slavery."[ ] "a state never aims to bring about the free activity of individuals, but only that activity which is bound to the state's purpose."[ ] "the state seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its oversight, its police, and counts this hindering as its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation."[ ] "i am not allowed to do all the work i can, but only so much as the state permits; i must not turn my thoughts to account, nor my work, nor, in general, anything that is mine."[ ] "pauperism is the valuelessness of me, the phenomenon of my being unable to turn myself to account. therefore state and pauperism are one and the same. the state does not let me attain my value, and exists only by my valuelessness; its goal is always to get some benefit out of me, _i. e._ to exploit me, to use me up, even if this using consisted only in my providing a _proles_ (_prolétariat_); it wants me to be 'its creature'."[ ] "the state cannot brook man's standing in a direct relation to man; it must come between as a--mediator, it must--intervene. it tears man from man, to put itself as 'spirit' in the middle. the laborers who demand a higher wage are treated as criminals so soon as they want to get it by compulsion. what are they to do? without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the state sees a self-help, a price fixed by the ego, a real, free turning to account of one's property, which it cannot permit."[ ] ii. _every man's own welfare demands that a social human life solely on the basis of its precepts should take the place of the state._ stirner calls this sort of social life "the union of egoists."[ ] . even after the state is abolished men are to live together in society. "self-owners will fight for the unity which is their own will, for union."[ ] but what is to keep men together in the union? not a promise, at any rate, "if i were bound to-day and hereafter to my will of yesterday," my will would "be benumbed. my creature, _viz._, a particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. because i was a fool yesterday i must remain such all my life."[ ] "the union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. as i am not willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their continuance, so still less do i pledge myself to the union for my future and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and as is really the case with the state and all intellectual authority; but i am and remain more to myself than state, church, god, and the like, and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."[ ] rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which each individual has from the union at every moment. if i can "use" my fellow-men, "then i am likely to come to an understanding and unite myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. in this joinder i see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do i retain it."[ ] hence the union is something quite different from "that society which communism means to found."[ ] "you bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a 'member in the body of this lord'. you owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are--possessed by 'social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use out of it. if society is more than you, then it is of more consequence to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and exists even without you; in short, society is sacred, the union is your own; society uses you up, you use up the union."[ ] . but what form may such a social life take in detail? in reply to his critic, moses hess, stirner gives some examples of unions that already exist. "perhaps at this moment children are running together under his window for a comradeship of play; let him look at them, and he will espy merry egoistic unions. perhaps hess has a friend or a sweetheart; then he may know how heart joins itself to heart, how two of them unite egoistically in order to have the enjoyment of each other, and how neither 'gets the worst of the bargain.' perhaps he meets a few pleasant acquaintances on the street and is invited to accompany them into a wine-shop; does he go with them in order to do an act of kindness to them, or does he 'unite' with them because he promises himself enjoyment from it? do they have to give him their best thanks for his 'self-sacrifice' or do they know that for an hour they formed an 'egoistic union' together?"[ ] stirner even thinks of a "german union."[ ] .--property i. _together with law stirner necessarily has to reject also, and just as unconditionally, the legal institution of property._ this "lives by grace of the law. it has its guarantee only in the law; it is not a fact, but a fiction, a thought. this is law-property, legal property, warranted property. it is mine not by me, but by--law."[ ] property in this sense, as well as the law and the state, is based not on the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but on his counting it sacred. "property in the civil sense means sacred property, in such a way that i must respect your property. 'have respect for property!' therefore the political liberals would like every one to have his bit of property, and have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by their efforts in this direction. every one must have his bone, on which he may find something to bite."[ ] but property is not sacred. "i do not step timidly back from your property, be you one or many, but look upon it always as my property, in which i have no need to 'respect' anything. now do the like with what you call my property!"[ ] nor is property favorable to the individual's welfare. "property, as the civic liberals understand it, is untenable, because the civic proprietor is really nothing but a propertyless man, a man everywhere excluded. instead of the world's belonging to him, as it might, there belongs to him not even the paltry point on which he turns around."[ ] ii. _every one's own welfare commands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ when stirner designates as "property" the share of commodities assigned to the individual by these precepts, it is in the improper sense in which he constantly uses the word property: in the proper sense only a share of commodities assigned by law can be called property.[ ] now, according to the decrees of his own welfare, every man should have all that he is powerful enough to obtain. "what they are not competent to tear from me the power over, that remains my property: all right, then let power decide about property, and i will expect everything from my power! alien power, power that i leave to another, makes me a slave; then let own power make me an owner."[ ] "to what property am i entitled? to any to which i--empower myself. i give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, plenary power, empowerment."[ ] "what i am competent to have is my 'competence.'"[ ] "the sick, children, the aged, are still competent for a great deal; _e. g._ to receive their living instead of taking it. if they are competent to control you to the extent of having you desire their continued existence, then they have a power over you."[ ] "what competence the child possesses in its smile, its play, its crying,--in short, in its mere existence! are you capable of resisting its demand? or do you not hold out to it, as a mother, your breast,--as a father, so much of your belongings as it needs? it puts you under constraint, and therefore possesses what you call yours."[ ] "property, therefore, should not and cannot be done away with; rather, it must be torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then will the erroneous consciousness that i cannot entitle myself to as much as i want vanish.--'but what cannot a man want?' well, he who wants much, and knows how to get it, has in all times taken it to him, as napoleon did the continent, and the french algeria. therefore the only point is just that the respectful 'lower classes' should at length learn to take to themselves what they want. if they reach their hands too far for you, why, defend yourselves."[ ] "what 'man' wants does not by any means furnish a scale for me and my needs; for i may have a use for more, or for less. rather, i must have as much as i am competent to appropriate to myself."[ ] . "in this matter, as well as in others, unions will multiply the individual's means and make secure his assailed property."[ ] "when it is our will no longer to leave the land to the land-owners, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves for this purpose; we form a union, a _société_, which makes itself owner; if we are successful, they cease to be land-owners. and, as we chase them out from land and soil, so we can also from many another property, to make it our own, the property of the--conquerors. the conquerors form a society, which one may conceive of as so great that by degrees it embraces all mankind; but so-called mankind is also, as such, only a thought (ghost); its reality is the individuals. and these individuals as a collective mass will deal not less arbitrarily with land and soil than does an isolated individual."[ ] "what all want to have a share in will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone; it is made a common possession. as a common possession every one has a share in it, and this share is his property. just so, even in our old relations, a house which belongs to five heirs is their common possession; but the fifth part of the proceeds is each one's property. the property which for the present is still withheld from us can be better made use of when it is in the hands of us all. let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery."[ ] .--realization _according to stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires is to come about in this way,--that men in sufficient number first undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward change also: to wit, the abrogation of law, state, and property, and the introduction of the new condition._ i. the first and most important thing is the inward change of men. "revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. the former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing condition or state, the state or society, and so is a political or social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. the revolution aimed at new arrangements: the insurrection leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves, and sets no brilliant hope on 'institutions.' it is not a fight against the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. if i leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. now, since my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."[ ] why was the founder of christianity "not a revolutionist, not a demagogue as the jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a liberal? because he expected no salvation from a change of _conditions_, and this whole business was indifferent to him. he was not a revolutionist, like cæsar for instance, but an insurgent; not an overturner of the state, but one who straightened _himself_ up. he waged no liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by them."[ ] "everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. everything sacred will be, must be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such perverters by the quantity in all spheres. they are preparing for the break of the law, for lawlessness."[ ] "regard yourself as more powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard yourself as more, and you are more."[ ] "the poor become free and proprietors only when they--'rise'."[ ] "only from egoism can the lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves and--will give to themselves. if they do not let themselves be constrained into fear, they are a power."[ ] ii. furthermore, in order to bring about the "transformation of conditions"[ ] and put the new condition in the place of law, state, and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has hitherto existed is requisite. . "the state can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."[ ] "the individual's violence [_gewalt_] is called crime [_verbrechen_], and only by crime does he break [_brechen_] the state's authority [_gewalt_] when he opines that the state is not above him, but he above the state."[ ] "here too the result is that the thinkers' combat against the government is wrong, _viz._ in impotence, so far as it cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). the theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. it is only the egoistic combat, the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."[ ] "the property question cannot be solved so gently as the socialists, even the communists, dream. it is solved only by the war of all against all."[ ] "let me then retract the might which i have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! let me say to myself, 'whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then claim as property all that i feel myself strong enough to attain; and let me make my real property extend as far as i entitle (_i. e._ empower) myself to take."[ ] "in order to extirpate the unpossessing rabble, egoism does not say, 'wait and see what the board of equity will--donate to you in the name of the collectivity', but 'put your hand to it and take what you need!'"[ ] in this combat stirner agrees to all methods. "i will not draw back with a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as st. boniface was disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens' sacred oak on account of religious scruples."[ ] "the power over life and death, which church and state reserved to themselves, this too i call--mine."[ ] "the life of the individual man i rate only at what it is worth. his goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and i dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my--might."[ ] . stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation of conditions. he assumes that certain men come to realize that they occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the state as compared with others who receive the preference. "those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the question, 'by what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones?' and give themselves the answer, 'by our refraining from interference! by our protection, therefore! and what do you give us for it? kicks and contempt you give the "common people"; police oversight, and a catechism with the chief sentence "respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! respect others, and especially superiors!" but we reply, "if you want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." we will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. with what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many thousands of his yearly income? or another for the sheer hundred-thousands and millions? with what do you pay us for chewing potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? only buy the oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and you may go on eating them. or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? you will make an outcry about violence if we take hold and help eat them, and you are right. without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us. "'but take the oysters and done with it, and let us come to what is in a closer way our property (for this other is only possession)--to labor. we toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a few groschen for it. then take the like for your labor too. we will come to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that neither any longer needs to--donate anything to the other. for centuries we have offered you alms in our kindly--stupidity, have given the mite of the poor and rendered to the masters what is--not the masters'; now just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the price of our ware. we will take nothing away from you, nothing at all, only you shall pay better for what you want to have. what have you then? "i have an estate of a thousand acres." and i am your plowman, and will hereafter do your plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "then i'll get another." you will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him beware of us.'"[ ] footnotes: [ ] stirner p. . [the page-numbers of stirner's first edition, here cited, agree almost exactly with those of the english translation under the title "the ego and his own." any passage quoted here will in general be found in the english translation either on the page whose number is given or on the preceding page; for the early pages, subtract two or three from the number.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] no more do his adherents, _e. g._ mackay, "stirner" pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] [to understand some of the following citations it is necessary to remember that in german "law" (in the sense of common law, or including this) and "right" are one and the same word.--while it is probably not fair to say that these assaults of stirner are directed only against some laws, it does seem fair to say that they deny to the laws only some sorts of validity. we have very little material for compiling the constructive side of stirner's teaching, for he avoided specifying what things the egoists or their unions were to do in his future social order; he said explicitly that the only way to know what a slave will do when he breaks his fetters is to wait and see. but, while he may nowhere have stated a law which is to obtain in the good time coming, neither has he said anything which authorizes us to declare that none of his unions will ever make laws on such a basis as (for instance) the rules of the stock exchange. on page below is quoted a passage where he distinctly and approvingly contemplates the possibility that a union of his followers may fix a minimum wage, and may threaten violence to any person who consents to work below the scale. this would be law, and might easily be the germ of a state. on pages and are quoted passages which strongly suggest that the egoistic union would undertake to defend its member against all interference with his possession of certain goods; this would be both law and property.] [ ] stirner p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the german idiom for "it suits me" is "it is right to me"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. ; stirner "_vierteljahrsschrift_" p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] stirner "_vierteljahrsschrift_" pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] zenker fails to recognize this when he asserts (p. ) that stirner demands property based on the right of occupation [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [see footnote on page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but stirner does not mean that all are to fight against all; they are merely to declare themselves no longer bound by the obligations of peace, and then those who are able to agree with each other can at once make terms to suit themselves.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner pp. - . chapter vi bakunin's teaching .--general . mikhail alexandrovitch bakunin was born in at pryamukhino, district of torshok, government of tver. in he entered the artillery school at st. petersburg; in he became an officer, but resigned his commission in the same year. he then lived alternately in pryamukhino and in moscow. in bakunin left russia. in the following years revolutionary plans took him now to this part of europe, now to that; in paris he associated much with proudhon. in he was condemned to death in saxony, but was pardoned; in he was handed over to austria and was condemned to death there also; in he was handed over to russia and was there kept a prisoner first at st. petersburg, then at schluesselburg; in he was sent to siberia. from siberia bakunin escaped to london in , by way of japan and california. he took up his revolutionary activities again at once, and thereafter lived by turns in the most various parts of europe. in he became a member of the _association internationale des travailleurs_, and soon afterward he founded the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_. in he came into intimate relations with the fanatic nechayeff, but broke away from him in the next year. in he was expelled from the _association internationale des travailleurs_ on the ground that his aims were different from those of the association. he died at berne in . bakunin wrote a number of works of a philosophical and political nature. . bakunin's teaching about law, the state, and property finds its expression especially in the "_proposition motivée au comité central de la ligue de la paix et de la liberté_"[ ] offered by him in ; in the principles[ ] of the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_, drawn up by him in ; and in his work "_dieu et l'etat_"[ ] ( ). writings which cannot with certainty be assigned to bakunin are here disregarded. among such we may name especially the two works "the principles of the revolution"[ ] and "catechism of the revolution,"[ ] in which nechayeff's views are set forth. they are indeed ascribed to bakunin by some,[ ] but their matter is in contradiction to his other utterances as well as to his deeds; he even used vehement language on several occasions against nechayeff's "machiavellianism and jesuitism."[ ] even on the assumption that they are by bakunin, they would at any rate express only a very insignificant chapter in his development. . bakunin designates his teaching about law, the state, and property as "anarchism." "in a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, all privileged, chartered, official, and legal influence,--even if it were created by universal suffrage,--in the conviction that such things can but redound always to the advantage of a ruling minority of exploiters and to the disadvantage of the vast enslaved majority. in this sense we are in truth anarchists."[ ] .--basis _bakunin regards the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less perfect existence to the most perfect possible existence as the law which has supreme validity for man._ "science has no other task than the careful intellectual reproduction, in the most systematic form possible, of the natural laws of corporeal, mental, and moral life, alike in the physical and in the social world, which two worlds constitute in fact only a single natural world."[ ] now "science--that is, true, unselfish science"[ ]--teaches us the following: "every evolution signifies the negation of its starting-point. since according to the materialists the basis or starting-point is material, the negation must necessarily be ideal."[ ] that is, "everything that lives makes the effort to perfect itself as fully as possible."[ ] thus, "according to the conception of materialists, man's historical evolution also moves in a constantly ascending line."[ ] "it is an altogether natural movement from the simple to the compound, from down to up, from the lower to the higher."[ ] "history consists in the progressive negation of man's original bestiality by the evolution of his humanity."[ ] "man is originally a wild beast, a cousin of the gorilla. but he has already come out of the deep night of bestial impulses to make his way to the light of the mind. this explains all his former missteps in the most natural way, and comforts us somewhat with regard to his present aberrations. he has turned his back on bestial slavery, and is now moving toward freedom through the realm of slavery to god, which lies between his bestial and his human existence. behind us, therefore, lies our bestial existence, before us our human; the light of humanity, which alone can light us and warm us, deliver us and exalt us, make us free, happy, and brothers, stands never at the beginning of history, but always only at its end."[ ] this "historical negation of the past takes place now slowly, sluggishly, sleepily, but now again passionately and violently."[ ] it always takes place with the inevitable certainty of natural law: "we believe in the final triumph of humanity on earth."[g] "we yearn for the coming of this triumph, and seek to hasten it with united effort";[ ] "we must never look back, always forward alone; before us is our sun, before us our bliss."[ ] .--law i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence, one of the next steps, according to bakunin, will be the disappearance--not indeed of law, but--of enacted law._ enacted law belongs to a low stage of evolution. "a political legislation, whether it is based on a ruler's will or on the votes of representatives chosen by universal suffrage, can never correspond to the laws of nature, and is always baleful, hostile to the liberty of the masses, if only because it forces upon them a system of external and consequently despotic laws."[ ] no legislation has ever "had another aim than that of confirming, and exalting into a system, the exploitation of the laboring populace by the ruling classes."[ ] thus every legislation "has for its consequence at once the enslavement of society and the depravation of the legislators."[ ] but mankind will soon leave behind it the stage of evolution to which law belongs. enacted law is indissolubly connected with the state: "the state is a historically necessary evil,"[ ] "a transitory form of society";[ ] "with the state, law in the jurists' sense, the so-called legal regulation of popular life from above downward by legislation, must necessarily fall."[ ] everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, there will be no enacted law to be sure, but there will be law even there._ what bakunin predicts with regard to this next stage of evolution enables us to perceive that according to his expectation norms will then prevail which "are based on a general will,"[ ] and which even secure obedience by forcible compulsion if necessary,[ ] so that they are legal norms. among such legal norms of our next stage of evolution bakunin mentions that by virtue of which there exists a "right to independence."[ ] for me as an individual this means "that i as a man am entitled to obey no other man, and to act only in accordance with my own judgment."[ ] but, furthermore, "every nation, every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[ ] likewise bakunin regards it as a legal norm of the next stage of evolution that contracts must be lived up to. to be sure, the obligation of contracts has its limits. "human justice cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. all rights and duties are founded on liberty. the right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights."[ ] another legal norm mentioned by bakunin as belonging to the next stage of evolution is that by virtue of which "the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, will exclusively serve for the use of the agricultural and industrial associations."[ ] .--the state i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence the state will shortly, according to bakunin, disappear._ "the state is a historically temporary arrangement, a transitory form of society."[ ] . the state belongs to a low stage of evolution. "man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the human."[ ] "all religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets, their messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of their intellectual powers."[ ] this holds good also, and particularly, of christianity: it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and reason."[ ] the state is a product of religion. "in all lands it is born of a marriage of violence, robbery, spoliation,--in short, of war and conquest,--with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations had gradually created."[ ] "he who speaks of revelation speaks thereby of revealers enlightened by god, of messiahs, prophets, priests, and lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives of the deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by god himself, then of course they have unlimited authority. all men owe them blind obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the divine reason and justice. as slaves of god, men must be also slaves of the church, and of the state so far as the church hallows the state."[ ] "no state is without religion, and none can be without religion. take the freest states in the world,--for instance, the united states of america or the swiss confederacy,--and see what an important part divine providence plays in all public utterances there."[ ] "it is not without good reason that governments hold the belief in god to be an essential condition of their power."[ ] "there is a class of people who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they believed. this class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and exploiters. priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers, office-holders of all sorts; policemen, _gendarmes_, jailers, and executioners; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners; lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades,--all of them, down to the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of voltaire, that, if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent him; 'for must not the populace have its religion?' it is the very safety-valve."[ ] . the characteristics of the state correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs. the state enslaves the governed. "the state is force; nay, it is the silly parading of force. it does not propose to win love or to make converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in command and compulsion. however much pains it may take, it cannot conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant negation of our liberty. even when it commands the good, it makes this valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face; as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the dignity of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."[ ] at the same time the state depraves those who govern. "it is characteristic of privilege, and of every privileged position, that they poison the minds and hearts of men. he who is politically or economically privileged has his mind and heart depraved. this is a law of social life, which admits of no exceptions and is applicable to entire nations as well as to classes, corporations, and individuals. it is the law of equality, the foremost of the conditions of liberty and humanity."[ ] "powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only from weakness."[ ] "we abhor monarchy with all our hearts; but at the same time we are convinced that a great republic too, with army, bureaucracy, and political centralization, will make a business of conquest without and oppression within, and will be incapable of guaranteeing happiness and liberty to its subjects even if it calls them citizens."[ ] "even in the purest democracies, such as the united states and switzerland, a privileged minority faces the vast enslaved majority."[ ] . but the stage of mankind's evolution to which the state belongs will soon be left behind. "from the beginning of historic society to this day, there has always been oppression of the nations by the state. is it to be inferred that this oppression is inseparably connected with the existence of human society?"[ ] certainly not! "the great, true goal of history, the only one for which there is justification, is our humanization and deliverance, the genuine liberty and prosperity of all socially-living men."[ ] "in the triumph of humanity is at the same time the goal and the essential meaning of history, and this triumph can be brought about only by liberty."[ ] "as in the past the state was historically necessary evil, it must just as necessarily, sooner or later, disappear altogether."[ ] everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, the place of the state will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ . even after the state is done away, men will live together socially. the goal of human evolution, "complete humanity,"[ ] can be attained only in a society. "man becomes man, and his humanity becomes conscious and real, only in society and by the joint activity of society. he frees himself from the yoke of external nature only by joint--that is, societary--labor: it alone is capable of making the surface of the earth fit for the evolution of mankind; but without such external liberation neither intellectual nor moral liberation is possible. furthermore, man gets free from the yoke of his own nature only by education and instruction: they alone make it possible for him to subordinate the impulses and motions of his body to the guidance of his more and more developed mind; but education and instruction are of an exclusively societary nature. outside of society man would have remained forever a wild beast, or, what comes to about the same thing, a saint. finally, in his isolation man cannot have the consciousness of liberty. what liberty means for man is that he is recognized as free, and treated as free, by those who surround him; liberty is not a matter of isolation, therefore, but of mutuality--not of separateness, but of combination; for every man it is only the mirroring of his humanity (that is, of his human rights) in the consciousness of his brothers."[ ] but men will be held together in society no longer by a supreme authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. complete humanity can be attained only in a free society. "my liberty, or, what means the same, my human dignity, consists in my being entitled, as man, to obey no other man and to act only on my own judgment."[ ] "i myself am a free man only so far as i recognize the humanity and liberty of all the men who surround me. in respecting their humanity i respect my own. a cannibal, who treats his prisoner as a wild beast and eats him, is himself not a man, but a beast. a slaveholder is not a man, but a master."[ ] "the more free men surround me, and the deeper and broader their freedom is, so much deeper, broader, and more powerful is my freedom too. on the other hand, every enslavement of men is at the same time a limitation of my freedom, or, what is the same thing, a negation of my human existence by its bestial existence."[ ] but a free society cannot be held together by authority,[ ] but only by contract.[ ] . how will the future society shape itself in detail? "unity is the goal toward which mankind ceaselessly moves."[ ] therefore men will unite with the utmost amplitude. but "the place of the old organization, built from above downward upon force and authority, will be taken by a new one which has no other basis than the natural needs, inclinations, and endeavors of men."[ ] thus we come to a "free union of individuals into communes, of communes into provinces, of provinces into nations, and finally of nations into the united states of europe and later of the whole world."[ ] "every nation,--be it great or small, strong or weak,--every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[ ] "all of what are known as the historic rights of nations are totally done away; all questions regarding natural, political, strategic, and economic boundaries are henceforth to be classed as ancient history and resolutely disallowed."[ ] "by the fact that a territory has once belonged to a state, even by a voluntary adhesion, it is in no wise bound to remain always united with this state. human justice, the only justice that means anything to us, cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. all rights and duties are founded on liberty. the right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights. without this right the league would be merely a concealed centralization still."[ ] .--property i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence, according to bakunin, we must shortly come to the disappearance--not indeed of property, but--of property's present form, unlimited private property._ . private property, so far as it fastens upon all things without distinction, belongs to the same low stage of evolution as the state. "private property is at once the consequence and the basis of the state."[ ] "every government is necessarily based on exploitation on the one hand, and on the other hand has exploitation for its goal and bestows upon exploitation protection and legality."[ ] in every state there exist "two kinds of relationship,--to wit, government and exploitation. if really governing means sacrificing one's self for the good of the governed, then indeed the second relationship is in direct contradiction to the first. but let us only understand our point rightly! from the ideal standpoint, be it theological or metaphysical, the good of the masses can of course not mean their temporal welfare: what are a few decades of earthly life in comparison to eternity? hence one must govern the masses with regard not to this coarse earthly happiness, but to their eternal good. outward sufferings and privations may even be welcomed from the educator's standpoint, since an excess of sensual enjoyment kills the immortal soul. but now the contradiction disappears. exploiting and governing mean the same; the one completes the other, and serves as its means and its end."[ ] . private property, when it exists in all things without distinction, has such characteristics as correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs. "on the privileged representatives of head-work (who at present are called to be the representatives of society, not because they have more sense, but only because they were born in the privileged class) such property bestows all the blessings and also all the debasement of our civilization: wealth, luxury, profuse expenditure, comfort, the pleasures of family life, the exclusive enjoyment of political liberty, and hence the possibility of exploiting millions of laborers and governing them at discretion in one's own interest. what is there left for the representatives of handwork, these numberless millions of proletarians or of small farmers? hopeless misery, not even the joys of the family (for the family soon becomes a burden to the poor man), ignorance, barbarism, an almost bestial existence, and this for consolation with it all, that they are serving as pedestal for the culture, liberty, and depravity of a minority."[ ] the freer and more highly developed trade and industry are in any place, "the more complete is the demoralization of the privileged few on the one hand, and the greater are the misery, the complaints, and the just indignation of the laboring masses on the other. england, belgium, france, germany, are certainly the countries of europe in which trade and industry enjoy greatest freedom and have made most progress. in these very countries the most cruel pauperism prevails, the gulf between capitalists and landlords on the one hand and the laboring class on the other is greater than in any other country. in russia, in the scandinavian countries, in italy, in spain, where trade and industry are still embryonic, people but seldom die of hunger except on extraordinary occasions. in england starvation is an every-day thing. and not only individuals starve, but thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands."[ ] . but mankind will soon have passed the low stage of evolution to which private property belongs. as there has at all times been oppression of the nations by the state, so has there also always been "exploitation of the masses of slaves, serfs, wage-workers, by a ruling minority."[ ] but this exploitation is no more "inseparably united with the existence of human society"[ ] than is that oppression. "by the force of things themselves"[ ] unlimited private property will be done away. everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is already at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, property will be so constituted that there will indeed be private property in the objects of consumption, but in land, instruments of labor, and all other capital, there will be only social property. the future society will be collectivist._ in this way every laborer has the product of his labor guaranteed to him. . "justice must serve as basis for the new world: without it, no liberty, no living together, no prosperity, no peace."[ ] "justice, not that of jurists, nor yet that of theologians, nor yet that of metaphysicians, but simple human justice, commands"[ ] that "in future every man's enjoyment corresponds to the quantity of goods produced by him."[ ] the thing is, then, to find a means "which makes it impossible for any one, whoever he may be, to exploit the labor of another, and permits each to share in the enjoyment of society's stock of goods (which is solely a product of labor) only so far as he has, by his labor, directly contributed to the production of this stock of goods."[ ] this means consists in the principle "that the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, shall exclusively serve for the use of the laborers,--that is, of their agricultural and industrial associations."[ ] "i am not a communist, but a collectivist."[ ] . the collectivism of the future society "by no means demands the setting up of any supreme authority. in the name of liberty, on which alone an economic or a political organization can be founded, we shall always protest against everything that looks even remotely similar to communism or state socialism."[ ] "i would have the organization of society, and of the collective or social property, from below upward by the voice of free union, not from above downward by means of any authority."[ ] .--realization _the change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from its bestial existence to a human existence,--the disappearance of the state, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,--will come to pass, according to bakunin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will be automatically brought about by the power of things, but which those who foresee the course of evolution have the task of hastening and facilitating._ i. "to escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. the two first are the rum-shop and the church, the third is the social revolution."[ ] "a cure is possible only through the social revolution,"[ ]--that is, through "the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality."[ ] the revolution will not be made by anybody. "revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret societies. they come about automatically, in a measure; the power of things, the current of events and facts, produces them. they are long preparing in the depth of the obscure consciousness of the masses--then they break out suddenly, not seldom on apparently slight occasion."[ ] the revolution is already at hand to-day;[ ] everybody feels its approach;[ ] we are to expect it within the nineteenth century.[ ] . "by the revolution we understand the unchaining of everything that is to-day called 'evil passions,' and the destruction of everything that in the same language is called 'public order'."[ ] the revolution will rage not against men, but against relations and things.[ ] "bloody revolutions are often necessary, thanks to human stupidity; yet they are always an evil, a monstrous evil and a great disaster, not only with regard to the victims, but also for the sake of the purity and perfection of the purpose in whose name they take place."[ ] "one must not wonder if in the first moment of their uprising the people kill many oppressors and exploiters--this misfortune, which is of no more importance anyhow than the damage done by a thunderstorm, can perhaps not be avoided. but this natural fact will be neither moral nor even useful. political massacres have never killed parties; particularly have they always shown themselves impotent against the privileged classes; for authority is vested far less in men than in the position which the privileged acquire by any institutions, particularly by the state and private property. if one would make a thorough revolution, therefore, one must attack things and relationships, destroy property and the state: then there is no need of destroying men and exposing one's self to the inevitable reaction which the slaughtering of men always has provoked and always will provoke in every society. but, in order to have the right to deal humanely with men without danger to the revolution, one must be inexorable toward things and relationships, destroy everything, and first and foremost property and its inevitable consequence the state. this is the whole secret of the revolution."[ ] "the revolution, as the power of things to-day necessarily presents it before us, will not be national, but international,--that is, universal. in view of the threatened league of all privileged interests and all reactionary powers in europe, in view of the terrible instrumentalities that a shrewd organization puts at their disposal, in view of the deep chasm that to-day yawns between the _bourgeoisie_ and the laborers everywhere, no revolution can count on success if it does not speedily extend itself beyond the individual nation to all other nations. but the revolution can never cross the frontiers and become general unless it has in it the foundations for this generality; that is, unless it is pronouncedly socialistic, and, by equality and justice, destroys the state and establishes liberty. for nothing can better inspire and uplift the sole true power of the century, the laborers, than the complete liberation of labor and the shattering of all institutions for the protection of hereditary property and of capital."[ ] "a political and national revolution cannot win, therefore, unless the political revolution becomes social, and the national revolution, by the very fact of its fundamentally socialistic and state-destroying character, becomes a universal revolution."[ ] . "the revolution, as we understand it, must on its very first day completely and fundamentally destroy the state and all state institutions. this destruction will have the following natural and necessary effects. (a) the bankruptcy of the state. (b) the cessation of state collection of private debts, whose payment is thenceforth left to the debtor's pleasure. (c) the cessation of the payment of taxes, and of the levying of direct or indirect imposts. (d) the dissolution of the army, the courts, the corps of office-holders, the police, and the clergy. (e) the stoppage of the official administration of justice, the abolition of all that is called juristic law and of its exercise. hence, the valuelessness, and the consignment to an _auto-da-fe_, of all titles to property, testamentary dispositions, bills of sale, deeds of gift, judgments of courts--in short, of the whole mass of papers relating to private law. everywhere, and in regard to everything, the revolutionary fact in place of the law created and guaranteed by the state. (f) the confiscation of all productive capital and instruments of labor in favor of the associations of laborers, which will use them for collective production. (g) the confiscation of all church and state property, as well as of the bullion in private hands, for the benefit of the commune formed by the league of the associations of laborers. in return for the confiscated goods, those who are affected by the confiscation receive from the commune their absolute necessities; they are free to acquire more afterward by their labor."[ ] the destruction will be followed by the reshaping. hence, (h) "the organization of the commune by the permanent association of the barricades and by its organ, the council of the revolutionary commune, to which every barricade, every street, every quarter, sends one or two responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions. the council of the commune can appoint executive committees out of its membership for the various branches of the revolutionary administration. (i) the declaration of the capital, insurgent and organized as a commune, that, after the righteous destruction of the state of authority and guardianship, it renounces the right (or rather the usurpation) of governing the provinces and setting a standard for them. (k) the summons to all provinces, communities, and associations, to follow the example given by the capital, first to organize themselves in revolutionary form, then to send to a specified meeting-place responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions, and so to constitute the league of the insurgent associations, communities, and provinces, and to organize a revolutionary power capable of defeating the reaction. the sending, not of official commissioners of the revolution with some sort of badges, but of agitators for the revolution, to all the provinces and communities--especially to the peasants, who cannot be revolutionized by scientific principles nor yet by the edicts of any dictatorship, but only by the revolutionary fact itself: that is, by the inevitable effects of the complete cessation of official state activity in all the communities. the abolition of the national state, not only in other senses, but in this,--that all foreign countries, provinces, communities, associations, nay, all individuals who have risen in the name of the same principles, without regard to the present state boundaries, are accepted as part of the new political system and nationality; and that, on the other hand, it shall exclude from membership those provinces, communities, associations, or personages, of the same country, who take the side of the reaction. thus must the universal revolution, by the very fact of its binding the insurgent countries together for joint defence, march on unchecked over the abolished boundaries and the ruins of the formerly existing states to its triumph."[ ] ii. "to serve, to organize, and to hasten"[ ] "the revolution, which must everywhere be the work of the people"[ ]--this alone is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. we have to perform "midwife's services"[ ] for the new time, "to help on the birth of the revolution."[ ] to this end we must, "first, spread among the masses thoughts that correspond to the instincts of the masses."[ ] "what keeps the salvation-bringing thought from going through the laboring masses with a rush? their ignorance; and particularly the political and religious prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this day obscure the laborer's natural thought and healthy feelings."[ ] "hence the aim must consist in making him completely conscious of what he wants, evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses. if once the thoughts of the laboring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible."[ ] furthermore, we must "form, not indeed the army of the revolution,--the army can never be anything but the people,--but yet a sort of staff for the revolutionary army. these must be devoted, energetic, talented men, who, above all, love the people without ambition and vanity, and who have the faculty of mediating between the revolutionary thought and the instincts of the people. no very great number of such men is requisite. a hundred revolutionists firmly and seriously bound together are enough for the international organization of all europe. two or three hundred revolutionists are enough for the organization of the largest country."[ ] here, especially, is the field for the activity of secret societies.[ ] "in order to serve, organize, and hasten the general revolution"[ ] bakunin founded the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_. it was to pursue a double purpose: "(a) the spreading of correct views about politics, economics, and philosophical questions of every kind, among the masses in all countries; an active propaganda by newspapers, pamphlets, and books, as well as by the founding of public associations. (b) the winning of all wise, energetic, silent, well-disposed men who are sincerely devoted to the idea; the covering of europe, and america too so far as possible, with a network of self-sacrificing revolutionists, strong by unity."[ ] footnotes: [ ] printed in "_oeuvres de michel bakounine_" ( ) pp. - , under the title "_fédéralisme, socialisme et antithéologisme_." [ ] printed in "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" ( ) pp. - . [ ] only fragments have been printed: one under the title "_l'empire knoutogermanique et la révolution sociale_" ( ), a second under the title "_dieu et l'etat_" ( ), a third under the same title in "_oeuvres de michel bakounine_" ( ) pp. - . [ ] printed in dragomanoff, "_michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow_," german translation by minzès ( ) pp. - . [ ] a part is printed in french translation, in "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" ( ) pp. - , the rest in dragomanoff pp. - . [ ] "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" p. ; dragomanoff p. ix. [ ] ba. "_briefe_" pp. , , , . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_discours_" p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_discours_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_volkssache_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [bakunin is writing in a world where the church is everywhere part of the state machine. would his words about church property apply equally, according to him, in the united states, where the church property is in general made up of the free gifts of individual believers? perhaps; for he would have no love for the church even here, and he is obviously hostile to anything in the nature of mortmain. if so, how about college property?] [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_volkssache_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [illustration] chapter vii kropotkin's teaching .--general . prince peter alexeyevitch kropotkin was born at moscow in . from to he was an officer of the cossacks of the amur; during this time he traveled over a great part of siberia and manchuria. from to he studied mathematics at st. petersburg; at this time he was also secretary of the geographical society; under its commission he explored the glaciers of finland and sweden in . in kropotkin visited belgium and switzerland, where he joined the _association internationale des travailleurs_. in the same year he returned to st. petersburg and became a prominent member of the tchaikoffski secret society. this was found out in . he was arrested and kept in prison until in he succeeded in escaping to england. from england kropotkin went to switzerland in , but was expelled from that country in . thenceforth he resided alternately in england and france. in france, in , he was condemned to five years' imprisonment for membership in a prohibited association; he was kept in prison till , and then pardoned. since then he has lived in england. kropotkin has published geographical works and accounts of travel, and also writings in the spheres of economics, politics, and the philosophy of law. . for kropotkin's teaching about law, the state, and property, the most important sources are his many short works, newspaper articles, and lectures. the articles that he published from to in "_le révolté_" of geneva, appeared in as a book under the title "_paroles d'un révolté_." the only large work in which he develops his teaching is "_la conquête du pain_" ( ). . kropotkin calls his teaching "anarchism." "when in the bosom of the international there was formed a party which no more acknowledged an authority inside that association than any other authority, this party called itself at first federalist, then anti-authoritarian or hostile to the state. at that time it avoided describing itself as anarchistic. the word _an-archie_ (it was so written at that time) seemed to identify the party too much with the adherents of proudhon, whose reform ideas the international was opposing. but for this very reason its opponents delighted in using this designation in order to produce confusion; besides, the name made the assertion possible that from the very name of the anarchists it was evident that they aimed merely at disorder and chaos, without thinking any farther. the anarchistic party was not slow to adopt the designation that was given to it. at first it still insisted on the hyphen between _an_ and _archie_, with the explanation that in this form the word _an-archie_, being of greek origin, denoted absence of dominion and not 'disorder'; but it soon decided to spare the proof-reader his useless trouble and the reader his lesson in greek, and used the name as it stood."[ ] and in fact "the word _anarchie_, which negates the whole of this so-called order and reminds us of the fairest moments in the lives of the nations, is well chosen for a party that looks forward to conquering a better future."[ ] .--basis _according to kropotkin, the law which has supreme validity for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible; from this law he derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy._ . the supreme law for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. there is "only one scientific method, the method of the natural sciences,"[ ] and we apply this method also "in the sciences that relate to man,"[ ] particularly in the "science of society."[ ] now, a mighty revolution is at present taking place[ ] in the entire realm of science; it is the result of the "philosophy of evolution."[ ] "the idea hitherto prevalent, that everything in nature stands fast, is fallen, destroyed, annihilated. everything in nature changes; nothing remains: neither the rock which appears to us to be immovable and the continent which we call _terra firma_, nor the inhabitants, their customs, habits, and thoughts. all that we see about us is a transitory phenomenon, and must change, because motionlessness would be death."[ ] in the case of organisms this evolution is progress, in consequence of "their admirable adaptivity to their conditions of life. they develop such faculties as render more complete both the adaptations of the aggregates to their surroundings and those of each of the constituent parts of the aggregate to the needs of free co-operation."[ ] "this is the 'struggle for existence,' which, therefore, must not be conceived merely in its restricted sense of a struggle between individuals for the means of subsistence."[ ] "evolution never advances so slowly and evenly as has been asserted. evolution and revolution alternate, and the revolutions--that is, the times of accelerated evolution--belong to the unity of nature just as much as do the times in which evolution takes place more slowly."[ ] "order is the free equilibrium of all forces that operate upon the same point; if any of these forces are interfered with in their operation by a human will, they operate none the less, but their effects accumulate till some day they break the artificial dam and provoke a revolution."[ ] kropotkin applies these general propositions to the social life of men.[ ] "a society is an aggregation of organisms trying to combine the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species";[ ] it is "a whole which serves toward the purpose of attaining the largest possible amount of happiness at the least possible expense of human force."[ ] now human societies evolve,[ ] and one may try to determine the direction of this evolution.[ ] societies advance from lower to higher forms of organization;[ ] but the goal of this evolution--that is, the point towards which it directs itself--consists in "establishing the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity."[ ] what we call progress is the right path to this goal;[ ] humanity may for the time err from this path, but will always be brought back to it at last.[ ] but not even here does evolution take place without revolutions. what is true of a man's views, of the climate of a country, of the characteristics of a species, is true also of societies: "they evolve slowly, but there are also times of the quickest transformation."[ ] for circumstances of many kinds may oppose themselves to the effort of human associations to attain to the greatest possible measure of happiness.[ ] "new thoughts germinate everywhere, try to get to the light, try to get themselves applied in life; but they are kept back by the inertia of those who have an interest in keeping up the old conditions, they are stifled under long-established prejudices and traditions."[ ] "political, economic, and social institutions fall in ruins, and the building which has become uninhabitable hinders the development of what is sprouting in its crevices and around it."[ ] then there is need of "great events which rudely break the thread of history and hurl mankind out of its ruts into new roads";[ ] "the revolution becomes a peremptory necessity."[ ]--"man has recognized his place in nature; he has recognized that his institutions are his work and can be refashioned by him alone."[ ] "what has not the engineer's art dared, and what do not literature, painting, music, the drama dare to-day?"[ ] thus must we also, where any institutions hinder the progress of society, "dare the fight, to make a rich and overflowing life possible to all."[ ] . from the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to the happiest existence possible kropotkin derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy. in the struggle for existence human societies evolve toward a condition in which there are given the best conditions for the attainment of the greatest happiness of mankind.[ ] when we describe anything as "good," we mean by this that it favors the attainment of the goal; that is, it is beneficial to the society in which we live; and we call that "evil" which in our opinion hinders the attainment of the goal, that is, is harmful to the society we live in.[ ] now, men's views as to what favors and what hinders the establishment of the best conditions for the attainment of mankind's greatest happiness, and hence as to what is beneficial or harmful to society, may certainly change.[ ] but one fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal will always have to be recognized as such, whatever the diversity of opinions. it "may be summed up in the sentence 'do to others as you would have it done to you in the like case'."[ ] but this sentence "is nothing else than the principle of equality";[ ] and equality, in turn, "means the same as equity,"[ ] "solidarity,"[ ] "justice."[ ] but there is indisputably yet another fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal. this is "something greater, finer, and mightier than mere equality";[ ] it may be expressed in the sentence "be strong; overflow with the passion of thought and action: so shall your understanding, your love, your energy, pour itself into others."[ ] .--law i. _in mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible, one of the next steps, according to kropotkin, will be the disappearance--not indeed of law, but--of enacted law._ . enacted law has become a hindrance to mankind's progress toward an existence as happy as possible. "for thousands of years those who govern have been repeating again and again, 'respect the law!'";[ ] "in the states of to-day a new law is regarded as the cure for all evils."[ ] but "the law has no claim to men's respect."[ ] "it is an adroit mixture of such customs as are beneficial to society, and would be observed even without a law, with others which are to the advantage only of a ruling minority, but are harmful to the masses and can be upheld only by terror."[ ] "the law, which first made its appearance as a collection of customs which serve for the maintenance of society, is now merely an instrument to keep up the exploitation and domination of the industrious masses by wealthy idlers. it has now no longer any civilizing mission; its only mission is to protect exploitation."[ ] "it puts rigid immobility in the place of progressive development,"[ ] "it seeks to confirm permanently the customs that are advantageous to the ruling minority."[ ] "if one looks over the millions of laws which mankind obeys, one can distinguish three great classes: protection of property, protection of government, protection of persons. but in examining these three classes one comes in every case to the necessary conclusion that the law is valueless and harmful. what the protection of property is worth, the socialists know only too well. the laws about property do not exist to secure to individuals or to society the product of their labor. on the contrary, they exist to rob the producer of a part of his product, and to protect a few in the enjoyment of what they have stolen from the producer or from the whole of society."[ ] and as regards the laws for the protection of government, "we know well that all governments, without exception, have it for their mission to uphold by force the privileges of the propertied classes--the nobility, the clergy, and the _bourgeoisie_. a man has only to examine all these laws, only to observe their every-day working, and he will be convinced that not one is worth keeping."[ ] equally "superfluous and harmful, finally, are the laws for the protection of persons, for the punishment and prevention of 'crimes'. the fear of punishment never yet restrained a murderer. he who would kill his neighbor, for revenge or for necessity, does not beat his brains about the consequences; and every murderer hitherto has had the firm conviction that he would escape prosecution. if murder were declared not punishable, the number of murders would not increase even by one; rather it would decrease to the extent that murders are at present committed by habitual criminals who have been corrupted in prison."[ ] . the stage of evolution to which enacted law belongs will soon be left behind by man. "the law is a comparatively young formation. mankind lived for ages without any written law. at that time the relations of men to each other were regulated by mere habits, by customs and usages, which age made venerable, and which every one learned from his childhood in the same way as he learned hunting, cattle-raising, or agriculture."[ ] "but when society came to be more and more split into two hostile classes, of which the one wanted to rule and the other to escape from rule, the victor of the moment sought to give permanence to the accomplished fact and to hallow it by all that was venerable to the defeated. consecrated by the priest and protected by the strong hand of the warrior, law appeared."[ ] but its days are already numbered. "everywhere we find insurgents who will no longer obey the law till they know where it comes from, what it is good for, by what right it demands obedience, and for what reason it is held in honor. they bring under their criticism everything that has until now been respected as the foundation of society, but first and foremost the fetish, law."[ ] the moment of its disappearance, for the hastening of which we must fight,[ ] is close at hand,[ ] perhaps even at the end of the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, there will indeed be no enacted law, but there will be law even there._ "the laws will be totally abrogated;"[ ] "unwritten customs,"[ ] "'customary law,' as jurists say,"[ ] will "suffice to maintain a good understanding."[ ] these norms of the next stage of evolution will be based on a general will;[ ] and conformity to them will be adequately assured "by the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy"[ ] and by the fear of expulsion from the fellowship,[ ] but also, if necessary, by the intervention of the individual citizen[ ] or of the masses;[ ] they will therefore be legal norms. of legal norms of the next stage of evolution kropotkin mentions in the first place this,--that contracts must be lived up to.[ ] furthermore, according to kropotkin there will obtain in the next stage of evolution a legal norm by virtue of which not only the means of production, but all things, are common property.[ ] an additional legal norm in the next stage of evolution will, according to kropotkin, be that by virtue of which "every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has, for one thing, the right to live; for another, the right to live comfortably."[ ] .--the state i. _according to kropotkin, in mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible the state will shortly disappear._ . the state has become a hindrance to mankind's evolution toward a happiness as great as possible. "what does this monstrous engine serve for, that we call 'state'? for preventing the exploitation of the laborer by the capitalist, of the peasant by the landlord? or for assuring us of work? for providing us food when the mother has nothing but water left for her child? no, a thousand times no."[ ] but instead of this the state "meddles in all our affairs, pinions us from cradle to grave. it prescribes all our actions, it piles up mountains of laws and ordinances that bewilder the shrewdest lawyer. it creates an army of office-holders who sit like spiders in their webs and have never seen the world except through the dingy panes of their office-window. the immense and ever-increasing sums that the state collects from the people are never sufficient: it lives at the expense of future generations, and steers with all its might toward bankruptcy. 'state' is tantamount to 'war'; one state seeks to weaken and ruin another in order to force upon the latter its law, its policy, its commercial treaties, and to enrich itself at its expense; war is to-day the usual condition in europe, there is a thirty years' supply of causes of war on hand. and civil war rages at the same time with foreign war; the state, which was originally to be a protection for all and especially for the weak, has to-day become a weapon of the rich against the exploited, of the propertied against the propertyless."[ ] in these respects there is no distinction to be made between the different forms of the state. "toward the end of the last century the french people overthrew the monarchy, and the last absolute king expiated on the scaffold his own crimes and those of his predecessors."[ ] "later all the countries of the continent went through the same evolution: they overthrew their absolute monarchies and flung themselves into the arms of parliamentarism."[ ] "now it is being perceived that parliamentarism, which was entered upon with such great hopes, has everywhere become a tool for intrigue and personal enrichment, for efforts hostile to the people and to evolution."[ ] "precisely like any despot, the body of representatives of the people--be it called parliament, convention, or anything else; be it appointed by the prefects of a bonaparte or elected with all conceivable freedom by an insurgent city--will always try to enlarge its competence, to strengthen its power by all sorts of meddling, and to displace the activity of the individual and the group by the law."[ ] "it was only a forty years' movement, which occasionally even set fire to grain-fields, that could bring the english parliament to secure to the tenant the value of the improvements made by him. but if it is a question of protecting the capitalist's interest, threatened by a disturbance or even by agitation,--ah, then every representative of the people is on hand, then it acts with more recklessness and cowardice than any despot. the six-hundred-headed beast without a name has outdone louis ix and ivan iv."[ ] "parliamentarism is nauseating to any one who has seen it near at hand."[ ] "the dominion of men, which calls itself 'government,' is incompatible with a morality founded on solidarity."[ ] this is best shown by "the so-called civil rights, whose value and importance the _bourgeois_ press is daily praising to us in every key."[ ] "are they made for those who alone need them? certainly not. universal suffrage may under some circumstances afford to the _bourgeoisie_ a certain protection against encroachments by the central authority, it may establish a balance between two authorities without its being necessary for the rivals to draw the knife on each other as formerly; but it is valueless when the object is to overthrow authority or even to set bounds to it. for the rulers it is an excellent means of deciding their disputes; but of what use is it to the ruled? just so with the freedom of the press. to the mind of the _bourgeoisie_, what is the best thing that has been alleged in its favor? its impotence. 'look at england, switzerland, the united states,' they say. 'there the press is free and yet the dominion of capital is more assured than in any other country.' just so they think about the right of association. 'why should we not grant full right of association?' says the _bourgeoisie_. 'it will not impair our privileges. what we have to fear is secret societies; public unions are the best means to cripple them.' 'the inviolability of the home? yes, this we must proclaim aloud, this we must inscribe in the statute-books,' say the sly _bourgeois_, 'the police certainly must not be looking into our pots and kettles. if things go wrong some day, we will snap our fingers at a man's right to his own house, rummage everything, and, if necessary, arrest people in their beds.' 'the secrecy of letters? yes, just proclaim its inviolability aloud everywhere, our little privacies certainly must not come to the light. if we scent a plot against our privileges, we shall not stand much on ceremony. and if anybody objects, we shall say what an english minister lately said among the applause of parliament: "yes, gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart and with the deepest reluctance that we are having letters opened, but the country (that is, the aristocracy and _bourgeoisie_) is in danger!"' that is what political rights are. freedom of the press and freedom of association, the inviolability of the home, and all the rest, are respected only so long as the people make no use of them against the privileged classes. but on the day when the people begin to use them for the undermining of privileges all these 'rights' are thrown overboard."[ ] . the stage of evolution to which the state belongs will soon be left behind by man. the state is doomed.[ ] it is "of a relatively modern origin."[ ] "the state is a historic formation which, in the life of all nations, has at a certain time gradually taken the place of free associations. church, law, military power, and wealth acquired by plunder, have for centuries made common cause, have in slow labor piled stone on stone, encroachment on encroachment, and thus created the monstrous institution which has finally fixed itself in every corner of social life--nay, in the brains and hearts of men--and which we call the state."[ ] it has now begun to decompose. "the peoples--especially those of the latin races--are bent on destroying its authority, which merely hampers their free development; they want the independence of provinces, communes, and groups of laborers; they want not to submit to any dominion, but to league themselves together freely."[ ] "the dissolution of the states is advancing at frightful speed. they have become decrepit graybeards, with wrinkled skins and tottering feet, gnawed by internal diseases and without understanding for the new thoughts; they are squandering the little strength that they still had left, living at the expense of their numbered years, and hastening their end by falling foul of each other like old women."[ ] the moment of the state's disappearance is therefore close at hand.[ ] kropotkin says now that it will come in a few years,[ ] now that it will come at the end of the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, the place of the state will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ anarchism is the "inevitable"[ ] "next phase,"[ ] "higher form,"[ ] of society. . even after the state is done away men will live together socially; but they will no longer be held together in society by a governmental authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. "free expansion of individuals into groups and of groups into associations, free organization from the simple to the complex as need and inclination are felt,"[ ] will be the future form of society. we can at present perceive a growing anarchistic movement; that is, "a movement towards limiting more and more the sphere of action of government. after having tried all kinds of government, humanity is trying now to free itself from the bonds of any government whatever, and to respond to its needs of organization by the free understanding between individuals prosecuting the same common aims."[ ] "free associations are beginning to take to themselves the entire field of human activity."[ ] "the large organizations resulting merely and simply from free agreement have grown recently. the railway net of europe--a confederation of so many scores of separate societies--is an instance; the dutch _beurden_, or associations of ship and boat owners, are extending now their organizations over the rivers of germany, and even to the shipping trade of the baltic; the numberless amalgamated manufacturers' associations, and the _syndicats_ of france, are so many instances in point. but there also is no lack of free organizations for nobler pursuits: the lifeboat association, the hospitals association, and hundreds of like organizations. one of the most remarkable societies which has[ ] recently arisen is the red cross society. to slaughter men on the battle-fields, that remains the duty of the state; but these very states recognize their inability to take care of their own wounded; they abandon the task, to a great extent, to private initiative."[ ] "these endeavors will attain to free play, will find a new and vast field for their application, and will form the foundation of the future society."[ ] "the agreement between the hundreds of companies to which the european railroads belong has been entered into directly, without the meddling of any central authority that prescribed laws to the several companies. it has been kept up by conventions at which delegates met to consult together and then to lay before their principals plans, not laws. this is a new procedure, utterly different from any government whether monarchical or republican, absolute or constitutional. it is an innovation which at first makes its way into european manners only by hesitating steps, but to which the future belongs."[ ] . "to rack our brains to-day about the details of the form which public life shall take in the future society, would be silly. yet we must come to an agreement now about the main outlines."[ ] "we must not forget that perhaps in a year or two we shall be called on to decide all questions of the organization of society."[ ] communes will continue to exist; but "these communes are not agglomerations of men in a territory, and know neither walls nor boundaries; the commune is a clustering of like-minded persons, not a closed integer. the various groups in one commune will feel themselves drawn to similar groups in other communes; they will unite themselves with these as firmly as with their fellow-citizens; and thus there will come about communities of interest whose members are scattered over a thousand cities and villages."[ ] men will join themselves together by "contracts"[ ] to form such communes. they will "take upon themselves duties to society,"[ ] which on its part engages to do certain things for them.[ ] it will not be necessary to compel the fulfilment of these contracts,[ ] there will be no need of penalties and judges.[ ] fulfilment will be sufficiently assured by "the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy among his neighbors;"[ ] he who does not live up to his obligations can of course be expelled from fellowship.[ ] in the commune every one will "do what is necessary himself, without waiting for a government's orders."[ ] "the commune will not first destroy the state and then set it up again."[ ] "people will see that they are freest and happiest when they have no plenipotentiary agents and depend as little on the wisdom of representatives as on that of providence."[ ] nor will there be prisons or other penal institutions;[ ] "for the few anti-social acts that may still take place the best remedy will consist in loving treatment, moral influence, and liberty."[ ] the communes on their part will join themselves together by contracts[ ] quite in the same way as do the members of the individual communes. "the commune will recognize nothing above it except the interests of the league that it has of its own accord made with other communes."[ ] "owing to the multiplicity of our needs, a single league will soon not be enough; the commune will feel the necessity of entering into other connections also, joining this or that other league. for the purpose of obtaining food it is already a member of one group; now it must join a second in order to obtain other objects that it needs,--metal, for instance,--and then a third and fourth too, that will supply it with cloth and works of art. if one takes up an economic atlas of any country, one sees that there are no economic boundaries: the areas of production and exchange for the different objects are blended, interlaced, superimposed. thus the combinations of the communes also, if they followed their natural development, would soon intertwine in the same way and form an infinitely denser network and a far more consummate 'unity' than the states, whose individual parts, after all, only lie side by side like the rods around the lictor's axe."[ ] . the future society will be able easily to accomplish the tasks that the state accomplishes at present. "suppose there is need of a street. well, then let the inhabitants of the neighboring communes come to an understanding about it, and they will do their business better than the minister of public works would do it. or a railroad is needed. here too the communes that are concerned will produce something very different from the work of the promoters who only build bad pieces of track and make millions by it. or schools are required. people can fit them up for themselves at least as well as the gentlemen at paris. or the enemy invades the country. then we defend ourselves instead of relying on generals who would merely betray us. or the farmer must have tools and machines. then he comes to an understanding with the city workingmen, these supply him with them at cost in return for his products, and the middleman, who now robs both the farmer and the workingman, is superfluous."[ ] "or there comes up a little dispute, or a stronger man tries to push down a weaker. in the first case the people will know enough to create a court of arbitration, and in the second every citizen will regard it as his duty to interfere himself and not wait for the police; there will be as little need of constables as of judges and turnkeys."[ ] .--property i. _according to kropotkin, the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible will shortly bring us to the disappearance not indeed of property, but of its present form, private property._ . private property has become a hindrance to the evolution of mankind toward a happiness as great as possible. what are the effects of private property to-day? "the crisis, which was formerly acute, has become chronic; the crisis in the cotton trade, the crisis in the production of metals, the crisis in watchmaking, all the crises, rage concurrently now and do not come to an end. the unemployed in europe to-day are estimated at several million; those who beg their way from city to city, or gather in mobs to demand 'work or bread' with threats, are estimated at tens of thousands. great branches of industry are destroyed; great cities, like sheffield, forsaken. everything is at a standstill, want and misery prevail everywhere: the children are pale, the wife has grown five years older in one winter, disease and death are rife among the workingmen--and people talk of over-production!"[ ] one might reply that in peasant ownership of land, at least, private property has good effects.[ ] "but the golden age is over for the small farmer. to-day he hardly knows how to make both ends meet. he gets into debt, becomes a victim of the cattle-dealer, the real-estate jobber, the usurer; notes and mortgages ruin whole villages, even more than the frightful taxes imposed by state and commune. small proprietorship is in a desperate condition; and even if the small farmer is still owner in name, he is in fact nothing more than a tenant paying rent to money-dealers and usurers."[ ] but private property has still more sweeping indirect effects. "so long as we have a caste of idlers who have us feed them under the pretext that they must lead us, so long these idlers will always be a focus of pestilence to general morality. he who lives his life in dull laziness, who is always bent merely on getting new pleasures, who by the very basis of his existence can know no solidarity, and who by his course of life cultivates the vilest self-seeking,--he will always pursue the coarsest sensual pleasures and debase everything around him. with his bag full of dollars and his bestial impulses he will go and dishonor women and children, degrade art, the drama, the press, sell his country and its defenders, and, because he is too cowardly to murder with his own hands, will have his proxies murder the choicest of his nation when, some day, he is afraid for his darling money-bag."[ ] "year by year thousands of children grow up in the physical and moral filth of our great cities, among a population corrupted by the struggle for daily bread, and at the same time they daily see the immorality, idleness, prodigality, and ostentation of which these same cities are full."[ ] "thus society is incessantly bringing forth beings who are incapable of an honorable and industrious life, and who are full of anti-social feelings. it does homage to them when success crowns their crimes, and sends them to the penitentiary when they are unlucky."[ ] private property offends against justice. "the labor of all has produced the entire accumulated mass of wealth, that of the present generation as well as that of all that went before. the house in which we happen to be together has value only by its being in paris, this glorious city in which the labor of twenty generations is piled layer upon layer. if it were removed to the snow-fields of siberia, it would be worth substantially nothing. this machine, invented and patented by you, has in it the labor of five or six generations; it has a value only as a part of the vast whole that we call nineteenth-century industry. take your lace-making machine to the papuans in new guinea, and it is valueless."[ ] "science and industry; theory and practice; the invention and the putting the invention in operation, which leads to new inventions again; head work and hand work,--all is connected. every discovery, every progress, every increase in our wealth, has its origin in the total bodily and mental activity of the past and present. then by what right can any one appropriate to himself the smallest fraction of this vast total and say 'this belongs to me and not to you'?"[ ]--but this unjust appropriation of what belongs to all has nevertheless taken place. "among the changes of time a few have taken possession of all that is made possible to man by the production of goods and the increase of his productive power. to-day the land, though it owes its value to the needs of a ceaselessly increasing population, belongs to a minority which can hinder the people from cultivating it, and which does so--or at least does not permit the people to cultivate it in a manner accordant with modern needs. the mines, which represent the toil of centuries, and whose value is based solely on the needs of industry and the necessities of population, belong likewise to a few, and these few limit the mining of coal, or entirely forbid it when they find a better investment for their money. the machines, too, are the property of a handful of men; and, even if a machine has indubitably been brought to its present perfection by three generations of workers, it nevertheless belongs to a few givers of work. the roads, which would be scrap-iron but for europe's dense population, industry, trade, and travel, are in the possession of a few shareholders who perhaps do not even know the location of the lines from which they draw princely incomes."[ ] . mankind will soon have passed the stage of evolution to which private property belongs. private property is doomed.[ ] private property is a historic formation: it "has developed parasitically amidst the free institutions of our earliest ancestors,"[ ] and this in the closest connection with the state. "the political constitution of a society is always the expression, and at the same time the consecration, of its economic constitution."[ ] "the origin of the state, and its reason for existence, lie in the fact that it interferes in favor of the propertied and to the disadvantage of the propertyless."[ ] "the omnipotence of the state constitutes the foundation of the strength of the _bourgeoisie_."[ ] but private property is already on the way to dissolution. "the economic chaos can last no longer. the people are tired of the crises which the greed of the ruling classes provokes. they want to work and live, not first drudge a few years for scanty wages and then become for many years victims of want and objects of charity. the workingman sees the incapacity of the ruling classes: he sees how unable they are either to understand his efforts or to manage the production and exchange of goods."[ ] hence "one of the leading features of our century is the growth of socialism and the rapid spreading of socialist views among the working classes."[ ] the moment when private property is to disappear is near, therefore: be it in a few years,[ ] be it at the end of the nineteenth century,[ ] in any case it will come soon.[ ] ii. _in mankind's next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, must soon be attained, property will take such form that only property of society shall exist._ the "next phase of evolution,"[ ] "higher form of social organization,"[ ] will "inevitably"[ ] be not only anarchism, but "anarchistic communism."[ ] "the tendencies towards economical and political freedom are two different manifestations of the very same need of equality which constitutes the very essence of all struggles mentioned by history";[ ] "these two powerful currents of thought characterize our century."[ ] in this way a comfortable life will be guaranteed to every person who co-operates in production to a certain extent. . mankind's next stage of evolution will no longer know any but the property of society. "in our century the communist tendency is continually reasserting itself. the penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike road before the free road. the same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further on this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected."[ ] so will the future society be communistic. "the first act of the nineteenth-century commune will consist in laying hands on the entire capital accumulated in its bosom."[ ] this applies "to the materials for consumption as well as to those for production."[ ] "people have tried to make a distinction between the capital that serves for the production of goods and that which satisfies the wants of life, and have said that machines, factories, raw materials, the means of transportation, and the land are destined to become the property of the community; while dwellings, finished products, clothing, and provisions will remain private property. this distinction is erroneous and impracticable. the house that shelters us, the coal and gas that we burn, the nutriment that our body burns up, the clothing that covers us, and the book from which we draw instruction, are all essential to our existence and are just as necessary for successful production and for the further development of mankind as are machines, factories, raw materials, and other factors of production. with private property in the former goods, there would still remain inequality, oppression, and exploitation; a half-way abolition of private property would have its effectiveness crippled in advance."[ ] there is no fear that the communistic communes will isolate themselves.[ ] "if to-day a great city transforms itself into a communistic commune, and introduces community of the materials for both work and enjoyment, then in a very few days, if it is not shut in by hostile armies, trains of wagons will appear in its markets, and raw materials will arrive from distant ports; and the city's industrial products, when once the wants of the population are satisfied, will go to the ends of the earth seeking purchasers; throngs of strangers will stream in from near and far, and will afterward tell at home of the marvelous life of the free city where everybody works, where there are neither poor nor oppressed, where every one enjoys the fruit of his toil, and no one interferes with another's doing so."[ ] . the communism of the future society will "not be the communism of the convent or the barrack, such as was formerly preached, but a free communism which puts the joint products at the disposal of all while leaving to every one the liberty of using them at home."[ ] to get an entirely clear idea of every detail of it, indeed, is not as yet possible; "nevertheless we must come to an agreement about the fundamental features at least."[ ] what form will production take? that must first be produced which is requisite "for the satisfaction of man's most urgent wants."[ ] for this it suffices "that all adults, with the exception of those women who are occupied with the education of children, engage to do five hours a day, from the age of twenty or twenty-two to the age of forty-five or fifty, of any one (at their option) of the labors that are regarded as necessary."[ ] "for instance, a society would enter into the following contract with each of its members: 'we will guarantee to you the enjoyment of our houses, stores of goods, streets, conveyances, schools, museums, etc., on condition that from your twentieth year to your forty-fifth or fiftieth you apply five hours every day to one of the labors necessary to life. every moment you will have your choice of the groups you will join, or you may found a new one provided that it proposes to do necessary service. for the rest of your time you may associate yourself with whom you like for the purpose of scientific or artistic recreation at your pleasure. we ask of you, therefore, nothing but twelve or fifteen hundred hours' work annually in one of the groups which produce food, clothing, and shelter, or which care for health, transportation, etc.; and in return we insure to you all that these groups produce or have produced'."[ ] there will be time enough, therefore, to produce what is requisite for the satisfaction of less urgent wants. "when one has done in the field or the factory the work that he is under obligation to do for society, he can devote the other half of his day, his week, or his year, to the satisfaction of artistic or scientific wants."[ ] "the lover of music who wishes a piano will enter the association of instrument-makers; he will devote part of his half-days, and will soon possess the longed-for piano. or the enthusiast in astronomy will join the astronomers' association with its philosophers, observers, calculators, and opticians, its scholars and amateurs; and he will obtain the telescope he wishes, if only he dedicates some work to the common cause--for there is a deal of rough work necessary for an observatory, masons' work, carpenters' work, founders' work, machinists' work--the final polish, to be sure, can be given to the instrument of precision by none but the artist. in a word, the five to seven hours that every one has left, after he has first devoted some hours to the production of the necessary, are quite sufficient to render possible for him every kind of luxury."[ ] "the separation of agriculture from manufactures will pass away. the factory workmen will be at the same time field workmen."[ ] "as an eminently periodic industry, which at certain times (and even more in the making of improvements than in harvest) needs a large additional force, agriculture will form the link between village and city."[ ] and "the separation of mental from bodily labor will come to an end"[ ] too. "poets and scientists will no longer find poor devils who will sell their energies to them for a plate of soup; they will have to get together and print their writings themselves. then the authors, and their admirers of both sexes, will soon acquire the art of handling the type-case and composing-stick; they will learn the pleasure of producing jointly, with their own hands, a work that they value."[ ] "every labor will be agreeable."[ ] "if there is still work which is really disagreeable in itself, it is only because our scientific men have never cared to consider the means of rendering it less so: they have always known that there were plenty of starving men who would do it for a few pence a day."[ ] "factories, smelters, mines, can be as sanitary and as splendid as the best laboratories of our universities; and the more perfectly they are fitted up the more they will produce."[ ] and the product of such labor will be "infinitely better, and considerably greater, than the mass of goods hitherto produced under the goad of slavery, serfdom, and wage-slavery."[ ] how will distribution take place? every one who contributes his part to production will also have his share in the product. but it must not be assumed that this share in the product will correspond to that share in the production. "each according to his powers; to each according to his wants."[ ] "need will be put above service; it will be recognized that every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has in the first place the right to live, and in the second place the right to live comfortably."[ ] "every one, no matter how strong or weak, how competent or incompetent he may be, will have the right to live,"[ ] and "to have a comfortable life; he will furthermore have the right to decide for himself what belongs to a comfortable life."[ ] society's stock of goods will quite permit this. "if one considers on the one hand the rapidity with which the productive power of civilized nations is increasing, and on the other hand the limits that are directly or indirectly set to its production by present conditions, one comes to the conclusion that even a moderately sensible economic constitution would permit the civilized nations to heap up in a few years so many useful things that we should have to cry out 'enough! enough coal! enough bread! enough clothes! let us rest, take recreation, put our strength to a better use, spend our time in a better way!'"[ ] however, what if the stock should in fact not suffice for all wants? "the solution is--free taking of everything that exists in superfluity, and rations of that in which there is a possibility of dearth: rations according to needs, with preference to children, the aged, and the weak in general. that is what is done even now in the country. what commune thinks of limiting the use of the meadows so long as there are enough of them? what commune, so long as there are chestnuts and brushwood enough, hinders those who belong to it from taking as much as they please? and what does the peasant introduce when there is a prospect that firewood will give out? rationing."[ ] .--realization _the change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible,--the disappearance of the state, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,--will be accomplished, according to kropotkin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will come to pass of itself, but for which it is the function of those who foresee the course of evolution to prepare men's minds._ i. we know that we shall not reach the future condition "without intense perturbations."[ ] "that justice may be victorious, and the new thoughts become reality, there is need of a frightful storm to sweep away all this rottenness, to vivify torpid souls with its breath, and to restore self-sacrifice, self-denial, and heroism to our senile, decrepit, crumbling society."[ ] there is need of "social revolution: that is, the people's taking possession of society's total stock of goods, and the abolition of all authorities."[ ] "the social revolution is at the door,"[ ] "it stands before us at the end of this century,"[ ] "it will be here in a few years."[ ] it is "the task which history sets for us,"[ ] but "whether we will or not, it will be accomplished independently of our will."[ ] . "the social revolution will be no uprising of a few days: we shall have to go through a period of three, four, or five years of revolution, till the transformation of the social and economic situation is completed."[ ] "during this time what we have sown to-day will be coming up and bearing fruit; and he who now is yet indifferent will become a convinced adherent of the new doctrine."[ ] nor will the social revolution be limited to a narrow area. "we must not assume, to be sure, that it will break out in all europe at once."[ ] "germany is nearer the revolution than people think";[ ] "but whether it start from france, germany, spain, or russia, it will anyhow be a european revolution in the end. it will spread as rapidly as that of our predecessors the heroes of , and set europe afire."[ ] . the first act of the social revolution will be a work of destruction.[ ] "the impulse to destruction, which is so natural and justifiable because it is at the same time an impulse to renovation, will find its full satisfaction. how much old trash there is to clear away! does not everything have to be transformed, the houses, the cities, the businesses of manufacturing and farming,--in short, all the arrangements of society?"[ ] "everything that it is necessary to abolish should be destroyed without delay: the penitentiaries and prisons, the forts that threaten cities, the slums whose disease-laden air people have breathed so long."[ ] yet the social revolution will not be a reign of terror. "naturally the fight will demand victims. one can understand how it was that the people of paris, before they hurried to the frontiers, killed the aristocrats in the prisons, who had planned with the enemy for the annihilation of the revolution. he who would blame the people for this should be asked, 'have you suffered with them and like them? if not, blush and be still.'"[ ] but yet the people will never, like the kings and czars, exalt terror into a system. "they have sympathy for the victims; they are too good-hearted not to feel a speedy repugnance at cruelty. the public prosecutor, the corpse-cart, the guillotine, speedily become repulsive. after a little while it is recognized that such a reign of terror is merely preparing the way for a dictatorship, and the guillotine is abolished."[ ] the government will be overthrown first. "there is no need of fearing its strength. governments only seem terrible; the first collision with the insurgent people lays them prostrate; many have collapsed in a few hours before now."[ ] "the people rise, and the state machine is already at a standstill; the officials are in confusion and know not what to do; the army has lost confidence in its leaders."[ ] but it cannot stop with this. "on the day when the people has swept away the governments, it will also, without waiting for any directions from above, abolish private property by forcible expropriation."[ ] "the peasants will drive out the great landlords and declare their estates common property; they will annul the mortgages and proclaim general release from debt";[ ] and in the cities "the people will seize on the entire wealth accumulated there, turn out the factory-owners, and undertake the management themselves."[ ] "the expropriation will be general; nothing but an expropriation of the broadest kind can initiate the re-shaping of society--expropriation on a small scale would appear like ordinary plunder."[ ] it will extend not only to the materials of production, but also to those of consumption: "the first thing that the people do after the overthrow of the governments will be to provide itself with sanitary dwellings and with sufficient food and clothing."[ ]--yet expropriation will "have its limits."[ ] "suppose by pinching, a poor devil has got himself a house that will hold him and his family. will he be thrown on the street? certainly not! if the house is just big enough for him and his family, he shall keep it, and he shall also continue to work the garden under his window. our young men will even lend him a hand in case of need. but, if he has rented a room to somebody else, the people will say to this one, 'you know, friend, don't you, that you no longer owe the old fellow anything? keep your room gratis; you need no longer fear the officer of the court, we have the new society!"[ ] "expropriation will extend just to that which makes it possible for any one to exploit another's labor."[ ] . "the work of destruction will be followed by a work of re-shaping."[ ] most people conceive of revolution as with "a 'revolutionary government'"[ ]--this in two ways. some understand by this an elective government. "it is proposed to summon the people to elections, to elect a government as quickly as possible, and entrust to it the work which each of us ought to be doing of his own accord."[ ] "but any government which an insurgent people attains by elections must necessarily be a leaden weight on its feet, especially in so immense an economic, political, and moral reorganization as the social revolution."[ ] this is perceived by others; "therefore they give up the thought of a 'legal' government, at least for the time of insurrection against all laws, and preach the 'revolutionary dictatorship.' 'the party which has overthrown the government,' say they, 'will forcibly put itself in the government's place. it will seize the authority and adopt a revolutionary procedure. for every one who does not recognize it--the guillotine; for every one who refuses obedience to it--the guillotine likewise.' so talk the little robespierres. but we anarchists know that this thought is nothing but an unwholesome fruit of government fetishism, and that any dictatorship, even the best disposed, is the death of the revolution."[ ] "we will do what is needful ourselves, without waiting for the orders of a government."[ ] "if the dissolution of the state is once started, if once the oppression-machine begins to give out, free associations will be formed quite automatically. just remember the voluntary combinations of the armed _bourgeoisie_ during the great revolution. remember the societies which were voluntarily formed in spain, and which defended the independence of the country, when the state was shaken to its foundations by napoleon's armies. as soon as the state no longer compels any co-operation, natural wants bring about a voluntary co-operation quite automatically. if the state be but overthrown, free society will rise up at once on its ruins."[ ] "the reorganization of production will not be possible in a few days,"[ ] especially as the revolution will presumably not break out in all europe at a time.[ ] the people will consequently have to take temporary measures to assure themselves, first of all, of food, clothing, and shelter. first the populace of the insurgent cities will take possession of the dealers' stocks of food, and of the grain warehouses and the slaughter-houses. volunteers make an inventory of the provisions found, and distribute printed tabular statements by the million. henceforth free taking of all that is present in abundance; rations of what has to be measured out, with preference to the sick and the weak; a supply for deficiencies by importation from the country (which will come in plenty if we produce things that the farmer needs and put them at his disposal) and also by the inhabitants of the city entering upon the cultivation of the royal parks and meadows in the vicinity.[ ] the people will take possession of the dwelling-houses in like manner. again volunteers make lists of the available dwellings and distribute them. people come together by streets, quarters, districts, and agree about the allotment of the dwellings. but the evils that will at first still have to be borne are soon to be done away: the artisans of the building trades need only work a few hours a day, and soon the over-spacious dwellings that were on hand will be sensibly altered, and model houses, entirely new, will be built.[ ] the same procedure will be followed with regard to clothing. the people take possession of the great clothiers' establishments, and volunteers list the stocks. people take freely what is on hand in abundance, in rations what is limited in quantity. what is lacking is supplied in the shortest of time by the factories with their perfected machines.[ ] ii. "to prepare men's minds"[ ] for the approaching revolution is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. this is especially "the task of the secret societies and revolutionary organizations."[ ] it is the task of "the anarchist party."[ ] the anarchists "are to-day as yet a minority, but their number is daily growing, will grow more and more, and will on the eve of the revolution become a majority."[ ] "what a dismal sight france presented a few years before the great revolution, and how weak was the minority of those who thought of the abolition of royalty and feudalism; but what a change three or four years later! the minority had begun the revolution and had carried the masses with it."[ ]--but how are men's minds to be prepared for the revolution? . first and foremost, the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known. "it is to be proclaimed by word and deed till it is thoroughly popularized, so that on the day of the rising it is in everybody's mouth. this task is greater and more serious than is generally assumed; for, if some few do have the aim clearly before their eyes, it is quite otherwise with the masses, constantly worked upon as they are by the _bourgeois_ press."[ ] but this does not suffice. "the spirit of insurrection must be aroused; the sense of independence and the wild boldness without which no revolution comes about must awake."[ ] "between the peaceable discussion of evils and tumult, insurrection, lies a chasm--the same chasm that in the greater part of mankind separates reflection from act, thought from will."[ ] . the way to obtain these two results is "action--constant, incessant action by minorities. courage, devotion, self-sacrifice are as contagious as cowardice, servility, and apprehension."[ ] "what forms is the propaganda to take? every form that is prescribed by the situation, by opportunity, and propensity. it may be now serious, now jocular; but it must always be bold. it must never leave a means unused, never leave a fact of public life unobserved, to keep minds alert, to give aliment and expression to discontent, to stir hate against exploiters, to make the government ridiculous, and to demonstrate its impotence. but above all, to arouse boldness and the spirit of insurrection, it must continually preach by example."[ ] "men of courage, willing not only to speak but to act; pure characters who prefer prison, exile, and death to a life that contradicts their principles; bold natures who know that in order to win one must dare,--these are the advance-guard who open the fight long before the masses are ripe to lift the banner of insurrection openly and to seek their rights arms in hand. in the midst of the complaining, talking, discussing, comes a mutinous deed by one or more persons, which incarnates the longings of all."[ ] "perhaps at first the masses remain indifferent and believe the wise ones who regard the act as 'crazy', but soon they are privately applauding the crazy and imitating them. while the first of them are filling the penitentiaries, others are already continuing their work. the declarations of war against present-day society, the mutinous deeds, the acts of revenge, multiply. general attention is aroused; the new thought makes its way into men's heads and wins their hearts. a single deed makes more propaganda in a few days than a thousand pamphlets. the government defends itself, it rages pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. one deed brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too late; the revolution breaks out."[ ] . to make still clearer the means by which the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known and the spirit of insurrection is to be aroused, kropotkin tells some of the history of what preceded the revolution of . he tells how at that time thousands of lampoons acquainted the people with the vices of the court, and how a multitude of satirical songs flagellated crowned heads and stirred hatred against the nobility and clergy. he sets before us how in placards the king, the queen, the farmers-general, were threatened, reviled, and jeered at; how enemies of the people were hanged or burned or quartered in effigy. he describes to us the way in which the insurrectionists got the people used to the streets and taught them to defy the police, the military, the cavalry. we learn how in the villages secret organizations, the jacques, set fire to the barns of the lord of the manor, destroyed his crops or his game, murdered him himself, threatened the collection or payment of rent with death. he sets forth to us how then, one day, the storehouses were broken into, the trains of wagons were stopped on the highway, the toll-gates were burned and the officials killed, the tax-lists and the account-books and the city archives went up in flames, and the revolution broke out on all sides.[ ] "what conclusions are to be drawn from this"[ ] kropotkin does not think it necessary to explain. he contents himself with characterizing as "a precious instruction for us"[ ] the facts which he reports. footnotes: [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [in eltzbacher's general discussions, and his summaries of the different writers' views on law, the word translated "law" is everywhere _recht_, french _droit_, latin _jus_, law as a body of rights and duties. but in the quotations from kropotkin under the heading "law" the word is everywhere (with the single exception of the phrase "customary law") _gesetz_, french _loi_, latin _lex_, a law as an enacted formula to describe men's actions; and the same is the word translated "law" in eltzbacher's summaries under the heading "basis" in the different chapters.] [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , - , "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , - , - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] [_sic_, edition of ]. [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - , "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [kropotkin prefixes "his own social habits and."] [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_studies_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie--sa philosophie son idéal_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "l'_anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [the nineteenth century, of course, is meant.] [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_siècle_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] kr. "_studies_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , ; kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . chapter viii tucker's teaching .--general benjamin r. tucker was born in at south dartmouth, near new bedford, massachusetts. from to he studied technology in boston; there he made the acquaintance of josiah warren[ ] in . in he traveled in england, france, and italy. in tucker took the temporary editorship of the "word," published at princeton, massachusetts. in he published the quarterly "the radical review" in new bedford; but only four numbers appeared. in , in boston, he founded the semi-monthly paper "liberty," of which there also appeared for a short time a german edition under the title "libertas"; in boston, also, he was for ten years one of the editorial staff of the "globe." since he has lived in new york, and "liberty" has appeared there as a weekly.[ ] . tucker's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained mainly in his articles in "liberty." he has published a collection[ ] of these articles under the title "instead of a book. by a man too busy to write one. a fragmentary exposition of philosophical anarchism" ( ). [illustration] . tucker calls his teaching "anarchism." "circumstances have combined to make me somewhat conspicuous as an exponent of the theory of modern anarchism."[ ] "anarchy does not mean simply opposed to the _archos_, or political leader. it means opposed to _arch[=e]_. now, _arch[=e]_, in the first instance, means _beginning_, _origin_. from this it comes to mean _a first principle_, _an element_; then _first place_, _supreme power_, _sovereignty_, _dominion_, _command_, _authority_; and finally _a sovereignty_, _an empire_, _a realm_, _a magistracy_, _a governmental office_. etymologically, then, the word anarchy may have several meanings. but the word anarchy as a philosophical term and the word anarchist as the name of a philosophical sect were first appropriated in the sense of opposition to dominion, to authority, and are so held by right of occupancy, which fact makes any other philosophical use of them improper and confusing."[ ] .--basis _tucker considers that the law which has supreme validity for every one of us is self-interest; and from this he derives the law of equal liberty._ . for every man self-interest is the supreme law. "the anarchists are not only utilitarians, but egoists in the farthest and fullest sense."[ ] what does self-interest mean? my interest is everything that serves my purposes.[ ] it takes in not only the lowest but also "the higher forms of selfishness."[ ] thus, in particular, the interest of society is at the same time that of every individual: "its life is inseparable from the lives of individuals; it is impossible to destroy one without destroying the other."[ ] self-interest is the supreme law for man. "the anarchists totally discard the idea of moral obligation, of inherent rights and duties."[ ] "so far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure. any man, be his name bill sykes or alexander romanoff, and any set of men, whether the chinese highbinders or the congress of the united states, have the right, if they have the power, to kill or coerce other men and to make the entire world subservient to their ends."[ ] "the anarchism of to-day affirms the right of society to coerce the individual and of the individual to coerce society so far as either has the requisite power."[ ] . from this supreme law tucker derives "the law of equal liberty."[ ] the law of equal liberty is based on every individual's self-interest. for "liberty is the chief essential to man's happiness, and therefore the most important thing in the world, and i want as much of it as i can get."[ ] on the other hand, "human equality is a necessity of stable society,"[ ] and the life of society "is inseparable from the lives of individuals."[ ] consequently every individual's self-interest demands the equal liberty of all. "equal liberty means the largest amount of liberty compatible with equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of individuals living in society, for their respective spheres of action."[ ] "'mind your own business' is the only moral law of the anarchistic scheme."[ ] "it is our duty to respect others' rights, assuming the word 'right' to be used in the sense of the limit which the principle of equal liberty logically places upon might."[ ]--on the law of equal liberty is founded "the distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defence. this distinction is vital: without it there can be no valid philosophy of politics."[ ] "by 'invasion' i mean the invasion of the individual sphere, which is bounded by the line inside of which liberty of action does not conflict with others' liberty of action."[ ] this boundary-line is in part unmistakable; for instance, a threat is not an invasion if the threatened act is not an invasion, "a man has a right to threaten what he has a right to execute."[ ] but the boundary-line may also be dubious; for instance, "we cannot clearly identify the maltreatment of child by parent as either invasive or non-invasive of the liberty of third parties."[ ] "additional experience is continually sharpening our sense of what constitutes invasion. though we still draw the line by rule of thumb, we are drawing it more clearly every day."[ ] "the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy."[ ] "on the other hand, he who resists another's attempt to control is not an aggressor, an invader, a governor, but simply a defender, a protector."[ ] "the individual has the right to repel invasion of his sphere of action."[ ] "anarchism justifies the application of force to invasive men,"[ ] "violence is advisable when it will accomplish the desired end and inadvisable when it will not."[ ] and "defensive associations acting on the anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts. they would not, however, prohibit non-invasive acts, even though these acts create additional opportunity for invasive persons to act invasively: for instance, the selling of liquor."[ ] "and the nature of such resistance is not changed whether it be offered by one man to another man, as when one repels a criminal's onslaught, or by one man to all other men, as when one declines to obey an oppressive law, or by all other men to one man, as when a subject people rises against a despot, or as when the members of a community voluntarily unite to restrain a criminal."[ ] .--law _according to tucker, from the standpoint of every one's self-interest and the equal liberty of all there is no objection to law._ legal norms are to obtain: that is, norms that are based on a general will[ ] and to which obedience is enforced, if necessary, by every means,[ ] even by prison, torture, and capital punishment.[ ] but the law is to be "so flexible that it will shape itself to every emergency and need no alteration. and it will then be regarded as _just_ in proportion to its flexibility, instead of as now in proportion to its rigidity."[ ] the means to this end is that "juries will judge not only the facts, but the law";[ ] machinery for altering the law is then unnecessary.[ ]--in particular, there are to be recognized the following legal norms, whose correctness tucker tries to deduce from the law of equal liberty: first, a legal norm by which the person is secured against hurt. "we are the sternest enemies of invasion of the person, and, although chiefly busy in destroying the causes thereof, have no scruples against such heroic treatment of its immediate manifestations as circumstances and wisdom may dictate."[ ] capital punishment is quite compatible with the protection of the person against hurt, for its essence is not that of an act of hurting, but of an act of defence.[ ] next, there is to be recognized a legal norm by virtue of which "ownership on a basis of labor"[ ] exists. "this form of property secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force."[ ] "it will be seen from this definition that anarchistic property concerns only products. but anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended. it should be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual occupancy and use."[ ] against injury to property, as well as against injury to the person, anarchism has no scruples against "such heroic treatment as circumstances and wisdom may dictate."[ ] furthermore, there is to be recognized the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to. obligation comes into existence when obligations are "consciously and voluntarily assumed";[ ] and the other party thus acquires "a right."[ ] to be sure, the obligatory force of contract is not without bounds. "contract is a very serviceable and most important tool, but its usefulness has its limits; no man can employ it for the abdication of his manhood";[ ] therefore "the constituting of an association in which each member waives the right of secession would be a mere _form_."[ ] furthermore, no one can employ it for the invasion of third parties; therefore a promise "whose fulfilment would invade third parties"[ ] would be invalid.--"i deem the keeping of promises such an important matter that only in the extremest cases would i approve their violation. it is of such vital consequence that associates should be able to rely upon each other that it is better never to do anything to weaken this confidence except when it can be maintained only at the expense of some consideration of even greater importance."[ ] "the man who has received a promise is defrauded by its non-fulfilment, invaded, deprived of a portion of his liberty against his will."[ ] "i have no doubt of the right of any man to whom, for a consideration, a promise has been made, to insist, even by force, upon the fulfilment of that promise, provided the promise be not one whose fulfilment would invade third parties. and, if the promisee has a right to use force himself for such a purpose, he has a right to secure such co-operative force from others as they are willing to extend. these others, in turn, have a right to decide what sort of promises, if any, they will help him to enforce. when it comes to the determination of this point, the question is one of policy solely; and very likely it will be found that the best way to secure the fulfilment of promises is to have it understood in advance that the fulfilment is not to be enforced."[ ] .--the state i. _with regard to every man's self-interest, especially on the basis of the law of equal liberty, tucker rejects the state; and that universally, not merely for special circumstances determined by place and time._ for the state is "the embodiment of the principle of invasion."[ ] . "two elements are common to all the institutions to which the name 'state' has been applied: first, aggression."[ ] "aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms."[ ] "this is the anarchistic definition of government: the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will."[ ] and "second, the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries."[ ] therefore "this is the anarchistic definition of the state: 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."[ ] "rule is evil, and it is none the better for being majority rule."[ ] "the theocratic despotism of kings or the democratic despotism of majorities"[ ] are alike condemnable. "what is the ballot? it is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the billy, and the bullet. it is a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. the voice of the majority saves bloodshed, but it is no less the arbitrament of force than is the decree of the most absolute of despots backed by the most powerful of armies."[ ] . "in the first place, all the acts of governments are indirectly invasive, because dependent upon the primary invasion called taxation."[ ] "the very first act of the state, the compulsory assessment and collection of taxes, is itself an aggression, a violation of equal liberty, and, as such, vitiates every subsequent act, even those acts which would be purely defensive if paid for out of a treasury filled by voluntary contributions. how is it possible to sanction, under the law of equal liberty, the confiscation of a man's earnings to pay for protection which he has not sought and does not desire?"[ ] "and, if this is an outrage, what name shall we give to such confiscation when the victim is given, instead of bread, a stone, instead of protection, oppression? to force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. but that is exactly what the state is doing."[ ] for "in the second place, by far the greater number of their acts are directly invasive, because directed, not to the restraint of invaders, but to the denial of freedom to the people in their industrial, commercial, social, domestic, and individual lives."[ ] "how thoughtless, then, to assert that the existing political order is of a purely defensive character!"[ ] "defence is a service, like any other service. it is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand. in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production. the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the state. the state, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices. like almost all monopolists, it supplies a worthless, or nearly worthless, article. just as the monopolist of a food product often furnishes poison instead of nutriment, so the state takes advantage of its monopoly of defence to furnish invasion instead of protection. just as the patrons of the one pay to be poisoned, so the patrons of the other pay to be enslaved. and the state exceeds all its fellow-monopolists in the extent of its villany because it enjoys the unique privilege of compelling all people to buy its product whether they want it or not."[ ] . it cannot be alleged in favor of the state that it is necessary as a means for combating crime.[ ] "the state is itself the most gigantic criminal extant. it manufactures criminals much faster than it punishes them."[ ] "our prisons are filled with criminals which our virtuous state has made what they are by its iniquitous laws, its grinding monopolies, and the horrible social conditions that result from them. we enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them."[ ] no more can the state be defended on the ground that it is wanted for the relief of suffering. "the state is rendering assistance to the suffering and starving victims of the mississippi inundation. well, such work is better than forging new chains to keep the people in subjection, we allow; but is not worth the price that is paid for it. the people cannot afford to be enslaved for the sake of being insured. if there were no other alternative, they would do better, on the whole, to take nature's risks and pay her penalties as best they might. but liberty supplies another alternative, and furnishes better insurance at cheaper rates. mutual insurance, by the organization of risk, will do the utmost that can be done to mitigate and equalize the suffering arising from the accidental destruction of wealth."[ ] ii. _every man's self-interest, and equal liberty particularly, demands, in place of the state, a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ the "voluntary association of contracting individuals"[ ] is to take the place of the state. . "the anarchists have no intention or desire to abolish society. they know that its life is inseparable from the lives of individuals; that it is impossible to destroy one without destroying the other."[ ] "society has come to be man's dearest possession. pure air is good, but no one wants to breathe it long alone. independence is good, but isolation is too heavy a price to pay for it."[ ] but men are not to be held together in society by a concrete supreme authority, but solely by the legally binding force of contract.[ ] the form of society is to be "voluntary association,"[ ] whose "constitution"[ ] is nothing but a contract. . but what is to be the nature of the voluntary association in detail? in the first place, it cannot bind its members for life. "the constituting of an association in which each member waives the right of secession would be a mere _form_, which every decent man who was a party to it would hasten to violate and tread under foot as soon as he appreciated the enormity of his folly. to indefinitely waive one's right of secession is to make one's self a slave. now, no man can make himself so much a slave as to forfeit the right to issue his own emancipation proclamation."[ ] in the next place, the voluntary association, as such, can have no dominion over a territory. "certainly such voluntary association would be entitled to enforce whatever regulations the contracting parties might agree upon within the limits of whatever territory, or divisions of territory, had been brought into the association by these parties as individual occupiers thereof, and no non-contracting party would have a right to enter or remain in this domain except upon such terms as the association might impose. but if, somewhere between these divisions of territory, had lived, prior to the formation of the association, some individual on his homestead, who for any reason, wise or foolish, had declined to join in forming the association, the contracting parties would have had no right to evict him, compel him to join, make him pay for any incidental benefits that he might derive from proximity to their association, or restrict him in the exercise of any previously-enjoyed right to prevent him from reaping these benefits. now, voluntary association necessarily involving the right of secession, any seceding member would naturally fall back into the position and upon the rights of the individual above described, who refused to join at all. so much, then, for the attitude of the individual toward any voluntary association surrounding him, his support thereof evidently depending upon his approval or disapproval of its objects, his view of its efficiency in attaining them, and his estimate of the advantages and disadvantages involved in joining, seceding, or abstaining."[ ] for the members of the voluntary association numerous obligations arise from their membership. the association may require, as a condition of membership, the agreement to perform certain services,--for instance, "jury service."[ ] and "inasmuch as anarchistic associations recognize the right of secession, they may utilize the ballot, if they see fit to do so. if the question decided by ballot is so vital that the minority thinks it more important to carry out its own views than to preserve common action, the minority can withdraw. in no case can a minority, however small, be governed without its consent."[ ] the voluntary association is entitled to compel its members to live up to their obligations. "if a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement";[ ] therefore a voluntary association is "entitled to enforce whatever regulations the contracting parties may agree upon."[ ] to be sure, one must bear in mind that "very likely the best way to secure the fulfilment of promises is to have it understood in advance that the fulfilment is not to be enforced."[ ] of especial importance among the obligations of the members of a voluntary association is the duty of paying taxes; but the tax is voluntary by virtue of the fact that it is based on contract.[ ] "voluntary taxation, far from impairing the association's credit, would strengthen it";[ ] for, in the first place, because of the simplicity of its functions, the association seldom or never has to borrow; in the second place, it cannot, like the present state upon its basis of compulsory taxation, repudiate its debts and still continue business; and, in the third place, it will necessarily be more intent on maintaining its credit by paying its debts than is the state which enforces taxation.[ ] and furthermore, the voluntariness of the tax has this advantage, that "the defensive institution will be steadily deterred from becoming an invasive institution through fear that the voluntary contributions will fall off; it will have this constant motive to keep itself trimmed down to the popular demand."[ ] "ireland's true order: the wonderful land league, the nearest approach, on a large scale, to perfect anarchistic organization that the world has yet seen. an immense number of local groups, scattered over large sections of two continents separated by three thousand miles of ocean; each group autonomous, each free; each composed of varying numbers of individuals of all ages, sexes, races, equally autonomous and free; each inspired by a common, central purpose; each supported entirely by voluntary contributions; each obeying its own judgment; each guided in the formation of its judgment and the choice of its conduct by the advice of a central council of picked men, having no power to enforce its orders except that inherent in the convincing logic of the reasons on which the orders are based; all co-ordinated and federated, with a minimum of machinery and without sacrifice of spontaneity, into a vast working unit, whose unparalleled power makes tyrants tremble and armies of no avail."[ ] . among the prominent associations of the new society are mutual insurance societies and mutual banks,[ ] and, especially, defensive associations. "the abolition of the state will leave in existence a defensive association"[ ] which will give protection against those "who violate the social law by invading their neighbors."[ ] to be sure, this need will be only transitory. "we look forward to the ultimate disappearance of the necessity of force even for the purpose of repressing crime."[ ] "the necessity for defence against individual invaders is largely and perhaps, in the end, wholly due to the oppressions of the invasive state. when the state falls, criminals will begin to disappear."[ ] a number of defensive associations may exist side by side. "there are many more than five or six insurance companies in england, and it is by no means uncommon for members of the same family to insure their lives and goods against accident or fire in different companies. why should there not be a considerable number of defensive associations in england, in which people, even members of the same family, might insure their lives and goods against murderers or thieves? defence is a service, like any other service."[ ] "under the influence of competition the best and cheapest protector, like the best and cheapest tailor, would doubtless get the greater part of the business. it is conceivable even that he might get the whole of it. but, if he should, it would be by his virtue as a protector, not by his power as a tyrant. he would be kept at his best by the possibility of competition and the fear of it; and the source of power would always remain, not with him, but with his patrons, who would exercise it, not by voting him down or by forcibly putting another in his place, but by withdrawing their patronage."[ ] but, if invader and invaded belong to different defensive associations, will not a conflict of associations result? "anticipations of such conflicts would probably result in treaties, and even in the establishment of federal tribunals, as courts of last resort, by the co-operation of the various associations, on the same voluntary principle in accordance with which the associations themselves were organized."[ ] "voluntary defensive associations acting on the anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts."[ ] to fulfil this function they may choose any appropriate means, without thereby exercising a government. "government is the subjection of the _non-invasive_ individual to a will not his own. the subjection of the _invasive_ individual is not government, but resistance to and protection from government."[ ]--"anarchism recognizes the right to arrest, try, convict, and punish for wrong doing."[ ] "anarchism will take enough of the invader's property from him to repair the damage done by his invasion."[ ] "if it can find no better instrument of resistance to invasion, anarchism will use prisons."[ ] it admits even capital punishment. "the society which inflicts capital punishment does not commit murder. murder is an offensive act. the term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can."[ ] "it is allowable to punish invaders by torture. but, if the 'good' people are not fiends, they are not likely to defend themselves by torture until the penalties of death and tolerable confinement have shown themselves destitute of efficacy."[ ]--"all disputes will be submitted to juries."[ ] "speaking for myself, i think the jury should be selected by drawing twelve names by lot from a wheel containing the names of all the citizens in the community."[ ] "the juries will judge not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction."[ ] .--property i. _according to tucker, from the standpoint of every one's self-interest and the equal liberty of all there is no objection to property._ tucker rejects only the distribution of property on the basis of monopoly, as it everywhere and always exists in the state. that the state is essentially invasion appears in the laws which "not only prescribe personal habits, but, worse still, create and sustain monopolies"[ ] and thereby make usury possible.[ ] . usury is the taking of surplus value.[ ] "a laborer's product is such portion of the value of that which he delivers to the consumer as his own labor has contributed."[ ] the laborer does not get this product, "at least not as laborer; he gains a bare subsistence by his work."[ ] but, "somebody gets the surplus wealth. who is the somebody?"[ ] "the usurer."[ ] "there are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer. and who is not? scarcely any one. the banker is a usurer; the manufacturer is a usurer; the merchant is a usurer; the landlord is a usurer; and the workingman who puts his savings, if he has any, out at interest, or takes rent for his house or lot, if he owns one, or exchanges his labor for more than an equivalent,--he too is a usurer. the sin of usury is one under which all are concluded, and for which all are responsible. but all do not benefit by it. the vast majority suffer. only the chief usurers accumulate: in agricultural and thickly settled countries, the landlords; in industrial and commercial countries, the bankers. those are the somebodies who swallow up the surplus wealth."[ ] . "and where do they get their power? from monopoly maintained by the state. usury rests on this."[ ] and "of the various monopolies that now prevail, four are of principal importance."[ ] "first in the importance of its evil influence they [the founders of anarchism] considered the money monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent. upon all other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by state laws making it a criminal offence to issue notes as currency. it is claimed that holders of this privilege control the rate of interest, the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods,--the first directly, and the second and third indirectly. for, if the business of banking were made free to all, more and more persons would enter into it until the competition should become sharp enough to reduce the price of lending money to the labor cost, which statistics show to be less than three-fourths of one per cent."[ ] "then down will go house-rent. for no one who can borrow capital at one per cent. with which to build a house of his own will consent to pay rent to a landlord at a higher rate than that."[ ] finally, "down will go profits also. for merchants, instead of buying at high prices on credit, will borrow money of the banks at less than one per cent., buy at low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices of their goods to their customers."[ ] "second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like ireland. this monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land-titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation."[ ] "ground-rent exists only because the state stands by to collect it and to protect land-titles rooted in force or fraud."[ ] "as soon as individuals should no longer be protected in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on."[ ] the third and fourth places are occupied by the tariff and patent monopolies.[ ] "the tariff monopoly consists in fostering production at high prices and under unfavorable conditions by visiting with the penalty of taxation those who patronize production at low prices and under favorable conditions. the evil to which this monopoly gives rise might more properly be called _mis_usury than usury, because it compels labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the misuse of capital."[ ] "the patent monopoly protects inventors and authors against competition for a period long enough to enable them to extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labor measure of their services,--in other words, it gives certain people a right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of nature, and the power to exact tribute from others for the use of this natural wealth, which should be open to all."[ ] it is on the tariff and patent monopolies, next to the money monopoly, that profit in exchange is based. if they were done away along with the money monopoly, it would disappear.[ ] ii. _every one's self-interest, and particularly the equal liberty of all, demands a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor._[ ] . "equal liberty, in the property sphere, is such a balance between the liberty to take and the liberty to keep that the two liberties may coexist without conflict or invasion."[ ] "nearly all anarchists consider labor to be the only basis of the right of ownership in harmony with that law";[ ] "the laborers, instead of having only a small fraction of the wealth in the world, should have all the wealth."[ ] this form of property "secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force, and in the realization of all titles to such products which he may hold by virtue of free contract with others."[ ] "it will be seen from this definition that anarchistic property concerns only products. but anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended, whether it be a piece of iron or a piece of land. (it should be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual occupancy and use.)"[ ] . a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor presupposes merely that equal liberty be applied in those spheres which are as yet dominated by state monopoly.[ ] "free money first."[ ] "i mean by free money the utter absence of restriction upon the issue of all money not fraudulent";[ ] "making the issue of money as free as the manufacture of shoes."[ ] money is here understood in the broadest sense, it means both "commodity money and credit money,"[ ] by no means coin alone; "if the idea of the royalty of gold and silver could once be knocked out of the people's heads, and they could once understand that no particular kind of merchandise is created by nature for monetary purposes, they would settle this question in a trice."[ ] "if they only had the liberty to do so, there are enough large and small property-holders willing and anxious to issue money, to provide a far greater amount than is needed."[ ] "does the law of england allow citizens to form a bank for the issue of paper money against any property that they may see fit to accept as security; said bank perhaps owning no specie whatever; the paper money not redeemable in specie except at the option of the bank; the customers of the bank mutually pledging themselves to accept the bank's paper in lieu of gold or silver coin of the same face value; the paper being redeemable only at the maturity of the mortgage notes, and then simply by a return of said notes and a release of the mortgaged property,--is such an institution, i ask, allowed by the law of england? if it is, then i have only to say that the working people of england are very great fools not to take advantage of this inestimable liberty."[ ] then "competition would reduce the rate of interest on capital to the mere cost of banking, which is much less than one per cent.,"[ ] for "capitalists will not be able to lend their capital at interest when people can get money at the bank without interest with which to buy capital outright."[ ] likewise the charge of rent on buildings "would be almost entirely and directly abolished,"[ ] and "profits fall to the level of the manufacturer's or merchant's proper wage,"[ ] "except in business protected by tariff or patent laws."[ ] "this facility of acquiring capital will give an unheard-of impetus to business";[ ] "if free banking were only a picayunish attempt to distribute more equitably the small amount of wealth now produced, i would not waste a moment's energy on it."[ ] free land is needed in the second place.[ ] "'the land for the people,' according to 'liberty', means the protection of all people who desire to cultivate land in the possession of whatever land they personally cultivate, without distinction between the existing classes of landlords, tenants, and laborers, and the positive refusal of the protecting power to lend its aid to the collection of any rent whatsoever."[ ] this "system of occupying ownership, accompanied by no legal power to collect rent, but coupled with the abolition of the state-guaranteed monopoly of money, thus making capital readily available,"[ ] would "abolish ground-rent"[ ] and "distribute the increment naturally and quietly among its rightful owners."[ ] in the third and fourth place, free trade and freedom of intellectual products are necessary.[ ] if they were added to freedom in money, "profit on merchandise would become merely the wages of mercantile labor."[ ] free trade "would result in a great reduction in the prices of all articles taxed."[ ] and "the abolition of the patent monopoly would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which would cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to that which other laborers get for theirs."[ ] if equal liberty is realized in these four spheres, its realization in the sphere of property follows of itself: that is, a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor.[ ] "economic privilege must disappear as a result of the abolition of political tyranny."[ ] in a society in which there is no more government of man by man, there can be no such things as interest, rent, and profits;[ ] every one is guaranteed the ownership of the product of his labor. "socialism does not say: 'thou shalt not steal!' it says: 'when all men have liberty, thou wilt not steal.'"[ ] . "liberty will abolish all means whereby any laborer can be deprived of any of his product; but it will not abolish the limited inequality between one laborer's product and another's."[ ] "there will remain the slight disparity of products due to superiority of soil and skill. but even this disparity will soon develop a tendency to decrease. under the new economic conditions and enlarged opportunities resulting from freedom of credit and land classes will tend to disappear; great capacities will not be developed in a few at the expense of stunting those of the many; freedom of locomotion will be vastly increased; the toilers will no longer be anchored in such large numbers in the present commercial centres, and thus made subservient to the city landlords; territories and resources never before utilized will become easy of access and development; and under all these influences the disparity above mentioned will decrease to a minimum."[ ] "probably it will never disappear entirely."[ ] "now, because liberty has not the power to bring this about, there are people who say: we will have no liberty, for we must have absolute equality. i am not of them. if i can go through life free and rich, i shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living."[ ] .--realization _according to tucker, the manner in which the change called for by every one's self-interest takes place is to be that those who have recognized the truth shall first convince a sufficient number of people how necessary the change is to their own interests, and that then they all of them, by refusing obedience, abolish the state, transform law and property, and thus bring about the new condition._ i. first a sufficient number of men are to be convinced that their own interests demand the change. . "a system of anarchy in actual operation implies a previous education of the people in the principles of anarchy."[ ] "the individual must be penetrated with the anarchistic idea and taught to rebel."[ ] "persistent inculcation of the doctrine of equality of liberty, whereby finally the majority will be made to see in regard to existing forms of invasion what they have already been made to see in regard to its obsolete forms,--namely, that they are not seeking equality of liberty at all, but simply the subjection of all others to themselves."[ ] "the irish land league failed because the peasants were acting, not intelligently in obedience to their wisdom, but blindly in obedience to leaders who betrayed them at the critical moment. had the people realized the power they were exercising and understood the economic situation, they would not have resumed the payment of rent at parnell's bidding, and to-day they might have been free. the anarchists do not propose to repeat their mistake. that is why they are devoting themselves entirely to the inculcation of principles, especially of economic principles. in steadfastly pursuing this course regardless of clamor, they alone are laying a sure foundation for the success of the revolution."[ ] . in particular, according to tucker, appropriate means for the inculcation of the anarchistic idea are "speech and the press."[ ]--but what if the freedom of speech and of the press be suppressed? then force is justifiable.[ ] but force is to be used only as a "last resort."[ ] "when a physician sees that his patient's strength is being exhausted so rapidly by the intensity of his agony that he will die of exhaustion before the medical processes inaugurated have a chance to do their curative work, he administers an opiate. but a good physician is always loth to do so, knowing that one of the influences of the opiate is to interfere with and defeat the medical processes themselves. it is the same with the use of force, whether of the mob or of the state, upon diseased society; and not only those who prescribe its indiscriminate use as a sovereign remedy and a permanent tonic, but all who ever propose it as a cure, and even all who would lightly and unnecessarily resort to it, not as a cure, but as an expedient, _are social quacks_."[ ] therefore violence "should be used against the oppressors of mankind only when they have succeeded in hopelessly repressing all peaceful methods of agitation."[ ] "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."[ ] "as long as freedom of speech and of the press is not struck down, there should be no resort to physical force in the struggle against oppression. it must not be inferred that, because 'libertas' thinks it may become advisable to use force to secure free speech, it would therefore sanction a bloody deluge as soon as free speech had been struck down in one, a dozen, or a hundred instances. not until the gag had become completely efficacious would 'libertas' advise that last resort, the use of force."[ ] "terrorism is expedient in russia and inexpedient in germany and england."[ ]--in what form is violence to be used? "the days of armed revolution have gone by. it is too easily put down."[ ] "terrorism and assassination"[ ] are necessary, but they "will have to consist of a series of acts of individual dynamiters."[ ] . but, besides speech and the press, there are yet other methods of "propagandism."[ ] such a method is "isolated individual resistance to taxation."[ ] "some year, when an anarchist feels exceptionally strong and independent, when his conduct can impair no serious personal obligations, when on the whole he would a little rather go to jail than not, and when his property is in such shape that he can successfully conceal it, let him declare to the assessor property of a certain value, and then defy the collector to collect. or, if he have no property, let him decline to pay his poll tax. the state will then be put to its trumps. of two things one,--either it will let him alone, and then he will tell his neighbors all about it, resulting the next year in an alarming disposition on their part to keep their own money in their own pockets; or else it will imprison him, and then by the requisite legal processes he will demand and secure all the rights of a civil prisoner and live thus a decently comfortable life until the state shall get tired of supporting him and the increasing number of persons who will follow his example. unless, indeed, the state, in desperation, shall see fit to make its laws regarding imprisonment for taxes more rigorous, and then, if our anarchist be a determined man, we shall find out how far a republican government, 'deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed,' is ready to go to procure that 'consent,'--whether it will stop at solitary confinement in a dark cell or join with the czar of russia in administering torture by electricity. the farther it shall go the better it will be for anarchy, as every student of the history of reform well knows. who shall estimate the power for propagandism of a few cases of this kind, backed by a well-organized force of agitators outside the prison walls?"[ ] another method of propaganda consists in "a practical test of anarchistic principles."[ ] but this cannot take place in isolated communities, but only "in the very heart of existing industrial and social life."[ ] "in some large city fairly representative of the varied interests and characteristics of our heterogeneous civilization let a sufficiently large number of earnest and intelligent anarchists, engaged in nearly all the different trades and professions, combine to carry on their production and distribution on the cost principle, and,"[ ] "setting at defiance the national and state banking prohibitions,"[ ] "to start a bank through which they can obtain a non-interest-bearing currency for the conduct of their commerce and dispose their steadily accumulating capital in new enterprises, the advantages of this system of affairs being open to all who should choose to offer their patronage,--what would be the result? why, soon the whole composite population, wise and unwise, good, bad, and indifferent, would become interested in what was going on under their very eyes, more and more of them would actually take part in it, and in a few years, each man reaping the fruit of his labor and no man able to live in idleness on an income from capital, the whole city would become a great hive of anarchistic workers, prosperous and free individuals."[ ] ii. if a sufficient number of persons are convinced that their self-interest demands the change, then the time is come to abolish the state, transform law and property, and bring about the new condition, by "the social revolution,"[ ] _i. e._ by as general a refusal of obedience as possible. the state "is sheer tyranny, and has no rights which any individual is bound to respect; on the contrary, every individual who understands his rights and values his liberties will do his best to overthrow it."[ ] . many believe "that the state cannot disappear until the individual is perfected. "in saying which, mr. appleton joins hands with those wise persons who admit that anarchy will be practicable when the millennium arrives. no doubt it is true that, if the individual could perfect himself while the barriers to his perfection are standing, the state would afterwards disappear. perhaps, too, he could go to heaven, if he could lift himself by his boot-straps."[ ] "'bullion' thinks that 'civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves and then letting them do it.' a very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: 'civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it.'"[ ] therefore it is necessary to "abolish the state"[ ] by "the impending social revolution."[ ] . others have the "fallacious idea that anarchy can be inaugurated by force."[ ] in what way it is to be inaugurated is solely a question of "expediency."[ ] "to brand the policy of terrorism and assassination as immoral is ridiculously weak. 'liberty' does not assume to set any limit on the right of an invaded individual to choose his own methods of defence. the invader, whether an individual or a government, forfeits all claim to consideration from the invaded. this truth is independent of the character of the invasion. it makes no difference in what direction the individual finds his freedom arbitrarily limited; he has a right to vindicate it in any case, and he will be justified in vindicating it by whatever means are available."[ ] "the right to resist oppression by violence is beyond doubt. but its exercise would be unwise unless the suppression of free thought, free speech, and a free press were enforced so stringently that all other means of throwing it off had become hopeless."[ ] "if government should be abruptly and entirely abolished to-morrow, there would probably ensue a series of physical conflicts about land and many other things, ending in reaction and a revival of the old tyranny. but, if the abolition of government shall take place gradually, it will be accompanied by a constant acquisition and steady spreading of social truth."[ ] . the social revolution is to come about by passive resistance; that is, refusal of obedience.[ ] "passive resistance is the most potent weapon ever wielded by man against oppression."[ ] "'passive resistance,' said ferdinand lassalle, with an obtuseness thoroughly german, 'is the resistance which does not resist.' never was there a greater mistake. it is the only resistance which in these days of military discipline meets with any result. there is not a tyrant in the civilized world to-day who would not do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined not to obey. an insurrection is easily quelled, but no army is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people who do not even gather in the street but stay at home and stand back on their rights."[ ] "power feeds on its spoils, and dies when its victims refuse to be despoiled. they can't persuade it to death; they can't vote it to death; they can't shoot it to death; but they can always starve it to death. when a determined body of people, sufficiently strong in numbers and force of character to command respect and make it unsafe to imprison them, shall agree to quietly close their doors in the faces of the tax-collector and the rent-collector, and shall, by issuing their own money in defiance of legal prohibition, at the same time cease paying tribute to the money-lord, government, with all the privileges which it grants and the monopolies which it sustains, will go by the board."[ ] consider "the enormous and utterly irresistible power of a large and intelligent minority, comprising say one-fifth of the population in any given locality," refusing to pay taxes.[ ] "i need do no more than call attention to the wonderfully instructive history of the land league movement in ireland, the most potent and instantly effective revolutionary force the world has ever known so long as it stood by its original policy of 'pay no rent,' and which lost nearly all its strength the day it abandoned that policy. but it was pursued far enough to show that the british government was utterly powerless before it; and it is scarcely too much to say, in my opinion, that, had it been persisted in, there would not to-day be a landlord in ireland. it is easier to resist taxes in this country than it is to resist rent in ireland; and such a policy would be as much more potent here than there as the intelligence of the people is greater, providing always that you can enlist in it a sufficient number of earnest and determined men and women. if one-fifth of the people were to resist taxation, it would cost more to collect their taxes, or try to collect them, than the other four-fifths would consent to pay into the treasury."[ ] footnotes: [ ] [recognized by tucker as the originator of anarchism, so far as any man can claim this title. see bailie's life of warren.] [ ] [at present ( ) a bi-monthly magazine.] [ ] [or rather a selection.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [this passage refers merely to what it mentions, the alleged intent utterly to destroy society. as to identity of interests, i believe tucker's position is that the interest of society is that of _almost_ every individual.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [eltzbacher does not seem to perceive that tucker uses this as a ready-made phrase, coined by herbert spencer and designating spencer's well-known formula that in justice "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [this citation is again irrelevant, but eltzbacher's misapplication of it does not misrepresent tucker's views.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [it should be understood that a great part of "instead of a book" is made up of the reprints of discussions with various opponents whose language is quoted and alluded to.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [since the publication of "instead of a book" tucker has had a notable discussion of the child question in "liberty," which, while developing much disagreement on this point among tucker's friends, has at least brought definiteness into the judgments passed upon it.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the wording of this clause is so thoroughly eltzbacher's own that his quotation-marks appear unjustifiable; but the doctrine is tucker's.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , , , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but see below, page , where tucker's page is quoted _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [tucker is not likely to think that he is fairly represented without a fuller quotation: "not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction." he would emphasize "the justice of the law"--a juryman will disregard a law that he disapproves. tucker here prefixes "all rules and laws will be little more than suggestions for the guidance of juries." nevertheless the juryman is to be guided by norm and not by caprice: see "liberty" sept. , , where he says: "i am asked by a correspondent if i would 'passively see a woman throw her baby into the fire as a man throws his newspaper'. it is highly probable that i would interfere in such a case. but it is as probable, and perhaps more so, that i would personally interfere to prevent the owner of a masterpiece by titian from applying the torch to the canvas. my interference in the former case no more invalidates the mother's property right in her child than my interference in the latter case would invalidate the property right of the owner of the painting. if i interfere in either case, i am an invader, acting in obedience to my injured feelings. as such i deserve to be punished. i consider that it would be the duty of a policeman in the service of the defence association to arrest me for assault. on my arraignment i should plead guilty, and it would be the duty of the jury to impose a penalty on me. i might ask for a light sentence on the strength of the extenuating circumstances, and i believe that my prayer would be heeded. but, if such invasions as mine were persisted in, it would become the duty of the jury to impose penalties sufficiently severe to put a stop to them."] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [compare the exact words of this passage as quoted on page below.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the words are lucien v. pinney's, but tucker quotes them approvingly.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [ -] . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [see my note below, page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [or rather p. , and sundry other passages; on p. see my note below, page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [all this is a discussion of the characteristics which the state of to-day would have to possess if it were to deserve to be characterized as a voluntary association. the same conditions must of course be fulfilled by any future voluntary association; but it does not follow that all the points mentioned are such as anarchistic associations would have most occasion to contemplate.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [for context and limitations see page of the present book.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [it is not necessary that taxation exist, though it may be altogether presumable that it will. still less is it necessary that the taxation be considerable in amount.] [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [tucker himself would assuredly have given the emphasis of "especially" to the mutual banks. the defensive associations receive especially frequent mention because of the need of incessantly answering the objection "if we lose the state, who will protect us against ruffians?" but tucker certainly expects that the defensive association will from the start fill a much smaller sphere in every respect than the present police. see _e. g._ "instead of a book" p. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but the restraint of aggressions against those with whom the association has no contract, and also the possible refusal to pay any attention to some particular class of aggressions which it may be thought best to let alone, are optional; in these respects the association will do what seems best to serve the interests (including the pleasure, altruistic or other) of its members; those who do not approve the policy adopted may quit the association if they like.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where tucker explicitly refuses to approve this statement unless he is allowed to add the caveat "if by the words wrong doing is meant invasion"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [but accompanied by a disapproval of the ordinary practice of capital punishment.] [ ] _ib._ p. [where the particular torture under discussion is failure to "feed, clothe, and make comfortable" the prisoners]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [but "anarchism, as such, neither believes nor disbelieves in jury trial; it is a matter of expediency," pp. - .] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [this is given as an answer to the question here quoted next, about "surplus wealth."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [quoted from n. y. "truth."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [not _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [this is given as the view of proudhon and warren; the next sentence states tucker's belief that for perfect correctness it should be modified by admitting that a small fraction of ground-rent, tending constantly to a minimum, would persist even then, but would be no cause for "serious alarm."] [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [quoted, with express approval, from a. b. brown.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [meaning, of course, john stuart mill's "unearned increment" in the value of land.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . ["socialism" is here used as including anarchism; and tucker prefers so to use the word.] [ ] _ib._ p. [ -] . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where the subject is not "violence" of all sorts great and small, but "terrorism and assassination"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [with limiting context quoted above, page ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where nothing is said as to whether the work is the better or the worse for being "isolated"]. [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where the course it must take is somewhat more precisely described]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [this chapter should be completed by a mention of tucker's doctrine that we must expect anarchy to be established by gradually getting rid of one oppression after another till at last all the domination of violence shall have disappeared. see, for instance, "liberty" for december, : "the fact is that anarchist society was started thousands of years ago, when the first glimmer of the idea of liberty dawned upon the human mind, and has been advancing ever since,--not steadily advancing, to be sure, but fitfully, with an occasional reversal of the current. mr. byington looks upon the time when a jury of anarchists shall sit, as a point not far from the beginning of the history of anarchy's growth, whereas i look upon that time as a point very near the end of that history. the introduction of more anarchy into our economic life will have made marriage a thing of the past long before the first drawing of a jury of anarchists to pass upon any contract whatever." also "instead of a book" p. : "anarchists work for the abolition of the state, but by this they mean not its overthrow, but, as proudhon put it, its dissolution in the economic organism. this being the case, the question before us is not, as mr. donisthorpe supposes, what measures and means of interference we are justified in instituting, but which ones of those already existing we should first lop off." tucker has lately been laying more emphasis on this view than on the more programme-like propositions cited by eltzbacher, which date from the first six years of the publication of "liberty." indeed, i am sure i remember that somewhere lately, being challenged as to the feasibility of some of the latter, he admitted that those precise forms of action might perhaps not be adequate to bring the state to its end, and added that the end of the state is at present too remote to allow us to specify the processes by which it must ultimately be brought about. all this, however, does not mean that tucker's faith in passive resistance as the most potent instrument discoverable both for propaganda and for the practical winning of liberty has grown weaker; he has no more given up this principle than he has given up the plan of propaganda by discussion.] [illustration] chapter ix tolstoi's teaching .--general i. lef nikolayevitch tolstoi was born in at yasnaya polyana, district of krapivna, government of tula. from to he studied in kazan at first oriental languages, then jurisprudence; from to , in st. petersburg, jurisprudence. after a lengthy stay at yasnaya polyana, he entered an artillery regiment in the caucasus, in ; he became an officer, remained in the caucasus till , then served in the crimean war, and left the army in . tolstoi now lived at first in st. petersburg. in he took a lengthy tour in germany, france, italy, and switzerland. after his return he lived mostly in moscow till . in - he traveled in germany, france, italy, england, and belgium; in brussels he made the acquaintance of proudhon. since tolstoi has lived almost uninterruptedly at yasnaya polyana, as at once agriculturist and author. tolstoi has published numerous works; his works up to are mostly stories, among which the two novels "war and peace" and "anna karenina" are notable; his later works are mostly of a philosophical nature. . of special importance for tolstoi's teaching about law, the state, and property are his works "my confession" ( ), "the gospel in brief" ( ), "what i believe" ( ) [also known in english as "my religion"], "what shall we do then?" ( ), "on life" ( ), "the kingdom of god is within you; or, christianity not a mystical doctrine, but a new life-conception" ( ). . tolstoi does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." he designates as "anarchism" the teaching which sets up as its goal a life without government and wishes to see this realized by the application of force.[ ] .--basis _according to tolstoi our supreme law is love; from this he derives the commandment not to resist evil by force._ . tolstoi designates "christianity"[ ] as his basis; but by christianity he means not the doctrine of one of the christian churches, neither the orthodox nor the catholic nor that of any of the protestant bodies,[ ] but the pure teaching of christ.[ ] "strange as it may sound, the churches have always been not merely alien but downright hostile to the teaching of christ, and they must needs be so. the churches are not, as many think, institutions that are based on a christian origin and have only erred a little from the right way; the churches as such, as associations that assert their infallibility, are anti-christian institutions. the christian churches and christianity have no fellowship except in name; nay, the two are utterly opposite and hostile elements. the churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life."[ ] the church has "so transformed christ's teaching to suit the world that there no longer resulted from it any demands, and that men could go on living as they had hitherto lived. the church yielded to the world, and, having yielded, followed it. the world did everything that it chose, and left the church to hobble after as well as it could with its teachings about the meaning of life. the world led its life, contrary to christ's teaching in each and every point, and the church contrived subtleties to demonstrate that in living contrary to christ's law men were living in harmony with it. and it ended in the world's beginning to lead a life worse than the life of the heathen, and the church's daring not only to justify such a life but even to assert that this was precisely what corresponded to christ's teaching."[ ] particularly different from christ's teaching is the church "creed,"[ ]--that is, the totality of the utterly incomprehensible and therefore useless "dogmas."[ ] "of a god, external creator, origin of all origins, we know nothing";[ ] "god is the spirit in man,"[ ] "his conscience,"[ ] "the knowledge of life";[ ] "every man recognizes in himself a free rational spirit independent of the flesh: this spirit is what we call god."[ ] christ was a man,[ ] "the son of an unknown father; as he did not know his father, in his childhood he called god his father";[ ] and he was a son of god as to his spirit, as every man is a son of god,[ ] he embodied "man confessing his sonship of god."[ ] those who "assert that christ professed to redeem with his blood mankind fallen by adam, that god is a trinity, that the holy spirit descended upon the apostles and that it passes to the priest by the laying on of hands, that seven mysteries are necessary to salvation, and so forth,"[ ] "preach doctrines utterly alien to christ."[ ] "never did christ with a single word attest the personal resurrection and the immortality of man beyond the grave,"[ ] which indeed is "a very low and coarse idea";[ ] the ascension and the resurrection are to be counted among "the most objectionable miracles."[ ] tolstoi accepts christ's teaching as valid not on the ground of faith in a revelation, but solely for its rationality. faith in a revelation "was the main reason why the teaching was at first misunderstood and later mutilated outright."[ ] faith in christ is "not a trusting in something related to christ, but the knowledge of the truth."[ ] "'there is a law of evolution, and therefore one must live only his own personal life and leave the rest to the law of evolution,' is the last word of the refined culture of our day, and, at the same time, of that obscuration of consciousness to which the cultured classes are a prey."[ ] but "human life, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, is an unbroken series of actions; man must daily choose out from hundreds of actions possible to him those actions which he will perform; therefore, man cannot live without something to guide the choice of his actions."[ ] now, reason alone can offer him this guide. "reason is that law, recognized by man, according to which his life is to be accomplished."[ ] "if there is no higher reason,--and such there is not, nor can anything prove its existence,--then my reason is the supreme judge of my life."[ ] "the ever-increasing subjugation"[ ] "of the bestial personality to the rational consciousness"[ ] is "the true life,"[ ] is "life"[ ] as opposed to mere "existence."[ ] "it used to be said, 'do not argue, but believe in the duty that we have prescribed to you; reason will deceive you; faith alone will bring you the true happiness of life.' and the man exerted himself to believe, and he believed. but intercourse with other men showed him that in many cases these believed something quite different, and asserted that this other faith bestowed the highest happiness. it has become unavoidable to decide the question which of the many faiths is the right one; and only reason can decide this."[ ] "if the buddhist who has learned to know islam remains a buddhist, he is no longer a buddhist in faith but in reason. as soon as another faith comes up before him, and with it the question whether to reject his faith or this other, reason alone can give him an answer. if he has learned to know islam and has still remained a buddhist, then rational conviction has taken the place of his former blind faith in buddha."[ ] "man recognizes truth only by reason, not by faith."[ ] "the law of reason reveals itself to men gradually."[ ] "eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the midst of the pagan roman world a remarkable new teaching, which was not comparable to any that had preceded it, and which was ascribed to a man called christ."[ ] this teaching contains "the very strictest, purest, and completest"[ ] apprehension of the law of reason to which "the human mind has hitherto raised itself."[ ] christ's teaching is "reason itself";[ ] it must be accepted by men because it alone gives those rules of life "without which no man ever has lived or can live, if he would live as a man,--that is, with reason."[ ] man has, "on the basis of reason, no right to refuse allegiance to it."[ ] . christ's teaching sets up love as the supreme law for us. what is love? "what men who do not understand life call 'love' is only the giving to certain conditions of their personal comfort a preference over any others. when the man who does not understand life says that he loves his wife or child or friend, he means by this only that his wife's, child's, or friend's presence in his life heightens his personal comfort."[ ] "true love is always renunciation of one's personal comfort"[ ] for a neighbor's sake. true love "is a condition of wishing well to all men, such as commonly characterizes children but is produced in grown men only by self-abnegation."[ ] "what living man does not know the happy feeling, even if he has felt it only once and in most cases only in earliest childhood, of that emotion in which one wishes to love everybody, neighbors and father and mother and brothers and bad men and enemies and dog and horse and grass; one wishes only one thing, that it were well with all, that all were happy; and still more does one wish that he were himself capable of making all happy, one wishes he might give himself, give his whole life, that all might be well off and enjoy themselves. just this, this alone, is that love in which man's life consists."[ ] true love is "an ideal of full, infinite, divine perfection."[ ] "divine perfection is the asymptote of human life, toward which it constantly strives, to which it draws nearer and nearer, but which can be attained only at infinity."[ ] "true life, according to previous teachings, consists in the fulfilling of commandments, the fulfilling of the law; according to christ's teaching it consists in the maximum approach to the divine perfection which has been exhibited, and which is felt in himself by every man."[ ] according to the teaching of christ, love is our highest law. "the commandment of love is the expression of the inmost heart of the teaching."[ ] there are "three conceptions of life, and only three: first the personal or bestial, second the social or heathenish,"[ ] "third the christian or divine."[ ] the man of the bestial conception of life, "the savage, acknowledges life only in himself; the mainspring of his life is personal enjoyment. the heathenish, social man recognizes life no longer in himself alone, but in a community of persons, in the tribe, the family, the race, the state; the mainspring of his life is reputation. the man of the divine conception of life acknowledges life no longer in his person, nor yet in a community of persons, but in the prime source of eternal, never-dying life--in god; the mainspring of his life is love."[ ] that love is our supreme law according to christ's teaching means nothing else than that it is such according to reason. as early as tolstoi gives utterance to the thought "that love and beneficence are truth is the only truth on earth,"[ ] and much later, in , he calls love "man's only rational activity,"[ ] that which "resolves all the contradictions of human life."[ ] love abolishes the insensate activity directed to the filling of the bottomless tub of our bestial personality,[ ] does away with the foolish fight between beings that strive after their own happiness,[ ] gives a meaning independent of space and time to life, which without it would flow off without meaning in the face of death.[ ] . from the law of love christ's teaching derives the commandment not to resist evil by force. "'resist not evil' means 'never resist the evil man', that is, 'never do violence to another', that is, 'never commit an act that is contrary to love'."[ ] christ expressly derived this commandment from the law of love. he gave numerous commandments, among which five in the sermon on the mount are notable; "these commandments do not constitute the teaching, they only form one of the numberless stages of approach to perfection";[ ] they "are all negative, and only show"[ ] what "at mankind's present age"[ ] we "have already the full possibility of not doing, along the road by which we are striving to reach perfection."[ ] the first of the five commandments of the sermon on the mount reads "keep the peace with all, and if the peace is broken use every effort to restore it";[ ] the second says "let the man take only one woman and the woman only one man, and let neither forsake the other under any pretext";[ ] the third, "make no vows";[ ] the fourth, "endure injury, return not evil for evil";[ ] the fifth, "break not the peace to benefit thy people."[ ] among these commandments the fourth is the most important; it is enunciated in the fifth chapter of matthew, verses - : "ye have heard that it was said, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. but i say to you, resist not evil."[ ] tolstoi tells how to him this passage "became the key of the whole."[ ] "i needed only to take these words simply and downrightly, as they were spoken, and at once everything in christ's whole teaching that had seemed confused to me, not only in the sermon on the mount but in the gospels altogether, was comprehensible to me, and everything that had been contradictory agreed, and the main gist appeared no longer useless but a necessity; everything formed a whole, and the one confirmed the other past a doubt, like the pieces of a shattered column that one has rightly put together."[ ] the principle of non-resistance binds together "the entire teaching into a whole; but only when it is no mere dictum but a peremptory rule, a law."[ ] "it is really the key that opens everything, but only when it goes into the inmost of the lock."[ ] we must necessarily derive the commandment not to resist evil by force from the law of love. for this demands that either a sure, indisputable criterion of evil be found, or all violent resistance to evil be abandoned.[ ] "hitherto it has been the business now of the pope, now of an emperor or king, now of an assembly of elected representatives, now of the whole nation, to decide what was to be rated as an evil and combated by violent resistance. but there have always been men, both without and within the state, who have not acknowledged as binding upon them either the decisions that were given out as divine commandments or the decisions of the men who were clothed with sanctity or the institutions that were supposed to represent the will of the people; men who regarded as good what to the powers that be appeared evil, and who, in opposition to the force of these powers, likewise made use of force. the men who were clothed with sanctity regarded as an evil what appeared good to the men and institutions that were clothed with secular authority, and the combat grew ever sharper and sharper. thus it came to what it has come to to-day, to the complete obviousness of the fact that there is not and cannot be a generally binding external definition of evil."[ ] but from this follows the necessity of accepting the solution given by christ.[ ] according to tolstoi, the precept of non-resistance must not be taken "as if it forbade every combat against evil."[ ] it forbids only the combating of evil by force.[ ] but this it forbids in the broadest sense. it refers, therefore, not only to evil practised against ourselves, but also to evil practised against our fellow-men;[ ] when peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, he was defending "not himself but his beloved divine teacher, but christ forbade him outright and said 'all who take the sword will perish by the sword.'"[ ] nor does the precept say that only a part of men are under obligation "to submit without a contest to what is prescribed to them by certain authorities,"[ ] but it forbids "everybody, therefore even those in whom power is vested, and these especially, to use force in any case against anybody."[ ] .--law i. _for love's sake, particularly on the ground of the commandment not to resist evil by force, tolstoi rejects law; not unconditionally, indeed, but as an institution for the more highly developed peoples of our time._ to be sure, he speaks only of enacted laws; but he means all law,[ ] for he rejects on principle every norm based on the will of men,[ ] upheld by human force,[ ] especially by courts,[ ] capable of deviating from the moral law,[ ] of being different in different territories,[ ] and of being at any time arbitrarily changed.[ ] perhaps once upon a time law was better than its non-existence. law is "upheld by violence";[ ] on the other hand, it guards against violence of individuals to each other;[ ] perhaps there was once a time when the former violence was less than the latter.[ ] now, at any rate, this time is past for us; manners have grown milder; the men of our time "acknowledge the commandments of philanthropy, of sympathy with one's neighbor, and ask only the possibility of quiet, peaceable life."[ ] law offends against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] christ declared this. the words "judge not, that ye be not judged" (matt. . ), "condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned" (luke . ), "mean not only 'do not judge your neighbor in words,' but also 'do not condemn him by act; do not judge your neighbor according to your human laws by your courts.'"[ ] christ here speaks not merely "of every individual's personal relation to the court,"[ ] but rejects "the administration of law itself."[ ] "he says, 'you believe that your laws better the evil; they only make it greater; there is only one way to check evil, and this consists in returning good for evil, doing good to all without discrimination.'"[ ] and "my heart and my reason"[ ] say to me the same as christ says. but this is not the only objection to be made against law. "authority condemns in the rigid form of law only what public opinion has in most cases long since disallowed and condemned; withal, public opinion disallows and condemns all actions that are contrary to the moral law, but the law condemns and prosecutes only the actions included within certain quite definite and very narrow limits, and thereby, in a measure, justifies all similar actions that do not come within these limits. ever since moses's day public opinion has regarded selfishness, sensuality, and cruelty as evils and has condemned it; it has repudiated and condemned every form of selfishness, not only the appropriation of others' property by force, fraud, or guile, but exploitation altogether; it has condemned every sort of unchastity, be it with a concubine, a slave, a divorced woman, or even with one's own wife; it has condemned all cruelty, as it finds expression in the ill-treating, starving, and killing not only of men but of animals too. but the law prosecutes only particular forms of selfishness, like theft and fraud, and only particular forms of unchastity and cruelty, like marital infidelity, murder, and mayhem; therefore, in a measure, it permits all the forms of selfishness, unchastity, and cruelty that do not come under its narrow definitions inspired by a false conception."[ ] "the jew could easily submit to his laws, for he did not doubt that they were written by god's finger; likewise the roman, as he thought they originated from the nymph egeria; and man in general so long as he regarded the princes who gave him laws as god's anointed, or believed that the legislating assemblies had the wish and the capacity to make the best laws."[ ] but "as early as the time when christianity made its appearance men were beginning to comprehend that human laws were written by men; that men, whatever outward splendor may enshroud them, cannot be infallible, and that erring men do not become infallible even by getting together and calling themselves 'senate' or something else."[ ] "we know how laws are made; we have all been behind the scenes; we all know that the laws are products of selfishness, deception, partisanship, that true justice does not and cannot dwell in them."[ ] therefore "the recognition of any special laws is a sign of the crassest ignorance."[ ] ii. _love requires that in place of law it itself be the law for men._ from this it follows that instead of law christ's commandments should be our rule of action.[ ] but this is "the kingdom of god on earth."[ ] "when the day and the hour of the kingdom of god appear, depends on men themselves alone."[ ] "each must only begin to do what we must do, and cease to do what we must not do, and the near future will bring the promised kingdom of god."[ ] "if only everybody would bear witness, in the measure of his strength, to the truth that he knows, or at least not defend as truth the untruth in which he lives, then in this very year there would take place such changes toward the setting up of truth on earth as we dare not dream of for centuries to come."[ ] "only a little effort more, and the galilean has won."[ ] the kingdom of god is "not outside in the world, but in man's soul."[ ] "the kingdom of god cometh not with outward show; neither will men say, 'lo here!' or, 'there!' for, behold, the kingdom of god is within you (luke . )."[ ] the kingdom of god is nothing else than the following of christ's commandments, especially the five commandments of the sermon on the mount,[ ] which tell us how we must act in our present stage in order to correspond to the ideal of love as much as possible,[ ] and which command us to keep the peace and do everything for its restoration when it is broken, to remain true to one another as man and wife, to make no vows, to forgive injury and not return evil for evil, and, finally, not to break the peace with anybody for our people's sake.[ ] but what form will outward life take in the kingdom of god? "the disciple of christ will be poor; that is, he will not live in the city but in the country; he will not sit at home, but work in wood and field, see the sunshine, the earth, the sky, and the beasts; he will not worry over what he is to eat to tempt his appetite, and what he can do to help his digestion, but will be hungry three times a day; he will not roll on soft cushions and think upon deliverance from insomnia, but sleep; he will be sick, suffer, and die like all men--the poor who are sick and die seem to have an easier time of it than the rich--";[ ] he "will live in free fellowship with all men";[ ] "the kingdom of god on earth is the peace of men with each other; thus it appeared to the prophets, and thus it appears to every human heart."[ ] .--the state ii. _together with law tolstoi necessarily has to reject also, for the more highly developed nations of our time, the legal institution of the state._ "perhaps there was once a time when, in a low state of morality with a general inclination of men to mutual violence, the existence of a power limiting this violence was advantageous--that is, in which the state violence was less than that of individuals against each other. but such an advantage of state violence over its non-existence could not last; the more the individuals' inclination to violence decreased and manners grew milder, and the more the governments degenerated by having nothing to check them, the more worthless did state violence grow. in this change--in the moral evolution of the masses on the one hand and the degeneration of the governments on the other--lies the whole history of the last two thousand years."[ ] "i cannot prove either the general necessity of the state or its general perniciousness,"[ ] "i know only that on the one hand the state is no longer necessary for me, and that on the other hand i can no longer do the things that are necessary for the existence of the state."[ ] "christianity in its true significance abolishes the state,"[ ] annihilates all government.[ ] the state offends against love, particularly against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] and not only this; in founding a dominion[ ] the state furthermore offends against the principle that for love "all men are god's sons and there is equality among them all";[ ] it is therefore to be rejected even aside from the violence on which it is based as a legal institution. "that the christian teaching has an eye only to the redemption of the individual, and does not relate to public questions and state affairs, is a bold and unfounded assertion."[ ] "to every honest, earnest man in our time it must be clear that true christianity--the doctrine of humility, forgiveness, love--is incompatible with the state and its haughtiness, its deeds of violence, its capital punishments and wars."[ ] "the state is an idol";[ ] its objectionableness is independent of its form, be this "absolute monarchy, the convention, the consulate, the empire of a first or third napoleon or yet of a boulanger, constitutional monarchy, the commune, or the republic."[ ]--tolstoi carries this out into detail. . the state is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch. the state is rule. government in the state is "an association of men who do violence to the rest."[ ] "all governments, the despotic and the liberal alike, have in our time become what herzen has so aptly called a jenghis khan with telegraphs."[ ] the men in whom the power is vested "practise violence not in order to overcome evil, but solely for their advantage or from caprice; and the other men submit to the violence not because they believe that it is practised for their good,--that is, in order to liberate them from evil,--but only because they cannot free themselves from it."[ ] "if nice is united with france, lorraine with germany, bohemia with austria, if poland is divided, if both ireland and india are subjected to the english dominion, if people fight with china, kill the africans, expel the chinese from america, and persecute the jews in russia, it is not because this is good or necessary or useful for men and the opposite would be evil, but only because it so pleases those in whom the power is vested."[ ] the state is the rule of the bad.[ ] "'if the state power were to be annihilated, the wicked would rule over the less wicked,' say the defenders of state rule."[ ] but has the power, when it has passed from some men to some others in the state, really always come to the better men? "when louis the sixteenth, robespierre, napoleon, came to power, who ruled then, the better or the worse? when did the better rule, when the power was vested in the versaillese or in the communards, when charles the first or cromwell stood at the head of the government? when peter the third was czar, and then when after his murder the authority of czar was exercised in one part of russia by catharine and in another by pugatcheff, who was wicked then and who was good? all men who find themselves in power assert that their power is necessary in order that the wicked may not do violence to the good, and regard it as self-evident that they are the good and are giving the rest of the good protection against the bad."[ ] but in reality those who grasp and hold the power cannot possibly be the better.[ ] "in order to obtain and retain power, one must love it. but the effort after power is not apt to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities, pride, craft, and cruelty. without exalting self and abasing others, without hypocrisy, lying, prisons, fortresses, penalties, killing, no power can arise or hold its own."[ ] "it is downright ridiculous to speak of christians in power."[ ] to this it is to be added "that the possession of power depraves men."[ ] "the men who have the power cannot but misuse it; they must infallibly be unsettled by such frightful authority."[ ] "however many means men have invented to hinder the possessors of power from subordinating the welfare of the whole to their own advantage, hitherto not one of these means has worked. everybody knows that those in whose hands is the power--be they emperors, ministers, chiefs of police, or common policemen--are, just because the power is in their hands, more inclined to immorality, to the subordinating of the general welfare to their advantage, than those who have no power; nor can it be otherwise."[ ] the state is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch. we shall always find "that the scheming of the possessors of authority--nay, their unconscious effort--is directed toward weakening the victims of their authority as much as possible; for, the weaker the victim is, the more easily can he be held down."[ ] "to-day there is only one sphere of human activity left that has not been conquered by the authority of government: the sphere of the family, of housekeeping, private life, labor. and even this sphere, thanks to the fighting of the communists and socialists, the governments are already beginning to invade, so that soon, if the reformers have their way, work and rest, housing, clothing, and food, will likewise be fixed and regulated by the governments."[ ] "the most fearful band of robbers is not so horrible as a state organization. every robber chief is at any rate limited by the fact that the men who make up his band retain at least a part of human liberty, and can refuse to commit acts which are repugnant to their consciences."[ ] but in the state there is no such limit; "no crime is so horrible that it will not be committed by the officials and the army at the will of him--boulanger, pugatcheff, napoleon--who accidentally stands at the head."[ ] . the rule in the state is based on physical force. every government has for its prop the fact that there are in the state armed men who are ready to execute the government's will by physical force, a class "educated to kill those whose killing the authorities command."[ ] such men are the police[ ] and especially the army.[ ] the army is nothing else than a collectivity of "disciplined murderers",[ ] its training is "instruction in murdering",[ ] its victories are "deeds of murder."[ ] "the army has always formed the basis of power, and does to this day. the power is always in the hands of those who command the army, and, from the roman cæsars to the russian and german emperors, all possessors of power have always cared first and foremost for their armies."[ ] in the first place, the army upholds the government's rule against external assaults. it protects it against having the rule taken from it by another government.[ ] war is nothing but a contest of two or more governments for the rule over their subjects. it is "impossible to establish international peace in a rational way, by treaty or arbitration, so long as the insensate and pernicious subjection of nations to governments continues to exist."[ ] in consequence of this importance of armies "every state is compelled to increase its army to face the others, and this increase has the effect of a contagion, as montesquieu observed a hundred and fifty years since."[ ] but, if one thinks armies are kept by governments only for external defence, he forgets "that governments need armies particularly to protect them against their oppressed and enslaved subjects."[ ] "in the german reichstag lately, in reply to the question why money was needed in order to increase the pay of the petty officers, the chancellor made the direct statement that reliable petty officers were necessary for the combating of socialism. caprivi merely said out loud what everybody knows, carefully as it is concealed from the peoples,--the reason why the french kings and the popes kept swiss and scots, why in russia the recruits are so introduced that the interior regiments get their contingents from the frontiers and the frontier regiments theirs from the interior. caprivi told, by accident, what everybody knows or at least feels,--to wit, that the existing order exists not because it must exist or because the people wills its existence, but because the government's force, the army with its bribed petty-officers and officers and generals, keeps it up."[ ] . the rule in the state is based on the physical force of the ruled. it is peculiar to government that it demands from the citizens the very force on which it is based, and that consequently in the state "all the citizens are their own oppressors."[ ] the government demands from the citizens both force and the supporting of force. here belongs the obligation, general in russia, to take an oath at the czar's accession to the throne, for by this oath one vows obedience to the authorities,--that is, to men who are devoted to violence; likewise the obligation to pay taxes, for the taxes are used for works of violence, and the compulsory use of passports, for by taking out a passport one acknowledges his dependence on the state's institution of violence; withal the obligation to testify in court and to take part in the court as juryman, for every court is the fulfilment of the commandment of revenge; furthermore, the obligation to police service which in russia rests upon all the country people, for this service demands that we do violence to our brother and torment him; and above all the general obligation to military service,--that is, the obligation to be executioners and to prepare ourselves for service as executioners.[ ] the unchristianness of the state comes to light most plainly in the general obligation to military service: "every man has to take in hand deadly weapons, a gun, a knife; and, if he does not have to kill, at least he does have to load the gun and sharpen the knife,--that is, be ready for killing."[ ] but how comes it that the citizens fulfil these demands of the government, though the government is based on this very fulfilment, and so mutually oppress each other? this is possible only by "a highly artificial organization, created with the help of scientific progress, in which all men are bewitched into a circle of violence from which they cannot free themselves. at present this circle consists of four means of influence; they are all connected and hold each other, like the links of a chain."[ ] the first means is "what is best described as the hypnotization of the people."[ ] this hypnotization leads men to "the erroneous opinion that the existing order is unchangeable and must be upheld, while in reality it is unchangeable only by its being upheld."[ ] the hypnotization is accomplished "by fomenting the two forms of superstition called religion and patriotism";[ ] it "begins its influence even in childhood, and continues it till death."[ ] with reference to this hypnotization one may say that state authority is based on the fraudulent misleading of public opinion.[ ] the second means consists in "bribery; that is, in taking from the laboring populace its wealth, by money taxes, and dividing this among the officials, who, for this pay, must maintain and strengthen the enslavement of the people."[ ] the officials "more or less believe in the unchangeability of the existing order, mainly because it benefits them."[ ] with reference to this bribery one may say that state authority is based on the selfishness of those to whom it guarantees profitable positions.[ ] the third means is "intimidation. it consists in setting down the present state order--of whatever sort, be it a free republican order or be it the most grossly despotic--as something sacred and unchangeable, and imposing the most frightful penalties upon every attempt to change it."[ ] finally, the fourth means is to "separate a certain part of all the men whom they have stupefied and bewitched by the three first means, and subject these men to special stronger forms of stupefaction and bestialization, so that they become will-less tools of every brutality and cruelty that the government sees fit to resolve upon."[ ] this is done in the army, to which, at present, all young men belong by virtue of the general obligation to military service.[ ] "with this the circle of violence is made complete. intimidation, bribery, hypnosis, bring men to enlist as soldiers. the soldiers, in turn, afford the possibility of punishing men, plundering them in order to bribe officials with the money, hypnotizing them, and thus bringing them into the ranks of the very soldiers on whom the power for all this is based."[ ] ii. _love requires that a social life based solely on its commandments take the place of the state._ "to-day every man who thinks, however little, sees the impossibility of keeping on with the life hitherto lived, and the necessity of determining new forms of life."[ ] "the christian humanity of our time must unconditionally renounce the heathen forms of life that it condemns, and set up a new life on the christian bases that it recognizes."[ ] . even after the state is done away, men are to live in societies. but what is to hold them together in these societies? not a promise, at any rate. christ commands us to make "no vows,"[ ] to "promise men nothing."[ ] "the christian cannot promise that he will do or not do a particular thing at a particular hour, because he cannot know what the law of love, which it is the meaning of his life to obey, will demand of him at that hour."[ ] and still less can he "give his word to fulfil somebody's will, without knowing what the substance of this will is to be";[ ] by the mere fact of such a promise he would "make it manifest that the inward divine law is no longer the sole law of his life";[ ] "one cannot serve two masters."[ ] men are to be held together in societies in future by the mental influence which the men who have made progress in knowledge exert upon the less advanced. "mental influence is such a way of working upon a man that by it his wishes change and coincide with what is wanted of him; the man who yields to a mental influence acts according to his own wishes."[ ] now, the force "by which men can live in societies"[ ] is found in the mental influence which the men who have made progress in knowledge exert upon the less advanced, in the "characteristic of little-thinking men, that they subordinate themselves to the directions of those who stand on a higher level of knowledge."[ ] in consequence of this characteristic "a body of men put themselves under the same rational principles, the minority consciously, because the principles agree with the demands of their reason, and the majority unconsciously, because the principles have become public opinion."[ ] "in this subordination there is nothing irrational or self-contradictory."[ ] . but in the future societary condition how shall the functions which the state at present performs be performed? here people usually have three things in mind.[ ] first, protection against the bad men in our midst.[ ] "but who are the bad men among us? if there once were such men three or four centuries ago, when people still paraded warlike arts and equipments and looked upon killing as a brilliant deed, they are gone to-day anyhow; nobody any longer carries weapons, everybody acknowledges the commands of philanthropy. but, if by the men from whom the state must protect us we mean the criminals, then we know that they are not special creatures like the wolf among the sheep, but just such men as all of us, who like committing crimes as little as we do; we know that the activity of governments with their cruel forms of punishment, which do not correspond to the present stage of morality, their prisons, tortures, gallows, guillotines, contributes more to the barbarizing of the people than to their culture, and hence rather to the multiplication than to the diminution of such criminals."[ ] if we are christians and start from the principle that "what our life exists for is the serving of others, then no one will be foolish enough to rob men that serve him of their means of support or to kill them. miklucho-maclay settled among the wildest so-called 'savages', and they not only left him alive but loved him and submitted to his authority, solely because he did not fear them, asked nothing of them, and did them good."[ ] secondly, the question is asked how in the future societary condition we can find protection against external enemies.[ ] but we do know "that the nations of europe profess the principles of liberty and fraternity, and therefore need no protection against each other; but, if it were a protection against the barbarians that was meant, a thousandth part of the armies that are now kept up would suffice. state authority not merely leaves in existence the danger of hostile attacks, but even itself provokes this danger."[ ] but, "if there existed a community of christians who did evil to nobody and gave to others all the superfluous products of their labor, then no enemy, neither the german nor the turk nor the savage, would kill or vex such men; all one could do would be to take from them what they were ready to give voluntarily without distinguishing between russians, germans, turks, and savages."[ ] thirdly, the question is asked how in the future societary condition institutions for education, popular culture, religion, commerce, etc. are to be possible.[ ] "perhaps there was once a time when men lived so far apart, when the means for coming together and exchanging thoughts were so undeveloped, that people could not, without a state centre, discuss and agree on any matter either of trade and economy or of culture. but to-day this separation no longer exists; the means of intercourse have developed extraordinarily; for the forming of societies, associations, corporations, for the gathering of congresses and the creation of economic and political institutions, governments are not needed; nay, in most cases they are rather a hindrance than a help toward the attainment of such ends."[ ] . but what form will men's life together in the future societary condition take in detail? "the future will be as circumstances and men shall make it."[ ] we are not at this moment able to get perfectly clear ideas of it.[ ] "men say, 'what will the new orders be like, that are to take the place of the present ones? so long as we do not know what form our life will take in future, we will not go forward, we will not stir from this spot.'"[ ] "if columbus had gone to making such observations, he would never have weighed anchor. it was insanity to steer across an ocean that no man had ever yet sailed upon toward a land whose existence was a question. with this insanity, he discovered the new world. it would certainly be more convenient if nations had nothing to do but move out of one ready-furnished mansion into another and a better; only, by bad luck, there is nobody there to furnish the new quarters."[ ] but what disquiets men in their imagining of the future is "less the question 'what will be?' they are tormented by the question 'how are we to live without all the familiar conditions of our existence, that are called science, art, civilization, culture?'"[ ] "but all these, bear in mind, are only forms in which truth appears. the change that lies before us will be an approach to the truth and its realization. how can the forms in which truth appears be brought to naught by an approach to the truth? they will be made different, better, higher, but by no means will they be brought to naught. only that which was false in the forms of its appearance hitherto will be brought to naught; what was genuine will but unfold itself the more splendidly."[ ] "if the individual man's life were completely known to him when he passes from one stage of maturity to another, he would have no reason for living. so it is with the life of mankind too; if at its entrance upon a new stage of growth a programme lay before it already drawn up, this would be the surest sign that it was not alive, not progressing, but that it was sticking at one point. the details of a new order of life cannot be known to us, they have to be worked out by us ourselves. life consists only in learning to know the unknown, and putting our action in harmony with the new knowledge. in this consists the life of the individual, in this the life of human societies and of humanity."[ ] .--property i. _together with law tolstoi necessarily has to reject also, for the more highly developed nations of our time, the legal institution of property._ perhaps there was once a time when the violence necessary to secure the individual in the possession of a piece of goods against all others was less than the violence which would have been practised in a general fight for the possession of the goods, so that the existence of property was better than its non-existence. but at any rate this time is past, the existing order has "lived out its time";[ ] among the men of to-day no wild fight for the possession of goods would break out even if there were no property; they all "profess allegiance to the commands of philanthropy,"[ ] each of them "knows that all men have equal rights in the goods of the world,"[ ] and already we see "many a rich man renounce his inheritance from a specially delicate sense of germinant public opinion."[ ] property offends against love, especially against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] but not only this; in founding a dominion of possessors over non-possessors it also offends against the principle that for love "all men are god's sons and there is equality among them all";[ ] and it is therefore to be rejected, even aside from the violence on which it is based as a legal institution. the rich are under "guilt by the very fact that they are rich."[ ] it is "a crime"[ ] that tens of thousands of "hungry, cold, deeply degraded human beings are living in moscow, while i with a few thousand others have tenderloin and sturgeon for dinner and cover horses and floors with blankets and carpets."[ ] i shall be "an accomplice in this unending and uninterrupted crime so long as i still have a superfluous bit of bread while another has no bread at all, or still possess two garments while another does not possess even one."[ ]--tolstoi carries this out into detail. . property means the dominion of the possessors over the non-possessors. property is the exclusive right to use some things, whether one actually uses them or not.[ ] "many of the men who called me their horse," tolstoi makes the horse linen-measurer say, "did not ride me; quite different men rode me. nor did they feed me; quite different men fed me. nor was it those who called me their horse that did me kindnesses, but coachmen, veterinary surgeons, strangers altogether. later, when the circle of my observations grew wider, i convinced myself that the idea 'mine,' which has no other basis than men's low and bestial propensity which they call 'sense of ownership' or 'right of property,' finds application not only with respect to us horses. a man says 'this house is mine' and never lives in it, he only attends to the building and repair of the house. a merchant says 'my store, my dry-goods store,' and his clothing is not of the best fabrics he has in his store. there are men who call a piece of land 'mine' and have never seen this piece of land nor set foot on it. what men aim at in life is not to do what they think good, but to call as many things as possible 'mine.'"[ ] but the significance of property consists in the fact that the poor man who has no property is dependent on the rich man who has property; in order to come by the things which he needs for his living, but which belong to another, he must do what this other wills--in particular, he must work for him. thus property divides men into "two castes, an oppressed laboring caste that famishes and suffers and an idle oppressing caste that enjoys and lives in superfluity."[ ] "we are all brothers, and yet every morning my brother or my sister carries out my dishes. we are all brothers, but every morning i have to have my cigar, my sugar, my mirror, and other such things, in whose production healthy brothers and sisters, people like me, have sacrificed and are sacrificing their health."[ ] "i spend my whole life in the following way: i eat, talk, and listen; eat, write, and read--that is, talk and listen again; eat and play; eat, talk, and listen again; eat and go to bed; and so it goes on, one day like another. i cannot do, do not know how to do, anything beyond this. and, that i may be able to do this, the porter, the farmer, the cook, the cook's maid, the lackey, the coachman, the laundress, must work from morning till night, not to speak of the work of other men which is necessary in order that those coachmen, cooks, lackeys, and so on may have all that they need when they work for me--the axes, barrels, brushes, dishes, furniture, likewise the wax, the blacking, the kerosene, the hay, the wood, the beef. all of them have to work day by day, early and late, that i may be able to talk, eat, and sleep."[ ] this significance of property makes itself especially felt in the case of the things that are necessary for the producing of other things, and so most notably in the case of land and tools.[ ] "there can be no farmer without land that he tills, without scythes, wagons, and horses; no shoemaker is possible without a house built on the earth, without water, air, and tools";[ ] but property means that in many cases "the farmer possesses no land, no horses, no scythe, the shoemaker no house, no water, no awl: that somebody is keeping these things back from them."[ ] this leads to the consequence "that for a large fraction of the workers the natural conditions of production are deranged, that this fraction is necessitated to use other people's stock,"[ ] and may by the owner of the stock be compelled "to work not on their own account, but for an employer."[ ] consequently the workman works "not for himself, to suit his own wish, but under compulsion, to suit the whim of some idle persons who live in superfluity, for the benefit of some rich man, the proprietor of a factory or other industrial plant."[ ] thus property means the exploitation of the laborer by those to whom the land and tools belong; it means "that the products of human labor pass more and more out of the hands of the laboring masses into the hands of the unlaboring."[ ] furthermore, the significance of property as making the poor dependent on the rich becomes especially prominent in the case of money. "money is a value that remains always equal, that always ranks as correct and legal."[ ] consequently, as the saying is, "he who has money has in his pocket those who have none."[ ] "money is a new form of slavery, distinguished from the old solely by its impersonality, by the lack of any human relation between the master and the slave";[ ] for "the essence of all slavery consists in drawing the benefit of another's labor-force by compulsion, and it is quite immaterial whether the drawing of this benefit is founded upon property in the slave or upon property in money which is indispensable to the other man."[ ] "now, honestly, of what sort is my money, and how have i come by it? i got part for the land that i inherited from my father. the peasant sold his last sheep, his last cow, to pay me this money. another part of my assets consists of the sums which i have received for my literary productions, my books. if my books are harmful, then by them i have seduced the purchasers to evil and have acquired the money by bad means. if, on the contrary, my books are useful to people, the case is still worse; i have not given them without ceremony to those who had a use for them, but have said 'give me seventeen rubles and you shall have them,' and, as in the other case the peasant sold his last sheep, so here the poor student or teacher, and many another poor person, have denied themselves the plainest necessities to give me the money. and thus i have piled up a quantity of such money, and what do i do with it? i bring it to the city and give it to the poor here on condition that they satisfy all my whims, that they come after me into the city to clean the sidewalks for me, and to make me lamps, shoes, and so forth, in the factories. with my money i take all their products to myself, and i take pains to give them as little as possible and get from them as much as possible for it. and then all at once, quite unexpectedly, i begin to distribute to the poor this same money gratis--not to all, but arbitrarily to any whom i happen to take up at random";[ ] that is, i take from the poor thousands of rubles with one hand, and with the other i distribute to some of them a few kopeks.[ ] . the dominion which property involves, of possessors over non-possessors, is based on physical force. "if the vast wealth that the laborers have piled up ranks not as the property of all, but only as that of an elect few,--if the power of raising taxes from labor and using them at pleasure is reserved to some men,--this is not based on the fact that the people want to have it so or that by nature it must be so, but on the fact that the ruling classes see their advantage in it and determine it so by virtue of their power over men's bodies";[ ] it is based on "violence and slaying and the threat thereof."[ ] "if men hand over the greatest part of the product of their labor to the capitalist or landlord, though they, as do all laborers now, hold this to be unjust,"[ ] they do it "only because they know they will be beaten and killed if they do not."[ ] "one may even say outright that in our society, in which to every well-to-do man living an aristocratic life there are ten weary, ravenous, envious laborers, probably pining away with wife and children too, all the privileges of the rich, all their luxury and their abundance, are acquired and secured only by chastisement, imprisonment, and capital punishment."[ ] property is upheld by the police[ ] and the army.[ ] "we may act as if we did not see the policeman walking up and down before the window with loaded revolver to protect us while we eat a savory meal or look at a new play, and as if we had no inkling of the soldiers who are every moment ready to go with rifle and cartridges where any one tries to infringe on our property. yet we well know, if we can finish our meal and see the new play in peace, if we can drive out or hunt or attend a festival or a race undisturbed, we have to thank for this only the policeman's bullet and the soldier's weapon, which are ready to pierce the poor victim of hunger who looks upon our enjoyments from his corner with grumbling stomach, and who would at once disturb them if the policeman with his revolver went away, or if in the barracks there were no longer any soldiers standing ready to appear at our first call."[ ] . the dominion which property involves, of the possessors over the non-possessors, is based on the physical force of the ruled. those very men of the non-possessing classes who through property are dependent on the possessing classes must do police duty, serve in the army, pay the taxes out of which police and army are kept up, and in these and other ways either themselves exercise or at least support the physical force by which property is upheld.[ ] "if there did not exist these men who are ready to discipline or kill any one whatever at the word of command, no one would dare assert what the non-laboring landlords now do all of them so confidently assert,--that the soil which surrounds the peasants who die off for lack of land is the property of a man who does not work on it";[ ] it would "not come into the head of the lord of the manor to take from the peasants a forest that has grown up under their eyes";[ ] nor would any one say "that the stores of grain accumulated by fraud in the midst of a starving population must remain unscathed that the merchant may have his profit."[ ] ii. _love requires that a distribution based solely on its commandments take the place of property._ "the impossibility of continuing the life that has hitherto been led, and the necessity of determining new forms of life,"[ ] relate to the distribution of goods as well as to other things. "the abolition of property,"[ ] and its replacement by a new kind of distribution of goods, is one of the "questions now in order."[ ] according to the law of love, every man who works as he has strength should have so much--but only so much--as he needs. . that every man who works as he has strength should have so much as he needs and no more is a corollary from two precepts which follow from the law of love. the first of these precepts says, man shall "ask no work from others, but himself devote his whole life to work for others. 'man lives not to be served but to serve.'"[ ] therefore, in particular, he is not to keep accounts with others about his work, or think that he "has the more of a living to claim, the greater or more useful his quantum of work done is."[ ] following this precept provides every man with what he needs. this is true primarily of the healthy adult. "if a man works, his work feeds him. if another makes use of this man's work for himself, he will feed him for the very reason that he is making use of his work."[ ] man assures himself of a living "not by taking it away from others, but by making himself useful and necessary to others. the more necessary he is to others, the more assured is his existence."[ ] but the following of the precept to serve others also provides the sick, the aged, and children with their living. men "do not stop feeding an animal when it falls sick; they do not even kill an old horse, but give it work appropriate to its strength; they bring up whole families of little lambs, pigs, and puppies, because they expect benefit from them. how, then, should they not support the sick man who is necessary to them? how should they not find appropriate work for old and young, and bring up human beings who will in turn work for them?"[ ] the second precept that follows from the law of love, and of which a corollary is that every man who works as he has strength should have as much as he needs and no more, bids us "share what you have with the poor; gather no riches."[ ] "to the question of his hearers, what they were to do, john the baptist gave the short, clear, simple answer, 'he who hath two coats, let him share with him who hath none; and he who hath food let him do likewise' (luke . - ). and christ too made the same declaration several times, only still more unambiguously and clearly. he said, 'blessed are the poor, woe to the rich.' he said that one could not serve god and mammon at once. he not only forbade his disciples to take money, but also to have two garments. he told the rich young man that because he was rich he could not enter into the kingdom of god, and that a camel should sooner go through a needle's eye than a rich man come into heaven. he said that he who did not forsake everything--house, children, lands--to follow him could not be his disciple. he told his hearers the parable of the rich man who did nothing bad except that he--like our rich men--clothed himself in costly apparel and fed himself on savory food and drink, and who plunged his soul into perdition by this alone, and of the poor lazarus who did nothing good and who entered into the kingdom of heaven only because he was a beggar."[ ] . but what form can such a distribution of goods take in detail? this is best shown us by "the russian colonists. these colonists arrive on the soil, settle, and begin to work, and no one of them takes it into his head that any one who does not begin to make use of the land can have any right to it; on the contrary, the colonists regard the ground _a priori_ as common property, and consider it altogether justifiable that everybody plows and reaps where he chooses. for working the fields, for starting gardens, and for building houses, they procure implements; and here too it does not suggest itself to them that these could of themselves produce any income--on the contrary, the colonists look upon any profit from the means of labor, any interest for grain lent, etc., as an injustice. they work on masterless land with their own means or with means borrowed free of interest, either each for himself or all together on joint account."[ ] "in talking of such fellowship i am not setting forth fancies, but only describing what has gone on at all times, what is even at present taking place not only among the russian colonists but everywhere where man's natural condition is not yet deranged by some circumstances or other. i am describing what seems to everybody natural and rational. the men settle on the soil and go each one to work, make their implements, and do their labor. if they think it advantageous to work jointly, they form a labor company."[ ] but, in individual business as well as in collective industry, "neither the water nor the ground nor the garments nor the plow can belong to anybody save him who drinks the water, wears the garments, and uses the plow; for all these things are necessary only to him who puts them to use."[ ] one can call "only his labor his own";[ ] by it one has as much as one needs.[ ] .--realization _the way in which the change required by love is to take place, according to tolstoi, is that those men who have learned to know the truth are to convince as many others as possible how necessary the change is for love's sake, and that they, with the help of the refusal of obedience, are to abolish law, the state, and property, and bring about the new condition._ i. the prime necessity is that the men who have learned to know the truth should convince as many others as possible that love demands the change. . "that an order of life corresponding to our knowledge may take the place of the order contrary to it, the present antiquated public opinion must first be replaced by a new and living one."[ ] it is not deeds of all sorts that bring to pass the grandest and most significant changes in the life of humanity, "neither the fitting out of armies a million strong nor the construction of roads and engines, neither the organization of expositions nor the formation of trade-unions, neither revolutions, barricades, and explosions nor inventions in aerial navigation--but the changes of public opinion, and these alone."[ ] liberation is possible only "by a change in our conception of life";[ ] "everything depends on the force with which each individual man becomes conscious of christian truth";[ ] "know the truth and the truth shall make you free."[ ] our liberation must necessarily take place by "the christian's recognizing the law of love, which his master has revealed to him, as entirely sufficient for all human relations, and his perceiving the superfluousness and illegitimateness of all violence."[ ] the bringing about of this revolution in public opinion is in the hands of the men who have learned to know the truth.[ ] "a public opinion does not need hundreds and thousands of years to arise and spread; it has the quality of working by contagion and swiftly seizing a great number of men."[ ] "as a jarring touch is enough to change a fluid saturated with salts to crystals in a moment, so now the slightest effort may perhaps suffice to cause the unveiled truth to seize upon hundreds, thousands, millions of men so that a public opinion corresponding to knowledge shall be established and that hereby the whole order of life shall become other than it is. it is in our hands to make this effort."[ ] . the best means for bringing about the necessary revolution in public opinion is that the men who have learned to know the truth should testify to it by deed. "the christian knows the truth only in order to testify to it before those who do not know it,"[ ] and that "by deed."[ ] "the truth is imparted to men by deeds of truth, deeds of truth illuminate every man's conscience, and thus destroy the force of deceit."[ ] hence you ought properly, "if you are a landlord, to give your land at once to the poor, and, if you are a capitalist, to give your money or your factory to the workingmen; if you are a prince, a cabinet minister, an official, a judge, or a general, you ought at once to resign your position, and, if you are a soldier, you ought to refuse obedience without regard to any danger."[ ] but, to be sure, "it is very probable that you are not strong enough to do this; you have connections, dependents, subordinates, superiors, the temptations are powerful, and your force gives out."[ ] . but there is still another means, though a less effective one, for bringing about the necessary revolution in public opinion, and this "you can always"[ ] employ. it is that the men who have learned to know the truth should "speak it out frankly."[ ] "if men--yes, if even a few men--would do this, the antiquated public opinion would at once fall of itself, and a new, living, present-day one would arise."[ ] "not billions of rubles, not millions of soldiers, no institutions, wars, or revolutions, have so much power as the simple declaration of a free man that he considers something to be right or wrong. if a free man speaks out honestly what he thinks and feels, in the midst of thousands who in word and act stand for the very contrary, one might think he must remain isolated. but usually it is otherwise; all, or most, have long been privately thinking and feeling in the same way; and then what to-day is still an individual's new opinion will perhaps to-morrow be already the general opinion of the majority."[ ] "if we would only stop lying and acting as if we did not see the truth, if we would only testify to the truth that summons us and boldly confess it, it would at once turn out that there are hundreds, thousands, millions, of men in the same situation as ourselves, that they see the truth like us, are afraid like us of remaining isolated if they confess it, and are only waiting, like us, for the rest to testify to it."[ ] ii. to bring about the change and put the new condition in the place of law, the state, and property, it is further requisite that the men who have learned to know the truth should conform their lives to their knowledge, and, in particular, that they should refuse obedience to the state. . men are to bring about the change themselves. they are "no longer to wait for somebody to come and help them, be it christ in the clouds with the sound of the trumpet, be it a historic law or a differential or integral law of forces. nobody will help us if we do not help ourselves."[ ] "i have been told a story that happened to a courageous commissary of police. he came into a village where they had applied for soldiers on account of an outbreak among the peasants. in the spirit of nicholas the first he proposed to make an end of the rising by his personal presence alone. he had a few cart-loads of sticks brought, gathered all the peasants in a barn, and shut himself in with them. by his shouts he succeeded in so cowing the peasants that they obeyed him and began to beat each other at his command. so they beat each other till there was found a simple-minded peasant who did not obey, and who called out to his fellows that they should not beat each other either. only then did the beating cease, and the official made haste to get away. the advice of this simple-minded peasant" should be followed by the men of our time.[ ] . but it is not by violence that men are to bring about the change. "revolutionary enemies fight the government from outside; christianity does not fight at all, but wrecks its foundations from within."[ ] "some assert that liberation from force, or at least its diminution, can be effected by the oppressed men's forcibly shaking off the oppressing government; and many do in fact undertake to act on this doctrine. but they deceive themselves and others: their activity only enhances the despotism of governments, and the attempts at liberation are welcomed by the governments as pretexts for strengthening their power."[ ] however, suppose that by the favor of circumstances (as, for instance, in france in ) they succeed in overthrowing a government, the party which had won by force would be compelled, "in order to remain at the helm and introduce its order into life, not only to employ all existing violent methods, but to invent new ones in addition. it would be other men that would be enslaved, and they would be coerced into other things, but there would exist not merely the same but a still more cruel condition of violence and enslavement; for the combat would have fanned the flames of hatred, strengthened the means of enslavement, and evolved new ones. thus it has been after all revolutions, insurrections, and conspiracies, after all violent changes of government. every fight only puts stronger means of enslavement in the hands of the men who at a given time are in power."[ ] . men are to bring about the change by conforming their lives to their knowledge. "the christian frees himself from all human authority by recognizing as sole plumb-line for his life and the lives of others the divine law of love that is implanted in man's soul and has been brought into consciousness by christ."[ ] this means that one is to return good for evil,[ ] give to one's neighbor all that one has that is superfluous and take away from him nothing that one does not need,[ ] especially acquire no money and get rid of the money one has,[ ] not buy nor rent,[ ] and, without shrinking from any form of work, satisfy one's needs with one's own hands;[ ] and particularly does it mean that one is to refuse obedience to the unchristian demands of state authority.[ ] that obedience to these demands is refused we see in many cases in russia at present. men are refusing the payment of taxes, the general oath, the oath in court, the exercise of police functions, action as jurymen, and military service.[ ] "the governments find themselves in a desperate situation as they face the christians' refusals."[ ] they "can chastise, put to death, imprison for life, and torture, any one who tries to overthrow them by force; they can bribe and smother with gold the half of mankind; they can bring into their service millions of armed men who are ready to annihilate all their foes. but what can they do against men who do not destroy anything, do not set up anything either, but only, each for himself, are unwilling to act contrary to the law of christ, and therefore refuse to do what is most necessary for the governments?"[ ] "let the state do as it will by such men, inevitably it will contribute only to its own annihilation,"[ ] and therewith to the annihilation of law and property and to the bringing in of the new order of life. "for, if it does not persecute people like the dukhobors, the stundists, etc., the advantages of their peaceable christian way of living will induce others to join them--and not only convinced christians, but also such as want to get clear of their obligations to the state under the cloak of christianity. if, on the other hand, it deals cruelly with men against whom there is nothing except that they have endeavored to live morally, this cruelty will only make it still more enemies, and the moment must at last come when there can no longer be found any one who is ready to back up the state with instrumentalities of force."[ ] . in the conforming of life to knowledge the individual must make the beginning. he must not wait for all or many to do it at the same time with him. the individual must not think it will be useless if he alone conforms his life to christ's teaching.[ ] "men in their present situation are like bees that have left their hive and are hanging on a twig in a great mass. the situation of the bees on the twig is a temporary one, and absolutely must be changed. they must take flight and seek a new abode. every bee knows that, and wishes to make an end of its own suffering condition and that of the others; but this cannot be done by one so long as the others do not help. but all cannot rise at once, for one hangs over another and hinders it from letting go; therefore all remain hanging. one might think that there was no way out of this situation for the bees";[ ] if and really there would be none, were it not that each bee is an independent living being. but it is only needful "that one bee spread its wings, rise and fly, and after it the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth, for the immobile hanging mass to become a freely flying swarm of bees. thus it is only needful that one man comprehend life as christianity teaches it, and take hold of it as christianity teaches him to, and then that a second, a third, a hundredth follow him, and the magic circle from which no escape seemed possible is destroyed."[ ] neither may the individual let himself be deterred by the fear of suffering. "'if i alone,' it is commonly said, 'fulfil christ's teaching in the midst of a world that does not follow it, give away my belongings, turn my cheek without resistance, yes, and refuse the oath and military service, then i shall have the last bit taken from me, and, if i do not die of hunger, they will beat me to death, and, if they do not beat me to death, they will jail me or shoot me; and i shall have given all the happiness of my life, nay, my life itself, for nothing.'"[ ] be it so. "i do not ask whether i shall have more trouble, or die sooner, if i follow christ's teaching. that question can be asked only by one who does not see how meaningless and miserable is his life as an individual life, and who imagines that he shall 'not die'. but i know that a life for the sake of one's own happiness is the greatest folly, and that such an aimless life can be followed only by an aimless death. and therefore i fear nothing. i shall die like everybody, like even those who do not fulfil christ's teaching, but my life and my death will have a meaning for me and for others. my life and my death will contribute to the rescue and life of others--and that is just what christ taught."[ ] if once enough individuals have conformed their lives to their knowledge, the multitude will soon follow. "the passage of men from one order of life to another does not take place steadily, as the sand in the hour-glass runs out, one grain after another from the first to the last, but rather as a vessel that has been sunk into water fills itself. at first the water gets in only on one side, slowly and uniformly; but then its weight makes the vessel sink, and now the thing takes in, all at once, all the water that it can hold."[ ] thus the impulse given by individuals will provoke a movement that goes on faster and faster, wider and wider, avalanche-like, suddenly sweeps along the masses, and brings about the new order of life.[ ] then the time is come "when all men are filled with god, shun war, beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; that is, in our language, when the prisons and fortresses are empty, when the gallows, rifles, and cannon are out of use. what seemed a dream has found its fulfilment in a new form of life."[ ] footnotes: [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , , , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - , to. "gospel" p. , "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" pp. - , - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "reason and dogma" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. ; to. "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "confession" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , , "kingdom" pp. - , "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "confession" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "religion and morality" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "on life" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. , "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "morning" pp. - . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - , , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "on life" pp. , - , , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , ; "kingdom" p. . [has tolstoi compared in a greek concordance the other occurrences of the word translated "resist"?] [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ["he speaks only of the _gesetz_, but he means all _recht_"; see footnote on page of the present book.] [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. , "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - , , , - ; "gospel" pp. - ; "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. ; "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - , - ; "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - , - , - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. ; "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. ; "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "linen-measurer" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] "kernel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. ; "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to "what shall we do" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . chapter x the anarchistic teachings .--general we have now gained the standpoint that permits us to view comprehensively the entire body of anarchistic teachings. this comprehensive view is possible only as follows: first we have to look and see what the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented have in common, and what specialties are to be found among them; next we must consider how far that which is common to the seven teachings may be equated to that which the entire body of anarchistic teachings have in common, and, in addition, how far the specialties represented among the seven teachings may be equated to the specialties represented in the entire body of anarchistic teachings. to characterize those qualities of the anarchistic teachings to which attention is to be paid, words already existing are here used as far as has been found practicable. where such were totally lacking, the need of a concise formula has of necessity overcome repugnance to neologisms. .--basis i. as to their basis the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . in part they recognize as the supreme law of human procedure merely a natural law, which, as such, does not tell us what ought to take place but what really will take place; these teachings may be called _genetic_. the other part of them regard as the supreme law of human procedure a norm, which, as such, tells us what ought to take place, even if it never really will take place; these teachings may be characterized as _critical_. genetic are the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin: the supreme law of human procedure is for bakunin the evolutionary law of mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to an existence as perfect as possible, and for kropotkin that of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. critical are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, and tolstoi. . the critical teachings, again, are partly such as set up a duty as the supreme law of human procedure, the duty being itself the ultimate purpose,--these teachings may be characterized as _idealistic_,--and partly such as set up happiness as the supreme law of human procedure, all duty being only a means to happiness,--these may take the name of _eudemonistic_. idealistic are the teachings of proudhon and tolstoi: proudhon sets up as the supreme law of human procedure the duty of justice, tolstoi the duty of love. eudemonistic are the teachings of godwin, stirner, and tucker. . the eudemonistic teachings, finally, regard as the supreme law of human procedure either the happiness of mankind as a whole, which the individual is accordingly to further without regard to his own happiness,--these teachings may be characterized as _altruistic_,--or the happiness of the individual, which he is accordingly to further without regard to the welfare of mankind as a whole,--these teachings may be called _egoistic_. altruistic is godwin's teaching, egoistic stirner's and tucker's. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their basis, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. they have in their basis nothing in common with each other; all the more is it impossible, therefore, that the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings should have in their basis anything in common. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in respect to their basis the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system that has no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. in their basis they have nothing in common, and are to be divided with respect to its differences as shown in the table on page . .--law i. in their relation to law--that is, to those norms which are based on men's will to have a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves--the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . a part of them negate law for our future; these teachings may be called _anomistic_. the other part of them affirm it for our future; these teachings may be characterized as _nomistic_. anomistic are the teachings of godwin, stirner, tolstoi; nomistic those of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker. ====================================================== |_genetic_ | _critical teachings_ | |_teachings_| | | |----------------------------------------| | | _idealistic_ | _eudemonistic_ | | | |-----------------------| | | | altruistic | egoistic | |===========+================+============+==========| | bakunin | proudhon | godwin | stirner | | kropotkin | tolstoi | | tucker | there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the anomistic teachings on the one hand and to the nomistic on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for both the negation and the affirmation of law for our future have totally different meanings in the different teachings. the negation of law for our future means in the cases of godwin and stirner that they reject law unconditionally, and so for our future as well as everywhere else: godwin because it is always and everywhere contrary to the general happiness, stirner because it is always and everywhere contrary to the individual's happiness. in tolstoi's case the meaning of the negation of law for our future is that he rejects law, though not unconditionally, yet for our future, because it is, though not at all times and in all places, yet under our circumstances, in a higher degree repugnant to love than its non-existence. the affirmation of law for our future means in the cases of proudhon and tucker that they approve law as such (though certainly not every particular form of law) unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as elsewhere: proudhon because law as such never and nowhere offends against justice, tucker because law as such never and nowhere impairs the individual's happiness.[ ] in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin, finally, the affirmation of law for our future has the meaning that they foresee that the progress of evolution will in our future leave in existence law as such, even though not the present particular form of law: bakunin meaning by this the progress of mankind from a less perfect existence to an existence as perfect as possible, and proudhon its progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. . the anomistic teachings part company again in regard to what they (in the same different senses in which they negate law for our future) affirm for our future in contrast to the law. according to godwin, in future the general happiness ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. according to stirner, in future the happiness of self ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. according to tolstoi, in future love ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. . on the other part, the nomistic teachings part company in regard to the particular form of law that they affirm for our future. according to tucker, even in future there ought to exist enacted law, in which the will that creates the law is expressly declared,[ ] as well as unenacted law, in which such an express declaration of this will is not present. according to bakunin and kropotkin, in future only unenacted law will exist. according to proudhon, there ought to exist in future only the single legal norm that contracts must be lived up to.[ ] ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to law, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in their relation to law they have nothing in common. much less, therefore, can the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings have anything in common in their relation to law. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to law the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. in their relation to law they have nothing in common, and are to be divided as follows with respect to the differences of this relation: ================================================ | _anomistic teachings_ | _nomistic teachings_ | |=======================+======================| | godwin | proudhon | | stirner | bakunin | | tolstoi | kropotkin | | | tucker | .--the state i. in their relation to the state--that is, to the legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a territory--the seven teachings here presented have something in common. . they have this in common, that they negate the state for our future. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what the teachings here presented have in common in their relation to the state than has here been given. for the negation of the state for our future has totally different meanings in them. in the cases of godwin, stirner, tucker, and proudhon, the negation of the state for our future means that they reject the state unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as everywhere else: godwin because the state always and everywhere impairs the general happiness, stirner and tucker because it always and everywhere impairs the individual's happiness, proudhon because at all times and in all places the state offends against justice. in tolstoi's case the negation of the state for our future means that he rejects the state, though not unconditionally, yet for our future, because the state is, though not always and everywhere, yet under our circumstances, more repugnant to love than its non-existence. finally, in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin the negation of the state for our future has the meaning that they foresee that in our future the progress of evolution will abolish the state: bakunin meaning mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to one as perfect as possible, kropotkin its progress from a less happy existence to one as happy as possible. . as to what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state (in the same different senses in which they negate the state for our future) the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. one part of them affirm for our future, in contrast to the state, a social human life in a voluntary legal relation--to wit, under the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to; these teachings may take the name of _federalistic_. the other part of them affirm for our future, in contrast to the state, a social human life without any legal relation--to wit, under the same controlling principle that they affirm for our future in contrast to law; these teachings may be characterized as _spontanistic_. federalistic are the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker; spontanistic those of godwin,[ ] stirner, and tolstoi. . the spontanistic teachings in turn part company in respect to the non-legal controlling principle which they affirm in contrast to the state as the basis of the social human life for our future. according to godwin, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that the general happiness should be every one's rule of action. according to stirner, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that each one's own happiness should be his rule of action. according to tolstoi, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that love should be every one's rule of action. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to the state, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in their relation to the state they have only this one thing in common, that they negate the state for our future--and in very different senses at that. but this is common to all recognized anarchistic teachings: observation of any recognized anarchistic teaching shows that in one sense or another it negates the state for our future. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to the state the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system which affords no room for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of the anarchistic teachings altogether. in their relation to the state they have in common their negating the state for our future; and with regard to the differences in what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state they are to be divided as shown in the table on page . ======================================================= | _federalistic teachings_ | _spontanistic teachings_ | |==========================+==========================| | proudhon | godwin | | bakunin | stirner | | kropotkin | tolstoi | | tucker | | .--property i. in their relation to property--that is, to that legal relation by virtue of which some one has within a certain group of men the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing--the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . one part of them negate property for our future; these teachings may be characterized as _indoministic_. the other part affirm it for our future; these teachings may be called _doministic_. indoministic are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tolstoi; doministic the teachings of bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the indoministic teachings on the one hand and to the doministic on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for both the affirmation and the negation of property for our future have totally different meanings in the different teachings. in the cases of godwin, stirner, and proudhon, the negation of property for our future means that they reject property unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere: godwin because it is always and everywhere contrary to the general happiness, stirner because it is always and everywhere contrary to the individual's happiness, proudhon because it always and everywhere offends against justice. in tolstoi's case the meaning of the negation of property for our future is that he rejects property, though not absolutely, yet for our future, because it is, though not at all times and in all places, yet under our circumstances, in a higher degree repugnant to love than is its non-existence. in tucker's case the affirmation of property for our future means that he approves property as such (though certainly not every particular form of property) unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as elsewhere, because property as such is never and nowhere contrary to the individual's happiness.[ ] finally, in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin the affirmation of property for our future is as much as to say that they foresee that in our future the progress of evolution will leave in existence property as such, even though not the present particular form of property: bakunin meaning mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to one as perfect as possible, kropotkin its progress from a less happy existence to one as happy as possible. . the indoministic teachings part company again as to what they affirm for our future (in the same different senses in which they negate property for our future) in contrast to property. according to proudhon, a distribution of goods determined by a voluntary legal relation, and based on the legal norm that contracts ought to be lived up to, ought to take the place of property. according to godwin, stirner, and tolstoi, the place of property ought to be taken by a distribution without any legal relation, based rather on the same rule of action that is affirmed by them in contrast to law. according to godwin, therefore, that distribution of goods which is to take the place of property ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by the general happiness. according to stirner it ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by his own happiness. according to tolstoi it ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by love. . the doministic teachings on their side part company again as to the particular form of property that they affirm for our future. according to tucker there ought to exist in future, as at present, both property of the individual and property of the collectivity, in all things indiscriminately.[ ] this teaching may be called _individualistic_. according to bakunin, in future there will exist property of the individual and of the entire community only in goods for consumption, indiscriminately, while in the materials and instruments of production there will be solely property of the collectivity. this teaching may be characterized as _collectivistic_. according to kropotkin, in future there will exist solely property of the collectivity in all things indiscriminately. this teaching may be called _communistic_. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to property, the seven anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. they have nothing in common in their relation to property. all the more is it impossible, therefore, that the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings should in their relation to property have anything in common. furthermore, in regard to the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to property the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. they have nothing in common in their relation to property, and are to be divided with respect to the differences of this relation as shown in the table on page . ================================================================= |_indoministic_| _doministic teachings_ | | _teachings_ +-----------------+----------------+-------------+ | |_individualistic_|_collectivistic_|_communistic_| |==============+=================+================+=============| | godwin | tucker | bakunin | kropotkin | | proudhon | | | | | stirner | | | | | tolstoi | | | | .--realization i. with regard to the manner in which they conceive their realization--that is, the transition from the negated condition to the affirmed condition--as taking place, the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . the one part of them conceive their realization as taking place without breach of law: they have in mind a transition from the negated to the affirmed condition merely by the application of legal norms of the negated condition; these teachings may be characterized as _reformatory_. reformatory are the teachings of godwin and proudhon. the other part conceive their realization as a breach of law: they have in mind a transition from the negated to the affirmed condition with violation of legal norms of the negated condition; these teachings may be called _revolutionary_. revolutionary are the teachings of stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and tolstoi. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the reformatory teachings on the one hand, to the revolutionary on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for the conceiving the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way has totally different meanings in the different teachings. if godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, and tolstoi conceive the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way, this is as much as to say that they demand that we should in a given way first prepare for, and then effect, the transition from a disapproved to an approved condition. if, on the contrary, bakunin and kropotkin conceive the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way, this means that they foresee that in the progress of evolution the transition from a disappearing to a newly-appearing condition will of itself take place in a given way, and that they only demand that we should make a certain sort of preparation for this transition. . the revolutionary teachings part company again as to the fashion in which they conceive of the breach of law that helps in the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition. some of them conceive of the breach of law as taking place without the employment of force; these teachings may be characterized as _renitent_. renitent are the teachings of tucker and tolstoi: tucker conceiving the breach of law chiefly as a refusal to pay taxes and rent and an infringement of the banking monopoly, tolstoi especially as a refusal to do military, police, or jury service, and also to pay taxes. the other revolutionary teachings conceive of the breach of law that helps in the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition as taking place with the employment of force; these teachings may take the name of _insurgent_. insurgent are the teachings of stirner, bakunin, and kropotkin: stirner and bakunin conceiving only of the transition itself as attended with the use of violence, but kropotkin also of preparation for it by such acts (propaganda of deed). ii. with regard to what they have in common in respect of the conceived manner of realization, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings which have been presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in respect of the conceived manner of realization they have nothing in common. much less, therefore, can the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings have anything in common in this respect. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in respect of the conceived manner of realization the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of the anarchistic teachings altogether. in respect of the conceived manner of realization they have nothing in common, and are to be arranged as follows with reference to the differences therein: =============================================== |_reformatory_ | _revolutionary teachings_ | | _teachings_ +--------------+---------------| | | _renitent_ | _insurgent_ | |==============+==============+===============| | godwin | tucker | stirner | | proudhon | tolstoi | bakunin | | | | kropotkin | footnotes: [ ] [i shall not indorse this statement till i understand it, and i doubt if tucker will. perhaps eltzbacher might have been content with saying "is in no case more injurious to the happiness of most individuals than its non-existence."] [ ] [this, if interpreted by eltzbacher's quotations from tucker, must refer to the right of a voluntary association of any sort to make rules for its own members. but in this sense it seems in the highest degree doubtful whether eltzbacher is justified in denying the same to all the other six, who have omitted to mention this point (perhaps regarding it as self-evident) while they were talking against laws in the sense of laws compulsorily binding everybody in the land.] [ ] [but see on proudhon and stirner my notes on pages and .] [ ] [it will be seen by consulting the footnotes on pages , , and that the warrants for this statement about godwin are drawn exclusively from the first one-fifth of his book, contrary to eltzbacher's profession at the top of page ; that the passages quoted _verbatim_ are not in godwin's second edition; and that the quotations which are not _verbatim_ are of doubtful correctness by the second edition. this makes it appear that godwin's sweeping rejection of the principle of contract was one of those over-hasty propositions about which he changed his mind even before they were published (see his words quoted on page , and the preface to his second edition). yet i am not prepared to assert that godwin would at any time have made contract the basis of his civil order.] [ ] [on proudhon, stirner, tucker, see my notes on pages , , .] [ ] [we are getting into an ambiguity of language here. the "collectivity" in which kropotkin vests property is, as i understand, the entire population; the only "collectivity" which tucker could recognize as owning property would be a voluntary association, whose membership, whether large or small, would in general be limited by the arbitrary choice of men.] chapter xi anarchism and its species i.--errors about anarchism and its species it has now become possible to set aside some of the numerous errors about anarchism and its species. i. it is said that anarchism has abolished morality and bases itself upon scientific materialism,[ ] that its ideal of society is determined by its peculiar conception of the way things come to pass in history.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, tolstoi, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would have to be regarded as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism sets up the happiness of the individual as final goal,[ ] that it appraises every human action from the abstract view-point of the unlimited right of the individual,[ ] that to it the supreme law is not the general welfare but every individual's free preference.[ ] were this really the case, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin, proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tolstoi, and a multitude of other recognized anarchistic teachings, as not anarchistic. . the moral law of justice is set down as anarchism's supreme law.[ ] were this assertion correct, the teachings of godwin, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and numerous other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism culminates in the negation of every programme,[ ] that it has only a negative goal.[ ] if this were in accordance with truth, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and well-nigh all other recognized anarchistic teachings, would not admit of being regarded as anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism rejects law,[ ] the compulsion of law.[ ] if this were so, the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is declared that anarchism rejects society,[ ] that its ideal consists in wiping out society to make a fresh start,[ ] that for it fellowship exists only to be combated.[ ] were this correct, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and pretty nearly all other recognized anarchistic teachings, as not anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism demands the abolition of the state,[ ] wills to destroy the state off the face of the earth,[ ] wills to have the state in no form at all,[ ] wills to have no government.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings which only foresee the abolition of the state but do not demand it, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is asserted that in anarchism's future society the individual's consent binds him only so long as he is disposed to keep it up.[ ] were this really so, then the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would have to be looked upon as not anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism wills to put a federation in the place of the state,[ ] that what it is striving for is the ordering of all public affairs by free contracts among federalistically instituted communes and societies.[ ] were this in accordance with truth, the teachings of godwin, stirner, tolstoi, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would not admit of being regarded as anarchistic, and no more would the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin and the rest of the recognized anarchistic teachings that do not demand, but only foresee, a fellowship of contract. . it is declared that anarchism rejects property.[ ] if this were correct, we should have to rate the teachings of bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings that affirm property either unconditionally or at any rate in some particular form, as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism rejects private property,[ ] endeavors to establish community of goods,[ ] is necessarily communistic.[ ] were anarchism necessarily communistic, then, in the first place, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings which negate property in every form, even as the property of society, could not rank as anarchistic; and furthermore, neither could the teachings of tucker and bakunin, and such other recognized anarchistic teachings as affirm private property either in all things or at least in goods for direct consumption. and if in addition to this it were a matter of rejection or endeavor, then not even kropotkin's teaching, and the rest of the recognized anarchistic teachings which do not demand, but foresee, a communistic form of property, could be regarded as anarchistic. . a distinction is made between communist, collectivist, and individualist anarchism,[ ] or simply between communist and individualist anarchism.[ ] were the first division a complete one, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings that do not affirm property in any form, could not rank as anarchistic; were the second complete, these again could not, nor yet could bakunin's teaching and such other recognized anarchistic teachings as affirm a property in the means of production only for society, but in the supplies of consumption for individuals also. . it is said that anarchism preaches crime,[ ] looks to a violent revolution for the initiation of the new condition,[ ] seeks to attain its goal with the help of all agencies, even theft and murder.[ ] if anarchism conceived of its realization as taking place by crime, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin and proudhon and very many more recognized anarchistic teachings as not anarchistic; and, if it conceived of its realization as taking place by criminal acts of violence, the teachings of tucker and tolstoi and numerous other recognized anarchistic teachings would also have to be regarded as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism recognizes the propaganda of deed as a means toward its realization.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, tucker, tolstoi, and most of the other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. .--the concepts of anarchism and its species it is now possible, furthermore, to determine the common and special qualities of the anarchistic teachings, to assign them a place in the total realm of our experience, and thus to define conceptually anarchism and its species. i. _the common and special qualities of the anarchistic teachings._ . the anarchistic teachings have in common only this, that they negate the state for our future. in the cases of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tucker, the negation means that they reject the state unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere; in the case of tolstoi it means that he rejects the state, though not unconditionally, yet for our future; in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin it means that they foresee that in future the progress of evolution will do away with the state. . as to their basis, the anarchistic teachings are classifiable as _genetic_, recognizing as the supreme law of human procedure merely a law of nature (bakunin, kropotkin) and _critical_, regarding a norm as the supreme law of human procedure. the critical teachings, again, are classifiable as _idealistic_, whose supreme law is a duty (proudhon, tolstoi), and _eudemonistic_, whose supreme law is happiness. the eudemonistic teachings, finally, are on their part further classifiable as _altruistic_, for which the general happiness is supreme law (godwin), and _egoistic_, for which the individual's happiness takes this rank (stirner, tucker). as to what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state, the anarchistic teachings are either _federalistic_--that is, they affirm for our future a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker)--or _spontanistic_--that is, they affirm for our future a social human life on the basis of a non-juridical controlling principle (godwin, stirner, tolstoi). as to their relation to law, a part of the anarchistic teachings are _anomistic_, negating law for our future (godwin, stirner, tolstoi); the other part are _nomistic_, affirming it for our future (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker). as to their relation to property, the anarchistic teachings are partly _indoministic_, negating property for our future (godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi), partly _doministic_, affirming it for our future. the doministic teachings, again, are partly _individualistic_, affirming property, without limitation, for the individual as well as for the collectivity (tucker), partly _collectivistic_, affirming as to supplies for direct consumption a property that will sometimes be the individual's, but as to the means of production a property that is only for the collectivity (bakunin), and, finally, partly _communistic_, affirming property solely for the collectivity (kropotkin). as to how they conceive their realization, the anarchistic teachings divide into the _reformatory_, which conceive the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition as without breach of law (godwin, proudhon), and _revolutionary_, which conceive this transition as a breach of law. the revolutionary teachings, again, divide into _renitent_, which conceive the breach of law as without the use of force (tucker, tolstoi) and _insurgent_, which conceive it as attended by the use of force (stirner, bakunin, kropotkin). ii. _the place of the anarchistic teachings in the total realm of our experience._ . there must be distinguished three lines of thought in the philosophy of law: that is, three fashions of judging law. the first is _jurisprudential dogmatism_. it judges whether a legal institution ought to exist or not, and it judges quite unconditionally, solely by what the institution consists of, without regard to its effect under this or that particular set of circumstances. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of a _proper law_: that is, the schools that seek to determine what law--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage--is under all circumstances to be approved or to be disapproved. its best known form is "natural law." the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism lies in its not taking account of the fact that our judgment of legal institutions must depend on their effects, and that one and the same legal institution has under different circumstances altogether different effects. the second line of thought is _jurisprudential skepticism_. in view of the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism it foregoes judgment on whether a legal institution ought to exist or not, and pronounces judgment only on whether the tendency of evolution gives ground for expecting that a legal institution will persist or disappear, arise or remain non-existent. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of the _evolution of law_: that is, the schools that undertake to inform us what sort of law is to be expected in future--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage has a prospect of remaining in force among us. its best-known forms are the historical school in the science of law, and marxism. the weakness of jurisprudential skepticism consists in its not meeting our want of a scientific basis that shall enable us to recognize as correct or incorrect the incessantly-appearing judgments on the value of legal institutions, and to approve or disapprove the manifold propositions for changes in law. the third line of thought is _jurisprudential criticism_. in view of the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism it foregoes passing judgment, without regard to the particular circumstances under which a legal institution operates, on whether that institution ought to exist or not; but yet in view of the weakness of jurisprudential skepticism it does not forego answering the question whether a legal institution ought to exist or not. it therefore sets up a supreme governing principle by which legal institutions are to be judged with regard to the particular circumstances under which they operate, the point being whether, under the particular circumstances under which a legal institution operates, it fulfils that supreme governing principle as well as is possible under these circumstances, or at least better than any other legal institution. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of _the propriety of law_: that is, the schools that set up fundamental principles by which it is to be determined what law--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage--ought under any particular circumstances to exist or not to exist. . with respect to the state these three lines of thought in the philosophy of law may arrive at different judgments, each one from its standpoint. first, to the _affirmation of the state_. so far as the schools of jurisprudential dogmatism affirm the state, they approve of it unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere, without any regard to its effects under this or that particular set of circumstances. among the numerous affirmative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential dogmatism, the teachings of hobbes, hegel, and jhering may perhaps be selected for emphasis as belonging to different sections of history. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential skepticism affirm the state, they foresee, looking to the course evolution is taking, that in our future the state will continue to exist. the most notable representatives of jurisprudential skepticism, such as puchta and merkel, have offered no teaching regarding the state; but affirmative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential skepticism may be found, for instance, in montaigne and bernstein. finally, so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential criticism affirm the state, they commend it for our future in consideration of the particular circumstances that at present prevail in our case. jurisprudential criticism has thus far been most clearly set forth by stammler, who, however, has offered no teaching with regard to the state; but, for instance, spencer's teaching may rank as an affirmative doctrine of the state in the sense of jurisprudential criticism. second, the three lines of thought in the philosophy of law may arrive at the _negation of the state_, each one from its standpoint. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential dogmatism negate the state, they reject it unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere, without any regard to its effects under this or that particular set of circumstances. negative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential dogmatism are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tucker. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential skepticism negate the state, they foresee, looking to the course evolution is taking, that in our future the state will disappear. negative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential skepticism are the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential criticism negate the state, they reject it for our future in consideration of the particular circumstances that at present prevail in our case. a negative doctrine of the state in the sense of jurisprudential criticism is tolstoi's teaching. . therefore, the place of the anarchistic teachings in the total realm of our experience is defined by the fact that they, as a species of doctrine about the state in the philosophy of law,--to wit, as negative doctrines of the state,--stand in opposition to the other species of doctrine about the state, the affirmative doctrines of the state. this may be represented as shown in the table on the following page. iii. _the concepts of anarchism and its species._ . anarchism is the negation of the state in the philosophy of law: that is, it is that species of jurisprudential doctrine of the state which negates the state. . an anarchistic teaching cannot be complete without stating on what basis it rests, what condition it affirms in contrast to the state, and how it conceives the transition to this condition as taking place. a basis, an affirmative side, and a conception of the transition to that which it affirms, are necessary constituents of any anarchistic teaching. with regard to these constituents the following species of anarchism may be distinguished. ================================================================ | |_affirmative doctrines_|_negative doctrines_| | | _of the state_ | _of the state_ | |=================+======================+=====================| | | hobbes | godwin | | in the sense of | hegel | proudhon | | jurisprudential | jhering | stirner | | dogmatism | | tucker | +-----------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | in the sense of | montaigne | bakunin | | jurisprudential | bernstein | kropotkin | | skepticism | | | +-----------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | in the sense of | | | | jurisprudential | spencer | tolstoi | | criticism | | | first, as to basis, _genetic anarchism_, which recognizes as supreme law of human procedure only a law of nature (bakunin, kropotkin), and _critical anarchism_, which regards a norm as supreme law of human procedure; as subspecies of critical anarchism, _idealistic anarchism_, whose supreme law is a duty (proudhon, tolstoi), and _eudemonistic anarchism_, whose supreme law is happiness; and, finally, as subspecies of eudemonistic anarchism, _altruistic anarchism_, for which the supreme law is the general happiness (godwin), and _egoistic anarchism_, for which the supreme law is the individual's happiness (stirner, tucker). second, as to the condition affirmed in contrast to the state, there may be distinguished _federalistic anarchism_, which affirms for our future a social human life according to the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker), and _spontanistic anarchism_, which affirms for our future a social life according to a non-juridical governing principle (godwin, stirner, tolstoi). third, as to the conception of the transition to the affirmed condition, there may be distinguished _reformatory anarchism_, which conceives the transition from the state to the condition affirmed in contrast thereto as taking place without breach of law (godwin, proudhon), and _revolutionary anarchism_, which conceives this transition as a breach of law; as subspecies of revolutionary anarchism, _renitent anarchism_, which conceives the breach of law as without the use of violence (tucker, tolstoi), and _insurgent anarchism_, which conceives it as attended by the use of violence (stirner, bakunin, kropotkin). . an anarchistic teaching may be complete without taking up a position toward law or property. whenever, therefore, an anarchistic teaching takes up a position toward the one or the other, it contains an accidental adjunct. the anarchistic teachings that contain this adjunct may be classified according to its character; but, since anarchism as such can be classified only according to the character of the necessary constituents of every anarchistic teaching, such a classification _does not give us species of anarchism_. so far as the anarchistic teachings take up a position toward law, they are either _anomistic_--that is, they negate law for our future (godwin, stirner, tolstoi)--or _nomistic_--that is, they affirm it for our future (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker). so far as they take up a position toward property, they are either _indoministic_, negating property for our future (godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi), or _doministic_, affirming it for our future; the doministic teachings, again, are either _individualistic_, affirming property, without limitation, for the individual as well as for the collectivity (tucker), or _collectivistic_, affirming as to supplies for direct consumption a property which may be the individual's, but as to the means of production a property that is only for the collectivity (bakunin), or, last of all, _communistic_, affirming property for the collectivity alone (kropotkin). all this is brought before the eye in the table on page . [**symbol: hand pointing right][the table is given as compiled by eltzbacher. for correction of errors either certain or probable, see footnotes to pages , , ; note also that under "condition affirmed" the distinction is excessively fine between stirner, who would have men agree on the terms of a union which they are to stick to as long as they find it advisable, and bakunin and tucker, who would have them bound together by a contract limited by the inalienable right of secession.] key: a - genetic b - idealistic c - altrustic d - egoistic e - federalistic f - spontanistic g - reformatory h - renitent i - insurgent j - anomistic k - nomistic l - indoministic m - individualistic n - collectivistic o - communistic ===================================================================== | _doctrines of the state_ | _anarchistic teachings_ | | _in the philosophy of law_ | _may possibly be_ | |-----------------+--------------------+ | | affirmative | negative | | | doctrines | doctrines | | | of the state | of the state | | |-----------------+ | | | anarchism | | |-----------------+---------+----------+--------+-------------------| | |_as to |_as to its| _as to | _as to their | | |condition|conception| their | attitude toward | | |affirmed | of the |attitude| property_ | |_as to its basis_| in |transition| toward | | | |contrast | to the | law_ | | | | to the | affirmed | | | | | state_ |condition_| | | |---+-------------+---------+--+-------+---+----+----+--------------| | | critical | | | |revolu-| | | | doministic | | +----+--------+ | | |tionary| | | +--------------| | | |eudemon-| | | +-------+ | | | | | | | | | istic | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | a | b | c | d | e | f |g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+--+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | go | | |go* |go| | | go| | go | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+--+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | pr | | |pr | |pr | | | | pr |pr* | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | |st | | st* | | |st |st*| |st* | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| |ba | | | |ba | | | |ba | | ba | | | ba | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| |kr | | | |kr | | | |kr | | kr | | | | kr | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | |tu |tu | | |tu| | | tu | | tu | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | to | | | | to | |to| |to | | to | | | | ===================================================================== * [see note, p. .] footnotes: [ ] "_der anarchismus und seine träger_" pp. , , . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] plechanow p. . [ ] rienzi p. . [ ] bernatzik pp. , . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] crispi p. . [ ] stammler pp. , , , . [ ] lenz pp. , . [ ] garraud p. , tripels p. . [ ] silió p. . [ ] reichesberg pp. , . [ ] bernstein p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] bernatzik p. . [ ] "_hintermänner_" p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] "_hintermänner_" p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] silió p. , dubois p. . [ ] proal p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. , garraud pp. , . [ ] "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" p. ; zenker p. . [ ] rienzi p. ; stammler pp. - ; merlino pp. , ; shaw p. . [ ] garraud p. ; lenz p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; van hamel p. . [ ] lombroso pp. , . [ ] garraud pp. - ; lombroso p. ; ferri p. . conclusion . the personal want that impelled us toward a scientific knowledge of anarchism has met with some satisfaction. the concepts of anarchism and its species have been defined; the most important errors have been removed; the most prominent anarchistic teachings of earlier and recent times have been presented in detail. we have become acquainted with anarchism's armory. we have seen all that can be objected against the state from all possible standpoints. we have been shown the most diverse orders of life as destined to take the state's place in future. the transition from the state to these orders of life has been represented to us in the most manifold ways. he who would know anarchism still more intimately, investigate the less notable teachings as well as the most prominent, and assign to both these and those their place in the causal nexus of historical events, will now find at least the foundation laid for his work. he knows with what sorts of teachings, and what parts of these teachings, he must concern himself, and what questions he must put to each of them. in this investigation he must expect many surprises: the teaching of the unknown pisacane will astonish him by its originality, and that of the much-talked-of most will show itself to be only a coarsened form of kropotkin's. but on the whole it is hardly likely that the investigation will be worth the trouble it takes: the special ideas that anarchism has to offer are given with tolerable completeness in the seven teachings here presented. . the external want on account of which anarchism had to be scientifically known may now also be satisfied. one thing we must at any rate do with regard to anarchism: examine its teachings, as to their soundness or unsoundness, with courage, composure, and impartiality. but success in this task can be expected only if we no longer wander about aimlessly in the night of jurisprudential skepticism, or try to light it up with the lantern of dogmatism, but rather keep our eye fixed upon the guiding star of criticism. whether, besides this, it is requisite to oppose anarchism or at least one or another of its species by especial instrumentalities of power,--whether, in particular, crime committed for the realization of anarchistic teachings is a more serious misdeed than any political or even ordinary crime,--as to this the legislators of each country must decide with a view to the special conditions existing therein. index of details, exemplifications, and catchwords in the quotations from the seven writers the following index is not a translation of eltzbacher's, and does not index his part of the work, but only the matter quoted from the seven writers. furthermore, it does not index such parts of their work as are readily found by consulting the table of contents and chapter x. the reader will therefore, in general, for justice, see the sections "basis" and "property" in each chapter, and the whole of chapter iv; for self-interest, "basis" in each chapter and the whole of chapters v and viii; for classes, "state" and "property" in each chapter; for organization, "state" and "realization"; for government, democracy, tyranny, "state"; for capitalism, poverty, inequality, "property"; for communism, chapters vii and ix, especially "property" and "realization", comparing chapter vi; for propaganda, social revolution, "realization" in each chapter; and so on. so far as general points of this nature are mentioned in the index, it is in most cases only on some incidental occasion, and does not supersede this general reference: nor could this be superseded without thereby misleading the reader. "law" has received somewhat exceptional treatment. the reader will of course not assume, because in the index he does not find a certain author among those who are cited on a certain topic, that this author has not mentioned it. while the index shows a wider range of topics than might have been expected in such a book, the nature of eltzbacher's compilation forbids us to expect that it should serve as a complete cyclopedia of anarchism. absenteeism, kr. - , to. - , , aged, see dependent agriculture, kr. , , to. american revolution, go. anarchism, first use of name, pr. , kr. anarchy, lesser evil, go. areas of jurisdiction, ideally: small, go. - nation-wide, pr. - larger and larger, ba. undefined, kr. , tu. army: cannot crush revolution, kr. basis of state, to. - refuse to serve in, to. , of revolution, ba. , , kr. associations, voluntary, st. - , kr. - , tu. - astronomy, kr. authority: object of competition, pr. - sought only by the bad, to. - bad men, see criminals ballot, see voting bank, pr. , - , tu. - , bees swarming, to. bloodshed: insignificant, ba. , kr. see force, war boundaries: abolished, ba. , no economic, kr. see areas bribery by state, to. - california, pr. central authority in future, go. - , pr. - , ba. centralization, pr. - children, tu. , ftn. ; see dependent christianity, to. - church: anti-christian, to. - organization, pr. - property, ba. collectivism, ba. , kr. - colonists, to. - columbus, to. - commune: economic unit, kr. - , , , - political unit, ba. communism in present society, kr. - , contract: basic, pr. , , kr. , tu. - eschewed, go. - (but see footnotes), , to. scope of, ba. , tu. courts, future: drawn by lot, tu. elective, pr. free from law, go. , partly free from law, tu. , ftn. merely recommend, go. criminals: state gives power to, to. - state makes, kr. , , tu. , , to. - debts: private, ba. , tu. - of state, ba. , kr. defence: a commodity, tu. , - force justified in, tu. - , , force not justified in, to. - see invasion defensive associations, tu. - deliberative assemblies, go. , - , - ; see central dependent: the poor are, to. - provision for the, go. - , st. - , kr. , to. destruction, kr. - discussion, go. , kr. , tu. distress, relief of, tu. egoism, st. - , tu. english history, go. , kr. - evolution no excuse for inertness, kr. - , to. - , example, propaganda by, pr. , ba. , kr. - , tu. - , to. , - exploitation, state stands for, ba. , , expropriation, kr. - expulsion, pr. , kr. , extradition in future, go. - force: inadmissible, to. - justification of, tu. , , in law, to. may be necessary, tu. - necessary, st. , in property, to. - in state, st. , ba. , tu. , to. - undesirable, pr. unreliable, go. useful, kr. , works badly, tu. , - , to. - frankness, to. , - freedom, see liberty; also speech, etc. french revolution: events, go. , kr. , - , - legislatures, go. , pr. government, see state heirs dividing property, go. - houses, kr. , hypnotizing the people, to. independence, ba. , - inequality will persist but diminish, tu. - institutions to be preserved, pr. , intelligence, government checks progress in, go. , intercourse of social organizations, go. - and ftn., kr. - , tu. intimidation, to. invasion: foreign, go. , kr. , to. personal, tu. - irish land league, tu. - , , judge, jury, see courts labor: amount of, go. , kr. - basis of distribution, pr. , ba. basis of ownership, tu. , basis of sharing, kr. , - of past generations, kr. - product of, tu. , seeking higher pay, st. , universal duty, to. , land: monopoly, tu. tenure, tu. , , law: dwarfs character, go. is changeful, go. is consecrated, st. - is hostile in purpose, st. - , ba. , to. is inadequate, to. - is not agreed to, pr. , kr. , to. - is not impartial, pr. , st. , kr. - , - is not up to date, to. - is obstructive, st. , kr. is prophetic, go. is rigid, go. - , kr. , tu. is uncertain, go. is violent, to. is voluminous, go. , , pr. - , kr. origin of, go. , kr. - , to. tends to encroach, go. , pr. , st. , kr. , to. liberty, equal, tu. - , ftn. liquor, tu. mental influence, to. - military, see army money: monopoly, tu. - , - power of, to. - see bank monopoly: economic, tu. - state is, tu. music, kr. mutuality, pr. non-resistance, to. - occupancy and use: title to land, tu. , title to everything, to. - paine quoted, go. and ftn. papers, legal, pr. , ba. passive resistance, tu. - , to. - patents, tu. , peasants: beating each other, to. condition of, kr. , to. economic practices of, kr. - , to. - how to reach, ba. revolutionary achievements of, kr. , ; see irish police: agency of governmental violence, to. , depraved, to. in future society, tu. ftn. , - , ftn. ; see extradition lawless, kr. obstructive, st. to be replaced by voluntary intervention of citizens, kr. the support of property, to. power, see authority press, freedom of, tu. printing, kr. private wants in communism, kr. - product, see labor production will increase, kr. - , tu. promise, see contract property, definition of, pr. - , to. public opinion: in advance of law, to. - to be changed, pr. - , ba. , tu. , to. - doctored by state, ba. , to. - society to be ruled by, to. punishment: is antiquated, to. is not wanted, kr. is proper, tu. - , is useless, kr. makes criminals, kr. , to. see expulsion railroads: agreement of, kr. building, kr. ownership of, kr. rationing, kr. - , red cross society, kr. religion foundation of state, ba. - rent: economic, tu. - , ftn. of landlord, kr. , tu. , , , resistance, see defence, force, passive revolution part of evolution, kr. - rich, the: depraved, ba. , kr. - guilty, to. , - will help us, go. , pr. right, rights: admissible sense, tu. a delusion, st. - , tu. to enforce contract, tu. - to independence, ba. , - to live comfortably, go. - , kr. , only for rich, kr. - of secession, ba. , tu. - state has no, tu. robbery, forms of, pr. - ruling classes: bad men originally, to. - depraved by ruling, ba. , to. incompetent, kr. schools, kr. , to. secession, ba. , tu. - secret societies, ba. , , kr. self the thing to be changed, st. - , to. - , sick, see dependent society: distinguished from government, go. indispensable, ba. , tu. organism, evolving, kr. - values all due to, kr. - see secret soldiers, see army speech, freedom of, tu. spencer quoted, tu. and ftn. spooner, lysander, xi staff of revolutionary army, ba. state defined, tu. - stop beating each other, to. street-making, kr. tariff, tu. taxation: robbery which vitiates all state's acts, tu. refuse to pay, tu. - , - , to. theft, see robbery violence, see force virtue, state hostile to, ba. voting: for officers now appointed otherwise, pr. - in state, a form of force, tu. irrational, go. - in voluntary association, tu. war: a fight for dominion, to. state stands for, kr. see force, invasion warren, josiah, tu. ftn. , (for "they" see ftn. ) * * * * * the adventures of caleb williams or things as they are by william godwin "_it was proposed, in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man._"--from the preface. limp lambskin, gilt top, $ . photogravure frontispiece _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of p. j. proudhon in the original french +qu'est-ce que la propriété?+ premier mémoire: recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. deuxième mémoire: lettre à m. blanqui sur la propriété. pages. cents. +avertissement aux propriétaires.+ célébration du dimanche; 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"one of the most eloquent pleas for liberty ever written. paine's 'age of reason' and 'rights of man' consolidated and improved. it stirs the pulse like a trumpet-call."--_the truth seeker_. in french +correspondance.+ letters to herzen and to ogareff. - . with preface and annotations by michel dragomanow. translated by marie stromberg. pages. cents. +oeuvres.+ vol. i. fédéralisme, socialisme, et antithéologisme; lettres sur le patriotisme; dieu et l'état. pages. cents. +oeuvres.+ vol. ii. les ours de berne et l'ours de saint-pétersbourg ( ); lettres à un français sur la crise actuelle (septembre, ); l'empire knouto-germanique et la révolution sociale ( - ). with biographical sketch, prefaces, and notes by james guillaume. cents. in german +michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow.+ with preface and annotations by michail dragomanow. translated by boris minzès. pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of peter kropotkine in english +fields, factories, and workshops+; or, industry combined with agriculture and brain work with manual work. illustrated. pages. cents. 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"in vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that i fall out only with the abuse. the thing--the thing itself is the abuse."--from the above pamphlet. +donisthorpe, wordsworth. law in a free state.+ pages. $ . . "if the doctrine of passive obedience to the odd man had been universally held by our forefathers, there would have been no smithfield fires to light the way to liberty."--the author. +ibsen, henrik. an enemy of society.+ translated by william archer. pages. paper covers. cents. +ouida. the waters of edera.+ pages. gilt top. $ . . a thoroughly anarchistic novel. +tandy, francis d. voluntary socialism.+ a sketch. pages. cents. in french +eltzbacher, paul. l'anarchisme.+ translated by otto karmin. pages. cents. +ghio, paul. l'anarchisme aux etats-unis.+ pages. cents. +ibsen, henrik. un ennemi du peuple.+ translated, with a preface, by the comte prozor. pages. cents. +mackay, john henry. les anarchistes.+ moeurs de la fin du xixe siècle. translated by auguste lavallé (louis de hessem). pages. cents. +rabani, Ã�mile. l'anarchie scientifique.+ pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * liberty benj. r. tucker, _editor_ an anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in equal liberty is to be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that majority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial of equal liberty. _appreciations_ g. bernard shaw, _author of_ "_man and superman_": "liberty is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable deal of balderdash are reversed." william douglas o'connor, _author of_ "_the good gray poet_": "the editor of liberty would be the gavroche of the revolution, if he were not its enjolras." frank stephens, _well-known single-tax champion, philadelphia_: "liberty is a paper which reforms reformers." bolton hall, _author of_ "_even as you and i_": "liberty shows us the profit of anarchy, and is the prophet of anarchy." allen kelly, _formerly chief editorial writer on the philadelphia_ "_north american_": "liberty is my philosophical polaris. i ascertain the variations of my economic compass by taking a sight at her whenever she is visible." samuel w. cooper, _counsellor at law, philadelphia_: "liberty is a journal that thomas jefferson would have loved." edward osgood brown, _judge of the illinois circuit court_: "i have seen much in liberty that i agreed with, and much that i disagreed with, but i never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes it an almost unique publication." _published bimonthly. twelve issues, $ . _ _single copies, cents_ address: benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * josiah warren the first american anarchist a biography, with portrait by william bailie the biography is preceded by an essay on "the anarchist spirit," in which mr. bailie defines anarchist belief in relation to other social forces. _price, one dollar_ mailed, post-paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * benj. r. tucker's unique book-shop sixth ave., near th st. _open evenings_ largest stock in the world of advanced literature in english, french, german, and italian lowest prices in the united states by to per cent. for all books in french, german, and italian promptest service in america for importation of books from europe benj. r. tucker's unique catalogues of english books, pages, titles of french books, pages, titles of italian books, pages, titles of german books, pages, titles _english catalogue, cents; french, cents; german, cents; italian, cents any catalogue sent to any address on receipt of price_ mail address: benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * the sanity of art by bernard shaw this is the first publication in book or pamphlet form of bernard shaw's famous open letter to benj. r. tucker, the editor of _liberty_, in review of max nordau's "degeneration," and originally contributed to the pages of _liberty_. the issue of _liberty_ containing it is out of print, and copies of it are very valuable. the volume contains also a characteristic shaw preface in which he declares that the essay was prepared in response to the highest offer ever made for a magazine article. "the sanity of art" is mr. shaw's most important pronouncement on the subject of art, and admittedly one of the finest pieces of art criticism ever penned. _ pages. cloth, gilt top, cts.; paper, cts._ _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * two of a kind! a brace of anarchist classics spencer and thoreau the right to ignore the state by herbert spencer being a reprint of the suppressed chapter from the original edition of "social statics," now rare and costly. _price, ten cents_ on the duty of civil disobedience by henry d. thoreau "i quietly declare war with the state, after my fashion, though i will still make what use and get what advantage of her i can, as is usual in such cases."--_thoreau._ _price, seven cents_ _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * anarchist stickers aggressive, concise anarchistic assertions and arguments, in sheets, gummed and perforated, to be planted everywhere as broadcast seed for thought. printed in clear, heavy type. size, - / by - / inches. excellent for use on first, third, and fourth class mail matter. there is no better method of propagandism for the money. there are different stickers. each sheet contains copies of one sticker. sample stickers no. .--it can never be unpatriotic to take your country's side against your government. it must always be unpatriotic to take your government's side against your country. no. .--what i must not do, the government must not do. no. .--whatever really useful thing government does for men they would do for themselves if there was no government. no. .--the institution known as "government" cannot continue to exist unless many a man is willing to be government's agent in committing what he himself regards as an abominable crime. no. .--considering what a nuisance the government is, the man who says we cannot get rid of it must be called a confirmed pessimist. no. .--anarchism is the denial of force against any peaceable individual. no. .--"all governments, the worst on earth and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them."--lysander spooner. no. .--"i care not who makes th' laws iv a nation, if i can get out an injunction."--mr. dooley. no. .--"it will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are."--emerson. no. .--the population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes--anarchists and criminals. no. .--"liberty means responsibility. that is why most men dread it."--bernard shaw. no. .--"there is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey."--w. kingdon clifford. no. .--the only protection which honest people need is protection against that vast society for the creation of theft which is euphemistically designated as the state. no. .--with the monstrous laws that are accumulating on the statute-books, one may safely say that the man who is not a confirmed criminal is scarcely fit to live among decent people. send for circular giving entire list of stickers, with their numbers. order by number. price: stickers, assorted to suit purchaser, cents; , or more, stickers, assorted to suit purchaser, cents per hundred. mailed, post paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city. none +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | note: | | | | equals signs are used to surround =bold text=; | | underscores to surround _italic text_. | | | | transcriber notes can be found at the end of the file | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ fabian tract no. . the impossibilities of anarchism. by bernard shaw published by the fabian society price twopence london to be obtained of the fabian society, strand, w.c. reprinted november the impossibilities of anarchism.[ ] anarchists and socialists. some years ago, as the practical policy of the socialist party in england began to shape itself more and more definitely into the program of social-democracy, it became apparent that we could not progress without the gravest violations of principles of all sorts. in particular, the democratic side of the program was found to be incompatible with the sacred principle of the autonomy of the individual. it also involved a recognition of the state, an institution altogether repugnant to the principle of freedom. worse than that, it involved compromise at every step; and principles, as mr. john morley once eloquently showed, must not be compromised. the result was that many of us fell to quarrelling; refused to associate with one another; denounced each other as trimmers or impossibilists, according to our side in the controversy; and finally succeeded in creating a considerable stock of ill-feeling. my own side in the controversy was the unprincipled one, as socialism to me has always meant, not a principle, but certain definite economic measures which i wish to see taken. indeed, i have often been reproached for limiting the term socialism too much to the economic side of the great movement towards equality. that movement, however, appears to me to be as much an individualist as a socialist one; and though there are socialists, like sir william harcourt, to whom socialism means the sum total of humanitarian aspiration, in which the transfer of some millions of acres of property from private to public ownership must seem but an inessential and even undesirable detail, this sublimer shade of socialism suffers from such a lack of concentration upon definite measures, that, but for the honor and glory of the thing, its professors might as well call themselves conservatives. now what with socialists of this sort, and persons who found that the practical remedy for white slavery was incompatible with the principle of liberty, and the practical remedy for despotism incompatible with the principle of democracy, and the practical conduct of politics incompatible with the principle of personal integrity (in the sense of having your own way in everything), the practical men were at last driven into frank opportunism. when, for instance, they found national and local organization of the working classes opposed by socialists on the ground that socialism is universal and international in principle; when they found their radical and trade unionist allies ostracized by socialists for being outside the pale of the socialist faith one and indivisible; when they saw agricultural laborers alienated by undiscriminating denunciations of allotments as "individualistic"; then they felt the full force of the saying that socialism would spread fast enough if it were not for the socialists. it was bad enough to have to contend with the conservative forces of the modern unsocialist state without also having to fight the seven deadly virtues in possession of the socialists themselves. the conflict between ideal socialism and practical social-democracy destroyed the chartist organization half a century ago, as it destroyed the socialist league only the other day. but it has never gone so far as the conflict between social-democracy and anarchism. for the anarchists will recommend abstention from voting and refusal to pay taxes in cases where the social-democrats are strenuously urging the workers to organize their votes so as to return candidates pledged to contend for extensions of the franchise and for taxation of unearned incomes, the object of such taxation being the raising of state capital for all sorts of collective purposes, from the opening of public libraries to the municipalization and nationalization of our industries. in fact, the denunciation of social-democratic methods by anarchists is just as much a matter of course as the denunciation of social-democratic aims by conservatives. it is possible that some of the strangers present may be surprised to hear this, since no distinction is made in the newspapers which support the existing social order between social-democrats and anarchists, both being alike hostile to that order. in the columns of such papers all revolutionists are socialists; all socialists are anarchists; and all anarchists are incendiaries, assassins and thieves. one result of this is that the imaginative french or italian criminal who reads the papers, sometimes declares, when taken red-handed in the commission of murder or burglary, that he is an anarchist acting on principle. and in all countries the more violent and reckless temperaments among the discontented are attracted by the name anarchist merely because it suggests desperate, thorough, uncompromising, implacable war on existing injustices. it is therefore necessary to warn you that there are some persons abusively called anarchists by their political opponents, and others ignorantly so described by themselves, who are nevertheless not anarchists at all within the meaning of this paper. on the other hand, many persons who are never called anarchists either by themselves or others, take anarchist ground in their opposition to social-democracy just as clearly as the writers with whom i shall more particularly deal. the old whigs and new tories of the school of cobden and bright, the "philosophic radicals," the economists of whom bastiat is the type, lord wemyss and lord bramwell, mr. herbert spencer and mr. auberon herbert, mr. gladstone, mr. arthur balfour, mr. john morley, mr. leonard courtney: any of these is, in england, a more typical anarchist than bakounin. they distrust state action, and are jealous advocates of the prerogative of the individual, proposing to restrict the one and to extend the other as far as is humanly possible, in opposition to the social-democrat, who proposes to democratize the state and throw upon it the whole work of organizing the national industry, thereby making it the most vital organ in the social body. obviously there are natural limits to the application of both views; and anarchists and social-democrats are alike subject to the fool's argument that since neither collective provision for the individual nor individual freedom from collective control can be made complete, neither party is thoroughly consistent. no dialectic of that kind will, i hope, be found in the following criticism of anarchism. it is confined to the practical measures proposed by anarchists, and raises no discussion as to aims or principles. as to these we are all agreed. justice, virtue, truth, brotherhood, the highest interests of the people, moral as well as physical: these are dear not only to social-democrats and anarchists, but also to tories, whigs, radicals, and probably also to moonlighters and dynamitards. it is with the methods by which it is proposed to give active effect to them that i am concerned here; and to that point i shall now address myself by reading you a paper which i wrote more than four years ago on the subject chosen for to-night. i may add that it has not been revived from a wanton desire to renew an old dispute, but in response to a demand from the provincial fabian societies, bewildered as they are by the unexpected opposition of the anarchists, from whom they had rather expected some sympathy. this old paper of mine being the only document of the kind available, my colleagues have requested me to expunge such errors and follies as i have grown out of since , and to take this opportunity of submitting it to the judgment of the society. which i shall now do without further preamble. individualist anarchism. the full economic detail of individualist anarchism may be inferred with sufficient completeness from an article entitled "state socialism and anarchism: how far they agree, and wherein they differ," which appeared in march, , in _liberty_, an anarchist journal published in boston, mass., and edited by the author of the article, mr. benjamin r. tucker. an examination of any number of this journal will shew that as a candid, clear-headed, and courageous demonstrator of individualist anarchism by purely intellectual methods, mr. tucker may safely be accepted as one of the most capable spokesmen of his party. "the economic principles of modern socialism," says mr. tucker, "are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by adam smith in the early chapters of his _wealth of nations_--namely, that labor is the true measure of price. from this principle, these three men [josiah warren, proudhon and marx] deduced 'that the natural wage of labor is its product.'" now the socialist who is unwary enough to accept this economic position will presently find himself logically committed to the whig doctrine of _laissez-faire_. and here mr. tucker will cry, "why not? _laissez-faire_ is exactly what we want. destroy the money monopoly, the tariff monopoly, and the patent monopoly. enforce then only those land titles which rest on personal occupancy or cultivation;[ ] and the social problem of how to secure to each worker the product of his own labor will be solved simply by everyone minding his own business."[ ] let us see whether it will or not. suppose we decree that henceforth no more rent shall be paid in england, and that each man shall privately own his house, and hold his shop, factory, or place of business jointly with those who work with him in it. let everyone be free to issue money from his own mint without tax or stamp. let all taxes on commodities be abolished, and patents and copyrights be things of the past. try to imagine yourself under these promising conditions with life before you. you may start in business as a crossing sweeper, shopkeeper, collier, farmer, miller, banker, or what not. whatever your choice may be, the first thing you find is that the reward of your labor depends far more on the situation in which you exercise it than on yourself. if you sweep the crossing between st. james's and albemarle streets you prosper greatly. but if you are forestalled not only there, but at every point more central than, say, the corner of holford square, islington, you may sweep twice as hard as your rival in piccadilly, and not take a fifth of his toll. at such a pass you may well curse adam smith and his principle that labor is the measure of price, and either advocate a democratically constituted state socialist municipality, paying all its crossing sweepers equally, or else cast your broom upon the thames and turn shopkeeper. yet here again the same difficulty crops up. your takings depend, not on yourself, but on the number of people who pass your window per hour. at charing cross or cheapside fortunes are to be made: in the main street at putney one can do enough to hold up one's head: further out, a thousand yards right or left of the portsmouth road, the most industrious man in the world may go whistle for a customer. evidently retail shopkeeping is not the thing for a man of spirit after charing cross and cheapside have been appropriated by occupying owners on the principle of first come first served. you must aspire then to wholesale dealing--nay, to banking. alas! the difficulty is intensified beyond calculation. take that financial trinity, glyn, mills and currie; transplant them only a few miles from lombard street; and they will soon be objects of pity to the traditional sailor who once presented at their counter a cheque for £ and generously offered to take it in instalments, as he did not wish to be too hard on them all at once. turning your back on banking, you meddle in the wheat trade, and end by offering to exchange an occupying ownership of all salisbury plain for permission to pay a rack rent for premises within hail of "the baltic" and its barometer. probably there are some people who have a blind belief that crossing sweepers, "the baltic," lombard street, and the like, are too utterly of the essence of the present system to survive the introduction of anarchism. they will tell me that i am reading the conditions of the present into the future. against such instinctive convictions it is vain to protest that i am reading only mr. tucker's conditions. but at least there will be farming, milling, and mining, conducted by human agents, under anarchism. now the farmer will not find in his perfect anarchist market two prices at one time for two bushels of wheat of the same quality; yet the labor cost of each bushel will vary considerably according to the fertility of the farm on which it was raised, and the proximity of that farm to the market. a good soil will often yield the strongest and richest grain to less labor per acre or per bushel than must be spent on land that returns a crop less valuable by five shillings a quarter. when all the best land is held by occupying owners, those who have to content themselves with poorer soils will hail the principle that labor is the measure of price with the thumb to the nose. among the millers, too, there must needs be grievous mistrust of proudhon and josiah warren. for of two men with equally good heart to work and machinery to work with, one may be on a stream that will easily turn six millstones; whilst the other, by natural default of water, or being cut off by his fellow higher up stream, may barely be able to keep two pairs of stones in gear, and may in a dry season be ready to tie these two about his neck and lie down under the scum of his pond. certainly, he can defy drought by setting to work with a steam engine, steel rollers, and all the latest contrivances for squashing wheat into dust instead of grinding it into flour; yet, after all his outlay, he will not be able to get a penny a sack more for his stuff than his competitor, to whose water-wheel nature is gratuitously putting her shoulder. "competition everywhere and always" of his unaided strength against that of his rival he might endure; but to fight naked against one armed with the winds and waves (for there are windmills as well as watermills) is no sound justice, though it be sound anarchism. and how would occupying ownership of mines work, when it is an easier matter to get prime wallsend and silkstone out of one mine than to get slates and steam fuel out of another, even after twenty years' preliminary shaft-sinking? would mr. tucker, if he had on sale from a rich mine some silkstone that had only cost half as much labor as steam coal from a relatively poor one, boldly announce:--"prices this day: prime silkstone, per ton, s.; best steam ditto, s. terms, cash. principles, those of adam smith--see 'wealth of nations' _passim_"? certainly not with "competition everywhere and always," unless custom was no object to him in comparison with principle. it is useless to multiply instances. there is only one country in which any square foot of land is as favorably situated for conducting exchanges, or as richly endowed by nature for production, as any other square foot; and the name of that country is utopia. in utopia alone, therefore, would occupying ownership be just. in england, america and other places, rashly created without consulting the anarchists, nature is all caprice and injustice in dealing with labor. here you scratch her with a spade; and earth's increase and foison plenty are added to you. on the other side of the hedge twenty steam-diggers will not extort a turnip from her. still less adapted to anarchism than the fields and mines is the crowded city. the distributor flourishes where men love to congregate: his work is to bring commodities to men; but here the men bring themselves to the commodities. remove your distributor a mile, and his carts and travellers must scour the country for customers. none know this better than the landlords. up high street, down low street, over the bridge and into crow street, the toilers may sweat equally for equal wages; but their product varies; and the ground rents vary with the product. competition levels down the share kept by the worker as it levels up the hours of his labor; and the surplus, high or low according to the fertility of the soil or convenience of the site, goes as high rent or low rent, but always in the long run rack rent, to the owner of the land. now mr. tucker's remedy for this is to make the occupier--the actual worker--the owner. obviously the effect would be, not to abolish his advantage over his less favorably circumstanced competitors, but simply to authorize him to put it into his own pocket instead of handing it over to a landlord. he would then, it is true, be (as far as his place of business was concerned) a worker instead of an idler; but he would get more product as a manufacturer and more custom as a distributor than other equally industrious workers in worse situations. he could thus save faster than they, and retire from active service at an age when they would still have many years more work before them. his ownership of his place of business would of course lapse in favor of his successor the instant he retired. how would the rest of the community decide who was to be the successor--would they toss up for it, or fight for it, or would he be allowed to nominate his heir, in which case he would either nominate his son or sell his nomination for a large fine? again, his retirement from his place of business would leave him still in possession, as occupying owner, of his private residence; and this might be of exceptional or even unique desirability in point of situation. it might, for instance, be built on richmond hill, and command from its windows the beautiful view of the thames valley to be obtained from that spot. now it is clear that richmond hill will not accommodate all the people who would rather live there than in the essex marshes. it is easy to say, let the occupier be the owner; but the question is, who is to be the occupier? suppose it were settled by drawing lots, what would prevent the winner from selling his privilege for its full (unearned) value under free exchange and omnipresent competition? to such problems as these, individualist anarchism offers no solution. it theorizes throughout on the assumption that one place in a country is as good as another. under a system of occupying ownership, rent would appear only in its primary form of an excess of the prices of articles over the expenses of producing them, thus enabling owners of superior land to get more for their products than cost price. if, for example, the worst land worth using were only one-third as productive as the best land, then the owner-occupiers of that best land would get in the market the labor cost of their wares three times over. this per cent premium would be just as truly ground rent as if it were paid openly as such to the duke of bedford or the astors. it may be asked why prices must go up to the expenses of production on the very worst land. why not ascertain and charge the average cost of production taking good and bad land together?[ ] simply because nothing short of the maximum labor cost would repay the owners of the worst land. in fact, the worst land would not be cultivated until the price had risen. the process would be as follows. suppose the need of the population for wheat were satisfied by crops raised from the best available land only. free competition in wheat-producing would then bring the price down to the labor cost or expenses of production. now suppose an increase of population sufficient to overtax the wheat-supplying capacity of the best land. the supply falling short of the demand, the price of wheat would rise. when it had risen to the labor cost of production from land one degree inferior to the best, it would be worth while to cultivate that inferior land. when that new source came to be overtaxed by the still growing population, the price would rise again until it would repay the cost of raising wheat from land yet lower in fertility than the second grade. but these descents would in nowise diminish the fertility of the best land, from which wheat could be raised as cheaply as before, in spite of the rise in the price, which would apply to all the wheat in the market, no matter where raised. that is, the holders of the best land would gain a premium, rising steadily with the increase of population, exactly as the landlord now enjoys a steadily rising rent.[ ] as the agricultural industry is in this respect typical of all industries, it will be seen now that the price does not rise because worse land is brought into cultivation, but that worse land is brought into cultivation by the rise of price. or, to put it in another way, the price of the commodity does not rise because more labor has been devoted to its production, but more labor is devoted to its production because the price has risen. commodities, in fact, have a price before they are produced; we produce them expressly to obtain that price; and we cannot alter it by merely spending more or less labor on them. it is natural for the laborer to insist that labor _ought to be_ the measure of price, and that the _just_ wage of labor is its average product; but the first lesson he has to learn in economics is that labor is not and never can be the measure of price under a competitive system. not until the progress of socialism replaces competitive production and distribution, with individual greed for its incentive, by collectivist production and distribution, with fair play all round for its incentive, will the prices either of labor or commodities represent their just value. thus we see that "competition everywhere and always" fails to circumvent rent whilst the land is held by competing occupiers who are protected in the individual ownership of what they can raise from their several holdings. and "the great principle laid down by adam smith," formulated by josiah warren as "cost is the proper limit of price," turns out--since in fact price is the limit of cost--to be merely a preposterous way of expressing the fact that under anarchism that small fraction of the general wealth which was produced under the least favorable circumstances would at least fetch its cost, whilst all the rest would fetch a premium which would be nothing but privately appropriated rent with an anarchist mask on. we see also that such a phrase as "the natural wage of labor is its product" is a misleading one, since labor cannot produce subsistence except when exercised upon natural materials and aided by natural forces external to man. and when it is so produced, its value in exchange depends in nowise on the share taken by labor in its production, but solely to the demand for it in society. the economic problem of socialism is the just distribution of the premium given to certain portions of the general product by the action of demand. as individualist anarchism not only fails to distribute these, but deliberately permits their private appropriation, individualist anarchism is the negation of socialism, and is, in fact, unsocialism carried as near to its logical completeness as any sane man dare carry it. communist anarchism. state socialism and anarchism, says mr. tucker, "are based on two principles, the history of whose conflict is almost equivalent to the history of the world since man came into it; and all intermediate parties, including that of the upholders of the existing society, are based upon a compromise between them." these principles are authority--the state socialist principle, and liberty--the anarchist principle. state socialism is then defined as "the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice," whereas anarchism is "the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the state should be abolished." now most revolutionists will admit that there was a stage in the growth of their opinions when the above seemed an adequate statement of the alternatives before them. but, as we have seen, when the individualist anarchist proceeds to reduce his principle to practice, he is inevitably led to mr. tucker's program of "competition everywhere and always" among occupying owners, subject only to the moral law of minding their own business. no sooner is this formulated than its effect on the distribution of wealth is examined by the economist, who finds no trouble in convicting it, under the economic law of rent, of privilege, monopoly, inequality, unjust indirect taxation, and everything that is most repugnant to anarchism. but this startling reverse, however it may put the anarchist out of conceit with his program, does not in the least reconcile him to state socialism. it only changes his mind on one point. whilst his program satisfied him, he was content to admit that state socialism was the only possible alternative to individualist anarchism--nay, he rather insisted on it, because the evils of the state socialist alternative were strong incentives to the acceptance of the other. but the moment it becomes apparent that the one is economically as bad as the other, the disillusioned individualist anarchist becomes convinced of the insufficiency of his analysis of the social problem, and follows it up in order to find out a _tertium quid_, or third system which shall collect and justly distribute the rent of the country, and yet prevent the collecting and distributing organ from acquiring the tyrannous powers of governments as we know them. there are two such systems at present before the world: communism and social-democracy. now there is no such thing as anarchist social-democracy; but there is such a thing as anarchist communism or communist anarchism. it is true that mr. tucker does not recognize the communist anarchist as an anarchist at all: he energetically repudiates communism as the uttermost negation of true anarchism, and will not admit any logical halting place between thoroughgoing state socialism and thoroughgoing individualist anarchism. but why insist on anybody occupying a logical halting place? we are all fond of shewing that on any given subject there are only two of these safe spots, one being the point of agreement with us, and the other some inconceivable extremity of idiocy. but for the purposes of the present criticism it will be more practical to waive such crude rationalizing, and concede that to deal with mr. tucker without also dealing with peter kropotkine is not to give anarchism fair play. the main difficulty in criticising kropotkine lies in the fact that, in the distribution of generally needed labor products, his communism is finally cheap and expedient, whereas mr. tucker's individualism, in the same department, is finally extravagant and impossible. even under the most perfect social-democracy we should, without communism, still be living like hogs, except that each hog would get his fair share of grub. high as that ideal must seem to anyone who complacently accepts the present social order, it is hardly high enough to satisfy a man in whom the social instinct is well developed. so long as vast quantities of labor have to be expended in weighing and measuring each man's earned share of this and that commodity--in watching, spying, policing, and punishing in order to prevent tom getting a crumb of bread more or dick a spoonful of milk less than he has a voucher for, so long will the difference between unsocialism and socialism be only the difference between unscientific and scientific hoggishness. i do not desire to underrate the vastness of that difference. whilst we are hogs, let us at least be well-fed, healthy, reciprocally useful hogs, instead of--well, instead of the sort we are at present. but we shall not have any great reason to stand on the dignity of our humanity until a just distribution of the loaves and fishes becomes perfectly spontaneous, and the great effort and expense of a legal distribution, however just, is saved. for my own part, i seek the establishment of a state of society in which i shall not be bothered with a ridiculous pocketful of coppers, nor have to waste my time in perplexing arithmetical exchanges of them with booking clerks, bus conductors, shopmen, and other superfluous persons before i can get what i need. i aspire to live in a community which shall be at least capable of averaging the transactions between us well enough to ascertain how much work i am to do for it in return for the right to take what i want of the commoner necessaries and conveniences of life. the saving of friction by such an arrangement may be guessed from the curious fact that only specialists in sociology are conscious of the numerous instances in which we are to-day forced to adopt it by the very absurdity of the alternative. most people will tell you that communism is known only in this country as a visionary project advocated by a handful of amiable cranks. then they will stroll off across the common bridge, along the common embankment, by the light of the common gas lamp shining alike on the just and the unjust, up the common street, and into the common trafalgar square, where, on the smallest hint on their part that communism is to be tolerated for an instant in a civilized country, they will be handily bludgeoned by the common policeman, and haled off to the common gaol.[ ] when you suggest to these people that the application of communism to the bread supply is only an extension, involving no new principle, of its application to street lighting, they are bewildered. instead of picturing the communist man going to the common store, and thence taking his bread home with him, they instinctively imagine him bursting obstreperously into his neighbor's house and snatching the bread off his table on the "as much mine as yours" principle--which, however, has an equally sharp edge for the thief's throat in the form "as much yours as mine." in fact, the average englishman is only capable of understanding communism when it is explained as a state of things under which everything is paid for out of the taxes, and taxes are paid in labor. and even then he will sometimes say, "how about the brainwork?" and begin the usual novice's criticism of socialism in general. now a communist anarchist may demur to such a definition of communism as i have just given; for it is evident that if there are to be taxes, there must be some authority to collect those taxes. i will not insist on the odious word taxes; but i submit that if any article--bread, for instance--be communized, by which i mean that there shall be public stores of bread, sufficient to satisfy everybody, to which all may come and take what they need without question or payment, wheat must be grown, mills must grind, and bakers must sweat daily in order to keep up the supply. obviously, therefore, the common bread store will become bankrupt unless every consumer of the bread contributes to its support as much labor as the bread he consumes costs to produce. communism or no communism, he must pay or else leave somebody else to pay for him. communism will cheapen bread for him--will save him the cost of scales and weights, coin, book-keepers, counter-hands, policemen, and other expenses of private property; but it will not do away with the cost of the bread and the store. now supposing that voluntary co-operation and public spirit prove equal to the task of elaborately organizing the farming, milling and baking industries for the production of bread, how will these voluntary co-operators recover the cost of their operations from the public who are to consume their bread? if they are given powers to collect the cost from the public, and to enforce their demands by punishing non-payers for their dishonesty, then they at once become a state department levying a tax for public purposes; and the communism of the bread supply becomes no more anarchistic than our present communistic supply of street lighting is anarchistic. unless the taxation is voluntary--unless the bread consumer is free to refuse payment without incurring any penalty save the reproaches of his conscience and his neighbors, the anarchist ideal will remain unattained. now the pressure of conscience and public opinion is by no means to be slighted. millions of men and women, without any legal compulsion whatever, pay for the support of institutions of all sorts, from churches to tall hats, simply out of their need for standing well with their neighbors. but observe, this compulsion of public opinion derives most of its force from the difficulty of getting the wherewithal to buy bread without a reputation for respectability. under communism a man could snap his fingers at public opinion without starving for it. besides, public opinion cannot for a moment be relied upon as a force which operates uniformly as a compulsion upon men to act morally. its operation is for all practical purposes quite arbitrary, and is as often immoral as moral. it is just as hostile to the reformer as to the criminal. it hangs anarchists and worships nitrate kings. it insists on a man wearing a tall hat and going to church, on his marrying the woman he lives with, and on his pretending to believe whatever the rest pretend to believe; and it enforces these ordinances in a sufficient majority of cases without help from the law: its tyranny, in fact, being so crushing that its little finger is often found to be thicker than the law's loins. but there is no sincere public opinion that a man should work for his daily bread if he can get it for nothing. indeed it is just the other way: public opinion has been educated to regard the performance of daily manual labor as the lot of the despised classes. the common aspiration is to acquire property and leave off working. even members of the professions rank below the independent gentry, so called because they are independent of their own labor. these prejudices are not confined to the middle and upper classes: they are rampant also among the workers. the man who works nine hours a day despises the man who works sixteen. a country gentleman may consider himself socially superior to his solicitor or his doctor; but they associate on much more cordial terms than shopmen and car-men, engine drivers and railway porters, bricklayers and hodmen, barmaids and general servants. one is almost tempted in this country to declare that the poorer the man the greater the snob, until you get down to those who are so oppressed that they have not enough self-respect even for snobbery, and thus are able to pluck out of the heart of their misery a certain irresponsibility which it would be a mockery to describe as genuine frankness and freedom. the moment you rise into the higher atmosphere of a pound a week, you find that envy, ostentation, tedious and insincere ceremony, love of petty titles, precedences and dignities, and all the detestable fruits of inequality of condition, flourish as rankly among those who lose as among those who gain by it. in fact, the notion that poverty favors virtue was clearly invented to persuade the poor that what they lost in this world they would gain in the next. kropotkine, too optimistically, as i think, disposes of the average man by attributing his unsocialism to the pressure of the corrupt system under which he groans. remove that pressure, and he will think rightly, says kropotkine. but if the natural man be indeed social as well as gregarious, how did the corruption and oppression under which he groans ever arise? could the institution of property as we know it ever have come into existence unless nearly every man had been, not merely willing, but openly and shamelessly eager to quarter himself idly on the labor of his fellows, and to domineer over them whenever the mysterious workings of economic law enabled him to do so? it is useless to think of man as a fallen angel. if the fallacies of absolute morality are to be admitted in the discussion at all, he must be considered rather as an obstinate and selfish devil, who is being slowly forced by the iron tyranny of nature to recognize that in disregarding his neighbor's happiness he is taking the surest way to sacrifice his own. and under the present system he never can learn that lesson thoroughly, because he is an inveterate gambler, and knows that the present system gives him a chance, at odds of a hundred thousand to one or so against him, of becoming a millionaire, a condition which is to him the summit of earthly bliss, as from it he will be able to look down upon those who formerly bullied and patronized him. all this may sound harsh, especially to those who know how wholesomely real is the workman's knowledge of life compared to that of the gentleman, and how much more genuinely sympathetic he is in consequence. indeed, it is obvious that if four-fifths of the population were habitually to do the utter worst in the way of selfishness that the present system invites them to do, society would not stand the strain for six weeks. so far, we can claim to be better than our institutions. but the fact that we are too good for complete unsocialism by no means proves that we are good enough for communism. the practical question remains, could men trained under our present system be trusted to pay for their food scrupulously if they could take it for nothing with impunity? clearly, if they did not so pay, anarchist communism would be bankrupt in two days. the answer is that all the evils against which anarchism is directed are caused by men taking advantage of the institution of property to do this very thing--seize their subsistence without working for it. what reason is there for doubting that they would attempt to take exactly the same advantage of anarchist communism? and what reason is there to doubt that the community, finding its bread store bankrupt, would instantly pitch its anarchism to the four winds, and come down on the defaulters with the strong hand of a law to make them pay, just as they are now compelled to pay their income tax? i submit, then, to our communist anarchist friends that communism requires either external compulsion to labor, or else a social morality which the evils of existing society shew that we have failed as yet to attain. i do not deny the possibility of the final attainment of that degree of moralization; but i contend that the path to it lies through a transition system which, instead of offering fresh opportunities to men of getting their living idly, will destroy those opportunities altogether, and wean us from the habit of regarding such an anomaly as possible, much less honorable. it must not be supposed that the economic difficulties which i pointed out as fatal to individualist anarchism are entirely removed by communism. it is true that if all the bread and coal in the country were thrown into a common store from which each man could take as much as he wanted whenever he pleased without direct payment, then no man could gain any advantage over his fellows from the fact that some farms and some coal-mines are better than others. and if every man could step into a train and travel whither he would without a ticket, no individual could speculate in the difference between the traffic from charing cross to the mansion house and that from ryde to ventnor. one of the great advantages of communism will undoubtedly be that huge masses of economic rent will be socialized by it automatically. all rent arising from the value of commodities in general use which can be produced, consumed, and replaced at the will of man to the full extent to which they are wanted, can be made rent free by communizing them. but there must remain outside this solution, first, the things which are not in sufficiently general use to be communized at all; second, things of which an unlimited free supply might prove a nuisance, such as gin or printing; and thirdly, things for which the demand exceeds the supply. the last is the instance in which the rent difficulty recurs. it would take an extraordinary course of demolition, reconstruction, and landscape gardening to make every dwelling house in london as desirable as a house in park lane, or facing regent's park, or overlooking the embankment gardens. and since everybody cannot be accommodated there, the exceptionally favored persons who occupy those sites will certainly be expected to render an equivalent for their privilege to those whom they exclude. without this there would evidently be no true socialization of the habitation of london. this means, in practice, that a public department must let the houses out to the highest bidders, and collect the rents for public purposes. such a department can hardly be called anarchistic, however democratic it may be. i might go on to enlarge considerably on the limits to the practicability of direct communism, which varies from commodity to commodity; but one difficulty, if insurmountable, is as conclusive as twenty. it is sufficient for our present purpose to have shewn that communism cannot be ideally anarchistic, because it does not in the least do away with the necessity for _compelling_ people to pay for what they consume; and even when the growth of human character removes that difficulty there will still remain the question of those commodities to which the simple communist method of so-called "free distribution" is inapplicable. one practical point more requires a word; and that is the difficulty of communizing any branch of distribution without first collectivizing it. for instance, we might easily communize the postal service by simply announcing that in future letters would be carried without stamps just as they now are with them, the cost being thrown entirely upon imperial taxation. but if the postal service were, like most of our distributive business, in the hands of thousands of competing private traders, no such change would be directly possible. communism must grow out of collectivism, not out of anarchic private enterprise. that is to say, it cannot grow directly out of the present system. but must the transition system therefore be a system of despotic coercion? if so, it will be wrecked by the intense impulse of men to escape from the domination of their own kind. in a russian subject, giving evidence before the sweating inquiry in the house of lords, declared that he left the russian dominion, where he worked thirteen hours a day, to work eighteen hours in england, _because he is freer here_. reason is dumb when confronted with a man who, exhausted with thirteen hours' toil, will turn to for another five hours for the sake of being free to say that mr. gladstone is a better man than lord salisbury, and to read mill, spencer, and _reynold's newspaper_ in the six hours left to him for sleep. it brings to mind the story of the american judge who tried to induce a runaway slave to return to the plantation by pointing out how much better he was treated there than the free wage-nigger of the abolitionist states. "yes," said the runaway; "but would you go back if you were in my place?" the judge turned abolitionist at once. these things are not to be reasoned away. man will submit to fate, circumstance, society, anything that comes impersonally over him; but against the personal oppressor, whether parent, schoolmaster, overseer, official chief, or king, he eternally rebels. like the russian, he will rather be compelled by "necessity" to _agree_ to work eighteen hours, than ordered by a master to work thirteen. no modern nation, if deprived of personal liberty or national autonomy, would stop to think of its economic position. establish a form of socialism which shall deprive the people of their sense of personal liberty; and, though it double their rations and halve their working hours, they will begin to conspire against it before it is a year old. we only disapprove of monopolists: we _hate_ masters. then, since we are too dishonest for communism without taxation or compulsory labor, and too insubordinate to tolerate task work under personal compulsion, how can we order the transition so as to introduce just distribution without communism, and maintain the incentive to labor without mastership? the answer is, by democracy. and now, having taken a positive attitude at last, i must give up criticizing the anarchists, and defend democracy against _their_ criticisms. democracy. i now, accordingly, return to mr. tucker's criticism of state socialism, which, for the sake of precision, had better be called social-democracy. there is a socialism--that of bismarck; of the extinct young england party; of the advocates of moralized feudalism; and of mob contemners generally--which is not social-democracy, but social-despotism, and may be dismissed as essentially no more hopeful than a system of moralized criminality, abstemious gluttony, or straightforward mendacity would be. mr. tucker, as an american, passes it over as not worth powder and shot: he clearly indicates a democratic state by his repeated references to the majority principle, and in particular by his assertion that "there would be but one article in the constitution of a state socialistic country: 'the right of the majority is absolute.'" having thus driven democracy back on its citadel, he proceeds to cannonade it as follows: "under the system of state socialism, which holds the community responsible for the health, wealth and wisdom of the individual, the community, through its majority expression, will insist more and more on prescribing the conditions of health, wealth, and wisdom, thus impairing and finally destroying individual independence and with it all sense of individual responsibility. "whatever, then, the state socialists may claim or disclaim, their system, if adopted, is doomed to end in a state religion, to the expense of which all must contribute and at the altar of which all must kneel; a state school of medicine, by whose practitioners the sick must invariably be treated; a state system of hygiene, proscribing what all must and must not eat, drink, wear and do; a state code of morals, which will not content itself with punishing crime, but will prohibit what the majority decide to be vice; a state system of instruction, which shall do away with all private schools, academies and colleges; a state nursery, in which all children must be brought up in common at the public expense; and, finally, a state family, with an attempt at stirpiculture, or scientific breeding, in which no man or woman will be allowed to have children if the state prohibits them, and no man or woman can refuse to have children if the state orders them. thus will authority achieve its acme and monopoly be carried to its highest power." in reading this one is reminded of mr. herbert spencer's habit of assuming that whatever is not white must be black. mr. tucker, on the ground that "it has ever been the tendency of power to add to itself, to enlarge its sphere, to encroach beyond the limits set for it," admits no alternative to the total subjection of the individual, except the total abolition of the state. if matters really could and did come to that i am afraid the individual would have to go under in any case; for the total abolition of the state in this sense means the total abolition of the collective force of society, to abolish which it would be necessary to abolish society itself. there are two ways of doing this. one, the abolition of the individuals composing society, could not be carried out without an interference with their personal claims much more serious than that required, even on mr. tucker's shewing, by social-democracy. the other, the dispersion of the human race into independent hermitages over the globe at the rate of twenty-five to the square mile, would give rise to considerable inequality of condition and opportunity as between the hermits of terra del fuego or the arctic regions and those of florida or the riviera, and would suit only a few temperaments. the dispersed units would soon re-associate; and the moment they did so, goodbye to the sovereignty of the individual. if the majority believed in an angry and jealous god, then, state or no state, they would not permit an individual to offend that god and bring down his wrath upon them: they would rather stone and burn the individual in propitiation. they would not suffer the individual to go naked among them; and if he clothed himself in an unusual way which struck them as being ridiculous or scandalous, they would laugh at, him; refuse him admission to their feasts; object to be seen talking with him in the streets; and perhaps lock him up as a lunatic. they would not allow him to neglect sanitary precautions which they believed essential to their own immunity from zymotic disease. if the family were established among them as it is established among us, they would not suffer him to intermarry within certain degrees of kinship. their demand would so rule the market that in most places he would find no commodities in the shops except those preferred by a majority of the customers; no schools except those conducted in accordance with the ideas of the majority of parents; no experienced doctors except those whose qualifications inspired confidence in a whole circle of patients. this is not "the coming slavery" of social-democracy: it is the slavery already come. what is more, there is nothing in the most elaborately negative practical program yet put forward by anarchism that offers the slightest mitigation of it. that in comparison with ideal irresponsible absolute liberty it is slavery, cannot be denied. but in comparison with the slavery of robinson crusoe, which is the most anarchistic alternative nature, our taskmistress, allows us, it is pardonably described as "freedom." robinson crusoe, in fact, is always willing to exchange his unlimited rights and puny powers for the curtailed rights and relatively immense powers of the "slave" of majorities. for if the individual chooses, as in most cases he will, to believe and worship as his fellows do, he finds temples built and services organized at a cost to himself which he hardly feels. the clothes, the food, the furniture which he is most likely to prefer are ready for him in the shops; the schools in which his children can be taught what their fellow citizens expect them to know are within fifteen minutes' walk of his door; and the red lamp of the most approved pattern of doctor shines reassuringly at the corner of the street. he is free to live with the women of his family without suspicion or scandal; and if he is not free to marry them, what does that matter to him, since he does not wish to marry them? and so happy man be his dole, in spite of his slavery. "yes," cries some eccentric individual; "but all this is untrue of me. i want to marry my deceased wife's sister. i am prepared to prove that your authorized system of medicine is nothing but a debased survival of witchcraft. your schools are machines for forcing spurious learning on children in order that your universities may stamp them as educated men when they have finally lost all power to think for themselves. the tall silk hats and starched linen shirts which you force me to wear, and without which i cannot successfully practice as a physician, clergyman, schoolmaster, lawyer, or merchant, are inconvenient, unsanitary, ugly, pompous, and offensive. your temples are devoted to a god in whom i do not believe; and even if i did believe in him i should still regard your popular forms of worship as only redeemed from gross superstition by their obvious insincerity. science teaches me that my proper food is good bread and good fruit: your boasted food supply offers me cows and pigs instead. your care for my health consists in tapping the common sewer, with its deadly typhoid gases, into my house, besides discharging its contents into the river, which is my natural bath and fountain. under color of protecting my person and property you forcibly take my money to support an army of soldiers and policemen for the execution of barbarous and detestable laws; for the waging of wars which i abhor; and for the subjection of my person to those legal rights of property which compel me to sell myself for a wage to a class the maintenance of which i hold to be the greatest evil of our time. your tyranny makes my very individuality a hindrance to me: i am outdone and outbred by the mediocre, the docile, the time-serving. evolution under such conditions means degeneracy: therefore i demand the abolition of all these officious compulsions, and proclaim myself an anarchist." the proclamation is not surprising under the circumstances; but it does not mend the matter in the least, nor would it if every person were to repeat it with enthusiasm, and the whole people to fly to arms for anarchism. the majority cannot help its tyranny even if it would. the giant winkelmeier must have found our doorways inconvenient, just as men of five feet or less find the slope of the floor in a theatre not sufficiently steep to enable them to see over the heads of those in front. but whilst the average height of a man is ft. in. there is no redress for such grievances. builders will accommodate doors and floors to the majority, and not to the minority. for since either the majority or the minority must be incommoded, evidently the more powerful must have its way. there may be no indisputable reason why it ought not; and any clever tory can give excellent reasons why it ought not; but the fact remains that it will, whether it ought or not. and this is what really settles the question as between democratic majorities and minorities. where their interests conflict, the weaker side must go to the wall, because, as the evil involved is no greater than that of the stronger going to the wall,[ ] the majority is not restrained by any scruple from compelling the weaker to give way. in practice, this does not involve either the absolute power of majorities, or "the infallibility of the odd man." there are some matters in which the course preferred by the minority in no way obstructs that preferred by the majority. there are many more in which the obstruction is easier to bear than the cost of suppressing it. for it costs something to suppress even a minority of one. the commonest example of that minority is the lunatic with a delusion; yet it is found quite safe to entertain dozens of delusions, and be generally an extremely selfish and troublesome idiot, in spite of the power of majorities; for until you go so far that it clearly costs less to lock you up than to leave you at large, the majority will not take the trouble to set itself in action against you. thus a minimum of individual liberty is secured, under any system, to the smallest minority. it is true that as minorities grow, they sometimes, in forfeiting the protection of insignificance, lose more in immunity than they gain in numbers; so that probably the weakest minority is not the smallest, but rather that which is too large to be disregarded and too weak to be feared; but before and after that dangerous point is weathered, minorities wield considerable power. the notion that they are ciphers because the majority could vanquish them in a trial of strength leaves out of account the damage they could inflict on the victors during the struggle. ordinarily an unarmed man weighing thirteen stone can beat one weighing only eleven; but there are very few emergencies in which it is worth his while to do it, because if the weaker man resists to the best of his ability (which is always possible) the victor will be considerably worse off after the fight than before it. in the northern and southern states of america fought, as prize-fighters say, "to a finish"; and the north carried its point, yet at such a heavy cost to itself that the southern states have by no means been reduced to ciphers; for the victorious majority have ever since felt that it would be better to give way on any but the most vital issues than to provoke such another struggle. but it is not often that a peremptory question arises between a majority and minority of a whole nation. in most matters only a fragment of the nation has any interest one way or the other; and the same man who is in a majority on one question is in a minority on another, and so learns by experience that minorities have "rights" which must be attended to. minorities, too, as in the case of the irish party in the english parliament, occasionally hold the balance of power between majorities which recognize their rights and majorities which deny them. further, it is possible by decentralization to limit the power of the majority of the whole nation to questions upon which a divided policy is impracticable. for example, it is not only possible, but democratically expedient, to federate the municipalities of england in such a manner that leicester might make vaccination penal whilst every other town in the island made it compulsory. even at present, vaccination is not in fact compulsory in leicester, though it is so in law. theoretically, leicester has been reduced to a cipher by the rest of england. practically, leicester counts twelve to the dozen as much as ever in purely local affairs. in short, then, democracy does not give majorities absolute power, nor does it enable them to reduce minorities to ciphers. such limited power of coercing minorities as majorities must possess, is not given to them by democracy any more than it can be taken away from them by anarchism. a couple of men are stronger than one: that is all. there are only two ways of neutralizing this natural fact. one is to convince men of the immorality of abusing the majority power, and then to make them moral enough to refrain from doing it on that account. the other is to realize lytton's fancy of _vril_ by inventing a means by which each individual will be able to destroy all his fellows with a flash of thought, so that the majority may have as much reason to fear the individual as he to fear the majority. no method of doing either is to be found in individualist or communist anarchism: consequently these systems, as far as the evils of majority tyranny are concerned, are no better than the social-democratic program of adult suffrage with maintenance of representatives and payment of polling expenses from public funds--faulty devices enough, no doubt, but capable of accomplishing all that is humanly possible at present to make the state representative of the nation; to make the administration trustworthy; and to secure the utmost power to each individual and consequently to minorities. what better can we have whilst collective action is inevitable? indeed, in the mouths of the really able anarchists, anarchism means simply the utmost attainable thoroughness of democracy. kropotkine, for example, speaks of free development from the simple to the composite by "the free union of free groups"; and his illustrations are "the societies for study, for commerce, for pleasure and recreation" which have sprung up to meet the varied requirements of the individual of our age. but in every one of these societies there is government by a council elected annually by a majority of voters; so that kropotkine is not at all afraid of the democratic machinery and the majority power. mr. tucker speaks of "voluntary association," but gives no illustrations, and indeed avows that "anarchists are simply unterrified jeffersonian democrats." he says, indeed, that "if the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny"; but if governing oneself means doing what one pleases without regard to the interests of neighbors, then the individual has flatly no such right. if he has no such right, the interference of his neighbors to make him behave socially, though it is "external government," is not tyranny; and even if it were they would not refrain from it on that account. on the other hand, if governing oneself means compelling oneself to act with a due regard to the interests of the neighbors, then it is a right which men are proved incapable of exercising without external government. either way, the phrase comes to nothing; for it would be easy to show by a little play upon it, either that altruism is really external government or that democratic state authority is really self-government. mr. tucker's adjective, "voluntary," as applied to associations for defence or the management of affairs, must not be taken as implying that there is any very wide choice open in these matters. such association is really compulsory, since if it be foregone affairs will remain unmanaged and communities defenceless. nature makes short work of our aspirations towards utter impunity. she leaves communities in no wise "free" to choose whether they will labor and govern themselves. it is either that or starvation and chaos. her tasks are inexorably set: her penalties are inevitable: her payment is strictly "payment by results." all the individual can do is to shift and dodge his share of the task on to the shoulders of others, or filch some of their "natural wage" to add to his own. if they are fools enough to suffer it, that is their own affair as far as nature is concerned. but it is the aim of social-democracy to relieve these fools by throwing on all an equal share in the inevitable labor imposed by the eternal tyranny of nature, and so secure to every individual no less than his equal quota of the nation's product in return for no more than his equal quota of the nation's labor. these are the best terms humanity can make with its tyrant. in the eighteenth century it was easy for the philosophers and for adam smith to think of this rule of nature as being "natural liberty" in contrast to the odious and stupid oppression of castes, priests, and kings--the detested "dominion of man over man." but we, in detecting the unsoundness of adam smith's private property and _laisser-faire_ recipe for natural liberty, begin to see that though there is political liberty, there is no natural liberty, but only natural law remorselessly enforced. and so we shake our heads when we see liberty on the title-page of mr. tucker's paper, just as we laugh when we see the coming slavery on mr. herbert spencer's "man and the state." we can now begin to join the threads of our discussion. we have seen that private appropriation of land in any form, whether limited by individualist anarchism to occupying owners or not, means the unjust distribution of a vast fund of social wealth called rent, which can by no means be claimed as due to the labor of any particular individual or class of individuals. we have seen that communist anarchism, though it partly--and only partly--avoids the rent difficulty, is, in the condition of morals developed under existing unsocialism, impracticable. we have seen that the delegation of individual powers by voting; the creation of authoritative public bodies; the supremacy of the majority in the last resort; and the establishment and even endowment, either directly and officially or indirectly and unconsciously, of conventional forms of practice in religion, medicine, education, food, clothing, and criminal law, are, whether they be evils or not, inherent in society itself, and must be submitted to with the help of such protection against their abuse as democratic institutions more than any others afford. when democracy fails, there is no antidote for intolerance save the spread of better sense. no form of anarchism yet suggested provides any escape. like bad weather in winter, intolerance does much mischief; but as, when we have done our best in the way of overcoats, umbrellas, and good fires, we have to put up with the winter; so, when we have done our best in the way of democracy, decentralization, and the like, we must put up with the state. the anarchist spirit. i suppose i must not leave the subject without a word as to the value of what i will call the anarchist spirit as an element in progress. but before i do so, let me disclaim all intention of embarrassing our anarchist friends who are present by any sympathy which i may express with that spirit. on the continent the discussion between anarchism and social-democracy is frequently threshed out with the help of walking-sticks, chair-legs, and even revolvers. in england this does not happen, because the majority of an english audience always declines to take an extreme position, and, out of an idle curiosity to hear both sides, will, on sufficient provocation, precipitately eject theorists who make a disturbance, without troubling itself to discriminate as to the justice of their views. when i had the privilege some time ago of debating publicly with mr. g. w. foote on the eight hours question, a french newspaper which dealt with the occasion at great length devoted a whole article to an expression of envious astonishment at the fact that mr. foote and i abstained from vilifying and finally assaulting one another, and that our partisans followed our shining example and did not even attempt to prevent each other's champions from being heard. still, if we do not permit ourselves to merge socialism, anarchism, and all the other isms into rowdyism, we sometimes debate our differences, even in this eminently respectable fabian society, with considerable spirit. now far be it from me to disarm the anarchist debater by paying him compliments. on the contrary, if we have here any of those gentlemen who make it their business to denounce social-democrats as misleaders of the people and trimmers; who declaim against all national and municipal projects, and clamor for the abolition of parliaments and county councils; who call for a desperate resistance to rent, taxes, representative government and organised collective action of every sort: then i invite them to regard me as their inveterate opponent--as one who regards such doctrine, however sincerely it may be put forward, as at best an encouragement to the workers to neglect doing what is possible under pretext of waiting for the impossible, and at worst as furnishing the reactionary newspapers in england, and the police agents on the continent, with evidence as to the alleged follies and perils of socialism. but at the same time, it must be understood that i do not stand here to defend the state as we know it. bakounine's comprehensive aspiration to destroy all states and established churches, with their religious, political, judicial, financial, criminal, academic, economic and social laws and institutions, seems to me perfectly justifiable and intelligible from the point of view of the ordinary "educated man," who believes that institutions make men instead of men making institutions. i fully admit and vehemently urge that the state at present is simply a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving the poor by brute force. you may, if you are a stupid or comfortably-off person, think that the policeman at the corner is the guardian of law and order--that the gaol, with those instruments of torture, the treadmill, plank bed, solitary cell, cat o' nine tails, and gallows, is a place to make people cease to do evil and learn to do well. but the primary function of the policeman, and that for which his other functions are only blinds, is to see that you do not lie down to sleep in this country without paying an idler for the privilege; that you do not taste bread until you have paid the idler's toll in the price of it; that you do not resist the starving blackleg who is dragging you down to his level for the idler's profit by offering to do your work for a starvation wage. attempt any of these things, and you will be haled off and tortured in the name of law and order, honesty, social equilibrium, safety of property and person, public duty, christianity, morality, and what not, as a vagrant, a thief, and a rioter. your soldier, ostensibly a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfortunate man driven by destitution to offer himself as food for powder for the sake of regular rations, shelter and clothing; and he must, on pain of being arbitrarily imprisoned, punished with petty penances like a naughty child, pack-drilled, flogged or shot, all in the blessed name of "discipline," do anything he is ordered to, from standing in his red coat in the hall of an opera house as a mere ornament, to flogging his comrade or committing murder. and _his_ primary function is to come to the rescue of the policeman when the latter is overpowered. members of parliament whose sole qualifications for election were £ loose cash, an "independent" income, and a vulgar strain of ambition; parsons quoting scripture for the purposes of the squire; lawyers selling their services to the highest bidder at the bar, and maintaining the supremacy of the moneyed class on the bench; juries of employers masquerading as the peers of proletarians in the dock; university professors elaborating the process known as the education of a gentleman; artists striving to tickle the fancy or flatter the vanity of the aristocrat or plutocrat; workmen doing their work as badly and slowly as they dare so as to make the most of their job; employers starving and overworking their hands and adulterating their goods as much as _they_ dare: these are the actual living material of those imposing abstractions known as the state, the church, the law, the constitution, education, the fine arts, and industry. every institution, as bakounine saw, religious, political, financial, judicial, and so on, is corrupted by the fact that the men in it either belong to the propertied class themselves or must sell themselves to it in order to live. all the purchasing power that is left to buy men's souls with after their bodies are fed is in the hands of the rich; and everywhere, from the parliament which wields the irresistible coercive forces of the bludgeon, bayonet, machine gun, dynamite shell, prison and scaffold, down to the pettiest centre of shabby-genteel social pretension, the rich pay the piper and call the tune. naturally, they use their power to steal more money to continue paying the piper; and thus all society becomes a huge conspiracy and hypocrisy. the ordinary man is insensible to the fraud just as he is insensible to the taste of water, which, being constantly in contact with his mucous membrane, seems to have no taste at all. the villainous moral conditions on which our social system is based are necessarily in constant contact with our moral mucous membrane, and so we lose our sense of their omnipresent meanness and dishonor. the insensibility, however, is not quite complete; for there is a period in life which is called the age of disillusion, which means the age at which a man discovers that his generous and honest impulses are incompatible with success in business; that the institutions he has reverenced are shams; and that he must join the conspiracy or go to the wall, even though he feels that the conspiracy is fundamentally ruinous to himself and his fellow-conspirators. the secret of writers like ruskin, morris and kropotkine is that they see the whole imposture through and through, in spite of its familiarity, and of the illusions created by its temporal power, its riches, its splendor, its prestige, its intense respectability, its unremitting piety, and its high moral pretension. but kropotkine, as i have shewn, is really an advocate of free democracy; and i venture to suggest that he describes himself as an anarchist rather from the point of view of the russian recoiling from a despotism compared to which democracy seems to be no government at all, than from the point of view of the american or englishman who is free enough already to begin grumbling over democracy as "the tyranny of the majority" and "the coming slavery." i suggest this with the more confidence because william morris's views are largely identical with those of kropotkine: yet morris, after patient and intimate observation of anarchism as a working propaganda in england, has definitely dissociated himself from it, and has shewn, by his sketch of the communist folk-mote in his _news from nowhere_, how sanely alive he is to the impossibility of any development of the voluntary element in social action sufficient to enable individuals or minorities to take public action without first obtaining the consent of the majority. on the whole, then, i do not regard the extreme hostility to existing institutions which inspires communist anarchism as being a whit more dangerous to social-democracy than the same spirit as it inspires the peculiar toryism of ruskin. much more definitely opposed to us is the survival of that intense jealousy of the authority of the government over the individual which was the mainspring of the progress of the eighteenth century. only those who forget the lessons of history the moment they have served their immediate turn will feel otherwise than reassured by the continued vitality of that jealousy among us. but this consideration does not remove the economic objections which i have advanced as to the practical program of individualist anarchism. and even apart from these objections, the social-democrat is compelled, by contact with hard facts, to turn his back decisively on useless denunciation of the state. it is easy to say, abolish the state; but the state will sell you up, lock you up, blow you up, knock you down, bludgeon, shoot, stab, hang--in short, abolish you, if you lift a hand against it. fortunately, there is, as we have seen, a fine impartiality about the policeman and the soldier, who are the cutting edge of the state power. they take their wages and obey their orders without asking questions. if those orders are to demolish the homestead of every peasant who refuses to take the bread out of his children's mouths in order that his landlord may have money to spend as an idle gentleman in london, the soldier obeys. but if his orders were to help the police to pitch his lordship into holloway gaol until he had paid an income tax of twenty shillings on every pound of his unearned income, the soldier would do that with equal devotion to duty, and perhaps with a certain private zest that might be lacking in the other case. now these orders come ultimately from the state--meaning, in this country, the house of commons. a house of commons consisting of gentlemen and workmen will order the soldier to take money from the people for the landlords. a house of commons consisting of workmen and gentlemen will probably, unless the are fools, order the soldier to take money from the landlords for the people. with that hint i leave the matter, in the full conviction that the state, in spite of the anarchists, will continue to be used against the people by the classes until it is used by the people against the classes with equal ability and equal resolution. printed by g. standring, and finsbury street, london, e.c. fabian society.--the fabian society consists of socialists. a statement of its rules, etc., and the following publications can be obtained from the secretary, at the fabian office, strand, london, w.c. fabian essays in socialism. ( th thousand.) library edition, /-; _or, direct from the secretary for cash_, / (_postage_, / _d._). cheap edition, paper cover, /-; plain cloth, /-. at all booksellers, or post free from the secretary for /- and /- respectively. fabian tracts. = .--parish council cottages, and how to get them.= pp., for d. /- . = .--parish and district councils: what they are and what they can do.= d. each; or d. per doz. = .--the london county council: what it is and what it does.= d.; d. doz. = .--the london vestries.= including a complete statement of the changes made in london by the local government act, . d.; d. doz. = .--allotments and how to get them.= pp., for d.; or /- per . = .--the workers' school board program.= pp., d.; or d. per doz. = .--the humanizing of the poor law.= by j. f. oakeshott. pp., d. = .--state education at home and abroad.= by j. w. martin. pp., d. = .--socialism: true and false.= by sidney webb. pp., d. ea.; d. doz. = .--sweating: its cause and remedy.= pp., d. each; or d. per doz. = .--a plan of campaign for labor.= a detailed scheme for independent labor representation. pp., d. / per doz. = .--eight hours by law.= pp., d. each; or d. per doz. = .--the unemployed.= by john burns, m.p. pp., d. each; or d. per doz. = .--socialism and sailors.= by b. t. hall. pp., " " " = .--the impossibilities of anarchism.= by g. b. shaw. pp., d.; / per doz. = .--a plea for poor law reform.= (revised ). pp., for d.; or /- . = .--christian socialism.= by the rev. s. d. headlam. pp., d. d. per doz. = .--the fabian society=. by bernard shaw. pp., d. each; or d. per doz. = .--a democratic budget.= pp., d.; or d. per doz. = .--a welsh translation of no. .= pp., for d.; or /- per . = .--what to read.= a list of books for social reformers. contains the best books and blue-books relating to economics, socialism, labor movements, poverty, etc. rd edn.; revised . paper cover, d. each; or / per doz. = .--the case for an eight hours bill.= pp., d.; or d. per doz. = .--the truth about leasehold enfranchisement.= for d.; or /- per . = .--what the farm laborer wants.= (revised ). for d.; or /- per . = .--reform of the poor law.= by sidney webb. pp., d.; d. per doz. = .--a plea for an eight hours bill.= pp., for d.; /- per . = .--english progress towards social democracy.= by s. webb. d.; d. doz. = .--the new reform bill.= th thous. pp., d.; d. per doz. = .--what socialism is.= th thous. pp., for d.; or /- per . = .--practicable land nationalization.= revised . pp., for d.; /- . = .--capital and land.= a survey of the distribution of property amongst the classes in england. th edition; revised . pp., d.; or d. doz. = .--facts for socialists.= a similar survey of the distribution of income and the condition of the people. th edn.; revised . d.; or d. per doz. = .--why are the many poor?= pp., for d.; /- per . question leaflets. each pp., for d.; or s. per . these contain questions for candidates for the following bodies:--no. , poor law guardians (revised ). no. , london vestries (revised ). no. , parliament. no. , school boards (revised ). no. , london county council. no. , town councils. no. , county councils, rural (revised ). no. , parish councils. no. , rural district councils. no. , urban district councils. fabian municipal program (tracts nos. to ). = . the unearned increment. . london's heritage in the city guilds. . municipalization of the gas supply. . municipal tramways. . london's water tribute. . municipalization of the london docks. . the scandal of london's markets. . a labor policy for public authorities. each pp.= the eight in a red cover for d. ( d. per doz.); or separately /- per . =fabian election leaflets.=--no. , how to lose and how to win; no. , trade unionists and politics; no. , a program for workers. each pp., d. per , or s. per . [illustration: (pointing finger)] =the set post free / . bound in buckram post free for / .= boxes for set of tracts s., post free s. d. =manifesto of english socialists.= in red cover. pp., d. each; or d. per doz. parcels to the value of /- and upwards, post free. footnotes: [footnote : a paper read to the fabian society by g. bernard shaw, on th october, .] [footnote : this is an inference from the following paragraph in mr. tucker's article: "second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like ireland. this monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest on personal occupancy and cultivation. it was obvious to warren and proudhon that as soon as individuals should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but personal occupation and cultivation of land, ground rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on." see also mr. tucker's article entitled "a singular misunderstanding," in _liberty_ of the th september, . "regarding land," writes mr. tucker, "it has been steadily maintained in these columns that protection should be withdrawn from all land titles except those based on personal occupancy and use."] [footnote : "nor does the anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed on the individual. 'mind your own business,' is its only moral law."] [footnote : this would of course be largely practicable under a collectivist system.] [footnote : english readers need not baulk themselves here because of the late fall of agricultural rents in this country. rent, in the economic sense, covers payment for the use of land for any purpose, agricultural or otherwise; and town rents have risen oppressively. a much more puzzling discrepancy between the facts and the theory is presented by the apparent absence of any upward tendency in the prices of general commodities. however, an article may be apparently no less cheap or even much cheaper than it was twenty years ago; and yet its price may have risen enormously relatively to its average cost of production, owing to the average cost of production having been reduced by machinery, higher organization of the labor of producing it, cheapened traffic with other countries, etc. thus, in the cotton industry, machinery has multiplied each man's power of production eleven hundred times; and sir joseph whitworth was quoted by the president of the iron and steel institute some years ago as having declared that a nottingham lace machine can do the work formerly done by , lacemakers. the articles entitled "great manufacture of little things," in cassell's _technical educator_, may be consulted for examples of this sort in the production of pins, pens, etc. suppose, then, that an article which cost, on the average, fivepence to make in , was then sold for sixpence. if it be now selling for threepence, it is apparently twice as cheap as it was. but if the cost of production has also fallen to three-halfpence, which is by no means an extravagant supposition, then the price, considered relatively to the cost of production, has evidently risen prodigiously, since it is now twice the cost, whereas the cost was formerly five-sixths of the price. in other words, the surplus, or rent, per article, has risen from / per cent. to per cent., in spite of the apparent cheapening. this is the explanation of the fact that though the workers were probably never before so monstrously robbed as they are at present, it is quite possible for statisticians to prove that on the whole wages have risen and prices fallen. the worker, pleased at having only to pay threepence where he formerly paid sixpence, forgets that the share of his threepence that goes to an idler may be much larger than that which went out of each of the two threepences he paid formerly.] [footnote : written in the - period, during which trafalgar square was forcibly closed against public meetings by the salisbury administration.] [footnote : the evil is decidedly _less_ if the calculation proceeds by the popular method of always estimating an evil suffered by a hundred persons as a hundred times as great as the same evil suffered by only one. this, however, is absurd. a hundred starving men are not a hundred times as hungry as one starving man, any more than a hundred five-foot-eight men are each five hundred and sixty-six feet eight inches high. but they are a hundred times as strong a political force. though the evil may not be cumulative, the power to resist it is.] * * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber notes: | | | | p. . 'antonomy' changed to 'autonomy' | | p. . 'tuc er's' changed to 'tucker's' | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ selected works of voltairine de cleyre edited by alexander berkman biographical sketch by hippolyte havel new york mother earth publishing association set up and electrotyped. published may, . contents poems page the burial of my past self . . . . . . night on the graves . . . . . . . . . the christian's faith . . . . . . . . the freethinker's plea . . . . . . . . to my mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . betrayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . optimism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at the grave in waldheim . . . . . . . the hurricane . . . . . . . . . . . . ut sementem feceris, ita metes . . . . bastard born . . . . . . . . . . . . . hymn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . you and i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the toast of despair . . . . . . . . . in memoriam--to dyer d. lum . . . . . out of the darkness . . . . . . . . . mary wollstonecraft . . . . . . . . . the gods and the people . . . . . . . john p. altgeld . . . . . . . . . . . the cry of the unfit . . . . . . . . . in memoriam--to gen. m. m. trumbull . the wandering jew . . . . . . . . . . the feast of vultures . . . . . . . . the suicide's defense . . . . . . . . a novel of color . . . . . . . . . . . germinal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "light upon waldheim" . . . . . . . . love's compensation . . . . . . . . . the road builders . . . . . . . . . . angiolillo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ave et vale . . . . . . . . . . . . . marsh-bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . written--in--red . . . . . . . . . . . essays page the dominant idea . . . . . . . . . . anarchism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . anarchism and american traditions . . anarchism in literature . . . . . . . the making of an anarchist . . . . . . the eleventh of november, . . . . crime and punishment . . . . . . . . . in defense of emma goldman . . . . . . direct action . . . . . . . . . . . . the paris commune . . . . . . . . . . the mexican revolution . . . . . . . . thomas paine . . . . . . . . . . . . . dyer d. lum . . . . . . . . . . . . . francisco ferrer . . . . . . . . . . . modern educational reform . . . . . . sex slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . literature the mirror of man . . . . . the drama of the nineteenth century . sketches and stories page a rocket of iron . . . . . . . . . . . the chain gang . . . . . . . . . . . . the heart of angiolillo . . . . . . . the reward of an apostate . . . . . . at the end of the alley--i . . . . . . alone--ii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to strive and fail . . . . . . . . . . the sorrows of the body . . . . . . . the triumph of youth . . . . . . . . . the old shoemaker . . . . . . . . . . where the white rose died . . . . . . transcriber's notes: consistent spelling and hyphen usage are maintained within each poem/essay. punctuation typos with a single solution are corrected; those having more than one solution remain unchanged. in the essay "literature the mirror of man," the reference to "bosworth's life of johnson" is corrected to "boswell's life of johnson." words printed in the text as mixed small caps are surrounded by equal signs, as in =voltairine de cleyre=. introduction "nature has the habit of now and then producing a type of human being far in advance of the times; an ideal for us to emulate; a being devoid of sham, uncompromising, and to whom the truth is sacred; a being whose selfishness is so large that it takes in the whole human race and treats self only as one of the great mass; a being keen to sense all forms of wrong, and powerful in denunciation of it; one who can reach into the future and draw it nearer. such a being was =voltairine de cleyre=." what could be added to this splendid tribute by jay fox to the memory of =voltairine de cleyre=? these admirable words express the sentiments of all the friends and comrades of that remarkable woman whose whole life was dedicated to a dominant idea. like many other women in public life, =voltairine de cleyre= was a voluminous letter writer. those letters addressed to her comrades, friends, and admirers would form her real biography; in them we trace her heroic struggles, her activity, her beliefs, her doubts, her mental changes--in short, her whole life, mirrored in a manner no biographer will ever be able to equal. to collect and publish this correspondence as a part of =voltairine de cleyre's= works is impossible; the task is too big for the present undertaking. but let us hope that we will find time and means to publish at least a part of this correspondence in the near future. the average american still holds to the belief that anarchism is a foreign poison imported into the states from decadent europe by criminal paranoiacs. hence the ridiculous attempt of our lawmakers to stamp out anarchy, by passing a statute which forbids anarchists from other lands to enter the country. those wise solons are ignorant of the fact that anarchist theories and ideas were propounded in our commonwealth ere proudhon or bakunin entered the arena of intellectual struggle and formulated their thesis of perfect freedom and economic independence in anarchy. neither are they acquainted with the writings of lysander spooner, josiah warren, stephen pearl andrews, william b. greene, or benjamin tucker, nor familiar with the propagandistic work of albert r. parsons, dyer d. lum, c. l. james, moses harman, ross winn, and a host of other anarchists who sprang from the native stock and soil. to call their attention to these facts is quite as futile as to point out that the tocsin of revolt resounds in the writings of emerson, thoreau, hawthorne, whitman, garrison, wendell phillips, and other seers of america; just as futile as to prove to them that the pioneers in the movement for woman's emancipation in america were permeated with anarchist thoughts and feelings. hardened by a fierce struggle and strengthened by a vicious persecution, those brave champions of sex-freedom defied the respectable mob by proclaiming their independence from prevailing cant and hypocrisy. they inaugurated the tremendous sex revolt among the american women--a purely native movement which has yet to find its historian. =voltairine de cleyre= belongs to this gallant array of rebels who swore allegiance to the cause of universal liberty, thus forfeiting the respect of all "honorable citizens," and bringing upon their heads the persecution of the ruling class. in the real history of the struggle for human emancipation, her name will be found among the foremost of her time. born shortly after the close of the civil war, she witnessed during her life the most momentous transformation of the nation; she saw the change from an agricultural community into an industrial empire; the tremendous development of capital in this country, with the accompanying misery and degradation of labor. her life path was sketched ere she reached the age of womanhood: she had to become a rebel! to stand outside of the struggle would have meant intellectual death. she chose the only way. =voltairine de cleyre= was born on november , , in the town of leslie, michigan. she died on june , , in chicago. she came from french-american stock, on her mother's side of puritan descent. her father, auguste de cleyre, was a native of western flanders, but his family was of french origin. he emigrated to america in . being a freethinker and a great admirer of voltaire, he insisted on the birthday of the child that the new member of the family should be called voltairine. though born in leslie, the earliest recollections of voltairine were of the small town of st. john's, in clinton county, her parents having removed to that place a year after her birth. voltairine did not have a happy childhood; her earliest life was embittered by want of the common necessities, which her parents, hard as they tried, could not provide. a vein of sadness can be traced in her earliest poems--the songs of a child of talent and great fantasy. a deep sorrow fell into her heart at the age of four, when the teacher of the primary school refused to admit her because she was too young. but she soon succeeded in forcing her entrance into the temple of knowledge. an earnest student, she was graduated from the grammar school at the age of twelve. strength of mind does not seem to have been a characteristic of auguste de cleyre, for he recanted his libertarian ideas, returned to the fold of the church, and became obsessed with the idea that the highest vocation for a woman was the life of a nun. he determined to put the child into a convent. thus began the great tragedy of =voltairine's= _early life_. her beloved mother, a member of the presbyterian church, opposed this idea with all her strength, but in vain: the will of the lord of the household prevailed, and the child was sent to the convent of our lady of lake huron, at sarnia, in the province of ontario, canada. here she experienced four years of terrible ordeal; only after much repression, insubordination, and atonement, she forced her way back into the living world. in the sketch, "the making of an anarchist," she tells us of the strain she underwent in that living tomb: "how i pity myself now, when i remember it, poor lonesome little soul, battling solitary in the murk of religious superstition, unable to believe and yet in hourly fear of damnation, hot, savage, and eternal, if i do not instantly confess and profess! how well i recall the bitter energy with which i repelled my teacher's enjoinder, when i told her i did not wish to apologize for an adjudged fault as i could not see that i had been wrong and would not feel my words. 'it is not necessary,' said she, 'that we should feel what we say, but it is always necessary that we obey our superiors.' 'i will not lie,' i answered hotly, and at the same time trembled lest my disobedience had finally consigned me to torment! i struggled my way out at last, and was a freethinker when i left the institution, three years later, though i had never seen a book or heard a word to help me in my loneliness. it had been like the valley of the shadow of death, and there are white scars on my soul yet, where ignorance and superstition burnt me with their hell-fire in those stifling days. am i blasphemous? it is their word, not mine. beside that battle of my young days all others have been easy, for whatever was without, within my own will was supreme. it has owed no allegiance, and never shall; it has moved steadily in one direction, the knowledge and assertion of its own liberty, with all the responsibility falling thereon." during her stay at the convent there was little communication between her and her parents. in a letter from mrs. eliza de cleyre, the mother of =voltairine=, we are informed that she decided to run away from the convent after she had been there a few weeks. she escaped before breakfast, and crossed the river to port huron; but, as she had no money, she started to walk home. after covering seventeen miles, she realized that she never could do it; so she turned around and walked back, and entering the house of an acquaintance in port huron asked for something to eat. they sent for her father, who afterwards took her back to the convent. what penance they inflicted she never told, but at sixteen her health was so bad that the convent authorities let her come home for a vacation, telling her, however, that she would find her every movement watched, and that everything she said would be reported to them. the result was that she started at every sound, her hands shaking and her face as pale as death. she was about five weeks from graduating at that time. when her vacation was over, she went back and finished her studies. and then she started for home again, but this time she had money enough for her fare, and she got home to stay, never to go back to the place that had been a prison to her. she had seen enough of the convent to decide for herself that she could not be a nun. the child who had sung: "there's a love supreme in the great hereafter, the buds of earth are bloom in heaven, the smiles of the world are ripples of laughter when back to its aidenn the soul is given, and the tears of the world, though long in flowing, water the fields of the bye-and-bye; they fall as dews on the sweet grass growing, when the fountains of sorrow and grief run dry. though clouds hang over the furrows now sowing there's a harvest sun-wreath in the after-sky. "no love is wasted, no heart beats vainly, there's a vast perfection beyond the grave; up the bays of heaven the stars shine plainly-- the stars lying dim on the brow of the wave. and the lights of our loves, though they flicker and wane, they shall shine all undimmed in the ether nave. for the altars of god are lit with souls fanned to flaming with love where the star-wind rolls." returned from the convent a strong-minded freethinker. she was received with open arms by her mother, almost as one returned from the grave. with the exception of the education derived from books, she knew no more than a child, having almost no knowledge of practical things. already in the convent she had succeeded in impressing her strong personality upon her surroundings. her teachers could not break her; they were therefore forced to respect her. in a polemic with the editor of the catholic _buffalo union_ and _times_, a few years ago, =voltairine= wrote: "if you think that i, as your opponent, deserve the benefit of truth, but as a stranger you doubt my veracity, i respectfully request you to submit this letter to sister mary medard, my former teacher, now superioress at windsor, or to my revered friend, father siegfried, overbrook seminary, overbrook, pa., who will tell you whether, in their opinion, my disposition to tell the truth may be trusted." reaction from the repression and the cruel discipline of the catholic church helped to develop =voltairine's= inherent tendency toward free-thought; the five-fold murder of the labor leaders in chicago, in , shocked her mind so deeply that from that moment dates her development toward anarchism. when in the bomb fell on the haymarket square, and the anarchists were arrested, =voltairine de cleyre=, who at that time was a free-thought lecturer, shouted: "they ought to be hanged!" they were hanged, and now her body rests in waldheim cemetery, near the grave of those martyrs. speaking at a memorial meeting in honor of those comrades, in , she said: "for that ignorant, outrageous, bloodthirsty sentence i shall never forgive myself, though i know the dead men would have forgiven me, though i know those who loved them forgive me. but my own voice, as it sounded that night, will sound so in my ears till i die--a bitter reproach and a shame. i have only one word of extenuation for myself and the millions of others who did as i did that night--ignorance." she did not remain long in ignorance. in "the making of an anarchist" she describes why she became a convert to the idea and why she entered the movement. "till then," she writes, "i believed in the essential justice of the american law and trial by jury. after that i never could. the infamy of that trial has passed into history, and the question it awakened as to the possibility of justice under law has passed into clamorous crying across the world." at the age of nineteen =voltairine= had consecrated herself to the service of humanity. in her poem, "the burial of my past self," she thus bids farewell to her youthful life: "and now, humanity, i turn to you; i consecrate my service to the world! perish the old love, welcome to the new-- broad as the space-aisles where the stars are whirled!" yet the pure and simple free-thought agitation in its narrow circle could not suffice her. the spirit of rebellion, the spirit of anarchy, took hold of her soul. the idea of universal rebellion saved her; otherwise she might have stagnated like so many of her contemporaries, suffocated in the narrow surroundings of their intellectual life. a lecture of clarence darrow, which she heard in , led her to the study of socialism, and then there was for her but one step to anarchism. dyer d. lum, the fellow worker of the chicago martyrs, had undoubtedly the greatest influence in shaping her development; he was her teacher, her confidant, and comrade; his death in was a terrible blow to =voltairine=. =voltairine= spent the greater part of her life in philadelphia. here, among congenial friends, and later among the jewish emigrants, she did her best work. in she went on a lecture tour to england and scotland, and in , after an insane youth had tried to take her life, she went for a short trip to norway to recuperate from her wounds. hers was a life of bitter economic struggle and an unceasing fight with physical weakness, partly resulting from this very economic struggle. one wonders how, under such circumstances, she could have produced such an amount of work. her poems, sketches, propagandistic articles and essays may be found in the _open court_, _twentieth century_, _magazine of poetry_, _truth_, _lucifer_, _boston investigator_, _rights of labor_, _truth seeker_, _liberty_, _chicago liberal_, _free society_, _mother earth_, and in _the independent_. she translated jean grave's "moribund society and anarchy" from the french, and left an unfinished translation of louise michel's work on the paris commune. in _mother earth_ appeared her translations from the jewish of libin and peretz. in collaboration with dyer d. lum she wrote a novel on social questions, which has unfortunately remained unfinished. =voltairine de cleyre's= views on the sex-question, on agnosticism and free-thought, on individualism and communism, on non-resistance and direct action, underwent many changes. in the year she wrote: "the spread of tolstoy's 'war and peace' and 'the slavery of our times,' and the growth of the numerous tolstoy clubs having for their purpose the dissemination of the literature of non-resistance, is an evidence that many receive the idea that it is easier to conquer war with peace. i am one of these. i can see no end of retaliation, unless some one ceases to retaliate." she adds, however: "but let no one mistake this for servile submission or meek abnegation; my right shall be asserted no matter at what cost to me, and none shall trench upon it without my protest." but as she used to quote her comrade, dyer d. lum: "events proved to be the true schoolmasters." the last years of her life were filled with the spirit of direct action, and especially with the social importance of the mexican revolution. the splendid propaganda work of wm. c. owen in behalf of this tremendous upheaval inspired her to great effort. she, too, had found out by experience that only action counts, that only a direct participation in the struggle makes life worth while. =voltairine de cleyre= was one of the most remarkable personalities of our time. she was a born iconoclast; her spirit was too free, her taste too refined, to accept any idea that has the slightest degree of limitation. a great sadness, a knowledge that there is a universal pain, filled her heart. through her own suffering and through the suffering of others she reached the highest exaltation of mind; she was conscious of all the vanities of life. in the service of the poor and oppressed she found her life mission. in an exquisite tribute to her memory, leonard d. abbott calls =voltairine de cleyre= a priestess of pity and of vengeance, whose voice has a vibrant quality that is unique in literature. we are convinced that her writings will live as long as humanity exists. =hippolyte havel.= poems the burial of my past self poor heart, so weary with thy bitter grief! so thou art dead at last, silent and chill! the longed-for death-dart came to thy relief, and there thou liest, heart, forever still. dead eyes, pain-pressed beneath their black-fringed pall! dead cheeks, dark-furrowed with so many tears! so thou art passed far, far beyond recall, and all thy hopes are past, and all thy fears. thy lips are closed at length in the long peace! pale lips! so long they have thy woe repressed, they seem even now when life has run its lease all dumbly pitiful in their mournful rest. and now i lay thee in thy silent tomb, printing thy brow with one last solemn kiss; laying upon thee one fair lily bloom, a symbol of thy rest;--oh, rest is bliss. no, heart, i would not call thee back again; no, no; too much of suffering hast thou known; but yet, but yet, it was not all in vain-- thy unseen tears, thy solitary moan! for out of sorrow joy comes uppermost; where breaks the thunder soon the sky smiles blue; a better love replaces what is lost, and phantom sunlight pales before the true! the seed must burst before the germ unfolds, the stars must fade before the morning wakes; down in her depths the mine the diamond holds; a new heart pulses when the old heart breaks. and now, humanity, i turn to you; i consecrate my service to the world! perish the old love, welcome to the new-- broad as the space-aisles where the stars are whirled! =greenville, mich., .= night on the graves o'er the sweet, quiet homes in the silent grave-city, softly the dewdrops, the night-tears, fall; broadly about, like the wide arms of pity, the silver-shot darkness lies over all. heroes, asleep 'neath the red-hearted rose-wreaths, leaf-crowned with honor, flower-crowned with rest, gently above you each moon-dripping bough breathes a far-echoed whisper, "sleep well; ye are blest." oh! never, as long as the heart pulses quicker at the dear name of country may yours be forgot; nor may we, till the last puny life spark shall flicker, your deeds from the tablets of memory blot! spirits afloat in the night-shrouds that bound us, souls of the "has-been" and of the "to-be," keep the fair light of liberty shining around us, till our souls may go back to the mighty soul-sea. =st. johns, mich., = (decoration day). the christian's faith (the two following poems were written at that period of my life when the questions of the existence of god and the divinity of jesus had but recently been settled, and they present the pros and cons which had been repeating themselves over and over again in my brain for some years.) we contrast light and darkness,--light of god, and darkness from the stygian shades of hell; fumes of the pit infernal rising up have clouded o'er the brain, laid reason low;-- for when the eye looks on fair nature's face and sees not god, then is she blind indeed! no night so starless, even in its gloom, as his who wanders on without a hope in that great, just hereafter all must meet!-- no heart so dull, so heavy, and so void, as that which lives for this chill world alone! no soul so groveling, unaspiring, base, as that which, here, forgets the afterhere! and still through all the darkness and the gloom its voice will not be stilled, its hopes be quenched; it cries, it screams, it struggles in its chains, and bleeds upon the altar of the mind,-- unwilling sacrifice to thought misled. the soul that knows no god can know no peace. thus speaketh light, the herald of our god! in that far dawn where shone each rolling world first lit with shadowed splendor of the stars, in that fair morning when creation sang its praise of god, e'er yet it dreamed of sin, pure and untainted as the source of life man dwelt in eden. there no shadows came, no question of the goodness of our lord, until the prince of darkness tempted man, and, yielding to the newly born desire, he fell! sank in the mire of ignorance! and man, who put himself in satan's power, since then has wandered far in devious ways, seeing but now and then a glimpse of light, till christ is come, the living son of god! far in his heavenly home he viewed the world, saw all her sadness and her sufferings, saw all her woes, her struggles, and her search for some path leading up from out the night. within his breast the fount of tears was touched; his great heart swelled with pity, and he said: "father, i go to save the world from sin." ah! what power but a soul divinely clad in purity, in holiness and love, could leave a home of happiness and light for this lost world of suffering and death? he came: the world tossed groaning in her sleep; he touched her brow: the nightmare passed away; he soothed her heart, red with the stain of sin; and she forgot her guilt in penitence; she washed the ruby out with pearls of tears. he came, he suffered, and he died for us; he felt the bitterest woes a soul can feel; he probed the darkest depths of human grief; he sounded all the deeps and shoals of pain; was cursed for all his love; thanked with the cross, whereon he hung nailed, bleeding, glorified, as the last smoke of holocaust divine. "ah! this was all two thousand years ago!" two thousand years ago, and still he cries, with voice sweet calling through the distant dark: "o souls that labor, struggling in your pain, come unto me, and i will give you rest! for every woe of yours, and every smart, i, too, have felt:--the mockery, the shame, the sneer, the scoffing lip, the hate, the lust, the greed of gain, the jealousy of man, unstinted have been measured out to me. i know them all, i feel them all with you! and i have known the pangs of poverty, the cry of hunger and the weary heart of childhood burdened with the weight of age! o sufferers, ye all are mine to love! the pulse-beats of my heart go out with you, and every drop of agony that drips from my nailed hands adown this bitter cross, cries out, 'o god! accept the sacrifice, and ope the gates of heaven to the world!' ye vermin of the garret, who do creep your weary lives away within its walls; ye children of the cellar, who behold the sweet, pale light, strained through the lothsome air and doled to you in tid-bits, as a thing too precious for your use; ye rats in mines, who knaw within the black and somber pits to seek poor living for your little ones; ye women who stitch out your lonely lives, unmindful whether sun or stars keep watch; ye slaves of wheels; ye worms that bite the dust where pride and scorn have ground you 'neath the heel; ye toilers of the earth, ye weary ones,-- i know your sufferings, i feel your woes; my peace i give you; in a little while the pain will all be over, and the grave will sweetly close above your folded hands! and then?--ah, death, no conqueror art thou! for i have loosed thy chains; i have unbarred the gates of heaven! in my father's house of many mansions i prepare a place; and rest is there for every heart that toils! oh, all ye sick and wounded ones who grieve for the lost health that ne'er may come again; ye who do toss upon a couch of pain, upon whose brow disease has laid his hand, within whose eyes the dull and heavy sight burns like a taper burning very low, upon whose lips the purple fever-kiss rests his hot breath, and dries the sickened palms, scorches the flesh and e'en the very air; ye who do grope along without the light; ye who do stumble, halting on your way; ye whom the world despises as unclean; know that the death-free soul has none of these: the unbound spirit goes unto its god, pure, whole, and beauteous as newly born! oh, all ye mourners, weeping for the dead; your tears i gather as the grateful rain which rises from the sea and falls again, to nurse the withering flowers from its touch; no drop is ever lost! they fall again to nurse the blossoms of some other heart! i would not dry one single dew of grief: the sorrow-freighted lashes which bespeak the broken heart and soul are dear to me; i mourn with them, and mourning so i find the grief-bowed soul with weeping oft grows light! but yet ye mourn for them not without hope: beyond the woes and sorrows of the earth, as stars still shine though clouds obscure the sight, the friends ye mourn as lost immortal live; and ye shall meet and know their souls again, through death transfigured, through love glorified! oh, all ye patient waiters for reward, scorned and despised by those who know not worth, i know your merit and i give you hope; for in my father's law is justice found. see how the seed-germ, toiling underground, waits patiently for time to burst its shell; and by and by the golden sunlight warms the dark, cold earth; the germ begins to shoot. and upward trends until two small green leaves unfold and wave and drink the pure, fresh air. the blossoms come and go with summer's breath, and autumn brings the fruit-time in her hand. so ye, who patient watch and wait and hope, trusting the sun may bring the blossoms out, shall reap the fruited labor by and by. i am your friend; i wait and hope with you, rejoice with you when the hard vict'ry's won! and still for you, o prisoners in cells, i hold the dearest gifts of penitence, forgiveness and charity and hope! i stretch the hands of mercy through the bars; white hands,--like doves they bring the branch of peace! repent, believe,--and i will expiate upon this bitter cross all your deep guilt! oh, take my gift, accept my sacrifice! i ask no other thing but only--trust! oh, all ye martyrs, bleeding in your chains; oh, all ye souls that live for others' good; oh, all ye mourners, all ye guilty ones, and all ye suffering ones, come unto me! ye are all my brothers, all my sisters, all! and as i love one, so i love you all. accept my love, accept my sacrifice; make not my cross more bitter than it is by shrinking from the peace i bring to you!" =st. johns, mich., april, .= the freethinker's plea grand eye of liberty, light up my page! like promised morning after night of age thy dawning youth breaks in the distant east! thy cloudy robes like silken curtains creased and swung in folds are floating fair and free! the shadows of the cycles turn and flee; the budding stars, bright minds that gemmed the night, are bursting into broad, bright-petaled light! sweet liberty, how pure thy very breath! how dear in life, how doubly dear in death! ah, slaves that suffer in your self-forged chains, praying your christ to touch and heal your pains, tear off your shackling irons, unbind your eyes, seize the grand hopes that burn along the skies! worship not god in temples built of gloom; far sweeter incense is the flower-bloom than all the fires that sacrifice may light; and grander is the star-dome gleaming bright with glowing worlds, than all your altar lamps pale flickering in your clammy, vaulted damps; and richer is the broad, full, fair sun sheen, dripping its orient light in streams between the fretted shafting of the forest trees, throwing its golden kisses to the breeze, lifting the grasses with its finger-tips, and pressing the young blossoms with warm lips, show'ring its glory over plain and hill, wreathing the storm and dancing in the rill; far richer in wild freedom falling there, shaking the tresses of its yellow hair, than all subdued within the dim half-light of stained glass windows, drooping into night. oh, grander far the massive mountain walls which bound the vista of the forest halls, than all the sculptured forms which guard the piles that arch your tall, dim, gray, cathedral aisles! and gladder is the carol of a bird than all the anthems that were ever heard to steal in somber chanting from the tone of master voices praising the unknown. in the great wild, where foot of man ne'er trod, there find we nature's church and nature's god! here are no fetters! though is free as air; its flight may spread far as its wings may dare; and through it all one voice cries, "god is love, and love is god!" around, within, above, behold the working of the perfect law,-- the law immutable in which no flaw exists, and from which no appeal is made; ev'n as the sunlight chases far the shade and shadows chase the light in turn again, so every life is fraught with joy and pain; the stinging thorn lies hid beside the rose; the bud is blighted ere its leave unclose; so pleasure born of hope may oft-time yield a stinging smart of thorns, a barren field! but let it be: the buds will bloom again, the fields will freshen in the summer rain; and never storm scowls dark but still, somewhere, a bow is bending in the upper air. then learn the law if thou wouldst live aright; and know no unseen power, no hand of might, can set aside the law which wheels the stars; no incompleteness its perfection mars; the buds will wake in season, and the rain will fall when clouds hang heavy, and again the snows will tremble when the winter's breath congeals the cloud-tears, as the touch of death congeals the last drop on the sufferer's cheek. thus do all nature's tongues in chorus speak: "think not, o man, that thou canst e'er escape one jot of justice's law, nor turn thy fate by yielding sacrifice to the unseen! purged by thyself alone canst thou be clean. one guide to happiness thou mayst learn: _love toward the world begets love in return._ and if to others you the measure mete of love, be sure your harvest will be sweet; but if ye sow broadcast the seed of hate, ye'll reap again, albeit ye reap it late. then let your life-work swell the great flood-tide of love towards all the world; the world is wide, the sea of life is broad; its waves stretch far; no range, no barrier, its sweep may bar; the world is filled, is trodden down with pain; the sea of life is gathered up of rain,-- a throat, a bed, a sink, for human tears, a burial of hopes, a miasm of fears! but see! the sun of love shines softly out, flinging its golden fingers all about, pressing its lips in loving, soft caress, upon the world's pale cheek; the pain grows less, the tears are dried upon the quivering lashes, an answering sunbeam 'neath the white lids flashes! the sea of life is dimpled o'er with smiles, the sun of love the cloud of woe beguiles, and turns its heavy brow to forehead fair, framed in the glory of its sun-gilt hair. be thine the warming touch, the kiss of love; vainly ye seek for comfort from above, vainly ye pray the gods to ease your pain; the heavy words fall back on you again! vainly ye cry for christ to smooth your way; the thorns sting sharper while ye kneeling pray! vainly ye look upon the world of woe, and cry, "o god, avert the bitter blow!" ye cannot turn the lightning from its track, nor call one single little instant back; the law swerves not, and with unerring aim the shaft of justice falls; he bears the blame who violates the rule: do well your task, for justice overtakes you all at last. vainly ye patient ones await reward, trusting th' almighty's angel to record each bitter tear, each disappointed sigh; reward descends not, gifted from on high, but is the outgrowth of the eternal law: as from the earth the toiling seed-germs draw the food which gives them life and strength to bear the storms and suns which sweep the upper air, so ye must draw from out the pregnant earth the metal true wherewith to build your worth; so shall ye brave the howling of the blast, and smile triumphant o'er the storm at last. nor dream these trials are without their use; between your joys and griefs ye cannot choose, and say your life with either is complete: ever the bitter mingles with the sweet. the dews must press the petals down at night, if in the dawning they would glisten bright; if sunbeams needs must ripen out the grain not less the early blades must woo the rain: if now your eyes be wet with weary tears, ye'll gather them as gems in after years; and if the rains now sodden down your path, ye'll reap rich harvest in the aftermath. ye idle mourners, crying in your grief, the souls ye weep have found the long relief: why grieve for those who fold their hands in peace? their sore-tried hearts have found a glad release; their spirits sink into the solemn sea! mourn ye the prisoner from his chains let free? nay, ope your ears unto the living cry that pleads for living comfort! hark, the sigh of million heartaches rising in your ears! kiss back the living woes, the living tears! go down into the felon's gloomy cell; send there the ray of love: as tree-buds swell when spring's warm breath bids the cold winter cease, so will his heart swell with the hope of peace. be filled with love, for love is nature's god; the god which trembles in the tender sod, the god which tints the sunset, lights the dew, sprinkles with stars the firmament's broad blue, and draws all hearts together in a free wide sweep of love, broad as the ether-sea. no other law or guidance do we need; the world's our church, to do good is our creed. =st. johns, mich., .= to my mother some souls there are which never live their life; some suns there are which never pierce their cloud; some hearts there are which cup their perfume in, and yield no incense to the outer air. cloud-shrouded, flower-cupped heart: such is thine own: so dost thou live with all thy brightness hid; so dost thou dwell with all thy perfume close; rich in thy treasured wealth, aye, rich indeed-- and they are wrong who say thou "dost not feel." but i--i need blue air and opened bloom; to keep my music means that it must die; and when the thrill, the joy, the love of life is gone, i, too, am dead--a corpse, though not entombed. let me live then--but a while--the gloom soon comes, the flower closes and the petals shut; through them the perfume slips out, like a soul-- the long, still sleep of death--and then the grave. =cleveland, ohio=, march, . betrayed so, you're the chaplain! you needn't say what you have come for; i can guess. you've come to talk about jesus' love, and repentance and rest and forgiveness! you've come to say that my sin is great, yet greater the mercy heaven will mete, if i, like magdalen, bend my head, and pour my tears at your saviour's feet. your promise is fair, but i've little faith: i relied on promises once before; they brought me to this--this prison cell, with its iron-barred window, its grated door! yet he, too, was fair who promised me, with his tender mouth and his christ-like eyes; and his voice was as sweet as the summer wind that sighs through the arbors of paradise. and he seemed to me all that was good and pure, and noble and strong, and true and brave! i had given the pulse of my heart for him, and deemed it a precious boon to crave. you say that jesus so loved the world he died to redeem it from its sin: it isn't redeemed, or no one could be so fair without, and so black within. i trusted his promise, i gave my life;--the truth of my love is known on high, if there is a god who knows all things;--his promise was false, his _love_ was a lie! it was over soon, oh! soon, the dream,--and me, he had called "his life," "his light," he drove me away with a sneering word, and you christians said that "it served me right." i was proud, mr. chaplain, even then; i set my face in the teeth of fate, and resolved to live honestly, come what might, and sink beneath neither scorn nor hate. yes, and i prayed that the christ above would help to bear the bitter cross, and put something here, where my heart had been, to fill up the aching void of loss. it's easy for you to say what i should do, but none of you ever dream how hard is the way that you christians make for us, with your "sin no more," "trust the lord." when for days and days you are turned from work with cold politeness, or open sneer, you get so you don't trust a far-off god, whose creatures are cold, and they, so near. you hold your virtuous lives aloof, and refuse us your human help and hand, and set us apart as accursèd things, marked with a burning, cain-like brand. but i didn't bend, though many days i was weary and hungry, and worn and weak, and for many a starless night i watched, through tears that grooved down my pallid cheek. they are all dry now! they say i'm hard, because i never weep or moan! you can't draw blood when the heart's bled out! you can't find tears or sound in a stone! and i don't know why _i_ should be mild and meek: no one has been very mild to me. you say that jesus would be--perhaps! but heaven's a long way off, you see. that will do; i know what you're going to say: "i can have it right here in this narrow cell." the _soul_ is slow to accept christ's heav'n when his followers chain the body in hell. not but i'm just as well off here,--better, perhaps, than i was outside. the world was a prison-house to me, where i dwelt, defying and defied. i don't know but i'd think more of what you say, if they'd given us both a common lot; if justice to me had been justice to him, and covered our names with an equal blot; but they took him into the social court, and pitied, and said he'd been "led astray"; in a month the stain on _his_ name had passed, as a cloud that crosses the face of day! he joined the church, and he's preaching now, just as you are, the love of god, and the duty of sinners to kneel and pray, and humbly to kiss the chastening rod. if they'd dealt with me as they dealt by him, may be i'd credit your christian love; if they'd dealt with him as they dealt by me, i'd have more faith in a just above. i don't know, but sometimes i used to think that she, who was told there was no room in the inn at bethlehem, might look down with softened eyes thro' the starless gloom. christ wasn't a woman--he couldn't know the pain and endurance of it; but _she_, the mother who bore him, she might know, and mary in heaven might pity me. still that was useless: it didn't bring a single mouthful for me to eat, nor work to get it, nor sheltering from the dreary wind and the howling street. heavenly pity won't pass as coin, and earthly shame brings a higher pay. sometimes i was tempted to give it up, and go, like others, the easier way; but i didn't; no, sir, i kept my oath, though my baby lay in my arms and cried, and at last, to spare it--i poisoned it; and kissed its murdered lips when it died. i'd never seen him since it was born (he'd said that it wasn't his, you know); but i took its body and laid it down at the steps of his door, in the pallid glow of the winter morning; and when he came, with a love-tune hummed on those lips of lies, it lay at his feet, with its pinched white face staring up at him from its dead, blue eyes; i hadn't closed them; they were like his, and so was the mouth and the curled gold hair, and every feature so like his own,--for i am dark, sir, and he is fair. 'twas a moment of triumph, that showed me yet there was a passion i could feel, when i saw him bend o'er its meagre form, and, starting backwards, cry out and reel! if there _is_ a time when all souls shall meet the reward of the deeds that are done in the clay, when accused and accuser stand face to face, he will cry out so in the judgment day! the rest? oh, nothing. they hunted me, and with virtuous lawyers' virtuous tears to a virtuous jury, convicted me; and i'm sentenced to stay here for twenty years. do i repent? yes, i do; but wait till i tell you of what i repent, and why. i repent that i ever believed a man could be anything but a living lie! i repent because every noble thought, or hope, or ambition, or earthly trust, is as dead as dungeon-bleached bones in me,--as dead as my child in its murdered dust! do i repent that i killed the babe? am i repentant for that, you ask? i'll answer the truth as i feel it, sir; i leave to others the pious mask. am i repentant because i saved its starving body from famine's teeth? because i hastened what time would do, to spare it pain and relieve its death? am i repentant because i held it were better a _grave_ should have no name than a _living being_, whose only care must come from a mother weighed with shame? am i repentant because i thought it were better the tiny form lay hid from the heartless stings of a brutal world, unknown, unnamed, 'neath a coffin lid? am i repentant for the act, the last on earth in my power, to save from the long-drawn misery of life, in the early death and the painless grave? i'm _glad_ that i did it! start if you will! i'll repeat it over; i say i'm _glad_! no, i'm neither a fiend, nor a maniac--don't look as if i were going mad! did i not love it? yes, i loved with a strength that you, sir, can never feel; it's only a strong love can kill to save, tho' itself be torn where time cannot heal. you see my hands--they are red with its blood! yet i would have cut them, bit by bit, and fed them, and smiled to see it eat, if that would have saved and nourished it! "beg!" i _did_ beg,--and "pray!" i _did_ pray! god was as stony and hard as earth, and christ was as deaf as the stars that watched, or the night that darkened above his birth! and i--i feel stony now, too, like them; deaf to sorrow and mute to grief! am i heartless?--yes:--it-is-_all_-=cut=-out! torn! gone! all gone! like my dead belief. do i not fear for the judgment hour? so unrepentant, so hard and cold? wait! it is little i trust in that; but if ever the scrolled sky shall be uprolled, and the lives of men shall be read and known, and their acts be judged by their very worth, and the christ you speak of shall come again, and the thunders of justice shake the earth, you will hear the cry, "who murdered here? come forth to the judgment, false heart and eyes, that pulsed with accurséd strength of lust, and loaded faith with envenomed lies! come forth to the judgment, haughty dames, who scathed the mother with your scorn, and answer here, to the poisoned child, _who_ decreed its murder ere it was born? come forth to the judgment ye who heaped the gold of earth in your treasured hoard, and answer, 'guilty,' to those who stood all naked and starving, beneath your board. depart, accurséd! i know you not! ye heeded not the command of heaven, 'unto the least of these ye give, it is even unto the master given.'" judgment! ah, sir, to see that day, i'd willingly pass thro' a hundred hells! i'd believe, then, the justice that hears each voice buried alive in these prison cells! but, no--it's not that; that will never be! i trusted too long, and he answered not. there _is_ no avenging god on high!--we live, we struggle, and--_we rot_. _yet does justice come!_ and, o future years! sorely ye'll reap, and in weary pain, when ye garner the sheaves that are sown to-day, when the clouds that are gathering fall in rain! the time will come, aye! the time _will_ come, when the child ye conceive in lust and shame, quickened, will mow you like swaths of grass, with a sickle born of steel and flame. aye, tremble, shrink, in your drunken den, coward, traitor, and child of lie! the unerring avenger stands close to you, and the dread hour of parturition's nigh! aye! wring your hands, for the air is black! thickly the cloud-troops whirl and swarm! see! yonder, on the horizon's verge, play the lightning-shafts of the coming storm! =adrian, mich.,= july, . optimism there's a love supreme in the great hereafter, the buds of earth are blooms in heaven; the smiles of the world are ripples of laughter when back to its aidenn the soul is given: and the tears of the world, though long in flowing, water the fields of the bye-and-bye; they fall as dews on the sweet grass growing when the fountains of sorrow and grief run dry. though clouds hang over the furrows now sowing there's a harvest sun-wreath in the after-sky! no love is wasted, no heart beats vainly, there's a vast perfection beyond the grave; up the bays of heaven the stars shine plainly, the stars lying dim on the brow of the wave. and the lights of our loves, though they flicker and wane, they shall shine all undimmed in the ether-nave. for the altars of god are lit with souls fanned to flaming with love where the star-wind rolls. =st. johns, michigan, .= at the grave in waldheim quiet they lie in their shrouds of rest, their lids kissed close 'neath the lips of peace; over each pulseless and painless breast the hands lie folded and softly pressed, as a dead dove presses a broken nest; ah, broken hearts were the price of these! the lips of their anguish are cold and still, for them are the clouds and the gloom all past; no longer the woe of the world can thrill the chords of those tender hearts, or fill the silent dead-house! the "people's will" has mapped asunder the strings at last. "the people's will!" ah, in years to come, dearly ye'll weep that ye did not save! do ye not hear now the muffled drum, the tramping feet and the ceaseless hum, of the million marchers,--trembling, dumb, in their tread to a yawning, giant grave? and yet, ah! yet there's a rift of white! 'tis breaking over the martyrs' shrine! halt there, ye doomed ones,--it scathes the night, as lightning darts from its scabbard bright and sweeps the face of the sky with light! "no more shall be spilled out the blood-red wine!" these are the words it has written there, keen as the lance of the northern morn; the sword of justice gleams in its glare, and the arm of justice, upraised and bare, is true to strike, aye, 'tis strong to dare; it will fall where the curse of our land is born. no more shall the necks of the nations be crushed, no more to dark tyranny's throne bend the knee; no more in abjection be ground to the dust! by their widows, their orphans, our dead comrades' trust, by the brave heart-beats stilled, by the brave voices hushed, we swear that humanity yet shall be free! =pittsburg, .= the hurricane[a] ("we are the birds of the coming storm."--_august spies._) the tide is out, the wind blows off the shore; bare burn the white sands in the scorching sun; the sea complains, but its great voice is low. bitter thy woes, o people, and the burden hardly to be borne! wearily grows, o people, all the aching of thy pierced heart, bruised and torn! but yet thy time is not, and low thy moaning. desert thy sands! not yet is thy breath hot, vengefully blowing; it wafts o'er lifted hands. the tide has turned; the vane veers slowly round; slow clouds are sweeping o'er the blinding light; white crests curl on the sea,--its voice grows deep. angry thy heart, o people, and its bleeding fire-tipped with rising hate! thy clasped hands part, o people, for thy praying warmed not the desolate! god did not hear thy moan: now it is swelling to a great drowning cry; a dark wind-cloud, a groan, now backward veering from that deaf sky! the tide flows in, the wind roars from the depths, the whirled-white sand heaps with the foam-white waves; thundering the sea rolls o'er its shell-crunched wall! strong is thy rage, o people, in its fury hurling thy tyrants down! thou metest wage, o people. very swiftly, now that thy hate is grown: thy time at last is come; thou heapest anguish, where thou thyself wert bare! no longer to thy dumb god clasped and kneeling, _thou answerest thine own prayer._ =sea isle city, n. j.=, august, . [a] since the death of the author this poem has been put to music by the young american composer, george edwards. ut sementem feceris, ita metes (to the czar, on a woman, a political prisoner, being flogged to death in siberia.) how many drops must gather to the skies before the cloud-burst comes, we may not know; how hot the fires in under hells must glow ere the volcano's scalding lavas rise, can none say; but all wot the hour is sure! who dreams of vengeance has but to endure! he may not say how many blows must fall, how many lives be broken on the wheel, how many corpses stiffen 'neath the pall, how many martyrs fix the blood-red seal; but certain is the harvest time of hate! and when weak moans, by an indignant world re-echoed, to a throne are backward hurled, who listens, hears the mutterings of fate! =philadelphia=, february, . bastard born why do you clothe me with scarlet of shame? why do you point with your finger of scorn? what is the crime that you hissingly name when you sneer in my ears, "thou bastard born?" am i not as the rest of you, with a hope to reach, and a dream to live? with a soul to suffer, a heart to know the pangs that the thrusts of the heartless give? i am no monster! look at me-- straight in my eyes, that they do not shrink! is there aught in them you can see to merit this hemlock you make me drink? this poison that scorches my soul like fire, that burns and burns until love is dry, and i shrivel with hate, as hot as a pyre, a corpse, while its smoke curls up to the sky? will you touch my hand? it is flesh like yours; perhaps a little more brown and grimed, for it could not be white while the drawers' and hewers', my brothers, were calloused and darkened and slimed. yet touch it! it is no criminal's hand! no children are toiling to keep it fair! it is free from the curse of the stolen land, it is clean of the theft of the sea and air! it has set no seals to a murderous law, to sign a bitter, black league with death! no covenants false do these fingers draw in the name of "the state" to barter faith! it bears no stain of the yellow gold that earth's wretches give as the cost of heaven! no priestly garment of silken fold i wear as the price of their "sins forgiven"! still do you shrink! still i hear the hiss between your teeth, and i feel the scorn that flames in your gaze! well, what is this, this crime i commit, being "bastard born"? what! you whisper my "eyes are gray," the "color of hers," up there on the hill, where the white stone gleams, and the willow spray falls over her grave in the starlight still! my "hands are shaped like" those quiet hands, folded away from their life, their care; and the sheen that lies on my short, fair strands gleams darkly down on her buried hair! my voice is toned like that silent tone that might, if it could, break up through the sod with such rebuke as would shame your stone, stirring the grass-roots in their clod! and my heart-beats thrill to the same strong chords; and the blood that was hers is mine to-day; and the thoughts she loved, i love; and the words that meant most to her, to me most say! _she was my mother--i her child!_ could ten thousand priests have made us more? do you curse the bloom of the heather wild? do you trample the flowers and cry "impure"? do you shun the bird-songs' silver shower? does their music arouse your curling scorn that none but god blessed them? the whitest flower, the purest song, were but "bastard born"! _this is my sin_,--i was born of her! _this is my crime_,--that i reverence deep! god, that her pale corpse may not stir, press closer down on her lids--the sleep! would you have me hate her? me, who knew that the gentlest soul in the world looked there, out of the gray eyes that pitied you e'en while you cursed her? the long brown hair that waved from her forehead, has brushed my cheek, when her soft lips have drunk up my salt of grief; and the voice, whose echo you hate, would speak the hush of pity and love's relief! and those still hands that are folded now have touched my sorrows for years away! would you have me question her whence and how the love-light streamed from her heart's deep ray? do you question the sun that it gives its gold? do you scowl at the cloud when it pours its rain till the fields that were withered and burnt and old are fresh and tender and young again? do you search the source of the breeze that sweeps the rush of the fever from tortured brain? do you ask whence the perfume that round you creeps when your soul is wrought to the quick with pain? she was my sun, my dew, my air, the highest, the purest, the holiest; =peace=--was the shade of her beautiful hair, =love=--was all that i knew on her breast! would you have me forget? or remembering say that her love had bloomed from hell? then =blessed be hell=! and let heaven sing "_te deum laudamus_," until it swell and ring and roll to the utterest earth, that the damned are free,--since out of sin came the whiteness that shamed all ransomed worth till god opened the gates, saying "enter in!" * * * * * what! in the face of the witness i bear to her measureless love and her purity, still of your hate would you make me to share, despising that she gave life to me? you would have me stand at her helpless grave, to dig through its earth with a venomed dart! this is honor! and right! and brave! to fling a stone at her pulseless heart! this is virtue! to blast the lips speechless beneath the silence dread! to lash with slander's scorpion whips the voiceless, defenseless, helpless dead! * * * * * god! i turn to an adder now! back upon you i hurl your scorn! bind the scarlet upon your brow! _ye_ it is, who are "bastard born"! touch me not! these hands of mine despise your fairness--the leper's white! tanned and hardened and black with grime, they are clean beside your souls to-night! basely born! 'tis ye are base! ye who would guerdon holy trust with slavish law to a tyrant race, to sow the earth with the seed of lust. base! by heaven! prate of peace, when your garments are red with the stain of wars. reeling with passion's mad release by your sickly gaslight damn the stars! blurred with wine ye behold the snow smirched with the foulness that blots within! what of purity can ye know, ye ten-fold children of hell and sin? ye to judge her! ye to cast the stone of wrath from your house of glass! know ye the law, that ye dare to blast the bell of gold with your clanging brass? know ye the harvest the reapers reap who drop in the furrow the seed of scorn? out of this anguish ye harrow deep, ripens the sentence: "_ye_, bastard born!" ay, sin-begotten, hear the curse; not mine--not hers--but the fatal law! "who bids one suffer, shall suffer worse; who scourges, himself shall be scourgèd raw! "for the thoughts ye think, and the deeds ye do, move on, and on, till the flood is high, and the dread dam bursts, and the waves roar through, hurling a cataract dirge to the sky! "to-night ye are deaf to the beggar's prayer; to-morrow the thieves shall batter your wall! ye shall feel the weight of a starved child's care when your warders under the mob's feet fall! "'tis the roar of the whirlwind ye invoke when ye scatter the wind of your brother's moans; 'tis the red of your hate on your own head broke, when the blood of the murdered spatters the stones! "hark ye! out of the reeking slums, thick with the fetid stench of crime, boiling up through their sickening scums, bubbles that burst through the crimson wine, "voices burst--with terrible sound, crying the truth your dull souls ne'er saw! _we_ are _your_ sentence! the wheel turns round! the bastard spawn of your bastard law!" this is bastard: that man should say how love shall love, and how life shall live! setting a tablet to groove god's way, measuring how the divine shall give! * * * * * o, evil hearts! ye have maddened me, that i should interpret the voice of god! quiet! quiet! o angered sea! quiet! i go to her blessed sod! * * * * * mother, mother, i come to you! down in your grasses i press my face! under the kiss of their cold, pure dew, i may dream that i lie in the dear old place! mother, sweet mother, take me back, into the bosom from whence i came! take me away from the cruel rack, take me out of the parching flame! fold me again with your beautiful hair, speak to this terrible heaving sea! over me pour the soothing of prayer, the words of the love-child of galilee: "=peace--be still=!" still,--could i but hear! softly,--i listen.--o fierce heart, cease! softly,--i breathe not,--low,--in my ear,-- mother, mother--i heard you!--=peace=! =enterprise, kansas,= january, . hymn (this hymn was written at the request of a christian science friend who proposed to set it to music. it did not represent my beliefs either then or since, but rather what i wish might be my beliefs, had i not an inexorable capacity for seeing things as they are,--a vast scheme of mutual murder, with no justice anywhere, and no god in the soul or out of it.) i am at peace--no storm can ever touch me; on my clear heights the sunshine only falls; far, far below glides the phantom voice of sorrows, in peace-lifted light the silence only calls. ah, soul, ascend! the mountain way, up-leading, bears to the heights whereon the blest have trod! lay down the burden;--stanch the heart's sad bleeding; =be ye at peace=, for know that ye are god! not long the way, not far in a dim heaven; in the locked self seek ye the guiding star: clear shine its rays, illumining the shadow; there, where god is, there, too, o souls ye are. ye are at one, and bound in him forever, ev'n as the wave is bound in the great sea; never to drift beyond, below him, never! whole as god is, so, even so, are ye. =philadelphia,= . you and i (a reply to "you and i in the golden weather," by dyer d. lum.) you and i, in the sere, brown weather, when clouds hang thick in the frowning sky, when rain-tears drip on the bloomless heather, unheeding the storm-blasts will walk together, and look to each other--you and i. you and i, when the clouds are shriven to show the cliff-broods of lightnings high; when over the ramparts, swift, thunder-driven, rush the bolts of hate from a hell-lit heaven, will smile at each other--you and i. you and i, when the bolts are falling, the hot air torn with the earth's wild cries, will lean through the darkness where death is calling, will search through the shadows where night is palling, and find the light in each other's eyes. you and i, when black sheets of water drench and tear us and drown our breath, below this laughter of hell's own daughter, above the smoke of the storm-girt slaughter, will hear each other and gleam at death. you and i, in the gray night dying, when over the east-land the dawn-beams fly, down in the groans, in the low, faint crying, down where the thick blood is blackly lying, will reach out our weak arms, you and i. you and i, in the cold, white weather, when over our corpses the pale lights lie, will rest at last from the dread endeavor, pressed to each other, for parting--never! our dead lips together, you and i. you and i, when the years in flowing have left us behind with all things that die, with the rot of our bones shall give soil for growing the loves of the future, made sweet for blowing by the dew of the kiss of a last good-bye! =philadelphia=, . the toast of despair we have cried,--and the gods are silent; we have trusted,--and been betrayed; we have loved,--and the fruit was ashes; we have given,--the gift was weighed. we know that the heavens are empty, that friendship and love are names; that truth is an ashen cinder, the end of life's burnt-out flames. vainly and long have we waited, through the night of the human roar, for a single song on the harp of hope, or a ray from a day-lit shore. songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet, and bow-dyed flashes gleam; but the sweets are lies, and the weary feet run after a marsh-light beam. in the hour of our need the song departs, and the sea-moans of sorrow swell; the siren mocks with a gurgling laugh that is drowned in the deep death-knell. the light we chased with our stumbling feet as the goal of happier years, swings high and low and vanishes,-- the bow-dyes were of our tears. god is a lie, and faith is a lie, and a tenfold lie is love; life is a problem without a why, and never a thing to prove. it adds, and subtracts, and multiplies, and divides without aim or end; its answers all false, though false-named true,-- wife, husband, lover, friend. we know it now, and we care no more; what matters life or death? we tiny insects emerge from earth, suffer, and yield our breath. like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill, dreaming of "mighty things,"-- lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean's wrath, in the rush of time's awful wings. the sun smiles gold, and the planets white, and a billion stars smile, still; yet, fierce as we, each wheels towards death, and cannot stay his will. then build, ye fools, your mighty things, that time shall set at naught; grow warm with the song the sweet lie sings, and the false bow your tears have wrought. for us, a truce to gods, loves, and hopes, and a pledge to fire and wave; a swifter whirl to the dance of death, and a loud huzza for the grave! =philadelphia,= . in memoriam (to dyer d. lum, my friend and teacher, who died april , .) great silent heart! these barren drops of grief are not for you, attained unto your rest; this sterile salt upon the withered leaf of love, is mine--mine the dark burial guest. far, far within that deep, untroubled sea we watched together, walking on the sands, your soul has melted,--painless, silent, free; mine the wrung heart, mine the clasped, useless hands. into the whirl of life, where none remember, i bear your image, ever unforgot; the "whip-poor-will," still "wailing in december," cries the same cry--cries, cries, and ceases not. the future years with all their waves of faces roll shoreward singing the great undertone; yours is not there;--in the old, well-loved places i look, and pass, and watch the sea alone. alone along the gleaming, white sea-shore, the sea-spume spraying thick around my head, through all the beat of waves and winds that roar, i go, remembering that you are dead. that you are dead, and nowhere is there one like unto you;--and nowhere love leaps death;-- and nowhere may the broken race be run;-- nowhere unsealed the seal that none gainsaith. yet in my ear that deep, sweet undertone grows deeper, sweeter, solemner to me,-- dreaming your dreams, watching the light that shone so whitely to you, yonder, on the sea. your voice is there, there in the great life-sound-- your eyes are there, out there, within the light; your heart, within the pulsing race-heart drowned, beats in the immortality of right. o life, i love you for the love of him who showed me all your glory and your pain! "unto nirvana"--so the deep tones sing-- and there--and there--we--shall--be--one--again. =greensburg, pa.,= april th, . out of the darkness who am i? only one of the commonest common people, only a worked-out body, a shriveled and withered soul, what right have i to sing then? none; and i do not, i cannot. why ruin the rhythm and rhyme of the great world's songs with moaning? i know not--nor why whistles must shriek, wheels ceaselessly mutter; nor why all i touch turns to clanging and clashing and discord; i know not;--i know only this,--i was born to this, live in it hourly, go round with it, hum with it, curse with it, would laugh with it, had it laughter; it is my breath--and that breath goes outward from me in moaning. o you, up there, i have heard you; i am "god's image defaced," "in heaven reward awaits me," "hereafter i shall be perfect"; ages you've sung that song, but what is it to me, think you? if you heard down here in the smoke and the smut, in the smear and the offal, in the dust, in the mire, in the grime and in the slime, in the hideous darkness, how the wheels turn your song into sounds of horror and loathing and cursing, the offer of lust, the sneer of contempt and acceptance, thieves' whispers, the laugh of the gambler, the suicide's gasp, the yell of the drunkard, if you heard them down here you would cry, "the reward of such is damnation," if you heard them, i say, your song of "rewarded hereafter" would fail. you, too, with your science, your titles, your books, and your long explanations that tell me how i am come up out of the dust of the cycles, out of the sands of the sea, out of the unknown primeval forests,-- out of the growth of the world have become the bud and the promise,-- out of the race of the beasts have arisen, proud and triumphant,-- you, if you knew how your words rumble round in the wheels of labor! if you knew how my hammering heart beats, "liar, liar, you lie! out of all buds of the earth we are most blasted and blighted! what beast of all the beasts is not prouder and freer than we?" you, too, who sing in high words of the glory of man universal, the beauty of sacrifice, debt of the future, the present immortal, the glory of use, absorption by death of the being in being, you, if you knew what jargon it makes, down here, would be quiet. oh, is there no one to find or to speak a meaning to _me_, to me as i am,--the hard, the ignorant, withered-souled worker? to me upon whom god and science alike have stamped "failure," to me who know nothing but labor, nothing but sweat, dirt, and sorrow, to me whom you scorn and despise, you up there who sing while i moan? to me as i am,--for me as i am--not dying but living; _not_ my future, my present! my body, my needs, my desires! is there no one, in the midst of this rushing of phantoms--of gods, of science, of logic, of philosophy, morals, religion, economy,--all this that helps not, all these ghosts at whose altars you worship, these ponderous, marrowless fictions, is there no one who thinks, is there nothing to help this dull moaning me? =philadelphia,= april, . mary wollstonecraft the dust of a hundred years is on thy breast, and thy day and thy night of tears are centurine rest. thou to whom joy was dumb, life a broken rhyme, lo, thy smiling time is come, and our weeping time. thou who hadst sponge and myrrh and a bitter cross, smile, for the day is here that we know our loss;-- loss of thine undone deed, thy unfinished song, th' unspoken word for our need, th' unrighted wrong; smile, for we weep, we weep, for the unsoothed pain, the unbound wound burned deep, that we might gain. mother of sorrowful eyes in the dead old days, mother of many sighs, of pain-shod ways; mother of resolute feet through all the thorns, mother soul-strong, soul-sweet,-- lo, after storms have broken and beat thy dust for a hundred years, thy memory is made just, and the just man hears. thy children kneel and repeat: "though dust be dust, though sod and coffin and sheet and moth and rust have folded and molded and pressed, yet they cannot kill; in the heart of the world at rest she liveth still." =philadelphia,= april th, . the gods and the people what have you done, o skies, that the millions should kneel to you? why should they lift wet eyes, grateful with human dew? why should they clasp their hands, and bow at thy shrines, o heaven, thanking thy high commands for the mercies that thou hast given? what have those mercies been, o thou, who art called the good, who trod through a world of sin, and stood where the felon stood? what is that wondrous peace vouchsafed to the child of dust, for whom all doubt shall cease in the light of thy perfect trust? how hast thou heard their prayers smoking up from the bleeding sod, who, crushed by their weight of cares, cried up to thee, most high god? * * * * * where the swamps of humanity sicken, read the answer, in dumb, white scars! you, skies, gave the sore and the stricken the light of your far-off stars! the children who plead are driven, shelterless, through the street, receiving the mercy of heaven hard-frozen in glittering sleet! the women who prayed for pity, who called on the saving name, through the walks of your merciless city are crying the rent of shame. the starving, who gazed on the plenty in which they might not share, have died in their hunger, rent by the anguish of unheard prayer! the weary who plead for remission, for a moment, only, release, have sunk, with unheeded petition: this is the christ-pledged peace. these are the mercies of heaven, these are the answers of god, to the prayers of the agony-shriven, from the paths where the millions plod! the silent scorn of the sightless! the callous ear of the deaf! the wrath of might to the mightless! the shroud, and the mourning sheaf! light--to behold their squalor! breath--to draw in life's pain! voices to plead and call for heaven's help!--hearts to bleed--in vain! * * * * * what have you done, o church, that the weary should bless your name? should come with faith's holy torch to light up your altar'd fane? why should they kiss the folds of the garment of your high priest? or bow to the chalice that holds the wine of your sacred feast? have you blown out the breath of their sighs? have you strengthened the weak, the ill? have you wiped the dark tears from their eyes, and bade their sobbings be still? have you touched, have you known, have you felt, have you bent and softly smiled in the face of the woman, who dwelt in lewdness--to feed her child? have you heard the cry in the night going up from the outraged heart, masked from the social sight by the cloak that but angered the smart? have you heard the children's moan, by the light of the skies denied? answer, o walls of stone, in the name of your crucified! * * * * * out of the clay of their heart-break, from the red dew of its sod, you have mortar'd your brick, for christ's sake, and reared a palace to god! your painters have dipped their brushes in the tears and the blood of the race, whom, living, your dark frown crushes-- and limned--a dead savior's face! you have seized, in the name of god, the child's crust from famine's dole; you have taken the price of its body and sung a mass for its soul! you have smiled on the man, who, deceiving, paid exemption to ease your wrath! you have cursed the poor fool who believed him, though her body lay prone in your path! you have laid the seal on the lip! you have bid us to be content! to bow 'neath our master's whip, and give thanks for the scourge--"heav'n sent." these, o church, are your thanks; these are the fruits without flaw, that flow from the chosen ranks who keep in your perfect law; doors hard-locked on the homeless! stained glass windows for bread! on the living, the law of dumbness, and the law of need, for--the _dead_! better the dead, who, not needing, go down to the vaults of the earth, than the living whose hearts lie bleeding, crushed by you at their very birth. * * * * * what have you done, o state, that the toilers should shout your ways; should light up the fires of their hate if a "traitor" should dare dispraise? how do you guard the trust that the people repose in you? do you keep to the law of the just, and hold to the changeless true? what do you mean when you say "the home of the free and brave"? how free are your people, pray? have you no such thing as a slave? what are the lauded "rights," broad-sealed, by your sovereign grace? what are the love-feeding sights you yield to your subject race? * * * * * the rights!--ah! the right to toil, that another, idle, may reap; the right to make fruitful the soil and a meagre pittance to keep! the right of a woman to own her body, spotlessly pure, and starve in the street--alone! the right of the wronged--to endure! the right of the slave--to his yoke! the right of the hungry--to pray! the right of the toiler--to vote for the master who buys his day! you have sold the sun and the air! you have dealt in the price of blood! you have taken the lion's share while the lion is fierce for food! you have laid the load of the strong on the helpless, the young, the weak! you have trod out the purple of wrong;-- beware where its wrath shall wreak! "let the voice of the people be heard! o----" you strangled it with your rope! denied the last dying word, while your trap and your gallows spoke! but a thousand voices rise where the words of the martyr fell; the seed springs fast to the skies watered deep from that bloody well! * * * * * hark! low down you will hear the storm in the underground! listen, tyrants, and fear! quake at that muffled sound! "heavens, that mocked our dust, smile on, in your pitiless blue! silent as you are to us, so silent are we to you! "churches that scourged our brains! priests that locked fast our hands! we planted the torch in your chains: now gather the burning brands! "states that have given us law, when we asked for the right to earn bread! the sword that damocles saw by a hair swings over your head! "what ye have sown ye shall reap: teardrops, and blood, and hate, gaunt gather before your seat, and knock at your palace gate! "there are murderers on your thrones! there are thieves in your justice-halls! white leprosy cancers their stones, and gnaws at their worm-eaten walls! "and the hand of belshazzar's feast writes over, in flaming light: =thought's kingdom no more to the priest; nor the law of right unto might=." john p. altgeld (after an incarceration of six long years in joliet state prison for an act of which they were entirely innocent, namely, the throwing of the haymarket bomb, in chicago, may th, , oscar neebe, michael schwab and samuel fielden, were liberated by gov. altgeld, who thus sacrificed his political career to an act of justice.) there was a tableau! liberty's clear light shone never on a braver scene than that. here was a prison, there a man who sat high in the halls of state! beyond, the might of ignorance and mobs, whose hireling press yells at their bidding like the slaver's hounds, ready with coarse caprice to curse or bless, to make or unmake rulers!--lo, there sounds a grating of the doors! and three poor men, helpless and hated, having naught to give, come from their long-sealed tomb, look up, and live, and thank this man that they are free again. and he--to all the world this man dares say, "curse as you will! i have been just this day." =philadelphia,= june, . the cry of the unfit the gods have left us, the creeds have crumbled; there are none to pity and none to care: our fellows have crushed us where we have stumbled; they have made of our bodies a bleeding stair. loud rang the bells in the christmas steeples; we heard them ring through the bitter morn: the promise of old to the weary peoples came floating sweetly,--"christ is born." but the words were mocking, sorely mocking, as we sought the sky through our freezing tears, we children, who've hung the christmas stocking, and found it empty two thousand years. no, there is naught in the old creed for us; love and peace are to those who win; to them the delight of the golden chorus, to us the hunger and shame and sin. why then live on since our lives are fruitless, since peace is certain and death is rest; since our masters tell us the strife is bootless, and nature scorns her unwelcome guest? you who have climbed on our aching bodies, you who have thought because we have toiled, priests of the creed of a newer goddess, searchers in depths where the past was foiled. speak in the name of the faith that you cherish! give us the truth! we have bought it with woe! must we forever thus worthlessly perish, burned in the desert and lost in the snow? trampled, forsaken, foredoomed, and forgotten,-- helplessly tossed like the leaf in the storm? bred for the shambles, with curses begotten, useless to all save the rotting grave-worm? give us some anchor to stay our mad drifting! give, for your own sakes! for lo, where our blood, a red tide to drown you, is steadily lifting! help! or you die in the terrible flood! =philadelphia,= . in memoriam to gen. m. m. trumbull. (no man better than gen. trumbull defended my martyred comrades in chicago.) back to thy breast, o mother, turns thy child, he whom thou garmentedst in steel of truth, and sent forth, strong in the glad heart of youth, to sing the wakening song in ears beguiled by tyrants' promises and flatterers' smiles; these searched his eyes, and knew nor threats nor wiles might shake the steady stars within their blue, nor win one truckling word from off those lips,-- no--not for gold nor praise, nor aught men do to dash the sun of honor with eclipse, o mother liberty, those eyes are dark, and the brave lips are white and cold and dumb; but fair in other souls, through time to come, fanned by thy breath glows the immortal spark. =philadelphia,= may, . the wandering jew (the above poem was suggested by the reading of an article describing an interview with the "wandering jew," in which he was represented as an incorrigible grumbler. the jew has been, and will continue to be, the grumbler of earth,--until the prophetic ideal of justice shall be realized: "blessed be he.") _"go on."--"thou shalt go on till i come."_ pale, ghostly vision from the coffined years, planting the cross with thy world-wandering feet, stern watcher through the centuries' storm and beat, in those sad eyes, between those grooves of tears,-- those eyes like caves where sunlight never dwells and stars but dimly shine--stand sentinels that watch with patient hope, through weary days, that somewhere, sometime, he indeed may "come," and thou at last find thee a resting place, blast-driven leaf of man, within the tomb. aye, they have cursed thee with the bitter curse, and driven thee with scourges o'er the world; tyrants have crushed thee, ignorance has hurled its black anathema;--but death's pale hearse, that bore them graveward, passed them silently; and vainly didst thou stretch thy hands and cry, "take me instead";--not yet for thee the time, not yet--not yet: thy bruised and mangled limbs must still drag on, still feed the vulture, crime, with bleeding flesh, till rust its steel beak dims. aye, "till he come,"--=he,--freedom, justice, peace=-- till then shalt thou cry warning through the earth, unheeding pain, untouched by death and birth, proclaiming "woe, woe, woe," till men shall cease to seek for christ within the senseless skies, and, joyous, find him in each other's eyes. then shall be builded such a tomb for thee shall beggar kings' as diamonds outshine dew! the universal heart of man shall be the sacred urn of "the accursed jew." =philadelphia,= . the feast of vultures (as the three anarchists, vaillant, henry and caserio, were led to their several executions, a voice from the prison cried loudly, "vive l'anarchie!" through watch and ward the cry escaped, and no man owned the voice; but the cry is still resounding through the world.) a moan in the gloam in the air-peaks heard-- the bird of omen--the wild, fierce bird, aflight in the night, like a whizz of light, arrowy winging before the storm, far away flinging, the whistling, singing, white-curdled drops, wind-blown and warm, from its beating, flapping, thunderous wings; crashing and clapping the split night swings, and rocks and totters, bled of its levin, and reels and mutters a curse to heaven! reels and mutters and rolls and dies, with a wild light streaking its black, blind eyes. far, far, far, through the red, mad morn, like a hurtling star, through the air upborne, the herald-singer, the terror-bringer, speeds--and behind, through the cloud-rags torn, gather and wheel a million wings, clanging as iron where the hammer rings; the whipped sky shivers, the white gate shakes, the ripped throne quivers, the dumb god wakes, and feels in his heart the talon-stings-- the dead bodies hurled from beaks for slings. "ruin! ruin!" the whirlwind cries, and it leaps at his throat and tears his eyes; "death for death, as ye long have dealt; the heads of your victims your heads shall pelt; the blood ye wrung to get drunk upon, drink, and be poisoned! on, herald, on!" behold, behold, how a moan is grown! a cry hurled high 'gainst a scaffold's joist! the voice of defiance--the loud, wild voice! whirled through the world, a smoke-wreath curled (breath 'round hot kisses) around a fire! see! the ground hisses with curses, and glisses with red-streaming blood-clots of long-frozen ire, waked by the flying wild voice as it passes; groaning and crying, the surge of the masses rolls and flashes with thunderous roar-- seams and lashes the livid shore-- seams and lashes and crunches and beats, and drags a ragged wall to its howling retreats! swift, swift, swift, 'thwart the blood-rain's fall, through the fire-shot rift of the broken wall, the prophet-crying the storm-strong sighing, flies--and from under night's lifted pall, swarming, menace ten million darts, uplifting fragments of human shards! ah, white teeth chatter, and dumb jaws fall, while winged fires scatter till gloom gulfs all save the boom of the cannon that storm the forts that the people bombard with their comrades' hearts; "vengeance! vengeance!" the voices scream, and the vulture pinions whirl and stream! "knife for knife, as ye long have dealt; the edge ye whetted for us be felt, ye chopper of necks, on your own, your own! bare it, coward! on, prophet, on!" behold how high rolls a prison cry! =philadelphia,= august . the suicide's defense (of all the stupidities wherewith the law-making power has signaled its own incapacity for dealing with the disorders of society, none appears so utterly stupid as the law which punishes an attempted suicide. to the question "what have you to say in your defense?" i conceive the poor wretch might reply as follows:) to say in my defense? defense of what? defense to whom? and why defense at all? have i wronged any? let that one accuse! some priest there mutters i "have outraged god"! let god then try me, and let none dare judge himself as fit to put heaven's ermine on! again i say, let the wronged one accuse. aye, silence! there is none to answer me. and whom could i, a homeless, friendless tramp, to whom all doors are shut, all hearts are locked, all hands withheld--whom could i wrong, indeed by taking that which benefited none and menaced all? aye, since ye will it so, know then your risk. but mark, 'tis not defense, 'tis accusation that i hurl at you. see to't that ye prepare your own defense. my life, i say, is an eternal threat to you and yours; and therefore it were well to have foreborne your unasked services. and why? because i hate you! every drop of blood that circles in your plethoric veins was wrung from out the gaunt and sapless trunks of men like me, who in your cursed mills were crushed like grapes within the wine-press ground. to us ye leave the empty skin of life; the heart of it, the sweet of it, ye pour to fete your dogs and mistresses withal! your mistresses! our daughters! bought, for bread, to grace the flesh that once was father's arms! yes, i accuse you that ye murdered me! ye killed the man--and this that speaks to you is but the beast that ye have made of me! what! is it life to creep and crawl and beg, and slink for shelter where rats congregate? and for one's ideal dream of a fat meal? is it, then, life, to group like pigs in sties, and bury decency in common filth, because, forsooth, your income must be made, though human flesh rot in your plague-rid dens? is it, then, life, to wait another's nod, for leave to turn yourself to gold for him? would it be life to you? and was i less than you? was i not born with hopes and dreams and pains and passions even as were you? but these ye have denied. ye seized the earth, though it was none of yours, and said: "hereon shall none rest, walk or work, till first to me ye render tribute!" every art of man, born to make light of the burdens of the world, ye also seized, and made a tenfold curse to crush the man beneath the thing he made. houses, machines, and lands--all, all are yours; and us you do not need. when we ask work ye shake your heads. homes?--ye evict us. bread?-- "here, officer, this fellow's begging. jail's the place for him!" after the stripes, what next?-- poison!--i took it!--now you say 'twas sin to take this life which troubled you so much. sin to escape insult, starvation, brands of felony, inflicted for the crime of asking food! ye hypocrites! within your secret hearts the sin is that i _failed_! because i failed ye judge me to the stripes, and the hard toil denied when i was free. so be it. but beware!--a prison cell's an evil bed to grow morality! black swamps breed black miasms; sickly soils yield poison fruit; snakes warmed to life will sting. this time i was content to go alone; perchance the next i shall not be so kind. =philadelphia=, september, . a novel of color (the following is a true and particular account of what happened on the night of december , ; but it is likely to be unintelligible to all save the chipmunks and the elephant, who, however, will no doubt recognize themselves.) chapter i. chipmunks three sat on a tree, and they were as green as green could be; they cracked nuts early, they cracked nuts late, and chirruped and chirruped, and ate and ate; "'tis a pity of chipmunks without nuts, and a gnawing hunger in their guts; but they should be wise like you and me, and color themselves to suit the tree. ah chee, ah chee, ah chee, ah chee! gay chaps are we, we chipmunks three!" an elephant white in sorry plight, hungry and dirty and sad bedight, straggled one day on the nutting ground; "lo," chattered the chipmunks, "our chance is found! behold the beast's color; were he as we, green and sleek and nut-full were he! but the beast is big, and the beast is white, and his skin full of emptiness serves him right! ah chee, ah chee, ah chee, ah chee! let us 'sit on him, sit on him,' chipmunks three." chapter ii. three chipmunks green right gay were seen to leap on the beast his brows between; they munched at his ears and chiffered his chin, and sat and sat and sat on him! not a single available spot of hide where a well-sleeked chipmunk could sit with pride, but was chipped and chipped and chip-chip-munked, till aught but an elephant must have flunked. "ah chee, ah chee, ah chee, ah chee! what a ride we're having, we chipmunks three!" chapter iii. br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-f-f-f-f-f!!! chapter iv. "what was it blew? ah whew, ah whew!" three green chipmunks have all turned blue! the elephant smiles a peaceful smile, and lifts off a tree-trunk sans haste or guile. "seize him, seize him! he's stealing our tree! we're undone, undone," shriek the chipmunks three. the elephant calmly upraised his trunk, and said, "did i hear a green chipmunk?" * * * * * "ah chee, ah chee, ah chee, ah choo!" "chippy, you're blue!" "so're you!" "so're you!" =philadelphia=, december, . germinal (the last word of angiolillo.) germinal!--the field of mars is plowing, and hard the steel that cuts, and hot the breath of the great oxen, straining flanks and bowing beneath his goad, who guides the share of death. germinal!--the dragon's teeth are sowing, and stern and white the sower flings the seed he shall not gather, though full swift the growing; straight down death's furrow treads, and does not heed. germinal!--the helmet heads are springing far up the field of mars in gleaming files; with wild war notes the bursting earth is ringing. * * * * * within his grave the sower sleeps, and smiles. =london=, october, . "light upon waldheim" (the figure on the monument over the grave of the chicago martyrs in waldheim cemetery is a warrior woman, dropping with her left hand a crown upon the forehead of a fallen man just past his agony, and with her right drawing a dagger from her bosom.) light upon waldheim! and the earth is gray; a bitter wind is driving from the north; the stone is cold, and strange cold whispers say: "what do ye here with death? go forth! go forth!" is this thy word, o mother, with stern eyes, crowning thy dead with stone-caressing touch? may we not weep o'er him that martyred lies, slain in our name, for that he loved us much? may we not linger till the day is broad? nay, none are stirring in this stinging dawn-- none but poor wretches that make no moan to god: what use are these, o thou with dagger drawn? "go forth, go forth! stand not to weep for these, till, weakened with your weeping, like the snow ye melt, dissolving in a coward peace!" light upon waldheim! brother, let us go! =london=, october, . love's compensation i went before god, and he said, "what fruit of the life i gave?" "father," i said, "it is dead, and nothing grows on the grave." wroth was the lord and stern: "hadst thou not to answer me? shall the fruitless root not burn, and be wasted utterly?" "father," i said, "forgive! for thou knowest what i have done; that another's life might live mine turned to a barren stone." but the father of life sent fire and burned the root in the grave; and the pain in my heart is dire for the thing that i could not save. for the thing it was laid on me by the lord of life to bring; fruit of the ungrown tree that died for no watering. another has gone to god, and his fruit has pleased him well; for he sitteth high, while i--plod the dry ways down towards hell. though thou knowest, thou knowest, lord, whose tears made that fruit's root wet; yet thou drivest me forth with a sword, and thy guards by the gate are set. thou wilt give me up to the fire, and none shall deliver me; for i followed my heart's desire, and i labored not for thee: i labored for him thou hast set on thy right hand, high and fair; thou lovest him, lord; and yet 'twas my love won him there. but this is the thing that hath been, hath been since the world began,-- that love against self must sin, and a woman die for a man. and this is the thing that shall be, shall be till the whole world die, _kismet_:--my doom is on me! why murmur since i am i? =philadelphia=, august, . the road builders ("who built the beautiful roads?" queried a friend of the present order, as we walked one day along the macadamised driveway of fairmount park.) i saw them toiling in the blistering sun, their dull, dark faces leaning toward the stone, their knotted fingers grasping the rude tools, their rounded shoulders narrowing in their chest, the sweat drops dripping in great painful beads. i saw one fall, his forehead on the rock, the helpless hand still clutching at the spade, the slack mouth full of earth. and he was dead. his comrades gently turned his face, until the fierce sun glittered hard upon his eyes, wide open, staring at the cruel sky. the blood yet ran upon the jagged stone; but it was ended. he was quite, quite dead: driven to death beneath the burning sun, driven to death upon the road he built. he was no "hero," he; a poor, black man, taking "the will of god" and asking naught; think of him thus, when next your horse's feet strike out the flint spark from the gleaming road; think that for this, this common thing, the road, a human creature died; 'tis a blood gift, to an o'erreaching world that does not thank. ignorant, mean and soulless was he? well,-- still human; and you drive upon his corpse. =philadelphia=, july , . angiolillo we are the souls that crept and cried in the days when they tortured men; his was the spirit that walked erect, and met the beast in its den. ours are the eyes that were dim with tears for the thing they shrunk to see; his was the glance that was crystal keen with the light that makes men free. ours are the hands that were wrung in pain, in helpless pain and shame; his was the resolute hand that struck, steady and keen to its aim. ours are the lips that quivered with rage, that cursed and prayed in a breath: his was the mouth that opened but once to speak from the throat of death. "assassin, assassin!" the world cries out, with a shake of its dotard head; "germinal!" rings back the grave where lies the dead that is not dead. "germinal, germinal," sings the wind that is driving before the storm; "few are the drops that have fallen yet,--scattered, but red and warm." "germinal, germinal," sing the fields, where furrows of men are plowed; "ye shall gather a harvest over-rich, when the ear at the full is bowed." springing, springing, at every breath, the word of invincible strife, the word of the dead, that is calling loud down the battle ranks of life! for these are the dead that live, though the earth upon them lie: but the doers of deeds of the night of the dead, they are the live that die. =torresdale, pa.=, august , . ave et vale comrades, what matter the watch-night tells that a new year comes or goes? what to us are the crashing bells that clang out the century's close? what to us is the gala dress? the whirl of the dancing feet? the glitter and blare in the laughing press, and din of the merry street? do we not know that our brothers die in the cold and the dark to-night? shelterless faces turned toward the sky will not see the new year's light! wandering children, lonely, lost, drift away on the human sea, while the price of their lives in a glass is tossed and drunk in a revelry! ah, know we not in their feasting halls where the loud laugh echoes again, that brick and stone in the mortared walls are the bones of murdered men? slowly murdered! by day and day, the beauty and strength are reft, till the man is sapped and sucked away, and a human rind is left! a human rind, with old, thin hair, and old, thin voice to pray for alms in the bitter winter air,-- a knife at his heart alway. and the pure in heart are impure in flesh for the cost of a little food: lo, when the gleaner of time shall thresh, let these be accounted good. for these are they who in bitter blame eat the bread whose salt is sin; whose bosoms are burned with the scarlet shame, till their hearts are seared within. the cowardly jests of a hundred years will be thrown where they pass to-night, too callous for hate, and too dry for tears, the saddest of human blight. do we forget them, these broken ones, that our watch to-night is set? nay, we smile in the face of the year that comes _because we do not forget._ we do not forget the tramp on the track, thrust out in the wind-swept waste, the curses of man upon his back, and the curse of god in his face. the stare in the eyes of the buried man face down in the fallen mine; the despair of the child whose bare feet ran to tread out the rich man's wine; the solemn light in the dying gaze of the babe at the empty breast, the wax accusation, the sombre glaze of its frozen and rigid rest; they are all in the smile that we turn to the east to welcome the century's dawn; they are all in our greeting to night's high priest, as we bid the old year begone. begone and have done, and go down and be dead deep drowned in your sea of tears! we smile as you die, for we wait the red morn-gleam of a hundred-years that shall see the end of the age-old wrong,-- the reapers that have not sown,-- the reapers of men with their sickles strong who gather, but have not strown. for the earth shall be his and the fruits thereof and to him the corn and wine, who labors the hills with an even love and knows not "thine and mine." and the silk shall be to the hand that weaves, the pearl to him who dives, the home to the builder; and all life's sheaves to the builder of human lives. and none go blind that another see, or die that another live; and none insult with a charity that is not theirs to give. for each of his plenty shall freely share and take at another's hand: equals breathing the common air and toiling the common land. a dream? a vision? aye, what you will; let it be to you as it seems: of this nightmare real we have our fill; to-night is for "pleasant dreams." dreams that shall waken the hope that sleeps and knock at each torpid heart till it beat drum taps, and the blood that creeps with a lion's spring upstart! for who are we to be bound and drowned in this river of human blood? who are we to lie in a swound, half sunk in the river mud? are we not they who delve and blast and hammer and build and burn? without us not a nail made fast! not a wheel in the world should turn! must we, the giant, await the grace that is dealt by the puny hand of him who sits in the feasting place, while we, his blind jest, stand between the pillars? nay, not so: aye, if such thing were true, better were gaza again, to show what the giant's rage may do! but yet not this: it were wiser far to enter the feasting hall and say to the masters, "these things are not for you alone, but all." and this shall be in the century that opes on our eyes to-night; so here's to the struggle, if it must be, and to him who fights the fight. and here's to the dauntless, jubilant throat that loud to its comrade sings, till over the earth shrills the mustering note, and the world strike's signal rings. =philadelphia=, january , . marsh-bloom (to gaetano bresci.) requiem, requiem, requiem, blood-red blossom of poison stem broken for man, swamp-sunk leafage and dungeon bloom, seeded bearer of royal doom, what now is the ban? what to thee is the island grave? with desert wind and desolate wave will they silence death? can they weight thee now with the heaviest stone? can they lay aught on thee with "be alone," that hast conquered breath? lo, "it is finished"--a man for a king! mark you well who have done this thing: the flower has roots; bitter and rank grow the things of the sea; ye shall know what sap ran thick in the tree when ye pluck its fruits. requiem, requiem, requiem, sleep on, sleep on, accursed of them who work our pain; a wild marsh-blossom shall blow again from a buried root in the slime of men, on the day of the great red rain. =philadelphia=, july, . written--in--red[a] (to our living dead in mexico's struggle.) written in red their protest stands, for the gods of the world to see; on the dooming wall their bodiless hands have blazoned "upharsin," and flaring brands illumine the message: "seize the lands! open the prisons and make men free!" flame out the living words of the dead written--in--red. gods of the world! their mouths are dumb! your guns have spoken and they are dust. but the shrouded living, whose hearts were numb, have felt the beat of a wakening drum within them sounding--the dead men's tongue-- calling: "smite off the ancient rust!" have beheld "resurrexit," the word of the dead, written--in--red. bear it aloft, o roaring flame! skyward aloft, where all may see. slaves of the world! our cause is the same; one is the immemorial shame; one is the struggle, and in one name-- =manhood=--we battle to set men free. "uncurse us the land!" burn the words of the dead, written--in--red. [a] voltairine de cleyre's last poem. essays the dominant idea in everything that lives, if one looks searchingly, is limned the shadow line of an idea--an idea, dead or living, sometimes stronger when dead, with rigid, unswerving lines that mark the living embodiment with the stern, immobile cast of the non-living. daily we move among these unyielding shadows, less pierceable, more enduring than granite, with the blackness of ages in them, dominating living, changing bodies, with dead, unchanging souls. and we meet, also, living souls dominating dying bodies--living ideas regnant over decay and death. do not imagine that i speak of human life alone. the stamp of persistent or of shifting will is visible in the grass-blade rooted in its clod of earth, as in the gossamer web of being that floats and swims far over our heads in the free world of air. regnant ideas, everywhere! did you ever see a dead vine bloom? i have seen it. last summer i trained some morning-glory vines up over a second-story balcony; and every day they blew and curled in the wind, their white, purple-dashed faces winking at the sun, radiant with climbing life. higher every day the green heads crept, carrying their train of spreading fans waving before the sun-seeking blossoms. then all at once some mischance happened,--some cut-worm or some mischievous child tore one vine off below, the finest and most ambitious one, of course. in a few hours the leaves hung limp, the sappy stem wilted and began to wither; in a day it was dead,--all but the top, which still clung longingly to its support, with bright head lifted. i mourned a little for the buds that could never open now, and pitied that proud vine whose work in the world was lost. but the next night there was a storm, a heavy, driving storm, with beating rain and blinding lightning. i rose to watch the flashes, and lo! the wonder of the world! in the blackness of the mid-=night=, in the fury of wind and rain, the dead vine had flowered. five white, moon-faced blossoms blew gaily round the skeleton vine, shining back triumphant at the red lightning. i gazed at them in dumb wonder. dear, dead vine, whose will had been so strong to bloom that in the hour of its sudden cut-off from the feeding earth it sent the last sap to its blossoms; and, not waiting for the morning, brought them forth in storm and flash, as white night-glories, which should have been the children of the sun. in the daylight we all came to look at the wonder, marveling much, and saying, "surely these must be the last." but every day for three days the dead vine bloomed; and even a week after, when every leaf was dry and brown, and so thin you could see through it, one last bud, dwarfed, weak, a very baby of a blossom, but still white and delicate, with five purple flecks, like those on the live vine beside it, opened and waved at the stars, and waited for the early sun. over death and decay the dominant idea smiled: the vine was in the world to bloom, to bear white trumpet blossoms dashed with purple; and it held its will beyond death. our modern teaching is that ideas are but attendant phenomena, impotent to determine the actions or relations of life, as the image in the glass which should say to the body it reflects: "_i_ shall shape _thee_." in truth we know that directly the body goes from before the mirror, the transient image is nothingness; but the real body has its being to live, and will live it, heedless of vanished phantoms of itself, in response to the ever-shifting pressure of things without it. it is thus that the so-called materialist conception of history, the modern socialists, and a positive majority of anarchists would have us look upon the world of ideas,--shifting, unreal reflections, having naught to do in the determination of man's life, but so many mirror appearances of certain material relations, wholly powerless to act upon the course of material things. mind to them is in itself a blank mirror, though in fact never wholly blank, because always facing the reality of the material and bound to reflect some shadow. to-day i am somebody, to-morrow somebody else, if the scenes have shifted; my ego is a gibbering phantom, pirouetting in the glass, gesticulating, transforming, hourly or momentarily, gleaming with the phosphor light of a deceptive unreality, melting like the mist upon the hills. rocks, fields, woods, streams, houses, goods, flesh, blood, bone, sinew,--these are realities, with definite parts to play, with essential characters that abide under all changes; but my ego does not abide; it is manufactured afresh with every change of these. i think this unqualified determinism of the material is a great and lamentable error in our modern progressive movement; and while i believe it was a wholesome antidote to the long-continued blunder of middle age theology, viz.: that mind was an utterly irresponsible entity making laws of its own after the manner of an absolute emperor, without logic, sequence, or relation, ruler over matter, and its own supreme determinant, not excepting god (who was himself the same sort of a mind writ large)--while i do believe that the modern reconception of materialism has done a wholesome thing in pricking the bubble of such conceit and restoring man and his "soul" to its "place in nature," i nevertheless believe that to this also there is a limit; and that the absolute sway of matter is quite as mischievous an error as the unrelated nature of mind; even that in its direct action upon personal conduct, it has the more ill effect of the two. for if the doctrine of free-will has raised up fanatics and persecutors, who, assuming that men may be good under all conditions if they merely wish to be so, have sought to persuade other men's wills with threats, fines, imprisonments, torture, the spike, the wheel, the axe, the fagot, in order to make them good and save them against their obdurate wills; if the doctrine of spiritualism, the soul supreme, has done this, the doctrine of materialistic determinism has produced shifting, self-excusing, worthless, parasitical characters, who are _this_ now and _that_ at some other time, and anything and nothing upon principle. "my conditions have made me so," they cry, and there is no more to be said; poor mirror-ghosts! how could they help it! to be sure, the influence of such a character rarely reaches so far as that of the principled persecutor; but for every one of the latter, there are a hundred of these easy, doughy characters, who will fit any baking tin, to whom determinist self-excusing appeals; so the balance of evil between the two doctrines is _about_ maintained. what we need is a true appraisement of the power and rôle of the idea. i do not think i am able to give such a true appraisement; i do not think that any one--even _much_ greater intellects than mine--will be able to do it for a long time to come. but i am at least able to suggest it, to show its necessity, to give a rude approximation of it. and first, against the accepted formula of modern materialism, "men are what circumstances make them," i set the opposing declaration, "circumstances are what men make them"; and i contend that both these things are true up to the point where the combating powers are equalized, or one is overthrown. in other words, my conception of mind, or character, is not that it is a powerless reflection of a momentary condition of stuff and form, but an active modifying agent, reacting on its environment and transforming circumstances, sometimes greatly, sometimes, though not often, entirely. all over the kingdom of life, i have said, one may see dominant ideas working, if one but trains his eyes to look for them and recognize them. in the human world there have been many dominant ideas. i cannot conceive that ever, at any time, the struggle of the body before dissolution can have been aught but agony. if the reasoning that insecurity of conditions, the expectation of suffering, are circumstances which make the soul of man uneasy, shrinking, timid, what answer will you give to the challenge of old ragnar lodbrog, to that triumphant death-song hurled out, not by one cast to his death in the heat of battle, but under slow prison torture, bitten by serpents, and yet singing: "the goddesses of death invite me away--now end i my song. the hours of my life are run out. i shall smile when i die"? nor can it be said that this is an exceptional instance, not to be accounted for by the usual operation of general law, for old king lodbrog the skalder did only what his fathers did, and his sons and his friends and his enemies, through long generations; they set the force of a dominant idea, the idea of the superascendant ego, against the force of torture and of death, ending life as they wished to end it, with a smile on their lips. but a few years ago, did we not read how the helpless kaffirs, victimized by the english for the contumacy of the boers, having been forced to dig the trenches wherein for pleasant sport they were to be shot, were lined up on the edge, and seeing death facing them, began to chant barbaric strains of triumph, smiling as they fell? let us admit that such exultant defiance was owing to ignorance, to primitive beliefs in gods and hereafters; but let us admit also that it shows the power of an idea dominant. everywhere in the shells of dead societies, as in the shells of the sea-slime, we shall see the force of purposive action, of intent _within_ holding its purpose against obstacles _without_. i think there is no one in the world who can look upon the steadfast, far-staring face of an egyptian carving, or read a description of egypt's monuments, or gaze upon the mummied clay of its old dead men, without feeling that the dominant idea of that people in that age was to be enduring and to work enduring things, with the immobility of their great still sky upon them and the stare of the desert in them. one must feel that whatever other ideas animated them, and expressed themselves in their lives, this was the dominant idea. _that which was_ must remain, no matter at what cost, even if it were to break the everlasting hills: an idea which made the live humanity beneath it, born and nurtured in the coffins of caste, groan and writhe and gnaw its bandages, till in the fullness of time it passed away: and still the granite mould of it stares with empty eyes out across the world, the stern old memory of the _thing-that-was_. i think no one can look upon the marbles wherein greek genius wrought the figuring of its soul, without feeling an apprehension that the things are going to leap and fly; that in a moment one is like to be set upon by heroes with spears in their hands, by serpents that will coil around him; to be trodden by horses that may trample and flee; to be smitten by these gods that have as little of the idea of stone in them as a dragon-fly, one instant poised upon a wind-swayed petal edge. i think no one can look upon them without realizing at once that those figures came out of the boil of life; they seem like rising bubbles about to float into the air, but beneath them other bubbles rising, and others, and others,--there will be no end of it. when one's eyes are upon one group, one feels that behind one, perhaps, a figure is uptoeing to seize the darts of the air and hurl them on one's head; one must keep whirling to face the miracle that appears about to be wrought--stone leaping! and this though nearly every one is minus some of the glory the old greek wrought into it so long ago; even the broken stumps of arms and legs live. and the dominant idea is activity, and the beauty and strength of it. change, swift, ever-circling change! the making of things and the casting of them away, as children cast away their toys, not interested that these shall endure, so that they themselves realize incessant activity. full of creative power, what matter if the creature perished. so there was an endless procession of changing shapes in their schools, their philosophies, their dramas, their poems, till at last it wore itself to death. and the marvel passed away from the world. but still their marbles live to show what manner of thoughts dominated them. and if we wish to know what master-thought ruled the lives of men when the mediæval period had had time to ripen it, one has only at this day to stray into some quaint, out-of-the-way english village, where a strong old towered church yet stands in the midst of little straw-thatched cottages, like a brooding mother-hen surrounded by her chickens. everywhere the greatening of god, and the lessening of man: the church so looming, the home so little. the search for the spirit, for the _enduring_ thing (not the poor endurance of granite which in the ages crumbles, but the eternal), the eternal,--and contempt for the body which perishes, manifest in studied uncleanliness, in mortifications of the flesh, as if the spirit should have spat its scorn upon it. such was the dominant idea of that middle age which has been too much cursed by modernists. for the men who built the castles and the cathedrals were men of mighty works, though they made no books, and though their souls spread crippled wings, because of their very endeavors to soar too high. the spirit of voluntary subordination for the accomplishment of a great work, which proclaimed the aspiration of the common soul,--that was the spirit wrought into the cathedral stones; and it is not wholly to be condemned. in waking dream, when the shadow-shapes of world-ideas swim before the vision, one sees the middle-age soul an ill-contorted, half-formless thing, with dragon wings and a great, dark, tense face, strained sunward with blind eyes. if now we look around us to see what idea dominates our own civilization, i do not know that it is even as attractive as this piteous monster of the old darkness. the relativity of things has altered: man has risen and god has descended. the modern village has better homes and less pretentious churches. also the conception of dirt and disease as much-sought afflictions, the patient suffering of which is a meet offering to win god's pardon, has given place to the emphatic promulgation of cleanliness. we have public school nurses notifying parents that "pediculosis capitis" is a very contagious and unpleasant disease; we have cancer associations gathering up such cancers as have attached themselves to impecunious persons, and carefully experimenting with a view to cleaning them out of the human race; we have tuberculosis societies attempting the herculean labor of clearing the augean stables of our modern factories of the deadly bacillus, and they have got as far as spittoons with water in them in some factories; and others, and others, and others, which, while not yet overwhelmingly successful in their avowed purposes, are evidence sufficient that humanity no longer seeks dirt as a means of grace. we laugh at those old superstitions, and talk much about exact experimental knowledge. we endeavor to galvanize the greek corpse, and pretend that we enjoy physical culture. we dabble in many things; but the one great real idea of our age, not copied from any other, not pretended, not raised to life by any conjuration, is the much making of things,--not the making of beautiful things, not the joy of spending living energy in creative work; rather the shameless, merciless driving and over-driving, wasting and draining of the last bit of energy, only to produce heaps and heaps of things,--things ugly, things harmful, things useless, and at the best largely unnecessary. to what end are they produced? mostly the producer does not know; still less does he care. but he is possessed with the idea that he _must_ do it, every one is doing it, and every year the making of things goes on more and faster; there are mountain ranges of things made and making, and still men go about desperately seeking to increase the list of created things, to start fresh heaps and to add to the existing heaps. and with what agony of body, under what stress and strain of danger and fear of danger, with what mutilations and maimings and lamings they struggle on, dashing themselves out against these rocks of wealth! verily, if the vision of the mediæval soul is painful in its blind staring and pathetic striving, grotesque in its senseless tortures, the soul of the modern is most amazing with its restless, nervous eyes, ever searching the corners of the universe, its restless, nervous hands ever reaching and grasping for some useless toil. and certainly the presence of things in abundance, things empty and things vulgar and things absurd, as well as things convenient and useful, has produced the desire for the possession of things, the exaltation of the possession of things. go through the business street of any city, where the tilted edges of the strata of things are exposed to gaze, and look at the faces of the people as they pass,--not at the hungry and smitten ones who fringe the sidewalks and plaint dolefully for alms, but at the crowd,--and see what idea is written on their faces. on those of the women, from the ladies of the horse-shows to the shop girls out of the factory, there is a sickening vanity, a consciousness of their clothes, as of some jackdaw in borrowed feathers. look for the pride and glory of the free, strong, beautiful body, lithe-moving and powerful. you will not see it. you will see mincing steps, bodies tilted to show the cut of a skirt, simpering, smirking faces, with eyes cast about seeking admiration for the gigantic bow of ribbon in the overdressed hair. in the caustic words of an acquaintance, to whom i once said, as we walked, "look at the amount of vanity on all these women's faces," "no: look at the little bit of womanhood showing out of all that vanity!" and on the faces of the men, coarseness! coarse desires for coarse things, and lots of them: the stamp is set so unmistakably that "the wayfarer though a fool need not err therein." even the frightful anxiety and restlessness begotten of the creation of all this, is less distasteful than the abominable expression of lust for the things created. such is the dominant idea of the western world, at least in these our days. you may see it wherever you look, impressed plainly on things and on men; very likely, if you look in the glass, you will see it there. and if some archæologist of a long future shall some day unbury the bones of our civilization, where ashes or flood shall have entombed it, he will see this frightful idea stamped on the factory walls he shall uncover, with their rows and rows of square lightholes, their tons upon tons of toothed steel, grinning out of the skull of this our life; its acres of silk and velvet, its square miles of tinsel and shoddy. no glorious marbles of nymphs and fawns, whose dead images are yet so sweet that one might wish to kiss them still; no majestic figures of winged horses, with men's faces and lions' paws casting their colossal symbolism in a mighty spell forward upon time, as those old stone chimeras of babylon yet do; but meaningless iron giants, of wheels and teeth, whose secret is forgotten, but whose business was to grind men up, and spit them out as housefuls of woven stuffs, bazaars of trash, wherethrough other men might wade. the statues he shall find will bear no trace of mythic dream or mystic symbol; they will be statues of merchants and iron-masters and militiamen, in tailored coats and pantaloons and proper hats and shoes. but the dominant idea of the age and land does not necessarily mean the dominant idea of any single life. i doubt not that in those long gone days, far away by the banks of the still nile, in the abiding shadow of the pyramids, under the heavy burden of other men's stolidity, there went to and fro restless, active, rebel souls who hated all that the ancient society stood for, and with burning hearts sought to overthrow it. i am sure that in the midst of all the agile greek intellect created, there were those who went about with downbent eyes, caring nothing for it all, seeking some higher revelation, willing to abandon the joys of life, so that they drew near to some distant, unknown perfection their fellows knew not of. i am certain that in the dark ages, when most men prayed and cowered, and beat and bruised themselves, and sought afflictions, like that st. teresa who said, "let me suffer, or die," there were some, many, who looked on the world as a chance jest, who despised or pitied their ignorant comrades, and tried to compel the answers of the universe to their questionings, by the patient, quiet searching which came to be modern science. i am sure there were hundreds, thousands of them, of whom we have never heard. and now, to-day, though the society about us is dominated by thing-worship, and will stand so marked for all time, that is no reason any single soul should be. because the one thing seemingly worth doing to my neighbor, to all my neighbors, is to pursue dollars, that is no reason i should pursue dollars. because my neighbors conceive they need an inordinate heap of carpets, furniture, clocks, china, glass, tapestries, mirrors, clothes, jewels--and servants to care for them, and detectives to keep an eye on the servants, judges to try the thieves, and politicians to appoint the judges, jails to punish the culprits, and wardens to watch in the jails, and tax collectors to gather support for the wardens, and fees for the tax collectors, and strong houses to hold the fees, so that none but the guardians thereof can make off with them,--and therefore, to keep this host of parasites, need other men to work for them, and make the fees; because my neighbors want all this, is that any reason i should devote myself to such a barren folly? and bow my neck to serve to keep up the gaudy show? must we, because the middle age was dark and blind and brutal, throw away the one good thing it wrought into the fibre of man, that the inside of a human being was worth more than the outside? that to conceive a higher thing than oneself and live toward that is the only way of living worthily? the goal strived for should, and must, be a very different one from that which led the mediæval fanatics to despise the body and belabor it with hourly crucifixions. but one can recognize the claims and the importance of the body without therefore sacrificing truth, honor, simplicity, and faith, to the vulgar gauds of body-service, whose very decorations debase the thing they might be supposed to exalt. i have said before that the doctrine that men are nothing and circumstances all, has been, and is, the bane of our modern social reform movements. our youth, themselves animated by the spirit of the old teachers who believed in the supremacy of ideas, even in the very hour of throwing away that teaching, look with burning eyes to the social east, and believe that wonders of revolution are soon to be accomplished. in their enthusiasm they foreread the gospel of circumstances to mean that very soon the pressure of material development must break down the social system--they give the rotten thing but a few years to last; and then, they themselves shall witness the transformation, partake in its joys. the few years pass away and nothing happens; enthusiasm cools. behold these same idealists then, successful business men, professionals, property owners, money lenders, creeping into the social ranks they once despised, pitifully, contemptibly, at the skirts of some impecunious personage to whom they have lent money, or done some professional service gratis; behold them lying, cheating, tricking, flattering, buying and selling themselves for any frippery, any cheap little pretense. the dominant social idea has seized them, their lives are swallowed up in it; and when you ask the reason why, they tell you that circumstances compelled them so to do. if you quote their lies to them, they smile with calm complacency, assure you that when circumstances demand lies, lies are a great deal better than truth; that tricks are sometimes more effective than honest dealing; that flattering and duping do not matter, if the end to be attained is desirable; and that under existing "circumstances" life isn't possible without all this; that it is going to be possible whenever circumstances have made truth-telling easier than lying, but till then a man must look out for himself, by all means. and so the cancer goes on rotting away the moral fibre, and the man becomes a lump, a squash, a piece of slippery slime, taking all shapes and losing all shapes, according to what particular hole or corner he wishes to glide into, a disgusting embodiment of the moral bankruptcy begotten by thing-worship. had he been dominated by a less material conception of life, had his will not been rotted by the intellectual reasoning of it out of its existence, by its acceptance of its own nothingness, the unselfish aspirations of his earlier years would have grown and strengthened by exercise and habit; and his protest against the time might have been enduringly written, and to some purpose. will it be said that the pilgrim fathers did not hew, out of the new england ice and granite, the idea which gathered them together out of their scattered and obscure english villages, and drove them in their frail ships over the atlantic in midwinter, to cut their way against all opposing forces? were they not common men, subject to the operation of common law? will it be said that circumstances aided them? when death, disease, hunger, and cold had done their worst, not one of those remaining was willing by an _easy lie_ to return to material comfort and the possibility of long days. had our modern social revolutionists the vigorous and undaunted conception of their own powers that these had, our social movements would not be such pitiful abortions,--core-rotten even before the outward flecks appear. "give a labor leader a political job, and the system becomes all right," laugh our enemies; and they point mockingly to terence powderly and his like; and they quote john burns, who as soon as _he_ went into parliament declared: "the time of the agitator is past; the time of the legislator has come." "let an anarchist marry an heiress, and the country is safe," they sneer:--and they have the right to sneer. but would they have that right, could they have it, if our lives were not in the first instance dominated by more insistent desires than those we would fain have others think we hold most dear? it is the old story: "aim at the stars, and you may hit the top of the gatepost; but aim at the ground, and you will hit the ground." it is not to be supposed that any one will attain to the full realization of what he purposes, even when those purposes do not involve united action with others; he _will_ fall short; he will in some measure be overcome by contending or inert opposition. but something he will attain, if he continues to aim high. what, then, would i have? you ask. i would have men invest themselves with the dignity of an aim higher than the chase for wealth; choose a thing to do in life outside of the making of things, and keep it in mind,--not for a day, nor a year, but for a lifetime. and then keep faith with themselves! not be a light-o'-love, to-day professing this and to-morrow that, and easily reading oneself out of both whenever it becomes convenient; not advocating a thing to-day, and to-morrow kissing its enemies' sleeve, with that weak, coward cry in the mouth, "circumstances make me." take a good look into yourself, and if you love things and the power and the plenitude of things better than you love your own dignity, human dignity, oh, say so, say so! say it to yourself, and abide by it. but do not blow hot and cold in one breath. do not try to be a social reformer and a respected possessor of things at the same time. do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. _preach the wide one_, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an armchair for it. say honestly, "i love armchairs better than free men, and pursue them because i choose; not because circumstances make me. i love hats, large, large hats, with many feathers and great bows; and i would rather have those hats than trouble myself about social dreams that will never be accomplished in my day. the world worships hats, and i wish to worship with them." but if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest, then do not sell it for tinsel. think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps, the strength will grow. and the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom, will become easy. at the end of life you may close your eyes, saying: "i have not been dominated by the dominant idea of my age; i have chosen mine own allegiance, and served it. i have proved by a lifetime that there is that in man which saves him from the absolute tyranny of circumstance, which in the end conquers and remoulds circumstance,--the immortal fire of individual will, which is the salvation of the future." let us have men, men who will say a word to their souls and keep it--keep it not when it is easy, but keep it when it is hard--keep it when the storm roars and there is a white-streaked sky and blue thunder before, and one's eyes are blinded and one's ears deafened with the war of opposing things; and keep it under the long leaden sky and the gray dreariness that never lifts. hold unto the last: that is what it means to have a dominant idea, where the same idea has been worked out by a whole and unmake circumstance. anarchism there are two spirits abroad in the world,--the spirit of caution, the spirit of dare, the spirit of quiescence, the spirit of unrest; the spirit of immobility, the spirit of change; the spirit of hold-fast-to-that-which-you-have, the spirit of let-go-and-fly-to-that-which-you-have-not; the spirit of the slow and steady builder, careful of its labors, loath to part with any of its achievements, wishful to keep, and unable to discriminate between what is worth keeping and what is better cast aside, and the spirit of the inspirational destroyer, fertile in creative fancies, volatile, careless in its luxuriance of effort, inclined to cast away the good together with the bad. society is a quivering balance, eternally struck afresh, between these two. those who look upon man, as most anarchists do, as a link in the chain of evolution, see in these two social tendencies the sum of the tendencies of individual men, which in common with the tendencies of all organic life are the result of the action and counteraction of inheritance and adaptation. inheritance, continually tending to repeat what has been, long, long after it is outgrown; adaptation continually tending to break down forms. the same tendencies under other names are observed in the inorganic world as well, and anyone who is possessed by the modern scientific mania for monism can easily follow out the line to the vanishing point of human knowledge. there has been, in fact, a strong inclination to do this among a portion of the more educated anarchists, who having been working men first and anarchists by reason of their instinctive hatred to the boss, later became students and, swept away by their undigested science, immediately conceived that it was necessary to fit their anarchism to the revelations of the microscope, else the theory might as well be given up. i remember with considerable amusement a heated discussion some five or six years since, wherein doctors and embryo doctors sought for a justification of anarchism in the development of the amoeba, while a fledgling engineer searched for it in mathematical quantities. myself at one time asserted very stoutly that no one could be an anarchist and believe in god at the same time. others assert as stoutly that one cannot accept the spiritualist philosophy and be an anarchist. at present i hold with c. l. james, the most learned of american anarchists, that one's metaphysical system has very little to do with the matter. the chain of reasoning which once appeared so conclusive to me, namely, that anarchism being a denial of authority over the individual could not co-exist with a belief in a supreme ruler of the universe, is contradicted in the case of leo tolstoy, who comes to the conclusion that none has a right to rule another just because of his belief in god, just because he believes that all are equal children of one father, and therefore none has a right to rule the other. i speak of him because he is a familiar and notable personage, but there have frequently been instances where the same idea has been worked out by a whole sect of believers, especially in the earlier (and persecuted) stages of their development. it no longer seems necessary to me, therefore, that one should base his anarchism upon any particular world conception; it is a theory of the relations due to man and comes as an offered solution to the societary problems arising from the existence of these two tendencies of which i have spoken. no matter where those tendencies come from, all alike recognize them as existent; and however interesting the speculation, however fascinating to lose oneself back, back in the molecular storm-whirl wherein the figure of man is seen merely as a denser, fiercer group, a livelier storm centre, moving among others, impinging upon others, but nowhere separate, nowhere exempt from the same necessity that acts upon all other centers of force,--it is by no means necessary in order to reason oneself into anarchism. sufficient are a good observant eye and a reasonably reflecting brain, for anyone, lettered or unlettered, to recognize the desirability of anarchistic aims. this is not to say that increased knowledge will not confirm and expand one's application of this fundamental concept; (the beauty of truth is that at every new discovery of fact we find how much wider and deeper it is than we at first thought it). but it means that first of all anarchism is concerned with present conditions, and with the very plain and common people; and is by no means a complex or difficult proposition. anarchism, alone, apart from any proposed economic reform, is just the latest reply out of many the past has given, to that daring, breakaway, volatile, changeful spirit which is never content. the society of which we are part puts certain oppressions upon us,--oppressions which have arisen out of the very changes accomplished by this same spirit, combined with the hard and fast lines of old habits acquired and fixed before the changes were thought of. machinery, which as our socialistic comrades continually emphasize, has wrought a revolution in industry, is the creation of the dare spirit; it has fought its way against ancient customs, privilege, and cowardice at every step, as the history of any invention would show if traced backward through all its transformations. and what is the result of it? that a system of working, altogether appropriate to hand production and capable of generating no great oppressions while industry remained in that state, has been stretched, strained to fit production in mass, till we are reaching the bursting point; once more the spirit of dare must assert itself--claim new freedoms, since the old ones are rendered null and void by the present methods of production. to speak in detail: in the old days of master and man--not so old but what many of the older workingmen can recall the conditions, the workshop was a fairly easy-going place where employer and employed worked together, knew no class feelings, chummed it out of hours, as a rule were not obliged to rush, and when they were, relied upon the principle of common interest and friendship (not upon a slave-owner's power) for overtime assistance. the proportional profit on each man's labor may even have been in general higher, but the total amount possible to be undertaken by one employer was relatively so small that no tremendous aggregations of wealth could arise. to be an employer gave no man power over another's incomings and outgoings, neither upon his speech while at work, nor to force him beyond endurance when busy, nor to subject him to fines and tributes for undesired things, such as ice-water, dirty spittoons, cups of undrinkable tea and the like; nor to the unmentionable indecencies of the large factory. the individuality of the workman was a plainly recognized quantity: his life was his own; he could not be locked in and driven to death, like a street-car horse, for the good of the general public and the paramount importance of society. with the application of steam-power and the development of machinery, came these large groupings of workers, this subdivision of work, which has made of the employer a man apart, having interests hostile to those of his employes, living in another circle altogether, knowing nothing of them but as so many units of power, to be reckoned with as he does his machines, for the most part despising them, at his very best regarding them as dependents whom he is bound in some respects to care for, as a humane man cares for an old horse he cannot use. such is his relation to his employes; while to the general public he becomes simply an immense cuttle-fish with tentacles reaching everywhere,--each tiny profit-sucking mouth producing no great effect, but in aggregate drawing up such a body of wealth as makes any declaration of equality or freedom between him and the worker a thing to laugh at. the time is come therefore when the spirit of dare calls loud through every factory and workshop for a change in the relations of master and man. there must be some arrangement possible which will preserve the benefits of the new production and at the same time restore the individual dignity of the worker,--give back the bold independence of the old master of his trade, together with such added freedoms as may properly accrue to him as his special advantage from society's material developments. this is the particular message of anarchism to the worker. it is not an economic system; it does not come to you with detailed plans of how you, the workers, are to conduct industry; nor systemized methods of exchange; nor careful paper organizations of "the administration of things." it simply calls upon the spirit of individuality to rise up from its abasement, and hold itself paramount in no matter what economic reorganization shall come about. be men first of all, not held in slavery by the things you make; let your gospel be, "things for men, not men for things." socialism, economically considered, is a positive proposition for such reorganization. it is an attempt, in the main, to grasp at those great new material gains which have been the special creation of the last forty or fifty years. it has not so much in view the reclamation and further assertion of the personality of the worker as it has a just distribution of products. now it is perfectly apparent that anarchy, having to do almost entirely with the relations of men in their thoughts and feelings, and not with the positive organization of production and distribution, an anarchist needs to supplement his anarchism by some economic propositions, which may enable him to put in practical shape to himself and others this possibility of independent manhood. that will be his test in choosing any such proposition,--the measure in which individuality is secured. it is not enough for him that a comfortable ease, a pleasant and well-ordered routine, shall be secured; free play for the spirit of change--that is his first demand. every anarchist has this in common with every other anarchist, that the economic system must be subservient to this end; no system recommends itself to him by the mere beauty and smoothness of its working; jealous of the encroachments of the machine, he looks with fierce suspicion upon an arithmetic with men for units, a society running in slots and grooves, with the precision so beautiful to one in whom the love of order is first, but which only makes him sniff--"pfaugh! it smells of machine oil." there are, accordingly, several economic schools among anarchists; there are anarchist individualists, anarchist mutualists, anarchist communists and anarchist socialists. in times past these several schools have bitterly denounced each other and mutually refused to recognize each other as anarchists at all. the more narrow-minded on both sides still do so; true, they do not consider it is narrow-mindedness, but simply a firm and solid grasp of the truth, which does not permit of tolerance towards error. this has been the attitude of the bigot in all ages, and anarchism no more than any other new doctrine has escaped its bigots. each of these fanatical adherents of either collectivism or individualism believes that no anarchism is possible without that particular economic system as its guarantee, and is of course thoroughly justified from his own standpoint. with the extension of what comrade brown calls the new spirit, however, this old narrowness is yielding to the broader, kindlier and far more reasonable idea, that all these economic conceptions may be experimented with, and there is nothing un-anarchistic about any of them until the element of compulsion enters and obliges unwilling persons to remain in a community whose economic arrangements they do not agree to. (when i say "do not agree to" i do not mean that they have a mere distaste for, or that they think might well be altered for some other preferable arrangement, but with which, nevertheless, they quite easily put up, as two persons each living in the same house and having different tastes in decoration, will submit to some color of window shade or bit of bric-a-brac which he does not like so well, but which nevertheless, he cheerfully puts up with for the satisfaction of being with his friend. i mean serious differences which in their opinion threaten their essential liberties. i make this explanation about trifles, because the objections which are raised to the doctrine that men may live in society freely, almost always degenerate into trivialities,--such as, "what would you do if two ladies wanted the same hat?" etc. we do not advocate the abolition of common sense, and every person of sense is willing to surrender his preferences at times, provided he is not _compelled_ to at all costs.) therefore i say that each group of persons acting socially in freedom may choose any of the proposed systems, and be just as thorough-going anarchists as those who select another. if this standpoint be accepted, we are rid of those outrageous excommunications which belong properly to the church of rome, and which serve no purpose but to bring us into deserved contempt with outsiders. furthermore, having accepted it from a purely theoretical process of reasoning, i believe one is then in an attitude of mind to perceive certain material factors in the problem which account for these differences in proposed systems, and which even demand such differences, so long as production is in its present state. i shall now dwell briefly upon these various propositions, and explain, as i go along, what the material factors are to which i have just alluded. taking the last first, namely, anarchist socialism,--its economic program is the same as that of political socialism, in its entirety;--i mean before the working of practical politics has frittered the socialism away into a mere list of governmental ameliorations. such anarchist socialists hold that the state, the centralized government, has been and ever will be the business agent of the property-owning class; that it is an expression of a certain material condition purely, and with the passing of that condition the state must also pass; that socialism, meaning the complete taking over of all forms of property from the hands of men as the indivisible possession of man, brings with it as a logical, inevitable result the dissolution of the state. they believe that every individual having an equal claim upon the social production, the incentive to grabbing and holding being gone, crimes (which are in nearly all cases the instinctive answer to some antecedent denial of that claim to one's share) will vanish, and with them the last excuse for the existence of the state. they do not, as a rule, look forward to any such transformations in the material aspect of society, as some of the rest of us do. a londoner once said to me that he believed london would keep on growing, the flux and reflux of nations keep on pouring through its serpentine streets, its hundred thousand 'buses keep on jaunting just the same, and all that tremendous traffic which fascinates and horrifies continue rolling like a great flood up and down, up and down, like the sea-sweep,--after the realization of anarchism, as it does now. that londoner's name was john turner; he said, on the same occasion, that he believed thoroughly in the economics of socialism. now this branch of the anarchist party came out of the old socialist party, and originally represented the revolutionary wing of that party, as opposed to those who took up the notion of using politics. and i believe the material reason which accounts for their acceptance of that particular economic scheme is this (of course it applies to all european socialists) that the social development of europe is a thing of long-continued history; that almost from time immemorial there has been a recognized class struggle; that no workman living, nor yet his father, nor his grandfather, nor his great-grandfather has seen the land of europe pass in vast blocks from an unclaimed public inheritance into the hands of an ordinary individual like himself, without a title or any distinguishing mark above himself, as we in america have seen. the land and the land-holder have been to him always unapproachable quantities,--a recognized source of oppression, class, and class-possession. again, the industrial development in town and city--coming as a means of escape from feudal oppression, but again bringing with it its own oppressions, also with a long history of warfare behind it, has served to bind the sense of class fealty upon the common people of the manufacturing towns; so that blind, stupid, and church-ridden as they no doubt are, there is a vague, dull, but very certainly existing feeling that they must look for help in association together, and regard with suspicion or indifference any proposition which proposes to help them by helping their employers. moreover, socialism has been an ever recurring dream through the long story of revolt in europe; anarchists, like others, are born into it. it is not until they pass over seas, and come in contact with other conditions, breathe the atmosphere of other thoughts, that they are able to see other possibilities as well. if i may venture, at this point, a criticism of this position of the anarchist socialist, i would say that the great flaw in this conception of the state is in supposing it to be of _simple_ origin; the state is not merely the tool of the governing classes; it has its root far down in the religious development of human nature; and will not fall apart merely through the abolition of classes and property. there is other work to be done. as to the economic program, i shall criticise that, together with all the other propositions, when i sum up. anarchist communism is a modification, rather an evolution, of anarchist socialism. most anarchist communists, i believe, do look forward to great changes in the distribution of people upon the earth's surface through the realization of anarchism. most of them agree that the opening up of the land together with the free use of tools would lead to a breaking up of these vast communities called cities, and the formation of smaller groups or communes which shall be held together by a free recognition of common interests only. while socialism looks forward to a further extension of the modern triumph of commerce--which is that it has brought the products of the entire earth to your door-step--free communism looks upon such a fever of exportation and importation as an unhealthy development, and expects rather a more self-reliant development of home resources, doing away with the mass of supervision required for the systematic conduct of such world exchange. it appeals to the plain sense of the workers, by proposing that they who now consider themselves helpless dependents upon the boss's ability to give them a job, shall constitute themselves independent producing groups, take the materials, do the work (they do that now), deposit the products in the warehouses, taking what they want for themselves, and letting others take the balance. to do this no government, no employer, no money system is necessary. there is only necessary a decent regard for one's own and one's fellow-worker's self-hood. it is not likely, indeed it is devoutly to be hoped, that no such large aggregations of men as now assemble daily in mills and factories, will ever come together by mutual desire. (a factory is a hot-bed for all that is vicious in human nature, and largely because of its crowding only.) the notion that men cannot work together unless they have a driving-master to take a percentage of their product, is contrary both to good sense and observed fact. as a rule bosses simply make confusion worse confounded when they attempt to mix in a workman's snarls, as every mechanic has had practical demonstration of; and as to social effort, why men worked in common while they were monkeys yet; if you don't believe it, go and watch the monkeys. they don't surrender their individual freedom, either. in short, the real workmen will make their own regulations, decide when and where and how things shall be done. it is not necessary that the projector of an anarchist communist society shall say in what manner separate industries shall be conducted, nor do they presume to. he simply conjures the spirit of dare and do in the plainest workmen--says to them: "it is you who know how to mine, how to dig, how to cut; you will know how to organize your work without a dictator; we cannot tell you, but we have full faith that you will find the way yourselves. you will never be free men until you acquire that same self-faith." as to the problem of the exact exchange of equivalents which so frets the reformers of other schools, to him it does not exist. so there is enough, who cares? the sources of wealth remain indivisible forever; who cares if one has a little more or less, so all have enough? who cares if something goes to waste? let it waste. the rotted apple fertilizes the ground as well as if it had comforted the animal economy first. and, indeed, you who worry so much about system and order and adjustment of production to consumption, you waste more human energy in making your account than the precious calculation is worth. hence money with all its retinue of complications and trickeries is abolished. small, independent, self-resourceful, freely cooperating communes--this is the economic ideal which is accepted by most of the anarchists of the old world to-day. as to the material factor which developed this ideal among europeans, it is the recollection and even some still remaining vestiges of the mediæval village commune--those oases in the great sahara of human degradation presented in the history of the middle ages, when the catholic church stood triumphant upon man in the dust. such is the ideal glamored with the dead gold of a sun which has set, which gleams through the pages of morris and kropotkin. we in america never knew the village commune. white civilization struck our shores in a broad tide-sheet and swept over the country inclusively; among us was never seen the little commune growing up from a state of barbarism independently, out of primary industries, and maintaining itself within itself. there was no gradual change from the mode of life of the native people to our own; there was a wiping out and a complete transplantation of the latest form of european civilization. the idea of the little commune, therefore, comes instinctively to the anarchists of europe,--particularly the continental ones; with them it is merely the conscious development of a submerged instinct. with americans it is an importation. i believe that most anarchist communists avoid the blunder of the socialists in regarding the state as the offspring of material conditions purely, though they lay great stress upon its being the tool of property, and contend that in one form or another the state will exist so long as there is property at all. i pass to the extreme individualists,--those who hold to the tradition of political economy, and are firm in the idea that the system of employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other essential institutions of commercialism, centering upon private property, are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious merely by the interference of the state. their chief economic propositions are: land to be held by individuals or companies for such time and in such allotments as they use only; redistribution to take place as often as the members of the community shall agree; what constitutes use to be decided by each community, presumably in town meeting assembled; disputed cases to be settled by a so-called free jury to be chosen by lot out of the entire group; members not coinciding in the decisions of the group to betake themselves to outlying lands not occupied, without let or hindrance from any one. money to represent all staple commodities, to be issued by whomsoever pleases; naturally, it would come to individuals depositing their securities with banks and accepting bank notes in return; such bank notes representing the labor expended in production and being issued in sufficient quantity, (there being no limit upon any one's starting in the business, whenever interest began to rise more banks would be organized, and thus the rate per cent would be constantly checked by competition), exchange would take place freely, commodities would circulate, business of all kinds would be stimulated, and, the government privilege being taken away from inventions, industries would spring up at every turn, bosses would be hunting men rather than men bosses, wages would rise to the full measure of the individual production, and forever remain there. property, real property, would at last exist, which it does not at the present day, because no man gets what he makes. the charm in this program is that it proposes no sweeping changes in our daily retinue; it does not bewilder us as more revolutionary propositions do. its remedies are self-acting ones; they do not depend upon conscious efforts of individuals to establish justice and build harmony; competition in freedom is the great automatic valve which opens or closes as demands increase or diminish, and all that is necessary is to let well enough alone and not attempt to assist it. it is sure that nine americans in ten who have never heard of any of these programs before, will listen with far more interest and approval to this than to the others. the material reason which explains this attitude of mind is very evident. in this country outside of the negro question we have never had the historic division of classes; we are just making that history now; we have never felt the need of the associative spirit of workman with workman, because in our society it has been the individual that did things; the workman of to-day was the employer to-morrow; vast opportunities lying open to him in the undeveloped territory, he shouldered his tools and struck out single-handed for himself. even now, fiercer and fiercer though the struggle is growing, tighter and tighter though the workman is getting cornered, the line of division between class and class is constantly being broken, and the first motto of the american is "the lord helps him who helps himself." consequently this economic program, whose key-note is "let alone", appeals strongly to the traditional sympathies and life habits of a people who have themselves seen an almost unbounded patrimony swept up, as a gambler sweeps his stakes, by men who played with them at school or worked with them in one shop a year or ten years before. this particular branch of the anarchist party does not accept the communist position that government arises from property; on the contrary, they hold government responsible for the denial of real property (viz.: to the producer the exclusive possession of what he has produced). they lay more stress upon its metaphysical origin in the authority-creating fear in human nature. their attack is directed centrally upon the idea of authority; thus the material wrongs seem to flow from the spiritual error (if i may venture the word without fear of misconstruction), which is precisely the reverse of the socialistic view. truth lies not "_between_ the two," but in a synthesis of the two opinions. anarchist mutualism is a modification of the program of individualism, laying more emphasis upon organization, co-operation and free federation of the workers. to these the trade union is the nucleus of the free co-operative group, which will obviate the necessity of an employer, issue time-checks to its members, take charge of the finished product, exchange with different trade groups for their mutual advantage through the central federation, enable its members to utilize their credit, and likewise insure them against loss. the mutualist position on the land question is identical with that of the individualists, as well as their understanding of the state. the material factor which accounts for such differences as there are between individualists and mutualists, is, i think, the fact that the first originated in the brains of those who, whether workmen or business men, lived by so-called independent exertion. josiah warren, though a poor man, lived in an individualist way and made his free-life social experiment in small country settlements, far removed from the great organized industries. tucker also, though a city man, has never had personal association with such industries. they had never known directly the oppressions of the large factory, nor mingled with workers' associations. the mutualists had; consequently their leaning towards a greater communism. dyer d. lum spent the greater part of his life in building up workmen's unions, himself being a hand worker, a book-binder by trade. i have now presented the rough skeleton of four different economic schemes entertained by anarchists. remember that the point of agreement in all is: _no compulsion_. those who favor one method have no intention of forcing it upon those who favor another, so long as equal tolerance is exercised toward themselves. remember, also, that none of these schemes is proposed for its own sake, but because through it, its projectors believe, liberty may be best secured. every anarchist, as an anarchist, would be perfectly willing to surrender his own scheme directly, if he saw that another worked better. for myself, i believe that all these and many more could be advantageously tried in different localities; i would see the instincts and habits of the people express themselves in a free choice in every community; and i am sure that distinct environments would call out distinct adaptations. personally, while i recognize that liberty would be greatly extended under any of these economies, i frankly confess that none of them satisfies me. socialism and communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal anarchism; individualism and mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notions of freedom. my ideal would be a condition in which all natural resources would be forever free to all, and the worker individually able to produce for himself sufficient for all his vital needs, if he so chose, so that he need not govern his working or not working by the times and seasons of his fellows. i think that time may come; but it will only be through the development of the modes of production and the taste of the people. meanwhile we all cry with one voice for the freedom _to try_. are these all the aims of anarchism? they are just the beginning. they are an outline of what is demanded for the material producer. if as a worker, you think no further than how to free yourself from the horrible bondage of capitalism, then that is the measure of anarchism for you. but you yourself put the limit there, if there it is put. immeasurably deeper, immeasurably higher, dips and soars the soul which has come out of its casement of custom and cowardice, and dared to claim its self. ah, once to stand unflinchingly on the brink of that dark gulf of passions and desires, once at last to send a bold, straight-driven gaze down into the volcanic me, once, and in that once, and in that once _forever_, to throw off the command to cover and flee from the knowledge of that abyss,--nay, to dare it to hiss and seethe if it will, and make us writhe and shiver with its force! once and forever to realize that one is not a bundle of well-regulated little reasons bound up in the front room of the brain to be sermonized and held in order with copy-book maxims or moved and stopped by a syllogism, but a bottomless, bottomless depth of all strange sensations, a rocking sea of feeling wherever sweep strong storms of unaccountable hate and rage, invisible contortions of disappointment, low ebbs of meanness, quakings and shudderings of love that drives to madness and will not be controlled, hungerings and moanings and sobbing that smite upon the inner ear, now first bent to listen, as if all the sadness of the sea and the wailing of the great pine forests of the north had met to weep together there in that silence audible to you alone. to look down into that, to know the blackness, the midnight, the dead ages in oneself, to feel the jungle and the beast within,--and the swamp and the slime, and the desolate desert of the heart's despair--to see, to know, to feel to the uttermost,--and then to look at one's fellow, sitting across from one in the street-car, so decorous, so well got up, so nicely combed and brushed and oiled and to wonder what lies beneath that commonplace exterior,--to picture the cavern in him which somewhere far below has a narrow gallery running into your own--to imagine the pain that racks him to the finger-tips perhaps while he wears that placid ironed-shirt-front countenance--to conceive how he too shudders at himself and writhes and flees from the lava of his heart and aches in his prison-house not daring to see himself--to draw back respectfully from the self-gate of the plainest, most unpromising creature, even from the most debased criminal, because one knows the nonentity and the criminal in oneself--to spare all condemnation (how much more trial and sentence) because one knows the stuff of which man is made and recoils at nothing since all is in himself,--this is what anarchism may mean to you. it means that to me. and then, to turn cloudward, starward, skyward, and let the dreams rush over one--no longer awed by outside powers of any order--recognizing nothing superior to oneself--painting, painting endless pictures, creating unheard symphonies that sing dream sounds to you alone, extending sympathies to the dumb brutes as equal brothers, kissing the flowers as one did when a child, letting oneself go free, go free beyond the bounds of what _fear_ and _custom_ call the "possible,"--this too anarchism may mean to you, if you dare to apply it so. and if you do some day,--if sitting at your work-bench, you see a vision of surpassing glory, some picture of that golden time when there shall be no prisons on the earth, nor hunger, nor houselessness, nor accusation, nor judgment, and hearts open as printed leaves, and candid as fearlessness, if then you look across at your low-browed neighbor, who sweats and smells and curses at his toil,--remember that as you do not know his depth neither do you know his height. he too might dream if the yoke of custom and law and dogma were broken from him. even now you know not what blind, bound, motionless chrysalis is working there to prepare its winged thing. anarchism means freedom to the soul as to the body,--in every aspiration, every growth. a few words as to the methods. in times past anarchists have excluded each other on these grounds also; revolutionists contemptuously said "quaker" of peace men; "savage communists" anathematized the quakers in return. this too is passing. i say this: all methods are to the individual capacity and decision. there is tolstoy,--christian, non-resistant, artist. his method is to paint pictures of society as it is, to show the brutality of force and the uselessness of it; to preach the end of government through the repudiation of all military force. good! i accept it in its entirety. it fits his character, it fits his ability. let us be glad that he works so. there is john most--old, work-worn, with the weight of prison years upon him,--yet fiercer, fiercer, bitterer in his denunciations of the ruling class than would require the energy of a dozen younger men to utter--going down the last hills of life, rousing the consciousness of wrong among his fellows as he goes. good! that consciousness must be awakened. long may that fiery tongue yet speak. there is benjamin tucker--cool, self-contained, critical,--sending his fine hard shafts among foes and friends with icy impartiality, hitting swift and cutting keen,--and ever ready to nail a traitor. holding to passive resistance as most effective, ready to change it whenever he deems it wise. that suits him; in his field he is alone, invaluable. and there is peter kropotkin appealing to the young, and looking with sweet, warm, eager eyes into every colonizing effort, and hailing with a child's enthusiasm the uprisings of the workers, and believing in revolution with his whole soul. him too we thank. and there is george brown preaching peaceable expropriation through the federated unions of the workers; and this is good. it is his best place; he is at home there; he can accomplish most in his own chosen field. and over there in his coffin cell in italy, lies the man whose method was to kill a king, and shock the nations into a sudden consciousness of the hollowness of their law and order. him too, him and his act, without reserve i accept, and bend in silent acknowledgement of the strength of the man. for there are some whose nature it is to think and plead, and yield and yet return to the address, and so make headway in the minds of their fellowmen; and there are others who are stern and still, resolute, implacable as judah's dream of god;--and those men strike--strike once and have ended. but the blow resounds across the world. and as on a night when the sky is heavy with storm, some sudden great white flare sheets across it, and every object starts sharply out, so in the flash of bresci's pistol shot the whole world for a moment saw the tragic figure of the italian people, starved, stunted, crippled, huddled, degraded, murdered; and at the same moment that their teeth chattered with fear, they came and asked the anarchists to explain themselves. and hundreds of thousands of people read more in those few days than they had ever read of the idea before. ask a method? do you ask spring her method? which is more necessary, the sunshine or the rain? they are contradictory--yes; they destroy each other--yes, but from this destruction the flowers result. each choose that method which expresses your self-hood best, and condemn no other man because he expresses his self otherwise. anarchism and american traditions american traditions, begotten of religious rebellion, small self-sustaining communities, isolated conditions, and hard pioneer life, grew during the colonization period of one hundred and seventy years from the settling of jamestown to the outburst of the revolution. this was in fact the great constitution-making epoch, the period of charters guaranteeing more or less of liberty, the general tendency of which is well described by wm. penn in speaking of the charter for pennsylvania: "i want to put it out of my power, or that of my successors, to do mischief." the revolution is the sudden and unified consciousness of these traditions, their loud assertion, the blow dealt by their indomitable will against the counter force of tyranny, which has never entirely recovered from the blow, but which from then till now has gone on remolding and regrappling the instruments of governmental power, that the revolution sought to shape and hold as defenses of liberty. to the average american of to-day, the revolution means the series of battles fought by the patriot army with the armies of england. the millions of school children who attend our public schools are taught to draw maps of the siege of boston and the siege of yorktown, to know the general plan of the several campaigns, to quote the number of prisoners of war surrendered with burgoyne; they are required to remember the date when washington crossed the delaware on the ice; they are told to "remember paoli," to repeat "molly stark's a widow," to call general wayne "mad anthony wayne," and to execrate benedict arnold; they know that the declaration of independence was signed on the fourth of july, , and the treaty of paris in ; and then they think they have learned the revolution--blessed be george washington! they have no idea why it should have been called a "revolution" instead of the "english war," or any similar title: it's the name of it, that's all. and name-worship, both in child and man, has acquired such mastery of them, that the name "american revolution" is held sacred, though it means to them nothing more than successful force, while the name "revolution" applied to a further possibility, is a spectre detested and abhorred. in neither case have they any idea of the content of the word, save that of armed force. that has already happened, and long happened, which jefferson foresaw when he wrote: "the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. a single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. it can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. _from the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill._ it will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. they will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. they will forget themselves in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. the shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will be heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion." to the men of that time, who voiced the spirit of that time, the battles that they fought were the least of the revolution; they were the incidents of the hour, the things they met and faced as part of the game they were playing; but the stake they had in view, before, during, and after the war, the real revolution, was a change in political institutions which should make of government not a thing apart, a superior power to stand over the people with a whip, but a serviceable agent, responsible, economical, and trustworthy (but never so much trusted as not to be continually watched), for the transaction of such business as was the common concern, and to set the limits of the common concern at the line where one man's liberty would encroach upon another's. they thus took their starting point for deriving a minimum of government upon the same sociological ground that the modern anarchist derives the no-government theory; viz., that equal liberty is the political ideal. the difference lies in the belief, on the one hand, that the closest approximation to equal liberty might be best secured by the rule of the majority in those matters involving united action of any kind (which rule of the majority they thought it possible to secure by a few simple arrangements for election), and, on the other hand, the belief that majority rule is both impossible and undesirable; that any government, no matter what its forms, will be manipulated by a very small minority, as the development of the state and united states governments has strikingly proved; that candidates will loudly profess allegiance to platforms before elections, which as officials in power they will openly disregard, to do as they please; and that even if the majority will could be imposed, it would also be subversive of equal liberty, which may be best secured by leaving to the voluntary association of those interested in the management of matters of common concern, without coercion of the uninterested or the opposed. among the fundamental likenesses between the revolutionary republicans and the anarchists is the recognition that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former, and a local tyranny may thus become an instrument for general enslavement. convinced of the supreme importance of ridding the municipalities of the institutions of tyranny, the most strenuous advocates of independence, instead of spending their efforts mainly in the general congress, devoted themselves to their home localities, endeavoring to work out of the minds of their neighbors and fellow-colonists the institutions of entailed property, of a state-church, of a class-divided people, even the institution of african slavery itself. though largely unsuccessful, it is to the measure of success they did achieve that we are indebted for such liberties as we do retain, and not to the general government. they tried to inculcate local initiative and independent action. the author of the declaration of independence, who in the fall of ' declined a re-election to congress in order to return to virginia and do his work in his own local assembly, in arranging there for public education which he justly considered a matter of "common concern," said his advocacy of public schools was not with any "view to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages _so much better_ the concerns to which it is equal"; and in endeavoring to make clear the restrictions of the constitution upon the functions of the general government, he likewise said: "let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, _which the merchants will manage the better the more they are left free to manage for themselves_, and the general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants." this then was the american tradition, that private enterprise manages better all that to which it is equal. anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or co-operative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. and it quotes the particular two instances, education and commerce, which the governments of the states and of the united states have undertaken to manage and regulate, as the very two which in operation have done more to destroy american freedom and equality, to warp and distort american tradition, to make of government a mighty engine of tyranny, than any other cause, save the unforeseen developments of manufacture. it was the intention of the revolutionists to establish a system of common education, which should make the teaching of history one of its principal branches; not with the intent of burdening the memories of our youth with the dates of battles or the speeches of generals, nor to make of the boston tea party indians the one sacrosanct mob in all history, to be revered but never on any account to be imitated, but with the intent that every american should know to what conditions the masses of people had been brought by the operation of certain institutions, by what means they had wrung out their liberties, and how those liberties had again and again been filched from them by the use of governmental force, fraud, and privilege. not to breed security, laudation, complacent indolence, passive acquiescence in the acts of a government protected by the label "home-made," but to beget a wakeful jealousy, a never-ending watchfulness of rulers, a determination to squelch every attempt of those entrusted with power to encroach upon the sphere of individual action--this was the prime motive of the revolutionists in endeavoring to provide for common education. "confidence," said the revolutionists who adopted the kentucky resolutions, "is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, not in confidence; it is jealousy, not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; our constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go. * * * in questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution." these resolutions were especially applied to the passage of the alien laws by the monarchist party during john adams' administration, and were an indignant call from the state of kentucky to repudiate the right of the general government to assume undelegated powers, for, said they, to accept these laws would be "to be bound by laws made, not with our consent, but by others against our consent--that is, to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority." resolutions identical in spirit were also passed by virginia, the following month; in those days the states still considered themselves supreme, the general government subordinate. to inculcate this proud spirit of the supremacy of the people over their governors was to be the purpose of public education! pick up to-day any common school history, and see how much of this spirit you will find therein. on the contrary, from cover to cover you will find nothing but the cheapest sort of patriotism, the inculcation of the most unquestioning acquiescence in the deeds of government, a lullaby of rest, security, confidence,--the doctrine that the law can do no wrong, a te deum in praise of the continuous encroachments of the powers of the general government upon the reserved rights of the states, shameless falsification of all acts of rebellion, to put the government in the right and the rebels in the wrong, pyrotechnic glorifications of union, power, and force, and a complete ignoring of the essential liberties to maintain which was the purpose of the revolutionists. the anti-anarchist law of post-mckinley passage, a much worse law than the alien and sedition acts which roused the wrath of kentucky and virginia to the point of threatened rebellion, is exalted as a wise provision of our all-seeing father in washington. such is the spirit of government-provided schools. ask any child what he knows about shays's rebellion, and he will answer, "oh, some of the farmers couldn't pay their taxes, and shays led a rebellion against the court-house at worcester, so they could burn up the deeds; and when washington heard of it he sent over an army quick and taught 'em a good lesson"--"and what was the result of it?" "the result? why--why--the result was--oh yes, i remember--the result was they saw the need of a strong federal government to collect the taxes and pay the debts." ask if he knows what was said on the other side of the story, ask if he knows that the men who had given their goods and their health and their strength for the freeing of the country now found themselves cast into prison for debt, sick, disabled, and poor, facing a new tyranny for the old; that their demand was that the land should become the free communal possession of those who wished to work it, not subject to tribute, and the child will answer "no." ask him if he ever read jefferson's letter to madison about it, in which he says: "societies exist under three forms, sufficiently distinguishable. . without government, as among our indians. . under government wherein the will of every one has a just influence; as is the case in england in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. . under government of force, as is the case in all other monarchies, and in most of the other republics. to have an idea of the curse of existence in these last, they must be seen. it is a government of wolves over sheep. it is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best. but i believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. the second state has a great deal of good in it.... it has its evils, too, the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject.... but even this evil is productive of good. it prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to public affairs. i hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing." or to another correspondent: "god forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion!... what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take up arms.... the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. it is its natural manure." ask any school child if he was ever taught that the author of the declaration of independence, one of the great founders of the common school, said these things, and he will look at you with open mouth and unbelieving eyes. ask him if he ever heard that the man who sounded the bugle note in the darkest hour of the crisis, who roused the courage of the soldiers when washington saw only mutiny and despair ahead, ask him if he knows that this man also wrote, "government at best is a necessary evil, at worst an intolerable one," and if he is a little better informed than the average he will answer, "oh well, _he_ was an infidel!" catechize him about the merits of the constitution which he has learned to repeat like a poll-parrot, and you will find his chief conception is not of the powers withheld from congress, but of the powers granted. such are the fruits of government schools. we, the anarchists, point to them and say: if the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty taught, let them never intrust that instruction to any government; for the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat. as the fathers said of the governments of europe, so say we of this government also after a century and a quarter of independence: "the blood of the people has become its inheritance, and those who fatten on it will not relinquish it easily." public education, having to do with the intellect and spirit of a people, is probably the most subtle and far-reaching engine for molding the course of a nation; but commerce, dealing as it does with material things and producing immediate effects, was the force that bore down soonest upon the paper barriers of constitutional restriction, and shaped the government to its requirements. here, indeed, we arrive at the point where we, looking over the hundred and twenty-five years of independence, can see that the simple government conceived by the revolutionary republicans was a foredoomed failure. it was so because of ( ) the essence of government itself; ( ) the essence of human nature; ( ) the essence of commerce and manufacture. of the essence of government, i have already said, it is a thing apart, developing its own interests at the expense of what opposes it; all attempts to make it anything else fail. in this anarchists agree with the traditional enemies of the revolution, the monarchists, federalists, strong government believers, the roosevelts of to-day, the jays, marshalls, and hamiltons of then,--that hamilton, who, as secretary of the treasury, devised a financial system of which we are the unlucky heritors, and whose objects were twofold: to puzzle the people and make public finance obscure to those that paid for it; to serve as a machine for corrupting the legislatures; "for he avowed the opinion that man could be governed by two motives only, force or interest;" force being then out of the question, he laid hold of interest, the greed of the legislators, to set going an association of persons having an entirely separate welfare from the welfare of their electors, bound together by mutual corruption and mutual desire for plunder. the anarchist agrees that hamilton was logical, and understood the core of government; the difference is, that while strong governmentalists believe this is necessary and desirable, we choose the opposite conclusion, no government whatever. as to the essence of human nature, what our national experience has made plain is this, that to remain in a continually exalted moral condition is not human nature. that has happened which was prophesied: we have gone down hill from the revolution until now; we are absorbed in "mere money-getting." the desire for material ease long ago vanquished the spirit of ' . what was that spirit? the spirit that animated the people of virginia, of the carolinas, of massachusetts, of new york, when they refused to import goods from england; when they preferred (and stood by it) to wear coarse homespun cloth, to drink the brew of their own growths, to fit their appetites to the home supply, rather than submit to the taxation of the imperial ministry. even within the lifetime of the revolutionists the spirit decayed. the love of material ease has been, in the mass of men and permanently speaking, always greater than the love of liberty. nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand are more interested in the cut of a dress than in the independence of their sex; nine hundred and nine-nine men out of a thousand are more interested in drinking a glass of beer than in questioning the tax that is laid on it; how many children are not willing to trade the liberty to play for the promise of a new cap or a new dress? this it is which begets the complicated mechanism of society; this it is which, by multiplying the concerns of government, multiplies the strength of government and the corresponding weakness of the people; this it is which begets indifference to public concern, thus making the corruption of government easy. as to the essence of commerce and manufacture, it is this: to establish bonds between every corner of the earth's surface and every other corner, to multiply the needs of mankind, and the desire for material possession and enjoyment. the american tradition was the isolation of the states as far as possible. said they: we have won our liberties by hard sacrifice and struggle unto death. we wish now to be let alone and to let others alone, that our principles may have time for trial; that we may become accustomed to the exercise of our rights; that we may be kept free from the contaminating influence of european gauds, pagents, distinctions. so richly did they esteem the absence of these that they could in all fervor write: "we shall see multiplied instances of europeans coming to america, but no man living will ever see an instance of an american removing to settle in europe, and continuing there." alas! in less than a hundred years the highest aim of a "daughter of the revolution" was, and is, to buy a castle, a title, and a rotten lord, with the money wrung from american servitude! and the commercial interests of america are seeking a world-empire! in the earlier days of the revolt and subsequent independence, it appeared that the "manifest destiny" of america was to be an agricultural people, exchanging food stuffs and raw materials for manufactured articles. and in those days it was written: "we shall be virtuous as long as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case as long as there remain vacant lands in any part of america. when we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in europe, we shall become corrupt as in europe, and go to eating one another as they do there." which we are doing, because of the inevitable development of commerce and manufacture, and the concomitant development of strong government. and the parallel prophecy is likewise fulfilled: "if ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface." there is not upon the face of the earth to-day a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the united states of america. there are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal. and yet even in the very days of the prophets, even with their own consent, the first concession to this later tyranny was made. it was made when the constitution was made; and the constitution was made chiefly because of the demands of commerce. thus it was at the outset a merchant's machine, which the other interests of the country, the land and labor interests, even then foreboded would destroy their liberties. in vain their jealousy of its central power made them enact the first twelve amendments. in vain they endeavored to set bounds over which the federal power dare not trench. in vain they enacted into general law the freedom of speech, of the press, of assemblage and petition. all of these things we see ridden rough-shod upon every day, and have so seen with more or less intermission since the beginning of the nineteenth century. at this day, every police lieutenant considers himself, and rightly so, as more powerful than the general law of the union; and that one who told robert hunter that he held in his fist something stronger than the constitution, was perfectly correct. the right of assemblage is an american tradition which has gone out of fashion; the police club is now the mode. and it is so in virtue of the people's indifference to liberty, and the steady progress of constitutional interpretation towards the substance of imperial government. it is an american tradition that a standing army is a standing menace to liberty; in jefferson's presidency the army was reduced to , men. it is american tradition that we keep out of the affairs of other nations. it is american practice that we meddle with the affairs of everybody else from the west to the east indies, from russia to japan; and to do it we have a standing army of , men. it is american tradition that the financial affairs of a nation should be transacted on the same principles of simple honesty that an individual conducts his own business; viz., that debt is a bad thing, and a man's first surplus earnings should be applied to his debts; that offices and office-holders should be few. it is american practice that the general government should always have millions of debt, even if a panic or a war has to be forced to prevent its being paid off; and as to the application of its income, office-holders come first. and within the last administration it is reported that , offices have been created at an annual expense of $ , , . shades of jefferson! "how are vacancies to be obtained? those by deaths are few; by resignation none." roosevelt cuts the knot by making , new ones! and few will die,--and none resign. they will beget sons and daughters, and taft will have to create , more! verily, a simple and a serviceable thing is our general government. it is american tradition that the judiciary shall act as a check upon the impetuosity of legislatures, should these attempt to pass the bounds of constitutional limitation. it is american practice that the judiciary justifies every law which trenches on the liberties of the people and nullifies every act of the legislature by which the people seek to regain some measure of their freedom. again, in the words of jefferson: "the constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape in any form they please." truly, if the men who fought the good fight for the triumph of simple, honest, free life in that day, were now to look upon the scene of their labors, they would cry out together with him who said: "i regret that i am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of ' to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that i shall not live to see it." and now, what has anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? we say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. they thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be "a necessary evil", and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck. anarchism says, 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. the problem then becomes, is it possible to stir men from their indifference? we have said that the spirit of liberty was nurtured by colonial life; that the elements of colonial life were the desire for sectarian independence, and the jealous watchfulness incident thereto; the isolation of pioneer communities which threw each individual strongly on his own resources, and thus developed all-around men, yet at the same time made very strong such social bonds as did exist; and, lastly, the comparative simplicity of small communities. all this has mostly disappeared. as to sectarianism, it is only by dint of an occasional idiotic persecution that a sect becomes interesting; in the absence of this, outlandish sects play the fool's role, are anything but heroic, and have little to do with either the name or the substance of liberty. the old colonial religious parties have gradually become the "pillars of society," their animosities have died out, their offensive peculiarities have been effaced, they are as like one another as beans in a pod, they build churches and--sleep in them. as to our communities, they are hopelessly and helplessly interdependent, as we ourselves are, save that continuously diminishing proportion engaged in all around farming; and even these are slaves to mortgages. for our cities, probably there is not one that is provisioned to last a week, and certainly there is none which would not be bankrupt with despair at the proposition that it produce its own food. in response to this condition and its correlative political tyranny, anarchism affirms the economy of self-sustenance, the disintegration of the great communities, the use of the earth. i am not ready to say that i see clearly that this _will_ take place; but i see clearly that this _must_ take place if ever again men are to be free. i am so well satisfied that the mass of mankind prefer material possessions to liberty, that i have no hope that they will ever, by means of intellectual or moral stirrings merely, throw off the yoke of oppression fastened on them by the present economic system, to institute free societies. my only hope is in the blind development of the economic system and political oppression itself. the great characteristic looming factor in this gigantic power is manufacture. the tendency of each nation is to become more and more a manufacturing one, an exporter of fabrics, not an importer. if this tendency follows its own logic, it must eventually circle round to each community producing for itself. what then will become of the surplus product when the manufacturer shall have no foreign market? why, then mankind must face the dilemma of sitting down and dying in the midst of it, or confiscating the goods. indeed, we are partially facing this problem even now; and so far we are sitting down and dying. i opine, however, that men will not do it forever; and when once by an act of general expropriation they have overcome the reverence and fear of property, and their awe of government, they may waken to the consciousness that things are to be used, and therefore men are greater than things. this may rouse the spirit of liberty. if, on the other hand, the tendency of invention to simplify, enabling the advantages of machinery to be combined with smaller aggregations of workers, shall also follow its own logic, the great manufacturing plants will break up, population will go after the fragments, and there will be seen not indeed the hard, self-sustaining, isolated pioneer communities of early america, but thousands of small communities stretching along the lines of transportation, each producing very largely for its own needs, able to rely upon itself, and therefore able to be independent. for the same rule holds good for societies as for individuals,--those may be free who are able to make their own living. in regard to the breaking up of that vilest creation of tyranny, the standing army and navy, it is clear that so long as men desire to fight, they will have armed force in one form or another. our fathers thought they had guarded against a standing army by providing for the voluntary militia. in our day we have lived to see this militia declared part of the regular military force of the united states, and subject to the same demands as the regulars. within another generation we shall probably see its members in the regular pay of the general government. since any embodiment of the fighting spirit, any military organization, inevitably follows the same line of centralization, the logic of anarchism is that the least objectionable form of armed force is that which springs up voluntarily, like the minute-men of massachusetts, and disbands as soon as the occasion which called it into existence is past: that the really desirable thing is that all men--not americans only--should be at peace; and that to reach this, all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who make war shall do so at their own cost and risk; that neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade. as to the american tradition of non-meddling, anarchism asks that it be carried down to the individual himself. it demands no jealous barrier of isolation; it knows that such isolation is undesirable and impossible; but it teaches that by all men's strictly minding their own business, a fluid society, freely adapting itself to mutual needs, wherein all the world shall belong to all men, as much as each has need or desire, will result. and when modern revolution has thus been carried to the heart of the whole world--if it ever shall be, as i hope it will,--then may we hope to see a resurrection of that proud spirit of our fathers which put the simple dignity of man above the gauds of wealth and class, and held that to be an american was greater than to be a king. in that day there shall be neither kings nor americans,--only men; over the whole earth, men. anarchism in literature in the long sweep of seventeen hundred years which witnessed the engulfment of a moribund roman civilization, together with its borrowed greek ideals, under the red tide of a passionate barbarism that leaped to embrace the idea of triumph over death, and spat upon the grecian joys of life with the superb contempt of the norse savage, there was, for europe and america, but one great animating word in art and literature--christianity. it boots not here to inquire how close or how remote the christian ideal as it developed was in comparison with the teachings of the nazarene. distorted, blackened, almost effaced, it was yet some faint echo from the hillsides of olivet, some indistinct vision of the cross, some dull perception of the white glory of renunciation, that shaped the dreams of the evolving barbarian, and moulded all his work, whether of stone or clay, upon canvas or parchment. wherever we turn we find a general fixup or caste, an immovable solidity of orders built upon orders, an unquestioning subordination of the individual, ruling every effort of genius. ascetic shadow upon all; nowhere does a sun-ray of self-expression creep, save as through water, thin and perturbed. the theologic pessimism which appealed to the fighting man as a proper extension of his own superstition--perhaps hardly that, for heaven was but a change of name for valhalla,--fell heavily upon the man of dreams, whose creations must come forth, lifeless, after the uniform model, who must bless and ban not as he saw before his eyes but as the one eternal purpose demanded. at last the barbarian is civilized; he has accomplished his own refinement--and his own rottenness. still he preaches (and practices) contempt of death--when others do the dying! still he preaches submission to the will of god--but that others may submit to him! still he proclaims the cross--but that others may bear it. where rome was in the glut of her vanity and her blood-drunkenness--limbs wound in cloth of gold suppurating with crime, head boastfully nodding as jove and feet rocking upon slipping slime--there stand the empires and republics of those whose forefathers slew rome. and now for these three hundred years the men of dreams have been watching the christian ideal go bankrupt. one by one as they have dared, and each according to his mood, they have spoken their minds; some have reasoned, and some have laughed, and some have appealed, logician, satirist, and exhorter all feeling in their several ways that humanity stood in need of a new moral ideal. consciously or unconsciously, within the pale of the church or without, this has been "the spirit moving upon the face of the waters" within them, and at last the creation is come forth, the dream that is to touch the heart-strings of the world anew, and make it sing a stronger song than any it has sung of old. mark you, it must be stronger, wider, deeper, or it cannot be at all. it must sing all that has been sung, and something more. its mission is not to deny the past but to reaffirm it and explain it, all of it; and to-day too, and to-morrow too. and this ideal, the only one that has power to stir the moral pulses of the world, the only word that can quicken "dead souls" who wait this moral resurrection, the only word which can animate the dreamer, poet, sculptor, painter, musician, artist of chisel or pen, with power to fashion forth his dream, is =anarchism=. for anarchism means fulness of being. it means the return of greek radiance of life, greek love of beauty, without greek indifference to the common man; it means christian earnestness and christian communism, without christian fanaticism and christian gloom and tyranny. it means this because it means perfect freedom, material and spiritual freedom. the light of greek idealism failed because with all its love of life and the infinite diversity of beauty, and all the glory of its free intellect, it never conceived of material freedom; to it the helot was as eternal as the gods. therefore the gods passed away, and their eternity was as a little wave of time. the christian ideal has failed because with all its sublime communism, its doctrine of universal equality, it was bound up with a spiritual tyranny seeking to mould into one pattern the thoughts of all humanity, stamping all men with the stamp of submission, throwing upon all the dark umber of _life lived for the purpose of death_, and fruitful of all other tyrannies. anarchism will succeed because its message of freedom comes down the rising wind of social revolt first of all to the common man, the material slave, and bids him know that he, too, should have an independent will, and the free exercise thereof; that no philosophy, and no achievement, and no civilization is worth considering or achieving, if it does not mean that he shall be free to labor at what he likes and when he likes, and freely share all that free men choose to produce; that he, the drudge of all the ages, is the cornerstone of the building without whose sure and safe position no structure can nor should endure. and likewise it comes to him who sits in fear of himself, and says: "fear no more, neither what is without or within. search fully and freely your self; hearken to all the voices that rise from that abyss from which you have been commanded to shrink. learn for yourself what these things are. belike what they have told you is good, is bad; and this cast mould of goodness, a vile prison-house. learn to decide your own measure of restraint. value for yourself the merits of selfishness and unselfishness; and strike you the balance between these two: for if the first be all accredited you make slaves of others, and if the second, your own abasement raises tyrants over you; and none can decide the matter for you so well as you for yourself; for even if you err you learn by it, while if he errs the blame is his, and if he advises well the credit is his, and you are nothing. _be yourself_; and by self-expression learn self-restraint. the wisdom of the ages lies in the reassertion of all past positivisms, and the denial of all negations, that is, all that has been claimed by the individual for himself is good, but every denial of the freedom of another is bad; whereby it will be seen that many things supposed to be claimed for oneself involve the freedom of others and must be surrendered because they do not come within the sovereign limit, while many things supposed to be evil, since they in nowise infringe upon the liberty of others are wholly good, bringing to dwarfed bodies and narrow souls the vigor and full growth of healthy exercise, and giving a rich glow to life that had else paled out like a lamp in a grave-vault." to the sybarite it says, learn to do your own share of hard work; you will gain by it; to the "man with the hoe," think for yourself and boldly take your time for it. the division of labor which makes of one man a brain and of another a hand is evil. away with it. this is the ethical gospel of anarchism to which these three hundred years of intellectual ferment have been leading. he who will trace the course of literature for three hundred years will find innumerable bits of drift here and there, indicative of the moral and intellectual revolt. protestantism itself, in asserting the supremacy of the individual conscience, fired the long train of thought which inevitably leads to the explosion of all forms of authority. the great political writers of the eighteenth century, in asserting the right of self-government, carried the line of advance one step further. america had her jefferson declaring: "societies exist under three forms: . without government as among the indians. . under governments wherein every one has a just influence. . under governments of force. it is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best." she had, or she and england together had, her paine, more mildly asserting: "governments are, at best, a necessary evil." and england had also godwin, who, though still milder in manner and consequently less effective during the troublous period in which he lived, was nevertheless more deeply radical than either, presaging that application of the political ideal to economic concerns so distinctive of modern anarchism. "my neighbor," says he, "has just as much right to put an end to my existence with dagger or poison as to deny me that pecuniary assistance without which i must starve." nor did he stop here: he carried the logic of individual sovereignty into the chiefest of social institutions, and declared that the sex relation was a matter concerning the individuals sharing it only. thus he says: "the institution of marriage is a system of fraud.... marriage is law and the worst of all laws.... marriage is an affair of property and the worst of all properties. so long as two human beings are forbidden by positive institution to follow the dictates of their own mind prejudice is alive and vigorous.... the abolition of marriage will be attended with no evils. we are apt to consider it to ourselves as the harbinger of brutal lust and depravity; but it really happens in this, as in other cases, that the positive laws which are made to restrain our vices, irritate and multiply them." the grave and judicial style of "political justice" prevented its attaining the great popularity of "the rights of man," but the indirect influence of its author bloomed in the rich profusion of shelleyan fancy, and in all that coterie of young litterateurs who gathered about godwin as their revered teacher. nor was the principle of no-government without its vindication from one who moved actively in official centers, and whose name has been alternately quoted by conservatives and radicals, now with veneration, now with execration. in his essay "on government," edmund burke, the great political weathercock, aligned himself with the germinating movement towards anarchism when he exclaimed: "they talk of the abuse of government; the thing, the thing itself is the abuse!" this aphoristic utterance will go down in history on its own merits, as the sayings of great men often do, stripped of its accompanying explanations. men have already forgotten to inquire how and why he said it; the words stand, and will continue a living message, long after the thousands of sheets of rhetoric which won him the epithet of "the dinner-bell of the house" have been relegated to the dust of museums. in later days an essayist whose brilliancy of style and capacity for getting on all sides of a question connect him with burke in some manner as his spiritual offspring, has furnished the anarchists with one of their most frequent quotations. in his essay on "john milton," macaulay declares, "the only cure for the evils of newly acquired liberty is--more liberty." that he nevertheless possessed a strong vein of conservatism, sat in parliament, and took part in legal measures, simply proves that he had his tether and could not go the length of his own logic; that is no reason others should not. the anarchists accept this fundamental declaration and proceed to its consequence. but the world-thought was making way, not only in england, where, indeed, constitutional phlegmatism, though stirred beyond its wont by the events of the close of the last century, acted frigidly upon it, but throughout europe. in france, rabelais drew the idyllic picture of the abbey of thelemes, a community of persons agreeing to practise complete individual freedom among themselves. rousseau, however erroneous his basis for the "social contract," moved all he touched with his belief that humanity was innately good, and capable of so manifesting itself in the absence of restrictions. furthermore, his "confessions" appears the most famous fore-runner of the tendency now shaping itself in literature--that of the free expression of a whole man--not in his stage-character only, but in his dressing-room, not in his decent, scrubbed and polished moral clothes alone, but in his vileness and his meanness and his folly, too, these being indisputable factors in his moral life, and no solution but a false one to be obtained by hiding them and playing they are not there. this truth, acknowledged in america, in our own times, by two powerful writers of very different cast, is being approached by all the manifold paths of the soul's travel. "i have in me the capacity for every crime," says emerson the transcendentalist. and whitman, the stanch proclaimer of blood and sinew, and the gospel of the holiness of the body, makes himself one with drunken revelers and the creatures of debauchery as well as with the anchorite and the christ-soul, that fulness of being may be declared. in the genesis of these declarations we shall find the "confessions." it is not the "social contract" alone that is open to the criticism of having reasoned from false premises; all the early political writers we have named were equally mistaken, all suffering from a like insufficiency of facts. partly this was the result of the habit of thought fostered by the church for seventeen hundred years,--which habit was to accept by faith a sweeping generalization and fit all future discoveries of fact into it; but partly also it is in the nature of all idealism to offer itself, however vaguely in the mist of mind-struggle, and allow time to correct and sharpen the detail. probably initial steps will always be taken with blunders, while those who are not imaginative enough to perceive the half-shapen figure will nevertheless accept it later and set it upon a firm foundation. this has been the task of the modern historian, who, no less than the political writer, consciously or unconsciously, is swayed by the anarchistic ideal and bends his services towards it. it is understood that when we speak of history we do not allude to the unspeakable trash contained in public school text-books (which in general resemble a cellar junk-shop of chronologies, epaulettes, bad drawings, and silly tales, and are a striking instance of the corrupting influence of state management of education, by which the mediocre, nay the absolutely empty, is made to survive), history which is undertaken with the purpose of discovering the real course of the development of human society. among such efforts, the broken but splendid fragment of his stupendous project, is buckle's "history of civilization,"--a work in which the author breaks away utterly from the old method of history writing, viz. that of recording court intrigues, the doings of individuals in power as a matter of personal interest, the processions of military pageant, to inquire into the real lives and conditions of the people, to trace their great upheavals, and in what consisted their progress. gervinus in germany, who, within only recent years, drew upon himself a prosecution for treason, took a like method, and declared that progress consists in a steady decline of centralized power and the development of local autonomy and the free federation. supplementing the work of the historian proper, there has arisen a new class of literature, itself the creation of the spirit of free inquiry, since, up till that had asserted itself, such writings were impossible; it embraces a wide range of studies into the conditions and psychology of prehistoric man, of which sir john lubbock's works will serve as the type. from these, dark as the subject yet is, we are learning the true sources of all authority, and the agencies which are rendering it obsolete; moreover, a curious cycle of development reveals itself; namely, that starting from the point of no authority unconsciously accepted, man, in the several manifestations of his activity, evolves through stages of belief in many authorities to one authority, and finally to _no authority_ again, but this time conscious and reasoned. crowning the work of historian and prehistorian, comes the labor of the sociologist. herbert spencer, with infinite patience for detail and marvelous power of classification and generalization, takes up the facts of the others, and deduces from them the great law of equal freedom: "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." the early edition of "social statics" is a logical, scientific, and bold statement of the great fundamental freedoms which anarchists demand. from the rather taxing study of authors like these, it is a relief to turn to those intermediate writers who dwell between them and the pure fictionists, whose writings are occupied with the facts of life as related to the affections and aspirations of humanity, among whom, "representative men," we immediately select emerson, thoreau, edward carpenter. now, indeed, we cease to reason upon the past evolution of liberty, and begin to feel it; begin to reach out after what it _shall_ mean. none who are familiar with the thought of emerson can fail to recognize that it is spiritual anarchism; from the serene heights of self-possession, the ego looks out upon its possibilities, unawed by aught without. and he who has dwelt in dream by walden, charmed by that pure life he has not himself led but wished that, like thoreau, he might lead, has felt that call of the anarchistic ideal which pleads with men to renounce the worthless luxuries which enslave them and those who work for them, that the buried soul which is doomed to mummy cloths by the rush and jangle of the chase for wealth, may answer the still small voice of the resurrection, there, in the silence, the solitude, the simplicity of the free life. a similar note is sounded in carpenter's "civilization: its cause and cure," a work which is likely to make the "civilizer" see himself in a very different light than that in which he usually beholds himself. and again the same vibration shudders through "the city of dreadful night," the masterpiece of an obscure genius who was at once essayist and poet of too high and rare a quality to catch the ear stunned by strident commonplaces, but loved by all who seek the violets of the soul, one thomson, known to literature as "b. v." similarly obscure, and similarly sympathetic is the "english peasant," by richard heath, a collection of essays so redolent of abounding love, so overflowing with understanding for characters utterly contradictory, painted so tenderly and yet so strongly, that none can read them without realizing that here is a man, who, whatever he _believes_ he believes, in reality desires freedom of expression for the whole human spirit, which implies for every separate unit of it. something of the emersonian striving after individual attainment plus the passionate sympathy of heath is found in a remarkable book, which is too good to have obtained a popular hearing, entitled "the story of my heart." no more daring utterance was ever given voice than this: "i pray to find the highest soul,--greater than deity, better than god." in the concluding pages of the tenth chapter of this wonderful little book occur the following lines: "that any human being should dare to apply to another the epithet of 'pauper' is to me the greatest, the vilest, the most unpardonable crime that could be committed. each human being, by mere birth, has a birthright in this earth and all its productions; and if they do not receive it, then it is they who are injured; and it is not the 'pauper'--oh! inexpressibly wicked world!--it is the well-to-do who are the criminals. it matters not in the least if the poor be improvident, drunken, or evil in any way. food and drink, roof and clothes, are the inalienable right of every child born into the light. if the world does not provide it freely--not as a grudging gift, but as a right, as the son of the house sits down to breakfast,--then is the world mad. but the world is not mad, only in ignorance." in catholic sympathy like this, in heart-hunger after a wider righteousness, a higher idea than god, does the anarchistic ideal come to those who have lived through old phases of religious and social beliefs and "found them wanting." it is the shelleyan outburst: "more life and fuller life we want." _he_ was the prometheus of the movement, he, the wild bird of song, who flew down into the heart of storm and night, singing unutterably sweet the song of the free man and woman as he passed. poor shelley! happy shelley! he died not knowing the triumph of his genius; but also he died while the white glow within was yet shining higher, higher! in the light of it, he smiled above the world; had he lived, he might have died alive, as swinburne and as tennyson whose old days belie their early strength. yet men will remember "slowly comes a hungry people as a lion drawing nigher. glares at one who nods and winks beside a slowly dying fire." and "let the great world swing forever down the ringing grooves of change." and "glory to man in the highest for man is the master of things" and "while three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three" until the end "of kingdoms and of kings," though their authors "take refuge in the kingdom" and quaver palsied hymns to royalty with their cracked voices and broken lutes. for this is the glory of the living ideal, that all that is in accord with it lives, whether the mouthpiece through which it spoke would recall it or not. the manifold voice which is one speaks out through all the tongues of genius in its greatest moments, whether it be a heine writing, in supreme contempt, "for the law has got long arms, priests and parsons have long tongues and the people have long ears," a nekrassoff cursing the railroad built of men, a hugo painting the battle of the individual man "with nature, with the law, with society," a lowell crying: "law is holy ay, but what law? is there nothing more divine than the patched up broils of congress,--venal, full of meat and wine? is there, say you, nothing higher--naught, god save us, that transcends laws of cotton texture wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends? law is holy: but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole while ye dash the law in pieces, shatter it in life and soul." and again, "one faith against a whole world's unbelief, one soul against the flesh of all mankind." nor do the master dramatists lag behind the lyric writers; they, too, feel the intense pressure within, which is, quoting the deathword of a man of far other stamp, "germinal." ibsen's drama, intensely real, common, accepting none of the received rules as to the conventional plot, but having to do with serious questions of the lives of the plain people, holds ever before us the supreme duty of truth to one's inner being in defiance of custom and law; it is so in nora, who renounces all notions of family duty to "find herself"; it is so in dr. stockman, who maintains the rectitude of his own soul against the authorities and against the mob; it should have been so in mrs. alving, who learns too late that her yielding to social custom has brought a fore-ruined life into the world besides wrecking her own; the master builder, john gabriel borkman, all his characters are created to vindicate the separate soul supreme within its sphere; those that are miserable and in evil condition are so because they have not lived true to themselves but in obedience to some social hypocrisy. gerhart hauptmann likewise feels the new pulsation: he has no hero, no heroine, no intrigue; his picture is the image of the headless and tailless body of struggle,--the struggle of the common man. it begins in the middle, it ends in nothing--as yet. to end in defeat would be to premise surrender--a surrender humanity does not intend; to triumph would be to anticipate the future, and paint life other than it is. hence it ends where it began, in murmurs. thus his "weavers." octave mirbeau, likewise, offers his criticism on a world of sheep in "the bad shepherds," and sara bernhardt plays it. in england and america we have another phase of the rebel drama--the drama of the bad woman, as a distinct figure in social creation with a right to be herself. have we not the "second mrs. tanqueray" who comes to grief through an endeavor to conform to a moral standard that does not fit? and have we not zaza, who is worth a thousand of her respectable lover and his respectable wife? and does not all the audience go home in love with her? and begin to quest the libraries for literary justifications of their preference? and these are not hard to find, for it is in the novel particularly, the novel which is the special creation of the last century, that the new ideal is freest. in a recent essay in reply to walter besant, henry james pleads most anarchistically for his freedom in the novel. all such pleas will always come as justifications, for as to the freedom it is already won, and all the formalists from besant to the end of days will never tempt the litterateurs into chains again. but the essay is well worth reading as a specimen of right reasoning on art. as in other modes of literary expression this tendency in the novel dates back; and it is strange enough that out of the mouth of a toady like walter scott should have spoken the free, devil-may-care, outlaw spirit (read notably "quentin durward"), which is, perhaps, the first phase of self-assertion that has the initial strength to declare itself against the tyranny of custom; this is why it happens that the fore-runners of social change are often shocking in their rudeness and contempt of manners, and, in fact, more or less uncomfortable persons to have to do with. but they have their irresistible charm all the same, and scott, who was a true genius despite his toadyism, felt it and responded to it, by always making us love his outlaws best no matter how gently he dealt with kings. another phase of the free man appears in george borrow's rollicking, full-blooded, out-of-door gypsies who do not take the trouble to despise law, but simply ignore it, live unconscious of it altogether. george meredith, in another vein, develops the strong soul over-riding social barriers. our own hawthorne in his preface to the "scarlet letter," and still more in the "marble faun," depicts the vacuity of a life sucking a parasitic existence through government organization, and asserts over and over that the only strength is in him or her--and it is noteworthy that the strongest is in "her"--who resolutely chooses and treads an unbeaten path. from far away africa, there speaks again the note of soul rebellion in the exquisite "dreams" of olive schreiner, wherethrough "_the hunter walks alone_." grant allen, too, in numerous works, especially "the woman who did," voices the demand for self-hood. morris gives us his idyllic "news from nowhere." zola, the fertile creator of dungheaps crowned with lilies, whose pages reek with the stench of bodies, laboring, debauching, rotting, until the words of christ cry loud in the ears of him who would put the vision away, "whited sepulchres, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness"--zola was more than an unconscious anarchist, he is a conscious one, did so proclaim himself. and close beside him, maxim gorki, spokesman of the tramp, visionary of the despised, who whatever his personal political views may be, and notwithstanding the condemnations he has visited upon the anarchist, is still an anarchistic voice in literature. and over against these, austere, simple, but oh! so loving, the critic who shows the world its faults but does not condemn, the man who first took the way of renunciation and then _preached_ it, the christian whom the church casts out, the anarchist whom the worst government in the world dares not slay, the author of "resurrection" and "the slavery of our times." they come together, from the side of passionate hate and limitless love--the volcano and the sea--they come together in one demand, freedom from this wicked and debasing tyranny called government, which makes indescribable brutes of all who feel its touch, but worse still of all who touch it. as for contemporaneous light literature, there are magazine articles and papers innumerable displaying here and there the grasp of the idea. have we not the _philistine_ and its witty editor, boldly proclaiming in anarchistic spelling, "i am an anarkist?" by the way, he may now expect a visitation of the criminal anarchy law. and a few years since, julian hawthorne, writing in the denver _post_, inquired, "did you ever notice that all the interesting people you meet are anarchists?" reason why: there is no other living dream to him who has character enough to be interesting. it is the uninteresting, the dull, the ready-made minds who go on accepting "dead limbs of gibbeted gods," as they accept their dinner and their bed, which someone else prepares. let two names, standing for strangely opposing appeals yet standing upon common ground, close this sketch--two strong flashes of the prismatic fires which blent together in the white ray of our ideal. the first, nietzsche, he who proclaims "the overman," the receiver of the mantle of max stirner, the scintillant rhetorician, the pride of young germany, who would have the individual acknowledge nothing, neither science, nor logic, nor any other creation of his thought, as having authority over him, its creator. the last, whitman, the great sympathetic, all-inclusive quaker, whose love knew no limits, who said to society's most utterly despised outcast, "not until the sun excludes you, will i exclude you," and who, whether he be called poet, philosopher, or peasant was supremely anarchist, and in a moment of weariness with human slavery, cried: "i think i could turn and live with animals, they seem so placid and self-contained, i stand and look at them long and long. they do not sweat and whine about their conditions, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to god; not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things; not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth." the making of an anarchist "here was one guard, and here was the other at this end; i was here opposite the gate. you know those problems in geometry of the hare and the hounds--they never run straight, but always in a curve, so, see? and the guard was no smarter than the dogs; if he had run straight to the gate he would have caught me." it was peter kropotkin telling of his escape from the petro-paulovsky fortress. three crumbs on the table marked the relative position of the outwitted guards and the fugitive prisoner; the speaker had broken them from the bread on which he was lunching and dropped them on the table with an amused smile. the suggested triangle had been the starting-point of the life-long exile of the greatest man, save tolstoy alone, that russia has produced; from that moment began the many foreign wanderings and the taking of the simple, love-given title "comrade," for which he had abandoned the "prince," which he despises. we were three together in the plain little home of a london workingman--will wess, a one-time shoemaker--kropotkin, and i. we had our "tea" in homely english fashion, with thin slices of buttered bread; and we talked of things nearest our hearts, which, whenever two or three anarchists are gathered together, means present evidences of the growth of liberty and what our comrades are doing in all lands. and as what they do and say often leads them into prisons, the talk had naturally fallen upon kropotkin's experience and his daring escape, for which the russian government is chagrined unto this day. presently the old man glanced at the time, and jumped briskly to his feet: "i am late. good-by, voltairine; good-by, will. is this the way to the kitchen? i must say good-by to mrs. turner and lizzie." and out to the kitchen he went, unwilling, late though he was, to leave without a hand-clasp to those who had so much as washed a dish for him. such is kropotkin, a man whose personality is felt more than any other in the anarchist movement--at once the gentlest, the most kindly, and the most invincible of men. communist as well as anarchist, his very heart-beats are rhythmic with the great common pulse of work and life. communist am not i, though my father was, and his father before him during the stirring times of ' , which is probably the remote reason for my opposition to things as they are: at bottom convictions are mostly temperamental. and if i sought to explain myself on other grounds, i should be a bewildering error in logic; for by early influences and education i should have been a nun, and spent my life glorifying authority in its most concentrated form, as some of my schoolmates are doing at this hour within the mission houses of the order of the holy names of jesus and mary. but the old ancestral spirit of rebellion asserted itself while i was yet fourteen, a schoolgirl at the convent of our lady of lake huron, at sarnia, ontario. how i pity myself now, when i remember it, poor lonesome little soul, battling solitary in the murk of religious superstition, unable to believe and yet in hourly fear of damnation, hot, savage, and eternal, if i do not instantly confess and profess! how well i recall the bitter energy with which i repelled my teacher's enjoinder, when i told her that i did not wish to apologize for an adjudged fault, as i could not see that i had been wrong, and would not _feel_ my words. "it is not necessary," said she, "that we should feel what we say, but it is always necessary that we obey our superiors." "i will not lie," i answered hotly, and at the same time trembled lest my disobedience had finally consigned me to torment! i struggled my way out at last, and was a freethinker when i left the institution, three years later, though i had never seen a book or heard a word to help me in my loneliness. it had been like the valley of the shadow of death, and there are white scars on my soul yet, where ignorance and superstition burnt me with their hell-fire in those stifling days. am i blasphemous? it is their word, not mine. beside that battle of my young days all others have been easy, for whatever was without, within my own will was supreme. it has owed no allegiance, and never shall; it has moved steadily in one direction, the knowledge and the assertion of its own liberty, with all the responsibility falling thereon. this, i am sure, is the ultimate reason for my acceptance of anarchism, though the specific occasion which ripened tendencies to definition was the affair of - , when five innocent men were hanged in chicago for the act of one guilty who still remains unknown. till then i believed in the essential justice of the american law and trial by jury. after that i never could. the infamy of that trial has passed into history, and the question it awakened as to the possibility of justice under law has passed into clamorous crying across the world. with this question fighting for a hearing at a time when, young and ardent, all questions were pressing with a force which later life would in vain hear again, i chanced to attend a paine memorial convention in an out-of-the-way corner of the earth among the mountains and the snow-drifts of pennsylvania. i was a freethought lecturer at this time, and had spoken in the afternoon on the lifework of paine; in the evening i sat in the audience to hear clarence darrow deliver an address on socialism. it was my first introduction to any plan for bettering the condition of the working-classes which furnished some explanation of the course of economic development, and i ran to it as one who has been turning about in darkness runs to the light. i smile now at how quickly i adopted the label "socialist" and how quickly i cast it aside. let no one follow my example; but i was young. six weeks later i was punished for my rashness, when i attempted to argue for my faith with a little russian jew, named mozersky, at a debating club in pittsburgh. he was an anarchist, and a bit of a socrates. he questioned me into all kinds of holes, from which i extricated myself most awkwardly, only to flounder into others he had smilingly dug while i was getting out of the first ones. the necessity of a better foundation became apparent: hence began a course of study in the principles of sociology and of modern socialism and anarchism as presented in their regular journals. it was benjamin tucker's _liberty_, the exponent of individualist anarchism, which finally convinced me that "liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order." and though i no longer hold the particular economic gospel advocated by tucker, the doctrine of anarchism itself, as then conceived, has but broadened, deepened, and intensified itself with years. to those unfamiliar with the movement, the various terms are confusing. anarchism is, in truth, a sort of protestantism, whose adherents are a unit in the great essential belief that all forms of external authority must disappear to be replaced by self-control only, but variously divided in our conception of the form of future society. individualism supposes private property to be the cornerstone of personal freedom; asserts that such property should consist in the absolute possession of one's own product and of such share of the natural heritage of all as one may actually use. communist-anarchism, on the other hand, declares that such property is both unrealizable and undesirable; that the common possession and use of all the natural sources and means of social production can alone guarantee the individual against a recurrence of inequality, and its attendants, government and slavery. my personal conviction is that both forms of society, as well as many intermediations, would, in the absence of government, be tried in various localities, according to the instincts and material condition of the people, but that well founded objections may be offered to both. liberty and experiment alone can determine the best forms of society. therefore i no longer label myself otherwise than as "anarchist" simply. i would not, however, have the world think that i am an "anarchist by trade." outsiders have some very curious notions about us, one of them being that anarchists never work. on the contrary, anarchists are nearly always poor, and it is only the rich who live without work. not only this, but it is our belief that every healthy human being will, by the laws of his own activity, choose to work, though certainly not as now, for at present there is little opportunity for one to find his true vocation. thus i, who in freedom would have selected otherwise, am a teacher of language. some twelve years since, being in philadelphia and without employment, i accepted the proposition of a small group of russian jewish factory workers to form an evening class in the common english branches. i know well enough that behind the desire to help me to make a living lay the wish that i might thus take part in the propaganda of our common cause. but the incidental became once more the principal, and a teacher of working men and women i have remained from that day. in those twelve years that i have lived and loved and worked with foreign jews i have taught over a thousand, and found them, as a rule, the brightest, the most persistent and sacrificing students, and in youth dreamers of social ideals. while the "intelligent american" has been cursing him as the "ignorant foreigner," while the short-sighted workingman has been making life for the "sheeny" as intolerable as possible, silent and patient the despised man has worked his way against it all. i have myself seen such genuine heroism in the cause of education practiced by girls and boys, and even by men and women with families, as would pass the limits of belief to the ordinary mind. cold, starvation, self-isolation, all endured for years in order to obtain the means for study; and, worse than all, exhaustion of body even to emaciation--this is common. yet in the midst of all this, so fervent is the social imagination of the young that most of them find time besides to visit the various clubs and societies where radical thought is discussed, and sooner or later ally themselves either with the socialist sections, the liberal leagues, the single tax clubs, or the anarchist groups. the greatest socialist daily in america is the jewish _vorwaerts_, and the most active and competent practical workers are jews. so they are among the anarchists. i am no propagandist at all costs, or i would leave the story here; but the truth compels me to add that as the years pass and the gradual filtration and absorption of american commercial life goes on, my students become successful professionals, the golden mist of enthusiasm vanishes, and the old teacher must turn for comradeship to the new youth, who still press forward with burning eyes, seeing what is lost forever to those whom common success has satisfied and stupified. it brings tears sometimes, but as kropotkin says, "let them go; we have had the best of them." after all, who are the really old? those who wear out in faith and energy, and take to easy chairs and soft living; not kropotkin, with his sixty years upon him, who has bright eyes and the eager interest of a little child; not fiery john most, "the old war-horse of the revolution," unbroken after his ten years of imprisonment in europe and america; not grey-haired louise michel, with the aurora of the morning still shining in her keen look which peers from behind the barred memories of new caledonia; not dyer d. lum, who still smiles in his grave, i think; nor tucker, nor turner, nor theresa clairmunt, nor jean grave--not these. i have met them all, and felt the springing life pulsating through heart and hand, joyous, ardent, leaping into action. not such are the old, but your young heart that goes bankrupt in social hope, dry-rotting in this stale and purposeless society. would you be always young? then be an anarchist, and live with the faith of hope, though you be old. i doubt if any other hope has the power to keep the fire alight as i saw it in , when we met the spanish exiles released from the fortress of montjuich. comparatively few persons in america ever knew the story of that torture, though we distributed fifty thousand copies of the letters smuggled from the prison, and some few newspapers did reprint them. they were the letters of men incarcerated on mere suspicion for the crime of an unknown person, and subjected to tortures the bare mention of which makes one shudder. their nails were torn out, their heads compressed in metal caps, the most sensitive portions of the body twisted between guitar strings, their flesh burned with red hot irons; they had been fed on salt codfish after days of starvation, and refused water; juan ollé, a boy nineteen years old, had gone mad; another had confessed to something he had never done and knew nothing of. this is no horrible imagination. i who write have myself shaken some of those scarred hands. indiscriminately, four hundred people of all sorts of beliefs--republicans, trade unionists, socialists, free masons, as well as anarchists--had been cast into dungeons and tortured in the infamous "zero." is it a wonder that most of them came out anarchists? there were twenty-eight in the first lot that we met at euston station that august afternoon,--homeless wanderers in the whirlpool of london, released without trial after months of imprisonment, and ordered to leave spain in forty-eight hours! they had left it, singing their prison songs; and still across their dark and sorrowful eyes one could see the eternal maytime bloom. they drifted away to south america chiefly, where four or five new anarchist papers have since arisen, and several colonizing experiments along anarchist lines are being tried. so tyranny defeats itself, and the exile becomes the seed-sower of the revolution. and not only to the heretofore unaroused does he bring awakening, but the entire character of the world movement is modified by this circulation of the comrades of all nations among themselves. originally the american movement, the native creation which arose with josiah warren in , was purely individualistic; the student of economy will easily understand the material and historical causes for such development. but within the last twenty years the communist idea has made great progress, owing primarily to that concentration in capitalist production which has driven the american workingman to grasp at the idea of solidarity, and, secondly, to the expulsion of active communist propagandists from europe. again, another change has come within the last ten years. till then the application of the idea was chiefly narrowed to industrial matters, and the economic schools mutually denounced each other; to-day a large and genial tolerance is growing. the young generation recognizes the immense sweep of the idea through all the realms of art, science, literature, education, sex relations and personal morality, as well as social economy, and welcomes the accession to the ranks of those who struggle to realize the free life, no matter in what field. for this is what anarchism finally means, the whole unchaining of life after two thousand years of christian asceticism and hypocrisy. apart from the question of ideals, there is the question of method. "how do you propose to get all this?" is the question most frequently asked us. the same modification has taken place here. formerly there were "quakers" and "revolutionists"; so there are still. but while they neither thought well of the other, now both have learned that each has his own use in the great play of world forces. no man is in himself a unit, and in every soul jove still makes war on christ. nevertheless, the spirit of peace grows; and while it would be idle to say that anarchists in general believe that any of the great industrial problems will be solved without the use of force, it would be equally idle to suppose that they consider force itself a desirable thing, or that it furnishes a final solution to any problem. from peaceful experiment alone can come final solution, and that the advocates of force know and believe as well as the tolstoyans. only they think that the present tyrannies provoke resistance. the spread of tolstoy's "war and peace" and "the slavery of our times," and the growth of numerous tolstoy clubs having for their purpose the dissemination of the literature of non-resistance, is an evidence that many receive the idea that it is easier to conquer war with peace. i am one of these. i can see no end of retaliations unless someone ceases to retaliate. but let no one mistake this for servile submission or meek abnegation; my right shall be asserted no matter at what cost to me, and none shall trench upon it without my protest. good-natured satirists often remark that "the best way to cure an anarchist is to give him a fortune." substituting "corrupt" for "cure," i would subscribe to this; and believing myself to be no better than the rest of mortals, i earnestly hope that as so far it has been my lot to work, and work hard, and for no fortune, so i may continue to the end; for let me keep the integrity of my soul, with all the limitations of my material conditions, rather than become the spineless and ideal-less creation of material needs. my reward is that i live with the young; i keep step with my comrades; i shall die in the harness with my face to the east--the east and the light. the eleventh of november, memorial oration[a] let me begin my address with a confession. i make it sorrowfully and with self-disgust; but in the presence of great sacrifice we learn humility, and if my comrades could give their lives for their belief, why, let me give my pride. yet i would not give it, for personal utterance is of trifling importance, were it not that i think at this particular season it will encourage those of our sympathizers whom the recent outburst of savagery may have disheartened, and perhaps lead some who are standing where i once stood to do as i did later. this is my confession: fifteen years ago last may when the echoes of the haymarket bomb rolled through the little michigan village where i then lived, i, like the rest of the credulous and brutal, read one lying newspaper headline, "anarchists throw a bomb in a crowd in the haymarket in chicago," and immediately cried out, "they ought to be hung."--this, though i had never believed in capital punishment for ordinary criminals. for that ignorant, outrageous, bloodthirsty sentence i shall never forgive myself, though i know the dead men would have forgiven me, though i know those who loved them forgive me. but my own voice, as it sounded that night, will sound so in my ears till i die,--a bitter reproach and shame. what had i done? credited the first wild rumor of an event of which i knew nothing, and, in my mind, sent men to the gallows without asking one word of defense! in one wild, unbalanced moment threw away the sympathies of a lifetime, and became an executioner at heart. and what i did that night millions did, and what i said millions said. i have only one word of extenuation for myself and all those people--ignorance. i did not know what anarchism was. i had never seen it used save in histories, and there it was always synonymous with social confusion and murder. i believed the newspapers. i thought these men had thrown that bomb, unprovoked, into a mass of men and women, from a wicked delight in killing. and so thought all those millions of others. but out of those millions there were some few thousand--i am glad i was one of them--who did not let the matter rest there. i know not what resurrection of human decency first stirred within me after that,--whether it was an intellectual suspicion that may be i did not know all the truth of the case and could not believe the newspapers, or whether it was the old strong undercurrent of sympathy which often prompts the heart to go out to the accused, without a reason; but this i do know that though i was no anarchist at the time of the execution, it was long and long before that, that i came to the conclusion that the accusation was false, the trial a farce, that there was no warrant either in justice or in law for their conviction; and that the hanging, if hanging there should be, would be the act of a society composed of people who had said what i said on the first night, and who had kept their eyes and ears fast shut ever since, determined to see nothing and to know nothing but rage and vengeance. till the very end i hoped that mercy might intervene, though justice did not; and from the hour i knew neither would nor ever could again, i distrusted law and lawyers, judges and governors alike. and my whole being cried out to know what it was these men had stood for, and why they were hanged, seeing it was not proven they knew anything about the throwing of the bomb. little by little, here and there, i came to know that what they had stood for was a very high and noble ideal of human life, and what they were hanged for was preaching it to the common people,--the common people who were as ready to hang them, in their ignorance, as the court and the prosecutor were in their malice! little by little i came to know that these were men who had a clearer vision of human right than most of their fellows; and who, being moved by deep social sympathies, wished to share their vision with their fellows, and so proclaimed it in the market-place. little by little i realized that the misery, the pathetic submission, the awful degradation of the workers, which from the time i was old enough to begin to think had borne heavily upon my heart, (as they must bear upon all who have hearts to feel at all), had smitten theirs more deeply still,--so deeply that they knew no rest save in seeking a way out,--and that was more than i had ever had the sense to conceive. for me there had never been a hope there should be no more rich and poor; but a vague idea that there might not be so rich and so poor, if the workingmen by combining could exact a little better wages, and make their hours a little shorter. it was the message of these men, (and their death swept that message far out into ears that would never have heard their living voices), that all such little dreams are folly. that not in demanding little, not in striking for an hour less, not in mountain labor to bring forth mice, can any lasting alleviation come; but in demanding, much,--all,--in a bold self-assertion of the worker to toil any hours he finds sufficient, not that another finds for him,--here is where the way out lies. that message, and the message of others, whose works, associated with theirs, their death drew to my notice, took me up, as it were, upon a mighty hill, wherefrom i saw the roofs of the workshops of the little world. i saw the machines, the things that men had made to ease their burden, the wonderful things, the iron genii, i saw them set their iron teeth in the living flesh of the men who made them; i saw the maimed and crippled stumps of men go limping away into the night that engulfs the poor, perhaps to be thrown up in the flotsam and jetsam of beggary for a time, perhaps to suicide in some dim corner where the black surge throws its slime. i saw the rose fire of the furnace shining on the blanched face of the man who tended it, and knew surely as i knew anything in life, that never would a free man feed his blood to the fire like that. i saw swart bodies, all mangled and crushed, borne from the mouths of the mines to be stowed away in a grave hardly less narrow and dark than that in which the living form had crouched ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day; and i knew that in order that i might be warm--i, and you, and those others who never do any dirty work--those men had slaved away in those black graves, and been crushed to death at last. i saw beside city streets great heaps of horrible colored earth, and down at the bottom of the trench from which it was thrown, so far down that nothing else was visible, bright gleaming eyes, like a wild animal's hunted into its hole. and i knew that free men never chose to labor there, with pick and shovel in that foul, sewage-soaked earth, in that narrow trench, in that deadly sewer gas ten, eight, even six hours a day. only slaves would do it. i saw deep down in the hull of the ocean liner the men who shoveled the coal--burned and seared like paper before the grate; and i knew that "the record" of the beautiful monster, and the pleasure of the ladies who laughed on the deck, were paid for with these withered bodies and souls. i saw the scavenger carts go up and down, drawn by sad brutes driven by sadder ones; for never a man, a man in full possession of his self-hood, would freely choose to spend all his days in the nauseating stench that forces him to swill alcohol to neutralize it. and i saw in the lead works how men were poisoned, and in the sugar refineries how they went insane; and in the factories how they lost their decency; and in the stores how they learned to lie; and i knew it was slavery made them do all this. i knew the anarchists were right,--the whole thing must be changed, the whole thing was wrong,--the whole system of production and distribution, the whole ideal of life. and i questioned the government then; they had taught me to question it. what have you done--you the keepers of the declaration and the constitution--what have you done about all this? what have you done to preserve the conditions of freedom to the people? lied, deceived, fooled, tricked, bought and sold and got gain! you have sold away the land, that you had no right to sell. you have murdered the aboriginal people, that you might seize the land in the name of the white race, and then steal it away from them again, to be again sold by a second and a third robber. and that buying and selling of the land has driven the people off the healthy earth and away from the clean air into these rot-heaps of humanity called cities, where every filthy thing is done, and filthy labor breeds filthy bodies and filthy souls. our boys are decayed with vice before they come to manhood; our girls--ah, well might john harvey write: "another begetteth a daughter white and gold, she looks into the meadow land water, and the world knows her no more; they have sought her field and fold but the city, the city hath bought her, it hath sold her piecemeal, to students, rats, and reek of the graveyard mould." you have done this thing, gentlemen who engineer the government; and not only have you caused this ruin to come upon others; you yourselves are rotten with this debauchery. you exist for the purpose of granting privileges to whoever can pay most for you, and so limiting the freedom of men to employ themselves that they must sell themselves into this frightful slavery or become tramps, beggars, thieves, prostitutes, and murderers. and when you have done all this, what then do you do to them, these creatures of your own making? you, who have set them the example in every villainy? do you then relent, and remembering the words of the great religious teacher to whom most of you offer lip service on the officially religious day, do you go to these poor, broken, wretched creatures and love them? love them and help them, to teach them to be better? no: you build prisons high and strong, and there you beat, and starve, and hang, finding by the working of your system human beings so unutterably degraded that they are willing to kill whomsoever they are told to kill at so much monthly salary. this is what the government is, has always been, the creator and defender of privilege; the organization of oppression and revenge. to hope that it can ever become anything else is the vainest of delusions. they tell you that anarchy, the dream of social order without government, is a wild fancy. the wildest dream that ever entered the heart of man is the dream that mankind can ever help itself through an appeal to law, or to come to any order that will not result in slavery wherein there is any excuse for government. it was for telling the people this that these five men were killed. for telling the people that the only way to get out of their misery was first to learn what their rights upon this earth were;--freedom to use the land and all within it and all the tools of production--and then to stand all together and take them, themselves, and not to appeal to the jugglers of the law. abolish the law--that is abolish privilege,--and crime will abolish itself. they will tell you these men were hanged for advocating force. what! these creatures who drill men in the science of killing, who put guns and clubs in hands they train to shoot and strike, who hail with delight the latest inventions in explosives, who exult in the machine that can kill the most with the least expenditure of energy, who declare a war of extermination upon people who do not want their civilization, who ravish, and burn, and garotte and guillotine, and hang, and electrocute, they have the impertinence to talk about the unrighteousness of force! true, these men did advocate the right to resist invasion by force. you will find scarcely one in a thousand who does not believe in that right. the one will be either a real christian or a non-resistant anarchist. it will not be a believer in the state. no, no; it was not for advocating forcible resistance on principle, but for advocating forcible resistance to their tyrannies, and for advocating a society which would forever make an end of riches and poverty, of governors and governed. the spirit of revenge, which is always stupid, accomplished its brutal act. had it lifted its eyes from its work, it might have seen in the background of the scaffold that bleak november morning the dawn-light of anarchy whiten across the world. so it came first,--a gleam of hope to the proletaire, a summons to rise and shake off his material bondage. but steadily, steadily the light has grown, as year by year the scientist, the literary genius, the artist, and the moral teacher, have brought to it the tribute of their best work, their unpaid work, the work they did for love. to-day it means not only material emancipation, too; it comes as the summing up of all those lines of thought and action which for three hundred years have been making towards freedom; it means fulness of being, the free life. and i say it boldly, notwithstanding the recent outburst of condemnation, notwithstanding the cry of lynch, burn, shoot, imprison, deport, and the scarlet letter a to be branded low down upon the forehead, and the latest excuse for that fond esthetic decoration "the button," that for two thousand years no idea has so stirred the world as this,--none which had such living power to break down barriers of race and degree, to attract prince and proletaire, poet and mechanic, quaker and revolutionist. no other ideal but the free life is strong enough to touch the man whose infinite pity and understanding goes alike to the hypocrite priest and the victim of siberian whips; the loving rebel who stepped from his title and his wealth to labor with all the laboring earth; the sweet strong singer who sang "no master, high or low"; the lover who does not measure his love nor reckon on return; the self-centered one who "will not rule, but also will not ruled be"; the philosopher who chanted the over-man; the devoted woman of the people; ay, and these too,--these rebellious flashes from the vast cloud-hung ominous obscurity of the anonymous, these souls whom governmental and capitalistic brutality has whipped and goaded and stung to blind rage and bitterness, these mad young lions of revolt, these winkelrieds who offer their hearts to the spears. [a] delivered on november , , in chicago. crime and punishment men are of three sorts: the turn backs, the rush-aheads, and the indifferents. the first and second are comparatively few in number. the really conscientious conservative, eternally looking backward for his models and trying hard to preserve that which is, is almost as scarce an article as the genuine radical, who is eternally attacking that which is and looking forward to some indistinct but glowing vision of a purified social life. between them lies the vast nitrogenous body of the indifferents, who go through life with no large thoughts or intense feelings of any kind, the best that can be said of them being that they serve to dilute the too fierce activities of the other two. into the callous ears of these indifferents, nevertheless, the opposing voices of conservative and radical are continually shouting; and for years, for centuries, the conservative wins the day, not because he really touches the consciences of the indifferent so much (though in a measure he does that) as because his way causes his hearer the least mental trouble. it is easier to this lazy, inert mentality to nod its head and approve the continuance of things as they are, than to listen to proposals for change, to consider, to question, to make an innovating decision. these require activity, application,--and nothing is so foreign to the hibernating social conscience of your ordinary individual. i say "social" conscience, because i by no means wish to say that these are conscienceless people; they have, for active use, sufficient conscience to go through their daily parts in life, and they think that is all that is required. of the lives of others, of the effects of their attitude in cursing the existences of thousands whom they do not know, they have no conception; they sleep; and they hear the voices of those who cry aloud about these things, dimly, as in dreams; and they do not wish to awaken. nevertheless, at the end of the centuries they always awaken. it is the radical who always wins at last. at the end of the centuries institutions are reviewed by this aroused social conscience, are revised, sometimes are utterly rooted out. thus it is with the institutions of crime and punishment. the conservative holds that these things have been decided from all time; that crime is a thing-in-itself, with no other cause than the viciousness of man; that punishment was decreed from mt. sinai, or whatever holy mountain happens to be believed in in his country; that society is best served by strictness and severity of judgment and punishment. and he wishes only to make his indifferent brothers keepers of other men's consciences along these lines. he would have all men be hunters of men, that crime may be tracked down and struck down. the radical says: all false, all false and wrong. crime has not been decided from all time: crime, like everything else, has had its evolution according to place, time, and circumstance. "the demons of our sires become the saints that we adore,"--and the saints, the saints and the heroes of our fathers, are criminals according to our codes. abraham, david, solomon,--could any respectable member of society admit that he had done the things they did? crime is not a thing-in-itself, not a plant without roots, not a something proceeding from nothing; and the only true way to deal with it is to seek its causes as earnestly, as painstakingly, as the astronomer seeks the causes of the perturbations in the orbit of the planet he is observing, sure that there must be one, or many, somewhere. and punishment, too, must be studied. the holy mountain theory is a failure. punishment is a failure. and it is a failure not because men do not hunt down and strike enough, but because they hunt down and strike at all; because in the chase of those who do ill, they do ill themselves; they brutalize their own characters, and so much the more so because they are convinced that this time the brutal act is done in accord with conscience. the murderous deed of the criminal was _against_ conscience, the torture or the murder of the criminal by the official is _with_ conscience. thus the conscience is diseased and perverted, and a new class of imbruted men created. we have punished and punished for untold thousands of years, and we have not gotten rid of crime, we have not diminished it. let us consider then. the indifferentist shrugs his shoulders and remarks to the conservative: "what have i to do with it? i will hunt nobody and i will save nobody. let every one take care of himself. i pay my taxes; let the judges and the lawyers take care of the criminals. and as for you, mr. radical, you weary me. your talk is too heroic. you want to play atlas and carry the heavens on your shoulders. well, do it if you like. but don't imagine i am going to act the stupid hercules and transfer your burden to my shoulders. rave away until you are tired, but let me alone." "i will not let you alone. i am no atlas. i am no more than a fly; but i will annoy you, i will buzz in your ears; i will not let you sleep. you must think about this." that is about the height and power of my voice, or of any individual voice, in the present state of the question. i do not deceive myself. i do not imagine that the question of crime and punishment will be settled till long, long after the memory of me shall be as completely swallowed up by time as last year's snow is swallowed by the sea. two thousand years ago a man whose soul revolted at punishment, cried out: "judge not, that ye be not judged," and yet men and women who have taken his name upon their lips as holy, have for all those two thousand years gone on judging as if their belief in what he said was only lip-belief; and they do it to-day. and judges sit upon benches and send men to their death,--even judges who do not themselves believe in capital punishment; and prosecutors exhaust their eloquence and their tricks to get men convicted; and women and men bear witness against sinners; and then they all meet in church and pray, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us!" do they mean anything at all by it? and i know that just as the voice of jesus was not heard, and is not heard, save here and there; just as the voice of tolstoy is not heard, save here and there; and others great and small are lost in the great echoless desert of indifferentism, having produced little perceptible effect, so my voice also will be lost, and barely a slight ripple of thought be propagated over that dry and fruitless expanse; even that the next wind of trial will straighten and leave as unimprinted sand. nevertheless, by the continued and unintermitting action of forces infinitesimal compared with the human voice, the greatest effects are at length accomplished. a wave-length of light is but the fifty-thousandth part of an inch, yet by the continuous action of waves like these have been produced all the creations of light, the entire world of sight, out of masses irresponsive, dark, colorless. and doubt not that in time this cold and irresponsive mass of indifference will feel and stir and realize the force of the great sympathies which will change the attitude of the human mind as a whole towards crime and punishment, and erase both from the world. not by lawyers and not by judges shall the final cause of the criminal be tried; but lawyer and judge and criminal together shall be told by the social conscience, "depart in peace." * * * * * a great ethical teacher once wrote words like unto these: "i have within me the capacity for every crime." few, reading them, believe that he meant what he said. most take it as the sententious utterance of one who, in an abandonment of generosity, wished to say something large and leveling. but i think he meant exactly what he said. i think that with all his purity emerson had within him the turbid stream of passion and desire; for all his hard-cut granite features he knew the instincts of the weakling and the slave; and for all the sweetness, the tenderness, and the nobility of his nature, he had the tiger and the jackal in his soul. i think that within every bit of human flesh and spirit that has ever crossed the enigma bridge of life, from the prehistoric racial morning until now, all crime and all virtue were germinal. out of one great soul-stuff are we sprung, you and i and all of us; and if in you the virtue has grown and not the vice, do not therefore conclude that you are essentially different from him whom you have helped to put in stripes and behind bars. your balance may be more even, you may be mixed in smaller proportions altogether, or the outside temptation has not come upon you. i am no disciple of that school whose doctrine is summed up in the teaching that man's will is nothing, his material surroundings all. i do not accept that popular socialism which would make saints out of sinners only by filling their stomachs. i am no apologist for characterlessness, and no petitioner for universal moral weakness. i believe in the individual. i believe that the purpose of life (in so far as we can give it a purpose, and it has none save what we give it) is the assertion and the development of strong, self-centered personality. it is therefore that no religion which offers vicarious atonement for the misdoer, and no philosophy which rests on the cornerstone of irresponsibility, makes any appeal to me. i believe that immeasurable mischief has been wrought by the ceaseless repetition for the last two thousand years of the formula: "not through any merit of mine shall i enter heaven, but through the sacrifice of christ."--not through the sacrifice of christ, nor any other sacrifice, shall any one attain strength, save in so far as he takes the spirit and the purpose of the sacrifice into his own life and lives it. nor do i see anything as the result of the teaching that all men are the helpless victims of external circumstance and under the same conditions will act precisely alike, than a lot of spineless, nerveless, bloodless crawlers in the tracks of stronger men,--too desirous of ease to be honest, too weak to be successful rascals. let this be put as strongly as it can now, that nothing i shall say hereafter may be interpreted as a gospel of shifting and shirking. but the difference between us, the anarchists, who preach self-government and none else, and moralists who in times past and present have asked for individual responsibility, is this, that while they have always framed creeds and codes for the purpose of _holding others to account_, we draw the line upon ourselves. set the standard as high as you will; live to it as near as you can; and if you fail, try yourself, judge yourself, condemn yourself, if you choose. teach and persuade your neighbor if you can; consider and compare his conduct if you please; speak your mind if you desire; but if he fails to reach your standard or his own, try him not, judge him not, condemn him not. he lies beyond your sphere; you cannot know the temptation nor the inward battle nor the weight of the circumstances upon him. you do not know how long he fought before he failed. therefore you cannot be just. let him alone. this is the ethical concept at which we have arrived, not by revelation from any superior power, not through the reading of any inspired book, not by special illumination of our inner consciousness; but by the study of the results of social experiment in the past as presented in the works of historians, psychologists, criminologists, sociologists and legalists. very likely so many "ists" sound a little oppressive, and there may be those to whom they may even have a savor of pedantry. it sounds much simpler and less ostentatious to say "thus saith the lord," or "the good book says." but in the meat and marrow these last are the real presumptions, these easy-going claims of familiarity with the will and intent of omnipotence. it may sound more pedantic to you to say, "i have studied the accumulated wisdom of man, and drawn certain deductions therefrom," than to say "i had a talk with god this morning and he said thus and so"; but to me the first statement is infinitely more modest. moreover there is some chance of its being true, while the other is highly imaginative fiction. this is not to impugn the honesty of those who inherit this survival of an earlier mental state of the race, and who accept it as they accept their appetites or anything else they find themselves born with. nor is it to belittle those past efforts of active and ardent souls who claimed direct divine inspiration as the source of their doctrines. all religions have been, in their great general outlines, the intuitive graspings of the race at truths which it had not yet sufficient knowledge to demonstrate,--rude and imperfect statements of ideas which were yet but germinal, but which, even then, mankind had urgent need to conceive, and upon which it afterwards spent the efforts of generations of lives to correct and perfect. thus the very ethical concept of which i have been speaking as peculiarly anarchistic, was preached as a religious doctrine by the fifteenth century tolstoy, peter chilciky; and in the sixteenth century, the fanatical sect of the anabaptists shook germany from center to circumference by a doctrine which included the declaration that "pleadings in courts of law, oaths, capital punishment, and all absolute power were incompatible with the christian faith." it was an imperfect illumination of the intellect, such only as was possible in those less enlightened days, but an illumination that defined certain noble conceptions of justice. they appealed to all they had, the bible, the inner light, the best that they knew, to justify their faith. we to whom a wider day is given, who can appeal not to one book but to thousands, who have the light of science which is free to all that can command the leisure and the will to know, shining white and open on these great questions, dim and obscure in the days of peter chilciky, we should be the last to cast a sneer at them for their heroic struggle with tyranny and cruelty; though to-day the man who would claim their claims on their grounds would justly be rated atavist or charlatan. nothing or next to nothing did the anabaptists know of history. for genuine history, history which records the growth of a whole people, which traces the evolution of its mind as seen in its works of peace,--its literature, its art, its constructions--is the creation of our own age. only within the last seventy-five years has the purpose of history come to have so much depth as this. before that it was a mere register of dramatic situations, with no particular connection, a chronicle of the deeds of prominent persons, a list of intrigues, scandals, murders big and little; and the great people, the actual builders and preservers of the race, the immense patient, silent mass who painfully filled up all the waste places these destroyers made, almost ignored. and no man sought to discover the relations of even the recorded acts to any general causes; no man conceived the notion of discovering what is political and moral growth or political and moral suicide. that they did not do so is because writers of history, who are themselves incarnations of their own time spirit, could not get beyond the unscientific attitude of mind, born of ignorance and fostered by the christian religion, that man is something entirely different from the rest of organized life; that he is a free moral agent, good if he pleases and bad if he pleases, that is, according as he accepts or rejects the will of god; that every act is isolated, having no antecedent, morally, but the will of its doer. nor until modern science had fought its way past prisons, exilements, stakes, scaffolds, and tortures, to the demonstration that man is no free-will freak thrust by an omnipotent joker upon a world of cause and sequence to play havoc therein, but just a poor differentiated bit of protoplasm as much subject to the general processes of matter and mind as his ancient progenitor in the depths of the silurian sea, not until then was it possible for any real conception of the scope of history to begin. not until then was it said: "the actions of men are the effects of large and general causes. humanity as a whole has a regularity of movement as fixed as the movement of the tides; and given certain physical and social environments, certain developments may be predicted with the certainty of a mathematical calculation." thus crime, which for so many ages men have gone on punishing more or less light-heartedly, so far from having its final cause in individual depravity, bears a steady and invariable relation to the production and distribution of staple food supplies, a thing over which society itself at times can have no control (as on the occasion of great natural disturbances), and in general does not yet know how to manage wisely: how much less, then, the individual! this regularity of the recurrence of crime was pointed out long before by the greatest statisticians of europe, who, indeed, did not go so far as to question why it was so, nor to compare these regularities with other regularities, but upon whom the constant repetition of certain figures in the statistics of murder, suicide, assault, etc., made a profound impression. it was left to the new historians, the great pioneer among whom was h. t. buckle in england, to make the comparisons in the statistics, and show that individual crimes as well as virtues are always calculable from general material conditions. this is the basis from which we argue, and it is a basis established by the comparative history of civilizations. in no other way could it have been really established. it might have been guessed at, and indeed was. but only when the figures are before us, figures obtained "by millions of observations extending over different grades of civilization, with different laws, different opinions, different habits, different morals" (i am quoting buckle), only then are we able to say surely that the human mind proceeds with a regularity of operation overweighing all the creeds and codes ever invented, and that if we would begin to understand the problem of the treatment of crime, we must go to something far larger than the moral reformation of the criminal. no prayers, no legal enactments, will ever rid society of crime. if they would, there have been prayers enough and preachments enough and laws enough and prisons enough to have done it long ago. but pray that the attraction of gravitation shall cease. will it cease? enact that water shall freeze at ° heat. will it freeze? and no more will men be sane and honest and just when they are compelled to live in an insane, dishonest, and unjust society, when the natural operation of the very elements of their being is warred upon by statutes and institutions which must produce outbursts destructive both to themselves and to others. away back in quetelet, the french statistician, wrote: "experience demonstrates, in fact, by every possible evidence, this opinion, which may seem paradoxical at first, that it is society which prepares the crime, and that the guilty one is but the instrument which executes it." every crime, therefore, is a charge against society which can only be rightly replied to when society consents to look into its own errors and rectify the wrong it has done. this is one of the results which must, in the end, flow from the labors of the real historians; one of the reasons why history was worth writing at all. now the next point in the problem is the criminal himself. admitting what cannot be impeached, that there is cause and sequence in the action of man; admitting the pressure of general causes upon all alike, what is the reason that one man is a criminal and another not? from the days of the roman jurisconsults until now the legalists themselves have made a distinction between crimes against the law of nature and crimes merely against the law of society. from the modern scientific standpoint no such distinction can be maintained. nature knows nothing about crime, and nothing ever was a crime until the social conscience made it so. neither is it easy when one reads their law books, even accepting their view-point, to understand why certain crimes were catalogued as against the law of nature, and certain others as of the more artificial character. but i presume what were in general classed as crimes against nature were acts of violence committed against persons. aside from these we have a vast, an almost interminable number of offenses big and little, which are in the main attacks upon the institution of property, concerning which some very different things have to be said than concerning the first. as to these first there is no doubt that these are real crimes, by which i mean simply anti-social acts. any action which violates the life or liberty of any individual is an anti-social act, whether done by one person, by two, or by a whole nation. and the greatest crime that ever was perpetrated, a crime beside which all individual atrocities diminish to nothing, is war; and the greatest, the least excusable of murderers are those who order it and those who execute it. nevertheless, this chiefest of murderers, the government, its own hands red with the blood of hundreds of thousands, assumes to correct the individual offender, enacting miles of laws to define the varying degrees of his offense and punishment, and putting beautiful building stone to very hideous purposes for the sake of caging and tormenting him therein. we do get a fig from a thistle--sometimes! out of this noisome thing, the prison, has sprung the study of criminology. it is very new, and there is considerable painstaking nonsense about it. but the main results are interesting and should be known by all who wish to form an intelligent conception of what a criminal is and how he should be treated. these men who are cool and quiet and who move among criminals and study them as darwin did his plants and animals, tell us that these prisoners are reducible to three types: the born criminal, the criminaloid, and the accidental criminal. i am inclined to doubt a great deal that is said about the born criminal. prof. lombroso gives us very exhaustive reports of the measurements of their skulls and their ears and their noses and their thumbs and their toes, etc. but i suspect that if a good many respectable, decent, never-did-a-wrong-thing-in-their-lives people were to go up for measurement, malformed ears and disproportionately long thumbs would be equally found among them if they took the precaution to represent themselves as criminals first. still, however few in number (and they are really very few), there are some born criminals,--people who through some malformation or deficiency or excess of certain portions of the brain are constantly impelled to violent deeds. well, there are some born idiots and some born cripples. do you punish them for their idiocy or for their unfortunate physical condition? on the contrary, you pity them, you realize that life is a long infliction to them, and your best and tenderest sympathies go out to them. why not to the other, equally a helpless victim of an evil inheritance? granting for the moment that you have the right to punish the mentally responsible, surely you will not claim the right to punish the mentally irresponsible! even the law does not hold the insane man guilty. and the born criminal is irresponsible; he is a sick man, sick with the most pitiable chronic disease; his treatment is for the medical world to decide, and the best of them,--not for the prosecutor, the judge, and the warden. it is true that many criminologists, including prof. lombroso himself, are of opinion that the best thing to do with the born criminal is to kill him at once, since he can be only a curse to himself and others. very heroic treatment. we may inquire, is he to be exterminated at birth because of certain physical indications of his criminality? such neo-spartanism would scarcely commend itself to any modern society. moreover the diagnosis might be wrong, even though we had a perpetual and incorruptible commission of the learned to sit in inquiry upon every pink-skinned little suspect three days old! what then? is he to be let go, as he is now, until he does some violent deed and then be judged more hardly because of his natural defect? either proposition seems not only heartless and wicked but,--what the respectable world is often more afraid of being than either,--ludicrous. if one is really a born criminal he will manifest criminal tendencies in early life, and being so recognized should be cared for according to the most humane methods of treating the mentally afflicted. the second, or criminaloid, class is the most numerous of the three. these are criminals, first, because being endowed with strong desires and unequal reasoning powers they cannot maintain the uneven battle against a society wherein the majority of individuals must all the time deny their natural appetites, if they are to remain unstained with crime. they are, in short, the ordinary man (who, it must be admitted, has a great deal of paste in him) plus an excess of wants of one sort and another, but generally physical. society outside of prisons is full of these criminaloids, who sometimes have in place of the power of genuine moral resistance a sneaking cunning by which they manage to steer a shady course between the crime and the punishment. it is true these people are not pleasant subjects to contemplate; but then, through that very stage of development the whole human race has had to pass in its progress from the beast to the man,--the stage, i mean, of overplus of appetite opposed by weak moral resistance; and if now some, it is not certain that their number is very great, have reversed the proportion, it is only because they are the fortunate inheritors of the results of thousands of years of struggle and failure, struggle and failure, but _struggle_ again. it is precisely these criminaloids who are most sinned against by society, for they are the people who need to have the right of doing things made easy, and who, when they act criminally, need the most encouragement to help the feeble and humiliated moral sense to rise again, to try again. the third class, the accidental or occasional criminals, are perfectly normal, well balanced people, who, through tremendous stress of outward circumstance, and possibly some untoward mental disturbance arising from those very notions of the conduct of life which form part of their moral being, suddenly commit an act of violence which is at utter variance with their whole former existence; such as, for instance, the murder of a seducer by the father of the injured girl, or of a wife's paramour by her husband. if i believed in severity at all i should say that these were the criminals upon whom society should look with most severity, because they are the ones who have most mental responsibility. but that also is nonsense; for such an individual has within him a severer judge, a more pitiless jailer than any court or prison,--his conscience and his memory. leave him to these; or no, in mercy take him away from these whenever you can; he will suffer enough, and there is no fear of his action being repeated. now all these people are with us, and it is desirable that something be done to help the case. what does society do? or rather what does government do with them? remember we are speaking now only of crimes of violence. it hangs, it electrocutes, it exiles, it imprisons. why? for punishment. and why punishment? "not," says blackstone, "by way of atonement or expiation for the crime committed, for that must be left to the just determination of the supreme being, but as a precaution against future offenses of the same kind." this is supposed to be effected in three ways: either by reforming him, or getting rid of him altogether, or by deterring others by making an example of him. let us see how these precautions work. exile, which is still practised by some governments, and imprisonment are, according to the theory of law, for the purpose of reforming the criminal that he may no longer be a menace to society. logic would say that anyone who wished to obliterate cruelty from the character of another must himself show no cruelty; one who would teach regard for the rights of others must himself be regardful. yet the story of exile and prison is the story of the lash, the iron, the chain and every torture that the fiendish ingenuity of _the non-criminal class can devise by way of teaching criminals to be good_! to teach men to be good, they are kept in airless cells, made to sleep on narrow planks, to look at the sky through iron grates, to eat food that revolts their palates, and destroys their stomachs,--battered and broken down in body and soul; and this is what they call reforming men! not very many years ago the philadelphia dailies told us (and while we cannot believe all of what they say, and are bound to believe that such cases are exceptional, yet the bare facts were true) that judge gordon ordered an investigation into the workings of the eastern penitentiary officials; and it was found that an insane man had been put into a cell with two sane ones, and when he cried in his insane way and the two asked that he be put elsewhere, the warden gave them a strap to whip him with; and they tied him in some way to the heater, with the strap, so that his legs were burned when he moved; all scarred with the burns he was brought into the court, and the other men frankly told what they had done and why they had done it. this is the way they reform men. do you think people come out of a place like that better? with more respect for society? with more regard for the rights of their fellow men? i don't. i think they come out of there with their hearts full of bitterness, much harder than when they went in. that this is often the case is admitted by those who themselves believe in punishment, and practice it. for the fact is that out of the criminaloid class there develops the habitual criminal, the man who is perpetually getting in prison; no sooner is he out than he does something else and gets in again. the brand that at first scorched him has succeeded in searing. he no longer feels the ignominy. he is a "jail-bird," and he gets to have a cynical pride in his own degradation. every man's hand is against him, and his hand is against every man's. such are the reforming effects of punishment. yet there was a time when he, too, might have been touched, had the right word been spoken. it is for society to find and speak that word. this for prison and exile. hanging? electrocution? these of course are not for the purpose of reforming the criminal. these are to deter others from doing as he did; and the supposition is that the severer the punishment the greater the deterrent effect. in commenting upon this principle blackstone says: "we may observe that punishments of unreasonable severity ... have less effect in preventing crimes and amending the manners of a people than such as are more merciful in general...." he further quotes montesquieu: "for the excessive severity of laws hinders their execution; when the punishment surpasses all measure, the public will frequently, out of humanity, prefer impunity to it." again blackstone: "it is a melancholy truth that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, no less than one hundred and sixty have been declared by act of parliament to be felonies ... worthy of instant death. so dreadful a list instead of diminishing _increases_ the number of offenders." robert ingersoll, speaking on "crimes against criminals" before the new york bar association, a lawyer addressing lawyers, treating of this same period of which blackstone writes, says: "there is something in injustice, in cruelty, which tends to defeat itself. there never were so many traitors in england as when the traitor was drawn and quartered, when he was tortured in every possible way,--when his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of mobs, or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in chains. the frightful punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors increased until they became powerful enough to decide what treason was and who the traitors were and to inflict the same torments on others." the fact that blackstone was right and ingersoll was right in saying that severity of punishment increases crime, is silently admitted in the abrogation of those severities by acts of parliament and acts of congress. it is also shown by the fact that there are no more murders, proportionately, in states where the death penalty does not exist than in those where it does. severity is therefore admitted by the state itself to have no deterrent influence on the intending criminal. and to take the matter out of the province of the state, we have only to instance the horrible atrocities perpetrated by white mobs upon negroes charged with outrage. nothing more fiendishly cruel can be imagined; yet these outrages multiply. it would seem, then, that the notion of making a horrible example of the misdoer is a complete failure. as a specific example of this, ingersoll (in this same lecture) instanced that "a few years before a man was hanged in alexandria, va. one who witnessed the execution on that very day murdered a peddler in the smithsonian grounds at washington. he was tried and executed; and one who witnessed his hanging went home and on the same day murdered his wife." evidently the brute is rather aroused than terrified by scenes of execution. what then? if extreme punishments do not deter, and if what are considered mild punishments do not reform, is any measure of punishment conceivable or attainable which will better our case? before answering this question let us consider the class of crimes which so far has not been dwelt upon, but which nevertheless comprises probably nine-tenths of all offenses committed. these are all the various forms of stealing,--robbery, burglary, theft, embezzlement, forgery, counterfeiting, and the thousand and one ramifications and offshoots of the act of taking what the law defines as another's. it is impossible to consider crimes of violence apart from these, because the vast percentage of murders and assaults committed by the criminaloid class are simply incidental to the commission of the so-called lesser crime. a man often murders in order to escape with his booty, though murder was no part of his original intention. why, now, have we such a continually increasing percentage of stealing? will you persistently hide your heads in the sand and say it is because men grow worse as they grow wiser? that individual wickedness is the result of all our marvelous labors to compass sea and land, and make the earth yield up her wealth to us? dare you say that? it is not so. =the reason men steal is because their rights are stolen from them before they are born.= a human being comes into the world; he wants to eat, he wants to breathe, he wants to sleep; he wants to use his muscles, his brain; he wants to love, to dream, to create. these wants constitute him, the whole man; he can no more help expressing these activities than water can help running down hill. if the freedom to do any of these things is denied him, then by so much he is a crippled creature, and his energy will force itself into some abnormal channel or be killed altogether. now i do not mean that he has a "natural right" to do these things inscribed on any lawbook of nature. nature knows nothing of rights, she knows power only, and a louse has as much natural right as a man to the extent of its power. what i do mean to say is that man, in common with many other animals, has found that by associative life he conquers the rest of nature, and that this society is slowly being perfected; and that this perfectionment consists in realizing that the solidarity and safety of the whole arises from the freedom of the parts; that such freedom constitutes man's social right; and that any institution which interferes with this right will be destructive of the association, will breed criminals, will work its own ruin. this is the word of the sociologist, of the greatest of them, herbert spencer. now do we see that all men eat,--eat well? you know we do not. some have so much that they are sickened with the extravagance of dishes, and know not where next to turn for a new palatal sensation. they cannot even waste their wealth. some, and they are mostly the hardest workers, eat poorly and fast, for their work allows them no time to enjoy even what they have. some,--i have seen them myself in the streets of new york this winter, and the look of their wolfish eyes was not pleasant to see--stand in long lines waiting for midnight and the plate of soup dealt out by some great newspaper office, stretching out, whole blocks of them, as other men wait on the first night of some famous star at the theater! some die because they cannot eat at all. pray tell me what these last have to lose by becoming thieves. and why shall they not become thieves? and is the action of the man who takes the necessities which have been denied to him really criminal? is he morally worse than the man who crawls in a cellar and dies of starvation? i think not. he is only a little more assertive. cardinal manning said: "a starving man has a natural right to his neighbor's bread." the anarchist says: "a hungry man has a social right to bread." and there have been whole societies and races among whom that right was never questioned. and whatever were the mistakes of those societies, whereby they perished, this was not a mistake, and we shall do well to take so much wisdom from the dead and gone, the simple ethics of the stomach which with all our achievement we cannot despise, or despising, shall perish as our reward. "but," you will say, and say truly, "to begin by taking loaves means to end by taking everything and murdering, too, very often." and in that you draw the indictment against your own system. if there is no alternative between starving and stealing (and for thousands there is none), then there is no alternative between society's murdering its members, or the members disintegrating society. let society consider its own mistakes, then: let it answer itself for all these people it has robbed and killed: let it cease its own crimes first! to return to the faculties of man. all would breathe; and some do breathe. they breathe the air of the mountains, of the seas, of the lakes,--even the atmosphere in the gambling dens of monte carlo, for a change! some, packed thickly together in closed rooms where men must sweat and faint to save tobacco, breathe the noisome reek that rises from the spittle of their consumptive neighbors. some, mostly babies, lie on the cellar doors along bainbridge street, on summer nights, and bathe their lungs in that putrid air where a thousand lungs have breathed before, and grow up pale and decayed looking as the rotting vegetables whose exhalations they draw in. some, far down underground, meet the choke-damp, and--do not breathe at all! do you expect healthy morals out of all these poisoned bodies? some sleep. they have so much time that they take all manner of expensive drugs to try what sleeping it off a different way is like! some sleep upon none too easy beds a few short hours, too few not to waken more tired than ever, and resume the endless grind of waking life. some sleep bent over the books they are too tired to study, though the mind clamors for food after the long day's physical toil. some sleep with hand upon the throttle of the engine, after twenty-six hours of duty, and--crash!--they have sleep enough! some use their muscles: they use them to punch bags, and other gentlemen's stomachs when their heads are full of wine. some use them to club other men and women, at $ . a day. some exhaust them welding them into iron, or weaving them into wool, for ten or eleven hours a day. and some become atrophied sitting at desks till they are mere specters of men and women. some love; and there is no end to the sensualities of their love, because all normal expressions have lost their savor through excess. some love, and see their love tried and worn and threadbare, a skeleton of love, because the practicality of life is always there to repress the purely emotional. some are stricken in health, so robbed of power to feel, that they never love at all. and some dream, think, create; and the world is filled with the glory of their dreams. but who knows the glory of the dream that never was born, lost and dead and buried away somewhere there under the roofs where the exquisite brain was ruined by the heavy labor of life? and what of the dream that turned to madness and destroyed the thing it loved the best? these are the things that make criminals, the perverted forces of man, turned aside by the institution of property, which is the giant social mistake to-day. it is your law which keeps men from using the sources and the means of wealth production unless they pay tribute to other men; it is this, and nothing else, which is responsible for all the second class of crimes and all those crimes of violence incidentally committed while carrying out a robbery. let me quote here a most sensible and appropriate editorial which recently appeared in the philadelphia _north american_, in comment upon the proposition of some foolish preacher to limit the right of reproduction to rich families: "the earth was constructed, made habitable, and populated without the advice of a commission of superior persons, and until they appeared and began meddling with affairs, making laws and setting themselves up as rulers, poverty and its evil consequences were unknown to humanity. when social science finds a way to remove obstructions to the operation of natural law and to the equitable distribution of the products of labor, poverty will cease to be the condition of the masses of people, and misery, crime and problems of population will disappear." and they will never disappear until it does. all hunting down of men, all punishments, are but so many ineffective efforts to sweep back the tide with a broom. the tide will fling you, broom and all, against the idle walls that you have built to fence it in. tear down those walls or the sea will tear them down for you. have you ever watched it coming in,--the sea? when the wind comes roaring out of the mist and a great bellowing thunders up from the water? have you watched the white lions chasing each other towards the walls, and leaping up with foaming anger as they strike, and turn and chase each other along the black bars of their cage in rage to devour each other? and tear back? and leap in again? have you ever wondered in the midst of it all _which particular drops of water_ would strike the wall? if one could know all the factors one might calculate even that. but who can know them all? of one thing only we are sure: _some must strike it_. they are the criminals, those drops of water pitching against that silly wall and broken. just why it was these particular ones we cannot know; but some had to go. do not curse them; you have cursed them enough. let the people free. there is a class of crimes of violence which arises from another set of causes than economic slavery--acts which are the result of an antiquated moral notion of the true relations of men and women. these are the nemesis of the institution of property in love. if every one would learn that the limit of his right to demand a certain course of conduct in sex relations is himself; that the relation of his beloved ones to others is not a matter for him to regulate, any more than the relations of those whom he does not love; if the freedom of each is unquestioned, and whatever moral rigors are exacted are exacted of oneself only; if this principle is accepted and followed, crimes of jealousy will cease. but religions and governments uphold this institution and constantly tend to create the spirit of ownership, with all its horrible consequences. ah, you will say, perhaps it is true; perhaps when this better social condition is evolved, and this freer social spirit, we shall be rid of crime,--at least nine-tenths of it. but meanwhile must we not punish to protect ourselves? the protection does not protect. the violent man does not communicate his intention; when he executes it, or attempts its execution, more often than otherwise it is some unofficial person who catches or stops him. if he is a born criminal, or in other words an insane man, he should, i reiterate, be treated as a sick person--not punished, not made to suffer. if he is one of the accidental criminals, his act will not be repeated; his punishment will always be with him. if he is of the middle class, your punishment will not reform him, it will only harden him; and it will not deter others. as for thieves, the great thief is within the law, or he buys it; and as for the small one, see what you do! to protect yourself against him, you create a class of persons who are sworn to the service of the club and the revolver; a set of spies; a set whose business it is to deal constantly with these unhappy beings, who in rare instances are softened thereby, but in the majority of cases become hardened to their work as butchers to the use of the knife; a set whose business it is to serve cell and lock and key; and lastly, the lowest infamy of all, the hangman. does any one want to shake his hand, the hand that kills for pay? now against all these persons individually there is nothing to be said: they may probably be very humane, well-intentioned persons when they start in; but the end of all this is imbrutement. one of our dailies recently observed that "the men in charge of prisons have but too often been men who ought themselves to have been prisoners." the anarchist does not agree with that. he would have no prisons at all. but i am quite sure that if that editor himself were put in the prison-keeper's place, he too would turn hard. and the opportunities of the official criminal are much greater than those of the unofficial one. lawyer and governmentalist as he was, ingersoll said: "it is safe to say that governments have committed far more crimes than they have prevented." then why create a second class of parasites worse than the first? why not put up with the original one? moreover, you have another thing to consider than the simple problem of a wrong inflicted upon a guilty man. how many times has it happened that the innocent man has been convicted! i remember an instance of a man so convicted of murder in michigan. he had served twenty-seven years in jackson penitentiary (for michigan is not a hang-state) when the real murderer, dying, confessed. and the state _pardoned_ that innocent man! because it was the quickest legal way to let him out! i hope he has been able to pardon the state. not very long ago a man was hanged here in this city. he had killed his superintendent. some doctors said he was insane; the government experts said he was not. they said he was faking insanity when he proclaimed himself jesus christ. and he was hanged. afterwards the doctors found two cysts in his brain. the state of pennsylvania had killed a sick man! and as long as punishments exist, these mistakes will occur. if you accept the principle at all, you must accept with it the blood-guilt of innocent men. not only this, but you must accept also the responsibility for all the misery which results to others whose lives are bound up with that of the convict, for even he is loved by some one, much loved perhaps. it is a foolish thing to turn adrift a house full of children, to become criminals in turn, perhaps, in order to frighten some indefinite future offender by making an example of their father or mother. yet how many times has it not happened! and this is speaking only from the practical, selfish side of the matter. there is another, one from which i would rather appeal to you, and from which i think you would after all prefer to be appealed to. ask yourselves, each of you, whether you are quite sure that you have feeling enough, understanding enough, and _have you suffered_ enough, to be able to weigh and measure out another man's life or liberty, no matter what he has done? and if you have not yourself, are you able to delegate to any judge the power which you have not? the great russian novelist, dostoyevsky, in his psychological study of this same subject, traces the sufferings of a man who had committed a shocking murder; his whole body and brain are a continual prey to torture. he gives himself up, seeking relief in confession. he goes to prison, for in barbarous russia they have not the barbarity of capital punishment for murderers, unless political ones. but he finds no relief. he remains for a year, bitter, resentful, a prey to all miserable feelings. but at last he is touched by love, the silent, unobtrusive, all-conquering love of one who knew it all and forgave it all. and the regeneration of his soul began. "the criminal slew," says tolstoy: "are you better, then, when you slay? he took another's liberty; and is it the right way, therefore, for you to take his? violence is no answer to violence." "have good will to all that lives, letting unkindness die, and greed and wrath; so that your lives be made as soft airs passing by." so said lord buddha, the light of asia. and another said: "ye have heard that it hath been said 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'; but i say unto you, resist not him that is evil." yet the vengeance that the great psychologist saw was futile, the violence that the greatest living religious teacher and the greatest dead ones advised no man to wreak, that violence is done daily and hourly by every little-hearted prosecutor who prosecutes at so much a day, by every petty judge who buys his way into office with common politicians' tricks, and deals in men's lives and liberties as a trader deals in pins, by every neat-souled and cheap-souled member of the "unco guid" whose respectable bargain-counter maxims of morality have as much effect to stem the great floods and storms that shake the human will as the waving of a lady's kid glove against the tempest. those who have not suffered cannot understand how to punish; those who have understanding _will_ not. i said at the beginning and i say again, i believe that in every one of us all things are germinal: in judge and prosecutor and prison-keeper too, and even in those small moral souls who cut out one undeviating pattern for all men to fit, even in them there are the germs of passion and crime and sympathy and forgiveness. and some day things will stir in them and accuse them and awaken them. and that awakening will come when suddenly one day there breaks upon them with realizing force the sense of the unison of life, the irrevocable relationship of the saint to the sinner, the judge to the criminal; that all personalities are intertwined and rushing upon doom together. once in my life it was given to me to see the outward manifestation of this unison. it was in . we stood upon the base of the nelson monument in trafalgar square. below were ten thousand people packed together with upturned faces. they had gathered to hear and see men and women whose hands and limbs were scarred all over with the red-hot irons of the tortures in the fortress of montjuich. for the crime of an unknown person these twenty-eight men and women, together with four hundred others, had been cast into that terrible den and tortured with the infamies of the inquisition to make them reveal that of which they knew nothing. after a year of such suffering as makes the decent human heart sick only to contemplate, with nothing proven against them, some even without trial, they were suddenly released with orders to leave the country within twenty-four hours. they were then in trafalgar square, and to the credit of old england be it said, harlot and mother of harlots though she is, for there was not another country among the great nations of the earth to which those twenty-eight innocent people could go. for they were paupers impoverished by that cruel state of spain in the terrible battle for their freedom; they would not have been admitted to free america. when francesco gana, speaking in a language which most of them did not understand, lifted his poor, scarred hands, the faces of those ten thousand people moved together like the leaves of a forest in the wind. they waved to and fro, they rose and fell; the visible moved in the breath of the invisible. it was the revelation of the action of the unconscious, the fatalistic unity of man. sometimes, even now as i look upon you, it is as if the bodies that i see were as transparent bubbles wherethrough the red blood boils and flows, a turbulent stream churning and tossing and leaping, and behind us and our generation, far, far back, endlessly backwards, where all the bubbles are broken and not a ripple remains, the silent pouring of the great red river, the unfathomable river,--backwards through the unbroken forest and the untilled plain, backwards through the forgotten world of savagery and animal life, back somewhere to its dark sources in deep sea and old night, the rushing river of blood--no fancy--real, tangible blood, the blood that hurries in your veins while i speak, bearing with it the curses and the blessings of the past. through what infinite shadows has that river rolled! through what desolate wastes has it not spread its ooze! through what desperate passages has it been forced! what strength, what invincible strength is in that hot stream! you are just the bubble on its crest; where will the current fling you ere you die? at what moment will the fierce impurities borne from its somber and tenebrous past be hurled up in you? shall you then cry out for punishment if they are hurled up in another? if, flung against the merciless rocks of the channel, while you swim easily in the midstream, they fall back and hurt other bubbles? can you not feel that "men are the heart-beats of man, the plumes that feather his wings, storm-worn since being began with the wind and the thunder of things. things are cruel and blind; their strength detains and deforms. and the wearying wings of the mind still beat up the stream of their storms. still, as one swimming up-stream, they strike out blind in the blast, in thunder of vision and dream, and lightning of future and past. we are baffled and caught in the current and bruised upon edges of shoals: as weeds or as reeds in the torrent of things are the wind-shaken souls. spirit by spirit goes under, a foam-bell's bubble of breath, that blows and opens asunder and blurs not the mirror of death." is it not enough that "things are cruel and blind"? must we also be cruel and blind? when the whole thing amounts to so little at the most, shall we embitter it more, and crush and stifle what must so soon be crushed and stifled anyhow? can we not, knowing what remnants of things dead and drowned are floating through us, haunting our brains with specters of old deeds and scenes of violence, can we not learn to pardon our brother to whom the specters are more real, upon whom greater stress was laid? can we not, recalling all the evil things that we have done, or left undone only because some scarcely perceptible weight struck down the balance, or because some kindly word came to us in the midst of our bitterness and showed that not all was hateful in the world; can we not understand him for whom the balance was not struck down, the kind word unspoken? believe me, forgiveness is better than wrath,--better for the wrong-doer, who will be touched and regenerated by it, and better for you. and you are wrong if you think it is hard: it is easy, far easier than to hate. it may sound like a paradox, but the greater the injury the easier the pardon. let us have done with this savage idea of punishment, which is without wisdom. let us work for the freedom of man from the oppressions which make criminals, and for the enlightened treatment of all the sick. and though we may never see the fruit of it, we may rest assured that the great tide of thought is setting our way, and that "while the tired wave, vainly breaking, seems here no painful inch to gain, far back, through creeks and inlets making, comes silent, flooding in, the main." in defense of emma goldman and the right of expropriation the light is pleasant, is it not, my friends? it is good to look into each other's faces, to see the hands that clasp our own, to read the eyes that search our thoughts, to know what manner of lips give utterance to our pleasant greetings. it is good to be able to wink defiance at the night, the cold, unseeing night. how weird, how gruesome, how chilly it would be if i stood here in blackness, a shadow addressing shadows, in a house of blindness! yet each would know that he was not alone; yet might we stretch hands and touch each other, and feel the warmth of human presence near. yet might a sympathetic voice ring thro' the darkness, quickening the dragging moments.--the lonely prisoners in the cells of blackwell's island have neither light nor sound! the short day hurries across the sky, the short day still more shortened in the gloomy walls. the long chill night creeps up so early, weaving its sombre curtain before the imprisoned eyes. and thro' the curtain comes no sympathizing voice, beyond the curtain lies the prison silence, beyond that the cheerless, uncommunicating land, and still beyond the icy, fretting river, black and menacing, ready to drown. a wall of night, a wall of stone, a wall of water! thus has the great state of new york answered =emma goldman=; thus have the classes replied to the masses; thus do the rich respond to the poor; thus does the institution of property give its ultimatum to hunger! "give us work," said =emma goldman=; "if you will not give us work, then give us bread; if you do not give us either work or bread, then we shall take bread." it wasn't a very wise remark to make to the state of new york, that is--wealth and its watch-dogs, the police. but i fear me much that the apostles of liberty, the fore-runners of revolt, have never been very wise. there is a record of a seditious person, who once upon a time went about with a few despised followers in palestine, taking corn out of other people's corn-fields, (on the sabbath day, too). that same person, when he wished to ride into jerusalem told his disciples to go forward to where they would find a young colt tied, to unloose it and bring it to him, and if any one interfered or said anything to them, were to say: "my master hath need of it." that same person said: "give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that taketh away thy goods ask them not back again." that same person once stood before the hungry multitudes of galilee and taught them, saying: "the scribes and the pharisees sit in moses' seat; therefore whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do. but do not ye after their works, for they say, and do not. for they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. but all their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments: and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greeting in the markets, and to be called of men, 'rabbi, rabbi.'" and turning to the scribes and the pharisees, he continued: "woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: therefore shall ye receive the greater damnation. woe unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, and mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done and not left the other undone. ye blind guides, that strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous; and say 'if we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets'. wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! ye serpents! ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell!" yes; these are the words of the outlaw who is alleged to form the foundation stone of modern civilization, to the authorities of his day. hypocrites, extortionists, doers of iniquity, robbers of the poor, blood-partakers, serpents, vipers, fit for hell! it wasn't a very wise speech, from beginning to end. perhaps he knew it when he stood before pilate to receive his sentence, when he bore his heavy crucifix up calvary, when nailed upon it, stretched in agony, he cried: "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me!" no, it wasn't wise--but it was very grand. this grand, foolish person, this beggar-tramp, this thief who justified the action of hunger, this man who set the right of property beneath his foot, this individual who defied the state, do you know why he was so feared and hated, and punished? because, as it is said in the record, "the common people heard him gladly"; and the accusation before pontius pilate was, "we found this fellow perverting the whole nation. he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all jewry." ah, the dreaded "common people"! when cardinal manning wrote: "necessity knows no law, and a starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread," who thought of arresting cardinal manning? his was a carefully written article in the _fortnightly review_. who read it? not the people who needed bread. without food in their stomachs, they had not fifty cents to spend for a magazine. it was not the voice of the people themselves asserting their rights. no one for one instant imagined that cardinal manning would put himself at the head of ten thousand hungry men to loot the bakeries of london. it was a piece of ethical hair-splitting to be discussed in after-dinner speeches by the wine-muddled gentlemen who think themselves most competent to consider such subjects when their dress-coats are spoiled by the vomit of gluttony and drunkenness. but when =emma goldman= stood in union square and said, "if they do not give you work or bread, take bread," the common people heard her gladly; and as of old the wandering carpenter of nazareth addressed his own class, teaching throughout all jewry, stirring up the people against the authorities, so the dressmaker of new york addressing the unemployed working-people of new york was the menace of the depths of society, crying in its own tongue. the authorities heard and were afraid: therefore the triple wall. it is the old, old story. when thomas paine, one hundred years ago, published the first part of "the rights of man," the part in which he discusses principles only, the edition was a high-priced one, reaching comparatively few readers. it created only a literary furore. when the second part appeared, the part in which he treats of the application of principles, in which he declares that "men should not petition for rights but take them," it came out in a cheap form, so that one hundred thousand copies were sold in a few weeks. that brought down the prosecution of the government. it had reached the people that might act, and prosecution followed prosecution till botany bay was full of the best men of england. thus were the limitations of speech and press declared, and thus will they ever be declared so long as there are antagonistic interests in human society. understand me clearly. i believe that the term "constitutional right of free speech" is a meaningless phrase, for this reason: the constitution of the united states, and the declaration of independence, and particularly the latter, were, in their day, progressive expressions of progressive ideals. but they are, throughout, characterized by the metaphysical philosophy which dominated the thought of the last century. they speak of "inherent rights," "inalienable rights," "natural rights," etc. they declare that men are equal because of a supposed metaphysical something-or-other, called equality, existing in some mysterious way apart from material conditions, just as the philosophers of the eighteenth century accounted for water being wet by alleging a metaphysical wetness, existing somehow apart from matter. i do not say this to disparage those grand men who dared to put themselves against the authorities of the monarchy, and to conceive a better ideal of society, one which they certainly thought would secure equal rights to men; because i realize fully that no one can live very far in advance of the time-spirit, and i am positive in my own mind that, unless some cataclysm destroys the human race before the end of the twentieth century, the experience of the next hundred years will explode many of our own theories. but the experience of this age has proven that metaphysical quantities do not exist apart from materials, and hence humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. unless the material conditions for equality exist, it is worse than mockery to pronounce men equal. and unless there is equality (and by equality i mean equal chances for every one to make the most of himself), unless, i say, these equal chances exist, freedom, either of thought, speech, or action, is equally a mockery. i once read that one million angels could dance at the same time on the point of a needle; possibly one million angels might be able to get a decent night's lodging by virtue of their constitutional rights; one single tramp couldn't. and whenever the tongues of the non-possessing class threaten the possessors, whenever the disinherited menace the privileged, that moment you will find that the constitution isn't made for you. therefore i think anarchists make a mistake when they contend for their constitutional rights. as a prominent lawyer, mr. thomas earle white, of philadelphia, himself an anarchist, said to me not long since: "what are you going to do about it? go into the courts, and fight for your legal rights? anarchists haven't got any." "well," says the governmentalist, "you can't consistently claim any. you don't believe in constitutions and laws." exactly so; and if any one will right my constitutional wrongs, i will willingly make him a present of my constitutional rights. at the same time i am perfectly sure no one will ever make this exchange; nor will any help ever come to the wronged class from the outside. salvation on the vicarious plan isn't worth despising. redress of wrongs will not come by petitioning "the powers that be." "he has rights who dare maintain them." "the lord helps them who help themselves." (and when one is able to help himself, i don't think he is apt to trouble the lord much for his assistance.) as long as the working people fold hands and pray the gods in washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. so long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; so long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories which they build, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing through plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed. when they conceive the possibility of a complete international federation of labor, whose constituent groups shall take possession of land, mines, factories, all the instruments of production, issue their own certificates of exchange, and, in short, conduct their own industry without regulative interference from law-makers or employers, then we may hope for the only help which counts for aught--self-help; the only condition which can guarantee free speech (and no paper guarantee needed). but meanwhile, while we are waiting, for there is yet much grist of the middle class to be ground between the upper and nether millstones of economic evolution; while we await the formation of the international labor trust; while we watch for the day when there are enough of people with nothing in their stomachs and desperation in their heads, to go about the work of expropriation; what shall those do who are starving now? that is the question which =emma goldman= had to face; and she answered it by saying: "ask, and if you do not receive, take--take bread." i do not give you that advice. not because i do not think the bread belongs to you; not because i do not think you would be morally right in taking it; not that i am not more shocked and horrified and embittered by the report of one human being starving in the heart of plenty, than by all the pittsburgs, and chicagos, and homesteads, and tennessees, and coeur d'alenes, and buffalos, and barcelonas, and parises; not that i do not think one little bit of sensitive human flesh is worth all the property rights in new york city; not that i do not think the world will ever be saved by the sheep's virtue of going patiently to the shambles; not that i do not believe the expropriation of the possessing classes is inevitable, and that that expropriation will begin by just such acts as =emma goldman= advised, viz.: the taking possession of wealth already produced; not that i think you owe any consideration to the conspirators of wall street, or those who profit by their operations, as such, nor ever will till they are reduced to the level of human beings having equal chances with you to earn their share of social wealth, and no more. i have said that i do not give you the advice given by =emma goldman=, not that i would have you forget the consideration the expropriators have shown to you; that they have advised lead for strikers, strychnine for tramps, bread and water as good enough for working people; not that i cannot hear yet in my ears the words of one who said to me of the studebaker wagon works' strikers, "if i had my way i'd mow them down with gatling guns", not that i would have you forget the electric wire of fort frick, nor the pinkertons, nor the militia, nor the prosecutions for murder and treason; not that i would have you forget the th of may, when your constitutional right of free speech was vindicated, nor the th of november when it was assassinated; not that i would have you forget the single dinner at delmonico's which ward mcallister tells us cost ten thousand dollars! would i have you forget that the wine in the glasses was your children's blood? it must be a rare drink--children's blood! i have read of the wonderful sparkle on costly champagne--i have never seen it. if i did i think it would look to me like mothers' tears over the little, white, wasted forms of dead babies--dead because there was no milk in their breasts! yes, i want you to remember that these rich are blood-drinkers, tearers of human flesh, gnawers of human bones! yes, if i had the power i would burn your wrongs upon your hearts in characters that should glow like coals in the night! i have not a tongue of fire as =emma goldman= has; i cannot "stir the people"; i must speak in my own cold, calculated way. (perhaps that is the reason i am allowed to speak at all.) but if i had the power, my will is good enough. you know how shakespeare's marc antony addressed the populace at rome: "i am no orator, as brutus is, but as you know me well, a plain blunt man that love my friend. and that they know full well that gave me public leave to speak of him. for i have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood. i only speak right on. i tell you that which you yourselves do know, show you sweet cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me. but were i brutus and brutus antony, there were an antony would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue in every wound of cæsar's, that should move the stones of rome to rise and mutiny." if, therefore, i do not give you the advice which =emma goldman= gave, let not the authorities suppose it is because i have any more respect for their constitution and their law than she has, or that i regard them as having any rights in the matter. no! my reasons for not giving that advice are two. first, if i were giving advice at all, i would say: "my friends, that bread belongs to you. it is you who toiled and sweat in the sun to sow and reap the wheat; it is you who stood by the thresher, and breathed the chaff-filled atmosphere in the mills, while it was ground to flour; it is you who went into the eternal night of the mine and risked drowning, fire damp, explosion, and cave-in, to get the fuel for the fire that baked it; it is you who stood in the hell-like heat, and struck the blows that forged the iron for the ovens wherein it is baked; it is you who stand all night in the terrible cellar shops, and tend the machines that knead the flour into dough; it is you, you, you, farmer, miner, mechanic, who make the bread; but you haven't the power to take it. at every transformation wrought by toil, some one who didn't toil has taken part from you; and now he has it all, and you haven't the power to take it back! you are told you have the power because you have the numbers. never make so silly a blunder as to suppose that power resides in numbers. one good, level-headed policeman with a club, is worth ten excited, unarmed men; one detachment of well-drilled militia has a power equal to that of the greatest mob that could be raised in new york city. do you know i admire compact, concentrated power. let me give you an illustration. out in a little town in illinois there is a certain capitalist, and if ever a human creature sweat and ground the grist of gold from the muscle of man, it is he. well, once upon a time, his workmen, (not his slaves, his workmen,) were on strike; and fifteen hundred muscular polacks armed with stones, brick-bats, red-hot pokers, and other such crude weapons as a mob generally collects, went up to his house for the purpose of smashing the windows, and so forth; possibly to do as those people in italy did the other day with the sheriff who attempted to collect the milk tax. he alone, one man, met them on the steps of his porch, and for two mortal hours, by threats, promises, cajoleries held those fifteen hundred poles at bay. and finally they went away, without smashing a pane of glass or harming a hair of his head. now that was power; and you can't help but admire it, no matter if it was your enemy who displayed it; and you must admit that so long as numbers can be overcome by such relative quantity, power does not reside in numbers. therefore, if i were giving advice, i would not say, "take bread," but take counsel with yourselves how to get the power to take bread. there is no doubt but that power is latently in you; there is no doubt it can be developed; there is no doubt the authorities know this, and fear it, and are ready to exert as much force as is necessary to repress any signs of its development. and this is the explanation of =emma goldman='s imprisonment. the authorities do not fear you as you are; they only fear what you may become. the dangerous thing was "the voice crying in the wilderness", foretelling the power which was to come after it. you should have seen how they feared it in philadelphia. they got out a whole platoon of police and detectives, and executed a military manoeuvre to catch the woman who had been running around under their noses for three days. and when she walked up to them, then they surrounded and captured her, and guarded the city hall where they kept her over night, and put a detective in the next cell to make notes. why so much fear? did they shrink from the stab of the dressmaker's needle? or did they dread some stronger weapon? ah! the accusation before the new york pontius pilate was: "she stirreth up the people." and pilate sentenced her to the full limit of the law, because, he said, "you are more than ordinarily intelligent." why is intelligence dealt thus harshly with? because it is the beginning of power. strive, then, for power. my second reason for not repeating =emma goldman='s words is, that i, as an anarchist, have no right to advise another to do anything involving a risk to himself; nor would i give a fillip for an action done by the advice of some one else, unless it is accompanied by a well-argued, well settled conviction on the part of the person acting, that it really is the best thing to do. anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. it means the development of the individual, as well as the assertion of the individual. it means self-responsibility, and not leader-worship. i say it is your business to decide whether you will starve and freeze in sight of food and clothing, outside of jail, or commit some overt act against the institution of property and take your place beside =timmermann= and =goldman=. and in saying this i mean to cast no reflection whatever upon =miss goldman= for doing otherwise. she and i hold many different views on both economy and morals; and that she is honest in hers she has proved better than i have proved mine. =miss goldman= is a communist; i am an individualist. she wishes to destroy the right of property; i wish to assert it. i make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. she believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; i hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should. but whether she or i be right, or both of us be wrong, of one thing i am sure: _the spirit which animates emma goldman is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny--the spirit which is willing to dare and suffer_. that which dwells in the frail body in the prison-room to-night is not the new york dressmaker alone. transport yourselves there in thought a moment; look steadily into those fair, blue eyes, upon the sun-brown hair, the sea-shell face, the restless hands, the woman's figure; look steadily till in place of the person, the individual of time and place, you see that which transcends time and place, and flits from house to house of life, mocking at death. swinburne in his magnificent "before a crucifix," says: "with iron for thy linen bands, and unclean cloths for winding-sheet, they bind the people's nail-pierced hands, they hide the people's nail-pierced feet: and what man, or what angel known shall roll back the sepulchral stone?" perhaps in the presence of this untrammeled spirit we shall feel that something has rolled back the sepulchral stone; and up from the cold wind of the grave is borne the breath that animated =anaxagoras=, =socrates=, =christ=, =hypatia=, =john huss=, =bruno=, =robert emmet=, =john brown=, =sophia perovskaya=, =parsons=, =fischer=, =engel=, =spies=, =lingg=, =berkman=, =pallas=; and all those, known and unknown, who have died by tree, and axe, and fagot, or dragged out forgotten lives in dungeons, derided, hated, tortured by men. perhaps we shall know ourselves face to face with that which leaps from the throat of the strangled when the rope chokes, which smokes up from the blood of the murdered when the axe falls; that which has been forever hunted, fettered, imprisoned, exiled, executed, and never conquered. lo, from its many incarnations it comes forth again, the immortal race-christ of the ages! the gloomy walls are glorified thereby, the prisoner is transfigured, and we say, reverently we say: "o sacred head, o desecrate, o labor-wounded feet and hands, o blood poured forth in pledge to fate of nameless lives in divers lands! o slain, and spent, and sacrificed people! the grey-grown, speechless christ." direct action from the standpoint of one who thinks himself capable of discerning an undeviating route for human progress to pursue, if it is to be progress at all, who, having such a route on his mind's map, has endeavored to point it out to others; to make them see it as he sees it; who in so doing has chosen what appeared to him clear and simple expressions to convey his thoughts to others,--to such a one it appears matter for regret and confusion of spirit that the phrase "direct action" has suddenly acquired in the general mind a circumscribed meaning, not at all implied in the words themselves, and certainly never attached to it by himself or his co-thinkers. however, this is one of the common jests which progress plays on those who think themselves able to set metes and bounds for it. over and over again, names, phrases, mottoes, watchwords, have been turned inside out, and upside down, and hindside before, and sideways, by occurrences out of the control of those who used the expressions in their proper sense; and still, those who sturdily held their ground, and insisted on being heard, have in the end found that the period of misunderstanding and prejudice has been but the prelude to wider inquiry and understanding. i rather think this will be the case with the present misconception of the term direct action, which through the misapprehension, or else the deliberate misrepresentation, of certain journalists in los angeles, at the time the mcnamaras pleaded guilty, suddenly acquired in the popular mind the interpretation, "forcible attacks on life and property." this was either very ignorant or very dishonest of the journalists; but it has had the effect of making a good many people curious to know all about direct action. as a matter of fact, those who are so lustily and so inordinately condemning it, will find on examination that they themselves have on many occasions practised direct action, and will do so again. every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist. some thirty years ago i recall that the salvation army was vigorously practising direct action in the maintenance of the freedom of its members to speak, assemble, and pray. over and over they were arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on singing, praying, and marching, till they finally compelled their persecutors to let them alone. the industrial workers are now conducting the same fight, and have, in a number of cases, compelled the officials to let them alone by the same direct tactics. every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. all co-operative experiments are essentially direct action. every person who ever in his life had a difference with any one to settle, and went straight to the other persons involved to settle it, either by a peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct actionist. examples of such action are strikes and boycotts; many persons will recall the action of the housewives of new york who boycotted the butchers, and lowered the price of meat; at the present moment a butter boycott seems looming up, as a direct reply to the price-makers for butter. these actions are generally not due to any one's reasoning overmuch on the respective merits of directness or indirectness, but are the spontaneous retorts of those who feel oppressed by a situation. in other words, all people are, most of the time, believers in the principle of direct action, and practisers of it. however, most people are also indirect or political actionists. and they are both these things at the same time, without making much of an analysis of either. there are only a limited number of persons who eschew political action under any and all circumstances; but there is nobody, nobody at all, who has ever been so "impossible" as to eschew direct action altogether. the majority of thinking people are really opportunists, leaning, some, perhaps, more to directness, some more to indirectness, as a general thing, but ready to use either means when opportunity calls for it. that is to say, there are those who hold that balloting governors into power is essentially a wrong and foolish thing; but who, nevertheless, under stress of special circumstance, might consider it the wisest thing to do, to vote some individual into office at that particular time. or there are those who believe that, in general, the wisest way for people to get what they want is by the indirect method of voting into power some one who will make what they want legal; yet who, all the same, will occasionally, under exceptional conditions, advise a strike; and a strike, as i have said, is direct action. or they may do as the socialist party agitators, who are mostly declaiming now against direct action, did last summer, when the police were holding up their meetings. they went in force to the meeting-places, prepared to speak whether-or-no; and they made the police back down. and while that was not logical on their part, thus to oppose the legal executors of the majority's will, it was a fine, successful piece of direct action. those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to direct action only are--just who? why, the non-resistants; precisely those who do not believe in violence at all! now do not make the mistake of inferring that i say direct action means non-resistance; not by any means. direct action may be the extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of the brook of siloa that go softly. what i say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. for the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the state does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through. now every school child in the united states has had the direct action of certain non-resistants brought to his notice by his school history. the case which every one instantly recalls is that of the early quakers who came to massachusetts. the puritans had accused the quakers of "troubling the world by preaching peace to it." they refused to pay church taxes; they refused to bear arms; they refused to swear allegiance to any government. (in so doing, they were direct actionists; what we may call negative direct actionists.) so the puritans, being political actionists, passed laws to keep them out, to deport, to fine, to imprison, to mutilate, and finally, to hang them. and the quakers just kept on coming (which was positive direct action); and history records that after the hanging of four quakers, and the flogging of margaret brewster at the cart's tail through the streets of boston, "the puritans gave up trying to silence the new missionaries"; that "quaker persistence and quaker non-resistance had won the day." another example of direct action in early colonial history, but this time by no means of the peaceable sort, was the affair known as bacon's rebellion. all our historians certainly defend the action of the rebels in that matter, as reason is, for they were right. and yet it was a case of violent direct action against lawfully constituted authority. for the benefit of those who have forgotten the details, let me briefly remind them that the virginia planters were in fear of a general attack by the indians; with reason. being political actionists, they asked, or bacon as their leader asked, that the governor grant him a commission to raise volunteers in their own defense. the governor feared that such a company of armed men would be a threat to him; also with reason. he refused the commission. whereupon the planters resorted to direct action. they raised the volunteers without the commission, and successfully fought off the indians. bacon was pronounced a traitor by the governor; but the people being with him, the governor was afraid to proceed against him. in the end, however, it came so far that the rebels burned jamestown; and but for the untimely death of bacon, much more might have been done. of course the reaction was very dreadful, as it usually is where a rebellion collapses, or is crushed. yet even during the brief period of success, it had corrected a good many abuses. i am quite sure that the political-action-at-all-costs advocates of those times, after the reaction came back into power, must have said: "see to what evils direct action brings us! behold, the progress of the colony has been set back twenty-five years"; forgetting that if the colonists had not resorted to direct action, their scalps would have been taken by the indians a year sooner, instead of a number of them being hanged by the governor a year later. in the period of agitation and excitement preceding the revolution, there were all sorts and kinds of direct action from the most peaceable to the most violent; and i believe that almost everybody who studies united states history finds the account of these performances the most interesting part of the story, the part which dents into his memory most easily. among the peaceable moves made, were the non-importation agreements, the leagues for wearing homespun clothing and the "committees of correspondence." as the inevitable growth of hostility progressed, violent direct action developed; e. g., in the matter of destroying the revenue stamps, or the action concerning the tea-ships, either by not permitting the tea to be landed, or by putting it in damp storage, or by throwing it into the harbor, as in boston, or by compelling a tea-ship owner to set fire to his own ship, as at annapolis. these are all actions which our commonest text-books record, certainly not in a condemnatory way, not even in an apologetic one, though they are all cases of direct action against legally constituted authority and property rights. if i draw attention to them, and others of like nature, it is to prove to unreflecting repeaters of words that _direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it_. george washington is said to have been the leader of the virginia planters' non-importation league: he would now be "enjoined," probably, by a court, from forming any such league; and if he persisted, he would be fined for contempt. when the great quarrel between the north and the south was waxing hot and hotter, it was again direct action which preceded and precipitated political action. and i may remark here that political action is never taken, nor even contemplated, until slumbering minds have first been aroused by direct acts of protest against existing conditions. the history of the anti-slavery movement and the civil war is one of the greatest of paradoxes, although history is a chain of paradoxes. politically speaking, it was the slave-holding states that stood for greater political freedom, for the autonomy of the single state against the interference of the united states; politically speaking, it was the non-slave-holding states that stood for a strong centralized government, which, secessionists said, and said truly, was bound progressively to develop into more and more tyrannical forms. which happened. from the close of the civil war on, there has been continuous encroachment of the federal power upon what was formerly the concern of the states individually. the wage-slaves, in their struggles of to-day, are continually thrown into conflict with that centralized power, against which the slave-holder protested (with liberty on his lips but tyranny in his heart). ethically speaking, it was the non-slave-holding states that, in a general way, stood for greater human liberty, while the secessionists stood for race-slavery. in a general way only; that is, the majority of northerners, not being accustomed to the actual presence of negro slavery about them, thought it was probably a mistake; yet they were in no great ferment of anxiety to have it abolished. the abolitionists only, and they were relatively few, were the genuine ethicals, to whom slavery itself--not secession or union--was the main question. in fact, so paramount was it with them, that a considerable number of them were themselves for the dissolution of the union, advocating that the north take the initiative in the matter of dissolving, in order that the northern people might shake off the blame of holding negroes in chains. of course, there were all sorts of people with all sorts of temperaments among those who advocated the abolition of slavery. there were quakers like whittier (indeed it was the peace-at-all-costs quakers who had advocated abolition even in early colonial days); there were moderate political actionists, who were for buying off the slaves, as the cheapest way; and there were extremely violent people, who believed and did all sorts of violent things. as to what the politicians did, it is one long record of "how-not-to-do-it," a record of thirty years of compromising, and dickering, and trying to keep what was as it was, and to hand sops to both sides when new conditions demanded that something be done, or be pretended to be done. but "the stars in their courses fought against sisera"; the system was breaking down from within, and the direct actionists from without, as well, were widening the cracks remorselessly. among the various expressions of direct rebellion was the organization of the "underground railroad." most of the people who belonged to it believed in both sorts of action; but however much they theoretically subscribed to the right of the majority to enact and enforce laws, they didn't believe in it on that point. my grandfather was a member of the "underground"; many a fugitive slave he helped on his way to canada. he was a very patient, law-abiding man, in most respects, though i have often thought he probably respected it because he didn't have much to do with it; always leading a pioneer life, law was generally far from him, and direct action imperative. be that as it may, and law-respecting as he was, he had no respect whatever for slave laws, no matter if made by ten times of a majority; and he conscientiously broke every one that came in his way to be broken. there were times when in the operation of the "underground", violence was required, and was used. i recollect one old friend relating to me how she and her mother kept watch all night at the door, while a slave for whom a posse was searching hid in the cellar; and though they were of quaker descent and sympathies, there was a shot-gun on the table. fortunately it did not have to be used that night. when the fugitive slave law was passed, with the help of the political actionists of the north who wanted to offer a new sop to the slave-holders, the direct actionists took to rescuing recaptured fugitives. there was the "rescue of shadrach," and the "rescue of jerry," the latter rescuers being led by the famous gerrit smith; and a good many more successful and unsuccessful attempts. still the politicals kept on pottering and trying to smooth things over, and the abolitionists were denounced and decried by the ultra-law-abiding pacificators, pretty much as wm. d. haywood and frank bohn are being denounced by their own party now. the other day i read a communication in the chicago _daily socialist_ from the secretary of the louisville local, socialist party, to the national secretary, requesting that some safe and sane speaker be substituted for bohn, who had been announced to speak there. in explaining why, mr. dobbs, secretary, makes this quotation from bohn's lecture: "had the mcnamaras been successful in defending the interests of the working class, they would have been right, just as john brown would have been right, had he been successful in freeing the slaves. ignorance was the only crime of john brown, and ignorance was the only crime of the mcnamaras." upon this mr. dobbs comments as follows: "we dispute emphatically the statements here made. the attempt to draw a parallel between the open--if mistaken--revolt of john brown on the one hand, and the secret and murderous methods of the mcnamaras on the other, is not only indicative of shallow reasoning, but highly mischievous in the logical conclusions which may be drawn from such statements." evidently mr. dobbs is very ignorant of the life and work of john brown. john brown was a man of violence; he would have scorned anybody's attempt to make him out anything else. and when once a person is a believer in violence, it is with him only a question of the most effective way of applying it, which can be determined only by a knowledge of conditions and means at his disposal. john brown did not shrink at all from conspiratical methods. those who have read the autobiography of frederick douglas and the reminiscences of lucy colman, will recall that one of the plans laid by john brown was to organize a chain of armed camps in the mountains of west virginia, north carolina, and tennessee, send secret emissaries among the slaves inciting them to flee to these camps, and there concert such measures as times and conditions made possible for further arousing revolt among the negroes. that this plan failed was due to the weakness of the desire for liberty among the slaves themselves, more than anything else. later on, when the politicians in their infinite deviousness contrived a fresh proposition of how-not-to-do-it, known as the kansas-nebraska act, which left the question of slavery to be determined by the settlers, the direct actionists on both sides sent bogus settlers into the territory, who proceeded to fight it out. the pro-slavery men, who got in first, made a constitution recognizing slavery, and a law punishing with death any one who aided a slave to escape; but the free soilers, who were a little longer in arriving, since they came from more distant states, made a second constitution, and refused to recognize the other party's laws at all. and john brown was there, mixing in all the violence, conspiratical or open; he was "a horse-thief and a murderer," in the eyes of decent, peaceable, political actionists. and there is no doubt that he stole horses, sending no notice in advance of his intention to steal them, and that he killed pro-slavery men. he struck and got away a good many times before his final attempt on harper's ferry. if he did not use dynamite, it was because dynamite had not yet appeared as a practical weapon. he made a great many more intentional attacks on life than the two brothers secretary dobbs condemns for their "murderous methods." and yet, history has not failed to understand john brown. mankind knows that though he was a violent man, with human blood upon his hands, who was guilty of high treason and hanged for it, yet his soul was a great, strong, unselfish soul, unable to bear the frightful crime which kept , , people like dumb beasts, and thought that making war against it was a sacred, a god-called duty, (for john brown was a very religious man--a presbyterian). it is by and because of the direct acts of the fore-runners of social change, whether they be of peaceful or warlike nature, that the human conscience, the conscience of the mass, becomes aroused to the need for change. it would be very stupid to say that no good results are ever brought about by political action; sometimes good things do come about that way. but never until individual rebellion, followed by mass rebellion, has forced it. direct action is always the clamorer, the initiator, through which the great sum of indifferentists become aware that oppression is getting intolerable. we have now an oppression in the land,--and not only in this land, but throughout all those parts of the world which enjoy the very mixed blessings of civilization. and just as in the question of chattel slavery, so this form of slavery has been begetting both direct action and political action. a certain per cent. of our population (probably a much smaller per cent. than politicians are in the habit of assigning at mass meetings) is producing the material wealth upon which all the rest of us live; just as it was the , , chattel blacks who supported all the crowd of parasites above them. these are the _land workers_ and the _industrial workers_. through the unprophesied and unprophesiable operation of institutions which no individual of us created, but found in existence when he came here, these workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal--to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratifications. these workers have, in one form or another, mutually joined their forces to see what betterment of their condition they could get; primarily by direct action, secondarily through political action. we have had the grange, the farmers' alliance, co-operative associations, colonization experiments, knights of labor, trade unions, and industrial workers of the world. all of them have been organized for the purpose of wringing from the masters in the economic field a little better price, a little better conditions, a little shorter hours; or on the other hand, to resist a reduction in price, worse conditions, or longer hours. none of them has attempted a final solution of the social war. none of them, except the industrial workers, has recognized that there is a social war, inevitable so long as present legal-social conditions endure. they accepted property institutions as they found them. they were made up of average men, with average desires, and they undertook to do what appeared to them possible and very reasonable things. they were not committed to any particular political policy when they were organized, but were associated for direct action of their own initiation, either positive or defensive. undoubtedly there were, and are, among all these organizations, members who looked beyond immediate demands; who did see that the continuous development of forces now in operation was bound to bring about conditions to which it is impossible that life continue to submit, and against which, therefore, it will protest, and violently protest; that it will have no choice but to do so; that it must do so, or tamely die; and since it is not the nature of life to surrender without struggle, it will not tamely die. twenty-two years ago i met farmers' alliance people who said so, knights of labor who said so, trade unionists who said so. they wanted larger aims than those to which their organizations were looking; but they had to accept their fellow members as they were, and try to stir them to work for such things as it was possible to make them see. and what they could see was better prices, better wages, less dangerous or tyrannical conditions, shorter hours. at the stage of development when these movements were initiated, the land workers could not see that their struggle had anything to do with the struggle of those engaged in the manufacturing or transporting service; nor could these latter see that theirs had anything to do with the movement of the farmers. for that matter very few of them see it yet. they have yet to learn that there is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the earth, the money, and the machines. unfortunately the great organization of the farmers frittered itself away in a stupid chase after political power. it was quite successful in getting the power in certain states; but the courts pronounced its laws unconstitutional, and there was the burial hole of all its political conquests. its original program was to build its own elevators, and store the products therein, holding these from the market till they could escape the speculator. also, to organize labor exchanges, issuing credit notes upon products deposited for exchange. had it adhered to this program of direct mutual aid, it would, to some extent, for a time at least, have afforded an illustration of how mankind may free itself from the parasitism of the bankers and the middlemen. of course, it would have been overthrown in the end, unless it had so revolutionized men's minds by the example as to force the overthrow of the legal monopoly of land and money; but at least it would have served a great educational purpose. as it was, it "went after the red herring," and disintegrated merely from its futility. the knights of labor subsided into comparative insignificance, not because of failure to use direct action, nor because of its tampering with politics, which was small, but chiefly because it was a heterogeneous mass of workers who could not associate their efforts effectively. the trade unions grew strong about as the k. of l. subsided, and have continued slowly but persistently to increase in power. it is true the increase has fluctuated; that there have been set-backs; that great single organizations have been formed and again dispersed. but on the whole, trade unions have been a growing power. they have been so because, poor as they are, inefficient as they are, they have been a means whereby a certain section of the workers have been able to bring their united force to bear directly upon their masters, and so get for themselves some portion of what they wanted,--of what their conditions dictated to them they must try to get. the strike is their natural weapon, that which they themselves forged. it is the direct blow of the strike which nine times out of ten the boss is afraid of. (of course there are occasions when he is glad of one, but that's unusual.) and the reason he dreads a strike is not so much because he thinks he cannot win out against it, but simply and solely because he does not want an interruption of his business. the ordinary boss isn't in much dread of a "class-conscious vote"; there are plenty of shops where you can talk socialism or any other political program all day long; but if you begin to talk unionism, you may forthwith expect to be discharged, or at best warned to shut up. why? not because the boss is so wise as to know that political action is a swamp in which the workingman gets mired, or because he understands that political socialism is fast becoming a middle-class movement; not at all. he thinks socialism is a very bad thing; but it's a good way off! but he knows that if his shop is unionized, he will have trouble right away. his hands will be rebellious, he will be put to expense to improve his factory conditions, he will have to keep workingmen that he doesn't like, and in case of strike he may expect injury to his machinery or his buildings. it is often said, and parrot-like repeated, that the bosses are "class-conscious," that they stick together for their class interest, and are willing to undergo any sort of personal loss rather than be false to those interests. it isn't so at all. the majority of business people are just like the majority of workingmen; they care a whole lot more about their individual loss or gain than about the gain or loss of their class. and it is his individual loss the boss sees, when threatened by a union. now everybody knows that a strike of any size means violence. no matter what any one's ethical preference for peace may be, he knows it will not be peaceful. if it's a telegraph strike, it means cutting wires and poles, and getting fake scabs in to spoil the instruments. if it is a steel rolling mill strike, it means beating up the scabs, breaking the windows, setting the gauges wrong, and ruining the expensive rollers together with tons and tons of material. if it's a miners' strike, it means destroying tracks and bridges, and blowing up mills. if it is a garment workers' strike, it means having an unaccountable fire, getting a volley of stones through an apparently inaccessible window, or possibly a brickbat on the manufacturer's own head. if it's a street-car strike, it means tracks torn up or barricaded with the contents of ash-carts and slop-carts, with overturned wagons or stolen fences, it means smashed or incinerated cars and turned switches. if it is a system federation strike, it means "dead" engines, wild engines, derailed freights, and stalled trains. if it is a building trades strike, it means dynamited structures. and always, everywhere, all the time, fights between strike-breakers and scabs against strikers and strike-sympathizers, between people and police. on the side of the bosses, it means search-lights, electric wires, stockades, bull-pens, detectives and provocative agents, violent kidnapping and deportation, and every device they can conceive for direct protection, besides the ultimate invocation of police, militia, state constabulary, and federal troops. everybody knows this; everybody smiles when union officials protest their organizations to be peaceable and law-abiding, because everybody knows they are lying. they know that violence is used, both secretly and openly; and they know it is used because the strikers cannot do any other way, without giving up the fight at once. nor do they mistake those who thus resort to violence under stress for destructive miscreants who do what they do out of innate cussedness. the people in general understand that they do these things, through the harsh logic of a situation which they did not create, but which forces them to these attacks in order to make good in their struggle to live, or else go down the bottomless descent into poverty, that lets death find them in the poorhouse hospital, the city street, or the river-slime. this is the awful alternative that the workers are facing; and this is what makes the most kindly disposed human beings,--men who would go out of their way to help a wounded dog, or bring home a stray kitten and nurse it, or step aside to avoid walking on a worm--resort to violence against their fellow-men. they know, for the facts have taught them, that this is the only way to win, if they can win at all. and it has always appeared to me one of the most utterly ludicrous, absolutely irrelevant things that a person can do or say, when approached for relief or assistance by a striker who is dealing with an immediate situation, to respond with, "vote yourself into power!" when the next election is six months, a year, or two years away. unfortunately, the people who know best how violence is used in union warfare, cannot come forward and say: "on such a day, at such a place, such and such a specific action was done, and as the result such and such a concession was made, or such and such a boss capitulated." to do so would imperil their liberty, and their power to go on fighting. therefore those that know best must keep silent, and sneer in their sleeves, while those that know little prate. events, not tongues, must make their position clear. and there has been a very great deal of prating these last few weeks. speakers and writers, honestly convinced, i believe, that political action, and political action only, can win the workers' battle, have been denouncing what they are pleased to call "direct action" (what they really mean is conspiratical violence) as the author of mischief incalculable. one oscar ameringer, as an example, recently said at a meeting in chicago that the haymarket bomb of ' had set back the eight-hour movement twenty-five years, arguing that the movement would have succeeded then but for the bomb. it's a great mistake. no one can exactly measure in years or months the effect of a forward push or a reaction. no one can demonstrate that the eight-hour movement could have been won twenty-five years ago. we know that the eight-hour day was put on the statute books of illinois in , by political action, and has remained a dead letter. that the direct action of the workers could have won it, then, can not be proved; but it can be shown that many more potent factors than the haymarket bomb worked against it. on the other hand, if the reactive influence of the bomb was really so powerful, we should naturally expect labor and union conditions to be worse in chicago than in the cities where no such thing happened. on the contrary, bad as they are, the general conditions of labor are better in chicago than in most other large cities, and the power of the unions is more developed there than in any other american city except san francisco. so if we are to conclude anything for the influence of the haymarket bomb, keep these facts in mind. personally i do not think its influence on the labor movement, as such, was so very great. it will be the same with the present furore about violence. nothing fundamental has been altered. two men have been imprisoned for what they did (twenty-four years ago they were hanged for what they did not do); some few more may yet be imprisoned. but the forces of life will continue to revolt against their economic chains. there will be no cessation in that revolt, no matter what ticket men vote or fail to vote, until the chains are broken. how will the chains be broken? political actionists tell us it will be only by means of working-class party action at the polls; by voting themselves into possession of the sources of life and the tools; by voting that those who now command forests, mines, ranches, waterways, mills and factories, and likewise command the military power to defend them, shall hand over their dominion to the people. and meanwhile? meanwhile be peaceable, industrious, law-abiding, patient, and frugal (as madero told the mexican peons to be, after he had sold them to wall street)! even if some of you are disfranchised, don't rise up even against that, for it might "set back the party." well, i have already stated that some good is occasionally accomplished by political action,--not necessarily working-class party action either. but i am abundantly convinced that the occasional good accomplished is more than counterbalanced by the evil; just as i am convinced that though there are occasional evils resulting from direct action, they are more than counterbalanced by the good. nearly all the laws which were originally framed with the intention of benefiting the workers, have either turned into weapons in their enemies' hands, or become dead letters, unless the workers through their organizations have directly enforced the observance. so that in the end, it is direct action that has to be relied on anyway. as an example of getting the tarred end of a law, glance at the anti-trust law, which was supposed to benefit the people in general, and the working class in particular. about two weeks since, some union leaders were cited to answer to the charge of being trust formers, as the answer of the illinois central to its strikers. but the evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater than any such minor results. the main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches people to rely on some one else to do for them what they should do for themselves, what they alone can do for themselves; finally renders organic the anomalous idea that by massing supineness together until a majority is acquired, then, through the peculiar magic of that majority, this supineness is to be transformed into energy. that is, people who have lost the habit of striking for themselves as individuals, who have submitted to every injustice while waiting for the majority to grow, are going to become metamorphosed into human high-explosives by a mere process of packing! i quite agree that the sources of life, and all the natural wealth of the earth, and the tools necessary to co-operative production, must become free of access to all. it is a positive certainty to me that unionism must widen and deepen its purposes, or it will go under; and i feel sure that the logic of the situation will force them to see it gradually. they must learn that the workers' problem can never be solved by beating up scabs, so long as their own policy of limiting their membership by high initiation fees and other restrictions helps to make scabs. they must learn that the course of growth is not so much along the line of higher wages, but shorter hours, which will enable them to increase membership, to take in everybody who is willing to come into the union. they must learn that if they want to win battles, all allied workers must act together, act quickly (serving no notice on bosses), and retain their freedom so to do at all times. and finally they must learn that even then (when they have a complete organization), they can win nothing permanent unless they strike for everything,--not for a wage, not for a minor improvement, but for the whole natural wealth of the earth. and proceed to the direct expropriation of it all! they must learn that their power does not lie in their voting strength, that their power lies in their ability to stop production. it is a great mistake to suppose that the wage-earners constitute a majority of the voters. wage-earners are here to-day and there to-morrow, and that hinders a large number from voting; a great percentage of them in this country are foreigners without a voting right. the most patent proof that socialist leaders know this is so, is that they are compromising their propaganda at every point to win the support of the business class, the small investor. their campaign papers proclaimed that their interviewers had been assured by wall street bond purchasers that they would be just as ready to buy los angeles bonds from a socialist as a capitalist administration; that the present milwaukee administration has been a boon to the small investor; their reading notices assure their readers in this city that we need not go to the great department stores to buy,--buy rather of so-and-so on milwaukee avenue, who will satisfy us quite as well as a "big business" institution. in short, they are making every desperate effort to win the support, and to prolong the life, of that middle-class which socialistic economy says must be ground to pieces, because they know they cannot get a majority without them. the most that a working-class party could do, even if its politicians remained honest, would be to form a strong faction in the legislatures, which might, by combining its vote with one side or the other, win certain political or economic palliatives. but what the working-class can do, when once they grow into a solidified organization, is to show the possessing classes, through a sudden cessation of all work, that the whole social structure rests on them; that the possessions of the others are absolutely worthless to them without the workers' activity; that such protests, such strikes, are inherent in the system of property, and will continually recur until the whole thing is abolished,--and having shown that, effectively, proceed to expropriate. "but the military power," says the political actionist; "we must get political power, or the military will be used against us!" against a real general strike, the military can do nothing. oh, true, if you have a socialist briand in power, he may declare the workers "public officials" and try to make them serve against themselves! but against the solid wall of an immobile working-mass, even a briand would be broken. meanwhile, until this international awakening, the war will go on as it has been going, in spite of all the hysteria which well-meaning people, who do not understand life and its necessities, may manifest; in spite of all the shivering that timid leaders have done; in spite of all the reactionary revenges that may be taken; in spite of all the capital politicians make out of the situation. it will go on because life cries to live, and property denies its freedom to live; and life will not submit. and should not submit. it will go on until that day when a self-freed humanity is able to chant swinburne's hymn of man: "glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things." the paris commune the paris commune, like other spectacular events in human history, has become the clinging point for many legends, alike among its enemies and among its friends. indeed, one must often question which was the real commune, the legend or the fact,--what was actually lived, or the conception of it which has shaped itself in the world-mind during those forty odd years that have gone since the th of march, . it is thus with doctrines, it is thus with personalities, it is thus with events. which is the real christianity, the simple doctrine attributed to christ or the practical preaching and realizing of organized christianity? which is the real abraham lincoln,--the clever politician who emancipated the chattel slaves as an act of policy, or the legendary apostle of human liberty, who rises like a gigantic figure of iconoclastic right smiting old wrongs and receiving the martyr's crown therefor? which is the real commune,--the thing that was, or the thing our orators have painted it? which will be the influencing power in the days that are to come? our commune commemorators are wont to say, and surely they believe, that the declaration of the commune was the spontaneous assertion of independence by the parisian masses, consciously alive to the fact that the national government of france had treated them most outrageously in the matter of defense against the prussian army. they believe that the farce of the situation in which the city found itself, had opened the eyes of the general populace to the fact that the national government, so far from serving the supposed prime purpose of government, viz., as a means of defense against a foreign invader, was in reality a thing so apart from them and their interests that it preferred to leave them to the mercy of the prussians, to endangering its own supremacy by assisting in their defense, or permitting them to defend themselves. it is a pity that this legendary figure of awakened paris is not a true one. the commune, in fact, was not the work of the whole people of paris, nor of a majority of the people of paris. the commune was really established by a comparatively small number of able, nay brilliant, and supremely devoted men and women from _every_ walk in life, but with a relatively high percentage of military men, engineers, and political journalists, some of whom had time and again been in prison before for seditious writing or acts of rebellion. they flocked in from their exile in the neighboring countries, thinking that now they saw the opportunity for retrieving former errors, and arousing the people to renew and to extend the struggle of . it is true that there were also teachers, artists, designers, architects and builders, skilled craftsmen of every sort. and perhaps no chapter in the whole story is more inspiring than the description of the gatherings of the workers, which took place night after night in every quarter of the beleaguered city, previous to the th of march and thereafter. to such meetings went those who burned with fervor of faith in what the people might and would accomplish, and, with the radiant vision of a new social day shining in their eyes, endeavored to make it clear to those who listened. one almost catches the redolence of outbursting faith, that rising of the sap of hope and courage and daring, like an incense of spring; almost feels himself there, partaking in the work, the danger, the glorious, mistaken assurance which was theirs. and yet the truth must have been that these apostles of the commune were blinded by their own enthusiasm, deafened by the enthusiasm they evoked in others, to the fact that the great unvoiced majority who did not attend public meetings, who sat within their houses or kept silent in the shops, were not converted or affected by their teachings. we are told by those who should know, the survivors among the communards themselves, that the actual number of persons who were aggressive, moving spirits in the great uprising was not greatly above , . the mass of the people were, as they would probably be in this city to-day under like circumstances, indifferent as to what went on over their heads, so that the peace and quiet of their individual lives was restored, so that the siege of the prussians was raised, and themselves permitted to go about their business. if the commune could assure that, good luck to it! they were tired of the siege; and they longed for their old familiar miseries to which they were in some respect accustomed; they hardly dreamed of anything better. but, as is usually the case when strategic moments arise, these same plain, stolid, indifferent people, who neither know nor care about fine theories of political right, municipal sovereignty, and so forth, see more directly into the logic of a situation than those who have confused their minds with much theorizing. likewise the people of paris in general, when the commune had become an established fact, saw that the only consequent proceeding would be to make war economically as well as politically, to cut off any source of supply to the national army which lay within the city. instead of doing that, the government of the commune, anxious to prove itself more law-abiding than the old regime, stupidly defended the property right of its enemies, and continued to let the bank of france furnish supplies to those who were financing the army of versailles, the very army which was to cut their throats. naturally, the plain people grew disgusted with so senseless a program, and in the main took no part in the final struggle with the versailles troops, nor even opposed the idea of their entrance into the city. probably a goodly number even drew a sigh of relief at the prospect of a return to the smaller evil of the two. little enough did they dream that the way back lay through their own blood, and that they, who had never lifted hand or voice for the commune, would become its martyrs. little did they conceive the wild revenge of law and order upon rebellion, the saturnalia of restored power. did they sleep, i wonder, on the night before the th of may, when that dark thunder of vengeance was gathering to break? many slept well the next night, and still sleep; for "then began a murder grim and great,"--a murder whose painted image, even after these forty years have risen and sunk upon it, sends the blood shuddering backward, and sets the teeth in uttermost horror and hate. macmahon placarded the streets with peace and sent his troops to make it; in the name of that peace, gallifet, an incarnation of hell, set his men the example and rode up and down the streets of paris, dashing out children's brains. did a hand appear at a shutter, the window was riddled with bullets. did a cry of protest escape from any throat, the house was invaded, its inhabitants driven out, lined against the walls, and shot where they stood. the doctors and the nurses at the bedsides of the wounded, the very sick in the hospitals, themselves were slaughtered where they lay. such was macmahon's peace. after the street massacres, the organized massacres at the bastions, the stakes of satory, the huddled masses of prisoners, the grim visitor with the lantern, the ghastly call to rise and follow, the trenches dug by the condemned in the slippery, blood-soaked ground for their own corpses to fall in. thirty thousand people butchered! butchered by the sateless vengeance of authority and the insane blood-lust of the professional soldier! butchered without a pretence of reason, a shadow of inquiry, merely as the gust of insensate rage blew! after the orgy of fury, the orgy of the inquisition. the gathering of the prisoners in cellar holes, where they must squat or lie upon damp earth, and see the light daily only for some short half hour when an unexpellable sun ray shot through some unstopped crevice. the shifting of them day and night across the country, sometimes in stock yard wagons, stifled, starved, and jammed together, as even our butchering civilization is ashamed to jam pigs for the slaughter; sometimes by dreadful marches, mostly by night, often with the rain beating on them, the butts of the soldiers' muskets striking them, as they lagged through weakness or through lameness. then the detention prisons, with their long-drawn agonies of hunger, cold, vermin, and disease, and the ever-looming darkness of waiting death. follow the tortures of friends and relatives of communards or suspected communards, to make them betray the whereabouts of their friends. could they who had seen these things "forgive and forget"? they who had seen ten year old children lashed to make them tell where their fathers were? women driven mad before the terrible choice of giving up their sons who had fought, or their daughters who had not, to the brutality of the soldiery. after the tortures of the hunt, the tortures of the trials, solemn farces, cat-like cruelties. then the long hopeless line of exiles marching from the prison to the port, crowded on the transport ships, watched like caged animals, forbidden to speak, the cannon always threatening above them, and so drifted away, away to exile lands, to barren islands and fever shores--there to waste away in loneliness, in uselessness, in futile dreams of freedom that ended in chains upon the ankles or death on the coral reefs--all this was the mercy and the wisdom shown by the national government to the rebel city whose works are the glory of france, and whose beauty is the beauty of the world. whatever other lesson we have to learn, this one is certain: the glutless revenge of restored authority. if ever one rebels, let him rebel to the end; there is no hope so futile as hope in either the justice or the mercy of a power against which a rebellion has been raised. no faith so simple or so foolish as faith in the discrimination, the judgement, or the wisdom of a reconquering government. whether at that time the essential principle of the independent commune could have been realized or not, through a general response of the other cities of france by like action (in case paris had continued to maintain the struggle some months longer), i am not historian enough, nor historic prophet enough, to say. i incline to think not. but certainly the struggle would have been far other, far more fruitful in its results, both then and later, (even if finally overthrown), had it really been a movement of all those people who were so indiscriminately murdered for it, so vilely tortured, so mercilessly exiled. for had it really been the deliberate expression of a million people's will to be free, they would have seized whatever supplies were being furnished the enemy from within their own gates; they would have repudiated property rights created by the very power they were seeking to overthrow. they would have seen what was necessary, and done it. had the real communards themselves seen the logic of their own effort, and understood that to overset the political system of dependence which enslaves the communes they must overset the economic institutions which beget the centralized state; had they proclaimed a general communalization of the city's resources they might have won the people to full faith in the struggle and aroused a ten-fold effort to win out. if that again had been followed by a like contagion in the other cities of france, (which was a possibility) the flame might have caught throughout latin europe, and those countries might now be giving a practical example of the extension of a modified socialism and local autonomy. this is what is likely to happen at the next similar outbreak, if politicians are so impolitic as to provoke the like. there are those among the best social students who feel sure that such will be the course of progress. i frankly say that i cannot see the path of future progress,--my vision is not large enough, nor my viewpoint high enough. where others perhaps behold the morning sunlight, i can discern only mists--blowing dust and moving glooms which obscure the future. i do not know where the path leads nor how it goes. only when looking backward, i can catch glimpses of that long, terrible, toilsome way by which humanity has gone forward; even that i do not see clearly,--just stretches of it here and there. but i see enough of it to know that never has it been a straight, undeviating line. always the path winds and returns, and even in the moment of gaining something, there is something lost. against the onslaught of nature, man collects his social strength, and loses thereby the freedom of his more isolated condition. against the inconveniences of primitive society, he hurls his inventive genius,--compasses land, sea, and air,--and by the very act of conquering his limitations binds fresh fetters on himself, creating a wealth which he enslaves himself to produce! and this is the path of progress, which there was no foreseeing! what waits them? and what hope is there? and what help is there? what waits? the unknown waits, as it has always waited,--dark, vague, immense, impenetrable--the mystery which allures the young and strong saying, "come and cope with me"; the mystery from which the old and wise shrink back, saying, "better to endure the evils that we have than fly to others that we know not of"; the old and wise, but alas! the cold-blooded! the mystery of the still unbound strengths of earth, sun, and depths, the loosing of any one of which may so alter the face of all that has been done that what now we think a guarantee of liberty may become the very chain of slavery, as has been the case before with freedoms laboriously won by act, and then set down in words for unborn men to abide by. and yet--it waits. are you strong and courageous? the unknown invites you to the struggle, dares you to its conquering. nay, it is perhaps your future beloved, waiting to reward your daring passion with the fervors of fresh creation. are you feeble and timid of spirit? bow your head to the ground. still you must meet the future; still you must go in the track of the others. you may hinder them, you may make them lag; you cannot stop them, nor yourself. struggle waits--abortive struggle, crushed struggle, mistaken struggle, long and often. and worse than all this, _waiting waits_,--the long dead-level of inaction, when no one does anything, when even the daring can only move in self-returning circles; when no one knows what to do, except to endure the ever-tightening pressure of intolerable conditions, how to better which he knows not; when living appears a monotonous journey through a featureless wilderness, wherein the same pitiless word "useless" stares at one from every aimless path one seeks to follow in the despairing search for a way out. and happier is he who perishes in the mistaken struggle than he who, with a hot and chafing soul, but with clear discernment, sees that he is doomed to go on indefinitely in submission to the wrongs that are. what hope is there? that the increasing pressure of conditions may quicken intelligences; that even out of mistaken struggle, frustrate struggle, unforeseen good consequences may flow, just as out of undeniable improvements in material life, unforeseeable ill results are consequent. the commune hoped to free paris, and by so setting an example free many other cities. it went down in utter defeat, and no city was freed thereby. but out of this defeat the knowledge and skill of craftsmanship of its people went abroad over other lands, both into civilized centers and to wild waste places; and wherever its art went, its idea went also, so that the "commune," the idealized commune, has become a watchword through the workshops of the world, wherever there are even a few workers seeking to awaken their fellows. there are those who have definite hopes; those who think they know precisely how overwork and underwork and poverty, and all their consequences of spiritual enslavement, are to be abolished. such are they who think they can see the way of progress broad and clear through the slit in a ballot box. i fear their works will have some uncalculated consequences also, if ever they execute them; i fear their narrowly enclosed view deceives them much. climbing a hill is a different affair from voting oneself at the top. no matter: man always hopes; life always hopes. when a definite object cannot be outlined, the indomitable spirit of hope still impels the living mass to move toward something--something that shall somehow be better. what help is there? no help from outside power; no help from overhead; no help from the sky, pray to it ever so much; no help from the strong hand of wise men, nor of good men, however wise or good. such help always ends in despotism. nor yet is there help in the abnegation of generous fanatics whose efforts end in deplorable fiasco, as did the commune. help lies only in the general will of those who do the work to say how, when, and where they shall do it. the force of the lesson of the commune is that people cannot be made free who have not conceived freedom; yet through such examples they may learn to conceive it. it cannot be bestowed as a gift; it must be taken by those who want it. let us hope that those who would have given it, bought that much by their sacrifice, that they touched the unseeing eyes of the somnambulist proletariat with a light which has made them dream, at least, of waking. the mexican revolution that a nation of people considering themselves enlightened, informed, alert to the interests of the hour, should be so generally and so profoundly ignorant of a revolution taking place in their backyard, so to speak, as the people of the united states are ignorant of the present revolution in mexico, can be due only to profoundly and generally acting causes. that people of revolutionary principles and sympathies should be so, is inexcusable. it is as one of such principles and sympathies that i address you,--as one interested in every move the people make to throw off their chains, no matter where, no matter how,--though naturally my interest is greatest where the move is such as appears to me to be most in consonance with the general course of progress, where the tyranny attacked is what appears to me the most fundamental, where the method followed is to my thinking most direct and unmistakable. and i add that those of you who have such principles and sympathies are in the logic of your own being bound, first, to inform yourselves concerning so great a matter as the revolt of millions of people--what they are struggling for, what they are struggling against, and how the struggle stands--from day to day, if possible; if not, from week to week, or month to month, as best you can; and second, to spread this knowledge among others, and endeavor to do what little you can to awaken the consciousness and sympathy of others. one of the great reasons why the mass of the american people know nothing of the revolution in mexico, is, that they have altogether a wrong conception of what "revolution" means. thus ninety-nine out of a hundred persons to whom you broach the subject will say, "why, i thought that ended long ago. that ended last may"; and this week the press, even the _daily socialist,_ reports, "a _new_ revolution in mexico." it isn't a new revolution at all; it is the same revolution, which did not begin with the armed rebellion of last may, which has been going on steadily ever since then, and before then, and is bound to go on for a long time to come, if the other nations keep their hands off and the mexican people are allowed to work out their own destiny. what is _a_ revolution? and what is _this_ revolution? a revolution means some great and subversive change in the social institutions of a people, whether sexual, religious, political, or economic. the movement of the reformation was a great religious revolution; a profound alteration in human thought--a refashioning of the human mind. the general movement towards political change in europe and america about the close of the eighteenth century, was a revolution. the american and the french revolutions were only prominent individual incidents in it, culminations of the teachings of the rights of man. the present unrest of the world in its economic relations, as manifested from day to day in the opposing combinations of men and money, in strikes and bread-riots, in literature and movements of all kinds demanding a readjustment of the whole or of parts of our wealth-owning and wealth-distributing system,--this unrest is the revolution of our time, the economic _revolution,_ which is seeking social change, and will go on until it is accomplished. we are in it; at any moment of our lives it may invade our own homes with its stern demand for self-sacrifice and suffering. its more violent manifestations are in liverpool and london to-day, in barcelona and vienna to-morrow, in new york and chicago the day after. humanity is a seething, heaving mass of unease, tumbling like surge over a slipping, sliding, shifting bottom; and there will never be any ease until a rock bottom of economic justice is reached. the mexican revolution is one of the prominent manifestations of this world-wide economic revolt. it possibly holds as important a place in the present disruption and reconstruction of economic institutions, as the great revolution of france held in the eighteenth century movement. it did not begin with the odious government of diaz nor end with his downfall, any more than the revolution in france began with the coronation of louis xvi, or ended with his beheading. it began in the bitter and outraged hearts of the peasants, who for generations have suffered under a ready-made system of exploitation, imported and foisted upon them, by which they have been dispossessed of their homes, compelled to become slave-tenants of those who robbed them; and under diaz, in case of rebellion to be deported to a distant province, a killing climate, and hellish labor. it will end only when that bitterness is assuaged by very great alteration in the land-holding system, or until the people have been absolutely crushed into subjection by a strong military power, whether that power be a native or a foreign one. now the political overthrow of last may, which was followed by the substitution of one political manager for another, did not at all touch the economic situation. it promised, of course; politicians always promise. it promised to consider measures for altering conditions; in the meantime, proprietors are assured that the new government intends to respect the rights of landlords and capitalists, and exhorts the workers to be patient and--_frugal!_ frugal! yes, that was the exhortation in madero's paper to men who, when they are able to get work, make twenty-five cents a day. a man owning , , acres of land exhorts the disinherited workers of mexico to be frugal! the idea that such a condition can be dealt with by the immemorial remedy offered by tyrants to slaves, is like the idea of sweeping out the sea with a broom. and unless that frugality, or in other words, starvation, is forced upon the people by more bayonets and more strategy than appear to be at the government's command, the mexican revolution will go on to the solution of mexico's land question with a rapidity and directness of purpose not witnessed in any previous upheaval. for it must be understood that the main revolt is a revolt against the system of land tenure. the industrial revolution of the cities, while it is far from being silent, is not to compare with the agrarian revolt. let us understand why. mexico consists of twenty-seven states, two territories and a federal district about the capital city. its population totals about , , . of these, , , are of unmixed indian descent, people somewhat similar in character to the pueblos of our own southwestern states, primitively agricultural for an immemorial period, communistic in many of their social customs, and like all indians, invincible haters of authority. these indians are scattered throughout the rural districts of mexico, one particularly well-known and much talked of tribe, the yaquis, having had its fatherland in the rich northern state of sonora, a very valuable agricultural country. the indian population--especially the yaquis and the moquis--have always disputed the usurpations of the invaders' government, from the days of the early conquest until now, and will undoubtedly continue to dispute them as long as there is an indian left, or until their right to use the soil out of which they sprang _without paying tribute in any shape_ is freely recognized. the communistic customs of these people are very interesting, and very instructive too; they have gone on practising them all these hundreds of years, in spite of the foreign civilization that was being grafted upon mexico (grafted in all senses of the word); and it was not until forty years ago (indeed the worst of it not till twenty-five years ago), that the increasing power of the government made it possible to destroy this ancient life of the people. by them, the woods, the waters, and the lands were held in common. any one might cut wood from the forest to build his cabin, make use of the rivers to irrigate his field or garden patch (and this is a right whose acknowledgment none but those who know the aridity of the southwest can fully appreciate the imperative necessity for). tillable lands were allotted by mutual agreement before sowing, and reverted to the tribe after harvesting, for reallotment. pasturage, the right to collect fuel, were for all. the habits of mutual aid which always arise among sparsely settled communities were instinctive with them. neighbor assisted neighbor to build his cabin, to plough his ground, to gather and store this crop. no legal machinery existed--no taxgatherer, no justice, no jailer. all that they had to do with the hated foreign civilization was to pay the periodical rent-collector, and to get out of the way of the recruiting officer when he came around. those two personages they regarded with spite and dread; but as the major portion of their lives was not in immediate contact with them, they could still keep on in their old way of life in the main. with the development of the diaz regime, which came into power in (and when i say the diaz regime i do not especially mean the man diaz, for i think he has been both overcursed and overpraised, but the whole force which has steadily developed centralized power from then on, and the whole policy of "civilizing mexico," which was the diaz boast), with its development, i say, this indian life has been broken up, violated with as ruthless a hand as ever tore up a people by the roots and cast them out as weeds to wither in the sun. historians relate with horror the iron deeds of william the conqueror, who in the eleventh century created the new forest by laying waste the farms of england, destroying the homes of the people to make room for the deer. but his edicts were mercy compared with the action of the mexican government toward the indians. in order to introduce "progressive civilization" the diaz regime granted away immense concessions of land, to native and foreign capitalists--chiefly foreign indeed, though there were enough of native sharks as well. mostly these concessions were granted to capitalistic combinations, which were to build railroads (and in some cases did so in a most uncalled for and uneconomic way), "develop" mineral resources, or establish "modern industries." the government took no note of the ancient tribal rights or customs, and those who received the concessions proceeded to enforce their property rights. they introduced the unheard of crime of "trespass." they forbade the cutting of a tree, the breaking of a branch, the gathering of the fallen wood in the forests. they claimed the watercourses, forbidding their free use to the people; and it was as if one had forbidden to us the rains of heaven. the unoccupied land was theirs; no hand might drive a plow into the soil without first obtaining permission from a distant master--a permission granted on the condition that the product be the landlord's, a small, pitifully small, wage, the worker's. nor was this enough: in was passed "the law of unappropriated lands." by that law, not only were the great stretches of _vacant_, in the old time _common_, land appropriated, but the occupied lands themselves to _which the occupants could not show a legal title_ were to be "denounced"; that is, the educated and the powerful, who were able to keep up with the doings of the government, went to the courts and said that there was no legal title to such and such land, and put in a claim for it. and the usual hocus-pocus of legality being complied with (the actual occupant of the land being all the time blissfully unconscious of the law, in the innocence of his barbarism supposing that the working of the ground by his generations of forbears was title all-sufficient) one fine day the sheriff comes upon this hapless dweller on the heath and drives him from his ancient habitat to wander an outcast. such are the blessings of education. mankind invents a written sign to aid its intercommunication; and forthwith all manner of miracles are wrought with the sign. even such a miracle as that a part of the solid earth passes under the mastery of an impotent sheet of paper; and a distant bit of animated flesh which never even saw the ground, acquires the power to expel hundreds, thousands, of like bits of flesh, though they grew upon that ground as the trees grow, labored it with their hands, and fertilized it with their bones for a thousand years. "this law of unappropriated lands," says william archer, "has covered the country with naboth's vineyards." i think it would require a biblical prophet to describe the "abomination of desolation" it has made. it was to become lords of this desolation that the men who play the game--landlords who are at the same time governors and magistrates, enterprising capitalists seeking investments--connived at the iniquities of the diaz regime; i will go further and say devised them. the madero family alone owns some , square miles of territory; more than the entire state of new jersey. the terrazas family, in the state of chihuahua, owns , square miles; rather more than the entire state of west virginia, nearly one-half the size of illinois. what was the plantation owning of our southern states in chattel slavery days, compared with this? and the peon's share for his toil upon these great estates is hardly more than was the chattel slave's--wretched housing, wretched food, and wretched clothing. it is to slaves like these that madero appeals to be "frugal." it is of men who have thus been disinherited that our complacent fellow-citizens of anglo-saxon origin, say: "mexicans! what do you know about mexicans? their whole idea of life is to lean up against a fence and smoke cigarettes". and pray, what idea of life should a people have whose means of life in their own way have been taken from them? should they be so mighty anxious to convert their strength into wealth for some other man to loll in? it reminds me very much of the answer given by a negro employee on the works at fortress monroe to a companion of mine who questioned him good-humoredly on his easy idleness when the foreman's back was turned. "ah ain't goin' to do no white man's work, fo' ah don' get no white man's pay." but for the yaquis, there was worse than this. not only were their lands seized, but they were ordered, a few years since, to be deported to yucatan. now sonora, as i said, is a northern state, and yucatan one of the southernmost. yucatan hemp is famous, and so is yucatan fever, and yucatan slavery on the hemp plantations. it was to that fever and that slavery that the yaquis were deported, in droves of hundreds at a time, men, women and children--droves like cattle droves, driven and beaten like cattle. they died there, like flies, as it was meant they should. sonora was desolated of her rebellious people, and the land became "pacific" in the hands of the new landowners. too pacific in spots. they had not left people enough to reap the harvests. then the government suspended the deportation act, but with the provision that for every crime committed by a yaqui, five hundred of his people be deported. this statement is made in madero's own book. now what in all conscience would any one with decent human feeling expect a yaqui to do? fight! as long as there was powder and bullet to be begged, borrowed, or stolen; as long as there is a garden to plunder, or a hole in the hills to hide in! when the revolution burst out, the yaquis and other indian peoples, said to the revolutionists: "promise us our lands back, and we will fight with you." and they are keeping their word, magnificently. all during the summer they have kept up the warfare. early in september, the chihuahua papers reported a band of , yaquis in sonora about to attack el anil; a week later yaquis had seized the former quarters of the federal troops at pitahaya. this week it is reported that federal troops are dispatched to ponoitlan, a town in jalisco, to quell the indians who have risen in revolt again because their delusion that the maderist government was to restore their land has been dispelled. like reports from sinaloa. in the terrible state of yucatan, the mayas are in active rebellion; the reports say that "the authorities and leading citizens of various towns have been seized by the malcontents and put in prison." what is more interesting is, that the peons have seized not only "the leading citizens," but still more to the purpose have seized the plantations, parceled them, and are already gathering the crops for themselves. of course, it is not the pure indians alone who form the peon class of mexico. rather more than double the number of indians are mixed breeds; that is, about , , , leaving less than , , of pure white stock. the mestiza, or mixed breed population, have followed the communistic instincts and customs of their indian forbears; while from the latin side of their make-up, they have certain tendencies which work well together with their indian hatred of authority. the mestiza, as well as the indians, are mostly ignorant in book-knowledge, only about sixteen per cent. of the whole population of mexico being able to read and write. it was not within the program of the "civilizing" regime to spend money in putting the weapon of learning in the people's hands. but to conclude that people are necessarily unintelligent because they are illiterate, is in itself a rather unintelligent proceeding. moreover, a people habituated to the communal customs of an ancient agricultural life do not need books or papers to tell them that the soil is the source of wealth, and they must "get back to the land," even if their intelligence is limited. accordingly, they have got back to the land. in the state of morelos, which is a small, south-central state, but a very important one--being next to the federal district, and by consequence to the city of mexico--there has been a remarkable land revolution. general zapata, whose name has figured elusively in newspaper reports now as having made peace with madero, then as breaking faith, next wounded and killed, and again resurrected and in hiding, then anew on the warpath and proclaimed by the provisional government the arch-rebel who must surrender unconditionally and be tried by court-martial; who has seized the strategic points on both the railroads running through morelos, and who just a few days ago broke into the federal district, sacked a town, fought successfully at two or three points, with the federals, blew out two railroad bridges and so frightened the deputies in mexico city that they are clamoring for all kinds of action; this zapata, the fires of whose military camps are springing up now in guerrero, oaxaca and puebla as well, is an indian with a long score to pay, and all an indian's satisfaction in paying it. he appears to be a fighter of the style of our revolutionary marion and sumter; the country in which he is operating is mountainous, and guerilla bands are exceedingly difficult of capture; even when they are defeated, they have usually succeeded in inflicting more damage than they have received, and they always get away. zapata has divided up the great estates of morelos from end to end, telling the peasants to take possession. they have done so. they are in possession, and have already harvested their crops. morelos has a population of some , . in puebla reports in september told us that eighty leading citizens had waited on the governor to protest against the taking possession of the land by the peasantry. the troops were deserting, taking horses and arms with them. it is they no doubt who are now fighting with zapata. in chihuahua, one of the largest states, prisons have been thrown open and the prisoners recruited as rebels; a great hacienda was attacked and the horses run off, whereupon the peons rose and joined the attacking party. in sinaloa, a rich northern state--famous in the southwestern united states some years ago as the field of a great co-operative experiment in which mr. c. b. hoffman, one of the former editors of _the chicago daily socialist,_ was a leading spirit--this week's paper reports that the former revolutionary general, juan banderas, is heading an insurrection second in importance only to that led by zapata. in the southern border state of chiapas, the taxes in many places could not be collected. last week news items said that the present government had sent general paz there, with federal troops, to remedy that state of affairs. in tabasco, the peons refused to harvest the crops for their masters; let us hope they have imitated their brothers in morelos and gathered them for themselves. the maderists have announced that a stiff repressive campaign will be inaugurated at once; if we are to believe the papers, we are to believe madero guilty of the imbecility of saying, "five days after my inauguration the rebellion will be crushed." just why the crushing has to wait till five days after the inauguration does not appear. i conceive there must have been some snickering among the reactionary deputies if such an announcement was really made; and some astonished query among his followers. what are we to conclude from all these reports? that the mexican people are satisfied? that it's all good and settled? what should we think if we read that the people, not of lower but of upper, california had turned out the ranch owners, had started to gather in the field products for themselves and that the secretary of war had sent united states troops to attack some thousands of armed men (zapata has had , under arms the whole summer and that force is now greatly increased) who were defending that expropriation? if we read that in the state of illinois the farmers had driven off the tax collector? that the coast states were talking of secession and forming an independent combination? that in pennsylvania a division of the federal army was to be dispatched to overpower a rebel force of fifteen hundred armed men doing guerilla work from the mountains? that the prison doors of maryland, within hailing distance of washington city, were being thrown open by armed revoltees? should we call it a condition of peace? regard it a proof that the people were appeased? we would not: we would say that revolution was in full swing. and the reason you have thought it was all over in mexico, from last may till now, is that the chicago press, like the eastern, northern, and central press in general, has said nothing about this steady march of revolt. even _the socialist_ has been silent. now that the flame has shot up more spectacularly for the moment, they call it "a new revolution." that the papers pursue this course is partly due to the generally acting causes that produce our northern indifference, which i shall presently try to explain, and partly to the settled policy of capitalized interest in controlling its mouthpieces in such a manner as to give their present henchmen, the maderists, a chance to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. they invested some $ , , in this bunch, in the hope that they may be able to accomplish the double feat of keeping capitalist possessions intact and at the same time pacifying the people with specious promises. they want to lend them all the countenance they can, till the experiment is well tried; so they deliberately suppress revolutionary news. among the later items of interest reported by the _los angeles times_ are those which announce an influx of ex-officials and many-millioned landlords of mexico, who are hereafter to be residents of los angeles. what is the meaning of it? simply that life in mexico is not such a safe and comfortable proposition as it was, and that for the present they prefer to get such income as their agents can collect without themselves running the risk of actual residence. of course it is understood that some of this notable efflux (the supporters of reyes, for example, who have their own little rebellions in tabasco and san luis potosi this week) are political reactionists, scheming to get back the political loaves and fishes into their own hands. but most are simply those who know that their property right is safe enough to be respected by the maderist government, but that the said government is not strong enough to put down the innumerable manifestations of popular hatred which are likely to terminate fatally to themselves if they remain there. nor is all of this fighting revolutionary; not by any means. some is reactionary, some probably the satisfaction of personal grudge, much, no doubt, the expression of general turbulency of a very unconscious nature. but granting all that may be thrown in the balance, the main thing, the mighty thing, the regenerative revolution is the _reappropriation of the land by the peasants._ thousands upon thousands of them are doing it. ignorant peasants: peasants who know nothing about the jargon of land reformers or of socialists. yes: that's just the glory of it! just the fact that it is done by ignorant people; that is, people ignorant of book theories; but _not_ ignorant, not so ignorant by half, of life on the land, as the theory-spinners of the cities. their minds are simple and direct; they act accordingly. for them, there is _one way_ to "get back to the land"; i. e., to ignore the machinery of paper land-holding (in many instances they have burned the records of the title-deeds) and proceed to plough the ground, to sow and plant and gather, and _keep the product themselves_. economists, of course, will say that these ignorant people, with their primitive institutions and methods, will not develop the agricultural resources of mexico, and that they must give way before those who will so develop its resources; that such is the law of human development. in the first place, the abominable political combination, which gave away, as recklessly as a handful of soap-bubbles, the agricultural resources of mexico--gave them away to the millionaire speculators who were to _develop the country_--were the educated men of mexico. and this is what they saw fit to do with their higher intelligence and education. so the ignorant may well distrust the good intentions of educated men who talk about improvements in land development. in the second place, capitalistic land-ownership, so far from developing the land in such a manner as to support a denser population, has depopulated whole districts, immense districts. in the third place, what the economists do not say is, that the only justification for intense cultivation of the land is, that the product of such cultivation may build up the bodies of men (by consequence their souls) to richer and fuller manhood. it is not merely to pile up figures of so many million bushels of wheat and corn produced in a season; but that this wheat and corn shall first go into the stomachs of those who planted it--and in abundance; to build up the brawn and sinew of the arms that work the ground, not meanly maintaining them in a half-starved condition. and second, to build up the strength of the rest of the nation who are willing to give needed labor in exchange. but never to increase the fortunes of idlers who dissipate it. this is the purpose, and the only purpose, of tilling soil; and the working of it for any other purpose is _waste_, waste both of land and of men. in the fourth place, no change ever was, or ever can be, worked out in any society, except by the mass of the people. theories may be propounded by educated people, and set down in books, and discussed in libraries, sitting-rooms and lecture-halls; but they will remain barren, unless the people in mass work them out. if the change proposed is such that it is not adaptable to the minds of the people for whose ills it is supposed to be a remedy, then it will remain what it was, a barren theory. now the conditions in mexico have been and are so desperate that some change is imperative. the action of the peasants proves it. even if a strong military dictator shall arise, he will have to allow some provision going towards peasant proprietorship. these unlettered, but determined, people must be dealt with _now_; there is no such thing as "waiting till they are educated up to it." therefore the wisdom of the economists is wisdom out of place--rather, _relative unwisdom_. the people never _can_ be educated, if their conditions are to remain what they were under the diaz regime. bodies and minds are both too impoverished to be able to profit by a spread of theoretical education, even if it did not require unavailable money and indefinite time to prepare such a spread. whatever economic change is wrought, then, must be such as the people in their present state of comprehension can understand and make use of. and we see by the reports what they understand. they understand they have a right upon the soil, a right to use it for themselves, a right to drive off the invader who has robbed them, to destroy landmarks and title-deeds, to ignore the taxgatherer and his demands. and however primitive their agricultural methods may be, one thing is sure; that they are more economical than any system which heaps up fortunes by destroying men. moreover, who is to say how they may develop their methods once they have a free opportunity to do so? it is a common belief of the anglo-saxon that the indian is essentially lazy. the reasons for his thinking so are two: under the various tyrannies and robberies which white men in general, and anglo-saxons in particular (they have even gone beyond the spaniard) have inflicted upon indians, there is no possible reason why an indian should want to work, save the idiotic one that work in itself is a virtuous and exalted thing, even if by it the worker increases the power of his tyrant. as william archer says: "if there are men, _and this is not denied_, who work for no wage, and with no prospect or hope of any reward, it would be curious to know by what motive other than the lash or the fear of the lash, they are induced to go forth to their labor in the morning." the second reason is, that an indian really has a different idea of what he is alive for than an anglo-saxon has. and so have the latin peoples. this different idea is what i meant when i said that the mestiza have certain tendencies inherited from the latin side of their make-up which work well together with their indian hatred of authority. the indian likes to _live_; to be his own master; to work when he pleases and stop when he pleases. he does not crave many things, but he craves the enjoyment of the things that he has. he feels himself more a part of nature than a white man does. all his legends are of wanderings with nature, of forests, fields, streams, plants, animals. he wants to live with the same liberty as the other children of earth. his philosophy of work is, work so as to live care-free. this is not laziness; this is sense--to the person who has that sort of make-up. your latin, on the other hand, also wants to live; and having artistic impulses in him, his idea of living is very much in gratifying them. he likes music and song and dance, picture-making, carving, and decorating. he doesn't like to be forced to create his fancies in a hurry; he likes to fashion them, and admire them, and improve and refashion them, and admire again; and all for the fun of it. if he is ordered to create a certain design or a number of objects at a fixed price in a given time, he loses his inspiration; the play becomes work, and hateful work. so he, too, does not want to work, except what is requisite to maintain himself in a position to do those things that he likes better. your anglo-saxon's idea of life, however, is to create the useful and the profitable--whether he has any use or profit out of it or not--and to keep busy, busy; to bestir himself "like the devil in a holy water font." like all other people, he makes a special virtue of his own natural tendencies, and wants all the world to "get busy"; it doesn't so much matter to what end this business is to be conducted, provided the individual--_scrabbles_. whenever a true anglo-saxon seeks to enjoy himself, he makes work out of that too, after the manner of a certain venerable english shopkeeper who in company with his son visited the louvre. being tired out with walking from room to room, consulting his catalogue, and reading artists' names, he dropped down to rest; but after a few moments rose resolutely and faced the next room, saying, "well, alfred, we'd better be getting through our work." there is much question as to the origin of the various instincts. most people have the impression that the chief source of variation lies in the difference in the amount of sunlight received in the native countries inhabited of the various races. whatever the origin is, these are the broadly marked tendencies of the people. and "business" seems bent not only upon fulfilling its own fore-ordained destiny, but upon making all the others fulfill it too. which is both unjust and stupid. there is room enough in the world for the races to try out their several tendencies and make their independent contributions to the achievements of humanity, without imposing them on those who revolt at them. granting that the population of mexico, if freed from this foreign "busy" idea which the government imported from the north and imposed on them with such severity in the last forty years, would not immediately adopt improved methods of cultivation, even when they should have free opportunity to do so, still we have no reason to conclude that they would not adopt so much of it as would fit _their_ idea of what a man is alive for; and if that actually proved good, it would introduce still further development. so that there would be a natural, and therefore solid, economic growth which would stick; while a forced development of it through the devastation of the people is no true growth. the only way to make it go, is to kill out the indians altogether, and transport the "busy" crowd there, and then keep on transporting for several generations, to fill up the ravages the climate will make on such an imported population. the indian population of our states was in fact dealt with in this murderous manner. i do not know how grateful the reflection may be to those who materially profited by its extermination; but no one who looks forward to the final unification and liberation of man, to the incorporation of the several goodnesses of the various races in the one universal race, can ever read those pages of our history without burning shame and fathomless regret. i have spoken of the meaning of revolution in general; of the meaning of the mexican revolution--chiefly an agrarian one; of its present condition. i think it should be apparent to you that in spite of the electoral victory of the now ruling power, it has not put an end even to the armed rebellion, and cannot, until it proposes some plan of land restoration; and that it not only has no inward disposition to do, but probably would not dare to do, in view of the fact that immense capital financed it into power. as to what amount of popular sentiment was actually voiced in the election, it is impossible to say. the dailies informed us that in the federal district where there are , , voters, the actual vote was less than , . they offered no explanation. it is impossible to explain it on the ground that we explain a light vote in our own communities, that the people are indifferent to public questions; for the people of mexico are not now _indifferent_, whatever else they may be. two explanations are possible: the first, and most probable, that of _governmental_ intimidation; the second, that the people are convinced of the uselessness of voting as a means of settling their troubles. in the less thickly populated agricultural states, _this is_ very largely the case; they are relying upon direct revolutionary action. but although there was guerilla warfare in the federal district, even before the election, i find it unlikely that more than half the voting population there abstained from voting out of conviction, though i should be glad to be able to believe they did. however, madero and his aids are in, as was expected; the question is, how will they stay in? as diaz did, and in no other way--if they succeed in developing diaz's sometime ability; which so far they are wide from having done, though they are resorting to the most vindictive and spiteful tactics in their persecution of the genuine revolutionists, wherever such come near their clutch. to this whole turbulent situation three outcomes are possible: . a military dictator must arise, with sense enough to make some substantial concessions, and ability enough to pursue the crushing policy ably; or . the united states must intervene in the interests of american capitalists and landholders, in case the peasant revolt is not put down by the maderist power. and that will be the worst thing that can possibly happen, and against which every worker in the united states should protest with all his might; or . the mexican peasantry will be successful, and freedom in land become an actual fact. and that means the death-knell of great land-holding in this country also, for what people is going to see its neighbor enjoy so great a triumph, and sit on tamely itself under landlordism? whatever the outcome be, one thing is certain: it is a _great_ movement, which all the people of the world should be eagerly watching. yet as i said at the beginning, the majority of our population know no more about it than of a revolt on the planet jupiter. first because they are so, so, _busy_; they scarcely have time to look over the baseball score and the wrestling match; how _could_ they read up on a revolution! second, they are supremely egotistic and concerned in their own big country with its big deeds--such as divorce scandals, vice-grafting, and auto races. third, they do not read spanish, and they have an ancient hostility to all that smells spanish. fourth, from our cradles we were told that whatever happened in mexico was a joke. revolutions, or rather rebellions, came and went, about like april showers, and they never meant anything serious. and in this indeed there was only too much truth--it was usually an excuse for one place-hunter to get another one's scalp. and lastly, as i have said, the majority of our people do not know that a revolution means a fundamental change in social life, and not a spectacular display of armies. it is not much a few can do to remove this mountain of indifference; but to me it seems that every reformer, of whatever school, should wish to watch this movement with the most intense interest, as a practical manifestation of a wakening of the landworkers themselves to the recognition of what all schools of revolutionary economics admit to be the primal necessity--the social repossession of the land. and whether they be victorious or defeated, i, for one, bow my head to those heroic strugglers, no matter how ignorant they are, who have raised the cry land and liberty, and planted the blood-red banner on the burning soil of mexico. thomas paine to speak of thomas paine is to mention in one breath daring tempered by judgment, courage both mental and physical, foresight and prudence coupled with unstinted generosity, patience and endurance for the long race, constancy to the unwon ideal, that superior power over men, conferred by no extrinsic dictum, typified best perhaps by the loadstone, which always bursts forth in times of revolution from the unexpected place, the unbought and the unsought glory of the man who is a hero because a hero is required and does not measure his services nor reckon on their reward; not that he underrates himself; (it is as impossible as it is undesirable that a powerful personality should not know itself as such) but simply that in the moment of decisions the value of self is abandoned. so far as any or all of these qualities are concerned thomas paine is a name for them all, in their highest expression. and one feels in approaching him that there is something like treason in paying him any but a perfect tribute. yet such is the position into which i am forced,--to say less than i should, less than i would had not words and the art of using them almost failed me. i do not like lecturers who come before the public with apologies, nor do i propose to make any; i simply say this to let you know that i shall feel, perhaps more keenly than any of you, my failure to do paine justice. for the half century that his history has been being unmined from the cellar of calumny and filth that the orthodox had cast upon it, unmined chiefly by small groups of freethinkers scattered here and there and spreading his words among men, like the little foxes with the firebrands going in among the corn, the principal endeavor has been to establish paine's reputation as a great reformer in religion. and such he undoubtedly was. whoever reads his "age of reason" in anything but a spirit of predisposition against it, must feel this, however much he may disagree with paine's criticism, or consider that he has come short in his constructive philosophy. and it is meet, too, that the book that cost him most, both before and after death, should be the one selected for defense. nevertheless the effect has been rather to lose sight of what appear to me greater thoughts and acts. for just as the orthodox have forgotten, so have many freethinkers forgotten, his immense labors in the field of active struggle against the domination of man by man. it is true that his mind did not transcend the mental vesture of the time, and it was all the better in one of his marvelous capacities for _swinging_ masses of men that it did not. the lonely heralds of the opening dawn go upon their paths solitary; no matter how much they desire to draw others with them, they cannot. and had paine been one of these that break through the forms of thought such as was copernicus, or kant, or darwin, he would have been at constant war with himself. half his nature would have chosen the lonely path; the other half, the zealot, the propagandist, would have cried out, they _must_ go with me; i must do something to make them _go with_ me. now the secret of paine's success was that he was so thoroughly at one with himself, he believed so utterly what he preached, he had faith, he hoped, and so strongly that others were drawn to believe and to hope. for spite of all intellectual pride this is the man whom we love and admire; this is the man who overcomes us, who gets his way; this man consistent in himself, who has a remedy for the world's wrongs and hopes _everything_ from it! from the point of vantage of years' experience it is seen that paine's political creed, like his religious one, will no longer fit. but that does not matter. neither will ours fit in a hundred years, and none of us, no, not one, is great enough to foresee where the misfit will arise. it is not our business to bear the evils of the thrice unborn upon our necks; nor was it paine's to bear ours. yet while not claiming for him the prophetic gift, it is still true that he did see the moral patchwork in our constitution, the trouble of brewing, and the greater trouble of ' -' . when he first came to this country he wrote a number of contributions to the _pennsylvania magazine_, in one of which he pleaded justice for the negro, basing his plea then as always upon the natural equality of man irrespective of color. afterwards when the constitution was framed, he objected that nothing had been done for the negro, and in his letters to the american people, written after his imprisonment in france, in which the constitution was caustically reviewed, he cries out again for this yoked man not yet to be freed for more than half a hundred years,--foreseeing that nothing good can in the end come from slavery, that every evil must bring a compensating evil. the soldiers' graves in the national cemeteries, the thousands of limping, haggard tatters and rags of white men attest how well paine foresaw time's revenges. in the letter to washington, partially unjust as it is in view of the fact that gouverneur morris and not washington was responsible for the failure to save paine from prison in france, as we now know, thanks to moncure conway, but which paine did _not_ know,--in this letter, i say, will be found the most terrible arraignment of the constitution ever penned. we who are anarchists are called traitors for much calmer talk. yet here was the man "whose pen had done more for the revolution than washington's sword," as his bitterest enemy declared; who believed heart and soul in the republic, who had given his money and his substance and taken the chances of his life in battle for it; the man whose devotion to america could not be gainsaid; this man declared that the american constitution was the mirror of the most vicious features of the british constitution, a fecund soil for monopolies with all their ills. it is we who experience those ills, we who know what a gigantic tool of oppression the constitution and the cumbersome machinery of the lawmaking power have become. yet probably even we do not feel so keenly as he the fatal blunder; for while we know how it grinds us in our flesh and souls, rears its prisons and scaffolds for us, we have had the yoke about our necks always,--while he _had once seen_ the country free. he had been through all the battle, had fought his fight and won his victory, only to see it lost through cowardice of thought. that was indeed bitter; and it is that bitter outcry against this sacrifice which marks paine out among most of his time for influence on future history. the fact that he was the initiator of the direct movement for political independence in america, in the famous meeting where adams, franklin and washington all shrank from uttering the thought heavy upon their souls, is a matter of past history. the fact that he was the one man in america to write the right thing at the right time, his voice the wind to sweep the scattering flames of insubordination and revolt into the conflagration of revolution; the fact that he proposed and headed with the whole contents of his purse the subscription to save the army when even washington was in despair at the prospect of mutiny and desertion among the soldiers; the fact that he raised all the feeling possible against the fiction of divine rights and so got himself hunted out of england; the fact that he took the most active part possible in aiding the work of the french revolutionists, which he believed would be the beginning of the breakdown of monarchy throughout europe and the building up either of one universal continental republic or a confederation of sister republics; the fact that he was the one man in the convention who dared to stand for the life of louis the xvi, and thereby got himself suspected, thrown into prison, and condemned to death--all these facts are of import in reading the character of the man, and in comprehending the record of those days when they were making history fast. yet none of these has so much influence upon the demands of to-day as the voice of discontent crying for eternal vigilance, which sounds through these almost unknown letters. these are the things which it will pay to reprint in the day when american liberty feels in its tomb the first stirrings of the resurrection. did we like paine believe in god, we might say "pray god it may not be far away." such are the characters whose historic influence is greatest; they who hew, and hew hard to the line laid down for them by the events of their time; yet are not blinded by the stir and roll of things; who see clearly where the deflection from the line is likely to occur, and where it will lead; who raise the warning treble that goes shrilling to the future, startling, waking with its eerie cry custom-dulled ears, and sodden souls, who start to ask, was it not a ghost of the revolution? in that day which may not be so distant as we fear, paine will be more alive than ever; he will be watching at a million firesides with the old keen, strong eyes. while i have deprecated the fact that the religious reformer has been exalted to the neglect of the political one, i cannot omit that part of his life-work so well-known to all, yet never old. the "age of reason" has long been both exaggerated and despised as an iconoclastic work. but we are indebted to conway, the greatest of paine students, who out of the many biographies he has written has chosen that of paine to be the master-piece of his life (and it is a work which any author might be proud to regard his master-piece), to him i say we are indebted for a different view of the "age of reason." i know not whether mr. conway's own unitarian bias may not have influenced him; it is possible. it is possible that his eager search for positivism may have unconsciously determined his attitude towards the great hero, and modified his interpretation of paine's words. i believe it has; because i believe _that_ is inevitable. i believe we read our own ideals into other people, and must do so if we think at all. but making all allowance for the biographer's prejudgment, conway has still a magnificent argument for putting paine in the defendant's position. we are no longer to view the book as an attack upon religion but as its defense,--the defense of what is beneficial, permanent, necessary, in the religious element of human nature against the scribes and pharisees on the one hand and the philistines on the other. it was the plea for the redemption of the edifice from the dirt and cobwebs, the protest against smashing the stones to kill the spiders. the great prerequisite to the understanding of the "age of reason" is an acquaintance with the literature of that time--especially french literature. the pamphlets, periodicals, and books are the crystals wherein _the zeitgeist_ of the th century is preserved. without this acquaintance we cannot realize how the people continually thought, and what was new and what was old, what was acceptable and what unacceptable to them. and we shall find by it that the fashion of sneering popularized by voltaire, and so admirably embodied by the _finesse_ of the french language (always a language of double meanings and hemi-demi-semi-shaded insinuations), the still more reprehensible habit of deducing immense generals from very scanty particulars, or in fact contriving the generals first and then fitting in or suavely waiving the particulars altogether, had so permeated not only french philosophy, but the heads of the common people as well, that religion had become almost a byword, a baseless superstition unaccounted for by, and unnecessary according to, the all-accepted theory of natural law. to defend it, to maintain that there was something else in it, was equivalent to pleading for the life of the king before the convention! that was to maintain that there were claims of the human--after the king had been stripped; this was to say that underneath the gewgaws and tinsel of religions the undying heart of man, the man of all the past, had been expressing its noblest aspirations. and paine stripped off the tinsel and said, "put your hand here,--it beats"; and because he tore the tinsel, the orthodox would have stoned him; and because he said "it beats," the philosophers would have whetted the knife. and between the two he stood firm, proclaiming what he believed, not counting the cost. we may not believe as he; most of us do not. but that is the man we love: who has something in him superior to the judgments of men; who holds steadfast--steadfast even in persecution, even to death. perhaps there is no more pathetic thing than the last years, the death, and the burial of paine. the world would have been poorer had he died sooner; but to him, to the man, the gun-shot or the guillotine had been kinder than the unhappy life rejected by the nation he had given all to free, shunned by political cowards and persecuted by religious bigots,--even on his death-bed. but though so lonely, so pathetically lonely, there is something that sends a fine, cold thrill along the nerves in that strange procession and burial--that poor procession, that procession of the hicksite quaker, the two negroes, the widowed frenchwoman and her son. i wonder what sort of day it was; whether the sun shone or the clouds lowered over the solitary grave on the little farm, when margaret bonneville said to her child, "stand you there at his feet, for france; and i will here, for america." i do not know where the negroes and the hicksite stood when that august corpse was lowered to the depths, but there, close, somewhere, stood the unfreed race, for whom he had vainly plead, and there, close, somewhere, the soul's revolt at spiritual masters. and from that tomb there went away the scattering fires, of the risen ghost, the ' living paine, the grand reality. dyer d. lum (february , --april , ) one of the silent martyrs whose graves are trodden to the level by their fellows' feet, almost before it is seen that they have fallen, completed his martyrdom one year ago to-night. there are thousands of such, why then commemorate this one? let our answer be that in this one we commemorate all the others, and if we have chosen his day and name, it is because his genius, his work, his character was one of those rare gems produced in the great mine of suffering and flashing backward with all its changing lights the hopes, the fears, the gaieties, the griefs, the dreams, the doubts, the loves, the hates, the sum of that which is buried, low down there, in the human mine. no more modest a man than dyer d. lum ever lived; partly, nay mostly, indeed, it was inborn, instinctive; but it was also fostered by his conception of life, which led him to consider self as the veriest of soap-bubbles, a thing to be dispelled by the merest whiff of wind, so to speak; and therefore, personal recognition or personal gain as the most silly, as well as unworthy, of motives. for this reason his works have often gone where his name did not, and thousands of persons have been influenced by his logic and his sentiments who never heard of his personality. indeed there were some of us who wondered when he died, what certain labor leaders would henceforth do for a cheap scribe to furnish them brains. i have often heard him quote as his motto, both for organization and for literary effort, the expressive sentence: "_get in your work._" "let fools take the credit if they want it," was the implication of his tone, and i shall never forget the delightful smile with which he repeated charles mackay's lines, most singularly transposing the author's meaning: "grub little moles----." he took an especial pleasure in grubbing, and smiling when a streak of sunlight fell on some one else. i have said that this distinguishing characteristic, so fruitful in results in his later life, was partly instinctive and partly a philosophic conviction. the instinctive side may be best understood by a brief sketch of his ancestry. it is generally complained that the troublesome people who are never satisfied to let society alone, must necessarily be foreigners; at least they can never belong to the same nation as we, the good, the respectable. the easy method of laying everything pestilent to the charge of the foreigner, will not serve a conservative american against dyer d. lum. the first of the lums to set foot in this country was samuel l., a scotchman, in the year . they rooted in new england soil, and at the time of the revolution, dyer's great grandfather was a minute-man in the very town, northampton, where his own corpse was laid a year ago. on the maternal side the tappan family were also revolutionists, and back of revolutionists reformationists in the days of queen elizabeth, and still back of that, crusaders. all this would be important enough and indeed even distinguishing, were i relating it by way of "gilding refined gold"; but they acquire meaning the moment we regard them as data for a character. they are fraught with mysterious symbolism, and he himself becomes a symbol of the deep-rooted faith of humanity, when we see that subterranean stream of blood running from jerusalem through europe and across the sea to america. it shows how profound is the well-spring of devotion to cause in the human heart; through how many centuries the spirit of rebellion lives. but what, say you, had it to do with his instinctive modesty? this: _the devotee of a cause is never the devotee of self_. now as to his philosophic convictions, it would be easy to deliver a whole lecture upon them; and unfortunately his profoundest work on that subject has not yet been printed. of course, i can present them but briefly. i must preface that, as you will no doubt observe later on, his beliefs were in his own case a plain testimony to their own correctness. it sounds ridiculous to say that a thing can prove itself; but you will understand me when i explain that he regarded the conscious life of man, which includes, of course, his processes of reasoning and therefore his philosophy, as the merest fragment of him; that this process itself, which we are wont so fondly to consider as setting us higher than the brute, is but an upgrowth of our instincts. man, the race man, psychologically as well as bodily, might be likened to a tree, which every year adds small new growths whose bright green verdure opens to the sunlight, while below and supporting them quivers the great dark green mass of the tree, which year after year repeats itself, whispering in its shadows the old whispers of the centuries. the new verdure would represent the conscious life and growth of individuals, budding upward in response to the conditions surrounding them and adding what tiny mite they may to the experience of the race; but beneath and through, and all about them rustle the traditions of the dead--dead as individuals, but living, more potently living than ever, in the great trunk and branches of unconscious, or instinctive life. and as the shape of the newly budding leaf, the shade of its green, the length of its stem, its size, are determined more by the nature of the tree than by surrounding circumstances, so the philosophy of the individual is determined by the instinctive life of the race. the winter of death comes; the individual withers like the leaf; but the small item of growth that he has added is there, brown and barren though the twig appear. from him new buds will shoot, though its own leaves hereafter rustle in the deep green shadows of unconsciousness. as time passes away useless boughs wither and die, and are stricken utterly from the life of the race; such are the worthless lives, the abnormal growths, which no longer add anything either to the beauty or the service of the whole. or, to adopt one of comrade lum's own figures, the useless or brutish elements in man slowly sink down like sediment deposited by the moving current. now, in a case where we are able to trace a strain of blood as far back as this of his, and further are able to look at the conscious work of the man, and see that the one was the offspring of the other, modified of course by circumstances, we are able to make the seemingly absurd statement that the belief proves its own correctness. let me particularize concerning this belief. first he was in all his writings the advocate of resistance, the champion of rebellion. but long before he had reduced the matter to a syllogism, he was a resistant in fact. what else could you expect from the crusader, the reformationist, the revolutionist? it might be said by the people who believe in the supreme influence of circumstances, that it was his social environment which made him such--that given the ideal social order and he would have been as mild a pacificator as jesus: which is equivalent to saying that given the outward circumstances and an ear of wheat will grow from a seed corn. lum was the resistant, the man of action; the man who while scarcely more than a boy, enlisted as a volunteer in the th new york infantry to fight a cause he then deemed just; who being taken prisoner, twice effected his escape; who sick of the inaction of superiors, while a third-time prisoner waiting to be exchanged, took his exchange in his own hands, at the risk of death for desertion, and within a month re-enlisted in the cavalry, where by sheer force of daring he rose from private to captain; the man who smashed the idol of the greenback movement, sooner than let him betray its voters, reckless himself of the rebound of hate from the politicians; the man who cast all business prospects and journalistic hopes aside as so much chaff, when he picked up the fallen banner of the fight in chicago, by editing the paper of albert parsons, then in prison and doomed to die; the man who could say to his well-beloved friend, when that friend asked him whether he should petition governor oglesby for his life, knowing that that petition would be granted, the man who, under these circumstances could say: "die, parsons"; the man who poor, defeated, dirty, ragged, hungry, could proudly refuse the proffered hand of the then king of the labor movement, that king who had kept his kingdom by repudiating the martyrs of chicago from the limitless height of one soul over another, answer "there's blood on it, powderly"; the man who faced a public audience to defend the shooting of frick by alexander berkman, a few days after the occurrence, because he felt that when another has done a thing which you approve as leading in the direction of your own aspirations, it is your duty to share the effects of the counterblast his action may have provoked; the man who seized the unknown monster, death, with a smile on his lips--all of this man was germinating in the child of the pious home who even when a mere boy had dared jehovah. having "weighed him, tried him, found him naught," he threw the jewish god and cosmogony overboard with as much equanimity as he would have eaten his dinner, and set about finding a more reasonable explanation of phenomena. in this, as in all other matters, the man of action has a certain advantage over a pure theorist, which is this: he plunges immediately into the conflict, he throws the gauntlet, rashly sometimes, but boldly; he settles the question at once; if there is any suffering attached to the attempt, he suffers once and has done with it; while the theorist, the fellow who walks tiptoe round the edge of the battle-field, dies a hundred times and still suffers on. my own conversion from orthodoxy to freethought was of this latter sort. i never dared god; i always tried to propitiate him with prayers and tears even while i was doubting his existence; i suffered hell a thousand times while i was wondering where it was located. but my teacher winked at the heavens, braved hell, and then tossed the whole affair aside with a joke. nevertheless, he did not, as nearly all of our modern image-breakers have done, deny all religions in their entirety, because he had run a lance through a stuffed mumbo-jumbo. indeed, the spirit of devotion to something greater than self, which will be found as the kernel of every religion, was so thoroughly in him, or indeed _was_ he himself that whether he fancied himself _willing_ it or not, his inclinations directed all his conscious efforts to read the riddle of life into the channel of buddhism. i do not know whether he ever accepted its peculiarly fanciful side or not; but if he did, it was early corrected by a no less characteristic trait, also an inheritance of the tappan family, that of critical analysis. an omnivorous reader, he was always abreast of the times in matters of scientific discovery; and his inexorable logic would never have permitted him to retain a creed which necessitated any doctoring of facts; he rather doctored the creed to fit the facts and thus evolved a species of modern buddhism which he called "evolutional ethics," whose principles may be briefly stated as follows: man is the continuation of the process of evolution up to date. he is thus united to all other products of evolution, and is governed by the same laws. the two factors which determine form in the organic world are _adaptation_ and _inheritance_; and since evolution is no less a matter of psychology than physiology, the soul of man as well as the soul of animals and plants, must be moulded by these factors. that inheritance tends to crystallize existing forms, while _adaptation_, or the influence of environment, ever tends to modification of forms, whether physical or intellectual. that mind as much as body is unconscious, so far as there is perfect adaptation to surroundings; and that only when inharmony of the organism with the environment as the result of change in the latter, arises, can there be _consciousness_. that this consciousness is a state of pain, more or less sharply defined; and will continue to increase in intensity until the necessary adaptation is accomplished, when _as a result_ a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure will ensue, gradually sinking into the blissful unconsciousness of perfect harmony. that progress thus demands this stepping constantly up the rough stairway of pain; and that not even one step is passed until moistened by the blood of many generations. that the path up the mountain side is not laid out _by_ us, but _for_ us, and that we _must_ travel there whether it pleases us or not. that the chances are it will _not_ please us; that our whole lives, in so far as they are conscious, will probably be one record of never achieved struggle; and that rest will come only when we descend to the unconsciousness of death. thus he was a pessimist of the darkest hue; and yet he never wasted a moment's regret on the facts. he watched this passing spectre man, gliding among the whirling dance of atoms, contemplated his final extinction with composure, sneered at metaphysicians while he himself was buried in metaphysics, and cracked jokes either at his own expense or somebody else's. the result of all this speculation was the conclusion that man, being a social animal, must adapt himself to social ends (not determined by him but for him--unconsciously); that therefore the one who sets himself and his egotistic desires against the social ideal is the supreme traitor. he had a peculiar power of expressing volumes in an epithet; and the epithet he gave to the egoist was "dung-beetle." for the sake of those who may not be familiar with the insect referred to, i may explain that a dung-beetle is a sort of bug that exhibits its instincts by rolling a ball of dung, and who sometimes appears to meditate when he rolls over the ball that the universe has turned bottom up--because he has. now, it is well known that the greater part of the reform camp--particularly the anarchistic camp--is made up of dung-beetles, i mean of egoists; people who declare that the desire for pleasure is the motive of action, who think a great deal of their egos and don't care a rap for society. the result was they sharpened their pencils and wrote scathing editorials denouncing him. to which he answered never a word. first, because he didn't consider himself worth fighting about; and second, if he had, he was altogether too good a general to do it. his opponents were a disputatious sort, who liked nothing better than argument; he knew what his enemy wanted and _didn't do it_. but when a question worth discussing arose, then woe to those who had courted the rapier of his wit, or challenged to duel with the diamond-tipped dagger of his sarcasm. he could answer columns with a paragraph. i do not know whether this philosophy of his had crystallized in his own mind before he became an anarchist or not. i believe, however, it had not; i think it grew along with his other conceptions, being broadened and corrected, and in turn broadening and correcting his thought in other channels. but at any rate, fully developed or not, it certainly influenced his conclusions on economic subjects greatly. true to his instincts he was always at the front of battle, and when the war closed his first move was to attach himself to the greenback party, the first widespread expression of organized protest against monopoly of the means of production in america. he still had faith in the saving grace of politics, and was active enough in the agitation to be nominated for lieut. governor of massachusetts with wendell phillips for governor. the fight, which besides being a demand for fiat money, embodied a short-hour movement, took on a national character; and dyer d. lum with five others, including albert r. parsons, was appointed on a committee to push the matter before congress. this was in . six years later, time and the tide had driven both of them into the great current of socialism, and final repudiation of politics as a means of attaining socialistic ideals. and here came in the philosophy of the unconscious. the socialization of industry was the next step up the mountain side, not because men wished or planned it; but the pressure of surroundings made it the only possible move; but on the other hand the reactionary, system-building socialism advocated by the great master marx, and all his train of little repeaters, was seen to be at variance with a no less marked feature of the evolving social ideal, viz., elasticity, mobility, constantly increasing differentiation; which is only possible when units of society are left free to adapt themselves to the slightest changes, unforced by the opinions of other people who know nothing of the matters in question, but who, being in the majority (for where is ignorance not in the majority?) could suppress the free movements of the minority by enacting their ignorance into laws. thus it will be seen that he looked forward to free socialism as the industrial ideal; the requirements of that ideal are laid down in his "economics of anarchy." a few of his caustic sentences may here be quoted: "the statist assumes that rights increase in some metaphysical manner, and become incarnate in half the whole plus one." "politics discovers wisdom by taking a general poll of ignorance." "every appeal to legislation to do aught but _undo_ is as futile as sending a flag of truce to the enemy for munitions of war." "when caesar conquered greece, he subjugated olympus, and the gods now measure tape behind counters with christian decorum." lum had faith in humankind. he always trusted the people; the people that maligned him, the people that injured him, the people that killed him. when i asked him once why he did not get angry at an individual who industriously circulated lies about him, he answered with a twinkling laugh, "for the same reason that i don't kick the house-cat." and yet he had an abiding faith in that man, and other similar men, to work out the judgments of the human race, undisturbed by the fact that they let their only honest leaders die in garrets. and underneath the speculative philosopher who confused you with long words; underneath the cold logician who mercilessly scouted at sentiment; underneath the pessimistic poet that sent the mournful cry of the whip-poor-will echoing through the widowed chambers of the heart, that hung and sung over the festival walls of life the wreaths and dirges of death; underneath the gay joker who delighted to play tricks on politicians, police and detectives; was the man who took the children on his knees and told them stories while the night was falling, the man who gave up a share of his own meagre meals to save five blind kittens from drowning; the man who lent his arm to a drunken washerwoman whom he did not know, and carried her basket for her, that she might not be arrested and locked up; the man who gathered four-leafed clovers and sent them to his friends, wishing them "all the luck which superstition attached to them"; the man whose heart was beating with the great common heart, who was one with the simplest and the poorest. lum held that evolutional ethics, or anarchist ethics, in fact, must take account of both the altruistic and egoistic impulses; that while determining causes will ever lie in the mysterious realm of the unconscious life, consciousness may discern the trend of development and throw in its quota of influence for or against. that in its endeavor to comprehend the trend of development, it should take fair account of ancient truths, however enveloped in superstitious husks; should aim to extract the virtue even in the much mistaken altruistic doctrines of vicarious atonement and personal abasement; and while emphasizing the negation of human rulership as destructive of the possibilities of true growth, at the same time to acknowledge the vain conceit of self as anything more than a temporary grouping of instinct developed in beast, in plant, in man; to acknowledge the individual creature as a sort of mirrored reflection of the cosmos, constantly shifting, now scintillant, now vague and evanescent, now gone forever as death breaks the mirror. the notion of immortality which grows from such a conception of self is purged of the old vain conceit. it has been most beautifully voiced in george eliot's "choir invisible," mr. lum's favorite poem; and in the lines is expressed the last great limitless shadow which engulfs even this immortality, the blind, tremendous darkness which lies at the end of all, the sense of the invincibility of which must have lain upon our teacher's soul when after the last searching, inexplicable, farewell look into a friend's eyes he went out into the april night and took his last walk in the roar of the great city--he who should soon be so silent! most of his comrades were surprised. they said: "i never thought dyer d. lum would go alone." but i who know how often and how wearily he said "what's the use," am sure that that mocking question lay at his heart, and paralyzed the _will_ to do. like olive schreiner's stars in the african farm, the soul about to depart sees the earth so coldly--all the ages are as one night--and like them he watches little helpless creatures of the earth come out and crawl awhile upon its skin, then go back beneath it, and it does not matter--nothing matters. francisco ferrer in all unsuccessful social upheavals there are two terrors: the red--that is, the people, the mob; the white--that is, the reprisal. when a year ago to-day the lightning of the white terror shot out of that netherest blackness of social depth, the spanish torture house, and laid in the ditch of montjuich a human being who but a moment before had been the personification of manhood, in the flower of life, in the strength and pride of a balanced intellect, full of the purpose of a great and growing undertaking,--that of the modern schools,--humanity at large received a blow in the face which it could not understand. stunned, bewildered, shocked, it recoiled and stood gaping with astonishment. how to explain it? the average individual--certainly the average individual in america--could not believe it possible that any group of persons calling themselves a government, let it be of the worst and most despotic, could slay a man for being a teacher, a teacher of modern sciences, a builder of hygienic schools, a publisher of text-books. no: they could not believe it. their minds staggered back and shook refusal. it was not so; it could not be so. the man was shot,--that was sure. he was dead, and there was no raising him out of the ditch to question him. the spanish government had certainly proceeded in an unjustifiable manner in court-martialing him and sentencing him without giving him a chance at defense. but surely he had been guilty of something; surely he must have rioted, or instigated riot, or done some desperate act of rebellion; for never could it be that in the twentieth century a country of europe could kill a peaceful man whose aim in life was to educate children in geography, arithmetic, geology, physics, chemistry, singing, and languages. no: it was not possible!--and, for all that, it was possible; it was done, on the th of october, one year ago to-day, in the face of europe, standing with tied hands to look on at the murder. and from that day on, controversy between the awakened who understood, the reactionists who likewise understood, and their followers on both sides who have half understood, has surged up and down and left confusion pretty badly confounded in the mind of him who did not understand, but sought to. the men who did him to death, and the institutions they represent have done all in their power to create the impression that ferrer was a believer in violence, a teacher of the principles of violence, a doer of acts of violence, and an instigator of widespread violence perpetrated by a mass of people. in support of the first they have published reports purporting to be his own writings, have pretended to reproduce seditious pictures from the walls of his class-rooms, have declared that he was seen mingling with the rebels during the catalonian uprising of last year, and that upon trial he was found guilty of having conceived and launched the spanish rebellion against the moroccan war. and that his death was a just act of reprisal. on the other hand, we have had a storm of indignant voices clamoring in his defense, alternately admitting and denying him to be a revolutionist, alternately contending that his schools taught social rebellion and that they taught nothing but pure science; we have had workmen demonstrating and professors and litterateurs protesting on very opposite grounds; and almost none were able to give definite information for the faith that was in them. and indeed it has been very difficult to obtain exact information, and still is so. after a year's lapse, it is yet not easy to get the facts disentangled from the fancies,--the truths from the lies, and above all from the half-lies. and even when we have the truths as to the facts, it is still difficult to valuate them, because of american ignorance of spanish ignorance. please understand the phrase. america has not too much to boast of in the way of its learning; but yet it has that much of common knowledge and common education that it does not enter into our minds to conceive of a population % of which are unable to read and write, and a good share of the remaining % can only read, not write; neither does it at all enter our heads to think that of this % of the better informed, the most powerful contingent is composed of those whose distinct, avowed, and deliberate purpose it is to keep the ignorant ignorant. whatever may be the sins of government in this country, or of the churches--and there are plenty of such sins--at least they have not (save in the case of negro slaves) constituted themselves a conspiratical force to keep out enlightenment,--to prevent the people from learning to read and write, or to acquire whatever scientific knowledge their economic circumstances permitted them to. what the unconscious conspiracy of economic circumstance has done, and what conscious manipulations the government school is guilty of, to render higher education a privilege of the rich and a maintainer of injustice is another matter. but it cannot be charged that the rulers of america seek to render the people illiterate. people, therefore, who have grown up in a general atmosphere of thought which regards the government as a provider of education, even as a compeller of education, do not, unless their attention is drawn to the facts, conceive of a state of society in which government is a hostile force, opposed to the enlightenment of the people,--its politicians exercising all their ingenuity to sidetrack the demand of the people for schools. how much less do they conceive the hostile force and power of a church, having behind it an unbroken descent from feudal ages, whose direct interest it is to maintain a closed monopoly of learning, and to keep out of general circulation all scientific information which would tend to destroy the superstitions whereby it thrives. i say that the american people in general are not informed as to these conditions, and therefore the phenomenon of a teacher killed for instituting and maintaining schools staggers their belief. and when they read the assertions of those who defend the murder, that it was because his schools were instigating the overthrow of social order in spain, they naturally exclaim: "ah, that explains it! the man taught sedition, rebellion, riot, in his schools! that is the reason." now the truth is, that what ferrer was teaching in his schools was really instigating the overthrow of the social order of spain; furthermore it was not only instigating it, but it was making it as certain as the still coming of the daylight out of the night of the east. but not by the teaching of riot; of the use of dagger, bomb, or knife; but by the teaching of the same sciences which are taught in our public schools, through a generally diffused knowledge of which the power of spain's despotic church must crumble away. likewise it was laying the primary foundation for the overthrow of such portions of the state organization as exist by reason of the general ignorance of the people. the social order of spain ought to be overthrown; must be overthrown, will be overthrown; and ferrer was doing a mighty work in that direction. the men who killed him knew and understood it well. and they consciously killed him for what he really did; but they have let the outside world suppose they did it, for what he did not do. knowing there are no words so hated by all governments as "sedition and rebellion," knowing that such words will make the most radical of governments align itself with the most despotic at once, knowing there is nothing which so offends the majority of conservative and peace-loving people everywhere as the idea of violence unordered by authority, they have wilfully created the impression that ferrer's schools were places where children and youths were taught to handle weapons, and to make ready for armed attacks on the government. they have, as i said before, created this impression in various ways; they have pointed to the fact that the man who in made the attack on alfonso's life, had acted as a translator of books used by ferrer in his schools; they have scattered over europe and america pictures purporting to be reproductions of drawings in prominent wall-spaces in his schools, recommending the violent overthrow of the government. as to the first of these accusations, i shall consider it later in the lecture; but as to the last, it should be enough to remind any person with an ordinary amount of reflection, that the schools were public places open to any one, as our schools are; and that if any such pictures had existed, they would have been sufficient cause for shutting up the schools and incarcerating the founder within a day after their appearance on the walls. the spanish government has that much sense of how to preserve its own existence, that it would not allow such pictures to hang in a public place for one day. nor would books preaching sedition have been permitted to be published or circulated.--all this is foolish dust sought to be thrown in foolish eyes. no; the real offense was the real thing that he did. and in order to appreciate its enormity, from the spanish ruling force's standpoint, let us now consider what that ruling force is, what are the economic and educational conditions of the spanish people, why and how ferrer founded the modern schools, and what were the subjects taught therein. up to the year there existed no legal provision for general elementary education in spain. in that year, owing to the liberals having gotten into power in madrid, after a bitter contest aroused partially by the general political events of europe, a law making elementary education compulsory was passed. this was two years before ferrer's birth. now it is one thing for a political party, temporarily in possession of power, to pass a law. it is quite another thing to make that law effective, even when wealth and general sentiment are behind it. but when joined to the fact that there is a strong opposition is added the fact that this opposition is in possession of the greatest wealth of the country, that the people to be benefited are often quite as bitterly opposed to their own enlightenment as those who profit by their ignorance, and that those who do ardently desire their own uplift are extremely poor, the difficulty of practicalizing this educational law is partially appreciated. ferrer's own boyhood life is an illustration of how much benefit the children of the peasantry reaped from the educational law. his parents were vine dressers; they were eminently orthodox and believed what their priest (who was probably the only man in the little village of alella able to read) told them: that the liberals were the emissaries of satan and that whatever they did was utterly evil. they wanted no such evil thing as popular education about, and would not that their children should have it. accordingly, even at years of age, the boy was without education,--a circumstance which in after years made him more anxious that others should not suffer as he had. it is self-understood that if it was difficult to found schools in the cities where there existed a degree of popular clamor for them, it was next to impossible in the rural districts where people like ferrer's parents were the typical inhabitants. the best result obtained by this law in the years from to was that, out of , , people, , , were then able to read and write,-- % remaining illiterate. at the end of the proportion was altered to , , literate out of , , population, which may be considered as a fairly correct approximate of the present condition. one of the very great accounting causes for this situation is the extreme poverty of the mass of the populace. in many districts of spain a laborer's wages are less than $ . a week, and nowhere do they equal the poorest workman's wages in america. of course, it is understood that the cost of living is likewise low; but imagine it as low as you please, it is still evident that the income of the workers is too small to permit them to save anything, even from the most frugal living. the dire struggle to secure food, clothing and shelter is such that little energy is left wherewith to aspire to anything, to demand anything, either for themselves or their children. unless, therefore, the government provided the buildings, the books, and appliances, and paid the teachers' salaries, it is easy to see that the people most in need of education are least able, and least likely, to provide it for themselves. furthermore the government itself, unless it can tax the wealthier classes for it, cannot out of such an impoverished source wring sufficient means to provide adequate schools and school equipments. now, the wealthiest classes are just the religious orders. according to the statement of monsignor josé valeda de gunjado, these orders own two-thirds of the money of the country and one-third of the wealth in property. these orders are utterly opposed to all education except such as they themselves furnish--a lamentable travesty on learning. as a writer who has investigated these conditions personally, observes, in reply to the question, "does not the church provide numbers of schools, day and night, at its own expense?"--"it does,--unhappily for spain." it provides schools whose principal aim is to strengthen superstition, follow a mediaeval curriculum, _keep out_ scientific light,--and prevent other and better schools from being established. a spanish educational journal (_la escuela espanola_), not ferrer's journal, declared in that these schools were largely "without light or ventilation, dens of death, ignorance, and bad training." it was estimated that , children died every year in consequence of the mischievous character of the school rooms. and even to schools like these, there were half a million children in spain who could gain no admittance. as to the teachers, they are allowed a salary ranging from $ . to $ . a year; but this is provided, not by the state, but through voluntary donations from the parents. so that a teacher, in addition to his legitimate functions, must perform those of collector of his own salary. now conceive that he is endeavoring to collect it from parents whose wages amount to two or three dollars a week; and you will not be surprised at the case reported by a madrid paper in of a master's having canvassed a district to find how many parents would contribute if he opened a school. out of one hundred families, three promised their support! is it any wonder that the law of compulsory education is a mockery? how could it be anything else? now let us look at the products of this popular ignorance, and we shall presently understand why the church fosters it, why it fights education; and also why the catalonian insurrection of , which began as a strike of workers in protest against the moroccan war, ended in mob attacks upon convents, monasteries, and churches. i have already quoted the statement of a high spanish prelate that the religious orders of spain own two-thirds of the money of spain, and one-third of the wealth in property. whether this estimate is precisely correct or not, it is sufficiently near correctness to make us aware that at least a great portion of the wealth of the country has passed into their hands,--a state not widely differing from that existing in france prior to the great revolution. before the insurrection of last year, the city of barcelona alone had convents, many of which were exceedingly rich. the province of catalonia maintained , of these institutions. aside from these religious orders with their accumulations of wealth, the church itself, the united body of priests not in orders, is immensely wealthy. conceive that in the cathedral at toledo there is an image of the virgin whose wardrobe alone would be sufficient to build hundreds of schools. imagine that this doll, which is supposed to symbolize the forlorn young woman who in her pain and sorrow and need was driven to seek shelter in a stable, whose life was ever lowly, and who is called the mother of sorrows,--imagine that this image of her has become a vulgar coquette sporting a robe whereinto are sown , pearls, besides as many more sapphires, amethysts, and diamonds! oh, what a decoration for the mother of the carpenter of nazareth! what a vision for the dying eyes on the cross to look forward to! what an outcome of the gospel of salvation free to the poor and lowly, taught by the poorest and the lowliest,--that the humble keeper of the humble household of the despised little village of judea should be imaged forth as a queen of gauds, bedizened with a crown worth $ , and bracelets valued at $ , more. the virgin mary, the daughter of the stable, transformed into a diamond merchant's showcase! and this in the midst of men and women working for just enough to keep the skin upon the bone; in the midst of children who are denied the primary necessities of childhood. now i ask you, when the fury of these people burst, as under the provocation they received it was inevitable that it should burst, was it any wonder that it manifested itself in mob violence against the institutions which mock their suffering by this useless, senseless, criminal waste of wealth in the face of utter need? will some one now whisper in our ears that there are women in america who decorate themselves with more jewels than the virgin of toledo, and throw away the price of a school on a useless decoration in a single night; while within a radius of five miles from them there are also uneducated children, for whom our school boards can provide no place? yes, it is so; let them remember the mobs of barcelona! and let me remember i am talking about spain! the question naturally intrudes, how does the church, how do the religious orders manage to accumulate such wealth? remember first that they are old, and of unbroken continuance for hundreds of years. that various forms of acquisition, in operation for centuries, would produce immense accumulations, even supposing nothing but legitimate purchases and gifts. but when we consider the actual means whereby money is daily absorbed from the people by these institutions we receive a shock which sets all our notions of the triumph of modern science topsy-turvy. it is almost impossible to realize, and yet it is true, that the spanish church still deals in that infamous "graft" against which martin luther hurled the splendid force of his wrath four hundred years ago. the church of spain still sells indulgences. every catholic bookstore, and every priest, has them for sale. they are called "bulas." their prices range from about to cents, and they constitute an elastic excuse for doing pretty much what the possessor pleases to do, providing it is not a capital crime, for a definitely named period. probably there is no one in america so little able to believe this condition to exist, as the ordinary well-informed roman catholic. i have myself listened to priests of the roman faith giving the conditions on which pardon for venal offenses might be obtained; and they had nothing to do with money. they consisted in saying a certain number of prayers at stated periods, with specified intent. while that may be a very illogical way of putting things together that have no connection, there is nothing in it to offend one's ideas of honesty. the enlightened conscience of an entire mass of people has demanded that a spiritual offense be dealt with by spiritual means. it would revolt at the idea that such grace could be written out on paper and sold either to the highest bidder or for a fixed price. but now conceive what happens where a people are illiterate, regarding written documents with that superstitious awe which those who cannot read always have for the mysterious language of learning; regarding them besides with the combination of fear and reverence which the ignorant believer entertains for the visible sign of supernatural power, the power which holds over him the threat of eternal punishment,--and you will have what goes on in spain. add to this that such a condition of fear and gullibility on the side of the people, is the great opportunity of the religious "grafter." whatever number of honest, self-sacrificing, devoted people may be attracted to the service of the church, there will certainly be found also, the cheat, the impostor, the searcher for ease and power. these indulgences, which for or cents pardon the buyer for his past sins, but are good only till he sins again, constitute a species of permission to do what otherwise is forbidden; the most expensive one, the c-one, is practically a license to hold stolen property up to a certain amount. both rich and poor buy these things, the rich of course paying a good deal more than the stipulated sum. but it hardly requires the statement that an immense number of the very poor buy them also. and from this horrible traffic the church of spain annually draws millions. there are other sources of income such as the sale of scapulars, agnus-deis, charms, and other pieces of trumpery, which goes on all over the catholic world also, but naturally to no such extent as in spain, portugal, and italy, where popular ignorance may be again measured by the materialism of its religion. now, is it reasonable to suppose that the individuals who are thriving upon these sales, want a condition of popular enlightenment? do they not know how all this traffic would crumble like the ash of a burnt-out fire, once the blaze of science were to flame through spain? _they_ educate! yes; they educate the people to believe in these barbaric relics of a dead time,--_for their own material interest_. spain and portugal are the last resort of the mediaeval church; the monasticism and the jesuitry which have been expelled from other european countries, and compelled to withdraw from cuba and the philippines, have concentrated there; and there they are making their last fight. there they will go down into their eternal grave; but not till science has invaded the dark corners of the popular intellect. the political condition is parallel with the religious condition of the people, with the exception that the state is poor while the church is rich. there are some elements in the government which are opposed to the church religiously, which nevertheless do not wish to see its power as an institution upset, because they foresee that the same people who would overthrow the church, would later overthrow them. these, too, wish to see the people kept ignorant. nevertheless, there have been numerous political rebellions in spain, having for their object the establishment of a republic. in there occurred such a rebellion, under the leadership of ruiz zorilla. at that time, ferrer was not quite years old. he had acquired an education by his own efforts. he was a declared republican, as it seems that every young, ardent, bright-minded youth, seeing what the condition of his country was, and wishing for its betterment, would be. zorilla was for a short time minister of public instruction, under the new government, and very zealous for popular education. naturally he became an object of admiration and imitation to ferrer. in the early eighties, after various fluctuations of political power, zorilla, who had been absent from spain, returned to it, and began the labor of converting the soldiers to republicanism. ferrer was then a director of railways, and of much service to zorilla in the practical work of organization. in this movement culminated in an abortive revolution, wherein both ferrer and zorilla took active part, and were accordingly compelled to take refuge in france upon the failure of the insurrection. it is therefore certain that from his entrance into public agitation till the year , ferrer was an active revolutionary republican, believing in the overthrow of spanish tyranny by violence. there is no question that at that time he said and wrote things which, whether we shall consider them justifiable or not, were openly in favor of forcible rebellion. such utterances charged against him at the alleged trial in , which were really his, were quotations from this period. remember he was then years old. when the trial occurred, he was years old. what had been his mental evolution during those years? in paris, where, with the exception of a short intermission in when he visited spain, he remained for about fifteen years, he naturally drifted into a method of making a living quite common to educated exiles in a foreign land; viz., giving private lessons in his native language. but while this is with most a mere temporary makeshift, which they change for something else as soon as they are able, to ferrer it revealed what his real business in life should be; he found teaching to be his genuine vocation; so much so that he took part in several movements for popular education in paris, giving much free service. this participation in the labor of training the mind, which is always a slow and patient matter, began to have its effect on his conceptions of political change. slowly the idea of a spain regenerated through the storm blasts of revolution, mightily and suddenly, faded out of his belief, being replaced, probably almost insensibly, by the idea that a thorough educational enlightenment must precede political transformation, if that transformation were to be permanent. this conviction he voiced with strange power and beauty of expression, when he said to his old revolutionary republican friend, alfred naquet: "time respects those works alone which time itself has helped to build." naquet himself, old and sinking man as he is, is at this day and hour heart and soul for forcible revolution; admitting all the evils which it engenders and all the dangers of miscarriage which accompany it, he still believes, to quote his own words, that "revolutions are not only the marvelous accoucheurs of societies; they are also fecundating forces. they fructify men's intelligences; and if they determine the final realization of matured evolutions, they also become, through their action on human minds, points of departure for newer evolutions." yet he, who thus sings the paean of the uprisen people, with a fire of youth and an ardor of love that sound like the singing of some strong young blacksmith marching at the head of an insurgent column, rather than the quavering voice of an old spent man; he, who was the warm personal friend of ferrer for many years, and who would surely have wished that his ideal love should also have been his friend's love, he expressly declares that ferrer was of those who feel themselves drawn to the field of preparative labor, making sure the ground over which the revolution may march to enduring results. this then was the ripened condition of his mind, especially after the death of zorilla, and all his subsequent life and labor is explicable only with this understanding of his mental attitude. in the confusion of deafening voices, it has been declared that not only did he not take part in last year's manifestations, nor instigate them; but that he in fact had become a tolstoyan, a non-resistant. this is not true: he undoubtedly understood that the introduction of popular education into spain means revolt, sooner or later. and he would certainly have been glad to see a successful revolt overthrow the monarchy at madrid. he did not wish the people to be submissive; it is one of the fundamental teachings of the schools he founded that the assertive spirit of the child is to be encouraged; that its will is not to be broken; that the sin of other schools is the forcing of obedience. he hoped to help to form a young spain which would not submit; which would resist, resist consciously, intelligently, steadily. he did not wish to enlighten people merely to render them more sensitive to their pains and deprivations, but that they might so use their enlightenment as to rid themselves of the system of exploitation by church and state which is responsible for their miseries. by what means they would choose to free themselves, he did not make his affair. how and when were these schools founded? it was during his long sojourn in paris, that he had as a private pupil in spanish, a middle-aged, wealthy, unmarried, catholic lady. after much conflict over religion between teacher and pupil, the latter modified her orthodoxy greatly; and especially after her journeys to spain, where she herself saw the condition of public instruction. eventually she became interested in ferrer's conceptions of education, and his desire to establish schools in his own country. and when she died in (she was then somewhat over years old) she devised a certain part of her property to ferrer, to be used as he saw fit, feeling assured no doubt that he would see fit to use it not for his personal advantage, but for the purpose so dear to his heart. which he did. the bequest amounted to about $ , ; and the first expenditure was for the establishment of the modern school of barcelona, in the year . it should be said that this was not the first of the modern school movement in spain; for previous to that, and for several years, there had sprung up, in various parts of the country, a spontaneous movement towards self-education; a very heroic effort, in a way, considering that the teachers were generally workingmen who had spent their day in the shops, and were using the remainder of their exhausted strength to enlighten their fellow-workers and the children. these were largely night-schools. as there were no means behind these efforts, the buildings in which they were held were of course unsuitable; there was no proper plan of work; no sufficient equipment, and little co-ordination of labor. a considerable percentage of these schools were already on the decline, when ferrer, equipped with his splendid organizing ability, his teacher's experience, and mlle. meunier's endowment, opened the barcelona school, having as pupils eighteen boys and twelve girls. so proper to the demand was this effort, that at the end of four years' earnest activity, fifty schools had been established, ten in barcelona, and forty in the provinces. in , that is, after five years' work, a banquet was held on good friday, at which , pupils were present. from to , ,--that is something. and a banquet in catholic spain on good friday! a banquet of children who have bade good-bye to the salvation of the soul by the punishment of the stomach! we here may laugh; but in spain it was a triumph and a menace, which both sides understood. i have said that ferrer brought to his work splendid organizing ability. this he speedily put to purpose by enlisting the co-operation of a number of the greatest scientists of europe in the preparation of text-books embodying the discoveries of science, couched in language comprehensible to young minds. so far, i am sorry to say, i have not succeeded in getting copies of these manuals; the spanish government confiscated most of them, and has probably destroyed them. still there are some uncaptured sets (one is already in the british museum) and i make no doubt that within a year or so we shall have translations of most of them. there were thirty of these manuals all told, comprising the work of the three sections, primary, intermediate, and superior, into which the pupils were divided. from what i have been able to find out about these books, i believe the most interesting of them all would be the first reading book. it was prepared by dr. odon de buen, and is said to be at the same time "a speller, a grammar and an illustrated manual of evolution," "the majestic story of the evolution of the cosmos from the atom to the thinking being, related in a language simple, comprehensible to the child." , copies of this book were rapidly sold. imagine what that meant to catholic schools! that the babies of spain should learn nothing about eternal punishment for their deadly sins, and _should_ learn that they are one in a long line of unfolding life that started in the lowly sea-slime! the books on geography, physics, and minerology were written in like manner and with like intent by the same author; on anthropology, dr. enguerrand wrote, and on evolution, dr. letourneau of paris. among the very suggestive works was one on "the universal substance," a collaborate production of albert bloch and paraf javal, in which the mysteries of existence are resolved into their chemical equivalents, so that the foundations for magic and miracle are unceremoniously cleared out of the intellectual field. this book was prepared at ferrer's special request, as an antidote to ancestral leanings, inherited superstitions, the various outside influences counteracting the influences of the school. the methods of instruction were modeled after earlier attempts in france, and were based on the general idea that physical and intellectual education must continually supplement each other. that no one is really educated, so long as his knowledge is merely the recollection of what he has read or seen in a book. accordingly a lesson often consisted of a visit to a factory, a workshop, a studio, or a laboratory, where things were explained and illustrated; or in a class journey to the hills, or the sea, or the open country, where the geological or topographical conditions were studied, or botanical specimens collected and individual observation encouraged. very often even book classes were held out of doors, and the children insensibly put in touch with the great pervading influences of nature, a touch too often lost, or never felt at all, in our city environments. how different was all this from the incomprehensible theology of the catholic schools to be learned and believed but not understood, the impractical rehearsing of strings of words characteristic of mediaeval survivals! no wonder the modern schools grew and grew, and the hatred of the priests waxed hotter and hotter. their opportunity came; indeed, they did not wait long. in the year , on the st day of may, not so very long after that good friday banquet, occurred the event which they seized upon to crush the modern school and its founder. i am not here to speak either for or against mateo morral. he was a wealthy young man, of much energy and considerable learning. he had helped to enrich the library of the modern school and being an excellent linguist, he had offered to make translations of text-books. ferrer had accepted the offer. that is all morral had to do with the modern school. but on the day of royal festivities, morral had it in his head to throw a bomb where it would do some royal hurt. he missed his calculations, and the hurt intended did not take place; but after a short interval, finding himself about to be captured, he killed himself. think of him as you please: think that he was a madman who did a madman's act; think that he was a generous enthusiast who in an outburst of long chafing indignation at his country's condition wanted to strike a blow at a tyrannical monarchy, and was willing to give his own life in exchange for the tyrant's; or better than this, reserve your judgment, and say that you know not the man nor his personal condition, nor the special external conditions that prompted him; and that without such knowledge he cannot be judged. but whatever you think of morral, pray why was ferrer arrested and the modern school of barcelona closed? why was he thrown in prison and kept there for more than a year? why was it sought to railroad him before a court martial, and that attempt failing, the civil trial postponed for all that time? =why? why?= because ferrer taught science to the children of spain,--and for no other thing. his enemies would have killed him then; but having been compelled to yield an open trial, by the outcry of europe, they were also compelled to release him. but i imagine i hear, yea hear, the resolute mutter behind the closed walls of the monasteries, the day ferrer went free. "go, then; we shall get you again. and then----" and then they would do what three years later they did,--_damn him to the ditch of_ =montjuich=. yea, they shut their lips together like the thin lips of fate and--waited. the hatred of an order has something superb in it,--it hates so relentlessly, so constantly, so transcendently; its personnel changes, its hate never alters; it wears one priest's face or another's; itself is identical, inexorable; it pursues to the end. did ferrer know this? undoubtedly in a general way he did. and yet he was so far from conceiving its appalling remorselessness, that even when he found himself in prison again, and utterly in their power, he could not believe that he would not be freed. what was this opportunity for which the jesuitry of spain waited with such terrible security? the catalonian uprising. how did they know it would come? as any sane man, not over-optimistic, knows that uprising must come in spain. ferrer hoped to sap away the foundations of tyranny through peaceful enlightenment. he was right. but they are also right who say that there are other forces hurling towards those foundations; the greatest of these,--_starvation_. now it was plain and simple starvation that rose to rend its starvers when the catalonian women rose in mobs to cry against the command that was taking away their fathers and sons to their death in morocco. the spanish people did not want the moroccan war; the government, in the interest of a number of capitalists, did; but like all governments and all capitalists, it wanted workingmen to do the dying. and they did not want to die, and leave their wives and children to die too. so they rebelled. at first it was the conscious, orderly protest of organized workingmen. but starvation no more respects the commands of workingmen's unions, than the commands of governments, and other orderly bodies. it has nothing to lose: and it gets away, in its fury, from all management; and it riots. where churches and monasteries are offensively rich and at ease in the face of hunger, hunger takes its revenge. it has long fangs, it rends, and tears, and tramples--the innocent with the guilty--always. it is very horrible! but remember,--remember how much more horrible is the long, slow systematic crushing, wasting, drying of men upon their bones, which year after year, century after century, has begotten the monster, hunger. remember the , innocent children annually slaughtered, the blinded and the crippled children, maimed and forsaken by social power; and behind the smoke and flame of the burning convents of july, , see the staring of those sightless eyes. ferrer instigate that mad frenzy! oh, no; it was a mightier than ferrer! "our lady of pain"--our lady of hunger--our lady with uncut nails and wolf-like teeth--our lady who bears the man-flesh in her body that cannon are to tear--our lady the workingwoman of spain, ahungered. she incarnated the red terror. and the enemies of ferrer in , as in , knew that such things would come; and they bided their time. it is one of those pathetic things which destiny deals, that it was only for love's sake--and most for the love of a little child--who died moreover--that the uprising found ferrer in spain at all. he had been in england, investigating schools and methods there from april until the middle of june. word came that his sister-in-law and his niece were ill, so the th of june found him at the little girl's bedside. he intended soon after to go to paris, but delayed to make some inquiries for a friend concerning the proceedings of the electrical society of barcelona. so the storm caught him as it caught thousands of others. he went about the business of his publishing house as usual, making the observations of an interested spectator of events. to his friend naquet he sent a postal card on the th of july, in which he spoke of the heroism of the women, the lack of co-ordination in the people's movements, and the total absence of leaders, as a curious phenomenon. hearing soon after that he was to be arrested, he secluded himself for five weeks. the "white terror" was in full sway; , men, women, and children had been arrested, incarcerated, inhumanly treated. then the chief prosecutor issued the statement that ferrer was "the director of the revolutionary movement." too indignant to listen to the appeals of his friends, he started to barcelona to give himself up and demand trial. he was arrested on the way. and they court-martialed him. the proceedings were utterly infamous. no chance to confront witnesses against him; no opportunity to bring witnesses; not even the books accused of sedition allowed to offer their mute testimony in their own defense; no opportunity given to his defender to prepare; letters sent from england and france to prove what had been the doomed man's purposes and occupations during his stay there, "lost in transit"; the old articles of twenty-four years before, made to appear as if recent utterances; forgeries imposed; and with all this, nothing but hearsay evidence even from his accusers; and yet--he was sentenced to death. sentenced to death and shot. and all modern schools closed, and his property sequestrated. and the virgin of toledo may wear her gorgeous robes in peace, since the shadow of the darkness has stolen back over the circle of light he lit. only,--somewhere, somewhere, down in the obscurity--hovers the menacing figure of her rival, "our lady of pain." she is still now,--but she is not dead. and if all things be taken from her, and the light not allowed to come to her, nor to her children,--then--some day--she will set her own lights in the darkness. ferrer--ferrer is with the immortals. his work is spreading over the world; it will yet return, and rid spain of its tyrants. modern educational reform questions of genuine importance to large masses of people, are not posed by a single questioner, nor even by a limited number. they are put with more or less precision, with more or less consciousness of their scope and demand by all classes involved. this is a fair test of its being a genuine question, rather than a temporary fad. such is the test we are to apply to the present inquiry, what is wrong with our present method of child education? what is to be done in the way of altering or abolishing it? the posing of the question acquired a sudden prominence, through the world-shocking execution of a great educator for alleged complicity in the revolutionary events of spain during the moroccan war. people were not satisfied with the spanish government's declarations as to this official murder; they were not convinced that they were being told the truth. they inquired why the government should be so anxious for that man's death. and they learned that as a teacher he had founded schools wherein ideas hostile to governmental programs for learning, were put in practice. and they have gone on asking to know what these ideas were, how they were taught, and how can those same ideas be applied to the practical questions of education confronting them in the persons of their own children. but it would be a very great mistake to suppose that the question was raised out of nothingness, or out of the brilliancy of his own mind, by francisco ferrer. if it were, if he were the creator of the question instead of the response to it, his martyr's death could have given it but an ephemeral prominence which would speedily have subsided. on the contrary, the inquiry stimulated by that tragic death was but the first loud articulation of what has been asked in thousands of school-rooms, millions of homes, all over the civilized world. it has been put, by each of the three classes concerned, each in its own peculiar way, from its own peculiar viewpoint,--by the educator, by the parent, and by the child itself. there is a fourth personage who has had a great deal to say, and still has; but to my mind he is a pseudo-factor, to be eliminated as speedily as possible. i mean the "statesman." he considers himself profoundly important, as representing the interests of society in general. he is anxious for the formation of good citizens to support the state, and directs education in such channels as he thinks will produce these. i prefer to leave the discussion of his peculiar functions for a later part of this address, here observing only that if he is a legitimate factor, if by chance he is a genuine educator strayed into statesmanship, _as_ a statesman he is interested only from a secondary motive; i. e., he is not interested in the actual work of schools, in the children as persons, but in the producing of a certain type of character to serve certain subsequent ends. the criticism offered by the child itself upon the prevailing system of instruction, is the most simple,--direct; and at the same time, the critic is utterly unconscious of its force. who has not heard a child say, in that fretted whine characteristic of a creature who knows its protest will be ineffective: "but what do i have to learn that for?"--"oh, i don't see what i have to know that for; i can't remember it anyway." "i hate to go to school; i'd just as lief take a whipping!" "my teacher's a mean old thing; she expects you to sit quiet the whole morning, and if you just make the least little noise, she keeps you in at recess. why do we have to keep still so long? what good does it do?" i remember well the remark made to me once by one of my teachers--and a very good teacher, too, who nevertheless did not see what her own observation ought to have suggested. "school-children," she said, "regard teachers as their natural enemies." the thought which it would have been logical to suppose would have followed this observation is, that if children in general are possessed of that notion, it is because there is a great deal in the teacher's treatment of them which runs counter to the child's nature: that possibly this is so, not because of natural cussedness on the part of the child, but because of inapplicability of the knowledge taught, or the manner of teaching it, or both, to the mental and physical needs of the child. i am quite sure no such thought entered my teacher's mind,--at least regarding the system of knowledge to be imposed; being a sensible woman, she perhaps occasionally admitted to herself that she might make mistakes in applying the rules, but that the body of knowledge to be taught was indispensable, and must somehow be injected into children's heads, under threat of punishment, if necessary, i am sure she never questioned. it did not occur to her any more than to most teachers, that the first business of an educator should be to find out what are the needs, aptitudes, and tendencies of children, before he or she attempts to outline a body of knowledge to be taught, or rules for teaching it. it does not occur to them that the child's question, "what do i have to learn that for?" is a perfectly legitimate question; and if the teacher cannot answer it to the child's satisfaction, something is wrong either with the thing taught, or with the teaching; either the thing taught is out of rapport with the child's age, or his natural tendencies, or his condition of development; or the method by which it is taught repels him, disgusts him, or at best fails to interest him. when a child says, "i don't see why i have to know that; i can't remember it anyway," he is voicing a very reasonable protest. of course, there are plenty of instances of wilful shirking, where a little effort can overcome the slackness of memory; but every teacher who is honest enough to reckon with himself knows he cannot give a sensible reason why things are to be taught which have so little to do with the child's life that to-morrow, or the day after examination, they will be forgotten; things which he himself could not remember were he not repeating them year in and year out, as a matter of his trade. and every teacher who has thought at all for himself about the essential nature of the young humanity he is dealing with, knows that six hours of daily herding and in-penning of young, active bodies and limbs, accompanied by the additional injunction that no feet are to be shuffled, no whispers exchanged, and no paper wads thrown, is a frightful violation of all the laws of young life. any gardener who should attempt to raise healthy, beautiful, and fruitful plants by outraging all those plants' instinctive wants and searchings, would meet as his reward--sickly plants, ugly plants, sterile plants, dead plants. he will not do it; he will watch very carefully to see whether they like much sunlight, or considerable shade, whether they thrive on much water or get drowned in it, whether they like sandy soil, or fat mucky soil; the plant itself will indicate to him when he is doing the right thing. and every gardener will watch for indications with great anxiety. if he finds the plant revolts against his experiments, he will desist at once, and try something else; if he finds it thrives, he will emphasize the particular treatment so long as it seems beneficial. but what he will surely not do, will be to prepare a certain area of ground all just alike, with equal chances of sun and amount of moisture in every part, and then plant everything together without discrimination,--mighty close together!--saying beforehand, "if plants don't want to thrive on this, they ought to want to; and if they are stubborn about it, they must be made to." or if a raiser of animals were to start in feeding them on a regimen adapted not to their tastes but to his; if he were to insist on stuffing the young ones with food only fitted for the older ones; if he were to shut them up and compel them somehow to be silent, stiff, and motionless for hours together,--he would--well, he would very likely be arrested for cruelty to animals. of course there is this difference between the grower of plants or animals and the grower of children; the former is dealing with his subject as a superior power with a force which will always remain subject to his, while the latter is dealing with a force which is bound to become his equal, and taking it in the long and large sense, bound ultimately to supersede him. the fear of "the footfalls of the young generation" is in his ears, whether he is aware of it or not, and he instinctively does what every living thing seeks to do; viz., to preserve his power. since he cannot remain forever the superior, the dictator, he endeavors to put a definite mould upon that power which he must share--to have the child learn what he has learned, as he has learned it, and to the same end that he has learned it. the grower of flowers, or fruits, or vegetables, or the raiser of animals, secure in his forever indisputable superiority, has nothing to fear when he inquires into the ways of his subjects; he will never think: "but if i heed such and such manifestation of the flower's or the animal's desire or repulsion, it will develop certain tendencies as a result, which will eventually overturn me and mine, and all that i believe in and labor to preserve." the grower of children is perpetually beset by this fear. he must not listen to a child's complaint against the school: it breaks down the mutual relation of authority and obedience; it destroys the faith of the child that his olders know better than he; it sets up little centers of future rebellion in the brain of every child affected by the example. no: complaint as to the wisdom of the system must be discouraged, ignored, frowned down, crushed by superior dignity; if necessary, punished. the very best answer a child ever gets to its legitimate inquiry, "why do i have to learn such and such a thing?" is, "wait till you get older, and you will understand it all. just now you are a little too young to understand the reasons."--(in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the answerer got the same reply to his own question twenty years before; and he has never found out since, either). "do as we tell you to, now," say the teachers, "and be sure that we are instructing you for your good. the explanations will become clear to you some time." and the child smothers his complaint, cramps his poor little body to the best of his ability, and continues to repeat definitions which mean nothing to him but strings of long words, and rules which to him are simply torture--apparatus invented by his "natural enemies" to plague children.--i recall quite distinctly the bitter resentment i felt toward the inverted divisor. the formula was easy enough to remember: "invert the terms of the divisor and proceed as in multiplication of fractions." i memorized it in less than a minute, and followed the prescription, and got my examples, correct. but "oh, how, how was the miracle accomplished? why should a fraction be made to stand on its head? and how did that change a division suddenly into a multiplication?"--and i never found out till i undertook to teach some one else, years afterward. yet the thing could have been made plain then; perhaps would have been, but for the fact that as a respectful pupil i was so trained to think that my teachers' methods must not be questioned or their explanations reflected upon, that i sat mute, mystified, puzzled, and silently indignant. in the end i swallowed it as i did a lot of other "pre-digested" knowledge (?) and consented to use its miraculous nature, very much as my christian friends use the body and blood of christ to "wash their sins away" without very well understanding the modus operandi. another advantage which the botanical or zoölogical cultivator has over the child-grower, by which incidentally the plants and animals profit, is that since he is not seeking to produce a universal type, but rather to develop as many new and interesting types as he can, he is very studious to notice the inclinations of his subjects, observing possible beginnings of differentiation, and adapting his treatment to the development of such beginnings. of course he also does what no child-cultivator could possibly do,--he ruthlessly destroys weaklings; and as the superior intermeddling divinity, he fosters those special types which are more serviceable to himself, irrespective of whether they are more serviceable to plant or animal life apart from man. but is the fact that children are of the same race as ourselves, the fact that their development should be regarded from the point of how best shall they serve themselves, their own race and generation, not that of a discriminating overlord, assuming the power of life and death over them,--a reason for us to disregard their tendencies, aptitudes, likes and dislikes, altogether?--a reason for us to treat their natural manifestations of non-adaptation to our methods of treatment with less consideration than we give to a fern or a hare? i should, on the contrary, suppose it was a reason to consider them all the more. i think the difficulty lies in the immeasurable vanity of the human adult, particularly the pedagogical adult, (i presume i may say it with less offense since i am a teacher myself), which does not permit him to recognize as good any tendency in children to fly in the face of his conceptions of a correct human being; to recognize that may be here is something highly desirable, to be encouraged, rather than destroyed as pernicious. a flower-gardener doesn't expect to make another voter or householder out of his fern, so he lets it show what it wants to be, without being at all horrified at anything it does; but your teacher has usually well-defined conceptions of what men and women have to be. and if a boy is too lively, too noisy, too restless, too curious, to suit the concept, he must be trimmed and subdued. and if he is lazy, he has to be spurred with all sorts of whips, which are offensive both to the handler and the handled. the weapons of shaming and arousing the spirit of rivalry are two which are much used,--the former with sometimes fatal results, as in the case of the nine year old boy who recently committed suicide because his teacher drew attention to his torn coat, or young girls who have worried themselves into fevers from a scornful word respecting their failures in scholarship, and arousing rivalry brings an evil train behind it of spites and jealousies. i do not say, as some enthusiasts do, "there are no bad children," or "there are no lazy children"; but i am quite sure that both badness and laziness often result from lack of understanding and lack of adaptation; and that these can only be attained by teachers comprehending that they must seek to understand as well as to be understood. badness is sometimes only dammed up energy, which can no more help flooding over than dammed up water. laziness is often the result of forcing a child to a task for which it has no natural liking, while it would be energetic enough, given the thing it liked to do. at any rate, it is worth while to try to find out what is the matter, in the spirit of a searcher after truth. which is the first point i want to establish: that the general complaints of children are true criticisms of the school system; and superintendents of public instruction, boards of education, and teachers have as their first duty to heed and consider these complaints. let us now consider the complaints of parents. it must be admitted that the parents of young children, particularly their mothers, and especially these latter when they are the wives of workingmen with good-sized families, regard the school rather as a convenience for getting rid of the children during a certain period of the day than anything else. they are not to be blamed for this. they have obeyed the imperative mandate of nature in having families, with no very adequate conception of what they were doing; they find themselves burdened with responsibilities often greatly beyond their capacity. they have all they can do, sometimes more than they can do, to manage the financial end of things, to see to their children's material wants and to get through the work of a house; very often they are themselves deficient in even the elementary knowledge of the schools; they feel that their children need to know a great deal that they have never known, but they are utterly without the ability to say whether what they learn is useful and important or not. with the helplessness of ignorance towards wisdom, they receive the system provided by the state on trust, presuming it is good; and with the pardonable relief of busy and overburdened people, they look at the clock as school hour approaches, and breathe a sigh of relief when the last child is out of the house. they would be shocked at the idea that they regard their children as nuisances; they would vigorously defend themselves by saying that they feel that the children are in better hands than their own, safe and well treated. but before long even these ignorant ones observe that their children have learned a number of things which are not good. they have mixed with a crowd of others, and somewhere among them they have learned bad language, bad ideas, and bad habits. these are complaints which may be heard from intelligent, educated, and conservative parents also,--parents who may be presumed to be satisfied with the spirit and general purpose of the knowledge imparted in the class-room. also the children suffer in health through their schools; and later on, when the cramming and crowding of their brains goes on in earnest, as it does in the higher grades, and particularly the high schools, oh then springs up a terrible crop of headache, nervous prostration, hysterics, over-delicacy, anaemia, heart-palpitation (especially among the girls), and a harvest of other physical disorders which were very probably planted back in the primary departments, and fostered in the higher rooms. the students are so overtrained that they often "become good for nothing in the house," the parents say, and too late the mothers discover that they themselves become servants to the whimsical little ladies and gentlemen they have raised up, who are more interested in text-books than in practical household matters. such are the ordinary complaints heard on every side, uttered by those who really have no fault to find with the substance of the instruction itself,--some because they do not know, and some because it fairly represents their own ideas. the complaint becomes much more vital and definite when it proceeds from a parent who is an informed person, with a conception of life at variance with that commonly accepted. i will instance that of a philadelphia physician, who recently said to me: "in my opinion many of the most horrid effects of malformations which i have to deal with, are the results of the long hours of sitting imposed on children in the schools. it is impossible for a healthy active creature to sit stiffly straight so many hours; no one can do it. they will inevitably twist and squirm themselves down into one position or another which throws the internal organs out of position, and which by iteration and reiteration results in a continuously accentuating deformity. motherhood often becomes extremely painful and dangerous through the narrowing of the pelvis produced in early years of so much uncomfortable sitting. i believe that the sort of schooling which necessitates it should not begin till a child is fourteen years of age." he added also that the substance of our education should be such as would fit the person for the conditions and responsibilities he or she may reasonably be expected to encounter in life. since the majority of boys and girls will most likely become fathers and mothers in the future, why does not our system of education take account of it, and instruct the children not in the latin names of bones and muscles so much, as in the practical functioning and hygiene of the body? every teacher knows, and most of our parents know, that no subject is more carefully ignored by our text-books on physiology than the reproductive system. a like book on zoölogy has far more to say about the reproduction of animals than is thought fit to be said by human beings to human beings about themselves. and yet upon such ignorance often depends the ruin of lives. such is the criticism of an intelligent physician, himself the father of five children. it is a typical complaint of those who have to deal with the physical results of our school system. a still more forcible complaint is rising up from a class of parents who object not only negatively, but positively, to the instruction of the schools. these are saying: i do not want to have my children taught things which are positively untrue, nor truths which have been distorted to fit some one's political or religious conception. i do not want any sort of religion or politics to be put into his head. i want the accepted facts of natural science and discovery to be taught him, in so far as they are within the grasp of his intellect. i do not want them colored with the prejudice of any system. i want a school system which will be suited to his physical well-being. i want what he learns to become his, by virtue of its appealing to his taste, his aptitude for experiment and proof; i do not want it to be a foreign stream pouring over his lips like a brook over its bed, leaving nothing behind. i do not want him to be tortured with formal examinations, nor worried by credit marks with averages and per cents and tenths of per cents, which haunt him waking and sleeping, as if they were the object of his efforts. and more than that, and above all, i do not want him made an automaton. i do not want him to become abjectly obedient. i do not want his free initiative destroyed. i want him, by virtue of his education, to be well-equipped bodily and mentally to face life and its problems. this is my second point: that parents, conservatives and radicals, criticise the school st, as the producer of unhealthy bodies; d, as teaching matter inappropriate to life; or rather, perhaps, as not teaching what is appropriate to life; d, as perverting truth to serve a political and religious system; and as putting an iron mould upon the will of youth, destroying all spontaneity and freedom of expression. the third critic is the teacher. owing to his peculiarly dependent position, it is very, very seldom that any really vital criticism comes out of the mouth of an ordinary employé in the public school service: first, if he has any subversive ideas, he dares not voice them for fear of his job; second, it is extremely unlikely that any one with subversive ideas either will apply for the job, or having applied, will get it; and third, if through some fortuitous combination of circumstances, a rebellious personage has smuggled himself into the camp, with the naive notion that he is going to work reforms in the system, he finds before long that the system is rather remoulding him; he falls into the routine prescribed, and before long ceases to struggle against it. still, however conservative and system-logged teachers may be, they will all agree upon one criticism; viz., that they have too much to do; that it is utterly impossible for them to do justice to every pupil; that with from thirty to fifty pupils all depending upon one teacher for instruction, it is out of the question to give any single one sufficient attention, to say nothing of any special attention which his peculiar backwardness might require. he could do so only at the expense of injustice to the rest. and, indeed, the best teacher in the world could not attend properly to the mental needs of fifty children, nor even of thirty. furthermore, this overcrowding makes necessary the stiff regulation, the formal discipline, in the maintenance of which so much of the teacher's energy is wasted. the everlasting roll-call, the record of tardiness and absence, the eye forever on the watch to see who is whispering, the ear forever on the alert to catch the scraper of feet, the mischievous disturber, the irrepressible noisemaker; with such a divided and subdivided attention, how is it possible to teach? here and there we find a teacher with original ideas, not of subjects to be taught, but of the means of teaching. sometimes there is one who inwardly revolts at what he has to teach, and takes such means as he can to counteract the glorifications of political aggrandizement, with which our geographies and histories are redolent. in general, however, public school teachers, like government clerks, believe very much in the system whereby they live. what they do find fault with, and what they have very much reason to find fault with, is not the school system, but the counteracting influences of bad homes. teachers are often heard to say that they think they could do far better with the children, if they had entire control of them, or, as they more commonly express themselves, "if only their parents had some common sense!" lessons of order, neatness, cleanliness, and hygiene, are often entirely thrown away, because the children regard them as statements to be memorized, not things to be practised. those children whose mothers know nothing of ventilation, the necessity for exercise, the chemistry of food, and the functioning of the organs of the body, will forget instructions because they are never made part of their lives. (which criticism is a sort of confirmation of that sage observation: "if you want to reform a man, begin with his grandmother.") so much for criticism. what, now, can we offer in the way of suggestions for reform? speaking abstractly, i should say that the purpose of education should be to furnish a child with such fundamental knowledge and habits as will preserve and strengthen his body, and make him a self-reliant social being, having an all-around acquaintance with the life which is to surround him and an adaptability to circumstances which will render him able to meet varying conditions. but we are immediately confronted by certain practical queries, when we attempt to conceive such a school system. the fact is that the training of the body should be begun in very early childhood; and can never be rightly done in a city. no other animal than man ever conceived such a frightful apparatus for depriving its young of the primary rights of physical existence as the human city. the mass of our city children know very little of nature. what they have learned of it through occasional picnics, excursions, visits in the country, etc., they have learned as a foreign thing, having little relation to themselves; their "natural" habitat is one of lifeless brick and mortar, wire and iron, poles, pavements, and noise. yet all this ought to be utterly foreign to children. _this_ ought to be the thing visited once in a while, not lived in. there is no pure air in a city; it is _all_ poisoned. yet the first necessity of lunged animals--especially little ones--is pure air. moreover, every child ought to know the names and ways of life of the things it eats; how to grow them, etc. how are gardens possible in a city? every child should know trees, not as things he has read about, but as familiar presences in his life, which he recognizes as quickly as his eyes greet them. he should know his oneness with nature, not through the medium of a theory, but through feeling it daily and hourly. he should know the birds by their songs, and by the quick glimpse of them among the foliage; the insect in its home, the wild flower on its stalk, the fruit where it hangs. can this be done in a city? it is the city that is wrong, and its creations can never be right; they may be improved; they can never be what they should. let me quote luther burbank here: he expressed so well, and just in the tumultuous disorder and un-coordination dear to a child's soul, the early rights of children. "every child should have mud-pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hay-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries, and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education." he is of opinion that until ten years of age, these things should be the real educators of children,--not books. i agree with him. but neither city homes nor city schools can give children these things. furthermore, i believe that education should be integral; that the true school must combine physical and intellectual education from the beginning to the end. but i am confronted by the fact that this is impossible to the mass of the people, because of the economic condition in which we are all floundering. what is possible can be only a compromise. physical education will go on in the home principally, and intellectual education in the school. something might be done to organize the teaching of parents; lectures and demonstrations at the public schools might be given weekly, in the evenings, for parents, by competent nurses or hygienists. but they would remain largely ineffective. until the whole atrocious system of herding working people in close-built cities, by way of making them serviceable cogwheels in the capitalistic machine for grinding out rent and profit, comes to an end, the physical education of children will remain at best a pathetic compromise. we have left to consider what may be done in the way of improving intellectual education. what is really necessary for a child to know which he is not taught now? and what is taught that is unnecessary? as to reading and writing there is no dispute, though there is much dispute about the way of doing it. but beyond that children should know--_things_; from their earlier school days they should know the geography of their own locality, not rehearsing it from a book, but by going over the ground, having the relations of places explained to them, and by being shown how to model relief maps themselves. they should know the indications of the weather, being taught the use of instruments for measuring air-pressures, temperatures, amount of sunshine, etc.; they should know the special geology of their own locality, the nature of the soil and its products, through practical exhibition; they should be allowed to construct, from clay, stone, or brick, such little buildings as they usually like to make, and from them the simple principles of geometry taught. you see, every school needs a big yard, and play-rooms with tools in them,--the use of which tools they should be taught. arithmetic, to be sure, they need to know--but arithmetic connected with things. let them learn fractions by cutting up things and putting them together, and not be bothered by abstractions running into the hundreds of thousands, the millions, which never in time will they use. and drop all that tiresome years' work in interest and per cent; if decimals are understood, every one who has need will be amply able to work out systems of interest when necessary. children should know the industrial life through which they live, into which they are probably going. they should see how cloth is woven, thread is spun, shoes are made, iron forged and wrought; again not alone by written description, but by eye-witness. they should, as they grow older, learn the history of the arts of peace. what they do not need to know, is so much of the details of the history of destruction; the general facts and results of wars are sufficient. they do not need to be impressed with the details of killings, which they sensibly forget, and inevitably also. moreover, the revolting patriotism which is being inculcated, whereby children learn to be proud of their country, not for its contributions to the general enlightenment of humanity, but for its crimes against humanity; whereby they are taught to consider themselves, their country, their flag, their institutions, as things to be upheld and maintained, right or wrong; whereby the stupid and criminal life of the soldier is exalted as honorable, should be wholly omitted from the educational system. however, it is utterly impossible to expect that it will be, by anything short of general public sentiment against it; and at present such sentiment is for it. i have alluded before to the function of the statesman in directing education. so long as schools are maintained by governments, the statesman, not the true educator, will determine what sort of history is to be taught; and it will be what it is now, only continually growing worse. political institutions must justify themselves to the young generation. they begin by training childish minds to believe that what they do is to be accepted, not criticised. a history becomes little better than a catechism of patriotic formulas in glorification of the state. now there is no way of escaping this, for those who disapprove it, short of eliminating the statesman, establishing voluntarily supported schools, wherein wholly different notions shall be taught; in which the spirit of teaching history shall be one of honest statement and fearless criticism; wherein the true image of war and the army and all that it means shall be honestly given. the really ideal school, which would not be a compromise, would be a boarding school built in the country, having a farm attached, and workshops where useful crafts might be learned, in daily connection with intellectual training. it presupposes teachers able to train little children to habits of health, order, and neatness, in the utmost detail, and yet not tyrants or rigid disciplinarians. in free contact with nature, the children would learn to use their limbs as nature meant, feel their intimate relationship with the growing life of other sorts, form a profound respect for work and an estimate of the value of it; wish to become real doers in the world, and not mere gatherers in of other men's products; and with the respect for work, the appreciation of work, the desire to work, will come the pride of the true workman who will know how to maintain his dignity and the dignity of what he does. at present the major portion of our working people are sorry they are working people (as they have good reason to be). they take little joy or pride in what they do; they consider themselves as less gifted and less valuable persons in society than those who have amassed wealth and, by virtue of that amassment, live upon their employees; or those who by attaining book knowledge have gotten out of the field of manual production, and lead an easier life. they educate their children in the hope that these, at least, may attain that easier existence, without work, which has been beyond them. even when such parents themselves have dreams of a reorganization of society, wherein all shall labor and all have leisure due, they impress upon the children that no one should be a common workingman if he can help it. workingmen are slaves, and it is not well to be a slave. our radicals fail to realize that to accomplish the reorganization of work, it is necessary to have _workers_,--and workers with the free spirit, the rebellious spirit, which will consider its own worth and refuse to accept the slavish conditions of capitalism. these must be bred in schools where work is done, and done proudly, and in full consciousness of its value; where the dubious services of the capitalist will likewise be rated at their true worth; and no man reckoned as above another, unless he has done a greater social service. where political institutions and the politicians who operate them--judges, lawmakers, or executives--will be candidly criticised, and repudiated when justice dictates so, whether in the teaching of their past history, or their present actions in current events. whether the workers, upon whom so many drains are already made, will be able to establish and maintain such schools, is a question to be solved upon trial through their organizations. the question is, will you breed men for the service of the cannon, to be aimed at you in the hour of strikes and revolts, men to uphold the machine which is crushing you, or will you train them in the knowledge of the true worth of labor and a determination to reorganize it as it should be? sex slavery night in a prison cell! a chair, a bed, a small washstand, four blank walls, ghastly in the dim light from the corridor without, a narrow window, barred and sunken in the stone, a grated door! beyond its hideous iron latticework, within the ghastly walls,--a man! an old man, gray-haired and wrinkled, lame and suffering. there he sits, in his great loneliness, shut in from all the earth. there he walks, to and fro, within his measured space, apart from all he loves! there, for every night in five long years to come, he will walk alone, while the white age-flakes drop upon his head, while the last years of the winter of life gather and pass, and his body draws near the ashes. every night, for five long years to come, he will sit alone, this chattel slave, whose hard toil is taken by the state,--and without recompense save that the southern planter gave his negroes,--every night he will sit there so within those four white walls. every night, for five long years to come, a suffering woman will lie upon her bed, longing, longing for the end of those three thousand days; longing for the kind face, the patient hand, that in so many years had never failed her. every night, for five long years to come, the proud spirit must rebel, the loving heart must bleed, the broken home must lie desecrated. as i am speaking now, as you are listening, there within the cell of that accursed penitentiary whose stones have soaked up the sufferings of so many victims, murdered, as truly as any outside their walls, by that slow rot which eats away existence inch-meal,--as i am speaking now, as you are listening, _there sits moses harman_! why? why, when murder now is stalking in your streets, when dens of infamy are so thick within your city that competition has forced down the price of prostitution to the level of the wages of your starving shirt-makers; when robbers sit in state and national senate and house, when the boasted "bulwark of our liberties," the elective franchise, has become a u. s. dice-box, wherewith great gamblers play away your liberties; when debauchees of the worst type hold all your public offices and dine off the food of fools who support them, why, then, sits moses harman there within his prison cell? if he is so _great_ a criminal, why is he not with the rest of the spawn of crime, dining at delmonico's or enjoying a trip to europe? if he is so bad a man, why in the name of wonder did he ever get in the penitentiary? ah, no; it is not because he has done any evil thing; but because he, a pure enthusiast, searching, searching always for the cause of misery of the kind which he loved with that broad love of which only the pure soul is capable, searched for the data of evil. and searching so he found the vestibule of life to be a prison cell; the holiest and purest part of the temple of the body, if indeed one part can be holier or purer than another, the altar where the most devotional love in truth should be laid, he found this altar ravished, despoiled, trampled upon. he found little babies, helpless, voiceless little things, generated in lust, cursed with impure moral natures, cursed, prenatally, with the germs of disease, forced into the world to struggle and to suffer, to hate themselves, to hate their mothers for bearing them, to hate society and to be hated by it in return,--a bane upon self and race, draining the lees of crime. and he said, this felon with the stripes upon his body, "let the mothers of the race go free! let the little children be pure love children, born of the mutual desire for parentage. let the manacles be broken from the shackled slave, that no more slaves be born, no more tyrants conceived." he looked, this obscenist, looked with clear eyes into this ill-got thing you call morality, sealed with the seal of marriage, and saw in it the consummation of _im_morality, impurity, and injustice. he beheld every married woman what she is, a bonded slave, who takes her master's name, her master's bread, her master's commands, and serves her master's passion; who passes through the ordeal of pregnancy and the throes of travail at _his_ dictation,--not at her desire; who can control no property, not even her own body, without his consent, and from whose straining arms the children she bears may be torn at his pleasure, or willed away while they are yet unborn. it is said the english language has a sweeter word than any other,--_home_. but moses harman looked beneath the word and saw the fact,--a prison more horrible than that where he is sitting now, whose corridors radiate over all the earth, and with so many cells, that none may count them. yes, our masters! the earth is a prison, the marriage-bed is a cell, women are the prisoners, and you are the keepers! he saw, this corruptionist, how in those cells are perpetrated such outrages as are enough to make the cold sweat stand upon the forehead, and the nails clench, and the teeth set, and the lips grow white in agony and hatred. and he saw too how from those cells might none come forth to break her fetters, how no slave dare cry out, how all these murders are done quietly, beneath the shelter-shadow of home, and sanctified by the angelic benediction of a piece of paper, within the silence-shade of a marriage certificate, adultery and rape stalk freely and at ease. yes, for that is adultery where woman submits herself sexually to man, without desire on her part, for the sake of "keeping him virtuous," "keeping him at home," the women say. (well, if a man did not love me and respect himself enough to be "virtuous" without prostituting me, he might go, and welcome. he has no virtue to keep.) and that is rape, where a man forces himself sexually upon a woman whether he is licensed by the marriage law to do it or not. and that is the vilest of all tyranny where a man compels the woman he says he loves, to endure the agony of bearing children that she does not want, and for whom, as is the rule rather than the exception, they cannot properly provide. it is worse than any other human oppression; it is fairly _god_-like! to the sexual tyrant there is no parallel upon earth; one must go to the skies to find a fiend who thrusts life upon his children only to starve and curse and outcast and damn them! and only through the marriage law is such tyranny possible. the man who deceives a woman outside of marriage (and mind you, such a man will deceive _in_ marriage too) may deny his own child, if he is mean enough. he cannot tear it from her arms--he cannot touch it! the girl he wronged, thanks to your very pure and tender morality-standard, may die in the street for want of food. _he_ cannot force his hated presence upon her again. but his wife, gentlemen, his wife, the woman he respects so much that he consents to let her merge her individuality into his, lose her identity and become his chattel, his wife he may not only force unwelcome children upon, outrage at his own good pleasure, and keep as a general cheap and convenient piece of furniture, but if she does not get a divorce (and she cannot for such cause) he can follow her wherever she goes, come into her house, eat her food, force her into the cell, _kill_ her by virtue of his sexual authority! and she has no redress unless he is indiscreet enough to abuse her in some less brutal but unlicensed manner. i know a case in your city where a woman was followed so for ten years by her husband. i believe he finally developed grace enough to die; please applaud him for the only decent thing he ever did. oh, is it not rare, all this talk about the preservation of morality by marriage law! o splendid carefulness to preserve that which you have not got! o height and depth of purity, which fears so much that the children will not know who their fathers are, because, forsooth, they must rely upon their mother's word instead of the hired certification of some priest of the church, or the law! i wonder if the children would be improved to know what their fathers have done. i would rather, much rather, not know who my father was than know he had been a tyrant to my mother. i would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of nature. for what is it to be legitimate, born "according to law"? it is to be, nine cases out of ten, the child of a man who acknowledges his fatherhood simply because he is forced to do so, and whose conception of virtue is realized by the statement that "a woman's duty is to keep her husband at home"; to be the child of a woman who cares more for the benediction of mrs. grundy than the simple honor of her lover's word, and conceives prostitution to be purity and duty when exacted of her by her husband. it is to have tyranny as your progenitor, and slavery as your prenatal cradle. it is to run the risk of unwelcome birth, "legal" constitutional weakness, morals corrupted before birth, possibly a murder instinct, the inheritance of excessive sexuality or no sexuality, either of which is disease. it is to have the value of a piece of paper, a rag from the tattered garments of the "social contract," set above health, beauty, talent or goodness; for i never yet had difficulty in obtaining the admission that illegitimate children are nearly always prettier and brighter than others, even from conservative women. and how supremely disgusting it is to see them look from their own puny, sickly, lust-born children, upon whom lie the chain-traces of their own terrible servitude, look from these to some healthy, beautiful "natural" child, and say, "what a pity its _mother_ wasn't virtuous!" never a word about _their_ children's fathers' virtue, they know too much! virtue! disease, stupidity, criminality! what an _obscene_ thing "virtue" is! what is it to be illegitimate? to be despised, or pitied, by those whose spite or whose pity isn't worth the breath it takes to return it. to be, possibly, the child of some man contemptible enough to deceive a woman; the child of some woman whose chief crime was belief in the man she loved. to be free from the prenatal curse of a slave mother, to come into the world without the permission of any law-making set of tyrants who assume to corner the earth, and say what terms the unborn must make for the privilege of coming into existence. this is legitimacy and illegitimacy! choose. the man who walks to and fro in his cell in lansing penitentiary to-night, this vicious man, said: "the mothers of the race are lifting their dumb eyes to me, their sealed lips to me, their agonizing hearts to me. they are seeking, seeking for a voice! the unborn in their helplessness, are pleading from their prisons, pleading for a voice! the criminals, with the unseen ban upon their souls, that has pushed them, pushed them to the vortex, out of their whirling hells, are looking, waiting for a voice! _i will be their voice._ i will unmask the outrages of the marriage-bed. i will make known how criminals are born. i will make one outcry that shall be heard, and let what will be, _be_!" he cried out through the letter of dr. markland, that a young mother lacerated by unskilful surgery in the birth of her babe, but recovering from a subsequent successful operation, had been stabbed, remorselessly, cruelly, brutally stabbed, not with a knife, but with the procreative organ of her husband, stabbed to the doors of death, and yet there was no redress! and because he called a spade a spade, because he named that organ by its own name, so given in webster's dictionary and in every medical journal in the country, because of this moses harman walks to and fro in his cell to-night. he gave a concrete example of the effect of sex slavery, and for it he is imprisoned. it remains for us now to carry on the battle, and lift the standard where they struck him down, to scatter broadcast the knowledge of this crime of society against a man and the reason for it; to inquire into this vast system of licensed crime, its cause and its effect, broadly upon the race. the cause! let woman ask herself, "why am i the slave of man? why is my brain said not to be the equal of his brain? why is my work not paid equally with his? why must my body be controlled by my husband? why may he take my labor in the household, giving me in exchange what he deems fit? why may he take my children from me? will them away while yet unborn?" let every woman ask. there are two reasons why, and these ultimately reducible to a single principle--the authoritarian, supreme-power, _god_-idea, and its two instruments, the church--that is, the priests--and the state--that is, the legislators. from the birth of the church, out of the womb of fear and the fatherhood of ignorance, it has taught the inferiority of woman. in one form or another through the various mythical legends of the various mythical creeds, runs the undercurrent of the belief in the fall of man through the persuasion of woman, her subjective condition as punishment, her natural vileness, total depravity, etc.; and from the days of adam until now the christian church, with which we have specially to deal, has made _woman_ the excuse, the scapegoat for the evil deeds of _man_. so thoroughly has this idea permeated society that numbers of those who have utterly repudiated the church, are nevertheless soaked in this stupefying narcotic to true morality. so pickled is the male creation with the vinegar of authoritarianism, that even those who have gone further and repudiated the state still cling to the god, society as it is, still hug the old theological idea that they are to be "heads of the family"--to that wonderful formula "of simple proportion" that "man is the head of the woman even as christ is the head of the church." no longer than a week since an anarchist (?) said to me, "i will be boss in my own house"--a "communist-anarchist," if you please, who doesn't believe in "_my_ house." about a year ago a noted libertarian speaker said, in my presence, that his sister, who possessed a fine voice and had joined a concert troupe, should "stay at home with her children; that is _her place_." the old church idea! this man was a socialist, and since an anarchist; yet his highest idea for woman was serfhood to husband and children, in the present mockery called "home." stay at home, ye malcontents! be patient, obedient, submissive! darn our socks, mend our shirts, wash our dishes, get our meals, wait on us and _mind the children_! your fine voices are not to delight the public nor yourselves; your inventive genius is not to work, your fine art taste is not to be cultivated, your business faculties are not to be developed; you made the great mistake of being born with them, suffer for your folly! you are _women_! therefore housekeepers, servants, waiters, and child's nurses! at macon, in the sixth century, says august bebel, the fathers of the church met and proposed the decision of the question, "has woman a soul?" having ascertained that the permission to own a nonentity wasn't going to injure any of their parsnips, a small majority vote decided the momentous question in our favor. now, holy fathers, it was a tolerably good scheme on your part to offer the reward of your pitiable "salvation or damnation" (odds in favor of the latter) as a bait for the hook of earthly submission; it wasn't a bad sop in those days of faith and ignorance. but fortunately fourteen hundred years have made it stale. you, tyrant radicals (?), have no heaven to offer,--you have no delightful chimeras in the form of "merit cards"; you have (save the mark) the respect, the good offices, the smiles--of a slave-holder! this in return for our chains! thanks! the question of souls is old--we demand our bodies, now. we are tired of promises, god is deaf, and his church is our worst enemy. against it we bring the charge of being the moral (or immoral) force which lies behind the tyranny of the state. and the state has divided the loaves and fishes with the church, the magistrates, like the priests take marriage fees; the two fetters of authority have gone into partnership in the business of granting patent-rights to parents for the privilege of reproducing themselves, and the state cries as the church cried of old, and cries now: "see how we protect women!" the state has done more. it has often been said to me, by women with decent masters, who had no idea of the outrages practiced on their less fortunate sisters, "why don't the wives leave?" why don't you run, when your feet are chained together? why don't you cry out when a gag is on your lips? why don't you raise your hands above your head when they are pinned fast to your sides? why don't you spend thousands of dollars when you haven't a cent in your pocket? why don't you go to the seashore or the mountains, you fools scorching with city heat? if there is one thing more than another in this whole accursed tissue of false society, which makes me angry, it is the asinine stupidity which with the true phlegm of impenetrable dullness says, "why don't the women leave!" will you tell me where they will go and what they shall do? when the state, the legislators, has given to itself, the politicians, the utter and absolute control of the opportunity to live; when, through this precious monopoly, already the market of labor is so overstocked that workmen and workwomen are cutting each others' throats for the dear privilege of serving their lords; when girls are shipped from boston to the south and north, shipped in carloads, like cattle, to fill the dives of new orleans or the lumber-camp hells of my own state (michigan), when seeing and hearing these things reported every day, the proper prudes exclaim, "why don't the women leave," they simply beggar the language of contempt. when america passed the fugitive slave law compelling men to catch their fellows more brutally than runaway dogs, canada, aristocratic, unrepublican canada, still stretched her arms to those who might reach her. but there is no refuge upon earth for the enslaved sex. right where we are, there we must dig our trenches, and win or die. this, then, is the tyranny of the state; it denies, to both woman and man, the right to earn a living, and grants it as a privilege to a favored few who for that favor must pay ninety per cent. toll to the granters of it. these two things, the mind domination of the church, and the body domination of the state are the causes of sex slavery. first of all, it has introduced into the world the constructed crime of obscenity: it has set up such a peculiar standard of morals that to speak the names of the sexual organs is to commit the most brutal outrage. it reminds me that in your city you have a street called "callowhill." once it was called gallows' hill, for the elevation to which it leads, now known as "cherry hill," has been the last touching place on earth for the feet of many a victim murdered by the law. but the sound of the word became too harsh; so they softened it, though the murders are still done, and the black shadow of the gallows still hangs on the city of brotherly love. obscenity has done the same; it has placed virtue in the shell of an idea, and labelled all "good" which dwells within the sanction of law and respectable (?) custom; and all bad which contravenes the usage of the shell. it has lowered the dignity of the human body, below the level of all other animals. who thinks a dog is impure or obscene because its body is not covered with suffocating and annoying clothes? what would you think of the meanness of a man who would put a skirt upon his horse and compel it to walk or run with such a thing impeding its limbs? why, the "society for the prevention of cruelty to animals" would arrest him, take the beast from him, and he would be sent to a lunatic asylum for treatment on the score of an _impure_ mind. and yet, gentlemen, you expect your wives, the creatures you say you respect and love, to wear the longest skirts and the highest necked clothing, in order to conceal the _obscene human body_. there is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women. and you, yourselves, though a little better, look at the heat you wear in this roasting weather! how you curse your poor body with the wool you steal from the sheep! how you punish yourselves to sit in a crowded house with coats and vests on, because dead mme. grundy is shocked at the "vulgarity" of shirt sleeves, or the naked arm! look how the ideal of beauty has been marred by this obscenity notion. divest yourselves of prejudice for once. look at some fashion-slaved woman, her waist surrounded by a high-board fence called a corset, her shoulders and hips angular from the pressure above and below, her feet narrowest where they should be widest, the body fettered by her everlasting prison skirt, her hair fastened tight enough to make her head ache and surmounted by a thing of neither sense nor beauty, called a hat, ten to one a hump upon her back like a dromedary,--look at her, and then imagine such a thing as that carved in marble! fancy a statue in fairmount park with a corset and bustle on. picture to yourselves the image of the equestrienne. we are permitted to ride, providing we sit in a position ruinous to the horse; providing we wear a riding-habit long enough to hide the obscene human foot, weighed down by ten pounds of gravel to cheat the wind in its free blowing, so running the risk of disabling ourselves completely should accident throw us from the saddle. think how we swim! we must even wear clothing in the water, and run the gauntlet of derision, if we dare battle in the surf minus stockings! imagine a fish trying to make headway with a water-soaked flannel garment upon it. nor are you yet content. the vile standard of obscenity even kills the little babies with clothes. the human race is murdered, horribly, "in the name of" dress. and in the name of purity what lies are told! what queer morality it has engendered. for fear of it you dare not tell your own children the truth about their birth; the most sacred of all functions, the creation of a human being, is a subject for the most miserable falsehood. when they come to you with a simple, straightforward question, which they have a right to ask, you say, "don't ask such questions," or tell some silly hollow-log story; or you explain the incomprehensibility by another--god! you say "god made you." you know you are lying when you say it. you know, or you ought to know, that the source of inquiry will not be dammed up so. you know that what you could explain purely, reverently, rightly (if you have any purity in you), will be learned through many blind gropings, and that around it will be cast the shadow-thought of wrong, embryo'd by your denial and nurtured by this social opinion everywhere prevalent. if you do not know this, then you are blind to facts and deaf to experience. think of the double social standard the enslavement of our sex has evolved. women considering themselves very pure and very moral, will sneer at the street-walker, yet admit to their homes the very men who victimized the street-walker. men, at their best, will pity the prostitute, while they themselves are the worst kind of prostitutes. pity yourselves, gentlemen--you need it! how many times do you see where a man or woman has shot another through jealousy! the standard of purity has decided that it is right, "it shows spirit," "it is justifiable" to--murder a human being for doing exactly what you did yourself,--love the same woman or same man! morality! honor! virtue!! passing from the moral to the physical phase; take the statistics of any insane asylum, and you will find that, out of the different classes, unmarried women furnish the largest one. to preserve your cruel, vicious, indecent standard of purity (?) you drive your daughters insane, while your wives are killed with excess. such is marriage. don't take my word for it; go through the report of any asylum or the annals of any graveyard. look how your children grow up. taught from their earliest infancy to curb their love natures--restrained at every turn! your blasting lies would even blacken a child's kiss. little girls must not be tomboyish, must not go barefoot, must not climb trees, must not learn to swim, must not do anything they desire to do which madame grundy has decreed "improper." little boys are laughed at as effeminate, silly girl-boys if they want to make patchwork or play with a doll. then when they grow up, "oh! men don't care for home or children as women do!" why should they, when the deliberate effort of your life has been to crush that nature out of them. "women can't rough it like men." train any animal, or any plant, as you train your girls, and it won't be able to rough it either. now _will_ somebody tell me why either sex should hold a corner on athletic sports? why any child should not have free use of its limbs? these are the effects of your purity standard, your marriage law. this is your work--look at it! half your children dying under five years of age, your girls insane, your married women walking corpses, your men so bad that they themselves often admit _prostitution holds against_ =purity= _a bond of indebtedness_. this is the beautiful effect of your god, marriage, before which natural desire must abase and belie itself. be proud of it! now for the remedy. it is in one word, the only word that ever brought equity anywhere--=liberty=! centuries upon centuries of liberty is the only thing that will cause the disintegration and decay of these pestiferous ideas. liberty was all that calmed the blood-waves of religious persecution! you cannot cure serfhood by any other substitution. not for you to say "in this way shall the race love." let the race _alone_. will there not be atrocious crimes? certainly. he is a fool who says there will not be. but you can't stop them by committing the arch-crime and setting a block between the spokes of progress-wheels. you will never get right until you start right. as for the final outcome, it matters not one iota. i have my ideal, and it is very pure, and very sacred to me. but yours, equally sacred, may be different and we may both be wrong. but certain am i that with free contract, that form of sexual association will survive which is best adapted to time and place, thus producing the highest evolution of the type. whether that shall be monogamy, variety, or promiscuity matters naught to us; it is the business of the future, to which we dare not dictate. for freedom spoke moses harman, and for this he received the felon's brand. for this he sits in his cell to-night. whether it is possible that his sentence be shortened, we do not know. we can only try. those who would help us try, let me ask to put your signatures to this simple request for pardon addressed to benjamin harrison. to those who desire more fully to inform themselves before signing; i say: your conscientiousness is praiseworthy--come to me at the close of the meeting and i will quote the exact language of the markland letter. to those extreme anarchists who cannot bend their dignity to ask pardon for an offense not committed, and of an authority they cannot recognize, let me say: moses harman's back is bent, low bent, by the brute force of the law, and though i would never ask anyone to bow for himself, i can ask it, and easily ask it, for him who fights the slave's battle. your dignity is criminal; every hour behind the bars is a seal to your partnership with comstock. no one can hate petitions worse than i; no one has less faith in them than i. but for _my_ champion i am willing to try any means that invades no other's right, even though i have little hope in it. if, beyond these, there are those here to-night who have ever forced sexual servitude from a wife, those who have prostituted themselves in the name of virtue, those who have brought diseased, immoral or unwelcome children to the light, without the means of provision for them, and yet will go from this hall and say, "moses harman is an unclean man--a man rewarded by just punishment," then to _you_ i say, and may the words ring deep within your ears until you die: go on! drive your sheep to the shambles! crush that old, sick, crippled man beneath your juggernaut! in the name of virtue, purity and morality, do it! in the name of god, home, and heaven, do it! in the name of the nazarene who preached the golden rule, do it! in the name of justice, principle, and honor, do it! in the name of bravery and magnanimity put yourself on the side of the robber in the government halls, the murderer in the political convention, the libertine in public places, the whole brute force of the police, the constabulary, the court, and the penitentiary, to persecute one poor old man who stood alone against your licensed crime! do it. and if moses harman dies within your "kansas hell," be satisfied _when you have murdered him_! kill him! and you hasten the day when the future shall bury you ten thousand fathoms deep beneath its curses. kill him! and the stripes upon his prison clothes shall lash you like the knout! kill him! and the insane shall glitter hate at you with their wild eyes, the unborn babes shall cry their blood upon you, and the graves that you have filled in the name of marriage, shall yield food for a race that will pillory you, until the memory of your atrocity has become a nameless ghost, flitting with the shades of torquemada, calvin and jehovah over the horizon of the world! would you smile to see him dead? would you say, "we are rid of this obscenist"? fools! the corpse would laugh at you from its cold eyelids! the motionless lips would mock, and the solemn hands, the pulseless, folded hands, in their quietness would write the last indictment, which neither time nor you can efface. kill him! and you write his glory and your shame! moses harman in his felon stripes stands far above you now, and moses harman _dead_ will live on, immortal in the race he died to free! kill him! literature the mirror of man perhaps i had better say the mirror-reflection,--the reflection of all that he has been and is, the hinting fore-flashing of something of what he may become. in so considering it, let it be understood that i speak of no particular form of literature, but the entire body of a people's expressed thought, preserved either traditionally, in writing, or in print. the majority of lightly thinking, fairly read people, who make use of the word "literature" rather easily, do so with a very indistinct idea of its content. to them it usually means a certain limited form of human expression, chiefly works of the imagination--poetry, drama, the various forms of the novel. history, philosophy, science are rather frowning names,--stern second cousins, as it were, to the beguiling companions of their pleasant leisure hours,--not legitimately "literature." biography,--well, it depends on who writes it! if it can be made so much like a work of fiction that the subject sketched serves the purposes of a fictive hero, why then--maybe. to such talkers about literature, evidence of familiarity with it, and title to have one's opinions thereon asked and respected, are witnessed by the ability to run glibly off the names of the personages in the dramas of ibsen, björnson, maeterlinck, hauptmann or shaw; or in the novels of gorki, andreyev, tolstoy, zola, maupassant, hardy, and the dozen or so of lesser lights who revolve with these through the cycle of the magazine issues. not only do these same people thus limit the field of literature, (at least in their ordinary conversation,--if you press them they will dubiously admit that the field may be extended) but they are also possessed of the notion that only one particular mode even of fiction, is in fact the genuine thing. that this mode has not always been in vogue they are aware; and they allow other modes to have been literature in the past, as a sort of kindly concession to the past--a blanket-indulgence to its unevolved state. at present, however, no indulgences are allowed; whatever is not the mode, is anathema; it is not literature at all. when confronted by the _very_ great names of the past, which they can neither consign to oblivion, nor patronize by toleration for their undeveloped condition, names which are names for all ages, which they need to use as conjuration words in their comparisons and criticisms, names such as shakespeare or hugo, they complacently close their eyes to contradictions and swear that fundamentally these men's works _are in the modern mode, the accepted mode, the one and only enduring mode_, the mode that they approve. "which is?"--i hear you ask. _which is_ what they are pleased to call "realism." if you wish to know how far they are obsessed by this notion, go pick yourself a quiet corner in some café where light literature readers meet to make comparisons, and listen to the comments. before very long, voices will be getting loud about some character at present stalking across the pages of the magazines, or bestirring itself among the latest ton of novel; and the dispute will be, "does such a type exist?"--"of course he exists,"--"he does not exist,"--"he must exist,"--"he cannot exist,"--"under such conditions,"--"there are no such conditions,"--"but be reasonable: you have not been in all places, and you cannot say there may not be such conditions; supposing--" "all right: i will give you the conditions; all the same, no man would act so under any conditions." "i swear l have seen such men--" "impossible--" "what is there impossible about it?--" and the voices get louder and louder, as the disputants proceed to pick the character to pieces, speech by speech, and action by action, till, nothing being left, each finally subsides somehow, each confirmed in his own opinion, each convinced that the main purpose of literature--realism--has either been served, or not served, by the author under discussion. to such disputants "literature the mirror of man," means that only such literature as gives so-called absolutely faithful representations of life as it is demonstrably lived, is a genuine mirror. no author is to be considered worthy of a place, unless his works can be at least twisted to fit this conception. with some slight refinement of idea, in so far as it recognizes the obscurer recesses of the mind as entitled to representation as well as the externals, it corresponds to the one-time development of portrait painting, which esteemed it necessary to paint the exact number of hairs in the wart on oliver cromwell's nose, in order to have a true likeness of him. as before suggested, i do not, when i speak of literature as the mirror of man, have any such x mirror in view; nor the limitation of literature to any one form of it, to any one age of it, to any set of standard names; nor the limitation of man to any preconceived notion of just what he may logically be allowed to be. the composite image we are seeking to find is an image wrought as much of his dreams of what he would like to be, as of his actual being; that is no true picture of man, which does not include his cravings for the impossible, as well as his daily performance of the possible. indeed, the logical, calculable man, the man who under certain circumstances may be figured out to turn murderer and under others saint, is hardly so interesting as the illogical being who upsets the calculation by becoming neither, but something not at all predictable. the objects of my lecture then are these: . to insist on a wider view of literature itself than that generally accepted. . to suggest to readers a more satisfactory way of considering what they read than that usually received. . to point to certain phases of the human appearance reflected in the mirror which are not generally noticed, but which i find interesting and suggestive. you would think it very unreasonable, would you not, for any one to insist that because your highly polished glass backed by quicksilver, gives back so clear and excellent an image, _therefore_ the watery vision you catch of yourself in the shifting, glancing ripples of a clear stream is not an image at all! with all the curious elongating and drifting and shortening back and breaking up into wavering circles, done by that unresting image, you know very certainly that is you; and if you look into the still waters of some summer pool, or mountain rain-cup, the image there is almost as sharp-lined as that in your polished glass, except for the vague tremor that seems to move under the water rather than on its surface, and suggest an ethereal something missing in your drawing-room shadow. yet that vision conjured in the water-depth is you--surely you. nay, even more,--that _first_ image of you, you perceived when as a child you danced in the firelight and saw a misshapen darkness rising and falling along the wall in teasing mockery,--that too was surely an image of you--an image of interception, not of reflection; a blur, a vacancy, a horror, from which you fled shrieking to your mother's arms;--and yet it was the distorted outline of you. you grew familiar with it later, amused yourself with it, twisted your hands into strange positions to see what curious shapes they would form upon the wall, and made whole stories with the shadows. long afterward you went back to them with deliberate and careful curiosity, to see how the figures stumbled on by accident could be definitely produced, at will, according to the laws of interception. even so the first _man-images_, cast back from the blank wall of language, are uncouth, ungraspable, vague, vacant, menacing--to the men who saw them, frightful. mankind produced this paradox: the early _lights_ of literature were _darkness_! later these darknesses grew less fearsome; the child-man began to jest with them; to multiply figures and send them chasing past each other up and down the wall, with fresh glee at each newly created shadow-sport. the wall at last became luminous, the shadows shining. and out of the old monosyllabic horror of the primitive legend, out of man's fright at the projection of his own soul, out of his wide stare at those terrific giants on the wall who suddenly with shadow-like shifting became grotesque dwarfs, and mocking little beasts that danced and floated, ever most fearful because of their elusive emptiness; out of this, bit by bit, grew the steady contemplation, the gradual effacement of fright, the feeling of power and amusement, and the sense of creative mastery, which, understanding the shadows, began to command them, till there arose all the beauty of fairy tales and shining myths and singing legends. now any one who desires to see in literature the most that there is in it; who desires to read not merely for the absorption of the moment but for the sake of permanent impression; who wishes to have an idea of man not only as he is now, but through the whole articulate record of his existence; who would know the thoughts of his infancy and the connected course of his development,--and no one has any adequate conception of the glory of literature, unless he includes this much in it--any such a reader, i say, must find among its most attractive pages, the stories of early superstitions, the fictions of fear, the struggles of the race-child's intelligence with overlooming problems. think of the ages and ages that men saw the demon electricity riding the air; think that even now they do not know what he is; and yet he played mightily with their daily lives for all those ages. think how this staring savage was put face to face with world-games which were spun and tossed around him, and compelled by the nature of his own activity to try to find an explanation to them; think that most of us, if we were not the heritors of the ages that have passed since then, should be staggered and out-breathed even now by all these lights and forms through which we move; and then turn to the record of those pathetic strivings of the frightened child with some little tenderness and sympathy, some solemn curiosity to know _what_ men were able to think and feel when they led their lives as in a threatening wonder-house, where everything was an unknown, invested with crouching hostility. and never be too sure you know just how men will act, or try to act, under any conditions, if you have not read the record of what they have thought and fancied and done; and after you have read it, oh, then you will never be sure you know! for then you will realize that every man is a burial-house, full of dead men's ghosts,--and the ghosts of very, very ancient days are there, forever whispering in an ancient, ancient tongue of ancient passions and desires, and prompting many actions which the doer thereof can give himself no accounting for. there are two ways of reading these old stories; and as one who has gotten pleasure and profit, too, from both, i would recommend them both to be used. the first way is to read yourself backward into it as much as possible. do not be a critic, on first reading; put the critic asleep. let yourself _seem to believe it_, as did he who wrote it. read it aloud, if you are where you will not annoy anybody; let the words sing themselves over your lips, as they sung themselves over the lips of the people who were dead so long ago,--in their strange far-away homes with their vanished surroundings; sung themselves, just as the wind sung through the echoing forests, and murmured back from the rocks; just as the songs slipped out of the birds' throats. you will find that half the beauty and the farce of old-time legend lies in the bare sound of it. far, far more is it dependent on the voice, than any modern writings are. and surely, the reason is simple enough: for _it_ was not _writing_ in its creation; ancient literature addressed itself to the ear, always, while modern literature speaks to the eye. if once you can get your ears washing with the sounds of the old language, as with the washing of the seas when you sit on the beach, or the lapping of the rivers when the bank-grass caresses you some idle summer afternoon, it will be much easier for you to forget that you are the child of another age and thought. you will begin to luxuriate in fancies and prefigure impossibilities; then you will know how it feels to be fancy free, loosed from the chain of the possible; and once having felt, you will also understand better, when you re-read with other intent. when you are ready for such re-reading, then be as critical as you please,--which does not necessarily mean be condemnatory. it means rather take notice of all generals and particulars, and question them. you will naturally pose yourself the question, why is it that the bare sounds of these old stories are so much more vibrating, drum-like, shrilling, at times, than any modern song or poem? you will find that the mitigating influence of civilization,--knowledge, moderation,--creeping into expression, produces flat, neutral, diluted sounds,--watery words, so to speak, long-drawn out and glidingly inoffensive. in any modern writing remarkable for strength, will be found a preponderance of "barbaric yawp"--as whitman called it. fear creates sharp cries; the rebound of fear, which is bravado, produces drum-tones, roars, and growls; unrestrained passions howl in wind-notes, irregular, breaking short off. god carries a hammer, and love a spear. the hymn clangs, and the love-song clashes. through those fierce sounds one feels again hot hearts. those who perceive colors accompanying sounds, sense clean cut lights streaking the night-ground of these early word-pictures; sharp, hard, reds and yellows. it is our later world which has produced green tintings not to be told from gray, nor gray from blue, nor anything from anything. in our fondness for smoothness and gradation we have attained practical colorlessness. if it appears to you that i am talking nonsense, permit me to tell you it is because you have dulled your own powers of perception; in seeking to become too intellectually appreciative, you have lost the power to feel primitive things. try to recover it. another source of interesting observation, especially in english literature of early writing: this time the eye. it is admitted by everybody that as a serviceable instrument for expressing definite sounds in an expeditious and comprehensible manner, english written language is a woeful failure. if any inventor of a theory of symbols should, would, or could have devised such a ridiculous conception of spelling, such a hodge-podge of contradictory jumbles, he would properly have been adjudged to an insane asylum; and that, every man who ever contrived an english spelling-book, and every teacher who is obliged to worry this incongruous mess through the steadily revolting reason-and-memory process of children, is ably convinced. but man, english-speaking man, has actually--_executed_ such conception; (he probably executed it first and conceived it afterward, as most of our poor victims do when they start on that terrible blind road through the spelling-book). whether or no, the thing is here, and we've all to accept it, and deal with it as best we may, sadly hoping that possibly the tenth generation from now may at least be rid of a few unnecessary "e's." and since the thing is here, and is a mighty creation, and very indicative of how the human brain in large sections works; since we've got to put up with it anyway, we may as well, in revenge for its many inconveniences, get what little satisfaction we can out of it. and i find it one of the most delightful little side amusements of wandering through the field of old literature, while in the critical vein, to stray around among the old stumps and crooked cowpaths of english spelling. much pleasure is to be derived from seeing what old words grew together and made new ones; what syllables or letters got lopped off or twisted, how silent letters became silent and why; from what older language planted, and what its relatives are. it is much the same pleasure that one gets from trailing around through the narrow crooked streets and senseless meanderings of london city. everybody knows it's a foolish way to build a city; that all streets should be straight and wide and well-distributed. but since they are not, and london is too big for one's individual exertion to reform, one consents to take interest in explaining the crookedness--in mentally dissolving the great city into the hundred little villages which coalesced to make it; in marking this point as the place where st. somebody-or-other knelt and prayed once and therefore there had to be a cross-street here; and this other point as the place where the road swept round because martyrs were wont to be burnt there, etc., etc. the trouble is that after a while one gets to love all that quaint illogical tangle, seeing always the thousand years of history in it; and so one's senses actually become vitiated enough to permit him to love the outrages of english spelling, because of the features of men's souls that are imaged therein. when i look at the word "laugh," i fancy i hear the joyous deep guttural "gha-gha-gha" of the old saxon who died long before the foreign graft on the english stock softened the "gh" to an "f"! really one must become more patient with the "un-system," knowing how it grew, and feeling that this is the way of man,--the way he always grows,--not as he ought, but as he can. i have spoken of forms: word-sounds, word-symbols; as to the spirit of those early writings, full of inarticulate religious sentiment, emotions so strong they burst from the utterer's throat one might almost say in barks; gloomy and foreboding; these gradually changing to more lightsome fancies,--beauty, delicacy, airiness taking their place, as in the fairy tales and folk-songs of the people, wherein the deeds of supernaturals are sported with, and it becomes evident that love and winsomeness are usurping the kingdom of power and fear,--through all we are compelled to observe one constant tendency of the human mind,--the desire to free itself from its own conditions, to be what it is not, to represent itself as something beyond its powers of accomplishment. in their minds, men had wings, and breathed in water, and swam on land, and ate air, and thrived in deserts, and walked through seas, and gathered roses off ice-bergs, and collected frozen dew off the tails of sunbeams, dispersed mountains with mustard seeds of faith, and climbed into solid caves under the rainbow; did everything which it was impossible for them to do. it is in fact this imaginative faculty which has fore-run the accomplishments of science and while, under the influence of practical experiment and the extension of knowledge such dreams have passed away, this much remains and will long, long remain in humankind, covered over and shamefacedly concealed as much as may be--that men perpetually conceive themselves as chrysalid heroes and wonder workers; and, under strain of occasion, this element crops out in their actions, making them do all manner of curious things which the standard-setters of realism will declare utterly illogical and impossible. often it is the commonest men who do them. i have a fondness for realism myself; at least i have a very wicked feeling towards what is called "symbolism," and various other things which i don't understand; but as the "unrealists," the "exaggeratists," the whatever-you-call-them express what i believe to be a very permanent characteristic of humankind, as evidenced in all the traces of its work, i think they probably give quite as true reflections of man's soul as the present favorites. these early literatures, most of which have of course been lost, were the embryos of our more imposing creations; and it is a pleasant and an instructive thing to follow the unfolding of monster tales into great religious literatures; to compare them and see how the same few simple figures, either transplanted or spontaneously produced at different points, evolved into all manner of creators, redeemers and miracles in their various altered habitats. no one can so thoroughly appreciate what is in the face of a man turned upward in prayer, as he who has followed the evolution of the black monster up to that impersonal conception of god prettily called by quakers "the inner light." fairy tales on the other hand have evolved into allegories and dramas,--first the dramas of the sky, now the dramas of earth. tales of sexual exploits have become novels, novelettes, short stories, sketches,--a many-expressioned countenance of man. but the old heroic legend,--and the hero is always the next born after the monster in the far-back dawn-days, is the lineal progenitor of history,--history which was first the glorification of a warrior and his aids; then the story of kings, courts, and intrigues; now mostly the report of the deeds of nations in their ugly moods; and _to become_ the record of what people have done in their more amiable moments,--the record of the conquests of peace; how men have lived and labored; dug and built, hewn and cleared, gardened and reforested, organized and coöperated, manufactured and used, educated and amused themselves. those of us who aspire to be more or less suggesters of social change, are greatly at a loss, if we do not know the face of man as reflected in history; and i mean as much the reflection of the minds of historians as seen in their histories as the reflection of the minds of others they sought to give; not so much in the direct expression of their opinion either, as in the choice of what they thought it worth while to try to stamp perpetuity upon. when we read in the anglo-saxon chronicle these items which are characteristic of the whole: "a. d. . this year cynegils succeeded to the government in wessex, and held it winters. cynegils was the son of ceol, ceol of cutha, cutha of cymric." and then, " . this year cynegils and cuiehelm fought at bampton and slew of the welsh." and then " . this year appeared the comet star in august, and shone every morning during three months like a sunbeam. bishop wilfred being driven from his bishopric by king everth, two bishops were consecrated in his stead." --when we read these we have not any very adequate conception of what the anglo-saxon people were doing; but we have a very striking and lasting impression of what the only men who tried to write history at all in that period of english existence, thought it was worth while to record. "cynegils was the son of ceol, and he of cutha, and cutha of cymric." it reads considerably like a stock-raiser's pedigree book. the trouble is, we have no particular notion of cymric. probably if we went back we should find he was the son of somebody. but at any rate, he had a grandson, and the grandson was a king, and the chronicler therefore recorded him. nothing happened for three years; and then the chronicle records that two kings fought and slew men. then comes the momentous year when a comet appeared and a bishop lost his job. no doubt the comet foretold the loss. there are no records of when shoemakers lost their jobs that i know of, nor how many shoemakers were put in their places; and i imagine it would have been at least as interesting for us to know as the little matter of bishop wilfred. but the chronicler did not think so; he preserved the bishop's troubles--no doubt he did just what the shoemakers of the time would also have done, providing they had been also chroniclers. it is a fair sample of what was in men's minds as important.--if any one fancies that this disposition has quite vanished, let him pick up any ordinary history, and see how many pages, relatively, are devoted to the doings of persons intent on slaying, and those intent on peaceful occupation; and how many times we are told that certain politicians lost their jobs, and how we are not told anything about the ordinary people losing their jobs; and then reflect whether the old face of man-the-historian is quite another face yet. biography, as a sort of second offspring of the hero legend, is another revelation, when we read it, not only to know its subject, but to know its writer,--the standpoint from which he values another man's life. ordinarily there is a great deal of "cynegils the son of cutha the son of cymric" in it; and a great deal of emphasis upon the man as an individual phenomenon; when really he would be more interesting and more comprehensible left in connection with the series of phenomena of which he was part. as an example of what to me is a perfect biography, i instance conway's life of thomas paine, itself a valuable history. but it is not so correct a mirror of the general attitude of biographers and readers of biography as bosworth's life of johnson, except in so far as it indicates that the great face in the glass is changing. it is rather the type of what biography is _becoming_, than what it has been, or is. there are two divisions of literature which are generally named in one breath, and are certainly closely connected; and yet the one came to highly perfected forms long, long ago, while the other is properly speaking very young; and for all that, the older is the handmaid of the younger. i mean the literatures of philosophy and science. philosophy is simply the coördination of the sciences; the formulation of the general, and related principles deduced from the collection and orderly arrangement of the facts of existence. yet man had rich literatures of philosophy, while his knowledge of facts was yet so extremely limited as hardly to be worth while writing books about. none of the appearances of man's soul is more interesting than that reflected in the continuous succession of philosophies he has poured out. let him who reads them, read them always twice; first, simply to know and grasp what is said, to become familiar with the idea as it formed itself in the minds of those who conceived it; second, for the sake of figuring the restless activity of brain, the positive need of the mind under all conditions to formulate what knowledge it has, or thinks it has, into some sort of connected whole. this is one of the most pronounced and permanent features seen in the mirror: the positive refusal of the mind to accept the isolation of existences; no matter how far apart they lie, man proceeds to spin connecting threads somehow. the woven texture is often comical enough, but the weaver is just as positively revealed in the cobwebs of ancient philosophy as in the reasoning of herbert spencer. concerning the literature of science itself, in strict terms, i should be very presumptuous to speak of it, because i know extremely little about it; but of those general popularizations of it, which we have in some of the works of haeckel, darwin, and their similars, i should say that beyond the important information they contain in themselves (which surely no one can afford to be in ignorance of) they present the most transformed reflection of man which any literature gives. their words are cold, colorless, burdened with the labor of exactness, machine like, sustained, uncompromising, careless of effect. the spirit they embody is like unto them. they offer the image of man's soul in the time while imagination is in abeyance, reason ascendent. this coldness and quietness sound the doom of poetry. a people which shall be fully permeated with the spirit and word of science will never conceive great poems. they will never be overcome long enough at a time by their wonder and admiration, by their primitive impulses, by their power of simple impression, to think or to speak poetically. they will never see trees as impaled giants any more; they will see them as evolved descendants of phytoplasm. dewdrops are no more the jewels of the fairies; they are the produce of condensation under given atmospheric conditions. singing stones are not the prisons of punished spirits, but problems in acoustics. the basins of fjords are not the track of the anger of thor, but the pathways of glaciation. the roar and blaze and vomit of etna, are not the rebellion of the titan, but the explosion of so and so many million cubic feet of gas. the comet shall no more be the herald of the wrath of heaven, it is a nebulous body revolving in an elliptical orbit of great elongation. love--love will not be the wound of cupid, but the manifestation of universal reproductive instincts. no, the great poems of the world _have been_ produced; they have sung their song and gone their way. imagination remains to us, but weakened, mixed, tamed, calmed. verses we shall have,--and _many_ fragments,--fragments of beauty and power; but never again the thunder-roll of the mighty early song. we have the benefits of science; we must have its derogations also. the powerful fragments will be such as deal with the still unexplored regions of man's own internity--if i may coin the word. science is still balking here. but not for long. we shall soon have madmen turned inside out, and their madness painstakingly reduced to so-and-so many excessive or deficient nerve-vibrations per second. then no more of poe's "raven" and ibsen's "brand." i have said that i intended to indicate a wider concept of literature than that generally allowed. so far i have not done it; at least all that i have dealt with is usually mentioned in works on literature. but i wish now to maintain that some very lowly forms of written expression must be included in literature,--always remembering that i am seeking the complete composite of man's soul. here then: i include in literature, beside what i have spoken on, not only standard novels, stories, sketches, travels, and magazine essays of all sorts, but the poorest, paltriest dime novel, detective story, daily newspaper report, baseball game account, and splash advertisement. oh, what a charming picture of ourselves we see therein! and a faithful one, mind you! think what a speaking likeness of ourselves was the report of national, international, racial importance--the jeffries-johnson fight! nay, i am not laughing. the people of the future are going to look back at the record a thousand years from now; and say, "this is what interested men in the year ." i wonder which will appear most ludicrous then, bishop wilfred in juxtaposition with the comet star, or the destiny of the white race put in jeopardy by a pugilistic contest between one white and one black man! o the bated breath, the expectant eyes, the inbitten lip, the taut muscles, the riveted attention, of hundreds of thousands of people watching the great "scientific" combat. i wonder whether the year will admire it more or less than the song of beowulf and the battle of brunanburh. consider the soul reflected on the sporting page. oh, how mercilessly correct it is! consider the soul reflected on the advertising page. oh, the consummate liar that strides across it! oh, the gull, the simpleton, the would-be getter of something for nothing whose existence it argues! yea, commercial man has set his image therein; let him regard himself when he gets time. and the body of our reform literature, which really reflects the very best social aspirations of men, how prodigal in words it is,--how indefinite in ideas! how generous of brotherhood--and sisterhood--in the large; how chary in the practice! do we not appear therein as curious little dwarfs who have somehow gotten "big heads"? mites gesticulating at the stars and imagining they are afraid because they twinkle. i would not discourage any comrade of mine in the social struggle, but sometimes it is a wholesome thing to reconsider our size. a word in defense of the silly story. let us not forget that lowly minds have lowly needs; and the mass of minds are lowly, and have a right to such gratification as is not beyond their comprehension. so long as i do not _have to read_ those stories, i feel quite glad for the sake of those who are not able to want better that such gratification is not denied them. i would not wish to frown the silly story out of existence so long as it is a veritable expression of many people's need. there are those who have only learned the art of reading at all because of the foolish story. and quite in a side way i learned the other day through the grave assertion of a physician that the ability to read even these, whereby some little refinement of conception is introduced into the idea of love, is one of the restraining influences upon sexual degradation common among poor and ignorant young women. the face of man revealed in them is therefore not altogether without charm, though it may look foolish to us. i said there were some appearances in the mirror not generally remarked, but which to me are suggestive. one of these is the evident delight of the human soul in _smut_. in the older literature these things are either badly set down, as law and cursing, as occasionally in the bible; or they are clothed and mixed with sprightly imaginations as in the tales of boccaccio and chaucer; or they are thinly veiled with a possible modest meaning as in the puns of the shakespearian period; but in our day, they compose a subterranean literature of themselves, like segregated harlots among books. should i say that i blush for this face of man? i ought to, perhaps, but i do not: all i say is, the thing is there, a very real, a very persistent image in the glass; no one who looks straight into it can avoid seeing it. mixed with the humorous, as it often--rather usually--is, it seems to be one of the normal expressions of normal men. we deceive ourselves greatly if we fancy that man has become purified of such imaginations because they are not used openly in modern dramas and stories, as they were in the older ones. it may be dangerous to say it, but i believe from the evidence of literature as a whole, that a moderate amount of amusement in smut is a saving balance in the psychology of nearly every man and woman,--a sign of anchorage in a robust sanity, which takes things as they are--and laughs at them. i believe it is a much more wholesome appearance, than that betrayed in our fever-bred stories and sketches which deal with the abnormalities of men, and which are growing more and more in vogue, in spite of our cry about realism. personally, i am more interested in the abnormalities, which i find very fascinating. and i am very eager to know whether they will prove to be the result of the abnormal conditions of life which modern man has created for himself in his tampering with the forces of nature,--his strenuous industrial existence, his turning of night into day, his whirling himself over the world at a pace not at all in conformity with his native powers of locomotion, and other matters in accordance. or will they prove to be the revenge of the dammed up, cribbed, cabined, and confined imagination, which can no longer exert itself upon externals,--since the investigating man has explained and mastered these or is doing so--and now turns in to wreak frightful wreck upon the mind itself? at any rate, the fact is that we have some very curious appearances in the mirror just now; madmen explaining their own madness, diseased men picking apart their own diseases, perverted men analyzing their own perversions, anything, everything but sane and normal men. does it mean that in our day there is nothing interesting in good health, in well-ordered lives? or does it mean that the rarest thing in all the world is the so-called normal man, whom tacit consent assumes to be the commonest? that everybody, while outwardly wearing a mask of reputable common sense, is within a raging conglomeration of psychic elements that hurl themselves on one another like hissing flames? or does it mean simply that the most powerful writers are themselves diseased, and can only paint disease? i put these questions and do not presume to answer them. i point to the mirror,--the ibsen drama, the andreyev story, the maeterlinck poem, the artzibashev novel,--and i say the image is there. explain it as you can. for the rest, let me recall to you what i told you was my intent: first: to insist on a more inclusive view of literature; you see i would have it extended both up and down,--_down_ even to the advertisement, the sporting page, and the surreptitious anecdote,--_up_ to the fullest and most comprehensive statements of the works of reason. second: to suggest that readers acquire the habit of reading twice, or at least with a double intent. when serious literature is to be considered, i would insist on actually reading twice; but of course it would be both impractical and undesirable to apply such a method to most of the print we look at. those who are confirmed in the habits of would-be critics will have the greatest trouble in learning to read a book from the simple man's standpoint,--and yet no one can ever form a genuine appreciation of a work who has not first forgotten that he is a critic, and allowed himself to be carried away into the events and personalities depicted therein. in that first reading, also, one should train himself to feel and hear the music of language,--this great instrument which men have jointly built, and out of which come great organ tones, and trumpet calls, and thin flute notes, sweeping and wailing, an articulate storm--a conjuring key whereby all the passions of the dead, the millions of the dead, have given to the living the power to call their ghosts out of the grave and make them walk. yea, every word is the mystic embodiment of a thousand years of vanished passion, hope, desire, thought--all that battled through the living figures turned to dust and ashes long ago. train your ears to hear the song of it; it helps to feel what the writer felt. and after that read critically, with one eye on the page, so to speak, and the other on the reflection in the mirror, looking for the mind behind the work, the things which interested the author and those he wrote for. third: to suggest inquiry into the curious paradox of the people of the most highly evolved scientific and mechanical age taking especial delight in psychic abnormalities and morbidities,--whereby the most utterly unreasonable fictive creation becomes the greatest center of curiosity and attraction to the children of reason. a mirror maze is literature, wherein man sees all faces of himself, lengthened here, widened there, distorted in another place, restored again to due proportion, with every possible expression on his face, from abjectness to heroic daring, from starting terror to icy courage, from love to hate and back again to worship, from the almost sublime down to the altogether grotesque,--now giant, now dwarf,--but always with one persistent character,--his _superb curiosity to see himself_. the drama of the nineteenth century the passions of men are actors, events are their motions, all history is their speech. in the long play of the ages a human being sometimes becomes an event; a nation's passion takes a _personnel_. such beings are the expression of the gathered mind-force of millions. he only who keeps himself aloof from all feeling can remain the spectator of the hour. all that humanity which is held within the beating, coiling, surging tides of passion, has no individuality; it sinks its personality to become a vein in the limb of this giant, a pulse in the heart of that titan. only when out of the spirit of the times the event is born, only when the act is complete, the curtain rung down, only then does the intellectuality of the vein, the pulse, rise to the level of the dispassionate. only then can it survey a tragedy and say, "this was necessary"--a reaction, and say, "this was inevitable." yet as a drop of blood is a quivering, living, flashing ruby beside the dead, pale pearl of a stagnant pool, so is one drop of feeling a shining thing, a living thing, beside the deadness of the intellect which judges while the heart is stone; beside those quiet bayous of brain which reflect back the images before them very purely, very stilly, giving no heed to the great rushing river of heart that rolls on, hurries on so close beside them. bye and bye, bye and bye, the river reaches the grand, great sea, and the waters spread out calm and deep, so deep that the stars of the upper sea, the lights of the higher life, shine far up from them as a babe smiles up into its mother's eyes, and up still to the distant source of the light within the eyes. it is to men and women of feeling that i speak, men and women of the millions, men and women in the hurrying current! not to the shallow egotist who holds himself apart and with the phariseeism of intellectuality exclaims, "i am more just than thou"; but to those whose every fiber of being is vibrating with emotion as aspen leaves quiver in the breath of storm! to those whose hearts swell with a great pity at the pitiful toil of women, the weariness of young children, the handcuffed helplessness of strong men! to those whose blood runs quick along the veins like wild-fire on the dry grass of prairies when the wind whirls aside the smokings of the holocaust, and, courting the teeth of the flame, the black priestess, injustice, beckons it on while her feet stamp on the cinders of the sacrifice! to those whose heart-strings thrill at the touch of love like the sweet, low, musical laugh of childhood, or thrum with hate like the singing vibration of the bowstring speeding the arrow of death! i speak to those whose eyes behold all things through a haze of gray, or rose, or gold, born of their surroundings, and which mist slips away only when the gaze is leveled on that dead past whose passions and whose deeds are ended: to whom the present is always a morning with the dimness of morning around it--the past clear and still--no veil on its face, for the veil has been shredded asunder. for he only who intensely perceives the nature of his surroundings, he, and he only, who has felt, and keenly felt, all the throbs and throes of life, can judge with any degree of truth of the action of that which is past. you, you who have loved, you who have joyed, you who have suffered, it belongs to you to people the silent streets of the silent cities with forms now vanished, to comprehend something of the passions which animated their action; it belongs to you to understand how the fury of a great energy, striking terrible aimless blows in the dark, may yet, across the chasm of awful mistake, touch the hand of a greater justice. if from a panoramic survey of the past some wisdom may be gathered, then let the dramas of old ages tell us what have been the mainsprings of their motions; so we shall understand what action ushered in the drama of the nineteenth century. "westward the star of empire holds its way." following the course of those majestic spheres of fire which whirl each in its vast ellipse, trending away in a long, southwesterly path athwart the heavens, obedient to that superior attraction which through all the universe holds good, the attraction of greater for lesser things, the tide of life upon our world has risen and swelled and rolled away to the south and west. away in the orient source of the sunlight, away where the glitter of ice shines up to meet the morning, nations have risen and plunged down impetuously over the sleeping regions of darkness and of heat, bearing with them the breeze-stirring life of the north and the on-trending light of the east. and out of this conquered earth have arisen the mixed passions of another life and another race. still the governing stars wheel on, and the tide of life which paused only to gather strength rolls up again; and once more a nation is born, and new passions dictate the action of the peoples. down, down it sweeps over the altaian hills, over the himalayan ranges, over the land of the euphrates and tigris, over the deserts of arabia the barren, the fields of arabia the stony, and the grasses and waters of arabia the happy, to those low shores, the home of dark mausoleums and darker pyramids, on to the now classic land of greece, and golden italy, and the home of the dark-eyed moors. sweeps till it touches the frothing sea, and brightly borne upon its upper crest shines the glory, the splendor, the magnificence of the warring powers which dictated the action of greece and rome. for centuries their hoisted spears send back the burnished glitter of the sun, and then--the light dies out; down rushing from the north-land again the tide of vigor pours, and the health and strength of barbarism conquers the weakness of a tottering civilization! far away--away over the miles of sparkling sea, in the darkness and the silence a continent lies waiting; waiting for the coming of the light, waiting for the swelling of the tide. slowly at last a ripple creeps up over the strange beach, and the flood rolls on, and again a continent becomes a cradle, and the empire star sends on its rays to kiss the forehead of the rising world. over the breadth of all our continent that mighty wave is flowing still. standing to-day almost upon the threshold of another world, and looking back down this long-vista'd past, gradually there dawns upon reflection's vision, gradually there grows out of the confusion of forms and the babel of sounds, a clearer perception of the motor powers which have dictated the action of this past, a better idea of the grand plot which, driven by these motor powers, the passions are working out. for, above the long procession of scenes and events, above the monster massings of happiness and woe, above the war and peace of centuries, above the nations that have risen and fallen, above the life and above the grave, the winged and shadowy embodiments of two great ideas float and rest. and those two principles are called authority and liberty; or, if it please you better, _god_ and liberty. the one is all clad in the purple and scarlet of pomp and of power, while the other stands a glorious shining center in the white radiance of freedom. yet not always; far back in time authority stood on thrones and altars, with the plumed sables of despotism waving on his brow, while in his hands he held two iron gyves, the one to fetter thought, the other to fetter action; and these two gyves were called _the church and state_. liberty! ah, liberty was then a name scarcely to pass the lips; dreamed of only in solitude, spoken of only in dungeons! yet out of the blackest mire the whitest lily blooms! out of the dungeon, out of the sorrow, out of the sacrifice, out of the pain, grew this child of the heart; and pure and strong she grew until the sabled plumes have tottered on the despot's brow, and a great palsy shakes the hands that once so firmly held the gyves of church and state. for, ever seeking to overthrow each other, the one for the aggrandizement of self, the other for the love of all mankind, these two powers have contended; and every energy, every passion, every desire, good or evil, has been ranged on this side or on that, blunderingly or wisely, and nations have swung to and fro in their breath as upon a hinge. and one by one the powers of authority have been crippled, and step by step liberty has advanced, until to-day mankind is beginning to measure the forces that, struggling blindly together, are yet evolving light, to drink in the sublime ideal of freedom. yet, oh, how long the struggle with vested ignorance, with greed in power! when upon the drama of the nineteenth century the curtain rose, liberty, triumphant on the younger shores, lay prone and hurled in europe. against fifteen centuries of crowned and throned and tithed curse and woe unutterable, she had risen with such a fearful convulsive strength that when she had mown down king, priest and throne, and gorged the guillotine with blood, she sank back, exhausted from the struggle, and the hated tyrant rose again. the wild desire to conquer, to possess, to control, to hold in subjection, seemed to dominate with an unconquerable strength, and the gathered mind-force of millions of people wrought itself into the single brain of napoleon bonaparte. this human being became an event--this nation's passion took a _personnel_! the spirit of the times produced this man, and authority smiled as one after another the despots of europe plotted and planned, only to be overthrown by this incarnation of ambition, while the scenes were shifted from the vine-land to the rhine-land, from the sun-land to the snow-land, and through them all the great event glowed out, lit high by the rust-red light. how well the plot was working! the empire triumphant, nations subjected, the fetter of action closing its terrible teeth! liberty manacled on the left! the armies of god massing their forces--advancing--preparing to close down the iron jaw of the iron gyve upon the right; to imprison thought, to re-establish the union of fetters, to link up the broken chains, to burden human hope and human will and human life once more with the awful oppression of church and state! but liberty will not, cannot die! wounded and bruised and pinioned sore, condemned to the use of instruments that were none of hers, she wrought with england's jealousy, with wellington's emulation, with fear, with love, with hate! impelled by one motive or another the nations of the coalition moved in concert. napoleon had been marengo--he had been austerlitz! he became _waterloo!_ and when across that awful field rolled the last long cannon boom, when the silence settled, when the quick and the dead lay sleeping and the wounded died, justice and suffering touched hands across the gulf of blood, and liberty heard them whisper, _"sic semper tyrannis."_ in the tableau that followed, she, the ideal of our dreams, still stood pale and fettered; but a smile lit up her face and a light gleamed in her eyes as she saw authority reel and stagger from the blow which, though it did not sever, yet shattered half the strength of both its fetters. for the strength of god lies in a vast unity, an ownership of ideas backed up by the brute force under the command of the individual in whom that ownership of ideas is vested; while the strength of liberty lies in the very essence of things themselves, the fact that no law or force ever _can_ destroy the individualities of existence; and of necessity the natural tendency to break all bonds which seek to control thought, and all force which locks up those bonds entailing liberty of action as the outcome of liberty of thought. and just in proportion as churches have been dismembered and states have been broken up, no matter that each new church and each new state were but another form of despotism, just in that proportion has the principle of liberty been served; for each new religious establishment has been an assertion of the right to think differently from the fashionable creed, each change has been a movement away from the centralization of power. so with waterloo in the background, with authority lashed to impotent rage before it, and liberty pinioned, yet with the lit smile still upon her countenance, the tableau light flames up and dies, and the curtain falls upon the first great act. those who think, those who feel, those who hope, know why that smile was there. for looking away over the long blue roll of water that swelled like an interlude between, she beheld the sublime opening scene of the act that followed. far up the wonderful stage the distant mountains lift their circling crests, at their feet the waters sweep like a march of music, vast acres of untrodden grass-land shower their emerald wealth, nearer the front the lower hills rise up, and then the short atlantic slope, all rife with busy life, bends down to meet the sea. on the right the hoar-frost sheens and shines on the majestic northern forests, while the glittering earth, dipped in its bath of frozen crystal, spreads like a field of diamonds; on the left the white flakes of the orange bloom fall like a shimmering bridal veil, the wind floats up like a perfume, and the hazy, lazy languor of warmth creeps all about. behind it all, behind the hills and the prairies and the lifted summits, the mystical golden light of the west drops down, filling the dim-lit distance with the glory of promise. the silver light of the empire star glides over the atlantic slope, and its rays, like guiding fingers, point onward to the gathering shadows. now the passions of men begin to move upon this vast platform with an energy never before witnessed. diverted from their old-time channels of struggle against the oppression of gods and kings and the bitterness of birth-hatred, with a freedom of opportunity denied in the old world, and with such unstinted natural resources waiting for the magic transformer, the genius of humanity, ambition of power, avarice, pride, jealousy, all those motors born out of the old _régime_ of a state-propped god, bred and multiplied through generations till they have come to be looked upon as natural laws of human existence, begin to work together to plant this untrodden earth, to sow in its furrows the seed of a newer race--and, paradoxical as it may sound, to work for their own destruction, their final elimination from the human brain. or perhaps it were more correct to say, that, with the barriers of old institutions taken away, they naturally begin their retransformation into those beautiful sentiments from which they were originally warped, distorted, misshapen by that warped, distorted, misshapen idea called god. so do they inaugurate the grand era of development; so do they answer the oft-repeated question, "what incentive would there be for labor or genius if the institutions that compel them to struggle were broken down?" look at the stage of the past and see! never before had thought been so free, never before had ability been less cramped, less starved or less compelled! and never before did genius dare so much for purposes so great; never before did the engines which drive the tide of life along a continent send forth a stream of so much vigor. a new light breaks along the pathway of the stars, and swells and rolls and floods the great scene with a dawn-burst so magnificent that the very hills blush in its rising splendor. it is the dawn which the night of god so long held shrouded; it is that which is born when superstition dies; it is that phoenix which rises from the ashes of religion; it is that clear blent flame of all the great forces of nature, brought to the knowledge of mankind by delving reason, and shot like northern streamers from the heart of her the church of god so long held throttled--science! it is that which shone reflected in the eyes of liberty when pale and manacled she stood before the field of waterloo! the ray of the under earth came up to join the ray of the clouds shot down, the energies of sky and mine and sea were clasped to bring down the wealth of the mountains to the shore, and to transport the life of the now populous strip of slope to the unclaimed regions of the west. in the broad blaze of light the scene is shifted, the golden effulgence melts and flows round that sea-girdled kingdom, where quietly but surely the two great engines of authority are being shriven apart. the dynasties of kings are growing dusty--much of their power is but a legend; the church is shrinking in her garments. the desires of this people are slow to move, but deeply rooted and strong; and so far as they have moved forward, they have never moved back. there have been no gigantic strides, no reactions. little by little the idea of divinely-delegated power has been crippled till the english bishop and the english lord have become mere titled mockeries in comparison with their ancient feudal meaning. but stop! close lying there, almost beneath her stretching shadows, another island flashes like a green star in its sea-blue setting. and from that island there rises up the cry of a great devotion, clinging blindly to its greatest curse, its priest-hedged god, while persecuted even unto death by the fanaticism of another faith; and the pleading of hunger while day long and night long the shuttle flies in the flax loom, and the earth yields her golden fruition, only to lade the ships that bear it away from the famine-white lips and the toil-hardened hands that produced it. blindly devotion prays to its god, that god whom it calls all-wise, all-powerful and all-just, and the english lord, who cannot thus subdue his own countrymen, reaches out the long arm of the law across the channel for his rent--and, with god looking on, it is given; and still while the hollow-eyed women kneel at the altar for help, the scene widens out, and away in the distance the seven-hilled city lifts up from the sea, and from the dome of the vatican, from that great mortared hill of god, the vicar of christ calls out, "my tribute, my peter pence!" and with god looking on, it is given! and then from the foot of that tear-stained altar, where so many lips of woe have pressed, where so many helpless hands have clasped, where so many hearts have broken, comes the ironical promise of jehovah, "ask and thou shalt receive." oh, god is a very promising personage indeed--very promising, but, like some of his disciples, very poor pay. liberty! shadowed, invisible! yet a muffled voice is repeating the words which not so long ago rang from the lips of one who stood almost beneath the shadow of the scaffold, who walks to-day in prison gloom: "ye see me only in your cells, ye see me only in the grave, ye see me only wand'ring lone beside the exile's sullen wave! ye fools! do i not also live where you have sought to pierce in vain? rests not a nook for me to dwell in every heart, in every brain? not every brow that boldly thinks erect with manhood's honest pride? does not each bosom shelter me that beats with honor's generous tide? not every workshop brooding woe, not every hut that harbors grief? ha! am i not the breath of life that pants and struggles for relief?" ah, poor, panting, struggling, misery-laden ireland! how god laughs with glee to see his shackles weight your misery! the scene is shifting, the stage is dark'ning--a strange eclipse obscures the shafted light! darker, darker! now a low, red fire gleams like a winking eye along the foreground; it runs, it hisses like a snake; there another leaps up, there another; france, germany, italy--the continent blazes with the fires of the commune! that spirit which, drunken with blood, reeled from the guillotine at ' , to be crushed beneath the upbuilding of the empire, has once more arisen. and out of the hot hells of fury, and jealousy, and hate, out of the pitiless struggle between "vested rights" and wrongs with high ancestral lineage, and the great outcrying of a piteous ignorance against an oppression whose injustice it feels but cannot analyze, grows the sublime idea which priests have anathematized and states have outlawed--"the sacred dogma of =equality.=" in so far as that ideal was made possible of conception, in so far as the masses began to understand something of the causes of their ills, in so far the purpose of liberty was served: no matter that the arms of oppression were triumphant, the dawn of the thought of equal liberty upon the mass of the unthinking was a far greater victory than any triumph of arms. so when the fires died down, and the low reflection gleamed for an instant over those quiescent indian valleys and altaian ranges, where the main plot of old centuries had been laid, and then paled out before the white flare lighting the tableau of the second act, liberty stood with chained hands lifted toward her enemy, while a proud look, playing like an iridescent flame in her eyes, said, plain as lips could speak it, "i have unbound their thoughts; they will one day unbind my hands." slowly the curtain falls on the fair prisoner and the glowering god. the solemn ocean interlude rolls in again; again the rising curtain shows the curving slope, the rock-romance of hills, the wide, green valley with its threading silver, the sweeping mountains with the mirage of the blue pacific lifted high in the sky behind them, the frosted pines, the orange groves. moving upon the nearer stage two great masses of humanity are seen facing each other; the fires of ambition, of stubborn pride, of determination for the mastery flash like flint-sparks in the eyes of both. rage is gathering as the stage-light darkens! yet these two opposing forces are not all. from under the groves of bridal bloom comes a mournful, chant-like requiem; under the bloom four million voices cry in pain; upon the darkened faces, upturned to that darkening day, fall the white petals helplessly, as hope falls on the faces of the dead--to die beside them. in the beautiful land of the sun four million human beings clank the chains of the chattel slave! ah! what music! liberty! liberty was a wraith, fleeting ghost-like through the lonely rice-swamps, terrible _ignis fatuus_ of the quagmire, strange, mystical, vanishing moon-shimmer on the darkly ominous waters lying so silent, so level, beneath the droop of spanish moss and cypress! there it was they drove thee, _there_--=there=--where the quaking earth shivered with its branded burden, where the fever and the miasm were thy breathing, and thy sacred eyes were dimmed with winding-sheets of mist that floated, o so dankly, o so coldly, a steam of tears that rose as fast as their dews might fall: there wast thou exiled, thou, the god-hunted, thou, the law-driven, =thou, the immortal=! yet, oh, so dear men love thee, liberty, that even here in thy last terrible citadel of woe, humanity linked arms with death, and wooed thee still! wooed thee, with the ringing bay of bloodhounds in its ears; wooed thee, with the wolf of hunger gnawing at its throat; wooed thee with the clinging miasm winding its anacondine folds around its fever-thin body; wooed thee with the dark pathos of a dying eye, while the diseased and hungered limbs lay stiffening in their agony. and thou wast true, o liberty! out of thy bitter exile thou didst call to them, and point them on to hope; and thou didst call, too, to those strange-eyed dreamers, whose faces shone amidst the rank and file of those dominated by local hate alone, as shines a clear star among driving clouds. against them authority has hurled his curses. spit upon by the godly, despised by the law abiding, they yet have dared to say to church and law, "think what you please of me, but free the slave." aye, the church persecuted, and the law hunted down, and for the love of god, men set traps to catch their fellow-men: even the "wise men," the wise men at washington, against whose mandates it is treason to speak, aye, a matter for the scaffold in these days, even the wise men built a trap to uphold the divine institution and sent it forth to the people labelled, "the fugitive slave law", and as in other days, human beings died for their opinions--_but the opinions did not die_. has not one of our latter-day martyrs said, "men die, but principles live"? see! the light which has been slowly fading from the right and left shines with a frightful brilliancy upon one point: north and south lie darkened, but harper's ferry glows! there is a wild, mad charge, a shifting of the light, a scaffold, a doomed old man bending his grand, white head, to mount the fatal steps with a child-slave's kiss yet warm upon his lips, and then--only a dull, lifeless pendulum in human form, swinging to and fro. and the church and the law were satisfied, when those dumb lips were cold, and the dead limbs were stiff, and god and harper's ferry had no more to fear from old john brown. but the church and the law have not always been wise; they have not always understood that the martyrs _to_ creed and code have done as much by their death for the propagation of their principles as the martyrs _of_ creed and code; and god and the state sowed a wind whose reaping was a terrible whirlwind, when they hung john brown. across the dim platform the passions of hate and pride move toward each other; it is the old combat of the forces of authority, each contending not for the vindication of right, but for the maintenance of power over the other. it is a terrific struggle of brute strength and strategy and cunning and ferocity, and well might those who conceived the ideal beautiful of freedom, shrink horror-struck from the blood-soaked path their feet must tread to reach it. not strange if some should pause and shudder and cry out, "is it worth the sacrifice?" but up from the dust where hope lay trodden, and out of the trenches where the sacrificed lay hid, and over the plains all scarred with bullets and plowed with shells, breathed the whisper, "it is not vain." it was not in vain; for as at waterloo the struggle of ambition against ambition defeated the first purpose of authority, the centralization of power, and gave a partial victory to her whom both hated, so antietam, fredericksburg, vicksburg, gettysburg, while in themselves representing only the brutish struggle of opposition, based on the desire to domineer, really wrought out the victory of that ideal which dwelt in the minds of those anathematized by god and outlawed by the state. for when the hot lips of the iron mouths grew cold, liberty forsook her lonely fastness, came forth upon the desolated plain, and mounting still to the summits of the blue-hazed hills looked away over the ruined homes, the depopulated cities, the gloom-clouded faces, and though her tears fell fast, an ineffable tenderness shone upon her features as the torrent of pale light flowed round her form, defining its snow-whiteness in relief against the sable of four million freedmen smiling o'er their stricken chains. swiftly following the tableau fire comes the eastern scene, where, in the very center of its power the church is shaken by an invader, and garibaldi becomes the _personnel_ of the event. then follows the conclave of the vatican, where by that singular logic known to the roman church, the vote of fallible beings renders the pope infallible; upon the heels of this, the breaking of that strong tooth of the church in the expulsion of the order of the society of jesus by the german reichstag, and the overthrow of kingcraft in france. the curtain falls. behind, the scene is being prepared for the last great act! and now, in the interval of waiting, let us think. so far we have been surveying the completed. while we can understand something of the passions which animated this past, can feel something of the pulsations which throbbed in its arteries, flowed in its veins, we yet can speak of it without over-riding emotion either upon one side or the other. the river of heart has reached the sea--the troubled waters have spread out deep, and up from their depths shine the still reflections of those great lights which gilt the stages of the past. calmly now we can look at the reaction from the french revolution to the empire, and say, "this was inevitable,"--of napoleon's fall, "this was necessary"; of the awakening of science, "this was a natural result"; of the uprising of ' , "this was the premature birth of an idea forced upon the people by the oppression of authority"; we can forget the choking agony of john brown, and declare his death a victory. we can look upon the awful waste of blood in the civil war and say, "it was pitiful, but the goblet of woe must needs have been spilled full of red life wine, ere the hoarse and hollow throat of tyranny were satisfied." we can see where each of the contending principles has lost and gained, and measuring the sum totals against each other, _must_ decide that the old despotism is losing ground; that instead of the supreme authority of god, the supreme sovereignty of the individual is the growing idea. but now we have come to a stage where we can no longer be cool spectators. in what happens now we too must be part and parcel of the action; we too must hope, and toil, and struggle and suffer. we are no longer looking through the clear still atmosphere of the dead: around our forms the wheeling mists are circled, and before our eyes the haze lies thick--the haze of gold or the haze of gray. the dimness of the "yet to be" befogs our sight, and the rush of hope and fear blinds all our faculties. you who stand well upon the heights of love, of comfort, of happiness, heeding not the darkness and the sorrow beneath you, behold, with up-cast eyes, the great figures of god and freedom wound about, showered with light. to you there is no menace in their darting eyes, there is no purpose in their full-drawn statures, there is no jarring in their clarion voices. no! for your senses are stupid in your luxury, your brains are dulled, too dulled to think, your ears are glutted with the ring of gold. in your vain and foolish hearts you dream that what you see there is a shadowy bridal; that there, at last, religion and science, statecraft and freedom, are meeting to embrace each other. ah, go on, book-makers, press-writers, doctors and lawyers and preachers and teachers! go on talking your incompatibilities; go on teaching your absurdities! dream out your short-lived dream! at your feet, beneath the shadow of your capitols and domes, under the tuition of your few-facted, much-fictioned literature, from out your chaos of truth-flavored lies, from before your pulpits, your rostrums and your seats of learning, something is growing. something that is looking _you_ in the eyes, that is analyzing your statements, that is revolving your institutions in its brain, that is crushing your sophistries in its merciless machinery as fine as grain is ground between the whitened mill-rollers. freethought is looking at you, gentlemen!--more than that, it questions you, it puts you on the witness-stand, it cross-examines you. it says, "do you believe in god?" and you answer, "yes." "do you believe him to be omnipotent, omniscient, and all-just?" "certainly; less than this would not be god." "then you believe he has the power to order all things as he wills, and being all-just he wills all things according to justice?" "yes." "then you believe him to be the impartially-loving father of all his created children?" "yes." "and each one of those children has an equal right to life and liberty?" "yes." then look upon this earth beneath you, this earth of beings whose lives are of so poor account to you, and tell us, where _is_ god and _what_ is he doing? everyone has a right to life! what mockery! when the control of the necessaries of life is given to the few by the state, and above the seal of the law the priest has set the seal of the church! verily, "you do take my life when you take that whereby i live." is this your divine justice? what irony to tell me i am free if at that same time you have it in your power to withhold the means of my existence! free! will you look down here at these whose sight is shadowed with the ebon shadow of despair, these, the homeless, the disinherited, the product of whose toil you take and leave them barely enough to live upon--live to toil on and keep you in your luxury! you, the monied idlers, you, the book-makers and the journalists, who do more to cry down truth, to laud our social lies, our economic despots and our pious frauds, than any other propaganda can! you, the doctors, whose drugs have cursed the world with poison-eaten bodies, corroded the health of unborn generations with your medicated slime, and when the sources of life have yielded to the hungry body so poor a stream that for lack of air, and earth, and sun, and food, and clothing, and recreation, it drooped and sickened, have bottled up some nauseating stuff, and with oracular wisdom have taught them to imagine it could undo what years of misery had done! you, the law-makers, who have twisted nature's code till to be natural is to be a criminal; you, who have lawed away the earth that was not yours to give; you, who even seek to charter the sea and make the commandment "across the middle of this river thou shalt not go unless thou render tribute unto cæsar!" you, who never inquire "what is _justice,_" but "what is law!" and you, the teachers, you who prate of the glory of knowledge as the remedy for the evils of the world, and boast your compulsory law of education, while a stronger law than all the wordy sentences ever graven upon statute books, is driving the children out of the schoolground into the factory, into the saw-mill, into the shaft, into the furrow, into the myriad camps of toil, to the dust of the wheel, to the heat of the furnace, till their pallid cheeks and bloodless lips are bleached like bones beneath the desert sun, and their clogged lungs rattle in their breathing pain! will you look at these, the under-stratum of your social earth, and tell them they are free? will you tell them ignorance is their greatest curse and education their only remedy? will you say to these children, "we have provided free schools for you, and now we compel you to attend them whether you have anything to eat and wear or not"? will you tell these people there is a good, kind, merciful god who loves them, meting out justice to them from the skies? no, you _will_ not, you _cannot_. the words will die upon your lips ere you utter them. do you know what it is they see up there above you, they whose eyes look through the mist of gray and the shroud of darkness? they see your god of justice a pitiless slave-driver, his church more brutal than the lash, his state more merciless than the bloodhound; they see themselves a thousand million serfs more hopelessly enthralled, more helplessly chained down than e'en the lashed and tortured body of the chattel slave. for them there is no refuge, no escape; in every land the master rules; no fugitive slave law need now be passed--there is no place to flee--the whole horizon is iron-bound. white and black alike are yoked together, and the master yields no distinction, shows no mercy. the bare pittance of existence is the meed for him who toils, and for him who _cannot_--starvation! with a preacher to help him die! that is the justice that they see there, in the shadow lines above your golden haze. and they see, too, a conflict preparing between those two antagonistic forces such as never before the world has witnessed. they see your god concentrating his strength to fight so bitter a battle with liberty as shall crush the spirit of individuality forever from the race. they see him ranging his forces, those forces blood-imbrued through all the anguished past, the blacklist, the club, the sword, the rifle, the prison, aye, the scaffold; they see them all, and know that ere your god will yield his vested rights, the noblest of the race will have been stricken, the most unselfish will have been tortured in his dungeons, the white robes of innocence will have been reddened in her own martyr's blood, and death will have shadowed many and many a home, unless you shall hearken to the voice of liberty and save yourselves while there is yet time. they see the wide stage spreading out, they see the passions moving over it; they see there, in the center, beneath the rolling brilliance of the empire state, the tragic inauguration of the act! they see a grim and blackened thing, a silent thing, the demoniac effigy of torquemada's spirit, the frozen laugh of the dark ages at our boasted civilization; they see twelve stolid fools before this nineteenth century gallows; they see the hiding place of that thing masquerading under the sacred name of justice, which shrinks even from the gaze of the lauding press and the imbecile jurymen, and does unknown its deed of murder; they see four shrouded forms, they hear four muffled voices, a broken sentence, and--an awful hush! and then, o crowning irony of all, they see advancing to speak to them over the bodies of the murdered (and mouthed back from a hundred pulpits comes the echo), jehovah masked as jesus. ah, the divine cowardice of it! mild is the light in the nazarene eyes, tender the tone of the nazarene voice! "ah, people whom i love! for whom my life was given long ago on calvary! what rashness is it that you meditate? is it that you are weary of the yoke of love i lay on you? is this your faith? have i not promised you a sweet release when your dark pilgrimage on earth is o'er? exiles ye are upon this world of pain and if oppression comes to weigh you down, if hunger shows his long fangs at your hearth, if your chilled limbs are cramped with bitter cold the while your neighbor hoards his fuel up, if you are driven out upon the street with crying children clinging piteously and begging you for shelter from the storm, if your hard toil is taken by the law to satisfy a corporation's greed, if fever and distress gnaw at your heart and still you tread the weary wine-press out, knowing no rest until the death-hour comes; if all these things discourage and perplex, know 'tis for love of you i order it. for thus would i point you to paradise, win you from all the pleasure of the world, and fix your hopes on heaven's eternity. 'whom the lord loveth, him he chasteneth'; so then it is for love that these things are. for love of you i press your life-blood out; for love of you i load you down with pain; for love of you i take your rights away; for love of you i institute the law that slaves you to the grasping millionaire; for love of you i pile the glutted hoards of vanderbilt and gould and rothschild and the rest; for love of you i rent the right to breathe in a poor tenement of dingy dirt; for love of you i make machines a curse; for love of you i make you toil long hours, and those who cannot toil, i turn adrift to wander as they may--sons into dens where thievery is learned as a fine art, daughters to barter their virginity till competition forces down the price of lust and death is left them as a last resort. ah, what a golden crown, and sweet-toned harp, what a resplendent whit robe, await the soul whom so god loves while on the earth it dwells. aye, for the love of you these men were murdered, and for my glory; and through my holy love they roast in hell: for they would take away the instruments whereby i lure you to my blest abode. they would have taught you what your freedom meant; they would have told you to regain your rights; they would have contradicted my commands and lost you heaven, perchance--and if not heaven, _hell_. keep to your faith, my people, trust in god! break not the altars where your fathers knelt; trust to your teachers, keep within the law; bow to the church and kiss the state's great toe! so shall good order be observed, obeyed, and as 'peace reigned in warsaw,' so anon shall 'peace, good-will to men reign on the earth.'" these are the words that fall from the lips of him you call "the merciful," "the just." these are the sounds that sink into the ears of those upon whose toil _you_ are dependent for your existence; judge you how they will be received. and now, you, the dwellers on the lifted heights, listen to the voice that follows him, for these are words that concern _you_, and if you listen to their warning you may yet save yourselves the desolation and the ruin that otherwise must come. this deep, bell-pealing voice that echoes through the corridors of thought till almost death's chill sleepers might arise again, is the voice which called for centuries to the empire, "cease your oppressions or the people rise"; and to the kingdom, "curse not the new world with your tyrannies, it will rebel"; and to the master, "put not the lash upon your bonded slave, for the time will come when every stroke will rise like a warrior armed, to burn and waste and kill." the empire laughed, the kingdom ignored, the planter sneered; but the time came when laugh and sneer died to white ashes. the time came when "france got drunk with blood, to vomit crime," when england "lost the brightest jewel in her coronal," when the south waded in blood and tears and knelt her pride before a conqueror. and now, she, the liberator, the destined conqueror of god, calls out to you, "yield up your scepters ere they be torn from you; give back the stolen earth, the mine, the sea! give back the source of life, give back the light! for a black, bitter hour is waiting you, an awful gulf unfathomed in its depth, if now you do not pause and render _justice_." ah, thou, whatever be thy awful name, which like a serpent's trail hath marked the earth, whether jehovah, buddha, joss, or christ! thou who hast done for _love_ what others do for most envenomed _hate_, how hast thou hated these the happy ones! is this impartial justice then to these, to pour the golden treasures of the earth into their laps, that these may feast and toast and so forget thee and thy promised heaven? truly thou hast been most unkind to them, since kindness means with thee a tearing out of e'en the heart and entrails of existence. bah! how thou liest! to what most pitiable trick of speech hast thou been forced! think'st thou the dwellers in the darkness longer take thy creed of crystalline deception! no! they laugh at thee, they spew thee out, they spit at thee. love! say! look--this long procession coming here! here are the murderers, with their red-hued eyes; here the adulterers, with their lecherous glance; here are the prostitutes, with their mark of shame; here are the gamblers, with their itching hands; here are the thieves, with furtive lips and eyes; here are the liars with their dastard tongues; here all the train that crime can muster up reviews before thee! and after them, a ghastly, fearful sight, follow the victims of their blackened hearts, slain, ruined, desolated by thy love! and now, behold, another train comes on--a train whose name is legion! here the dark, bruted faces from the mines, here the hard, sun-browned cheeks from out the furrow, here the dull visage from the lumber-camp, here the wan eyes from whirling factory, here the gaunt giants from the furnace fire, here the tarred hands from off the stream and sea, here all the aching limbs that stand behind the fashionable counter, here, o pitiful sight of all, those whose home is in the street, whose table is the garbage pile, the vast, helpless body of the unemployed. and, ever as they march, they drop, and drop, into the earth that swallows them, and over their graves the march goes on. these are thy victims, god! these are the creatures of thy church and law! speak no more of the breaking of altars, thou who hast broken every altar that the human heart holds dear! take thy position at the head of the murderers' column! and when thou hast marched away into the past, thou and thy preachers and thy praters of justice, then will the world _return_ to justice and the great law of nature reign upon the earth. then will her broad, green acres yield their wealth to him who toils, and him alone; then will the store-houses of nature yield her fuel and her light, not to the corporation whose high-priced lobbying can buy it, for in that time no wealth nor intrigue can purchase the heritage of all, but to all the sons and daughters of labor. and then upon _this_ earth there shall be no hungry mouths, no freezing limbs; no children spending the hours of youth in gaining a miserable livelihood, no women crying, "it's oh, to be a slave along with the barbarous turk, where woman has never a soul to save if this is _christian_ work!" no men wandering aimlessly in search of a master for their slavery. but o, careless dwellers upon the heights, awaken now!--do not wait till reason, persuasion, judgment, coolness are swept down before the rising whirlwind. bend your energies _now_ to the eradication of the authority idea, to righting the wrongs of your fellow-men. do it for your own interest, for if you slumber on--ah me! ye will awaken one day when an ominous rumble prefaces the waking of a terrific underground thunder, when the earth shakes in a frightful ague fit, when from out the parched throats of the people a burning cry will come like lava from a crater, "'bread, bread, bread!' no more preachers, no more politicians, no more lawyers, no more gods, no more heavens, no more promises! bread!" and then, when you hear a terrible leaden groan, know that at last, here in your free america, beneath the floating banner of the stars and stripes, more than fifty million human hearts have burst! a dynamite bomb that will shock the continent to its foundations and knock the sea back from its shores! "it is no boast, it is no threat, thus history's iron law decrees; the day grows hot! o babylon, 'tis cool beneath thy willow trees!" sketches and stories a rocket of iron it was one of those misty october nightfalls of the north, when the white fog creeps up from the river, and winds itself like a corpse-sheet around the black, ant-like mass of human insignificance, a cold menace from nature to man, till the foreboding of that irresistible fatality which will one day lay us all beneath the ice-death sits upon your breast, and stifles you, till you start up desperately crying, "let me out, let me out!" for an hour i had been staring through the window at that chill steam, thickening and blurring out the lines that zig-zagged through it indefinitely, pale drunken images of facts, staggering against the invulnerable vapor that walled me in--a sublimated grave marble. were they all ghosts, those figures wandering across the white night, hardly distinguishable from the posts and pickets that wove in and out, like half-dismembered bodies writhing in pain? my own fingers were curiously numb and inert; had i, too, become a shadow? it grew unbearable at last, the pressure of the foreboding at my heart, the sense of that on-creeping of universal death. i ran out of doors, impelled by the vague impulse to assert my own being, to seek relief in struggle, even though foredoomed futile--to seek warmth, fellowship, somewhere, though but with those ineffective pallors in the mist, that dissolved even while i looked at them. once in the street, i ran on indifferently, glad to be jostled, glad of the snarling of dogs and the curses of laborers calling to one another. the penumbra of the mist, that menacing dim foreshadow, had not chilled these, then! on, on, through the alleys where human flesh was close, and when one listened one could hear breathings and many feet, drifting at last into the current that swept through the main channel of the city, and presently, whirled round in an eddy, i found myself staring through the open door of the great iron works. perhaps it was the sensation of warmth that held me there first, some feeling of exhilaration and wakening defiance in the flash and swirl of the yellow flames--this, mixed with an indistinct desire to clutch at something, anything, that seemed stationary in the midst of all this that slipped and wavered and fell away.... no, i remember now: there was something before that; there was a sound--a sound that had stopped my feet in their going, and smote me with a long shudder--a sound of hammers, beating, beating, beating a terrific hail, momentarily faster and louder, and in between a panting as of some great monster catching breath beneath the driving of that iron rain. faster, faster--clang! a long reverberant shriek! the giant had rolled and shivered in his pain. involuntarily i was drawn down into the valley of the sound, words muttering themselves through my lips as i passed: "forging, forging--what are they forging there? frankenstein makes his monster. how the iron screams!" but i heard it no more now; i only saw!--saw the curling yellow flames, and the red, red iron that panted, and the masters of the hammers. how they moved there, like demons in the abyss, their bodies swinging, their eyes tense and a-glitter, their faces covered with the gloom of the torture-chamber! only _one_ face i saw, young and fair--young and very fair--whereon the gloom seemed not to settle. the skin of it was white and shining there in the midst of that black haze; over the wide forehead fell tumbling waves of thick brown hair, and two great dark eyes looked steadily into the red iron, as if they saw therein something i did not see; only now and then they were lifted, and looked away upward, as if beyond the smoke-pall they beheld a vision. once he turned so that the rose-light cast forth his profile as a silhouette; and i shivered, it was so fine and hard! hard with the hardness of beaten iron, and fine with the fineness of a keen chisel. had the hammers been beating on that fair young face? a comrade called, a sudden terrified cry. there was a wild rush, a mad stampede of feet, a horrible screech of hissing metal, and a rocket of iron shot upward toward the black roof, bursting and falling in a burning shower. three figures lay writhing along the floor, among the leaping, demoniac sparks. the first to lift them was the man with the white face. he had stood still in the storm, and ran forward when the others shrank back. now he passed by me, bearing his dying burden, and i saw no quiver upon brow or chin; only, when he laid it in the ambulance, i fancied i saw upon the delicate curved lips a line of purpose deepen, and the reflection of the iron-fire glow in the strange eyes, as if for an instant the door of a hidden furnace had been opened and smouldering coals had breathed the air. and even then he looked up! it was all over in half an hour. there would be weeping in three little homes; and one was dead, and one would die, and one would crawl, a seared human stump, to the end of his weary days. the crowd that had gathered was gone; they would not know the stump when it begged from them with its maimed hands, six months after, on some street corner. "fakir" they would say, and laugh. there would be an entry on the company's books, and a brief line in the newspapers next day. but the welding of the iron would go on, and the man who gave his easy money for it would fancy he had paid for it, not seeing the stiff figures in their graves, nor the crippled beggar, nor the broken homes. the rocket of iron is already cold; dull, inert, fireless, the black fragments lie upon the floor whereon they lately rained their red revenge. do with them what you will, you cannot undo their work. the men are clearing way. only he with the white face does not go back to his place. still set and silent he takes his coat, "presses his soft hat down upon his thick, damp locks," and goes out into the fog and night. so close he passed me, i might have touched him; but he never saw me. perhaps he was still carrying the burden of the dying man upon his heart; perhaps some mightier burden. for one instant the shapely, boyish figure was in full light, then it vanished away in the engulfing mist--the mist which the vision of him had made me forget. for i knew i had seen a man of iron, into whose soul the iron had driven, whose nerves were tempered as cold steel, but behind whose still, impassive features slumbered a white-hot heart. and others should see a rocket and a ruin, and feel the vengeance of beaten iron, before the mist comes and swallows all. * * * * * i had forgotten! upon that face, that young, fair face, so smooth and fine that even the black smoke would not rest upon it, there bloomed the roses of early death. hot-house flowers! the chain gang it is far, far down in the southland, and i am back again, thanks be, in the land of wind and snow, where life lives. but that was in the days when i was a wretched thing, that crept and crawled, and shrunk when the wind blew, and feared the snow. so they sent me away down there to the world of the sun, where the wind and the snow are afraid. and the sun was kind to me, and the soft air that does not move lay around me like folds of down, and the poor creeping life in me winked in the light and stared out at the wide caressing air; stared away to the north, to the land of wind and rain, where my heart was,--my heart that would be at home. yes, there, in the tender south, my heart was bitter and bowed, for the love of the singing wind and the frost whose edge was death,--bitter and bowed for the strength to bear that was gone, and the strength to love that abode. day after day i climbed the hills with my face to the north and home. and there, on those southern heights, where the air was resin and balm, there smote on my ears the sound that all the wind of the north can never sing down again, the sound i shall hear till i stand at the door of the last silence. cling--clang--cling--from the georgian hills it sounds; and the snow and the storm cannot drown it,--the far-off, terrible music of the chain gang. i met it there on the road, face to face, with all the light of the sun upon it. do you know what it is? do you know that every day men run in long procession, upon the road they build for others' safe and easy going, bound to a chain? and that other men, with guns upon their shoulders, ride beside them--with orders to kill if the living links break? there it stretched before me, a serpent of human bodies, bound to the iron and wrapped in the merciless folds of justified cruelty. clank--clink--clank--there was an order given. the living chain divided; groups fell to work upon the road; and then i saw and heard a miracle. have you ever, out of a drowsy, lazy conviction that all knowledges, all arts, all dreams, are only patient sums of many toils of many millions dead and living, suddenly started into an uncanny consciousness that knowledges and arts and dreams are things more real than any living being ever was, which suddenly reveal themselves, unasked and unawaited, in the most obscure corners of soul-life, flashing out in prismatic glory to dazzle and shock all your security of thought, toppling it with vague questions of what is reality, that you cannot silence? when you hear that an untaught child is able, he knows not how, to do the works of the magicians of mathematics, has it never seemed to you that suddenly all books were swept away, and there before you stood a superb, sphinx-like creation, mathematics itself, posing problems to men whose eyes are cast down, and all at once, out of whim, incorporating itself in that wide-eyed, mysterious child? have you ever felt that all the works of the masters were swept aside in the burst of a singing voice, unconscious that it sings, and that music itself, a master-presence, has entered the throat and sung? no, you have never felt it? but you have never heard the chain gang sing! their faces were black and brutal and hopeless; their brows were low, their jaws were heavy, their eyes were hard; three hundred years of the scorn that brands had burned its scar upon the face and form of ignorance,--ignorance that had sought dully, stupidly, blindly, and been answered with that pitiless brand. but wide beyond the limits of high man and his little scorn, the great, sweet old music-soul, the chords of the world, smote through the black man's fibre in the days of the making of men; and it sings, it sings, with its ever-thrumming strings, through all the voices of the chain gang. and never one so low that it does not fill with the humming vibrancy that quivers and bursts out singing things always new and new and new. i heard it that day. the leader struck his pick into the earth, and for a moment whistled like some wild, free, living flute in the forest. then his voice floated out, like a low booming wind, crying an instant, and fell; there was the measure of a grave in the fall of it. another voice rose up, and lifted the dead note aloft, like a mourner raising his beloved with a kiss. it drifted away to the hills and the sun. then many voices rolled forward, like a great plunging wave, in a chorus never heard before, perhaps never again; for each man sung his own song as it came, yet all blent. the words were few, simple, filled with a great plaint; the wail of the sea was in it; and no man knew what his brother would sing, yet added his own without thought, as the rhythm swept on, and no voice knew what note its fellow voice would sing, yet they fell in one another as the billow falls in the trough or rolls to the crest, one upon the other, one within the other, over, under, all in the great wave; and now one led and others followed, then it dropped back and another swelled upward, and every voice was soloist and chorister, and never one seemed conscious of itself, but only to sing out the great song. and always, as the voices rose and sank, the axes swung and fell. and the lean white face of the man with the gun looked on with a stolid, paralyzed smile. oh, that wild, sombre melody, that long, appealing plaint, with its hope laid beyond death,--that melody that was made only there, just now, before me, and passing away before me! if i could only seize it, hold it, stop it from passing! that all the world might hear the song of the chain gang! might know that here, in these red georgian hills, convicts, black, brutal convicts, are making the music that is of no man's compelling, that floods like the tide and ebbs away like the tide, and will not be held--and is gone, far away and forever, out into the abyss where the voices of the centuries have drifted and are lost! something about jesus, and a lamp in the darkness--a gulfing darkness. oh, in the mass of sunshine must they still cry for light? all around the sweep and the glory of shimmering ether, sun, sun, a world of sun, and these still calling for light! sun for the road, sun for the stones, sun for the red clay--and no light for this dark living clay? only heat that burns and blaze that blinds, but does not lift the darkness! "and lead me to that lamp----" the pathetic prayer for light went trembling away out into the luminous gulf of day, and the axes swung and fell; and the grim dry face of the man with the gun looked on with its frozen smile. "so long as they sing, they work," said the smile, still and ironical. "a friend to them that's got no friend"--man of sorrows, lifted up upon golgotha, in the day when the forces of the law and the might of social order set you there, in the moment of your pain and desperate accusation against heaven, when that piercing "eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?" went up to a deaf sky, did you presage this desolate appeal coming to you out of the unlived depths of nineteen hundred years? hopeless hope, that cries to the dead! futile pleading that the cup may pass, while still the lips drink! for, as of old, order and the law, in shining helmets and gleaming spears, ringed round the felon of golgotha, so stand they still in that lean, merciless figure, with its shouldered gun and passive smile. and the moan that died within the place of skulls is born again in this great dark cry rising up against the sun. if but the living might hear it, not the dead! for these are dead who walk about with vengeance and despite within their hearts, and scorn for things dark and lowly, in the odor of self-righteousness, with self-vaunting wisdom in their souls, and pride of race, and iron-shod order, and the preservation of things that are; walking stones are these, that cannot hear. but the living are those who seek to know, who wot not of things lowly or things high, but only of things wonderful; and who turn sorrowfully from things that are, hoping for things that may be. if these should hear the chain gang chorus, seize it, make all the living hear it, see it! if, from among themselves, one man might find "the lamp," lift it up! paint for all the world these georgian hills, these red, sunburned roads, these toiling figures with their rhythmic axes, these brutal, unillumined faces, dull, groping, depth-covered,--and then unloose that song upon their ears, till they feel the smitten, quivering hearts of the sons of music beating against their own; and under and over and around it, the chain that the dead have forged clinking between the heart-beats! clang--cling--clang--ng--it is sundown. they are running over the red road now. the voices are silent; only the chain clinks. the heart of angiolillo some women are born to love stories as the sparks fly upward. you see it every time they glance at you, and you feel it every time they lay a finger on your sleeve. there was a party the other night, and a four-year old baby who couldn't sleep for the noise crept down into the parlor half frightened to death and transfixed with wonderment at the crude performances of an obtuse visitor who was shouting out the woes of othello. one kindly little woman took the baby in her arms and said: "what would they do to you, if you made all that noise."--"whip me," whispered the child, her round black eyes half admiration and half terror, and altogether coquettish, as she hid and peered round the woman's neck. and every man in the room forthwith fell in love with her, and wanted to smother his face in the bewitching rings of dark hair that crowned the dainty head, and carry her about on his shoulders, or get down on his hands and knees to play horse for her, or let her walk on his neck, or obliterate his dignity in any other way she might prefer. the boys tolerated their fathers with a superior "huh!" fourteen or fifteen years from now they will be playing the humble cousin of the horse before the same little ringed-haired lady, and having sported nick bottom's ears to no purpose, half a dozen or so will go off and hang themselves, or turn monk, or become "bold, bad men," and revenge themselves on the sex. but her conquests will go on, and when those gracious rings are white as snow the children of those boys will follow in their grandfathers' and fathers' steps and dangle after her, and make drawings on their fly leaves of that sweet kiss-cup of a mouth of hers, and call her their elder sister, and other devotional names. and the other girls of her generation, who were not born with that marvelous entangling grace in every line and look, will dread her and spite her, and feel mean satisfaction when some poor fool does swallow laudanum on her account. smiles of glacial virtue will creep over their faces like slippery sunshine, when one by one her devotees come trailing off to them to say that such a woman could never fill a man's heart nor become the ornament of his hearthstone; the quiet virtues that wear, are all their desire; of course they have just been studying her character and that of the foolish men who dance her attendance, but even those are not doing it with any serious motives. and the neglected girls will serve him with home-made cake and wine which he will presently convert into agony in that pearl shell ear of hers. and all the while the baby will have done nothing but be what she was born to be through none of her own choosing, which is her lot and portion; and that is another thing the gods will have to explain when the day comes that they go on trial before men; which is the real day of judgment. but this isn't the baby's story, which has yet to be made, but the story of one who somehow received a wrong portion. some inadvertent little angel in the destiny shop took down her name when the heroine of a romance was called for, and put her where she shouldn't have been, and then ran off to play no doubt, not stopping to look twice. for even the most insouciant angel that looked twice would have seen that effie was no woman to play the game of hearts, and there's only one thing more undiscerning than an angel, and that is a social reformer. effie ran up against both. they say she had blood in her girlhood, that it shone red and steady through that thin, pure skin of hers; but when i saw her, with her nursing baby in her arms, down in the smutching grime of london, there was only a fluctuant blush, a sort of pink ghost of blood, hovering back and forth on her face. and that was for shame of the poverty of her neat bare room. not that she had ever known riches. she was the daughter of scotch peasants, and had gone out to service when she was still a child; her chest was hollowed in and her back bowed with that unnatural labor. there was no gloss on the pale sandy hair, no wilding tendrils clinging round the straight smooth forehead, no light of coquetry or grace in the glimmering blue eyes, no beauty in her at all, unless it lay in the fine, hard sculptured line of her nose and mouth and chin when she turned her head sideways. you could read in that line that having spoken a word to her heart, she would not forget it nor unsay it; and if it took her down into gethsemane, she would never cry out though by all forsaken. and that was where it had taken her then. some ready condemner of all that has been tried for less than a thousand years, will say it was because she had the just reward of those who, holding that love is its own sanction and that it cannot be anything but degraded by seeking permissions from social authorities, live their love lives without the consent of church and state. but you and i know that the same dark garden has awaited the woman whose love has been blessed by both, and that many such a life lamp has flickered out in a night as profound as poverty and utter loneliness could make it. so if it was justice to effie, what is it to that other woman? in truth, justice had nothing to do with it; she loved the wrong man, that was all; and married or unmarried, it would have been the same, for a formula doesn't make a man, nor the lack of it unmake him. the fellow was superior in intellect. it is honesty only which can wring so much from those who knew them both, for as to any other thing she sat as high over him as the stars are. not that he was an actively bad man; just one of those weak, uncertain, tumbling about characters, having sense enough to know it is a fine thing to stand alone, and vanity enough to want the name without the game, and cowardice enough to creep around anything stronger than itself, and hang there, and spread itself about, and say, "lo, how straight am i!" and if the stronger thing happens to be a father or a brother or some such tolerant piece of friendly, self-sufficient energy, he amuses himself awhile, and finally gives the creeper a shake and says, "here, now, go hang on somebody else if you can't stand alone", and the world says he should have done it before. but if it happens to be a mother or a sister or a wife or a sweetheart, she encourages him to think he is a wonderful person, that all she does is really his own merit, and she is proud and glad to serve him. if after a while she doesn't exactly believe it any more, she says and does the same; and the world says she is a fool,--which she is. but if, in some sudden spurt of masculine self-assertiveness, she decides to fling him off, the world says she is an unwomanly woman,--which again she is; so much the better. effie's creeper dabbled in literature. he wanted to be a translator and several other things. his appearance was mild and gentlemanly, even super-modest. he always spoke respectfully of effie, and as if momentously impressed with a sense of duty towards her. they had started out to realize the free life together, and the glory of the new ideal had beckoned them forward. so no doubt he believed, for a pretender always deceives himself worse than anybody else. but still, at that particular period, he used to droop his head wearily and admit that he had made a great mistake. it was nobody's fault but his own, but of course--effie and he were hardly fitted for each other. she could not well enter into his hopes and ambitions, never having had the opportunity to develop when she was younger. he had hoped to stimulate her in that direction, but he feared it was too late. so he said in a delicate and gentlemanly way, as he went from one house to the other, and was invited to dinner and supper and made himself believe he was looking for work. effie, meanwhile, was taking home boys' caps to make, and worrying along incredibly on bread and tea, and walking the streets with the baby in her arms when she had no caps to make. of course when a man drinks other people's teas a great many times, and sits in their houses, and borrows odd shillings now and then, and assumes the gentleman, he is ultimately brought to the necessity of asking some one to tea with him; so one spring night the creeper approached effie rather dubiously with the statement that he had asked two or three acquaintances to come in the next evening, and he supposed she would need to prepare tea. the girl was just fainting from starvation then, and she asked him wearily where he thought she was to get it. he cast about a while in his pusillanimous way for things that _she_ might do, and finally proposed that she pawn the baby's dress,--the white dress she had made from one of her own girlhood dresses, and the only thing it had to wear when she took it out for air. that was the limit, even for effie. she said she would take anything of her own if she had it, but not the baby's; and she turned her face to the wall and clung to the child. when the tea-time came next day she went out with the baby and walked up and down the surging london streets looking in the windows and crushing back tears. what the creeper did with his guests she never knew, for she did not return till long after dusk, when she was too weary to wander any more, and she found no one there but himself and a dark stranger, who spoke little and with an italian accent, but who measured her with serious, intense eyes. he listened to the creeper, but he looked at her; she was quite fagged out and more bloodless than ever as she sat motionless on the edge of the bed. when he went away he lifted his hat to her with the grace of an old time courtier, and begged her pardon if he had intruded. some days after that he came in again, and brought a toy for the baby, and asked her if he might carry the child out a little for her; it looked sickly shut up there, but he knew it must be heavy for her to carry. the creeper suddenly discovered that he could carry the baby. all this happened in the days when a pious queen sat on the throne of spain. with eyes turned upward in much holiness, she failed to see the things done in her prisons, or hear the groans that rose up from the "zero" chamber in the fortress of montjuich, though all europe heard, and even in america the echo rang. while she told her beads her minister gave the order to "torture the anarchists"; and scarred with red-hot irons, maimed and deformed and maddened with the nameless horrors that the good devise to correct the bad, even unto this day the evidences of that infamous order live. but two men do not live,--the one who gave the order, and the one who revenged it. it happened one night, in april, that effie and the creeper and their sometime visitor met all three in one of those long low smothering london halls where many movements have originated, which in their developed proportions have taken possession of the house of commons, and even stirred the dust in the house of lords. there was a crowd of excited people talking all degrees of sense and nonsense in every language of the continent. letters smuggled from the prison had been received; new tales of torture were passing from mouth to mouth; fresh propositions to arouse a general protest from civilization were bubbling up with the anger of every indignant man and woman. drifting to the buzzing knots effie heard some one translating: it was the letter of the tortured noguès, who a month later was shot beneath the fortress wall. the words smote her ears like something hot and stinging: "you know i am one of the three accusers (the other two are ascheri and molas) who figure in the trial. i could not bear the atrocious tortures of so many days. on my arrest i spent eight days without food or drink, obliged to walk continually to and fro or be flogged; and as if that did not suffice, i was made to trot as though i were a horse trained at the riding school, until worn with fatigue i fell to the ground. then the hangmen burnt my lips with red-hot irons, and when i declared myself the author of the attempt they replied, 'you do not tell the truth. we know that the author is another one, but we want to know your accomplices. besides you still retain six bombs, and along with little oller you deposited two bombs in the rue fivaller. who are your accomplices?' "in spite of my desire to make an end of it i could not answer anything. whom should i accuse since all are innocent? finally six comrades were placed before me, whom i had to accuse, and of whom i beg pardon. thus the declarations and the accusations that i made.... i cannot finish; the hangmen are coming. --noguès." sick with horror effie would have gone away, but her feet were like lead. she heard the next letter, the pathetic prayer of sebastian sunyer, indistinctly; the tortures had already seared her ears, but the crying for help seemed to go up over her head like great sobs; she felt herself washed round, sinking, in the desperate pain of it. the piteous reiteration, "listen you with your honest hearts," "you with your pure souls," "good and right-minded people," "good and right-feeling people," wailed through her like the wild pleading of a child who, shrieking under the whip "dear papa, good, sweet papa, please don't whip me, please, please," seeks terror-wrung flattery to escape the lash. the last cry, "aid us in our helplessness; think of our misery," made her quiver like a reed. she walked away and sat down in a corner alone; what could she do, what could any one do? miserable creature that she was herself, her own misery seemed so worthless beside that prison cry. and she thought on, "why does he want to live at all, why does any one want to live, why do i want to live myself?" after a while the creeper and his friend came to her, and the latter sat down beside her, undemonstrative as usual. at the next buzz in the room they two were left alone. she looked at him once as she said, "what do you think the people will do about it?" he glanced at the crowd with a thin smile: "do? talk." in a little time he said quietly: "it does you no good here. i will take you home and come back for david afterward." she had no idea of contradicting him; so they went out together. at the threshold of her room he said firmly, "i will come in for a few minutes; i have to speak to you." she struck a light, put the baby on the bed, and looked at him questioningly. he had sat down with his back against the wall, and with rigidly folded arms stared straight ahead of him. seeing that he did not speak, she said softly, falling into her native dialect, as all scotch women do when they feel most: "i canna get thae poor creetyer's cries oot o' ma head. it's no human." "no," he said shortly, and then with a sudden look at her, "effie, what do you think love is?" she answered him with surprised eyes and said nothing. he went on: "you love the child, don't you? you do for it, you serve it. that shows you love it. but do you think it's love that makes david act as he does to you? if he loved you, would he let you work as you work? would he live off you? wouldn't he wear the flesh off his fingers instead of yours? he doesn't love you. he isn't worth you. he isn't a bad man, but he isn't worth you. and you make him less worth. you ruin him, you ruin yourself, you kill the child. i can't see it any more. i come here, and i see you weaker every time, whiter, thinner. and i know if you keep on you'll die. i can't see it. i want you to leave him; let me work for you. i don't make much, but enough to let you rest. at least till you are well. i would wait till you left him of yourself, but i can't wait when i see you dying like this. i don't want anything of you, except to serve you, to serve the child because it's yours. come away, to-night. you can have my room; i'll go somewhere else. to-morrow i'll find you a better place. you needn't see him any more. i'll tell him myself. he won't do anything, don't be afraid. come." and he stood up. effie had sat astonished and dumb. now she looked up at the dark tense eyes above her, and said quietly, "i dinna understand." a sharp contraction went across the strong bent face: "no? you don't understand what you are doing with yourself? you don't understand that i love you, and i can't see it? i don't ask you to love me; i ask you to let me serve you. only a little, only so much as to give you health again; is that too much? you don't know what you are to me. others love beauty, but i--i see in you the eternal sacrifice; your thin fingers that always work, your face--when i look at it, it's just a white shadow; you are the child of the people, that dies without crying. oh, let me give myself for you. and leave this man, who doesn't care for you, doesn't know you, thinks you beneath him, uses you. i don't want you to be his slave any more." effie clasped her hands and looked at them; then she looked at the sleeping baby, smoothed the quilt, and said quietly: "i didna take him the day to leave him the morra. it's no my fault if ye're daft aboot me." the dark face sharpened as one sees the agony in a dying man, but his voice was very gentle, speaking always in his blurred english: "no, there is no fault in you at all. did i accuse you?" the girl walked to the window and looked out. some way it was a relief from the burning eyes which seemed to fill the room, no matter that she did not look at them. and staring off into the twinkling london night, she heard again the terrible sobs of sebastian sunyer's letter rising up and drowning her with its misery. without turning around she said, low and hard, "i wonder ye can thenk aboot thae things, an' yon deils burnin' men alive." the man drew his hand across his forehead. "would you like to hear that they,--one,--the worst of them, was dead?" "i thenk the worl' wadna be muckle the waur o't," she answered, still looking away from him. he came up and laid his hand on her shoulder. "will you kiss me once? i'll never ask again." she shook him off: "i dinna feel for't." "good-bye then. i'll go back for david." and he returned to the hall and got the creeper and told him very honestly what had taken place; and the creeper, to his credit be it said, respected him for it, and talked a great deal about being better in future to the girl. the two men parted at the foot of the stairs, and the last words that echoed through the hallway were: "no, i am going away. but you will hear of me some day." now, what went on in his heart that night no one knows; nor what indecision still kept him lingering fitfully about effie's street a few days more; nor when the indecision finally ceased; for no one spoke to him after that, except as casual acquaintances meet, and in a week he was gone. but what he did the whole world knows; for even the queen of spain came out of her prayers to hear how her torturing prime minister had been shot at santa agueda, by a stern-faced man, who, when the widow, grief-mad, spit in his face, quietly wiped his cheek, saying, "madam, i have no quarrel with women." a few weeks later they garrotted him, and he said one word before he died,--one only, "germinal." over there in the long low london hall the gabbling was hushed, and some one murmured how he had sat silent in the corner that night when all were talking. the creeper passed round a book containing the history of the tortures, watching it jealously all the while, for said he, "angiolillo gave it to me himself; he had it in his own hands." effie lay beside the baby in her room, and hid her face in the pillow to keep out the stare of the burning eyes that were dead; and over and over again she repeated, "was it my fault, was it my fault?" the hot summer air lay still and smothering, and the immense murmur of the city came muffled like thunder below the horizon. her heart seemed beating against the walls of a padded room. and gradually, without losing consciousness, she slipped into the world of illusion; around her grew the stifling atmosphere of the torture-chamber of montjuich, and the choked cries of men in agony. she was sure that if she looked up she should see the demoniac face of portas, the torturer. she tried to cry, "mercy, mercy," but her dry lips clave. she had a whirling sensation, and the illusion changed; now there was the clank of soldiers' arms, a moment of insufferable stillness as the garrotte shaped itself out of the shadows in her eyes, then loud and clear, breaking the sullen quiet like the sharp ringing of a storm-bringing wind, "germinal." she sprang up: the long vibration of the bell of st. pancras was waving through the room; but to her it was the prolongation of the word, "germ-inal-l-l--germinal-l-l--" then suddenly she threw out her arms in the darkness, and whispered hoarsely, "ay, i'll kiss ye the noo." an hour later she was back at the old question, "was it my fault?" poor girl, it is all over now, and all the same to the grass that roots in her bone, whether it was her fault or not. for the end that the man who had loved her foresaw, came, though it was slow in the coming. let the creeper get credit for all that he did. he stiffened up in a year or so, and went to paris and got some work; and there the worn little creature went to him, and wrote to her old friends that she was better off at last. but it was too late for that thin shell of a body that had starved so much; at the first trial she broke and died. and so she sleeps and is forgotten. and the careless boy-angel who mixed all these destinies up so unobservantly has never yet whispered her name in the ear of the widowed lady canovas del castillo. nor will the birds that fly thither carry it now; for _it was not "effie."_ the reward of an apostate i have sinned: and i am rewarded according to my sin, which was great. there is no forgiveness for me; let no man think there is forgiveness for sin: the gods cannot forgive. this was my sin, and this is my punishment, that i forsook my god to follow a stranger--only a while, a very brief, brief while--and when i would have returned there was no more returning. i cannot worship any more,--that is my punishment; i cannot worship any more. oh, that my god will none of me? that is an old sorrow! my god was beauty, and i am all unbeautiful, and ever was. there is no grace in these harsh limbs of mine, nor was at any time. i, to whom the glory of a lit eye was as the shining of stars in a deep well, have only dull and faded eyes, and always had; the chiseled lip and chin whereover runs the radiance of life in bubbling gleams, the cup of living wine was never mine to taste or kiss. i am earth-colored, and for my own ugliness sit in the shadow, that the sunlight may not see me, nor the beloved of my god. but, once, in my hidden corner, behind the curtain of shadows, i blinked at the glory of the world, and had such joy of it as only the ugly know, sitting silent and worshiping, forgetting themselves and forgotten. here in my brain it glowed, the shimmering of the dying sun upon the shore, the long gold line between the sand and sea, where the sliding foam caught fire and burned to death. here in my brain it shone, the white moon on the wrinkling river, running away, a dancing ghost line in the illimitable night. here in my brain rose the mountain curves, the great still world of stone, summit upon summit sweeping skyward, lonely and conquering. here in my brain, my little brain, behind this tiny ugly wall of bone stretched over with its dirty yellow skin, glittered the far high blue desert with its sand of stars, as i have watched it, nights and nights, alone, hid in the shadows of the prairie grass. here rolled and swelled the seas of corn, and blossoming fields of nodding bloom; and flower-flies on their hovering wings went flickering up and down. and the quick spring of lithe-limbed things went scattering dew across the sun; and singing streams went shining down the rocks, spreading bright veils upon the crags. here in my brain, my silent unrevealing brain, were the eyes i loved, the lips i dared not kiss, the sculptured heads and tendriled hair. they were here always in my wonder-house, my house of beauty, the temple of my god. i shut the door on common life and worshiped here. and no bright, living, flying thing, in whose body beauty dwells as guest, can guess the ecstatic joy of a brown, silent creature, a toad-thing, squatting on the shadowed ground, self-blotted, motionless, thrilling with the presence of all-beauty, though it has no part therein. but the gods are many. and once a strange god came to me. sharp upon the shadowy ground he stood, and beckoned me with knotted fingers. there was no beauty in his lean figure and sunken cheeks; but up and down the muscles ran like snakes beneath his skin, and his dark eyes had somber fires in them. and as i looked at him, i felt the leap of prisoned forces in myself, in the earth, in the air, in the sun; all throbbed with the pulse of the wild god's heart. beauty vanished from my wonder-house; and where his images had been i heard the clang and roar of machinery, the forging of links that stretched to the sun, chains for the tides, chains for the winds; and curious lights went shining through thick walls as through air, and down through the shell of the world itself, to the great furnaces within. into those seething depths, the god's eyes peered, smiling and triumphing; then with an up-glance at the sky and a waste-glance at me, he strode off. this is my great sin, for which there is no pardon: i followed him, the rude god energy; followed him, and in that abandoned moment swore to be quit of beauty, which had given me nothing, and to be worshiper of him to whom i was akin, ugly but sinuous, resolute, daring, defiant, maker and breaker of things, remoulder of the world. i followed him, i would have run abreast with him; i loved him, not with that still ecstasy of flooding joy wherewith my own god filled me of old, but with impetuous, eager fires, that burned and beat through all the blood-threads of me. "i love you, love me back," i cried, and would have flung myself upon his neck. then he turned on me with a ruthless blow, and fled away over the world, leaving me crippled, stricken, powerless, a fierce pain driving through my veins--gusts of pain!--and i crept back into my old cavern, stumbling, blind and deaf, only for the haunting vision of my shame and the rushing sound of fevered blood. the pain is gone. i see again; i care no more for the taunt and blow of that fierce god who was never mine. but in my wonder-house it is all still and bare; no image lingers on the blank mirrors any more. no singing bell floats in the echoless dome. forms rise and pass; but neither mountain curve nor sand nor sea, nor shivering river, nor the faces of the flowers, nor flowering faces of my god's beloved, touch aught within me now. not one poor thrill of vague delight for me, who felt the glory of the stars within my finger tips. it slips past me like water. brown without and clay within! no wonder now behind the ugly wall; an empty temple! i cannot worship, i cannot love, i cannot care. all my life-service is unweighed against that faithless hour of my forswearing. it is just; it is the law; i am forsworn, and the gods have given me the reward of an apostate. at the end of the alley it is a long narrow pocket opening on a little street which runs like a tortuous seam up and down the city, over there. it was at the end of the summer; and in summer, in the evening, the mouth of the pocket is hard to find, because of the people, in it and about, who sit across the passage, gasping at the dirty winds that come loafing down the street like crafty beggars seeking a hole to sleep in--like mean beggars, bereft of the spirit of free windhood. down in the pocket itself the air is quite dead; one feels oneself enveloped in a scum-covered pool of it, and at every breath long filaments of invisible roots, swamp-roots, tear and tangle in your floundering lungs. i had to go to the very end, to the bottom of the pocket. there, in the deepest of these alley-holes, lives the woman to whom i am indebted for the whiteness of this waist i wear. how she does it, i don't know; poverty works miracles like that, just as the black marsh mud gives out lilies. at the very last door i knocked, and presently a man's voice, weak and suffocated, called from a window above. i explained.--"there's a chair there; sit down. she'll be home soon." and the voice was caught in a cough. this, then, was the consumptive husband she had told me of! i looked up at the square hole dimly outlined in the darkness, whence the cough issued, and suddenly felt a horrible pressure at my heart and a curious sense of entanglement, as if all the invisible webs of disease had momentarily acquired a conscious sense of prey within their clutch, and tightened on it like an octopus. the haunting terror of the unknown, the dim horror of an inimic presence, recoil before the merciless creeping and floating of an enemy one cannot grasp or fight, repulsive turning from a thing that has reached behind while you have been seeking to face it, that is there awaiting you with the frightful ironic laughter of the silence--all this swept round and through me as i stared up through the night. up there on the bed he was lying, he who had been meshed in the fatal web for three long years--and was struggling still! in the darkness i felt his breath draw. the sharp barking of a dog came as a relief. i turned to the broken chair, and sat down to wait. the alley was hemmed in by a high wall, and from the farther side of it there towered up four magnificent old trees, whose great crowns sent down a whispering legend of vanished forests and the limitless sweep of clean air that had washed through them, long ago, and that would never come again. how long, how long since those far days of purity, before the plague spot of man had crept upon them! how strong those proud old giants were that had not yet been strangled! how beautiful they were! how mean and ugly were the misshapen things that sat in the doorways of the foul dens that they had made, chattering, chattering, as ages ago the apes had chattered in the forest! what curious beasts they were, with their paws and heads sticking out of the coverings they had twisted round their bodies--chattering, chattering always, and always moving about, unable to understand the still strong growths of silence. so a half hour passed. at last i saw a parting in the group of bodies across the entrance of the pocket, and a familiar weary figure carrying a basket, coming down the brickway. she stopped half way where a widening of the alley furnished the common drying place, and a number of clothes lines crossed and recrossed each other, casting a net of shadows on the pavement; after a glance at the sky, which had clouded over, she sighed heavily and again advanced. in the sickly light of the alley lamp the rounded shoulders seemed to droop like an old crone's. yet the woman was still young. that she might not be startled, i called "good evening." the answer was spoken in that tone of forced cheerfulness which the wretched always give to their employers; but she sank upon the step with the habitual "my, but i'm glad to sit down," of one who seldom sits. "tired out, i suppose. the day has been so hot." "yes, and i've got to go to work and iron again till eleven o'clock, and it's awful hot in that kitchen. i don't mind the washing so much in summer; i wash out here. but it's hot ironing. are you in a hurry?" i said no, and sat on. "how much rent do you pay?" i asked. "seven dollars." "three rooms?" "yes." "one over the other?" "yes. it's an awful rent, and he won't fix anything. the door is half off its hinges, and the paper is a sight." "have you lived here long?" "over three years. we moved here before he got sick. i don't keep nothing right now, but it used to be nice. it's so quiet back here away from the street; you don't hear no noise. that fence ought to be whitewashed. i used to keep it white, and everything clean. and it was so nice to sit out here in summer under them trees. you could just think you were in the park." a curious wonder went through me. somewhere back in me a voice was saying, "to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, it shall be taken away even that which he hath." this horrible pool had been "nice" to her! again i felt the abyss seizing me with its tentacles, and high overhead in the tree-crowns i seemed to hear a spectral mockery of laughter. "yes," i forced myself to say, "they are splendid trees. i wonder they have lived so long." "'tis funny, aint it? that's a great big yard in there; the man that used to own it was a gardener, and there's a lot of the curiousest flowers there yet. but he's dead now, and the folks that's got it don't keep up nothing. they're waiting to sell it, i suppose." above, over our heads, the racking cough sounded again. "aint it terrible?" she murmured. "day and night, day and night; he don't get no rest, and neither do i. it's no wonder some people commits suicide." "does he ever speak of it?" i asked. her voice dropped to a semi-whisper. "not now so much, since the church people's got hold of him. he used to; i think he'd a done it if it hadn't been for them. but they've been kind o' talkin' to him lately, and tellin' him it wouldn't be right,--on account of the insurance, you know." my heart gave a wild bound of revolt, and i shut my teeth fast. o man, man, what have you made of yourself! more stupid than all the beasts of the earth, for a dole of the things you make to be robbed of, living,--to be robbed of and poisoned with--you consent to the death that eats with a million mouths, eats inexorably. you submit to unnamable torture in the holy name of--insurance! and in the name of insurance this miserable woman keeps alive the bones of a man! i took my bundle and went. and all the way i felt myself tearing through the tendrils of death that hung and swayed from the noisome wall, and caught at things as they passed. and all the way there pressed upon me pictures of the skeleton and the woman, clothed in firm flesh, young and joyous, and thrilling with the love of the well and strong. ah, if some one had said to her then, "some day you will slave to keep him alive through fruitless agonies, that for your last reward you may take the price of his pain"! ii.--alone i was wrong. i thought she wanted the insurance money, but i misunderstood her. i found it out one wild october day more than a year later, when for the second time i sought the end of the alley. the sufferer had "suffered out"; the gaunt and wasted shell of the man lay no more by the window in the upper story. the woman was free. "rest at last," i thought, "for both of them." but it was not as i thought. i expected ease to come into the woman's drawn face, and relaxation to her stooping figure. but something else came upon both, something quite unwonted and inexplicable; a wandering look in the eyes, a stupid drop to the mouth, an uncertainty in her walk, as of one who is half minded to go back and look for something. there was, too, an irritating irregularity in the performance of her work, which began to be annoying. at last, on that october day, this new unreliability reached the limit of provocation. i was leaving the city; i needed my laundry, needed it at once; and here it was four o'clock in the afternoon, the train due at night, and packing impossible till the wash came. it was five days overdue. the wind was howling furiously, the rain driving in sheets, but there was no alternative; i must get to the "end of the alley" and back, somehow. the gray, rain-drenched atmosphere was still grayer in the alley,--still, still grayer at the end. and what with the gray of it and the rain of it, i could scarcely see the thing that sat facing me when i opened the door,--a sort of human blur, hunched in a rocking-chair, its head sunken on its breast. in response to my startled exclamation, the face was lifted vacantly for a second, and then dropped again. but i had seen: drunk, dead drunk! and this woman had never drunk. i looked around the wretched room. by the window, where the gray light trailed in, stood a table covered with unwashed dishes; some late flies were crawling in the gutters of slop, besotted derelicts of insects, stupidly staggering up and down the cracked china. on the stove stood a number of flat-irons, but there was no fire. a mass of unironed clothes lay on an old couch and over the backs of two unoccupied chairs. on the wall above the couch, hung the portrait of the dead man. i walked to the slumping figure in the rocker, and with ill-contained brutality demanded: "so this is why you did not bring my clothes! where are they?" i heard my own voice cutting like the edge of a knife, and felt half-ashamed when that weak, shaking thing lifted up its foolish face, and stared at me with watery, uncomprehending eyes. "my clothes," i reiterated; "are they here or upstairs?" "guess-s-so," stammered the uncertain voice, "g-guess so." "nothing for it but to find them myself," i muttered, beginning the search through the pile on the couch. nothing of mine there, so i needs must climb to the golgotha on the second floor, from which the cross had disappeared, but which still bore traces of its victim's long crucifixion,--a pair of old bed-slippers still by the window, a sleeping-cap on the wall. some cannot but leave so the things that have touched their dead. one by one i found the "rough-dry" garments, here, there, in the hallway, in the garret, hanging or crumpled up among dozens of others. and all the while i hunted, the rain beat and the wind blew, and a low third sound kept mingling with them, rising from the lower floor. my heart smote me when i heard it, for i knew it was the woman sobbing. the self-righteous pharisee within me gave an impatient sneer: "alcohol tears!" but something else clutched at my throat, and i found myself glancing at the dead man's shoes. when i went downstairs, i avoided the rocking-chair, tied up my bundle, counted out the money, laid it on the table, and then turning round said, deliberately and harshly: "there is your money; don't buy whisky with it, mrs. bossert." crying had a little sobered her. she looked up, still with less light in her face than in an intelligent dog's, but with some dim self-consciousness. it was as a face that had appeared behind deforming bubbles of water. she half lifted her hand, let it fall, and stammered, "no, i won't, i won't. it don't do nobody no good." the senseless desire to preach seized hold of me. "mrs. bossert," i cried out, "aren't you ashamed of yourself? a woman like you, who went through so much, and so long, and so bravely! and now, when you could get along all right, to act like this!" the soggy mouth dropped open, the glazy eyes stared at me, fixedly and foolishly, then shifted to the portrait on the wall; and with a mawkish simper, as of some old drab playing sixteen, she slobbered out, nodding to the portrait: "all--for the love--o' him." it was so utterly ludicrous that i laughed. then a cold rage took me: "look here," i said (and again i heard my own voice, grim and quiet, cutting the air like a whip), "if you believe, as i have heard you say, that your husband can look down on you from anywhere, remember you couldn't do a thing to hurt him worse than you're doing now. 'love' indeed!" the lash went home. the stricken figure huddled closer; the voice came out like a dumb thing's moan: "oh--i'm all alone." then suddenly i understood. i had taken it for mockery, and profanation, that leering look at the shadow on the wall, that driveling stammer, "all--for the love--o' him." and it had been a solemn thing! no lover's word spoken in the morning of youth with the untried day before it, under the seductive witchery of answering breath and kisses, rushing blood and throbbing bodies; but the word of a woman bent with service, seamed with labor, haggard with watching; the word of a woman who, at the washtub, had kept her sufferer by the work of her hands, and watched him between the snatches of her sleep. the immemorial passion of a common heart, that _is_ not much, that _had_ not much, and has lost all. years were in it. for years she had had her burden to carry; and she had carried it to the edge of the grave. there it had fallen from her, and her arms were empty. nothing to do any more. alone. she sat up suddenly with a momentary flare of light in her face.--"as long as i had him," she said, "i could do. i thought i'd be glad when he was gone, a many and many a time. but i'd rather he was up there yet.... i did everything. i didn't put him away mean. there was a hundred and twenty-five dollars insurance. i spent it all on him. he was covered with flowers." the flare died down, and she fell together like a collapsing bag. i saw the gray vacancy moving inward toward the last spark of intelligence in her eyes, as an ashing coal whitens inward toward the last dull red point of fire. then this heap of rags shuddered with an inhuman whine, "a-l-o-n-e." in the crowding shadows i felt the desolation pressing me like a vise. behind that sunken heap in the chair gathered a midnight specter; for a moment i caught a flash from its royal, malignant eyes, the monarch of human ruins, the murderous bridegroom of widowed souls, king alcohol. "after all, as well that way as another," i muttered; and aloud (but the whip-cord had gone out of my voice), "the money is on the table." she did not hear me; the bridegroom "had given his beloved sleep." i went out softly into the wild rain, and overhead, among the lashing arms of the leafless trees, and around the alley pocket, the wind was whining: "a-l-o-n-e." to strive and fail there was a lonely wind crying around the house, and wailing away through the twilight, like a child that has been refused and gone off crying. every now and then the trees shivered with it, and dropped a few leaves that splashed against the windows like big, soft tears, and then fell down on the dark, dying grass, and lay there till the next wind rose and whirled them away. rain was gathering. close by the gray patch of light within the room a white face bent over a small table, and dust-dim fingers swept across the strings of a zither. the low, pathetic opening chords of albert's "herbst-klage" wailed for a moment like the wind; then a false note sounded, and the player threw her arms across the table and rested her face upon them. what was the use? she knew how it ought to be, but she could never do it,--never make the strings strike true to the song that was sounding within, sounding as the wind and the rain and the falling leaves sounded it, as long ago the wizard albert had heard and conjured it out of the sound-sea, before the little black notes that carried the message over the world were written. the weary brain wandered away over the mystery of the notes, and she whispered dully, "a sign to the eye, and a sound to the ear--and that is his gift to the world--his will--and he is dead, dead, dead;--he was so great, and they are so silly, those little black foolish dots--and yet they are there--and by them his soul sings--" the numb pain at her heart forced some sharp tears from the closed eyes. she bent and unbent her fingers hopelessly, two or three times, and then let them lie out flat and still. it was not their fault, not the fingers' fault; they could learn to do it, if they only had the chance; but they could never, never have the chance. they must always do something else, always a hundred other things first, always save and spare and patch and contrive; there was never time to do the thing she longed for most. only the odd moments, the unexpected freedoms, the stolen half-hours, in which to live one's highest dream, only the castaway time for one's soul! and every year the fleeting glory waned, wavered, sunk away more and more sorrowfully into the gray, soundless shadows of an unlived life. once she had heard it so clearly,--long ago, on the far-off sun-spaced, wind-singing fields of home,--the wild sweet choruses, the songs no man had ever sung. still she heard them sometimes in the twilight, in the night, when she sat alone and work was over; high and thin and fading, only sound-ghosts, but still with the incomparable glory of a first revelation, a song no one else has ever heard, a marvel to be seized and bodied; only,--they faded away into the nodding sleep that would conquer, and in the light and rush of day were mournfully silent. and she never captured them, never would; life was half over now. with the thought she started up, struck the chords again, a world of plaint throbbing through the strings; surely the wizard himself would have been satisfied. but ah, once more the fatal uncertainty of the fingers.... she bit the left hand savagely, then touched it, softly and remorsefully, with the other, murmuring: "poor fingers! not your fault." at last she rose and stood at the window, looking out into the night, and thinking of the ruined gift, the noblest gift, that had been hers and would die dumb; thinking of the messages that had come to her up out of the silent dark and sunk back into it, unsounded; of the voices she would have given to the messages of the masters, and never would give now; and with a bitter compression of the lips she said: "well, i was born to strive and fail." and suddenly a rush of feeling swept her own life out of sight, and away out in the deepening night she saw the face of an old, sharp-chinned, white-haired, dead man; he had been her father once, strong and young, with chestnut hair and gleaming eyes, and with his own dream of what he had to do in life. perhaps he, too, had heard sounds singing in the air, a new message waiting for deliverance. it was all over now; he had grown old and thin-faced and white, and had never done anything in the world; at least nothing for himself, his very own; he had sewn clothes,--thousands, millions of stitches in his work-weary life--no doubt there were still in existence scraps and fragments of his work,--in same old ragbag perhaps--beautiful, fine stitches, into which the keen eyesight and the deft hand had passed, still showing the artist-craftsman. but _that_ was not his work; that was the service society had asked of him and he had rendered; himself, his own soul, that wherein he was different from other men, the unbought thing that the soul does for its own outpouring,--that was nowhere. and over there, among the low mounds of the soldiers' graves, his bed was made, and he was lying in it, straight and still, with the rain crying softly above him. he had been so full of the lust of life, so alert, so active! and nothing of it all!--"poor father, you failed too," she muttered softly. and then behind the wraith of the dead man there rose an older picture, a face she had never seen, dead fifty years before; but it shone through the other face, and outshone it, luminous with great suffering, much overcoming, and complete and final failure. it was the face of a woman not yet middle-aged, smitten with death, with the horror of utter strangeness in the dying eyes; the face of a woman lost in a strange city of a strange land, and with her little crying, helpless children about her, facing the inexorable agony there on the pavement, where she was sinking down, and only foreign words falling in the dying ears!--she, too, had striven; how she had striven! against the abyss of poverty there in the old world; against the load laid on her by nature, law, society, the triune god of terror; against the inertia of another will. she had bought coppers with blood, and spared and saved and endured and waited; she had bent the gods to her will; she had sent her husband to america, the land of freedom and promise; she had followed him at last, over the great blue bitter water with its lapping mouths that had devoured one of her little ones upon the way; she had been driven like a cow in the shambles at the landing stage; she had been robbed of all but her ticket, and with her little children had hungered for three days on the overland journey; she had lived it through, and set foot in the promised land; but somehow the waiting face was not there, had missed her or she, him,--and lost and alone with death and the starving babes, she sank at the foot of the soldiers' monument, and the black mist came down on the courageous eyes, and the light was flickering out forever. with a bitter cry the living figure in the room stretched its hands toward the vision in the night. there was nothing there, she knew it; nothing in the heavens above nor the earth beneath to hear the cry,--not so much as a crumbling bone any more,--but she called brokenly, "oh, why must she die so, with nothing, nothing, not one little reward after all that struggle? to fall on the pavement and die in the hospital at last!" and shuddering, with covered eyes and heavy breath, she added wearily, "no wonder that i fail; i come of those who failed; my father, his mother,--and before her?" behind the fading picture, stretched dim, long shadows of silent generations, with rounded shoulders and bent backs and sullen, conquered faces. and they had all, most likely, dreamed of some wonderful thing they had to do in the world, and all had died and left it undone. and their work had been washed away, as if writ in water, and no one knew their dreams. and of the fruit of their toil other men had eaten, for that was the will of the triune god; but of themselves was left no trace, no sound, no word, in the world's glory; no carving upon stone, no indomitable ghost shining from a written sign, no song singing out of black foolish spots on paper,--nothing. they were as though they had not been. and as they all had died, she too would die, slave of the triple terror, sacrificing the highest to the meanest, that somewhere in some lighted ball-room or gas-bright theater, some piece of vacant flesh might wear one more jewel in her painted hair. "my soul," she said bitterly, "my soul for their diamonds!" it was time to sleep, for to-morrow--work. the sorrows of the body i have never wanted anything more than the wild creatures have,--a broad waft of clean air, a day to lie on the grass at times, with nothing to do but slip the blades through my fingers, and look as long as i pleased at the whole blue arch, and the screens of green and white between; leave for a month to float and float along the salt crests and among the foam, or roll with my naked skin over a clean long stretch of sunshiny sand; food that i liked, straight from the cool ground, and time to taste its sweetness, and time to rest after tasting; sleep when it came, and stillness, that the sleep might leave me when it would, not sooner--air, room, light rest, nakedness when i would not be clothed, and when i would be clothed, garments that did not fetter; freedom to touch my mother earth, to be with her in storm and shine, as the wild things are,--this is what i wanted,--this, and free contact with my fellows;--not to love, and lie and be ashamed, but to love and say i love, and be glad of it; to feel the currents of ten thousand years of passion flooding me, body to body, as the wild things meet. i have asked no more. but i have not received. over me there sits that pitiless tyrant, the soul; and i am nothing. it has driven me to the city, where the air is fever and fire, and said, "breathe this;--i would learn; i cannot learn in the empty fields; temples are here,--stay." and when my poor, stifled lungs have panted till it seemed my chest must burst, the soul has said, "i will allow you, then, an hour or two; we will ride, and i will take my book and read meanwhile." and when my eyes have cried out with tears of pain for the brief vision of freedom drifting by, only for leave to look at the great green and blue an hour, after the long, dull-red horror of walls, the soul has said, "i cannot waste the time altogether; i must know! read." and when my ears have plead for the singing of the crickets and the music of the night, the soul has answered, "no: gongs and whistles and shrieks are unpleasant if you listen; but school yourself to hearken to the spiritual voice, and it will not matter." when i have beat against my narrow confines of brick and mortar, brick and mortar, the soul has said, "miserable slave! why are you not as i, who in one moment fly to the utterest universe? it matters not where you are, _i_ am free." when i would have slept, so that the lids fell heavily and i could not lift them, the soul has struck me with a lash, crying, "awake! drink some stimulant for those shrinking nerves of yours! there is no time to sleep till the work is done." and the cursed poison worked upon me, till _its_ will was done. when i would have dallied over my food, the soul has ordered, "hurry, hurry! do i have time to waste on this disgusting scene? fill yourself and be gone!" when i have envied the very dog, rubbing its bare back along the ground in the sunlight, the soul has exclaimed, "would you degrade me so far as to put yourself on a level with beasts?" and my bands were drawn tighter. when i have looked upon my kind, and longed to embrace them, hungered wildly for the press of arms and lips, the soul has commanded sternly, "cease, vile creature of fleshly lusts! eternal reproach! will you forever shame me with your beastliness?" and i have always yielded: mute, joyless, fettered, i have trod the world of the soul's choosing, and served and been unrewarded. now i am broken before my time; bloodless, sleepless, breathless,--half-blind, racked at every joint, trembling with every leaf. "perhaps i have been too hard," said the soul; "you shall have a rest." the boon has come too late. the roses are beneath my feet now, but the perfume does not reach me; the willows trail across my cheek and the great arch is overhead, but my eyes are too weary to lift to it; the wind is upon my face, but i cannot bare my throat to its caress; vaguely i hear the singing of the night through the long watches when sleep does not come, but the answering vibration thrills no more. hands touch mine--i longed for them so once--but i am as a corpse. i remember that i wanted all these things, but now the power to want is crushed from me, and only the memory of my denial throbs on, with its never-dying pain. and still i think, if i were left alone long enough--but already i hear the tyrant up there plotting to slay me.--"yes," it keeps saying, "it is about time! i will not be chained to a rotting carcass. if my days are to pass in perpetual idleness i may as well be annihilated. i will make the wretch do me one more service.--you have clamored to be naked in the water. go now, and lie in it forever." yes: that is what it is saying, and i--the sea stretches down there---- the triumph of youth the afternoon blazed and glittered along the motionless tree-tops and down into the yellow dust of the road. under the shadows of the trees, among the powdered grass and bushes, sat a woman and a man. the man was young and handsome in a way, with a lean eager face and burning eyes, a forehead in the old poetic mould crowned by loose dark waves of hair; his chin was long, his lips parted devouringly and his glances seemed to eat his companion's face. it was not a pretty face, not even ordinarily good looking,--sallow, not young, only youngish; but there was a peculiar mobility about it, that made one notice it. she waved her hand slowly from east to west, indicating the horizon, and said dreamingly: "how wide it is, how far it is! one can get one's breath. in the city i always feel that the walls are squeezing my chest." after a little silence she asked without looking at him: "what are you thinking of, bernard?" "you," he murmured. she glanced at him under her lids musingly, stretched out her hand and touched his eyelids with her finger-tips, and turned aside with a curious fleeting smile. he caught at her hand, but failing to touch it as she drew it away, bit his lip and forcedly looked off at the sky and the landscape: "yes," he said in a strained voice, "it is beautiful, after the city. i wish we could stay in it." the woman sighed: "that's what i have been wishing for the last fifteen years." he bent towards her eagerly: "do you think--" he stopped and stammered, "you know we have been planning, a few of us, to club together and get a little farm somewhere near--would you--do you think--would you be one of us?" she laughed, a little low, sad laugh: "i wouldn't be any good, you know. i couldn't do the work that ought to be done. i would come fast enough and i would try. but i'm a little too old, bernard. the rest are young enough to make mistakes and live to make them good; but when i would have my lesson learned, my strength would be gone. it's half gone now." "no, it isn't," burst out the youth. "you're worth half a dozen of those young ones. old, old--one would think you were seventy. and you're not old; you will never be old." she looked up where a crow was wheeling in the air. "if," she said slowly, following its motions with her eyes, "you once plant your feet on my face, and you will, you impish bird--my bernard will sing a different song." "no, bernard won't," retorted the youth. "bernard knows his own mind, even if he is 'only a boy.' i don't love you for your face, you--" she interrupted him with a shrug and a bitter sneer. "evidently! who would?" a look of mingled pain and annoyance overspread his features. "how you twist my words. you are beautiful to me; and you know what i meant." "well," she said, throwing herself backward against a tree-trunk and stretching out her feet on the grass, ripples of amusement wavering through the cloudy expression, "tell me what do you love in me." he was silent, biting his lower lip. "i'll tell you then," she said. "it's my energy, the life in me. that is youth, and my youth has overlived its time. i've had a long lease, but it's going to expire soon. so long as you don't see it, so long as my life seems fuller than yours--well--; but when the failure of life becomes visible, while your own is still in its growth, you will turn away. when my feet won't spring any more, yours will still be dancing. and you will want dancing feet with you." "i will not," he answered shortly. "i've seen plenty of other women; i saw all the crowd coming up this morning and there wasn't a woman there to compare with you. i don't say i'll never love others, but now i don't; if i see another woman like you--but i never could love one of those young girls." "sh--sh," she said glancing down the road where a whirl of dust was making towards them, in the center of which moved a band of bright young figures, "there they come now. don't they look beautiful?" there were four young girls in front, their faces radiant with sun and air, and daisy wreaths in their gleaming hair; they had their arms around each other's waists and sang as they walked, with neither more accord nor discord than the birds about them. the voices were delicious in their youth and joy; one heard that they were singing not to produce a musical effect, but from the mere wish to sing. behind them came a troop of young fellows, coats off, heads bare, racing all over the roadside, jostling each other and purposely provoking scrambles. the tallest one had a nimbus of bright curls crowning a glowing face, dimpled and sparkling as a child's. the girls glanced shyly at him under their lashes as he danced about now in front and now behind them, occasionally tossing them a flower, but mostly hustling his comrades about. behind these came older people with three or four very little children riding on their backs. as the group came abreast of our couple they stopped to exchange a few words, then went on. when they had passed out of hearing the woman sat with a sphinx-like stare in her eyes, looking steadily at the spot where the bright head had nodded to her as it passed. "like a wildflower on a stalk," she murmured softly, narrowing her eyes as if to fix the vision, "like a tall tiger-lily." her companion's face darkened perceptibly. "what do you mean? what do you see?" he asked. "the vision of youth and beauty," she answered in the tone of a sleep-walker, "and the glory and triumph of it,--the immortality of it--its splendid indifference to its ruined temples, and all its humble worshipers. do you know," turning suddenly to him with a sharp change in face and voice, "what i would be wicked enough to do, if i could?" he smiled tolerantly: "you, wicked? dear one, you couldn't be wicked." "oh, but i could! if there were any way to fix davy's head forever, just as he passed us now,--forever, so that all the world might keep it and see it for all time, i would cut it off with this hand! yes, i would." her eyes glittered mercilessly. he shook his head smiling: "you wouldn't kill a bug, let alone davy." "i tell you i would. do you remember when nathaniel died? i felt bad enough, but do you know the week before when he was so very sick, i went out one day to a beautiful glen we used to visit together. they had been improving it! they had improved it so much that the water is all dying out of the creek; the little boats that used to float like pond lilies lie all helpless in the mud, and hardly a ribbon of water goes over the fall, and the old giant trees are withering. oh, it hurt me so to think the glory of a thousand years was vanishing before my eyes and i couldn't hold it. and suddenly the question came into my head: 'if you had the power would you save nathaniel's life or bring back the water to the glen?' and i didn't hesitate a minute. i said, 'let nathaniel die and all my best loved ones and i myself, but bring back the glory of the glen!" "when i think," she went on turning away and becoming dreamy again, "of all the beauty that is gone that i can never see, that is lost forever--the beauty that had to alter and die,--it stifles me with the pain of it. why must it all die?" he looked at her wonderingly. "it seems to me," he said slowly, "that beauty worship is almost a disease with you. i wouldn't like to care so much for mere outsides." "we never long for the thing we are rich in," she answered in a dry, changed voice. nevertheless his face lighted, it was pleasant to be rich in the thing she worshiped. he had gradually drawn near her feet and now suddenly bent forward and kissed them passionately. "don't," she cried sharply, "it's too much like self-abasement. and besides--" his face was white and quivering, his voice choked. "well--what besides--" "the time will come when you will wish you had reserved that kiss for some other foot. some one to whom it will all be new, who will shudder with the joy of it, who will meet you half way, who will believe all that you say, and say like things in fullness of heart. and i perhaps will see you, and know that in your heart you are sorry you gave something to me that you would have ungiven if you could." he buried his face in his hands. "you do not love me at all," he said. "you do not believe me." a curious softness came into the answer: "oh, yes, dear, i believe you. years ago i believed myself when i said the same sort of thing. but i told you i am getting old. i can not unmake what the years have made, nor bring back what they have stolen. i love you _for your face_", the words had a sting in them, "and for your soul too. and i am glad to be loved by you. but, do you know what i am thinking?" he did not answer. "i am thinking that as i sit here, beloved by you and others who are young and beautiful--it is no lie--in a--well, in a triumph i have not sought, but which i am human enough to be glad of, envied no doubt by those young girls,--i am thinking how the remorseless feet of youth will tramp on me soon, and carry you away. and"--very slowly--"in my day of pain, you will not be near, nor the others. i shall be alone; age and pain are unlovely." "you won't let me come near you," he said wildly. "i would do anything for you. i always want to do things for you to spare you, and you never let me. when you are in pain you will push me away." a fairly exultant glitter flashed in her face. "yes," she said, "i know my secret. that is how i have stayed young so long. see," she said, stretching out her arms, "other women at my age are past the love of men. their affections have gone to children. and i have broken the law of nature and prolonged the love of youth because--i have been strong and stood alone. but there is an end. things change, seasons change, you, i, all change; what's the use of saying 'never--forever, forever--never,' like the old clock on the stairs? it's a big lie." "i won't talk any more," he said, "but when the time comes you will see." she nodded: "yes, i will see." "do you think all people alike?" "as like as ants. people are vessels which life fills and breaks, as it does trees and bees and other sorts of vessels. they play when they are little, and then they love and then they have children and then they die. ants do the same." "to be sure. but i don't deceive myself as to the scope of it." the crowd were returning now, and by tacit consent they arose and joined the group. down the road they jumped a fence into a field and had to cross a little stream. "where is our bridge?" called the boys. "we made a bridge. some one has stolen our bridge." "oh, come on," cried davy, "let's jump it." three ran and sprang; they landed laughing and taunting the rest. bernard sought out his beloved. "shall i help you over?" he asked. "no," she said shortly, "help the girls," and brushing past him she jumped, falling a little short and muddying a foot, but scrambling up unaided. the rest debated seeking an advantageous point. at last they found a big stone in the middle, and pulling off his shoes, bernard waded in the creek, helping the girls across. the smallest one, large-eyed and timid, clung to his arm and let him almost carry her over. "he does it real natural," observed davy, who was whisking about in the daisy field like some flashing butterfly. they gathered daisies and laughed and sang and chattered till the sun went low. then they gathered under a big tree and spread their lunch on the ground. and after they had eaten, the conversation lay between the sallow-faced woman and one of the older men, a clever conversation filled with quaint observations and curious sidelights. the boys sat all about the woman questioning her eagerly, but behind in the shadow of the drooping branches sat the girls, silent, unobtrusive, holding each other's hands. now and then the talker cast a furtive glance from bernard's rather withdrawn face to the faces in the shadow, and the enigmatic smile hovered and flitted over her lips. * * * * * three years later on the anniversary of that summer day the woman sat at an upstairs window in the house on the little farm that was a reality now, the little co-operative farm where ten free men and women labored and loved. she had come with the others and done her best, but the cost of it, hard labor and merciless pain, was stamped on the face that looked from the window. she was watching bernard's figure as it came swinging through the orchard. presently he came in and up the stairs. his feet went past her door, then turned back irresolutely, and a low knock followed. her eyebrows bent together almost sternly as she answered, "come in." he entered with a smile: "can i do anything for you this morning?" "no," she said quietly, "you know i like my own cranky ways. i--i'd rather do things myself." he nodded: "i know. i always get the same answer. shall you go to the picnic? you surely will keep our foundation-day picnic?" "perhaps--later. and perhaps not." there was a curious tone of repression in the words. "well," he answered good-naturedly, "if you won't let me do anything for you, i'll have to find some one who will. is bella ready to go?" "this half hour. bella. here is bernard." and bella came in. bella, the timid girl with the brilliant complexion and gazelle soft eyes, bella radiant in her youth and feminine daintiness, more lovely than she had been three years before. she gave bernard a lunch basket to carry and a shawl and a workbag and a sun umbrella, and when they went out she clung to his arm besides. she stopped near one of their own rose bushes and told him to choose a bud for her, and she put it coquettishly in her dark hair. the woman watched them till they disappeared down the lane; he had never once looked back. then her mouth settled in a quiet sneer and she murmured: "how long is 'forever'? three years." after a while she rose and crossed to an old mirror that hung on the opposite wall. staring at the reflection it gave back, she whispered drearily: "you are ugly, you are eaten with pain! do you still expect the due of youth and beauty? did you not know it all long ago?" then something flashed in the image, something as if the features had caught fire and burned. "i will not," she said hoarsely, her fingers clenching. "i will not surrender. was it he i loved? it was his youth, his beauty, his life. and younger youth shall love me still, stronger life. i will not, i will not die alive." she turned away and ran down into the yard and out into the fields. she would not go on the common highway where all went, she would find a hard way through woods and over hills, and she would come there before them and sit and wait for them where the ways met. bareheaded, ill-dressed and careless she ran along, finding a fierce pleasure in trampling and breaking the brush that impeded her. there was the road at last, and right ahead of her an old, old man hobbling along with bent back and eyes upon the ground. just before him was a bad hole in the road; he stopped, irresolute, and looked around like a crippled insect stretching its antenna to find a way for its mangled feet. she called cheerily, "let me help you." he looked up with dim blue eyes helplessly seeking. she led him slowly around the dangerous place, and then they sat down together on the little covered wooden bridge beyond. "ah!" murmured the old man, shaking his head, "it is good to be young." and there was the ghost of admiration in his watery eyes, as he looked at her tall straight figure. "yes," she answered sadly, looking away down the road where she saw bella's white dress fluttering, "it is good to be young." the lovers passed without noticing them, absorbed in each other. presently the old man hobbled away. "it will come to that too," she muttered looking after him. "the husks of life!" the old shoemaker he had lived a long time there, in the house at the end of the alley, and no one had ever known that he was a great man. he was lean and palsied and had a crooked back; his beard was grey and ragged and his eyebrows came too far forward; there were seams and flaps in the empty, yellow old skin, and he gasped horribly when he breathed, taking hold of the lintel of the door to steady himself when he stepped out on the broken bricks of the alley. he lived with a frightful old woman who scrubbed the floors of the rag-shop, and drank beer, and growled at the children who poked fun at her. he had lived with her eighteen years, she said, stroking the furry little kitten that curled up in her neck as if she had been beautiful. eighteen years they had been drinking and quarreling together--and suffering. she had seen the flesh sucking away from the bones, and the skin falling in upon them, and the long, lean fingers growing more lean and trembling, as they crooked round his shoemaking tools. it was very strange she had not grown thin; the beer had bloated her, and rolls of weak, shaking flesh lapped over the ridges of her uncouth figure. her pale, lack-lustre blue eyes wandered aimlessly about as she talked: no--he had never told her, not even in their quarrels, not even when they were drunken together, of the great visitor who had come up the little alley, yesterday, walking so stately over the sun-beaten bricks, taking no note of the others, and coming in at the door without asking. she had not expected such an one; how could she? but the old shoemaker had shown no surprise at the mighty one. he smiled and set down the teacup he was holding, and entered into communion with the stranger. he noticed no others, but continued to smile; and the infinite dignity of the unknown fell upon him, and covered the wasted old limbs and the hard, wizened face, so that all we who entered, bowed, and went out, and did not speak. but we understood, for the mighty one gave understanding without words. we had been in the presence of freedom! we had stood at the foot of tabor, and seen this worn, old, world-soiled soul lose all its dross and commonplace, and pass upward smiling, to the transfiguration. in the hands of the mighty one the crust had crumbled, and dropped away in impalpable powder. souls should be mixed of it no more. only that which passed upward, the fine white playing flame, the heart of the long, life-long watches of patience, should rekindle there in the perennial ascension of the great soul of man. where the white rose died it was late at night, a raw, rough-shouldering night, that shoved men in corners as having no business in the street, and the few people in the northbound car drew themselves into themselves, radiating hedgehog quills of feeling at their neighbors. presently there came in a curious figure, clothed in the drapery of its country's honor, the blue flannel flapping very much about its legs. i looked at its feet first, because they were so very small and girlish, and because the owner of them adjusted the flapping pants with the coquetry of a maiden switching her skirts. then i glanced at the hands: they also were small and womanish, and constantly in motion. at last, the face, expecting a fresh young boy's, not long away from some country village. it was the sunk, seamed face of a man of forty-five, seared, and with iron-gray eyebrows, but lit by twinkling young eyes, that gleamed at everything good-humoredly. the sailor's pancake with its official lettering was pushed rakishly down and forward, and looking at hat and wearer, one instinctively turned milliner and decorated the "shape" with aigrette and bows,--they would nod so accordant with the flirting head. presently the restless hands went up and gave the hat another tilt, went down and straightened the "divided skirt," folded themselves an instant while the little feet began tattooing the car floor, and the scintillant eyes looked general invitation all round the car. no perceptible shrinkage of quills, however, so the eyes wandered over to their image in the plate glass, and directly the hat got another coquettish dip, and the skirts another flirt and settle. the conductor came in: some one to talk to at last! "will you let me off at ninth and race?" the dim chill of a smile shivered over the other faces in the car. ninth and race! who ever heard a defender of his country's glory ask a conductor on a street car in philadelphia for any other point than ninth and race! the conductor nodded appreciatively. "just come to the city, i suppose," he said interlocutively. the sailor plucked off his hat, exhibiting his label with child-like vanity: "s. s. alabama. here for three days just. been over in new york." "like it?" remarked the conductor, prolonging his stay inside the car. the hat went on again, proudly. "sixteen years in the service. yes, sir. _six_-teen years. the service is all right. the service is good enough for me. live there. expect to die there. sixteen years. you won't forget to let me off at ninth and race." "no. going to see chinatown?" "sure. chinatown's all right. seen it in hong kong. want to see it in philadelphia." o cradle of my country's freedom! these are your defenders,--these to whom your chief delight is your stews and your brothels, your fantans and your opium dens, your sinks of filth and your cesspools of slime! let them only be as they were "at hong kong"--or worse--and "the service" asks no more. he will live in it and die in it, and it's good enough for him. oh, not your old-time patriotic legends, nor the halls of the great rebel birth, nor the solemn, silent bell that once proclaimed liberty throughout the land, nor the piteous relics of your dead wise men, nor any dream of your bright, pure young days when yet you were "a fair greene country towne," swims up in the vision of "the service" when he sets his foot within your borders, filling him with devotion to our lady liberty, and drawing him to new world pilgrim shrines. not these, oh no, not these. but your leper spot, your old world plague-house, your breeding-ground of pest-begotten human vermin! so there is chinatown, and electric glare enough upon it, and rat-holes enough within it, "the service" is good enough for him,--he will shoot to order in your defense till he dies! rat-tat-tat went the little feet upon the floor, and the pancake got another rakish pull. presently the active figure squared sharply about and faced the door. the car had stopped, and a drunken man was staggering in. the sailor caught him good-humoredly in his arms, swung him about, and seated him beside himself with a comforting "now you're all right, sir; sit right here, my friend." the drunkard had a sodden, stupid face and bleary eyes from which the alcohol was oozing. in his shaking hand he held a bunch of delicate half-opened roses, hothouse roses, cream and pink; the odor of them drifted faintly through the car like a whiff of summer. something like a sigh of relaxation exhaled from the hedge-hogs, and a dozen commiserating eyes were fastened on the ill-fated flowers,--so fragile, so sweet, so inoffensive, so wantonly sacrificed. the hot, unsteady, clutching hand had already burned the stems, and the pale, helpless faces of the roses drooped heavily. the drunkard, full of beery effervescence, cast a bubbling look over the car, and spying a young lady opposite, suddenly stood up and offered the bouquet to her. she stared resolutely through him, seeing and hearing nothing, not even the piteous child-blossoms, with their pleading, downbent heads, and with a confused muttering of "no offense, no offense, you know," the man sank back again. as he did so the uncertain fingers released one stem, and a cream-white bloom went fluttering down, like a butterfly with broken wings. there it lay, jolting back and forth on the dirty floor, and no one dared to pick it up. presently the drunkard sopped over comfortably on the sailor's shoulder, who, with a generally directed wink of bonhomie, settled him easily, bestowing a sympathetic pat upon the bloated cheek. the conductor disturbed the situation by asking for his fare. the drunkard stupidly rubbed his eyes and offered his flowers in place of the nickel. again they were refused; and after a fluctuant search in his pockets between intervals of nodding, the dirty, over-fingered bit of metal was produced, accepted--and still the dying blossoms shivered in the torturer's hands. he was drowsing off again, when, by some sudden turn of the obstructed machinery in his skull, his lids opened and he struggled up; the image of myself must have swum suddenly across the momentarily acting eye-nerve, and with gurgling deference, at the immanent risk of losing his equilibrium once more, he proffered the bouquet to me, grabbing the heads and presenting them stem-end towards. a smothered snuffle went round the car. i wanted them, oh, how i wanted them! my heart beat suffocatingly with the sense of baffled pity and rage and cowardice. who was he, that drunken sot, with his smirching, wabbling hand, that i should fear to take the roses from him? why must i grind my teeth and sit there helpless, while those beautiful things were crushed and blasted and torn in living fragments? i could take them home, i could give them drink, they would lift up their heads, they would open wide, for days they would make the room sweet, and the pale, soft glory of their inimitable petals would shine like a luminous promise across the winter. nobody wanted them, nobody cared; this sodden beast in the flare-up of his consciousness wished to be quit of them. _why_ might i not take them? something sharp bit and burned my eyelids as i glanced at the one on the floor. the conductor had stepped on it and crushed it open; and there lay the marvelous creamy leaves, curled at their edges like kiss-seeking lips, each with its glory greater than solomon's, all fouled and ruined in the human reek. and i dared not save the others! miserable coward! i forced my hands tighter in my pockets and turned my head away towards the outside night and the backward slipping street. between me and it, a dim reflection wavered, the image of the thing that stood there before me; and somewhere, like a far-off, dulled bell, i heard the words, "and god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him." the sailor, no doubt with the kindly intention of relieving me from annoyance, and not averse to play with anything, made pretence of seizing the roses. then the drunkard, in an abandon of generosity, began tearing off the blossoms by the heads, scrutinizing, and casting each away as unfit for the exalted service of his "friend," till the latter reaching out managed to get hold of a white one with a stem. he trimmed its sheltering green carefully, brought out a long black pin, stuck it through the stalk, and fastened the pale shining head against his dark blue blouse. all hedgehoggery smiled. we had thrust the roses through with our forbidding quills,--what matter that a barbarian nail crucified this last one? the drunkard slept again, limply holding his scattering bunch of headless stems and torn foliage. pink and cream the petals strewed the floor. where was the loving hand that had nursed them to bloom in this hard, unwonted weather; loved and nursed and--_sold_ them? "ninth and race," sang out the conductor. the sailor sprang up with a merry grin, bowed gaily to everyone, twinkled his fingers in the air with a blithe "ta ta; i'm off for chinatown," as he slid through the door, and was away in a trice, tripping down to the pestiferous sink that was awaiting him somewhere. and on his breast he wore the pallid flower that had offered its stainless beauty to me, that i had loved,--and had not loved enough to save. the rest were dead; but that one--somewhere down there in a den where even the gas-choked lights were leering like prostitutes' eyes, down there in that trough of swill and swine, that pure, still thing had yet to die. _an important human document_ prison memoirs of an anarchist by alexander berkman an earnest portrayal of the revolutionary psychology of the author, as manifested by his _attentat_ during the great labor struggle of homestead, in . the whole truth about prisons has never before been told as this book tells it. the memoirs deal frankly and intimately with prison life in its various phases. $ . , by mail $ . mother earth publishing association west th street new york anarchism _=and other essays=_ by emma goldman including a biographic sketch of the author's interesting career, a splendid portrait, and twelve of her most important lectures, some of which have been suppressed by the police authorities of various cities. this book expresses the most advanced ideas on social questions--economics, politics, education and sex. _second revised edition_ emma goldman--the notorious, insistent, rebellious, enigmatical emma goldman--has published her first book, "anarchism and other essays." in it she records "the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years," and recites all the articles of that strange and subversive creed in behalf of which she has suffered imprisonment, contumely and every kind of persecution. the book is a vivid revelation of a unique personality. it appears at a time when anarchistic ideas are undoubtedly is the ascendant throughout the world.--_current literature._ emma goldman's book on "anarchism and other essays" ought to be read by all so-called respectable women, and adopted as a test-book by women's clubs throughout the country.... for courage, persistency, self-effacement, self-sacrifice in the pursuit of her object, she has hitherto been unsurpassed among the world's women.... repudiating as she does practically every tenet of what the modern state holds good, she stands for some of the noblest traits in human nature.--_life._ every thoughtful person ought to read this volume of papers by the foremost american anarchist. in whatever way the book may modify or strengthen the opinion already held by its readers, there is no doubt that a careful reading of it will tend to bring about greater social sympathy. it will help the public to understand a group of serious-minded and morally strenuous individuals, and also to feel the spirit that underlies the most radical 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speech for radicals theodore schroeder . psychology of political violence emma goldman . anarchism: what it really stands for emma goldman . syndicalism: the modern menace to capitalism emma goldman . marriage and love emma goldman . patriotism emma goldman . victims of morality and the failure of christianity emma goldman . anarchy versus socialism emma goldman . anarchism and malthus c. l. james . the modern school francisco ferrer . a talk about anarchist communism between two workers enrico malatesta . syndicalism e. c. ford and wm. z. foster . miscellaneous the life, trial and death of francisco ferrer william archer $ . anarchism--an able and impartial exposition of anarchism paul eltzbacher . what is property?--a brilliant arraignment of property and the state pierre proudhon . the ego and his own max stirner . the life of albert parsons . speeches of the chicago anarchists cloth, . paper cover, . god and the state michael bakunin . francisco ferrer: his life, work and martyrdom 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thought in sociology, economics, education, and life. articles by leading anarchists and radical thinkers.--international notes giving a summary of the revolutionary activities in various countries.--reviews of modern books and the drama. ten cents a copy one dollar a year emma goldman _publisher_ alexander berkman _editor_ west th street new york bound volumes - , two dollars per volume new edition (enlarged) two pence the place of anarchism in socialistic evolution an address delivered in paris by pierre kropotkin translated by henry glasse an appeal to the young by pierre kropotkin price - - - d. william reeves charing cross road, bookseller limited. --london, w.c. .-- the place of anarchism in socialistic evolution part i. you must often have asked yourselves what is the cause of anarchism, and why, since there are already so many socialist schools, it is necessary to found an additional one--that of anarchism. in order to answer this question i will go back to the close of last century. you all know the characteristics which marked that epoch: there was an expansion of intelligence, a prodigious development of the natural sciences, a pitiless examination of accepted prejudices, the formation of a theory of nature based on a truly scientific foundation, observation and reasoning. in addition to these there was criticism of the political institutions bequeathed to humanity by preceding ages, and a movement towards that ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity which has in all times been the ideal of the popular masses. fettered in its free development by despotism and by the narrow selfishness of the privileged classes, this movement, being at the same time favoured by an explosion of popular indignation, engendered the great revolution which had to force its way through the midst of a thousand obstacles both without and within. the revolution was vanquished, but its ideas remained. though at first persecuted and derided, they became the watchword for a whole century of slow evolution. the history of the nineteenth century is summed up in an effort to put in practice the principles elaborated at the end of last century: this is the lot of revolutions: though vanquished they establish the course of the evolution which follows them. in the domain of politics these ideas are abolition of aristocratic privileges, abolition of personal government, and equality before the law. in the economic order the revolution proclaimed freedom of business transactions; it said--"sell and buy freely. sell, all of you, your products, if you can produce, and if you do not possess the implements necessary for that purpose but have only your arms to sell, sell them, sell your labour to the highest bidder, the state will not interfere! compete among yourselves, contractors! no favour shall be shown, the law of natural selection will take upon itself the function of killing off those who do not keep pace with the progress of industry, and will reward those who take the lead." the above is at least the _theory_ of the revolution of , and if the state intervenes in the struggle to favour some to the detriment of others, as we have lately seen when the monopolies of mining and railway companies have been under discussion, such action is regarded by the liberal school as a lamentable deviation from the grand principles of the revolution. what has been the result? you know only too well, both women and men, idle opulence for a few and uncertainty for the morrow and misery for the greater number; crisis and wars for the conquest of markets, and a lavish expenditure of public money to find openings for industrial speculators. all this is because in proclaiming liberty of contract an essential point was neglected by our fathers. not but what some of them caught sight of it, the best of them earnestly desired but did not dare to realise it. while liberty of transactions, that is to say a conflict between the members of society, was proclaimed, the contending parties were not equally matched, and the powerful, armed for the contest by the means inherited from their fathers, have gained the upper hand over the weak. under such conditions the millions of poor ranged against a few rich could not do otherwise than give in. comrades! you have often asked yourselves--"whence comes the wealth of the rich? is it from their labour?" it would be a mockery to say that it was so. let us suppose that m. rothschild has worked all his life: well, you also, every one of you working men have also laboured: then why should the fortune of m. rothschild be measured by hundreds of millions while your possessions are so small? the reason is simple: you have exerted yourselves to produce by your own labour, while m. rothschild has devoted himself to accumulating the product of the labour of others--the whole matter lies in that. but some one may say to me;--"how comes it that millions of men thus allow the rothschilds and the mackays to appropriate the fruit of their labour?" alas, they cannot help themselves under the existing social system! but let us picture to our minds a city all of whose inhabitants find their lodging, clothing, food and occupation secured to them, on condition of producing things useful to the community, and let us suppose a rothschild to enter this city bringing with him a cask full of gold. if he spends his gold it will diminish rapidly; if he locks it up it will not increase, because gold does not grow like seed, and after the lapse of a twelvemonth he will not find £ in his drawer if he only put £ into it. if he sets up a factory and proposes to the inhabitants of the town that they should work in it for four shillings a day while producing to the value of eight shillings a day they reply--"among us you'll find no one willing to work on those terms. go elsewhere and settle in some town where the unfortunate people have neither clothing, bread, nor work assured to them, and where they will consent to give up to you the lion's share of the result of their labour in return for the barest necessaries of life. go where men starve! there you will make your fortune!" the origin of the wealth of the rich is your misery. let there be no poor, then we shall have no millionaires. the facts i have just stated were such as the revolution of last century did not comprehend or else could not act upon. that revolution placed face to face two opposing ranks, the one consisting of a hungry, ill-clad army of former serfs, the other of men well provided with means. it then said to these two arrays--"fight out your battle." the unfortunate were vanquished. they possessed no fortunes, but they had something more precious than all the gold in the world--their arms; and these arms, the source of all wealth, were monopolised by the wealthy. thus we have seen those immense fortunes which are the characteristic feature of our age spring up on all sides. a king of the last century, "the great louis the fourteenth" of mercenary historians, would never have dreamed of possessing a fortune such as are held by those kings of the nineteenth century, the vanderbilts and the mackays. on the other hand we have seen the poor reduced still more and more to toil for others, and while those who produced on their own account have rapidly disappeared, we find ourselves compelled under an ever increasing pressure to labour more and more to enrich the rich. attempts have been made to remove these evils. some have said--"let us give equal instruction to all," and forthwith education has been spread abroad. better human machines have been turned out, but these educated machines still labour to enrich others. this illustrious scientist, that renowned novelist, despite their education are still beasts of burden to the capitalist. instruction improves the cattle to be exploited but the exploitation remains. next, there was great talk about association, but the workers soon learned that they could not get the better of capital by associating their miseries, and those who cherished this illusion most earnestly were compelled to turn to socialism. timid, at the outset, socialism spoke at first in the name of christian sentiment and morality: men profoundly imbued with the moral principles of christianity--principles which it possesses in common with all other religions--came forward and said--"a christian has no right to exploit his brethren!" but the ruling classes laughed in their faces with the reply--"teach the people christian resignation, tell them in the name of christ that they should offer their left cheek to whosoever smites them on the right, then you will be welcome; as for the dreams of equality which you find in christianity, go and meditate on your discoveries in prison." later on socialism spoke in the name of governmentalism; it said--"since it is the special mission of the state to protect the weak against the strong, it is its duty to aid working men's associations; the state alone can enable working men to fight against capital and to oppose to capitalistic exploitation the free workshop of workers pocketing the entire value of the produce of their labour." to this the bourgeoisie replied with grapeshot in . it was not until between twenty to thirty years later, at a time when the popular masses were invited to express their mind in the international working men's association, that socialism spoke in the name of the people, and formulating itself little by little in the congresses of the great association and later on among its successors, arrived at some such conclusion as the following: all accumulated wealth is the product of the labour of all--of the present and of all preceding generations. this hall in which we are now assembled derives its value from the fact that it is situated in paris--this magnificent city built by the labours of twenty successive generations. if this same hall were conveyed amid the snows of siberia its value would be next to nothing. the machinery which you have invented and patented bears within itself the intelligence of five or six generations and is only possessed of value because it forms part of that immense whole that we call the progress of the nineteenth century. if you send your lace-making machine among the natives of new guinea it will become valueless. we defy any man of genius of our times to tell us what share his intellect has had in the magnificent deductions of the book, the work of talent which he has produced! generations have toiled to accumulate facts for him, his ideas have perhaps been suggested to him by a locomotive crossing the plains, as for elegance of design he has grasped it while admiring the venus of milo or the work of murillo, and finally, if his book exercises any influence over us, it does so, thanks to all the circumstances of our civilisation. everything belongs to all! we defy anyone soever to tell us what share of the general wealth is due to each individual. see the enormous mass of appliances which the nineteenth century has created; behold those millions of iron slaves which we call machines, and which plane and saw, weave and spin for us, separate and combine the raw materials, and work the miracles of our times. no one has the right to monopolise any one of these machines and to say to others--"this is mine, if you wish to make use of it you must pay me a tax on each article you produce," any more than the feudal lord of the middle ages had the right to say to the cultivator--"this hill and this meadow are mine and you must pay me tribute for every sheaf of barley you bind, and on each haycock you heap up." all belongs to everyone! and provided each man and woman contributes his and her share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they have a right to share in all that is produced by everybody. part ii. all things belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute their share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are entitled to their share of all that is produced by the community at large. "but this is communism," you may say. yes, it is communism, but it is the communism which no longer speaks in the name of religion or of the state, but in the name of the people. during the past fifty years a great awakening of the working-class has taken place! the prejudice in favour of private property is passing away. the worker grows more and more accustomed to regard the factory, the railway, or the mine, not as a feudal castle belonging to a lord, but as an institution of public utility which the public has the right to control. the idea of possession in common has not been worked out from the slow deductions of some thinker buried in his private study, it is a thought which is germinating in the brains of the working masses, and when the revolution, which the close of this century has in store for us, shall have hurled confusion into the camp of our exploiters, you will see that the mass of the people will demand expropriation, and will proclaim its right to the factory, the locomotive, and the steamship. just as the sentiment of the inviolability of the home has developed during the latter half of our century, so also the sentiment of collective right to all that serves for the production of wealth has developed among the masses. it is a fact, and he who, like ourselves, wishes to share the popular life and follow its development, must acknowledge that this affirmation is a faithful summary of the people's aspirations. the tendency of this closing century is towards communism, not the monastic or barrack-room communism formerly advocated, but the free communism which places the products reaped or manufactured in common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the liberty to consume them as he pleases in his own home. this is the solution of which the mass of the people can most readily take hold, and it is the solution which the people demands at the most solemn epochs. in the formula "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was the one which went straight to the heart of the masses, and if they acclaimed the republic and universal suffrage, it was because they hoped to attain to communism through them. in , also, when the people besieged in paris desired to make a supreme effort to resist the invader, what was their demand?--that free rations should be served out to everyone. let all articles be put into one common stock and let them be distributed according to the requirements of each. let each one take freely of all that is abundant and let those objects which are less plentiful be distributed more sparingly and in due proportions--this is the solution which the mass of the workers understand best. this is also the system which is commonly practised in the rural districts (of france). so long as the common lands afford abundant pasture, what commune seeks to restrict their use? when brush-wood and chestnuts are plentiful, what commune forbids its members to take as much as they want? and when the larger wood begins to grow scarce, what course does the peasant adopt?--the allowancing of individuals. let us take from the common stock the articles which are abundant, and let those objects whose production is more restricted be served out in allowances according to requirements, giving preference to children and old persons, that is to say, to the weak. and, moreover, let all be consumed, not in public, but at home, according to individual tastes and in company with one's family and friends. this is the ideal of the masses. but it is not enough to argue about, "communism" and "expropriation;" it is furthermore necessary to know who should have the management of the common patrimony, and it is especially on this question that different schools of socialists are opposed to one another, some desiring authoritarian communism, and others, like ourselves, declaring unreservedly in favour of anarchist communism. in order to judge between these two, let us return once again to our starting point, the revolution of last century. in overturning royalty the revolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the people; but, by an inconsistency which was very natural at that time, it proclaimed, not a permanent sovereignty, but an intermittent one, to be exercised at certain intervals only, for the nomination of deputies supposed to represent the people. in reality it copied its institutions from the representative government of england. the revolution was drowned in blood, and, nevertheless, representative government became the watchword of europe. all europe, with the exception of russia, has tried it, under all possible forms, from government based on a property qualification to the direct government of the little swiss republics. but, strange to say, just in proportion as we have approached nearer to the ideal of a representative government, elected by a perfectly free universal suffrage, in that same proportion have its essential vices become manifest to us, till we have clearly seen that this mode of government is radically defective. is it not indeed absurd to take a certain number of men from out the mass, and to entrust them with the management of _all_ public affairs, saying to them, "attend to these matters, we exonerate ourselves from the task by laying it upon you: it is for you to make laws on all manner of subjects--armaments and mad dogs, observatories and chimneys, instruction and street-sweeping: arrange these things as you please and make laws about them, since you are the chosen ones whom the people has voted capable of doing everything!" it appears to me that if a thoughtful and honest man were offered such a post, he would answer somewhat in this fashion:-- "you entrust me with a task which i am unable to fulfil. i am unacquainted with most of the questions upon which i shall be called on to legislate. i shall either have to work to some extent in the dark, which will not be to your advantage, or i shall appeal to you and summon meetings in which you will yourselves seek to come to an understanding on the questions at issue, in which case my office will be unnecessary. if you have formed an opinion and have formulated it, and if you are anxious to come to an understanding with others who have also formed an opinion on the same subject, then all you need do is to communicate with your neighbours and send a delegate to come to an understanding with other delegates on this specific question; but you will certainly reserve to yourselves the right of taking an ultimate decision; you will not entrust your delegate with the making of laws for you. this is how scientists and business men act each time that they have to come to an agreement." but the above reply would be a repudiation of the representative system, and nevertheless it is a faithful expression of the idea which is growing everywhere since the vices of representative government have been exposed in all their nakedness. our age, however, has gone still further, for it has begun to discuss the rights of the state and of society in relation to the individual; people now ask to what point the interference of the state is necessary in the multitudinous functions of society. * * * * * do we require a government to educate our children? only let the worker have leisure to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the free initiative of parents and of persons fond of tuition, thousands of educational societies and schools of all kinds will spring up, rivalling one another in the excellence of their teaching. if we were not crushed by taxation and exploited by employers, as we now are, could we not ourselves do much better than is now done for us? the great centres would initiate progress and set the example, and you may be sure that the progress realised would be incomparably superior to what we now attain through our ministeries.--is the state even necessary for the defence of a territory? if armed brigands attack a people, is not that same people, armed with good weapons, the surest rampart to oppose to the foreign aggressor? standing armies are always beaten by invaders, and history teaches that the latter are to be repulsed by a popular rising alone.--while government is an excellent machine to protect monopoly, has it ever been able to protect us against ill-disposed persons? does it not, by creating misery, increase the number of crimes instead of diminishing them? in establishing prisons into which multitudes of men, women, and children are thrown for a time in order to come forth infinitely worse than when they went in, does not the state maintain nurseries of vice at the expense of the tax-payers? in obliging us to commit to others the care of our affairs, does it not create the most terrible vice of societies--indifference to public matters? on the other hand, if we analyse all the great advances made in this century--our international traffic, our industrial discoveries, our means of communication--do we find that we owe them to the state or to private enterprise? look at the network of railways which cover europe. at madrid, for example, you take a ticket for st. petersburg direct. you travel along railroads which have been constructed by millions of workers, set in motion by dozens of companies; your carriage is attached in turn to spanish, french, bavarian, and russian locomotives: you travel without losing twenty minutes anywhere, and the two hundred francs which you paid in madrid will be divided to a nicety among the companies which have combined to forward you to your destination. this line from madrid to st. petersburg has been constructed in small isolated branches which have been gradually connected, and direct trains are the result of an understanding which has been arrived at between twenty different companies. of course there has been considerable friction at the outset, and at times some companies, influenced by an unenlightened egotism have been unwilling to come to terms with the others; but, i ask, was it better to put up with this occasional friction, or to wait until some bismarck, napoleon, or zengis khan should have conquered europe, traced the lines with a pair of compasses, and regulated the despatch of the trains? if the latter course had been adopted, we should still be in the days of stage-coaches. the network of railways is the work of the human mind proceeding from the simple to the complex by the spontaneous efforts of the parties interested, and it is thus that all the great enterprises of our age have been undertaken. it is quite true, indeed, that we pay too much to the managers of these enterprises; this is an additional reason for suppressing their incomes, but not for confiding the management of european railways to a central european government. what thousands of examples one could cite in support of his same idea! take all great enterprises such as the suez canal, the lines of atlantic steamers, the telegraph which connects us with north and south america. consider also that commercial organisation which enables you on rising in the morning to find bread at the baker's--that is, if you have the money to pay for it, which is not always the case now-a-days--meat at the butcher's, and all other things that you want at other shops. is this the work of the state? it is true that we pay abominably dearly for middlemen; this is, however, an additional reason for suppressing them, but not for believing that we must entrust government with the care of providing for our feeding and clothing. if we closely scan the development of the human mind in our times we are struck by the number of associations which spring up to meet the varied requirement of the individual of our age--societies for study, for commerce, for pleasure and recreation; some of them, very small, for the propagation of a universal language or a certain method of short-hand writing; others with large arms, such as that which has recently been established for the defence of the english coast, or for the avoidance of lawsuits, and so on. to make a list of the associations which exist in europe, volumes would be necessary, and it would be seen that there is not a single branch of human activity with which one or other does not concern itself. the state itself appeals to them in the discharge of its most important function--war; it says, "we undertake to slaughter, but we cannot take care of our victims; form a red cross society to gather up the wounded on the battle-field and to take care of them." let others, if they will, advocate industrial barracks or the monastery of authoritarian communism, we declare that the tendency of society is in an opposite direction. we foresee millions and millions of groups freely constituting themselves for the satisfaction of all the varied needs of human beings--some of these groups organised by quarter, street, and house; others extending hands across the walls of cities, over frontiers and oceans. all of these will be composed of human beings who will combine freely, and after having performed their share of productive labour will meet together, either for the purpose of consumption, or to produce objects of art or luxury, or to advance science in a new direction. this is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we follow it; we only ask to develop it freely, without any governmental interference. individual liberty! "take pebbles," said fourrier, "put them into a box and shake them, and they will arrange themselves in a mosaic that you could never get by entrusting to anyone the work of arranging them harmoniously." part iii. now let me pass to the third part of my subject--the most important with respect to the future. there is no more room for doubting that religions are going; the nineteenth century has given them their death blow. but religions--all religions--have a double composition. they contain in the first place a primitive cosmogony, a rude attempt at explaining nature, and they furthermore contain a statement of the public morality born and developed within the mass of the people. but when we throw religions overboard or store them among our public records as historical curiosities, shall we also relegate to museums the moral principles which they contain? this has sometimes been done, and we have seen people declare that as they no longer believed in the various religions so they despised morality and boldly proclaimed the maxim of bourgeois selfishness, "everyone for himself." but a society, human or animal, cannot exist without certain rules and moral habits springing up within it; religion may go, morality remains. if we were to come to consider that a man did well in lying, deceiving his neighbours, or plundering them when possible (this is the middle-class business morality), we should come to such a pass that we could no longer live together. you might assure me of your friendship, but perhaps you might only do so in order to rob me more easily; you might promise to do a certain thing for me, only to deceive me; you might promise to forward a letter for me, and you might steal it just like an ordinary governor of a jail. under such conditions society would become impossible, and this is so generally understood that the repudiation of religions in no way prevents public morality from being maintained, developed, and raised to a higher and ever higher standard. this fact is so striking that philosophers seek to explain it by the principles of utilitarianism, and recently spencer sought to base the morality which exists among us upon physiological causes and the needs connected with the preservation of the race. let me give you an example in order to explain to you what _we_ think on the matter. a child is drowning, and four men who stand upon the bank see it struggling in the water. one of them does not stir, he is a partisan of "each one for himself," the maxim of the commercial middle-class; this one is a brute and we need not speak of him further. the next one reasons thus: "if i save the child, a good report of my action will be made to the ruler of heaven, and the creator will reward me by increasing my flocks and my serfs," and thereupon he plunges into the water. is he therefore a moral man? clearly not! he is a shrewd calculator, that is all. the third, who is an utilitarian, reflects thus (or at least utilitarian philosophers represent him as so reasoning): "pleasures can be classed in two categories, inferior pleasures and higher ones. to save the life of anyone is a superior pleasure infinitely more intense and more durable than others; therefore i will save the child." admitting that any man ever reasoned thus, would he not be a terrible egotist? and, moreover, could we ever be sure that his sophistical brain would not at some given moment cause his will to incline toward an inferior pleasure, that is to say, towards refraining from troubling himself? there remains the fourth individual. this man has been brought up from his childhood to feel himself _one_ with the rest of humanity: from his childhood he has always regarded men as possessing interests in common: he has accustomed himself to suffer when his neighbours suffer, and to feel happy when everyone around him is happy. directly he hears the heart-rending cry of the mother, he leaps into the water, not through reflection but by instinct, and when she thanks him for saving her child, he says, "what have i done to deserve thanks, my good woman? i am happy to see you happy; i have acted from natural impulse and could not do otherwise!" you recognise in this case the truly moral man, and feel that the others are only egotists in comparison with him. the whole anarchist morality is represented in this example. it is the morality of a people which does not look for the sun at midnight--a morality without compulsion or authority, a morality of habit. let us create circumstances in which man shall not be led to deceive nor exploit others, and then by the very force of things the moral level of humanity will rise to a height hitherto unknown. men are certainly not to be moralised by teaching them a moral catechism: tribunals and prisons do not diminish vice; they pour it over society in floods. men are to be moralised only by placing them in a position which shall contribute to develop in them those habits which are social, and to weaken those which are not so. a morality which has become instinctive is the true morality, the only morality which endures while religions and systems of philosophy pass away. let us now combine the three preceding elements, and we shall have anarchy and its place in socialistic evolution. emancipation of the producer from the yoke of capital; production in common and free consumption of all the products of the common labour. emancipation from the governmental yoke; free development of individuals in groups and federations; free organisation ascending from the simple to the complex, according to mutual needs and tendencies. emancipation from religious morality; free morality, without compulsion or authority, developing itself from social life and becoming habitual. the above is no dream of students, it is a conclusion which results from an analysis of the tendencies of modern society: anarchist communism is the union of the two fundamental tendencies of our society--a tendency towards economic equality, and a tendency towards political liberty. so long as communism presented itself under an authoritarian form, which necessarily implies government, armed with much greater power than that which it possesses to-day, inasmuch as it implies economic in addition to political power--so long as this was the case, communism met with no sufficient response. before it could, indeed, sometimes excite for a moment the enthusiasm of the worker who was prepared to submit to any all-powerful government, provided it would release him from the terrible situation in which he was placed, but it left the true friends of liberty indifferent. anarchist communism maintains that most valuable of all conquests--individual liberty--and moreover extends it and gives it a solid basis--economic liberty--without which political liberty in delusive; it does not ask the individual who has rejected god, the universal tyrant, god the king, and god the parliament, to give unto himself a god more terrible than any of the preceding--god the community, or to abdicate upon its altar his independence, his will, his tastes, and to renew the vow of asceticism which he formerly made before the crucified god. it says to him, on the contrary, "no society is free so long as the individual is not so! do not seek to modify society by imposing upon it an authority which shall make everything right; if you do, you will fail as popes and emperors have failed. modify society so that your fellows may not be any longer your enemies by the force of circumstances: abolish the conditions which allow some to monopolise the fruit of the labour of others; and instead of attempting to construct society from top to bottom, or from the centre to the circumference, let it develop itself freely from the simple to the composite, by the free union of free groups. this course, which is so much obstructed at present, is the true forward march of society: do not seek to hinder it, do not turn your back on progress, but march along with it! then the sentiment of sociability which is common to human beings, as it is to all animals living in society, will be able to develop itself freely, because our fellows will no longer be our enemies, and we shall thus arrive at a state of things in which each individual will be able to give free rein to his inclinations, and even to his passions, without any other restraint than the love and respect of those who surround him." this is our ideal, and it is the ideal which lies deep in the hearts of peoples--of all peoples. we know full well that this ideal will not be attained without violent shocks; the close of this century has a formidable revolution in store for us: whether it begins in france, germany, spain, or russia, it will be an european one, and spreading with the same rapidity as that of our fathers, the heroes of , it will set all europe in a blaze. this coming revolution will not aim at a mere change of government, but will have a social character; the work of expropriation will commence, and exploiters will be driven out. whether we like it or not, this will be done independently of the will of individuals, and when hands are laid on private property we shall arrive at communism, because we shall be forced to do so. communism, however, cannot be either authoritarian or parliamentary, it must either be anarchist or non-existent; the mass of the people does not desire to trust itself again to any saviour, but will seek to organise itself by itself. we do not advocate communism and anarchy because we imagine men to be better than they really are; if we had angels among us we might be tempted to entrust to them the task of organising us, though doubtless even _they_ would show the cloven foot very soon. but it is just because we take men as they are that we say: "do not entrust them with the governing of you. this or that despicable minister might have been an excellent man if power had not been given to him. the only way of arriving at harmony of interests is by a society without exploiters and without rulers." it is precisely because men are not angels that we say, "let us arrange matters so that each man may see his interest bound up with the interests of others, then you will no longer have to fear his evil passions." anarchist communism being the inevitable result of existing tendencies, it is towards this ideal that we must direct our steps, instead of saying, "yes, anarchy is an excellent ideal," and then turning our backs upon it. should the approaching revolution not succeed in realising the whole of this ideal, still all that shall have been effected in the direction of it will remain; but all that shall have been done in a contrary direction will be doomed to disappear. it is a general rule that a popular revolution may be vanquished, but that, nevertheless, it furnishes a motto for the evolution of the succeeding century. france expired under the heel of the allies in , and yet the action of france had rendered serfdom impossible of continuance, all over europe, and representative government inevitable; universal suffrage was drowned in blood, and yet universal suffrage is the watchword of the century. in the commune expired under volleys of grapeshot, and yet the watchword in france to-day is "the free commune." and if anarchist communism is vanquished in the coming revolution, after having asserted itself in the light of day, not only will it leave behind it the abolition of private property, not only will the working man have learned his true place in society, not only will the landed and mercantile aristocracy have received a mortal blow, but communist anarchism will be the goal of the evolution of the twentieth century. anarchist communism sums up all that is most beautiful and most durable in the progress of humanity; the sentiment of justice, the sentiment of liberty, and solidarity or community of interest. it guarantees the free evolution, both of the individual and of society. therefore, it will triumph. printed by the new temple press, norbury, london, great britain. +-------------------------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: | | | |obvious typographical errors have been corrected | +-------------------------------------------------+ vol. i. may, no. mother earth [illustration] p. o. box emma goldman, publisher c. a copy contents page tidings of may envy walt whitman observations and comments "this man gorky" margaret grant comrade maxim gorky alexander berkman e. g. poem voltairine de cleyre the white terror paternalistic government theodore schroeder liberty in common life bolton hall statistics h. kelly gerhart hauptmann with the weavers of silesia max baginski disappointed economists vital art anny mali hicks kristofer hansteen voltairine de cleyre fifty years of bad luck sadakichi hartmann c. a copy $ a year mother earth monthly magazine devoted to social science and literature published every th of the month emma goldman, publisher, p. o. box , madison square station, new york, n. y. vol. i may, no. tidings of may. the month of may is a grinning satire on the mode of living of human beings of the present day. the may sun, with its magic warmth, gives life to so much beauty, so much value. the dead, grayish brown of the forest and woods is transformed into a rich, intoxicating, delicate, fragrant green. golden sun-rays lure flowers and grass from the soil, and kiss branch and tree into blossom and bloom. tillers of the soil are beginning their activity with plough, shovel, rake, breaking the firm grip of grim winter upon the earth, so that the mild spring warmth may penetrate her breast and coax into growth and maturity the seeds lying in her womb. a great festival seems at hand for which mother earth has adorned herself with garments of the richest and most beautiful hues. what does civilized humanity do with all this splendor? it speculates with it. usurers, who gamble with the necessities of life, will take possession of nature's gifts, of wheat and corn, fruit and flowers, and will carry on a shameless trade with them, while millions of toilers, both in country and city, will be permitted to partake of the earth's riches only in medicinal doses and at exorbitant prices. may's generous promise to mankind, that they were to receive in abundance, is being broken and undone by the existing arrangements of society. the spring sends its glad tidings to man through the jubilant songs that stream from the throats of her feathered messengers. "behold," they sing, "i have such wealth to give away, but you know not how to take. you count and bargain and weigh and measure, rather than feast at my heavily laden tables. you crawl about on the ground, bent by worry and dread, rather than drink in the free balmy air!" the irony of may is neither cold nor hard. it contains a mild yet convincing appeal to mankind to finally break the power of the winter not only in nature, but in our social life,--to free itself from the hard and fixed traditions of a dead past. [illustration] envy. by walt whitman. _when i peruse the conquered fame of heroes, and the victories of mighty generals, i do not envy the generals, nor the president in his presidency, nor the rich in his great house; but when i hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them, how through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, then i am pensive--i hastily walk away, filled with the bitterest envy._ observations and comments. a young man had an ideal which he cherished as the most beautiful and greatest treasure he had on earth. he promised himself never to part with it, come what might. his surroundings, however, repeated from morn till night that one can not feed on ideals, and that one must become practical if he wishes to get on in life. when he attempted the practical, he realized that his ideal could never become reconciled to it. this, at first, caused him deep suffering, but he soon conceived a pleasant thought: "why should i expose my precious jewel to the vulgarity, coarseness and filth of a practical life? i will put it into a jewel case and hide it in a secluded spot." from time to time, especially when business was bad, he stole over to the case containing his ideal, to delight in its splendor. indeed, the world was shabby compared with that! meanwhile he married and his business began to improve. the members of his party had already begun to discuss the possibility of putting him up as a candidate for alderman. he visited his ideal at longer intervals now. he had made a very unpleasant discovery,--his ideal had lessened in size and weight in proportion to the practical opulence of his mind. it grew old and full of wrinkles, which aroused his suspicions. after all, the practical people were right in making light of ideals. did he not observe with his own eyes how his ideal had faded? it had been overlooked for a long time. once more he stole over to the safety vault containing his ideal. it was at a time when he had suffered a severe business loss. with great yearning in his breast, he lifted the cover of the case. he was worn from practical life and his heart and head felt heavy. he found the case empty. his ideal had vanished, evaporated!--it dawned upon him that he had proven false to the ideal, and not the ideal to him. [illustration] pity and sympathy have been celebrating a great feast within the last few weeks. when they look into the mirror of public opinion they find their own reflex touchingly beautiful, big, very human. want was about to commit self-destruction in abolishing poverty, tears and the despair of suffering humanity forever. the "heart" of new york, the "heart" of the country, the "heart" of the entire world throbs for san francisco. the press says so, at least. no doubt a large amount in checks and banknotes was sent to the city of the golden gate. money, in these days, is the criterion of emotions and sentiments; so that the pity of one who gives $ , must appear incomparably greater than the pity of one who contributes a small sum which was perhaps intended to buy shoes for the children, or to pay the grocery bill. a large sum is always loud and boastful in the way it appears in the newspapers. the delicate tact and fine taste of the various editors see to it that the names of the donors of large sums be printed in heavy type. after all, can not one every day and in every large city observe the same phenomenon that has followed the disaster in san francisco? surely there were homeless, starved, despaired, wretched beings in san francisco before the earthquake and the fire, yet the public's pity and sympathy haughtily passed them by; and official sympathy and compassion had nothing but the police station and the workhouse to give them. and now,--what is really being done now? humanitarianism is exhibiting itself in a low and vulgar manner, and superficiality and bad taste are stalking about in peacock fashion. the newspapers are full of praise for the bravery of the militia in their defense of property. a man was instantly shot as he walked out of a saloon with his arms full of champagne bottles, and another was shot for carrying off a sack of coffee, etc. how strange that the "brave boys" of the militia,--who, by the way, had to be severely disciplined because of their beastly drunkenness,--showed so much noble indignation against a few clumsy thieves! during the strikes and labor conflicts it is usually their mission to protect the property of skillful thieves,--legal thieves, of course. finally what is going to be the end of the great display of superficial sentimentality for the stricken city? an all-around good deal: moneyed people, contractors, real estate speculators will make large sums of money. indeed it is not at all unlikely that within a few months good christian capitalists will secretly thank their lord that he sent the earthquake. [illustration] as an employer, the united states government is certainly tolerant and liberal, especially so far as the highly remunerative offices are concerned. the president, for instance, loves to deliver himself of moral sermons. recently he spoke of the people who criticise government and society and breed discontent. he considers them dangerous and entertains little regard for them. he ought not be blamed for that, since, as the first clerk of the state, it is his duty to represent its interests and dignity. the most ordinary business agent, though he may be convinced of the corruption of his firm, will take good care to keep this fact from the public. business morals demand it. besides, no one will expect or desire that the president should become a revolutionist. this would certainly be no gain of ours, nor would the state suffer harm. surely there are enough professional politicians who do not lack talent for the calling of doorkeepers on a large scale. as to the moral sermons against the undesirable and obnoxious element, all that can be said, from a practical standpoint, is, that their originality and wisdom are in no proportion to the salary the sermonizer receives. competition among preachers of penitence and servility is almost as great as among patent medicine quacks. four or five thousand a year can easily buy the services of a corpulent, reverend gentleman of some prominence. [illustration] the dangers of the first of may, when france was to be ruined by the "mob" of socialists and anarchists, was very fantastically described by the paris correspondents of the american newspapers. these gentlemen seem to have known everything. they discovered that the cause of the threatened revolution was to be found in the irresponsible good nature and kindness of the french government. just show "satan" anarchy a finger, and straightway he will seize the entire arm. especially m. clemenceau was severely censured as being altogether too good a fellow to make a reliable minister. there he is with france near the abyss of a social revolution! that is the manner in which history is being manufactured for boarding-school young ladies. the social revolution may come, but surely not because of the kindness or good nature of the government. france needed a newspaper boom for her elections: "the republic is in danger; for goodness' sake give us your vote on election day!" in order that the citizens might feel the proper horror, trade-union leaders, anarchists and even a few royalistic scare-crows were arrested; at the same time the sympathy and devotion of the government for its people manifested itself in the reign of the military terror in the strike regions. the real seriousness of the situation, the correspondents failed to grasp. how could they? since they got their wisdom in the ante-chamber of the ministry. the revolutionary labor organizations care little for the good will or the jesuit kindness of the authorities. they continue with their work, propagate the idea of direct action, and strengthen the anti-military movement, the result of which is already being felt among the soldiers and officers. the officer who jumped upon the platform at the bourse du travail, expressing his solidarity with the workers and declaring that he would not fire on them, was immediately arrested; but this will only influence others to follow the good example. [illustration] in the old fables the lion is described as supreme judge and not the mule or the wether. in cleveland things are different. several weeks ago olga nethersole gave a performance of sappho there. whereupon the police felt moved to perform an operation on the play, for moral reasons, of course. the staircase scene was ordered to be left out altogether. ye poor, depraved artists, how low ye might sink, were the police and comstock not here to watch over the moral qualities of your productions! if one observes one of these prosaic fellows on the corner, terribly bored, and with his entire intellect concentrated on his club, and how out of pure ennui he is constantly recapitulating the number of his brass buttons, one can hardly realize that such an individual has been entrusted with the power to decide the fate of an artistic production. [illustration] the french people marched through the streets singing: o, what is it the people cry? they ask for all equality. the poor no more shall be in slavish misery; the idle rich shall flee. o, what is it the people need? they ask for bread and iron and lead. the iron to win our pay, the lead our foes to slay, the bread our friends to feed. the soldiers at mount carmel, pennsylvania, who were ordered by their superiors to fire into a crowd of strikers and wounded and killed innocent men and women, do not sing the carmagnole; they sing: "my country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty!" if the ruling powers continue to maintain peace and order with iron and blood it may happen that the meaningless national hymn may be drowned by the carmagnole, pealing forth like thunder from the throats of the masses. [illustration] to the credit of human nature be it said, it is not altogether hopeless. since tyranny has existed, human nature has ever rebelled against it. real slavery exists only when the oppressed consider their fate as something normal, something self-evident. there is greater security for tyranny in slavish thoughts, indifference and pettiness than in cannons and swords. [illustration] "this man gorky." by margaret grant. the women of america are aroused as never before. they always are aroused to the defense of their firesides. even those women who live in flats are awake to the need for defending their radiators or their gas stoves; it is inherent in the nature of woman, it seems. most of the women's societies and clubs have spoken in no uncertain terms concerning the outrage that has been put upon the civilization of this great country by the conduct of this man gorky. and, in fact, it is a thing not to be borne. as for me, i belong to the woman's association for the regulation of the morals of others, a society which is second to none in its activity and usefulness, but which has seen fit to defer its own discussion of this man gorky's conduct until most of the other women's societies have spoken. we have just had our meeting, and i think that if this man gorky should read an account of our proceedings, he would certainly get out of this outraged country with all the celerity of which he is capable. but, of course, he is only a foreigner after all and probably will not comprehend the exquisite purity of our morals. i want to say that in our meetings we do not slavishly follow those parliamentary rules which men have made for their guidance, but allow ourselves some latitude in discussion. and we do not invite some man to come and do all the talking, as is the case in some women's clubs. mrs. blanderocks was in the chair. we began with an informal discussion of the best way of preventing the common people from dressing so as not to be distinguished from the upper classes, but there was no heart in the talk, for we all felt that it was only preliminary. it was my friend sarah warner who changed the subject. "the woman's state republican association held its annual meeting at delmonico's yesterday," she said, quietly drawing a newspaper clipping from her pocket-book. "and had some men there to amuse them and to tell them what to do," said mrs. blanderocks with cutting irony. we all laughed heartily. we meet at mrs. blanderocks' house, and she always provides a beautiful luncheon. "but mrs. flint said some things that i would like to read to you," said sarah. "it won't take long. i cut this out of the 'times' this morning." "what is it about?" some one asked. "gorky," sarah answered, closing her eyes in a way to express volumes. you could hear all the members catch their breath. this was what they had come for. i broke the oppressive silence. "i foresee," i said, "that in the discussion of this subject there will be said things likely to bring a blush to the cheek of innocence, and i move that all unmarried women under the age of twenty-five be excluded from the meeting for as long as this man is under discussion." a fierce cry of rage rose from all parts of the crowded room. i did not understand. i could see no one who would be affected by the rule. mrs. blanderocks raised her hand to command silence and said coldly: "the motion is out of order. by a special provision of our constitution it is the inalienable right of all unmarried women to be under twenty-five. we will be as careful in our language as the subject will permit. mrs. warner will please read the words of mrs. flint." i was shocked to think i had made such a mistake. sarah rose and read in a clear, sharp voice from the clipping: "should not we as women take some action against this man? people of such character should not be allowed in this country. of course when he arrived it was not known how he was living, but he came here and expected to be received; and i think he should be deported. gorky is the embodiment of socialism." everybody applauded violently. i was puzzled and asked a question as soon as i could make myself heard. "suppose gorky is a socialist," i said; "what has that to do with his morals?" "everything," replied mrs. blanderocks, haughtily. "socialists don't believe in marriage," said sarah warner, taking another clipping from her pocket-book and reading: "'mrs. cornelia robinson said: when the question of uniform divorce law is taken up, we shall find that the socialists are against it as a body. it is not that they are opposed to divorce, but they do not believe in marriage.'" "and does she know?" i asked. "would she say it publicly if it were not true?" demanded mrs. blanderocks, glaring disapprovingly at me. i rose to my feet. i will say for myself that my desire for knowledge is greater even than my shyness, and usually overcomes it. "i want to make a motion," i said, "that this man gorky be deported--" (loud applause)--"but before doing so i would like some one to explain in as plain words as the nature of the subject will permit, just what he has been guilty of." dead silence broken by a voice saying: "he's a foreigner." "i'll tell you what he has done," cried sarah warner; "he came into this country pretending that the woman who was with him was his wife; he allowed her to be registered at the hotel as his wife; he permitted her to sleep under the same roof with pure men and women--" "i would like to ask mrs. warner," said a lady in a remote corner of the room, "if she will vouch for the purity of the men?" "perhaps," said mrs. blanderocks, gravely, "it will be better if the word men be stricken from the record. do you object, mrs. warner?" "it was a slip of the tongue," sarah answered, "and i am grateful to the member who called attention to it; though i will say that i think there are some pure men." "we are discussing gorky now," said mrs. blanderocks with an indulgent smile. "true," answered sarah, beaming back at the chairwoman; "and i was saying that he had subjected the pure women of the hotel to the unspeakable indignity of having to sleep under the same roof with the woman he called his wife." "i would like to ask," i interposed timidly, "if it is right for a woman to sleep under the same roof with an impure man, or is it only an impure woman who is injurious?" "a woman has to sleep under some roof," came in the voice of the woman in the corner. "i think mrs. grant would show better taste if she did not press such a question," said another voice. "will mrs. warner be good enough to describe the exact status--i think status is right--of the woman he tried to pass as his wife?" "she was his----" sarah had a fit of coughing, "she was not his wife. i do not care to be more explicit." "perhaps," i said, groping for light, "it would be better if i made my motion read that she should be deported from the country, since it is her immorality that counts." "and let those republican association women stand for more morality than we do?" cried mrs. blanderocks. "no, you cannot make your motion too strong." "oh, then," i said, with a sigh of relief, "i will move that gorky and all other men, immoral in the same way, shall be deported from the country." "then who is to take care of us women?" demanded the voice in the corner. "do be reasonable, margaret," said sarah warner, "we can't drive all the men out of the country, and don't want to, but we can fix a standard of morals to astonish the world, and there could be no better way than by making an example of this man gorky. don't you see that he is a foreigner and can't very well know that our men are just as bad as he is? besides, isn't he a socialist? we would have been willing to condone his relations with that woman if only he'd hid them respectably as our men do, but to come here with his free ideas---- well, i'm willing to let the russians have all the freedom they want, and i would have given my mite toward stirring up trouble over there, but we have all the freedom we want over here, and a little more, too, if i know anything about it." "very well," i replied, "i will withdraw the motion and make one to have a committee appointed to investigate the matter and find out the whole truth about it." "what is there to find out?" demanded sarah, aghast. "well, you know he insists that she is his wife. maybe she is by russian law or custom." "perfectly absurd! his own wife and he separated because they couldn't be happy together. was ever anything more ridiculous?" "as if happiness had anything to do with marriage!" said the voice from the corner. everybody laughed and applauded as if something very funny had been said. "well, anyhow," i insisted, for i can be obstinate when a thing isn't clear to me, "if they both thought they were justified in calling themselves man and wife, and if the people in russia thought so, too, why should we make any fuss about it?" "pardon me, mrs. grant," said mrs. blanderocks, suavely, "if i say that your words are very silly. in the first place, the russians are barbarians, as we all know; and, in the next place, the law is the law, and the law says that a man may not have two wives. a man who does is a bigamist. a man who has a wife and yet lives with another woman is an adulterer. pardon me for using such a word, but it was forced from me. now, this man gorky, who may be a very great genius for all i know--i never read any of his stuff--but he isn't above the law: not above the moral law anyhow, and the moral law is the same all over the world. he says he and his wife parted because they were unhappy together, which is a very flimsy excuse for immorality. then he says that his wife is living now with a man she loves and is happy with." "which makes a bad matter worse," interposed sarah warner. "no one has any business to be happy in immorality." "what is morality for," demanded the voice from the corner, "if it isn't to make people unhappy?" everybody screamed with laughter over that, and mrs. blanderocks went so far as to raise her eyebrows at sarah warner, who bit her lip to keep from smiling. "but," said i, for i had been reading the papers, too, "he says the reason they were not divorced was because the church would not permit it." "if the laws of his country were opposed to this divorce," said mrs. blanderocks, triumphantly, "all the more reason why he should be ashamed of living with this actress in such an open, defiant way." "the church has nothing to do with divorces in this country," i said, "yet many of our best people are divorced." "the law permits it," said mrs. blanderocks curtly. "who makes the law?" i asked, determined to get at the bottom of the thing if i could. "the people through the legislature," was the prompt answer. "well," i said, very timidly, not knowing but i was quite in the wrong, "it seems that the people of russia not being able to make laws nevertheless recognize the separation of a man and his wife as proper, and permit them to take other husbands and wives without loss of standing." "a law's a law," said sarah, sternly; "and a law should be sacred. the very idea of anybody pretending to be above the law like this man gorky! i would like to know what would become of the holy institution of matrimony if it could be trifled with in such a fashion?" "you want russia to be free from the rule of the tsar, don't you?" i asked. "certainly, he is a tyrant and an irresponsible weakling, unfit to govern a great people. of course, we want russia to be free. the people of russia are entitled to be free, to govern themselves." "do you think they ought to be allowed to make their own laws?" i asked. "of course." "then, why do you say that gorky is not properly divorced from his first wife and married to his second? the people of russia approve." "margaret grant!" cried sarah, outraged and voicing the horror of the other members, "i sometimes wonder if you have any respect at all for the law. how can you speak as you do? if men and women could dispense with the law in that way what would become of society?" "but this state used to permit men and women to live together without any ceremony and so become man and wife," i said. "well, we don't permit it now," retorted sarah, grimly. "if they want to live together now," cried the voice from the corner, "they must pretend they don't, even if everybody knows they do." some of the members laughed at that, but mrs. blanderocks thought that was going too far and said so in her coldest manner. "i see nothing funny in that. we cannot change the natures of men, but we can insist upon their hiding their baser conduct and the degraded portions of their lives from our view." "but," said i, "gorky evidently considers this woman his wife, and had no idea that anybody would think otherwise." "the point is," said sarah warner, in exasperation, "and i think i voice the sentiments of this organization, that he was not legally divorced from his first wife and that, therefore, he cannot be legally married to this woman. a law is a law, no matter who makes it. the law is sacred and must not be tampered with." "how about the supreme court on divorces in dakota?" demanded the voice from the corner. a dead silence fell on the meeting. some of the members looked at each other and showed signs of hysterics. mrs. blanderocks flashed a withering glance at the corner, but rose to the occasion. "ladies," she said in a solemn tone, "i deeply regret that this subject has been touched upon in a spirit of levity. it was my intention, at the proper time, to introduce a resolution of sympathy for those ladies who have been so summarily and i may say brutally unmarried by the unfeeling wretches who sit upon the bench of the supreme court. it is awful to think that our highly respected sisters, whose wealth alone should have protected them, have been told by the highest court in the land that they have been living in shame all this time, and that their children are not legitimate. ladies, i call your attention to the fact that many of our own members are thus branded by those judges. it is infamous. it is more than infamous--it is a reason why women should sit on the judicial bench." "yes," i said, "it seems impossible for men to comprehend the mental or emotional processes of women." "true, too true," murmured our president, giving me a look of gratitude. "i remember how the men of this country cried out against us a few years ago because they could not understand why we send flowers and tender letters to a poor, handsome negro who had first outraged and then murdered a woman." "yes," i said, "and no doubt they will pretend not to understand our indignation against this man gorky, who thinks the customs of his own country justify him his terrible conduct. but we must be careful how we word our condemnation of this man lest he should somehow learn of what our supreme court has so wickedly done and retort on us that these, our wealthiest and most respected citizens, not being legally divorced and hence not being legally married again, are no better than he and his so-called wife." the ladies looked at each other in consternation. evidently the thought had not suggested itself to them. mrs. x. y. z. asterbilt (née clewbel) rose and in a voice choked with emotion said: "speaking for myself as well as for some of the other ladies, members of this organization, who are temporarily déclassée, so to speak, by this decree of the supreme court, i beg that you will do nothing to call undue attention to us, until we have arranged matters so that our wealth will enable us to have that legislation which is necessary to make us respectable women again." "is it true," i asked, "that you have sent an invitation to madame andreieva to meet you to discuss the steps to be taken to reinstate yourselves?" "it is true, but the extraordinary creature returned word that as a lady of good standing in her own country she did not feel that she could afford to associate with women whom the courts of this country held to be living in shame." "did you ever!" cried mrs. blanderocks. "but it shows us that we must be careful. mrs. grant, you have had experience in such matters, suppose you retire and draw up a set of resolutions that will not expose us to the ribald and unseemly comments of the light-minded." of course i accepted the task, fully realizing its gravity, and following is the resolution i brought back with me: "_whereas_, maxim gorky, recognized in the world of letters as a man of genius, and in the world at large as a man of great soul, high purpose and pure nature, having come to this country accompanied by a lady whom he considers and treats as his wife; and "_whereas_, the wealthy, and therefore the better classes, tumbled all over themselves in order to exploit him as a lion; and "_whereas_, he had not the wisdom and craft and sense of puritanical respectability to pretend that he did not know the lady he believed his wife, and to whom he believes himself united by a law higher than that of man; and "_whereas_, he was guileless enough to believe he had come to a free country where purity of motive and of conduct would take precedence of hollow and rotten forms; and "_whereas_, he did not know that the american people practise polygamy secretly, while condemning it in words, and that the united states senate has been nearly two years in pretending to try to find a polygamist in their midst; and "_whereas_, he was so injudicious as to come here with a defective divorce just at a time when our supreme court was making the divorce of some of us, the gilded favorites of fortune, defective; and "_whereas_, he had the audacity to proclaim himself a socialist, which is the same thing as saying that he is opposed to special privilege, and is in favor of the abolition of property in land and in the tools of labor--in other and plainer words, is against us; and "_whereas_, he is only a foreigner, anyhow, and no longer available as a toy and plaything for us; therefore be it "_resolved_, that this man, gorky, be used as a means of proclaiming our extraordinary virtue to the world at large, as a robber cries stop thief in order to direct attention from himself; that accordingly he be treated with the utmost outrageous discourtesy and hounded from hotel to hotel on the ground that such places by no chance harbor men and women unless they have passed through the matrimonial mill; that we withdraw our patronage from the revolution in russia--not being seriously interested in it anyhow--and that we will show our contempt for revolutionary patriots by entertaining the rottenest grand duke in russia if only he will come over to us, bringing his whole harem if he wish; that he is a reproach to us while he remains in this country, and that it is the sense of this great organization that he and the lady who is his wife in the highest sense shall be deported." the resolution was not passed. i have been expelled from the association. [illustration] comrade. by maxim gorky. translated from the french translation by s. persky, published in "l'aurore," paris. all in that city was strange, incomprehensible. churches in great number pointed their many-tinted steeples toward the sky, in gleaming colors; but the walls and the chimneys of the factories rose still higher, and the temples were crushed between the massive façades of commercial houses, like marvelous flowers sprung up among the ruins, out of the dust. and when the bells called the faithful to prayer, their brazen sounds, sliding along the iron roofs, vanished, leaving no traces in the narrow gaps which separated the houses. they were always large, and sometimes beautiful, these dwellings. deformed people, ciphers, ran about like gray mice in the tortuous streets from morning till evening; and their eyes, full of covetousness, looked for bread or for some distraction; other men placed at the crossways watched with a vigilant and ferocious air, that the weak should, without murmuring, submit themselves to the strong. the strong were the rich: everyone believed that money alone gives power and liberty. all wanted power because all were slaves. the luxury of the rich begot the envy and hate of the poor; no one knew any finer music than the ring of gold; that is why each was the enemy of his neighbor, and cruelty reigned mistress. sometimes the sun shone over the city, but life therein was always wan, and the people like shadows. at night they lit a mass of joyous lights; and then famishing women went out into the streets to sell their caresses to the highest bidder. everywhere floated an odor of victuals, and the sullen and voracious look of the people grew. over the city hovered a groan of misery, stifled, without strength to make itself heard. every one led an irksome, unquiet life; a general hostility was the rule. a few citizens only considered themselves just, but these were the most cruel, and their ferocity provoked that of the herd. all wanted to live; and no one knew or could follow freely the pathway of his desires; like an insatiable monster, the present enveloped in its powerful and vigorous arms the man who marched toward the future, and in that slimy embrace sapped away his strength. full of anguish and perplexity, the man paused, powerless before the hideous aspect of this life: with its thousands of eyes, infinitely sad in their expression, it looked into his heart, asking him for it knew not what,--and then the radiant images of the future died in his soul; a groan out of the powerlessness of the man mingled in the discordant chorus of lamentations and tears from poor human creatures tormented by life. tedium and inquietude reigned everywhere, and sometimes terror. and the dull and somber city, the stone buildings atrociously lined one against the other, shutting in the temples, were for men a prison, rebuffing the rays of the sun. and the music of life was smothered by the cry of suffering and rage, by the whisper of dissimulated hate, by the threatening bark of cruelty, by the voluptuous cry of violence. in the sullen agitation caused by trial and suffering, in the feverish struggle of misery, in the vile slime of egoism, in the subsoils of the houses wherein vegetated poverty, the creator of riches, solitary dreamers full of faith in man, strangers to all, prophets of seditions, moved about like sparks issued from some far-off hearthstone of justice. secretly they brought into these wretched holes tiny fertile seeds of a doctrine simple and grand;--and sometimes rudely, with lightnings in their eyes, and sometimes mild and tender, they sowed this clear and burning truth in the sombre hearts of these slaves, transformed into mute, blind instruments by the strength of the rapacious, by the will of the cruel. and these sullen beings, these oppressed ones, listened without much belief to the music of the new words,--the music for which their hearts had long been waiting. little by little they lifted up their heads, and tore the meshes of the web of lies wherewith their oppressors had enwound them. in their existence, made up of silent and contained rage, in their hearts envenomed by numberless wrongs, in their consciences encumbered by the dupings of the wisdom of the strong, in this dark and laborious life, all penetrated with the bitterness of humiliation, had resounded a simple word: comrade. it was not a new word; they had heard it and pronounced it themselves; but until then it had seemed to them void of sense, like all other words dulled by usage, and which one may forget without losing anything. but now this word, strong and clear, had another sound; a soul was singing in it,--the facets of it shone brilliant as a diamond. the wretched accepted this word, and at first uttered it gently, cradling it in their hearts like a mother rocking her new-born child and admiring it. and the more they searched the luminous soul of the word, the more fascinating it seemed to them. "comrade," said they. and they felt that this word had come to unite the whole world, to lift all men up to the summits of liberty and bind them with new ties, the strong ties of mutual respect, respect for the liberties of others in the name of one's own liberty. when this word had engraved itself upon the hearts of the slaves, they ceased to be slaves; and one day they announced their transformation to the city in this great human formula: i will not. then life was suspended, for it is they who are the motor force of life, they and no other. the water supply stopped, the fire went out, the city was plunged in darkness. the masters began to tremble like children. fear invaded the hearts of the oppressors. suffocating in the fumes of their own dejection, disconcerted and terrified by the strength of the revolt, they dissimulated the rage which they felt against it. the phantom of famine rose up before them, and their children wailed plaintively in the darkness. the houses and the temples, enveloped in shadow, melted into an inanimate chaos of iron and stone; a menacing silence filled the streets with a clamminess as of death; life ceased, for the force which created it had become conscious of itself; and enslaved humanity had found the magic and invincible word to express its will; it had enfranchised itself from the yoke; with its own eyes it had seen its might,--the might of the creator. these days were days of anguish to the rulers, to those who considered themselves the masters of life; each night was as long as thousands of nights, so thick was the gloom, so timidly shone the few fires scattered through the city. and then the monster city, created by the centuries, gorged with human blood, showed itself in all its shameful weakness; it was but a pitiable mass of stone and wood. the blind windows of the houses looked upon the street with a cold and sullen air, and out on the highway marched with valiant step the real masters of life. they, too, were hungry, more than the others perhaps; but they were used to it, and the suffering of their bodies was not so sharp as the suffering of the old masters of life; it did not extinguish the fire in their souls. they glowed with the consciousness of their own strength, the presentiment of victory sparkled in their eyes. they went about in the streets of the city which had been their narrow and sombre prison, wherein they had been overwhelmed with contempt, wherein their souls had been loaded with abuse, and they saw the great importance of their work, and thus was unveiled to them the sacred right they had to become the masters of life, its creators and its lawgivers. and the lifegiving word of union presented itself to them with a new face, with a blinding clearness: "comrade." there among lying words it rang out boldly, as the joyous harbinger of the time to come, of a new life open to all in the future;--far or near? they felt that it depended upon them whether they advanced towards liberty or themselves deferred its coming. the prostitute who, but the evening before, was but a hungry beast, sadly waiting on the muddy pavement to be accosted by some one who would buy her caresses, the prostitute, too, heard this word, but was undecided whether to repeat it. a man the like of whom she had never seen till then approached her, laid his hand upon her shoulder and said to her in an affectionate tone, "comrade." and she gave a little embarrassed smile, ready to cry with the joy her wounded heart experienced for the first time. tears of pure gaiety shone in her eyes, which, the night before, had looked at the world with a stupid and insolent expression of a starving animal. in all the streets of the city the outcasts celebrated the triumph of their reunion with the great family of workers of the entire world; and the dead eyes of the houses looked on with an air more and more cold and menacing. the beggar to whom but the night before an obol was thrown, price of the compassion of the well-fed, the beggar also heard this word; and it was the first alms which aroused a feeling of gratitude in his poor heart, gnawed by misery. a coachman, a great big fellow whose patrons struck him that their blows might be transmitted to his thin-flanked, weary horse, this man imbruted by the noise of wheels upon the pavement, said, smiling, to a passer-by: "well, comrade!" he was frightened at his own words. he took the reins in his hands, ready to start, and looked at the passer-by, the joyous smile not yet effaced from his big face. the other cast a friendly glance at him and answered, shaking his head: "thanks, comrade; i will go on foot; i am not going far." "ah, the fine fellow!" exclaimed the coachman enthusiastically; he stirred in his seat, winking his eyes gaily, and started off somewhere with a great clatter. the people went in groups crowded together on the pavements, and the great word destined to unite the world burst out more and more often among them, like a spark: "comrade." a policeman, bearded, fierce, and filled with the consciousness of his own importance, approached the crowd surrounding an old orator at the corner of a street, and, after having listened to the discourse, he said slowly: "assemblages are interdicted ... disperse...." and after a moment's silence, lowering his eyes, he added, in a lower tone, "comrades." the pride of young combatants was depicted in the faces of those who carried the word in their hearts, who had given it flesh and blood and the appeal to union; one felt that the strength they so generously poured into this living word was indestructible, inexhaustible. here and there blind troops of armed men, dressed in gray, gathered and formed ranks in silence; it was the fury of the oppressors preparing to repulse the wave of justice. and in the narrow streets of the immense city, between the cold and silent walls raised by the hands of ignored creators, the noble belief in man and in fraternity grew and ripened. "comrade."--sometimes in one corner, sometimes in another, the fire burst out. soon this fire would become the conflagration destined to enkindle the earth with the ardent sentiment of kinship, uniting all its peoples; destined to consume and reduce to ashes the rage, hate and cruelty by which we are mutilated; the conflagration which will embrace all hearts, melt them into one,--the heart of the world, the heart of beings noble and just;--into one united family of workers. in the streets of the dead city, created by slaves, in the streets of the city where cruelty reigned, faith in humanity and in victory over self and over the evil of the world grew and ripened. and in the vague chaos of a dull and troubled existence, a simple word, profound as the heart, shone like a star, like a light guiding toward the future: comrade. [illustration] alexander berkman. by e. g. on the th of this month the workhouse at hoboken, pa., will open its iron gates for alexander berkman. one buried alive for fourteen years will emerge from his tomb. that was not the intention of those who indicted berkman. in the kindness of their christian hearts they saw to it that he be sentenced to twenty-one years in the penitentiary and one year in the workhouse, hoping that that would equal a death penalty, only with a slow, refined execution. to achieve the feat of sending a man to a gradual death, the authorities of pittsburg at the command of mammon trampled upon their much-beloved laws and the legality of court proceedings. these laws in pennsylvania called for seven years imprisonment for the attempt to kill, but that did not satisfy the law-abiding citizen h. c. frick. he saw to it that one indictment was multiplied into six. he knew full well that he would meet with no opposition from petrified injustice and the servile stupidity of the judge and jury before whom alexander berkman was tried. in looking over the events of and the causes that led up to the act of alexander berkman, one beholds mammon seated upon a throne built of human bodies, without a trace of sympathy on its gorgon brow for the creatures it controls. these victims, bent and worn, with the reflex of the glow of the steel and iron furnaces in their haggard faces, carry their sacrificial offerings to the ever-insatiable monster, capitalism. in its greed, however, it reaches out for more; it neither sees the gleam of hate in the sunken eyes of its slaves, nor can it hear the murmurs of discontent and rebellion coming forth from their heaving breasts. yet, discontent continues until one day it raises its mighty voice and demands to be heard: human conditions! higher pay! fewer hours in the inferno at homestead, the stronghold of the "philanthropist" carnegie! he was far away, however, enjoying a much needed rest from hard labor, in scotland, his native country. besides he knew he had left a worthy representative in h. c. frick, who could take care that the voice of discontent was strangled in a fitting manner,--and mr. carnegie had judged rightly. frick, who was quite experienced in the art of disposing of rebellious spirits (he had had a number of them shot in the coke regions in ), immediately issued an order for pinkerton men, the vilest creatures in the human family, who are engaged in the trade of murder for $ per day. the strikers declared that they would not permit these men to land, but money and power walk shrewd and cunning paths. the pinkerton blood-hounds were packed into a boat and were to be smuggled into homestead by way of water in the stillness of night. the amalgamated steel workers learned of this contemptible trick and prepared to meet the foe. they gathered by the shores of the monongahela river armed with sticks and stones, but ere they had time for an attack a violent fire was opened from the boat that neared the shore, and within an hour eleven strikers lay dead from the bullets of frick's hirelings. every beast is satisfied when it has devoured its prey,--not so the human beast. after the killing of the strikers h. c. frick had the families of the dead evicted from their homes, which had been sold to the workingmen on the instalment plan and at the exorbitant prices usual in such cases. out of these homes the wives and children of the men struggling for a living wage were thrown into the street and left without shelter. there was one exception only. a woman who had given birth to a baby two days previous and who, regardless of her delicate condition, defended her home and succeeded in driving the sheriff from the house with a poker. everyone stood aghast at such brutality, at such inhumanity to man, in this great free republic of ours. it seemed as if the cup of human endurance had been filled to the brim, as if out of the ranks of the outraged masses some one would rise to call those to account who had caused it all. and some one rose in mighty indignation against the horrors of wealth and power. it was alexander berkman! a youth with a vision of a grand and beautiful world based upon freedom and harmony, and with boundless sympathy for the suffering of the masses. one whose deep, sensitive nature could not endure the barbarisms of our times. such was the personality of the man who staked his life as a protest against tyranny and iniquity; and such has alexander berkman remained all these long, dreary fourteen years. nothing was left undone to crush the body and spirit of this man; but sorrow and suffering make for sacred force, and those who have never felt it will fail to realize how it is that alexander berkman will return to those who loved and esteemed him, to those whom he loved so well, and still loves so well,--the oppressed and down-trodden millions--with the same intense, sweet spirit and with a clearer and grander vision of a world of human justice and equality. ut sementem feceris, ita metes. by voltairine de cleyre (to the czar, on a woman, a political prisoner, being flogged to death in siberia.) _how many drops must gather to the skies before the cloud-burst comes, we may not know; how hot the fires in under hells must glow ere the volcano's scalding lavas rise, can none say; but all wot the hour is sure! who dreams of vengeance has but to endure! he may not say how many blows must fall, how many lives be broken on the wheel, how many corpses stiffen 'neath the pall, how many martyrs fix the blood-red seal; but certain is the harvest time of hate! and when weak moans, by an indignant world re-echoed, to a throne are backward hurled, who listens hears the mutterings of fate!_ [illustration] the white terror. _i.--the flogging of a student._ (by an eye-witness--m. kirilov, of the "russ.") december th. near the gorbaty bridge, moscow. a group of soldiers of various arms and an officer. great animation, jokes, cries, gesticulation, contented faces. a student has fallen into their hands. "well, boys, make room," says the officer. "the performance begins!" "take off your trousers," says the officer, turning to the student. the latter is pale, silent, and does not move. "trousers off!" cries the officer, in rage; but the student, without a drop of blood in his face, whiter than the snow, does not move, but only looks around in silence with horrified eyes and meets everywhere the triumphant faces of his tormentors. he drops his head and remains silent as before. "well, then, boys, we must assist our dear student; his hands, poor thing, are frost bitten and do not obey." the voice of the officer changes; it becomes sweet and smooth. he looks at the student with pleasure. "take off his dear little trousers!" he orders his soldiers. the latter unbutton and tear down his trousers. the student does not resist. then he is thrown on the ground. "give him beans, boys!" two powerfully-built soldiers step forward, holding whips in their hands. the flogging begins. it lasts a long time, accompanied by loud laughter, jokes and noise. the student is silent all the time and lies with his face buried in the snow. he is constantly being asked whether he feels allright, and is kicked with the boots on his head. "halt!" cries the officer at last, when the whole body of the student has been covered with blood. the excited soldiers do not leave off at once, but continue for some time. at last they stop. "please, sir, won't you allow us, too, to have a little game?" smilingly ask a couple of artillery soldiers, saluting the officer. "well, have a go at him," says the officer kindly. the second shift gets to work, and turning up their sleeves, takes over the bloody whips and resumes the flogging of the student, who still, as before, is lying in the snow without uttering a word. only his body still thrills instinctively as the soldiers get more and more excited and the blows become more and more frequent. "sir, we, too, want some of the lark," impatiently interfered some of the dragoons, and having received the permission of the officer, substituted themselves for the artillery men and with new force and zeal began to flog the student, who still lay strictly as before, only his body scarcely moving. "well, here you are, you got your higher education--all the three faculties!" somebody joked as the flogging at last stopped and the student lay motionless in the snow. but he was not flogged to death. he was taken to the other side of the river and there shot. _ii.--lieutenant schmidt, of the sevastopol mutiny, after being captured._ (from a letter received by prof. miliukov from a lady correspondent who saw schmidt in the fortress and had the tale from his own lips.) ....he only remembers how the officers of the "rostislavl" posted him naked, with a broken leg, between two sentries in their mess-room and approached him in turns, shaking their fists in his face and abusing him in the vilest terms. schmidt's son, who, for some unaccountable reason, had been kept in fortress for two months, said to me: "i cannot tell you how they abused my father, the terms are unpronounceable." schmidt himself spoke to me sobbingly of the painful treatment meted out to him by the officers.... for twenty-four hours the two of them, father and son, were kept stark naked and without food, under a fierce electric light, on the open deck. they lay together, pressing against each other so as to warm themselves, and everyone who passed looked at them, and those who wanted, abused them. when schmidt, being wounded, asked for a drop of water, the senior officer shouted at him: "silence, or i'll stop your gullet with my fist." [illustration] paternalistic government. by theodore schroeder. history serves no purpose to those who cannot, or do not avail themselves of it as a means of learning helpful lessons, for present use. from a few sources not readily accessible to the masses, i have copied a partial summary of paternalistic legislation which even the most devout devotees to mass or ruling class wisdom would now decline to defend. it is helpful, perhaps, to look back to the persistent fallacious assumption that men can be made frugal and useful members of society by laws and edicts. every thoughtful student feels sure that future generations will look upon our present efforts to regulate the self-regarding activities of humans with the same cynical leer as that which now flits over our faces as we read the following:-- the earliest sumptuary law was passed b. c., enacted that no woman should own more than half an ounce of gold or wear a dress of different colors, or ride in a carriage in the city or in any town or within a mile of it, unless on occasion of public sacrifices. this law was repealed in twenty years. in b. c. a law was passed limiting the number of guests at entertainments. in b. c. it was provided that at certain festivals named the expense of entertainments should not exceed asses, and on ten other days of each month should not exceed asses. later on it was allowed that asses, valued at about $ , be spent upon marriage days. a statute under julian extended the privileges of extravagance on certain occasions to the equivalent of $ , and $ upon marriage feasts. under tiberius, $ was made the limit of expense for entertainments. julius cæsar proposed another law by which actual magistrates, or magistrates elect, should not dine abroad except at certain prescribed places. sumptuary laws, that is to say, laws which profess to regulate minutely what people shall eat and drink, what guests they shall entertain, what clothes they shall wear, what armor they shall possess, what limit shall be put to their property, what expense they shall incur at their funerals, were considered by the early and middle ages as absolutely necessary for the proper government of mankind. tiberius issued an edict against people kissing each other when they met and against tavern keepers selling pastry. lycurgus even prohibited finely decorated ceilings and doors. in england the statutes of laborers, reciting the pestilence and scarcity of servants, made it compulsory on every person who had no merchandise, craft or land on which to live, to serve at fixed wages, otherwise to be committed to gaol till he found sureties. at a latter day, all men between twelve and sixty not employed were compelled to hire themselves as servants in husbandry; and unmarried women between twelve and forty were also liable to be hired, otherwise to be imprisoned. all this, of course, was to compel people of modest wealth to remain among the laboring class purely for their own good. (?) but they were quite impartial in enforcing benefits, since the star chamber also assumed to fine persons for not accepting knighthood. compulsion was also used at the time of the reformation, to uphold the protestant faith and keep people in the right way. refusing to confess or receive the sacrament was first made subject to fine or imprisonment, and a second offense was a felony punishable by death, and involved forfeiture of land and goods. those who, having no lawful excuse, failed to attend the parish church, in the time of elizabeth, were fined twelve pence--at that time a considerable sum. this penalty was afterwards altered to twenty pounds a month, but those were exempted who did not obstinately refuse. the penalty on all above sixteen who neglected to go for a month was abjuration of the realm; and to return to the realm thereafter was felony. and two-thirds of the rent of the offender's lands might also be seized till he conformed. an ordinance of edward iii., in , prohibited any man having more than two courses at any meal. each mess was to have only two sorts of victuals, and it was prescribed how far one could mix sauce with his pottage, except on feast days, when three courses, at most, were allowable. the licinian law limited the quantity of meat to be used. the orcian law limited the expense of a private entertainment and the number of guests. and for like reasons, the censors degraded a senator because ten pounds weight of silver plate was found in his house. julius cæsar was almost as good a reformer as our modern puritans. he restrained certain classes from using litters, embroidered robes and jewels; limited the extent of feasts; enabled bailiffs to break into the houses of rich citizens and snatch the forbidden meats from off the tables. and we are told that the markets swarmed with informers, who profited by proving the guilt of all who bought and sold there. so in carthage a law was passed to restrain the exorbitant expenses of marriage feasts, it having been found that the great hanno took occasion of his daughter's marriage to feast and corrupt the senate and the populace, and gained them over to his designs. the vhennic court established by charlemagne in westphalia put every saxon to death who broke his fast during lent. james ii. of arragon, in , ordained that his subjects should not have more than two dishes, and each dressed in one way only, unless it was game of his own killing. the statute of diet of enjoined that servants of lords should have once a day flesh or fish, and remnants of milk, butter and cheese; and above all, ploughmen were to eat moderately. and the proclamations of edward iv. and henry viii. used to restrain excess in eating and drinking. all previous statutes as to abstaining from meat and fasting were repealed in the time of edward vi. by new enactments, and in order that fishermen might live, all persons were bound under penalty to eat fish on fridays or saturdays, or in lent, the old and the sick excepted. the penalty in queen elizabeth's time was no less than three pounds or three months' imprisonment, but at the same time added that whoever preached or taught that eating of fish was necessary for the saving of the soul of man, or was the service of god, was to be punished as a spreader of false news. and care was taken to announce that the eating of fish was enforced not out of superstition, but solely out of respect to the increase of fishermen and mariners. the exemption of the sick from these penalties was abolished by james i., and justices were authorized to enter victualing houses and search and forfeit the meat found there. all these preposterous enactments were swept away in the reign of victoria. of all the petty subjects threatening the cognizance of the law, none seems to have given more trouble to the ancient and mediæval legislatures than that of dress. * * * yet views of morality, of repressing luxury and vice, of benefiting manufacturers, of keeping all degrees of mankind in their proper places, have induced the legislature to interfere, where interference, in order to be thorough, would require to be as endless as it would be objectless. solon prohibited women from going out of the town with more than three dresses. zaleucus is said to have invented an ingenious method of circuitously putting down what he thought bad habits, namely, by prohibiting things with an exception, so that the exception should, in the guise of an exemption, really carry out the sting and operate as a deterrent. thus he forbade a woman to have more than one maid, unless she was drunk; he forbade her to wear jewels or embroidered robes, or go abroad at night, except she was a prostitute; he forbade all but panders to wear gold rings or fine cloth. and it was said that he succeeded admirably in his legislation. the spartans had such a contempt for cowards that those who fled in battle were compelled to wear a low dress of patches and shape, and, moreover, to wear a long beard half shaved, so that any one meeting them might give them a stroke. the oppian law of rome restricted women in their dress and extravagance, and the roman knights had the privilege of wearing a gold ring. the ancient babylonians held it to be indecent to wear a walking stick without an apple, a rose, or an eagle engraved on the top of it. the first inca of peru is said to have made himself popular by allowing his people to wear ear-rings--a distinction formerly confined to the royal family. by the code of china, the dress of the people was subject to minute regulation, and any transgression was punished by fifty blows of the bamboo. and he who omitted to go into mourning on the death of a relation, or laid it aside too soon, was similarly punished. don edward of portugal, in , passed a law to suppress luxury in dress and diet, and with his nobles set an example. in florence a like law was passed in . and in venice, laws regulating nearly all the expenses of families, in table, clothes, gaming and traveling. a law of the muscovites obliged the people to crop their beards and shorten their clothes. in zurich a law prohibited all except strangers to use carriages, and in basle no citizen or inhabitant was allowed to have a servant behind his carriage. about , philip the fair, of france, by edict, ordered how many suits of clothes, and at what price, and how many dishes at table should be allowed, and that no woman should keep a cur. the irish laws regulated the dress, and even its colors, according to the rank and station of the wearer. and the brehon laws forbade men to wear brooches so long as to project and be dangerous to those passing near. in scotland, a statute enacted that women should not come to kirk or market with their faces covered, and that they should dress according to their estate. in the city of london, in the thirteenth century, women were not allowed to wear, in the highway or the market, a hood furred with other than lamb-skin or rabbit-skin. in the middle ages, it was not infrequent to compel prostitutes to wear a particular dress, so that they might not be mistaken for other women. and this was the law in the city of london, as appears from records of and . the views and objects of english legislators as to the general subject of dress, however preposterous in our eyes, were grave and serious enough. they were so confident of their ground that it was recited that "wearing inordinate and excessive apparel was a displeasure to god, was an impoverishing of the realm and enriching other strange realms and countries, to the final destruction of the husbandry of the realm, and leading to robberies." the statute of diet and apparel in , and the later statutes, minutely fixed the proper dress for all classes according to their estate, and the price they were to pay; handicraftsmen were not to wear clothes above forty shillings, and their families were not to wear silk or velvet. and so with gentlemen and esquires, merchants, knights and clergy, according to graduations. ploughmen were to wear a blanket and a linen girdle. no female belonging to the family of a servant in husbandry was to wear a girdle garnished with silver. every person beneath a lord was to wear a jacket reaching to his knees, and none but a lord was to wear pikes to his shoes exceeding two inches. ( .) nobody but a member of the royal family was to wear cloth of gold or purple silk, and none under a knight to wear velvet, damask or satin, or foreign wool, or fur of sable. it is true, notwithstanding all these restrictions, that a license of the king enabled the licensee to wear anything. for one whose income was under twenty pounds, to wear silk in his night-cap was to incur three months' imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds a day. and all above the age of six, except ladies and gentlemen, were bound to wear on the sabbath day a cap of knitted wool. these statutes of apparel were not repealed till the reign of james i. sometimes, though rarely, a legislature has gone the length of suddenly compelling an entire change of dress among a people, for reasons at the time thought urgent. in china a law was passed to compel the tartars to wear chinese clothes, and to compel the chinese to cut their hair, with a view to unite the two races. and it was said there were many who preferred martyrdom to obedience. so late as , a statute was passed to punish with six months' imprisonment, and on a second offense with seven years' transportation, the scottish highlanders, men or boys, who wore their national costume or a tartan plaid, it being conceived to be closely associated with a rebellious disposition. after thirty-six years the statute was repealed. while the act was in force it was evaded by people carrying their clothes in a bag over their shoulders. the prohibition was hateful to all, as impeding their agility in scaling the craggy steeps of their native fastnesses. in the punishment assigned by the act of was changed into compulsory service in the army. plato says it is one of the unwritten laws of nature that a man shall not go naked into the market-place or wear woman's clothes. the mosaic law forbade men to wear women's clothes, which was thought to be a mode of discountenancing the assyrian rites of venus. the early christians, following a passage of st. paul ( cor. xi.), treated the practice of men and women wearing each other's clothes as confounding the order of nature, and as liable to heavy censure of anathema. there was formerly rigorous punishment of persons poaching game with blackened faces. those who hunted in forests with faces disguised were declared to be felons. and as disguises led to crime, and mummers often were pretenders, all who assumed disguise or visors as mummers, and attempted to enter houses or committed assaults in highways, were liable to be arrested and committed to prison for three months, without bail. the mosaic law prohibited the practice of using alhenna, or putting an indelible color on the skin, as was done on occasions of mourning, or in resemblance of the dead, or in honor of some idol. and two fashions of wearing the beard and hair were prohibited, as has been supposed, on account of idolatrous association. even bacon said he wondered there was no penal law against painting the face. (_to be continued._) liberty in common life. by bolton hall. it seems to me that none of us see how far-reaching freedom will be. the socialists have abundantly shown that if only the wastes of production and distribution were saved, two or three hours' labor per day would produce all that we produce now. if, in addition to this saving, the land, including all the resources of nature, were opened to labor, so that all workers would use the best parts of the earth to the best advantage, wealth would be so abundant that interest would disappear. even now, with increased production, and notwithstanding the restrictions on the issue of money and our crazy banking system, interest is decreasing so that we find it hard to get per cent. here. suppose to-day the mortgages and railroad bonds, which are forms of ownership of land, were taken out of the market, what interest could we get? certainly not one per cent. were the restrictions on production of the tariff, taxes on products of labor, patent monopolies, hindrances to the making of money through franchise privileges done away with, and above all were private appropriation of rent abolished, wealth would not be so abundant and so easy to obtain that it would not be worth anyone's while to keep account of what he had "lent" to another. with the disappearance, at once, of interest and of the fear of poverty the motive for accumulations of more than would be sufficient to provide against disability or old age will disappear, while such small but universal accumulations made available by a system of mutual banking will provide ample capital for all needed enterprises. co-operation will spring up as a labor-saving device, and the great abilities of the trust managers will be turned to public service instead of public plunder. henry george is wrong in thinking that the increased demand for capital due to free opportunities for labor would increase interest. if it did, it would perpetuate a form of slavery. he omits to notice that the very use of the capital would reproduce wealth and capital so much more abundantly that it would destroy the motive for accumulation. the time will come--it is even now at hand--when dollars and meals and goods will be given to those who ask these as freely as candies or water or cigars are offered to visitors. if i am wrong in this, then i am wasting my efforts, as far as sincere efforts can be wasted. if socialism or anarchism is needed to insure voluntary communism of goods, then it is for socialism or anarchism that we should work; and for me, if i could see, i would turn from single tax to either of them as readily as i would turn down hill if i found that up hill was the wrong road. at present, hardly any one favors these views--of course, not plutocrats, because the doctrine is dangerous; not socialists, because they think that its words turn socialists into land reformers; nor anarchists, because they regard compulsory payment of a fair price for the land one uses as a form of tax; not even single taxers, as yet, because they are wedded to the theory of henry george. my only fear, if there be room for fear, is that the new liberty and leisure will come too soon for the sordid people to make a wise use of it. yet such a fear is like that of a man who should fear that his jaw would grind so hard as to destroy his teeth. the world is moved by one spirit, which everlastingly adjusts action against reaction, so that all is and always must be well. do not shy at truth for fear of its logical consequence. [illustration] statistics. by h. kelly. (_special cable despatch to "the sun."_) "london.--the result of the first organized census of the british empire is issued in a blue book. it shows that the empire consists of an approximate area of , , square miles, or more than one-fifth of the entire land area of the world. "the population is about , , , of whom , , are whites. the population is roughly distributed as follows: in asia, , , ; africa, , , ; europe, , , ; america, , , , and australasia, , , . "the most populous city after london is calcutta. the highest proportion of married persons is in india, natal, cyprus and canada. the lowest is in the west indies. depression in the birth rate is general almost everywhere, but is most remarkable in australasia. the proportion of insane persons in the colonies is much below that in the united kingdom. insanity is markedly decreasing in india, despite consanguineous marriages. indeed, the theory that such marriages produce mental unsoundness is little supported by these statistics." to those who read without preconceived notions, the figures given above show how history repeats itself. the british empire is decaying at the centre, and the census just taken proves it conclusively. the proportion of insane in the colonies, even in poor famine-stricken india, is "much below" that in the united kingdom. striking as these figures on insanity are, they convey but a part of the truth as to the real condition of the people of england, ireland, scotland and wales, as all reference to their material well-being (if we were christians we would add and spiritual, for over one million people in these countries never heard of god) is carefully omitted. charles booth, author of that truly great work, "life and labor in london," seventeen volumes, estimates that per cent. of the population of the united kingdom live in a state of poverty, and seebohm rowntree, author of "poverty, a study of town life," puts it at . per cent. mr. rowntree also states that an average of one person in five, or per cent. of the population, die in some public institution, i. e., prison, poor-house, hospital or insane asylum. these statements are depressing enough as they are, but they become worse when we learn that the standard of living upon which they are based are those enjoyed--we use the word advisedly--by poor-house inmates. think of this, ye pharisees, christian and otherwise, per cent. of the population of the british isles living under such conditions! these are not the idle statements of long-haired reformers or yellow journalists, but of two very estimable christian gentlemen, both of them manufacturers and successful business men. they are different from the ordinary exploiter only in the sense of being honest and humane enough to recognize that something is radically wrong with modern civilization and make an earnest attempt to remedy it. in this connection it is worthy of note that when the proprietors of the london "daily news" had a systematic canvas and investigation made into the housing conditions in london, some six or seven years ago, it was found that , people, one-fifth of the population, were living in violation of the law. this was the case notwithstanding that the law says cubic feet of air space for each adult and cubic feet for each child must be provided, whereas professor huxley, who at one time was a physician in the east end of london, said at least cubic feet for an adult and cubic feet for a child was absolutely necessary to keep the air in a fair state of purity. it was and is the proud boast of millions of people that they are co-inheritors of this glorious empire, an empire the greatest the world has ever seen: , , souls and an area so vast that the sun never sets on all its parts at one time. pete curran, the trade unionist and socialist, once remarked he knew parts of the empire upon which the sun never shone, and pete knew. glory and aggrandizement based upon injustice brings its own reward, and when a people subjugate and exploit another, they must inevitably pay the price of their own brutality and injustice. the handwriting is on the wall in the shape of the present census report. decaying at the centre, the british empire is rapidly going the way of the persian, greek and roman empires, and her name will be synonymous with injustice as theirs are. nations no more than individuals can thrive, expand and develop their best faculties unless their lives are based upon freedom and justice. not freedom to exploit a weaker person or people, not justice before the law which is a mockery and a sham, but freedom for each to live his own life in his own way, and justice to all in the shape of equal opportunity to the earth and all it may contain. this lesson applies equally to america, and if any of my countrymen are so blind as not to see it, they deserve pity rather than censure, and it is to be hoped their awakening will not long be delayed. gerhart hauptmann with the weavers of silesia. by max baginski. when i look at the last engraving in the illustrated edition of "hannele," at the angel of death with the impenetrable brow, over whom hannele passes into the region of beauty, i have the consciousness, that that is gerhart hauptmann, such is the inexhaustible wealth of his inner world. the stress of the life effort and the certainty of death, groping forth from delicate intimacies, ripened the fineness and sweetness of this man's soul. the picture contains transitoriness, finiteness, yet also a vista of new formation, new land. of gerhart hauptmann one can say, his art has given meaning to the idea of human love, which in this period is looked upon with suspicious eyes as a bad coin, a new impetus, the reality and symbolic depth of which grips the heart. out of his books one can draw life more than literature. a strong soul-similarity with tolstoi might be observed, i think, if hauptmann were a fighting spirit. i met the poet among the weavers of the eulengebirge, silesia, in the districts of greatest human misery, february, , in langenbielau, the large silesian weaving village. one evening, on my return from a journey, i was informed that a tall gentleman in black had inquired for me. the name of the stranger was gerhart hauptmann, who came to study the conditions of the weaving districts. the visitor had taken lodgings in the "preussischen hof," where i called on him the same evening, with joyous expectation. the name of gerhart hauptmann in those days seemed to contain a watchword, a battle call: not only against the unimportant thrones of literature at that time but also against social oppression, prejudices and moral crippling. hauptmann's first drama, "vor sonnenaufgang," had just appeared and been produced by the free stage in berlin; and had operated like an explosive. it was followed by a flood of vicious and vile criticism. the literary clique little imagined that the future held great success for such "stuff" both in book form and on the stage. this lamentable lack of judgment misled the various pot-boiler writers to attack the new tendency with the most repulsive arguments. one leading paper of those days wrote of hauptmann as an individual of a pronounced criminal physiognomy, of whom one could expect nothing else but dirty, appalling things. such literary highway assaults made one feel doubly happy over the fact, that together with hauptmann were a few splendidly armed fighters, like the aged fontane, with his great poise and fine exactness. the first impression of hauptmann was that he was not a man of easy social carriage, rather discreet, almost shy, and uncommunicative. an absorbed, deep dreamer, yet a keen observer of the human all too human, not easily led astray, not goethe, rather hoelderlin. the guest room of the "preussischen hof" contained many empty benches. the keeper thereof had ample time to meditate over the mission of the strange gentleman, in the weaving districts. i learned the next morning that he had quite decided that hauptmann was some government emissary, intrusted with examining the prevailing distress of the weavers. one thing, however, appeared suspicious, the man associated with the "reds," who, according to the government newspaper, only exaggerated the need and poverty to incite the people for their own political ends. whether or not the misery of the weavers that winter had reached such a point as to warrant an official investigation, had been the topic of discussion for weeks. the state attorney, too, had taken an active part in the matter. the criticism in the labor paper, "the proletarian," of which i was the editor, that the exorbitant profit-making methods of the manufacturers, which left the workers nothing to live on, were met with a number of indictments against the paper on the following grounds: "it was indictable to incite the public at the moment when the prevailing poverty was in itself sufficient to arouse the people and cause danger; that this was criminal, and therefore punishable. the distress was thereby officially acknowledged; was that not sufficient? why then hold the conditions up before the special attention of the people?" we mapped out a tour through the home-weaving settlements. at langenbielau, the textile industry had to a large extent been carried on in mills and factories and at a higher wage. misery was not so appalling and hopeless there, as in the huts of the home weavers. the following days unrolled a horrible picture before the eyes of the poet. the figures of baumann and ansorge from his play "the weavers" became real. with mute accusation on their lips, they moved before the human eye in tangible shape; yet one longed to believe they were only phantoms. they lived, but how they lived was a burning shame to civilization. huts, standing deep in the snow, like whitened sepulchres, and despair staring from every nook, in these days of paternal care, just as at the time of the famine that swept across the district in . strewn among the hills and valleys lay bits of industry that had been passed by technical progress, as so many damned, spooklike spots; and yet those, who vegetated, worked and gradually perished here, were compelled to compete with the great productive giants of steel and iron machinery. the poet entered these homes not with the spirit of a cool observer, nor as a samaritan,--he came as man to man, with no appearance of one stooping to poor lazarus. indeed, it seemed as though hauptmann walked with a much steadier gait in the path of human misery, than on the road of conventionality. steinseifersdorf, situated beyond peterswaldau. a bare snow field, spread about huts of clay, shingles and branches, without a sign of life. neither a cat, dog nor sparrow, not even chimney smoke, to indicate the activity of the inhabitants. heated dwellings in this stretch of land are luxuries, difficult of achievement; and how is one to prepare a warm meal out of nothing? we attempted to enter one of the huts to the right; there was no path leading to it, so that we were compelled to work our way through the deep snow. was it possible that human beings breathed within? the old weather-worn shanty looked as if the slightest breeze would tumble it over. the few wooden steps, leading to the entrance, creaked underneath our steps, and our knock was met with dead silence. we knocked again, and this time heard a faint step slowly moving toward the door; a heavy wooden bolt was moved aside, and we perceived a human face, with the expression of a wounded, frightened animal. like a delinquent, caught at the offense, the human being at the door stared at the invaders. not a ray of hope enlivened the dead expression. no doubt the man had long ceased to expect amelioration of his needs from his fellow beings. the figure was covered with rags, and what rags! not the kind of rags, that tramps wear and which they throw off when luck strikes them, but eternal rags, that seemed to have grown to the skin, to have mingled with it so long that they had become part of it,--disgustingly filthy, but the only cover he had and that he could not throw away. the man, about fifty years of age, was silent and led us through a dirty, cold gray entry into a room. in front of the loom we observed the drooping figure of a woman, a cold oven, four dirty, wet walls, at one of them a wooden bunk also covered with rags that served as bedding; nothing else. the man murmured something to the woman, she rose; both had inflamed eyes, water dripping from them with the same monotony as from the walls. hauptmann began to speak hesitatingly, depressed by the sight of such misery. he received a few harsh replies. the last piece of cloth had been delivered some time since; there was neither bread, flour, potatoes, coal nor wood in the house; in fact, no food or fuel of any sort. this was said in a subdued, fearful voice, as if they expected severe censure or punishment. hauptmann gave the woman some money. the thought of going without leaving sufficient for a supply of food at least for the next few days, was agony. on the widening of the road stood the village inn. the guest room showed little comfort, the innkeeper looked worn and in bad spirits. no trade. innkeepers of factory towns are better off. they can afford guest rooms of a higher order, since they enjoy the patronage of bookkeepers, clerks and teachers. in steinseifersdorf one had to depend on the weavers, and that did not bring enough for a square meal, especially in the winter. the wife of the innkeeper assured us that the misery in kaschbach, a neighboring village, was even greater, even more awful. it was getting late, so we decided to go there the following day. our conversation on our ride homeward dwelt on the fate of these unfortunates, condemned by modern industrialism to a life of the inferno. i asked hauptmann what an effect an artistic, dramatic representation of such a fate could possibly have. he replied that his inclinations were more for summernight's dreams toward sunny vistas, but that an impelling inner force urged him to use this appalling want as an object of his art. as for the hoped-for effect, human beings are not insensible; even the most satisfied, the most comfortable or rich must be gripped in his innermost depths when pictures of such terrible human wretchedness are being unrolled before him. every human being is related to another. my remark that the right of possession has the tendency to blind those who are part of it, hauptmann would not accept as generally true. he was anxious to bring the sympathies of the wealthy into energetic activity; sympathies that would, of course, bring to the poor real relief from their hideous conditions. he added that the poverty of the masses had at times tortured him to such an extent that he was unable to partake of his meals, which were meager enough, especially during his student life in zurich; yet he had felt ashamed of partaking of such a luxury as a cup of coffee even. i had to admit that i could not share his hopes of the influence of an artistic portrayal of the sufferings of the weavers upon the people of wealth. self-satisfied virtue is hard to move. rather did i believe that a great work of art, treating of the life of the masses, was bound to rouse their consciousness to their own conditions. at that time, i believe, hauptmann had already completed his "weavers." his journey into the weaving district was not to collect material for the structure of that tremendous play, rather than it was devoted to details, localities and landscapes. he had already drawn up the outline for his other play, "college crampton," portraying a genial and joyous man, of whom narrowness and miserableness of surroundings make a caricature and who is finally wrecked. langenbielau, after our journey through the golgatha of poverty, seemed a place of relief. the mills, with the increasing noise of machines that dulls the ears and racks the nerves, are by no means an elevating sight, but they bring the workingmen together and awaken their feeling and understanding of solidarity and the necessity for concerted action. here, in spite of sunken chests, great fatigue, poor nourishment, one felt the breeze of the struggling proletarian mind that indicated a new land of regeneration, beyond the misery of our times. for one of the evenings a gathering of the older weavers was arranged. hauptmann had a plate set for each one. during the meal a lively discussion developed. there was one weaver, mathias, very bony, and with a skin like parchment, very poor, but blessed with many children. he related of a bet he had won. the owner of the tavern where we were having our feast had expressed doubt as to the ability of mathias to consume three pounds of pork at once. he volunteered to do it, if the meat would be paid for and a quantity of beer added to it. a neighbor was intrusted with the preparation of the roast. at the appointed hour mathias appeared, together with two other men as witnesses of the contest. the prize eating began, when mathias was confronted by an obstacle: five children belonging to the neighbor surrounded the table, with their eyes widely opened at the unusual sight of a roast. their little faces expressed great desire and their mouths began to water. the prize eater felt very uncomfortable before the longing look of the children. he imagined himself a hard-hearted guzzler, only concerned about his own stomach. he forgot the bet, cut up some of the meat and was about to place it before the children, when a howl of protest arose. this was not permitted, if he wanted to win he would have to eat the entire roast himself. mathias submitted, but dropped his eyes in shame before the children. time and again he involuntarily passed portions of meat to them, but his attempts were frustrated by renewed protests. he could not continue, however, until the little ones were taken out into the cold. there was no other place, since the only room was taken up by the parties concerned in the contest. they might have been put into the cold, dark garret, but that would have been too cruel and would have made mathias unable to carry out the feat. the undertaking was finished, but the winner felt quite wretched; he was conscious of having committed a great sin against the simplest of human demands. the conversation turned to the uprising of the weavers in . many incidents of those days were related. various legend-like and fantastic stories told. also names of people of the neighborhood who had participated in that historic event. the entire affair was very informal and simple, and not an atom of the oppressive atmosphere one feels in the relations between the members of the upper and lower stations of life. the next morning we started for kaschbach. the place looked even more dismal than the one we had visited the day previous. in one of the huts a weaver, with a swollen arm in a sling, led us into a corner of the room. on a bunk covered with straw and rags lay a woman with a little baby near her. its body was covered with a terrible rash, perfectly bare, almost hidden within the floor rags. the shy father, himself in pain, stood near, the personification of helplessness. if only there were food in the house! the district physician? he would have been compelled to prescribe food, light, warmth and sanitation for every hut he visited, if he did not wish his science to prove a mockery. he could not do that, so he came but rarely. humanitarianism, thus far your name is impotency! all that could be done was to leave money and hurry out into the air. the next abode might be considered pleasant compared with the previous one. two elderly people, not so worn and wan, and not so ragged. the man was weaving, still having some work at times; his wife, very pleasant and amiable, was almost ready to praise the good fortune of their home. "we are better off than our neighbors," she said with some pride. she pointed to a freshly cut loaf of bread, to the fire in the oven, to a table and a real bed--a great fortune, indeed. the walls were covered with some colored prints, representing virtue, patience, endurance to the end. one picture showed the return of the prodigal son, one the ejection of hagar from the house of abraham. our hostess could boast of the luxury of a coffee mill even, and, after she had ground and brewed the coffee, we were invited to partake of it, which we gratefully did. local and general affairs were talked over; the man, quite talkative, but careful and reticent in his remarks, especially when religious and political questions were approached. his remarks were kept within careful lines so as not to offend. hauptmann said afterwards that he had noticed such cautiousness in all weavers. no doubt it had grown out of the great poverty that often brought out diffidence and reticence toward strangers. hauptmann sat on a low stool, and, while we were sipping our coffee, the woman petted him tenderly on the brow. "yes, yes, young man, want, the awfulness of want, but we cannot complain." at our departure, she pointed to a hut nearby and said: "the people in there are nearly starved." it was not exaggerated. when we entered, we saw a woman in the dismal gray of the room, surrounded by a number of crying children. two or three of the maturer girls, thin and pale and drawn out by the procrustean bed of poverty, secretly wiped the last drops of tears from their suffering faces. hunger reigned supreme within these walls. the woman, in the last stage of pregnancy, suffered the keenest under the lamentations of the younger children, to whom she could give no food. the husband had been gone two days on a begging tramp. he would surely bring home something, though it was very difficult to get anything in this neighborhood. one must tramp a long distance for a piece of bread. yesterday they could still obtain a few potatoes, but to-day she had nothing more to give, nor did she know what to tell the children. she had implored the minister to let her have something to eat, if only a few morsels, but he had nothing himself, he said. the tightly pressed lips of the older girls trembled violently, every breath of the family was despair. our presence had silenced the cries of the children with the frost-bitten faces, but when we left, they again would tear the heart of their mother, their weak little voices calling for bread. no one could expect such fatalism from these starving little ones, that they should coolly and philosophically analyse the "economic necessity" that condemned their parents to a desperate battle with hunger. the only thing that could perform miracles here was a coin. the poor woman did not dare to believe that she actually held one in her hand. that which was to secure these unfortunates relief from death, at the same moment fostered elsewhere conceit, corruption and extravagance, and is being used for the conversion of heathen to brotherly love. the terrible sight of this mother and her little ones conjured up the heartlessness and emptiness of all philanthropy and charity for dumb misery. greatest of all social crimes, that makes the possibility of stilling the hunger of the little children dependent on money. one morning hauptmann and i went on foot to reichenbach, where i introduced him to an old weaver, a socialist, who had participated in the co-operative scheme proposed by bismarck. the old man had much of interest to relate of this venture, that had been very meagerly assisted by the government. he said that the association could have survived, had it not been for the conspiracy of the manufacturers, who had a large capital at their disposal. the result of this, for the co-operative movement, was the closing of the market. at one time all the weaving products sent to the leipzig fair had to be transported back; a clandestine but effective boycott had made the sale thereof impossible. with much more gusto he related the days of lassalle's agitation--that had brought life into the still limbs of the masses, a great change had seemed to be at hand. the wife of our old friend, too, had hoped for the change; but now, she remarked somewhat resigned, "we old people would rejoice if we were confident that the young generation would live to bring about the change." in this house we met a widow with a thirteen-year-old daughter. hauptmann found the child very striking. she had beautiful, soft, golden-blond hair, deep-set eyes and a very delicate, pale complexion. i learned later that he sent her occasional gifts. and when i read "hannele" i could not rid myself of the thought that the vision of this child from reichenbach must have haunted him when he created this drama. that was my last outing with hauptmann in the textile regions. a few months later i visited him at his home, located in the woods, close to the edge of a mountain. still later, when i was serving a term of imprisonment at the schweidnitzer prison for my sins in exercising too much freedom of the press, i was overjoyed one morning by the news that hauptmann had sent me a box of books. through his kindness, gottfried keller, konrad ferdinand meyer and other authors have illumined many dreary days of my cell life. all the books reached me safely but the "weavers," which had just been published at that time, and that i could not get hold of, in spite of every effort. the inspector had strict orders to consider that book as contraband. every time i went into the office to change one book for another, i saw the "weavers" on the table. the temptation to shove the book under my jacket at an opportune moment was very great and trying, but unfortunately the state attorney had instilled the idea into the head of the inspector that it was a very dangerous work; he never took his eyes from it. gerhart hauptmann remained to the schweidnitzer prison administration the most dangerous, prohibited author. [illustration] disappointed economists. teachers and economists represent the bees as models of diligence. behold how these little hard workers gather the honey together! not a sign of obstinacy. they never insist on a certain number of hours for their workday, nor do they crave time for leisure, meditation or rest. indeed, they employ all their energies, so that the owner of the beehive shall gain high profits. no matter if they gather a thousandfold as much honey as they can consume, they never seek iniquity. man takes all their wealth from them, and in the spring, in the beautiful month of may, when the flower cups begin to fill, the little hustlers resume their work again without complaint and without murmur. probably some economists regret that workmen are not endowed by nature with such an instinct for work as would let them feel nothing else but the desire to accumulate wealth for others. it is too bad, indeed, that house builders, railroad workers, miners, garment workers and farmers are creatures with thinking faculties. that they should be able to analyze, to compare, to draw conclusions is really very unfortunate for the "captains of industry." next to the bee, the asiatic coolie is the favorite ideal of the every-day economist. in one respect he surpasses the bee--he does not destroy drones. how smoothly everything might run along in this world of material supremacy, if only the workers were made up of such a desirable mixture as the bees and coolies. fortunately, fate hath not willed it so. [illustration] vital art. anny mali hicks. in order to estimate the value of any movement, whether social, economic, ethical or esthetic, it must be studied in its relation and attitude to general progress. its effectiveness should be judged by what it contributes to the growth of the universal conscience. that "no man liveth unto himself alone" is never so true as now, because now it is more generally realized. therefore, any expression which concerns itself solely with its own special field of action finds itself soon set aside, and presently becoming divorced from reality, ends as a sporadic type. any expression, however, which responds to the larger life gains a vitality which insures its continuance. thus, the effort to apply certain truths not new in themselves, is a tendency to work in harmony with progress. the effort to apply principle, however imperfectly expressed, is important, not because of its results, but because of the desire to relate theory and action in a conduct of life. almost every type of expression is undergoing its phase of application. esthetics have somewhat aligned themselves to the others, but at last there is a movement, known as the arts and crafts movement, more properly called applied esthetics, which is the effort to relate art to life. the old banality, "art for art's sake," is obsolete, and the vital meaning of art is in a more rational and beautiful expression of life, as it were, the continent art of living well. this is the ideal and educational aspect of applied esthetics. within the limits of its exclusive circle and within the radius of its special activities there is a trend to contentment with the production of objects of "worth and virtue." the object of luxury, which in fact has no vital meaning to either the producer or consumer. were the production of such things to be its only aim, it would soon defeat its own end. but this movement has in reality wider and more democratic ideals. because of its power to stimulate self-expression and the creative impulses, its greatest and most vital influence is more social than artistic. it principally concerns itself with the desire of the worker to express in his work whatever impulse for beauty may be his. there is no surer way of feeling the pressure of present economic conditions. the value of applied esthetics is as a medicine to stir up social unrest and discontent. its keynote is self-expression, and it is when men and women begin to think and act for themselves that they most keenly feel social and economic restrictions, and are made to suffer under them. but if suffering is necessary to growth, let us have it and have it over with by all means. no sane being will stand much of it without making an effort to get at its cause. it has been said that the most important part of progress is to make people think; it is vastly more important that they should feel. the average individual is not discontented with his surroundings, else he would go to work to change them. as a product of them he is benumbed by their mechanical influence, and consequently expresses himself within their limits. he is the mouthpiece of existing conditions, and, accordingly, acts in law-abiding fashion. the larger emotional life, or inner social impulse emanates from those pioneers who, living beyond existing conditions, are the dynamics of society. through them life pushes onward. the inner impulse becomes public opinion, public opinion becomes custom, custom crystallizes into law. now the fresh impulse is needed for new growth; where shall it be sought if not in the expression of the emotional life? what form shall the expression take unless it be the purest and most spontaneous form of art, which is without purpose other than the expression of an impulse? this alone fosters the growth of the emotions. art, like justice, has many crimes committed in its name, and much called so that is merely a methodical and imitative performance. it is in no wise that spontaneous expression of life which, coming simply and directly as an impulse, takes a decorative or applied form. all the beginnings of art grew up in this way. in primitive peoples it is the first expression of emotional life, which comes after the material need is satisfied. the savage makes his spade or fish spear from the necessity of physical preservation. thus from the joy of living he applies to it his feeling for beauty. the earliest forms of art were all applied. stone carving was applied to architecture, thus colored stones, called mosaics, as wall decorations; from these to the fresco; from the fresco to the pictorial form of painting. to-day the final degeneration of art is in the easel picture, which as an object detached and disassociated from its surroundings, takes refuge in the story-telling phase to justify its _raison d'être_. but, alas for the easel picture! alas, also, for the usual illustration, without which most literature would be so difficult to understand. in each case the one is there to help out the other's deficiency. two important expressions of art, in a state of insubordination. it is the opera over again, where music and drama keep up an undignified race for prominence. supposing an illustration were decorative in character echoing in a minor manner the suggested theme, would that not be a fitting background for the story-telling art? the greeks knew very well what they were about when they introduced the relatively subordinate but decoratively important chorus into their dramas. this as well expresses their sense of relative proportion as does their sculpture and architecture. what is decorative art, if not a sense of beauty applied to objects of use? that these need the emotional element as well as their element of service is as essential as the life breath in the body. it is the spark of divine fire which relates the actual to the ideal, resulting in the reality. it removes from our surroundings any influence which is solely mechanical. applied art is alike because of its association with that which is necessary to life. the test is necessity, not alone the physical, but likewise the emotional necessity, for all sides of our nature must be developed if life is to have full meaning and come to its maturity. the influence of applied esthetics is more vital because it is unconsciously absorbed through constant association. imagine surroundings where everything which did not have a distinct use were eliminated and where everything else was distinctly fitted to its use. if this were put into practice in the usual household, a certain simplicity would be the result, to say the least. most things with which we surround ourselves are neither useful nor beautiful. they are either so absurdly over-ornamented as to have their usefulness completely impaired, or else they are the usual mechanical device equally complicated and hideous. ornament is usually an anomaly, added to cover structural defect. if the relation of the parts to the whole is perfect, beauty is there. but being accustomed to the over-ornamented and wholly mechanical, we do not resent their presence. for what, indeed, is habit not responsible? even such innocent objects as pictures hang on our walls until they are scarcely noticed by us. why not change them to suit our moods? why not, indeed? there are so many of them, in the first place--and one remembers the time and trouble, even the family dissension which it took to hang them. but no one cares much, no one is alive enough to care much--the economic struggle which deadens our other senses is responsible for this also. no unit of the social body can disentangle itself from existing conditions. each is affected by all its influences. some are more, some less, some are so much a part that they are not conscious. these last also suffer, but without knowing why. vital education would show them. but the factory system pervades the school and art school as well as the factory. what if the underlying force of education were spontaneous expression, instead of the limited method or system? the cry of the teacher is always, "it is very well to be spontaneous, but we must deal with the child _en masse_." the remedy for that is simple, because there is no real necessity to deal with children _en masse_. it is so much easier to apply the same system to each varied unit of a mass than to discover and help the individual expression of each. the basis of vital art, of vital education, is self-expression; from it and through it comes self-control. self-repression is as socially uneconomic as jails and standing armies. if, instead of building prisons where human life is entombed, libraries where literature moulds, museums where art becomes archaic, why not establish centers of education, where spontaneous expression is encouraged, and where the soul, mind, and hand are simultaneously developed. think of a state where each individual working out from its own standpoint, truly without hypocrisy, would contribute his quota of individual life to the life of the whole. pleasing himself in his work without fear. then would come the true democracy, possible only under just economic conditions, where each has equal opportunity for self-expression. then can the higher emotional life develop necessary to all human growth. [illustration] kristofer hansteen. by voltairine de cleyre. "of the earth, unearthly--" the sentence remained unfinished as i had written it two years and a half ago when disease laid its hand on me, and all my mss. ended in a dash. it was a description of kristofer hansteen, an explanation of his work in norway. and now that i am ready to pick up the thread of life again, i read that he is dead--of the earth no more, he who hardly ever belonged to it. at this moment the most insistent memory i have of that delicate, half-aërial personality are the words: "when the doctors told me that i might perhaps not live longer than spring, i thought: 'if i die, what will become of anarchism in norway?'" he had no other idea of his meaning in life than this. somewhere fluctuant in my memory runs broken music--you have heard it?--"an ineffectual angel, beating his luminous wings within the void,"--something like that,--words descriptive of shelley--they haunt me whenever i would recall kristofer hansteen. perhaps to those who had known him in his youth, before his body was consumed like a half-spent taper, he might have seemed less spirit-like; but when i met him, three years ago this coming august, his eyes were already burning with ethereal fires, the pallor of waste was on the high, fine forehead, the cough racked him constantly, and there was upon the whole being the unnameable evanescence of the autumn leaf; only--his autumn came in summer. the utter incapacity of the man before the common, practical requirements of life would have been irritating to ordinary individuals. the getting of a meal or the clothing of the body with reference to the weather, were things that he thought of vaguely, uncomfortably, only with forced attention. what he saw clearly, entranced by the vision, was the future--the free future. he had been touched by the wan wizard of olive schreiner's dream of wild bees, and "the ideal was real to him." the things about him, other people's realities, were shadows--oppressive shadows, indeed, but they did not concern him deeply. it was the great currents of life he saw as real things, and among all the confusion of world-movements he could trace the shining stream that ran towards liberty; and with his hectic face and burning eyes he followed it, torn by the cough and parched by the fever. the hansteens are a well-known family in norway, clever and often eccentric, kristofer's aunt, aosta hansteen, at the time of my visit an old lady over eighty, having fought many a battle for the equality of woman both in norway and america. artist, linguist, and literary woman of marked ability, but, after the manner of her cotemporaries, rather outlandish and even outrageous in her attacks on masculine prerogative, she is a target for satirists and wits, few of whom, however, approach her virility of intellect. her father, kristofer's grandfather, was an astronomer and mathematician. in his youth kristofer had gone afoot through the "dals" of norway, and when he took me through the art galleries of kristiania he was a most interesting guide, through his actual acquaintance with the scenes and the characters of the dalesmen depicted. he knew the lights upon the snow and rocks, just what time of the year shone on the leaves, where the wood-paths wound, the dim glories of the mist upon the fjords, the mountain stairways in their craggy walls, and the veiled colors of the summer midnight. and he knew the development of norwegian art life and literary life, as one who wanders always in those paths, mysteriously lit. our hours of fraternization were few but memorable. he was a frequent visitor at the house of olav kringen, the editor of the daily social democrat, a big, kindly norseman, who had remembered me from america, and who had defended me in his paper against the ridiculous charge in the ordinary press that i had come there to assassinate kaiser wilhelm. through the efforts of hansteen and the kindliness and largemindedness of kringen and his socialistic comrades, i spoke before the socialistic league of youth in their hall in kristiania. the hall was crowded, over eight hundred being present, and there was some little money in excess of expenses, which was given to me. i shared it with hansteen, and he looked up with a bright flash in his dark eyes: "now," said he, "'til frihet' will come out one month sooner." "til frihet" (towards freedom) was his paper; and would you know how it came out? he set it up in his free moments, he did the mechanical work; and then, being too poor to pay for its delivery through the post, except the few copies that were sent abroad, he took it from house to house himself, over the hills of kristiania!--he, a consumptive, the cough rending him! there was a driving rain the night i left the city; he wore no rubbers or gum-coat. i was in hopes that he might think the propaganda deserved that its one active worker should get a pair of rubbers, since he must carry papers through the rain. i reminded him that he should keep his feet dry; he only glanced at them as if they were no concern of his, and--"'til frihet' will come out one month sooner." it was in "til frihet" that he had been guilty of high treason. it happened once that king oscar, in temporary retirement from public king-business, had left over to the crown prince the execution of certain matters, which according to the "ground law" of norway could not be so left; whereupon comrade hansteen printed an editorial saying, "oscar has broken the ground-law, and there is no more a king in norway." for this he was charged with high treason, and to escape imprisonment he went to england, where he remained about a year among the london comrades. on his return, there was some threat of carrying out the prosecution, but, probably to avoid wider publication of the king's "treason," the matter was dropped. previous to that comrade hansteen had had experience of prison life. in a may-day procession, ostensibly to include all labor reform or revolutionary parties, he, declaring that anarchists should be given place too, marched, carrying a red flag. the chief of police directed a subordinate to take the flag away from him. easily enough done, but not, as an evidence of unwilling submission, before he had struck the official in the face with his hand. that little hand, weak and delicate as a woman's! an ordinary man would have pushed it aside like a feather and thought no more of it; but the official paid tribute to the big will behind the puny flesh by sentencing him to seven months in prison. my ignorance of norwegian prevents my giving any adequate idea of his work. i know he was the author of a little pamphlet, "det frie samfund" (free society), and that he had translated and published one of krapotkin's works (whether "the state" or "the conquest of bread," i do not now remember), which he had issued in a series of instalments, intended ultimately to be bound together. as i recall the deep earnestness of his face in speaking of the difficulties he had had in getting it out, and the unsolved difficulties still facing its completion, i find myself wanting to pray that he saw that precious labor finished. it was so much to him. and i prophecy that the time will come when young norwegians will treasure up those sacrificial fragments as dearer than any richer and fuller literature. they are the heart's blood of a dying man--the harbinger of the anarchistic movement in norway. i cannot say good-bye to him forever without a word concerning his personal existence, as incomprehensible to the practical as his social dreams perhaps. he had strong love of home and children; and once he said, the tone touched with melancholy: "it used to pain me to think that i should die and have no son; but now i am contented that i have no son." one knew it was the wrenching cough that made him "contented." a practical man would have rejoiced to be guiltless of transmitting the inheritance, but one could see the dreamer grieved. his eyes would grow humid looking at his little daughters; and indeed they were bright, beautiful children, though not like him. in his early wanderings he had met and loved a simple peasant woman, unlettered, but with sound and serviceable common sense, and with the beauty of perfect honesty shining in her big norse-blue eyes. it was then and it is now a wonder to me how in that mystical brain of his, replete with abstractions, generalizations, idealizations, he placed his love for wife and children; strong and tender as it was, one could appreciate at once that he had no sense of the burden of practical life which his wife seemed to have taken up as naturally hers. the whole world of the imagination wherein he so constantly moved seemed entirely without her ken, yet this did not seem to trouble either. nor did the fact that his unworldliness doubled her portion of responsibility seem to cause him to reflect that she was kept too busy, like martha of old, to "choose that good part" which he had chosen. thinking of it now, still with some sense of puzzlement, i believe his love for human creatures, and especially within the family relation, were of that deep, still, yearning kind we feel towards the woods and hills of home; the silent, unobtrusive presence fills us with rest and certainty, and we are all unease when we miss it; yet we take it for granted, and seldom dwell upon it in our active thoughts, or realize the part it plays in us; it belongs to the dark wells of being. dear, falling star of the northland,--so you have gone out, and--it was not yet morning. [illustration] fifty years of bad luck. by sadakichi hartmann. every occupant of the ramshackle, old-fashioned studio building on broadway knew old melville, the landscape painter, who had roughed life within its dilapidated walls for more than a score of years. in former years the studio building had been quite fashionable and respectable; there is hardly a painter of reputation in new york to-day who has not, once in his life, occupied a room on the top floor. but in these days of "modern improvements," of running water and steam heat, of elevators and electric lights, it has lost its standing and is inhabited by a rather precarious and suspicious clan of pseudo artists, mountebanks who vegetate on the outskirts of art; "buckeye painters," who turn out a dozen x canvases a day for the export trade to africa and australia; unscrupulous fabricators of corots and daubignys, picture drummers who make such rascality profitable, illustrators of advertising pamphlets, and so-called frescoe painters, who ornament ceilings with sentimental clouds, with two or three cupids thrown in according to the price they extort from ignorant parvenues. and yet, no matter on what by-roads these soldiers of fortune wandered to earn their dubious livelihood, they all respected the white-bearded tenant, in his shabby gray suit, a suit which he wore at all seasons, and which time seemed to have treated just as unkindly as the bent and emaciated form of its wearer. old melville gave offense to nobody, and always had a pleasant word for everybody, but, as he was not talkative, and the other tenants were too busy to bother an old man painting, nobody knew much about his mode of living, the standard of his art, or his past history. very few had ever entered his studio--he had neither patrons nor intimate friends--and very likely they would not have enjoyed their visit. a peculiar gloomy atmosphere pervaded the room, almost sickening in its frugality, and as its skylight lay north, the sun never touched it. it had something chilly and uncanny about it even in summer. the floor was bare, furniture there was none, except an old worn-out kitchen table and chair, an easel and an old box which served as a bookcase for a few ragged unbound volumes. the comfort of a bed was an unknown luxury to him; he slept on the floor, on a mattress which in daytime was hidden with his scant wardrobe and cooking utensils in a corner, behind a gray faded curtain. his pictures, simple pieces of canvas with tattered edges, nailed to the four walls, leaving hardly an inch uncovered, were the only decoration and furnished a most peculiar wall paper, which heightened the dreariness of the room. there was after all a good deal of merit to old melville's landscapes; on an average they were much better than many of those hung "on the line"; the only disagreeable quality was their sombreness of tone. he invariably got them hopelessly muddy in color, despite their resembling the color dreams of a young impressionist painter at the start. he worked at them so long until they became blurred and blotchy, dark like his life, a sad reflection of his unprofitable career. it was nearly thirty years ago that he had left his native town and had come to new york as a boy of sixteen. he already knew something of life then; at an early age he had been obliged to help to support his family, and had served an apprenticeship as printer and sign painter. in new york he determined to become an artist: a landscape painter, who would paint sunshine as had never been done before; but many years elapsed before he could pursue his ambition. any amount of obstacles were put in his way. he had married and had children, and could only paint in leisure hours, all his other time being taken up in the endeavor to provide for his family, by inferior work, inferior decoration, etc. not before years of incessant vicissitudes, heart-rending domestic troubles and sorrow, not before his poor wife had died of consumption--that awful day when he had to run about all day in the rain to borrow money enough to bury her!--and his children had been put in a charitable institution, he took up painting as a profession. then the hard times, which are proverbial with struggling artists without means, began; only they were easier to bear, as he was suffering alone. in days of dispossess and starvation he had at least his art to console him, and he remained true to her in all those years of misery, and never degraded himself again to "pot boiling." in hours of despair, he also tried his hand at it, but simply "couldn't do it." now and then he had a stroke of luck, a moderate success, but popularity and fame would not come. his pictures were steadily refused by the academy. every year he made a new effort, but in vain. one day, when one of his large pictures was exhibited in the show window of a fashionable art store, a rich collector stepped out of his carriage and, entering the store, asked, "how much do you want for the inness you have in the window?" the picture dealer answered, "it is no inness, but just as good a piece of work." "no inness!" ejaculated the man who wanted to buy a name, "then i don't want it," and abruptly left the store. this event, trifling as it was, threw a pale halo over old melville's whole life and gave him strength to overcome many a severe trial. he hoped on, persevering in his grim fight for existence, despite failures and humiliation. but the years passed by, and he still sat there in his studio, and in its emptiness, its walls covered with his dark and unsold pictures, whose tone seemed to grow darker with every year. he was one of those sensitive beings who continually suffer from the harsh realities of life, who are as naive as children, and therefore as easily disillusionized, and nevertheless cannot renounce their belief in the ideal. not a day passed that he did not sit several hours before his easel, trying to paint sunshine as it really is. nobody in this busy world, however, took notice of his efforts or comprehended the pathos of old melville's life, those fifty years of bad luck. and yet such martyr-like devotion to art, such a glorious lifelong struggle against fate and circumstances, is so rare in modern times that one might expect the whole world to talk about it in astonished admiration. and how did he manage to get along all this time, these twenty-five years or more, since "pot boiling" had become an unpardonable crime to him? now and then he borrowed a dollar or so, that lasted him for quite a while, as his wants were almost reduced to nothing. of course he was always behind in the rent, but as he sometimes sold a sketch, he managed somehow to keep his studio. he did not eat more than once a day. "too much eating is of no use," he consoled himself, and in this respect he had many colleagues in the fraternity of art, as more than one-half of our artists do not manage to get enough to eat, which fact may explain why many paint so insipidly. a few days before his sudden death, an old gentleman, a chance acquaintance, was talking with him about the muddy coloring of the pictures. old melville's eyes wandered over the four walls representing a life's work; at first he ardently argued in their favor, but finally gave in that they, perhaps, were a little bit too dark. "why do you not take a studio where you can see real sunlight; there is one empty now with southern exposure, right in this building." old melville shook his head, murmuring some excuses of "can't afford it," of "being used so long to this one," but his visitor insisted, "he would pay the rent and fix matters with the landlord." the good soul did not understand much about painting, about tones and values, but merely wanted to get the old man into a more cheerful room. it was difficult for old melville to take leave of his studio, in which he had seen a quarter of a century roll by, which he had entered as a man in the best years of his life, and now left as an old man; but when he had moved into the new room, the walls of which were an agreeable gray, he exclaimed, "how nice and light!" after arranging his few earthly possessions, he brought out a new canvas, opened a side window, sat down once more before his easel, and gazed intently at the sunshine streaming in and playing on the newly painted and varnished floor. for years he had wielded the brush every day, but on this day he somehow could not paint; he could not find the right harmony. he at first attributed it to a cold which he had contracted, but later on, irritated and somewhat frightened, he mumbled to himself, "i fear i can't paint in this room." and thus he sat musing at his easel with the blank canvas before him, blank as once his youth had been, full of possibilities of a successful career, when suddenly an inspiration came upon him. he saw before him the orchard of his father's little canadian farm, with the old apple trees in bloom, bathed in the sweet and subtle sunlight of spring, a scene that for years had lain hidden among the faint, almost forgotten memories of his childhood days, but now by some trick of memory was conjured up with appalling distinctiveness. this he wished to realize in paint, and should he perish in the effort! feverishly he seized his palette and brushes, for hours and hours he painted--the sunlight had long vanished from his studio floor, a chill wind blew through the open window and played with his gray locks--and when the brush at last glided from his hand he had accomplished his lifelong aim--he had painted sunshine. slowly he sank back in his chair, the arms hanging limp at his sides, and his chin falling on his chest, an attitude a painter might adopt gazing at a masterpiece he had just accomplished--in this case old melville's painting hours were over for evermore, his eyes could no longer see the colors of this world. like a soldier he had died at his post of duty, and serene happiness over this final victory lay on his features. in every life some ideal happiness is hidden, which may be found, and for which we should prospect all our days. old melville had attained his little bit of sunshine rather late in life, but he had called it his own, at least for however short a moment, while most of us others, whom life treats less scurvily, blinded by foolish and selfish desire, cannot even succeed in grasping material happiness, which crosses our roads quite often enough and stands at times right near us, without being recognized. and the fate of old melville's pictures? who knows if they may not some day, when their colors have mellowed, be discovered in some garret, and re-enter the art world in a more dignified manner? true enough, they will not set the world on fire, yet they may be at least appreciated as the sincere efforts of a man who loved his art above all else, and, despite deficiencies, had a keen understanding for nature and considerable ability to express it. whatever their future may be, his work has not been in vain. it is the cruel law of human life that hundreds of men must drudge their whole lives away in order that one may succeed, not a bit better than they; in the same way in art, hundreds of talents must struggle and suffer in vain that one may reach the cloud-wrapped summit of popularity and fame. and that road is sure to lead over many corpses, and many of the nobler altruistic qualities of man have to be left far behind in the valley of unknown names. life was brutal to you, old melville! but this way or that way, what is the difference? [illustration] there was a time when in the name of god and of true faith in him men were destroyed, tortured, executed, beaten in scores and hundreds of thousands. we, from the height of our attainments, now look down upon the men who did these things. but we are wrong. amongst us there are many such people, the difference lies only here--that those men of old did these things then in the name of god, and of his true service, whilst now those who commit the same evil amongst us do so in the name of "the people," "for the true service of the people."--_leo tolstoy._ * * * * * +books to be had through mother earth+ +the doukhobors:+ their history in russia; their migration to canada. by joseph elkins +$ . + +moribund society and anarchism.+ by jean grave + c.+ +education and heredity.+ by j. m. guyau +$ . + +a sketch of morality+--independent of obligation and sanction. by j. m. guyau +$ . + +american communities:+ new and old communistic, semi-communistic, and co-operative. by w. a. hinds +$ . + +history of the french revolution.+ (an excellent work for students. it begins with a sketch of history of the earliest times; the decline of the ancient empires, the rise of the french monarchy, and traces the causes which made the revolution inevitable. the philosophic conclusion is unsurpassed, and the position taken, laying a foundation for the philosophy of freedom, is bound to attract the attention of thinkers.) by c. l. james. reduced to + c.+ +origin of anarchism.+ by c. l. james + c.+ +fields, factories, and workshops.+ by peter kropotkin + c.+ +mutual aid: a factor of evolution.+ by peter kropotkin. reduced to +$ . + +memoirs of a revolutionist.+ by peter kropotkin. reduced to +$ . + +modern science and anarchism.+ by peter kropotkin + c.+ +ideals of russian literature.+ by peter kropotkin +$ . + +the state:+ its role in history. by peter kropotkin + c.+ +anarchism:+ its philosophy and ideal. by peter kropotkin + c.+ +the wage system.+ by p. kropotkin + c.+ +anarchist morality.+ by p. kropotkin + c.+ +history of civilization in england.+ by henry thomas buckle +$ . + +england's ideal+ and other papers on social subjects. by ed. carpenter +$ . + +civilization:+ its cause and cure. by ed. carpenter +$ . + +love's coming of age.+ by ed. carpenter +$ . + +towards democracy.+ by ed. carpenter +$ . + +the chicago martyrs:+ the famous speeches of the eight anarchists in judge gary's court, and gov. altgeld's reasons for pardoning fielden, neebe and schwab + c.+ * * * * * +books to be had through mother earth+ +essays on the materialistic conception of history.+ by antonio labriola +$ . + +wealth against commonwealth.+ by h. d. lloyd +$ . + +woman's share in primitive culture.+ by o. mason. leather, reduced to $ . . cloth, reduced to +$ . + +superstition in all ages.+ by jean meslier. cloth +$ . + +news from nowhere;+ or, an epoch of rest. by william morris + c.+ +thus spake zarathustra:+ a book for all and none. friedrich nietzsche +$ . + +rights of man.+ by thomas paine + c.+ +the martyrdom of man.+ by winwood reade +$ . + +the science of life.+ by j. arthur thomson + c.+ +pages of socialist history.+ by w. tcherkesoff + c.+ +the slavery of our times.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +bethink yourself.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +church and state.+ by leo tolstoy + c.+ +volney's ruins:+ or, meditation on the revolutions of empires and the law of nature + c.+ +the ballad of reading gaol.+ by oscar wilde + c.+ +the soul of man under socialism.+ by oscar wilde + c.+ +de profundis.+ by oscar wilde +$ . + +intentions.+ by oscar wilde +$ . + +plays.+ by oscar wilde. vols +$ . + +life without a master.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +the new dispensation.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +living thoughts.+ by j. wilson, ph.d. +$ . + +paris and the social revolution.+ by j. sanborn +$ . + +anarchism:+ is it all a dream? by e. malatesta and j. f. morton, m.a. + c.+ +who is the enemy;+ anthony comstock or you? a study of the censorship. by edwin c. walker + c.+ all orders, money prepaid, to be sent to e. goldman, box , madison square station, new york city. * * * * * +the books of ernest crosby+ +garrison the non-resistant.+ mo, cloth, pages, with photogravure portrait, c.; by mail + c.+ +plain talk in psalm and parable.+ a collection of chants in the cause of justice and brotherhood. mo, cloth, pages, $ . ; by mail, $ . . paper, c.; by mail + c.+ +captain jinks, hero.+ a keen satire on our recent wars, in which the parallel between savagery and soldiery is unerringly drawn. profusely illustrated by dan beard. mo, cloth, pages, postpaid +$ . + +swords and plowshares.+ a collection of poems filled with the hatred of war and the love of nature. 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