Land and Liberty.
Mexico's Ba'ttls for
economic freedom. . ,
Kicardo Flores Magon
Win . C . Owen .
Los Angeles, Cal.

I Jexico
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1914

UBRAftt

Land and Liberty

Mexico's Battle for
Economic Freedom
And Its Relation to Labor's
World-Wide Struggle
Selected from Writings of
RICARDO FLORES MAGON
A DE P. ARAUJO
and
WM. C. OWEN
PUBLISHED BY
MEXICAN LIBERAL PARTY
P. O. BO
LOS ANGELES. CALIFOI

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PRICE 10 CENTS

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Land and Liberty
Mexico's Battle for
Economic Freedom
And Its Relation to Labor's
World-Wide Struggle
Selected . from Writings of
RICARDO FLORES MAGON
A DE P. ARAUJO
and
WM. C. OWEN
 PUBLISHED BY— 

MEXICAN LIBERAL PARTY
P. O. BOX 1236
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U. S A.

oooooooooooooooooooo
O Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States ©
© of America, in the tenth instalment of his "New O
© Freedom," declares as follows: ©
O "The facts of the situation amount to this; that a ©
© comparatively small number of men control the raw ©
© material of this country; that a comparatively small ©
© number of men control the water powers that can be ©
O made useful for the economical production of the ©
© energy to drive our machinery; that that same num- ©
© ber of men largely control the railroads; that by O
O agreements handed around among themselves they O
© control prices, and that that same group of men ©
© control the larger credits of the country." ©
© The Junta of the Mexican Liberal Party, speaking ©
© on behalf of those who, under its banner, are fighting ©
© and agitating for the Economic Revolution now in ©
© process of development in Mexico, declares that ©
O every word of President Wilson's pronunciamento ©
© applies with equal, if not greater, force to Mexico; ©
© that no nation can, by any possibility, be happy or ©
© prosperous under such conditions; that we have ©
© reached a point in economic development which ©
O justifies us in saying that the abolition of poverty is ©
© both feasible and necessary, and that the overthrow ©
O of the conditions described by President Wilson has O
© become an imperative duty, to be performed at all ©
O costs. The situation and the causes that have created O
O the situation are identical everywhere, and the fight is ©
© the same, whether it is being waged in the United ©
© States, Mexico, Europe, Central and South America, ©
O Asia, Africa or Australasia. ©
ooooo©oooooooooooooo

LAND AND LIBERTY

This, the first volume of our "Land and Liberty"
series, consists of translations from the Spanish of
Ricardo Flores Magon and Antonio de P. Araujo,
and articles by Wm. C. Owen, editor of the English
section of "Regeneration." They are submitted to
the public in the hope that they may help to bring
about a better understanding of the revolutionary
movement, not only in Mexico but throughout the
world. It is believed that the reader will find the
contents frankly revolutionary ; that is to say,
dealing with causes, and the quickest method of
removing causes, rather than with effects. The
translations from the Spanish are marked with the
initials of the original contributors, and the volume
is placed on the market at the low price of ten cents,
our desire being to make the propaganda as exten
sively as possible.
Organizing Junta, Mexican Liberal Party,
Los Angeles, Cal., U. S. A.
September, 1913.  ¦ ? ¦ 
TO ARMS! TO ARMS! FOR
LAND AND LIBERTY.
At this moment millions of human beings are casting
sad looks to heaven, hoping to find there — beyond the
stars they see — that something which is to them every
thing; because it has been the aim and object of all the
grief-stricken efforts and painful battle of the species,
Man, from the day when his hesitating footsteps bore him
a handbreadth in advance of the unreasoning species. That
something is happiness.
Happiness! Happiness is not of this world, say the
religious. Happiness is in heaven; there, beyond the tomb.
And the; human herd lifts up its eyes and, knowing nothing
1

of heaven, thinks that it is there, in the far away; where
as it has its feet on this planet, which, with its brother
stars, constitute the glory and grandeur of the firmament.
The Earth forms part of heaven, and humanity, by that
very fact, is now in heaven. We should not raise our
eyes in the hope of finding happiness behind those stars
which make our nights so beautiful. Happiness is here;
on the Earth Star, and it is not to be conquered by prayers
or won by supplications, entreaties, humiliations or floods
of tears. It must be battled for on foot and with force,
because the Earth Gods are not like those of the re
ligions, who can be softened by supplication and en
treaty. The Earth Gods have soldiers, they have police
men, they have judges, they have hangmen, they have
penitentiaries, they have scaffolds, they have laws, they
have all that constitutes what are known as institutions —
rugged mountains which hinder the human race from
stretching out its arm and possessing itself of the Earth;
making it its own and bringing it under that subjection
which would result in happiness being the patrimony of
all and not the exclusive privilege of the few who today
withhold it from the others.
The Earth is the property of all. When, millions and
millions of years ago, the Earth had not yet separated
itself from the chaotic cluster which, as time passed on,
was to dower the firmament with new suns; and when,
as the result of gradual cooling, planets became more or
less fitted for organic life, this planet had no owner.
Neither did the Earth have any owner when humanity
was converting every old tree-trunk and everv mountain
cavern into a dwelling place and a refuge from the in
clemency of the weather and from wild beasts. Neither
did the Earth have any owner when humanity, having
advanced still farther along the thorny path of progress,
had reached the pastoral period, in which there were pas
tures whereon the tribe, with herds in common, settled.
The first owner appeared with the first man who had
slaves to work his fields, and who, that he might make
himself master of those slaves and of those fields, found
it necessary to take up arms and levy war against a hos
tile tribe. Violence, then, was the origin of private prop
erty in land, and by violence it has been upheld to our
own days.
Invasions, wars of conquest, political revolutions, wars
for the control of markets, and acts of spoliation carried
through by governors or those under their protection—
these constitute the titles to private property in land;
titles sealed with the blood and enslavement of humanity.
2

Yet this monstrous origin of a right which is absurd,
since it is based on crime, does not hinder the law from
calling that right "sacred," inasmuch as those who have
withheld the land are the very ones who have written the
law. Private property in land is based on crime, and, by
that very fact, is an immoral institution. That institution
is the fount of all the ills that afflict the human being.
Vice, crime, prostitution, despotism, are born of it. For
its protection there have become necessary the army, the
judiciary, parliament, police, the prison, the scaffold, the
church, the government and a swarm of employes and
drones, supported by the very ones who have not so
much as a clod of earth on which to rest their heads,
since they have come into life after the Earth has been
divided up among a few bandits who appropriated it by
force, or among the descendants of those bandits, who
have come into possession through the so-called right of
inheritance. The Earth is the element from which everything neces
sary for life is extracted or produced. From it we get the
useful metals, coal, rock, sand, lime, salts. By its culti
vation we produce every kind of fruit, for nourishment
and pleasure. Its prairies yield food for the cattle; its
forests offer us their woods, its fountains are the genera
tive waters of life and beauty. And all this belongs to a
few; makes happy a few; gives power to a few; though
nature made it for all.
Of this tremendous injustice are born all the ills that
afflict the human species and produce its misery. Misery
makes man vile; misery prostitutes him; misery pushes
him to crime; misery bestializes the face, the body and
the intelligence.
Degraded and — which is worse — unconscious of their
shame, generations succeed one another, living in the
midst of wealth and abundance without tasting that hap
piness a few have monopolized. With the Earth belonging
to a few, those who possess none of it must hire them
selves to those who do possess it, if they are to keep
their hides and skeletons on foot. The humiliation of hire
or hunger — this is the dilemma with which private prop
erty in land faces each as he enters life! an iron dilemma
which forces humanity itself to put on itself the chains
of slavery, if it would avoid perishing by starvation or
giving itself up to crime or prostitution.
Ask yourselves today why governments oppress, why
men rob and murder, why women prostitute themselves!
Behind the iron bars of those charnel houses of body and
3

soul which men call prisons, thousands 01 untortunates
are paying, in torture of body and agony of soul, for that
crime which the law has lifted into the category of a
sacred right — private property in land. In the defiling at
mosphere of the house of public prostitution thousands
of young women are prostituting their bodies and crip
pling their self-respect, as the result of private property
in land. In the asylums, in the hospitals, in the foundling
institutions, in all those gloomy abodes wherein misery,
abandonment and human misery take refuge, men and
women, the aged and the child, are suffering from the
consequences of private property in land. And convicts
and beggars, the prostitute, the orphan and the infirm,
are lifting their eyes to heaven; in the hope of finding
there, beyond the stars which they can see, that happiness
of which the owners of this Earth are robbing them.
Meanwhile the human herd, unconscious of its right to
life, turns and bends its back to develop by its toil for
others this Earth which nature has placed at its own ser
vice, thus perpetuating by its own submissiveness the em
pire of injustice. But, from the slavish and bemired mass
rebels arise; from the sea of backs there emerge the
heads of the first revolutionists. The herd trembles, for
it' foresees chastisement. Tyranny trembles, for it fore
sees attack. And, breaking the silence, a shout, like the
roar of thunder, rolls over the backs and reaches even to
the thrones: "The Land!"
"The Land!" shouted the Gracchi. "The Land!" shout
ed Munzer's Anabaptists. "The Land!" shouted Bakou-
nine. "The Land!" shouted Ferrer. "The Land!" shouts
the Mexican Revolution; and this shout, drowned a hun
dred times in blood during the course of ages; this shout,
which echoes the thought guarded affectionately in all
times by the rebels of our planet; this hallowed shout will
bring the heaven of which the mystics dream down to
this vale of tears, when the human herd ceases to throw
sad glances at the infinite and fixes itself here on this
planet, which today shrinks with shame at the thought
that, amid the splendor and grandeur of its celestial broth
ers, it has to drag along the leprosy of human misery.
Silent slaves of the clod; resigned peons of the field;
throw down the plough! The clarions of Acayucan and
Jiminez, of Palomas and Las Vacas, of Viesca and Valla-
dolid are calling you to war; that you may take possession
of this Earth to which you give your sweat, though it
denies you its fruits because you have consented, in your
submissiveness, that idle hands shall become masters of
what belongs to you, of what belongs to all humanity,
4

of what cannot belong to a few but to all men and women
who, by the very fact that they are living, have a right
to share in common, by reason of their toil, all that wealth
which the Earth is capable of producing.
Slaves! Take the Winchester in hand! Work the Land,
but only after you have taken it into your own posses
sion! To work it now is to rivet your chains, for you are
producing more wealth for the masters, and wealth is
power, wealth is strength, physical and moral, and the
strong will hold you always in subjection. Be strong
yourselves! Be strong and rich, all of you, by making
yourselves masters of the Land! But for this you need
the gun. Buy it or borrow it, in the last resort! Throw
yourselves into the struggle, shouting with all your
strength — "Land and Liberty!"
R. F. M.

WHO ARE THE BANDITS?
Bandits! That is what the defenders of law and order
call us. Why? Because while we are teaching our brothers
in misery that all should be for the benefit of all, we are
also inviting them to take possession of that all.
Who made the land? Did the frock-coated and beloved
gentlemen who call it "theirs" make it? No; the land is a
natural commodity, for the use of every living creature.
Who made the houses, the fabrics and all that goes to
render life comfortable? Was it the gentlemen we see
living in rich palaces and lodged in luxurious hotels? No;
all that came from the hands of the poor, who huddle in
huts, rot in prison, wither in brothels, and die in hospitals,
on the gallows, everywhere, in the noon of life.
Bandits! We who want these things are not the bandits.
R. F. M.

THAT EVENING AT THE BEACH.
Do you remember that evening at the beach? The
golden moon hung full-orbed in the sky, and a road of
silver stretched across the softly-undulating sea. At your
feet the surf broke gently, a wall of phosphorescent fire.
How beautiful it was, and how you both enjoyed it! You
talked in low tones, at intervals only, and in the fewest
words. "What an enchanting night!" "Could there be a
more lovely scene?" "What a beautiful world this is!"
You walked home in silence; your hearts beating with
emotion; in thought too deep for words. You felt at
peace with all the world, and yet your blood ran hot with
passion, for you trod on air. It would have been hard
then to have done a shameful deed, or harbored an ignoble
thought. The poetry of the universe had crept into your
soul. * * *
Every man and woman should have the memory of
some such evenings locked amid his or her most cher
ished treasures. In every life, however rocked and wrecked
by trouble, there should have been hours in which all the
world seemed good; in which the noble seemed to be the
natural thing; in which there was confidence in truth; in
which there was, at least, one of whose interest and loy
alty no doubt was felt and through whom the divine
became visibly clothed in flesh and blood. Whatever the
later record may have been, such hours we never can for
get. However brutally life may have stamped upon those
golden moments, it never stamps them out entirely. They
stand, a lighthouse in a storm-tossed sea, reminding us
that we are never far from port; a spring in the desert,
assuring us that there is water in abundance, if we have
but pluck and sense to reach it.
* * *
Like Elbert Hubbard, or anv other New Thought
apostle, I might well be writing for the so-called "rich,"
who, planting their existence in the arid soil of living off
their neighbors, condemn themselves to hopeless poverty
in essentials and rob themselves of the true poetry of life.
Well might I write especially for them, since they, of all
others, may seem to need compassion. A class that finds
our greatest treasure, Time— that is to say, Life itself —
the deadliest enemy and strives continually to kill it; a
6

class that hunts the wide world over for sensations where
with to whip into new activity its jaded appetites; a class
that traffics constantly in sexual aberrations, because its
natural instincts have withered prematurely; a class that
prays eternally to be amused, and values those alone who
can satisfy that unhealthy craving — such a class might
well call for sympathy, if we had sympathy to waste.
We have not. We cannot cure the hopelessly and wilfully
corrupt. We cannot restore organs paralysed by abuse.
Whether the rich are to blame, or whether they are the
victims of circumstances, we do not care to ask. We are
dealing with a military situation that has to be faced im
mediately, and we cannot squander time unravelling the
causes that begot it. Let the rich make their own lives
hell, if they choose, since that is their own business. They
shall not continue to make ours as bad, or worse, if we
can help it. * * *
Let us take Mexico as an illustration, and only as an
illustration, inasmuch as things are everywhere very much
the same. Since the revolution began, three years ago,
Los Angeles has been crowded with the refugee rich, and
doubtless other pleasure resorts have suffered invasion
from the same swarm of locusts. Except for destruction
they have no capacity whatever. They are chronic idlers
and would be run into jail but for the fact that they still
have certain means of subsistence, in the shape of lands
and houses from which it is still possible to extract some
rent, or deposits in bank which represent the extortions
of the past. Through ignorance of our language they are
compelled to live largely among themselves, and they
lounge away the time dreaming of the re-coming of the
golden days when others shall have saved their chestnuts
from the fire and fought successfully the battle on behalf
of special privilege which they themselves are too cow
ardly to fight. Their one activity, outside of the satisfac
tion of their carnal appetites, is to plot; to interest fellow-
parasites in the common cause, since all exploiters travel
in the same boat; to lionize any specially prominent pirate,
such as Terrazas or Torres, who may happen to come
along, and to make a God of such as Felix Diaz, who has
shown himself the type of treachery and personal cruelty,
and is himself the nephew of the man whose personal
ambition and corruption were the parents of their present
sorry plight. I defy the world and history to show me a
more pitiable crew; a set of human beings more irreme
diably worthless when judged from the standpoint that
Life is a great and glorious opportunity, to be turned to
7

gloriously happy account. Any self-respecting community
of bees would kill such good-for-nothing drones remorse
lessly, to the last one of them. Our own worthless rich
show their own worthlessness by sheltering these drones
and falling on their spineless necks; publishing their pho
tographs in the journals they control and chronicling their
idle vaporings in the columns devoted to "society" news.
* * *
Life should be full of poetry; full of the fire of passion
that runs through veins which function actively because
the opportunities for functioning abound on every side.
Life never was meant to be put in the straitjacket with
which monopoly has bound it, or to be cabined, cribbed
and confined by the restrictive legislation which the phi
losophy of monopoly begets as inevitably as the swamp
will breed mosquitoes. There is no sense in condemning
the naturally light-hearted and most loving Mexican to
the loveless slavery of the Valle Nacional, the henequen
plantations of Yucatan, the mills of Rio Blanco, or the
slavery of the mines, that a small and unspeakably worth
less percentage of his countrymen may yawn their heads
off and endeavor to kill time in profligacies paid for with
his sweat and blood. There is no sense in the American
or European workingman who tamely wears out his exist
ence on some grimy bench, producing baubles for the
bored-to-death, when a seat is waiting him at Life's rich
table. There is no poetry in that, which means there is no
sense, no comprehension of what life should be; no grasp
of possibilities; no power to recognize facts that strike
one in the face. * * *
Why should it interest any reasonable man to learn
that the diamond cutters have organized and are getting
more decent wages for supplying gems to deck some
pirate's light-o'-love? Let the diamond cutter say: "I
find Life too important to waste on nonsensical occupa
tions of this sort." How comes it that apparently sensible
people can read with profound interest the story of hunt
ers who risk their lives, year after year, to cloth prosti
tutes with furs? Let the furs go and the animals that
own them rest in peace, while we weave clothing for the
really naked backs. Let us get down to business and take
stock; let us see how large a proportion of our race is
slaving in poverty for the spoiled and idle few, and how
small is the percentage which is producing the limited
range of articles to which the consumption of the masses
is confined. That stock-taking is more wanted than any
thing I know, for, if we could put it through and ascertain
8

the facts, it would lead instantaneously to such a reor
ganization as this world has never seen. There would be
no need then for Mr. Gompers' or Mr. St. John's or Mr.
Debs' machines, which hope to organize industry com
pletely within the next few centuries. We should simply
say, with one accord: "To Hell with such a state of
things, in which ninety-nine hundredths of our race are
toiling at the useless, and all are robbed of Life!"
* * *
Walking homeward and asking myself why Life should
not be habitually one "evening at the beach," I was hailed
by an old newspaper friend who has become Chief of
Police in this by no means unimportant burgh. He dragged
me into his den and the talk fell on a book, "Crime and
Criminals," which I was guilty of writing some four years
ago. The Chief thought it had done much good, and
spoke of reforms recently effected. I replied that, except
as to possible improvement in the treatment of prison
inmates, it had done no good at all, and could do none, since
our economic conditions, with the unnatural and unequal
struggle they engender, hatch crime faster than all the
books in the world can remedy it. He agreed emphatically,
and, after exchanging some experiences, he rapped out a
professional opinion. "Damn it," he said, "that Los Ange
les has become nothing but a city of detectives! Every
body is spying on everybody else, and I hate to set foot in
the place." * * *
It is even so. We are being starved of Life, and instead
of a meal that should be clean and sweet and nourishing,
are given an ill-smelling, poisonous mess. The maggot
of slavery has eaten its way into and putrified the mass so
utterly that only by the most violent efforts can we make
it hold together. Never was talk so cheap and action in
accordance with our talk so hard to find. Under the
loudly-voiced assumption that the people at last are in the
saddle and that Democracy is triumphant, the masses are
bound to the chariot wheels of Money as they never were
before. The world rings with fine sentiments, but those
who mouth them have no thought of being held respons
ible and always it is tacitly understood that Money is to
speak the final word. China is once more rent by Revo
lution in its most violent, gigantic and apparently unprofit
able form, and over every battlefield, as vultures waiting
for their glut, hover the syndicated European bankers.
The Balkans run knee-deep in blood, and the European
bankers boss the job. As I write the despatches tell me
that "Senator Bacon of Georgia, chairman of the foreign
9

relations committee and a man of well-known conserva
tive tendencies, characterizes the present emergency — the
Mexican Revolution — as the gravest that has confronted
the United States in his nineteen years of service." Once
more the Money Power is responsible for all the trouble;
the Money Power which created the conditions that
forced the Revolution; the M®ney Power which has pro
longed it, by protecting its monstrous privileges against
the opposition of the masses; the Money Power which
seeks now to embroil the United States and ultimately
may embroil the nations of the world.
* * *
The Mexican Revolution is only one little corner of
this Titanic, world-wide struggle — the struggle for the
right to live; the struggle for the rich and fully-rounded
civilization to which the knowledge and capacity of the
human race entitle it, and for its equal, clean and sensible
enjoyment. This world is incalculably rich, with a rich
ness that means the possibility of happiness for all; but
the richness is under lock and key. It must be freed.
Monopoly must disgorge. It must give up the key. The
slavery by which the many must toil when and as the few,
the very few, decide, must go and go forever. The human
hive must purge itself of drones. Its members must be
free to suck life's honey to the full; to garner it in free
dom, and to feast, secure against invasion by the idler, on
the product of their toil. Such evenings at the beach as I
endeavored to describe at the beginning of this article are
all too few, and it may be doubted if millions catch even
such a single ray from Life's great reservoir of light to
cheer them on their long and tragic way. That cannot,
should not, last. That slavery must be broken. Those
prisoners must be set free. Life must be released, how
ever great the cost and desperate the struggle. To the
conquest of "Land and Liberty" our race must rally, con
scious of the dignity of its claim and of the omnipotent
forces latent in its too-long slumbering limbs. The threads
with which the Lilliputians of Monopoly have bound it
are only threads. Gulliver has only to collect his wits
and rise.

10

ON ITS KNEES GOVERNMENT OFFERS
AGRARIAN REFORMS.
Considering the government of Mexico's capital as lost
and seeing that the millions of dollars spent in armies
and armaments are of no avail to smother the Revolution
— whose character is evident from the features that have
continually marked the various uprisings which continue
to shake Mexico — they are once more putting forward
measures such as Madero would never have proposed and
much less carried into effect.
Nevertheless, it is now late for the implanting of social
reforms and for the partition of the lands. In the heart
of the Mexican proletariat there are beating today anti-
authoritarian and anti-capitalist sentiments, and they will
not allow themselves to be deceived as they have been in
the past. They will not swallow the hook of a repartition
of the lands at the hands of Government.
The Republic's government has confessed that in Mex
ico there is a war of classes. By the mouth of the Minister
of Regulation, Dr. Urrutia, who calls attention to the self
ishness of the rich in the matter of contributing funds
with which to carry on the struggle against the proletariat,
it has said as follows: "The war which is destroying us
implacably is not a civil war; it has no political ends in
view. It is the war of the poor man; of the man who
possesses nothing against the rich man. And it is a
curious, not to saw an immoral, fact that in the combats
recorded daily, in which so many fall, those who fall are
all of the disinherited class, those who have nothing to
lose and who are fighting only because those who give
them orders take them to the battlefield. The well-to-do
are helping in this frightful war without taking any actual
part in it. They expect us to defend them against assaults,
against incendiarism, against pillage, but, with a few hon
orable exceptions, they do nothing to bring about peace
and a definite equilibrium. And I think that the hacienda
owners, those who possess much, those who do not know
where their haciendas end and who can ride for days
without coming to the boundary posts that mark the
limits of their holdings, could contribute something, some
few acres of land, without reducing to any great extent
their caoitalj and that would be the first step, a gigantic

rtep, toward the solution ot the future and trie scattering
of the black clouds that now involve it."
Again, from the secretaries' offices of the Departments
of Public Works and Regulation orders have been sent
out- for the immediate splitting up of the lands belonging
to the nation, with instructions to grant permission for
the working and exploitation of the national lands neigh
boring on towns. Here is what "El Imparcial," a bour
geois Mexico City paper, says in one of its last issues
respecting these orders:
"The Secretary's office of the Department of Regula
tion has just sent out a circular to the Political Prefec
tures of the Federal District, ordering that, without delay,
the inhabitants of towns and municipalities where national
lands are situated be allowed to work and exploit them.
Thus, all the timber lands of the Federal District and the
lands which belong to the nation, as well as the bottom
lands of lakes Xochimilco and Chalco, will be worked and
their products exploited — wood, fodder, sand and other
mineral deposits, etc., etc., by the inhabitants of the dif
ferent towns, registered as paying taxes, without any
restriction other than that of the morality of the individ
uals concerned.
"We are informed that this measure is to be put into
immediate effect, having in view the special circumstances
through which the country is passing, with a view to facil
itating the re-establishment of peace while reserving for a
later date more detailed legislation. At the ministerial
council held last Tuesday night the Secretary of the De
partment of Regulation proposed this transcendentally
important measure, and it met with the approval of the
President of the Republic.
"We are informed also that at a meeting of the various
freat landed proprietors of the Federal District it was
agreed to cede a portion of their lands, to be cultivated
by the workers of the respective municipalities.
"In Xochimilco a well-known man is willing to divide
up for the benefit of the natives a large tract of very fer
tile moor land, whose cultivation and products will be
henceforth for the benefit of the poor and industrious of
the neighborhood.
"We know also that the wealthy proprietor, Senor Don
Inigo Noriega, will cede an important portion of his Xico
haciendas and their annexes, with the same noble end of
favoring the native working class.
"We conceive that alike the disposition shown by the
government and the altruistic proposition of the great
landowners constitute a great step toward the work of
12

pacification, and, as we have said repeatedly, we should
not trust solely to military action. It is very probable
that the realization of the new measure dictated by the
Secretary of Regulation may meet with obstacles and hin
drances in the matter of carrying it into effect, but no one
can doubt that such an arrangement has been inspired by
a self-evident spirit of patriotism, and that it will contrib
ute largely toward the re-establishment of peace by pro
viding means of livelihood and subsistence to the native
class which today the rebel chiefs and highwaymen are
making use of, that they may drag it to revolt and
banditry." And, immediately after the issuance of the order of the
Secretary of Public Works, the same paper expresses itself
thus: "In view of the fact that, at the ministerial council held
in the National Palace last night, the Secretary of the
Board of Public Works, Engineer Alberto Robles Gil,
offered to make known a plan for the repartition of the
lands, an 'Imparcial' representative interviewed him at
noon yesterday and requested him kindly to furnish us
vith some details on a subject of such importance.
"Sr. Robles Gil showed us that, inasmuch as the law
prohibits the Government from alienating its lands until
they have been surveyed by the Government's own engi
neering commission; and inasmuch as the Mexican Repub
lic comprises 197,000,000 hectares, more than ten per cent
of which — that is to say, 23,000,000 hectares — are the
nation's property; and inasmuch as the Agrarian Section
of the Department has not a staff adequate to the task
of surveying and dividing up the lands which must be
partitioned; with a view to carrying out the splitting up of
the lands as speedily as possible, the Department of
Public Works has entered with the President of the
Republic into the agreement we publish hereafter, to the
end that the Governors of the various States may occupy
themselves with the division of the said lands, at the cost
of the Federal Government." (Here follows a somewhat
lengthy order by President Huerta to the Governors and
"Jefes Politicos" of the different States, directing them
to divide up without delay such portions of the national
domain as may be susceptible of cultivation, in tracts of
not less than ten and not more than one hundred hectares,
and to put them into the possession of small agriculturists,
"in order to alleviate their necessities and contribute to a
partial satisfaction of the popular aspirations in the matter
of the land." The order is somewhat lengthy and Mr.
Araujo has given it verbatim, but the present trans
it

lator thinks it sufficient to reproduce its general purport,
which he has done quite faithfully.) Mr. Araujo proceeds:
Minister Urrutia's declarations, as well as the decrees
of the Executive, issued without waiting for authorization
by Congress or even by what calls itself the law, show
how great is the Government's agony, and its anxiety to
attract to itself the proletariat and induce it to renounce
the Revolution, which goes on marching forward in its
work of general expropriation.
The splitting up of the lands, while the Government
and the principle of private property remain alive, does
not mean the helping of the worker on his road to the
conquest of well-being, nor would it be practicable; for, as
we have said often, the acquisition by ALL the towns in
the Republic of the land necessary to provide them with
commons, would necessitate the buying out of the hacienda
owners at increased prices, since it comprises the lands and
forests surrounding the towns, the titles to which are in
the hands of private landowners, since they are not the
nation's property. Such a purchase is an impossibility,
because the Government, although it would force the
workers to contribute substantial sums, would need mil
lions and millions of dollars for such an expropriation, and
no banking syndicate in the world would be able to accom
modate it with the monstrous amount of cash needed.
Today the national lands which Huerta orders given to
the disinherited are those which the foreign speculator
and native hacienda-owner have rejected and declined to
take over because of their aridity, their marshy character
or for other reasons that make their working full of diffi
culty. No system of agrarian laws can be adopted in Mexico.
Legal measures or governmental orders — which, lacking
the sanction of Congress, proclaim themselves illegal —
cannot solve a problem which, as the Minister of Regu
lation himself says, is social and has no political end in
view. The social problem can be solved only by each and all
taking possesion of that which belongs to all. The land,
which is the gift of nature, and the machines, the plows,
the houses, the industries, the trains and all that has been
the common work of the past and the present generations,
should be expropriated. With the expropriation of the
now-usurped common patrimony, bequeathed to man by
Nature and his ancestors, the right of all the inhabitants
of Mexico to the enjoyment of existing wealth will be
secured. It is this method of solving the problem which is mak-
14

ing the Government tremble; and, being lost, it is now
pretending to be interested in the disinherited and is play
ing its last card, hoping that thereby it will induce the
Social Revolution to commit suicide.
This method of solving the problem — that is to say,
expropriation by violence — is causing the most important
bourgeois paper of Guadalajara to exclaim, in tears and
with dismay:
"Who knows with what the future may present us? We
shall say simply that never, during all the Republic's life,
have revolutionary movements exhibited a character so
sanguinary and vandalistic as they do today, when even
private houses are dynamited and there is nothing which
can inspire the bandits with respect or restrain their
passion." It is now too late for the government to talk. The
time has gone by for it to show itself interested in a pro
letariat that, during four centuries, suffered in slavery.
Its weak voice is lost in the clamor of the revolutionary
forces, now enured to war, which are moving from victory
to victory, from triumph to triumph, from expropriation to
expropriation, and are now well-nigh surrounding the Re
public's capital, not that they may shout, with the inevit
able fall of President Huerta: "The President of the Re
public is dead; long live the President of the Republic!"
but the great cry of proletarian redemption: "The Capi
talist system is dead! We have killed the Republic!
Long live the Commune!"
A. DE P. A.

WE ARE MOVING FROM ILLUSIONS
TOWARD LIFE.
We Revolutionists are not pursuing a chimera; we are
pursuing reality. The peoples nowadays are not taking
up arms to impose on others their special Gods or their
religions. The Gods are rotting in the holy books. The
religions are fading away in the shadow of indifference.
The Koran, the Vedas, the Bible, no longer dazzle. Be
tween their yellowing leaves the Gods are passing mourn
fully, as the sun dies in the twilight of a winter day.
We are moving toward Life. Yesterday heaven was
the people's objective point; today it is the earth. There
are no more Crusaders, lance in hand. Allah's cimeter
rests in the museum show-case. The hordes of the God
of Israel are becoming atheists. The dust of dogmas is
disappearing before the breath of the years as they go by.
Today the peoples are not in rebellion because they
wish to adore one God rather than another. The great
social upheavals to which religions gave birth have become
petrified in the story of the past. The French Revolution
won the right to think, but it did not win the fight to
live, and to the conquest of that latter right the intelli
gent of all countries and all races today address them
selves. We have a right to live, the thinkers tell us, and this
humane doctrine has found its way to the heart of the
serf, as dew to the thirsty soil. To live does not mean, for
man, mere vegetation. To live means to be free and
happy. All of us, therefore, have the right to liberty and
happiness. Social inequality died, in theory, when the rebellion
of free thought killed metaphysics. It is necessary that
it should die in fact. To that goal the energies of all free
men are marching.
Hence it is that we Revolutionists are not pursuing
a chimera. We are not struggling for abstractions but
¦tor material facts. We want the earth for all; we want
bread for all. What though blood may run, so long as
(he victory benefits all and not a special social caste!
Because of this the multitude is listening to us. Be
cause of this our voice reaches the masses, snaking. and
awakening them. Because of this we are able to raise a
16

whole people in revolt.
We are the people; but not the sad and mournful peo
ple of the Pharoahs; not the abject and servile people of
the Caesars; not the people who were wont to clap their
hands when Porfirio Diaz was passing by. We are people
in revolt against the yoke; we are the people of Sparta,
the people who were with Munzer in the proclamation of
equality, with Camile Desmoulins in the tearing down of
the Bastille, with Hidalgo in the burning of Granaditas,
with Juarez in his upholding of reform.
. We are the people, waking the full-fed from their
gluttonous slumber and launching to the four winds this
formidable phrase: "We all have the right to be free and
happy." And the people, which no longer waits for the
word of God, engraved on tablets, to descend on Sinai, is
listening to us. Beneath their coarse garments the hearts
of the loyal are aflame. Into the black pigsties where
they who manufacture happiness for those above them
huddle and rot, a ray of hope is entering. The peon is
thinking as he treads the furrow. In the bowels of the
earth the miner is repeating that phrase to his brothers
of the chain. Everywhere they are harkening to the eager
panting of those who are marching to rebellion. A thou
sand nervous hands are fondling the rifle secretly; a thou
sand impatient breasts are counting as centuries the days
which must elapse before they can listen to the manly
shout — "Rebellion!"
Fear takes wings and is harbored by the vile alone.
Fear is a heavy pack which the brave, ashamed to play
the parts of beasts of burden, must unload. Packs make
us bend the back, and the valiant wish to stand erect. If
a load we must support, let it be the burden of the world
and of a universe of responsibilities.
Submission! It is the cry of the vile. Rebellion! It is
the shout of men. Lucifer, the rebel, is worthier than
the submissive hireling, Gabriel.
Fortunate are the hearts in which protest takes root.
Insubordination and rebellion! They are flowers we have
cultivated all too little.
The timorous pale with fear and the conservative are
scandalized when they hear our words; but tomorrow the
timorous and the conservative will applaud them. The
timorous and the conservative who today adore Christ
were they who yesterday condemned and crucified him as
a rebel. They who today are rearing statues to men of
genius persecuted them yesterday, loaded them with chains
or threw them to the bonfire. They who tortured Galileo,
and forced him to retract, glorify him today; they who
_=_. 17

burned ' Giordano Bruno alive, today admire him; the
hands that tugged at the rope which hanged John Brown,
were the ones that later, in the Civil War, broke the chains
of slavery; they who condemned, excommunicated and de
graded Hidalgo, today venerate him; the tremulous hands
that lifted the hemlock to the lips of Socrates, today are
penning tearful defences of that Titan of thought.
Every man, says Carlos Malato, is at once a Reac
tionist and a Revolutionist, as compared with some other
man. To the Reactionists— the Conservatives — of today we
are Revolutionists, but to the Revolutionists of tomorrow
our acts will have been those of Conservatives. Humani
ty's ideas as to progress vary all the time, and it is
absurd to pretend that they are immutable, like the fossils
of plants and animals.
But if those full of the fear of God, and the conserva
tive, pale with fear and are scandalized by our doctrines,
those doctrines breathe courage into the serf. The faces
that misery and grief had marred are now transfigured;
down the sun-burned cheeks the tears no longer run;
countenances grow humanized; nay, better, they become
divine, for they are animated with rebellion's sacred fire.
What sculptor ever yet portrayed an ugly hero? What
painter ever placed on his canvas the figure of a hero
deformed? There is a mysterious light which inwraps
heroes and lends them brilliancy. Hidalgo, Juarez, Mo-
relos, Zaragosa, sparkle like suns. The Greeks placed
their heroes among the demi-gods.
We are moving toward Life. It is this which is breath
ing courage into the serf, awakening the giant and causing
the valiant to hold their ground. From his Olympus,
reared on the rocks of Chapultepec, a Jupiter of vaude
ville is putting a price on rebel heads; is signing with his
aged hands sentences worthy of a cannibal, while his dis
honored hairs bristle like the pelt of a wolf attacked by
rabies. A reproach to old age this perverse dotard clings
to life with the despair of a drowning man. Having taken
the lives of thousands, he himself is struggling hand to
hand with death to save his own.
No matter; we Revolutionists march onward. The
abyss does not stop us; when the water is falling over
the precipice it is most beautiful.
If we die we shall die like suns, diffusing light.
R. F. M.

18

THE REFORM ERA IS DEAD, THAT OF
REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN.
One of our correspondents — a somewhat prominent
lawyer, deeply religious churchman and enthusiastic Sin
gle Taxer of long standing — writes me earnestly and sadly
respecting the militant suffragette movement in England
and our own Mexican Revolution. He gives strong ex
pression to his innate loathing of violence, but concludes
with the reflection that the movements mentioned seem
to be going as they have to go, and that his own long
experience with purely verbal propaganda has made him
pessimistic. Naturally I have had to reply to him at
considerable length, and in doing so have referred him
particularly to that great master of facts, Charles Dar
win. I argued that it could not be otherwise, since all
new movements are departures from the prevailing type;
must be fought for by the few who have in them those
subtle differences that lead to variation of species, and
are subject invariably to the great law which Darwin
expounds and illustrates with overwhelming proof. The
law is that every variation from the prevailing type must
fight a terrific battle, which, if eventually won, is the
victory of quality over quantity. If life has not taught us
that the new has to be fought for by the few, it has
not taught us anything.
The fatal weakness of Democracy, and of all such
movements as Political Socialism and the Single Tax,
which pledge themselves at the start to follow Democratic
principles, is that they promise the IMPOSSIBLE.
Either of the movements named may cheer its followers
with the assurance that it is adding steadily to its army
of adherents, that it is permeating thought, and so forth.
But all the eloquence in the world cannot conceal the
fact that, so far as action is concerned, it has taken the
vow of perpetual impotence, since the basis of its pro
gram is that no new departure shall be taken until the
majority is on its side. That, by the very nature of the
case, will never be, and I am positive that history can
show no instance of the majority in any large-sized ag
gregation ever stepping voluntarily out of the beaten track
to break a new and unknown trail. It is contrary to all
...-. 19

we know of human nature, and opposed to our invariable
experience in the conduct of our own movements. There,
at least, we should be able to realize that the new route
is always taken by the bolder few, and that the majority
invariably favors disciplining the wiser and more clear
sighted rebels. If you want a good illustration look at
the history of the Socialist Party during the last two
years, and consider the grilling to which the pioneers of
Direct Action have been subjected. They were variations
from the established Socialist type, and, in accordance
with the universal law, had to fight tooth and nail to
keep themselves alive. * * *
We have in this nation, I suppose, some twenty million
adults. I will stretch imagination and picture them as all
having the vote, as all supremely anxious for the truth,
as all possessed of that high degree of intelligence which
doubtless characterizes, we will say, the "Appeal to Rea
son" staff. I affirm most confidently that in the whole
program of proposed institutional changes there is not
one single item on which you would find ten million and
one of those adults unanimous. On the abstract proposi
tion that slavery must go they would all be one, for
that is an old sentiment which is today part of the in
herited mental equipment of every normal man and wom
an. But on the definite steps which must be taken to that
end you would get not one but a hundred differing opin
ions, and this would be the case however long and thor
ough might have been the propaganda with which you
had prepared the ground. From the clinging swarm of
bees a specially courageous few must always first detach
themselves and prospect for the new and needed home.
From the monotonous riot of vegetation a few, differ
ing slightly from their fellow plants, will strike out a
new line and enrich the earth with a new variation, which
will spread and flourish in proportion to its fitness. From
the ruck of human beings a few must separate themselves
and work out the new trail; tread it themselves, try it
and test it, and gradually bring it into general use. Never
by mere pointing to the heights will the masses be se
duced to desert the valley road they know so well, how
ever muddy and disagreeable that road may have become.
* * *
Democracy thinks it can create a harmonious major
ity by talk. The Single Taxers think they can argue the
mass into seeing the wisdom of taking taxation off in
dustrial products and putting it on land values. Yet, after
more than a generation of effort they have not only
20

failed to make the slightest impression on the mass, but
they have found their bitterest opponents in distinguished
scholars of the Benjamin R. Tucker type, who want free
land as ai dently as they. The political Socialists think
they can argue the mass into believing that the millen
nium will arrive when government becomes the one em
ployer; yet, after nearly a century of extraordinary en
ergy, they are still in a pitiful minority; are at this very
moment hopelessly divided among themselves on the
question of Direct Action and other basic issues; have as
their most uncompromising enemies the Anarchists, who
hate Capitalism quite as fervently as they do and long
for the abolition of poverty with all the original Socialist
ardor. I cannot conceive of a more burning hatred of
wage slavery than that which animates every waking
moment of Ricardo Magon's life, and he regards the So
cialist idol, Debs, as one of the proletariat's most danger
ous foes. So far as that is concerned, I am in the same
boat.

Fifty years ago Democracy, with its doctrine of edu
cation as the universal cure, seized possession of all think
ing England. Carlyle, with his gospel of Work, was its
great prophet, and the charming delusion that you had
only to stuff the masses with knowledge set thousands of
reformers enthusiastically busy. Museums and art gal
leries were opened by the hundreds; lyceums, with lit
erary and scientific lectures, sprang up like mushrooms;
settlement work came forward as a society fad, and
young ladies, escorted by university graduates, visited the
slum-dwellers and hung art prints on dingy walls, to ele
vate their thought. Ferrer imported to Spain that opti
mistic philosopohy, and today the Ferrer Center in New-
York thinks it is doing revolutionary work in delivering
very much the same sort of lectures I used to attend, at
the Burbank Lyceum in London, nearly fifty years ago.
Emma Goldman — who recently, in answer to my own
direct and pointed question, asserted that the overthrow
of economic slavery was not the whole thing — has become
one of those innocent Utopians. I am under the impres
sion that the ignorant Mexican peon, who is running
amuck and actually smashing the chains that held him in
slavery — for he is not doing much work under the whip
today — does not interest her greatly, but she has thought
herself into the conviction that the drama, properly ex
pounded, has a tremendous message of liberation for
the race. 21

Neither personal liking nor dislikes should influence
criticism, and in this particular article I certainly wish
to lift myself above either fear or favor. For I am writing
it to express what I consider an all-important truth; a
truth that affects the whole revolutionary movement;
one that, firmly grasped, would save us years of fruitless
effort and hasten incalculably the march to our inevitable
goal. That truth — set out so lucidly by Bakunin — is that
we are all material parts of one material whole, and that
from the whole the parts must take their character. If
that position is correct you cannot have such an all-in
vasive system of slavery as that under which we live
without having also a slavish literature, a slavish drama,
a slavish art, a slavish music, and slavish institutions in
every realm of human activity. Furthermore, you cannot
slay slavery with the art it has begotten, but, when you
slay, or valiantly attempt to slay, slavery, you may hope
to beget, and for the first time, a non-slavish aft.
* * *
This is not a speculative but an intensely practical dis
cussion. I am arguing for deeds as opposed to words;
for action as opposed to talk; for struggle as opposed to
sighs. This article voices militant Darwinism as opposed
to Christian submissiveness; the stern Christ whose eyes
had been opened by his visit to Jerusalem, and who threw
himself against the money-changers, as opposed to the
mild, because inexperienced, Christ who, in his early,
peasant days, dreamed that he could convert the world
by parables which I myself consider the world's greatesi
literary gems. Moreover, the ripened judgment of the
more experienced Christ is approved by all literary his
tory, it being an established fact that great struggles for
freedom beget a great literature of freedom but are not
by literature begotten. The period of the Renaissance, as
shown by Mill in his great work on "Liberty", is the class
ical example. The Shakespearean epoch, when England-
rebellious England, that had fought and died for free
speech, and was at death-grapples with Rome — became
suddenly a "nest of singing birds," is another great ex
ample of this truth. The splendid libertarian literature
that sprang from the French revolution is yet another,
and only since Russia began to struggle against the des
potism she bore so long without a whimper has she de
veloped an art and literature which have attracted the
attention of the world. The drama, as Shakespeare has
shown in language that will live as long as the English
tongue endures, is life's mirror. Never should we expect
it to create life; but always we may look to it confidently
22

for a faithful reflection of the life from which it springs.
If the whole tone of Mexican literature is changing — as it
is — the Revolution has brought about that change. The
literature did not bring about the Revolution.
* * *
Life will not be cheated. Great uplifts of our race
were never made by talk alone, and never will be. The
whole Democractic scheme of counting noses, and waiting
on majorities won over by persuasive words, was doomed
to failure from the day of its aborted birth. We know it
now. We have suffered and are suffering most bitterly
for not knowing it before, because Democracy, moving
on such foolish lines, has landed us in the worst of
slaveries and such contrasts between wealth and poverty
as this world has never known; but also, most happily, in
a struggle which, while it promises to be the bitterest
and bloodiest on record, has prizes in its gift such as only
bitter struggle wins. We have entered the era of Revo
lutions, and Revolutions are essentially things of deeds.
 •-?-• 
Our race's greatest wars, and all its still greater migra
tory movements, have been under the impulse of this
lure of "Land and Liberty;" a historical fact incomparably
more eloquent than all the books that have been or will
yet be written. It proves that land is an individual and
racial need; a prize which instinct feels is worth the
struggle; a revolutionary magnet of enormous power.

23

IF FIGHT YOU MUST, FIGHT FOR
REALITIES, NOT SHAMS!
The fruit, well-ripened by ardent revolt, is about to
fall — fruit bitter to all who have become flushed with
pride, thanks to a situation which brings honor, wealth
and distinction to those who make the sorrows and
slavery of humanity the foundation of their pleasures; but
fruit sweet and pleasant to all who have regarded as be
neath their dignity the filthinesses of the beasts who,
through a night that has lasted thirty-four years, have
robbed, violated, slain, cheated and played the traitor,
while hiding their crimes beneath the mantel of the law
and using official position to shield them from punishment.
Who are they that fear the revolution? They who
have provoked it; they who, by oppression and exploita
tion of the masses, have sought to bring the victims of
their infamies despairingly into their power; they who,
by injustice and rapine, have awakened sleeping con
sciences and made honorable men throughout the world
turn pale with indignation.
The Revolution is now about to break out at any
moment. We, who during so many years have followed
attentively the social and political life of Mexico, cannot
deceive ourselves. The symptoms of a formidable cata
clysm leave no room for doubt that we are on the eve
of an uplift and a crash, a rising and a fall. At last, after
four and thirty years of shame, the Mexican people is
about to raise its head, and at last, after this long night,
the black edifice, which has been strangling us beneath
its weight, is about to crumble into dust.
It is timely that we should here repeat what already
we have said so often; that this movement, springing from
despair, must not be a blind effort to free ourselves from
an enormous burden, but a movement in which instinct
must be dominated almost completely by reason. We
Libertarians must try to bring it about that this move
ment shall be guided by the light of Science. If we fail
to do this, the Revolution now on the point of coming
to the surface will serve merely to substitute one Presi
dent for another, one master for another. We must bear
in mind that the necessary thing is that the people shall
have bread, shelter, land to cultivate; we must bear in
24

mind that no government, however honorable, can decree
the abolition of misery. The people themselves — the hun
gry and disinherited — are they who must abolish misery,
by taking into their possession, as the very first step, the
land which, by natural right, should not be monopolized by
a few but must be the property of every human being.
No one can foretell the lengths to which the impending
Revolution's task of recovery will go; but, if we fighters
undertake in good faith the helping it as far as possible
along the road; if, when we pick up the Winchester, we
go forth decided not to elevate to power another master
but to redeem the proletariat's rights; if we take the field
pledged to conquer that economic liberty which is the
foundation on which all liberties rest, and the condition
without which no liberties can exist; if we make this our
purpose, we shall start it on a road worthy of this epoch.
But if we are carried away by the desire for easy triumph;
if, seeking to make the struggle shorter, we desert our
own radicalism and aims, so incompatible with those of
the purely bourgeois and conservative parties — then we
shall have done only the work of bandits and assassins;
for the blood spilled will serve merely to increase the
power of the bourgeoisie and the caste that today pos
sesses wealth, and, after the triumph, that caste will fasten
anew on the proletariat the chain forged with the prole
tariat's own blood, its own sacrifices, its own martyrdom,
which will have conquered power for the bourgeoisie.
It is necessary, therefore, proletarians; it is necessary,
therefore, disinherited, that your thought be not con
fused. The conservative and bourgeois parties speak to
you of liberty, of justice, of law, of honorable govern
ment; and they tell you that when you replace with others
those who are now in power, you will have that liberty,
justice, law and honorable government. Be not deceived!
What you need is to secure the well-being of your fami
lies — their daily bread — and this no government can give
you. You yourselves must conquer these good things, and
you must do it by taking immediate possession of the
land, which is the original source of all wealth. Under
stand this well; no government will be able to give you
that, for the law defends the "right" of those who are with
holding wealth. You yourselves must take it, despite the
law, despite the government, despite the pretended right
of property. You yourselves must take it in the name
of natural justice; in the name of the right of every human
being to life and the development of his physical and in
tellectual powers.
When you are in possession of the land you will have
25

liberty and justice, for liberty and justice are not decreed
but are the result of economic independence. They spring
from the fact that the individual is able to live without
depending on a master, and to enjoy, for himself and his
family, the product of his toil.
Take, then, the land! The law tells you that you must
not take it, since it is private property; but the law which
so instructs you was a law written by those who are
holding you in slavery, and a law that needs to be sup
ported by force is a law that does not respond to general
needs. If the law were the result of general agreement
it would not need upholding by the policeman, the jailer,
the judge, the hangman, the soldier and the official. The
law has been imposed on you, and these arbitrary im
positions we, as men of dignity, must answer with re
bellion. Therefore, to the struggle! Imperious, irrestrainable,
the Revolution will not tarry. If you would be really free,
group yourselves beneath the Liberty Party's banner of
freedom; but, if you merely want the strange pleasure of
shedding blood, and shedding your own, by "playing at
soldiers," group yourselves under other banners — that of
the Anti-reelectionists, for example, which, after you have
done "playing at soldiers," will put you anew under the
yoke of the employer and government. In that case you
will enjoy the great pleasure of changing the old President,
with whom already you were becoming disgusted, for a
spick and span new one, fresh from the mint.
Comrades, the question is a grave one. I understand
that you are ready for the fight; but fight so that it shall
be of benefit to the poor. Hitherto all your revolutions
have profited the classes in power, because you have had
no clear conception of your rights and interests, which,
as you now know, are completely opposed to the rights
and interests of the intellectual and wealthy classes. It
is to the interest of the rich that the poor shall be
poor eternally, for the poverty of the masses guarantees
their wealth. If there were not men who found them
selves compelled to work for other men, the rich would be
under the necessity of doing something useful, of pro
ducing something of general utility, that they might be
able to exist. No longer would there be slaves they could
exploit. I repeat, it is not possible to foretell the lengths to
which the approaching Revolution's task of recovery will
go; what we must do is to endeavor to get all we can.
It would be a great step in advance if the land were to
become the property of all, and if among the revolution-
26

ists there should not be the strength, the conscious
strength, sufficient to gain more than that, the basis would
be laid for further recoveries which the proletariat by force
of circumstances would conquer.
Forward, comrades! Soon you will hear the first shots;
soon the shout of rebellion will thunder from the throats
of the oppressed. Let not a single one of you fail to sec
ond this movement, launching, with all the power of con
viction, that supremest of cries, "Land and Liberty!"
R. F. M.
* * *
(Translator's Note: — The foregoing article was written
twenty-four hours before the outbreak of the revolution
that finally landed Madero in the Presidential chair. It
constitutes a complete answer to the charges made by
Magon's numerous detractors, for it shows that, acting
as the spokesman of the Mexican Liberal Party, he had
a firm grip and understanding of the situation. No one
can read it without seeing clearly that it was written not
by a politician but by one who realized that the eco
nomic revolution is the only thing worth fighting for.)

27

VAINLY AUTHORITY TRIES TO STEM
THE ON-SWEEPING TIDE.
Upon the shores of human activity a gigantic tidal
wave, that has been slowly gathering strength in Time's
great ocean, is about to break. Within the gloomy chrys
alis that still shuts in the human grub a terrific struggle
has begun. Throughout society there is running that
cold shiver which, as all who have camped out know
well, invariably precedes the dawn. Today we stand face
to face with one of the greatest crises of our race, for we
are passing out of the age-long cycle of Reform and into
that of Revolution. For this innumerable skirmishes un
doubtedly have cleared the way. For this the writhings
of billions of unknown serfs and chattel slaves, straining
to throw off their chains, have been a tragic preparation.
For this unnumbered thinkers, mankind's heroic van
guard, have died in obscure starvation or perished in dun
geons and at the stake. For this scholars have toiled, as
toils the ant, accumulating knowledge, to be wrought
subsequently into the web of those material inventions
which today make nature responsive to our lightest touch.
A vast evolutionary process, in which myriads of wavelets
have united gradually to form the colossal wave at last
about to break. * * *
Reform is as old as the hills and Slavery itself, since
Reform and Slavery are natural bed-companions and sleep
side by side in perfect amity. But Revolution, as we Mod
erns understand the term, is a new idea and could not
have crept into the brain until Slavery had palpably begun
to fail. It signifies exactly what the word itself implies —
a complete revolution of the wheel, an inversion of the
pyramid, a transmutation of existing values. It does not
mean, as does Reform, that by smoothing the rough edges
and knocking off the sharp angles of the Pyramid of
Life, its hardships will be lessened. On the contrary, it
means that thought has undergone a total transformation;
that the point of view has changed completely; that we
no longer look out upon the world with the dull vision of
the grub, but with the radiant, searching glances of the
butterfly into which we should develop. It means that,
as we now see the thing, our Pyramid of Life is standing
28

wrong way up, and that we are going to reverse it; placing
it on its broad, secure and proper base. This because,
in the great march of Evolution, Slavery 's long agonizing
night is drawing to a close and the dawn of Individual
Liberty peeping above the mountain tops.
* * *
If you asked Tolstoy or Bakunin, Proudhon or our own
American Tucker, what the trouble is all about, each
would give you substantially the same answer. Each would
tell you — as would thousands and thousands of others,
who have thought deeply and investigated widely — that
only Revolution can cure our sickness, because our so
cial institutions defy certain basic laws by which we must
abide, if Life is to remain worth living and society hold
together. Tolstoy would tell you that we shall not much
longer be able to endure institutions which compel us,
daily and hourly, to cut each others' throats. Bakunin
would tell you that the law of human Solidarity is funda
mental, and that our grab system, with the economic in
equalities it has produced and the privileges and privi
leged classes to which it has given birth, is fatal to
Solidarity. Proudhon and Tucker would tell you that all
this social hostility, all these economic contrasts, so pain
ful to our sympathetic instincts and so odious to our
sense of justice, are due to the fact that still we drag
round with us the poisonous carcass of Slavery in the last
throes of dissolution, and that no doctoring with the
quack remedies of palliative reforms can make that union
healthy. Tolstoy would repeat that the misfortune is
that the rich will do everything imaginable for the poor,
except get off their backs, which happens to be the
one thing needed. Herbert Spencer would give you his
comprehensive and accurate definition of Slavery as be
ing the condition in which the laborer is compelled to part
with a portion of his product, against his will. Henry
George would explain that until mankind retook posses
sion of its natural heritage, the earth, its progress would
be toward ever-deepening poverty. With fire in his eye
and his voice quivering with emotion, Ricardo Magon
would tell you that diplomats and scheming politicians
may talk till Doomsday, but that his race's only hope
lies in the recovery of those lands from which it has to
draw its living. This is not the language of Reform but
Revolution. * * *
For my part, I follow Herbert Spencer and presume
that some unknowable force is steadily at work through
the process we have christened "Evolution." I regard my
29

race as scaling laboriously never-ending heights, by paths
the keenest watchers can descry but dimly. I conceive
that, in common with all life, our species passes through
set metamorphoses, accompanied by exceptionally bitter
pain and struggle, which intelligence may shorten and
minimize but cannot avoid. With one of those meta
morphoses, called "Revolutions" — the shedding of the old
skin and the adoption of a new and brighter garment —
we are now, as it seems to me, about to come face to face,
and instinctively all the world is arming for the fray.
Through society's bones there is running that cold shiver
which, as I have said already, invariably precedes the
ushering in of a new day.
How unprecedentedly discontented and abnormally
restless is modern society, as we see it in every walk
of life! Does not that presage a violent eruption, after
which things must once more settle down, since life can
not be forever one unceasing strain? Surely to some defi
nite head things must come at last, and I am convinced
that, looking carefully, we shall see that the head has
all the well-known earmarks of Revolution as distinguished
from Reform. For example, it is customary to say that
the masses are stupidity itself; yet today, thanks to that
gradual absorption of the Spirit of the Age which goes
on unceasingly, they are voicing claims of most profound
significance. Take the common statement that "Labor
is entitled to all that it produces;" a statement that now
adays is found on every workman's lips. What is that but
Herbert Spencer's definition of Slavery, which I! have
spoken of as being so exact and comprehensive?- It is so
baldly revolutionary that I shall give it a paragraph to
itself. * * *
What do the workers mean when they mutter that
"Labor is entitled to all that it produces"? Do they mean
merely that they want their wages raised some paltry
cents, or the hours of labor clipped a trifle; that they want
a parliament to insure them against poverty in the decline
of life, or to see that their masters pay them when they
are injured at their work? Those may be the temporary,
often impracticable and always pitifully timid claims, but
obviously they have nothing to do with the real meaning
of the sentiment just quoted. Obviously, if that senti
ment means anything at all, it means that the non-pro
ducer shall not get one cent. It must mean, therefore,
the abolition of our landlord system, under which the few
draw many billions annually by leasing what assuredly
30

not one of them produced. It must mean the overthrow
of all monopoly, for the monopolist commands the sale
of certain opportunities or articles, and is therefore able
to dictate the price and get far more than he produces —
to the worker's loss. In short, it must mean the aban
donment of our entire existing social system; Revolution
and not Reform. You may be sure, moreover, that thou
sands of agitators are only too glad to explain it thus to
those who still may fail to understand, and that they are
actually doing it persistently, day and night. Presently, in
all its full significance, it will become part of the general
stock of knowledge, and, a little later, an inherited tradi
tion. No one then will venture to deny its justice, and
millions will be delighted to fight for its realization. Who
in these United States can be found nowadays to defend
the institution of chattel slavery, which only sixty years
ago was considered by eminent divines a sacred thing,
embalmed in and sanctified by what they call Holy Writ?
* * *
Revolution, therefore, is to be the order of the day,
and authoritarian force will be impotent to stop it. The
tidal wave is coming due, and the date for the emergence
of the grub from its chrysalis is near at hand. Look, for
instance, at the history of Anarchism in this country,
which has honeycombed the entire social structure and is
today ten thousand times stronger than when Authority
sought to strangle it out of existence, in Chicago, less than
twenty-six years ago. Similarly, the Economic Revolu
tion now developing in Mexico can be suppressed only by
exterminating the race, which itself will give landlordism
the sort of world-wide advertisement that will hurry it to
a grave from which there will be no resurrection. Either
way Revolution gains and the tidal wave sweeps onward.
fc * *
Nevertheless, though the butterfly is going to be born,
we may sadly mar the process by handling the affair so
stupidly that there may emerge not a glorious creature
full of health and beauty but a weak, maimed specimen,
condemned to creep through life on crippled wing. In
stead of splendid Individual Freedom, wherein none will
be in bonds or rendered helpless by being stripped of
rights to arm the hand of privilege, and all will co-operate
as equals, receiving the full value of their toil, the Eco
nomic Revolution may bring that abortion known as the
"Servile State." That is the danger we must fight against,
tooth and nail, for that would bind us to the chariot
wheels of Privilege, as of old, and perpetuate wage slavery
indefinitely, under the protecting aegis of the State. That
31

is the danger with which Political Socialism threatens us
most seriously, and no greater misfortune could befall the
human race. For, Privilege would be fully as onoressive
though labelled "Public Service," and the political em
ployer might, for aught we know, be infinitely worse than
the present industrial boss. The danger is very great, and
perhaps our greatest shield against it lies in the ever-
deepening and widening disgust of politicians. Luckily
also the labor politicians have proved themselves, on the
average, most corrupt. Corruption has no lasting strength.
* * *
Economic Revolution, forced on us irresistibly, is com
ing, and it will mean desperate struggle and frightful sacri
fice of blood and treasure, since mankind has not reached
that stage at which the intellect alone decides. Let us see
to it that under no circumstances shall we be cheated,
but that we get full value for our sacrifices. The Revolu
tion will be the most serious business we could take in
hand. Let us master it as we master other business; elim
inating slipshod methods and studying it painstakingly in
all its details, that it may be made to yield the best results.
It will be our great opportunity, and if we neglect it we
shall suffer appallingly, for Life has its arithmetic and
keeps its books most carefully. We shall not be able to
flinch vital issues — after the manner of orators — without
paying heavily for our cowardice. We shall not be able
to dodge dangers without falling into worse ones. We
shall not be able to make chicken-hearted compromises
and play politics, for the sake of supposedly-profitable al
liances, without coming to grief, as the politicians of the
French Revolution came to grief and as those in Mexico
have come to grief quite recently. Just as the Mexican
Revolution must be fought through to the bitter end,
if a hundred devils are not to enter into the place from
which the one Porfirio Diaz was expelled, so we must
grasp the nettle, danger, firmly, that from it we may
pluck triumphantly the flower, safety. From the broken
shell of slavery we must emerge "great, good and joyous,
beautiful and free," having left poverty and dependence
forever behind our backs.

32

SHOW US WHEREIN AUTHORITY CAN
BENEFIT THE POOR.
I.
Beat over the plough and irrigating with his sweat the
furrow that he turns, the peon toils and entones one of
those inexpressibly sad folk-songs that seem to condense
and sum up all the bitterness that social injustice has been
accumulating for centuries in the poor man's heart. The
peon toils and sings, thinking at the same time of the
hut wherein his family is awaiting him to share its humble
meal. His heart is flooded with tenderness as he muses
on his wife and little ones, and looking up to note the
position of the sun and tell the hour of day, he perceives
a light cloud of dust which gradually grows larger as it
nears him. Those who are approaching are soldiers of
the cavalry, and they ask him: — "Are you Juan?" On re
ceiving an affirmative reply they say: — "Come with us.
The government needs you." And away goes Juan, bound
like a criminal, on the road to the city, where the bar
racks await him; while in the hut is left his family, to die
of hunger or to turn thieves and prostitutes to save itself
from perishing. Will Juan tell you that Authority is a
good thing for the poor? .,"11.
For three days past Pedro has been tramping the city
streets eagerly in search of work. He is a good workman;
his muscles are of steel; on his face, which stamps him a
child of the people, honesty is reflected. Vainly he tramps
the city, begging the employers to "take the trouble" to
exploit his sturdy arms. On every side the doors are shut
against him, but Pedro is energetic and does not allow
himself to become discouraged. So, streaming with sweat
and with hunger's sharp teeth gnawing at his entrails,
he offers and offers and offers his fists of iron in the
hope of meeting a master who will "kindly" consent to
exploit them. Crossing the city for the twentieth time
he thinks of his wife and children in their poor pig-sty,
who, like him, are suffering from hunger and are about
to be put out by the landlord who is not willing to wait
any longer for the rent. He thinks of his little ones and,
his heart taut with grief, hastens his footsteps in his efforts
to find a master, a master, a master. A policeman has
34

noticed Pedro passing and repassing, turning to pass again
and turning to pass yet again the street whereon he him
self is posted to "keep public order." He takes Pedro by
the collar and conducts him to the nearest police station,
to charge him with vagrancy. While Pedro suffers in the
prison his family perishes of hunger, or prostitutes itself
or steals to escape starvation. Will Pedro tell you that
Authority is a Rood thing for the poor?
III.
Santiago, full of content, bids his wife farewell. He is
going to ask the hacienda owner for the share coming to
him as co-partner in the abundant harvest they have raised.
The hacienda owner pulls out books, memoranda, notes,
bills, and after adding, subtracting, multiplying and divid
ing, says to his co-partner, "I owe you nothing. On the
contrary you owe me for provisions, clothing, wood," etc.,
etc. The co-partner protests and runs to a judge, asking
for justice. The judge goes over the books, memoranda,
notes and bills; adds, subtracts, multiplies and divides, and
condemns the co-partner to pay the hacienda owner what
is owing and the costs of the suit. The wife, all smiles,
comes to meet Santiago, their youngest child in her arms,
believing that he will bring plenty of money, since the
harvest has been a splendid one; but she turns pale when
she sees the tears flowing down his sun-burned cheeks as
he; comes with empty hands and broken heart. The ha
cienda owner has falsified the accounts, and the judge,
as always, sided with the strong. Will Santiago tell you
that Authority is a good thing for the poor?
IV.
In the little shack, saturated with the smoke of coal
oil and tobacco, Martin, the intelligent agitator, talks to
his comrades. "It is not possible to tolerate any longer
the iniquitous exploitation to which we are subjected,"
says Martin, tossing back his fine, leonine mane. "We
work twelve, fourteen, and even sixteen hours for a few
cents; they fine us on every pretext to lessen still further
our starvation wages; they' humiliate us by forbidding us
to shelter in our miserable lodging our friends, relatives,
or whom we please; they forbid us to read papers that
tend to awaken and educate us. Let us not put up with
any more humiliations, comrades. Let us declare a strike
and ask for an increase of wages and a shortening of the
hours of labor, that they may learn to respect the guaran
tees the Constitution grants us." A salvo of applause
greets the orator's words, and it is voted to strike; but
next day the workers learn that Martin was arrested on
returning to his house, and that warrants are out against
35

others of the most intelligent among them. The panic
spreads, and the mass of the workingmen becomes resigned
and returns to breaking its back and being made the sub
ject of humiliations. Will Martin tell you that Authority
is a good thing for the poor? V.
Before daybreak Epifania was afoot, filling carefully
a big basket with cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, green chilis
and onions, gathered in her little garden, and with the
burden on her back she reached the city market, to realize
»n her humble merchandise and buy the medicine needed
for her aged father and the bread of which her little
brothers stood in want. Before she had sold a couple of
bunches of onions the tax-gatherer appeared, demanding,
in the name of the Government, the money needed to pay
ministers, deputies, senators, judges, gendarmes, soldiers,
place-men, governors, sheriffs, and jailers. Epifania is
not able to pay and her little stock is seized by the Gov
ernment, since neither the poor woman's prayers nor
arguments can melt the heart of the public functionary.
Will Epifania tell you that Authority is a good thing for
the poor? VI.
What, then, is the use of Authority? It serves to in
culcate respect for the law which, written by the rich and
by educated men in the service of the rich, has for its
object the guaranteeing them tranquil possession of their
riches and the exploitation of human labor. In other
words, authority is the gendarme of capital, and this gen
darme is not paid by capital but by the poor.
To have done with authority we must first have done
with capital. Let us take possession of the land, of the
machinery of production, and the means of transportation.
Let us organize production and consumption communally,
bringing it about that all shall be the property of all, and
then it will not be necessary to pay officials to guard capi
tal kept in a few hands, for every man and every woman
will be at once a producer and a guardian of the social
wealth. Mexicans, your future is in your own hands. Today,
when, thanks to popular rebellion, authority has lost its
power, is the opportune moment to lay your hands on the
law and rend it in pieces; to lay your hands on private
property and make it the property of all; of each and every
one of the human beings of whom is composed the Re
public of Mexico.
Let us not permit, therefore, the formation of a power
ful government. To the work of expropriation, therefore,
36

without delay. And if, unhappily, some other individual
should climb to the Presidency of the Republic, let us war
against him and his followers, to prevent him from be
coming strong, continuing meanwhile the work of expro
priation. R. F. M.

When, more than three centuries ago, England was
truly great; when she hurled defiance at Rome, drove the
Spanish armada from her shores and, by asserting the
right to express thoughts freely, paved the way for that
great movement of emancipation which created modern
literature and gave birth to science, the struggle was
fought and won on very different lines. Men perished at
the stake, but in so doing they bade their comrades "be of
good cheer, since we have this day lighted a candle that
shall never be extinguished." They could not know
where the battle would be waged or around what particular
standard the fighting would be fiercest; but they knew
the battle was on; they knew it was for what seemed then
the greatest thing in life, viz., liberty of conscience; they
knew, as all who have the genius of combat know, that
"the letter killeth and the spirit giveth life." Standing for
authority and privilege the "Los Angeles Daily Times"
knows well that the spirit generated in Mexico is the most
dangerous of foes; and we also, who are of the opposite
side, know that in that spirit lies the promise of a future
which will not be denied. The candle of economic free
dom has been lit and shall not be extinguished.

37

WE MUST TEAR DOWN THE FENCES
MONOPOLY HAS RAISED.
The object of the Mexican Liberal Party has been "to
seize the property of the rich in Mexico and divide it up
among the poor who needed it." To that statement, made
in open court by Ricardo Magon when he himself was
under indictment, I alluded editorially last week, saying
that, in my opinion, it gave in a nutshell the • economics
of Anarchism. I now add that it expresses most exactly
the one and only purpose of the Labor movement, which,
if unable to accept it frankly, should go out of business,
shut up its printing shops, dismantle its editorial offices,
close its halls and strike its organizers and officials off the
pay-roll. * * *
Projecting myself into a dubious life to come, and
assuming, for the sake of demonstration, that I may be
called to fill a variety of roles, I anticipate the following
future. As the possessor of a crop of potatoes which I
myself have grown, I imagine myself faced by some sur
vivor of an earlier age who seeks to levy tribute on my
product. I hear myself replying: "Pardon me, Sir, but
we have changed all that. It is I who planted and har
vested those potatoes, on land that I myself have tilled,
and I part with not the smallest one of them to any
idler." I see myself one of a gang of men toiling in the
woods; felling timber, trimming it and making it ready
for the mill. I hear some would-be collector of stumpage
royalty stammering a parasite's demand, and ourselves an
swering, politely but decidedly: "Sir, these timbers that
you see around you are the product of OUR toil, and we
ourselves will make our own arrangements with the mill
workers, to whom we are about to send them." I see
myself one of the lumber yard force, which has fashioned
into building shape the timbers freighted from the woods,
and I hear sleek gentlemen insisting that we must pay
them for rights of distribution. Again I hear us saying:
"Gentlemen, we attend to our own business, and as we
paid the choppers the full value of their toil, so will the
home-builders pay us, and pay us gladly, for this lumber,
knowing that no leakages will dribble into do-nothing
pockets. In short, I see a society of workers economically
38

free; owning themselves, because, at every step, they own
the material on which they work; the land where the
potatoes grow; the trees they fell and strip; the timber
they fashion into lumber; the houses into which the lum
ber goes, and so "ad infinitum." A society purged of
tribute to the parasite. A society no longer bent beneath
monopoly's yoke, but one wherein natural opportunity is
only for the user and while he uses it. A society no longer
weighted down with those who exist merely to ride upon
its back. A society of workers, in which energy will be
exchanged for energy, and men will toil to satisfy their
own needs and not the insane whims of wealth-corrupted
idlers. I care not what name you give such economics,
it being sufficient to me that they seem practical and
just. However, if you turn to the "Data of Ethics" you
will discover that Herbert Spencer saw this very vision,
although his native pessimism placed it centuries ahead.
That means the taking from the rich the monopolies
they today enjoy. That means expropriation, and it can
mean nothing else; inasmuch as, having foolishly parted
with our lordship of the earth, we have to take it back.
To allow the few to continue eating all the cake is neces
sarily to leave the many hungry, and no sophistry can hide
that simple fact. When we decided to abolish royalty we
had to put the throne out of existence. When we decide
to abolish monopoly we shall have to drive the dog out
of the manger and see to it that every horse has access
to the feed. There is plenty for all, and the more so because
it is only under conditions of monopoly that man is
forced to be destructive and play the bloodsucker while
his inclination is to do usefully constructive work. The
Kaffir of South Africa does not devote his life to digging
diamonds for some idle woman's vanity because he likes
it, but because Monopoly today dictates production. The
American girl is not working in a powder factory because
she yearns to risk her life, nor are thousands of working-
men manufacturing implements of murder because they
are in love with militarism. They do so because Carnegie
& Co. are in a position to swing the whip, and they must
toe the mark or perish of starvation. That is slavery in
its crudest form, and slavery must go. We cannot con
tinue indefinitely holding Life itself by a thread so slender
as the pleasure of the few. We have to overthrow Mo
nopolies because they lead eventually to a corner in the
exceedingly important business of Life itself.
* * *
These, which I am trying to explain as clearly as I can,
39

are the economics of Anarchism, and I submit that they
are both simple and effective. I submit that Magon stated
them precisely, and I well remember that the "Los An
geles Times," that most intelligent watchdog of Monopoly,
wrote a furious editorial, to which I myself replied in our
issue of September 30, 1911. But I am not so sanguine
as to suppose that any agitator can influence perceptibly
the current of events, and the case would be hopelessness
itself if we had not on our side, and working with un
ceasing energy, a fact of most stupendous power. That
fact is that Monopoly — Capitalism — as such, is going all
to pieces before our eyes. If you doubt it, look around
you. In Johannesburg, the world's greatest gold-producing
center, those who dig out the gold are shot down like dogs,
and yesterday sixty corpses strewed that city's streets.
In Mexico, which is perhaps the richest of all countries,
an assassin has waded through blood to the presidential
chair, and the world's leadings citizens, its great financiers,
lend him $100,000,000, that he also may be able to mas
sacre the workers. In West Virginia are some of the
richest coal mines in the world, and there thousands of
what has been a fine and hardy population devote their
lives to producing that which drives our locomotives
across continents and our steamers through vast ocean
wastes; which lights and warms our homes, cooks our
meals, and is perhaps the one commodity without which
we should revert immediately to barbarism. Surely, most
useful citizens! But these useful citizens for a year past
have been driven from their homes and forced to camp
like wild beasts in the mountains; have been harried by
private thugs, worried by State militia, shot at by armored
trains, chased by federal soldiers, and treated generally
as if they were malefactors for whom hanging was too
good. Do you think that state of things can last?
* * *
All the foregoing is sufficiently obvious, but there is
another and most important development which calls
for closer observation. I have said that Capitalism, AS
SUCH, is going all to pieces; but precisely because it
has found itself no longer able to stand alone, Capitalism
has been forced into an alliance which has made it in
finitely stronger than it was when Herbert Spencer wrote.
In those halcyon days of youthful power Capitalism was
proudly self-confident and asked only that the State keep
hands off and leave it to itself. But Capitalism found it
self immediately in trouble with those it sought to squeeze;
found out quickly that it could not stand alone; reached,
therefore, across the chasm of a natural caste hatred
40

and joined hands with the landed aristocracy, courted the
official governing class, and made a close alliance with
the State. It did not take it long to discover that the State
was the most precious of all possible allies; for the State
furnished troops who shot down its rebellious victims;
the State passed invaluable protective laws and supplied
a most effective machine for their enforcement; in a
word, the State proved itself the most active and capable
of partners, and ever since Capitalism has spared no pains
to make their two lives one. * * *
Capitalism has been working more and more along
these lines for the last fifty years. If, by some magic,
tomorrow's sun should dawn upon a world in which
officialdom had ceased to be, Capitalism would be out of
business, and permanently, before that sun had set. Capi
talism knows that well. Capitalism is interested, first
and above all else, in building up the State; in multiplying
those soldiers by whom it insures itself against Civil
War; in strengthening the fortress of the Law, behind
whose ramparts it must defend itself against the guerrilla
fight waged unceasingly by that rebellious element among
the disinherited we stigmatize as criminals; in paying
humblest deference to that ghostly influence we call the
Church, which terrifies the weak with threats of Hell
and lulls the credulous with dreams of a Heaven beyond
the clouds. Capitalism is keenly interested in all this
barbarism, and the trouble is that while we understand
the hocus-pocus piecemeal we do not grasp its signifi
cance as a mass. We understand that the soldier who
shoots down the worker is our enemy, and from time to
time we emit a shrill anti-military squeak. We under
stand that the law is most unjust, and we start prison
reform crusades. We understand that the Church is
fooling us, and a large section of the workers contempt
uously speaks of "His Reverence" as a "sky-pilot." But
we do not understand so clearly that all these are but
parts of one colossal whole, the State, which is Capital
ism's all-powerful ally. * * *
If we understood this clearly, we should reject as poi
son all schemes for arming the State with added power.
We should not consider for one moment the presenting
it with railroads, that it might use them for the trans
port of its troops and operate them with industrial sol
diers who would be courtmartialed when they ventured
to rebel. We should not give into its hands the monopoly
of the exchange medium, with which we have to start in-
41

dustries and distribute what those industries produce.
We should not make it the sovereign owner of the land,
which is our one storehouse of supplies, and thus allow
it to establish a system by which only those who have
the price can feed at nature's breasts. None of these
things should we do if we saw clearly; but we do not see
clearly. Therefore, despite our frantic struggles, we are
still in bondage to the few who understand; the few who
rule us because, aided by the State, they have made a
monopoly of life itself. Do you think that only those
with money have a right to be alive? Well, that is just
what State-supported Capitalism has brought us to, and
if you cannot get a job by which to earn the necessary
dollar you are not recognized as having a right to ex
istence on this earth. It is the absurdity of all the ages;
the most idiotic dogma that ever ruled mankind. Never
theless, to that dogma Capitalism is committed, and there
fore Capitalism is doomed. Are we to perish eternally of
thirst when by smiting the rock we can make the waters
of life gush forth? Are we to allow State-protected Capi
talism to frighten us forever from laying a finger on that
sacred fount? * * *
Sixty men of the good old English breed lay dead yes
terday in the streets of Johannesburg, while hundreds of
wounded were carried to the hospitals. Nearly two years
ago we of the Pacific Coast received a visit from the
editor of Johannesburg's labor paper, who had been
touring Australia and New Zealand. An intelligent man,
who had the pluck to speak his mind and express in plain
words the astonishment he felt. He found us, as he had
found Australasia, crazy on all sorts of Socialist schemes;
Mr. Harriman yelling to the voters of Los Angeles to
municipalize public utilities, as, to the enormous profit
of the group of financiers which ran it originally, they had
municipalized their water supply; Mr. Berger whooping it
up for State insurance; a thousand propositions of State
arbitration, State minimum wage, State limitation of hours
of labor, etc., agitating the workers' minds, thanks to
the honeyed phrases with which men of the Debs type
had lured them into the opium den of politics. He cried
aloud: "Why, all these things we have in South Africa,
where money lords it perhaps more imperiously than
anywhere on earth! All these we have in South Africa,
and the workers are only the worse for them, since they
have strengthened Capitalism's hands!" Let the dead ly
ing in the streets of Johannesburg bear witness to the
honesty and clear-thoughtedness with which that true
42

representative of Labor expressed himself.
Capitalism unaided cannot maintain itself; for it can
neither employ the workers at the congenial business
of producing what they themselves need, nor can it even
guarantee them employment at the hardest and most un
congenial tasks. Standing alone it is in unceasing con
flict with its slaves, and they would tear it into shreds
tomorrow if it had not formed an all-powerful alliance
with the State. Surely it is not our business to make
that alliance still stronger by clothing the Government
with added powers! Surely it is not to our interest to
increase the army of non-productive State officials which
already is breaking Labor's back! Surely our policy is
to weaken Monopoly's great ally, the State, as they are
doing today in Mexico; to clip its claws and draw its
fangs, that it, like its Capitalist ally, may be no longer
able to hinder that great racial movement which is press
ing tumultuously onward to throw down every barrier
that stands between Man and economic freedom, between
Life and the great banquet which the toil of all the ages
has faithfully prepared.

The one thing certain is that nothing in this universe
stands still. Capitalism in this country must either ad
vance toward the South and become infinitely stronger,
or be turned back and receive a mortal blow. When Gug
genheim pleads for intervention he is voicing the desire
of all his class, which seeks to move ahead under the
shelter of Uncle Sam's strong arm. When the Mexican
peon opposes that advance, he is fighting the battle of
HIS class, which is warring against capitalism and de
sires to kill it as soon as possible. The more successful
his fight the better for the workers on this side of the
border, and the better ultimately for all the world, which
has to rise from slavery to perfect freedom. We must
ascend with the flood, shake off our parasites and win
back social health.

43

TO FIGHT FOR LEADERS THE MOST
FOOLISH OF ALL DREAMS.
The evening dies vulgarly away. For once the sun, in
lazy mood, has not cared to toss athwart the horizon his
golden mane, being disgusted apparently with the littleness
of men who kill one another for littlenesses, and, like
miserable worms, suffer for and amuse themselves with
littlenesses Along the dusty highway, and himself covered with
dust, a man of mature years is marching. Long must have
been the day's journey, judging by the fatigue reflected in
his face and the pain with which he walks. On his
shoulders is a light knapsack, containing perhaps a coarse
cotton shirt and a pair of ragged drawers. It is a soldier
of the Orozco-Cientifico-Vazquez army returning home.
The man walks and walks and walks, contemplating as
he goes the settlements scattered along the plain, peopled
with men and women toiling at their eternal labor, dressed
in the humblest clothes, with sadness and despair written
on their sun-burned faces. These people toil and dress
and present the same appearance as before the revolution.
The revolutionist stops to contemplate the picture and
asks himself: "For what did we make the revolution?"
And he continues his march toward the village in which
those belonging to him live; where his helpmeet and his
sons should be awaiting him anxiously after so long an
absence. Gradually the road begins to sink into shadow. There
passes him a group of workers who walk with the same
air of lassitude, of weariness and even of anger as was to
be observed in them before they set out for the war, from
which the traveller deduces that they suffer as before and
are equally unhappy.
The revolutionist takes the group in at a glance and
asks himself: — "For what did we make the revolution?"
And he continues his march toward the village in which
those belonging to him live; where his helpmeet and his
sons should be awaiting him anxiously after so long an
absence. The barking of the dogs announces the nearness of the
village, now in total darkness. The wind sobs amid the
branches of the ash trees that border the road. Our trav-
44

eller walks and walks and walks, thinking of his family 
Next day the revolutionist must betake himself to the
furrow, like any other of his neighbors, to earn his twenty-
five or fifty cents a day; for, even if Vasquez Gomez has
seated himself in the Presidential chair, the unfortunate
are still unfortunate and the poor are still humiliated by
the rich and by Authority.
The revolutionist reflects and asks himself: — "For what
did we make the revolution?"
Overcome by fatigue he returns to his hut, which he
reached the night before. His supper is a pot of beans
and a few pancakes. The dog yawns beside the fire; the
crickets sing their love-songs in the crevices; the children
are asleep, with scarcely a stitch to cover them.
"Who won?" asks his wife, who hitherto, overjoyed at
having clasped her companion once more in her arms, has
not had the time to put the question. After a few
moments' reflection the revolutionist says:
"Why, we did."
"But you have not a cent!"
"Well, however that may be, we won; for we downed
Madero." "But we remain at the bottom, as always," says the
woman. The revolutionist rubs his head, not knowing what to
say, and silently asks himself: — "For what did we make
the revolution?"
"When you joined the revolutionists you had a few
cents in your pocket, a good rifle and ammunition, and
good clothing, and today you have nothing. How is that,
if you are among those who won?" asks the woman.
The revolutionist scratches his head, not knowing what
to answer. He knows that his leaders have good jobs,
and that Vazquez Gomez is now President; but that for
him, as for all the rank and file, there has been nothing
except the payment of a few cents for his arms; not even
enough to pay his way back home. And then, remember
ing the trying days passed in the mountains; the fatigues
incident to a campaign so long and unequal; the sacrifice
of so many lives, and the hunger and nakedness suffered
by his family during his absence, he feels a lump in his
throat and asks himself once more silently the question: —
"For what did we make the revolution?"
"For what did they make the revolution?" the woman
asks; and the revolutionist, surprised to find his wife think
ing the same thought as himself, can no longer contain the
indignation boiling in his heart and he exclaims:
"The revolution was made for the wide-awake ones;
45

for those who want to be governors; for those who want
to live by the labor of others. We obstinately refused to
listen to the "Regeneration" Anarchists who advised us,
in every tone, not to follow leaders, but to take posses
sion of the land, of the water supplies, of the forests, of
the mines, of the factories, of the workshops, and of the
means of transportation, making all that the common
property of the inhabitants of the Mexican Republic, and
consuming in common the product. They told us that to
fight in order to elevate certain individuals to power was a
criminal task. We did not want to listen to them, because
they were poor, because they were of our own class; and,
as the saying goes, the sin has brought its own punish
ment. We deserve what we have got, animals that we are!
At this very moment our leaders are living high, while we,
the cannon's flesh; we who truly fought; we who showed
the enemy our chests; we are today more unfortunate than
ever 
Juan hears the bugle sounding the assembly. He rubs
his eyes. It has been a bad dream. He seizes his rifle,
congratulates himself on the fact that he is fighting in the
ranks of the Red Flag Libertarians, and shouts in stentor
ian tones: "Long live Land and Liberty!"
R. F. M.

46

PEACE! WHAT FOR? THAT YOU MAY
INSURE THEIR LOOT?
"Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers." Yes, indeed,
lingers and lags and tags along, centuries and centuries
behind. Our modern historians, drilled in colleges and
habituated to the dim, religious light of libraries, where
attendants creep to and fro like mice in a cathedral,
never weary of telling us how superior are our educa
tional advantages and acquirements to those of our un
happy ancestors. "In these enlightened United States,"
they say, "the child of the poorest parents knows a thou
sand' times more than did the English baron who wrung
Magna Charta from King John, and had to make his
signature with a cross." I guess that is true, but you
will notice that those illiterate barons got what they want
ed, whereas our typical American child and his parents
will pass from the cradle to the grave getting precisely
what they do not want — hard work and little pay; heavy
responsibilities and little glory; all the kicks and few of
the ha'pence.

Our workmen have a wonderful bill of fare set be
fore them at the public schools. They can become linguists
and mathematicians; stuff themselves with hygiene, so
ciology, biology and all the other 'ologies, and then
turn for their remaining days to the noble labor of at
tending a part of a machine, which itself performs a hun
dredth part of some perfectly useless task. All their
studies in biology haven't made them screw their cour
age to the sticking point of saying "this is not LIFE."
All their studies in hygiene have not given them the
pluck to say, "now that you have taught us that healthy
surroundings are indispensable, healthy surroundings we
WILL have." All their sociology apparently has not
made them aware of the perfectly obvious fact that, un
der the profit-making, monopoly system in which we
now luxuriate, they are lemons to be squeezed as dry
as possible and tossed into the gutter. Shakespeare made
one of his keen-sighted villains, Iago, tell them that three
centuries ago, and Shakespeare wrote a hand that would
throw a business-college professor into fits.
47

I have been led to these reflections by observing that
no less a personage than Thomas Marshall, Vice-presi
dent of the United States, has stated recently that our
education and the ideals it inculcates are leading the
masses straight to slavery. In my humble way I have
been expressing that opinion for many years. I have
observed that the boy who wins the good-conduct medal
is apt to be found running messages for the ruder spirits
whose simple morality is to get there with both feet;
that the model typewriters usually have to stick closely
to their machines and are the last to marry; that the
scholar who "scorns delights and leads laborious days"
is likely to wind up in the poorhouse. I have noted
that the men and women who eat most meekly out of the
employer's hand, making no kick about the food, are
those who have been put through the steady discipline
of the up-to-date factory and department store, where
each has his little bit of an appointed task and everything
is expected to move with the noiselessness of a well-oiled
machine. I have discovered that the governmental ideal
is a tame citizenship, moulded into paying its taxes with
out grumbling and taking without a murmur the laws its
governors choose to give it; that the police and mili
tary ideal is a nation that never makes a row; that
the schools and churches all back up that philosophy;
that the politicians and labor leaders want their flocks
scientifically rounded up; that, in a word, modern educa
tion teaches that if the sheep will accept the grazing
grounds marked out for them, they need not fear the
wolves. So it seems to me that Vice-President Marshall
has hit a great big truth in the very apple of its eye.
* * *
Other powerful influences all head that way; driving
the masses toward the delusion that if they will only
talk, listen and read with sufficient diligence they will
come out all right; although they are barred from the
land, without which they cannot live, and are dependent
for every mouthful on the few who, having got hold of the
material bases of life, are able to give them jobs. Los
Angeles, for example, is a city that prides itself on educa
tion, and waits eagerly on every alleged teacher who
comes along. Studying the notice board at Blanchard
Hall, which is perhaps the greatest and most central meet
ing place, I find the following set out as the intellectual
menu offered by the ten professors who advertise: "Psy
chology of Life, Health and Poise;" "Instructive New
Thought Talks;" "Helpful New Thought Talks;" "Soul
Science and Thought Mastery;" "Theosophical Society;"
48

"Mazdaznan;" "Astrology;" "Rosicrucian Fellowship;"
"French and German Lessons;" "School of Acting." Every
one is thinking that if we only study enough, and get
the right kind of teacher, we can lift ourselves up by
our bootstraps and snap our fingers at natural law.
"The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a
hell of heaven, a heaven of hell," we declaim. It isn't.
The mind is a portion of and dependent on the body;
fail to provide for the body and your boasted intellect
becomes fit only for a mad-house. ? * *
These are facts; proved by the undeviating experience
of individual and collective life. The individuals who come
out on top are not the students but the fighters, who
get and keep the things necessary to healthy material
existence; AFTER which all other things are added to
them, and their sons and daughters go to college and
make the European tour, instead of shouldering picks and
shovels or looking round for the best chance of selling
themselves, body and soul, in prostitution. The families
that flourish most are those that keep the family property
together and add to it by judicious alliances, until, like
the Guelph tribe, which never yet has produced a man
of genius, they are to be found on every European throne.
The nations that succeed are those like the English, who
have fought; or the Jews, who, though not fond of phys
ical violence, struggle as no other people struggles with
the weapons of astuteness, industry and perseverance.
In the name of the Mexican Revolution, which is fight
ing for material needs, and in the far greater name of uni
versal truth, I denounce this educational sham with
which the masses are hoodwinked by the cunning few.
The few believe not one word of it, and they show their
incredulity by the conclusive eloquence of their daily
lives. I denounce the cruel delusion that we first must
become masters of all knowledge before we can begin
to think of or work intelligently for economic liberty. I
say that it is contrary to all experience and contrary to
all the teaching of the world's great masters, who have
bidden us master simple truths — making ourselves like un
sophisticated children — instead of running wild over a
thousand mental vagaries, that swirl our heads into the
clouds and snatch our feet clear off this solid earth, to
which the law of gravitation binds us.
* * *
To speak most specifically; I denounce the intellectual
hypocrisy of pretending that you can oust from possession
49

the House of Monopoly by posting people on the drama;
by teaching children biology and hygiene, after the man
ner of the Ferrer Schools; by preaching sermons on peace,
after the manner of the Socialists, who have thrown them
selves frenziedly into that whining crusade which, until
lately, had been left most properly to the Carnegies and
their Pecksniffian satellites, who naturally desire, above
all things else, a tame and peaceful and well-ordered world.
By this time they have succeeded in locking up almost
everything worth having, and the keys are in their pock
ets. Of course they do not want to be waylaid. Of
course they want no armed burglar, able to break in and
seize the swag. Of course they are for peace; of course
they like to see the people studious; of course they feel
reassured when they find the disinherited attending church
or scientific lectures, visiting the libraries, forgetting all
about their bodies in a delirium of intellectual ambition,
and trying to convince themselves — as Debs would have
convinced the Mexicans — that they are not yet sufficiently
instructed to make a dash for economic liberty.
* * *
Our civilization has made us COWARDS, and THAT
is bringing it and all of us to grief. Our civilization is
separating us from Nature, who is the Mother of all
strength, and crowding us into cities, where we become
economically and sexually degenerate, and are courageous
only in talk. Degeneracy has become so wide-spread, un
der the highly artificial conditions of modern life, that
even the most prudish are discussing it; and the fatal
thing about degeneracy is that cowardice is its unfailing
shadow. I myself have heard high medical authority de
clare that the advance of sexual degeneracy in the United
States is so rapid that the nation probably will not last
another fifty years. That means that it will succumb to
cowardice; that a more primitive, healthier and braver
race will sweep it with the sword.
* * *
Peace! What have the disinherited to do with shame
ful peace? In numbers they are to the monopolist as
the sands of the sea are to the gravel on our sidewalk.
In enforced hardihood they are to the hothouse financier
as the prairie wolf is to the pampered lapdog. In the
memory of wrongs which cry for vengeance; in the pres
ent sense of miseries which cut to the bone; in the as
surance that in the accumulated knowledge of the ages
they have a heritage which will banish want and care for
ever, if they but dare to take it— in all these they have
such an incentive as never yet led men to conquest. Why
50"

should they debase their righteous war to one of words,
to please the orators? Why should they give their ac
knowledged enemy the monopoly of bearing arms? Why
should they listen to the educators who tell them that,
if they will only be peaceful and studious, life's plums will
drop automatically into their mouths? It is a monstrous
lie, and Marshall is speaking eternal truth when he warns
us that modern education and ideals are leading us
straight to slavery. * * *
The Mexican peon knows the one thing most needful
for him to know, viz., that he has been robbed of his
lands and that, unless he gets them back, he cannot have
that economic freedom he once enjoyed. Does that knowl
edge bring them back? There are thousands of German
workers who can tell you exactly how surplus value is
produced. Does that knowledge abolish surplus value?
Of course it does not. The intellect is only a part of
life. The head can do nothing more than see the road.
The body as a whole must follow it, and pant and sweat
and struggle, with many a fall, to reach the goal the mind
has sighted.  • ? • 
Professor John Graham Brooks, special lecturer on
economics in the University of Berkeley, recently said to
his class: — "I wouldn't, if I could, stop the work of
either the reformist or the revolutionary Socialists. The
reformists are not going to accomplish what they wish to
accomplish, but they are going to learn a lot by trying,
and, incidentally, they are going to teach the rest of us
a lot. But they will not be able to accomplish Socialism
through legal reform." The same gentleman said, with
a wisdom which happily will be lost on Gen. Otis, that
the capitalists had been very foolish in fighting traae
unions, for "they were the bulwarks of the present order,"
and he remarked that Pittsburg, where they have been
crushed out, "was rapidly becoming a seething cauldron
of revolutionary unrest."

51

"IMPOSSIBLE!" THE COWARDLY CRY.
Impossible! This is the cry of the impotents; the
howl of the reactionaries; the ejaculation of the bour
geoisie face to face with the picture of the Society of
the Future. Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!
Tell them that no one has a right to take to himself
a portion of the wealth the toiler produces; tell them
that the earth is the natural possession of all_ humanity;
tell them that the police, the soldiers, the office-holders,
are but leeches who live without producing anything use
ful or contributing to life's pleasure; tell them that thou
sands and thousands of human beings at present shut up
in prisons are merely the victims of a bad social system;
tell them all this and they call you blasphemer, evil
doer, criminal, every other name to which they can lay
their tongues.
Yet, beyond all question, we are telling the truth; and,
being convinced of that, we are directing all our blows
at the heart of the old social system. We are not wast
ing our time attacking the superficial; we are going to the
bottom of the question.
That which would seem to be really impossible is the
fact that the workers have lived so long without under
standing that they are slaves. That which would seem to
be really impossible is that the workers have not acted
on the proposal that they should throw off the yoke.
But the workers are not to blame; or, at least, not
wholly to blame. The real culprits are the politicians,
who have lulled the proletariat to sleep with the dream
of a smiling future won by the simple expedient of cast
ing a vote. Time has demonstrated that if there is one
thing truly "impossible" it is the achievement of economic
liberty by the ballot.
Run over the list of nations in which the people have
the right to vote and investigate the conditions under
which their inhabitants live. At once it will be seen that
the vote has had no influence in bettering conditions. On
the contrary; year by year misery grows everywhere
more acute; year by year thousands and thousands of
workers are without employment; year by year the gar
rison populations increase at a rate truly frightful; year
52

by year a larger percentage of women takes to prostitu
tion; year by year the number of suicides grows; year by
year the struggle for existence becomes more hard and
full of tragedy, and humanity finds itself more and more
unhappy, in spite of the electoral vote, in spite of repre
sentative governments, in spite of the progress claimed
by what calls itself democracy.
The Mexican Liberal Party is fully convinced of the
fallacy of makeshifts or political reforms. Inasmuch as
our party is not composed of politicians or place-hunters
but of proletarians whose =ole ambition is to redeem
themselves from wage slavery, it uses the opportunity now
presenting itself and goes straight to its goal — the eco
nomic emancipation of the working class, accomplished
by the expropriation of the soil and the machinery.
Were this not the final aim of the Mexican Liberal
Party it would be a party of clowns and impostors.
Forward!
R. F. M.

ORDER MEANS HARMONY.
"There must be Order." Thus shriek nowadays all
the upholders of what is called Order. For these gentrj-
Order can exist only so long as society is subject to the
rod of the policeman, the soldier, the judge, the jailor,
t,he hangman, the governor.
But that is not Order. What I understand by Order
is Harmony, and there can be no Harmony so long as
anywhere on the surface of this planet there are human
beings who feed to repletion and human beings who
have not a crust to lift to their lips.
If things were well arranged; if every human creature
had enough to eat and could obtain shelter without pay
ing rent — in a word, if bv a minimum of healthy labor
everyone could obtain the wherewithal to live a decent
life, no one would have the audacity to say: "I am a
greater man than you. Obey me!"
Then there would be true Order because there would
be Harmony. Men would not quarrel; men would not
envy one another. We should all be brothers, and the
policeman, the soldier, the judge, the jailer, the hang
man and the governor would be superfluous. They would
be superfluous because Harmony among human beings
having been achieved by the conquest of economic lib
erty, the parasitism of public officials would have no rea
son for existence.
Public officials are not, as is generally believed, the
guardians of Order. Real Order, which is Harmony, re-
53

quires no guardian, precisely because it is Order. It is
Disorder that requires guardians, and Disorder — scanda
lous, disgraceful and humiliating, from the very fact that
we were not born to be slaves — at present rules society's
political and social life.
That one social class oppresses another social class is
Disorder, for there should exist but one class — that of
the producers, the workers. Humanity will become a
working class when the land and the machinery become
the property of all, for then all will have to work in order
to eat. It is the maintenance of Disorder — that is to say, the
maintenance of political and social inequality, of the
privileges of an upper and the submission of a lower
class, which necessitates the governors, the laws, the po
lice, the soldiery, the jailers, the judges, the hangman
and the whole mob of big and petty officials who sponge
on the people's energies. The existence of these of
ficials serves not to protect humanity but to hold it in
submission; to hold it in slavery to those who have been
clever enough to get possession of the land and the
machinery. "There must be Order." Thus shriek nowadays the
upholders of Disorder; that is to say, the upholders of
social and political inequality.
No! Order does not mean the slavery of part of
humanity by another part, but liberty for the whole
human species. As for bourgeois Order, we Mexicans
are battling against it in our present rebellion. Against
that kind of Order we shout: "Death to such Order!"
For it is an Order that shackles man's free initiative; the
Order of the guardroom and the barracks. Death to such
Order!
R. F. M.

FREE SPEECH CRUSHED! WHAT ELSE
COULD YOU EXPECT?
As a consequence of the increasing frequency with
which radical speakers are being arrested, meetings sup
pressed, headquarters raided and objectionable agitators
run out of town, a great cry is going up from all the labor
and semi-demi-revolutionary press. Notably from that
owned by the Socialist Party; for, despite all its vehement
declarations that it is a political party and favors law
and order, the authorities draw no nice distinctions. Ac
cordingly the Socialist papers swarm with protests —
though it has been their settled policy to say nothing
when Anarchists speakers are suppressed — and I take the
following from the "New Times," of Minneapolis, as typi
cal: "The rights of a free press, free speech and free
assemblage have always been necessary to free mankind
from oppression.  But history never goes backward.
The rights gained by untold hardships will not be lightly
relinquished by the working class. They realize that, if
further progress is to be made, these fundamental rights
must be protected at any cost, and it is for this reason that
any attacks on free speech, a free press, and free assem
blage are so stubbornly resisted by a class-conscious pro
letariat." * * *
The passages quoted are such as you will find in almost
any Socialist or Labor paper; and, because they reflect the
general opinion of what calls itself, and should be, a revo
lutionary movement, they fill me with dismay. They ac
count for the universal weakness because they are them
selves so weak; and they are weak because they betray
total ignorance of that which all should know; because
they flinch the issue and put the cart before the horse;
because they misstate facts. * * *
First, as to facts. In my opinion we should acknowl
edge bravely that, where there is economic slavery, free
speech does not and can not exist. We should acknowledge
bravely that in the United States that condition has been
reached. We should lay aside patriotic prejudice and ad
mit impartially that in America everything is BUSINESS,
and that business, wherein we are all begging for cus-
55

tomers or pulling wires to get and hold a job, is fatal
to free speech and that truthfulness without which free
speech is worse than useless. Commercialism, which has
become this country's God, is the condition of mutual
and slavish dependence. Freedom is the condition of in
dividual independence, and where that individual inde
pendence has gone out of existence free speech is prac
tically dead. * * *
It was my own good fortune to live for years where
we all habitually spake our minds, for we were economi
cally free. It was my subsequent misfortune to be caged
for years in business, as conducted in these United States,
and to chafe unceasingly at restraints on free speech which
apparently my associates took philosophically, as part of
the day's work. As a newspaper man I know something
of the "sacred cows" whom it is sacrilege to criticise,
though they are almost invariably the community's great
criminals. I have scores of business acquaintances in Los
Angeles who attend church regularly, and scoff, in pri
vate, at the preposterous fairy tales the church still teaches.
But the church means valuable business connections —
for the whole things hangs together — and that means
bread and butter. You may talk to such people until
Doomsday and they will still be trotting to church. Give
them the economic independence that will enable them to
snap their fingers at business connections, and they will
go a-fishing. He who does not understand these things
after a short business experience is either stupid beyond
redemption or wilfully blind. * * *
It is no better among workingmen, and you will walk
far before meeting one who dares speak out his actual
opinions, either in the shop or at the union meetings. In
these latter workmen will inveigh against Capitalism, for
that is safe and popular, but ask them to criticise their
own officials, who have economic power and can make
jobs insecure, and see how they will wilt. Free speech
may be well enough in theory, but business is business,
and they do not propose to risk their bread and butter.
All of us are in the meshes of the same commercial net,
and the very fact that we talk so much about free speech
is proof that we do not possess the thing itself.
Habit makes the man, and people who toady habitually
to customers and employers are not going to be heroic
in their defence of such agitators as the authorities see
fit to suppress. They may go to a protest meeting, for
that means pleasurable excitement; but that is as far as
56

they will go, and it has been proved a thousand times.
Nor, under such conditions are the agitators themselves
likely to be heroic, and this also the history of the last
eighteen months has demonstrated most sadly. Fear of jail;
fear of putting themselves in a position where they would
be blacklisted and barred from the all-essential job, has
gagged millions of workmen during the last eighteen
months; and you will notice that practically the only ex
ceptions have been found among the I. W. W. As the ad
vertisements say, "there is a reason." The I. W. W. is
composed largely of men who have ceased to care for
Jobs, who are rebels against Business and have made up
their minds to beat their way through life. As for the
others, they are all dependent on the commercial ma
chine. Even the rich banker must keep his tongue be
tween his teeth to win depositors, and while Emma Gold
man cries out for men of backbone, I myself doubt if her
own devotion to business has left her the rudimentary ves
tige of such a thing. If she had it she would say the
things which need, most sternly, to be said. As it is, she
picks the subjects that are popular, which is a vastly dif
ferent thing.
Why should one spare the whip? These Labor leaders,
Socialist leaders, Anarchist leaders, etc., what are they
but flies upon the wheel? Our task is to shove ahead the
revolutionary wagon, at present stuck fast in the mud
of an agitation that deals only with effects. We must lift
it to the firm ground of causes. When we howl about the
suppression of free speech, we deal with an effect. When
Emma Goldman whines, as she did recently in Los An
geles, about the cruelty of modern "economic efficiency,"
she deals with an effect. When we treat of sexual eviis
and are horrified at the discovery that jaded millionaires
pay large sums for virgin flesh, we deal with an effect.
When we surround the ballot with secrecy, that the
master may not know how his dependent slave has voted,
we deal with an effect. We do not get to causes until
we discuss that artificial dependence, which is our punish
ment for living on each other, and contrast it with the
independence — such as the Mexicans enjoyed before they
let their politicians steal the land from beneath their feet
—which comes with access to and getting our living, in the
natural way, from nature. Our economic dependence on
one another is the cause of our troubles, and we should
recognize it frankly. We should not be such hypocrites
as to pretend that, while that rotting slavery endures, we
can purify the social system by Ferrer schools, Socialist
57

law schools, oratorical orgies, sensational trials, dramatic
strikes or any other of the thousand and one devices con
trived by editors and party leaders and lecturers to attract
the crOwd and bring in business. We should go straight to
the real job. We should say to ourselves — "the first thing
we must do is to get out of this condition of dependence;
for, if we prize free speech so highly" — and most highly
it should be prized — "until we become economically inde
pendent free speech we cannot have."
* * *
The article I am criticizing and have taken as my text
asserts that history does not go backward. It is a lie, for
there are long periods of reaction, and we in this country
are struggling to emerge from one of them. It speaks of
"further progress" and that is a most gigantic lie, con
cocted and frenziedly upheld by men of the Gompers
class, who would have us believe that their organizations
have been an impregnable bulwark of protection to the
workers; whereas they are, in reality, a washed-out levee
through which the flood of monopoly poured long ago,
drowning the former independence of the American work-
ingman and converting him into the helpless driftwood
that he is today. It talks of the stubborn resistance of
a class-conscious proletariat, and the resistance reminds
me of the spectacle I once witnessed in New York, when
several thousand striking, and starving, cloakmakers scat
tered like chaff before the winnowing of some half-a-
dozen policemen's clubs. We are not advancing, as the
writers of such articles would have us believe, along the
smooth and easy highway of reform, but are being hurried,
against our will, to the dangerous rapids of Social Revo
lution. We can shoot them safely if we steer straight for
the one landing point — economic independence. If we pull
aimlessly, as we have been pulling hitherto, a frightful
smash awaits us. * * *
In all warfare it is necessary, from time to time, to
run desperate chances and take part in what is known as
a "forlorn hope." But such "forlorn hopes" should never
be undertaken except to capture some absolutely-essential
point, and it seems to me that it behooves the revolu
tionist who has some grip of fundamental facts, to say,
most firmly: "If you are going to be hung, let it not be
for the scraggy end of an insignificant lamb chop but for
a good fat, juicy sheep. If you strike, in the face of
bayonets and clubs, let it be for something worth the
winning. If you must go to war, go to war for something
substantial and permanently effective; not for better treat-
58

ment from the boss, but for elimination of the boss, by
conquering your economic freedom. Strike for the full,
the individual and the equal RIGHT TO LIFE. Strike
for free access to and equal ownership of nature's great
factory, the earth. Write on your banner "Land and Lib
erty," and resolve to win; not by wild words which merely
exhaust your strength, but by the well-directed blow
which proves that you have studied the game and dis
covered the enemy's vital spot. Let us win the economic
fight, in its basic fundamentals. Free speech, with all the
other blessings to which our civilization should entitle us,
will then come as naturally as comes the herbage with the
winter rains. * * *
Grinding poverty, blind ignorance, crime, suicide, in
sanity and all the frightful evils that beset society on
every side, have a tap root which lies far deeper than
the temporary class distinctions social war developes. It
is to be found in our denial of the individual claim to
life; in our stubborn refusal to acknowledge that every
child of man has a right to the free and equal use of
this world, into which he has been born without his
asking. When that right has been theoretically acknowl
edged, and won by actual struggle — as eventually it must
be — we shall rise, unconsciously and as a race, to heights
of which today we can but dream. We shall be free in
dividuals, and by that very fact we shall be co-operators
on a scale the magnificence of which we of this genera
tion cannot sense, for each of us will stand on his own
feet, able to lend all his emancipated powers to the ad
vancement of civilization's common task. At present we
live under a vast system of co-operation, which is weari
somely complicated and hideously oppressive by the very
fact that it is conducted under conditions of slavery, which
deny the equal right to life. It is the co-operation of de
pendents, in a thousand grades of varying dependence
but none of them free men; none of them able, without
personal sacrifice, to speak out bravely what he or she
actually thinks, and, therefore, none of them able to con
tribute his or her just share to that swelling flood of
knowledge on which depends Man's future. We must
get out of slavery at any cost; for freedom beats it, in
the furtherance of human happiness, all to pieces. Hence
the necessity of a deep-cutting revolution. Hence the
necessity for encouraging such a struggle for the funda
mental right to Life as that in which Mexico's disinher
ited are now engaged, against the blind forces of Mo
nopoly and Privilege. The road ahead of us is long and
59

hard. Let us shorten it as much as possible by marching
straight.  ¦ ? ¦ 
Just as Poland, hedged in by three greedy empires and
inhabited by a people more artistic than commercial, has
been repeatedly the prey of the invader, so has it been
and is with Mexico. She stands between the money-mak
ing North and the seductively alluring and almost virgin
resources of the tropical El Dorado. Used for genera
tions to free communal access to land, wood and water,
her people have adapted themselves to their climate and
taken life easy. They have none of the long industrial
training and discipline back of us; none of that commercial
astuteness our highly artificial life has forced us to de
velop. All they can oppose to the roaring tide of a com
mercialism which threatens to engulf them is the rocky
barrier of an Indian temperament which is tenacity incar
nate; which has clung for centuries to simple ways of
life that suit it; which has simple but most decided ideas
of right and wrong; which regards the tax-gatherers as
robbers; which hates the centralized government that ren
ders collection of rent and taxes possible; which wishes
to work for itself at tasks satisfactory to itself; which
abhors, above everything else, the military regime which
forces it to fight on behalf of a patriotism in which it does
not believe. A race at once communistic and individual
istic. People who will take in free exchange all the labor-
saving machinery we can supply, since they wish to save
themselves all trouble possible; but who do not take at
all to the idea of working that machinery in factories to
profit others.

60

LABOR'S SOLIDARITY SHOULD KNOW
NEITHER RACE NOR COLOR.
More than two years ago the Junta of the Mexican
Liberal Party issued the following appeal to members
of the Socialist Party. It was published in "Regenera
tion" of April 29, 1911, and copies were sent to So
cialist locals and exchanges throughout the country.
It was drawn up and circulated in absolutely good
faith, the Junta having not the suspicion of a doubt that
in what, as it knew, was destined to be a terrific struggle
between the Mexican proletariat and the Money Power
of the world, the Socialist Party would throw its entire
influence, in this and every other country, whole-heart
edly on the side of the oppressed.
Unfortunately things turned out differently, so far
as the Socialist Party was concerned. Unfortunately that
party proved to be still in the primitive stage of develop
ment during which the mass hangs on and guides itself
exclusively by what a few leaders choose to say, and
Mr. Victor Berger declared that the Mexican Revolution
ists were bandits, while Mr. Debs, in a carefully-prepared
pronunciamento in the "International Socialist Review,"
proclaimed that Mexicans were too ignorant to fight for
freedom, and prophesied their pitiful scourging at the
hands of the possessing class.
So far as the Mexican Revolution itself has been con
cerned, things have developed almost precisely as they
were expected to develop. Through chaos and the over
throw of leader after leader, the Mexican disinherited have
marched far along the road to complete realization of the
complete program originally framed. All the world now
knows that Mexico is the center of a great revolutionary
movement which covers the entire country; that the move
ment is essentially economic; that, as such, it stands in a
class entirely by itself; that already it has performed a
colossal task of expropriation, testified to by the number
of wealthy Mexicans now refugees in the United States
and elsewhere, and also testified to by the concern so
plainly manifested by the United States and European
governments, as agents of the International Money Power.
Clearly the ignorant Mexican has not proved himself
as incompetent as Mr. Debs anticipated, and his actions
61

have been on the largely militant scale that lifts them out
of the category to which Mr. Berger so hastily consigned
them. In fact, if our readers will trouble themselves to
study the translation of Mr. Araujo's article which we
present in this issue, they will discover that, within
three short years, the Mexican proletarian has done what
his class-brothers in the United States and Europe have
been vainly hoping for during a century or more. The
offers his own government is now making him, on bended
knees, are not to be matched in the history of any other
country, when the comparatively brief period hitherto
covered by the struggle is taken into account.
The main and all-essential economic plank in the plat
form of the Mexican Revolutionist was the restoration of
his stolen lands. Read Mr. Araujo's article and ask your
self how far he is today from getting them.
Obviously the Socialist Party, like many other supposed
Revolutionists, calculated wrong. One cannot see that any
but themselves and their own movement suffered by the
error, and for the Mexicans it must be said that they
entered on their struggle with the full understanding that
they must fight their own battles for themselves. We
give the following manifesto, therefore, simply as part of
the historical record, which will appear shortly in the
more permanent form of our "Land and Liberty" series.
We do so without a touch of malice, since the education
of the International Proletariat, along unswervingly mili
tant revolutionary lines, is the only thing in which we take
a particle of interest or on which we are disposed to
expend the smallest modicum of energy or money.

Comrades! For, whatever hair-splitting pedants may
say, you are our comrades. You have been attacking cap
italism for years, declaring uncompromisingly that our
entire economic system is rotten from top to toe and must
be rooted out, at all and every cost.
Mexican prisons are full of men and women under
death sentences for teaching what they learned from you.
Mexican soil today is red with the blood of those, many
of them Americans, who are battling to bring to reality the
dream with which you inspired them. If this does not
constitute true comradeship — the comradeship of the heart
and not of the mere lips — what does?
During long years of talk dissensions necessarily arise;
but when action takes the place of talk; when at last the
proletariat rises to throw off its chains; these differences
should vanish, and every honest soul should feel that it is
treason to stand aside. 62

Do not be misled into supposing that the quarrel be
tween Madero and ourselves is a quarrel between Mexi
cans, which Mexicans should be left to settle for them
selves. It is not. It is the old, inextinguishable quarrel
between bourgeoisie and proletariat; between monopolists
and disinherited; between those who wish to live peace
fully under the existing system and those who know that
under the present system there is no peace. Apart from
Madero's personality; apart from the fact that he is an
enormously rich man, owning approximately five million
acres of land and having proved himself in the past a most
tyrannical employer; apart from that most significant
personal fact, this is a quarrel between the superficial
reformer and the radical revolutionist.
This quarrel, therefore, is yours. Without playing the
traitor to the great international cause of the emancipation
of labor you cannot ignore it.
That you do not intentionally ignore it we know full
well. But it is often hard to see clearly, above all when a
movement is being conducted in a tongue with which most
are unacquainted.
From the very first — nine years ago — the Mexican Lib
eral Party has stood before the public with a clear and
simple program from which it has not swerved one hair.
From the first it has said that it means to get the LAND,
now monopolized by plutocracy, back to the people. It
says so still. From the first it has said that it wages war
for complete economic emancipation. It says so still.
From the first its motto has been "Land and Liberty."
Beneath that it still fights and will continue to fight.
Such a cause claims your adhesion; claims it by abso
lute right. For the moment Mexico is to the front as an
active warrior in the world-wide battle for the overthrow
of human slavery. She should not be allowed to stand
alone. Throughout the world the Latin races are sparing
neither time nor money to assist what they recognized
immediately as the common cause. We are satisfied that
the great Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic branches of the army
of labor will not lag behind; we are satisfied ignorance,
due to language difficulties, alone is causing a temporary
delay. We do not appeal to you to help US. Our appeal is
that you leave no stone unturned to help YOURSELVES
by utilizing the magnificent opportunity of forwarding the
common cause which the Mexican Revolution affords.
Our success means your success. Our failure means
long years of additional agony and struggle for you. For
63

the moment the tide is setting in your favor. If you sit
idle it will turn against you.
Do not shirk, either individually or collectively. Grasp
the situation; make up your minds to exert yourselves, and
a score of ways in which you can be useful will suggest
themselves. For example, hundreds of Spanish and Italian
papers in this country and Europe have published our
manifesto. It has been translated into English and Ger
man. See to it that your papers reproduce it in full and
enlighten their readers on this all-important subject.
It is needlesss to say that in our struggle against plu
tocracy we need all the money that can be raised, and
many Spanish papers long ago opened subscription lists.
Surely their example should be followed.
Help the propaganda in every possible way, remember
ing always that in doing so you help yourselves and clear
the road for the emancipation of your class and the attain
ment of a life worth living for yourselves and those de
pendent on you. It is for our wives and children as well as
for ourselves that we must struggle.

64

PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AND DEVOTED TO THE
REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA.

"THE SYNDICALIST"
Published twice a month at 1000 S. Paulina St.,
Chicago, 111. Year, $1.00. Six months 50c.
Urges workers to avail themselves of existing labor
organizations and enlarge their aim, in order that they
may struggle unitedly for complete economic emanci
pation.
"THE SOCIAL WAR"
Published every three weeks. Address P. O. Box 16,
Station "J," New York City.
Subscription voluntary.
Discusses social problems from the standpoint indicated
by its title.
"MOTHER EARTH"
Published monthly at 55 W. 28th St., New York City.
One dollar a year.
Emma Goldman, proprietor. Alexander Berkman, editor.
Anarchist and Literary.
"WHY?"
Published monthly at 143 S. Washington St.,
Tacoma, Wash.
Sixty cents a year.
Devoted to the Social Revolution.
"THE SATURDAY REVIEW"
Published monthly at Medford, Ore.
W. D. Guernsey, Editor.
Fifty cents a year.
Seeks to express the worker's view of life and welcomes
free discussion.
"THE MELTING POT"
Published monthly at 411 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo.
Fifty cents a year.
Motto: "If it won't stand the melting pot it's no good."

"THE WOODEN SHOE"
Published weekly at 781 San Pedro St., Los Angeles, Cal. i
Fifty cents a year.
Issued by the Los Angeles locals of the I. W. W., but
discusses social questions from an independent standpoint.
"THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW"
Published monthly at 118 W. Kinzie St., Chicago, 111.
One dollar a year.
Is a Socialist magazine, but apparently is making some
effort to break away from narrow sectarianism and adver
tises itself as "of, by and for the working class."
"FREEDOM"
Published monthly at 127 Ossulston St., N. W., London,
England.
Forty cents a year.
Styles itself a journal of Anarchist Communism and
, discusses social questions from a frankly revolutionary
standpoint.
"THE HERALD OF REVOLT"
Published monthly at 17 Richmond Gardens, Shepherd's
Bush, W. London, England.
Forty cents a year.
Guy A. Aldred, Publisher and Editor.
An organ of the coming Social Revolution.
"THE MIDDLETON GUARDIAN" .
Published weekly at Middleton, near Manchester, England
A large, well-established paper, with an extensive cir
culation, which pays close attention to the land question
in all its phases, including the Mexican Revolution, John
Bagot being the editor. He has published in cheap, popu
lar form, "Progress and Poverty," "The Foundations of
Freedom" and other radical agrarian literature. Corres
pondence, fromthose who know how to write logically and
tersely, welcomed.
When writing to place orders for this booklet, address
WM. C. OWEN,
P. O. BOX 1236,
LOS ANGELES, CAL., U. S. A.
Special and specially generous terms given to agents,*
organizations and others ordering in quantities. All orders
will be filled promptly, but we ask the public to save us
the expense and labor of book-keeping by sending money
with the order.

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