Hammerslag

Issue #1

Hammerstroke upon hammerstroke. Until the last day of living

— Henrik Ibsen

For the readers

In the past, when the overwhelming majority of our numbers served just a few lords of the land as slaves, kept working while bound in chains on their fields from the early morning to the pretty evening, ever with the whip upon us—that was a time when no one thought to raise their voice even ever so slightly about freedom, rights or “reasonable demands.” It is only today, after we actually accomplished many of the goals that we choose to relentlessly shout at the tops of our voices about what we already have and about what we don’t want.

I believe that we today have gotten hold of more rights than we actually need. And more rights than we can actually handle or wield. And if we want even more rights, if that should be our wish, we have the power to make that come true too. Many of us only work about eight hours every day. We decide our own salaries and virtually all of the conditions around the work we do and provide. And when we have done a days work, we are more or less entirely free. We can then go and watch an Ibsen performance/play, a Wagner Opera, or we can read. We can read Maeterlinck, Nietzsche, Tolstoi—anyone. That is how far we have come today.

But even though the quality of life and the difference and conditions is so vast between us and or forefathers, it needs to be said that we are not happier in the least today, even with our improved conditions. There is so much in our lives still that makes our situation bitter. We know this, and we experience it every day. It is only natural then, that we seek to find more joy and sunlight. But the conceptualized freedom, the boisterously loud chants about reasonable demands and conditions all have something ridiculously empty about them. It is not more freedom that we strive for or seek. It is more character within us that we seek and strive for, more of the human in us.

There is something falling short in us, and life becomes pain. I am a radical and a revolutionary. And as every other revolutionary folks I can see the beginnings of a wide spanning revolution. I call out for it. But the revolution I call out for is not the type of revolution that can reduce a whole city to an inferno within just a few hours.

It is a revolution of the hearts and minds of the people that I call out for. A revolution that starts from within, from the heart, and works its way outward so that all the people of the land can become noble in spirit and character. Because without becoming noble in our actions and thoughts and spirits, in all our behaviors, we will not be able to move even one step forward.

Some few men and women amongst us have started to realize this. But a few, just a handful to be truthful, are fewer than the numbers that should be able to see and acknowledge the truth. It is for this reason and towards this goal that we today have started distributing this little newspaper. To bring as many people as possible to understanding and admitting the truth. We hope it will find the needed support amongst our friends. In addition to focusing on the word of Ibsen, we want to share about communism and bring light to ideas that have commonalities and utility within anarchism and its theory. Society, the people, and their many strange institutions will be assessed, analyzed and critiqued as best we can. Religion, morality, conduct, behavior, spiritual matters, culture, art, and science will also be put to the test and get its turn under the hammer.

***

KRISTOFFER HANSTEEN

About a generation ago, a boy was born in a good family somewhere in Norway, that grew well and trained to become a very decent young man.

He was sent to school, and then to the highest institution of education in the country, the university. There was no doubt that he would amount to something considerable. Because sizable men with impressive minds had in the past had the same name as he now held. And he did indeed grow into something. Because he had heart, brains, and a noble character. And he could see clearly and reflect, and he was honest and straightforward enough to tell other people what he saw, and how he saw it. There was manliness in him and one beautiful day he terrified his parents by declaring himself a spokesperson for the anarchist viewpoint, and by putting thoughts to paper. Similar thoughts had never been written like that in Norway. It was bravely done, but it was hard to stand alone with his thoughts and his little newspaper Til frihet (Towards freedom). When he died some years ago there was nobody left to pick up his work and carry it forward. But we would like to bear witness to the fact the the revolutionary spirit lives on like Hans Jæger said, and that there are those who remember his work still. As we today publish the first issue of Hammerslag we should keep alive in our memories the kindhearted, noble, Kristoffer Hansteen.

HENRIK IBSEN

The colossal work of the master is not yet begun. The big storm as settled and the many literary critics and sensationalist writers have elbowed their way to the front to tell the world that Ibsen was raw, crazy, unchristian and many other things. They have now quietly retreated back in amongst themselves and are shutting up. There is actually nothing more to be said about him. Everything related to his style, art, and technique has been discussed through and through and laid before the people in the scientific way, so there is nothing more to be said about him. There is silence around his name. There is nobody not even in the literary profession that engages in any Ibsen-talk. If we ignore hitherto unreleased poems or such that travel like ghosts through the news from time to time there is nothing left of the big literary movement that was created by the master at the end of the last century. One would then think that his influence on the world has diminished but one would be mistaken. His work would not end until we see him up there in his tower waving his hat at us, for then to fall down. But many years will pass before his great work will be brought to a halt and it is then that we will exclaim. Our building master!

I am one of those that see in Ibsen not just another literary playwright responsible for plays and poems and productions. I see in him a bricklayer, creator of religion, road builder, artist. I believe that he will be read and taken seriously also in the future. A day will soon come when this will be clear to us all.

***

RELIGION FOR THE PEOPLE

Once upon a time some people created an ideal in a supernatural creature, a god that was the origin of everything that ruled over anything. This ideal was supposed to enrich their lives here on earth, make them more noble, and bring them from a condition of being savages and wild to a way of life and understanding where people would approach each other with decency, love and the ability to share lives rooted in mutual understanding and peace.

This ideal was big and beautiful, and if everyone would just rise to it in a truthful and sincere way, and actually believe in god and live their lives as reflected in his image, then this world would be a paradise for everyone. This idea spread across the globe, and temples and cathedrals rose wherever people dwelled, in such numbers and sizes that it might seem sad to waste such amounts of stone, materials, and working hours. But the faith was strong, the will to sacrifice was there and everyone would surely soon bow down to god.

Yes, given to god is a way to describe most folks in the civilized world today. It is common. A nonbeliever is such a rare type of person to come across, that it is easy to assume that such a person is a black sheep or a bad leaf on the family tree. But the believers, that are the vast majority, that have in time immemorial adorned both village and city with beautiful structures in honor of god, a god that is the personification of goodness itself that they model themselves after. How have they fared in this world? To me it doesn’t seem like this world, rich in churches and adorned structures though it might be, reflects much of the devotion, the big and loving devotion this is love, care, brotherhood, in short all that is good and fair and awesome. Once, when I was still a child, I thought that folks were still good and kind at their cores. When I met folks out in the world or in my own house, they gave the impression of being good and kind, even very good and very kind. They greeted each other with smiles and a kind way of speaking. They held and shook hands and guided and cared for each other. In short, they behaved like good folks in all of the situations. It made sense as they all believed in god, as my mother said.

I do not see it like this anymore. I do not think that they truly believe in god. Because the more I see, the less I can believe that they are actually and truly thinking about a just god embodying love and care. It is not apparent in their behavior.

I have found that the belief in god doesn’t compel anyone to anything. A principal [Kroll: a character in one of Ibsen’s plays, Rosmersholm] can tear out hearts and destroy the peace of the mind. A John D. Rockefeller and a Morgan can, by nefarious means and at the expense of true believers around them grab million after million while still believing in a god. One can be a thief and a crook and all manner of undesirable and it will not keep you from believing in a god. The faith compels nothing in other words. I have come even further on this topic. I have come to the conclusion that humans never believed in god. They never gave themselves to him and they never committed in any way. It is a fantasy, a false idea, and in some cases a falsehood and a lie. Humans never found god. They never searched for him but for pleasures up in heaven. Afterlife and joy in the skies as opposed to life down here. Here one would not just find it, one would have to search for it. They stagnated and decided to wait for paradise instead. They did not offer a thought to themselves or their children. Their life became like a tiny place for trolls to meet in the mountainside. Their hearts and minds faded, filled with shadows and sadness and ugliness. It is at this level we are stuck today much like the people of early times, when they used a bow and arrow to shoot and made their way onwards on rivers in hollowed out tree trunks. It is all for the idea of joy in paradise, all for the pleasures.

I think that something needs to be done. There is work ahead of us! Everything great about us will wither and fall away if we don’t get going on it. I want to work for truth and for everything that does away with weakness and lies and cowardly behavior. Everything I can do within my power, for myself and my brothers and sisters, for life, the children and everyone that will come after us and inherit this earth is what I aspire to do. I will appeal to their duty and call them to arms and make them see their duties as humans. I will show it as it written in their very hearts. I will show them where they stand. It is not my intention or idea that I want to reform the world and the people here. I do not want to talk to people from a moral high ground. It is not possible. But I can awaken sparks in people and encourage their own will to full lives, faith in their own powers and the possibilities that they wield. Make them feel more noble through pointing out their will and power. That is what I can do. It is also the only thing that is needed.

But the road back to god is closed. So a return to god is not possible. People will feel like they are standing alone and we will have to make decisions from our own moral compasses. And as this is true and a big responsibility there is a need to have people look away from the pleasures and trappings of paradise and look to themselves and the difficulties here on earth. A need to understand our own daily struggles and through such a deepening bring us gradually closer to our goal. As much happiness and wellbeing as possible. Such a pursuit and quest can do more for actually attaining true insight and fulfillment than one thousand sermons ever could. It is the best religion around. The quest towards the highest possible level of happiness and fulfillment must be based on a broad platform. It must encompass everyone and be based on the idea that happiness and fulfillment is something that everyone should be given access to. Given the shape of a question that can be posed to everyone, it could sound something like this: Which types of social life guarantees a society and all its citizens the highest form of wellbeing and happiness. What types of social life allows this type of wellbeing and happiness to grow and develop in a quantifiable and quality oriented way? With a such a question, the population would be equipped with a practical religion and tasks that can be figured out and completed.

REVOLUTION

Changes in society happen slow and steady but there are also times where they happen a lot faster. This commonly happens when people have been held down by lack of knowledge, misunderstandings, false assumptions and bled dry by despots and parasites. For a long time they have been underfed and in pain with only hope to sustain them. But the levy has broken. In a quiet hour when their oppressors least expected it they rose again and shook off the leeches and vampires. With the help of the revolution they have found what they have been kept from for so long. The sudden changes in society belong amongst the laws of nature in the same way that slow changes in society belongs to nature. In the societies of man it is becoming apparent that new perspectives and ways to orient have taken root amongst the people and that new and better ways to organize socially and financially are establishing themselves. The old ways have been set aside as they are outdated and of no use any longer.

Issue #2

Hammerslag — newsletter for sharing and promoting anarchist ideas and thoughts. Released and can be ordered through Johan Hellum, 964 John Street, Seattle, Washington Price in the US is 50 cents per year. Shipment to Norway costs two dollars yearly. Issued monthly. Issue 2. November 1911.

ABOUT CHANGES IN OUR SOCIETY

If we lived in a world that was perfect, with a societal form of government that afforded people actual freedom, justice, and right to life, i.e., the right to decide your outcome. If the institutions were based on brotherhood and a loving disposition and characterized by a nonjudgment that accepted everyone without prejudice and saw everyone as humans with the right to live. Nobody would then have to trouble themselves with questions about life and society. We would be left to our own feelings of contentment and happiness. But we do not live in such a world. Not yet. We have not reached that level of development where we leave sorrows behind and let it all be forgotten. On the whole I think that our world is one of continued building. We should not tell anyone to just go to the circus or variety shows to enjoy trapeze-artists or the like. It is grey and teeth are being gnashed in the world we are living in at this point. And in such a world there is work and fighting to be done. Anything else is unbearable and on the level with all other types of hopelessness. As long as there is something to fight for. Powers need to be tested. Wills will be measured. Break against one another. Like the forces of nature. Like the elements in their most awesome wrath. But there will also be times of sunshine and peace.

When a movement has been brought to its natural conclusion and a fight is over and something grand and great has been achieved there should be a time of rest to recharge our batteries and to listen to the wisdom in the silence after all that has been moved around. There will be a beauty throughout all of it. A beauty like a summer’s morning casting its charm after a stormy night. Happiness will fill our hearts and put a smile on our lips just like the crystals of the white dew on the ground and the tall grass and flower and leaf and makes all this boundless beauty move and billow with joy over the devotional nights merriment. And the joy of the coming day will grow with the rising sun as it reaches the clear skies.

It is a forsaken and uncared for world that we children of the twentieth century live in. It is a world that puts idiocy, meanness, and inauthenticity up in the high seat. And rawness and the lack of Christian virtues dominates both the land and its inhabitants. There is no sense of responsibility or care for one another and there is no such thing as a sense of duty towards kin or fellow humans. No acts of service. There is death and destruction, and the geniuses stand atop mounds of the dead, as Vigeland wrote. The gates of life remain shut against those who cannot buy their way and millions go to the dogs (perish) because they don’t have what it takes to get going on the task of attaining a life, the meager but daily bread, the very bare minimum, what we feel should be a birthright for anyone here on this planet. No thought is spent on the contrast and ugliness of the current state of affairs. The ugliness, the poverty, and the toil is somehow gods plan. Things are as they are meant to be for us, and with that people settle down with a calm sense about them.

This is quite simply how things are. Those who have the power and the brains and the privilege to not be very worried about outcomes are given the space by this culture to not think about their fellow men. They don't think about the zounds of folks without bread. Not in the least. Probably because they themselves are full. With full bellies they are happy in their lukewarm hearts, in spite of the suffering going on around them. Their thoughts are far away from this world. They cast themselves at scientific tasks and fret over the most inconsequential matters that will never have any bearing on the struggles of the people. And in their quest for answers they turn the tiniest questions into the biggest problems. The clearest paths become the most winding labyrinths. For these people, the fauna on Mars or moisture on Jupiter matters more than how millions of folks live on this planet, and if there are things we could do to aid them in their struggles and free them from their doom.

The task around getting an arrangement set up in society where everyone gets their daily bread and access to a living isn’t a pipe dream or inherently impossible. It is one thousand times easier than flying in the air. This ideal will be brought into fruition not in five hundred years but in our immediate future! Why there isn’t already an arrangement in society that grants everyone justice, freedom, and equality in how we can access these birthrights isn’t due to how it is an impossible problem but that the clever humans that today have made flying in the air and talking through electricity to people far away and how they keep surprising us with even more outlandish wonders. Wonders we would not have even imagined until they were presented to us. Do you not think that these people with such experience in their repertoire and years of knowledge can solve the problems we face when they apply themselves to it? Of course they can, and it will get solved. It shall get solved!

Our experience here on earth can be made big and bright and rich, just like it is now being made small, low, and dark. The world can be filled with happy humans, with decent merry men and women. Just like it is now filled with filthy beasts that darken and corrupt the world around them just by existing.

We can arrange our way of being here so that everyone can have access to unconditionally positive outcomes. Outcomes that are not only food and a warm bed, but also the makings of a meaningful life. Now there is torment and pain for most. For the few privileged and rich there is nothing but an endless tearing boredom that kills their lust for life and drive to achieve. But it can all be changed. Whenever we want it and decide to make the moves we can make change in our society happen.

THE WOMAN AS I SEE HER

“Yours is a society of pepper-man souls (pebersvend means pepper-man it kinda means incel or someone who never got married)—you do not see the woman”

As I walked on the street in absolute silence the other day I was contemplating these words by Ibsen and I was suddenly knocked entirely off the sidewalk by this giant machine of a woman. I assumed rightly that this would be one of the leading personalities in the womens’ rights movement out here by the shores of the great sea. Everything about her led me to believe this.

She had a single colored dark blue frock coat with sashes over the arms sown to fit a man. The skirt was the same color and complimented the frock coat. Around the neck that was low but thick there was a white clean collar and a red tie. And the headwear was not anything beyond simple and dignified hat as seen on some military personnel and employees of the postal service. It was highly simply and referenced the original uses for a hat as there was no trace of bird feathers or animal tails. A great and functional umbrella was held aloft over her and she held it high in her hand and anyone who faced her had to step out in the gutter to avoid the spikes on the umbrella. She made a deep impression on the people around her and gave off an impression of deserved respect and reverence. She was the womens’ rights woman that demands to be given all the same rights as the man without putting herself on equal footing with him [I am not sure what this means. I guess its 1911. —translator]

Was this womens’ rights woman the type of woman that had kept the world and its people busy? She that gave birth to all our little ones and instilled in each of their little hearts a spark of hope and faith in our world. She that tamed the wild beast in men and had a hand in all of the moves towards a brighter future for this world. Was this the same woman that had just pushed me out into the gutter?

In the woman I had seen my faith and belief in life, my pride and everything that I cared about in life. She had played in my thoughts and made music in my soul. Touched my soul’s most deepest sincerity with such joyous dreams and visions. She was a summers day as she came skipping between the sunshine and flowers and bushes with a smile about her mouth and a sea of boundless energy for life emanating from mysterious and enigmatic eyes. They blink and are alive and get what is happening. That is the way that I saw her. She was a flower that emanated the scent of wellness. She was a rose put on this earth. A rose that was made to dry tears and heal hearts. Light a fire in them. Build in them. Make everything so grand and great and good. Roses that attract and mystify with the beauty of their being and all that is lovely in silence and the eternal soul. Like anyone that lives in a world of hate and repression like ours can only find in the one person that gave them life and introduced them into this world. And they came to her, anyone tired or sick after the pointless quest for happiness in a heartless world. Hopeless and beside themselves they came to her. In sorrow and was given comfort. In grief and was given advice. She was the one that was there as hope when life was too hard to push through and when the angst of the moment of death seemed too deep, she was there as light and for us to lay our head in her lap. Everyone came to her, because she gave of herself and her soul and let everyone into her heart. They came to her, because in her they found what they had been looking for. But they had never found forgiveness, comfort, support, or friendly words. Not until her. All of these values that help mankind and elevate us to a point where we can look towards the mountaintops, life and the great peace. —PETRONIUS.

***

NOVEMBER 11, 1887.

1887 was filled with unrest and events and became a year that went down in history for people around the globe. On the 4th of May many people had gathered in the city square in Chicago to protest the murders of striking workers the police had made themselves guilty of.

The gathering opened in peace and order, and no upheaval had happened. Suddenly a group of 200 police rush into the square creating creating fear and confusion amongst the people who had gathered to listen to the speeches. The attack the crowd as thought the spectators were a pack of wild boars, a deafening pang happens, and the whole scene is bathed in the worst kind of utter panic.

Everywhere there are terrified faces, women that pass out, bleeding men, wounded police officers and here and there are half dead humans trampled on the ground. They are bleeding too and have been trampled by the throngs of panicked people trying to escape. Who threw the bomb? Who would take the blame for the terrible thing that had happened? It was commonly thought that the anarchists had sown seeds of distrust amongst the people and that it had made folks be unruly and distrustful of their lords. They should therefore be attacked with equal mad force and be haunted by the same level of perceived insanity. They should be killed.

And as it happened. After all the high nobles and lords had spent their resources gathering evidence against eight men that had nothing at all to do with the bombing, these same eight men were sentenced to be hanged.

The 11th of November dawned on the tragedy that was characterized by an inhumanity that shook the whole civilized world; the horror of which every year after brought the spectacle back into people's memory, about which there will always be horror.

***

Who he was and what he thought, the man who threw the bomb, is not interesting to us anymore. But the circumstances that led to the unfortunate events are deeply important. In 9 out of 10 cases it is likely that this person was just another one of the people for whom the ever present darkness and lack of hope, bread, and water became too much to bear.

Leaning against the fence around the victory monument that is featured in Trafalgar Square in the enormous and rich town of London stands a little and weak looking man, with hunger and desperation written on his pale face. He is listening to the speeches that are meant for all of the unemployed people that have gathered around the monument. There is something hopeless about him. Maybe he is just very hungry, tired and done with it all. Maybe he has not tasted food since the previous day. He is listening to the well fed and clad speakers that he himself helped put into office in parliament and city hall. They are talking to the hundreds that have come there in hopes of being given something to tide them over and make the biting hunger stop for even a little while.

They speak to armies of unemployed people about socialism, about the things they have pushed through, about how they are the ones to vote for to avoid unemployment, and about things that aren’t their concern in the least. By god, it is bread that these folks want for. Everything looked so hopeless for the pale man leaning against the fence. No way out and nothing but empty words from the speakers, so his thoughts wander. Seeking and looking! Maybe in this moment he is thinking about the delightful commander Louise Michel, she who always travelled where help was needed and carried with her the words of blessing. He remembered her from a time in Paris when she passed a group of workers that discussed amongst themselves how to attain something to eat. She inquired about their wants and needs and would not leave them before having aided them. There has to be a way. There simply must! She looks through her memory and thinks about it, but no. She then peers down the street with the tattered huts on either side and suddenly her face brightens. There is a baker on the corner and within there is plenty of bread. Take it and eat it. The baker will be just as financially stable and he will have a fresh supply of bread in the morning anyway. So why not go there and fill your bellies? You will not have to touch his money or destroy anything for him. Only take the bread you have had a hand in making and take only what you need. After this advice the men stormed into the baker’s establishment and took the bread that they needed.

Why do the men in the nice clothes speak of things that are so distant and irrelevant to me? Why are their speeches so useless and empty? This is what the pale and weak man ponders. His patience is no more. There is nothing more to gain and nothing more to lose. A terrible crack thunders and the pale man falls to the ground. Confusion, scared faces, fleeing people, squeals and screams, blinking revolvers, whips, men and women and children draw their last breaths. Trafalgar Square is nothing but tears and ready kindling.

***

RECEIVED LITERATURE

John Veiby Sunday Labor (A psychological lifestory) The price of a dollar prepaid P.O. Box 294, South Bend, Indiana

Hammerslag — newsletter for sharing and promoting anarchist ideas and thoughts. Released and can be ordered through Johan Hellum, 964 John Street, Seattle, Washington Price in the US is 50 cents per year. Shipment to Norway costs two dollars yearly. Issued monthly

Issue #4

February 1912.

LIFE AND BREAD FOR ALL!

It is proven and admitted beyond any doubt, that humans today have come far in their working methods and technical appliances for improving quality of life. Today we can produce such things with an ease that would have amazed any worker one hundred years ago, even the most visionary dreamers amongst them. Agriculture in particular has generally improved massively.

One gets a sense for what one can cultivate from the earth when faced with such results achieved by folks like Teodor Hertzen, purely by observing and experimenting with the natural world. He thinks that now, with modern production methods for growing and using the land, only 220,000 people will be needed to make enough for around 22 million citizens (the population of Switzerland). And Hans Jæger thinks that a fifth of the male population of the civilized world would be enough, if given a fitting area about twice as big as the tillable soil in France, and could produce enough meat, egg, flour and fruits and commonly eaten goods from the soil in enough quantities to feed the entire population of the civilized world. In any climate, any patch of soil and anywhere we please we can now utilize to its fullest potential; says Kropotkin. And when we think about how it is only 25 years since Campbell amazed the world by transforming amazing stretches of dry land in the US from a desertlike state to overflowing gardens able to provide 60 bushels of wheat per acre in such a short time it must be seen as nothing but spectacular. But the general interest around farming and mastering the soil is relatively new and will probably impress us in new and uncharted ways, even though we have now come so far that we can make produce in our cool basements just by mixing chemicals if need be.

Lastly I want to say that in the past, the American bonanza farmers produced one and a half bushels per acre and gained not much more than 15 bushels as a result, they now gather no less than 60 bushels! Based on this, and only this, the rate of growth we expect from farming is not too much or unrealistic or without basis.

***

It is known then, that we have become capable over the last hundred years to acquire all of the things we need. This almost to such a degree that we must see the question about food sustainability and access as solved. One would think that the question regarding poverty would be solved as well. But we must be faced with the chilling fact that this has not changed and that the same issue faces us now as it has for so long.

There is starvation! Everywhere on earth, in every little nook, wherever there are any number of folks. Wherever there are governmental structures, money systems, and private property. Institutions made by a few to benefit a few at the cost of so many.

They sustain themselves on the donations from well meaning folks. They make us main, murder and hurt each other just for a few scraps of food. Not only in London and other big cities. Not only in Italy or Russia, but also sparsely populated smaller places like our own little Norway. Why was it that we left again? It was precicely because there was no way to live in a common way through the means made available to us. You sons and daughters of norway that walk around speaking about a cultural inheritance in a language that isnt even your own. Think about what it was really like, what it was truly like, in the village or town you hail from. You drape yourself in lines like "in the light of the silvery moon" and you love everything even remotely Norwegian. Do you also remember running around back home in pants that you would have had to patch up at least twenty times? That you lived in cottages with broken and tattered roofs and that you only got to eat bread maybe two times per day?

In Kristiania [former name of Oslo, Norway — translator] the battle to survive is still like it was portrayed in the book Albertine by Christian Krogh written in the [18]80s. We only see the mother Christiansen more bent over and frail than before. Edward sits in a chair in the dark corner of the house and coughs, consumed with the process of falling apart from the inside. Albertine can only leave the house every third week or so, because she can’t afford to release her only dress from the loan-office, even though she sows. And consider this: Norway is not one of the poorer countries, it is one of the richest! Not two million people, but 10 million people should be able to live prosperously there. And they should not have to live from hand to mouth like the two millions are doing now, but like kings! This is a fact that cannot be denied.

But this is the question:

Why should this sadness and misery be amongst us even as it is a fact that we have a system in place that could feed and sustain ten times the number of people that we are? It would keep us well beyond and safe from the limits of sustainability without even worrying about tomorrow. Why are so many people walking around without shelter, food and clothes in a world like this. Why?

When the riches of the world are available amongst us but people still walk around without access to them the reason is purely and precisely that people are kept from attaining said riches. They have been robbed of the right to attain what they need to survive and to live full lives, by a group of bandits that think that clothes, food, housing, and safety are only for the ones who can pay for it.

Under the farce of state rule people have lost the right to live. In the so-called organized society with laws and rights and money systems and private property, the masses have been tricked away from their bread. The anarchists speak up against this at its root because it is clear that it cant be fixed by putting yet another group of people in positions of power at the head of the state machinery.

Away with the class of crooks that drive us down into poverty and hunger under the guise of ruling us. it is life that robs us of dignity and turn us into something bestial. Away with private property, government, the church and all idiotic institutions that hold us back in our march forward and towards a way of life that we need to have and should have.

Rise up to fight against the destructive elements in our society!

***

ANSWER TO PETRONIUS.

From Petronius’ article in Hammerslag, November 1911, I can see that he is a dreamer. He is thinking about current issues with the mind of a child.

With the ingrained stagnant ideas. I would like to wake him up with some facts about daily life.

Set a pendulum into motion and it will for a time swing back and forth as far as it can. It will slowly start to swing less and after a while it will hang quietly just at the center.

It is the same with the womens’ movement. Since we have been kept in the shadows and kept silent and outside of the discussions and important talks, we shall seek to go to the opposite end of the spectrum as we familiarize ourselves with this new situation of being equal to men.

The woman that pushed Petronius into the gutters is but an example of the well-meaning but extreme women that new version of the womens’ movement, while it is still in its pendulum swing. She does not have to be an example of what we are fighting for in the future.

We are also not all like her. She is a means to an end. Uncomfortable for most perhaps, but a part of the solution through her understanding of what is needed.

It is damned enraging and infuriating to be treated like a flower for hundreds and hundreds of years and only be on this earth to look cute and smell delicious. Or just to put babies on this earth, that would question the value of growing up here anyway, if given the insight and the choice.

It is an insult to our intelligence that we should be happy with what our mothers and our grandmothers found to be satisfactory.

We would have been at a standstill all these years with everything else moving forward and away from us.

We know that we are built for something much greater. That we have minds, bodies, thoughts, and strength. We are not like the flowers and we are not as frail as stems and leaves and petals.

I am a big believer in womens’ absolute freedom. In matters of politics, gender, and all other areas. A much bigger believer than most of the people I meet. I have never revolted in the streets or been arrested because of it. Nor have I ever (and may the devil be my witness) dressed like the woman in Petronius’ retelling.

I, on the other hand, love to dress up in flowers and pretty clothes and I love to dress up in the fine fashions as much as some of my sisters of old did. I do it with freedom and liberation, and I could not care less what some people might have to say about it! They might not even have ever thought that their souls are their own anyway!

What situation do you think is more admirable?

Wake up Petronius, and see my delightful new hat! —“Ydi.”

***

“DOWN WITH THE PRIESTS!”

Under this headline one can read in Verdens gang [large Norwegian newspaper]:

A letter-writer to the “politics” section from Brussels describes the almost violent opposition against the clergy and the churches upper class that the student body is currently doing. Saturday saw big student demonstrations by the newly revealed Ferrer-monument.

Around 500 students gathered at the Grande Place square. The music played the students’ war song "A bas la calotte" (“down with the priests”) and the gathering started moving. There were four students at the helm with a white cloth between them. Resting on the cloth was a doll dressed in priests clothing. They would suddenly tighten their holds on the cloth and pull sharply in opposite directions, making the doll soar into the air on multiple occasions. The students sang so loud that half of Brussels must have heard them as they marched through the streets. Traffic had to entirely stop and onlookers greeted the students with supportive cheers and shouts. Onlookers threw flowers from the windows and the students answered by waving their black or white caps.

In front of the Ferrermonument one of the leaders held a fiery speech against the "tyrannical stupidity that seeps out from all churches on the planet" and the war song was again sung loud.

The students parted ways and the only thing left was the Ferrer-monument. This young man that only owns his nakedness, but in this, he lifts the torch of truth sky high.

***

As far as we know, there is no newspaper in this country that dared to share this news amongst their readers and the people. But this is no surprise in a climate and culture that never allows anything fresh or needed to shine through.

To this all we would add that we see it as proper and right for any student to conduct themselves exactly like these young folks when it comes to the priesthood. It is natural and reasonable that these fully matured folks stand up and do whatever is in their power to stop the darkness and threat that is the will of the priests and the church in matters of spirituality.

To stand up against something that seems terrible is as natural in the human experience as laughter when something strikes us as humorous. In exactly the same way as when we see someone acting like a clown, a type of heat and indignation will rise up in our chests when we see a group of people experience something hurtful or another group of people misuse power. This is something that bothers our natural feelings of solidarity with each other and we cant be expected to stand idly by.

***

It is sad and thought provoking, that the life that the regular European student engages in with regards to politics and solidarity is so alien and unknown and uncommon for American students and young people. I am convinced that it would benefit the whole of American society if the student body took to something more meaningful than playing sports or having pie-eating-contests.

It is clear that many universities and institutions for education have a bare minimum of political activity, including our Norwegian priest-factories. So why not focus on knocking the senseless idiocy out of them?

I shall as a last word here remind my fellow men and women with feelings of pride for our national treasures. An establishment for teaching Norwegian youths how to become farmers somewhere in Dakota had a statue donated (the bust of Ibsen) to them by a well meaning benefactor. At first the establishment decided to place it in the halls for all to see but then decided to remove it so that all the young Norwegian men would not have their minds corrupted by the kinds of ideas that such a bust represented. Imagine such a thing!?

***

FOR THE READERS.

The reason why there is no new number scheduled for January is that we are buried in work. Even a tiny project like Hammerslag can indeed be overwhelming. I am alone as I am always out in the city working it must be easy to picture just what little time is left over for a project like this magazine. We will do our best however to get back to a regular interval of publishing.

Historic — cultural historic — litterature historic sources

Dr. Otto Anderssen — The French Huguenot 1559–1572

Harald Tillier — The Paris Commune, 1871

Dr. S. Eitrem — Cicero and his time, interiors and portraits based on the letters left behind.

Jens Raabe — The City, and Traces of Its Life

Dr. F Grøn — Fads and Medicinal Traits Through the Times

L. H. Lunds Bookstore 2818 W. North Ave. Chicago.