The Firebrand: Vol. 3, No. 6 (March 14, 1897)
For the Burning Away of the Cobwebs of Superstition and Ignorance.

A Woman Waits For Me.

Self-reform and Environment.

It seems to me that the advocates of the two schools of thought that have been contending of late, in The Firebrand, hold very much the same relative position, in their arguing, that the two knights did who contend, one that a certain shield was gold, the other that it was silver. One contends for self-reform, the other for altered environment. One says reform begins at home; see to it that you are all right yourself. The other says, pshaw, one cannot be moral, nor happy, nor “all right” in such crime breeding surroundings. Like the Knights of old they are both right, from their point of view, and differ and contend with each other, because they have seen the shield from opposite sides.

That people are the legitimate and necessary product of their heredity, and the environment in which they live, is admitted by all fairminded and logical thinkers. But what creates the environment of which we complain? The mental condition of the people by who we are surrounded, including our own. For instance a child is born of ordinary parents on a farm. From his parents he inherits certain propensities or aptitudes. His surroundings and education all tend to make him “honest," and he very naturally grows up an honest farmer. Another child is born of so-called “tough" parents in the slums of a great city. He is taught to lie, steal and pick pockets. He never knows anything but hardship. Can he be anything but a “criminal"? No! The conditions which surround these children are the direct result of the mental state of the people. They go on perpetuating the conditions by upholding them: by considering them perpetual and submitting to them without protest. They can, at any time, by united effort alter the conditions. We have land monopoly today, but it could not last a week if the people of the United States would repudiate all legal titles. The same is true of the money monopoly, in fact of all forms of monopoly.

In order that a clear understanding may be reached, it will be well to calmly and fairly look into the claims of both schools of thought, discover, if possible, their foundations, and compare the claims and evidence of both schools. Then we will undoubtedly be able to arrive at a fairly correct conclusion.

Modern science has shown beyond a doubt that man, in common with all other living things on this globe, animal or vegetable, has arrived at his present development, and is to-day, from a purely physical point of view, just what the ever changing conditions of organic and inorganic nature, have made it possible for him to be. Should we look no deeper into the underlying cause of present social arrangments, the argument of the alter-the-environments advocate would be correct in his contention that we are purely creatures of our environment, and that self-reform is nonsense. But we do not find humanity living the life of the less complex forms, but living a life made up of many forms of activity, and requiring a multiplicity of things to make it complete, or even approximately so. Life, to-day, among human animals consists of much more than eating, sleeping and reproducing. Human beings associate. They create artificial protection from such atmospheric conditions as might prove fatal or disagreeable to them. They clothe themselves, provide themselves with musical instruments, pictures, books and innumerable other articles that are the work of their own hands; the result of association, of combined effort. It is because of this artificialism, this changing of the course of events and the overcoming of the resistance offered by inorganic nature and the aggressions of organic, but unthinking nature necessitates looking at man from a different point of view from that occupied when studying a stone or a plant. All these artificial arrangements, these things that are due to man’s intelligent exertion, are within man’s power to change. And these are the environments which make for man’s weal or woe: for the morality or immorality of the race: its happiness or misery. And, no matter how much these environments may effect the lives of the individuals who live in them, they are the direct result of the people themselves.

“Honesty is the best policy," we are told, but yet every business man knows that in order for this to be true the word honesty must be given a new meaning, and that in order to succeed he must adopt a policy that, while it is best—best only because it brings success—it is far from honest, in the old sense, and absolutely lacking in any consideration, sympathy or pity for a rival, or for those with whom he deals. This is necessitated by the fierce competition and struggle for supremacy which is unavoidable if success is to be attained. While this is true it is absolutely useless to preach honesty to those who are engaged in business. The wage earner, on the other hand, is exorted to be frugal, faithful to his employer, sober and saving. But he sees that his frugality only adds to the accumulations of the successful; that his employer cares no more for him than for a piece of merchandise or machinery, and that if he is sober and saving it only tends in the end to increase the value of other men’s property to raise his rent, and eventually leave him only a poor dependent. What good will it do to shout morality into his ears? Thus is the argument of the anti-moralist brought forward, and if we go no further in our inquiry of why, we must admit that his argument is correct, but he immediately becomes illogical when he proposes to alter the environment, or at least when he asks others to assist in altering the environment, for when he does so he immediately recognizes “self-reform,” or the power of human beings to alter their mode of thought, and to control their actions. If he did not he would not ask men to abstain from voting, to refuse to uphold the law and to give their support to the officers of the law. So the moralist steps up and says: If all man will be upright, all will be well. But he ignores the influence of environment and tries to induce men to attempt impossibilities. It is not possible for two men to run a race, and both reach the end of the course ahead of the other. Neither is it possible for a man to compete for success and all prove winners when the opportunities for success are limited. The kind of self-reform that has been taught for ages, and impressed on this generation by Christianity, took no account of environment, sought not to alter the conditions, but dealt wholly with the individual. It is no wonder that it has failed, for while it has taught “love thy neighbor as thyself,” it has also fostered a form of association that has of necessity put neighbor against neighbor. Obedience to the powers that be has been constantly enjoined, and the “powers that be” have so monopolized natural opportunities, that existence to a good many depends upon their ability to crowd out others, and to get the jobs that others must have or perish. While this state of affairs lasts how can people love their neighbors? What use is it to tell them they are all brothers? An empty stomach has no conscience. But if all men would co-operate, even now, they would soon see that they are not each others enemies, but that the conditions they support is their true enemy.

Looking at the question from all sides we see that mankind and human environments act and react on each other. All persons are influenced by their environment, and in turn they help to make the environment that influences others and themselves. When this fact is more generally understood much of the quibbling that now goes on between the advocates of self-reform and alteration of environment will cease. Of course we want an environment that will not incite to bad deeds, but will rather encourage good deeds, but we must recognize that this change can be brought about only by the individuals themselves, acting differently. That is the kernel in the nut.

As long as some men will shoulder a gun and shoot their fellow men at the command of a leader, as long as men put powder into the hands of others—as long, in fact, as the people continue to uphold authority and the present system, just so long will all the evil effects of this system continue. Change the system by all means. Abolish the crime creating environment and crime will vanish, but the individuals themselves must make the change. Rid yourself of all desire to rule and it will be easier to induce in others not to exercise authority. Refuse to exercise or to recognize authority and you will thus not only demonstrate that you are yourself ready for a new environment, but will thereby help to tear away the environment that breeds the thing you abhor.

Human beings and human environments are inseparable, but the environment is as much the product of human beings as human beings are the product of environment.

Free Reading Room.

“Miss Talbot,” said I to the little lady who has charge of the 'Free Reading Room' I placed in the reading room a few weeks ago, do you know?”

“They were destroyed," replied Miss Talbot.

“Destroyed, Miss Talbot, what for?” “Well, they were not considered fit reading.” “And,” added gentle, churchy Miss Talbot, as she took firm hold of the back of the chair by which she was standing, “there was another paper—Lucifer I believe, wasn’t there?” “Yes,” I replied distinctly, 'Lucifer!' “Do you think that is a very moral paper?” she asked timidly. “I certainly do,” I rejoined, gently but firmly, “it is a paper of the highest morality. They are both educational papers; in lines unusual here, of course, hence the prejudice. Did you read them, Miss Talbot?” “Well, no, but the committee—the Y’s—(Y. W. C. T. U.) said they were all alike and I was to destroy them. I looked at Lucifer,” she added modestly, as if ashamed to own it, “but I didn’t think it was a very moral paper.” “It is, they both are,” I answered, “I am acquinted with the editors; they are striving to do good, but there is so much prejudice to overcome among the ignorant. I once thought as you do, but have learned much.”

“You had better see the committee. I only obey orders.” “Of course, Miss Talbot,” I replied pleasantly, “you are not to blame, who are the committee?” “Miss Ida McCreery and Carrie McDermott are the committe now.” I thanked her, expressing a wish that she had “notified me before destroying the papers as I gave them to people constantly who appeared to like them,” and resolved that it would be useless to intrude progressive teachings upon a private library run in the interest of the paralized intelligence of the church, on whose table, however, are found gold bug papers, corporation arguments and sporting news with all the obscene advertisements and slum items peculiar to the daily and weekly city press.

Whenever the Co-operative Exchange of Loveland is provided by its members with a suitable room of sufficient size we shall open in connection with it a radical reading room, where readers may find news of the scientific, the industrial and the spiritual movements in progress for the benefit of the race; also a museum of natural curiosites, native ores, relics and precious stones, to be exhibited and exchanged for others of like kind or books or papers by which readers may grow and develop the mind. We have many liberals here who desire such reading, and who would contribute toward such an object, not of money perhaps, as with all else we do not need money, but of radical literature on hand or to be had. I have disseminated such reading matter through the Exchange for years and intend to go on doing what comes to be done. Any donations, or what is better deposits at a just (not cheap) valuation, of such books or papers will then be welcome. Just now we are hibernating in two rooms.

“Scientific Socialism" and other Things.

The State Socialists take especial pride in styling their brand of Socialisms as “Scientific." Their New York driver is dubbed the “Professor." But the extracts below will show how much science some of them are acquainted with, and coming, as they do, from one of the best speakers of the S. L. P. and an ardent believer in the infallibility of the Socialist pope it must be peculiarly aggravating to those in that party who have some knowledge of social economy. The extracts are taken from a report of an address delivered in Worcester, Mass., by Martha Avery Moore. Comments are mine:

“A product was a thing produced by men that satisfied a human desire or want,"

But many things are “products" and yet in no way satisfy human wants or desires.

...“a nugget of gold is worth so much because so much labor power has been expended."

That is false. A nugget of gold is “worth" so much only because law has given it a fictitious valuation, it matters not how much nor how little labor has been expended in its production; the labor cost of producing an ounce of gold in some parts of Colorado is given at 6 cents; its selling price—not value—approximates $20. Labor expended in the production of gold is almost wholly thrown away. To a large extent, this is true of silver.

...“a chair had use value because useful labor had been expended, that is useful social labor had been expended;"

Worse yet. Had that chair been formed by Nature, wholly unaided by human labor energy, its use value would have been the same as though a thousand men had labored for a year to construct it. Its use value lies wholly in the fact that it is of utility. The orator got use value mixed up with the cost or selling price.

...“the factory in which the chair was produced was the social tool. If the price of the chair were one dollar and improved machinery were introduced, the market would be flooded, manufacturers would know too many had been produced."

Mrs. Moore is the first Socialist “educator" I’ve heard of who could admit that so long as people are in need of unsold products there can be over production. Highly 'scientific!'"

...“Money is such a power because it is the universal equivalent and will buy in any market."

This is one of the worst yet. Its power, like that of gold, lies in the fact that it has been falsely appraised by those who had an interest in enslaving the people. Being neither more nor less than a fiat it has no real value. Its power is the power of law and government, and that is all.

The Socialists who reported the “speech" was surely joking when he wrote: “Six Comrades have formed a Karl Marx class with Comrade Avery as a teacher."

He also reported “that at another S. L. P. meeting several good points were brought out. One was that money was a commodity. Some wanted to say it was a creature of law, but it would not go." That needs no comment.

For the benefit of those who think hat special privileges should be given to men of extra ability, even under Socialism, I will call their attention to something that may be new to them. I get it from Cowles’ “A General Freight and Passenger Post," which is a Statist book. The author refers to the establishment of the postal system in England. The postmaster general sought to establish distance rates on letters and papers in proportion to cost, but figures and facts proved to him that a letter from London to Edinburgh (400 miles) cost for conveyance and handling 1-36 of a penny; a newspaper 1-6 of a penny. Letter postage at that time for that route was 1 shilling and 3 1/2 pence. Letter postage from London to Louth was 10 pence, though the service actually cost fifty times as much as to Edinburgh. A few figures like this satisfied him hat an equal rate for any distance would be the simplest and most just way of getting at the matter.

So with our mistaken friends who think that justice requires even under Socialism a system of rewards and punishments, they can never establish a satisfactory (nor a just) system of the kind. The only way to settle the question once for all is to establish equality without special reward beyond a desire to be a benefactor and no punishment save that of refusing to associate with a shirk. In a civilized society these will be found amply sufficient.

Another incident mentioned in the same book may be of benefit to our individualist friends. It is the case Coleman vs. N. Y. N. H. & H. Ry. Plaintiff held a ticket over the road, but had some trouble with the conductor and was assaulted and thrown off the train by half a dozen railwaymen. He brought suit; case was tried four times; on one of these trials an agent of the company used this language:

“The road has no personal animosity against you, Mr. Coleman, but you represent the public, and the road is determined to make it so terrible for the public to fight it, right or wrong, that they will stop it. We are not going to be attacked in this way." Under individualism there would still exist just that spirit. To say in answer to this that the public would be free to build roads is not to say that those interested in the matter could raise the necessary millions for the undertaking or that the operating of two railroads where one would suffice possesses a single element of social economy:

Mr. Cowles gives the principle on which the postal systems of the world are based as follows:

“When once a postal system is established the machinery must run, and it makes no practical difference in the cost of the business, whether a letter, or a newspaper or a parcel is carried one mile or a thousand. Once the mail has started on its trip, it is impossible to figure the difference in cost, whether a piece of postal matter is left at the first office at which the mail stops, or goes to the farthest office in their system. The bulk of the business will always consists of messages between neighbors."

The Iowa legislature recently passed a bill “making" a dog property. That is what “statesmen" are for. Now we know what property is, and Proudhon’s question is answered.

A Michigan legislator (Goodel) got a dinner at a French Cafe; the bill of fare was printed in French. As he could not read that language he selected five items on the bill of fare, at a cost of 16 cents each, or 80 cents in all. He got potatoes in five styles. This made him so mad he now has a bill in the house providing that bills of fare must be printed in English.

That reminds me of a law passed by the Minnesota legislature, about six years ago, prohibiting the use of tights in theatrical performances. But while it still lacked the governor’s signature a manager of an operatic troupe then at the state capital invited the solons to an evening performance to show them how “modest and becoming" tights were. They went in shoals, but what was their horror and the audience’s delight when the soubrettes tripped nimbly on to the stage with their—er—um—lower limbs encased in pillow slips. The governor never dared to sign the bill.

“The Beacon” is the name of a State Socialist paper, evidently published for the purpose of lighting the people on the road to superstition rather than from it. It criticises individualists in this fashion: “To the State the individual owes all that he is; without society he would be nothing.”

The latter part of the statement I wont object to, but as to the former part I want to call attention to the fact that all man owes to the State is his slavery with its accompaniment of superstition, and its consequent mental darkness and the sufferings of the masses. The man who would hold these up as models must be a mental pervert.

An Anarchist friend laughingly said to me recently: “You take the same ground in regard to the statists that they take in regard to the populists; they are so far behind your ideas that you wont consider them as in the same class; you don’t give them time to catch up.” I guess he was right. Life is too short for such a long period of inaction as would be required to wait for these densest of bigots to grasp an idea. The London Congress episode was proof positive that the Statists tremble in terror at the idea of an idea being brought within range of their smoked glasses.

The Socialist Labor Party organs are eternally prating about “no compromise,” etc., but after their declaration of “ideas” and beliefs they come down to this: “In the meantime, etc., we submit the following demands, etc. These “demands” have been submitted for several years and still capital laughs in their faces—and buys their valiant voters.

Something that amused me mightily was to be told through the columns of the Cleveland Citizen by a stripling Statist to read up on Socialism and I would “jine” his party. Why I began my study of Socialism at the point where he is stalled—in the a b c class. To prove to me that I don’t know anything about Socialism he tells me that if I did I would not call the “People” a State Socialist paper. Then he says Anarchy would have worked in the days of hand production, but it won’t do now. Why? Because a factory employing 5,000 men could not be run without regulation. Well, I never said it could; in fact, I’ve alwas believed it couldn’t; but if I am to be one of the 5,000 I want those regulations to be voluntary, and I want to be free to quit if I can’t agree with them; then I want a chance to live at peace thereafter, without anyone to chase after me with an official blacklist; then I want to be free from the dictation of political bosses such as he worships.

Religious bigotry and Christ hatred are about on par so far as intolerance is concerned. To admit the value of some of the teachings of Christ is not to admit that his teachings were original nor yet free from error in many respects. But he was the one prominent reformer of his day and age, and was legally murdered for his agitation. It may be that he utilized the superstitions of the people to work in a little slight-of-hand but in that he was certainly no worse than the opportunists of today. But these Christ haters sneer at his birth. Now, if the biblical statement can be depended upon for the facts in the case, Christ was a love child, and if I am to honor or despise his memory for that fact then I’ll honor it. I won’t follow the Christian theory that the sanction of church or state is necessary to make a natural union “respectable.” And as for the mistakes of Christ, the very fact that he was only a mortal is sufficient explanation for them, though not having been acquainted with im, I’m not certain he made all the fool blunders the Christians lay at his door. At all events, intolerance and liberality are not mates.

Clippings and Comments.

Over 51,000 families were evicted in New York city during the year 1896 for non-payment of rent. Counting only four person to a family this makes a total of over 200,000 persons, a larger number than were evicted in Ireland during the “clearances,” when the whole world denounced the rapacity of Irish land-lordism.—[Ex.

On Sunday, January 29th the Episcopalians of Philadelpha held what they called a “feast to Saint Charles,” meaning Charles the first, of England, whom old Cromwell beheaded for his perfidy. On the occasion of the “feast,” a painting of the king “was displayed and in his memory worshipped for the first time in America.” Truly the Episcopalians are getting there fast. If McKinley dosen’t get a hustle on him, this aristocratic crowd of churchites will beat him in the mad race to monarchy now quite prevalent in the United States.—[Ex.

I walked through the streets of Chicago during the recent strike in that city and saw scenes of misery and despair that would make the angels weep . . . . Oh, plutocracy, thou art responsible! I charge that plutocracy robs our girls of their virtue, steals from our little children their daily bread, deprives them of an education and makes them prematurely old. It forces tears to the eyes of the mothers of the land, pales their cheeks, bows their forms and breaks their hearts. It robs men of their independence, the laborer of his hire and turns into the streets a vast army of vagrants. It fills the jails, the almhouses, the brothels and the gambling halls. It is guilty of most of the murders and suicides. It gloats over human woe and fattens on human sufferings . . . . Plutocracy is on trial before the American people and liberty looks on in breathless suspense. Will the verdict be guilty or not guilty?—[Congressman M. W. Howard, in “American Plutocracy.”

The whole history of the world is a history of violence, and you can, of course, cite violence in support of violence; but you do not see that there is in human society an endless variety of opinions as to what constitutes wrong and oppression, and that if you once concede the right of any man to resort to violence to resist what he regards as wrong, he being the judge, you authorize every other man to enforce his opinions in the same way, and you have a universal reign of violence?”—[Tolstoi.

If Tolstoi be banished and his restraining hand torn from the lever of revolt, the wisdom of the two previous czars in their toleration of him may be proven.—[Patriots Bulletin.

The above is, it seems to me, a lesson for the Bulletin to learn. The Patriots Bulletin is the official organ of an organization whose sole object is to cultivate patriotism, and to correct evil by force—by the ballot. If the editor of the Bulletin was logical he either would condemn what he quotes from Tolstoi, or else quit advocating the ballot and upholding government.

Great wealth would not be oppressive, if all were free; if it were not protected by governmental authority.—[Utopian.

The very existence of great wealth is oppressive, but it could not exist were it not for the special privileges granted and upheld by government.[1]

The Oregon politicians put in 44 days quarreling over the Senatorial plum, and finally adjourned without organizing or passing one legislative act. I wonder if they can draw their pay? Boys, join the L. E. and let the politicans play their game. They are helping to bring about reform, though they do not know it.—[Utopian

Why pay them for playing their game? Let them play their game if they do it at their own expense, but this they are not willing to do.

Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease, in her speech in Cooper Union the other night, uttered some very harsh words, and none of them were more cutting than the ones flung at the wives and daughters of American capitalists.

She had a good deal to say about their jewelry, the clothes they wore and the amount of money they spent abroad. She was of the opinion that they should patronize home industry. Now Mary Elizabeth has been talking in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and while there she fell into the hands of the woman editor of “Wheelock’s Weekly,” who says that she found her reclining in a hammock and ready to chat. In the course of her conversation she said:

“By the way, I see you wear a skirt for wheeling. Why don’t you wear knickerbockers? I sent my daughter a lovely suit from Minneapolis the other day, knickerbockers and Louis XIV coat. It is the swell costume in the East now, and the prettiest and most useful that can be imagined. Do you think this gown will do for my New York trip? I had it made in Minneapolis last week. The black satin gown I wore last night I had made in Paris last Spring. I am really very curious to know what they want me to do in New York. I shall make a flying trip there at once, and if I conclude to stay, I am afraid it will be a long farewell to the West.”

There is enough in this paragraph to reveal the shallowness f the sincerity of this tall female reformer of the West. While delivering her Fergus Falls speech she wore a magnificent costume, and it was the one referred to by her as having been made in Paris. That particular gown cost Mary Elizabeth $487 in American gold, and indicates that for a while her sense of duty to home industry was considerably dulled.

Mrs. Lease, is paid forty dollars apiece for her free silver speeches. She is expected to denounce gold and capitalists, and to point out with fire tipped fingers the deplorable condition of American laborers and American farmers. She does it, but at the same time she loves elegant clothes and buys them in Europe, thus turning her back on her own country and contributing to the support of European laborers. Mary, will you kindly come off the stump?—[Ex.

Echoes from Foreign Countries.

SPAIN. The working people at Aranjuez were rioting last month, on account of the rising price of bread. They threw stones at the city hall, which they tried to destroy. The civil authorities called upon the military authorities to cause “law and order” to “reign” again at A ranjuez. But for how long?

AUSTRIA. The Anarchist ideas seem to spread very encouragingly in Bohemia, especially among the Tschechs. In spite of all the trouble which they have with their press laws, the “boys” are continualy in the “breech”. Our friends from Smichow wrote us that their periodical “Voliny Duch” ceased to exist but will be replaced by “Volny Listy” which will take the more scientific line of conduct in order to avoid trouble with the government. The correspondence and exchanges are to be directed to the old place.

ITALY. Our friend S. Merlino intended to make a propaganda tour in Tuscany. He lectured in several small places without any trouble with the authorities, but this was not the case in Florence where he was expected by a large crowd at the R. R. depot. The public which was very anxious to see him, soon found out that he was under arrest and sent to Rome as a public disturber. I would like to know if the Italian code has any such a law against individual liberty, but I am sure that their constituion is one of the most free in Europe but the execution of it is after the “Spanish style”.

SWITZERLAND. A little girl, nine years of age, skipped from her guardians where she was placed by a “charitable institution” at Sigriswyl, canton Bern. It was for the fourth time she skipped from her guardians. They found her the tenth day in an abandoned shack, almost starved and so badly frozen that it was necessary to amputate both legs, but the poor victim couldn’t stand the operation, and died. The “Berner Intelligenzblatt” thinks that the conduct of the pastor of Sigriswyl was inhuman because it was found out that he advised Mrs. Tantschi (the matron) to beat the girl if she showed herself “vicious.” This is the religious style of education in the “gem” Republic, she is ripe to be the “grandma” of the Czar of Russia.

The Letter-Box.

W.S.A., Palmer, Mass.—The book is sent. The address is: Benj. R. Tucker, P. O. Box 1312, New York.

A.S., New York City—The Secret and Confidential Adresses, are out of print. The thirty cents is to your credit, subject to your order. Your adress is corrected.

S. Paulsen, Jamestown, Kans.—No. 48, containing the article on S. P. Putnam is exhausted, but we hope that this note will induce some of readers to send you that number. Should you get more than one copy, we would be pleased if you would kindly send us the rest.

J.S.C., Chicago, Ill.—The pamphlets we had on hand are sent, the others will follow as soon as we receive them. We are always out of pamphlets and therefore we intend to buy our own press and issue the old and new pamphlets ourselves as soon as the income justifies the purchase of a press.

O. F., San Jose, Calif.—The continuation of the manuscript of “Triumph of Freedom” was not lost, but Comrade Andrews has failed to send the continuation. It has taught us a lesson; not to commence an article before we have it completed in our hand. When we will have freedom? “When the last King is hanged with the last intestines of the last priest,” as one farmer in Oregon expressed himself when asked the above question.

W. E. M. Julian, Calif.—Certainly you shall have the paper until you are able to remit your mite. We wish thousands of “young America” would be so anxious to learn as you are, and the social problem would soon be solved. We sent you a few pamphlets which will help you to become more familiar with our ideas. We hope to hear from you again.

P. A., Montavilla, Ore.—We are glad to hear from new friends so nearby. Why don’t you come and see “The Firebrand family?” We would like to make the personal acquaintance with all the radicals in and around Portland. Yes, it gives us much pleasure and satisfaction to fight for liberty, but sometimes we have to “fight” with an empty purge, and that troubles us more at present than official opposition, because our expenses have more than doubled since the enlargement.

Freedom.

A King’s Lesson.

It is told of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary—the Alfred the Great of his time and people—that he once heard (once only?) that some (only some, my lad?) of his peasants were over-worked and under-fed. So he sent for his Council, and bade come thereto also some of the mayors of the good towns, and some of the lords of land and their baliffs, and asked them of the truth thereof; and in diverse ways they all told one and the same tale, how the peasant carles were stout and well able to work and had enough to spare of meat and drink, seeing that they were but churls; and how if they worked not at the least as hard as they did, it would be ill for them and ill for their lords; for that the more the churl hath the more he asketh; and that when he knoweth wealth, he knoweth the lack of it also, as it fared with our first parents in the Garden of God. The King sat and said but little while they spake, but he misdoubted them that they were liars. So the Council brake up with nothing done; but the King took the matter to heart, being, as kings go, a just man, besides being more valiant than they mostly were, even in the old feudal time. So within two or three days, says the tale, he called together such lords and councillors as he deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride; and when they were ready he and they set out over rough and smooth, decked out in all the glory of attire which was the wont of those days. Thus they rode till they came to some village or thorpe of the peasant folk, and through it to the vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern slopes that went up from the river: my tale does not say whether that were Theiss, or Donau, or what river. Well, I judge it was late spring or early summer, and the vines but just beginning to show their grapes; for the vintage is late in those lands, and some of the grapes are not gathered till the first frosts have touched them, whereby the wine made from them is the stronger and sweater. Anyhow there were the peasants, men and women, boys and young maidens, toiling and swinking; some hoeing between the vine rows, some bearing baskets of dung up the steep slopes, some in one way, and some in another, laboring for the fruit they never eat, and the wine they never drink. Thereto turned the King and got off his horse and began to climb up the stony ridges of the vineyard, and his lords in like manner followed him, wondering in their hearts what was toward; but to the one who was following next after him he turned about and said with a smile, “Yea, lords, this is a new game we are playing today, and a new knowledge will come from it.” And the lord smiled, but somewhat sourly.

As for the peasants, great was their fear of those gay and golden lords. I judge that they did not know the King, since it was little likely that any one of them had seen his face; and they knew of him but as the Great Father, the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from harrying their thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was it to any man there whether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord, since to one master or another they had to pay the due tale of laboring days in the year, and hard was the livelhood that they earned for themselves on the days that they worked for themselves and their wives and children.

Well, belike they knew not the King; but amidst those rich lords, they saw and knew their own lord, and of him they were sore afraid. But nought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and strong horses—they who had been toiling from before the rising of the sun, and now it wanted little more than an hour of noon: besides, with the King and lords was a guard of crossbowmen, who were left the other side of the vineyard wall,—keeneyed Italians of the mountains, straight shooters of the bolt. So the poor folk fled not; nay they made as if all this were none of their business, and went on with their work. For indeed each man said to himself, “If I be the one that is not slain, tomorrow I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest today; and maybe I shall be headman if some of these be slain and I live.”

Now comes the King amongst them and says: “Good fellows, which of you is the headman?”

Spake a man, sturdy and sunburnt, well on in years and grizzled: “I am the headman, lord.”

“Give me thy hoe, then,” says the King; “for now shall I order this matter myself, since these lords desire a new game, and are fain to work under me at vine-dressing. But do though stand by me and set me right if I order them wrong; but the rest of you go play!”

The carle knew not what to think, and let the King stand with his hand stretched out, while he looked askance at his own lord and baron, who wagged his head at him ---s one who says, “Do it, dog!”

Then the carle lets the hoe come into the King’s hand; and the King falls to, and orders his lords for vine-dressing, to each his share of the work: and whiles the carle said yea and whiles nay to his ordering. And then ye should have seen velvet cloaks cast off, and mantles of fine Flemish scarlet go to the dusky earth; as the lords and knights busked them to the work.

So they buckled to, and to most of them it seemed a good game to play at vine-dressing. But one there was who, when his scarlet cloak was off, stood up in a doublet of glorious Persian web of gold and silk, such as men make not now, worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell. Unto him the King with no smile on his face gave the job of toing and froing up and down the hill with the biggest and the frailest dung-basket that was; and thereat the silken lord screwed up a grin that was sport to see, and all the lords laughed; and as he turned away he said, yet so that none heard him, “Do I serve this son’s son of a whore that he should bid me carry dung?” For you must know that the King’s father, John Hunyad, one of the great warriors of the world, the Hammer of the Turks, was not gotten in wedlock, though he were a King’s son.

Well, they sped the work bravely for awhile, and loud was the laughter as the hoes smote the earth and the flint stones tinkled and the cloud of dust rose up; the brocaded dung-bearer went up and down, cursing and swearing by the White God and the Blck; and one would say to another, “See ye how gentle blood outgoes churl’s blood, even when the gentle does the churl’s work: these lazy loons smote but one stroke to our three.” But the King, who worked no worse than any, laughed not at all; and meanwhile the poor folk stood by, not daring to speak a word one to the other; for they were still sore afraid, not now of being slain on the spot, but this rather was in their hearts:

“These great and strong lords and knights have come to see what work a man may do without dying: if we are to have yet more days added to our year’s tale of lords’ labor, then are we lost without remedy.” And their hearts sank within them.

So sped the work; and the sun rose yet higher in the heavens, and it was noon and more. And now there was no more laughter among those toiling lords, and the strokes of the hoe and mattock came far slower, while the dung-bearer sat down at the bottom of the hill and looked out on the river; but the King yet worked on doggedly, so for shame the other lords yet kept at it. Till at last the next man to the King let his hoe drop with a clatter, and swore a great oath. Now he was a strong black-bearded man in the prime of life, a valiant captain of that famous Black Band that had so often rent the Turkish array; and the King loved him for his sturdy valor; so he says to him, “Is aught wrong, Captain?”

“Nay, lord,” says he, “ask the headman carle yonder what ails us.”

“Headman,” says the King, “what ails these strong knights? Have I ordered them wrongly?”

“Nay, but shirking ails them lord,” says he, “for they are weary; and no wonder, for they have been playing hard, and are of gentle blood.”

“Is that so, lords,” says the King, “that ye are weary already?”

Then the rest hung their heads and said nought, all save that captain of war; and he said, being bold man and no liar: “King, I see what thou wouldst be at; thou hast brought us here to preach us a sermon from that Plato of thine; and to say sooth, so that I may swink no more, and go eat my dinner, now preach thy worst! Nay, if thou wilt be priest I will be thy deacon. Wilt thou that I ask this laboring carle a thing or two?”

“Yea,” said the King. And there came, as it were, a cloud of thought over his face.

Then the captain straddled his legs and looked big, and said to the carle: “Good fellow, how long have we been working here?”

“Two hours or thereabout judging by the sun above us.” says he.

“And how much of thy work have we done in that while?” says the captain, and winks his eye at him withal.

“Lord,” says the carle, grinning a little despite himself, “be no wroth with my word. In the first half-hour ye did five-and-forty minutes’ work of ours, and in the next half-hour scant a thirty minutes’ work, and in the third half-hour a fifteen minutes’ work, and in the fourth half-hour two minutes’ work.” The grin now had faded from his face, but a gleam came into his eyes as he said: “And now, as I suppose, your day’s work is done, and ye will go to your dinner, and eat the sweet and drink the strong; and we shall eat a little rye-bread, and then be working here till after the sun has set and the moon has begun to cast shadows. Now for you, I wot not how ye shall sleep nor where, nor what white body ye shall hold in your arms while the night flits and the stars shine; but for us, while the stars yet shine, shall we be at it again, and bethink ye for what! I know not what game and play ye shall be devising for tomorrow as ye ride back home; but for us when we come back here tomorrow, it shall be as if there had been no yesterday and nothing done therein, and that work of that today shall be nought to us also, for we shall win no respite from our tiol thereby, and the morrow of tomorrow will all be to begin again once more, and so on and on till no tomorrow abideth us. Therefore, if ye are thinking of laying some new tax or tale upon us, think twice of it, for we may not bear it. And all this I say with the less fear, because I perceive this man here beside me, in the black velvet jerkin and the gold chain on his neck, is the King; nor do I think he will slay me for my word since he hath so many a Turk before him and his mighty sword!”

Then said the captain: “Shall I smite the man, O King? or hath he preached thy sermon for thee?”

“Smite not, for he hath preached it,” said the King.

“Hearken to the carle’s sermon, lords and councillors of mine! Yet when another hath spoken our thought, other thoughts are born therefrom, and now have I another sermon to preach; but I will refrain me as now. Let us down and to our dinner.”

So they went, the King and his gentles, and sat down by the river under the rustle of the poplars, and they ate and drank and were merry. And the King bade bear up the broken meats to the vine-dressers, and a good draught of the archer’s wine, and to the headman he gave a broad gold piece, and to each man three silver pennies. But when the poor folk had all that under their hands, it was to them as though the Kingdom of heaven had come down to earth.

In the cool of the evening home rode the King and his lords. The King was distraught and silent: but at last the captain, who rode beside him, said to him “Preach me now thine after sermon, O King!”

“I think thou knowest it already,” said the King, “else had though not spoken in such wise to the carle; but tell me what is thy craft and the craft of all these whereby ye live, as the potter by making pots, and so forth?”

Said the captain: “As the potter lives by making pots, so we live by robbing the poor.”

Again said the King: “And my trade?”

Said he, “Thy trade is to be a king of such thieves, yet no worser than the rest.”

The King laughed.

“Bear that in mind,” said he, “and then shall I tell thee my thought while yonder carle spake, 'Carle,' I thought, 'were I thou or such as thou, then would I take in my hand a sword or a spear, or were it only a hedge-stake, and bid other to do the like, and forth would we go; and since we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a miserable life, we would do battle and prevail, and make an end of the craft of kings and of lords and of userers, and there would be but one craft in the world, to wit, to work merrily for ourselves and to live merrily thereby.”

Said the captain; “This then is thy sermon. Who will heed it if thou preach it?”

Said the King: “They who will take the mad King and put him in a Kings madhouse, therefore do I forbear to preach it. Yet it shall be preached.”

“And not heeded,” said the captain, “save by those who head and hang the setters forth of new things that are good for the world. Our trade is safe for many and many a generation.”

And therewith they came to the King’s palace, and they ate and drank and slept, and the world went on its ways.—[William Morris.

Mr. Loveridge’s Shorter Method.

In a conversation the other day with my friend Clinton Loveridge, I told him that he had utterly missed the point of my contention in the “short and easy” paragraph in “Lucifer,” No. 643, and I must repeat the assertion after reading his communication printed in The Firebrand of February 21. I wonder if any other reader of “Lucifer” has made the same astonishing blunder?

Mr. Loveridge complains that I did not attempt to answer a certain specific charge made against S. P. Putnam by Mr. Tucker, and that I did not acquaint the readers of “Lucifer” with the cause of my animadversions. It was not my purpose to reply there to any charges made by Mr. Tucker or any one else, and I am quite sure that all the readers of my article, with the exception of Mr. Loveridge, clearly perceived the intent and scope of my criticism. So far as my contention was concerned, it did not make a particle of difference whether Mr. Tucker’s charge was or was not true; I was not trying to show that it was based on facts not that it was the result of a misapprehension. I was not interfering in the discussion between Mr. Tucker and Mr. George E. Macdonald. Mr. Tucker could have been entirely in the right and Mr. Macdonald wholly in the wrong and yet my point would not have been in the least blunted. Mr. Putnam could have been guilty of the offense charged and still my position have been unassailable. I did not say in that article that Mr. Tucker had falsified, intentionally or unintentionally, in the matter of Mr. Putnam’s attitude toward the victims of Gary. My friend Loveridge has committed the very offense that he charged upon me; that is, he has left the readers of The Firebrand in the dark concerning the purpose of my article in “Lucifer.” For, whereas, the scope of my criticism did not require that I should lay before the readers of “Lucifer” the particular charges made by Mr. Tucker, the scope of his criticism of me did necessitate that he should quote the first paragraph of my article, or present such a summary of it as would let his readers see what I complained of in the conduct of Mr. Tucker. That omitted first paragraph, which follows these lines, will show the readers of The Firebrand that I was not attempting to answer Mr. Tucker’s charge against Mr. Putnam; what I was finding fault with was his moral bookkeeping; I did not believe that it was just to damn a man to oblivion for one wrong act admitting, for argument’s sake, (what I do not admit, in fact) that he was guilty in that particular, as charged. But I need not say more here; Mr. Tucker’s “short and easy method” does not permit a “judical estimation of the mingled good and bad in men and women.”

“Mr. Benjamin R. Tucker is one of the brainiest men of this generation, and he is a most genial, compannionable fellow, despite the opinion to the contrary formed of him by those who have never met him. But there are some occupations for which he is not naturally qualified. One of these is bookkeeping. In estimating the assets and liabilities of men, he cannot strike a correct balance. In approximately accurate moral bookkeeping the accountant adds up the columns of debits and credits, subtracts the small total from the larger, and sets down the balance in its proper place. Mr. Tucker proceeds by a different method; he runs his eye down the debit column until it rests on an item that looks rather large; then he puts on the magnifying glasses of Disfavor and gazes long and intently at the item; the longer he studies it the more mountainous it appears; the glasses show every unfavorable detail in exaggerated ugliness, without taking into account a single palliative line of heredity, education, or environment. 'Enough,' he cries in disgust, as he draws his cancelling pen heavily through the column of credit items, 'he was bad, and must be damned and forgotten.' The books are closed for good and aye. Now, it scarcely needs to be said, this will not do; the process is altogether too brief and summary for justice. Mr. Tucker’s is 'a short and easy method in bookkeeping,' but it is a short-cut that does not give time for judicial estimation of the mingled bad and good in men and women. Man is complex, not single, in his moral no less than in his physical and intellectual make-up, and it is not fair to damn him nor to unqualifiedly commend him for a single quality or act.”

Now it is clear why I bracketed Mr. Tucker with Moore and Shaw—not because they found the same flaws in Mr. Putnam, but because each damned him to oblivion for one real or alleged characteristic and failed to give him proper credit for his many merits. Moore could not see much but his use of wine; Shaw was shocked because he was a social radical, and Tucker condemned him because he thought Putnam in spirit if not in word had betrayed the cause of free speech. The faults assigned belong in different classes, it is true, but the three men who sat in judgment alike based their condemnation upon a partial inventory of the assets of the condemned. That was the gravamen of my accusation against Mr. Tucker, and it is passing strange that so clear a thinker as Mr. Loveridge failed to perceive the fact.

Just a word regarding Mr. Tucker’s charge that S. P. Putnam virtually applauded the sentiments of a correspondent who wanted all Anarchists hanged and their bodies exposed to view. Mr. Tucker’s memory is at fault; the letter in question did not appear in the editorial columns of “Freethought” and it was editorially condemned.

The Common Good.

Success to The Firebrand in the world of reform. We must indeed, re-form our lives if we would conform to present and swiftly approaching future conditions. I find myself drifting rapidly out to sea from all detaining lines, my motto only “Love to all—in honor preferring one another.” We have no time to quarrel by the way, neither is it just, polite or politic. Let us join hands on common good, easily recognized, leaving methods to the exigencies of the time or place. Discussion we must have, to be sure, but to detain ourselves one moment to question the motive or animus of another equally sincere is to be outstripped in the race for betterment by those who run to shut the gate on all progress. The evils of the marriage system, the robber banking system, the government system in general, are coming to light. Those who pay attention and study and think are in the van and already see welcome signs of the dissolution of these systems but the financial as well as mental slavery of the people hinders progress, and our brave reform papers are breasting great waves of prejudice even from their own co-workers. The ignorant gold-bug among the lowest in the wage-system but reiterates the war-cry against freedom, co-operation, socialism and all efforts at getting out of the rut, uttered by his patron and pattern the monopolist. Toadying to power is the first impulse of small minds: To outrun the hardening effects of custom—to grow and make the world better, the aim of the noble.

What are the essentials we should seek? First, personal liberty in the small groove about our own elbows, not forgetting to seek the same advantage for others.

“Each for all and all for each” is the motive and practice which must succeed this “Get-all-you-can-and-keep-all-you-get” life which is, yes, and has destroyed the public virtue.

Let us co-operate on every line possible with those nearest us, first in a small way, but quickly extending to communities and states further away. If we have anything useful we do not care to keep let us take the trouble to find out who needs it, and by depositing it in some central exchange at a fixed price give them the opportunity for its purchase with the diverse products of their own, similarly deposited for purposes of exchange. Thus many industrial problems find their own solution and the good or ill of political legislation comes to appear of minor importance. Indeed home management then takes the place of government,—labor and products form our capital and with any paper money we choose to issue such capital may be represented.

The Best Condition.

What gift have the birds of the air greater than liberty? What gift has the wild beast of the jungle greater than liberty? Cage either of them, take away their right to roam over the earth at their own sweet will and they will live with a broken heart; they cannot endure slavery. It took years of imprisonment, cruelty, beyond the expression of words, and the will of tyrants to tame our domestic animals and fowls, and it has taken the same process to break the proud will of man and make an industrial tool and a political fool of him. Man is tame indeed—as tame as a dog. Now and then he attempts to bite, nay, to swallow his master, but as soon he sees the whip of hunger he resumes his old tameness.

It is cruel to torture animals, but it is more so when man tortures his fellow man. Nowhere in the animal or vegetable kingdom can such monstrosity be found, as ruling, domineering man. Feroceous animals, such as tigers, hyenas, etc. do not devour their own kind or species, even reptiles and other crawling, creeping, creatures live in harmony with nature. The most savage, ugly beast of the African jungle tear up and devour animals of other species than themselves, but they dont torture them anymore than cattle-dealers and butchers do who supply the meat-markets of all so called civilized nations with all kinds of animal flesh. Nature has provided all carnivorous animals with large teeth and claws, to furnish their stomachs with food. With them it is absolutly necessary to live as they do.

But when I think of the cruelties and tortures I have seen committed with my own eyes, and have suffered myself in witnessing such while I was a soldier and sailor in moderate and tropical climates, I ask myself: Where is civilization? Where is liberty, fraternity and equality? Where does our rulers and tyrants superiority come in, over other animals, when they commit the most shocking, heartrending, atrocious cruelties and torture upon their helpless, defenseless, enslaved, innocent fellow-men who have a desire to make all mankind healthier and happier? How long will the honest, intelligent, and industrious population of the world, tolerate to be ruled, robbed, deceived, and tortured by raving fanatics?

Note and Comment.

If any of our readers have Nos. 27 and 31 of Vol. I of The Firebrand, they would confer a great favor on us by returning them to us. We lack those two numbers of having a complete file of Volumn I.

From a letter from a comrade in Bellaire, Ohio, we learn that the coal miners there have work only seven or eight days a month, and that if they worked all the time they could only make about $35 per month. You can all calculate how much they make as now employed.

The Pattern Makers National League has established an individual membership plan whereby patternmakers, no matter how isolated they may be, can belong to the League. Those wishing further information should address F. J. Mc Bride, 1012 So., 22d St., Philadelphia, Pa.

The Putnam-Collins tragedy discussion still rages, and the good, orthodox, secular fabric is being shaken to its foundation. Those who call for free thought are being forced to take their stand either for or against free action. Can a person truly favor free thought and condemn free action?

Second hand dealers and installment merchants of this city are praying the Council to raise auctioners licenses from $160 to 1,200. But should you ask any of those men if they are in favor of socialism they would immediately proclaim for “free competition”—as long as it don’t effect them.

I learn that in Ottawa, Kansas, there is a woeful amount of suffering from want. In the latter part of January, when the ice firms prepared to put up ice, seven hundred men applied at one ice house for work. The number of idle men can be judged from that. The town only has 8000 inhabitants. The country is looking for McKinley’s wave of prosperity.

In the last issue of Lucifer (March, 3.), Comrade Harman complains of Lucifer’s treatment by The Firebrand, and insinuates that he has been denied a hearing in The Firebrand. I want to say that nothing has been received from his pen for publication but what has been published. If The Firebrand has not treated Lucifer and its editor fairly, I would like to know when and how.

There has been a number of inquiries for No. 48, Vol. II of The Firebrand containing my comments on the Putnam Collins tragedy. We are entirely out of that number. The comment amounted to this, the cause of the death of the two parties named, their respective ages, etc., and the anouncement that there was an uncertainty as to the minor details of their death. I said I did not know if they died in bed together, and did not care. That it was there business and if true was not to their discredit.

“What are you going to do about it?” we are often asked when we show the present conditions in their true light. That seems to them to be a corker, and they think all further argument stopped. Now what are we—the radicals—going to do about it? In the first place will win over as many persons as we can, and they in turn will win a number of adherents to our theories, and so on until there are enough who don’t like present arrangements to make a change. When we become powerful enough to do this we will make the changes, and if any one don’t like it we will say “what are you going to do about it?”

I have received two letters complaining that I spoke unkindly of S.P. Putnam. I can see on what that idea is founded. I did not, nor cannot laud him, or try to cannonize him. I spoke of him dead as I would have done were he living, or perhaps a little more considerately, as he could reply to anything that displeased him if alive. I cannot join with those who would cover all his faults, and make a saint of him, nor yet with those who condemn him. He has done much to awaken thought, to break down superstition, and to encourage freedom of thought, but like all other mortals he had his faults, and it is nonsense to deny it.

E. H. Fulton is expending lots of energy and space in “Age of Thought” deriding and fighting The Firebrand, instead of turning his attention to the enemies of liberty. He knows that The Firebrand is the most fearless, outspoken and radical paper published in the United States, that it has ignored the government until he cried “for your own sake stop!” and by so doing has set an example to all the other libertarian papers, and one which the “individualists” are lothe from fear to follow. Knowing all this he seems far more anxious to fight The Firebrand than the government. Such an attitude by a professed libertarian excludes him from the right of further recognition.

We have often called for those who are receiving The Firebrand and have not paid for it, or contributed toward its support, and wish to continue recieving it, to write us. If you cannot pay for it say so, and you will receive it anyhow. Some have responded, some have not, and if those who do not take the trouble to drop us a line or two fail to receive the paper they will know why. We want all the readers we can get, but if you are not interested enough to write us, you don’t care much for the paper. That is the view we take of it, and on that theory we will act.

Anarchism and Violence.

What? bomb‐throwing—killing—violence, useful? What sort of Anarchists are those who say that? Where is their Anarchism, their belief in freedom, and the right of every living man to his own life and liberty? Anarchism is not bomb throwing, violence, incendiarism, destruction. Odd that anything so self evident should need saying. Odder still that one set of Anarchists should be obliged to turn round in the thick of battle against the common foe to say it to another set. Real Anarchists too, not hybrids, with one eye on freedom and the other on property. Of course the capitalist press has naturally found it convenient to identify Anarchists with bombs, and equally of course, some of our “social” democratic friends have said within themselves, “There, there! so would we have it.” All the same, Anarchism not only is not, but in the nature of the case cannot be, bomb throwing. An “ism” is an abiding body of principles and opinions—a belief with a theory behind it. The throwing of bombs is a mechanical act of warfare,—of rebellion, if you like;—an act likely to be resorted to by any and every sort of “believer” when the whole of his environment stands forearmed against the practical application of his creed. The two cannot anyhow be identical; the question of the hour is—Is one of them ever a rational outcome of the other? Can anyone professing this particular “ism” resort to this kind of act, without forfeiting his consistency? Can a real Anarchist—a man whose creed is Anarchism—be at the same time a person who deliberately injures, or tries to injure, persons or property. I, for one, have no hesitation in saying that, if destitute because of monopoly, he can.

I go even further. It seems to me that under certain conditions, (within and without the individual) it is part and parcel, not of his Anarchism but of his personal whole heartedness as an Anarchist, that he feels it impossible in his own case not to abandon the patiently educational for the actively militant attitude, and to hit out, as intelligently and intelligibly as he can, at that which powerfully flouts his creed and humanity’s hope, making it (for all its truth, and for all his integrity) a dead letter within his own living, suffering, pitying, aspiring soul. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there are now and again conditions under which inaction on the part of the Anarchists amounts to virtual partisanship with the “reaction”, and this, even though the only kind of effectual activity left open to them be of the directly militant kind.

The extraordinarily rapid spread of our Ideal during the past few years seems to me to have been indirectly indircetly but clearly traceable to the quickening effect of the militant but generally intelligible acts of a few maddened individuals upon the thousands of minds in all countries which were already unconsciously hungry for the Idea, and which found themselves thus compelled to closer reflection and aroused to definite self‐recognition as Anarchists.

For what is Anarchism? Belief in Anarchy as the ultimate solution of all social and economic difficulties. A belief, that is, that Anarchy (or freedom from laws made and fixed by man for man,) is the ideal state in which alone complete harmony and a self adjusting equilibrium between our individual interests and our social instincts can be secured and maintained. A belief that nearly all human depravity on one hand, and nearly all human wretchedness on the other, have been brought about through men’s bondage to the coercive regulations imposed by fallible, purblind humans on one another, in the interests, not of general progress and universal friendship, but of this or that imposing class. Anarchy, which claims the full release of the majority from the dictation of the minority, and likewise the full release of the minority from the dictation of the majority, means, further, the removal of all the enervating restrictions and excuses which have hitherto hindered the individual from developing his self‐controlling tendencies in spontaneous obedience to the inevitably social and peaceful instincts of his own humanity, as a creature who from time immemorial has been incessantly dependent on his fellows for all the necessaries and amenities of life. Anarchy means a life for man analogous, on a higher plane, to the life of bees, beavers, ants, and other gregarious creatures, who have not only all natural resources, but also one another’s products freely and peacefully open to them, and who do but cooperate the more perfectly and happily in securing the common interests of all for the fact that they are free, as individuals to follow their inherent instincts and inclinations untrammelled by considerations so foreign to their well being as property laws within their own communities.

Despite its supreme advantages, our faculty of language has immensely complicated and confused our development as social beings, since it has decoyed us by means of dangerous and misleading abstractions from the surely and safely educational paths of actual experience, causing a long and painful digression from the natural high road of our progress as a species.

Language!—hence, on one hand, the abstractions, “property”, money, credit, law, subjection, crime; and on the other, those sad resulting concretes,—poverty, parasitism, degeneration, despair, and the wholesale tormenting of man by man. Nature shows us that among wild creatures, destitute of true language, and so safe against abstractions and prejudices, it is precisely the most social which have become the most intelligent. We human beings cannot develop develope wholesome customs, at once tough and flexible,—self modifying and fitted to our individual comfort and our reciprocal protection by one another, so long as we are harassed by the crude provisions of artificially coercive law. And we are, one and all, the poorer for this.

For, surely, the world’s wealth should be at least as freely accessible to every human creature as it is to every other creature. Surely the natural human being should be as free to use his whole set of faculties from the first, and so to be a joy to himself and a welcome “fellow” to his fellows, as is the mere bee or beaver. It would be possible enough if once we could explode that property superstition which involves, and ever must involve government—or the coercive regulation of everybody’s life and chances so as to suit those who can obtain prohibitive custody of the natural and produced capital of the race.

But now—what is there about Anarchism which should suggest, justify, or render intelligible the use of violence in any of those who profess it? Anarchy in itself bodes peace; with happy, amicable co‐operation. Where Anarchy is already the rule with an intelligent species, deliberate violence, whether organised or not, can never be needed between the members of that species, but only in casual self‐defence, or in the repelling of aggression from without. (Even under Anarchy, I fear we shall sometimes have to kill rattlesnakes, tigers and noxious vermin!) Anarchy, however, means—No more dividing of a race against itself, through the contentious and antagonisms of nations and classes; no more dividing of the individual against himself, as a luckless creature who can only be his best, socially at his own risk and cost; or, egotistically, at social risk and cost.

Were the conditions in which we live our present lives a condition of freedom from all laws that fall short of, or are in conflict with the natural and salutary laws of life—then indeed would violence find no place in our conduct towards our fellow mortals.

But we live in a world where property‐getting is made virtually compulsory, under penalty of one kind or another; and to us also who abominate property‐seeking and property‐wielding as the poisonous root of every misery and turpitude. We who are full of the spirit of what shall be, and who ceaselessly and hungrily press towards its realisation, cannot—dare not—be frankly and fully ourselves in our dealings with our fellows, because some of these fellows have decreed that neither industry nor good citizenship shall be the passport to food and freedom, but solely and simply—money, or its phantom “credit”. But, so long as Government exists, we cannot, even as an experiment, establish Anarchy , ’ we cannot live our individual lives as Anarchists,—freely, uprightly, simply, generously, bravely—in the midst of a political society where it is virtually punishable with death or misery to turn one’s back on legal considerations for the sake of moral considerations. We cannot live as we wish in an artificial society presided over by an unpunishable set of punishers—any Government. Government, whatever its form, is Property’s body guard and hireling, and in the nature of the case cannot admit the independent freedom of any citizen whatever without self frustration. So long as artificial Law exists, every citizen falls perforce into one of two categories, he belongs virtually either to the property seeking, law abiding class, or to the law breaking, law ignoring, “criminal” class. The law may not legally be experimented upon or even improved upon by extra‐legal methods; it will punish you if you ignore its provisions in any of your dealings on the plea of having discovered a shorter or better way to well‐being. And another desperate feature of the Anarchist case lies in the fact that Government is a permanent necessity so long as property remains a recognised and tolerated institution. So long as this purely conventional bond between any man or men, and any thing or things, has to be recognised as a preliminary to every kind of action, and is made to usurp the place of, and to crowd out natural and simple purpose on every occasion, such recognition must be maintained under penalty—by force—against those who would go their way, however harmlessly regardless of its bars and boundaries.

Meanwhile, the Anarchist is not a mere claimant for intellectual liberty of thought and speech respecting these things. Even these lesser boons are not fully granted by those in power, for the idea of freedom is as attractive as it is sound; nature takes care to award a specially intense kind of happiness to the consciously attained correspondence of logical Idea with vital and ineradicable instinct; and Anarchism strikes home, and takes deep root in precisely most discriminating minds where‐ever it gets a chance of propagation. The State, like its sinister coadjutor, the Church, fears full daylight, and is perfectly consistent in discouraging plain‐speaking—diplomatically.

But the Anarchist, as I said, claims more than the right to hold and expound his creed; he feels no rest, and he will give us no rest, until way be made for its natural expansion, and its is practical realisation, as a principle of life. For he feels, sees, knows, and at no moment forgets all the evils caused by the laws of property, and by the Governments which in cold blood concoct, and cruelly enforce them. He is heartily tired of being made an unwilling party to that which he repudiates as monstrous.

So we see that the Anarchist is in a unique position. Of all would‐be experimenters, benefactors, or deliverers, he alone is a person who by virtue of the principles he holds must be a revolutionist, and so must have, not one party, but all parties, not one sect, but all sects, not one nation, but all nations, as such, dead against him. For he would overthrow or break down every frontier, as well as every form of law‐making and of prosecuting domination. The law, if you tease it enough, will help you slowly to minimise every minor evil contained within its own provisions, but will never aid you one step towards its own eradication as the chief evil of all. It is useless now as it was in the days of the revolutionary Galilean to look to Satan for the casting out of Satan. Nature is against that plan. No evolving thing stops in mid‐career of development along its own lines, and puts an end to its own existence just because you tell it to. A cancer that has got a good hold of the living tissues which its foul life is torturing and disabling, will not dissipate itself merely because the physician and the patient join their hands in prayer to it to do so. The cancer is, so to speak, quite within its rights if it replies—“Why, I am quite as much part of the general order of things as you are. The law of evolution regulates my development just as truly as it does yours. I have got a hold on you because you are just what I require to feed on; and I shall not die of my own accord until I have eaten you up first.” So then the surgeon is sent for, and the enemy is audaciously and summarily dealt with.

Similarly, you cannot blame Capitalism for developing after its kind. The Property‐Tyrant may cease to call himself a ruler and law‐maker. A sect of Mammonites, which would be a pestiferous sect if it could, is now in the world, declaiming against the government, not of man by man, but of the propertyist by the politician, and sometimes assuming the name of Anarchist—but demanding, under all disguises, Absolute rule by the Property‐holder.

Another sect declaims futilely against private property while proposing the official direction of all property holding in the common interest. These two things, Individualism here, Democratic Communism there, seem at first glance opposed in principle. They are not. The evolution of the idea of domination has developed two branches from a parent stem; there are ideas nowadays of how the governing is to be done. One is plutocratic, and says—“Leave me my purse, and leave me free to do my will with you by its means.” The other is democratic, and says—“Give me your purse, and leave me free to do my will with you by its means.” But we will listen to no ’crat at all; the wage system is developing after its kind, so is the Government superstition. In their nature intimately dependent on one another, in destroying the root of one, we destroy both. Capitalism must evolve—but if we love its victims, and either through experience or sympathies participate in their sufferings, we shall see to it that the cursed thing be laid low in mid career.

The enemies of our cause are exceedingly anxious that no moral distinctions be drawn on this burning question of Anarchist violence. The big, indiscriminating, morally inert public are encouraged in their prejudices by the capitalist press, which is at once their sycophant and their deceiver. For the blind and their leaders all violence is held to be vile, except legalised and privileged violence on an enormous scale. Cordite, manufactured wholesale by poor hired hands for the express purpose of “indiscriminate massacre of the innocent” in the noble cause of markets and of territory, is regarded with stupid equanimity by the very same public who are taught by their pastors and masters to cry “Dastard!” when a private individual, at his own risk, fights a cordite‐manufacturing clique of privileged rogues with their own weapons.

Of course we know that among those who call themselves Anarchists there are a minority of unbalanced enthusiasts who look upon every illegal and sensational act of violence as a matter for hysterical jubilation. Very useful to the police and the press, unsteady in intellect and of weak moral principle, they have repeatedly show themselves accessible to venal considerations. They, and their violence, and their professed Anarchism are purchaseable, and in the last resort they are welcome and efficient partisans of the bourgeoisie in its remorseless war against the deliverers of the people.

But let us stick to our text—“Bomb‐throwing is not Anarchism”; and whenever violent action is unintelligent and merely rancorous, it is as foolish and inexpedient as it is base.

Killing and injuring are intrinsically hideous between man and man. No sophistry can make “poison” a synonym of “food”, nor make “war” spell “peace”. But there are cases where poison becomes medicinal, and there is such a thing as warring against the causes of war. No Anarchist incites another to violence, but many an Anarchist repudiates, as I do, the hypocritical outcry against Anarchist militancy raised by those who pass their lives in active or passive support of the infamous institutions which perpetuate human antagonisms and effectually hinder the arrival of that peace and prosperity for which the world is waiting.

Meanwhile let us leave undiscriminating killing and injuring to the Government—to its Statesmen, its Stockbrokers, its Officers, and its Law.—[L. S. Bevington, in Liberty, London.

Correspondence.

The Berkmans Fund.

From Arbeiter Liedertafel, New York . . . $40.00 Returned from Henry Addis . . . 25.00 On hand at last report . . . 50,25 Cash on hand $ 115.25

A Method of Propaganda.

Find enclosed 65 cents for which please send me one copy (paper) of “The Old and the New Ideal.” and as many copies of The Firebrand of January 17th, '97 as you can spare. I wish them for distribution. The article on “Crime and Punishment” is fine. And when we can all see as the author does this will be a better world. I recieve The Firebrand through Dr. J. H. Greer, Chicago, and always take pains to send it around to friends. It is all I can do at present, except to give you my best wishes for success in your good work.

The above shows how the propaganda will spread when friends try to spread it. How many of our readers take the trouble to hand around, or send out their copy of the paper when they have read it?

Literature

We are in receipt of Vol. I No 1 of Equity, an advocate of voluntary co-operation, edited and published by J. T. R Green, at 206 West First St. Des Moines, Iowa. It is a semi-monthly, eight paged small paper, price fifty cents per year. Mr. Green has written a number of times for The Firebrand, always against profit, and no doubt, his paper will be devoted principally to the same subject.

No 1 of Vol. I, of “The New Voice, a weekly Journal of Progressive Thought,” a small twelve paged magazine, with A. B. Tomson, as editor, has reached our table. Just what it will prove to be we will have to wait and see, but we wait in hopes of its being a valuable contribution to the current radical literature.

It is published by The Denver Printing and Publishing co., cor. 17th. & Arapaho St. Denver Dolo.

The Red Heart in a White World is the title of a neat, forty-nine paged booklet, printed on good book paper, in clear type, bound in white enameled paper, with a big red heart occupying the centre of the front cover that has just reached our table. J. William Lloyd is the author and defines the name thus:

“The Red Heart is a poetical term for the common interests, ties, sympathies and affections of humanity, for comradeship, and the ideal society of free men mutually helpful.

“The White World is a world washed of injustice between men—free, peaceful, happy.”

The first division of the book is devoted to a discussion of “Free Society vs. Governed Society,” and in it the author shows the advantages of a free society, and the unavoidable ills that constantly beset governed society.

The follows his poem “The Disinherited” which appeared in The Firebrand of Feb. 21.

After giving a categorical list of the necessities of the free society he proposes, he discusses the Tuckerist philosophy of “contract rights,” and irrefutably shows that that philosophy is not Anarchistic in spite of the fact that its advocates claim to be the only Anarchists, and then shows the negative philosophy of Anarchy, but prefers the title of Free Socialist on account of the popular misconception concerning the word Anarchy.

He proposes the organization of a Free Society, the “two great features of which are to be Equal Liberty and voluntary Reciprocal Co-operation.” This Free Society he fondly hopes will peacefully withdraw support from the government, and create a public sympathy for itself by being persuasive and non-violent and finally succeed in destroying all governments peacefully. He goes into detail descriptions of how to organize and carry on the work of the Free Society, and I might feel inclined to criticise his methods if he did not constantly remind his reader that he is animated by the spirit of liberty only, and his plans are only suggestions.

The author's love of the beautiful, in nature and in art, colors the work all through and gives it a rare charm.

I can gladly recommend this book, even to those who may disagree entirely with the author's propositions, and think it a good missionary work. Price twenty cents. Order from this office, or of J. William Lloyd, Westfield, N. J.

Propaganda Fund.

Press, $1.35. Koch, Benioff, Rehberg, each $1.00. Sangster, 70c. Hughes, 54c. Broatelien, Meyers, May, Heyman, Matson, Ward, each 50c Frenzel, 40c. Krieger, 35c. Glassman, Cohen, Bruelheide, Fouquet, Wyman, Liberty Co op. Assoc., each 25c. Park, Webb. each 15c. Duggan, Fauts, each 10c.

Notice.

To find the HOME OF THE FIREBRAND take the Oregon City car at cor. First & Alder Sts., and ride out to Sellwood. Get off at Spokane Ave. Walk two blocks toward the river, then turn to the right and walk one block.

Vive la Commune!!

Memorial Festival, with Concert and Ball, arranged by the International Arbeiter-Liedertafel associated with the French and Italian Groups of New York, will be held at Germania Assembly Rooms, (large hall) 291 & 293 Bowery, on Thursday, March, 18, 1897, at 8 p. m. Speakers in English, French, German and Italian. Admission 10 cents.

Sample Copies.

We send each week large numbers of sample copies, and for this purpose we ask friends to send names of persons like to be interested. The receipt of a sample copy has no other significance than the hope of interesting you and securing your assistance in the work. The subscription price is nominally fifty cents a year, though in reality it is voluntary, for many friends pay more than the subscription price, and we sent it to all who desire it, even if they feel able to pay only a few cents or nothing at all. If you receive the paper without having ordered it, do not hesitate to accept and read it, as no bills are ever sent out.

[1] H. A. is either “off” or he did not make himself clear. Wealth in itself is not oppressive, it is only when monopolized. A.I.