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HOMES; * LA‘BABiE COLLE-J‘HON HX Who was this Galilean peasant, that he should rise up in an obscure corner of the earth. to examine its civili- zations, and pronounce their foundations false; their jus- tlce a mockery, their worship a hypocrisy, their glory darkness‘P—The New Redemption. I honor the man who is willing to sink Halt his present repute tor the freedom to think. And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t'other half tor the freedom to speak; Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Be that mob the upper ten-thousand or lower. U —James Russell Lowell. LF-Fii DiE _ COLLECT if??? ‘i w-r» To MY FRIEND: ARTHUR KI'I‘SON, In testimony of my deep appreciation of a delightful comradeship in the search for just economic conditions, and in the championship of liberty.v “ We’ve clamb the hill thegither.”-BURNS. CONTENTS. POETRY. I PAGE Murdered, not Murderers.—November 11, 1888 . . . 11 November 11, 1839 . . . l2 November 11, 1890 . . . . 13 Altgeld’s Day . . . . 14 . The Statue of Liberty . . , . . . . 1-1 Nina Spies . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Martyrdom of Man . . . . . . . 1'7 Appeal to All scabs . . . . . . . . 1~ Anti-Discord ~ . . . . . . . . 19 Greenback Anthem . . . . - . . . 20 - The Rag-Baby . . . . . . . . #2 Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . . . _ . 24 Ilughenden . . . . . . . _ :35 King Gold . . . . . . . . . 243 A Modern Strike . . . . . . . . 1:1‘ Vanltas . . . . . . . . . . 30 Jesus. the Nazarene . . . -. . . . 3| The Dying Houndsman . . 1 . . . . . 32 Retrospect . . . . . . . . . :13 Hanged . . . . ' . . . . . 23?} Prison . . . . . . . . . . {ii The Millenium . . . . . . . . . >5 Nemesis . . . . . . . . . 36 The Modern Jonah . . . . . . - . ' '7 Charge or the Cop Brigade . . _ - 38 Lawless L'-. W . . . . . 4'1 Gods . - . . . . . . . . 43 The Death of Garfield . . . . . . . 1i Lillie and Beth . . . . . . . . 44 Equalions . 45 Public Soho . 45 Cause and hfiect .' 40 Thomas Paine . . 69 Coxey’s Army . . . . . . . . ' . 151 Liberty Bell . ' . . .- . ' . . . . 132 Cursory . . . . . . . . . . 132 PHILOSOPHY. Anarchy . . . . . . - . . 5 Chica go’s Calvary . . z . ' . . . 9 Intellectual Sparks from the Anvil of Anarchy . . . 7 The Newspaper school or Anarchy . . . . . 59 Hom'lcultul e . . . . . . . . . 70 IJPhe Money Question . . . . . . . . 102 A Perfect Universe . . . . . . . . 119 The Mormon Monste ‘ 133 A Criticism of the Political Economy of Henry George . . 153 Free Trade . . . . . . . . . Persecution . . . . . . . . JQgARoHY. (Translated from the German by Harry Lyman Koopman.) Ever reviled, accursed,-—-ne’er understood, Thou art the grisly terror of our age. "Wreck of all order," cry the multitude, “Art thou, and war and murder’s endless rage.” 0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven, ‘The truth that lies behind a word to find, To them the word's right meaning was not given. , They shall continue blind among the blind. But thou, 0 word, so clear, so. strong, ‘so pure, That sayest all which I for goal have taken. I give thee to the fut-urel—Thine secure - When each at last unto himself shall waken. Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest’s thrill? I cannot tell.. .. ..but it the earth shall see! ' I am an anarchist! Wherefore I will Not rule, and also ruled I will not be! JOHN HENRY MACKAY. “ ’Tis Liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it. All constraint, Except what wisdom lays on evil men, Is. evil." . —Cowper. \ Anarchy has been strangled, thinks the superficial mind. No, indeed, it has just had its Calvary. Its Pentecost will follow. Its disciples have been baptized with the blood of martyred heroes. The fiercest struggle the world has ever witnessed is now certain. The positive, of oppression at- tracts the negative'o;"sia§'ish€,ri1i§er¥,the;crash will be cy- clonic. ‘a " ‘f _ ' The loss of life will be appalling, but the sum of suffer- ing will not equal the long drawn agony of the proletariat under’ our present conditions. After the tempest the calml, Anarchyiliwithout confusion! Liberty‘! Equality! Frater- nityll .» “ "Anarchy, of which the literal meaning is, "without chief or rulers," negatives force and is the affirmation of liberty. It ‘is the natural progression front the sovereignty’ of the ‘ people, to’ the sovereignty- of the individual. It is a protest against the tyranny of the majority Majorities never inau- gurate reforms. ‘The individual leads, ‘minority follows, growing ultimately into majority, which in turn oppresses the new and'individual-led minority. _“Give us Barabbas," says the majority, and the Christs of the minority are led to cross, stake and scaffold. Majority-made laws say amen to each murder. Freedom's road leads over states and state ‘laws. It is like John Bunyan's road to_ the Eternal City; there are, giants and the castles of giants in the way, and there is also the dark Valley of the Shadow of Death. ' p " Every great move of mankind toward freedom has been antagonistic to law. “Your religion teaches sedition, you disturb society,”cry the powers that be, and the majesty of the law 'is invoked to suppress the invader of conservative .‘~ » corrliption. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians." ' FAnarchy is the only logical refuge of. an honest man and' afl‘over of freedom, in these times. The anarchist divides 'society into two‘ parts—socialists and anarchists. 'One or other each‘of us ‘must be. The socialist believes in multi- plying'the powers of the state.‘ State postal service, state rail-roads, state‘ schools, state machinery, state factories, 1 state everything. State socialism exists to-day in a modified degree. The anarchist on the other'hand regards the state as the' great father of economic wrongs. Abolish the state: what follows? Land vmonop'olyj' money: monopolyf—two of the greatest evils of the age—are ‘killed. 'F‘Cor‘ru'pt' politics become impossible, and the :tax-gat'herer disappears. ' Mor- ality escapes from. the clutches of the law to bei‘sustvained by its own merits. The true and the false soon appear, the true‘to survive, the false‘ to" die. The ‘club or the policeman vanishes; 'Society ceases to be a manufactured’articlé and becomes an ever progressive growth. Each individual" "be-- comes 'a factor in the evolution of the whole." Each fsolving tcr himself the riddle of’life‘, the solution' becomes in itself’ beautiful, various and interesting. Co-operat'ive intelligence replaces the compulsion ofv state ignorance; public spirit ac- tively supports great public enterprises and‘ scientific adjust-' ment succeeds the decisions of corrupt and illogical judges. The‘ pursuit-0f happiness banishes thei‘scrofulous asceticism of Christianity, adjusts sexual relations in harmony‘ with natural law, and gives woman the‘ possession of herself ; res- cues hundreds of thousands of “unfortunates” from the peril that a false system of morality has placed them in,‘restorefs them to homes and empties brothels, while ‘the "pestilence that springs ‘from unenjoying sensualism” shall no more ‘fill all 'human life with hydra-headed woe. 5You, who worship the state and state laws; listen‘ 'to~Thoreau,'_a pioneer an- archist: “Law never made a man a whit more just, and by reason of their respect for it even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice?’ ‘ 3P“; - Buckle says that the majority of laws made by the Eng- lish parliament have been ‘mischievous. Laws create~evils,* ' and evils ‘give birth to new laws—like the Starfish, which, when torn in two and thrown ‘back-into -_ the sea-develops new rays and so duplicates itself and its capacity ‘forrmisé chief. The anarchist repiusiiates man-made laws‘ and clings to natural laws. The iimmutability of natural lawsjeaves" no room for an anthropologicar'god and the’ anarchist says, a ’ ' K“ ‘ fl - 7 J with Bakounine, "If there were a. god it would be necessary to annihilate him." A startling conclusion to some but abso- lutely and irresistibly logical. To discover, not to make, law he considers the ‘duty of man. To live in harmony with nat- ural law is his desire, but he is handicapped by human law. He would judge'a tree by its fruit, but finds that' prejudice, born of ignorance, is blind to results and hates the logic of facts. The anarchist reads history with his eyes open, and won- ders that others are so blind to its teachings. ll/[ingled with present glories of immortalized heroes are the walls oi? an- guish,—the jeers and insults of persecutors and murderers. He reads of the twenty-nine priests of Cleveland, begging for the hanging of anarchist heroes, and he remembers ‘the high priests and the low priests of Jerusalem, ’ who no doubt thought that the execution of Jesus would have a salutary effect upon his seditious followers. Man's happi- ness is more to him than God's kingdom. He don't believe in kingdoms anyway. What he wants he believes possible and practicable; it is not Utopia to him as God's‘ kingdom is to the Christian. The ballot! Well, he despises force, therefore considers the ballot immoral. Does not believe in gambling in morals, and therefore does not, as poor Fischer said, “saw the air with pieces of paper.” “Every ballot is a. bullet;" he echoes the Philadelphia Quaker. He would not suppress one by a. thousand, or a ihousand by one. The constitution! The only constitutions he believes in are sound mental and physical ones. Tyrants of the state never fail to so interpret state constitutions as tocover their _ infamies. The state! He would let the state severely alone, asking no protection and paying nothing to its support. If the state will only let him alone, he is contented. But if not he re- . gards it as a mammoth bully to be killed, if possible. He objects to aiding to arm and clothe soldier mobs, who may make him their target. , He objects to supporting idle thieves and rascals whom he cannot call to account and who formulatelaws which he detests. ’ ' He believes it would be better and far more economical to prevent crime than to punish criminals. Cure society, he says; do not punish the disease. I Slow murder of a multitude under cursed economics, appals him more than the swift destruction of the few by reigns of terror. He believes in evolution, but accepts revolution 1as a. necessity, versus the tyranny, the ferocious tyranny, of vested wrongs. Finally, he loves liberty, demands it for himself and for all mankind. ' For always in thine eyes, 0 liberty! Shines that high light whereby the world is saved; ‘And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.—(Hay.) CHICAGO’ S CALVARY. On the day of the execution of Spies, Parsons, Engel and Fisher I paced my office floor, with a heart bursting in pro- test and indignation, and I said, “Verily, all men are mur- derers!" \ ' The pusilanimity of labor, to whom these men had dedi- cated their lives rendered the crime possible, and rescue im- possible from the wild beast of popular fury and revenge. Oh, that the spirit of the men of Cornwall had animated the workingmen of America! "And shall Trelawney die? And shall Trelawney die? Then fifty thousand Cornish men Shall know the reason why." i ' While they were preparing the scaffold for the sacrifice of innocence I wired Gove'rnor Oglesby to "save these vic- tims of Bonfield’s tyranny,” knowing that my appeal would be useless, except as a palliation to my own conscience. . . ' 9 They were strangled ‘to death, and their last smothered words are treasured in thousands of hearts. Now, six years :later, emerge from prison the three re- spited men, Fielden; Schwab and Neebe, under the uncon- ditional pardon of the Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld. Blessed be hisiname forever and ever. ' _ The reasons for the exercise of the executive prerogative the Governor states in a lengthy pamphlet. That pamphlet takes the brand of murder from each of the convicted men and stamps it indelibly upon the brow of Bonfield and his co-conspirators, who, by means of a partial Judge and illegal jury; and unjust rulingsv'of higher and lower courts—rulings ‘that suggested, in the words of M. M. Trumbull, "logic standing on its head'an'd arguingwith its heels”-—'rulings since reversed by the Supreme Court in a parallel case, and a host of other ‘evil influences, accomplished this infamous crime. ‘ ' _ I I . a ' v The verdict islreversed,land "Murdered, not murderers," should- be written upon the Waldheim monument in Chi- cago’s Calvary. ' Anarchy, therefore, isliberty; ‘is: the negation of force, or- compulsion, or .violenceP—Albert Parsons. ‘ “Youl may pronounce the sentence upon me,‘honorable judge; but let the world khowihat in‘A. .D., 1886, in the ‘State of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because- they believed in a better future; because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice.”— August Spies. If we are executed, we canascend the scaffold with the satisfaction that‘ by our death we have advanced our noble cause ‘more than we could possibly have done had we grown ‘as 01dv as MethusalahP—itdolph Fischer. _10 _ “If they use cannons against 'us,_we shall use dynamite" against them.”—L'ouis Lingg. - v ‘ “I am too much of ‘a man of feeling, not to battle against the societary conditions of to-dayP—‘George Engell. I, therefore, grant an absolute pardon to Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and'Michael Schwab, this 26th day of June, 1893.”—John Altgeld, Governor of‘ Illinois. "MUBDERED, NOT :MURDERERS.” November 11th, 1888. Beneath the frowning battleme'nts of wrong- Our fallen comrades we commemorate; To those immortal dead our hearts vbelong_ They met, for us, their undeserved fate. I For us they suffered in the prison cell; 1 i, For us they dared the evil powers of State; They strove to .rescue us from economic hell; And we, their heirs, their, deaths commemorate. ‘I 4 We meet, and on their tombs our garlands place, While listening‘ to the voices of the dead.‘ ' Which echo from their final resting-place;‘- - And urge us forward in the'fight they led. They tell us of the wrongs‘ endured by man; Of slavery and i-ts-thrice-accursed chains; Of strong exploiting weal;- since time began; Of labor foully robbed to swell the idler’s gains. How Mother Nature’s ever-bounteous yield By legal schemers is monopolized; How chartered might holds factory and field” While labor, all creating, is ever pauperized. , ‘11 As storm birds predicate the coming'storm, So do their voices bid ‘us to prepare ’ For social tempest, when grim ranks,shall form, .0! fierce determined men, angered to do and dare. When States shall crumble, rotten to the core, With parasitic wrongs; while in their place, Nor gods, nor constitutions vexing more, Shall rise a free, an all-enfranchised, race. Thus do their words, their mission yet fulfill, And we to them eternal fealty vow; Their smothered words shall volume gain, until The world shall listen, as we do listen now. NOVEMBER. 11th, 1889. Were I divinest poet that ever song had sung,— : If through the universal heart my measures had been rung— If words of mine, potential, could electrify the world— Grand, stirring words, yet unsurpassed, could from my pen be hurled, ' How weak and how inadequate, how miserably tame, ' Would song or eloquence appear to tell my ‘country's shame. I :_My country: loudly vaunted home of fullest liberty, ‘Where tongue could speak and pen could write with Free- dom’s guarantee. “Where strong and weak, rich and poor could each his rights ' demand; Where Justice blindly spread its shield to cover all the land,‘ Attracting to its sheltering fold the oppressed of all mankind, _The blazing torch aloft upheld of liberty enshrined. 'Twas thus our hearts with ardor WISHED this land should ‘ ever be ' A beacon light to guide the world to true fraternity. But cruel hands have wrecked our hopes, have thrown our idol down; _ For widows mourn the hangman’s work in ‘great Chicago town : 12 Their children cry for sires in vain—for those_whose only crime ‘ A p ’ Was serving Freedom faithfully, with fortitude sublime. ‘Our fathers in rebellion rose, resisting tax on tea; While we, unworthy children, resistless stand and see ‘Our blood-won, priceless heritage, the rights of tongue and pen, _ . Invaded by the club of law, regarded not \by men, ‘Whose very uniform do those supply, whose rights they would suppress, . And who, when Plutus nods, will rush to crime’s excess. 'The day of reckoning MUST come, as dawn dispels the night, (As tempest comes when nature groans, the pestilence to fight; . . ‘The sword of Damocles MUST fall, and smite to death the foes ' Who dare, with malice impotent the rights of men oppose. “On us and on our children be their blood," they madly cried. “On them and on their children,” Nemesis’ voice replied. NOVEMBER 11th, 1890- ‘Once more the fateful day upon the scroll of time; Once more recurs the shadow of that monumental crime; Again the smothered voices, as on that eventful day; / ‘ Again affection’s tribute upon the grave we lay. -' The hated thong still binds the living captives, three; The trail of wrong continues ‘on, a loathsome infamy; Revenge still throttles Justice, still tortured heart's do feel The agony of innocence in Joliet’s bastile! '- But you, the buried living, and you, immortal dead, A multitude is gathering, where once a few you led. ~You suffer not in vain, and not in vain your tears; Beyond the jail and sepulchre—Lo! Freedom's form appears!‘ 13' a \_ ALTGELD'S DAY. June 26th, 1893. Altgeld, the just, thou 'takest pen in hand; Around thee'rnartyr spirits stand, Prompting thy blessed work; ‘that settest free The wronged—thrice wronged—imprisoned three- From Joliet’s jail. Sweet Justice smiles, her smitten heart has joy, As snap the- chains that innocence annoy; As in thy heart is registered the vow - That thou wilt not, as‘ others," cringe and bow ' Thy knee to Baal. Thy name issigned—that ever-blessed name— Assured of present love and future fame;v Justice .waited long, but waits no more, Thy signature unbolts the massive door And sets them free. 'Ohlihea'rt, ’so"brave, expect some present scorn; But this just deed shall evermore adorn ' Thy 'rec'ordfwliile in years to come Slander shall slink away and lies be dumb In ‘praise of thee. '_T"Htis'l'A'rrI§E:_“oF LIBERTY. I Ili-Iail tloltjhee, Statue! Humbug gigantic. Metallic misnomer, nonentity vast! _ Liberty! Chained art' thou to ocean rock, 'llhy fleshless arms holding aloft a torchf' ' Lighting, {by-(‘electric subterfuge, A rod of watery waste,- I i ,To stand" immovable ‘ _ Untilthou crumblestf: _ ‘Till, one by one, thy, rivets stat-t;~ _ And, one‘ by ‘one, the plates 14 That hold thy emptiness Shall drop with clanging sound, Scaring the timidsea gull; While through thy palsied frame The wind shall howl Its weird, vindictive song, Laughing at human folly. The ant that crawls ‘ Around thy pedestal lVIay upward look, And justly sneer At thy vast nothingness, Useless absorbant _ 7 Of wealth and skill; Vain boast of only partial met—- Of Freedom yet ungained. ' For, standing there 4 On Bedloe’sisle, ~Thy ears are unresponsive, Thy eyes, nor tears, nor tenderness reveal, When comes from scaffold And from prison cell Voices of men, condemned For trusting thee, False Liberty; Shipwrecked upon the rocks Whence came the song of Freedom. ‘. Gasping for air, choked by despots— Old World shams, longing for light, They land in darkness eternal, - Whose exit is the gallows. O, shame! and shame! and shame! But—Liberty, forgive. This plated'fraud, ' This mammoth lie, Reveals thee not,- Then, Statue, rust‘ and rot away, 4 '\\. 15 For, not on barren rock, But in the hearts of men, Shall Liberty find home. NINA SPIES. Right or wrong, the love and devotion of woman is her crown of glory; and if ever a woman claimed my admiration it was this noble maiden. Shame on the jackals that sought to turn her from him she loved—him whom the world now knows to have been a victim of vile injusticel. Ever at the foot of the cross is woman found; woman, the heart of the universe. "At the cross, her station keeping. Stood the moumful mother weeping, ‘Where he hung, her dying Lord.” To thee, our own sweet Nina, thy brothers would extend Their sympathy and love; thou wast our martyr’s friend,— His wife in name becoming, in sight of widowhood; Unparalleled devotion! how little understood! / They yjeered thee and they mocked thee, while thou wast tempest tossed, ' Reviled thy noble actions; they little recked the cost; Saw not thy heart was bleeding; the panderers maligned Not thee ‘alone, sweet Nina; but all of womankind For what more precious gem in woman's crown can be, What charm more captivating with true sublimity, What flower in all her garden more rich with nature's dower, I Than the blind devotion of her heart bestowed with all its power. But heeding not the “jackals,” enduring to the end, Thy spirit lovthembattled, mightvbreak but could not bend; The awful storm clouds gathered round his sacrificial head, And then—thy hero left thee—now slumbers with the dead! I. 16 Enough, enough, sweet Nina; love cannot farther go. " Pass not the grave’s dark portals; thy honeymoon is woe; But wait! when Truth triumphant, the world enlightened sees, _ _ \ With August's fame shall thine be linked, immortal Nina Spies. ' ' ' THE‘ MARTYRDOM OF MAN. Some of my friends like this poem. So do I. i' think the saddest thought of my own life has been the contemplation of what it costs to be honest in speech and earnest .in work for the good of your fellow-man. Why is it ever to be The cross in life, The crown in death? - An occasional crowned,life, outside of a prize lighters, would be much to the credit of humanity. ‘ SLEEPING. weaned with thought I slept, Slept in my old arm chair. A patriarch before me stept, Bending with age and care, , His face almost of hope bereft, Yet beauty lingering there. Around his headI 'scan, An aui'eole of woe, ' In words of fire aglow, - "The Martyrdom of Man.” ABOSTROPHE. ‘ Spirit of progress, thou, ~ Bearing the world's grim cross; ‘ Thoucanst not rest, nor from the plow _ Turn back for gain or loss; But, Mariner of the Ages, bow Beneath. the albatross. 17_ V This, then, is Nature's plan—— ‘Who truly leads must know, - ' "7 ' I'nfinitude of woe, ' “The Martyrdom of Man.” ANSWER. Mortal, by dream distrest, True, thy apostrophe; For sleep,—sweet angel of rest,— Never can visitv‘me. ‘ The worldlwill ever slay her best, Each, my affinity. I onward lead the van To ultimate of good; Yea, e'en through seas of blood,— ‘-‘The Martyrdom of Man.” WAKING. Waking, a ‘strife I hear, Disc'ordant, fierce and mad; _Oppressors quake with fear. Their victims,—vengeance clad— Recall thewrongs of many a year,_ A reminiscence sad That nerves the soul to fight. No mercy guides the blow That lays injustice low - And reinstates the right.‘ APPEAL TO ALL SCABS. While I would not prevent a man working for whom‘an-fi and for what he willed, I can sympathize with the strikers whose privations and struggles are rendered fruitless by men who ought to make common cause with them. But strikes, in general, are poor and inefficient means for securing labor’s rights. One man or a corporation with plenty can always beat a multitude in a "starvation contest." But,‘ im- potent as strikes have been and are, they have been a. motor \ 18 in labor education. A‘lcab under all circumstances, however, I don't admire. ‘ Ponder well, ye deluded! the wrong. that ye do, -. Your treason so foul, ye shall bitterly rue. . ‘ Stop and think of the toilers ye help to enslave—,- ' Of the shame that shall follow the scab to hisgrave— Yes, think of thefuture—your children and wives-— Whom ye blight with the curse of your renegade, lives; Oh, be traitors no longer—leave the cars on the tracks; At once tear the liv’ery of shame from your backs; Spurn the wagesof shame, take them not for one day; ’Tis the sloganof Freedom that calls you‘ away. Is it wise,‘ do you think, to injurega. friend For the wage ofa master—will it pay in the end‘? Will ye help to defeat your brothers who fight The great battle of Labor for freedom and right? As they struggle to rise, will ye hold them down? Too late shall ye learn that their cause is your own That the "Freedom to work” ye so foolishly crav" \ Is simply the freedom to live as a slave! Then strike with your brothers; no longer delay; ’Tis the slogan of Freedom that bids ye obey. ANTI-DISFORD. ‘ This is a simple protest against strife among reformers. ' Discord represents the English colonial’ policy of getting savages to exterminate each‘ other. Discord is the lawyer getting the milk while his clients‘dispute as to the cow. 'Discord is a weapon used to disintegrate labor interests when by their unity ‘they threatemprivilege andmonopoly. _ 0, this terrible strife and contention, ‘ Division—when all should unite; This fiend that attends each convention, And~~weakens us all in the fight. ' \ 19, - This passionate wrangle unending, Fighting with friends, and not foes; Brother with brother contending, For what—the Lord only ‘knows. This merciless vituperation, Suspicion of motive and deed; Charge and recrimination Wildly each other succeed. W'hat matter the-flag we are under, So long as we all face the foe; We can't expect all of our number In one beaten pathway to go. One by one have our leaders, disgusted, Disheartened, abandoned attack. Betrayed 'by the friends whom they trusted; Shot, as they fought, in the back. , Then close up your ranks, true Reformers, Anti-wrong is the cause we maintain; Press shoulder to shoulder, Reformers, United, the victory gain. . * RAG BABY AND GREENBACK ANTHEM. My poems have given me ~more pleasure than I can ex-. 4 pect others to derive from them. These greenback effusions». (written before I had learned to despise a compulsory State). have been sung on many platforms. I preserve them be- cause greenback money, for a while, effected exchanges ad-. mirably and repudiated the gold basis. It is the best money the country ever issued; but better can be devised under free conditions. GREENBACK ANTHEM. (Sung to the music of the oldranthem, "How Beautifu.1 Upon . . the Mountains”) The people's money is the greenback! .éThe taxless, crisp and bonny greenback! The soldier's and the sailor's greenback! 20 Listen, then, workingmen! Its praises we sing; " It came in our need, A true friend indeed, It rescued the “Union,” The “Contraband” freed; For when the scheming Shylocks-L The grasping old Shylocks— Their gold locked up, . The greenback appeared. From ocean to ocean, Trade commotion! Trade commotion! Through the land industrial anthems ring; Every man who would could find employment, Labor with happy heart could sing,-'— Glorious greenback! Honest greenback! ' Friend of the poor! Useful greenback, Noble greenback, Stay evermore. Oh! the people’s money is the greenback! The taxless, crisp and bonny greenback! The soldier’s and the sailor's greenback!‘ : Listen, then, workingmen, Its praises We sing; The war fiend had fled,‘ And treason was dead, / When an army of bankers Against it was led. ’ And then the scheming Shylocks— The traitorous Shylocks— Caused contraction, The greenback to kill. From ocean to ocean, Tramps in motion! Tramps in motion! ‘ v 21_ ‘ Hushed the song of factory and mill; And the man who erst had good employment Now had to starve, or beg, or steal’. Glorious greenback! Honest greenback! Come once again; Useful greenback! Noble greenback! Bless workingmen. Oh! The people’s money is the greenback! The taxless, crisp and bonny greenback! The soldier's and the sailor’s greenback! Listen, then, workingmen, Its praises we sing; F Away with the gold Monopoly bold, That holds the producer In misery’s fold; That robs the honest workman— The poor, toiling workman, Who stands hungry, While lazy drones thrive. From ocean to ocean, Thought commotion! Thought commotion! Heads and hearts in unison shall ring; Now the tyrant golden calf dethroning, JUSTICE, triumphant, shall be king. Glorious greenback! Honest greenback! Friend of the poor. Taxless greenback! Bonny greenback! Ours evermore. THE "RAG BABY." ' Oh! I have you safe and sound, Baby mine, baby mine; 22 You're getting quite renowned, Baby mine, baby mine; You're “ragged,” so they say, We will dress you fine some day, In a coat of green so gay, Baby mine, baby mine; In a coat of green so gay, Baby mine. - Oh! I love to see your face, Baby mine, baby mine; Your “rags” are no disgrace, Baby mine, baby mine; You came ’mid cannon’s boom, To cheer us in our gloom, Like a‘ rose of May in bloom, Baby mine, baby mine; Like a rose of May in bloom, Baby mine. Oh! Rag Baby ever dear, Baby mine, baby mine; Thy “tender” * cry we hear, Baby mine, baby mine; The “I-Ierods” have decreed To kill you, in their greed; ‘ But they never can succeed, Baby mine, baby mine; But they never can succeed, Baby mine. You will live to be a man, Baby mine, baby mine; And fight the Shylock clan, Baby mine, baby mine; ' Legal tender. / 23 And when “Us‘ury” is dead, Shall cease the cry for bread, And “Plenty” reign instead, Baby mine, baby mine; And “Plenty” reign instead, Baby mine PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. My ideal poet! The greatest genius England ever pro- duced to curse with her customs and load with her abuse, he in turn to load her with honor and glory. Love of Lib- erty, hatred of tyranny and superstition filled his being; and his poems are the halo of that being. Dying far too soon, he will live-in his works with increased intensity and influence as the years roll on. \ LoVed~Shelley, to me thy songs have seemed Voices of gentle prophets, heralding brighter days. For even in thy wrath (and thou didst evil hate) We find the leaven of love, I That in thee was incarnate. _ As time, with steady change, the mind of man expands, To see more clear the right, and thus to shun the wrong, Thy wounded heart, calumniated name, Shall, garlanded, arise; While those who knew thee not, And, knowing not, reviled; Shall,‘ as the stubble in the blast, Be swept from human recollection, With' all their fiendish creeds, And hateful superstitions. Then the spot that holds thy ashes, And the page that sings thy verses, Shall contest make for tears of love, And thy great wrongs of thirty years, Be righted by the veneration Of eternal man. 24 < HUGl—IENDEN. Thisflplac'e is the home of the D’Israeli family. In this poem Benjamin D’Israeli, Lord Beaconsfield, is supposed ,to be answering the protest of England against the sacrifice of English lives in Afghanistan. (The last two lines of each verse must not be read as a question, but as an afi'irmation.) Out from grand’ Hughenden Cometh reply: “What if the Saxon men Lay down to die? \Vere we not threatened when Russia drew near? Sent we our Englishmen To hold our frontier. “India’s rich diadern' Circled her head— Empress! Queen! What of them? What of the dead? Dimmed was her glory when > I. A Russians drew near; Sent we our Englishmen To hold our frontier. “How dared the Russian send Embassy there? What scheme did that portend— VVhat secret snare? Once in Cabul—what then? India sov near! Sent We our Englishmen - To guard our frontier. “Never shall Kahn with Tzar Dare to intrigue; Rather perpetual war Than such a league. 25 Thousands of Saxon men, Oceans of tears, All help to build, I ken, India’s frontiers. "Many brave Saxon men Lie slaughtered there, Never to see again England so fair; But, while their wives and kin Shed bitter tears, India, by all, shall win, Stronger frontiers.” KING GOLD. The sight of the Israelites dancing round a golden calf so enraged Moses, as he returned from his visit to God, that he threw down and broke in pieces the tables of the coven- ant. I feel as angry as Moses did,»when I think of the evils of a monetary gold-basis, and my pamphlet on "The Money Question” gives my reasons in full. ‘The gold-basis fathers a. vast monopoly under which the world pays tribute to a few money lords. The cure for the evil is to monetize all wealth impartially and relegate gold to its proper position as a commodity. Free money! King Gold, reclined on his lofty throne, His face aflame with wine; ’ He laughed .with glee, “Aha," said he, “Aha, the world is mine.” \“The millions may toil in mine and field, In store and factory; They sow the seed and pluck the weed, ' But the harvest is for me. For me and the few who feast with me And join in my revels gay; We never need soil our hands with toil, While I my sceptre sway. / Then fill up the cup, my jolly friends, For a jolly crew are we; We are all in luck, and can say with Puck, ‘What fools these mortals be.’ "’ APPEAL. Oh, why do we worship this tyrant king, And how does it come to pass That we bow before gold, whose worth, all told, Is eclipsed by a blade of. grass? ~ NEMESIS. King'Gold reclined on his lofty throne, His face was blanched with rear; For he heard the shout of the crowd without, And knew that his doom was near._ On the millions of slaves the truth had dawned- A grand' awakening,— They rise in their might, and girded with right Dethrone the’ tyrant king. Now he who creates may freely consume, And he that hath plenty will scorn To guard it with locks; to muzzle the ox— The ox that treadeth the corn. The drone and the usurer out of the way, Humanity’s heart will expand; . While wealth shall increase, and plenty and peace Redeem all this beautiful land. A MODERN STRIKE. An article in the New York “Tribune” supplied the facts embodied in my poem. It is a sad story and is another illustration of the pathetic words of Proudhon—“Labor is 27 ever digging its own grave, and weaving flowers into funeral Wreaths.” Labor creates capital which turns and crushes him! One thousand eight hundred and eighty-six; Year of our Lord; fantastic tricks I Are played by misery. Strangest of all In Chicago’s Wicked city a living wall Of pretty babies, placed by maddened mothers In aid of husbands, sons and brothers, As barricade impregnable, against oppression, Along‘ the iron way—.aiwlld expression Of utter hopelessness—preferring death To living on despairingly, With every breath Poisoned by corporation greed, Each misery another’s seed. There was a strike of nailers—honest toilers— In the Cummings Mill; their despoilers, Grind year by year, from body and from soul ‘Labor exhaustive, and meagre wages dole; Until with angry voice, they make demand For juster wage and are refused. They stand— Defiant idleness; nor hand uplift, To forge a nail; but resolutely shift For months on savings small, until Maybe the corporation of the mill, '~ By greed, if nothing else, impelled Shall do them justice, long Withheld. Four long and weary months they Wait, Lilse Lazarus at the rich man's gate; No buzz of industry is heard within the mill, No evldence abroad is sent of workmen’s‘skill. Machinery needs no food. Its owners—What care they, For those who daily need, their daily pay? ’ No pity’s soft emotion‘ can agitate the breast Of corporations for victims robbed, oppressed. 28 Their selfish interests they View with but‘a single eye; The toilers all are born to work, to rot, to die; And to this Moloch—beneath our starry flag—we see, The offered sacrifice of infant progeny. Bring out your cruel god,-—loud belching steam— Manned by scab labor (those who blaspheme The rights of man). “To the cars” they shout, The women with their children gather thereabout. lVomen—hungry, fierce, determined; Amazons in fight, Desperate with wrongs long borne; and with the light Of madness in the eye; for mad, indeed, must be That mother, who, unmoved, can stoically see Her babes, obedient, but with wondering, troubled eyes, Seated on rails or their connecting ties, Right in the path where strives from day to day, The Juggernaut of capital to force its way. But such were these,—mothers of toll— Civilization’s product,—unsexed, to foil The foul designs of greed incarnate. 'Oh, brother Americans, to what a state Has labor’s boasted freedom come! Its independence! IVhere the home, The blessed home of happy workingmen, And virtuous women? Listen then! ‘\Vhen corporation greed these things compel,— Things that may truly rank with deeds of hell,— \Vhen hope is dead, and mothers block with babies Oppression’s wheel—the country’s going to Hades. One thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, Year of our Lord! Sign of the crucifix! Year of missions, home and foreign; salvation gush; The train emotional of revivals’ moral slush; Strikes, misery and bombs; locust clubs and guns; Force versus force,_one legal, both immoral, so it runs. Heaven’s bounty, over-production called, By mangy, mangered dogs, pompous, money—walled; THESE spew their surfeit; OTHERS die of hunger, 29 Monopoly, law-created, prime misery-monger. True progress, law-beleaguered, law-obstructed ever, Till revolution’s force cyclonic, the vile obstructions sever. VANITAS ! This was suggested by a poem in a New Orleans paper which sung of "Telescopic Death” in the usual vein of Chris- tian hope and ignorance. To me life beyond the grave is the dream of human conceit, tinctured with hope and ‘sentiment, utterly unsupported by philosophy and impossible of demon- stration. It is an evil hope in that it leads mankind to passively endure curable evils; whereas, without this hope and - realizing this to be our only life, We are more apt to make the best of it. Personally, I have no desire for immortality, and I am firmly convinced that one world at a time is all that our logical digestion can stand, and more, too. The years of time! What more does wisest know? Eternity is black around, and hems us in ; ,L But, in time’s years we live and breathe, Have seed time and the harvest both; Develops each his destiny; and then the grave Enshrouds its Victim in unconscious death. j- There is no light beyond; intensest blackness there, As was the blackness ere the womb of life; Nought supernatural hath ever brain of man conceived; Nought'infinite hath ever blessed his ken. He is butxdust; his thoughts are dust; And in his dissolution thought and matter blend. This “Telescopic Death" is but an image vain, Feeding imaginative ignorance; the same In Pagan, as in Christian devotee. All thought beyond our glimpse of time, Must needs be idle. We are pinioned 30 To the actual and material things. _ Outline and fill each soul's apocalypse, We are like millers in a grinding world, The dust of circumstance, outlining each, But with the dust, ourselves are swept away; And when We cease to move, and think, and feel, How vain the hope that Death can aught reveal. JESUS, THE NAZARENE. This is to remind.‘ those who look for the second coming of Christ as a conqueror in. clouds of glory that Christ has- never left this earth, but still hangs pierced and bleeding on the cross. In other words, he is typical of the Christ of all ages, a victim of man's ignorance and superstition. There is a story, one we all know well— A Bible story of tempation that befell J esus, the Nazarene, How Beelzebub, with machinations vile, Did Jesus from the wilderness beguile Until they reached the rugged mountain's brow, . Whence could, with ease, be seen The kingdoms of this world—a glorious show. "All these,” the Devil promised, “thine shall be If only thou wilt bend and worship me." Jesus, the Nazarene,— Tho’ faint and hungry—the Devil's offer spurned; With holy wrath indignantly he turned— “Get thee behind me; back, thou Evil One.” Jesus, the Nazarene, I Rejecting worlds, a moral victory won. So, those who follow Truth in every age, Against the Evil One a constant fight must wage. Jesus, the Nazarene, 31 Is but a type of all who lead the van In battling darkness to enlighten man; Rejecting wealth and ease,, by friends denied The modern Nazarene The cross ennobles, whereon he’s crucified. THE DYING ROUNDSMAN. The facts' are fairly expressed here. A fact not men- tioned developed after the funeral of this officer (a man who deserved a better fate than to live as a policeman), the head of the New York police censured the roundsman’s chief for tolerating any tendency to socialism or irreligion. In other WOI‘dS,‘he was. promptly “sat upon” for his sympathy for a comrade who was a man exceptionally superior to the aver- age roundsman. “What’s that? Three raps!” the dying roundsman said; Full willing he to follow wherever duty led, And bravely he responded in labored words and slow:__ “An officer is Wanted; I'm not afraid to go.” . His friends and comrades hear; a saddened group they stand, Full well they know he’s nearing the far-off ‘silent land; Godless his life had been, but honest, brave and true; Godless, but rich in good; as every comrade knew How many men there are unquestionably brave, Who weaken at the summons that calls them to the grave? 'The roundsman weakened not; he spurned hypocrisy, And faced with dauntless heart the great uncertainty. ‘Unflinchingly he went, without a hope or fear, To solve, or not, the problem that puzzles mortals here; And when beside his bier, his chief, with tearful‘ eye, Of the roundsman’s honest life could amply testify. N0 black—robed priest was there with solemn mien to tell ‘The chances of the roundsman for doubtful heaven or hell—- No superstitious rites—but fragrant flowers in bloom, Mingled with tears of friends to mitigate the gloom. 32> . Religion stood apart while friendship closer drew To pay in’ heartfelt words a graceful tribute due ’ To one Whose virtuous life and unassuming worth, ‘Should rank him with the true nobility of earth. No matter that his mind rejected Christian creed; A life ‘is truly noble, judged not by creed but deed. Not all the jarring crceds e’er known beneath the sun Can equal loving Words and kindly actions done. Not fearless those alone in consecrated ground, Shall Wait the doubtful summons of judgment trumpet sound, » But if there be a heaven the roundsman'will be there. \ He loved his fellow—man; he did his duty here. Beside his brother’s grave, on Mother Nature's breast, His comrades laid the roundsman for his eternal rest. His body doomed to dust—already is his soul By kindred life absorbed: the universal whole. RETROSPECT. This needs no amplification. Many Who read this will remember such sad passages of time. Another year, with stealthy tread, has passed, Another year, more gloomy than the last; The self-same greetings fill thexwintry air. But ah! the old-time gladness bends to care; And selfish joys are leavened with a cloud Of vexing problems which, in accents loud, Voice human misery and give the lie To “peace on earth,” man’s brotherhood deny. HANGED. ‘ The calm, calculating, scientific way of murdering the unfortunate victims of evil social conditions‘shocks me in- tensely. Knowing that the legal murderer on the bench and the illegal murderer at the bar under reversed conditions. I would reverse positions—that, as a scientific fact, we are the product of circumstances, and that'free will is a tauto- logical myth, I cannot hear with any patience the platitudes of judges nor their mummery as to the majesty of the law. To courts and judges I say with Christ, "Judge not, that ye be not judged;” And I repeat the old command, “Thou shalt do no murder.” ‘ Yes, and after years two thousand, Of “peace‘on earth, good will to man;" Judged was he, condemned and strangled In spite of Christ and Christian plan. In spite of "judge not!" interdiction; In spite of “go and sin no more;” The gallows, good and bad suppresses, Takes that which none can e’er restore. “Avenged is murder!” echoes gallows; "Vengeance," God thunders forth, “is mine,” “Your judge and jury, jail and strangler, But interfere with laws divine.” From thorns expect we grapes to gather? Shall figs the thistle fructify? Unhappy victim, crime—created, ’Tis your creator that should die. Oh, gallows born of age barbaric, To justice a perpetual lie, Begone, nor longer let your presence The brotherhood of man deny! PRISON. This was suggested by the persecution and imprisonment of the editor of “Lucifer” (Harmon). "Lucifer” is a reform paper, advocating changed social relations, emancipation and elevation of women and the abolition of prostitution. "The Word,” another and a scholarly reform paper, was a target for pharisqical venom, and its editor (Heywood) also suffered 34 cruelly, and was ‘hounded to death in his battle for sexual re- form. Such men as Harmon and Heywood are so harassed while out of prison that, while not seeking incarceration, they yet must feel a certain restfulness in knowing the worst. Many noble literary products have germinated and blossomed in jail. Oh, gloomy prison cell, in which at last Thy burden-bearing soul awhile may find Surcease of active battle, a repast Of calm, reflective quiet ;——durance kind. For what are prison fare, the prison dress, The “ignominy of the law's revenge?” While in thy soul abides the consciousness That wrong is impotent to make thee crir ge. For, as the warrior, smitten in the strife, Feels not the wound that erstwhile lays him low, So, prison doors, that shut the sun from life, Are nought to breasts illumed by martyr’ s glow. _ Oh! honored jail! Oh! pregnant bolts and bars! What noble thoughts are born in thy restraint; One age they come, dim firmamental stars, The'next, like suns, in glory Worlds to paint. THE MILLENNIUM. This is a gentle, poetical rap at my friends, the “Single Taxers.” These worthy reformers have discovered an evil—- land monopoly—and they propose to cure it by taxing land values away from the monopolist. They are hunting for something that the community creates, a certain mythical unearned increment, forgetting that all wealth is the product‘ of labor, and that the producer is alone entitled to his prod- uct. In other words, they Want to free land by taxing it. I think the abrogation of all laws, granting and sustaining monopoly and privilege, would be infinitely simpler and far more just. ‘ Oh! Ye who seek the good of man, With weary brain and complex plan; YVho seek his lot’s amelioration, ’.y tricks of futile legislation. By this or that impost or tax, The “single' tax or multiplex; \Vhich fatten barnaclcs of state, By robbing those who Wealth create. In vain ye toil—it will not come,— Your law-devised millennium. . The cure for poverty is this:— Your stupid law-makers dismiss; Your statute laws consign to flame; Let man be free in more than name. ll'ree to use his birthright, land; To reap the harvest of his hand; Free to trade with whom he will, Untrammeiled by protection pill; Free his money to create, Sans interference by the state; ' Free from that aecursed ban—— The government of man by man. Then, instead of exploitation, The blessings of co-operation 'VJould enter in with liberty, Ejecting want and misery. Thus, and only thus, can come The long desired millennium. NEMESIS. This poem speaks for itself. Bombs at the opera, and dc-. votees of wealth and fashion torn to pieces. Nihilism in Russia, terrorism in Spain, Communism in France, plotting everywhere. AIL—the spawn of iniquitous social and political conditions, and demonstrating slowly but surely that there is an inevitable Nemesis of wrong. Reigns of injustice and 36 oppression always precede “reigns of terror.” The true con- servatives are they who seek to change the conditions from which violence of necessity springs. The pool of Bethesda must be stirred up by the angel of justice, before poor hu- manity can step in and be healed. From Europe's cauldron seething, Come famine voices, breathing Mutiny and discontent profound. As the end of wrong is nearing Nemesis is appearing, And the dogs of retribution are unbound.’ Behind the bayonets glist’ning, The monarchs stand a list’ning, With wealth and privilege afraid—aghast; Stand list’ning to the murmur, I Growing ever plainer, firmer, V Of exploited labor waking up at last. Waking as the lions waken, When their offspring’s food is taken, Food, by fiercest struggle hardly won; Grimly facing his despoiler, So, to-day stands Europe's toiler, And the Armageddon is begun. THE MODERN JONAvI—I. This poem was written as an expression of that condition ,of mind where all that veneers our institutions appears the subject of adverse criticism. The pulpit, the schools, the land- lord, the capitalist, the merchant, marriage, virtue, all that/- we erstwhile respected assuming shapes of horror or ignor- ance. To fiy'in the face of all, to cry aloud to Nineveh, calls for courage that few possess, even if wisdom would dictate the sacrifice, and we turn like Jonah, loving our fellow-man and yet fearing to do him good; I judge the world; I judge it By the light that burns within me. My judgment—it is merciless: And like an earthquake, Shakes the pillars of conservatism. I tear the mask from virtue, Revealing vice in loathsome form; I vivisect religion, Baring with the scalpel keen, Superstition’s gangrened faith; 1- Commerce- unfolds extortion; And capital—misnomered thief— (Wealth that is born of labor) Is labor’s highwayman. While true capital, the fruitful earth, Man's birthright, is monopolized. And then my coward soul, Affrighted at its judgment, Like Jonah, turns from Nineveh, For truth refusing battle. - Restless, I wander land and sea, Until the whale of conscience Swallows, then ejects me Dutywards. Still hesitates my soul, And Nineveh, that might be saved, Rushes to perdition. CHARGE OF THE COP BRIGADE. The remarks as to "Lawless Law" will apply here. A graduateeof the Pinkerton system was responsible for this unwarrantable raid by which respectable men and women were degraded by contact with prison and prison oflicials. Morality cannot be inculcated by a club or by raids and fines. In England such an outrage would have resulted in the prompt dismissal of the offending ofiicers. Here “we are free” to endure the insults of public oflicials, without re- dress. “The destruction of the poor is their poverty!" 38 Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr’d gowns hide all.—-King Lear. Attend, all ye- who list to hear, Our noble chieftain’s praise; I tell of a thrice famous deed, He wrought in modern days. When that great Pinkertonian Emphatically swore That Applegate's Caroussel, Should shelter vice no more. There was a sound of revelry by night, And Philadelphia’:= chieftain, Indignant, said: "This is not right; Revelries are only for the rich. By no means for! the poor and ‘sich;’ So, cops fall in and follow me, And end this noisy revelry; Arrest these merry makers! Arrest these frisky Quakers! On, coppers, on, and capture every beauty! Never mind the law, for I am law and duty.” Into that crowd so gay, The coppers force their way; Oh, ’twas a noble sight to see This charge of modern chivalry. Men, women, children, all arrested; Women fainted, men protested, And ’mid it all the coppers jested. Innocence and vice confounded, Vvarrantless, in jail impounded; Guiltless, they, of any crime, ’Mid mirth and music passing time. Slaves of the factory and shop, Work! Work! and never stop! 39 Earn cash for plutocratic revels, But for yourselves? absurd! poor devils! Seek but one brief spell of joy, How quickly partial laws annoy! How quickly lawless hands invade! And lawless punishments degrade! Trampling on your every right, With the brutal club of might. LAWLESS LAW. A policeman must either be an object of the derision of small boys, a bobby, as in London, or an object of fear, and an instrument of injustice. In this country he is generally a political heeler, and the pliant tool of privilege, ever ready to crack a skull or provoke a riot. I know of no public dis- turbance in the past twenty-five years, not directly traceable to high-handed police invasion of the rights of citizens, from the Tompkins Square riots in the ’70’s to the Coxey disturbance in ’94. “Close this meeting. I don’t intend to stay here all night,” was a recent command of an autocratic police captain to a New York meeting. Needed protection is withheld, as in the case of the hayseed victim of a Bowery dive, who was calmly-told by a judge that if he visited such places he must expect to be robbed. This poem was written by me after reading an article in the New York “Herald” embodying the facts in prose. Its object is to inculcate a love for justice and a hatred for tyranny. I desire'to show you the beauty of that better than golden rule, “Mind your own business.” Policeman, “eighteen-twenty-two,”' In helmet'fine, and suit of blue, Patrolled one day with lordly stride, His Broadway beat—the sunny side. With graceful skill his club he twirled,— This despot of the Western world,— And piloted across the street The maid mature and damsel sweet; 40 Protecting them, withregal frown, From Jehus who would run them down; J ehus who will not be polite, Unless a locust club’s in sight. And thus he sauntered up and down, N o prouder man in all the town; A royal six foot cockatoo, Policeman “eighteen-twenty-two." Anon approach to where he stands, Some immigrants from‘ Eastern lands, Expelled therefrom by wrongs gigantic, To seek new homesteads trans-Atlantic. Foremost of all this odd procession, Marched one, with facial expression Of dull content, as on he wandered, And over Western glories pondered. Pipe in mouth; behind him came An antiquated little dame, W'ith babe in arms and bundles legion—— A sight unusual in this region— Where women toil from morn to night, But keep their miseries out of sight; Or else are pampered and caressed, Wined, dined and elegantly dressed. Policeman "eighteen-twenty-two,"-— (Alert, of course, some deed to do O’erstepping simple duty’s line, In autocratic power to shine; , No matter if, with proud disdain, He tears a statute law in twain). Laws, judge and jury all combined, Uncurbed, despotic, unconfined— Policeman “eighteen-twenty-two” Now saw the proper thing to do. 4 “With darkened face and ominous scowl” (Vide New York “Herald”) he strode afoul ‘~11 Of that poor exile, whom he roughly Turned around, and ordered grufi‘ly To take the load the woman carried. A part he took but would have parried The child, not lazy he, but rather, (It may be) he was not the father. But, nolens volens, club-beguiled, He sullenly received the child. Anon, perhaps, to vent his spleen— Without the law to intervene;— And give the woman cause to rue This act of “eighteen-twenty-two.” For, if humane against his will, A brutal man is brutal still; A club may make him act a part, But never causes change of heart. Intelligence, since time began, Evolves from brutes the moral man, As man improves, becomes more human, His slave is evoluted woman. True progress never journeyed yet In league with club or bayonet. A crowd had gathered in the sun, Applauding what the law had done; (How many more policemen are there So deftly could create a father?) But, like_all crowds, it had not solved The vital principle involved. How this “conservator of morals” Had smashed the law to win .his laurels. Concede this man a brute to be, His wife(?) a slave; both sad to see; What right had “eighteen-twenty-two” Coercive measures to pursue? To get incontinently riled, Dictating who should take the child? 42 Suppress the clubs and those who use them, No man has powers but to abuse them; Injustice, brutes and slaves creates, And every evil permeates. Strict justice do, and never fear, But brutes and slaves will disappear. Among them vanishes frcen view Policeman “eighteen-twenty-two.” MORAL. A foe, in guise of sympathy, May aim a blow at liberty. GODS. . ‘Considering the impotence of the gods of ancient days, what need for trepidation is there when we boldly out the sack that holds the sawdust entrails of our modern cham- pion ghost. Man will never be free while God enchains the mind. All tyranny evolves from his mythical throne, and upon the god-hypothesis all restriction and restraint have been reared.‘ ' The gods of the ignorant past Were thicker than peas in a pod, And all but the mythical last Have been vanquished by science’s rod. Apotheosised ignorance! ‘all; Swept away as a fog by the gale One, only one, left to appall, A priesthood hung on to his tail. A priesthood with sanctified lies, Superstition, the mildew of mind, A heaven—that myth of the skies—— And a hell with grim terrors outlined. THE DEATH OF GARFIELD. , A protest against hypocrisy, against trading for the profits of death. Poor Garfield, poor Guiteau! It seems to me that the act of a madman, prompted by an unbalanced 43 mind, should not be blazoned to the world as the deliberate act of a sane man by his execution. Poor Garfield! Guiteau! Poor The merchant sat in his counting-room, In his head a scheme was brewing; “Here’s Garfield shot, and if he dies, Black goods are bound in price to rise, So I must be up and doing.” Then he raked together his surplus cash,_ And managed some more to borrow; Laid in a stock, then with grief sincere, Yvaited the doleful sound to hear, Which told of a nation's sorrow. The merchant sat in his counting-room, Pleased with his speculation; “Now Garfield's dead, I think it wise‘, With a big display to advertise, My heartfelt tribulation.” So he draped his store, his clerks dismissed, Complete were the signs of mourning; Black goods had netted five thousand clear, Five hundred he’d spent in a crocodile tear, And docked his clerks in the morning. Oh! whose soul can be So venally degraded; wretched man! And pity ‘tis, a nation sighs, From honest, loving hearts that rise, Should be by such invaded. LILLIE AND BETH. (Xmas '92.) Lillie and Beth were disputing, As to which had the prettier name; “Your name” said the former, “means nothing, While mine is a flower known to fame.” “True, it is,” Beth replied, “as you say, My .name’s not a flower or a gem, But, like Christ on that glad Xmas day, You'll find it in sweet Bethlehem.” 44 EQUATIONS. I looked within a cottage door, And saw a damsel sitting, With discontented, dreamy face, And quite neglected knitting. She thought of city pleasures gay, Fine carriages and horses, 7A constant whirl through night and day, Excitement served in courses. And dreaming thus, she quite forgot, The pure delights anear her; The song of bird; the grassy plot, Than city joys far dearer. The fragrant flowers, the limped stream, The air with incense laden; And in her discontented dream, I left this little maiden. I looked within a palace door, Beheld a child of fashion, Aweary with her golden store, And sick of pleasure’s passion. She sighs for dell and flowery mead, And longs to leave the city; For joys idyllic hear her plead, This maid demure and pretty. And thus I pondered :—-‘“life- at best Has marvellous equations, And levels, it must be confessed, All fortune’s dispensations.” PUBLIC SCHOOLS. O, Lord, from thy exalted perch, Inform us by what rule The state—a devil in the church—- Becomes a saint in school? 45 CAUSE AND EFFECT. The Anarchist paced Fifth avenue, His brow was black and grim; He thought of the wrongs that capital Had heapedv on his and him. And to show his scorn for the lust of gold Down town he quickly sped, To spend a dollar for lager beer, And pay for a ten-cent bed!——N. Y. Tribune. Ten millions of dollars are spent annually in the various departments of New York’s municipal government. At least half the ten millions is a clear steal.—N. Y. Tribune. The above clippings from the New York “Tribune” seemed to me to have an intimate relation one to the other, and they suggested to me the following lines: An Anarchist sat in a railway car,‘ And pondered on what he had read; He thought of the thieves in the City Hall; Of the Anarchist’s ten-cent bed; Of the rascals who steal the millions; Of the poor that want for bread; Of the bonds by peculation sired; To eternal interest wed. Of the tenement poor by taxes robbed; Of the tramp with shelterless head; Of the few who tread the cloth of gold By vile monopoly spread; Of the hosts from money and land debarred, Rocked on procrustean bed. Thus he pondered awhile, On a government vile: “Well, I'm damned!” was all he said. 46 Intellectual Sparks from the‘Anvil‘ of Anarchy. BUCKLE. Speaking of ‘English legislation, he says: “It may be broadly stated that with the exception of certain necessary enactments respecting the preservation of order, and the punishment of crimes, nearly everything which has been' done, has been done amiss. “To maintain order, to prevent the strong from oppress~ ing the weak, and to adopt certain precautions'respecting the public health, are the only service which a government can render. “As the pressure of legislation is diminished and the hu- man mind less hampered, the progress ot civilization will continue with accelerated speed. “The great principle of scepticism has played a most im- portant part in European civilization. It has remedied'the three fundamental errors in the olden time, errors which made the people in politics too confiding, in science too cred- ulous, in religion too intolerant. ' ’ “The origin of Veneration is wonder and fear; we wonder because we are ignorant, we fear because we are Weak. Veneration in religion causes superstition; in politics it causes despotism. , “In 1771 the University of Salamanca, the most promi- 'nent in Spain, refused to allow the discoveries of Newton to H;- -l be taught because, they said, the system of Newton was not so consonant with revealed religion as that of Aristotle. . . The more a man learned the less he knew. . . . Science ‘was a crime; ignorance a virtue. “In the inorganic world the magnificent discoveries of .Newton were contumeliously rejected, and in the organic -. world the circulation of the blood was denied one hundred and fifty years after Harvey had proved it. I “Ardent reformers in their eagerness to effect their pur- pose let the political movement outstrip the intellectual one, and thus, inverting the natural order, secure misery either ’ to themselves or to their descendants. They touch the altar and fire springs forth to consume them. Then comes another period of superstition and of despotism, another dark epoch in the annals of the human race, and this happens merely be- cause men will not bide their time, but will persist in pre- cipitating the march of affairs. ' “Science is the result of inquiry; theology is the result of faith. In science the spirit of doubt; in theology the spirit of belief.” WHITTICK. Inspiration from “Sartor Resartusz” “Die sache der armen, in Gottes und Teufels namen.” “Then let us, filled with purpose high, The right defend, the wrong defy, And thus united, take our stand Heart to heart, and hand in hand, Acclaiming loudly through the land ‘The cause of the poor, in God’s name, and The Devil's.’ " EMERSON. "What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed by the word politics, which now,for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the state is a trick.” 48 HELVETIUS: * “The vices of the people are, if I may say so, always hid- den in the depths of legislation. There must we search if we would tear up the roots productive of these vices.” A. GUIGARD. “Legislators are men who make rules for others, and ex- ceptions for themselves.” JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY. "The highest crime may be written in the highest law of / the land.” HENRY IBSEN. “I am an anarchist, and individualist.” VICTOR HUGO. “Between the government, that does evil, and the people who accept it, there is a certain shameful solidarity.” PROUDHON. “Under the rule of property, the flowers of industry are- woven into none but funeral wreaths. The laborer digs his own grave.” CARLYLE . “Theories of government? Such have been and will be in ages of decadence. Acknowledge them in their degree, as processes of nature, who does nothing in. vain, as steps in her great process. Meanwhile what theory is so certain as this: That all theories, were they never so earnest, pain- fully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them must be, incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that this universe is what it professes- to be, an 49 I ‘\ infinite one; attempt not to swallow it, for thy logical diges- tion; be thankful if, skilfully planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent it swallowing thee.” KRAPOTKINE. “Servility before the law has become a virtue. “The confused mass of rules of conduct, called law, which has been bequeathed to us by slavery, serfdo-m, feud- alism and royalty has taken the place of those stone mon- sters before whom human victims used to be immolated and whom slavish savages dared not touch, lest they should be slain by the thunderbolts of heaven.” WHITTICK. “All human legislation is but a mischievous attempt to counteract natural law, and invariably aggravates and mul- tiplies evils. Governments are like oyster fishermen—who, in reprisal for the ravages inflicted upon the bivalves by the star fish, tear each one they capture in two, and throw it back into the sea. There new rays spring out and instead of one enemy they have two. All legislation not in harmony with natural law is pernicious; all that is in harmony there- 'with is superfluous.” GIBBONS. Seven or eight months following the assassination of Aurelian:— “An amazing period of tranquil anarchy during which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a usurper, andxwithout a sedition.” MILL. “The free development of individuality is one‘ of the lead_ ing essentials of well being. ‘ “Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.” 50 PROUDHON. “If the laborer’s wages will not purch'ase his product it follows that the product is not made for the producer. For whom, then, is it intended? For the richer consumer; that is ‘ for only a fraction of society. But when the whole society labors, it produces for the Whole society. If, then, only a. part of society consumes, sooner or later a part of society will be idle. Now, idleness is death, as well for the laborer as for the proprietor. This conclusion is inevitable. “The primary cause of commercial and industrial stagna- tion is then, interest on capital—that interest which the ancients with one accord branded with the name of usury Whenever it was paid for the use of money, but which they did not dare to condemn in the forms of house-rent, farm- rent, or profit—as if the nature of the thing lent could ever warrant a charge for the lending—that is robbery.” BAKOUNINE. “The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice. It is the most decisive negation of human lib~ erty, and necessarily ends in the enslavernent of~mankind, both in theory and practice. “We reject all legislation, all authority, and all privi- leged, licensed ofii-cial, and legal influence, even though aris- ing from universal suffrage, conyinced that it can turn. only to the advantage of the dominant minority of exploiters, against the interest of the immense majority in subjection to them. “In deifying human things the idealists always end in the triumph of a brutal materialism. And this for a. very simple reason; the divine evaporates and rises to its own country, heaven, While the brutal alone remains actually on earth. ' . “The two fundamental institutions of slavery—church and state. “Religion is collective insanity, the more powerful, be- cause it is traditional and because its origin is lost in remote antiquity. ' 51 “Every development implies the negation of its point of departure.” ' THOREAU'; “I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, andv Americans only at a later and convenient hour. Let each inhabitant of the state dissolve his union with her as long as she delays to do her duty. “My thoughts are murder to the state, and involuntarily go plotting against her. - “I heartily accept the motto: _‘That government is best which governs least,’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly; and systematically carried out it finally amounts to this, which also I believe: ‘That government is best which governs not at all,’ and, when men are prepared for it, that is the kind of government which they will have. I‘The character inherent in the American people had _ done all that has been accomplished, and it would have done somewhat more if the government had not sometimes got in its way. - _ ' “Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India- , rubber, would never manage to- bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way, and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would de- serve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstacles on railroads. “Law never made man a whit more just, and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made the agents of ‘injustice. All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back- gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong—with moral questions—and betting naturally ac- companies it. A wise man will not. leave the right to the mercy of chance nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. _ I I “Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or 62 shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them AT'ONCE? “Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the major-I ity to alter them. They think that if they should resist,“ the remedy would be greater than the evil. But it is the fault, of the government itself, that the remedy IS worse than the evil. IT makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to antici~ pate and provide for reform? 7 Why does it not cherish its , Wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the‘ alert to point out its faults and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and ‘excommunicate Co- pernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Frank- lin rebels? ' “The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to democracy, is a progress towards a true respect for the individual.” WALT WHITMAN. “Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seed, for freedom, in its turn to bear seed which the winds carry afar and resow, and the rains and the snows nourish. “Liberty, let others despair of you, I never despair of you." J. S. MILL. “The free development of individuality is one of the.- leading essentials of well being." EMERSON. “To educate the wise man the state exists, and with the appearance of the wise man the state expires.” BUCKLE. “Government is the great blackmailer.” 53 ‘ . MAX NORDEAU. “The life and property of the individual are no more pro- tected by the modern complicated machinery of state, by the everlasting writing, recording, ofiice-holding, permits and injunctions, than entirely without the whole intricate ‘appar- atus.” EMERSON. “Good men should not obey the laws too well.” DIDEROT. “Under any government, whatever it may be, nature has set limits to the miseries of the people. Beyond these limits lie death, flight, or revolt.” AUBERON HERBERT. “Actions springing from good qualities, but done in dis- regard of primary and moral commands,- may increase the sum total of unhappiness, instead of happiness. “Has any race of men ever fairly tried even the humblest experiment of freedom and found it fail? Have not the human faculties grown in every field, just as freedom has been given to them? Have men ever clung to protection and restraint and ofi'icialism without entangling themselves deeper and deeper into evils from which there was no outlet. "The clumsy restrictions and defences which parliaments provide must give place to those higher forms of self- protection which depend upon mental qualities. “Happiness consists in, the exercise of faculties. That as men have these faculties there must be freedom for‘ their exercise. That this freedom must rest on equal and uni- versal conditions; no unequal {conditions satisfying our moral sense. “As a mental abstract physical force is directly opposed to morality, in that it practically drives out of existence the moral forces. 54 -“Any fool can govern with bayonets. \ "Those people who wish to make their fellow-men wise‘ or temperate, or Virtuous, or comfortable, or happy by some rapid exercise of power, little‘dream of the sterility that belongs to the universal systems which they so readily inflict on them. Some day they will open their eyes and see that there never yet has been a great system sustained by force under which the best faculties of men have not slowly withered. “Man is predestined to find his complete happiness, as Mr. ‘Spencer teaches, when the happiness of others becomes to him an integral part of his own, but this development of his nature cannot take place unless he is living under those true conditions which belong to a free life. So long as force is paramount, so long must men stand in hate and fear of each other, and the old saying, ‘homo homini lupus’ remain true. . “Socialism is but Catholicism addressing itself not to the soul but to the senses of men. Accept authority, accept the force which it employs, resign yourself to all-powerful managers and infallible schemers, give up the free choice and the free act, the burden of responsibility and the rewards that come to each man according to his own exertions, deny the reason and the self that is in you, place these in the keeping of others, and a world of ease and comfort shall be yours. It is a creed even more degrading than Catholicism,. but it offers more tangible bribes for its acceptance.” HERBERT SPENCER. “Society is not a manufacture; it is a growth. “Unquestionably among monstrous beliefs one of the most monstrous is that while for a simple handicraft, such as shoemaking, the long appenticeship is, needful, the only thing which needs no apprenticeship is making a nation’s laws. “There are no phenomena which a society presents but what have their origin in the phenomena of individual human 55 life, which again have their roots in vital phenomena at large. And there is this inevitable application that, unless these vital phenomena, bodily and mental, are chaotic in their relations (a supposition excluded by the very maintenance of life), the resulting phenomena cannot be wholly chaotic; there must be some kind of order in the phenomena which grow out of them when associated beings have to co-operate. Evidently, then, when one who has not studied such resulting phenomena of social order undertakes to regulate society he is pretty certain to work mischiefs. . “Aggressionists is a title doubly more applicable to the anti-free traders than is the euphonistic title, protectienists, since that one producer may gain ten consumers are fieeced. "The great political superstition of the past was the divine right of kings; of the present, the divine right of ' parliaments.” VOLTAIRE. “In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give- it to the other.” THOMAS JEFFERSON. “Societies exist under three forms: First, without ‘government, as among the Indians. Second, under govern- ments wherein everyone has a just influence. Third, ‘under governments of force. “It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condi- tion is not the best.” Q GEN. M. M. TRUMBULL. “In religion Jefferson was a free thinker, in social theory he was an individualist, in politics he was a Democrat, in theories of government he was called an anarchist.” 56 ROBERT SOUTHEY. “If it be guilt To preach what you are pleased to call strange notions; That all mankind as brethren must be equal; That privileged orders of society Are evil and oppressive; that the right Of property is a juggle to deceive The poor whom you oppress, I Plead me guilty.” (Wat Tyler) P. B. SHELLEY. “Is the human form, then, the mere badge of a preroga- tive for unlicensed wickedness and mischief,” PROUDHON. v “The state, whatever form it affects, aristocratic or the- ocratic, monarchlcal or republican, until it shall have become the obedient and submissive organ of a society of equals, will .be for the people an inevitable hell—I had almost said a de- served damnation.” WHITMAN. “To the states, or any of them, or any city of the states, resist much, obey little.” “Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, no nation, state, or city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty. “The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? "Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it? "I speak the pass-word primeval. I give the sign of democracy. ' “By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of, on the same terms. “Where the men and women think lightly of the laws; where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases; 57 "' where the populace rise at once against the never ending audacity of elected persons; where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours forth its sweeping and unript waves; where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority; where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and the president, mayor, governor and what not are agents for pay; where the_ children are taught to be laws to themselves and to depend on themselves.” BENJ. R. TUCKER.‘ - “Democracy has been defined as the principle that ‘one man is as good as another, if not a little better.’ Anarchy may be defined as the principle that one government is as bad as another, if not a little worse.” ‘ COUNT LEO TOLSTOI. “Government is in its essence always a force acting in violation of justice. “Christianity destroys all government.” 58 The Newspaper School of Anarchy. ’ ' One Day's Object Lessons. May 9th, 1894. New York Herald: “All I can say is, the bill is not the Gorman bill an}r longer, neither is it the Wilson bill, nor the compromise bill;‘ it is simply and solely the Sugar Trust bill,” said Senator Washburn. , “It’s worse than the McKinley law, infinitely,” said Sen- ator Peffer. “The trusts only got the ends of their fingers in the first bill,” said Senator Hansbrough, “but in this last edition we find them with their arms plunged in way up to the-shoulder blades. Mr. Havemeyer, the head of the Sugar Trust, has been given about a half a cent a pound the advantage over foreign competitors, and the trust ought to be happy.” “The sugar people appear to have got all they demanded,” said Senator Hawley. “The bill shows on its face that the people interested in the refining of sugar in this country get practically all they have demanded,” said Senator Perkins. ‘ “General Coxey and his lieutenants, Browne and Jones, were convicted of violating the law in carrying banners and walking on the grass in the Capitol grounds. 59 New York World: ‘ Three of the indicted men in Divver‘s district who fled from trial for election frauds are reported to have come back. Simultaneously with this announcement comes an- other that is even more surprising. Assistant District- Attorney Wellman, who had charge of their prosecution, announces that he never had any good case against them. An historic incident occurred in the Pennsylvania Legis- lature when a ‘member of that body arose and, addressing the Speaker, said: “If the Pennsylvania Railroad has nothing ‘more for us to do I move that we adjourn.” The United States Senate can make history in a similar way. If the Sugar Trust has nothing more to ask of the “Conservatives” there is no reason why the Senate should not proceed to act on what is left of the Wilson bill. The demand of New York is for self-goverment and 'honest administration, and not for a mere change in the per- sonnel of the machine that plunders the city, debauches its police, levies blackmail at once upon its legitimate business .and upon its vice, and revels in an orgy of misrule. New York Tribune: It is rash to predict either good sense or any shrinking ‘ from shame in this Congress. But if either gets expression ‘at all, this positively last revision will be followed by an- other. Nor is it possible to say how many other Senators who have not ‘yet been bought, seeing the prices paid for votes, will find themselves unable to support the measure conscientiously unless they get a share of the spoils. In that case a supplemental bill'of sale will have to be prepared. But this is Democratic Reform. 60 ‘Now, that the sheriff's fees in New York are an emolu- ment of the past, an obsolete perquisite vanished through the horn gate of dreams, that astute Tammany official will very likely set about to devise means by which the statute may be furtively circumvented, and the currents of that abominable revenue still flow in his direction through the dirty hands of his deputies. The methods of the sheriff’s office in New York have been a shame and a reproach ever since men, now no longer young, can remember, and all its abuses cannot be instantly uprooted by a statute. The office has been the chief prize of corruption in city politics, and its minor places shelt- ered and chartered every possible variety of municipal ‘ scoundrel. A bill protective in form, but framed by free traders yielding to blackmail, is naturally inconsistent almost beyond comprehension. New York Times: We shall not be! rid of bossism by passing laws that there shall be no more bosses. We do not pass resolutions against miasmatic vapors. We try to dispel them by aerating the soil from which they rise. The boss is as necessary a pro- duct of our political conditions as malaria of stagnant water. The net resultv of the session will be a deep and irrepara- blebreach in the defensive tariff works behind which the people have been incessantly‘ and shamefully robbed. Philadelphia Item: Again the Treasury Department is seriously considering the issuance of MORE BONDS to feed the Treasury with ' GOLD. 61 Q _ Even the sop of the seigniorage privilege would not de- ter the bond advocates if the public will stand another sale of United States bonds in New York; _ But it may be well for this public to note that the method of issuing these bonds to the banks and the syndi- cates who unitedly bid for them, is practically a SURREN- DER ‘OF THE CREDIT of the UNITED STATES into the hands of a set of PROFIT MANIPULATORS. No offers for these bonds outside of a CERTAIN RING of banks and bankers ARE considered by the Administration, whether the outside offers are larger or not. At least such was the decision at the last issue of bonds. That being the case, how easy it is for these manipulators to AGREE AMONG THEMSELVES, as they did in the last instance, to hold aloof until the last minute and FORCE the Secretary to put his terms to them in a shape that yields a BETTER PROFIT. » In truth, by the Government's practice, regardless of party, of consulting a certain set of money lenders whenever there is a deficiency of gold, how easy, through united action, these money lenders can control the Treasury's gold volume. And in the control of that gold volume how easy it is tocontrol the ups and downs of the WHOLE TRADE OF THE COUNTRY, by expanding or contracting it at will! How long will the people tolerate this CRIMINAL FOLLY? _ ‘ Councils’ Committee on Law do not.l seem to be in any hurry to annul the gasoline lighting contract, by which it. is claimed that the city is swindled annually out of $50,000. It is asserted that certain of the Republican leaders“ especially one, who but a few years ago could show no sign of wealth, but who is now considered worth half a million or more—are interested in the contract. This may explain why Councils’ Law Committee treats. the gasoline question so leniently. 62 / The profits of the leaders must not suffer, no matter how hard is the lot of the taxpayers. ' , Fifty thousand dollars may seem like a small sum over which to make an outcry. True, it is not suffioient to bankrupt Philadelphia. But it is only one of the dozen or more swindles by which Philadelphia is robbed. And the pickings from these, although small in each case, make a startling sum inthe aggregate. Meanwhile, the actions of Councils’ Law Committe' should be closely watched. A sub-committee has the matter in charge, with orders to report on the 15th of June. That seems to be dangerously near the date for the sum‘ mer adjournment, and only the force of public opinion can secure the ‘proper action by that time! \ The Washington authorities have carried their point; but they have strengthened Coxey’s cause. The American people love fair play, and the fact that Coxey has been denied it will be bitterly resented. Plundering the Government is ‘a trifling offense when / compared with the awful crime of trampling on the grass of _' the Capitol. Here is a description of Judge Miller, as pictured by the correspondent of a Pittsburg paper: ‘ Miller is a typical police court judge. The almost in- variable offender arraigned before him is a “vag” or a “common drunk.” He is rarely cheered by the presence of a really interesting malefactor. Sentiment is lost upon him. The charms of intimate questions of law no more attract him. To the evidence in most of the cases brought before 63 him he listens absently, and then shouts out, “$5 or 20 days.” or a heavier penalty, as the case may deserve, as a projectile is shot from a catapult. Hardened in this school he can see no greater principle involved in the cases of Coxey, Browne and Jones than in the cases of vags and drunks. He is .trying the Common- wealers in his stereotyped police court fashion. Senator Allen's fine spun theorizing upon the constitutional rights of citizens appeared to be just so much Greek to Judge Miller. He could not see that the constitution has anything to do with the case. Philadelphia Press: No man who believes as the Democratic Convention de- clared at Chicago, that the Constitution of the United States prohibits the imposition of a duty for protection, and who has taken a solemn oath that he will support that Constitu- tion in the office of Senator, on. which he was about to enter, and that that principle shall be the guide and law for' all his ofiicial conduct, can cast.’ his vote fora bill containing a'new duty, containing an increased duty, retaining or main- taining and reaffirming an old duty for the purpose of pro- tecting an industry South or North, and then justly excuse himself to his conscience by saying that he did it out of deference to his political associates, or because the Demo- vcratic party would be brought to grief if they failed to pass a bill. Opinions and desires may be compromised; but prin- ciples, oaths, honor, pledges, duties cannot be compromised without very seriously compromising the man who under- takes to do it.”——Speech of Senator Hoar. Tired of waiting for the authorities to make repairs to the streets, the people of Lynn turned out a few days ago and did all the work necessary in a few hours. This seems ‘to point the way to residents of Ridge avenue. 64 The advance in Sugar Trust shares while the Democratic majority of the Senate was making up its mind to increase the profits of the Sugar Trust, has meant a profit on the shares of .the American Sugar Refining Company of about, $25,000,000. Has any sane person any doubt that sundry Democratic Senators, in a position to know what the duty on sugar was to be, have pocketed their share of this ad- vance in sugar shares from 79 to 109, which it reached last week. Philadelphia Inquirer: The Traction Company sought to push through some highly important legislation at the last session. It succeeded in defeating a rapid transit bill sent to Harrisburg by a committee of citizens appointed by a mass meeting of busi- ness men, but it in turn wasidefeated in the last hours and its designs had to be postponed. We warn the people ,that the coming session is to be made one of legislative debauch- ery if such a thing is possible, and that the Traction Com- pany, which has got possession of Philadelphia by the grace of the Supreme Court, will seek to extend its powers enor- mously and-will, as it did last session, strive to make any~ thing like rapid transit impossible. And after the Traction Company has acquired a monop- oly of the earth, sea and air it ought to dispute the right of others to view the heavens upon a starry night. It seems quite probable that it could get some accommodating court to rule that it owned the heavens too. The Supreme Court has given Philadelphia a terrible blow. The only way to recover from that blow is for the people to take a hand for themselves and elect the next legislature. 65 The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will be embalmed in history for three great decisions. They are: Decisions admitting the trolley. Decisions upholding the Building Com- missions. Decisions rejecting rapid transit. These decisions .are nuggets of legal wisdom. They are precious stones. ‘They are/diamonds and sapphires and rubies. They ought to be set in the jewel case of time. They are rare decisions indeed. They ought to be appreciated. One fact is to be remembered while the work of reorgan- izing the Cleveland Cabinet is agitating many of the old- time Democrats. Cabinets have often been reorganized upon far less provocation. Mr. Carlisle’s administration of the Treasury has been a woeful failure. He has wavered so als to warrant the suspicion that he did not know in the evening what he would do next day. Gresham has made a still worse mess of it in the State Department. The Attorney- General is an Attorney-General for the Trusts. And so on through the list. Even little Dan Lamont seems to have dropped into a hole which completely hides him from view. The reappointment of Prosecutor Jenkins by Governor Werts, of New Jersey, is a simple outrage, and his confir- mation by the Republican Senate would be a breach of faith. Governor Werts again acknowledges himself to be the puppet and tool of “Billy” Thompson. Philadelphia Record: The only consolation to be derived from the prospect lies in the fact that, short of the mark as the-ultimate out- come of revenue legislation may prove, it. cannot fail to be an improvement upon the present law. Mr. McKinley and his party in 1890 put it out of the power of their successors 66 .in the control of the Government to devise any tariff more mischievous as a financial measure or more malevolent in its disregard of the general welfare. This does not serve to excuse Democratic default, but it measureably hides it from public observation. Philadelphia Times: It is an open secret that there has been a vast amount of speculative juggling relating to the location of the new" mint site in this city, and it seems to have won a temporary success by the announcement from the government authori— ties that they have secured a site at Sixteenth and Spring Garden streets instead of the one formerly selected at Broad and Cherry streets. It is simply the success of a speculative juggle, and one that is in no way creditable to the govern- ment. Philadelphia North American. We conclude, as we look over the new schedule, that General Hancock was right. The tariff—the Democratic , tariff—is a local issue. It is not only local as to the South, but it is personal as to several lines of production. The tariff, then, is local and’ personal. It is not for revenue. It is not for protection. It is for the reward of party friends and the punishment of party foes. It is a penal measure. It is also a measure of reward. It offers a valuable consider- .ation for the support of the Democratic party. It is, hence, a measure of bribery. Heretofore the tariff has been classed .as a branch of political economy. It is now to stand as a refrigerator for party heat, and a composing draught for party inharmony. Philadelphia Public Ledger. The New York “Sun” has been doing good service for the country and its party by exposing the deceptive fraudulent 67 character of the proposed tax on incomes which the Demo- cratic majority of Congress have made part of their Tariff bill, at the ‘dictation of the Po'pulists, whose latest platform alone embodies an income tax plank. The foregoing extracts from a. few leading newspapers, only for one day, embody the following distinct evils of gov— ernment: Legislation for trusts. Persecution and tyranny by means of a corrupt judge .and a packed jury. Compounding felony by a political “pull.” Control of the legislatures of two states by corporations. A long period of infamous politics and misrule in New York city. Lack of good sense and no feeling of shame by Congress. Corruption in the Senate. Corruption‘ in sheriff’s office in New York city. Blackmail of free traders. “The boss,” a necessity of our political conditions, as is malaria of stagnant water. Shameful and incessant robbery of the people behind the tariff works. An iniquitous financial system. Fraud in a municipal contract, enriching Republican leaders. A typical police justice; a degraded “beggar on horse- back.” Violation of oaths, principles, honor, pledges and duties by the Democrats. . Neglect and incompetency in municipal affairs, (posits an anarchistic remedy). Stock-gambling by senators, in view of prospective legis- lation. ' ‘Legislative debauchery, past and to'come, by Traction Company, Rulings of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania which, in three specified instances, bolster corruption and bar progress. An incompetent Cabinet, with an Attorney General sub-. servient to the trusts. A Governor of New Jersey, a puppet and tool of a gambler. Fraud and corruption in tariff legislation. Jugglery in locating a mint site in Philadelphia. If such an indictment of politics and politicians is pre- sented by the newspapers in one day's record of events, what’ startling possibilities in the line of all that is malevolent for the people exist in long continued political and corporate rascality. - ‘ Anarchy will need public servants, but it will not entrust them with the public purse, nor with the power of compul- sory taxation, which power is the corner-stone of rascality and tyranny. THOMAS PAINE. “The world is my country, and to do good is my religion.” Oh, strong, coherent soul; manliest of men; Champion, firm, of liberty; superstition’s foe; On New World fields, or, doomed, in Bastile den, ’ Thy words, potential, did freedom ever sow. Thy “Common Sense” evolved a nation’s soul; Thy “Crisis” was a nation’s breath of life. ' The one, with clarion voice, led on to freedom’s goal, The other, victory won, in Trenton’s battle strife. True father of this country! long by hate And lies of priestly bigots, robbed of fame; Not always shall to thee this nation stand ingrate, But, shamed by truth at last, do justice to thy name. 69 . __ a Homiculturef‘ In presenting for your kind attention my views upon this interesting science, I shall evoke many antagonistic opinions, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that you cannot logically get angry with me, no matter how great such dif- ferences are. We meet as men, and I have yet to find the superior of man, or any authority under which one man can claim dic- tatorship over another._ All men in all ages have faced this fact; and in this fact lies the necessity for God, a being superior to man who can delegate authority. All tyranny evolves from his mythical throne, and upon this hypothesis all restriction and restraint have been reared. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” is the keynote vof all authority. Abolish God, and equality is reinstated of necessity. In conceding to you the absolute independence of thought and action which I demand for myself, I spike your guns of authority, but I do not attempt to gag you. As Diogenes said to Alexander, I say to prejudice, custom and supersti- tion, “Don’t stand between me and the sunlight.” “The proper study of mankind is man.” The science of *This lecture embraces much of a series of articles written for “The Alarm” (1887), and, later, published in pamphlet form by “The Equity Publishing Co.” of San Francisco, en- titled “Monog amic Sex Relations.” 70 homiculture—or man—culture—is the most important of all sciences, and yet it is one of the most neglected. Great care and attention are paid to the breeding of domestic animals, with most satisfactory results; cultivated breeds of hogs, horses, cattle, flowers and vegetables command admiration in our fairs, but man-culture goes on at haphazardv with re- sults more or less deplorable. , \ The study of medicine is directed more to the cure than to the prevention of disease; and a vast army of doctors, living in more or less affluence; the steady increase of the paraphernalia of charity under the needs of steadily deterio- rating physical conditions; are indications that in some re— spects civilization does not benefit the savage. Yet we do not advocate a return to barbarism, but rather the blending with civilization of some of the neglected health conditions of a state of nature. But, unfortunately, the proudest achieve- ments in medicine appear to be in the direction of inocula- tion with some virus or other, to work off extreme attacks of certain diseases. For instance, unhealthy conditions breed small-pox, and in order that a few victims may have , the disease in a mitigated form, every one, the filthy and the pure, must be indiscriminately poisoned by statute law. There is no substantial reason why all men, women and children should not approximate perfection; born under proper conditions. developing and maturing in rich complete- ness, fading and dying almost imperceptibly, without the discordant jar of disease, their passage from cradle to grave being one glorious crescendo and diminuendo of life and death. . This world is a huge battlefield, with life and death as ‘inseparable companions; a condition which evolves action—- the mainspring of our vices and virtues. Every living being is environed by an invisible host of enemies; nay, enemies are components of his being, ever ready to attack any vul- nerable point. These enemies gain strength as we lose it; our death is their life. Man finally surrenders to the Lilipu- tian armies that spring from his own decay. - 71 The battle of life with ever-present foes—the legions of — death—is carried on at the expense of nerve and tissue, the depletion of which creates appetites. We need food to re- store wasted tissues and nerve force, and we find it in the bounties of nature and in the contact of affinities. Fed from such sources, the elements of procreation form and crystallize to a common centre. Upon the conditions govern- ing this crystallization depend its result; perfect crystalliza- tion under perfect conditions producing perfect offspring; ‘imperfect crystallization under imperfect conditions produc- ing imperfect offspring. Here we reach the corner-stone of Homiculture. The question confronts us, are the conditions of living, and the relations of life which environ us, such as tend to perfect crystallization? In other words, do we get proper food? I am compelled to answer in the negative. The average duration of life is thirty years, of which about one-third is spent in the arms of Morpheus. It is then a matter of great importance for -us to know how to secure health and consequent happiness in the only life of which we have any definite knowledge. In my opinoin, the beginning and the end of each of our lives upon this earth are the beginning and the end of our entity. ' The years of time ! What more does wisest know? Eternity is black around and hems us in. But in time's years,’we live and breathe, Have seed-time and the harvest, both; Develops each his destiny, and then the grave Enshrouds its victim in unconscious death. There is no light beyond; intensest blackness there; As was the blackness ere the womb of life; 7 Nought supernatural hath ever brain of man conceived. Nought infinite hath ever blest his ken; He is but dust; his thoughts are dust; And in his dissolution thought and matter blend. This “Telescopic Death” is but an image vain .72 Feeding imaginative ignorance; the same In Pagan, as in Christian devotee. All thought beyond our glimpse of time Must needs be idle. We are pinioned To the actual; and natural things. Outline and fill each soul’s apocalypse. We are like millers in a grinding world, , The dust of circumstance outlining each, And with the dust, ourselves are swept away, And when we cease to move and think and feel, How vain the hope that death can aught reveal. The science of Homiculture embraces questions, the cor- rect answers to which are the alpha and omega—the begin- ning and the end—of our well—being and happiness. But a false delicacy, bolstered by prejudice and superstition, has checked investigation; in consequence of which a knowledge . of ourselves and of our functions has remained hidden under the fig-leaf of prudery, so that, instead of being a “little lower than the angels,” men. have sunk below the level of the beasts whom they are disposed to consider as infinitely beneath them. They drag women into the abyss with them. Some of the relations that exist to-day between men and women, under the benediction of church and state, would bring a blush to the face of a cow, if it could comprehend them. Instead of covering up and banishing this science from discussion, an entirely antipodal treatment is necessary. Homiculture reveals that infinite oneness which is the attribute of the universe. “Nothing in the world,” says Shelly, “Nothing in the world is single” (or isolated). “All things by a law divine in one communion mingle.” This science leads us to physiology, psychology, to natu- ral history, to universal history, to the sciences of electricity and magnetism, and to all useful knowledge. Physiology teaches of our bodies and their functions, psychology of the I mind, natural history unravels the habits and instincts of the lower animals, universal history of the social and physi- 73 cal conditions of the various races of mankind, and electricity to the fountain of life and energy. All blend in one luminous whole to shed light upon this science of Homiculture. ' Therefore, I can only give you a start in this vast and comprehensive study; to put you into the right path, having done which, your own‘ manhood must lead you on to con- quer the truth for yourselves. In viewing Homiculture from a political standpoint we are to consider the statutes regulating marriage and divorce; and incidentally with the attempt of the state to educate children. The best evidence of the mischievous effect of state in- terference with the affections is found in the widely differing legislation that the various states or governments have for- mulated out of their ignorance. Morality, viewed thus, is a matter of latitude and longitude. What one government permits and enjoins, another prohibits and punishes. In our own country the state acts as a sort of deputy sheriff to the churches. It accepts the sentiment of superstition and lends its civil arm to maintain it. It assists the priest in some very wretched joiner-work and is as stupid’ as the‘priest in its stubborn refusal to undo it. . It compels men and-women to unions which culminate frequently in cruelty, murder, debauchery or adultery. It attempts to regulate in a bungling and an expensive way at the best whatmen and women could regulate in- finitely better for themselves. The violation of statute law stamps the child of love as a bastard, makes it a perpetual shame and reproach to the mother, who, in her agony between the Scylla of shame and the Charybdis of crime, often chooses the latter. Here is an extract from a newspaper: St. Petersburg, Dec. 14.—The midwife, Bedwarska, in Lodz, tried for having murdered more than one hundred babies, has been sentenced to one year's imprisonment. Great indignation has been caused in Lodz \by the lightness 74 of the sentence. The woman was shown to be guilty of suf- focating one hundred and eleven children, whose bodies were found buried in her cellar. As she had been at such work for nearly twenty years, there is little doubt that her vic- tims numbered in the hundreds. She was saved from the full penalty of her crime by the powerful influence of some of her former patrons. ' Thus is infanticide born of statute law. And the father, with the alternative of protection, with incidental shame and disgrace, or abandonment with inci- dental savagery worse than brutish, often chooses the lat- ter; while such examples divert men’s passions from legiti- mate (though illegal) love channels to that curse of society, the brothel, Where the dread of paternity is obviated by promiscuity. Thus does statute law poison society with "that unenjoying sensualism that fills all human life with hydra-headed woe.” The state, as a matter of fact (certainly not of design), prefers prostitutes to wives, and prostitution to maternity. It prefers incest to natural selection, and polyandry to polygamy. 7 Is not the state, instead of a homiculturist, a homicide? The following rather spicy letter will illustrate state and church impertinence in marital affairs: I “There was in the town where I lived, a married couple, respectable and well thought of as any in the community. The man was absent from home a considerable length of time, and while absent another man filled his place, to take care of the woman. Shortly after the return of the husband the wife told him she had no further use for him. \ '“Then she went to a man, called judge, and asked for a divorce, but the judge was not in session, so he told the lady to go to a lawyer and get a few words written on a piece of paper, and when that paper should bepresented, he (the judge) would go into session, would open court, hear the complaint and determine whether he would grant the divorce or not. “That is to say, this man, called judge, would sit down on a certain chair in a certain place and let a couple of law- ' yers call him “Your Honor” a few times and then lay down the “authority;" that is, they would dig up all the de- cisions of the dead judges to say whether this man and Woman shall live together or not. “And so it came to pass that this infallible man, called judge, told these people (with all due solemnity) that if they could not live together they could part. Of course, there was a fee to pay about this time. “The very next day the man that had done chores in the husband's absence went with the woman to a man, called county clerk, and asked him if he had any objections to them getting .married. The man, called clerk, said “Yes,” he had objections, but that five dollars from each of them would re- move his objections. So the ten dollars were handed over, and, to show that the objection had been removed, the clerk gave a receipt for the money and called the receipt a mar- riage license. Now they had a permit to get married, so they hunted up a preacher and asked him to marry them. “Of course, the preacher knew there was money back of it, and with the solemnity of a judge he told them “what God has united let no man put asunder,” pronounced them “man and wife,” and relieved them of their spare change. “And those deluded people rejoiced, thinking that God had joined them together, when it was only the clerk, the preacher, the judge and the lawyer that had relieved them of their money without adding anything to their unity or happiness but rather to their misery. "About a month after all this the. man and woman made the discovery that all had made a mistake, and the woman again paid the lawyer's fee, made the required application, Went through a mock trial and obtained another divorce, and then the woman and the first husband again paid the man, called clerk, a fee for a marriage license, then paid the preacher another fee to tell them that God had joined them together this time for sure! 76 "The foregoing is not a story, but a fact; a real history told in few words. “It convinced me that our legalized marriage and divorce business is a humbug, from beginning to end, instituted simply to feed lawyers, preachers and politicians in idleness, without adding anything to the happiness or comfort of those who pay the bills.” 7 H. HANSEN. Education is an important part of the science we are now discussing. The more the sum total of intelligence is in- creased the nearer to the goal of homiculture shall we be. The education of children, to keep the equilibrium be The public school system of this country has grown out of false economic conditions. tween the mental and physical, is of vital importance. With insured employment and a just equivalent therefor, each parent could attend to his child’s education, and instead of homogeneous automatism, like our public school system, We should have variety and competi- tion in instruction and attainment. The morals of the young are being frightfully neglected, owing mainly to the jealous bickerings of two great ecclesiastical bodies of this country. In fact, I don’t think I am unjust when I say, our schools turn out automatic hoodlums by the wholesale. Thus, whichever way we view the state, it is a promoter of evil, and homiculture owes it nothing. Again, homiculture owes nothing to religion which has made marriage a sacrament instead of a science, and substi— tuted a cage of superstition for the glorious freedom of love. It blesses what nature curses—in many instances,—and endeavors to bind together the very elements of disintegra- tion. It curses what nature blesses—the child of love, with a strange inconsistency where the conditions of the birth of Christ are considered. _ It applies no thought of science to the most scientific process of nature. It sanctifies lust for a fee, it drives pas- sion to rape and the victim of rape to infanticide. It preaches marriage and prays for free love every time it repeats the Lord's Prayer. It perpetuates the bond of discord and hate, 77 and receives into the bosom of mother-church the child of such bonds. J It takes the state hoodlum from the public schools and makes him a hypocrite or a fool in the Sunday-school. It teaches as facts the dreams of emotional lunatics of a past age, and neglects with scorn the investigations and dis~ coveries of science and philosvphy. No, the church is not a homiculturist, but a homicide. What of our economic system with its fever of anxiety, its fury of competition, its devil-take-the-hindmost policy? What of our economic system? 7 . The children of overwork and exhausted vitality, What of‘ them? The children of poverty and want, what of them? The morals of fierce competitive industry, what of them?‘ Close confinement, foul air, long hours, constrained po- I sitions, monotonous occupation; what of these devil's agents? What of their children? ' The lost souls of the rich and the sodden souls of the poor; what of them? ‘ ' The soul of virtue, weary with the struggle! What of it? The monotony of the lives of a great mass of mankind, the impossibility of soul culture, the conflict of the present and the dread of the future, all are enemies of homiculture. The luxuries of the rich and the privations of the poor are alike cursed. ‘ “Mothers of fashion, white cursed mothers; / Yea, cursed as Christ cursed the barren fig tree, With one sickly branch where a dozen should be; Ye are cyprians of pleasure to 'Satan’s own brothers; Withered and barren and piteous to see; Ye are‘ dried up peppers in a dried up pod; Ye are hated of menand abhorred of God.” Our economics and homiculture are not in harmony. I shall dwell more fully upon homiculture as affected by- our social relations, the relation of the sexes, because I am compelled, after many years of thoughtful investigation, to- ' \ ‘78 proclaim monogamic marriage—that_is, the life-long union of one woman to one man—as unscientific, and prolific in malign results. ' “Marriage is such a rabble rout That those who are out would fain get in, And those that are in would fain get out.”—-Chaucer. “ ’Tis a delicate thread we have to tread” when we enter The shafts of satire, ridicule, wit are permitted, but thoughtful upon public discussion of the relations of the sexes. discussion is tabooed. Walled round by conservatism, prej- udice, prudery and superstition, that most important ques- tion has to fight its way to the front through greatpdifficul- The “Westminster Review,” “Nineteenth Century,” and the newspapers have at last given it the “open sesame,” ties. and in an apologetic way have invited' discussion thereon. The response has bee-n in the main a mass of sentimental gush that displays the deplorable ignorance in which these most important relations are regarded. Only one writer dis- cusses the‘ question from a scientific standpoint, propo'sing legal regulations and‘ restrictions of marriage utterly imprac- ticable as they are offensive and unnecessary; under which ~ medical examination and other impertinent legal meddling would have to be endured as a check upon “improper mar- riages.” The state, we are told, should in other ways “inter- fere to prevent the transmission of objectionable moral characteristics.” Unden such tyrannical conditions, could an anarchist, for instance, ever hope for the state to sanction his marriage, for his moral characteristics are un- doubtedly “objectionable” to the! state, just as the state’s lack of moral attributes is‘ objectionable 'to the anarchist. The writer referred to also gravely says, “that habitual criminals should be freely allowed to become fathers and mothers is undoubtedly a grave social mistake.” Such per- sons should be prevented from extending their numbers “by being required to submit either to permanent imprisonment, or to such medical operations as would prevent further mis- how ‘ / 79 chief.” This is suggested for “extreme cases.” Would it not be better to cease manufacturing habitual criminals? I am reminded, as I read the foregoing, of the remedies in vogue to protect people from mad dogs. Muzzling and ex- termination! Dogs don’t go mad in Constantinople, where they act as street scavenger, and where every lad (dog) can find his lassie (female), and consequently do not get into those frenzied conditions that make them more dangerous than rattlesnakes. The relations of the sexes in the canine World are instinctively correct and scientific; but man inter- feres and hydrophobia results. "Oh, reason, what crimes are committed in thy name.” Legislation for dogs results in hy- drophobia! What wonder then. that legislation for man is ‘such an unqualified failure. With the one exception above quoted, all writers upon the above subject treat it from a sentimental standpoint. Where marriage is a failure, they say, it is the result of changes that occur in the attitude of married people, one to the other, in contrast with the attitude of lovers. To remedy this, they say, mutual concessions must be made; involving, we say, the exercise of some forced and hypocritical show of interest ‘or affection. Lovers need no force pump; their devotion, attentions, delight in each other’s society, impulse to “ get away closer," etc., etc., are entirely spontaneous. When the unnatural and forced succeeds the natural and spontaneous, then marriage is a failure. ' The degrees of failure of marriage no doubt vary, but either in health or happiness of self or progeny it must fall under the condemnation of natural law. A recognized law in medicine is this: “Variation in stimulus is necessary to preserve the tone and health of any organ of sense; pro- longed application of the same stimulus exhausts it.” Mar- riage is a prolonged application of the same stimulus. A fundamental law of electric action is as follows: “Bodies charged with. the same electricity repel each other, while bodies charged with opposite electricities attract each 80 / other. Positive repels positive, and attracts negative. Neg- ative repels negative, and attracts positive. Marriage fails under this law. I _ “Knowledge is power." But ignorance is powerful; especially, moss-covered, conservative ignorance; it smites heavily, even though its weapon be the jaw-bone of an ass. But its ne'mesis, armed with the power of the universe, the inflexible, the immutable laws of nature strikes back irre- sistably, sooner or later. When will mankind realize that laws have existed from the foundation of the world’govern- ing- the minutest details of their lives and all the varied phenomena, simple and complex, surrounding them. These inflexible laws govern the sighing of the lover, the waxing and waning of friendship, the kiss of the mother on the dimpled cheeks and plump little body of her darling, the breaking heart of misery, and the consummation of .passionate desires. Sentiment may gild, but science controls. Truly, in a sense, it may be said our very hairs are num- bered. We may kick against the pricks of scientific fact even in the name of virtue and morality, but- suffer the penalty we must. King Canute may command the tide to cease its inward flow, but king and throne are as driftwood to the powers of nature. The relations of the sexes, as they exist with us to-day, are utterly antagonistic to science, and pander-to a spirit of self-sacrifice, flesh-crucifixion and asceticism born of priest- craft and superstition. _ The procreative organs have been the theme of man’s awe and worship from time immemorial. If these organs were lost or disabled, the unfortunate one was unfitted to meet in the congregation of the Lord and disqualified to minister in the holy temple. The Biblical customs and vocabulary teem with refer- ences to the procreative powers. The papal religion with its worship of the Virgin Mary is . a relic of Chaldean religion. Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, whom David stole from 81' her husband; Solomon worshipped at the sanctuary of sex, and his songs are full of ovoluptuous suggestions. _ .Then witness the derivation of the word testament; also the gift of the foreskin to the Egyptian god,-Isis; also, the custom of women lying in the gates ,of the temples—apples for the stranger to pluck in the name of God with all the abominable ceremonies of sensual religions of past ages. Struggling on inv dense ignorance, indulging in vicious and unbridled sensualism in one age, rushing to the other ex- treme of asceticism in another, this poor animal, man, has been playing. blind-man’s-buff with his noblest instincts, groping after happiness or hugging misery, bandaged over the eyes by superstition, blushing at nature and covering the creations of genius with a fig-leaf. ‘ Woman, who should be his ministering angel, stands, sword of jealousy in hand, an angel, truly, but barring his entrance to paradise, and consummating her own misery. Marriage in its worst, its monogamic aspect, ‘may be termed Christian marriage, for it is the creature of Christian- ity. “I regard the church as the basic‘principle of immor- ality in the world, and the most prolific source of pauperisrn, of crime and of injustice to women.”—Matilda J oslyn Gage. In the. opinion of primitive Christians (as Gibbons tells us) marriage was a compromise with the devil. The first sensation of pleasure‘ was, with them the alpha of sin. It was their opinion that Adam and Eve might have lived in Virgin purity forever, and have raised an equally pure pos- terity, utterly ignoring their bodily functions, which would be left to slumber in noxious, though saintly, desuetude. Mar~ ’ riage was for a “fallen race," carnal desire was imputed a crime, and marriage tolerated as a defect. Virginity is, no doubt, very beautiful, but, too protracted, it is damned by nature. This perverted, morbid worship of virginity and in- ferential degradation of motherhood is essentially Christian. Motherhood, compared to lvivginity, is as; sunlight unto moonlight; as wine to water. You emotional, religious na- 82 tures who must worship something, or somebody, erect your altars to motherhood. ‘ The branches of this abominable tree of degraded Chris- tian marriage are laden with the fruit of misery, disease and crime. Why look for happiness—how expect success in mar- riage when sexual relations stand on such a rotten basis? Under such conditions vigor of body, pure blood and electric ‘ minds are a curse, and the noblest functions of our natures are in life-long bondage. ' Marriage must be divorced from superstition and wedded to science. What nature joins let no man put asunder. True marriage is the spontaneous union of positive and negative electricity, resulting in neutral conditions. It should be a human tempest, vitalizing and health conserving. ' After the tempest, calm—_“the twain become one flesh." Friends should succeed lovers—or, rather, love should sur- vive passion—and, under normal conditions of society, here in this fact we find the key to those human relations which might satisfy those who desire a true “brotherhood of man.” It is the attempt to continue the interchange of electricity after nature has established an equilibrium that results in domestic strife. Under the laws of electricity—before re- ferred to—repulsion succeeds attraction. Positive repels posi- tive, and negative repels negative; the twain being one flesh, are subject to this law, and, not understanding it, a “row and a rumpus” ensues. Thus we see that the‘ conditions which the church and state consider the necessary elements of “holy matrimony” are the conditions which make it unholy, and worse than unholy. What is incest? It is simply the unnatural union of bodies whose blood is similar—where consanguinity exists, sexual relations are incestuous. Now, if, as I believe, the continued relations of monogamy produce consanguinity, how can we escape the horrible inference? Nature says, “be good friends, but stop fooling.” Some listen ,and are saved; others are deaf and are lost. As good 83 friends, brother-and-sister‘happiness of a negative kind may follow, but fullness of life is absolutely impossible. As the mind of ‘man expands and refines by intelligence, his rebellion will be more certain and universal. Low, brut- ish minds find pleasure where higher grades of intelligence sicken and are repulsed. In this fact we find the reason for the loss to the world of children to perpetuate the genius of great men,—the sterility of Genius. Condemnation of present sexual relations is voiced by the lives of the brightest and noblest of the children of men. They have refused to be shorn of their strength as was Samson by a woman. Poets, philosophers, warriors, artists, actors, even clergymen, join us in denouncing the snare. Socrates, Bacon, Swift, Milton, Dryden (who wished his wife were an almanac that he'might change her once a year), Shakespeare, B'yron, Shelley (who fell an early sacrifice to the world’s ignorance—centuries ahead of his age—only now be- ginning to be understood), Burns, Addison, Napoleon (who adored his Josephine, and yet smuggled actresses up the back stairs of the Tuilleries), Lytton (who sagely remarked, “Man loves the sex, woman the individual”), Langtry, Patti, Neilson, Lillian Russell, George Eliot, Beecher, Tilton, and their followers—their name is legion—t0 say nothing of skele- tons in the closets. Dean Swift, when tendered the marriage fee by a couple whom he had made one in the bonds of holy (?) matrimony, used to say, “Run along, children, God bless you, I’ve done you enough harm already without taking your money.” Henry VIII, of England, whose actions would only have been tolerated in a king, ‘lustful and inconstant, gave the world that greatest of women, Elizabeth, whose geniusis inwoven with that of the immortal Shakespeare. The influ- ence of free love gave the stage its Bernhardt, the greatest of living actresses, while the virtue of Grundyism struck with staggering force the sensitive brain of Mary Anderson. - Mental paresis, born of unnatural relations, claims our moral 84 actors as one by one they enter the gloomy portals of insane asylums. Victor Hugo ridiculed the idea'of marriage monopoly, pointing to his flowers and asking why he should fix his entire affections on one, when all were so beautiful. Tom Moore wrote rythmical verses in favor of scattered affec- ~ tions, and Goethe, the greatest of German poets, calmly affirmed that men and women tell more lies in courting than in any other act of their lives. The wit and cynic find in marriage a theme for the exercise of their highest power,- and women are denied the fruition of their lives, or forced by a terrible alternative into sexual savagery, whose vota- ries, abandoning all restraint, dance a hideous can-can to perdition. High and low, palace and cottage, bring out their dead—dead hearts, hungering affections, soured lives. “VJ here ‘love cannot be there. can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside ceremony, as undelightful and as unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy.”—Milton. The talented writer on European topics in the New York “Sun” recently wrote as follows: “We are positively obliged to conclude that marriage is a failure among royal folks." He refers to the infelicities of the King‘ and the Queen of Servia, Emperor ahd Empress of Austria, Crown Prince and Princess of Austria. The Empress of Austria was considered one of the most beautiful women in Europe, and yet her husband neglected her for an actress. Scandal invades, misery disintegrates families everywhere in the lands cursed by Christian monogamy. Universal interdependence is a scientific fact, its most beautiful example is found in the duality of sex. “Some of the most important parts of the human body being in a state of constant disequilibrium with regard to each other, it is not surprising that the electric state of the whole (Should be ordinarily in disequilibrium with that of surround- b'odies. The difference, however, is usually prevented -,from manifesting itself in consequence of the restoration of the .equilibrium, by the free contact which is continually - 85 taking place between them; and it is, for the most part, only when the human body is insulated that it becomes apparentP—Carpenter‘s Physiology. Every one knows that a healthy nervous system means a healthy person. Let any part of the body fail to perform its proper functions and the. nervous system is at once af- fected. The nerves are the dispensers of electricity in the body, and the medium for maintaining an equilibrium by contact with other bodies. When a man feels restless and fidgety, his condition is described as “nervous.” It indicates a disequilibrium and is a demand for change. Insulation results in unrest and nervous derangement. This derange- ment is destructive of health and a foe to happiness. In olden. times disease sought the priest, not the doctor. Disease and sin were synonymous terms, "the wages of sin is death.” The resistance to natural forces, even in the names of virtue and morality, is the doctor's ever active agent, and the enricher of the quack, whose nostrums are advertised in every paper in the civilized world. Did the papers circulate among the co-called savages, the red Indian of the past, or the Zulu African, the enterprising poisoner would get no return. The body of civilized man, from head to foot, finds its ministering angel in the concoctions of quacks instead of the free dispensary of nature. Christian civiliza- tion accepts all as the dispensations of providence, and, instead of seeking-health conditions, morbidly whispers, "Thy will, 0 Lord, be done.” The universal prevalence of hysteria and uterine diseases among women is a monogamic or celibiate product—“a happy sexual intimacy is the best remedy for those diseases.” Inactive digestive organs, sluggish livers, rotten kidneys, abnormal heart-action, congested heads, neuralgia, influenza, weak eyesF scrofulous scalps, catarrh, and in many cases the stroke of apoplexy, the swift, destroying pneumonia, small- pox, epidemics of all kinds, including yellow fever, and “the grip,” are pestilential products of our existing sexual rela- tions. Did the lower animals feed on us, instead of we on $6 them, a sorry feast they would have, if they chose their food from the “centers of civilization." I have often thought that ' the responses to the prayers of the Church should be changed from “Good Lord deliver us" to “Good Lord reeliver us.” “In the Medical College at Albany there is an exposition of indissoluble marriage, which should be studied by all those who begin to see that a legalized union may be a most im- pure, unholy and, ~consequently, unhealthy thing. In glass vases, ranged in a large cabinet in this medical museum, ‘are uterine tumors, weighing from half a pound to twenty- four pounds. A viscus that in its ordinary state weighs a few ounces is brought, by the disease caused by amative ex- cess, in other words licentiousness and impurity, to weigh more than twenty pounds. Be it remembered, these mon- stosities were produced in lawful and indissoluble wedlock. The wives and mothers who perished of these ev-ils, and left this terrible lesson to the world, knew only of legal purity. They lived in obedience to the law of marriage, pious, virtu- ous, reputable, ignorant women. God grant that their suffer- . ing be not in vain! God grant that they may be teachers of purity, who, being dead, yet speak!”—Mary S. G. Nichols. The craving for an alterative leads men to the rum-shop; the relief derived from the satisfaction of this electrical crav- ing, leads to excess and creates the monogamic drunkard. Others, brushing aside their marital .vows, find: relief in the haunts of unenjoying sensualism. Thus we see that disease, drunkenness and licentiousness thrive on monogamy. Crime i's’the necessary concomitant of the three. evils, and thus, how clearly is revealed the awful results of unscientific sexual relations. It could be elaborated infinitely. The daily papers fur- nish abundant food for‘ my philosophy; "I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say.” “French statistics of suicide just published show an alarming prevalence of self-destruction,” says the “Pall Mall Gazette.” "Among the moral causes domestic causes stand first, alcoholism next.” Both, we again assert, are the results \ \ 87 of wrong sexual relations, whose readjustment “"Hlld, at least, rescue from their misery and its sad culmination these classes of suicide. TheNew' York “Sun,” under the caption, “The Increase of Crime,” commenting on a paper read before the National Prison Association by W. F. H. Wines, recently wrote the following: “The smallest amount of disorder and the larg- est amount of immorality is found among the native whites; the most disorder and the least immorality, strangely enough, among the negroes.” What an anomaly, immorality and order handin hand! Query: What is morality? . In olden times when physical prowess placed men on the thrones of empires, the gods of such men voiced their own physical perfection. The tutelar deity of Rome, Jupiter, scattering his affec- tions on his Venus, his Juno, Metis, Themis, and other queens of mythology, gave to the world the melodious Apollo, the Mars of war, the Bacchus of feast and happiness, and the Cupid of love, each by a different wife. Sweet little cupid, blind and winged, guided by passion; Bacchus, with soft, round form, like that of a maiden. The Cupid of to-day is essentially, a wide-awake, open-eyed, mercenary schemer; Bacchus a foul-mouthed, cruel wife-beater; while Venus too often turns out to be the goddess Discordia, who was kicked out of heaven for sowing dissentions among the gods. Apollo is‘ dumb, and art and music are with us only in the echoing wavelets of a creative past. Man is food of a vampire-virtue, and woman fights over his remains. The altar and the hatter have become synonymous. _ Men and women must be rescued ere wine will loosen the wit, instead of the dagger; the song of Apollo, instead of the oath of Cacodemon. With the devil inside, wine unlocks the door. Drunkenness is never hypocritical. Jeckyl sober, is Hyde drunk. Double lives must shun the bottle. So, with good within, wine would release the real Bacchus of the ancients, and hilarious goodness go arm in arm with maiden gentleness. ' 88 Make the world happy and the prohibitionistvanishes, captured by the god of wine. To be happy men must be free. Freedom, 'how define it. Only with a woman’s definition—- freedom is freedom! Seek not to swallow its infinite meaning “for thy logical digestion," but be, as far as thou art able to be, freedom'incarnate.’ Its meaning will gradually unfold, as “Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Monogamic relations have a most deplorable effect on the mind. They prevent the development of elasticity of thought and judgment, breeding narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and in- tolerance and their resulting _manifestations in persecutions and invasions of liberty. “If a man suppresses part of him- The proper limit of self-indulgence is, that he shall neither hurt himself nor hurt self, he becomes maimed and shorn. others. Short of this everything is lawful; it is more than lawful; it is necessary. He who abstains from safe and moderate gratification of the senses lets some of his essential facilities fall into abeyan-ce, and must, on that account,‘ be deemed imperfect and unfinished.”~—Buckle. Crucifixion of the flesh, or cruelty to self, engenders cruelty to others. As soon as the world, under the influence of a morbid superstition, began crucifying the flesh, the flames of persecution burst out in a fury never equalled in human history ‘ No one is- so devilish as your religious virtuous enthu- siast, from the mothers of Carthage who threw their children into the fires to propitiate the gods, or the mothers of India who threw their infants to the crocodiles of the sacred Ganges; to your Calvin, who committed murder under the influence of metaphysical hair-splitting. 4 No zeal is so devastating as that of the monk-led cru- sader; no cruelty so ingenious as that of the black-robed inquisitor, or of a Charles, rex dei gracia, who entrapped and foully murdered the noble Coligny and his fellow-religionists, earning a pope’s benediction. 89 / No ostracism so pointed as that springing from the cham- pions of the “sublime stupidity of faith,” versus he who re- fuses to bow except to reason. Grapes beyond reach are eternally damned as sour. Misery, self-inflicted, hates happiness; frowns at the laugh of a child. Old maids are proverbially ugly to children. Love and hate live on opposite sides of the rivulet' of the affections. Love, spurned, crosses the stream and plots mis- chief with hate. Irritable parents vent their spleen on their offspring; the rod usurps the affections. “Little children should be seen, not heard,” is a monogamic proverb. Chil— dren of discord torture dumb animals or bully the helpless and weak. With these scientific facts staring us in theface can we longer advocate or bear relations with each other which engender hate and discord ‘or moody unrest and ir~' ritation. With freedom is happiness. Happiness invites good angels and expels bad. With the strong, deep current of our passions guided into their proper channels, the vices that germinate by the morbid attempt to' dam the stream would Vanish. To our Christian friends this is no doubt very shocking. They pray for God’s kingdom to come, forgetting that if God’s will be done on earth as it is in’ heaven, mar- riage must be abolished, “for in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Christ preferred the ministry of ’ woinen to the thraldom of marriage, and his relations with Mary Magdalene and’ the other women who ministered unto him are a matter of historical record. There is one scientific fact which of itself is an emphatic condemnation of monogamic marriage. It is this: ' During the period of gestation and lactation, nearly two years, the mother should be absolutely free from the sexual attentions of man. _ After pregnancy the matrix is hermetically sealed—thus does nature forbid intrusion. Voltaire tells us that Ben Aboul Kiba relates that one of the Viziers of the great Solyman addressed the following discourse to an agent of Charles V: “Dog of a Christian !—for whom, however, I have a par- ticular esteem—canst thou reproachv me with possessing four wives, according to our holy laws, whilst thou emptiest a dozen barrels a year, and I drink not a single glass of wine. What good dost thou effect by passing more hours at the table than I do in bed? I may get four children a year for the service of my august master, whilst thou canst scarcely ‘produce one; and that only the child of‘a drunkard, whose brain will be obscured by the vapors of wine, which has been drunk by his father. What, moreover, wouldst thou have me do, when two of my wives are in child-bed? Must I not attend to the other two as my law commands me? “What part dost thou perform in the latter months of the pregnancy of thy only wife, and during her lying-in and sexual maladies? Thou either remainest idle or thou repair- est to other women. Behold thyself between two mortal sins, which will infallibly cause thee to fall headlong fI‘uiYl the narrow bridge into the pit of hell." Whatever we may think of this argument, [we must admire the spirit of toleration of the Turk, who continued: “Cease then to reproach a sage with luxury who is content with so moderate a repast. I permit thee to drink—allow me to love. Thou changest thy wines, permit me to change my females. Let every one suffer others to live according to the customs of their country. “Thy hat was not made to give laws to my turban; thy ruff and thy curtailed doublets are not to command my dol- man,” etc. It is customary for advocates of monogamy to cite the condition of the Turks as an evidence of the degrading effect of polygamy, whereas it is simply an evidence of the ras- cality of oflicialism,—of the state. Turkey has been sold to the tax-‘gatherer and bond-holder. I assert, and can prove'my assertions, that the Moham- 91 medan Turk is cleanlier, more reliable and honest than his Christian neighbor. The Turks are extremely hospitable. Oscar S. Strauss, a late Minister to Turkey, says that their superiority is manifest in every comparison with their neigh- bors. Certainly, the effect of polygamy as apparent in the wealthy classes is not bad, but in the beauty of their women and the majesty of their men the Turks are our superiors. But the question is simply, Are the parties to a polygamic life willing so to live? It rests solely with them. Polygamy, it seems to me, would banish lots of domestic evils, especially those suffered in the families of the poor. Herbert Spencer says: “It is a lamentable fact that the troubles which respectable, hard working women undergo are more trying to the health and detrimental to- the looks than any of the harlot’s career." With a plurality of wives the uncongenial despot of the kitchen vanishes and wifely love prepares the feast. The husband is relieved from house- hold duties in day-time, and in the stilly night he is not turned into a wet-nurse and sentry combined. “The mother was sleeping, the baby was weeping, The father was pacing the floor; ' In vain he kept trying to quiet the crying, The youngster refused to give o’er. In his garment of white, he presented a ‘sight, That father so‘ lengthy and spare, And a lullaby low as he walked to and fro He sang to his son and his heir. Did he think of the day, so far, far away, Before he became ‘doubly blest, When a. wife was unknown, and he lived all alone, And night was a haven of rest. Could\he be the same that sat in the game With so many hands he held pat? Vfhat Wonder he sighed, as he dolefully cried, And now I hold only this brat.” "D l\') Under' polygamy the prison and pains of maternity are alleviated in the joint ministrations of womanly love. And the charm of variety enlivens the home circle. Jeal- ousy and sentiment both. forbid entrance to this paradise. But are these evil spirits ever to drive out love?‘ The poet, Shelley, wrote as follows in his Epipsychidion: I never was attached to that great sect ‘ Whose doctrine is, that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend And all the rest, though fair and ‘wise, commend To cold oblivion, "tho’ it is the code Of modern morals, and the beaten road ‘Which these poor slaves with weary footsteps tread Who travel to_ their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and longest journey go. True love in this differs from gold and clay— That to divide is not‘ to take away. Love is' like understanding that grows bright Gazing on many truths; ’tis like thy light Imagination! which from earth and sky, And from the depths of human phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors fills The universe with glorious beams and kills Error, the worm, with many a sunlight arrow Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for ‘its eternity. Now a word or two as to the national effects of mono_ gamic institutions. We get some facts by careful observation which are very significant. We find that the centres of monogamic civiliza- tion are the centres of its concomitant vices. London, Paris, *93 Berlin and Vienna, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc, etc., present the extremes of culture and super-sodomite wicked- ness. The protest of vice against monogamy is louder in London or Paris than in Constantinople. Look at the rank and file of the sons of Italy, generally a short, stunted race, while beside them stands the tall mas- culine woman, unsexed and Vulgar in her disproportion. In all monogamic countries I am convinced that woman is gradually getting to be the “best man of the two." I pass hundreds of women in the streets that seem to have literally run to seed. It takes time to work these great changes, but it is only a question of time for the physical de- basement of man to render polyandry possible, if not essen- tial. Nature protests against uniformity of the sexes. If man desires to abdicate, nature does not demur, but simply places woman on the throne. Equality, she will not tolerate. Then, again, how universal is drunkenness among monog- amic nations. The Englishman, steeped in beer, is sullenly cruel to his wife, under the protection, too, of the law. The irascible Irishman, inspired by usquebaugh, never for- gets to pulverize the wife of his bosom in his wild frenzy. Out of a combination of usquebaugh and superstition is born the characteristic humor of Pat. ' The Italian and the Spaniard, wine inspired, are quick with quarrel and knife; the Frenchman whose social abomi- nations are a science, furnishes the wofld with its most start- ling and fiendish crimes. The Russian gets shorter and broader and ever more devoted to his beer than to his ‘wife. The German smokes, thinks and drinks, and his “frau” produces with dreary uniformity dumpy tow-headed young— sters who need spectacles as soon as they need breeches. The Netherlands cradle a race to-day‘ which their hardy Norsemen forefathers would have disowned. In view of threatened depopulation in the Netherlands a movement is already on foot to legalize polygamy. Then there is that chronic unrest which characterizes monogamic nations, lead- ing to invasive action and war. The Englishman, whose 94 home is the theme of song, leaves it as soon as he can. I sometimes think that monogamic misery is the bottom of England’s colonial achievements. The Turk is usually con- tent to stop at home, and the only logical inference is that the attraction is strong that keeps him there. Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer, tells us of a race of pygmies that he found in the forests of the Dark Conti- nent, the “oldest aristocracy in the world,” tracing their lineage back fifty centuries. The point that more particu- larly interests us is that these pygmies were the only mono- gamic people that he met in Africa. The polygamous Zulu, tall and well developed in all physical points, was more than a match for the European soldier. The direct tendency of monogamy is pygmywards. I sometimes think that the, ape may just as logically represent man’s devolution from higher to lower conditions, as man may represent the evolution of the ape from lower to higher conditions. Monogamy is certainly an agent of devolution. But we will leave'this feature of our question, which naturally covers much that is conjectural and hypo- thetical. I am confident, however, that the various races of men voice in their lives, policy and institutions the results of their sexual relations. The matrix is the hub of the universe. In all monogamic nations the corner-stone of society is not marriage, but pros- titution. For it is said by somel that without the brothel rape would be epidemic and the whole of society disorganized. Where we find the marriage relations most inviolate, and where the relief of monogamy—the Wine bottle—is interdicted, there you find the insane asylums and hospitals full to over— flowing. In fact, monogamic civilization and insanity under a false sexology are, like false economics and poverty, in- separable twins. I give you epitomized results of years of observation; for the skeptical mind in whatever channel its skepticism mani- fests itself is naturally and faithfully observant. 95 One thing is certain, some change is necessary in our social conditions. Sometimes when the horrors of our civilization come to my mind too vividly, it seems to me that it is about time for another flood! ' Talk of the Molochs and .Juggernauts of heathendom, why, they are angels of mercy compared to those of our day and generation. We torture our victims before immolating them on our altars. To the god of lust, in America we offer up a yearly sacrifice of one hundred thousand women and girls; and to the god of a false virtue we sacrifice three hundred thousand women by denying to them the fruition of their lives. Spite of this sum of human misery some fools are yet doubting the fact of hell. Sexual starvation is just as melancholy a fact as starvation from want of food. The sacrifice of infants is enough to appall a devil—is more revolting and debasing than ever disgraced the banks of the Ganges, or the sands of Africa. And all that orthodox morality can do is to prare of necessary evils, and stand with sanctimonious platitudinal pii'chforks trying to heat back the waves of iniquatv, which only become more malodorous with increased zeal; unable to cope with heathenism here, they turntheir attention. to the heathen of other lands. They force monogamy upon heathen peoples and the result is degradation and extermina- tion. I quote from a newspaper: “The chastity of the Zulu Women is proverbial, and any infraction of it in their native state is punished with Dra- f conian severity. The young girl stands" calmly before one, naked, innocent and not ashamed. One of the first steps at- tending her conversion is to induce her to put on a petticoat, and with a petticoat she frequently puts on the worst form of female vice. “For the first time she is. taught to realize the meaning of indecency. See~ yonder two white garbed girls in the vicinity of a mission station. At a‘ distance I take them for European 9 6 children, but as they approach I'discover them to be native converts, no longer of guileless simplicity, but mincing, ogling, and smirking in true Haymarket fashion. “Alas, too, for the bewildering difficulties attendant on Christianizing the men! The sour proverbial saying, ‘Danger! none at all; there is not a Christian within 100 miles,‘ is dishearteningly true. The sober, honest, honorable native becomes, in deplorably numerous cases, the drunken, lying, ‘ thievish convert. “The local British administration tries gradually to check polygamy by ignoring in law cases the right to more than one wife; but certain well-meaning, but ill-judging, zealots urge on natives the paramount necessity of instantly abaw cloning the sin of plurality. “ ‘What!’ argues the indignant Colenso-Kafir; ‘cast adrift into suffering two or more faithful women, who have ever been good and harmless! Is that the love and mercy of your Christianity?’ " - Our law and order societies press the windbag of vice, only to-see the concavity of one place produce the convexity ‘of another. Yice suppressed in Philadelphia creates a Glou- cester. ' They try to dam up men’s natural passions by legal statutes, and then the turgid stream overflows and finds a wider area for contamination. _ Now I shall dwell briefly upon what I consider to be the only effectual remedy for the wrongs and evils that spring from the present unscientific relations of the sexes. ‘We find it in one word—Liberty! “For always in thine eyes, 0 Liberty! Shines that high light whereby the world is saved, And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.” I do not preach monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, celi- bacy, but simply Liberty. In that magic word Liberty is the sum of all philosol'vhy and logic bearing upon this important question. Th )5‘) who 97 are happy and contented under present conditions remain so unmolested and undisturbed. Those who are miserable will be free to change their conditions and seek happiness, each in his own way. A boundless trust in the inherent goodness of humanity will be found to be amply justified. The ghouls who pro- claim their own and others’ depravity will be silenced by the beauty of natural and unrestrained affection. Free the affections and the whole of humanity will soon be knit together by the golden cord of love. ' No more shall we read the horrible details of women abandoned and babes sacrificed. No more will abortionists raise palaces out of their damnable gains. No more will the drinking water of cities be polluted by the decaying corpses of infants (as at Quebec, where recently eleven infants were found in the reservoir). For how can love be cruel? and when the cause of lust and unenjoying sensualism is re- moved, and the natural outlet for men’s passions is un- dammed, they cease their ravages upon society. The brothel and its horrors will vanish when men and women assume self-sovereignty, when the honor of mater- nity succeeds the shame of seduction. Mutual trustwill suc- ceed distrust and suspicion. Young men and maidens will mingle in sweet, unrestrained intercourse, and not, as now, tread the edge; of a precipice over which so many fall and are destroyed. Woman, who, as her beauty and loveliness dawned upon our lives, we at one time almost worshipped, will become an affinity under the law of natural selection. He who would measure the metes and bounds of human relations is a fool. Liberty, clothed in the beautiful robes of intelligence, will regulate almost unconsciously; those rela-P ‘tions. Cruelty and vice will vanish before the sun of love; and the human heart, so infinite in its capacity for loving will absorb all mankind. That quintessence of selfishness, the family, will expand out of itself into humanity; and mine and thine may ultim- 98 ately be lost in the generous regard of man for his brother. Free love would gradually undermine existing economics, kill “the dog in the manger,” and in time we should realize with Herbert Spencer, that “the ultimate of selfishness is self—abnegation.” _ Do not fear to enter the highway of freedom. “If evils are bred even under liberty freshly acquired, the cure is not found in restraint, but in more liberty.” I have faith in humanity. The whole world testifies to its inherent goodness, its religions, perverted as they are, being tributes to self-sacrifice and‘ love. Be it Gutama, prince of India, or Jesus, carpenter of Galilee, fundamentally and attractively it is the goodness and purity of their lives that hold the masses. Priests corrupt, laws distort, ignor- ance perverts, and superstition beclouds such religions, but through all this mist of wrong the central object is good.’ Purge its temples of thieves, and the human heart is ready for the millennium. I Freedom of the affections is one step toward that glori- ous time when “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all this holy mountain,” when “perfect love shall cast out fear.” One word more, my views may seem very material to you, lacking in the element that lifts love above the passions and man above the beasts. I can only say to you, with‘ Emerson, “Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass and material threat- ening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much.” Look at society to-day and see how the idealist has degraded the material, because, nolens volens, we must be materialists. If thou canst name or express one word, thought, emo- tion, or sentiment that is not material; if thou canst separ- ate spirit from matter; if thou canst even define spirit, or locate it outside of the material; if thou canst convey an im- pression of soul or mind not material, then I will bow to thy theory of spirit. 99 You, my sentimental friend—you have a high ideal of love and yet you unconsciously mean the passionate expression of a mere physical appetite. _ Let me tell you exactly-how I define love and passion. Love and its capacity are emblems of the infinite. The human heart has infinite capacity for loving. We never need fear division of love. Take in all this planet, soar to other worlds, grasp them all in thy heart of love and yet it is not full. Passion, on the other hand, is an emblem of the finite, fleeting, transient—a purely physical appetite soon satisfied. It dies as hunger dies—of satiety. Love and passion blended culminate in the fullest possi- ' ble physical and mental joy, and it is in the blending of the two in natural healthful intercourse that homiculture finds a faithful ally. Finally, don’t shudder at the mention of free love, for no other love is possible. “A man cannot love even one ~woman truly unless he is free to love what is lovable in all other women.”——Heywood. If an angel stands between me and infinite beauty, I brush her aside with my heart if not with my hand. Love cannot exist under restraint. It cannot send under the bare poles of statute law and superstition. I Be honest with one another, don't be afraid to say you need change; don’t be afraid to tell the rose that the violet has some attractions worth considering. Heaven is generally considered a pleasant, desirable place—but the little boy asked his mother if he couldn’t visit the other place once a week for a little fun. The instinct of babyhood never dies. The infant cries until its little head is nestled upon its mother’s breast; and the strong man and weaker woman each cry to the other “come unto me ye that labor and are heavy laden and ye shall find rest to your souls.” “ I In the arms of those we love we are conscious of feeling that fullness of peace, like the sleep of the ancient mariner 1,00 that “slid into his soul.” If we were all pure and undefiled and lovedone another with the “perfect love that casteth out fear" what blessed communion might be ours in the pressure of hand in hand, of lip to lip, of heart to heart, and, more than all else, in. the liquid commingling of souls through those celestial gates the eyes of love. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,’_' and it is love that makes it visible. “‘Perfect love casteth out fear," and with fear eliminated vfrom the relations of man and woman we should dance and sing around the ark of the covenant of love. Behold, yonder are the mountains of love, climb them and before your enraptured eyes will be'the “New Paradise,” Paradise regained. _ "Love took up the glass of time and turned it in his glowing hands; Every moment lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of life, and smote‘ on all the chords with might, Snlote the chord of self, which, trembling, passed in music out of sight.”—Tenny'son. ' ~ 101 The Money Question “Every stone in the bridge that has,carried us over seems to have a claim upon our esteem. But this (paper money) was the corner-stone and its usefulness cannot be forgotten.”—~Thomas Paine. * “Our unfortunate financial plight is not the result of un- toward events nor of conditions related to our natural re— sources; nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which, frequently check national growth and prosperity. With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative pro- duction and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe in- vestment, and with satisfactory assurance to business enter- prise, suddenly ~financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side.”—President Cleveland. I “We must republicanize specie,”—Proudhon. '“Relegate gold to the rank of the commodities, where it belongs.”—Garrison. “They say you are stupid," was remarked to a poor fel- low who had little to show for many years of toil. "Tell us *The adverse action of the English parliament as to colonial paper issues is said to have had as much to do with the Revolution of '76 as the Stamp Act. 102 ' what you know.” “I 'know that the miller’s hogs are fat." “Good, now tell us something you don't know.” “I don't know whose corn fattens ’em.” I am going to show you how it is that the miller’s hogs are fat, and also whose corn fattens them. I I shall indulge in a retrospect—a rapid‘ sketch of the financial policy of this country during the civil war and fol- lowing that event down to the present time, a period‘ which might be significantly termed thel“hog period” of American history. The question of money is the first that confronts a na- tion at the commencement of war. It was so with this gov- ernment, which turned by natural instinct, the instinct of ages, to the banks, and the banks instinctivelyl turned to their safes—to get the sinews of war for their country? Oh, no, but to corner gold and lock it up. They then assembled together and sang their “National anthem.” Our Country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee we sing. Let fools go forth to fight, We care not who is'right; Cent per cent is our delight Gold is our king. The banks could not lend their country more than a mis- erable pittance in gold, but generously offered their credit at high rates of interest. The situation was critical, and the banks thought their bird was caged. But the Secretary of the Treasury bethought himself of the credit of the nation, and it seemed to him as though it were equal to that of the banks and not nearly so costly. Then the greenback was born. The banks put their heads together to see how the enormous issues of currency could subserve their interests; in other words, procure big profits with little risk, and they accomplished this in the shape of an exception clause 103 which crippled the greenback. It provided for the pay- ment of duties on imports and interest on bonds in coin. Poor Thad Stevens shed tears at this infamous legislation which created a money for the people and another money for the cormorant banks. On this clause stood all the mis- chievous gambling in gold that robbed the soldier in the field and made fortunes for loafers. But for this exception clause, gold might have sought its original home among the rocks and in the bowels of the earth. ‘The war closed with an enormous amount of paper money in circulation and with an enormous national debt. These were the bankers’ harvest-field, from which they reaped what they had not sown and gathered what they had not planted. On July 1, 1864, our interest-bearing debt was $1,359,930,763. On July 1, 1865, it was $2,221,311,918. In the in- terim prices of all commodities, in the purchase‘ of which this enormous increase of debt had accrued, were at their maximum. That is, for 'the maximum of expense the gov- ernment received the minimum of return. The following table will show how, with a contracting currency and de‘ clining prices, a nation can be apparently paying off a debt and yet be getting deeper into the mire. This calculation is recent enough to expose .a great iniquity. It contrasts the purchasing power of the debt of July 1, 1865, with that of _the debt of August 2, 1886: Debt July 1, 1865. . . . ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ' $2,221,930,763 Debt August 2, 1886... .. .. .. $1,214,902,034 Wheat at $2.23 in 1864 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 996,000,000 bushels. Wheat at 78 cents in 1886.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1,556,000,000 _“ Corn at $1.60 in 1,380,000,000 “ Corn at 43 cents in 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,820,000,000 “ Cotton at $1.31 in 1864 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1,700,000,000 pounds. Cotton ati) cents in 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,500,000,000 “ Pork at $32 in 1864 . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 0,000,000 barrels. Pork at $12 100,000,000 “ 104 After paying $2,000,000,000 in interest, reducing the debt . $1,000,000,00'0 (interest and reduction paid in gold, in itself a profit of 50 per cent.), after all this, the debt still unpaid will buy far more than would the original debt. In addition to this the continued retirement of paper currency from 1865 to 1879 to reach that cursed abstraction, a gold basis, ruined 70,000 merchants (increasing failures from 500 in 1865 to 10,000 in 1879), created an army of tramps on the one hand, and on - the other hand the huge monopolies that threaten our liber- ties to-day. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” To this in_ famous, rascally record the Republican party points with pride, and the Democratic party says, Amen, and both are on their marrow-bones praying for hohestmoney, neither hav- ing any intelligent conception of the meaning of the term. Not honest money, but honest vmen is the great need of our political system. That picture is the crowning infamy. of financial highway robbery. To render it possible there must be “something rotten in the state of Denmark.” And the result of all this insane financiering, insane or rascally, perhaps both, is this,—The workingman can now sing: How doth the busy workingman Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all he can From every opening flower. How skilfully he builds his cell, How neat he spreads his waxes, And labors hard to store it well, For rent and bonds and taxes. You see I use waxes instead of wax; the bee spreads one kind of wax, but the workingman many. Now reverse the picture, let us read the might have been ,—those saddest words of tongue or pen. Had all the war expenses, the' entire expense of the government during this period, been met with the issue-of paper money of full legal tender, the steady depreciation in its purchasing power (from. ’ - 105 self-evident causes) would have represented taxation the most just that was ever devised, shaving the dollar hid in the earth, or the old stocking, as well as the dollar in circula- tion, the bankers’ dollars as well as the soldiers’ dollars, and not one cent of direct national taxation would have been necessary. And that money which might have amounted to, in all, fully $5,000,000,000 left in circulation as our national medium of exchange, would (after the war) have gradually’ (by the reversal of conditions) gained in purchasing power (in View of increased production and lessened consumption). It would have been like so much life-blood to the nation whose progress materially would have been almost miracu- lous. The power of gold monopolists would have been shat- tered, and with it the pernicious control of gold over the industries of this country. We should have escaped periodi- cal panics and stagnation of business, our export and import trade would have been hygienically adjusted, leaving gold free to be exported if desired, without endangering the stability of the industrial pyramid, without (to be explicit) ‘undermining the basis of credit. The pyramid would have been placed substantially upon its base, instead of (as now) upon its staggering apex. With that currency issued without the intervention of banks an enormous tax would have been saved to the people, who have paid to have their money taken away and again paid to get it through banks by a process which has merely transferred a money from a possible, a sure redeemer, to an impossible redeemer, from the national wealth to the national debt—a debt which Jefferson de- scribed as a “national canker.” Now we begin to see whose corn fattens the hogs of the miller. One of the great enemies of industry is the specie basis; the parent of money monopoly. We have had several lessons, but we still refuse to apply them to our econo- mies. Well, the reason is, the lessons of history are perverted to conclusions which are false and misleading. ‘For instance, we are pointed to colonial and continental moneys, French assignats, English paper money issued during the Napo- 106 ‘ leanic wars, our greenbacks, etc., and to the misery that followed‘ as the result of the issue of paper money; whereas all these moneys did the work for which they were created— they gained American independence; they enabled Napoleon to fight the world, and England to resist him; they saved this country from disintegration and freed the contraband. The misery that followed was caused by their withdrawal from the veins of industry, in search of the fugitive gold basis. Continental moneys were nominally redeemable in Span- ish-milled dollars, and, as the Government had no such dollars, the paper was dishonored. The French assignats were redeemable in gold, and the redeemer refused to mate- rialize; so with other paper moneys (State Bank issues in- cluded)—promising to do the impossible is what killed them. If back of the paper were the exchangeable wealthof the nation issuing it, it could not be worthless until the country became a barren wilderness. Through this infernal specie- basis fraud the people of England are to-day paying interest ' on the gunpowder exploded at Waterloo. Mammoth debts are contracted by nations by the means of paper money issued in the purchase of‘ a multitude of commodities, which money is pledged to be redeemed in one commodity, and that one of the scarcest. This simply means slavery of the masses to the classes, mainly through an eternal bonded indebtedness impossible of payment. The. gold basis and the credit contingent form “a grand scheme of insidious swindling.” It :is the procrustean bed of industry. Every period of commercial paralysis, and (so-called) over- production represents the giant of industry stretched upon this bed of Procrustes, and the thieves and Sodomites of finance lapping off his legs to make him fit. Industry is ever _ ahead of finance, and behind it stand the gold Wreckers, with their false beacons, luring it to destruction. Not only to laboring men do I speak, but. to merchants, manufacturers, the storekeeper, clerk, salesman, farmer; all who are en- gaged in useful industry, not one of whom escapes the claws of this devil-fish of finance. - - 107 Now, in a general way, I will present my ideas as to the character and attributes of money. While, as a matter of fact, there is no such thing as mate- rial money, the use of any commodity in exchange constitut- ing barter, either simple or complex, I shall be compelled to define money stamped or expressed on metal as material money. Money expressed on paper I shall define as ideal money. Different nations have different moneys, each endowed with the legal tender attribute; consequently circulating in its own country freely without much regard to the material value¢ incorporated with it. Witness our subsidiary coinage; the useful cent, for instance, made of metal worth twenty cents a pound, a pound of which. coins $1.60 Then you re- member the trade dollar, which was .‘worth intrinsically a good deal more than the legal tender dollar of our fathers, but which, lacking the legal tender attribute, vanished from circulation. This free circulation ceases when it reaches another country, and the weight and fineness then deter- mines the value of the metal—the money having vanished. Nearly all nations now base their money on gold—prac- tically a gold basis exists to-day, even in bimetallic countries. And this condition of things may be illustrated by an in- verted pyramid. Those who control the apex of this inverted pyramid incidentally control the entire structure. This apex is gold, which, under normal conditions, might be disturbed with impunity, but which, under present conditionswhen disturbed unsettles the entire pyramid; in other words, the financial world controls the industrial world instead of the industrial World controlling the financial. The coinage: of this basis and of other metals based upon it constitutes a world-wide - monopoly of money, which exploits industry to an appalling extent. It alternately stimulates and paralyzes industry; it is in the hands of its owners both the life and death of busi- ness enterprise. So far as it goes, and that is but a little way, it is life, but its limit is paralysis. Let me illustrate: We carry on business enterprises until the money gives out, 108 but the limit should be labor and material, and not money. Cease building when you can get no more stone or brick, cease painting when your paint is exhausted, cease beautify- ling your homes and cities when labor and material fail; these are the true limits and the natural limits, but money is the unnatural limit. How the discoveries of gold in Australia and California, in 1847, stimulated the world's industry! And yet the basic factors of that industry existed before these gold discoveries. Gold as a factor in industry is of in- finitesimally little importance. As a factor in exchange it is absolutely Wasted. We don't eat, drink or wear it; we don’t make plows or machines of it; in fact, SOI far as practical use is concerned, We might do without it better than without almost any other metal; iron is infinitely more valuable. ‘There is no need for a third factor in exchange, and the use of gold as a medium for exchanging commodities is an absurdity. It is an interloper and a thief; ,through it the ‘monopolist has his seed time and harvest; sowing in the ‘wind of abaseless credit, and reaping in the whirlwind of disaster and panic. It is an indisputable fact that the Bank of England can flerange commerce and industry by simply raising its rate of discount. I recently read in “Liberty” an extract of a letter written to the Newcastle “Chronicle,” an English paper, dated November 13, 1890, upon the subject. Here it is: 1To the Editor of the “Chronicle:” Sirz—You inform us this morning that the public have just escaped a great commercial crisis. I am glad to hear it. We are indeed in luck in this, that the storms at sea have ‘taken the lives ‘of our national protectors together with the Vessel that carried them, but have spared the gold on the way from foreign parts, ‘upon the presence of which in the Bank of England the subsistence, and that means the lives, of millions depends. Now, sir, why should a little gold be of so much conse- quence? I admit that, whilst we attach so much regard to 109 the possession of that metal, it is not unreasonably of great consequence. I have no quarrel with the metal. Gold was not placed in the bowels of our Mother Earth to remain there. It has its use, and I, for one, religiously promote its use as the best means of combating its abuse. Its abuse is to neglect it in the earth, or, after having with infinite toil brought it forth, to lock it up by law in at vault. That is what our law does, and the luck upon which we congratulate ourselves this morning is that some more gold has come in to be locked up with the rest that we may not be forced by law to ruin ourselves by selling at all hazards our other property to get it just at this particular moment when it appears Spain happens to want it. The law enacted in 1844 under Sir Robert Peel’s adminis— tration is of this sort. A certain fixed sum was taken, upon a calculation then made in regard to the quantity of bank notes in use, for which the Bank of England held certain securities supposed to be permanently good, and the law authorized the bank to issue notes, without any other so- curity, up to that limit. If the bank, or rather the public making application to the bank, should want any more notes than just this exact sum,then the bank must get or keep gold of an equal value. It matters not one Whit that the bank directors should know exactly where to get that gold, or that they should know exactly when to expect its arrival. They must actually have it, or the screw is put on. Bank notes are always coming in to the bank; and what the bank does practically when there is a reduction of the quantity of its gold through the demands of commerce or foreign govern- ments or any other cause, is to stop bank notes from going out by raising the rate of discount. It refuses the use of its money. Hence the stoppage of trade; hence the sales of property. The Stock Exchange feels it first, because the most easily saleable article is that which the Stock Exchange deals in. But the Corn Exchange feels it also. Buyors hold off. Sellers become pressing. Mincing Lane sale rooms feel it. The auctioneers of tea. coffee, sugar, fruit, gums, drugs, 110 spices, etc., etc., feel it next. Bidders are dumb. The Liver- pool cotton market feels it. Men go about in vain with samples. The Coal Exchange feels it. Cargoes don’t sell. The collieries feel it. The output \must be limited. Pitmen feel it. The coals fill the trucks, but -the trucks remain in the sidings. There are no ships in the docks to take them off. Everybody feels it, one way or another, sooner or later. For the present, it appears, the mischief is put off. Some gold has come from abroad. The bank directors can main- tain their obedience to the law this time without' going beyond six per cent., and we are saved. I-Iappy people, whom the timely arrival of’ a few bags of coin can save from infinite sorrow! Bear with me a moment, sir, whilst I offer you another illustration of our happy condition. Scotland is a country where, by a certain historic provision of law, the Bank of England is not the supreme screw-driver; which it is in England by law. But in 1845 Sir Robert Peel took care to apply to Scotland the same kind of legal provision which he had imposed on England the year before. The banks in Scotland—there are about a dozen of them, not one of them but was instituted previous to 1845, for the law has made a new bank there an impossibility—the banks in Scotland require, every year about harvest time. to issue a good many more notes than at any other time. Knowing this perfectly well beforehand, they send to London, to the Bank of England, for gold, so as to be ready beforehand with a legal warrant for the extra notes their customers require. These notes all come back within a few months at the out_ side, and, whilst they are coming in, the banks send back the gold as they can spare it. This process modifies from day to day the situation of the Bank of England. . .If circum- stances require it, “the screw" must be put on to force the whole trade of Britain into narrower limits, because the harvest people in Scotland are carrying notes in their pock- ets! , Yours, etc., Newcastle, November v13, 1890. INDEX. Ill The industrial world makes the soup and the monopolists compel us to eat with golden spoons which they own and for the use of which we! have to give them five-eights of the soup or starve. Now this mischievous interference of gold with the world’s economics rests upon ignorance as to the nature and attributes of money. Money, like mankind, is seeking freedom from legislation. But the law still chains the ideal to the material and impedes its functions. In view of the almost universal misconceptions upon this subject, I will now examine the political economists of the orthodox school. They all harp on moldered strings in unison; they say “Money is a means of exchange,” which, proposition is correct, but they rush into error in qualifying it, maintaining that it is “some commodity” they mean by money. It is, I affirm, the money minus the commodity which is the medium of exchange. If this were not so the purchasing power of each dollar would vary with the intrinsic value of the metal coined with it; whereas, we know that the coin of the highest intrinsic value can only assert its superiority by vanishing from circulation. As money, the paper dollar or the silver dollar (no matter what the price of silver may be) will buy as much as the gold dollar, thus clearly demon- strating the absurdity of metal coinage. Again they assert “Money is a common measure of value, that it measures value as a yard-stick measures length.” Now, give your child a handful of money and direct it to measure the valueof a roll of cloth; it will lookv at you, paralyzed by the impossi~ ble. But give it a yard-stick and tell it to measure the length of the cloth and see the look of intelligence lighten ‘up the child’s face as it comprehends the possible. Money ' simply expresses value, does not measure it. As language is the expression- of thought, so money is the expression of value. Now as to‘ another absurdity, the standard of value. Values are simply the ratios in exchange of commodities, and as a ratio can only be» expressed by two numbers, it follows, logically, that no commodity/ can be a standard of 112 value. Again, the economists claim that material money is a convenient form for transmission of wealth. Gold as ‘bullion would be just as convenient and save the cost of melting and recoining. Again, the assertion that material money is unfluctuating in value is not true. It fluctuates as a commodity without regard to its attribute as money or common denominator of values. True money should express the fluctuations in relative value of commodities with every change in the world's market. Ideal money possesses this attribute, and is free from commodity interference in its exercise. It does not fluctuate, but it expresses fluctuation. Again. it is claimed that material money insures settlements of contracts and obligations- in values existing when the contracts are made. This depends entirely upon the prices of commodities at the times of contract and settlement. In 1880 I may contract to pay for a consideration $5,000 in gold in 1881. In 1880 the price of corn may be $1 a bushel; in 1881 it may be $1.25 a bushel; thus by a corn standard my $5,000 is worth about twenty-five per cent. less in 1881 than in 1880. It is only in relation to its purchasing power that monev must be considered. Economists say that as money exchanges for value, it should possess intrinsic value. The exchange of values is simply barter. Money has never possessed intrinsic value and is a substitute for barter. ' A currency should be purely representative in value. having no intrinsic value to interfere with its duties. It is the conflict of ideal money with its jailor (material) that prevents elasticity in adaptation to fluctuating prices. This it is which frightens gold out of circulation in a time of rapid appreciation in prices; as, for instance, in war time. The intrinsic value of material money rises with other commodities, and yet the ideal money is steadily in inverse ratio losing purchasing power. The material and the ideal come in conflict and try the impossible feat of rising and falling simultaneously. The result a rising market is the refusal'of gold to act as money, and it vanishes from cir- 113 cula'tion. The conflict of material moneys has led political economists to the famous paradox of Sir Thomas Gresham; viz., that poor money drives out good money. The truth is, this paradox simply exposes the prevalent ignorance of the character of money. I can find no better illustration of this ignorance than this fact, that the political economists all encounter this paradox. My conception of money encounters no paradox, but shows that money, like mankind, is subject to the law of the survival of the fittest. Good money drives out bad money. Ideal money is the only good money, mate- rial money is bad money. ' Money may be described as a deferred equivalent in ex- change. WVhat necessitates this deferred equivalent; in other words, what is the raison d’etre of money? The complexity of‘ exchange. I may need something which my neighbor pro- ‘duces and cf which he has a surplus, at a time when he may not need a part of my surplus product. Does the exchange of two products even when half of the transaction is de- ferred need the intervention of a third commodity? No; credit is all that is requisite. Then why should gold be used ‘ except it be one of the two products to be‘exchanged? There is no earthly reason. Then what insanity possesses us to limit the world’s exchanges to gold or its equivalent? The only logical remedy for the present currency muddle and bar to the recurrence of such muddles in the future is the monetization'of all commodities, leaving the purchasing power of money to the automatic adjustment of values under the law of supply and demand. conservatively estimating the debt-paying wealth of these United States at sixty billion dollars, the gradual and ultimate monetization of twenty-five per -cent., or fifteen bil- lion dollars, would be perfectly legitimate with the security of four to one. Every dollar of such an issue could sing: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” This may appear to be a startling proposition, but startling propositions are in order in these times, considering what an infernal mess arises from the emission of credit upon a partial and insecure basis, by 114 which we experience these periodical panics, without, as President Cleveland says, any apparent normal cause. Theo;- retically, the justice of such impartial monetization of wealth cannot be questioned, and only the millers who are fatten- ing their hogs with other people's corn will be apt to dispute its justice. The value of the ideal dollar will then depend upon its purchasing power, which will be determined (as above stated) by supply and demand of commodities. The ideal dollar will be the common denominator of ideal exchange ratios (value) not, as now, a numerator as well as denominator. ' The rise in gold would not then, as it does now, disturb the whole equilibrium of values, presenting the anomally of a dollar rising in material value and falling inversely in pur- chasing power. We shall cease trying to measure the ideal with the ma-‘ terial. The value of gold can then be expressed in- money as is now the value of corn, cotton, pork, or any other com- modity. When gold is necessary for settlement of exchanges, domestic or foreign, it can be bought at its quoted market value in bullion. It will thus assume its natural position as a commodity, and may be exported or imported freely as needed, without disturbing credit and wrecking business. The honesty and absolute justice of this proposal cannot be questioned, for it leaves the value of gold dependent upon supply and demand, and not, as now, upon monopoly and privilege. Only the hoggis'h millers will dissent. It‘ frees commerce from an ever-threatening danger, loosens the bonds that fetter enterprise, and will give us a currency independent of the rest of the world and of its financial troubles. Panics may then strike London, and New York be undisturbed. The Old Lady of Threadneedle street may then pipe until she bursts, and we may refuse to dance. Gold may leave us and not disturb our serene calm. The dethronement of the golden calf and the monetiza_ 7115 tion of all wealth, under free banking, would be our second declaration of independence. The subjoined clipping from the Philadelphia “Inquirer” of August 11, 1893, indicates the .main obstacle in the way‘ of the monetization of all wealth, viz., ignorant, restrictive. ll. gislation :— “The ‘Wall Street News’ promptly pricks August Bel-- mont’s bubbling argument in favor of the issuance of pri-. vate currency by reminding persons contemplating such action that they will do it at their own peril. Under the N a-. tional Banking Law such currency is taxable at the rate of 10 per cent.,and decisions upholding the law are already upon the statute-books. A case cited is that of the Reading Rail-. road Company, which, under President Gowen, issued scrip, and was sued by the authorities. The decision was against, the company, and it was only by the most persistent and, practical methods that the penalty was evaded. Mr. Bel-. mont’s reason for advocating the issuance of that kind of~ money is not apparent, but nothing of the kind will be nec_. essary in the present emergency if Congress does. its duty. The pressure to avoid- that recourse should be put upon, Washington.” Let the Government take its finger out of the pie. That, would kill money monopoly. Then private enterprise would be free to provide the best currency that could be born. of necessity. Naturally a system of mutual banking would pre- vail, moneys or credits being issued on all kinds of wealth. Under free conditions and the teachings of experience steady progress and improvement might be reasonably expected, and the final result would be, we should have a volume of currency adequate to the needs of business, with consequent; . freedom from panics and insured stability in all commercial undertakings. I have, in this essay, uncovered the statue of the golden calf before which nations are prostrate, whose throne is in Threadneedle street, London, whose feet rest on the backs of labor, and which has tentacles like a devil-fish, reaching into 116 the pockets of every man, woman and child in the civilized world. There it stands with its crowd of loafers- round'the throne who live in palaces, while from all parts of the earth flows in the stream of (exploited wealth. These loafers are the millers who feed their fat hogs with other people's corn. So long as the people worship the golden calf, they will be naked, as were the Israelites of old; and nature—benefi- cent mother nature—will, like Moses, dash to the earth the tables of her covenant with man, and leave him to his folly and misery. I come to you; poor, misguided,yfetish' worshipper, and, like the angel at Bethesda, I stir the waters, hoping that you may step in and be healed. ' ' APPENDIX. THE ROOT OF THE EVIL. The real condition of the currency of the United States last October (1893) may be stated in round numbers as follows: Actual money in the hands of the people . . . . . . .. $1,025,000,000 Actual money in the vaults of the banks . . . . . . .. 475,000,000 Total actual money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1,500,000,000 Bank credits subject to individual check . . . . . . .. 2,604,000,000 Savings deposits subject to call on various con- ditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._. . . 1,524,000,000 If we leave out the savings deposits we still have a credit currency, created by the banks from $475,000,000 of actual money, of $2,604,000,000 or, deducting the $475,000,000, We have a purely credit currency of $2,129,000,000. 117;, ‘ . ‘ This is currency as much as if notes were issued for this amount; currency as much as were ever the old state bank issues; and it inflates and contracts in the same way. This volume of credit is a creation from nothing, resting on confidence alone, and amounts‘to more than $5 to $1 of the money it is based upon, and, if savings bank deposits be included, it amounts to $8 to $1. A withdrawal of $100,000,000 of actual money from the banks, therefore, compels the contraction of their credit vol- ume of from $500,000,000 to $800,000,000! It is plain enough to see that right here, in the purely credit currency, is where all the sudden contraction and expansion of money takes place. It is in this credit currency that all our money troubles originate. Here all panics begin—From The Road, Denver, Col. 118 A Perfect Universe. “Nature is made better- by no mean, But nature makes that mean; so, over that art W'hich you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.”— Winter’s Tale, iv. 3. affirm the perfection of the universe, that H “The thistles and nettles and darnels rank, And the dock and henbane and hemlock dank, And plants at Whose name the verse feels loath, Prickly and pulpous and blistering and blue, Livid and starved with a lurid dew,” are just as perfect as those plants which _ “Gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess Till they die of their ‘own dear loveliness.” That the cyclone is as perfect as the zephyr; the earth- quake as the air bubble; the serpen't’s hiss as the mother's kiss; the lion’s growl as the hymenial chant; the engulfing Wave as the rippling rivulet; the glare of ‘madness as the soulful look of love; the devouring flame as the glorious sun- light; the vapors of death as the breath of life. 119' I assert that good and evil are merely relative terms, non-existent in view of universal perfection. “All nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance, direction,—which thou cans't‘not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; I And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.” I aim to idealize the material;—to prove its all-sulfi— ciency. ' I give a “standard of perfection,” by which solutions of the great problems of humanity are possible. _ I bring a Daniel to judgment—an infinitely greater than Daniel, who shall emancipate reason from. insult, humanity from quacks, and the real from the abstract. I place realities before dreams, intellect before imagina- tion, Man before god, Earth before heaven, and Philosophy before religion. I greet consistency and reject caprice. Miracle is as a Worm in the bud, and slinks away before. the majesty of im- mutable order. , The perfection of the universe is visible in the fact of exact justice. Cause and effect rotate in. each atom and in the universal whole with unerring precision, unfaltering jus- tice, absolute impartiality, and resistless force. The universe, as Emerson says, is not demo-cratic, but ‘despotic, and exacts unquestioning obedience to~ her man’ dates. She is merciless to resistance, but a benign mother to obedience. _ The ancients placed the Furies as aides-de-camp to Jus- tice and they'w-ould punish even the great Sun-god if he trangressed his path. Mercy would be a miracle, and a miracle would be chaos. Away then with prayer and look to your artillery. Bow to the inevitable, for the Furies wait on Justice. 120 The perfection of the universe is ‘visible in its parts, every part being the index finger of infinite perfection. From the blade of grass to the highest forms of mater- ial life improvement is simply beyond suggestion. We talk of improving nature, but the expression errs. We may de- velop latent forces, give room for expansion—but improve, never! Art is imitation, and science is discovery. The‘ finest painting in the world is eclipsed by the view from a country cottage window. The finest sculpture is mimicry of human perfection. ’ Evidences of perfection surround us. The earth's sur- face, teeming with life in myriad forms, marvellously simple, marvellously complex, with a world of wonders suggested by the microscope, beyond sight or science. The earth spinning around the sun at the inconceivable velocity of 65,000 miles an hour, held in its course neither by turtles nor gods, but by centripetal and centrifugal forces. Under universal influences are evolved light, heat, electricity, magnetism and all forms and manifestations of force up to life itself. Worlds linked together in one harmo- nious infinite whole. ' “And if each system in gradation roll, Alike essential to the amazing whole, The least confusion, but in one, not all, That system only, but the whole must fall.” The wonders of the earth are only transcended by the celestial wonders, ‘ which (Camille Flammarian writes) ~“plunge us into the insoluble mystery of the infinite and of ' eternity. ‘ There we find suns whose light started earthward when the genesis of our world was in the process of devel- opment; perhaps only in the primordial seas that enveloped_ the globe before the uprising of the first continent; before the primitive elementary organisms formed themselves on the bosom of the waters. Suns, 'w'hose light is only now falling 121 like a message from infinity upon the plate of the photog- rapher. Astronomy now reveals a luminous maze of four hundred millions of stars.” While these evidences of perfection pass unchallenged, the varied phenomena of terror and disaster are deemed evi- , dences of imperfection. Earthquakes, floods, shipwrecks, fires, crime, misery, suf- fering and death attack,my theory of perfection. But, be- cause the universe is perfect, these partial evils are neces- sary. The universe ‘never goes into the round-house for re- pairs, and yet it is ever repairing the effects of wear and tear. “All over the wide field of earth grows the prunella or \ self-heal.” Earthquakes, floods and pestilence are con— servators of the universe and, as Emerson says, “the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all ‘facts” and reveals also they compensations of calamity. If natural law were erratic and capricious; if water were fluid at times and solid at other times, as in Jewish tradition recorded; if the dead could be restored to life after decomposition had set in; if prayer could divert a‘ torrent from its course of destruction, or a cyclone from its path; if the sun could stand still to aid in a work of slaughter; if the response to cause ceased to be invariable effect; if false economic conditions produced contentment and happiness; if reigns of injustice heralded a millennium; if all these things could be, then, indeed, we might see the hand of god or devil in such phenomena. Then we might worship our idols and pray for exemption from. calamity, or for dispensations of blessings, because we should be compassless and rudderless. ' On the other hand, science unfolds immutable laws, inherent in ‘matter, and the procession of cause and effect, which never turns from its course for gods or devils. Religion posits a capricious, supreme ruler, ’a perfect being, ruling an imperfect universe. Science posits, simply and grandly, a perfect universe, and with soulful admira- tion awaits the gradual revelation of perfection. With capricious, uncertain, erratic phenomena, science is O 122 impossible and god is possible; but- with imperative, inflexi- ble, coherent, orderly phenomena, science is possible and god is impossible. The perfection of the universe is manifested by its adhe- - rence to general, and not partial law. Good and evil, right and wrong, as we conceive them in our narrow view, are as nought to the universal Whole, whose eye regards with equal imperturbability the blood-stained battle field, or the camp meeting; an aldermanic feast- of turtle, green and glutinous, Or the revels of cannibals ‘over roast missionary. Honest 0r dishonest officials; wise or unwise use :of public moneys; love or murder, in fact all the details of our microscopic lives are. of no more consequence to the universe ‘than those of the po; ‘ tato-bug or grasshopper. But to us they are all in all, and we seek suchlcondi- tions as are agreeable to us, and avoid such as are the re- verse; and in this hunt for happiness marvels are. revealed indicating wheels within wheels all tributary to the central; giving full scope for all that is noble and true and pure and beautiful in human conception‘ and character. I want you all to realize the fulness ‘an/d‘ sufficiency of the material universe, that you may have confidence in the physician who will kill or cure you. The evils, those microscopic evils, microscopic and par- tial to the universal eye, that curse humanity socially, po~ litically and industrially, are mainly attributable to the fact that man has shifted his gaze from the material to the im- material, f'rom fact to abstract, and there creating his own code of conduct, has endowed with it an imaginary being. Thus creating the barrier that impedes his progress, the lash that has Whipped him, the chain that binds him, and the evils that curse him. _ I am not asking you to reject the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe, but yourselves, which in your igno- rance and blindness you foolishly imagined to be God‘: You have preferred an imperfect god to a perfect universe. The'true idealist is he who, by afilrming universal per- ‘ , 1‘13 fection, asserts the impotence of god, the dignity of Man, and the grandeur of his ultimate destiny. I restore your patent of nobility which has been trav- ersed by superstition. Of this infinite, material, perfect uni- verse each of you is a part. The great enemy of mankind is Supernaturalism, born of an ignorant conception of the natural, a refuge of' the finite from the infinite, an abortion of the imagination, utterly inconceivable in a logical sense. Supernaturalism, and religion its expression, have “filled earth with fiends, hell with men, and heaven with slaves." All religions calumniate the universe. Living in discord- ant conditions, the Hindoo longs ‘for Nirvana; the Moham- medan for a heavenly harem; the Indian for his happy hunt- ing grounds, and the Christian for a city not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; all uniting, in practice if not in precept, in belittling and bemoaning the actual material world. All, cru'cifying the body, stunting the intellect and _ shutting the eyes to the ‘beauty and perfection of the uni- verse. I The Christian, like the foolish dog in the fable, drops mu material bone for' a spiritual shadow, and sings, Oh, to be nothing, nothing—and is nothing. He prates of natural de- pravity; eschews reason as the devil’s lariat; bows to the “sublime stupidity of faith,” a victim of that “collective in- sanity, religion.” He’ invites misery, beclouds the beautiful, and in disor- ganized functions of mind and body reaps the disapproval of the universe. One of the manifestations of the ignorant conception of’ the universe is the belief _igtspecial providences and the effi- cacy of prayer. Ignorant people, under religious influences, assume a perfect familiarity with the designs of God, and unhesi‘tatingly interpret events to ‘suit themselves. They bringwthis Supreme Being into their petty discords and quarrels. _ Even historians blur the facts of history with these absurdities. O / I like the spirit of the hunter, who, when closely pressed by a bear, made this prayer: “0 God, if ye dinna help me, dinna help the bar; and, if ye dinna help the bar, stand by and see fair play.” All phenomena, :,‘universal and individual, ‘are purely material. Love, veneration, gratitude, modesty, sentiment, etc., are all material manifestations; they all cause mole~ cular disturbance. Beyond the material, all phenomena ceases. ’ Ethics is now a science, just as astronomy or physiology; and is 'no longer in the domain of theological guessing. _ It is difficult to elevate the material to its proper place in the estimation of mankind. Centuries of false ideals’ have perverted reason, ‘and given distinct and separate entities to the material and spiritual, the latter being rob- bery of the former. It hurts man’s vanity to be stripped of his spiritual trappings. But the identity of mind and body—of spirit and matter, is easily established. Flechier, on this subject, wrote: “What is mind of which men appear so vain?” ' “If considered according to its nature, it is a fire which sickness or accident may put out; it is a delicate temper- ament which soon gets disordered; a happy combination of organs which wear out; a combination and certain motion of the spirits which exhaust themselves; it is the most lively and the most subtle’part of the soul, which seems to grow old with the body.” ' Dryden wrote: “Vv'hen I have a grand design, I take ~physic and let blood, for when you would have a pure swiftness of thought, and fiery‘ flight of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part; in fine, you must purge the belly.” Said Byron: “The thin-g that gives me the highest spirits is a dose of salts; but one can’t take them like cham- pagne.” Thus, it appears that mind and body, soul and body, spirit and matter, are one and indivisible. “Gave Death ever from his kingdom back to check the sceptic’s laughter?” As heaven has robbed earth, as man has robbed himself‘ to endow God, so spirit has robbed matter, and my aim is to‘help forward the inevitable restitution. Evils that afflict us will disappear exactly as we pro~ gress to a condition in harmony with natural order. Cen- turies of ignorant superstition have moulded our social in- stitutions into shapes like the demons of mythology. Fulfill- ing the purpose of our being by a normal functional activity, is denounced as sinful and shameful, and sin and shame take their victims by thousands, sacrifices to a more cruel idol than Juggernaut.. Shame, ‘that lie born of ignorance, is the murderer of infants, deserter of mothers, procuress of brothels, and breeder of pestilence. Christianity is largely responsible for the social evils that curse society. Its morality was a rebound from the licen- tiousness of pagan Rome to the most morbid and unhealthy extreme of asceticism. Among the early Christian fathers marriage was tolerated as a defect, virginity sanctified, and the crowning wonder of nature inferentially dishonored by the claim of an immaculate conception. Socially, our civilization approaches syphilisation, and the only beneficiary is Dr. Gall, who reaps the fruit of an immoral morality and a vicious virtue. True morality consists‘ in a course of living which tends to the highest possible development of the body. The crucis fixion' of the flesh is a crime which a perfect universe never fails to punish, even though the criminal officiates at the altar of a god. ‘ v _ There is a growing unrest in regard to the relations of the sexes, and the impertinent meddling of law or society with what concerns individuals only, is finding protestants. Anatole Baju in “La Revolte," writes that free love is only a pleonasm, created in opposition to conjugal love; and ‘he prophecies that in a hundred years we shall speak of marriage as profoundly immoral. It certainly is a. human invention, and not a natural condition. It is not scientific. Ignorance is the priest, and superstition its victim. Again, the political evils we endure are due to violation of natural order; they jar with perfection. Laws of men are formulated regardless of the laws of things, and were it not for the resistless force of the latter, men's laws would be infinitely more harmful than they are. How complicated are‘ the absurdities of human legislation When compared with universal law; which (says Emerson) may be written on the thumb-nail, or the signet of a ring. Bulwer Lytton said: “A law is a gun which, if it misses a pigeon, always kills a crow. If it does not strike the guilty, it hits some one» else. As every crime creates a law, so, in turn, every law creates a crime. Hence, we go on creating evils and faults and blunders, till society becomes the organ- ized disorder for picking pockets.” Human laws do not allow for the progressive mutations of the universe. The process of evolution is checked until it bursts out in revolution. 'One of the direst illustrations of this fact we find in the French Revolution, which was the product of generations of misrule’ under statute laws. ' "Love and Nature,” says Emerson, “cannot sustain the assumption of authority of one man‘ over another. It is a lie which hurts like a'lie. Statute law, backed by bayonets, must go, and the sovereign individual assume the function of self-government.” Turning to economics, we find them honeycombe'd with evils, the result of false and unnatural conditions. Natural opportunities for well-doing and well-being are monopolized. A cut-throat competition exists among producers to pander to non-producers; industry is exploited under statute law; privileges, fatal to justice, are conferred through political rascality; land and money are held by dogs in the manger, who demand increase for use in defiance of nature. ‘For all 127 l of these evils no warrant in nature exists, and they all breed poverty and misery. . The Furies that attend Justice will 'not be balked. The aristocrats of Paris laughed at the Sans Cullottes, but the time came when the prisons in that city were crowded with aristocrats, with Sans Cullottes as jailers. ' The great universe is indifferent to our good or evil do- ings, but the eradication of partial evil is worth our efforts. Nature promises much to those who intelligently compre- hend her. God, truth, justice, righteousness, morality, vir- tue, health, happiness stand at the bar of the universe, and, if out of plumb with natural order, are pronounced spurious. 7! ‘Under right conditions, says Proudhon, “the search for first and for final causes is eliminated from economic science, as from the naturalvsciencesf’. “The idea of progress replaces, in philosophy, that of the absolute.” “Revolution succeeds revelation.” “Reason, assisted by experience, vdiscloses to man the laws of nature and society, and leaves him free to accept or reject them in his conduct, at his own cost.” “It is absurd to think of a man rejecting, intelligently, a source of happiness. Convince him of the right, freedom, and opportunity to do right, and he follows it as naturally as a child seeks its mother’s breast.” ' Our best efforts should be directed to a study of human conditions in relation to universal conditions. While the universe meets, with equal indifference, friend or enemy, let us be friends and get under the wings of the universe, not under its claws. TVe must define good and evil, virtue and vice, morality or immorality, happiness or misery, rectitude or trickery, righteousness or unrighteousness by the purely partial standard of our own well being. “W'e' shall find the moral world bipolar, like the phys- ical; moral forces centripetal and centrifugal as the physical. Ours is. it to find the balance of forces wherein lies our hap- piness." 128 v .. . Realizing the absolute justice and equity of a perfect universe, manifested in the procession of cause and effect, how can one enter the courts of justice (so-called), espec- ially the criminal courts, without a sense of their ridiculous- ness and uselessness; of pity for their victims and contempt for the puppets who officiate therein. How the “majesty” of human ‘law shrivels! Before the criminal has reached the ' bar, before the jury has heard of jot or tittle of evidence, infinite justice has gauged the) crime and decreed its fitting response. Infinite wisdom never confounds innocence with guilt; never crucifies at Christ; never releases Barrabas. Human courts do little else. The complicated and expen- sive machinery of law, in the main, aids rascality and in- justice. English Barons, in the reign of King John, seeing the danger of tyranny in legislation, demanded the institu- tion of trial by jury, and secured the Magna Charta of Eng? lish liberty. We, in this country, also use juries, but the original purport of the system is lost sight of. Juries were intended to be a bulwark to protect each citizen against bad laws, so that he could violate bad laws with impunity under the vindication of a jury of his peers. If Mr. Coxey had been tried by a jury which knew its duty, the unconstitutional law of the Washington brigands would have been condemned and Coxey vindicated and commended. If King John could have retained the power to make laws, appoint judges,,and control the verdicts of juries by confining them to the “facts of law,” he would ‘have signed Magna Charta, and then placed the fingers of his two hands, tandem, in front of his nose, or wagged them in a suggestive way behind his ears. There is nothing between the citizen and tyranny to-day. Finally,—you will say that I have lectured upon a “per- fect universe,” and in the main have dwelt on imperfections. True, but, as I said, the imperfect is partial and relative and demonstrates absolute perfection by ‘the fact that in the universe is found the self-heal, of partial evil. 129 ' versal order. Partial evil is the good angel who tells us when we are going wrong. We are being moulded by circumstance, and so become consciously automatic. The buffetingstof the uni- verse are necessary to conscious life. Relative, partial wrongs find absolute infallible remedies. And here we find' the greatest and final lesson of this discourse. Social, political, industrial problems can only be solved by an absolute standard. Crime finds its remedy in Disease vanishes alteredl conditions, not in punishment. also under altered conditions. Poverty looks to the index fin- ger of the universe and vanishes under conditions in har- mony with natural order. Slavery finds, its protestants in every atom of matter which has fullest liberty to fulfill the law or the fact of its being‘. Sex evils-live in spite of uni- versal protest. Political evils kick against the pricks of uni- Indu'strial evils lead to industrial suicide and vanish when poulticed with natural justice. Supernatural» ism vanishes under the testimony of the perfect natural. “The heavens,” as Proudhon says, “declare the glory of God, but their evidence annihilates Him.” Judge a tree by its fruit. Perfect liberty of the unit, perfect harmony of the whole, perfect justice; all this, a perfect universe reveals to man. I The universe is perfect order, perfect liberty, perfect An- archy, 130 Interjections. COXEY’ S ARMY. “They afllict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.”—Amos V, 12 v. “And they began to pray Him to depart out of their coast.”—St. Mark V, 17 v. What is this, raising the dust on the road? Coming on, coming on. Grim and determined, what does it bode? Thousands are‘ coming, no obstacles daunt. This is the crystallization of want,— Weary and wan, Weary and wan. Property paling, rascality quailing, Crouching low, planning low, Capital, beast of the ages, bewailing; Privilege, hearing its funeral knell; Standing appalled at retributive hell,— Waiting the blow, waiting the blow. 131 LIBERTY BELL. Thou cherished relic, cracked and rusty bell! ' Thine was a noble song and potent too; “Freedom to all the land;” and we may well Endow thee with the deeds of patriots true. Then, Bell, thy vibrant compact whole, Responsive pulsed to living tongue; Then, voice to voice replied and soul to soul, As through the land thy welcome tidings rung. I would to hear again thy clarion tongue, For liberty again to rouse this land; Than freedom’s, sweeter song was never sung; Than hers, no cause on earth could be more grand. Then speak, thou relic mute, and let us know What more may freedom’s children bring to pass? At last the ‘Bell replied, in accents strained and low, “Make Coxey, Brown and Jones ‘Keep off the grass.’ ” CURSORY. . ' When Adam, in bliss, Asked Eve for a kiss, \ She puckered her lips with a coo; Gave a look quite ecstatic, And the answer emphatic, “I don’t care, Adam, if you do.” 132 THE MORMON MONSTER. I am indebted to Miss Kate Field for the suggestive title of my lecture. Miss Field is well known as a lecturer and editor, and still edits a paper which, with much maidenly modesty, she calls “Kate Field's Washington.” While this enterprising lady was investigating the Mor- mon Monster, she was hospitably entertained by leading Mor- mons and given many opportunities for observing and study- ing the saints and their institutions. That she should find it in her heart to denounce them in a subsequent lecture tour has been a surprise to many.— A poor fellow once spent a cold night in the branches of a tree, fearing that if he descended he would be devoured by a huge black bear, whose outline he had dimly seen just in‘ time to gain his ‘place of security. His friends rescued him in the morning and found, quietly grazing in the vicinity, a calf, the cause of his panic and weary vigil. I expect to show you that Miss Field’s Monster is a harm- less and thoroughly domestic animal. The primary objectof a lecturer should be to arouse thought. He should not aim at sudden emotional conver- sions, but at gradual, reasonable conversions. _ Eloquence may make the crowd weep with Cassius one moment and shout with Brutus the next. Now, I want to set you thinking! I don’t want to convert you suddenly to Mormonism, so that you would go hence 133 shouting, “Great is the God of the Latter-day Saints, and Joseph Smith is his prophet;" but if I can convince you that liberty is more precious than any creeds of, religion or morals _ I shall be well repaid for my trouble. _ Let us discard prejudice, and calmly and dispassionately ask [ourselves Whether this Christian sect—this "Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints”-—has been justly de- scribed by a prominent lecturer as a “Monster.” Let us be orthodox and have a text. Dearly-beloved brethren, you will find my text in the seventh chapter of Matthew, 3d verse: “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye and considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Mormon history enthused me as a boy. I think Hep- worth Dixon’s “New America” gave me my first impressions. I believe I have a natural love of fair play, and the evident pandering’ to prejudice in writings on the Mormons and their institutions has always annoyed me. Lies and conjectures have been palpably used to discredit, pervert and obscure the marvellous facts of their history. Americans‘, instead of persecuting them, should be proud of their achievements. Joseph Smith, Jr., the first prophet of the Saints, was born in Sharon, WVindsor County, Vermont, December 23, 1805, and until he was of age mowed and hoed and held the plow. He‘ was a thoughtful and thoughtless lad by turns, like most boys, but the‘thoughtful element predominated. He worried with conflicting creeds and teachers, and was afraid that between them all he might lose that ghost of his anatomy, his immortal soul. He worried by day and dreamed by night, praying earn- estly at home and in the shade of the forest for guidance. Finally God sent His angel to the poor suppliant to say ‘ that his sins were forgiven, and that he had been chosen by God as the medium through whom,a message in fulfilment of prophecy was to be given to men. To make a long story short, on September 23d, 1823, he 134 was permitted to view the records with the boxes containing them; and four years later, to a day, the angel of the Lord. delivered them into his hands. _ Joseph Smith’s education had been confined to the rudi- ments of the three R's—reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic—an'd God, who persistently hides his great truths from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes, found in Joseph Smith excellent soil for a new revelation. ' WVell, here were the sacred records engraved upon golden plates in Egyptian hieroglyphics, enough to puzzle a much more learned man than Mr. Smith; but with God's help this comparatively ignorant man accomplished the translation and gave to mankind the “Book of Mormon!” This book, say the Mormons, contains the history of the ancient inhabitants of America, a branch of the house of Is- rael, of the tribe of Joseph, and was deposited about 420 A.D. on a hill then called Camora, now in Ontario County, by Moroni, son of Mormon, a prophet of these ancient people. The records were preserved and revealed by the ministry of angels and translated by inspiration. Unbelievers say it is a bald-headed piracy or plagiarism ‘of a book written (but never published) by one Solomon Spauiding, an educated man, at one time a clergyman, en- titled “The Manuscript Found,” written in Old Testament style, and purporting to be a history of the aborigines of this country, tracing their origin, as did the Book of Mormon, to the House of Israel. But leaving that an open question, let us reflect that all so-called revelations from God are equally obscure with the God who deigns to give them. The Mormons are emphatically a part of Christianity, and, therefore, another link in that chain of religion, which we can trace back to the religions of ancient Egypt, India, Persia, China and Japan, all having features in common; notably the cross, beginning in antiquity with the phallic cross of the worshippers of the organs of generation, and ending in the cross of Christ, which decorates our churches; 135 l and with the varied paraphernalia of worship, from the sim- ‘ _ ple cross to the linga-yoni, male and female - emblems of creative power, now worn by Catholic priests as the pallium. Joseph Smith seized upon the ancient and popular doc~ trine of the millennium, which v(Gibbon tells us) was inti- mately connected with the second coming of Christ. “As the works of creation had been finished in six days, their du- ration in their present state was fixed to six thousand years, (according to the prophet Elijah). By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labor and contention, which now is almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joy- ful sabbath of one thousand years, when Christ, with the triumphant bands of saints, and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth to the time appointed for' the last and general resurrection.” This belief is the basis of the Mormon faith, and it gives /them a solid, if a somewhat selfish comfort; but unbelievers consider it another opportunity for the exercise of that pro- found stupidity of faith which links men to any and all re- ligions. But to return to Joseph Smith. WVhatever may be said of this remarkable man, he challenges admiration. by his in- domitable courage, intense earnestness, and undying faith in his missipn. Even his enemies have said that he appeared to have convinced himself of the genuineness of his claims. Until his tragic, cruel death, he battled with reverses, losses and persecution, unshaken in his conviction of ulti- mate success. Over six feet in stature, well developed, nat- urally eloquent, with executive ability-of a high order, he was stamped as a leader of men. His first converts were those of his own family, and with the charm of the old and the new in his doctrines, he ‘made disciples rapidly. From Palmyra, N. Y., where the Smith family had settled after leaving Vermont, the saints moved to Kirtland, Ohio. Here they met with intense opposition from the Christian bigots of that section, which culminated in a most startling 136 evidence of Christian love, and of that charity which "‘suf— fereth long and is kind.” The prophet was dragged from his house at night, where he was attending a sick child, and brutally beaten, tarred and feathered, as was also his then right-hand man, Elder Rigdon. . Finding these Christian amenities not conducive to their comfort and happiness, the saints determined to leave Kirt- land, and after some delay they moved to Independence, Missouri, where for some time a considerable colony of saints had been thriving. This place was the first “Zion” of the ' saints. But/here the same elements of persecution were ripe, and again that powerful argument, the tar bucket, was used to convince the Mormons of their errors. But the saints grew in numbers rapidly. What Joe Smith planted, persecu— tion watered, and it developed surprising fecundity. Driven out of Jackson County, they moved into Clay and adjoining counties, the central body being in the town of Far ‘Vest, while the farms of the saints ‘dotted the country around. At Harms Mill, near Far West, state troops massa— cred twenty Mormons, and as the saints could get no pro- tection from the law, they defied. the law and fortified Far West and the farms contiguous. They also organized the Danite Band, or Destroying Angels, for self-defense. Troops surrounded them, and they were finally compelled to sur- render, promising to leave the state. They decided to settle in Illinois, which was then a fron- tier statc. About fifteen thousand souls formed the first settlement in Illinois, and, by the magic of co-operation, they soon gained rapidly in wealth and importance. In one year and a half they had built one of the prettiest towns in the I’Vest, erecting (we are told) in that time 2,000 houses, besides schools and public buildings. They called the town Nauvoo, meaning “beautiful.” It was also called by the saints the Holy City. On a prominent site in the centre of the city they commenced building a beautiful marble temple, to which all the saints contributed in tithes or labor, the total cost being computed at nearly a million dollars. It was to be 137 138 feet long and 88 broad, surmounted by a pyramidal tower 170 feet high. Here Joseph Smith reached the zenith of his influence. As Prophet, President, Mayor and General of the Nauvoo Legion, he was virtually monarch of all he surveyed, with the most devoted subjects a monarch ever had. His religion was the fulfilment of prophecy, heralding the millennium, and his state was the greatest economic suc- cess in the world’s history. It was an absolutely democratic government where spiritual and material well-being went' hand in hand. He might have said with Pope: “For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right; For forms of government let fools contest, What’s best administered is best.” As an evidence of Joseph Smith’slofty ‘purposes we are told that he wrote as follows to General J. A. Bennett, in 1843: ' “I combat the errors of ages; “I meet the violence of mobs; “I cope with illegal proceedings from executive authority; “I cut the Gordian knot of powers and I solve mathe- ' matical problems of universities with Truth, diamond Truth, and God is my right-hand. man.” A writer, referring to the saints at Nauvoo, about the same time, said: _ . “With respect to the teachings of the Prophet, I must say, there are some things hard to understand, but he invari- ably supports himself from our good old Bible. ‘Peace and harmony reign in the city. The drunkard is scarcely ever seen, neither does the awful imprecation, or profane oath, startle the ear; but, while all is storm and tempest abroad respecting the Mormons, all is peace and harmony at home.” * But trouble appeared among the saints, spreading rapidly to outside enemies. Whispers_began to circulate charging the Prophet with “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” with other men’s wives. Here the spiritual wife doc- ' . 138 trine first agitated Mormon waters. The Prophet’s accusers started a paper called “Expositor,” and boldly charged him with moral delinquencies, supporting the charges with affi- davits. The Prophet called his elders together and they unwisely decided to suppress the paper as a nuisance. This was done, the office of the “Expositor” was razed to the ground and the presses and papers destroyed. This act of foolish tyranny cost the' Prophet his, life. A warrant was issued for his ar- rest, and he defied service. Nauvoo defied state authority in arms; but the threat- ened destruction of the city by state troops, brought the saints to their senses, and Joe Smith and his brother Hyrum were surrendered under guarantees of safety from the Gov? ernor. They were taken to Carthage, where, on the 27th of June, ‘1844, they were both shot to death by a gang of lawless ruffians. After this there was no peace for the saints in Illinois. Brigham Young succeeded to the offices of the Pro~ phet, and proved a worthy sucessor. The temple was still the apple of the eye of the saints, and they steadily persisted in its construction. It was fin- ished after the first bodies of the saints had left for the far West, for one day, to gladden with its glories, those who re mained in Nauvoo, then to be dismantled of its treasures and left to the Goths and Vandals of the frontier—a grand pro- test against injustice and persecution. It was first gutted by fire and finally bent its stately head to the fierce attack of a tornado in the month of May, 1850. ' In February, 1846, the Mormon exodus from Illinois be- gan, which, in detail of suffering and achievement, covering two years, is not excelled by any in history. After a farewell and most impressive service in the tem- ple, the movement West began, in strict order, with every precaution against the real or-imaginary dangers of‘ the march, and under_captains of tens, fifties and hundreds, all courageous, responsible men. Despoiled, not despoilers, they left the Christian East for the savage West, and in succes- 139 / A _ sive bands, actuated by the heroism of a noble purpose, cheerfully encountered dangers and hardships, disease and death. From Colonel Kane’s interesting lecture, delivered be- fore the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, I cull a few dis- connected sentences, which the reader may connect into a mental telescope and so look back at this scene of human brotherhood. As to their beautiful, abandoned temple at Nauvoo: “They had built it as a labor of love.” “Hardly a woman who had not given up to- it some trinket or pin-money; the lowest Morman man had at least served the tenth of his year upon its walls.” . . . . “They succeeded in parrying the last sword-thrust” (of their ene- mies) “till they had completed even the gilding of the angel and the trumpet on the summit of its lofty spire.” Incidents of the march to Salt Lake: “One of the neatest finished firearms I have ever seen was wrought from scraps of old iron, and inlaid with silver of a couple of half-dollars, under a hot July sun, in a spot where the average height of the grass was above the workman’s shoulders. I have seen a cobbler, after a halt of his‘ party on the march, hunting along the river bank, in the twilight, for a lapstone, that he might finish a farmer's bootsole by the camp-fire; and I have had a piece of cloth, the wool of which was sheared and dyed and spun and woven during a prog- ress of three hundred miles.” "A strong trait of the Mormons was their kindness to their brute dependents, and particularly to their beasts of draught.” - As to the young men: “I have seen the youths, in stepping from back to back of the struggling monsters (oxen) or swimming in among their battling hoofs, display feats of address and hardihood that would have made Franconi’s or the Madrid bull-ring vibrate with bravos of applause.” . . . . “I have never heard an oath or the language of quarrel.” 140 Cattle :—“The only wealth of the Mormons, and more andv more cherished by them.” Mormon Womenz—“They were the chief comforters of the severest sufferers, the kind nurses who gave in sickness \those dear attentions with which pauperism is hardly poor.” “'W’hatever their manifold labors of the day, it was their effort to complete them against the sacred hour of evening- fall; for, by that time, all the out-workers, scouts, ferry-men or bridgemen, road-makers, herdsmen or hay-makers had} finished their tasks and come in to their rest; and before the last smoke of the supper-fire curled up, reddening in the glow of sunset, a hundred. chimes of cattle-bells announced their looked-for approach across the open hills, and the women went out to meet them at the camp gates, and, with their children in their laps, sat by them. at the cherished family meal, and talked over the. events of a well-spent day.” “Every day closed, as every day began, with prayer.” “There was no austerity about the religion of Mor- monism.” I “I certainly heard more jests and Joe Millers while in this Papillon camp than I am likely to hear in the remainder of my days.” I have refrained from quoting any of Colonel Kane’s descriptive passages of the sufferings and diseases incidental to such a pilgrimage through a new country, which are painful to read, but still further inspires one with admiration of this heroic band of Latter-Day Saints. Not a body of slaves, as in_the exodus of Israel from Egypt; not protected by the supernatural, but almost accomplishing the supernatural themselves; this band of hero-es made a path through the unknown, led by 'men with lofty aspirations and indomitable courage; followed by women and children of whom Sparta would have been proud. In 1848 the Commonwealth of the New Covenant was fairly established in the basin of the Great Salt Lake. Thus at last we‘ find this remarkable people resting from their fierce conflict with bigotry, surrounded with Nature’s bui- 141 warks, and safer among savages than among Christians; Christians who worshipped the same God, trusted in the same Redeemer, and preached the same gospel of peace. Their New Zion appeared to be a dreary waste of alka11 plains and sage-brush, so barren that an old mountaineer, one James Bridger, offered them $1,000 for the first ear of corn raised in the valley. But co-operative industry and irri- gation transformed this waste into a beautiful garden and “created a soul under the ribs of Death.” In three years the plain was dotted with farms and houses. A city of 1,000 houses had arisen, a promise of the New Jerusalem. The marvels of human co-operation again gave the lie to the competitive systems of the Gentile world. After a while the Mormons formulated a constitution, de— claring Deseret a free state. Then, being firmly planted in this new home, they began to gather in the saints from the four corners of the earth, and, with a permanent emigration fund to aid the needy to reach Zion, their work in this direction has been unremitting ever since. And they have kept their promises to the poor and\ oppressed of this and other lands, in the letter and spirit; this inviolability of promise advertising them to the earthts remotest ends. A home, independence, and consequent hap- piness were offered and given. How different with the home and liberty-seeking immi~ grant who sails into New York‘ harbor under the silent promise of the Statue of Liberty, of the fullest freedom, only to be awakened from his delusion by the hangman. Brigham Young was appointed Governor of Utah in 1850 by the President of the United States. Under his adminis- tration the saints were prosperous at home and active in foreign propaganda. He died in 1877 and was succeeded by President John Taylor. The economics of the saints are worth attention. Two wwords furnish the keys to their entire economy—co-operation and arbitration—under which equitable industrial and com‘ mercial conditions prevail, and freedom from discordant 142 , litigation. Material well-being is a fundamental feature of the Mormon religion. Progress without poverty is their aim. With “no poor in Zion” they were ready for the millennium, and co-operation and arbitration were the ‘children of their faith.‘ Under the beneficent influence of co-operation, labor gets the best possible return for its toll, the unity of Mor- mondom is preserved, monopolies excluded, and all benefit by accumulated capital. I The Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institute, with its branches throughout the territory, has been a success from its inception. The Zion's Central Board of Trade, and other such institutions, all endeavor to foster enterprise, reward industry, elevate the morality of the merchants, and secure to its members the full benefits of co-operation in the fur- therance of their legitimate pursuits. ' Their system of arbitration excludes the lawyer from Mormon civilization. Once in a while a saint is compelled to go to law, owing to trouble with a Gentile, but from choice— never. They don't like lawyers, and they have been rooted and grounded in their aversion by the teachings of the prophets and elders; and as lawyers predominate in all our legislative bodies it is no wonder that legislation has not ministered to the comfort of the saints. Talking of lawyers reminds me of one of their victims, who said: "I have been ruined twice in my lifetime, once when I lost a lawsuit and again when I was successful.” It is Mormon economic success which excites the ani- mosity of Gentiles. It is said that among the saints at one time there was not “a single loafer, rich or poor, idle-gentle man or lazy Vagabond.” Such a community excites the greed of the pirates of civilization; ,they behold a good field for bonds and monopolies, and they also fear the example of such institutions. It threatens the priests of the goddess Diana. ' Not a moral issue, but an economic one, confronts us in Utah. Admit the land-robber, money vampire and other Wreckers into Utah, and the virtuous spasm of Mrs. Grundy 143 b _ r would subside. The saints might then indulge their marital proclivities to the utmost without a protesting voice. Now we reach that part of the Mormon anatomy which has earned “the Monster” his title. We at last discover Miss Field’s windmill, which she attacks so valiantly and persist- ently as to remind one of the hero of the Spanish legend. If the Monster is demoralizing and pernicious in its influ- ence upon communities living thousands of miles from his lair, surely if we beard him in his den we shall find bones of Victims and hear the wail of the captives. Now, what are the facts? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” A favorite maxim of President Young was, We are told, the following: “No person should ever engage in any labor nor seek any enjoyment in a spirit which would hinder him ‘from stopping at any moment and bowing down before the Creator to ask his blessing on what he has undertaken.” Apply that to Gentile civilization and how dull business would be; how the manipulators of corners in necessities, adulterators of food and drugs and rum; quacks, frauds, humbugs of all kinds; armies and navies; political parties and their leaders; the seducer and they harlot would be par- alyzed. But in Utah it was a rule of conduct, until Gentile invasion brought its train of horrors. Among the Mormons there was no brothel, gambling hell, nor rum shop. The percentage of illiteracy was lower than the average of the United States; lower than the cultured state of Massa— chusetts, and the District of Columbia. ' A lower percentage of paupers than in any of the leading states of the Union. A lower percentage of insane or idiots. A lower'percentage of crime than in any state of the Union. With nine-tenths of the population of Salt Lake City the Mormons furnish only one-tenth of its criminals, and those guilty of the- most trivial offences. 144 A higher average of church attendance than that of any state in the Union. Freedom from debt and consequently lower territorial, county, city and school taxes than any other territory or any state. In 1880 Utah had 9452 farms, with only 45 over 500 acres, indicating a general prosperity not equalled elsewhere, owing to freedom from land monopoly. 7 Contrast this condition with that of England, as recently depicted by John Rae: “In the wealthiest nation in the world every twentieth inhabitant is a pauper; one-fifth of the com~ munity is insufliciently clad; the agricultural laborers, and large classes of working people in towns, are. too poorly fed to save the-m from what are known as starvation diseases; the great proportion of our population lead a life of monoto- nous, incessant toil, with no prospect in old age but penury and parochial support; and one-third, if not indeed one- half, of the! families of thel country are huddled six in a room in a way quite incompatible with the elementary claims of decency, health or morality.” It is impossible to separate the facts of Mormon pros- perity from their connection with the institution of polyg- amy; that is, when polygamy is viewed from the Gentile standpoint, as a demoralizing influence. If polygamy were an evil great enough to call for legislative interference, it, I certainly would have disastrously affected Mormon econ- omy. That the reverse is a fact is a point in the Monster's favor. Now, as to the direct fruits of polygamy! First: Exemption of women from the tortures of invol-' untary celibacy. Second: The exemption of wives from unwelcome atten~ tions during the periods of gestation and lactation, nearly two years! Third: The recognition of men’s needs during that time, and consequent greater guarantee of purity. 145 Fourth: The well-being of wife and offspring resultin from hygienic conditions. ' Fifth: Freedom of Mormon women from diseases to ‘which Gentile women are .victims,~notably hysteria and pro- lapsus uteri; also, from that dread disease, the horrors of which are portrayed by Sarah Grand in her book, “The Heavenly Twins.” / Sixth: Freedom of women from the drudgery of monoto~ nous marital servitude and household exactions. Seventh: Mormon women claim that they enjoy greater freedom and more franchises than any other women in the world. Eighth: Plural marriage cannot be contracted by Mor- mons unless with consent of first or other wives; and sepa- ration, with means of support, is-always easy to women. Ninth: In the rare cases of infidelity, men bear the odium of the act. Tenth: Abandoned mothers and babies are not to be found among Mormons. ' Eleventh: Infanticide is not dreamed of, and the palace of the~abortionist never rears its accursed head. Twelfth: Their family life ispeculiarly charming and the round of social pleasures continuous. Local home talent supplies most of their needs in balls, parties, lectures, con- certs and theatres, and all their amusements and gatherings begin and end ‘with prayer. In singing and prayer they overcome the jealousies, per- plexities, slights and worries of family life. ' A daughter of Brigham Young wrote for the New York “Sun’_’ (in 1889) a very beautiful description of home life among the Mormons, and in it she told the following story, which may interest you: “There lived in Salt Lake City, twenty or thirty years ago, a young man who was graced with every spiritual grace. Intellectual, bright, eloquent and gifted, handsome in feature and form, with the magnetic presence that belongs to leaders. He was early sent upon missions, early chose 146 him a beautiful wife, and was early placed by the president in high and responsible positions. Full to the finger-tips with his religion and love for it, he yet loved his beautiful girl-wife, nor sought, nor thought, to add another element that might bring discomfort. Six, eight, ten yearspassed away, and no child came, nor was likely to come to crown ‘their union. ‘Next to good wives, is the boon and blessing' 'of children!’ say the saints. “Twice had the president suggested a second wife, in a kind, half-joking way. Still no action or serious thought’ was taken thereon. Months rolled by. “One day, after-the close of a meeting, one of the lead- ing apostles laid his hand on the young elder’s shoulder, saying: ‘President Young, what is the reason Brother does not take him another wife and raise some children to carry on his name.’ “After a pause, the president answered with more than usual deliberation: ‘I don’t know; I have spoken to Brother for the last time on that subject.’ “Like a thunderbolt came this on the young man’s heart. WVhat! Had the servant of the Lord given him up as incorrigible, hardened and selfish. A wild desire came upon him to get away by himself to think, to pray, and, yes—his eyes were full of hot tears, and he must be alone _in prayer and tears to find some relief, some gleam of hope. He turned away to his office, where he found the young girl of the house sweeping and dusting. She was only sixteen, but well grown and old for her years, a distant relative of the family. . “ ‘Say,’ he burst out, ‘I have just received my last warn~ ing from President Young in relation to my taking a second ‘ wife. What shall I do about it?‘ “She was not in love with him, had never been asked to be; but who could associate with one so handsome, so gifted, so true, without the germs of love being already planted in _ her heart? “He hastily said, ‘Will you have me?’ 147 “The strong thrill that shook her responsive heart gave‘ her little chance for aught but a stammered ~reply about con- sulting her uncle. “ And so, without further ado, with scarcely any talk or preparation, in one month from then she walked down to our house of worship and was married to him, his first wife standing by his side and adding her blessing to the union.” “Women,” the writer of the above asks, “where are your husbands for the: two years in which you bear and nurse your darling babies T” ' Natural repugnance, so-called, to plural marriage, is purely a topographical fact, a matter of latitude and longi- tude. In polygamous communities it does not exist. Therefore, we must find other grounds for the condemna- _ tion of pluralmarriage. Now, is polygamy scientific? If yes, it must result in well-being; if no, it must result in evil. We are, as .men and women, endowed with certain func- tions, the proper exercise of which is necessary for our health and happiness. Excess or monotony induces functional derangements. The same stimulant constantly applied, or the neglect, or nox- ious desuetude of any functional proclivity induces atravism. If we always listened to the same sounds; if our eyes always dwelt upon the same scenes; if our olfactory organs always sniffed the same aroma, we should endanger or lose the sense of hearing, seeing and smelling. If our food is not varied, we lose appetite and health. “A surfeit of sweet things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.” The Persians say, “If conserve of roses be frequently eaten, it will produce a surfeit.” In spite of these suggestive facts, we try to force upon the passions, which are nerve-appetites, one monotonous, life-long diet. I quote from a. newspaper: “The congregration of the 148 \ Anglo~American Episcopal Church at St. Petersburg, Russia, having determined to celebrate the jubilee of its founda- - 'tion, ordered a new organ from, London at a cost of five hundred pounds sterling. The great instrument duly arrived at Cronstadt, and here the difliculties_began. Organs are practically unknown in Russia, in which country, as with Oriental nations, church music is altogether vocal. The only’ thing approaching to the organ is the musical box with pipes sometimes found in tea-houses, so the custom-house oflicers levied duty for six organs, alleging that there were pipes enough for that number at least. When told that the pipes were all intended for one instrument of praise, the officers declared that the Creator could make all the music He wanted out of one pipe as well as out of many, and, there- fcre, the useless ones must pay duty or go back to their manufacturers. After lcng negotiation and much bribery/ the mysterious machine was admitted under protest, but the erection. in , the church is jealously watched by a cordon of military, who are on the alert to prevent an organ or two being surrepti- tiously carried away under some workman’s cloak or some choir-singer’s skirt. Each of these guardians of the thresh~ old has his sword drawn, like St. Peter’s, and during service ‘they stand at attention‘with one eye on the Holy Eucharist and ‘hi other on the wonderful “box 0? whistles.” Those moralists who fiercely contend that “one pipe” is alone r-.~-s_uisite for matrimonial felicity, are as woefully mis~ taken as these Russians, and prosecutions for bigamy are ju't :|:- :1 bsnrd as the action of the Russian authorities. Count’ Tolstoi asserts there is no such thing as Chris_ , the eyes of the fathers De- tian We. It was impure in of the Church, the result of the fall of our first parents. sire ‘vi a! evil. And this institution has‘ become our glorious “sempei the banner cf our virtuous pride'flthe familyrr-tht ne of civilization! , idem." corner . T. 1 ~ rhinl: you, "oilid .rJA-ul-f. PM’ n this morbl'rf worship imputed a cr‘me, and marriage tolerated as an’ of virginity, but just such conditions as surround and curse ‘ us to-day? ‘ Out of this slime of ‘scrofulous asceticism, polygamy takes woman‘and raises an altar to maternity. In place of the “Cyprians of folly to Satan's own brothers, Withered and barren, and piteous to see, Dried up peppers in a dried up pod, Hated of men and abhorred of God,” we have "Brave mothers of men, strong-breasted and broad, Who exult in fulfilling the purpose of God.” From sixty to sixty-five per cent of the world's insane are celibates; and yet, in the name of purity and virtue, we practically prohibit maternity to three hundred thousand women in New York and the New England States alone. The relations of the sexes involve an universal, vital principle. The dual forces of matter are the conservators of the universe- Vvithout them, this world, and systems of worlds through all space. would disintegrate and become one insane deluge of disorder beyond the power of words to portray. This duality is ever active, correcting disequilibrium. From the ecstatic kiss of the mother to the rush of the tor- nado, these‘forces manifest themselves, and try to teach us a\lesson in sexual science. When we learn it, each sex will become to the other the angel of healing as well as of love, and to the light of love will be added the light of health, banishing nine-tenths of the physical ills and diffusing uni- versal happiness. ' True marriage is entirely independent of priest and law. and consists in the spontaneous union of positive and nega~ tive electricity resulting in neutral conditions. It is a human tempest. yitalizing and health-conserving. The worst pos- sible conditions exist for sexual relations when the "twain become one flesh.” Under the laws of electricity, like repels 150 like, positive repels positive and negative repels negative. ' each attracts its opposite. Polygamy has respect for the law of electric affinities. You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, but it will come rushing back again. The vices that poison monogamic com- munities, are the protests- of the natural against the unnat~ ural, of science versus ignorant sentiment, and statute law. Legislative and priestly restrictions trample upon our affections. Set them free, and out of the mire of restrictions - will emerge the sapphire, opal and diamond of freedom; and I have no doubt that in the pro-cess of purification and crys¢ ' tallizatio-n, monogamy will vanish. Now, I have tried to show you Miss Field’s “Monster” in puris naturalibus, naked and unadorned. He may be offensive to sentiment, but is in harmony with science. As a religious, economical, political, industrial and social suc- cess he should be proudly claimed as a product of American possibilities. As a lion in the wilderness he natt'irally arouses the enmity of jackals. . ' As for me, while defending the saints, I am not a “or- mon, or a believer in any system of morality, but an advo- cate of absolute freedom. Free love is a pleonasm. Love can only exist under free conditions. ‘ In dealing with the Mormons, the Constitution of the United States has been torn in shreds, and brute force has .been used to- wrest from them their liberties and property. The effort is persistently made: to turn this beehiye into a hornet’s nest, fathers into fiends, mothers into harlots and children into bastards. The obligation of contracts is dis- regarded, and their religion turned against them under un- constitutional laws. Their homes are invaded by spies and informers, and their franchises annulled, while an army of Gentile oflice- holders, antagonistic to their institutions, is sent to them as ministers of oppression, including some of the most disrepu- table scallawags that-ever invaded politics. If polygamy is an evil it will die of its own rottenness; it needs no congres- 151 ’ sional brigandage or senatorial trickery. Persecution is always and everywhere a. mistake. Why, I here we are in this City of Brotherly Love, the Quaker City. What were Quakers two hundred years ago? They were described as pernicious and cursed, whipped halfinaked from one township to another, fined, imprisoned, hanged and ' their books burned. What are they to-day? Eminently respectable, and just as easily shocked by progressive ideas as were their perse- cutors two hundred years ago. ‘ Learn then, the better than golden rule: “Mind your own business.” Consider the beam in thine own eye ere thou regardest the mote in thy brother's eye. When we can grasp perfect freedom and realize its un- told value, the millennium will be near. I have unbounded faith in humanity. Ignorance has been smiting us heavily for centuries with‘ the jawbones of political and religious asses, but we have survived and are nearing‘the day “when love, whichi none may bind, shall be free to fill the world like light.” ' ‘ Anarchy, the doctrine of equal liberty, frowns, on perse_ cution, and has a hand of fellowship for the “Mormon Monster.” 152 A Criticism OF THE POLITICAL ECONOMY-OF HENRY GEORGE. The good that Henry George has done in drawing atten- tion to a grave economic evil, the evil of land ownership, is unquestionable. I - The science of Political Economy, like the universe, has evolved from chaotic conditions, and moves slowly, step by step, from doubt and bewildering contradictory complexity, to a simplicity and grandeur of construction that shall. posit wrongs with mathematical precision, and dem0nstrate,truth and justice from impregnable standpoints. That Henry George should not reach the ultimate of his design, does not detract from his merits; for who can read the political economists and not discern, in each and all, the elements of primal chaos? Why expect. perfection in the prophet of San Fransisco? The cackling of geese saved Rome; a pebble from a brook killed Goliath; the kick of a. cow started the Chicago fire. and a man riding into Jerusalem on an ass revolutionized the world; so we must. not despise the day of small things. We can be one with Henry George in‘ his denunciation of wrong, while we criticise his political economy in the "nterest. .of truth and progress. Two painters were frescoing the dome of St. Paul's 153 Cathedral in London. They were nearing the completion of their work, and one of them, brush in hand, stepped back to admire his Work, and forgetfully neared the edge of his slen~ der platform, until the next step backward meant a horrible death on the stone flagging two hundred feet below. His comrade saw his peril, and, with rare presence of mind, dipped his brush in the paint and threw it against the painting the endangered artist was admiring. The latter rushed forward to upbraid his co-worker, to learn that the apparent piece of vandalism had rescued him from an awful death. So, dear Single Taxers, if I daub your picture, I do it for your good. ' There are 508 pages 1n “Progress and Poverty;" 266 pages are devoted to the analysis of an evil, and 242 pages to a plan for perpetuating it. Throughout these pages is scattered much that is inter- esting, much that is instructing, and some grave errors. Mr. George begins ‘badly in his dedication, as follows: ..“To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring frc-m the unequal distribution of wealth ‘and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state, and would strive for its attainment.” Equality in the distribution of Wealth is the aim of a Socialist or a Communist, but the Anarchist would be satis- fied with an equitable distribution. The equal "distribution of privileges" is simply nonsense; the Anarchist aims to abolish privilege. ‘ Equal privilege is a contradition, equality being the ' negation of privilege, and vicesversa. In Chapter 2 he expresses his appreciation of the! great importance of a correct terminology. It is in his terminology that his system is most defective. On page 145 We read: “Land, vlabor and capital are the factors of production.” I assert that land and labor conjointly are the sole fac— tors of production, and that, as Henry George himself ad- . 154 \ ;\ mifs, what he calls capital is a product of land and labor, and not a necessary factor of production, but, in reality, sim- ply wealth. \ " On page 146: “Capital is not a necessary factor in produc- tion.” . ‘ Page 146: “Capital is the result of labor.” If capital is the result of labor, how can it be a factor of production‘? If labor, as George says, “can only be exerted upon land,” then‘ capital, like every other product of labor, must come from the application of labor to land. Therefore, land and labor are the sole factors of production. This being granted by George, the claim of capital as a producer and as a factor in distribution falls to the ground. The absurdity reminds me of a story in rhyme: Three children, sliding on the ice, All on a summer day, It so fell out, they all fell in, The rest, they ran away. Or, again, this little rhyme! will convey the point,— TWO factors,—lan.d and labor,—are Of wealth, the ONLY source; And form a most effectual bar To factor THREE, of course. Now, I am quite willing to admit that what Henry George calls capital is an essential element in continued pro- duction. George’s capital is wealth, and wealth that is nec- essary to the sustenance, happiness and efficiency of labor. But this wealth has been diverted from labor by ras- cality, fraud and violence, and a being, deemed altogether unnecessary in the original biblical plan of creation, has sprung from the loins of the'devil, viz., the capitalist. "W'hen Adam delved, and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ‘2” VVno was then the capitalist? 155 This octopus stands guard 'over his stolen wealth, and labor, the producer, is charged interest upon his own product, which he must pay to the capitalist before he dreams of satisfying his own frugal wants. 4 So we see how Mr. George’s capital aids production. Yes! The production of paupers, destitutes and prostitutes. Henry George’s capital is Wealth masquerading as apro- ducer, wealth stolen from labor by monopoly; it is not cap- ital. I Mr. George divides society into workingmen, beggarmen and thieves, and his capitalist not being (as he admits) a workingman, must be, according to George, 2. beggarman or a thief. Which? ' Let us aim for a consistent, definite meaning of capital. The word is derived from the Latin, “'Caput,”—the head. Some claim that this meant heads of cattle, on which ba-x sis the wealth of the Nomads of Asia was calculated. This may be true, and yet even that idea of capital is of the fount, source, head, from which all wealth proceeds. The cattle of a nomadic people and the land of an agri- cultural people appear to be both the source of wealth, but as cattle without land is impossible, while land without oat- tle is possible, the claim of land plus labor to be recognized as capital must be allowed. Cattle is wealth, and a product of land and labor, as is all wealth. This is the conclusion of John K. Ingalls, who writes (“Social _Wealth,” page 170): "It would seem, then, that land and labor, instead of be- ing excluded from. the classification, should be regarded in economics as they are in nature, the only capital." Again he writes (page 171): “In nature land and labor are always capital, and never commodities; and the product of these are always commodities and never capital.” How absurd, then, does the definition of capital by Henry George appear, when he says, “Nothing can be capital that is not wealth." We affirm that nothing that is wealth can be capital. ‘ . _ Mr. George is constantly contradicting himself. 156 He writes (page 34) :‘ “Thus we must exclude from the category of capital‘ anything that may be included in land and labor.” He contradicts this on page 168: “If I plant and care for a tree until it arrives ‘to- maturity, I receive in its fruit inter- est upon the capital I have thusv accumulated—that is, the labor I have expended.” ‘ . _ Again, on page 147: “And as capital is, as is often ‘said, but stored-up labor, it is but a form of labor; a subdivision of the general term labor, etc.” , ' In departing from the derivative meaning of capital, p0~ litical economy has gone astray. Land being the primal fac-~ tor of production, the fount, the head, the source from which all wealth is derived, demands logical recognition as capital. Now we will turn to his definition- of wealth. On page 34 he writes: ' “As commonly used, the word ‘wealth’ is applied to any- thing having exchange value.” This definition of wealth he qualities and trims until he reaches this puerile conclusion: “Only such things are wealth, the production-of which in- creases, and the destructidn of which decreases, the aggre- gation of wealt .” No wonder, as it is said, that Herbert Spencer could not finish reading “Progress and Poverty,” for, as he progressed, the poverty of Henry George-’s reason- ing must have been painfully evident to the analytical mind of England’s great philosopher. “Nothing is Wealth that is not Wealth.” Who could dis-- pute this learned synthesis? » . I have ridiculed this definition ad nauseum, I suppose, and I am well aware that his readers can grasp his meaning, I through his line of argument. But, it is, nevertheless, a puerility most pronounced and ridiculous. We are interested in what Mr. George means, undoubtedly, but why does he not say it. And very strangely just while Mr. George is wallowing in this nonsense, he is calling older and superior economists bad names. He talks of “flabby writers” and their volumes “dubbed political economy.” 157 Mr. George meant to say that the products of labor which have value in exchange are wealth. This definition excludes (in harmony with Mr. George), “bonds, mortgages, promissory notes, bank bills, etc., also slaves and land-values.” Thus, brushing aside the puerilities of Henry George, we get to definitions which need no qualification, limitation, or exceptions. Capital (land) and labor (man) conjointly, are the factors _of production, and their product, having value in exchange, is wealth. Now, let us turn to the factors of distribution, as formu- lated by Henry George, namely—rent, wages and interest. On page 145 we read: “That part (of wealth) which goes .to the land-owners as payment for the use of natural oppor- tunities, is called rent; that part which constitutes the reward for human exertion. is called wages; and'that part which con- stitutes the return for the use of capital is called interest.” Now we see the necessity for a correct definition of‘ capi- tal; for here’ bobs up Mr. Capitalist and claims a share of labor’s product. _ The land-lord exploits one‘pocket of labor; the money- lord the other, and from these devilish twins come the awful anomaly of progress and poverty. By “rent” Mr. George means land-rent. The iniquity of landerent he proves and denounces, but is oblivious to his inconsistency when he justifies interest as a natural law. He condemns interest on land (the product of land monopoly), but justifies interest on money (the product of -money monopoly). On the wages question we find Mr. George endorsing Adam Smith, whom he quotes as follows: “The product of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor." Here justice looms up with its attendant furies, threat- ening rent, interest and profit, the trinity of iniquity—and Mr. George shuts his eyes and looks another way. He mangles this self-evident truth with the following 158 qualification. He says: “Had the great Scotchman taken this as the starting point of his reasoning, and continued to regard the product of labor as the natural wages of labor, and the landlord and master, as sharers, his conclusion might have been different, and the political economy of to-day would not embrace such a 'mass of contradictions and absurdities.” Instead of saying “the landlord and master as sharers,” it would be more truthful and more to the point to say “the landlord and master as shearers,” for it is through the dual iniquity of rent and interest, (the monopoly of land and the monopoly of the means of exchange) that the lamb (labor) is fleeced. I “Two rascals owned a little lamb, They fieeced him head and toe, And said they didn’t care a damn How bare the lamb did go.” The factors of distribution of Henry George present to .the mind a picture of labor crucified between two thieves. The correlative of production is consumption. Between production and consumption is the factor of dis- tribution, commerce, the inequity of which is the cause of poverty. This inequity is the result of privileged monopoly, grow~ ing out of past barbarous conditions, when he would take who had the power, and he would keep who could. ' In other words the oppression of brute force. The oppression of brute force has been succeeded by the oppression of- law, which has legitimized the spoils of in- A equity, and made respectable the exploitations of landlord and'capitalist, the former of who-m Mr. George denounces, while he endorses the latter. ' Wealth, first exploited and ,then capitalized, becomes that "property” which Mr. George calls “capital,” but which Proudhon denounces in the startling words, “Property is impossible; property is robbery.” 159 Why is property (that is, the power of increase) impossible‘? Because it is contrary to natural conditions. Wealth, like humanity, is under sentence of death. Born from the womb of nature, it passes through varied transmu- tations to final extinction, but capitalise it as property, and it laughs at death. _ Wealth, the product of labor, turns its producer away from natural opportunities, natural capital, and bids him build houses for others to inhabit, and plant vineyards for others to eat of the fruit thereof. Labor is driven from the broad ocean of natural capital into the maelstrom of a false capital, where, in ever lessen- ing circles, he is forced by the relentless current of his neces- sities into the vortex of poverty. Having thus shown the weak points in Henry Georgeis armor, we are led by the star of political economy to the cradle of the “Single Tax.” baby, who is destined to wonder, “Ifso soon I’m to be done for,- What in the world was I begun for?” I “shall prove that the Single Tax is an impossible tax. Let us state the case clearly. What is Mr. George’s proposition? On page 364 he writes: "What I, therefore, propose is the simple, yet sovereign remedy, which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capitalY extirpate pauperism, give remunerative employment to whom wish it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals, taste and intelligence, purify govern-- ment and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is—to appropriate rent by taxation.” And, again, on page 364: “To abolish all taxation save that upon land value.” “I do not,” he writes, “propose to either purchase or confiscate private property in land.” “The first would be unjust, the second needless; let the individuals that now hold it retain, if they want to, posses~ sion of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them 160 continue to call it their land, let them buy and sell it, be- queath and devise it.’ We may safely leave ‘them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land, it is only necessary to confiscate rent.” Some years ago human beings were held in slavery, and the slaves had value in exchange. Suppose that instead of the proclamation of emancipa- tion, President Lincoln had temporized with the evil on the George plan, as follows: ' I do not propose to either purchase or confiscate private property, in slaves. The first would be unjust, the second needless; let the individuals that’ now hold them still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their slaves. Let them continue to call them. their slaves, let them buy and sell, bequeath and devise them. We may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate the slaves, it is only necessary to con- fiscate the slaves’ product. With his product confiscated how long would the slave have retained value in exchange? ' The slave was freed, the land must be freed, and neither of them will, under freedom, have “value in exchange." Thus thesingle-tax is impossible. Notwithstanding the lofty aspirations of Henry George, the realization of them by such puerile trickery and utter abandonment of principle is absolutely impossible. Here- pudiates purchase as unjust and at the same time concedes ‘ownership. He rejects the tweedledum of confiscation, and advocates the tweedledee of rent appropriation, upon which this plan of salvation, the “Single Tax,” serenely reposes, ‘ waiting for the millennium. Henry George fails to grasp the logic—the economics of the land question. He fails to see that the purchase of in- finite value, and the compensation for infinite value are im- possibilities. He fails to see that value in exchange does not embrace infinite value. He repudiates infinite value and en- til dows land with value in exchange, the basis of a possible purchase and a-possible compensation. Land, under a true political economy, (just as with the slave) has no value, no power in exchange. Rent, which represents the earning capacity of the power in exchange of land, is the product of monopoly. This Mr. George admits, - consequently the destruction of monopoly and rent would be simultaneous. Again, I repeat, the Single Tax is impossible. Land, per se, is valueless. Wealth springs from the womb of earth, only after marriage with labor. The earth must first be tickled with the hoe before it laughs the harvest. Consequently under no conditions can taxes be lifted from improvements. Under the Single Tax (Mr. George to the contrary, notwithstanding) the‘ burden of taxation will be, as ever, “shifted from back to back, and from rank to rank,v and so land, ultimately, upon ‘the dumb, lowest rank, who with spade and mattock, with sore heart and empty wallet daily come in contact with reality, and can pass the cheat no further.”_ Labor will continue, diligently and suicidally, “digging its own grave, and weaving the flowers it creates into funeral wreaths.” I am aware that the advocates of the Single Tax assert that it takes an unearned increment from the landlord for the benefit of the whole people. I assert that there is no such fact as an unearned increment, and so does Mr. George, without knowing it. Let us quote Henry George, page 367: “All taxes must evidently come from the produce of land and labor,” etc. Page 370: “It (the value of land) expresses the exchange value of monopoly.” Page 369: “For the profit of monopoly is in itself a tax levied upon production.” Page 367: “Taxation which’ lessens the reward of the producer necessarily lessens the incentive to production.” These extracts from “Progress and Poverty” admit that: (a)'All taxes come from labor. (b) That land values are born of monopoly. 162 (c) That monopoly taxes production. _ td) That the whole profit of monopoly, that is, land val- ues, or taxes on. land values, is levied on production, conse- quently lessens the incentive to production. And yet (on page 371) he asserts this manifest contradic- tion of the above: “But the whole value of land may be taken in taxation, and the only effect will be to stimulate in~ dustry, to open new opportunities to capital, and to increase ~ the production of'wealt .” ' Mr. George’s remedy is worse than the evil he attacks. It reminds me of a young fellow who eat sliced Bermuda _ onions to take away the taint of ice cream from his breaths I All wealth is earned, but the evil is, that it is inequitably distributed. It is our business to equitably adjust distribu- tion by an economic system under which the producer will I be secure in the possession of his product. Again, you object and argue, that some land yields a big- ger return to labor for the same effort than other land. The objection involves the arbitrary equalization of the natural inequalities which would largely disappear under free condi- tions; just as inequalities of productive power in different countries are levelled by free trade. Culture, not soil, is the basic factor in disparity of'production. Different soils megt the varying demands of varying crops. The free use of fertilizers and the generous feeding of the soil largely determines its productivity. YVhen the Mormons first settled; in the valley of the Great Salt Lake the soil appeared to‘ be absolutely barren, so that a mountaineer, named Bridger, offered $1,000 for-the first ear of corn produced in the valley. Irrigation and in- dustry converted that alkaline desert into a garden, and “created a soul under the ribs of Death.” Natural inequalities need not worry us, but unnatural, law-created inequalities must be destroyed. Both rent and interest represent returns of labor diverted A from the laborer to the monopolist. Both are, in fact, cap- italism, for it is generally conceded that rent and interest 163 are birds of a feather. Both are exploiters of labor and must be abolished ere labor can get justice. / Thus the Single Tax, instead’ of appropriating an un- earned increment, appropriates the earnings of labor. - Henry George states that “rent is the price of monopoly;” therefore, a tax based upon rent depends upon the perpetua- tion of monopoly. The. Single Tax is not possible under monopoly, because the Single Tax and monopoly could not co-exist. Just in proportion to the tax levied upon land values would be the destruction of such values, and when the full value was taxed away from the monopolist the full value would disap- pear. Again, I say, the Single Tax is impossible. What then, you will ask, is the true economic remedy for poverty, in accord with the spirit of progress, as revealed by tihe adamantine principles of political economy? It is this :— _ The restoration of natural ‘capital to labor, and the abo- lition of privilege. _This gives to labor, on the one hand, independence in production, and on the other freedom in exchange. W'hat stands in the way of this remedy? The State!— whose statutes support present conditions. The State!— wfiich impedes exchange. The Statel—whose statutes render possible rent of land, and rent of money. The State !—which Mr. George would endow with further power of mischief. The Statexl—which, through compulsory and ever-increasing» taxation, threatens our liberties. ,“The power of taxationtish the very essence of despotism.” The State !—which _Mr. Buckle calls the great blackmailer, and whose laws interfere with evolution, and nurture revolution. The State!—of which Roger Q. Mills recently wrote as follows: “The his- tory of paternal government in all ages and among all races of men, portrays it as a cruel, relentless step-father, robbing, oppressing and enslaving those whom the caprices of fortune have placed in its power. It penetrates every department of private life, with its intermeddling hand; it regulates reli~ / 164 gious opinions, personal habits, industrial occupation, rates of wages, places of residence, manner of living, the clothing we wear, the food we eat, the prices we pay, and the market in which we deal. 7 “In Europe, where kingscraft is statescraft, the monarch teaches his people that he is an ambassador sent by God; that he was born with boots and spurs on, and they with saddles on their backs. “This is the statescraft that in Europe has ruled states and ruined peoples, and unless stamped out of existence in this continent will accomplish the same disastrous results for us. The difference between paternalism there and here is that, in one case the oppression may come from one, and in the other may come from millions; but, whether by one or many, its pernicious results are the same.” In the. same strain writes Thoreau: “I heartily accept that motto, ‘that government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it'acted.’ up to more rapidly, and, systematically 'carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, ‘that government is best which governs not at all,’ and when men are prepared for it that is the kind of government they will have.” How can we ever reach this desirable condition under the Single Tax, which is the worst suggestion of paternalism that has ever been presented for the approval of the American‘ people? No effective remedy for poverty and economic- evils is possible unless it accords with the demonstrated principles of political economy. This remedy which I present does so accord, and it pos- sesses an element of grandeur in its very simplicity. The flat of science posits the wrong, and points the remedy. It seeks natural conditions, finds them, and seeks to restore them to labor. With the restoration of a true capital to labor and free- dom in exchange, equality of opportunity is guaranteed, and the enjoyment by labor of the wealth it creates is assured. 165 You will observe that, as usual, I have read you a' lesson in Anarchy. \ I wish I could convey to you the full meaning of that ‘)cautiful word. But time does not permit. But I beg you to remember this, that the Anarchist does not believe in the abolition of law. It is because he is so im- pressed with the grandeur, immutability and perfect justice of universal law that he scorns that parody of justice, hu- man law. - He desires emancipation from the trammels of human laws, that he may be free to get plumb with a. perfect uni- verse. He aflirms human imperfection, consequently denies hu- ' man authority. Cornered by Anarchistic logic, the objector takes refuge in th‘: position that human imperfection renders government ‘necessary. ' ' Liberty would be dangerous, he asserts. It is just because of imperfection that the government of man by man should cease. A man unfit for Anarchy, incapable of self-government, should never be endowed with power over his fellow-men. A man fit for self-government never desires to rule, and refuses to he ruled. Hemmed in by human law, the imperfect man loses sight of universal law; the standard of right is obscured by might and compulsion, and conduct isgauged by statute law instead of by the eternal principles of justice. _ Unconscious evolution into harmony with universal jus- tice is prevented, and evils grow until they become explosive. A man who is not an Anarchist prefers the decrees of bungling legislators to the decrees of omnipotence. Any form of association which men voluntarily join and sustain, any restriction to which men voluntarily sub- mit, any expense which they voluntarily incur, any direction or guidance to which they voluntarily bow, not by majority, but by individual consent, any contract between free agents, 166 any differences in opinions, creed, or no creed, from which cJmpulsion is eliminated, are Anarchistic. Every man should be non-invasive, insisting on non-in— vasion, and should write over his Ego: “No trespass allowed.” “Keep off the grass.” “Mind your own business." Anarchy would never suppress the Single Taxer. The Single Taxer aims with his ballot to invade every Anarchist occupier and user of land. I will again quote from Mr. George, page 477: “To turn a republican government into a despotism, the basest and most brutal, it is not necessary to formally change its constitution or abandon popular elections. It was centuries after Caesar before ‘the absolute master of thevRoman world pretended to rule other than by authority of a senate that trembled before him. “But forms are nothing when substance is gone, and the forms cf popular government are those from which the sub- 1stance of freedom may most easily go. “Extremes meet, and a government of universal suffrage and theoretical equality may, under conditions which impel the change, most readily become a despotism. For there, despotism advances in the name and with the might of the people. “The single source of power once secured, everything is secured.” This government, that may so insidiously and effect- ively merge into a despotism, has control already of the financial system of the country; in other words, controls ex- change. Mr. George would further increase its malevolent infiu~ ence by giving it control of ‘the one and only source of pro— duction—land. I The money system has been farmed out to the national banks under a system which enables them to collect interest on their debts; and‘which, through expansion and contract . i 167 tion of credit, scoop in periodically the earnings of labor. What is to hinder the farming out, as in Russia, of large tracts of land and the reduction of American farmers to serfdom? Tramp laws will prevent escape from the serf- dom and the exactions of officialism. Now, finally, listen to Proudhon: “Unless industrial or— ganization and, therefore, political reform brings about an equality of fortunes, evil is inherent in police institutions, as in the idea of charity which gave them birth. In short, that the state, whatever form it affects, aristocratic or theocratic, monarchical or republican, until it shall have become the obedient and submissive organ of a society of equals, would be for the people an inevitable hell—I had almost said a de- served damnation.” _ And yet, I suppose, in spite of the fact of the impossi- bility of the Single: Tax, the propaganda will still go on and multitudes be misled by the eloquence and platitudes of the “heavenly twins,” Mr. George) and Dr. McGlynn, look~ ing for the realization, under taxation, of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Almost every rasoally tyrant and exploiter that has ever lived has claimed the fatherhood of God. Kings and queens and popes rule by the grace of God, Larring any human right, and presidents rule- by the vox, populi, which is apotheosized into vox dei, under which -divine suporific the brotherhood of man vanishes, and the powers that be, when approached by the vox populi for the- redress of grievances, cut off the heads of the petitioners or kick them down the steps of their own capitol and order them off their own grass. Those who think taxation is the fraternal lever that shall “lift civilization to yet nobler heights” will find that their dreams of bread and fish will materialize in stones and scor— pions. They will get gas for water and water for gas, be turned off their own streets by monopolies, and their road to the heaven of liberty will be blocked by a political hell. Having reached this conclusion, is there not some ground 168' for the following opinion, which was expressed by John F. Kelly in a criticism of the protection and free-trade theories of Mr. Henry George: “That in Mr. Henry George liberty has one of her bitterest and ablest foes.” I leave you to judge. 169 - Free Trade. FROM AN ANARCHISTIC STANDPOINT. To the lover of freedom Free Trade comes as a man with an honest, open face, who inspiresimmediate confidence. You take his hand with pleasure, needing no formal intro- duction. Anti-free trade breathes'of restriction, restraint, formality, espionage and officialism; of the unnatural, arti- ficial and impertinent, leading to discrimination, privilege and monopoly. - The less we allow of governmental interference outside of the very limited sphere of its natural functions, the safer are our liberties and the more substantial are our material progress and prosperity. _ V . That government is the best which governs least. Thus have taught the lovers of liberty,among them J efferson,Paine, Emerson, Thoreau, Mill, Algernon, Herbert’ and Herbert Spencer: On the other hand, the thoughtless multitude turn to government as a sort of panacea, and the result is inva- sions of liberty and officious meddling in a multitude of ways with concerns entirely outside of the province of gov- ernment, ‘ This tendency to paternalism is manifested in one of many ways, by legislation upon commercial questions, and by the attempt to foster, contrary to natural order, indus< 170 ~ tries which, if left to themselves, would rise or fall upon their own intrinsic merits or demerits. I The result is, that our industries, like our land and money systems, are dependent, not upon natural conditions, but upon unnatural conditions—the creation of legislation. Government at the best is a necessary evil,—some think it unnecessary. XVitness our own, which upholds a monopoly of money; has squandered most recklessly the inheritance of its people in the land; has neglected, under antagonistic religious influences, the education of our children; has fos~ tered monopolies, and is honeycombed with corruption. Then why hand over our industries to this unfaithful, incompe- ient steward? Supposing the goverment to be a necessity, and that tax- LtlOl'l is a reasonable‘ outcome of such necessity, even then the tariff for revenue is the most expensive, pernicious and discriminating system of taxation ever devised. It supports, at the expense of industry, an army of office-holders with Whom corruption is a science. ' The Russian lecturer, Stepniac, said recently: “The Czar is not the supreme ruler you people here think he is. It is in the 'vast body of officials that the power for evil really lies, and it is from them the horrible outrages really pro— ceed.” Human nature being about. the same 'in all lands, offi- cialism here will in time be just as malevolent as in Russia. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Jefferson, in saying this, had in mind the great enemy of liberty—the state. Keep it as powerless for evil as possible by relent- lessly limiting its functions. The tariff is an extension of its ' functions, and as such is condemned. It supports the asser- tion of Voltaire that governments mainly exist to take as ‘ much as possible from one part of the people to give it to another part. The fundamental principle of human solidarity is equality of condition and burdens. The tariff institutes unequal bur- dens. It endows the few with the proceeds of the robbery »f the many. 4 economic effects of anti-free trade are very difiicult to trace. We are apt to confuse cause and effect- A “A purblind mole bored underneath a stone— A castle’s corner-stone; then there came a storm And swept the stronghold to the ground, and men Wondered that the Wind should have such power to smite.” We attribute to the wind the work of the mole. But there are principles which should guide us to a correct understanding of the general influence of tariff legislation. We know, for instance, how pending legislation on this question disturbs and paralyzes business. “Te know how money and influence are used to forward selfish ends by legislation. _ We know that wages do not depend upon profits, but upon competition in the labor market, under which con- ditions the “iron law” prevails and wages tend to the mini- mum, even with profits at a maximum. - We know that discontent, unrest and resultant strikes‘ are greatest in the districts depending upon so-called pro- tected industries. lVe‘know that if we kill foreign manufactures by a tariff, the operatives from abroad come here to compete with our own operatives with ruinous results. We know also that the tariff may be evaded by the rich, Ex-cursionists to Europe spend millions A rich man can takenhis family to Europe and come back the richer but not by the poor. there, which, under free trade, would be spent here. for his trip under our tariff. If, instead of the government helping to sustain indus- tries at a loss, the industries were allowed to take their normal course of growth and development, it would be much better for all interested. If wages were reduced in competition with foreign pro~ ducts, the natural result would be a reduced price of the product of such reduced ‘Wages. In other words, reduced wages would meet reduced cost of living. But the tariff 172 enhances cost of living and does not prevent reduction in wages, in fact, by encouraging immigration it tends to re- duction of wages. . ' . ' _ There is no true philosophy or ‘logic in taxing labor for its benefit. Such‘ a theory reminds one of Tom Moore's donkey. “A donkey whose talents for burdens was wondrous, So much that you’d swear he rejoiced in a load, Once had to jog under panniers so pondrous, That down the poor donkey fell, slap in the road.” His owners and drivers gathered around him, wondering at his collapse and speculating as to its cause. Ori‘e wise- head suggested that he needed a sound metal basis, another that an overproduction of thistles was the cause of his fall-— and so on. Meanwhile the poor donkey lay helpless under his load. A simple minded countryman came along and startled the -wiseacres by a very simple remedy for the trouble. .“Take off his panniers,” said he, “or your donkey will soon breathe his last.” Anti-free traders believe in loading on more panniers. There is much conflicting testimony as to the actual con- dition of the working classes in free trade and anti-free trade :ountries, but there is abundant evidence of widely extend- ng misery and poverty in all countries. In this country it a very natural that in some respects the condition of labor iould be better than in the old world. In food products he .gures us a larger consumer, but in manufactured products, ..‘ch as clothing, and in home comfort and facilities for leap pleasures he is away behind most other countries. The condition of factory operatives, especially in our .rger cities, is not calculated to excite our pridey And it is :e same the world over. Long hours, poor wages, un- ealthy conditions and social demoralization are generally . Jaracteristics of factory populations. The farmer is certainly robbed by the tariff. The late S. Cox, the witty New York Congressman, once illustrated l the blessings that the farmer derived from the tariff by words similar to these. He said: "The farmer arises in the morning and, if he be a good, pious Christian, he kneels upon' a carpet taxed 100 per cent. to say his prayers; reads a chapter from his Bible, which book is taxed 35 per cent.; puts on a cheap,coat taxed 45 per cent. over a flannel shirt taxed 80 per cent.; steps into shoes taxed 35 per cent. and goes to his breakfast. He eats from a plate taxed 40 per cent.; sweetens his coffee with sugar taxed 70 per cent.; seasons his meat with salt taxed 130 per cent; puts on his hat taxed 70 per cent.; saunters out and smokes his pipe,— the tobacco taxed 100 per cent. He finds his horse needs a shoe. which is nailed on with nails taxed 67 per cent.; driven in by a hammer taxed 57 per cent.; cuts a switch from a tree with a knife taxed 50 per cent.; gets out his plow taxed 60 per cent.; fastens his horse to it with trace chains taxed 67 per cent.; at night he goes to bed between sheets taxed 58 per cent.; under blankets taxed 80 per cent.” ' Let me add to the witty Congressman’s words: The farmer goes to sleep, to dream of unpaid mortgages on' his farm and interest maturing. He gets his products to market over monopolized railroads, which tax him ‘fall the traffic will bear.” There the money-kings corner them, and make their millions, which they invest in farm mortgages, &c. For all these blessings the farmer is truly grateful,‘and every glorious Fourth of July he manifests his patriotism by a grand display of bunting (taxed 150 per cent). He raises I the national banner and listens to the spread-eagle grandilo- quence of his representative highwayman. "See, where the glorious banner floats Upon the untaxed air; The only thing which, by the way, Fails of a tariff there. The Stars and Stripes, the poles, the ropes, The stuff and dye we see, Are tariff taxed, and yet ’tis called 'The emblem of the free.’ ” 174 We build a Chinese wall around the country to create an artificial home market, losing a natural home and foreign market. Our exports are largely composed of goods sold for- export below cost of production. The most anomalous condi- tions accrue that no principles of equitable exchange can ex- plain—American products, for instance, selling in the foreign markets at less than they bring in home markets. The fact of the matter is, we are being outrageously humbugged by the misnomer protection. YVe need protection, not from foreign paupers, but from domestic rascals. Under proper economic conditions, with our immense natural advantages, we could develop varied industries rap- idly, naturally and upon a solid, substantial basis, entirely independent of legislation. » But this anti-free trade sentiment is a product of econo- mic evils, such as monopolized money and land and char-- tered monopolies, &c. It offers a false remedy, a quack remedy, for a real evil. Under the cry of “protection to- American industries” monopoly has stolen our birthright. The tariff is intensely immoral. It is based upon the- principle of the greatest good to the least number. The prin- ciple of the greatest good to the greatest number is bad enough. Exact justice to each individual is the only ‘truly moral principle. ' I question if there is any ultimate good to any one in a tariff. If it fosters industry (which I question), it is at the expense of energy, honesty and stability. It makes it a child of a corrupt state and a. target for political blackmail, in- stead of an independent, social and economic entity. It is an obstacle in the way of an universal brotherhood of man, and an element of international discord. Free trade in its fullest sense has never yet existed. Free land and free money,are essentials of free trade, as is also the abolition of compulsory taxation. ’ Under present conditions monopoly of land restricts pro- duction, as does also taxation. Money monopoly restricts exchange. The latter monopoly renders restriction of imports a vital necessity, and creates that absurdity of commerce, a balance of trade. For, if imports are largely in excess of exports and the balance has to be paid in gold, the outflow of gold will upset the currency machine and cause contracted credits and stag- nation in business. ‘ Free money would permit the free export of gold, as of any other commodities, and the exchanges then would of ne— cessity be even. Free trade is Anarchy! It belongs to the cause of liberty and is in line with the highest aspirations of humanity, which, more and more, revolt from restraint and oflicialism and reach forth for perfect freedom, for untrammelled con- ditions. 176 Persecution. This evening, in the City of Brotherly Love, this Quaker City born of persecution, I shall talk to you about persecu- tions in general, and the persecution of the Quakers in par- ticular. I . The mistakes of the past shall be an object lesson for the present. All history is a resonant protest against the government of man by man, and an unanswerable plea for the autonomy of the individual,—for his absolute freedom. Man is stunted and paralyzed by oppression—the oppres- sion of tyrant, of priest, of majorities or of grundyism. His periods of fruition are those of strife and revolt, of deed or thought. Great men are then thrust (or spring) to the front, and lead mankind in the demolition of some detestable Bastile that bars the road to progress. Revolution is the travail of liberty. These successive revolts should be object lessons to humanity, and yet history ever repeats itself, and in ‘every- age stagnant conservatism faces the prophets of progress, refusing to bend to evolution, inviting the blast of revolution. Among the most persistent enemies of progress, the most persistent, I think, is persecution. The most fruitful parent of persecution is religion,—the 177 belief in the supernatural. The supernatural, being entirely beyond the range of human’conception, has been, and is, the altar upon which man has laid the most revolting, the most absurd, and the most malevolent fruits of his imagina— tion. Under its influence men become fiends; no cruelty is too inhuman, no torture too ingenious, no death too horrible for its adamantine spirit of intolerance. The history of persecutions is a record of blunders. W'ould that a resurrection of the world’s martyrs could take place; they, if any, deserve-a second earthly term. Jesus the Nazarene, despised and rejected by man, for- saken (as he lamented) by God, would arise to find himself worshipped by millions, and the cross—the then emblem of degradation—beneath which he stumbled on his wayv to Calvary, now proudly worn by earth’s most powerful poten- tates. ' Poor old Galileo, driven to deny what-he knew‘ to be a scientific fact,—what honors would be his to-day! The martyred Bruno, rising from his ashes, would behold his statue facing the Vatican. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, who was ridiculed and abused, would be welcomed in the choicest circles of medical scientists. Aristotle, worried to death, would find his philosophy card with delight, and his name high on the scroll of fame. Socrates, sentenced to death as a "corrupter of youth,” vould find his virtues and intelligence duly appreciated, and iis name revered. The Gods, for the denial of Whom he suffered, have all vanished into the niches of mythology. )ne only appears to have survived, and his existence is rurely hypothetical. Bigotry and persecution, born of religion, vent their spleen on books as well as men. Persians burned Phoenician books. Romans burned fewish books, Christian books, and the books of the philoso- ‘phers. Jews burned Christian and Pagan books. Christians burned the famous Alexandrian library. Christian mis- 178 'sionaries, in Mexico, destroyed records of infinite value, leav- ing a hiatus in New World history. The monks destroyed, mutilated, interpolated and forged the precious works of the ancients, including that interesting collection of books called the Bible. Infallible popes burned invaluable collections of books, like rats devouring greenbacks. Puritan-Comstockian insanity was like a huge whitewash brush, obliterating treasures of art for the Glory of God, and the glut of a morbid theology. Enough! Oh, religion, what crimes have been committed in thy name! ' “Oh, God of mercy,” cried Voltaire, “if any man can resemble that malignant being who is described as actually employed in the destruction of thy works, is it not the perse- cutor?” . Theology, “that science of the infinitely absurd,” as Proudhon calls it, is like! a dog in the manger, refusing to be enlightened itself, and denying the beneficent light of reason and art to others. Persecutors are a compound of zeal, ignorance and arro- gance. They are nearly all, like Brutus, honorable, sincere men;.Do you think, if they were not sincere, that they would have allowed the erection of monuments commemorat- ing their cruel deeds, as, for instance, the tomb of one of the inquisitors at Saragossa, in Spain, with six pillars, to each of which was chained the figure of a Moor ready to be burned? “A' splendid tomb for a Jack Ketch” (or hangman) as the historian observed. The integrity of. Charles V of Spain was unquestioned, and his zeal for the faith cost 50,000 to 100,000 Netherlanders their lives. Philip II was not quite so industrious in the service of God, but he murdered 18,000 people, besides-those slain in battle. Hundreds of thousands of the highly civilized Moors, 0r Moriscoes, of Spain, were killed during the expulsion of 179 0 presence of the Egyptians. that people from Spain; and the Archbishop of Valencia said grace with a satisfied soul on top of these atrocities. The misguided fiends of the Inquisition all quoted scripture while burning and torturing heretics, infidels and Jews. ‘ About 100,000 victims of religious bigotry go to the credit ofthe Holy Inquisition—that “ecclesiastical jurisdiction,” as Voltaire calls it. French bigotry drove her silk-weavers into England, thereby establishing one of the most important of English industries. Ages of persecution and robbery, of which the Hebrews were the victims, taught that wonderful race the power of gold. Never secure from spoliation, they naturally hoarded wealth of the least bulk and greatest value—gold, silver and precious stones. With their rod of gold they have accom- plished more wonders than did Aaron with his rod in the Through this rod, evils more in- tense than the plagues of Egypt afi‘lict the commercial world; and through it they have spoiled and are spoiling the Gentiles of every land. Seated on a golden throne, the Hebrew‘ dominates the world. He has effectually turned the tables upon his perse- we must admire him, even though we squirm under the yoke. While we have been worshipping a Hebrew Man- God, which the Hebrews reject, they have bound us hand and foot to their “golden calf.” These frightful ‘blunders in the past should make us hate the very semblance of persecution. Liberty should succeed intolerance. Respect should succeed insult. Fellowship should succeed ostracism. - Love should succeed hate. Patient investigation should succeed hasty denunciation. The Deist should shake hands with the Atheist, Chris- tian with Jew. ' Let us enjoy our differences of opinion as we do the cutors. \ 180 I ' varied phenomena ‘of nature, united .in one thing—the Pur- suit of Truth and Justice. Now, as to Quaker persecutions: It was in the seventeenth century, about the year 1642, that George Fox, a native of Leicestershire, England, son of a silk-weaver, began to preach Quakerism. He attacked the clergy and the soldiers—a degenerate state—religion, and that iniquity, War. The soldiers, whose trade is war, let him alone; but the clergy, who preach a gospel of peace and human brother- hood, began tol persecute him. He was arrested and taken before a Justice of the Peace. (What nice names these servants of the devil have! JUSTICE! JUSTICE! PEACE! PEACE!) The Justice ordered him to remove his hat from his head. He refused to do so. He was rudely smitten on the cheek. He turned the other cheek to the brute and begged another dose for the “love of God.” Refusing to be sworn, he was whipped in a mad-house, asking for a repetition of the merciless stripes for the good of his soul, which favor was viciously granted. But, oh! resistlcss power of a‘lofty soul! his fervor and enthusiasm converted his tormentors, who became his first disciplesf This maligned, calumniated human heart, how responsive it is to good, after all! Preaching, sandwiched in with whippings, filled the life of ' this sincere man. Nothing could stop him. One day he was put in the stocks, and in that degraded condition he preached to the people and converted fifty, who took him out and put a vicar (who had caused his punish- ment) in his place. This incident is inconsistent with the meekness of Fox, and is simply an illustration of religious inconsistency. Fox believed he was inspired. He would tremble and make contortions, retaining his breath, and respiring vio-. lently. From this habit the name Quaker originated. 181 Another great Quaker was William Penn, only son of Sir William Penn, Vice-Admiral of England. He was converted at the age of fifteen. His father disowned him until about to die, when he forgave him and left him a large fortune. The Crown owed the estate a large sum, in satisfaction of which, in 1680, the: government gave him a grant of land on the banks of the .Delaware. . With two Shiploads of- emigrants he went to his new territory, and, by a c harter granted him in 1681, he was made sovereign of this unsettled wilderness, which is now the great State of Pennsylvania. He began by making a league, or treaty, with the Indians. “This,” says Voltaire, “was the only treaty between these people and the Christians, which was not sworn, and the only ‘one which has never been broken.” He formulated a code of laws granting civil liberty; absolute prohibition of advocates taking fees, and liberty of conscience never before‘ conceded. Freedom, as ‘in Philadel- phia to-day, stopped at the denial of a Supreme Being,— “One only Eternal ‘God Almighty,” notwithstanding that then, as now, the existence‘ of that Being cannot be proven, and is entirely conjectural. These primitiveChristians, the most democratic sect the world ever saw, thouing king or coal-heaver with impar- tiality, living in extreme simplicity; a church without priests, non-invasive; hating war, because, said they, “we are neither wolves, tigers nor bull-dogs, but'men and Christians;" never in law suits; truthful and reliable, without oaths to bind them, these primitives were for many years denounced as all that is bad, ‘enemies of law and religion, and were sub- jected to as demoniacal a persecution as the venom of a religion, state-proud and corrupt, could devise. ' The clergy of the Established Church led this crusade against this excellent people. Where the greatest sum in tithes was endangered, ‘there the vindicativeness of the clergy was most manifest. Smash the whole thirty-nine articles, but touch not the tithes of the church! 182 Their victims were imprisoned for refusing to pay tithes and Easter offerings to the National Church. They were excommunicated for non-attendance at Na- tional worship; some were imprisoned for years. ‘ They were fined for speaking at burials, and even for praying. Men and women were publicly whipped. They were imprisoned for wearing their hats in court, and for re fusing to swear. Their meetings were broken up by the soldiery without any warrant. “This is our warrant," said the soldiers, pointing to their weapons. Soldiers desecrated their burial-grounds, and tore down the-walls enclosing them. Their books were stolen and burned by the common hangman; and the ministers of the state church became veritable highwaymen, robbing widows and orphans and the sick, taking beds from under them, causing untold misery and suffering, and even abetting murder, in their bigotry and The spirit of persecution spread like a pestilence to the New VVorld,—to New England, which was peopled by men who, themselves, had bcendriven from the Old World by the fires of persecution. WVhat an illustration the Puritans furnish of the inevita— ble trend of religion to intolerance. These men, flying from uniformity, made a law in 1646 enforcing uniformity, imposing a fine. of five- pounds per week on those who came not to hear the established ministers. Their hatred of Quaker tenets was intense, and when, in 1656, two women-Quakers came to Boston from Barbadoes, they were imprisoned, their trunks searched and their books forfeited. Orders of Councils, in Boston, prohibited the “cursed sect of heretics” from coming to New England, imposing fines for importing books containing their “devilish opinions,” and other penalties, which embraced cutting off the ears; slavery, imprisonment, whippings, and finally a Boston council de- creed death as the penalty for the i‘ return of banished Quakers to Boston. ’ 183 Noble men and women,—.these Quakers stood before the demons of the world, the flesh and the devil, with folded arms, dignified mien and undaunted courage, ultimately win- ning recognition of their virtues, and liberty for their con- sciences, by sheer force of character. “Stronger than steel, Is the sword of the spirit; - Swifter than arrows, The light of the truth is; Greater than anger, Is love that subdueth.” These persecutions covered a period of about forty years, and wore themselves out, as most persecutions do, by their impotence. They extended over England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent of Europe, parts of the American Colonies, and the West Indies Islands. - The-y began with the advent of Fox, and appear to have ended with the founding of this State of Pennsylvania. Penn’s means and influence were potent for good. The only people who treated the Quakers with justice and friend— liness were the Turks. Christians, everywhere, with that peculiar inconsistency . for which their religion is remarkable, added fuel to the fires of persecution. But they fought an idea. They used carnal weapons to fight the spirit of progress. They failed to conquer the idea! In the mind, not in the arm, is the dynamic force of the Universe! Persecution and ignorance are twin evils, and just as the mists of ignorance are dissipated by the sun of intelligence, so will persecution give place to toleration, or better still, liberty! _ The present has its victims of persecution. Ezra Hey- wood, the talented editor and author, was imprisoned and hounded to his death, and his family beggared by intolerance _ 184 and Comstockian persecution in the cradle of liberty, Boston. (Well called cradle,—for liberty is still in‘ its infancy.) Persecution put a rope round the neck of Garrison in the streets of the same city. Persecution breeds White Caps in the West. Persecution imprisoned Harmon, the aged, inoffensive ed- itor of “Lucifer,” for his earnest efforts for sexual freedom and Woman emancipation. Persecution hanged four men for Anarchy, under the pre- tense of a crime, in Chicago, and kept three excellent, stu- dious, inoffensive men in Joliet Penitentiary for six years, under a life sentence, their release and complete vindication proceeding from the Governor of Illinois, who is a deep stu- dent. of penology,—the brave and just John P. Alt-geld. Persecution held three men in Moyamensing Prison, while their families were in want, for denying the God hypothesis which the combined wisdom of the Bench cannot prove to \ be a fact. Persecution has imprisoned Mormons and despoiled the Mormon Church in order to stamp out polygamy and stamp in prostitution. _ WVomen and men are persecuted by a false moral code de~ nying to each the fruition of his or her being, and, in an in- sane effort to dam] the course of nature, breeds discord and infanticide.‘ _ Persecution interfered with a most interesting and suc~ cessful social experiment at Oneida, N. Y. These are some modern manifestations of mistaken zeal; modified manifestations of the same demoniacal spirit that led Quaker women to the Whipping-post and gallows, and her- etics, Jews and witches to- the stake. , ‘ The persecutions of the past are impossible to-day in their 6% old-time ferocity, and if we only possess the requisitev pa- _ tience the leaven of liberty will steadily shape the condi- tions that environ us. Institutions in conflict with liberty must, one by one, pass away. 185 Liberty is not a declaration, or even an inspiration, it is a science. ' John Stuart Mill says: “If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person was of a contrary opin~ ion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing all mankind.” The recognition of this great truth kills persecution, and, even the tyranny of majorities, through that immoral weapon of political gamblers—the ballot. I refer to the ballot in this connection for the reason that so many people still pin their faith to it. It was a Quaker who said “every ballot is a bullet.” I aflirm that tyranny and persecution are possible, and almost certain, under the operations of the ballot. _ Each one of you who persistently advocates the ballot is a tyrant in fact or in embryo. You hope to suppress and 'control-others by the power of majorities. Your aim may be good in the abstract, but a system, under which the vote of Judas Iscariot is as elfect- ive as the vote of Jesus Christ, will never effect great re- forms. ,_ The autonomy of the. individual can. only be secured un- der absolutely free conditions; when every man is a major- ity in himself. Our friends, who so dread freedom, would be-slow to af- firm that they, themselves, needed suppression and restric- tion. It is always others who would do the great mischief they dread. I again assert that you who affirm the ballot are‘ tyrants in fact or in embryo; you are aiding and abetting persecution of minorities by majorities,—-of the individual by the multi- tude. “Every ballot is a bullet." Now I will lay dowri a few conclusions suggested by my subject. Persecution always has law on its side, never justice! Inference :—Law and justice are frequently antagonistic. 186 Persecution always fails of its object, and physical force is absolutely unable to cope with an idea. Inference:—Legislation, supplemented by brute force, is ‘ futile and ridiculous when applied to the suppression of an idea. Ideas are evolutionary, legislation is stationary. Inferencez—Legislation and evolution are antagonistic. Religion, moralsfeconomics and all mental manifesta- tions are evolutionary. _ - Inference :—Legislation in religion, morals, economics and all mental manifestations is mischievous. . Crime is the violation of legislative enactments. Inference:—-Abolition oil such enactments eliminates crime. Social disorders would exist without legislation. Inferencez—Social disorders are not crimes. Social disorders are like physical disorders, the products _of violated natural order. ' Inferencez—Social disorder is not crime, but disease. Experience, under free conditions, discovers the princi- ples of natural order. _ Inference:——Liberty (free conditions) is the mother ~of order. Liberty is Anarchy! Now, a final tribute to the Quakers! If all the people of the world were Quakers, wars and rumors of wars would cease. Military glory has no attrac~ tion for them. They do not enthuse over implements of slaughter nor in the parade of armies. They need no police. They need no marriage laws. They need no oaths, and the lawyers would starve among Quakers. They are frugal, industrious, temperate, charitable and unobtrusive. ' \ Their children are not manufactured into hoodlums in public schools, nor into hypocrites in the Sunday schools 187 -Flnal~ly, these “pernicious, cursed” Quakers are honored ~ by all men. The state and the church that wronged.them, sink into oblivion, slowly but surely.- In their places shall arise the Temples of Liberty, Equal- ity and Fraternity. Now remaineth these three, ‘which, blended into one com- prehensive ‘whole, is Anarchy. ~ r '7'! O, a.» ‘1.: run-.33.!- __. 7031 I: .1... .2. .1. . _ 71L§Liv~ilttt ~....w;fa.. .._1