Month: August 2016

Anarchist Beginnings

Albert R. Parsons on Anarchy (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
“In the effort of the prosecution to hold up our opinions to public execration they lost sight of the charge of murder. Disloyalty to their class, and their boasted civilization is in their eyes a far greater crime than murder. “Anarchy, in the language of Grinnell, is simply a compound of robbery, incendiarism and murder. This is the official statement of Mr. Grinnell, and against his definition of anarchy I would put that of Mr. Webster. I think that is pretty near as good authority as that gentleman’s. “What is anarchy? What is the nature of the dreadful thing-this anarchy, […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Lucy E. Parsons on Anarchy (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
From Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of Its Apostles [We are frequently asked, ‘what is anarchy and what do the anarchists want?’ We are free to confess that in all we have read and heard from anarchists about how they expected to attain their ends, we never read or heard just what those ends were. In an interview with the New York World, Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons, the well-known lecturess in this new school of social economy, gave the most succinct account we have ever seen; and in answer to the question, ‘what is anarchy,’ […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Dyer D. Lum, “On Anarchy” (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
I—WHAT IS ANARCHY. The statesman, intent on schemes to compromise principles and tide over clamorous demands for justice, says it is disorder and spoliation. New taxes are then levied to defend the state, to repress incendiary talk, and protect privileged prerogatives. Or false and surface issues are prepared to distract attention, to embroil citizens in partisan quarrels, and furnish new offices for the spoils-hunter. The people pay the bills and the statesman remains. The priest, intent on saving souls, and setting less value on temporal things—for others—says it is abolition of marriage, atheism, and draws a frightful picture of a […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Lane, “An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto” (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
“In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with its abuse. The thing – the thing itself is the abuse !” – Burke GENERAL PRINCIPLES Human society can only be organized upon the basis of one or the other of the two principles of authority or of liberty. From these two principles are derived two political systems, equally broad and far reaching, though diametrically opposite in their effects, that of the one being the happiness, and of the other the misery of mankind. Beyond these two there is no political system capable […]
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Anarchist Beginnings

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
With the anthology, Anarchist Beginnings: Declarations and Professions of Faith, 1840-1920, well on its way to completion and the connected study, A Good Word: Anarchy in All its Senses, starting to take a more definite shape, it seems like a good time to collect the various related texts and get back to the project of building the larger library of introductory texts around which the ANARCHISMS pamphlet series was originally based. Anarchist Beginnings is the newest collection in the Libertarian Labyrinth archive, and you should find lots of interesting texts there relating to the most fundamental questions regarding anarchy and […]
Anarchist Beginnings

David Andrade, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Anarchy! There is no word which conjures up such feelings of terror to so many who hear it; nor is there one which so raises the hopes of those who ever see so little to hope for. It makes their eyes glisten, their blood course a little faster than usual, and they once more clutch at that almost forlorn hope of a “good time coming.” Never in modern times has an idea, of such revolutionary nature and such weighty import, so seized upon the mind of man, as that which the great French philosopher first promulgated less than a half […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Hugh O. Pentecost, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Delivered on June 30, 1889 to the Unity Congregation at Newark, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Published in Twentieth Century on July 4, 1889 — The Editor] Good people who hold opinions not commonly understood generally have a bad name. The world is ready to believe almost anything of a man except that he is a genuinely good man. If his life is stainless but unconventional, the world suspects some hidden shame or base motive. So far are most people from understanding or desiring what is true and right that the highest truth is often believed to be the lowest lie, and […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Robert Harding, “The A B C of Anarchism” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE A B C OF ANARCHISM. (No. 1) BY ROBERT HARDING. The Itinerant Street Lecturer. [NOTE.—No connection with a gentleman named R. Harding, who lectures on behalf of the Social Democratic Federation. This is mentioned from no disrespect either to that gentleman or to the Federation, but to guard against the confusion of two divergent sets of doctrines.] Q. What is Anarchism? A. Anarchism (theory) is the doctrine which denies the expediency, morality and justice of compelling men to do even that which it is right they should do. Anarchism (practice) is (a) the renunciation of the desire to compel […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Labadie, “Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not” (1890s)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
So you want me to tell you what Anarchism is, do you? I can do no less than make the attempt, and in my own simple way try to make you understand at least that it is not what the uninformed and the capitalistic newspapers, liars, fools and villains generally say it is. In the first place, let me urge upon all who desire to learn the truth about Anarchism not to go to its enemies for information, but to talk with Anarchists and read anarchistic literature. And it is not always safe to take what one, two or even […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Louise Michel, “Why we are Anarchists” (1891)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
We are Anarchists because it is absolutely impossible to obtain justice for all in any other way than by destroying institutions founded on force and privilege. We cannot believe that improvement is possible, if we still keep up the same institutions, now more rotten than in the past, or if we merely replace those whose iniquities are known by new men. These latter become in their turn what the others were, or else become barren. After the gradual changes of past centuries the hour has come when evolution cannot be separated from revolution, as in all birth they must be […]