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“Voltairine De Cleyre at Greensburg” (1893)

August 11, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

For the Boston Investigator. VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE AT GREENSBURG. Mr. Editor:—In the little city of Greensburg, some thirty miles east of Pittsburgh, there are a few brave, strong souls who are making war on God and his adjutants with a zeal which only those who have a principle at heart can do. About a month ago your subscriber, being invited to deliver a lecture under the auspices of their union, found herself shaking hands with the ungodly trinity of officers one April night, after a long day’s ride though the perpetual wonder of the Alleghany mountains. Very sad, gray-brown, sorrowful […]

“Justice and Jehovah” (1888)

August 11, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

“JUSTICE AND JEHOVAH.” The Address of Miss Voltairine De Cleyre Before the Cleveland Secular Union Miss Voltairine De Cleyre of Grand Rapids addressed the Secular union in the Memorial hall last evening on the subject of “Justice and Jehovah.” The central idea in her address is expressed in the quotation from Tennyson’s Locksley Hall: “Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth.” The lecturer essayed to show by a series of word pictures—told metaphorically as visions—conditions of society which cannot be properly vindicated by the idea of a just or good God. Her first description was […]

Voltairine De Cleyre, “The Woman’s National Liberty Union” (1890)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE WOMAN’S NATIONAL LIBERAL UNION Mr. Editor:—Hereafter let it not be said that the women of American are behind their brothers in the work of freeing the country from superstition’s shackles. The most radical organization in the United States, so far as the Church is concerned, was born in Washington D. C., the 24th of last month. And that organization is founded by women, officered by women, and will do its principal worth through women. It is the first and only national English-speaking body in these State of American which has the courage of its convictions, and openly declared its […]

Joseph A. Labadie, “The Meaning of Anarchy” (1896)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Meaning of Anarchy. This is a good time, it seems, to enter a protest. You have heard, no doubt, the expression of being killed by kindness. Well, I am not exactly being killed by kindness, but am being put in a false light by friends and foes alike. J. T. Small of Provincetown, Mass., says I am “one of the ablest exponents” of Anarchism; Professor Raymond, of Detroit, calls me “one of the most intelligent philosophical Anarchists in the country”; Rev. E. J. Riggs, of Provincetown, asserts that I am “the high-cockalorum of philosophical Anarchism”; Dr. Maryson declares that […]

J. Wm. Lloyd, “A Free Socialist” (1895)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

My statement that henceforth I was no Anarchist, but a Free Socialist, was intended to refer to my public profession. Having stated that my view of Anarchism was that it was the doctrine “that the invasion of one human being by another was in the highest degree wrong, foolish, dangerous, and inexpedient—that this was Anarchism and this only,” and having, in conclusion, stated that my renunciation of the name Anarchist did “not mean any change of views,” it, of course, follows that, although I reject the name Anarchist, I, in my heart, still regard myself as one.

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Susan H. Wixon, “When Womanhood Awakes” (1890)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

WHEN WOMAN HOOD AWAKES. (Read at the Woman’s National Liberal Convention, Washington, D.C., February, 24, 1890.) No more shall error ’round her play In fitful moods and clouds of grey; Or cruel fancies crush her down Where demons wait and furies frown, —When Womanhood awakes. No more shall bigots turn and rave, A ranting yet a cringing slave, At truth who, in her garments white, Stands facing ever to the right, —When Womanhood awakes. No more shall sisters turn aside, With haughty tread and sullen pride, From those who walk in clearer light, Whose keener vision sees the right, —When […]

Steven T. Byington, “Anarchist Labels” (1903)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

ANARCHIST LABELS I think Comrade Morton speaks inaccurately when he says Tucker and his disciples have popularized the notion that commercialists are the only “philosophical Anarchists.” I tried a while ago to find out the origin of the sect name “philosophical Anarchist,” which I didn’t like. I wrote an open letter to Liberty, asking who could help me to the information. Tucker, in comment on my letter, said he didn’t like the name and had never used it; when it was proved that he had used it once at least, he said it was a case of “seen too oft, […]

Dyer D. Lum, “Evolution and Revolution” (1886)

August 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

For Lucifer. Evolution or Revolution Many of your Radical friends are loud in their denunciation of revolutionary agencies. Evolution they hold to be a peaceful process, and the exact opposite of revolution. They would “educate the people” to the desired state of intelligence as “the bettor way.” In dissenting from this rose-colored view of human progress I affirm that revolutionary efforts have been the result of evolutionary processes. The fifteenth century, in which we had the rebirth of intellectual activity had its roots in preceding centuries and was revolutionary because it was opposed by established modes of thought. Luther in […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Kent and Cleveland” (1888)

August 9, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

In the beautiful blush of the first autumn days our friends in Kent gave a course of lectures for the enlightenment of the believers of Kent and all the country “which compasseth it round about.” That noble exponent of the philosophy of Freethought, Rev. J. H. Burnham, with your scribe, were the speakers of the occasion; and, what with the favoring influence of golden weather, attentiv audiences, a splendidly organized working force, due mainly to the untiring exertions of the energetic secretary, Marius Heighton, the venerable president, Mr. Joseph Heighton, and such earnest workers as L. G. Reed, A. D. […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Sex Slavery” (1890)

August 9, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third] Sex Slavery A Lecture Delivered by Voltairine de Cleyre before Unity Congregation, Philadelphia. Night in a prison cell! A chair, a bed, a small washstand, four blank walls, ghastly in the dim light from the corridor without, a narrow window, barred and sunken in the stone, a grated door! Beyond its hideous iron latticework, within the ghastly walls, — a man! An old man, gray-haired and wrinkled, lame and suffering. There he sits, in his great loneliness, shut in front all the earth. There he walks, to and fro, within his measured space, apart from all he loves! ‘There, […]