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1842: William B. Greene at 22 (“First Principles”)

October 5, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] William Batchelder Greene’s first major work was an essay titled “First Principles,” which appeared in the transcendentalist periodical The Dial, in January 1842. Greene was, at the time, just starting his exploration of theology. His martial poem, “Song of Espousal,” had been written only two years before, while he was serving in Florida during the Second Seminole War. Still only 22, Greene was going through some rapid changes in his life. His religious conversion was little more than a year before, and his introduction into transcendentalist circles, in part through the […]

1853: William B. Greene at 34

October 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

In 1853, William B. Greene had resigned from his position as pastor of a West Brookfield church, but had not yet settled himself in Paris, where he would stay until his return in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War. Greene was 34 years old, was married to “the belle of Boston,” and had two children, one of them only a couple of years old. He was financially comfortable, but politically unsettled by the recent passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (to which some attribute his resignation and emigration). He was on the tail end of one of the […]

Homeland Security: now we see what we’re paying for

September 15, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] Perhaps the hardest thing to take about the botched federal response to Katrina is that it was largely perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 9/11, we’ve been encouraged to believe that the erosion of privacy rights and civil liberties was part of a trade-off, and in return we would get greater security at home. Yet we see what appears to be a weakened FEMA and a national economy already strained by the “war on terror” abroad. We see no signs of an intelligent response to oil dependency, global warming or Gulf Coast wetlands degredation and land loss. […]

“Taking Responsibility”

September 15, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

These days, even Dubya may be guilty of a little strategic Bush-bashing, what with this strange admission of “responsibility” for delays in the Federal response to Katrina. And it is a strange admission: “And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong,” Mr. Bush said.” Erm. Yeah. Well, he at least took responsibility for the actions of the federal government “to the extent” that they screwed up. That’s not exactly saying, “Hey, I know some things didn’t go well–and people died […]

Alfred B. Westrup, mutual banking reformer

September 13, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

Alfred B. Westrup was one of the mutual banking reformers active in the circles surrounding Liberty after the death of William B. Greene. Bibliography The abolition of interest a simple problem: the pending crisis the death struggle of a moneyed aristocracy and the labor pains of a new birth to industry. New York : M. Hill, 1897. (18 pages) Address on a new system of money: given at the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Banking : held in the Northwestern University Building, May 23, 1916. [Chicago? : s.n.], 1916. Citizens’ money, a lecture on the “National banking system.” […]

A New Two-Front War?

September 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] Now that Hurricane Katrina has probably killed thousands of Americans and threatened our oil supply, I suppose that we can expect the Bush administration to formally declare the War on Mother Nature. This unprecedented attack–for which there was, as in some other cases, some precedent and plenty of warning–should simplify things considerably for the administration. Assaults on the environment need no longer be justified. Right-thinking citizens will, in fact, demand that the government take action to subdue this newly-revealed enemy. There are precedents now, and we need to show that, once again, these colors don’t run–even when very, very […]

The FAQs! What is Anarchism?

September 4, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

OK. I’ve been meaning for some time to tackle some basic sorts of questions folks ask me about anarchism, so here goes. I’ll be breaking up the deep historical stuff with some very present-oriented, opinionated bits, which you can think of as gradually answering parts of the “why bother?” question – which is what people usually ask me about my historical work. I’m going to be uncharacteristically breezy here. If you want the footnotes, someone else can supply them for a change. I suggest the Anarchist FAQ and the Mutualist FAQ for more serious study. I was sitting outside a […]

Finding, and losing, Bessie Greene

September 2, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

I spent my research time yesterday reading a regimental history of the 1st Mass. Heavy Artillery, and was pleased to be able to confirm that the wife and daughter of William B. Greene had visited his camp near the Long Bridge on the approaches to Washington, DC, during the Civil War. This daughter seems to have fallen out of many of the biographical sources. I first discovered a mention of her in a footnote to an essay on Orestes Brownson, in the Catholic World. Today, I was able to confirm her death, in the wreck of the Schiller off the […]

“Fact and Rumor,” 1886

August 31, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

From the Christian Union, June 3, 1886: Concerning the Unitarian the Rev. William B. Greene, of West Brookfield, this story is told. A man died in the neighborhood, and the reverend Colonel was called upon to officiate at the funeral. Some time afterward, on inquiring why he was summoned to the funeral of a man not of his flock, he was told: “Mr. — did not believe in much of anything, and we thought your belief came the nearest to nothing of anybody’s, so we sent for you!” — [[Worcester Spy I guess that’s one way of looking at Greene, […]

William Greene’s Small World

August 28, 2005 Shawn P. Wilbur

I haven’t posted much recently because the research for the chapter on William B. Greene suddenly blossomed into the makings of a book on its own. So I’m running with it, and hope to have a basic manuscript together around the first of the year. There are a few things I probably won’t be able to do in that time, some research travel I doubt that I can fit in, and this will hardly be a finished or definitive account–but it will be substantially more than we’ve had in the way of a biography of Greene, and I think it […]