Anarchist Beginnings

Anarchist Beginnings

Emile Henry, “Letter to the Director of the Conciergerie” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
During the visit you made to my cell Sunday, the 18th of this month, we had a quite friendly discussion of anarchist ideas. You said you were very surprised to learn our theories in a different light, and you asked me to summarize our conversation in writing, in order to better know what the anarchists want. You can easily understand, monsieur, that in just a few pages one can’t expound upon a theory which analyses our current social life in all of its manifestations; that studies these manifestations the way a doctor examines a sick body, and which then condemns […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Ross Winn, “The Archic (A Fairy Tale)” (1903)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Once upon a time, in a kingdom situated between two seas, the people kept a certain great monster, called an archic. This archic was a most ferocious beast with great iron claws and a mouth large enough to swallow a dozen men at a gulp. The people held this frightful monster in great esteem, altho it was a great burden to them, for it had to be fed constantly upon the fat of the land, and demanded human flesh and blood, as well as the choice fruits of the soil, and was always hungry. This savage beast had to be […]
Anarchist Beginnings

J. A. Andrews, “A Handbook of Anarchy” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Anarchy is freedom. The literal meaning of the word “free” is to love or like; thus when we say that a man is free we imply that he is “to like,” that is, he has only to like in order to decide what he will do, or try to do. Among the things which people in general like, is to avoid hurting others, and as sometimes to do a particular thing which one would like would come in conflict with this, it becomes a matter for consideration which course one likes the best. From this people have roughly set out […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Henry Seymour, “The Two Anarchisms” (1894)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Anarchists are divided into MUTUALISTS, who hope to bring about their economic results by Banks of Exchange and a free currency; and COMMUNISTS, whose motto is: “From every man according to his capacity, to every man according to his needs.” Hazell’s Annual Encyclopaedia, 1886 There are two Anarchisms. That is to say, there are two schools of Anarchism. One is communistic, the other mutualistic. One is emotional, the other is philosophic. One is utopian, the other practical. One is dogmatic, the other rational. One is destructive, the other constructive. One is revolutionary, the other evolutionary. One relies on the […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Ross Winn, “A Vision of Anarchy” (1895)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Anarchy: A social theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct government of man by man as the political ideal; absolute individual liberty. – Century Dictionary Every man, they say, has a religion; my religion is Anarchism. In contemplating the future I see it radiant with the sunlight of universal liberty. I catch a vision of the days to come—the curtain rises upon a grand scene; I see before me a glorious panorama. The hideous nightmare of government—the subjection of man to man—is gone, and I hear the happy sound of many voices of men […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Brother, “What Anarchism Is” (1895)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
WHAT ANARCHISM IS Chicago, Ill. Editor Railway Conductor: A correspondent writing from Fort Dodge, Iowa, finds much comfort in your editorial expression of the sentiment (certainly not peculiar to yourself) that: “He is no true friend of labor who argues that inasmuch as wrong has been done, wrong in return is justifiable.” He is. nevertheless, much cast down in spirit by an outcropping of anarchism he seems to have discovered in some fraternal correspondence criticising the methods of politicians and corporations of capital working together, manipulating the functions of what your correspondent emphatically styles “our government.” He says: The influx […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Henry Addis, “Why I am an Anarchist” (1896)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
We find ourselves in a world of conflicting ideas, and every person who has individuality enough developed to be more, in human life, than a domestic animal or lifeless machine, must align himself with others who hold the same opinions, whether he will or not, and then he is in the view of others, and perhaps in his own view, labeled with the name of the idea he holds. So we find that nearly every person is labeled, and some persons have a number of labels. Finding that we must be something—must hold to certain ideas and work for certain […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Why I Am an Anarchist” (1897)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
(A lecture delivered in Hammond, Ind.) IT was suggested to me by those who were the means of securing me this opportunity of addressing you, that probably the most easy and natural way for me to explain Anarchism would be for me to give the reasons why I myself am an Anarchist. I am not sure that they were altogether right in the matter, because in giving the reasons why I am an Anarchist, I may perhaps infuse too much of my own personality into the subject, giving reasons sufficient unto myself, but which cool reflection might convince me were […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Elbert Hubbard, “I Am an Anarkist (The Better Part)” (1899)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
I AM an Anarkist. All good men are Anarkists. All cultured, kindly men all gentle men; all just men are Anarkists. Jesus was an Anarkist. A Monarkist is one who believes a monark should govern. A Plutokrat believes in the rule of the rich. A Demokrat holds that the majority should dictate. An Aristokrat thinks only the wise should decide; while an Anarkist does not believe in government at all. Richard Croker is a Monarkist; Mark Hanna a Plutokrat; Cleveland a Demokrat; Cabot Lodge an Aristokrat; William Penn, Henry D. Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and Walt Whitman were Anarkists. An Anarkist […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Albert Libertad, “Liberty” (1908)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Many think that it is a simple dispute over words that makes some declare themselves libertarians and others anarchist. I have an entirely different opinion. I am an anarchist and I hold to the label not for the sake of a vain garnishing of words, but because it means a philosophy, a different method than that of the libertarian. The libertarian, as the word indicates, is an adorer of liberty. For him, it is the beginning and end of all things. To become a cult of liberty, to write its name on all the walls, to erect statues illuminating the […]