From the Archives Archives - Page 9 of 11 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Max Nettlau, “New Tactics For Trade Unionists” (1897)

May 20, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] NEW TACTICS FOR TRADE UNIONISTS. In labor struggles at every juncture, the solidarity of labor and public opinion are appealed to, and prove valuable, or rather invaluable helps to the isolated action of smaller or larger groups of workers. Fortunately their strength and broadness and soundness of views are ever improving—yet this increase of solid co-operation with individual labor struggles seems very far from attaining its full height, for in that case labor would simply be invincible and the end of the capitalist system would be at hand. Hence the question of means to increase this solidarity must be […]

Eliphalet Kimball in “Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly”

May 1, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Supposing that all man-made laws in the United States were abolished at once, disturbance and violence would take place only where they were needed. In parts of the country cursed with luxury, monopoly and rich men, society could be equalized and purified without violence. In neighbor hoods where the people were plain and none very rich, things would go on as they did before. If any undertook to commit crimes they would soon be straightened. Society would ferment and work itself clear like a barrel of new cider. Habitual rum-drinkers and opium-takers experience great distress when they undertake to leave off the habit. If they persevere in their abstinence they come right at last. Just so with law-drunken society. Within ten or fifteen years after the reign of natural law commenced, everything would be right.

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Dyer D. Lum in the “Boston Investigator”

April 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third] To A. C. Middleton:—I have read your communication in the Investigator of the 13th inst., requesting information about Meslier, other than that given by Voltaire, and will relate what has fallen in my reach. Naigeon, in his “Ancient and Modern Philosophy,” under the head “Meslier,” after giving a brief account of his life and an extract from his “Testament,” blames Voltaire for not publishing the whole of Meslier’s work. Your remark, that “this extract is Deistical,” refers only to the first part of his work. The second part, that Naigeon accused Voltaire of suppressing, was Atheistical. “Nobody had ever […]

Dyer D. Lum on the Verge (1877-1878)

April 4, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third_last] I’ve been back at work on archiving the works of Dyer D. Lum, this time focusing primarily on his poems, but one thing always seems to lead to another. In the process, I found two essays, a short note, a long review essay and a poem by Lum in a periodical called The Evolution. Comte’s positivism seems to have been one of the interests of the contributors, who included Modern Times resident Henry Edger, and, indeed, we find Lum himself preaching the positivist gospel himself. Even more than Edger, however, his reading of Comte seems ready to become an […]

Henry Seymour, “The Whereabouts of Communist Logic” (1895)

March 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] THE WHEREABOUTS OF COMMUNIST LOGIC. To the Editor of Liberty. Failing a superfluity of copy, I send you a line or two in conclusion upon L. S. B.’s extraordinary effusion in the June number, such as I have gathered the patience to pen, for I am in no mood to follow her unprofitable pastime of splitting hairs. I defined the word “right” for the purpose of this discussion, as an individual limitation to appropriation, such limitation being set by an equality of opportunity. I furthermore held that this constituted the sole case for […]

L. S. Bevington, “The Whereabouts of Property Ethics” (1895)

March 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] THE WHEREABOUTS OF PROPERTY ETHICS By L. S. BEVINGTON. In Mr. Seymour’s useful rejoinder (see April No.) to my recent survey of his position, he charges me with “sophistry.” Which may pass: readers will judge. The present article concludes my share in this particular controversy, and before saying farewell to my courteous opponent, it may be well to draw our mutual readers’ attention to the valuable verbal concessions we free communists have obtained from him. The preliminary questions have been answered precisely in the fashion that was to be foreseen. They were awkward […]

Bevington and Seymour, “The Prejudice against Property” (1895)

March 13, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third] Debate on Proudhon and property: [/one_third][two_third_last] The Prejudice against Property. To the Editor of Liberty. The main objections to the property idea which stand out clearly in L. S. Bevington’s contribution in the last issue, are two. One is that “there exists no individual producer”; the other, that the ownership of the product of one’s labour is essentially “an instrument of rulership and power over the opportunities of others.” (1) It is patent to everyone that the “individual producer” of a commodity merely puts the finishing touch, so to speak, to a mass of labor performed by other hands. […]

Joshua King Ingalls, “Memory and Compensation” (1853)

September 29, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

MEMORY AND COMPENSATION. BY J. K. INGALLS. How simple and how mysterious, how pleasing yet how awful, is this attribute of mind! A distinctive trait in man, its incipient manifestations are seen in all animate and even inanimate forms. In all nature it would seem, indeed, that man was the only thing which does not remember and conform to the great laws of being. The attachments and antipathies, the attractions and repulsions, are, from age to age, and from period to period, transmitted through all forms and kingdoms. The alkali and acid, though separated for centuries, forget not that […]

Psychometrical Portrait of Joshua King Ingalls (1853)

September 29, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] PSYCHOMETRICAL PORTRAIT. Given from impressions received while holding a sealed letter against her forehead. BY MRS. J. R. METTLER. J. K. Ingalls. This writer possesses a noble heart and mind; the character is open and revealed. By every expression and action this man will indicate something of the nobleness of his nature. Those who have known him long and intimately have found him a true man and faithful friend. He is extremely conscientious, has a great veneration for truth and goodness, and is never so happy as when the words […]

Paschal Grousset, “Leaves from the Pocket-Book of a State Prisoner” (1880-1881)

September 29, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

LEAVES FROM THE POCKET-BOOK OF A STATE PRISONER BY PASCHAL GROUSSET ____ I. L’HEURE DE L’ABSINTHE WELL nigh exhausted with fatigue, I had fallen asleep in an armchair. It was about four in the afternoon of a dull sultry 2d of June. For eight whole days and nights I had not stretched my limbs on a bed, and from the 23d of May I had lived the life of a salamander in the hell of hopeless battle and wholesale murder that Paris then was. Silence at last had succeeded the thunder of five hundred guns—the silence of the grave […]