While there is no shortage of editions of Voltairine de Cleyre’s writings, I’ve put together a collection which includes those I use most often, or recommend most often to others. The “basic writings” pamphlet includes “Anarchism and American Traditions,” “The Economic Tendency of Freethought,” and the two essays relating to individualism and communism. Invisible Molotov also has much of this material, in more confrontational packaging. Pick the package that fits your audience.
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Voltairine de Cleyre, “Justice is Blind” (1891)
Aye, and deaf and dumb in Kansas! For what, save utter deafness to all justice, could lead a judge to so far forget the dignity of authority as to sentence any living being without first asking the question: “Have you anything to say which sentence should not be pronounced against you?” True, the question is often a farce. I venture to say that not once in five hundred times is the sentence altered thereby; but true also we are treading upon dangerous times when judges no longer respect even the form of justice.
The Sex Question
Voltairine de Cleyre, “Discussion at Meetings” (1911)
I HAVE read, in the last issue of Mother Earth, Bolton Hall’s opinion on the mixed blessing of discussion after meetings with interest, and—disagreement; mixed also. I agree that a meeting of fifty with a good discussion is better than one of two hundred and fifty with none; but with a bad discussion—nine times in ten it is a bad discussion—meeting of two hundred and fifty and silence is preferable. For I do not agree that “almost anything is better than silence”; sometimes silence is better than almost anything; particularly the silence of a “buffoon.” Nor do I consider newspaper […]
The Sex Question
Leonard D. Abbott, “Voltairine de Cleyre’s Posthumous Book” (1914)
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE’S POSTHUMOUS BOOK By Leonard D. Abbott. THERE is a famous painting which shows the Statue of Liberty looming up through the mists of New York Harbor. At the base of the statue ships are concealed by a fog. In the background, the sky-scrapers of the metropolis are stained by a heavy and unwholesome atmosphere. The only sunlight in the picture falls on the head and the uplifted torch of the womansymbol of Liberty. She is rising triumphant over commercialism, and her torch is strong and steadfast. It is in some such way as this that I think […]