1889 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Jean Grave, “Society on the Morrow of the Revolution” (1889)

February 26, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] One of the projects I’ve been pursing for a long time now is the collection of various serialized book- or pamphlet-length works which have remained largely unknown in the pages of fairly well-known anarchist periodicals. This work by Jean Grave is one that I started to transcribe quite a number of years ago, after receiving page-scans from a friend, but a variety of factors kept me from completing the work. Readers will find that the third chapter—which probably appeared in the February, 1890 issue of Freedom—is missing, simply because it was missing in the set […]

Lizzie M. Holmes, “The Vital Question Again” (1889)

July 24, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE VITAL QUESTION AGAIN. SOME Of your readers on this western side of the waters have misunderstood the drift of “A Vital Question,” and think the writer advocates palliatives, reliefs, etc. How such a meaning came to be construed from the words I do not know; for certainly, to me, all ameliorative measures, charities, plasters of any kind, are only less mischievous than the exploiting schemes which make such things seem plausible. In urging on the attention of every thoughtful person the extreme misery which exists among the masses of the common people, there is no purpose of calling out […]

Lizzie M. Holmes, “The Vital Question” (1889)

July 24, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE VITAL QUESTION. IN the present phase of the labour movement, the philosophic or argumentative aspect is most prominent. At least it is so in America. I am reluctant to say that the old spirit of devotion-the determination, desperate courage, and whole-souled anxiety to work in the cause that fearlessness of conventionalism, and utter disregard of the opinions of the “respectable” element, which characterised the agitators of twelve seven, and four years ago-have utterly died out. But these qualities are not conspicuous. The worker ” with a job” is apathetic and obedient, for he doesn’t want to lose it; the […]

Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, “La teoría revolucionaria” (1889)

December 17, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] LA TEORÍA REVOLUCIONARIA Lema: La teoría revolucionaria que puede considerarse mas conforme con la Naturaleza, la Ciencia y la Justicia, es la que prescinde de todo dogma político, económico y religioso. – X. Vamos a demostrar que para establecer una teoría revolucionaria que no pugne con la Naturaleza, la Ciencia ó la Justicia, cuando no contra las tres á la vez, es indispensable deshacerse de todo dogma, sea político, sea social, sea económico. sea religioso. I Dogmas Políticos La política es el arte de gobernar á los pueblos. Desde los tiempos antiguos hasta nuestros días, […]

Victor Yarros, “Anarchistic Socialism” (1889)

November 17, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

State Socialists are in the habit of charging the Anarchists with a partiality for middle-class ideas and institutions, and nothing is more common than the statement that we wish to retain the bourgeois arrangements, while endeavoring to give them an ideal flavor. Our teachings are taken to be identical with those of the individualistic economists of the Cobden-Bastiat school, and we are constantly told that the principles of individualism, inaugurated and embodied by the great revolution in France, have been tried and found wanting, have been condemned and utterly discredited by life itself. Our present social evils are alleged to […]

David Andrade, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy! There is no word which conjures up such feelings of terror to so many who hear it; nor is there one which so raises the hopes of those who ever see so little to hope for. It makes their eyes glisten, their blood course a little faster than usual, and they once more clutch at that almost forlorn hope of a “good time coming.” Never in modern times has an idea, of such revolutionary nature and such weighty import, so seized upon the mind of man, as that which the great French philosopher first promulgated less than a half […]

Hugh O. Pentecost, “Anarchy” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Delivered on June 30, 1889 to the Unity Congregation at Newark, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Published in Twentieth Century on July 4, 1889 — The Editor] Good people who hold opinions not commonly understood generally have a bad name. The world is ready to believe almost anything of a man except that he is a genuinely good man. If his life is stainless but unconventional, the world suspects some hidden shame or base motive. So far are most people from understanding or desiring what is true and right that the highest truth is often believed to be the lowest lie, and […]

Robert Harding, “The A B C of Anarchism” (1889)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE A B C OF ANARCHISM. (No. 1) BY ROBERT HARDING. The Itinerant Street Lecturer. [NOTE.—No connection with a gentleman named R. Harding, who lectures on behalf of the Social Democratic Federation. This is mentioned from no disrespect either to that gentleman or to the Federation, but to guard against the confusion of two divergent sets of doctrines.] Q. What is Anarchism? A. Anarchism (theory) is the doctrine which denies the expediency, morality and justice of compelling men to do even that which it is right they should do. Anarchism (practice) is (a) the renunciation of the desire to compel […]

The Beautiful Nihilist (Sophie Perovskaya, 1889)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

THE BEAUTIFUL NIHILIST “She was beautiful.” Those are the three words with which a Russian writer, who was intimately acquainted with her, commences his personal description of Sophie Perovsky. “Hers was not,” he continues, “the beauty which dazzles at first sight, but that which fascinates the more it is regarded. A blonde, with a pair of blue eyes, serious and penetrating, under a broad and spacious forehead. A delicate little nose, a charming mouth,. which showed, when she smiled, two rows of very fine white teeth. It was, however, her countenance as a whole which was the attraction. There was […]

Joshua King Ingalls in “The Woman’s Tribune” (1888–1894)

June 28, 2012

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Joshua King Ingalls (1816 – 1898) [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] An Open Letter. Away out in Idaho a fellow-traveler asked the writer the meaning of her badge, and when told he replied: “Oh, I thought it meant that you belong to the party that want to put God in the Constitution.” This is but an illustration of a wide spread fear engendered by terms used by the W. C. T. U. at their conventions. And because this fear, or vague sentiment exaggerated and embodied by prejudice into a tangible danger, does exist, the Tribune […]