1908 Archives - Page 2 of 3 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Voltairine de Cleyre, “To Strive and Fail” (1908)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

There was a lonely wind crying around the house, and wailing away through the twilight, like a child that has been refused and gone off crying. Every now and then the trees shivered with it, and dropped a few leaves that splashed against the windows like big, soft tears, and then fell down on the dark, dying grass, and lay there till the next wind rose and whirled them away. Rain was gathering. Close by the gray patch of light within the room a white face bent over a small table, and dust-dim fingers swept across the strings of a […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Case of the Imprisoned Italians in Philadelphia” (1908)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

ALL readers of Mother Earth are familiar with the story of last February’s “riot,” and the subsequent arrest, trial, and discharge of H. Weinberg and myself. What they are not so familiar with is the case of the four Italian “rioters,” who were railroaded through the courts and sentenced most mercilessly by Judge Von Moschzisker. Three of these men were Social Revolutionists, the fourth an Anarchist; the latter received a five year sentence. During all the time that money was being raised for our defense, little or nothing was said about these, the worst sufferers in the whole affair; and […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Philadelphia Farce” (1908)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

After the lapse of nearly four months from “the riot” of last February, the case of the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Hyman Weinberg and Voltairine de Cleyre” was called for trial on the 17th of June, the trial Judge being Mayer Sulzberger, a gentleman having a reputation of being somewhat more inclined to weigh the rights of citizens as against the attacks of the police than some other judges. On the morning of the 17th, Weinberg and myself, the witnesses for the defense, and our respective lawyers were all ready in the court room. The State, however, was not ready; […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “They Who Marry Do Ill” (1908)

July 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

THEY WHO MARRY DO ILL By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. (A lecture presenting the negative side of the question, whose positive was argued under the heading “They Who Marry Do Well,” by Dr. Henrietta P. Westbrook; both lectures delivered before the Radical Liberal League, Philadelphia, April 28, 1907.) LET me make myself understood on two points, now, so that when discussion arises later, words may not be wasted in considering things not in question: First—How shall we measure doing well or doing ill; Second—What I mean by marriage. So much as T have been able to put together the pieces of […]

Harry Kelly, “Anarchism—A Plea for the Impersonal” (1908)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE student of Anarchism must often ask himself why, in this most Anarchistic of all countries, the Anarchist movement has made, and is making, such slow progress. That Anarchism concerns itself with the individual, and that America is the most individualistic of all civilized countries, is hardly debatable; and yet the Anarchist movement, which in itself represents the definite, concrete expression of the Anarchist philosophy, is almost where it was twenty years ago. The Mutualist wing, which found its ablest exponent in Dyer D. Lum is extinct; the Individualist wing has lost so much ground that it can hardly be […]

Emma Goldman, “A Beautiful Ideal” (1908)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

— A — Beautiful Ideal BY EMMA GOLDMAN The lecture which Emma Goldman was to have read before the Edelstadt Social, March 17th, 1908, at Workingmens’ Hall, 12th & Waller Streets, Chicago. But was prevented by Captain Mahoney of Maxwell Street Station with a squad of about fifty police. INTRODUCTORY. In fact and in truth Miss Goldman is a mild mannered little woman who would not kill a. fly or a spider. On the contrary she teaches peace, harmony and brotherly love among all men regardless of race, creed or color. We are publishing this little booklet so that she […]

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 […]

Hubert Church, “Vera Figner” (1908)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

[Vera Figner, Russian Revolutionary; a woman of great charm and radiant beauty. She was condemned to imprisonment for life, and for twenty years was immured in the living rave of the Schlusselburg Fortress. When these lines were composed the writer thought that Vera Figner was still in prison. By a strange chance, on three days after the lines were written, he read that Vera Figner had been released.] I. Vera Figner, when the breezes blow, Do you awaken to the hostile morn? Or do you live so numbed you do not know, Like a toad in a granite tempest-worn? Vera […]

Bruce Calvert, “In the Jungle” (1908)

June 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

But I started out to tell you of my intellectual bat in the city. The jag opened with ‘Gene Debs’ lecture at Orchestra Hall, where the idol of the socialists received the plaudits of three or four thousand enthusiasts. Then I listened to prim and scholarly John Spargo, another socialist speaker and writer, well known to students of economics. Spargo looks for all the world like a Presbyterian deacon, tho he doesn’t talk like one by a darn site. I heard Arthur M. Lewis, also, at the Garrick Theater, and a lecture by ex-Senator Billy Mason on the postal savings […]

William Marion Reedy, “The Daughter of the Dream” (1908)

May 15, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE DAUGHTER OF THE DREAM. One who reads the newspapers never has the correct idea about anyone the newspapers write about. There’s Emma Goldman, for instance. From the newspapers you would judge her to be an ignorant, vulgar, shrieking harridan, with a bomb in one hand and a bottle of vitriol in the other. What is she, then? Anything but what the papers say. She’s a little woman, somewhat stout, with neatly wavy hair, a clear blue eye, a mouth sensitive if not of classic lines. She is not pretty, but when her face lights up with the glow and […]