1909 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Robert Lanoff, “Révoltons-nous / Let’s Rise Up!” (1909)

December 9, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

RÉVOLTONS-NOUS MONOLOGUE Paroles de LANOFF Au travail ! Sous l’effort énorme de tes mains La machine d’un coup vient de se mettre en train. Travaille pauvre gueux, il te faut du courage ; Le volant maintenant tourne presque avec rage Produis, de ton patron triple le capital Pour crever comme un chien sur un lit d’hôpital Des classes maintenant sens-tu la difference ? Pendant que tu t’esquintes, d’autres font bombance Il est temps ouvrier que tu ouvres les veux. Veux-tu vivre plus mal, ou veux-tu vivre mieux ? Nous voulons t’affranchir malgré tout et quand même. Mais réponds tout au […]

Le Rétif (Victor Serge), “To Be and to Appear” (1909)

July 17, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

We do not live for ourselves—we live for others. We suffer, we struggle and we die for the gallery, to astonish others, to wrest from them a cry of admiration or praise. To appear is the great, the unique concern for the men of this century.

For the vain glory of appearing, they renounce really living. And this is true in all the domains of their activity.

[…]

Max Nettlau, “Can a General Strike Be Successful?” (1909)

May 21, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] CAN A GENERAL STRIKE BE SUCCESSFUL? Anarchism should receive the greatest attention just now when the insufficiency of Syndicalism becomes more patent. So many things happen which ought to set our friends thinking. Too many things are taken for granted which require continuous fresh examination, e.g., the General Strike, in light of recent French experience. Will an effective strike of the kind be possible before immense masses are filled with indignation and enthusiasm to such a degree that they might, and would just as well straightaway make a revolution and not stop at a passive strike? I think that […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Our Police Censorship” (1909)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

OUR POLICE CENSORSHIP Address delivered October 8, 1909, in Philadelphia, at a public meeting of protest against the police suppression of Emma Goldman’s lectures. By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE FELLOW-MEN: I have written my speech; I generally write my speech. We have a censor, and the censor may call me to account. He has some reporters here; and in their anxiety to earn their money, and their shortage of intelligence, they are likely to report me as uttering a lot of idiocy which the censorship wishes me to utter, in order to excuse its illegal, unconstitutional, and tyrannical action. To illustrate […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “On Liberty” (1909)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

ON LIBERTY By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE.[note]Speech delivered by Voltairine de Cleyre at the Cooper Union Protest Meeting, June 30, 1909.[/note] MR. Crosby has said he is here in the interest of “good government”; so am I. But you know the brutal saying of some white man about Indians: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” In my opinion, the only “good” government is a dead government. I am in the habit of writing out what I have to say in advance: the reasons are several, but the principal one governing me in the present instance is, that I am […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “On Liberty” (1909)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

ON LIBERTY By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE.[note]Speech delivered by Voltairine de Cleyre at the Cooper Union Protest Meeting, June 30, 1909.[/note] MR. Crosby has said he is here in the interest of “good government”; so am I. But you know the brutal saying of some white man about Indians: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” In my opinion, the only “good” government is a dead government. I am in the habit of writing out what I have to say in advance: the reasons are several, but the principal one governing me in the present instance is, that I am […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Anarchism and American Traditions” (1908-09)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Related links: Voltairine de Cleyre [main page] American traditions, begotten of religious rebellion, small self-sustaining communities, isolated conditions, and hard pioneer life, grew during the colonization period of one hundred and seventy years from the settling of Jamestown to the outburst of the Revolution. This was in fact the great constitution-making epoch, the period of charters guaranteeing more or less of liberty, the general tendency of which is well described by Wm. Penn in speaking of the charter for Pennsylvania: “I want to put it out of my power, or that of my successors, to do mischief.” The revolution is […]

Francisco Ferrer, “L’École Rénovée” (1909; Voltairine de Cleyre, tr.)

July 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

L’École Rénovée By Francisco Ferrer. Literal translation of an article written by Francisco Ferrer for the L’Ecole Renovee, the Paris review published in the interests of Modern Education. TO those who wish to renovate the education of children two methods are open: To work for the transformation of the school by studying the child, so as to prove scientifically that the present organization of education is defective and to bring about progressive modification; or, to found new schools in which shall be directly applied those principles corresponding directly to the ideal of society and of its units, as held by […]

Max Nettlau, “On Centralization” (1909)

August 26, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[The essay “On Centralization” is one of the few texts from the collection Critica Libertarian that has remained untranslated. For those interested in the questions addressed here, there was ongoing discussion in Les Temps Nouveaux at the time.] I am happy that someone has finally thought about proportion (1), which, in my opinion, holds the true, practical (automatic, so to speak) solution of the differences between centralization and decentralization. The problem remains complicated nonetheless, for proportion is not a single, unchanging term. I mean that for every organism there must be a certain minimum of proportion in order for it […]

May Beals-Hoffpauir, “Sketches of Russian Heroines. I. Vera Figner”

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Sketches of Russian Heroines. I. Vera Figner BY May Beals-Hoffpauir Twenty-two years, nearly one-third of the expected three score and ten, spent in a black prison cell with no glimpse of passing cloud or starry skies; no message for thirteen of these years from friend or relative; no hope, in all that dreary time, of any change but death—such is the record of nearly one-half of Vera Figner’s life. It is not strange that her recent appearance in London aroused the wild enthusiasm to which she was already accustomed on the continent. Few can survive twenty years in a Russian […]