1917 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

E. Armand, “A vous, les humbles” / “To you, the humble ones” (1917) (FR/EN)

June 23, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

O humble ones, we know your jealousies and your grudges. We know that in your morals, you ape the social exalted, when you do not surpass them in ridicule or narrowness. We are fully aware of your prejudices, your fear of what others will say, your servility, your flattening before anyone who exercises authority, wears fine clothes or clinks a purse full of coins.

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E. Armand, “A vous, les humbles” (1917)

September 21, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

A vous, les humbles Depuis que la nécessité ou la contrainte collective ont groupé en sociétés les parasites le la planète — depuis qu’a commencé l’histoire, — vous avez existé, vous les humbles. Les humbles, — c’est-à-dire tous ceux qu’ont méprisé ou que dédaignent les chefs, les porteurs de pourpre, les arrivés, les privilégiés, les occupants de situations d’autorité, les détenteurs de révélations mystérieuses, les accapareurs de richesses. Les humbles — c’est-à-dire tous ceux auxquels les dominants ne se sont intéressés que lorsqu’il s’est agi d’assurer leur domination ou d’asseoir leur suprématie. Les humbles, — les sous-hommes, les esclaves, les […]

Guido Bruno, “Emma Goldman—Fighter and Idealist” (1917)

June 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

So far as a man thinks, he is free. Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are. and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper Preamble like a “Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or act. —EMERSON. “Get Miss Goldman,” cried the pale-faced, thin-lipped matron to another white-clad attendant behind the bars of the Tombs. It was a few days after Emma Goldman’s arrest as “the head of a country-wide conspiracy to resist conscription.” I stood in a small, triangular hallway. […]

Han Ryner, “Love Victorious” (1917)

September 30, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Love Victorious For ten years, Pierre Vaumeil passed for mad. Previously, he had been a savant, but the death of a beloved women had, everyone in the little town maintained, destroyed his mind. Often we walked in the country. At times he spoke in a loud voice. Someone said to him: “You speak alone, M. Vaumeil?” He replied: “I am never alone.” And sometimes he told a story, perhaps symbolic, of which he listeners understood nothing. So his reputation as a madman was solidly established. The other day, he wandered according to his custom. A dozen of the curious followed […]