Mother Earth

The Sex Question

Sadakichi Hartmann, “Voltairine de Cleyre” (1915)

August 5, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE By Sadakichi Hartmann THE first and only time I heard Voltairine de Cleyre lecture was at Walker’s N. Y. Liberal Club, way back in 1894. The topic was “Mary Wollstonecraft, the Apostle of Equal Rights.” The even delivery, the subdued enthusiasm of her voice, the abundance of information, thought and argument, and the logical sequence of the same made a deep impression upon me. I was at that time a lecture fan, and able to make comparisons of her straightforward method with the performances of other public speakers. She had nothing of the pompous, climax-building elocutionary oratory […]
The Sex Question

Leonard D. Abbott, “Voltairine de Cleyre’s Posthumous Book” (1914)

August 5, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
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 […]
The Sex Question

Leonard D. Abbott, “A Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance” (1912)

July 31, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
A PRIESTESS OF PITY AND OF VENGEANCE ON June 19 Voltairine de Cleyre died in Chicago. The daily papers in most cases did not even record the fact. The news reached the radical public through the medium of her friends and through memorial meetings held in Chicago and New York. Very few realize even yet that one of the most remarkable characters of our time has passed on. Her reputation, I venture to predict, will last for centuries. She was an Anarchist, “a priestess of pity and of vengeance,” as W. T. Stead once called Louise Michel. In the sad […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Commune is Risen” (1912)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE COMMUNE IS RISEN By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. “They say ‘She is dead; the Commune is dead’; That ‘If she were living her earthquake tread Would scatter the honeyless hornets’ hive.’ I am not dead, nor yet asleep; Nor tardy, though my steps seem slow; Nor feeble from the centuries’ sweep; Nor cold, though chill the north winds blow. My legions muster in all lands, From field, from factory, from mine, The workers of the world join hands Across the centuries and brine.” NEVER since those lines were sung by the great unknown poet, whose heart shone red through his […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “C. L. James” (1911)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
It is nearly eighteen years ago, back in the fall of 1893, that for the brief space of a half an hour I sat in the company of C. L. James. It happened so: it was the year of the world’s fair at Chicago, and everybody with an “ism,” orthodox or heterodox, was foregathering with his fellows in belief, in convention assembled. We the Anarchists also wanted a convention, and prepared to hold one; but the Chief of Police, hearing thereof, notified Will Holmes that no convention would be allowed unless his men were present at all our proceedings; as […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Discussion at Meetings” (1911)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
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

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Mexican Revolt” (1911)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE MEXICAN REVOLT BY VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. AT last we see a genuine awakening of a people, not to political demands alone, but to economic ones,—fundamentally economic ones. And in the brief period of a few months, some millions of human beings have sprung to a full consciousness of a system of wrong, beginning where all slaveries begin, in the sources of life. They have struck for Land And Liberty. And even if their revolt shall be crushed by the mailed hand of the United States Government (for I do not believe the present nondescript thing calling itself a government, […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Mexican Revolution” (1911)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION A lecture delivered in Chicago October 29, 1911. By VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. THAT a nation of people considering themselves enlightened, informed, alert to the interests of the hour, should be so generally and so profoundly ignorant of a revolution taking place in their backyard, so to speak, as the people of the United States are ignorant of the present revolution in Mexico, can be due only to profoundly and generally acting causes. That people of revolutionary principles and sympathies should be so, is inexcusable. It is as one of such principles and sympathies that I address you, […]
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Note” (October 1910)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
NOTE. So far the following dates have been engaged for lectures: New York October 7—8 Albany October 9 Rochester October 12 Buffalo October 13—16 Cleveland October 20—23 Toledo October 26 Detroit October 30 Chicago November 11 VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE. Voltairine de Cleyre, “Note,” Mother Earth 5, no. 8 (October 1910): 272.  
The Sex Question

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Note” (August 1910)

July 29, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
NOTE About October 15th I intend starting on a lecture tour which will extend as far as Chicago, or perhaps farther west. Organizations and Comrades wishing to arrange lectures should kindly communicate with me at once. VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE 531 N. Marshall Street Philadelphia, Pa. Voltairine de Cleyre, “Note,” Mother Earth 5, no. 6 (August 1910): 191.