Essays on Radicalism

LABOUR DAY (An undelivered address, published in FREE SOCIETY, Sept. 1902) Copy supplied by Fred P. Young of Springfield, Mo.

This is one of the days, fellow-laborers, on which politicians and priests -- Pillars of Plutocratic Society -- think it worth while to flatter, cajole and humbug us: in short to bunko us in their customary manner.

The politician -- especially the labor politician -- will assure us that we are the very salt of the earth, and that here, in "our" "free country" our august and irresistable Will expressed at the ballot box (that palladium of our liberties -- whatever that may mean) and translated into Law by our humble and obedient servants and legislators, and enforced by our other humble and obedient servants -- "our" judges, policemen, jailors and hangmen -- alone rules this "free land."

These slick and oily manipulators of men will suggest to us certain reforms (?) that are devised solely for our benefit; and they offer, in the fullness of their love for and devotion to our interests and to us, to assume the burdens of office in order to procure for us all good things.

And we all know that these are liars and swindlers; that they will sell us out for spot cash, for preferment, or even give us away for a bit of social recognition from their aristocratic masters.

All this we know, and we do not hesitate to say so in private conversation; and we also know that if by any strange chance an honest man is elected to office, he is wholly powerless, and soon becomes disgusted and disheartened -- yields to temptation perhaps and becomes as bad as the rest.

But in spite of this knowledge we will applaud the speeches we hear to-day, and very likely elect to office men in whom, down in our hearts, we distrust. When, in due time and unusual fashion he has sold us out or given us away we have no sense of disappointment, for we knew what he would do when we voted for him.

And when the twin bother of the politician -- the Priest -- addresses us in the name of God, the All-wise and Beneficent Ruler of the Universe, and promises us our eternal heritage of happiness in another world, in recompense for quiet and resigned suffering here on earth, we know that he, too, is a liar and a swindler, who preaches self-denial to us while he takes extraordinary good care of himself right here and now.

We know that he and his kind are only a sort of auxiliary police, paid to keep us placid while our masters are skinning us. We don't believe in his fables about the good God any more than we believe in the nursery tales of "Jack the Giant-Killer" or "Little Red Riding Hood." And yet we will listen attentively, put on a solemn air of deep conviction, and treat this swindler with profound respect.

And finally, if some benevolent little capitalist condescends to address us as "men and brothers," and repeats a few conventional lies about "the dignity of labor" or explains once more that the interests of capital and labor are identical, and raises a warning voice against "the wicked agitator" who seeks to disturb the beautiful harmony that naturally exists between employers and employed, we will, as usual, pretend that we do not know that he is either a liar or a fool. We won't resent his insulting condescencion; on the contrary we will treat him will servile deference, and quite confirm him in his belief that he is rendering us an appreciated service by sweating our life's blood out of us for his own benefit.

Of course you won't like all this. We never like a disagreeable truth however much we may admit the truth of it. We prefer an agreeable lie though we know it to be a lie. But the time has come when we must face the naked truth!

Why do we continue to uphold and applaud a set of lying swindlers and bloodsuckers, knowing them to do such? Perhaps because we don't realize the true significance of our own knowledge, and still more because we believe that Government, Religion and Private Property are necessary evils anyway; and our own institutions are no worse than others. Indeed the belief still prevails that our political machinery is so admirable that it will turn out a pretty fair sort of administrative and legislative consummation, even though manipulated by a set of self-seeking scoundrels in their our inter-

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ests. But there is still another reason for our dull and stupid submission to things as they are. We instinctively feel that to act on our knowledge would be to kick down the whole framework of our society; in other words, to inaugurate the Social Revolution.

I said don't we realize the full significance of our own knowledge. Do we?

We know our own politicians to be a set of self-seeking parasites who are in politics for what there is in it. And that all their fine phrases about "consecration to public duties" and "the public welfare" are mere buncombe; and quite compatible, for instance, with the use of public vessels as private yachts and the accumulation of a private fortune of several millions during a few years of such "consecration."

True, we have a spasm of virtue once in a while; a few unlucky plunderers are exposed, a number sent to a prison, after which "reformers" are elected to take their places. And then we complacently settle back to our normal attitude of stupid resignation, while the chains of our slavery are riveted tighter and tighter day by day.

Of course you may say this is an anarchist exaggeration, so listen to what Justice Brown of the United States Supreme Court has to say on the subject:

"Bribery and corruption are so universal as to threaten "the very structure of society."

And Judge Brown, though not an anarchist, nevertheless knows what he is talking about. He cannot help knowing, for instance, that Stanley Matthews, a judge on the same high court of which Judge Brown is himself a member, was appointed in return for a campaign contribution of $100,000. This fund was donated by Jay Gould from motives of "pure patriotism" as we all pretend to believe. Judge Brown knows what universal suffrage amounts to and says:

"It is so skilfully manipulated as to rivet the chains of the poor man, and to secure to the rich man a predominance in politics he has never enjoyed under a restricted system."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you Sovereign Citizen of America, on the next occasion when you can't raise five cents for a paper of tobacco; or rather cut it out and paste it in your hat, if you have one, and read it to the next politician who promises legal reforms that will help you and curb the power of your plutocratic masters.

Reforms! Yes, reforms -- on paper. You can have as many as you want of them; the upholders of the plutocracy are keen enough to know how cheap they really are -- much cheaper than machine guns, smokeless powder and the like.

Take the factory laws of Illinois, for instance; they were warranted to protect women and children from the greed of sordid employers, to abolish sweating and improve the condition of laboring classes generally. And when Mrs. Kelly, an excellent woman no doubt (and a sort of milk-and-water socialist) was appointed chief inspector for Chicago, a shout of joy went up in the labor papers. Now, at length, we were to have genuine reform; the law was to be strictly enforced, and the lords of capitalism compelled to exploit their employes decently and with some regard for their health and well-being. It was a charming picture, but alas! Read Mrs. Kelly's recent report and you will see her honest effort to enforce the law has not helped the workers or incommoded the capitalists in the least.

We shudder at recent stories of the barbarous massacres of Armenian Christians by the infidel Turks. But such atrocious tortures, such frightful sufferings as Mrs. Kelly describes, as a part of the daily course of business at the Chicago Stock Yards make the cruelty of the "unspeakable Turk" seen merciful by comparison. In spite of the "reformed law" and the semi-socialistic inspection, the Moloch of Capitalism continues to devour his victims with relentless disregard of aught but his own appetite.

What are we to do about it? Open your eyes; see for yourselves; judge for yourselves and act for yourselves. Cease to be the dupes of the scoundrels who deliberately swindle and rob you, and still more, of those well-meaning fools who honestly lead you from disaster to disaster. This is Labor Day. And we are celebrating -- what?

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If it is the present condition of the laboring class in the United States, our bands should play funeral marches, our attire be of sombre hue, our banners be draped in deepest mourning, our speakers deliver funeral orations, and the chorus chant dirges and lamentations, for there is no joy in the present, no hope in the future in the ways and methods to which we still adhere.

But there is hope for the future, despite the grotesque absurdity of our situation. Here we are; starving in the midst of plenty, and we call out in loud boastfulness of our "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." People say of very absurd things, "It would make a horse laugh!" As a matter of dry fact a horse in our situation would jump over the fence or kick down the bars that shut him out from food and shelter. Surely we may hope to become as wise as the horse -- in time.

For semi-civilized men whose command over nature is slight, periodical famines may be unavoidable. But for us who have learned to control so many of the natural forces, who have such powers of production that a bare one-third of us occupied with useful work can and do, literally, deluge the world with food and raiment, fuel and shelter -- we live in a perpetaul and chronic state of famine. We of this progressive century, with our steam and electricity, our labor-saving machinery and our vast and ever growing knowledge of ways and means to satisfy all the natural wants of man, we are the slaves of our own knowledge; and we tamely endure such misery and want and insecurity of life as no people in the past ever submitted to before.

Informer times it was possible to say that since there was not enough to keep all mankind in comfort, some must suffer from the shortage. Today we know that all the enormous and detestable suffering of our time is due to an outworn social system that must be thrown aside like the other outworn systems of the past before we can enjoy the benefits of our knowledge and the fruits of our toil. Take hope, then, fellow-workingmen and women. Freedom, prosperity, and the joy of life are within your reach. You have but to desire them -- and the courage to take them. Though the powers of darkness will oppose you to the uttermost they will oppose you in vain if you once really desire to live as free men and women; if you really believe that you have a right to live in comfort and security, or, to state it better -- if you believe that no one has the right to prevent you from doing these things -- you may enter upon and enjoy what results from your powers.

Our exploiters will never give up their privileges peacefully, and forthwith I hear some alleged sympathizer, who wishes to proceed peacefully, -- that is, to submit and beg -- set up the familiar cry aobut the horrors of the French Revolution. Be not dismayed, brethren; there were more people starved to death in France in a single year of the ancien regime then perished by the guillotine of the Revolution. And don't forget that the king could have prevented the storming of the Bastile by throwing open its doors; and he could have saved his own head by quitting the king business and earning an honest living as a locksmith. And the noble lords and ladies who perished in a storm of their own raising, the perfumed and gilded vermin that their own records show them to have been, shall we regret them?

No! A thousand times, No!

Let those who now revel in luxurious idelness, and all who help sustain the present system of a politician take warning, and let them profit if they can, by the inexorable lessons of history. (J. H. Edelman, in The Rebel, Boston, September 1895)

THE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO

(A letter to the editor of the Springfield Republican which that great newspaper preferred not to print.)

Springfield, Missouri, July 12, 1915

To E. E. E. McJimsey, Editor and Owner, Springfield Republican:

In the two paragraphs in your editorial column of July 11 appear some rather significant expressions: for instance:

"General Anarchy seems to be in full charge in Mexico." and: "Why doesn't President Wilson order Huerta taken out and shot "some of these bright mornings at sunrise, and be done with it?" "Subterfuge doesn't look well, particularly in an American "President."

It has been my impression that Subterfuge and General Hoodwinking were prominent in all of our Holy of Holies. Why don't you publish the truth about Mexico?

The people there are fighting for Land and Liberty; for the abolishment of tyranny of various kinds.

Don't, don't advocate war unless you are willing to take a hand at the game and a stand at the front -- or send some of your progeny into the midst of the carnage.

Abolish these slinking, way-back-in-the-rear tactics.

Don't attribute the conditions in Mexico to any General, unless it be to General Civilization, operating despite the processes fomented by non-Mexicans under the guise of Law and Order.

Now I do not believe in war; but if those who advocate war will lead to the front instead of lagging to the rear I will follow, if only to see that those who want Hell get it; and to see how they take it.

These newspaper-cooked-up wars are never for the purpose of advancing Civilization, but to retard it, and to deteriorate its influences.

If you really mean War, come out of your editorial sanctum, and join with other jingoes and cut-throats. Why not rather seek to make this world -- and not for the profligates and the prodigals.

What you ascribe to General Anarchy should be attributed to General Superstition; to ignorance, and to the unwarranted confidence reposed in our intellectual prostitutes and penny-a-liners.

Under newspaper tutelage we have learned to discard even the semblance of honest intention for the furtherance of a decent civilization. Look at the armored trains run at midnight in Virginia to slaughter workmen. Look at the massacre of women and children at Ludlow, Colorado. Look at the oppression of the copper miners of Michigan. Look where you will and find Murder, Chaos, Riot, Spoliation and Tyranny upheld, abetted and applauded by our so-called Good men -- men who occupy exalted station in the Churches, the State, in fraternal associations and in the Press. And all these Good folk profess to worship the meek and lowly Nazarene, whose one aim in life is said to have been to help the unfortunate and to comfort the miserable; and whose recorded words are of bitter denunciation of the very class who are, today, as he said of them in Chapter 23 of Mathew.

How long, O, how long! are the people going to put up with hypocritical nonsense? And those he called vipers pretend to love that revolutionary Jesus Christ who was crucified because of his interest in the down-and-outs.

O, what a farce! If they really believed in Jesus Christ, how could the powers that be, and have been, commit the crimes they have perpetrated for these thousands of years? Every force imaginable is being employed to drive the people to desperation. No wonder we have assassinations and attempts at assassination. The wonder is that there are not more of them. In 1886 innocent men were hanged to satisfy the vultures in high places. Instances of "railroading" innocent men to prison and the gallows are so numerous as no longer to arouse comment. All this in the Land of the Freebooter and the Home of the Bravo. There are now confined in a Los Angeles jail two men who are to be crushed because, as their persecutors know full well, they love their fellow-men. In the case of Lawson, of Colorado, they seem to be taking counsel of prudence, for a wonder.

When the war of 1861 demanded soldiers it was the workingmen who enlisted for battle, while the bankers went to Congress to make laws to govern labor. And the man who toil are ever keeping hot the trail between political parties. What have we gained? A change of masters now and then, and that is all. Yours, for a world that is fit to live in! 814 W. Walnut St. Springfield, Mo. FRED P. YOUNG

The Phycology of Religious Prejudice

There are many meanings given to the word, prejudice. as I use it, it means our ideas of right and wrong as a vital prejudice, and your likes and dislikes toward different kinds of people as a minor prejudice. Minor prejudices all have at one time, and to a certain extent are yet, vital prejudices; but through wars in some instances, and through inter marriages and contact are first modified and then overcome, while at the same time other prejudices are being formed and intensified to the fighting point.

To illustrate how civilization intensifies these prejudices I will have to use some of my own experiences in life. Ninty five percent of what I learned in school is forgotten; but one hundred percent of what I learned by experience I can say - I know

My father died when I was seven or eight years old, and mother had to work seven days a week to provide for five small children; She was away all the time, and I never had a "boss," any one that I had to obey. Perhaps the reason I had a free hand in forming my own life lay in the fact that I hada a studious disposition; I wanted to go to school; any one would have had trouble to keep me out but I was never forced to go to church or Sunday School, so it was not unitl I was about eighteen that I got interested in religion. A classmate died, and it was her funeral that I was in church for the first time. I knew, of course, that old people died, but I had paid not attention to it. I had never thought of it as happening to the young. I asked one of my school teachers a question about