I am not surprised that my dear friend Celia B. Whitehead says, The more I read of Anarchist writings, the more I am puzzled to know how Anarchists propose to abolish government and usher in a free society. The fact is, Anarchists, and Socialists too, usually have their heads in the air and talk only of generalities and the sweet bye and bye.

Anarchists believe that the voting business has proven a failure; for in these later days money, and not love, rules the court, the camp, the grove. And why vote for new masters when the old ones are bad enough? [3] The crying need of the times is intelligent, individual self-government. John Sherman says, The way to resume is to resume; and so, in order to set aside a government in its dotage, administered by a self-appointed regency, variously called Trust, Syndicate, Money, Multi-millionaire; Army, Navy, Party, Power, Law, Necessity, et al., the way to abolish is to abolish; not by a furious onslaught of opposition, of money, party, guns, and power, but simply by letting alone. No weapon was ever so effective, commercially speaking, as the boycott—nor was there ever a remedy for numerous social ills capable of being so peacefully administered.

The ballot is no longer a remedy, if it ever was before we outgrew it,—yet men cling madly to party; building frantically party after party on the ruins of the old, hoping still to regain their lost foothold as arbiters of national destiny. Still the purest and newest of parties, no matter by what label known, carries with it the seeds of death, the office seeker, who, riding the topmost wave, ever manages to survive his constituency, the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.

The alarmists tell us the international trust owns the earth; that we shall soon have to buy the air we breathe. Do they not take from us the earth by laws they have themselves paid legislatures and congresses to make? And do they not by some hocus-pocus, based on money or its influence, carry on the ballot system to fool the voters? And are they not beautifully fooled year after year, when the money could as well seat the people’s representatives without their votes as with them? And do not little children, unable to buy enough air to breathe, die by thousands of the factory system? To shut the people from the air and sunshine is equivalent to shutting the air and light from the people, isn’t it?

Then, logically, the people by consenting to law consent to be governed; by elections they presumably only change masters, and arrive at no solution of their problems for relief. The masters are still masters, good or bad, as they see fit; masters, however, are necessarily bad.

As Anarchists desire only individual liberty—not to be hindered from doing good to one another by laws other men make—the very simplest way is to ignore those laws and go on peacefully obeying the higher commands nature has planted in every heart. We are entirely capable of managing our individual affairs, if let alone so that all may have the results of their own labor as well as free access to natural resources. Fear and ignorance keep us from freedom even more than law. The bold, cheerful worker who says nothing but laughs away the ills of a fraudulent government while he keeps on sawing wood (and dividing with his neighbors) is doing more to abolish government than all the office seekers; and no matter what the name of his party if his comrades, like him, keep on minding their own business, cheerfully and intelligently, they will in time succeed in abolishing government. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and so long as would-be reformers quarrel by the way as to names and methods, politics and spoils, accusing others of robbing them of their freedom, which they have cravenly given up for the spook of government, just so long will they stand in the slough of political despond only when driven to ignoble tasks by their own elected masters.

Now what can we do today? Just what a quiet minority are already doing—applying the initiative and referendum among themselves in their daily life. They are working for themselves, ignoring the competitive system (want of system), absorbing labor and its products among themselves, refusing to measure prices by legal tender, but fixing exchange according to cost.

A voluntary tax paid in labor or its equivalent supports public necessities. When they are ready to take possession of public utilities, as so often talked of in Socialist conventions, each coal miner demands, instead of money, stock (dry) in the mines. Together they strike, not for shorter hours, more pay, better bosses or lower rent, but simply for the coal they mine, honestly, cheerfully, bravely and persistently taking their share as may be reasonably arranged. What will they do with that coal?

Meantime workers everywhere refuse to be paid in legal tender and demand their share of the natural product which they are taking from nature, or the laborer from his work, also as natural product. They arrange to exchange, thru depositories, the various necessities which they have thus wrested from private monopolies, and at a fair valuation possess themselves of the things they need. For a medium of exchange printed paper dollars (made by the striking printers who also boycott legal tender) will supply all with money.

But products and labor thus thrown upon the cooperative market, which will prove a larger absorbent than now anticipated, will be not alone coal, lumber, gas, iron, mines, railroads, and such things as are most prominently before the business world, but small home manufactures of women, children, invalids,—the lame, the halt, the blind,—all will joyfully wish to contribute toward the happiness of their fellows. Wages will disappear, workers doing what they like best or are best fitted to do. But we do not expect to jump from the bottom of the stairs to the top at once. Without haste, if without rest, we will take one step at a time,—concentrating perhaps on one great need, then another, until all are won.

Do not imagine that because a man invests money in an oil well, it is his. It is yours also if you help develop it, and it is mine, too, if I feed you while you work. As the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker also contribute toward the living of those who drill, make the machinery, refine the product and place it on the market or in the hands of those who want it, each owns a divided or undivided share as they arrange—not as political laws dictate.

Is your rent due? Go to your landlord or his agent and see what you can pay him beside money. Bring forward your self-esteem, your courage, your conviction that these things are true, and present the matter kindly with that love for good (even the landlord has good in him—dig for it!) which thinketh no evil. The things he buys with your money he will take of you if you have them at command. If not—remove! Find a house that suits—then see if the owner will accept your terms. If not, look further. Some Anarchists advise to pay no rent, when forced out of one place go to another, when forced from that, to another and so on; but this cannot be done if someone will be wronged by it. There are many cases, however, when such a course would be only resisting robbery.

When you need anything, look first among your neighbors; see if they have a surplus of the thing you want. This will bring about a community of interest, if you can supply their needs by an exchange. Keep aloof from big stores and their bargains. Save your legal tender for the tougher propositions you cannot yet manage. Give and take fair prices—always a definite bargain and pay down. This leaves a clear and kindly feeling.

Albina L. Washburn

Denver, Colo., 178 S. Broadway