My friend Lizzie M. Holmes dwells on ideals, high ideals or highest ideals as the the philosophy of Anarchism has set itself a task stil to be accomplisht. Not so. Not in the least so. It is either a fact or it is not a fact that a preerquisit to social tranquility is sovereign authority. It is for thos who conceive of som improvd brand of sovereignty (see, for instance, an Ideal Cooperativ Commonwealth) to indulge idealistic speculations as to how that kind of universal meddlesomeness can be made to promote the general welfare. Anarchism has been tested. Its practical workings, in everyday and ubiquitus sight, leav nothing to fancy, conjecture or speculation. One need go no further than the domains of medicine and religion. Thez wer formerly departments of the State, so-called; now we find that it is mor practical that each shal remain free to choose his own doctor or do without any, and to choose his own priest or get along as best he can without such help. Despite every failure that Authority has developt, the idealist still looks for hte miracle — that som other kind of authority will do the trick.

Nothing that we hav today of practical value has ever been in the dream stage. That delusion has long been believed. Evolution does not run from hallucination to realization. If practice demonstrates the utility of anywhat it demonstrates as well the fact that it was practical from its inception. Reliance on the State-notion has been proved futile. It was a dream. It remains a dream; and tho the dream be dremt by millions of dreamers it can never rise above the plane of delusion. Our highest ideals as well as our lowest, as thoz of any intermediate stage, are never of use or for use. Usually they serve as exc-use — which is admittedly a poor pun, and perhaps beside the mark.

I do not deny the good policy of playing a hunch. It may wel be that Despotism will be the next step. Evolution operates, not without setbacks, but in spite of them. If one whose studies in economics and sociology ar convincing that the time for a reaction is at hand, [22] and it is his desire to be with the masses, who shal deny him, or seek to thwart his purpos. But to argue that one doz wisely to change his views and make them conform to the low intellectual level of the meddlesomeness masses leaves such an one open to the imputation of being more cautious than logical.

It would be the refinement of cruelty to expect any one, however gifted, to teach a science in five minutes. If length of days be within the scope of the desires of my cherished and esteemd frend Lizzie Holmes, I hope she will live in clover for a thousand years. But she will find that span too short to teach the science that underlies her conviction that despotic powerz may be conferd that wil not be despotically used. That stretch of idealism can never be overtaken by practicality.

I hav read whole libraries of the best socialist authors. They all agree on one thing — and few others: that the human personality is a myth; that the individual is a nullity; that society is an organism, and that it is for each person to accept his station as a cell in that organism in accordance with the dictates of the brain cells that cerebrate and function in the National Executiv Committy. They do not agree very well on concepts, but have a holy reverence for a few pet phrases that is the only evidens of their solidarity. One of the most favord of these frend Lizzie Holmes recites: An administration of things, not a rulership of men. Mere rhetoric, this. How my product is to be benevolently administerd for me without rulership over me is one of thos charming mysticisms which the best authors delight to indulge. It is altogether true, as comrade Lizzie Holmes says: Rulership and oppression wil diminish with human progress. And, by the same token, progress wil be retarded to the extent that the individual abdicates his uniqueness to any sort of central authority. I take som comfort, to be sure, from my frend’s assurans that she wil do nothing to hold me in check. BUt ninety and nine per centum of her party wil be les considerate. I woud not stickle for the mathematical accuracy of my surmise. But she ought to kno ful wel that she woud be outvoted if the question of a free press wer the subject of a plebiscite. Such a publication as INSTEAD OF A MAGAZINE woud hav short shrift at the socialist polls. Among the things administerd woud be the one-hors printing outfit from which this seditious sheet is publisht. Even her own letter, printed abov, woud not be permitted in any socialist paper today. What then is to be expected when meddlesomeness is enthroned in power?

Socialist books are, every one of them, bar none, apologists for tyranny. They ar written with a view to convincing the libertarian that after the revolution Liberty wil arise, resplendent, like another Venus from the sea, out of the quagmire of the most galling despotism the mind of man can conceive. But even tho these writers wer to be believd, what assurance is ther that the numbskull masses can be held in leash by the promises made in their behalf by the best socialist authors? I am aware, of course, that nothing I hav written wil swerv my frend from her devotion to Ideals, among which appears to be the expectation that the stream can rise higher than its source.