“Follow your logic
out,” says Voltairine de Cleyre, can you not see that true
economy lies in liberty?
Ah! when will they see, and why do
they fail to see, a principle of which the whole course of
civilization has been a continued demonstration? Is it not because
man's logic from the beginning has had for its major premise a
falsehood? In turning back the pages of my humble history, I find I
very early came to the conclusion that, if certain things were true,
certain other things must of necessity follow. I was taught that the
world and all it contained was created by a being infinite in wisdom,
power, and goodness. And I said man's free will is impossible: with
an infinite being foreordination and foreknowledge are synonymous.
And when I dwelt on the miseries of man
and the tendency
of things to go wrong in general, just how infinite goodness could
have arranged it I was at a loss to know. A screw seemed loose
somewhere. I could entertain no other belief; surely creation
required infinite wisdom and power, and was it possible that such
could be devoid of goodness? I had never received any religious
training in particular. Our folks were Universalists from way
back.
Still I was impressed with the belief that morality
depended upon religion, that infidelity led to vice and crime. I
remember how the assertion of our orthodox friends that Universalism
was a species of infidelity or a step in that direction bothered me,
and hence I was the more bitter against men of Ingersoll's stamp;
and, as for the advocate of free love, I thought hanging was too good
for him. When I read in one of our daily papers of a certain S. P.
Andrews welcoming home a convict from Auburn penitentiary — who
had been arrested for scattering obscene literature — with
language of such a vile nature that many ladies whose love of
freethought had not carried them beyond decency left the hall, I
wondered at such depravity. Now it happened that a sister of mine,
the wife of a western postmaster, was in the habit of sending me the
sample copies of papers sent to the office, and so it was that a copy
of Dr. Foote’s Health Monthly came into my
possession, containing a notice of this very meeting and advising its
readers to purchase a copy of the New York Truth Seeker
containing a full account. Of course a different aspect was given the
affair. My curiosity was aroused. I sent for a copy; I read Mr.
Andrews’s address; I saw that in his zeal for religion our
daily editor had colored his account. Free thought was antagonistic
to religion; any obloquy he could throw upon its advocates would be a
credit to the Lord. But I saw something in the infidel paper that
more powerfully asserted my attention, — an essay on the
philosophy of evolution. I was more than interested. I sent for
various pamphlets on the subject, and sat down to an investigation of
its merits. It took me some time, but I finally arose, if not as
elated, certainly as convinced as the old philosopher who sprang from
his bath tub and ran naked through the streets shouting Eureka!
Eureka!
I had found it, — an answer to the problems of
the universe. And I said: There is no God; matter, force, and law (or
necessity) being the all-in-all. There is no power to temper
the wind to the shorn lamb
the lamb must become adapted to
the winds, or die. The miseries of man
are not designed
for some wise end, but are the effect of certain causes which his
intelligence may study and reform or abolish. And religion, being the
result of ignorance, has played a prominent part in those causes. I
had no use for religion now, except as a sign over a dangerous
quagmire. My standard of morality now I labeled utility. And in the
new light I turned to political economy. If my worthy sire had been
careless with my religious training, he had never missed an
opportunity to impress upon my mind the importance of voting the
straight Republican ticket. I remember how grieved he was on one
occasion when I substituted the name of a Democrat for one of his
candidates, and how he argued that a bad man on a good ticket was
preferable to a good man on a bad ticket. While I believed our party
was all right and the Democratic party all wrong, still I could see
no other way of entering my protest against the nomination of a
drunkard and a gambler. But he was popular in his district, and
father felt confident of his election, despite such quixotic notions
as mine; and the election proved the truth of his prediction. The
lesson impressed upon my mind was that our party was not infallible.
But the true inwardness of the g. o. p. was brought out when my
sympathy led me to believe in temperance legislation and we sought to
obtain the aid of the party of great moral ideas.
Their
fast-and-loose game soon sent me into the prohibition party, but
alas! I soon found that political trickery was not confined to the
old parties, but met me here, not only subordinating principle to
party success, but showing a dearth of sympathy for the struggling
mass of humanity. And I dropped out of the ranks, even while
believing prohibition was necessary.
Then the Greenback craze
interested me, and in studying the
financial question I was brought to see that drunkenness was the result
of poverty, and as long as the inequality existed between capital and
labor, poverty, vice, and crime would result, and prohibitory
legislation was an aggravation rather than a remedy. To remove the
inequality by destroying the special privileges granted wealth seemed
to me the true solution, and I turned to the labor party. I soon found
that it was not equality that this party wanted, but special privileges
for its own members. I looked into the single tax
idea;
would this do it? No; the advantages of wealth would remain. I left
politics, determined never to associate with another party, unless it
was a party of repeal.
Then came the new light. I had about concluded that God meant it unto good
perhaps, and my duty in the premises was not clear. As the
superhuman deity fades slowly away from before us, we perceive with
greater clearness the shape of a grander and nobler figure—of
him who made all gods and shall unmake them.
Man was not
made to mourn, but owing to those laws so essential in bringing out
and developing the strong and the capable, the struggle for
existence
and the survival of the fittest
result
in proud man dressed in brief authority
and the many
slavish poor. I had looked upon competition as holding the nose of
humanity to the grindstone of fate, spoiling its beauty and
demoralizing its soul, while monopoly was slowly but surely drawing
to itself the wealth of the world. Then the motherly face of
Communism beamed upon me; the gospel of plenty and brotherly love
charmed me. But when I turned from the
Cold dull strife that makes men mad,
The tug for wealth and power,
and engaged in a search
for the causes and certain principles governing those causes, saying
to prejudice, Get thee behind me, Satan,
I was soon
convinced that the evil was not in competition itself, but in that
power which shaped competition and made it the fierce struggle so
unequal. Special privilege it was that made countless
thousands mourn.
Competition freed from this would be a
blessing. Competition is but the cat’s paw by which the monkey,
monopoly, gets the chestnuts out of the fire. Love and sympathy did
not prevent me from seeing that there was a greater evil than
poverty,—dependence,—and
it seemed to me the principle was the same, whether the power that
made one dependent emanated from the State. Is monopoly any less
monopoly when called government? Is not monopoly the child of
privilege? And is not privilege the very essence of the State? The
more I dwelt on political economy, the more inconsistent it appeared.
Everywhere men seemed striving to abate one evil by establishing
another. I followed Herbert Spencer in his genesis of government, and
found it conceived of man’s endeavor to plunder and enslave.
The robber and the pirate have travelled down the ages donning the
garb of respectability, and now pose as the sovereigns of the State.
Is he any the less a robber who presents his warrant of the State
demanding my money, than the highwayman who presents a loaded pistol?
Every action accounted wrong between man and man becomes a virtue in
the State.
That’s in the Captain but a choleric word
Which in the solder’s flat blasphemy.
What are you going to do about it? Is there
no balm in Gilead?
Every prescription I had examined was but a
different mixture of the same compound, Invasion. Shall we fight the
Devil with his own weapons? What makes him Devil but his weapons? I
had heard of Anarchy,—the no government idea,—and read
some of its literature, but I was unfortunate in the selection. I got
the popular idea expressed by Ingersoll,—a reaction from
tyranny. I could see that the evils of society might be traced to
government as their fountain head. But to abolish government as an
evil in itself and to fly to others we know not of,—I
hesitated. And thus I stood, letting I-dare-not wait upon I
would,
when there came to me a newspaper article credited to
Liberty, Boston, Mass. A new idea was suggested. I sent for a sample
copy. I became a subscriber, and carefully studied what Liberty
taught,—passive resistance.
Gradually, one by one, the seeming necessities for government
disappeared. I could see how the citizen grown strong in
self-reliance was perfectly able to take care of himself, and it
needed no figures to tell me the vast amount of wealth that would be
thus saved. And I could see how even a comparatively few, by pooling
their issues
in friendly coöperation, pursuing
self-interest, would be able to get and hold their own, asking no
favors of any power, and, by quietly ignoring the existence of
government, successfully resist its invasions. And I said, passive
resistance means a quiet determination to mind one’s own
business. But I learned another truth, — that liberty was
something more than a name. Again I could have shouted Eureka!
As Archimedes discovered in water a principle whereby he could
determine the pure metal in Hiero’s crown, I had found in
liberty a principle governing the right action of men. Liberty
eulogized by sages and sung by poets, but always shouted in the
interest of some particular line of thought. All reformers from
Martin Luther down have placed it on their banners, but never
advocated it. They simply demand it to promulgate the truth.
The truth
and nothing but the truth
should be free.
Thus every school or individual idea claims for
itself the right of thought and action. Still liberty has had no
basic meaning such as other words have that are used in reference to
the actions of men. It always has depended and always must depend
upon individual interpretation. Here is where the grand philosophy of
Anarchism comes in. It regards the individual as supreme. It stands
upon the predicate that all men are born free and equal.
The right of authority over his fellows is vested in none. And
Anarchy is the proper word. It took me some time to find that out,
for Webster said it meant confusion, and Webster was an
honorable man.
But with this principle of liberty a new aspect
was given things. Absence of government was no longer synonymous with
confusion. True order and harmony are found in Liberty alone.
Confusion results from contending forces, chiefs, and rulers. I saw
clearly that, as there was but one meaning, — absence of all
authority, — there could be but one form of Anarchism. As
authority is only possible by the aid of force, Anarchism rejects all
force that would enforce or coerce. As liberty is only possible by an
absence of invasion or aggression, Anarchism rejects all invasion or
aggression. It is in vain for the revolutionist who hopes by forceof
ballots or bullets to abolish government to call himself an
Anarchist, for, whatever he may become, he is now the enemy and not
the friend of Anarchy. It is not the end hoped for, but the means
employed that makes the Anarchist. Employing the forces of slavery to
gain liberty is a delusion. To call such an Anarchist is like calling
a lamb’s tail a leg. It may be in the course of evolution
develop into a leg, but there is no practical benefit in calling it a
leg now. Follow your logic out.
Horace Greeley struck
the true chord when he showed the uselessness of law and lawyers in
the collection of debts. Had he but followed his logic out, it would
have proved that true economy lies in liberty.
To
paraphrase Tupper:
I follow economy through the world
And find her home in Anarchy.