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#Post#: 20256--------------------------------------------------
Voltairine de Cleyre
By: mistermax Date: January 11, 2016, 8:50 am
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Voltairine!
Voltairine de Cleyre: Anarchist without Adjectives
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/VoltairinedeCleyre.jpg/220px-VoltairinedeCleyre.jpg
by Sara Baase
If you try to name the great anarchists of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, Joseph
Proudhon, and Benjamin Tucker may come to mind. Voltairine de
Cleyre (1866- 1912) is not well known today. She was a
freethinker, an anarchist, and a feminist. She toured the
country as a speaker and she wrote poems, stories, and essays.
She knew and worked with many of the more well-known radicals.
The purpose of this article is to introduce de Cleyre and some
of her excellent writings.
Voltairine de Cleyre was born to a poor family and was sent off
to a convent at age 13 to be educated. She hated it. She was
taught to repeat religious statements even if she did not
believe them. She made a significant moral decision: She would
not lie, even if it meant she would be damned. (This decision,
made in innocence and fear, reminded me of Huck Finn's decision
to protect Jim, the runaway slave, even if he went to hell for
it. In each case, the child decided to do what he or she knew
instinctively was right even if punished for it. The irony is
that the punishment was damnation threatened by the church, the
institution that is supposed to teach the child to do right.)
When Voltairine emerged from the convent at age 17, she totally
rejected religious dogma and hypocrisy. She was a freethinker,
without ever having "seen a book or heard a word to help" her.
During the next 15 years, de Cleyre embraced and then abandoned
many variants of anarchist philosophies. It was as if she were
trying on garment after garment, trying to find one that fit.
None fit quite right, so ultimately, she fashioned her own. Here
is a brief summary of the development of her views. Throughout,
her anti-authoritarianism and her dedication to liberty were
constant.
De Cleyre began lecturing on freethought soon after leaving the
convent. At 19, she spoke on Thomas Paine's lifework at a Paine
Memorial convention, and heard Clarence Darrow speak on
socialism. She embraced socialism for six weeks until she
discovered anarchism. Emma Goldman said her "inherent love of
liberty could not make peace with the state-ridden notions of
socialism." She then discovered Benjamin Tucker, the
individualist anarchist editor and publisher of Liberty, the
main anarchist newsletter from 1881 to 1908. The individualist
anarchists held that the "essential institutions of
Commercialism are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious
merely by the interference by the State." De Cleyre later
disagreed with the economic views of the individualists and
became a mutualist anarchist. She saw mutualism, under which
free federations of the workers would obviate the necessity of
an employer, as a synthesis of socialism and individualism. She
became a pacifist and opposed prisons. Having forsworn
hypocrisy, she declined to prosecute a man who tried to
assassinate her.
De Cleyre's pacifism led her to reject mutualism. She commented
that ''Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint
effort and administration which would beget more regulation than
is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and
Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the
private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of
freedom."
What was left? Simply anarchism "anarchism without adjectives,"
as the Spanish anarchist Fernando Tarrida del Marmol put it when
calling for greater tolerance among the various anarchist
factions. One of de Cleyre's best essays is "Anarchism"
published in 1901. In it she defines anarchism as freedom from
compulsion. She recognizes that an anarchist must adopt some
view of economics. In this lovely essay, she describes the
distinctive views of the four major economic subcategories of
anarchists: communist, socialist, individualist, and mutualist
and shows why each might have developed when and where it did.
She argues that the particulars depend more on history and
culture than abstract rational derivation. Individualism, for
example, was a good fit in a society without a history of class
conflict, where the worker of today could be the employer
tomorrow, where the country's motto was "The Lord helps him who
helps himself." De Cleyre saw that "there is nothing
unanarchistic about any of them until the element of compulsion
enters and obliges unwilling persons to remain in a community
whose economic arrangements they do not agree to." Like Tarrida,
she encouraged tolerance among anarchists, even including the
Christian anarchists.
De Cleyre also encouraged tolerance of a variety of methods of
achieving liberty. Just as libertarians today argue about
whether resources should be spent on electoral campaigns or
educational projects, the anarchists at the turn of the century
argued about peaceful methods versus confrontational tactics. De
Cleyre wrote that "all methods are to individual capacity and
decision," i.e., that we should use our own skills to do what we
are good at, and choose methods that we are comfortable with.
She described and applauded several prominent examples. Tolstoy,
the "Christian, non-resistant, artist" used his talent as a
writer to "paint pictures of society as it is, . . ., to preach
the end of government through the repudiation of all military
force." John Most, fierce and bitter from years in prison, used
his fiery tongue to denounce the ruling classes. Benjamin
Tucker, cool and critical, believed passive resistance most
effective, but was ready to change when he thought it wise.
Peter Kropotkin hailed the uprisings of the workers and believed
in revolution with his whole soul. Even those who chose
assassination of oppressive and cruel government officials she
defended. She saw them as gentle in their daily lives, lofty in
their ideals, driven to acts of violence by the corruption and
injustice they saw. She wrote
Ask a method? Do you ask Spring her method? Which is more
necessary, the sunshine or the rain? They are contradictory yes;
they destroy each other yes, but from this destruction the
flowers result.
Each choose that method that expresses your selfhood best, and
condemn no other man because he expresses his Self otherwise.
I do not agree with de Cleyre in all particulars, but her
argument for tolerance is an important one for those with
radical views who often spend more time arguing with their
friends than criticizing the enemies of liberty.
De Cleyre's essay "Anarchism and American Traditions" attempts
to show how anarchist and anti-authoritarian the founders of
this country were. The essay includes a powerful attack on
government control of education. She probably exaggerated the
anarchist leanings of the founders, but her style and the quotes
she selected make delightful reading for modern anarchists. The
arguments she presents on education are as valid and relevant
today as they were in the late 18th century and in 1908 when she
wrote her article. She laments the fact that children in the
public schools are taught the battles of the American
Revolution, but not its ideals.
De Cleyre writes that the founders "took their starting point
for deriving a minimum of government upon the same sociological
ground that the modern Anarchist derives the no-government
theory; viz., that equal liberty is the political ideal." She
quotes (more fully than I do here) Thomas Jefferson's wonderful
passage
Societies exist under three forms, sufficiently distinguishable.
1. Without government .... 2. Under government wherein the will
of every one has a just influence .... 3. Under government of
force....
It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is
not the best.
(Jefferson goes on to say he believes anarchism inconsistent
with a large population.)
After describing the founders' views of the purpose of
education, and gracefully but sharply criticizing the political
ideas taught in government schools, she concludes with
If the believers in liberty wish the principles of liberty
taught, let them never intrust that instruction to any
government; for the nature of government is to become a thing
apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon
the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in
its seat.
#Post#: 20257--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: mistermax Date: January 11, 2016, 9:09 am
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DIRECT ACTION
By Voltairine de Cleyre
From the standpoint of one who thinks himself capable of
discerning an undeviating route for human progress to pursue, if
it is to be progress at all, who, having such a route on his
mind's map, has endeavored to point it out to others; to make
them see it as he sees it; who in so doing has chosen what
appeared to him clear and simple expressions to convey his
thoughts to others, -- to such a one it appears matter for
regret and confusion of spirit that the phrase "Direct Action"
has suddenly acquired in the general mind a circumscribed
meaning, not at all implied in the words themselves, and
certainly never attached to it by himself or his co-thinkers.
However, this is one of the common jests which Progress plays on
those who think themselves able to set metes and bounds for it.
Over and over again, names, phrases, mottoes, watchwords, have
been turned inside out, and upside down, and hindside before,
and sideways, by occurrences out of the control of those who
used the expressions in their proper sense; and still, those who
sturdily held their ground, and insisted on being heard, have in
the end found that the period of misunderstanding and prejudice
has been but the prelude to wider inquiry and understanding.
I rather think this will be the case with the present
misconception of the term Direct Action, which through the
misapprehension, or else the deliberate misrepresentation, of
certain journalists in Los Angeles, at the time the McNamaras
pleaded guilty, suddenly acquired in the popular mind the
interpretation, "Forcible Attacks on Life and Property." This
was either very ignorant or very dishonest of the journalists;
but it has had the effect of making a good many people curious
to know all about Direct Action.
As a matter of fact, those who are so lustily and so
inordinately condemning it, will find on examination that they
themselves have on many occasion practised direct action, and
will do so again.
Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went
boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that
shared his convictions, was a direct actionist. Some thirty
years ago I recall that the Salvation Army was vigorously
practising direct action in the maintenance of the freedom of
its members to speak, assemble, and pray. Over and over they
were arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on
singing, praying, and marching, till they finally compelled
their persecutors to let them alone. The Industrial Workers are
now conducting the same fight, and have, in a number of cases,
compelled the officials to let them alone by the same direct
tactics.
Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and
did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their
co-operation to do it with him, without going to external
authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct
actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct
action.
Every person who ever in his life had a difference with anyone
to settle, and went straight to the other persons involved to
settle it, either by a peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct
actionist. Examples of such action are strikes and boycotts;
many persons will recall the action of the housewives of New
York who boycotted the butchers, and lowered the price of meat;
at the present moment a butter boycott seems looming up, as a
direct reply to the price-makers for butter.
These actions are generally not due to any one's reasoning
overmuch on the respective merits of directness or indirectness,
but are the spontaneous retorts of those who feel oppresses by a
situation. In other words, all people are, most of the time,
believers in the principle of direct action, and practices of
it. However, most people are also indirect or political
actionists. And they are both these things at the same time,
without making much of an analysis of either. There are only a
limited number of persons who eschew political action under any
and all circumstances; but there is nobody, nobody at all, who
has ever been so "impossible" as to eschew direct action
altogether.
The majority of thinking people are really opportunist, leaning,
some perhaps more to directness, some more to indirectness as a
general thing, but ready to use either means when opportunity
calls for it. That is to say, there are those who hold that
balloting governors into power is essentially a wrong and
foolish thing; but who nevertheless under stress of special
circumstances, might consider it the wisest thing to do, to vote
some individual into office at that particular time. Or there
are those who believe that in general the wisest way for people
to get what they want is by the indirect method of voting into
power some one who will make what they want legal; yet who all
the same will occasionally under exceptional conditions advise a
strike; and a strike, as I have said, is direct action. Or they
may do as the Socialist Party agitators (who are mostly
declaiming now against direct action) did last summer, when the
police were holding up their meetings. They went in force to the
meeting-places, prepared to speak whether-or-no, and they made
the police back down. And while that was not logical on their
part, thus to oppose the legal executors of the majority's will,
it was a fine, successful piece of direct action.
Those who, by the essence of their belief, are committed to
Direct Action only are -- just who? Why, the non-resistants;
precisely those who do not believe in violence at all! Now do
not make the mistake of inferring that I say direct action means
non-resistance; not by any means. Direct action may be the
extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of
the Brook of Shiloa that go softly. What I say is, that the real
non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in
political action. For the basis of all political action is
coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests
on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them
through.
Now every school child in the United States has had the direct
action of certain non-resistants brought to his notice by his
school history. The case which everyone instantly recalls is
that of the early Quakers who came to Massachusetts. The
Puritans had accused the Quakers of "troubling the world by
preaching peace to it." They refused to pay church taxes; they
refused to bear arms; they refused to swear allegiance to any
government. (In so doing they were direct actionists, what we
may call negative direct actionists.) So the Puritans, being
political actionists, passed laws to keep them out, to deport,
to fine, to imprison, to mutilate, and finally, to hang them.
And the Quakers just kept on coming (which was positive direct
action); and history records that after the hanging of four
Quakers, and the flogging of Margaret Brewster at the cart's
tail through the streets of Boston, "the Puritans gave up trying
to silence the new missionaries"; that "Quaker persistence and
Quaker non-resistance had won the day."
Another example of direct action in early colonial history, but
this time by no means of the peaceable sort, was the affair
known as Bacon's Rebellion. All our historians certainly defend
the action of the rebels in that matter, for they were right.
And yet it was a case of violent direct action against lawfully
constituted authority. For the benefit of those who have
forgotten the details, let me briefly remind them that the
Virginia planters were in fear of a general attack by the
Indians; with reason. Being political actionists, they asked, or
Bacon as their leader asked, that the governor grant him a
commission to raise volunteers in their own defense. The
governor feared that such a company of armed men would be a
threat to him; also with reason. He refused the commission.
Whereupon the planters resorted to direct action. They raised
volunteers without the commission, and successfully fought off
the Indians. Bacon was pronounced a traitor by the governor; but
the people being with him, the governor was afraid to proceed
against him. In the end, however, it came so far that the rebels
burned Jamestown; and but for the untimely death of Bacon, much
more might have been done. Of course the reaction was very
dreadful, as it usually is where a rebellion collapses or is
crushed. Yet even during the brief period of success, it had
corrected a good many abuses. I am quite sure that the
political-action-at-all-costs advocates of those times, after
the reaction came back into power, must have said: "See to what
evils direct action brings us! Behold, the progress of the
colony has been set back twenty-five years;" forgetting that if
the colonists had not resorted to direct action, their scalps
would have been taken by the Indians a year sooner, instead of a
number of them being hanged by the governor a year later.
In the period of agitation and excitement preceding the
revolution, there were all sorts and kinds of direct action from
the most peaceable to the most violent; and I believe that
almost everybody who studies United States history finds the
account of these performances the most interesting part of the
story, the part which dents into the memory most easily.
Among the peaceable moves made, were the non-importation
agreements, the leagues for wearing homespun clothing and the
"committees of correspondence." As the inevitable growth of
hostility progressed, violent direct action developed; e.g., in
the matter of destroying the revenue stamps, or the action
concerning the tea-ships, either by not permitting the tea to be
landed, or by putting it in damp storage, or by throwing it into
the harbor, as in Boston, or by compelling a tea-ship owner to
set fire to his own ship, as at Annapolis. These are all actions
which our commonest textbooks record, certainly not in a
condemnatory way, not even in an apologetic way, though they are
all cases of direct action against legally constituted authority
and property rights. If I draw attention to them, and others of
like nature, it is to prove to unreflecting repeaters of words
that direct action has always been used, and has the historical
sanction of the very people now reprobating it.
George Washington is said to have been the leader of the
Virginia planters' non-importation league; he would now be
"enjoined," probably by a court, from forming any such league;
and if he persisted, he would be fined for contempt.
When the great quarrel between the North and the South was
waxing hot and hotter, it was again direct action which preceded
and precipitated political action. And I may remark here that
political action is never taken, nor even contemplated, until
slumbering minds have first been aroused by direct acts of
protest against existing conditions.
The history of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil War is
one of the greatest of paradoxes, although history is a chain of
paradoxes. Politically speaking, it was the slave-holding States
that stood for greater political freedom, for the autonomy of
the single State against the interference of the United States;
politically speaking, it was the non-slave-holding States that
stood for a strong centralized government, which, Secessionists
said and said truly, was bound progressively to develop into
more and more tyrannical forms. Which happened. From the close
of the Civil War one, there has been continual encroachment of
the federal power upon what was formerly the concern of the
States individually. The wage-slavers, in their struggles of
today, are continually thrown into conflict with that
centralized power against which the slave-holder protested (with
liberty on his lips by tyranny in his heart). Ethically
speaking, it was the non-slave-holding States that in a general
way stood for greater human liberty, while the Secessionists
stood for race-slavery. In a general way only; that is, the
majority of northerners, not being accustomed to the actual
presence of negro slavery about them, thought it was probably a
mistake; yet they were in no great ferment of anxiety to have it
abolished. The Abolitionists only, and they were relatively few,
were the genuine ethicals, to whom slavery itself -- not
secession or union -- was the main question. In fact, so
paramount was it with them, that a considerable number of them
were themselves for the dissolution of the union, advocating
that the North take the initiative in the matter of dissolving,
in order that the northern people might shake off the blame of
holding negroes in chains.
Of course, there were all sorts of people with all sorts of
temperaments among those who advocated the abolition of slavery.
There were Quakers like Whittier (indeed it was the
peace-at-all- costs Quakers who had advocated abolition even in
early colonial days); there were moderate political actionists,
who were for buying off the slaves, as the cheapest way; and
there were extremely violent people, who believed and did all
sorts of violent things.
As to what the politicians did, it is one long record of
"hoe-not-to-to-it," a record of thirty years of compromising,
and dickering, and trying to keep what was as it was, and to
hand sops to both sides when new conditions demanded that
something be done, or be pretended to be done. But "the stars in
their courses fought against Sisera;" the system was breaking
down from within, and the direct actionists from without as well
were widening the cracks remorselessly.
Among the various expressions of direct rebellion was the
organization of the "underground railroad." Most of the people
who belonged to it believed in both sorts of action; but however
much they theoretically subscribed to the right of the majority
to enact and enforce laws, they didn't believe in it on that
point. My grandfather was a member of the "underground;" many a
fugitive slave he helped on his way to Canada. He was a very
patient, law-abiding man in most respects, though I have often
thought that he respected it because he didn't have much to do
with it; always leading a pioneer life, law was generally far
from him, and direct action imperative. Be that as it may, and
law-respecting as he was, he had no respect whatever for slave
laws, no matter if made by ten times of a majority; and he
conscientiously broke every one that came in his way to be
broken.
There were times when in the operation of the "underground" that
violence was required, and was used. I recollect one old friend
relating to me how she and her mother kept watch all night at
the door, while a slave for whom a posse was searching hid in
the cellar; and though they were of Quaker descent and
sympathies, there was a shotgun on the table. Fortunately it did
not have to be used that night.
When the fugitive slave law was passed with the help of the
political actionists of the North who wanted to offer a new sop
to the slave-holders, the direct actionists took to rescuing
recaptured fugitives. There was the "rescue of Shadrach," and
the "rescue of Jerry," the latter rescuers being led by the
famous Gerrit Smith; and a good many more successful and
unsuccessful attempts. Still the politicals kept on pottering
and trying to smooth things over, and the Abolitionists were
denounced and decried by the ultra-law-abiding pacificators,
pretty much as Wm. D. Haywood and Frank Bohn are being denounced
by their own party now.
The other day I read a communication in the Chicago Daily
Socialist from the secretary of the Louisville local Socialist
Party to the national secretary, requesting that some safe and
sane speaker be substituted for Bohn, who had been announced to
speak there. In explaining why, Mr. Dobbs makes this quotation
from Bohn's lecture: "Had the McNamaras been successful in
defending the interests of the working class, they would have
been right, just as John Brown would have been right, had he
been successful in freeing the slaves. Ignorance was the only
crime of John Brown, and ignorance was the only crime of the
McNamaras."
Upon this Mr. Dobbs comments as follows: "We dispute
emphatically the statements here made. The attempt to draw a
parallel between the open -- if mistaken -- revolt of John Brown
on the one hand, and the secret and murderous methods of the
McNamaras on the other, is not only indicative of shallow
reasoning, but highly mischievous in the logical conclusions
which may be drawn from such statements."
Evidently Mr.Dobbs is very ignorant of the life and work of John
Brown. John Brown was a man of violence; he would have scorned
anybody's attempt to make him out anything else. And once a
person is a believer in violence, it is with him only a question
of the most effective way of applying it, which can be
determined only by a knowledge of conditions and means at his
disposal. John Brown did not shrink at all from conspiratorial
methods. Those who have read the autobiography of Frederick
Douglas and the Reminiscences of Lucy Colman, will recall that
one of the plans laid by John Brown was to organize a chain of
armed camps in the mountains of West Virginia, North Carolina,
and Tennessee, send secret emissaries among the slaves inciting
them to flee to these camps, and there concert such measures as
times and conditions made possible for further arousing revolt
among the negroes. That this plan failed was due to the weakness
of the desire for liberty among the slaves themselves, more than
anything else.
Later on, when the politicians in their infinite deviousness
contrived a fresh proposition of how-not-to-do-it, known as the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left the question of slavery to be
determined by the settlers, the direct actionists on both sides
sent bogus settlers into the territory, who proceeded to fight
it out. The pro-slavery men, who got in first, made a
constitution recognizing slavery and a law punishing with death
any one who aided a slave to escape; but the Free Soilers, who
were a little longer in arriving since they came from more
distant States, made a second constitution, and refused to
recognize the other party's laws at all. And John Brown was
there, mixing in all the violence, conspiratorial or open; he
was "a horse-thief and a murderer," in the eyes of decent,
peaceable, political actionists. And there is no doubt that he
stole horses, sending no notice in advance of his intention to
steal them, and that he killed pro-slavery men. He struck and
got away a good many times before his final attempt on Harper's
Ferry. If he did not use dynamite, it was because dynamite had
not yet appeared as a practical weapon. He made a great many
more intentional attacks on life than the two brothers Secretary
Dobbs condemns for their "murderous methods." And yet history
has not failed to understand John Brown. Mankind knows that
though he was a violent man, with human blood upon his hands,
who was guilty of high treason and hanged for it, yet his soul
was a great, strong, unselfish soul, unable to bear the
frightful crime which kept 4,000,000 people like dumb beasts,
and thought that making war against it was a sacred, a
God-called duty, (for John Brown was a very religious man -- a
Presbyterian).
It is by and because of the direct acts of the forerunners of
social change, whether they be of peaceful or warlike nature,
that the Human Conscience, the conscience of the mass, becomes
aroused to the need for change. It would be very stupid to say
that no good results are ever brought about by political action;
sometimes good things do come about that way. But never until
individual rebellion, followed by mass rebellion, has forced it.
Direct action is always the clamorer, the initiator, through
which the great sum of indifferentists become aware that
oppression is getting intolerable.
We have now and oppression in the land -- and not only in this
land, but throughout all those parts of the world which enjoy
the very mixed blessings of Civilization. And just as in the
question of chattel slavery, so this form of slavery has been
begetting both direct action and political action. A certain
percent of our population (probably a much smaller percent than
politicians are in the habit of assigning at mass meetings) is
producing the material wealth upon which all the rest of us
live; just as it was 4,000,000 chattel Blacks who supported all
the crowd of parasites above them. These are the land workers
and the industrial workers.
Through the unprophesied and unprophesiable operation of
institutions which no individual of us created, but found in
existence when he came here, these workers, the most absolutely
necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose
services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are
just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be
housed withal -- to say nothing of their share of the other
social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish,
such as education and artistic gratification.
These workers have, in one form or another, mutually joined
their forces to see what betterment of their condition they
could get; primarily by direct action, secondarily by political
action. We have had the Grange, the Farmer's Alliance,
Co-operative Associations, Colonization Experiments, Knights of
Labor, Trade Unions, and Industrial Workers of the World. All of
them have been organized for the purpose of wringing from the
masters in the economic field a little better price, a little
better conditions, a little shorter hours; or on the other hand
to resist a reduction in price, worse conditions, or longer
hours. None of them has attempted a final solution of the social
war. None of them, except the Industrial Workers, has recognized
that there is a social war, inevitable so long as present legal-
social conditions endure. They accepted property institutions as
they found them. They were made up of average men, with average
desires, and they undertook to do what appeared to them possible
and very reasonable things. They were not committed to any
particular political policy when they were organized, but were
associated for direct action of their own initiation, either
positive or defensive.
Undoubtably there were and are among all these organizations,
members who looked beyond immediate demands; who did see that
the continuous development of forces now in operation was bound
to bring about conditions to which it is impossible that life
continue to submit, and against which, therefore, it will
protest, and violently protest; that it will have no choice but
to do so; that it must do so or tamely die; and since it is not
the nature of life to surrender without struggle, it will not
tamely die. Twenty-two years ago I met Farmer's Alliance people
who said so, Knights of Labor who said so, Trade Unionists who
said so. They wanted larger aims than those to which their
organizations were looking; but they had to accept their fellow
members as they were, and try to stir them to work for such
things as it was possible to make them see. And what they could
see was better prices, better wages, less dangerous or
tyrannical conditions, shorter hours. At the stage of
development when these movements were initiated, the land
workers could not see that their struggle had anything to do
with the struggle of those engaged in the manufacturing or
transporting service; nor could these latter see that theirs had
anything to do with the movement of the farmers. For that matter
very few of them see it yet. They have yet to learn that there
is one common struggle against those who have appropriated the
earth, the money, and the machines.
Unfortunately the great organizations of the farmers frittered
itself away in a stupid chase after political power. It was
quite successful in getting the power in certain States; but the
courts pronounced its laws unconstitutional, and there was the
burial hole of all its political conquests. Its original program
was to build its own elevators, and store the products therein,
holding these from the market till they could escape the
speculator. Also, to organize labor exchanges, issuing credit
notes upon products deposited for exchange. Had it adhered to
this program of direct mutual aid, it would, to some extent, for
a time at least, have afforded an illustration of how mankind
may free itself from the parasitism of the bankers and the
middlemen. Of course, it would have been overthrown in the end,
unless it had so revolutionized men's minds by the example as to
force the overthrow of the legal monopoly of land and money; but
at least it would have served a great educational purpose. As it
was, it "went after the red herring" and disintegrated merely
from its futility.
The Knights of Labor subsided into comparative insignificance,
not because of failure to use direct action, nor because of its
tampering with politics, which was small, but chiefly because it
was a heterogenous mass of workers who could not associate their
efforts effectively.
The Trade Unions grew strong as the Knights of Labor subsided,
and have continued slowly but persistently to increase in power.
It is true the increase has fluctuated; that there have been
set-backs; that great single organizations have been formed and
again dispersed. But on the whole trade unions have been a
growing power. They have been so because, poor as they are, they
have been a means whereby a certain section of the workers have
been able to bring their united force to bear directly upon
their masters, and so get for themselves some portion of what
they wanted -- of what their conditions dictated to them they
must try to get. The strike is their natural weapon, that which
they themselves have forged. It is the direct blow of the strike
which nine times out of ten the boss is afraid of. (Of course
there are occasions when he is glad of one, but that's unusual.)
And the reason he dreads a strike is not so much because he
thinks he cannot win out against it, but simply and solely
because he does not want an interruption of his business. The
ordinary boss isn't in much dread of a "class- conscious vote;"
there are plenty of shops where you can talk Socialism or any
other political program all day long; but if you begin to talk
Unionism you may forthwith expect to be discharged or at best
warned to shut up. Why? Not because the boss is so wise as to
know that political action is a swamp in which the workingman
gets mired, or because he understands that political Socialism
is fast becoming a middle-class movement; not at all. He thinks
Socialism is a very bad thing; but it's a good way off! But he
knows that if his shop is unionized, he will have trouble right
away. His hands will be rebellious, he will be put to expense to
improve his factory conditions, he will have to keep workingmen
that he doesn't like, and in case of strike he may expect injury
to his machinery or his buildings.
It is often said, and parrot-like repeated, that the bosses are
"class-conscious," that they stick together for their class
interest, and are willing to undergo any sort of personal loss
rather than be false to those interests. It isn't so at all. The
majority of business people are just like the majority of
workingmen; they care a whole lot more about their individual
loss or gain than about the gain or loss of their class. And it
is his individual loss the boss sees, when threatened by a
union.
Now everybody knows that a strike of any size means violence. No
matter what any one's ethical preference for peace may be, he
knows it will not be peaceful. If it's a telegraph strike, it
means cutting wires and poles, and getting fake scabs in to
spoil the instruments. If it is a steel rolling mill strike, it
means beating up the scabs, breaking the windows, setting the
gauges wrong, and ruining the expensive rollers together with
tons and tons of material. IF it's a miners' strike, it means
destroying tracks and bridges, and blowing up mills. If it is a
garment workers' strike, it means having an unaccountable fire,
getting a volley of stones through an apparently inaccessible
window, or possibly a brickbat on the manufacturer's own head.
If it's a street-car strike, it means tracks torn up or
barricaded with the contents of ash-carts and slop-carts, with
overturned wagons or stolen fences, it means smashed or
incinerated cars and turned switches. If it is a system
federation strike, it means "dead" engines, wild engines,
derailed freights, and stalled trains. If it is a building
trades strike, it means dynamited structures. And always,
everywhere, all the time, fights between strike-breakers and
scabs against strikers and strike-sympathizers, between People
and Police.
On the side of the bosses, it means search-lights, electric
wires, stockades, bull-pens, detectives and provocative agents,
violent kidnapping and deportation, and every device they can
conceive for direct protection, besides the ultimate invocation
of police, militia, State constabulary, and federal troops.
Everybody knows this; everybody smiles when union officials
protest their organizations to be peaceable and law-abiding,
because everybody knows they are lying. They know that violence
is used, both secretly and openly; and they know it is used
because the strikers cannot do any other way, without giving up
the fight at once. Nor to they mistake those who thus resort to
violence under stress for destructive miscreants who do what
they do out of innate cussedness. The people in general
understand that they do these things through the harsh logic of
a situation which they did not create, but which forces them to
these attacks in order to make good in their struggle to live or
else go down the bottomless descent into poverty, that lets
Death find them in the poorhouse hospital, the city street, or
the river-slime. This is the awful alternative that the workers
are facing; and this is what makes the most kindly disposed
human beings -- men who would go out of their way to help a
wounded dog, or bring home a stray kitten and nurse it, or step
aside to avoid walking on a worm -- resort to violence against
their fellow men. They know, for the facts have taught them,
that this is the only way to win, if they can win at all. And it
has always appeared to me one of the most utterly ludicrous,
absolutely irrelevant things that a person can do or say, when
approached for relief or assistance by a striker who is dealing
with an immediate situation, to respond with "Vote yourself into
power!" when the next election is six months, a year, or two
years away.
Unfortunately the people who know best how violence is used in
union warfare cannot come forward and say: "On such a day, at
such a place, such and such specific action was done, and as a
result such and such concession was made, or such and such boss
capitulated." To do so would imperil their liberty and their
power to go on fighting. Therefore those that know best must
keep silent and sneer in their sleeves, while those that know
little prate. Events, not tongues, must make their position
clear.
And there has been a very great deal of prating these last few
weeks. Speakers and writers, honestly convinced I believe that
political action and political action only can win the workers'
battle, have been denouncing what they are pleased to call
"direct action" (what they really mean is conspiratorial
violence) as the author of mischief incalculable. One Oscar
Ameringer, as an example, recently said at a meeting in Chicago
that the Haymarket bomb of '86 had set back the eight-hour
movement twenty-five years, arguing that the movement would have
succeeded but for the bomb. It's a great mistake. No one can
exactly measure in years or months the effect of a forward push
or a reaction. No one can demonstrate that the eight-hour
movement could have been won twenty-five years ago. We know that
the eight-hour day was put on the statute books of Illinois in
1871 by political action, and has remained a dead letter. That
the direct action of the workers could have won it, then, cannot
be proved; but it can be shown that many more potent factors
than the Haymarket bomb worked against it. On the other hand, if
the reactive influence of the bomb was really so powerful, we
should naturally expect labor and union conditions to be worse
in Chicago than in the cities where no such thing happened. On
the contrary, bad as they are, the general conditions of labor
are better in Chicago than in most other large cities, and the
power of the unions is more developed there than in any other
American city except San Francisco. So if we are to conclude
anything for the influence of the Haymarket bomb, keep these
facts in mind. Personally I do not think its influence on the
labor movement, as such, was so very great.
It will be the same with the present furore about violence.
Nothing fundamental has been altered. Two men have been
imprisoned for what they did (twenty-four years ago they were
hanged for what they did not do); some few more may yet be
imprisoned. But the forces of life will continue to revolt
against their economic chains. There will be no cessation in
that revolt, no matter what ticket men vote or fail to vote,
until the chains are broken.
How will the chains be broken?
Political actionists tell us it will be only by means of
working-class party action at the polls; by voting themselves
into possession of the sources of life and the tools; by voting
that those who now command forests, mines, ranches, waterways,
mills, and factories, and likewise command the military power to
defend them, shall hand over their dominion to the people.
And meanwhile?
Meanwhile, be peaceable, industrious, law-abiding, patient, and
frugal (as Madero told the Mexican peons to be, after he sold
them to Wall Street)! Even if some of you are disenfranchised,
don't rise up even against that, for it might "set back the
party."
Well, I have already stated that some good is occasionally
accomplished by political action -- not necessarily
working-class party action either. But I am abundantly convinced
that the occasional good accomplished is more than
counterbalanced by the evil; just as I am convinced that though
there are occasional evils resulting through direct action, they
are more than counterbalanced by the good.
Nearly all the laws which were originally framed with the
intention of benefitting the workers, have either turned into
weapons in their enemies' hands, or become dead letters unless
the workers through their organizations have directly enforced
their observance. So that in the end, it is direct action that
has to be relied on anyway. As an example of getting the tarred
end of a law, glance at the anti-trust law, which was supposed
to benefit the people in general and the working class in
particular. About two weeks since, some 250 union leaders were
cited to answer to the charge of being trust formers, as the
answer of the Illinois Central to its strikers.
But the evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater
than any such minor results. The main evil is that it destroys
initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches
people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should
do for themselves; finally renders organic the anomalous idea
that by massing supineness together until a majority is
acquired, then through the peculiar magic of that majority, this
supineness is to be transformed into energy. That is, people who
have lost the habit of striking for themselves as individuals,
who have submitted to every injustice while waiting for the
majority to grow, are going to become metamorphosed into human
high-explosives by a mere process of packing!
I quite agree that the sources of life, and all the natural
wealth of the earth, and the tools necessary to co-operative
production, must become freely accessible to all. It is a
positive certainty to me that unionism must widen and deepen its
purposes, or it will go under; and I feel sure that the logic of
the situation will gradually force them to see it. They must
learn that the workers' problem can never be solved by beating
up scabs, so long as their own policy of limiting their
membership by high initiation fees and other restrictions helps
to make scabs. They must learn that the course of growth is not
so much along the line of higher wages, but shorter hours, which
will enable them to increase membership, to take in everybody
who is willing to come into the union. They must learn that if
they want to win battles, all allied workers must act together,
act quickly (serving no notice on bosses), and retain their
freedom to do so at all times. And finally they must learn that
even then (when they have a complete organization) they can win
nothing permanent unless they strike for everything -- not for a
wage, not for a minor improvement, but for the whole natural
wealth of the earth. And proceed to the direct expropriation of
it all!
They must learn that their power does not lie in their voting
strength, that their power lies in their ability to stop
production. It is a great mistake to suppose that the wage-
earners constitute a majority of the voters. Wage-earners are
here today and there tomorrow, and that hinders a large number
from voting; a great percentage of them in this country are
foreigners without a voting right. The most patent proof that
Socialist leaders know this is so, is that they are compromising
their propaganda at every point to win the support of the
business class, the small investor. Their campaign papers
proclaimed that their interviewers had been assured by Wall
Street bond purchasers that they would be just as ready to buy
Los Angeles bonds from a socialist as a capitalist
administrator; that the present Milwaukee administration has
been a boon to the small investor; their reading notices assure
their readers in this city that we need not go to the great
department stores to buy -- buy rather of So-and-so on Milwaukee
Avenue, who will satisfy us quite as well as a "big business"
institution. In short, they are making every desperate effort to
win the support and to prolong the life of that middle-class
which socialist economy says must be ground to pieces, because
they know they cannot get a majority without them.
The most that a working-class party could do, even if its
politicians remained honest, would be to form a strong faction
in the legislatures which might, by combining its vote with one
side or another, win certain political or economic palliatives.
But what the working-class can do, when once they grow into a
solidified organization, is to show the possessing class,
through a sudden cessation of all work, that the whole social
structure rests on them; that the possessions of the others are
absolutely worthless to them without the workers' activity; that
such protests, such strikes, are inherent in the system of
property and will continually recur until the whole thing is
abolished -- and having shown that effectively, proceed to
expropriate.
"But the military power," says the political actionist; "we must
get political power, or the military will be used against us!"
Against a real General Strike, the military can do nothing. Oh,
true, if you have a Socialist Briand in power, he may declare
the workers "public officials" and try to make them serve
against themselves! But against the solid wall of an immobile
working- mass, even a Briand would be broken.
Meanwhile, until this international awakening, the war will go
on as it had been going, in spite of all the hysteria which
well-meaning people who do not understand life and its
necessities may manifest; in spite of all the shivering that
timid leaders have done; in spite of all the reactionary
revenges that may be taken; in spite of all the capital that
politicians make out of the situation. It will go on because
Life cries to live, and Property denies its freedom to live; and
Life will not submit.
And should not submit.
It will go on until that day when a self-freed Humanity is able
to chant Swinburne's Hymn of Man"
"Glory to Man in the highest, For Man is the master of Things."
-end-
#Post#: 20267--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: Αρχιφα
σίστας Dat
e: January 11, 2016, 11:10 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML [img]http://Στην
Κεντρική
Πλατεία του
webwar, την
πλατεία
Ελευθερίας,
ανεγείρω το
αγαλμα της
Voltairine![/img]
Εκεί θα μπει
το άγαλμα
του
χουντικού
τρομοκράτη.
Και οι
δρόμοι γύρω
από την
πλατεία θα
ονομάζοντα_
3;
"φασιμού" και
"βίας"
#Post#: 20268--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: mistermax Date: January 11, 2016, 1:50 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Pepe the Frog link=topic=2235.msg20267#msg20267
date=1452532214]
HTML [quote]http://Στην
Κεντρική
Πλατεία του
webwar, την
πλατεία
Ελευθερίας,
ανεγείρω το
αγαλμα της
Voltairine!
[/quote]Εκεί θα
μπει το
άγαλμα του
χουντικού
τρομοκράτη.
Και οι
δρόμοι γύρω
από την
πλατεία θα
ονομάζοντα_
3;
"φασιμού" και
"βίας"
[/quote]
Eχει ηδη
στηθει το
αγαλμα της de
Cleyre. Οι γυρω
δρομοι
ειναι η
Αναρχίας,
Αυτονομιας
και
Ισπανίας 36.
Φευγουν 3
δρομοι απο
την πλατεια
Ελευθερίας,
γιατι
κτίστηκε
οπως την
πλατεία
εξαρχειων,
τριγωνη
ειναι.
Φυσικα στο
κεντρο θα
βάλουμε το
γλυπτο με
τους 3 ερωτες
που ειναι
τωρα στην
πλατεια
εξαρχείων,
νομιζω στο
γουεμπγορ
θα
προστατευτ^
9;ι
καλύτερα.
#Post#: 20271--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: Αρχιφα
σίστας Dat
e: January 11, 2016, 5:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=mistermax link=topic=2235.msg20268#msg20268
date=1452541801]
Εκεί θα μπει
το άγαλμα
του
χουντικού
τρομοκράτη.
Και οι
δρόμοι γύρω
από την
πλατεία θα
ονομάζοντα_
3;
"φασιμού" και
"βίας"
Eχει ηδη
στηθει το
αγαλμα της de
Cleyre. Οι γυρω
δρομοι
ειναι η
Αναρχίας,
Αυτονομιας
και
Ισπανίας 36.
Φευγουν 3
δρομοι απο
την πλατεια
Ελευθερίας,
γιατι
κτίστηκε
οπως την
πλατεία
εξαρχειων,
τριγωνη
ειναι.
Φυσικα στο
κεντρο θα
βάλουμε το
γλυπτο με
τους 3 ερωτες
που ειναι
τωρα στην
πλατεια
εξαρχείων,
νομιζω στο
γουεμπγορ
θα
προστατευτ^
9;ι
καλύτερα.
[/quote]
Τι φλωριές
είναι αυτές
ρε πι-κραξ; ??? ??? ???
#Post#: 20272--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: mistermax Date: January 11, 2016, 5:45 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Pepe the Frog link=topic=2235.msg20271#msg20271
date=1452553336]
Τι φλωριές
είναι αυτές
ρε πι-κραξ; ??? ??? ???
[/quote]
εχεις αλλες
πολεοδομικ^
1;ς
προτάσεις; ???
#Post#: 20274--------------------------------------------------
Re: Voltairine de Cleyre
By: Αρχιφα
σίστας Dat
e: January 11, 2016, 6:13 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=mistermax link=topic=2235.msg20272#msg20272
date=1452555943]
εχεις αλλες
πολεοδομικ^
1;ς
προτάσεις; ???
[/quote]
Ναι η
πλατεία θα
βρίσκεται
μπροστά από
την λεωφόρο
Europa θα είναι
τετράγωνη,
στην μέση θα
έχει ένα
άγαλμα του
χουντικού
τρομοκράτη
ενώ πίσω από
το άγαλμα
υπάρχει ο
χρυσελεφάν`
4;ινος
ναός, οι δυο
δρόμοι στα
πλάγια θα
λέγονται
οδός
φασισμού
και οδος
βίας! :D
*****************************************************