Russia from brutalizing Poland or from flogging and killing her
children; neither does it hinder the Prussian government from
maltreating her Polish subjects and forcibly obliterating the Polish
language. And of what avail is native territory to the small nations of
the Balkans, with Russian, Turkish and Austrian influences keeping them
in a helpless and dependent condition. Various raids and expeditions by
the powerful neighboring states forced on them, have proven what little
protection their territorial independence has given them against brutal
coercion. The independent existence of small peoples has ever served
powerful states as a pretext for venomous attacks, pillage and attempts
at annexation. Nothing is left them but to bow before the superior
powers, or to be ever prepared for bitter wars that might, in a measure,
temporarily loosen the tyrannical hold, but never end in a complete
overthrow of the powerful enemy.
Switzerland is often cited as an example of a united nation which is
able to maintain itself in peace and neutrality. It might be advisable
to consider what circumstances have made this possible.
It is an indisputable fact that Switzerland acts as the executive agent
of European powers, who consider her a foreign detective bureau which
watches over, annoys and persecutes refugees and the dissatisfied
elements.
Italian, Russian and German spies look upon Switzerland as a hunting
ground, and the Swiss police are never so happy, as when they can render
constable service to the governments of surrounding states. It is
nothing unusual for the Swiss police to carry out the order of Germany
or Italy to arrest political refugees and forcibly take them across the
frontier, where they are given over into the hands of the German or
Italian gendarmes. A very enticing national independence, is it not?
Is it possible that former revolutionists and enthusiastic fighters for
freedom, who are now in the nationalistic field, should long for similar
conditions? Those who refuse to be carried away by nationalistic phrases
and who would rather follow the broad path of Internationalism, are
accused of indifference to and lack of sympathy with the sufferings of
the Jewish race. Rather is it far more likely that those who stand for
the establishment of a Jewish nation show a serious lack of judgment.
Especially the radicals among the Nationalists seem to be altogether
lost in the thicket of phrases. They are ashamed of the label
"nationalist" because it stands for so much retrogression, for so many
memories of hatred, of savage wars and wild persecutions, that it is
difficult for one who claims to be advanced and modern to adorn himself
with the name. And who does not wish to appear advanced and modern?
Therefore the name of Nationalist is rejected, and the name of
territorialist taken instead, as if that were not the same thing. True,
the territorialists will have nothing to do with an organized Jewish
state; they aim for a free commune. But, if it is certain that small
states are subordinated to great powers and merely endured by them, it
is still more certain that free communes within powerful states, built
on coercion and land robbery, have even less chance for a free
existence. Such cuckoos' eggs the ruling powers will not have in their
nests. A community, in which exploitation and slavery do not reign,
would have the same effect on these powers, as a red rag to a bull. It
would stand an everlasting reproach, a nagging accusation, which would
have to be destroyed as quickly as possible. Or is the national glory of
the Jews to begin after the social revolution?
If we are to throw into the dust heap our hope that humanity will some
day reach a height from which difference of nationality and ancestry
will appear but an insignificant speck on earth, well and good! Then let
us be patriots and continue to nurse national characteristics; but we
ought, at least, not to clothe ourselves in the mantel of Faust, in our
pretentious sweep through space. We ought at least declare openly that
the life of all peoples is never to be anything else but an outrageous
mixture of stupid patriotism, national vanities, everlasting antagonism,
and a ravenous greed for wealth and supremacy.
Might it not be advisable to consider how the idea of a national unity
of the Jews can live in the face of the deep social abysses that exist
between the various ranks within the Jewish race?
It is not at all a mere accident that the Bund, the strongest
organization of the Jewish proletariat, will have nothing to do with the
nationalistic agitation. The social and economic motives for concerted
action or separation are of far more vital influence than the national.
The feeling of solidarity of the working-people is bound to prove
stronger than the nationalistic glue. As to the remainder of the
adherents of the nationalistic movement, they are recruited from the
ranks of the middle Jewish class.
The Jewish banker, for instance, feels much more drawn to the Christian
or Mohammedan banker than to his Jewish factory worker, or tenement
house dweller. Equally so will the Jewish workingman, conscious of the
revolutionizing effect of the daily struggle between labor and money
power, find his brother in a fellow worker, and not in a Jewish banker.
True, the Jewish worker suffers twofold: he is exploited, oppressed and
robbed as one of suffering humanity, and despised, hated, trampled upon,
because he is a Jew; but he would look in vain toward the wealthy Jews
for his friends and saviors. The latter have just as great an interest
in the maintenance of a system that stands for wage slavery, social
subordination, and the economic dependence of the great mass of mankind,
as the Christian employer and owner of wealth.
The Jewish population of the East Side has little in common with the
dweller of a Fifth Avenue mansion. He has much more in common with the
workingmen of other nationalities of the country--he has sorrows,
struggles, indignation and longings for freedom in common with them. His
hope is the social reconstruction of society and not nationalistic scene
shifting. His conditions can be ameliorated only through a union with
his fellow sufferers, through human brotherhood, and not by means of
separation and barriers. In his struggles against humiliating demands,
inhuman treatment, economic pressure, he can depend on help from his
non-Jewish comrades, and not on the assistance of Jewish manufacturers
and speculators. How then can he be expected to co-operate with them in
the building of a Jewish commonwealth?
Certain it is that the battle which is to bring liberty, peace and
well-being to humanity is of a mental, social, economic nature and not
of a nationalistic one. The former brightens and widens the horizon, the
latter stupefies the reasoning faculties, cripples and stifles the
emotions, and sows hatred and strife instead of love and tenderness in
the human soul. All that is big and beautiful in the world has been
created by thinkers and artists, whose vision was far beyond the
Lilliputian sphere of Nationalism. Only that which contains the life's
pulse of mankind expands and liberates. That is why every attempt to
establish a national art, a patriotic literature, a life's philosophy
with the seal of the government attached thereto is bound to fall flat
and to be insignificant.
It were well and wholesome if all works dealing with national glory and
victory, with national courage and patriotic songs could be used for
bonfires. In their place we could have the poems of Shelley and Whitman,
essays of Emerson or Thoreau, the Book of the Bees, by Maeterlink, the
music of Wagner, Beethoven and Tschaikovsky, the wonderful art of
Eleanore Duse.
I can deeply sympathize with the dread of massacres and persecutions of
the Jewish people; and I consider it just and fair that they should
strain every effort to put a stop to such atrocities as have been
witnessed by the civilized world within a few years. But it must be
borne in mind that it is the Russian government, the Russian reactionary
party, including the Russian Church, and not the Russian people, that
are responsible for the slaughter of the Jews.
Jewish Socialists and Anarchists, however, who have joined the ranks of
the Nationalists and who have forgotten to emphasize the fundamental
distinction between the people of Russia and the reactionary forces of
that country, who have fought and are still fighting so bravely for
their freedom and for the liberation of all who are oppressed, deserve
severe censure. They have thrown the responsibility of the massacres
upon the Russian people and have even blamed the Revolutionists for
them, whereas it is an undisputed fact that the agitation against the
Jews has been inaugurated and paid for by the ruling clique, in the hope
that the hatred and discontent of the Russian people would turn from
them, the real criminals, to the Jews. It is said, "we have no rights in
Russia, we are being robbed, hounded, killed, let the Russian people
take care of themselves, we will turn our backs on them."
Would it not show deeper insight into the condition of affairs if my
Jewish brethren were to say, "Our people are being abused, insulted,
ill-treated and killed by the hirelings of Russian despotism. Let us
strengthen our union with the Intellectuals, the peasants, the
rebellious elements of the people for the overthrow of the abominable
tyranny; and when we have accomplished that let us co-operate in the
great work of building a social structure upon which neither the nation
nor the race but Humanity can live and grow in beauty."
Prejudices are never overcome by one who shows himself equally narrow
and bigoted. To confront one brutal outbreak of national sentiment with
the demand for another form of national sentiment means only to lay the
foundation for a new persecution that is bound to come sooner or later.
Were the retrogressive ideas of the Jewish Nationalists ever to
materialize, the world would witness, after a few years, that one Jew is
being persecuted by another.
In one respect the Jews are really a "chosen people." Not chosen by the
grace of God, nor by their national peculiarities, which with every
people, as well as with the Jews, merely prove national narrowness. They
are "chosen" by a necessity, which has relieved them of many prejudices,
a necessity which has prevented the development of many of those
stupidities which have caused other nations great efforts to overcome.
Repeated persecution has put the stamp of sorrow on the Jews; they have
grown big in their endurance, in their comprehension of human suffering,
and in their sympathy with the struggles and longings of the human soul.
Driven from country to country, they avenged themselves by producing
great thinkers, able theoreticians, heroic leaders of progress. All
governments lament the fact that the Jewish people have contributed the
bravest fighters to the armies for every liberating war of mankind.
Owing to the lack of a country of their own, they developed,
crystallized and idealized their cosmopolitan reasoning faculty. True,
they have not their own empire, but many of them are working for the
great moment when the earth will become the home for all, without
distinction of ancestry or race. That is certainly a greater, nobler and
sounder ideal to strive for than a petty nationality.
It is this ideal that is daily attracting larger numbers of Jews, as
well as Gentiles; and all attempts to hinder the realization thereof,
like the present nationalistic movement, will be swept away by the storm
that precedes the birth of the new era--mankind clasped in universal
brotherhood.
[Illustration]
Mine Owners' Revenge
BY M. B.
+Charles H. Moyer+, President of the Western Federation of Miners, William
D. Haywood, Secretary of that organization, and G. A. Pettibone, former
member of the same, were arrested in Denver, February 17th.
They are accused of having participated in the murder of the ex-Governor
of Idaho, Mr. Steunenberg. Various other arrests have taken place in
Cripple Creek and Haines, Oregon.
The events during and after the arrest leave no doubt that the
authorities of Colorado and Idaho are in the most beautiful accord in
their attempt to kill the Miners' Union. This accord and harmony is so
apparent that thoughtful citizens cannot fail to see that the
governments of Colorado and Idaho are aiding in the conspiracy of the
mine owners against the miners.
Requisition papers and a special train seem to have been prepared in
advance, for immediately after the arrest they were expelled and taken
to Boise City, Idaho, and within a few moments the whole matter was
settled by the authorities of Colorado, not even pretending to show the
slightest fairness. Nor did they display the least desire to investigate
the grounds upon which requisition papers were granted. This process
usually takes several days. In the case of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone
a few moments sufficed to close the whole proceedings.
Since the papers were issued before the arrest, it is not at all
unlikely that the death sentence has already been decided upon.
Optimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal
murder of 1887, that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of
the upper ten thousand, is impossible--that the authorities would shrink
from such an outrage, such an awful crime. That which has happened in
Colorado and Idaho warrants no such hope.
The evidence against the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners
consists largely of one individual, who is supposed to have known and
witnessed everything. The gentleman seems to fairly long for the moment
when he can take the witness stand and furnish the material that the
District Attorney needs to prove the guilt of the accused. An expert
perjurer, it seems.
The Governor of Idaho, Mr. Gooding, has already given him a good
character. The man acknowledged his firm belief in the existence of a
Supreme Being, which touched the governor's heart deeply. Does he not
know that it has ever been the mission of the Supreme Being to serve as
Impresario to Falsehood and Wretchedness?
The accusation against the three prisoners is the best affidavit of the
miner magnates of the courageous stand of the Western Federation of
Miners during the reign of terror of the money powers. For years
everything was done to disrupt them, but without results. The latest
outrage is a renewed and desperate attack on that labor organization.
Are the working people of America going to look on coolly at a
repetition of the Black Friday in Chicago? Perhaps there will also be a
labor leader, a la Powderly, who will be willing to carry faggots to the
stake? Or are they going to awaken from their lethargy, ere America
becomes thoroughly Russified?
INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
+A painting+ from the "good old times" represents two peasants wrangling
about a cow. One holds on to the horns of the animal, the other tightly
clutches its tail, a third figure is in a crouched position underneath.
It is the lawyer milking the cow, while the other two are quarreling.
Here we have the beauty of the representative system. While groups are
bargaining about their rights, their official advisers and lawmakers are
skimming the cream off the milk. Not justice, but social injustice is
the incentive of these worthy gentlemen.
Human justice, and legal representation thereof, are two different
things. One who seeks for a representation places his rights in the
hands of another. He does not struggle for them himself, he must wait
for a decision thereupon from such quarters as are never inspired by
love for justice, but by personal gain and profit.
The working people are beginning to recognize this. It is also beginning
to dawn upon them that they will have to be their own liberators. They
have the power to refuse their material support to a society that
degrades them into a state of slavery. This power was already recognized
in 1789, when, at the French National Convention, Mirabeau thundered:
"Look out! Do not enrage the common people, who produce everything, who
only need to fold their arms to terrify you!"
The General Strike is still at the beginning of its activity. It has
gone through the fire in Russia. In Spain and Italy it has helped to
demolish the belief in the sovereignity of Property and the State.
Altogether the General Strike idea, though relatively young, has made a
deeper impression on friend and foe than several million votes of the
working people could have achieved. Indeed, it is no joke for the
pillars of society. What, if the workers, conscious of their economic
power, cease to store up great wealth in the warehouses of the
privileged? It was not difficult to get along with the would-be labor
leaders in the legislative bodies, these worthy ones, experienced
through the practice of manufacturing laws to maintain law and disorder,
rapidly develop into good supporters of the existing conditions.
Now, however, the workingmen have entered upon the battlefield
themselves, refusing their labor, which has always been the foundation
of the golden existence of the haute volee. They demand the possibility
to so organize production and distribution as to make it impossible for
the minority to accumulate outrageous wealth, and to guarantee to each
economic well-being.
The expropriateurs are in danger of expropriation. Capitalism has
expropriated the human race, the General Strike aims to expropriate
capitalism.
A new and invigorating breath of life is also felt in this country,
through the formation of the "Industrial Workers of the World." It
awakens the hope of a transformation of the present trade-union methods.
In their present form they serve the money powers more than the working
class.
* * * * *
+Robert Koch+, the world-renowned scientist, who was awarded the Nobel
prize in recognition of his work in the direction of exterminating
tuberculosis, delivered a lecture at Stockholm at the time of receiving
the mark of distinction. In the course of his speech he said: "We may
not conceal the fact, that the struggle against tuberculosis requires
considerable sums of money. It is really only a question of money. The
greater the number of free places for consumptives in well-equipped and
well-conducted hospitals, the better the families of these are
supported, so that the sick are not prevented from going to these
hospitals on account of the care of their relations; and the oftener
such places are established, the more rapidly tuberculosis will cease to
be a common disease."
Where are the governments which are supposed to serve as benefactors of
suffering mankind? They have milliards at their disposal, but use most
of it for the maintenance of armies, bureaucracies, police forces. With
these vast sums, which they extort from the people, they increase
instead of diminish suffering.
* * * * *
+On the 27th of January+ it was 150 years since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
was born. A grandmaster of music, a magician who leads the soul from the
depths of life to its sunary heights. Mozart transposed life into music,
Wagner and his pupils transposed problems of life. Wagner questions and
receives no answer. Mozart affirms life. His "Don Juan" liberates,
"Tannhaeuser" leads into the labyrinth of bothersome renunciation.
The study of Mozart's biography may be recommended to those who believe
that the artistic individuality has freer scope to-day than it would
have with communism. Mozart was always forced to look about for patrons
of his art, for he lacked the means to put his works before the public.
A biographer says of him: "Mozart's life makes us feel the tragedy of an
artist's life most painfully. In his youth he was fondled and idealized
as a wonder child, but his circumstances deteriorated as he matured in
his art and the more accomplished the works of his fantasy grew. When he
died he left a wife and children behind in great poverty. There was not
enough money on hand to bury him. The corpse was placed in the potters'
field. When his wife, who had been sick at the time of the burial,
wanted to look up the grave, it could not be exactly designated." The
genius of the artist, however, permeates the world on waves of light.
* * * * *
+The Czar knows+ his mission. He addressed a deputation of peasants from
the Province of Kursk thus:
"My brothers, I am most glad to see you. You must know very well that
every right of property is sacred to the State. The owner has the same
right to his land as you peasants have to yours. Communicate this to
your fellows in the villages. In my solicitude for the country I do not
forget the peasants, whose needs are dear to me, and I will look after
them continually as did my late father. The National Assembly will soon
assemble and in co-operation with me discuss the best measures for your
relief. Have confidence in me, I will assist you. But I repeat, remember
always that right of property is holy and inviolable."
The commentaries to this fatherly address are furnished by the czaristic
Cossacks who hasten to the peasants' aid with the knout, sword and
incendiarism.
[Illustration]
LITERARY NOTES
"Letters of Henrik Ibsen," published by Fox Duffield & Co., New
York. Price, $2.50.
These letters do not belong among those of great men which prove to be
disappointments. In reading them one is not inclined to ask as of
Schopenhauer's letters, why a philosophic genius of such depth should be
laden with thousands of philistine trivialities.
Ibsen reaches far beyond his surroundings in his letters. What he writes
is a continual protest against shallowness and mediocrity. The misery of
petty state affairs, of patriotism with a board on the forehead bothered
him greatly. This is shown on every page. Whatever he expresses, he
always aims at expanding the horizon; as he himself once remarked: the
revolutionizing of brains. His sentiments are European, and he must
often hear that even the wish for combining the Scandinavian countries
borders on treason. Thus he becomes a "solitary soul." He has even
nothing in common with the radicals; he not only hates the state, the
enemy of individuality, but he is averse to all attempts which aim at
the drilling of the masses. He loves Bjoernson as a poet, but he wants to
have nothing to do with him as a politician. In a letter to Brandes he
writes:
"Bjoernson says: 'The majority is always right.' And as a practical
politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, must
of necessity say: 'The minority is always right.' Naturally, I am not
thinking of that minority of stagnationists who are left behind by the
great middle party, but I mean that minority which leads the van, and
urges on to points which the majority has not yet reached. I mean that
man is right who has allied himself most closely with the future."
* * * * *
+"Under the Wheel"+ is the title of a German story by Hermann Hesse, in
which he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school
system to fully develop the youth. The characterization of the teachers'
profession as Hesse puts it, does not only serve for Germany, but for
all modern states in which governments strive to train the young for the
purpose of making patient subjects and hurrah-screaming patriots of
them. The author says with fine irony of the teacher: "It is his duty
and vocation, entrusted to him by the state, to hinder and exterminate
the rough forces and passions of nature in the young people and to put
in place of them quiet moderation and ideals recognized by the state.
Many a one who at present is a contented citizen or an ambitious
official, would have become without these endeavors of the school an
unmanageable innovator or a hopeless dreamer. There was something in
him, something wild, lawless, which first had to be broken, a flame
which had to be extinguished. The school must break and forcibly
restrict the natural being; it is its duty to make a useful member of
society out of him, according to principles approved by the state's
authority. The wonderful work is crowned with the careful training in
the barracks."
* * * * *
We regret that several of the contributions, while having merits, were
not of the form to be used for a magazine.
* * * * *
Benj. R. Tucker
Publisher and Bookseller
has opened a Book Store at
225 Fourth Ave., Room 13, New York City
Here will be carried, ultimately, the most complete line of advanced
literature to be found anywhere in the world. More than one thousand
titles in the English language already in stock. A still larger stock,
in foreign languages, will be put in gradually. A full catalogue will be
ready soon of the greatest interest to all those in search of the
literature.