history; of the soldiers shooting the inmates of an improvised hospital
that were unable to be moved when the fire surrounded the building; of
the soldiers shooting an old man for refusing to work, though so infirm
with age that he had to walk with a cane; of the shooting of a Red Cross
man while in his auto on a deed of mercy bent; of the man shot in the
back for talking back to a soldier, and that after he had turned away
from the drunken brute; of the shooting of a man for having whisky in
his possession and refusing to give it up--that the soldiers had plenty
is in evidence from the fact that a large per cent. were so drunk that
they could walk with but difficulty--of their insulting women, and even
far worse than mere insult also; of shooting persons for looting while
they themselves did the same; all this and much more and worse are known
to be true, and, in the language of another writer on this same subject,
"Strive as they may the authorities will never be able to whitewash the
military abominations inflicted upon San Francisco and vicinity." In
this regard the same writer says most truly:
"The rulers of the State furnished us an example of 'anarchy,'
according to their own definition of the term."
In times like these it brings out what is in the man, and these murders
and lesser brutalities of the soldiers while policing San Francisco tell
us that the soldier is but an infuriated thug, ready to do murder and
rapine at the first opportunity; the civic authorities of Oakland
recognized this as a fact when they finally allowed the reopening of the
saloons, for the barkeepers were specially interdicted from selling or
giving liquor to soldiers; they were already loaded too heavy with
murderous instincts and propensities and it would not do to run the risk
of touching off that magazine of murder with the match of whisky.
These brutal butcheries and rapine by the soldiers while thus in control
of San Francisco are the legitimate fruits of governmental control, and
it would be well for those who are so strenuously advocating
militarism--the true name for Governmental Control--to bear these things
in mind, for such horrors would be the daily menu under such system, for
there is lots of the savage in the most of us and it needs but to put a
gun in the hands of some and decorate them with brass buttons with U. S.
inscribed thereon to bring to the surface--like a plaster on a boil--all
the native savagery there is in the man; personally, I would prefer to
run my chances among the Head Hunters on the Isle of Borneo than among
uniformed thugs protected and encouraged by martial law to carry out
their natural murderous propensities as was the case in San Francisco,
following the earthquake on the morning of April 18, 1906.
THE GENIUS OF WAR
By JOHN FRANCIS VALTER.
_I am the Genius of War.
My standard's the Skull and the Bones.
I raise my voice--I stamp my foot,
And legions rise out of the ground._
_Armies advance and retreat,
Poisoned, diseased and maimed:
All that is left is a grewsome aspect
To the moonlight, the ghouls and Me._
_All this to a laudable end:--
The general has his star;
Shylock his four per cent;
The contractor's wife a costly gem
To enhance her vulgar charms;
The mother a harvest of tears;
The wife a broken heart;
The unborn babe a prenatal curse;
While I have my surfeit of blood_.
[Illustration]
DIGNITY SPEAKS.
"Hark ye, millions, and tremble! I am more powerful than the Law.
Together with my sister, Respectability, I reach far beyond the boundary
of the authority of governments. I am supreme.
Behold the miserable criminal, desperately resisting the brutal
treatment of the police officer. I shall force him to his knees. I shall
subdue him. Enthroned upon the seat of Justice, robed in the solemn
black of my sacred office, I shall break the rebel's spirit.
'Tis in this that the highest refinement of tyranny manifests itself--it
enters into the very innermost depths of the human mind and there it
ravages, till its foul breath has withered the last resistance of the
unfortunate soul, and the consciousness of self is destroyed; this
accomplished, the man himself is dead.
The Law! See how the timid masses cower at the mere mention of my name.
See them tremble as I enter the arena of the Legislature.
The Dignity of the Law!
The Majesty of the Law!
It must forever remain my great secret that the Law is the Cerberus that
guards the portals of our earthly paradise against the common herd--we
must not be disturbed in our orgies.
The Law! 'Tis our beastly greediness, our bloodthirsty rapacity
expressed in statutes. 'Tis the insatiety of the human beasts of prey
immortalized in jurisprudence, and I, Dignity, sanctify all that.
As a captain of industry, as a prince of commerce, or as a king of
finance, I speak with solemn face of the heavy responsibilities that
rest upon those to whose care God, in his infinite wisdom, has entrusted
the wealth of the universe; I speak with zeal of the sacred duty of the
rich to lend a helping hand to our less fortunate brothers; I never tire
to emphasize the necessity of wise stewardship.
In the meantime, I exploit the "poor brothers" and I appropriate the
lion's share of the fruit of his labor; he is made to pay me an usurious
profit on my investments.
I fill my shops and factories with men, women and children, and I
transmute the base metal of their bones into the noble coin of the
realm; my coffers grow fat, my slaves grow lean, but I acquire the
reputation of a public benefactor, a public-spirited citizen, a noble
humanitarian.
As military commander, as a great general, I eulogize the heroism and
self-sacrifice of my blind slaves and hirelings that have returned from
a successful campaign against a weaker nation. I speak of the great
benefit that the success of our arms will confer upon the people, I
emphasize its stimulating effect upon the progress of our country and
upon our civilization.
Yet while my anointed lips pour forth these solemn lies, my mind travels
over the bloody fields of carnage; I behold the thousands of the slain,
the mutilated bodies, the torn limbs, the streams of human blood....
I stand in the pulpit and call the faithful to prayer. I thunder eternal
curses upon the heads of the unbelievers; I threaten the people with the
torments of hell and I try to bribe them by the promise of heaven.
Believe, live and be saved, I cry. Or else you will die and be damned!
For I am the visible representative on earth of those invisible,
extra-mundane spirits whom man, in his fear and ignorance, created to
his own continued mental enslavement.
Terrified, sin lies prostrate at my feet. It does not know that a sick
conscience is a characteristic trait of all slaves. It is the universal
self-accuser. Were the people--individually and collectively--to sin on
a grand scale, were they to refuse to be the puppets of the man-made
idols--were that to happen, masters and slaves would cease to be.
The tyrants of the world are under great obligations to me. They must
not forget this. For if they should, I will unfold my solemn black robe,
I will smooth the hypocritical lines on my face--then shall the world
behold all the filth and corruption that I, Dignity, hide."
[Illustration]
PATERNALISTIC GOVERNMENT.
By THEODORE SCHROEDER.
(_Continuation._)
HERE is paternal solicitude with a vengeance in a law I requote from
Wordsworth Donisthorpe:
"They shall have bows and arrows, and use the same of Sundays and
holidays; and leave all playing at tennis or foot-ball and other games
called quoits, dice, casting of stone, kailes, and other such importune
games. Forasmuch as labourers and grooms keep greyhounds and other dogs,
and on the holidays when good Christians be at church hearing divine
service, they go hunting in parks, warrens, and connigries, it is
ordained that no manner of layman which hath not lands to the value of
forty shillings a year, shall from henceforth keep any greyhound or
other dog to hunt, nor shall he use ferrets, nets, heys, harepipes nor
cords, nor any engines for to take or destroy deer, hares, nor conies,
nor other _gentlemen's game_, under pain of twelve months imprisonment.
"For the great dearth that is in many places of the realm of poultry, it
is ordained that the price of a young capon shall not pass threepence,
and of an old fourpence, of a hen twopence, of a pullet a penny, of a
goose fourpence.
"Esquires and gentlemen under the estate of a knight shall not wear
cloth of a higher price than four and a half marks, they shall wear no
cloth of gold nor silk nor silver, nor no manner of clothing
embroidered, ring button nor brooch of gold nor of silver, nor nothing
of stone nor no manner of fur; and their wives and daughters shall be of
the same condition as to their vesture and apparel, without any
turning-up or purfle or apparel of gold, silver nor of stone.
"Because that servants and labourers will not nor by long season would,
serve and labour without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more
than hath been given to such servants and labourers in any time past, so
that for scarcity of the said servants and labourers the husbands and
land-tenants may not pay their rent nor live upon their lands, to the
great damage and loss as well of the Lords as of the Commons, it is
accorded and assented that the bailiff for husbandry shall take by the
years 13s. 3d. and his clothing once by the year at most; the master
hind 10s., the carter 10s., the shepherd 10s., the oxherd 6s. 8d., the
swineherd 6s., a woman labourer 6s., a dey 6s., a driver of the plough
7s. at the most, and every other labourer and servant according to his
degree; and less in the country where less was wont to be given, without
clothing, courtesy, or other reward by covenant. If any give or take by
covenant more than is above specified, at the first that they shall be
thereof attained, as well the givers as the takers, shall pay the value
of the excess so taken, and at the second time of their attainer the
double value of such excess, and at the third time the treble value of
such excess, and if the taker so attained have nothing whereof to pay
the said excess, he shall have forty days imprisonment."
Our puritan fathers had the same paternal solicitude as all other
tyrants. They made it a crime to disregard the Sabbath, or to deny
Scripture, or the truth of Christianity or of the Trinity. In the
records of the colony for September 1639 it is written: "For as much as
it is evident unto this court that the common custom of drinking one to
another, is a mere useless ceremony, and draweth on that abominable
practice of drinking healths, and is also an occasion of much waste of
the good creatures, and of many other sin," etc. Then it declares that
such is a reproach to a Christian commonwealth, "wherein the least evils
are not to be tolerated."
In the instructions of the Massachusetts Company to Endicott and his
Council, the trade in tobacco is only allowed to the "old planters," "if
they conceive that they cannot otherwise provide for their livelihood."
It is left to the discretion of Endicott and his Council "to give way
for the present to their planting of it, in such manner and with such
restrictions" as they may think fitting. "But," it is added, "we
absolutely forbid the sale of it or the use of it by any of our own
particular (private) men's servants, unless upon urgent occasion, for
the benefit of health, and taken privately." In the Records of the
Colony of Massachusetts for September 3, 1634, "it is ordered that
victuallers or keepers of an ordinary shall not suffer any tobacco to be
taken into their houses, under penalty of 5s. for every offence to be
paid by the victualler, and 12d. by the party that takes it." "Further
it is ordered that no person shall take tobacco publicly under the
penalty of 2s. 6d., nor privately in his own house or in the house of
another before strangers, and that two or more shall not take it
together anywhere, under the aforesaid penalty for every offence."
The laws which our Colonial fathers enacted against "excess and bravery
in apparel" are fitted to excite a smile. But there is something more
than ludicrous in the aspect of grave lawmakers passing judgment on all
the minutiæ of dress, and finding matter of offence in an extra "slash,"
or a needless garniture of "lace." Against this last-named article the
zeal of our Puritan fathers seems to have been especially stirred up. In
1634 it was ordered "that no person, either man or woman, shall
hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen, silk, or linen with
any lace on it, silver, gold, silk, or thread, under the penalty of
forfeiture of such clothes." In 1636 it was enacted "that no person,
after one month, shall make or sell any bone-lace or other lace, to be
worn upon any garment or linen, upon pain of 5s. the yard for every yard
of such lace so made, or sold, or set on; neither shall any tailor set
any lace upon any garment, upon pain of 10s. for every
offence,--provided that binding or small edging laces may be used upon
garments or linen." Again, three years later, a new edict was launched
at this obnoxious material, because "there is much complaint of the
excessive wearing of lace and other superfluities, tending to little use
or benefit, but to the nourishing of pride and the exhausting of men's
estates, and also of evil example to others." The law of 1634 was indeed
repealed in 1644; but in 1651 the Court, to their great grief, are
compelled to try their hand at the work again, though frankly confessing
the impotence of all previous legislation, and evidently awakening to a
sense of the inherent difficulties of the subject. "We acknowledge it,"
say they, "to be a matter of much difficulty, in regard of the blindness
of men's minds and the stubbornness of their wills, to set down exact
rules to confine all sorts of persons"; and so, leaving the wealthier
class to their own conscience of fancy, they undertake to prescribe for
"people of mean condition." It was therefore ordered (in 1651) that no
one whose estate is not of the value of £200 "shall wear any gold or
silver lace, or gold or silver buttons, or any bone-lace above 2s. per
yard or silk hoods or scarfs"; and moreover, the selectmen of the town
are required to fine anybody whom "they shall judge to exceed their rank
and ability in the costliness or fashion of their apparel, in any
respect"! And finally, a law passed in 1662 forbids "children and
servants" to wear any apparel "exceeding the quality and condition of
their persons or estate," "the grand jury and country court of the
shire" being judges of the offence.
One provision of the law of 1634 against "new and immodest fashions" is
too remarkable to be omitted. It reads as follows: "Moreover, it is
agreed, if any man shall judge the wearing of any the forenamed
particulars, new fashions, or long hair, or anything of the like nature,
to be uncomely or prejudicial to the common good, and the party
offending reform not the same, upon notice given him, that then the next
Assistant, being informed thereof, shall have power to bind the party so
offending to answer it at the next Court, if the case so requires;
provided, and it is the meaning of the Court, that men and women shall
have liberty to wear out such apparel as they are now provided of
(except the immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate great
veils, long wings, etc.)." What intolerable tyranny of private
surveillance is indicated in the phrase, "what any man shall judge to be
uncomely"!
In the second letter of instructions (dated June, 1629) to Endicott and
his Council, they are exhorted to prevent the sale of "strong waters" to
the Indians, and to punish any of their own people who shall become
drunk in the use of them. In the preamble to a law enacted in 1646, one
is led to expect an enforcement of the modern principles of abstinence
and prohibition; since, after declaring that "drunkenness is a vice to
be abhorred of all nations, especially of those which hold out and
profess the Gospel of Christ Jesus," it goes on to assert that "any
strict laws against the sin will not prevail unless the cause be taken
away." But it would seem that "the cause," in the eyes of our Puritan
lawmakers, was an indiscriminate sale of spirituous drinks; for the law
chiefly enacts that none but "vintners" shall have permission to retail
wine and "strong water." It is also permitted to constables to search
any tavern, or even any private house, "suspected to sell wine contrary
to this order." Moreover, no person is "to drink or tipple at
unseasonable times in houses of entertainment,"--the "unseasonable" time
being declared to be after nine in the evening.
But these laws were of small avail, for, in 1648, the Court is grieved
to confess: "It is found by experience that a great quantity of wine is
spent, and much thereof abused to excess of drinking and unto
drunkenness itself, notwithstanding all the wholesome laws provided and
published for the preventing thereof." It therefore orders, that those
who are authorized to sell wine and beer shall not harbor a drunkard in
their houses, but shall forthwith give him up to be dealt with by the
proper officer, under penalty of five pounds for disobedience.
In 1636 one "Peter Bussaker was censured for drunkenness to be whipped
and to have twenty stripes sharply inflicted, and fined £5 for slighting
the magistrates," etc. In March, 1634, it was ordered, "that Robert
Coles, for drunkenness by him committed at Roxbury, shall be
disfranchised, wear about his neck and so to hangg upon his outward
garment a D made of red cloth and set upon white; to continue this for a
year, and not to leave it off at any time when he comes amongst company,
under penalty of 40s. for the first offence and £5 for the second." What
was the efficacy of the whipping or the "scarlet letter," we are not
informed.
Of course, people capable of such legislation must frame fantastic
definitions of Liberty. Here is an old one whose sentiments have been
often parroted by unthinking humans of modern times. It reads: "True
Liberty consists in a freedom of doing and receiving good under the
protection of a government solicitous for the people's good." Such has
always been the tyrant's conception of freedom, and, strange to say,
finds many endorsements even to this day.
It has recently been solemnly announced from the judicial bench that the
only liberty an American has is the liberty to do the right thing, of
course according to other people's conception of right. That is
precisely the kind of tyranny or liberty that was enjoyed by the victims
of the paternalistic laws above described.
Persons afflicted with newspaper intelligence express their conception
that the individual has no rights that government may not invade, by
that hollow phrase, "Liberty under the Law." Liberty under the law is
what the government-ridden peasants of Russia enjoy. Liberty under the
law was the pleasure of those who expired with indescribable agony on
the rack and amid the flames. Liberty under the law was meted out to the
millions of victims of the witchcraft delusion. Liberty under the law
was also the liberty of our Southern chattel slaves before as well as
after the war. Liberty under the law is the same old idea of liberty
which every tyrant has ever advanced. As for myself, I shouldn't object
to a little liberty in spite of the law, when that does not conform to
the rule of liberty as laid down by Herbert Spencer in these words:
"Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes
not the equal freedom of any other man."
AIM AND TACTICS OF THE TRADE-UNION MOVEMENT.
By MAX BAGINSKI.
TRADE unionism represents to the working man the most natural form of
association with his fellow-brother. This medium became a necessity to
him when he was confronted by modern industrialism and the power of
capitalism. It dawned on him that the individual producer had not a
shadow of a chance with the owner of the means of production, who,
together with the economic power, enjoyed the protection of the State
with its various weapons of warfare and coercion. In the face of such a
giant master all the appeals of the workingman to the love of justice
and common humanity went up into smoke.
The beginning of modern industry found the producer in abject slavery
and without the understanding of an organized form of resistance.
Exploitation reigned supreme, ever seeking to sap the last drop of
strength of its victims. No mercy for the common man, nor any
consideration shown for his life, his health, growth and development.
Capitalism's only aim was the accumulation of profits, of wealth and
power, and to this moloch everything else was ruthlessly sacrificed.
This spirit of accumulation did not admit of the right of the masses to
think, feel, or demand; it merely considered them a class of coolies,
specially created, as it were, for their masters' use.
This notion is still in vogue to-day, and if the conditions of the
workers at this moment are somewhat better, somewhat more endurable, it
is not thanks to the milk of human kindness of the money power.
Whatsoever the workingmen have achieved in the way of better human
conditions,--a higher standard of living, or a partial recognition of
their rights,--they have wrenched from their enemies through a hard and
bitter struggle that required great endurance, tremendous courage and
many sacrifices.
The tendency to treat the people as a herd of sheep the purpose of which
is to serve as food for parasites is still very strong; but this
tendency no longer goes unchallenged; it is being met with tremendous
opposition; increased social knowledge and revolutionary ideas have
taught the workingmen to unite their efforts against those who have been
comfortably seated on their backs for centuries past.
The first unskilled attempt on the part of the people to gain a clear
conception of their position brought out blind hatred against the
technical methods of exploitation instead of hatred against the latter.
In England, for instance, the workingmen considered machinery their
deadly foe, to be gotten rid of by all means. The simple axiom that
machinery, factories, mines, land, together with every other means of
production, if only in the hands of the entire community, would serve
for the comfort and happiness of all, instead of being a curse, was a
book of seven seals for the people in those days. And even at this late
hour this simple truth is entertained by a comparative few, though more
than one decade of socialistic and anarchistic enlightenment has passed.
The first trade-unionistic attempts have met with the same ferocious
persecution that Anarchism is being met with to-day. Even as to-day
capital avails itself of the strongest weapons of government in its
attack upon labor. The authorities were not slow in passing laws against
trade unionism and every effort for organization was at that time
considered high treason, organizers and all those who participated in
strikes were considered aides and abettors of crime and conspiracy,
punishable with long years of imprisonment and, in many cases, even with
death.
At the behest of Money, the State sent human bloodhounds on the trail of
the man who in any way was suspected in participating in the trade-union
movement. The most villainous and brutal methods were employed to
counteract the growth and success of labor organizations. The powers
that be recognized the great force that is contained in organized labor
as the means of the regeneration of society much quicker than the
workingmen themselves. They felt this force hanging like a Damocles
sword over their heads, which danger made them dread the future, and
nothing was left undone to nip this force in the bud.
The fundamental principle of trade unionism is of a revolutionary
character and, as such, it never was and never can be a mere palliative
for the adjustment of Labor to Capital. Hence, it must aim at the social
and economic reconstruction of society.
Many labor leaders in this country, who consider their duty performed
when they sit themselves at the table of wealth and authority, trying to
bring about peace and harmony between Capital and Labor, might greatly
profit by the history of trade-unionism and the various economic
struggles it has fought.
Only ignorance can account for the birth of such superficial stuff on
the labor question as the book of John Mitchell that has been launched
upon the market through loud and vulgar advertisement. Nothing could
have disproved the fitness of Mr. Mitchell for a labor leader so
drastically as this book.