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Title: What Anarchism Is
Author: Brother
Date: 1895
Language: en
Topics: letter
Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/anarchist-beginnings/brother-what-anarchism-is-1895/

Brother

What Anarchism Is

Editor Railway Conductor:

A correspondent writing from Fort Dodge, Iowa, finds much comfort in

your editorial expression of the sentiment (certainly not peculiar to

yourself) that: “He is no true friend of labor who argues that inasmuch

as wrong has been done, wrong in return is justifiable.” He is.

nevertheless, much cast down in spirit by an outcropping of anarchism he

seems to have discovered in some fraternal correspondence criticising

the methods of politicians and corporations of capital working together,

manipulating the functions of what your correspondent emphatically

styles “our government.” He says:

The influx of this anarchist element from the nations where the bayonet

and the sword rule, has. to an alarming extent, poisoned the spirit of

our Americanism in many a heart, unconsciously, let us charitably hope.”

What does he mean by anarchist? Did he get his definition out of the

Chicago newspapers in 1886? Did you ever know, up to that time, that we

had such a word in our American dictionary? Don’t you recollect how you

hesitated about pronouncing it, fearing to make yourself ridiculous by

placing the accent on the wrong end, not knowing even whether the “ch”

ought to be like k or chestnut? And what does he mean by our

Americanism? Was the Declaration of Independence an exhibition of

anarchism or Americanism? The abolitionists were not anarchists, but

there were other epithets not less hateful then, perhaps, but stingless

now.

He asks, “How it would look for members of the 0. R. C. who happened to

be dissatisfied with some of its laws, to be everlastingly kicking about

it and accusing its officers of bribery and this, that, and the other”

It certainly would not look so well as for such howling malcontents to

walk quietly out of the Order and join another organization, or make

another to suit themselves. But I can t see how that has anything to do

with howling about the doings of the politicians, unless he wants to

suppose also that your membership is

not a privilege to be relinquished at your own pleasure; that you can

not step out and leave your boodler officers alone within; but that you

were born in it, belong in it, and must remain and pay them your dues.

Then, if there be nothing else to do, if you cannot get out except by

buying a balloon, you ought to howl; something might come of it.

I know precisely what Americanism is—now in this last end of the

nineteenth century, when we go to the newspapers for our definitions and

not to the dictionary—and what anarchism is! Glorify the Declaration of

Independence, and the fearless patriotism of its signers; that is

Americanism. Recite one truth or all the truths enunciated by that

document, and that is anarchism. Shout “we, the people,” that is

Americanism Add to it “are the foolish builders of the ambitions of our

betters,” and that is anarchism If a pickpocket rifles your pockets you

knock him down if you can, and that is Americanism—an exhibition of

violence, it is true, but all the more for that, Americanism. Put your

hands behind your back and say “I won’t” to a railway corporation, and

that is anarchism. Fling a stone through the window of the banker who

has closed his doors on your dollars and his own hundreds of thouands,

and that, too, is anarchism. Sing the splendors of our enormous national

wealth, that is Americanism. Ask in a whisper, “Where is it?” and that

is anarchism. Denounce either political set, accuse them of all the

crimes in the catalogue and call upon all “decent voters” to join the

patriotic opposition of the other party, that is Amer ‘canism. Accuse

both gangs, and that is anarchism.

Let them fling their epithets. When “anarchist” will have lost its sting

by constant, senseless use, let them select the next most hated word

from their vocabulary and clothe it with the same significance Its

application is in a large measure a matter of local education, any way.

A brother writing from Boston, appeals to Brother Clark to stop the gold

money monopoly in its raid on our treasury, our liberties, and indeed,

our very right to live, since life depends on work, and be signs the

carefully indefinite “122.” What’s the need of his precaution? That

isn’t anarchism—in Iowa. An Iowa man might sign his full name and part

it in the middle. It’s different in Boston.

“122” is howling against probably the cruelest, certainly the greatest

power of our overboasted civilization. Let him howl, and let them

stigmatize him. If they suppress him, his howl will be taken up and

carried on till American workmen will have recovered their right to work

and eat regardless of the amount of gold in or cut of the coffers of a

few extortionists, especially privileged by this (“our”) government and

other governments, to corner the possibilities of our splendid

productive ability.

“Two wrongs can never make a right.” It is undoubtedly wrong to

appropriate to one’s self the right or property of another; then if to

demand or compel restitution is another wrong, the last possessor is in

rightful possession, and the first wrong is right. But is it wrong to

demand restitution, even to howl for it? We have gone no further than

that; we have said not a word of compulsion. All the worry about

violence comes of the fear that our demand for restitution of our right,

if it be sincerely persistent, and not a hypocritical cover of a

“political reform” trick, will be answered in violence by the wrongful

possessors of our rights. But listen: In the United States senate, last

week, this very question was debated and finally settled, by men, than

whom there can be none in our generation better qualified to handle it.

The proposition was that wrong had been done by an agreement to sell

gold bonds to a certain European company of bankers for from five to

eight millions less than American bankers eagerly(?) offered. But it was

argued and held, that inasmuch as the secret, wrongful contract calling

for the delivery of many millions in excess of the rightful necessities

of the American taxpayers was signed by a servant of those taxpayers,

the contract must be upheld and ratified to make the first wrong right,

and there had been as yet no transference of any property between the

parties concerned.

I wish every workman would hear and heed the howl of “122.” The

injunction scheme, the blacklist, the proposed arbitration law, all

together in the aggregate of their importance to the workman’s welfare,

sink into insignificance as compared with his actual interest in this

bond business. We, the workmen, must pay that unright eous debt; whether

we have work or not, while we live we pay; and the less we have the more

we pay in proportion. We are the bondsmen, and so many of our masters

are n”w in Europe

(Why?) that at the first sign of repudiation hundreds of thousands of

European bayonets would clank together into a great big question mark.

Why is it that these European bankers, with every army of Europe under

their orders, if need be, have just added to their interest in the

“honesty” of our dollars another hundred mijlions or so? Or why is it,

do you suppose, they were allowed to do so? Can’t we rake up as big an

army as anybody? Is American patriotism dead?

Our leaders are studying up these things as they never did before Let us

hang together, that we may not be helpless in the hands of our servants

That isn’t anarchism; and if it is, who cares? Yours truly in P F.,

Brother.