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Title: Notes [Jun, 1891] Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: June, 1891 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 5, No. 55, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3071, retrieved on April 14, 2020.
NOTES.
THE FIRST OF MAY.
May-day of '91 will not be memorable for any marked display of revolt on
the part of the workers. But it will be remembered, bitterly remembered,
by the workers for the wanton and cowardly brutality with which their
rulers, craven with fear, shed the blood of poor women and children, as
was the case at Fourmies. One of these days in the near future a crime
like this will be the beginning of the end. It is very probable there is
more news still to come as to events from other parts; for, as every
honest person knows, the capitalist press is a liar by trade, and would
certainly suppress news of revolutionary interest, if so minded. Still
after making all allowances, it is evident there has been a period of
"calm" this year which may be attributed to several things, but which to
our thinking principally indicates a dying-down of the enthusiasm for
the eight-hour day. In London especially this seemed to be the case, the
third of May demonstration having nothing of the fire and enthusiasm of
the year before. Perhaps the men are disheartened at the sight of their
"leaders" playing the fool on royal commissions. In this case it is to
be hoped they will soon see the necessity of making a new departure, in
other words, of thinking and acting for themselves. In fact it seems to
us this is the only course open to them, since it is being admitted on
all hands that the problem of the organization of labor in East London
is too vast for either government or Trade Unionism to cope with. Very
much too vast, we think; and we are convinced that if the workers cannot
solve it themselves no one can solve it for them.
THE ANARCHIST PROTEST.
The only spark of last year's enthusiasm discernible among the London
workers on May the third was struck out among the audience round the
Anarchist platform; where comrades from several groups met together to
protest publicly against the LEGAL eight hour day and political methods
in general. The direct revolutionary action and out and out Communism
advocated by Cantwell, Louise Michel, Yanovsky, Mowbray, Kropotkine,
Mainwaring, Wess, and Nicoll roused a livelier response than any of the
parliamentary platitudes of the professional labor leaders. Meetings of
like character were also held by several comrades on May the first, in
Hyde Park and on Mile End Waste.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE "COMMONWEAL."
Last month the 'WEAL came out again as a weekly, and, better still, as a
"Revolutionary Journal of Anarchist Communism." We heartily wish our
comrades of the London S. L. success in the decided step they have
taken. As long as the paper was the "Official Journal of the Socialist
League," supposed to express the united convictions of a loose
aggregation of "branches," wherein was represented every shade of
Socialistic opinion, from the mildest parliamentary Social Reform to the
most revolutionary Communist Anarchism, it could not be thoroughly
satisfactory to any one. But that state of things has passed away, and
now that the ancient centralized League, with no political creed, has
evolved into a number of friendly but independent local groups, most of
whom tend more and more to become definitely Anarchist, the paper has
evolved also. May it have the best of good luck in its new departure. It
has long ceased to be the parade ground of the Marxists, and has done
much useful propaganda with its free and revolutionary Communistic
articles. We feel sure that the avowal of thorough-going Anarchist
opinions will strengthen and enlarge its influence for good.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
By the way, we are glad to notice the present editors of the
"Commonweal" denouncing, with the contempt it deserves, the lying
assertion of the capitalist press that the 'Weal has turned upon its
former editor. Comrade Morris is not avowedly an Anarchist by
conviction; but in character he is a born-Anarchist, and in very much of
his writing--for instance, "News from Nowhere"--the most hypercritical
of Anarchists would have to borrow a pair of spectacles to discover
serious points of disagreement. Like other people, Anarchists admire his
artistic genius, but, in addition, there is not an Anarchist worth his
salt who, being acquainted with William Morris, does not respect him as
a good comrade and an honest man.
JUDGE NOT THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED.
Possibly this adage may have crossed the mind of Captain Verney when
sentence was pronounced upon HIM,--he who had so often sentenced the
unfortunate victims of our present system, the criminals so-called. Yet
Verney differs probably from a multitude of men like himself in this
fact only that he has had the misfortune to be found out. And however
much we may despise the man, it is after all not much use expressing our
contempt while we leave the wealth and power which he used to buy
women's bodies in the hands of numbers of men no better than be. To our
mind however he is infinitely more despicable than the majority of such
offenders from the fact that he voluntarily chose to become a maker of
laws for our general guidance and improvement. Think of his solicitude
for poor men's morals; of his Liberal Principles; of his admonitions
from the bench as a J. P.; of his speeches as a legislator in the House
of Commons. What a double-died hypocrite. What a typical saint of this
middle-class Nineteenth Century.
ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF LEGAL MARRIAGE.
Since the decision in the "Queen v. Jackson" case, many magistrates, to
whom ill-used wives appealed for protection and order of maintenance,
have declined to grant the order, saying that if wives did not like
their husbands they were free to leave them as Mrs. Jackson had done.
Such decisions are no doubt bitter pills to wives who are also mothers,
but they must be swallowed, if the social evil we call marriage is ever
to be eliminated. The despotic husband and the dependent wife are fast
vanishing amid the dusky shades of antiquity, but so also must vanish
the chivalrous man and the woman whose wounded affections can be healed
by thumping damages awarded by a sympathetic jury, before we can hope
for a better state of things between men and women.
GETTING THROUGH THE HEDGE.
Those who are unlucky enough to find themselves mated with uncongenial
spouses should find a useful lesson in the doings of a certain Mrs.
Buck, who quietly took herself off one day, leaving her husband Johannes
a little note to the effect that she did not mean to return, as she
could not stand his grumbling any longer. Johannes accepted the
situation, and, moreover, the care of a year old child. Later on he met
a woman, who was more congenial and who, knowing the position of
affairs, was brave enough to take him for her husband. An anonymous
busybody drew the attention of the police to Johannes' new- found
happiness and he was marched off to the lock-up. Next day, however, as
no one appeared to prosecute, the magistrate practically dismissed the
case. And so mutual consent effected a divorce, without any of the
parties being the worse for it, which our precious laws can never be
said to do.
SONG IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT.
The voice of Labor soundeth shrill,
Mere clamor of a tuneless throng,
To you who barter at your will
The very Life that maketh song.
Oh! you whose sluggard hours are spent
This Rule of Mammon to prolong,
What know ye of the stern intent
Of hosted Labor marching strong!
When we have righted which is wrong,
Great singing shall your ears entreat.
Meanwhile in the movement there is song,
And music in the pulse of feet.
ERNEST RADFORD.
SOCIETY ON THE MORROW OF THE REVOLUTION.
Translated from the French of JEHAN LE VAGRE.
CHAPTER XIV.--THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY.
THAT the earth is a common property, that its products ought to supply
without distinction the needs of everybody, these are truths which are
still denied by some and regarded as utopian by others, but which are
accepted by all those who think and have succeeded in getting rid of
some of the prejudices instilled into them by the injurious education
received from the present society. This is then acknowledged, but
another truth which has not been clearly brought to light is that
sentiment of liberty which exists in an absolute form in the brain of
every individual but which most people do not try to fully understand,
as it has not yet been clearly defined and at present amounts to this,
that, whilst claiming complete liberty for himself, each wishes laws to
regulate the actions of his neighbors, and as a consequence of that
fatal prejudice which desires that the individual shall be the slave of
the society in which chance has caused him to be born, being himself
considered only a part of that.