Instead Of A Book, By A Man Too Busy To Write One

Part 07, Chapter 17 : On Picket Duty
On Picket Duty. Every man’s labor, says the New York Nation, is worth what some other man will do it equally well for, and no more. That is to say, if one man demands for his labor the whole product thereof, he cannot have it because some other man is satisfied to perform the same labor for half of the product. But in that case what becomes of the other half of the product? Who is entitled to it, and what has he done to entitle him to it? Every man’s labor is worth what it produces, and would command that, if all men were free. There is no natural rate for telegraphers any more than for bookkeepers or teamsters, continues the Nation. No more, truly; but just as much. The natural rate of wages for ten hours of telegraphing or bookkeeping or teaming is as much money as will buy goods in the market for the producti... (From : fair-use.org.)

Part 07, Chapter 16 : Spooner Memorial Resolutions
Spooner Memorial Resolutions.[21] [Liberty, May 27, 1887.] Resolved: That Lysander Spooner, to celebrate whose life and to lament whose death we meet to-day, built for himself, by his half century’s study and promulgation of the science of justice, a monument which no words of ours, however eloquent, can make more lasting or more lofty; that each of his fifty years and more of manhood work and warfare added so massive a stone to the column of his high endeavor that now it towers beyond our reach; but that nevertheless it is meet, for our own satisfaction and the world’s welfare, that we who knew him best should place on record and proclaim as publicly as we may our admiration, honor, and reverence for his exceptional character and career, our grati... (From : fair-use.org.)

Part 07, Chapter 15 : Cases of Lamentable Longevity
Cases of Lamentable Longevity. [Liberty, March 31, 1888.] The Emperor William is dead at the age of ninety-one. His was a long life, and that is the worst of it. Much may be forgiven to a tyrant who has the decency to die young. But the memory of one who thus prolongs and piles up the agony no mercy can be shown. As Brick Pomeroy says, there is no such a thing as enough. In ninety-one years of such a man as William, Germany and the world had altogether too much. However, it is not kings alone that live too long. That awful fate sometimes befalls poets. Among others it has overtaken Walt Whitman. That he should live long enough to so far civilize his barbaric yawp as to sound it over the roofs of the world to bewail Germany’s loss of her faithful shepherd, and should do it t... (From : fair-use.org.)

Part 07, Chapter 14 : A Gratifying Discovery
A Gratifying Discovery. [Liberty, May 31, 1884.] Liberty made its first appearance in August, 1881. Of that issue a great many sample copies were mailed to selected addresses all over the world. Not one of these, however, was sent from this office directly to Nantucket, for I had never heard of a radical on that island. But, through some channel or other, a copy found its way thither; for, before the second number had been issued, an envelope bearing the Nantucket postmark came to me containing a greeting for Liberty, than which the paper has had none since more warm, more hearty, more sympathetic, more intelligent, more appreciative.(169 ¶ 1) But the letter was anonymous. Its style and language, however,... (From : fair-use.org.)

Part 07, Chapter 13 : Beware of Batterson!
Beware of Batterson! [Liberty, March 6, 1886.] Gertrude B. Kelly, who, by her articles in Liberty, has placed herself at a single bound among the foremost radical writers of this or any other country, exposes elsewhere in a masterful manner the unique scheme of one Batterson, an employer of labor in Westerly, R. I., which he calls cooperation. But there is one feature of this scheme, the most iniquitous of all, which needs still further emphasis. It is to be found in the provision which stipulates that no workman discharged for good cause or leaving the employ of the company without the written consent of the superintendent shall be allowed even that part of the annual dividend to labor to which he is entitled by such labor as he has already performed that year. In this lies cunni... (From : fair-use.org.)

The Philosopher of the Disembodied
The Philosopher of the Disembodied. [Liberty, June 8, 1889.] Connected with the Massachusetts branch of the National Woman Suffrage Association is a body of women calling itself the Boston Political Class, the object of which is the preparation of its members for the use of the ballot. On Thursday evening, May 30, this class was addressed in public by Dr. Wm. T. Harris, the Concord philosopher, on the subject of State Socialism, Anarchism, and free competition. Let me say, parenthetically, to these ladies that, if they really wish to learn how to use the ballot, they would do well to apply for instruction, not to Dr. Harris, but to ex-Supervisor Bill Simmons, or Johnny O’Brien of New York, or Senator Matthew Quay, or some leading Tamm... (From : fair-use.org.)

No Place for a Promise
No Place for a Promise. [Liberty, November 12, 1892.] A Promise, according to the common acceptation of the term, is a binding declaration made by one person to another to do, or not to do, a certain act at some future time. According to this definition, there can, I think, be no place for a promise in a harmonious progressive world. Promises and progress are incompatible, unless all the parties are, at all times, as free to break them as they were to make them; and this admission eliminates the binding element, and, therefore, destroys the popular meaning of a promise.(51 ¶ 1) In a progressive world we know more to-morrow than we know to-day. Also harmony implies absence of... (From : fair-use.org.)

Anarchy Necessarily Atheistic
Anarchy Necessarily Atheistic. [Liberty, January 9, 1886.] To the Editor of Liberty:(161 ¶ 1) If Anarchy, as you advocate it, is the abolition of all law and authority except the laws of self-government and self-restraint, and you believe that with these laws of self no man would injure his neighbor, how would such a condition of things, realizing the highest ideals of Socialism and negating all authority, differ from a society governed by the laws thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, and affirming the authority of Christ? If there is no real difference, what use in any negation?(161 ¶ 2)... (From : fair-use.org.)

Preface Instead of a book! I hear the reader exclaim, as he picks up this volume and glances at its title; why, it is is a book. To all appearance, yes; essentially, no. It is, to be sure, an assemblage within a cover of printed sheets consecutively numbered; but this alone does not constitute a book. A book, properly speaking, is first of all a thing of unity and symmetry, of order and finish; it is a literary structure, each part of which is subordinated to the whole and created for it. To satisfy such a standard this volume does not pretend; it is not a structure, but an afterthought, a more or less coherent arrangement, each part of which was created almost without reference to any other. Yet not quite so, after all; otherwise even the ... (From : fair-use.org.)

Anarchy and Rape
Anarchy and Rape. [Liberty, March 10, 1888.] With a plentiful sprinkling of full-face Gothic exclamation points and a series of hysterical shrieks, the Journal of United Labor, organ of pious Powderly and pure Litchman, rushes upon Liberty with the inquiry whether Anarchy asks liberty to ruin little girls. Liberty is thus questioned simply because it characterized those who petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a further raise of the age of consent to sixteen as a bevy of impertinent and prudish women. The answer shall be direct and explicit. Anarchy does not ask liberty to ruin little girls, but it does ask liberty of sexual association with girls already several years past the age of womanhood, equipped by natur... (From : fair-use.org.)