Part 01, Chapter 29 : Defensive Despotism

[Liberty, January 22, 1887.]

Mr. Pinney, editor of an exceedingly bright paper, the Winsted Press, recently combated prohibition in the name of Liberty. Thereupon I showed him that his argument was equally good against his own advocacy of a tariff on imports and an exclusive government currency. Carefully avoiding any allusion to the analogy, Mr. Pinney now rejoins: In brief, we are despotic because we believe it our right to defend ourselves from foreign invaders on the one side and wild-cat swindlers on the other. Yes, just as despotic as the prohibitionists who believe it is their right to defend themselves from drunkards and rumsellers. In another column of the same issue of the Press I find a reference to a logical Procrustean bed kept in Liberty’s office to which I fit my friends and foes by stretching out and lopping off their limbs. It is a subject on which the dismembered Mr. Pinney speaks feelingly.(30 ¶ 1)