[SECOND NOTICE.]
Are Prisons Necessary? is the title of the concluding chapter of Kropotkin's account of his prison experiences. "Unhappily, hitherto," he goes on to remark, "our penal institutions have been nothing but a compromise between the old ideas of revenge, of punishment of the 'bad will' and 'sin,' and the modern ideas of 'deterring from crime,' both softened to a very slight extent by some notions of philanthropy." But is it not time that we fully recognized the fact that crime, like bodily disease, is capable of scientific investigation, and of that scientific treatment which considers prevention the best of cures?
An energetic school of scientific students of crime has sprung up of late years in Italy and Germany, who ha... (From: AnarchyArchives.) There is no question with which Anarchists are more commonly met than, "What is to be done with criminals in a society where there is no government? You say that the present system of coercion is a cruel wrong to human nature; you say that the masses, when they rise to overthrow the economic tyranny of the property owners, will destroy all this elaborate machinery of law-court and prison, and indeed it is a fact that the opening of prison doors has been a prominent feature of popular revolts; but surely you cannot wish and intend to let the criminal class loose upon society?" And the most selfish and brutal of respectable objectors will go on discoursing about the "criminal class" in the tone of the Pharisee of all ages when be has occasion... (From: AnarchyArchives.) We are requested to insert the following notice :
"The East-end branches of the Socialist League and our foreign comrades at the Princess Square and Berners Street clubs, have just formed themselves into The East-end Socialist Propagandist Committee, and are commencing a systematic distribution from house to house in all the streets, lanes, etc., of leaflets, pamphlets (which are left in the houses of one street one week, then called for and taken to another street the following week) and other literature, as well as posting up leaflets, bills, etc,, on the walls, hoardings, Lamp-posts, church notice-boards, and other similarly available places. They have besides commenced holding, regular open-air meetings at about twenty places in ... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Anarchism in St. Pancras. -On Sunday, March 23, Comrade Neilson lectured to the St. Pancras Branch of the S. D. F. on -,A More excellent Way," advocating Free Communism 2 as against Social Democracy. There was a most energetic discussion. Evidently Communist Anarchism is making rapid way in this part of London.
GERMAN ANARCHISTS IN LONDON. -On March 3 the German Anarchist Club Arbeiterbund and Gleicheit held an enthusiastic public meeting at Cooper's Hall, to show up the policy of "the Social-Democrat's new comrade," that mighty potentate known among the Berlin street Arabs as "mangy William."
DARLINGTON. -On 9th March Kropotkin spoke before the Sunday Lecture Society at Darlington, upon "The Problems of our Century." 'faking... (From: AnarchyArchives.) REPORTS.
St. Pancras Communist-Anarchist Group.-On Sunday, June 22, at 8 p.m., the group held an out-door meeting in Regent's Park, Neilson, Morton and Pearson being the speakers. There was a very attentive audience; no opposition. 2s. 10d. collected; good sale of Freedom.-On Wednesday evening, June 25, at 8 p.m. an outdoor meeting was held at Prince of Wales Road, Neilson and Morton being the speakers. Opposition from two teetotalers and a Radical, which was replied to by Neilson. 7 and 1/2 d. collected.-A good meeting was held on Sunday, June 29, at 7.30 p.m., in Regent's Park; speakers, Morton and Neilson. Collection, 4s.; three dozen Freedom sold.-A large meeting was held at Prince of Wales Road on Wednesday, July 2nd, at 8.30 p.m.... (From: AnarchyArchives.) DEMOCRATIC CLUB, GRAY'S INN ROAD, LONDON.--A discussion was opened on "What is Freedom?" by J. Blackwell, on Nov. 6. J. E. Barlas in the chair. Some interesting points were raised. Chambers avowed himself an Anarchist of the by-and-by type. Cores and others spoke in support.
HEBREW DRAMATIC CLUB, SPITALFIELDS.--A meeting in commemoration of the death of our Chicago comrades was held here on Friday, Nov. 8. There was no chairman but each speaker called upon the following one to speak at the termination of his own speech. The resolution absurdity was also dispensed with, each speaker expressing his feelings of sympathy with our murdered friends in his own way. It was an excellent and well-attended meeting and the greatest enthusiasm prev... (From: AnarchyArchives.) HUDDERSFIELD.--On Nov. 3rd, Albert Tam lectured on "The Labor Question," and "Can we do without Government?"
BRIGHTON.--At the Freethought Hall on November 10th, a very successful Chicago Anniversary meeting was held; Barker and Frank Cooper being the speakers.
ABERDEEN.--Kropotkin lectured at the Albert Hall on the 28th October. On the 29th he spoke in the Friendly Society's Hall. Good audiences.
MANCHESTER.--Kropotkin addressed several well-attended meetings here, and in the surrounding district during November.
YARMOUTH.--On November 10th Mrs. Schaack and other comrades addressed a good meeting in commemoration of our Chicago comrades.
HACKNEY.--On November 6th a Chicago Commemoration meeting was held at the Crown Co... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Norwich --J. Blackwell visited the comrades in this city on the 19th inst. and spoken in the course of a discussion on -Strikes at a local society's meeting the same evening Moore and other comrades also took part, The following day (Sunday) Blackwell spoke in the morning in the Market Place, in the afternoon in the Gordon Hall on "Anarchist Socialism," and in the evening in the same hall on 11 The Gospel of Freedom." A great many questions were asked after the last two lectures and the replies appeared to be satisfactory. The Norwich Socialists include in their ranks a number of young promising speakers who win without doubt be of great service to the Anarchist cause.
Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism
Vol. 3 -- No. 36,
NOVEM... (From: AnarchyArchives.) REPORTS
FREEDOM GROUP--Pearson, Neilson, and Morton have addressed good meetings in Hyde Park on Saturday evenings during the month, There was very little opposition, the audience evincing much sympathy with our ideas. Freedom sold well. A series of meetings have also been commenced on Hampstead Heath by members of the group. Good collections; good sale of Freedom.
ST. PANCRA'S GROUP.--The meetings at Prince of Wales Road have been well kept up on Wednesday evenings. A good deal of opposition from Christians, particularly from the point of view of free love. Good collections and sale of Freedom. On Sunday afternoons, at 5:30, the group has held the usual meetings at Regent's Park, assisted by two of our South London comrades. Good co... (From: AnarchyArchives.) VICTORIA PARK-The "Freedom" Group have made arrangements for open air meetings to be held here every Sunday afternoon during the remainder of the summer. To commence at 3.30. Anarchist Communists will. it is hoped, turn up strongly in support. Opposition invited.
ISLINGTON.-At the Brittania Coffee House on August 16. a friendly discussion meeting was held between several Social Democratic comrades and some members of the "Freedom" group. On August 23, C. M. Wilson opened a debate, pointing out some of the evils of the exercise of authority. White (S. D.) opposed- Davis pointed out that White disregarded principle and believed in going along the line of least resistance. advocating 8-hour bills and such comparatively trifling measures. ... (From: AnarchyArchives.) The "Knights of Liberty" group send us a pamphlet of 32 pages, printed in Yiddish, which has just been issued from the Worker's Friend printing office, 40 Berners Street, Commercial Road, London, E. Comrade B. Feigenbaum is the author, and the title rendered into English is "Why a Jew should be a Socialist." It can be had for 2d. in England and 5c. in America.
We are glad to notice an excellent little German paper Der Anarchist,which has lately appeared at St. Louis, Mo., U. S. A. (C. Timmermann, P.0. Box 758). It is published fortnightly, is printed in roman characters and can be had, post free for a half-year for 2s. in stamps.
L'Associazione, the Italian Anarchist-Communist paper recently published at Nice is now issued from Lon... (From: AnarchyArchives.) 'Chants of Labor: a Song Book of the People, with Music," edited by Edward Carpenter, with a title-page drawn by Walter Crane, published by Swan Sonnenschien and Co., is a most useful addition to Socialist literature. There is a growing sense among energetic propagandists that the Cause suffers seriously from lack of the emotional element, of some efficient means of appeal to the feelings of the people. Several attempts have lately been made to introduce singing at Socialist meetings ; but one great obstacle has always been the want of a suitable song-book. Comrade Carpenter, therefore, has rendered signal service by devoting his knowledge, taste, and poetic feeling to the collection of socialist anti revolutionary verses and stirring or pa... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Our Pads comrades who carry on the publication of La Revolte (The Rebel) the weekly Anarchist-Communist organ. hare just recently issued two new pamphlets. 11 La Societe an Lendemain de la Revolution'" (Society on the Morrow of the Revolution) by Jehan Le Vagre, is a volume of 165 pages based on the small brochure of the same title by the same author, published some years ago. It also includes another of his smaller brochures "Autonomie according to Science." Those of our comrades who read French and desire to gain some idea of the future organization of Society from an Anarchist point of view cannot do better than send 75 centimes to comrade Grave, 140 Rue Mouffetard, Paris, for a copy. 11 The Salariat" (The Wage System) is a penny reprint... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Another comrade contributes the following remarks, treating the same subject.
Communist Anarchism implies a change in the mental attitude of men towards things as well as towards one another, a change which will necessarily bring with it a change of outward conditions. It implies the disappearance of the idea of ownership.
Property as it exists at present is a claim to the absolute ownership of things put forward by an individual of an association and acknowledged by society. Lately we have seen this claim disputed with regard to land. When Lady Matheson says of her estate in the Highlands shall I not do what I will with mine own? there is a general and growing feeling that the claim of any individual to hold land in such a fashion ... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Comrade Tacker sends us the second volume of his capital translation of Proudhon. It is admirably printed on toned paper, and strongly and neatly bound. We recommend all our readers who can afford it to send for a copy. The following notice gives all particulars:
" System of Economical Contradictions; or., The Philosophy OF Misery P. J. Proudhon. Vol. I, 469 pages octavo.Price in cloth, l4s. 6d.; in full calf, blue, gilt edges, 27s. Published and sold by Benjamin R. Tucker, Box 3366, Boston, Mass.
" This constitutes the fourth volume of Proudbon's Complete Works, and is uniform in style with the first volume, ' What is Property ?' The second and third volumes of the Complete Works have not yet been published in English.
... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Science is making tremendous progress in this century, but instead of science being the means of benefiting the people in every respect, it is used as a medium for inflicting misery and hardship upon those who an doomed to labor like slaves for a precarious existence. The inventions of science only give greater facilities to the privileged classes for increasing their happiness at the expense of terrible sufferings among that class which labors to produce the means whereby happiness is attainable. Machinery, instead of reducing the heavy labor of the working populace is used as a scientific mode of driving human beings from work and bread together; those who claim possession of the implements of production ruthlessly use every available mea... (From: AnarchyArchives.) When the enemies of Socialism are speaking to Anarchists, they dwell upon the reasonable and humanitarian policy-of Social Democracy, but no sooner are they brought face to face with the proposals of Social Democrats than they declare those proposals preposterous and impracticable the Times for -November 5th.
Well, it is true that there is very little moral difference between charity in money and charity in work, whilst front the economic point of view the former is preferable.
Either there is work to be done in the community or there is not. In the first case, capitalists will not fail to lay hand, upon it to make a profit for themselves by supplying the public need.
In the second case, the central or local government cannot sta... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Last month's attempt to celebrate the anniversary of the execution of Alexander II. by that of his son and successor has revealed to all Europe the depth of the surging discontent now stirring among the people of Russia; the burning shame and indignation with which they see themselves crushed beneath a system of government which would have disgraced the Dark Ages.
As Leroy-Beaulieu has pointed out, Russia has been the scapegoat of Western Europe. Her people have borne the brunt of the successive tides of invasion by the savage and cruel hordes of Asia; by her brave resistance she has glutted their fury, by her industry she has satiated their greed. Thus Teuton and Kelt have been left the freer to develop their social life at the cost of... (From: AnarchyArchives.) 1. THE ROBBERY of LAND AND ITS EFFECTS-(continued).
We have seen how the working men and women of England were driven off the soil by the greed of the rich and idle. The desire to secure their ill-gained possessions led the robbers to spare no pains to crush out the sturdy self-respect and self-reliance of the people they had wronged. It is startling to find how large a part of The public activity of the upper classes has been directly devoted to breaking the spirit of the poor and degrading them into the position of wage-slaves, wholly dependent on the owners of land and capital.
In the earlier days of land-grabbing, the law, always a whip by means of which the rich lash the poor into subjection, empowered Justices of the Peace t... (From: AnarchyArchives.) III. THE REVOLT-(concluded).
A great deal Of nonsense has been talked by middle-class economists and their disciples about the Luddite revolt against machinery. No doubt the destruction of labor-saving machines is in itself an unwise proceeding; but in this case it was probably the only protest in the power of the English workers against the sacrifice of men's lives to the mechanism that created wealth only for a class; a protest which would never have been necessary if the individuals who had gained this newly invented power over nature bad been content to use it for the general good instead of merely to enrich themselves by exploiting the labor of the poor. The conduct of these individuals was a moral wrong to the whole community, a ... (From: AnarchyArchives.) INTRODUCTION.--WHY THEY SHOULD REVOLT.
UNIVERSAL dissatisfaction is abroad. No man worth his salt who works and thinks in England to-day can be other than dissatisfied. The difficulty of making a living, to say nothing of leading full and complete human life, even if we have been so exceptionally fortunate as not to feel it for ourselves, is continually burnt into our consciousness by the efforts and struggles of our friends and neighbors--efforts crowned as often with failure as success in spite of honest endeavor--struggles frequently ending in the indifference of despair.
A few succeed. A few even force their way out of the class of workers, to live idly on the labor of others, but the vast majority exist always upon the edge of ... (From: AnarchyArchives.) The Australian Continent is fifty-eight times the size of England, but population is only one-eighth*of ours. In other words if Australia its was as densely peopled as England it would contain a population as great as that of the entire world at the present time. And we have it on the authority of many scientific men, among whom may be mentioned Alfred Russell Wallace. that England could supply all the wants not only of its present number of inhabitants but of very many more. So that' it is perfectly safe to assume that Australia is a country of almost boundless resources, and any one would imagine that if prosperity existed anywhere it -would be there. But when the emigrant from old Europe gets over there what does he find? Poverty, miser... (From: AnarchyArchives.) We have already said that, whatever may be our wishes and desires, the present state of Europe will result in revolutions on the Continent, and that these revolutionary disturbances will be echoed in this country. As soon as the trade of the world and the markets of the world are disturbed, the conditions of the workmen of this country will become still more precarious than they are now, and the workers will ask for some fundamental changes in the economical conditions of the community. But, as the ruling classes will be unable to satisfy the needs of the workers, and as they will try, on the contrary, to stifle them by force, or by any other more or less cunning means, changes in the political organization will follow. The circumstances be... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Since the publication of this book* Englishmen have for the first time the opportunity of learning the life and ideas, the sufferings and wrongs of the people of Russia. The voiceless, unknown masses of cultivators of the soil, 83 percent of the whole population, have hitherto been vaguely pictured in English minds as a herd of coarse and brutalized semi-barbarians. In Stepniak's book they start into vivid reality as a nation of lovable and social human beings. Nay more, they appear before us as men whose social and personal development is in some directions wider than our own, men who bear a message of enlargement to the Teutons and Kelts of Western Europe.
In his previous works Stepniak has shown the English public how the Russian gove... (From: AnarchyArchives.) Our Russian correspondent writes:
The details of the events which took place last November in the convict Prison of Kara in Eastern Siberia, are now too generally known to need -petition. No further news has yet arrived. The Russian Government, so far has taken no steps in the matter; neither Commander Mossionkov, whose behavior to the female prisoners was the cause of the "starvation strikes I, nor Baron, Korff who ordered the flogging Of Nadyezhda Sigida, have 'been dismissed. It is well known that Ostashkine, the Governor of Yakutsk, received a decoration after the slaughter of exiles last year. The letters from Siberia speak of a report that all the female political prisoners in Kara are to be transferred to the Criminal Department... (From: AnarchyArchives.) BOTH of them deaf and close on eighty years old -- She stone-blind, and he nearly so-- Side by side crouching over the fire in a little London hovel--seven shillings a week-- Their joints knotted with rheumatism--their faces all day long mute like statues of all passing expression--(no cloud flying by, no gleam of sunshine there)--lips closed and silent :
But for that now and then taking his pipe out of his mouth, He puts his face close to her ear and yells just a word into it, And she nods her blind head and gives a raucous screech in answer.
Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism
Vol. 1 -- No. 3,
DECEMBER, 1886
Source: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist archives/journals/freedom/f... (From: AnarchyArchives.) It is quite possible in our enlightened times to be scientific over much and Anarchists will do well to beware of staking the validity and success of their doctrines of life and society upon the truth of mechanical and fatalistic theories of evolution which attempt to bridge over the gulf that at least appears to gape between physical science and social theory, between the facts of the inanimate and animal world and the facts of human existence. Our danger is that we shall level down, instead of up.
The reflections here presented on this subject have been suggested by a perusal of an article in the Contemporary Review for September last, by Leon Metchnikoff, entitled "Evolution and Revolution."
Metchnikoff is a good, well -meaning... (From: AnarchyArchives.) The miners who work the sulfur mines in the beautiful island of Sicily are some of the most unhappy victims of oppression on the face of the earth: the oppression of property, we mean. A comrade who has lately been among them sends us a description of the state of things.
You cannot conceive, he writes, a more primitive kind of work; there is no machinery to take the miners down into the pits or to bring the mineral up. All is done by hand, and the "hands" are moody little children. Children, some of whom are only six years old, have to carry on their shoulders loads weighing from one hundred to two hundred pounds, up steep, rough, broken flights of steps for two or three hundred yards. The poor little creatures arrive at the top utter... (From: AnarchyArchives.) (From our Paris correspondent.)
The position of parties, political as well as Socialist, has been considerably modified in France, since three years ago. Then there were only two well-defined antagonistic camps facing each other; on the one side the middle-class--Opportunists in power, Monarchists resigned, Radicals waiting their turn; on the other the Socialists of different schools--Revolutionists, Possibilists, Marxists, Independents, Anarchists.
Now a new-comer, Boulangism, has made its appearance upon the scene, and has thrown the two camps into confusion. Exploiting the general discontent against those who govern, who have made the Republic a fraud and dishonored this name once so dear to the multitude; working on the bad feel... (From: AnarchyArchives.) (From our Paris Correspondent.)
The most important event to be noticed from the revolutionary Socialist point of view is without doubt the International Anarchist Conference which was held at Paris on Sundays, Sept. 1 and 8. This meeting resembled in no particular the preceding Authoritarian Congresses. There was no president, no bureau, no committee charged with the verification of the delegates' mandates, to bring up reports and do suchlike useless things. The platform was absolutely free for every one to speak who wished, and the most admirable order existed during the two sittings, although the Salle du Commerce, which holds from five to six hundred persons, was quite full.
After a short speech from Tortellier inviting the comrade... (From: AnarchyArchives.)
