Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1888-01-21
EDGeWORIh'S LIBERTY.

have not seen, not to be jealous if |
speak in her name, as have no preten-
sons to being a favored lover of this
beauty, who, smiling upon all, loft she
rejects, yet never once otfends." Her
anarchist votaries are now sadly in the
minority, while w. T. may blow his
Horn over tariffs and legal tenderists,
and greenbackers, protectionists, Aunty
Poverty with her family, Aunty Vice
with her Comstock saints, and wind up
with Constitutional God, the Pope being
probably President.
Our State Socialist may personally de-
ny kinship with some of the relatives
| mention. There are degrees. The
protectionist may also deny State Social
ism, but he is on the road to it, from the
first step by which the State or General
Government leaves its sphere of inter-
national relations to assume the control
of economic affairs, or to moralze per-
sonal conduct. In such paternalism,
Government assumes also a partisan at
titude, 1t becomes the agent of class
privilege, of capitalist ring, by protec-
tionism; of church ring, by its Saba
tartan encroachment on personal liberty,
or its concession of power to the Com
stock gang for censorship over the press
and works of art
On the other hand, |, as an anarchist,
repudiate the imputation of favoring the
encroachments of individuals or of cor
porations upon personal liberty by con-
troll of the mails, for example. Thus
w. 7. ii. talks Of Government selling
out the Postoffice to Jay Gould. We
protest against handicapping private
enterprise by the tribute of additional
postage which Government levies on
express companies but the sale of usurp-
alton is just as much contrary to anarch-
ism as the original usurpation of monop-
oily.
1t is VIGOROUSLY, by its concessions of
privilege that the actual Government
has become obnoxious to the working
man and the freethinker; for as yet in
the United States, military despotism
and the conscription that ministers to it
have not progressed much since the in
terstate war.
To oppose the concession of chartered
privilege and monopolist titles, is an
aim common to anarchists with "work-
mems advocates" You have shown
your honest sympathies with the victims
Of plutocracy at Chicago, and will not
defend either the justice or the policy of
Mr.. Horns aspersionsupcn anarchism.
This is not the name of any party nor
of any system of projects, 1t claims
kinship with all who resist oppression.
W. L. II. shows spirit not unfriendly
to the persons whose sinister fate has
combined with their brave sincerity to
make them the banner bearers of anarch-
ism. To his liberal sentiment let him
add justice towards principles. His
State Socialism is purely ideal as my alb
clifton of the State power. In history |
can find but partial tiliations as among
the Indians, where the squaw is still Il
serf. he may find more sympathy in
the Silent Land, populous with Peruvi-
ans and Egyptians.
w. T. and agree that neither State
Socialist nor anarchist is likely to de-
cline all the personal liberty society will
afford him, and if he is as liberal as En-
erson, whose anarchism seems to please
him, we ought to be able to understand
each other.
Liberty is for me the absence of seri-
GUS inferment to movement in the line
of attraction, whether in my industrial
vacations or my affections. It's positive
statement is spontaneity; its negative,
anarchism. The human will, no more
than the magnetic force, has any inner
ent tendency to good uses, nor can be
promiscuously trusted to steer the ship
of destiny into the haven of social har-
mOny. Science must aid, social science
mean; for the physical sciences added
to property, in the monopoly of party,
only make matters worse.
The particular question between us is
of the alliance of science with arbitrary
government; or whether the ballot for
the masses can be trusted to put at the
head of affairs true opponents of social
science. esteem that, on the contrary,
the political ambitions which thus obtain
control, are the mortal enemies of social
science, and that the spontaneous evolu-
ton of this requires a surcease of arbi-
trary interference. am Jetfersonian
democrat, only little more so; for
know that the crdt which is the Greek
for force, whatever its prefix, demo, or
aristo. is bound to take the ell if we con-
cede the inch, and that constraint is the
death of attraction.
You complain that spontaneous attrac-
ton, in Jay Gould for instance, is Gu
pidity disastrous to social harmony.
Granted.
Now, the checks upon this-you seek
them in the same organization of force
| 4. L. a L Al
deeds to lands and other capital CONTROL
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