The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-25

principle of government, law or order. | Auarchism demands this because, as it's greatest teacher has said, Tn word, we object to all legislation, all authority and all influence, privileged, patented, official and legal. even when it proceeds from universal suffrage, convinced that it must always turn to the profit of dominating and exploit ing minority against the interests of the immense majority enslaved.' Let us do the anarchists the Justice of ad- mitting that there has been much in human history to justify their claim. Governments have been organized ana administered more in the interests or kings and nobles and aristocracies than In the int terests of subjects and the common people. The private possess sion and control of capital has issued, in the main, in the exploitation Of wealth by the few and in the poverty of the many. But there are some things which anarchists fall to see, namely, that this exploitation springs primarily out of the selflshness of the human heart; that in the course or hu- man history governments are growing more and more democratic; that the course and conduct and results of busi- ness organizations have been tending to the betterment of the common peo- pie; that the spirit of justice and also of generosity are gaining in the world. Their hope of human welfare by apso- lute freedom rests upon false assump- ton. Rousseau said: Man Is good, but society is evil" Anarchists assume this and claim that all evil springs from false organization of society under governments which enslave men and assert that, without government, men would do absolutely right ana justice and equity would preVali. What they expect, as writer In the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" has said "is an ideal to which the highest rell- zion and philosophy look forward as the goal of man, not as one, however which can be reached through the wholesale destruction of the present framework of society, but through long process of ethical and social lfl- proyement." The anarchists fail to re- cognize the fact that no tribe has been discovered without its chief and that no
  and that, unless all men were wise, 1n- telligent and good, a state Of absolute freedom for the individual is an lm- possibility. Tn an article on anarchy published in a recent cyclopaedia Pres ident Hadley of Yale says: They wish ito have property held by communist1c associations of workmen formed freely without political compulsion. As to the means by which the result IS to De secured different groups of anarchlsts are not agreed. Some disclaim violence and believe in the power of moral prin- ciples. like those of the early Christian church. Others, unfortunately more numerous and influential seek revolu- tion for its own sake. and hold that af- ter this is accomplished it will be time enough to consider what to do next On this account anarchism In It's more important practical aspects IS not to be regarded as body of doctrine put as a dangerous means of agitation, many of whose partisans do not hesl- tate to countenance the use of dyna- mite" How true this is, the murder, within the past seven years, Of Presl- dent Carnot of France, of King Hum bert of Italy and of President Mckln- lev of the United States clearly re- veals. These acts are all the issue or ideas taught by anarchists The father of anarchism is Proudhon, a French writer, but the chief apostle Is Michael Bakunin, Russian prince, born in 1914 and died in 1878, To the works Of these writers I have turned for information. Proudhon is mild in his statements though he advocates the abolition or property in comparison with Bakunln. The latter says in his essay on "God and the State" from which I now quote. Three principles constitute the essential condition of all human de- velopment: i, human animol1ty Z, thought 8, rebellion; to the first cor responds social and private economy; to the second science; to the third lib- erty." Satan" he says, "is the eter- nal rebel, the first free thinker and the emancipator of worlds" Man has two powers to think and to rebel" we object he says, "to all legislation, all authority, all influence" All govern ment. according to Bakunin. must be abolished He says: "Men have three ways of escape out of their degradation, the dram shop, the church or social revolution. The first is debauching of the body, the second is debauching of the mind. the third will have power at the same time to close all the dram- shops and all the churches" All forms of religion, according to Bakunin, must be reflected. But men must go further than this. "The idea of God" says Ba- kunin. lends in the enslavement of mankind in theory and practice" If God is man is slave; now man can and must be free; then God does not exist I defy any one, whomsoever, to avoid this circle; now therefore let all choose" Religions debase and cor rupt the people. They destroy men, dishonor human labor, kill the Idea and sentiment of human justice; they stifle in the heart of nations every feeling of human fraternity filling it with cruelty instead"
 vo1+aire once said, "Tf God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him." Bakunin has said "1 reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say if God existed it would be necessary to abolish Him.
 Such is the gospel-the good news-of this apostle of anarchism. It is, you will notice, the very opposite of the taachinp of St Paul expressed in our