The Mt. Sterling advocate., 1901-09-24
ANARCHISM.
What Is It? How Shall Il
Be Dealt With2

perintendent of Mt. Sterling Ora
ded Common Schools.
Our subject is divided for us in
to two heads which VIC shal! en-
deavor to deal with in order.
We shall attempt to tell what
anarchism is, something of its his
tory and how it manifests itself in
the present day.
In the early part of the last cen
tury lived a Frenchman named
Proudhon who is given credit for
originating, or perhaps | should
rather say formulating, certain
theories or vagaries from which
have sprung anarchism, socialism,
nihilism and sundry other isms.
Proudhon's ideas were the pro-
duets of the French Revolution.
The lower classes in France, after
suffering incredible tyranny for
many years, at length threw off the
yoke of their oppressors and came
into power before they had learn
ed the important lesson that true
liberty does not mean license but
the enjoyment of rights secured by
law Naturally, he swing Of the
pendulum went too far, the OPP
pressed became the oppressors and
almost every conceivable license
and excess was INDUCED in.
Proudhon first came into notice as
the author of work called "Prop-
erty Is Theft" In this he at
tempted to prove that every man
born into the world is by nature
entitled to as much of the earth S
wealth as he may need to live on
comfortably-that more than this
is due to none, and the man who
accumulates property and thus
withholds the enjoyment of 1T
from Others is a thief. Regarding
government, he maintained that
"all government of man by man is
tyranny, the ideal condition of So
ciety being perfect order and an
archy - These ideas which l
have quoted from Proudhon trans
planted into Russia gave rise to
nihilism 1t will be observed that
socialism goes to the other ex-
treme; while anarchism cries out
for no government, socialism de-
sires no private property and de
mands thateces'ything be placed in
the hands Of the government.
1t can be readily seen how these
alluring phantasies appealed to the
conoiUe, to the idle, to the worth
less classes of society. While
Proudhon himself did not sanction
the use of force to put his theo-
ries into practice, it soon became
manifest that all other means were
futile. Since scriptural authority
could not be found for his doc
trines, the Bible was declared not
to be the word of God, but a mere
device contrived by man to deceive
his fellow man. If the Bible was
not true, as a natural sequence 1T
was maintained that marriage was
not of divine origin, the marriage
vow was "A farce and this ideal
state of society would demand "A
return to the state of nature.
Hence arose that most pernicious
of all doctrines-what is known as
Free-love.
Thus we see how hideous anar
chy in its mad frenzy strikes first
at law, then at religion and finally
at the home. These three--liber-
ty guarded by law, religion and
home--haNe a.mays been held the
dearest things to the Anglo-Saxon
heart.
Never has the hideousness of
these loathesome doctrines been
brought so forcibly home to us as
in the recent assassination. The
great elf-reliant, self-spilicient,
self-coniident American nation has
been willing to connive at anarch-
ism as long as it was "A mere theo
ry; our people looked at it as hate
full and pernicious, but impotent,
powerless TO do us harm. But now
when anarchism has become per-
sonated in the form of treacher-
Gus assassin and thrown into con-
trast with organized authority in
the person Of our beloved Presi-
dent, we truly see what anarchy is
and means. In answering the
question what is anarchy, l beg
your permission to quote the fol-
lowing from Rev. Carter Helm
Jones, of-Louisville:
81 believe that when the bullet
of the assassin tore into the body
of the President, it numbed the
nerves, shocked the senses and
struck the breast of every true
American. William Mckinley
died for us. He was our vicarious
Offering. He represented us, and
when the bullet struck him, it
struck us.