Benjamin Tucker - Liberty Vol. V. No. 21.

For an article compact with original, suggestive, valuable, and lofty ideas on one of the most delicate of questions, read Zelm’s “Reply to Victor” on the sixth and seventh pages.

Just before we go to press the capitalistic papers bring the news that the “Alarm” is to be revived in New York with financial backing, and that it will be conducted by Henry London, John Most, and Dyer D. Lum. This is interesting, to say the least.

B. F. Underwood, editor until recently of the “Open Court,” has been engaged as the editor of the Chicago “Illustrated Graphic News.” It is to be hoped that he will exclude from its columns such slanderous references to Anarchists as were lately made by him in the columns of the Boston “Investigator.”

My recent complimentary notice of E. C. Walker’s forthcoming fortnightly, “Fair Play,” made Moses Harman, editor of “Lucifer,” so boiling mad that he dumped the whole of it into a department of his paper which he calls “Spirit of the Opposition,” along with Talmage and other pietists. Really, Mr. Harman, a man of your age ought to have better control of his passions.

“All taxation is an evil,” says Speaker Carlisle. Now, when greenhorns talk to you about the blessings of government and the beauties of law and order, point out to them that this man, who certainly is more competent than they to pronounce judgment, since he has long been and still is in the business, completely knocks them out. If government is a necessary and serviceable institution, then there is nothing to complain about in the expense of running it. Taxation is an evil because government is a farce and a snare.

Hereafter the “Workmen’s Advocate,” the organ of the Socialistic Labor Party, will be published in New York, from the office of the German organ of the party. It is to be hoped that the change of external surroundings will be accompanied by an improvement in the tone and quality of the editorial mouthings. The paper has been too shallow and stupid even for a place as small as New Haven, and Liberty is anxious to meet an “Advocate” of Socialism with whom it would be refreshing to occasionally exchange a word or two. It is inconvenient to have to go for intelligence and originality to the London Socialistic market.

A New Jersey court has decided that the will of a citizen of that State, by which Henry George was given a large sum of money for the circulation of his books, is invalid on the ground that the bequest is not educational or charitable, but intended for the spread of doctrines contrary to the law of the land. Probably the judge who rendered this decision thinks regarding the determination of economic truth, as Mr. George thinks regarding the issue of money, the collection of rents, the carrying of letters, the running of railroads, and sundry other things, that it is “naturally a function of government.” And really, if Mr. George is right, I do not see why the judge is not right. Yet I agree that Mr. George has correctly branded him as an “immortal ass.”

Judson Grenell of Detroit edits the “Advance,” and he is so Communistic that he directs his compositors to throw the type into their cases regardless of the compartments in which the various letters respectively belong, which probably accounts for the following extraordinary statement in the “Advance” of May 19: “Benjamin Tucker of Boston edits Liberty, and he is so indiviualistic [sic] that the little [sic] of the paper, though in scrip [sic] type, has a space between the letters, so that each one stands alone.” If Judson Grenell were more individualistic, he would know how to spell that word, would be able to distinguish between little and title, and would not confound script with scrip or an artist’s taste with a crank’s whim. (Should this paragraph lead any one to accuse me of triviality in criticism, no defence will be attempted.)

The State Socialists are forever citing the efficiency of the postal service as a sample of the superiority of governmental over private enterprise. Yet here comes the Fort Worth “South West,” a paper very much given over to State Socialistic doctrines, and says that a reduction of the rate of postage is of less importance now than an increase in the efficiency of the service, which, “through mistaken economy, has been lowered to an inexcusable extent.” Until the State Socialists can agree that the post office is well managed, they had better look in some other direction for a pattern of public administration. First and last I have a good deal to do with the United States postal department, and I have seen enough to satisfy me that, were I to take the time necessary for a thorough investigation of its workings, I could show it to be a most stupidly and wofully mismanaged concern.

The death-rate among the labor and liberal journals has reached an appalling figure during the past month or two. In all directions the ground is covered with the dead and dying. First, the Winsted “Press” passed in its checks in Connecticut. Then the “Alarm” gave up the ghost in Illinois. At the same time the tidings came from London that the “Anarchist” was in a state of suspended animation, though with a prospect of resumption. And now I must announce that the London “Radical” has gasped for possibly its last breath, the Denver “Labor Enquirer” has “risen,” as the Spiritualists say, and the San Francisco “People” is in its grave. What manner of pestilence is this that is stalking abroad, decimating our ranks? Let us pray that Boston may not lie in its fated path. But if it should, let those who shall be left behind us sing as we do now:

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