The I.W.W., popularly known as the Wobblies, stood alone among radical organizations of the era in openly rallying under the slogan “Might is Right.” This stark rejection of moralistic or legalistic appeals in favor of raw power permeated their literature, songs, speeches, and organizing efforts—and left a lasting imprint on those they influenced. Prominent Wobbly voices of the period expressed the idea directly:

• “Might Makes Right” —Walker C. Smith, Industrial Worker, Sat, Jun 04, 1910
• “It isn’t right that wins victories. It’s might that is required. Might only makes right possible.” —Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Spokesman-Review, Mon, Dec 20, 1909 · Page 8
• “We won in Missoula, we can win in Spokane. Might makes right.” —Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Industrial Worker, Volume 1 Issue 34, Nov. 10, 1909
• “Whatever is against the strongest class in society is wrong. In other words, ‘might makes right.’” —Oscar Ameringer, “Oscar Wants the Whole Cheese”, The Miners Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 502, Feb 6, 1913

This philosophy of class power over abstract “right” aligned closely with the revolutionary sabotage propaganda Desmond advanced in the essay.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SABOTAGE (By Gerald O. Desmond.)

How many, even among revolutionists, recognize the deep significance, the real meaning of the propaganda and practice of sabotage? How many realize its educative power?

Sabotage is the forerunner of the revolution. It is the smashup of slave religion, morality and ethics. It shows a clear conception of a class struggle. It is a repudiation of the ‘community of interests’ dogma. It demonstrates that the workers have lost their fear of hell and their faith in heaven—that the proletariat is getting its fighting clothes on.

In any class society all things partake of a class nature. When one class rules industrially it impresses certain religions, codes of ethics and morality on the whole. Today the capitalist class rules. The religions, morality and ethic of today are such as the capitalist class decree to be taught and practiced by the workers—such as will perpetuate capitalist rule and exploitation. They are religious teachings of obedience, humility, submission—of workers to masters. Religions belittling our misery here. Religions promising a wonderful reward hereafter. Religions commanding a respect for property—their property by us. Religions defending property work—by us for their benefit. To be “moral”, to be “ethically” correct today is to deny ourselves, to toil hard, little, to bow down to our superiors, etc.

So long as the working class practice or are bound in any way by these things, the masters are safe. A working class hampered by such ideas and superstitions cannot fight intelligently. It cannot emancipate itself from slavery. But suppose the slaves wake up from slavery? What if they begin to think and go after the good things of life now—and to hell with the idea of “pie in the sky” by and by? What if they “can” the idea that the boss is their “natural superior” and benefactor; and realize instead that he is an enemy, an exploiter, and a parasite? Suppose they create and practice a code of ethics wherein the thing which is for their benefit is “good” and “right” and that which benefits the boss is “bad” and “wrong”? How long could a ruling class stand before this? How long?

So we come back to sabotage, its significance and its educative value. Every time an act of sabotage is practiced it is a negation of slave morality, ethic and religion. It is the act of an individual, of a class, already, or becoming, mentally emancipated—they realize the power. The plutes are frightened. The Utopians, the “parlor socialists,” the pink tea “rebels”—prating of revolution with their minds still befogged, decry sabotage and pass condemnatory resolutions.

But despite plute rage and “red-yellow” howls it will not go down. Its propaganda becomes more general, its practice more common and more consciously effective. Sabotage is here to stay—the greatest educative force, the most powerful weapon yet shaped by evolution for a rebellious, mentally-emancipated proletariat.

Dora Marsden was born in the village of Marsden in 1882. In 1900 began teaching at Owens College, where she met Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragists. Dora joined them and became a leader in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU) by 1908. The following year she resigned as a teacher and became a full time agitator for the WSPU, graduating from suffragist to suffragette. She was sentenced to two months in prison for vandalism in 1909: she refused to wear prison clothes and served her time in the nude, even wriggling out of a straightjacket that had been forced on her. After a hunger strike she was released and continued to agitate. She disrupted political meetings (including a speech by a young Winston Churchill). The WSPU “promoted” her to a clerical position to temper her agitation. Dora, meanwhile, had grown tired of the “skirt movement” and sought a liberty beyond feminism.

In 1911, Dora founded “The Freewoman” (1911 – 1912), a periodical described as “a disgusting publication… indecent, immoral and filthy.” Financial troubles led to a re-launch as “The New Freewoman” (1914). And an ever more keen search for liberty led to a re-launch as “The Egoist” (1914 – 1919). Dora’s periodicals were the first to publish significant works by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and others.

In the 1920s – 1930s Dora wrote three books: “The Definition of the Godhead” (1928), “The Mysteries of Christianity” (1930) and “The Philosophy of Time” (published later, in 1955). During the writing of these books she went from a self-imposed isolation to confinement in a mental hospital, where she spent the remainder of her life.

About Trevor Blake (born 1966)

Author and publisher with a special interest in Dora Marsden. Published a new and expanded edition of “A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden (1882 – 1960)” by Dr. Les Garner. Wrote “Dora Marsden Bibliography,” edited collection of Dora essays “The Gospel of Power,” published new and expanded edition of “The Philosophy of Time.”

This was a free online talk by The Atkinson to celebrate International Women’s Day 2024. The Atkinson is Southport’s home for music, theatre, art, literature and history. Special thanks to The Atkinson for this opportunity.

Wednesday 13 March 2024 — 1:00 pm GMT

Free. Donations welcome.

Free online talk, booking is required before 11am on the morning of the talk. The talk will be presented using Zoom. You will receive an email invitation to join a Zoom meeting just after 11am on the morning of the talk. Free ticket at…

https://www.theatkinson.co.uk/events/online-talk-dora-marsden-and-the-gospel-of-power/

Dora Marsden could not be confined, bursting bonds from teacher to suffragist to suffragette to publisher to philosopher and, eventually, the madhouse.

Presentation by Trevor Blake. Author and publisher with a special interest in Dora Marsden. Published a new and expanded edition of A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden (1882 – 1960) by Dr. Les Garner. Wrote Dora Marsden Bibliography, edited collection of Dora essays The Gospel of Power, published new and expanded edition of The Philosophy of Time.

Discover rare photographic glimpses of pioneering egoists such as Dora Marsden and Benjamin R. Tucker, and delve into the visionary project to produce a Braille edition of Max Stirner’s magnum opus for the indomitable Helen Keller. Unearth a plethora of fascinating artifacts pertaining to Malfew Seklew, and be riveted by the astonishing revelation of Ragnar Redbeard’s brief yet impactful foray as a Canadian Socialist Provocateur.

This sixth issue of Der Geist is sure to delight and offend, but most of all, serve as an essential philosophical reference work for centuries to come.

DER GEIST: The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945 | ISSUE 6 | Winter 2023
Paperback, 212 pages, $15
ISBN 978-1-944651-29-9, ISSN 2639-5339

Der Geist, (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor  2

1. Max Stirner   7

Max Stirner’s Anarchist Gospel | A Dutch Review of Stirner’s Work | Anarchist Black Dragon | Max Stirner vs. Wahrheit-Sucher | “Celine Adele Marillier” | Pity and the Future | Max Stirner and the Grisette | Steven T. Byington’s Triple Score

2. Malfew Seklew  29

On “Bérnard’s Tour” | Minister Mocks Malfew  | Stern Critique of Christian Socialist  | Seklew Asks: Nietzsche to Blame?  | Social Aristocrat Socialist Secretary | A Freak Among Reformers  | No Guide for Anybody | Proletarians in Purgatory | No Justice for Malfew Seklew  | “We’re All More or Less Nutty” | Not Seeking Work  | Seklew Scolds Simpoleons, Supplies Sample Shilling Sericine Silk Set | No Detail Too Small!

3. Ragnar Redbeard   51

Redbeard in Canada | Desmond Selling George  | Give the New Hand a Show! | A.D. in the O.E.D.  | A Bogus Book | Australian Socialist Drinking Club | Redbeard’s Rough Stuff |“We Understand the Redbeard Philosophy” | Voima On Oikeus | Etc.

4. Dora Marsden  95

Dora Marsden for the Prosecution | The Freewomen of New York | Dora Marsden, unser aller Mutter  | Dora Marsden Ephemera | Rare Portraits

5. Benjamin DeCasseres   107

Emmeline Pankhurst | Pyrrhonism and Acatalepsy | Balzac | The Borrowed Mirror

6. Friedrich Nietzsche   117

Nietzsche and a Braille Stirner for Hellen Keller | “Will Nietzsche Come Into Vogue…” | The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche | Alexander Tille Reads Egoism

7. Enzo Martucci   135

A Sketch of Martucci | An Excerpt from The Red Sect | Martucci on Stirner

8. Free Spirits  159

Peter Lamborn Wilson Has Passed  | Hakim Bey: Real and Unreal | Vox Populi Vox Dei | Thompson at Rudolf Steiner Hall | Speakers’ Corner Anthology | Among the Anarchists | The True Comarade | Is This What You Call “Living?” | The Thirteenth Paragraph | Greeves Fisher, A Sketch | Dominance vs. Egoism | More Individualism | Individualism and Property | Why I am a Right-Wing Anarchist | Opening and Closing the Dil Pickle | Christmas a Joke! | “I” a poem  | “I GO” a poem| A Letter to the Editors of Freedom | Enrico Arrigoni Bibliography | Photo of Benjamin R. Tucker | About the Editors

Walt Whitman and Comstock
or The Whirligig of Time

by Benjamin R. Tucker

Now that Walt Whitman is sure of his pedestal in the American Hall of Fame, the moment is opportune for harking back to a matter of history almost ancient, though I, who figured in it, live to tell the ale.

In the autumn of 1881 the Boston publishing house of James R. Osgood and Company (successors of the famous firm of Ticknor and Fields) issued an edition of Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” In the spring of 1882 the Osgoods were advised by Oliver Stevens, district attorney of Suffolk county, Mass., at the instigation of Anthony Comstock, that certain parts of the book were looked upon by the authorities as a violation of the anti-obscenity laws, and that, if the circulation of them was continued, criminal proceedings against the publishers would be instituted. Accordingly the publishers, before issuing a second edition, invited Whitman to omit the poems considered objectionable. Of course, he declined, whereupon the timid publishers violated their contract and turned over the plates to the author, who then entrusted them to David McKay, a Philadelphia bookseller. A Boston periodical, “This World,” then published in a supplement the poem especially complained of “To a Common Prostitute.” The postmaster of Boston, L. S. Tobey, declined to accept the paper at pound rates on the ground that the supplement was not a supplement in the sense of the statute, in which action he was sustained by the postmaster-general. The paper was then offered at third-class rates and was excluded by the postmaster as unmailable because obscene. Intercession at Washington by William Douglas O’Connor and Robert G. Ingersoll induced the postmaster-general to overrule this decision and order the paper to be admitted to the mails, whereupon Washington correspondents telegraphed to their journals that “Leaves of Grass” had been declared mailable. Postmaster Tobey, much annoyed, then sent paragraphs to the Boston papers, declaring that the Washington ruling applied only to a short portion of one poem, and that the book itself was still unmailable.

At that time, I, a pugnacious young man of 28, and since the age of 18 an enthusiastic admirer of “Leaves of Grass,” was attached to the staff of the Boston “Daily Globe,” and in addition was publishing a small fortnightly of my own. It seemed to me that I had the pluck and the power to force the vexed question to an issue. So I procured from Philadelphia a sufficient supply of the book and inserted an advertisement conspicuously in the daily papers of Boston, as well as in my own journal, offering the book for sale, and concluding with the following letter:-

TO OLIVER STEVENS, district attorney of Suffolk county; George Marston, attorney-general of the commonwealth of Massachusetts; E.S. Tobey, postmaster of Boston; Anthony Comstock, secretary and general agent of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and all other enemies of liberty whom it may concern.

You are heareby distinctly notified-all of you in general, and you, Oliver Stevens, in particular-that I have in my possession, and do now offer for sale copies of the work advertised above. If you, or any one of you, believe or affect to believe that, in so doing, I am committing an unlawful act, you are invited to test the question whether twelve men, fairly chosen by lot, can be found in Massachusetts sufficiently bigoted, or intolerant, or hypocritical, to share with you, or pretend to share with you, such belief or affectation of belief. And to avoid unnecessary trouble and make the evidence of sale indisputable, I offer, on receipt from any of you an order for a copy of the work, to deliver a copy to you in my own person, at such place in  Boston as you may designate, and take payment therefore.

Yours disrespectfully,
BENJ. R. TUCKER.

The name of Attorney-General Marston was included among the addresses because it had been publicly charged that he had prompted the attempt to suppress “Leaves of Grass.” None of the addresses made answer, and the only step to interfere with me, so far as I know, was taken by Anthony Comstock, who visited the office of the United States district attorney and begged that official to indict me. I learned from indisputable authority that the request was met by refusal. Continuing to advertise and sell the book, I made the following announcement in the press on August 19, 1882:—

I have offered to meet the enemy, but the enemy declines to be met. The ardor displayed by District Attorney Stevens in opening his campaign against Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” seems to have cooled very suddenly when confronted by an offender who refuses to surrender when bidden to lay down his arms. I still advertise the book for sale, and sell it openly and rapidly. Canvassers are finding a ready sale for the work in Boston stores and offices, but pursue their commendable occupation unmolested by the authorities. The grand jury for Suffolk county has held its usual monthly sessions, but, as its report in no way mentions me, I conclude that its attention has bot been called to my alleged violation of the law. All of which goes to show that they have rights who know them, and, knowing, dare maintain. It is to be hoped that the Boston booksellers will soon recover sufficient courage to keep the book in stock. Till then I shall continue
to supply copies by mail, post-paid, at the rate of $2 each.

On October 14 I made a second announcement as follows:—

“Leaves of Grass” is now sold openly by nearly all the Boston booksellers. I have won my victory, and the guardians of Massachusetts morality have ignominiously retreated. This is well; but much trouble would have been saved if the cowardly Osgoods had only stood up in their shoes, instead of  surrendering without a struggle.

Nevertheless I continued the advertising, and on November 11 made public the following letter:—

FOR A SPY’S ENLIGHTENMENT

Anthony Comstock
Despicable Sir,

I am informed by Mr. E. H. Heywood that, in a letter which you recently addressed to him over the false signature of “J.A. Mattock,” in accordance with your usual dishonest practice, you asked these questions: “What is Mr. Tucker’s address and his first name? Was it Franklin or Francis? Could you give me his address?”

I do not know whether Mr. Heywood has accommodated you with the desired information; therefore, permit me, lest he has not done so, to impart to you the knowledge of which you are in search, though knowing full well that, hypocrite that you are, you ask for what you already know and have known for some years past, your sole purpose in so asking having been to mislead Mr. Heywood into the belief that he was dealing with an honest inquirer instead of with a sneak and a spy.

My name and address you will find appended to this letter. Anything bearing that address will pretty surely reach me. Any commands of a business nature (I decline all other correspondence with you) so received in response to advertisements of mine I shall take pains to fulfil with my usual faithfulness, whether purporting to issue from Anthony Comstock or one of the numerous individuals whose names he has befouled by falsely assuming. I recommend you, however, to use your own name hereafter, and thus make no blacker the disgraceful record of what would be your shame were you not
shameless.

Accept, sir, the earnest assurance of my profoundest contempt.

BENJ. R. TUCKER
Box 3366, Boston, Mass.
November 11, 1882

This ended the conflict. I published my final advertisement of the book on January 20, 1883. If I had been indicted and convicted, I could have been sent to prison for ten years, and doubtless would have received a sentence of at least one year. I took the risk and won the fight, single-handed.

I did not have the pleasure of Whitman’s personal acquaintance, nor, if my memory serves me, did I ever write a letter to him in my life. Long after the Osgood affair, I saw him once on the streets of Boston, but was too shy to venture to speak to him, not realizing that he must be familiar with my name. But after his death it became evident that he was always grateful to me, and this in spite of the fact that I had occasion, in 18838, to lash him fiercely a propos of a short poem that he sent by wire to a daily paper in honor of the just-deceased Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm I., whom he lauded as a “faithful shepherd of his people.” My article fell under the eyes of Whitman’s most eloquent champion, William Douglass O’Connor, who had not heard of the poem in question, and who, sharing my view, at once sent to Whitman a severe letter of protest. But the gentle Walt took no offense, remembering O’Connor’s service and my own. Abundant evidence of this appears on sundry pages of the work ‘With Walt Whitman in Camden,” issued in 1908 by the poet’s Boswell, my old friend, Horace Traubel, and consisting mainly of conversations between hero and disciple. Indulge me in a few quotations bearing on the matter in question—

Page 22—Monday, April 9, 1888.: “Tucker,” said W., ‘has been giving me the very devil for calling the Emperor Wilhelm a ‘faithful shepherd’ in my poem. In fact, Tucker is not alone: I have got a whole batch of letters of protest-one, two, three, a dozen; but too many of the fellows forget that I include emperors, lords, kingdoms, as well as presidents, workmen, republics.” We talked the matter over for some time. W. was good natured about it all. Yet he was disposed to regard the criticism rather seriously. As he said: “It is all from my friends. Take William O’Connor-take Tucker himself-they deserve to be listened to.” In winding up our chat he said: “I see I must be careful in such things, or maybe the boys will think I am apostate.”

Page 58—Sunday, April 22, 1888: Referred to Tucker: “He has thumped me some for my emperor piece, but is still my friend as I am still his friend. I don’t think a fall or two taken out of a fellow hurts him in the long run. Tucker did brave things for ‘Leaves of Grass’ when brave things were rare. I could not forget that.” To O’Connor” “He, too, fell afoul of me for my emperor piece. Why, that piece almost threatens to create a split in the church! William is quite as radical as Tucker, though much less interested in political study.”

Page 350—Monday, June 18, 888: Spoke of some of the fellows: “There is Tucker, now-Benjamin: I love him: he is plucky to the bone…he is a safe risk.” “I suppose William (O’Connor) tops us all for vehemence and consecutiveness of life.”

Page 460—Friday, July 13, 1888: A letter from O’Connor. Whitman said of it: “O’Connor never forgave me the William piece-nor did Tucker…I am sure, however, that William will come to see it all right by and by-will realize that my position is not what he now thinks- that he will then come round. He is true, true-everlastingly true-and so is Tucker, too, for that matter: and I guess it is good to have these demurrers put in.”

Whatever one may think of the “emperor piece,” the present is no time to dwell on a poet’s weakness, for this is the day of glory. In the Pantheon we find the tomb of Rousseau, author of the “shocking” Confessions; the tomb of Voltaire, whose “Candide” was lately excluded from the United States; the tomb of Victor Hugo, who, in “Les Misérables,” glorified the word of Cambronne; and the tomb of Emile Zola, whose “L’argent,” when I translated it, was summarily thrown out of a Boston printing office (though nearly half of it was already in type) by the liberal Unitarian proprietor. And now the author of “Leaves of Grass” enters the American Hall of Fame! The whirligig of time is doing famously. However, other wrongs remain to be righted-a task for the youth of today.

See The Women of Dumfries: Art, Suffrage, Temperance and War at Dumfries Museum, United Kingdom.

This is a republication (with a new, additional Foreword) of an anthology first published in 1977. It is a collection of excerpts and other written material connected to Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner and there are several references to the SPGB scattered throughout. Jim Huggon is an anarchist who spoke regularly there from 1965 to 1983. […] There are excerpts too from famous Speakers’ Corner regular Bonar Thompson’s book, Hyde Park Orator, which has also recently been republished with added illustrations. […] This anthology helps capture the spirit of an earlier age.

Please read the entire review here. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the oldest extant political party of any kind in the United Kingdom. They were founded in in 1904, preceding the Russian Revolution by a good decade. They know their socialism, and are not adverse to praising those who know their egoism.

Available from Underworld Amusements , and Nine-Banded Books.

Stand Alone is a mixed medium and format journal produced at irregular intervals. The focus is Egoism and the individuals associated with it. Produced by the Union Of Egoists with individual issues published by different sources.

Soap box oratory was no figure of speech to Fred M. Wilkes. When he died at the age of 77 in New York his career as an informal outdoor speaker stretched back 55 years. Other haranguers of street crowds dubbed him “king of the soap-boxers.” It all began in Hyde Park, London. Son of a well-to-do brewer, the “super-man” idea of life took hold of him. He decided to tell the world about it. In turn, he was a cooperative socialist, anarchist, Fabian socialist. He headed an organization of his own, the “supercrats.”

In 1885 he came to the United States, said he was a “sirfessor,” a teacher of professors. Chicago knew him as the founder of the so-called Temple of Wisdom. Geniuses are made, not born, he contended. Too much credit to friends brought swift bankruptcy to the “superite” restaurant he opened in New York while the war was on.

Chief distinction he claimed was organization of the sit-down strike idea. Years ago, he said, he coined the motto “S.I.B. — R.I.P.” — stay in bed, rest in peace. If the workers who felt they had a grievance would just take to their beds and stay there, he argued, the Intelligentsia would rally to their cause and public opinion would force a quick settlement.

WHO WANTS TO BE “FREE”?

by James J. Martin

I am indicting a society which has no more concept of freedom and responsibility than it has of a twelve-legged dog. Is it ‘free enterprise’ which is to occupy the trial seat before socialism and communism?

Is there anyone engaged in making profits by the present system who is willing to face the consequences of complete free enterprise– the reduction of all price through the most rigorous competition? Why no, he merely wishes the free-enterprise system to operate in his favor, and is as willing as the collectivist to employ the fantastic superstructure of law and police in prohibiting any freedom of action which endangers his privileged position.

Who wants ‘free enterprise’ in the steel and other heavy industries? Who wants ‘free competition’ with the producers of the rest of the world? What banker is willing to tolerate any concept but that of the ‘national’ system? Would he willingly face the competition of free banking?

The free enterprise of which special interest groups bray is that of the right to open a banana stand or shoe shine parlor, and function within the rigid rules of the atrophied system about them… Witness the struggle of a Tucker in penetrating the automobile manufacturing priesthood. Where can one turn to escape the hurdles of merely obtaining credit in order to enter the economy on a level higher than thread-peddling? Advocates of free enterprise are hypocrites until a breach is made in the above mentioned closed circles.

The farmer is always cited as an example of unregenerate free enterprise, but where is there any campaign against the state crutch of subsidies, shouldering of the mortgage structure, protection with law and police of land monopoly for the perpetuation of tenantry, and other serious deviations from the principle of freedom!

The great majority of people accept the current game and its rules without query, though there is a strong case to show the legal origin of the inequity in the system. With most people the complaint is the way the score is being compiled. This they want their politicians to bring into balance. Thus the politician has rapidly been acquiring a non-propertied power-holding stock in the ‘system’.

The great dodge of our time is “society”, a sociological dream-concept, in whose name we dump our responsibility as individuals. “Society”, we say, is to blame. for any evils which beset people, yet an investigation would reveal a number of real humans with much guilt attached. Our spirit-sickness also calls on the government as the Hebrews called upon Jehovah in the desert, and denies the fact of individual life, liberty of action and its consequence, responsibility.

Perhaps a few will embrace decentralism, but the vast majority will, when the time comes, quietly crawl under a warm blanket of collectivism in their delusion that this is the way to security. Yet ‘salvation’ is even an individual matter, and those to whom freedom and responsibility still mean something can even now construct for themselves a passably satisfying existence in this indifferent environment.