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.

From Time and Tide for July 16, 1926 pp. 648-649

I have been asked to write an account of the Freewoman, and those who asked me were wise, for that paper, unimportant as it was in content, – and amateurish in form, had an immense effect on its time. But unfortunately, I have forgotten nearly everything about it. It must have lived about 14 or 15 years ago, because I know I was about 17 or 18 years of age; and in the intervening years I have done so much else and have so completely lost touch with the other persons involved, that the details are fogged in my mind.

The paper was the creation of Dora Marsden, who was one of the most marvellous personalities that the nation has ever produced. She had, to begin with, the most exquisite beauty of person. She was hardly taller than a child, but she was not just a small woman; she was a perfectly proportioned fairy. She was the only person I have ever met who could so accurately have been described as flower-like that one could have put it down on her passport. And on many other planes she was as remark able. In her profession she had been more than ordinarily successful. Though she was still under thirty, she was head of a training college for teachers. She was one of the fighting suffragettes under Mrs. Pankhurst, and in the course of her activities she had shown courage that even in that courageous company seemed magnificent. She had been to prison more than once, and had behaved with what would have been amazing heroism in any woman, but which was something transcendent in her case, since she was physically fragile and the victim of a tiresome form of ill-health.

She conceived the idea of starting the Freewoman because she was discontented with the limited scope of the suffragist movement. She felt that it was restricting itself too much to the one point of political enfranchisement and was not bothering about the wider issues of Feminism. I think she was wrong in formulating this feeling as an accusation against the Pankhursts and suffragettes in general, because they were simply doing their job, and it was certainly a whole time job. But there was equally certainly a need for someone to stand aside and ponder on the profounder aspects of Feminism. In this view she found a supporter in Mary Gawthorpe, Yorkshire woman who had recently been invalided out of the suffrage movement on account of injuries sustained at the hands of stewards who had thrown her out of a political meeting where she had been interrupting Mr. Winston Churchill. Mary Gawthorpe, was a merry militant saint who had travelled round the provinces, living in dreary lodgings on $15 or $20 a week, speaking several times a day at outdoor meetings, and suffering fools gladly (which I think she found the hardest job of all), when trying to convert the influential Babbits of our English zenith cities. Occasionally she had a rest in prison, which she always faced with a sparrow-like perkiness. She had wit and common sense and courage, and each to the point of genius. She lives in the United States now, but her inspiration still lingers over here on a whole generation of women.

These two came together and planned this paper, but Dora Marsden played the chief part of organizing and controlling it throughout the whole of its life, for at that time Mary Gawthorpe was sick almost unto death.

Dora Marsden came to London with her devoted friend Grace Jardine, who was Martha to her Mary, and they found a publisher to finance them. At this point I had better remind my readers that again and again radical movements find themselves obliged to be financed by the insane. Radicals may take comfort in reflecting that the same is true of non-radical movements, but that the fact is so serious because there is no striking antithesis between such movements and their financiers. This particular gentleman financed not only the Freewoman, but Chesterton and Belloc’s The Eye Witness, and a fashionable illustrated paper. which was tended by a beautiful lady with red gold hair and decorative footwear. Her slippers gleam undimmed across the gulf of time; I have not been able to forget them. The movies had not come into their own, but she anticipated the anima of Mr. Cecil de Mille. He also published his own poetry, which consisted of Wordsworthian nature verse and Browningish monologues about he soul. One I remember particularly was a touching lament by St. Augustine on his own celibacy. And this gentleman also published, with the utmost generosity of terms, various books by young lions. For example, he brought out Katherine Mansield’s first volume of short stories “In a German Pension.” So we started in; or rather they did. I did not join them till later; in fact, I never wrote for the Freewoman till it had got such a bad name for its candour that I was forbidden to read it by my family, and thus I came to adopt my present pseudonym. The initial group consisted of Dora Marsden, Grace Jardine and a glorious red-haired bachelor of science, who had been in and out of gaol for the cause, named Rona Robinson. They went at first or all the conventional Feminist articles of faith. In their early numbers I fancy they represented as nearly as possible the same program as the National Woman’s Party. That program has certainly been accepted by English women of this subsequent period with an extraordinary completeness. I think there are probably hardly any subscribers to the quiet orthodox woman’s weekly of to-day, Time and Tide, who do not take it for granted that it is degrading to woman, and injurious to the race to leave the financing of the mother and her children to the double-barrelled caprice of the father and the father’s employer. They may differ regarding the specific remedies they propose to end this state of affairs, but hardly any of them would defend it. I am convinced that this change of outlook is partly due to the strong lead given by the Freewoman. But the greatest service that the paper did its country was through its unblushingness. It paralleled the achievement of Miss Christabel Pankhurst, who did an infinite service to the world by her articles on venereal disease. The content of them was not too intelligent. It blamed the impurity of men for a state of affairs to which the impurity of women and the social system are also contributory causes. But it mentioned venereal diseases loudly and clearly and repeatedly, and in the worst possible taste; so that England fainted with shock, and on recovering listened quite calmly when the experts came forward and said that since the subject had at last been mentioned they might urge that the state could do this and that to prevent these diseases. Even so, the Freewoman mentioned sex loudly and clearly and repeatedly, and in the worst possible taste; and likewise the content was not momentous. Those who laugh at Freud and Jung should turn back to those articles and see how utterly futile and blundering discussions on these points used to be even when they were conducted by earnest and intelligent people. But the Freewoman by its candour did an immense service to the world by shattering, as nothing else would, as not the mere cries of intention towards indepence had ever done, the romantic conception of women. It pointed out that lots of women who were unmated and childless resented their condition. It pointed out that there were lots of women who were mated and who had children who found elements of dissatisfaction in their position. It even mentioned the existence of abnormalities of instinct. In fact, it smashed the romantic pretence that women had as a birthright the gift of perfect adaptation; that they were in a bland state of desireless contentment which, when they were beautiful, reminded the onlooker of goddesses, and when they were plain were more apt to remind him of cabbage. If this romantic conception had been true, there would have been no reason for the emancipation of women, since as they could be happy anywhere and anyhow, there was never any need to alter their environment. It had to be admitted that women were vexed human beings who suffered intensely from mal-adaptation to life, and that they were tortured and dangerous if they were not allowed to adapt themselves to life. That admission is the keystone of the modern Feminist movement. Dora Marsden made her point with unique effectiveness, considering the length of the paper’s life. Nevertheless the paper was coming to an end psychically when it came to an end physically. Its psychic death was due to the fact that Dora Marsden started on a train of thought which led her to metaphysics. She began to lose her enthusiasm for bringing women’s industry on equal terms with men, because it struck her that industrialism destroyed more in life than it produced. She began to be sceptical of modern civilisation and this led her to preaching a kind of Tolstoyism which would have endeavoured to lead the world back to primitive agriculture. waged war with her on this point in a correspondence that the curious might hunt down in the files. I signed myself therein Rachel East. I got no chance to convince her, for already she had retreated to further remotenesses and was developing an egoistic philosophy on the lines foreshadowed by Max Stirner. About this time the brick fell. Our publisher fled suddenly to North Africa, with the lady of the shoes and a considerable sum of money which an unfortunate gentleman had entrusted him as an investment in the business. It then turned out that he was a criminal of a singular type; really a naïve moral imbecile. After various financial fantasias and a number of carelessly conceived and executed bigamies he had settled down as a publisher not a mile from our police department offices at Scotland Yard, and had there flourished for two years; and no doubt would have done so for many more years had not the young lions been so expensive and the lady with the shoes so desirous of foreign travel.

He was brought back and sent to a place of seclusion for some Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc and Dora Marsden and her flock were homeless for a time. Then odd people turned up and financed it, and it was reissued as The Egoist, of which paper I was literary editor. That did not last long. My position seemed to me impossible. The routine of the office was not impeccable. There was an arrivist American poet who intended to oust me, and his works and those of his friends continually appeared in the paper without having passed me. This was unbearably irritating, particularly at that age. And Dora Marsden, more and more remote in her ether of speculation, could not understand it when I objected to articles which did not come up to a certain standard of taste and literary skill. So I quit. I am quite sure that she never understood why. An argument that there is relation between the expression and what is expressed, and that if the one is coarse the other is unlikely to be authentic, seemed to her a far away babble, for it was becoming less and less imperative for her to express herself. Hers was now to be rather than to do.

The paper lived some time after I left it. It did a magnificent thing for literature in publishing James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Of its last days I cannot speak, for about that time ill-health fell on me and for long I was out of things. I have heard nothing of Dora Marsden for ten years or so. It may be that the wisdom she has obtained is not communicable, but I am sure to some far peak of wisdom she must have attained, and I cannot think that it is not good for the race when some of its component atoms reach projection, even if they cannot transmit it to their fellows. At any rate, Dora Marsden left us a heritage in the unembarrassed honesty of our times.

After the Underworld Amusements edition of The Unique and Its Property was attacked and the translator and publisher receiving death threats and much lighter threats from that same anarchist milieu, the book was taken out of circulation, with copies fetching high-dollars on the secondary market. The book was later released in a new, and much pinker, edition by Little Black Cart. While LBC does most of their printing and binding in-house, they went big with a proper professional print run and have been selling it down since its 2018 release.

Leading up to and past the public announcement, Underworld Amusements, a long time supporter of LBC, arranged to make one last big order of books, including nearly EVERY REMAINING COPY of The Unique and Its Property, about a thousand total. After many many months we have just now taken possession of many dozens of boxes of books and pamphlets, and will be inventorying them and adding them to the website.

Further, Underworld Amusements and the Union of Egoists project will be working on NEW EDITIONS of OUR favorite LBC/ARDENT PRESS titles, to be released as we sell out of the on-hand LBC editions.

We’ve got a LOT of books and a LOT of WORK ahead. Restocked books will be on the website over the coming days and we will send out a newsletter focusing on restocked and some new titles. Please BUY BOOKS!

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.

The idea for this site and much else was crystalized in a chat of February 2nd, 2016 between Trevor Blake and Kevin I. Slaughter. This chat was printed in our journal of record Der Geist Issue 1 as “A Unique Conversation,” published in 2017. We have published six issues Der Geist.  It constitutes nearly one thousand two hundred pages of egoism from 1845 to 1945, with lost works reprinted, new or lost translations in every issue, rare photos and images, and new research, essays and reviews.

The Union of Egoists has released over seventy issues of the mixed format journal Stand Alone. Those released have comprised everything from books of original research to t-shirts and audio recordings. In the series, twenty-five books have been published. A library of egoist material has been generated.

Our work has been cited by scholars in the academic press and by editors of Wikipedia. We have provided new information on the holdings of libraries and historical societies.

We have made over three hundred blog posts and generated hundreds of pages of material. We have launched several special projects that have generated hundreds of pages of content.

We are very appreciative of those supporting our work on Patreon.

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.