hirelings to enforce their man-made laws and maintain their "power" over their fellowmen. Oh, consistency, indeed thou art a jewel! These hypocrites, always did, and do today, employ brute force to compel their fellowmen to obey and serve them, while they whine and snivel behind their sanctimonious masks about their "love of man and the power of God." I hope some of them will preach in their pulpits next Sunday morning on this topic.
In the opinion of an Anarchist, the sum total of human life is expressed in one word—authority. The economic regulates and controls the social status of man; the mode and manner of procuring our livelihood affects our whole life; the all-pervading cause is economic, not political, moral, or religious, and social institutions of every kind and degree result from, grow out of, and are created by the economic or industrial regulations of society. Every human being, consciously or unconsciously, is affected and controlled by it in what they think, or say or do. There is no escape; no evasion from its consequences. It is logic. It is cause and effect. Evil exists on every hand; the well disposed, philanthropic, and generous, and the good seek relief from these evil influences by moral suasion, by self-denial, by religion, by politics, etc. etc., but in vain, in vain! The evils remain, and not only remain, but grow worse and worse. Why, if the fountain is corrupt, can the stream be pure? If the cause remains, must not the effects follow? Jails, judges, and executioners, police, armies and navies, pestilence, misery and ignorance and debauchery, and evils of all kinds of high and low degree, all flow from one fountain; that flowing fountain of human woe is the economic or industrial subjection and enslavement of man to man. Every human ill is produced by the denial or the violation of man's natural rights or by the neglect or refusal of man to conform his life to the requirements of nature. Wickedness, wretchedness, ignorance, vice, crime, poverty are the penalties which nature inflicts upon her disobedient children. The natural man is a happy man. He is virtuous and right; truly so. Whoever violates the right of another, sooner or later punishes himself. Nature is inexorable. From her penalty there is no escape. But in a court of law—of so-called "justice"—if you are a member of the Citizens' Association, or if you have a big bank account, in other words, if you are a member of the propertied class, you crawl out of anything you want to, for law is for sale; that is to say, whoever can purchase the lawyers, stock the jury and bribe the court, can win. There is only one law for the poor, to wit: Obey the rich.
The existing economic system has placed on the market for sale man's natural rights. What are these rights? Well, among the many I will enumerate one or two. The right to live, for instance, is an inalienable right. So, too, is the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now, how can I possess these rights and enjoy them, when the very condition and the means for their procurement are owned by and belong to another?
Shakespeare makes Shylock say at the bar of the Venetian court, "You do take my life when you take the means whereby I live." Now, the means of life are monopolized; the necessary means for the existence of all have been appropriated and monopolized by a few. The land, the implements of production and communication, the resources of life are now held as private property, and its owners exact tribute from the propertyless. In this way
