Confessions of an anarchist

Paradoxical and absurd as it must appear to people of ordinary intelligence (and Anarchists are certainly of extra-ordinary intelligence), it is nevertheless the fact that among the devotees of knife, torch and bomb, the motto “Anarchy is Order” is a favourite one. It is inscribed on their banners, and is reiterated in their speeches with a persistency which becomes positively tiresome to listen to. Yet, strange to say (or, is it strange?) the very reverse of order is the prevailing condition among Anarchists themselves. For example, if I desire to become the happy possessor of an Anarchistic newspaper, I find that, in some cases, it has no fixed price; that, in place of the familiar “Price One Penny” of conventional journalism, it is inscribed “Pay What You Like,” or “Subscription Voluntary.”

The natural outcome of such a method (or, rather, lack of method) is that a journal produced on such “principles” speedily becomes defunct. Such was the fate of the Sheffield Anarchist, the first English Anarchist journal courageous enough to reduce its chaotic “pay what you like” “principles” to practice.

Having produced your paper on the “pay what you like” system, you scan its contents, and find disorder in its very lines, as witness the following, reproduced from the Alarm, the organ of the Associated Anarchists:—

WE TAKE ANYTHING!!!

Although money is handiest, stern
necessity compels us to be universalist,
and we therefore wish to make known
here, that in payment for literature
supplied by us, we take anything
which we can use for The Alarm, or
sell in support of it. Odd type, ink,
furniture, wearing apparel, boots,
jewellery, books, back numbers or sets
of any paper, used or unused stamps.
American paper currency, tea, sugar,
cocoa, crockery ware, cutlery, etc.
We ought not to have any bad debts at
this rate.

Here is Anarchy indeed! You will notice that the right hand side of the column is uneven, giving it the appearance of poetry. This is due to the fact that, to use a printer’s idiom, the lines have not been “justified;” or, in plain English, the spaces between the words should have been so altered as to make each line spread out to fill the column exact.

As a further instance of this Anarchistic disorder, I give the following: From the offices in Drury Lane of a curious four-page journal, printed by hand on yellow tissue paper, entitled the Atheistic Communistic Scorcher, emanated a still more curious, and, in many respects, amusing, pamphlet, entitled, “An Appeal to the Half-Starved, Herring-Gutted, Poverty-Struck, Parish-Damned Inhabitants of a Disunited Kingdom.” The following extract is an exact reproduction from the original (note the capitals and punctuation marks):—

We Require A Commune, to Take every Child,—Woman, and Man. Register them on the Roll of the Commune—Find how many Houses,—Tables, Chairs, Boots, Coats, Hats,—how much Food,—Animal, Vegetable, Cereal, are required for the Citizen. Then how many hours Labor from each Citizen.—(About One or Two hours.) from each one will do it, Them that wont work hang them, Labor will then be pleasant,—Why Is it so Irksome—To-Day? Because of excessive work and Insufficient pay,—That Land & Money Theives, may Batten and Fatten—On the Plunder of the Proletaire.

Some Anarchist journals—the Paris La Revolte, for example—even dispensed with editors, and allowed every comrade connected with the “group” which ran the paper to “have his say,” so far as the exigencies of space would allow him. This explains the fact that articles in direct contradiction to each other often appeared in the same journal.

Some of the advertisements to be found in Anarchistic newspapers are certainly amusing, as witness the following:—

A Severe Winter is Inevitable: therefore advertiser intends making preparations accordingly. Anyone willing to help form a “Help Myself” society should communicate with W. G. C., office of ——.

Poacher wants trustworthy comrade; mostly night work. Apply ——.

Another advertisement offered £5 reward for an honest lawyer. We know there is one somewhere in the East End; he is painted on a public-house sign-board, with his head under his arm.

The Anti-Broker Brigade having reached a sufficient strength is ready to assist comrades and friends who require its services, free of charge. Apply to W. C., office of this paper.

The above advertisement appeared in the Commonweal, and referred to a group of fifteen stalwart Anarchists who conscientiously and on principle objected to pay rent under any circumstances, and who helped each other “shoot the moon.”

At the offices of the Torch of Anarchy, in Ossulton Street, Somer’s Town, occurred a number of amusing episodes. One in particular is worth recounting. Some “comrades” who had been expelled from Italy struck a bargain with the Anarchist printer of the Torch to get out some revolutionary pamphlets in Italian, and in consideration of the working of his press by them he agreed to quote very reduced prices. It was a glorious sight to see these brawny sons of the Revolution perspiring at the press, singing Caserio’s “Hymn to Liberty,” and rejoicing in the thought that through their efforts the principles of Anarchy would be spread through their native land. Everyone was happy until some inquisitive fellow looked at the “proofs,” and made a terrible discovery. The wily printer, it seems, had undertaken a large printing contract for some local clergymen, and for months these firebrands had been printing tracts and sermons!

To the crank, the Anarchist movement acts as a magnet. It was while working as a compositor in the offices of Freedom that I came across as fine a specimen as one could wish to meet in a day’s march. And among Anarchists one finds the crank par excellence. One day a middle-aged, respectably-dressed person of ordinary appearance, except for a wild gleam in the eyes, entered the office and asked to see the manager. He wanted an estimate for printing a twenty-page pamphlet. A satisfactory quotation having been given, he produced a roll of MS. from the inside pocket of his coat, and gave an order for the printing of 1,000 copies. After he had gone we examined the MS., and found it to contain as curious a medley of sense and nonsense (mostly of the latter) as one could hope to find outside the four walls of a lunatic asylum.

The brochure, a printed copy of which I have before me as I write, was entitled, “The Truth—the Way to the Physical, Moral, Mental, and Spiritual Regeneration, and the Life,” by Alfred E. Gaynor, who modestly described himself as follows:—

“Water Bearer.
Spirit Architect and Constructor of the Universe,
The Osiris, or Incarnate Representative of the Solar Power.
Occultist and Metaphysician.
Social Surveyor, Counsellor, and Transformer.
Boudha, Krishna, and Jesus Christ Resurrected.
Second Person of the Trinity.
The Messiah, or Son of Man.
Redeemer of Humanity from the Powers of Darkness.
Leader of the Heavenly Hosts,
and Spiritual Commander of the Forces against Mammon.
Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Last Avatar of Vishnu.”

Interspersed through the pages of this pamphlet are a number of quotations from such curiously assorted sources as the Bible, the Free-thinker, Sir Monier-Williams, the Torch of Anarchy, the Bhagavadgita, and Volney’s “Ruins of Empires.”

The mission of the new Messiah was to “pull down all the old devil-erected structures—the kingdoms, governments, and religious institutions of the world—by nullifying the means by which they are enabled to maintain their Satanic dominance, i.e., Money; abolishing barter and trade, and cancelling all mammon-made laws, deeds, charters, stocks, bonds, notes, and other red-tape and paper chains which hold mankind in the bondage of delusion, and upon their site to build up a New Dispensation and a New Humanity.” The name of the new world was to be “Olombia, or the New Columbia State of the World.” It was to be a “Saturnian, or No-Money Commonwealth”; its members the “Spirit-Builders of the White Light and the Truth University.” Everything under the new dispensation was to be free, gratis, and for nothing—free material, free labour, free habitation—in fact, free beer, free ’bacca, and free mutton-chops.

Individuals in Olombia, or the “Realm of Celestial Light”—the “Kingdom of Heaven now established on Earth”—were to be organised on the Anarchist pattern of “groups” freely federated, and classified under various industrial denominations called Orders, such as the Order of Agriculturists, the Orders of Engineers, Carpenters, Masons, Tailors, Bootmakers, Electricians, Journalists, Designers, Musicians, Teachers, etc., which were to take upon themselves the Commonwealth management and operation of the sources of production and supply; of its land, buildings, storages, manufactories, farming, means of transportation, etc. (which, of course, existed only in our “Messiah’s” imagination).

Every person between the ages of 21 and 50 who partook of the Commonwealth supplies was to identify himself with one of these Orders, and in return the “Kingdom of Heaven now established on Earth” was to guarantee to each of its members a free livelihood, free conveyance, free education, free literature, free amusements—in fact, free everything!

Six hours was to be the Commonwealth working day; five days the Commonwealth working week; twenty days the Commonwealth working month; ten months the Commonwealth working year, and twenty-nine years the Commonwealth working limit. Starting work at the age of twenty-one, the “Spirit-Builders of the White Light” were to retire at the age of forty-nine—the fiftieth birthday beginning each individual’s Jubilee, the entering into which bestowed “Olombia Citizenship,” together with “an undivided, untaxed, and untrammelled interest in the Whole Earth with all its productions, and a right to all that is desired for the maintenance of life, health, liberty, development, culture and pleasure, ‘without money and without price.’”

One can only exclaim, “Oh, what must it be to be there!”

Another beautiful and rather rare specimen of the Anarchist crank I discovered in the same printing office. He was a believer in natural living, and a “dress reformer” with a vengeance. He existed entirely on a diet of nuts and cold water—aye, and what is the most amazing part about it, flourished and grew fat on that diet. In the office the Anarchists possessed a large old-fashioned printing-press, which was turned by hand. This was very exhausting work, and would knock an ordinary man out of breath in about ten minutes or so. The machine had, consequently, to be worked by some four or five men in shifts of about a quarter of an hour each. But this nut-eater outdid all of us roast beef and pudding devourers, for he was able to work at the machine for about an hour right off without any apparent sign of exhaustion. His greatest fad, however, was in the “dress reform” line. He believed in “natural dress,” and detested “conventionality.” Barbers, hatters, hosiers, and bootmakers he abominated, and walked the streets in all weathers hatless, bare-footed, and minus shirt, collar and tie, and even waistcoat. One fine hot summer’s day he was arrested in the City, a howling mob following him to the Guildhall, where he was charged with being insufficiently clad. He was actually parading the streets “mid nodings on” except a pair of short bathing pants!

An amusing incident once occurred at an Anarchist meeting in South Place Chapel, Finsbury. It was a public meeting to “commemorate the Chicago Martyrs.” One of the orators on this occasion was vehemently dramatic in his style, and was trying to inspire someone among his listeners with the necessity of “acting.” Warming to his work, he concluded his speech with this fiery peroration: “Comrades! the Cause of Anarchy is worth working for! worth fighting for!—aye, and, if needs be, worth dying for!”—and down came his fist with tremendous force on a small three-legged table which stood on the platform, smashing it to utter smithereens, amid the uproarious laughter of everyone present.