Henry Addis

“ Never, in all the history of the world, can an instance be pointed out of government being anything else than organized force, bent upon plundering the useful people in the name of tribute, tithes and taxes. Government is organized tyranny, systemized, so as to make its power the more potent, and its designs more irresistible. Many guileless individuals, seeing the tremendous power of government, think to turn this power into production rather than to destruction; into blessing rather than harm, forgetting, that its very organization makes such things impossible. ”

“ Time and again the downtrodden have arisen and wrested the powers of State from their oppressors, but in every instance where that power has been left intact, or some new form inaugurated, its possessors have made use of it to their personal advantage, and its exercise has grown oppressive as of old.
Seeing then that slavery or conquest is before us, which will we try to conquer, political power or bread—freedom? Wisdom and all the lessons of experience show the futility of the conquest of power. Before us lies the world fruitful and abundant. ”

“ They have not learned that they cannot be free while they are holding others, or while they seek to restrict the freedom of others. No one desires to be injured, and yet no one can be secure from injury as long as he injures others. We all wish to be free from injury. I crave for freedom. I see that others want the same condition, and I know that my freedom can be made secure only by the freedom of all others. I know of no other ideal but Anarchy that, if realized, would secure freedom to me and to all others, therefore I am an Anarchist. ”

“ When will the Trades Unions and all their members refuse to belong to any military organization? When will working men see that military organizations are to keep them in subjection, and secure their robbery for the benefit of the parasites? When will people learn that war only brings anguish, destruction and death, and that all the desirable things of life come as a consequence of industry, never as a consequence of war? ”

“ The State, as a suppressor of crime and a protector of life, has been a sad failure, and to entrust it with the providing of employment and the dispensing of bread is equivalent to putting your purse in the care of one who has criminally or carelessly squandered your property.
The more the powers of the State are curtailed the more nearly we approach a condition of Anarchy: the more the powers of the State are increased the further we drift from it. How then can State Socialism, the governmentalization of everything, lead to Anarchy? ”

“ So we see that everywhere majority rule breeds tyranny, is tyranny, and can be nothing else. If all agree there is no rule in the matter, but if one disagrees then the compulsion begins, and the tyranny of majority rule manifests itself. In essence there is no difference between a minority composed of one individual and a minority composed of one half minus one individual. If the lone individual has any rights in the matter, his rights are equal to the right of each other one, or of all the others together. ”

“ No more could proud wealth rob patient industry and laugh in its face. Never again could the efforts of strikers be crushed by the militia. The power of the State would be gone, and the producers be able to maintain possession of their products. Then those who toil and create the wealth of the world could assert their power, and by combining their efforts raise themselves beyond all danger of want or privation, and forever place themselves in position to enjoy all the comforts, the luxuries, the arts and sciences. But as long as the war-spirit sways men as it does today ”

“ If those who now enjoy life at the expense of others insist on preventing others from utilizing the natural resources, and thus providing themselves with the necessities of life, and in thus making human life a fierce struggle, then they must not complain if their victims awake some day to the logic of the theory, so persistently put forward in justification of the distinctions existing in society today, and, acting thereon, drive them from the mansions and palaces, and compel them—once the fit, but now the unfit-to toil that the once unfortunate may revel in luxury which they once enjoyed. ”

“ In democratic Switzerland, the land of popular government, the home of the initiative and referendum, a man is NOT ALLOWED TO EARN A LIVING without paying for the privilege. Think of that, ye advocates of popular government!
"Government is a conspiracy of the rich to rob the poor," and any compromise with government is simply a deal with a gigantic conspiracy. Reverence for government, respect for law and willingness to support these institutions, no matter how popular they may be, is simply a childish acceptance of tradition by some and a means of gaining wealth and power by others. ”

“ They never inquire why men commit crime, in fact they seldom even stop to enquire what crime is, or what effect punishment has on the one punished. All they want is to retaliate, to practice revenge, and to set an example to other erring ones, hoping thereby to deter them from committing crime.
But let us inquire into the cause of crime and the right of punishment.
Has any one the right to punish another? If so, where do they get the right? If individuals have no right to punish others, what right has the State? ”

“ The only struggle necessary to the existence of all, is a struggle with the crudities of inorganic nature, and with the weeds and brambles.
Imagine a condition of freedom, a condition in which every one has an equal opportunity with every one else. Superabundance of the requisites of life, culture and refinement, would soon exist. Under these conditions who would be the fittest? Those who took best care of themselves, that lived such lives as to give themselves strength, health and vigor. ”

“ The fear of crime and the question of punishment are two bugbears that stand in the pathway of a good many individuals, when they contemplate the proposition of setting men free from State interference. The same bugbear frightened the conservatives when skepticism began to question the correctness of christian dogmas. Not longer than twenty years ago men stood in the pulpit and boldly asserted that without the fear of hell to restrain them men would rush head-long into all manner of crime and vice, and pitiable indeed would be the world. ”

“ All around they see others, human beings like themselves, who have not only the comforts they crave for and are denied, but also such luxuries as they have never dared to dream of possessing. Is it any wonder that so many say to themselves: "It doesn't matter how you get it, the only thing to live for is to get money!"
Nothing can be plainer than that the present economic system, the outgrowth of monopoly, which in turn depends on the State for existence is the chief, if not the only, breeder of crime.. ”

“ Minds beclouded by ignorance and besotted by superstition may be so terrified by vivid descriptions of eternal tortures as to quake at the thought of committing crime, or may be restrained from some acts by fear of punishment, but as knowledge sheds its light abroad, all restraint by fear vanishes. Bright minds are not horrified by threats of hell, and are always ready to take chances on evading the law, and thus escape punishment if they desire to do that which the law prohibits. ”

“ Compulsion, whether it takes the form of incentive to action, or of restraint from action, except in cases of necessary defense against aggression, is tyranny. Where a vote is taken on any proposition and a majority votes in one way, and compels the minority to abide by their decision, it is tyranny. A majority may vote to prohibit the use of beer, and by enforcing that decision tyrannize over the minority who wish to drink beer. On the other hand the majority might vote that every one should drink so much beer every day. ”

“ Finding that we must be something—must hold to certain ideas and work for certain ends—if we work at all, or amount to any more in human life than an ox, or an ax, it very naturally follows that we will adopt and work for the prevalence of such ideas as will bring us the greatest happiness, now or bye and bye. That is why I am an Anarchist. I am convinced that to work for the realization of the Anarchist ideal will bring me more satisfaction than an adherence to, or working for, any other ideal would bring me. ”

“ It is far from the perfection of human association, and is, to a certain extent, madness.
Let us look into the workings of modern commerce, trace its effects back to their causes and see if it is either a blessing or a necessity. Without commerce the large cities as we know them, cities with their long streets of sky-high buildings, their splendor on one side and their squalor on the other, would not exist. ”

“ So the danger of popular government is apparent on the one side, and its non-necessity on the other. Voluntary association and mutual agreement is all that is necessary in the daily intercourse of people, and anything not of that character must be aggressive in its nature and leads to oppression and tyranny.
Popular government is one of those delusions which hold sway for long periods of time, because it is so vague in meaning that it is never known if it is realized in practice or is yet to be attained. ”

“ The desire to kill others, which some upholders of law claim is so common, is not inherited to any such extent as they seem to imagine, and under free conditions, wherein there is nothing to fight over, and everything tends to stimulate and increase the social instincts, that desire would make itself manifest in deeds of violence only on rare and unusual occasions. The desire to get something for nothing; to hoard wealth; to take advantage of one's fellows; all these desires that are said to be inherited, and to make freedom impracticable, are not hereditary tendencies at all. ”

“ Many persons are wont to speak of our commerce in boastful tones and to point with pride to our great commercial centers, with their swarms of human beings hurrying here and there, crowding each other in the streets or toiling all day long in shop or mart, as though all this were the acme of economic arrangements, the greatest achievement of mankind and the source of all human joy. ”

“ The more authority—power over his fellow—sa man has, the more favorable the opportunity for this "human nature" to manifest itself. Thus we see that if this definition of human nature be correct, it is illogical to uphold government. The before given bits of history show that, left without government, men do not prey upon each other.
Human beings are gregarous; they associate as naturally, spontaneously and persistently as do so many sheep or cattle. In their association they have developed industry and the division of labor to such an extent that they are now interdependent. ”

“ Some crimes are the outgrowth of envy, jealousy and hatred, we are told, and I admit it. But it is easy enough to see that all these are the direct outgrowth of the distinctions that grow out of privileges granted by the State. Once these evil frames of mind are engendered, and the conditions that produce them continue, they grow upon themselves, destroy the ability of those possessing them to view life fairly, or on the bright side, and cause them to look upon every one else with suspicion, or with evil intent. ”

“ Regimentation, dictation and constant espionage do not.tend to make people free, self-reliant or noble. The degradation that would grow upon a people who would submit to such an arrangement would unfit them for freedom, and the constant surveillance of the masses by the privileged office-holding class would necessitate a violent and remorseless revolution in order to make freedom possible.
No! the road to Anarchy is not through State Socialism. We may be free only by breaking our bonds, not by substituting new and more numerous ones. ”

“ If they grow strong enough to destroy individual character, they will die of inertia. If they cannot succeed in extinguishing individual character, then the individuals will, in the struggle for greater freedom, extinguish the nations. ”

“ The minority may want to work in a certain manner, or at certain occupations, but if the majority says they shall not, but must work in a certain way, and occupy their time in certain employment, then they must do it, and it becomes tyranny. Even in secret orders, and voluntary societies the rule of the majority often becomes very disagreeable to the minority, but the minority has no rights that the majority is bound to respect, so they must submit, or withdraw and lose what they have in the institution, and in some instances be persecuted unbearably for so doing. ”

“ The most general conception of Communism is that of the small states, or societies in which the tools, laud, buildings and products of the society are the common property of the members, or of the government of the society. Usually in these societies, or states, a common kitchen is maintained; the vegetables are all raised together in a common garden by the united effort of those assigned to that work by the management of the society; individual preference is supposed to give way to the preference of the majority, and a regulation of activities carried on by the central authority. ”

“ The theory of the survival of the fittest justifies mob violence as well as the lawful methods of commerce. It is only a question of might.
But does the number of human beings now on the earth so press upon the means of subsistence that strife and violence are necessary to determine who shall exist and who shall perish? Most assuredly not. The struggle for existence now is due to monopoly: to the legal restriction of natural opportunities. It is an indisputable fact, that there are an abundance of resources to supply a much larger population than now exists on earth. ”