"create public opinion," and that they can make the people applaud when chains and fetters are being riveted upon their ankles and wrists, and gibbets are being erected to hang them on, for exercising the blood bought rights of free speech and free assembly, can make them rejoice at the fiendish strangling to death of liberty loving-men for the expression of honest opinions and beliefs, not known to be criminal for more than two hundred years in America, until defined as "conspiracy against society" by corporation-controlled judges months after the objectionable (to tyrants) utterances had been made ex post facto decisions, creating law, barbarous law unknown to our statutes, foreign to our constitutions, previously undefined by our courts and wholly subversive of our most sacred liberties-decisions that no judge, even in England, would ever have dared to make, except during the tyrannical reigns of Charles the First and James the Second. But King Charles, and other infamous tyrants of that period were beheaded by an indignant people for the crimes against liberty and law they had committed. No wonder (knowing this history and the fate of Jeffries) that the Illinois judge of the superior court "turned pale and trembled" when announcing his tyrannical decree!

the

I believe that the recreant judges and the weak-minded Governor of Illinois (if the law of our country was strictly, fairly, honestly and correctly interpreted and enforced), would all be legally subject to the death penalty for treason and murder, they having committed overt act of treason, by "levying actual war against the people," by taking the lives of men contrary to all known law, by destroying the safeguards of life and liberty, by breaking down the bulwarks of common justice, by overthrowing the freedom of speech and of the press by taking from us, annihilating at one fell stroke of tyranny, all that the fathers gave us that is worth the preserving. worth without liberty? It is worth nothing. What is the Union of the great Webster "liberty and Union" are bound fast together In the illuminated mirad "now and forever one and inseparable."

If I sanctioned the mad action of those detestable judges, and of

of

that imbecile Governor of Illinois, I would not dare to look out doors at night, lest I beheld the ghosts of Warren, Lincoln and John Brown shaking at me their gory locks and shrieking in my ears: "Thou didst it." My heart and my mind instructed by a devoted and careful study, for over forty years, of my country's history, both tell me that the firing on Fort Sumter pales in importance before that mad deed, which is awakening millions of earnest men and earnest women to profoundest thought. From this day on there will be but two parties in our country-Sons and Daughters of Liberty and infamous Tories-the defenders of inalienable rights and the enemies of popular liberty, as of old.

I abhor alike the violent doctrines of the German Anarchists and of the advocates of coercion, and war, and with as deep abhorrence, 1 may truly say, as our ancestors in Great Britain did the opposing creeds of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, when they burnt each other alternately as each faction got the power, in hecatombs at the stake as our Puritan Fathers, in New England, did the doctrines of the Quakers, when they cut off their ears and executed them on the gallows on Boston Common; but I am a disciple of Roger Williams, Lord Baltimore and William Penn; I believe in the toleration of opinions and beliefs, religious and political; and (as our fathers have stated it, in the Constitution of the United States) I would condemn men for deeds only, and not for words "on the testimony of at least two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court;" and for no offense whatever would I sanction the death penalty.

"CONSPIRACY AGAINST SOCIETY.”

VIII. Time to Call a Halt.

595

January 17, 1889. The police of Chicago (warranted in doing so, they supposed, by the rulings of the Illinois courts condemning to death for "conspiracy against society," i. e., for so-called "Anarchist opinions," the Hay Market quaterian of martyrs, finally reached a point in their mad career of tyranny and disregard of popular rights, where, in order that the last spark of liberty might not be extinguished in that corporation-controlled city, it became necessary for the judge of the court to call a halt. As a specimen of police anarchy, yea, of downright insanity, I clip the following from an Associated Press dispatch dated Chicago, Ill., Dec. 9, 1888.

The dispatch says: "Police Chief Hubbard issued an order holding nearly all of the city police of 1500 men in reserve at various stations ready to be called at any moment. When asked what he purposed to do, Chief Hubbard said: 'We positively will not allow any more Anarchist meetings. I am making a full list of all saloons where Anarchists congregate, and will recommend the mayor that license be revoked. There will be no tampering, nor any hesitancy from this time out. Any Anarchist meeting will be broken up and prevented. I do not think they want to fight very badly; but if they do they can have all they want.' In the afternoon Chief Hubbard summoned the proprietors of Greef's hall at 54 West Lake street, and those at 600 Blue Island avenue. The Chief told them emphatically that they must allow no further meetings of Anarchists in their halls. The proprietors commenced to argue that the meetings were peaceable, but were interrupted by the Chief, with the intimation that he would not argue that question. Whether the meetings were peaceable or not made no difference. They were held for the dissemination of lawless and incendiary ideas and must be abolished."

An Anarchist Bund (society) appealed to the court for redress. Judge Tuley spoke in the same voice as that which resounded more than a century ago in the halls of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, when Patrick Henry uttered his immortal plea for liberty. He spoke in the same patriotic tones as did the ancient Tully when he thundered on the Roman Forum against Mark Antony. I trust that his words may not, like those of the Roman patriot, be the last grand protest against tyranny, precedent to the downfall of the republic, the agonizing wail of expiring liberty; but, rather like those of Patrick Henry, the presage of a new birth of freedom, I heard Governor Larrabee declare today in a speech before a convention of Iowa jobbers, in the capitol at Des Moines: "Railroad men have been accustomed to obey only such laws as they found convenient to obey."

Here is anarchism, and the only anarchism we have any reason to fear. It is the Corporation Anarchists who have been setting bloodhounds on the track of the friends of popular liberty for years. It is Corporation Anarchists that the police force of Chicago serve, and in whose interest they have attempted to destroy popular liberty-depriving the people of the right of free spech and peaceable assembly— a blood-bought right.

Judge Tuley states the case in the following words: He says: "I find no reason to differ from the Master in Chancery in his conclusion that the evidence adduced fails to show that the proposed assemblage was for an unlawful purpose, because of the condition of the membership that only persons of reputable character, who declare for the abolition of the inhuman wage system, can become members.' The solicitor is in error in the supposition that the law upholds or demands any particular system of carrying on industrial enterprises. The Master reports that there was no evidence to show the meaning of the declaration that the society favors the abolition of the capital.

istic system of exploitation nor of the purpose 'to assist in the fight against exploitation.' The word 'exploitation' is a French word for which we have no precise equivalent. I understand the object intended is opposition to the present system of using capital. That is to say, capital shall be so used that labor shall receive a greater share of the combined earnings of labor and capital than at present, and that capital shall not be used so as to oppress the people by combinations and monopolies. I may be mistaken in my interpretation, but whatever may be the meaning, the object is to be accomplished by the enlightenment and education of the masses. I find no law which prohibits the formation of societies for such a purpose. The members of the society may seek to disseminate views or principles which in the opinion of the great majority of our citizens are detrimental to the rights of property and the public welfare, but they have the right to publicly meet and discuss them in a quiet and peaceable manner, and make converts to their views if they are able to do so. The question of the relations of capital and labor, in its varied phases, and many others, like the question of the right to exclusive individual ownership of the land, or the single tax theory, are the burning questions of the hour that have come to stay and must be met."

After hearing both sides of the case and probing the question to the bottom, what does the judge discover? He discovers that the object of Anarchist societies is to "assist in the fight against exploitation," which he defines to be "opposition to the present system of using capital, that is to say, capital shall be so used that labor shall receive a greater share of the combined earnings of labor and capital than at present, and that capital shall not be used so as to oppress the people by combinations and monopolies."

"I do

These, then, are the "lawless and incendiary ideas" that police chief Hubbard attempted with 1500 armed policemen to "suppress." not think they want to fight very badly," said the chief, who was, it appears, himself "spoiling for a fight." "If they do," he boastingly remarks, "they can have all they want." It is a pity that Judge Tuley has defeated police chief Hubbard's well matured plans for provoking a riot. Couldn't some detective, to revive the waning hopes of monopoly, plant a dynamite bomb, or two, somewhere again? But Judge Tuley has caused the Anarchist scare to collapse as did the Salem witch scare, more than two hundred years ago, and the planting of dynamite bombs by detectives, as a means of bringing odium on workingmen and sending them to the penitentiary, or to execution, has ceased to be practicable, either against German Anarchists or members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Some other plan for "manufacturing public sentiment" will have to be studied out by the astute railroad attorneys, assisted by "detectives." He says further: "It was argued that the Constitution (of the Bund) shows on the face the unlawful purpose, because of the condition of the membership that 'only persons of reputable character who declare for the abolition of the inhuman wage system can become members." Such, according to Judge Tuley, is that terrible "Anarchist" heresy! "It aims at the abolition of the inhuman wage system!" But how would it "abolish" that inhuman system? Fearful to tell! "The object is to be accomplished by the enlightment and education of the masses!" Such a course as this will be fatal to the tyranny of monopolists! And, says the Judge, "I find no law which prohibits the formation of societies for that purpose." What is still worse for the tyrants. "The Solicitor," the Judge continues. "is in error in the supposition that the law upholds or demands any particular system of carrying on industrial enterprises." So the wage system is, I trust, destined to pass away without so great a jar as did the chattel slave system.

The press dispatch further says: "Judge Tuley then takes up the

"CONSPIRACY AGAINST SOCIETY."

597

claim on behalf of the police, that they had a right to prevent a meeting, thereby preventing crime, and holds that their power cannot be given such latitude; that if the police, at their discretion, do what they think will prevent what may, in their judgment, result in crime, legislatures, courts, or governmental officers would be entirely superfluous. I am astounded to find that at this day (in this free country)," continues Judge Tuley, "it should be urged by affidavit and arguments in a court of justice, that a police official can forbid the meeting of a society, or a public meeting, because of his belief that this society is a treasonable one and its members are about to commit treasonable acts. If this be law then every political, literary, religious, or other society would hold their constitutional right of free speech and peaceable assembly at the mercy of every petty policeman. In no other city in the Union except here in Chicago, have the police officials attempted to prevent the right of free speech or peaceable assembly upon such unwarranted pretences and assumptions of power. It is time to call a halt. The right of free speech and peaceable assembly is the very life blood of freedom. You might as well expect the human body to exist after every drop of blood has been suspended as to expect continued existence of liberty, the citizen being dprived of the right of free speech and the peaceable assembly."

There is nothing more true than the fact that the common people never largely embrace any "ism," political or religious, that is not possessed of some good points; and there is nothing more true than that what Judge Tuley defines as "Anarchism," (Socialism divested of its John Brown methods of propagandism,) is a doctrine that merits the candid investigation of every patriotic American, though, like christianity itself, it comes to us from the old world.

Wendell Phillips (I quote from memory) said in his great Phi Beta Kappa oration, that if he were a Russian living in Russia, he would be a Nihilist, if a German residing in Germany he would be an Anarchist, if a Frenchman domiciled in France, he would be a Communist, if an Irishman dwelling in Ireland, he would be an ultra Fenian—a Michael Davitt. He explains those "isms" to be only the varied forms democracy has been forced to assume by the varied surroundings. What American, I ask, does not sympathize with the Irish in their struggles for liberty in Ireland? And how were the explosions of dynamite that shattered the House of Commons and the Tower of London heard by patriotic Americans!

Circumstances alter cases. Boston saw, delighted, the ship loads of tea thrown overboard in her harbor-saw with complacency the destruction of Mr. Oliver's house and furniture, and of the house and furniture of Lietenant Governor Hutchinson-"who," says the historian, "after attempting resistance, was constrained to depart to save his life. By four in the morning one of the best houses in the province was completely in ruins-nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. The plate, family pictures, most of the furniture and wearing apparel, about nine hundred pounds sterling, and manuscripts and books, which Mr. Hutchinson had been thirty years collecting, besides many public papers in his custody, were either carried off or destroyed."

Let tyrants beware!

IX. The Uncertain Tenure of Citizenship.

December 6, 1889.

Judge Anderson of the Federal Court has lately given a very remarkable decision, rendering American citizenship of uncertain tenure. Citizenship, according to his ruling, may be annulled or prevented by the arbitrary ukase of courts on account of religious or political opin

ions, and without the commission of any criminal act known to our

laws.

The Iowa State Register of Dec. 5, 1889, directs the attention of its readers to this extraordinary assumption of judicial power. In an editorial article it says: "Judge Anderson, in his recent Mormon decision, has laid down a very important principle regarding citizenship." "When it denies citizenship to aliens or natves who have taken that (endowment) oath, it takes the most effective means to get that (Mormonism) out of the way."

*

*

"The same line of argument which Judge Anderson pursued in this case can properly be used against the socialists, anarchists and other enemies of American institutions."

What are Judge Anderson's rulings that may have so extended an application? The following is the gist of his argument. The Judge says: "The evidence in this case establishes unquestionably that the teachings, practices and purposes of the Mormon Church are antagonistic to the government of the United States, utterly subversive of good morals and the well-being of society, and that its members are animated by a feeling of hostility toward the government and its laws." Let us for a moment examine this reasoning of the learned (?) United States Judge with the microscope of common sense. If such ruling had prevailed forty years ago that "because," in the opinion of a court, the teachings and practices" of church, secret society or political party are "antagonistic to the government of the United States, utterly subversive of good morals and the well being of society, and that its members are (in the opinion of the court) animated by a feeling of hostility toward the government and its laws"--though no statute exists propounding any punishment whatever for opinion, and though treason itself consists not in any opinion or intention, but in actual war begun by firing upon a fort, or by giving aid and comfort to the enemy in arms-if this ruling, I say, had prevailed forty years ago, that a judge of a Federal court may declare an American voter no longer a citizen of the United States, and may prevent foreign emigrants becoming citizens for such cause, who might take the naturalization oath and comply with the laws in every other respect, then all the old-time Abolitionists would have been deprived of American citizenship by the pro-slavery judges who dominated the courts of old, and all "Abolition" emigrants would have been deprived of the right of becoming American citizens.

The Abolitionists declared the Constitution of the United States a "covenant with death and a league with hell." But the people of our country then had at least a nominal legal right of free speech and free thought, being accountable only to mobs, who pelted the Abolitionists with rotten eggs, murdered them and threw their printing presses into the rivers. Courts were the obedient tools of the slave power of the South in that day, as they are, in this day, of the money power of the East; and they would then go to any conceivable length of tyranny and usurpation to help the chattel slavedrivers, as they do now to help the wage slavedrivers. But Judge Anderson's ruling is a discovery of the year 1889, and was not hit upon in time to help chattel slavery. What would Wendell Phillips say of that decision were he living now?

Once standing in Fanuel Hall addressing an indignation meeting of the friends of freedom, after a fugitive slave had been arrested in Boston, and the courts had ordered his return to bondage, the great orator and fearless patriot said:

"I see upon the wall of this ancient temple of liberty the inscription, 'God bless the commonwealth of Massachusetts!' I say, God damn the commonwealth of Massachusetts!"

Massachusetts, and the whole North and South, atoned for the grievous sin of chattel slavery by the sacrifice of the lives of thou