Part 4. Prisons a Social Crime and Failure from Anarchism and Other Essays. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman. Prisons a Social Crime and Failure In 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote on the wall of his prison cell the following story of the priest and the devil.  What made you lie so to those poor, misled people?   Don't you know that you and the authorities of the state are my representatives on earth?  Don't you know this? Well then, come with me. The devil grabbed the priest by the collar, lifted him high in the air, and carried him to a factory, to an iron foundry. He saw the workman there running and hurrying to and fro and toiling in the scorching heat. Very soon the thick heavy air and the heat are too much for the priest. With tears in his eyes he pleads with the devil. Let me go! Let me leave this hell! Oh, my dear friend, I must show you many more places. The devil gets hold of him again and drags him off to a farm. There he sees the workman threshing the grain. The dust and heat are insufferable. The overseer carries an out and unmercifully beats anyone who falls to the ground, overcome by hard toil or hunger. Next the priest is taken to the huts where these same workers live with their families. Dirty, cold, smoky, ill-smelling holes. The devil grins. He points out the poverty and hardships which are at home here. Well, isn't this enough? he asks. And it seems as if even he, the devil, pities the people. The pious servant of God can hardly bear it. With uplifted hands he begs. Let me go away from here.  Well then, you see.    One more, though very worst. He took him to a prison and showed him a dungeon with its foul air and the many human forms robbed of all health and energy lying on the floor covered with vermin that were devouring their poor naked, emaciated bodies.  Put on your ankles heavy chains such as these, unfortunately, I swear. Lie down on the cold and filthy floor and then talk to them about a hell that still awaits them. No, no, answered the priest. I cannot think of anything more dreadful than this. I entreat you. Let me go away from here. Yes, this is hell.  Did you not know it? Did you not know that these men and women whom you are frightening with a picture of a hell hereafter?  This was written fifty years ago in dark Russia on the wall of one of the most horrible prisons. Yet who can deny that the same applies with equal force to the present time, even to American prisons? With all our boasted reforms, our great social changes and our far-reaching discoveries, human beings continue to be sent to the worst of hells wherein they are outraged, degraded and tortured, that society may be protected from the phantoms of its own making. Prison, a social protection?  Just as well say that health can be promoted by a widespread contagion. After eighteen months of horror in an English prison, Oscar Wilde gave to the world his great masterpiece, The Ballad of Reading Jail. The vilest deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air. It is only what is good in man that wastes and withers there. Pill anguish keeps the heavy gate and the water is despair. Society goes on perpetuating this poisonous air, not realizing that out of it can come not but the most poisonous results. We are spending at the present three million five hundred thousand dollars per day, one billion ninety-five thousand per year to maintain prison institutions, and that in a democratic country. A sum almost as large as the combined output of wheat valued at seven hundred and fifty million dollars, and the output of coal valued at three hundred and fifty million. Professor Bushnell of Washington D.C. estimates the cost of prisons at six billion dollars annually, and Dr. G. Frank Lydston, an eminent American writer on crime, gives five billion annually as a reasonable figure. Such unheard of expenditure for the purpose of maintaining vast armies of human beings caged up like wild beasts from crime and criminals W.C. Owen. Yet crimes are on the increase. Thus we learn that in America there are four-and-a-half times as many crimes to every million population today as there were twenty years ago. The most horrible aspect is that our national crime is murder, not robbery, embezzlement, or rapes in the South. London is five times as large as Chicago, yet there are one hundred and eighteen murders annually in the latter city, while only twenty in London. Nor is Chicago the leading city in crime since it is only seventh on the list, which is headed by four southern cities and San Francisco and Los Angeles. In view of such a terrible condition of affairs, it seems ridiculous to prate of the protection society derives from its prisons. The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution maintained at an excessive national expense has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist. The time is past when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is ordained by divine right or by the majesty of the law. The widespread prison investigations, agitation and education during the last few years are conclusive proof that men are learning to dig deep into the very bottom of society down to the causes of the terrible discrepancy between social and individual life. Why, then, are prisons a social crime and a failure? To answer this vital question, it behooves us to seek the nature and causes of crimes, the methods employed in coping with them, and the effects these methods produce in ridding society of the curse and horror of crimes. First, as to the nature of crime. Havlock Ellis divides crime into four phases, the political, the passion, the insane, and the occasional. He says that the political criminal is the victim of an attempt of a more or less despotic government to preserve its own stability. He is not necessarily guilty of an unsocial offense. He simply tries to overturn a certain political order which may itself be antisocial. This truth is recognized all over the world, except in America, where the foolish notion still prevails that in a democracy there is no place for political criminals. Yet John Brown was a political criminal. So were the Chicago anarchists. So was every striker. Consequently says Havlock Ellis, the political criminal of our time or place may be the hero, martyr, saint of another age. Lombroso calls the political criminal the true precursor of the progressive movement of humanity. The criminal by passion is usually a man of wholesome birth and honest life who under the stress of some great unmerited wrong has wrought justice for himself. From the criminal by Havlock Ellis. Mr. UC Weir in the menace of the police cites the case of Jim Flaherty, a criminal by passion who instead of being saved by society is turned into a drunkard and recidivist with a ruined and poverty-stricken family as the result. A more pathetic type is Archie, the victim and brand Whitlock's novel The Turn of the Balance, the greatest American expose of crime in the making. Archie, even more than Flaherty, was driven to crime and death by the cruel inhumanity of his surroundings and by the unscrupulous hounding of the machinery of the law. Archie and Flaherty are but the types of many thousands demonstrating how the legal aspects of crime and the methods of dealing with it help to create the disease which is undermining our entire social life. The insane criminal really can no more be considered a criminal than a child since he is mentally in the same condition as an infant or an animal. From the criminal. The law already recognizes that, but only in rare cases of a very flagrant nature or when the culprit's wealth permits the luxury of criminal insanity, it has become quite fashionable to be the victim of paranoia. But on the whole the sovereignty of justice still continues to punish criminally insane with the whole severity of its power. Thus Mr. Ellis quotes from Dr. Richter's statistics showing that in Germany one hundred and six madmen out of 144 criminal insane were condemned to severe punishment. The occasional criminal represents by far the largest class of our prison population, hence is the greatest menace to social well-being. What is the cause that compels a vast army of the human family to take to crime to prefer the hideous life within prison walls to the life outside? Certainly that cause must be an iron master who leaves its victims no avenue of escape for the most depraved human being loves liberty. This terrific force is conditioned in our cruel social and economic arrangement. I do not mean to deny the biologic, physiologic, or psychologic factors in creating crime, but there is hardly an advanced criminologist who will not concede that the social and economic influences are the most relentless, the most poisonous germs of crime. Granted even that there are innate criminal tendencies, it is nonetheless true that these tendencies find rich nutrition in our social environment. There is close relations, says Havlock Ellis, between crimes against the person and the price of alcohol, between crimes against property and the price of wheat. He quotes Kettlele and Lacuzania, the former looking upon society as the preparer of crime, and the criminals as instruments that execute them. The latter finds that the social environment is the cultivation medium of criminality, that the criminal is the microbe, an element which only becomes important when it finds the medium which causes it to ferment. Every society has the criminals it deserves from the criminal. The most prosperous industrial period makes it impossible for the worker to earn enough to keep up health and vigor, and as prosperity is at best an imaginary condition, thousands of people are constantly added to the host of the unemployed. From east to west, from south to north, this vast army tramps in search of work or food, and all they find is the workhouse or the slums. Those who have a spark of self-respect left prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the emaciated, degraded position of poverty. Edward Carpenter estimates that five-sixths of indictable crimes consist in some violation of property rights, but that is too low a figure. A thorough investigation would prove that nine crimes out of ten could be traced directly or indirectly to our economic and social iniquities, to our system of remorseless exploitation and robbery. There is no criminal so stupid but recognizes this terrible fact, though he may not be able to account for it. A collection of criminal philosophy, which Havlock Ellis, Lombrozo, and other eminent men have compiled, shows that the criminal feels only too keenly that it is society that drives him to crime. A Milanese thief said to Lombrozo, I do not rob. I merely take from the rich their superfluities. Besides, do not advocates a merchants rob? A murderer wrote, Knowing that three-fourths of the social virtues are cowardly vices, I thought an open assault on a rich man would be less ignoble than the cautious combination of fraud. Another wrote, I am imprisoned for stealing a half-dozen eggs. Ministers who rob millions are honored. Poor Italy. An educated convict said to Mr. Davit, The laws of society are framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and calculation, thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights and chances. Why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar means from those who have taken more than they had a right to? The same man added, Religion robs the soul of its independence.  Compared with this, he concluded, Thieving is an honorable pursuit from the criminal. Fairly there is greater truth in this philosophy than in all the law and moral books of society. The economic, political, moral, and physical factors being the microbes of crime, how does society meet the situation? The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender, that is revenge. It has also adopted the theologic idea, namely punishment, while the legal and civilized methods consist of deterrence or terror and reform. We shall presently see that all four modes have failed utterly and that we are today no nearer a solution than in the dark ages. The natural impulse of the primitive man to strike back to avenge a wrong is out of date. Instead the civilized man, stripped of courage and daring, has delegated to an organized machinery the duty of avenging his wrongs in the foolish belief that the state is justified in doing what he no longer has the manhood or consistency to do. The majesty of the law is a reasoning thing. It would not stoop to primitive instincts. Its mission is of a higher nature. True it is still steeped in the theologic muddle which proclaims punishment as a means of purification or the vicarious atonement of sin, but legally and socially the statute exercises punishment not merely as an infliction of pain upon the offender, but also for its terrifying effect upon others. What is the real basis of punishment, however? The notion of a free will, the notion that man is at all times a free agent for good or evil. If he chooses the latter he must be made to pay the price. Although this theory has long been exploded and thrown upon the dust heap it continues to be applied daily by the entire machinery of government turning it into the most cruel and brutal tormentor of human life. The only reason for its continuance is the still more cruel notion that the greater the terror punishment spreads the more certain it's prevented of effect. Society is using the most drastic methods in dealing with a social offender. Why do they not deter? Although in America a man is supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty the instruments of law, the police carry on a reign of terror making indiscriminate arrests, beating, clubbing, bullying people using the barbarous method of the third degree subjecting their unfortunate victims to the foul air of the station house and the still foul or language of its guardians. Yet crimes are rapidly multiplying and society is paying the price. On the other hand it is an open secret that when the unfortunate citizen has been given the full mercy of the law and for the sake of safety is hidden in the worst of hells his real calvary begins. Robbed of his rights as a human being degraded to a mere automaton without will or feeling dependent entirely upon the mercy of brutal keepers he daily goes through a process of dehumanization compared with which savage revenge was mere child's play. There is not a single penal institution or reformatory in the United States where men are not tortured to be made good by means of the blackjack, the club, the straight jacket the water cure, the hummingbird an electrical contrivance run along the human body the solitary, the bowl ring and starvation diet. In these institutions his will is broken his soul degraded, his spirit subdued by the deadly monotony and routine of prison life. In Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and in the south these horrors have become so flagrant as to reach the outside world while in most other prisons the same Christian method still prevail but prison walls rarely allow the agonized shrieks of the victims to escape prison walls are thick, they dole the sound society might with greater immunity abolish all prisons at once than to hope for protection from these 20th century chambers of horrors year after year the gates of prison hells return to the world and emaciated, deformed, willless, shipwrecked crew of humanity with the cane mark on their foreheads their hopes crushed all their natural inclinations thwarted with nothing but hunger and inhumanity to greet them these victims soon sink back into crime as the only possibility of existent it is not at all an unusual thing to find men and women who have spent half their lives nay, almost their entire existence in prison I know a woman on Blackwell's island who had been in and out 38 times and through a friend I learned that a young boy of 17 whom he had nursed and cared for in the Pittsburgh Penitentiary had never known the meaning of liberty from the reformatory to the penitentiary had been the path of this boy's life until broken in body he died a victim of social revenge these personal experiences are substantiated by extensive data giving overwhelming proof of the utter futility of prisons as a means of deterrence or reform well meaning persons are now working for a new departure in the prison question reclamation to restore once more to the prisoner the possibility of becoming a human being commendable as this is I fear it is impossible to hope for good results from pouring good wine into a musty bottle nothing short of a complete reconstruction of society will deliver mankind from the cancer of crime still if the dull edge of our social conscience would be sharpened the penal institutions might be given a new coat of varnish but the first step to be taken is the renovation of the social consciousness which is in a rather dilapidated condition it is sadly in need to be awakened to the fact that crime is a question of degree that we all have the rudiments of crime in us more or less according to our mental, physical and social environment and that the individual criminal is merely a reflex of the tendencies of the aggregate with the social consciousness awakened the average individual may learn to refuse the honor of being the bloodhound of the law he may cease to persecute, despise and mistrust the social offender and give him a chance to live and breathe among his fellows institutions are of course harder to reach they are cold, impenetrable and cruel still with the social consciousness quickened it might be possible to free the prison victims from the brutality of prison officials, guards and keepers public opinion is a powerful weapon keepers of human prey even are afraid of it they might be taught a little humanity especially if they realize that their jobs depend upon it but the most important step is to demand for the prisoner the right to work while in prison with some monetary recompense that would enable him to lay aside a little for the day of his release the beginning of a new life it is almost ridiculous to hope much from present society when we consider that working men wage slaves themselves object to convict labor I shall not go into the cruelty of this objection but merely consider the impractic ability of it to begin with the opposition so far raised by organized labor has been directed against windmills prisoners have always worked only the state has been their exploiter even as the individual employer has been the robber of organized labor the states have either set the convicts to work for the government or they have farmed convict labor to private individuals twenty-nine of the states pursue the latter plan the federal government and seventeen states have discarded it as have the leading nations of Europe since it leads to hideous overworking and abuse of prisoners and to endless graft Rhode Island, the state dominated by Aldrich offers perhaps the worst example under a five-year contract dated July 7th 1906 and renewable for five years more at the option of private contractors the labor of the inmates of the Rhode Island penitentiary and the Providence County jail is sold to the reliant sterling manufacturer company at the rate of a trifle less than twenty-five cents a day per man this company is really a gigantic prison labor trust for it also leases the convict labor of Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, Nebraska and South Dakota penitentiaries and reformatories of New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin eleven establishments in all the enormity of the graft under the Rhode Island contract may be estimated from the fact that this same company pays sixty-two and a half cents a day in Nebraska for the convicts labor and that Tennessee for example gets a dollar ten a day for a convicts work from the gray Dudley hardware company Missouri gets seventy cents a day from the star overall manufacturing company West Virginia sixty-five cents a day from the craft manufacturing company and Maryland fifty-five cents a day from Oppenheim Oberndorf and company shirt manufacturers the very difference in prices points to enormous graft for example the reliant sterling manufacturing company manufactures shirts the cost of free labor being not less than a dollar twenty per dozen while it pays Rhode Island thirty cents a dozen furthermore the state charges this trust no rent for the use of its huge factory charges nothing for power, heat, light, or even drainage and exacts no taxes what graft it is estimated that more than twelve million dollars worth of working men shirts and overalls is produced annually in this country by prison labor it is a woman's industry and the first reflection that arises is that an immense amount of free female labor is thus displaced the second consideration is that male convicts who should be learning trades that would give them some chance of being self-supporting after their release are kept at this work at which they cannot possibly make a dollar this is the more serious when we consider that much of this labor is done in reformatories which so loudly profess to be training their inmates to become useful citizens the third and most important consideration is that the enormous profits thus rung from convicts labor are a constant incentive to the contractors to exact from their unhappy victims tasks altogether beyond their strength and to punish them cruelly when their work does not come up to the excessive demands made another word on the condemnation of convicts to tasks at which they cannot hope to make a living after release Indiana, for example, is a state that has made a great splurge over being in the front rank of modern penological improvement yet according to the report rendered in 1908 by the training school of its reformatory 135 were engaged in the manufacture of chains 207 in that of shirts and 255 in the foundry a total of 597 in three occupations but at this so-called reformatory 59 occupations were represented by the inmates 39 of which were connected with country pursuits Indiana, like other states, professes to be training the inmates of her reformatory to occupations by which they will be able to make their living when released she actually sets them to work making chains, shirts, and brooms, the latter for the benefit of the Louisville Fancy Grocery Company broom making is a trade largely monopolized by the blind shirt making is done by women and there is only one free chain factory in the state and at that a released convict cannot hope to get employment the whole thing is a cruel farce if then the states can be instrumental in robbing their helpless victims of such tremendous profits is it not high time for organized labor to stop its idle howl and to insist on decent remuneration for the convict even as labor organizations claim for themselves in that way working men would kill the germ which makes of the prisoner an enemy to the interests of labor I have said elsewhere that thousands of convicts incompetent and without a trade without means of subsistence are yearly turned back into the social fold these men and women must live for even an ex-convict has needs prison life has made them anti-social beings and the rigidly closed doors that meet them on their release are not likely to decrease their bitterness the inevitable result is that they form a favorable nucleus out of which scabs, black legs, detectives, and policemen are drawn only too willing to do the master's bidding thus organized labor by its foolish opposition to work in prison defeats its own ends it helps to create poisonous fumes that stifle every attempt for economic betterment if the working man wants to avoid these effects he should insist on the right of the convict to work he should meet him as a brother take him into his organization and with his aid turn against the system which grinds them both last but not least is the growing realization of the barbarity and the inadequacy of the definite sentence those who believe in and earnestly aim at a change are fast coming to the conclusion that man must be given an opportunity to make good and how is he to do it with ten, fifteen, or twenty years imprisonment before him the hope of liberty and of opportunity is the only incentive to life, especially the prisoner's life society has sinned so long against him it ought at least to leave him that I am not very sanguine that it will or that any real change in that direction can take place until the conditions that breed both the prisoner and the jailer will be forever abolished out of his mouth are red red rose out of his heart a white for who can say by what strange way Christ brings his will to light since the barren staff the pilgrim bore bloomed in the great pope's site end of part four part five patriotism a menace to liberty from anarchism and other essays this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org anarchism and other essays by Emma Goldman patriotism a menace to liberty what is patriotism is it love of one's birthplace the place of childhoods recollections and hopes dreams and aspirations is it the place where in childlike naivete we would watch the fleeting clouds and wonder why we too could not run so swiftly the place where we would count the millier glittering stars terror-stricken lust each one and I should be piercing the very depths of our little souls is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds and long to have wings to fly even as they to distant lands or the place where we would sit at mother's knee and raptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests in short is it love for the spot every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy joyous and playful childhood if that were patriotism few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic since the place of play has been turned into factory mill and mine while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow tears and grief what then is patriotism? patriotism sir is the last resort of scoundrels said Dr. Johnson Leo Tolstoy the greatest anti-patriot of our times defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing and houses a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average working man Gustav Ervy another great anti-patriot justly calls patriotism a superstition one far more injurious, brutal and inhumane than religion the superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena that is when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning he could not account for either and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain and in the various other changes in nature patriotism on the other hand is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity and increases his arrogance and conceit indeed conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism let me illustrate patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots each one surrounded by an iron gate those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves better nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot it is therefore the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others the inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner of course with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is poisoned with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc when the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner it is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition it is for that purpose that America has within a short time spent four hundred million dollars just think of it, four hundred million dollars taken from the produce of the people for surely it is not the rich who contribute to patriotism they are cosmopolitan perfectly at home in every land we in America know well the truth of this are not our rich Americans, Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany or Englishmen in England and do they not squander with cosmopolitan grace, fortunes coined by American factory children and cotton slaves yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like the Russians are when any mishap befalls him as President Roosevelt did in the name of his people when Sergius was punished by the Russian revolutionists it is a patriotism that will assist the arch-murderer Diaz in destroying thousands of lives in Mexico or that will even aid in arresting Mexican revolutionists on American soil and keep them incarcerated in American prisons without the slightest cause or reason but then patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and power it is good enough for the people it reminds one of the historic wisdom of Frederick the Great the bosom friend of Voltaire who said religion is a fraud but it must be maintained for the masses that patriotism is rather a costly institution no one will doubt after considering the following statistics the progressive increase of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle every thoughtful student of economic problems it may be briefly indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into five-year periods and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy purposes during the first and last of those periods from the first to the last of the periods noted the expenditures of Great Britain increased from 2,101,848,936 dollars to 4,143,226,885 those of France from 3,324,500,000 to 3,455,109,900 those of Germany from 725,200 to 2,700,375,600 those of the United States from 1,275,500,750 to 2,650,900,450 those of Russia from 1,900,975,500 to 5,250,445,100 those of Italy from 1,600,975,750 to 1,755,500,100 and those of Japan from 182,900,500 to 700,925,475 the military expenditures of each of the nations mentioned increased in each of the five-year periods under review during the entire interval from 1881 to 1905 Great Britain's outlay for her army increased four-fold that of the United States was tripled, Russia's was doubled that of Germany increased 35%, that of France about 15% and that of Japan nearly 500% if we compare the expenditures of these nations upon their armies with their total expenditures for all the 25 years ending with 1905 the proportion rose as follows in Great Britain from 20% to 37, in the United States from 15 to 23, in France from 16 to 18 in Italy from 12 to 15, in Japan from 12 to 14 on the other hand it is interesting to note that the proportion in Germany decreased from about 58% to 25 the decrease being due to the enormous increase in the imperial expenditures for other purposes the fact being that the army expenditures for the period of 1901 to 5 were higher than for any other five-year period proceeding statistics show that the countries in which army expenditures are greatest in proportion to the total national revenues are Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France and Italy in the order named the showing as to the cost of Great Navy's is equally impressive during the 25 years ending with 1905 naval expenditures increased approximately as follows Great Britain 300%, France 60%, Germany 600%, the United States 525%, Russia 300%, Italy 250% and Japan 700% with the exception of Great Britain the United States spends more for naval purposes than any other nation and this expenditure bears also a larger proportion to the entire national disbursements than that of any other power in the period 1881 to 5 the expenditure for the United States Navy was $6.20 out of each $100 appropriated for all national purposes the amount rose to $6.60 for the next five-year period to $8.10 for the next to $11.70 for the next and to $16.40 for 1901 to $5 it is morally certain that the outlay for the current period of five years will show a still further increase the rising cost of militarism may be still further illustrated by computing it as a per capita tax on population from the first to the last of the five-year periods taken as the basis for the comparisons here given it has risen as follows in Great Britain from 1847 to 5250 in France from 1966 to 2362 in Germany from $10.17 to 1551 in the United States from 562 to 1364 in Russia from $6.14 to $8.37 in Italy from 959 to 1124 and in Japan from 86 cents to $3.11 it is in connection with this rough estimate of cost per capita that the economic burden of militarism is most appreciable the irresistible conclusion from available data is that the increase of expenditure for army and navy purposes is rapidly surpassing the growth of population and each of the countries considered in the present calculation in other words a continuation of the increased demands of militarism threatens each of those nations with a progressive exhaustion both of men and resources the awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease yet patriotism demands still more the people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay not only by supporting their defenders but even by sacrificing their own children patriotism requires allegiance to the flag which means obedience and readiness to kill father mother brother sister the usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion every intelligent man and woman knows however that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish the governments of the world knowing each other's interests do not invade each other they have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest indeed as Carlisle said war is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle therefore they take boys from one village and another village stick them into uniforms equip them with guns and let them loose like wild beasts against each other it does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause let us take our own Spanish-American war supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States how our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards true our indignation did not flare up spontaneously it was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation and long after Butcher Weiler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women still injustice to the American nation be it said it did grow indignant and was willing to fight and that it fought bravely but when the smoke was over the dead buried and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent that is when we sobered up from our patriotic spree it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was a consideration of the price of sugar or to be more explicit that the lives blood and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists which were threatened by the Spanish government that this is not an exaggeration but is based on absolute facts and figures as best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor when Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigar maker strike which took place shortly after the war nor do we stand alone in waging war for such causes the curtain is beginning to be lifted on the motives of the terrible Russo-Japanese war which cost so much blood and tears and we see again that back of the fierce Molak of war stands the still fiercer god of commercialism Kuro Patkin the Russian minister of war during the Russo-Japanese struggle has revealed the true secret behind the latter the Tsar and his grand dukes having invested money in Korean concessions the war was forced for the sole purpose of speedily accumulating large fortunes the contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed the experience of everyday life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength the same is historically true of government really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations with the result that peace is maintained however the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any foreign danger it is owing to the dread of the growing discontent of the masses and of the international spirit among the workers it is to meet the internal enemy that the powers of various countries are preparing themselves an enemy who once awakened to consciousness will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader the powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the masses have made a thorough study of their psychology they know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy and the more gorgeously the toy is dressed the louder the colors the more it will appeal to the million headed child an army and navy represents the people's toys to make them more attractive and acceptable hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of these toys that was the purpose of the american government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the pacific coast that every american citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the united states the city of san francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet los angeles sixty thousand seattle and to coma about one hundred thousand to entertain the fleet did i say to dine and wine a few superior officers while the brave boys had to mutiny to get sufficient food yes two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks theater parties and revelries at a time when men women and children through the breath and length of the country were starving in the streets when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price two hundred and sixty thousand dollars what could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum but instead of bread and shelter the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet that it may remain as one of the newspaper said a lasting memory for the child a wonderful thing to remember is it not the implements of civilized slaughter if the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such memories what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood we americans claim to be a peace loving people we hate bloodshed we are opposed to violence yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens we are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone who from economic necessity will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnet yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations such is the logic of patriotism considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the average man it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself that poor deluded victim of superstition and ignorant he the savior of his country the protector of his nation what has patriotism in store for him a life of slavish submission vice and perversion during peace a life of danger exposure and death during war while on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco I visited the Presidio the most beautiful spot overlooking the bay and golden gate park its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens, and music for the recreation of the weary instead it is made ugly dull and gray by barracks barracks wherein the rich would not allow their dogs to dwell in these miserable shanties soldiers are herded like cattle here they waste their young days polishing the boots and brass buttons of their superior officers here too I saw the distinction of classes sturdy sons of a free republic drawn up in line like convicts saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant American equality degrading manhood and elevating the uniform barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual perversion it is gradually producing along this line results similar to European military conditions havelock Ellis the noted writer on sex psychology has made a thorough study of the subject I quote some of the barracks are great centers of male prostitution the number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to believe it is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men on summer evenings Hyde Park in the neighborhood of Albert Gate are full of guardsmen and others applying a lively trade and with little disguise in uniform or out in most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to Tommy Atkins pocket money to what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the Army and Navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for this form of prostitution the practice is not limited to England it is universal soldiers are no less sought after in France than in England or in Germany and special houses for military prostitution exist both in Paris and the garrison towns had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex perversion he would have found that the same conditions prevail in our Army and Navy as in those of other countries the growth of the standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion the barracks are the incubators aside from the sexual effects of barrack life it also tends to unfit the soldier for useful labor after leaving the Army men skilled in a trade seldom enter the Army or Navy but even they after a military experience find themselves totally unfitted for their former occupations having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for excitement and adventure no peaceful pursuit can content them released from the Army they can turn to no useful work but it is usually the social riffraff discharged prisoners and the like whom either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks these their military term over again turned to their former life of crime more brutalized and degraded than before it is a well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of ex-soldiers while on the other hand the Army and Navy are to a great extent supplied with ex-convicts of all the evil results I have just described none seems to me so detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced in the case of Private William Bualda because he foolishly believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man at the same time military authorities punished him severely true he had served his country fifteen years during which time his record was unimpeachable according to General Funston who reduced Bualda's sentence to three years the first duty of an officer or an unlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the government and it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not thus Funston stamps the true character of allegiance according to him entrance into the army abrogates the principles of the declaration of independent what a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine in justification of this most outrageous sentence of Bualda General Funston tells the American people that the soldiers action was a serious crime equal to treason now what did this terrible crime really consist of? simply in this, William Bualda was one of fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San Francisco and oh horrors he shook hands with the speaker a terrible crime indeed which the general calls a great military offense infinitely worse than desertion can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it will thus brand a man a criminal throw him into prison and rob him of the results of fifteen years of faithful service Bualda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very manhood but all that was as nothing patriotism is inexorable and like all insatiable monsters demands all or nothing it does not admit that a soldier is also a human being who has a right to his own feelings and opinions his own inclinations and ideas no patriotism cannot admit of that that is the lesson which Bualda was made to learn made to learn at a rather costly though not a useless price when he returned to freedom he had lost his position in the army but he regained his self-respect after all that is worth three years of imprisonment a writer on the military conditions of America in a recent article commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in Germany he said among other things that if our republic had no other meaning than to guarantee all citizens equal rights it would have just cause for existence I am convinced that the writer was not in Colorado during the patriotic regime of general bell he probably would have changed his mind had he seen how in the name of patriotism in the republic men were thrown into bull pens dragged about driven across the border and subjected to all kinds of indignities nor is that Colorado incident the only one in the growth of military power in the United States there is hardly a strike where troops and militia do not come to the rescue of those in power and where they do not act as arrogantly and brutally as do the men wearing the Kaiser's uniform then too we have the dick military law had the writer forgotten that? a great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are absolutely ignorant on current events or that lacking honesty they will not speak of these matters and so it is come to pass that the dick military law was rushed through Congress with little discussion and still less publicity a law which gives the president the power to turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man killer supposedly for the defense of the country in reality for the protection of the interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the president happens to be our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in America as abroad since it is voluntary with us while compulsory in the old world two very important facts however the gentleman forgets to consider first that conscription has created in Europe a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and once in the army they will use every possible means to desert second that it is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist movement feared by European powers far more than anything else after all the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism the very moment the latter is undermined capitalism will totter true we have no conscription that is men are not usually forced to enlist in the army but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force necessity is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments the trade of militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable but it is better than tramping the country in search of work standing in the bread line or sleeping in municipal lodging houses after all it means $13 per month three meals a day in a place to sleep yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood no wonder our military authorities complain of the poor material enlisting in the army and navy this admission is a very encouraging sign it proves that there is still enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the average American to risk starvation rather than don the uniform thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time the centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of interests between the working men of America and his brothers abroad then between the American minor and his exploiting compatriot a solidarity which fears not for an invasion because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters go and do your own killing we have done it long enough for you this solidarity is awakening the consciousness of even the soldiers they too being flesh of the flesh of the great human family a solidarity that has proven infallible more than once during past struggles and which has been the impetus inducing the Parisian soldiers during the commune of 1871 to refuse to obey when ordered to shoot their brothers it has given courage to the men who mutinied on Russian warships during recent years it will eventually bring about the uprising of all the oppressed and downtrodden against their international exploiters the proletariat of Europe has realized the great force of that solidarity and has as a result inaugurated a war against patriotism and its bloody specter militarism thousands of men fill the prisons of France, Germany, Russia and the Scandinavian countries because they dared to defy the ancient superstition nor is the movement limited to the working class it has embraced representatives in all stations of life its chief exponents being men and women prominent in art, science and letters America will have to follow suit the spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life indeed I am convinced that militarism is growing a greater danger here than anywhere else because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy the beginning has already been made in the schools evidently the government holds to the Jesuitical conception give me the child mind and I will mold the man children are trained in military tactics the glory of military achievements extolled in the curriculum and the youthful minds perverted to suit the government further the youth of the country is appealed to englaring posters to join the army and navy a fine chance to see the world cries the governmental huckster thus innocent boys are morally shanghide into patriotism and the military mo-lock strides conquering through the nation the American working man has suffered so much at the hands of the soldier state and federal that he is quite justified in his disgust with and his opposition to the uniformed parasite however mere denunciation will not solve this great problem what we need is a propaganda of education for the soldier anti-patriotic literature that will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his trade and that will awaken his conscience to his true relation to the man to whose labor he owes his very existence it is precisely this that the authorities fear most it is already high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting no doubt they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to read a radical pamphlet but then has not authority from time immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable those however who earnestly strive for social reconstruction can well afford to face all that for it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the barracks than into the factory when we have undermined the patriotic lie we shall have cleared the path for that great structure wherein all nationalities will be united into a universal brotherhood a truly free society end of part 5 part 6 Francisco Ferrar and the modern school from anarchism and other essays this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org anarchism and other essays by Emma Goldman Francisco Ferrar and the modern school experiences come to be considered the best school of life the man or woman who does not learn some vital lesson in that school is looked upon as a dunce indeed yet strange to say that though organized institutions continue perpetrating errors though they learn nothing from experience we acquiesce as a matter of course there lived and worked in Barcelona a man by the name of Francisco Ferrar a teacher of children he was known and loved by his people outside of Spain only the cultured few knew of Francisco Ferrar's work through the world at large this teacher was non-existent on the first of September 1909 the Spanish government at the behest of the Catholic church arrested Francisco Ferrar on the 13th of October after a mock trial he was placed in a ditch at Montjuïc prison against the hideous wall of many size and shot dead instantly Ferrar the obscure teacher became a universal figure blazing forth the indignation and wrath of the whole civilized world against the wanton murder the killing of Francisco Ferrar was not the first crime committed by the Spanish government and the Catholic church the history of these institutions is one long stream of fire and blood still they have not learned through experience nor come to realize that every frail being slain by church and state grows and grows into a mighty giant who will someday free humanity from their perilous hold Francisco Ferrar was born in 1859 of humble parents they were Catholics and therefore hoped to raise their son in the same faith they did not know that the boy was to become the harbinger of a great truth that his mind would refuse to travel in the old path at an early age Ferrar began to question the faith of his fathers he demanded to know how it is that the God who spoke to him of goodness and love would mar the sleep of the innocent child with dread and awe of tortures of suffering of hell alert and of a vivid and investigating mind it did not take him long to discover the hideousness of that black monster the Catholic church he would have none of it Francisco Ferrar was not only a doubter a searcher for truth he was also a rebel his spirit would rise in just indignation against the iron regime of his country and when a band of rebels led by the brave patriot General Villacompa under the banner of the Republican ideal made an onslaught on that regime none was more ardent a fighter than young Francisco Ferrar the Republican ideal I hope no one will confound it with the Republicanism of this country whatever objection I as an anarchist have to the Republicans of Latin countries I know they tower high above the corrupt and reactionary party which in America is destroying every vestige of liberty and justice one has but to think of the Mazzini's the Garibaldi's the scores of others to realize that their efforts were directed not merely towards the overthrow of despotism but particularly against the Catholic church which from its very inception has been the enemy of all progress and liberalism in America it is just the reverse Republicanism stands for vested rights for imperialism for graft for the annihilation of every semblance of liberty its ideal is the oily creepy respectability of a McKinley and the brutal arrogance of a Roosevelt the Spanish Republican rebels were subdued it takes more than one brave effort to split the rock of ages to cut off the head of that Hydra monster the Catholic church and the Spanish throne arrest persecution and punishment followed the heroic attempt of the little band those who could escape the bloodhounds had to flee for safety to foreign shores Francisco Ferrar was among the latter he went to France how his soul must have expanded in the new land France the cradle of liberty of ideas of action Paris the ever-young intense Paris with her pulsating life after the gloom of his own belated country how she must have inspired him what opportunities what a glorious chance for a young idealist Francisco Ferrar lost no time like one famous she threw himself into the various liberal movements met all kinds of people learned absorbed and grew while there he also saw an operation the modern school which was to play such an important and fatal part in his life the modern school in France was founded long before Ferrar's time its originator though on a small scale was that sweet spirit Louise Michel whether consciously or unconsciously our own great Louise felt long ago that the future belongs to the young generation that unless the young be rescued from that mind and soul destroying institution the bourgeois school social evils will continue to exist perhaps she thought with Ibsen that the atmosphere is saturated with ghosts that the adult man and woman have so many superstitions to overcome no sooner do they outgrow the death-like grip of one spook low they find themselves in the thralldom of 99 other spooks thus but a few reach the mountain peak of complete regeneration the child however has no traditions to overcome its mind is not burdened with said ideas its heart has not grown cold with class and caste distinctions the child is to the teacher what clay is to the sculptor whether the world will receive a work of art or a wretched imitation depends to a large extent on the creative power of the teacher Louise Michel was preeminently qualified to meet the child's soul cravings was she not herself of a child like nature so sweet and tender and sophisticated and generous the soul of Louise burned always at white heat over every social injustice she was invariably in the front ranks whenever the people of Paris rebelled against some wrong and as she was made to suffer imprisonment for her great devotion to the oppressed the little school on Montmartre was soon no more but the seed was planted and has since borne fruit in many cities of France the most important venture of a modern school was that of the great young old man Paul Robin together with a few friends he established a large school at Comple a beautiful place near Paris Paul Robin aimed at a higher ideal than merely modern ideas in education he wanted to demonstrate by actual facts that the bourgeois conception of heredity is but a mere pretext to exempt society from its terrible crimes against the young the contention that the child must suffer for the sins of the fathers that it must continue in poverty and filth that it must grow up a drunkard or criminal just because its parents left it no other legacy was too preposterous to the beautiful spirit of Paul Robin he believed that whatever part heredity may play there are other factors equally great if not greater that may and will eradicate or minimize the so-called first cause proper economic and social environment the breath and freedom of nature healthy exercise love and sympathy and above all a deep understanding for the needs of the child these would destroy the cruel unjust and criminal stigma imposed on the innocent young Paul Robin did not select his children he did not go to the so-called best parents he took his material wherever he could find it from the street, the hovels, the orphan and foundling asylums, the reformatories from all those gray and hideous places where a benevolent society hides its victims in order to pacify its guilty conscience he gathered all the dirty filthy shivering little waves his place would hold and brought them to compway there surrounded by nature's own glory free and unrestrained, well-fed, clean-kept, deeply loved and understood the little human plants began to grow, to blossom, to develop beyond even the expectations of their friend and teacher Paul Robin the children grew and developed into self-reliant, liberty-loving men and women what greater danger to the institutions that make the poor in order to perpetuate the poor compway was closed by the French government on the charge of coeducation, which is prohibited in France however compway had been in operation long enough to prove to all advanced educators its tremendous possibilities and to serve as an impetus for modern methods of education that are slowly but inevitably undermining the present system compway was followed by a great number of other educational attempts among them by Madeleine Bernay, a gifted writer and poet, author of Le Moor Libre and Sebastian Foret with his La Ruche, i.e. the Beehive, which I visited while in Paris in 1907 several years ago Comrade Foret bought the land on which he built his La Ruche in a comparatively short time he succeeded in transforming the former wild, uncultivated country into a blooming spot having all the appearance of a well-kept farm a large square court enclosed by three buildings and a broad path leading to the garden and orchards greet the eye of the visitor the garden, kept as only a Frenchman knows how, furnishes a large variety of vegetables for La Ruche Sebastian Foret is of the opinion that if the child is subjected to contrary influences its development suffers inconsequence only when the material needs, the hygiene of the home and intellectual environment are harmonious can the child grow into a healthy free being referring to his school, Sebastian Foret has this to say I have taken 24 children of both sexes, mostly orphans or those whose parents are too poor to pay they are clothed, housed and educated at my expense until their 12th year they will receive a sound elementary education between the age of 12 and 15 their studies still continuing they are to be taught some trade and keeping with their individual disposition and abilities after that they are at liberty to leave La Ruche to begin life in the outside world with the assurance that they may at any time return to La Ruche where they will be received with open arms and welcomed as parents do their beloved children then if they wish to work at our place they may do so under the following conditions one third of the product to cover his or her expenses of maintenance another third to go towards the general fund set aside for accommodating new children and the last third to be devoted to the personal use of the child as he or she may see fit the health of the children who are now in my care is perfect pure air nutritious food physical exercise in the open long walks observation of hygienic rules the short and interesting method of instruction and above all our affectionate understanding and care of the children have produced admirable physical and mental results it would be unjust to claim that our pupils have accomplished wonders yet considering that they belong to the average having had no previous opportunities the results are very gratifying indeed the most important thing they have acquired a rare trait with ordinary school children is the love of study the desire to know to be informed they have learned a new method of work one that quickens the memory and stimulates the imagination we make a particular effort to awaken the child's interest in his surroundings to make him realize the importance of observation investigation and reflection so that when the children reach maturity they would not be deaf and blind to the things about them our children never accept anything in blind faith without inquiry as to why and wherefor nor do they feel satisfied until their questions are thoroughly answered thus their minds are free from doubts and fear resultant from incomplete or untruthful replies it is the latter which warped the growth of the child and create a lack of confidence in himself and knows about him it is surprising how frank and kind and affectionate our little ones are to each other the harmony between themselves and the adults at LaRouche is highly encouraging we should feel at fault if the children were to fear or honor us merely because we are their elders we leave nothing undone to gain their confidence and love that accomplished understanding will replace duty, confidence, fear, and affection, severity no one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of the child the effort of every true educator should be to unlock that treasure to stimulate the child's impulses and call forth the best and noblest tendencies what greater reward can there be for one whose life work is to watch over the growth of the human plant than to see its nature unfold its petals and to observe it develop into a true individuality my comrades at LaRouche look for no greater reward and it is due to them and their efforts even more than to my own that our human garden promises to bear beautiful fruit from Mother Earth 1907 regarding the subject of history and the prevailing old methods of instruction Sebastian Forêt said we explain to our children that true history is yet to be written the story of those who have died unknown in the effort to aid humanity to greater achievement from Ibid Francisco Ferrar could not escape this great wave of modern school attempts he saw its possibilities not merely in theoretic form but in their practical application to everyday needs he must have realized that Spain, more than any other country, stands in need of just such schools if it is ever to throw off the double yoke of priest and soldier when we consider that the entire system of education in Spain is in the hands of the Catholic Church and when we further remember the Catholic formula to inculcate Catholicism in the mind of the child until it is nine years of age is to ruin it forever for any other idea we will understand the tremendous task of Ferrar in bringing the new light to his people Fait soon assisted him in realizing his great dream Mademoiselle Monnier, a pupil of Francisco Ferrar and a lady of wealth became interested in the modern school project when she died she left Ferrar some valuable property and 12,000 francs yearly income for the school it is said that mean souls can conceive of not but mean ideas if so the contemptible methods of the Catholic Church to black guard Ferrar's character in order to justify her own black crime can readily be explained thus the lie was spread in American Catholic papers that Ferrar used his intimacy with Mademoiselle Monnier to get possession of her money personally I hold that the intimacy of whatever nature between a man and a woman is their own affair their sacred own I would therefore not lose a word in referring to the matter if it were not one of the many dastardly lies circulated about Ferrar of course those who know the purity of the Catholic clergy will understand the insinuation have the Catholic presever looked upon woman as anything but a sex commodity the historical data regarding the discoveries in the cloisters and monasteries will bear me out in that how then are they to understand the cooperation between a man and a woman except on a sex basis as a matter of fact Mademoiselle Monnier was considerably Ferrar's senior having spent her childhood and girlhood with a miserly father and a submissive mother she could easily appreciate the necessity of love and joy in child life she must have seen that Francisco Ferrar was a teacher not college machine or diploma made but one endowed with genius for that calling equipped with knowledge with experience and with the necessary means above all imbued with the divine fire of his mission our comrade came back to Spain and there began his life's work on the 9th of September 1901 the first modern school was opened it was enthusiastically received by the people of Barcelona who pledged their support in a short address at the opening of the school Ferrar submitted his program to his friends he said I am not a speaker not a propagandist not a fighter I am a teacher I love children above everything I think I understand them I want my contribution to the cause of liberty to be a young generation ready to meet a new era he was cautioned by his friends to be careful in his opposition to the Catholic church they knew to what lengths she would go to dispose of an enemy Ferrar too knew but like Brandt he believed in all or nothing he would not erect the modern school on the same old lie he would be frank and honest and open with the children Francisco Ferrar became a marked man from the very first day of the opening of the school he was shadowed the school building was watched his little home in Mangat was watched he was followed every step even when he went to France or England to confer with his colleagues he was a marked man and it was only a question of time when the lurking enemy would tighten the noose it succeeded almost in 1906 when Ferrar was implicated in the attempt on the life of Alfonso the evidence exonerating him was too strong even for the black crows black crows the Catholic clergy they had to let him go not for good however they waited oh they can wait when they have set themselves to trap a victim the moment came at last during the anti-military uprising in Spain in July 1909 one will have to search in vain the annals of revolutionary history to find a more remarkable protest against militarism having been soldier-ridden for centuries the people of Spain could stand the yoke no longer they would refuse to participate in useless slaughter they saw no reason for aiding a despotic government in subduing and oppressing a small people fighting for their independence as did the brave rifts no they would not bear arms against them for 1800 years the Catholic Church has preached the gospel of peace yet when the people actually wanted to make this gospel a living reality she urged the authorities to force them to bear arms thus the dynasty of Spain followed the murderous methods of the Russian dynasty the people were forced to the battlefield then and not until then was their power of endurance at an end then and not until then did the workers of Spain turn against their masters against those who like leeches had drained their strength their very life blood yes they attacked the churches and the priests but if the latter had a thousand lives they could not possibly pay for the terrible outrages and crimes perpetrated upon the Spanish people Francisco Farrar was arrested on the 1st of September 1909 until October 1st his friends and comrades did not even know what had become of him on that day a letter was received by La Umanit from which can be learned the whole mockery of the trial and the next day his companion Soledad Villafranca received the following letter no reason to worry you know I am absolutely innocent today I am particularly hopeful and joyous it is the first time I can write to you and the first time since my arrest that I can bathe in the rays of the sun streaming generously through my cell window you too must be joyous how pathetic that Farrar should have believed as late as October 4th that he would not be condemned to death even more pathetic that his friends and comrades should once more have made the blunder in crediting the enemy with a sense of justice time and again they have placed their faith in the judicial powers only to see their brothers kill before their very eyes they made no preparation to rescue Farrar not even a protest of any extent nothing why it is impossible to condemn Farrar he is innocent but everything is possible with the Catholic Church is she not a practiced henchman whose trials of her enemies are the worst mockery of justice on October 4th Farrar sent the following letter to La'Umanit the prison cell October 4th 1909 my dear friends not withstanding most absolute innocence the prosecutor demands the death penalty based on denunciations of the police representing me as the chief of the world's anarchists directing the labor syndicates of France and guilty of conspiracies and insurrections everywhere and declaring that my voyages to London and Paris were undertaken with no other object with such infamous lies they are trying to kill me the messenger is about to depart and I have not time for more all the evidence presented to the investigating judge by the police is nothing but a tissue of lies and columnius insinuations but no proofs against me having done nothing at all Farrar October 13th 1909 Farrar's heart so brave so staunch so loyal was stilled poor fools the last agonized throb of that heart had barely died away when it began to beat a hundred fold in the hearts of the civilized world until it grew into terrific thunder hurling forth its malediction upon the instigators of the black crime murderers of black garb and pious mean to the bar of justice did Francisco Farrar participate in the anti-military uprising? according to the first indictment which appeared in the Catholic paper in Madrid signed by the bishop and all the prelates of Barcelona he was not even accused of participation the indictment was to the effect that Francisco Farrar was guilty of having organized godless schools and having circulated godless literature but in the 20th century men cannot be burned merely for their godless beliefs something else had to be devised hence the charge of instigating the uprising in no authentic source so far investigated could a single proof be found to connect Farrar with the uprising but then no proofs were wanted or accepted by the authorities there were 72 witnesses to be sure but their testimony was taken on paper they never were confronted with Farrar or he with them is it psychologically possible that Farrar should have participated? I do not believe it is and here are my reasons Francisco Farrar was not only a great teacher but he was also undoubtedly a marvelous organizer in eight years between 1901 to 1909 he had organized in Spain 109 schools besides inducing the liberal element of his country to organize 308 other schools in connection with his own schoolwork Farrar had equipped a modern printing plant organized a staff of translators and spread broadcast 150,000 copies of modern scientific and sociologic works not to forget the large quantity of rationalist textbooks surely none but the most methodical and efficient organizer could have accomplished such a feat on the other hand it was absolutely proven that the anti-military uprising was not at all organized that it came as a surprise to the people themselves like a great many revolutionary waves on previous occasions the people of Barcelona for instance had the city in their control for four days and according to the statement of tourists greater order and peace never prevailed of course the people were so little prepared that when the time came they did not know what to do in this regard they were like the people of Paris during the commune of 1871 they too were unprepared while they were starving they protected the warehouses filled to the brim with provisions they placed sentinels to guard the bank of France where the bourgeoisie kept the stolen money the workers of Barcelona too watched over the spoils of their masters how pathetic is the stupidity of the underdog how terribly tragic but then have not his fetters been forged so deeply into his flesh that he would not even if he could break them the awe of authority of law of private property hundredfold burned into his soul how is he to throw it off unprepared unexpectedly can anyone assume for a moment that a man like Farrar would affiliate himself with such a spontaneous unorganized effort would he not have known that it would result in a defeat a disastrous defeat for the people and is it not more likely that if he would have taken part he the experienced entrepreneur would have thoroughly organized the attempt if all other proofs were lacking that one factor would be sufficient to exonerate Francisco Farrar but there are others equally convincing for the very date of the outbreak July 25th Farrar had called a conference of his teachers and members of the League of Rational Education it was to consider the autumn work and particularly the publication of LSA recluse great book La Jume La Terre and Peter Kropotkin's great French Revolution is it at all likely is it at all plausible that Farrar knowing of the uprising being a party to it would in cold blood invite his friends and colleagues to Barcelona for the day on which he realized their lives would be endangered surely only the criminal vicious mind of a Jesuit would credit such deliberate murder Francisco Farrar had his life work mapped out he had everything to lose and nothing to gain except ruin and disaster were he to lend assistance to the outbreak not that he doubted the justice of the people's wrath but his work his hope his very nature was directed toward another goal in vain are the frantic efforts of the Catholic Church her lies falsehoods calamities she stands condemned by the awakened human conscience of having once more repeated the foul crimes of the past Francisco Farrar is accused of teaching the children the most blood-curdling ideas to hate God for instance horrors Francisco Farrar did not believe in the existence of a God why teach the child to hate something which does not exist is it not more likely that he took the children out into the open that he showed them the splendor of the sunset the brilliancy of the starry heavens the awe-inspiring wonder of the mountains and seas that he explained to them in his simple direct way the law of growth of development of the interrelation of all life in so doing he made it forever impossible for the poisonous weeds of the Catholic Church to take root in the child's mind it has been stated that Farrar prepared the children to destroy the rich ghost stories of old maids is it not more likely that he prepared them to sucker the poor that he taught them the humiliation the degradation the awfulness of poverty which is a vice and not a virtue that he taught the dignity and importance of all creative efforts which alone sustain life and build character is it not the best and most effective way of bringing into the proper light the absolute uselessness and injury of parasitism last but not least Farrar is charged with undermining the army by inculcating anti-military ideas indeed he must have believed with Tolstoy that war is legalized slaughter that it perpetuates hatred and arrogance that it eats away the heart of nations and turns them into raving maniacs however we have Farrar's own word regarding his ideas of modern education I would like to call the attention of my readers to this idea all the value of education rests in the respect for the physical intellectual and moral will of the child just as in science no demonstration is possible saved by facts just so there is no real education save that which is exempt from all dogmatism which leaves to the child itself the direction of its effort and confines itself to the seconding of its effort now there is nothing easier than to alter this purpose and nothing harder than to respect it education is always imposing, violating, constraining the real educator is he who can best protect the child against his, the teacher's own ideas, his peculiar whims he who can best appeal to the child's own energies we are convinced that the education of the future will be of an entirely spontaneous nature certainly we cannot as yet realize it but the evolution of methods in the direction of a wider comprehension of the phenomena of life and the fact that all advances toward perfection mean the overcoming of restraint all this indicates that we are in the right when we hope for the deliverance of the child through science let us not fear to say that we want men capable of evolving without stopping capable of destroying and renewing their environments without cessation of renewing themselves also men whose intellectual independence will be their greatest force who will attach themselves to nothing always ready to accept what is best happy in the triumph of new ideas aspiring to live multiple lives in one life society fears such men we therefore must not hope that it will ever want an education able to give them to us we shall follow the labors of the scientists who study the child with the greatest attention and we shall eagerly seek for means of applying their experience to the education which we want to build up in the direction of an ever fuller liberation of the individual but how can we attain our end? shall it not be by putting ourselves directly to the work favoring the foundation of new schools which shall be ruled as much as possible by this spirit of liberty which we for feel will dominate the entire work of education in the future a trial has been made which for the present has already given excellent results we can destroy all which in the present school answers to the organization of constraint the artificial surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose ready-made ideas upon them beliefs which deprave and annihilate natural bent without fear of deceiving ourselves we can restore the child to the environment which entices it the environment of nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves and in which impressions of life will replace the steadiest book learning if we did no more than that we would already have prepared in great part the deliverance of the child in such conditions we might already freely apply the data of science and labor most fruitfully I know very well we could not thus realize all our hopes that we should often be forced for lack of knowledge to employ undesirable methods but assertitude would sustain us in our efforts namely that even without reaching our aim completely we should do more and better in our still imperfect work than the present school accomplishes I like the free spontaneity of a child who knows nothing better than the world knowledge and intellectual deformity of a child who has been subjected to our present education from Mother Earth December 1909 Had Farrar actually organized the riots had he fought on the barricades had he hurled a hundred bombs he could not have been so dangerous to the Catholic Church and to despotism as with his opposition to discipline and restraint discipline and restraint are they not back of all the evils in the world slavery, submission, poverty, all misery, all social iniquities result from discipline and restraint indeed Farrar was dangerous therefore he had to die October 13th 1909 in the ditch of Montjuïs yet who dares say his death was in vain in view of the tempestuous rise of universal indignation Italy naming streets in memory of Francisco Farrar Belgium inaugurating a movement to erect a memorial France calling to the front her most illustrious men to resume the heritage of the martyr England being the first to issue a biography all countries uniting and perpetuating the great work of Francisco Farrar America even tardy always in progressive ideas bringing birth to a Francisco Farrar association its aim being to publish a complete life of Farrar and to organize modern schools all over the country in the face of this international revolutionary wave who is there to say Farrar died in vain that death at Montjuïs how wonderful, how dramatic it was how it stirs the human soul proud and erect the inner eye turned toward the light Francisco Farrar needed no lying priests to give him courage nor did he upbraid a phantom for forsaking him the consciousness that his executioners represented a dying age and that his was the living truth sustained him in the last heroic moment a dying age and a living truth the living burying the dead End of Part 6