Publication information
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Source: Truth Seeker
Source type: magazine
Document type: letter to the editor
Document title: “The Archist and the Anarchist”
Author(s): Wilson, J. A.
Date of publication: 30 November 1901
Volume number: 28
Issue number: 48
Pagination: 762

 
Citation
Wilson, J. A. “The Archist and the Anarchist.” Truth Seeker 30 Nov. 1901 v28n48: p. 762.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Francis B. Livesey; Christianity; anarchism; assassination; governments (criticism); law (criticism).
 
Named persons
Jesus Christ; Francis B. Livesey [misspelled below]; J. A. Wilson.
 
Notes
Click here to view the letter to the editor by Francis B. Livesey referenced below.
 
Document

 

The Archist and the Anarchist

To the Editor of The Truth Seeker.
     In a recent number of your paper, Mr. Livezey advises the Anarchists to change their name, because of the general misconception of the word.
     I would suggest, if the masses are so ignorant as that, instead of changing the name it would be well to enlighten them. Mr. Livezey claims to be a Christian. In view of the crimes committed by the followers of Jesus, I think Mr. Livezey would do well to drop the Christian name before advising others.
     The history of Christianity is written in blood and the history of all governments is a record of crime, while there is no record of any act of violence on the part of an Anarchist which was not committed against one who claimed the right and made the threat to kill any one who refused to submit to his authority.
     It is said that all Anarchists should be annihilated, because they believe in the assassination of rulers. In the first place, all Anarchists do not believe in the assassination of rulers, and especially in America, but very few believe in acts of violence at all, preferring to submit to outrage, trnsting that edncation [sic] will in time enable men to reach that high state of civilization in which they will have no desire to rule or be ruled. But admitting that there is now and then an Anarchist who believes in assassinating rulers, how is he any more a criminal than the ruler? Is there not with every law a threat to kill all who resist it?
     There is no stretch of the imagination which can make it a crime for me to sell the product of my labor to any one who wants to buy it, and yet the law denies me such an opportunity. The law forbids me selling a cabbage of my own growing to a man who wants to buy it. The law forbids me to ask a man to buy a pound of sugar. The law forbids me to express my honest thoughts to people who want to hear them. If I protest and defend my right to do these things, the rulers murder me in cold blood. Who is the greater criminal, the Archist or the Anarchist[?]

    Cal.
J. A. WILSON.     
 

 


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