Paris and the Social Revolution Part 9

The acknowledgment of subscriptions and contributions through the columns of the papers is theoretically for the sake of saving the labour and expense of correspondence and postage; and, when the names of the contributors are given by initials only, as is sometimes done, the device may stand for what it claims to be. But when, as too frequently happens, the names are printed in full, it is impossible not to suspect the editors of catering to precisely the same sort of vanity as that which lies back of bourgeois subscription lists.

These account columns are further utilised by the _camarades_-but here at least the taint is scarcely a bourgeois one-for the launching of pleasantries (more or less astute) and for the expression of sentiments, the affirmation of brotherhood, the declaration of principles, and the utterance of prophecies or threats.

In a recent subscription list of _Le Libertaire_ these signatures appeared: _Nemesis_, fr. 0.50; _L'Alouette_, 0.50; _Ni Dieu ni Maitre_, 0.50; _Un Evade du Bagne Schneider_, 0.50; _Trois Metres de Corde pour le Roussin D--_, 0.50; _Un Va-nu-pied_, 0.25; _Un Cooperateur Communiste-anarchiste_, 0.30; _Trois Semeurs a Lille_, 0.25; _Apres la Conference de Sebastien Faure_, 2 fr.; _Trois Cooperateurs_, 0.30; _Un Misereux_, 0.10; _Un Garcon de Cafe Ennemi de la Tyrannie_, 0.30; _Deux Trimardeurs_, 2 fr.; _Un Camarade Devoue_, 1 fr.; _A Bas la Lachete Humaine_, 1 fr.; _Vive l'Energie Individuelle!_ 1 fr.; _Trois Copains Rochefortais_, 4 fr.; _Le Breton du Jardin des Plantes_, 0.30.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON[15]]

A recent device for raising funds, which is at the same time an additional means of propaganda, is the sale of anarchist pictures. Up to 1886 a portrait of Louise Michel was the only picture published under anarchist auspices. In that year _La Revolte_ (now _Les Temps Nouveaux_), having become convinced of the proselyting value of pictures, attempted to buy for reproduction such of the plates of the ill.u.s.trated weekly _L'Ill.u.s.tration_ as had or could be given a revolutionary meaning. This attempt failing, it set about producing a series of pictures of its own called _Images de Propagande_, to be sold at prices ranging from ten to twenty-five sous. These _Images de Propagande_ are all genuine works of art by artists of renown, and the complete collection is much sought by amateurs. The _Temps Nouveaux_ has also turned to the advantage of the propaganda the ill.u.s.trated postal card fever, and has prepared a series of anarchist pictures especially for children.

The pictorial propaganda has gained even the provinces. The following is an excerpt from an anarchist periodical:-

"The _camarades_ of Roubaix will soon enter into possession of their little press. For a long while they have ardently desired a press, but some efforts still remain to be made. If we make a pecuniary appeal to the _camarades_, it is that we may get together more quickly the sum necessary for the purchase.... To hasten matters, if possible, a _Roubaisien camarade_ has had the idea of photographing on a plaque of good size (18 by 24 centimetres) the engraving representing the Chicago martyrdom and a drawing with the portraits of Emile Henry,[16] Caserio,[17] and Angiolillo on a plaque of 9 by 12 centimetres. Price, Martyrs of Chicago, fr. 1.40, postpaid; Henri, Caserio, Angiolillo, 85 centimes, postpaid.

Send orders to," etc.

There is probably no greater obstacle to the progress of the written propaganda than the perpetual petty annoyances that arise from an inadequacy of funds. It is by no means the only one. The anarchist who has already in hand the means to pay for having his journal printed is often unable to find a printer who will undertake the work. "The _copains_ of Gren.o.ble,"-the item is from a _trimardeur's_ report,-"after having done everything in their power to launch their paper, rebuffed by all the printers (downright refusal, exorbitant charge, etc.), have decided to buy a mimeograph and to autograph manifests, which they will sow broadcast."

Supposing his journal printed, however, the anarchist editor is still far from the end of his troubles. He has to get it properly distributed; and in this undertaking, likewise, he encounters numerous difficulties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE ANARCHISTS]

It is so compromising in every way to be known as a reader of an anarchist publication that few even of the sympathetically inclined, unless they have a p.r.o.nounced taste for martyrdom, care to lower themselves in the eyes of their postman, their _concierge_, and their neighbours, and to run the risk of being black listed in all quarters by receiving an anarchist paper regularly through the post. Besides, they have a perfectly natural reluctance to pay in advance the subscription price of three months, six months, or a year, for a paper that may not be able to keep alive two months. They prefer to buy the numbers at the news-stands as they come out,-a procedure which not only considerably diminishes the publisher's net returns, but keeps him in a highly inconvenient uncertainty with regard to his budget. In some years the news-stand sale of the _Temps Nouveaux_, for instance, has been nine-tenths of the whole circulation.

This very news-stand sale is lessened by the indifference or positive ill-will of the newsdealers, who either decline to handle anarchist papers at all; or, if they do handle them, contrive to keep them well out of view. Furthermore, the railway and post-office authorities take a mischievous or malignant delight in delaying the delivery of anarchist printed matter when they cannot find pretexts for holding it up altogether.

"We receive frequent complaints, which we know are justified for the most part," says _Le Libertaire_, "on account of tardiness in the arrival of our paper. We a.s.sure our dealers and subscribers that the journal is sent out regularly every Thursday, barring the weeks when money is lacking.

Consequently, it is to the malice of the railroads and the post-office that the delay must be ascribed."

To counteract these and other hindrances to the sale of their wares, anarchist editors have to resort to numerous devices. These devices may be in the form of stereotyped requests to readers to secure other readers, and to force the hands of the dealers, of which the following are good examples:-

"_Friends and Readers_,

"If you would be useful to the _Journal du Peuple_, and serve the ideas which it defends, buy several copies and distribute them to the persons whom you judge capable of buying it later for themselves."

"We urge our friends in Paris to keep demanding our paper of the newsdealers in order to compel them to handle it. A bit of determination on the part of each, and _ca ira_."

Often the advertis.e.m.e.nt appears as a more presuming and exacting appeal to loyalty, as, for example:-

"Our liquidation of the end of the year permits us to spare a quant.i.ty of back numbers. We beg those of our friends who are willing to take upon themselves their distribution, either in the meetings or at the doors of the factories, to let us know how many copies to send them."

At other times, resort is taken to such original and audacious schemes as the following:-

"JOURNALS FOR ALL

"The reactionary press penetrates into the rural districts, while many of the _libertaire_ journals are unknown there. We remind our readers that the enterprise 'JOURNALS FOR ALL,' 17 rue Cujas, holds itself at their disposition to give them the addresses of poor provincials who would be delighted to receive their papers once they have been read. It will cost them a stamp of two centimes each day and the trouble of wrapping and addressing. In thus sending away their papers, our readers will be doing a work highly advantageous to the propaganda. Write the secretary for fuller particulars."

"Here is a means of circulating our paper which, employed upon a certain scale, would be highly efficacious: All the _camarades_ who can make the sacrifice of a certain number of copies should roll them into a more or less tempting small package, wrap them well to protect them, and then throw them into the doorways of houses, slip them into the baskets of women on their way to or from market, or give them to the children in the street to take home to their parents."

Finally, the wily stratagems of a determined and not over-scrupulous secret police and the special rigour of a body of more or less biased judges in applying Draconian laws of exception must be reckoned with. In no department of their work do the former display more cunning or the latter more severity. Nevertheless, they have never been able, combined, to prevail over the intensity of the anarchist proselyting spirit far enough to prevent for any length of time the spread of the written word.

Trick has been matched by trick and audacity by audacity. The defiance with which the authorities are met is well typified by the following manifesto:-

"READERS AND SUBSCRIBERS OF _L'Insurge_, TAKE NOTICE!

"We announce to our readers that we shall not be able to appear this week; but, in spite of all the rascalities of the government, we intend to appear in the breach again very soon.

_Vive l'homme libre dans l'humanite libre! Vive l'Anarchie!_

"SANTAVILLE "[Managing Editor of _L'Insurge_]."

Previous to 1881 the press law was such that a condemned journal was forced to change its name, if it wished to reappear; and the tradition survives of an anarchist sheet at Lyons which suffered eighteen successive condemnations (involving for the managing editors imprisonment for terms varying from six months to two years), and which, therefore, bore successively eighteen different names.

After 1881 until the pa.s.sage of the special anarchist restrictive acts popularly known as the _Lois Scelerates_, a journal could pa.s.s through any number of condemnations without losing its ident.i.ty; the guilt of the responsible editor being held as purely personal. It was during this golden age of relative liberty that the _Pere Peinard_ saw ten of its managing editors condemned within three years-as a cavalry officer leading a charge may see horses shot out from under him-without having its advance materially impeded.

"Once the condemned editor was out of the way," says a writer familiar with the administration of this curious journal, "it was as if no condemnation had intervened. There was somewhere on the _trimard_ in France or abroad an anarchist who owed to the state two years of Ste. Pelagie and a 3,000-franc fine,[18] but the journal was not touched. _Le Pere Peinard_ remained una.s.sailable....

"From the number and the gravity of the sentences imposed it would seem that the _Pere Peinard_ must have experienced great difficulty in the recruitment of its editors or that it must have paid them enormous salaries. Quite the reverse. The fanaticism of the anarchists was such that they vied with each other in imploring of Pouget the favour of a chance to be condemned. At any given moment several were impatiently awaiting their turn. Never did the _Pere Peinard_ pay one of its editors. Never did it even allow him a free subscription.

The editor of the _Pere Peinard_ was a special type, a volunteer of the a.s.size court, who went to the prison as water goes to the river, and who pushed his disinterestedness to the point of buying his own paper-two sous out of his pocket-every Sunday."

Under the present laws it would be more difficult for so saucy and reckless a sheet as the _Pere Peinard_ to keep up its laughter over the discomfiture of the authorities; that is, if it were printed in France.

To-day a paper of this sort, to appear here with anything like an approach to regularity, would have to be printed in some foreign town that is tolerant towards anarchists, and smuggled through the mails inside of other journals or in covers with unsuspicious t.i.tles. This propaganda at long range is too expensive to be carried on in a wholesale fashion. It has its periods of favour, however, and is never totally neglected. Apropos of unsuspicious cover t.i.tles, it is on record that the journal _L'Internationale_, which used to be printed in the French colony of London, regaled the prying eyes of the French post-office employees and the police with such more than reputable inscriptions as these: _Mandement de S. E. le Cardinal Manning_, _Pet.i.t Traite de Geographie_, _Rapport sur la Question du Tunnel Sous-Marin_, _Contes Traduits de d.i.c.kens_, _Lettres d'un Pasteur sur la Sainte Bible_.

Once, at least,-more than once, it is probable,-anarchist doctrines have been preached in a journal founded and supported by the prefecture of police,-an ideal arrangement, it would seem, since both parties thereto find their account therein, the anarchists in having a chance to say their say without grubbing for funds, and the police in having large occasion for self-felicitation over their shrewdness in keeping the anarchists under strict surveillance.

The practical impossibility of carrying on a journal successfully without a permanent and known office, subscription lists, and the a.s.sistance of the newsdealers, has made the anarchist resort to the secret issue by unknown presses of placards and hand-bills whenever he has anything very special or very incendiary to say,-particularly at election time, when he is exceedingly active in preaching abstention from the polls, and during the enrolment and departure of the conscripts. The police will tear down the placards, of course, but rarely before they have been read; and they may arrest the distributors of the fliers, but this does not recall the fliers which have been put forth. More than this they cannot do, since either there is no printer's mark to guide them or, if one appears, it is false or fantastic, such as "117 _rue de la Liberte_, _ville de la Fraternite_, _Etats-Unis de l'Humanite_, _Departement de l'Egalite_."

The tantalising doc.u.ments float into the streets quietly and gently like snowflakes, before the very eyes of the police, and are irresponsible as snowflakes, having nothing more than these about them to indicate their itinerary or origin.

Here is an election placard which may serve as a sample:-

"A BAS LA CHAMBRE!

"People, retake your liberty, your initiative, and keep them.

The Government is the valet of Capital. Down with the Government! Down with the king, Loubet! To the sewer with the Senate! To the river with the Chamber! To the dunghill with all this ancient social rottenness! Away with the Chamber!

Away with the Senate! Away with the Presidency! Away with Capital!

"_Vive la Revolution Sociale! Vive l'Anarchie!_

"(Signed) AN ANARCHIST GROUP."

In the view of the larger-minded anarchists-the Reclus, the Kropotkines, the Graves-the betterment of society must be preceded by the betterment of the individuals that make up society. Education is the corner-stone of the structure their hope has builded. They realise that they have undertaken a moral and intellectual labour of long reach, calling for infinite energy and patience, for years and perhaps generations of scattered, seemingly bootless initiative, exhortation, and example. So far as these leaders are concerned, no charge could well be falser than the one that is daily being brought against them of ignoring the calendar in all their calculations, juggling with an abstract social man,-very much as the elder economists juggled with their "economic man,"-and expecting with childlike _navete_ to make human nature and the world over in a twinkling.

"For the establishment of the anarchist society," says Jean Grave, "it is necessary that each individual taken separately be able to govern himself, that he knows how to make his autonomy respected while respecting the autonomy of others, and that he succeeds in liberating his volition from the tyranny of surrounding influences....

... "Now for individuals to dispense with authority, for each one to be able to exercise his autonomy without coming into conflict with his fellows, it is essential that we all acquire a mentality appropriate to this state of things."

The thoughtful anarchist is well aware that, for the production of this appropriate mentality, his placards, posters, and hand-bills, his pictures and _chansons_, his weeklies, monthlies, and annuals, are ludicrously inadequate and inapt. He is far from despising these agencies. He recognises their value as popularisers and as ferment; but he is struggling towards a propaganda of a deeper, more compelling nature as rapidly as he is able. He would (like the devout Catholic) a.s.sume complete control of the mental training of his children, taking them out of the public schools, which impose respect for his two bugbears-authority and property-along with other bourgeois commonplaces and superst.i.tions, in order to give, in schools of his own, the complete, well-rounded education which he calls _l'education integrale_.

M. Paul Robin, who made a pa.s.sably successful experiment with this _education integrale_ at the Prevost Orphanage, Cempuis,[19] during the years 1880 to 1894, has expounded the meaning of the phrase in an article which it would be a real pleasure to quote entire. A few paragraphs will suffice, however, to reveal the loftiness, the sweetness, and the eminent sanity of his ideas:-