Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906

The strikers declared that they would not permit these men to land, but money and power walk shrewd and cunning paths. The Pinkerton blood-hounds were packed into a boat and were to be smuggled into Homestead by way of water in the stillness of night. The amalgamated steel workers learned of this contemptible trick and prepared to meet the foe. They gathered by the shores of the Monongahela River armed with sticks and stones, but ere they had time for an attack a violent fire was opened from the boat that neared the shore, and within an hour eleven strikers lay dead from the bullets of Frick's hirelings.

Every beast is satisfied when it has devoured its prey,—not so the human beast. After the killing of the strikers H. C. Frick had the families of the dead evicted from their homes, which had been sold to the workingmen on the instalment plan and at the exorbitant prices usual in such cases.

Out of these homes the wives and children of the men struggling for a living wage were thrown into the street and left without shelter. There was one exception only. A woman who had given birth to a baby two days previous and who, regardless of her delicate condition, defended her home and succeeded in driving the sheriff from the house with a poker.

Everyone stood aghast at such brutality, at such inhumanity to man, in this great free republic of ours. It seemed as if the cup of human endurance had been filled to the brim, as if out of the ranks of the outraged masses some one would rise to call those to account who had caused it all.

And some one rose in mighty indignation against the horrors of wealth and power. It was Alexander Berkman!

A youth with a vision of a grand and beautiful world based upon freedom and harmony, and with boundless sympathy for the suffering of the masses. One whose deep, sensitive nature could not endure the barbarisms of our times. Such was the personality of the man who staked his life as a protest against tyranny and iniquity; and such has Alexander Berkman remained all these long, dreary fourteen years.

Nothing was left undone to crush the body and spirit of this man; but sorrow and suffering make for sacred force, and those who have never felt it will fail to realize how it is that Alexander Berkman will return to those who loved and esteemed him, to those whom he loved so well, and still loves so well,—the oppressed and down-trodden millions—with the same intense, sweet spirit and with a clearer and grander vision of a world of human justice and equality.

UT SEMENTEM FECERIS, ITA METES

By Voltairine De Cleyre

(To the Czar, on a woman, a political prisoner, being flogged to death in Siberia.)

How many drops must gather to the skies
Before the cloud-burst comes, we may not know;
How hot the fires in under hells must glow
Ere the volcano's scalding lavas rise,
Can none say; but all wot the hour is sure!
Who dreams of vengeance has but to endure!
He may not say how many blows must fall,
How many lives be broken on the wheel,
How many corpses stiffen 'neath the pall,
How many martyrs fix the blood-red seal;
But certain is the harvest time of Hate!
And when weak moans, by an indignant world
Re-echoed, to a throne are backward hurled,
Who listens hears the mutterings of Fate!

THE WHITE TERROR

I.—The Flogging of a Student

(By an Eye-Witness—M. Kirilov, of the "Russ.")

December 18th. Near the Gorbaty Bridge, Moscow. A group of soldiers of various arms and an officer. Great animation, jokes, cries, gesticulation, contented faces. A student has fallen into their hands.

"Well, boys, make room," says the officer. "The performance begins!"

"Take off your trousers," says the officer, turning to the student. The latter is pale, silent, and does not move.

"Trousers off!" cries the officer, in rage; but the student, without a drop of blood in his face, whiter than the snow, does not move, but only looks around in silence with horrified eyes and meets everywhere the triumphant faces of his tormentors. He drops his head and remains silent as before.

"Well, then, boys, we must assist our dear student; his hands, poor thing, are frost bitten and do not obey."

The voice of the officer changes; it becomes sweet and smooth. He looks at the student with pleasure.

"Take off his dear little trousers!" he orders his soldiers. The latter unbutton and tear down his trousers. The student does not resist. Then he is thrown on the ground.

"Give him beans, boys!"

Two powerfully-built soldiers step forward, holding whips in their hands.

The flogging begins. It lasts a long time, accompanied by loud laughter, jokes and noise. The student is silent all the time and lies with his face buried in the snow. He is constantly being asked whether he feels allright, and is kicked with the boots on his head.

"Halt!" cries the officer at last, when the whole body of the student has been covered with blood. The excited soldiers do not leave off at once, but continue for some time. At last they stop.

"Please, sir, won't you allow us, too, to have a little game?" smilingly ask a couple of artillery soldiers, saluting the officer.

"Well, have a go at him," says the officer kindly.

The second shift gets to work, and turning up their sleeves, takes over the bloody whips and resumes the flogging of the student, who still, as before, is lying in the snow without uttering a word. Only his body still thrills instinctively as the soldiers get more and more excited and the blows become more and more frequent.

"Sir, we, too, want some of the lark," impatiently interfered some of the dragoons, and having received the permission of the officer, substituted themselves for the artillery men and with new force and zeal began to flog the student, who still lay strictly as before, only his body scarcely moving.

"Well, here you are, you got your higher education—all the three faculties!" somebody joked as the flogging at last stopped and the student lay motionless in the snow.

But he was not flogged to death. He was taken to the other side of the river and there shot.

II.—Lieutenant Schmidt, of the Sevastopol Mutiny, after being captured

(From a letter received by Prof. Miliukov from a lady correspondent who saw Schmidt in the Fortress and had the tale from his own lips.)

....He only remembers how the officers of the "Rostislavl" posted him naked, with a broken leg, between two sentries in their mess-room and approached him in turns, shaking their fists in his face and abusing him in the vilest terms. Schmidt's son, who, for some unaccountable reason, had been kept in fortress for two months, said to me: "I cannot tell you how they abused my father, the terms are unpronounceable." Schmidt himself spoke to me sobbingly of the painful treatment meted out to him by the officers.... For twenty-four hours the two of them, father and son, were kept stark naked and without food, under a fierce electric light, on the open deck. They lay together, pressing against each other so as to warm themselves, and everyone who passed looked at them, and those who wanted, abused them. When Schmidt, being wounded, asked for a drop of water, the senior officer shouted at him: "Silence, or I'll stop your gullet with my fist."

PATERNALISTIC GOVERNMENT

By Theodore Schroeder

HISTORY serves no purpose to those who cannot, or do not avail themselves of it as a means of learning helpful lessons, for present use. From a few sources not readily accessible to the masses, I have copied a partial summary of paternalistic legislation which even the most devout devotees to mass or ruling class wisdom would now decline to defend.

It is helpful, perhaps, to look back to the persistent fallacious assumption that men can be made frugal and useful members of society by laws and edicts. Every thoughtful student feels sure that future generations will look upon our present efforts to regulate the self-regarding activities of humans with the same cynical leer as that which now flits over our faces as we read the following:—

The earliest sumptuary law was passed 215 B. C., enacted that no woman should own more than half an ounce of gold or wear a dress of different colors, or ride in a carriage in the city or in any town or within a mile of it, unless on occasion of public sacrifices. This law was repealed in twenty years. In 181 B. C. a law was passed limiting the number of guests at entertainments. In 161 B. C. it was provided that at certain festivals named the expense of entertainments should not exceed 100 asses, and on ten other days of each month should not exceed 10 asses. Later on it was allowed that 200 asses, valued at about $300, be spent upon marriage days.

A statute under Julian extended the privileges of extravagance on certain occasions to the equivalent of $10, and $50 upon marriage feasts. Under Tiberius, $100 was made the limit of expense for entertainments. Julius Cæsar proposed another law by which actual magistrates, or magistrates elect, should not dine abroad except at certain prescribed places.

Sumptuary laws, that is to say, laws which profess to regulate minutely what people shall eat and drink, what guests they shall entertain, what clothes they shall wear, what armor they shall possess, what limit shall be put to their property, what expense they shall incur at their funerals, were considered by the Early and Middle Ages as absolutely necessary for the proper government of mankind.

Tiberius issued an edict against people kissing each other when they met and against tavern keepers selling pastry. Lycurgus even prohibited finely decorated ceilings and doors. In England the statutes of laborers, reciting the pestilence and scarcity of servants, made it compulsory on every person who had no merchandise, craft or land on which to live, to serve at fixed wages, otherwise to be committed to gaol till he found sureties. At a latter day, all men between twelve and sixty not employed were compelled to hire themselves as servants in husbandry; and unmarried women between twelve and forty were also liable to be hired, otherwise to be imprisoned. All this, of course, was to compel people of modest wealth to remain among the laboring class purely for their own good. (?) But they were quite impartial in enforcing benefits, since the Star Chamber also assumed to fine persons for not accepting knighthood.

Compulsion was also used at the time of the Reformation, to uphold the Protestant faith and keep people in the right way. Refusing to confess or receive the sacrament was first made subject to fine or imprisonment, and a second offense was a felony punishable by death, and involved forfeiture of land and goods. Those who, having no lawful excuse, failed to attend the parish church, in the time of Elizabeth, were fined twelve pence—at that time a considerable sum. This penalty was afterwards altered to twenty pounds a month, but those were exempted who did not obstinately refuse. The penalty on all above sixteen who neglected to go for a month was abjuration of the realm; and to return to the realm thereafter was felony. And two-thirds of the rent of the offender's lands might also be seized till he conformed.