anarchy in kansdus A Look at KansasAnarchist History When writing about her visit here to lecture at the University assistanteditor in 1883. While associatedwith GH Walser and of Kansas in 1911, Emma Goldman made the following Liberal University in Liberal, MO, Walker developed a plan for comments:"The Stateof Kansas,like Massachusetts,lives on past an anarchistic economic arrangementto free them from the "ranks glory. F{ad it not given John Brown to the causeof the slaves? of capital's dependents,"which, however, never came to fruition" Had not the rebel voice of Moses Harman soundedthere? Had it He also contributed to Liberty, an anarchistjournal published in not been the stronghold of free thought? Whatever its historic Boston. Walker had an even more libertarian reputation than claim to progress,Kansas now gaveno sign of it. The Church and Harman, having been described by the editor of the Atchison Prohibition had evidently performed the last rites at the interment Globe, as "a fellow so intensely liberal that he opposesthe law of liberalism." Anarchists and anarchistperiodicals had been an againstindecent exposure." important part of this radicai past, with Harman and his paper In August, 1883, as Harman became more interestedin sex, Lucifer perhapsbeing the best known among them. labor, and property issues, the Liberal evolved into Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, a title describedby Benjamin Tucker as "Quite the Lucifer, the Light-Bear er best name we know of, after Liberty!" As time went on, Lucifer In 1879, Moses Harman moved to Valley Falls from became increasingly anarchistic in outlook, describing itself in 'weekly missouri. An abolitionist and freethinker, he began a freethought 1885 as a Anarchist-FreethoughtJournal." In 1887,the journal cailed the Valley Falls Liberal in August, 1880, and editor of the anarchistKansas City Sun, writing in Liberty, said servedas the secretaryof the local Liberal League in Valley Falls that "Liberty attacks the State, the Truth Seeker attacks the dunng the early 1880s. At this time the freethought movement Church, the Word attacks Madam Grundy, but Lucifer is not included a number of anarchists. The l89l annualmeeting of the content, in its own way, without attacking all three." During this Kansas Liberal League in Ottawa, which was denouncedby the time Harman's children also joined the staff of the paper, George Topeka State Journal as a "Free Love" gathering, was attendedby as copublisher and Lillian as compositor. Voltairine de Cleyre, and its 1894 annual meeting in Topeka In 1886, as an expressionof their view that governmenthad demanded that Grover Cleveland no business regulating the sex lives "take off your crown, vacate your of individuals, Walker and Lillian throne, lay down your sceptre and take Harman publicly entered into a yourself away from the sight of human "common-sense arrangement", an eyesforever." Flarman and his paper, "autonomistic" non state-sanctioned from the beginning, were also marriage governed by a "wholly concerned about many other issues private contract" between the parties. besides freethought. In a prospectus The "newlyweds" were arrestedthe published in 1880, the Liberal, in day after their wedding at the Lucifer addition to endorsing the platform of office and held that night under the National Liberal League, pledged guard aI Cataract House in Valley to "champion the rights of the poor, Falls. They were transferred to laboring man as against monopolists county jail at Oskaloosathe next day, of every class." but Lillian was later allowed to Harman changed the paper's return under guard to Valley Falls, name to the Kansas Liberal in 1881, since the jail had no facilities for a and moved it to Lawrence for six woman. Harman and Walker were months in 1882, during which time it later brought to Shawnee County jail served as the organ of the Kansas in Topeka in October to await trial, Liberal Union. Because of clashes and their case was heard in district with his associates there over court in Oskaloosa. Found guilty of prohibition (which he opposed) he living together as husband and wife resumed control of the paper and without license and legal marriage, moved it back to Valley Falls. The "Wait! Wait! Listento me!...Wedon't HAVE to be they were imprisoned in adjacent just sheep!" paper now began carrying more cells in the Oskaloosajail. Moses advertisingoffering anarchist, sex radical, and freethought books Hull, publisher of the Des Moines New Thought, wrote that they and periodicalsfor sale" In 1882,Edwin Cox Walker, an iowa had been jailed "for being anarchists,agnostics, atheists and freethinker, began writing for the Kansas Liberal, and became everythingbad that beginswith an A." While their partners in Lucifer were still in jail, Moses and Valley Falls. This paperwas suspendedin 1891,and its George Harman also ran afoul of the law. In keeping with their subscriptionswere transferred to Liberty, for which Walkerwrote policy of not editing letters submitted for publication, the andacted as canvasser and traveling salesperson. Harmans had published sexually explicit material in their paper. With the departure of Early in i887, they were arrested on obscenity charges and l.illian and Walker, Moses indicted by u federal grand jury in Topeka on 270 counts of was forced to seek out new obscenity. In 1890, after continuing to publish letters about sex blood to assist him with during the trial, Moses Harman was found guilty on 4 counts and putting ouI Lucifer. Clarence sentencedto five years in the kansas penitentiary and fined S300. Lee Swartz, who had He served 4 months and then was released on a technicality. formerly edited Voice of the While free, he was tried for having printed another sex letter and People an anarchistjournal in was sentencedto a year, but served only eight months before Kingman, edited Lucifer being releasedon a proceduralpoint. He was then resentencedto during part of Moses' first one year at hard labor for his original conviction, returned to imprisonment in 1890. After prison to serve out his time, and left prison in April 1896. his stint at Lucifer, he, too, Having moved Lucifer to Topeka in 1890 in order to more easily ran into problems with the fight his legal battles from there, he moved to Chicago in 1896 government in kansas for daring to believe in freedom of the after his release from prison. Govemment harassmentof Harman press. In 1891, he distributed the irreverent reform-minded and his paper due to his free editorial policy continued there, and Kansas City, MO, Sunday Sun in Topeka, and was arrestedunder he was sentencedto a year of hard labor for obscenity in 1906, ar a kansaslaw against sensationalliterature. His bond was set at the age of 75. He broke rocks in Joliet eight and a half hours a $4000, and later lowered to $2000, but he spent 36 days in jail day in the illinois winter, which ruined his health and resultedin before raising this amount. Fortunately for him, the prosecutor his transfer to the federal prison in Leavenworth. There he was did not show up in court and charges against him were dropped. hospitalized for bronchitis and spent much of the remainder of his Years later, Swartz produced What is Mutualism, an edited sentencein the hospital. In 1908 he move to Los Angeles,where collection of Benjamin Tucker's writings, and wrote an article on he diedin 1910. "Anarchism Communism" in the New Encyclopedio of Social While Harman had been tied up fighting censorship in the Rrfor*. courts, many changes had taken place in the Lucifer office. In Anarchist Lois Nichols Waisbrooker edited Lucifer for 1888"Walker and Lillian Harman had resignedfrom Lucifer over severalmonths in 1891-1892. One of the issuesshe edited was differenceswith Moses about his free languagepolicy, and started barred from the mails for reprinting a section of a book mailed by their own anarchist newspaper called Fair Play, also published in the USDA. While printing the word penis was the cause for Moses Harman's imprisonment, this official government publication used the word freely, and Waisbrooker wished to point out this double standard. The issue also contained three ads judged obsceneby the post office. She put out subsequentissues of Lucifer with a front page streamer which stated that the pap€r was now "Published under Government Censorship." Waisbrooker also published and edited her own journal Foundation Principles from several places, including Topeka dunng the eighties and nineties, and was arrestedin Topeka in 1894 for publishing obscenity. The court caselasted months and her poor health led her to stop publishing Foundation Principles. She finally received an arrestof judgement in 1896. Waisbrooker later lived in the anarchist community, Home, in washington state. Other Area Anarchists The circle of people involved with Lucifer were not the only anarchy in kansas anarchists in the area at this time. Eight people in Salina is an occasionalpublication of the Bad Press, respondedwith donations to an appeal to readers of Liberty tn an anti-governmentanarchist project, 1882 to fund the Society of the Red Cross of the Will of the People(the so-callednihilists) in russia. In 1884 and 1885,the is Peacott. and edited by Joe anarchistMiners' Journal was published in Scammonville, and Individual issuesare availablefor postage/SAsE. edited by John Mclaughlin, who started the Radical Democrat rn You can reach Bad Pressat: 1885 in the sametown. Albert Parsonstoured kansasin 1885 as a PO Box 3682 labor organizer, speaking in Ottawa to around 3000 people on KansasCity, KS 66103-0682 July 4. He also spoke in Topeka, and addressed miners in Scammonville, Weir City and Pittsburg. And in 1886, John email: bbrigade@world. std.com Shrum, the secretary of the Scammonville Group, IWPA, the website: world. std.com/-bbrigade international anarchistorganization, lived in Columbus.