Pioneers of American Freedom

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN FREEDOM ORIGIN OF LIBERAL AND RADICAL THOUGHT IN AMERICA BY RUDOLF ROCKER Translated from the German by Arthur E. Briggs ROCKER PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE (A Non-Profit Organization) 2101 SOUTH GRAMERCY PLACE LOS ANGELES 7, CALIFORNIA F-ROtKER COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY RUDOLF ROCKER All rights reserved—no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK CONTENTS Introduction xiii PART ONE AMERICAN LIBERALS Thomas Paine 1 Thomas Jefferson 12 Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau 20 William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips 32 Abraham Lincoln 43 PART TWO AMERICAN RADICALS Josiah Warren 49 Stephen Pearl Andrews 70 Lysander Spooner 86 William B. Greene 97 Benjamin R. Tucker 118 Benjamin R. Tucker's Collaborators and other Exponents of Philosophical Anarchism in America 139 Influences of American Individualist Anarchism in Europe 145 Anarchism and the American Tradition 155 America in Reverse 165 Bibliography 183 Index 207 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE More recent events, notably the Alliances of World War II, have created great confusion concerning the meaning of democracy, as well as emphasizing the distinctions between free and regimented societies. Fascism, Naziism, and Rus- sian Bolshevism, all have certain popular aspects which tend to characterize them as mass movements. Those who are unclear about democracy may therefore mistakenly describe these totalitarian phenomena as democratic. In such a state of bewilderment of opinion which one finds even in books of American scholarship, a thoughtful and informed history of American liberalism and radicalism is a much needed discipline for our thinking. Rudolf Rocker's essay, which I have labored to present here literally in translation, has the dual merit of exhibiting to Americans their country from the viewpoint of one trained in European traditions and of giving his interpretation of America to Europeans in the light of their own knowledge and traditions. Not since de Tocqueville, I dare say, and not even by his most important work, Democracy in America, has anyone, native or foreign, had such insight of America. For the general viewpoint, the first and final chapters are illuminating and definitive. They enable us as Americans to see present disturbances from illiberal and reactionary factions in comparison with similar outbreaks in our past history from the beginning to the present. But the greatest contribution here is the exhibition of our distinguished liberal leaders from Paine to Lincoln as creative persons vii viii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE who have shaped what there is of distinctive character in American democracy. A yet more unique contribution is that of bringing to attention the little known personalities and work of the creative radicals of America who are shown not to be importations from abroad but very original thinkers native to America who have also had con- siderable influence in European thought and movements. Of not less moment, especially at this time of extreme collectivist trends, is the interpretation of the opposite social philosophy which as philosophical anarchism has been so terribly misunderstood and persecuted in this country, and which, though primarily responsible for the coopera- tive movement, has come under reprobation along with laissez faire individualism. If traditional American democracy is to survive the insidious attacks which come upon it persistently from the totalitarian quarters of opinion, despite two wars that like the mythical Jason's predica- ment have only produced more antagonists in the place of those presumably destroyed, it will have to be through and because of greater enlightenment concerning the origins and nature of American democracy and American liberalism and also American radicalism. This work seems to me also to be recommended for the broad and tolerant consideration of facts and opinions which one should expect from a liberal thinker but which is not too often available today in the heat of discussion on de- batable subjects. I gather from the book a hopeful outlook for democracy and liberalism which is absent from most contemporary writing. Here is at least a very challenging interpretation of American social, political and economic philosophy, and it largely answers that absurd but often repeated declaration that what America lacks is a philosophy of its own. The fault as we see here is the neglect of the philosophy which ix TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE has been distinctive of the greatest American leaders. In Rocker's viewpoint we may see that American philosophy as an exceptionally gifted European liberal sees it and sees us. The author's personal experiences as a German exile for long periods of his life with the hardships endured for the sake of his opinions have not embittered him. On the con- trary, he is infused and sustained by deep convictions that freedom is an attainable environment that produces the greatest good for mankind, a theme which he has expressed in a larger book entitled "Nationalism and Culture." That work deserves to be better known than the works of Spengler, Pareto, or Toynbee, which are more or less fas- cistic or reactionary expressions of social philosophy but of like historical scope. He has lived a life rich in friend- ships amidst his practical labors as an editor, journalist and literary man, as will be related in his forthcoming "Memoirs." It is a refreshing experience to know him as one trained and actively working in the atmosphere of radical movements who has developed and preserved an objective and balanced emotional and intellectual attitude toward all human events, a powerful advocate of a cause who has not lost his head or become clouded in his vision, but rather has attained a consistent view of history which meets contradicting viewpoints with due measure of their significance and undertakes to refute them not with rhetor- ical cliches but with factual and logical reasons. This important book is only a lesser one of his many profound writings. Those who have promoted the publishing of this book, which has already become known by translation in Spanish, hope to make the American public conscious as well of the value of Rocker's other writings for interpretation of the concept of democracy not only as an expression of freedom ix TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE in the long history of mankind but also as preeminently the best environment for human achievement. Among those to whom special acknowledgment of as- sistance is particularly due are H. Yaffe, Cassius V. Cook, Sadie Cook, and Dr. Frederick W. Roman, of the Rocker Publications Committee, who have borne the burden of finance and initiative in producing this and other works of Rocker. ARTHUR E. BRIGGS Los Angeles, California PREFACE The story of our pioneers has often been told. The unique characteristic of this volume comes from the author who has offered its pages. Studies on travel and foreign countries have shown repeatedly that only the foreigner can reveal, see and observe traits of inhabitants, ways of liv- ing and thought-forms that the native would never notice. "Our ways" are commonplace. Nobody takes note of them. In order to assess the true and all-sided picture, we must enlist the help of the foreigner. The author, by training, travel and the production of epoch-making studies of liberal Movements throughout the world, brings to this task an equipment that has found no equal anywhere. Here is a volume that sets forth the contributions toward freedom that were original on our own soil. However, these are given with a proper setting of a European background that adds illumination to the brilliance that seems inherent in creativeness that was afforded on our soil and latent in a population whose forebears carried within their lives and physical make-up the germs of progressive action toward the dawn of a new Age. The author of this volume, being himself a rare exponent of freedom, a creator and moulder of the advanced thinking and action of our time, has been enabled to produce a work that could not have been undertaken by the regular or typical historian. In his own right he is the embodiment of the free spirit. He works, moves forward, not by a reflected or borrowed xi xii PREFACE light. He is one of the "illuminati." He judges men and affairs by a spirit of enlightenment of which he is the sym- bol. It is a rare circumstance in the history of biography to offer a view and an assessment of a group of great lives by one of their own band. DR. FREDERICK W. ROMAN Editor: Roman Forum Magazine Regent: University of California Director: Associated Forums, Ltd. Director: L. A. Free World Assn. Chairman: Rocker Publications Committee INTRODUCTION It has always been the practice of mediocre minds to brand as "foreign" what they could not understand because it was outside the narrow circle of their own ideas, and to persecute such ideas as "alien influences" whenever they felt themselves called upon to defend the nation against them. This assault upon the thought and feeling of the individual has from the earliest times been the chief source of social reaction, for its champions in their petty arrogance have been unable to recognize the actual pre- requisites of social progress. In the so-called fascist and other totalitarian states, where all political parties and all schools of social thought are ruthlessly suppressed one single party is set up as the sole representative of the "national will." Fortune has so fa- vored that system that today where continuing as in Russia and elsewhere every expression of social life is subordinated to the unity of the totalitarian state, and every expression of individual life is either stifled or made to serve the re- quirements of the state machine.

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