We Americans Claim To Be

The Average Mind Is Slow In Grasping A Truth, But When The Most Thoroughly Organized, Centralized Institution, Maintained At An Excessive National Expense, Has Proven A Complete Social Failure, The Dullest Must Begin To Question Its Right To Exist. The Time Is Past When We Can Be Content With Our Social Fabric Merely Because It Is "ordained By Divine Right," Or By The Majesty Of The Law.

Always, At Every Period, The Few Were The Banner Bearers Of A Great Idea, Of Liberating Effort. Not So The Mass, The Leaden Weight Of Which Does Not Let It Move.

Never Can A New Idea Move Within The Law. It Matters Not Whether That Idea Pertains To Political And Social Changes Or To Any Other Domain Of Human Thought And Expression - To Science, Literature, Music; In Fact, Everything That Makes For Freedom And Joy And Beauty Must Refuse To Move Within The Law. How Can It Be Otherwise? The Law Is Stationary, Fixed, Mechanical, 'a Chariot Wheel' Which Grinds All Alike Without Regard To Time, Place And Condition, Without Ever Taking Into Account Cause And Effect, Without Ever Going Into The Complexity Of The Human Soul.

To The Indefinite, Uncertain Mind Of The American Radical The Most Contradictory Ideas And Methods Are Possible. The Result Is A Sad Chaos In The Radical Movement, A Sort Of Intellectual Hash, Which Has Neither Taste Nor Character.

Anarchism, The Great Leaven Of Thought, Is Today Permeating Every Phase Of Human Endeavor.... It Is The Philosophy Of The Sovereignty Of The Individual. It Is The Theory Of Social Harmony. It Is The Great, Surging, Living Truth That Is Reconstructing The World, And That Will Usher In The Dawn.