the little tailor shop of a Jewish friend whose interest in my getting acquainted with the working-class movement had been apparent. Why, I realized later on. He knew that in a larger economic adjustment "economic determinism" would be a small factor beside that of mental development, stimulating a revaluation of standards,_expanding one's concepts, urging one on. In broken English he asked me if I would take and read the number of Mother Earth which he had just received.

He had sometimes mentioned Emma Goldman to me but I, in the confusion borne of finding myself in the flux of the "revolutionary" movement after spending all my former life as a member of the upper middle-class and its attendant environment, had paid scant attention to his evident desire to discuss the Anarchist philosophy with me. My only associative memory of Miss Goldman was the recollection of being told as a child of thirteen by my family when I read in a New Haven newspaper that Miss Goldman was to speak there and inquired about it "she is a very queer woman-she is opposed to government." I recall I pondered on the point for several days but in the myriad, smaller matters of school-days the impression finally dimmed.

I took the brown covered booklet and went out and got on a car for home. I wondered if the conductor noticed it. I wondered if any of the passengers noticed it. I wondered how they would feel if they did notice it and how, as I sat reading the vivid denunciations of most of the things that are taken for granted, they could feel so calm and unconcerned-some were so plainly stupid and some so obviously happy. Life's tangents seemed impossibly remote, as if they never could be gathered in one circle, as if relationship was a shadow, as if the liquid sunlight, the waving palm tree branches and the swaying pepper boughs were completely out of place. I was aware of lowering clouds, streaks of lightning, crashes and discords. A new point of view had been opened up to me and I was not critical. I was aroused; MOTHER EARTH had interested me.

Now I have been reading MOTHER EARTH for two years. It is on my desk regularly along with many other kinds of magazines. When I turn to it I invariably recall

.e

one of its editorials in which it characterized itself "as a voice crying in the wilderness." Certainly its point of view is different; assuredly the manner and the method of its material is different. Here one finds the appeals of labor-cases which are usually slighted; the "other side" of many newspaper stories; through it one may keep in touch with the doings of its leaders (though Anarchists will object to that word!)

But I do not feel that it is a lone voice, nor that it cries in the wilderness. True the distresses of the times cannot be estimated; but try as we will, it is hard to feel life is all rain. If it were, how come we to know the light? Miss Goldman has succeeded in establishing an organ for her propaganda. Quarrel as you will with it, it has vitality and exerts influence.

The magazine is not Miss Goldman's ideal as her friends know. Many comments can be made on it; I, for one, find much I disagree with. At home in a comfortable armchair, I often think it "extreme." And that is just the reason why I read it.

AN ancient writer of some authority once defied an unbelieving world in the following language:

"Behold ye despisers and unbelievers,—and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it under you."

Slightly paraphrased, this language might well be used by the sturdy publisher of MOTHER EARTH, to describe her efforts and her achievement in keeping that magazine up to its high standard of excellence, during the ten years last passed. MOTHER EARTH has thus far made a very valuable contribution to the radical movement. No one can understand just how valuable that contribution is who is not a reader of the magazine. It has earned for itself a distinct place in the literary and radical world. The next ten years should see its influence and its usefulness multiplied many-fold.

I

THE GREAT DEBACLE

By E. ARMAND

AM asked to write an article for MOTHER EARTH

for its tenth anniversary. I do it gladly, for since it first appeared I have followed its career with a lively interest. I do not write this as a compliment, such as one makes a person one wishes to please. The proof of my interest in MOTHER EARTH is shown by the articles and extracts I have translated and published from it. I have before me, at this moment, a collection of the most recent numbers of the French publications which I have been editing the past fifteen years. I need only glance through them to find these articles. Here, taken at hazard, are "The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation," by Emma Goldman; "The Dominant Idea," by Voltarine de Cleyre-two remarkable essays; "Tendencies of Modern Literature," by Zuckerman; "The Story of Annie," by Elizabeth Boole; a study of "Moses Harmon." by James F. Morton; another on "Manuel Pardinas," by Pedro Esteve. Then again I find a "Proclamation," by W. Curtis Swabey, and a poem, "The Revolt of the Ragged," by Adolf Wolff. I pass by, I need hardly mention, numerous quotations, etc., I have made. I believe this is eloquent testimony to my interest in MOTHER EARTH.

I confess that I would like to write at greater length, and put more of joy into this contribution. I know the struggles and difficulties and opposition that a publication like MOTHER EARTH encounters. To have resisted and existed so long in a country like the United States is a victory to be acclaimed by songs of triumph. But my mind is too preoccupied and my heart too torn to express the joy this anniversary calls forth. One subject only haunts me and torments me: the unquestionable bankruptcy of the movement of advanced ideas in our old Europe.

I do not belong either to the Socialists, or the Anarchist Communists, and their attitude did not surprise me very much. I have already seen too many turncoats and apostates. And the Individualists are not exempt. Stili I confess that my imagination did not come up to the reality.

I ask myself if I am not dreaming when I see this Revolutionist abandoning the class struggle for the time being to assist in the national defense; and that Anarchist, as a diplomat emissary to neutral States, to put before them a scheme that will precipitate a gigantic conflict between millions of men. On the billboard opposite is an official poster, on which appears the names of high ecclesiastical dignitaries, the most reactionary men in the public eye, fused with the most ardent of the Socialist Deputies and the most popular leaders of Syndicalism. One need only read the letter of resignation of Pierre Monatte, of the Council of the Confederation du Travail to see whether I exaggerate.

I must say that the attitude of the intellectuals is not more encouraging. Among literary men, until now known as anti-nationalists; among scholars, renowned for their pacificism, one can count on one's fingers those who have protested against the war-fury let loose on Europe by the sinister International of War. Nearly all of them -the religious and the free thinkers, atheists and monks, those who incline toward the pen, and those who depend on speech-nearly all have joined the fighters. What a collapse !

I know well enough that revolutionists in neutral countries are writing and proclaiming the ideas of the old International of the workers, protesting against this stand of which I write, and are dreaming of revolution after the war. First of all, one may say, that it is not a great virtue to write like this in a neutral country, where one is quite sheltered, and one might ask what the attitude of the protestants would be if their country were drawn into the conflict. It is quite evident that those who favor the idea of insurrection ignore completely the state of mind of our opponents. One must be blind not to perceive that such a movement would have no chance of success. There exists a repression, worse perhaps, than that which crushed the Commune of 1871. It gives the governments an easy opportunity to impose silence without a chance to reply to the rare spirits who may have resisted in the first general disorder. It is on this handful of men that the mass of those who may escape from shot and sharpnel, excited by the paid press, will perhaps avenge them

selves at the end of the war, for having been kept so long from home.

As it was impossible to prevent the massacre, and as it is impossible to stem it, much as we would, I believe that we ought to ask if we have not been deceiving ourselves until now about the value of our propaganda, as well as the way we have gone about it.

And here I wish, in all sincerity, to give the results of my experiences and my reflections.

I believe that the anti-authoritarian propaganda is at present incapable of touching and profoundly rousing a great number of men. I think that a movement of the masses has no chance to make itself felt without being strongly organized, disciplined like the military. I think that, generally speaking, human beings can not get along with authority. I think, too, that without a strongly centralized organization, it will be impossible to alter our economic conditions.

I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among men, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research.

On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.

But we will not be able to keep alive a vigorous spirit of revolt in this small minority, if we give our propaganda a purely negative tendency, a tendency frankly destructive. Too often we do not stop to inquire where their preconceived ideas have disappeared when we give them a social morality of "a future society," a mature economic system-all of which is more than remote. Too often we have wished "to reconstruct their minds, without waiting to see whether "the destruction" was complete. It is our greatest fault.

Many of those with whom we come in contact believe in extra-natural ideas, in abstract aspirations, in far off results, in joys, not based on the senses, many, who would not wish to make a clean sweep of notions of "rights" and "duties" against the State and Society in