Page:Anarchism- Its Aims and Methods (Yarros, 1887).pdf/30



an inability to distinguish between form and substance. Defining government as compulsory regulation, no voluntary arrangement of free individuals, however despotic in form, can logically be classed under that head. The Anarchists condemn all attempts to coerce people into any line of conduct which outsiders may deem beneficial, and protest against the arrogant claim of one set of individuals to direct the course of other sets of non-aggressive individuals. But they, as Anarchists, are entitled to choose any mode of practical organization which they may regard as answering their purposes and capable of carrying out their aims. The Anarchists have learned from a varied and long experience—and are also supported in their conclusion by theoretical reasoning—that meetings are best conducted, are more orderly and harmonious, when the chairman, rather than the audience, has the final deciding power. Accordingly they adopted this policy, which, of course, they can abandon or modify at any time by changing the constitution. The chairman, to be sure, follows general instructions of the Club, and is allowed to exercise his own judgment only in extraordinary cases which are not covered by the instructions.]

—The choice of a chairman at a regular business meeting, as provided in Article VI., may be cancelled at a special business meeting by a three-fourths' vote of the members voting, provided each member of the Club has been notified by the Secretary-Treasurer that such a proposition is to come before the meeting; and in case the three-fourths' vote shall be obtained, the Club shall at once choose some other member, by a majority of the members voting, to act as chairman until the next regular business meeting. The Secretary-Treasurer may be removed from office and a new one chosen in his stead at any meeting of the Club, by a majority of the members voting, provided each member of the Club has been notified by the Secretary-Treasurer that such a proposition is to come before the meeting.