Page:Essays on the Social Problem.pdf/16

 If "bread is freedom," then the greatest conquest of all time, the conquest which is paramount and most urgent, is the conquest of bread. A conquest that will sweep away all forms of oppression and, giving full freedom to all, thrill the world with new life and send it onward to unknown realms of progress, peace and pleasure.

"Let the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing," but so sure as the rolling seasons bring their changes in the appearance of the earth's surface, just so surely will the Anarchist propaganda bring a change in social and economic arrangements. When we have conquered the powers of State we have only made masters of former slaves. The conquest of bread will rid the world of both masters and slaves.

The fear of crime and the question of punishment are two bugbears that stand in the pathway of a good many individuals, when they contemplate the proposition of setting men free from State interference. The same bugbear frightened the conservatives when skepticism began to question the correctness of christian dogmas. Not longer than twenty years ago men stood in the pulpit and boldly asserted that without the fear of hell to restrain them men would rush head-long into all manner of crime and vice, and pitiable indeed would be the world. Today such assertions are received by all intelligent persons with a smile of derision. It is now known that the fear of hell is but a poor preventative of crime. But true, by the history of mental evolution, most minds have transferred their faith in the fear of hell as a preventative of crime, to the fear of punishment here and now. One is as foundationless as the other.

Minds beclouded by ignorance and besotted by superstition may be so terrified by vivid descriptions of eternal tortures as to quake at the thought of committing crime, or may be restrained from some acts by fear of punishment, but as knowledge sheds its light abroad, all restraint by fear vanishes. Bright minds are not horrified by threats of hell, and are always ready to take chances on evading the law, and thus escape punishment if they desire to do that which the law prohibits.

To deal with the question of crime, with any hope of solving the problem, it is necessary to inquire into the cause of crime. Those who depend on the fear of hell believe in the depravity of the human race; in the myth of "the fall of man" by the sin of Adam. The upholders of the State, of punishment to prevent crime, may deny a belief in this fallacy, but their attitude shows that the idea still dominates their thoughts. They never inquire why men commit crime, in fact they seldom even stop to enquire what crime is, or what effect punishment has on the one punished. All they want is to retaliate, to practice revenge, and to set an example to other erring ones, hoping thereby to deter them from committing crime.

But let us inquire into the cause of crime and the right of punishment.

Has any one the right to punish another? If so, where do they get the right? If individuals have no right to punish others, what right has the State? If the State has the right to punish, from whence comes that right? I deny the right of the State, or of an association of individuals to punish anyone. I call for any argument that can be brought forward to substantiate the right of punishment, and know of none save the "might makes right" argument.

Many acts are called crimes, and defined as such by law that I will not admit are crimes. I deny that it is criminal for anyone to take possession of any unused natural opportunity and use it. I cannot call it a crime for anyone to take that which they need for their own use, or the use of those dependent upon them, when such taking is necessary to support the life of the one doing the taking or those dependent upon him or her. There are many other things commonly called crimes, that I will not admit are crimes, but that I will not stop to discuss.