Page:The Agitator Volume 2 Issue 04.djvu/4

THE AGITATOR

To Be Held In Reading's Acadamy Twenty third and Jackson Seattle, Dec. 31st.

1. Members are warned that the prosperity and happiness of the colony depends upon their frequent and persistent violation of these laws.

2. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. But ignorance is encouraged, as it is easier to get you in the meshes.

3. No lawyers, juries or witnesses will be permitted in our courts. They cause unnecessary delay, are expensive and often defeat the ends of justice. Our judge knows his business and is up to date. You are guilty if brought before him. You will be arrested on suspicion and convicted beyond reasonable doubt

4. No peasant is allowed to have both hands in his or her pockets at the same time. This law cannot be construed to mean your neighbor's pockets.

5. Adam was tempted with an apple. We have added an orange. If you fall before either, a five cent fine ora half hour in prison for yours, If you carry away the whole show we will send you to the U. S. Senate.

6. You may make all the noise you wish provided it means nothing real. Talk freely about salvation, astronomy and even revolution—in Russion or Borneo, but speak not of atheism, anarchism, socialism, or industrialism; nor of a revolution in this colony. For this is a free community and such talk is treason to our court.

7. Peasants caught spooning will be instantly arrested and shackled with the bonds of matrimony.

8. To embrace a maiden is to marry her. Kissing is also a crime punishable by marriage. Alter marriage it is not a crime to kiss for she is ours; and one can do what he likes with his own.

9. Besides his blessing which is wind, the parson or rabbi who knots you will give a special promism, a ring, which is a sound.

10. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Divorce is inmoral and sinful. The only cure for marriage is more marriage. Marry another, marry again.

11. If these laws do not suit you, they suit the judges, police, and parsons who rule over you. So it is all right—for them.

By Order of the King

Once more the sword of the United States is suspended over the Mexican people's neck. "The Mexicans are incapable of self-government," say all the adventurers who wish to make millions by exploiting the labor and natural wealth of Mexico.

Madero has promised to hand over to Americans the liberties of Mexico; and, in addition, the land, the woods, the mines, the waters, all Mexico itself. Naturally, the Americans are on Madero's side.

The Mexican people are taking possession of their on country's natural wealth; and this fact, coupled with the revolutionary effervescence now clearly observable, has caused the American speculator to cry to heaven and proclaim that Mexico should be acquired by the United States, at any price.

Madero being naturally weak, as Diaz was, is seeking the aid of the American government, that he may maintain himself in power. To this end it has been necessary for him to agree to the American bourgeoisie's demand for slavery in Mexico. And the compact has been made! To the conscience of the criminal what are the sufferings, the despair and the blood of fifteen millions? Did he not at the very first, sell out the revolution for $20,000.00? He longs to rule—the miserable wretch! and be has been manacling with chains of gold the hands of whoever had it in his power to raise a revolutionary force and stuffing with gold the snout of every man who had the ability to shout a protest. He has been tearing out the hearts of all who some day, might have unsheathed the dagger of a Brutus.

The promises Madero has made to the American speculator can be realized only under a bourgeois peace; a peace of the bayonet and the dungeon; a peace guaranteed by the judge and by the hangman.

Capital needs peace to make its profits and it sees, with the sinking heart of a usurer unable to get his claws into his neighbor's pockets, that peace is more distant than it ever was. Madero is impotent to bring into submission all the elements opposing him. He would play the dictator, the strong man with the hand of iron, and the result is that he is a nutshell floating aimlessly upon a storm-tossed sea. In his despair, in his utter dejection, he begs from the Colossus of the North what the Mexican people will not give him—its support. He does as Diaz did.

The people are not rebelling for the pleasure of rebelling. The revolutionist is not tearing the life out of his enemies for the satisfaction of witnessing a spectacle of bloodshed. The revolutionist applies the torch, but not, as did the Roman emperor, for the sake of enjoying the shifting colors of the flames and following with his eye the black spirals of smoke as they are blown hither and thither by the wind.

The Mexican people are in arms because they must play the game to the finish in order to save themselves and future generations from that economic slavery whence spring all tyrannies. Neither Madero nor any other man can give the people what they need—Bread. They can decree liberty of speech, liberty of assembly, liberty of conscience, etc., etc.; but who can decree the abolition of misery? No one. No one; because it would be a decree at which the rich would laugh. The abolition of misery means the abolition of the rich man's right to retain in his possession the land, the machinery of production and the means of transportation. All this the rich man will not let go of from kindheartedness, but only through being forced.

The people of Mexico, with a judiciousness that does them honor, have come to realize that their salvation—that is to say, the death of misery and the conquest of liberty—does not depend on the establishing a government, but, purely and simply, on laying hands on what the rich withhold and on making the property of a few the property of all. In rising in arms the people of Mexico are exercising a legitimate right; the right of rebelling against all that oppresses them, against all that makes them suffer, against all that is opposed to their development and progress. What right has the American government to intervene in matters that are not its own?

We long for liberty and well-being; we have no desire to be slaves; we wish to be free, and free in an effective manner; and, inasmuch as is because of this the Revolution is prolonging itself—since a true Revolution cannot be brought to a termination within a single year—Mexico's exploiters are now urging their government to hurl itself against human beings who are struggling and sacrificing themselves solely for the betterment and advancement of their lot.—From the Spanish of Richard Flores Magon.

"Social Forces in American History," by A. M. Simons. (The Macmlllan Co., N. Y., $1.50 net.)

Things have come to a pretty pass in this cold materialistic age when even the beautiful romance called history cannot escape the dissecting table of the realists.

All the guilded American heroes of my schoolboy days have been ruthlessly snatched from their pedastals and dashed in the dirt at my feet by this cruel materialistic historian.

He brazenly tells us that the Boston tea party, "of glorious memory," was organized by a gang of smugglers, headed by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose business was destroyed when the English Government abolished the tax on tea.

Among numerous other unromantic things he tells us that Washington, the truthful model of my youth, was a land thief, and hints that his patriotic fervor in helping to ferment the revolution may have been influenced by his desire to cover up his stealings. And all I can do by way of defending my heroes is to call names, for he surely has "the goods" on the entire lot.

Well, if I must be disillusioned, I may as well accept my fate as stoically as possible. It is not the first time the veil of romance has been torn from my eyes; and though the operation was painful, I am now thankful.

So I say to you, Simons: Bravo, you have not only done your work completely, you have done it scholarly and well.

It is an omenous sign of the new times when the working class has begun to rewrite history. For this book is really a short history of the United States, written from a working class, or materialistic viewpoint. It has all the earmarks of painstaking study and will be a revelation to everyone who has been feeding from the trough of capitalistic historians.

It cannot be too highly recommended. Every working class library should have it. Every student of working class economics should read it. It majr be obtained through The Agitator. J. F.

A new story by Ralph Connor

Will appear serially in

A thrilling tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

HENDERSON BAY ROUTE—Steamer Tyconda leaves Commercial Dock, Tacoma, for all points on Henderson Bay, including Home, week days at 2:30 p. m., returning next morning. Sunday at 8 a. m., returning same day.

NORTH BAY ROUTE—Steamer Tyrus leaves Commercial Dock, Tacoma, for all points on North Bay every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 a. m., returnigreturning [sic] next morning.

LORENZ BROS.,

Seattle: Lavroff's stand, 617 3rd Ave.; Raymer's old book store, 1522 First Ave.

Lynn, Mass.: S. Yaffee, 233 Union Street.

New York City B. Vaselevshy, 212 Henry Street; M Maisel, 422 Grand Street

Winnipeg, Manitoba: Elkins' news stand, 796 Maitn St

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