To those unfamiliar with the movement, the various terms are confusing.
Anarchism is, in truth, a sort of Protestantism, whose adherents are a
unit in the great essential belief that all forms of external authority
must disappear to be replaced by self-control only, but variously
divided in our conception of the form of future society. Individualism
supposes private property to be the cornerstone of personal freedom;
asserts that such property should consist in the absolute possession of
one's own product and of such share of the natural heritage of all as
one may actually use. Communist-Anarchism, on the other hand, declares
that such property is both unrealizable and undesirable; that the common
possession and use of all the natural sources and means of social
production can alone guarantee the individual against a recurrence of
inequality, and its attendants, government and slavery. My personal
conviction is that both forms of society, as well as many
intermediations, would, in the absence of government, be tried in
various localities, according to the instincts and material condition of
the people, but that well founded objections may be offered to both.
Liberty and experiment alone can determine the best forms of society.
Therefore I no longer label myself otherwise than as "Anarchist" simply.
I would not, however, have the world think that I am an "Anarchist by
trade." Outsiders have some very curious notions about us, one of them
being that Anarchists never work. On the contrary, Anarchists are nearly
always poor, and it is only the rich who live without work. Not only
this, but it is our belief that every healthy human being will, by the
laws of his own activity, choose to work, though certainly not as now,
for at present there is little opportunity for one to find his true
vocation. Thus I, who in freedom would have selected otherwise, am a
teacher of language. Some twelve years since, being in Philadelphia and
without employment, I accepted the proposition of a small group of
Russian Jewish factory workers to form an evening class in the common
English branches. I know well enough that behind the desire to help me
to make a living lay the wish that I might thus take part in the
propaganda of our common cause. But the incidental became once more the
principal, and a teacher of working men and women I have remained from
that day. In those twelve years that I have lived and loved and worked
with foreign Jews I have taught over a thousand, and found them, as a
rule, the brightest, the most persistent and sacrificing students, and
in youth dreamers of social ideals. While the "intelligent American" has
been cursing him as the "ignorant foreigner," while the short-sighted
workingman has been making life for the "sheeny" as intolerable as
possible, silent and patient the despised man has worked his way against
it all. I have myself seen such genuine heroism in the cause of
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