 The Invitation and the Inviter by Soren Kierkegaard From Preparation for a Christian Life, published in 1850, translated by Lee M. Hollander in 1923 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Invitation and the Inviter Let us forget for a little while what in the strictest sense constitutes the offense, which is that the Inviter claims to be God. Let us assume that he did not claim to be more than a man, and let us then consider the Inviter and his invitation. The invitation is surely inviting enough, how then shall one explain the bad relation which did exist, this terribly wrong relation, that no one, or practically no one, accepted the invitation, that on the contrary all, or practically all, alas, and was it not precisely all who were invited, that practically all were at one and offering resistance to the Inviter, in wishing to put him to death, and in setting a punishment on accepting aid from him? Should one not expect that after an invitation such as he issued all, all who suffered would come crowding to him, and that all they who were not suffering would crowd to him, touched by the thought of such compassion and mercy, and that thus the whole race would be at one in admiring and extolling the Inviter? How is the opposite to be explained? For that this was the outcome is certain enough, and the fact that it all happened in those remote times is surely no proof that the generation then living was worse than any other generations. How could anyone be so thoughtless as to believe that? For whoever gives any thought to the matter will easily see that it happened in that generation only because they chance to be contemporaneous with him. How then explained that it happened, that all came to that terribly wrong end, so opposite of what ought to have been expected? Well, in the first place, if the Inviter had looked the figure which purely human compassion would have him be, and in the second place, if he had entertained the purely human conception of what constitutes man's misery, why then it would probably not have happened? In the first place, according to this human conception of him, he should have been a most generous and sympathetic person, and at the same time possessed of all qualifications requisite for being able to help in all troubles of this world, ennobling the help thus extended by a profound and heartfelt human compassion. With all, so they would imagine him, he should also have been a man of some distinction, and not without a certain amount of human self-assertion, the consequence of which would be, however, that he would neither have been able, in his compassion, to reach down to all sufferers, nor yet to have comprehended fully what constitutes the misery of man and of mankind. But, divine compassion, the infinite unconcern which takes thought only of those that suffer, and not in the least of oneself, and which with absolute unconcern takes thought of all that suffer, that will always seem to men only a kind of madness, and they will ever be puzzled whether to laugh or to weep about it. Even if nothing else had militated against the Inviter, this alone would have been sufficient to make his lot hard in the world. Let a man betray a little while to practice divine compassion, that is, to be somewhat unconcerned in his compassion, and you will at once perceive what the opinion of mankind would be, for example. That one who could occupy some higher rank in society, let him not, preserving all the while the distinction of his position lavishly give to the poor, and philanthropically, that is, in a superior fashion, visit the poor and the sick and the richid. No, let him give up altogether the distinction of his position, and in all earnest choose the company of the poor and the lowly. Let him live altogether with the people, with workmen, hodmen, mortar-mixers, and the like. Ah, in a quiet moment, when not actually beholding him, most of us would be moved to tears by the mere thought of it. But no sooner would they see him in this company, him who might have attained to honor and dignity in the world. See him walking along in such goodly company with a bricklayer's apprentice on his right side and a cobbler's boy on his left. But, well, what then? First they would devise a thousand explanations to explain that it is because of queer notions, or obstinacy, or pride, or vanity, that he chooses this mode of life. And even if they would refrain from attributing to him these evil motives, they will never be reconciled with the sight of him in this company. The noblest person in the world will be tempted to laugh the moment he sees it. And if all the clergymen in the world, whether in velvet, or in silk, or in brah cloth, or in satin, contradicted me, I would say, You lie, you only deceive people with your Sunday sermons, because it will always be possible for a contemporary to say about one so compassionate, who it is to be kept in mind is our contemporary. I believe he is actuated by vanity, and that is why I laugh and mock at him. But if he were truly compassionate, or had I been contemporary with him, the noble one, why then? And to now as to those exalted ones, who were not understood by men, to speak in the fashion of the usual run of sermons. Why, sure enough, they are dead. In this fashion these people succeeded in plain hide and seek. You simply assume that every contemporary who ventures out so far is actuated only by vanity. And as to the departed, you assume that they are dead, and that they, therefore, were among the glorious ones. It must be remembered, to be sure, that every person wishes to maintain his own level in life, and this fixed point, this steady endeavor, is one of the causes which limit human compassion to a certain sphere. The cheese monger will think that to live like the inmate of a poor house is going too far in expressing one's sympathy, for the sympathy of the cheese monger is biased in one regard, which is his regard of the opinion of other cheese mongers, and of the saloon keepers. His compassion is therefore not without its limitations, and thus with every class. And the journalists, living as they do on the pennies of the poor under the pretense of asserting and defending their rights, they would be the first to heap ridicule on this unlimited compassion. To identify oneself wholly and literally with him who is most miserable, and this only this is divine compassion. That is to men, the too much, by which one is moved to tears in a quiet Sunday hour, and about which one unconsciously bursts into laughter when one sees it in reality. The fact is, it is too exalted a site for daily use, one must have it at some distance to be able to support it. Men are not so familiar with exalted virtue to believe it at once. The contradiction seen here is, therefore, that this exalted virtue manifests itself in reality in daily life, quite literally the daily life. When the poet or the orator illustrates this exalted virtue, that is, pictures it in a political distance from real life, men are moved, but to see this exalted virtue in reality, the reality of daily life here in Copenhagen, on the market square, in the midst of busy everyday life. And when the poet or the orator does touch people, it is only for a short time, and just so long as men are able to believe almost in this exalted virtue. But to see it in real life every day, to be sure, there is an enormous contradiction in the statement that the most exalted of all has become the most everyday occurrence. Insofar, then, it was certain in advance what would be the inviter's fate, even if nothing else had contributed to his doom. The absolute, or all which makes for an absolute standard, becomes by that very fact the victim. For men are willing enough to practice sympathy and self-denial, are willing enough to strive for wisdom, etc., but they wish themselves to determine the standard, and to have that read, to a certain degree. They do not wish to do away with all these splendid virtues. On the contrary, they want, at a bargain, and in all comfort, to have the appearance and the name of practicing them. Truly divine compassion is therefore necessarily the victim so soon as it shows itself in this world. It descends on earth out of compassion for mankind, and yet it is mankind who trample upon it. And whilst it is wandering about among them, scarcely even the sufferer dares to flee to it for fear of mankind. The fact is it is most important for the world to keep up the appearance of being compassionate, but this it made out by divine compassion to be a falsehood, and therefore away with divine compassion. But now the inviter represents precisely this divine compassion, and therefore he was sacrificed, and therefore even those that suffered fled from him, for they comprehended, and humanly speaking very exactly what is true of most human infirmities, that one is better off to remain what one is than to be helped by him. In the second place, the inviter likewise had an other and altogether different conception than the purely human one as to what constitutes man's misery, and in this sense only he was intent on helping, for he had with him neither money nor medicine nor anything else of this kind. Indeed, the inviter's appearance is so altogether different from what human compassion would imagine it, that he is a downright offense to men. In a purely human sense there is something positively cruel, something outrageous, something so exasperating as to make one wish to kill that person. In the fact of his inviting to him the poor, and the sick, and the suffering, and then not being able to do anything for them, except to promise them remission of their sins. Let us be human, man is no spirit, and when a person is about to die of starvation, and you say to him, I promise you the gracious remission of your sins, that is revolting cruelty, in fact it is ridiculous, though too serious a matter to laugh about. Well, for encoding these sentiments I wish merely to let offended man discover the contradiction and exaggerate it. It is not I who wish to exaggerate. Well then, the real intention of the inviter was to point out that sin is the destruction of mankind. Behold now, that makes room, as the invitation also made room. Almost as if he had said, Prochol, o Prochol este profane, or as if, even though he had not said it, a voice had been heard which thus interpreted the come hither of the invitation. There surely are not many sufferers who will follow the invitation, and even if there were one who, although aware that from this inviter no actual worldly help was to be expected, nevertheless had sought refuge with him, touched by his compassion, now even he will flee from him. For is it not almost a bit of sharp practice to profess to be here out of compassion, and then to speak about sin? Indeed, it is a piece of cunning, unless you are altogether certain that you are a sinner. If it is a toothache which bothers you, or if your house is burned to the ground, but if it has escaped you that you are a sinner, why then it was cunning on his part. It is a bit of sharp practice of him to assert, I heal all manner of disease, in order to save when one approaches him. The fact is, I recognize only one disease, which is sin. Of that I shall cure all them that labor, and are heavy laden, all them that labor to work themselves free from the power of sin, that labor to resist the evil, and to vanquish their weaknesses, but succeed only in being heavy laden. In this melody he cures all persons, even if there were but a single one who turned to him because of this melody, he heals all persons. But to come to him on account of any other disease, and only because of that, is about as useful as to look up an eye doctor when you have fractured your leg. End of The Invitation and the Inviter by Soren Kierkegaard Merit writes from the book Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland with sketches of the Irish past, written by Lady Wilde. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. In old times in Ireland it was thought right and proper to seem to use force in carrying off the bride to her husband. She was placed on a swift horse before the bridegroom, while all her kindreds started in pursuit with shouts and cries. Twelve maidens attended the bride, and each was placed on horseback behind the young men who rode after the bridal pair. On arriving at her future home, the bride was met on the threshold by the bridegroom's mother, who broke an oat and cake over her head as a good augury of plenty in the future. In the mountains where horses cannot travel, the bridal party walk in procession. The young men carrying torches of dried bogwood to light the bridge over the ravines, for in winter the mountain streams are rapid and dangerous to cross. The Celtic ceremonial of marriage resembles the ancient Greek ritual in many points. A traveller in Ireland some fifty years ago, before politics had quite killed romance and ancient tradition in the hearts of the people, thus describes a rustic marriage festival which he came on by chance one evening in the wilds of Cary. A large hawthorn tree that stood in the middle of a field near a stream was hung all over with bits of coloured stuff, while lighted rush candles were placed here and there amongst the branches, to symbolise no doubt the new life of brightness preparing for the bridal pair. Then came a procession of boys marching slowly with flutes and pipes made of hollow reeds, and one struck a tin can with a stick at intervals with a strong rhythmical cadence. This represented the plectrum. Others rattled slates and bones between their fingers and beat time after the manner of the Croto Lystry, a rude attempt at music which appears among all nations of the earth, even the most savage. A boy followed bearing a lighted torch of bogwood. Evidently he was hymn and the flame of love was his cognizance. After him came the betrothed pair hand in hand, a large square canopy of black stuff being held over their heads, the emblem of chorus of the mystery of love shrouded and veiled from the prying light of day. Behind the pair followed two attendants bearing high over the heads of the young couple, a sea filled with meal, a sign of the plenty that would be in their house and an omen of good luck in the blessing of children. A wild chorus of dancers and singers closed the procession, the chorus of the epithelium, and grotesque figures, probably the traditional fawns and satyrs, nymphs and bacchanales mingled together with mad laughter and shouts and waving of green branches. The procession then moved on to a bonfire, evidently the ancient altar. Having gone round it three times the black trout was lifted from the bridal pair and they kissed each other before all the people who shouted and waved their branches in approval. Then the preparations for the marriage supper began, on which however the traveler left them, having laid some money on the altar as an offering of good will for the marriage future. At the wedding supper there was always plenty of eating and drinking, and dancing in the feast were prolonged till near morning when the wedding song was sung by the whole party of friends standing while the bride and bridegroom remained seated at the head of the table. The chorus of one of these ancient songs may be thus literally translated from the Irish. It is not day, nor yet day. It is not day, nor yet morning. It is not day, nor yet day, for the moon is shining brightly. Another merit song was sung in Irish frequently, each verse ending with the lines, there is sweet enchanting music, and the golden harps are ringing, and twelve comely maidens decked the bride bed for the bride. A beautiful new dress was presented to the bride by her husband at the marriage feast, at which also the father paid down her dowry before the assembled guests, and all the place round the house was lit by torches when night came on, and the song and the dance continued till daylight with much speech-making and drinking of poutine. All fighting was steadily avoided at a wedding, for a quarrel would be considered a most unlucky omen. A wed day was also held to be very unlucky, as the bride would assuredly weep for sorrow throughout the year. But the bright warm sunshine was hailed joyfully, according to the old saying, Happy is the bride that the sun shines on, but blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on. End of Merit Rites by Lady Wild Memorandum from the Undersecretary of State President Johnson, June 18, 1965, by George W. Ball. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Washington, June 18, 1965. Subject, Keeping the Power of Decision in the South Vietnam Crisis. The Need to Keep Control Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, Things are in the saddle and ride mankind. Your most difficult continuing problem in South Vietnam is to prevent things from getting into the saddle, or in other words, to keep control of policy and prevent the momentum of events from taking command. The best formula for maintaining freedom of decision is A, to limit our commitments in time and magnitude, and B, to establish specific time schedules for the selection of optional courses of action on the basis of pre-established criteria. Two, outline of specific proposals. The North Vietnamese are apparently using the monsoon season as a test period to determine whether they can impose enough local defeats to demoralize the South Vietnamese and discourage the United States. I propose that we also treat the monsoon season as a test period, since we do not yet have enough experience with the direct employment of American combat forces to appraise our chances for military successes in the South. But in launching a vigorous effort to halt the Viet Cong Offensive during the monsoon period, you should at the same time make it clear to your key advisors that, at the conclusion of that period, we will take a serious look at our accumulated experience and decide whatever long-range course of policy or action is indicated. For the fact is, and we can no longer avoid it, that in spite of our intentions to the contrary, we are drifting toward a major war that nobody wants. I recommend therefore the following program. 1. Decide now to authorize an increase of American forces in South Vietnam to an aggregate total of 100,000 but no more additional forces. These should be deployed as rapidly as possible in order to deal with the Viet Cong Offensive during the rainy season. 2. Instruct your top advisors, limited in this case for security reasons, to the secretaries of state and defense and possibly also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. A. That you are not committing U.S. forces on an open-ended basis to an all-out land war in South Vietnam. B. That instead you are making a controlled commitment for a trial period of three months. C. That on the basis of our experience during that trial period, we will then appraise the costs and possibilities of waging a successful land war in South Vietnam and chart a clear course of action accordingly. D. That during the test period in publicly stating American aims and purposes, American spokesmen should emphasize our willingness to stay in South Vietnam so long as we are wanted. A qualification that has tended to become submerged in recent months. And E. That in carrying out this limited decision, your advisors should, during the three months period, press the war on the ground in South Vietnam as vigorously as possible, while seeking quietly and effectively to avoid those longer-term actions and commitments that would reduce your freedom of decision at the end of the period. 3. Direct your top advisors to prepare the following plans. A. A plan for continuing the land war in South Vietnam on a stepped-up basis. B. A plan for conducting a vigorous diplomatic offensive designed to bring about a political settlement. And C. Plans for bringing about a military or political solution short of the ultimate U.S. objectives that can be attained without the substantial further commitment of U.S. forces. These last should be regarded as plans for cutting losses and eventually disengaging from an untenable situation. The reasoning underlying these proposals and the manner in which they might be carried out are elaborated in the balance of this memorandum. 3. Where we are now on the threshold of a new war. In raising our commitment from 50,000 to 100,000 or more men and deploying most of the increment in combat roles, we are beginning a new war, the United States directly against the Viet Cong. Perhaps the large-scale introduction of American forces with their concentrated firepower will force Hanoi and the Viet Cong to the decision we are seeking. On the other hand, we may not be able to fight the war successfully enough, even with 500,000 Americans in South Vietnam to achieve this purpose. Before we commit an endless flow of forces to South Vietnam, we must have more evidence than we now have that our troops will not bog down in the jungles and rice paddies while we slowly blow the country to pieces. A review of the French experience more than a decade ago may be helpful. The French fought a war in Vietnam and were finally defeated after seven years of bloody struggle and when they still had 250,000 combat-hardened veterans in the field, supported by an army of 205,000 South Vietnamese. To be sure, the French were fighting a colonial war while we are fighting to stop aggression. But when we have put enough Americans on the ground in South Vietnam to give the appearance of a white man's war, the distinction as to our ultimate purpose is less and less practically fact. Nor is our position in Vietnam without its historical ambiguities. From 1948 to 1954, we identified ourselves with the French by providing almost $4 billion of United States aid to help the French in Indochina wage war against the Viet Minh. As soon as our aid contributions began to mount, the Viet Minh denounced American imperialism. This campaign of denunciation was continued over the radio and through other propaganda media after the French withdrew and we began to help President Diem. Today no one can say for certain how many Vietnamese are for us or against us. We have trouble collecting intelligence because few Vietnamese are willing to risk their necks to aid the American effort. And our popularity will diminish even further as we are forced to indulge in more and more area bombing, crop burning, etc. Ever since 1961, the beginning of our deep involvement in South Vietnam, we have met successive disappointments. We have tended to underestimate the strength and staying power of the enemy. We have tended to overestimate the effectiveness of our sophisticated weapons under jungle conditions. We have watched the progressive loss of territory to Viet Cong control. We have been unable to bring about the creation of a stable political base in Saigon. This is no one's fault. It is in the nature of the struggle. The French had much the same experience. They quoted the same kind of statistics that guide our opinions. Statistics as to the number of Viet men killed, the number of enemy defectors, the rate of enemy desertions, etc. They fully believed that the Vietnamese people were on their side, and their hopes received intermittent shots of adrenaline from a succession of projects for winning the war, the De La Tray De Tassigny Plan, the Salon Plan, the Navarre Plan, etc. This does not mean that we cannot succeed where the French did not. We have things running for us that the French did not have, but we cannot yet be sure, and that is the reason for the trial period. For we have not so far seen enough evidence to be sure that the South Vietnamese forces will stand up under the heightening pressure, or in fact that the Vietnamese people really have a strong will to fight after 20 years of struggle. We cannot be sure how far the cancer has infected the whole body politic of South Vietnam, and whether we can do more than administer a cobalt treatment to a terminal case. Yet the more forces we deploy in South Vietnam, particularly in combat roles, the harder we shall find it to extricate ourselves without unacceptable costs if the war goes badly. With large forces committed, the failure to turn the tide will generate pressures to escalate. There will be mounting domestic demands that we expand our air attacks on the North so as to destroy Hanoi and Hai Phong. Yet, if our air attacks threaten the total destruction of the North Vietnamese economy, Red China can hardly help but react. And our best Soviet experts do not believe that the Soviet Union could stand down in the event that we became involved directly with the Chinese. Four. Courses of action to be followed depending on results of test period. A. Actions if the fight goes well. If, on a careful appraisal of all the evidence accumulated during the test period, you are satisfied that the United States military power can stop and throw back the Viet Cong without unacceptable United States losses you are then in position to decide on a longer-term aggressive strategy of which the elements would be A. To commit whatever forces needed to do the job in South Vietnam as quickly and cheaply as possible B. To continue our air attacks on North Vietnam but avoiding the Hanoi-Hai Phong complex and keeping well south of the Chinese border C. To renew your assurances to the South Vietnamese and the world of our intention to stay the course and D. To initiate the Atchison Plan and increase our diplomatic probes through third parties and a judicious use of pauses while encouraging efforts of friendly countries to bring the North Vietnamese to the conference table All of this is, of course, contingent on the continued maintenance of a minimum level of political stability in Saigon B. Actions if the fight goes badly If the evidence accumulated during the test period provides no reasonable assurance that the United States can conduct a successful land war in South Vietnam without a vast protracted effort you should seek means of limiting the American commitment and finding a political solution at a level below the total achievement of our declared objectives There are several ways of achieving this none fully satisfactory but a good general picks his own terrain and is prepared to execute tactical redeployments when events require it Similarly, it is a part of good statesmanship to cut losses when the pursuit of particular courses of action threaten, A, to lead to a costly and indeterminate result or B, to produce an escalation of violence that could result in a major war The technique of cutting our losses requires intensive study No one has yet looked at the problem carefully since we have been unwilling to think in those terms I would suggest, however, that there are several alternative possibilities which should be carefully examined A, reducing our military commitment The first is to devise a plan for limiting the defensive perimeter within South Vietnam to the cities and major towns particularly those having access to the sea This would deny to the Viet Cong the administrative, commercial and industrial heart of the country B, letting nature take its course A second approach is subtly to withdraw moral and political support from the government in Saigon In this way, the non-communist and neutralist forces might be encouraged to work out some sort of compromise with the Viet Cong Such an operation would require great finesse However, the Saigon government is becoming more and more a fiction In real terms, South Vietnam has an army but no government While putting in train any operation of disengagement we should, of course, simultaneously take steps to strengthen our position in Thailand and to create a diplomatic atmosphere around the world that would minimize the costs of U.S. withdrawal To do this, we would rely heavily on the qualified nature of our commitment to help defend the South Vietnamese so long but only so long as they wished our help C, Other Possibilities As a third possibility, we might consider variant means by which there might emerge a South Vietnamese determination to go it alone One approach might be to encourage our friends to call for elections in South Vietnam in order to permit self-determination by a people engaged in civil war Another might be to let our friends crank up During the past weeks, we have concentrated on seeking a political solution that would fully meet our stated objectives in South Vietnam Such a solution will not be feasible so long as the Viet Cong are winning or believe they are winning Since we cannot yet be sure that we will be able to beat the Viet Cong without unacceptable costs it would be prudent to undertake an additional study of the political means to achieve less than a satisfactory solution or, in other words, a solution involving concessions on our side as well as the Viet Cong The above suggestions are of the most preliminary kind I am sure that other possibilities could be developed End of Memorandum from the Under Secretary of State to President Johnson, June 18, 1965 by George W. Ball Paper by the Under Secretary of State, July 1, 1965 by George W. Ball This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Paper by the Under Secretary of State Washington, Undated A Compromised Solution for South Vietnam 1. A Losing War The South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Viet Cong No one can assure you that we can beat the Viet Cong or even force them to the conference table on our terms no matter how many hundred thousand white foreign U.S. troops we deploy No one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever size can win a guerrilla war which is at the same time a civil war between Asians in jungle terrain in the midst of a population that refuses cooperation to the white forces and the SVN and thus provides a great intelligence advantage to the other side Three recent incidents vividly illustrate this point A. The sneak attack on the Denang Air Base which involved penetration of a defense perimeter guarded by 9000 Marines This raid was possible only because of the cooperation of the local inhabitants B. The B-52 raid that failed to hit the Viet Cong who had obviously been tipped off C. The search and destroy mission of the 173rd Airborne Brigade which spent three days looking for the Viet Cong suffered 23 casualties and never made contact with the enemy who had obviously gotten advance word of their assignment Two. The question to decide Should we limit our liabilities in South Vietnam and try to find a way out with minimal long-term costs? The alternative, no matter what we may wish it to be is almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment of U.S. forces mounting U.S. casualties an assurance of a satisfactory solution and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road Three. Need for a decision now So long as our forces are restricted to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese the struggle will remain a civil war between Asian peoples Once we deploy substantial numbers of troops in combat it will become a war between the United States a large part of the population of South Vietnam organized and directed from North Vietnam and backed by the resources of both Moscow and Peking The decision you face now therefore is crucial Once large numbers of U.S. troops are committed to direct combat they will begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill-equipped to fight in a non-cooperative, if not downright hostile, countryside Once we suffer large casualties we will have started a well-nigh irreversible process Our involvement will be so great that we cannot without national humiliation stop short of achieving our complete objectives Of the two possibilities I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives even after we had paid terrible costs Four. A compromise solution Should we commit U.S. manpower and prestige to a terrain so unfavorable as to give a very large advantage to the enemy? Or should we seek a compromise settlement which achieves less than our stated objectives and thus cut our losses while we still have the freedom of maneuver to do so? Five. Costs of compromise solution The answer involves a judgment as to the costs to the United States of such a compromise settlement in terms of our relations with the countries in the area of South Vietnam the credibility of our commitments and our prestige around the world In my judgment, if we act before we commit substantial U.S. forces to combat in South Vietnam, we can, by accepting some short-term costs avoid what may well be a long-term catastrophe I believe we have tended greatly to exaggerate the costs involved in a compromise settlement An appreciation of probable costs is contained in the attached memorandum Tab A Six. With these considerations in mind I strongly urge the following program A. Military program One. Complete all deployments already announced Fifteen battalions but decide not to go beyond the total of seventy-two thousand men represented by this figure Two. Restrict the combat role of American forces to the June 9 announcement making it clear to General Westmoreland that this announcement is to be strictly construed Three. Continue bombing in the north but avoid the Hanoi-Haifeng area and any targets nearer to the Chinese border than those already struck B. Political program One. In any political approaches so far we have been the prisoners of whatever South Vietnamese government was momentarily in power If we are ever to move toward a settlement it will probably be because the South Vietnamese government pulls the rug out from under us and makes its own deal Or because we go forward quietly without advance pre-arrangement with Saigon Two. So far we have not given the other side a reason to believe that there is any flexibility in our negotiating approach and the other side has been unwilling to accept what in their terms is complete capitulation Three. Now is the time to start some serious diplomatic feelers looking towards a solution based on some application of the self-determination principle Four. I would recommend approaching Hanoi rather than any of the other probable parties the National Liberation Front, Moscow or Pei Ping Hanoi is the only one that has given any signs of interest in discussion Pei Ping has been rigidly opposed Moscow has recommended that we negotiate with Hanoi The National Liberation Front has been silent Five. There are several channels to the North Vietnamese but I think the best one is through their representative in Paris, Mai Van Bo Initial feelers with Bo should be directed toward a discussion both of the four points we have put forward and the four points put forward by Hanoi as a basis for negotiation We can accept all but one of Hanoi's four points and hopefully we should be able to agree on some ground rules for serious negotiation including no preconditions Six. If the initial feelers lead to further secret exploratory talks we can inject the concept of self-determination that would permit the Viet Cong some hope of achieving some of their political objectives through local elections or some other device Seven. The contact on our side should be handled through a non-governmental cutout possibly a reliable newspaper man who can be repudiated Eight. If progress can be made at this level the basis can be laid for a multinational conference At some point obviously the government of South Vietnam will have to be brought on board but I would postpone this step until after a substantial feeling out of Hanoi Nine. Before moving to any formal conference we should be prepared to agree that once the conference is started A. The United States will stand down its bombing of the North B. The South Vietnamese will initiate no offensive operations in the South and C. The DRV will stop terrorism and other aggressive acts in the South Ten. Negotiations at the conference should aim at incorporating our understanding with Hanoi in the form of a multinational agreement guaranteed by the United States the Soviet Union and possibly other parties and providing for an international mechanism to supervise its execution George W. Baal Attachment A. Probable reactions to the cutting of our losses in South Vietnam We have tended to exaggerate the losses involved in a compromise settlement in South Vietnam There are three aspects of the problem which should be considered First, the local effect of our action on nations in or near Southeast Asia Second, the effect of our action on the credibility of our commitments around the world Third, the effect on our position of world leadership A. Effect on nations in or near Southeast Asia Free Asian reactions to a compromise settlement in South Vietnam would be highly parochial with each country interpreting the event primarily in terms of A. Its own immediate interest B. Its sense of vulnerability to communist invasion or insurgency and C. Its confidence in the integrity of our commitment to its own security based on evidence other than that provided by our actions in SVN Within this framework, the following groups emerge One, the Republic of China and Thailand, staunch allies whose preference for extreme U.S. actions including a risk of war with communist China, sets them apart from all other Asian nations Two, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines, equally staunch allies whose support for strong U.S. actions short of a war with communist China would make post-settlement reassurance oppressing U.S. need Three, Japan, an ally that would prefer wisdom to valor in an area remote from its own interests where escalation could involve its Chinese or Russian neighbors or both Four, Laos, a friendly neutral dependent on a strong Thai U.S. guarantee of support in the face of increased Vietnamese Pathet Lao pressures Five, Burma and Cambodia, suspicious neutrals whose fear of antagonizing communist China would increase their leaning toward Peking in a conviction that the U.S. presence is not long for Southeast Asia And six, Indonesia, whose opportunistic marriage of convenience with both Hanoi and Peking would carry it further in its covert aggression against Malaysia convinced that foreign imperialism is a fast-fading entity in the region Of these varied reactions, the critical importance of Japan and Thailand calls for more detailed examination Japan. According to our embassy, Japanese public opinion is largely unreceptive to our interpretation of the situation in Vietnam Many, if not most Japanese, consider that the U.S. is endeavoring to prop up a tottering government that lacks adequate indigenous support Public media stressed the Civil War aspects of the struggle, portray Hanoi's resistance as determined and justified and question our judgment as to the dangers of an eventual war with communist China The government, as such, supports our strong posture in Vietnam but stops short at the idea of a war between the U.S. and China Governmental leadership can, to a considerable extent, influence the public reaction in Japan Government cooperation would, therefore, be essential in making the following points to the Japanese people One, U.S. support was given in full measure, as shown by our casualties, our expenditures, and our risk-taking And two, the U.S. record in Korea shows the credibility of our commitment so far as Japan is concerned Thailand Thai commitments to the struggles in Laos and South Vietnam are based upon a careful evaluation of the regional threat to Thailand's security The Thais are confident that they can contain any threats from Indochina alone They know, however, that they cannot withstand the massive power of communist China without foreign assistance Unfortunately, the Thai view of the war has seriously aired in fundamental respects They believe American power can do anything, both militarily and in terms of shoring up a Saigon regime They now assume that we really could take over in Saigon and win the war if we felt we had to If we should fail to do so, the Thais would initially see it as a failure of U.S. will Yet time is on our side, provided we employ it effectively Thailand is an independent nation with a long national history and, unlike South Vietnam, an acute national consciousness It has few domestic communists and none of the instability that plagues its neighbors, Burma and Malaysia Its one danger area in the northeast is well in hand so far as preventive measures against insurgency are concerned Securing the Mekong Valley will be critical in any long-run solution, whether by the partition of Laos with Thai U.S. forces occupying the western half Or by some cover arrangement Provided we are willing to make the effort, Thailand can be a foundation of rock and not a bed of sand On which to base our political-military commitment to Southeast Asia South Korea As for the rest of the Far East, the only serious point of concern might be South Korea But if we stop pressing the Koreans for more troops to Vietnam The Vietnamese show no desire for additional Asian forces since it affronts their sense of pride We may be able to cushion Korean reactions to a compromise in South Vietnam by the provision of greater military and economic assistance In this regard, Japan can play a pivotal role now that it has achieved normal relations with South Korea B. Effect on the credibility of our commitments around the world With the exception of the nations in the Southeast Asian area, a compromise settlement in South Vietnam should not have a major impact on the credibility of our commitments around the world Quite possibly, President Degas will make propaganda about perfidious Washington, but even he will be inhibited by his much heralded disapproval of our activities in South Vietnam Chancellor Erhard has told us privately that the people of Berlin would be concerned by a compromise settlement in South Vietnam But this was hardly an original thought, and I suspect he was telling us what he believed we would like to hear After all, the confidence of the West Berliners will depend more on what they see on the spot than on news of events halfway around the world They have much to gain by the prevention of a confrontation between East and West elsewhere and by the gradual developments of a spirit of entente that might pave the way for ultimate reunification In my observation, the principal anxiety of our NATO allies is that we have become too preoccupied with an area which seems to them an irrelevance and may be tempted to neglect our NATO responsibilities Moreover, they have a vested interest in an easier relationship between Washington and Moscow By and large, therefore, they would be inclined to regard a compromise solution in South Vietnam more as new evidence of American maturity and judgment than of American loss of face These would be the larger and longer-term reactions of the Europeans In the short run, of course, we could expect some cat-calls from the sidelines and some vindictive pleasure on the part of Europeans' jealous of American power But that would, in my view, be a transient phenomenon with which we could live without sustained anguish Elsewhere around the world, I would see few unhappy implications for the credibility of our commitments No doubt the communists will try to gain propaganda value in Africa, but I cannot seriously believe that the Africans care too much about what happens in Southeast Asia Australia and New Zealand are, of course, special cases since they feel lonely in the far reaches of the Pacific Yet even their concern is far greater with Malaysia than with South Vietnam And the degree of their anxiety would be conditioned largely by expressions of our support for Malaysia See, effect on our position of world leadership On balance, I believe we would more seriously undermine the effectiveness of our world leadership by continuing the war and deepening our involvement Than by pursuing a carefully plotted course toward a compromise solution In spite of the number of powers that have, in response to our pleading, given verbal support from feelings of loyalty and dependence We cannot ignore the fact that the war is vastly unpopular and that our role in it is perceptibly eroding the respect and confidence with which other nations regard us We have not persuaded either our friends or allies that our further involvement is essential to the defense of freedom in the Cold War Moreover, the more men we deploy in the jungles of South Vietnam, the more we contribute to the growing world anxiety and mistrust End of Paper by the Undersecretary of State by George W. Ball Reminescences of a Liverpool Ship Owner by Sir William B. Forwood This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Chad Horner from Ballyclair in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, situated in the northeast of the island of Ireland Reminescences of a Liverpool Ship Owner by Sir William B. Forwood Chapter 1, The Passing of the Sailing Ship The old sailing ship, with all the romance which surrounds it, must long linger in the affectionate regard of all British people as the greater of our great overseas trade and the builder-up of our commercial prosperity The sailing ship was the mistress of the seas for centuries. She founded our maritime supremacy was the conveyor of the first fruits of our manufacturing industry to the ends of the world and enabled us to train a race of sailors unequaled for their skill, courage and patriotism who, in times of national peril, have protected our homes and safeguarded the freedom of the world Liverpool owes her greatness as a city and her position as the first port in the world to her shipping Possessing the only deep-water heave on the west coast, she naturally became the port of shipment for the manufacturers of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Directly our export trade began to develop The beginnings of the shipping trade were small, for in 1751 there were only 220 vessels belonging to the port The opening up of the American trade in 1756 gave a great impetus to shipping It was destined, however, to receive a serious check by the World Wide War which started in 1756 and was waged almost continuously for 60 years The first of its long series of wars known as the Seven Years War, 1756 to 1761, was followed by 12 years of peace and it was during this time that our trade with America made its greatest headway The war of independence with America, which broke out in 1773, proved most disastrous to Liverpool It paralysed our trade, and there was dire distress in the town it is recorded Our docks are, in the mournful sight, full of gallant ships laid up and useless This unhappy war lasted seven years, but perhaps the most terrible period for our shipping was in 1810 when America, feeling herself crushed between the upper and the neither milestone of Napoleon's mastery in England's supremacy by sea, declared war and threw her strength into privateering The result to the trade of Liverpool was most disastrous The number of ships entered the port fell from 6,729 in 1810 to 4,599 in 1812 When in 1815 peace was again brought about, there was a most rapid recovery in business in every direction Our British arms, which had been victorious in the Great War on the continent of Europe had also made our country supreme at sea Foreign shipping had almost disappeared, and our shipping trade reaped An enormous advantage, our tonage rapidly increasing The period from 1815 to 1860 may be termed the Halcyon days, the British ship And the period from 1850 to 1880 witnessed the passing of the sailing ship With the passing of the sailing ship, we have lost many interesting and attractive features The attitude of the ship owner has entirely changed His quiet, leisurely occupation has gone, and with it much that was picturesque and gave pleasure and enjoyment With the advent of the steamer, a new era opened up, characterised by the hustle of increased activity Speed is the criterion aimed at, calling for constant and strenuous work The ship owner of the Golden Days had time to take a deep personal interest in the upkeep of the ship He strolled down from his office almost daily to the dock where she was lying Of the sixty-four, sixty-fourth shares into which the ownership was divided He probably owned at least one half This gave him a very real concern in his ship's welfare He watched and supervised her construction with the same solicitude as he would the building of his own house And when completed, she took up her loading birth In the princes or salthouse dock, all fresh painted, the rigging tarred down The rat lines all taut and evenly spaced Every rope and hosser carefully coiled down and in its place It was excusable if the owner viewed his ship with some pride A large poster displayed in the ship's rigging Announced the port for which she was taking cargo and the date of sailing, a date which was never kept She remained in dock week after week while her cargo gradually trickled down This long delay involved a loss of interest in earning power And also a serious loss of interest to the owners of cargo shipped by her Mr. Donald Curry, when he left the Canard Company Made up an unary of five or six ships for the Calcutta trade And was anxious that Jardine, Skillimer and Company of Calcutta should take the agency at that port But they had suffered so much from the delay of their cargo's That they made it a condition of their acceptance That Mr. Curry should strictly adhere to his advertised dates of sailing And certainly he had no cause to regret it For particularly Jardine's loaded his ships with their own goods And Mr. Curry's fleet rapidly increased This was the beginning of fixed days of sailing from Liverpool Which are now almost universal Although the pleasure of a ship owner was more personal And greater in the days gone by It was accompanied by much anxiety And the risks were greater than those of today A wooden ship was liable to decay And the periodical surveys by Lloyd's were times of much concern They might expose some defect which might involve The stripping and rebuilding of the port affected The highest class at Lloyd's, A1, for 13 years, soon ran out And the continuation of the class always involved many repairs The preparation of a captain's instructions prior to the commencement of a voyage Entailed much thought, every contingency had to be provided for There were no cables by which subsequent instructions could be sent Or the owner consulted Cargo's at the loading ports were uncertain And the change of ports in blast had to be provided for The most carefully worded instructions often failed To provide for the very contingency which happened Or more frequently the captain did some stupid thing The owner was in dread, lest his ship should find No homeward cargo and have to shift ports Or lest she be damaged or dismasted And put into some remote port not contemplated in his instructions He had visions of heavy repair bills and bottomary bonds Sailing ship owning was profitable to those who possessed high class ships But I cannot recall many fortunes made out of softwood ships The cost of their maintenance and repair being so heavy In a brief resume of the history of the sailing vessel It is not necessary to pass in review the early steps taken in the evolution of a ship For ship owning did not assume a possession of any importance before the year 1600 When, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the East India Company was founded The East India Company's first ships were vessels of from 300 tonnes to 600 tonnes They were all heavily armed and only conveyed the cargo's belonging to the company The John Company was highly successful And that the clues of the 18th century had not only a large fleet of ships But also possessed a large portion of the continent of India The ships of the company were remarkable vessels They were frigid-built, large carriers and stately looking But badly designed, very slow, required a large quantity of ballast And their cost was about £40 per ton Involvement in design and equipment was very slow There existed no incentive to improvement The profit made was derived mainly from the cargo's they carried And it has been said that the improvements made in British shipping From the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Victorian era Were so gradual as to be perceptible only when measured by centuries When we speak of the ships of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries We cannot but be surprised to find how slight were the improvements made during these 300 years During the latter half of the 18th century the finest ships were constructed in France And at that period the best ships in the British Navy were those captured from the French The Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and Great Britain Signed in 1814 marks the beginning of a new era in the history of shipping The progress, however, for some years was slow Design and construction were hindered by our obsolete tonnage laws Which encouraged the building of a very undesirable type of ship Meanwhile America was going ahead, not only did she produce more ships But they were well designed and equipped and it was the general opinion That the American ship was superior to the British ship When in 1832 the monopoly of the East India Company came to an end And the commerce of the Orient was thrown open to all British ships There was at once an effort made to establish British shipping on a broader and more substantial basis The opening of the China and East India trades gave rise to that competition Which had been so long dormant and without which there can be little incentive to improvement The American trade gave the first and great impetus to ship owning in Liverpool The famous New York packets, the pioneer black ball line were established in 1816 This line consisted at first of vessels of from 300 to 500 tons register These little ships with their full bodies and bluff bows made wonderful passages Approaching 23 days outwards and 43 days homewards They were for many years the only means of communication between this country and the United States The dramatic line was started in 1836 with vessels of about 700 tons And it is noteworthy that the Sheridan of 895 tons built the following year For this line was found to be too large for the Liverpool trade The trade rapidly grew and the packet ships gradually increased in tonnage In 1846 the new world was built of 1400 tons As a child I recollect being taken down to the dock to see this ship as being the largest sailing ship in the world And many still living will remember the Isaac Webb, the Albert Gallatin, the Guy Manoring and the Dead Knot The ships of the black ball line and the dramatic line were grand ships and made very wonderful passages There are three outstanding events which greatly contributed to the improvement of British shipping And may be said to mark the beginning of our great maritime position The establishment in 1834 of Lloyd's Register The founding in 1846 of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade And in 1849 repeal of the Navigation Laws These laws devised originally for the protection of British shipping And to secure for it a certain monopoly the carrying trade had become antiquated And a hindrance to its development It was not high ever until we found the commerce of the world was largely being carried by American ships Which were faster and better built that an agitation was started to abolish those laws There was considerable opposition to their repeal And the first result was not encouraging There was a decrease in the tonnage of British ships entering our ports And a large increase in foreign tonnage, especially of American And although this created a feeling of despondency And gave rise to the fear that we had lost forever our premier position in the overseas carrying trade It really proved a great stimulus to enterprise and renewed exertion And not many years elapsed before we had regained and more than regained our position in the shipping world To America belongs the credit of introducing the clipper ship which was specially designed to make rapid passages The discovery of gold in California created a great rush And there was a gigantic movement of human beings by land and by sea The land journey across America was long and hazardous And this gave rise to a large emigration by sea And the necessity for providing a class of ship which would be able to make rapid passages This the old fashioned frigid built ship was unable to do The era of the clipper ship may be said to date from 1848 When gold was first discovered in California The building of these ships in America proceeded rapidly And in four years 160 were built They were the swiftest ships the world had ever seen Making the voyage from New York to San Francisco in from 100 to 220 days They were remarkable for their fine lines, lofty spars And great sail carrying capacity The discovery of gold in California in 1848 was quickly followed By the discovery of gold in Australia in 1851 And a rush of immigration immediately set in which had been carried by sailing ships The regular traders were small vessels with very limited passenger accommodation So ship owners very quickly turned their attention to the clipper ships built in New England and in New Brunswick Which had been so successful in the Californian trade The first clipper ship constructed for the Australian trade was the Marco Polo of 1622 tonnes She was built in 1851 at St. John's for James Baines and company of Liverpool And she was the pioneer of the famous Australian black ball line The Marco Polo was a handsome ship built with a considerable rise of flour And a very fine after-end and carrying a large spread of canvas She made some remarkable passages under the command of Captain Forbes I did not hesitate to shorten the distance his ship had to travel by sailing on the Great Circle A going very far south The Marco Polo may be said to have set the pace in the Australian trade She was quickly followed by such renowned ships as Delightning, the James Baines, the Sovereign of the Seas And the passages of these ships created as much public interest as those of our Atlantic Greyhounds do today We had also the White Star Line of Australian Clippers Which owned the red jacket, the blue jacket and the chariot of fame The red jacket made the record passage of 64 days to Melbourne And was one of the most famous of the American bill clippers Although America could claim to have intergised the clipper ship or English ship builders were not much behind And the tea trade with China offered great rewards for speed And the ship landing the first cargo of the new teas earned a very handsome premium The competition was therefore very keen These tea clippers were very beautiful vessels of about 800 to 1000 tons of quite an original type And unlike the American clipper they relied for their speed more upon the symmetry of their lines than upon the large sail area They had less beam and less freeboard than the American clipper And as their voyages necessitated a good deal of windward work This was made their strong point of sailing and probably they will never be excelled in this The names of the Falcon, the Fiery Cross, the Lord of the Isles will still dwell in the memory of many In 1865 a memorable race took place between ten celebrated tea clippers and the eveness of their performances was remarkable The times of the passages of the first five from the anchorage in China to Dile varied from 99 to 101 days And the prize ten shillings per tonne was divided between the taping and the aerial The one arriving first at Dile and the other being the first to dock in London There were similar races every year which always aroused great interest The greatest development in sailing ships was brought about by the substitution of iron for wood in their construction The iron ship among other advantages could be of larger size was more durable and less costly in maintenance And in 1863 a notable further improvement was made when in the Liverpool ship Seaforth Stale lower masts, top masts and top sailyards and also standing rigging of stale wire were introduced And about the same time double top sailyards were adopted We are apt to make light of the great increase in American shipping since the late war And think that the competition of America will not last and will not be serious We should however not forget how large a portion of the world's carrying trade by sea was done by America Prior to her civil war in 1863 and the excellence of her ships The tariffs she imposed after this war killed her shipping and made shipbuilding except for her coast-wise trade impossible The result of the late war has been to make the cost of shipbuilding nearly as great in this country as in America And she will certainly make a serious bid for her share of the trade With the passing of the old sailing ship we have lost much that was picturesque and much that appealed to sentiment The river Mersey at the top of high water filled with sailing craft of all kinds From the great Australian clipper down to the Dutch Galiad or the British loop with her brine sails presented a panorama which has no equal today And called forth thoughts of adventure on pearls by the sea which a great Atlantic liner or even the modest coasting steamer failed to suggest Although they may speak to us in the spirit of the times of that security and speed which has brought the very ends of the earth together This short sketch of the old sailing ship days would be incomplete without alluding to the position of the sailor which was far from satisfactory His life was hard and very rough he usually lived in the forecastle which was close and dumb The chain cables passed through it to the chain muggers below The host pipes had often ill-fitting wooden plugs and when the ship plunged into a head sea the forecastle was flooded There was no place for the men to dry their clothes and no privacy Their food was salt-tac and it was no wonder that they enjoyed their nudging of rum These were however days before we had the luxury of preserved provisions for househouses But the old British tar came of a hardy good-humoured race I have seen them when off Cape Horn take marling spikes aloft to knock the house off the top sail And merrily singing one of their chanties while they tied in a cloaks reef The pay of a sailor was small three pounds a month for an A, B And when they returned home from a voyage they were pounced upon by the boarding housekeepers Who did not let them out of their clutches while they had any money left The neighbourhood of our sailor's home was a perfect hell, a scene of debauchery from morn to night The sailor had no chance and when he sailed again he had no money to buy any decent of warm clothes Thanks to such philanthropists as the late Samuel Smith, Alexander Balfour and Monsignor Nugget This reproach to Liverpool was after a great and long fight removed And the interests of the sailor are today safeguarded in every way by the Board of Trade And greater interest is exhibited in his welfare by the ship owner While thus recording the conditions of a seaman's life We must not forget that the conditions of life generally were much harder and rougher than those of today And the sailor had many compensating advantages when at sea It was while he was in port that he required safeguarding End of chapter one, The Passing of the Sailing Ship by Sir William B. Forwood The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution An address to live in Paris by Pierre Cropodkin, translated by Henry Glass Read by ACR Thornton This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution Part 1 You must often have asked yourselves what is the cause of anarchism And why, since there are already so many socialist schools Is it necessary to found an additional one? That of anarchism In order to answer this question, I will go back to the close of last century You all know the characteristics which marked that epoch There was an expansion of intelligence A prodigious development of the natural sciences A pitiless examination of accepted prejudices The formation of a theory of nature based on a truly scientific foundation Observation and reasoning In addition to these, there was a criticism of political institutions Bequeathed to humanity by preceding ages And a movement towards the ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity Which has in all times been the ideal of the popular masses Fettered in its free development by despotism And by the narrow selfishness of the privileged classes This movement, being at the same time favoured by an explosion of popular indignation Engended the great revolution Which had to force its way through the midst of a thousand obstacles Both without and within The revolution was vanquished, but its ideas remain Though it first persecuted and derided They became the watchword for a whole century of slow evolution The history of the 19th century is summed up in an effort to put in practice The principles elaborated at the last century This is the lot of revolutions Though vanquished, they established the course of the evolution which follows them In the domain of politics, these ideas are the abolition of aristocratic privileges Abolition of personal government and equality before the law In the economic order, the revolution proclaimed freedom of business transactions It said, quote, The above is at least the theory of the revolution of 1789 And if the state intervenes in the struggle to favour some to the detriment of others As we have lately seen when the monopolies of mining at railway companies Have been under discussion Such action is regarded by the liberal school As a lamentable deviation from the grand principles of the revolution What has been the result? You know only too well Both men and women, idle opulence for a few And uncertainty for the morrow and misery for the greater number Crisis and wars for the conquest of markets And a lavish expenditure of public money To find openings for industrial speculators All this because in proclaiming liberty of contract An essential point was neglected by our fathers Not but what some of them called sight of it The best of them earnestly desired But did not dare to realise it While liberty of transactions, that is to say A conflict between the members of society, was proclaimed The contending parties were not equally matched And the powerful armed for the contest By the means inherited from their fathers Have gained the upper hand over the week Under such conditions the millions of poor Raged against the few rich Could not do otherwise than give in Comrades, you have often asked yourself Quote, whence comes the wealth of the rich? Is it from their own labour? It would be mockery to say that it was so Let us suppose that Mr Rothschild Has worked all his life Well you also, every one of you working men Have also laboured Then why should the fortune of Mr Rothschild Be measured by the hundreds of millions While your possessions are so small The reason is simple You have exerted yourselves to produce by your own labour While Mr Rothschild Has devoted himself to accumulating the product Of the labour of others The whole matter lies in that But someone may say to me Quote, how comes it that millions of men Thus allow the Rothschild and the Mackays To appropriate the fruit of their labour End quote Alas they cannot help themselves Under the existing social system But let us picture to our minds A city all of whose inhabitants find their lodging Clothing, food and occupation Secured to them on the condition Of producing things useful to the community And let us suppose a Rothschild To enter the city bringing with him A cast full of gold If he spends his gold It will diminish rapidly If he locks it up it will not increase Because gold does not grow like seed And after the lapse of 12 months He will not find 110 pounds in his drawer If he only put 100 pounds into it If he sets up a factory And proposes to the inhabitants of the town That they should work in it For four shillings a day While producing to the value of eight shillings a day End quote Among us you'll find no one Willing to work on those terms Go elsewhere and settle in some town Where the unfortunate people have neither clothing Bread nor work assured to them And where they will consent to give you The lion's share of the result of their labour In return for the barest necessities of life Go where men starve There you will make your fortune End quote The origin of the wealth of the rich Is your misery Let that be no poor Then we shall have no millionaires The fact I have just stated Was such as the revolution of the last century Did not comprehend or else Could not act upon That revolution placed face to face With two opposing ranks The one consisting of a hungry Ill-clad army of former serfs The other of men well provided With means It then said to those two armies Quote Fight out your battle End quote The unfortunate were vanquished They possessed no fortunes But they had something more precious Than all the gold in the world Their arms And these arms, the source of all wealth Were monopolised by the wealthy Thus we have seen those immense fortunes Which are the great characteristic feature Of our age spring up on all sides A king of the last century Quote The great Louis XIV Of mercenary historians Would never have dreamed of possessing a fortune Such as are held by those kings Of the 19th century The Vanderbilts and the Mackays On the other hand We have seen the poor reduced still more And more to toil for others And while those who produced On their own account have rapidly disappeared We find ourselves compelled Under an ever-increasing pressure To labour more and more To enrich the rich Attempts have been made to remove these evils Some have said, quote Let us give equal instruction to all End quote And forthwith education Has been spread abroad Better human machines have been turned out But these educated machines Still labour to enrich others This illustrious scientist That renowned novelist Despite their education Are still beasts of burden to the capitalist Instruction Improves the cattle to be exploited But the exploitation remains Next There was great talk about association But the workers soon learned That they could not get the better of capital By associating their miseries And those who cherished this illusion Most earnestly were compelled to turn to socialism Timid At the outset Socialism spoke at first The name of Christian sentiment and morality Men profoundly imbued With the moral principles of Christianity Principles which it possesses in common With all other religions came forward And said, quote A Christian has no right To exploit his brethren End quote But the ruling classes laughed In their faces with the reply, quote Teach the people Christian resignation Tell them in the name of Christ That they should offer their left cheek To whomsoever smites them on the right Then you will be welcome As for the dreams of equality Which you find in Christianity Go and meditate on your discoveries In prison, end quote Later on Socialism spoke in the name of governmentalism It said, quote Since it is the special mission Of the state to protect the weak against the strong It is the duty To aid working men's associations The state alone can enable Working men to fight against capital And to oppose the capitalistic Explanation of the free workshop of workers Pocketing the entire value Of the produce of their labour, end quote To this The bourgeoisie replied with the Grape Shot in 1848 It was not until between 20 to 30 years later At a time when the popular masses Were invited to express their mind In the International Working Men's Association That socialism spoke in the name of the people And formulating itself Little by little In the congresses of the great association And later on Among its successes Arrived at some such conclusion As the following All accumulated wealth Is the product of the labour of all Of the present And of all the preceding generations This hall in which we are now assembled Derives its value from the fact That it is situated in Paris This magnificent city built by the Labours of 20 successive generations If this same hall Were conveyed amid the snows of Siberia Its value would be next to nothing The machinery which you have invented And patented Bears with itself the intelligence Of five or six generations And is only possessed of value Because it forms part of that immense Hole that we call the progress Of the 19th century If you send your lace making machines Amongst the natives of New Guinea It will become valueless We defy any man of genius Of our times to tell us What share his intellect has had In the magnificent deductions of the book The work of talent Which he has produced Generations of toil to accumulate Facts for him His ideas have perhaps been suggested To him by a locomotive Crossing the plains Facts for elegance of design He has grasped it while admiring the Venus of Milo Or the works of Murillo And finally, if the book Exercises any influence over us It does so thanks to all the Circumstances of our civilization Everything belongs to all We defy anyone So ever to tell us What share of the general wealth Is due to each individual We see the enormous mass of The 19th century has created Behold those millions of iron slaves Which we call machines And which plain and sore Weave and spin for us Separate and combine the raw materials And work the miracles of our times No one has the right To monopolise any one of these Machines and to say to others Quote, this is mine If you wish to make use of it You must pay me tax on each article You produce, end quote Any more than the feudal lord Of the middle ages had the right To say to the cultivator, quote This hill and this meadow are mine And you must pay me tribute For every sheath of barley you bind And on each haycock you heap up, end quote All belongs to everyone And provided each man And woman contributes his And her share of labour For the production of necessary objects They have a right to share In all that is produced by everybody End of part one Part two All things belong to all And provided that men and women Contribute their fair share of labour For the production of necessary objects They are entitled to their share Of all that is produced by the community at large Quote, but this is communism End quote, you may say Yes, it is communism But it is the communism Which no longer speaks in the name of religion Or of the state But in the name of the people During the past fifty years A great awakening of the working class Has taken place The prejudice in favour of private property Is passing away The worker grows more and more accustomed To regard the factory, the railway Or the mine Not as a feudal castle Belonging to a lord But as an institution of public utility Which the public has a right To control The idea of possession in common Has not been worked out from the slow deductions Of some thinker buried in his private study It is a thought which is germinating In the brains of the working masses And when the revolution Which so close to this century Has in store for us Shall have hurled confusion Into the camp of our exploiters You will see that the mass of the people Will demand expropriation And will proclaim its rights to the factory, The locomotive, and the steamship Just as the sentiment of the inviolability Of the home has developed During the latter half of our century So also the sentiment Of the collective right to all that serves For the production of wealth Has developed among the masses It is a fact and he who, Like ourselves, wishes to share The popular life and follow its development Must acknowledge that this affirmation Is a faithful summary Of the people's aspirations The tendency of this closing century Is towards communism Not the monastic or barricade communism Formally advocated But the free communism Which places the products reaped Or manufactured in common At the free disposal of all Leaving to each the liberty To consume them as he pleases In his own home This is the solution of which The people demand At the most solemn epochs In 1848 the formula Quote From each according to his abilities To each according to his needs End quote Was the one which went Straight to the hearts of the masses And if they acclaimed the republic And universal suffrage It was because they hoped to attain To communism through them In 1871 also When the people besieged in Paris Desired to make a supreme effort To resist the invader What was their demand That free rations should be served Out to everyone Let all articles be put into one common stock And let them be distributed According to the requirements of each Let each one take freely Of all that is abundant And let those objects which are less plentiful Be distributed more sparingly And in due proportions This is the solution Which the mass of the workers understand best This is also the system Which is commonly practiced In the rural districts Of France So long as the common land Afford abundant pasture What commune seeks to restrict their use When brushwood And chestnuts are plentiful What commune forbids its members To take as much as they want And when the larger wood begins To grow scarce What cost does the peasant adopt The allouncing of individuals Let us take from the common stock The articles which are abundant And let those objects whose production Is more restricted be served out In allowances According to requirements Giving preference to children And old persons That is to say the weak And moreover let all be consumed Not in public but at home According to individual tastes And in company with one's family And friends This is the ideal of the masses But it is not enough to argue About communism and expropriation It is further more necessary To know who should have the management Of the common patrimony And it is especially on this question That different schools of socialists Are opposed to one another Some desiring authoritarian communism And others like ourselves Declaring unreservedly In favour of an anarchist communism In order to judge between these two Let us return once again To our starting point The revolution of the last century In overturning royalty The revolution proclaimed the sovereignty Of the people But by an inconsistency Which was very natural at the time It proclaimed not a permanent Sovereignty but an intermittent one To be exercised at certain intervals Only For the nomination of deputies Supposed to represent the people In reality it copied its institutions From the representative government Of England The revolution was drowned in blood And nevertheless representative government Became the watchword of Europe All Europe With the exception of Russia has tried it Under all possible forms From government based on a property Qualification Of the government of the little Swiss republics But strange to say Just in proportion as we have approached Nearer to the ideal of a representative government Elected by a perfectly Free universal suffrage In that same proportion have its Essential vices become manifest to us Till we have clearly seen That this mode of government Is radically defective It is not indeed absurd To take a certain number of men From out of the mass To the management of all public affairs Saying to them Attend to these matters We exonerate ourselves from the task By laying it upon you It is for you to make laws On all matter of subjects Armaments and mad dogs Observatories, chimneys Instruction and street sweeping Arrange these things as you please And make laws about them Since you are the chosen one Whom the people has voted capable Of doing everything End quote It appears to me that if a thoughtful and honest man Were offered such a post He would answer somewhat in this fashion Quote You entrust me with a task Which I am unable to fulfil I am unacquainted with most of the questions Upon which I shall be called on to legislate I shall either have to work To some extent in the dark Which will not be to your advantage Or I shall appeal to you To the meetings in which you will yourselves Seek to come to an understanding On the questions in issue In which case my office will be unnecessary If you have formed an opinion And have also formulated it And if you are anxious To come to an understanding with others Who have also formed an opinion On the same subject Then all you need to do is communicate With your neighbours and send a delegate To come to an understanding with other delegates On this specific question But you will certainly reserve to yourself The right of taking an ultimate decision You will not entrust your delegate With the making of laws for you This is how scientists and Businessmen act Each time they have to come to an agreement End quote But the above reply would be a repudiation Of the representative system And nevertheless it is a faithful Expression of the idea which is growing everywhere Since the vices of representative Government have been exposed In all their nakedness Our age however has gone Still further for it has begun To discuss the rights of the state And of society in relation to the individual People now ask What point the interference of the State is necessary in the Multitudinous functions of society Do we require a government To educate our children Only let the worker have Pleasure to instruct himself And you will see that through Parents and of persons fond of tuition Thousands of educational societies And schools of all kinds will spring up Rivaling one another In the excellence of their teaching If we were not crushed by Taxation and exploited by employers As we are now Could we not ourselves do much better Than is now done for us The great centres would initiate progress And set the example And you may be sure that the progress Realised would be incomparably superior To what we now attain through our ministries Is the state even necessary For the defence of a territory If armed brigands attack a people Is not the same people Armed with good weapons The surest rampart to oppose the foreign aggressor Standing armies are always beaten By invaders And histories teach us That the latter are to be repulsed By a popular rising alone While government is an excellent Machine to protect monocly Has it ever been able to protect us Against ill-disposed persons Does it not, by creating misery Increase the number of crimes Instead of diminishing them In establishing prisons into which Multitudes of men, women and children Are thrown for a time In order to come forth infinitely worse Than when they went in Does not the state maintain nurseries Of vice at the expense of taxpayers In obliging us to commit to others The care of our affairs Does it not create the most terrible vice Of societies In difference to public matters On the other hand If we analyse all the great advances Made in this century Our international traffic Our industrial discoveries Our means of communication Do we find that we owe them to the state Or to private enterprise Look at the network of railways Which cover Europe At Madrid, for example You travel along railroads Which have been constructed by millions of workers Set in motion by dozens of companies Your carriage is attached In turn to Spanish French, Bavarian And Russian locomotives You travel without losing 20 minutes Anywhere and the 200 francs You paid in Madrid Will be divided to a nicety Among the companies which have combined To forward you to your destination This line from Madrid To St. Petersburg Has been constructed in small isolated branches Which have been gradually connected And direct trains are the result Of an understanding which has been arrived at Between 20 different companies Of course There has been a considerable friction At the outset And at times some companies influenced By an unenlightened egotism Have been unwilling to come to terms With the others But, I ask For the occasional friction Or waits until some Bismarck Napoleon or Genghis Khan Should have conquered Europe Traced the lines with a pair of compasses And regulated the dispatch of the trains If the latter course had been adopted We should still be in the days Of the stagecoach The network of railways Is the work of the human mind Proceeding from the simple to the complex By the spontaneous efforts of the parties Interested That all the great enterprises of our age Have been undertaken It is quite true indeed That we pay too much to the managers Of these enterprises This is an additional reason for suppressing Their incomes, but not for confiding The management of European railways To a central European government What thousands of examples one could cite In support of the same idea Take all great enterprises such as The Suez Canal, the lines Of the Atlantic steamers The Telegraph, which connects us With North and South America Consider also That commercial organisation Which enables you on rising in the morning To find bread at the bakers That is, if you have the money to pay for it Which is not always the case nowadays Meet at the butchers And all other things that you want At other shops Is this the work of the state It is true that we pay A dear for middlemen This is, however, an additional reason For suppressing them But not for believing that we must Intrust the government with the care Of providing for our feeding and clothing If we closely scan The development of the human mind In our times, we are struck By the number of associations which spring Up to meet the varied requirements Of the individual of our age Societies for study, for commerce For pleasure and recreation Some of them very small For the propagation of the universal language Or for the certain method Of shorthand writing Others with large arms Such as that which has been recently Been established for the defence of the English coast Or for the avoidance of lawsuits And so on To make a list of the associations Which exist in Europe Volumes would be necessary And it would be seen That there is not a single branch Of an activity with which one Or other does not concern itself The state itself appeals to them In the discharge of its most Important function, war It says, quote We undertake to slaughter But we cannot take care of our victims Form a Red Cross society To gather up the wounded on the battlefield And to take care of them, end quote Let others, if they will Advocate industrial barracks Of the monastery of authoritarian communism We declare that the tendency Of society is in an opposite direction We foresee millions and millions Of groups freely constituting themselves For the satisfaction of all of the Varied needs of human beings Some of these groups organised by Quarter, street and house Others extending hands Across the walls of cities Over frontiers and oceans All of these will be composed Of human beings who will combine freely And after having performed their share Of the productive labour, we'll meet together Either for the purpose of consumption Or to produce objects of art or luxury Or to advance science in a new Direction This is the tendency of the 19th century And we follow it We only ask to develop it freely Without any governmental interference Individual liberty, quote Take pebbles, said Fourier Put them into a box and shake them And they will arrange them together And they will arrange them together And shake them And they will arrange themselves into a mosaic That you could never get by entrusting anyone the work Of arranging them harmoniously End, quote End of part two Part three Now let me pass to the third part of my subject The most important with respect to the future There is no more room for doubting That religions are going The 19th century has given them their death blow But religions, all religions Have a double composition They contain, in the first place A primitive cosmogony A rude attempt at explaining nature And they furthermore contain a statement Of the public morality born and developed Within the mass of the people But when we throw religions overboard Or store them among our public records As historical curiosities Shall we also relegate to museums The moral principles which they contain This has sometimes been done In the early 19th century There is no more room for doubt This has sometimes been done And we have seen people declare That as they no longer believe in the varied religions So they despised morality And boldly proclaimed The maximum bourgeois selfishness Quote, everyone for himself End, quote But a society, human or animal Cannot exist without certain Rules and moral habits springing up within it Religion may go Morality remains If we were to come to consider That a man did well in lying Deceiving his neighbours Or plundering them when possible This is the middle-class business morality We should come to such a pass That we can no longer live together You might assure me of your friendship But, perhaps You might only do so In order to rob me more easily You might promise to do a certain thing for me Only to deceive me You might promise to force me To deceive me You might promise to forward a letter for me And you might steal it just like an ordinary governor Of a jail Under such conditions Society would become impossible And this is so generally understood That the repudiation of religions In no way prevents public morality From being maintained, developed And raised to a higher and ever higher standard This fact Is so striking That philosophers would seek to explain it By the principles of utilitarianism And recently Spends a thought to base the morality Which exists upon us Upon physiological causes And the needs connected with the preservation Of the race Let me give you an example In order to explain to you What we think on the matter A child is drowning And four men who stand upon the bank See it struggling in the water One of them does not stir He is a partisan of the Quote Each one for himself The maxim of the commercial middle class This one is a brute And we need not speak of him further The next one reasons thus Quote If I save the child A good report of my action Will be made to the ruler of the heaven And the creator will reward me By increasing my flocks and my serfs End quote And thereupon he plunges into the water Is he therefore a moral man Clearly not He is a shrewd calculator That is all The third, who is an utilitarian Reflects thus Or at least utilitarian philosophers Represent him as so reasoning Quote End quote Admitting that any man ever reasoned thus Would he not be a terrible egotist And moreover Could we ever be sure That his sophisticated brain Would not at some given moment Cause his will to incline Towards an inferior pleasure That is to say, towards refraining From troubling himself There remains the fourth individual This man has been brought up from his childhood To feel himself one With the rest of humanity From his childhood He has always regarded men as possessing Interests in common He has accustomed himself to suffer When his neighbours suffer And to feel happy when everyone around him Is happy Directly, he hears the heart-rending cry Of the mother He leaps into the water Not through reflection but by instinct Saving her child, he says Quote You recognise in this case The truly moral man And feel that the others are only egotists In comparison with him The whole anarchist morality Is represented in this example It is the morality of a people Which does not look for the sun at midnight A morality without compulsion Or authority A morality of habit Let us create circumstances In which man shall not be led To deceive or exploit others And then by the very force of things The moral level of humanity Will rise to a height hitherto unknown Men are certainly not to be moralised By teaching them a moral catechism Tribunals and prisons Do not diminish vice They pour it over society and floods Men are to be moralised only By placing them in a position Which shall contribute to develop them In those habits which are social And to weaken those which are not so The morality which has become Instinctive is the true morality The only morality which endures While religions and systems of philosophy Pass away Let us now combine the three Leading elements And we shall have anarchy And its place in socialistic evolution Emancipation of the producer From the yoke of capital Production in common And free consumption of all the products Of the common labour Emancipation from the governmental yoke Free development of individuals In groups and federations Free organisation ascending From the simple to the complex According to mutual needs and tendencies Emancipation from religious morality Free morality Without compulsion or authority Developing itself from social life And becoming habitual The above is no dream of students It is a conclusion which results From an analysis of the tendencies Of modern society Anarchist communism is the union Of the two fundamental tendencies Of our society A tendency towards economic equality And a tendency towards political liberty So long as communism presented itself Under an authoritarian form Which necessarily implies government Armed with much greater power Than that which it possesses today In as much as it implies economic In addition to political power So long as that was the case Communism met with no sufficient response Before 1848 it could Indeed Sometimes excite for a moment The enthusiasm of the worker Who was prepared To submit to any Or powerful government Provided it would release him From the terrible situation In which he was placed But it left the true friends Of liberty indifferent Anarchist communism Maintains that most valuable Of all conquests Individual liberty And moreover extends it And gives it a solid basis Economic liberty Without which political liberty Indelusive It does not ask the individual Who has rejected God The universal tyrant God the king and God the parliament To give unto himself a God More terrible than any of the proceeding God the community Or to abdicate upon its altar His independence His will, his tastes And to renew the vow of asceticism Which he formerly made before the crucified God Says to him on the contrary No society is free As long as the individual is not so Do not seek to modify society By imposing upon it an authority Which shall make everything right If you do You will fail as popes And empires have failed Modify society So that your fellows May not be any longer your enemies By the force of circumstances Abolish the conditions Abolish the fruit of the labour of others And instead of attempting to construct society From top to bottom Or from centre to circumference Let it develop itself freely From the simple to the composite By the free union of free groups This course Which is so much obstructed at present Is the true forward march of society Do not seek to hinder it Do not turn your back on progress But march along with it Then the sentiment of sociability Which is common to human beings As it is to all animals living in society Will be able to develop itself freely Because our fellows will no longer be our enemies And we shall thus arrive At the state of things In which each individual Will be able to give free reign To his inclinations And even to his passions Without any other restraint Than the love and respect Of those who surround him End quotes This is our ideal And it is the ideal Which lies deep in the hearts of peoples Of all peoples We know full well that this ideal Will not be attained without violent shocks The close of this century Has a formidable revolution in store for us Whether it begins in France Germany, Spain or Russia It will be an European one Spreading with the same rapidity As that of our fathers The heroes of 1848 It will set all Europe in a blaze This coming revolution Will not aim at a mere change of government But will have a social character The work of expropriation Will commence And exploiters will be driven out Whether we like it or not This will be done independently Of the will of individuals And when hands are laid on private property We shall arrive at communism Because we should be forced to do so Communism however Cannot be either authoritarian or parliamentary It must either be anarchist Or non-existent The mass of the people Does not desire to trust itself again To any saviour But will seek to organize itself By itself We do not advocate communism And anarchy because we imagine Men to be better than they really are If we had angels amongst us We might be tempted to entrust To them the task of organizing us Though doubtless even they would show The cloven foot very soon But it is just because We take men as the way they are We say, quote Do not entrust them with the governing of you This or that despicable minister Might have been an excellent man If power had not been given to him The only way of arriving At harmony of interests Is by a society without exploiters And without rulers End quote Precisely because men are not angels That we say, quote Let us arrange matters So that each man may see his interest Bound up with the interest of others Then you will no longer have To fear his evil passions End quote Anarchist communism Being the inevitable result Of existing tendencies It is towards this ideal That we must direct our steps Instead of saying, quote It isn't an excellent ideal End quote And then turning our backs upon it Should the approaching revolution Not succeed in realizing the whole of this ideal Still all that shall have been affected In the direction of it will remain But all that shall have been done In the contrary direction Will be doomed to disappear It is a general rule That a popular revolution may be vanquished But that, nevertheless It furnishes a motto Succeeding century France expired under the heel Of the Allies in 1815 And yet the action of France Had rendered serfdom impossible Of continuance All over Europe, the representative Government inevitable Universal suffrage was drowned in blood And yet universal suffrage Is the watchword of the century In 1871 The commune expired under volleys Of grapeshot But the watchword in France Today is, quote The free commune, end quote And if anarchist communism Is vanquished in the coming revolution After having asserted itself In the light of day Not only will it leave behind The abolition of private property Not only will the working man Have learned his true place in society Not only will the landed And mercantile aristocracy Have received a mortal blow That anarchist communism Will be the goal of the evolution Of the 20th century Anarchist communism sums up All that is most beautiful And most durable in the progress Of humanity The sentiment of justice The sentiment of liberty And solidarity Or community of interest It guarantees the free evolution Both of the individual and of society Therefore it will triumph At the end of the place of anarchism In socialistic evolution An address delivered in Paris By Pierre Kropotkin Translated by Henry Glass Read by ACR Thornton This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. 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