Individualism or Collectivism: Which or Both – Moses Harman, 8/18/1904
Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer
An old-time worker in the fields of radical reform, the writer of one of the now historic letters whose publication
gave rise to the nearly ten years’ conflict in Kansas between the suppressors of speech and press on the one
hand, and the editors and publishers of Lucifer on the other—this old-time friend and valiant defender of woman’s
right to self-ownership, in answer to an inquiry as to why we hear no more from him, writes as follows: Letter from
M. G. W. Dear Bro. Harman: I have your letter of the 7th and Lucifer, and I know you are too big to feel wounded at
what I may say. My purpose is to waive sentiment and stick to facts as I see them. Individualism, in many forms,
has ruled the world for ages. It was necessary, but it has about worked out its potentialities and must soon die—
struggling, of course. I do not wish to serve in the sick chambers of a dying dynasty. Lucifer has—to me—become
mossy, monotonous. If it is “fittest” it will live. If not, it must die. Advance or die is the law—a fact. Economic
collectivism has the floor by a large majority. Is it accidental, or permanent? Has evolution anything to do with it?
The “sex question” may be solved by one word—mutuality. Can it exist in present economic environments?
Mutual economics assures mutuality in all things, as it is the determining factor of life. Economic equality is the
soul of justice, and only through justice can any phase of freedom be attained or maintained. You see there is a
wide gap between us. My affectionate regard for the old comrades in past struggles has not weakened in the
least, but many of them have driven stakes in Egypt while I have gone on and have glimpses of the Promised
Land. (No egotism in this.) You speak of sending me Lucifer for old-time’s sake. I fully understand and appreciate
the sentiment which prompts it, and accept till convenient to pay. Sentiment is beautiful; so is a rainbow, but neither
can do things practical. I am trying to eliminate sentimentalism and view life and its attributes from a practical
standpoint. The approaching catastrophic period absorbs all my interest, and my highest ambition is to help in
the accomplishment of the cooperative commonwealth. – Sincerely and affectionately yours, M. G. W.
Dear Bro. M. G. W.: REPLY
Because of the years of helpful cooperation and fraternal sympathy extended by you to myself and to those who,
with me, were struggling to keep Lucifer alive, I find it a very unwelcome task to undertake the role of critic and
pull your letter to pieces. With yourself, however, I feel that you are “too big to be wounded by what I may say.”
Were it not that I feel sure hundreds of Lucifer’s readers take substantially the same view as yourself in regard
to the two “isms” that form the subject of your letter, I would be silent. As it is, I think it best to make a short reply
to the leading points you have raised. 1. On “Sentiment” I cannot quite agree that we should “waive sentiment
and stick to naked facts.” As I see it, we cannot ignore sentiment and still remain sane, humane, and progressive.
Webster says: “Sentiment is a thought prompted by passion or feeling; feeling toward or respecting some person
or thing; a disposition prompting to action or expression.” As a matter of fact, I think we never do anything for
ourselves or others—especially not for others—that is not prompted by sentiment of some sort. Sympathy for and
with others is perhaps the most powerful, most nearly universal, of all human sentiments—one that we share with
beasts, birds, and even reptiles. It is because “corporations,” such as the coal-mining syndicates of Pennsylvania
and the gold-mining syndicates of Colorado, waive all sentiment—all sympathy with those who do the hard work
and take all the risks of loss of life and health in the underground levels—and because they stick so closely to
the naked facts and methods of business (“get all you can and give as little in return as possible”) that both
Socialists and Individualists are now demanding a radical change of economic and industrial systems. Facts are
stubborn things, they say; so they are, but they are not so stubborn that they cannot be changed by ideals, and
ideals are the product of sentiment—the sentiment of justice, for instance; of equal rights for all and special
privilege for none. Facts are “things accomplished,” things done—from the Latin facere, “to do, to make.” It is
a fact that business methods today are unjust, inequitable, and inhuman. Sentiment demands a change, just
as sentiment demanded the abolition of slavery in the South forty or fifty years ago. That which is the sentimental
ideal of today may become the fact, the ideal realized, in the not-distant future. Facts belong to the past and
the present; ideals point the way to future progress, and ideals are all born of sentiment.
2. On Individualism I cannot quite agree that “individualism has ruled the world for ages.” Such has not been the
fact, to any considerable extent, during what are called the historic ages. All the governments of the world at the
present time, including our own, are very correctly described as State Socialisms in some of their Protean forms.
No one individual governs any nation now existing on earth, and in no country are the people self-governing in
any proper sense of the word. Nor does history tell us of any nation in which the people, all the people, were self
-governing individuals. All nations are now, and have been, governed by minorities—larger or smaller minorities
—not by majorities, not by the people as a whole, nor by single individuals. Therefore it seems to me not correct
to say that individualism has ruled the world for ages and that it is now a “dying dynasty.” As I see it, the world
has yet to see a true individualism in political or any other kind of government. To my thinking, individualism
means, involves, and includes self-government of individual persons—of all the persons in any given community
—and this means, of necessity, the abolition of all government of man by his fellow man, using the word man
in the generic sense. If I understand the purpose or end of Socialism—that is, of “economic collectivism”—its
aim is the production of more nearly perfect individuals, which would mean not the destruction but the triumph
of individualism. As Dr. Herron, a prominent leader of organized Socialism, once said in a Chicago lecture: “To
me Socialism is not a goal but a road; the goal being perfect individual liberty.” Why does Dr. Herron regard
individual liberty as the goal of Socialism? Not because individualism must give way to collectivism, but because
the object of collectivist organization is to secure the best possible development of individual humans. Yes,
certainly; evolution has something to do with it. From “monad to man,” the constant effort of the evolutionary
forces of Nature has been to produce better individuals, not better aggregations or collectivities of individuals.
Without individuals there can be no economic collectivism, or any other kind of collectivism. With full-rounded
individualism, economic collectivism would be an accomplished fact—not otherwise will it be possible.
Is Lucifer a Back Number? – Moses Harman (Next article of the paper)
1. Is it true that Lucifer has retrograded, has become mossy—monotonous? If to continue the fight for the
right of womanhood and motherhood to self-ownership—which fight first enlisted your interest, Bro. M. G. W.,
in Lucifer and its work; if to continue the struggle for the yet unattained right of the child (all children) to be
born well—if this is to become mossy, monotonous, then your charge is not without foundation. While contending
for all human rights and privileges of which the great masses of mankind are as yet deprived, including equal
right to the earth and to what it contains, and also the right to the product of one’s labor, Lucifer’s main fight has
been for the equal right to be born well, through freedom of motherhood. To practicalize this right, it is necessary
to abolish sex slavery, sex ownership of woman by man, since children are born in and of woman’s sex nature.
Sex reform, then, is seen to be the first, the most important, and most inclusive of all reforms, because of the
well-known maxim that like begets like. If the parents are slaves—especially if the mother be a slave—the
children will be slaves, and will not be fit for freedom. The battle for sex reform is not yet won. Something has
been done to arouse the sleeping public conscience to a sense of the terrible wrongs inflicted on woman and
her offspring by marriage laws and customs, but the need of sex reform, the need of agitating for the right of
the mother to self-ownership for her own sake and for the sake of the unborn child, was never greater than
at this very moment. Never before have the enemies of liberty and justice been more on the alert than now.
Through agitation for more stringent divorce laws, thereby making it harder for women to escape from marital
bondage; through urging the need of large families, thereby encouraging the enforcement of laws against the
use of “preventives” for limiting the size of families; through increased diligence in suppressing papers that
would enlighten the ignorant regarding sex, its duties and functions—by all these signs and more, it is apparent
that the officials of church and state are alive to the truth that freedom of sex, freedom of motherhood, and
the general diffusion of sex knowledge would mean the birth of fewer but better children. It would mean that
future generations would be so well born that they would need no rulers, no priests, no police, no kings, no
presidents, no generals, no soldiers, and no privileged classes such as now live in ease and splendor on
the proceeds of the unpaid toil of the masses.
