Lucifer’s Coming of Age – Moses Harman, 8/31/1901

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

About two thousand years ago Julius Cæsar wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic War, in which he himself was
by far the chief figure. To avert ill-natured criticism, perhaps, he avoided the use of the first-person singular and
spoke as a disinterested spectator or contemporary observer might do, instead of as an active participant in the
events described by him. Some years after the time of the first Cæsar, another Roman author, Virgil, wrote one
of the most famous of all epics, the Aeneid, in which he makes his hero begin the story with the words, “I am
pious Aeneas, known in fame even to the stars,” and, speaking of the events of his narration, he adds, “All of
which I saw, and a great part of which I was.” Here we have conspicuous examples of the two opposite methods
or styles of telling a story. Aeneas was frankly egotistic, proud if not vain of his achievements and fame, desirous
of impressing his hearers, at the outset, with a sense of his own personal importance in the events he was about
to narrate. Cæsar, on the other hand, though probably no less personally conscious and vain of his own importance
as chief actor in the drama he is to describe, no less desirous of name and fame, artfully seeks to conceal his
own personality as historian, hoping doubtless to dull the shafts of contemporaneous criticism thereby. Obviously,
each of these methods has its advantages. Cæsar’s is the more dispassionate, the more dignified, the more
philosophic, while that of Aeneas is the more dramatic, the more realistic, and usually impresses the hearer or
reader with a greater assurance that he is getting the exact facts, and also the motives that lie behind the facts.
And when the egoistic element is not made offensively prominent, as in the case of Aeneas, personal narration
possesses a charm for most readers that is not found in the non-personal, the purely historic variety. It is this
personal element that makes autobiography so universally popular; witness Franklin’s Memoirs, Selkirk’s
Robinson Crusoe, etc. In reciting the story of Lucifer’s birth and adolescence, while I cannot say with Aeneas,
“All of which I saw,” I can truly say, “a great part of which I was.”

The history of the little journal of which this is the Twenty-First Anniversary Number is so closely identified with
my own that it is quite impossible to separate the two. So completely has the editorial and business management
of the publication absorbed and monopolized my time and energy all these years that to leave Lucifer out would
seem to leave these years—the prime of my manhood—a comparative blank. For this, if for no other reason, I
shall make free use of the pronoun “I” in this brief historical sketch, instead of the circumlocutions that would
otherwise be necessary to clear statement. But while postulating, or claiming, as I do, that the history of no
other person is so completely identified with our Morning Star as is my own, I would by no means forget that
I have had many helpers—many able and devoted assistants—both in the business department and in the
editorial. In a recent issue of Lucifer it was mentioned that it had been published twenty-one years “under the
same editorial management,” or words to that effect. This statement is true only as regards general principles,
policies, objects, and methods of publication. As its first editor; as the writer of the series of articles in the local
papers that paved the way for its birth; as senior editor always when not its sole editor, I have claimed and
exercised chief control, editorially and in business management. Having taken so much of my limited space
in preliminaries, I hasten—and also condense. In March 1880, Gregorian calendar, having then lately removed
from Missouri to Kansas, I became involved in a newspaper controversy with the Christians of Valley Falls, a
pretty little city midway between Topeka and Atchison on the Santa Fe Railway. It had then two weekly papers,
five or six churches, several flourishing manufacturing establishments, good schools (as schools go), and
was and is a very good sample of cities of the second or third class in the young commonwealth of Kansas
—a name ever memorable for the bloody dramas enacted on its soil during the five or six years immediately
preceding the great American Civil War of 1861.

Among the social and intellectual institutions of this little city I found a club calling itself the “Valley Falls Liberal
League,” holding a charter from the “National Liberal League,” an organization whose chief motto was the “Complete
Separation of Church and State.” This local league or club was the successor of an older club that for many years
had held weekly meetings at the office of S. R. Shepherd, now of Leavenworth, Kansas, which meetings were
conducted on the plan of equal rights for all, regardless of race, color, party, or creed. Mr. Shepherd had been
the founder and chief promoter of this club, and to him—to this pioneer abolitionist, newspaperman, freethinker
of the agnostic type, also social reformer on all lines—belongs the credit of starting and fostering the movement
that made the birth of Lucifer possible at the time and place aforesaid. But I am running ahead of my story. The
newspaper discussion already referred to was called out in this way. A course of public lectures by O. A. Phelps
—a Freethought lecturer of considerable celebrity, whose name is doubtless remembered by many of our readers
—had been delivered at Valley Falls in February 1880. During this course, frequent challenges were made by
the speaker to the resident clergy to jointly discuss the issues dividing the current and popular theologies from
the deductions of modern science as taught by leading freethinkers and agnostics of England and America. To
these challenges no response was heard till after the departure of Mr. Phelps, when, over the signature of
“Sylvester,” some criticisms of the lectures appeared in the Valley Falls New Era, to which I, as a member of
the Liberal League, replied over the pseudonym “Rustic.” This name was taken partly in reference to my lack
of experience as a writer for the press. While the identity of “Sylvester” was not hard to find, it is mere conjecture
as to who wrote the series of letters over his signature that appeared in the New Era during the months that
followed the Phelps lectures; but the preponderance of evidence is that they were written, or at least mainly
inspired, by the Congregational minister of the city—a man of very considerable learning and skill in debate
—named Wilson, who had often participated in the debates of the “Philomatic Society,” the name of the
Freethought club founded by S. R. Shepherd.

As the discussion proceeded it became more and more voluminous until the editor said he could not spare so
much of his space. Then our club proposed that the discussion be printed on a separate sheet, as a supplement
to the New Era, the expense to be paid by us. This offer was accepted and adopted, until, having received many
complaints from his Christian patrons, the editor of the New Era declined, peremptorily, to have anything further
to do with the controversy in connection with his paper. The next step in the evolution of Lucifer was natural and
logical. Having reached the limit of the embryonic stage of growth, a birth—or abortion—became inevitable. Our
club decided to make it a birth by giving to the heretofore “Supplement to the New Era” the name Valley Falls
Liberal, and changing its form to that of a four-page, sixteen-column monthly, price fifty cents per year; the initial
number of which, as already stated, was issued sometime in August 1880, under the management of M. Harman
and A. J. Searl. Mr. Searl was then secretary of the local League and had been for many years one of the best
-known and most active, clear-headed, and logical of the Valley Falls freethinkers, and as such had rendered
efficient aid, with pen and purse, in preparing the way for the successful birth of a freethought journal. About this
time, too, he held the position of Secretary, and later of President, of the Kansas State Liberal League. Although
his official connection with the Liberal was of brief duration—one year—Brother Searl deserves honorable mention
for timely services in labor and money in putting the infant journal in shape to fight the battles that were in store
for it. Having decided to take a course of study at the University of Kansas, he removed his young family about
this time to the historic city of Lawrence and, devoting his energies to literary and scientific pursuits, gradually
dropped out of the public agitation of thought along radical lines.

Prominent among those whose names should receive honorable mention at this place for what they did in giving life
and sustenance to the young journal is that of Susan Reicherter, who, for the first year or two, did more than any one
else to obtain subscribers and donations for the new enterprise; also that of her husband, John, who nobly seconded
her efforts; also the name of Noah H. Harman, one of the most substantial farmers of eastern Kansas, and who
afterward became still better known as the editor and publisher of the Farmer’s Vindicator at Valley Falls; also that
of John Ernst, of Arrington, Kansas; and, notably, that of Charles Robinson, of Lawrence—first Governor of Kansas,
the “War Governor,” as he is often called, and whose history of the war in Kansas and the events that preceded it
is doubtless the most reliable of all the accounts yet written of that memorable period, supplemented as it is by the
previously published work of Mrs. S. T. D. Robinson, his faithful companion and helper through all those stormy
and perilous times; also that of C. B. Hoffman, of Enterprise, Kansas, who has since achieved national reputation
by his record as a reformer in politics, and also by his connection with the Kansas Agricultural College at Manhattan.
All of these persons were constant and faithful friends of Lucifer during all its years of conflict with the enemies of
Free Speech, Free Press, and Free Mails. Many other names should receive at least a passing notice, but space
limitations forbid. KANSAS LIBERAL At the end of the first year the name was changed to Kansas Liberal, and
instead of monthly it was now to be issued fortnightly. Having as yet no outfit of our own, the work was done in
the office of the New Era, G. D. Ingersoll, editor and publisher. The growth of the young journal, though slow,
was steady from the first, until April 1882, when, accepting the offer of the Kansas Liberal Union—of which C. B.
Hoffman was then president, and Annie L. Diggs secretary—the paper became the organ of the state organization.
The office of publication was removed to Lawrence, and the change made from a fortnightly to a weekly issue;
myself remaining editor-in-chief, with Annie L. Diggs as assistant. This change brought a very considerable
increase to the subscription list, together with some important donations from such generous Liberals as ex
-Governor Robinson, C. B. Hoffman, and others. Everything seemed now propitious for the young journal,
but soon clouds began to appear on the horizon.

Kansas had lately become what is called a “prohibition” state, and Mrs. Diggs was very prominent as an advocate
of constitutional and statutory prohibition of the liquor traffic. On the other hand, while I at first favored the “Amendment”
as a compromise, I soon saw that as a political measure it must prove a failure and be disastrous rather than beneficial
to the cause of true temperance, and began to express myself accordingly in the paper. This naturally brought on
a conflict of opinion with my assistant editor, which prevented effective work together. A temporary arrangement
was made by which the paper would continue as the organ of the Liberal Union until after the annual convention
of that organization in August of that year, after which, by amicable agreement, I resumed entire charge of the
paper and brought it back to my home at Valley Falls. This was one of the most critical periods in the life of our
little journal. My old helpers at Valley Falls had not been pleased with the removal to Lawrence, believing that
the original founders could not work successfully with the then officers of the Kansas Liberal Union; hence some
were disposed to say, “Didn’t I tell you so!” and were not now so enthusiastic in its support as at first. On the other
hand, many of the new subscribers who joined us because the paper was to be the organ of the Liberal Union
now gradually withdrew their support. A faithful few remained, however, who gave me assurance that the paper
should not die. E. C. WALKER About this time, too, we were fortunate enough to receive a proposition from Edwin C.
Walker, then secretary of the Iowa Liberal League, and by far its most active and efficient worker. Mr. Walker offered
to come to Kansas and join forces with the Kansas Liberal, proposing an equal partnership therein. This offer
was accepted. Mr. Walker entered the field as canvasser and editorial correspondent, while I did the office work,
assisted by my son George, aged fifteen, and daughter Lillian, aged thirteen, who had already learned to set type.

We lived on a little fruit farm one mile from the printery at which the typesetting and presswork were done. Editorial
work was mainly done at home in the early morning hours and late at night, while much of the day was spent by all
three at work on the farm, raising fruits and vegetables, from the sale of which we supplied our own daily wants,
besides helping to defray the expenses of publication. The folding and wrapping of the paper were done at night by
the entire family, including my wife Isabella, whom I had married since our removal to Kansas—my children having
been left motherless by the hand of death in Missouri, June 1877. Mr. Walker proved himself a very efficient and
successful canvasser for subscribers and for the sale of radical literature, and believing our prospects sufficiently
encouraging to justify the venture, we bought type and other apparatus, including a Prouty power press capable
of printing one thousand impressions per hour. To enable us to do this, we accepted the loan of several hundred
dollars, without interest, from friends interested in our radical work. In the summer of 1883 we held a decidedly
successful camp meeting at Valley Falls, largely in the interest of our weekly and pamphlet publications, at which
meeting Governor Robinson was chairman and one of our leading speakers; also Mrs. H. S. Lake, Prof. W. F.
Peck, O. A. Phelps, and other well-known lecturers then in the freethought field. About this time, too, the name
of our weekly was changed to: LUCIFER THE LIGHT-BEARER The reasons for this change were mainly these:
The name Liberal had already been appropriated by five or six freethought journals in various parts of the
world, and by at least one political party in England. Lucifer, the ancient name of the Morning Star, now
called Venus, seemed to us unsurpassed as a cognomen for a journal whose mission is to bring light to
the dwellers in darkness—the darkness of superstition and ignorance—and as yet we knew of no journal
called by that name.

CHANGE IN CHRONOLOGY The current and legal method of reckoning time in countries called Christian is based
on two alleged supernatural events—the birth of Jesus, a Jewish socialistic reformer, and the formation of Adam,
the supposed first man, out of the dust of the earth. Both of these alleged events are now wholly discredited by
men of science and learning, whether churchmen or not, which is equivalent to saying that our present chronology
has no scientific basis. Conspicuous among reformers who have yielded up their lives in defense of human
freedom and progress is the name of Giordano Bruno, an Italian freethinker and philosopher who was burned
at the stake at Rome as a “heretic,” or rebel against the authority of the Roman Church, three hundred and
one years ago on the seventeenth of last February, according to authentic records now extant. Believing that
a scientific age requires a scientific chronology instead of that which is based on the myths and fables of
superstitious theology, we adopted as such scientific basis the burning of the martyred Bruno. For convenience,
we make it run parallel with the current and unscientific calendar by dating our years backward forty-eight days,
making the year begin near the winter solstice instead of nearly two months later, as it would do if we should
date from the anniversary of Bruno’s death. Individualized by these changes—with a new, distinctive, and very
characteristic name; with a new chronology, the Brunonian and scientific instead of the Galilean and mythologic;
equipped with a new outfit of type, also a new and good cylinder press; with a subscription list steadily, if slowly,
increasing by additions from all parts of the English-speaking world; aided by the income of a little fruit farm worked
by ourselves—our little journal seemed at length established on reasonably sure foundations. For the next three
years Mr. Walker spent most of his time in the canvassing and lecture field, except the summer of ’85, which
was devoted by him to manual labor on a claim in southern Kansas, preparing a home for his two children and
wife, Laura, from whom he was then separated by a mutually satisfactory arrangement.

Everything was moving along hopefully and with but little of the friction that so often defeats enterprises of similar
aim and purpose. But now again dark clouds began to gather in the journalistic sky, threatening to obscure, if not
to extinguish entirely, the light of our “Son of the Morning,” “Herald of the Dawn,” as Lucifer was called by ancient
poets. In June, 286 E. M. (Era of Man), there was published in our columns a communication that created quite
a commotion among the conventional moralists of Valley Falls—the historic MARKLAND LETTER This letter gave,
in plain English, a brief account of what may rightly be called a worse-than-brutal outrage committed by a husband
upon the person of his sick and suffering wife, who had lately been operated upon by a surgeon at the time of
childbirth—the woman being a mere child herself, with neither physical force nor mental courage to defend
herself against marital assault. The words used by Mr. Markland, though plain and somewhat unconventional,
were such as are used in medical books and found in all dictionaries. Immediate steps were taken by the local
guardians of “morality” to secure the arrest of the editors and publishers and for the suppression of the offending
journal. Complaints were sent to headquarters at Washington, D.C., but for some weeks without visible results.
THE AUTONOMISTIC MARRIAGE In September of ’86, soon after the publication of the “Markland Letter,”
occurred another event important in the history of Lucifer. This was the “Autonomistic Marriage” of E. C. Walker
and Lillian Harman. This marriage consisted of an agreement, in the presence of relatives and friends, concerning
the provisions of a “love and labor union” into which they proposed to enter. There were no obstacles to a legal
union, Mrs. Walker having obtained a divorce from Mr. Walker a year previous to this date, and Mr. Walker having
settled upon her, for their children, all the property he possessed. But a legal union was not desired by either
Lillian or Mr. Walker. She, however, felt that for the sake of her friends she preferred something in the way of
a public acknowledgment of her choice, and this— a compromise, so to speak, between civil marriage and
perfect freedom—was the result.

As space can be found for only the outlines of the history of our work, a description of the agreement between Lillian
and Mr. Walker will not be given; but it can be found in Autonomistic Marriage, a small pamphlet sold by us. This affair,
coming as it did when the prejudices of the community were already aroused, had the effect of inflaming the mob
spirit to fever heat. Summary vengeance was threatened, and we were told that a mob was actually formed, but
was persuaded by a “law-abiding citizen” to disband on promise that he would bring legal proceedings. In accordance
with this promise, a warrant was sworn out charging Mr. Walker and Lillian with “living together without being
married,” “against the peace and dignity of the State of Kansas.” Bonds were fixed at $1,000; but threats were
openly made that anyone going on the bond would find his houses, barns, etc., burned in revenge by the mob.
The trial court found the defendants guilty of living together without getting married and sentenced Mr. Walker to
seventy-five days and Lillian to forty-five days in jail, assessing costs against them. David Overmeyer and G.C.
Clemens, both of Topeka and staunch friends of Lucifer, carried the case to the Supreme Court of Kansas, which
eventually decided that the defendants were married in common law, but were properly punished for not getting
married. The Kansas statutes, by the way, while stating that a marriage license shall be taken out by those
intending matrimony, provide no penalty for those who refuse to take out such license. Consequently, the
defendants in this case were arrested for living together without being married and unlawfully “punished”
for not getting married. That, however, while an important matter from the legal viewpoint, was comparatively
unimportant from ours; for neither Mr. Walker nor Lillian had any intention of recognizing the marriage as legal,
though all the courts, civil and ecclesiastical, should pronounce it such. And though they have lived together
for years in several states, Lillian has always retained her own name, and neither has claimed any of the
rights nor demanded any of the duties enforced by legal marriage.

Before the expiration of Lillian’s forty-five days in jail, she announced her intention of refusing to allow costs to be paid
for her, and to this decision Mr. Walker also held at the expiration of his sentence. So instead of leaving the prison,
they remained therein for more than six months. By the way, it may be mentioned here that the anniversary of Lillian’s
birth, December 23, occurred after her sentence had expired, so that she presented the rather unusual spectacle of
a young girl completing her seventeenth year a voluntary prisoner. It seemed now that the residence in jail was to
be prolonged indefinitely. On hearing of the arrest of George Harman and myself, however, Mr. Walker and Lillian
immediately decided to pay costs and leave the jail—she to return to work on Lucifer, he to whatever fate the
United States courts had in store for him—each with determination unshaken by the trials of the past or the
possibilities of the future. While the persecution against Lillian Harman and E. C. Walker for alleged violations of
the Kansas marriage laws was the real beginning of the attempts to suppress Lucifer by legal process (so called),
the orders for the arrest of the editors and publishers, as such, were not served until some months later. As night
was closing down upon the workers in Lucifer’s office, February 16, 287, and we were about to start for home, a
mile away, in walked City Constable Boles, who introduced Mr. Thompson of Topeka. “Glad to see you, Mr. Thompson,”
said I, with the customary form of salutation. “Perhaps when you know my business you will not say that,” was
the reply. “Well, what is your business?” For answer he read his warrant for the arrest of M. Harman, E.C.
Walker, and George Harman, by order of U.S. Commissioner Wilson, of Topeka, Kansas. “When do you want
us?” I then asked. “Now.” “You will let us go home for a change of clothing?” “No; you can send for your clothes,
but you will stay where you now are until the train starts for Topeka, at ten o’clock tonight.”

Accompanied by our kinsman N. H. Harman, who came in from his farm, three miles away, to go as bondsman for
us, my son George and myself went with the marshal to Topeka and gave bond in the sum of five hundred dollars
each for our appearance at the ensuing session of the U.S. Court, to be held in April following. After many vexatious
and expensive delays—appearances and reappearances with our bondsmen at court, at Topeka and at Leavenworth
—our cases were finally brought to trial in April, 290, more than three years after the arrest. Mr. Walker and George
were acquitted, while I was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary and to pay a fine of three
hundred dollars. Space failing, I must bring my story to a close by adding that from the time of the first arrest by
Marshal Thompson till my final release from the federal prison at Fort Leavenworth, April 4, 296—a period of
more than nine years—I was never for one moment free from the “shadow of the jail”; that is, I was either securely
locked within prison walls or was under bonds outside of those walls, with the threat of imprisonment, like the
sword of Damocles, constantly hanging over my head. Meantime Lucifer, the real object of the prosecutors, did
not die: Lucifer did not suspend; Lucifer did not retract; Lucifer, “Son of the Morning,” did not cease to shine on
friend and foe alike. On the contrary, it republished, more than once, the articles on which the prosecutions were
originally based. After ten years of publication at Valley Falls, the plant was removed to Topeka, whence, in April,
296, it came to Chicago, where it is probable Lucifer will continue to shine until its mission of mental and moral
enlightenment is ended. Those of our readers who may care to read a more detailed account of the more than
nine years’ prosecution of Lucifer, its editors and publishers, under the United States censorship laws, are
respectfully referred to the Autobiography of Moses Harman, now in course of preparation.

A Dispute Between Rustic (Moses Harman) & Sylvester, 1880