A friend recently reminded me of Ben Franklin and his works. Years ago, I read through a big book of his writings and thought I had published the notes, quotes from his work. I found I had not and so remedy that situation now.
Mr Franklin rewards rereading.
Benjamin Franklin: The Writings
The Library of America, 1987
Franklin’s version of the Lord’s Prayer
1. Heavenly Father,
2. May all revere thee,
3. And become thy dutiful Children and faithful Subjects.
4. May thy Laws be obeyed on Earth as perfectly as they are in Heaven.
5. Provide for us this Day as thou has hitherto daily done.
6. Forgive us our Trespasses, and enable us likewise to forgive those that offend us.
7. Keep us out of Temptation, and deliver us from Evil.
(24) Silence Dogood, quoting John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters(?): ‘Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.
’This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a _Thing_ terrible to Publick Traytors.
(63) We are first mov’d by _Pain_, and the whole succeeding Course of our Lives is but one continu’d Series of Action with a View to be freed from it.
(91) Epitaph
The Body of
B. Franklin,
Printer;
Like the Cover of an Old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more;
In a new and more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended
By the Author.
He was born Jan. 6. 1706
Died 17
(written in 1728, at age 22)
(126) But as Silver it self is of no certain permanent Value, being worth more or less according to its Scarcity or Plenty, therefore it seems requisite to fix upon Something else, more proper to be made a _Measure of Value_, and this I take to be _Labour_.
(130) Money as Bullion, or as Land, is valuable by so much Labour as it costs to procure that Bulliion or Land.
Money, as a Currency, has an Additional Value by so much Time and Labour as it save in the Exchange of Commodities.
(183) None but Fools are Knaves, for wise Men cannot help being honest. Cunning therefore is the Wisdom of a Fool; one who has Designs he dare not own.
(206-207) Previous question, to be answer’d at every meeting [Junto].
Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto [touching] any one of them? viz.
1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? Particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge.
2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?
3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
4. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere,8 got his estate?
6. Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?9
7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? of imprudence? of passion? or of any other vice or folly?
8. What happy effects of temperance? of prudence? of moderation? or of any other virtue?
9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?
10. Who do you know that are shortly going voyages or journies, if one should have occasion to send by them?
11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, [of] which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? and what can the Junto do towards securing it?
17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto or any of them, can procure for you?
18. Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?
19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?
20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
21. Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
24. Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?Any person to be qualified, to stand up, and lay his hand on his breast, and be asked these questions; viz.
1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general; of what profession or religion soever? Answ. I do.
3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Ans. No.
4. Do you love truth for truth’s sake, and will you endeavour impartially to find and receive it yourself and communicate it to others? Answ. Yes.
(255) That Man only, who is ready to change his Mind upon proper Conviction, is in the Way to come at the Knowledge of Truth. He who is neither _ashamed_ of his own Ignorance, nor _unwilling_ to receive Help from any Quarter towards the better Information of his mind, or _afraid_ to discard an old and _favoured_ Opinion, upon better Evidence; he, I say, will find Truth kindly open before him, and freely offer it self to him: He will be surprized with the noble Pleasure of a new Discovery, and his Knowledge will be always progressive as long as he lives, But a Man _tenacious_ of his _first Thoughts_ is necessarily concluded in Error, if ever he happens to mistake: For when People once arrive to an Opinion of Infallibility, they can never grow wiser than they already are.
(269) nimptopsical - a humorous 18th-century adjective meaning drunk, listed in Benjamin Franklin’s 1737 "Drinker's Dictionary"
(469) I have heard it remarked that the Poor in Protestant Countries on the Continent of Europe, are generally more industrious than those of Popish Countries, may not the more numerous foundations in the latter for the relief of the poor have some effect towards rendering them less provided. To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity, ’tis Godlike, but if we provide encouragements for Laziness, and supports for Folly, may it not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed Want and Misery as the proper Punishments for, and Cautions against as well as necessary consequences of Idleness and Extravagancy.
(480) As yet, the Quantity of Human Knowledge bears no Proportion to the Quantity of Human Ignorance.
(572) In considering of these questions, perhaps it may be of use to recollect; that the colonies were planted in times when the powers of parliament were not supposed so extensive, as they are become since the Revolution: - That they were planted in lands and countries where the parliament had not then the least jurisdiction: - That, excepting the yet infant colonies of Georgia and Nova Scotia, _none of them_ were settled at the expense of _any money_ granted by parliament: - That the people went from hence by permission from the crown, purchased or conquered the territory, at the expense of their own private treasure and blood: - That these territories thus became _new_ dominions _of the crown_, settled under royal charters, that formed their several governments and constitutions, on which the parliament was _never consulted_; or had the _least participation_. - The people there have had, from the beginning, like Ireland, their separate parliaments, called modestly assemblies: by these chiefly our Kings have governed them. How far, and in what particulars, they are _subordinate_ and _subject_ to the British parliament; or whether they may not, if the King pleases, be governed as _domains of the crown_, without that parliament, are points newly agitated, never yet, but probably soon will be, thoroughly considered and settled. Different opinions are now entertained concerning them; and till such settlement is made by due authority, it is not criminal to think differently. Therefore, I wish the American opinion may, in the mean time, be treated with less acrimony.
January 6, 1766
NB: Franklin argues pitting the King against Parliament in order to advance the cause of the Colonies. Wedge politics before the Revolution.
(621) boutefeus - incendiaries
(634) drawcansir - a fictional character in George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham's farce The Rehearsal. He kills every one of the combatants, "sparing neither friend nor foe."
(645) Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by _war_ as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is _Robbery_. The second by _Commerce_ which is generally _Cheating_. The third by _Agriculture_ the only _honest Way_; wherein Man receive a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his Favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry.
(661) flaglitious - (of a person or their actions) criminal; villainous
(692) … for though many can forgive Injuries, _none ever forgave Contempt._
(714) superlucration - usually uncountable, (obsolete) Excessive or extraordinary gain
(721) prepense - planned, intended in advance, or premeditated
(749) If Men are so wicked now as we see them _with Religion_ what would they be if _without it?_
(756) … I imagine Hope and Faith may be more firmly built on Charity, than Charity upon Faith and Hope.
(798) I do not wonder at the Behaviour you mention of Dr Smith towards me, for I have long since known him thoroughly. I made that Man my Enemy by doing him too much Kindness. Tis the honestest Way of acquiring an Enemy. And since ’tis convenient to have at least one Enemy, who by his Readiness to revile one on all Occasions may make one careful of one’s Conduct, I shall keep him an Enemy for that purpose; and shall observe your good Mother’s Advice, never again to receive him as a Friend.
(815) … are all idle Tales, fit only for Knaves to propagate and Fools to believe.
(826) Travelling is one Way of lengthening Life, at least in Appearance. It is but a Fortnight since we left London; but the Variety of Scenes we have gone through makes it seem equal to Six Months living in one Place.
(830) The editor of that paper one Jones seems a Grenvillian, or is very cautious as you will see, by his corrections and omissions. He has drawn the teeth and pared the nails of my paper, so that it can neither scratch nor bite. It seems only to paw and mumble.
(938) A Tale
There was once an Officer, a worthy man, named Montrésor, who was very ill. His parish Priest, thinking he would die, advised him to make his Peace with God, so that he would be recieved into Paradise. “I don’t feel much Uneasiness on that Score,” said Montrésor; “for last Night I had a Vision which set me entirely at rest.” “What vision did you have?” asked the good Priest. “I was,” he said, “at the Gate of Paradise with a Crowd of People who wanted to enter. And St. Peter asked each of them what Religion he belonged to. One answered, ‘I am a Roman Catholic.’ ‘Very well,’ said St. Peter; ‘come in, & take your Place over there among the Catholics.’ Another said he belonged to the Anglican Church. ‘Very well,’ said St. Peter; ‘come in, & take your Place over there among the Anglicans.’ Another said he was a Quaker. ‘Very well,’ said St. Peter; ‘come in, & take a Place among the Quakers.’ Finally he asked me what my Religion was. ‘Alas!’ I replied, ‘unfortunately poor Jacques Montrésor belongs to none at all.’ ’That’s a pity,’ said the Saint. ‘I don’t know where to put you but come in anyway; just find a Place for yourself wherever you can.’"
(1008) To Sarah Bache, his daughter (6/3/1779): These [clay medallions], with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which copies upon copies are spread everywhere,) have made your father’s face as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do any thing that would oblige him to run away, as his phis would discover him wherever he should venture to show it.
(1009) You seem not to know, my dear daughter, that, of all the dear things in this world, idleness is the dearest, except mischief.
(1034) If any Phenicians arriv’d in America, I should rather think it was not by the Accident of a Storm, but in the Course of their long and adventurous Voyages; and that they coasted from Denmark and Norway, over to Greenland, and down Southward by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, &c., to New England, as the Danes themselves certainly did some ages before Columbus.
(1082) All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of. But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Public, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition.
NB: Franklin on Socialism
(1123) Britain, acting on the selfish and perhaps mistaken Principle of receiving nothing from abroad that could be produced at home, would take no Articles of our Produce that interfered with any of her own; and what did not interfere, she loaded with heavy Duties. We had no Mines of Gold or Silver. We were therefore oblig’d to run the World over, in search of something that would be receiv’d in England.
NB: Thus the Triangle Trade, tariffs, and monopoly on goods to the Revolution
(1147) … no kind of Accusation is so readily made, or easily believ’d, by Knaves as the Accusation of Knavery...
NB: Projection
To conclude, I beg I may not be understood to infer, that our General Convention was divinely inspired, when it form’d the new federal Constitution, merely because that Constitution has been unreasonly and vehemently opposed….
(1169) Remember me affectionately to good Dr. Price and to the honest heretic Dr. Priestly. I do not call him _ honest_ by way of distinction for I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude or they would not venture to won their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as that woudl give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justiry them. Do not, however mitake me, It is not to my good friend;s heresy that I imppute his honesty. ON the contrary, ;tis his honesty that has brough upon him the character of heretic. I am ever, my dear friend, yours sincerely,
(1179-1180) [March 9, 1790, to Ezra Stiles] You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.
I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness….
(1180) I have ever let others enjoy their religious Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsopportable and even absurd. All Sects here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with Suscriptions for building their new Places of Worship, and, as I have never opposed any of their Doctrines, I hope to go out of the World in Peace with them all.
Poor Richard
(1186) Hunger never saw bad bread.
(1188) Men and Melons are hard to know.
… There is no little enemy.
(1190) Without justice, courage is weak.
(1192) Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason.
(1193) He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.
If you wou’d be reveng’d of your enemy, govern your self.
… He does not possess Wealth, it possesses him.
(1197) Necessity never made a good bargain.
Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.
Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things.
(1198) An old young man, will be a young old man.
(1202) There’s none deceived but he that trusts.
(1204) The greatest monarch on the proudest throne, is obligated;d to sit upon his own arse.
He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.
(1205) There are no ugly Loves, nor handsome Prisons.
Don’t misinform your Doctor nor your Lawyer.
(1208) Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
(1209) Wish not so much to live long as to live well.
(1220) Quarrels never could last long,
If on one side only lay the wrong.
(1223) Death takes no bribes.
… One good Husband is worth two good Wives; for the scarcer things are the more they're valued.
(1224) To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.
… _Hope_ and a Red-rag, are Baits for Men and Mackrel.
(1235) It is common for Men to give 6 pretended Reasons instead of one real one.
… There are no fools so troublesome as those that have wit.
(1238) It’s the easiest Thing in the World for a Man to deceive himself.
(1249) Most Fools think they are only ignorant.
(1254) All would live long, but none would be old.
(1255) A Man in a Passion rides a mad Horse.
(1269) The Wise and Brave dares own that he was wrong.
(1274) … the first Day of _January_ being now by Act of Parliament declared the first Day of the Year 1752
(1275) Old Boys have their Playthigns as well as young Ones; the Difference is only in the Price
(1285) Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
(1290) The way to be safe, is never to be secure.
(1296) He that lives upon Hope will die fasting.
(1302) Thus the Old Gentleman ended his Harangue [which quoted many of Poor Richard’s maxims and extolled them before a crowd]. The People heard it, and approved the Doctrine, and immediately practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common Sermon...
(1303) You may delay, but _Time_ will not.
He that’s content, hath enough; He that complains, has too much.
(1304) Half the Truth is often a great Lie.
…. Spare and have is better than spend and crave.
End of Poor Richard’s
The Autobiography
(1316) But one does not dress for private Company as for a publick Ball.
(1329) I was very hungry, and my whole Stock of Cash consisted of a Dutch Dollar and about a Shilling in Copper. The latter I gave the People of the Boat for my Passage, who at first refus’d it on Acct of my Rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a Man being sometimes more generous when he was but a little Money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ Fear of being thought to have but little.
(1345) He wish’d to please everybody; and having little to give, he gave Expectations.
NB: On the Governor who promised him help in setting up his print shop but never followed through
(1354) nuncupative - (of a will or testament) declared orally as opposed to in writing, especially by a mortally woundedsoldier or sailor.
(1380-1381) The Objections & Reluctances I met with in Soliciting the Subscriptions made me soon feel the Impropriety of presenting one's self as the Proposer of any useful Project, that might be supposed to raise one's Reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's Neighbors, when one has need of their Assistance to accomplish that Project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a Scheme of a Number of Friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought Lovers of Reading. In this way my Affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practised it on such Occasions, and, from my frequent Successes, can heartily recommend it. The present little Sacrifice of your Vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains awhile uncertain to whom the Merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even Envy will be disposed to do you Justice, by plucking those assum'd Feathers, & restoring them to their right Owner.
NB: Strikes me as something similar, though much milder, to Tom Sawyer’s fence painting idea.
(1382) I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho' some of the Dogmas of that Persuasion, such as the Eternal Decrees of God, Election, Reprobation, &c. appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my Studying-Day, I never was without some religious Principles. I never doubted, for instance, the Existence of the Deity; that he made the World, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable Service of God was the doing Good to Man; that our Souls are immortal; and that all Crime will be punished, and Virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the Essentials of every Religion; and, being to be found in all the Religions we had in our Country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of Respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other Articles, which, without any Tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm Morality, serv'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. - This Respect to all, with an Opinion that the worst had some good Effects, induc'd me to avoid all Discourse that might tend to lessen the good Opinion another might have of his own Religion; and as our Province increas'd in people, and new Places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary Contribution, my Mite for such purpose, whatever might be the Sect, was never refused.
(1384-1385) In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. TEMPERANCE.
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE.
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY.
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY.
Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE.
Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION.
Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY.
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. CHASTITY.
Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY.
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
(1390) For something that pretended to be Reason was every now and then suggesting to me, that such extream Nicety as I exacted of my self might be a kind of Foppery in Morals, which if it were known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect Character might be attended with the Inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent Man should allow a few Faults in himself, to keep his Friends in Countenance.
(1393) I even forbid myself agreable to the old Laws of our Junto, the Use of every Word or Expression in the Language that imported a fix’d Opinion; such as _certianly, undoubtedly, &c._ and I adopted instead of them, _I conceive, I apprehend, of I imagine_ a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present.
(1396) … the Substances of an intended Creed, containing as I thught the Essentials of every known Religion, and being free of every thing that might shock the Professors of any Religion. It is express'd in these Words. viz.
“That there is one God who made all things.
“That he governs the World by his Povidence. -
“That he ought to be worshipped by Adoration, Prayer & Thanksgiving.
“But that the most acceptable Service of God is doing Good to Man.
“That the Soul is immortal.
“And that God will certainly reward Virtue and punish Vice either here of hereafter."
(1404) He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
(1405) On the whole I proposed as a more effectual Watch, the hiring of proper Men to serve constantly in that Business; and as a more equitalbe Way of supporting the Charge, the levying a Tax that should be proportion’d to Property.
(1417-1418) That we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we shold be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Iinvention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
(1429) Human Felicity is produc’d not so much be great Pieces of good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day.
(1442) This whole Transaction [Braddock’s defeat and death] gave us Americans the first Suspicion that our exalted Ideas of the Prowess of British Rebulars had not been well founded. -
In their first March too, from their Landing till they got beyond the Settlements, they had plundered and strip the Inhabitants, totally rining some poor Familes, besides insulting, abusing & confining the People if they remonstrated. -This was enoughto put us out of Conceit of such Defenders if we had really wanted any.
(1446) But Common Sense aided by present Danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsicall Opinions.
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026
The Jungle of Journalism: Upton Sinclair on the Pres
Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle which raised enough ruckus the Federal government began regulating the meatpacking industry.
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism is The Jungle applied to journalism. Based upon Sinclair's own experiences with the press as a result of the noise he made muckraking meatpacking, he looked back at the Press from the wrong end of the microscope and documented relevent events as they happened. He investigated the press as they investigated him.
The Brass Check of the title refers to a system of whorehouse management in which the customer pays the house for services and receives a brass check, a token to give to the whore upstairs to indicate he's paid.
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism by Upton Sinclair
Arno Press and NYTimes, reprint edition 1970
originally self-published by the author in 1919
(31) ...the newspaper reviewers had set the rules of the game - that love and and beauty in art were heeded only in connection with personalities and sensation...
(42) Newspapermen are human, and cannot be blamed by their owners if now and then they yield to the temptation to publish the news.
(52) The Chicago Stop on the The Jungle Book Tour of 1908
Mind you, a little over a year before I had put Packingtown on the map of the world; I had made Packingtown and its methods the subject of discussion at the dinner-tables of many countries; and now I was coming back to Packingtown for the first time since that event. There was a big hall, jammed to the very doors with Stockyards workers. You will pardon me if I say that they made it clear that they were glad to have me come there. and to this uproarious audience I told the story of the "New York Herald" investigation [Editorial Comment: NYHerald commissioned then killed Packingtown a year after The Jungle story], and what had been discovered. I stood, looking into the faces of these working men and women, and said: "You are the people who know about these matters. Are they true?" There was a roar of assent that rocked the building. I said: I know they are true, and you know they are true. Now tell me this, ought they be made known to the American people? Would you like them to be made known to the American people?" And a again there was a roar of assent.
Then I looked over the edge of the platform to a row of tables, where sat the reporters looking up, and I talked to them for a while. I said: "You are newspaper men; you know a story when you see it. Tell me now - tell me straight - is not this a story?" The newspaper men nodded and grinned. they knew it was a "story" all right. "The public would like to read this - the public of Chicago and the public of all the rest of American - would they not?" And again the newspaper men nodded and grinned. "Now," said I, "play fair with me; give me a square deal, so far as you are concerned. Write this story just as I have told it tonight. Write it and turn it in and see what happens. Will you do that?" And they pledged themselves, the audience saw them pledge themselves. And so the test was made, as perfect a test as anyone could conceive. And next morning there was just one newspaper in Chicago which mentioned my speech in the Stockyards district - the "Chicago Socialist." Not one line in any other newspaper, morning or evening, in Chicago!
(63) The cynical newspaper editors, whose first maxim in life is that nothing can ever be changed...
(124) The thesis of this book is that our newspapers do not represent public interest, but private interests; they do not represent humanity, but property; they value a man, not because he is great, or good, or wise, or useful, but because he is wealthy, or of service to vested wealth.
(224) ...I assert there is no daily newspaper in America which does not represent and serve vested wealth and which has not for its ultimate aim the protection of economic privilege...
A capitalist newspaper may espouse this cause or that, it may make this pretense or that, but sooner or later you realize that a capitalist newspaper lives by the capitalist system, it fights for that system, and in the nature of the case cannot do otherwise. Some one has said that to talk of regulating capital is to talk of moralizing a tiger; I would say that to expect justice and truth-telling of a capitalist newspaper is to expect asceticism at a cannibal feast.
(236) ...maybe you feel proud about that, you like to be in the boat with the best fishermen - even though you are there as a fish.
(238) And if you go to the small town in Pennsylvania of Arkansas or Colorado, or wherever this paper is published, you find a country editor on the level of intelligence of the local horse-doctors of Englewood, New Jersey, and Tarrytown, New York whose proceedings I have described in this book. Frequently you find this editor hanging on by his eye-teeth, with a mortgage at the local bank, carried because of favors he does to the local money-power. You find him getting a regular monthly income from the copper-interests or the coal-interests or the lumber-interests, whatever happens to be dominant in that locality. You find him heavily subsidized at election -time by the two political machines of these great interests. His paper is used to print the speeches of the candidates of these interests and five or ten or fifty thousand copies of this particular issue are paid for by these interests and distributed at meetings. Campaign circulars and other literature are printed in the printing-office of this newspaper, and of course the public advertising appears in its columns - a graft which is found in every state and county of the Union, and is a means by which hundreds of millions of dollars are paid as a disguised subsidy by the interests which run our two-party political system.
(239) No, the editors of country and small-town newspapers are not giving their readers the truth about labor conditions in basic American industries. They know, as the phrase is, "which side their bread is buttered on," and they keep that side up with care. I have said that there are fortunes to be made by giving the news to the people; I must qualify the statement by explaining that it must be done on a large scale, and you must have capital to keep you going until you reach the people who can understand you. If you try it on a small scale, and without capital, you are crushed before you get your head out of the mud. And you know that, and govern yourself accordingly.
(241) The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over Journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry. This statement may sound extreme, but if you will think about it you will realize that in the very nature of the case it must be true. It does not destroy the steel trust if there are a few independent steel-makers, it does not destroy the money trust if there are a few independent men of wealth, but it does destroy the news trust if there is a single independent newspaper to let the cat out of the bag.
(248) A professional journalist may be defined as man who holds himself ready at a day's notice to adjust his opinions to the pocket-book of a new owner.
(259) A large part of what is called "conservatism" in our Journalism is this instinctive reverence for wealth, as deeply rooted in every American as respect for a duke in an English butler.
(408-409) The Mental Munition-Factory
A solution that comes at once to mind is state-owned or municipal-owned newspapers. This is the orthodox Socialist solution, and is also being advocated by Wiliam Jennings Bryan. Fortunately, we do not have to take his theories or anyone's theories; we have facts - the experience of Los Angeles with its public paper, the "Municipal News," which was an entire success. I inquire of the editor of the paper, Frank E. Wolfe, and he writes:
The "Municipal News"? There's a rich story buried there. It was established by an initiative ordinance, and had an ample appropriation. It was launched in the stream with engines going full stream ahead. its success was instantaneous. Free distribution; immense circulation; choked with high-class, high-rate advertising; well edited, and it was clean and immensely popular.
Otis said: "Every dollar that damned socialistic thing gets is a dollar out of the 'Times' till." Every publisher in the city re-echoed, and the fight was on. The chief thing that rankled, however, was the our growth of a clause in the ordinance which gave to each political party polling a three per cent vote a column in each issue for whatsoever purpose it might be used. The Socialist Labor Party nosed out the Prohibitionists by a fluke. The Socialists had a big margin in the preceding elections, so the Reds had two columns, and they were quick to seize the opportunity for propaganda. The Goo-goos, who had always stoutly denied they were apolitical party, came forward and claimed space, and the merry war was on. Those two columns for Socialist propaganda were the real cause for the daily onslaught of the painted ladies of Broadway (newspaper district of Los Angeles). There were three and three evening papers. Six times a day they whined, barked, yelped and snapped at the heels of the "Municipal News." Never were more lies poured out from the mouths of these mothers of falsehood. The little, weakly whelps of the pornographic press took up the hue and cry, and Blanche, Sweetheart and Tray were on the trail. Advertisers were cajoled, browbeaten and black mailed, until nearly all left the paper. The "News" was manned by a picked staff of the best newspaper men on the coast it was a clean, well edited, and gave both sides to all controversies - using the parallel column system. It covered the news of the municipality better than any paper had ever covered it. It was weak and ineffective editorially, for the policy was to print a newspaper. We did not indulge in a clothes-line quarrel - did not fight back.
The "News" died under the axe one year from its birth. They used the initiative to kill it. The rabble rallied to the cry, and we foresaw the end. The paper had attracted attention all over the English-reading world. everywhere I have gone I have been asked about it, by people who never dreamed I had been an editor of the paper. Its death was a triumph for reaction, but its effect will not die. Some day the idea will prevail, Then I might want to go back into the "game." [Editorial Comment: end of quote from Frank E. Wolfe, editor of the "Municipal News."]
City-owned newspapers are part of the solution, but not the whole part. As a Socialist, I advocate pubic ownership of the instruments and means of production; but I do not rely entirely upon that method where intellectual matters are concerned. I would have the sate make all the steel and coal and oil, the shoes and matches and sugar; I would have it do the distribution of newspapers, and perhaps even the printing; but for the editing of the newspapers I cast about for a method of control that allows free play to the development of initiative and the expression of personality.
In a free society the solution will be simple; there will be many groups and associations, publishing their own papers, and if you do not like the papers which these groups give you, you can form a group of your own. Being in receipt of the full product of your labor, you will have plenty of money, and will be surrounded by other free and independent individuals, also receiving the full product of their labor, and accustomed to combining for the expression of their ideas. The difference is that today the worlds' resources are in the hands of a class, and this class has a monopoly of self-expression. The problem of transferring such power to the people must be studied as the whole social problem, and not merely as the problem of the press.
(424-425) How all this works out, you may learn from the Syndicalist movement of Italy - only, of course, Capitalist Journalism has not allowed you to know anything about the Syndicalist movement of Italy! The glass-workers were beaten in a terrific strike, and they realized that they had to find a new weapon; they contributed their funds and bought a glass-factory, which they started upon a co-operative basis. When this factory had its product ready for sale, strikes were called on the other factories, by applying this method again and again, the union broke its rivals, and bought them out at a low price, and so before the war practically the entire glass-industry of Italy was in the hands of co-operative unions, and the glass-workers were getting the full value of their product.
The same thing was done before the war by the agricultural workers in Sicily. The strikers had been shot down by the soldiery, their own brothers and sons; they bought several estates and worked them co-operatively, and when harvest-time came there was labor for the co-operative estates, and there were strikes against the absentee landlords, who were spending their time in Paris and on the Riviera. So the landlords made haste to sell out, and the agricultural unions were rapidly taking possession of the land of Sicily.
(427) I cry to you that Journalism shall no longer be the thing described by Charles A Dana, master-cynic of the "New York Sun," "buying white paper at two cents a pound and selling it at ten cents a pound."
(438-439) A Practical Program
I propose that we shall found and endow a weekly publication of truth-telling, to be known as "The National News." This publication will carry no advertisements and no editorials. It will not be a journal of opinion, but a record of events pure and simple. It will be published on ordinary news-print paper, and in the cheapest possible form. it will have one purpose and one only, to give to the American people once every week the truth about the world's events. It will be strictly and absolutely nonpartisan, and never the propaganda organ of any cause. It will watch the country, and see where lies are being circulated and truth suppressed; its job will be to nail the lies, and bring the truth into the light of day. I believe that a sufficient number of Americans are awake to the dishonesty of our press to build up for such a paper a circulation of a million inside of a year.
Let me say at the outset that I am not looking for a job. I have my work, and it isn't editing a newspaper; nor do I judge myself capable of that rigid impartiality which such an enterprise would require. It is my idea that control of the paper should be vested in a board of directors, composed of twenty or thirty men and women of all creeds and causes, who have proven by their lifetime records that they believe in fair play.
(445) The "Federated Press" had its inception at a convention of the Labor Party in Chicago, November, 1919. It is a co-operative non-profit-making organization of working class newspapers, and maintains an admirable service of vital news from all over the world. It publishes a weekly four-page bulletin, which it will mail to you for five dollars a year, and which you will find worth the price many times over. The address of the "Federated Press" is 156 W. Washington Street, Chicago, Ill.
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism is The Jungle applied to journalism. Based upon Sinclair's own experiences with the press as a result of the noise he made muckraking meatpacking, he looked back at the Press from the wrong end of the microscope and documented relevent events as they happened. He investigated the press as they investigated him.
The Brass Check of the title refers to a system of whorehouse management in which the customer pays the house for services and receives a brass check, a token to give to the whore upstairs to indicate he's paid.
The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism by Upton Sinclair
Arno Press and NYTimes, reprint edition 1970
originally self-published by the author in 1919
(31) ...the newspaper reviewers had set the rules of the game - that love and and beauty in art were heeded only in connection with personalities and sensation...
(42) Newspapermen are human, and cannot be blamed by their owners if now and then they yield to the temptation to publish the news.
(52) The Chicago Stop on the The Jungle Book Tour of 1908
Mind you, a little over a year before I had put Packingtown on the map of the world; I had made Packingtown and its methods the subject of discussion at the dinner-tables of many countries; and now I was coming back to Packingtown for the first time since that event. There was a big hall, jammed to the very doors with Stockyards workers. You will pardon me if I say that they made it clear that they were glad to have me come there. and to this uproarious audience I told the story of the "New York Herald" investigation [Editorial Comment: NYHerald commissioned then killed Packingtown a year after The Jungle story], and what had been discovered. I stood, looking into the faces of these working men and women, and said: "You are the people who know about these matters. Are they true?" There was a roar of assent that rocked the building. I said: I know they are true, and you know they are true. Now tell me this, ought they be made known to the American people? Would you like them to be made known to the American people?" And a again there was a roar of assent.
Then I looked over the edge of the platform to a row of tables, where sat the reporters looking up, and I talked to them for a while. I said: "You are newspaper men; you know a story when you see it. Tell me now - tell me straight - is not this a story?" The newspaper men nodded and grinned. they knew it was a "story" all right. "The public would like to read this - the public of Chicago and the public of all the rest of American - would they not?" And again the newspaper men nodded and grinned. "Now," said I, "play fair with me; give me a square deal, so far as you are concerned. Write this story just as I have told it tonight. Write it and turn it in and see what happens. Will you do that?" And they pledged themselves, the audience saw them pledge themselves. And so the test was made, as perfect a test as anyone could conceive. And next morning there was just one newspaper in Chicago which mentioned my speech in the Stockyards district - the "Chicago Socialist." Not one line in any other newspaper, morning or evening, in Chicago!
(63) The cynical newspaper editors, whose first maxim in life is that nothing can ever be changed...
(124) The thesis of this book is that our newspapers do not represent public interest, but private interests; they do not represent humanity, but property; they value a man, not because he is great, or good, or wise, or useful, but because he is wealthy, or of service to vested wealth.
(224) ...I assert there is no daily newspaper in America which does not represent and serve vested wealth and which has not for its ultimate aim the protection of economic privilege...
A capitalist newspaper may espouse this cause or that, it may make this pretense or that, but sooner or later you realize that a capitalist newspaper lives by the capitalist system, it fights for that system, and in the nature of the case cannot do otherwise. Some one has said that to talk of regulating capital is to talk of moralizing a tiger; I would say that to expect justice and truth-telling of a capitalist newspaper is to expect asceticism at a cannibal feast.
(236) ...maybe you feel proud about that, you like to be in the boat with the best fishermen - even though you are there as a fish.
(238) And if you go to the small town in Pennsylvania of Arkansas or Colorado, or wherever this paper is published, you find a country editor on the level of intelligence of the local horse-doctors of Englewood, New Jersey, and Tarrytown, New York whose proceedings I have described in this book. Frequently you find this editor hanging on by his eye-teeth, with a mortgage at the local bank, carried because of favors he does to the local money-power. You find him getting a regular monthly income from the copper-interests or the coal-interests or the lumber-interests, whatever happens to be dominant in that locality. You find him heavily subsidized at election -time by the two political machines of these great interests. His paper is used to print the speeches of the candidates of these interests and five or ten or fifty thousand copies of this particular issue are paid for by these interests and distributed at meetings. Campaign circulars and other literature are printed in the printing-office of this newspaper, and of course the public advertising appears in its columns - a graft which is found in every state and county of the Union, and is a means by which hundreds of millions of dollars are paid as a disguised subsidy by the interests which run our two-party political system.
(239) No, the editors of country and small-town newspapers are not giving their readers the truth about labor conditions in basic American industries. They know, as the phrase is, "which side their bread is buttered on," and they keep that side up with care. I have said that there are fortunes to be made by giving the news to the people; I must qualify the statement by explaining that it must be done on a large scale, and you must have capital to keep you going until you reach the people who can understand you. If you try it on a small scale, and without capital, you are crushed before you get your head out of the mud. And you know that, and govern yourself accordingly.
(241) The methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over Journalism are four: First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, advertising subsidies; and fourth, direct bribery. By these methods there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry. This statement may sound extreme, but if you will think about it you will realize that in the very nature of the case it must be true. It does not destroy the steel trust if there are a few independent steel-makers, it does not destroy the money trust if there are a few independent men of wealth, but it does destroy the news trust if there is a single independent newspaper to let the cat out of the bag.
(248) A professional journalist may be defined as man who holds himself ready at a day's notice to adjust his opinions to the pocket-book of a new owner.
(259) A large part of what is called "conservatism" in our Journalism is this instinctive reverence for wealth, as deeply rooted in every American as respect for a duke in an English butler.
(408-409) The Mental Munition-Factory
A solution that comes at once to mind is state-owned or municipal-owned newspapers. This is the orthodox Socialist solution, and is also being advocated by Wiliam Jennings Bryan. Fortunately, we do not have to take his theories or anyone's theories; we have facts - the experience of Los Angeles with its public paper, the "Municipal News," which was an entire success. I inquire of the editor of the paper, Frank E. Wolfe, and he writes:
The "Municipal News"? There's a rich story buried there. It was established by an initiative ordinance, and had an ample appropriation. It was launched in the stream with engines going full stream ahead. its success was instantaneous. Free distribution; immense circulation; choked with high-class, high-rate advertising; well edited, and it was clean and immensely popular.
Otis said: "Every dollar that damned socialistic thing gets is a dollar out of the 'Times' till." Every publisher in the city re-echoed, and the fight was on. The chief thing that rankled, however, was the our growth of a clause in the ordinance which gave to each political party polling a three per cent vote a column in each issue for whatsoever purpose it might be used. The Socialist Labor Party nosed out the Prohibitionists by a fluke. The Socialists had a big margin in the preceding elections, so the Reds had two columns, and they were quick to seize the opportunity for propaganda. The Goo-goos, who had always stoutly denied they were apolitical party, came forward and claimed space, and the merry war was on. Those two columns for Socialist propaganda were the real cause for the daily onslaught of the painted ladies of Broadway (newspaper district of Los Angeles). There were three and three evening papers. Six times a day they whined, barked, yelped and snapped at the heels of the "Municipal News." Never were more lies poured out from the mouths of these mothers of falsehood. The little, weakly whelps of the pornographic press took up the hue and cry, and Blanche, Sweetheart and Tray were on the trail. Advertisers were cajoled, browbeaten and black mailed, until nearly all left the paper. The "News" was manned by a picked staff of the best newspaper men on the coast it was a clean, well edited, and gave both sides to all controversies - using the parallel column system. It covered the news of the municipality better than any paper had ever covered it. It was weak and ineffective editorially, for the policy was to print a newspaper. We did not indulge in a clothes-line quarrel - did not fight back.
The "News" died under the axe one year from its birth. They used the initiative to kill it. The rabble rallied to the cry, and we foresaw the end. The paper had attracted attention all over the English-reading world. everywhere I have gone I have been asked about it, by people who never dreamed I had been an editor of the paper. Its death was a triumph for reaction, but its effect will not die. Some day the idea will prevail, Then I might want to go back into the "game." [Editorial Comment: end of quote from Frank E. Wolfe, editor of the "Municipal News."]
City-owned newspapers are part of the solution, but not the whole part. As a Socialist, I advocate pubic ownership of the instruments and means of production; but I do not rely entirely upon that method where intellectual matters are concerned. I would have the sate make all the steel and coal and oil, the shoes and matches and sugar; I would have it do the distribution of newspapers, and perhaps even the printing; but for the editing of the newspapers I cast about for a method of control that allows free play to the development of initiative and the expression of personality.
In a free society the solution will be simple; there will be many groups and associations, publishing their own papers, and if you do not like the papers which these groups give you, you can form a group of your own. Being in receipt of the full product of your labor, you will have plenty of money, and will be surrounded by other free and independent individuals, also receiving the full product of their labor, and accustomed to combining for the expression of their ideas. The difference is that today the worlds' resources are in the hands of a class, and this class has a monopoly of self-expression. The problem of transferring such power to the people must be studied as the whole social problem, and not merely as the problem of the press.
(424-425) How all this works out, you may learn from the Syndicalist movement of Italy - only, of course, Capitalist Journalism has not allowed you to know anything about the Syndicalist movement of Italy! The glass-workers were beaten in a terrific strike, and they realized that they had to find a new weapon; they contributed their funds and bought a glass-factory, which they started upon a co-operative basis. When this factory had its product ready for sale, strikes were called on the other factories, by applying this method again and again, the union broke its rivals, and bought them out at a low price, and so before the war practically the entire glass-industry of Italy was in the hands of co-operative unions, and the glass-workers were getting the full value of their product.
The same thing was done before the war by the agricultural workers in Sicily. The strikers had been shot down by the soldiery, their own brothers and sons; they bought several estates and worked them co-operatively, and when harvest-time came there was labor for the co-operative estates, and there were strikes against the absentee landlords, who were spending their time in Paris and on the Riviera. So the landlords made haste to sell out, and the agricultural unions were rapidly taking possession of the land of Sicily.
(427) I cry to you that Journalism shall no longer be the thing described by Charles A Dana, master-cynic of the "New York Sun," "buying white paper at two cents a pound and selling it at ten cents a pound."
(438-439) A Practical Program
I propose that we shall found and endow a weekly publication of truth-telling, to be known as "The National News." This publication will carry no advertisements and no editorials. It will not be a journal of opinion, but a record of events pure and simple. It will be published on ordinary news-print paper, and in the cheapest possible form. it will have one purpose and one only, to give to the American people once every week the truth about the world's events. It will be strictly and absolutely nonpartisan, and never the propaganda organ of any cause. It will watch the country, and see where lies are being circulated and truth suppressed; its job will be to nail the lies, and bring the truth into the light of day. I believe that a sufficient number of Americans are awake to the dishonesty of our press to build up for such a paper a circulation of a million inside of a year.
Let me say at the outset that I am not looking for a job. I have my work, and it isn't editing a newspaper; nor do I judge myself capable of that rigid impartiality which such an enterprise would require. It is my idea that control of the paper should be vested in a board of directors, composed of twenty or thirty men and women of all creeds and causes, who have proven by their lifetime records that they believe in fair play.
(445) The "Federated Press" had its inception at a convention of the Labor Party in Chicago, November, 1919. It is a co-operative non-profit-making organization of working class newspapers, and maintains an admirable service of vital news from all over the world. It publishes a weekly four-page bulletin, which it will mail to you for five dollars a year, and which you will find worth the price many times over. The address of the "Federated Press" is 156 W. Washington Street, Chicago, Ill.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume III
A friend told me she's reading Ron Chernow's biography of Mark Twain which reminded me that I haven't posted my notes to the third and last volume of his long-awaited and problematic autobiography, so here it is.<br><br>
_Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume III_ by Mark Twain
Oakland, CA: University of CA Press, 2015
ISBN 978-0-520-27994-0
(13) Many things have happened in the meantime, and as I recall them, I perceive that each incident was important in its hour, and alive with interest; then quickly lost color and
life, and is now of no consequence. And this is what our life consists of – a procession of episodes and experiences, which seem large when they happen, but which diminish to trivialities as soon as we get a perspective upon them.
(51) During a stretch of Thirty-Five years, I exercised my pen, in my trade of authorship, in the summertime, and in the summertime only. I worked three months in the year, and amused myself in other ways during the other nine.
(73-74) My habits underwent a sudden and lively change. At home they had bit of a lazy sort, for a year or two – to wit: breakfast in bed, at 8 o'clock, newspapers and the pipe until about 11, still in bed; then dictation for an hour or two with my clothes on; then downstairs to drink a glass of milk, while the rest of the family ate their lunch; back to bed at three in the afternoon to read and smoke and sleep; dinner downstairs at 7:30; then billiards until midnight, if Mr. Paine was on the premises – otherwise back to bed at 8:30, not to sleep, but to read and smoke until 1 o'clock, and then sleep if convenient.
(80) [1907 speech to Oxford undergraduates] In seven years, I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven years ago. (Laughter.) But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope you will forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of 72, you know perfectly well that he has never reached that place without knowing what this life is – a heartbreaking bereavement. And so our reverence is for our dead. We do not forget them, but our duty is towards the living, and if we can be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech, and in hope that is benefit to those who are around us.
(95) It may be that there are persons in the world who get tired of compliments – a thing which I doubt – but I am not one of them; if I should run out of all other nourishment I believe I could live on compliments.
(102) Sir Gilbert Parker tells Sir William Harcourt’s story: Well, you didn't hear it. You and Churchilll went up to the top floor to have a smoke and a talk, and Harcourt wondered what the result would be. He said that whichever of you got the floor first would keep it to the end, without a break; he believed that you, being old and experienced, would get it, and that Churchill's lungs would have a half hour's rest for the first time in five years. When you two came down, bye and bye, Sir William asked Churchill, if he had had a good time, and he answered eagerly, “Yes." Then he asked you if you had had a good time. You hesitated, then said, without eagerness, "I have had a smoke.”
(130) What a coward, every man is! and how surely he will find it out, if he will just let other people alone, and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.
(136) Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has fallen in the country since the Civil War – but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
(193) comminuted - broken into multiple pieces
(243) …and the “Ponkapog" house would necessarily have to indulge in polo, because it is another symbol and advertisement of financial obesity…
(248) That idea pleased me; indeed, there is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, then out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.
(279-280) Dictation of November 20, 1908
A memorial respectfully tendered to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
19 or 20 years ago, James Russell, Lowell, George, Haven Putnam, and the undersigned, appeared before the Senate committee on Patents in the interest of copyright. Up to that time, as explained by Senator Platt of Connecticut, the policy of Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright, by a term of years, with one definite end in view, and only one – to wit, that, after an author had been permitted to enjoy, for a reasonable length of time, the income from literary property created by his hand and brain, the property should then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still the policy of Congress today.
The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the price of the book, is to bring it within the reach of all purses, and spread it among the millions, who had not been able to buy it while it was still under protection of copyright.
This purpose has always been defeated. That is to say, that, while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price of a book by a half, for a while, and in some cases, by even more, it is never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was permanent and secure.
The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the authors royalty and the books consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among several competing publishers, would make the book cheap by force of the competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap addition if he must divide the market with competitors.
The natural remedy would seem to be a, an amended law requiring the issue of cheap additions.
I think the remedy could be accomplished in the following way, without injury, to author or publisher, and with extreme advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law provided as follows – to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's 41st year at the ending of the 42nd the owner of the copyright may extend its life 30 years by issuing and placing on sale and edition of the book at 1/10 the price of the cheapest addition, thitherto issued at any time during the 10 immediately preceding years; this extension to lapse and become null and void if, at any time during the 30 years he shall fail during the space of three consecutive months to furnish the 10% book upon demand of any person or persons desiring to buy it.
The result would be, that no American classic enjoying the 30 year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American press, let its compulsory price be what it might. He would get a two dollar book for $.20, and he could get none, but copyright expired classics at any such rate.
At the end of the 30 year extension, the copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an advantage to any publisher.
A clause of the suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again: all books, and all articles other than books, enjoying 42 years copyright life under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the 30 year extension upon complying with a condition requiring the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form of said, book or article at a price 90% below the cheapest rate at which said book or article, had been placed upon the market at any time during immediately preceding 10 years.
Remarks.
If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present Congress and become law – and I hope it will - I shall have personal experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact: in the person of my first book, The Innocents Abroad. For its 42 year copyright life will then cease, and its 30 year extension begin – and with the later the permanent low rate addition. At present, the highest price of the book is eight dollars, and it's lowest price three dollars per copy. Thus the permanent low rate price will be $.30 per copy. A sweeping reduction like this is what Congress, from the beginning, has desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk.
Respectfully submitted,
S. L. Clemens
(435) I like the truth, sometimes, but I don't care enough for it to hanker after it. And besides, I have lived with liars so long, that I have lost the tune, and a fact jars upon me like a discord.
More notes from my readings of Twain<br>
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/07/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-i.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/06/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-ii.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2021/10/quotes-from-complete-short-stories-of.html
_Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume III_ by Mark Twain
Oakland, CA: University of CA Press, 2015
ISBN 978-0-520-27994-0
(13) Many things have happened in the meantime, and as I recall them, I perceive that each incident was important in its hour, and alive with interest; then quickly lost color and
life, and is now of no consequence. And this is what our life consists of – a procession of episodes and experiences, which seem large when they happen, but which diminish to trivialities as soon as we get a perspective upon them.
(51) During a stretch of Thirty-Five years, I exercised my pen, in my trade of authorship, in the summertime, and in the summertime only. I worked three months in the year, and amused myself in other ways during the other nine.
(73-74) My habits underwent a sudden and lively change. At home they had bit of a lazy sort, for a year or two – to wit: breakfast in bed, at 8 o'clock, newspapers and the pipe until about 11, still in bed; then dictation for an hour or two with my clothes on; then downstairs to drink a glass of milk, while the rest of the family ate their lunch; back to bed at three in the afternoon to read and smoke and sleep; dinner downstairs at 7:30; then billiards until midnight, if Mr. Paine was on the premises – otherwise back to bed at 8:30, not to sleep, but to read and smoke until 1 o'clock, and then sleep if convenient.
(80) [1907 speech to Oxford undergraduates] In seven years, I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven years ago. (Laughter.) But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope you will forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of 72, you know perfectly well that he has never reached that place without knowing what this life is – a heartbreaking bereavement. And so our reverence is for our dead. We do not forget them, but our duty is towards the living, and if we can be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech, and in hope that is benefit to those who are around us.
(95) It may be that there are persons in the world who get tired of compliments – a thing which I doubt – but I am not one of them; if I should run out of all other nourishment I believe I could live on compliments.
(102) Sir Gilbert Parker tells Sir William Harcourt’s story: Well, you didn't hear it. You and Churchilll went up to the top floor to have a smoke and a talk, and Harcourt wondered what the result would be. He said that whichever of you got the floor first would keep it to the end, without a break; he believed that you, being old and experienced, would get it, and that Churchill's lungs would have a half hour's rest for the first time in five years. When you two came down, bye and bye, Sir William asked Churchill, if he had had a good time, and he answered eagerly, “Yes." Then he asked you if you had had a good time. You hesitated, then said, without eagerness, "I have had a smoke.”
(130) What a coward, every man is! and how surely he will find it out, if he will just let other people alone, and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.
(136) Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has fallen in the country since the Civil War – but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
(193) comminuted - broken into multiple pieces
(243) …and the “Ponkapog" house would necessarily have to indulge in polo, because it is another symbol and advertisement of financial obesity…
(248) That idea pleased me; indeed, there is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, then out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.
(279-280) Dictation of November 20, 1908
A memorial respectfully tendered to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
19 or 20 years ago, James Russell, Lowell, George, Haven Putnam, and the undersigned, appeared before the Senate committee on Patents in the interest of copyright. Up to that time, as explained by Senator Platt of Connecticut, the policy of Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright, by a term of years, with one definite end in view, and only one – to wit, that, after an author had been permitted to enjoy, for a reasonable length of time, the income from literary property created by his hand and brain, the property should then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still the policy of Congress today.
The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the price of the book, is to bring it within the reach of all purses, and spread it among the millions, who had not been able to buy it while it was still under protection of copyright.
This purpose has always been defeated. That is to say, that, while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price of a book by a half, for a while, and in some cases, by even more, it is never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was permanent and secure.
The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the authors royalty and the books consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among several competing publishers, would make the book cheap by force of the competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap addition if he must divide the market with competitors.
The natural remedy would seem to be a, an amended law requiring the issue of cheap additions.
I think the remedy could be accomplished in the following way, without injury, to author or publisher, and with extreme advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law provided as follows – to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's 41st year at the ending of the 42nd the owner of the copyright may extend its life 30 years by issuing and placing on sale and edition of the book at 1/10 the price of the cheapest addition, thitherto issued at any time during the 10 immediately preceding years; this extension to lapse and become null and void if, at any time during the 30 years he shall fail during the space of three consecutive months to furnish the 10% book upon demand of any person or persons desiring to buy it.
The result would be, that no American classic enjoying the 30 year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American press, let its compulsory price be what it might. He would get a two dollar book for $.20, and he could get none, but copyright expired classics at any such rate.
At the end of the 30 year extension, the copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an advantage to any publisher.
A clause of the suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again: all books, and all articles other than books, enjoying 42 years copyright life under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the 30 year extension upon complying with a condition requiring the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form of said, book or article at a price 90% below the cheapest rate at which said book or article, had been placed upon the market at any time during immediately preceding 10 years.
Remarks.
If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present Congress and become law – and I hope it will - I shall have personal experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact: in the person of my first book, The Innocents Abroad. For its 42 year copyright life will then cease, and its 30 year extension begin – and with the later the permanent low rate addition. At present, the highest price of the book is eight dollars, and it's lowest price three dollars per copy. Thus the permanent low rate price will be $.30 per copy. A sweeping reduction like this is what Congress, from the beginning, has desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk.
Respectfully submitted,
S. L. Clemens
(435) I like the truth, sometimes, but I don't care enough for it to hanker after it. And besides, I have lived with liars so long, that I have lost the tune, and a fact jars upon me like a discord.
More notes from my readings of Twain<br>
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/07/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-i.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/06/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-ii.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2021/10/quotes-from-complete-short-stories-of.html
Thursday, December 4, 2025
Thomas Paine: The Rights of Man
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961
(275) When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man and not the subject that becomes exhausted.
(308) The fact therefore must be, that the _individuals themselves_, each in his own personal and sovereign right, _entered into a compact with each other_ to produce a government_: and this is the only mode in which govenrments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
(309) A constitution is _antecedent_ to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.
...A constitution, therefore, is to a government, what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
(353) While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly, some of its member remarked, that if a Declaration of Rights was published, it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee, as well as to possess.
Editorial Comment: Gandhi - "The true source of right is the duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek."
(379) Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
(387) Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.
(389) A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
(398) Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.
(403) … That government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
(413) Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
(420) A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.
(424) The compact was that of the people with each other, to produce and constitute a government.
(446) Whatever the form or constitution of government may be, it ought to have no other object than the _general_ happiness. When, instead of this, it operates to create and increase wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.
(463) When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoices. It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
(465) Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
(480) Social Security: … consequently, at the end of fifty years, he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings [£24,807.15 in 2025]; and at sixty, one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings [£29,768.58 in 2025].
Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax into a tontine,the money he shall receive after fifty years, is but little more than the legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government.
(482) It is monarchical and aristocratic governments, only, that require ignorance for their support.
… Were twenty shillings to be given to every woman immediately on the birth of a child, who should make the demand, and none will make it whose circumstances do not require it, it might relieve a great deal of instant distress. [£192.68 in 2025]
(488) It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property, or the accumulation of it by bequest.
… The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above principles, and as a substitution for the commutation tax.
Declaration of Rights (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp)
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961
(275) When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man and not the subject that becomes exhausted.
(308) The fact therefore must be, that the _individuals themselves_, each in his own personal and sovereign right, _entered into a compact with each other_ to produce a government_: and this is the only mode in which govenrments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
(309) A constitution is _antecedent_ to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.
...A constitution, therefore, is to a government, what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
(353) While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly, some of its member remarked, that if a Declaration of Rights was published, it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee, as well as to possess.
Editorial Comment: Gandhi - "The true source of right is the duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek."
(379) Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
(387) Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.
(389) A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
(398) Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.
(403) … That government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
(413) Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
(420) A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.
(424) The compact was that of the people with each other, to produce and constitute a government.
(446) Whatever the form or constitution of government may be, it ought to have no other object than the _general_ happiness. When, instead of this, it operates to create and increase wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.
(463) When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoices. It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
(465) Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
(480) Social Security: … consequently, at the end of fifty years, he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings [£24,807.15 in 2025]; and at sixty, one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings [£29,768.58 in 2025].
Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax into a tontine,the money he shall receive after fifty years, is but little more than the legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government.
(482) It is monarchical and aristocratic governments, only, that require ignorance for their support.
… Were twenty shillings to be given to every woman immediately on the birth of a child, who should make the demand, and none will make it whose circumstances do not require it, it might relieve a great deal of instant distress. [£192.68 in 2025]
(488) It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property, or the accumulation of it by bequest.
… The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above principles, and as a substitution for the commutation tax.
Declaration of Rights (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp)
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025
The Ritual of Civility
I must remember this the next time a politician starts talking about “civility.”
When you are talking about civility, it is already empty ritual without justice, benevolence, virtue, or any way to the Way.
from Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38
故失道而後德.
失德而後仁.
失仁而後義
失義 而後禮.
夫禮者, 忠信之薄,
而亂之首.
Thus after losing the Way, virtue.
After losing virtue, benevolence.
After losing benevolence, justice.
After losing justice, ritual.
Those married to ritual are thin on loyalty and faith
and the first of chaos.
When you are talking about civility, it is already empty ritual without justice, benevolence, virtue, or any way to the Way.
from Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38
故失道而後德.
失德而後仁.
失仁而後義
失義 而後禮.
夫禮者, 忠信之薄,
而亂之首.
Thus after losing the Way, virtue.
After losing virtue, benevolence.
After losing benevolence, justice.
After losing justice, ritual.
Those married to ritual are thin on loyalty and faith
and the first of chaos.
Monday, September 22, 2025
Ursula K LeGuin on The Stalin in the Soul
from _The Language of the Night_ by Ursula K LeGuin
NY: GP Putnam, 1979
ISBN-13 : 978-0399123252
(page 213) The only way to defeat suppression, depression, and censorship – and where there is institutionalized power, there is censorship – is to refuse it. Not to reply to it in kind – if you try to silence me, I'll try to silence you – but to refuse both its means, and its ends. To bypass it entirely. To be larger than it is. That is precisely what [Yevgeny Ivanovich] Zamyatin [author of the Soviet censored sf novel We] was. He was larger in spirit than his enemies, and consciously refused to let their smallness infect him, and decrease his stature. He would not play the dirty little games. He would not admit Stalin into his soul.
… What affects every writer, every book published in the United States, is censorship by the market.
(214) Where the market reigns, fashion reigns. The fine arts, like the arts of costume, cooking, furnishing, etc., become subject to a constant pressure to change, since novelty, regardless of quality, is a marketable value, a publicizable value. It is, of course, a very limited kind of novelty. The skirt up or down 2 inches; the lapel, half an inch wider; the novel’s dead this year, but fictionalized journalism is big; in science fiction, Holocaust is out, but Environment is in. Pop art, so called, was the pure essence of art as commodity: soup cans. Genuine, newness, genuine originality, is suspect. Unless it's something familiar, rewarmed, or something experimental in form but clearly trivial or cynical in content, it is unsafe. And it must be safe. It mustn't hurt the consumer. It mustn't change the consumer. Shock him, epater le bourgeois, certainly; that's been done for 150 years now, that's the oldest game going. Shock him, jolt him, titillate him, make him writhe and squeal – but do not make him think. If he thinks, he may not come back to buy the next can of soup.
(216-217) Recently, I read in Giovanni Grazzini's fascinating book on Solzhenitsyn [ISBN 10: 0718110684 ISBN 13: 9780718110680], the following passage:
"The cultural industry, vanity, the resentment felt by intellectuals at seeing power slipping from their hands, have so obscured the vision of Western writers as to make them believe that not being persecuted by the police is a privilege."
I am very slow indeed. I puzzled over that sentence for three days before I understood what Grazzini meant. He meant, of course, that it is not a privilege, but a right. The Constitution, which is a revolutionary document, is absolutely clear on that point. It does not grant us, permit us, allow us freedom of speech. It gives the government no such authority. It recognizes freedom of speech as a right – as a fact. A government cannot grant that right. It can only accept it or deny it, and withhold it by force.
(217-218) When there are no formal rules, no, thou shalts and thou shalt nots, it is difficult to notice, even, that one is being censored. It is also painless. It is still more difficult to understand that one may be censoring oneself, extensively, ruthlessly – because that act of self-censorship is called, with full social approval,"writing for a market"; it is even used by some writers as the test and shibboleth for that most admired state of being, “professionalism.”
Indeed, to distinguish free enterprise from self-censorship takes a most uncomfortable degree of vigilance. And that so easily becomes paranoia.
(219) Once you stop asking questions, once you let Stalin into your soul, you can only smile, and smile, and smile.
...When art shows, only how and what, it is, trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from mere emotional response to real statement, and to intelligent ethical choice. It becomes not a passive reflection, but an act.
And that is when all the censors, of the governments out of the marketplace, become afraid of it.
(220) We are mere "viewers" and "consumers," not readers at all. Reading is not a passive reaction, but an action, involving the mind, the emotions, and the will. To accept trashy books because they are "best sellers" is the same thing as accepting adulterated food, ill-made machines, corrupt government, and military and corporative tyranny, and praising them, and calling them the American Way of Life, or the American Dream. It is a betrayal of reality, every lie accepted, leads to the next betrayal, and the next lie.
NY: GP Putnam, 1979
ISBN-13 : 978-0399123252
(page 213) The only way to defeat suppression, depression, and censorship – and where there is institutionalized power, there is censorship – is to refuse it. Not to reply to it in kind – if you try to silence me, I'll try to silence you – but to refuse both its means, and its ends. To bypass it entirely. To be larger than it is. That is precisely what [Yevgeny Ivanovich] Zamyatin [author of the Soviet censored sf novel We] was. He was larger in spirit than his enemies, and consciously refused to let their smallness infect him, and decrease his stature. He would not play the dirty little games. He would not admit Stalin into his soul.
… What affects every writer, every book published in the United States, is censorship by the market.
(214) Where the market reigns, fashion reigns. The fine arts, like the arts of costume, cooking, furnishing, etc., become subject to a constant pressure to change, since novelty, regardless of quality, is a marketable value, a publicizable value. It is, of course, a very limited kind of novelty. The skirt up or down 2 inches; the lapel, half an inch wider; the novel’s dead this year, but fictionalized journalism is big; in science fiction, Holocaust is out, but Environment is in. Pop art, so called, was the pure essence of art as commodity: soup cans. Genuine, newness, genuine originality, is suspect. Unless it's something familiar, rewarmed, or something experimental in form but clearly trivial or cynical in content, it is unsafe. And it must be safe. It mustn't hurt the consumer. It mustn't change the consumer. Shock him, epater le bourgeois, certainly; that's been done for 150 years now, that's the oldest game going. Shock him, jolt him, titillate him, make him writhe and squeal – but do not make him think. If he thinks, he may not come back to buy the next can of soup.
(216-217) Recently, I read in Giovanni Grazzini's fascinating book on Solzhenitsyn [ISBN 10: 0718110684 ISBN 13: 9780718110680], the following passage:
"The cultural industry, vanity, the resentment felt by intellectuals at seeing power slipping from their hands, have so obscured the vision of Western writers as to make them believe that not being persecuted by the police is a privilege."
I am very slow indeed. I puzzled over that sentence for three days before I understood what Grazzini meant. He meant, of course, that it is not a privilege, but a right. The Constitution, which is a revolutionary document, is absolutely clear on that point. It does not grant us, permit us, allow us freedom of speech. It gives the government no such authority. It recognizes freedom of speech as a right – as a fact. A government cannot grant that right. It can only accept it or deny it, and withhold it by force.
(217-218) When there are no formal rules, no, thou shalts and thou shalt nots, it is difficult to notice, even, that one is being censored. It is also painless. It is still more difficult to understand that one may be censoring oneself, extensively, ruthlessly – because that act of self-censorship is called, with full social approval,"writing for a market"; it is even used by some writers as the test and shibboleth for that most admired state of being, “professionalism.”
Indeed, to distinguish free enterprise from self-censorship takes a most uncomfortable degree of vigilance. And that so easily becomes paranoia.
(219) Once you stop asking questions, once you let Stalin into your soul, you can only smile, and smile, and smile.
...When art shows, only how and what, it is, trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from mere emotional response to real statement, and to intelligent ethical choice. It becomes not a passive reflection, but an act.
And that is when all the censors, of the governments out of the marketplace, become afraid of it.
(220) We are mere "viewers" and "consumers," not readers at all. Reading is not a passive reaction, but an action, involving the mind, the emotions, and the will. To accept trashy books because they are "best sellers" is the same thing as accepting adulterated food, ill-made machines, corrupt government, and military and corporative tyranny, and praising them, and calling them the American Way of Life, or the American Dream. It is a betrayal of reality, every lie accepted, leads to the next betrayal, and the next lie.
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Notes on On Strategic Non-Violent Conflict
On Strategic Non-Violent Conflict by Robert Helvey
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62b0eb7da51f3717911bb4e1/t/642f39caabfc7973cb415676/1680816586931/OSNC_English.pdf
Introduction
a framework that encourages orderly thinking about the fundamentals of strategic nonviolent opposition to state tyranny
Chapter 1
Source of power are identified as residing among the people throughout society, with the power holder able to exercise only that power that the people permit - pluralistic not monolithic power
Authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, cultural factors, material resources, sanctions are six sources of power
Chapter 2
Pillars of support: police, military, civil servants, media, business, youth, workers, religious organizations, NGOs
Chapter 3
The reason most people obey is the habit of obedience.
Fear of sanctions, self-interest, moral obligation, idol worship, psychological identification with the rulers, indifference, lack of self-confidence
Chapter Four
Recalling that strategic nonviolent struggle attacks the sources of power, conversion efforts against a regime’s pillars of support can be productive. The first step in this process is to insure that members of the organizations and taargeted institutions understand that they are not, as individuals, an “enemy of the people’ and, in fact, would be welcomed, appreciated, and respected as productive members within a democrtic society.
most important is a vision of a better tomorrow
noncooperation is the most powerful category of nonviolent methods available to opposition movements
NB: Noncooperation movement in Hungary in the 1860s
every person in the country can practice social noncooperation, avoiding social interactions with targeted members of the regime
NB: contrast with no “enemy of the people” and shunning former friends and family who support the regime
Chapter Five
Staff study process: statement of problem, assumptions, facts bearing on the problem, discussion of facts, conclusions, recommendations - suitable, feasible, acceptable?
NB: OODA Loops - Observe Orientation Decide Act - John Boyd https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/5/20/336798/-
Chapter Seven
Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, Command and Signal
Pull don’t push pillars of support
Creating dilemmas for opponents
Chapter Eight
Psyops is the centerpiece of a well-planned strategic nonviolent struggle
Propaganda of agitation, propaganda of integration - to instill conformity & acceptance of authority
better for democracy not to engage hate and prejudice
NB: what damps hat and prejudice down?
Chapter Nine
If the people do not participate in the struggle for their own democracy, it is unlikely they will be able to withstand the challenges of sustaining their freedom
Gandi’s Constructive Program - teach self-respect and dignity, decrease reliance upon British, pursue active struggle for independence, keep people who carry it out distinct from policy, seize and maintain the moral high ground
Liddell Hart: intermediate objectives to draw the enemy away from its stong points and distract it from pursuing its own objectives
NB: Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Kidmatgar
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/01/ghaffar-khan-nonviolent-badshah-of.html
Chapter Ten
The public must overcome the effects of fear in order to confront the violent sanctions a regime may impose upon them.
Surprise often results in panic.
Each person should be given a specific task to accomplish during the event that will require his or her undivided attention.
Chapter Eleven
Leadership Traits: set the example, know the people you expect to lead, be proficient in carrying out responsibilities, seek and accept responsibility, give others credit for success, loyalty, know your opponent, learn from experience, maximize and challenge the abilities of subordinates
It is important to remember, however, that competence is more important than the leadership style adopted (authoritarian to democratic)
Chapter Twelve
Contaminants: violence, appearance of disunity, perception of exclusiveness, presence of foreign nationals within a democratic movement, active partiicpation of military forces in political struggle, organizational structure ill-suited for nonviolent conflict, agents provocateurs
Chapter Fourteen
film “A Force More Powerful”
standardizing core knowledge: selecting final and intermediate objectives for the struggle, pluralistic nature of power or pillars or support, arsenal of noviolent tools and methods, fear and overcoming fear, fundamentals of propaganda, contaminants to nonviolence
Diversifying sources of knowledge and skills
Effective instructors and consultants: be a good listener and observer, sensitive to cross-cultural communications, knowledge beyond the lesson plan, understanding how learning takes place
NB: remember pluralistic ignorance
Summarization by ChatGPT
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a clear and structured summary of On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals by Robert L. Helvey, with direct quotes to preserve his voice and insights.
1. Scope & Purpose
Helvey introduces the work as a strategic framework, not a moral or religious manifesto: “Strategic nonviolent struggle is about seizing political power or denying it to others. It is not about pacifism, moral or religious beliefs.”
His aim is to help opposition movements think systematically—similar to how military planners approach strategy.
2. Foundations of Power (Chapters 1–2)
Theory of Political Power: Helvey draws on Gene Sharp’s pluralistic model: “Ruler can only rule with the consent and cooperation of the people.”
Pillars of Support: He emphasizes analyzing the government's sources of strength—military, media, bureaucracy, religious institutions, etc.—and targeting them strategically.
3. Dynamics of Obedience & Tactics (Chapters 3–4)
Obedience: Explores why people obey authority and how to disrupt compliance.
Methods of Nonviolent Struggle: Presents a wide array—from strikes and boycotts to civil disobedience and symbolic protests—all mapped by purpose. Helvey offers more than 30 methods in his appendices.
4. Strategic Thinking & Planning (Chapters 5–7)
Problem Solving: Introduces structured formats (e.g. staff study) to assess challenges methodically.
Strategic Estimate: Just as armies conduct military estimates, nonviolent groups must analyze political, military, and social environments. For instance, he notes that activists in Burma accounted for weather timing in planning demonstrations.
Operational Planning: Covers coordination, logistics, and safeguards—emphasizing one key principle:
“A fundamental principle is never to remain completely passive."
5. Psychological & Narrative Tools (Chapters 8–9)
Psychological Operations: Using storytelling and symbols to undermine authoritarian legitimacy.
Strategic Insights: Integrates lessons from military strategy into nonviolent campaigns.
6. Dealing with Fear & Leadership (Chapters 10–11)
Fear: Strategies to identify, reduce, and exploit fear—for both activists and opponents.
Leadership: Stresses the importance of adapting leadership style to context: decisiveness in crisis, participatory when possible.
7. Contaminants, External Influence & Training (Chapters 12–14)
Contaminants: Factors that undermine nonviolent discipline—jealousy, infighting, greed.
External Audiences: How to frame movement goals to attract international support without overreliance:
“By themselves… international gestures of support are never sufficient to remove a ruler from power.”
Consultations & Training: Recommends learning from veterans and peer movements to reduce mistakes.
8. Final Reflections
Helvey concludes that people hold the keys to power:
“People need to understand clearly that they hold the very sources of power that a tyrant uses to suppress them…”
He underscores that strategic nonviolent action can dismantle oppressive systems with fewer losses and long-term legitimacy.
Appendix Highlights
Glossary of Terms (e.g., power, pillars, coercion)
156 Practical Methods of nonviolent action
Templates for strategic estimates and problem-solving
In Context
Published in 2004 by the Albert Einstein Institution with backing from the U.S. Institute of Peace, the book distills decades of civil resistance theory (especially Sharp’s work) into a concise, strategic manual.
Ideal for activists, trainers, or political analysts seeking a practical, strategic toolkit—not ideological preaching—for challenging authoritarian structures through disciplined nonviolent action.
Notes on From Dictatorship to Democracy
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2025/07/notes-on-from-dictatorship-to-democracy.html
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62b0eb7da51f3717911bb4e1/t/642f39caabfc7973cb415676/1680816586931/OSNC_English.pdf
Introduction
a framework that encourages orderly thinking about the fundamentals of strategic nonviolent opposition to state tyranny
Chapter 1
Source of power are identified as residing among the people throughout society, with the power holder able to exercise only that power that the people permit - pluralistic not monolithic power
Authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, cultural factors, material resources, sanctions are six sources of power
Chapter 2
Pillars of support: police, military, civil servants, media, business, youth, workers, religious organizations, NGOs
Chapter 3
The reason most people obey is the habit of obedience.
Fear of sanctions, self-interest, moral obligation, idol worship, psychological identification with the rulers, indifference, lack of self-confidence
Chapter Four
Recalling that strategic nonviolent struggle attacks the sources of power, conversion efforts against a regime’s pillars of support can be productive. The first step in this process is to insure that members of the organizations and taargeted institutions understand that they are not, as individuals, an “enemy of the people’ and, in fact, would be welcomed, appreciated, and respected as productive members within a democrtic society.
most important is a vision of a better tomorrow
noncooperation is the most powerful category of nonviolent methods available to opposition movements
NB: Noncooperation movement in Hungary in the 1860s
every person in the country can practice social noncooperation, avoiding social interactions with targeted members of the regime
NB: contrast with no “enemy of the people” and shunning former friends and family who support the regime
Chapter Five
Staff study process: statement of problem, assumptions, facts bearing on the problem, discussion of facts, conclusions, recommendations - suitable, feasible, acceptable?
NB: OODA Loops - Observe Orientation Decide Act - John Boyd https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/5/20/336798/-
Chapter Seven
Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, Command and Signal
Pull don’t push pillars of support
Creating dilemmas for opponents
Chapter Eight
Psyops is the centerpiece of a well-planned strategic nonviolent struggle
Propaganda of agitation, propaganda of integration - to instill conformity & acceptance of authority
better for democracy not to engage hate and prejudice
NB: what damps hat and prejudice down?
Chapter Nine
If the people do not participate in the struggle for their own democracy, it is unlikely they will be able to withstand the challenges of sustaining their freedom
Gandi’s Constructive Program - teach self-respect and dignity, decrease reliance upon British, pursue active struggle for independence, keep people who carry it out distinct from policy, seize and maintain the moral high ground
Liddell Hart: intermediate objectives to draw the enemy away from its stong points and distract it from pursuing its own objectives
NB: Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Kidmatgar
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2016/01/ghaffar-khan-nonviolent-badshah-of.html
Chapter Ten
The public must overcome the effects of fear in order to confront the violent sanctions a regime may impose upon them.
Surprise often results in panic.
Each person should be given a specific task to accomplish during the event that will require his or her undivided attention.
Chapter Eleven
Leadership Traits: set the example, know the people you expect to lead, be proficient in carrying out responsibilities, seek and accept responsibility, give others credit for success, loyalty, know your opponent, learn from experience, maximize and challenge the abilities of subordinates
It is important to remember, however, that competence is more important than the leadership style adopted (authoritarian to democratic)
Chapter Twelve
Contaminants: violence, appearance of disunity, perception of exclusiveness, presence of foreign nationals within a democratic movement, active partiicpation of military forces in political struggle, organizational structure ill-suited for nonviolent conflict, agents provocateurs
Chapter Fourteen
film “A Force More Powerful”
standardizing core knowledge: selecting final and intermediate objectives for the struggle, pluralistic nature of power or pillars or support, arsenal of noviolent tools and methods, fear and overcoming fear, fundamentals of propaganda, contaminants to nonviolence
Diversifying sources of knowledge and skills
Effective instructors and consultants: be a good listener and observer, sensitive to cross-cultural communications, knowledge beyond the lesson plan, understanding how learning takes place
NB: remember pluralistic ignorance
Summarization by ChatGPT
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a clear and structured summary of On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals by Robert L. Helvey, with direct quotes to preserve his voice and insights.
1. Scope & Purpose
Helvey introduces the work as a strategic framework, not a moral or religious manifesto: “Strategic nonviolent struggle is about seizing political power or denying it to others. It is not about pacifism, moral or religious beliefs.”
His aim is to help opposition movements think systematically—similar to how military planners approach strategy.
2. Foundations of Power (Chapters 1–2)
Theory of Political Power: Helvey draws on Gene Sharp’s pluralistic model: “Ruler can only rule with the consent and cooperation of the people.”
Pillars of Support: He emphasizes analyzing the government's sources of strength—military, media, bureaucracy, religious institutions, etc.—and targeting them strategically.
3. Dynamics of Obedience & Tactics (Chapters 3–4)
Obedience: Explores why people obey authority and how to disrupt compliance.
Methods of Nonviolent Struggle: Presents a wide array—from strikes and boycotts to civil disobedience and symbolic protests—all mapped by purpose. Helvey offers more than 30 methods in his appendices.
4. Strategic Thinking & Planning (Chapters 5–7)
Problem Solving: Introduces structured formats (e.g. staff study) to assess challenges methodically.
Strategic Estimate: Just as armies conduct military estimates, nonviolent groups must analyze political, military, and social environments. For instance, he notes that activists in Burma accounted for weather timing in planning demonstrations.
Operational Planning: Covers coordination, logistics, and safeguards—emphasizing one key principle:
“A fundamental principle is never to remain completely passive."
5. Psychological & Narrative Tools (Chapters 8–9)
Psychological Operations: Using storytelling and symbols to undermine authoritarian legitimacy.
Strategic Insights: Integrates lessons from military strategy into nonviolent campaigns.
6. Dealing with Fear & Leadership (Chapters 10–11)
Fear: Strategies to identify, reduce, and exploit fear—for both activists and opponents.
Leadership: Stresses the importance of adapting leadership style to context: decisiveness in crisis, participatory when possible.
7. Contaminants, External Influence & Training (Chapters 12–14)
Contaminants: Factors that undermine nonviolent discipline—jealousy, infighting, greed.
External Audiences: How to frame movement goals to attract international support without overreliance:
“By themselves… international gestures of support are never sufficient to remove a ruler from power.”
Consultations & Training: Recommends learning from veterans and peer movements to reduce mistakes.
8. Final Reflections
Helvey concludes that people hold the keys to power:
“People need to understand clearly that they hold the very sources of power that a tyrant uses to suppress them…”
He underscores that strategic nonviolent action can dismantle oppressive systems with fewer losses and long-term legitimacy.
Appendix Highlights
Glossary of Terms (e.g., power, pillars, coercion)
156 Practical Methods of nonviolent action
Templates for strategic estimates and problem-solving
In Context
Published in 2004 by the Albert Einstein Institution with backing from the U.S. Institute of Peace, the book distills decades of civil resistance theory (especially Sharp’s work) into a concise, strategic manual.
Ideal for activists, trainers, or political analysts seeking a practical, strategic toolkit—not ideological preaching—for challenging authoritarian structures through disciplined nonviolent action.
Notes on From Dictatorship to Democracy
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2025/07/notes-on-from-dictatorship-to-democracy.html
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