Centennial Expressions on Peter Kropotkin 1842-1942.

FROM PUPIL TO TEACHER
Any anniversary of Peter Kropotkin would
draw from me an expression of the indebtedness I owe to his social philosophy, to which
I was introduced at so early an age that it
made an enduring mark on my thinking. I
have never worn a political label, but I subscribe to the essential ends of human freedom
which Kropotkin taught. As a scientist he
could not as clearly state his means, and like
others I have improvised my own.
A childhood conditioning in New England
to the ideas of Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman prepared me for the larger social philosophy of Kropotkin. Harvard College had
given me no glimpse of the great social prophets. They were in disrepute among scholars.
I achieved a recovery from Harvard in a St.
Louis slum, where social work introduced me
to the currents of working-class movements.
Among them
were anarchist exiles from
the Russian Revolution of 1905. Though I
was conscious of them, I avoided more than
polite contact in the thought that they were
too alien to enlighten me. But I got a rude
jolt when Emma Goldman came to town to
lecture and I was dared to go to hear her.
She shook me out of social work complacency
and reformism by her revolutionary fire.
She was my introduction to Kropotkin. For
I read the anarchist literature to which she
referred me and found him the most satisfying of all interpreters of freedom. His was
the sole mind with the capacity to survey the
whole field of human struggle with the scientific training necessary to marshal facts and
draw conclusions. He enthused me with what
so many young men needed then and now-a
basic philosophy of freedom without violence
or coercion, and at least an indication of the
institutional arrangements for achieving it.
It is commonly said of anarchism that it is
a beautiful dream for a remote future when
we shall all have become civilized enough to
get along without governments or police. Or,
according to the Marxists, when the class
struggle is over. But I saw in Kropotkin's
teaching an ever-present working principle to
growth toward larger freedoms in all social
activity, through the building up of voluntary association, increased individual liberty
and group autonomy.
Page 36
By Roger N. Baldwin, Director:
American Civil Liberties Union
Personally I learned with Kropotkin as
teacher the evils of participating in violence
and compulsion. I have always since worked
in voluntary associations dedicated to some
aspect of freedom; I have resisted compulsion
over my own life and services. When I have
cooperated with those committed to the principle of power I have limited my participation to some specific liberty. Of course I
have not always been consistent, as Kropotkin
himself was not. But I have endeavored to
maintain an integrity of purpose.
While I met many of those who share Kropotkin's philosophy, I found little opportunity
for practical work with them. The scattered
company of idealists, divided into sects, has
never had much of an impact upon immediate
issues. Kropotkin was not that kind of a
teacher. He did not head or lead a movement, nor found a school. He expressed a
principle too universal to be embodied in a
program. Unlike most revolutionists, he was
a man far larger than his revolutionary views.
He was at once a scientist, a renowned geographer, a biologist ("Mutual Aid" his most
notable work), an historian (his "Great
French Revolution" his classic). He was famous in half a dozen quite unrelated fields;
and held in respect by large numbers of men