SPENCER'S INDIVIDUALISM i;)? 



Versus the State" and let the Individualist 

 take whatever satisfaction he can get from 

 the contrast. 



But Spencer's reactionary views did not 

 stop with opposition to every attempt to al- 

 leviate the condition of the wealth producers 

 of his day. 



As an individualist, he would tolerate no 

 ''government interference" with the rights of 

 individuals who wished to shoot sea-birds 

 which they could not get, but which usually 

 flew out to sea, and died floating, with a 

 broken wing. Why should these lofty minded 

 people be interfered with? Were they not the 

 prototypes of our own Roosevelt, who is al- 

 ways ready to manifest his love of nature by 

 killing everything in sight? 



What a pity these individualists were not 

 allowed to have the British telegraph system 

 managed by a gang of financial pirates like 

 the owners of the "Western Union" and the 

 "Postal" of this country. 



State repression of knowledge having 

 proved such a bad thing in the middle ages, 

 state encouragement of learning must of 

 course, needs be equally bad in the nineteenth 

 century. "Government endowment of re- 

 search," indeed! Not for the individualist 

 champion. And yet England holds the world's 



