314 Evolution and Social Reform : 



of a majority at an election holds because the army is 

 behind it. But Anarchists, even if they were in a majority, 

 would not wish to impose their will on a minority. In the 

 opinion of very many Anarchists, therefore, the ballot is, 

 for their use, a stultifying implement. But even if it were 

 not it would not be employed by them, because they regard 

 it as useless. They believe that when public opinion 

 favors a violation or the ignoring of a statute law it is not 

 necessary to vote that law oif the statute-books. It will 

 become inoperative ; a dead letter, as we say. And as 

 Anarchists can have nothing to vote for except the abroga- 

 tion of existing laws, manifestly voting, in their case, 

 would be a work of supererogation. 



For example : All Anarchists are necessarily free-traders j 

 but most Anarchists will not vote with the Democrats, 

 because they know that when public sentiment favors free 

 trade custom-houses and custom ofticers will disappear. 

 No army was ever yet organized that could force a nation 

 to pay duties or do anything else against the public sen- 

 timent of that nation. 



Anarchists point to the statute-books of every nation 

 and every old State in this nation for evidence that it is 

 unnecessary to fight or vote laws into desuetude. Multitudes 

 of laws which have never been abrogated are absolutely 

 inoperative. They are so dead that it is not worth while 

 to expunge them from the records. I believe the old 

 Connecticut blue-laws have never been repealed, but there 

 is not power enough at the command of the Governor of 

 that State or the President of the United States to enforce 

 them in the present temper of public oi)inion. There is a 

 law in the District of Columbia providing that an offender 

 shall be bored through the tongue for denying the doctrine 

 of the Trinity, or something of that sort. But it is so 

 paralyzed by public odium that it is impossible to enforce 

 it and unnecessary to abolish it. 



The New York Grocers' Association is a current illustra- 

 tion of how laws against tlie collection of debts will, I 

 think, fall into disuse. Anarchists object very strongly to 

 laws against the collection of debts. They think a debt is 

 contracted by a private arrangement with which the State 

 should have nothing to do ; that State interference for the 

 collection of debts tends to greatly reduce business integrity ; 

 that commercial morality would immediately reach a much 



