Dyer Lum
Dyer Lum | |
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Born | Dyer Daniel Lum February 15, 1839 Geneva, New York, US |
Died | April 6, 1893 (aged 54) New York City, US |
Resting place | Northampton, Massachusetts |
Other names | Dyer D. Lum |
Known for | Labor activism |
Partner | Voltairine de Cleyre |
This article is part of a series on |
Socialism in the United States |
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Dyer Daniel Lum
Lum was a prolific writer who authored a number of key anarchist texts and contributed to publications including
Traditionally portrayed as a "genteel, theoretical anarchist", Lum has recently been recast by the scholarship of
Biography
In disposition, Mr. Lum was most amiable; in the character of his mind he was philosophical; in mental capacity, he was at once keen and broad. His friends, who were many, mourn his passing away.
— From Lum's obituary in Twentieth Century, reprinted inLiberty[2]
Lum was a descendant of the prominent
Lum became widely known in 1877 after a period traveling across the country as secretary to a
Relationship with Voltairine de Cleyre
When Lum met
Involvement in the Haymarket affair
Lum was closely associated with and worked alongside those involved in the Haymarket affair in Chicago in 1886. In an 1891 essay, he wrote that August Spies sent word to the militants on the afternoon of May 4 that they were not to bring arms to the Haymarket.[9] This order was not respected, Lum noted, as "one man disobeyed that order; always self-determined, he acted upon his own responsibility, preferring to be prepared for resistance to onslaught rather than to quietly imitate the spiritual "lamb led to slaughter".[9] Lum asserted that the eight defendants were initially unaware of the bomb-thrower's identity, although it became known to two of them ("but neither Spies nor Parsons"), believed by Paul Avrich to be George Engel and Adolph Fischer.[10]
In Lum's account, the bomb-thrower's name "was never mentioned in the trial and is today unknown to the public".
Death
Lum committed suicide in 1893 after suffering from severe depression,[4] although at the time the cause of death was reported in the anarchist press as "fatty degeneration of the heart".[2]
Philosophy
[R]ent, interest, profit are the triple heads of the monster against which modern civilization is waging war.
— Dyer Lum[8]
Lum's
Lum argued in The Economics of Anarchy that the
In anarchy labor and capital would be merged into one, for capital would be without prerogatives and dependent upon labor, and owned by it. The laborer would find that to produce was to enjoy and the nightmare of destitution banished. The artisan would find in co-operation that nature alone remained to be exploited. The tradesman would find that production offered greater inducement than exchange, unless he accepted a position of competence and ease in the labor exchange which would supplant isolated stores. The clerk, no longer with his horizon bounded by a ribbon counter, would have full scope to display his talents in any direction. The farmer, above all, free from irksome care to meet interest, to dread foreclosure from enforced taxation, with his family growing up around him, and rendered secure by a common title and mutual inter-dependence, or seeking in insurance indemnity for depredation. would find in anarchy release from useless drudgery and his labor crowned with plentiness and peace.
— Dyer Lum, Chapter 6 of Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, edited by Albert Parsons[14]
Bibliography
- Utah and Its People: Facts and Statistics Bearing on the "Mormon Problem" (1882).[15] A defense of the Mormons and a plea for tolerance of polygamy.
- A Concise History of the Great Trial of the Chicago Anarchists in 1886. Adamant Media Corporation. January 1999. ISBN 978-1-4021-6287-9.
- Spiritual Delusions (1873). A further treatment of Mormonism.[2]
- The Economics of Anarchy: A Study of the Industrial Type (1890).
- Philosophy of Trade-Unionism (1892).
Selected articles
- "Dyer D. Lum on Anarchy". Published in The Alarm and in Albert Parsons' Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis.
- "Eighteen Christian Centuries or the Evolution of the Gospel of Anarchy" (PDF). It was syndicated in Liberty.[16]
- "The Status of the Scab" (1890). Published in Rights of Labor, it was later heavily critiqued by Victor Yarros in Liberty.[17]
See also
Footnotes
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-24200-7.
- ^ Liberty. IX (33): 3. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 27, 2007. Retrieved August 7, 2007.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-893626-21-8.
- ^ Infoshop.org. Archived from the originalon June 30, 2007. Retrieved August 6, 2007.
- ISBN 978-1-4304-8938-2.
- ^ JSTOR 2702014.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-691-04657-0.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Carson, Kevin. "May Day Thoughts: Individualist Anarchism and the Labor Movement". Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism. Retrieved August 7, 2007.
- ^ .
- ISBN 978-0-691-00600-0.
- ^ Lum, Daniel (1888).Freedom. 2: 17.
- ISBN 0-87436-982-7.
- ISBN 0-7391-0473-X.
- ISBN 978-1-4102-0406-6.
- S2CID 142756593.
- ^ McElroy, Wendy. "Liberty Index: Part II– Individuals". The Liberty Index. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved August 7, 2007.
- Liberty. VII (8): 4–5. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 27, 2007. Retrieved August 7, 2007.
That incorrigible cork-screw and exulting defier of logic, Dyer D. Lum, publishes, in the "Rights of Labor," a defense of that deliverance of his in reference to the "scabs" which Liberty characterized, perhaps not very mildly, but very justly, as a contemptible lie. To reason with Mr. Lum is impossible. He is absolutely dishonest and hopelessly illogical.
Further reading
- Brooks, Frank H. (1988). Anarchism, Revolution, and Labor in the Thought of Dyer D. Lum (ProQuest 8900770.
- Brooks, Frank H. (1993). "Ideology, Strategy, and Organization: Dyer Lum and the American Anarchist Movement". ISSN 0023-656X.
- ISBN 978-90-04-35689-4.
- Martin, James J. (1970) [1953]. "Benjamin R. Tucker and the Age of Liberty". Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908. OCLC 8827896.
External links
- Media related to Dyer Lum at Wikimedia Commons
- Anarchist Library page