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Mr. Mencken, Unterrified Jeffersonism, and the Anarchist

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The long-spirit anarchist (and “Unterrified Jeffersonian”) Benjamin R. Tucker (1854-1939) wrote  “The Attitude of Anarchism toward Industrial Combination” in 1926, but we see it here printed in Detroit (by Lawrence Labadie) in 1933.

It is interesting to see on the inside of this tiny pamphlet that the anarchist Tucker’s work was sent to H.L. Mencken, as a gift from the printer.  It wouldn’t stay long in Mr. Mencken’s possession, as he sent it (along with a number of other works by Tucker that I can’t lay my hands on at the moment) to the Library of Congress in July 1934 (and coming into my possession as part of a purchase of “the Pamphlet Collection” 65 years later.).  I’m  not so sure about what Mr. Mencken would have thought of most of it, only that he didn’t keep it for long.  Despite what might seem to be his “Tory Anarchism” and general oppositionist stances, left and right, whatever they might have meant at the time, it looks like he received the pamphlet and sent it on its merry way to join its brethren in Mr. Jefferson’s library. 

The full text of the pamphlet in an earlier version is found here.

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