(1 January 1900)
Clarence Lee Swartz (1868–1936) was an American individualist anarchist, whose best-known work, What is Mutualism? (1927) is a book explaining the economic system of mutualism.
Swartz was a friend of Benjamin Tucker and frequent contributor of signed and unsigned editorials to Tucker's newspaper Liberty. In addition, he worked for a series of anarchist newspapers and journals. He worked in the mechanical department of Liberty beginning in 1891, edited an anarchist journal called Voice of the People and served as assistant editor for Moses Harman's journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer in 1890. Swartz was arrested in Kansas City, Missouri for distributing a newspaper called Sunday Sun in 1891. The charges were dropped when the prosecutor failed to show in court. He published two individualist anarchist periodicals at the turn of the century, I (beginning in 1898) and The Free Comrade (beginning in 1900). In 1908, Tucker's publishing business, including most of his books and plates, were destroyed in a fire and after Tucker retired from publishing and moved to Europe, "practically all of the literature of individualist anarchism out of print".
Swartz made efforts throughout the 1920s to revive the individualist literature. He prepared and edited Individual Liberty: Selections from the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker (New York: Vanguard Press), a collection of excerpts from Tucker's writing in Liberty, which was the first collection of Tucker's writing since Tucker's own collection Instead of a Book. In 1923 he worked together with Charles T. Sprading and J. William Lloyd on The Libertarian, a magazine opposed to blue laws, Prohibition and the censorship of arts and entertainment.
References
- Vanguard Press (1926), "Publisher's Note," in Individual Liberty: Selections from the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker, edited by C.L.S. New York: Vanguard Press.
- Vanguard Press (1926), "Publisher's Note," in Individual Liberty: Selections from the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker, edited by C.L.S. New York: Vanguard Press.
- Sears, Hal D. (1977). The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America. Regents Press of Kansas. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-7006-0148-6.
- James J. Martin (1970/2009), Men Against the State. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute. 258.
- James J. Martin (1970/2009), Men Against the State. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute. 258.
- C.L.S. (1926), "Editor's Foreword," in Individual Liberty: Selections from the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker, edited by C.L.S. New York: Vanguard Press.
- The Libertarian: An ANTI-BLUE-LAW MAGAZINE, Vol. I, No. 1 (Third Quarter, 1923).
External links
- Clarence Lee Swartz (1898), I (Number One), July 1898.
- Clarence Lee Swartz (1898), I (Number Two), August 1898.
- Clarence Lee Swartz (1923), "Our Purpose and Reason for Being", in The Libertarian Vol. I, No. 1. 1.
- Clarence Lee Swartz (1927). What is Mutualism?.
- 1868 births
- 1936 deaths
- 19th-century American male writers
- 19th-century American non-fiction writers
- 20th-century American male writers
- 20th-century American non-fiction writers
- American anarchists
- American male journalists
- American male non-fiction writers
- Anarchist theorists
- American anarchist writers
- Individualist anarchists
- Mutualists
- Voluntaryists