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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 2015)
Street Roots • January 2-8, 2015 Commentary HOME, from page 12 When he was only 16, in 1886, Fox had become involved in the anarchist movement during the Chicago protests surrounding the arrest and execution of the four Haymarket martyrs. Twenty-four-years later, The Agitator was a national publication focused on news and opinion about the labor and anarchist movements. It was, however, Fox’s article about Home, “The Nude and the Prudes,” that led to his arrest in 1911. Fax became incensed when some residents of Home were reported by other Home residents to the authorities for the crime" of “indecent exposure.” It was a hot summer, and some residents of Home liked to skinny dip - which was illegal. Three women and two men came to trial for the offense. “The vulgar mind sees its own reflection in everything it views,” Fox wrote in protest. The^ prosecutor won four convictions for skinny-dipping, but all charges were dropped upon appeal. w The internal conflict betweeh the Nudes and the Prudes continued, however. It was a reflection of a deeper change at Home. A couple of years earlier, the Home community eliminated its communal land- holding scheme. “After this change, everyone owned their property outright.... Individuals could sell their land to another person and [Home] was a relatively cheap place to live. Some of the land was sold to people who didn’t share the Community’s values,” Wadland said. During his research, Wadland was unable to discover why the Home community made this dramatic shift. “That’s one of those unanswered questions,” he said. Fox the publisher had an answer to the Prudes’ betrayal of their neighbors: boycott One of the Prudes owned a store and the Nudés, and their supporters, who were, the majority of the community, refused to shop there. The Nudes also refused to speak to the Prudes, making the boycott very personal. “The Prudes retaliated with atoerta a r o < good.local.food to all 9am -10 pm daily for free love. He was arrested for his writings critiquing monogamy and adocating sexual freedom. violence: They physically assaulted Nudes in the street, cut down their orchards, tore down a fence and blew a shack off its foundation,” Wadland writes. The government retaliated against Fox with a misdemeanor indictment for publishing “The Nude and the Prudes.” The prosecutor ^claimed that Fox’s article encouraged skinny-dipping and therefore violated the aforementioned 1903 law passed by the state legislature in response to the McKinley assassination. That statute made it illegal to publish anything that “shall tend to encourage or advocate disrespect of the law.” Fox was unafraid and unabashed. “Every radical editor is subject to such prosecution, for the powers that be are sensitive to Paae 13 criticism, and will endeavor on every strife calmed. Home, however, faced a more opportunity to throttle the voice of truth,” serious problem. Home’s next generation, he wrote. the children of the anarchists, did not wish In January 1912, Fox was tried and spoke to continue their parent’s community. “The on his own behalf during closing arguments. children of the anarchists didn’t adopt their “It is only by agitation that reforms have parents’ philosophy,” Wadland said. As been brought about inthe world,” he said. adults, many of Home’s children spoke and “Show me the country where there is the wrote of their upbringing fondly but they most tyranny and I will show you the country where there is no free speech.” The were not committed to continuing the anarchist colony. jury deliberated for two days, then pronounced Fox guilty. By 1918, there was nothing left of the i Fox’s case turned into a cause célèbre Community except a few diehards and some and was appealed all the way to the U.S. rundown property: A dilapidated Liberty Supreme Court. In February 1915, the Hall, wharf and schoolhouse. Some adult highest court, in an unanimous opinion children of the original colonists and some written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, newcomers sued to dissolve the Mutual ruled against Fox, stating, “By indirectioh Home Association, sell off its properties and and unmistakably, the article encouraged "let Home became just a regular little town. and incites a persistence in what we must The diehards contested; a long, bitter court assume would be a breach of state laws battle ensued; and eventually tHe dissolvers against indecent exposure.” won. The lawsuit was the dying breath of The court’s ruling depended on “the bad tendency test for free speech cases,” the intentional community of Home. Wadland writes. “The approach, based upon At the end of his research and writing, eighteenth-century English common law, Wadland did not grieve for Home’s demise. asserted that governments could punish He said, “The measure of any utopian those responsible for publications that have experiment is not a question of how long did a tendency to' cause or incite illegal it succeed as much as how bold was the idea activities.” and how happy were the people who It took a few more years before Holmes participated in i t The third question is: and the court began to recognize that the What is [the experiment’s] ultimate legacy.” U.S. Constitution guaranteed free speech Wadland saicTHome was really a bold even to those who advocate against government and its laws. “But the future idea, and there’s no doubt people really ” sets no precedent for the agitator who helps enjoyed their time there. to create it,” Wadland writes. “For now, Fox As for its lasting impact, Wadland said had to serve his sentence.” a n a rc h ism ra ise s ih te r e s tin g q u e s tio n s a b o u t Fox was sentenced to two months. Among our human organizations from small-scale other activities during his prison time, Fox families to large governments. “Government read aloud to the other inmates from the can seem like an entity, a fact,” he said. “But works of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and the Russian novelist and anarchist the government is created by people showing up at their job, doing their jobs. Leo Tolstoy. Change occurs when we collectively decide to participate in a different way.” The last battle Reprinted courtesy o f Street Roots sister By July 1915, “the leading prudes” had left Home, and the community’s internal paper, Real Change News, Seattle, Wash.
