Introduced to Anarchism, labor reform, and free love by Ezra Heywood
in Massachusetts, Tucker was also particularly influenced by Josiah Warren.
An individualist Anarchist, Tucker (1854Ð1939) was a person of intellect
rather than of action, focusing on the development of his ideas and on
the publication of books and journals, especially the journal Liberty:
Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order (1881Ð1908). Tucker
summarized his philosophy by stating, "The Anarchists are simply unterrified
Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that
which governs least,' and that which governs least is no government at
all. Besides publishing the writings of the leading individualist
anarchists and many other radicals, Liberty was probably the earliest American
magazine to publish Nietzsche and George Bernard Shaw. Besides Liberty,
Tucker operated an ambitious book publishing program. He translated
into English and published a long list of radical works, including What
is Property?, of Pierre Joseph Proudhon. He also translated and published
Bakunin's God and the State, Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done? and Tolstoy's
The Kreutzer Sonata. He published Max Stirner's The Ego and His Own,
as well as works by Oscar Wilde, Herbert Spencer, Emile Zola, John Henry
Mackay, and many others. After a disastrous fire in New York City
in 1908 destroyed his warehouse and Unique Book Shop, Tucker left the United
States for France, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
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