By Chris Mahin
Napoleon once said that the way to learn the art of war is to
study the lives of the great commanders. The same principle
applies to the art of propaganda. Those who seek to stir society's
conscience today should study the work of the propagandists of the
past. A new biography of the newspaper editor who launched a
crusade against slavery is a good place to start.
"All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of
Slavery," by historian Henry Mayer, recounts how an obscure New
England boy grew into America's leading opponent of slavery --
and, in the process, shook this country out of its moral lethargy.
Mayer's richly detailed study fills a void; it is the first full-
length biography of William Lloyd Garrison in 30 years. The title
of "All on Fire" comes from the sharp response that the often-
impassioned Garrison gave to a friend who begged him to moderate
his tone -- "I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains
of ice about me to melt."
As Mayer shows, Garrison combined a deep religious faith and
intense moral outrage at slavery with some very practical skills.
Unlike some abolitionists, Garrison did not hail from the elite.
Garrison's maternal grandparents came to the New World as
indentured servants. Garrison himself was born into a poor family
in 1805 and became a printer's apprentice almost as soon as he
became a teen-ager. He developed into an expert compositor and
editor, deftly employing those skills to appeal to the reading
public's conscience.
For more than three decades, Garrison edited The Liberator, a
fiery newspaper dedicated to exposing the slave system and anyone
and everyone who collaborated with it. Its first edition appeared
on January 1, 1831, issued from a Boston printing office in the
shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument. Mayer describes its first
editorial this way:
"The Liberator, [Garrison] promised, would make slaveholders and
their apologists tremble. He would redeem the nation's patriotic
creed by making 'every statue leap from its pedestal' and rouse
the apathetic with a trumpet call that would 'hasten the
resurrection of the dead.' ... 'I will be as harsh as truth, and
as uncompromising as justice,' Garrison pledged. 'On this subject
I do not wish to think or speak, or write, with moderation. No!
No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ...
but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.' He
drove the point home with staccato phrases: 'I am in earnest -- I
will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a
single inch.' Then he reached into the upper case and added one
more promise: '-- AND I WILL BE HEARD.'"
On one level, "All on Fire" is a straightforward, chronological
account of Garrison's life and how, for 35 years, he nobly
sacrificed his time, safety and health to keep the promise made in
that editorial. But because Garrison was such a central figure in
the abolitionist movement, the book cannot help but give the
reader a sense of how the abolitionist movement grew up around a
newspaper. Mayer describes how The Liberator helped develop
different organizations of propagandists at different stages in
the fight against slavery. Implicit in Mayer's life of Garrison is
the message that an organization of propagandists develops around
the revolutionary press.
In the case of The Liberator, some abolitionists wrote for the
newspaper; others sold it; and still others organized subscription
campaigns or arranged speaking engagements for the newspaper's
representatives. Mayer fills "All on Fire" with fascinating
glimpses of how this work was done, details that illustrate the
abolitionists' combination of moral fervor and practicality.
For instance, in one unforgettable passage, he describes
abolitionist leader Angelina Grimke Weld bravely giving "the
speech of her life" even though an enraged mob was trying to break
into the meeting room where she was speaking. "With the practiced
speaker's confidence," Mayer points out, "she did not neglect the
details of organization, urging her audience to buy the pamphlets,
subscribe to the newspapers, circulate the petitions, and in every
way 'come up to the work.'" Angelina Grimke Weld made those
remarks "[w]ith brickbats flying and glass shattering against the
blinds" of the large auditorium she was speaking in. Who cannot
admire a propagandist like that?
Historian Howard Zinn has expressed his hope that "this eloquent,
powerful biography" will inspire the coming generation "to do for
our time what Garrison did for his." That's the spirit in which a
revolutionary should approach this work. "All on Fire" should be
read not as a description of battles fought long ago, but as a
study of how to wage a propaganda war by going on the moral
offensive.
The world needs such a propaganda war today. After one of his
visits to England, Garrison wrote to a friend: "To think that God
... has filled this earth with abundance for all, and yet that
nine-tenths of mankind are living in squalid poverty and abject
servitude in order to sustain in idleness and profligacy the one-
tenth!" Clearly, the abolitionists' work is not yet finished. We
too have mountains of ice to melt. Like William Lloyd Garrison, we
should begin that process by building an organization of
propagandists around the revolutionary press.
["All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of
Slavery" by Henry Mayer is available in hardcover for $32.50 from
most bookstores or from St. Martin's Press in New York. For more
information, contact St. Martin's Press at 800-221-7945.]
******************************************************************
This article originated in the 6/99 issue of the People's Tribune/
Tribuno del Pueblo (http://www.lrna.org)
******************************************************************