This letter, provided by the Joseph A. Labadie Collection, gives a snapshot of a time, and the everyday life of three of the Authors we have been studying here at the Union of Egoists project. The letter is from John Basil Barnhill (aka John Erwin McCall, aka Volcano) to George Schumm. In it, he mentions Henry Replogle, co-editor of the journal Egoism (1890).

Barnhill was editor of The Eagle and The Serpent (1898) and also author of The Martyrdom of Percy Whitcomb. George Schumm was a long-time compatriot of Benjamin Tucker. He assisted in the translation of The Ego and His Own and published his own weekly journal in the 1880’s titled “Radical Review” (Chicago). As an aside, this is the same name as Benjamin R. Tucker’s pre-Liberty journal in 1870’s, and also the name of a Socialist journal that was published in 1917. Schumm also translated The Anarchists : A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century by John Henry Mackay.

“Henry is totally blind” Barnhill jots in a letter typed up in an abbreviated manner redolent of today’s text messages. There is a very long letter from Henry Replogle in Egoism: The First Two Volumes, 1890-1892 that discusses his blindness and how he copes with it.