John Patric, my favorite anarchist

http://www.schlaikjer.net/reviews/047.htm

http://olyblog.net/hugo-n-frye

Sometime after I got out of the Marine Corps (1955) and before I started work at Douglas Aircraft Company (1959) I read Yankee Hobo in the Orient by the anarchist, John Patric, and was so powerfully impressed by it that I sent him a letter of appreciation. If I recall correctly, he invited people to write him, but said he wouldn’t respond because he didn’t have the money for stamps.

I suspect most people today would agree that John Patric (who once ran against Scoop Jackson) was a crackpot. He had a sort of do-it-yourself-ideology I found appealing at the time – but I was only in my 20s, and he probably didn’t make a permanent impression on me.