shoemakers locked out of work. Instead of stopping at home and
starving, or of parading the streets like wild beasts on show, they
ought to enter quietly into their respective factories and workshops,
and then send the employers their _ultimatum_. Naturally the masters
will reject it, and then, what could be easier than to cut up a skin
ready tanned for use? What could be more amusing than to place a piece
of iron under a sewing machine and thus destroy it; or to forget a file
in a cog-wheel, or to riddle with holes the uppers of boots laid aside
ready for use? What can be more enjoyable for a father than to carve
toys for his children out of the wooden lasts on which he makes boots
for the employer who starves him? What can sound pleasanter to the ear
of a striker than stones whizzing through his workshop windows? And we
feel sure that if the strikers made up their minds that the employers
must give way on the very first day of the strike, under penalty of
having their machinery, their tools, their stock, in a word, their
whole capital, destroyed, strikes would not drag on month after month,”
etc. (_Torch of Anarchy_, April 18, 1895.)
16. _The “Revolution.”_--“We revolutionists, knowing that other means
than violence are neither possible nor practical, frequently think
about the Revolution, and frequently talk about it.... We know that
we must disorganise present society--break the wheels on which it now
moves--and make it impossible to reconstitute it. Thus we know that
all our forces must be directed towards the attack--to the destruction
of legal archives, the register of national revenue, the banks and the
prefectures; we know that during the fight the register of the public
debt, etc., must disappear; all that goes to establish, regulate, and
register rent, capital and property. We know also that by setting the
example ourselves in expropriation, we must initiate the masses to
seize on all the means of production, tools, machinery, factories,
workshops, and mines, to work for themselves. We should not forget
that as soon as the first outbreak of the revolt occurs, industry and
commerce will be at a standstill. For purposes of tactics and defence
the revolutionists will be obliged to tear up the railway lines; to cut
the telegraph and telephone wires; in some places even the gas and
water supplies will have to be destroyed,” etc. (_Torch of Anarchy_,
July 15, 1894.)
17. _Burglary._--“An outcry has been raised not only in the
middle-class press, but even amongst revolutionary Socialists
themselves, against the French (Anarchist) workman condemned to death
for taking some jewellery from an empty(?) house, offering armed
resistance to the policeman who arrested him, and boldly asserting
at his trial that he had acted upon principle.... Duval was firmly
convinced that the appropriators of existing wealth are nothing but
thieves unjustly appropriating the fruit of the labour of past and
present generations; that the pleasures with which they are gorged are
wrung from the misery caused to the producers by this appropriation.
Therefore he found means to relieve one of these appropriators of a
portion of the capital thus unfairly retained, and he did it with the
purpose of supplying the (Anarchist) propaganda with funds.... In fact,
he simply passed from theory to practice.” (_Freedom_, March, 1887.)
18. _The Remedy for “Tyrants.”_--“Remember, a sharp knife or a bomb of
dynamite will rid you of them for ever.” (_Commonweal._)
19. _Prostitution, Free-Love, and Promiscuity._--“The courtesan is
sexually free; the wife is a slave. The superior moral condition of
the former consists in the fact that she can refuse to co-habit or
associate with whom she loves not, at any time.” (From the “_Anarchy of
Love_.”)
“The emancipation of woman from her domestic slavery is to be found in
the abolition of the marriage laws. Her complete economic independence
in the abolition of all other laws.” (_Anarchy of Love._)
“Freedom in love relations would, of a certainty, favour variety, which
in some instances is a physiological necessity, both for man and for
woman.” (_The Anarchist_, May, 1887.)
20. _No Rent and Pillage._--“Let ‘No Rent’ be the war-cry.... Let
people universally refuse to pay, and what can stand against them?
The landlords may send their brokers--well, hot water, brickbats, and
pokers are excellent medicine for these gentlemen.... But there is
another way to strike at the capitalist classes, and that is by helping
ourselves to the wealth they have stolen from us ... their warehouses
remain full of wealth of all kinds.” (_Commonweal_, September 5, 1891.)
21. _Window-Smashing._--“Two brave men have set a good example to
starving workmen.... We hope the unemployed will follow the example
set by Bruce and Primmer (who smashed Messrs. Benson’s, the jeweller’s
windows) in their thousands next winter. We hope they will do even
more, and supply their needs by taking the wealth.” (_Commonweal_,
September 5, 1891.)
22. _The Bomb for Policemen._--“Some people condemned the throwing of
the bomb at Chicago; for his part he thought it would have been well
in London if a man had been found courageous enough to hurl death and
destruction among the ruffians who attacked a peaceful meeting.”--(D.
J. Nicoll in _Commonweal_, November 21, 1891, and referring to the
prohibited Trafalgar Square meeting of November 11, 1887.)
23. _Indiscriminate Murder._--“Colonna was an honest worker ... he
was sacked. The outlook was now dreadful, and he resolved to chastise
those who stood in his way. He flew at the throat of the boss, was
arrested, and in the police-station he stabbed a bobby and ran out in
the street. Another man in blue attempted to arrest him and got stabbed
in the heart. Well done! A third bobby and one civilian got the same
lesson.... This happened in Marseilles.” (_Commonweal_, October 24,
1891.)
24. _“Practical” Anarchism._--“At Coal Creek the convicts were also
released (by the strikers), and directly they were free they showed
they were practical Anarchists by helping themselves to £200 worth (of
goods) from the stores. Bravo, Tennessee miners! You have shown, by
taking the advice of our brave comrades of Chicago, that you are worthy
descendants of the men who made Boston Harbour black with tea.... You
have shown the workers of America--aye, and of the world--how to free
themselves, not at the ballot-box, but with the rifle, the torch,
and the dynamite bomb. Bravo, convicts, too, for you have taught
the people how to bring the power of the capitalist robbers to the
ground, by seizing upon the wealth they have stolen from the people.”
(_Commonweal_, November 28, 1891.)
25. _Anarchist Sympathy._--“The poor and lowly are a creeping
pestilence; there are no innocent ones, and the downtrodden are the
justly damned.” (_Ragnar Redbeard._)
The foregoing extracts are fair samples of Anarchist “literature.”
So long as the English Government permits the circulation of such
demoralising stuff, it should not be surprised when some weak-minded or
criminally-inclined person acts upon the advice given.
XIII.
HOW ANARCHIST ASSASSINS ARE MADE.
That the time has arrived when some move of a drastic nature should
be taken by all civilised nations, in the direction of preventing the
publication, rather than in the punishment of Anarchist assassins,
no sane person will deny. For of what avail are the gallows, the
guillotine, or the electric chair, if the causes which produce the
Anarchist miscreant are left untouched? It is said that out of evil
cometh good; and certainly Anarchist outrages will not have been in
vain if public opinion is directed towards the source from which
Anarchist assassins derive their inspiration: I refer, of course, to
the speeches and publications (especially the publications) of these
international pests of society. Czolgosz, the assassin of President
McKinley, has confessed to having heard the leader of American
Anarchism, Miss Emma Goldman, but three times. Yet the inflammatory
ravings of these three speeches proved sufficient incitement to move
this weak-minded fool to commit murder. “She set me on fire,” said the
miscreant; “her doctrine that all rulers should be exterminated set me
thinking, so that my head nearly split with pain. Miss Goldman’s words
went right through me, and when I left the lecture I made up my mind
that I would have to do something heroic for the cause I love.”
Thus it will be seen that this particular assassin was a person of low
intellectual organisation. But this is also the fact with all other
Anarchist desperadoes. Professor Cæsare Lombroso, the great Italian
criminologist, has demonstrated conclusively that the Anarchist
assassin is very closely related to the insane. From a careful study
he has found that these modern Thugs possess peculiar physical
characteristics common among the inmates of our idiot and imbecile
asylums. Among 100 Turin Anarchists arrested in the rebellion of May
Day, 1890, he found 34 per cent. possessed the criminal type of face,
as compared with 43 per cent. among ordinary criminals of the prison at
Turin. He found 40 per cent. of the criminal type among photographs of
Chicago Anarchists, seventeen out of forty-three having disagreeable
peculiarities of the face. Lombroso has further shown that along with
degenerate peculiarities of physique the Anarchist is still further
accursed with mental traits, characteristics “common to criminals and
to the insane, and possessing these traits by heredity.”
The belief that murder and theft are actions not only innocent but
virtuous when perpetrated with the professed design of benefiting
humanity, sounds marvellously comforting to those of a weak-minded or
criminal nature, and who have a natural propensity to commit them.
Accordingly, such persons flock to the Anarchist standard. Cranks and
criminals abound in the party. The Anarchist assassin is invariably
a young person of ill-balanced mind who has imbibed too freely the
poison of Anarchist oratory, and the “literature” of murder which pours
forth from the printing presses which the Governments of the world
are foolish enough to allow these reckless madmen to possess. To stop
the supply of Anarchist murderers the civilised nations must unitedly
attack the evil at its source--the murder-inciting “lecturer” and his
equally murderous pamphlet and manifesto.
Here, in London, Anarchists turn out by the hundred thousand pamphlets,
newspapers and manifestoes in various languages, inciting to, and
approving the most brutal and inhuman outrages conceivable. The
following horribly brutal screed was found in the possession of one of
the Anarchists concerned in the Walsall bomb conspiracy, and although
some English Anarchists have expressed disapproval of the sentiments
contained in this production, the fact remains that an Anarchist
outrage planned on somewhat similar lines to that indicated was
perpetrated at a theatre in Barcelona some few years back.
“_An Anarchist Feast at the Opera._--Who is the starving wretch, an
Anarchist or slave, that has not shuddered with rage in thinking of the
luxurious enjoyments that the rich come to seek (by means of a little
gold) in a box at the opera, on the evening of a first representation?
“In fact, on that day, the sweaters, financiers, middlemen,
magistrates, diplomatists, and moralists, all the cream of the rich
and rulers of the people, have gathered together, certain of not
being elbowed by low people, in order to enjoy in comfort and without
trouble, a fresh spectacle, or the intoxicating music, the singing and
the feminine forms (more or less tainted by disease), and to incite
their senses and to awaken the passions never satiated of that race of
bandits, who on the morrow are unanimously ready to draw the sweat and
blood of the workers in order to recover at once the handful of gold
spent on the previous evening. Well, comrades, we for whom the opera
has never had any charms, because it has not been established to admit
us at the auditory of the magnificent soirées, where the munificence
of art contends with the brightness of diamonds and lights, can we not
likewise enjoy in our turn the delightful spectacle of seeing on a fine
day, or rather on a fine evening, this splendid building all in flames
in the middle of a brilliant feast, and as a veritable apotheosis
carried towards heaven?
“Would not a single one among us feel his heart beat with an immense
joy in hearing the shrivelling of the grease of the rich and the
howlings of that mass of flesh swarming in the midst of that immense
vessel all in a blaze? In fact, what delight, in our town, to see,
even at a distance, such a red conflagration! A thousand times more
beautiful to our eyes than the dazzling of the purest diamond! To hear
howlings, the cries of pain and rage of the wolves, their females and
young ones in midst of the furnace--a thousand times more vibrating and
more pleasant to our ears than the songs of half-a-dozen prostitutes
above an orchestra. As to our sense of smelling, what delight of smell
that flesh burning alive--an odour a thousand times more pleasant to
our organs than the most delicious perfumes with which that race of
men and women impregnate themselves in order to conceal the rottenness
which runs out of their bodies. Ah! how happy are the cannibals to be
able, when chance favours them, not only to smell the flesh of their
enemies broiling, but also to eat it. ‘The corpse of an enemy smells
nice,’ said a despot.
“Then, comrades, admitting that all tastes are natural, and ours,
though different they may be, have need to be appeased in their turn.
We will content ourselves by indicating the means which we think proper
to satisfy them. For the present we will continue the series by saying
what we think suitable concerning a gala reception at the opera. In
fact, nothing more easy. A single man may act, but two are better, in
order to succeed properly in the operation without any danger to them.
Thus: two comrades, each provided with a strong knife, having a saw
blade, and each man carrying a small bomb of very small dimensions,
loaded with chlorate of potash, and having in the middle a small
glass tube containing a tablespoonful of sulphuric acid. This small
tube is placed erect and buried half its length in the chlorate, must
be closed at top by a strong cork, and at bottom by a round piece of
cork four millimetres thick (if you wish the bomb to burst at the end
of two hours), because the acid requires about half an hour to pierce
each millimetre through the thickness of the round piece of cork. If
you wish the bomb to burst at the end of three hours the round piece
of cork must be six millimetres thick, and so on, half an hour for
every millimetre thickness. Moreover, comrades may try beforehand
with a small pinch of chlorate (the explosion in the open air does
not make much noise), and cover their faces and hands for fear of
the broken pieces. These little preparatory experiments will serve
them to appreciate the quality of the acid and cork used, as well as
the exact time which the acid requires to pierce each millimetre of
cork of the same piece. As we have said, the bombs do not require to
be voluminous. A simple small glass mustard pot, having the shape
of a small cask lengthened, is quite sufficient for the quantity of
matter, of which here is the description:--Let us suppose that the vase
contains 500 grammes of matter. You will then put--1st, 3-5, viz.,
300 grammes chlorate of potash; 2nd, 2-5, viz., 100 grammes sulphur;
3rd, 1-5, viz., 100 grammes sugar, maintaining always these proportions
according to the size of the vase. Afterwards each of these matters
must be ground very fine separately, then mixed gently and thoroughly
(although the operation offers not the least danger). The efficacy
of the operation depends on the fine grinding and perfect mixture.
After that charge the bomb, as it has been said, in a manner that the
round piece of cork, four or six millimetres, be fully mixed in the
matter above mentioned. These matters cost but little. The chlorate
of potash is sold nearly in powder and crystallized. It must be quite
dry. The sulphur is sold in small sticks of two or three centimetres
diameter. The sugar must be of good quality, and quite dry. All these
matters are easily crushed--afterwards the mixing is easy. The greater
expense is for the two comrades, on account of the payment of their
seats, which must be hired beforehand, on gala days especially. Their
seats must be at the top of the theatre. Thus, the two comrades having
their tickets in their pockets, go home and load their bombs only at
the moment of setting out for the theatre, having calculated for the
time of explosion at the end of three hours, supposing that time to be
suitable. Afterwards let us suppose they have required half an hour
to reach their seats in the theatre, the bombs will have then only
two hours and a half to sleep. As soon as arrived the men will keep
as close as possible to the walls or pillars along which the gaspipes
are fixed. Then, when no one is noticing them, they begin by bursting
slightly those pipes with their saw blades. It is easily done, because
the lead can be cut through without any noise. When two, or three,
or four of these pipes are slightly open, the men place their bombs
on the ground by the side of the pipes, concealing them as much as
possible from the sight of the public. They may go away quietly at
the end of the first act; the rest of the operation will be completed
without them. Then they have time to go home, and even go to bed, so
as to prove an alibi at the time of the explosion. Now, this is how
the rest of the operation will conclude: At first, the gas escaping
will ascend and accumulate under the vault of the theatre during the
two hours required for the explosion of the bombs. At that time there
will be a quantity sufficient to set fire everywhere and burst the roof
and walls of the theatre, and the _débris_ falling back will have the
effect of grapeshot on the jolly spectators. Afterwards the fire, fed
by the wood, the stuffs, and the grease, will terminate the operation
suitably. As we have said at the beginning, the work is easy for two
companions who live in a town where there is a large theatre suitable
to receive the higher class of the inhabitants. For that it requires
only hatred in the heart and to be pitiless. After all, what do we care
for feelings of humanity, even with regard to the women and children
of that race of robbers and real criminals? Do not their young become
wolves likewise? Are their females less eager for prey than the males?
On another part the workers or starving people may be tranquil, because
none of them are to be seen at those feasts of gold and diamonds which
too often are given in honour of any travelling monarch at the expense
of the poor people. Therefore, it is pious work to profit by those
frequent occasions; to crown worthily those revels which the bandits
throw as a defiance at our misery and sufferings. For an Anarchist gala
of that kind the little money necessary must be easier to find than for
a platonic propaganda. It is saying, comrades, that certain enjoyments
are still permitted to us, waiting for the grand day when the social
equilibrium will be brutally established.”
* * * * *
The above is a fair sample of the vile stuff by which Anarchist
assassins are made.
XIV.
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF ANARCHISM.
Paradoxical and absurd as it must appear to people of ordinary
intelligence (and Anarchists are certainly of _extra_-ordinary
intelligence), it is nevertheless the fact that among the devotees of
knife, torch and bomb, the motto “Anarchy is Order” is a favourite one.
It is inscribed on their banners, and is reiterated in their speeches
with a persistency which becomes positively tiresome to listen to.
Yet, strange to say (or, is it strange?) the very reverse of order is
the prevailing condition among Anarchists themselves. For example, if
I desire to become the happy possessor of an Anarchistic newspaper, I
find that, in some cases, it has no fixed price; that, in place of the
familiar “Price One Penny” of conventional journalism, it is inscribed
“Pay What You Like,” or “Subscription Voluntary.”
[Illustration:
THE
COMMONWEAL
VOL. II.--NO. XV. NOVEMBER, 1900. [VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTION].
]
The natural outcome of such a method (or, rather, lack of method) is
that a journal produced on such “principles” speedily becomes defunct.
Such was the fate of the _Sheffield Anarchist_, the first English
Anarchist journal courageous enough to reduce its chaotic “pay what you
like” “principles” to practice.
[Illustration:
THE SHEFFIELD
ANARCHIST.
VOL. I. NO. 4. SUNDAY, AUG. 9, 1894. [PAY WHAT YOU LIKE].
]
Having produced your paper on the “pay what you like” system, you scan
its contents, and find disorder in its very lines, as witness the
following, reproduced from the _Alarm_, the organ of the Associated
Anarchists:--
WE TAKE ANYTHING!!!
Although money is handiest, stern
necessity compels us to be universalist,
and we therefore wish to make known
here, that in payment for literature
supplied by us, we take anything
which we can use for The Alarm, or
sell in support of it. Odd type, ink,
furniture, wearing apparel, boots,
jewellery, books, back numbers or sets
of any paper, used or unused stamps.
American paper currency, tea, sugar,
cocoa, crockery ware, cutlery, etc.
We ought not to have any bad debts at
this rate.
Here is Anarchy indeed! You will notice that the right hand side of
the column is uneven, giving it the appearance of poetry. This is due
to the fact that, to use a printer’s idiom, the lines have not been
“justified;” or, in plain English, the spaces between the words should
have been so altered as to make each line spread out to fill the column
exact.
As a further instance of this Anarchistic disorder, I give the
following: From the offices in Drury Lane of a curious four-page
journal, printed by hand on yellow tissue paper, entitled the
_Atheistic Communistic Scorcher_, emanated a still more curious, and,
in many respects, amusing, pamphlet, entitled, “An Appeal to the
Half-Starved, Herring-Gutted, Poverty-Struck, Parish-Damned Inhabitants
of a Disunited Kingdom.” The following extract is an exact reproduction
from the original (note the capitals and punctuation marks):--
We Require A Commune, to Take every Child,--Woman, and Man. Register
them on the Roll of the Commune--Find how many Houses,--Tables,
Chairs, Boots, Coats, Hats,--how much Food,--Animal, Vegetable,
Cereal, are required for the Citizen. Then how many hours Labor from
each Citizen.--(About One or Two hours.) from each one will do it,
Them that wont work hang them, Labor will then be pleasant,--Why Is
it so Irksome--To-Day? Because of excessive work and Insufficient
pay,--That Land & Money Theives, may Batten and Fatten--On the
Plunder of the Proletaire.
Some Anarchist journals--the Paris _La Revolte_, for example--even
dispensed with editors, and allowed every comrade connected with the
“group” which ran the paper to “have his say,” so far as the exigencies
of space would allow him. This explains the fact that articles in
direct contradiction to each other often appeared in the same journal.
Some of the advertisements to be found in Anarchistic newspapers are
certainly amusing, as witness the following:--
A SEVERE WINTER IS INEVITABLE: therefore advertiser intends making
preparations accordingly. Anyone willing to help form a “Help Myself”
society should communicate with W. G. C., office of ----.
POACHER wants trustworthy comrade; mostly night work. Apply ----.
Another advertisement offered £5 reward for an honest lawyer. We know
there is one somewhere in the East End; he is painted on a public-house
sign-board, with his head under his arm.
THE ANTI-BROKER BRIGADE having reached a sufficient strength is ready
to assist comrades and friends who require its services, free of
charge. Apply to W. C., office of this paper.