Violence and the Labor Movement Part 4

Such is the tragic story of barely forty years of terrorism in Western Europe. It reads far more like lurid fiction than the cold facts of history. Yet these amazing irreconcilables actually lived--in our time--and fought, at the cost of their lives, the entire organization of society. Surely few other periods in history can show a series of characters so daring, so bitter, so bent on destruction and annihilation. Bakounin, Nechayeff, Most, Lingg, Duval, Decamps, Ravachol, Henry, Vaillant, Caserio, and Luccheni--these bewildering rebels--individually waged their deadly conflict with the world. With the weakness of their one single life in revolt against society--protected as it is by countless thousands of police, millions of armed men, and all its machinery for defense--these amazing creatures fought their fight and wrote their page of protest in the world's history. Think of it as we will, this we know, that the world cannot utterly ignore men who lay down their lives for any cause. Men may write and agitate, they may scream never so shrilly about the wrongs of the world, but when they go forth to fight single-handed and to die for what they preach they have at least earned the right to demand of society an inquiry.

What was it that drove these men to violence? Was it the teachings of Bakounin, of Nechayeff, and of Most? Their writings have been read and pondered over by thousands of yearning and impressionable minds. They have been drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. Yet one anarchist at least denies that the writings of these terrorists have moved men to violence. "My contention is," says Emma Goldman, "that they were impelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the tremendous pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive natures."[1] Returning again to the same thought, she exclaims, "How utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of political violence."[2] To this indefatigable propagandist of anarchist doctrine, those who have been led into homicidal violence are "high strung, like a violin string." "They weep and moan for life, so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a desperate moment the string breaks."[3]

Yet, if it be true that doctrines have naught to do with the spread of terrorism, why is it that among many million socialists there are almost no terrorists, while among a few thousand anarchists there are many terrorists? The pressure of adverse social conditions is felt as keenly by the socialists as by the anarchists. The one quite as much as the other is a rebel against social ills. The indictment made by the socialists against political and economic injustice is as far-reaching as that of the anarchists. Why then does not the socialist movement produce terrorists? Is it not that the teachings of Marx and of all his disciples dwell upon the folly of violence, the futility of riots, the madness of a.s.sa.s.sination, while, on the other hand, the teachings of Bakounin, of Nechayeff, of Kropotkin, and of Most advocate destructive violence as a creative force? "Extirpate the wretches!" cries Most.

"Make robbers our allies!" says Nechayeff. "Propagate the gospel by a deed!" urges Kropotkin, and throughout Bakounin's writings there appears again and again the plea for "terrible, total, inexorable, and universal destruction." Both socialists and anarchists preach their gospel to the weary and heavy-laden, to the despondent and the outraged, who may readily be led to commit acts of despair. They have, after all, little to lose, and their life, at present unbearable, can be made little worse by punishment. Yet millions of the miserable have come into the socialist movement to hear the fiercest of indictments against capitalism, and it is but rare that one becomes a terrorist. What else than the teachings of anarchism and of socialism can explain this difference?

Unquestionably, socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types, who are in many ways alien to each other. Their mental processes differ. Their nervous systems jar upon each other. Even physically they have been known to repel each other. Born of much the same conditions, they fought each other in the cradle. From the very beginning they have been irreconcilable, and with perfect frankness they have shown their contempt for each other. About the kindest criticism that the socialist makes of the anarchist is that he is a child, while the anarchist is convinced that the socialist is a Philistine and an inbred conservative who, should he ever get power, would immediately hang the anarchists.[J]

They are traditional enemies, who seem utterly incapable of understanding each other. Intellectually, they fail to grasp the meaning of each other's philosophy. It is but rare that a socialist, no matter how conscientious a student, will confess he fully understands anarchism. On the other hand, no one understands the doctrines of socialism so little as the anarchist. It is possible, therefore, that the same conditions which drive the anarchist to terrorist acts lead the socialist to altogether different methods, but the reasonable and obvious conclusion would be that teachings and doctrines determine the methods that each employ.

The anarchist is, as Emma Goldman says, "high strung." His ear is tuned to hear unintermittently the agonized cry. To follow the imagery of Sh.e.l.ley, he seems to be living in a "mind's h.e.l.l,"[4] wherein hate, scorn, pity, remorse, and despair seem to be tearing out the nerves by their bleeding roots. Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Francois Coppee, emile Zola, and many other great writers have sought to depict the psychology of the anarchist, but I think no one has approached the poet Sh.e.l.ley, who had in himself the heart of the anarchist. He was a son-in-law and a disciple of William G.o.dwin, one of the fathers of anarchism. "Prometheus Unbound," "The Revolt of Islam," and "The Mask of Anarchy," are expressions of the very soul of G.o.dwin's philosophy. Sh.e.l.ley was "cradled into poetry by wrong," as a mult.i.tude of other unhappy men are cradled into terrorism by wrong. He was "as a nerve o'er which do creep the else unfelt oppressions of this earth," and he "could moan for woes which others hear not." He, too, "could ... with the poor and trampled sit and weep."[5] There is in nearly all anarchists this supersensitiveness, this hyperaesthesia that leads to ecstasy, to hysteria, and to fanaticism. It is a neuropathy that has led certain scientists, like Lombroso and Krafft-Ebbing, to suggest that some anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide.

They are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. Life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. It is a type of insanity that leads to acts which seem sublime to others in a state of like torture both of mind and of nerves.

This explains no doubt the acts of some terrorists, and at the same time it condemns the present att.i.tude of society toward the terrorist. Think of hanging the tormented soul who could say as he was taken to the gallows: "I went away from my native place because I was frequently moved to tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. Young women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily for a mockery of remuneration....

"I have observed that there are a great many people who are hungry, and many children who suffer, while bread and clothes abound in the towns. I saw many and large shops full of clothing and woolen stuffs, and I also saw warehouses full of wheat and Indian corn, suitable for those who are in want."[6] When such a tortured spirit is driven to homicide, how is it possible for society to demand and take that life? Shall we admit that there is a duel between society and these souls deranged by the wrongs of society? "In this duel," said Vaillant, "I have only wounded my adversary, it is now his turn to strike me."[7] It is tragic enough that a poor and desperate soul, like Vaillant, should have felt himself in deadly combat with society, but how much more tragic it is for society to admit that fact, accept the challenge, and take that life!

"If you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you," said Louis Lingg.[8] And we answer, "If you dynamite us, we shall cannonade you." And in so far as this is our sole att.i.tude toward these rebels, wherein are we superior? For Lingg to say that was at least heroic. For us so to answer is not even heroic. Our paid men see to it. It is done as a matter of course and forgotten.

These men say that justice exists only for the powerful, that the poor are robbed, and that "the lamp of their soul" is put out. They beg us to listen, and we will not. They ask us to read, and we will not. "It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear," said Vaillant. They then give all they have to execute one dreadful deed of propaganda in order to awaken us. Must even this fail? We can hang them, but can we forget them? After every deed of the anarchists the press, the police, and the pulpit carry on for weeks a frenzied discussion over their atrocities. The lives of these Propagandists of the Deed are then crushed out, and in a few months even their names are forgotten. There seems to be an innate dread among us to seek the causes that lie at the bottom of these distressing symptoms of our present social regime. We prefer, it seems, to become like that we contemplate. We seek to terrorize them, as they seek to terrorize us. As the anarchist believes that oppression may be ended by the murder of the oppressor, so society cherishes the thought that anarchism may be ended by the murder of the anarchist. Are not our methods in truth the same, and can any man doubt that both are equally futile and senseless? Both the anarchy of the powerful and the anarchy of the weak are stupid and abortive, in that they lead to results diametrically opposed to the ends sought. Tennyson was never nearer a great social truth than when he wrote:

"He that roars for liberty Faster binds a tyrant's power; And the tyrant's cruel glee Forces on the freer hour."[9]

No one perhaps is better qualified than Lombroso to speak on the present punitive methods of society as a direct cause of terrorism.

"Punishment," he says, "far from being a palliative to the fanaticism and the nervous diseases of others, exalts them, on the contrary, by exciting their altruistic aberration and their thirst for martyrdom. In order to heal these anarchist wounds there is, according to some statesmen, nothing but hanging on the gallows and prison. For my part, I consider it just indeed to take energetic measures against the anarchists. However, it is not necessary to go so far as to take measures which are merely the result of momentary reactions, measures which thus become as impulsive as the causes which have produced them and in their turn a source of new violence.

"For example, I am not an unconditional adversary of capital punishment, at least when it is a question of the criminal born, whose existence is a constant danger to worthy people. Consequently, I should not have hesitated to condemn Pini[K] and Ravachol. On the other hand, I believe that capital punishment or severe or merely ignominious penalties are not suited to the crimes and the offenses of the anarchists in general.

First, many of them are mentally deranged, and for these it is the asylum, and not death or the gallows, that is fitting. It is necessary also to take account, in the case of some of these criminals, of their n.o.ble altruism which renders them worthy of certain regard. Many of these people are souls that have gone astray and are hysterical, like Vaillant and Henry, who, had they been engaged in some other cause, far from being a danger, would have been able to be of use in this society which they wished to destroy....

"As to indirect suicides, is it not to encourage them and to make them attain the end that they desire when we inflict on all those so disposed a spectacular death?... For many criminals by pa.s.sion, unbalanced by an inadequate education, and whose feeling is aroused by either their own misery or at the sight of the misery of others, we would no more award the death penalty if the motive has been exclusively political, because they are much less dangerous than the criminal born. On the other hand, commitment to the asylum of the epileptic and the hysteric would be a practical measure, especially in France, where ridicule kills them.

Martyrs are venerated and fools are derided."[10]

Of course, Lombroso is endeavoring to prescribe a method of treatment for the terrorist that will not breed more terrorists. He sees in the present punitive methods an active cause of violence. However, it is perhaps impossible to hope that society will adopt any different att.i.tude than that which it has taken in the past toward these unbalanced souls. In fact, it seems that a savage _lex talionis_ is wholly satisfying to the feudists on both sides. Neither the one nor the other seeks to understand the forces driving them both. They are bent on destroying each other, and they will probably continue in that struggle for a long time to come. However, if we learn little from those actually engaged in the conflict, there are those outside who have labored earnestly to understand and explain the causes of terrorism. Ethics, religion, psychology, criminal pathology, sociology, economics, jurisprudence--all contribute to the explanation. And, while it is not possible to go into the entire matter as exhaustively as one could wish, there are several points which seem to make clear the cause of this almost individual struggle between the anarchists above and the anarchists below.

Some of those who have written of the causes of terrorism have a partisan bias. There are those among the Catholic clergy, for instance, who have sought to place the entire onus on the doctrines of modern socialism. This has, in turn, led August Bebel to point out that the teachings of certain famous men in the Church have condoned a.s.sa.s.sination. He reminds us of Mariana, the Jesuit, who taught under what circ.u.mstances each individual has a right to take the life of a tyrant. His work, _De Rege et Rege Const.i.tutione_, was famous in its time. Lombroso tells us that "the Jesuits ... who even to-day sustain the divine right of kings, when the kings themselves believe in it no longer, revolted at one time against the princes who were not willing to follow them in their _misoneique_ and retrograde fanaticism and hurled themselves into regicide. Thus three Jesuits were executed in England in 1551 for complicity in a conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth, and two others in 1605 in connection with the powder plot. In France, Pere Guignard was beheaded for high treason against Henry IV. (1595). Some Jesuits were beheaded in Holland for the conspiracies against Maurice de Na.s.sau (1598); and, later in Portugal, after the attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate King Joseph (1757), three of the Jesuits were implicated; and in Spain (1766) still others were condemned for their conspiracy against Ferdinand IV.

"During the same period two Jesuits were hanged in Paris as accomplices in the attempt against Louis XV. When they did not take an active part in political crimes, they exercised indirectly their influence by means of a whole series of works approving regicide or tyrannicide, as they were pleased to distinguish it in their books. Mariana, in his book, _De Rege et Rege Const.i.tutione_, praises Clement and apologizes for regicide; and that, in spite of the fact that the Council of Constance had condemned the maxim according to which it was permitted to kill a tyrant."[L][11]

That the views of Mariana were very similar to those of the terrorists will be seen by the following quotation from his famous book: "It is a question," he writes, in discussing the best means of killing a king, "whether it is more expedient to use poison or the dagger. The use of poison in the food has a great advantage in that it produces its effect without exposing the life of the one who has recourse to this method.

But such a death would be a suicide, and one is not permitted to become an accomplice to a suicide. Happily, there is another method available, that of poisoning the clothing, the chairs, the bed. This is the method that it is necessary to put into execution in imitation of the Mauritanian kings, who, under the pretext of honoring their rivals with gifts, sent them clothes that had been sprinkled with an invisible substance, with which contact alone has a fatal effect."[12]

It has also been pointed out that, although Catholics have rarely been given to revolutionary political and economic theories, the Mafia and the Camorra in Italy, the Fenians in Ireland, and the Molly Maguires in America were all organizations of Catholics which pursued the same terrorist tactics that we find in the anarchist movement. These are unquestionable facts, yet they explain nothing. Certainly Zenker is justified in saying, "The deeds of people like Jacques Clement, Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that Sand's action followed from the views of the _Burschenschaft_, or Clement's from Catholicism, even when we learn that Sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was Charlotte Corday and Clement, or even when learned Jesuits like Sa, Mariana, and others, _c.u.m licentia et approbatione superiorum_, in connection with Clement's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of Nechayeff or Most."[13] It therefore ill becomes the Catholic clergy to attack socialism on the ground of regicide, as not one socialist book or one socialist leader has ever yet been known to advocate even tyrannicide. On the other hand, while terrorism has been extraordinarily prevalent in Catholic countries, such as France, Italy, and Spain, no socialist will seriously seek to lay the blame on the Catholic Church. The truth is that the forces which produce terrorism affect the Catholic mind as they affect the Protestant mind.

In every struggle for liberty and justice against religious, political, or industrial oppression, some men are moved to take desperate measures regardless of whether they are Catholics, Protestants, or pagans.

Still other seekers after the causes of terrorism have pointed out that the ethics of our time appear to justify the terrorist and his tactics.

History glorifies the deeds of numberless heroes who have destroyed tyrants. The story of William Tell is in every primer, and every schoolboy is thrilled with the tale of the hero who shot from ambush Gessler, the tyrant.[M] From the Old Testament down to even recent history, we find story after story which make immortal patriots of men who have committed a.s.sa.s.sination in the belief that they were serving their country. And can anyone doubt that Booth when he shot President Lincoln[N] or that Czolgosz when he murdered President McKinley was actuated by any other motive than the belief that he was serving a cause? It was the idea of removing an industrial tyrant that actuated young Alexander Berkman when he shot Henry C. Frick, of the Carnegie Company. These latter acts are not recorded in history as heroic, simply and solely because the popular view was not in sympathy with those acts. Yet had they been committed at another time, under different conditions, the story of these men might have been told for centuries to admiring groups of children.

In Carlyle's "Hero Wors.h.i.+p" and in his philosophy of history, the progress of the world is summarized under the stories of great men.

Certain individuals are responsible for social wrongs, while other individuals are responsible for the great revolutions that have righted those wrongs. In the building up, as well as in the destruction of empires, the individual plays stupendous roles. This egocentric interpretation of history has not only been the dominant one in explaining the great political changes of the past, it is now the reasoning of the common mind, of the yellow press, of the demagogue, in dealing with the causes of the evils of the present day. The Republican Party declared that President McKinley was responsible for prosperity; by equally sound reasoning Czolgosz may have argued that he was responsible for social misery. According to this theory, Rockefeller is the giant mind that invented the trusts; political bosses such as Croker and Murphy are the infamous creatures who fasten upon a helpless populace of millions of souls a Tammany Hall; Bismarck created modern Germany; Lloyd George created social reform in England; while Tom Mann in England and Samuel Gompers in America are responsible for strikes; and Keir Hardie and Eugene Debs responsible for socialism. The individual who with great force of ability becomes the foremost figure in social, political, or industrial development is immediately a.s.sailed or glorified. He becomes the personification of an evil thing that must be destroyed or of a good thing that must be protected. It is a result of such reasoning that men ignorant of underlying social, political, or industrial forces seek to obstruct the processes of evolution by removing the individual. On this ground the anarchists have been led to remove hundreds of police officials, capitalists, royalties, and others.

They have been poisoned, shot, and dynamited, in the belief that their removal would benefit humanity. Yet nothing would seem to be quite so obvious as the fact that their removal has hardly caused a ripple in the swiftly moving current of evolution. Others, often more forceful and capable, have immediately stepped into their places, and the course of events has remained unchanged.

Speaking on this subject, August Bebel refers to the hero-wors.h.i.+p of Bismarck in Germany: "There is no other person whom the social democracy had so much reason to hate as him, and the social democracy was not more hated by anybody than by just that Bismarck. Our love and our hatred were, as you see, mutual. But one would search in vain the entire social democratic press and literature for an expression of the thought that it would be a lucky thing if that man were removed.... But how often did the capitalist press express the idea that, were it not for Bismarck, we would not, to this day, have a united Germany? There cannot be a more mistaken idea than this. The unity of Germany would have come without Bismarck. The idea of unity and liberty was in the sixties so powerful among all the German people that it would have been realized, with or without the a.s.sistance of the Hohenzollerns. The unity of Germany was not only a political but an _economic necessity_, primarily in the interests of the capitalist cla.s.s and its development. The idea of unity would have ultimately broken through with elementary force. At this juncture Bismarck made use of the tendency, in _his own fas.h.i.+on, in the interest of the Hohenzollern dynasty_, and at the same time _in the interest of the capitalist cla.s.s and of the Junkers_, the landed n.o.bility. The offspring of this compromise is the Const.i.tution of the German Empire, the provisions of which strive to reconcile the interests of these three factors. Finally, even a man like Bismarck had to leave his post. 'What a misfortune for Germany!' cried the press devoted to him. Well, what has happened to Germany since then? Even Bismarck himself could not have ruled it much differently than it has been ruled since his days."[14]

This egoistic conception of history is carried to its most violent extreme by the anarchists. The principles of Nechayeff are a series of prescriptions by which fearless and reckless individuals may destroy other individuals. Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry seemed obsessed with the idea that upon their individual acts rested the burden of deliverance. Bonnot's last words were, "I am a celebrated man." From the gallows in Chicago Fischer declared, "This is the happiest moment of my life."[15] "Call your hangman!" exclaimed August Spies. "Truth crucified in Socrates, in Christ, in Giordano Bruno, in Huss, in Galileo, still lives--they and others whose name is legion have preceded us on this path. We are ready to follow!"[16] Fielden said: "I have loved my fellowmen as I have loved myself. I have hated trickery, dishonesty, and injustice. The nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend."[17] It is singularly impressive, in reading the literature of anarchism, to weigh the last words of men who felt upon their souls the individual responsibility of saving humanity. They have uttered memorable words because of their inherent sincerity, their devout belief in the individual, in his power for evil, and in his power to remove that evil.

In many anarchists, however, this deification of the individual induces a morbid and diseased egotism which drives them to the most amazing excesses; among others, the yearning to commit some memorable act of revolt in order to be remembered. In fact, the ego in its worst, as well as in its best aspect, dominates the thought and the literature of anarchism. Max Stirner, considered by some the founder of philosophical anarchism, calls his book "The Ego and His Own." "Whether what I think and do is Christian," he writes, "what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane, whether unhuman, illiberal, inhuman, what do I ask about that? If only it accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in it, then overlay it with predicates as you will; it is all alike to me."[18] "Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it 'for G.o.d's sake,' I do nothing 'for man's sake,' but what I do I do 'for my sake.'"[19] "Where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but--my food, even as I, too, am fed upon and turned to use by you."[20]

Here society is conceived of as merely a collection of egos. The world is a history of G.o.ds and of devils. All the evils of the time are embodied in individual tyrants. Some of these individuals control the social forces, others the political, still others the industrial forces.

As individuals, they overpower and enslave their individual enemies.

Remove a man and you destroy the source of tyranny. A judge commits a man to death, and the judge is dynamited. A Prime Minister sends the army to shoot down striking workmen and the Prime Minister is shot. A law is pa.s.sed violating the rights of free speech, and, following that, an Emperor is shot. The rich exploit the poor, and a fanatic throws a bomb in the first cafe he pa.s.ses to revenge the poor. Wicked and unjust laws are made, and Vaillant goes in person to the Chamber of Deputies to throw his bomb. The police of Chicago murder some hungry strikers, and an avenger goes to the Haymarket to murder the police. In all these acts we find a point of view in harmony with the dominant one of our day. It is the one taught in our schools, in our pulpits, on our political platforms, and in our press. It is the view, carried to an extreme, of that man or group of men who believes that the ideas of individuals determine social evolution. Nothing could be more logical to the revolutionist who holds this view than to seek to remove those individuals who are responsible for the existing order of society. As a rule, the socialist stands almost alone in combating this ideological interpretation of history and of social evolution.

There is something in the nature of poetic irony in the fact that the anarchist should take the very ethics of capitalism and reduce them to an absurdity. It is something in the nature of a satire, sordid and terrible, which the realism of things has here written. The very most cherished ethical ideals of our society are used by the bitterest enemies of that society to arouse the wronged to individual acts of revenge. Quite a number of notable anarchists have been the product of misery and oppression. Their souls were warped, and their minds distorted in childhood by hunger and brutality. They were wronged terribly by the world, and anarchism came to them as a welcome spirit, breathing revenge. It taught that the world was wrong, that injustice rode over it like a nightmare, that misery flourished in the midst of abundance, that mult.i.tudes labored with bent backs to produce luxuries for the few. Their eyes were opened to the wrong of hunger, poverty, unemployment, of woman and child labor, and of all the miseries that press heavily upon human souls. And in their revolt they saw kings, judges, police officials, legislators, captains of industry, who were said to be directly responsible for these social ills. It was not society or a system or even a cla.s.s that was to blame; it was McKinley, or Carnot, or Frick. And those whom some wors.h.i.+ped as heroes, these men loathed as tyrants.

The powerful have thought to deprive the poor of souls. They have liked to think that they would forever bear their cross in peace. Yet when anarchism comes and touches the souls of the poor it finds not dead blocks of wood or mere senseless cogs in an industrial machine; it finds the living, who can pray and weep, love and hate. No matter how scared their souls become, there is yet a possibility that their whole beings may revolt under wrong. When the anarchist deifies even the veriest wreck of society--this individual, "this G.o.d, though in the germ"--when he inflames it with dignity and with pride, when he fills its whole being with a thirst for awful and incredible vengeance, you have Duval, Lingg, Ravachol, Luccheni, and Bonnot. Add to their desire for revenge the philosophy of anarchism and of our schoolbooks, that individuals are the makers of history, and the result is terrorism.

Other students of terrorism have noted the prevalence of violence in those countries and times where the courts are corrupt, where the law is brutal and oppressive, or where men are convinced that no available machinery exists to execute the ends of justice. This latter is the explanation given for the numerous lynchings in America and also for the practices of "popular justice" that used to be a common feature of frontier life. In the absence of a properly const.i.tuted legal machinery groups of men undertake to shoot, hang, or burn those whom they consider dangerous to the public weal. In Russia it was inevitable that a terrorist movement should arise. The courts were corrupt, the bureaucracy oppressive. Furthermore, no form of freedom existed. Men could neither speak nor write their views. They could not a.s.semble, and until recently they did not possess the slightest voice in the affairs of government. Borne down by a most hideous oppression, the terrorist was the natural product. The same conditions have existed to an extent in Italy, and probably no other country has produced so many violent anarchists. Caserio, Luccheni, Bresci, and Angiolillo have been mentioned, but there are others, such as Santoro, Mantica, Benedicti, although these latter are accused of being police agents. In Italy the people have for centuries individually undertaken to execute their conception of equity. Official justice was too costly to be available to the poor, and the courts were too corrupt to render them justice. For centuries, therefore, men have been considered justified in murdering their personal enemies. Among all cla.s.ses it has long been customary to deal individually with those who have committed certain crimes. The horrible legal conditions existing in both Spain and Italy have developed among these peoples the idea of "self-help." They have taken law into their own hands, and, according to their lights and pa.s.sions, have meted out their rude justice. a.s.sa.s.sination has been defended in these countries, as lynching has been defended recently, as some will remember, by a most eminent American anarchist, the Governor of South Carolina.

Lombroso says in his exhaustive study of the causes of violence, _Les Anarchistes_: "History is rich in examples of the complicity of criminality and politics, and where one sees in turn political pa.s.sion react on criminal instinct and criminal instinct on political pa.s.sion.

While Pompey has on his side all honest people--Cato, Brutus, Cicero; Caesar, more popular than he, has as his followers only degenerates--Antony, a libertine and drunkard; Curio, a bankrupt; Clelius, a madman; Dolabella, who made his wife die of grief and who wanted to annul all debts; and, above all, Catiline and Clodius. In Greece the Clefts, who are brigands in time of peace, have valiantly championed the independence of their country. In Italy, in 1860, the Papacy and the Bourbons hired brigands to oppose the national party and its troops; the Mafia of Sicily rose up with Garibaldi; and the Camorra of Naples cooperated with the liberals. And this shameful alliance with the Camorra of Naples is not yet dissolved; the last parliamentary struggles relative to the acts of the government of Naples have given us a sad echo of it--which, alas, proves that it still lasts without hope of change for the future. It is especially at the initial stages of revolutions that these sorts of people abound. It is then, indeed, that the abnormal and unhealthy spirits predominate over the faltering and the weak and drag them on to excesses by an actual epidemic of imitation."[21]

Marx and Engels saw very clearly the part that the criminal elements would play in any uprising, and as early as 1847 they wrote in the Communist Manifesto: "The 'dangerous cla.s.s,' the social sc.u.m, that pa.s.sively rotting ma.s.s thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue."[22] The truth of this statement has been amply ill.u.s.trated in the numerous outbreaks that have occurred since it was written. The use by the Bakouninists in Spain of the criminal elements there, the repeated exploits of the police agents in discrediting every uprising by encouraging the criminal elements to outrageous acts, and the terrible barbarities of the criminal cla.s.ses at the time of the Paris Commune are all examples of how useful to reaction the rotting layers of old society may become.

Even when they do not serve as a bribed tool of the reactionary elements, their atrocities, both cruel and criminal, repel the self-respecting and conscientious elements. They discredit the real revolutionists, who must bear the stigma that attaches to the inhuman acts of the "dangerous cla.s.s."

That the European governments have used the terrorists in exactly this manner in order to discredit popular movements, is not, I think, open to any question. The money of the anarchists' bitterest enemy has helped to make anarchy so well known. The politics of Machiavelli is the politics of nearly every old established European government. It is the politics of families who have been trained in the profession of rulers.h.i.+p. And this masters.h.i.+p, as William Morris has said, has many s.h.i.+fts. And one that has been most useful to them is that of subsidizing those persons or elements who by their acts promote reaction. In Russia it is an old custom to foment and provoke minor insurrections. Police agents enter a discontented district and do all possible to irritate the troublesome elements and to force them "to come into the street." In this manner the agitators and leaders are brought to the front, where at one stroke they may all be shot. Furthermore, the police agents themselves commit or provoke such atrocious crimes that the people are terrified and welcome the strong arm of the Government. Literally scores of instances might be given where, by well-planned work of this sort, the active leaders are cut down, the sources of agitation destroyed, and through the robberies, murders, and dynamite outrages of police agents the people are so terrified that they welcome the intervention of even tyranny itself.

An immense sensation throughout Europe was created by an address by Jules Guesde in the French Chamber of Deputies, the 19th of July, 1894.

The deeds of Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry were still the talk of Europe, and, three weeks before, the President of the Republic had been stabbed to death by Caserio. It was in that critical period, amidst commotions, interruptions, protests, and exclamations of amazement, that Guesde brought out his evidence that the chief of police of Paris had paid regular subsidies to promote and extend both the preaching and the practice of violent anarchism. He introduced, in support of his remarks, portions from the Memoirs of M. Andrieux, our old friend of Lyons and later the head of the Paris police. "The anarchists," says Andrieux, "wished to have a newspaper to spread their doctrines. If I fought their Propaganda of the Deed, I at least favored the spread of their doctrines by means of the press, and I have no reasons for depriving myself longer of their grat.i.tude.[O] The companions were looking for some one to advance funds, but infamous capital was in no hurry to reply to their appeal. I shook it up and succeeded in persuading it that it was for its own interest to aid in the publication of an anarchist newspaper....

"But do not think that I boldly offered to the anarchists the encouragement of the Prefect of Police.... I sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them. He explained that, having acquired a fortune in the drug business, he desired to devote a part of his income to help their propaganda. This bourgeois, anxious to be devoured, awakened no suspicion among the companions. Through his hands, I deposited the caution money in the coffers of the State, and the paper, _la Revolution Sociale_, made its appearance.... Every day, about the table of the editors, the authorized representatives of the party of action a.s.sembled; they looked over the international correspondence; they deliberated on the measures to be taken to end 'the exploitation of man by man'; they imparted to each other the recipes which science puts at the disposal of revolution. I was always represented in the councils, and I gave my advice in case of need.... The members had decided in the beginning that the Palais-Bourbon must be blown up. They deliberated on the question as to whether it would not be more expedient to commence with some more accessible monument. The Bank of France, the _palais de l'elysee_, the house of the prefect of police, the office of the Minister of the Interior were all discussed, then abandoned, by reason of the too careful surveillance of which they were the object."[23] Toward the end of his address, Guesde turned to the reactionaries, and said: "I have shown you that everywhere, from the beginning of the anarchist epidemic in France, you find either the hand or the money of one of your prefects of police.... That is how you have fought in the past this anarchistic danger of which you make use to-day to commit, what shall I say?... real crimes, not only against socialism, but against the Republic itself."[24]

For the last forty years police agents have swarmed into the socialist, the anarchist, and the trade-union movements for the purpose of provoking violence. The conditions grew so bad in Russia that every revolutionist suspected his comrade. Many loyal revolutionists were murdered in the belief that they were spies. In the belief that they were comrades, the faithful intrusted their innermost secrets to the agents of the police. Every plan they made was known. Every undertaking proved abortive, because the police knew everything in advance and frequently had in charge of every plot their own men. Criminals were turned into the movement under the surveillance of the police.[P] All through the days of the International it was a common occurrence to expose police spies, and in every national party agents of the police have been discovered and driven out. It has become almost a rule, in certain sections of the socialist and labor movements, that the man who advocates violence must be watched, and there are numerous instances where such men have been proved to be paid agents of the police. Joseph Peukert was for many years one of the foremost leaders of the anarchists. He was in Vienna with Stellmacher and Kammerer, and devoted much of his time to translating into German the works of foreign anarchists. It was only discovered toward the end of his life that during all this time he was in the employ of the Austrian police.

These and similar startling facts were brought out by August Bebel in an address delivered in Berlin, November 2, 1898. Luccheni had just murdered the Empress of Austria, and the German reactionaries attempted, of course, to connect him with the socialists. Bebel created utter consternation in their camp when, as a part of his address, he showed the active partic.i.p.ation of high officials in crimes of the anarchists.

"And how often," said Bebel, "police agents have helped along in the attempted or executed a.s.sa.s.sinations of the last decades. When Bismarck was Federal Amba.s.sador at Frankfort-on-the-Main he wrote to his wife: 'For lack of material the police agents lie and exaggerate in a most inexcusable manner.' These agents are engaged to discover contemplated a.s.sa.s.sinations. Under these circ.u.mstances, the bad fellows among them ... come easily to the idea: 'If other people don't commit a.s.sa.s.sinations, then we ourselves must help the thing along.' For, if they cannot report that there is something doing, they will be considered superfluous, and, of course, they don't want that to happen.

So they 'help the thing along' by 'correcting luck,' as the French proverb puts it. Or they play politics on their own score.

"To demonstrate this I need only to remind you of the 'reminiscences' of Andrieux, the former Chief of Police of Paris, in which he brags with the greatest cynicism of how he, by aid of police funds, subsidized extreme Anarchist papers and organized Anarchist a.s.sa.s.sinations, just to give a thorough scare to rich citizens. And then there is that notorious Police Inspector Melville, of London, who also operated on these lines.

That was revealed by the investigation of the so-called Walsall attempt at a.s.sa.s.sination. Among the a.s.sa.s.sinations committed by the Fenians there were also some that were the work of the police, as was shown at the Parnell trial. Everybody remembers how much of such activity was displayed in Belgium during the eighties by that prince of scoundrels, Pourbaix. Even the Minister Bernaard himself was compelled to admit before the Parliament that Pourbaix was paid to arrange a.s.sa.s.sinations in order to justify violent persecutions of the _Social Democracy_.

Likewise was Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, nicknamed the 'bomb-baron,'

unmasked as a police agent at the trial of the Luttich Anarchists.

"And then--our own good friends at the time of the [anti-] Socialist law. About them I myself could tell you some interesting stories, for I was among those who helped to unmask them. There is Schroeder-Brennwald, of Zurich, the chap who was receiving from Molkenmarkt, through police counsellor Krueger, a monthly salary of at first 200 and then 250 marks.

At every meeting in Zurich this Schroeder was stirring up people and putting them up to commit acts of violence. But to guard against expulsion from Switzerland by the authorities of that country, he first acquired _citizens.h.i.+p in Switzerland_, presumably by means of funds furnished by the police of Prussia. During the summer of 1883 Schroeder and the police-Anarchist Kaufman called and held in Zurich a conference partic.i.p.ated in by thirteen persons. Schroeder acted as chairman. At that conference plans were laid for the a.s.sa.s.sinations which were later committed in Vienna, Stuttgart, and Stra.s.sburg by Stellmacher, Kammerer, and k.u.mitzsch. I am not informed that these unscrupulous scoundrels, although they were in the service of the police, had informed the police commissioner that those murders were being contemplated.... Men like Stellmacher and Kammerer paid for their acts with their lives on the gallows. When [Johann] Most was serving a term in a prison in England, this same police spy Schroeder had Most's 'Freiheit' published at Schaffhausen, Switzerland, at his own expense. The money surely did not come out of his own pocket.

"That was a glorious time when [we unmasked this Schroeder and the other police organizer of plots, Haupt, to whom] the police counsellor Krueger wrote that he knew the next attempt on the life of the Czar of Russia would be arranged in Geneva, and he should send in reports. Was this demand not remarkable in the highest degree? And now Herr von Ehrenberg, the former colonel of artillery of Baden!... This fellow was unquestionably for good reason suspected of having betrayed to the General Staff of Italy the fortifications of Switzerland at St.

Gotthard. When his residence was searched it was brought to light that Herr von Ehrenberg worked also in the employ of the Prussian police. He gave regularly written reports of conversations which he claimed to have had with our comrades, including me. Only in those alleged conversations the characters were reversed. We were represented as advocating the most reckless criminal plans, which in reality he himself suggested and defended, while he pictured himself in those reports as opposing the plans.... What would have happened if some day those reports had fallen into the hands of certain persons--and that was undoubtedly the purpose--and, if accused, we had no witnesses to prove the spy committed perfidy? Thus, for instance, he attempted to convince me--but in his records claimed that it was I who proposed it--that it would be but child's play to find out the residences of the higher military officers in all the greater cities of Germany, then, in one night, send out our best men and have all those officers murdered simultaneously. In four articles published in the 'Arbeiterstimme,' of Zurich, he explained in a truly cla.s.sical manner how to conduct a modern street battle, what to do to get the best of artillery and cavalry. At meetings he urged the collection of funds to buy arms for our people. As soon as war broke out with France our comrades from Switzerland, according to him, should break into Baden and Wuerttemberg, should there tear up the tracks and confiscate the contents of the postal and railroad treasuries. And this man, who urged me to do all that, was, as I said, in the employ of the Prussian police.