New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-01-16
THE CHICAGO SOCIALISTS.

The accounts telegraphed from Chicago of the
preparations made by the Socialists of that city
to blow up everything and everybody would be
much more alarming did we not know that the
people credited with these ferocious purposes
have been for several years engaged in working
I'D reputation for diabolical intentions, and
have never proceeded any further than adver-
Using themselves as enemies of mankind.
Several times inquiries have been made with a
view to ascertain the real strength of the
Socialists of Chicago, and always when light
has been let in upon them they have shrunk to
insigniticance. OF course it is certain from the
outset that American workingmen will have
nothing to do with such crazy schemes. The
Chicago Socialists are foreigners, and foreign
ers who have imported dislike of all govern
ments and of social order generally. They are
no doubt for the most part ignorant men, far
too ignorant to induce people of common sense
to Join them. Even in Chicago, which is their
headquarters, they are few, and there is no
ground for believing that they have any
serious organization elsewhere.
These cranks delight in talking about dyna-
mite and blood and anarchy, over their beer
and pipes. Ii is in the beer saloons that they
aconspire.' and the one thing which probably
vexes them most is that they cannot persuade
the American people to take them seriously. If
only the police would pursue them here as they
do in Europe; If only they could feel that they
were fighting the Government; their truculent
talk would be infinitely more amusing to them.
But they have come to a land where Socialism
has no rational excuse for existence; where
nobody interferes with the widest kind Of
talk; where those who like to put their
own lives at risk may even manufacture and
handle dynamite bombs and Internal machines /;
and where interference only begins at that
stage of open lawlessness which these foolish
people have sense enough to stop short Of
Nothing would please and fiatter them more
than the idea Of soaring the American public
with such elaborate plans of destruction as
they pretend to have formed. The American
public, however, is proof against all such
nonsense, and it would not be worth while to
notice the subject at all save for the purpose of
advising the Socialist cranks to abandon such
puerities, and go to work seriously, and become
respectable American citizens.
Ii is possible that detectives may have some
hand in exaggerating the doings of these
people. They depend upon their reputation for
skill in the discovery of crime and they are
sometimes tempted to imagine it where it does
not exist, or to see formidable conspiracies
where there is only sort of burlesque of the
real thing. AS for the alleged drilling and
organization, we have heard of that any time
this five years past. But the probability is that
there are not five hundred members of any
Socialist organization in Chicago, and among
them not fifty who would venture to throw a
bomb. Their clustering talk is only to be
condemned because it may deceive foreigners.
In this country it can mislead nobody, nor can
it bring the Socialists the qualification of being
prosecuted. IL these deluded people would