The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-15
THE ABUSE OF FREEDOM OF
SPEECH.

| THE ABUSE OF FREEDOM OF
The professional anarchists of New York
city recently held a meeting at which they
| glorified the assassin of Mr.. Fricl, as
| heroic social reformer. eve meet" said
| the first speaker, mot to mourn, but to
| glorify the higher law that will. if need be,
act by the flowing of blood to stop the
pressure Of capital upon labor" By shoot
| ing Frick, SAID Peukert, the founder of the
autonomistic Branch of the anarchists,
Bergman showed "the oppressed classes
| where the source of their misery lay"
"These murderers, these robbers, the cap
talists," he proceeded, "the workingmen
must fight. and that soon." The attempted
murder of Mr.. Frick. said another of the
speakers. ''is the first attempt to hit at the
real enemy Of workingmen; and it has
awakened the workingmen to realize that
q revolution is inevitable"
These professional anarchists publicly
| preach the doctrine that everybody who
has the money to employ another and to
| pay him for his labor is unfit to live, and
that the laborer he employs is justified in
killing him as his natural enemy. This
outrageous talk is SO incendiary in its
| character that it is gross abuse Of free
| speech. and such sentiments, whether
spoken or printed, ought to be suppressed
| Just as we suppress obscene literature, or
| prohibit the passage of lottery matter
through the mails. The Springfield Re-
| toll IN
says on this point:
To attempt to suppress dangerous license is
not to limit the freedom of speech of publica-
toh. To check the circulation OF more or less
| open suggestions to arson, murder and lawless-
ness, with general war against society, is not to
| hinder the lawful dissemination OF anybody's
| ideas upon public questions. When the press
| menaces law and order. it abuses and forfeits
its freedom. precisely as 1t does when 1t panders
to obscene tastes.
| English courts, in country where the
freedom of the press and individual liber-
| ty are held as sacred as they are under
our flag, have not hesitated to suppress
anarchistic newspapers which have
| preached defiance to the law and to pun
ish the writer's of articles of this sort.
| During the civil war President Lincoln,
| when demonstrated with for arresting
| Vallandigham and sending him within
the lines of the Confederacy, said: 81 am
compelled to shoot young soldiers who
desert, because they have heard Mr.. VAL
| landigham discourage enlistments and
| advise desertion, or have read his evil
| counsels of this sort. If l must under
| military law shoot these inconsiderate
| soldier youth ought I to leave to this POI
litical aud civil incendiary entire freedom
of his infammatory tongue and pen 2"
The argument of Mr.. Lincoln was sound;
it rested for its defence Oh the principle
that the public safety is the supreme law,
| and the reasoning of Mr.. Lincoln can be
fairly applied to the present abuse of the
freedom of the press and public speech by
these professional anarchists.
These professional anarchists in their
print and speech attack the state, the
church, the home and the marriage rela-
ton, for they advocate and practice sexual
license; the female confederate of the as
sassin Bergman was the mistress of sew
erai men, and publicly preached in favor
of sexual communism as part of consist
emf anarchism, just as did Spies. the Chi
cago anarchist, executed for his part in the
bomb conspiracy. These anarchists. in
print and speech, boldly advocate murder,
theft and general license. These creatures
ere personally depravei folk, like Herr
Most and Ravachol, the French assassin
and dynamiter. The dissemination of
these immoral and peruicious anarchistic
teachings among poor, ignorant people. or
among men of unarranged brains OF the
crank type, serves to increase the evil of
lawlessness and defiance Of authority ev-
| eryShere. There is no reason why as q
matter OF policy the literature OF these
professional criminal anarchists should
not be excluded from the mails. and there
Is no reason why men who deliberately
justify in public speech the assassination
of all capitalists and employers by labor
as natural enemies should not be sllenced,
and If necessary fined and imprisoned.
The courts have ruled that the exclusion
OF obscene books and lottery matter from
the mails IS not an interference with the
freedom OF the press guaranteed by the
constitution. The right OF individual
liberty cannot be pleaded as any ilstifca-
ton for permitting smallpox patient to
travel without restraint 4 man cannot
plead the freedom Of the press in behalf of
his own efforts 10 create a moral pestiIence
by scattering obscene books, and man
cannot plead free speech and free press IN
defense Of his efforts 10 inter and print
teachings that utterly vitiate the air OF
political aud social liberty under law, and
congress has legal right to exclude from
the mails the literature OF anarehisn