The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1892-05-14
Anarchism--.Some Of It's Causes
and Purposes.

tremeS.
Nothing that is is uncaused, no.
is any human act, however errone
Gus, or idea, however crude, with
out a purpose.
The anarshists are not all MOI
nearly all ignorant, nor do they
spring from the mindless classes
Corollary to the above postulate'
it follows that the anarchists are al
unavoidable product of our socia
errors, vices and crimes, and of tn.
obsoleteness and injustice of oul
laws and their execution. Injustic,
is everywhere the rule, and it ex
cites no word of comment excep
when by some inexplicable chance
it falls on the rich. That such 6
state of things should beget ever
savage resistance, all things consid
cred, is not cause of surprise, nor il
it discreditable to human nature
The Bible says stree is known by
its fruits" Philosophy teaches US
that there can be no effect withou,
a cause, and that no effect can ex.
ceed it's cause. Society then is the
tree that has borne this dangerous
anarchistic fruit, and society's out.
rageous wrongs and idiotcy the
causes which have produced the
abnormal and horrible spectacle oi
large numbers of men and women
bound together by secret obliga.
tions and frightful oaths, whose
purpose is the destruction, root and
branch, of the gorgon mother whose
crimes have produced their muir
derous organizations. and whose
cruel expressions and insults to the
incompetent and unfortunate of her
children have robbed them of their
earnings and of their opportunities,
estranged their hearts from their
fellows, and cankered their very
souls with hate, even as she has
deprived their lives of usefulness,
JOY and hope.
"No vestige of the past" say
these desperate men and women,
"shall remain. A clean sweep must
be made of all governmental juri-
dical, religious and administrative
institutions. All monuments which
serve as rallying points of no mat
ter what authority, must be de-
stroyed without pity and without
remorse." Comrades" proceeds
this terrible creed, "you must steel
your hearts, for it will require a
great deal of hatred to cleanse the
Augean stables. You must blow up
the churches, converts, barracks,
prisons, prefectures, mayoralties
and other useless and abominable
strongholds. You must burn all
the documents you can find. To
the flames all title deeds of proper
ty, financial contracts, shares and
securities. To the flames the great
ledgers Of the public debts, the ac-
count books of the municipal and
loans. To the flames
the books of the bankers and mer-
chants, the checks and bills of ex-
change. When once the mold of
the old society is broken, and all
the organisms which oppress the
people are destroyed you will have
TO turn your attention to the re-
establishment of production on just
and liberal bases. Then we will see
mistress of her destinies,
and freed from the yoke of gods and
masters, who have always immo-
lated them on their altars and
counters" /"
Now all of this is blood-curdling,
to superficial observers
md thinkers; and an easy way and
! popular way to get over it all is
% denounce the men and women
Who can thus calmly mediate and
'esolve upon wreaking such dire
md universal vengeance upon man
lind as barbarians, brutes and MUIR
lerers, who should be swept by the
,esom of popular wrath from the
ace of the earth. But we submit
hat this would hardly be an effect
,al or civilized way of treating even
% virulent a social disorder. We
hink it an exparte judgment that
such great numbers of
,eople, whose crime is that they
oppose crime with crime, as totally
lepraved and unfit to live. We
hink mother Nature has endowed
hese people just as she has the
est of her children. We think they
ave brains to think and hearts to
eel just as we have; that they are
lied with the same unsatisfiable
ongings after better conditions and
wayed by the same impulses. the
anne passions, ambitions and de-
Tres that shape the lives and des-
inies Of the rest of the human race.
t is our notion that they are just
8 susceptible to good and evil in
[uences, just as capable of good
eeds as the rest of us, and that
hey, as a whole, prefer good to evil,
lstice to injustice, and that they
Individually would alleviate suffer
ng, sympathize with pain and
brink from murder just as other