The record-union., 1894-06-26
THE ASSASSINATION OF cARNoT.

cOhTGCC0E anu AdiA0 bAdI SOh4h40ho WAC
respect and admiration of the civilized
world, and that remain to comfort and
support the mourners.
The assassin hand that snatohed away
his life could not have been Impelled by
hatred, for Sadi Carnot had not wronged
any. His official life was one of duty
doing, of calmness and justice, and the
performance of those offices the laws
made by the people had decreed.
The assassin could not have been in
spired by sense of political wrong, for
CarnOt had done no great wrong.s All his
acts moved toward what he believed, and
all fair men believed, to be the better
ment of the conditions of humanity and
the enlargement of the skirts Of Liberty.
The murderer could not have sought to
revenge himself, for Carnot had not
sinned towards him or his. His private
life was clean, his integrity unimpeached,
stained by any willful wrong done to
his fellow men.
What, then, could have moved the arm
of the wretch who struck down this
chosen son of France2 He was either
insane or he was the victim of the mis-
leading and damnable doctrines of an
arohism, which it is said he preached.
Since the presumption of sanity must
prevail in favor of the assassin, it follows
that he was urged on to his crime by the
teaching of faith that is abhorrent
among men, and that is as ridiculous and
foolish as it is infamous and indefensible.
The anarchist holds that all restraint by
OF OF men, operating upon them in the
form of law or its representatives, is a
crime against humanity. 1t is. therefore,
no more wrong to kill one who exercises
the functions of an executive Office than
it is to destroy a venomous serpent or
slay a ravenous wild beast. For, say the
anarchists, even if there be among rulers
and executives those whose lives are in
nocent of wrong, they are instruments of
the law, and unfortunate as such in being
subject to removal.
''Stab the law and down with all Gov
ernors," cry these fellows. Why? That
there may be, to quote them. system set
up of absolute freedom to each to do as
he will with his own, subject only to such
regulation as is necessary to preserve the
right of another to complete individu-
ality and freedom of action.
These poor fools fail to see, or they rea-
son away to their own satisfaction the
patent truth that this scheme of theirs
means government. restraint, repression
and propulsion, however much they
hate them. The anarchist denies the
mere political equality of men but asserts
their individual equality, fallacy which
human nature exposes with every life
In Carnot they saw not the good man,
the loving father and husband, the true
friend, the devoted patriot, and the calm
self-possessed man, but the representa-
tive and agent of an order of government
that puts restraint upon the vicious and
the strong for the protection of the weak
and the innocent. and gives to each and
all certain injunctions of duty, that the
general good of the whole community
and the individual and the inalienable
rights of each and all may be conserved.
The anarchist, therefore. who is by the
fallacies of his faith blinded, sees in the
act of CarnoHs assassin no crime; at most
he finds it to be but misdirection and lack
OF good judgment.
And these are the men who tell, as does
the Chicago leader quoted in the dis
patches, that society as we have it, which
is the evolution of the centuries, is to be
upturned, whelmed in a sea of human
blood and obliterated from the face of the
earth thereafter. And all this is to be
done by the anarchists and their con-
sorts, the Internationalists, Anti patriots
and extreme Socialists through series
of bloody assaults, since men refuse to
accept their doctrines peaceably.
There will doubtless be continuance of
these assassinations. of bomb throwing
and of arson. It is impossible to wholly
prevent them, but that the established
order of things is to be changed in the
twinkling of an eye by the action of so
many anarchists as may be found on the
earth's surface is an idea too absurd to
even be credited to the rawlings of a
lunatic.
That there will be any changes in the
social order that will be other than the
results Of evolution we do not for one
moment believe. Changes have been
going on, wonderful ones, and with won
derful rapidity, but all in an evolution
ary manner, even where the process is
punctuated by a revolution here and
there. A so-called socialism that recog-
nizes the right and duty of society to
promote the well being of each individ-
ual in it; to give the largest liberty to in
dividuality consistent with order; that
affords protection to the defenseless by
the interposition of the many in their
legislative capacities, has been growing