The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-04
Iade Citizens

but as struck at the nation. We mourn
a good and great President who is
dead; but While we mourn we are lift
ed up by the splendid achievements of
his life and the grand heroism with
which he met his death
When we turn from the man to the
nation, the harm done is so great as
to excite our gravest apprehensions
and to demand our wisest and most
resolute action. This criminal was a
professed anarchist, infamed by the
teaching of professed anarchists and
probably also by the reckless utter
ances of those who, on the stump and
in the public press, appeal to the dark
and evil spirits of malice and greed.
envy and sullen hatred. The wind is
sowed by the men who preach such
doctrines, and they cannot escape their
share of responsibility for the whirl-
wind that is reaped. This applies alike
to the deliberate demagogue. to the
exploiter of sensationalism and to the
crude and foolish visionary who, for
Whatever reason, apologies for crime
or eXcites aimless discomfort
The blow was ahmed not at this
President, but at all Presidents; at every
symbol of government. President Nc
klnley was as emphatically the en-
oodiment of the popular will of the
nation expressed through the forms of
law as a New England town meeting
is in similar fashion the embodiment
OF the law-abiding purpose and prac-
tice of the people of the town. On no
conceivable theory could the murder
or the President be accepted as due to
protest against inequalities in the So
cal order. save as the murder of all
the freemen engaged in a town meet
ing could be accepted as protest
against that social inequality which
puts malefactor in Jail. Anarchy is
no more an expression of social dis
content than picking pockets or wife
beating.
Discussion of Anarchy.
The anarchist. and especially the an
archist in the United States, is merely
one type of criminal more dangerous
than any other because he represents
the same depravity in a greater de-
gree The man who advocates
anarchy, directly or indi-
rectly, in any shane or
fashion, or the man who apologies for
anarchists and their deeds, makes
himself morally accessory to murder
before the fact. The anarchist is
criminal whose perverted instincts lead
him to prefer confusion and chaos to
the most benefcent form of social or
der. His protest of concern for work
ingmen is outrageous in it's impudent
falsity; for If the political institutions
of this country do not afford opportu-
nifty to every honest and intelligent son
of toll then the door of hope is forever
closed against him. The anarchist is
everywhere not merely the enemy of
system and of progress. but the dead
ly foe of liberty. If ever anarchy is
triumphant, its triumph will last for
but one red moment. to be succeeded
for ages by the gloomy night of des-
potism.
For the anarchist himself. whether he
breaches or practices his doctrines, we
need not have one particle more con-
Germ than for any ordinary murderer.
He is not the victim of social or polit-
zeal injustice. There are no wrongs to
remedy in his case. The cause of his
criminality is to be found in his own
evil passions and in the evil conduct
of those who urge him on. not in any
failure by others or by the state to do
justice to him or his. He is a malefac-
tor and nothing else. He is in no sense,
in no shape or way, product of So
cial conditions" save as a highway
man is produced by the fact that an
unarmed man happens to have a purse.
1t is traVesty upon the great and
holy names of liberty and freedom to
permit them to be invoked in such a
cause. No man or body of men preach
ing anarchistic doctrines should be al
lowed at large any more than if preach
vate individual. Anarchstic speeches.
writings, and meetings are essentially
seditious and reasonable.
| earnestly recommend to the Con-
gress that i'm the exercise of it's wise
discretion il should take into consid-
GRAFTON the coming to this country OF
anarchists or persons processing prIn-
ciples hostile to all government and
justifying the murder of those placed
in authority. Such individuals as those
who not long ago gathered In open
meeting to glorify the murder of King
Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime,
and the law should ensure their reg
orous punishment. They and those
like them should be kept out of this
country; and II found here they should
be promptly deported to the country
whence they came; and far-reachlng
provision should be made for the pun
ishment of those who stay. No mat
ter calls more urgently for the wisest
thought of the Congress.
The Federal courts should be given
jurisdiction over any man who kills or
attempts to kill the President or any
man who by the constitution or by law
is in line of succession for the presi-
dency. while the punishment for an un-
successful attempt should be proper
toned to the enormity of the offense
against out institutions
Anarchy is a crime against the whole
human race; and all mankind should
band against the anarchist His crime
should he made an offense against the
law OF nations, like piracy and that
form OF mansteahng known as the
slave trade; for II is OF far blacker in
fanny than either. II should be so de-
clared by treaties among all civilized
powers. Such treaties would give to the
Federal government the power Of deal
ing with the crime
\ grim commentary upon the folly
of the anarchist position was afforded
by the attitude Of the law toward this
very criminal who had just taken the
life Of the President. The people would
| have torn him limb from limb II 1t had
] not been that the law he dehed was at
once invoked In his behalf So far from