Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1901-09-17
Amend the Laws.


right. An American citizen naturally
| feels his blood boil when a ninnihead
or coterie of ninniheads deiies this
n..ii..n Of &C, 600 900 people, and tells us
we shall not have such form of govern
ment as we choose to have; that we
shall not have president though we
elect him. Nevertheless we must not
all become anarchists just because an
anarchist has shot our president.
| Neither must we lose our heads and
spend all our feelings in cuss words.
| The situation demands careful and well
considered action. Those who think
that tie difficulty will be met by law
declaring attempts upon the presidents
life 70 be high treason merely are show
isg that they have not yet sufficiently
recovered their senses to talk sensibly.
There is not an anarchist who has not
enough vanity to prefer being executed
for treason than for murder Then,
again, when we have done something
designed to protect the president and
vice. president, how little have we done
after all. There are the governors of
the several states; they are all rulers in
the same sense as the president is.
Then there are the public buildings,
state and national, all fine food for fire
and dynamite. Stop the flow of anar
chistic violence toward the president
and 1T will turn elsewhere. Congress
cannot deal thoroughly with this ques-
ton. There should be carefully de-
vised statute law, and it should be
adopted in all the states, directed against
the very root of this evil, namely, the
literature of anarchy and the public
speeches of anarchists, advising or rec
ommending the destruction of proper
ty or human life 1t need not be law
| specially directed against anarchists.
twill be better if it be law making
it criminal offense to speak, print or
publish anything advising the commits
sion of criminal offenses, and it should
be so worded that the crime will be
committed if such advice is put in a
general or abstract way and without
specific reference TO the life OF proper
ty of any particular individual or class.
If the nation had aroused itself and
taken proper and deliberate action
after the Haymarket riot, we might
have been prepared for the situation
long ago, and the recent murder of the
president might never have been
attempted Czolgosz says it was
| Emma Goldman's incendiary talk that
inflamed him to the killing point. The
Immediate future should not be oc-
cupied solely III fruitless denunci-
ations of anarchy, but should be devot-
ed to ,Ievising some well considered
and effective system of state laws which
will Suppress the crime of advising
either by writing or print or word OF
mouth the commission of crime of any
sort. Herr Most has been arrested.
What has he doneg He published an
article approving The killing of
the president Therei. he committed
II moral crime But there is no law to
punish it,-no law making his words
criminal Yet his words have direct
tendency to encourage other crazy
.pates to emulate Czoigosz. How much
better it would be if Most could be
charged with and punished for serious
statutory offence. Emma Goldman was
arrested We read the criminal com
! plant made against her by some OBJ
scure citizen of Chicago, charging pos
sitively, that she had conspired with
Czolgosz and others to Kill president
Mckinley. Upon its face the affidavit
was rank perjury, for even if there has
been such conspiracy it is not yet
known 10 anybody but theconspirators.
What pitiful spectacle it is to see this
great nation descending to such weak
subterfuges for the punishment OF the
most dangerous class of criminals in
our land inst because we have no laws
upon our statute books that will reach
them. And anarchy has been showing
its fangs in the United States ever since
1885 when the anarchist sheet, Arbeiter
Zeitung, sadly misnamed) published
in Chicago the incendiary articles that
melted some never discovered mis-
creant to commit wholesale murder.
There was storm of Indignation then,
and it ended in smoke. Let it not be
so hereafter Let us meet the situation
with GOODNESS aud wisdom. Let us not
| become Il nation of anarchists. We
have had plenty of mob law, too much
of it, Rev. DEWITT Talmadge aud Sen
ator lillman TO the contrary notwith-
standing. Let us have stat lite law and
| plenty OF II Tor all who puDlcly or prl-
vately advise, encourage or commend
commission of criminal offences. We
have statutes that viii punish A. for
calling c. a liar or using other appro.
brious epithets because, for sooth, such
language tends to provoke II breach of
the peace, and we have no law which
will punish man for speaking or pub
fishing language that tends to incite or
encourage treason, murder or the de.
struction of property. 1t is Il situation
both ludierous and pitiful, ard we
should make all haste consistent with
needfu deliberaiiou to remedy it.
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Dr. Rich, dentist. over American