The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-10-17
FRANK B. SANB0RN
ANSWERS HIS CRITICS
Concord, Mass, Oct. Is, 1901.

newspaper OH TSIIldThS dSCIlDSu " IhSi
as if had in any way favored or pro-
seems proper, though hardly necessary
to those who have followed my pub
lished observations during a long ca
reer as journalist and publicist, that
should point out the unreasonableness
of such charge,-whether made mali
ciously, or in an honest, but mistaken
thought that such comments might
check the modern tendency of desper-
ate men to kill those whom they believe
to be sovereign rulers.
l began to oppose assassination as a
means of reforming governments sc
long ago that I hardly remember the
first instances; but l distinctly recall
one, when the late Eli Thayer of Wor-
cester an able man, but apt to be vio-
lent and ill-judging, proposed, in a
meeting which I attended in Boston in
November, 1886, to send men or employ
men to assassinate the leaders of the
Missouri Border Ruffians, Atchison and
Stringfellow, in the idle hope that this
would promote the Free State cause
in Kansas, which then seemed in great
danger from the recent election of Blu
chanan to the presidency. On every
needful occasion since then I have held
the same position, regarding assassina-
ton as not only criminal, but foolish
as Fouche said of Napoleon's muir
der of the Bourbon prince D'Enghien
I, therefore, denounced the political as
sassination of Senator Goebel, the gov
ernor-elect of Kentucky when the
great mass of Republican leaders and
newspapers either belittled or ignored
this shocking crime, pretending that it
was an ordinary Kentucky murder, and
nnf--Xyhtaf inNacti oat inn hoC GhnNVn II
to bean attempt to retain political
power in Republican hands by the short
method of numbering the successful
contestant. Nothing, in my long mem
Dry of American politics, has done more
to condone and promote political as
sassination than the course then taken
by Republican governors and newspa-
pers to prevent a full judicial investi-
cation of this Kentucky crime.
Nor did fail to denounce the more
recent and more treacherous seizure of
President Aguinaldo of the Philippine
republic, which was planned to result
in either murder or arrest, according
to the chances that our savage allies,
the Macabebes, would shoot or sur
round the betrayed leader of his peo-
pie. In my judgment acts of this kind
infiict dishonor more Immediately, and
disaster ultimately, on the nation guilty
Of them, rather than on the weaker
nation which is their victim. In this
belief | abhor more deeply still that
policy of assassinating a whole people
which our cousins and would-be allies
in England have adopted and are car
rying out in South Africa, by deport-
ing brave soldiers of a race uncon-
quered, and killing by disease and neg
lect their wives and children, their sis
tiers and mothers. Believing as all Chris
tians must, If they accept their own
doctrine of divine government, that
Gods justice never overlooks crimes
Of this kind. l tremble for England, as
Jefferson said he did for Virginia,
when I reflect that God is just, and
that His justice will not slumber for
ever" And it has seemed to me, as it
did during the long domination of the
slave oligarchy in the United States,
that our own country is mourning a Sc
we're penalty for deserving the paths of
Justice, so clearly marked out for her
by Washington, Franklin and Jefferson.
l admit that 1 may be wrong in this;
that it may possibly be that God does
not govern the world justly, as those
hold whose hearts are hardened be-
cause sentence against an evil deed is
not executed speedily. But as l was
bAOo5hN NPb ~ 10 4AllpOo2lDlC LII iIlG "
think otherwise than that God is just,
and that human governments frequent
ly are not.
When governments are unjust they
should be criticised by their subjects;
this is one of Gods appointed means
for bringing them to justice. And his
tory shows that every form of deserved
criticism, the merciless sat-
ire of Swift against English misgovern-
ment in Ireland, and Burke's over
wrought defamation against the hor-
rors of English misgovernment in In
dia-helps forward the era of better
government. Apart, therefore, from
the right, so ably maintained by Dan
lei Webster, in 1914, Of the individual
citizen to find fault with his govern
ment, and the duty of every public man
to denounce its mistaken or unjust
acts; 1 hold that it is a public benefit
so to do, and that the course of hui
man history demonstrates this. Be
longing to private life as a right" said
Webster, in one of his magnificent SEN
fences, sit belongs to public life as a
duty" and it is duty 1 have freely
practised, as Webster himself always
did
Between the freemans exercise of
this right, (Which every constitution,
state or national, guarantees to me as
to my ancestors) and the methods of
the professed anarchist, there is no
more fellowship than between labor and
theft, between honest trade and piracy.
Upon this subject l expressed myself.
Is years ago September 10, 1856, in
terms incapable of being misunder-
stood. In a public address at Saratoga,
N. Y, 1 then said: Concerning that
scum of European revolutions and con-
spiracies that has floated to this coun-
try on the wave of emigration, and here
coagulateS into the small corps of an
archists, who make so much more noise
than their real Importance justifies,
there is but one thing to be said. Gov
eminent is so necessary, even in the
most Arcadian communities, and all
the more in Boston, Chicago and New
York, that men who openly avow them
selves against all government must be
treated as outlaws, whenever they put
their principles in action by force.
There can be but one paramount au-
thority, and that must be maintained,
if needful, by soldiers and by exeeu-
tons. These are not the best methods
of government, but they are sometimes
the only available ones"
Not having been in the habit of
changing deliberately formed opinions
at the whim of party interests or pop
ular excitements, I still hold these
views, and probably always shall, in
the small portion of life that remains
to me. 1 expect also to hold with
Washington and Jefferson, with Web
ster and with Lincoln, those principles
of individual freedom and national JUS
tice which governments have every-
where sinned against, not only in mon
arches but in republics. These sins
are usually punished, and often in WAYS
that I deprecate; but they are besr