The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1907-11-26
FRANK E. HOWE. Editor and Publisher
May Be Cured.

Speaking of anarchism in Barre and
Montpelier, the Montpelier Journal
says:
The Journal has no intention of
posing as an alarmist and the rights
of free speech ought not TO be cur.
tailed, but the twin communities of
Barre and Montpelier have had one
or two sharp lessons in the folly of
permitting things to go along, actually
without protest, until some overt
act of violence or crime takes place
and the whole world turns it's eyes
upon us in horror
What this paper proposes is that Of
ficers of the law shall keep them
selves advised Systematically of the
sort of thing that is being preached
and taught; that the rights of citizen.
ship shall be protected and the priv
ilege of free speech not abused; that
violence or disorder shall be imme-
diately checked and punished and that
deliberately seditious or incendiary
talk shall be stopped when, in the
opinion of the responsible officials, 1t
threatens the public peace.
These precautions, with the excel
lent educational program of the Ban
ner, will soon settle the problem. But
complaisant disregard of actual
conditions won't do it, neither will a
silencefor-the.s ake-of-peace policy.
AS to the Anarchist scare" that .ap-
pears so trivial to the contemporary,
it seems as though the death of a
great genius like Corti and the at
tempted assassination of chief of po-
lice were incidents grave enough to
justify something more than ordinary
caution"
The recent remarks of the Journal
relative to the anarchist society in
Barre and Montpelier have been
widely commented on by the state
papers. but most of them fail to grasp
the real situation.
Most of the anarchists in Barre and
Montpelier are newcomers from Italy
where they have been ground down by
excessive state and church taxation,
forced into military service. to uphold
theories which they hate, unprotected
by law from the power of wealth and
position on one hand and from
banditti on the other. Naturally they
come here prejudiced against law and
authority.
After living here awhile. however,
they find they have been deceiving
themselves and the anarchists of ten
years ago in Barre are today Republi-
cans or Democrats, property owners
and voters of agitation, and as strong
ly opposed to anarchism as a yankee
schoolmarm.
1t may be said that the danger lies
in this transitory period and so 1t
does-what little danger there is
but this danger is greatly exaggerated.
Theoretical anarchism is no more dan
gerous than Christian Science, vege-
tarianism or the practice of going bare
headed. 1t is nothing more nor less
than the theoretical application of the
golden rule and We all hope and most
of us expect that the world will some.
time advance to a point that will rem
der the golden rule more operative
| than it Is today.
The Italians are ot.blooded race
with habit of going armed. Here
in strange land, where they cannot
understand the language they are
often suspicious of even their best
friends. This suspicion and their
proveness to act on impulse leads
them into difficulty and dsrepute.
The silly habit of carrying weapons in
this country should be prohil/ed by
law providing severe penalties. This
alone would prevent large proportion
of the murders and stabbing ARRAYS,
not only by Italians, but by other ex-
citable people.
In the latter part of its statement
the Journal makes some errors due to
faulty memory doubtless. Eli Corti
the sculptor, was not assassinated by
an anarchist. On the contrary Corti
was himself an anarchist Of the peace
full theoretical kind, and he was shot
by Garetti, countryman, but not an
anarchist. AS to the shooting of
Chief of Police Patrick Brown, it had
nothing to do with anarchism. Chief
Brown was shot by young Italian
too drunk to know what he was doing
The anarchist" features of the story
were purely and wholly the imagi-
nation of Barre space-writer who
sent the yarn to the city papers.
The Banner is not standing as an
apologist for the Barre anarchist
colony. It is merely urging that a
mountain be not made out of a mole
hill. Anarchist agitators of the
Emma Goldman type are a menace,
not from what they may themselves
do, but from the danger of what they
may excite some weak-witted follower
to undertake, but the study Of theore-
tical anarchism as undertaken by
nine-tenths of the so.called anarchist
society Is not as dangerous to the
peace and welfare Of the state and the
| community as the plain lying of men,