New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1908-04-29
Or Threatened
War Of Classes.

"A Settles vi 6fGLGS IL ldb6ly dlICStSu
the troubled attention Of the country
to the possibilities OF a class war in
America. The bomb exploded at a
New York socialistic meeting by a
young, half-baked anarchist; the al
legged attempt of a lad of nineteen to
assassinate the chief of police of
Chicago; the effort to destroy General
Buckley Wells in Colorado with a
bomb placed under his bed; the march
of the unemployed upon the city hall
in Philadelphia and their dispersal by
the police; the letter to President
Roosevelt calling for the suppression
of an anarchist paper in Patterson,
New Jersey, and his special message
to congress on the subject of legisla-
tion against anarchists generally; and,
finally, the statements, construed as
threats, made by Samuel Gompers,
head of the Federation of Labor, to a
committee of congress, telling what
Will follow the refusal of certain legis-
Iation in behalf of labor-all these
things are evidently getting on the
nerves of a large part of the public
and causing a rather hysterical dis
cussion in the press.
Neither the anarchists nor the So
cialists, as advocates of a change in
the existing order Of things, are will
ing to assume the moral responsibility
for any Of these overt acts of crimi-
nality, Notwithstanding they have
usually been performed by individuals
processing allegiance to the one, dur
ing meetings held under the auspices
of the other. On the contrary, the an
archists, no less than the socialists,
profess to repudiaGe all forms of vio-
lence. Berkman, for instance, who
tried to kill Frick, explains that he
did that as an individual, not as an
anarchist, melted thereto by his per-
sonal feelings, not by his social
philosophy. Government he claims,
is violence. Compelling a man to
obey a law he does not approve, by
means of the police, the courts, the
army, is violence. Anarchy is against
violence, and is no more responsible
for the bomb-throwing at the socialis-
tic meeting in New York or the killing
of king in Portugal than it was for
the murder of Stanford White. It
does not teach violence, because it
does not recognize the right of one
man to tell another what to think or
do in anything.
The socialist leaders are equally
strong in their protestations against
violence. Socialism" says one of
Sheir leaders, 'sdoes not seek to de-
'sGroy civilization Or to abolish the
modern Industrial and political sys-
Eem. 1t merely strives for the nation
aligation Or specialization of all i'm
FpOrtant industries and the collective
public ownership of the necessary in
straments upon which such industries
are based-the land, the mines, the
railroads, the factories and the ma
chinery." Therefore they resent the
idea that they should be held respon-
Sible in any degree for the throwing of
bombs and declare that, in fact, such
occurrences impede their propaganda.
They go even further and charge the
police with unlawful and tyrannical
conduct" in breaking up what are in.
tended to be peaceable assemblies and
insist that such conduct is Calculated
to breed lawlessness, violence and
anarchy"
But whatever the difference of
opinion as to who is directly respon-
sible for the disturbances the fact re-
mains that they are getting to be OF
dangerously frequent occurrence and
a problem presents itself to the country
which is nothing if not vitality serious.
AS one paper puts it ''the bomb throw