Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1912-06-03
The Tribune of That City
Tells the Side of the
Outraged Citizens
ACTION WAS FORCED
Lawless Acts Were Necessary
In Real Interest Of
Law and Order

San Diego is in the attitude of a
man who has been assaulted by thugs
and recovering himself strikes back
not wholly in self-defense, but
largely in retaliation, disdaning tc
call for the police because he has con
fidence in his ability to hold his own
against his assalants.
Other communities have suffered
as San Diego has suffered and turned
the other cheek by appealing to the
law that was powerless to prevent
the original injury. The law can
only act when it's mandates have
been violated Even then it's pro.
cesses are slow and tedious and SO
many safeguards have been thrown
around the criminal that no prophet
may predict with infallible surety
what the ultimate verdict may be
under the ruling of the laws intri.
| cate teCnnlCalltE.
Fermentation is invariably better
than cure; a crime thwarted is more
to the purpose than crime punished.
A murder may be eXpiated by the
death of the murderer; but the vic
tim derives no satisfaction from the
eXpiation.
Whatever may be the ultimate out
come of the conditions now existing
in this city, it is certain that they
would have been infinitely worse if
the citizens had not taken the law
which they have themselves made,
into the hands that created the law,
and by firm administration of the
law above all other law-the law of
self-preservation-h saved the
community from riot and bloodshed; |;
from the martial law that was nee
that is frequently necessary in the
| southern states. There is no law
lessness in San Diego that is not
provoked by lawnessness. and what
ever violence has been necessary to
preserve the general peace of the city
is mild in comparison with what
would have ensued if the law-break
ers now clamoring for Justice" had
been permitted, even within the law
ON Nkh hnN rNin cd tn na1l
their Constitutional rights al
though in all their wild oratory and
| their every act these same appellants
| from lex talions of natural justice
have insisted that the constitution is
mockery and the statutes shackles
on the limbs of people that are and
of right ought to be free to do just as
they see fit irrespective of the rights
of all others.
These Russian anarchists. Emma
Goldman and DR." Reitman, com
mitted no overt act in coming to San
Diego, and it is possible that they
had no intention of melting riot here;
but is is certain that their very pres
esnce was an overt act, and if they
had been permitted to exercise their
constitutional right of free speech
riot would have been melted. This
was prevented by the citizens of San
Diego. The Goldman woman was not
permitted to speak in San Diego and
she, with her companion, We're forced
to leave the city. They had been
warned in temperate language by the
san Diego chief of police not to come.
Their persistence in the face of the
warning was their undoing. AS an
observer of what happened remarked
They read the sign On the door No
smoking in this powder ma gazine;
and they walked into the magazine
smoking cigarettes. Do you wonder
| that there was an explosion?
San Diego does not believe that
she is compelled to submit to in
suit and outrage at the hands of
these people, and she believes that
she is justified by every natural law
| in protecting herself against an ele-
ment that threatens not only to dis
turb the peace of the city but has al
| ready attempted the lives of law Off
GERS while in the performance of
Continued to page eight.