ho deny all external authority over the individual,
whether that of the present State or that of some industrial
collectivity or commune which the future may produce, I can look Henri
Rochefort in the face and say: 'You lie!' For of all these men I do not
recall even one who, in any ordinary sense of the term, can be justly
styled a robber.

"But unfortunately, in the minds of the people at large, this word
anarchist is not yet thus restricted in meaning. This is due principally
to the fact that within a few years the word has been usurped, in the
face of all logic and consistency, by a party of communists who believe
in a tyranny worse than any that now exists, who deny to the laborer the
individual possession of his product, and who preach to their followers
the following doctrine: 'Private property is your enemy; it is the beast
that is devouring you; all wealth belongs to everybody; take it wherever
you can find it; have no scruples about the means of taking it; use
dynamite, the dagger, or the torch to take it; kill innocent people to
take it; but, at all events, take it.' This is the doctrine which they
call anarchy, and this policy they dignify with the name of
'propagandism by deed.'

"Well, it has borne fruit with most horrible fecundity. To be sure, it
has gained a large mass of adherents, especially in the Western cities,
who are well-meaning men and women, not yet become base enough to
practice the theories which they profess to have adopted. But it has
also developed, and among its immediate and foremost supporters, a gang
of criminals whose deeds for the past two years rival in 'pure
cussedness' any to be found in the history of crime. Were it not,
therefore, that I have first, last, and always repudiated these
pseudo-anarchists and their theories, I should hang my head in shame
before Rochefort's charge at having to confess that too many of them are
not only robbers, but incendiaries and murderers. But, knowing as I do
that no _real_ anarchist has any part or lot in these infamies, I do not
confess the facts with shame, but reiterate them with righteous wrath
and indignation, in the interest of my cause, for the protection of its
friends, and to save the lives and possessions of any more weak and
innocent persons from being wantonly destroyed or stolen by cold-blooded
villains parading in the mask of reform.

"Yes, the time has come to speak. It is even well-nigh too late. Within
the past fortnight a y