s suppressed, printing
establishments confiscated, and in a short time fifty agitators had been
expelled from Berlin alone. A reign of official tyranny and police
persecution was established, and even the employers undertook to
impoverish and to blacklist men who were thought to hold socialist
views. Within a few weeks every society, periodical, and agitator
disappeared, and not a thing seemed left of the great movement of half a
million men that had existed a few weeks before. There have been many
similar situations that have faced the socialist and labor movements of
other countries. England and France had undergone similar trials. Even
to-day in America we find, at certain times and in certain places, a
situation altogether similar. In Colorado during the recent labor wars
and in West Virginia during the early months of 1913 every tyranny that
existed in Germany in 1879 was repeated here. Infested with spies
seeking to encourage violence, brutally maltreated by the officials of
order, their property confiscated by the military, masses thrown into
prison and other masses exiled, even the right of assemblage and of free
speech denied them--these are the exactly similar conditions which have
existed in all countries when efforts have been made to crush the labor
movement.

And in all countries where such conditions exist certain minds
immediately clamor for what is called "action." They want to answer
violence with violence; they want to respond to the terrorism of the
Government with a terrorism of their own. And in Germany at this time
there were a number who argued that, as they were in fact outlaws, why
should they not adopt the tactics of outlaws? Should men peaceably and
quietly submit to every insult and every form of tyranny--to be thrown
in jail for speaking the dictates of their conscience and even to be
hung for preaching to their comrades the necessity of a nobler and
better social order? If Bismarck and his police forces have the power to
outlaw us, have we not the right to exercise the tactics of outlaws?
"All measures," cried Most from London, "are legitimate against
tyrants;"[27] while Hasselmann, his friend, advised an immediate
insurrection, which, even though it should fail, would be good
propaganda. It was inevitable that in the early moments of despair some
of the German workers should have listened gladly to such proposals.
And, indeed, it may seem somewhat of a miracle that any large number of
th