o do with
them. "They drive them away like poor dogs," pitifully exclaims the
Paris _Figaro, a propos_ of the expulsion of the Anarchists from the
Zurich Congress.[74]

An Anarchist is a man who--when he is not a police agent--is fated
always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts
to achieve.

"To send working men to a Parliament," said Bordat, before the Lyons
tribunal in 1893, "is to act like a mother who would take her daughter
to a brothel." Thus it is also in the name of _morality_ that the
Anarchists repudiate political action. But what is the outcome of their
fear of parliamentary corruption? The glorification of theft, ("Put
money in thy purse," wrote Most in his _Freiheit_, already in 1880), the
exploits of the Duvals and Ravachols, who in the name of the "cause"
commit the most vulgar and disgusting crimes. The Russian writer,
_Herzen_, relates somewhere how on arriving at some small Italian town,
he met only priests and bandits, and was greatly perplexed, being unable
to decide which were the priests and which the bandits. And this is the
position of every impartial person to-day; for how are you going to
divine where the "companion" ends and the bandit begins? The Anarchists
themselves are not always sure, as was proved by the controversy caused
in their ranks by the Ravachol affair. Thus the better among them, those
whose honesty is absolutely unquestionable, constantly fluctuate in
their views of the "propaganda of deed."

"Condemn the propaganda of deed?" says Elysee Reclus. "But what is this
propaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by
example? Those who call the "propaganda of deed" acts of violence prove
that they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The
Anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or
other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his
opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make
"propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all those whom
he may meet."[75]

We will not ask what is left of the Anarchist who has divorced himself
from the tactics of "deeds."

We only ask the reader to consider the following lines: "The editor of
the _Sempre Avanti_ wrote to Elysee Reclus asking him for his true
opinion of Ravachol. 'I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his
greatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or
rather his betra