robably also by the reckless
utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press, appeal to
the dark and evil spirits of malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred.
The wind is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot
escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped.
This applies alike to the deliberate demagogue, to the exploiter of
sensationalism, and to the crude and foolish visionary who, for whatever
reason, apologizes for crime or excites aimless discontent.

The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all Presidents; at
every symbol of government. President McKinley was as emphatically the
embodiment of the popular will of the Nation expressed through the
forms of law as a New England town meeting is in similar fashion the
embodiment of the law-abiding purpose and practice of the people of the
town. On no conceivable theory could the murder of the President be
accepted as due to protest against "inequalities in the social order,"
save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a town meeting could
be accepted as a protest against that social inequality which puts a
malefactor in jail. Anarchy is no more an expression of "social
discontent" than picking pockets or wife-beating.

The anarchist, and especially the anarchist in the United States, is
merely one type of criminal, more dangerous than any other because he
represents the same depravity in a greater degree. The man who advocates
anarchy directly or indirectly, in any shape or fashion, or the man
who apologizes for anarchists and their deeds, makes himself morally
accessory to murder before the fact. The anarchist is a criminal whose
perverted instincts lead him to prefer confusion and chaos to the most
beneficent form of social order. His protest of concern for workingmen
is outrageous in its impudent falsity; for if the political institutions
of this country do not afford opportunity to every honest and
intelligent son of toil, then the door of hope is forever closed against
him. The anarchist is everywhere not merely the enemy of system and of
progress, but the deadly foe of liberty. If ever anarchy is triumphant,
its triumph will last for but one red moment, to be succeeded for ages
by the gloomy night of despotism.

For the anarchist himself, whether he preaches or practices his
doctrines, we need not have one particle more concern than for any
ordinary murderer. He is not the victim of social or