Confessions of an anarchist

That the time has arrived when some move of a drastic nature should be taken by all civilised nations, in the direction of preventing the publication, rather than in the punishment of Anarchist assassins, no sane person will deny. For of what avail are the gallows, the guillotine, or the electric chair, if the causes which produce the Anarchist miscreant are left untouched? It is said that out of evil cometh good; and certainly Anarchist outrages will not have been in vain if public opinion is directed towards the source from which Anarchist assassins derive their inspiration: I refer, of course, to the speeches and publications (especially the publications) of these international pests of society. Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, has confessed to having heard the leader of American Anarchism, Miss Emma Goldman, but three times. Yet the inflammatory ravings of these three speeches proved sufficient incitement to move this weak-minded fool to commit murder. “She set me on fire,” said the miscreant; “her doctrine that all rulers should be exterminated set me thinking, so that my head nearly split with pain. Miss Goldman’s words went right through me, and when I left the lecture I made up my mind that I would have to do something heroic for the cause I love.”

Thus it will be seen that this particular assassin was a person of low intellectual organisation. But this is also the fact with all other Anarchist desperadoes. Professor Cæsare Lombroso, the great Italian criminologist, has demonstrated conclusively that the Anarchist assassin is very closely related to the insane. From a careful study he has found that these modern Thugs possess peculiar physical characteristics common among the inmates of our idiot and imbecile asylums. Among 100 Turin Anarchists arrested in the rebellion of May Day, 1890, he found 34 per cent. possessed the criminal type of face, as compared with 43 per cent. among ordinary criminals of the prison at Turin. He found 40 per cent. of the criminal type among photographs of Chicago Anarchists, seventeen out of forty-three having disagreeable peculiarities of the face. Lombroso has further shown that along with degenerate peculiarities of physique the Anarchist is still further accursed with mental traits, characteristics “common to criminals and to the insane, and possessing these traits by heredity.”

The belief that murder and theft are actions not only innocent but virtuous when perpetrated with the professed design of benefiting humanity, sounds marvellously comforting to those of a weak-minded or criminal nature, and who have a natural propensity to commit them. Accordingly, such persons flock to the Anarchist standard. Cranks and criminals abound in the party. The Anarchist assassin is invariably a young person of ill-balanced mind who has imbibed too freely the poison of Anarchist oratory, and the “literature” of murder which pours forth from the printing presses which the Governments of the world are foolish enough to allow these reckless madmen to possess. To stop the supply of Anarchist murderers the civilised nations must unitedly attack the evil at its source—the murder-inciting “lecturer” and his equally murderous pamphlet and manifesto.

Here, in London, Anarchists turn out by the hundred thousand pamphlets, newspapers and manifestoes in various languages, inciting to, and approving the most brutal and inhuman outrages conceivable. The following horribly brutal screed was found in the possession of one of the Anarchists concerned in the Walsall bomb conspiracy, and although some English Anarchists have expressed disapproval of the sentiments contained in this production, the fact remains that an Anarchist outrage planned on somewhat similar lines to that indicated was perpetrated at a theatre in Barcelona some few years back.

“An Anarchist Feast at the Opera.—Who is the starving wretch, an Anarchist or slave, that has not shuddered with rage in thinking of the luxurious enjoyments that the rich come to seek (by means of a little gold) in a box at the opera, on the evening of a first representation?

“In fact, on that day, the sweaters, financiers, middlemen, magistrates, diplomatists, and moralists, all the cream of the rich and rulers of the people, have gathered together, certain of not being elbowed by low people, in order to enjoy in comfort and without trouble, a fresh spectacle, or the intoxicating music, the singing and the feminine forms (more or less tainted by disease), and to incite their senses and to awaken the passions never satiated of that race of bandits, who on the morrow are unanimously ready to draw the sweat and blood of the workers in order to recover at once the handful of gold spent on the previous evening. Well, comrades, we for whom the opera has never had any charms, because it has not been established to admit us at the auditory of the magnificent soirées, where the munificence of art contends with the brightness of diamonds and lights, can we not likewise enjoy in our turn the delightful spectacle of seeing on a fine day, or rather on a fine evening, this splendid building all in flames in the middle of a brilliant feast, and as a veritable apotheosis carried towards heaven?

“Would not a single one among us feel his heart beat with an immense joy in hearing the shrivelling of the grease of the rich and the howlings of that mass of flesh swarming in the midst of that immense vessel all in a blaze? In fact, what delight, in our town, to see, even at a distance, such a red conflagration! A thousand times more beautiful to our eyes than the dazzling of the purest diamond! To hear howlings, the cries of pain and rage of the wolves, their females and young ones in midst of the furnace—a thousand times more vibrating and more pleasant to our ears than the songs of half-a-dozen prostitutes above an orchestra. As to our sense of smelling, what delight of smell that flesh burning alive—an odour a thousand times more pleasant to our organs than the most delicious perfumes with which that race of men and women impregnate themselves in order to conceal the rottenness which runs out of their bodies. Ah! how happy are the cannibals to be able, when chance favours them, not only to smell the flesh of their enemies broiling, but also to eat it. ‘The corpse of an enemy smells nice,’ said a despot.

“Then, comrades, admitting that all tastes are natural, and ours, though different they may be, have need to be appeased in their turn. We will content ourselves by indicating the means which we think proper to satisfy them. For the present we will continue the series by saying what we think suitable concerning a gala reception at the opera. In fact, nothing more easy. A single man may act, but two are better, in order to succeed properly in the operation without any danger to them. Thus: two comrades, each provided with a strong knife, having a saw blade, and each man carrying a small bomb of very small dimensions, loaded with chlorate of potash, and having in the middle a small glass tube containing a tablespoonful of sulphuric acid. This small tube is placed erect and buried half its length in the chlorate, must be closed at top by a strong cork, and at bottom by a round piece of cork four millimetres thick (if you wish the bomb to burst at the end of two hours), because the acid requires about half an hour to pierce each millimetre through the thickness of the round piece of cork. If you wish the bomb to burst at the end of three hours the round piece of cork must be six millimetres thick, and so on, half an hour for every millimetre thickness. Moreover, comrades may try beforehand with a small pinch of chlorate (the explosion in the open air does not make much noise), and cover their faces and hands for fear of the broken pieces. These little preparatory experiments will serve them to appreciate the quality of the acid and cork used, as well as the exact time which the acid requires to pierce each millimetre of cork of the same piece. As we have said, the bombs do not require to be voluminous. A simple small glass mustard pot, having the shape of a small cask lengthened, is quite sufficient for the quantity of matter, of which here is the description:—Let us suppose that the vase contains 500 grammes of matter. You will then put—1st, 3-5, viz., 300 grammes chlorate of potash; 2nd, 2-5, viz., 100 grammes sulphur; 3rd, 1-5, viz., 100 grammes sugar, maintaining always these proportions according to the size of the vase. Afterwards each of these matters must be ground very fine separately, then mixed gently and thoroughly (although the operation offers not the least danger). The efficacy of the operation depends on the fine grinding and perfect mixture. After that charge the bomb, as it has been said, in a manner that the round piece of cork, four or six millimetres, be fully mixed in the matter above mentioned. These matters cost but little. The chlorate of potash is sold nearly in powder and crystallized. It must be quite dry. The sulphur is sold in small sticks of two or three centimetres diameter. The sugar must be of good quality, and quite dry. All these matters are easily crushed—afterwards the mixing is easy. The greater expense is for the two comrades, on account of the payment of their seats, which must be hired beforehand, on gala days especially. Their seats must be at the top of the theatre. Thus, the two comrades having their tickets in their pockets, go home and load their bombs only at the moment of setting out for the theatre, having calculated for the time of explosion at the end of three hours, supposing that time to be suitable. Afterwards let us suppose they have required half an hour to reach their seats in the theatre, the bombs will have then only two hours and a half to sleep. As soon as arrived the men will keep as close as possible to the walls or pillars along which the gaspipes are fixed. Then, when no one is noticing them, they begin by bursting slightly those pipes with their saw blades. It is easily done, because the lead can be cut through without any noise. When two, or three, or four of these pipes are slightly open, the men place their bombs on the ground by the side of the pipes, concealing them as much as possible from the sight of the public. They may go away quietly at the end of the first act; the rest of the operation will be completed without them. Then they have time to go home, and even go to bed, so as to prove an alibi at the time of the explosion. Now, this is how the rest of the operation will conclude: At first, the gas escaping will ascend and accumulate under the vault of the theatre during the two hours required for the explosion of the bombs. At that time there will be a quantity sufficient to set fire everywhere and burst the roof and walls of the theatre, and the débris falling back will have the effect of grapeshot on the jolly spectators. Afterwards the fire, fed by the wood, the stuffs, and the grease, will terminate the operation suitably. As we have said at the beginning, the work is easy for two companions who live in a town where there is a large theatre suitable to receive the higher class of the inhabitants. For that it requires only hatred in the heart and to be pitiless. After all, what do we care for feelings of humanity, even with regard to the women and children of that race of robbers and real criminals? Do not their young become wolves likewise? Are their females less eager for prey than the males? On another part the workers or starving people may be tranquil, because none of them are to be seen at those feasts of gold and diamonds which too often are given in honour of any travelling monarch at the expense of the poor people. Therefore, it is pious work to profit by those frequent occasions; to crown worthily those revels which the bandits throw as a defiance at our misery and sufferings. For an Anarchist gala of that kind the little money necessary must be easier to find than for a platonic propaganda. It is saying, comrades, that certain enjoyments are still permitted to us, waiting for the grand day when the social equilibrium will be brutally established.”

The above is a fair sample of the vile stuff by which Anarchist assassins are made.