Confessions of an anarchist

I have shown, on the admission of Anarchists themselves, that Anarchy is minus morals and principles; that the words “good” and “evil” are not to be found in an Anarchist vocabulary. Putting aside the fact that Anarchists themselves give the lie to their teaching by battling against what they are pleased to term the “evil” of authority, I think sufficient evidence has been adduced to warrant the assertion that a belief in Anarchism must tend to corrupt rather than to elevate those who embrace its doctrines. Thus it comes about that the logical Anarchist is often a person of shady reputation. Will anyone be surprised to learn that the Anarchist has strong objections to hard work? Many Anarchists I have met abstain from work “on principle.” An article in the Sheffield Anarchist, headed “Don’t Work,” recommended “total abstinence,” so that industrious British workmen who like it in plenty may have their fill. The stricture upon Anarchists as a body, once passed in Justice, the organ of the Social Democratic Federation, of being “without moral character,” is certainly accurate. Criminals abound in the “party.” Surprising as it must appear to some to learn that Socialists are the bitterest enemies of Anarchists and Anarchism, yet anyone acquainted with the two theories will see at once that this is as it should be, for Socialism is the exact opposite of Anarchism, both in theory and tactics. The late Herr Leibknecht, the well-known Socialist Member of the German Reichstag, once divided the Anarchists into three divisions: (1) criminals and semi-criminals who throw an Anarchist cloak over their crime; (2) police agents; and (3) the defenders of so-called “propaganda by deed.” Strictly speaking, there is another section: (4) that of the “perfect beings” I have already mentioned; but these, as I said, are Anarchists only in name. As to which of the four sections predominate in the party it would be hard to say—certainly not the last-mentioned.

Class 1 comprises rogues of every description—pickpockets, “individual expropriators” (commonly called burglars and thieves), abortionists, professional swindlers, members of the “long firm,” souteneurs (these are confined to the French and German colony in and around Soho), dealers in bogus businesses, medical quacks (at least four can be seen in the streets and market-places of London), makers and passers of counterfeit coin, forgers, practisers of the “propaganda by deed” (Anarchist phraseology for murder and theft), incendiaries who fire houses for the insurance (some few years back this was reduced to a fine art among the foreign Anarchists of America until discovered, and several prominent Anarchists were sent to prison as a result), and the various other kinds of rogue that from time to time figure in the Criminal Courts.

At the back of a small shop in a certain street in St. Luke’s, Clerkenwell, as choice a set of desperadoes collected as ever met under one roof. They styled themselves the “Free Initiative Anarchist Group.” Among its members were well-known (to the police) Anarchist pickpockets, burglars, long firm schemers, clever jewel thieves, and so on. Here was hatched many a successful burglary and jewel robbery. One of the failures was the attempt of one of its members to secure £420 worth of jewels from a shop in Oxford Street by smashing the window with a brick draped in an Anarchist newspaper. One of the favourite dodges of the members of this “group” to secure the “needful” was to rent a shop (or, rather, not to rent it, for they had conscientious objections to paying rent), stock it well with empty boxes, so as to give it the appearance of substantiality, adding a little genuine stock procured by means of the long firm, then advertising the “business” for sale as a well-established concern. By this means they would net between £20 and £30 on each “business” disposed of, generally the hard-earned savings of some working man anxious to start in business for himself.

For nearly two years a large number of the most active members of the German Anarchist Group of the International Working Peoples’ Association in New York City, and of the Social Revolutionary Club, another German Anarchist organisation in that city, were persistently engaged in getting money by insuring their property for amounts far in excess of the real value thereof, secretly removing everything that they could, setting fire to the premises, swearing to heavy losses, and exacting corresponding sums from the insurance companies. Explosion of kerosene lamps was usually the device they employed. Some seven or eight fires, at least, of this sort were set in New York and Brooklyn in 1884 by members of the gang, netting the beneficiaries an aggregate profit of thousands of dollars. In 1885 nearly twenty were set, with equally profitable results. The record for the first three months of 1886 was six, if not more. The business was carried on with the most astounding audacity. One of these men had his premises insured, fired them, and presented his bill of loss to the company within twenty-four hours after getting his policy, and before the agent had reported the policy to the company. The bill was paid, and a few months later the same fellow, under another name, played the game over again, though not quite so speedily. In one of the fires set in 1885 a woman and two children were burned to death. The two guilty parties in this case were members of the Bohemian Anarchist Group and are now serving life-sentences in prison. Another of the fires was started in a six-storey tenement house, endangering the lives of hundreds, but fortunately injuring no one but the incendiary. In one case in 1886 the fireman saved two women whom they found clinging to their bedposts in a half-suffocated condition. In another, a man, woman and baby lost their lives. Three members of the gang were arrested in 1886 for murdering and robbing an old woman in Jersey City. Two others were convicted for carrying concealed weapons and assaulting an officer—they were, in fact, walking arsenals, and the circumstances under which they were found led to the suspicion that they were about to perpetrate a murder as well as a robbery.

A remarkable article in the New York Sun of May 3rd, 1886, corroborates the above by giving names and dates, together with facts and figures from the official records.

Of this class of Anarchists (Class 1 in our category) one may say with truth that they have no more compunction in “besting” one of their own comrades than in robbing outsiders; while for preference they would rather “do” their fellow-associate, relying on the victim’s detestation of the law not to hand them over into its clutches.

Consummate hypocrites and accomplished liars, they unite in their persons all the roguery and dishonesty of East-end sweaters, mingled with the unprincipled characteristics of Seven Dials rascaldom. Regard for honesty and morality they have none. Tired of theorising, the members of the Autonomie Anarchist Club would resort to practice by raiding the Grafton Anarchist Club; and the members of the latter would return the compliment by swooping down on the Autonomie in a body. And so on. It is said there is honour among thieves. But among this particular section of Anarchists this virtue is conspicuous by its absence. I speak on this subject with a feeling of bitterness, for I have been a victim to these rogues time and again.

Of Class 2 (spies in the pay of the police) I speak elsewhere. Of the believers in so-called “propaganda by deed” (Class 3), the major portion is composed of those who incite, or endeavour to incite, others to do that which they have not the courage to do themselves. “Propaganda by deed,” I have explained, is Anarchist jargon for murder, robbery, and crimes against morality. “Pillage and murder the rich” was the favourite theme of Le Père Peinard, the French Anarchist slang journal, and there are few Anarchists but who will and do endorse those sentiments. Some will even go further, and declare themselves at war, not merely with the rich, but with everyone else. Ravachol—thief, murderer, forger, counterfeiter, plunderer of graves—is the Anarchists’ patron saint, and is held up to the world as a “hero” whose “example is worthy of emulation.”

Scattered throughout this work will be found many extracts from the “literature” of Anarchism—advocating and applauding the most barbarous outrages conceivable, and recommending inhumanities and immoralities more to be expected among savages than among civilised men; articles approving the firing of opera houses, burning policemen alive, assassination of judges, jurymen, politicians, kings, presidents, etc., by knife, torch, bomb, strangulation, poison, etc.—writings favouring burglary, incendiarism, forgery, stopping trains for purpose of plunder, brigandage, prostitution, abortion. Such is the glorious gospel of Anarchy!

I could never understand, when among the Anarchists, why so many of them are so remiss in paying their debts, and loose in money matters generally, until enlightened by Dr. Creaghe, editor of the Sheffield Anarchist. “Let me tell you clearly,” he says, “once and for all, that I believe in, and as long as I live shall do all in my power to encourage, resistance on the part of the workers to all kinds of payment, be it rent or otherwise. I shall also try to persuade them to TAKE whatever they are short of, be it food or other things, wherever they find them.” The doctor soon found that this new and convenient “principle” could be applied in other ways than those he had contemplated. His own patients rapidly became ardent converts, and the doctor was soon glad to shake the dust of Sheffield off his feet, and seek out fresh fields and pastures new, having become, let us hope, a sadder but a wiser man.

The German Anarchist paper Vorbote once deploringly lamented the fact that many of the “companions” are given to “borrowing as much money as possible from their comrades, and, when asked to repay it, reply with a phrase from the programme of the party!”

Much more could be said on this subject of “propaganda by deed,” but the Sheffield Anarchists, in a “Manifesto to Criminals,” sum up all I could possibly say by candidly confessing that the “only difference between the criminal and the Anarchist is that the former thinks he is doing wrong, while the Anarchist knows he is doing right.” And of such is the fraternity of Anarchy! What a hell upon earth would these misguided wretches bring about if only they could have their way!