He hated authority, not
for its tyranny, but for its power. And in order to make this plain to
observation he frequently chose his victim from amongst those whose rule
was most conspicuously benign.
Of the seven early Presidents of the American republic who perished by
assassination no fewer than four were slain by anarchists with no personal
wrongs to impel them to the deed--nothing but an implacable hostility to
law and authority. The fifth victim, indeed, was a notorious demagogue who
had pardoned the assassin of the fourth.
The field of the anarchist's greatest activity was always a republic, not
only to emphasize his impartial hatred of all government, but because of
the inherent feebleness of that form of government, its inability to
protect itself against any kind of aggression by any considerable number
of its people having a common malevolent purpose. In a republic the crust
that confined the fires of violence and sedition was thinnest.
No improvement in the fortunes of the original anarchists through
immigration to what was then called the New World would have made them
good citizens. From centuries of secret war against particular forms of
authority in their own countries they had inherited a bitter antagonism to
all authority, even the most beneficent. In their new home they were worse
than in their old. In the sunshine of opportunity the rank and sickly
growth of their perverted natures became hardy, vigorous, bore fruit. They
surrounded themselves with proselytes from the ranks of the idle, the
vicious, the unsuccessful.
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