The apostles of anarchy are a queer lot,—Godwin in England, Proudhon, Grave, and Saurin in France, Schmidt ("Stirner"), Faucher, Hess, and Marr in Germany, Bakunin and Krapotkin in Russia, Reclus in Belgium, with Most and Tucker in America, sum up the principal lights,—with the exception of the geographer Reclus, not a sound and sane man among them; in fact, scarcely any two agree upon a single proposition save the broad generalization that government is an evil which must be eliminated. Until they do agree upon some one measure or proposition of practical importance, the world has little to fear from their discussions and there is no reason why any attempt should be made to suppress the debate. If government is an evil, as so many men who are not anarchists keep repeating, then the sooner we know it and find the remedy the better; but if government is simply one of many human institutions developed logically and inevitably to meet conditions created by individual shortcomings, then government will tend to diminish as we correct our own failings, but that it will entirely disappear is hardly likely, since it is inconceivable that men on this earth should ever attain such a condition of perfection that possibility of disagreement is absolutely and forever removed.
Anarchism as a doctrine, as a theory, involves no act of violence any more than communism or socialism.
Between the assassination of a ruler and the doctrine of anarchy there is no necessary connection. The philosophic anarchist simply believes anarchy is to be the final result of progress and evolution, just as the communist believes that communism will be the outcome; neither theorist would see the slightest advantage in trying to hasten the slow but sure progress of events by deeds of violence; in fact, both theorists would regret such deeds as certain to prove reactionary and retard the march of events.
The world has nothing to fear from anarchism as a theory, and up to thirty or forty years ago it was nothing but a theory.
The "propaganda of action" came out of Russia about forty years ago, and is the offspring of Russian nihilism.
The "propaganda of action" is the protest of impatience against evolution; it is the effort to hasten progress by deeds of violence.
From the few who, like Bakunin, Brousse, and Krapotkin, have written about the "propaganda of action" with sufficient coherence to make themselves understood, it appears that it is not their hope to destroy government by removing all executive heads,—even their tortured brains recognize the impossibility of that task; nor do they hope to so far terrify rulers as to bring about their abdication. Not at all; but they do hope by deeds of violence to so attract attention to the theory of anarchy as to win followers;—in other words, murders such as those of Humbert, Carnot, and President McKinley were mere advertisements of anarchism. In the words of Brousse, "Deeds are talked of on all sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay attention to the new doctrine and discuss it. Let men once get as far as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them."
Hence, the greater the crime the greater the advertisement; from that point of view, the shooting of President McKinley, under circumstances so atrocious, is so far the greatest achievement of the "propaganda of action."
It is worth noting that the "reign of terror" which the Nihilists sought to and did create in Russia was for a far more practical and immediate purpose. They sought to terrify the government into granting reforms; so far from seeking to annihilate the government, they sought to spur it into activity for the benefit of the masses.
The methods of the Nihilists, without the excuse of their object, were borrowed by the more fanatical anarchists, and applied to the advertising of their belief. Since the adoption of the "propaganda of action" by the extremists, anarchism has undergone a great change. It has passed from a visionary and harmless theory, as advocated by Godwin, Proudhon, and Reclus, to a very concrete agency of crime and destruction under the teachings of such as Bakunin, Krapotkin, and Most; not forgetting certain women like Louise Michel in France and Emma Goldman in this country who out- Herod Herod;—when a woman goes to the devil she frightens him; his Satanic majesty welcomes a man, but dreads a woman; to a woman the downward path is a toboggan slide, to a man it is a gentle but seductive descent.