d only serve to
demonstrate how easy it is to reach and kill a President of the
United States, and therefore the necessity for greater safeguards
about his person is trebly demonstrated. The habit of handshaking,
at best, has little to recommend it; with public men it is a
custom without excuse. The notion that men in public life must
receive and mingle with great masses of people, or run the risk of
being called undemocratic, is a relic of the political dark ages.
The President of the United States is an executive official, not a
spectacle; he ought to be a very busy man, just a plain,
hard-working servant of the people,--that is the real democratic
idea. There is not the slightest need for him to expose himself to
assault. In the proper performance of his duties he ought to keep
somewhat aloof. The people have the right to expect that in their
interest he will take good care of himself.

As for anarchism, that is a political theory that possesses the
minds of a certain number of men, some of them entirely
inoffensive dreamers, and anarchism as a theory can no more be
suppressed by law than can any other political or religious
theory. The law is efficacious against acts, but powerless against
notions. But anarchism in the abstract is one thing and anarchism
in the concrete is another. It is one thing to preach anarchy as
the final outcome of progress, it is quite another thing to preach
anarchy as a present rule of conduct. The distinction must be
observed, for while the law is helpless against theories, it is
potent against the practical application of theories.

In a little book called "Politics for Young Americans," written
with most pious and orthodox intent by the late Charles Nordhoff,
the discussion of government begins with the epigram,--by no means
original with Nordhoff,--"Governments are necessary evils."

Therein lurks the germ of anarchism,--for if evil, why should
governments be necessary? The anarchist is quick to admit the
evil, but denies the necessity; and, in sooth, if government is an
evil, then the sooner it is dispensed with the better.

When Huxley defines anarchy as that "state of society in which the
rule of each individual by himself is the only government the
legitimacy of which is recognized," and then goes on to say, "in
this sense, strict anarchy may be the highest conceivable grade of
perfection of social existence; for, if all men spontaneously did
justice and loved mercy, it is pl