oung mother and her baby boy have been burned to
death under circumstances which suggest to me the possibility that, had
I made this statement sooner, their lives would have been saved; and, as
I now write these lines, I fairly shudder at the thought that they may
not reach the public and the interested parties before some new
holocaust has added to the number of those who have already fallen
victims. Others who know the facts, well-meaning editors of leading
journals of so-called communistic anarchism, may, from a sense of
mistaken party fealty, bear longer the fearful responsibility of
silence, if they will; for one I will not, cannot. I will take the other
responsibility of exposure, which responsibility I personally and
entirely assume, although the step is taken after conference upon its
wisdom with some of the most trusted and active anarchists in America.

"Now, then, the facts. And they _are_ facts, though I state them
generally, without names, dates, or details.

"The main fact is this: that for nearly two years a large number of the
most active members of the German Group of the International Working
People's Association in New York City, and of the Social Revolutionary
Club, another German organization in that city, have been 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 is usually the device which they employ. 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 more were set,
with equally profitable results. The record for 1886 has reached six
already, if not more. The business has been carried on with the most
astonishing 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