, but the only acts of importance were the shooting of
President McKinley by Czolgosz and the shooting of Henry C. Frick by
Alexander Berkman. In the "Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist," Berkman has
now told us that as a youth he became a disciple of Bakounin and a fiery
member of the Nihilist group. It was after the Homestead strike that
Berkman saw a chance to propagate his gospel by a deed. Leaving his home
in New York, he went to Pittsburgh for the purpose of killing Henry C.
Frick, then head of the Carnegie Steel Company. Berkman made his way
into Frick's office, shot at and slightly wounded him. In explanation of
this act he says: "In truth, murder and _attentat_ (that is, political
assassination) are to me opposite terms. To remove a tyrant is an act of
liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed
people."[13] For this attempt on the life of Frick, Berkman was
condemned to a term of imprisonment of twenty-two years. Despite a few
isolated outbreaks, it may be said, therefore, that the seeds of
anarchism have never taken root in America, just as they have never
taken root in Germany or in England. To-day there are no active American
terrorists and only a handful of avowed anarchists. In the Latin
countries, however, the deeds of terrorism still played a tragic part in
the history of the next few years.

FOOTNOTE:

[I] See _Revolutionaere Kriegswissenschaft_.

CHAPTER V

A SERIES OF TRAGEDIES

While Johann Most was sowing the seeds of terrorism in America, his
comrades were actively at work in Europe. And, if the tactics of Most
led eventually to petty thievery, somewhat the same degeneration was
overtaking the Propaganda of the Deed in Europe. Up to 1886 robbery had
not yet been adopted as a weapon of the Latin revolutionists. In
America, in Austria, and in Russia, the doctrine had been preached and,
to a certain extent, practiced, but _l'affaire Duval_ was responsible
for its introduction into France. Unlike most of the preceding
demonstrations, the act of Duval was essentially an individual one. On
October 5, 1886, a large house situated at 31 rue de Monceau, Paris, and
occupied by Mme. Herbelin and her daughter, Mme. Madeleine Lemaire, the
well-known artist, was robbed and half burned. Some days later, Clement
Duval and two accomplices, Didier and Houchard, were arrested as the
perpetrators of this act. At first the matter was treated by the
newspapers as an ordinary robbery. The _C