e world cannot
utterly ignore men who lay down their lives for any cause. Men may write
and agitate, they may scream never so shrilly about the wrongs of the
world, but when they go forth to fight single-handed and to die for what
they preach they have at least earned the right to demand of society an
inquiry.

What was it that drove these men to violence? Was it the teachings of
Bakounin, of Nechayeff, and of Most? Their writings have been read and
pondered over by thousands of yearning and impressionable minds. They
have been drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. Yet one anarchist
at least denies that the writings of these terrorists have moved men to
violence. "My contention is," says Emma Goldman, "that they were
impelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the tremendous
pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive
natures."[1] Returning again to the same thought, she exclaims, "How
utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of
anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for
the acts of political violence."[2] To this indefatigable propagandist
of anarchist doctrine, those who have been led into homicidal violence
are "high strung, like a violin string." "They weep and moan for life,
so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a desperate moment the
string breaks."[3]

Yet, if it be true that doctrines have naught to do with the spread of
terrorism, why is it that among many million socialists there are almost
no terrorists, while among a few thousand anarchists there are many
terrorists? The pressure of adverse social conditions is felt as keenly
by the socialists as by the anarchists. The one quite as much as the
other is a rebel against social ills. The indictment made by the
socialists against political and economic injustice is as far-reaching
as that of the anarchists. Why then does not the socialist movement
produce terrorists? Is it not that the teachings of Marx and of all his
disciples dwell upon the folly of violence, the futility of riots, the
madness of assassination, while, on the other hand, the teachings of
Bakounin, of Nechayeff, of Kropotkin, and of Most advocate destructive
violence as a creative force? "Extirpate the wretches!" cries Most.
"Make robbers our allies!" says Nechayeff. "Propagate the gospel by a
deed!" urges Kropotkin, and throughout Bakounin's writings there appears
again and again the plea for "ter