Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [71]
The new President, an extraordinarily mixed man equally capable of subtle understanding, courageous action and extremes of banality, saw in the Anarchist simply a criminal, more “dangerous” and “depraved” than the ordinary kind. In his message to Congress on December 3, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt said, “Anarchism is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind should band against the Anarchist.” He was not the product of social or political injustice and his protest of concern for the workingman was “outrageous.” The institutions of the United States, the President insisted, offered open opportunity “to every honest and intelligent son of toil.” He urged that Anarchist speeches, writings and meetings should henceforth be treated as seditious, that Anarchists should no longer be allowed at large, those already in the country should be deported, Congress should “exclude absolutely all persons who are known to be believers in Anarchistic principles or members of Anarchistic societies,” and their advocacy of killing should by treaty be made an offense against international law, like piracy, so that the federal government would have the power to deal with them.
After much discussion and not without strong objections to the denial of the traditional right of ingress, Congress in 1903 amended the Immigration Act to exclude persons disbelieving in or “teaching disbelief in or opposition to all organized government.” The amendment provoked liberal outcries and sorrowful references to the Statue of Liberty.
Of the dual nature of Anarchism, half hatred of society, half love of humanity, the public was aware only of the first. It was the bombs and explosions, the gunshots and the daggers, that impressed them. They knew nothing of the other side of Anarchism which hoped to lead humanity through the slough of violence to the Delectable Mountains. The press showed them Malatesta, for instance, as the evil genius of Anarchism, “silent, cold, plotting.” It did not show him as the man whose philosophy of altruism caused him to deed two houses he inherited from his parents in Italy to the tenants inhabiting them. Since the public likewise knew nothing of the theory of propaganda by the deed, it could make no sense of the Anarchist acts. They seemed purposeless, mad, a pure indulgence in evil for its own sake. The press customarily referred to Anarchists as “wild beasts,” “crypto-lunatics,” degenerates, criminals, cowards, felons, “odious fanatics prompted by perverted intellect and morbid frenzy.” “The mad dog is the closest parallel in nature to the Anarchist,” pronounced Blackwood’s, the dignified British monthly. How was it possible, asked Carl Schurz after the murder of Canovas, to protect society against “a combination of crazy people and criminals”?
That was the unanswerable question. All sorts of proposals were put forward, including the establishment of an international penal colony for Anarchists, or disposal of them in hospitals for the insane, or universal deportation, although it was not explained what country would receive them if every country was engaged in sending them away.
Yet the cry of protest in the throat of every Anarchist act was heard by some, and understood. In the midst of the hysteria over McKinley, Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook and a spokesman of the New England tradition which had produced the Abolitionists, had the courage to ask if the Anarchist’s hatred of government and law did not derive from the fact that government and law operated unjustly. So long, he said, as legislators legislate for special classes, “encourage the spoliation of the many for the benefit of the few, protect the rich and forget the poor,” so long will Anarchism “demand the abolition of all law because it sees in law only an instrument