Cause and Cure [pp. 1-10]

8 CAUSE AND CURE.
tered Paris. Switzerland has been for many years the land of
refuge of the anarchists; there they have published journals to
propagate their doctrines; they have been permitted to preach
publicly atheism, murder, and arson; they have been allowed to
rant unmolested. The peace of the Swiss Republic was never
endangered. The noisy demagogues who strive to inflame the
passions of the poor and ignorant classes in some of our large
cities are not agents sent here to carry out a concerted plan;
they are simply men who have left their country "for their country's good," and are trying to make a living in the easiest way
possible. They are plying a trade. These men are repudiated
by the sound-minded Socialists. It is but a few weeks since a
Socialist orator, Mr. Paul Grottkau, speaking on the eight-hour
question before a large meeting of German workingmen in Baltimore, attacked the anarchists, "who were betraying the cause of
liberty, just as Judas betrayed his Master." The speaker denounced John Most, and, after reading an incendiary article from
the latter's paper, said that "the man who could advise workingmen to rise in armed revolution was a traitor to the workingmen
and a contemptible swindler."
But if anarchy is a failure here, as elsewhere, as much may
not be said of Socialism, or-by whatever name its advocates or its
accusers may choose to call it-the party representing labor in its
struggle against capital. Nor should Americans complacently
believe that this party is composed exclusively of foreigners.
The more advanced Socialists, those who are firm believers in
certain theories, possibly come from other lands where the
greatness of their wrongs has suggested remedies far too energetic for this latitude. But if we include all workingmen, all
bread-winners of whatever calling, whose grievances-of various
kinds, but nevertheless real-have led them to unite under one
banner, we shall find a party where Americans form a no mean
minority; a party formidable in number, and which lacks only
perfect organization and accord to be formidable in thfieir strength
and power; a party which does not advocate violence to life or
property, but which is determined to resist the autocratic rule of
capital. It is not so much the danger such an organization presents that we should fear, as it is the necessity for anything of the
kind in a country like ours that we must deplore. Let us not
judge these men too harshly, even when, tired of waiting for justice, some of them dream of redressing their wrongs with their
own hands, as men resort to lynch-law when the law of the state
fails to mete out justice. While we condemn acts which threaten
t836.]
5