A Midnight Struggle [excerpt]

     The evil resulting from a single pernicious conversation, or single revolutionary harangue listened to in the impressionable and malleable days of youth, would often confound us were it laid bare. By words are produced the irritated ideas which lead on to lawless deeds. The unseen arrows of words flying from mouth to mouth; the mischievous seeds of words floating from brain to brain, floating, sinking, settling, spreading the germ-poison of Envy and Ingratitude, to fructify, to swell hereafter into the rank weeds of Godlessness and Anarchy.
     Watch the growth and development of poisonous ideas, passing on word-wings into the brain of Johann Most, from him by words impregnating the mind of Emma Goldman, from her again by words infecting and inflaming the thought of the wretched youth, Czolgosz, until at Buffalo black Assassination stalks forth full-grown, and the priceless life of President McKinley is sacrificed.
     It is a noteworthy fact that Czolgosz’s parents and relatives were peaceable and law-abiding people. His mother and sister [106][107] wept in speechless agony before him while he continued impassive and indifferent, wholly uninfluenced by their tears.