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Current Comment [excerpt]
Since Abe Isaak Jr. has asserted,
in plain terms, that I lied in charging C. L. James with defending
assassination before the Buffalo affair, and afterwards repudiating
Czolgosz as an imbecile, I ask space enough to make good my former
statements, by bringing forward the proof. In F
S, of September 1, 1901, under the
caption, “The Monster Slayer,” James wrote, among other things,
the following:
. . . is there among us no dragon
which exacts a tribute of a beautiful maiden to devour every
morning? . . . The existence of the Monster implies that of
the Monster Slayer. I cannot see what else monsters exist for
than to be killed. . . . What a rebuke it is to Gradgrind then,
that the twentieth century should be ushered in by a galaxy
of Sphinx and Cyclops killers. . . . How absurd to call such
actions murders! . . . How much less merits consideration in
any sound philosophy of murder, the destruction of one who himself
murders whole armies. . . . Considered as a murderer, the Monster
Slayer is out of court. It is in quite another character that
he appeals to our sense of the Sublime. . . . Against falling
into similar obliviousness, it is an infallible preservative
to read in our daily papers that Monster Slayers walk the earth
once more.
Does this not look as tho [sic] James
sanctioned assassination? Unless the leader of the “Movement in
Favor of Ignorance” can weave an entirely different significance
into the combination of phrases he employed, I suspect that anyone
in his senses would put that interpretation upon it.
Now, did James repudiate Czolgosz,
and call him a fool and imbecile? I quoted the terms “fool” and
“imbecile” from memory, and I find that, while they were not the
exact ones employed, their equivalent was. In F
S, of October 27, 1901, James wrote,
in an article headed, “The Craze and Its Consequences”:
On September 7 last, there was
probably not an Anarchist in the United States who did not
deprecate the act of Czolgosz, if as nothing else, then
as a great blow to Anarchism. . . . That very large minority
who had previously expressed extreme disapprobation of McKinley’s
administration showed no sign of being weak enough to change
their minds because a CRANK has shot him. . . . It rests on
no reliable testimony that Czolgosz, at any time since his arrest,
has said anything which would be worth repeating. [Italics
mine.]
Abe Isaak Jr. objects to “casting
personal reflections.” But, in charging me with falsehood, he is
a trifle guilty of the same literary indiscretion, it seems to me.
Anyway, I submit James’ own words, correctly quoted, and leave the
readers of F S
to decide the veracity of my former statement. As for “personal
reflections,” I trust my friend James does not take these matters
any more seriously than I do. He had his little pleasantry and I
replied in kind; it was not a case of coffee and pistols for two.
Really, neither the sage of Eau Claire nor myself are Monster Slayers.
The youthful editor of F S
takes Anarchist journalism too seriously.
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