Anarchist Trio Jailed [excerpt]

     Three of the most active Anarchist workers in this vicinity have been jailed within a week. Comrade Most was called upon to satisfy the cravings of justice (?) by serving a year on Blackwell’s Island. It will be remembered that at the time of the shooting of McKinley Freiheit came from the press containing a strong revolutionary article culled from the works of Karl Heinzen, the German revolutionist, published some time after his arrival in this country more than fifty years ago. Published at any other time the authorities would not have noticed it.
     A blow had been struck at the State. The great “pillor” [sic] of society had been threatened. The chief wielder of the sceptor of authority had actually been stricken to the earth by a power which for the moment was superior to the power of government. That was why the foundation of authority quaked, and why the earth reverberated with the howls of the privileged who live by the sweat of brows other than their own. The ignorant who have been taught to believe themselves dependent upon the rich, whom they actually feed, clothe, wash, amuse, and house, just as surely as they feed, clothe, wash, amuse, and house their own unwelcome children, also became enraged and added their coarse yowls to the capitalist’s demands for the blood of the Anarchists. To reach the highest pinacle [sic] of popularity with these two social abortions was to be a hounder of Anarchists. The politician, that austere creature who feeds upon aristocratic fear and popular ignorance, embraced the opportunity to his perverted heart, and, with the zeal of a hound who had suddenly struck a new scent, darted off in pursuit of the Anarchists. Aged Most with his revolutionary article proved an easy victim, so he was hauled up, and, because Czolgosz cut off McKinley’s imperialistic exploits, is forced into slavery for a year.
     Heroic deed? Infamous deed! And the villainy and ignorance that thrusts an old man behind prison bars for reprinting the honest opinion of a man who was the friend and associate of Wendell Phillips, Lloyd Garrison, and Charles Sumner, will go down on the pages of history as a striking example of the kind of liberty we enjoy and the state of civilization we have developed at the opening of the twentieth century.