On Picket Duty [excerpt]

     Meeting the other day a friend whom I had not seen for considerably more than a year, I was asked: “You’ve been in Europe since I saw you, haven’t you?” “Yes,” said I. “You went some time last fall, I understand.” “About that time. To give the exact date, I sailed from New York on the fifteenth of August, 1901.” My friend laughed. “Well, that’s funny,” said he; “do you know, I met a man last fall (he claims to be an Anarchist, but is an enemy of yours because of your peaceful proclivities) who said that you had been scared blue by the McKinley assassination, and had fled to Europe. I told him that that didn’t seem a bit like Tucker, but he answered that he knew what he was talking about, and that he was stating a fact beyond all question.” When my “Anarchistic” enemy has learned that I was already in Europe at the time of the assassination, he probably will start a story that I was informed in advance of the tragedy, and ran away as a matter of precaution. But what can you expect? The Communist’s refusal to recognize the line that separates mine from thine seems to foster the habit of ignoring the line that separates fact from fiction.