The President and the Mob

     Iu [sic] his message to Congress President Roosevelt says:

     “A grim commentary upon the folly of the Anarchist position was afforded by the attitude of the law toward this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President. The people would have torn him limb from limb if it had not been that the law he defied was at once invoked in his behalf. So far from his deed being committed on behalf of the people against the government, the government was at once obliged to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at the hands of the people.”

     This is a clearer sight than Mr. Roosevelt usually takes in his historical efforts. But he fails to condemn the anarchy of the people who would have murdered the murderer, and therein stops short of his full duty as the chief representative of law in this country. The anarchy of the mob or majority is as reprehensible as the anarchy of the individual.
     On the other hand the Anarchists who in this country have counseled violence are deserving the severest condemnation. Until it becomes a matter of fact beyond dispute that there is no need of government—that life and liberty would be safe without auy [sic] police force or law to punish aggression and invasion—there can be no room for anarchy here. If there were not a public official in the whole couutry [sic] it would be necessary as a matter of self-defense to appoint them as quickly as it could be done, or invasive and aggressive crime would run riot. At the rate of improvement the race has made siuce [sic] history first recorded its struggles toward civilization, it will be some hundreds if not thousands of years before anarchy as a practical social polity is worth discussing.