The Anarchistic Saloon

President McKinley is Assassinated by a Saloon-Educated Anarchist.
The Old Story. Who is Responsible? The Nation’s Duty.

WHO SHALL FALL NEXT?

     Political clubs, ambitious politicians whose ear may always be found close to the ground and those newspapers which are anything but leaders of public opinion are now uniting in a demand for such legislation by congress as will exclude known anarchists from our shores. This is well and can be realized none too soon. It is noteworthy, however, that few of these people who are loudest in denunciation of anarchy are wearing themselves out by the earnestness of their opposition to the saloon, which more than any other institution—more than all other institutions combined—is the nest in which the whole brood of anarchistic rattlesnakes is born and from which, from time to time, they crawl forth to hiss and poison and destroy.
     If the assassination of President McKinley was the result of a plot, its details have not yet been discovered but some known facts in connection with the awful crime illustrate the closeness of the relation existing between these two dastardly institutions. Czolgosz formerly kept a saloon in Cleveland, and at another time worked in a brewery. At Buffalo, he stopped at a cheap saloon hotel, the pictures of which show that the saloon is its business end. To feel at home amid such surroundings, to be personally connected with the most law-defying business under the sun is a mighty poor education in respect for law.
     The dailies tell us that upon receipt of the news of the President’s assassination, the anarchists of Chicago, Paterson, N. J., and other cities where they are numerous, gathered in saloons and drank the health of the assassin in beer. The arrest of Johann Most, perhaps the most widely known anarchist in the land, was made in a New York saloon over which are the offices of his paper. Nine of the twelve persons now under arrest in Chicago as suspected anarchists were rounded up in saloons.
     All this is but a repetition of what ought to have made a deep and permanent impression upon the public mind at the time of the trial and execution of the Chicago anarchists, guilty of the Haymarket riot. No fact in that notable trial was more marked that that [sic] in NEARLY EVERY CASE THE ANARCHISTS HAD BEEN ACCUSTOMED TO HOLD THEIR MEETINGS, PUBLISH THEIR LITERATURE AND CONDUCT THEIR DRILLS IN A SALOON, UNDER A SALOON, OVER A SALOON, OR NEXT DOOR TO A SALOON. These awful facts, pregnant with danger to the Republic and to the life of its every citizen and official, were as widely published as was the account of the riot itself. Yet all these years which have followed, as before, the saloon has been allowed—THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE ALLOWED IT—TO OPENLY AND PERSISTENTLY DEFY EVERY LAW ENACTED FOR ITS REGULATION.
     So firm a hold has it upon the political life of the country, so fully does it OWN the great political parties, so well-satisfied are the masses of the people with the rule of the anarchistic saloon—AT LEAST SO FAR AS THEIR BALLOTS EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS AND DEMANDS—that hardly an office seeker in the land known outside his bailiwick has dared to say, “I am opposed to the saloon.” WE, THE PEOPLE, HAVE BEEN CONSTANTLY SOWING THE SEEDS OF ANARCHY AND ARE STILL SOWING THEM. WHY DO WE WONDER AT THE HARVEST?
     What are we going to do about the anarchistic saloon? Unless we do something about it, unless we do the only thing worth doing, UNLESS WE KILL THE SALOON, IT WILL PRODUCE STILL GREATER HARVESTS OF SORROW, SHAME AND CRIME.