Assassinations Increasing in Number
ASSASSINATION has always played its part in politics. Yet it has
been reserved to our own times, strange to say, when less depends
upon the person on the throne than ever before, to see the greatest
development of this crime. Now that the most autocratic have learned
that they must bend their will to the people’s when they clash,
now that there is little or nothing to be gained by the crime, the
assassin is more in evidence than ever.
Queen Victoria three times had her
life attempted. Persia lost her last Shah by his hand. France lost
her Carnot, the beauty and the sorrows of the of the Austrian Empress
did not prove sufficient defense from his knife. Even the popularly
elected President is his victim.
What is the reason of this intensification
of the natural danger attendant on high places? Anarchism, we are
told. The assassin, if he lurked anywhere, was in old times to be
found in the person of a kinsman, a courtier, a great noble, some
one within the inner circle. Religious fanaticism has also at times
been an acute source of danger; but this is obsolete, and no religious
body is likely ever again to commend assassination as a duty.
All the old sources of danger have
vanished; the masses of the people are loyal, the only danger that
threatens is from the small group of Anarchists.
Anarchism as an intellectual theory
is beneath contempt; but as an intellectual theory it is also the
mildest, most optimistic creed ever enunciated by man. It is a curious
phenomenon that it is the exponents of this milk-and-water theory
who have made their name a terror to society. Bakunin first stated
the theory; he and his followers believe in the perfection of human
nature. All the social evils round us, they say, are due to the
restraints of society; abolish the laws and the law-breaking impulses
will cease to work; get rid of governments and men will govern themselves
wisely and justly. One cannot argue with people like this; one can
only marvel at their ignorance of human nature. Under ordinary conditions
a theory so in contradiction to human nature could impose on no
sane person. Yet this is the creed which gives us the modern political
assassin.
To throw bombs about, kill this or
that ruler taken at random, to massacre a handful of deputies here,
and a group of ordinary citizens there, seems a senseless proceeding,
but it is the sort of thing fanaticism will turn to when it sees
no other course available.
Probably the connection between the
theory of anarchism and this terrible practice of it is less intimate
than is generally supposed; the corollary of assassination is probably
not drawn by all their teachers, and naturally it is only the craziest
of their followers who attempt to put it into execution. The whole
thing seems entirely crazy at first sight; the way, above all, in
which they make enemies of all classes of society, not only of Princes
and rulers but of the bourgeoisie, whom they profess to hate even
more, and, indeed, of the masses, the workers whom they profess
to benefit. All classes would eagerly join hands to extirpate them
if only some practicable scheme should be found—all but the few
who are Anarchists themselves. Why are these few Anarchists there?
The theory and practice of government are both continually alternating
between two poles—the poles of individualism and of socialism. Last
century legislation had swung nearer to the individualistic pole
than it had ever done before; now it is steadily moving towards
to other, and all politicians seem to help on the movement. Anarchism
is individualism exaggerated, intensified to the point of absurdity;
it is the extreme of one side, just as communism is the extreme
of the socialistic tendency. If governments are far more just, more
merciful, more tolerant than they were, they are also far more all-pervading,
their arms stretch farther and grasp firmer. So it comes about that
while formerly discontent was most likely to be found in the upper
ranks of society, it is now to be found among the lowest and least
educated, among whom the monstrous growth of anarchism is now raising
its head.
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