Send the Alien Anarchist Back Home Instanter
ANARCHISTS are the enemies of the human race, and
the civilization against which they war has a right to suppress
them like venomous snakes. But this right, however, does not help
us in showing how it can be exercised. It is easy to [say?] that
international measures should be taken to protect society against
anarchists. But it is not so easy to explain how measures are to
be devised which would find international assent.
A MAN CANNOT BE PUNISHED FOR HIS OPINIONS,
according to our view, nor can any collecti[?] of men be punished
for enunciating among themselves such opinions. But there are countries
in which it is held that they can. Here is the initial difficulty
of general action against the anarchist creed in all nations. A
criminal opinion only becomes a punishable crime when an individual
or an association of individuals confederates together to give effect
to it against some other individual.
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I believe that no international
agreement can be arrived at in regard to anarchists, and I should
be sorry were we to be a party to one. Each country, however, owes
it to the common bond which unites civilized nations to do what
it can to put an end to its being used as an asylum from which assassins
can plot and carry out their designs against citizens of other countries,
whether the victim be a sovereign or the humblest of workmen. So
far as countries like the United States are concerned, the only
thing that can be done is to strengthen the power of the executive
over aliens and, as is usually the case in the United States, over
foreigners who have acquired nationality. WITHOUT ANY PROCESS OF
EXTRADITION, I SHOULD BE IN FAVOR OF ARMING THE EXECUTIVE WITH POWER
TO SHIP OFF ANY ALIEN IN REGARD TO WHOM THERE IS REASONABLE GROUND
FOR BELIEVING THAT HE IS AN ANARCHIST AND TO LAND HIM IN THE LAND
OF HIS BIRTH, DUE NOTICE HAVING BEEN GIVEN TO THE AUTHORITIES THERE
OF HIS ARRIVAL. Beyond this I [?]ould not go one step. We have always
been proud of England being an asylum to all who on political grounds
are driven out of their own country. It ought still to remain an
asylum to those who rightly or wrongly are desirous to secure liberty
by revolution in those lands where it does not exist.
BUT WE MUST NOT HOLD THAT CRIME CEASES
TO BE CRIME BECAUSE SOME SCOUNDREL OR FANATIC TELLS US THAT IT IS
A POLITICAL PRINCIPLE WITH HIM TO COMMIT IT.
When aliens admit that they are herded
together like oriental thugs to commit murder and when they make
our country their home, I see no reason why they should be tolerated.
It is only right and proper that they should be expelled.
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