Not a Race Question

     In expressing separately and as a class their abhorrence of the assassin Czolgosz our Polish-American fellow-citizens are perhaps displaying a certain supersensitiveness. They apparently feel that this man’s crime reflects in some way upon them as a class. Such, of course, is not the case. Czolgosz is not a Pole. He is an American citizen, born, bred and educated in this country. His Polish name and extraction have nothing whatever to do with his crime, or with the motives which impelled him to it. The apparent notion, therefore, of Polish-Americans that it is incumbent on them to show in some special and distinctive way their abhorrence of Czolgosz and his deed, while creditable to them as a sentiment, is not founded in reason. Responsibility for Czolgosz’ crime is a question not of race but of doctrine. Anarchism knows no country, no fatherland. It is a cancer eating into the breast of society at large.