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Title: The Tragedy at Buffalo Author: Emma Goldman Date: 1901 Language: en Topics: Leon Czolgosz, propaganda of the deed Source: Retrieved on March 20, 2012 from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Tragedy_at_Buffalo Notes: Published in the *Free Society*, October 1901 as a defence of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of William McKinley.
Never before in the history of governments has the sound of a pistol
shot so startled, terrorized, and horrified the self-satisfied,
indifferent, contented, and indolent public, as has the one fired by
Leon Czolgosz when he struck down William McKinley, president of the
money kings and trust magnates of this country.
Not that this modern Caesar was the first to die at the hands of a
Brutus. Oh, no! Since man has trampled upon the rights of his fellow
men, rebellious spirits have been afloat in the atmosphere. Not that
William McKinley was a greater man than those who throned upon the
fettered form of Liberty. He did not compare either in intellect,
ability, personality, or force of character with those who had to pay
the penalty of their power. Nor will history be able to record his
extraordinary kindness, generosity, and sympathy with those whom
ignorance and greed have condemned to a life of misery, hopelessness,
and despair.
Why, then, were the mighty and powerful thrown into such consternation
by the deed of September 6? Why this howl of a hired press? Why such
blood-thirsty and violent utterances from the clergy, whose usual
business it is to preach “peace on earth and good will to all”? Why the
mad ravings of the mob, the demand for rigid laws to curtail freedom of
press and speech?
For more than thirty years a small band of parasites have robbed the
American people, and trampled upon the fundamental principles laid down
by the forefathers of this country, guaranteeing to every man, woman and
child, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” For thirty years
they have been increasing their wealth and power at the expense of the
vast mass of workers, thereby enlarging the army of the unemployed, the
hungry, homeless, and friendless portion of humanity, tramping the
country from east to west and north to south, in a vain search for work.
For many years the home has been left to the care of the little ones,
while the parents are working their life and strength away for a small
pittance. For thirty years the sturdy sons of America were sacrificed on
the battlefield of industrial war, and the daughters outraged in corrupt
factory surroundings. For long and weary years this process of
undermining the nation’s health, vigor, and pride, without much protest
from the disinherited and oppressed, has been going on. Maddened by
success and victory, the money-powers of this “free land of ours” became
more and more audacious in their heartless, cruel efforts to compete
with rotten and decayed European tyrannies in supremacy of power.
With the minds of the young poisoned with a perverted conception of
patriotism, and the fallacious notion that all are equal and that each
one has the same opportunity to become a millionaire (provided he can
steal the first hundred thousand dollars), it was an easy matter indeed
to check the discontent of the people; one is therefore not surprised
when one hears Americans say, “We can understand why the poor Russians
kill their czar, or the Italians their king, for think of the conditions
that prevail there; but he who lives in a republic, where each one has
the opportunity to become President of the United States (provided he
has a powerful party back of him), why should he attempt such acts? We
are the people, and acts of violence in this country are impossible.”
And now that the impossible has happened, that even America has given
birth to the man who struck down the king of the republic, they have
lost their heads, and are shouting vengeance upon those who for years
have shown that the conditions here were beginning to be alarming, and
unless a halt be called, despotism would set its heavy foot on the
hitherto relatively free limbs of the people.
In vain have the mouthpieces of wealth denounced Leon Czolgosz as a
foreigner; in vain they are making the world believe that he is the
product of European conditions, and influenced by European ideas. This
time the “assassin” happens to be the child of Columbia, who lulled him
to sleep with
and who held out the hope to him that he, too, could become President of
the country. Who can tell how many times this American child has gloried
in the celebration of the 4^(th) of July, or on Decoration Day, when he
faithfully honored the nation’s dead? Who knows but what he, too, was
willing to “fight for his country and die for her liberty”; until it
dawned upon him that those he belonged to have no country, because they
have been robbed of all that they have produced; until he saw that all
the liberty and independence of his youthful dreams are but a farce.
Perhaps he also learned that it is nonsense to talk of equality between
those who have all and those who have nothing, hence he rebelled.
“But his act was mad and cowardly,” says the ruling class. “It was
foolish and impractical,” echo all petty reformers, Socialists, and even
some Anarchists.
What absurdity! As if an act of this kind can be measured by its
usefulness, expediency, or practicability. We might as well ask
ourselves of the usefulness of a cyclone, tornado, a violent
thunderstorm, or the ceaseless fall of the Niagara water. All these
forces are the natural results of natural causes, which we may not yet
have been able to explain, but which are nevertheless a part of nature,
just as force is natural and part of man and beast, developed or
checked, according to the pressure of conditions and man’s
understanding. An act of violence is therefore not only the result of
conditions, but also of man’s psychical and physical nature, and his
susceptibility to the world surrounding him.
Does not the summer fight against the winter, does it not resist, mourn,
and weep oceans of tears in its eager attempt to shield its children
from the icy grip of frost? And does not the winter enshroud Mother
Earth with a white, hard cover, lest the warm spring sunshine should
melt the heart of the hardened old gentleman? And does he not gather his
last forces for a bitter and fierce battle for supremacy, until the
burning rays of the sun disperse his ranks?
Resistance against force is a fact all through nature. Man being part of
nature, he, too, is swayed by the same force to defend himself against
invasion. Force will continue to be a natural factor just so long as
economic slavery, social superiority, inequality, exploitation, and war
continue to destroy all that is good and noble in man.
That the economic and political conditions of this country have been
pregnant with the embryo of greed and despotism, no one who thinks and
has closely watched events can deny. It was, therefore, but a question
of time for the first signs of labor pains to begin. And they began when
McKinley, more than any other President, had betrayed the trust of the
people, and became the tool of the moneyed kings. They began when he and
his class had stained the memory of the men who produced the Declaration
of Independence, by the blood of the massacred Filipinos. They grew more
violent at the recollection of Hazelton, Virden, Idaho, and other
places, where capital has waged war on labor; until on the 6^(th) of
September the child begotten, nourished and reared by violence, was
born.
That violence is not the result of conditions only, but also largely
depends upon man’s inner nature, is best proven by the fact that while
thousands loath tyranny, but one will strike down a tyrant. What is it
that drives him to commit the act, while others pass quietly by? It is
because the one is of such a sensitive nature that he will feel a wrong
more keenly and with greater intensity than others.
It is, therefore, not cruelty, or a thirst for blood, or any other
criminal tendency, that induces such a man to strike a blow at organized
power. On the contrary, it is mostly because of a strong social
instinct, because of an abundance of love and an overflow of sympathy
with the pain and sorrow around us, a love which seeks refuge in the
embrace of mankind, a love so strong that it shrinks before no
consequence, a love so broad that it can never be wrapped up in one
object, as long as thousands perish, a love so all-absorbing that it can
neither calculate, reason, investigate, hut only dare at all costs.
It is generally believed that men prompted to put the dagger or bullet
in the cowardly heart of government, were men conceited enough to think
that they will thereby liberate the world from the fetters of despotism.
As far as I have studied the psychology of an act of violence, I find
that nothing could be further away from the thought of such a man than
that if the king were dead, the mob will cease to shout “Long live the
king!”
The cause for such an act lies deeper far too deep for the shallow
multitude to comprehend. It lies in the fact that the world within the
individual, and the world around him, are two antagonistic forces, and,
therefore, must clash.
Do I say that Czolgosz is made of that material? No. Neither can I say
that he was not. Nor am I in a position to say whether or not he is an
Anarchist; I did not know the man; no one as far as I am aware seems to
have known him, but from his attitude and behavior so far (I hope that
no reader of “Free Society” has believed the newspaper lies), I feel
that he was a soul in pain, a soul that could find no abode in this
cruel world of ours, a soul “impractical,” inexpedient, lacking in
caution (according to the dictum of the wise); but daring just the same,
and I cannot help but bow in reverent silence before the power of such a
soul, that has broken the narrow walls of its prison, and has taken a
daring leap into the unknown.
Having shown that violence is not the result of personal influence, or
one particular ideal, I deem it unnecessary to go into a lengthy
theoretical discussion as to whether Anarchism contains the element of
force or not. The question has been discussed time and again, and it is
proven that Anarchism and violence are as far apart from each other as
liberty and tyranny. I care not what the rabble says; but to those who
are still capable of understanding I would say that Anarchism, being, a
philosophy of life, aims to establish a state of society in which man’s
inner make-up and the conditions around him, can blend harmoniously, so
that he will be able to utilize all the forces to enlarge and beautify
the life about him. To those I would also say that I do not advocate
violence; government does this, and force begets force. It is a fact
which cannot be done away with through the prosecution of a few men and
women, or by more stringent laws-this only tends to increase it.
Violence will die a natural death when man will learn to understand that
each unit has its place in the universe, and while being closely linked
together, it must remain free to grow and expand.
Some people have hastily said that Czolgosz’s act was foolish and will
check the growth of progress. Those worthy people are wrong in forming
hasty conclusions. What results the act of September 6 will have no one
can say; one thing, however, is certain: he has wounded government in
its most vital spot. As to stopping the wheel of progress, that is
absurd. Ideas cannot be retarded by restraint. And as to petty police
persecution, what matter?
As I write this, my thoughts wander to the death-cell at Auburn, to the
young man with the girlish face, about to be put to death by the coarse,
brutal hands of the law, walking up and down the narrow cell, with cold,
cruel eyes following him,
And my heart goes out to him in deep sympathy, and to all the victims of
a system of inequality, and the many who will die the forerunners of a
better, nobler, grander life.
Emma Goldman