The Nation and the Anarchists. remedy. If anarchists make distinct threats of molesting a public official let us take the homely and ancient course of binding them over to keep the peace; and if, without making threats, they give such incendiary counsel that a person following their advice would necessarily interfere with one of the high federal officials heretofore enumerated, let us extend the unexciting remedy and require those who thus counsel violence to give bonds that will be forfeited upon the happening, within a given time, of any un lawful act as the direct consequence of their teaching. The recognizances would not be forfeited unless some act of violence took place, and hence the anarchists might continue to speak freely as long as they chose, or rather as long as they were able to furnish new bonds; but the remedy would probably be far reaching, for the man who has been put under bond to keep the peace seldom causes trouble, and bonds do not grow on every tree. So much for such threats and exhortations as cannot fairly be deemed peaceable. Yet suppose, as must be supposed, that anarchists are so adroit as not to make threats and not to counsel violence directly—what then? Then it must be frankly admitted that according to the essential theory of our government noth ing can be done. The first amendment to the Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of re ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
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or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." As Jefferson said in his first inaugural: "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its repub lican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it." Freedom of discus sion as to political matters unquestionably has dangers; but so has repression. The present freedom of our institutions is the carefully reasoned result of generations of our predecessors, both here and abroad. The existence and the protection of public officials are not ends, but means; and they are means toward the end that the private citizen may enjoy what the Declaration of Independence calls "certain inalienable rights"—"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We cannot silence the anarchist without en dangering the freedom of patriotic citizens, departing from our high theory, forgetting of what country we are inheritors, and disre garding our mission to our successors. That thought and word and printing-press shall be free is so clearly of the essence of our system, that, if anarchists shall ever provoke us in sudden heat to exchange freedom for repression, then they will indeed have wrought a revolution, and will have de stroyed—as in no other way can they destroy —the present government of the United States.
