“They are poets, painters, novelists, or critics. Most of them are men of fortune and family. Their art has brought them fame. They are idealists, and dreamers, and philanthropists. They turn from a dark and troubled present to a future all rose. In a tragic night they await the sunrise of fraternal love. “And yet, by their sincerity and their eloquence, they are the most dangerous men of to-day. They have made anarchy a splendid ideal, instead of the brutal and meaningless discontent that it was. They have gilded plain ruffians like Ravachol and Caserio with the halo of martyrdom. For them anarchy is a literary toy. But what of the feather-brained wretches who believe in all these fine phrases and carry out the doctrine of social warfare to its logical and bloody conclusion? Whose is the responsibility? Who is the greater criminal? Luccheni or the silken poet who set him on?” And behind these more or less gentle and philosophic pathfinders in anarchism have come the “doers of the word”—the redhanded assassins of history. Not long ago Count Malesta, leader of the Italian anarchists, in his suave, gentle, aristocratic attitudes, deplored the use of bombs, pistol, and knife. Yet who will question that Herr Most has drawn inspiration from this teacher, and this schooling was behind that rabid creature’s utterance, following the assassination of Carnot, when Most said: “Whosoever wants to undertake an assassination should at first learn to use the weapon with which he desires to accomplish his purpose before he brings that weapon definitely into play. Attempts by means of the revolver are utterly played out, because out of twenty-five attempts only one is successful, as experience has thoroughly shown. Only expert dead shots may thoroughly rely on their ability to kill. No more child’s play! Serious labor! Long live the torch and bomb!” This is the pupil of the school. Of its tutors, even Kropotkin has been described as a “gentle, courtly, aristocratic patriarch of revolt.” He was wealthy, famous, and furiously aristocratic when, in 1872, studying the Swiss glaciers, he stumbled upon the Geneva convention of internationalists and became an anarchist. He returned to the Russian court. His work on the glaciers of Finland became a classic. His lectures on geology and geography were attracting crowds, even while a red revolutionist, Borodin, was stirring police and military with his utterances to workingmen. One night the police trapped Borodin—and Kropotkin. For three years he was confined in prison until he escaped, making his way to London and to the world, which still listens to his voice.