The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in ChicagoMcLean, George N.
History
The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in Chicago
McLean, George N.
Anarchists -- United States; Haymarket Square Riot, Chicago, Ill., 1886
Two young men from the same flourishing little town, and bosom friends
graduate from the same school, each with aspirations lofty as the
pinnacle of fame. Each one chooses an art or craft, or profession.
Each man has the same chance to succeed. The avenues of trade and
commerce are open alike to all. One of these young men well knowing
that there is no royal road to wealth and fame, and that his success
depends solely upon his economy and industry, wisely adopts a code of
laws by which his life is to be regulated and governed, and his future
of success or failure determined. He remembers that his preceptor once
remarked to him thus: "Raymond, remember this: If you ever expect
to become wealthy, spend each day less than you earn," and he had
adopted it. He husbanded each week, and month, and year a portion of
his earnings; years pass on and his coffers are filling with that
yellow god which sways the destinies of men and empires. He engages in
manufacturing enterprises or mercantile pursuits, and his happiness is
complete in his palatial home, with a lovely wife and children as a
keystone crowning the arch which spans the dark and turbid stream of
life.
Let us follow the other young man who started in the race at the
same time and under the same auspicious circumstances. He has taken
a different course. He has not been idle but a spendthrift, working
during the week earning money to spend among his boon companions during
Sunday, and is always in debt and trouble as he is spending more than
he earns. He has availed himself of the privilege of rejoicing in the
days of his youth, walking in the ways of his heart and the sight of
his eyes, forgetting that for all these things he will be brought
into judgment, as no law of our physical nature or social standing can
be violated with impunity, there is no appeal from the self-inflicted
punishment of an accusing conscience for extreme prodigality and
reckless expenditure in riotous living. To-night he is standing upon
the corner of the street shivering under the biting blast which is
sifting the early snow of winter amid his prematurely grizzled hair.
He is not at peace with himself or the world. He hates himself for
being poor and others for being rich. At this juncture the elegantly
equipped carriage of his former classmate rolls past. Its owner is
now a millionaire by earnest, honest and persevering endeavor. He
is a homeless pauper and the self-constituted architect of his own
misfortunes, yet he is willing to offer himself as a representative of
the terrible contrast between capital and labor.
THE ANARCHIST'S FATAL DELUSION.
Under the fascination of rose-tinted delusion whose fatal mists
obscure the mental and moral realm of thought, many become criminals,
goaded on by blind infatuation which persevered in becomes a passion
all-absorbing in its nature. In the blindness of their infatuation
they seek to immortalize their names by a bold and base attempt at the
subversion of law and order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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