The history of terrorist tactics in America largely centers about the career of Johann Most. In August Bebel's story of his life he speaks in high terms of the unselfish devotion and sterling character of Most in his early days. "If later on," says Bebel, "under the anti-socialist laws, he went astray and became an anarchist and an advocate of direct action, and finally, although he had been a model of abstinence, ended in the United States as a drunkard, it was all due to the anti-socialist laws, laws which drove him and many others from the country. Had he remained under the influence of the men who were able to guide him and restrain his passionate temper, the party would have possessed in him a most zealous, self-sacrificing, and indefatigable fighter."[12] Most, then, was one of the victims of Bismarck's savage policies, as were also nearly all the other Germans who took part in the sordid crimes related by Tucker. And the Haymarket--the greatest of all American tragedies--leads directly back to the Iron Chancellor and his ferocious inquisition. A few minor incidents of anarchist activity may be recorded for the following years, but the only acts of importance were the shooting of President McKinley by Czolgosz and the shooting of Henry C. Frick by Alexander Berkman. In the "Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist," Berkman has now told us that as a youth he became a disciple of Bakounin and a fiery member of the Nihilist group. It was after the Homestead strike that Berkman saw a chance to propagate his gospel by a deed. Leaving his home in New York, he went to Pittsburgh for the purpose of killing Henry C. Frick, then head of the Carnegie Steel Company. Berkman made his way into Frick's office, shot at and slightly wounded him. In explanation of this act he says: "In truth, murder and _attentat_ (that is, political assassination) are to me opposite terms. To remove a tyrant is an act of liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed people."[13] For this attempt on the life of Frick, Berkman was condemned to a term of imprisonment of twenty-two years. Despite a few isolated outbreaks, it may be said, therefore, that the seeds of anarchism have never taken root in America, just as they have never taken root in Germany or in England. To-day there are no active American terrorists and only a handful of avowed anarchists. In the Latin countries, however, the deeds of terrorism still played a tragic part in the history of the next few years. FOOTNOTE: [I] See _Revolutionaere Kriegswissenschaft_. CHAPTER V A SERIES OF TRAGEDIES