SOCIAL DISCONTENT AND LABOR TROUBLES 179
overthrown, and anarchy is to take its place. M. Kropotkin does not believe in government, and yet his schemes can be carried out only by some organization which implies government and a head to make it effective ; and mob rule government is the most cruel and tyrannical ever imposed upon men.
On January 24, 1898, M. Kropotkin lectured in Memorial Hall, London, on "Trade-Unionism." James MacDonald, secre- tary of the London Trades Councils, presided. According to the reports, the speeches were of a character to stir up the most bitter class-hatreds and to incite men to riot. Mr. MacDonald announced from the chair that certain publications of M. Kropotkin were for sale in the hall. One of these was found to be an anarchist journal called Freedom, in which men were urged to acts of violence and confiscation. Angiolilio, the murderer of Canovas, the prime minister of Spain, was commended in the highest terms. In another journal offered for sale, entitled Anarchist Morality, he said that the "great causes of moral depravity were capitalism, religion, justice, and government, and it was the duty of every friend of freedom to overthrow these sources of evil."
A journal called the Aurora, published in Spring Valley, 111., supported by socialists, anarchists, and a considerable labor element, in April, 1901, put forth the following program:
Free work free use of all things. Communal possession of all means of production, of ways of communication, of land, of mines, of water, etc. The abolition of private property. Doing away with government, with classes, with militarism, with privilege, with nobility and bureaucracy. Social emancipation. Anarchy.
In the last Bryan campaign a banner was carried at Sioux Falls, S. D., with the inscription: "A day will come when bankers will be hung in Boston and New York like horse thieves in Texas." Ten years ago the hanging of rich men to lamp posts with grass in their mouths was advocated in a public meeting in Hyde Park, London.
Is it strange that violence, outrages, and assassinations are becoming alarmingly frequent; that sections of the community have been encouraged to consider "the knife, the bullet, and the
