The “propaganda of action” came out of Russia about forty years ago, and is the offspring of Russian nihilism.

The “propaganda of action” is the protest of impatience against evolution; it is the effort to hasten progress by deeds of violence.

From the few who, like Bakunin, Brousse, and Krapotkin, have written about the “propaganda of action” with sufficient coherence to make themselves understood, it appears that it is not their hope to destroy government by removing all executive heads,—­even their tortured brains recognize the impossibility of that task; nor do they hope to so far terrify rulers as to bring about their abdication.  Not at all; but they do hope by deeds of violence to so attract attention to the theory of anarchy as to win followers;—­in other words, murders such as those of Humbert, Carnot, and President McKinley were mere advertisements of anarchism.  In the words of Brousse, “Deeds are talked of on all sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay attention to the new doctrine and discuss it.  Let men once get as far as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them.”

Hence, the greater the crime the greater the advertisement; from that point of view, the shooting of President McKinley, under circumstances so atrocious, is so far the greatest achievement of the “propaganda of action.”

It is worth noting that the “reign of terror” which the Nihilists sought to and did create in Russia was for a far more practical and immediate purpose.  They sought to terrify the government into granting reforms; so far from seeking to annihilate the government, they sought to spur it into activity for the benefit of the masses.

The methods of the Nihilists, without the excuse of their object, were borrowed by the more fanatical anarchists, and applied to the advertising of their belief.  Since the adoption of the “propaganda of action” by the extremists, anarchism has undergone a great change.  It has passed from a visionary and harmless theory, as advocated by Godwin, Proudhon, and Reclus, to a very concrete agency of crime and destruction under the teachings of such as Bakunin, Krapotkin, and Most; not forgetting certain women like Louise Michel in France and Emma Goldman in this country who out-Herod Herod;—­when a woman goes to the devil she frightens him; his Satanic majesty welcomes a man, but dreads a woman; to a woman the downward path is a toboggan slide, to a man it is a gentle but seductive descent.

It is against the “propaganda of action” that legislation must be directed, not because it is any part of anarchism, but because it is the propaganda of crime.

Laws directed towards the suppression of anarchism might result in more harm than good, but crime is quite another matter.  It is one thing to advocate less and less of government, to preach the final disappearance of government and the evolution of anarchy; it is a fundamentally different thing to advocate the destruction of life or property as a means to hasten the end.