Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
and nothing else.  He is in no sense, in no shape or way, a “product of social conditions,” save as a highwayman is “produced” by the fact than an unarmed man happens to have a purse.  It is a travesty upon the great and holy names of liberty and freedom to permit them to be invoked in such a cause.  No man or body of men preaching anarchistic doctrines should be allowed at large any more than if preaching the murder of some specified private individual.  Anarchistic speeches, writings, and meetings are essentially seditious and treasonable.

I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take into consideration the coming to this country of anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all government and justifying the murder of those placed in authority.  Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime, and the law should ensure their rigorous punishment.  They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of those who stay.  No matter calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the Congress.

The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction over any man who kills or attempts to kill the President or any man who by the Constitution or by law is in line of succession for the Presidency, while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt should be proportioned to the enormity of the offense against our institutions.

Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and all mankind should band against the anarchist.  His crime should be made an offense against the law of nations, like piracy and that form of man-stealing known as the slave trade; for it is of far blacker infamy than either.  It should be so declared by treaties among all civilized powers.  Such treaties would give to the Federal Government the power of dealing with the crime.

A grim commentary upon the folly of the anarchist position was afforded by the attitude of the law toward this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President.  The people would have torn him limb from limb if it had not been that the law he defied was at once invoked in his behalf.  So far from his deed being committed on behalf of the people against the Government, the Government was obliged at once to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at the hands of the people.  Moreover, his deed worked not the slightest dislocation in our governmental system, and the danger of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great it might grow, would work only in the direction of strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of order.  No man will ever be restrained from becoming President by any fear as to his personal safety.  If the risk to the President’s life became great, it

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Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.