What to Do With the Anarchist

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 28, 1908

What to Do With the Anarchist

THIS is a question which is beginning to give much concern to American statesmen, as well as to the statesmen on the other side of the Atlantic. Repression has accomplished little in the Old World in staying the progress of anarchistic ideas, and was not contemplated here until the advocates of anarchy began to remove their supposed enemies by assassination. Measures have already been taken to keep known anarchists from coming into the country; but the country has a large supply already. The matter has become serious enough to command the attention of the President, and inspire the recommendation of national legislation to abate the evil. An anarchistic paper of the more rabid kind has been suppressed in New Jersey, and in Philadelphia the authorities have forbidden the holding of anarchistic meetings. Concerning the latter actions the New Bedford Evening Standard says, editorially:—

Undoubtedly this rule is promulgated with a sincere desire to prevent the spreading of the dangerous doctrine; and yet there is not much reason to hope that this attempted suppression will at all accomplish the result which is desired. What will happen will be that, deprived of the opportunity to speak in public, the anarchists of Philadelphia will hold their meetings in private, and will be all the more bitter on account of the attempted repression. Much as we may dislike to hear violent anarchistic talk, it is safer to have that talk right in the open where everybody can hear it than to drive it into the caves and dens of a great city. The authorities of Philadelphia have given the anarchists a grievance, of which the most will be made. That is what the order really amounts to.

The question of what to do with the anarchist is one that never will be settled satisfactorily. The development of that doctrine is one of the elements that will help in bringing about the conditions spoken of in Luke 21 and Matthew 24 —“distress of nations” and “men’s hearts fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world.” Nothing but the gospel of Christ can ever suppress anarchy in the human heart.