opinion, and abhors the use of force; we cannot detect him, and, even if we could, he is not particularly dangerous. Then, too, we must bear in mind that his anarchism, fostered in many cases by Russian despotism, is likely to be laid aside and forgotten when he breathes the free air of the republic.

"Under the present law we can already keep out all who have been convicted of violence or of instigating it. The only class, therefore, for which we need a new law is made up of the instigators of violence, who have not been detected or captured in Europe. We can hardly go to the length of excluding them on mere hearsay or suspicion, but, if we want anything like legal evidence, we must maintain in Europe a detective and police force superior to that maintained by the European governments, which are more eager than ours to run down and convict an anarchist.

TRADITIONS OF A CENTURY.

"Nor can we trample on our traditions of a century and a quarter by sending back men of high character and aims who are political refugees. In short, we shall find it beyond our power to do much more than enforce rigorously the present law."

The method by which freedom of speech may be limited so that the preaching of anarchism shall be effectually repressed without endangering any legitimate right is a problem that now confronts the American people.

In 1893 and 1894, France teemed with associations and clubs of anarchists of the most dangerous type. Bombs were being thrown about in public places, and the disorder finally resulted in the stabbing of President Sadi-Carnot while riding in his carriage at the exposition in Lyons. The French Parliament promptly took the whole subject under advisement and passed a series of laws which have been in a high degree effectuai in breaking up anarchist organizations all over the republic. These laws in the main are three in number. The first, enacted on December 12, 1893, had for its purpose a modification of the libel laws so that exceptional penalties could be enforced against the publishers of anarchistic papers.

The second, passed December 18, 1893, made it a punishable offense to belong to anarchistic associations and clubs, and the third, passed July 28, 1894, just after Sadi-Carnot's assassination, carried the principle still farther, increased the penalties and prescribed changes in legal process calculated to make conviction more speedy and certain. As a result of this legislation dangerous groups have been dissolved in France, newspapers have been suppressed, club rooms have been abandoned and libraries have been dispersed.

THE FRENCH LAW.

Summarizing this legislation, we can very soon find lines along which to frame laws against the anarchists in this country. The French law creates three distinct classes of crime-" provocation," "apologie" and "excitation" of soldiers to disobedience of their superior officers. While the last of these deeply concerns a country in which military conscription is universal, it can play but small part with us, and there remain, therefore, the two crimes of "provocation" and "apologie," that is, incitement to crime (murder or destruction of property) by the spread of anarchistic teachings and the justification or glorification of crimes of anarchists by anarchists.

Apologie," while it used to be a punishable offense in France, was abandoned many years ago. "It was not suspected then," says M. Loubat in his admirable work on the French laws against anarchists, "that a diabolical sect would arise to glorify assassination, incendiarism and destruction and make saints and heroes of abominable bandits." At the death of Sadi-Carnot the crime had to be revived for the anarchists, and many of them have been punished in France for the exaltation of the authors of foul deeds.

The French penalties are sufficiently severe to potently deter the spread of anarchistic doctrine. If either of the two crimes of "provocation" or "apologie" is committed through the press the punishment is imprisonment for from one to five years and the payment of a fiue of from 100 to 3,000 francs, together with con

fiscation of all outstanding copies of the publication. If it is committed in a more private way the penalties are only slightly modified. The act of incitement or exaltation is punishable, even if only one person be present, and whether by speech, by printed paper, by writing, cartoon, placard, song, cry (such as "Hurrah for anarchy") or by any other means, the crime is the

same.

If the sentence pronounced is for more than one year or if the prisoner has been before convicted of a like offense at any time within ten years the law prescribes an additional penalty of exile. The publication of a report of anarchist trials in the courts is prohibited under heavy penalties. Every member of an anarchistic organization formed to advocate attacks on life and property may be imprisoned and banished by the French law and the meeting places of the organization closed up. Those who lease build

ings to such societies are made accessories to the crime.

It is along these lines that we must shape anti-anarchist legislation in this country, and we should begin the work at once. There are bands of these social brigands in each large American city. We owe it to ourselves to uproot these pernicious gangs, which, whatever else they have done, have produced in a short time the murderers of the heads of two great governments, President McKinley and King Humbert. It is no infringement of any valuable American liberty to suppress their newspapers, dissolve their clubs and close up their meeting places. These results can be attained here as well as in France, and by a very similar system of legal procedure.

CHAPTER XXIV

Trial and Conviction of the Assassin-Remarkable Scenes in Court-Counsel Laments the President's Death-Sentence of Death Pronounced.

THE assassin of President McKinley was convicted of murder

in the first degree at 4.26 o'clock in the afternoon of September 24th. Less than three hours of trial was required to hurry him to his doom, so that this will probably rank as the quickest capital case in the criminal annals of America.

Virtually nothing was done beyond the narration of the established facts of the killing. What was termed defense consisted merely in admonition to the jury to gravely consider whether or not the assassin was laboring under mental aberration, but no witnesses were called, and the address of counsel was, in all effect, a plea for the prosecution.

The jury was away from the court room exactly thirty-five minutes, but only from a sense of the decencies of legal procedure. They were unanimous in their finding before they left the box, and spent not a moment in deliberation.

Says an eye-witness of the trial:

"Almost at the very moment that the last dramatic episode was acting to-day, the father, brother and sister of the assassin arrived from Cleveland. They are Paul, Waldeck and Victoria Czolgosz. Their avowed purpose was to aid in the speedy punishment of the murderer of whom they speak in terms of loathing, but they were nevertheless taken into custody as a measure of precaution, and Czolgosz does not know they are in the city. Even if he knew he probably would not care.

"The fellow is thoroughly callous. Resigned to the inevitable consequences of his crime from the very moment of its inception, he is evidently empty of all human feeling. Neither hoping nor wishing for compassion, he rejected the creeds of God

and man and the ties of blood and friendship at the same time, and, with the abject indifference of an animal, has ever since looked forward only to the verdict of the darkness and the silence that awaits him.

"So much became clear in to-day's testimony, which revealed many new details, and awful corroboration was given to it in the aspect and bearing of the creature at the most desperate moment that well can fall to human kind. Not the tremor of a lash ruffled his stolidity when the words of doom were uttered. His fixed, abstracted gaze never stirred. He was still stone and iron, unrelenting, remorseless and heedless.

"It was only twenty minutes to 10 o'clock when the detectives brought him into court this morning. When they unshackled his hands he passed them carelessly over his thick damp locks. Then he crossed his legs, tapped a tattoo on the arm of his chair for a moment, and settled into the immovable attitude which has marked him throughout.

BEGAN TO CARE FOR HIS APPEARANCE.

"He did not sleep well last night, his wardens said, but aie his breakfast this morning with relish, consuming chops, eggs, rolls and three cups of coffee. He displayed some vanity about his appearance, too, insisting on straightening his hair with his fingers and smoothing the wrinkles in his clothes."

By 10 o'clock Justice White was on the bench, the lawyers in their places, and the hearing of evidence again in swift progress. Mr. Mann was recalled and gave some very interesting medical testimony. Judge Lewis cross-examined. First he

asked:

"How do you guard against the invasion of germs in the wound?"

་

"By being very careful in the treatment," said the doctor. When was the condition found at the autopsy to be expected from the wounds the President received?"

"It was not expected, and was very unusual. I never before saw anything just like it."