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SEEKING THE CAUSES
103
is a result of such reasoning that men ignorant of underlying
social, political, or industrial forces seek to obstruct
the individual.
the processes of evolution by removing
On this ground the anarchists have been led to remove
hundreds of police officials, capitalists, royalties, and
others.
They have been poisoned, shot, and dynamited,
in the belief that their removal would benefit humanity.
Yet nothing would seem to be quite so obvious as the fact
that their removal has hardly caused a ripple in the
swiftly moving current of evolution. Others, often more
forceful and capable, have immediately stepped into their
places, and the course of events has remained unchanged.
Speaking on this subject, August Bebel refers to the
hero-worship of Bismarck in :
Germany "There is no
person whom the social democracy had so much
reason to hate as him, and the social democracy was not
more hated by anybody than by just that Bismarck. Our
love and our hatred were, as you see, mutual. But one
would search in vain the entire social democratic press
and literature for an expression of the thought that it
would be a lucky thing if that man were removed.
But how often did the capitalist press express
. . .
the idea that, were it not for Bismarck, we would not, to
this day, hav^e a united Germany There cannot be a
more mistaken idea than this. The unity of Germany
would have come without Bismarck. The idea of unity
and liberty was in the sixties so powerful among all the
German people that it would have been realized, with or
without the assistance of the Hohenzollerns. The unity
of Germany was not only a political but an economic
necessity, primarily in the interests of the capitalist class
and its
development. The idea of unity would have ultimately
broken through with elementary force. At this
juncture Bismarck made use of the tendency, in his own