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70 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
der. "One of our noblest and best is no more," he laments.
"In the prison yard at Halle under the murderous
sword of the criminal Hohenzollern band, on the 7th
of February, August Reinsdorf ended a life full of battle
and of self-sacrificing- courage, as a martyr to the
great revolution." (8) It was inevitable that such views
should lead sooner or later to a tragedy, and, while most
of the Chicago anarchists were plain workingmen, simple
and kindly, at least one fanatic in the group deserves to
rank with Nechayeff and Most as an irreconcilable enemy
of the existing order. This was Louis Lingg, whose last
words as he was taken from the court were: "I repeat
that I am the enemy of the 'order' of to-day, and I
repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains
in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly
and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have
told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it, 'If you cannonade
us, we shall dynamite you.' You laugh
! Perhaps
you think, 'You'll throw no more bombs'; but let
me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident
am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I
have spoken will remember my words; and, when you
shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they
will do
the bomb-throwing ! In this hope I say to you : I despise
you. I despise your order, your laws, your forcepropped
authority. Hang me for it!" (9)
There are many minor incidents now quite forgotten
in this American terrorism. Benjamin
that played a part
R. Tucker, of New York, himself an anarchist, but not
an advocate of terrorist tactics, had in the midst of this
period to cry out in protest against the acts of those who
called themselves anarchists. In his paper, Liberty,
March 27, 1886, Tucker wrote on "The Beast of Communism."
(10) He began by quoting Henri Rochefort,