The Global War on Anarchism

312 : diplomatic history
proceedings and resolutions of the supposedly “secret” conference in detail. 55 By
December 29, 1898, a “dispatch to the World from Rome” informed Americans
that the Europeans had agreed to establish an international police bureau, based in
Berlin, for the surveillance of anarchists and that all governments involved in the
conference planned to negotiate and adopt uniform extradition treaties governing
anarchists. 56
The media’s portrayal of anarchists and of anarchist violence as particular to
Europe prompted many U.S. policy makers to call for stricter immigration legislation.
As early as 1889, a report (H.R. 12291) by the Select Committee on
Investigation of Foreign Immigration, known as the Ford committee, noted that
“anarchists were being driven out of European countries” and recommended that
they be “rigidly excluded.” 57 Nonetheless, legislation to ban alien anarchists from
entering the United States failed to gain congressional ratification, including the
most serious attempt in 1894 when the assassination of French President Marie
François Sadi Carnot by an Italian anarchist caused anger and fear among
American policy makers. The French assassination led Congressman W. A.
Stone of Pennsylvania to attack anarchists vehemently and describe them as
“enemies to society and the country ...[who] should be exterminated.” 58
However, those opposed to adding anarchists to the proscribed classes of immigration
law won the day by pointing out the difficulties in accurately defining
the term anarchist and in enforcing a law that excluded individuals for their political
beliefs and convictions. Along with the problems of definition and efficacy, a few
congressmen also declared that banning anarchists contradicted America’s traditional
role as a place of refuge for the politically oppressed. 59
THE ASSASSINATION OF U.S. PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY
Despite the Rome Conference of 1898, political assassinations by anarchist terrorists
continued. In July 1900, Gaetano Bresci, a thirty-year-old immigrant anarchist,
traveled from Paterson, New Jersey to his native Italy and assassinated
King Humbert. 60 Diplomatic correspondence between the U.S. government and
the German government in October 1900 indicates that European governments
responded to this assassination by calling on the United States to become actively
involved in an international anti-anarchist league. Moreover, German officials
declared that the U.S. government had a responsibility to monitor anarchists
living in the United States and to suppress the dissident press.
55. “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference in Session at Rome,” Chicago Daily Tribune
(1872–1922), December 25, 1898; “Anti-Anarchist Conference,” Los Angeles Times (1886–1922),
December 29, 1898.
56. Ibid.
57. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 423.
58. “An Anti-Anarchist Bill: Congressman Stone purposes extermination for Santo’s Kind,”
New York Times (1857–1922), June 26, 1894.
59. Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 28–29; Hong, “The Origin of American Legislation,” 7–8.
60. Tuchman, The Proud Tower, 104.