Alexander Berkman

“ My youth's ideal of a free humanity in the vague future has become clarified and crystallized into the living truth of Anarchy, as the sustaining elemental force of my every-day existence.
Often I have wondered in the years gone by; was not wisdom dear at the price of enthusiasm? At 30 one is not so reckless, not so fanatical and one-sided as at 20. With maturity we become more universal; but life is a Shylock that cannot be cheated of his due. For every lesson it teaches us, we have a wound or a scar to show. We grow broader ”

“ And after years of contemplation and study, chastened by much sorrow and suffering, I arise from the broken fetters of the world's folly and delusions, to behold the threshold of a new life of liberty and equality. ”

“ Indeed, it is at once the greatest tragedy of martyrdom, and the most terrible indictment of society, that it forces the noblest men and women to shed human blood, though their souls shrink from it. But the more imperative it is that drastic methods of this character be resorted to only as a last extremity. To prove of value, they must be motived by social rather than individual necessity, and be directed against a real and immediate enemy of the people. ”

“ Humanity was sharply divided in two warring camps, -- the noble People, the producers, who yearned for the light of the new gospel, and the hated oppressors, the exploiters, who craftily strove to obscure the rising day that was to give back to man his heritage. ”

“ In Russia, where political oppression is popularly felt, such a deed would be of great value. But the scheme of political subjection is more subtle in America. And though McKinley was the chief representative of our modern slavery, he could not be considered in the light of a direct and immediate enemy of the people; while in an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and tangible. The real despotism of republican institutions is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independence. ”

“ The struggle of labor against capital is a class war, essentially and chiefly economic. In that arena the battles must be fought. It was not these considerations, of course, that inspired the nation-wide man-hunt, or the attitude even of alleged radicals. Their cowardice has filled me with loathing and sadness. The brutal farce of the trial, the hypocrisy of the whole proceeding, the thirst for the blood of the martyr, -- these make one almost despair of humanity. ”

“ As long as misery and tyranny fill the world, social contrasts and consequent hatreds will persist, and the noblest of the race -- our Czolgoszes -- burst forth in "rockets of iron." But does this lightning really illumine the social horizon, or merely confuse minds with the succeeding darkness? ”

“ The average prisoner corresponds to the average citizen -- their patriotism is very passive, except when stimulated by personal interest, or artificially excited. But if the press mirrored the sentiment of the people, the Nation must have suddenly relapsed into cannibalism. ”

“ Yet not upon every one does it exert a similar effect. Some natures grow embittered, and shrink with the poison of misery. I often wonder at my lack of bitterness and enmity, even against the old Warden -- and surely I have good cause to hate him. ”

“ I have read of the beautiful personality of the youth; of his inability to adapt himself to brutal conditions, ant the rebellion of his soul It throws a significant light upon the causes of the Attentat. ”

“ Is it not very significant that we two -- you living in the very heart of Anarchist thought and activity, and I in the atmosphere of absolute suppression and solitude -- should have arrived at the same evolutionary point after a decade of divergent paths? ”

“ Life and its manifold expressions were vexatious to the spirit of revolt and poetry, literature, and art were scorned as hindrances to progress, unless they sounded the tocsin of immediate revolution. ”

“ He never got over the shock of the tunnel, and finally he has been persuaded by the prison physician (who has secret aspirations to the Wardenship) that the anxieties of his position are a menace to his advanced age. Considerable dissatisfaction has also developed of late against the Warden among the Inspectors. Well, he has resigned at last, thank goodness! The prisoners have been praying for it for years, and some of the boys on the range celebrated the event by getting drunk on wood alcohol. The new Warden has just assumed charge, and we hope for improvement. ”

“ The new law benefits the short-timers proportionately much more than the men with longer sentences. Only the poor lifers do not share in it. We were very anxious for a while, as there were many rumors that the law would be declared unconstitutional. Fortunately, the attempt to nullify its benefits proved ineffectual Think of men who will see something unconstitutional in allowing the prisoners a little more good time than the commutation statute of 40 years ago. ”