Civil disturbance

“ The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. ”

“ The doubts and defections that accompany a civil war, the conversion of the great body of cowards and the still larger majority of indifferent men, the claims of regular domestic life, the absence of a commissariat, the near presence of women and children, the contrast which the return of quiet after the blow presents to the pain and terror of a renewed struggle, make it, as it were, impossible for a defeated mob to return, after an interval, against the regular force which has repelled it ”

“ When public order breaks down; when men, women and children fear for their safety in the streets and in their homes; when contempt and mistrust characterize citizens' attitudes toward lawful authority, then we all -- young and old, rich and poor -- are victimized. ”

“ No agitators, no clubs, no epidemical errors, ever were, or will be, fatal to social order in any nation. Nothing but the guilt of the upper classes, wanton, accumulated, reckless, and merciless, ever overthrows them Of such guilt they have now much to answer for—let them look to it in time. ”

“ Against the terrors of the mob, which, intoxicated with passion, and once suffered to gain the ascendant, is diabolic and chaos come again, good sense has many arts of prevention and of relief. Disorganization it confronts with organization, with police, with military force. ”

“ Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, leaping crowd of party-colored demons, overcoming their guard, and drunk with liberty, appeared upon the streets, adding their final dramatic horror to the pandemonium. ”

“ The only means of preventing surprise attacks from the civil population has been to interfere with unrelenting severity and to create examples which, by their frightfulness, would be a warning to the whole country. ”

“ Yet when we turn to the anarchists for our [120] answer, they tell us "that the accumulated forces in our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in storm and lightning. To thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are daily made to endure. ”

“ Crime and, finally, catastrophe, unfailingly scourge the community whose governors neglect or forget the most serious business of rulers, which is, to provide, not politics but, bread and butter for their people. ”

“ And to all those evils we have to add another, and perhaps the worst of all—that of which you are all conscious, of which experience and observation reaches you every day in all the forms of social life—a system of unseen terrorism, a system of terror and tyranny that the well-disposed class of the community ought to detest and abhor, and in reference to which, on all sides, I have heard, in this county and other counties, one universal expression of desire—that some means should be found to put an end to it. ”

“ Sir, I need not again refer to the great dangers to the community at large from crime, from epidemic, from fire, arising out of the neglect of a great evil, nor to the far worse misery and degradation inflicted upon the poorest classes of the people by the existence of these wretched houses which, whilst they exist, are sure to be inhabited. ”

“ Not only are the effects of this growing body of social and legal restrictions shown directly by their constant violation, generally by the inferior and the poor, but indirectly in their strain on the nervous system; by the irritation and impatience that they generate, and which, under certain conditions cause acts of violence. ”

“ Some rioting occurred, and but for the conviction that the people at large would support the government in strong measures, the tendency to disturbance would have been still more decidedly manifested. ”

“ I have seen many private disasters develop, which I could have checked with five grains of despotic power.—We shall be regretted by the very men who have crippled us when they, like you, stand face to face with some moral monstrosities, which ought to be swept away as we sweep away mud! In public affairs the Police is expected to foresee everything, or when the safety of the public is involved—but the family?—It is sacred! ”

“ Men, women and children were to be included in the portending storm, religion and human decency were to be outraged, the law of the land and its administrators defied, and justice scoffed at in the pillory. ”

“ There was a universal thrill of horror and fury, and passions rose so high that Government found itself suddenly confronted with a situation which at once put to a severe test the capacity of the new regime to deal with emergencies endangering law and order. ”

“ We have already seen the system of extensive combinations carried on in defiance of the laws;—organized bands and tumultuous assemblages of peasantry, extorting money, and enforcing their demands with threats of violence;—wanton destruction of property, in the breaking of machinery, in attacks upon private houses, and in the far more horrible crime of the nocturnal incendiary;—violence and excesses in many towns;—and riot, pillage, and arson, defying for some days, in a great city, municipal authorities and military force. ”

“ Citizens, your magistrates are deeply distressed at the disorders which have recently been disturbing the public peace, at a time when commerce and industry, which are in much need of protection, are beginning to rise above a long crisis of depression. ”

“ The city had the air and movement of hysteria, and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and alarm, that the new forces must, at any cost be brought under control. Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world irritable, nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid. ”

“ Why all that agitation over the deaths of two guardians of property, when there was no agitation at all, no public outcry, no fierce clamor for vengeance, because every night men and women of the toiling classes were being killed by the inhuman conditions of their lives, in foul slums, in overcrowded bedrooms, in poisonous trades, in sweated industries, as the helpless slaves of that capitalistic system which protected itself by armies of police. ”

“ Assembled together with{334} multitudes of other evil-doers like yourselves, you have, by threats and acts of violence, thrown the peaceable and industrious inhabitants of this city into a state of panic and alarm—you have deprived many of their only means of livelihood—you have carried fire to public buildings and to private dwellings, and have exposed the property of all to pillage, and the lives of many to destruction. Human society cannot be held together, if crimes like these are not put down by the strong hand of the law. ”

“ Outbreaks were made, crowds gathered, houses burned, streets barricaded, fights enacted, in a score of places at once. Where the officers appeared they were irretrievably beaten and overcome; their stand, were it ever so short, but inflaming the passions of the mob to fresh deeds of violence. Stores were closed; the business portion of the city deserted; the large works and factories emptied of men, who had been sent home by their employers, or were swept into the ranks of the marauding bands. The city cars, omnibuses, hacks, were unable to run, and remained under shelter. ”

“ The stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. ”

“ For the more civilized, dread of a long, monotonous, criminal discipline may suffice; but for the less civilized there must be inflictions of bodily pain and death. Thus we hold, not only that a social condition which generates a harsh form of government, also generates harsh retributions ”

“ These outbreaks grew to such a pitch, that the magistrates now, whenever possible, hasten to the threatened establishment, to repress violence by their presence and authority. The rush, however, is so sudden, that before they can arrive on the spot, the mob has improved its opportunity for destruction, and disappeared. ”

“ No imagination can conceive the uproar and din of such an assault upon a populous city—a horrid mingling of the vociferated commands of the officers, and the shouts of the advancing and victorious enemy, with the screams of terror from affrighted women and children, and the dreadful groans and imprecations from men dying maddened with unsatisfied revenge, and biting the dust in agony of despair. ”

“ What we have seen will occur again—the disruption of social order, the magistrates of the district expecting momentary outbreaks, the peace only preserved by the presence of the military, our jails crowded with rioters, special commissioners in every manufacturing county, ships freighted with transports to the antipodes, and pauperism, instead of being the exception, will, if not intercepted, become the rule. ”

“ When clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears, the power of the state to prevent or punish is obvious. ”

“ The result is a terrible crowding of people in unsanitary and unfit buildings. The consequences of such overcrowding is seen in the increase of child delinquency, immorality and disease, an increased death-rate, and the inevitable unrest from such unhappiness which results in strikes and labor troubles. ”

“ The evil effects of this society, besides frequent outbreaks of violence which might be traced directly or indirectly to it, were seen in the bold defiant tone assumed by its members, and in the idlers that crowded the streets and who would not work except at exorbitant wages. ”

“ The steady increase both of crime and insanity is demanding the most serious consideration of the whole problem presented by social dereliction—particularly for the purpose of separating out those criminals and feeble-minded people who are capable of being restored to the class of useful citizens. ”

“ It is certainly incumbent on us to search our hearts as to whether this rush to get into other jobs and to go to distant places may be motivated by fear of men and of the authorities, by a desire to be thought well of, by a dread of the social displeasure or actual legal punishment which might fall upon us if we were to continue quietly at the work which we had been doing, living in the home town when war fever, if not outright hysteria, seizes the people. ”

“ In other words, when individuals or majorities, seeing that they are stronger for the time being than other individuals or minorities, suppose that they are therefore stronger than natural social laws and act in violation of them, disaster is sure to follow. ”

“ ANOTHER class of crimes are those which disturb the public tranquillity and the quiet of the citizens; such as tumults and riots in the public streets, which are intended for commerce and the passage of the inhabitants; the discourses of fanatics, which rouse the passions of the curious multitude, and gain strength from the number of their hearers, who, though deaf to calm and solid reasoning, are always affected by obscure and mysterious enthusiasm. ”

“ The still remaining anarchical tendencies of certain individual members of the state, lagging behind the rest, will generate occasional acts of violence, threatening, directly or indirectly, the very life and existence of the state. These acts will excite the horror of all the more orderly members of the community, and will be denominated by some such term as crimes. ”

“ I believe that the homes of men, sometimes the last citadel of the tired, the weary and the sick, can be protected by government from noisy, marching, tramping, threatening picketers and demonstrators bent on filling the minds of men, women, and children with fears of the unknown. ”

“ Children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags and misery. And then the fearful struggle between the employers and men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell upon such tales; the Englishman into whose soul they have not sunk deep is not worthy the name ”

“ It is, I think, a maxim of government, that the importance of the political inconveniences, arising from the impunity of a crime, are directly as the injury to the publick, and inversely as the difficulty of proof. ”

“ The fabric of our society has been strained by the hopelessness caused by the flight of jobs from too many of our communities and the fear and suspicion resulting from the epidemic of crime and violence, especially among our young people. ”

“ And, if such a class of persons were in a city infecting others with their mania, would not all applaud the law and the efforts of its officers in securely confining them where they could do no harm, taking from them the means by which they injured and destroyed the lives of others? ”

“ From the statistics supplied by the Attorney-General and from what one gleans daily from the newspapers and other media, we live at a time when the high crime rate is unprecedented, when the streets of our cities and towns rouse fear and despair in the heart, rather than pride and hope, and this in turn, robs us of objectivity and personal concern for our brethren. ”