The Social Monster

By Johann Most

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A DAGGER in one hand, a torch in the other, and all his pockets brimful with dynamite-bombs -- that is the picture of the anarchist, such as it has been drawn by his enemies. They look at him simply as a mixture of a fool and a knave, whose able, purpose is universal topsy-turvy, and whose only means to that purpose is to slay anyone and everyone who differs from him.

The picture is an ugly carricature, but its general acceptance is not to be wondered at, since, for years all non-anarchistic papers have been busy in circulating it. Even in certain labor-organs one may find the anarchist represented as merely a man of violence, destitute of all noble aspirations, and the most absurd views of the principles of anarchism occur in those very papers.

As for the violence, which people take as the characteristic mark of the anarchist, it cannot and it shall not be denied, that most anarchists feel convinced that