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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3a

Foreword

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Foreword.

When President McKinley was killed by the Anarchist Czolgosz a thrill of horror ran through the civilised world. Men demanded indignantly why Anarchism was not put down with a firm hand, and why such monsters as the Anarchists were suffered to carry on their murderous propaganda with impunity. Universal satisfaction was felt, accordingly, when Czolgosz was made to pay the penalty of his terrible crime.

But when the Anarchist Ferrer was executed last year for his undoubted complicity in the Barcelona massacres, he was extolled as a "martyr" by a large and influential section of the world's press. Yet the Barcelona atrocities were a thousandfold more horrible than the murder of McKinley, and Ferrer was the life and soul of the Barcelona revolution. Why, then, did the execution of the bloodstained Ferrer evoke widespread sympathy, while the execution of Czolgosz met only with approval? To answer this question, and to show the real character of Ferrer, will be the twofold purpose of the following pages.