The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been
more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting
from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves
anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into
adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation
which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own
numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to
adopt a new social system out of fear.

As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order
of things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The
particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time
of which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in
postponing my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity
to my feeling toward them.



Chapter 2


The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one
of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the
nineteenth century, being set apart under the name of Decoration
Day, for doing honor to the memory of the soldiers of the
North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union
of the States. The survivors of the war, escorted by military and
civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion
to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves