Page:Enrico Malatesta - Anarchy - James F. Morton - Is It All a Dream (1900).pdf/46

 44 aiming at the realization of all our demands, the less there will be of government and of private property in the new society. And we shall have done a great work; for human progress is measured by the degree in which government and private property are administered.

If today we fall without lowering our colors, our cause is certain of victory tomorrow.

The old cry that Anarchists are haters of mankind, and apostles of wholesale destruction, is beginning to die out. The educational propaganda of today is making its influence felt in most unexpected quarters. Multitudes of earnest and thoughfulthoughtful [sic] men and women of every class are beginning to recognize the sublimity of the Anarchist ideal. The ground of criticism has entirely shifted. Instead of being denounced as human mobsters, Anarchists are now accused of being unpractical idealists. Only the grossly ignorant now assail us from the old standpoint. It has become quite the fashion for the more progressive Socialists, Single Taxers, and reformers of other schools, no less than for many scholars, artists, philosophers, and men of letters, to announce themselves "ultimate Anarchists." Yet the goal of Anarchy appears to them so lofty and distant, that, out of sheer despair of attaining it without centuries of struggle, they fall back on what they consider measures of immediate practicability. Hence they wear out their lives in ceaseless political contests, chasing one ignis fatuus after another, only to be repeatedly led astray into the swamp. For lack of a unifying principle, each petty success proves utterly futile, as a means of securing permanent results. The causes of social evils being left in full operation, all tampering with mere results is as vain as the labor of Sisyphus. Experience demonstrates that it is wiser to move straight toward the true goal, concentrating all our energies on the removal of obstacles from the path, than to wander into the devious by-ways, however attractive, along which rapid progress