Physiognomy of the Anarchists, Part 2
When I say that the anarchists of Turin and of Chicago are frequently of the
criminal type, I do not mean that political criminals, even the most violent
anarchists, are true criminals; but that they possess the degenerative characters
common to criminals and to the insane, being anomalies and
possessing these traits by heredity; as a fact, the father of Booth was called
Junius Brutus, and gave to his son the name of a revolutionist, Wilkes. The
fathers of Guiteau and of Nobiling, and the mother of Staps were religious
lunatics; and Staps also, like Ravaillac, Clement, Brutus, had hallucinations. In
the autobiographies of the Vorbote I find that Parsons had a very
religious Methodist mother and a father who had much to do with the movement
of the Temperance League. Indeed, the Parsons since 1600 had as a family
taken part in all revolutionary movements. A Tompkin, a relation of his mother,
had taken part in the battles of Brandywine and of Monmouth a General
Parsons was an officer in the Revolution of 1776, and a captain Parsons engaged
in the battle of Bunker Hill.
Spies was born in a chateau celebrated for feudal robberies-called on that
account the "Raubschloss. "
The father of Louis Lingg suffered through his labor as a workman a concussion
of the brain-according to the Vorbote.
The father of Fielden, an orator of power notwithstanding his occupation as a
workman, was one of the agitators of the question of agricultural lands for
workingmen in England he was one of the founders of the "Consumers' Co-
operative Society" and a prime mover in the society of "Odd Fellows." For those
who will object that in many of these relations they, see only geniuses, I have
only to cite my work "L'Home de Genie," where I have proved how often genius is
nervous epilepsy, and how almost all the sons of men of genius are lunatics,
idiots, or criminals.
This hereditary influence is seen also in the great number of brothers charged
together, the two Spies, the two Djeneks, the two Fieldens, and the two Lehms.
According to their autobiographies also their fathers or their mothers died early;
from which we may presume that they were old or diseased.
The morbid impressibility of Engel has been admitted by himself. "I cannot," he
said to his wife, "hold within me what I feel. I must explode. The enthusiasm
takes possession of me; it is a disease." Lingg could not remain quiet an instant;
in his room he always had some dynamite in store.
Bodendick was a thief
and a mattoid; full of cunning, mischief and mad tricks, even according to the
Arbeiler-Zeitung. He was always dreaming of new explosives. Though
insane he was a genius as appears from his poetry, which is published by
Schick and is in the style of the celebrated "Song of the Shirt." The suicide of
Lingg with dynamite shows his moral insensibility, as do the words of Parsons
addressed to the society of anarchists: "Strangle the spies and throw them out of
the window." In Lingg we see a truly ungovernable epileptold idea driving him to
political action. "I cannot control myself; " he said, "it is stronger than 1."
I repeat that among the anarchists there are no true criminals; even Schaack,
the police historian, can name but two criminals, and certainly he would not
have spared them if he could have stigmatized them.
Their heroic-like deaths, with their ideal on their lips, proves that they were not
common criminals. Nevertheless the psychology of the leaders of the Commune
shows in them a true moral insensibility, an innate cruelty, which found a
pretext and a scope politics and which accords too well with their criminal
physiognomies. Marat demands two hundred and ten thousand heads
Valles speaks of his family with a true hatred; Carrier wrote " We will make a
cemetery of France" Ferre smiled while by his orders they killed Veisset; and
Rigault said in slang to his pistol, "Il faut peter sur le chipau." The last words
of Spies before the court express a ferocious hatred towards the rich; and the
project of the anarchists of Chicago (if it is true) to blow up a part of the city
with bombs attests an absence of the moral sense. We know that many
anarchists regard brigands and thieves, such as Pini, Kammerer, and
Gasparoni, as their brothers in arms. Booth had for accomplice Payne, a true
murderer by profession. See also the journal published at Geneva
L'Explosion, and the Como journal Le Poignard.
But it is necessary to note that hereditary anomaly, if it provokes an anomaly in
the moral sense, also suppresses misoneism, the horror of novelty which is
almost the general rule of humanity; it thus makes of them innovators, apostles
of progress, though the education is too rude: and the fight with relative misery
of which all the anarchists of Chicago except Neebe have been the victims, not
affording material for useful novelties made of them only failures and rebels,
hindering them from comprehending that humanity as a part of nature, which it
is, cannot progress at a gallop, noin faltus saltus. Spies on his last day
discovered that humanity is misoneic, the slave of custom, and said, quoting the
lines in German, "I now understand the poet's words,
Den aus Gemeinem ist der Mensch gemacht
Und die Gewohneit nennt er seine Amme' "
[Man has been shaped of what is common,
And habit is the nurse by whom he's reared.]
Evidently if he had understood it before he would not have been an anarchist.
Whoever has observed in asylums the conduct of lunatics, will understand that
one of their characteristics is originality, just as in men of genius; only the
originality of the insane and of moral lunatics, or of born criminals, is very often
absurd or unavailable.
This is why 1, although I am an extremist in my partisanship for the death-
penalty, cannot approve the shooting of the Communards and the hanging of
the anarchist martyrs of Chicago. I deem it highly necessary to suppress born
criminals, when they reach the persuasion that being born for evil they can do
nothing but evil; and I believe that their death thus saves the lives of many
honest men. But we have to do with a very different thing here, where the
criminal type is, as shown above, less frequent than among born criminals.
It is also necessary to consider here the youthful condition of almost all these
persons-Lingg 23 years, Schwab 33 years, Neebe 32 years. For at this age men
are at the maximum point of their audacity and misoneism; and I remember a
leading Russian Nihilist saying to me that there was not an honest man
in Russia who was not a nihilist at 20 years of age and ultra-moderate at 4o
years. 
If the inclination to evil here exists in greater proportion than in law-
abiding men, it nevertheless takes an altruistic turn, which is quite the contrary
to that which is observed among born criminals, and which commands our
admiration and arouses our just pity. This inclination, in associating itself with
the want of the new, which is also abnormal in humanity, could, if it were
properly directed and were not crossed by misery, prove itself of great value to
humanity; it could trace for it new routes, and in every case be practically useful
to it. A born criminal imprisoned for life will kill some gaoler, in a colony will
ally himself with the savages, and will never work; while political criminals in a
colony will become more useful pioneers even than law-abiding men. An
example is seen in Louise Michel, who in New Caledonia was the most charitable
of the sick nurses.
And then there is no political crime against which the punishment of death can
be directed. An idea is never stifled with the death of its abettors: it gains with
the death of the martyrs if it is good, as is the case in revolutions; and it falls at
once into vacuity if it is sterile, as is the case, perhaps, with the anarchists. And
then, as judgment cannot be formed of a great man during his life, so a
generation cannot in its ephemeral life judge with certainty of the Justice of an
idea, and for that reason it is not proper to inflict so radical a punishment on its
abettors.
CESARE LOMBROSO.
