Hartmann, the Anarchist; Or, The Doom of the Great City

Some two years before the time of which I write I had returned to London, having completed a series of adventurous travels in Africa and South-West Asia. My foregoing career is easily briefed. Left an orphan of very tender years, I had grown up under the ægis of a bachelor uncle, one of those singularly good-hearted men who rescue humanity from the cynics. He had always treated me as his own son, had given me the advantages of a sterling education, and had finally crowned his benevolence by adopting me as his heir. An inveterate politician, he had early initiated me into the mysteries of his cult, and it is probably to his guidance that I owed much of my later enthusiasm for reform. As a youngster of twenty-three I could not, however, be expected to abandon myself to blue-books and statistics, and was indeed much more intent on amusement than anything else. Among my chief passions was that of travel, a pursuit which gratified both the acquired interests of culture and the natural lust of adventure. Of the raptures of the rambler I accordingly drank my fill, forwarding, in dutiful fashion, long accounts of my tours to my indulgent relative. Altogether I spent three or four years harvesting rich experience in this manner. I was preparing for a journey through Syria when I received a telegram from my uncle’s doctor urging me immediately to return. Being then at Alexandria I made all haste to comply with it, only, however, to discover the appeal too well grounded, and the goal of my journey a death-bed. I mourned for my uncle’s loss sincerely, and my natural regrets were sharpened when his will was read. With the exception of a few insignificant bequests, he had transferred his entire property to me.

The period of mourning over, I was free to indulge my whims to the utmost, and might well have been regarded as full of schemes for a life of wild adventure. Delay, however, had created novel interests; some papers I had published had been warmly welcomed by critics; and a new world—the literary and political—spread itself out seductively before me. Further, I had by this time seen “many cities and men,” and the hydra-headed problem of civilization began to appeal to me with commanding interest. The teachings also of my uncle had duly yielded their harvest, and ere long I threw myself into politics with the same zeal which had carried me through the African forests, and over the dreary burning sands of Araby. I became, first a radical of my uncle’s school, then a labour advocate and socialist, and lastly had aspired to the eminence of parliamentary candidate for Stepney. A word on the political situation.

Things had been looking very black in the closing years of the last century, but the pessimists of that epoch were the optimists of ours. London even in the old days was a bloated, unwieldy city, an abode of smoke and dreariness startled from time to time by the angry murmurs of labour. In 1920 this Colossus of cities held nigh six million souls, and the social problems of the past were intensified. The circle of competence was wider, but beyond it stretched a restless and dreaded democracy. Commerce had received a sharp check after the late Continental wars, and the depression was severely felt. That bad times were coming was the settled conviction of the middle classes, and to this belief was due the Coalition Government that held sway during the year in which my story opens. In many quarters a severe reaction had set in against Liberalism, and a stronger executive and repressive laws were urgently clamoured for. At the opposite extreme flew the red flag, and a social revolution was eagerly mooted.

I myself, though a socialist, was averse to barricades. “Not revolution, but evolution” was the watchword of my section. Dumont has said that “the only period when one can undertake great legislative reforms is that in which the public passions are calm and in which the Government enjoys the greatest stability.” Of the importance of this truth I was firmly convinced. What was socialism? The nationalization of land and capital, of the means of production and distribution, in the interests of a vast industrial army. And how were the details of this vast change to be grappled with amid the throes of revolution? How deliberate with streets slippery with blood, the vilest passions unchained, stores, factories, and workshops wrecked, and perhaps a starving populace to conciliate? What man or convention could beat out a workable constitution in the turmoil? What guarantee had we against a reaction and a military saviour? By all means, I argued, have a revolution if a revolution is both a necessary and safe prelude of reform. But was it really necessary or even safe?

Feeling ran high in this dispute. Many a time was I attacked for my “lukewarmness” of conviction by socialists, but never did I hear my objections fairly met. Though on good terms with the advanced party as a whole, I was opposed at Stepney by an extremist as well as by the sitting Conservative member. My chances of election were poor, but victorious or not I meant to battle vigorously for principle. To a certain extent my perseverance bore good fruit. During the last month I had been honoured with the representation of an important body at a forthcoming Paris Convention, and was in fact on the eve of starting on my journey. There was no immediate call for departure, but the prospect of a pleasant holiday in France proved overwhelmingly seductive. The Socialist Congress was fixed for October 20th, and I proposed to enjoy the interval in true sybaritic fashion. Perhaps my eagerness to start was not unconnected with a tenderer subject than either rambling or politics. Happily or unhappily, however, these dispositions were about to receive short shrift.