The Bomb (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... The Bomb CHAPTER I "Hold the high way and let thy spirit thee lead And Truth shal thee deliver, it is no drede." MY name is Rudolph Schnaubelt. I threw the bomb which killed eight policemen and wounded sixty in Chicago in 1886. Now I be here in Reichholz, Bavaria, dying of consumption under a false name, in peace at last. But it is not about myself I want to write: I am finished. I got chilled to the heart last winter, and grew steadily worse in those hateful, broad, white, Muenchener streets which are baked by the sun and swept by the icy air from the Alps. Nature or man will soon deal with my refuse as they please. But there is one thing I must do before I go out, one thing I have promised to do. I must tell the story of the man who spread terror through America, the greatest man that ever lived, I think; a born rebel, murderer and martyr. If I can give a fair portrait of Louis Lingg, the Chicago Anarchist, as I knew him, show the body and soul and mighty purpose of him, I shall have done more for men than when I threw the bomb. . . . How am I to tell the story? Is it possible to paint a great man of action in words; show his cool calculation of forces, his unerring judgment, and the tiger spring? The best thing I can do is to begin at the beginning, and tell the tale quite simply and sincerely. "Truth," Lingg said to me once, "is the skeleton, so to speak, of all great works of art." Besides, memory is in itself an artist. It all happened long ago, and in time one forgets the trivial and remembers the important. It should be easy enough for me to paint this one man's portrait. I don't mean that I am much of a writer; but I have read some of the great writers, and know how they picture a man, and any weakness of mine is more than made...