Fun_People Archive
22 Jan
Historical Continuity

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 96 13:28:55 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Historical Continuity

From: Dan Tenenbaum <dante@halcyon.com>

This interesting item comes by way of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper
of the IWW:

"....[u]nder the headline "Might Better Handgun Education Have Prevented
This?" _The Match_ reports on the continuing fall-out from Alexander
Berkman's unsuccessful efforts back in 1892 to shoot brutal industrial
tycoon Henry Clay Frick. Frick had hired Pinkerton gunmen to enforce his
company's rule over those who worked for a living, and Berkman decided to
assassinate Frick to show that the oppressed could fight back.
Unfortunately, Berkman proved a bad shot, Frick survived, and Berkman served
22 years in prison [I seem to recall that Berkman served 11 years on a 14
year beef for attempted murder; he later served more time on other charges,
but no matter-DRT].

	Frick's legacy lives on in his grandson, Arizona governor J. Fyfe
Symington, now engaged in a war against Arizona's poor and working-class
population. 'This snotty, rich bully also...happened to save the life of a
college acquiantance--Bill Clinton'--in 1967. Clinton got into trouble while
swimming off Cape Cod, and was rescued by J. Fyfe. Symington keeps a picture
of Frick on the wall of his office, no doubt to inspire his mean-spirited
attacks against today's working class. Had Berkman been a better shot, we'd
have two less [sic] politicians on our backs (or at least two different
ones). Who can say that would have been a tragedy?"

© 1996 Peter Langston