The Bomb

The Bomb by Frank Harris First edition: London: Longmans, 1908.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
* Foreword, 1909
* Afterword, 1920
* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
* Chapter X
* Chapter XI
* Chapter XII
* Chapter XIII
* Chapter XIV

Foreword
To The First American Edition (1909)
by Frank Harris

I have been asked to write a foreword to the American edition of The
Bomb and the publisher tells me that what the American public will
most want to know is how much of the story is true.
All through 1885 and 1886 I took a lively interest in the labour disputes
in Chicago. The reports that reached us in London from American
newspapers were all bitterly one-sided: they read as if some enraged
capitalist had dictated them: but after the bomb was thrown and the
labour leaders were brought to trial little islets of facts began to emerge
from the sea of lies.
I made up my mind that if I ever got the opportunity I would look into
the matter and see whether the Socialists who had been sent to death
deserved the punishment meted out to them amid the jubilation of the
capitalistic press.
In 1907 I paid a visit to America and spent some time in Chicago
visiting the various scenes and studying the contemporary newspaper
accounts of the tragedy. I came to the conclusion that six out of seven
men punished in Chicago were as innocent as I was, and that four of
them had been murdered--according to law.
I felt so strongly on the subject that when I sketched out The Bomb I
determined not to alter a single incident but to take all the facts just as
they occurred. The book then, in the most important particulars, is a
history, and is true, as history should be true, to life, when there are no
facts to go upon.
The success of the book in England has been due partly perhaps to the
book itself; but also in part to the fact that it enabled Englishmen to
gloat over a fancied superiority to Americans in the administration of

justice. The prejudice shown in Chicago, the gross unfairness of the
trial, the savagery of the sentences allowed Englishmen to believe that
such judicial murders were only possible in America. I am not of that
opinion. At the risk of disturbing the comfortable self-esteem of my
compatriots I must say that I believe the administration of justice in the
United States is at least as fair and certainly more humane than it is in
England. The Socialists in Trafalgar Square, when John Burns and
Cunninghame Graham were maltreated, were even worse handled in
proportion to their resistance than their fellows in Chicago.
I am afraid the moral of the story is a little too obvious: it may,
however, serve to remind the American people how valuable are some
of the foreign elements which go to make up their complex civilization.
It may also incidentally remind the reader of the value of sympathy
with ideas which he perhaps dislikes.
Frank Harris
LONDON
January 1909

Afterword
to the Second American Edition (1920)
by Frank Harris
FLAUBERT exclaimed once that no one had understood, much less
appreciated, his Madame Bovary. "I ought to have criticized it myself,"
he added; "then I'd have shown the fool-critics how to read a story and
analyze it and weigh the merits of it. I could have done this better than
anyone and very impartially; for I can see its faults, faults that make me
miserable."
In just this spirit and with the self-same conviction I want to say a word
or two about The Bomb. I have stuck to the facts of the story in the

main as closely as possible; but the character of Schnaubelt and his
love story with Elsie are purely imaginary. I was justified in inventing
these, I believe, because almost nothing was known of Schnaubelt and
as the illiterate mob continually confuse Socialism and free love, it
seemed to me well to demonstrate that love between social outcasts and
rebels would naturally be intenser and more idealistic than among
ordinary men and women. The pressure from the outside must crush the
pariahs together in a closer embrace and intensify passion to
self-sacrifice.
My chief difficulty was the choice of a protagonist; Parsons was almost
an ideal figure; he gave himself up to the police though he was entirely
innocent and out of their clutches and when offered a pardon in prison
he refused it, rising to the height of human self-abnegation by declaring
that if he, the only American, accepted a pardon he would thus be
dooming the