Why I Am a Socialist-Annie Besant (1886)

A Socialist! you don't mean to say you are a Socialist!" Such is the exclamation with which anyone who adopts the much-hated name of Socialist is sure to be greeted in "polite society". A Socialist is supposed to go about with his pocket full of bombs and his mind full of assassinations; he is a kind of wild beast, to be hunted down with soldiers if he lives under Bismarck, with sneers, abuse, and petty persecutions if he lives under Victoria