The New International Encyclopædia/Most, Johann Joseph

MOST, Johann Joseph (1846—) . A German-American anarchist, born at Augsburg in Bavaria. He learned the trade of bookbinding, and in 1863-68 traveled as an apprentice through Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. On his return to Germany he was first a socialist writer at Mainz and afterwards editor of the Freie Presse in Berlin. He was several times arrested and imprisoned because of the violence of his writings. From 1874 to 1878 he was a representative of Chemnitz in the Imperial Reichstag, but in the latter year, having been expelled from the socialist organization, he went to London, where in 1879 he founded the anarchist organ Die Freiheit. In 1881 he was there arrested for printing editorials approving the assassination of Czar Alexander II. and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Upon his release he emigrated to New York, where he resumed the publication of his paper. In 1886, and again in 1887, he was imprisoned for inciting to violence. During the following years he continued to publish his paper, lectured, and wrote frequently in the interests of anarchy. After President McKinley's assassination, in 1901, he was arrested for publishing a seditious editorial in Die Freiheit, and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. He was sent to the New York penitentiary in June, 1902. Among Most's publications are: Der Kleinbürger und die Socialdemokratie (1876); Die Lösung der socialen Frage (1876); Mosts Proletarier-Liederbuch (1875); Why I Am a Communist (1890); and Down with the Anarchists! (1901), a pamphlet published in order to prove that the aims of anarchy are pacific.