That such modest reforms, some of which were already in place and others of which would be enacted either in the United States or elsewhere, inspired such horror was revealing. Harrison wrote of the Nationals, “If their undertaking could succeed, we should have wealth without labor, and a system of morals without self-restraint; and instead of the orderly empire of law we should have ‘mob-voiced lawlessness,’ anarchy uttered or ordained by the people.” Howells thought the opinions of the Nationals “astonishing, disheartening and alarming.
