When most people think about the consequences of Bob's decision, they think only about the negative things, about the facts that he was killed, and that a dozen good people were sent to prison. Some of our less radical brethren bemoan the fact that Bob, by using violence against the enemy, provoked repressive measures, which made their work more difficult. Bob succeeded in killing only one jew, they add, and that jew, an especially abrasive and obnoxious radio talk show host named Alan Berg who was machine gunned in Denver in 1984, would better have been left alive so that he could continue stirring up anti-jewish feeling among his listeners. Furthermore, the violence gave the patriotic movement a black eye, they complain, and it scared many potential supporters, who want nothing to do with violence and illegality.

"There is, of course, some truth in the complaints. Many timid people were scared away from the patriotic movement by Bob's activity and the enormous publicity it generated in the controlled media. Perhaps these people's financial support would have been helpful, perhaps it would have been better not to put the enemy on guard by attacking prematurely. There is, however, a value in what Bob did which goes far beyond such petty consequences. In every revolution, in every great movement for human renewal, symbols are every bit as important as guns, and money, and manpower.

"Bob gave us a very important symbol. In the day to day work of writing and publishing and advertising and recruiting and organizing, we tend to forget the reality of our situation, we tend to believe that we are in some sort of political or ideological contest, where you deal with your opponents the way Democrats and Republicans deal with each other. We go about our work in a civilized way, and lead more or less normal lives. At the extreme, we occasionally swap insults in public with our enemies. They call us "haters" and we call them "un-American," or "anti White," or "sick." The fact is, however, that we are engaged in a fight for racial survival. It is a fight in which either our race or the Jews will be exterminated utterly, and it is a fight that we are losing.

"We've been losing it for the past 50 years, in every daily newspaper, in every radio or television news broadcast, we're hit in the face with the fact that we're losing, our noses are rubbed in it every day. We read the statistics about the flood of non-Whites coming across our borders, both legally and illegally, and at the same time we listen to the controlled media and the churches uttering shrill accusations of racism against anyone who dares to suggest that we already have too much wretched human refuse on our shores, while our government wrings it's hands and claims that it is powerless to stem even the illegal portion of the flood. We see growing hordes of this refuse on the streets of our cities. We know what it is doing to our schools and to the lives of our children. We see a rising tide of degeneracy, of crime, of racial mixing, of drug usage year after year. We see ourselves being dispossessed in our land, with our enemies gloating over each new victory in their growing campaign to disarm us and to silence us while the dispossession continues.

"Bob Mathews saw all of these things too, and then he stood up and said, I'm not going to take this anymore, it's not enough for us to say that we believe in a White America, we also must fight for it. It's time for us to begin killing the people who are killing our race. That set a few faint hearts to fluttering among those nominally on our side, who stress their obedience to the laws our enemies have imposed on us. It should have made them feel ashamed of themselves instead, because Bob was essentially right. He did what was morally right. He may have been a bit premature, and he may have made many tactical errors. But he reminded us that we are not engaged in a debate between gentlemen. Instead, we are engaged in the most desperate war we have ever fought, a war for the survival of our race. And that ultimately we cannot win it except by killing our enemies, and we cannot kill our enemies without taking a chance on being killed ourselves.

"We needed that reminder. Bob elevated the level of our struggle, he took us from name calling to blood letting. He cleared the air for us. In the long run, that will be helpful. In the long run, that's what Bob will be remembered for."

Dr. William Pierce 1991