Rudolf Rocker describes him as six feet (1.8 metres) tall, red-haired with a bushy beard in his later years.

[1] While in Paris, he urged anarchists in France for an open-air meeting and distributed handbills.

In Place de la République in a Sunday, amidst a big crowd and policemen, he climbed up a lamp-post and gave a speech.

[3] Bell was a well known anarchist who had friendships with Emma Goldman,[4][5] Rudolf Rocker and Peter Kropotkin.

[7][8] Emma Goldman described Bell as "of whose propagandistic zeal and daring we had heard much in America".