Anarchism and Other Essays
importance to her future development was her acquaintance with John
Most, who exerted a tremendous influence over the younger elements.
His impassioned eloquence, untiring energy, and the persecution he
had endured for the Cause, all combined to enthuse the comrades. It
was also at this period that she met Alexander Berkman, whose
friendship played an important part throughout her life. Her talents
as a speaker could not long remain in obscurity. The fire of
enthusiasm swept her toward the public platform. Encouraged by her
friends, she began to participate as a German and Yiddish speaker at
Anarchist meetings. Soon followed a brief tour of agitation taking
her as far as Cleveland. With the whole strength and earnestness of
her soul she now threw herself into the propaganda of Anarchist
ideas. The passionate period of her life had begun. Through
constantly toiling in sweat shops, the fiery young orator was at the
same time very active as an agitator and participated in various
labor struggles, notably in the great cloakmakers' strike, in 1889,
led by Professor Garsyde and Joseph Barondess.
A year later Emma Goldman was a delegate to an Anarchist conference
in New York. She was elected to the Executive Committee, but later
withdrew because of differences of opinion regarding tactical
matters. The ideas of the German-speaking Anarchists had at that
time not yet become clarified. Some still believed in parliamentary
methods, the great majority being adherents of strong centralism.
These differences of opinion in regard to tactics led in 1891 to a
breach with John Most. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and other
comrades joined the group AUTONOMY, in which Joseph Peukert, Otto
Rinke, and Claus Timmermann played an active part. The bitter
controversies which followed this secession terminated only with the
death of Most, in 1906.
A great source of inspiration to Emma Goldman proved the Russian
revolutionists who were associated in the group ZNAMYA. Goldenberg,
Solotaroff, Zametkin, Miller, Cahan, the poet Edelstadt, Ivan von
Schewitsch, husband of Helene von Racowitza and editor of the
VOLKSZEITUNG, and numerous other Russian exiles, some of whom are
still living, were members of this group. It was also at this time
that Emma Goldman met Robert Reitzel, the German-American Heine, who
exerted a great influence on her development. Through him she became
acquainted with the best writers of modern literature, and the
friendship thus begun lasted till Reitzel's death, in 1898.
The labor movement of America had not been drowned in the Chicago
massacre; the murder of the Anarchists had failed to bring peace to
the profit-greedy capitalist. The struggle for the eight-hour day
continued. In 1892 broke out the great strike in Pittsburg. The
Homestead fight, the defeat of the Pinkertons, the appearance of the
militia, the suppression of the strikers, and the complete triumph of
the reaction are matters of comparatively recent history. Stirred to
the very depths by the terrible events at the seat of war, Alexander
Berkman resolved to sacrifice his life to the Cause and thus give an
object lesson to the wage slaves of America of active Anarchist
solidarity with labor. His attack upon Frick, the Gessler of
Pittsburg, failed, and the twenty-two-year-old youth was doomed to a
living death of twenty-two years in the penitentiary. The
bourgeoisie, which for decades had exalted and eulogized tyrannicide,
now was filled with terrible rage. The capitalist press organized a
systematic campaign of calumny and misrepresentation against
Anarchists. The police exerted every effort to involve Emma Goldman
in the act of Alexander Berkman. The feared agitator was to be
silenced by all means. It was only due to the circumstance of her
presence in New York that she escaped the clutches of the law. It
was a similar circumstance which, nine years later, during the
McKinley incident, was instrumental in preserving her liberty. It is
almost incredible with what amount of stupidity, baseness, and
vileness the journalists of the period sought to overwhelm the
Anarchist. One must peruse the newspaper files to realize the
enormity of incrimination and slander. It would be difficult to
portray the agony of soul Emma Goldman experienced in those days.
The persecutions of the capitalist press were to be borne by an
Anarchist with comparative equanimity; but the attacks from one's own
ranks were far more painful and unbearable. The act of Berkman was
severely criticized by Most and some of his followers among the
German and Jewish Anarchists. Bitter accusations and recriminations
at public meetings and private gatherings followed. Persecuted on
all sides, both because she championed Berkman and his act, and on
account of her revolutionary activity, Emma Goldman was harassed even
to the extent of inability to secure shelter. Too proud to seek
safety in the denial of her identity, she chose to pass the nights in
the public parks rather than expose her friends to danger or vexation
by her visits. The already bitter cup was filled to overflowing by
the attempted suicide of a young comrade who had shared living
quarters with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and a mutual artist
friend.
Many changes have since taken place. Alexander Berkman has survived
the Pennsylvania Inferno, and is back again in the ranks of the
militant Anarchists, his spirit unbroken, his soul full of enthusiasm
for the ideals of his youth. The artist comrade is now among the
well-known illustrators of New York. The suicide candidate left
America shortly after his unfortunate attempt to die, and was
subsequently arrested and condemned to eight years of hard labor for
smuggling Anarchist literature into Germany. He, too, has withstood
the terrors of prison life, and has returned to the revolutionary
movement, since earning the well deserved reputation of a talented
writer in Germany.
To avoid indefinite camping in the parks Emma Goldman finally was
forced to move into a house on Third Street, occupied exclusively by
prostitutes. There, among the outcasts of our good Christian
society, she could at least rent a bit of a room, and find rest and
work at her sewing machine. The women of the street showed more
refinement of feeling and sincere sympathy than the priests of the
Church. But human endurance had been exhausted by overmuch suffering
and privation. There was a complete physical breakdown, and the
renowned agitator was removed to the "Bohemian Republic"--a large
tenement house which derived its euphonious appellation from the fact
that its occupants were mostly Bohemian Anarchists. Here Emma
Goldman found friends ready to aid her. Justus Schwab, one of the
finest representatives of the German revolutionary period of that
time, and Dr. Solotaroff were indefatigable in the care of the
patient. Here, too, she met Edward Brady, the new friendship
subsequently ripening into close intimacy. Brady had been an active
participant in the revolutionary movement of Austria and had, at the
time of his acquaintance with Emma Goldman, lately been released from
an Austrian prison after an incarceration of ten years.
Physicians diagnosed the illness as consumption, and the patient was
advised to leave New York. She went to Rochester, in the hope that
the home circle would help restore her to health. Her parents had
several years previously emigrated to America, settling in that city.
Among the leading traits of the Jewish race is the strong attachment
between the members of the family, and, especially, between parents
and children. Though her conservative parents could not sympathize
with the idealist aspirations of Emma Goldman and did not approve of
her mode of life, they now received their sick daughter with open
arms. The rest and care enjoyed in the parental home, and the
cheering presence of the beloved sister Helene, proved so beneficial
that within a short time she was sufficiently restored to resume her
energetic activity.
There is no rest in the life of Emma Goldman. Ceaseless effort and
continuous striving toward the conceived goal are the essentials of
her nature. Too much precious time had already been wasted. It was
imperative to resume her labors immediately. The country was in the
throes of a crisis, and thousands of unemployed crowded the streets
of the large industrial centers. Cold and hungry they tramped
through the land in the vain search for work and bread. The
Anarchists developed a strenuous propaganda among the unemployed and
the strikers. A monster demonstration of striking cloakmakers and of
the unemployed took place at Union Square, New York. Emma Goldman
was one of the invited speakers. She delivered an impassioned
speech, picturing in fiery words the misery of the wage slave's life,
and quoted the famous maxim of Cardinal Manning: "Necessity knows no
law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his
neighbor's bread." She concluded her exhortation with the words:
"Ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they
do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
The following day she left for Philadelphia, where she was to address
a public meeting. The capitalist press again raised the alarm. If
Socialists and Anarchists were to be permitted to continue agitating,
there was imminent danger that the workingmen would soon learn to
understand the manner in which they are robbed of the joy and
happiness of life. Such a possibility was to be prevented at all
cost. The Chief of Police of New York, Byrnes, procured a court
order for the arrest of Emma Goldman. She was detained by the
Philadelphia authorities and incarcerated for several days in the
Moyamensing prison, awaiting the extradition papers which Byrnes
intrusted to Detective Jacobs. This man Jacobs (whom Emma Goldman
again met several years later under very unpleasant circumstances)
proposed to her, while she was returning a prisoner to New York, to
betray the cause of labor. In the name of his superior, Chief
Byrnes, he offered lucrative reward. How stupid men sometimes are!
What poverty of psychologic observation to imagine the possibility of
betrayal on the part of a young Russian idealist, who had willingly
sacrificed all personal considerations to help in labor's
emancipation.
In October, 1893, Emma Goldman was tried in the criminal courts of
New York on the charge of inciting to riot. The "intelligent" jury
ignored the testimony of the twelve witnesses for the defense in
favor of the evidence given by one single man--Detective Jacobs. She
was found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in the penitentiary
at Blackwell's Island. Since the foundation of the Republic she was
the first woman--Mrs. Surratt excepted--to be imprisoned for a
political offense. Respectable society had long before stamped upon
her the Scarlet Letter.
Emma Goldman passed her time in the penitentiary in the capacity of
nurse in the prison hospital. Here she found opportunity to shed
some rays of kindness into the dark lives of the unfortunates whose
sisters of the street did not disdain two years previously to share
with her the same house. She also found in prison opportunity to
study English and its literature, and to familiarize herself with the
great American writers. In Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman,
Thoreau, and Emerson she found great treasures.
She left Blackwell's Island in the month of August, 1894, a woman of
twenty-five, developed and matured, and intellectually transformed.
Back into the arena, richer in experience, purified by suffering.
She did not feel herself deserted and alone any more. Many hands
were stretched out to welcome her. There were at the time numerous