Anarchism: What It Really Stands For
Minorities Versus Majorities
The Psychology of Political Violence
Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure
Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty
Francisco Ferrer and The Modern School
The Hypocrisy of Puritanism
The Traffic in Women
Woman Suffrage
The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation
Marriage and Love
The Drama: A Powerful Disseminator of Radical Thought
EMMA GOLDMAN
Propagandism is not, as some suppose, a "trade," because nobody will follow a "trade" at which you may work with the industry of a
slave and die with the reputation of a mendicant. The motives of any persons to pursue such a profession must be different from those
of trade, deeper than pride, and stronger than interest.
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
Among the men and women prominent in the public life of America there are but few whose names are mentioned
as often as that of Emma Goldman. Yet the real Emma Goldman is almost quite unknown. The sensational press
has surrounded her name with so much misrepresentation and slander, it would seem almost a miracle that, in spite
of this web of calumny, the truth breaks through and a better appreciation of this much maligned idealist begins to
manifest itself. There is but little consolation in the fact that almost every representative of a new idea has had to
struggle and suffer under similar difficulties. Is it of any avail that a former president of a republic pays homage at
Osawatomie to the memory of John Brown? Or that the president of another republic participates in the unveiling
of a statue in honor of Pierre Proudhon, and holds up his life to the French nation as a model worthy of
enthusiastic emulation? Of what avail is all this when, at the same time, the LIVING John Browns and Proudhons
are being crucified? The honor and glory of a Mary Wollstonecraft or of a Louise Michel are not enhanced by the
City Fathers of London or Paris naming a street after them—the living generation should be concerned with doing
justice to the LIVING Mary Wollstonecrafts and Louise Michels. Posterity assigns to men like Wendel Phillips
and Lloyd Garrison the proper niche of honor in the temple of human emancipation; but it is the duty of their
contemporaries to bring them due recognition and appreciation while they live.
The path of the propagandist of social justice is strewn with thorns. The powers of darkness and injustice exert all
their might lest a ray of sunshine enter his cheerless life. Nay, even his comrades in the struggle—indeed, too
often his most intimate friends—show but little understanding for the personality of the pioneer. Envy, sometimes
growing to hatred, vanity and jealousy, obstruct his way and fill his heart with sadness. It requires an inflexible
will and tremendous enthusiasm not to lose, under such conditions, all faith in the Cause. The representative of a
revolutionizing idea stands between two fires: on the one hand, the persecution of the existing powers which hold
him responsible for all acts resulting from social conditions; and, on the other, the lack of understanding on the
part of his own followers who often judge all his activity from a narrow standpoint. Thus it happens that the
agitator stands quite alone in the midst of the multitude surrounding him. Even his most intimate friends rarely
understand how solitary and deserted he feels. That is the tragedy of the person prominent in the public eye.
The mist in which the name of Emma Goldman has so long been enveloped is gradually beginning to dissipate.
Her energy in the furtherance of such an unpopular idea as Anarchism, her deep earnestness, her courage and
abilities, find growing understanding and admiration.
The debt American intellectual growth owes to the revolutionary exiles has never been fully appreciated. The seed
disseminated by them, though so little understood at the time, has brought a rich harvest. They have at all times
held aloft the banner of liberty, thus impregnating the social vitality of the Nation. But very few have succeeding in
preserving their European education and culture while at the same time assimilating themselves with American life.
It is difficult for the average man to form an adequate conception what strength, energy, and perseverance are
necessary to absorb the unfamiliar language, habits, and customs of a new country, without the loss of one's own
personality.
Emma Goldman is one of the few who, while thoroughly preserving their individuality, have become an important
factor in the social and intellectual atmosphere of America. The life she leads is rich in color, full of change and
variety. She has risen to the topmost heights, and she has also tasted the bitter dregs of life.
Emma Goldman was born of Jewish parentage on the 27th day of June, 1869, in the Russian province of Kovno.
Surely these parents never dreamed what unique position their child would some day occupy. Like all conservative
parents they, too, were quite convinced that their daughter would marry a respectable citizen, bear him children,
and round out her allotted years surrounded by a flock of grandchildren, a good, religious woman. As most
parents, they had no inkling what a strange, impassioned spirit would take hold of the soul of their child, and carry
it to the heights which separate generations in eternal struggle. They lived in a land and at a time when antagonism
between parent and offspring was fated to find its most acute expression, irreconcilable hostility. In this
tremendous struggle between fathers and sons—and especially between parents and daughters—there was no
compromise, no weak yielding, no truce. The spirit of liberty, of progress—an idealism which knew no
considerations and recognized no obstacles—drove the young generation out of the parental house and away from
the hearth of the home. Just as this same spirit once drove out the revolutionary breeder of discontent, Jesus, and
alienated him from his native traditions.
What role the Jewish race—notwithstanding all anti-semitic calumnies the race of transcendental idealism—played
in the struggle of the Old and the New will probably never be appreciated with complete impartiality and clarity.
Only now are we beginning to perceive the tremendous debt we owe to Jewish idealists in the realm of science,
art, and literature. But very little is still known of the important part the sons and daughters of Israel have played in
the revolutionary movement and, especially, in that of modern times.
The first years of her childhood Emma Goldman passed in a small, idyllic place in the German-Russian province
of Kurland, where her father had charge of the government stage. At the time Kurland was thoroughly German;
even the Russian bureaucracy of that Baltic province was recruited mostly from German JUNKERS. German
fairy tales and stories, rich in the miraculous deeds of the heroic knights of Kurland, wove their spell over the
youthful mind. But the beautiful idyl was of short duration. Soon the soul of the growing child was overcast by
the dark shadows of life. Already in her tenderest youth the seeds of rebellion and unrelenting hatred of
oppression were to be planted in the heart of Emma Goldman. Early she learned to know the beauty of the State:
she saw her father harassed by the Christian CHINOVNIKS and doubly persecuted as petty official and hated
Jew. The brutality of forced conscription ever stood before her eyes: she beheld the young men, often the sole
supporter of a large family, brutally dragged to the barracks to lead the miserable life of a soldier. She heard the
weeping of the poor peasant women, and witnessed the shameful scenes of official venality which relieved the rich
from military service at the expense of the poor. She was outraged by the terrible treatment to which the female
servants were subjected: maltreated and exploited by their BARINYAS, they fell to the tender mercies of the
regimental officers, who regarded them as their natural sexual prey. The girls, made pregnant by respectable
gentlemen and driven out by their mistresses, often found refuge in the Goldman home. And the little girl, her
heart palpitating with sympathy, would abstract coins from the parental drawer to clandestinely press the money
into the hands of the unfortunate women. Thus Emma Goldman's most striking characteristic, her sympathy with
the underdog, already became manifest in these early years.
At the age of seven little Emma was sent by her parents to her grandmother at Konigsberg, the city of Emanuel
Kant, in Eastern Prussia. Save for occasional interruptions, she remained there till her 13th birthday. The first
years in these surroundings do not exactly belong to her happiest recollections. The grandmother, indeed, was
very amiable, but the numerous aunts of the household were concerned more with the spirit of practical rather than
pure reason, and the categoric imperative was applied all too frequently. The situation was changed when her
parents migrated to Konigsberg, and little Emma was relieved from her role of Cinderella. She now regularly
attended public school and also enjoyed the advantages of private instruction, customary in middle class life;
French and music lessons played an important part in the curriculum. The future interpreter of Ibsen and Shaw
was then a little German Gretchen, quite at home in the German atmosphere. Her special predilections in literature
were the sentimental romances of Marlitt; she was a great admirer of the good Queen Louise, whom the bad
Napoleon Buonaparte treated with so marked a lack of knightly chivalry. What might have been her future
development had she remained in this milieu? Fate—or was it economic necessity?—willed it otherwise. Her
parents decided to settle in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Almighty Tsar, and there to embark in business. It was
here that a great change took place in the life of the young dreamer.
It was an eventful period—the year of 1882—in which Emma Goldman, then in her 13th year, arrived in St.
Petersburg. A struggle for life and death between the autocracy and the Russian intellectuals swept the country.
Alexander II had fallen the previous year. Sophia Perovskaia, Zheliabov, Grinevitzky, Rissakov, Kibalchitch,
Michailov, the heroic executors of the death sentence upon the tyrant, had then entered the Walhalla of immortality.
Jessie Helfman, the only regicide whose life the government had reluctantly spared because of pregnancy,
followed the unnumbered Russian martyrs to the etapes of Siberia. It was the most heroic period in the great battle
of emancipation, a battle for freedom such as the world had never witnessed before. The names of the Nihilist
martyrs were on all lips, and thousands were enthusiastic to follow their example. The whole INTELLIGENZIA
of Russia was filled with the ILLEGAL spirit: revolutionary sentiments penetrated into every home, from mansion
to hovel, impregnating the military, the CHINOVNIKS, factory workers, and peasants. The atmosphere pierced
the very casemates of the royal palace. New ideas germinated in the youth. The difference of sex was forgotten.
Shoulder to shoulder fought the men and the women. The Russian woman! Who shall ever do justice or
adequately portray her heroism and self-sacrifice, her loyalty and devotion? Holy, Turgeniev calls her in his great
prose poem, ON THE THRESHOLD.
It was inevitable that the young dreamer from Konigsberg should be drawn into the maelstrom. To remain outside
of the circle of free ideas meant a life of vegetation, of death. One need not wonder at the youthful age. Young
enthusiasts were not then—and, fortunately, are not now—a rare phenomenon in Russia. The study of the Russian
language soon brought young Emma Goldman in touch with revolutionary students and new ideas. The place of
Marlitt was taken by Nekrassov and Tchernishevsky. The quondam admirer of the good Queen Louise became a
glowing enthusiast of liberty, resolving, like thousands of others, to devote her life to the emancipation of the
people.
The struggle of generations now took place in the Goldman family. The parents could not comprehend what
interest their daughter could find in the new ideas, which they themselves considered fantastic utopias. They strove
to persuade the young girl out of these chimeras, and daily repetition of soul-racking disputes was the result. Only
in one member of the family did the young idealist find understanding—in her elder sister, Helene, with whom she
later emigrated to America, and whose love and sympathy have never failed her. Even in the darkest hours of later
persecution Emma Goldman always found a haven of refuge in the home of this loyal sister.
Emma Goldman finally resolved to achieve her independence. She saw hundreds of men and women sacrificing
brilliant careers to go V NAROD, to the people. She followed their example. She became a factory worker; at first
employed as a corset maker, and later in the manufacture of gloves. She was now 17 years of age and proud to
earn her own living. Had she remained in Russia, she would have probably sooner or later shared the fate of
thousands buried in the snows of Siberia. But a new chapter of life was to begin for her. Sister Helene decided to
emigrate to America, where another sister had already made her home. Emma prevailed upon Helene to be allowed
to join her, and together they departed for America, filled with the joyous hope of a great, free land, the glorious
Republic.
America! What magic word. The yearning of the enslaved, the promised land of the oppressed, the goal of all
longing for progress. Here man's ideals had found their fulfillment: no Tsar, no Cossack, no CHINOVNIK. The
Republic! Glorious synonym of equality, freedom, brotherhood.
Thus thought the two girls as they travelled, in the year 1886, from New York to Rochester. Soon, all too soon,
disillusionment awaited them. The ideal conception of America was punctured already at Castle Garden, and soon
burst like a soap bubble. Here Emma Goldman witnessed sights which reminded her of the terrible scenes of her
childhood in Kurland. The brutality and humiliation the future citizens of the great Republic were subjected to on
board ship, were repeated at Castle Garden by the officials of the democracy in a more savage and aggravating
manner. And what bitter disappointment followed as the young idealist began to familiarize herself with the
conditions in the new land! Instead of one Tsar, she found scores of them; the Cossack was replaced by the
policeman with the heavy club, and instead of the Russian CHINOVNIK there was the far more inhuman slave-
driver of the factory.
Emma Goldman soon obtained work in the clothing establishment of the Garson Co. The wages amounted to two
and a half dollars a week. At that time the factories were not provided with motor power, and the poor sewing
girls had to drive the wheels by foot, from early morning till late at night. A terribly exhausting toil it was, without
a ray of light, the drudgery of the long day passed in complete silence—the Russian custom of friendly
conversation at work was not permissible in the free country. But the exploitation of the girls was not only
economic; the poor wage workers were looked upon by their foremen and bosses as sexual commodities. If a girl
resented the advances of her "superiors", she would speedily find herself on the street as an undesirable element in
the factory. There was never a lack of willing victims: the supply always exceeded the demand.
The horrible conditions were made still more unbearable by the fearful dreariness of life in the small American
city. The Puritan spirit suppresses the slightest manifestation of joy; a deadly dullness beclouds the soul; no
intellectual inspiration, no thought exchange between congenial spirits is possible. Emma Goldman almost
suffocated in this atmosphere. She, above all others, longed for ideal surroundings, for friendship and
understanding, for the companionship of kindred minds. Mentally she still lived in Russia. Unfamiliar with the
language and life of the country, she dwelt more in the past than in the present. It was at this period that she met a
young man who spoke Russian. With great joy the acquaintance was cultivated. At last a person with whom she
could converse, one who could help her bridge the dullness of the narrow existence. The friendship gradually
ripened and finally culminated in marriage.
Emma Goldman, too, had to walk the sorrowful road of married life; she, too, had to learn from bitter experience
that legal statutes signify dependence and self-effacement, especially for the woman. The marriage was no
liberation from the Puritan dreariness of American life; indeed, it was rather aggravated by the loss of self-
ownership. The characters of the young people differed too widely. A separation soon followed, and Emma
Goldman went to New Haven, Conn. There she found employment in a factory, and her husband disappeared
from her horizon. Two decades later she was fated to be unexpectedly reminded of him by the Federal authorities.
The revolutionists who were active in the Russian movement of the 80's were but little familiar with the social
ideas then agitating Western Europe and America. Their sole activity consisted in educating the people, their final
goal the destruction of the autocracy. Socialism and Anarchism were terms hardly known even by name. Emma
Goldman, too, was entirely unfamiliar with the significance of those ideals.
She arrived in America, as four years previously in Russia, at a period of great social and political unrest. The
working people were in revolt against the terrible labor conditions; the eight-hour movement of the Knights of
Labor was at its height, and throughout the country echoed the din of sanguine strife between strikers and police.
The struggle culminated in the great strike against the Harvester Company of Chicago, the massacre of the strikers,
and the judicial murder of the labor leaders, which followed upon the historic Haymarket bomb explosion. The
Anarchists stood the martyr test of blood baptism. The apologists of capitalism vainly seek to justify the killing of
Parsons, Spies, Lingg, Fischer, and Engel. Since the publication of Governor Altgeld's reason for his liberation of
the three incarcerated Haymarket Anarchists, no doubt is left that a fivefold legal murder had been committed in
Chicago, in 1887.
Very few have grasped the significance of the Chicago martyrdom; least of all the ruling classes. By the
destruction of a number of labor leaders they thought to stem the tide of a world-inspiring idea. They failed to
consider that from the blood of the martyrs grows the new seed, and that the frightful injustice will win new
converts to the Cause.
The two most prominent representatives of the Anarchist idea in America, Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma
Goldman—the one a native American, the other a Russian—have been converted, like numerous others, to the
ideas of Anarchism by the judicial murder. Two women who had not known each other before, and who had
received a widely different education, were through that murder united in one idea.
Like most working men and women of America, Emma Goldman followed the Chicago trial with great anxiety
and excitement. She, too, could not believe that the leaders of the proletariat would be killed. The 11th of
November, 1887, taught her differently. She realized that no mercy could be expected from the ruling class, that
between the Tsarism of Russia and the plutocracy of America there was no difference save in name. Her whole
being rebelled against the crime, and she vowed to herself a solemn vow to join the ranks of the revolutionary
proletariat and to devote all her energy and strength to their emancipation from wage slavery. With the glowing
enthusiasm so characteristic of her nature, she now began to familiarize herself with the literature of Socialism and
Anarchism. She attended public meetings and became acquainted with socialistically and anarchistically inclined
workingmen. Johanna Greie, the well-known German lecturer, was the first Socialist speaker heard by Emma
Goldman. In New Haven, Conn., where she was employed in a corset factory, she met Anarchists actively
participating in the movement. Here she read the FREIHEIT, edited by John Most. The Haymarket tragedy
developed her inherent Anarchist tendencies: the reading of the FREIHEIT made her a conscious Anarchist.
Subsequently she was to learn that the idea of Anarchism found its highest expression through the best intellects
of America: theoretically by Josiah Warren, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner; philosophically by
Emerson, Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.
Made ill by the excessive strain of factory work, Emma Goldman returned to Rochester where she remained till
August, 1889, at which time she removed to New York, the scene of the most important phase of her life. She
was now twenty years old. Features pallid with suffering, eyes large and full of compassion, greet one in her
pictured likeness of those days. Her hair is, as customary with Russian student girls, worn short, giving free play
to the strong forehead.
It is the heroic epoch of militant Anarchism. By leaps and bounds the movement had grown in every country. In
spite of the most severe governmental persecution new converts swell the ranks. The propaganda is almost
exclusively of a secret character. The repressive measures of the government drive the disciples of the new
philosophy to conspirative methods. Thousands of victims fall into the hands of the authorities and languish in
prisons. But nothing can stem the rising tide of enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice and devotion to the Cause. The efforts
of teachers like Peter Kropotkin, Louise Michel, Elisee Reclus, and others, inspire the devotees with ever greater
energy.
Disruption is imminent with the Socialists, who have sacrificed the idea of liberty and embraced the State and
politics. The struggle is bitter, the factions irreconcilable. This struggle is not merely between Anarchists and
Socialists; it also finds its echo within the Anarchist groups. Theoretic differences and personal controversies lead
to strife and acrimonious enmities. The anti-Socialist legislation of Germany and Austria had driven thousands of
Socialists and Anarchists across the seas to seek refuge in America. John Most, having lost his seat in the
Reichstag, finally had to flee his native land, and went to London. There, having advanced toward Anarchism, he
entirely withdrew from the Social Democratic Party. Later, coming to America, he continued the publication of the
FREIHEIT in New York, and developed great activity among the German workingmen.
When Emma Goldman arrived in New York in 1889, she experienced little difficulty in associating herself with
active Anarchists. Anarchist meetings were an almost daily occurrence. The first lecturer she heard on the
Anarchist platform was Dr. A. Solotaroff. Of great 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