With pencil and scraps of paper concealed behind the persons of friends
who had come to say good-bye at the Ellis Island Deportation Station,
Alexander Berkman hastily scribbled the last lines of this pamphlet.
I think it is the best introduction to this pamphlet to say that before
its writing was finished the rulers of America began deporting men
directly and obviously for the offense of _striking against the
industrial owners of America_.
The “Red Ark” is gone. In the darkness of early morning it slipped away,
leaving behind many wives and children destitute of support. They were
denied even the knowledge of the sailing of the ship, denied the right
of farewell to the husbands and fathers they may never see again. After
the boat was gone, women and children came to the dock to visit the
prisoners, bringing such little comforts as are known to the working
class, seedy overcoats for the Russian winter, cheap gloves and odds and
ends of food. They were told that the ship was gone. The refined cruelty
of the thing was too much for them; they stormed the ferry-house, broke
a window, screamed and cried, and were driven away by soldiers.
The “Red Ark” will loom big in American history. It is the first
picturesque incident of the beginning effort of the War Millionaires to
crush the soul of America and insure the safety of the dollars they have
looted over the graves of Europe and through the deaths of the quarter
million soldier boys whom American mothers now mourn.
Yes, the “Red Ark” will go into history. Alexander Berkman and Emma
Goldman whom the screaming harlots of the yellow press have chosen to
call the “leaders” of those whose distinction is that they have no
leaders, are more fortunate than otherwise. Berkman and Goldman have
been deported as “Russians.” They were born in Russia, but they did
their thirty years’ work of enlightenment in this, our America. I think
they are therefore Americans, in the best sense, and the best of
Americans. They fought for the elementary rights of men, here in our
country when others of us were afraid to speak, or would not pay the
price. In all the leading cities of this land, they have contributed to
the intellectual life of the younger, aspiring generation. I venture to
say that there is hardly a liberal in the United States whose life has
not been influenced directly or indirectly and made better, by Alexander
Berkman and Emma Goldman.
Alexander Berkman spent in American prisons more years than I like to
remember. He did it deliberately. He did it for the welfare of men, and
the American portion of mankind. He never hesitated to offer his life
for his brother. I recall a picture; it is in Russia. We were gathered
in Moscow. It looked as though the Revolution were going to its death.
Everywhere the Soviet armies were retreating, the masses were sinking
into despair, the German working class was not rising in rebellion as we
had hoped, the Austrians likewise; the White Terror was raising its head
throughout Russia. A pallid girl, a Russian-American immigrant returned
to her native country, held in her hand the bulletin of the day’s news.
“A hundred Alexander Berkmans distributed throughout Europe at this
time, and the history of Europe would be different!” she exclaimed.
Berkman wrote a book, “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist,” which is one of
America’s vital literary products. It won for him the admiration of such
intellectuals here as had the courage to admire.
The “intellectuals” for the most part did not bid Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman good-bye. Most of those who dared to visit the
passengers of the “Red Ark” in their Ellis Island prison were young men
and women of the working class. That is as it should be. It is in the
working class where Goldman and Berkman’s brave work will find the
growth that will count. American plutocracy knew this. That is why
American plutocracy deported Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman.
This pamphlet is the “good-bye message” of Alexander Berkman and Emma
Goldman; and I think it is in spirit the message of all the passengers
of the “Red Ark.” As such it appears first in this form and will appear
later in history. Read it and keep it for the future.