was brought before the public with greater frequency and emphasis
than ever before, the malicious harassing of the much maligned
agitator arousing strong sympathy in many circles. Persons in
various walks of life began to get interested in her struggle and her
ideas. A better understanding and appreciation were now beginning to
manifest themselves.
The arrival in America of the English Anarchist, John Turner, induced
Emma Goldman to leave her retirement. Again she threw herself into
her public activities, organizing an energetic movement for the
defense of Turner, whom the Immigration authorities condemned to
deportation on account of the Anarchist exclusion law, passed after
the death of McKinley.
When Paul Orleneff and Mme. Nazimova arrived in New York to acquaint
the American public with Russian dramatic art, Emma Goldman became
the manager of the undertaking. By much patience and perseverance
she succeeded in raising the necessary funds to introduce the Russian
artists to the theater-goers of New York and Chicago. Though
financially not a success, the venture proved of great artistic
value. As manager of the Russian theater Emma Goldman enjoyed some
unique experiences. M. Orleneff could converse only in Russian, and
"Miss Smith" was forced to act as his interpreter at various polite
functions. Most of the aristocratic ladies of Fifth Avenue had not
the least inkling that the amiable manager who so entertainingly
discussed philosophy, drama, and literature at their five o'clock
teas, was the "notorious" Emma Goldman. If the latter should some
day write her autobiography, she will no doubt have many interesting
anecdotes to relate in connection with these experiences.
The weekly Anarchist publication, FREE SOCIETY, issued by the Isaak
family, was forced to suspend in consequence of the nation-wide fury
that swept the country after the death of McKinley. To fill out the
gap Emma Goldman, in co-operation with Max Baginski and other
comrades, decided to publish a monthly magazine devoted to the
furtherance of Anarchist ideas in life and literature. The first
issue of MOTHER EARTH appeared in the month of March, 1906, the
initial expenses of the periodical partly covered by the proceeds of
a theater benefit given by Orleneff, Mme. Nazimova, and their
company, in favor of the Anarchist magazine. Under tremendous
difficulties and obstacles the tireless propagandist has succeeded in
continuing MOTHER EARTH uninterruptedly since 1906--an achievement
rarely equalled in the annals of radical publications.
In May, 1906, Alexander Berkman at last left the hell of
Pennsylvania, where he had passed the best fourteen years of his
life. No one had believed in the possibility of his survival. His
liberation terminated a nightmare of fourteen years for Emma Goldman,
and an important chapter of her career was thus concluded.
Nowhere had the birth of the Russian revolution aroused such vital
and active response as among the Russians living in America. The
heroes of the revolutionary movement in Russia, Tchaikovsky, Mme.
Breshkovskaia, Gershuni, and others visited these shores to waken the
sympathies of the American people toward the struggle for liberty,
and to collect aid for its continuance and support. The success of
these efforts was to a considerable extent due to the exertions,
eloquence, and the talent for organization on the part of Emma
Goldman. This opportunity enabled her to give valuable services to
the struggle for liberty in her native land. It is not generally
known that it is the Anarchists who are mainly instrumental in
insuring the success, moral as well as financial, of most of the
radical undertakings. The Anarchist is indifferent to acknowledged
appreciation; the needs of the Cause absorb his whole interest, and
to these he devotes his energy and abilities. Yet it may be
mentioned that some otherwise decent folks, though at all times
anxious for Anarchist support and co-operation, are ever willing to
monopolize all the credit for the work done. During the last several
decades it was chiefly the Anarchists who had organized all the great
revolutionary efforts, and aided in every struggle for liberty. But
for fear of shocking the respectable mob, who looks upon the
Anarchists as the apostles of Satan, and because of their social
position in bourgeois society, the would-be radicals ignore the
activity of the Anarchists.
In 1907 Emma Goldman participated as delegate to the second Anarchist
Congress, at Amsterdam. She was intensely active in all its
proceedings and supported the organization of the Anarchist
INTERNATIONALE. Together with the other American delegate, Max
Baginski, she submitted to the congress an exhaustive report of
American conditions, closing with the following characteristic
remarks:
"The charge that Anarchism is destructive, rather than constructive,
and that, therefore, Anarchism is opposed to organization, is one of
the many falsehoods spread by our opponents. They confound our
present social institutions with organization; hence they fail to
understand how we can oppose the former, and yet favor the latter.
The fact, however, is that the two are not identical.
"The State is commonly regarded as the highest form of organization.
But is it in reality a true organization? Is it not rather an
arbitrary institution, cunningly imposed upon the masses?
"Industry, too, is called an organization; yet nothing is farther
from the truth. Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against
the poor.
"We are asked to believe that the Army is an organization, but a
close investigation will show that it is nothing else than a cruel
instrument of blind force.
"The Public School! The colleges and other institutions of learning,
are they not models of organization, offering the people fine
opportunities for instruction? Far from it. The school, more than
any other institution, is a veritable barrack, where the human mind
is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and
moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation
and oppression.
"Organization, as WE understand it, however, is a different thing.
It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary
grouping of energies to secure results beneficial to humanity.
"It is the harmony of organic growth which produces variety of color
and form, the complete whole we admire in the flower. Analogously
will the organized activity of free human beings, imbued with the
spirit of solidarity, result in the perfection of social harmony,
which we call Anarchism. In fact, Anarchism alone makes
non-authoritarian organization of common interests possible, since it
abolishes the existing antagonism between individuals and classes.
"Under present conditions the antagonism of economic and social
interests results in relentless war among the social units, and
creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a co-operative
commonwealth.
"There is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster
individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of
individuality. In reality, however, the true function of
organization is to aid the development and growth of personality.
"Just as the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their
latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the
individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his
highest form of development.
"An organization, in the true sense, cannot result from the
combination of mere nonentities. It must be composed of
self-conscious, intelligent individualities. Indeed, the total of
the possibilities and activities of an organization is represented in
the expression of individual energies.
"It therefore logically follows that the greater the number of
strong, self-conscious personalities in an organization, the less
danger of stagnation, and the more intense its life element.
"Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without
discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty:
a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle
for the means of existence,--the savage struggle which undermines the
finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short,
Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish
well-being for all.
"The germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades
unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and
discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on the
part of its members."
The very considerable progress of Anarchist ideas in America can best
be gauged by the remarkable success of the three extensive lecture
tours of Emma Goldman since the Amsterdam Congress of 1907. Each
tour extended over new territory, including localities where
Anarchism had never before received a hearing. But the most
gratifying aspect of her untiring efforts is the tremendous sale of
Anarchist literature, whose propagandist effect cannot be estimated.
It was during one of these tours that a remarkable incident happened,
strikingly demonstrating the inspiring potentialities of the
Anarchist idea. In San Francisco, in 1908, Emma Goldman's lecture
attracted a soldier of the United States Army, William Buwalda. For
daring to attend an Anarchist meeting, the free Republic
court-martialed Buwalda and imprisoned him for one year. Thanks to
the regenerating power of the new philosophy, the government lost a
soldier, but the cause of liberty gained a man.
A propagandist of Emma Goldman's importance is necessarily a sharp
thorn to the reaction. She is looked upon as a danger to the
continued existence of authoritarian usurpation. No wonder, then,
that the enemy resorts to any and all means to make her impossible.
A systematic attempt to suppress her activities was organized a year
ago by the united police force of the country. But like all previous
similar attempts, it failed in a most brilliant manner. Energetic
protests on the part of the intellectual element of America succeeded
in overthrowing the dastardly conspiracy against free speech.
Another attempt to make Emma Goldman impossible was essayed by the
Federal authorities at Washington. In order to deprive her of the
rights of citizenship, the government revoked the citizenship papers
of her husband, whom she had married at the youthful age of eighteen,
and whose whereabouts, if he be alive, could not be determined for
the last two decades. The great government of the glorious United
States did not hesitate to stoop to the most despicable methods to
accomplish that achievement. But as her citizenship had never proved
of use to Emma Goldman, she can bear the loss with a light heart.
There are personalities who possess such a powerful individuality
that by its very force they exert the most potent influence over the
best representatives of their time. Michael Bakunin was such a
personality. But for him, Richard Wagner had never written DIE KUNST
UND DIE REVOLUTION. Emma Goldman is a similar personality. She is a
strong factor in the socio-political life of America. By virtue of
her eloquence, energy, and brilliant mentality, she moulds the minds
and hearts of thousands of her auditors.
Deep sympathy and compassion for suffering humanity, and an
inexorable honesty toward herself, are the leading traits of Emma
Goldman. No person, whether friend or foe, shall presume to control
her goal or dictate her mode of life. She would perish rather than
sacrifice her convictions, or the right of self-ownership of soul and
body. Respectability could easily forgive the teaching of theoretic
Anarchism; but Emma Goldman does not merely preach the new
philosophy; she also persists in living it,--and that is the one
supreme, unforgivable crime. Were she, like so many radicals, to
consider her ideal as merely an intellectual ornament; were she to
make concessions to existing society and compromise with old
prejudices,--then even the most radical views could be pardoned in
her. But that she takes her radicalism seriously; that it has
permeated her blood and marrow to the extent where she not merely
teaches but also practices her convictions--this shocks even the
radical Mrs. Grundy. Emma Goldman lives her own life; she associates
with publicans--hence the indignation of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
It is no mere coincidence that such divergent writers as Pietro Gori
and William Marion Reedy find similar traits in their
characterization of Emma Goldman. In a contribution to LA QUESTIONE
SOCIALE, Pietro Gori calls her a "moral power, a woman who, with the
vision of a sibyl, prophesies the coming of a new kingdom for the
oppressed; a woman who, with logic and deep earnestness, analyses the
ills of society, and portrays, with artist touch, the coming dawn of
humanity, founded on equality, brotherhood, and liberty."
William Reedy sees in Emma Goldman the "daughter of the dream, her
gospel a vision which is the vision of every truly great-souled man
and woman who has ever lived."
Cowards who fear the consequences of their deeds have coined the word
of philosophic Anarchism. Emma Goldman is too sincere, too defiant,
to seek safety behind such paltry pleas. She is an Anarchist, pure
and simple. She represents the idea of Anarchism as framed by Josiah
Warrn, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy. Yet she also
understands the psychologic causes which induce a Caserio, a
Vaillant, a Bresci, a Berkman, or a Czolgosz to commit deeds of
violence. To the soldier in the social struggle it is a point of
honor to come in conflict with the powers of darkness and tyranny,
and Emma Goldman is proud to count among her best friends and
comrades men and women who bear the wounds and scars received in
battle.
In the words of Voltairine de Cleyre, characterizing Emma Goldman
after the latter's imprisonment in 1893: The spirit that animates
Emma Goldman is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his
slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny--the spirit which is willing to
dare and suffer.
HIPPOLYTE HAVEL.
New York, December, 1910.
PREFACE
Some twenty-one years ago I heard the first great Anarchist
speaker--the inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for
many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses
with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never
be erased from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the
multitudes who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice!
Surely they had but to hear him to throw off their old beliefs, and
see the truth and beauty of Anarchism!
My one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of
John Most,--that I, too, might thus reach the masses. Oh, for the
naivety of Youth's enthusiasm! It is the time when the hardest thing
seems but child's play. It is the only period in life worth while.
Alas! This period is but of short duration. Like Spring, the STURM
UND DRANG period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and
delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of
resistance against a thousand vicissitudes.
My great faith in the wonder worker, the spoken word, is no more. I
have realized its inadequacy to awaken thought, or even emotion.
Gradually, and with no small struggle against this realization, I
came to see that oral propaganda is at best but a means of shaking
people from their lethargy: it leaves no lasting impression. The
very fact that most people attend meetings only if aroused by
newspaper sensations, or because they expect to be amused, is proof
that they really have no inner urge to learn.
It is altogether different with the written mode of human expression.
No one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother
with serious books. That leads me to another discovery made after
many years of public activity. It is this: All claims of education
notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind
craves. Already this truth is recognized by most modern educators in
relation to the immature mind. I think it is equally true regarding
the adult. Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than
musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought.
Whether something vital will develop depends largely on the fertility
of the human soil, though the quality of the intellectual seed must
not be overlooked.
In meetings the audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials.
The speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness
of the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike
root. In all probability he will not even do justice to himself.
The relation between the writer and the reader is more intimate.
True, books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read
into them. That we can do so demonstrates the importance of written
as against oral expression. It is this certainty which has induced
me to gather in one volume my ideas on various topics of individual
and social importance. They represent the mental and soul struggles
of twenty-one years,--the conclusions derived after many changes and
inner revisions.
I am not sanguine enough to hope that my readers will be as numerous
as those who have heard me. But I prefer to reach the few who really
want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.
As to the book, it must speak for itself. Explanatory remarks do but
detract from the ideas set forth. However, I wish to forestall two
objections which will undoubtedly be raised. One is in reference to
the essay on ANARCHISM; the other, on MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES.
"Why do you not say how things will be operated under Anarchism?" is
a question I have had to meet thousands of times. Because I believe
that Anarchism can not consistently impose an iron-clad program or
method on the future. The things every new generation has to fight,
and which it can least overcome, are the burdens of the past, which
holds us all as in a net. Anarchism, at least as I understand it,
leaves posterity free to develop its own particular systems, in
harmony with its needs. Our most vivid imagination can not foresee
the potentialities of a race set free from external restraints.
How, then, can any one assume to map out a line of conduct for those
to come? We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air,
must guard against the tendency to fetter the future. If we succeed
in clearing the soil from the rubbish of the past and present, we
will leave to posterity the greatest and safest heritage of all ages.
The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out
one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or
personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a
hater of the weak because he believed in the UEBERMENSCH. It does
not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this
vision of the UEBERMENSCH also called for a state of society which
will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves.
It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but
the apostle of the theory "each for himself, the devil take the hind
one." That Stirner's individualism contains the greatest social
possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that
if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated
individuals, whose free efforts make society.
These examples bring me to the objection that will be raised to
MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES. No doubt, I shall be excommunicated as
an enemy of the people, because I repudiate the mass as a creative
factor. I shall prefer that rather than be guilty of the demagogic
platitudes so commonly in vogue as a bait for the people. I realize
the malady of the oppressed and disinherited masses only too well,
but I refuse to prescribe the usual ridiculous palliatives which
allow the patient neither to die nor to recover. One cannot be too
extreme in dealing with social ills; besides, the extreme thing is
generally the true thing. My lack of faith in the majority is
dictated by my faith in the potentialities of the individual. Only
when the latter becomes free to choose his associates for a common
purpose, can we hope for order and harmony out of this world of chaos
and inequality.
For the rest, my book must speak for itself.
Emma Goldman
ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR
ANARCHY.
Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell--but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
JOHN HENRY MACKAY.
The history of human growth and development is at the same time the
history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the
approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the
Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means
to stay the advent of the New, in whatever form or period the latter
may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps into the
distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and
hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea. The rack,
the thumbscrew, and the knout are still with us; so are the convict's
garb and the social wrath, all conspiring against the spirit that is
serenely marching on.
Anarchism could not hope to escape the fate of all other ideas of
innovation. Indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising
innovator, Anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and
venom of the world it aims to reconstruct.
To deal even remotely with all that is being said and done against
Anarchism would necessitate the writing of a whole volume. I shall
therefore meet only two of the principal objections. In so doing, I
shall attempt to elucidate what Anarchism really stands for.
The strange phenomenon of the opposition to Anarchism is that it
brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and
ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the
relativity of all things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it
makes no pretense of knowledge or tolerance. Acting, as it always
does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a child.
"Why?" "Because." Yet the opposition of the uneducated to Anarchism
deserves the same consideration as that of the intelligent man.
What, then, are the objections? First, Anarchism is impractical,
though a beautiful ideal. Second, Anarchism stands for violence and
destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous.
Both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a
thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false
interpretation.
A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in
existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing
conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one
objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is
wrong and foolish. The true criterion of the practical, therefore,
is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish;
rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the
stagnant waters of the old, and build, as well as sustain, new life.
In the light of this conception, Anarchism is indeed practical.
More than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and
foolish; more than any other idea, it is building and sustaining new
life.