THE SHOCK AT BUFFALO
I
July 10, 1901.
DEAR GIRL:
This is from the hospital, _sub rosa_. Just out of the
strait-jacket, after eight days.
For over a year I was in the strictest solitary; for a long time
mail and reading matter were denied me. I have no words to
describe the horror of the last months.... I have passed through
a great crisis. Two of my best friends died in a frightful
manner. The death of Russell, especially, affected me. He was
very young, and my dearest and most devoted friend, and he died
a terrible death. The doctor charged the boy with shamming, but
now he says it was spinal meningitis. I cannot tell you the
awful truth,--it was nothing short of murder, and my poor friend
rotted away by inches. When he died they found his back one mass
of bedsores. If you could read the pitiful letters he wrote,
begging to see me, and to be nursed by me! But the Warden
wouldn't permit it. In some manner his agony seemed to affect
me, and I began to experience the pains and symptoms that
Russell described in his notes. I knew it was my sick fancy; I
strove against it, but presently my legs showed signs of
paralysis, and I suffered excruciating pain in the spinal
column, just like Russell. I was afraid that I would be done to
death like my poor friend. I grew suspicious of every guard, and
would barely touch the food, for fear of its being poisoned. My
"head was workin'," they said. And all the time I knew it was my
diseased imagination, and I was in terror of going mad.... I
tried so hard to fight it, but it would always creep up, and get
hold of me stronger and stronger. Another week of solitary would
have killed me.
I was on the verge of suicide. I demanded to be relieved from
the cell, and the Warden ordered me punished. I was put in the
strait-jacket. They bound my body in canvas, strapped my arms to
the bed, and chained my feet to the posts. I was kept that way
eight days, unable to move, rotting in my own excrement.
Released prisoners called the attention of our new Inspector to
my case. He refused to believe that such things were being done
in the penitentiary. Reports spread that I was going blind and
insane. Then the Inspector visited the hospital and had me
released from the jacket.
I am in pretty bad shape, but they put me in the general ward
now, and I am glad of the chance to send you this note.
Sasha.
II
Direct to Box A 7,
Allegheny City, Pa.,
July 25th, 1901.
DEAR SONYA:
I cannot tell you how happy I am to be allowed to write to you
again. My privileges have been restored by our new Inspector, a
very kindly man. He has relieved me from the cell, and now I am
again on the range. The Inspector requested me to deny to my
friends the reports which have recently appeared in the papers
concerning my condition. I have not been well of late, but now I
hope to improve. My eyes are very poor. The Inspector has given
me permission to have a specialist examine them. Please arrange
for it through our local comrades.
There is another piece of very good news, dear friend. A new
commutation law has been passed, which reduces my sentence by
2-1/2 years. It still leaves me a long time, of course; almost 4
years here, and another year to the workhouse. However, it is a
considerable gain, and if I should not get into solitary again,
I may--I am almost afraid to utter the thought--I may live to
come out. I feel as if I am being resurrected.
The new law benefits the short-timers proportionately much more
than the men with longer sentences. Only the poor lifers do not
share in it. We were very anxious for a while, as there were
many rumors that the law would be declared unconstitutional.
Fortunately, the attempt to nullify its benefits proved
ineffectual. Think of men who will see something
unconstitutional in allowing the prisoners a little more good
time than the commutation statute of 40 years ago. As if a
little kindness to the unfortunates--really justice--is
incompatible with the spirit of Jefferson! We were greatly
worried over the fate of this statute, but at last the first
batch has been released, and there is much rejoicing over it.
There is a peculiar history about this new law, which may
interest you; it sheds a significant side light. It was
especially designed for the benefit of a high Federal officer
who was recently convicted of aiding two wealthy Philadelphia
tobacco manufacturers to defraud the government of a few
millions, by using counterfeit tax stamps. Their influence
secured the introduction of the commutation bill and its hasty
passage. The law would have cut their sentences almost in two,
but certain newspapers seem to have taken offence at having been
kept in ignorance of the "deal," and protests began to be
voiced. The matter finally came up before the Attorney General
of the United States, who decided that the men in whose special
interest the law was engineered, could not benefit by it,
because a State law does not affect U. S. prisoners, the latter
being subject to the Federal commutation act. Imagine the
discomfiture of the politicians! An attempt was even made to
suspend the operation of the statute. Fortunately it failed, and
now the "common" State prisoners, who were not at all meant to
profit, are being released. The legislature has unwittingly
given some unfortunates here much happiness.
I was interrupted in this writing by being called out for a
visit. I could hardly credit it: the first comrade I have been
allowed to see in nine years! It was Harry Gordon, and I was so
overcome by the sight of the dear friend, I could barely speak.
He must have prevailed upon the new Inspector to issue a permit.
The latter is now Acting Warden, owing to the serious illness of
Captain Wright. Perhaps he will allow me to see my sister. Will
you kindly communicate with her at once? Meantime I shall try to
secure a pass. With renewed hope, and always with green memory
of you,
Alex.
III
_Sub Rosa_,
Dec. 20, 1901.
DEAREST GIRL:
I know how your visit and my strange behavior have affected
you.... The sight of your face after all these years completely
unnerved me. I could not think, I could not speak. It was as if
all my dreams of freedom, the whole world of the living, were
concentrated in the shiny little trinket that was dangling from
your watch chain.... I couldn't take my eyes off it, I couldn't
keep my hand from playing with it. It absorbed my whole
being.... And all the time I felt how nervous you were at my
silence, and I couldn't utter a word.
Perhaps it would have been better for us not to have seen each
other under the present conditions. It was lucky they did not
recognize you: they took you for my "sister," though I believe
your identity was suspected after you had left. You would surely
not have been permitted the visit, had the old Warden been here.
He was ill at the time. He never got over the shock of the
tunnel, and finally he has been persuaded by the prison
physician (who has secret aspirations to the Wardenship) that
the anxieties of his position are a menace to his advanced age.
Considerable dissatisfaction has also developed of late against
the Warden among the Inspectors. Well, he has resigned at last,
thank goodness! The prisoners have been praying for it for
years, and some of the boys on the range celebrated the event by
getting drunk on wood alcohol. The new Warden has just assumed
charge, and we hope for improvement. He is a physician by
profession, with the title of Major in the Pennsylvania militia.
It was entirely uncalled for on the part of the officious
friend, whoever he may have been, to cause you unnecessary worry
over my health, and my renewed persecution. You remember that in
July the new Inspector released me from the strait-jacket and
assigned me to work on the range. But I was locked up again in
October, after the McKinley incident. The President of the Board
of Inspectors was at the time in New York. He inquired by wire
what I was doing. Upon being informed that I was working on the
range, he ordered me into solitary. The new Warden, on assuming
office, sent for me. "They give you a bad reputation," he said;
"but I will let you out of the cell if you'll promise to do
what is right by me." He spoke brusquely, in the manner of a man
closing a business deal, with the power of dictating terms. He
reminded me of Bismarck at Versailles. Yet he did not seem
unkind; the thought of escape was probably in his mind. But the
new law has germinated the hope of survival; my weakened
condition and the unexpected shortening of my sentence have at
last decided me to abandon the idea of escape. I therefore
replied to the Warden: "I will do what is right by you, if you
treat _me_ right." Thereupon he assigned me to work on the
range. It is almost like liberty to have the freedom of the
cell-house after the close solitary.
And you, dear friend? In your letters I feel how terribly torn
you are by the events of the recent months. I lived in great
fear for your safety, and I can barely credit the good news that
you are at liberty. It seems almost a miracle.
I followed the newspapers with great anxiety. The whole country
seemed to be swept with the fury of revenge. To a considerable
extent the press fanned the fires of persecution. Here in the
prison very little sincere grief was manifested. Out out of
hearing of the guards, the men passed very uncomplimentary
remarks about the dead president. The average prisoner
corresponds to the average citizen--their patriotism is very
passive, except when stimulated by personal interest, or
artificially excited. But if the press mirrored the sentiment of
the people, the nation must have suddenly relapsed into
cannibalism. There were moments when I was in mortal dread for
your very life, and for the safety of the other arrested
comrades. In previous letters you hinted that it was official
rivalry and jealousy, and your absence from New York, to which
you owe your release. You may be right; yet I believe that your
attitude of proud self-respect and your admirable self-control
contributed much to the result. You were splendid, dear; and I
was especially moved by your remark that you would faithfully
nurse the wounded man, if he required your services, but that
the poor boy, condemned and deserted by all, needed and deserved
your sympathy and aid more than the president. More strikingly
than your letters, that remark discovered to me the great change
wrought in us by the ripening years. Yes, in us, in both, for my
heart echoed your beautiful sentiment. How impossible such a
thought would have been to us in the days of a decade ago! We
should have considered it treason to the spirit of revolution;
it would have outraged all our traditions even to admit the
humanity of an official representative of capitalism. Is it not
very significant that we two--you living in the very heart of
Anarchist thought and activity, and I in the atmosphere of
absolute suppression and solitude--should have arrived at the
same evolutionary point after a decade of divergent paths?
You have alluded in a recent letter to the ennobling and
broadening influence of sorrow. Yet not upon every one does it
exert a similar effect. Some natures grow embittered, and shrink
with the poison of misery. I often wonder at my lack of
bitterness and enmity, even against the old Warden--and surely I
have good cause to hate him. Is it because of greater maturity?
I rather think it is temperamentally conditioned. The love of
the people, the hatred of oppression of our younger days, vital
as these sentiments were with us, were mental rather than
emotional. Fortunately so, I think. For those like Fedya and
Lewis and Pauline, and numerous others, soon have their
emotionally inflated idealism punctured on the thorny path of
the social protestant. Only aspirations that spontaneously leap
from the depths of our soul persist in the face of antagonistic
forces. The revolutionist is born. Beneath our love and hatred
of former days lay inherent rebellion, and the passionate desire
for liberty and life.
In the long years of isolation I have looked deeply into my
heart. With open mind and sincere purpose, I have revised every
emotion and every thought. Away from my former atmosphere and
the disturbing influence of the world's turmoil, I have divested
myself of all traditions and accepted beliefs. I have studied
the sciences and the humanities, contemplated life, and pondered
over human destiny. For weeks and months I would be absorbed in
the domain of "pure reason," or discuss with Leibnitz the
question of free will, and seek to penetrate, beyond Spencer,
into the Unknowable. Political science and economics, law and
criminology--I studied them with unprejudiced mind, and sought
to slacken my soul's thirst by delving deeply into religion and
theology, seeking the "Key to Life" at the feet of Mrs. Eddy,
expectantly listening for the voice of disembodied, studying
Koreshanity and Theosophy, absorbing the _prana_ of knowledge
and power, and concentrating upon the wisdom of the Yogi. And
after years of contemplation and study, chastened by much
sorrow and suffering, I arise from the broken fetters of the
world's folly and delusions, to behold the threshold of a new
life of liberty and equality. My youth's ideal of a free
humanity in the vague future has become clarified and
crystallized into the living truth of Anarchy, as the sustaining
elemental force of my every-day existence.
Often I have wondered in the years gone by, was not wisdom dear
at the price of enthusiasm? At 30 one is not so reckless, not so
fanatical and one-sided as at 20. With maturity we become more
universal; but life is a Shylock that cannot be cheated of his
due. For every lesson it teaches us, we have a wound or a scar
to show. We grow broader; but too often the heart contracts as
the mind expands, and the fires are burning down while we are
learning. At such moments my mind would revert to the days when
the momentarily expected approach of the Social Revolution
absorbed our exclusive interest. The raging present and its
conflicting currents passed us by, while our eyes were riveted
upon the Dawn, in thrilling expectancy of the sunrise. Life and
its manifold expressions were vexatious to the spirit of revolt;
and poetry, literature, and art were scorned as hindrances to
progress, unless they sounded the tocsin of immediate
revolution. Humanity was sharply divided in two warring
camps,--the noble People, the producers, who yearned for the
light of the new gospel, and the hated oppressors, the
exploiters, who craftily strove to obscure the rising day that
was to give back to man his heritage. If only "the good People"
were given an opportunity to hear the great truth, how joyfully
they would embrace Anarchy and walk in triumph into the promised
land!
The splendid naivety of the days that resented as a personal
reflection the least misgiving of the future; the enthusiasm
that discounted the power of inherent prejudice and
predilection! Magnificent was the day of hearts on fire with the
hatred of oppression and the love of liberty! Woe indeed to the
man or the people whose soul never warmed with the spark of
Prometheus,--for it is youth that has climbed the heights....
But maturity has clarified the way, and the stupendous task of
human regeneration will be accomplished only by the purified
vision of hearts that grow not cold.
And you, my dear friend, with the deeper insight of time, you
have yet happily kept your heart young. I have rejoiced at it
in your letters of recent years, and it is especially evident
from the sentiments you have expressed regarding the happening
at Buffalo. I share your view entirely; for that very reason, it
is the more distressing to disagree with you in one very
important particular: the value of Leon's act. I know the
terrible ordeal you have passed through, the fiendish
persecution to which you have been subjected. Worse than all
must have been to you the general lack of understanding for such
phenomena; and, sadder yet, the despicable attitude of some
would-be radicals in denouncing the man and his act. But I am
confident you will not mistake my expressed disagreement for
condemnation.
We need not discuss the phase of the _Attentat_ which manifested
the rebellion of a tortured soul, the individual protest against
social wrong. Such phenomena are the natural result of evil
conditions, as inevitable as the flooding of the river banks by
the swelling mountain torrents. But I cannot agree with you
regarding the social value of Leon's act.
I have read of the beautiful personality of the youth, of his
inability to adapt himself to brutal conditions, and the
rebellion of his soul. It throws a significant light upon the
causes of the _Attentat_. Indeed, it is at once the greatest
tragedy of martyrdom, and the most terrible indictment of
society, that it forces the noblest men and women to shed human
blood, though their souls shrink from it. But the more
imperative it is that drastic methods of this character be
resorted to only as a last extremity. To prove of value, they
must be motived by social rather than individual necessity, and
be directed against a real and immediate enemy of the people.
The significance of such a deed is understood by the popular
mind--and in that alone is the propagandistic, educational
importance of an _Attentat_, except if it is exclusively an act
of terrorism.
Now, I do not believe that this deed was terroristic; and I
doubt whether it was educational, because the social necessity
for its performance was not manifest. That you may not
misunderstand, I repeat: as an expression of personal revolt it
was inevitable, and in itself an indictment of existing
conditions. But the background of social necessity was lacking,
and therefore the value of the act was to a great extent
nullified.
In Russia, where political oppression is popularly felt, such a
deed would be of great value. But the scheme of political
subjection is more subtle in America. And though McKinley was
the chief representative of our modern slavery, he could not be
considered in the light of a direct and immediate enemy of the
people; while in an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and
tangible. The real despotism of republican institutions is far
deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion
of self-government and independence. That is the subtle source
of democratic tyranny, and, as such, it cannot be reached with a
bullet.
In modern capitalism, exploitation rather than oppression is the
real enemy of the people. Oppression is but its handmaid. Hence
the battle is to be waged in the economic rather than the
political field. It is therefore that I regard my own act as far
more significant and educational than Leon's. It was directed
against a tangible, real oppressor, visualized as such by the
people.
As long as misery and tyranny fill the world, social contrasts
and consequent hatreds will persist, and the noblest of the
race--our Czolgoszes--burst forth in "rockets of iron." But does
this lightning really illumine the social horizon, or merely
confuse minds with the succeeding darkness? The struggle of
labor against capital is a class war, essentially and chiefly
economic. In that arena the battles must be fought.
It was not these considerations, of course, that inspired the
nation-wide man-hunt, or the attitude even of alleged radicals.
Their cowardice has filled me with loathing and sadness. The
brutal farce of the trial, the hypocrisy of the whole
proceeding, the thirst for the blood of the martyr,--these make
one almost despair of humanity.
I must close. The friend to smuggle out this letter will be
uneasy about its bulk. Send me sign of receipt, and I hope that
you may be permitted a little rest and peace, to recover from
the nightmare of the last months.
SASHA.