Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman Page #3

---

It seems to unravel

in my hands

They were united

by a great crime

And that is

a life-binding event

The world begins

in the fact of the crime

which leads to the

expulsion from paradise

and then the constant need

to return to it somehow

There are symbolic

moments in her life

that define

almost the whole

Often

I wanted to run away

never to see him again

but I was held by something

greater than the pain

the memory of his act

for which he alone had paid the price

I realized

that to my last breath

it would remain

the strongest link

in the chain that

bound me to him

A year after Homestead

the United States was on the

verge of economic collapse

Six-hundred banks closed

fifty-six railroads

went bankrupt

15,000 companies shut down

and the number of unemployed

soared from 800,000

to more than three million

I think the panic of 1893

is the most important

henomena in the development

of modern American history

and particularly modern

American radicalism

The Depression leads

to the discovery

that industrialization is creating a gap

between the rich and the poor

a chasm between

the rich and the poor

and that it's very dangerous

And it's very unsafe

and it's very unfair

and it's very unpatriotic

Goldman helped organize

mass meetings

and hunger demonstrations

On August 21st

she led a march of one thousand

to New York's Union Square

carrying a red banner

Go into the streets

where the rich dwell

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

You want bread

go and take it

You're starving

go and take it

Make restaurants

feed you

Make bakeries

give you food

And she'd been

very powerful

to the extent that

people had been

very, very impressed by her

oratory and her power.

Just twenty-four

Goldman was

already recognized

as a professional agitator

Her talk of insurrection

of doing without government

of encouraging the unemployed

to take matters into

their own hands

of thousands of workers

going door to door

demanding food

was terrifying to authorities

She was arrested and charged

with "inciting to riot"

Anarchism is an..

immensely exciting

poetic, intoxicating

fantastical idea

And so of course she scared

the sh*t out of people

And she intended to

I think what made

her so scary

to those people to

whom she was scary

and probably is exactly

what made her appealing

to those people

who found her appealing

which is that she was

an incredibly free spirit

She's in the public eye

She's famous, she's notorious

She's often referred to as

the "famous anarchist"

She's visible

And there's something about

that that she enjoys

but there's something about it

that's also is politically important

because it's also

a way to talk

about anarchism

Goldman was sentenced

to one year in prison

She used the time

to educate herself

reading Emerson

Thoreau

and Whitman

She also trained

as a nurse

When she was released

in the summer of 1894

Goldman was met

by a crowd of 2,800

She told them she'd been

imprisoned for talking

She would soon begin

talking again

This time about

psychological repression

and Sigmund Freud

She began speaking

about marriage

female emancipation

and sex

Emma Goldman was

the big Boogieman

of turn-of-the-century America

especially since

she combined this..

danger of being militant

and volatile and

out of control

and prone for violence

with this doctrine

of free love

that people in their mind

associated with also free sex

so this was a combination of violence

and sex was very titillating

very interesting

I demand the independence

of woman

her right to

support herself

to live for herself

to love whomever

she pleases

or as many

as she pleases

I demand freedom

for both sexes

Freedom of action

Freedom in love

And freedom in motherhood

She was totally

unacceptable

Not just to the

status quo

not just to the

bureaucrats

But to the

progressive people

to the educated people

to everybody

She was aware, however

of her ability

to generate strong passions

"You cheer for me

you follow me"

she told a reporter

in the spring of 1901

"but you'd hang me

if your mood changed"

In May 1901

Goldman gave a lecture entitled

"The Modern Phase of Anarchy

an incendiary talk

on political assassination

and the glory

of martyrdom

"Leon Czolgosz

a young would-be

anarchist

sat in the audience

listening attentively

Four months later

at the Pan-American Exposition

in Buffalo, New York

Czolgosz worked his way

through the crowd

and shot President

William McKinley

twice in the chest

at point blank range

Czolgosz told the authorities

that Emma Goldman

had set him on fire

when he went to

hear her speak

And this immediately

led to a condemnation

of Goldman throughout

the country

She was actually in

danger of her life

And it led to the arrest

of any anarchist or any

perceived radical

he police could get

their hands on

Goldman was arrested

and interrogated

After the death of McKinley

and after authorities failed

to turn up evidence

connecting her

to the assassination

she was released

To the horror of a

grief-stricken public

she threw herself into

an impassioned defense

of Leon Czolgosz

As an anarchist

I am opposed to violence

But if the people want

to do away with assassins

they must do away

with the conditions

which produce murderers

Goldman's defensez

of Czolgosz

I think very much damaged

the anarchist movement

But it damaged it in a sense of

once again

going back to the central question of

Were anarchists

for violent overthrow of

the government or not?

This is the thread

that leads

constantly through

anarchism's debate

over just what it was

and how it intended

to bring about

its utopia

To my mind there is no question

that she romanticized Czolgosz

as an isolated lone

heroic individual

he identified him

I think with Berkman

and that was one of the reasons

why she couldn't bring herself

to criticize him

In a speech to Congress

the new President

Theodore Roosevelt declared

"The anarchist is

the enemy of humanity

the enemy of all mankind"

Goldman was vilified

Many labor unions distanced

themselves from the anarchists

to safeguard the modest successes

they'd won over the years

Some of Goldman's

own comrades

accused her of causing

the movement irreparable harm

Even Berkman

denounced Czolgosz

ho was put to death

in the electric chair

In 1902

Goldman withdrew

from the movement

that had been the

center of her life

Now thirty-two

she began working as a nurse

in the tenements of

the Lower East Side

Her patients knew her

as "E.G. Smith"

It was bitter hard

to face life anew

Our movement had lost

its appeal for me

Still more harrowing

was the gnawing doubt

of the values I had

so fervently believed in

I had lost my identity

Goldman's isolation

didn't last long

She soon made her way back

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes