Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman Page #4

---

to the lecture platform

even though she'd been branded

the "high priestess of anarchy"

and was still considered

the most dangerous woman

in the country

Only in America

could somebody who'd

been associated

with the death of

the beloved president

be able to come back

and have a career

as a public speaker

She began speaking

in union halls

ladies clubs

and private homes

all across Manhattan

Among her new passions

was an old subject

The struggling

revolution in Russia

In 1903

the Czarist regime began

a wave of pogroms

against its

Jewish population

Hundreds of Jews were killed

in Kishinev alone

Two years later

on a day forever known

as "Bloody Sunday"

political dissidents

demonstrating in front

of the Winter Palace

were massacred by troops

The events stunned

the world

Now that I had greater access

to the American mind

I determined to use

whatever ability I possessed

to plead the heroic cause

of revolutionary Russia.

For the next two years

she toured the country drumming up

support for her homeland

Her talks on Russia

on the rights of workers

on civil liberties

and even on anarchism drew large

sympathetic crowds

She found the world was

catching up with her

Here were

people

with an interest in what

Goldman had to say

because there was this

growing awareness of

the social costs

of capitalism

In the spring of 1906

Goldman revived a dream

to publish a magazine

devoted to politics

and literature

Its high-spirited prose

she wrote

"would voice without fear..

every unpopular cause"

She called her new magazine

Mother Earth

Goldman in thinking about

making herself into

a practitioner of arts

and letters

a woman

an emigrant Jew

was really

ahead of her time

The title

Mother Earth speaks

to Goldman's ambitions

but I think also

more deeply to her

monumental fantasies

of herself

Goldman's Manhattan apartment at

210 East Thirteenth Street

became the informal headquarters

of her new magazine

It also served as a haven

to an extended family

of writers, artists, and journalists

Goldman called it

"the home for lost dogs"

She was an Earth Mother

A term that in the sixties

really came to mean the

bountiful woman

at the center of the commune

that feeds everybody

and makes sure they don't

eat too little

I think it was her sheer

force of personality

Plus she was a

very motherly person

I mean she

took care of people

She told them what to do

She told them

you know

how to run their lives

She told them

what was needed

She enveloped them

The circle of friends

and associates

who congregated

in Goldman's apartment

would soon be joined

by Alexander Berkman

In May 1906

Berkman walked out of the

Allegheny County Workhouse

For the first time

in fourteen years

he was a free man

When Berkman comes

out of prison

he's much more

oriented toward

trying to achieve anarchism

through the labor of movement

in which he sees

great possibilities in

Goldman's orientation

is much more

for a kind of movement

that cuts across class lines

That attracts the

middle classes to anarchism

Her mind has matured

but her wider interests

antagonize

my old revolutionary

traditions

I sense a foreign element

in the circle she has

gathered about her

and feel myself

a stranger among them

I was a woman

of thirty-seven

I no longer fitted

into the old mold

as he had

expected me to

Sasha felt it

almost immediately

His release was such

a relief in some ways

and so much less than

what she had

hoped it would be

always a sense

that she

loved him more

than he loved her

But that she carried a torch

in a certain sense all

the way through

that he mattered to her

in a certain way

as a man

and as a body

that she didn't necessarily

matter to him

Berkman and Goldman

briefly attempted

to resume

their romance

but it was

not to be

He assumed

day-to-day management

of Mother Earth

She returned

to the lecture circuit

In the spring

of 1908

now forty years old

Goldman met

someone else

a flamboyant

young doctor

ten years younger

than herself

A man of considerable

life experience

he was a budding

social reformer

a whorehouse

physician

and a former

hobo

Ben Reitman

was a doctor

and a hobo

She fell in love with him

almost instantly

and it was really

you know

a great magnetic flash

between them

It was another one of

those Goldman flashes

like coming to

New York

and finding what she wanted

the very first day

It was apparently

love at first sight

or certainly alchemy

at first sight

There is something very

American about Reitman

because he was filled

with a kind of raw energy

He didn't give a damn

about what people thought

and he was

a great manager

So there was a great deal

of charm to this

creature who

was also weak

and insecure

and a mama's boy

and all the flaws that she

recognized as being so

truly awful

And yet

she loved him so

"I dreamed that Ben

was bending over me

his face close to mine

his hands on my chest

Flames were shooting

from his finger-tips

and slowly enveloping

my body

I made no attempt

to escape them

I strained

towards them

craving to be consumed

by their fire

He was quite

a liability

He was compulsively

unfaithful to her

He ran around with

other women

he humiliated her

he embarrassed her

I think that she had

a very idealistic view

of how people

should act

and then her feelings didn't

always go along with her theories

One of the things that's

appealing about her

is that she didn't

put theories over life

She tried to live up

to her ideal but..

often found that she couldn't

do that and

was very honest

about it

It was hard to reconcile

this particular

passion with her

stated ideology about

free love and

the right of everyone to

move as they please

And I think she tried

to feel no jealousy and she

tried to think of Reitman

as a creature apart and

tried to think of him

as someone who was

hers when they were

together on the road

At the same time

she fell prey

to the most sentimental

romantic claptrap

The same stuff that she

denounced in her talks

For almost a decade

Goldman and Reitman

spent nearly half

of every year

on the road

maintaining a

relentless schedule

of radical agitation

from coast-to-coast

In one six-month period

she delivered

120 lectures

before 40,000 people

in 37 cities

With Reitman

as her manager

she became one of the most

sought-after public speakers in America

Her messages reached

beyond the faithful

attracting middle- and

upper-class audiences

Her lectures also drew the

attention of police detectives

There's a kind of aura around her

There is kind of expectation

that something will happen

when she comes to tow

Wonderful things

hilarious things

horrific things

I think Emma Goldman

frightened or at the

very least puzzled

a lot of people

because she was

a powerful woman

and a powerfully

built woman

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes