Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman Page #6

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for anyone who

obstructed the draft

A year later

the Sedition Law

threatened those who defied

the government with expulsion

J. Edgar Hoover, a twenty-three

year-old law clerk

enjoying a meteoric rise

in the Justice Department

collected information

on foreign-born radicals

Hoover was anxious to bring

what he called

"intellectual perverts"

like war resistors and

anarchists to justice

He reserved a special

loathing for Goldman

Once again

Emma Goldman and

Alexander Berkman

joined forces to

organize resistance

Their lectures drew large

contentious crowds

In May

they launched the

No-Conscription League

It opposed "all wars waged

by capitalist governments."

We believe that the

militarization of America

is an evil that

far outweighs any good

that may come from

America's participation in the war

We will resist conscription

by every means in our power

In its short life

the League organized

three protest rallies

Eight thousand people attended

the first meeting in Harlem

Those meetings are

crackling with tension

By the time those speakers

get onto that stage

there are catcalls

there are shouting

and there is an

electric feel

There's five thousand, six thousand

ten thousand people outside

some of these meetings

singing the Internationale

and shouting insults and

trading insults with those

supporters of the war

It's an electric

atmosphere

"The way in which

Goldman and Berkman

faced the war fury

of 1917

said a friend

"was the most

stirring manifestation..

of sheer physical courage

I have ever seen"

But to the government

America's most famous anarchists

had to be stopped

Free Speech is

always at risk

and one of her

great contributions

is really to have pushed

it as far as it did go

She used it a bit

like her toy

To see what she could do

with it before it broke

And then it did break in

her hands

On the afternoon

of June 15

a federal marshal

and his deputies

bounded up the stairs of

Goldman's East 125th Street address

and ransacked

the place

The raiders

made off

with a "wagonload"

of Goldman's papers

including what one

detective called

"a splendidly kept card

index of 'Reds"

the subscription list

of Mother Earth

Goldman and Berkman

were charged

with conspiracy to violate

the Draft Act

a federal offense

At trial, Goldman pointed out

the contradictions

between fighting for freedom

and liberty abroad

and suppressing them

at home

"If America had

entered the war

to make the world

safe for democracy"

Goldman insisted

"she must first make

democracy safe in America"

After thirty-nine

minutes of deliberation

the jury announced

a verdict

guilty

Goldman and Berkman spent

twenty-two months behind bars

much of it tracking

events in Russia

The "Great October"

of 1917

had ended three centuries

of Romanov rule

virtually overnight

It was the culmination

of a dream

by both anarchists

and Marxists

and a time to place

partisan rivalries aside

Goldman and Berkman put

their trust in the Bolsheviks

There was also

great hope

The Russian experience

will lead

to this future idealistic

kind of society

that she was

hoping for

From the vantage

point of 1919

that seemed

quite feasible

At last the great

moment arrived

Russia

has started something

that could

leak into this country

that could take hold

of this country

and make it another

Communist socialist country

And the people

that we must target

must be those

who support

the Russian Revolution

the Bolshevik Revolution

And they did

Throughout the

autumn of 1919

Attorney General

A. Mitchell Palmer

directed roundups

of radicals

in what would come to

be known as the "Palmer Raids

Thousands of arrests were made

without warrants

Those arrested were held

for weeks without bail

without access

to counsel

even without notification

of their families

Before it was all over

an FBI official declared

"I believe that

with these raids

the backbone of the

radical movement in America

is broken"

The government

wanted people like

Goldman and Berkman

out of the country

because they

could be

catalysts

for what was seen

as a potentially

disruptive

re-invigorated

labor movement

And it's completely

impossible to understand

that separate

from this

Red Scare

They went

hand in hand

On September 27th

America's most famous anarchist

walked out of prison

Berkman

soon followed

To Goldman, the America

she greeted upon release

reminded her of the Czarist tyranny

she had fled at the age of sixtee

But by

December 5th

Goldman and Berkman

were prisoners again

This time

at Ellis Island

They had already been served

warrants for their deportation

She knows she's

going to be deported

She believes it

Just like she knew

that there was going to be

hard, bad times

as World War One

crept into motion

she also knew that she

was going to be deported

There was no question about it

She knew it

and she expects to go

From her cell

Goldman wrote a friend

how strange it was for one who'd

lived and worked in the United States

for more than

half her life

to be thrown out

of the country

for

"mere opinion's sake"

Their mad rush in

getting us out of the country

is the greatest

proof to me

that I have served

the cause of humanity

that I have never wavered

or compromised

Although she went with

quite a bit of bravado

it was very

very tough

and she had been living

here for over 30 years

She was

an American

And then to be

kicked out like that

was a tremendous shock

Early in the morning

of December 21

Emma Goldman

Alexander Berkman

and 247 other

immigrant detainees

were suddenly

awakened

and told to prepare

for departure

Searchlights swept

the island

as they were hurried down

a long corridor

At 4:
00 am

the deportees were

loaded onto barges

that ferried them

to the S.S. Buford

One does not live

in a country thirty-four years

and find it

easy to go

All the turmoil of

body and soul

all the love

and hate

that come to an

intense human being

have come

to me here

I have helped to

sow the seeds

and hope to see

their fruition

even if I will be

too far away

to participate

in the harvest

As the Buford slipped

from her berth

a group of newspaper reporters

and congressmen cheered

"With Prohibition coming in

and Emma Goldman going out"

one of them quipped

"t'will be a

dull country"

On January 19

after crossing Finland

in sealed railroad cars

Goldman, Berkman

and the other deportees

reached

Soviet Russia

It seems like a great period

of freedom and liberation and hope

that the world will be different

If Russia can change

if Russia can democratize

if Russia

can give hope to people

then there's hope for any

any country in the world

And this is at the end of

a three and a half years of

a very devastating world war

a blood bath of a world war

But what they found

was devastation

When she got to Petrograd

I think she

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