Emma Goldman

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Emma Goldman : biography

df=y March 6 – 14 May 1940

On July 23, Berkman gained access to Frick’s office with a concealed handgun and shot Frick three times, then stabbed him in the leg. A group of workers—far from joining in his attentat—beat Berkman unconscious, and he was carried away by the police.Chalberg, pp. 42–43; Falk, Love, p. 25; Wexler, Intimate, p. 65. Berkman was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to twenty-two years in prison;Goldman, Living, p. 106. his absence from her life was very difficult for Goldman.Wexler, Intimate, p. 65. Convinced Goldman was involved in the plot, police raided her apartment and—finding no evidence—pressured her landlord into evicting her. Worse, the attentat had failed to rouse the masses: workers and anarchists alike condemned Berkman’s action. Johann Most, their former mentor, lashed out at Berkman and the assassination attempt. Furious at these attacks, Goldman brought a toy horsewhip to a public lecture and demanded, onstage, that Most explain his betrayal. He dismissed her, whereupon she struck him with the whip, broke it on her knee, and hurled the pieces at him.Wexler, Intimate, pp. 65–66.Goldman, Living, p. 105. She later regretted her assault, confiding to a friend: "At the age of twenty-three, one does not reason."Quoted in Wexler, Intimate, p. 66.

"Inciting to riot"

When the Panic of 1893 struck in the following year, the United States suffered one of its worst economic crises ever. By year’s end, the unemployment rate was higher than twenty percent,. . Ohio Historical Society, 2007. Retrieved on December 18, 2007. and "hunger demonstrations" sometimes gave way to riots. Goldman began speaking to crowds of frustrated men and women in New York. On August 21, she spoke to a crowd of nearly 3,000 people in Union Square, where she encouraged unemployed workers to take immediate action. Her exact words are unclear: undercover agents insist she ordered the crowd to "take everything … by force",Quoted in Chalberg, p. 46. while Goldman later recounted this message: "Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread."Goldman, Living, p. 123. Later in court, Detective-Sergeant Charles Jacobs offered yet another version of her speech.Drinnon, Rebel, pp. 58–59.

A week later she was arrested in Philadelphia and returned to New York City for trial, charged with "inciting to riot".Wexler, Intimate, p. 76. During the train ride, Jacobs offered to drop the charges against her if she would inform on other radicals in the area. She responded by throwing a glass of ice water in his face.Drinnon, Rebel, p. 57. As she awaited trial, Goldman was visited by Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World. She spent two hours talking to Goldman, and wrote a positive article about the woman she described as a "modern Joan of Arc".Nellie Bly, , New York World, September 17, 1893.

Despite this positive publicity, the jury was persuaded by Jacobs’ testimony and scared by Goldman’s politics. The assistant District Attorney questioned Goldman about her anarchism, as well as her atheism; the judge spoke of her as "a dangerous woman".Drinnon, Rebel, p. 60. She was sentenced to one year in the Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary. Once inside she suffered an attack of rheumatism and was sent to the infirmary; there she befriended a visiting doctor and began studying medicine. She also read dozens of books, including works by the American activist-writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne; poet Walt Whitman, and philosopher John Stuart Mill.Wexler, Intimate, p. 78. When she was released after ten months, a raucous crowd of nearly three thousand people greeted her at the Thalia Theater in New York City. She soon became swamped with requests for interviews and lectures.Wexler, Intimate, pp. 78–79.