Emma Goldman

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Emma Goldman : biography

df=y March 6 – 14 May 1940

When an English anarchist named John Turner was arrested under the Anarchist Exclusion Act and threatened with deportation, Goldman joined forces with the Free Speech League to champion his cause.Falk, Making Speech Free, p. 557. The league enlisted the aid of Clarence Darrow and Edgar Lee Masters, who took Turner’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although Turner and the League lost, Goldman considered it a victory of propaganda.Chalberg, pp. 84–87. She had returned to anarchist activism, but it was taking its toll on her. "I never felt so weighed down," she wrote to Berkman. "I fear I am forever doomed to remain public property and to have my life worn out through the care for the lives of others."Quoted in Chalberg, p. 87.

In 1906, Goldman decided to start a publication of her own, "a place of expression for the young idealists in arts and letters".Goldman, Living, p. 377. Mother Earth was staffed by a cadre of radical activists, including Hippolyte Havel, Max Baginski, and Leonard Abbott. In addition to publishing original works by its editors and anarchists around the world, Mother Earth reprinted selections from a variety of writers. These included the French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and British writer Mary Wollstonecraft. Goldman wrote frequently about anarchism, politics, labor issues, atheism, sexuality, and feminism.Chalberg, pp. 88–91.Wexler, Intimate, pp. 121–130.

On May 18 of the same year, Alexander Berkman was released from prison. Carrying a bouquet of roses, she met him on the platform and found herself "seized by terror and pity"Goldman, Living, p. 384. as she beheld his gaunt, pale form. Neither was able to speak; they returned to her home in silence. For weeks, he struggled to readjust to life on the outside; an abortive speaking tour ended in failure, and in Cleveland he purchased a revolver with the intent of killing himself.Chalberg, p. 94.Drinnon, Rebel, pp. 97–98. He returned to New York, however, and learned that Goldman had been arrested with a group of activists meeting to reflect on Czolgosz. Invigorated anew by this violation of freedom of assembly, he declared "My resurrection has come!"Quoted in Goldman, Living, p. 391. and set about securing their release.Drinnon, Rebel, p. 98.

Berkman took the helm of Mother Earth in 1907, while Goldman toured the country to raise funds to keep it functional. Editing the magazine was a revitalizing experience for Berkman; his relationship with Goldman faltered, however, and he had an affair with a fifteen-year-old anarchist named Becky Edelsohn. Goldman was pained by his rejection of her, but considered it a consequence of his prison experience.Chalberg, p. 97. Later that year she served as a delegate from the U.S. to the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam. Anarchists and syndicalists from around the world gathered to sort out the tension between the two ideologies, but no decisive agreement was reached. Goldman returned to the U.S. and continued speaking to large audiences.Wexler, Intimate, pp. 135–137.

Reitman, essays, and birth control

For the next ten years, Goldman traveled around the country nonstop, delivering lectures and agitating for anarchism. The coalitions formed in opposition to the Anarchist Exclusion Act had given her an appreciation for reaching out to those of other political persuasions. When the U.S. Justice Department sent spies to observe, they reported the meetings as "packed".Wexler, Intimate, p. 166. Writers, journalists, artists, judges, and workers from across the spectrum spoke of her "magnetic power", her "convincing presence", her "force, eloquence, and fire".Wexler, Intimate, p. 168.

In the spring of 1908, Goldman met and fell in love with Ben Reitman, the so-called "Hobo doctor". Having grown up in Chicago’s tenderloin district, Reitman spent several years as a drifter before attaining a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. As a doctor, he attended to people suffering from poverty and illness, particularly venereal diseases. He and Goldman began an affair; they shared a commitment to free love, but whereas Reitman took a variety of lovers, Goldman did not. She tried to reconcile her feelings of jealousy with a belief in freedom of the heart, but found it difficult.Wexler, Intimate, pp. 140–147.