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Here’s another account from the mainstream New York press — this time, from the New York Times — on the New York “Committee of Safety” and on the police attack on labor protesters in Tompkins Square. Like the previously posted stories from the Herald, the paper treated the protest as a project of “The Communists,” in the midst of the United States’ first great Red Scare. Also notable here is an early press appearance for Justus Schwab, here arrested with a red flag around his waist, later known and beloved by the Anarchist community in New York City as the owner of a “Beer-Hole” on First Street, which provided a meeting-place for radicals, political refugees, writers and artists that Emma Goldman remembered as “the most famous radical center in New York.”

Here’s the story, printed in the New York Times, on January 14, 1874.

DEFEAT OF THE COMMUNISTS

THE MASS-MEETING AND PARADE BROKEN UP.

ENCOUNTER BETWEEN THE MOB AND THE POLICE–ARREST OF RIOTERS.

The Police Commissioners wisely refused permission to the Communists to parade yesterday. There would have been no objection to an honest working men’s parade, but the great majority of the working men, through their acknowledged representatives, disclaimed all connection with the projection display, and it was therefore considered unadvisable to permit a few malcontents to disturb the peace of the City. The events of yesterday sufficiently proved the wisdom of the prohibition, and the bad spirit that unfortunately is rife among the more worthless sections of the community. In spite of the refusal it was stated early in the day that the meeting would be held, and by 10 o’clock Tompkins square and vicinity were occupied by perhaps 3,000 persons of the lowest class, most of whom, however, were probably there out of idle curiosity. At 10:15 the Police, under Commissioner Duryee and Capts. Walsh, Murphy, Tynan, and Allaire, with platoons from their respective precincts, the Seventeenth, Eleveneth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-first, marched into and cleared the square, while a mounted squad scoured the streets in the vicinity. Capt. Walsh, with Sergts. Cass and Berghold and twenty-two men, made for the largest crowd, assembled round a banner inscribed The Tenth Ward Working Men’s Organization, and here there was a fray, in which Sergt. Berghold had his head broken, and his assailants fared no better. They told their stories afterward at the Seventeenth Precinct Station-house, corner of Fifth street and Second avenue, where they were conveyed, and at which thenceforward the interest centered. Christian Meyer, who struck the Sergeant, confessed his misdeeds with much naivete, as he was sitting with head bandaged and a broken wrist in a sling in the officers’ quarters. He said he was a painter by trade, belonging to an association with 3,000 members; that there were about 100 of them only present; that every one was armed in some way, his own weapon being a claw-hammer, with a thong to put his hand through; and that they had orders not to fight unless they were attacked. The Sergeant pushed him, so he obeyed orders and hit the Sergeant. Justus Schwab, another captive, who wore a red flag around his waist, said his father had served four years’ imprisonment for riot at Frankfort, Germany: that he had been four years and eight months in the country, and fourteen weeks out of work. He thought every man should defend the State, and that the State should provide for every man. He thought the working men would triumph, and commenced to sing the Marseillaise, a performance which was checked. On Hofflicher, another leader, was found a somewhat elaborate Communistic badge. The vicinity of the station-house for several blocks was thronged until quite late in the afternoon, and in the Bowery as far down as Canal street, knots of men were gathered on the corners as late as 2 o’clock, waiting for the procession. In the vicinity of the Seventeenth Precinct Station-house the task of dispersing the multitude kept the officers well employed. There were incessant skirmishes in which clubs were judiciously applied with seasonable but not excessive severity, and prisoners were continually being brought in. The scrambles of the mob as the officers advanced were not unamusing; in fact, it seemed as if they rather enjoyed the exercise. The housetops and windows for blocks were crowded with patient spectators.

At 3:45 P. M. the prisoners were marched to Essex Market Police Court, and arraigned before Justice Flammer, who held them in default of $1,000 bail each. The schools soon after filled the streets with children and a more respectable class of citizens appeared. The trouble was evidently over. It was at no time beyond easy control. The forbearance and good humor of the Police were admirable. There were unpleasant incidents, however, which showed plainly that a neglected spark might have been fanned into a dangerous flame amid the unamiable passions abroad. Alderman Kehr, about noon, was passing through Fourth street, when he was recognized, and as the cry was raised, Here’s an Alderman–go for him! he jumped on an Avenue A car, but was again recognized, the car boarded, and he had to jump off again and run for his life. Police Commissioners Charlick and Gardner visited the Seventeenth Precinct in a coupé at 4:30 P. M.

THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY BEFORE THE MAYOR

The Mayor arrived at his office at noon. When he had taken his seat, his Secretary handed him a card containing the request, Mr. Leander Thompson would like to have an interview with his Honor. The Mayor recognized the name as that of a member of the Working Men’s Committee of Safety, who had previously called upon him as a representative of the labor movement, and at whose request he had promised to address the laborers at Union square. The Mayor told his Secretary to admit Mr. Thompson, and the latter, accompanied by Messrs. John McMichael, George Buck, John Halbert, and Luceen Saniel, entered the office. Gen. Duryee, the Police Commissioner, was in an adjoining chamber, and, the moment Thompson entered, the Mayor called him to his side.

Well, gentlemen, said the Mayor, I am ready to hear what you have to say.

Mr. Thompson, in response, said the deputation represented the Committee of Safety, and they had called to escort his Honor to Tompkins square where, they hoped, he would address the people.

Mayor Havemeyer–I have heard what occurred this morning, and I do not desire to address crazy or excited people, who might be anxious to send brickbats flying.

Mr. Thompson–The people would like to hear your views. We will take you in a carriage. The working men are a peaceable and orderly class. They made an attempt to meet and express their views and were forcibly ejected by the Police, who clubbed and trampled upon them.

Mr. McMichael here stepped forward and said, Mr. Mayor, I hope you will come with us. We promised the people that you would speak to them, and they will be much disappointed if you do not. The meeting this morning was intended to be peaceable and orderly, but the Police interfered and clubbed every one they met. there were 20,000 persons in the square and its vicinity, and they were driven back without cause. I believe that it is absolutely necessary for you to come up and speak to the working men. They are very much excited about the treatment they have received from the Police, and consequences which we would wish to avert may follow if they are not spoken to.

Gen. Duryee interposed here. He said that all law-abiding citizens would act peaceably, and that he did not believe there would be any further trouble. But, resumed Mr. McMichael, the Police treated the meeting most mercilessly. Without a moment’s warning they clubbed them off the ground.

Gen. [sic]Duryea[/sic], (warmly)–No, Sir; the Police did not act until a man came forward and struck a Sergeant on the head with a heavy hammer, which he had rigged so completely that it was taken from him with difficulty. Then an attack was made upon a Captain, so that it was time to disperse the crowd.

Mr. Thompson–The Park Commissioners gave us a permit to meet in Tompkins square, and they rescinded it last night, so that we had no time to tell the people to keep away.

Mr. McMichael–The meeting was intended to be peaceable: we promised the people that you would address them, and it is necessary for something to be done to allay the feeling that exists.

Mayor Havemeyer–I would have addressed the working men to-day if they carried out the programme they submitted to me. They agreed to march from Tompkins to Union square, and I told you that I would speak to them before they were dismissed at the latter place. Instead of doing what they agreed to do, they held a mass-meeting at Tompkins square without authority.

One of the deputation here remarked that the programme was changed on the previous night, so as to enable the working men to hear addresses.

Mr. Thompson–Our original intention was to march down to the City Hall, so as to see the authorities about getting employment.

Commissioner Duryee–But the Police Commissioners had to forbid that, because a large procession would interfere with business in the crowded thoroughfares below Canal street.

Mr. Halbert–This is a diversion. We desire to know if your Honor will come with us to address the working men.

Mayor Havemeyer–I must leave the matter to Commissioner Duryee.

Commissioner Duryee–I think it would be unadvisable for you to go. Let these gentlemen come again, and I am sure that all that can be done for the unemployed will be done by the City.

Mr. McMichael–We have been denounced by the press without cause. We have been called Communists, and our objects have been misrepresented. All we want is work.

Mayor Havemeyer–Well, there is one difficulty in the way. The market in this City is glutted with labor, and men will not work unless they can get the price they ask. I believe that there is work enough for everybody, but not at the wages demanded. (To Mr. McMichael.) What is your business?

Mr. McMichael–I am a painter.

Mayor Havemeyer–Well, many a man who can’t, at the present rates, get his house painted for less than $300 would willingly give $200 to have it done. But, as he has got money, he can afford to wait until he can have the painting done at the sum he wishes to pay for it.

Mr. McMichael–It is necessary to get good prices to live now.

Mr. Thompson–The working men can’t demand employment from private parties, so they must demand it from the Government.

Mayor Havemeyer–It is not the purpose or object of the City Government to furnish work to the industrious poor. That system belongs to other countries, not to ours. We can’t tear down the City Hall so as to furnish work to the unemployed. We have to open streets and proceed with other works such as are rquired, and it takes time to authorize these according to law.

Mr. Thompson–But is it not the duty of the Government to furnish rations to starving men and their families?

Mayor Havemeyer–I agree with you that rations should be furnished to those who need them, and I am ready to advance a movement of that kind to the full extent of my power. The people of this City are too large-hearted to allow any person to suffer from starvation.

Mr. Thompson–Well, perhaps it’s better for your Honor not to come with us to-day; so we shall not urge you. But we must see the people, lest they should blame us for not bringing you to Tompkins square. Will you (turning to Commissioner Duryee) give us a letter to the other Commissioners, so that we may procure a pass to enter Tompkins square. If we don’t get a pass, we’ll get clubbed by the Police.

Commissioner Duryee–There is no necessity for a note. See Commissioner Smith. You can easily see him.

The deputation then left. Immediately after they had retired, the Mayor said: I am in favor of raising subscriptions from merchants and others, so as to alleviate any suffering that may exist among working men and their families. Money would be soon forthcoming for the purpose, and a hall could be hierd and a clerk engaged to serve out rations of all kinds to the hungry. Money could also be advanced to those who were unable to pay their rent.

THE RIOTERS IN COURT.

Essex Market Police Court was particularly lively yesterday afternoon when Capt. Walsh, of the Seventeenth Precinct, assisted by twenty-five patrolmen marched in the prisoners whom they had arrested for riotous conduct around Tompkins square. The would-be Communists looked dogged and obstinate, evidently thinking that they would be at once discharged. They were considerably disappointed, however, when it was made known to them that the full penalty of the law would be meted out to them. They all expected friends would come forward and exert mysterious influence in their favor, but their expectations were all in vain. Some few of them, more impudent than others, said, Oh, the Judge dare not do anything to us; we are too powerful, and the people would tear down the prison. After the ordinary business had been disposed of, Justice Flammer directed the prisoners in charge of Capt. Walsh to be brought before him. The rioters were then all marched up to the desk, and formal complaints were entered against every one of them, charging them with assault and battery and riotous conduct. Justice Flammer, after the complaints of the officers were taken, committed all the prisoners, in default of $1,000 bail each, to stand their trial. They were all taken into the prison, and when there were visited by a Times reporter. They appeared only to be realizing the fact that they had committed very serious offenses against the law, and many of them regretted that they had ever been drawn into joining the demonstration.

Sources

• PDF: “Defeat of the Communists,” New York Times, January 14, 1874

Here are a pair of stories from the New York Herald in 1874, on “The Communists” and their meetings. The stories are typical examples of mainstream journalism reporting on radical movements in the wake of the United States’ first great Red Scare — the reaction to the Red uprisings in France in 1871 and the proclamation of the Paris Commune. Although the communards had been conquered, massacred and exiled by the Versailles government years before in 1871, the economic depression following the Panic of 1873, and an upsurge in worker protests and labor organizing, left many mainstream papers panicked about the prospects for conspiracy and insurgency in the United States.

Many thanks to Jesse Walker for pointing me to this issue of the Herald.

These stories appeared on Sunday, January 18, 1874. First, on p. 6, the column advertising “To-Day’s Contents of the Herald” includes the following item:

THE COMMUNIST SNAKE “SCOTCHED” NOT KILLED: AN ALARMING PRONOUNCEMENT! THEY “WILL HAVE BREAD!” — Tenth Page.

More on that in a minute. But first, in another column on p. 6:

The Communists of New York–Their Secret Meetings and Movements.

That there exists in the city of New York a disturbing element known as the “Communists” was demonstrated on Tuesday last in Tompkins square, and again last night in Cosmopolitan Hall. Although frustrated in Tuesday’s open attempt to defy the lawful authorities which forbade their assembling, or at least their parading the streets in procession, there is no knowing at what hour or by what preconcerted and secret action they may commit some overt act and cause widespread consternation among the community.

These dangerous conspirators against society are not confined to New York nor to Paris; they are spread the world over. They declare, as one of the prisoners arrested on Tuesday last did, that the red flag is their only flag; that they spit upon all other flags; that they demand equal rights in all things, the equalization of property, the apportionment of “good things,” and “free love,” as it is commonly known, in its broadest sense. They have no religion and no respect for person or station. In New York the body is controlled in a mysterious manner by an unseen so-called “Committee of Safety,” only a few of whom have appeared upon the surface. The movements of this committee are as secret and mystical as those of any known secret organization. Their leaders attempt to cover their own peculiar objects and schemes by advocating–nay, “demanding”–the employment of laborers upon the public works. These laborers, it is known, are mostly Irish Catholics, and if by their demands they succeed in securing employment for this class of people they take all the credit therefor, and hope thereby to win the Catholic laboring element to their side and obtain their assistance in their machinations. In these ridiculous demands, however, they have thus far failed. And when the Irish Catholic laborers are made to realize the hideous conduct of these Communists during their reign of carnage and terror in Paris, when the highest prelate in their Church in that unfortunate metropolis–the beloved Archbishop Darboy–together with other venerated and venerable magnates of the Church, was savagely butchered by these frenzied semi-barbarians, and the sacred shrines of their churches ruthlessly robbed of their precious jewels and treasures, they shun, as they would a pestilence, all affiliation with these foes of Christianity and civilization as well as of law and order. Evidence of this may be gleaned from the fact that of the large number of arrests at Tompkins square on Tuesday not a single Irish Catholic was found among the number. And another significant fact may be mentioned here–that of all those arrested, with only two or three exceptions, none were either native born or adopted citizens or foreigners who had declared their intentions of becoming citizens; in short, the great majority were men who recognized only the “red flag” as the flag of their nationality, and who “spat upon all others.” The Communists attempt to cajole the German laborers in the same way they have the Irish; but they to almost as great an extent have failed with them as with the Irish. It is even intimated that the Communists have threatened to burn schoolhouses in order to give employment in their reconstruction to both Irish and German laborers.

It may be asked, where does all the money come from to support the extraordinary operations of these men–men who work like machines, or as an engineer moves his locomotive, with people’s passions for tramways? They must have money, though professedly poor and starving, for if allowed to appear in procession they are ready to make a gorgeous display of banners and legends, of regalia, gold shields and other paraphenalia that must have cost thousands of dollars. At their meetings, which are seldom held twice in the same place or at the same hour when the places are changed, they have a free lunch at which many a poor fellow, out of work and out of money, is glad to get the wherewith to appease the pangs of hunger. These cost money, and it is the best possible way for them to spend it. The leaders–the engineers of the “Committee of Safety”–do not seem to be very impecunious, one of them (if not of this, of some other similar, if not so radical an organization) exhibiting in his shirt bosom on a certain occasion a thousand dollar breastpin while shrieking for “bread or blood.” The money to support all these things, we say, must come from some source, or may it not be here already? May not the booty of the plundered churches of Paris be now furnishing the material aid to carry on these nefarious projects–projects so menacing to the peace and safety of this whole community? It is known, as has been before intimated in this paper, that large amounts of precious stones, without setting, and concealed in balls of wax, together with numerous other treasures, the spoils of the Paris churches we refer to, were secretly conveyed to this country during the temporary but sanguinary régime of the Communists in Paris. Hence is it not reasonable to suppose that the product of these treasures of the sanctuaries is employed in the work of these incendiaries, conspirators and revolutionists?

We do not think that there is any immediate cause for serious alarm in regard to the operations of these desperate people; but it manifestly behooves the authorities to take such steps as will prevent their obtaining the upper hand in any single demonstrative movement they may undertake.

On the first column p. 10, the Herald carries its second story:

THE COMMUNISTS.

Meeting to Arouse the Second Assembly District.

Startling Words for the City Authorities

RESOLVED TO HAVE BREAD.

Several Addresses from Members of the Committee of Safety–What the Commune Intends To Do.

The Communists, it would seem, are moving and organizing in reality, and, judging from the speeches delivered at the meeting which took place last evening at Cosmopolitan Hall, corner of Catharine street and East Broadway, are determined upon asserting their rights to assemble in the public parks of the city. Quite a number of the organization were present, representing almost every nationality. Applause was freely given whenever any of the speakers alluded to the Police Commissioners or the police as tyrants and despots.

Citizen Banks

was on hand at an early hour, and as each newcomer made his appearance he would immediately rise and grasp him by the hand, and at the same time whisper to him in a subdued tone information of a secret character. About eight o’clock there were about sixty or seventy present. Citizen Banks then stepped up to the table at the further end of the room and called the meeting to order. He proposed that Mr. Roger Burke be requested to act as chariman. The motion was seconded and carried, and

Mr. Burke mounted the rostrum.

All eyes were now turned upon Citizen Burke, and as he prepared to deliver his address of thanks a faint applause greeted his ears. As soon as order was restored Citizen Burke delivered himself of hte following speech:–

Citizen Burke’s Speech

Gentlemen–I am thankful to you for having elected me to this position. It is not the first time that I have held similar positions among workingmen. I am sorry to state that last evening one of our meetings was broken up by the police, and several of those present were “pulled.” I am happy to be able to announce to you that every district in the city is undergoing a thorough organization. This district, however, is more behind than any other, and we must endeavor to protect our organization here also. The police have endeavored again to infringe upon our rights, for to-day, hearing of our proposed meeting this evening, they were sent around to dissuade the workingmen from putting in an appearance. I understand that at this very moment policement in citizens’ clothes are placed around the building to watch us, and that detectives are also in our very midst prepared to note down every word we may give utterance to. The Committee of Safety desire, for the purpose of perfecting our organization, that every one present this evening step forward and transcribe his name upon the roll. At this juncture onf of the audience requested information of the speaker as to whether or not the police of New York city had been empowered to amend the constitution of the United States so as to prevent the right of free speech. This remark was received with applause by the entire assemblage.

Having concluded his remarks, Citizen Burke then introduced

Citizen Elliott.

Citizen Elliott announced the fact that the German wards were already thoroughly organized and that the only thing which remained to secure a thorough and effective organization was the enrolment of the English speaking wards. The proper manner of procedure, the speaker stated, for those in sympathy with the movement now on foot to redeem the workingmen was to perfect district and ward organizations throughout the entire city, the same as is done previous to the holding of the political elections. Rumors had gone abroad that the Committee of Safety had determined to resign their trust, but such was not the case. The

Committee of Safety

would always remain in active existence. The members of that committee had pledged themselves to remain true to the principles which led to their organization. They would never relax their efforts, but would work night and day to promote the great cause of the workingmen. Not one of them sought any office, and they were all pledged never to accept any. The Committee of Safety have, moreover, determined to carry the cases of the men now in custody who were arrested for participation in the meeting on Tuesday last before the State courts, and no labor nor expense would be spared to free them from bondage. On last Tuesday the country at large had seen a most dastardly outrage perpetrated upon the rights of the workingmen.

Commissioner Duryee

had charged his police upon inoffensive workingmen like so many “bulldogs” (Voice in the audience–“Shame! Shame!”) When a demonstration is made again let the workingmen go out in large numbers so that the police or military will not dare to resist them. (Loud applause. I request that those who are present here this evening will, before they depart, come forward and sign the roll so that we can form a good nucleus to perfect a solid organization in this ward.

Citizen Banks

was then introduced. During the interval between the organization of the meeting and the conclusion of the speech of Citizen Elliot the audience was considerably increased by the entry of quite a number of prominent Communists.

Citizen Banks immediately opened his remarks by alluding to the outrage committed by the police on last Tuesday. He then continued in the following strain:–To-night, again, it appears to me that an attempt is being made to intimidate us from holding our meetings as citizens and workingmen, and a second outrage is being perpetrated upon us. We are denied the right of even meeting in peace and quietness in this hall. Police guard all the entrances, and detectives have been placed in our midst to watch our every movement. This I consider even a greater outrage than the one which was perpetrated on Tuesday last; for they have even busied themselves in warning the workingmen to keep away, telling them that if we met there would be trouble. The committee, however, have met here in defiance of the police. We are not to be terrified. We are not to be coerced into giving up our rights as citizens. Outrages such as these leave men no other remedy than military action and to be prepared militarily, in order that we can meet whenever we desire to exchange opinions and prepare for action. At Tompkins square they prepared an anbuscade for us, and without a word of warning began an indiscriminate clubbing. Those who were endeavoring to run in order to escape laceration were clubbed unmercifully–one workingman being killed outright and another now lies at the point of death. The time has come and we

must now prepare for the worst.

We must resist as workingmen, and as such we must endeavor to put down all monopolies. Under the present laws which govern society how much better off are we than the former slaves in the South? (Voice in the audience–“They were well fed.”) Yes, they were well fed, and they were cared for and provided with work, which we are denied. We are not even as fortunate as were the negroes. Talk about free America and the Stars and Stripes! Why, the Stars and Stripes are in disgrace. We must prepare to

fight those opposed to us.

We are tired of political demagogues. We have had enough of them. They talk about the Communists. The Communists are the only ones who look after the rights of the workingmen. (Loud applause.) Nowadays the workingman who dares to say a word draws down upon his head the anger of the press. The competitive system in existence makes all the trouble. We want the system of universal co-operation, and to this opinion we must all incline. The man who does not labor robs the man who does. He hires you for his good only and robs you of the profit which belongs to your labor. Independent action on the part of the workingmen is the only way we can gain our ends, and if we cannot meet pacifically we must organize militarily. We must have no sympathy for anybody but our families, and if the police will not allow us to meet quietly we must go armed to our meetings.

Other Speakers.

Citizen Samuels, of the Committee of Safety, then addressed the meeting, and was followed by Citizen Leander Thompson, chairman of the Committee of Safety, and Citizen McGuire. Subsequent to the speech of Citizen McGuire, Citizen Elliot offered and read the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:–

Resolutions.

Whereas we are passing through a great financial crisis which has thrown us suddenly out of employment; and whereas there is no destruction of the real wealth of the country, but speculation in gold, stocks and the people’s lands, sanctioned by the government, has been the sole cause of the panic; and whereas we are industrious, law-abiding citizens, who wish to avoid all outrage on person or property, and deprecate violence or injustice in any form; and whereas we desire only the means of obtaining the necessities of life, not as objects of charity, but as law-abiding citizens, whose right it is to demand work of the government which we have always protected and supported; therefore, we are

Resolved. That we will not eat the bread of idleness nor starve in the midst of plenty; but that we demand work, and pay for that work, now and without delay.

Resolved. That we demand the rigid enforcement of the eight-hour system on all private as well as public work, and the instant and entire abolition of the whole government contract system.

Resolved. That if the government will not furnish work for the unemployed, we, through our Committee of Safety, will in this our time of need supply ourselves and our families with proper food, shelter and clothing and will send all our bills for the same to the City Treasury to be liquidated, until such times as we shall obtain work and pay.

Resolved. That we demand an immediate and permanent reduction of twenty-five per cent on all house rents until the 1st of May to the unemployed of all classes.

Resolved. That, in the furtherance of the objects set down in the above resolutions, we will enroll our names and organize, not in the interest of any political party, but in the interest of all the people who are suffering from the present condition of affairs.

Resolved. That we will appoint from this mass meeting a committee of twelve workingmen, residents of the ward, to organize the working classes of the ward and co-operate with the German ward organizations.

Resolved. That we will support and sustain the Committee of Safety in its work of securing the above objects.

Adjourned.

After a somewhat lengthy address from Mr. McMicken, of the Committee of Safety, the meeting adjourned. Those who had not already signed the roll of membership were then again invited to do so. Some fears had been entertained that when the meeting was over some altercation, if not a serious disturbance, might occur between the police and the men who had attended the meeting, but nothing took place that could in any way be considered reprehensible. The men quietly dispersed to their homes, without even hovering around the building.

A little further down p. 10, in the column on court reports, there is the following report from the Court of Special Sessions:

Court of Special Sessions.

The Tompkins Square Rioters.

Before Judges Kilbreth, Flammer and Kasmire.

Benjamin Sugden, Peter Ackerman, Charles Green, Lorenzo Solestro, Jacob Eickhoff, Herman Zizachefsky, Thomas McGraw, Terence Donnelly, James Donohue and Joseph Hoefflicher were arraigned at the bar of Special Sessions yesterday, charged with assault and battery on several different officers and with aiding and inciting riot.

They were arrested last Tuesday, in and near Tompkins square, at the time of the workingmen’s demonstration, and have been locked up in Essex Market Prison ever since. Counsellor Theodore E. Tomlinson appeared for all of them except Hoefflicher and demanded for his clients a trial by jury. Their cases were, therefore, sent to the Court of General Sessions. Counsellor Price appeared for Hoefflicher and asked that his case might be tried in the Court of Special Sessions. The trial was set down by the presiding magistrate for next Tuesday, when all the witnesses are expected to be present. The prisoners were then removed to the Tombs prison and are at present confined on the fourth tier of that institution. Some of them are accused of felonious assault and battery, while others have no complaint against them except meting and talking wildly in the streets.

Sources

• PDF: New York Herald, 18 January 1874, p. 6
• PDF: New York Herald, 18 January 1874, p. 10

Here’s some more on mass-media reception of Anarchism during the early 20th century: a strange little piece from the Sunday New York Times magazine from May 8, 1910, on Anarchist Sunday schools in New York, focusing on the Ferrer Sunday School taught by Alexander Berkman. The Sunday schools were part of the large network of schools, cultural spaces and other institutions organized by Anarchists in large cities like New York during the early 20th century. (Like most Anarchistic educational projects, the Sundays were closely associated with the Modern School Movement and the thought of Francisco Ferrer). Either of the writer of the article, or his editor, couldn’t quite seem to decide whether they wanted this story to be a straight interview of Berkman and a description of how the Sunday Schools were operated, or whether they wanted another cookie-cutter Anarchist-menace scare story.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS THAT TEACH CHILDREN ANARCHY

A Thousand Young Persons Are Being Trained in New York to Be Successors of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

So quietly has the anarchistic propaganda been carried on in New York that it will, without doubt, send a chill of arctic iciness down the spines of the many people who profess to stand in holy horror of the theory to learn through this article that to-day anarchistic Sunday schools are in session here just as are Sunday schools for bringing up the young to follow Methodism, Baptism, or any other form of faith or creed.

There are easily a thousand children in these schools, children who will, beyond peradventure, grow up to be Alexander Berkmanns and Emma Goldmans, with perhaps a Ferrer or a Tolstoy appearing. They range in age from 6 years to 16. During the week they go to the public schools and sing their own part in the grand chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” recite the lessons offered by the system of education there, and hurry home to help their parents in the tenements, just as do other children; but on Sunday they loom up as a little body of humanity isolated from the present sociological system requiring strict obedience and reverence for authority. They are to be the propagandists of anarchy in America when Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkmann have passed away, and old Ben Tucker over on Sixth Avenue has joined the dust.

To those with radical natures or inclinations, and who have had opportunity to observe, the earnestness of the Anarchist in the expounding of his doctrine is well known, but to the great mass of intelligent humanity, smugly and snugly satisfied with their lot, the picture of an Anarchist Sunday school secured for readers of The Sunday Times will prove something of a revelation.

To begin with, there is no God in the Anarchist Sunday school, and the tablet miraculously handed to Moses, with its ten Thou Shalt Nots, is no more in evidence there than is the latest revised code of the laws of the State of New York.

As the Anarchist preaches against the theory of submission to authority and law, the Sunday school teacher in the Anarchist class takes care that even with children he gives no impression that he himself is entitled to exert authority over them. If an Anarchist child does not agree with what teacher says he may arise in his little might of independence and say so. If he shows reasoning power in his expression of view he is a likely scholar, for it is the aim of the Anarchist to bring children up with absolute independence of the long-established restrictions on free thinking.

Occasionally rises a little one in one of these Sunday schools and asks with the directness and disregard of consequences peculiar to children:

How about God?

The teacher does not answer the question. He does not avoid it. He tells the children to figure out what reasons they have for believing that there is a God. The young minds attack the terrific question and fall back from it like baby moths that have winged swiftly against their first lampshade.

The largest of the Sunday schools is in Avenue A. It is called the Ferrer Sunday School, and was, until the killing of the Spanish philosopher, known as the Radical Sunday School. How the name was changed will prove a story that may stand out with striking novelty in the child life of New York to-day. It shall be told a little later in this article.

The Ferrer Sunday School is conducted by Alexander Berkmann. It has about eighty members and is in two classes. It meets on Sunday between 10 in the morning and noon. The youngest child is 7.

Berkmann has no laid-out system of teaching, depending on his comprehension of the psychology of the group at the time of the gathering. There are no rules. A song may be sung in chorus, a song dealing with freedom of mankind and hate for oppression. Some of the children may have learned by heart a poem or a fragment of an anarchistic argument and these provide recitations. The training of the mind anarchistically is then begun.

Berkmann, in a talk with a Times writer, in the office of Mother Earth, the Anarchist magazine, gave a sample of this teaching.

This was his talk to his Sunday school on Sabbath after the execution of Ferrer.

Once a single human being was swept from the sea to the shore of an island where there lived no human beings. There he found a great flock of sheep. He studied them and noticed that some of them were very powerfully built and finely fed. Some had even attained the strength and ferocity of wolves. But there were a great many of the sheep that were lean and worn. They were hungry and had been trampled down and hurt.

The man thought that he could so arrange it that these sheep, with little to eat and with bruises from being trampled, could be taught to care for themselves better and realize what the power of the strong and wolflike sheep had brought them to. He went among the sheep that suffered and began to point out to them what was the matter. The wolfish and strong ones heard of this and they turned upon the man and killed him.

When Berkmann finished this parable one of the children, a boy 18 years old, arose and said:

Why Mr. Berkmann, this story is just like the story of Ferrer’s death.

The children were so impressed with the parable and the discussion which followed that the name of the school was then changed from the Radical Sunday School to the Ferrer Sunday School.

In the classes, said Berkmann, we generally use current events as subjects for discussion and study. For instance, one of our lessons was produced by the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York. The children of the east side saw a great deal of the sailors from the many men-of-war in the harbor. They saw the sailors of different nationalities entering and leaving the cafés, the best of friends, their arms about each other and acting like human brothers. The question naturally followed. Why should they be thus fond of each other and thus brotherly on land, and on sea be commanded to kill each other? They are brothers, and love each other, and there can be no fair reason for their slaying each other.

A man who had been raised in one of the old credal beliefs with care but who had come to be an agnostic in middle life once told the writer than when he realized that his religion had gone from him he felt that what he called reason had stepped into a nursery, and, like a willful bully, had gathered up the toys of a child sitting there and had destroyed them because he considered them useless. He considered the change from belief to agnosticism the tragedy of his life. The figure may be applied to thinking grown-ups easily, but it is hard to think of applying it to a child. And yet in the Anarchist Sunday school the tragedy of the destroyed toys is not infrequently enacted.

The pupil of the Anarchist Sunday school is taught to reason. The teacher only serves to direct their attention to a problem.

One child, said Berkmann, wanted to know whether he should pray. My mothers wants me to pray, said this child, but my father says that it is not necessary.

Did you answer the problem? he was asked.

No, he said. I try to keep back my own views and develop the mentality of the children that they may form their own opinions and arrive at their own conclusions. The question was answered by a little girl, who said, Praying is good because it relieves the soul.

Another attempt of a Sunday school pupil along this line was made when a youngster requested to know if it was possible for people to know what God wants them to do.

These occasional inquiries as to the spiritual life have generally ended in the Anarchist Sunday schools with the proposition that some of the remarkable things in life can be understood and that there are questions which never can be settled. The mental attitude of the children might be put in this way: We are not certain whether there are grounds for the belief that we should pray.

That, of course, leaves the question well in the field of agnosticism. The teacher of anarchy does not, with the children, declare that there is no God. Nor does he say that there is a God. The Sunday school class goes frequently to the Museum of Natural History, to Central Park, to the Zoological Gardens, and other places where, with the teacher, nature is studied.

The Ferrer Sunday school is only one of about fifteen similar schools in the greater city. Wherever the local groups of Anarchists can handle their own Sunday schools, carrying on the propaganda with literature, letters, lectures, &c., they do so without asking aid of others. When they cannot the State group helps. There is no central or superior group. Each has its own autonomy, although they all work to develop their principles of solidarity and mutual aid.

There are frequently conventions of the Sunday school teachers. Those who have classes get together and exchange experiences and ideas. In this city the Anarchists know that the fulfillment of their vision is afar, and they are already sowing their seed in the young and new fields that a generation of their kind may take hold of the propaganda when the present generation has withered and fallen.

These little Anarchists are being trained to believe in no authority. As Mr. Berkmann put it, everything is being done for them to aid them in the development of their independence of laws, the strengthening of their mentalities and emotions so that they will become men and women stripped of the conventional prejudices.

Laws make crutches, he said, and the legs become atrophied from long non-use. The character and mentality of human becomes atrophied when laws are framed to support them. We prefer not to use the crutches of authority but to walk of our own free will and independence, and we try to live so that there is no necessity for a law.

Another result helpful to anarchy has been attained by the establishment of the Sunday schools in the east side. The teachers have found that the little ones are making splendid missionaries and are proselyting among their parents and the grown ones in the family. Everything that is said and done in one of these little groups is told of at home to the old folks, many of whom have suffered bitterly under Russian oppression and who have revolution deep in their hearts. They write letters to the Anarchist teachers and get replies. They discuss the views expounded at home by their children and many of them become radicals and join the Anarchist groups.

The Anarchists also spread their propaganda by establishing little libraries which they make easily accessible to all who want to study the theory.

In the spreading of the propaganda among the children the littlest are not overlooked. There are some as young as six years of age who are getting kindergarten lessons in anarchy. One of these lessons is the lesson which preaches to a boy of health and strength at the age of six that he should not strike or abuse a boy who is not as strong as he is but should help him because he needs help. That is the very heart of the kindergarten lesson.

All of this work is done in what is called the Workmen’s Circle. The Circle is the general group and is known as the Arbeiter Ring. A little white enamel badge with the letters A. R. in the buttonhole will point out for you one of the men who dream of bringing to fulfillment the prophecy of Isaiah and hastening the time when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and there shall be no bruised or hungry sheep.

Anarchy is kept so well smothered in New York with a cloak of painted gauze upon which are the pictures of platoons of police that the average citizen of intelligence does not get a chance to be forewarned and forearmed if there is, really, any menace in the movement. For instance, the tenth National convention of the Workmen’s Circle has just closed in this city–closed yesterday, in fact. The delegates to this convention represented 450 branches or 65,000 active Anarchists. There were 550 delegates to the convention and they came from every city in the Union and many from Canada. The convention was held in the New Star Casino, at 115 East 107th Street.

In a practical way the Anarchist cause has made advances lately. It has bought its own cemetaries, has established a sanitarium for consumptive members at Liberty, N. Y., and partly supports another in Denver. It has provided money for hospitals and libraries for Anarchistic educational purposes. Everything that the Ring does must go back to the general body of Anarchists, for everything is done through the referendum. There is no President or executive officer. The Anarchists believe only in the solidarity of mankind and recognize no authority.

The Arbeiter Ring in this country is, of course, a branch of the International Circle, and Berkmann is a delegate to that body, which spreads anarchy in every country.

It is all newspaper talk about our being beset by Secret Service men and police, he said with a smile. Anarchists do not advocate violence. We advocate peace. Last Sunday our children–1,000 of them–gave an entertainment at Murray Hill Lyceum. They played War and Peace. The little boys with swords and guns and trappings argued for war and the little girls argued against it with smiles and flowers. The girls won and the boys changed their uniforms to the jackets and overalls of workmen, put down their swords and guns, and picked up scythes and tools for labor.

There could not have been anything dangerous about that, could there? he asked.

There was nothing sinister about the man who served his term in prison for shooting Frick, the steel millionaire, during the Homestead strike. He looks like a college professor, has a pleasant voice, finely intelligent eyes, and a high forehead. He makes his living by tutoring pupils for the regent examinations, giving lessons night and day in the east side.

The little flat high up and in the rear of 210 East Thirteenth Street, where he and Emma Goldman live and edit Mother Earth, is the apartment of poor people. But the living room is snug and homey. Pictures of famous anarchistic thinkers are on the wall. Through an open window came Caruso’s voice in the great aria from Tosca, ground out by a phonograph, as Berkmann talked with the Times man. It was a warm combination, but the night was warm, and we were glad for the breeze that swept the little place however burdened it might be.

We teach no ism, he said, harking back to the Sunday schools. Our aim is to develop character and mentality in the child. We try to make them think, criticise, and feel.

We want their emotional and intellectual natures developed. We want to make them men and women absolutely free of the old restrictions. We hope that they will grow up with the spirit of solidarity and co-operation in them. We try to teach them that in and out of school.

We try to teach them ethical right and reason. Our Radical Boys’ Literary Club, boys about 13 or 14 years old, hold meetings after school, and they run their organization just as the grown people do. They have advanced to where they need no help from their elders.

Among the grown Anarchists the cause is kept warm by fervid preachings in their publications. These are the weekly paper Frei Arbiter Stimme, with a circulation of 12,000; Mother Earth, with a circulation of 6,000; Freiheit, with 5,000 circulation, and Voine Listy, a Bohemian paper, with a circulation of 4,500.

There are nine large groups of the grown Anarchists in New York. These have regular meetings, and conduct the propaganda with lectures, debates, &c.

In the district from Fourteenth Street to the Battery east of Broadway are 850,000 people living. Here beats the heart of anarchy. Nearly all of these people are foreign born, the native born element being insignificant in its percentage.

Forsyth Street, Chrystie, Cannon, Pitt, Columbia, Second Streets all have buildings in which are tiny halls that may be rented for a dollar or two for a wedding, a banquet, a lodge meeting, or a group meeting of Anarchists.

The man who lives awhile in this teeming corner of Manhattan does not take long to find out where he can go and hear all the anarchy he wants expounded. The writer once met in one of these little halls S. Yanofsky, the editor of the Frei Arbiter Stimme. A man with dreamy eyes, pointed beard, and nervous energy, he seemed to be looked up to as little short of a god by a clump of young men and women who were wating for him.

Yanofsky and Berkmann were both rounded up by the police after the Silverstein bomb explosion in Union Square in 1908, and as there was nothing against either of them nothing came of the call to Police Headquarters. Yanofsky, when asked by the writer what he thought of Silverstein’s act, replied:

The man who commits a violent deed, if he is not mad, is desperate. Violence never did any good for anarchy. All government is a form of violence. Suppose Silverstein had suffered personally–and his act was that of an impatient and ignorant man–what did he accomplish? He only made himself dead and gave the chance to the enemies of anarchy to spread their calumnies. He only helped them to kill of the chances of gaining liberty.

Berkmann was a little clearer on the matter of violence and anarchy.

If a Republican or Democrat should throw a bomb or kill another, he said, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party would not be blamed for it. When an Anarchist does a thing like that we frankly say that anarchy did not inspire it, but that conditions of inequality and injustice caused the crime. To stop the crime, stop the cause. Anarchy is for justice and freedom. It cannot be blamed for individual acts of violence.

Among the favorite east side speakers for anarchy, besides Yanofsky and Berkmann, is Dr. Ben Reitman, whose method is to stir up the hearers with fiery sentences depicting the wrongs resulting from the present order of things. He with the others believes that anarchy is gathering strength, and will continue to gather it and will prove a living force in the slow movement of society through the ages.

We’ve been spending some time lately gathering material on C. L. James (1846-1911), the prolific but reclusive Anarchist pamphleteer and song-writer of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. James was something of an intellectual heavy in his day, and maintained frequent correspondence with (among others) The Alarm, Liberty, Free Society and Mother Earth, but he has since been almost entirely forgotten. Well, if the Fair Use Repository is good for anything, hopefully it is providing a platform for some diligent un-forgetting.

Along with a steady stream of pamphlets and articles, James wrote a book-length History of the French Revolution; for to-day’s post, we have a very mildly positive review of the book that ran in the New York Times, of all places, on April 25, 1903. Well, it’s certainly a kinder review than some he got in the Anarchist press. In any case, here we are.

The French Revolution

New York Times, April 25, 1903

History of the French Revolution. By C. L. James. Pp. 343. Cloth 8vo. Chicago: Abe Isaac, Jr.

A sketch of the French Revolution by a theoretical Anarchist is likely to have whatever interest attaches to a peculiar point of view. Mr. James seems to be a theoretic Anarchist, and his book has the special interest that might be expected of such a work. It is, in fact, a readable essay, for the most part moderate in expression, usually distinguished by lucidity of style, and apparently based on wide reading. After that the book is a piece of special pleading. Mr. James’s method is not to exult over the bloodshed and madness of the Revolution, rarely to defned, though often to excuse, the atrocities of the time.

The Reign of Terror he regards as a dreadful period, and the Government of that time one of the worst that the world has known, but one of the strongest. He thinks the idyllic time of the revolution was the period of a year or more before the execution of the King, when France bordered close upon true anarchy, being almost without government. This opinion, as might be expected of an Anarchist, Mr. James is fond of repeating. He also declares that the influential men of the Revolution were not Socialists or Communists. Even while he condemns the government of the Jacobins, and many of their tyrannical measures, as a consistent Anarchist must, he is anxious to find acts of theirs to praise, and he is not often struck with the absurdities of the time. But perhaps Mr. James with all his keenness is a little defective in the sense of humor.

The attitude of the author is best illustrated by concrete examples. He appreciates the virtues of Louis XVI., and thinks imprisonment would have been better than death in his case, but believing him to have been guilty of the crimes of which he was convicted, is not struck with the travesty of justice implied in a trial by Judges who were constantly under the eyes and influence of an outspoken populace bitterly hostile to the accused. The Queen he thinks to have been guilty also of treason, but he is moved to generous disgust at the revolting charges of Hébert. Nevertheless he hardly permits himself one expression of pity for her fate, though he thinks her death a political mistake. The September massacres, the atrocities of Lyons and of Nantes he does not defend, but impliedly excuses by citing parallels in the doings of settled governments. This last is his favorite method of excuse, and it is sometimes effective. He pities the Girondists, but thinks they brought upon themselves their hard fate. Of Danton’s end he says: Thus died, in the noblest of causes, the best champion of freedom whom the crisis of his time produced. Robespierre he does not defend so earnestly as do some recent students of the period, possibly because he cannot forgive Robespierre’s ambition to be dictator. Marat’s demand for 200,000 heads, though repeated in open convention, Mr. James thinks hardly more than a piece of insincere bravado. He pronounces the terrible doctor of the sewers the most misrepresented man in the revolution.

This book is well worth reading, if only that one may see how hard it is for the historian, however intelligent, to do much more than make ex parte statement of his case. It is well, however, that we should have such a statement from the revolutionary side, for the larger part of what has been written on the subject in English deals with it from the very opposite point of view.

Some of our recent items (“Emma Goldman Now Alien”, “To Drive Anarchists Out of the Country”) have focused on the anti-immigrant, anti-Anarchist panic of the 19-aughts. There have been a couple of stories from the establishment media of the time; to-day, we have a piece from the Anarchist press, in which Voltairine de Cleyre discusses the Philadelphia D.A.’s disastrous attempts to convict her, and fellow Anarchist Hyman Weinberg, for “inciting to riot,” based on speeches that they gave at a meeting of unemployed workers shortly before the “riot” (or police attack) in Philadelphia on February 20, 1908. This article was published in Mother Earth, Vol. III., No. 5 (July 1908), and is transcribed from the version reprinted in Peter Glassgold’s Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s MOTHER EARTH (2000), pp.246-252.

The Philadelphia Farce

Voltairine de Cleyre, Mother Earth III.5 (July 1908)

After the lapse of nearly four months from the riot of last February, the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Hyman Weinberg and Voltairine de Cleyre was called for trial on the 17th of June, the trial Judge being Mayer Sulzberger, a gentleman having a reputation of being somewhat more inclined to weigh the rights of citizens as against the attacks of the police than some other judges.

On the morning of the 17th, Weinberg and myself, the witnesses for the defense, and our respective lawyers were all ready in the court room. The State, however, was not ready; one of the arresting officers was not present.

Some very animated wrangling then took place between the Judge and the lawyers, in which the Judge, so far from upholding the dignity of office, presented, to me at least, the curious appearance of a scolding old woman; the effect was no doubt heightened by the black and somewhat out-of-date dress he wears. Under the regular rules of criminal court procedures, the case would then have gone over to the next term of court, but the result of the wrangling was that the case was continued to the next day. Accordingly, we appeared on the morning of June 18. The officer was now present, but the chief witness, in fact the only witness, was absent. The Prosecuting Attorney asked for a continuance of the case to search for the witness. The Judge ordered that the witness be called. The crier of the court holloed John Ká-ret, John Ka-rét. No response. Another crier went down the hall and out into the corridor calling John Ka-rét. John Karet did not appear.

The Judge asked if the State had Karet’s sworn testimony at the hearing in the Magistrate’s court. Upon the affidavit being produced, the Judge elected to read it himself because it was easier. Having done so, he doubled the paper up with a rather disgusted face, remarking, If that is all your evidence, we will submit the bill to the jury.

A motion of our lawyers to dismiss the case (or some legal phraseology to that effect) was denied by the Judge; the prosecution said it had other witnesses.

At this point Attorney Nelson asked the Court to appoint a stenographer, which was refused by the Judge with the remark: This Court is not here for the purpose of furnishing campaign literature to anybody.

We then engaged a stenographer on our own account; what follows is the verbatim report of the trial.

Commonwealth vs. Hyman Weinberg and Voltairine de Cleyre

}

Court of Quarter Sessions. March Sessions, 1908 No. 18.

Before Honorable Mayer Sulzberger, P. J., and a Jury.

Philadelphia, June 18, 1908.

Present, of counsel:

• Morris Wolf, Esq., Asst. District Attorney, for the Prosecution; and
• Henry John Nelson, Esq., and Henry N. Wessel, Esq., for the Defendants.

---

COMMONWEALTH’S EVIDENCE.

Ralph Gold, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. You are a special officer of the 33rd District?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. You arrested those defendants?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. When?

A. February 20th.

Q. 1908. Where?

A. I arrested Mr. Weinberg at Fifth and Lombard, in a restaurant, and also Mrs. de Cleyre at her home.

Q. Under what circumstances did you make the arrest?

By The Court:

Q. What do you know about them?

A. In fact, we know nothing; only the warrant sworn out by this Karat.

Q. What do you know about the case?

A. Nothing.

Q. Did they confess anything to you?

A. Nothing.

Q. Did they say anything to you?

A. Nothing at all.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. What did they say at the time you arrested them?

A. Nothing at all. I only placed them under arrest and said what it was for.

Q. They said nothing?

A. They said nothing; no, sir.

Q. Your first information was when this man Karat came to you?

A. He came to us and said these people were speaking.

Q. He said nothing in your presence?

A. Only at the hearing.

Q. You know nothing more about it?

A. No, sir.

(No cross-examination.)

---

Joseph Vignola, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. You are a special officer?

A. Yes, sir; of the 33rd District.

Q. Did you participate in the arrest of these defendants?

A. No, sir.

Q. What do you know about this case?

A. I don’t know anything about the case at all. I don’t know how my name comes on the bill.

(No cross-examination.)

---

John J. Fox, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. You are a special officer of the 2nd District?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What do you know about the case?

A. All I know is information received from John Karat, who swore out the warrant for Voltairine de Cleyre, and we arrested her.

Q. Were you present at the meeting at which the statements were said to have been made?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you have a conversation with either of the defendants?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What did they say about it?

A. They didn’t have anything to say.

Q. Did you have any conversation with Karat in the presence of the defendants?

A. Only at the hearing–that is, the hearing room.

Q. Do you know where Karat is now?

A. No, sir.

(No cross-examination.)

---

Charles Palma, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. Do you know anything about the case?

A. I don’t know anything about this case.

Q. Nothing at all?

A. Nothing at all.

Q. Nor about the defendants?

A. I don’t know anything about them.

Q. Nor about Karat?

A. Not a thing.

(No cross-examination.)

---

Louis Green, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. You are a guard at City Hall?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you know anything about the facts of this case?

A. No, sir; nothing about the case.

Q. Or about the defendants?

A. No, sir.

Q. Or about Karat?

A. No, sir.

Q. Do you know how your name got on the bill?

A. At the time the arrest was made they brought me in to the hearing at Central Station. There was a couple of letters that was written in Yiddish that they give me, that I should read through a few lines–

Q. You translated them?

A. Yes.

Q. To whom were those letters addressed?

A. They were addressed to a little town in the State of New Jersey.

Q. I mean to what person?

A. It doesn’t state. It doesn’t state any person.

Q. Who gave you the letters?

A. The Assistant District Attorney, Mr. Rogers.

Q. Have you them now or did he take them back?

A. He took them with him.

(No cross-examination.)

---

Jean H. Beniakoff, called by Commonwealth, sworn.

By Mr. Wolf:

Q. You are an official interpreter in the Courts of Philadelphia.

A. I am; yes, sir.

Q. There were given to you certain letters.

A. Yes.

Q. Purporting to be addressed to whom?

A. To Mr. Weinberg.

Q. By whom were they given to you?

A. By Mr. Rogers, of the District Attorney’s office.

Q. Did you translate those letters?

A. I read the letters.

Q. In what language are they?

A. In Yiddish.

Q. Have you them with you now?

A. I gave them to you a while ago.

Q. You showed them to me. I didn’t know what they were. How many are there?

A. Ten letters. You have them.

Q. You say that you read them all?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Is there anything in these letters which could be considered as at all inciting to Anarchy?

A. No, sir.

Q. Will you state what the substance of these letters was?

(Objected to by defendants.)

Q. Did Voltairine de Cleyre write them?

Mr. Wessels: No. They were written to Weinberg and were found in his possession. I object to the letters.

---

(Commonwealth rests.)

The Court: Gentlemen of the Jury: Under the evidence produced by the Commonwealth, which is no evidence at all against the defendants, you are, of course, to find a verdict of not guilty.

Comment is unnecessary.

The court officers began hustling us out; but presently we were recalled. Mr. Wessel, attorney for Weinberg, was asking that the police return Mr. Weinberg’s watch and letters which had been kept ever since the arrest. The Judge was endeavoring to be witty. What! said he to the police officer, is there any law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which says that because a man makes a fool of himself, the police should therefore take away his watch? All the sycophants laughed. Personally, I think it was a gratuitous insult, since the Judge had no evidence whatever to suppose Weinberg had made a fool of himself, and had just been saying he had not. Mr. Wessel arose with a smile, But, your Honor, what we want now is the watch!

Oh give the man his watch, protested the Judge.

And the letters.

More talk about the letters, and then the Judge, forgetting his former two-edged cut at the police and at Weinberg, remarked with judicial dignity, When a man is put under arrest, he is searched, and his property taken charge of for his own protection! …

And so, for his own protection, the police have been holding Weinberg’s watch for four months, while he was out on bail! This is the limit.

I wish to thank all contributors to our defense and to say that we have still work to do. Four men are in prison, under most rigorous and unjust sentences. We wish to do what can be done towards freeing these men or supporting their families till they are free.

Those who wish to assist in the work may communicate with Joseph Cohen, 859 N. 7th St., Philadelphia.

This article on the progress of the Mexican Revolution, by the American Anarchist writer and speaker Voltairine de Cleyre, appeared in Mother Earth, Vol. VI No. 11 (January, 1912).

This law of unappropriated lands, says Wm. Archer, has covered the country with Naboth’s Vineyards. I think it would require a Biblical prophet to describe the abomination of desolation it has made.

It was to become lords of this desolution that the men who play the game,–landlords who are at the same time governors and magistrates, enterprising capitalists seeking investments–connived at the iniquities of the Diaz régime; I will go further and say devised them.

The Madero family alone owns some 8,000 square miles of territory; more than the entire state of New Jersey. The Terrazas family, in the state of Chihuahua, owns 25,000 square miles; rather more than the entire state of West Virginia, nearly one-half the size of Illinois. What was the plantation owning of our southern states in chattel slavery days compared with this? And the peon’s share for his toil upon these great estates is hardly more than was the chattel slave’s–wretched housing, wretched food, and wretched clothing.

It is to slaves like these that Madero appeals to be frugal.

It is of men who have thus been disinherited that our complacent fellow citizens of Anglo-Saxon origin say: Mexicans! What do you know about Mexicans? their whole idea of life is to lean up against a fence and smoke cigarettes. And pray what idea of life should a people have whose means of life in their own way have been taken from them? Should they be so mighty anxious to convert their strength into wealth for some other man to loll in?

It reminds me very much of the answer given by a negro employee on the works at Fortress Monroe to a companion of mine who questioned him good-humoredly on his easy idleness when the foreman’s back was turned: Ah ain’t goin’ to do no white man’s work, fo’ Ah don’ get no white man’s pay.

But for the Yaquis, there was worse than this. Not only were their lands seized, but they were ordered, a few years since, to be deported to Yucatan. Now Sonora, as I said, is a northern state, and Yucatan one of the southernmost. Yucatan hemp is famous, and so is Yucatan fever, and Yucatan slavery on the hemp plantations. It was to that fever and that slavery that the Yaquis were deported, in droves of hundreds at a time, men, women and children–droves like cattle droves, driven and beaten like cattle. They died there, like flies, as it was meant they should. Sonora became desolated of her rebellious people, and the land became pacific in the hands of the new landowners. Too pacific in spots. They had not left people enough to reap the harvests.

Then the government suspended the deportation act, but with the provision that for every crime committed by a Yaqui, five hundred of his people be deported. This statement is made in Madero’s own book.

Now what in all conscience would any one with decent human feeling expect a Yaqui to do? Fight? As long as there was powder and bullet to be begged, borrowed, or stolen; as long as there is a garden to plunder, or a hole in the hills to hide in!

When the revolution burst out, the Yaquis and other Indian people said to the revolutionists: Promise us our lands back, and we will fight with you. And they are keeping their word magnificently. All during the summer they have kept up the warfare. Early in September, the Chihuahua papers reported a band of 1,000 Yaquis in Sonora about to attack El Anil; a week later 500 Yaquis had seized the former quarters of the federal troops at Pitahaya. This week it is reported that federal troops are dispatched to Ponoitlan, a town in Jalisco, to quell the Indians who have risen in revolt again because their delusion that the Maderist government was to restore their land has been dispelled. Like reports from Sinaloa. In the terrible state of Yucatan, the Mayas are in active rebellion; the reports say that The authorities and leading citizens of various towns have been seized by the malcontents and put in prison. What is more interesting is, that the peons have seized not only the leading citizens, but still more to the purpose have seized the plantations parceled them, and are already gathering the crops for themselves.

Of course, it is not the pure Indians alone who form the peon class of Mexico. Rather more than double the number of Indians are mixed breeds; that is, about 8,000,000, leaving less than 3,000,000 of pure white stock. The mestiza, or mixed breed population, have followed the communistic instincts and customs of their Indian forbears; while from the Latin side of their make-up, they have certain tendencies which work well together with their Indian hatred of authority.

The mestiza, as well as the Indians, are mostly ignorant in book knowledge, only about sixteen per cent. of the whole population of Mexico being able to read and write. It was not within the program of the civilizing regime to spend money in putting the weapon of learning in the people’s hands. But to conclude that people are necessarily unintelligent because they are illiterate, is in itself a rather unintelligent proceeding.

Moreover, a people habituated to the communal customs of an ancient agricultural life do not need books or papers to tell them that the soil is the source of wealth, and they must get back to the land!–even if their intelligence is limited.

Accordingly, they have got back to the land. In the state of Morelos, which is a small, south-central state, but a very important one,–being next to the Federal District, and by consequence to the City of Mexico,–there has been a remarkable land revolution. General Zapata, whose name has figured elusively in newspaper reports now as having made peace with Madero, then as breaking faith, next wounded and killed, and again resurrected and in hiding, then anew on the war path and proclaimed by the provisional government the arch-rebel who must surrender unconditionally and be tried by court martial; who has seized the strategic points on both the railroads running through Morelos, and who just a few days ago broke into the federal district, sacked a town, fought successfully at two or three points with the federals, blew out two railroad briadges and so frightened the deputies in Mexico City that they are all clamoring for all kinds of action; this Zapata, the fires of whose military camps are springing up now in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Pueblo as well, is an Indian with a long score to pay, and all an Indian’s satisfaction in paying it. He appears to be a fighter of the style of our revolutionary Marion and Sumter; the country in which he is operating is mountainous and guerrilla bands are exceedingly difficult of capture; even when they are defeated, they have usually succeeded in inflicting more damage than they have received, and they always get away.

Zapata has divided up the great estates of Morelos from end to end, telling the peasants to take possession. They have done so. They are in possession, and have already harvested their crops. (Morelos has a population of some 212,000.)

In Pueblo reports in September told us that eighty leading citizens had waited on the governor to protest against the taking possession of the land by the peasantry. The troops were deserting, taking horses and arms with them.

It is they, no doubt, who are now fighting with Zapata. In Chihuahua, one of the largest states, prisons have been thrown open and the prisoners recruited as rebels; a great hacienda was attacked and the horses run off, whereupon the peons rose and joined the attacking party.

In Sinaloa, a rich northern state,–famous in the southwestern United States some years ago as the field of a great co-operative experiment in which Mr. C.B. Hoffman, one of the former editors of the Chicago Daily Socialist, was a leading spirit,–this week’s paper reports that the former revolutionary general Juan Banderas is heading an insurrection second in importance only to that lead by Zapata.

In the southern border state of Chiapas, the taxes in many places could not be collected. Last week news items said that the present government had sent General Paz there, with federal troops, to remedy that state of affairs. In Tabasco, the peons refused to harvest the crops for their masters; let us hope they have imitated their brothers in Morelos and gathered them for themselves.

The Maderists have announced that a stiff repressive campaign will be inaugurated at once; if we are to believe the papers, we are to believe Madero guilty of the imbecility of saying, Five days after my inauguration the rebellion will be crushed. Just why the crushing has to wait till five days after the inauguration does not appear. I conceive there must have been some snickering among the reactionary deputies, if such an announcement was really made; and some astonished query among his followers.

What are we to conclude from all these reports? That the Mexican people are satisfied? That it’s all good and settled? What should we think if we read that the people, not of Lower but of Upper, California had turned out the ranch owners, had started to gather in the field products for themselves, and that the Secretary of War had sent U.S. troops to attack some thousands of armed men (Zapata has had 3,000 under arms the whole summer and that force is now greatly increased) who were defending that expropriation? If we read that in the state of Illinois that farmers had driven off the tax-collector? that the coast states were talking of secession and forming an independent combination? that in Pennsylvania a division of the federal army was to be dispatched to overpower a rebel force of fifteen hundred armed men doing guerrilla work from the mountains? that the prison doors of Maryland, within hailing distance of Washington City, were being thrown open by armed revolutionaries?

Should we call it a condition of peace? regard it as proof that the people were appeased? We should not: we would say the revolution was in full swing. And the reason you have thought it was all over in Mexico, from last May till now, is that the Chicago press, like the eastern, northern, and central press in general, has said nothing about this steady march of revolt. Even The Socialist has been silent. Now that the flame has shot up more spectacularly for the moment, they call it a new revolution.

That the papers pursue this course is partly due to the generally acting causes that produce our northern indifference, which I shall presently try to explain, and partly to the settled policy of capitalized interest in controlling its mouthpieces in such a manner as to give their present henchmen, the Maderists, a chance to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. They invested some $10,000,000 in this bunch, in the hope that they may be able to accomplish the double feat of keeping capitalist possessions intact and at the same time pacifying the people with specious promises. They want to lend them all the countenance they can, till the experiment is well tried; so they deliberately suppress revolutionary news.

Among the later items of interest reported by the Los Angeles Times are those which announce an influx of ex-officials and many-millioned landlords of Mexico, who are hereafter to be residents of Los Angeles. What is the meaning of it? Simply that life in Mexico is not such a safe and comfortable proposition as it was, and that for the present they prefer to get such income as their agents can collect without themselves running the risk of actual residence.

Of course, it is understood that some of this notable efflux (the supporters of Reyes, for example, who have their own little rebellions in Tabasco and San Luis Potosi this week), are political reactionists, scheming to get back the political loaves and fishes into their own hands. But most are simply those who know that their property right is safe enough to be respected by the Maderist government, but that the said government is not strong enough to put down the innumerable manifestations of popular hatred which are likely to terminate fatally to themselves if they remain there.

Nor is all this fighting revolutionary; not by any means. Some is reactionary, some probably the satisfaction of personal grudge, much no doubt the expression of general turbulency of a very unconscious nature. But granting all that may be thrown in the balance, the main thing, the mighty thing, the regenerative revolution is the reappropriation of the land by the peasants. Thousands upon thousands of them are doing it.

Ignorant peasants: peasants who know nothing about the jargon of land reformers or of Socialists. Yes: that’s just the glory of it! Just the fact that it is done by ignorant people; that is, people ignorant of book theories; but not ignorant, not so ignorant by half, of life on the land, as the theory-spinners of the cities. Their minds are simple and direct; they act accordingly. For them, there is one way to get back to the land; i.e., to ignore the machinery of paper land-holding (in many instances they have burned the records of the title-deeds) and proceed to plough the ground, to sow and plant and gather, and keep the product themselves.

Economists, of course, will say that these ignorant people, with their primitive institutions and methods, will not develop the agricultural resources of Mexico, and that they must give way before those who will so develop its resources; that such is the law of human development.

(To be Concluded)

Voltairine de Cleyre (1912)

One of the most influential slogans that radical feminists contributed to revolutionary politics in the late 1960s and 1970s was the slogan The personal is political! which profoundly challenged the narrow limits that Marxism, National Liberation movements, and other popular ideologies had set on what topics could be discussed as real political issues, which people’s problems were or were not counted as serious problems to be addressed by organized movements, and what sorts of strategies might be seriously considered as means to liberation. The phrase quickly spread throughout the women’s movement during the 1970s, and was soon being widely discussed without any reference back to the original source of the idea. But originally the phrase came about as the title of a 1969 position paper by Carol Hanish — a radical feminist who played a founding role in the formation of New York Radical Women and later the Redstockings — in which she defended the Women’s Liberation movement’s practice of small-group consciousness-raising meetings, against Left-wing criticisms that c.r. groups were doing therapy rather than politics, and complaints from movement politicos that feminist groups should spend less time talking about problems amongst themselves and more time taking public protest actions.

Hanisch’s paper was printed as part of the movement anthology Notes from the Second Year. The text for this edition is taken from the reprinting of the paper in the Appendix to the Redstockings anthology, Feminist Revolution (1975/1978), pp. 204-205.

The Personal Is Political

For this paper I want to stick pretty close to an aspect of the Left debate commonly talked about–namely therapy vs. therapy and politics. Another name for it is personal vs. political and it has other names, I suspect, as it has developed across the country. I haven’t gotten over to visit the New Orleans group yet, but I have been participating in groups in New York and Gainesville for more than a year. Both of these groups have been called therapy and personal groups by women who consider themselves more political. So I must speak about so-called therapy groups from my own experience.

The very word therapy is obviously a misnomer if carried to its logical conclusion. Therapy assumes that someone is sick and that there is a cure, e.g., a personal solution. I am greatly offended that I or any other woman is thought to need therapy in the first place. Women are messed over, not messed up! We need to change the objective conditions, not adjust to them. Therapy is adjusting to your bad personal alternative.

We have not done much trying to solve immediate personal problems of women in the group. We’ve mostly picked topics by two methods: in a small group it is possible for us to take turns bringing questions to the meeting (like, Which do/did you prefer, a girl or a boy baby or no children, and why? What happens to your relationship if your man makes more money than you? Less than you?). Then we go around the room answering the questions from our personal experiences. Everybody talks that way. At the end of the meeting we try to sum up and generalize from what’s been said and make connections.

I believe at this point, and maybe for a long time to come, that these analytical sessions are a form of political action. I do not go to these sessions because I need or want to talk about my personal problems. In fact, I would rather not. As a movement woman, I’ve been pressured to be strong, selfless, other-oriented, sacrificing, and in general pretty much in control of my own life. To admit to the problems in my life is to be deemed weak. So I want to be a strong woman, in movement terms, and not admit I have any real problems that I can’t find a personal solution to (except those directly related to the capitalist system). It is at this point a political action to tell it like it is, to say what I really believe about my life instead of what I’ve always been told to say.

So the reason I participate in these meetings is not to solve any personal problem. One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution. I went, and I continue to go to these meetings because I have gotten a political understanding which all my reading, all my political discussions, all my political action, all my four-odd years in the movement never gave me. I’ve been forced to take off the rose-colored glasses and face the awful truth about how grim my life really is as a woman. I am getting a gut understanding of everything as opposed to the esoteric, intellectual understandings and noblesse oblige feelings I had in other people’s struggles.

This is not to deny that these sessions have at least two aspects that are therapeutic. I prefer to call even this aspect political therapy as opposed to personal therapy. The most important is getting rid of self-blame. Can you imagine what would happen if women, blacks, and workers (my definition of worker is anyone who has to work for a living as opposed to those who don’t. All women are workers) would stop blaming ourselves for our sad situations? It seems to me the whole country needs that kind of political therapy. That is what the black movement is doing in its own way. We shall do it in ours. We are only starting to stop blaming ourselves.

We also feel like we are thinking for ourselves for the first time in our lives. As the cartoon in Lilith puts it, I’m changing. My mind is growing muscles. Those who believe that Marxd, Lenin, Engels, Mao, and Ho have the only and last good word on the subject and that women have nothing more to add will, of course, find these groups a waste of time.

The groups that I have been in have also not gotten into alternative life-styles or what it means to be a liberated woman. We came early to the conclusion that all alternatives are bad under present conditions. Whether we live with or without a man, communally or in couples or alone, are married or unmarried, live with other women, go for free love, celibacy, or lesbianism, or any combination, there are only good and bad things about each bad situation. There is no more liberated way; there are only bad alternatives.

This is part of one of the most important theories we are beginning to articulate. We call it the pro-woman line. What it says basically is that women are really neat people. The bad things that are said about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional). Women as oppressed people act out of necessity (act dumb in the presence of men), not out of choice. Women have developed great shuffling techniques for their own survival (look pretty and giggle to get or keep a job or man) which should be used when necessary until such time as the power of unity can take its place. Women are smart not to struggle alone (as are blacks and workers). It is no worse to be in the home than in the rat race of the job world. They are both bad. Women, like blacks, workers, must stop blaming ourselves for our failures.

It took us some ten months to get to the point where we could articulate these things from the standpoint of what kind of action we are going to do. When our group first started, going by majority opinion, we would have been out in the streets demonstrating against marriage, against having babies, for free love, against women who wore makeup, against housewives, for equality without recognition of biological differences, and god knows what else. Now we see all these things as what we call personal solutionary. Many of the actions taken by action groups have been along these lines. The women who did the anti-woman stuff at the Miss America Pageant were the ones who were screaming for action without theory. The members of one group want to set up a private day-care center without any real analysis of what could be done to make it better for little girls, much less any analysis of how that center hastens the revolution.

That is not to say, of course, that we shouldn’t do action. There may be some very good reasons why women in the group don’t want to do anything at the moment. One reason that I often have is that this thing is so important to me that I want to be very sure that we’re doing it the best way we know how, and that it is a right action that I feel sure about. I refuse to go out and produce for the movement. We had a lot of conflict in our New York group about whether or not to do action. When the Miss America Protest was proposed there was no question but that we wanted to do it. I think it was because we all saw how it related to our lives. We felt it was a good action. There were things wrong with the action, but the basic idea was there.

This has been my experience in groups that are accused of being therapy or personal. Perhaps certain groups may well be attempting to do therapy. Maybe the answer is not to put down the method of analyzing from personal experiences in favor of immediate action, but to figure out what can be done to make it work. Some of us started to write a handbook about this at one time and never got past the outline. We are working on it again.

It’s true we all need to learn how to better draw conclusions from the experiences and feelings we talk about and how to draw all kinds of connections. Some of us haven’t done a very good job of communicating them to others.

One more thing: I think we must listen to what so-called apolitical women have to say–not so we can do a better job of organizing them but because together we are a mass movement. I think we who work full-time in the movement tend to become very narrow. What is happening now is that when nonmovement women disagree with us, we assume it’s because they are apolitical, not because there might be something wrong with our thinking. Women have left the movement in droves. The obvious reasons are that we are tired of being sex slaves and doing shitwork for men whose hypocrisy is so blatant in their political stance of liberation for everybody (else). But there is really a lot more to it than that. I can’t quite articulate it yet. I think apolitical women are not in the movement for very good reasons, and as long as we say, You have to think like us and live like us to join the charmed circle, we will fail. What I am trying to say is that there are things in the consciousness of apolitical women (I find them very political) that are as valid as any political consciousness we think we have We should figure out why many women don’t want to do action. Maybe there is something wrong with the action or something wrong with why we are doing the action or maybe the analysis of why the action is necessary is not clear enough in our minds.

Carol Hanish (March, 1969)

The themes that Hanisch develops in this position paper are very similar to, but apparently were not directly influenced by, ideas developed in the earlier work of Claudia Jones, an black American Communist, whose 1949 essay “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” similarly challenged the male Left’s attempt to exclude personal issues like marriage, social life, and family relationships from political organizing. Although the title of Hanisch’s paper is the original source of the slogan, and the discussion in the paper is an early major source for the analysis that the slogan represented, Hanisch does not take credit for coining the slogan itself; she made clear in later interviews that the title The Personal Is Political was given to the paper by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt, as editors of Notes from the Second Year.