Mother Earth: The Alt-Left in the Dawn of the 20th Century
MOTHER EARTH will endeavor to attract and appeal to all those who oppose encroachment on public and individual life. It will appeal to those who strive for something higher, weary of the commonplace; to those who feel that stagnation is a deadweight on the firm and elastic step of progress; to those who breathe freely only in limitless space; to those who long for the tender shade of a new dawn for a humanity free from the dread of want, the dread of starvation in the face of mountains of riches. The Earth free for the free individual!”
- Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, March 1906
The 19th century ends in unrest. Tsar Alexander II of the Russian Empire is assassinated by far-left radicals and the subsequent authoritarian crackdown creates a wave of migration from the land of the Tsars to the land of the Free. These immigrants catalyze with the realities of American life, creating a new movement that fundamentally rejects both gods and government: Anarchism.
"Force, force. It echoes through all history. The first law which subjected man to man was based upon force. The private right of the individual to land was built up by force; force took way the claims upon homesteads from the majority and made them unsettled and transitory. It was force that spoke to mankind thus: ‘Come to me, humble yourself before me, serve me, bring the treasures and riches of the earth under MY roof. You are destined by Providence to always be in want. You shall be allowed just enough to maintain strength with which to enrich me infinitely by your exertions and to load me down with superfluity and luxury.’”
- Max Baginski, Mother Earth, March 1906
December 29, 1885: Emma Goldman arrives in New York from her home in Lithuania.
August 11, 1886: Haymarket Riot trial concludes, sentencing seven anarchists to death for the bombing. This news is Goldman’s first encounter with anarchism.
September 1889: Goldman is introduced to anarchist Alexander Berkman, and they quickly become lovers. Berkman is a member of Jewish anarchist faction Pioneers of Liberty. Through him she meets Johann Most, influential leader of the German anarchist faction.
January 1890: Most dispatches Goldman on a speaking tour of Rochester, Buffalo, and Cleveland. Police are present at each stop to monitor the content and character of her speeches.
June 28, 1892: After failed union negotiations, Carnegie Steel locks workers out of the Homestead plant in Pittsburgh. The workers strike in response.
July 23, 1892: Berkman enters the Pittsburgh office of Carnegie Steel board member Henry Clay Frick with a loaded revolver. He shoots four times before he is subdued by a bystander. All shots connect, but Frick survives. Berkman is sentenced to 22 years in prison.
August 12, 1892: The Homestead strike has faltered. Carnegie Steel announces that production has resumed at full capacity.
September 6, 1893: Goldman is arrested days after advocating violence against police in her speech at a Union Square labor rally. Pleading “not guilty” and representing herself, she is kept in the city jail for three days.
September 8, 1893: New York World reporter Nellie Bly interviews Goldman during the incarceration, portraying her as a learned, independent woman who championed free speech. Goldman is on the public radar hereafter.
The King
Bury him, then, face downward in the dust,
And o'er his grave may lizards creep,
may all Vile spineless things which on the earth do crawl
Thrive on his marrow while corroding rust
Eats his faint heart that knew not Self to trust,
And may his honeyed spirit turn to gall;
May Terror, which has held him in its thrall,
Pursue him till in deep hell he is thrust.
Faith lit his pathway with her loveliness;
Fair Hope's voice called him from his barren fen;
Love vainly strove to lure him with her grace.
His lips forever framed a thoughtless yes
When Tyranny enslaved the minds of men,
And Courage looked on his averted face.
- Harry Boland, Mother Earth, May 1910
June 24, 1894: French president Sadi Carnot is stabbed to death by anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio in Lyon.
August 8, 1897: Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo is assassinated by anarchist Michele Angiolillo in the Basque town of Mondragón.
September 10, 1898: Empress Elisabeth of Austria is stabbed and murdered by anarchist Luigi Lucheni in Geneva.
July 29, 1900: King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by anarchist Gaetano Bresci in Monza.
September 6, 1901: U.S. President William McKinley is fatally shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, NY.
"When a wrong is right is decided, in all orderly communities, by the government. That is a body composed of the most learned, incorruptible, and unselfish social elements. The decisions of government are based on a book of classified right and wrong. This sacred book is called the Law. The Law is steadily enlarged by the addition of new laws, abolishing former laws. Laws may contradict and nullify each other, but the Law is unchangeable. Laws come and go, but the Law remains intact. The Law is always the Right. It cannot err. It knows no distinction of sex or color. It kills alike male and female, white and black. It knows neither pity nor mercy. Only Duty: the duty of upholding the Existing, the Accepted Fact, the Law and its Makers."
- Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, April 1909
September 7, 1901: During interrogation, Leon Czolgosz cites Emma Goldman’s speeches as inspiration for the assassination of President McKinley.
September 9, 1901: Federal agents arrest Goldman in Chicago. In Cook County jail she is beaten before being interrogated by a gang of detectives. Despite pressure from her allies, she refuses to denounce Czolgosz as insane. With the authorities unable to connect her to the assassination, she is released two weeks later.
October 6, 1901: Emma Goldman publishes an incendiary article defending the assassination of President McKinley. From his cell Berkman disagrees, arguing that effective attentat (propaganda by the deed) requires a more immediately dangerous target, not a distant political figure indirectly involved.
December 3, 1901: President Roosevelt addresses Congress, denouncing anarchism by name. He declares anarchist meetings, speeches, and writings as seditious. While not backed by law, Roosevelt speaks for the Executive Branch and a large swathe of Americans.
April 3, 1902: The New York State legislature enacts the Criminal Anarchy Law, deeming any advocacy of anarchy as a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.
March 4, 1903: President Roosevelt signs the 1903 Immigration Act, banning avowed anarchists entry to the country. British writer H.G. Wells notes the questionnaire he is presented by customs upon arrival in New York Harbor features the questions “Are you a Polygamist” and “Are you an Anarchist?”
“During the last few years, American journalists have had much to say about the terrible conditions in Russia and the supremacy of the Russian censor. Have they forgotten the censor here? a censor far more powerful than him of Russia. Have they forgotten that every line they write is dictated by the political color of the paper they write for; by the advertising firms; by the money power; by the power of respectability; by Comstock? Have they forgotten that the literary taste and critical judgment of the mass of the people have been successfully moulded to suit the will of these dictators, and to serve as a good business basis for shrewd literary speculators?
- Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, March 1906
March 1906: Emma Goldman publishes the first issue of Mother Earth. Alexander Berkman, now free, is hired as an editor and contributor the following year.
"It is to be hoped that the organized labor of this country will soon grow out of its diapers and attain manhood.
If the United Mine Workers intend to follow the usual ridiculous tactics of "preparing" for a strike by protracted dilly-dallying with the operators, it were the part of wisdom to capitulate at once. Much time, energy, and suffering would thus be obviated. But if the miners really want to make their demands heard and respected, they cannot afford to waste time in baby-acting, conferring and carrying on long palavers with the mine owners. The latter merely want to prepare themselves—with scabs and millions of tons of mined coal.
The Achilles of capitalism has but one vulnerable spot: the pocket. To force the exploiters to make concessions, the producers must use drastic methods, acting quickly, energetically, effectively. Instead of preparing the enemy by interminable and profitless discussions and parleys, he should be treated as an enemy. Nor should the interests of labor be entrusted to weak, incompetent, or treacherous leaders. Direct action is the motto. Solidaric cooperation of rank and file, the means. If you strike, strike hard. The method of sudden and complete cessation of work, a determined stand, and no compromise, will alone ensure speedy victory."
- Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, April 1909
September 12, 1913: United Mine Workers of America calls for a strike after their demands are refused by Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in Ludlow, Colorado.
April 20, 1914: CFIC agents in National Guard uniforms attack a tent encampment of striking workers and their families near a mine. 32 are killed, including 11 children. In retaliation, the workers kill 30 corporate agents.
June 23, 1914: Emma Goldman congratulates fellow feminist Margaret Sanger on the launch of her monthly publication Woman Rebel. Sanger uses the platform to promote birth control and provide sexual education to women, garnering support with moderate liberals for this plank of the anarchist cause.
July 4, 1914: Alexander Berkman plots to deploy a bomb at Rockefeller’s front door. The bomb detonates prematurely at the bombmaker’s apartment, killing 3 anarchists and an innocent neighbor. Detectives arrest Berkman but are unable to connect him to the deed.
"I know that those who still believe in the spook of “enlightened” and “free” government will not agree with me when I say that the government is logical in trying to suppress such information [about contraception]. Government is both the reflex and the handmaid of capital. Neither government nor capital can exist without a plentiful supply of “hands,” of workers to be exploited in factory or army. Now, if the workers should take it into their own hands consciously to reduce the size of their families, to check their birth rate, it would mean that they would before long lose control of the labor market. The supply of “hands” would then depend on the workers themselves, instead of on the employers, as is now the case. That would be giving labor a dangerous weapon that would threaten to a great extent the profits of capital.[...]
From the premises of its interests, law and capital are perfectly consistent. But the wolf is also quite consistent in devouring the lamb. Is it any reason, however, why the workers should remain patient lambs?"
- Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, November 1914
August 25, 1914: Margaret Sanger is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, charged for violating the Comstock Act with her language about contraception in Rebel Woman. She pleads Not Guilty.
November 13, 1914: Sanger writes Family Limitation, a 16-page pamphlet detailing several contraceptive techniques and devices in simple language and diagrams. She instructs her supporters to disseminate these materials to the working-class areas at the paltry price of a half-dollar. Sanger flees to Canada before her trial.
December 19, 1914: An undercover police officer entraps William Sanger, Margaret’s husband, by posing as one of Margaret’s supporters asking for a copy of the pamphlet to translate it. To support the Sangers’ cause, Emma Goldman increases the frequency and ferocity of her contraceptive lectures.
September 10, 1915: Sanger stands trial and eloquently defends his wife and excoriates the societal powers that prosecuted her. Goldman and Alexander Berkman are present. He is found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail.
October 16, 1916: Margaret Sanger opens a birth control clinic in the Jewish and Italian sector of Brooklyn.
October 25, 1916: Sanger is arrested for the clinic’s activities, along with the two clinic workers. After all three are found guilty, Justice Crane later rules that physicians are able to administer care to married persons to cure or prevent disease. Contraception is now a legitimate medical prescription in the state of New York.
"Modern wars mean the massacre of youths. Old men make national quarrels, and young men are taken, against their wills, to fight these quarrels. The principle involved is hideous, inhuman and unjustifiable. The State has no more right to compel men to act only in one way than the Roman Catholic Church, in the Middle Ages, had the right to compel men to think only in one way.[...]
Let us never forget that what we are working for is:
- Individual Liberty,
- Anti-militarism
- Internationalism
- Working-class Solidarity.
It is conceivable that voluntary enlistment on the pro-Ally side in the present war might help to promote some of these ends. But coerced enlistment promotes mainly the spirit of coercion and government. It is a violation of fundamental rights. It cannot be tolerated for an instant by a true libertarian."
-Leonard D. Abbott, Mother Earth, August 1917
April 6, 1917: Congress votes to declare war on Germany, heralding the United States’ entry into World War I.
May 18, 1917: President Wilson signs into law the Selective Service Act, initiating a military draft. In response, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman form the No Conscription League.
June 4, 1917: Goldman and Berkman hold a mass meeting to protest the draft, encouraging non-compliance.
June 15, 1917: Police raid the headquarters of the No Conscription League, taking Goldman and Berkman into custody. The pair are charged with “conspiracy to induce persons not to register”, illegal under the Espionage Act of 1917. They are both convicted and sentenced to 2 years in prison.
August 1917: The final issue of Mother Earth is published.
December 21, 1919: Goldman and Berkman are deported from the United States along with 249 other suspected alien radicals. In the press, the ship is unsympathetically dubbed the “Soviet Ark”.
Author’s notes
You may notice many of the excerpts of Mother Earth are picked from only a handful of issues. This is due to the unfortunate fact that much of the magazine is lost media. While several issues are preserved in the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and Ohio State University, I’d like to give a special thanks to the individual private contributors of libcom.org who uploaded and preserved the few editions that have survived.
The specific date of Czoglosz’s interrogation as well as Bly’s interview with Goldman during her 3-day stay in jail were inferred to keep the flow and format.
Thank you for reading!
No AI was used at any point in the creation of this article.