![]() ![]() wanting peace, was stifled in the folds of the national emblem, and its voice drowned by the martial beat of a thousand war drums. The nation-wide propaganda of hatred, persecution, and intolerance carried its subtle poison into the hearts of the obscurest hamlet, and the minds of the people were systematically poisoned and perverted by rivers of printer’s ink. The quiet, phlegmatic German was transformed into the “Vicious Hun,” and made the villain of the wildest stories of “enemy” atrocities and outrages. ![]() There began a campaign of war publicity that roused the tiger in man and fed his lust for blood and vengeance. Its echo reverberated in Washington, and thence throughout the whole country. ![]() From Wall Street sounded the bugle ordering the retreat of Humanity. THEN suddenly, almost over night, came the change. Triumphantly, they had elected as President of the United States the man who “kept them out of the war” that he might still keep them out of it. With a magnificent majority they had voted not to participate in the foreign War, not to become entangled in the treacherous schemes of European despotisms. TRUE, it was but yesterday sovereign will registered a mighty protest against human slaughter and bloodshed. ![]() It was to be the last war, a holy crusade of liberty against tyranny, a war upon all wars that was to sweep the earth clear of oppression and misery, and make the world safe for true democracy. . . . WHAT, then, has the Great War accomplished? To what purpose the sacrifice of millions of human lives, the unnamable loss in blood and treasure? What, especially, has happened in these United States?įRESH in mind are still the wonderful promises made in behalf of the War. On a score of fronts human slaughter is going on as before men, women, and children are dying by the hundreds because of the blockade of Russia the “small nations” are still under the iron heel of the foreign oppressor: Ireland, India, Egypt, Persia, Korea, and numerous other peoples, are being decimated and exploited even more ruthlessly than before the advent of the Great Prophet of World Democracy “self-determination” has become a by-word, nay, a crime, and world-wide imperialism has gotten a strangle hold upon humanity. In the excerpts below, Goldman criticizes the US government for its use of the Espionage and Sedition Acts against those who were suspected of holding “certain unpopular or ‘forbidden’ opinions.” Excerpt She wrote Deportation-Its Meaning and Menace with Alexander Berkman, her romantic partner and fellow anarchist, on Ellis Island in 1919 before being sent back to Russia. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Justice Department’s General Intelligence committee, persuaded the courts to deny her citizenship claims, making her eligible for deportation. In 1917, Emma Goldman was sentenced to two years in prison. The Sedition Act of 1918 supported and expanded the Espionage Act by forbidding “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the military or government. The Espionage Act of 1917 made it illegal to pass information that could impede the military’s efforts or that could support the enemy. Arrested on June 15, 1917, Goldman was prosecuted and convicted “for conspiring against the draft” under the Espionage Act. They openly rejected US involvement in World War I, and their anti-government activities concerned many in authority.ĭuring World War I, Goldman actively protested the war and encouraged men not to register for the draft. Anarchists believed that people could naturally govern themselves without systematic controls. In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights, birth control, and other political and social movements. Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). ![]()
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