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Emma Goldman Denied a Hearing
It is a principle in law, as well
as in justice, that the accused shall be heard in his own defense.
This principle, however, is absolutely ignored by the Chicago city
officials in dealing with Emma Goldman. She was arrested without
warrant, held a prisoner for three weeks’ [sic] and then, no evidence
being found against her, was simply discharged without trial or
a hearing. But the police and press are determined that the people
shall believe her guilty, and to that end are trying to prevent
her obtaining a hearing anywhere. A hall had been engaged for last
Thursday night, and she was announced to deliver her lecture on
“Modern Phases of Anarchy.” This was the lecture which the Buffalo
Chief of Police claimed influenced Czolgosz to kill McKinley. The
absurdity of that accusation must be manifest to every one who has
heard the lecture, for it is simply a cool, calm resume of the history
and tendency of Anarchism, and so far as it deals with methods at
all, deprecates the use of violence. Miss Goldman’s strongest defense
is the lecture itself. Did the police know this? Possibly not; but
if they or Mayor Harrison had been sincere in their effort to promote
justice they could doubtless have become acquainted with the nature
of the lecture before it was delivered.
After all, the futility of repressive
methods must be apparent to every one but the most prejudice-blinded.
I heard Miss Goldman deliver this lecture, last summer, before the
Society of Anthropology. The small hall was full; but the audience
probably did not exceed one hundred and fifty. She might have gone
on for years delievering [sic] this lecture to small audiences;
but as a result of this persecution thousands will want to hear
her where tens would listen before. The authorities may succeed
in silencing her for weeks and months, but the law of demand and
supply will work, here as elsewhere, and “Modern Phases of Anarchy”
will be read, if not heard, by thousands who, but for her persecution,
would never have heard of Emma Goldman.
The treatment which Miss Goldman and
the other Anarchists have undergone at the hands of the Chicago
police brings to mind Æsop’s fable of
.
“Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping
at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see
but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. ‘There’s
my supper,’ thought he, ‘if only I can find some excuse to seize
it.’ Then he called out to the Lamb, ‘How dare you muddle the water
from which I am drinking?’
“‘Nay, master, nay,’ said Lambkin;
‘if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for
it runs down from you to me.’
“‘Well, then,’ said the Wolf, ‘why
did you call me bad names this time last year?’
“‘That cannot be,’ said the Lamb;
‘I am only six months old.’
“‘I don’t care,’ snarled the Wolf;
‘if it was not you, it was your father;’ and with that he rushed
upon the poor little Lamb and—
W—
ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out—‘Any excuse
will serve a tyrant.’”
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