Chapter Nine

245In the year 1886 two events occurred in the United States that stirred up the whole country, and the socialists in particular. One happened in Chicago; the other in New York. They were two entirely different events; yet they grew out of the same root: out of a spirit of protest, which expressed itself in a sharp movement for an eight-hour workday.

In Chicago, on the third of May of that year, a bomb fell among policemen at the moment when they were breaking up an "open-air" workers' meeting. Nine anarchists were arrested on the charge of murder, and seven of them were sentenced to death. And in New York, toward the end of that summer, the workers waged a remarkable election campaign on behalf of a famous man whom they put forward as their candidate for mayor — a campaign that made no less noise than the Chicago bomb.

Both occurrences left a deep impression on me. In an indirect way they brought about 246a turnabout in my thinking and helped me arrive at clear convictions. I will briefly relate both historical facts.

The year 1886 was a year of unemployment. Masses of American workers went about without work. On top of that, strikes broke out at many factories where there was work. Among the German workers of Chicago the anarchist movement had by then developed, having sprouted from the above-mentioned "Social-Revolutionary Clubs." The chief leader of this movement was August Spies, a young German who, besides his mother tongue, knew English excellently and was a good speaker in both languages. He was the editor of the Chicago German "Arbeiter-Zeitung" (Workers' Newspaper) and the guiding spirit of the entire movement.

Spies and several other Germans, and an American named Albert Parsons, took a lively part in the eight-hour movement. Parsons was the editor of the English anarchist organ "Alarm" (the awakener), which also appeared in Chicago. He and Spies and several other anarchists used to go from meeting to meeting and give speeches for the eight-hour workday.

One such meeting took place in Chicago near a factory where there was then a strike and where a few scabs were working. This was on the third of May, 1886. A clash broke out between the scabs and the strikers. Police appeared and were met with stones. The policemen then began to shoot. Six people fell dead and many were wounded.

Spies then issued a proclamation, which 247began with the outcry: "Revenge!" He called on the workers to arm themselves and to defend themselves against attacks.

A special mass meeting was called for the next evening with the purpose of protesting and condemning the sixfold murder. The meeting took place on Haymarket Square. An enormous mass of people gathered. The speeches were given by Spies, Parsons, and an English anarchist named Fielden. The mayor of Chicago, Carter H. Harrison, came especially to the gathering; for a riot was expected, and he wanted to see what would happen there. After he had listened to a few of the speeches, he left, telling the police that the speeches were not dangerous. Little by little the crowd began to disperse.

Only a small crowd remained. The speeches continued, still in the same "not dangerous" tone as before. Suddenly a whole band of policemen appeared, and their captain dispersed the meeting. Fielden was speaking at the time. He protested to the captain over why he was prohibiting the gathering.

"We are peaceful, after all," he said. At that very moment a bomb exploded. One policeman fell dead and several were wounded.

The police then began to shoot right and left, and some of the workers present answered with their pistols. There were dead and wounded on both sides. Seven policemen fell dead and sixty were wounded; and of the workers, four fell dead and around fifty were wounded.

248Who threw the bomb was not known, and is not known to this day.

Morris Hillquit, in his "History of Socialism in the United States," relates the following: "Rudolph Schnaubelt, one of those who were arrested on account of the bomb, and who fled to Europe, was for a long time considered to be the man who threw the bomb; but, already being in Europe, he denied it several times. Many believed that the bomb was thrown by a provocateur who had been planted by the capitalists and by the police with the purpose of breaking the eight-hour movement through this incident."

In any case, the mystery remains a mystery to this very day. The police then arrested the following anarchists: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Oscar Neebe, Rudolph Schnaubelt, and William Seliger. The accusation against them was that they were guilty of the death of the policeman who fell from the bomb (the policeman's name was Degan). Schnaubelt, as we have seen, fled. Seliger, in turn, went over to the police as a witness against the anarchists, and by this he won his life and freedom.

The trial of the eight anarchists began on the 21st of June, 1886. The judge was Joseph E. Gary. The trial lasted forty-nine days. According to the accusation, the bomb was the fruit of the agitation that the accused had conducted; that they had incited the crowd to commit murder, and that Degan's death was a result of this.

From a legal standpoint, the accusation was founded on plain nonsense. For the 249law required that it be proven that the murderer had committed the crime under the influence of the accused. Therefore, it was first of all necessary to discover who threw the bomb. If not, it was impossible to prove that he had done it under the influence of the arrested men. And who the bomb-thrower was, no one had any notion.

The judge was openly partisan against the accused. Lawyers who did not even sympathize with the anarchists were outraged by the manner in which he conducted the trial. He ordered a list of candidates for the jury to be drawn up in an unlawful manner. And the jury itself was selected in such a way that one could see at once that the twelve men were against the accused. No protests from the lawyers helped.

The capitalists of Chicago and of all America demanded blood, and the trial ended according to their wish. Seven of the accused were sentenced to death and one to fifteen years in prison.

How the drama ended we shall see further on.

The New York occurrence took place at the end of summer of that same year (1886). It was a purely political event. But, as we have already said, it 250stormed across the country no less than the Chicago bomb did.

Mention the year 1886 to an old New Yorker, and he will at once recall Henry George with his campaign for mayor. This will be especially so if the old New Yorker is a politician or a Catholic priest, or a person of exactly the opposite sort — a socialist or an anarchist. A remarkable commotion spread far and wide. A new kind of shouting was heard at the election contest; new scenes appeared, new feelings were called forth.

Usually an American election contest used to take place between the two capitalist parties, the Democratic and the Republican. Sometimes the New York organization of the Democrats used to split into two hostile camps, and then at the city elections there would be three capitalist parties. But this did not change the character of the election contest, for the leaders and busybodies were all the same political types. It made no difference which party they belonged to. Almost all of them had the same aspiration — to plunder the city.

This time it was an entirely different phenomenon. It was a serious clash between two sides: one side consisted of the rich and their corrupt political servants, and the other side — of the American labor unions and educated representatives of justice and decency. It was a class struggle. So both sides called it, and as such it was conducted.

That honest citizens should come forward with a candidate of their own against the corrupt politicians — this had 251happened before the year 1886 as well. But earlier such ventures had no substance. The public was not interested in them; the press passed over them in silence — not because by keeping silent it wanted to stifle their power (there was nothing to stifle), but simply because the ventures had no significance as newspaper material ^*.

This time it was quite different. The city blazed with the candidacy of Henry George. It was an important novelty. So the newspapers printed whole columns about his meetings and every word of the open letters he wrote to his chief opponent.

The city was divided into two camps — for George and against George. And the campaign was not a fight between two parties that actually represent the same corrupt interests, as an American campaign usually is, but a struggle between political purity and corruption, and at the same time also between labor and capital.

All of America was interested. Reports of the New York city campaign were printed in all the newspapers of the country.

Although George was no socialist, all the socialists nevertheless threw themselves into his campaign. And although I considered myself more of an anarchist than a socialist, and although anarchism is opposed to elections, I nevertheless worked in this campaign with all my might. I saw my own contradiction. I 252could not help it; I followed my feelings, not my convictions. More precisely, I really had no convictions yet at that time. And in my heart I knew this quite clearly. I often used to complain to myself that in my head there was a "sumbur," as I used to express it in Russian — a muddle.

The George campaign, however, helped me drive this "sumbur" apart. For my political education those several months had great significance.

Henry George, the author of the book "Progress and Poverty" ("Progress and Poverty"), was then at the highest rung of his popularity; the theory he preached had adherents not only in America, but also in Europe (one of them was Leo Tolstoy). Socialists regarded this theory with an ironic smile. But that did not stop them from taking an energetic and enthusiastic part in his campaign, for in this struggle he did not represent his theory, but the organized workers.

As a theory, for George the land question was the question of all questions, the matter of all matters. Free the land from the landlords and there will be no poverty in the world! — this was the essence of his teaching.

This does not mean that he demanded that the landlords' land actually be taken away from them. He believed that this could be done by a roundabout means. His plan consists of the following: abolish all taxes, all of them, except one — the tax on land. And this tax should be as high as the value of the piece of land that one owns. If the value of a certain area of ground rises, the government should immediately raise the tax just as high, 253so that nothing should remain for the landlord. When the price of a "lot" is increased by, for example, the population having grown in that area, or by the business of the street having increased, George calls this "an unearned increment." Therefore he demands that, through taxes, every such unearned cent be taken away from the landlord. By this it will not pay anyone to be a landlord or to speculate in land. And this will bring salvation to the world: it will abolish robbery and poverty.

This is the fundamental idea of Henry George's teaching.

Since, according to his theory, only one sort of tax should exist, on land, it is known under the name "single-tax theory," the teaching of a single tax; and its adherents are called "single-taxers."

The socialists supported George's candidacy for mayor, but not his social theory.

If one were to say today that the non-Jewish American unions of New York united to put forward a candidate for mayor against the capitalist parties, that would seem incredible. Officially they do not meddle in politics; privately, however, almost all of them work for the capitalist parties, chiefly for Tammany Hall. When you speak with their leaders about votes for special workers' candidates, they tell you: "No, that must not be preached! The unions must not meddle in politics! Which party a man should vote for is his private affair." And yet, forty years 254ago the American unions of New York put forward a candidate against the Democratic "Tammany Hall," against a second Democratic organization that called itself "County Democracy," and also against the Republican party — against all the capitalist political bodies of the city.

Henry George was their candidate for mayor. They put him forward in earnest and they worked for him in earnest.

The reader already knows that the trade unions of New York were then united in a central organization bearing the name "Central Labor Union." Under this name their federation remained for many years (later the name was changed twice).

The leaders of the "Central Labor Union" at that time came to the conviction that the workers must enter politics as workers, in order to defend their interests politically. They came to the conviction that to struggle economically alone is not enough, because, holding the political power, the capitalists can destroy everything the workers are able to achieve for themselves through their economic unions. The capitalist politicians can, for example, send policemen and militia against strikers; they can pass laws that lay stones in the path of the trade-union struggle. Therefore, the "Central Labor Union," right at its birth, nominated candidates for Congress, for the Assembly, and for the Board of Aldermen of New York. This was in the autumn of the year 1882 (I was then only a few months in the country, and of this political 255fact I had not even heard. About the Cleveland-Folger campaign for governor, which took place in that same year, I had already read and taken an interest in, but about the workers' candidates for Congress, Assembly, and Board of Aldermen — no. They were not talked about. The American press took no interest in them. The "Folks-Zeitung" naturally wrote about them, but not enough to draw the attention of such a "greenhorn" as I was then).

The workers' leaders believed that the great masses of American workers would respond and that on election day they would vote for their own candidates. The morning after the election, however, it turned out that this had been a bitter mistake. The number of votes that the workers gave their candidates then was so small that it only provoked laughter.

In the next four years the "Central Labor Union" did not meddle in politics. The impression was that the workers did not want their unions to occupy themselves with such things.

It went like this: every worker had his own party, just as he had his own religion; and just as he would not want to suffer his union telling him an opinion about which God to pray to, so he did not want to suffer his union telling him an opinion about which party to vote for. Do the capitalist parties break his strikes? Eh. By voting for them, does he increase the power of his enemies? Eh — but the American worker did not pose himself such questions; and to those who did pose them, he did not listen.

In the "Central Labor Union," however, there were 256people who understood the matter better, and they did not cease to conduct their agitation.

It must be noted that the leaders of the German unions played an important role in this "Central Labor Union," and these German unions were strongly permeated with socialist ideas. The German population in New York was then large, for the immigration from Germany to America was great, and this immigration had brought in many socialists. It was they who founded the German "Folks-Zeitung," and under their influence socialism was strongly widespread among the German workers in New York. Thus the German members of the "Central Labor Union" had an important influence. They were not, however, the only ones. There were then American trade-unionists who also felt the necessity of a workers' party at the elections, although they were no socialists.

Certain strikes opened the eyes of many American trade-unionists who had earlier been little interested in this question. The strikes were beaten down by the police and by other persecutions, in which the capitalist power used its iron hand. Many workers became convinced that as long as the capitalist parties held the government in their hands, every strike would be obstructed.

There came more and more an awareness that the political struggle is just as necessary for the worker as the economic one. Goal-conscious in the socialist manner were only the German delegates of the "Central Labor Union"; but the class-struggle spirit of the movement was felt even by the non-German delegates too.

257The result was that, at a meeting of the Central Labor Union, a committee was appointed to work out a plan for entering politics. The committee later submitted its report, and a conference was called, to which only worker-delegates were admitted.

The conference took place in August. Henry George's name was on the lips of many delegates. In the end it was decided to send him a committee and ask whether he would accept a nomination for mayor. His answer was that if thirty thousand voters would sign their names declaring that they wanted him as a candidate, he would accept. If he were simply to "run" as a delegate of the workers, he explained, his campaign would be paid little attention.

The citizenry has a rule that only candidates of the big, strongly organized, wealthy parties are of any substance. They are accustomed to the idea that when a new party goes into the elections it gets a very small vote; its campaign is not taken seriously. So that his candidacy be taken seriously, he therefore demanded that the citizens of the city be shown that behind him stood at least thirty thousand citizens.

His proposal was accepted, and the collecting of signatures began. The result was more than thirty thousand, and Henry George became the candidate. Things began to boil. All the unions became "busy" with the campaign even before the capi- 258talist parties had put forward their candidates.

The socialists bent Henry George's "single tax" off to one side and accepted his candidacy. The same was true of his mass following in general. He did indeed speak about the land question. But the great majority of those who supported his campaign were not interested in this question. They supported him not because of his theory, but in spite of his theory. They supported him as a representative of purity and honesty in the elections, as a counterweight to the corruption and robbery of the other parties. For the socialists, on the other hand, the main thing was the fact that he was the candidate of the working class. As such, the Socialist Labor Party accepted him. Its German organ, "Die Volkszeitung" (the People's Paper), worked energetically for him, and its Sunday editor, the talented Russian Sergei Schevitch, who was the best orator of the party, gave campaign speeches for him.

After that a daily English organ was founded under the name "The Leader," especially to serve the George campaign. The founders were in fact the publishers of the "Volkszeitung," the German socialists; and the editorial office of "The Leader" was in the building of the "Volkszeitung." For the editor of "The Leader" they made Schevitch.

The George campaign had in fact flared up even before Henry George had accepted the nomination.

While the signatures were being collected, the Central Labor Union invited him to "review" 259its Labor Day parade, on the first Monday in September; and he accepted. Labor Day was then something new. And the day was celebrated not only by socialists, but by the conservative unions as well. So all the workers' organizations had a great parade that day, with music and with banners; and all of this was used as a Henry George demonstration.

Not tall, stout, with broad shoulders, with a balding head, with a round face and a thick brown beard, he stood on the platform, on Union Square, bowing to the thousands upon thousands who marched past with hurrahs and applause for him.

Later, once he had officially accepted his nomination, his activity in the campaign grew much stronger.

The capitalist parties took fright. This became clear from the following fact: the two hostile Democratic organizations that then existed in New York, "Tammany Hall" and the "County Democracy," made peace in order to work with united forces against Henry George's candidacy.

As candidate for mayor they put forward a respectable, decent, and educated man of property by the name of Abram S. Hewitt. He was a son-in-law of the famous philanthropist Peter Cooper, and had never been mixed up in corrupt "politics." He was their very living answer to the accusation that they were a corrupt gang.

And the Republicans did the same. They too put forward a candidate who had made himself popular with his struggle against dishonest politicians. This 260was none other than the future president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. He was then still quite a young man, but he had already drawn attention as a political fighter, even though he belonged to the aristocracy and the aristocracy concerned itself little with politics. He was one of the young Republicans who had led the "revolt" against James G. Blaine. He was then an assemblyman. Now, then, they nominated him as mayor of New York.

Besides, George could do the Republicans no harm. The city of New York mostly votes Democratic. New York workers had always voted for Democratic candidates. The fact that they supported Henry George this time was therefore a danger to the Democrats, but not to the Republicans. For them a benefit could come out of it: George might, for example, draw away a great many votes from Hewitt, and the votes for George himself might not be enough to get him elected, but through this it might turn out that Roosevelt would have a majority.

Henry George challenged Hewitt to a debate. Hewitt answered that he would not accept. But he did this through an open letter in the newspapers, and this gave Henry George an opportunity to answer, likewise with an open letter in the press. He presented Hewitt as a leader of the rich classes and as a candidate of the corrupt politicians. His accusations were so grave that Hewitt could no longer leave them without an answer. So he answered again — sharper than before. And so it went on further. All these letters were printed in all the newspapers. The debate, from which the Democratic 261candidate had begged off, thus took place anyway, not in a hall, but in the columns of the entire press of the country — not only for the whole city, but for all of America. The public read the letters with the deepest interest, read and discussed them. Wherever one stood and wherever one went, one heard the names Henry George and Hewitt.

In all his letters Hewitt characterized Henry George as the candidate of socialists, anarchists, communists. He declared that George represented those who with their rule would ruin society; and concerning himself he said that he had accepted the candidacy in order to save society from socialists, anarchists, communists.

In Henry George's camp the ironic expression "the savior of society" was taken up. And these words, in a tone of mockery and hatred, rang out at all the George meetings.

The written debate between the two candidates was, then, a debate between a representative of capital and the political swamp on the one side, and of the workers, honesty, and progress — on the other side. Henry George's letters to Hewitt contained ideas that socialists could endorse with their whole heart. About his "single tax" he made no mention in them. Had Henry George been a socialist, he could not have satisfied the socialists more than he satisfied them with his open letters to Hewitt.

As I write these words, I have these very letters before me. They are to be found in an account of the whole struggle — a book that was published a short time after 262the campaign and which has remained in my possession from those times.

"Do you not see, Mr. Hewitt," writes Henry George, "do you not see the mountains of paving stones that now lie in many streets? Do you not see how the street department of our city government has suddenly, out of the clear blue, become busy? And do you not know that this sudden activity at election time is part of a system by which poor people are bribed with jobs? They are given a few days' work so that they will vote for the Tammany Hall candidates. And do you not know that many of the citizens are coerced into voting for you? That if not, they are threatened with losing their jobs? Do you really not know this? And do you not know that the money that goes for this corruption, and with which they are setting out to vote me down, comes from the rich?"

In his letters Hewitt several times pointed to the French Revolution and the murders that were committed during its "Reign of Terror." With this he tried to frighten the New York citizens. If Henry George were to be elected, he warned them, it would strengthen the socialists, anarchists, and communists, who strive for a revolution like the French one. In his reply Henry George made fun of this scaremongering. He showed that these were hypocritical words on his part.

He spoke of a class struggle, and Hewitt, in his letters and speeches, raised a great outcry that the candidate of the workers was inciting one part of society against the other.

Against George's words on this point Hewitt brought a portion of a speech by a well-known labor 263leader, namely Chief Arthur, the then president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which is the most important organization of all the railroad workers in the country. This Chief Arthur was known as a reactionary, and in that speech he said the following:

"We have no sympathy with the people who argue that the rich are obligated to give the poor a chance to make a living. Much is said and written about the hatred between capital and labor. In my opinion no such thing exists in the world. There are people who love to work, and there are loafers; the enmity between worker and capitalist exists only insofar as the loafers stir up the workers."

The Henry Georgeists rented Chickering Hall (on Fifth Avenue and 19th Street) for a certain evening, which was announced as the time of the debate, and Hewitt was called upon to come. That evening the hall was packed. George came. Hewitt, however, did not. George gave a long speech and answered questions from the audience.

We Russian socialists, and almost all the intelligent immigrants, were enthusiastic for the Henry George campaign. I was very active.

I have already said that the leader of the socialist movement, our countryman, the brilliant orator Sergei Schevitch, addressed large Henry George gatherings. I attended every one of them. But I especially remember a meeting that was held in the middle of Wall Street, on a Saturday afternoon. The platform was set up on the steps of the Sub-Treasury, 264beside the above-mentioned monument to George Washington, almost opposite the stock exchange. This is the very center of America's money world. I was on the platform, and I took down Schevitch's speech with the aim of printing it afterward in a leaflet.

"Di Naye Tsayt" (the New Times) had by then already gone under. The weekly Yiddish newspaper, Mintz's and Breslavsky's "Folks-tsaytung" (People's Paper), had taken its place, and in this campaign it served as the Yiddish organ of the socialists.

That campaign is bound up in my memory with the name Daniel De Leon; for this man, who six or seven years later began to play such a great role in the socialist movement of America, then appeared to the socialists for the first time — and not as a socialist, but as a "single-taxer."

He appeared to us on a Sunday afternoon, at 68 East Broadway, on the first floor. We Jewish radicals were gathered there with the aim of organizing our work for the Henry George campaign. In the middle of the speeches two unknown people came in as a committee. One of them was a man of medium height, with a handsome Jewish face, with a handsome black beard and large eyes; and the other — a blond young man, also with a Jewish face. The first was Daniel De Leon. He then held a post as lecturer in international jurisprudence at Columbia College. He explained to us 265that he and his companion came from the "single-taxers," who wanted us to unite with them.

I took the floor and said approximately the following: we are taking part in the Henry George campaign not as "single-taxers," but as socialists, and we must go separately; we cannot unite with any "bourgeois" Henry Georgeists.

After the meeting I heard that De Leon was not a Jew, but a Spaniard, from South America.

Years later, when De Leon was already a socialist and we had become friends, he used to remind me of that meeting and the speech I had given against him and his companion.

One of the unforgettable figures in the Henry George campaign was a Catholic priest, Father McGlynn. He worked in the struggle with a remarkable enthusiasm; and his heartfelt speeches and noble personality brought a special splendor into the agitation.

He literally idolized Henry George. In his heart he surely placed him far higher than the Pope of Rome. He used to portray him as one of the greatest people who had ever been born into the world. Tall, heavy, with broad shoulders, with a large, kind, priestly face, and dressed in his long, black, priestly garments, he used to make an impression on me from the platform as though he were not a priest, but a prophet of freedom. His name and his words drew many pious Irish to the George movement. On the other hand, other Catholic priests came out against Henry George. Tammany Hall, which has a strong influence on the 266Catholic Church in New York, worked on them so that they would actively work against Father McGlynn's agitation. In the end Archbishop Corrigan, the head of the Catholic Church in America, also came out against George. He published a letter in the press in which he let all Catholics know that the Catholic Church was against him.

The archbishop's official letter gave the campaign a new, stormy character. Many Catholics who had sympathized with Henry George took fright and left his camp. And the others began to work for George with still more energy.

At last the day of the elections came. The politicians worked with every tool. Money flew without measure; the vote market was boiling. The price of a Tammany vote rose. Many George supporters were robbed of their votes. When they came in to vote, the officers told them that according to the book in which the votes are recorded, they had already cast their votes (that is, that others had voted in their names — for Hewitt). Protests, proofs, shouts did not help.

At last evening came; they began to count the votes that had been cast, and then new swindles, new open robberies, began.

I ran about from "polling place" to "polling place," and several times I visited the headquarters of the Georgeists, on Eighth Street near Broadway.

267Then I went to a second center of our struggle, on Lafayette Place. I had proof that here and there Henry George had been cheated. The committee man heard me out, along with other friends, and wrote everything down. But he did this with an air of hopelessness, and I left him in despair.

Among my experiences of that day, the following stands painted in my memory: on Fourth Avenue, near the corner of Eighth Street, I stop to talk with a newspaper reporter. He has a sympathetic, intelligent appearance, and I feel that he is friendly to our campaign. I tell him about the swindles I had seen myself, how the politicians had dragged their people to vote a second time. The reporter passes on to me similar things that he had witnessed. I ask him whether he will report it, and he answers me with a mysterious air: "I'll see what I can do."

He worked at the newspaper "Mail and Express," which was one of the anti-Tammany papers. I was sure that all these reports would be printed there. When the newspaper came out and I found no trace of it in it, I cried out that it had been sold to the Hewitt interests.

The official result of the elections was: 68,110 votes for Henry George and 90,552 for Hewitt; and Hewitt was elected (Roosevelt, the Republican candidate, received 60,435 votes — fewer than George, then).

The rich classes and the corrupt political gangs 268had won. But 68,000 votes for a labor candidate was in those times such an enormous number that it astonished all of America.

The number 68 was, in the minds of progressive people, recorded together with the reversed number 86 ("Henry George received 68 thousand votes in the year 1886" — this is an unforgettable fact among our people).

Our disappointment was indescribable. Interesting scenes took place that evening at the Henry George headquarters on Eighth Street, while the election returns were being brought in. I remember the face of an American young man, small of stature, dark, who called out the figures. Every little while he would shout out mockingly: "The saviors of society!" I remember the joy with which every good report for Henry George was received. But more vividly than anything I remember the words that Mashkovitch said to me on that occasion — the Odessa young man with whom I had earlier lived in one apartment at 213 Clinton Street, and who was present together with me that evening at the Henry George headquarters:

— You are an anarchist, after all, Cahan, — he remarked with a smile, — how is it that you are so interested in the elections?

The words struck me like spears.

For several days the Georgeists and the socialists felt downcast.

Little by little, however, this mood gave way to another. We began to feel what a great moral victory the 68,000 votes were.

269All the newspapers admitted that this was an unexpectedly large number.

Our campaign organization was new and weak. We had no money. Our votes were thoroughly honest, not bought. We did not grease the wheels with money. The enemy, by contrast, had a huge, powerful machine with hundreds of thousands of dollars to grease its wheels and cogs. And here — 68 thousand! The figure breathed new courage into us!

We set about preparing for the next campaign. But the alliance of the Socialists with the Henry Georgeists, or "single-taxers," as they were mostly called, did not last long.

With each passing day it became clearer to Shevitch and his followers that they had to part ways with the "single-taxers." When the heat of that historic campaign had passed and each side recalled its own ideal, each looked around and realized it could have nothing in common with the other side's theory. As usually happens in such cases, in place of the earlier friendship there developed a bitter party-hatred.

Shevitch challenged Henry George to a debate, and it took place at Miner's Theatre, on Eighth Avenue near 23rd Street — the same theatre where, two and a half years earlier, I had attended the great Blaine rally.

I rode to the debate in a fever of anticipation. I came to 23rd Street on a Third Avenue car. Along 23rd Street ran a 270horse-car of the sort already mentioned above, on which the driver was also the conductor. You dropped your five cents into a little glass box that stood inside the car. The driver, however, could see how much you dropped in, and he gave you your change through a little hole in the front door.

The first 23rd Street car I caught sight of was very packed. But I did not want to wait for another. I was eager to reach the theatre as quickly as possible, so as to get a good seat. So, not wanting to lose a single second, I jumped onto the packed car, barely holding on with one foot on the step.

Pushing my way through to the spot where you had to drop in the five cents was difficult, and before I knew it the conductor stopped the horse and shouted: "Hey! Pay your fare!"

A few young American fellows laughed, and one of them remarked, winking at me with a sly smile:

— You thought you'd get away with it, eh?

My face began to burn. Here I was, so inspired for the holy debate, and now I was suspected of trying to wriggle out of paying five cents!

It was as if I had been splattered with filth...

I dropped in the nickel. But my shame did not pass off so easily.

I went into Miner's Theatre. Then I realized that, in my great excitement, I had forgotten to bring my ticket. But out of that misfortune came good fortune. Shevitch appeared at once, and when he saw me arguing with the doorkeeper, he 271took me in. Instead of having a seat among the audience, he gave me a place beside his wife, on the platform. He introduced me to her — to the famous Helene von Racowitza, over whom Ferdinand Lassalle had lost his life in a duel. She still had charm enough in her then. With her reddish hair and interesting large eyes and her impressive smile, she drew much attention.

I was seated at her left hand. On her other side sat a rich, educated American who had shown sympathy with socialism. I do not remember his name. I remember only that he, together with the millionaire Carnegie, had founded the "Nineteenth Century Club," where debates on social questions used to take place. Chatting with Madame Shevitch, before the meeting was called to order, he asked her whether she did not feel drawn again to the stage; and she answered: "Of course I feel drawn. I am like a war-horse that is pulled toward the battlefield the moment it hears the sound of the trumpets."

The tickets had been divided into two equal halves between the two sides, and the theatre too was divided that way — one half for the Henry Georgeists and the other for ours (looking from the audience toward the platform, our half was the left and theirs the right). Since Shevitch was the challenger, he was the first speaker. Tall, handsome, dressed in an ordinary short coat, he rose and stepped to the edge of the platform. The theatre was as if flooded with light. He was greeted with a thundering welcome from our half. When at last it grew quiet, he raised his 272head toward the balconies and began. He spoke in quite plain language. As the main question he posed the following: How does George, with his "single tax," expect to abolish poverty in the world? Why does he believe that the land question is the only question one needs to keep in mind? Let us suppose that the land really is already free of landlords — will that then be enough? And what about the means of labor, about factories, about machinery, about materials? Let Henry George answer how a worker who has a little plot of land and nothing more can, with bare hands, compete with the capitalist. How can he exist in the world without having any tools of labor, while the capitalist has the mightiest machinery?

Henry George takes the floor. With his short figure in a long "Prince Albert" coat, with his thick brown beard, well combed, he steps to the edge of the platform, met by a storm of applause and welcoming cries from his half of the theatre. He bows this way and that. He remains standing. On his large round head a bald spot gleams. He begins to speak. Beautiful, smooth sentences ring out one after another. He goes on speaking like this for ten minutes. Against my will, I take pleasure in the polished English phrases.

At last he comes to the question that Shevitch had put to him. He says a few words as a preamble, and then he falls silent. He stands and thinks. Then he tilts his head proudly toward the ceiling; the left side of his right hand he lays against his forehead. So he stands and is silent. One can see that he is in an awkward spot. Everyone grows nervous. One half of the theatre is full of restlessness; the other half is full of nervous joy: aha, he does not know what to answer!

273At last the famous man lowers his hand, straightens up, and says:

"If the worker has no tools and cannot produce factory goods, he can after all go and catch fish and make a living from that."

A storm of laughter breaks out on the socialist side of the theatre.

Henry George tries to explain his standpoint. It is easy to see that he is crushed, despairing.

In his last reply-speech Shevitch mocked his opponent's exclamation that the worker could go and catch fish. One half of the theatre cracked with applause and laughter, and the other roared with angry cries of protest.

Going back from the theatre, the socialists walked in groups. They shouted merrily: "The worker can go and catch fish! The worker can go and catch fish!" ("He can go fishing").

The phrase became a current byword in the struggle of the socialists against the "single-taxers."

When the socialists split off from the "single-taxers," the "Leader" remained with the socialists, who had been its founders and, properly speaking, its owners from the very beginning. Shevitch remained the editor.

In the "Leader" I printed a couple of articles 274and also my English translation of Sienkiewicz's short story "Yanko the Musician."

The next year, at the elections, Henry George ran for Secretary of State. His party put out a weekly with the name "Standard." For his campaign, however, his followers also founded a small daily morning paper. Its name was "Argus" (a giant who has many eyes), and at the top there was a picture of an eye. The "Leader" conducted debates with the "Argus" and with the "Standard."

Taking part in the "Leader" was Lucien Sanial, a French socialist who had settled in America at the beginning of the sixties, and who had begun to play an important role in the Socialist Labor Party. He was a brilliant journalist and economist.

The first issue of the "Argus" contained the following line of greeting:

"To our 68 thousand voters — good morning!"

That afternoon Sanial had the following words in the "Leader":

"Today the 'Argus' says 'Good morning'; after the elections it will say: 'Good night!'"

And so indeed it was. No longer than Election Day did the "Argus" exist; for instead of the 68 thousand votes that Henry George had received the previous year in the city alone, this time he received 35 thousand across the whole state.

The "Leader" outlived the "Argus" by two years.

Father McGlynn had founded an "Anti-Poverty Society" (a society to abolish poverty). Socialists 275naturally did not think much of the theory on which it was built; but their respect for the noble priest did not grow any smaller. Our love for him grew even stronger because of the persecutions he endured at the hands of the Catholic Church. From Rome came an order that he was no longer a priest. He became a private man, a persecuted man, a boycotted man, a crushed man.

For several years he bravely kept up his struggle. But at last his courageous spirit was broken. He made peace with the Church and regained his priestly position.

After the bomb fell in Chicago and the seven anarchists were condemned to death, a feeling of fighting spirit spread among the radicals of New York as well. Socialists, just as much as anarchists, began to speak at their meetings in such a tone as if they were standing on the threshold of a serious revolutionary time. Directly, the matter at hand concerned the eight-hour workday. But they imagined that through this greater changes could come about. They believed, or believed that they believed, that the entire American working class was prepared for a courageous struggle, even for barricades. The air smelled of gunpowder — so, at least, the leaders portrayed the situation; not only Most, the anarchist, but also Shevitch the social-democrat.

276At one meeting the fiery Johann Most came up onto the platform with a rifle in hand and called on the workers to arm themselves. "A few hundred armed workers can make the social revolution" — he said.

He was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. My wife and I were standing there when a sheriff led him down the steps of the court, chained with one hand to the sheriff and with the other hand to a thief. That is how they put them into a "Black Maria" (a large wagon without windows, in which prisoners are transported).

Shevitch too gave combat-thirsty speeches at that time, but since he did not have a reputation as a dangerous "agitator," he was not arrested. One such meeting, which I attended, took place in the Cooper Institute (Cooper Union). The great hall was packed with Germans, Jews, and a few Irish. Shevitch spoke about the Chicago affair. At a certain point he exclaimed:

"Even if they were to turn all the forests into gallows, they would still not strangle the struggle of the working class."

The words were greeted with an indescribable scene. Half the crowd jumped up, applauding and shouting with wild voices. Shevitch stood with closed lips and waited. When it grew quiet, he added:

"And when they turn all the lead-mines into bullets, they will not be able to shoot down the revolutionary struggle of the working masses."

277Then an even wilder storm of enthusiasm and combative passion broke out.

One gathering was held on Union Square, where all our "open-air" meetings used to take place in those years. Shevitch was speaking, and just when his words were quite peaceful, a police captain (McCullagh was his name) suddenly attacked with a band of policemen. They drove off the meeting with their clubs. Shevitch shouted from the platform to the crowd:

"Next time come armed, comrades!"

The police, however, did not arrest him.

At the further gatherings there was no trouble. The police issued permits to hold further gatherings on the same spot, and they did not disturb them.

Once I heard a German anarchist say to Justus Schwab:

"They don't dare attack workers' meetings; they are afraid of us."

Schwab dismissed his opinion as small change. "If they were afraid, they wouldn't have allowed the meetings at all," — he said.

Schwab was naturally right. The police knew quite well that the American working masses were far from a revolutionary mood. Most had been arrested because he bore the same title — anarchist — as those who had been condemned for the Chicago bomb.

In my memory there has also remained a picture of a meeting that my wife and I attended around that time, on a Sunday at ten o'clock in the morning, on the ground floor 278of the Germania Assembly Rooms (on the corner of Second Avenue and Houston Street). Shevitch spoke there, and so did a certain Hasselmann, a tall German with long blond locks, who had several years earlier been one of the socialist deputies in the German Reichstag. He was not an outright anarchist, but almost an anarchist. He was a brilliant speaker.

In New York, Hasselmann for a certain time put out a German weekly with the name "Arbeiter Zeitung" (Workers' Newspaper). Afterward he peddled schnapps, and I used to see him walking, a tall figure, ragged, with a large bottle in each hand. As he walked, he would shake his long blond locks to the rhythm of his steps. He made an impression like a figure out of an old-time tale. People said he was not entirely in his right mind. But on the platform he spoke far more logically than in private conversations. His eyes looked as if they were not of this world.

His speech that Sunday was full of struggle. He did not gesticulate, but his calm words flashed like swords. This meeting, too, the police did not disturb.

On the 11th of November, 1887, the final act of the Chicago drama took place. Of the seven anarchists who had been condemned to death, four were hanged that day: Spies, Parsons, Engel, and Fischer. A fifth — Lingg — took his own life with a bomb while sitting in prison, and the remaining two — Fielden and 279Schwab — had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

The four Chicago gallows made an indescribable impression on us. Socialists, just as much as anarchists, went about like mourners. To the ache of pity was mixed an ache of despair, owing to the fact that the American workers remained indifferent, or even applauded the hangman.

I heard the terrible news while sitting with one of my pupils, with the then-secretary of the Children's Jacket Makers' Union. His office was in a small little room on the top floor of a meeting-hall building, at 66 Essex Street.

This was Friday morning, the 11th of November, the day that had been set for the fourfold murder.

We were sitting over a school-reader from which he was reading to me. I had to listen, correct his pronunciation, translate words, and explain their grammatical relationship. But my thoughts were occupied with Chicago. Right now, at this very hour, the terrible scene must be taking place there. Was it really taking place? Could it be? Perhaps the governor had at the last minute granted them their lives after all?

I closed the little book. I explained to my pupil that it was hard for me today to give him the lesson. As I uttered these words, cries of newsboys were heard from the street.

I gave a leap, opened the window, and stuck out my head. I heard the words:

"Extra! Extra! Chicago anarchists hanged!"

The newspapers were full of details about 280the execution. Every New York editorial office had sent its best staff writers to Chicago. Each newspaper devoted dozens of columns to descriptions of the fourfold execution.

A second before death, standing with the noose around his neck and with a white sack over his head and over his face, August Spies exclaimed:

"Our voices will ring out from the grave louder than they rang in life."

Albert Parsons, also already with a rope around his neck, and also with a white sack over his head, asked the sheriff whether he would let him give a speech, but the sheriff closed his eyes — a signal to the hangman to do his work; and in the middle of Parsons's words the board sprang out from under his feet and his body was left hanging in the air. His voice was cut off forever.

The newspapers described how Parsons's wife (an intelligent mulatto woman) and his children caught sight of his dead body with the mark of the rope around his neck. "Albert! Albert!" she cried out at the top of her voice. Every detail like this I read several times over, and the scenes haunted me.

Every year we used to observe the yortsayt (memorial anniversary) of the Chicago anarchists with special gatherings, with special speeches.

The thirteenth of March was for us the sacred yortsayt for the martyrs of the Russian Revolution, and the eleventh of November — for the four martyrs of the American labor movement.