Chapter Two

39[טאָפּיק] The success of the first issue. — The effect it had on my life.

The issue had a far greater success than we had expected, and my "sedrah" (weekly Torah-portion sermon) was a "hit." From all sides came the most cheerful reports about the reception it had received. The signature "Proletarian Maggid" (preacher) became popular on the spot.

The article about Africa and the little feuilleton "Two Worlds in One World" also had a great success. The whole issue was received with love and with joy. But these three pieces particularly appealed to the broad public. They charged the paper with the electricity of interest. The story of the bloody holiday among the savages in Africa caused a sensation. People retold it to one another, and that was an enormous advertisement for our paper. The "sedrah," too, was a good advertisement. The conceit, the genuinely Jewish tone and humor that ran through it — all of this was caught up with enthusiasm.

The first issue of the paper at once40made a great change in my situation with regard to the editorial board.

From all sides one heard the opinion that the success of the "sedrah" and of the article about Africa were the main causes of the success the issue had had. My ideas about how the paper ought to be run were fully confirmed, and I at once received a free hand to write for the "Arbeiter Zeitung" what I wanted and as I wanted. There was no need to talk about it at all; it came of itself, as a result of my success. One might perhaps have expected that this would be a hindrance in the relations between Krantz and me. In truth, however, it had the opposite effect. Our relations became even better than before, and Krantz used to rejoice whenever I would write something.

I threw myself into the "Arbeiter Zeitung" with all my strength. At my private occupation I worked only barely enough to make a living. The rest of my time I gave over entirely to the paper and to the meetings connected with it. I wrote a great deal and gave lectures and speeches almost every evening of the week, and not seldom two in one evening.

If earlier I had thought that my participation in the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was only temporary, with the first issue this thought was destroyed. The first issue of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" had a direct effect on my life over the next several years; and now, some thirty-odd years later, I can say that it determined the course of my whole subsequent life.

The success of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was so41great that we at once felt a possibility of issuing eight pages instead of four. And this was done from the 6th issue on.

The "sedrah" I wrote every week. But that was not all that I gave the "Arbeiter Zeitung" every week. About that — later.

I did not stop thinking about a new "head" (masthead) for the paper. I went to a sofer (Torah scribe) and ordered from him another nameplate, "Arbeiter Zeitung." But his letters did not please me either. They were too scribe-like, and I wanted nothing other than the beautiful round "Vilna script." Finally I found someone who made me exactly such letters; and this was none other than the above-mentioned Struhl, one of the two anarchists who had come to us as a "committee of the people." He was a lithographer and a good draftsman of letters. He drew "Arbeiter Zeitung" for me precisely to my taste. I brought his drawing, and my comrades at the "Arbeiter Zeitung" agreed that it was more beautiful than the previous one. And so the letters remained (several years later, when the "Forverts" was founded, the same Struhl made for us the large letters "Forverts," which are still in use to this day).

We had expected a circulation of about three thousand, and within a few weeks we had worked our way up to six or seven thousand. That was then considered an enormous success. We were all intoxicated with our success, and our enthusiasm grew and grew. The masses at once pressed the "Arbeiter Zeitung" to their hearts. Every issue used to be awaited with impatience in the Jewish quarters.

Nothing binds a person so closely to an enterprise42as the success it has in his hands; and nothing binds people together so tightly as a shared success. And so we all — Krantz, Miller, Hillkowitz (Hillquit), and I — became joined by the threads of friendship.

We four and a few other close comrades were almost always together. To this intimate little circle of ours belonged the Christian Stolyeshnikov, although he did not understand a word of Yiddish and the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was as foreign to him as Chinese. Since he was an interesting man, and his presence added color to our gatherings, I will make so bold as to acquaint the reader with him.

He came from a gentry (pritsish) family, and their estate (the place was called Stolyeshniki) lay not far from Petersburg. He had studied at the university, and because of his involvement in the revolutionary movement he had been forced to leave Russia.

Thin, blond, with a round beard, he had a genuinely Russian face with a genuinely Russian character, with a genuinely Russian good-heartedness. He was for the most part merry, and his merriment was a genuinely Russian one.

He had a talent for drawing, and he loved to recite poetry. Since nature had provided him with a brilliant memory, he could recite countless poems by heart. At our concerts and "vetcherinkes" (Russian: evening parties) his name was always to be found on the program.

I have already told that he worked as a draftsman for an architect. For those times and according to our notions then, he received a large salary. A goodly portion of it he used to lend out at once. He used to ask whether anyone needed money and offer him a loan (halva'ah). Above all he could not hold on to a groschen.43On Saturday afternoon, when he used to come with his wages, he would buy a stack of bottles of beer. Otherwise, by Tuesday or Wednesday he would already have nothing with which to buy any, and without beer it was harder for him to get by than without bread.

Sometimes on Saturday during the day he would also take a few silver dollars (which were then a quite ordinary coin) and roll them under the bed and under the sofa. On Wednesday or Thursday, when he no longer had a cent, he would crawl around under the bed and under the sofa and hunt for the treasure.

[טאָפּיק] Articles by Krantz, Miller, Hillkowitz, and me in the "Arbeiter Zeitung." — The art of popularizing.

The lead articles were written mostly by Krantz, but very often by Miller, Hillkowitz, or me. Besides this, Krantz translated a novel from the French, a melodramatic mystery tale from the times of the French Revolution. Afterward he translated a detective novel by the famous writer Gaboriau.

For better literature we at first gave no space at all. The first literary piece of this sort appeared only later, in number 31 (October the third). This was a story by Sienkiewicz, "Za Chlebem" (a story about Polish peasants who travel to America seeking bread), which I translated under the title "Stray and Lost."

Krantz also printed a short history of the French Revolution. Hillkowitz — a series of "Historical Pictures." Hillkowitz also from time to time wrote44on political or economic questions. Often such articles were written by Miller.

Krantz had an article in almost every issue (the lead article or some other piece), besides the novel that he translated. Miller and Hillkowitz also had frequent articles (besides this, Miller for a certain time wrote the news, and as was then our custom, he wove almost every bit of news through with socialist remarks).

We four — Krantz, Miller, Hillkowitz, and I — filled the paper.

Since it is my personal history that is being given here, I will dwell especially on the portion that I used to contribute to the "Arbeiter Zeitung."

My pen was the busiest. Rarely did an issue appear that did not have at least three articles by me. Often an issue would contain four, and sometimes even five. I used to sign myself with various names. Besides my own name, I used to employ the pen names: "David Bernstein" (simply a name that fell into my head), "Socius," and "the Proletarian Maggid (preacher)." Under some articles I did not sign myself at all.

For example: in the 18th number of the first year (July 4th), the following articles of mine are to be found.

1) The life of Grinevitsky, the revolutionary by whose bomb Alexander the Second fell (signed "David Bernstein").

2) "The Sedrah," a sermon (drashah) about July 4th (signed "the Proletarian Maggid").453) Monkeys — How They Live (signed "Ab. Cahan").

4) Where Does Capital Come From? — a popularized article after Karl Marx (signed "Ab. Cahan").

5) A scene from Victor Hugo, translated by me into simple Yiddish (under the translation there is no name).

In almost every issue, with few exceptions, an article of mine is to be found in which I popularize socialism. In a long series of light articles I tried to convey the Marxist ideas — the origin of capital, the development of capital, the surplus-value theory, the class struggle, and so on and so forth. In one issue, for example, I explain the essence of all that Karl Marx accomplished as a theorist. I point to the difference between the socialism that had existed before and how he had set it upon a scientific foundation. In an article of mine that bears the heading "Can Socialism Be Realized?" I set forth in a very popular form Marx's and Engels's arguments that the downfall of capitalism is inevitable.

At the same time I wrote a mass of articles about the life of various peoples, or articles on natural science. In all these articles a definite system is discernible, a clear plan: to give interesting things that would be engaging for our masses to read and whose very subject would draw in the reader. For example: an article about ants, which shows that they have soldiers, build fortresses, and wage wars among themselves and that they have slaves; or an article about the wildest people in Africa; or about the smallest people, black dwarfs in Africa; about fire-spewing46mountains, about crocodiles, or about the little creatures that spin silk.

A series of articles I also gave under the title "Who Killed Alexander the Second?" The event was by then already nine years old. But I felt that our masses were little acquainted with it.

Everyone knew that revolutionaries had killed Alexander the Second, but how this had come about, the secrets of the underground organization that had carried it out — about this the public had no clear notion. I imagined that the details of this history would interest everyone like a gripping novel, and at the same time it is a historical occurrence with which the public is generally familiar, and which is interesting to it precisely on that account. From the standpoint of our propaganda, again, such a subject is important as a part of the history of the struggle for freedom.

I was not mistaken. When this series was being printed, people could hardly wait from one issue to the next.

After that I gave an article about a nihilist who had been exiled to Siberia — how he escaped from there. This story, too, read like a novel and also had a great success.

I often used to write agitation articles. These articles were for the most part in an elevated tone, but always in simple Yiddish, without "high" words. Under such articles or feuilletons I used to sign myself "Socius."

The "sedrahs" were about questions of the day, which I used to fit to the sedrah of the week.

In number 24, for example, there is a sedrah whose main subject is the first criminal whom, in47America, they put to death in the electric chair (Kemmler was his name).

I was absorbed in the art of popularizing, if one may call it that. How does one write about scientific things in such a manner that the simplest Jewish worker can easily understand it, and so that the reading should not be work for him but a pleasure when he rests from his labor? This very question I held to be one of the most important, for the German, English, or American writer has before him a public that went to school, whereas our immigrant masses went to no school. They have no notion of the ordinary things that are taught to children in America, Germany, or England. The Jewish worker had gone to cheder (Jewish religious elementary school), but he received there no notion of geography or history, for example.

To popularize is a far harder task than many think. The writer or teacher must have the power of imagination to picture how the mind of his reader or listener works. He must know what the other does not understand and what he does understand. First of all it is necessary that everything be conveyed in such words and expressions as the reader can easily grasp. But that is still little. One must also find special means of how to convey the matter to a reader whose mind is not prepared for it. Often one must have a special conceit for this. One must devise some sort of plan for how to reach the reader's mind. Enormously important in this is a parable (mashal). A little tale often makes the hardest matter clear and easy. Through a well-turned parable the reader sees a point of reasoning as if before his eyes.

It was in this that I was absorbed. For48to us a labor of love in the highest sense of the expression.

Our task was to explain to the public the basic principles of Karl Marx's teaching. Karl Marx's works are written with profound intellect, and often it is so "difficult" that not even everyone who has finished a university can understand it. To convey even superficially the main ideas of Karl Marx to the masses is also a tremendous undertaking. It was for this very "job" that I took myself in hand. With parables and with various other means I explained all the important points of Marxist theory. These articles of mine ran from week to week. But this was only one part of my regular work for the paper.

When I now read my various sorts of articles in the "Arbeiter Zeitung," I am by no means always satisfied with them. But many of them make a pleasant impression on me. Of that, however — in a later chapter.

The "Arbeiter Zeitung" brought a new life into the Jewish labor movement. Any paper would then have had a certain effect, even a dry one, a weak one, with few readers. But the "Arbeiter Zeitung" had sap in it, and — for those times — it had many readers. It was popular and had a great influence.

Thanks to the "Arbeiter Zeitung," everything suddenly took on an entirely different face. The unions began to grow; and this in turn increased in all of us the interest in the "Arbeiter Zeitung."49The "Arbeiter Zeitung" was the organ of the Jewish unions. But that is not all. We, the leading people of the "Arbeiter Zeitung," as speakers, agitators and organizers, were closely bound up with every important occurrence in the life of the Jewish unions. We took part in every strike, and in almost every settlement. We were at the center of every union activity.

When I leaf through the first and second volumes of the "Arbeiter Zeitung," it seems to me that it is the same movement as the one we have today, only on a smaller scale.

Here and there you find on the first page of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" the following announcement:

"Those who do not know how one becomes a citizen should come to the office of the 'Arbeiter Zeitung,' Ludlow Street."

Before an election you find on the first page the entire "ticket" of the Socialist Party — the names of all our candidates, in English letters; or you find, in large words, the following call:

"To Union Square! To Union Square! Workers, all come and bring your friends to the demonstration of the Socialist Labor Party!"

In those years Union Square (the little park that lies between Broadway and Fourth Avenue and between 14th and 17th Streets) was the chief spot where open-air mass meetings used to be held. The wooden municipal building there had a platform facing 17th Street, and from there one used to speak to the crowd. People used to come there, marching with music, from the German, Irish and Jewish quarters. Newly arrived immigrants used to think that it was called Union Square because union people used to hold their gatherings there. This is a50mistake. The name has no connection to the labor movement. By the word "Union" (Fareinigung) what is meant here is the United States.

In a few issues of the first volume of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" there is to be found an announcement: "Those who wish to correspond with the Hebrew Federation of Labor of the United States and Canada should write to the address of the Federation." And underneath is signed: "Organizer Ab. Cahan; letters and dispatches to be sent to the secretary, Morris Hillkowitz, 81 Ludlow Street."

The notices about our unions and socialist organizations used to be printed in the "Arbeiter Zeitung" under the heading "Unions and Meetings." The news of the socialist movement from other countries used to be given mostly under the headline: "From Near and Far."

One of the reports which I found in this section, while leafing through the old issues of the "Arbeiter Zeitung," was the following:

"The well-known French deputy Millerand, the

51Our struggle with the anarchists grew much sharper. The Jewish anarchists, for their part, also soon got an organ. At first this was a private paper with the name "Morgenstern," which was put out by the father of Meyer London, under the editorship of Dr. Breslavsky. Afterward they founded a paper of their own — "Die Freie Arbeiter Stimme." They used to attack us with abuse for holding back the revolution. And we used to mock their phrases and their incomprehensible, often senseless, Germanized Yiddish.

A special pleasure from this used to be had by Philip Krantz. Thursday evening, when their sheet used to come out, he would take a copy, read it, point to a line or a word, and laugh until tears would come to his eyes. I remember the phrase "the himself-up-to-the-sky higher," over which Krantz choked with laughter.52steps from our editorial office. This café was kept by two comrades of ours, Sussman and Goldstein. The anarchists had their own special café on Division Street near Pike. Its proprietors were two brothers (Zaks, they were called), the younger of whom was an anarchist. We used to come there too, and some of the anarchists, in turn, used to come to our café. The personal relations between the two parties were actually not hostile. People often used to spend time together, although from reading our two papers one might think that we could not abide one another within four cubits.

The most venomous attacks on us were made in the "Freie Arbeiter Stimme" in the form of feuilletons, by someone with the name David Apteker, who knew how to tell a joke. These jests of his could have no moral force, on account of the personality of the writer, who at the very same time was supposedly both an enthusiastic anarchist and an enthusiastic Talmud Torah teacher. The anarchists themselves did not take him seriously.

Yet a well-turned joke is a well-turned joke, and more than one of Apteker's pranks irritated our comrades without end.

The "Arbeiter Zeitung" had three times as many readers as "Die Freie Arbeiter Stimme."

With mocking their senseless Germanized phrases we naturally did not content ourselves. In the first two years the "Arbeiter Zeitung" printed countless theoretical articles against anarchism. These articles were written by Miller, Hillkowitz and me (chiefly by Miller and me). From time to time Krantz too used to write on such53a theme, and at times someone else as well. The above-mentioned J. Pine, of Boston, had, for example, an article under the title "Anarchism, Communism and Warm Ice Cream." All these explanations of ours strove to prove that anarchism, with its ideal and with its attacks on our program, had no logic and no substance. In a strictly logical manner, shot through with humor, but without abuse, we used to set forth the contradictions and absurdities of anarchism. We made mockery of it, and the anarchists, for their part, answered with general principles, with fine-sounding but insubstantial phrases and with heavy accusations and insults. The most venomous attacks on them were made by Miller.

I have spoken here of the detailed theoretical articles which we wrote against anarchism. But the paper was full of this struggle of ours in other articles too. Every issue bore many signs of the clashes between the two camps.

While leafing through the first two volumes of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" (a short time before these lines were written), I noted down a few samples, which54who sits in the Reichstag. Us he called "swindling scoundrels." "The 'Arbeiter Zeitung,'" he exclaimed pathetically, "is put out by a band of swindlers." Stahler shouted that Liebknecht (the socialist leader of Germany) had once declared war on present-day society. Today, however, he no longer does so, because he sits in parliament together with all the swindlers, and one cannot, after all, come out against people with whom one sits together.

In a "Voice from the People," by Steven Cooper, which was printed in number 24 of the first volume, the following lines are to be found:

"In the London 'Arbeiter Fraind,' number 29, the following stands: the 'Arbeiter Fraind' is social-revolutionary, and the social-revolutionaries represent chiefly that part of the socialists who say that social democrats and anarchists can and must go hand in hand in combating the present social order. A little further on Golof (the editor of the 'Arbeiter Fraind') says that social revolutionaries are against all reforms, against parliamentary laws, against55"They, the anarchists, are against strikes, against professional elections, against Labor Day. They believe only in means of violence. Why do they not do so? If the gallows and the court are the best places for socialist agitation, then why do they not let themselves be seen in such places?"

[טאָפּיק] In the cloakmakers' union. — Joseph Barondess. — Socialists and anarchists. — The first May Day parade.

Our struggle with the anarchists made itself felt, in the early "Arbeiter Zeitung" years, in the Jewish unions, but in none of them so strongly as in the cloakmakers' union. There the matter actually revolved around the above-mentioned Joseph Barondess; more precisely, around the question of which side Barondess was friendlier to. For it so happened that a short time before the founding of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" he became the manager of the union, gained great power in it, and through this suddenly rose to the forefront of public life.

It was like this:

The workers of several cloak shops had strikes, and they turned to the "United Jewish Trade Unions" to help them conduct the struggle. The "Trade Unions" appointed for this purpose a committee of three: Bernard Weinstein, a certain chess-player who was then the leader of the knee-pants makers, and Joseph Barondess, who was also a delegate of the knee-pants makers to the "Trade Unions." The strik-56ers asked that one of the three stay with them, and since Barondess was the only one who had time for it, he was the one who remained.

Cloakmakers' strikes were nothing new (in the preceding several years I had taken part more than once in such struggles). But no important union ever came out of them. After a victorious strike the union would usually fall apart, and there was no large organization even during the time of struggle. This strike, however, spread out, and unexpectedly there blossomed out of it an organization of several thousand members — a large number for those times — and it made the impression of a substantial, permanent thing.

During the time of the strike Barondess worked for the union literally day and night, and he made himself beloved among the members. The result was that we suddenly beheld him as the influential leader of a great organization.

The cloakmakers' union was the first Jewish union to introduce a fine office. And in this large, finely furnished office Barondess was the dominant figure^*.

The cloakmakers showed him great respect. His power grew quickly; he began to dress more handsomely and to carry himself with more self-worth. He was unrecognizable.

I remember my astonishment when I visited him for the first time in his Washington office.57I am saying that he made himself beloved among the cloakmakers. The devotion with which he worked for their strike was not the only reason for this. Barondess possessed a fair measure of personal magnetism. He is a soft, good-hearted man. It is easy to awaken his pity, to call forth tears in his eyes, and to obtain a favor from him. On top of that he was a handsome young fellow, with a handsome figure, and with a handsome baritone voice, almost a bass. The voice itself called forth respect. As an orator, too, he was not bad. And he was also able to toss a verse of Scripture, or a bit of Talmud, into one of his speeches. In short, many of the cloakmakers were literally enchanted by him. They loved him and trembled before him.

The Jewish workers in those days were, generally speaking, far less developed than today. Among the cloak operators there were, to be sure, many young men who "understood things down to their fingertips," for "operating" was something one only learned in America, and many yeshiva58men whom Rosenberg describes I knew personally — chiefly two of them — and I can say that his depictions of them are not exaggerated by a hair. Many of this type were among the most loyal and most enthusiastic union men. They had, however, brought along from the old home quite antiquated notions, according to which it was, for example, not an unnatural thing for a well-to-do man to give a worker a slap. So it would happen that Barondess would summon to him some wild glutton and box his ears; and this would only increase the glutton's respect for him. One such glutton once said to me: "It is an honor for me when a man like Mister Barondess gives me a slap."

This sovereignty, which had come to him so suddenly, intoxicated Barondess; and since he was then very young, very inexperienced, and very frivolous, his intoxication sometimes expressed itself in a comical fashion. Bystanders would smile, and opponents in their criticism would forget about the loyal, tireless work that he did for the union.

Finding himself in his new role, Barondess began to draw away from our "Arbeiter Zeitung" people, who were not accustomed to taking him seriously. And the anarchists took advantage of this. In order to win him over to their side, they began to lavish attention on him. The result was that Barondess began to show a closeness to the anarchists.

A special circumstance contributed to this: on the executive board of the cloakmakers' union there were several members of the anarchist "Educa-59tional Association" ^*. These were young men who knew how to take the floor at a meeting, and for the most part they actually had character as well. The union did not have too many such members; thus they played a role in the organization and were elected to the executive. Partly because they held the controlling power in the union and partly because they would spend many hours in Barondess's company, they had an influence on him, and they exploited this in the interests of their party.

The most active in this direction were two members of the executive: Abraham Rosenberg, the founder of the "Educational Association," and M. Lieder. Rosenberg and Lieder were embittered opponents of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" and of everyone who was connected with it ^**.60We, for our part, at first endeavored to draw Barondess closer to ourselves. We pulled him toward us, and the anarchists pulled him toward themselves, and this completely turned his head.

Among the active members of the union there were two factions — a socialist one and an anarchist one. There used to occur hot, venomous debates, wild brawls, and sometimes it would even come to blows.

The anarchists used to remind "our people" of the pronouncements of their leaders, who had spoken against unions,61ridiculed them as "politics," and shouted that only acts of violence are real and effective. They used to reproach the anarchists that their participation in the unions was not a sincere one, that they pushed their way into them only in order to have power. To this the anarchists would reply: "What does it matter what our leaders say! Anarchists do not believe in any leaders. Among us every man is a leader over himself."

I once attended such a discussion. A socialist cloakmaker said ironically: "Your comrades used to say that a union is a piece of politics! I thought that a union was as treyf to you as parliament." The answer was that a parliament is indeed treyf, for there sit capitalist deputies. A union, however, consists entirely of workers.

Before the "Arbeiter Zeitung" appeared, the anarchists used to hold to their "politics" outcries against the unions. Afterward, however, they gradually gave this up.

Herz Burgin mentions meetings at which R. Lewis and Michael Cohn, the two most important Jewish anarchists, openly declared that an anarchist "Educational Association" is more important than a union; or they would speak of two kinds of unions — "good" and "bad." A good union, in their terms, meant a revolutionary union. In the same sense — Burgin relates — S. Yanovsky also used to write in those days in the London "Arbeiter Fraynd" (Yanovsky then lived in London and was the editor of this newspaper).

We shall remind the reader that the young anarchist Frener, who then lived in Philadelphia and was the most popular orator among the anarchists,62at the convention from which the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was born, openly cried out that he condemned the unions as politics. This was the key to their union tactics roughly until the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was founded. Afterward they became entangled in a muddle of "good" unions and "bad" unions, until at last they cast their whole earlier union tactic up onto the attic. They began to be active in the unions and even in the "United Hebrew Trades." The socialists, however, were everywhere the chief power (except in the cloakmakers' union, for a certain time). All in all, our party was the ruling force in the Jewish labor movement, which it had in fact built up.

Generally speaking, the anarchists had no substantial significance in the unions.

Burgin believes that their weakness in the unions stemmed from the above-mentioned contradiction in their policy: they were both for the unions and against the unions; they both condemned them and wanted to work for them. So the workers could not take them seriously.

This would be correct if it concerned only the more intelligent workers. But when one speaks of the great mass of cloakmakers, tailors, or knee-pants makers, I do not believe that one can give this as an important cause. I am convinced that the chief cause lay in the acts of violence about which they spoke from the platform, in their outcries about an imminent revolution, in the "revolutionary" tactics that they demanded.

When the orator is a good one (and good orators they63had) he can, with this sort of agitation, interest for a certain time a certain class of young men, but not a broad public, which contains a large number of fully grown people.

Secondly, their newspaper was full of high-flown words and of dry articles, which could not appeal to the masses.

The "Arbeiter Zeitung" had far more readers than their "Fraye Arbeter Shtime" and far more influence. Their newspaper struggled along. It lived for a short time and then it stopped. Then it was reopened, but for long it did not exist in those years. It had a small circulation, and the support it received from sympathizers was not enough to keep it going.

When one reads Abraham Rosenberg's "Reminiscences," one can get the impression that the competition between the anarchists and the socialists in the Jewish labor movement was a competition between equal forces, or even that the anarchists were stronger than64workers' holiday, which had been fixed at the Paris International Socialist Congress, in 1889.

The windows of hundreds of tenement houses were decorated with red flags, and when the marching workers, accompanied by music, passed by, they were everywhere greeted with waving flags, with cheers, and with applause.

Interesting scenes took place. A Jewish housewife hears, for example, the music; but she had forgotten to prepare a red flag; she snatches a red tablecloth, ties it to the handle of her broom, and with that she waves from her window a welcome to the marchers.

In another place it was recognized that the red flag was a red vest, tied to a stick. The observer noticed the buttons.

The Jewish workers were naturally not the only ones who took part in the holiday. In New York there were then many German unions — larger and more numerous than the Jewish ones — and they all marched in honor of the international workers' holiday. And American unions too, although they took no interest in the socialist meaning of the holiday. The whole city resounded with marching workers and their music. All gathered on Union Square, where speeches were held in English, German, and Yiddish.

Soon after the first of May, a situation developed among the cloakmakers which compelled even their anarchist members to turn to us. All our orators took part.

65The cloak manufacturers had united in a "Manufacturers' Association" with the aim of breaking the union. Earlier they had not taken the organization seriously. Now, however, when they saw that it was holding firm, they became uneasy.

A couple of years earlier I had heard that the manufacturers would not long tolerate the unions. A cloak cutter by the name of Mayover, who was a party comrade of ours, once said to me in a conversation:

— Sooner or later the manufacturers will unite and stage a lockout.

Their union had now, then, come about. And it began to be heard on all sides that they were threatening a lockout.

I have already said (in the previous volume) that the cloak manufacturers, with very few exceptions, were German Jews, whereas the workers were mostly our own Jews from Russia, Poland, Galicia, or Yiddish-speaking Jews from Hungary. Among the cutters there were a fair number of Bohemian-Jewish or German-Jewish immigrants. Among the tailors, operators, and pressers, however, such a sort of Jew was a rarity. The rich Jews always looked upon our Jews with contempt. They regarded them as a lower people. And when this "lower" people took to organizing against them, the contempt turned into a bitter hatred.66At last the lockout came. It began over a trifle. What that trifle consisted of, I myself do not remember. But Rosenberg recounts the following about it:

"At the cloak firm of Goldsmith and Platt there worked a certain sample-cutter by the name of Hoffman, who was a good union man. This Hoffman was a great prankster. He used to play all sorts of tricks in the shop. One time he took a strong, thin silk thread and stretched it across the whole shop, from one wall to the other. As it happened, Henry Goldsmith, a member of the firm, came running quickly across the shop, and the silk thread cut into his nose."

Hoffman was sent away. And because of this the union called a strike against the firm.

The cloak-cutters had at that time a separate union. They were, however, allied with the cloakmakers, and they went out in a sympathy strike against the firm. Then all the manufacturers locked out their cutters.

This was the lockout. And the union answered it with a strike. It called out all the inside and outside cloakmakers. The struggle flared up, the first great clash between capital and labor in the cloak trade, and our speakers were invited to address the gatherings.

Rosenberg says at this point ("Reminiscences," page 23):

"Through the cloakmakers' strike the Social Democrats too wanted to gain influence over our union, and their best speakers, such as Comrades Ab. Cahan, Zametkin, Louis Miller and still others, were very active and helped the strikers with counsel and deed."

This might create the impression that we had67come uninvited, and that would be a mistake. The fact is that among the "rank and file" of the cloakmakers' union the "Arbeiter Zeitung" was very popular and well-liked, and the same was true of our speakers. Among the leaders of the union the anarchists were a good deal better represented than we were, but even they agreed that we ought to be invited. During the time of the strike the mood was, on the whole, a brotherly one. Both sides took part in the most peaceable manner.

Right after the few lines that I have quoted here, Rosenberg says:

"In a word, anarchists as well as Social Democrats did their best to win the strike." And that is quite correct.

One time, coming into the office of the cloakmakers' union, I found there the "professor" Garside, with whom we are already acquainted (see the second volume, page 428). The reader already knows the story of the razor, how our party sent Garside packing as a "faker." I had not seen him for a long time and had almost forgotten about him. Now, when I found him in the office of the cloakmakers' union, I was astonished.

— What is this fellow doing here? — I asked one of the leaders.

— He is going to help out in the strike, — I was answered. — We need him to give the news to the English reporters.

When Garside caught sight of me as I stood talking with a group of the cloakmakers, he came over to me with68a beaming face and greeted me, as though we were the best of friends.

Garside had naturally been invited to the strike by the anarchists, for their party had kept him busy all along as an anarchist agitator^*. Rosenberg mentions Garside as "one of the anarchist speakers." He says, however: "Who he was and where he came from, no one knew." This shows that the Jewish anarchists who played a role in the cloakmakers' union were not acquainted with the story of how Garside had been hired by the German anarchists as an English agitator.

I tried to open their eyes and to show them that Garside was not the right man to take part in their struggle. But they would not listen. On his account I wanted to withdraw. But such a stance might have harmed the strike. And in the interests of unity I ignored the Garside question for the time being.

What Rosenberg recounts about Garside and his role in the strike is important, and I will reprint it here word for word. He says, namely (on the same page 23):

"Among the anarchist speakers there was also one, a certain Garside, or Professor Garside, as the cloakmakers called him. Who he was or where69he had come from, no one knew. Some said that he was a priest in a church and that for his anarchism he had been thrown out; others again muttered that he was a spy of the manufacturers; but be the matter as it may, he was an excellent speaker, and in his speeches he always strongly criticized the police for their brutality toward the strikers. Such speeches our people greatly liked, and he at once became the whole leader in the strike, together with Barondess.

"And since Barondess was still a greenhorn and knew very little of the English language, Garside was everywhere foremost. Every Sunday he used to make speeches in the churches about the strike and used to bring back from there whole sacks of money for the strikers. Through his speaking and writing in the English newspapers, the whole city was on our side."

That Garside did excellent "publicity" work for the strike, of this there can be no question. He knew how to get to the reporters, and even to the editors, and through them he brought into the newspapers depictions of the hard toil and the unhappy life of the cloakmakers. That the press should stand on the side of the strikers was a quite unusual thing. But the rich American public regarded this struggle somewhat as a clash between two classes of immigrants, of which one robbed and tormented the other (as though among Americans such a thing would never happen!). So the rich Americans looked upon it as upon a distant, foreign matter, and they had pity on the oppressed immigrants, poor things. Had the same immigrants conducted a strike against American capitalists, it would have been a quite different story.70To sympathize, however, with the cloakmakers, who were striking against German Jews, became a popular thing.

Nor can one say that Garside advertised himself more than Barondess. Everywhere he gave Barondess's name and told of the love that the cloakmakers had for their leader. The newspapers were full of Joseph Barondess, and among them it became the fashion to call him "the King of the Cloak-Makers" (the king of the cloakmakers).

If in the preceding several months Barondess had become known among the Jewish unions, he now became known throughout the whole city and even in other cities as well.

Garside played such a role in the newspapers as though he had taken part in the strike only as a public servant, as a philanthropist who has pity on the suffering poor foreigners, poor things. He himself is an outsider, that is to say. Barondess is one of them, of the foreigners, and he, Garside, the American, seeks publicity for the union and for Barondess, for the beloved leader of these oppressed immigrants.

As far, then, as the publicity work that Garside did for the strike is concerned, one certainly could have had no complaints against him. People asked questions about the money that he had collected for the strikers, and about the money that he had spent on rich lunches and dinners with representatives of the press — incomes and outlays for which there was no accounting and no control. But the benefits that he brought the strikers were so great that all this was waved away with the hand.71The whole summer the strike was kept up. At last the manufacturers began to ask for a compromise. Conferences were held and a settlement was reached. Barondess was not present at this settlement. The union was represented by Garside alone. He signed the agreement for the cloakmakers, and a representative of the cutters signed the agreement for their side. This was on the 16th of July, 1890.

At this point Dr. Levine says in his history of the cloakmakers' union:

"Since the agreement was written in English, it was carried over to Ab. Cahan, in order to find out what the terms consisted of. Cahan explained the various points of the agreement and declared that it was the worst agreement one could possibly have made."

And Rosenberg in his "Reminiscences" recounts:

"The next morning a mass meeting of all the strikers was held in New Everett Hall, 31 East Fourth Street, which was at that time the largest hall in New York^*.72The gathering with which we are here concerned is one of the most remarkable in which I have ever been and in which I have ever taken part. The scenes that took place there are unforgettable scenes. Here are the details:

A committee of the union asked me to read through the agreement and to tell them my opinion of it. I read it through, and my answer was approximately the following:

"No worse agreement can be imagined. It is very sad that one struck for so many weeks, and that this is the result. Public opinion was on the side of the strikers, and the manufacturers felt themselves beaten. I am convinced that one could have obtained from them far better terms. But to explain this to the workers would mean advising them to strike on further, and such a responsibility no one may take upon himself. Who knows what the result will be now? The newspapers will no longer support the strikers, and they, the strikers, are so starved out. My opinion is therefore that the question should be left to the strikers themselves. Let them decide whether they are ready to strike on further. And so that none of them shall afterward be able to say that he voted for a continuation of the strike only because he was ashamed to vote for going to work, the vote should take place by a 'secret ballot.'"

I was content to read out all the points of the agreement at the mass meeting in Yiddish, but without an expression of an opinion — to leave everything to the understanding and the will of the workers.

The committee heartily accepted my plan, and we went over into Everett Hall, which was packed with cloakmakers.73I then wrote down two words for two secret ballots: "Strike" and "Work," and we ordered from a printer a certain number of each of them.

Then I went up onto the platform with the agreement in hand. Barondess was, it seems, the chairman. In any case he was on the platform.

I read out the agreement point for point, in Yiddish, explaining the sense of each term, but not expressing any opinion. I told the workers that they themselves must decide whether the agreement pleased them or not, whether they wanted to strike on further or not. I also laid before them the plan regarding the secret ballot. They accepted the plan with enthusiasm.

When the ballots were ready, I and several of the committee went among the crowd and distributed them. In doing so we explained to every member that when he marked his ballot and folded it together, no one should see how he votes.

— Wholly secret, wholly according to your own will, wholly undisturbed! — I said to every cloakmaker, repeating exactly these same words, until they came out of me mechanically, of their own accord.

Some members went off into various corners in order to fold the ballot together undisturbed by outside eyes, and many went out into the street for this purpose. Mostly, however, they folded the slips together while sitting or standing in one place, but in such a way that no one should see.

We believed that the majority would vote for going back to work, for they were so worn out from the long struggle and now the prospects did not shine to be as good as before. When the votes were counted, and it turned out that only a handful wanted to go to work and that all74the others were ready to go on hungering and to go on fighting, there stood in the eyes of some of us tears of admiration and enthusiasm.

As far as the figure of the vote is concerned, it is more accurate with Dr. Levine than with Rosenberg. According to Dr. Levine, 20 votes were cast for "Work" and 1536 for "Strike." This agrees with the reports that were printed right after the event, and with my recollection of it.

Further, I remember a tumult of holy enthusiasm. People applauded, shouted, danced, some laughed hysterically. Others embraced and kissed one another. Then people began to press toward the platform with watches, rings, earrings, which they had taken off themselves.

The press immediately turned about. Instead of supporting the strikers, the American newspapers began to attack them. This, however, gave the manufacturers no courage. The work had to be done, and the scenes of the New Everett Hall meeting had frightened them. They asked for a second conference, and a new settlement was accepted with a true victory for the union.

Rosenberg says ("Reminiscences," page 29): "Before the strike the anarchists in our union had the upper hand. But through the strike the Social Democrats rendered very many good services to our union. Chiefly, however, they distinguished themselves at the settlement of the strike. Comrade Ab. Cahan then took a very able part, and the sentiment75begun to change. Many had begun to sympathize with the Socialist Labor Party."

"But right after the strike, Barondess appointed as assistant manager the former anarchist R. Lewis, who is now a Democratic politician in Chicago, and this acted like oil on the fire."

By the words "former anarchist," Rosenberg means that at the time he was writing his recollections, R. Lewis was no longer an anarchist. But back then, at the time of the great cloak strike of 1890, he was still the leader of the anarchists. The fact that Barondess had fallen so far under their influence that he made their man his assistant naturally embittered us. That was not the only cause that "acted like oil on the fire." But of that in a later chapter.

As for Rosenberg's remark that "now the sentiment began to change. Many had begun to sympathize with the Socialist Labor Party," this applies only to a part of the cloakmakers, for a large portion had sympathized with our tendency even earlier. As already said: the "Arbeiter Zeitung" had a great number of devoted readers in the union. Yet one must always grant that Barondess's influence over the members was very great, and his leaning toward the anarchists had a distinct effect.

Actually, Barondess himself counted as a member of our party, and even of the "Arbeiter Zeitung Publishing Association." He never resigned. This meant that theoretically he was a Social Democrat, only that with respect to the union he sympathized more with the anarchists.

76From a passage I quoted from Rosenberg's "Recollections," we saw what sort of rumors had been circulating about Garside — that, according to one such rumor, he was a spy for the manufacturers. In any case, after his settlement aroused indignation and was rejected, one would naturally have expected that the cloakmakers' union would have no further dealings with him. And yet, when you leaf through the "Arbeiter Zeitung" for that year, you see that at a mass meeting of the cloakmakers' union, which took place at Cooper Union on Friday, the 12th of September of that year — about two weeks after the final settlement of the great cloak strike — he was one of the speakers. A report of this meeting is found in number 29 of the "Arbeiter Zeitung," first year of publication.77"Last Friday, the 12th of September, the cloakmakers held a mass meeting at the Cooper Institute" — the report relates. — "Two thousand persons were present. The platform was decorated with red flags. As the first speaker, Alexander Jonas was presented; next, R. Lewis (the leader of the Jewish anarchists), who shouted that the workers must be armed. After him spoke Professor Garside (an English anarchist). He spoke about dynamite. After him spoke Ab. Cahan."

The report contains the following excerpt from my speech: "We Social Democrats," cried Comrade Cahan78with fire, "seek to do what we preach. The anarchists speak only of great deeds, of heroic acts; but they get off with mere talk. When one shouts about weapons, one must be able to smell gunpowder, and not get off with empty phrases about dynamite and 'onions with licorice,' which our embittered opponents (the anarchists) are forever throwing in the faces of the poor workers — the enslaved workers, who do not understand the riddle of the labor question. It is a crime to muddle the worker's head with revolution, dynamite, and so on. From shouting 'revolution' no revolution comes."

It is also reported that: "Cahan challenged Lewis and Garside to a debate, the first in English and the second in Yiddish."

At that meeting Garside had shouted about an imminent revolution, mocked the ballot box, and called on the workers to use dynamite against capital. I was outraged that he was inciting our Jewish workers to idiotic acts of violence, which could only bring them into misfortune and help only the manufacturers. All this I expressed in the English part of my speech. And I "challenged" Garside to come to a debate with me.

There, at Cooper Union, he said that he accepted, but right afterward he disappeared from New York, and he was never seen again. Later rumors went around that he was serving somewhere as a detective.

Lewis, whom I had also challenged, did come to the debate.

It took place on the 30th of September at Clarendon Hall, on 13th Street (between Third and Fourth79Avenue). The report of it is printed in number 31 of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" of the first year of publication. It is signed "R" (with an English letter), and if I am not mistaken, the report was written by Philip Krantz, whose real name was Rombro.

The report says: "Lewis conceded to Cahan on every point. It was hard to see on what he did not concede to him." It is also explained that on those points on which Lewis supposedly did not agree with me, he became so tangled up that it was hard to understand what he (Lewis) was saying. Then the reporter remarks the following:

"It is therefore no wonder that Comrade Cahan won on every point. Cahan's sharp criticism was actually not necessary. It looked like killing a fly with a cannon."

At the door of the hall stood the famous anarchist leader Johann Most. He heard a large part of the debate (he could not speak Yiddish, but, finding himself constantly among Jews, he understood our tongue. The difficulties he had in this were especially eased by the many German words and expressions that we used to employ in our movement's language. A debate about socialism and anarchism was certainly not hard for him to understand). Beside Most, at the door, stood Emma Goldman, who later became known throughout the whole world, and a couple of our comrades. The next morning these comrades related a short exchange between Most and Miss Goldman, which they had overheard there while I had the floor.80— Ridiculous! Donkey-talk! — Miss Goldman remarked.

— He is no donkey at all, — Most answered her. He knows what to say, and he is an excellent debater ^*.

After the Cahan-Lewis debate there was a bit of an uproar among the anarchists. They shook themselves free of the speeches that their leader had delivered at the debate. They were not responsible for him, they declared, "because anarchists do not believe at all that one person can represent other people."

In the 33rd number of the first year of publication of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" there is a "Voice from the People," with the signature of M. Zametkin. The letter is addressed to the anarchists. A part of it consists of the following lines:

"What do you have against the beaten R. Lewis? Is it not enough that the poor man could not extricate himself from all the questions that Ab. Cahan put to him? Now you come along and insult him before a whole public! You write that you, as an anarchist party, do not rely on a representative in any respect... If Cahan had failed in the last debate, would you also have said that you do not rely on representatives?"

In the same number is printed a challenge of Miller's81to the anarchists, that they should choose someone to debate with him. But no one responded.

For a good while a witticism that I had put together went around among us: "Anarchists do not believe in debaters, because they do not believe in representatives."

In the above-mentioned number 29 of the first year of publication there is also a "Voice from the People" of mine, which shows how I conducted myself in those years toward such anti-religious demonstrations as the Yom Kippur balls. These balls were then very much in fashion among our anarchists. On the day that Orthodox Jews hold especially holy, they used to distribute an anarchistic "Tefiloh Zakoh," in which they mocked Yom Kippur and reviled the day and the Jewish religion in general. With the Yom Kippur balls they carried on "propaganda of the deed." They believed that by laughing at the "Awesome Day" they were enlightening the public; that this helped to free it from its superstition. The last words of the "Tefiloh Zakoh" were: "Powder and lead make a man free." Instead of going to synagogue, one ought to go to the barricades to make the social revolution.

The following lines I take from my above-mentioned "Voice from the People."

"From the shrieking 'Tefiloh Zakohs' and Yom Kippur balls I keep my distance, as from the tallow candle that an apikoros once ate in order to show that he could eat treyf. On the82death sentence commuted to life imprisonment) wrote from prison to his friends that he believed in the ballot box and in political agitation.

This was put forward in order to show that such a martyr, such a true revolutionary as Michael Schwab, believed in our theory and not in the anarchist one. We then made much use of this fact on the platform as well.

Reading the old "Arbeiter Zeitung," I find some curious things. For example: in a report from Chicago, signed by F. Sussman and A. Reibman, I read that the Chicago Jewish anarchists had challenged the local Jewish socialists to a debate, and that in connection with this the anarchists demanded that the chairman be an anarchist; and when the socialists explained that for a debate one usually chooses an impartial chairman, the anarchists answered: "He who is not an anarchist cannot be an honest man. Therefore the chairman must be an anarchist."

The constant attacks and quarrels did not keep us from holding the eleventh of November sacred, the day when the four anarchists were hanged in Chicago. On this day we used every year to hold meetings to honor the memory of the martyrs. In number 37, for example, the whole first column on the first page is taken up by an article, which is set entirely in larger letters than usual, under the headline "The Eleventh of November." The article bears the signature of L. Miller.83We used to hold the November 11th meetings not together with the anarchists, but separately; and Abraham Rosenberg relates the fights that used to take place in the cloakmakers' union over the question of to which of the two meetings to send the union's banner. Usually it was sent to both.