Chapter Twelve

426In the "Arbeiter Zeitung" there was running at that time my translation of Zola's novel "Germinal," under my pen name "David Bernstein." When one leafs through the volume for 1896, one finds this name only up to the issue of May 15th. In the next issue, that of May 22nd, the translation already appears without a name. From then on someone else carried it on (Krantz, it seems).

In the week between May 15th and 22nd I therefore packed up bag and baggage, left the editorial office, and severed my ties with the Publishing Association.

My wife was at that time in Kiev on a visit to her mother and family, and Miller, who was still in Europe, had traveled over to Odessa, where he had a sister, and from there he went to Kiev to visit my wife.

For those months I settled in with the family of a typesetter named Ronkin, who was at that time the foreman over the typesetters of the Association's printing shop.427My lodging with the Ronkins is bound up in my memory with an important chapter in the history of New York. The lodging itself, the house in which it was located, is connected with it. First, a few words about the situation at that time with regard to the building industry. After the crisis of 1893–1894 there began a period of "prosperity," of flourishing business. As a result, in the summer when I resigned from the "Arbeiter Zeitung," a feverish activity began to enlarge the city. The enlargement took place in the genuine American manner — not little by little, not slowly, the way a European city grows, but with a nervous haste. As if overnight, scores upon scores of new blocks of brick buildings sprang up.

In the fourteen years that I had by then spent in America, New York had changed little. Both in size and in general appearance it had remained almost the same. It did not stretch any farther than the Hundredth Street. There the empty fields and rocks already began. The 90th Street, and even the 70th, was called "way uptown," and in the old built-up parts of the city, in the business center, the tallest buildings were no higher than 14 stories. In that period people began to build up new districts uptown and ever higher and higher brick buildings — "sky-scrapers" — in the seething business district of downtown. And the elevators, or "lifts," were developed in America to a degree of which people in Europe had no conception^*.428My lodging with the Ronkins was in one of these new buildings. It was located on 102nd Street. The whole block and many blocks farther on were new, or else they were still in the midst of being built.

A feverish building activity was going on uptown in New York and in the Jewish Brownsville in Brooklyn.

It seethed with real-estate speculation. People bought and sold lots, finished houses, half-finished ones. Whoever had no more than a few hundred dollars threw himself into real estate. In the Jewish districts the fever seized a sizable portion of our immigrant population. Sitting over a plate of soup or a glass of tea in a restaurant, people would buy and sell lots or 5-story buildings, or a written promise to make such a deal. Brokers took commission. The one who put down earnest money and received a contract would perhaps soon sell the contract to another and make a few thousand dollars' profit before he had even finished his glass of

[continued from footnote] offices in the neighborhood of the courts. All money-speculators must have their business in the neighborhood of the exchange and the great banking houses. And so these business districts grow toward the sky, in order to remain in the center, or as near as possible to the center. So it is in all American cities. Even such cities as have no more than a hundred thousand inhabitants have sky-scrapers. But in New York there is a special cause for it: the old part of the city stands on a narrow island. In width it has nowhere to grow; it must grow in height. In the last 30 years Brooklyn too has been built up enormously, and new districts have been developed farther from the said island — in the Bronx. But all that is, for many people, too far from the centers. A large part of the population still wants to remain in New York proper.

When I came to America, New York had one center. Now it already has several centers.

At first the "sky-scrapers" were only in the great429tea. An outside person who had listened in on the dealing would attach himself as a broker, and often one would be obliged to give him a percentage.

The Ronkins lived on 102nd Street near Lexington Avenue. The house was one of a row of new tenements. The whole district consisted of a few just-built brick buildings, or of such as were still in the midst of being built. Half a year earlier there had been meadows and rocks here. Now the rocks had been blasted apart with dynamite, and the whole area had begun to be transformed into rows of new tenements. For eight, nine blocks the transformation had gone along the length (approximately up to 110th Street), whereas in width it went from Third Avenue to Fifth. On Fifth Avenue, and farther on from 110th Street, it was for the time being still all "country." And in the middle of the district that had already begun to be built up, there still remained here and there, in places, patches of green meadow and

[continued from previous page] business districts, and they were used only for offices (counting-houses, bureaus). In the last years, however, people began to use such brick buildings for dwellings too. As these lines are being written, there are already scores upon scores of such buildings, and people are building more and more of them. And the higher the dwelling is, the more dearly one pays for it. For the higher up, the freer and better the air. And in New York, which is hemmed in with tall buildings, air is a dear article.

When a district becomes built up and important for business, people throw down the smaller buildings there and put up sky-scrapers. While these lines are being written, people are throwing down some of the finest and richest palatial houses of New York in order to make room for buildings of twenty or thirty stories. The price of real estate in that district has risen so high that it does not pay for the millionaire to have a three- or four-story palatial house of his own. It is not worth it to him.430gray rocks. Here and there one heard the crash of an exploding stone mountain; here and there "derricks" whistled while digging a foundation; and on block after block bricks had already been laid; story was added to story; walls grew; windows appeared. Bricklayers, carpenters, painters, real-estate men, people eager for new dwellings swarmed about — all Jews, our Jewish immigrants from Russia, from Poland, from Galicia, from Romania.

The new dwellings had the "latest improvements," the newest betterments. Almost every apartment had a bathroom with porcelain-enameled tubs; almost every house had electric lighting and an electric bell to ring and to open the door. You press a button below and it is heard above, and in the apartment you give a button a push and the door opens below. Ah, what a wonder! What an aristocratic "luxury"! And then faucets from which cold and hot water flow at all times! There is no need to heat anything at all. It comes ready. Put the dishes or the laundry under it and wash! And then a "dumb-waiter" that takes down the garbage!

Who had known of such things in the old tenement houses downtown? For a housewife all these "improvements" were simply a magic stroke of good fortune. They saved her labor, made it easier to keep the rooms clean.

More important than all was the fact that the new houses had light and air. In the old tenement houses many of the rooms did not have this. Between one house and the next there was no free space. Many of the windows came out right up against the next wall. In almost half of all the bedrooms in the New York tenement houses there reigned an eternal night, a stuffy431darkness. The new houses, however, were already built so that between two tenements there was an "air-shaft," a free space in between, and almost all the rooms were light and airy. And afterward the city adopted a law that one might not build otherwise at all, though the old houses were permitted to stand. There arose a rush for rooms in the new buildings.

When a worker's family would move into such an apartment of four or five light rooms with electric lighting, with electric bells, with a "bathroom" and with a "dumb-waiter" that takes down the garbage, they would feel happy and proud, as though they had suddenly turned from paupers into millionaires.

A great role in this was played by the spanking-newness of the houses. Everything was fresh, everything gleamed: the paint, the polish, the wallpaper, the brass faucets. In a short time all of it became faded, dingy, for everything was of cheap material. But when it was new, it shone and sparkled.

Every housewife is drawn to a new dwelling. And here the new dwellings were so "lordly," so light, with such novelties, with the "latest improvements"!...

People snatched up the new rooms like sugar. The houses became packed before people had even finished building them.

The rent in the new houses was at first not high. It looked like a surprising bargain. But for the most part one would already take one room more than one had been used to, and it cost more dearly. Such a snare lay already in the new rooms. In the old dark tenements the kitchen had been the dining-room too. But how can one get along without a separate dining-room432in a "palace" with electric bells? And so the rent already amounted to far more than one had been used to paying. The husband perhaps grumbled. The "missus," however, gave him no rest until he gave in. One braced oneself with all one's strength and took a room more. If one is already to live like respectable folk, then let it already be on a par with respectable folk...

Housewives became intoxicated with a new ambition to move uptown into the houses with the "latest improvements." Brides dreamed about rooms with the "latest improvements." Women neglected their housework, traveled uptown and spent whole days searching, looking over, choosing rooms with the "latest improvements." People rejoiced; they had heartache. People boasted, people envied; people taunted one another, became blood-enemies. Whole days and evenings people would talk of nothing but the new houses with the rooms that had the "latest improvements."

The district of which we are speaking here is called Harlem. So has its name been ever since the time when New York was called "New-Amsterdam" and belonged to the Dutch, who had discovered it (Harlem is the name of a city in Holland).

People therefore began to build up Harlem. I said above that for the time being people had built northward only up to 110th Street, and westward up to 5th Avenue. It did not, however, take long, and the area was entirely built up; and then people began to build farther than 110th Street uptown, and also on 5th Avenue; and a little later still — on Lenox Avenue; and later still — on 7th Avenue.433And within a few years the same feverish activity began in the farther district uptown, in the great Bronx. And again people created a new great city, a far larger one than Harlem. And at the same time something similar was going on in another part of New York, in Washington Heights. Again a new great district sprang up. And on the other side of the East River, in Brooklyn, in the same manner and at the same time Brownsville too grew up as though on yeast.

Several great cities, each as large as Warsaw or Odessa, or larger, were created in New York proper, in the space of a few years; new cities with new seething centers, new seething worlds. All of this came into being and became a part of the new world-city where the new, the gigantic Jewish immigration had begun.

And all of this was accomplished mostly by our Russian, Polish, and Galician Jews. The real-estate men and the builders were our immigrants; the workers — the bricklayers, the carpenters, the painters — also our immigrants (some of the workers later became rich builders and real-estate men), and the tenants — also our immigrants.

Later some of these same Jewish builders took to building the most expensive sort of apartment houses — for the richest tenants in the richest districts, for Christians as well as for Jews.

In Europe hundreds of years go by before a great city grows up. In America the greatest cities grew up in a short time. Just as434from a single colossal mold one could have cast hundreds of great stone buildings at once.

Great, rich America, with its dozens of great cities, developed in the span of a few decades — after the war over Negro slavery; and now something similar was happening in New York itself. A gigantic real-estate "boom" had come to a boil (and the same in Chicago, in Cleveland, in Los Angeles, and in dozens of other cities). New, giant blocks of housing on the site of open fields; and at the same time the old business districts were growing toward the sky.

There was scarcely a single neighborhood where they were not tearing down dozens of old buildings and putting up new ones of the new sort. They even demolished brand-new stone buildings to make room for larger and better ones. Within a short time the city was unrecognizable.

And in all these undertakings in New York the Russian, Polish, and Galician Jews played the most important role. Very often a Jew who could barely get out an English word put up whole blocks of buildings; and very often he accomplished it with far more head-spinning than cash. Hometown carpenters, masons, or hod-carriers, or perhaps even melamdim, with a couple of thousand scraped-together dollars, would venture into undertakings worth a couple of million. Not seldom such men ended up in a poorhouse or a madhouse. But not seldom they did indeed become millionaires.

The apartment where I settled that summer was thus one of the new ones. It stood in Harlem at the very start of the building tumult. From those435several dozen stone buildings began that blazing activity with which Jewish immigrants set about adding new great cities to the largest city of America.

[טאָפּיק] "Yekl." — "Deputies" or "Lords"? — Miller. — A peace conference. — About the "Arbeiter Zeitung." — War again.

That summer my English novel "Yekl" appeared. I had a whole series of pleasant experiences. I met with American writers, artists, journalists. I spent interesting hours.^*

I received invitations to write stories for American magazines. Because of De Leonism, the Socialist Labor Party lost its charm for me, like a beautiful apple in which one finds a worm. As I have said: had Miller been in New York then, I would have withdrawn. I would have devoted myself to literary work. As it was, however, I continued my leadership of the "opposition."

Among the oppositionists who often visited me then were Winchevsky and the above-mentioned Meyer Gillis. The latter happened to live in Harlem, not far from my apartment.

The monthly "Zukunft," which was controlled not by the Association but by the opposition,436I went on editing for the time being; it did not, however, demand much time.

That summer, in the interests of our struggle, I had an article in the "Zukunft" in which the following thought was expressed:

The English parliament consists of a "House of Commons" and a "House of Lords." In the first sit deputies, that is, elected representatives of the people. The "House of Lords," in turn, consists of people whom no one has elected, whom no one has sent. They represent only themselves; they inherit the title "Lord" from their fathers, or they receive it from the king. The deputies are elected for a fixed term; the "Lords," in turn, are members of the "House of Lords" as long as they live; and when a Lord dies, the "job" passes to his eldest son. Taking all this as a parable, I pointed out that the "Arbeiter Zeitung Publishing Association" is not a "House of Commons," but a "House of Lords." Its members are elected by no one. They represent only themselves. Therefore the opposition demands that the members of the Association elect representatives of the various unions and socialist societies, and if a union should so wish, it should be able to recall its representative from the Association and send another in his place. I demanded that the members of the Association be not "Lords," but "deputies."

A tumult broke out. On the one hand the parable, with its explanation, was praised everywhere, and on the other hand I was attacked for it. People argued that I had no right to use the "Zukunft" in our struggle against the Association.

I noted above that the "Zukunft" was issued437not by the "Association," but by the "opposition." To be more precise, one must explain that it belonged to a "Press Federation" of delegates from socialist societies (a House of Commons), and a majority of them consisted of our friends. The "Press Federation" backed me. Protests came both against me and against the Federation, but only from a small number of organizations.

My article, however, made an indescribable impression, and in the "revolution" that led to the founding of the "Forverts" it played an important role.

In the autumn Miller returned from Europe. To my surprise, he began to speak not of war but of peace. Being far from home, he had lost his earlier bitterness against the "clique." His anger had passed. And the question of "De Leonism" had in any case interested him little.

Now that he was already in New York, I wanted to withdraw and devote myself to my private affairs. That, however, was easier to decide than to carry out. I was closely bound up with the comrades of the opposition, and to distance myself from them was impossible for me. I neglected my private interests. I let things go as they went. In my heart I was almost always ill at ease.

At a meeting of the opposition, where Miller spoke of having a peace conference with the board of management, I came out sharply against it. But if a struggle against those in power has a magic force, the word "peace" also has a magic force. And so the majority went with him.

The leaders of the "Arbeiter Zeitung Publishing Association"438were, for their part, also inclined to peace. So once again a conference of both sides was held. They sat the whole night through, drank up several dozen bottles of soda, and began to talk in a friendly tone.

A compromise was made: the doors of the Association were to be opened to new candidates, and both sides were to take part in the "Abend-Blatt."

The "Arbeiter Zeitung" was turned into a Sunday edition of the "Abend-Blatt," and both sides collaborated; from our camp: myself, Winchevsky, and Miller. I wrote a weekly survey, "The Week," and other articles. The name "Arbeiter Zeitung" thus disappeared.

In the whole affair I played only a lukewarm role. I never thought much of the peace, and the others, too, did not stay enthusiastic for long. Miller, Winchevsky, and all the other oppositionists soon admitted that I was right. De Leon dominated the "loyalists," and with his influence we could conclude no peace. Miller then became a sharp anti-De Leonist.

I never once set foot in the editorial office of the "Abend-Blatt." The articles I used to write for it I would send in. The foreman of the "Abend-Blatt" print shop at the time, Hyman Rosenson, happened to live not far from me; so I would drop my articles into his letter-box, and he would carry them off to the editorial office.

By then I no longer lived with the Rankins, but quite near them. When my wife returned from Russia, we took rooms on Lexington Avenue, near 102nd Street, there where the avenue slopes downhill.439Miller used to visit us very often. A frequent guest at our place, too, was a friend of my wife's, a young lady by the name of Helena Rabinovitch, a Russian gymnasium student from back home, who that year had completed her medical studies in Boston. Through our house the two of them became well acquainted, and a few months later they married.

Our side kept winning more and more adherents. The most important thing was that our number was growing within the Association itself. In part this was perhaps because our opponents were the ones in power, and, as has been noted above, a struggle against those in power has a force of attraction. A great role was also played here by the fact that we had on our side all the well-known speakers of the movement (except for B. Feigenbaum). But the chief reason why the opposition drew sympathy was, without doubt, the justice of its claims. The De Leonist poison, intrigue, and inquisitorial spirit could not be popular, and what people called "De Leonism" and what people called the "clique" had by now grown completely together. One could no longer separate the one from the other.

The just struggle flared up, and I was once again swept away. Often I would sober up, and a mood would come over me that drove me to withdraw and throw myself entirely into my literary and journalistic work in English. But that was now even harder. It would have meant abandoning my comrades in the very middle. We had on our side a great number of enthusiastic people, and among them the most active comrades of New York440and other cities. The seriousness and self-sacrifice with which they devoted themselves to the opposition were very congenial to me, and many of them were my warm adherents and friends.

At home I would set about writing something in English. The party struggle, however, swallowed up almost all my attention. I say "almost," because in the matter of belles-lettres I did indeed write something in those weeks. I received an invitation from the "Cosmopolitan," one of the most important and successful American magazines, to contribute a story; I put it off and put it off; but I did create something all the same. The story was accepted at once.

The oppositionists demanded, more strongly with each passing day, that we wrest from the "clique" the control over the "Abend-Blatt" and over the "Publishing Association" in general, and Miller and I were their chief leaders. Active as leaders, too, were Winchevsky and Zametkin.

We held a "caucus" meeting. We had calculated that we already had a majority in the Association. Still, in order to "go across an iron bridge," we prepared thirty new candidates (Jewish members of the Socialist Labor Party who wished to enter the Association). They were naturally against the "clique" and against De Leon. According to the agreement concluded at the aforementioned peace conference, where many bottles of soda water had been drunk, the Association now admitted new members; so we expected that our thirty new fellow-fighters would be admitted without difficulties.441We had, however, "reckoned without the host." The "loyalists" had not been sleeping either. They, too, had prepared new candidates. That would not have been so important, since they had few adherents, and they managed to obtain only a small number of candidates. But they had resolved to stop at no means and not to let the "Abend-Blatt" out of their hands, and with De Leon's help they had a chance to win.

Both sides made ready for a certain evening. That was when the "general battle" was to take place.

[טאָפּיק] The "general battle." — Scenes. — What Max Pine remembers about that evening. — 52 oppositionists leave the meeting

The meeting took place on the 7th of January, 1897, at 73 Ludlow Street. At this meeting Miller was the opposition's "military" commander, and I — its candidate for editor of the "Abend-Blatt."

In the history of the "Forverts," which for many years now has played such an important role in the spiritual and political life of the Jewish masses in America, and in my personal life, this meeting has a great significance. There a final split took place, and that very evening the "Forverts" was, in effect, born. I shall therefore dwell on this historic assembly in greater detail.

First I shall make use of the chapter from Burgin's "History," in which it is told what happened then.442"Both sides sought to seize power," we read there, "the opposition by bringing in at once as many new members as possible from its side, and the 'loyalists' — by hindering them from getting in.

"The opposition accused Joseph Schlossberg, the secretary of the Publishing Ass'n, of having let through many names of proposed members and not having brought them forward. The 'loyalists,' in turn, accused the opposition of having gathered together altogether outside people who had no right to become members of the Ass'n (because they were not members of the party).

"Both sides came in good time, because one side did not trust the other not to come earlier and meanwhile elect its own chairman. For the question — from which side the chairman would be — was very important in this decisive struggle. The chairman can sometimes have the power to decide the whole struggle. But when the members of the opposition arrived, they found that the meeting had already been opened. They protested strongly, and the assembled agreed to elect a chairman once more. The second election, however, did not satisfy the opposition, and a third election was held. The opposition did not trust the count by the secretary, since he was a 'loyalist.' It demanded that he appoint other tellers. The secretary appointed the tellers: two from the majority, that is, from the opponents of the opposition; the third was B. Feigenbaum, who professed himself to be impartial.

"In the hall a terrible agitation prevailed. When it came to the counting, the uproar was as if cut off. Everyone waited impatiently for the result.443Each side watched that the counting should go in order, without falsifications.

"The two from the 'loyalists' counted up 50 votes for their candidate for chairman (Steven Kupfer) and 48 votes for the candidate of the opposition (Lilienblum). Feigenbaum, however, counted up 51 votes for the candidate of the opposition and only 47 for the 'loyalist candidate' (in his personal statement in the 'Abend-Blatt' of the 21st of January, Feigenbaum writes that for Lilienblum he counted up 51 and for Kupfer 49 votes). But in doing so he forgot to count the two votes of the other two tellers, who had voted for Kupfer.

"The secretary declared that two may be believed more than one, and the chairman remained Kupfer.

"That was the first blow for the opposition. Afterward came the second. After the third election the secretary was charged with revising the cards of the members. It turned out that 19 new members (who had been admitted in the last several weeks) had not yet paid in their initiation dues (according to the agreement they were supposed to pay this off over the course of 4 meetings, and they had not done so). The 'loyalists' took advantage of the occasion that the 19 had not yet paid in the initiation dues, and two of them were rejected outright; and the remaining 17 were required to pay their initiation dues.

"That was the second blow, after which came a third.

"At this meeting another 36 proposed candidates were supposed to be admitted, who were mostly444supporters of the opposition. Under ordinary circumstances the assembly would have listened to the names of those proposed and would have quickly carried out the procedure of admitting new members.

"This time, however, that procedure was an important event, on which the power of one side or the other depended: if the new members were admitted, the opposition would have the majority; if they were not admitted, the power would remain with the 'loyalists.'

"The loyalists made use of the formal right that an association may apply when it finds it desirable, namely, the right not to permit new members to vote at the general assembly where officers are to be elected, and they postponed the admission of 23 of those proposed until after the elections of officers. As for the remaining 12 or 13, the secretary did not read their names at all, because, as he maintained, they were not in good standing in the party (and a member of the association could be only someone who was a member in good standing of the Socialist Labor Party).

"The whole evening the air smelled of gunpowder.

"Those assembled were nervous, agitated. Shouts and insults never ceased. Here and there people treated one another to slaps.

"The fact that the 'loyalists' allowed themselves to act this way toward those proposed was the extra drop that overflowed the cup. Miller gave a shout to all the oppositionists: 'Comrades, come!' And they all rushed out of the hall."445The account is impartial and — with the exception of a detail here and there — accurate; but it requires a few explanations.

When two of the tellers reported in favor of Kuper and only one in favor of our candidate, Lilienblum, our people protested; they declared that the two tellers represented the same side, the "loyalists," and that they therefore could not be counted as a majority against our single teller. Nevertheless we accepted the decision. We were certain that later, when all the ceremonies were finished and it came to the question of the editor, we would in any case have a sure majority.

When it came to the vote for editor, the "loyalists" used various pretexts and outright strong-arm methods in order not to allow many of our people to vote. They declared, for example, that this or that member of the opposition had not paid his dues punctually. Ordinarily no one looked at such trifles, but at this meeting the "loyalists" made a great fuss about it. Their own members, who had been in arrears for several months, they did allow to vote.

Secondly, when it came to the voting, they posted in the anteroom two of their strong young men (Zalman Weinman, of the Weinmans whom I mentioned in the first chapter of this volume, and a young man by the name of Harkavy). These two "loyalists" barred the oppositionists' way to the door of the meeting hall. When one of our people stepped out of the hall for a moment and wanted to come back in to vote, Weinman and Harkavy held him back. I appealed to them in the name of446decency. To this they answered me with cold, stern faces. "Don't interfere, Comrade Cahan," Weinman said to me in a tone that was a mixture of politeness and intimidation. A few of our people came running up. There was a bit of an uproar — one of many such that evening. It seethed inside the hall and outside in the anteroom. The upshot was that we were powerless. They were better prepared and better organized than we were.

Weinman and Harkavy did, naturally, let me back into the hall; but the other oppositionists they held back until after the voting.

Several oppositionists simply came late. They showed up at the very minute when the voting was already to begin; so they were not let in either. Weinman and Harkavy themselves went into the hall and locked the door.

Our people shouted and protested; but it did no good. The "loyalists" had the chairman, and everything their people did was deemed proper. During this commotion a Romanian young man with dark hair (Steinberg, I think, was his name) boasted that he would beat me up. The other "loyalists" would not let him. So he sat there, shooting with his eyes and every now and then taking aim at me with his fist.

When Miller gave the signal, the oppositionists left the hall. There was only one exception: B. Feigenbaum. He stayed, explaining that he was against splits, and that he was staying with the aim of working for the principles of the opposition from within.

Max Fein was one of the oppositionists whom they tried not to let into the meeting. In447the special issue of the "Forverts" that was put out in honor of the paper's 25th jubilee, he tells the following:

"One can imagine the agitation of our people, who stood in the entrance hall and were not let in. Their impatience was easy to understand.

"This was 25 years ago, and I was then 25 years younger. Standing behind the door, I felt as though someone were strangling me by the throat. I began to pound on the door.

"— Let me in! — I demanded of the doorkeeper, who stuck out a pair of insolent eyes through the little round window.

"— Take it easy, you're not standing on the open prairie — that fellow answered with bravado.

"— Let me in, or else I'll break the door down!

"The man again opened the little window, gave a laugh in my face, and shut it again.

"Young, fiery and wild, I could no longer control myself. I threw my whole body against the door, but it did not give way.

"— Give me a shove — I asked.

"Several people came up and gave me such a push that the door tore off its hinges and fell inward. Those who had been standing in the entrance hall all went into the meeting.

"A terrible uproar broke out. For a moment it looked as though a general brawl was coming. In some corners people did actually fight.

"Louis Miller was not in the hall at that moment. Since it was late, and it seemed448that the meeting would drag on until daylight, he had gone out to buy something. He returned with a bundle of apples."

Miller had brought a fiber bag with big red apples. He took one, and the oppositionists who were near us divided up the rest.

— Eat the apple with intent, Comrade Cahan, — one of our people said to me, — eat the apple, and you won't eat your heart out.

I obeyed him and ate "with intent." This calm manner of mine was just what agitated the Romanian "loyalist" who was sitting directly across from me.

The excitement was great; but that "in some corners people did actually fight," or that "here and there people treated one another to slaps," as Burgin puts it — that I did not notice, though I did hear of it.

Speaking of the same meeting in general, Fein says:

"On the night of the 7th of January, 1897, the birth pangs of the 'Forverts' were heard for the first time. On that night the split of the Jewish socialists took place, and it was the beginning of the end of the Socialist Labor Party; of De Leon's daily paper 'The People'; of the Jewish socialist daily, the 'Abendblatt'; of its tactic of breaking unions; of the dictatorship of a clique over the masses of workers and socialists."449From the meeting 52 members of the Publishing Association walked out. Many of us had doubted even earlier whether it would end peacefully, and one of these had prepared a hall (Walhalla Hall, 48 Orchard Street). That evening the hall belonged to a certain association of which this young man was the secretary; so he let the members know that their meeting was postponed, and he kept the hall for our "revolution."

"Outside there was a bitter cold, — Max Fein relates, — but not many of us felt the cold. Everyone was warmed up, carried away, agitated. On the street stood little knots of people. These were our friends, socialists and sympathizers. They stood in the cold and waited to hear the result.

"We did not have to stand long on the street. Some of our friends had procured a hall for us.

"Among them was a man who stammered — a likable, hot-tempered fellow. Sometimes, when he took the floor at a meeting, he could not extricate himself, and the merciless crowd would laugh. Nevertheless he would push himself to be chairman at assemblies. I remember how once, at a mass meeting, he introduced Zametkin as the speaker:

"— The n—next speaker, Zametkin, I have the pleasure of introducing to you, Comrade speaker...

"This young man was the one who told us where the new hall was. When he brought us into the hall, on Orchard Street, he said with great enthusiasm: 'C... comrades, l—live a g—good day!'

"When we opened the meeting, it was already past midnight. Assembled there were not only450the members who had walked out of the association, but a great many other socialists and other workers who had been waiting for the outcome of the association meeting."

[טאָפּיק] In the narrow, long hall with the new carpet. — The "press clubs." — Unforgettable scenes.

When the stammering comrade opened the door of his meeting hall and in a tone of broad hospitality stammered out: "Here you have a hall, comrades! Come in and live a good day!" we burst out laughing. My laughter, however, was not a cheerful one.

We had parted forever from the association, which we had founded seven years before with so much enthusiasm. The movement that had given me so much happiness was split apart. My heart was not light.

The hall was a long and narrow one, with brand-new long benches and a cheap brand-new carpet, adorned with cheap, garish blue and white flowers. The impression of this cheap newness is, in my memory, mingled with my eerie mood that evening.

We organized ourselves as a "Press Federation" of various unions and associations (a "House of Commons"), and a committee was appointed to write up a declaration to the public.

Almost all the Jewish unions, and among them the largest, immediately joined our side. The paper that we451were preparing to put out, they recognized as their official organ even before we had even settled on its name. Only three or four of the very small unions remained with the "Abendblatt." The "United Hebrew Trades" also remained with the "Abendblatt," but it then existed only on paper, and several of the delegates of which the "Trades" were composed promptly withdrew. One of them was Max Fein.

So that we should not be able to come out against the "Abendblatt," the party, under De Leon's influence, declared the paper to be its official Yiddish organ. Since the oppositionists were members of the party, they could no longer openly fight the paper. They would have been expelled from the party. But we found a way out.

On the eve of Passover a Jew rescues his leavened food by selling it, as it were, to a gentile. We used that sort of device against the trick that De Leon had played on us. The oppositionists founded "press clubs," which were simply socialist organizations and had no connection to the party. At the same time, those same oppositionists remained in the party branches. They belonged to both, that is, and everything they did against the "Abendblatt" was done in the name of the "press clubs." It went like this: a Jewish branch of the party holds a meeting. Nothing is mentioned about the struggle or about our planned new paper. It is a kosher party meeting. So it goes on for an hour or less, and the meeting is officially closed. The members, however, remain in their places, and immediately452the meeting opens up again, but no longer as a branch of the party, but as a "Press Club." The people are the same; the firm, however, is supposedly a different one. De Leon no longer holds sway. People speak against the "clique," against De Leon; they speak about the new newspaper that the opposition is preparing to bring out; they take up a collection for it.

Such double meetings took place in several cities, and in New York — in several parts of the city. This very "trick" added to the interest.

At our mass meetings, which were held in the name of the united Press Clubs, indescribable scenes of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice took place.

I will never forget a certain evening when we held a mass meeting and gathered money for the new newspaper. The meeting took place in the great basement of Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street (it was there that we held all our important meetings, and it was there that the "Forverts" was born). The enthusiasm was great. After the speeches, people set to the collection. I and one other (Winchevsky, I believe) went around with hats in our hands, and the crowd threw into them ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, two-dollar bills, and silver coins. People also took off their rings and watches, and all of this was thrown into the hats. I remember how my hat grew so heavy that I had to support it from below with my other hand, so that it would not tear through. I remember a few of the scenes that took place while we were making the collection.

A certain couple is sitting there, and when I come up, the453man takes a dollar out of his breast pocket and lays it into my hat. "Give me a dollar too," the woman says to him. He makes her a sign that one dollar is enough. Then the woman, with vexation, gives a tug at one little ring from a finger, and a second, and throws them in.

An older man came up to me and confided a secret: he had no money on him. He would send it to me later. "You may trust me," he says to me, — "I will not eat and I will not drink, and I will hand over my contribution."

Nowadays, for a worker to give a five-dollar contribution is nothing surprising. Back then it was a large sum. And yet some workers gave five dollars apiece, ten dollars apiece, and more as well. People pawned things. A certain comrade carried off a new suit of his to a pawn shop in order to contribute to the fund for the new newspaper.

Max Fein tells of similar scenes that took place at another such meeting.

He recalls a "small-statured cap-maker with a face the color of ashes," who "went up slowly to the chairman and laid something down beside him. The presiding officer's face lights up. "Twenty-five dollars!" — he cries out.

"He is at once surrounded by men and women who carry money: some a dollar, some fifty cents; there were also those who gave five-dollar bills. Some declared that they had no money on them, but that they should be put down on the list, and they would bring it.

"One man answered this:454"'If you can get money at home, then go home and bring it. We will not leave here until we have a sum with which we can bring out the "Forverts."'

"A second man added:

"'If you have no money at home, wake up your neighbors and borrow money from them.'

"These pieces of advice were received with great enthusiasm.

"Some brought their watches, rings, and bracelets.

"Day had already broken when the meeting was closed."

[טאָפּיק] The convention of January 30, 1897. — The name "Forverts." — I am elected editor. — A failure in Philadelphia. — A story in "Cosmopolitan."

The movement for a new socialist newspaper — a newspaper that should belong to the people and not to a small handful, a newspaper that should be run by elected representatives and not by a clique — spread quickly among the Socialists. So it was in New York, and so it was in other cities. From all sides a demand was heard for a conference with the aim of setting to work at once.

The conference took place on the 30th and the 31st of December, 1896, and the result was a resolution to convene455a convention of all the press clubs and sympathizing Jewish workers' unions of America.

Such a convention assembled on the 30th of January, 1897. Its sessions lasted two days and two nights, the 30th and 31st. They took place in the above-mentioned great basement hall of Walhalla Hall, 48 Orchard Street, New York. There were represented 23 organizations (party branches, other socialist associations and trade unions) from New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Haven, and Hartford.

The participants, then, represented not themselves alone, but organizations. They were not "lords," but "deputies." The demand that had been expressed in the above-mentioned "Tsukunft" article — a "House of Commons" or a "House of Lords?" — was here, then, realized.

Allusions to this could be heard in some of the speeches and in the private conversations among the delegates. I remember, for example, how, attacking the clique and the whole association, one speaker cried out:

— They really do think they are lords!...

Jokes were also heard about the "lords" and the "deputies."

Well, a gathering of "deputies" or delegates is a quite ordinary thing. Delegates are representatives of certain groups or circles. The aim, however, was that the newspaper should be founded on the very same principle of "popular representation"; that the standing organization which would publish it and conduct its affairs should also consist of "deputies." And so it really was put together.456The name that we gave this organization was "Press Association" ^*.

I must confess here at once that, as later experiences showed, such a system with regard to the standing body that is supposed to conduct the affairs and control the editorial board of a newspaper is easier to explain in theory than to carry out in practice. Let us take one example: an association sends a delegate to the Press Association; later the association falls apart; it remains in existence only on paper. The delegate, however, still remains a member of the Press Association, although he represents no one. Or new members come into the association or union with new opinions, new political interests, and they still have a right to send a delegate to the Association.

Later, changes had to be made, but the main argument of the oppositionists was always guarded. I mean our argument that the "Publishing Association" had become a closed body, and that it ought to be open to new members. The organization that publishes the "Forverts" has always been an open organization. It does not find itself in the hands of "lords." The deputy principle cannot hold in its administration. It is, however, a popular administration through the fact that its doors are open; and its faithful socialist character is secured457through the fact that its members must be members in good standing of the Socialist Party (which was founded in 1901). So it was always, and so it is today, that is to say, nearly thirty years after the "Forverts" was born.

The convention solemnly declared itself pledged "to hold high the banner of the international class struggle" and "to work with all its powers for the Socialist Workers' Party."

At one of its sessions, a resolution was adopted to send a committee to the Publishing Association of the "Abend-Blatt" and to demand that it should hand over the newspaper to representatives of socialist organizations and unions, that is, to our Press Association. A committee was indeed appointed for this purpose. It is needless to remark that the association laughed off this resolution.

Miller made a proposal that the new newspaper should be called "Forverts." I believed that an authentically Yiddish name was needed, but a fitting Yiddish name for a newspaper is not easy to find, and since "Forverts" is the name of the chief organ of the great Socialist Party of Germany, Miller's proposal was adopted unanimously.

I was unanimously elected editor.

We went on raising money. Several of us traveled around various cities, gave speeches and made collections, or organized benefit concerts. In many places we had success, not in all. The worst failure we had was in Philadelphia. The comrades there took458the largest and most beautiful theater in the city (the Academy of Music) for speeches and a rich concert, and they did everything possible to sell tickets; the result, however, was a sad one. The theater was almost empty. Miller and Winchevsky and I were the speakers. Our hearts were very heavy. We rode back to New York with our heads hanging down.

When I say that in some places the undertakings were successful, one must not imagine a success in the present-day sense of the word. The earnings of the workers were much smaller than nowadays, and even with the greatest enthusiasm one could not expect any results according to the present-day measure.

On the day when we rode to Philadelphia for the above-mentioned gathering, the March number of the American monthly journal "Cosmopolitan" appeared, and in it my story was printed. I felt happy and made myself a "vow" not to neglect my literary chances. I again wrote something, but only one thing (about this in the next volume). My time and energy were taken up in our efforts to found the "Forverts."

We had given so much of our strength to create and firmly establish the "Arbeiter Zeitung," which had made the "Abend-Blatt" possible, and everything had been taken away from us; therefore, we would now found a socialist newspaper that no one would be able to snatch away. This thought worked in me as a driving force, and so it worked also on hundreds of other oppositionists.