Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~5,680 words · 27 passages
Cite this work
- APAEmma Goldman. (n.d.). Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/address-to-the-jury-in-u-s-v-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman
- MLAEmma Goldman. "Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/address-to-the-jury-in-u-s-v-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman.
- ChicagoEmma Goldman. Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/address-to-the-jury-in-u-s-v-emma-goldman-and-alexander-berkman.
What it is about
What Goldman said to the jury trying her, in 1917, for campaigning against conscription.
Context and history
One of the great addresses in American judicial history: it does not ask for acquittal, it defends the right to oppose war. They were convicted anyway — two years in prison, then deportation — and the speech outlived the verdict. This is a short article, not a book: its size in the catalogue is no defect of the copy. Much of Goldman's work took this form, in her magazine Mother Earth and in pamphlets.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
As in the case of my co-defendant, Alexander Berkman, this is also the first time in my life I have ever addressed a jury. I once had occasion to speak to three judges. On the day after our arrest it was given out by the U.S. Marshal and the District Attorney's office that the "big fish" of the No Conscription activities had been caught, and that there would be no more trouble-makers and disturbers to interfere with the highly democratic effort of the Government to conscript its young manhood for the European slaughter. What a pity that the faithful servants of the Government, personified in the U.S. Marshal and the District Attorney, should have used such a weak and flimsy net for their big catch. The moment the anglers pulled their heavily laden net ashore, it broke, and all the labor was so much wasted energy. The methods employed by Marshal McCarthy and his hosts of heroic warriors were sensational enough to satisfy the famous circus men, Barnum & Bailey. A dozen or more heroes dashing up two flights of stairs, prepared to stake their lives for their country, only to discover the two dangerous disturbers and trouble-makers, Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, in their separate offices, quietly at work at their desks, wielding not a sword, nor a gun or a bomb, but merely their pens! Verily, it required courage to catch such big fish. To be sure, two officers equipped with a warrant would have sufficed to carry out the business of arresting the defendants Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Even the police know that neither of them is in the habit of running away or hiding under the bed. But the farce-comedy had to be properly staged if the Marshal and the District Attorney were to earn immortality. Hence the sensational arrest; hence also, the raid upon the offices of THE BLAST, MOTHER EARTH, and the No-Conscription League. In their zeal to save the country from the trouble-makers, the Marshal and his helpers did not even consider it n
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