Page:Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman - Deportation, Its Meaning and Menance - 1919.djvu/4

 the leading cities of this land, they have contributed to the intellectual life of the younger, aspiring generation. I venture to say that there is hardly a liberal in the United States whose life has not been influenced directly or indirectly and made better, by Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman.

in American prisons more years than I like to remember. He did it deliberately. He did it for the welfare of men, and the American portion of mankind. He never hesitated to offer his life for his brother. I recall a picture; it is in Russia. We were gathered in Moscow. It looked as though the Revolution were going to its death. Everywhere the Soviet armies were retreating, the masses were sinking into despair, the German working class was not rising in rebellion as we had hoped, the Austrians likewise; the White Terror was raising its head throughout Russia. A pallid girl, a Russian-American immigrant returned to her native country, held in her hand the bulletin of the day's news. "A hundred Alexander Berkmans distributed throughout Europe at this time, and the history of Europe would be different!" she exclaimed.

wrote a book, "Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist," which is one of America's vital literary products. It won for him the admiration of such intellectuals here as had the courage to admire.

"intellectuals" for the most part did not bid Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman good-bye. Most of those who dared to visit the passengers of the "Red Ark" in their Ellis Island prison were young men and women of the working class. That is as it should be. It is in the working class where Goldman and Berkman's brave work will find the growth that will count. American plutocracy knew this. That is why American plutocracy deported Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman.

pamphlet is the "good-bye message" of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman; and I think it is in spirit the message of all the passengers of the "Red Ark." As such it appears first in this form and will appear later in history. Read it and keep it for the future.

2em