In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Appendix 1 A Woman Without a Country This version was published in Mother Earth 4, no. 3 (May 1909). The United States government in a mad chase after Emma Goldman. What a significant title for a funny story. What rich material for a cartoon! By the decision of the Federal government, Emma Goldman, the terrible, may now be deported. Well, serves her right. What on earth made her select our dear country, anyway? It’s different with us Americans. We are here through no fault of ours. But for her to come voluntarily, to live here twentyfive years, and to go on as if she were at home—that is strong, indeed. What didn’t our government do to get rid of her?! For seventeen years the police have camped on her trail; her meetings were broken up; her audiences clubbed innumerable times, but that didn’t seem to help. Then she was arrested again and again—not for what she did but for what she was going to say. Why, she was actually sentenced to Blackwell’s Island penitentiary once, for inciting to riot which didn’t take place, but which might have taken place. Well, what happened? When she came out, she was worse than ever. In 1901 she was held under twenty thousand dollar bail, while our poor government spent thirty thousand dollars to connect her with McKinley’s death. In short, every conceivable method was used to relieve the anxiety of the United States government. But that woman simply sticks and sticks. However, if there is anything Uncle Sam cannot do, we should like to know it. Hasn’t he men in the secret service patriotic enough to do any kind of dirty job for money? Well, we sent some of them to a city called Rochester , where, many years ago, a man had the misfortune to marry that there Emma Goldman. He was a good man, you know; for no American citizen can be a very bad man. But the marriage was a blotch on his citizenship. So, out of Christian kindness and American loyalty, his naturalization papers 188 Appendix 1 were annulled. Wasn’t that a clever idea? Of course, it cost quite a lot. Some people in Rochester had to be cajoled, intimidated, threatened, frightened, and possibly bribed. But it was done all right, and the country might now breath easy if—but there is Emma Goldman, still enjoying our air, looking at our sky, counting our stars, basking in our sun and dreaming unAmerican dreams,—can there be a greater indictment against any human being? Not enough of that, she actually disbelieves in our or any government , and insists that they are only here to divide human interest. She attacks the entire system; she will have it that it is a life-and-soul-destroying mechanism, and that it strips man of the finest and best in him. Did anyone ever hear of such treason? Were she an American citizen, we might some day hang or electrocute her. But an alien—what’s left for us to do but to deport her. The trouble is, where, oh where can we send her? Poor, poor United States Government! Yours is, indeed a difficult task. True, your hard, persistent labors have been crowned with some success. You have Emma Goldman’s citizenship. But she has the world, and her heritage is the kinship of brave spirits—not a bad bargain. Emma Goldman A Woman Without a Country “A Woman Without a Country” was published in Free Vistas (ed. Joseph Ishill) in 1933. It was reprinted as a stand-alone pamphlet, under Goldman’s name, by Cienfuegos Press in 1979. The title is perhaps misleading because in a technical sense, I am not without a country. Legally I am a “subject of his Britannic Majesty.” But in a deeper, spiritual sense, I am indeed a woman without a country, as I shall try and make plain in the course of this article. To have a country implies, first of all, the possession of a certain guarantee of security, the assurance of having some spot you can call your own and that no one can alienate from you. That is the essential significance of the idea of country of citizenship. Divested of that, it becomes sheer mockery. Up to the World War citizenship actually did stand for such a guarantee. Save for occasional exceptions in the more backward European countries, the native or naturalized citizen had...

Share