Living My Life - Emma Goldman [132]
I had everything a human being could wish, yet there was chaos in my mind, an ever-growing craving in my heart. I longed to take up the old struggle, to make my life count for more than a mere round of personal interests. But how get back—where begin again? It seemed to me that I had burned the bridges behind me, that I could never again span the gap that had grown so wide since the dreadful Buffalo days. [ ... ]
“Will the Czolgosz tragedy haunt me to the end of my days?” I kept asking myself. The answer came sooner than I anticipated.
“BLOODY RIOTS—WORKERS AND PEASANTS KILLED—STUDENTS WHIPPED BY COSSACKS. . . .” The press was filled with the events that were happening in Russia. Once more the struggle against tsarist autocracy was being brought to the attention of the world. The appalling brutality on one side, the glorious courage and heroism on the other, tore me out of the lethargy that had paralysed my will since the Buffalo days. With accusing clarity I realized that I had left the movement at its most critical moment, had turned my back on our work when I was most needed, that I had even begun to doubt my life’s faith and ideal. And all because of a handful that had proved to be base and cowardly.
I tried to excuse my faint-heartedness by the deep concern I felt in the forsaken boy. My indignation against the weaklings had sprung, I argued with myself, from my sympathy with Czolgosz. No doubt that had been the impelling motive for my stand—so impelling, indeed, that it had even turned me against Sasha because he had failed to see in Czolgosz’s act what had been so clear to me. My bitterness had extended to that dear friend and had made me forget that he was in prison and still needed me.
Now, however, another thought hammered in my brain, the thought that there might have been other motives, motives not quite so selfless as I had made myself and others believe. My own inability to face the first great issue in my life now made me see that the self-assurance with which I had always proclaimed that I could stand alone had deserted me the moment I was called upon to make good. I had not been able to bear being repudiated and shunned; I could not brave defeat. But, instead of admitting it to myself at least, I had kept on beating my wings in blind fury. I had become embittered and had drawn back within myself.
The qualities I had most admired in the heroes of the past, and also in Czolgosz, the strength to stand and die alone, had been lacking in me. Perhaps one needs more courage to live than to die. Dying is of a moment, but the claims of life are endless—a thousand small and petty things which tax one’s strength and leave one too spent to meet the testing hour.
I emerged from my tortuous introspection as from a long illness, not yet in possession of my former vigour, but with a determination to try once more to steel my will to meet the exigencies of life, whatever they might be.
My first faltering step after the months of spiritual death was a letter to Sasha.
The news from Russia stirred the East Side radicals into intense activity. Trade-unionists, socialists, and anarchists set aside their political differences, the better to be able to help the victims of the Russian regime. Large meetings were held and funds raised for the sufferers in prison and exile. I took up the work with new-born strength. I stopped nursing in order to devote myself entirely to the needs of Russia. At the same time there was also enough happening in America to tax our utmost energies.
The coal-miners were on strike. Conditions in the coal districts were appalling and aid was urgently needed. [ ... ] President Roosevelt suddenly evinced an interest in the miners. He would help the strikers, he announced, if their representatives would be reasonable and give him a chance to go after the mine-owners. That was manna for the politicians in the unions. They immediately transferred the burden of responsibility to the presidential shoulders of Teddy. No need to worry any more; his official wisdom would find the right solution