Living My Life - Emma Goldman [209]
In comparison with the patriotic crime wave the suppression of Mother Earth was a matter of insignificance. But to me it proved a greater blow than the prospect of spending two years in prison. No offspring of flesh and blood could absorb its mother as this child of mine had drained me. A struggle of over a decade, exhausting tours for its support, much worry and grief, had gone into the maintenance of Mother Earth, and now with one blow its life had been snuffed out! We decided to continue it in another form. The circular letter I had sent out to our subscribers and friends, informing them of the suppression of the magazine and of the new publication I was contemplating, brought many promises of help. Some, however, declined to have anything to do with the matter. It was reckless to defy the war sentiment of the country, they wrote. They could not give their support to such a purpose—they could not afford to get into trouble. Too well I knew that consistency and courage, like genius, are the rarest of gifts. Ben, of my own intimate circle, was sadly lacking in both. Having endured him for a decade, how could I condemn others for running to cover in danger?
A new project was sure to make Ben enthusiastic. The idea of a Mother Earth Bulletin caught his fancy, and his usual energy was put into motion at once to bring the publication about. But we had drifted apart too far. He wanted the Bulletin kept free from the war; there were so many other matters to discuss, he argued, and continued opposition to the Government was sure to ruin what we had built up during so many years. We must be more cautious, more practical, he insisted. Such an attitude seemed incredible in one who had been quite reckless in his anti-war talks. It was strange and ludicrous to see Ben in that role. His change, like everything else about him, was without reason or consistency.
Our strained relations could not last. One day the storm burst, and Ben left. For good. Listless and dry-eyed, I sank into a chair. Fitzi was near me, soothingly stroking my head.
CHAPTER XLVII
The Mother Earth Bulletin looked small compared with our previous publication, but it was the best we could do in those harassing days. The political sky was daily growing darker, the atmosphere charged with hate and violence, and no sign of relief anywhere in the wide United States. And again it was Russia to shed the first ray of hope upon an otherwise hopeless world.
The October Revolution1 suddenly rent the clouds, its flames spreading to the remotest corners of the earth, carrying the message of fulfilment of the supreme promise the February Revolution had held out.
The Lvovs and the Miliukovs had pitted their feeble strength against the great giant, a people risen in rebellion, and had been crushed in their turn, like the Tsar before them.2 Even Kerensky and his party had also failed to learn the great lesson; they forgot their pledges to the peasants and workers as soon as they had ascended to power. For decades the Social Revolutionists—next to the anarchists, although far more numerous and better organized—had been the most potent leaven in Russia. Their lofty ideal and aims, their heroism and martyrdom, had been the luminous beacon to draw thousands to their banner. For a brief period their party and its leaders, Kerensky, Tchernov,3 and others, had remained attuned to the spirit of the February days. They had abolished the death-penalty, thrown open the prisons of the living dead, and brought hope to every peasant’s hut and worker’s hovel, to every man and woman in bondage. They had proclaimed freedom of speech, press, and assembly for the first time in the history of Russia, grand gestures that met with the acclaim of all liberty-loving people