Emma Goldman: Speech against Conscription and War

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked the Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, asserting that American participation in World War I would make the world “safe for democracy.” Anarchists such as Emma Goldman denounced American entrance into the conflict, arguing that the powers of the state would be increased in pursuit of a war that would benefit bankers and munitions makers at the expense of the international working class whose blood would be shed to further imperialist and capitalist goals. Accompanying the declaration of war was a conscription act that forced young men into military service—the very sort of government oppression that Goldman proclaims led immigrants to flee the tyranny of czarist Russia.

Despite threats against her life, Goldman delivered a forceful speech on June 14, 1917, in Forward Hall in New York City, articulating her opposition to conscription and war. The meeting was convened following the convictions of two young anarchists, Morris Becker and Louis Kramer, for refusing conscription. Goldman began her address by telling her working-class immigrant audience that she would speak in English rather than her customary Yiddish so that the repressive forces of the state would understand her words. Appealing to the aspirations of immigrants who flocked to America's shores feeling the tyranny of European despotism, she scolds Americans for deserting the principles of liberty symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. She condemns President Wilson for sacrificing American lives in pursuit of a democracy “which has never yet existed in the United States of America.”

Goldman asserts that the coercion pursued by the Wilson administration is yet another example of the imperialist and capitalist exploitation practiced by the American state. In her challenge to the nature of American democracy, she notes that Wilson was reelected to the presidency in 1916 for keeping the nation out of war, yet a year later Wilson led the country into war without the consent of the American people. In response to those who argued that Congress approved the declaration of war and conscription law, Goldman proclaims that she will only accept a legal order in which those “taking human life are going to be called before the bar of human justice and not before a wretched little court which is called your law of the United States.”

Maintaining that conscription is unnecessary because Americans will support a war in which they believe, Goldman evokes the example of the Spanish-American War, seemingly ignoring the imperialistic ramifications of that conflict. Nevertheless, she continues to employ American history in the construction of her argument, insisting that the ruling class of the United States, in forcing war upon the American people, has departed from the principles enunciated by the nation's founders and contained in the Declaration of Independence.

In her conclusion, Goldman comes close to advocating revolution, asserting that the oppressive powers of prison and the state will not silence the anarchists. Warning Woodrow Wilson of the fate suffered by the ruling classes of Bourbon France and czarist Russia, Goldman proclaims that government suppression will only fan the flames of discontent and encourage the American people to establish a true democracy. While Goldman's call to action was unable to halt application of the conscription laws, she and other radicals certainly threatened the Wilson administration, which used the war emergency as an opportunity to silence the Industrial Workers of the World, anarchists, and Socialists. The day following her speech at Forward Hall, Goldman was arrested for violating the Espionage Act by inducing eligible young man to refuse registration for conscription.