💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › emma-goldman-police-education.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 09:33:56. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Police Education
Author: Emma Goldman
Date: January 1907
Language: en
Topics: police, Mother Earth, Libertarian Labyrinth
Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/the-sex-question/emma-goldman-police-education-1907/
Notes: Published in Mother Earth 1, no. 11 (January 1907): 2.

Emma Goldman

Police Education

Our criticism of the police brutality at the arrests on October 30^(th)

seems to have done the “Safety” Department some good.

True, the word Anarchism still affects them like the proverbial red rag,

but they have at least learned to perform their “duty ” in a more or

less decent manner.

After dogging our steps for nine weeks, their “perseverance” and

“tenacity” have at last been rewarded.

Sunday, January the 6^(th), the police closed our meeting held under the

auspices of the “Mother Earth” Club, and arrested the Chairman, John R.

Coryell, Alexander Berkman and myself.

The Criminal Anarchy of the Chairman consisted in a five-minute talk on

the educational aims and purposes of the “Mother Earth” Club. Comrade

Berkman was guilty of even a more heinous crime—he had not spoken at

all, but he is known to have enjoyed for many years the paternalism of

Pennsylvania.

A criminal Anarchist, aged 15, who happened to be at the door when the

detectives passed, was taken along to complete the quartet.

Three weeks previously I had delivered the same lecture—Misconceptions

of Anarchism—before the Brooklyn Philosophical Association. And though

the heroes of the American Third Section—the newly created Anarchistic

Squadron—were present, no arrests followed. Even detectives are not so

stupid as not to understand that their Cossack tactics at Anarchistic

meetings could not be profitably applied to non-anarchistic elements. It

might wake the law-abiding citizen to a realization of the true state of

affairs.

Our hearing before the Police Court Magistrate resulted in our being

held for further “examination.” Comrades Coryell and Berkman were held

in $1,000 bail each, while my bond was set at $2,000.

Inspector McLaughlin asked me, quite naively, whether I did not intend

to cease my agitation. On being told that I would not change my course,

the wise man informed me that I am hereafter to be arrested every time I

speak upon a platform.

We, too, have learned a lesson. Tis no more a question of free speech.

It is a conspiracy against the spread of Anarchism.