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Title: Donald Vose: The Accursed Author: Emma Goldman Date: 1916 Language: en Topics: Emma Goldman, Home Colony, informant, Mother Earth, relationships Source: Retrieved on 6 January 2012 from http://libertarian-labyrinth.org/archive/Donald_Vose:_The_Accursed][libertarian-labyrinth.org]]. Proofread online source [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3290, retrieved on July 3, 2020. Notes: Mother Earth 10, no. 11 (January 1916): 353–357
Eighteen years ago I made my second lecture tour to the Pacific Coast.
While in Oregon I was invited to Scio, Oregon, a small hamlet. The
comrade who arranged the meeting and with whom I stayed while in Scio
was Gertie Vose.
I had heard of Gertie through the pages of Fire Brand and Free Society,
from a number of friends, and a few letters exchanged with her. As a
result I was eager to meet the woman who, in those days, was one of the
few unusual American characters in the radical movement. I found Gertie
to be even more than I had expected, — a fighter, a defiant, strong
personality, a tender hostess and a devoted mother. She had with her at
the time her six year old son, Donald Vose. Another child, a girl, lived
with her father, a Mr. Meserve, from whom Gertie had separated.
The stress and travail of life interrupted a correspondence which was a
great inspiration for a number of years after my visit. But I knew
Gertie Vose had taken up land in the Home Colony at Lake Bajr,
Washington, and that her son was with her: that she continued to be the
fighter when the occasion demanded. Between 1898 and 1907 I did not get
to the Coast and when I finally revisited the Home Colony about six
years ago, Gertie Vose was away and so was her son.
In May, 1914, while in Los Angeles, I was informed from Mother Earth
office that Donald Vose, the son of Gertie Vose, had come to our
quarters with a letter from his mother begging that we befriend her boy,
since he had no one else in New York. Mother Earth was then installed in
a large house and as we rented out rooms, it was perfectly natural that
our Comrade Berkman, in my absence, should have taken Donald Vose into
the house. But even if we had lived in small quarters, we should have
been willing to share them with a child of Gertie Vose; she who had been
my friend for years; she who had been one of the greatest supporters to
Berkman in his terrible prison days. How could we refuse her child?
In August of 1914, while in Seattle, I went over to the Home Colony and
there was again entertained by Gertie Vose. We talked of the old days
and old friends. There I learned how cruelly hard life had been with
Gertie; how it had whipped her body, but her spirit was the same, though
more mellowed by disappointment, by pain and sorrow. Her one great joy,
however, was that her boy had finally gotten into the right atmosphere,
that now he would become a man active in the movement. She told me of
the glowing reports he was writing about Berk (as he called Berkman),
the unemployed and anti-military activities in New York at the time and
how interested Donald had become. Poor Gertie Vose! Like the last ray of
the dying sun, clinging to the horizon, so Gertie, — old, worn, bruised,
beaten, — clung to her son in the hope that he would fulfill her
aspiration for humanity. How tragically blind motherhood is; how alien
to the soul of its own creation!
I returned to New York, September 15^(th), 1914. I found confusion,
entanglements and burdens in Mother Earth. To save the situation the
house had to be given up and our whole life reorganized. The stress and
strain of the situation absorbed me completely. I forgot even that the
son of Gertie Vose was living in the house. I reproached myself for such
neglect of him. One evening I went to his room and there for the first
time in eighteen years saw the boy I had met as a child of six. My first
impression of Donald Vose was not agreeable; perhaps because of his high
pitched, thin voice and shifting eyes. But he was Gertie’s son, out of
work, wretchedly clad, unhealthy in appearance. I stifled my aversion
and told him that as I was about to give up the house, he might go to
the little farm on the Hudson belonging to a friend of ours which I had
been permitted to use for a number of years. (This farm, like a ghost,
is traveling the country as E. G.’s estate.)
He said that as a matter of fact he had planned to leave for the Home
Colony earlier in the summer, but at that time he was waiting for
Berkman, who had contemplated a Western trip and was prevented from
doing so through the Anti-Military and unemployed agitation. Later
Donald Vose lost his job as a chauffeur and was now expecting money to
take him West. The main thing, however, which delayed his departure from
New York, Donald said, was the message given to him by some one in
Washington for M. A. Schmidt, the delivery of which was imperative.
Fate works inexorably. The last Saturday in September Matthew A. Schmidt
called at the house to meet a few friends, Lincoln Steffens and Hutchins
Hapgood, Alexander Berkman and Eleanor Fitzgerald made up the party of
that afternoon. Matthew Schmidt was about to leave when Donald Vose
returned to his room. With him was Terry Carlin. I told Schmidt that
Donald Vose had a letter for him from a friend in Washington, whereupon
Schmidt asked to see Donald and also Carlin, whom he had known in
California. The meeting of the three men took place in the presence of
the other guests and lasted not more than ten minutes. The conversation
was general. Schmidt departed and nothing more was thought of his
meeting with Vose.
A few days later we moved to 20 East 125^(th) Street. Donald and Carlin
went to the farm. I saw Donald Vose after that only when he would call
for mail, as my time and energy were taken up with a new course of
lectures and the daily grind of the readjustment to our new and hard
mode of life. The third week in October I left on a lecture tour which
brought me back to New York the 24^(th) of December, 1914. From that
time on persistent rumors came to me about Donald Vose spending a great
deal of money on drink though he was not working. Yet he continued to
look shabby and would often sit for a long time in the office “to warm
up,” as he stated. He did not even have an overcoat. When I asked him
why he did not get warm clothing, he replied: “I am waiting for my check
from Washington.” Yet during all that time Donald Vose was dissipating
with nearly everyone who was willing to carouse with him. The situation
became altogether too suspicious. I wrote to friends in Washington and
after a long delay received a reply that no one was sending Donald
money. A week later he left for the Coast. Shortly after that Matthew A.
Schmidt and David Caplan were arrested. At once we realized that Donald
Vose was the Judas Iscariot. Still so appalling is the thought of
suspecting anyone of such a dastardly act, that even after the arrest, I
hated myself for harboring such suspicions against the child of Gertie
Vose.
Soon positive proofs came from the Coast. It was Donald Vose who
cold-bloodedly, deliberately betrayed the two men. They who had been his
friends; David Caplan who had shared his hearth, his bread, his all with
him for two weeks; had betrayed Matthew A. Schmidt, who had befriended
him in New York. The thing was altogether too awful. It was the most
terrible blow in my public life of twenty-five years. Terrible because
of the mother of that cur; terrible because he had grown up in a radical
atmosphere, above all terrible that he had been under my roof and that
he had met one of his innocent victims in my house.
It is of little consolation that it was utterly impossible to suspect a
child of Gertie Vose, recommended by her and kindly spoken of by many
people on the coast. For to do such a thing means to suspect one’s own
shadow. Nor could I console myself with the fact that if Wm. J. Burns
had not found Donald, some other despicable tool would have lured our
comrades into the net. All that cannot lessen the horror that was mine
all year. At least I wanted it known through Mother Earth that Donald
Vose met M. A. Schmidt in my house and that it was Donald Vose who had
sold him as well as David Caplan.
I shall not now describe my torture, agony, and disgust since the arrest
of our comrades. Gladly would I give up ten years of my life if Donald
Vose had never stepped over my threshold. But what did his victims do,
Matthew A. Schmidt and David Caplan? They who have been described as
murderers; Schmidt who was convicted before he was tried! They begged
me, yes, insisted, even as late as last month, that Mother Earth should
not expose Donald Vose. They had broken bread with him and they would
not brand him for life as the sneak-thief who had stolen into their
hearts and then turned them over, sold them for a few peaces of silver.
Thus my hands were tied and Mother Earth was gagged. But now that the
spy himself has spoken, that he has brazenly taken the stand and face to
face with Matthew A. Schmidt has testified in open court that since May,
1914, he was in the employ of W. J. Burns, that he was sent by the
latter to New York to trail Schmidt, that he was coached to pose as a
radical and that under false pretense he obtained his mother’s letter of
introduction to Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. I must acquaint the
readers of Mother Earth with the fact that Donald Vose is the liar,
traitor, spy who has deceived everyone, myself included, and has used
everybody’s credulity as a shield to cover his dastardly crime.
Donald Vose you are a liar, traitor, spy. You have lied away the liberty
and life of our comrades. Yet not they but you will suffer the penalty.
You will roam the earth accursed, shunned and hated; a burden unto
yourself, with the shadow of M. A. Schmidt and David Caplan ever at your
heels unto the last. And you Gertie Vose, unfortunate mother of your
ill-begotten son? My heart goes out to you Gertie Vose. I know you are
not to blame. What will you do? Will you excuse the inexcusable? Will
you gloss over the heinous? Or will you be like the heroic figure in
Gorky’s Mother? Will you save the people from your traitor son? Be brave
Gertie Vose, be brave!