2
" the headline death and disaster atop the latest dispatch from Homestead. “Capital and labor have met once more on a bloody field,” the article stated. “Never in the history of strikes and riots, since the railroad riots of 1877, have there been so many lives sacrificed, and such fighting between the representatives of the two great social divisions.” Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard were on their way to restore order, the dispatch reported. He and Goldman had been right. It was clear that Frick would soon vanquish the strikers. Exiting the station, Berkman looked to the east. Above him, perched on what locals still called Jenkins Hill, the Capitol dome was bathed in a flood of golden light from the deep red sun rising behind it. “Like a living thing the light palpitates,” Berkman recalled, “trembling with passion to kiss the uppermost peak, striking it with blinding brilliancy, and then spreading in a broadening embrace down the shoulders of the towering giant. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
3
" Now, years later and with Carnegie’s blessing, Frick had launched his plan to further consolidate his rule over their industrial kingdom by destroying the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The labor union, formed in 1876, was one of many that emerged in the industrial age to combat the cruel and oppressive treatment of workers. In the steel mills, workers typically put in 12-hour days, six days a week, for less than a dime an hour. There were no government agencies to inspect the work sites, no forms of compensation in case of injury, and more than 35,000 workers died each year in industrial accidents. Only the unions offered some hope by fighting for higher wages, eight-hour workdays, and improved working conditions. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
4
" The country, it seemed, was on the verge of a second civil war, this one over industrial slavery. But Frick was a gambler who cared little what the world thought of him. He was already a villain in the public’s eye, thanks to a disaster of epic proportions three years earlier. Frick and a band of wealthy friends had established the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club on land near an unused reservoir high in the hills above the small Pennsylvania city of Johnstown, 70 miles east of Pittsburgh. The club beautified the grounds around the dam but paid little attention to the dam itself, which held back the Conemaugh River and was in poor condition from years of neglect. On May 31, 1889, after heavy rainfall, the dam gave way, releasing nearly 5 billion gallons of water from Lake Conemaugh into Johnstown and killing 2,209 people. What became known as the Johnstown Flood caused $17 million in damages. Frick’s carefully crafted corporate structure for the club made it impossible for victims to pursue the financial assets of its members. Although he personally donated several thousands of dollars to relief efforts, Frick remained to many a scoundrel, the prototype of the uncaring robber baron of the Gilded Age. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
5
" Berkman called no witnesses of his own. Instead, with the aid of an ill-trained interpreter, he began to read his long speech. “Some may wonder why I have declined a legal defense,” Berkman said. “My reasons are twofold. In the first place, I am an anarchist: I do not believe in man-made laws, designed to enslave and oppress humanity. Secondly, an extraordinary phenomenon like an attentat cannot be measured by the narrow standards of legality.” In short, Berkman said, he would explain the deed, and by doing so, society itself would be put on trial. An hour into his presentation, much of which was heard only in mangled English, Judge McClung’s patience came to an end. He ordered Berkman to finish by the rapidly approaching hour of one o’clock. “I can have all the time I want for my defense and will take all the time I need,” Berkman replied. “No, you haven’t,” said the judge. “We’ll teach you different if you think you can dictate to us.” Berkman and his interpreter sputtered on. At 1:10 the judge stopped Berkman and gave the prosecutor the floor. Holding the dagger in his hands, he urged the jury to convict Berkman. The jury didn’t even stir from the box. It immediately pronounced Berkman guilty on all counts. McClung sentenced him to 22 years of confinement. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
7
" In the weeks leading up to his arrival by train in Pittsburgh, Alexander Berkman had been obsessed with the escalating drama at Homestead. He was living with his partner and lover, the anarchist Emma Goldman, in the New England factory town of Worcester, Massachusetts. By day the couple earned a living serving sandwiches and scooping ice cream in a small diner. By night, they made love and dreamed of revolution. By late spring, Homestead was looking like the harbinger they’d been waiting for. “To us,” Goldman said, “it sounded the awakening of the American worker, the long-awaited day of his resurrection. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" Conversation between the two came easy, and within days they were sharing a bed and a cause. For both Berkman and Goldman, the dazzling utopian call of anarchism and its promise of a world without government and oppression was an elixir of hope, as it must have been for thousands of others who found themselves crushed by low-paying, tedious, and dangerous work in factories and sweatshops. The government, despite its rhetoric of freedom and democracy, seemed to be too-willing a partner in the enslavement of its people. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" Unlike religions that offered a better life after death, the idealist callings of anarchism espoused making heaven on earth by ridding humankind of the shackles of oppressive governments and capitalism. Labor unions, like those at Homestead, were grenadiers on the front lines of the struggle. By challenging the rule of the robber barons they deserved the support of revolutionaries. But now several years later, Goldman and Berkman (or Sasha, as she called him) still remained only bystanders to any potential revolution. “We continued our daily work, waiting on customers, frying pancakes, serving tea and ice cream,” said Goldman. “But our thoughts were in Homestead with those brave steelworkers. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
12
" Like ending the life of a czar in their native Russia, Goldman and Berkman were convinced that Frick’s death would be a mortal blow to the ruling class. To them, it was not murder. “A revolutionist would rather perish a thousand times than be guilty of what is ordinarily called murder,” Berkman said. But this was different. “To remove a tyrant is an act of liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed people.” “Could anything be nobler than to die for a sublime cause?” Berkman asked. He located his copy of The Science of Revolutionary Warfare by Johann Most. The author, who had been one of Goldman’s bedmates, was the best-known anarchist in New York. He was notorious for promoting the “propaganda of the deed,” the idea of conducting violent political acts to inspire others. The book convinced Berkman that the best course of action would be to construct a bomb with a fuse. This way, he could survive the attack and use his trial to justify his actions. “Of course,” he told Goldman, “I will be condemned to death. I will die proudly in the assurance that I gave my life for the people. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
13
" That night Berkman fell asleep in the bosom of the industrial leviathan. “Its torch of liberty is a furnace fire,” he said, “consuming, destroying, devastating: a countrywide furnace, in which the bones and marrow of the producers, their limbs and bodies, their health and blood, are cast into Bessemer steel, rolled into armor place, and converted into engines of murder to be consecrated to Mammon his high priests, the Carnegies, the Fricks. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
15
" Upset over having deceived her sister, her failure as a prostitute, and the tension in waiting for Berkman to make his move, Goldman walked aimless about New York in the July heat and whiled away her evenings at Zum Groben Michel. The bar, a few blocks from her room, had become the hangout of one of the sects of anarchists. Its odd name was the result of a window sign painter’s mistake. Instead of garden, a word used by many German beer halls, the painter wrote groben, meaning coarse, rough, or tough — which suited the owner, who was known as Tough Mike. All Goldman could do now was wait. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" But except for committed anarchists, the assassination attempt was widely condemned. In fact, it turned the tide of public opinion that, up until this moment, had been sympathetic to the strikers. Americans feared anarchists more than robber barons. Labor leaders, sensing the mood, went on the attack. “This man Berkman is an anarchist and, of course, is not identified with us,” said Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. “I cannot use language strong enough to express my condemnation of such an act as Berkman’s. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" In New York, Goldman continued her defense of Berkman. As his lover and co-conspirator she had become an overnight sensation, packing in as many as 1,000 anarchists in a Bowery hall. “The report of Berkman’s shot will be heard all over the world and echo down the ages,” she told them. “Other deeds like this will follow until capital is dead,” she continued, speaking in German. “His bullets did not kill, but others are being molded, and they will fly with surer aim.” Newspapers across the country carried reports of her speech, calling her the “anarchist Cleopatra. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" In his years in prison, Berkman had come to believe that bullets directed at their oppressors were insufficient because eliminating what he viewed as the representatives of modern slavery didn’t resolve the problem. “The real despotism of republican institutions,” he wrote Goldman, “is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independent. That is the subtle source of democratic tyranny and, as such, it cannot be reached with a bullet. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
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" A few weeks later, in the middle of a cold December night, the pair, along with 247 other radicals, were herded onto a freighter and shipped off to Soviet Russia, a government the United States didn’t even recognize. Greeted as heroes upon their arrival, Goldman and Berkman believed they had landed in a country where their politics would find a home. But once again, a promised land disappointed. Instead, they found workers in conditions of servitude, corruption among their managers, and no tolerance of free speech. In a remarkable moment, Goldman and Berkman complained to the leader of the revolution himself, Vladimir Lenin. Unlike muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens and other American fellow travelers, Berkman and Goldman courageously criticized the Russian Revolution. Lenin dismissed the complaints and said that there was no room for free speech in the revolutionary period. "
― James McGrath Morris , Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)
