hought to stem the tide of a world-inspiring
idea. They failed to consider that from the blood of the martyrs
grows the new seed, and that the frightful injustice will win new
converts to the Cause.

The two most prominent representatives of the Anarchist idea in
America, Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman--the one a native
American, the other a Russian--have been converted, like numerous
others, to the ideas of Anarchism by the judicial murder. Two women
who had not known each other before, and who had received a widely
different education, were through that murder united in one idea.

Like most working men and women of America, Emma Goldman followed the
Chicago trial with great anxiety and excitement. She, too, could not
believe that the leaders of the proletariat would be killed. The
11th of November, 1887, taught her differently. She realized that no
mercy could be expected from the ruling class, that between the
Tsarism of Russia and the plutocracy of America there was no
difference save in name. Her whole being rebelled against the crime,
and she vowed to herself a solemn vow to join the ranks of the
revolutionary proletariat and to devote all her energy and strength
to their emancipation from wage slavery. With the glowing enthusiasm
so characteristic of her nature, she now began to familiarize herself
with the literature of Socialism and Anarchism. She attended public
meetings and became acquainted with socialistically and
anarchistically inclined workingmen. Johanna Greie, the well-known
German lecturer, was the first Socialist speaker heard by Emma
Goldman. In New Haven, Conn., where she was employed in a corset
factory, she met Anarchists actively participating in the movement.
Here she read the FREIHEIT, edited by John Most. The Haymarket
tragedy developed her inherent Anarchist tendencies: the reading of
the FREIHEIT made her a conscious Anarchist. Subsequently she was to
learn that the idea of Anarchism found its highest expression through
the best intellects of America: theoretically by Josiah Warren,
Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner; philosophically by Emerson,
Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.

Made ill by the excessive strain of factory work, Emma Goldman
returned to Rochester where she remained till August, 1889, at which
time she removed to New York, the scene of the most important phase
of her life. She was now twenty years old. Features pallid with
suffering, eyes large and ful