Emma goldman what is patriotism

As a leader of the No-Conscription league, in her magazine Mother Earth, and in her public speeches, she objected to the war, in which the poor were forced to fight and die for the interests of the rich, and the draft, which she felt contradicted the fundamental American liberty of individual choice.

In she and her comrade Alexander Berkman were arrested and put on trial for conspiracy to obstruct the draft. Accused of disloyalty to America, Goldman, in her speech to the jury, explained that "our patriotism is that of the man who loves a woman with open eyes. He is enchanted by her beauty, yet he sees her faults. Jewish Women's Archive.

Episode E. Lockhart's New Jewish Superhero. Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or is it the place where we would sit on Mother's knee, enraptured by tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous and playful childhood? If that were patriotism, few American men of today would be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deepening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds.

No longer can we hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears and grief. What, then, is patriotism? Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.

Indeed, conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner.

It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. An army and navy represent the people's toys. To make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States.

The city of San Francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theater parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price.

What could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum? But instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one newspaper said, "a lasting memory for the child.

A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized slaughter. How does the cartoon define patriotism? What relevance do Emma Goldman's speech and the San Diego's Union 's cartoon bear to contemporary questions of patriotism, dissent, and free speech in the United States today?

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