In March 1919 former Pennsylvania congressman A. Mitchell Palmer succeeded Thomas Gregory as attorney general. Three months later an anarchist bombed his house, converting him overnight into an obsessive defender of national security and an enemy of lawlessness and Bolshevism. J. Edgar Hoover, the twenty-four-year-old assistant to the attorney general, who headed the Justice Department’s General Intelligence Division, would assist him in his mission. Palmer and Hoover launched a series of raids on suspected subversives and arranged for the deportation of the foreign-born among them. Their efforts led to the departure of the “Soviet Ark” from New York harbor in December 1919, carrying Emma Goldman and her longtime companion, Alexander Berkman, into Russian exile. William N. Vaile, a Republican congressman from Colorado, described the scene.
AS there were no newspaper men present, this story of the deportation of these people for their beloved Soviet Russia may possess some historical interest as the version of an eyewitness of that departure.
The night was clear and starry and rather cold, though the air did not have a real cutting edge and there was no wind to sharpen it.
At midnight at the Barge Office there were a good many people, mostly men. Mr. Hoover, that slender bundle of high-charged electric wire, the prosecutor of the Department of Justice, told us that these were mostly agents of his department, brought here for this particular job. There were perhaps thirty of them at the Barge Office waiting for the boat that was to take them on the first stage, the eighteen-minute stage, of their eighteen-day journey across the Atlantic and through the Baltic. The others were people who worked and lived at Ellis Island, who had been spending the evening in town, and were availing themselves of the unusual opportunity of a late boat back.
That boat shortly drew up at the pier and was seen to be transformed by the snow and frost from the dingy, grimy, little tug of a month ago into a beautiful dream boat. Viewed thus, she might have represented, according to the mood or the age of the observer, a fairy ship from a child’s picture book or the frosted cake of a bride’s confection. To me she seemed more emblematic of the cold, sharp cleanliness of the undertaking on which we were engaged, and suggested the spotless apron of the surgeon.
A keen-eyed special agent of the Department of Justice and an immigration inspector looked sharply at each of us as we boarded. There were to be “none but Americans on guard” this night.
Just as the boat had suggested the surgeon’s apron, so Ellis Island, white in the moonlight with her light covering of fresh snow, suggested the operating table. A little later we inspected the cancerous growth about to be cut out of the American body politic.
Two hundred and forty-six anarchists were gathered in the great wardroom. Alexander Berkman, the obvious leader, dressed as for a sporting trip, in soldier’s puttees, a soldier’s khaki flannel shirt, a flowing cravat, and a pair of gray breeches of military cut, was writing letters and conferring with his three principal associates—Peter Blanky, President of the Russian Workers’ Union, who had attempted to blow up Ohio factories, and Oredowsky and Schnebel, lately officers of the Seattle I. W. W. These were organizers and promoters of the general strike, described by I. W. W. literature as “a social revolution of the world; an entire new organization; a demolition of the entire old system of all governments.”
FACES STUPID AND BRUTAL.
Most of the 246 seemed to me to have rather stupid faces. I tried to make allowance for the fact that the hour was long after midnight, that the men were tired and naturally anxious and worried; that they were seen under such circumstances as to create the least favorable impression in the beholder. And yet, with the exception of the leaders mentioned and a very few others, the faces did not look to me like those of intellectual men, but like those of degraded and brutalized men.
One exception was a lean-faced, rather crafty faced, young Jew, who told me he had not had a chance to get cashed his last pay check from the silk mills, and that consequently he had been unable to buy tobacco. I gave him a package of cigarettes, for which he very courteously thanked me. This man said that he had a mother and sisters here and that as he had lived in this country for nearly twenty years and had come here in his teens, he did not know any one in Russia, nor had he, as far as he knew, any relatives there. He did not contend that his mother and sister needed his support. I asked him if he had not considered deportation as among the probable consequences of his conduct before he was arrested. He contended very bitterly that he had done nothing which would justify deportation from a “free country.” He believed in “free speech” and “free press,” and capitalism had suppressed them. The Government was merely run in the interests of capitalism and should be abolished, by force if necessary.
I might refer here to a popular misunderstanding of the deportation law. Deportation is not a punishment for crime, though certain kinds of criminal aliens may be deported following conviction. Deportation is merely the act of ridding ourselves of foreigners who are not eligible for residence here under our laws and who would be excluded if they were subject to, and were known to be subject to, the disqualifications of the law when they first sought admission. It must, I think, be conceded that a nation has the right to refuse its privileges and protection to any class of aliens whom it may consider undesirable residents. For this reason we refuse admission to certain classes who are not criminals but who are deemed detrimental to us for economic or social reasons, as, for instance, illiterates, persons suffering from certain diseases, persons likely to become a public charge, and Chinese.
Now, if you are an American citizen, you cannot be deprived of the right of residence in the United States, even though you may be illiterate or a public charge. We have many—too many—of both classes, but deportation is not the way in which the country deals with Americans who fall in these categories. And so, if you are an American, you may still advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence, and so long as you do not yourself commit an overt act you may do this without yourself being thrown in jail—for a short time only, because there will soon be a law to fit your case. But for reasons which have appeared sufficient to us we have exercised our national prerogative to declare that just as we will not admit aliens who are illiterate or likely to become a public charge or who are suffering from a contagious disease, so we will not admit or keep “aliens who are anarchists, aliens who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States; * * * aliens who are opposed to all organized government; aliens who advocate or teach the assassination of public officials; aliens who advocate or teach the unlawful destruction of property,” and so forth.
And the House of Representatives in the last few days has amended this by passing a bill prepared by our committee so as to catch aliens who “advise” or who belong to or are affiliated with or contribute money to any organization which advises, advocates or teaches these things or which publishes or circulates literature which does so.
In other words, the alien who comes here or who stays here must do so on our terms, and it is not a question of whether he actually commits a crime. It is a question of whether he is qualified to be here under our rules. Personally, I think those rules are about the minimum that we can impose for our own protection and safety, and that they furnish no ground of complaint whatsoever to a person who comes here because he did not like the conditions in the land which produced him.
FREE ANARCHISTIC LITERATURE!
One remarkable youth—Bukhanob, I believe his name is—was looking forward to the trip as a great lark. This lad is only 17 years old, but has been a teacher for two years in an anarchist school in New York. He said that he had started in at 10 as a Socialist, but had become an anarchist through reading anarchist literature at the New York public libraries. Investigation by reporters disclosed that there was plenty of such to be found there, “Kropotkin’s Memories of a Revolutionist,” for example, being kept there in nine different languages. It was difficult to get a copy of this work because all copies were generally “out.” However, the young man told us that he was a nephew of Peter Blanky, so we can hardly lay all blame for his perverted education to the free public fountain of knowledge. He told us he was going to write two books, and when we asked him what he was going to say in the second one he replied: “All that I didn’t say in the first.”
And there were quite a number of others who were not stupid—one a young giant with flaming red hair. He got another package of cigarettes from me. I had a dozen packs in my pocket. I feel a smoker’s sympathy for another smoker who may be without tobacco and had intended to distribute these small offerings of good will to individuals. I had come to the island with a firm determination to be charitable and to distinguish between the individual and his views. I found it impossible to do so. As I listened to the conversation of these men and noticed their bitter sneers I became filled with loathing for them and decided that the rest of my tobacco should go to Americans.
All together, try as I might in the interest of fairness, to avoid first-hand impressions, these men seemed, on the average, though with the exceptions noted, to be a very poor lot, both as to physique and mentality. They certainly would compare unfavorably with any equal number of American workingmen.
Berkman went out of the room once, by permission of the guards, to get a package which he had overlooked and on his return the others all arose and remained standing until he had taken his seat, a curious demonstration of the fact that even in an anarchist society there is some authority or leadership which is respected.
Of course, no such personal respect would be paid to individual representatives of the hated “capitalistic” Government of America, though some confidence seemed to be imposed in its stability, notwithstanding the necessity of its immediate overthrow. This was shown by the fact that a great many thousands of dollars of their money was in postal savings certificates. All together they had about $200,000. The major part of it was in cash. Some of it was in uncertified checks of former employers. Of course, to have had Liberty bonds would have been unspeakable, and none were discovered. In respect to this large sum of money, they enjoyed a privilege not granted to the rest of us, for no effort was made by the internal revenue office to collect the tax paid by other people on money taken out of the country.
A FAKE HUNGER STRIKE.
Some 70 of the 246 had been detained for some time at Ellis Island and had participated in a hunger strike as a protest against being allowed to see their relatives only through a screen. The screen had been erected on account of one or two attempts to pass weapons. We had seen the men during this hunger strike, and they did not seem to be suffering much, though they were accumulating plenty of venom. Blanky had told Chairman Johnson of the Immigration Committee, in my presence, that they were going to stop destroying buildings. Hereafter they were going to break heads and use the buildings. “Meaning my head, I suppose,” said Chairman Johnson. “Yes,” replied Blanky, “your head and other heads like it.” Possibly some of them may yet reach the conclusion that even heads are worth preserving. I hope so.
As a matter of fact, however, the hunger strike was not real. It only lasted until they had consumed the supply of food which they had cached in preparation for it.
At 3:30 A.M., of the 21st of December, they were marched out of the building in single file, between two rows of guards, to the gangplank of the tug. A coast guard at the shore end of the gangplank counted them off by tens, making a little pause between each ten. A frank-faced American youth, Lieutenant Cunningham of the Thirteenth Infantry, with an automatic pistol on his hip, stood at one side of the ship end of the gangplank. Opposite him was a soldier of his company with a rifle lying in his elbow. Two other soldiers stood, rifles in hand, on the upper deck of the tug, immediately over the gangplank deck. Nothing was said during the boarding except Lieutenant Cunningham’s occasional warning to “mind your head” on account of the low-hanging upper deck.
The women came separately—Emma Goldman in a gray and black fur coat reaching below her knees, the two young women, Dora Lipkin and Ethel Bernstein, in heavy woolen coats. They were sent immediately into the kitchen of the tug, which served as their cabin for the two hours’ journey out to the transport lying beyond the “Narrows” at Gravesend. A soldier stood at the door of the kitchen, but paid no particular attention to the women, who conversed freely but not eagerly with us. Miss Goldman took off her fur coat and sat with her gray sweater unbuttoned, morose and bitter, occasionally heaving a silent sigh. Dora Lipkin was sad and very quiet.
Ethel Bernstein had a single rose, which she held to her lips occasionally. It was sent to her, she said, by one of her “good friends.” Miss Goldman had a few sprigs of holly, which lay beside her Corona typewriter case on the tug’s kitchen table. That typewriter case was rather worn from hard usage, but I am sure that the keys are in perfect working order.
COMING AND GOING.
The little tug was pretty crowded, though the officers told us she had often carried as many as a hundred more than were then aboard. This necessitated some of the passengers remaining on deck for the two hours’ trip down the bay, and resulted in a curious incident. Just after passing the Liberty Statue the tug met an incoming immigrant vessel. Some of the newly arriving ones were crowding to the rail of the inbound steamship, eager for the first glimpse of the promised land. They cheered us, not knowing who we were, but because we were a small boat of the new country evidently engaged on its local business, and, I believe, because the Star-Spangled Banner floating over us was just “catching the gleam of the morning’s first beam.”
It was a brave little cheer, just a bit quavery, a sort of timid, inquiring little cheer like the cry of children hoping for a welcome from the grownups. The answer was a throaty “Yah-ah-ah!” from our upper deck, a jeering, raucous, sarcastic, bitter yell, scalding with hatred, spite and bitter jest, long drawn out, venomous. As it died away the tug gave a couple of reassuring little friendly toots, and some one from the upper deck—I believe it was one of the Arizona Rangers of the border patrol—shouted, “Mornin’, folks!”
In company with Mr. Hoover, I talked a little with Miss Goldman on the trip across the bay. This, she said, was the beginning of the end of the United States. Time was when this country had professed to welcome the downtrodden of other lands. At that time Russia was deporting men and women to Siberia for their political beliefs. Now it was reversed. A free Russia had arisen. As the old Russia had fallen, so the new United States would fall, and for the same reasons. Oh, yes; she would be back and give us another job, though it would not be an official job. Our days of official authority would be over before her return, early though that would be. Our days of official authority were numbered and the number was getting low.
Shortly thereafter we were lashed to the Buford, an old Spanish War transport, an excellent and comfortable boat, according to all who have traveled in her; and we of the Congressional party, being certain that the country will some day be flooded with horrible stories of the shocking brutalities attendant upon this forced exodus, were very particular to observe the accommodations provided for the unwilling passengers.
The women were to travel substantially first class. There was one large stateroom of four beds provided for the three of them, with a bathroom for their exclusive use. They are to eat in the same cabin as the ship’s officers, though, of course, at a separate table.
The men have the same quarters as those used by our soldiers during the Spanish War. These were much more commodious than those of the transports used by our men during the recent war, and on the Buford they are certainly ample. The beds are in double tiers, three high, but the top tier of each set is reserved for baggage. There are 50 or more lavatories, and there are a number of shower baths. The beds are all provided with plenty of warm blankets and with white linen. The anarchists eat in a large dining hall at tables with clean linen, not as our soldiers did, standing, and out of their mess kits.
Our soldiers on the transport—there are fifty picked men from the 18th Infantry—told us that the anarchists’ quarters were much better in every way than those which they themselves had had in their recent trips to and from the war zone. They are, in fact, somewhat better than the quarters now used by our guards on this vessel, and the soldiers use their own blankets, without bed linen.
The New York Times, January 14, 1920