Baldwin heard Goldman speak in 1908 at a working class meeting hall in St. Goldman's insistence on freedom of speech had a profound influence on Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. But as fate would have it, this time the police did not appear. Once, expecting the police to disrupt a lecture in Philadelphia, Emma chained herself to a podium in order to make it physically impossible for the police to remove her before she finished speaking. The extremity of the situation sometimes led to amusing results. It was in this context that Goldman began lecturing regularly on freedom of speech and, in 1903, worked with the newly formed Free Speech League. The government's attempts to suppress Goldman's unconventional views actually led many who disagreed with her to support nonetheless her right to express her ideas freely.
At the same time, liberal and radical Americans became more vocal in their opposition to the abridgement of first amendment rights. Repression culminated in the passage of the draconian Espionage and Sedition Acts of 19, which resulted in long prison terms for those who protested United States entry into the First World War.
Life is feudal free trial for free#
She spent ten months in jail, a reminder that in nineteenth century America the right of free speech was still a dream, not a reality.įollowing the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, tolerance for free speech declined even further. Arrested and tried in 1893 for urging a crowd of hungry, unemployed workers to rely on street demonstrations rather than on the electoral process to obtain relief, Goldman based her defense squarely on the right of free speech-and lost. Undeterred, Goldman continued to assert her right to speak, though she paid dearly for her principles. She was outraged that in the United States, "a country which guaranteed free speech, officers armed with long clubs should invade an orderly assembly." As an anarchist orator, Emma faced constant threats from police and vigilantes determined to suppress her talks. Freedom of expression was a cause Emma Goldman championed throughout her adult life.