Living My Life by Emma Goldman & Emma Goldman

Author:Emma Goldman & Emma Goldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: autobiographical, Russian Revolution
Published: 1931-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Part II

Chapter 39

On my return East I learned of the death of Voltairine de Cleyre. Her end affected me very deeply; her whole life had been a continuous chain of suffering. Death had come after an operation for an abcess on the brain which had impaired her memory. A second operation, her friends had been informed, would have deprived her of the power of speech. Voltairine, always stoical in pain, preferred death. Her end, on June 19, was a great loss to our movement and to those who valued her strong personality and unusual talents.

In compliance with her last request Voltairine was buried in Waldheim Cemetery, near the graves of our Chicago comrades. Their martyrdom had awakened Voltairine’s soul as it had so many other fine spirits. But few had so completely consecrated themselves to their cause as she, and fewer still had her genius to serve the ideal with singleness of purpose.

Arrived in Chicago, I went out to Waldheim with Annie Livshis, a dear common friend. Voltairine had made her home with Annie and Jake Livshis, and she had been tenderly nursed by our devoted comrades to the very last. I went to the cemetery with red carnations in my arms, while Annie carried red geraniums to be added to those she had already planted on the fresh grave. These were the only monument Voltairine had ever wanted.

Voltairine de Cleyre was born of a Quaker mother and a French father. The latter, in his youth an admirer of Voltaire, had named his daughter after the great philosopher. Later her father, having turned conservative, had placed her in a Catholic convent school, from which Voltairine subsequently escaped, rebelling against the authority of both. She was exceptionally gifted as poet, writer, and lecturer. She would have gained high position and renown had she been one to market her talents, but she would not accept even the simplest comforts for her activities in the various social movements. She shared the fate of the lowly whom she sought to teach and inspire. Revolutionary vestal, she lived as the poorest of the poor in dreary and wretched surroundings, taxing her body to the utmost, sustained only by her ideal.

Voltairine began her public career as a pacifist, and for many years she sternly set her face against revolutionary methods. But greater familiarity with European developments, the Russian Revolution of 1905, the rapid growth of capitalism in her own country, with all its resultant violence and injustice, and particularly the Mexican Revolution, subsequently changed her attitude. After an inner struggle, Voltairine’s intellectual integrity compelled her to admit her error frankly and to stand up bravely for the new vision. She did so in a number of essays and especially when she took up work for the Mexican Revolution, which she considered of most vital consequence. She devoted herself entirely to it, writing, lecturing, and collecting funds. In her the movement for liberty and humanism, especially the anarchist cause, lost one of its most gifted and tireless workers.

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