Berkman & Goldman: Epigraph and Foreword

A Tribute

Impressions of the Trial

Epigraph and Foreword

Tell all friends that we will not waver, that we will not compromise, and that if the worst comes, we shall go to prison in the proud consciousness that we have remained faithful to the spirit of internationalism and to the solidarity of all the people of the world.

Justice walks with leaden feet and has lost her way and cannot find many of the court-rooms of America.

Ideals cannot be killed by imprisoning idealists. You cannot stop ideas as long as one brain continues to function. Governments, Churches, Judges, and Jailors have tried it as far back as the memory or records of men go. But never have they been able fully to subdue the spirit of man. Ideas are contagious, and crushed to earth, spread over it.

Liberty is never a gift. It is always a purchase, and the price is blood and tears, happiness and the personal liberty of the individual purchaser. Liberty has always been the great temptation for idealists.

We are all walking in the shadow of war. Most of us, however, have our eyes on the stars of peace and liberty, and because a few are articulate, expressing our hopes and desires, Judges are sending them to the penitentiary, to the workhouse, fining them, taking their property, and even ordering them deported to Russia, the new home of democracy. If Christ gave out "The Sermon on the Mount," he would go to the workhouse for six months.

Are some of our courts the new Bastilles, with petty Judges as the wardens? Judges with the dust of dead laws and dead theories in their eyes and mouths and brains are stamping out free speech, are trying to shackle the brave spirits of those who see that the faults of liberty can only be cured by more liberty.