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Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman
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are but few whose names are mentioned as often as that of Emma
Goldman. Yet the real Emma Goldman is almost quite unknown. The
sensational press has surrounded her name with so much
misrepresentation and slander, it would seem almost a miracle that,
in spite of this web of calumny, the truth breaks through and a
better appreciation of this much maligned idealist begins to manifest
itself. There is but little consolation in the fact that almost
every representative of a new idea has had to struggle and suffer
under similar difficulties. Is it of any avail that a former
president of a republic pays homage at Osawatomie to the memory of
John Brown? Or that the president of another republic participates
in the unveiling of a statue in honor of Pierre Proudhon, and holds
up his life to the French nation as a model worthy of enthusiastic
emulation? Of what avail is all this when, at the same time, the
LIVING John Browns and Proudhons are being crucified? The honor and
glory of a Mary Wollstonecraft or of a Louise Michel are not enhanced
by the City Fathers of London or Paris naming a street after
them--the living generation should be concerned with doing justice to
the LIVING Mary Wollstonecrafts and Louise Michels. Posterity
assigns to men like Wendel Phillips and Lloyd Garrison the proper
niche of honor in the temple of human emancipation; but it is the
duty of their contemporaries to bring them due recognition and
appreciation while they live.

The path of the propagandist of social justice is strewn with thorns.
The powers of darkness and injustice exert all their might lest a ray
of sunshine enter his cheerless life. Nay, even his comrades in the
struggle--indeed, too often his most intimate friends--show but
little understanding for the personality of the pioneer. Envy,
sometimes growing to hatred, vanity and jealousy, obstruct his way
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