GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY:
The facts in this case are very simple.
It is not a question of printers' bills; it is not a question
of rent bills or of deliveries by this or that expressman. The
only question at issue here is: Did the defendants conspire to
urge people not to register? Before I briefly state what the defense
will prove, may I be permitted to make a few remarks with regard
to the fact that Miss Goldman and myself are conducting our own
case. I merely want to explain our reasons since, so far, our
reasons have not been brought out. I want to state right now that
Mr. Harry Weinberger is a personal friend of ours, and in justice
to him I wish to say that there has been no misunderstanding whatever
between Mr. Weinberger and the defendants. We are the best of
friends. Mr. Weinberger was our attorney only in the matter of
bail; and when the matter of bail was settled, Mr. Weinberger
ceased to be our attorney in that connection. Of course, we consult
Mr. Weinberger on various questions. But it is a matter of principle
on the part of Miss Goldman and myself to defend, or rather to
conduct, our own case. As a matter of principle we do not believe
in being represented by legal talent at our trial. We believe
in explaining things to the jury ourselves. And we believe that
it is just and fair to have the jury get some idea about the defendants
from their own appearance, from their own expressions of opinion
and views. That is all I want to say on this point.
I have stated that the only question involved
in this case is whether the defendants conspired to advise people
not to register or to urge people not to register. I believe that
the Government has absolutely, in fact ridiculously, failed to
prove its case. It was brought out here during the examination
of the jurymen that the Government must prove its case beyond
a reasonable doubt. It seems to me that the Government has not
even begun to prove its case that there was a conspiracy between
Miss Goldman and myself to urge people not to register. But we,
the defendants, take this opportunity to state clearly and frankly
to you, gentlemen of the jury, that we are opposed to conscription.
I do this so that, during this trial, you may be able to see for
yourselves that the defendants are sincere and frank; that they
will tell you the truth as to what they do believe and what they
do not believe. We will prove that the defendants have throughout
their lives always stood up for the things they believe in, no
matter whether the majority opinion was against them. And similarly
in this case, as in all our past, we mean to acknowledge frankly
what we believe, and to be as frank in stating what we do not
believe. We will frankly admit what we said at mass meetings and
what we wrote in various magazines, but we will just as frankly
deny anything we did not say on the platform or in print. We will
deny anything put in our mouths by any one, contrary to our wishes
or opinions. In short, we will hold ourselves to the facts.
We declare emphatically that we are opposed
to conscription, and that we have been opposed to conscription
for twenty years or more. We go further: we are and have been
opposed to every form of militarism and war. But we deny absolutely
that either of the defendants ever told any one not to register.
We deny that we were in a conspiracy to advise or to urge people
not to register. We will prove to you, gentlemen of the jury,
beyond any reasonable doubt that the No-Conscription League, of
which these defendants are members, consistently refused to advise
people to register or not to register. We will prove to your complete
satisfaction that the No-Conscription League took a positive decision,
at one of its meetings, to give no advice in this matter, but
to leave it to the judgment of each individual to decide for himself.
We will further prove to you that the alleged
overt acts charged against us in this indictment were the normal
expression of the opinions and activities to which the defendants
have been devoted for the last twenty-five or thirty years. We
will prove that they were the continuation of an agitation carried
on by these defendants against conscription, militarism, and against
war, during more than twenty years, and not a matter of any recent
happening. We will prove to you that for many years the identical
views have been expressed by us against war and in opposition
to the forcing of human beings to do anything against their will.
We will prove further that the overt acts charged against us were
not overt acts at all, but the legitimate expression of independent
and fearless opinion.
We will further prove to you that the defendants
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman have been friends and comrades
for many years. That they worked along similar lines of activity,
but that they were independent thinkers, and that their activities
were always independent: that they used independent methods, and
independent platforms, though it often happened that they spoke
on the same platform, and published articles in the same magazines.
We will also prove to you that the monthly magazine MOTHER EARTH,
published and edited by Emma Goldman, always was and is now an
entirely separate and independent publication from the labor paper
published in San Francisco by Alexander Berkman and known as THE
BLAST. We will prove that MOTHER EARTH has existed for twelve
years and that it has consistently followed the same policy against
war and in favor of universal peace. We will show that THE BLAST
was started about a year and a half ago, four thousand miles from
MOTHER EARTH, in San Francisco, as a result of special labor conditions
on the Coast; that it had absolutely no connection with MOTHER
EARTH, and that the circumstance that the last two issues of THE
BLAST were published in New York has also no bearing whatever
on MOTHER EARTH, but is due to the fact that I had special business
in New York in behalf of certain labor unions, and that my stay
in New York was unexpectedly protracted and that I therefore decided
to publish a few issues of the paper in this city. We will prove
that the mere fact that MOTHER EARTH and THE BLAST--and a number
of other magazines, for that matter--happened to hold similar
ideas on some subjects, does not in any way constitute either
an overt act or a conspiracy, but that, as a matter of fact, there
is absolutely no reason to assume that there is any conspiracy
involved.
We will also prove to you, gentlemen of
the jury, and to your entire satisfaction, that the consensus
of intelligent opinion in this country, the opinion of leading
writers, of public speakers and statesmen, is that registration
and conscription are two distinct things, two separate conceptions;
indeed, two different issues. In fact, we will prove by intelligent
and reliable witnesses that many people believe in registration
but are opposed to conscription, on the ground that registration
and conscription are different issues.
And finally we will prove to you, gentlemen
of the jury, that at no time and at no place did these defendants,
or either of them, urge people not to register. In fact, we will
submit documents to prove that one of these defendants wrote a
special letter to tell the members of the No-Conscription League
that she is entirely opposed to advising anyone not to register.
We will submit documents to prove that at no time, at no place--neither
in our publications, on the platform, nor anywhere else--did these
defendants, or either of them, advise or urge people not to register.
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