The Jews in America Trilogy (139 page)

She said that the government at Washington was controlled absolutely by the moneyed class; that she believed that President Wilson was honest and sincere; that he was helpless for the reason that the government was controlled by the profiteers or the moneyed class. She said that she couldn't sanction and endorse the war because it was a war for the profiteer. She said that freedom of the seas meant freedom for the millionaires and she pointed to herself as one of those millionaires. She said that she couldn't advise nor urge men to fight in this war for the reason that it was a war for the profiteers.

All sorts of testimony was heard in the trial that probably would not be judged permissible in a court of law today. For example, one of Rose Stokes's arresting officers, Chief Deputy United States Marshal James N. Purcell, was allowed—over objections from the defense table—to describe his conversations with the defendant immediately after her arrest, when she would have been far wiser to have curbed her natural loquacity. She had told him, said Officer Purcell, that the United States government was controlled by the profiteers; that the war was between the capitalist classes on both sides, and that therefore it made no difference which side won as far as working people were concerned. She said that if Germany's winning the war would improve American working conditions, then she was all for Germany. As for what was going on in Russia, she said that the press accounts were not true, but were “censored to suit the people,” as the vested interests in the Allied powers wanted them to be censored.

Shackled to the wrist of Officer S. W. Dillingham of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, another of the arresting officers who was allowed to testify, she was as voluble as ever, and allegedly told him that she hoped that
both
Germany and the Allies would be defeated. The only victory she wanted to see was for the working classes. Mr. Dillingham said that he asked her, “Is it your point to cause a revolution in this country, as in Russia?” She replied, “Yes.”

On March 29, while awaiting her arraignment, Rose Stokes was allowed to grant an interview to Mr. P. S. Dee, a reporter from the
Kansas City Post
. His testimony was that Mrs. Stokes had told him that the country had gone “war crazy,” that “
profiteers were getting such a strong hold on the government that after the war it would be absolutely impossible to jar them loose,” and that she “feared for the working class, whose conditions were already so bad.”

Only briefly did her letter to the
Star
, which constituted the entire basis of the prosecution, come into the proceedings. When the paper's managing editor, Mrs. Stout, was cross-examined, Mr. Stedman tried to shift some of the blame onto Stout for publishing the seditious material, while at the same time turning it over to federal authorities. There was the following exchange:

STEDMAN:
Did you think its [the letter's] possible effect was a violation of the Espionage Law?

STOUT:
I was not familiar with the legal aspect, the technical aspect, but it seemed to me it was a subject the government should have.

STEDMAN:
Did you think it might possibly create insubordination?

STOUT:
I did not reason about it to that extent.

STEDMAN:
Did you think that it was seditious?

STOUT:
I thought it was disloyal.

STEDMAN:
You thought it was disloyal?

STOUT:
Yes.…

STEDMAN:
You thought it was disloyal and you sent 440,000 copies to people who read your paper, did you?

STOUT:
Yes.

One of the few members of the Dining Club who took the witness stand in Rose Stokes's defense was Mrs. Annette Moore, the club's president, who, after all, had engaged Rose as a speaker. Mrs. Moore said:

Her subject was “After the War, What?” and was purely problematical and apprehensive in every regard. Her whole thought seemed to be for the working class, and seemed to be that if—she precluded [
sic
] every remark with “if”—and if such and such were the fact, if the profiteers were permitted to charge such extortionate prices, such prices as the world had never known
before, that in that event that when the boys came home from the trenches and found the democracy they had been fighting for had not been won, then we should have a social revolution in this country.…

She said as she saw these boys marching down Fifth Avenue, that she was thrilled at the sight of them, and she said that she was inspired to write this poem, and I believe—I am not quite certain on that point, but I believe she said that if the boys had not been fighting for democracy, and did not get what they had gone to fight for, that she would feel like recalling that statement.

Mrs. Moore's testimony was not exactly a powerful defense, but at least she did not mention anything about an endorsement of the Bolsheviks, which had seemed to obsess so many of the other witnesses.

Rose Stokes then took the stand on her own behalf. Once more, the subject was her remarks to the Dining Club, and not her letter to the editor, which was at issue. She began by stating at the outset that she had made no mention of the Red Cross on the evening of March 16, 1918. She then offered a summary of her lecture. Her summary was very long—too long, perhaps, because Rose was a woman who, given an audience to listen, always rose to the occasion—and the prosecution made no effort to interrupt her. This was what she told the judge and jury:

Now I said the war, at the bottom, was economic.… And I said that the United States, as other governments, had entered the war from vital pressures of vital interests; that no government ever declares war for purely idealistic reasons.…

I further said … that peoples have to have an ideal, that peoples on the contrary always went to war because of an ideal, and that therefore, if the people would fight at all, they must be stirred in their idealistic natures. Their hearts, their minds, are simple, pure, clean, and they desire to fight only for the highest things; and that when President Wilson uttered the great watchword of democracy, “We will make the world safe for
democracy,” the people arose to answer that call. And I said, “Can you imagine the people, who would die fighting for an ideal, fighting for purely economic reasons? Can you imagine the people fighting for such a thing as Morgan's dollars?” I said that when men fight they answer a great call, and that we could not get a baker's dozen, that is the very phrase I used, that we could not get a baker's dozen, if we had called out, “Come on, and fight,” for instance, “for Morgan's dollars.”

I said I had two brothers in the service, one in the army and one in the navy. I had persuaded my good mother, who hates war and who is so much opposed to killing that she would not have her boy go into the army, but he was eager to go and I wanted him to go, and I persuaded her and it took me a long time to persuade her, and finally she let him enter the navy and he is there now.

I said I was not opposed to the war; the war was upon us, it was here, we could not stop it.…

I never said our men were befooled. I said our men answered the call of democracy, believing they were fighting for democracy, and when they came home, when—if they found the things they fought for were not gained, that undoubtedly we should have both an industrial and social revolution in this country.…

I asked for questions and for a while we discussed further these matters and one question that was asked me was this: “Do I approve of the social revolution in Russia?” I said I approved of the ideal for which Russia was striving, and I approved thoroughly of the ideals of the Bolsheviki, the ideals they were striving for; that I knew them to be honest, sincere socialists who were working in the interests of the people; that they were socializing land and industry in Russia as fast as these could be socialized, and naturally there is always in great changes—great political, social or economic changes—some distress, just as there is in so-called peaceful times elsewhere; but that the newspapers, through the strict censorship, had not given us the truth about Russia, and I had reasons to believe through sources of information
that I had, coming through such men as Colonel Thompson of the Red Cross, recently returned from Russia, and men like Lincoln Steffens, recently returned from Russia—that what I had learned from them gave me a different impression, and that President Wilson himself had heartily supported the ideas and aims of the Russian revolution.

Then, the question was asked me—the next question came from the same questioner, and that was: Did I approve of the taking from the banks the money of Russia? I said I did not know how much truth there was in this confiscation of wealth in Russia, but if they felt it necessary to take over wealth just as here, when we take over great aggregations of wealth for the common good—that if the people of Russia desired it, that perhaps it was right for them to do it and I would approve of it, if I felt it was in the interests of the whole people to socialize wealth.

Another question was put to me: why I did not go back to Russia if I felt that conditions were not quite just here—and it was put indirectly. The question was asked, why don't those who have developed power and gained comforts and wealth here, who were not born in this country, why, if they do not like certain institutions and are criticising [
sic
] certain institutions, why don't they return to their own countries? Why not go back to Russia? And I arose to reply, and I said, “I presume, Madam, that you refer to me when you say that?” I said I was indeed very eager to go to Russia when the revolution took place because I did want to be helpful, and I had asked to go over, but that I was not permitted. And I instanced Emma Goldman, the case of Emma Goldman and Mr. Berkman, when they were first arrested and charged with certain violations of the law. This was before the last revolution in Russia. They were threatened by the authorities, as reported in our press, that they would be deported to Russia. This was before the revolution at all; this was before the czar had been deposed. They were threatened with deportation, and when later they were about to be tried and the revolution had
occurred, they asked to be sent back—they asked to be deported to Russia, but the authorities, such was the report, refused to permit them to return.
*

And I said further that I should answer still another part of my question. This was after I had seated myself and had recalled that the question was two-sided. I said you refer to me and ask why I, who have developed in this country and have grown up here to wealth and power and intelligence, why I should criticise—why I do not go back? Well, I will tell you why I criticise our institutions and perhaps you will feel that I have some—there is some justice in my criticism of these institutions. I told her that I came here when I was eleven years of age, that I still wanted to go to school but instead I was put into a factory, that my father worked very hard and yet did not earn enough to meet the needs of his growing family, that I was the oldest of seven children. I was ten years old when the next oldest came, that the other six as they grew were all little ones, that as I became grown up the great part of the burden of supporting the family fell upon me. I said for ten years I have worked and produced things useful and necessary for the people of this country, and all those years I was half starved, I never had enough to eat, I never had a decent bed to sleep in, I sometimes slept on the floor. I was half naked; in the winter I never had a warm coat, I could not afford it. In the summer I never had a vacation, I could not afford it. For twelve years, day in and day out, for six days in the week and sometimes seven, and sometimes the whole season at a time, I worked at night in order to help out the family existence. I worked at doing useful work and never had enough. But the moment I left the useful producing class, the moment I became a part of the capitalistic class which did not have to do any productive work in order to exist, I had all the leisure I
wanted, all the vacations I wanted, all the clothes I wanted—everything I wanted was mine without having to do any labor in return for all I have received. And I said, “Madam, do you think that conditions which can produce such an example as I now recite to you are conditions that are not worthy of criticism? Do you think that such conditions are just?” And she replied and shook her head and said, “No.”

There were several odd points in her testimony that may have set the judge and jury wondering. Her charge of censorship in the press was of course offered without proof, and it was ironic that at the heart of the case were statements of her own that had been published, and perhaps
ought
to have been censored. And what had she meant by saying that in America it was often necessary to “take over great aggregations of wealth for the common good”? She may have been referring to income taxes, but it sounded rather threatening. And of course on at least one point she contradicted herself. She had started out by saying that she had not mentioned the Red Cross in her talk, but then said that the Red Cross had been mentioned, at least in passing.

On cross-examination, the government prosecutor asked her one question: What was her object in arranging a series of lectures to talk about the war? She replied: “My object was to bring the people to a realization that unless we who are left at home fight for democracy where we are, the boys in the trenches may perhaps come home and find they had not gained what they wanted. I believed that in going through that tour, stirring up people to consider the questions of democracy, we were doing our part to fight for the very things our boys have gone over to fight for.”

With that, the defense rested its case.

The judge then turned to instruct the jury. His instruction was rambling, verbose, full of digressions, and consumed some twelve thousand words of court transcript, during the course of which there was much flag-waving and many appeals to red-blooded American patriotism. He began by reviewing the three counts of sedition with which Rose had been charged: attempting “to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States”;
trying to “obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States”; and conveying “false reports and false statements with intent to interfere with the operation and success of the military.”