The “High Priestess of Anarchy” Descends on Wisconsin: Emma Goldman at UW-Madison
Site of the Controversial Roundtable: The Old YMCA Building (Image #S03085)
In late January 1910, UW-Madison students hosted a guest speaker who would quickly embroil the campus in controversy: Emma Goldman. Carl Hookstadt, president of the Socialist Club, had met Goldman’s manager in downtown Madison after seeing her post flyers for Goldman’s public talks on the 26th and 27th. Recognizing an opportunity to meet the famed anarchist, he asked the manager if Goldman would speak among students at a small roundtable at the YMCA at 4 p.m. on the 26th. She agreed. No flyers were posted for the roundtable, but students assembled based on word of mouth.
Meanwhile, on his way to class on the 26th, professor Edward Alsworth Ross had seen “a lady going along the street tearing down the posters announcing Miss Goldman’s lecture.” As the day progressed, what he saw increasingly troubled him. Later, during a lecture, he stopped to reflect on what he’d seen earlier. Interrupting himself during remarks on “Herbert Spencer’s theory that government is rooted in force and consists in coercion,” he stopped to say, “I am told that some lady in Madison has been tearing down the posters announcing Miss Goldman’s lecture. Now I take no stock in philosophical anarchism, but I do believe in the principle of free speech. For this reason and no other I wish to state to you that Miss Goldman speaks this evening at eight o’clock in the Knights of Pythias Hall.” Then he resumed his lecture.
According Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen (The University of Wisconsin: A History, 1949), Ross himself did not attend the lecture or roundtable. Still, he did invite Goldman on an informal tour of the campus the following day.
Professor E. A. Ross (Image #S10904)
Fewer than 20 students would attend the informal gathering. But that would hardly stop local and state press from seizing on the event and generating controversy from it. Days later, The Loyal Tribune (Loyal, WI) ran with the following series of subtitles under its article announcing the visit:
EMMA GOLDMAN SAYS WISCONSIN SCHOOL CONTAINS MANY ANARCHISTS
SOME PROFESSORS FAVOR CULT
Woman Leader Declares That Believers Are
Numerous Among All Student Bodies
ORIENTALS HEAR TENETS
The editors of the Brown County Democrat (De Pere, WI) also sounded the alarm. Their editorial referred to Goldman as the “high priestess of anarchy,” and criticized the University for allowing the YMCA to become her temporary temple. Nearly identical sentiments appeared in the Wausau Daily:
Money raised by taxing the citizens of Wisconsin was employed to buy the very table at which stood this notorious female red and about which was grouped the brood of budding anarchists and their socialistic preceptors of the faculty, all doubtless hanging with breathless interest upon the words of this evil, revolutionary spirit.
President Van Hise and other university officials quickly moved to defer responsibility for the controversial appearance. He reminded her critics that the university had not invited her to speak, nor had the campus hosted her appearance. “None of the university authorities have taken any action which can fairly be construed as approving Miss Goldman’s doctrines,” he concluded. Van Hise added that the one professor who had publicly advertised her talk had subsequently laid out “the fallacies of philosophic anarchism,” as if to preemptively discredit Goldman.
President Charles Van Hise (Image #S08081)
A week later, the La Crosse Tribune dismissed the affair as a “harmless, inconsequent incident” in an article titled “much ado about nothing” (Feb 4, 1910). The Milwaukee Journal agreed, calling the whole thing “a foolish hullaballoo” on Feb 10. It even conceded, “she was treated with courtesy, which is the right of anyone visiting a state university.” The article concluded on a note of confidence in the power of the American people to resist her doctrines: “The enlightened people of America have nothing to fear from Emma Goldman. She is the product of another and different country and of its conditions.” The Evansville Sentinel and the Waukesha Freeman would republish these statements.
By March 2, the Board of Visitors issued its own formal report on the “Goldman Incident.” In preparation for its report, members of the Board of Visitors investigated all newspaper claims, met with students and faculty, examined “courses of study” within the department of political science, and assessed the scholarship of professors involved in the “incident.” It concluded that the press had abounded with “erronious [sic] statements.” (That said, its own report was riddled with erroneous spelling mistakes… College education only goes so far!) The report subsequently laid out 5 numbered points establishing its authors’ findings. The authors confirmed that the university had not extended the invitation, nor had it directed any funds to the event in any way. The professor (Ross) who had supposedly advertised her talk did not deny doing so, but defended the principle of free speech. The Board read Ross’s books and confirmed that “[they] contain the clearest presentation of the necessity for government and for the preservation of the institutions of existing society.” In other words, he was no anarchist!
UW-President Van Hise with Teddy Roosevelt (Image #08042)
But Ross wasn’t totally off the hook with President Van Hise. Ross fielded a slew of impassioned letters from the president, meeting them with tepid but polite replies. Despite Ross’ concession that he would no longer do anything to further “embarrass” the university, he publicly spoke out against “the editor who uses his paper to air his prejudices,” implicitly targeting newspapers that had slandered his name for ulterior motives. Days later, he would again find himself in hot water with Van Hise over an unsanctioned lecture by Parker H. Sercombe on January 31. In the aftermath, president and professor exchanged a series of testy telegrams (Ross had inexplicably decamped to Canada). Nevertheless, Van Hise publicly defended Ross against “popular passion,” which had demanded “Ross must go!!” To this end, Van Hise cited his exceptional scholarship, even pointing to President Roosevelt’s favorable review of Ross’s book Sin and Society (1907) as “wholesome and sane.”
In a mere afternoon, Goldman had given rise to rivalries and dissensions within both the University and the state of Wisconsin at large. That said, no record remains of what she said that day at the YMCA! We are only left to wonder whether her words were as incendiary as her mere presence.
Posted by Jillian Slaight for UW-Madison Archives
For more information about UW campus history, contact [email protected] or visit archives.library.wisc.edu. On, Wisconsin!
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