The Sovereign Citizen. Patrick Weil
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involved, Goldman served as an inspiration to, and briefly met, Leon Csolgosz, the insurrectionary Polish anarchist and the assassin of President William McKinley.
Based on these revolutionary activities, the U.S. government wanted to deport Goldman.10 The government’s original strategy was simply to bar her reentry to the United States when she left the country in the fall of 1907 for speaking engagements at the International Anarchist Congress in Europe.11 On September 24, 1907, Frank Sargent, the commissioner general of immigration, sent a “strictly confidential” telegram to the New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore immigration offices declaring that “Emma Goldman, the notorious anarchist, is now out of the United States, but intends to return very shortly to resume her propaganda in this country. . . . It is desired that either or both of these persons [the other was Max Baginski] who may arrive at your port should be detained and rigidly examined; any claims of American citizenship to be fully verified before being accepted as correct.”12
Goldman was returning with fellow anarchist Max Baginski,13 and immigration officials initially attempted to treat and quickly deport her as an alien. But Goldman traveled from Liverpool to Montreal and “experienced no trouble whatever getting into Canada.”14 On the train from Montreal to New York, the porter took her ticket, “together with a generous tip, and he didn’t show up again” for the rest of the journey. Two weeks later, at her first public appearance, the newspapers, the public, and the government were informed of her arrival back in the States.15 Oscar S. Straus, secretary of commerce and labor, pronounced Goldman to be in violation of a 1907 act of Congress, known as the Anarchist Law, and issued an order “to take into custody the said alien, and convey her before a Board of Special Inquiry, at Ellis Island, to enable her to show cause why she should not be deported in conformity with the law.”16
On November 17, a memo of the Bureau of Immigration sent to Straus listed Goldman’s criminal record as well as the many anarchist speeches she had delivered in recent years, including the most recent one, on November 11 in New York City. But it also warned Straus of the possibility of deporting her, especially since it was still unclear whether or not Goldman was a citizen: “The general opinion of the officers who have been following her up is that she will welcome arrest; that it will not only advertise her and add to her prestige, but will be the means of bringing her in considerable sums in the way of contributions.”17 On November 19, 1907, Straus withdrew the warrant for Goldman’s arrest, pending an investigation on her citizenship status.18
On March 10, 1908, Sargent requested that Richard K. Campbell, the chief of the Division of Naturalization, open an inquiry into Goldman’s assertion that she was truly an American citizen via her naturalized father, as she had originally declared.19 On March 13, Assistant U.S. Attorney Palmer S. Chambers telegraphed Campbell: “Investigation progressing satisfactorily, very probably E.G. is not a citizen. Will write you when sure.”20 On March 18, 1908, Chambers submitted an eight-page report to Campbell,21 based on the investigation he had performed that day in Rochester, New York, with naturalization examiner Abraham L. Zamosh: “Goldman was born in Popolan, County of Shavel State of Kovno, Russia, on June 16th, 1870, Russian date (American date June 29, 1870). . . . In December 1885 she left there with her half sister Helena Zodokoff for the United States.” Goldman arrived in Rochester, New York, on January 1, 1886. The report notes that Emma Goldman’s father Abraham Goldman was naturalized on October 13, 1894, when Emma Goldman was over twenty-four years of age, and she could not, therefore, claim naturalization through him. “Emma Goldman was married to Jacob Kersner in the spring of 1887. . . . In the latter part of 1888 or early in 1889, Emma Goldman and her purported husband were divorced according to the Jewish law by Rabbi Abe Chajin Levinson. [A few months after this], Goldman fell in love with Abraham [sic] Berkman, the man who shot Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead riot.”
The report then moves to Jacob Kersner.
The son of Abraham Kersner, born in Niemiroff, State of Kaminits Podolsk, Russia in approximately April, 1868, he arrived in June 1883 or 1884. From there, he went to Rochester, back to New York City, and finally back to Rochester to live with his parents. The following entry appears on the naturalization records of Monroe County: Jacob A. Kersner, born at Belgrade Serbia, Germany, April 1st, 1868, landed in the United States June 18, 1879, date of naturalization October 18, 1884. Witnesses Simon Goldstein and Samuel Cohen. Charge to the Democratic County Committee.” The father believes that the above record is that of the naturalization of his son Jacob.
This report’s findings demonstrate that Kersner was naturalized before the age of eighteen and the investigation is therefore pursued in two directions: proof of the identity of Kersner and of his marriage with Emma Goldman.
On May 27, 1908, inspector John Gruenberg, from the Bureau of Immigration of New York City, reported to Sargent that he now had enough evidence to denaturalize Kersner: “I have obtained their [Kersner’s parents and brother] affidavits, whereby it is shown beyond a doubt that Jacob A. Kersner, under whom Emma Goldman claims citizenship, is the identical person who migrated to the United States from Russia, in the year 1882, at the age of about 16 years, and that he was not of age, nor had he been 5 years continuously in the United States on the 18th day of October, 1884, and therefore his naturalization was obtained fraudulently.”22 Inspector Gruenberg concluded his memo with a call for action: “I most respectfully suggest that, should proceedings be instituted eventually resulting in the annulment of the order of Naturalization, that it would have a very salutary moral effect, in so far as it would deprive Emma Goldman of that feeling of security which she now manifests, believing herself to be a citizen of the United States.”23
Two days later, on May 29, Straus updated the status of the case. He was ready to act but remained prudent: “For many reasons it is not desirable to institute such a suit unless there are reasonable grounds for concluding that such a suit would be successful. The failure of the suit would tend to martyrise Emma Goldman in the estimation of her ill guided followers. You will observe that the whereabouts of Jacob Kersner or Jacob A. Kersner is not known. He seems to be a fugitive from justice.”24
On June 11, 1908, Campbell officially responded to Straus that enough evidence had been gathered to initiate an action for the cancellation of Kersner’s naturalization certificate. Straus approved the order by his personal signature and a handwritten notation: “Approved. Have action taken accordingly. Signed: OSS.”25 On September 24, 1908, the Department of Justice filed a bill of complaint against Kersner.26
The hearing, postponed two or three times on account of other business was finally set for some time in the week of January 25, 1909 at the U.S. district court at Buffalo.27 Then, suddenly, Chambers had second thoughts and sent a letter to Charles J. Bonaparte, the attorney general. Chambers agreed, with all the assistant U.S. attorneys involved in the case, that “the denaturalization of the husband ipso facto denaturalizes the wife.” But as “in this particular case the wife’s interests are the only ones in which the government is particularly interested,” he wondered if Goldman should not be “made a party to the suit.” “Should we obtain judgment against Kersner and discover later that Emma Goldman . . . is not affected thereby, the whole object to be obtained by the suit would be lost.”28
But on February 2, 1909, William R. Harr, an assistant attorney general, recommended that the government not join her in a suit to cancel her husband’s certificate: “the wife acquired, not by any act of her own, but simply by grant from the Government. This grant was based however, upon a condition that she married a citizen. In the eye of the law, it may be said, that if her husband’s certificate of naturalization was obtained by fraud, he was never a citizen and therefore his wife acquired no rights of citizenship.”29 Bonaparte thought it advisable to request the opinion of the secretary of commerce and labor on the matter30 and on February 11, Straus answered that he seriously doubted the wisdom of making Emma Goldman a party in the case. Straus explained, “It would too obviously indicate that the ultimate design of the proceedings is not to vindicate the naturalization law, but to reach an individual, and deprive her of an asylum she now enjoys as a wife of an American citizen.”31
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