Emma Goldman Visits Grand Rapids....And Loves It!

As I’ve mentioned a few weeks back, I’m slowly working my way through Emma Goldman’s autobiography. Very slowly. After all these weeks, I’m still less than half way through it.

But in reading the book I’ve stumbled upon a West Michigan connection, and these are always interesting.

When in San Francisco, Emma Goldman delivered a lecture on “Patriotism”. After the lecture a soldier came up to shake her hand and thank her. For this crime the soldier was court martialled for “attending Emma Goldman’s meeting and for shaking hands with her.” That soldier’s name was William Buwalda from Hudsonville Michigan.

In the end he was dismissed from the army, degraded, and sentenced to the military prison on Alcatraz Island for 5 years. Emma Goldman and the other anarchists immediately set about publicizing the case and working for his release, and in the end he was pardoned by President Theodore Roosevelt after only ten months imprisonment.

When he finally met with Emma Goldman again, she describes the encounter this way, “His fine, open face, intelligent eyes, and firm mouth were indicative of an independent character. I wondered how he had stood fifteen years of military service without becoming warped. Buwalda related that he had joined the Army mainly because of tradition. American-born, he was of Dutch stock and nearly all the men of his family had done military service in Holland.”

Later Buwalda organized a speaking engagement for Emma Goldman in Grand Rapids, and apparently the audiences there loved her. She describes her trip to Grand Rapids in “Mother Earth” magazine as follows:

"GRAND RAPIDS furnished a new experience, doubly pleasant because of the opportunity it offered to meet once more our ex-soldier, William Buwalda. Our readers have probably been wondering what has become of our friend after his release from the tender arms of the government.
William Buwalda has exchanged the iron bands of mental deception for a free and broader outlook upon life, while his soul, dwarfed for fifteen years by the soldier's coat, has since expanded and blossomed out like a flower in the fresh and unrestricted air of mother earth. Our comrade has been left with an old mother to look after his father having died last year. He often longs to go back to the world and to more vital activity, but with his usual simplicity he said, "What right have I, as a free man, to inflict burdens upon others that I am unwilling to carry?" Therefore he remains to take care of the old lady; yet he has not become rusticated. On the contrary, William Buwalda has used his time well, not merely for extensive reading, but for the absorption and assimilation of our ideals. The old Dutch mother, the kindly hostess moving about in her quaint Dutch surroundings, was like a study of Rembrandt. It made one feel far removed from the mad rush of American life.
Buwalda's efforts for the Grand Rapids meeting proved a great success. It was one of the few splendid affairs of this tour."


(the whole article is available on line here).

I’ve also found out that another famous Anarchist, Voltairine de Cleyre, lived and lectured in Grand Rapids for several years. Voltairine was friends with Emma Goldman, and her name pops up several times in Emma Goldman’s autobiography, but she was also famous and well respected in her own right. An on-line biography is available here. (Strange what how I can live in Grand Rapids all my life, and then find this information out in Japan).

One final note on William Buwalda before closing this entry: In 1909 Buwalda sent a letter to the military authorities, which was also published in “Mother Earth” magazine, in which he gives the reasons for returning his medals from the Philippine War. Since, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this war has been completely removed from the history textbooks, I thought it would be interesting to reproduce the letter here:

Hudsonville Michigan
April 6, 1909

Hon. Joseph M. Dickinson
Secretary of War,
Washington, D.C.

Sir:----
After thinking the matter over for some time I have decided to send back this trinket to your Department, having no further use for such baubles, and enable you to give it to some one who will appreciate it more that I do.
It speaks to me of faithful service, of duty well done, of friendships inseparable, friendships cemented by dangers and hardships and sufferings shared in common in camp and in the field. But, sir, it also speaks to me of bloodshed—possibly some of it unavoidably innocent—in defence of loved ones, of homes; homes in many cases but huts of grass, yet cherished none the less.
It speaks of raids and burnings, of many prisoners taken and like vile beasts, thrown in the foulest of prisons. And for what? For fighting for their homes and loved ones.
It speaks to me of G.O. 100, with all its attendant horrors and cruelties and sufferings; of a country laid waste with fire and sword; of animals useful to man wantonly killed; of men, women, and children hunted like wild beasts, and all this in the name of Liberty, Humanity, and Civilization.
In short, it speaks to me of War—legalized murder if you will—upon a weak and defenceless people. We have not even the excuse of self-defence.

Yours sincerely,
Wm. Buwalda
R.R. No. 3 Hudsonville, Michigan

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