Writing revolution : Hispanic anarchism in the United States 9780252051609, 0252051602

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Writing Revolution

Writing Revolution Hispanic Anarchism in the United States Edited by CHRISTOPHER J. CASTAÑEDA AND MONTSE FEU (M. MONTSERRAT FEU LÓPEZ)

© 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Castaneda, Christopher James, 1959- editor. | Feu Lopez, M. Montserrat, editor. Title: Writing revolution: Hispanic anarchism in the United States / edited by Christopher J. Castaneda and Montse Feu (M. Montserrat Feu Lopez). Description: [Urbana, Ill.] : [University of Illinois Press], [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019015005 (print) | LCCN 2019021718 (ebook) | ISBN 9780252051609 (ebook) | ISBN 9780252042744 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780252084577 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Anarchism—United States—History. | Press, Anarchist—United States—History. | Anarchists—United States— History. | Hispanic Americans—Politics and government. | Hispanic American literature (Spanish)—History and criticism. Classification: LCC HX843 (ebook) | LCC HX843 .W77 2019 (print) | DDC 355/.8308968/073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015005

For our anarchist ancestors

Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Hispanic Anarchist Print Culture: Writing from Below PART I: TRANSATLANTIC ORIGINS 1. Spanish Republicanism and the Press: The Political Socialization of Anarchists in the United States (1880s–1910s) Sergio Sánchez Collantes 2. Globetrotters and Rebels: Correspondents of the SpanishLanguage Anarchist Press, 1886–1918 Alejandro de la Torre PART II: LATINO LABOR AND ANARCHISM IN THE UNITED STATES 3. Anarchism and the End of Empire: José Cayetano Campos, Labor, and Cuba Libre Christopher J. Castañeda 4. Red Florida in the Caribbean Red: Hispanic Anarchist Transnational Networks and Radical Politics, 1880s–1920s Kirwin R. Shaffer 5. Spanish-speaking Anarchists in the United States: The Newspaper Cultura Obrera and Its Transnational Networks (1911–1927) Susana Sueiro Seoane 6. Spanish Firemen and Maritime Syndicalism, 1902–1940 Jon Bekken and Mario Martín Revellado PART III: ANARQUISTAS ON THE FRONTIER 7. Moving West: Jaime Vidal, Anarchy, and the Mexican Revolution, 1904–1918 Christopher J. Castañeda 8. Caritina M. Piña and Anarcho-syndicalism: Labor Activism in the Greater Mexican Borderlands, 1910–1930 Sonia Hernández 9. Traces of the Revista Única: Appearances and Disappearances of Anarchism in Steubenville, 1909–1973 Jesse Cohn PART IV: IMAGINING A NEW WORLD

10. The Anarchist Imaginary: Max Nettlau and Latin America, 1890– 1934 Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo 11. Reflections of the United States: Through the Pages of La Revista Blanca, 1923–1936 María José Domínguez and Antonio Herrería Fernández 12. Transnational Anarchist Culture in the Interwar Period: The Magazine Estudios (1928–1937) Javier Navarro Navarro PART V: SPANISH CIVIL WAR AND EXILE 13. Keepsakes of the Revolution: Transnational Networks and the U.S. Circulation of Anarchist Propaganda during the Spanish Civil War Michel Otayek 14. España Libre, 1939–1977: Anarchist Literature and Antifascism in the United States Montse Feu (M. Montserrat Feu López) 15. Federico Arcos (1920–2015): An Iberian Anarchist Exile David Watson Epilogue Appendix A. Periodicals (selected) Appendix B. Archives, Digital Databases, and Projects (selected) Contributors Index

Preface This book began the way any project about anarchism should start: with networking and collaboration among extraordinary friends and colleagues who share an interest in the historical development of anarchism and radical print culture. In 2012, Montse Feu presented a paper on Jesús González Malo at The Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture in Modern America in Madison, where she met Andrew Hoyt. Andrew then put Montse in contact with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo; Jorell and Montse subsequently presented papers at the Labor and Working-Class History Association conference in 2013 on their respective research projects. Soon thereafter, Montse and Jorell began discussing the need for a collaborative book on U.S. Hispanic anarchism, and they began to message ideas to each other about it at night when both were exhausted from working on other urgent projects. In the meantime, Chris Castañeda had contacted Jennifer Guglielmo about her research on Maria Roda and Pedro Esteve, and Jennifer then put Chris in touch with Montse. After more discussion, Montse and Chris moved forward with planning for a coedited volume focused on transnational Spanishlanguage anarchist print culture with a focus on the United States and Jorell agreed to contribute a chapter while continuing and completing many other projects. During Spring 2015, Chris and Montse issued an international “call for proposals” for an edited volume and received many excellent proposals. After an intensive selection process and several rounds of editing, this volume emerged; Chris and Montse are deeply grateful to all participants. This book is the result of an exemplary collegial endeavor among scholars from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain and the United States.

Acknowledgments As with any edited collection, there are many thanks due to a wide array of people who helped in myriad ways. In addition to all the contributors who have worked diligently and with great commitment to our joint project, we would like to thank the University of Illinois Press and our editor James Engelhardt for his enthusiastic and endless support along with Nancy Albright, Jennifer Argo, Kevin Cunningham, and Alison Syring. We are also grateful to the manuscript reviewers (James Baer and an anonymous reviewer) for their generous, detailed, and insightful feedback that has greatly improved the manuscript. Montse would like to thank her Department of World Languages and Cultures, the CHSS Dean’s Office, and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Sam Houston State University for granting travel funds during 2018 to present and chair panels on the research conducted for this volume at the conference of the Organization of American Historians in Sacramento, at the European Social Science History Conference in Belfast, and at the American Literature Association in San Francisco. These panels facilitated our group work and provided authors with productive feedback. Chris expresses gratitude to the Department of History at California State University, Sacramento, for its support during this project and to the College of Arts & Letters for funding research, research assistants, travel to conferences, and generally supporting this project. There are many friends and colleagues who helped in various ways, and we are remiss to leave anyone out. We are grateful for the assistance (both direct or indirect), comments, correspondence, and suggestions from Manuel Amador, James Baer, Manuel Barajas, John Bealle, Chris Bellon, Miguel Bota, Kyle Brislan, Joan Casanovas, Chris Ealham, Linda Esteve Reilly, Tom Goyens, Jennifer Guglielmo, Amelia Kaplan, Nancy Lapp, Sheree Meyer, Mark Ocegueda, Roberto Pomo, LoriAnn Rodriguez, Elvia Ramirez, Rosina Ruano, Heidy Sarabia, Stacie Tilman, Maria Vargas, Jeffrey K. Wilson, and Kenyon Zimmer. We most gratefully thank our respective spouses, Terri A. Castaneda and Aaron Gillette, for their support and patience along the way.

Writing Revolution

Introduction Hispanic Anarchist Print Culture: Writing from Below CHRISTOPHER J. CASTAÑEDA AND MONTSE FEU Hispanic intervention in the colonial history of the Americas is wellknown.1 Much less understood is the modern Hispanic migration to, and struggle for freedom in, the United States. To better understand the complexities of this intersectional migration, we focus on the lives of Hispanic anarchists, libertarians, and free thinkers who rejected the hallmarks of traditional society—church, state, and capitalism— because they deemed those institutions to be oppressive and tyrannical. In their endeavor to create a truly equitable society built upon the ideals of liberty and justice for all, these anarchists developed a vibrant network of transnational periodicals from the late 19th through 20th centuries.2 The authors of the following fifteen chapters explore the evolution of transnational Spanish-language anarchist print culture. They show how Spanish-speaking anarchists based in the United States, Spain, and Latin America promoted labor rights, economic equality, and social justice generally, i.e., the social revolution—comprehensive and profound social and economic reform—while confronting an aggressively industrializing world that privileged capital over the working class, specifically, and individual liberty, generally. In fact, anarchism—despite politically motivated attempts to define it simply as violent militant extremism—refers instead to antiauthoritarianism, individual liberty, and social equality. Spanishspeaking anarchists developed a thought-provoking and literally educational transnational print network in which the United States was a major hub that promoted social activism and worker solidarity through journalism and literature, reinforced by a continuing emphasis on wellestablished enlightenment-era concepts of liberty and equality. Writing Revolution develops three intersecting themes: 1) a vibrant Spanish language and Hispanic culture that crossed borders;3 2) a transnational anarchist print culture that utilized readily accessible print technology; and 3) the emigration and immigration of individuals who were committed to social justice through social revolution and anarchism. To and from the United States anarchists

wrote, edited, and printed periodicals that circulated these ideas and established networks among militants throughout the Spanishspeaking world. In turn, these transnational networks maintained an interweaving of ideas, perspectives, and interpretations of government, labor, and capitalism, as well as working-class literature and culture that sustained anarchist periodicals. As James P. Danky has stated, protest print culture, such as this, was based on the work of “publishers with limited resources; uncertain distribution; and a niche outside the mainstream.”4 Within this historical context of activism and culture production from below, the essays in this volume show how anarchist periodicals connected Spanish-speaking radicals and groups in major metropolises, including Barcelona, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Havana, Los Angeles, Madrid, and New York City among many others, but also smaller urban areas such as Detroit, New Orleans, Tampico (México), Steubenville (Ohio), and Ybor City (Tampa). At its core, anarchism generally rejects authority, boundaries, and all forms of inequalities, and in this sense, it also responds to tensions and crises intrinsic to globalization by means of alternative channels of knowledge production.5 While the Hispanic anarchist experience is culturally distinct, it occurred within a larger historical context in which the emergence of various anarchist movements, first in the latter 19th century, represented a unique confluence of libertarian social, economic, and philosophical developments. As José Moya stated: anarchism emerged as “the first and most extensive global transnational movement, organized from below and without formal political parties.”6 Therefore, it is the largely unstudied Hispanic antiauthoritarian movement that crossed oceans, nations, and borders, this movement from below, that we are adding to the historiography of the Spanishspeaking influence on the United States. This volume also builds upon the transnational theory enunciated by Nicolás Kanellos on Latino culture in the United States: “from its origins in the early nineteenth century to the present, [it] has been a transnational phenomenon, one that crosses borders physically or symbolically or in both ways, constructs more than one national identity at a time or deconstructs and rejects them all.”7 The

following essays consequently focus on a broadly defined linguistic group that crossed national and geographic borders while developing Hispanic and Latino/a/x identities minoritized in the Americas. While Spanish language generally established an overarching Hispano identity, albeit one that has been subdivided historically, regionally, and culturally, there is no single Hispanic or Latino/a/x character, set of aspirations, or societal goals. The following chapters, therefore, confirm the common adherence of Hispanics to their regional identity or patria chica (small country), rather than strong national ties, as developed in the rich production of Hispanic anarchist print culture. Collectively and most importantly, these essays show the many local and global ways in which Spanish-speaking anarchists from the late 19th through 20th century brought to light and networked serious social, economic, and political problems that impeded liberty and equality in the United States and globally. We hope to contribute to Benedict Anderson’s effort “to map the gravitational force of anarchism between militant nationalisms on opposite sides of the planet”8 by focusing on the ways in which anarchist print culture established networks on this map. Anarchism and its ideological components were powerful anticolonial movements among and linking Latino migrants, but this was only part of a Latino culture and identity that has deeply influenced the entirety of U.S. history from the colonial era through the present.9 While there are numerous academic studies that delve deeply into the ways in which Latino migration and culture have fundamentally influenced the social, economic, and political characteristics of the United States, more work needs to be done.10 In particular, we believe that the labor struggles, political conflicts, and radical intellectual dialogues from and to Spanish-speaking communities and countries were a significant contribution of Hispanic culture to the United States. In short, this volume explores the ways in which many migrant and politically conscious Hispanic anarchists who shared language, cultural history, and a commitment to social justice influenced the historical and cultural evolution of the United States. Writing Revolution demonstrates that revolution has been a key term for Hispanic anarchists in the United States; indeed, they

undoubtedly adopted the ideal of the “American Revolution” as an affirmation of the positive benefits of revolutionary thought and action. In this volume, we see how otherwise virtually unknown figures such as V. Bardají made propaganda and actively demonstrated on behalf of “Social Revolution” in Mexico and the United States. Likewise, José Cayetano Campos hoped that the Cuban revolt against Spanish domination could be transformed into a social revolution that would bring economic justice, dignity, and liberty. Pedro Esteve, the prolific Spanish anarchist, devoted his life to promoting social transformation during decades of writing. Similarly, Jaime Vidal perceived anarchist unions, labor organizing, and activism generally as necessary for revolutionary action. The following chapters clearly illustrate how the revolutionary spirit inspired the creation of many transnational Spanish-language anarchist periodicals. These periodicals not only connected but also inspired their readers and, for example, led women like Caritina Piña to actively participate in revolutionary social movements along the Texas border. They also informed readers of developments in the Mexican Revolution and Spanish Civil War that were extensively covered in their pages. And propaganda committees such as the CNT-FAI continued the revolutionary essence of Spanish anarchism in art and literature, capturing the public’s imagination. In some instances, even the mainstream press covered anarchist developments, as when Life magazine described the revolution underway in Barcelona as “not exactly like any other in history.”11 While for some exiles, such as Federico Arcos, the Spanish Civil War was the Spanish Revolution; for others, revolution was no longer imminent nor a sudden rupture with the established order. In the United States exile, the fight for social change involved a nuanced understanding of revolution and freedom for anarchists who ascribed to evolutionism rather than imminent insurgency. As Miguel Giménez Igualada stated in 1961, “we have learned that violence is insurrection, but that was not and will never be revolutionary … because there can be no revolution in the violent act that brings war and carries terror in its heart, because terror ends only in tyranny.”12 Similarly, González Malo claimed in 1965, “those who ought to watch over the good name of anarchism, are the first to discredit it, making

it appear as a Jacobin idea of the revolution by the revolution. Anarchism, as an ideal, is peace and is cooperation.”13 In this respect, González Malo was referring to the prefigurative belief among anarchists in the unity of means and ends. The relationship between evolution and revolution has preoccupied anarchist thinkers in trying to sustain revolutionary force but minimize the chances of producing new ways of oppression.

Historical Framework Writing Revolution includes essays that address Hispanic anarchist print culture between 1868 and 2015. These years span the time period from the early anarchist movement in 19th-century Spain and the Americas through the long life of the Spanish exile, Federico Arcos. This transnational militant history can be traced back to the early 19th century. After having published on science in Cuba from 1823 to 1835, Galician Ramón de la Sagra Peris became acquainted with Hippolyte Colins before his return to Europe. According to Miguel Iníguez, “Sagra is anarchism’s most obvious fore-runner in Spain and he devised an advanced theory concerning exploitation of the proletariat” combining Colins and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s collectivism in several publications.14 With Antolín Faraldo, he edited the first anarchist periodical, El Porvenir, in Santiago de Compostela in 1845.15 About twenty years later, during 1868, seminal developments in the international workers’ movement, political turmoil in Spain, and Cuban separatism all marked the emergence of a new antiauthoritarianism. Regarding the labor movement, in 1868 Mikhail Bakunin—in the midst of his tumultuous dispute with Karl Marx about the role of the state—sent emissaries to Barcelona and Madrid to establish the first official connection between the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) and the burgeoning workingclass movement in Spain.16 Within a short time, Giuseppe Fanelli acting on Bakunin’s behalf successfully established IWMA sections in both Madrid and Barcelona. These groups soon began publishing their own periodicals espousing antiauthoritarian and pro-worker ideology. In Barcelona during 1869, Rafael Farga Pellicer and Gaspar Sentiñón opened La Federación. The next year in Madrid,

Anselmo Lorenzo, Francisco Mora, and Tomás Morago established La Solidaridad.17 In 1870, these newly formed IWMA groups created a larger regional group, La Federación Regional Española.18 This nascent organizational structure and affiliated periodicals began to build solidarity and promote worker education, and in the process developed the foundation for what would become an anarchosyndicalist movement in Spain while advocating international social revolution. The year 1868 also witnessed the Glorious Revolution in Spain when Queen Isabella II lost an intense power struggle between republicans and supporters of monarchy; she fled to France where she spent the rest of her life. Despite the apparent success of the republican movement, the creation of a new Spanish constitution in 1869, and the establishment of the First Spanish Republic (1873– 1874), Spain soon reverted back to a monarchy with the coronation of King Alfonso XII, Isabella’s son, in late 1874. These events within a complex social and political dynamic ensured the continuation of an authoritarian monarchical government in Spain. And in Cuba during 1868, separatists led by the planter Carlos Manuel de Céspedes established the Republic of Cuba and commenced a ten-year battle for independence, a valiant effort that ended in their defeat with the signing of the Pact of Zanjon in 1878. The crumbling Spanish empire and the weakened Spanish state led to increased dissatisfaction among Spaniards at home, higher levels of emigration, and the emboldening of the long oppressed Spanish working class. Indeed, this was the age of worker activism and solidarity, resistance to the dehumanizing aspects of industrialization and standardization. Labor activism itself was part of a larger historical process requiring communication among workers and worker organizations and, as the world became increasingly smaller, periodicals served the purpose of establishing and maintaining an increasingly globalized labor movement. Seeking economic opportunity and political freedom in the Americas, Spaniards crossed the Atlantic while, in the Americas, Latinos more easily traversed borders. Although the conclusion of the Ten-Years War suggested a hiatus in the political and military conflict in Cuba, the labor movement

throughout the industrializing world intensified. This was particularly true in the United States where the eight-hour day movement was strong and became one issue upon which workers internationally agreed. This movement led to the infamous Haymarket Square protests of May 1, 1886, followed by the bombing of May 4, which resulted in several deaths and numerous injuries. In the United States, it was at Haymarket where the intersection of the labor activism and the anarchist movement literally erupted. Governmental authorities blamed anarchists for the Haymarket casualties and therefore easily overlooked the reasons why the protests had occurred in the first place. As is well known, the highly public and even more intensely politicized Haymarket trial resulted in the execution by hanging of Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, and Adolf Fischer. Of the remaining defendants, one committed suicide, two were sentenced to life in prison, and one was sentenced to fifteen years. The Haymarket Square trial, convictions, and executions became a powerful symbol in the transnational labor movement of injustice in the legal system and industrial society generally. This historical background—an international proletarian movement, Spain’s loss of empire and Cuba Libre, and aggressive labor activism in the United States—contributed to the emergence of an energetic and ambitious Hispanic anarchist movement and the chapters in this book. Writing Revolution is divided into five parts organized both chronologically and thematically and comprised of a series of well-researched and thoughtful essays. In Part I, “Transatlantic Origins,” two chapters explore the late-nineteenthcentury background of the Spanish-language anarchist print network. In tracing its early development, we know that it did not develop in a linear fashion from Spain to the Americas, but the influence of progressive and radical Spanish periodicals clearly influenced and buoyed many of those who became anarchists in both Spain and the Americas. Sergio Sánchez Collantes’s essay provides an important perspective on the emergence of freethinkers, radical republicans, and anarchists in Spain and how they interconnected with a burgeoning anarchist movement among Spanish speakers in the Americas. Through his careful examination of Las Dominicales del

Libre Pensamiento (The Sunday Supplement of Free Thought), Collantes analyzes the late-nineteenth-century freethinking anticlerical movement among Spanish republicans and describes Las Dominicales’ significant circulation in the United States; he also analyzes the essays it printed from United States correspondents reporting on events there. Significantly, Collantes identifies the oftenclose connections between republicans and anarchists who helped to establish the groundwork for a transnational anarchist print network. Next, Alejandro de la Torre examines pathbreaking anarchist correspondents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He focuses on three: V. Bardají from Catalonia; José Cayetano Campos from Cuba; and the Spanish anarchist Vicente Garcia whose efforts were instrumental in developing the Hispanic anarchist print network connecting the United States, Latin America, and Spain. Part II, “Latino Labor and Anarchism in the United States,” examines the intersection of anarchist thought and labor activism in Hispanic communities located in the United States during the late 19th through early 20th centuries. Gilded Age America was struggling with the powerful forces of industrialization and the concurrent labor movement. The Haymarket episode followed by the violent strike at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Mill and then the Pullman Palace Car Company strike in Chicago highlighted the struggle between labor and capital. This section begins with an essay by Christopher Castañeda expanding upon de la Torre’s examination of José C. Campos. A Brooklyn-based printer from Cuba, Campos helped to establish El Despertar (1892–1901), the long-lived New York–based Spanish language anarchist periodical. In his essays, Campos regularly referenced Haymarket, Homestead, and Pullman while addressing political and labor-related conflicts between Spanish anarchists and Cuban separatists during the 1890s, leading up to the Spanish American War (1898). These tensions, which Campos often tried to ameliorate, exposed deep rifts in the Latino anarchist community, and they provide insight into the increasingly separate Cuban and Spanish identities. Next, Kirwin Shaffer explores the development of anarchist networks in Florida during the late 19th through early 20th century, particularly among

the radical cigar makers of Ybor City (Tampa). Shaffer shows how Florida was part of a transnational print network that linked anarchist political and labor struggles throughout the Caribbean, particularly Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Susana Sueiro Seoane then analyzes the ways in which Pedro Esteve, the well-known and influential anarchist and printer from Barcelona then living in Paterson, New Jersey, sought to organize Spanish tobacco workers and seamen through his periodical, Cultura Obrera; Sueiro pays careful attention to the organizational dilemma that affected anarchist groups. In the following chapter, Jon Bekken and Mario Martin Revellado continue this theme by demonstrating how Hispanic labor radicalism in the early twentieth century developed; the authors focus on Spanish seamen and their important role in the Marine Transport Workers (MTW) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). These largely unknown workers struggled to improve working conditions, engaged in labor action—including the Strike of 1912—and helped to create print networks for the IWW during the second decade of the 20th century. In Part III, Anarquistas on the Frontier, three chapters examine the expansion of the Spanish-language anarchist press in the American midwest and west. While Hispanic anarchists were more prevalent and active on the East Coast, they also moved west, extending their ideas and influence across the United States. Castañeda begins with an essay on the interaction between Spanish and Mexican anarchists, focusing on Spanish anarchist and journalist Jaime Vidal and his relationship with Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican Revolution. Sonia Hernández then explains the ways in which anarchist principles informed gender roles. Based in the TexasMexico borderlands, Caritina Piña was an activist correspondent and essayist in the struggle for labor rights generally, as well as for women’s rights, framed within the context of “the great human family.” The final chapter in this part, by Jesse Cohn, discusses the appearance of anarcho-syndicalist communities in the United States industrial Midwest and, with a focus on the anarchist paper Revista Única (Unique Magazine), those that were outside of the heavily populated eastern urban-industrial areas but still adhered to basic

anarchist principles and contributed significantly to the anarchist print network through a unique survey of anarchism. In the fourth section, “Imagining a New World,” three authors examine the ways in which anarchist writers and periodicals presented new ways of thinking about life and social problems in the modernizing world. Jorell Meléndez-Badillo writes about Max Nettlau, the German historian often described as the “Herodotus of Anarchy” who played an inestimable role in the chronicling and dissemination of anarchist ideas in Europe and the Americas, particularly Latin America. Significantly, Meléndez-Badillo points out that Nettlau viewed Latin America as an “ethnolinguistic entity beyond nation-states.” The next chapter, by María José Domínguez and Antonio Herrería Fernández, brings into focus the influential Spanish anarchist periodical, La Revista Blanca (The White Magazine), Spain’s longest running anarchist periodical of the early 20th century with distribution to the United States. Domínguez and Herrería Fernández explore the ways in which U.S.-based Hispanic anarchists and anarchist activities, particularly in relation to education influenced by Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia’s modern school, were reported in Spain. The final chapter, by Javier Navarro Navarro, traces the connections of the renowned anarchist periodical Estudios (published in Valencia between 1928–1937) to the Americas. Navarro’s essay shows how this newspaper contributed to the ongoing transnational anarchist print network by addressing progressive, if not controversial, issues—including sex education, birth control, and eugenics—that were heavily influenced by the anarchist and anarcho-naturist movements. In Part V, “Spanish Civil War and Exile,” three essays investigate the ways in which anarchists in the United States were affected by and dealt with the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, King Alfonso XIII (1886–1941), who had been regent from birth, went into self-exile after the elections of 1931 in which voters chose a republican government over monarchy. But the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) was short lived. During July 1936, elements of the Spanish army began an uprising that quickly spread. After three years of intense fighting that included the only official contingent of anarchists in a major war, General Francisco Franco (1892–1975)

emerged victorious and commenced a thirty-six-year military dictatorship. Michel Otayek’s chapter begins this section by exploring the print and graphic propaganda that anarchists used to promote their cause during the Spanish Civil War. Otayek argues that, ultimately and as engaging as some of this propaganda appeared to be, the efforts of some members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labor) to build support in the United States for the Spanish Republican cause ultimately failed due to its inability to connect with anarchist groups or even a sympathetic U.S. public. Next, Montse Feu examines the anarchist literature in the periodical España Libre, published by the Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (Confederation of Hispanic Societies, or SHC). Jesús González Malo edited the periodical for many years and devoted his life in New York to assist Spanish exiles and continue the anti-Franco resistance in the United States. During his tenure, several anarchist contributors published essays, poetry, theater, and short stories that attempted to rearticulate postwar anarchism. The volume concludes with David Watson’s account of the life and legacy of the Spanish exile Federico Arcos whose career in many ways crossed paths with all the topics and themes related to the evolution of anarchism covered in this book. Importantly, Arcos had devoted much of his life to collecting anarchist materials that now constitute a major archive of anarchist literature at the Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya; his efforts at collecting were vital to maintaining a record of what would otherwise be permanently lost. In conclusion, a brief epilogue emphasizes that the legacy of Hispanic anarchist print culture cannot be reduced to largely forgotten historical artifacts filed away in archives; anarchist ideals have continued to engage readers and the public in print, language, and thought. Two appendixes provide lists of selected periodicals and archives (not exclusive to these chapters) to further document the circulation of Spanish-language anarchist newspapers from and to the United States.

Historiographic Context Writing Revolution is the first book-length study of U.S. Hispanic anarchism that details how the transnational Spanish-speaking

anarchist print network developed and engaged anarchists in New York, Madrid, Havana, Tampa, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Barcelona, among many other communities in Latin America, Spain, and the United States. As a whole, this collection demonstrates how Spanish-speaking people widely dispersed over time and space found solidarity and maintained their radical culture through print communication and organizing. Contributing authors from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States have situated anarchism in a global perspective while also showing how international developments were understood in local contexts. There has been much work on ethnic anarchism in the United States published in the last decade; however, none has comprehensively examined Spanish-speaking anarchists here in relation to their transnational networks. Ultimately, our transnational research puts scholars of Iberian anarchism in conversation with those of Latino anarchism about topics that have been barely explored in English. We therefore suggest that this volume itself breaks boundaries heretofore highly evident in the study of anarchism and Hispanic anarchism in particular. At its core, this book contextualizes U.S. Hispanic anarchist history, culture, and legacy as a vital part of the transnational anarchist press and network. Indeed, it was the proliferation of periodicals that provided the essential communication network among freethinking peoples spread over vast distances. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the remnants of the anarchist press represent the most significant source of historical information about many historical anarchist enclaves. As Kenyon Zimmer cogently stated, “The printed word created a transnational community of anarchists and transmitted the movement’s ideology across space while sustaining collective identities across time. Affiliation with the movement and with factions within it often rested on attachments to specific periodicals rather than formal organizations.”19 This volume proves that print culture was instrumental in establishing a transnational community of Hispanic anarchists and disseminating the movements’ ideology in the United States, as also described in the work of Lily Litvak and Davide Turcato.20

Writing Revolution investigates these multidirectional connections and disconnections between individuals, societies, and nations made possible by the anarchist press. As Davide Turcato noted, anarchists’ informal organizations require scholars to look widely: The historian cannot simply look for congresses, party programs, and party structures, but rather has to examine the dense network of links between individuals and groups to study how anarchism functioned as a collective movement. In the sustained and multi-directional personal links between individuals and groups one can find the coordination and continuity that is usually looked for in the impersonal structure and fixed roles of formal organization.21 And as with other ethnic groups, rather than protest per se, anarchists created attractive and cohesive countercultures.22 This volume has recovered forgotten histories of not only notorious figures, but of Spanish-speaking enclaves that are now dispersed only at institutional and personal archives across the country and embodied in leaflets, theater performances, art, monuments, and rallies. This recovery counters the erasure of common people and workers from social history and literature. It shows how ideas and culture are also transferred and transformed collectively by transient people. In this regard, Writing Revolution connects the major figures of anarchist historiography with lesser-known actors, making the community and its daily contributions more visible. This volume on Hispanic anarchist print culture supplements a variety of research on Hispanic anarchism in the United States. For example, seminal publications of the 1980s and 1990s include Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzeta’s “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa, Florida, 1886–1931” (1986); H. Rafael Chabrán’s “Spaniards” (1987); Paul Avrich’s Anarchist Portraits (1988); and Joan Casanovas i Codina’s “Pedro Esteve. A Catalan Anarchist in the United States” (July 1991).23 In the 2000s, more work followed, such as Paul Avrich’s The Modern School Movement. Anarchism and Education in the United States (2006) and critically important work on Latina anarchists: Luisa Capetillo’s A Nation of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out (2004) with Félix V. Matos Rodríguez’s introduction; and Gale Ahrens and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Lucy

Parsons: Freedom, Equality and Solidarity—Writing and Speeches, 1878–1937 (2004).24 More recent publications on U.S. Hispanic anarchism in the United States include: Kirwin Shaffer’s Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897–1921 (2013); Shelley Streeby’s Radical Sensations: World Movements, Violence, and Visual Culture (2013); Jorell Meléndez-Badillo’s Voces libertarias: Orígenes del anarquismo en Puerto Rico (2014, 2015); Jacinto Barrera Bassols’s, ed., Complete Works of Ricardo Flores Magón (2000–2016); Claudio Lomnitz’s The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magnón (2014); James Baer’s Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015); and Montse Feu’s Jesús González Malo Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado (1950–1965) (2016).25 New publications continue to enlarge the archival research on Spanish-language anarchists in the United States. For example, see David Struthers’s The World in a City (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019), which recovers Los Angeles as a global center for the anarchist and syndicalist Spanishlanguage press between 1912 and 1917; Castañeda’s “‘Yours for the Revolution’: Cigar Makers, Anarchists and Brooklyn’s Spanish Colony, 1878–1925”;26 as well as Montse Feu’s forthcoming manuscript on the periodical España Libre, which unveils a robust cultural world that sustained the strength of Spanish anarchists’ antifascism in the United States during the Spanish Civil War and the Francisco Franco dictatorship. Our focus on Spanish-speaking anarchists and anarchism in the United States complements studies of other ethnic and regional groups. For example, Italian anarchists have been addressed in the work of Jennifer Guglielmo, Davide Turcato, and Travis Tomchuk, among others.27 Kenyon Zimmer has also written on Italian and Yiddish anarchists, and Tom Goyens has explored German anarchists.28 By expanding the ethnic coverage of these and other works, the essays in this volume on Spanish-speaking anarchists will add to the growing literature on this topic by scholars from Latin America, Spain, and the United States.29

The essays in Writing Revolution anthologize the complexity of the political, social, geographical, and literary legacies of U.S. Hispanic anarchism. Latino anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists did not live and work in a culturally delineated vacuum, and this volume uncovers the networks, interactions, disputes, and friendships that traversed national and ethnic borders and fostered emancipation as well as community building. Ultimately, the following essays highlight the continuity of radical U.S. Latino history and culture from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first century within the context of an industrializing and increasingly technologic world. As inequality and oppression are intrinsically related to historical context, our study examines the evolution of anarchist thought and practice, reflecting resistance to social and economic inequalities in Spain, Latin America, and the United States, but always interacting across ever-receding borders of time and space. Notes 1. We use the term Hispanic when referring to linguistic and cultural identities in Latin America, Spain, and the United States. This usage does not deny other terms employed historically and currently to designate local and global identities and heritages. 2. The subtitle is a tribute to José Moya, “Transnationalism from Below: Anarchism in the Atlantic World, 1880–1914,” presented at the New School for Social Research, November 19, 2009, as well as the Thompsonian tradition of writing history “from below” (Edward Palmer Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1963). 3. For example, see Rosina Lozano, An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018). 4. James P. Danky, “The Oppositional Press,” in The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, ed. David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson, vol. 5 of A History of the Book in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); also see James L. Baughman, et al., Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent since 1865 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016).

5. See Bert Hofmann, Pere Joan i Tous y Manfred Tietz, eds., El Anarquismo español y sus tradiciones culturales (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 1995) and Constance Bantman and Bert Altena, ed., “Introduction: Problematizing Scales of Analysis in NetworkBased Social Movements,” in Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies (Oakland: PM Press, 2017). See also Nicolás Kanellos, “Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals in Early Twentieth Century United States,” in James L. Baughman, et al., Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent since 1865 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015). 6. José Moya, “Anarchism,” in Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunder, eds., The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the mid-19th Century to the Present Day (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 39–41. 7. Nicolás Kanellos, Hispanic Immigrant Literature: El sueño del Retorno (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 34. 8. Benedict Anderson, The Age of Globalization: Anarchists and the Anticolonial Imagination (London: Verso, 2013), 2. 9. See Aviva Chomsky and Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago, eds., Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); José Álvarez-Junco, Spanish Identity in the Age of Nations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011); John M. Nieto-Phillips, The Language of Blood: The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004); and George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 10. For Spanish migration, see Ana Varela-Lago and Phylis Cancilla Martinelli, eds., Hidden Out in the Open: Spanish Migration to the United States, 1875–1930 (Denver: University Press of Colorado, 2018); James D. Fernández, “The Discovery of Spain in New York, circa 1929,” in Nueva York: 1613–1945, Edward Sullivan, ed. (New-York Historical Society: SCALA, 2010), 216–233. For migrant and native research, a point of start is the recovery

scholarship produced by scholars linked to the prestigious Recovering the Hispanic Literary Heritage project directed by Nicolás Kanellos and Carolina Villarroel. 11. Ibid., 37. 12. Giménez Igualada, Los caminos del hombre (Mexico: CostaAmic, 1961), 85. 13. Jesús González Malo, Letter to Juan Manuel Molina Mateo, Jan. 2, 1965, in Montse Feu, Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado: Jesús González Malo, 1950–1965 (Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, 2016). Molina Mateo is also known for his pseudonym, Juanel. He is the author of five books about Spanish anarchism, including Noche sobre España. Siete años en las prisiones de Franco (Mexico: Mex. Editores, 1958), which is a testimony of the repression under the regime. 14. Miguel Iñíguez, Extracts from A Historical Encyclopedia of Spanish Anarchism, Trans. Paul Sharkey, 300. http://www.christiebooks.com/PDFs/Encyclopedia1.pdf (accessed February 12, 2019). 15. Antón Costa Rico, “Ramón de la Sagra. Un protosocialista hispano ante el desarrollo eduativo. Lecturas y preciosiones,” Hispania (2008): 228, 193–210, 206. 16. George Richard Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working-Class Movement in Spain, 1868–1898 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 14–15. 17. Ibid., 17, 29. 18. Josep Termes, Historia del anarquismo en España (1870– 1980) (Barcelona: RBA Libros, S.A., 2011), 45–62. 19. Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 4. 20. Lily Litvak, Musa Libertaria. Arte, Literatura y Vida Cultural del Anarquismo Español, 1880–1913 (Madrid: Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001) and Davide Turcato, “Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement, 1885–1915,” International Review of Social History, Vol. 52, No. 3 (December 2007), 407–444. 21. Davide Turcato, Making Sense of Anarchism, Errico Malatesta’s Experiments with Revolution, 1889–1900 (Chico, Calif.:

AK Press, 2015). 22. Jesse Cohn, Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture, 1848–2011 (Oakland: AK Press, 2014). 23. Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzeta’s “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa, Florida, 1886–1931,” ed. Dirk Hoerder, “Struggle a Hard Battle”: Essays on Working-Class Immigrants (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), 170–198; H. Rafael Chabrán, “Spaniards,” Dirk Hoerder, ed., The Immigrant Labor Press in North America 1840s-1970s (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press Inc., 1987), 152–190; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Joan Casanovas i Codina, “Pedro Esteve. A Catalan Anarchist in the United States,” Catalan Review 5, 1 (July 1991): 57–77. 24. Jacqueline Jones’s Goddess of Anarchy: The Life of Times of Lucy Parsons (New York: Basic Books, 2017) claims Parsons was African-American but invented her Hispanic maiden name. Also see Vicki L. Ruiz and Virginia Sánchez Korrol, eds., Latinas in the United States. A Historical Encyclopedia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Bieito Alonso’s “Migración y sindicalismo. Marineros y anarquistas españoles en Nueva York (1902–1930),” Historia Social 54 (2006): 113–135; and Kirwin Shaffer, Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (Oakland: PM Press, 2005). 25. Also see Evan Matthew Daniel’s “Rolling for the Revolution. A Transnational History of Cuban Cigar Makers in Havana, Florida, and New York City, 1853–1895” (Diss. The New School, 2010); Nicolás Kanellos, “Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals in Early Twentieth-Century United States,” in Protest on the Page (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2014), 59–84; Susana Sueiro Seoane’s “Inmigrantes y anarquistas españoles en EEUU (1890–1920),” in Conflictos y cicatrices: fronteras y migraciones en el mundo hispánico, coord. Almudena Delgado (Madrid: Dykinson, 2014); and Chris Castañeda’s “‘Those Were Times of Propaganda and Struggle’: El Despertar and Brooklyn’s Spanish Anarchists, 1890– 1905,” in Radical Gotham: Anarchism in City (1870–2011), ed. Tom Goyens (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017).

26. Christopher J. Castañeda, “Yours for the Revolution: Cigar Makers, Anarchists and Brooklyn’s Spanish Colony, 1878–1925,” Varela-Lago and Cancilla Martinelli, eds., Hidden Out in the Open. 27. See Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880–1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Davide Turcato, Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico Malatesta’s Experiments with Revolution, 1889–1900 (Oakland: AK Press, 2015); and Travis Tomchuk, Transnational Radicals: Italian Anarchists in Canada and the U.S., 1915–1940 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015). 28. Zimmer, Immigrants against the State, and Tom Goyens, Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007). 29. See, James A. Baer, Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015); Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer, eds., In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015); Jorell A. Meléndez, Voces Libertarias: Origenes del anarquismo en Puerto Rico (Bloomington: Secret Sailor Press, 2013); and Montse Feu, Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado: Jesús González Malo, 1950–1965 (Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, 2016).

PART I

Transatlantic Origins

CHAPTER 1

Spanish Republicanism and the Press The Political Socialization of Anarchists in the United States (1880s–1910s) SERGIO SÁNCHEZ COLLANTES It is well known that the press played a fundamental role in the politicization of anarchist workers across the United States, but the fact that anarchist papers specifically were not the only means to do this is less well known. Freethinking and federal republican publications also influenced anarchists’ ideological formation and social practices. These papers, however, did reflect certain principles that were common to anarchism, such as anticlerical critiques, a great trust in reason, and the celebration of liberty in a broad sense. This chapter focuses on the distribution and circulation of Spanish freethinking newspapers in Spanish-speaking anarchist communities in the United States, presenting a new line of inquiry into Hispanic anarchism and its transnational networks. In the second half of nineteenth-century Spain, republicanism, especially federalist republicanism, served as an antechamber where many future leaders of anarchism received their political education. Recent studies have analyzed their “double militancy,” encouraged in spaces of socialization such as secular schools, which facilitated the confluence and formation of individuals as well as diverse groups having leftist political inclinations at the turn of the century. Spanish migrants to the United States carried with them a set of values, symbols, and social practices that owed much to this republican imprint. The freethinking movement that crystalized at the end of the nineteenth century constitutes an excellent example of this confluence of ideas. This movement garnered the sympathies of many republicans, socialists, anarchists, masons, and other dissidents who shared the heterodox theses of its main mouthpiece, the weekly journal Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento (The Sunday Supplement of Free Thought). Edited between 1883 and 1909 in Madrid, this paper was well known across Spain. Selfdescribed as republican, the newspaper’s interests went beyond politics. Thanks to its firm defense of religious liberty, its stance

against fanaticism, its irreverent and anticlerical critiques, and its habitual publication of notices of civil (nonreligious) celebrations of rites of passage (births, marriages, and deaths), which also contributed to their normalization, the weekly periodical enjoyed the favor of all who opposed the influence of the Catholic church and other traditional powers in Spanish society and culture. Anarchists clearly empathized with such social and familial practices, as is evidenced in the various letters written to the paper. The weekly was also read in the United States, where its New York correspondent wrote essays that constituted an exceptional historical source of information about transnational politics. Street posters advertised Las Dominicales in New York, where it was supported by a group of subscribers and readers. Spanish (and other Spanish-speaking) factory workers participated in the paper’s campaign and subscription drives, spreading its discourses in a country that the paper’s editors clearly admired and idealized for its progress, particularly in contrast to that of Spain. Given the central role of the nineteenth-century press in the formation of public opinion, the circulation of a journal such as Las Dominicales among Spanishspeaking workers who were sympathetic to freethinking and, in many cases, had embraced, or would soon embrace, anarchism, cannot be overstated. Its presence contributed heterodox standpoints, strengthened ideals, helped reinforce sentiments of belonging, and encouraged the formation of collective identities of immigrants whose political dissidence ranged across various philosophical schools and who maintained ties with their country of origin despite the many other factors that enriched and transformed their cultural baggage on United States soil. In sum, this chapter develops two analytical perspectives: first, the relationship between republican culture and anarchism in Spain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which a freethinking environment conducive for the political socialization of many libertarians took place; second, the continuity of those relations in the United States, as seen in the diffusion and reception of the journal Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento. As Pere Gabriel has explained, “anarchism arises in Spain in the context of a democratic and republican popular political culture,” which facilitated

“continuity of [its] complex relations with republicanism and freethought.”1

Between Anarchism and Republicanism For many decades, scholars and researchers (with significant, albeit few, exceptions), have analyzed Spanish republicanism and Spanish anarchism as if they had always been two exclusive political ideologies.2 But recent years have witnessed a growing awareness in academia of the nuanced complexity and closeness of these movements, particularly in their militant bases. Anarchism in Spain, as in the rest of Europe, grew exponentially after the creation of the International Workingmen’s Association (1864)—notwithstanding other factors and antecedents, explored by Clara E. Lida.3 The first groups to join internationalism, in 1869, were integrated by supporters of federal republicanism, which was quite popular among the Spanish working classes.4 In fact, the symbiosis and common ground between internationalism and federal republicanism was so significant that it is not easy to determine where one ended and the other began.5 This is clear in Manuel Morales Muñoz’s examination of the “pairing” that took place between republicanism and internationalism, and other authors have also referred to followers’ “double militancy.”6 Many workers were politically socialized in the ranks of republicanism, and in later years, a great number of these republican workers, especially federalist republicans, ended up in the leading cadres of anarchist and socialist organizations. A growing number of local studies and microhistories have uncovered—and continue to uncover—individual trajectories that illustrate this complex process, showing that these leaders retained multiple cultural referents and personal ties from their republican days.7 The process was gradual, and it was more logical than it would seem at first. This does not mean that it reflected an inexorable path or evolution but merely that it was taken by a great number of ideologically and politically committed workers. After all, the oppositional values that impregnated socialist as well as anarchist movements across the peninsula were aligned with what was essentially Spanish “republicanism’s moral code.”8

Despite the ideological differences known to all, as well as the doctrinal confrontations among leaders and theorists, multiple elements encouraged the confluence of republican and anarchist militants. On the one hand, they shared common values: the belief in reason as the key to attain knowledge; the emancipatory power attributed to education; the defense of secularism and the rejection of clericalism; and the conceptualization of history as progress. These shared values, clearly laid out in the first detailed studies on Spanish anarchism,9 were key hallmarks of identity for both movements’ bases.10 Federalist republicans were particularly committed to secularization, refusing to accept anything but the strictest separation between Church and State, and federalist republican bases’ adamant anticlericalism had an undeniably “filoanarchist” tone.11 Its active struggle against the asphyxiating hegemony of the Catholic Church even led Emma Goldman to commend Spanish republicanism.12 Other common elements included a desire (however limited) to improve women’s social and political situation,13 an interest in Esperanto, and a particular critique of alcohol consumption.14 Federal republicanism, with its advocacy for local citizen associations and popular political participation as well as its rejection of a strong state, lent itself especially well to libertarian reinterpretations. Pedro Esteve, “the most influential Spanish anarchist in the United States,”15 and whose life and texts are addressed in other chapters of this book, wrote in a very popular pamphlet that “the free and bilateral commutative pact, as Francesc Pi i Margall used to say, must be the tie that binds individuals and groups.”16 Needless to say, Pi i Margall was the most important Spanish federalist republican politician, as well as its most prominent intellectual. Republicans and anarchists, moreover, employed a common language, which does not fit neatly into the political categories drawn by scholars that necessarily simplify the messiness of reality. This common language was evidenced in the 1885 surveys carried out among the popular classes in accordance with a mandate issued by the country’s Social Reforms Commission. The data from Gijón, a city with a strong presence of federalist republicanism, as well as a

considerable anarchist presence in later years, is both revealing and relevant.17 The respondents surveyed at the Ateneo Obrero (Worker’s Athenaeum) defined themselves politically as republican, while admitting that they felt “a profound antipathy towards the other social classes” and that they “hated the bourgeoisie.”18 Andalusian works also displayed a “socializing” republicanism characterized by antiauthoritarian tendencies, class consciousness, and certain social aspirations.19 In Pere Gabriel’s words, “one thing was the dominant elite, and another, republicanism’s bases.”20 On the other hand, working-class activists and intellectuals saw republicanism as another tool with which “to pursue their interests and social aspirations.”21 Indeed, the social reforms included in the Spanish federalists’ political program went well beyond the territorial articulation of the state. They had debated an ambitious program of reforms as early as 1872, which was quite advanced for their time.22 Even Engels praised Pi i Margall for “supporting the workers’ republic” and for submitting proposals to benefit workers and bring about social advances.23 According to Ángeles Barrio, the federalist program, updated in 1894, offered an “ideological referent of combat and opposition to workers that were skeptical of the political influence of suffrage.”24 Therefore, federalism became a platform that galvanized and agglutinated the discontent of an important segment of the popular classes vis-à-vis the “hegemonic political cultures.”25 The estrangement between workerism and republicanism, which the historiography has usually placed in the early 1870s, took many more decades to occur. Duarte, for instance, observed early on that the interaction between anarchism and republicanism survived through the press, masonic lodges, lay schools, and the celebration of the 1st of May, among other such instances.26 Thus, the supposed depoliticization that characterized the Spanish working class after this period, which was attributed to workers’ disappointment with republicanism,27 must have other causes. Indeed, new, locally focused research on later republicanism suggests that republican organizations continued influencing the workers’ movement, in both its anarchist as well as socialist

expressions. According to José Antonio Piqueras, these ties were reinforced after the Monarchic Restoration of 1875 “through a common political culture of resistance and contestation to oppression” that helped forge a popular identity of indefinite outlines.28

Freethinking: A Universe of Confluence Many republicans, socialists, and anarchists converged in the freethinking movement, a complex collection of dissidents that welcomed heterodox thinkers from diverse backgrounds (including masons, atheists, deists, and spiritualists), which vigorously censored clericalism and attempted to break with well-established Judeo-Christian customs, disregarding social conventions. The Spanish constitutional and juridical framework, which at that time was hostile to all these ideas, unintentionally encouraged this type of convergence. And yet, a similar phenomenon has been documented in other places, such as France and Puerto Rico.29 Morales Muñoz described the terrain of freethinking as “a crisscrossing of identities” that encouraged participation in common spaces and activities.30 Indeed, notwithstanding the rivalries that arose regarding initiatives that each sector wanted to capitalize as their own, interaction and exchange were constant: in protests, marches, lay schools, publications, and so forth.31 Pedro Esteve spoke of the relevance and need of this interaction between movements that sought to expand rationalism in the face of superstition and the noxious influence of positivist religions: “We are concerned with enlightening the obfuscated minds of men, women and children through conferences, newspapers, books, and rationalist schools. We are not alone in this labor, for it is also carried out by various freethinkers and some socialists … and this is the true evolution.”32 During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this conglomerate of free- thinking Spanish dissidents had a significant mouthpiece, ally, and communicator in the weekly paper Las Dominicales del Librepensamiento. This republican and freethinking newspaper was printed in Madrid between 1883 and 1909, and was directed by Fernando Lozano, alias Demófilo, and Ramón Chíes, a

federalist whose defense of liberty at every level must have been dear to any anarchist’s heart: “The only liberty that can create social happiness is egalitarian liberty.”33 One of the paper’s most popular writers, Odón de Buen, proudly practiced what most freethinkers preached: “I have dealt with liberals, republicans, socialists, platonic anarchists, masons, spiritualists, without belonging to any sect.” 34 Las Dominicales offers an ideal space to analyze the lasting symbiosis of anarchism and republicanism. This weekly was published during that essential period in which a significant number of workers—and their progenies—who had been politically educated in the republican ranks began slipping into openly libertarian stances. It is not hard to find anarchists who would later evoke the fascination that reading this newspaper produced in them.35 Las Dominicales is also useful for exploring the presence of women in Spanish free thought; the weekly had a considerable number of female readers as well as writers. In 1887, a young and still single Teresa Mañé sent a letter declaring her sympathy for the paper’s underlying ideas (“I’m a freethinker”) and denounced the fear that many of her female peers felt at expressing heterodox ideas: “Many, very many women think like me … but they are afraid to say so.”36 Other letters sent to Las Dominicales are quite instructive regarding the porosity of the categories that historians so often perceive as mutually exclusive. In 1905, for instance, a group of female workers wrote, “Whether we call ourselves anarchists, collectivists, [or] socialists, what is tried and true is that workers are freethinkers, that we hate clericalism, that we want civil marriage, civil burials, and lay birth registrations. Moreover, can there be any doubt regarding our republicanism?”37 Women’s emancipation from the Church’s tutelage was one of the paper’s main objects. This goal was part of what Dolores Ramos has called “turn-of-the-century lay feminism,” which sought to construct models of womanhood that went beyond the submissive virgin, wife, and mother.38 It was in those same environs, where freethinkers of various sectors found a common ground, that Teresa Claramunt became politicized.39

The Spanish Republican Press in the United States

The role played by republicanism in the political socialization of Spanish workers is also evident in the Spanish immigrant communities in the United States. Linkages across the sea, and across movements, were maintained and encouraged through letters and the circulation of political writings, including books, pamphlets, and newspapers, all of which reveal very active transnational relations. As Susana Sueiro Seoane has argued, we cannot understand the impact and meaning of anarchism during that period if we do not analyze it as a transnational network.40 Federalist republican Pi i Margall’s library provides eloquent evidence, with its copy of A los anarquistas de España y Cuba (To the Anarchists of Spain and Cuba), which, given its handwritten and affectionate dedication, was more than likely sent from the United States by its author, Pedro Esteve.41 In this same essay, Esteve wrote about the power of the anarchist press while documenting the 1893 Anarchist Conference held in Chicago: “One of the best and most economic tools for propaganda and agitation is the newspaper, whose columns can be used for education campaigns, and at the same time, so that those who work for our cause can communicate with each other.”42 But they could not always rely on their own press, whose circulation was limited and sometimes even legally (or extralegally) hampered. Thus, they relied on newspapers of somewhat compatible views, including those of freethinkers.43 Las Dominicales was part of this international network of communication and propaganda. Starting in 1885, the “administrative correspondence” section reveals that it was sent to several cities across the United States (New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and so forth), and that its readership reproduced the readers and sympathizers that it had in Spain.44 Thus, renowned anarchists such as Pedro Esteve read the paper, as evidenced by a letter that he sent in 1894. In it, Esteve rectified some statements made by Las Dominicales regarding the supposed moderation that was bound to transform anarchism’s strategies and action.45 The weekly published a series of books entitled “Freethought Library” that many of the paper’s subscribers sent for and received. There are requests for books from New York,46 for instance, while subscribers from Tampa ordered dozens

of copies of the Almanaque Civil de Librepensadores (Civil Almanac of Freethinkers).47 Las Dominicales ran plenty of ads for other libertarian works, such as Errico Malatesta’s La Anarquía (Anarchy),48 widely read in the United States at the time, contributing to the diffusion of anarchist theory and thought. The weekly was sent not only to its subscribers in these U.S. cities—various extra copies of each week’s edition were also distributed widely. We can surmise Las Dominicales’ popularity in some American cities from requests to increase the number of these extra copies, such as that of the paper’s distributor in Tampa.49 The paper’s New York correspondent, R. G. Socorro, printed red posters announcing Las Dominicales and posted them in various corners across the city. The editors thanked him for his efforts, commenting that “each day, [the paper] acquires more readers in that blessed land of freedom.”50 In some cases, individual subscriptions to the newspaper were paid for by other groups or individuals across the Atlantic. For example, Manuel A. Martínez, who was based in New York, paid the yearly subscription for several republican and worker associations in Pontevedra.51 The subscription base provides one eloquent example of the transatlantic connections embodied in Las Dominicales. The paper published many letters and telegrams sent by readers, subscribers, organizations, and other papers, allowing us to trace freethinking groups across the geography of the paper’s readership. These communications intensified in the months that preceded a relevant international congress.52 The 1892 Conference of Freethinkers celebrated in Madrid received the endorsement of the New York City paper The Truth Seeker via Las Dominicales. Other New York–based journals, including El Progreso (Progress) as well as, El Pensamiento Contemporáneo (Contemporary Thought), also declared their support for the Madrid conference—the latter, through the words of its director, Antonio Llano.53 Readers even sent donations to help with the event’s organization to Las Dominicales’ offices. Such was the case of various “friends” from Jacksonville (Florida), founders of the Sociedad de Instrucción y Socorros Mutuos Robert Ingersoll (Society of Instruction and Mutual Aid Robert

Ingersoll), which sought to recruit “all the Spaniards who reside in this city” into their organization named in honor of the renowned American freethinker.54 But the bulk of the correspondence had nothing to do with the congresses. In 1893, when Ramón Chíes died, fourteen Spanish workers who resided in Tampa sent a letter of condolence along with a donation for the erection of a monument in the journalist’s honor.55 R. G. Socorro, the paper’s New York correspondent, seems to have maintained close ties with workers’ circles, according to several initiatives that he promoted. In 1885, for instance, he visited the four main tobacco factories in New York and Brooklyn to convince their workers to collaborate with a relief fund that the newspaper set up to assist the families afflicted by cholera and hunger in Murcia. Socorro’s campaign led to the formation of a fund-raising commission, of which he was a member, that gathered an important collection among Spanish-speaking workers. The funds were solicited “in the name of Las Dominicales,” which suggests that the newspaper was well known by these workers and that it had a significant number of sympathizers.56 Those who supported this mutual aid, moreover, sent a letter stating that the collection had been carried out among “Spanish and Hispanic American workers,” and claimed that the newspaper was read in their workshops.57 The weekly published a list with the names of the workers that had contributed, as well as the large sums that had been collected in New York’s Spanish lodge La Universal No. 751 and which were sent by the venerable teacher Vicente Guerra, who enclosed a letter explaining that the majority of the lodge’s members were artisans and workers. Other letter writers during this fund-raising campaign included Sandalio Peña, E. Palmeiro and Lisardo Carás.58 In another such instance, such as the devastating 1891 floods in southeastern Spain, overseas Spanish communities, particularly those in New York and Tampa, sent significant sums of money to the office of Las Dominicales. Thanking “the virtue of the overseas freethinkers,” the weekly acknowledged the ideological affinity of those who collaborated in the fund-raisers.59

The correspondent also documented an apparent conflict that took place when a group of Spanish workers asked that the Spanish Church administer the relief funds collected in one of Las Dominicales fund-raisers. According to Socorro, other workers opposed this group with phrases such as “Neither the authorities nor the clergy deserve our trust.” In his article, the correspondent underlined the need to generate a philanthropy that was an alternative to that predicated by the Catholic Church: “Charity is not the prerogative of any political system or nationality, nor of any particular religion.”60 Given their generosity, New York freemasons were praised in the weekly paper—which shows again that free thought provided a space where multiple sympathies and belief systems coincided.61 Importantly, renowned anarchists who were also freemasons, such as Anselmo Lorenzo, Josep Llunas y Pujals, and José López Montenegro, occupied important leadership positions in their lodges. Montenegro was a rationalist teacher whose impassioned speeches imprinted his whole lodge with a libertarian character.62 Unsurprisingly, Pedro Esteve regarded freemason lodges as spaces where anarchists could help expand their emancipatory ideals: Some join the Ateneos, others cooperate in freethinking societies, while there are those who work in freemasonry, and some even slip inside political clubs when they have the chance. And yet, they join these corporations—which are bourgeois par excellence—not denying who they are but upholding themselves as anarchists. They join them precisely to make us known, to make known where we are going and what we want.63 Las Dominicales contained additional workers’ affirmations, such as when it announced a meeting held by the Tampa factory workers “to defend themselves from capitalism’s unprecedented abuse.” La Federación (The Federation), newspaper of the tobacco workers’ anarchist-dominated union, was cited, and the announcement concluded that the workers’ “conduct must be imitated everywhere.”64 Workers also reproduced complaints by local newspapers, such as La Justicia (Justice), regarding the persecution suffered by combative workers, encouraging them to continue their

struggle, for, after all, “[w]ithout it, there will be no proletarian emancipation.”65 Predictably, Las Dominicales was read by factory workers, as the letters sent by Tampa tobacco workers to the weekly reveal.66 In 1893, the paper also applauded the liberation of the three remaining anarchist defendants who had been serving life sentences for the Haymarket Affair in Chicago during 1886, stating that justice had finally been made after a process plagued with irregularities.67 Las Dominicales exchanged copies with other New York City papers published in Spanish, such as the weekly journal El Progreso,68 which it described as “representing freethought in America more genuinely than anybody;”69 El Despertar (The Awakening), characterized as “spokes-piece of the workers who speak that language;”70 and El Mercantil Agrícola e Industrial (The Agricultural and Industrial Merchant), which permanently rejected religious fanaticism and defended a free and enlightened citizenry.71 Texts from Las Dominicales were excerpted by various papers in New York and beyond, as the weekly noted in one of its issues, celebrating that the San Antonio (Texas)-based Gil Blas often included their pieces in “preferential spaces” in its pages. And in Gil Blas, a motley group of doctors, lawyers, landowners, businessmen, and journalists publicly manifested their sympathies for free thought and applauded the Spanish weekly’s valor.72 However, the relations with other Spanish-language papers was not always smooth. Las Novedades (News), for instance, cast doubt on the Spanish weekly’s use of the funds obtained in its various relief campaigns.73 Las Dominicales established the closest ties with El Progreso, which bluntly declared its political affinities: “We are republicans, because we believe that a republican government is the most respectful of man’s dignity.”74 When the 1892 Conference of Freethinkers was announced, El Progreso immediately declared its support in the pages Las Dominicales, advocating “the emancipation of the human genre” and censuring the fanaticism of the Catholic Church: “the subject rose up to the citizen; let us rise him up into a free man. Political liberty is insignificant without liberty of conscience and of thought.”75 El Progreso chose Simon Chaux, its

correspondent in Colombia, as its delegate to the 1892 Conference.76 El Progreso reproduced its director’s ideas in its pages, as is evidenced by the article “Las plagas religiosas.”77 In 1891, the director of El Progreso, Ramon Verea, published a book called La religión universal, which Las Dominicales applauded because it embraced the standards of reason and liberty, criticized positivist religions, and affirmed their incompatibility with modern societies.78 Another instance of public praise was repeated in 1893, when Verea published Catecismo Librepensador (Freethinking Catechism) and sent several copies to the Spanish weekly.79 Verea, who Chíes referred to as his correligionario (fellow party member), also promoted relief fund drives through El Progreso. In 1891, his newspaper stated that those who had contributed to the relief fund for the flood victims “wish to prove our love for Spain, and our desire that the Republic glorifies and aggrandizes it.”80 Relations were so close between the two journals that Verea asked his New York readers to subscribe to Las Dominicales and similar papers.81 But the clearest example of their affinity was seen in the publications’ contents. For example, an editorial in El Progreso applauded Rosario de Acuña’s public embrace of free thought, defining the writer as “a heroine” who would encourage women to join the struggle for freedom of thought, steering them away from “the defenders of obscurantism” and bringing them to “a new civilization, worthy of rational beings.”82 Another such article was published upon the death of King Alfonso XII, calling for the defense of a republican solution under the headline “A rey muerto, República” (To a Dead King, the Republic).83 Las Dominicales applauded the text and argued that the United States’ prosperity was due to the fact that it was a republican country.84 In fact, several aspects of the U.S. political model were praised by Las Dominicales, which even defined the North American country as “the most perfectly governed on Earth.”85 This idyllic vision, borne from the contrast offered by Spain, was challenged by anarchists who, beyond what happened with the Chicago martyrs, denounced the limits of liberty across the land and decried the misery of the

working classes. Pedro Esteve, for instance, considered the United States a country where everything was subordinated to business: there was “much [talk of] citizenship, much [talk of] liberty, and a show of respect; but in reality, [it was all] illusion, slavery and hypocrisy.”86 The circulation of Spanish newspapers in the United States, and the inclusion of news excerpted from U.S.-based publications and vice versa, regardless of whether they were anarchist or republican, stimulated the formation of transnational links and networks. Moreover, since the influence of Spanish anarchism remained small, its militants and leaders had to find allies in other freethinking sectors. In the 1893 International Anarchist Conference held in Chicago, Pedro Esteve addressed this relative weakness: In the United States, Spanish-speaking anarchists work actively. Besides publishing a biweekly newspaper and several pamphlets, and celebrating propaganda meetings, they also engage in strikes, thanks to which they receive relatively high wages. But, given the colony’s small size, one cannot expect that their influence will ever be felt in the country.87

Freethinker Sociability and Rituals in Tampa There were clearly ideas and projects that anarchists and republicans did not share, particularly those related to social change. The social reforms sought by the various republican sectors necessarily fell short of the aspirations held by nearly all anarchists. But, in the United States as well as in the old country, Spanish anarchists and republicans agreed on the need to work for full freedom of conscience. Newspapers such as Las Dominicales encouraged and sought to normalize the celebration of civil acts to mark individuals’ rites of passage. These acts were practiced by freethinkers, regardless of whether they were anarchists, socialists, or republicans. The weekly’s pedagogical campaign regarding these rituals included the promotion of José María Rey Pontes’s book Instrucciones para la celebración y práctica de actos civiles (Instructions for the Celebration and Practice of Civil Acts).88 Las Dominicales also sought to expose its readers to non-positivist or heterodox religious viewpoints, such as those expressed in El Evangelio de nuestro Redentor Jesús (The Gospel of Jesus our

Redeemer, 1883), published in Spanish in the United States, a spiritualist interpretation of the gospels. According to the weekly, this book showed “a high degree of tolerance and a noble attempt to ally religion and science.”89 Tampa’s cigar-makers were a particulary active community of Hispanic anarchists in the United States.90 Some of the most active freethinkers of the Spanishspeaking immigrant community lived and worked in Tampa, as is evidenced in the administrative section of Las Dominicales. It is worth recalling that La Revista Blanca (The White Magazine), a very important Spanish anarchist publication, also had subscribers in Tampa during its two periods of publication.91 It was no coincidence that Tampa had a particularly radical Hispanic community: it included a great concentration of tobacco factories, and these were known throughout the Caribbean to have highly politicized workforces. One of the reasons for this politicization was the figure of the factory reader, or “lector,” who read political tracts and spread anarchism and other radical ideas among workers; hence, factory owners had misgivings about this position.92 However, by and large, workers paid lectors to read to them, which meant that the political radicalism and thirst for ideology was already present.93 Late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Tampa was home to many Spanish anarchists, including—at one point—Pedro Esteve, perhaps the most influential anarchist expat, editor of El Despertar and Cultura Obrera (Proletarian Culture), both periodicals published in New York City.94 Tampa was the northern link, a key point in the anarchist network threaded around the Caribbean. As Kirk Shaffer discusses in his chapter, the first libertarians to settle in Tampa began migrating there in the late 1880s.95 And since 1895, after anarchists began committing terrorist attacks, the Spanish government kept an eye on this ideologically suspect colony through its consulate in Tampa, going as far as hiring private detective agencies to surveil them.96 Not surprisingly, Las Dominicales circulated in Tampa for nearly twenty years, starting a few years after its genesis and remaining popular until its demise. One eloquent testimony of just how deeply

the transnational circulation of political media could influence political ideals is recorded in several letters sent by republican Juan Becerra in 1904. In one of them, Becerra confessed that “when I read your newspaper each week, I don’t just read, I devour its articles.”97 He also confessed that he had “in [his] possession copies of more than 10 years ago, … jewels of immense value, given the light that their teachings shine forth.” This Spanish immigrant said that religion formed no part of his life, for he considered all faiths to be “[a] lie, falsehood, deceit.” He was proud that his children were unbaptized, and he claimed to educate them rationally, teaching them “that they must respect all their fellow men, without distinction of race or color.”98 In another letter, Becerra described his public readings of Las Dominicales: “every week, upon receiving your worthy newspaper, my house is filled with friends and compatriots, all of whom are anxious to hear its reading.”99 This practice enhanced the socialization of the paper’s ideas and multiplied the impact of each single copy, while reinforcing the ties of the community that partook of the reading. Other readers also acknowledged their loyalty: “I have been reading your weekly for three years now,” wrote R. Nava.100 Tampa readers and organizations, like their New York and Jacksonville counterparts, also sent their support for the 1892 Conference of Freethinkers via Las Dominicales. Thus, Santiago de Miguel, president of a Tampa-based freethinking group named Washington, not only expressed his and his group’s support for the conference, he also offered to pay for part of the congress’ costs in the interest of “redeeming humanity.”101 This group was represented in the conference by José Nakens, the director of the anticlerical newspaper El Motín (The Mutiny).102 This was not the only time that Las Dominicales received explicit endorsements for this type of event from its Tampa readers and supporters. For the 1906 Conference of Freethinkers, to be held in Buenos Aires, fifteen Spanish residents of Tampa sent contributions for the congress as well as for the newspaper itself, asking Fernando Lozano to represent them in the conclave.103

The 1892 Conference of Freethinkers organized in Madrid was interrupted by government orders, and this unleashed a flood of telegrams and protests from across the sea.104 One such letter came from a group in Tampa, which defined itself as servants “of the universal Republic.”105 New York’s El Progreso censured the prohibition as an act of “monarchical clumsiness” that represented a “brutal discourtesy to foreign representatives,” and it disparaged the president of the government.106 Tampa’s Spanish freethinkers, like those in Spain, not only read about freedom of conscience: some of them also hoped to dispense with the influence of religion in their everyday lives. This is revealed in the eloquent letter sent by a group of “correligionarios” (“fellow believers”) who describe a ritual surrounding the inscription in the civil registry of a boy called Pedro Demófilo. Las Dominicales’ influence in this act is evident, for it not only resembled many such acts held in Spain and reported by the newspaper, but the boy’s middle name, Demófilo, was a nod to the codirector of Las Dominicales, Fernando Lozano, who used that rationalist pseudonym. These readers remitted a solemn remembrance card of the ceremony, which paralleled a church baptism.107 These acts of political affirmation along with the use of names pregnant with ideological significance defiantly refused to partake in Catholic sacraments or use Catholic saint names, as was customary.108 Pedro Demófilo’s inscription took place in Ybor City, a neighborhood formed essentially by tobacco factory workers, most of whom were Spanish and Cuban. Puerto Rican anarchist Luisa Capetillo lived in this neighborhood years later, working as a factory reader.109 Women like Capetillo represented a freethinking and transnational feminism that was very present in Las Dominicales, not just in its readership but among its collaborators, many of whom were key in the development of democracy and feminism in Spain (such as Rosario de Acuña, Ángeles López de Ayala, and Belén Sárraga, who participated in spheres that traditionally excluded women).110 Their significance was acknowledged by contemporaries in Tampa, where the freethinking group Washington named the paper’s female writers Rosario de Acuña, Dolores Nava, and Luisa

Cervera (as well as some male writers) “honorary members” of the group, in the name of fraternity and universal emancipation.111 Washington’s secretary and spokesperson in this occasion, Jaime Pla, was one of the participants in Pedro Demófilo’s “civil baptism.” In some of these civilian rituals, such as when a girl was inscribed in the civil registry or in civil weddings, women could and often did officiate. In 1890, Las Dominicales was informed of the celebration of the civil wedding of a rationalist couple in Tampa, during which there was a parade, music, and a feast, and the Spanish flag was flown. The letter ended with the phrase “Salud y República” (Health and Republic).112 In 1894, another overseas civil marriage was reported in the periodical, that between Mariano Rodríguez and Inés Duarte, which was described as “very well-attended.”113 Civil marriages were conceived as an affective union based on harmony, liberty, and equality, and although patriarchal marital authority was not necessarily annulled in practice, the ideal itself was quite different from religious matrimonies. It also represented the application of political ideas to familial life, reinforcing the secularization of everyday, personal life vis-à-vis “confessional social life.”114 These were not the only civil and social practices developed by freethinking groups in Spain that were imported and reinterpreted in the United States. During Holy Week, for instance, Spanish freethinkers hosted “banquets of dissipation” that challenged the impositions of the Catholic liturgy by serving everything that was forbidden. In 1888, Jaime Pla wrote to Las Dominicales to inform it of Washington’s banquet, which had taken place on Holy Friday. As a rationalist “antidote” to religious preoccupations, the feast had ended with speeches and a toast to universal brotherhood.115 To encourage this freethinking sociability, Gerardo Díaz Cuervo, a Tampa Spanish resident during the early twentieth century, proposed the creation of a Republican Casino in the city. He believed that there were enough people to make it a success: “it would fill a vacuum and demonstrate that Spaniards over here also feel the need to have the beautiful flag of liberty and justice flying over our homeland.”116

It should not be surprising that the ideas, social practices, and alternative rituals that were encouraged in the pages of Las Dominicales, and which in Spain were directly opposed to the religious and political orthodoxy, were reproduced in the United States by freethinking Spanish immigrants who agreed with the newspaper’s underlying assumptions—including anarchists. Their putting into practice the ideas that they believed, and their consumption of a paper such as Las Dominicales evinced the existence of a strong transnational community that transcended specific party lines, and that was formed by those who defended liberty of conscience, rationalism, secularization, scientific progress, and the general emancipation of humanity. The popularity of anarchism in communities and organizations formed by Hispanic workers in the United States cannot be attributed simply to the arrival of immigrants who professed anarchist ideals, nor to the distribution of anarchist publications and pamphlets. Newspapers such as Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento also played a role, for they served as platforms for the diffusion of a rationalist morale and social practices (such as civil celebrations) that also imbued their readership with anarchist ideas. It was not irrelevant that this weekly paper was distributed in U.S. cities where anarchism had a great influence among Hispanic communities and workers, such as Tampa. In Spain, anarchists and republicans, particularly federalist republicans, often coincided, especially via the diffuse free-thinking movement. And although this movement seems to have declined in the years that preceded the First World War, it clearly left its mark on Hispanic anarchism in the United States. Notes This chapter was translated by Yesenia Pumarada Cruz. 1. Pere Gabriel, “Anarquismo y anarcosindicalismo en la España del siglo XIX,” in Movimientos sociales y Estado en la España contemporánea, ed. Manuel Ortiz et al. (Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2001), 149. 2. José Antonio Piqueras, La revolución democrática (1868–1874) (Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo, 1992), 635–654. Antonio López Estudillo, Republicanismo y anarquismo en Andalucía. Conflictividad

social agraria y crisis finisecular (1868–1900) (Cordoba: La Posada, 2001). 3. Clara E. Lida, Anarquismo y revolución en la España del XIX (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1972), 21–107. 4. Antonio López Estudillo, “El anarquismo español decimonónico,” Ayer 45 (2002): 74, 80, 82. See also George Richard Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working-Class Movement in Spain, 1868–1898 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 5. Manuel Morales Muñoz, “Entre la Internacional y el mito de la Federal. Los obreros españoles durante el Sexenio Democrático (1868–1874)», Bulletin d’Histoire Contemporaine de l’Espagne 17– 18 (1993): 133. 6. Ibid., 126. Gloria Espigado Tocino, La Primera República en Cádiz (Seville: Caja de Ahorros San Fernando, 1993), 286. 7. Pamela B. Radcliff, From Mobilization to Civil War. The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijón, 1900–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 41–43. Ángeles Barrio, “Anarquistas, republicanos y socialistas en Asturias (1890–1917),” in El anarquismo español y sus tradiciones culturales, ed. Bert Hofmann et al. (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 1995), 44. 8. Ángeles Barrio, “Culturas obreras. 1880–1920,” in La cultura popular en la España contemporánea. Doce estudios, ed. Jorge Uría (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2003), 112. 9. José Álvarez Junco, La ideología política del anarquismo español (1868–1910) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1976). 10. Manuel Morales Muñoz, “Republicanismo, anarquismo y librepensamiento: un cruce de identidades,” in República y modernidad. El republicanismo en los umbrales del siglo XIX, ed. Manuel Morales Muñoz (Malaga: CEDMA, 2006), 142. 11. Manuel Suárez Cortina, “Anticlericalismo y republicanismo en la Restauración, 1874–1898,” Bulletin d’Historie Contemporaine de l’Espagne 23 (1996): 70–71. 12. Emma Goldman, La hipocresía del puritanismo y otros ensayos (México: Antorcha, 1977), 14–15. 13. Sergio Sánchez Collantes, “Antecedentes del voto femenino en España: el republicanismo federal pactista y los derechos

políticos de las mujeres (1868–1914),” Historia Constitucional 15 (2014): 445–469. 14. Dolors Marin, Anarquistas. Un siglo de movimiento libertario en España (Barcelona: Ariel, 2014), 57–58, 150–156. 15. Susana Sueiro Seoane, “Inmigrantes y anarquistas españoles en EEUU (1890–1920),” in Conflictos y cicatrices: fronteras y migraciones en el mundo hispánico, coord. Almudena Delgado (Madrid: Dykinson, 2014), 282. 16. Pedro Esteve, in Reformismo, Dictadura, Federalismo (New York: Cultura Obrera, 1922), 60. 17. Angeles Barrio, “El anarquismo asturiano.” Sergio Sánchez Collantes, Demócratas de antaño. Republicanos y republicanismos en el Gijón decimonónico (Gijón: Trea, 2007). 18. Fernando García Arenal, Datos para el estudio de la cuestión social (Gijón: Imp. El Comercio, 1885), 77–78. 19. Antonio López Estudillo, “Republicanismo y movimiento obrero en Andalucía,” La utopía racional. Estudios sobre el movimiento obrero andaluz, ed. Manuel González de Molina and Diego Caro (Granada: Universidad, 2001), 90. 20. Pere Gabriel, “Insurrección y política. El republicanismo ochocentista en Cataluña,” in El republicanismo en España (1830– 1977), ed. Nigel Townson (Madrid: Alianza, 1994), 352. 21. Estudillo, “anarquismo español,” 74. 22. Enrique Vera González, Pi i Margall y la política contemporánea II (Barcelona: Tipografía La Academia, 1886), 293– 300. 23. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Escritos sobre España (Madrid: Trotta, 1998), 250. 24. Ángeles Barrio, “El anarquismo asturiano. Entre el sindicalismo y la política, 1890–1920,” Ayer 45 (2002): 152. 25. Pere Gabriel, “Republicanismos y federalismos en la España del siglo XIX. El federalismo catalán,” Historia y Política 6 (2001): 41. 26. Ángel Duarte, “Republicans i obreristes,” in Colloqui Internacional “Revolució i Socialisme” I (Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma, 1989), 80–82. 27. Josep Termes, Anarquismo y sindicalismo en España. La Primera Internacional, 1864–1881 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), 40, 62.

28. José Antonio Piqueras, “Detrás de la política. República y federación en el proceso revolucionario español,” in Republicanos y repúblicas en España, ed. José A. Piqueras and Manuel Chust (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1996), 42–43. 29. Jacqueline Lalouette, La libre pensé France, 1848–1940 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1997). Kirwin R. Shaffer, Black Flag Boricuas. Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2013). 30. Morales, “Republicanismo, anarquismo y librepensamiento: un cruce de identidades,” 137. 31. Estudillo, “anarquismo español,” 77. 32. Esteve, Reformismo, 68–69. 33. Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, March 12, 1887. 34. Odón de Buen, Mis memorias (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando El Católico, 2008), 66. 35. Pedro Vallina, Mis memorias (Madrid: Libre Pensamiento, 2000), 27, 32. 36. Las Dominicales, July 23, 1887. 37. Las Dominicales, March 17, 1905. 38. Dolores Ramos, “Identidad de género, feminismo y movimientos sociales en España,” Historia Contemporánea 21 (2000): 527–528. 39. Laura Vicente, “Teresa Claramunt (1862–1931). Propagadora de la causa de los oprimidos,” Historia Social 53 (2005): 33–34. 40. Susana Sueiro Seoane, “Prensa y redes anarquistas transnacionales. El olvidado papel de J. C. Campos y sus crónicas sobre los mártires de Chicago en el anarquismo de lengua hispana,” Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea 36 (2014): 260. 41. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Sig. VC/17/6. 42. Pedro Esteve, A los anarquistas de España y de Cuba. Memoria de la Conferencia Anarquista Internacional celebrada en Chicago en septiembre de 1893 (Paterson: Imprenta de El Despertar, 1900), 24. 43. Shaffer, Black Flag Boricuas, 4. 44. Las Dominicales, August 8, 1885; February 26, 1887; March 19, 1892. 45. Sueiro Seoane, “Prensa y redes,” 293.

46. Las Dominicales, February 26, 1887. 47. Las Dominicales, November 14, 1891. 48. Las Dominicales, April 7, 1893. 49. Las Dominicales, March 12, 1892. 50. Las Dominicales, November 21, 1885. 51. Las Dominicales, March 10, 1893. 52. Pedro F. Álvarez Lázaro, Masonería y Librepensamiento en la España de la Restauración (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, 1995), 13–29. 53. Las Dominicales, October 7, 1892. 54. Las Dominicales, September 2, 1892. 55. Las Dominicales, December 22, 1893; March 23, 1894. 56. Las Dominicales, August 8, 1885. 57. Las Dominicales, August 15, 1885. 58. Las Dominicales, September 26, 1885; January 17, 1886. 59. Las Dominicales, March 12, 1892. 60. Las Dominicales, September 26, 1885. 61. Las Dominicales, February 13, 1892. 62. Pedro F. Álvarez Lázaro, La masonería, escuela de formación del ciudadano (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, 2005), 192–193, 351–352. 63. Esteve, A los anarquistas, 46. 64. Las Dominicales, December 5, 1902. Nicolás Kanellos and Helvetia Martell, Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960 (Houston: Arte Público Press: 2000), 63, 191. 65. Las Dominicales, December 18, 1903. 66. Las Dominicales, July 27, 1894; September 21, 1894. 67. Las Dominicales, October 6, 1893. 68. Las Dominicales, September 7, 1884. 69. Las Dominicales, March 19, 1892. 70. Las Dominicales, March 21, 1891. 71. Las Dominicales, July 28, 1893. 72. Las Dominicales, July 7, 1893. 73. Las Dominicales, July 1, 1892. 74. El Progreso, New York, January 1884. 75. Las Dominicales, March 19, 1892. 76. Las Dominicales, October 11, 1892.

77. Las Dominicales, June 17, 1892. 78. Las Dominicales, August 8, 1891. 79. Las Dominicales, December 1, 1893. 80. Las Dominicales, October 31, 1891. 81. Ana María Varela-Lago, “Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles: The Spanish Diaspora in the United States (1848–1948)” (PhD diss., University of California, 2008), 48. 82. El Progreso, New York, January 1885. 83. This headline plays on the words of the idiom, “a rey muerto, rey puesto,” which refers to the continuity that characterizes life and which renders seemingly large problems insignificant. 84. Las Dominicales, December 27, 1885. 85. Las Dominicales, April 12, 1890. 86. Esteve, A los anarquistas, 7, 13. 87. Ibid., 33–34. 88. Dominicales, October 26, 1889. 89. Dominicales, September 14, 1884. 90. Gary A. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchists in Tampa, Florida, 1886–1931,” in Struggle a Hard Battle: Essays on Working-Class Immigrants, ed. Dirk Hoerder (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), 170–198. 91. La Revista Blanca, September 15, 1904; November 15, 1924. 92. Nancy A. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort. Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s (Chicago: University of Illinois, 2001), 214. 93. Araceli Tinajero, El Lector. A History of the Cigar Factory Reader (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 124. 94. Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices. An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Oakland: AK Press, 2005), 390–393. 95. See Kirk Shaffer, “Tropical Libertarians: Anarchist Movements and Networks in the Caribbean, Southern United States and Mexico, 1890s-1920s,” in Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World. 1870–1940, ed. Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 287–292. 96. Eduardo González Calleja, La razón de la fuerza: orden público, subversión y violencia política en la España de la Restauración (1875–1917) (Madrid: CSIC, 1998), 465–466.

97. Dominicales, July 15, 1904. 98. Dominicales, September 23, 1904. 99. Dominicales, October 28, 1904. 100. Dominicales, December 22, 1905. 101. Dominicales, March 19, 1892. 102. Dominicales, September 23, 1892. 103. Dominicales, June 22 and July 6, 1906. 104. De Buen, Memorias, 72. 105. Dominicales, December 30, 1892. 106. Dominicales, November 18, 1892 (“Cánovas, the imbecile, the importer of friars and assassin of the Republic”). 107. Dominicales, July 28, 1893. 108. Morales, “Republicanismo, anarquismo y librepensamiento: un cruce de identidades,” 146–147. 109. Norma Valle-Ferrer, Luisa Capetillo, Pioneer Puerto Rican Feminist (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 51. 110. Christine Arkinstall, Spanish Female Writers and the Freethinking Press, 1879–1926 (Toronto: University of Press, 2014), 5. Jennifer Guglielmo, “Transnational Feminism’s Radical Past. Lessons from Italian Immigrant Women Anarchists in. Industrializing America,” Journal of Women’s History 22 (2010): 26. 111. Dominicales, April 8, 1888. 112. Dominicales, August 16, 1890. 113. Dominicales, June 8, 1894. 114. Luz Sanfeliu, Republicanas. Identidades de género en el blasquismo (1895–1910) (Valencia: PUV, 2005), 160–163. 115. Dominicales, May 13, 1888. 116. Dominicales, October 13, 1905.

CHAPTER 2

Globetrotters and Rebels Correspondents of the Spanish-Language Anarchist Press, 1886–1918 ALEJANDRO DE LA TORRE Correspondents played a vital role in the Spanish anarchist press. They helped to build a global libertarian community, and three specific cases narrated in this chapter describe how a nuclei of Spanish-speaking anarchist readers developed in North America. The correspondents’ work made possible, in large part, the connection between local hubs and other communities of libertarian readers in distant places. Such links describe the emergence of a powerful transnational “print culture” that gradually incorporated the United States (as a political, economic, and cultural space) in the ideological panorama of Ibero-American Spanish-speaking anarchism. The presence of the United States in this network is highly significant, either as the place from which the correspondents wrote to their distant comrades or as an emblematic reference to the functioning of republican democracy and the meaning of capitalism. In this sense, the image of the United States, as a symbolic reference for exploitation, found a fertile ground in the transnational Spanish-language anarchist print network beginning at the end of the nineteenth century. Tracing the routes of these transhumant propagandists offers a “from below” approach to the history of the dissemination of anarchism among migrant communities, providing a greater complexity to understanding the social history of ideas.

The Wandering Web Transnational anarchism was organized internationally through a complex structure of networks made by militants, newspapers, social centers, and other nonauthoritarian initiatives, with a wide web of global connections. However, as in other cases where the phenomenon appears obvious, there are many aspects that remain in the shadows, precisely because they are taken as self-evident. As in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter, nothing can be best hidden than what is in plain sight.

Even after we identify the existence of transnational anarchist movements, as well as their strong articulation in interconnected networks, the operation and structure that these networks assumed remains unclear. Important questions must be addressed: 1) how were they constituted? 2) who were the individuals that made it possible for the network to spread? and 3) what were the social and cultural spaces in which they were held? This chapter approaches anarchism’s global networks by following the trajectories of the blurred and intangible figures of several correspondents of the anarchist press. Although scholars have studied the most famous propagandists of the Idea, the spread of anarchism was due largely to the nomadic character of numerous militants. Mikhail Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Buenaventura Durruti, Emma Goldman, and Peter Kropotkin’s travels and adventures are well known. Even the wanderings of less famous militants such as Pedro Esteve, Ricardo Flores Magón, and Charles Malato have already been incorporated in the narrative of how anarchism disseminated. However, the discreet but fundamental work of anarchist correspondents is often overlooked. Generally, they were common militants who gave an account of the social panorama and the struggles of the oppressed in various regions of the globe, and they often sent their thoughts in the form of letters to the main libertarian newspapers. Thus, from the epic journeys of the most prominent propagandists and ideologues, to the prosaic migration of the modest sympathizer of anarchism, the journey itself seems to be endowed with some symbolic features and mythical resonances: the journey through which the hero becomes himself. This journey becomes a scenario of conversion and epiphany: the traveling experience, in the narrative of anarchist correspondents, is decisive in the ideological definition of many of these characters who, after journeying through different countries affirm their libertarian creed, assess the universality of exploitation, and then ascertain solidarity among the disinherited of the world. This is the experience that the anarchist correspondents felt compelled to describe. Their reports, besides fulfilling a strictly informative function on social struggles, implied the construction of a worldwide anarchist

community, a sort of libertarian public forum of global scope, founded in the closeness of community ties between distant readers, who compared their own reality with the description of a foreign one. In other words, the correspondents’ work provided the facts for the international anarchist framework to further develop. It was the soil from which the libertarian propaganda grew and acquired theoretical and doctrinal density. This chapter follows traces of these correspondents, whose work was transcendent for the expansion of Spanish-speaking anarchist propaganda, between the end of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth. Driven by economic migration, political persecution, or the need to disseminate the Idea, and sometimes all together, the correspondents were key elements in mobilizing the anarchist press, creating transnational links, building contacts between distant anarchist communities, channeling solidarities, distributing propaganda, and ultimately fulfilling the important role of shaping the libertarian internationalism, one of the main cores of anarchist thought and action. To trace the extent and the importance and the territorial coverage of these correspondents, the Catalan anarcho-collectivist weekly El Productor (The Producer, Barcelona, 1887–1893) provides an excellent example. This newspaper was one of the founding elements of the international anarchist press network. With other libertarian publications, it formed a dense international web covering at least two hundred newspaper titles, sustaining a regular exchange on four continents. El Productor maintained communication with a large group of correspondents located in the Americas (New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Havana, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Valparaiso, Sao Paulo, Colonia Cecilia, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires), Europe (London, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Geneva, Porto, Lisbon, Coimbra, Rome, Milan, Turin, Molfetta, Ancona, Bucharest and Sofia), Africa (Oran and Tanger), Asia (Barotac Nuevo, Philippines), and Oceania (Melbourne and Smithfield in Australia).1 The following pages examine several correspondents who carried the weight of the international anarchist press networks. These nomadic rebels are examples of this wandering web.

The three correspondents recovered in this chapter, V. Bardají, José Cayetano Campos, and Vicente Garcia were of different relevance: while two of them—the second and the third—were frequent contributors to the anarchist press, the first is a rather evanescent character, but no less significant. These three correspondents, as we will see, are unequal in more than one sense. V. Bardají and José Cayetano Campos belong to an era (the 1880s) of early expansion of Spanish-speaking anarchist propaganda and have as their backbone the Barcelona newspaper El Productor. Vicente García, belongs to a mature period of anarchist journalism networks and does not have a well-defined center. Likewise, the first two cases refer to characters who undertook long-distance journeys (one transatlantic and one continental), while in the third case it is a journey made up of several short trips and brief stays. Precisely, these differences provide a glimpse into the nomadic experiences and diversity of these rebels without national boundaries and show the communicative flexibility and fluidity of information that characterized the anarchist media during the first decades of the twentieth century.

A Voice in The Desert: V. Bardají In the summer of 1886, a “Letter from Mexico”2 appeared in the pages of the an- archo-collectivist Madrid newspaper, Bandera Social (Social Flag), inaugurating a series of essays about this country. Its author, V. Bardají, was a Catalan craftsman of anarchist affiliation (apparently, he had taken part in the organization of the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region [FTRE], affiliated with the International Workers’ Association) and after having passed through New York and Havana had finally settled on Mexican soil. In his letters to the Madrid weekly, besides asking for help and solidarity, Bardají described a very distressing view of the working conditions prevailing in Mexico, as well as the possibilities for disseminating libertarian ideology. He wrote in his first letter: I have to tell you that in this country life is impossible for every good anarchist because Mexican workers say that anyone who is not from this country cannot be a companion or brother to them; and so it is, that they collude with the bourgeoise to increase the

hours of work and lower the wages, to avoid foreign workers and even more so if they are anarchists.3 He further denounced the pernicious influence exerted by the clergy among Mexican workers through the Unión Católica (the most important religious association in Mexico) and deplored the state of moral degradation in which the common people were found, insisting that the vice of drunkenness was caused by the prevailing misery. In Bardají’s view, the Spanish-born bourgeoisie settled in Mexico and made their fortunes through illicit means, yet they were precisely the same who promoted the patriotic zeal of the Mexican workers: It is not possible for any Spanish or American worker to come here. I have been the object of one attempt of poisoning, two of murder, in one of which pure chance saved me from the dagger of the evildoers, and in the other someone shot me while I was entering my room at night; the very same night I was distributing Almanaques del Proletariado (Proletariat’s Almanacs) and making propaganda on behalf of Social Revolution; I believe with certainty that this was the cause of that act of republican vandalism.4 In a second episode, Bardají decried the existence of a peculiar conspiracy planned by the Mexican clergy and oligarchy to avoid the spread of anarchism on both shores of the Atlantic. At the head of this conspiracy, Bardají placed prominent French and Spanish bourgeois residing in Mexico, as well as Archbishop Pelagio Antonio Labastida, who had the mission to contact Bismarck and other European heads of state “to give persecution and extermination orders against all anarchists, recommending the clergy to influence, according to the Roman Pontiff, our destruction; which I don’t think they will achieve.”5 Along with these revelations—some of which seem difficult to prove—Bardají offers an unflattering portrait of the emerging workers’ organization under the protection of the Porfirian government: To give an idea of what the local workers are, I will explain to you what happened the other day; in the Magdalena factory property of Nicolas Teresa, working from five in the morning to nine at night and I think the weavers earned four or six reales [the peso

or duro has six reales], the bourgeois wanted to reduce the daily wage and increase the hours of work; they refused to work, and because they have no organization, they were replaced by other workers, who accepted the wage reduction and increase of hours. Not knowing what to do they didn’t do a thing. They consulted the Congreso Obrero [Workers Congress], constituted by a few politicians of the worst kind, all have small workshops or are employed by the government. These workers trusted blindly this circle that is given the name of Congreso Obrero, where these caciques prosper by selling out their brothers with no mercy. This Congress, or Workers’ Circle, organized a demonstration with a three-colored national flag, and went to the President of the Republic to kneel before him asking him to grant some land to establish an agricultural colony with unemployed weavers; … In the demonstration I exhorted them to demand eight hours a day, and that would allow everyone to work; I gave several vivas to the Universal Social Revolution, and I told them to organize and join the universal Union of all workers; but it cost me dearly, I had to hide very well, to avoid suffering the consequences of those who said that I was a foreigner, and therefore had no right to work in the Mexican Republic.6 As noted in the following correspondence in Bandera Social, Bardají later moved to Tlaxcala, where he was employed as a caballerango (stableman or groomer) on a hacienda owned by Spaniards. There he was also pressured and was even flogged for being in possession of propagandistic leaflets of the International and the FTRE.7 Fearing for his life, he settled again in Mexico City, where for a time his trail was lost. He continued his wandering story on Mexican lands in El Productor after it replaced Madrid’s Bandera Social.8 It seems that after continuing to suffer troubles in Mexico he went to San Francisco, California, where his living conditions, if possible, worsened. He was without employment, confronted by civil and ecclesiastical authorities, suffering from police harassment for his efforts to distribute libertarian propaganda, and on the brink of poverty. The sporadic letters that Bardají wrote in this period are

tinged with bitterness and sour irony directed against the so-called freedoms prevailing in Mexico and the United States.9 His experiences of migration, active propaganda and persecution led Bardají to draw his own conclusions about the universality of capitalist exploitation: I work in a tin factory owned by George H. Tey and Company, people who care for their dogs more than their workers. We have an Irish foreman who only lacks the whip to be like those of Cuba, and I earn just enough to eat rotten potatoes and sleep in a sack of straw. … Some workers are killed or disabled every day in the factories of this city, but the bourgeois just don’t care. There is no day when there are no suicides or misfortunes in the factories, because of the misery that reigns among the workers and the lack of consideration by the way they are treated, but Saxon bourgeois say in English: money is money, workers are plentiful. I will not tire of warning the unwary to learn the lesson and don’t harbor hope in the intended well-being of the workers in the Americas, and even less in the United States, because the Saxon bourgeois are heartless.10 And regarding internationalism and the possibilities of spreading anarchist ideas, the prospects were not much more encouraging: The main propaganda of the workers here is against the Chinese, who work almost for nothing. The propaganda is made on Sundays and outdoors, but it cannot be on anarchy or socialism, because the policemen are eager to repress the modern slaves, because they’re paid to preserve the order. So there is only freedom here for those who live at the expense of their neighbors, for the perpetrators of the greatest crimes that have ever been known.11 Through his letters, Bardají placed Mexico (and the republican rule) on the map of Hispanic anarchism. His correspondence with the staff in Bandera Social influenced its editors, who began associating barbarism, corruption, retrograde attitudes, obscurantism, and the immorality of public administration with Spain. Using Mexico as a symbol of backwardness, the Bandera Social

editors even referred to Madrid as “Mexico in Europe,” to denounce the persecution of the libertarian press and other authoritarian excesses in Spain’s capital city.12 The impressions of Mexico and the United States as described in Bardají’s letters contributed to anarchist criticism toward republican institutions. If such oppressions and atrocities could occur in the young federal republics, it meant that the problem of injustice was not confined to the old Spanish monarchist rule but directly concerned the State itself, so the political problem of the type of government was completely meaningless without any aspiration to transform the social order. After these last letters, Bardají’s path again became unclear. But the administrative notes of El Productor show that he kept in touch with the newspaper at least until 1890.13 At the end of that year, the last record of Bardají placed him again on the Mexican side of the border, in the Sonoran village of Magdalena, communicating a laconic “Here the situation continues worse every day.” Those were Bardají’s last words published in El Productor. Then his footprint was permanently lost.14

The Martyrs’ Echo: José Cayetano Campos José Cayetano Campos was a Cuban typographer who left his homeland as part of the migrant wave that was a consequence of the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) between Cuba and Spain. He settled in New York, where he found work in his trade. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, he began to frequent radical environments where the workers’ agitation was promoted. There, he contacted the Catalan anarchist and freemason Antoni Pellicer Paraire, who was carrying out a propaganda tour on behalf of the International Worker’s Association, recently illegalized in the Iberian Peninsula. Pellicer’s own journey, still waiting to be documented and told in detail, is shrouded in the midst of a mythical tale. After leaving Spain due to political persecution, he traveled to Mexico, Cuba, and Florida, working as a typographer. Finally, he settled down for a while in New York. It is apparent that relationships established by Pellicer during his journey would become greatly important for the further development of the international connections of Catalanbased anarchism. One of the contacts established during that trip

was precisely the one that linked him to José C. Campos. As a result of this relationship, Campos became the main New York correspondent for the libertarian press of the Iberian Peninsula, in the early 1880s. In addition to maintaining those transatlantic connections, Campos served as an essential intermediary and privileged connection among the communities of Cuban anarchists exiled in Florida and Key West, as well as with the libertarian press and the workers’ associations of Havana. So, while he was a correspondent for the Bandera Social of Madrid and the Acracia (Anarchy) magazine of Barcelona, he served the same role with El Productor of Havana. Even before the appearance of New York’s El Despertar (The Awakening) in 1891, Jose Cayetano Campos’s correspondences were the main sources of information on the labor movement in the United States for the anarchist press in Spain. Campos’s essays on the American workers’ struggle for the eighthour workday as well as the Haymarket protests and trial informed the libertarian Spanish media of U.S. labor actions that would be transcendental to the ideological definition of anarchists in that period, especially concerning the demolition of the republican freedom myth. Campos’s first correspondences with Bandera Social occurred in the Spring of 1885 and provided a detailed account of the strikes and labor mobilizations of American workers (mainly railway workers, steelmakers, and tobacco workers). In that account, he developed an analysis of the socialist aspects embodied in the Knights of Labor and the thought of Henry George, considering them as too moderate. But it was during the legal process brought against the Chicago anarchists that the work of this Cuban typographer reached its greatest significance. In fact, it is likely that the anarchists of Cuba and Spain knew about the trial and its tragic outcome through the writings of Campos: he outlined the legal proceedings, the solidarity demonstrations, and the protests for the condemned in eloquent and touching terms. If that were not enough, he also served as intermediary to the anarchists of Havana and Barcelona for the collection of funds to defray the defense’s legal expenses.15

On the Chicago Martyrs’ execution day, he wrote a letter for publication in both Havana’s and Barcelona’s El Productor, in which he chronicled the process. After describing the execution as “the most horrible of crimes that the nineteenth century has witnessed” and exposing the reasons why American capitalism committed it, he finished his letter saying: Worker: you, whoever you are, wake up! Think that an even greater crime than the one committed by American judges will henceforth be your indifference; see how deplorable your condition is, see that all tyrannies and all monopolies have been invented for you to suffer. Yes, you pay those who have grabbed the land; you hold the insulting luxury that surrounds the master of the manufacture in which you work, you pay those judges who sentence our companions to death; you support the army that has no other aim but to keep you. Worker: the blood spilled on the Chicago gallows must have splashed your face, and if at this moment you cannot do anything else, at least join your protest to mine and repeat with me: Glory to Lingg, Parsons, Engel, Fischer and Spies! Everlasting insult to his executioners!!16 In subsequent years, in funeral commemorations in honor of the Chicago Martyrs celebrated by Spanish-speaking anarchists in many countries, similar words would be used to condemn the “legal crime” committed against the cause of all workers. In addition to writing about the demise of the Chicago Martyrs, Campos was primarily concerned with describing the success and failures of the U.S. labor movement, and the fate of the anarchists within it. Particular attention, as analyzed in Christopher Castañeda’s following chapter, was given to the tactical ideological debate of Hispanic anarchism regarding Cuba and its war of independence (1895–1898), which would generate fierce disputes between Cuban and Spanish anarchists living in the United States. Opinion was divided between participation in the struggle against the declining Spanish empire and a neutrality stance that was more attached to doctrinal purity of anarchist internationalism that did not want to participate in a nationalist and bourgeois revolution. Campos opted for nonintervention, but he respected the broad sector of separatists

and anarchists who decided to support and take part in the armed struggle against Spanish domination, hoping that the political revolt could be transformed into a social revolution. The outcome is well known. … In the context of these discussions, Cuban nationalists pointed out that anarchism was an “imported” ideology to the island by Spanish militants, in response to which José C. Campos offered a valuable autobiographical testimony: Before being an anarchist, I had not heard of anarchy from any peninsular [Spaniard]. The impartial observation between the Cuban laborer working for the Spanish bourgeois of Cuba and the social status of the same laborer working for the Cuban or American bourgeois in the United States influenced the development of my ideas; in this incubation period … I read Political Contradictions, Theory of Constitutional Movement in the Nineteenth Century, by P. J. Proudhon; eager to figure out the cause of our misery and social inequality, I … obtained the Economic Contradictions of the same author, and its reading made me aware of the antinomies—contradictions—that in their depths encloses the political economy, dissipating in me the absurdities and sophisms that professors, paid by the tyrant, taught me as truths.17 When Campos died, at the end of 1901, the anarchist tobacco worker Gerardo Quintana wrote for El Despertar a heartfelt obituary in his honor, in which he emphasized the value of Campos as an anarchist’s ideas diffuser: Very young, when the beautiful sun of Anarchy began to shine on the horizon of proletarian demands, he opened his heart to the contact of such splendorous light. … Since then, in love with heart and mind of our noble cause, was one of the first to propagate in America the principles of libertarian socialism in Spanish language. By his remarkable correspondences, the European worker was convinced that this model republic had a venal and corrupt magistracy and a tyrannical government, docile instrument of a brutal and selfish mesocracy [government by the middle classes],

whose fury in persecution of redemptive ideals eclipsed the monarchies of the old world. Shortly afterward, with some of his companions, he founded El Despertar, … dedicated to sow in the workers’ consciousness the fertile seed of libertarian socialism. Later he was editor of El Rebelde (The Rebel), [of New York], and an assiduous contributor of El Esclavo (The Slave), of Tampa, and Nuevo Ideal (New Ideal), of Havana. No worker’s newspaper was founded in our tongue, which did not solicit the collaboration of his brave quill pen.18 As Quintana asserted, Campos, weakened and ill, left unfinished a pamphlet addressed to the tobacco workers in Havana, Tampa, and New York, to whom he had dedicated much of his care as libertarian propagandist, and whose struggles he had reviewed extensively for the readers of the American and European anarchist media. He died in New York, unable to return to his homeland, which was on the eve of becoming a republic, probably convinced that his country was homeland to the oppressed of the whole world.

The World in a Page: Vicente García The anarchist Vicente García died in London on October 24, 1930. As frequently occurs with many anarchist militants, most of what we know about him comes from his obituary. Soledad Gustavo wrote for La Revista Blanca (The White Magazine) a thoughtful text on the death of Vicente García, who was scarcely acknowledged but fundamental in the spread of the libertarian Spanish press in the early 20th century. Soledad Gustavo noted that García was the son of a peasant family that settled in Burgos, where he was born in July 1866. At a very young age he moved to Bilbao, where he became a barber’s apprentice, shop assistant, and finally barrel maker, a profession that he practiced until the end of his life. From his selftaught culture and libertarian concerns, at the beginning of the 1890s he contributed to El Corsario (The Corsair, La Coruña, 1891–1896) and published his own newspaper, El Combate (The Fight, 1891), in San Sebastian and later in Bilbao. This publication was ephemeral because of its conflicts with the authorities and the lack of economic resources. He then founded another newspaper, Justicia Obrera (Labor Justice), in Haro, Logroño; but it did not last long either, for

the same reasons. At the end of the century he was in charge of a secular school in Vizcaya. At the beginning of the twentieth century, shortly after a failed metallurgical strike in Baracaldo, he went into exile in Dowlais, a mining town in South Wales, where he worked in furnaces. By 1906 he left that activity and settled in Bordeaux, France, where he remained until 1912, when he was expelled because of his anarchist activities, and traveled again to Britain. He settled in London and became close friends with Errico Malatesta and Charles Malato, and even cultivated relations with Peter Kropotkin. Regarding his journalistic work, Soledad Gustavo refers to it with a stroke: “From 1888 to 1930, that is, until his death, he has written in almost all the Spanish-language newspapers without ever having received any kind of retribution.”19 These lines don’t do justice to the titanic work that Vicente García undertook throughout his life. From the beginning of the twentieth century he was a frequent contributor20 to newspapers in Barcelona, El Productor, La Revista Blanca, Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty), Salud y Fuerza (Health and Strength), and Solidaridad Obrera (Labor Solidarity); in Valencia, La Escuela Moderna (Modern School); in New York, Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture), Cultura Obrera (Labor Culture), and Brazo y Cerebro (Arm and Brain); in Havana, Nuevo Ideal and ¡Tierra! (Land!); and in Buenos Aires, El Perseguido (The Persecuted), among other newspapers around the world. In fact, his activity led his persecutors to acknowledge him as a relevant figure in the development of anarchist propaganda. In the fanciful book, Los crímenes del anarquismo (Crimes of Anarchism), the anonymous author referred to him as “the incorruptible leader of anarchism, whom all his sect brothers respect as an apostle.”21 Perhaps it was not so, but during his stay in Dowlais he exerted some influence on the local workers, who founded anarchist groups that maintained contact with the anarchist press in Spanish. Even after Vicente García migrated to France,22 he continued to stand out among Spanish exiles at the beginning of the century.23 He sent correspondence, from Dowlais and then from Bordeaux, to Tierra y Libertad, in which he dealt with the labor struggles of

different European countries, especially England and France, but also with the struggles held by the workers of the United States; of revolutionary turmoil in Russia; of social tensions in the Balkans; of the cause of Mexican revolutionaries;24 of the exploitation in the nitrate mines of Chile; of the repression of Cuban and Argentine workers; of the living conditions of Spanish people; and of the bloody persecutions suffered by the Japanese anarchists … outlining a panorama of social unrest on a global scale. In addition, through the administrative department of Tierra y Libertad, he sent revenue from subscriptions and various donations to other libertarian publications, especially Solidaridad Obrera, Salud y Fuerza—both from Barcelona—and ¡Tierra! from Havana. At the same time, during his stay in Bordeaux, he fought ineffectively for the launch of an anarchist newspaper written in Spanish and French, but the costs of printing prevented him from completing the project with the Bordeaux anarchists.25 These activities demonstrated Garcia’s outstanding role as part of the backbone of solidarity among the anarchist communities scattered throughout the Atlantic world, performing key tasks in the brochures and newspaper distribution. From his privileged position as contributor to the international libertarian press, he coordinated solidarity campaigns for the benefit of needy comrades, convening the participation of editorial groups of several anarchist publications. Also, because of his status as an exile in France, he acted as a link between the causes of the Spanish proletariat and the French libertarian press, finding space for his writings in Les Temps Nouveaux (New Times). His position of cosmopolitan correspondent, in contact with a considerable portion of the libertarian press, led García to take an active part in doctrinal discussions with other anarchist newspapers and writers.26 Garcia’s interest in the development of global propaganda did not alienate him from Spanish issues and problems. He criticized the government of José Canalejas, Prime Minister of Spain, whom he considered to be an authoritarian ruler hiding under a democrat mask. Precisely because of the emphasis placed in the acts of Canalejas, García would be accused by the confidant Constant Leroy of taking part in an alleged plot that ended in the murder of the Spanish minister.27 Their collaboration in the alleged conspiracy

could not be proved, but the Spanish police did not take their eyes off him, and thanks to this surveillance we know more about García’s activities in foreign lands.28 Toward the end of 1912, he settled again in Britain. García dedicated part of his time to write the section “Through the Borders” for the New York newspaper Cultura Obrera. It was a review of world events, a journalistic genre that García had practiced twenty years earlier in El Perseguido, of Buenos Aires, where he had written long reviews of Europe’s politics. In these international chronicles, which were published in different papers, he wrote about the Italian military expedition in Tripoli, the rise of Catholicism in France, and the increase of warmongering tensions between the European powers, among other issues. From then, until 1914, he sent information about the workers’ mobilizations in England to Cultura Obrera, while serving as a Spanish “interpreter” in the International Anarchist Congress that was intended to be held in London that same year. In parallel, he continued to report for Tierra y Libertad on the persecutions of foreign anarchists in London, the advances of the libertarian propaganda around the world, the workers’ struggles in America, the Mexican Revolution, and the antimilitarist demonstrations in Europe, among other topics of interest regarding the cultural life of the consolidating global anarchist community of those years. Vicente García’s trajectory and his outstanding role show us a type of anarchist correspondent whose characteristics were not defined until the turn of the century: a journalist who did not need to travel long distances as he read the libertarian publications network. In this network of newspapers, he formed his point of view and spread the information. In other words, a correspondent who virtually traveled the world with the help of newspapers and with chronicles of world events published in the anarchist press. Besides, this type of correspondent promoted circulation and exchange among libertarian publications. He became, finally, a spokesman for the world anarchist community. These anarchist correspondents presented experiences from different countries showing the similarities and parallels of the conditions of exploitation in the most diverse latitudes. These

chronicles embedded in readers an intuitive “universal homeland,” structured by political identity and a strong sense of solidarity. Rebellious nomadism contributed to the placement of anarchism and anarchists on the top of a rebel wave during this era of globalization, characterized by imperialism and capitalism’s brutality. By pointing out the global conditions of capitalist oppression, the correspondents also emphasized the universality of a rebel spirit among the disinherited. The discreet but constant work of correspondents (and the newspapers for which they wrote) is part of the formation of a cosmopolitan and internationalist consciousness within a transnational community of readers who shared the Idea, without nation or owner, to build another world. Notes 1. In the pages of this newspaper, there are approximately 227 foreign correspondences during the indicated period, coming from about fifty identified correspondents. According to a database (under construction) of international links between Spanish-language anarchist newspapers, the vast majority of these correspondences were originally sent to El Productor; some letters and communications came from Melbourne, London, Paris, and Brussels and were reprinted from newspapers such as The Commonweal (London) and La Révolte (Paris). Other long-lasting newspapers with significant geographic locations for the spread of anarchism also deployed a considerable network of correspondents. For instance, El Despertar, of New York, between 1893 and 1902, inserted in its pages about 150 correspondences of at least 8 countries. Most of these came from Barcelona and Havana. Nearly a decade later, another newspaper in New York, Cultura Obrera, published almost one hundred correspondents from abroad, between 1911 and 1917, from 16 countries, highlighting those sent from the Caribbean and Central America, as well as those from Spain. For its part, Tierra y Libertad published between 1904 and 1912, more than 150 foreign correspondences from 13 countries; the majority were sent from the Rio de la Plata, France, Panama, and the United Kingdom. This weekly approximately had 60 correspondents since the tracing that has been made of the signatories of foreign communications.

2. V. Bardají, “Carta de Méjico,” Bandera Social (Madrid), June 17, 1886. Biblioteca Pública Arús, Barcelona. 3. Ibid. All quotes in this chapter were translated by Juan Sosa and Alejandro de la Torre. 4. Ibid. 5. V. Bardají, “Carta de Méjico (Conclusión),” June 24, 1886. 6. Ibid. 7. “Revista Internacional,” Bandera Social (Madrid). 8. “Noticias universales,” in El Productor (Barcelona), March 5, 1887. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. 9. “Correo. San Francisco de California,” El Productor (Barcelona), July 1, 1887. See also: “Correspondencia administrativa de El Productor,” December 28, 1888; March 21, 1890; and December 4, 1890. A letter dated at the end of May 1887 refers to Bardají’s confrontation with Father Garriga, of Catalan origin, whose influence was strong among the Spanishspeaking community in San Francisco. At the urging of the clergyman and the bourgeois of Spanish origin in the city, “instigated by the obscurantists of Mexico,” the persecution was unleashed against those, like Bardají, seeking to spread libertarian ideas among the workers. 10. El Corresponsal “Correo. San Francisco de California,” El Productor (Barcelona), July 1, 1887. 11. Ibid. 12. “Misceláneas,” in Bandera Social (Madrid), December 2, 1886. 13. See note 9. 14. “Correspondencia administrativa de El Productor,” December 4, 1890. 15. See “Asamblea del domingo,” El Productor (Havana), September 29, 1887; J. C. [J. C. Campos], “Los anarquistas de Chicago,” El Productor (Havana), October 27, 1887. Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, Havana. El Corresponsal [J. C. Campos], “Correo. Nueva York, 18 de septiembre de 1887,” El Productor (Barcelona), October 7, 1887. 16. El Productor (Havana), November 24, 1887. The same letter was published with some cuts in El Productor (Barcelona), on December 2 of that same year.

17. J. C. Campos, “El anarquismo entre los obreros cubanos, I,” in El Despertar (New York), September 30, 1894. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. 18. Gerardo Quintana, “J. C. Campos,” in El Despertar, January 23, 1902. 19. Soledad Gustavo (Teresa Mañé), “Vicente García ha muerto,” in La Revista Blanca (Barcelona), November 15, 1930. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid. 20. Hardly ever did García send the same article to different newspapers, but he frequently repeated some information (mostly about labor mobilizations) in his international reviews. Since he had direct contact with a great quantity of anarchist newspapers in Spanish, most of the anarchist editorial groups did not need to reprint his contributions; nevertheless, they did on some occasions. 21. Crímenes del anarquismo. Entre las sombras del complot, Madrid, Imprenta artística Sáenz Hermanos y Cía., 1916. 22. See “Correspondencia administrativa,” in Tierra y Libertad (Barcelona), March 28, 1907. 23. See “Vicente García,” in Miguel Iñíguez’s Esbozo de una Enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001), 250. 24. García dealt with the Carlo de Fornaro’s affair, the persecution of the Mexican Liberal Party militants, the closure of the Porfirian media system, and so on. 25. See V. García, “Desde Francia,” Tierra y Libertad (Barcelona), August 8, 1907. 26. See, for instance, the debate held with Ricardo Mella and Acción Libertaria in the Spring of 1911. 27. See Constant Leroy [Manuel Villalobos Moreno], Los secretos del anarquismo, México, 1913. 28. For example, the archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Madrid, Spain, as well as the Archives of the Police Prefecture of Paris, records the activities of this restless militant.

PART II

Latino Labor and Anarchism in the United States

CHAPTER 3

Anarchism and the End of Empire José Cayetano Campos, Labor, and Cuba Libre CHRISTOPHER J. CASTAÑEDA In fin de siècle New York, the Cuban émigré José Cayetano Campos was one of the most dedicated and influential architects of the transnational Spanish-language anarchist print network. He served as the New York correspondent for anarchist periodicals published in Spain and Cuba, and he helped establish and edit El Despertar, the longest-running Spanish-language anarchist periodical in nineteenthcentury United States.1 In his essays, one theme that Campos continually addressed was the complicated dynamic between Cuban separatists and Spanish-born anarchists; Campos sought to unify their divergent ideological perspectives by focusing attention on the plight of labor rather than divisive and highly politicized disputes and antagonisms.2 This chapter complements Alejandro Torre’s essay on transnational militant correspondents and focuses on the life and work of José Campos; it also provides background for Kirwin Shaffer’s following chapter on anarchism and radical Hispanic networks based in Florida. José Cayetano Campos was born in Cuba circa 1851 and emigrated to the United States near the end of the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) during which Cuban insurrectionists fought for independence from Spain. Campos became a naturalized U.S. citizen on October 26, 1876; the cigar dealer Pedro N. Agramonte served as witness. Three years later in New York, Campos married Isabel Durio, born in Cuba to an Italian father and Cuban-born mother. Although Campos came of age during the contentious and often violent Cuban struggle for independence, he spent his adult years in New York in the midst of the intensifying U.S. labor movement. There, Campos worked in the cigar business and learned the printing trade. According to Frank Fernández, the anarchist editor and historian, Campos did return briefly to Havana after the Ten Years’ War and “initiated contact between Cuban and Spanish anarchists.”3 From a relatively early age, Campos’s milieu was tobacco, print, and anarchism.

Transnational anarchist print networks were built around people like Campos, who were artisans of print culture, writers, and thinkers, and committed individuals who shared ideas, reprinted famous anarchist essays, and reported news about labor, economics, and society as well as promoted subscriptions and collected funds. Based in New York, José Campos was a dedicated correspondent in a burgeoning network that connected believers in the Ideal from Spain, Cuba, South America, and the United States.4

Labor and Print During the mid-1880s in New York, José Campos became involved in a heated dispute among factions of Cuban-born (creole) separatists and Spanish-born (peninsular) cigar makers, reflected in two distinct Spanish-speaking cigar unions.5 It began during 1883 when peninsular cigar makers formed the Gremio de Obreros de Nueva York (New York Workers’ Union) which was “a republican and reformist organization.” This union had a membership of 400 and also published a periodical, La Questión Social, with a Havanabased correspondent who served as the secretary of the Gremio de Obreros del Ramo de Tabaquerias (GORT) in that city.6 Conversely, Cuban cigar makers in New York had established their own labor group, Unión de Torcedores de Tabaco Habano (Union of Havana Tobacco Cigar Makers). The intensely felt Cuba Libre movement had engendered deep-seated mistrust among these organizations, and the ongoing disputes between creoles and peninsulars became a central theme in Campos’s thought and essays. Campos understood that conflicts between separatists and labor activists could seriously hamper both movements. He recorded another example of this in an episode that occurred during late January through early February 1886, when eighty-three Cuban cigar-makers employed at the tobacco firm of Lozano, Pendás y Company in New York went on strike. But separatists, as in this case, often discouraged strikes for financial reasons. Casanovas explained, “Strikes not only stopped temporarily the routine financial contributions made by tobacco workers and some marquistas to the separatist movement, but also absorbed the funds collected by nonstrikers [that were given] as a gesture of solidarity to help those

on strike.”7 Consequently, La República and El Avisador Cubano, two New York–based Cuban separatist newspapers, criticized the strikers for essentially prioritizing their personal income over support for separatism and Cuba Libre. In response, Campos, who was then a leader of the Unión de Torcedores, printed a manifesto titled “A los cubanos” charging the separatists with, in fact, betraying the labor movement. He wrote: “To subsidize the press that defends an idea is a necessity: the press is a powerful lever that alone can make a political, scientific, religious, social revolution.”8 This conflict in New York provided a clear example to Campos of the power of the radical press, leading him closer than ever to the project of a transnational anarchist print network. In the mid-1880s, Campos became increasingly disillusioned with what he perceived as the separatists’ single-minded focus on Cuba Libre. He urged Cuban workers to form organizations that would better represent their real interests—and he meant labor rights.9 Workers needed to confront the oppressive qualities of capitalism and not be distracted by transitory political concerns. Campos’s anticapitalist views led him to an anarchist sensibility, and he attempted to establish an anarchist labor group. It was during 1884, he later recalled, that he had first “tried to organize in New York an anarchist group of workers who spoke the Spanish language; but my efforts crashed against the indifference of the Cubans and the opposition of many of the peninsulars.”10 He would not give up. To support himself and his family, Campos worked primarily as a printer, and he attended meetings of the famed International Typographical Union (ITU). Originally formed in 1852 as the National Typographical Union and acclaimed as the oldest trade union in the United States, it advocated progressive reforms including the eighthour day, female membership, and a pension plan. Campos certainly expanded his knowledge and understanding of the labor movement through his firsthand connection with this progressive union and likeminded persons associated with it.11 Along with some two hundred delegates, Campos attended the 33rd Congress (1885) of the ITU held at Irving Hall on 15th Street in

New York City. He reported on the speeches he heard at this event, including one speaker who stated: “when a union is strong it can help dissipate the tyranny of capital.”12 He seemed fascinated, in particular, by the keynote speeches given at the Union of Typographers (New York local No. 6) sessions. The speakers were Henry George, the well-known writer and economist, followed by the journalist John Swinton. Henry George spoke on the theme of “the problem of labor.” According to Campos, Henry George stated: The first day I worked in a typographical workshop, I saw that the work day lasted ten hours, and that after the regular job, what I earned at the end of the week was not enough to cover the most pressing needs, I thought what a great evil, or abuse without example, gave shape to the modern system of work, and since then I have been trying to assiduously seek the cause.13 Following Henry George’s speech, John Swinton spoke. He warned the audience to be wary of mechanization and labor-saving devices, particularly the new composition machines that could end the need for typographers. Campos quoted Swinton as saying, “We use in our favor the constant advances of science, and we should not let capital take them over.”14 It was during these years that Campos began to develop an anarcho-syndicalist ideology. This is also evident in the conclusion of his report on the ITU’s 33rd Congress. It included a reference to his colleagues in the Barcelona-based La Asociación: Órgano de la Sociedad de Obreros Tipógrafos de Barcelona (The Association: Organ of the Society of Typographical Workers of Barcelona) stating that he would continue the fight against capital and that “with the faithful conviction, I have embraced the collectivist anarchist flag for many years.” He opined that Americans would soon march for the revolution to come in order to constitute “América la República del Trabajo” (America the Republic of Work). Campos signed his essay, “Yours for the Revolution.”15

Reporting on Haymarket There can be no doubt that the Haymarket strikes, killings, and bombings manifested long-simmering labor rights frustrations and catalyzed a more radical labor movement in the United States; we

can see this trajectory in Campos’s essays. During the 1880s, he had become increasingly involved with the transnational labor press and served as a correspondent for periodicals in Spain and South America, writing essays for the Federación de Trabajadores: Semanario Anárquico-Colectivista (Workers Federation:AnarchoCollectivist Weekly) published in Montevideo, Uruguay, as well as Bandera Social (Social Flag, 1885–1886) in Madrid. But this was just the beginning. During these years, the U.S. labor movement gained strength, particularly in regard to the eight-hour-day movement. In tracing the development of Campos’s labor rights ideology, it is important to emphasize that only a few months after the earlier mentioned eruption of tension among New York’s creole and peninsular cigar makers, a series of massive labor protests took place in Chicago in late April and early May of 1886, and Campos paid keen attention. On May 1, as many as 40,000 workers went on strike in solidarity with the eight-hour-day movement. Continuing strikes in Chicago at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company were violent, and on May 3 at least two strikers died in the resulting clashes. Activists called for more protests on May 4. Late that night at Haymarket Square as the speeches were winding down, someone threw a bomb toward the police, instantaneously killing one. In response, policemen began to fire their weapons, and in the resulting melee seven officers died and at least sixty were wounded. Although the bomb-thrower’s identity was never conclusively determined, Chicago authorities arrested eight suspects. Without hard evidence directly linking the defendants to the actual bomb-throwing incident, authorities instead leveled the serious charges of inciting a riot that lead to deaths. After the highly controversial trial, the jury found the defendants guilty; seven were condemned to death, one to a fifteenyear prison sentence.16 The Haymarket episode, which also significantly represented a massive movement in favor of the eight-hour work day, became a deeply felt rallying cry and symbol for the international labor movement. The involvement of anarchists and, perhaps more importantly, the successful efforts of authorities to cast the entire episode as an anarchist conspiracy to spread violent mayhem and

destruction, provided the nascent transnational radical press with fuel for the struggle against the state and capitalism. The significance of Haymarket to the transnational print network cannot be overstated: two of the nineteenth century’s most important and long-lasting Hispanic labor-activist periodicals emerged soon thereafter, both of which began publishing in 1887: El Productor (The Producer, 1887–1893, Habana), and El Productor (1887–1893, Barcelona). Although Bandera Social (Social Flag) had ceased publication in 1886, the editors of El Productor (Barcelona) stated in their first issue that they would “sustain the same doctrines maintained by Bandera Social.”17 José Campos solidified his influential role as a labor correspondent by serving as the New York correspondent for these papers. He became a regular contributor to El Productor, Barcelona, beginning with its first issue on February 1, 1887. “The young editors of El Productor—Pedro Esteve, Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, Adrián del Valle,” noted historian Susana Sueiro, “were fascinated by J. C. Campos’s essays,” typically signed as “El Corresponsal.”18 In fact, Campos’s talents not only fascinated these young Spanish anarchist editors, his abilities later attracted at least two of them (Esteve and del Valle) to Brooklyn. In El Productor’s first issue, Campos contributed an essay that highlighted his enthusiasm and understanding of libertarianism. He wrote: “Those who have followed step by step the socialist development of this century, cannot deny that [the existence of] El Productor is due to a great extent that we are in the age of reason, or more properly, in the conditions to carry out The Social Revolution.”19 In this same essay, after describing El Productor’s value to the movement, Campos briefly addressed U.S. labor conditions. Due to space constraints, however, he stated that he would focus on the Haymarket trial. Campos reported on the sentencing and quoted the judge: “It is not proven that any of you killed seven police officers; but as you are the most prominent and beloved of the anarchists, I want to avenge the death of those who defended my privileges that night and therefore I sentence you to be hanged.”20 Campos continued his essay, noting that the “judge then asked the defendants if they had anything to say. Defendant Samuel

Fielden, responded that ‘when the time comes for dying I will ascend to the gallows, despising death as much as I despise your laws and the society you represent; that’s all I have to say.’”21 Ultimately, four defendants—Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, and Louis Lingg—were executed by hanging on November 11, 1887. These were the Haymarket martyrs who paid the ultimate price in a court of law for defending labor against the ruthless nexus of capital and the state.22

El Despertar In Brooklyn, José Campos continued to work as a printer and engage in labor activism, particularly among cigar makers. He was also establishing himself as a valued Brooklyn-based correspondent in the developing transnational anarchist print network. It was surely a logical step for him to use his typographical skills, his commitment to an anarcho-syndicalist perspective, and his place in the community of cigar makers to launch a newspaper in Brooklyn. During 1890, Campos, along with a small group of peninsular and creole cigar makers, established their own labor activist periodical. According to Luis Barcia, a peninsular cigar maker who had arrived in Brooklyn via Cuba in 1890, nine Spanish and Cuban workers formed “the Parson[s] group, in memory of the great defender of workers … [and] in our first meeting we decided to publish the newspaper under the name of ‘El Despertar’ (The Awakening) and chose J. Campos and myself as editors.”23 At that time, Campos was working as a printer “in an american [sic] printing shop,” Barcia wrote later, “[and with] Campos and I, in charge of the newspaper, did all our best to fulfill our duties in the publication of the paper. We had some collaborators from time to time and later we had new editors.”24 Barcia also referenced contemporary labor tensions, and undoubtedly Haymarket, when he wrote: “The number of intelligent workers and representatives of labor organizations who were sentenced by the Courts, some to jail terms and others given death penalty, shook not only the people of the United States but the people of the world, as well.”25 Campos frequently contributed essays to El Despertar. Included among these were several multipart series including “Soy

anarquista” (I Am an Anarchist); “El literato por fuerza” (Writer by Necessity); and the twelve-part series “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos” (Anarchism: Among the Cuban Workers). The latter series most fully displayed Campos’s concerns about peninsular-creole tensions. In fact, it was an article published in El Porvenir (The Future), the New York–based Cuban separatist periodical, that had initially inspired Campos to write this series of essays. Significantly, Campos wanted to refute an accusation printed in El Porvenir that anarchism was essentially a Spanish plot against Cuban patriotism. That charge led Campos to assert that El Porvenir was seeking to “distract the Cuban workers from their most important and sacred duties, that is, their duty to defend their labor.”26 El Porvenir had blamed Spaniards for injecting the “venom” of anarchism into the Cuban community and consequently trying to destroy Cubans’ love of homeland in Tampa and New York. Campos retorted, “This is false, because I, before being an anarchist had not heard any peninsular speak of anarchy.”27 Campos continued to remind his readers that it was, in essence, the inequalities caused by private property and capitalism that oppressed workers, and that was the social condition that most needed to be changed. This was a common theme not only in this series of essays but in much of Campos’s writing. While Campos regularly addressed the conflict and tension among creoles and peninsulars, he focused on the dynamics of the capitalist economy that undermined worker solidarity. The Cuban separatist movement was vitally important, but it was not in itself the solution; social and economic equality was vital for achieving economic solidarity among the entire working class. In these essays, Campos also made clear his views on class and race: “I work to achieve the liberty of the proletariat—as a class— and from this point of view I do not distinguish the Cuban worker from the Spanish, the American from the Russian, the black from the white.”28 Indeed, Campos understood that the roots of tyranny existed within every person and that, he implied, self-respect and dignity were required to avoid placing oneself at the mercy of tyranny. He perceptively wrote: “Tyranny is not a heritage or quality of a particular race or nationality; it resides in the individual and

manifests itself as soon as a human delegates his sovereignty to another man.”29 Campos also described the fertile conditions leading to oppression and misery that inevitably led to the development of anarchist ideology among workers: “I was very young … and I thought that all the misery—immense misery—that weighed on me and on mine and on all of us that worked, was the result of the damn monarchic Spanish government.”30 Yet, Campos acknowledged that he was no more certain on that very day in New York of being able to have a meal the next day than he was in Cuba twenty-five years earlier. And why?, he asked rhetorically. Campos then pointed to the fact that nine Americans, led by John D. Rockefeller and William Astor, controlled approximately $770 million dollars in capital; Campos included a table with his essay that listed the wealth of these individuals.31 It was in large part this extreme wealth inequality that prompted his calls for social revolution. Campos continually restated his dedication to the plight of labor. In the fourth essay of this series, he wrote that in Cuba, the United States, England, France, Spain, and other countries of the world, the greatest problem to resolve was simply “that of the economic emancipation of the workers.”32 And Campos railed against those employers with whom he was most familiar—the cigar manufacturers —who tried to create tension between creoles and peninsulars for their own benefit: The Cuban workers are not unworthy, no; they may have been distracted for a while, but their awakening will have terrible consequence for Gato, Martinez Ybor, Haya, Lozano, and all those traffickers of human blood. They [the workers] will awaken to reality and then they will shatter those little salaried writers who … instead of [working in a factory], find it more comfortable to publish essays to incite the Cuban workers against the peninsular, in order that the manufacturers can exploit them with impunity.33 Campos’s essays in this series continued on a regular basis through most of December. But then the essays did not appear for several consecutive issues. He later explained his absence to readers:

“death had stopped in my humble home … and took with him the smallest of my daughters.”34 Campos’s final essays in the “El Anarquismo: Entre Los Obreros Cubanos” series focused again on the conflict between creoles and peninsulars. Referring to an earlier essay in which he said he would prove that peninsular workers were not the enemies of Cubans, he wrote, “I think it will be an easy task, it is a serious mistake to confuse the Austrian queen and her scruffy baby, surrounded by Cánovas, Sagasta and that army of leeches living on the budget— the symbol of the Spanish monarchy—with the peninsular people who earn subsistence working without rest.”35 With irony, Campos stated that even a skeptic who took the time to consider what he [Campos] was saying about working-class peninsulars would be compelled to respond: “In truth, that devil of an anarchist is right.”36 Campos also addressed the role of the anarchist press itself as both a medium for anarchist propaganda as well as a pawn in the larger separatist struggle. He wrote: “The anarchist propaganda in Spain, the United States and Cuba has done more damage to the Spanish domination on that island than all the bullets of the insurgents during the separatist struggle.”37 Then he noted perceptively that the Cuban government “allows free circulation of the separatist newspapers that are printed on the island and those that go abroad and, on the other hand, prevents the entry and has fierce persecution of all our [anarchist] publications, as El Esclavo of Tampa has rightly pointed out. And this, strange as it may seem, has an easy explanation: the separatist propaganda, as it is being done, divides the people, and it is well known that hatred engenders the division of men, and on which tyrants feel their strongest foundation.”38 Indeed, Campos understood that anarchism might well provide the best means for working-class unification, while cigar manufacturers often disingenuously promoted separatism, only to sow division among their workers and between creoles and peninsulars. Campos again reiterated that Cubans were beginning to understand that not all peninsulars—or peninsular anarchists—were their enemies. He noted that José Martí’s paper, Patria, “is today the

most authoritative and respected” periodical published by the Partido Revolucionario Cubano, and that he had never read in Patria “the insults and diatribes that other Cuban newspapers have launched against the anarchists.”39 Campos continued with his most clearly stated defense of the peninsulars: Those who try to establish an independent government in Cuba will not be able to consolidate it without moral and material help from the peninsulars [without falling] into the arms of the American colossus. … Cuban workers: to get rid of the peninsular workers in the workshop would be death; that would result in the most horrible slavery; we not be able to make any improvements, and then the triumphant bourgeois, ever more haughty, would impose upon us all kinds of tributaries and taxes which, being obedient and humble, we would have to pay him, turning us into modern servants.40 Campos concluded his last essay with a hopeful vision: “It is time to end this series of articles.” This would be the last series that Campos wrote for El Despertar. He contributed two more signed essays in 1895. However, his contributions (at least those that were signed) dramatically declined and essentially ended after this year. The very last line of his last article summarized Campos’s long-standing views: I want “bread for all, science for all, work for all: and, for all men, equality, justice and liberty!!”41 Perhaps one reason for Campos’s virtual disappearance from El Despertar was the establishment of El Esclavo (The Slave, 1894– 1898) in Tampa; Luis Barcia had participated in the formation and operation of this periodical dedicated to labor but was also much more directly sympathetic to Cuba Libre. And at El Despertar, Pedro Esteve had assumed primary editorial control although it’s likely that Campos remained involved to some extent. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that Campos—despite his own mediated position— disagreed with Esteve’s apparent lack of interest in the Cuban question. Campos did contribute essays to El Esclavo, and by early 1898, El Despertar itself was having difficulty; it was printed only on February 20 and then June 20. On September 15, following the end of the Spanish-American War and the end of Spain’s imperial control of Cuba, El Despertar

resumed regular publication. One unsigned essay stated that now that Cuba was free of Spanish domination, it was also important to end the guerra sorda (warlike hostility) in the United States between Spaniards and Cubans. The writer continued: “We always maintained that it was illogical and damaging to interfere with patria (“fatherland”) and politics in matters of labor, and, unfortunately, we were ignored by the Cuban separatist element. We trust that … the facts would have opened their eyes.”42 Another essay in this same issue of El Despertar helps explain the division in the Spanish-speaking anarchist community in Brooklyn. El Despertar’s editors wrote: “So far the long awaited cataclysm in Spain has not happened … even if one rejoices at the loss of Puerto Rico, Cuba and part of the Philippines, as we explained and even applauded. But we have not given up hope; The revolution must explode.”43 For anarchists, Spain’s resolute defeat in the Spanish-American War and the dismemberment of its empire was expected to lead to a full-fledged social revolution in Spain, but that didn’t happen.

A New Call: El Rebelde After the War’s conclusion, Campos joined an effort to establish a new paper. Along with Luis Barcia, Adrian del Valle, and Gerardo Quintana, this group formed El Rebelde (The Rebel, 1898) based at 194 Pearl Street in Brooklyn. El Rebelde published its first issue on September 10, 1898, just as El Despertar also resumed publication (on September 15). El Despertar printed a brief essay on September 30 acknowledging receipt of a copy of El Rebelde and identifying its editorial group, and then wishing the new paper “good success and a long life.”44 In return, El Rebelde soon thereafter advertised a “Gran Velada y Baile” (Great Party and Dance) fund-raiser for El Depertar at Brooklyn’s Turn Hall.45 The first issue of El Rebelde described the rationale for its title, the term Rebelde. The editors explained that the word represented all people who were fighting despotism and the loss of liberty. Rebels included oppressed labor but also scientists, philosophers, artists, and writers who sought to attain the new ideal. They continued: “We have not found a better title that condenses your aspiration, and it is

a robust and virile word that brands all those who protest against the villainy and errors of present society.”46 A flyer that a accompanied the paper’s first issue contained this statement: We send you as shown the first number of El Rebelde that as its name indicates is divorced from everything that constitutes an enemy of the working class. Our newspaper is the work of the humiliated class, it will be about the interests of the same and its life depends on the solidarity that the revolutionaries of conviction want to dispense. The libertarian press must spread throughout the world, because it is indispensable for the emancipation of the proletariat: but in order to achieve this it needs the help of all the conscious workers.47 Although Campos had withdrawn from El Despertar, he took an active role at El Rebelde. In one of his essays in the new periodical, he eloquently described the U.S. navy ships steaming into New York harbor on their return from the Spanish- American War. Campos identified the USS Texas battleship and two cruisers, the USS Brooklyn and USS New York. He reflected on the effect the war had on Americans, Spaniards, and Cubans. But his concluding message was the one that counted: “And the truth is that the American, Spanish and Cuban peoples should have fought [emphasis by author] to smash the economic tyrant that exploited them before, which now exploits them and will exploit them in the future.”48 El Rebelde’s editors clearly expected to be in print for the foreseeable future. Del Valle even advertised a series of night courses in Brooklyn for the colonia de lengua española (Spanish language colony) in Castilian Spanish grammar, writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, and elementary English.49 But the editors ultimately were not successful in maintaining their new periodical, and two of them soon left New York. First, in early November, Barcia departed for Havana. The editors wished him “buen viaje y mejor suerte” (good travels and best of luck).50 Adrián del Valle soon thereafter also left Brooklyn for Havana where he established a new periodical El Nuevo Ideal (The New Ideal, 1899–1901), which remained in print for several years. J. C. Campos and Gerardo Quintana remained in Brooklyn.51

Nuevo Ideal In Havana, del Valle began publishing El Nuevo Ideal in January 1899.52 Luis Barcia assisted del Valle while he was in Cuba but soon thereafter traveled back to Tampa where he lived until his death in the autumn of 1963. Campos also contributed essays to del Valle’s new paper. With Cuba free of Spanish control, Campos now had the opportunity to plead with Cubans to fight for their true liberty and independence. As late as the Fall of 1901, in an essay titled “La Constitución de la nueva República Cubana,” Campos encouraged Cubans to be prepared to continue to struggle and fight for their liberty.53 In Campos’s last series of essays that were printed in El Nuevo Ideal during August 1901, he analyzed the problem of monopoly, or the “Trust.” In a continuation of a multipart essay, he wrote about the people who were oppressed and beaten down by the monopolists, in particular the 213,000 employees that he noted were dependent upon J. P. Morgan: As you can see, the American workers have entered into a trial period in which there is reason to expect great results. Or they will be riveted to their chains and suffer a condition worse than that of the serfs in the Middle Ages, or they rebel … heading for the revolution. … Expecting harmony between the Trust and its workers is out of the question.54 In this last essay, Campos had continued to express his passionate commitment to promoting the rights of the working class and to warn them against accommodation with capitalists. After a long illness, José Cayetano Campos died in Brooklyn on October 25, 1901. Gerardo Quintana, his longtime compañero, wrote Campos’s obituary, which appeared in El Despertar, the periodical Campos helped to create. Quintana described Campos as an “intelligent, … tenacious propagandist who for twenty years stuck to his noble task of striking well-aimed blows at the old walls of the bourgeois prison in which we live.”55 Quintana described Campos’s personality as: “frank and sincere, genuinely funny and humorous.”56 Campos’s career is often identified simply as “printer,” but he was much more than that. He was an organic intellectual who used the

technology of his day to communicate ideas far and wide. But toward the end of his life, Campos’s illness made it difficult for him to write, and he wasn’t able to finish his last project. As Quintana wrote: With so much weakness that his fingers were unable to hold his pen, even his energetic spirit grew obstinate at work, wanting to finish a pamphlet he had begun on the memorable Tampa strike; but cruel death did not want the workers to taste that last fruit of his fertile mind.57 In a remarkable and naturalistic allegorical obituary, Quintana described Campos’s early appreciation for and commitment to anarchism—a commitment that never waned. José Cayetano Campos had devoted his life to establishing a transnational anarchist print network for the Idea. A Cuban who wanted political and economic freedom for Cubans and all peoples, Campos had the courage and intelligence to warn his fellow creoles that they had more in common with their peninsular proletariats than not. Of course, Campos supported Cuba Libre, but the ultimate goal was liberty, dignity, and economic justice: the social revolution. Notes 1. Christopher J. Castañeda, “Times of Propaganda and Struggle: El Despertar and Brooklyn’s Spanish Anarchists, 1890–1905,” in Radical Gotham: Anarchism in New York City (1870–2011), edited by Tom Goyens (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017). 2. For background, also see Rafael Nuñez Florencio, “Los Anarquistas Españoles y Americanos ante la Guerra de Cuba,” Hispania: revista española de historia, vol. 51, no. 3, 1991 (1077– 1092), and Amparo Sánchez Cobos, “Transcending Borders: ¡Tierra! and the Expansion of Anarchism in Cuba after the Revolution,” in State of Ambiguity: Civic Live and Culture in Cuba’s First Republic (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014). 3. Frank Fernández, Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement, translated by Charles Bufe (Tucson: See Sharp Press, 2001), 18. 4. See Manuel Morales, “La subcultura anarquista en España: el primer certamen socialista (1885),” in Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, vol. 27-3 (1991), 54, 59.

5. In his book Bread, or Bullets! historian Joan Casanovas carefully described the situation. Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets! Urban labor and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1898 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998). 6. Ibid., 150–52 and 168–69. 7. Ibid., 166. 8. This is my translation of a sentence from notes graciously provided by Joan Casanovas, who read the original document at the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by the author. 9. Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets! 168–69. 10. J. C. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos I,” El Despertar, September 30, 1894. 11. J. C., “Revista Internacional: Estados Unidos,” Federación de Trabajadores: Semanario Anárquico-Colectivista, October 10, 1885. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. See James Green, Death in the Haymarket (New York: Anchor, 2006). 17. “Bandera Social,” El Productor, February 1, 1887. 18. Susana Sueiro Seoane, “Prensa y redes anarquistas transnacionales. El olvidado papel de J. C. Campos y sus crónicas sobre los mártires de Chicago en el anarquismo de lengua hispana,” in Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea (vol. 36, 2014), 274. 19. “New York Enero 1887,” El Productor, February 1, 1887. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. See Green, Death in the Haymarket. 23. Luis Barcia Quilabert, Autobiography of Luis Barcia Quilabert, unpublished manuscript, University of South Florida, Special Collections (Tampa), 28. 24. Ibid., 27. 25. Ibid., 29. 26. J. C. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos I,” El Despertar, September 30, 1894.

27. Ibid. 28. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos III,” El Despertar, October 20, 1894. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos IV,” El Despertar, October 30, 1894. 33. Ibid. 34. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos X,” El Despertar, February 10, 1895. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Campos, “El Anarquismo: Entre los obreros cubanos XII,” El Despertar, February 28, 1895. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. “En nuestro puesto,” El Despertar, September 15, 1898. 43. “Mezclilla: Charla charlando,” El Despertar, September 15, 1898. 44. “Mezclilla,” El Despertar, September 30, 1898. 45. “Gran Velada y Baile,” El Rebelde, November 5, 1898. 46. “El Rebelde,” El Rebelde, September 10, 1898. 47. “A los compañeros,” a flyer that accompanied the first issue of El Rebelde, September 10, 1898. 48. J. C. Campos, “Contrastes,” El Rebelde, October 15, 1898 (?) [p. 9 IISH file]. 49. “Locales,” El Rebelde, October 15, 1898. 50. “Despedida,” El Rebelde, November 5, 1898. 51. “Importante,” El Rebelde, November 19, 1898. In the fifth and last issue, November 19, 1898, the newspaper’s address was changed from 194 Pearl Street to 116 High Street, Brooklyn. 52. The author has not located the first issue, but the second issue is dated February 4, 1899.

53. “La Constitución de la nueva República Cubana,” Nuevo Ideal, February 15, 1901. 54. “El Trust,” Nuevo Ideal, August 21, 1901. 55. Gerardo Quintana, “J. C. Campos,” El Despertar, January 23, 1902. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid.

CHAPTER 4

Red Florida in the Caribbean Red Hispanic Anarchist Transnational Networks and Radical Politics, 1880s–1920s KIRWIN R. SHAFFER Anarchists in Florida played important roles in the Caribbean, including the Cuban War for Independence in the 1890s, the early years of anarchist organization in Cuba after the U.S. occupation of the island ended in 1902, and in labor conflicts impacting the regional tobacco industry. Hispanic anarchists in Florida battled government authorities and Anglo citizen councils in the United States, especially during various unionization efforts and the Red Scare around the Great War. True to a transnational perspective, Florida has to be seen beyond its geopolitical confines of a U.S. state and rather as part of a transnational network linked to anarchist political and labor struggles in Cuba and Puerto Rico. As a result, the chapter emphasizes the transnational dimensions of Hispanic anarchism in the Caribbean, especially the movement of people, and the role of anarchist media in transferring money and ideas across the Florida Straits. This transnationalism was central to anarchist activity in Florida, but for U.S. governmental and economic leaders this transnationalism also was proof of alien sedition aiming to undermine U.S. interests at home and abroad.

Florida-based Anarchists and the Cuban War for Independence: Network Origins By the 1890s, Cubans began organizing for independence from Spain. On May Day 1892, the Cuban anarchist newspaper Hijos del Mundo (Children of the World, Guanabacoa) printed a “Manifiesto á los trabajadores cubanos” (Manifesto to the Cuban Workers). Commemorating the Haymarket martyrs, the authors listed governmental abuses in Europe and North America, turning specifically to Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo: “And Cánovas, who longs to bathe himself in the blood of workers, who cowardly garrotes our compañeros from Jerez and incarcerates countless distinguished by their ideas for freedom,” should “be loathed with every energy in our souls for his profound wrongs.”

While a broad swipe at state oppressors, the manifesto ended with a call for workers to rise up: “and above all, justice, offensively taken by the mercenary hands of judges without conscience, working people on their knees, we implore you to struggle for its immediate arrival. Workers: long live Anarchy!”1 Across the Florida Straits, anarchists soon created El Esclavo (The Slave, Tampa). As Chris Castañeda illustrates in his work on New York, most anarchists in Florida supported the war but in doing so had to navigate nationalistic tensions between Cuban creole and Spanish peninsular workers. Anarchists claimed that nationalistic divisions were part of a false consciousness when it came to matters of social revolution. Workers had to put working-class issues first against the collusion of capital and state. As such, Tampa’s anarchists criticized Cubans and Spaniards in the United States for not doing more to support Cuban independence as an important struggle against authoritarian imperial rule that would ultimately lead to a social and economic revolution to benefit workers of all ethnicities. J. Cerraí, a regular anarchist contributor for the paper, challenged U.S.-based Cubans who sought to alienate anarchists from the movement or questioned the motives of Spanish anarchists supporting Cuban independence. Another writer using the name “Souveraine” went further: “We anarchists are more patriotic than those who call themselves thus. We cannot deny the caress of the piece of land where we have been born and lived as children. But, recognizing that man is born in any old place by accident and not because he wanted to be born here or there, we cannot accept the patria of the politicians” who see a piece of land as something to exploit for themselves. Rather, Souveraine urged readers— especially Spanish workers—to remember that even if not born in Cuba they could help those who sought to free their homeland since everyone should have “the same right as we do to love the small corner where we have been born.”2 The working-class polyglot that was South Florida at the end of the 19th century required that anarchists always portray the struggles on both sides of the Straits in internationalist terms that could be supported by workers of different nationalities. Less than a month after war began in February 1895, El Esclavo’s editors

published a front-page manifesto titled “¡Obreros de Cuba!” (Cuban Workers!) in which they highlighted this internationalist dimension. “The flag of independence that waves in the countryside is not just the flag of one determined party; it does not represent only the protest against Spanish domination of Cuba. Rather, it represents the virile protest of all tyrannized and exploited people who make a supreme effort to attain their freedom.”3 As the war intensified, anarchists kept reminding workers that independence had to coexist with a profound social revolution that would end exploitative production relations and create a condition of anarchist-defined freedom. As the Tampa-based anarchist Salvador Casas put it, after independence the rebels would have to be careful to avoid replicating a republic like the one they had found in the United States, which was a “system of government (perverse and tyrannical like all).” Rather, the freed island would need to create an “unconditionally free” people without codes or laws.4 Adrián del Valle was one of the best known of Cuba’s anarchists in the early 1900s. Born in Spain, he fled to London before moving to Havana in 1895, fled to New York during the war for independence, and returned to Havana at the end of 1898, where he lived until his death in 1945. In 1896 while in New York, he echoed Casas’s words under the pen name Palmiro de Lidia when he reminded readers that Cuba’s liberation had to be about “the redemption of all peoples; that there is a dogma more sacred than that of the religion of the fatherland: it is the religion of humanity.”5 Besides public pronouncements, anarchists also joined the armed revolt. They placed bombs throughout Havana, blowing up bridges and gas lines. For instance, in the spring of 1896, anarchists used poor-quality dynamite in an attempt to blow up the Palace of the Captains-General in Havana.6 In Tampa, the failed bombing was celebrated nevertheless for its symbolic importance as the paper urged “those producing similar explosions!”7 Florida also served as a regular staging ground for anarchists and other separatists from which to launch armed expeditions to the island. The most notable of these anarchists was the union leader Enrique Creci. As a Cuban cigar roller who had published the anarchist Archivo Social (Social

Archive, Havana), he openly called for rebellion against the Spanish Crown. Creci relocated to Tampa in the summer of 1895 and continued his open support for independence, eventually becoming a captain in the rebel army and leading an assault on the island from Key West in 1896. However, Spanish forces captured and executed him.8 Tampa’s anarchists memorialized Creci’s death in May 1897. In the same issue of El Esclavo that they commemorated the eleventh anniversary of the Haymarket Square bombing in Chicago in 1886, the editors recalled Creci’s valiant efforts and the way he died: “Our sick comrade, found prostrated and in pain lying in a bed in one of the revolutionaries’ rural field hospitals, was attacked and murdered by a gang of paid assassins (gavilla de sicarios) like the kinds of dogs that Weyler and Cánovas set upon the people who want to shake off their brutal and degrading yoke.”9 By February 1896, five separate anarchist groups operated in Tampa and West Tampa. These groups, with names like La Alianza (The Alliance), El Hambre (The Hungry), El Despertar (The Awakening), Vigilante, and Sociedad de Propaganda Obrera (Society of Worker Propaganda) played important roles in raising needed funds to support the war effort. As Spain clamped down on rebel and civilian populations in Cuba and several outspoken Havana anarchists were deported to African jails, El Esclavo joined with the New York–based El Despertar (The Awakening)—the other major Spanish-language anarchist periodical in the United States— to launch a fund-raising campaign in support of the deported anarchists’ families left behind in Cuba.10 Florida anarchists also organized and sent supplies to battle Spanish forces.11 Yet, the ability to raise funds quickly became a problem. As conflict spread in Cuba, tobacco fields were laid to waste by the scorched earth policies waged by both sides. As a result, less leaf arrived in the Florida factories, and the demand for workers slowed. Since anarchists relied on workers’ contributions to support their activities and to aid in the war effort, the spreading of the conflict meant less money available to finance the rebellion. In addition, as people fled the conflict in Cuba, they often found themselves in Florida looking for work. Thus, just when there was

less work available, there were even more workers looking for employment and driving down wages. Throughout all of this, the U.S. government generally turned a blind eye to the Tampa anarchists during the war. For most of its run, El Esclavo avoided censorship as it published almost weekly from its inception in June 1894. However, that would change. In the summer of 1897, the Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo assassinated Cánovas del Castillo. In September, El Esclavo published two frontpage columns praising Angiolillo’s actions. As one column concluded: “It was about time.” In the other column, José Cayetano Campos praised the assassination but lamented that in the name of the cause a hero like Angiolillo had to be sacrificed when Spanish officials arrested and then executed him.12 That was the last issue of El Esclavo until its reemergence in February 1898, selling portraits of Angiolillo for ten cents each as a fund-raiser. American officials ordered the paper closed again. Both times the U.S. government shut down El Esclavo because of its public advocacy and support of a world leader’s assassination.13 Thus, the decade that preceded Cuba’s independence from Spain in 1898 witnessed two prominent, influential, and interdependent anarchist movements on opposite sides of the Straits—one in Havana and another in Florida. Before 1898, both Tampa and Havana had thriving anarchist presses that fed off one another. While Havana was the hub of this network linkage, the hub itself relied heavily on the Florida link for income, propaganda, and recruits—all contributing to the origins of a regional Caribbean anarchist network.

Anarchist Unionization in Florida after the War In the first three years following the war, two great labor conflicts erupted among the peninsula’s tobacco rollers: the 1899 Huelga de Pesa and a series of strikes in 1901. In 1899 managers at the Martínez Ybor factory in Tampa sought to increase their control over the production process of cigars by limiting the amount of leaf used to roll a specific amount of cigars. While they were becoming increasingly proletarianized in the ever-rationalized workplace of industrial America, enough of the artisan tradition existed among the rollers that they interpreted the new weight measures as an attack

on their skill, custom, and artisanship. This was about power in the workplace. When owners rebuffed workers’ demands for more leaf, cigar makers went on strike, demanding that the scales be removed. The strike was more than just a “Florida” campaign; it reflected the broader trans-straits solidarity that anarchists in Florida and Cuba had forged during the war. Luis Barcia helped to spearhead this effort. By March 1899, he had left Havana and settled in Tampa, working for the Sociedad General de Trabajadores (General Society of Workers). By April, most of the money funding the Havana-based El Nuevo Ideal (The New Ideal) that he and Adrián del Valle founded earlier that year came from Tampa.14 Barcia told Havana workers that “if the situation becomes more grave … we will need the effective assistance of our Cuban brothers.” Barcia added: “Workers of Havana … know as well as we do, that the cause of all workers, without distinction of razas, is the same, and that an injury to workers of this or that region is an injury to all workers in general.”15 When the strike erupted, Cuban painters, carpenters, and members of other unions joined tobacco workers in Havana, Regla, Bejucal, San Antonio, and Santiago in raising money for the strike fund.16 The transnational anarchist propaganda and revenue-raising clearly showed the owners that the nearly four-month strike could continue indefinitely. Ultimately, workers won the strike, the scales were removed, and tabaqueros could now form representative committees in the factories. The workers’ victory relied partly on the anarchist efforts of Barcia and Del Valle who led the campaign to get workers throughout Cuba to put aside any nationalist rivalry and come to the aid of fellow workers in the United States. The tobacco workers immediately formed La Sociedad de Torcedores de Tampa—aka, La Resistencia (Tampa Cigar Rollers Society, aka The Resistance).17 The new union published La Federación (The Federation) from April 1900 to August 1901, usually in Spanish, but sometimes with columns translated into English and Italian, reflecting the union’s multiethnic makeup.18 From April to November 1900, the union’s international character was evident and growing. While 1058 Cubans, 455 Spaniards, and 289 Italians were members in April, these figures grew to 1558, 550, and 310,

respectively, by November. In addition, the union’s membership lists included workers from the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, the Dominican Republic, England, and Germany.19 Yet, some Cuban workers in Tampa felt threatened by the large presence of non-Cubans, especially Spaniards, in the immediate aftermath of the war. While worker solidarity may have been strong enough to help win the 1899 strike, there seemed to be a constant tendency for some workers to fall back on nationalistic sentiments. In February 1900, some Cubans at the Ybor and Manrara factories left La Resistencia and organized the rival union La Liga Obrera de Tampa (The Tampa Workers League) that was modeled after the nationalistic La Liga de Trabajadores Cubanos de La Habana (The Havana League of Cuban Workers). In addition, a third union competed for workers: the Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU, or simply the International), with branches soon to stretch from New York to Puerto Rico. La Liga’s split threatened to undermine the growing power of the union movement. La Resistencia urged workers of all nationalities to consider what was transpiring. Reverting to the now standard “internationalist working-class appeal,” La Federación told former belligerents in the recent war “to unchain themselves from those former passions abroad.” This meant not fighting for crumbs that the capitalists give “in order to take advantage” of you but instead to fight the capitalist “who has no other country than his coin purse.”20 As the newspaper put it: “There are no longer any Cubans, Spaniards, Italians, Americans, but only workers united in societies of resistance willing to defend together the principle that is common to all.”21 By mid-May, La Liga and La Resistencia signed a manifesto, urging both unions to unite.22 But then a labor feud erupted between La Resistencia and the CMIU in the fall of 1900.23 In the midst of this strife, Tampa’s anarchists began to publish another newspaper, La Voz del Esclavo (The Slave’s Voice), which sided squarely with La Resistencia. The paper claimed that the CMIU was, among other things, complicit with both the police and owners to destroy the anarchist union.24 Some years later, Julián González, a Cuban-born cigar roller who went to Tampa in February 1896, remembered the

CMIU as a highly centralized, “American,” and “practical” union that opposed the “Latin” and “radical” La Resistencia, much to the workers’ detriment.25 In May 1901, La Resistencia went on strike to force the city elders to repair an unsafe bridge that linked Ybor City with West Tampa and for owners of the street car company to improve their lines. The bridge was a critical link for workers to get from home to work daily, but its poor condition forced people to pay for boat transportation. The strike worked; a new bridge was constructed, and a new streetcar line established. Emboldened by their success, the union then threatened to call a strike in July if factory owners did not eliminate plans to build branch factories in Jacksonville and Pensacola—factories, the workers were convinced, that would exploit cheaper labor and deprive Tampa workers of good jobs. On July 26, the union declared a general strike.26 The strike touched a raw nerve in the Anglo community. Tampa’s leading newspaper, Morning Tribune, wrote that it was time for citizens to stand up against foreigners. Anglo-led “Citizens Committees” soon emerged to forcibly remove agitators from the city.27 Ten days into the strike, Tampa policemen swooped into a strikers’ meeting, seized a large amount of strike funds, and beat committee members.28 Then the police apprehended thirteen strike leaders, and, without charging them with a crime, put the men on board the ship Marie Cooper, where they were shanghaied to British Honduras and dropped there on an abandoned beach. Along with the transnational anarchist leader Luis Barcia, some of the deported included the Puerto Rican union leader Pedro Casellas, African American worker Charles Kelly, and José Fueyo, soon to be a regular columnist in the Havana anarchist press.29 Letters of the persecutions and deportations arrived in Havana, including one addressed specifically to Barcia’s old comrade, Adrián del Valle, that informed anarchists on both sides of the Florida Strait of the treachery. Havana’s Comité de Auxilios, which had raised money for the 1899 strike, held a rally where twenty anarchists took the podium and railed against the abuses and deportations.30 New York’s El Despertar proclaimed the deportations as without equal: “We are

going to narrate to you a story such as has not had an equal since the world is a world. It is so exceptional, that we fear not being believed.” Portrayed as more infamous than even the Haymarket Square events, the manifesto urged all workingmen to aid the ongoing strike both morally and materially.31 A radicalized Barcia eventually made it to Key West where he urged anarchists to arm themselves and fight back. For those who had believed that real change could come from peaceful strikes, maybe it was time to rethink that position. Future strikes were likely to be met with more violence. Thus, it was now necessary “to arm each and every striker with a rifle to fight force with force.” The true lesson to draw here, Barcia concluded, was that “if the strike had been more turbulent, it is likely that they [Citizens Committees] would have been less daring than they have been.” In short, to prevent future abuses like those witnessed that August in 1901, workers— and anarchists—would have to be prepared to use violence to assert their demands and protect themselves and their families.32 Barcia’s letter advocating anarchist violence was poorly timed as it was published on September 10. Four days earlier a lone, unaffiliated anarchist had gunned down U.S. President William McKinley. Public attention, especially in Tampa, began to see all foreign workers as potential anarchists. The mainstream press even warned Tampans that the very anarchistic elements who killed McKinley were operating in their fair city too.33 Just when they thought things could not get worse, they did. Manufacturers successfully recruited tobacco workers from Key West, Havana, and elsewhere, taking advantage of strikes and unemployment in those cities. The complicity of CMIU workers serving as strikebreakers was perhaps the most galling to the anarchists. Samuel Gompers, a former cigar maker himself, but now heading the American Federation of Labor (with which the CMIU was affiliated) refused La Resistencia’s request for aid because the anarchist-based union did not, in his eyes, conform to North American trade unionism. With strike funds running low and their jobs quickly being lost to AFL scabs, La Resistencia surrendered. The strike ended in December 1901. La Resistencia limped forward

into the new year. However, in early 1902, Tampa’s immigrant anarchist union and its newspaper folded.34 With the Florida union crippled in late 1901, Florida money failed to cross the straits to help finance El Nuevo Ideal—Cuba’s first postindependence anarchist newspaper. The paper soon ceased publication. In a sense, Anglo persecution against Barcia in Florida also brought down the newspaper that Barcia had helped to found in Havana in 1899. But beginning in late 1902, Tampa’s anarchists found a new communication outlet. In that year, the Havana anarchist group ¡Tierra! began publishing its weekly newspaper. Until it folded in 1915, ¡Tierra! (Earth!) collected money from Tampa and published regular correspondent columns from the city. With no organ of their own, anarchists in Tampa, Key West, and St. Augustine became major financial backers of the paper. Florida’s anarchists sent over $658 to the newspaper, helping to finance 49 percent of ¡Tierra!’s issues from April 1903 to November 1907. The majority of the funds came from Tampa, though frequently large contributions came from Key West and St. Augustine. The St. Augustine contributions were always collected and sent in by Luis Barcia, who had moved to that city by early February 1904. As Havana came to play the role of “anarchist hub” with its new waves of anarchists arriving from Spain and its publication of the weekly ¡Tierra!, the strong Florida network link played a fundamental role in financing this hub during the newspaper’s first years.35

Florida Anarchists, the Mexican Revolution, and the Latin IWW in the 1910s In the years before the Great War, Tampa’s anarchists continued to challenge labor and political developments in anarchist newspapers in Havana and New York. Meanwhile, as they gave money and correspondence to their leftist comrades, Tampa’s anarchists also cultivated a tenuous relationship with the CMIU—a relationship begun in 1903 when hundreds of anarchists began joining the International, trying to bring an anarchist voice into this otherwise reformist union linked to the AFL. As one anarchist put it, a new organization in a city like Tampa was impossible. So, he urged anarchists to organize within the International, concluding that the

fate of Tampa’s workers was simple: “either organized or unemployed.”36 Years later, another anarchist remembered how the International was conservative, centrist, and did not always act in a way that seemed to be best for all workers, but it was the only union around. “But between the factory owners and it [International],” he decided. “I remain with the International, though we will have to make it respect us a bit more,” he concluded.37 In late 1910, approximately 12,000 men and women called a general strike to force factories to recognize the CMIU throughout the tobacco industry. Violence soon erupted. When two Italians were arrested for killing an Anglo bookkeeper, a mob lynched the Italians before they could go on trial. Strike leaders were arrested for inciting violence after arsonists attacked newspaper and factory buildings. Citizen’s patrols raided the newspaper offices of the CMIU’s El Internacional (The International, Tampa) destroying presses, intimidating staff, and placing the editor under citizen’s arrest. The tobacco companies then brought in strikebreakers as Anglos accosted workers both verbally and with pistol shots.38 For anarchists, the events in 1910 were scary reminders of the abuses they suffered during the 1901 strike that saw the destruction of La Resistencia. ¡Tierra! and its Tampa-based correspondents urged workers on both sides of the Straits to consider one important point about being radical workers in a foreign land. Since the fall of La Resistencia, international workers had joined the ranks of the CMIU, believing that an “American” union would help them receive better wages and working conditions. Yet “for the bourgeoisie the International and Resistencia are the same thing.” Both were labor unions made up mostly of foreign-born, non–English-speaking workers. Whenever Citizens groups looked at these workers, they saw the essence of un-Americanism in their faces and heard it in their voices. The memory of 1901 played heavily in people’s minds. In that year, Anglos crushed La Resistencia; in 1910 they were trying to crush the International.39 Yet, where was the AFL? Throughout the latter days of the strike, anarchists kept wondering why the rest of the AFL was not coming to the strikers’ aid in the way that anarchist groups in Havana were. Finally, by December 1910, the AFL took charge of the strike, but

¡Tierra! accused Gompers of not standing up more firmly to the Citizens Committee, and wondered, at such a critical moment when all could be lost, “why is the American Federation reserving its energies” and not being more forceful.40 Meanwhile, anarchists in Puerto Rico grew concerned. The AFL-affiliated newspapers on the island were not covering or raising money for the strike. Alfredo Negrín and fellow anarchists in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, launched a fund-raising campaign. When the anarchist press reported on this, Puerto Rico’s CMIU newspaper Unión Obrera (Workers Union)— shamed now into action—finally began covering the Tampa strike.41 Anarchists reminded strikers that the same Mayor McKay who led the vigilantes in 1901 was still directing the antistrike activities in 1910. They warned that vigilante violence would soon be matched “because this city was bordering on armed conflict as the people— tired of suffering at the hands of the citizens—was preparing itself to reject force with force.” ¡Tierra! claimed that workers had discovered a plot by a citizen mob to attack printing presses sympathetic to the strikers. Almost as though inspired by Barcia’s urgings a decade earlier to arm themselves, workers planned to form a “Citizens Committee, Number Two” comprised of 40 armed workers who would meet the Anglo mob head-on and slow it down so that another group of 400 armed workers could attack the mob. Such rumors and plans of armed violence alarmed Florida Governor Albert Gilchrist. The governor intervened in the strike by investigating the causes and possible solutions for a peaceful resolution.42 In January 1911, the strike ended with little worker success, but seeds of animosity grew. The native-born CMIU leadership came away from the strike harboring resentments about Tampa’s foreign labor radicals. As historian Nancy Hewitt puts it, the union’s Anglo leaders were “convinced that it was their Latin temperament and their lack of discipline rather than the overwhelming power of Anglo authorities and the lack of financial resources that led to defeat.”43 Such a stance alienated Latin leftists in Tampa, causing them to renew their hesitations about working with reformist unions in the United States. In response, a new anarchist presence emerged in Tampa, this time linked to the Industrial Workers of the World.

The emergence of the Wobblies in Florida was tied to international anarchist developments in Cuba, the United States, and Mexico. With the end of the 1910 strike, ¡Tierra! turned its coverage to the developing Mexican Revolution. Efforts to link Tampa with the Mexican anarchist cause in the revolution continued through 1911, thanks to efforts of Pedro Esteve. In the months before starting Cultura Obrera (Workers Culture) in New York in November 1911, Esteve left New York City and headed to Tampa.44 In July he was serving as the secretary of the group “Pro-Revolución Mexicana” (Pro-Mexican Revolution) that raised money among Tampa’s workers and sent it to Los Angeles to support anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano (Mexican Liberal Party—PLM) propaganda and armed efforts in Mexico, as well as to purchase copies of the PLM’s Regeneración (Regeneration) to sell in Tampa.45 His initiative spurred other anarchists in Tampa to work in support of the magonistas. For instance, in Ybor City anarchists formed “El Grupo Regeneración” (The Regeneration Group). Inspired by the magonistas, the group again urged workers and anarchists not to abandon the anarchist project underway in northern Mexico by the PLM and took up the PLM’s battle cry of “¡Tierra y Libertad!” (Land and Freedom!). One of the group’s founders, the Cuban-born Marcelo Salinas, offered poetry for the cause. In “¡Tierra y Libertad! A los rebeldes mexicanos,” Salinas saluted the Mexican revolutionaries as “brave champions / the working world looks to you with admiration / contemplating your efforts to carry the voice of ‘redemption’ to the remotest jungles.”46 In late November 1912, Jesús Iglesias and Luis Mouroa edited a new Tampa anarchist paper: ¡Liberación! (Liberation!), which was founded by a group of the same name.47 Three of the group’s members became widely known to U.S. intelligence authorities for their actions and propaganda efforts. Besides Salinas and Maximiliano Olay—discussed later—there was the Puerto Rican anarchist Ventura Mijón.48 Mijón would leave Tampa and return to the tobacco city of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and he would be a founding member in 1920 of the anarchist newspaper El Comunista

(The Communist), the longest running anarchist periodical in Puerto Rican history. The rise of ¡Liberación! in late 1912 was linked to the gradual presence of the IWW in Tampa. The paper, while not an official IWW publication, sympathized with the Wobblies. The editors printed the preambles to both the AFL and the IWW constitutions. The IWW was preferred, referring to Gompers’s union as the “insipid and authoritarian” AFL.49 Between 1911 and 1915, anarchists like Salinas organized IWW Local 102 in Tampa and published El Obrero Industrial (The Industrial Worker).50 Like other Spanish-language IWW counterparts, the paper reprinted columns originating out of IWW headquarters in Chicago but also included columns and coverage of particular interest to Spanish and Latin American workers. Events surrounding the IWW and the Mexican Revolution soon coalesced around Salinas. In November 1912, Manuel Pardiñas assassinated Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas in Madrid before killing himself to avoid arrest. This anarchist propaganda by the deed touched off international investigations. U.S. authorities soon realized that Pardiñas had been working in Tampa just before his return to Spain, and that his roommates were the Spanish-born anarchist Maximilano Olay and the Cuban-born anarchist Marcelo Salinas.51 In January, the Mexican consul at Mobile, Alabama, contacted the U.S. Bureau of Investigation about an international plot to assassinate world leaders. The consul warned that Olay and Salinas were plotting to kill Mexican president Francisco Madero. On January 19, 1913, U.S. officials confiscated books and literature while arresting Olay and Salinas at their Tampa residence. The combination of association with Pardiñas, the Mexican warning, and Salinas’s confession to being an anarchist convinced U.S. officials to deport Salinas to Havana following his February 6, 1913, conviction.52 Sixteen days later on February 22, President Madero indeed was assassinated … but not by an anarchist. In response to Salinas’s deportation, Cuban anarchists attacked the United States government. As migrant workers who labored in Tampa had long experienced, the American ideal of welcoming foreigners and preaching democratic virtues of free speech were likely to mean little

to these workers when they arrived. Case in point, wrote J. de Mirho Zeta from Tampa to ¡Tierra!, was the Salinas deportation. Zeta assured readers that Salinas was not a terrorist, asserting instead that Salinas was deported for being “a man of advanced ideas” who was “working to raise the consciousness of the wage earners.” So much for freedom of thought in the United States.53 But Florida did prove a productive environment for one Caribbean anarchist: Luisa Capetillo. Born in Puerto Rico, Capetillo had discovered anarchism a few years before moving to the U.S. mainland. In 1912, she worked in New York City and then in 1913 moved to Tampa where she worked until moving to Havana in 1914. Biographers and historians emphasize that the politically engaged climate of Tampa—where the IWW was beginning to grow and Mexican anarchism was increasingly popular—contributed to Capetillo’s intellectual and creative growth. She was a lector (reader of newspapers and literature in the tobacco factories)—a job she had mastered in Puerto Rico. While reading labor and especially anarchist news and ideas to her fellow workers helping them to engage intellectually and creatively with the larger world, Tampa also provided her the space and time to work on her own writings. In 1913, the radical Tampa publisher Jorge Mascuñana published a second edition of her book Mi opinion: disertación sobre las libertades de la mujer. Besides modifying the language and issues from the first issue, the book included a loving Prologue by U.S.based anarchist Jaime Vidal. Vidal was himself closely associated with Tampa anarchists at this time who were building IWW Local 102. Thus, Capetillo built on this important relationship. She used her brief stint in the city to also write much of the material for her 1916 book Influencias de las ideas modernas and to write several short theatrical works often around the concept of free unions and free love. As Araceli Tinajero notes, “in Ybor City [Tampa], Luisa Capetillo gave her imagination free rein, she wrote her best literature, and she read it aloud during an era when it was not easy to enjoy freedom of expression, much less read texts with anarchist leanings.”54 Though her Tampa stay was brief, it provided her time to intensify her radicalism and create new literary endeavors that

showcased Capetillo as one of the most important anarchist activists and writers in the Caribbean network.

Florida-Caribbean Anarchism and the Red Scare The Great War and its aftermath spelled hard times for the political left. Foreign- born anarchists especially were victimized when they refused to support the war—a refusal that landed them in the sights of the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act. The acts generated a sense of vigilante entitlement among some U.S. citizens. Blessed by the U.S. Justice Department, the American Protective League mobilized a quarter million volunteers to keep tabs on suspected troublemakers. Besides these vigilante “operatives,” the Justice Department itself deployed spies and informants in radical communities across the United States.55 Tampa’s anarchists drew the attention of these operatives and informants.56 By 1915, the city’s IWW newspaper had ceased operations, but IWW Local 102 continued to function, holding weekly meetings every Friday through at least the summer of 1916 while the anarchist group “Los Incognitos” raised money to support IWW newspapers elsewhere and focused on antimilitarist actions.57 Throughout the war, U.S. intelligence officials described what they believed were concerted anarchist efforts in Tampa and Puerto Rico to help workers avoid registering for the military draft. Both Tampa Mayor McKay and the Justice Department’s Tampa official Byrd Douglas had noted throughout the war years that Local 102 actively campaigned against enlistment.58 As one anonymous writer to the Department of Justice put it, the Tampa Wobblies aided “those who were of draft age by furnishing them with everything that was necessary for them to leave this country causing quite a number to leave here.”59 Not only did U.S. government officials fear a Bolshevik uprising in the United States, but officials also extended their fears to growing radicalism in Cuba and Puerto Rico and the continued relationship between radicals in Tampa and the islands.60 In March 1918, a U.S State Department cable charged that strikes against Cuba’s U.S.owned sugar estates the previous fall had been led by IWW agitators.61 By 1919, the Wobbly José Martínez Gil was in Tampa

seeking to create “one big union” across the Caribbean, coordinating efforts with Ramón Barrios and Alfredo Negrín from Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Cuban officials discovered the link when the Puerto Ricans were arrested in Cuba with letters from Gil in their possession—communications that included plans by anarchists in Florida and the islands to launch a simultaneous general strike. Barrios and Negrín were deported to Puerto Rico and the planned strike undermined.62 Now, anarchists and Wobblies linked with Caribbean radicals seemed to be part of that global conspiracy in southern Florida. Agent Douglas wrote Washington in May 1919 that “Bolshevik propaganda circulated in this country has been sent into Tampa among the Spanish element.”63 The ability to circulate such material in the midst of the Red Scare became a target of Douglas’s ongoing investigations. Douglas concluded that radicals were strongarming store owners to distribute radical literature or face a boycott if they refused.64 Throughout 1919, the level of hatred and vitriol among the Anglo “patriots” concerned Agent Douglas who once again raised the vigilante-led deportations of 1901: “It will be remembered that some time ago the citizens of Tampa took matters into their own hands when a series of strikes among the cigar makers took place. … Even though Agent does not believe this mode of procedure is right or just —yet Agent fears that the same thing will happen in the near future unless offsetted [sic] by the Governement [sic].”65 Mayor McKay pressed local agents and Washington to do something about the anarchists and Bolsheviks infesting his city. Not content to wait for the federal government, McKay hired his own Pinkerton detective to find anarchists throughout the city.66 In October and November of 1919, local residents increasingly expressed their concerns about radical activists in Tampa and began to compile their own lists of anarchists.67 As this unfolded, Latin tobacco workers in Ybor City staged a 90day merchants’ boycott beginning in October to protest the city’s high cost of living. By mid-November, merchants estimated they had lost between 15,000 and 20,000 customers. The result, wrote Douglas, “has caused a great loss of money and has likewise stirred

up an unusual amount of friction” as “practically all the foreign-born inhabitants in Tampa have joined the boycott.”68 At the same time, veterans and the American Legion in Tampa approached the U.S. Attorney’s office for help to fight against “any work which might be instigated by Anarchists, I.W.W.’s and Bolsheviks in this city.” F. M. Williams, chairman of Tampa’s American Legion Post #5, wrote Attorney General Palmer that the Legion “decided that something definite be done at once to rid this community of undesirable aliens and enemies of the government and prevent any of the disasters that seem to be pending.”69 M. E. Gillett—owner of the world’s largest citrus nursery and former Tampa mayor—argued that the strikes were creating “(a)n intolerable and unbearable condition” in Tampa. Then he recalled: “They are dissatisfied just as they were years ago when … we deported a bunch of agitators to an island off the coast of British Honduras. Would to God that the rest of them were all in the same place.” Gillett implied that if the government did not act soon, the citizens again would step in to quell the “bunch of anarchists, I.W.W.’s, and Radical Socialists who seem determined to keep up an unreasonable agitation.”70 To prevent a return to 1901-style vigilantism, the Department of Justice prepared to raid the Reds. Tampa agent A. V. French identified anarchists and many of their occupations. Most, not surprisingly, were tobacco workers who were members of the recently created Sociedad de Torcedores (Cigar Rollers Society). According to French’s list, the Sociedad was just three weeks old in mid-December 1919 but already claimed to have 1126 members, many of whom were “former IWW’s.” Just as important as their occupational diversity, the suspected anarchists were identified as Spaniards, Cubans, and Mexicans. The anarchists on the list reflected, again, what the government feared and which anarchists had labored to create: an important link in a network of anarchist activism that stretched throughout the Caribbean and North America. The information led to federal raids throughout Tampa in late 1919— raids that crushed the remaining anarchist and Wobbly presence in the city.71 Ultimately, while individual anarchists like Luis Barcia continued to send money and the occasional word of support to the global

anarchist press, by early 1920, anarchism in Florida was almost dead. Two decades earlier Barcia urged anarchists to be prepared to take up arms to defend themselves against local capitalists and the AFL’s local unions. But two decades earlier, the anarchists were greater in number and did not face concerted efforts of the U.S. government trying to root them out of existence. By the early 1920s, with reformist unions and local elites plotting their demise, Tampa anarchists had fallen into the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Justice. As difficult as organizing had always been, now it was virtually impossible. The strength of the radical Latin unions from the 1890s had been crushed but not destroyed after 1901. It would take the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the resulting anti-Red hysteria in the United States after 1917, to crush the movement.

Conclusion Anarchist efforts in Tampa helped foster and sustain a Caribbean anarchist network. But this success—limited and small as it was within the context of the U.S. labor movement—brought its own destruction. For thirty years, Hispanic anarchists in Florida organized themselves and supported campaigns throughout the United States and the Caribbean. These efforts included raising money for newspapers throughout the hemisphere. They included efforts to publicize police and vigilante abuse against international laborers in general and anarchists in particular across the region. They raised money for the most radical elements of the Cuban War for Independence and the Mexican Revolution. They accepted into their fold leading anarchist personalities like Luis Barcia and Pedro Esteve from Spain, Enrique Creci and Marcelo Salinas from Cuba, and Ventura Mijón from Puerto Rico. Radicals embarked on these endeavors to help create an anarchist network that linked Caribbean anarchists with those scattered in Spanish-speaking enclaves throughout the United States. While their efforts were often small, sometimes failed, and were frequently ineffectual, small groups of individuals devoted immense energy, time, and money to facilitate southern Florida’s role in the network. The dedication of people like Barcia—a man who had been kidnapped at gunpoint and abandoned on a Central American beach in 1901 but was still active in Florida into the 1920s—attests to the commitment of these men and their

families who had to endure the constant harassment and belittling by fellow workers, the American Federation of Labor, the Anglo elite, and the U.S. federal government. These longtime activists who were familiar with each other’s trials and tribulations contributed to another key aspect of anarchist network building: trust. Anarchists in Florida, Cuba, and Puerto Rico could rely on the Florida-based Barcia to raise money and maintain an almost “institutional” anarchist presence over two decades on the peninsula. When someone like Mijón worked on the Tampa newspaper ¡Liberación! he made lifelong connections that he maintained when he returned to Puerto Rico. His Puerto Rican colleagues like Alfredo Negrín built on this trust and history to repeatedly raise money on the island for striking workers in Florida. A person like Marcelo Salinas would go back and forth between Cuba and Florida over several decades, working with Caribbean, Florida, and Spanish anarchists in the 1910s in Florida, returning to Cuba to engage in anarchist labor actions in the 1920s and beyond, and ultimately returning to Florida in the 1960s as he and other Cuban anarchists fled the growing Sovietization of the Cuban Revolution. What did these activists get from all of this? Ultimately, they got their network, which, of course, is exactly why the U.S. government felt compelled during the Red Scare to crush these efforts. As the U.S. government, the AFL, and American business expanded their reach throughout the Caribbean Basin in the 1910s and 1920s, they saw anarchist radicalism as the same thing as Bolshevism. To crush “Bolsheviks” in the Caribbean and Central America—or at least prevent them from gaining too much influence—the U.S. government also had to eliminate those Latin Reds from U.S. territory. In Tampa —probably as much as anywhere else in the United States—they succeeded. By the early 1920s, the most northern link in the Caribbean anarchist network was effectively silenced. Notes 1. “Manifiesto á los trabajadores,” Hijos del Mundo (Guanabacoa), May 1, 1892. IISG: Amsterdam. Max Nettlau Collection. Regions and Countries. Central and South America. Other Countries. Cuba, 1892–1928, Folder 3404.

2. El Esclavo (Tampa), September 12, 1894, 2. 3. Ibid., March 7, 1895, 1. 4. Ibid., October 28, 1895, 2, 3. 5. Ibid., January 22, 1896, 2. 6. Joan Casanovas Codina, Bread, or Bullets! Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1898 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 227. 7. El Esclavo, May 19, 1896, 3. 8. Olga Cabrera, “Enrique Creci: un patriota obrero,” Santiago 36 (December 1979), 146; Kirwin Shaffer, Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 43, 44; Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets! 227. 9. El Esclavo, May 19, 1897, 4. 10. Ibid., January 13, 1897, 2; February 24, 1897, 4. 11. Ibid., January 22, 1896, 1, 4; February 20, 1896, 4. 12. Ibid., September 24, 1897, 1. 13. Ibid., February 11, 1898, and March 23, 1898. 14. El Nuevo Ideal (Havana), April 8, 1899, 6. 15. Ibid., May 20, 1899, 4. For similar language, see El Nuevo Ideal, July 28, 1899, 1. 16. Ibid., July 14, 1899, 4; July 21, 1899, 1, 3; August 17, 1899, 3; August 24, 1899, 3. 17. Durward Long, “‘La Resistencia’: Tampa’s Immigrant Labor Union,” Labor History 6 (Fall 1965), 195–196; Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa, Florida, 1886– 1931,” in “Struggle a Hard Battle”: Essays on Working-Class Immigrants, ed. Dirk Hoerder (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), 189. 18. See copies of La Federación, whose subtitled name was “Official Organ of the Cigar Rollers, Strippers and Sectors of Tampa,” despite its efforts to appeal to non–tobacco workers. 19. For the April figures, see La Federación, April 27, 1900, 2, 4; for November, see Mormino and Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa,” 189. 20. La Federación (Tampa), February 16, 1900, 2.

21. “Gremio de Torcedores de Tampa. Manifiesto.” Tampa, April 11, 1900,” and “Los obreros huelguistas del taller de Ellinge. A LOS TRABAJADORES.” Tampa, May 13, 1900. Max Nettlau Collection. Regions and Countries. North America. United States of America [hereafter referred to as Nettlau-North America], folder 3385. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. See also Long, “La Resistencia,” 198. 22. “OBREROS DE LA … ‘Sociedad de Torcedores’ y de ‘La Liga Obrera’ DE TAMPA.” Tampa, May 17, 1900. Nettlau—North America, folder 3385. 23. Long, “La Resistencia,” 199–200. 24. La Voz del Esclavo (Tampa), November 17, 1900, 2. 25. Julián González, El tabaquero en Tampa: Impresiones personales (Havana: Rambla y Bouza, 1907), 1–14. 26. Long, “La Resistencia,” 202–204; “A LOS TRABAJADORES,” May 24, 1901. Nettlau—North America, folder 3385. 27. Nancy Hewitt, Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880–1920s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 127–128; Mormino and Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa,” 190; Long. “La Resistencia,” 206. 28. El Despertar (New York) September 1901, 1. 29. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort, 128; La Federación, “Suplemento a La Federación de Tampa, Fla.,” September 10, 1901 (note that the supplement says “10 agosto 1901,” which is impossible because it contains some of the deported men’s letters dated August 16, 1901). 30. El Nuevo Ideal, August 14, 1901, 2, 3. 31. El Despertar, September 10, 1901, 1. 32. La Federación, “Suplemento a La Federación de Tampa, Fla.,” September 10, 1901. 33. Long, “La Resistencia,” 213. 34. Ibid., 211–213. 35. These conclusions are based on the published weekly finances of ¡Tierra! from 1903 to 1907. 36. ¡Tierra! (Havana), April 2, 1904, 3. See a similar halfhearted support for International membership in the April 23, 1904, issue, 4, and the May 21, 1904 issue, 4. 37. Ibid., February 26, 1910, 4.

38. Mormino and Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa,” 191; ¡Tierra! October 29, 1910, 2; November 12, 1910, 3; November 19, 1910, 3. 39. ¡Tierra! October 8, 1910, 3; November 19, 1910, 2. 40. Ibid., December 10, 1910, 1. 41. Unión Obrera (Mayagüez, Puerto Rico), August 22, 1910, 2; October 8, 1910, 2; October 10, 1910, 2; November 9, 1910, 1. 42. ¡Tierra! December 24, 1910, 2, 3; December 31, 1910, 2. 43. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort, 213. 44. Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Chico, Calif.: AK Press, 2005), 391. 45. ¡Tierra! July 29, 1911, 2. 46. Ibid., May 18, 1912, 2, 3. 47. Ibid., November 12, 1912, 4. 48. ¡Liberación! October 19, 1912, 4. 49. Ibid., October 19, 1912, 3, 4. 50. The 1915 ending date is derived from a notice in El Rebelde (Los Angeles, California), November 12, 1915, 1. See also Justo Muriel, “Este hombre generoso que no sabía odiar,” Guángara Libertaria (Winter 1986), 21. 51. Maximiliano Olay, Mirando al Mundo (Buenos Aires: Impresos Americalee, 1941), 16. 52. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Record Group 65. Investigative Case Files of the Bureau, 1908–1922, #5606; Cultura Obrera, February 1, 1913, 1; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 397– 398; Mormino and Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism,” 192–193; Cultura Obrera, November 30, 1912, 1. 53. ¡Tierra! February 14, 1913, 3. 54. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort, 1, 2; Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Luisa Capetillo. A Nation of Women. An Early Feminist Speaks Out. Mi opinion sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer. Trans. Alan West-Durán (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2004). Nancy Hewitt, “Luisa Capetillo: Feminist of the Working Class,” in Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community. Vicki L. Ruiz and Virginia Sánchez Korrol, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 129; Norma Valle Ferrer, Luisa Capetillo: Pioneer Puerto Rican Feminist (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), 51; Norma Valle

Ferrer, Luisa Capetillo: Obra Completa “Mi Patria es la Libertad” (Cayey: Universidad de Puerto Rico—Cayey, 2008), 35; Araceli Tinajero, El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory Reader (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 148–149. For the Vidal relationship, see the San Francisco–based Fuerza y Consciente (which Vidal edited), especially issues from August 9 and November 15, 1913. 55. John Mack Faragher, et al., Out of Many: A History of the American People, third edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000), 659–669. 56. Mormino and Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa,” 193. 57. El Rebelde (Los Angeles), December 8, 1914, 4; August 5, 1916, 4. 58. “Letter from Byrd Douglas to J. T. Suter, Acting Chief, Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC,” from Tampa, July 14, 1919. Department of Justice, Old German Files [hereafter referred to as DOJ-OG] 8000-362112. 59. “Letter from ‘A. Citizen’ to Department of Justice, Washington, DC,” from Tampa, October 15, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000-362112, National Archives, College Park, Md. 60. Olga Cabrera, Los que viven por sus manos (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1985), 157–164. 61. Cable from American Minister at Havana, March 11, 1918, Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Cuba, 1910–1929, National Archives, College Park, Md. 62. “Jose Martinez Gil—Alleged Anarchist and Bolsheviki Propagandists among the Latin American Element in Ybor City, Florida,” April 22, 1919. DOJ-OG 366867. 63. “Letter from Tampa, Department of Justice/FBI to W. E. Allen, Acting Chief, Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C. from Byrd Douglas,” May 27, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000-353595. 64. “Anarchist Pamphlets written in Spanish—Distributed among the Latin American element at Tampa, Florida, by parties unknown” from Byrd Douglas, Tampa, February 29, 1919.” DOJ-OG 342696. 65. “Circulation of reports of Bolsheviki meetings being held in Tampa, Fla.,” April 15, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000-353595.

66. “Letter from U.S. Attorney General’s Office to U.S. Senator Duncan Fletcher,” July 8, 1919, and “Letter from Byrd Douglas to J. T. Suter, Acting Chief, Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC,” July 14, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000-362112. 67. “Letter from Tampa to Department of Justice, October 15, 1919.” DOG-OG 8000-362112. 68. “Merchants’ Boycott—Tampa, Florida by the Cigar Makers and Other Latin-American People,” November 12, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000382470. 69. “Anarchists and Bolsheviki in Tampa, Florida,” November 15, 1919, and “Letter from the American Legion State of Florida to Attorney General Palmer,” November 15, 1919. DOJ-OG 8000362112. 70. “Letter from M. E. Gillett & Son to Mr. Frank Burke,” November 15, 1919. DOJ-OG 362112; Walter Page and Arthur Page, The World’s Work, Volume XX, May to October 1910, no page numbers. 71. “LIST OF SUSPECTS ACTIVE IN ANARCHISTIC MOVEMENTS,” December 13, 1919. DOJ-OG 362112.

CHAPTER 5

Spanish-speaking Anarchists in the United States The Newspaper Cultura Obrera and Its Transnational Networks (1911–1927) SUSANA SUEIRO SEOANE One of the main activities of any anarchist group at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th was to publish a newspaper, get subscribers, and distribute it in work places, bookshops, and cafes. This print culture from below carried out multiple functions in the anarchist world, all of them extremely important for the organization and expansion of the movement. It served as a tool of propaganda and education for workers, many of whom became anarchists through reading or listening to group discussions of libertarian newspapers. It also contributed to social integration by promoting participation in an alternative cultural world through various events, cultural associations, and outdoor picnics, which united them in a feeling of comradeship and camaraderie; the same premises that housed the newspaper’s office were often a workers’ recreational and learning center. The Spanish-language anarchist press, as described earlier in this volume, served to weave a network of political activists in different countries on various continents. Periodicals were an important medium for the conveyance of anarchist ideas that often changed hands through editorial exchanges. Through them, small but qualified anarchist groups took on the role of linking and connecting the various national anarchist movements throughout Europe and the Americas. Despite the fact that there was mistrust of any form of established authority that could undermine individual freedom, there were outstanding figures in the libertarian movement, who had earned the recognition of their companions. These individuals had a great transnational conscience, traveled and made tours of propaganda through various countries, learned foreign languages, translated others’ texts so they could circulate and become known far from the original place of publication. The fluidity of their transnational

contacts was possible thanks to the new technologies, such as the telegraph, steamboats, railways, and the Universal Postal Union. The transnational dimension of anarchism often has been neglected by historians, leaving an obvious historiographic gap. The national approach that anarchist studies have followed more recently —in particular, studies on Spanish anarchism—has removed fundamental people from the movement simply because they emigrated to America and never returned to Spain. This is the case of the Catalan typographer and editor, Pedro Esteve, who became a prominent Spanish anarchist in the United States,1 yet in Spanish historiography he has been nearly all but forgotten. Far from disappearing, however, he was tremendously active in the United States up until his death in 1925. For three decades, Esteve dedicated himself to propagating anarchist ideas among the Spanish, Italian, and Cuban immigrant workers. In New York, in Paterson (New Jersey), in Tampa (Florida), and in the Western mining fields, among the textile workers, the workers of the tobacco industry and of the sea and ports, he was a very influential Spanish libertarian figure. Indeed, both Esteve and his Italian anarchist wife, Maria Roda, were friends of Emma Goldman, and Esteve at times served as Goldman’s translator.2 This chapter focuses on an important weekly newspaper that Pedro Esteve published in the United States, Cultura Obrera (Labor Culture), and it complements the essay in this volume by Jon Bekken and Mario Martín Revellado. Cultura Obrera’s first issue was published in New York City on Saturday, November 4, 1911. The paper changed headquarters frequently; the first office was at 17 South Street.3 It was four pages long and included an Englishlanguage section on the last page; the approximate average print run was 2,500 copies.4 The newspaper’s front-page heading announced: “Mouthpiece of The Marine Fireman’s Union of The Atlantic.” This paper quickly attracted the attention of many Spanish maritime workers carrying out seafaring activities in the main port cities, including New York, Boston, and Baltimore—sailors, firemen, apprentice stokers, coalmen on the ships, machine oilers, and

laborers to load and unload merchandise from the ships. Many of them had already worked in Spain at shipping-related jobs.5 In early 1911, Pedro Esteve returned to New York from Tampa, Florida, where for many years he had made intense anarchist propaganda among the Spanishspeaking tobacco workers.6 According to Marcelino García—who, after Esteve’s death, published Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture) for more than two decades as the successor of Cultura Obrera—Esteve was the soul of Cultura Obrera, not only writing articles and columns (sometimes using pseudonyms such as “Lirio Rojo,” or Red Lily), but also doing the typesetting and many other administrative tasks.7 Esteve was also an intimate friend of Errico Malatesta, a famous and revered anarchist of the time and a determined supporter of the organizational tendency within anarchism. He firmly believed in the union tactic as a tool for the anarchist struggle and that it was necessary to penetrate the unions to try to win the support of the working masses.

Esteve’s Previous Trajectory in the United States Cultura Obrera cannot be understood unless its editor’s earlier trajectory in the United States is understood, especially his work in Paterson, New Jersey, known as “Silk City,” as one of the main manufacturers of silk cloth in the world. Esteve was a major influence in the Paterson anarchist group Diritto all’Esistenza, an active group in the United States, and was for a time the editor of the group’s newspaper, La Questione Sociale. The nucleus of Diritto all’Esistenza, created in 1895, was made up of weavers known for their radicalism, most of them coming from the textile industry in northern Italy, from Lombardy and Piamonte. Esteve’s activism in the Italian immigrant world of Paterson was not due solely to his friendship with Malatesta, but also to the fact that it was in Paterson where he spent much of his life with anarchist Maria Roda, who would be his inseparable companion throughout his life.8 She had arrived in New York City during 1893, at the tender age of 16 but with an intense past full of struggle behind her.9 Likewise, it was not the French immigrant workers (few in relation to the massive flows of Italians) who introduced French revolutionary

unionism to the United States, but rather the anarchist workers of Paterson, mostly Italians, who had been in contact with the ideas and tactics of European revolutionary unionism and adopted the unionist tactic long before the foundation of the IWW in 1905.10 Interestingly, the person who carried out this work was therefore not an Italian, but a Spaniard, Pedro Esteve, who was the liaison between Italian-speaking anarchism and Spanish-speaking anarchism in the United States. Under his direction, La Questione Sociale published information regularly about the European revolutionary unionist movement and encouraged Paterson’s silk workers to adopt unionist tactics in their struggle against the factory owners.11 Esteve traveled from Paterson to the western mining states, encouraging Latin workers to form revolutionary unions.12 This is how the Paterson group got involved in the mining struggles in Colorado, collecting money, sending economic support, and publicizing their strikes in the paper’s pages. Like Malatesta, Esteve believed that it was necessary to take advantage of any struggle, even if it was not an anarchist struggle, to win workers over to the idea of anarchism, even in a gradual process. It was not “a matter of achieving anarchy today, tomorrow, or in ten centuries, but of advancing on the road to anarchy today, tomorrow, and always.”13 Any weakening of authority to which the anarchists could contribute was a step in the right direction; any victory against the bosses, the exploiters, the tyrants … was progress on the road to anarchy. But other anarchists felt that these organizational strategies meant apostasizing it from anarchism and drowning it in the same bureaucracy as found in electoral politics. The so-called “antiorganizationalists” rejected any kind of formally constituted organization, even if it called itself an anarchist organization, because they felt that any organization was authoritarian and bureaucratic.14 When the antiorganizationalists gained influence in the newspaper, Esteve contacted Malatesta, who traveled from London to Paterson in 1899 to bring order to the editorial committee of La Questione Sociale. The dissidents, who considered themselves pure anarchists and who believed that unionism was radically

opposed to the fundamental principles of anarchism because collective action limited individual freedom, founded another newspaper, L’Aurora.15 The newspapers that Esteve published or on whose editorial committees he was a key figure played a central role in a transnational connection that he considered fundamental to the development of the movement. La Questione Sociale and its successor, L‘Era Nuova, were published for more than twenty years and were significant mechanisms of anarchist propaganda at the beginning of the 20th century.16 They were the mouthpieces of an Italian-speaking transnational anarchism, with readers throughout Europe; North, Central, and South America; and Northern Africa, as described in reports from different groups, as well as in subscription and donation lists published regularly in their pages. For three decades, Esteve was not only a mainstay in the Italian anarchist community, but he was also part of the Spanish-speaking anarchist workers’ community, both Spanish and Cuban. He was clearly a very well-connected Spanish anarchist in the United States. In addition to directing the Paterson La Questione Sociale for a time, wherever he went he founded newspapers whose role was to link the different national anarchist movements in Europe and America. In New York, he founded Cultura Obrera in 1911 to continue the work that, in previous months, the newspaper Cultura Proletaria had carried out.17 He defended a revolutionary unionism that aspired to social revolution and did not exclude violence as a tactic: We are firm supporters of general strikes, direct action, and the full emancipation of the proletariat. We are in this Society to fight and fraternize, with both the inspired poet dreamer and the man who, transformed into a righteous lion, annihilates and destroys the sustaining principles of the present-day regime.18 Jaime Vidal, one of the founders of Cultura Proletaria, was, together with Esteve, the other supporting pillar of Cultura Obrera. In the first issue of Cultura Obrera, Vidal wrote an essay that supported the idea of an anarchist union, in favor of revolutionary action, being integrated into a conservative union federation such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The issue, which he did not hide, was a tactical one, with the objective being to penetrate other unions and

“wake up” the organized workers.19 He defined the Marine Firemen, Oilers and Watertender’s Union, which he had founded in New York in 1910 and which had had immediate and astonishing success in membership,20 as a “radical minority that wants to break out of the old molds in use up to now, as well as with the deviations of the gurus of the old unionism.” The fact that Esteve and Vidal were committed to the labor movement, and were involved in the workers’ labor struggles, did not mean that they paid less attention to insurrectionist tactics. Things are not as simple as some historians have wished to see them, when they state that anarchism took a turn toward syndicalism when the inefficiency of terrorist tactics was acknowledged. Malatesta and Esteve, who believed in the value of organization, felt that it was necessary to become part of labor unions, but this did not make them cease to value the importance of “propaganda by the deed,” individual acts of political violence or violent action by small groups. Work in the unions was needed, but conspirational work was also needed, with the intention of encouraging insurrection, including the preparation of assassinations of important personages or “tyrants.” In no way did they reject violent methods, although they did think they should be carried out within an organizational schema. In fact, violence was defended from the pages of all of the newspapers published by Esteve in the United States, very clearly in Cultura Obrera. For example, in January 1912, an article on the first page stated the following: Anarchy is the righteous revolver of Angiolillo incrusting projectiles in the rotten chest of the assassin Cánovas; it is Pallás, falling wrapped in the white investiture of the idea; it is Caserio and Artal, martyrs and redeemers who were raised to a new morning full of poetry and enchantment, saturated by the intoxicating zephyrs of human Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.21 Vidal, like Esteve, with whom he collaborated closely during those years, was in favor of personal acts of terror. After the Monjuich trials,22 he had exiled himself to London. From there, he was in regular epistolary contact with the Spanish anarchists exiled in Paris, including Pedro Vallina,23 and he was an intimate friend of Angiolillo,

who assassinated Spanish Prime Minister Cánovas.24 In one of his letters, Vidal told Vallina that there was a project for a newspaper in London in which Tarrida25 would write an article to reveal how to make explosives.26 He was under surveillance by the Spanish Embassy in London.27 Vidal apparently arrived in the United States during 1904. When the anarchist pedagogue Francesc Ferrer i Guardia was executed in Spain in 1909, Esteve was living in Tampa. He had moved there when this Florida city replaced New York as the center for processing Havana tobacco in the United States; while he was in New York, the Spanish colony devoted to sea-based work had increased noticeably.28 In Esteve’s absence, Vidal led the protests and demonstrations against the Spanish government in New York. He convened rallies and various fund-raisers to help “the victims of Spanish repression” and was one of the organizers, in 1910, of the Francisco Ferrer Association of America, located on West 116th Street in New York, the first Modern Sunday School in the United States. From that time on, Vidal’s and Esteve’s shadow objective was to revenge Ferrer’s death with the death of King Alfonso XIII. They did not achieve this, but they apparently did manage to get an Aragonese worker from Tampa, Manuel Pardiñas, to assassinate Canalejas, the president of the Council, in Madrid in November 1912.29 The “tyrannicide” was praised openly in the newspaper. Vidal, recounting Alphonse XIII’s visit to Paris in 1913 says, fantasizing a bit, that he was received with shouts of “Viva” for Ferrer and “Death to the assassin of free men!”: When the royal retinue passed buildings under construction, the workers stopped work and accused Alphonse of being responsible for the death of Ferrer and of the persecution of advanced men in Spain. Some bricks seem to have slipped off the scaffolding, but none were lucky enough to fall on the little royal head to caress it; although we would have preferred one of those bouquets of flowers prepared by Morral to fall on it, on condition of it not being intercepted by any electrical wire.30 As Esteve, Vidal advocated propaganda by the deed as well as the syndical tactic as another means of propaganda. They thought that

anarchists must get into the unions in order to make of them instruments for the social revolution. Very well known in New York anarchist circles, Jaime Vidal played an essential role in the unionization of the sea-based workers and, specifically, of the firemen, 85 percent of whom were of Spanish origin, within the Marine Firemen, Oilers and Watertenders Union of the Atlantic and Gulf (Unión de Fogoneros, Cabos y Engrasadores del Atlántico y el Golfo), which in turn was part of the ISU (International Seamen’s Union), popularly known as “the International.” The ISU provided funds to support the newspapers Cultura Proletaria and, later, Cultura Obrera.31

Mouthpiece of the Marine Firemen’s Union of the Atlantic After a “Greeting” in the first issue of Cultura Obrera, Esteve published his first article, in which he compared the terrible social inequality between the firemen, who worked in the hell of the boilers beneath the water line in the depths of the transatlantic steamships, to the privileged passengers, who enjoyed the trip surrounded by exuberant luxury—“tasty delicacies, lovely music, beautiful literature, and even the daily news transmitted by radio-telegraph!”—without ever noticing the existence of these men, who had no broader horizon or task beyond the coal furnaces.32 The articles published in every issue of Cultura Obrera about the conditions of sea-based workers alluded to their great enemies: the shippers, and the agents hired by the shipping companies, who decided which workers got a job on the ship, and who received all kinds of insults from the newspaper: tyrants, degenerates, criminals, pimps, wretches, human traffickers, thieves, leeches, throng of reptiles, parasites, scroungers, swine, enslavers, slave drivers, among others. These shipper-foremen were, in turn, the owners of the cafes, inns, and boarding houses where the firemen went to find work and to “eat, drink, sleep, and even bet, paying for double or triple the value for everything.” In these were women who would act as bait and would incite the seamen to consume and pay for their alcoholic drinks and invite others, spending all of their pay. The shippers only gave jobs to those who spent money in their houses which, according to the newspaper, were “true dives of corruption and

degradation,” “of perdition and ignorance.” In addition, credit was easy to get in these places, and so they became indebted, enslaved, at the mercy of the shippers’ every whim; it was often described as the same system that procuresses used with prostitutes. The newspaper criticized sailors who, upon disembarkment, instead of going to the Union centers to participate in conferences and read books, pamphlets, and newspapers in order to learn and emancipate themselves, they only thought about going to the cafes, a synonym of vice and stultification.33 The cafes were always full, while “at the society education conferences, there are nights when it is necessary to wait for the members like a beggar waits for alms.”34 Nor were they interested in going into the cities and seeing their charms: For you, the great American metropolis does not exist; you are completely ignorant of the beauties that New York holds. You visit neither the theaters, the parks, the museums, the libraries, the schools for adults, the centers of instruction, nor other places of recreation and education. … Your customs have not changed. You were peasants in your village and you are peasants in “greater” New York. All that is small, ugly, obscure, mediocre, and old pleases you and, above all, you like to hold onto the traditional customs of your homeland, shut up in miserable, dirty little rooms, playing cards, dancing to the chords of the guitar, drinking to the health of that little Spanish beauty who serves you with a smile on her lips and flatters you in her master’s interest.35 Apart from instructing workers, the Marine Firemen’s Union intended to put an end to this shippers’ system and provide crews for the ships. They managed to do this for a short period of time. Cultura Obrera came out at a moment of optimism, a moment of triumph for the Firemen’s Union. It was a time, Arnaldo Sopelana assured in a vibrant contemporary account of the events he narrated, at which the Spanish-speaking anarchist press lived comfortably in the United States, even though it was supported only by means of voluntary subscriptions, following the established custom of giving the paper for free to anyone who spoke Spanish. Because of this, and because of the great movement carried out in the strike that they had, which

managed to paralyze American navigation, it is easy to glimpse the importance of Spaniards within the labor movement.36 The strike Sopelana referred to, in 1911, achieved its main objective, which was to abolish the shippers (also of Spanish nationality). The strike also achieved a pay raise, better food and treatment on the ships, sailors’ freedom to go to the inns and saloons as they pleased, and an end to the custom of gift-giving to get a job. But after the failure of another strike in the summer of 1912, the Union once again lost direct contact with the companies, so that, from the pages of the newspaper, Pedro Esteve continued to call people to fight hard to finish off the shippers.37 Vidal’s and Esteve’s idea was to unite workers of the Marine Transport of America in a Federation: sailors, stokers, cooks, firemen, oilers, onboard and ship’s hold stevedores, dock workers, coal handlers, tugboat workers, barge workers, draymen, and warehouse workers. If the sea-based workers organized themselves industrially and not by guilds as they had until then, that is, if all the jobs in a single industry, like the sea industry, were in the same union, it would be easier for some to go on strike to support others, even to achieve a general strike. It was, in addition, an attempt to expand anarchist ideas in the North American labor movement. In March 1912, when the Marine Transport Workers (Obreros del Transporte Marítimo) was formed, Cultura Obrera declared itself as that organization’s mouthpiece and extended its section in English to two pages.38 The inevitable rupture with the AFL happened in November 1912. Starting with the November 30 issue, Cultura Obrera, free of an association that did not share its ideas, took the simple subtitle “labor paper,” “published by the Labor Culture group,” which Esteve justified on the first page.39Arnaldo Sopelana recalled this event as follows: Before 1912, almost all the Spaniards devoted to navigation on the Atlantic coast belonged to the International, the society of sailors that was a member of the American Federation of Labor. … But in view of the continual deviations of the American Federation (AFL), the colleagues in New York agreed to separate from it and join the IWW, more in agreement with libertarian

principles than the AFL. This was a hard blow for the International, as in a few months all the ports of the Atlantic, especially New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and Norfolk, were totally controlled by the IWW.40 In 1913, the newspaper was aligned with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and against the “International.” In fact, in May 1913, the newspaper had already taken the subtitle “Voice of the Industrial Workers of the World.” From that time onward, the International of the American Federation of Labor and the IWW competed hotly to enroll the sea-based workers.

Cultura Obrera, Much More than a Union Newspaper Cultura Obrera was not only the mouthpiece of a revolutionary union. It was an anarchist newspaper with strong transnational connections that aspired to be the voice of all the Hispanic workers in the United States; even more, the periodical was committed to defend the anarchist ideal worldwide. It wanted to be “the echo of the complaints, protests, and acts of all exploited workers, with no distinction of belief, nationality, or race.”41 The newspaper announced the activities of many other anarchist groups. And it was not only distributed throughout different states in the United States, but it also reached other Central and South American countries and Europe. A few hundred copies were sent to Spain every week. The newspaper gave much attention to the tobacco workers, not only to those in the United States but also in Cuba, as Esteve had always had close links to the world of the tobacco factories from his first moments in the United States, when he directed the newspaper El Despertar in Brooklyn.42 The tobacco industry was very anarchist, not only because it employed Spanish, Cuban, and Italian workers that were anarchists, many of them with a long militancy in their own countries before coming to America, but for the fundamental role played by the lectores, or readers, who from a platform or sitting on a high stool, read radical literature and periodicals, including anarchist publications, out loud to the workers, while they worked rolling and cutting cigars. Later, the workers discussed what they had heard in the factories and workshops with their families and friends and, in this way, their class consciousness was broadened. Many tobacco factory readers were anarchists, to the desperation of the tobacco

factory owners, who tried to eradicate these agents who disseminated radical ideas. Maximiliano Olay, an Asturian who became an anarchist in the Florida tobacco factories while listening to the lectors read Tierra y Libertad from Barcelona, sent his chronicles from Tampa right from the first issue,43 taking account of the strikes and walkouts, usually because cigar workers (“tabaqueros”), with a fierce sense of independence and pride in their craft skills, resisted the factory owners’ actions to change work patterns and rhythms of craftsmanship. Together with Cuba, Cultura Obrera extensively covered Mexico, due to the public interest in the Mexican Revolution. Like his predecessor,44 Esteve carried out a highly intense campaign, right from the first issue,45 in favor of the Flores Magón brothers and reprinted their letters frequently, as well as the manifestos and articles published in their mouthpiece, Regeneración. The heated articles by Pedro Esteve supporting the Magonist movement were the basis for the publication, in essay form, of a pamphlet that was published in 1911, with a later reprinting in La Coruña.46 In addition, Cultura Obrera began following news from the mining camps. At the zinc foundries in West Virginia, the Spanish workers were almost all anarchists. “The factory foremen went to the port in New York as agents to recruit immigrants who arrived on ships from Europe. They offer them all sorts of things, they deceive them, they tell them things that are quite different from reality, until they accept their conditions, and they are put on a train with a ticket to Clarksburg, where the hell that will burn them alive awaits.”47 In 1916, one of the 3,000 Spanish workers in West Virginia said, in an interview: The anarchist newspaper Cultura Obrera, from New York, is our textbook in Spanish. It is not only the leading newspaper, but it is, in fact, the only publication in Spanish that reaches us. What we know, we learn in Cultura Obrera, at least those of us who know how to read. Those who do not know how to read, listen to those who read out loud.48 Esteve published doctrine as well as literary articles written by his network of friends, including Anselmo Lorenzo, Fernando Tarrida del

Mármol, Antonio Pellicer Paraire, José Prat, among others. And, of course, by Adrián del Valle—his great friend ever since the time of El Productor in Barcelona during his youth, whom he published from the start with articles in many issues, and sometimes two articles in a single issue, often using his pseudonym, Palmiro de Lidia. Anarchist ideology placed great value on culture and education. It sought enlightened, aware workers because this was the fundamental basis for achieving social revolution and, therefore, it inculcated a taste for reading in the workers. Not only did the periodical publish stories, serialized novels, poems, revolutionary songs, and plays, but there was abundant advertising of published works, reviews, announcements of activities, published announcements to conferences, commemorative celebrations, concerts, poetry readings, literary-artistic evenings, and so forth. The majority of anarchist cultural activities, and theater in particular, were participatory events, as the workers, in addition to being spectators, were the actors and, on many occasions, also the authors of the plays that were put on. Anarchism was a political ideology, but it was also an alternative culture that was enacted in concrete physical spaces—educational, cultural, and leisure centers—where workers would meet, spaces that were full of rituals and symbols that increased the affective, friendly, cordial, supportive, and fraternal feeling and enriched their daily existence. The workers were invited to take part during their free time, after work, in an alternative cultural world that defied the bourgeois world, with various events that united them in a feeling of belonging to the same community. For many workers, this was the key element of their anarchist militancy: the brotherhood, the comradeship. Like any anarchist newspaper of any importance, Cultura Obrera had a bookstore service where books in Spanish could be bought from its “Sociological Library” composed of works by the great theorists of anarchism, such as Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Jean Grave, Charles Malato, Anselmo Lorenzo, Ricardo Mella, and José Prat, among others. Newspapers such as Tierra y Libertad from Barcelona; Regeneración, the newspaper of the Flores Magón brothers in Los Angeles; and ¡Tierra! from Havanna were also sold there. As is common in the anarchist press, Cultura Obrera

exchanged and reprinted articles in a prolific and assiduous way with other anarchist newspapers around the world. At the time Esteve passed away, there were exchanges, among others, with La Revista Blanca (Barcelona), Generación Consciente (Valencia), L’Action (Paris), Temps Nouveaux (Paris), Road to Freedom (Stelton, New Jersey), La Antorcha (Buenos Aires), Il Martello (New York), Il Proletario (Brooklyn), and Solidaridad Obrera (Chicago). Articles were translated so that readers would know of them outside of their original place of publication.49 Newsletters, notices, and propositions, which could reach their destinations quite quickly, were inserted. Thus, the newspaper acted as an intermediary, putting anarchist individuals and groups from distant countries in contact. As was also common in the anarchist press, the newspaper had many financial problems: subscribers were often urged to pay their quota and sympathizers encouraged to make collections “to kill the deficit.” There was even a permanent column titled “War on the Deficit” where labor solidarity was called upon to prevent the newspaper from disappearing and to be able to come to the aid of companions in the struggle in different parts of the world. The amounts collected in different places were published; sometimes the contributors gave their real names, while other times they gave generic names such as “anybody,” “you know me,” “a friend,” “a companion,” “don’t write me down,” “unknown,” “a slave,” “a Spaniard,” and so forth. Pro–Cultura Obrera festivals were often organized, with concerts, dances, poetry, theater, and raffles. At some point in the festival, Pedro Esteve usually spoke, and his children participated in the musical activities.50 Pedro Esteve continually insisted on the importance of the newspaper, declaring: “It is one of the best and most economical means of propaganda and agitation, in whose columns it is not only possible to carry out an educational campaign but which, at the same time, allow those who work for our cause to communicate with one another, compare their ideas, and suggest new means for employing their different energies.”51 Like other salient figures of anarchism, Esteve attributed a decisive role in the movement to the publication of newspapers, to which he invested an extraordinary amount of energy.

The publication of Cultura Obrera was such a personal work of Pedro Esteve that, when he suddenly passed away in 1925, his collaborators considered interrupting publication, although they finally reached an agreement to continue. All documents regarding the state of the newspaper, the printing materials, and the key to the post office box, were “at the house of the companion whom we have lost so unexpectedly.”52 His life was always the newspaper, as is reflected in this text written upon his death: What activity! To think that, in his forty years of struggle, he did not have time to write more than 2 or 3 small pamphlets and this, by gathering articles written by him and collected by his own companions. Today anybody, just studying Anarchism a bit, foists a good number of books upon us! His activity was the newspaper, the page, the tribune, where the ideal was reflected continually, daily. The book, yes, as he said, is beautiful, it is great, but can it be disseminated? Could it reach all the brains that, after a tough job at work, seek rest?53

Conclusion Pedro Esteve played an essential role in spreading syndicalist action in the United States. The need for dialogue between the two elements of the anarchist workers’ struggle, the social and the syndical, was a constant feature of Pedro Esteve’s thinking and action ever since, in his early youth, he met Malatesta in Barcelona and before emigrating to the United States in 1892. Later in Paterson, New Jersey, in contact with the Italian silk weaver anarchists, Esteve defended his ideas on syndicalism in the Italian newspaper La Questione Sociale. So, long before he published Cultura Obrera in New York in 1911, Esteve was already defending the organizational tendencies within anarchism as well as revolutionary syndicalism. It was practically logical, therefore, that he helped organize the Hispanic marine firemen within the IWW as soon as these were founded. He gave expression to his ideas in his newspaper Cultura Obrera which, although an organ of the firemen and marine workers, reported on many other workers’ struggles in different parts of the world, for example, supporting and collecting funds for the Mexican brothers Flores Magón. The newspaper, as

with all anarchist press, was born with a transnational vocation and, in fact, managed distribution not only in many parts of the United States but also in Latin American countries such as Argentina, also in Cuba, as well as on the other side of the Atlantic, in Spain and different European countries. Esteve’s influence was profoundly transnational. Notes 1. See Casanovas i Codina, Joan, “Pedro Esteve. A Catalan Anarchist in the United States,” Catalan Review 5, 1 (1991): 57–77. Sueiro, Susana, “Un anarquista en penumbra. Pedro Esteve y la velada red del anarquismo transnacional,” in Susana Sueiro (Ed.), Dossier “Redes anarquistas transnacionales entre los siglos XIX y XX,” Alcores. Revista de Historia Contemporánea 15, 2013: 43–66. 2. See Guglielmo, Jennifer, Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880–1945. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2010: 157–159. 3. In 1915, the office was at 119 Charlton St. 4. “¡Fíjense todos!” Cultura Obrera, January 30, 1915. 5. In addition to working in large numbers in tobacco factories in Florida and New York, many Spanish workers took jobs in the mines of western states. See Alonso Fernández, Bieito, “Migración y sindicalismo. Marineros y anarquistas españoles en Nueva York (1902–1930),” Historia Social 54 (2006): 113–135. Also by the same author, Obreiros alén mar. Mariñeiros, fogoneiros e anarquistas galegos en New York. Vigo, A Nosa Terra, 2006. See also Sopelana, Arnaldo, Lo que yo he visto en Norte-América. Manresa, Suc. de Miguel y Cª, 1922: 30. 6. Compared to other European countries, there was little Spanish immigration to the United States. According to the official U.S. censuses, almost 9,000 Spaniards arrived between 1891 and 1900. Between 1901 and 1910, the figure increased to 28,000 and, in the decade from 1911 to 1920, it reached 69,000. This was an insignificant number compared to the four million Italians who entered the United States over these thirty years. However, if we add the Spaniards who arrived “on the rebound” to these Spaniards coming from Spain, that is, those who came by a process of reemigration, after sojourns in other parts of Spanish America, the

number increases considerably. Above all, the Spaniards who arrived in the coasts of Florida from Cuba, to work in Key West and, most of all, the Tampa tobacco factories, must be considered. See Varela Lago, Ana, Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles: The Spanish Diaspora in the United States (1848–1948). PhD Thesis in History, University of California San Diego, 2008. See also, Sueiro, Susana, “Inmigrantes y anarquistas españoles en EE. UU. (1890–1920),” in Almudena Delgado Larios (Coord.), Conflictos y cicatrices: fronteras y migraciones en el mundo hispánico. Madrid, Editorial Dykinson, 2014: 273–284. 7. Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995: 597. 8. See María Roda Esteve, “En recuerdo de Pedro Esteve,” Cultura Obrera, New York, September 11, 1926. 9. Regarding Maria Roda, see Guglielmo, Living the Revolution. By the same author, see also “Transnational Feminism’s Radical Past: Lessons from Italian Immigrant Women Anarchists in Industrializing America,” Journal of Women’s History, Johns Hopkins University Press, 22, 1 (2010): 10–33. Also, Falk, Candace Serena (Ed.), Emma Goldman. A Documentary History of The American Years. Vol. I: Made for America, 1890–1901. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003: 206, as well as Goldman, Emma, Living My Life. New York, Garden City Publishing, 1931: 150. 10. Salerno, Salvatore, Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World. New York, State University of New York Press, 1989. Also by the same author, “No God, No Master: Italian Anarchists and the Industrial Workers of the World,” in P. Cannistraro and G. Meyer (Eds.), The Lost World of Italian-American Radicalism. Santa Barbara, Calif., Prager, 2003: 172–187. 11. Carey, George, “The Vessel, The Deed and the Idea: Anarchists in Paterson, 1895–1908,” Antipode, 10, 11, 1979. Also by the same author, “La Questione Sociale. An Anarchist Newspaper in Paterson, New Jersey (1895–1908),” in Lydio F. Tomasi (Ed.), New Perspectives in Italian Immigration and Ethnicity. New York, Center for Migration Studies, 1985. “Paterson, New Jersey, and Anarchism,” in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (Eds.),

Encyclopedia of the American Left. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998. 12. The Spanish and Italian immigrant workers were mostly unskilled workers, from rural areas, many of them illiterate, who became urban workers in the United States. Between a third and a quarter of all the Italo-Hispanic immigrants were concentrated in cities, where they could find work more easily. They had little schooling and, especially in the first years after arriving, they were ready to accept any kind of work—the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous, and worst-paid jobs. These were the jobs that “not even the blacks wanted,” according to some testimonies. See Solá Mestre, J. (director of Vida Gallega): “Los gallegos en Nueva York,” Vida Gallega, Num. 57, 1914, quoted by B. Alonso Fernández: Obreiros alén mart: 24. 13. Errico Malatesta, “Verso l’anarchia,” La Questione Sociale, December 9, 1899. 14. Zimmer, Kenyon, “The Whole World Is Our Country”: Immigration and Anarchism in the United States (1885–1940). Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, 2010. Also by the same author, Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2015. 15. Turcato, Davide, Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico Malatesta’s Experiments with Revolution, 1889–1900. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012: 199. By the same author, “Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement, 1885–1915,” International Review of Social History 52, 3, 2007: 407–444. “European Anarchism in the 1890’s: Why Labor Matters in Categorizing Anarchism,” Working USA. The Journal of Labor and Society 12, 3, 2009: 451–466. 16. Nettlau, Max, Errico Malatesta. La vida de un anarquista. Buenos Aires, 1923. Also, by the same author, A Short History of Anarchism. London, Freedom Press, 1996. 17. Founded in 1910 by a society of Spanish sailors with its registered office at 310 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. After Esteve’s death, Cultura Obrera changed its name to resume its original name. The second period of Cultura Proletaria was published between 1927 and 1953.

18. Cultura Obrera, November 4, 1911. 19. “Un triunfo moral de los fogoneros,” Cultura Obrera, November 4, 1911. 20. MAE (Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores), Madrid, Orden Público, H 2759, File on Jaime Vidal. 21. Ángel Mª Dieppa, “Anarquía,” Cultura Obrera, January 27, 1912. 22. After the bombing of the Corpus procession in Barcelona in 1896, the Spanish government wanted to carry out an exemplary punishment. There was an indiscriminate roundup, and hundreds of people known for their “advanced” ideas were shut up in the Montjuich jails, where Guardia Civil lieutenant Narciso Portas directed terrible torture sessions. After the trial, the prisoners who had been absolved were sent into exile. The receiving countries were mainly France and England. The prisoners had the opportunity to show their scars to the world there. 23. Álvarez Junco, José, “Un anarquista español a comienzos del siglo XX: Pedro Vallina en París,” Historia Social 13, 1992: 23–37. 24. Italian anarchist Angiolillo worked as a printer at the same press as Vidal, who frequently invited him to eat at the guest house where he was staying. Together, they participated in the Trafalgar Square demonstration where the martyrs of Montjuich marched. On the evening of that same day, at Vidal’s home, in a meeting of eight or nine people, two of the torture victims of the “accursed castle,” Cayetano Oller and Francisco Gana, once again showed the terrible wounds and scars resulting from the cruel torments they had suffered. Everyone was very impressed. Angiolillo was the only one who did not say a single word. Shortly after, he suddenly got up and, without a word, left the house, bidding a laconic farewell. His desire to be alone was clearly expressed by his face. They never saw him alive again. Rocker, Rudolf, Memorias, vol. 2: En la Borrasca. Años de destierro. Buenos Aires, Tuoac, 1949. 25. Fernando Tarrida del Mármol was another of Esteve’s intimate friends from the crucial years of anarchism’s development in Barcelona in the last decade of the 19th century. They were both the main components of the Barcelona Benevento group, which defended illegalism and violent tactics.

26. The French police arrested Vallina and confiscated all his documentation, translated and analyzed his letters and papers, and wrote a long report on their contents. See AGA/AE: 5884. The letter from Vidal to Vallina was from 26/6/1903. 27. In a report from 1906, he was described as follows: “Jaime Vidal, anarchist, native of Barcelona, 26 or 28 years of age, shoemaker, tall, pale, with prominent cheekbones, hair combed back, a thick beard which is almost pointed, black eyes, decently dressed.” MAE, Madrid, Orden Público, H 2759, File on Jaime Vidal. 28. Esteve, P. “El Revisionismo. IX,” Cultura Obrera, November 15, 1924. 29. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the anarchist movement was dominated by “the propaganda by the deed” and the glorification of the martyrs who gave their lives for “the ideal” by carrying out assassinations. The majority of these “individual acts” were far less spontaneous than what has been commonly believed. They were frequently cases of decisions taken by a few relevant figures, closely connected between them through a transnational network. Governments, aware of these networks, made great efforts, useless for the most part, to keep watch over anarchist activities. This was the case of Manuel Pardiñas, the elusive anarchist who murdered José Canalejas in 1912. The governments of the countries in which he resided kept an eye on him and came to know quite a lot about who the instigators were in the United States. Pedro Esteve included Pardiñas in the nucleus of those nearest to him and had a great deal of influence in the latter’s decision to return to Europe with a murderous resolve, and even provided him with a contact in Bordeaux (France) who could give him advice and money. In the newspapers he edited and in others in which he collaborated, Esteve created an idealized version of Pardiñas using the typical characteristics of the anarchist “martyrs”: sober, sensitive, generous, altruistic, abnegated, exploited victims of the system. See P. E., “Manuel Pardinas,” Cultura Obrera, November 30, 1912. The same article was publicated in Mother Earth, January 1913: 379–381, and in Tierra y Libertad, Barcelona, March 5, 1913. To know more, see Sueiro, Susana, “El asesinato de Canalejas y los anarquistas españoles en Estados Unidos.” Juan Avilés and Ángel Herrerín

(Eds.), El nacimiento del terrorismo en Occidente. Anarquía, nihilismo y violencia revolucionaria. Madrid, Siglo XXI, 2008: 159– 188. Also by the same author, “Las redes anarquistas transnacionales en la era de los magnicidios. El asesinato de Canalejas,” Bulletin d’Histoire Contemporaine de L’Espagne, Université d’Aix-Marseille, 49 (2014): 217–231. 30. Cultura Obrera, June 7, 1913: 2–3. On Alphonse XIII’s wedding day in Madrid in 1906, anarchist Mateo Morral threw a bomb hidden in a bouquet when the wedding retinue went past, provoking several deaths, although the monarchs came away unharmed. 31. Schwartz, Stephen, Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, 1885–1985. New Brunswick, Transaction, 1986: 38. 32. “Lo que somos y a lo que aspiramos,” Cultura Obrera, November 4, 1911. In 1912, Peter Esteve, editor of Labor Culture, published a short book, Vest-pocket Essays for the Laborer, in English. M. H. Woolman translated it to Spanish. The title refers to the fact that the working man could fit it easily into his vest pocket. It is a compilation of articles by Pedro Esteve published in his newspaper, Cultura Obrera. The first essay in the book is this article, published in the first issue, “What We Are and What We Hope to Be.” 33. The main office of the Marine Firemen’s Union was on 17 South Street, New York, which was also the newspaper headquarters, as well as the workers’ cultural center; many nights there were lectures, English classes, discussiones, soirées, and so forth. As secretary of the Union, Vidal had political rallies between eight and ten-thirty at night, and Esteve gave “sociological” lessons every Friday. The Union had branches in other areas of New York and Brooklyn, as well as in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, New Orleans, and Mobile. 34. García, Emilio, “Reflexiones,” Cultura Obrera, February 17, 1912: 3. 35. Uriarte, Juan, “Crítica franca y consejos sinceros,” Cultura Obrera, January 20, 1912: 3. 36. Sopelana, Lo que yo he visto en Norte-América: 35. 37. “¡Abajo los embarcadores!” Cultura Obrera, June 7, 1913.

38. Esteve, Pedro, “Nuestra Labor,” Cultura Obrera, March 18, 1912. 39. “Con tanta fuerza y mayor libertad” and “Hechos, no palabras,” Cultura Obrera, November 30, 1912. 40. Sopelana, Lo que yo he visto en Norte-América: 34. 41. Esteve, P., “Lo que somos y a lo que aspiramos,” Cultura Obrera, November 4, 1911. 42. Sueiro Seoane, Susana, “Anarquistas españoles en Estados Unidos: Pedro Esteve y el periódico El Despertar de Nueva York (1891–1902),” Julio Cañero (Ed.), North America and Spain: Transversal Perspectives. New York, Escribana Books, 2017: 76–86. 43. Olay, M., “Contra el servilismo,” Cultura Obrera, November 4, 1911, 2. In his memoirs, he mentions that he became friendly with Manuel Pardiñas, the assassin of Canalejas, in Tampa (Olay, Maximiliano, Mirando al mundo [Buenos Aires], Impresos Americalee, n.d (1941). 44. Cultura Proletaria had been quite active in the task of collecting funds for the Magonists. When Ricardo Flores Magón was put in jail and his mouthpiece, Regeneración, confiscated, Tierra y Libertad of Barcelona sent Cultura Proletaria funds for him. 45. In the first issue, the speech that Ricardo Flores Magón made in Los Ángeles on the night of October 13, 1911, at an international meeting in memory of Ferrer, declaimed: “Companions: may the death of the Maestro serve to convince the pacifists that to end social inequality, to put privilege to death, and to make each being a human with a free personality is necessary to use force and use it to rip wealth from the burgeoisie and use it to smash the barriers between man and freedom.” 46. Esteve, Pedro, Reflexiones sobre el movimiento revolucionario en Méjico. A Coruña, Grupo Editor Cultura Libertaria, Biblioteca La Internacional, 1913. 47. “Los aludidos se quejan,” Cultura Obrera, July 3, 1915. 48. Alfonso de Castilla, “The Spaniards in West Virginia: Discovery of 3000 Compatriots. A Center of Anarchism,” Las Novedades, New York, February 24, 1916. Consulted at https://tracesofspainintheus.org/2014/04/27/new-document-spains-

lost-children-in-west-virginia-1916-part-one/ (accessed November 10, 2017). 49. This can be observed, for example, in a letter from Pedro Esteve to Luigi Fabbri, who had published one of his articles inVolontá and to whom Esteve sent copies of Cultura. See the handwritten letter from Esteve to Fabbri, of May 15, 1915. Luigi Fabbri Correspondence, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. 50. For example, the night of October 3, 1914, a festival for Spaniards and Italians in which Sensitiva and Sirio Esteve played various pieces on the violin and piano. “Pedro Esteve spoke quite brilliantly.” Afterward, the dance, which “lasted until nearly three,” began. Cultura Obrera, October 10, 1914. 51. Esteve, Pedro, A los anarquistas de España y Cuba. Memoria de la Conferencia anarquista de Chicago de 1893. Paterson, Imprenta El Despertar, 1900: 57–63. 52. “Not wishing to bother the family and pressed for time by the press,” they got the paper out in a disorganized fashion and with many typographic imperfections for which they apologize. Cultura Obrera, September 26, 1925. 53. Ibid.

CHAPTER 6

Spanish Firemen and Maritime Syndicalism, 1902–1940 JON BEKKEN AND MARIO MARTÍN REVELLADO Spanish-speaking Wobblies and Hispanic anarcho-syndicalists built a strong presence in the maritime industry in the opening decades of the twentieth century, relying upon the exchange of publications and interpersonal networks to sustain a culture of resistance across the Americas. Hispanics played a major role in the Atlantic Coast maritime trade—primarily as firemen (fogoneros) working on ships sailing out of U.S. ports. (The steamship labor force was highly segregated, with African Americans and Hispanics working below deck, and “whites”—many northern Europeans—employed as cooks, engineers, and ship officers.) Many fogoneros had experience in militant unions overseas, having fled persecution in Cuba or Spain. Eighty-five percent of the firemen working Atlantic Coast steamships were Hispanic, and they played a key role in reviving the International Seaman’s Union’s (ISU) Atlantic Coast branch in 1902.1 Firemen, though ill-paid, were central to the operation of coal-fired steamships, providing electricity to the ship as well as powering its engines; when they struck the luxury liner Olympic in April 1912 over concerns that newly installed collapsible lifeboats were unsafe, 276 oilers and firemen were involved. Cargo vessels often employed two dozen or more firemen, numbers that fell drastically with the conversion to oil.2 These firemen played a central role in maritime labor struggles and were the backbone of the Industrial Workers of the World’s (IWW) campaign to organize maritime workers. Yet they have received little attention. Their strikes are treated as disruptions in histories of the Seamen’s Union, and historians of the IWW relegate the Marine Transport Workers (MTW) union, its longest-lived industrial union, to the margins.3 While the ISU organized seamen into a patchwork of craft unions, each with separate contracts, and relied on legislative reform to remedy conditions, the MTW sought to organize shipboard and longshore workers into a single industrial union which could compel reforms through workers’ job actions. This

chapter briefly explores Spanish seamen’s efforts to develop a transnational network to improve working conditions and sustain an oppositional movement culture over a span of three decades. It complements the previous chapter by Susana Sueiro Seoane and focuses on labor organizing. The IWW had a global reach and internationalist orientation that has been ignored by many historians. Internationalism was central to the IWW’s identity—embodied in its name, chosen after a debate in which delegates to the founding convention agreed that “we are all workers of the world”: Internationalism was the logical conclusion of IWW class analysis, for if, as the IWW Preamble proclaimed, “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” then there was no reason for the working class to respect national boundaries drawn by its masters. A delegate to the 1905 convention maintained that “all the boundary lines that were ever established have always been established by men who were a bunch of robbers, thieves and exploiters, and we want to combine ourselves as humanity, as one lot of people … and we want to have under that banner our brothers and sisters of the world.”4 As Anton Rosenthal notes, the IWW actively organized in Latin America, with branches in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay. Spanish seamen carried radical newspapers across borders, spreading both ideas and organization.5 Although much of the scant literature attributes IWW successes in Argentina and Chile to the efforts of Tom Barker and several compatriots expelled from Australia for their opposition to World War I, Spanish-speaking Wobblies had long been working the Atlantic Coast trade, and their work provided the actual path for transmitting IWW propaganda. Indeed, the Valparaiso IWW already had 300 members and a newspaper when the deportees arrived in 1918.6 While the IWW had affiliates in many countries, the Marine Transport Workers was its only truly international union. IWW seamen worked ships plying international waters, and Wobbly seamen met with and distributed IWW newspapers and other literature to longshoremen, sailors, and other waterfront workers in

their ports of call and brought radical publications from overseas back to the United States. The MTW’s network of union halls helped enforce agreements and pursue grievances from port to port. In 1923, Chilean Wobblies picketed the disembarkation of the U.S. delegation to the Pan American Congress to protest the imprisonment of IWW members in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.7 The MTW-dominated Chilean section of the IWW (from the late 1920s) was affiliated to the syndicalist International Workingmen’s Association, and the MTW urged the IWW as a whole to affiliate.8 In addition to its many U.S. halls, the MTW maintained halls in Bremerhaven, Hamburg, and Stettin, Germany; Tampico, Mexico; Stockholm, Sweden; Adelaide and Sydney, Australia; Vancouver and Port Arthur, Canada; and Iquique and Valparaiso, Chile, for many years. The IWW’s Chilean section grew to 9,000 members in seven maritime cities before being suppressed by a military dictatorship. Between 1918 and 1927, MTW locals waged strikes and direct action in Chilean ports to force individual employers to grant better terms, then whipsawing other firms into line, and relied on the “redondilla” system (sharing the available work) to maintain solidarity.9 Their newspaper, La Voz del Mar (Voice of the Sea, 1924–1932), reported on shipboard struggles against dictatorial captains, MTW efforts throughout the hemisphere, and IWW efforts to build global solidarity, alongside theoretical articles and condemnations of alcoholism.10 Seamen also helped carry the IWW to Mexico, notably in Tampico, where the union organized maritime and petroleum workers. By 1923 the IWW represented inland boatmen, relying on links to the American MTW and the Mexican IWW’s dock and petroleum workers to reinforce their position. While the Mexican IWW was unable to sustain lasting job control, active branches remained into the 1930s.11 During these years, IWW newspapers reported on maritime workers’ struggles around the world, and MTW members regularly engaged in solidarity actions. In 1913, IWW firemen assisted Philadelphia dockworkers by refusing to provide power to

strikebreakers trying to unload ships. During another strike in 1920, firemen again refused to provide steam, union cooks refused to feed scabs, and coal hoisters refused to fuel ships loaded with scab cargo.12

The Fogoneros and the Strike of 1912 When anarchist printer/editor Pedro Esteve launched Cultura Obrera (Workers’ Culture, 1911–1927) on November 4, 1911, its masthead proclaimed it the “órgano de la unión de fogoneros del Atlántico.”13 It was the Spanish-language weekly newspaper of the Marine Firemen, Oilers and Watertenders Union of the Atlantic and the Gulf, a craft union representing the predominantly Spanish engine room workers cofounded by anarchist fireman Jaime Vidal, a Spanish exile who served as union secretary, and affiliated to the American Federation of Labor’s International Seaman’s Union.14 Union delegates sold the paper aboard ships, and each issue listed subscriptions and donations collected the previous week. The inaugural edition of Cultura Obrera heralded the Magonista revolution in Mexico, cursed social inequality, and lamented the plight of those “feeding ravenous boilers to set in motion the monsters that cross the seas.”15 Other pages contained news from the United States and the Spanish-speaking world, an essay on the legacy of libertarian educator, Francisco Ferrer, reports on union meetings and job actions, three columns of maritime labor news, a list of contributors, and a halfpage of English-language labor news. Contributors included union officers such as Vidal, Juan Martínez, and José Vilariño, who edited several anarchist newspapers, and most notably the rank-and-file fogoneros who gave the anarchist movement life through their daily struggles and their support of its press and halls. Although primarily a Spanish-language publication, Cultura Obrera published as much as a page of labor news in English in each issue, and it issued an English-language edition in the months leading to the 1912 strike. An editorial by Jaime Vidal promised readers that the paper would “fight their exploiters, … educate unconscious members and disseminate the redemptive flame of rebellion.” He acknowledged that many would be surprised to see so radical a paper affiliated with

the A.F.L. but explained that workers gained strength by federating together.16 Vidal’s “Emancipation of the Seamen” praised strikes and other industrial action as the seamen’s most valuable tool, deprecating the ISU officials’ emphasis on protective legislation: They sit down to await the promised day when the Government … will declare the man on sea to be independent and free. But the law serves the capitalists, and even when favorable legislation is secured, it is not enforced except by the workers’ own efforts. … The emancipation of the suffering laborers on sea will be brought about … by forming a strong federation which shall reach out its strong arm over every country, … forcing the sea tyrants to let go of their usurped privileges: by doing this without calling upon the State to meddle in the fight between Labor and Capital, for the State rests upon the principle of privilege and exploitation itself.17 On February 24, 1912, Cultura Obrera announced that future issues would contain two pages in English.18 For the next several months, English- and Spanish-language sections each identified the paper as the joint organ of the firemen and of the Transport Workers of America—a loose federation of ISU, International Longshoremen’s Association, and Knights of Labor (who controlled longshoring in Boston) locals agreed to joint strike action seeking union recognition, better conditions aboard ships, and substantial wage increases. After months of preparation, the strike began June 29, 1912, with 30,000 workers striking in Boston, Galveston, Hoboken, New Orleans, and New York. The ISU-affiliated Cooks & Stewards Union crossed picket lines from the start, and the separately organized engineers never considered striking. A few lines settled in the first week, but while the firemen were solid, seamen’s participation was spotty. Tens of thousands of longshoremen joined the strike at various points, but they were fragmented into competing unions and each returned to work as they received concessions. When the ILA won a pay raise July 29, ISU seamen quickly agreed to return to work, leaving the firemen with no alternative but surrender.19 Tensions had been building even before the strike, with Cultura Obrera publishing an angry account of the Firemen’s treatment at the ISU convention and pressing for a federation uniting all maritime

workers.20 The union withdrew from the ISU after the strike and soon joined the Industrial Workers of the World, forming the backbone (along with the Philadelphia longshoremen) of its Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union.21 Even while still affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, Cultura Obrera argued for IWW tactics (without identifying them as such): Is it not absurd that every other Union from behind its own entrenchments should sadly watch the contest waged by its brother Union against that monster Capitalism? … For instance, the Firemen of a ship go out on strike while the Oilers, Stokers, Cooks, and Sailors, the Longshoremen, Teamsters, and Warehouse Freight Handlers each keep their places. … When the right kind of propaganda is carried on, the laborers themselves go out on sympathetic strikes without having to be urged, and sometimes in the face of their leaders’ opposition. … Besides being most effective, these new methods of fighting have the advantage of not entailing great sacrifice. … The strike either spreads with astonishing rapidity and makes victory but a matter of days, or else it does not pass beyond the idea of a General Strike which dies before it is born.22 When publication resumed, the paper was issued by the Grupo “Cultura Obrera.”23 All four pages were now in Spanish. A column noted the shippers’ joy at the (temporary) death of “our beloved paper.” But, though weakened, the union survived.24 Subsequent issues devoted substantial space to the firemen’s and other maritime workers’ struggles, documented shipboard collections, and carried labor news from around the world, articles on anarchist philosophy, and critiques of capitalism and authoritarian regimes.

One Big Union of Maritime Workers In April 1913 the paper announced its affiliation to the Industrial Workers of the World’s Maritime Transport Workers Industrial Union.25 The May 3 issue added the IWW’s universal label (in English) to the nameplate; on May 16 the nameplate incorporated the IWW’s “Education, Organization, Emancipation” motto (in Spanish) and identified the paper as “Portavoz de los Obreros Industriales del Mundo.”26 Pedro Esteve remained as editor, and the

last page of each issue listed contributions and subscriptions collected from ships in Boston, Galveston, New York City, and New Orleans. While the columns continued to focus on maritime workers, news of other IWW struggles played an increasing role. The firemen’s and Philadelphia longshoremen’s decision to join the IWW made the union a major presence on the Eastern seaboard. Other Atlantic Coast ISU officials quit when the International refused to fight a pay cut, and the ISU was left with a paper organization that only sought to organize white, English-speaking workers. The ISU was so weakened that its president worried that their only stable affiliate, the Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP), might also leave for the IWW.27 The SUP dominated West Coast shipping, so a decision to join the Marine Transport Workers, which the SUP’s historian concedes had the support of most East Coast seamen, would have been significant.28 Instead, the ISU initially held on to cooks and seamen on the Atlantic Coast, while the firemen were divided between a small ISU organization and the IWW, which enjoyed the support (if not always the dues) of the Spanish immigrants who continued to dominate the trade. In the aftermath of the 1912 strike, individual firemen struggled to regain their positions, and the union had to reestablish itself. The IWW hired Galician anarchist Manuel Rey to organize seamen working out of Philadelphia, helping the union expand beyond the ranks of the fogoneros. The IWW name was dropped from Cultura Obrera’s nameplate by September 5, 1914, and replaced with the more general “Periódico obrero, de doctrina y de combate.”29 However, IWW news continued to play an important role in the paper, running alongside news of the fogoneros, articles about anarchist ideas, and lists of subscriptions and donations collected from an increasingly dispersed readership (shipboard collections remained common, but a growing share came from inland cities). Union halls remained open and Cultura Obrera and the IWW’s English-language Solidarity published frequent articles calling upon maritime workers to join the IWW and announcements of cultural and educational events, but fewer reports of job actions. By 1916, the IWW was gaining strength and the ISU called on ship owners to blacklist the Wobblies. In January, the International

issued a leaflet aimed at Spanish-speaking seamen, and the New York City ISU voted to establish a bilingual newspaper to combat Cultura Obrera. (There is no evidence that it was ever published.) A few weeks later, their organizer reported that “the I.W.W. have joined a large number of colored sailors, nearly all of these men have able seamen’s certificates and will constitute a great menace to this Association.”30 The Boston ISU called upon sailors to refuse to sail with IWW firemen, saying if they could not force the firemen off the ships they would lose the sailors to IWW propaganda. However, “the shortage of Anglo-Saxon [sic] at the present time is a severe handicap, if we had fifty firemen available we could break this up in the Eastern and every other line.”31 In Philadelphia, where the IWW maintained separate halls for longshoremen and seagoing workers, thousands of IWW maritime workers joined an IWW parade, and race-baiting ISU officials held a shipboard debate with a Spanish delegate and the IWW’s local secretary.32 Two weeks later, the IWW won a fight with the Morgan line, defeating an effort to replace IWW crews with more docile ISU members.33 In August 1916, a New York City IWW organizer reported: “The sentiment among the Portuguese and Spanish workers around here is with us for the one big union.”34 IWW members lined up crews at sea and tested their strength in port. The IWW was gaining ground as World War I broke out, taking advantage of wartime conditions to win pay hikes while ISUrepresented crews were locked into contracts with lower pay scales. In March 1917, IWW firemen on a ship bound for South America won a three-hour strike, increasing monthly pay by $10 (to $60).35 Reports of similar job actions were an almost weekly feature in the IWW press. When a ship arriving in Philadelphia from Brazil refused to hire IWW firemen, delegates in Boston called on the shipping line, which directed the captain to hire an IWW crew and granted a pay raise. Manuel Rey ended his report by calling for an Englishspeaking organizer to reach out to deck crews: “At present the Spaniards are holding the fort in this port. It’s better to die living than to live dying, so come on, fellow workers! Down with all parasites!” Longshore organizer Ben Fletcher reported that the IWW controlled forty ships sailing from Boston and had a strong presence on several

more: “It just requires a little more effort to prove to the other marine transport workers that the I.W.W. is the ship and that all else is the deep blue sea.”36 In order to retain its Atlantic Coast foothold, the Seamen’s Union undercut IWW pay and conditions, denounced Wobblies to ship owners and federal officials, and supplied scabs.37 However, the IWW remained; in 1917 the MTW forced steamers sailing out of Boston to follow union menus to ensure decent food: “Any falling off from this bill of fare resulted in the consequent lowering of the steam pressure.”38 Demand for seamen was strong, and employers were not in a position to quibble over pay scales or rations, although IWW offices were regularly raided and union delegates were barred from ships.39 Rey was one of scores of IWW organizers arrested in the 1917 raids, but maritime organizing was a major priority for the union, and he was quickly replaced by fellow Galician Genaro Pazos.40 Cultura Obrera was barred from the mails in 1918; on August 8, 1918, FBI Special Agent H. P. Shaugnessey seized copies of the June 22, 29, and July 20 issues from Boston MTW-IWW organizer Manuel Alfaya. On August 23, Shaugnessey seized five copies of the August 10, 1918, issue, saying: “Cultura Obrera is an anarchistical [sic] publication that was stopped by the Post Office some three months ago but as one may see it is still going through the mails.”41 IWW halls served as cultural and educational centers, as well as organizing industrial solidarity. Government agents closely monitored IWW maritime halls, and some joined the union in order to compile lists of members.42 Names were also acquired through raids. Some 200 firemen, oilers, and seamen (many with Spanish surnames) shipping through the Boston MTW hall were listed in a 1918 FBI report.43 A 1919 FBI report noted that members of the Philadelphia seamen’s branch were “extreme radicals,” many including Pazos were also members of the anarchist Group Pro Prenza.44 At war’s end, there were several strikes as ship owners took advantage of the postwar recession. When Wobblies joined one such strike, they urged seamen to reject ISU job control: “The International Seamen’s Union has always sold out the workers.

Remember how they scab on the I.W.W. Remember that they want no foreigners on American ships.”45

The Decline of the Spanish Firemen Postwar restrictions on immigration, the Red Scare of the 1920s, and the transition from coal- to oil-powered ships undermined the fogoneros’ position. Although Spanish firemen no longer controlled the trade, they remained a significant part of the workforce, particularly on coal-burning ships, into the 1930s—now sharing engine rooms with a polyglot workforce that did not share their language or their history of struggle. Even so, when Philadelphia longshoremen struck in May 1920, firemen cut off steam to the handful of ships trying to unload cargo with strikebreakers.46 In March 1922, ISU President Furuseth reported that the IWW dominated the Boston waterfront and that the ISU branch was so demoralized it was no longer meeting, “More than half the men manning American ships are members of the M. T. W.,” he told Congress. “The ships are being flooded with red literature.”47 While agreeing that the ISU was losing members so quickly it might not survive the year without payments from ship owners, the MTW said Furuseth greatly exaggerated its strength: “On American merchant vessels today there are about 125,000 employed on salt water. The M.T.W. does not claim half that number as members. If it did, you may rest assured that conditions would be greatly improved. But the M.T.W. is growing and it won’t be long before it will have sufficient members to give the ship owners a real shake-down.”48 A year later Boston Wobblies reported that hardly a ship left the port without most of the crew carrying IWW cards. The MTW also claimed some 3,000 members working out of its New York City branch, based in the fogoneros’ old offices.49 Cultura Obrera resumed publication well after the war, probably in August 1922.50 It was no longer the organ of the fogoneros; the first page was dominated by political philosophy, though short articles inside discussed the progress of the labor movement, expressed concern over the rise of fascism, and exhorted seamen to join the IWW’s efforts to win some modicum of dignity on the job: “[Y] our first duty, as a man, not a slave, is to join the fight to restore your rights,

which have been usurped. The Union is the best means to win the long-awaited right to life and freedom.”51 The paper’s reach extended to Argentina, with nineteen contributors there listed in the January 20, 1923, issue. Cultura Obrera increasingly devoted its pages to exhortation, philosophy, and remembrances. Rather than reporting shipboard struggles as before, it now called upon seamen to join the union so that they could once again wage such struggles. The December 9 edition discussed the IWW’s fight against the Ku Klux Klan and race prejudice; page 4 contained another appeal to maritime workers to join the IWW. The December 16 edition urged the fogoneros to reclaim their history of working-class culture and resistance. On December 23, “Un Marino” exhorted readers “Onward!” against the whips of the capitalist beast. “Your rebellion is a panacea to cure the evils we are facing.” As the workforce changed and the role of the fogoneros declined, Cultura Obrera became less and less a labor newspaper, and more a political one. The paper’s content had always been somewhat eclectic. Contributions from the fogoneros and other manual laborers argued for internationalism and solidarity and provided firsthand accounts of their experiences in simple, moving prose. Debates over women’s rights condemned religious dogma and called for full social and economic equality, only to be followed by a piece agreeing that women were entitled to equal political rights but saying their primary economic role was in the home.52 By the 1920s, women’s voices were more prominent in Cultura Obrera’s pages. Maria Esteve’s column, “Firmas Femeninas,” demanded women’s full emancipation, and in 1926 a front-page article proclaimed that women suffered a double exploitation at home and in the workplace.53 The paper survived Pedro Esteve’s death in 1925,54 continuing as Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture, 1927–1953) into the 1950s. While its design hearkened back to Cultura Obrera’s maritime roots, Cultura Proletaria’s content—though certainly transnational, including extensive coverage of the Spanish Revolution—did not focus on maritime issues. The IWW retained a strong presence in the maritime industry through the mid- 1940s, but it was a minority presence. Most seamen shipped by the voyage and, since hiring was done through

union halls, Wobblies either had to have at least tacit agreements with ship owners or captains to hire through their halls or carry two (or more) union cards to get jobs. Few owners willingly hired Wobblies, and so the Marine Transport Workers halls generally could not function as a source of jobs. Both the National Maritime Union (CIO) and ISU (AFL) worked to keep IWW members off ships. In 1937, when a captain turned to the IWW hall after the NMU was unable to provide two seamen, the NMU insisted that they quit the IWW. They refused, and the NMU delegate said they could not sail because they would propagandize the crew.55 Nevertheless, the MTW worked to develop broader industrial solidarity. In 1936, SUP seamen approved resolutions supporting industrial unionism and political independence, and hiring through MTW halls when on the East Coast “instead of running around the docks or through the Communist-controlled Rank and file halls.”56 That 1936 strike gradually spread to all Atlantic and Gulf ports. By January 1937, the “rank and file committees” (which became the NMU) were suppressing rank-and-file strike literature. In New York City, they tried to stop the Spanish Strike Committee from distributing its daily Spanish-language bulletin because it was issued from the MTW hall. The strike eventually collapsed from union scabbing and political intrigue, but the MTW’s efforts won respect (and members) from militant maritime workers and an agreement by the SUP to honor MTW-IWW cards.57 The MTW remained internationalist to the end. In 1936 MTW seamen struck against the shipping of dynamite to Franco’s army from Philadelphia, holding up the ship until the ISU imported scabs. Wobblies distributed handbills calling on workers to refuse to handle cargo to ports where the fascists held power and published lists of ships that should not be worked. The Marine Worker derided an ISU protest against the hiring of non-U.S. seamen as “downright jingoism” and denounced the communist-dominated NMU’s demand that seamen receive a bonus for carrying cargo to the fascists: “The Commies willingly and voluntarily transport the instruments of death to be used against some of their own comrads [sic] in Spain—if only they are given an extra bonus for their perfidy.”58

In 1937, a NMU organizer estimated there were 10,000 MTW members (the NMU and ISU each having 25,000) on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. But the MTW was surrounded by contracts that cemented business unionism in place.59 In the end, Hyman Weintraub concludes, “the combined forces of the AFL, the government and the shipowners defeated the IWW.”60 Yet some Wobblies still shipped on both coasts and Marine Transport Workers halls lingered in New York City and Houston, Texas, into the 1960s. The legacy of the MTW and the Spanish firemen lies, in part, in its tradition of solidarity and resistance. It speaks to the possibilities of forging, at least for a time, a culture of resistance that transcends national borders. Itinerant organizers, most of them volunteers, crossed oceans and borders, advocating direct action tactics and a vision of a new, emancipatory labor movement.61 The fogoneros gave form to this vision. Although they were far removed from their homelands, spending most of their working lives outside the boundaries of nation-states, they carried the syndicalist message across those borders in the form of their newspapers (also bringing Latin American newspapers into the United States) and through their very presence and the example of their union. That example sparked organizing efforts across the Americas—building a union that remains to this day the only truly international union to have represented workers in what is by its very nature a transnational industry. This movement sought (and won) better conditions for the marine firemen, to be sure but, more than that, they sought a new world—a world free of borders, of bosses, and of tyranny. Notes 1. Hyman Weintraub, Andrew Furuseth, Emancipator of the Seamen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), 102. 2. “Olympic Stalled by Panic Strike,” New York Sun, April 25, 1912. Fireman Reuel Stanfield worked an oil-burning engine by himself in 1934. There should have been both an oiler and a water tender on duty (alongside the engineer, from a different union) for each of the three shifts. My Fight for the Workers (no publisher listed, 1967), 1. Later, he mentions a Baltimore-based Spanish

Wobbly fireman who was working coal-burning ships in 1935 (37, 38). 3. Melvyn Dubofsky writes that the MTW was “the one stable and effective IWW organization outside the Western states,” but gives it only a couple of paragraphs. We Shall Be All, 2nd edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 287. For Philadelphia, see Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007). Fred Thompson’s 1955 official history discusses the Spanish firemen only obliquely: “the Marine Oilers, Firemen and Watertenders moved to affiliate with the IWW. No such event occurred,” in Thompson and Jon Bekken, The Industrial Workers of the World: Its First 100 Years (Cincinnati: IWW, 2006), 68. 4. Peter DeShazo and Robert J. Halstead, “Los Wobblies Del Sur: The Industrial Workers of the World in Chile and Mexico,” unpublished paper, 1974, 2. 5. In May 1918, postal authorities seized five copies of an Argentine anarchist newspaper, La Rebelión, sent to Boston MTW secretary Manuel Alfaya. A.M.S., U.S. Postal Censorship report, May 10, 1918. In November 1919, an agent was given copies of a Chilean anarchist newspaper by a “Spanish Syndicalist Anarchist and I.W.W.” K. K., Nov. 20, 1919. Intelligence reports are from National Archives files digitized and available on the Fold3 platform. 6. Anton Rosenthal, “Radical Border Crossers: The Industrial Workers of the World and Their Press in Latin America,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 22, no. 2, 2011, 39– 70; Victor Muñoz Cortés, “La IWW en Chile. Un sindicato y una leyenda,” https://naturalezaydialectica.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/laiww-en-chile-un-sindicato-y-una-leyenda-1919–1951/ (accessed February 16, 2019). 7. “MTW Victory Growing on Foreign Registry Ships,” Marine Worker, May 1, 1924; Marine Worker, June 1, 1925; Marine Worker, May 1, 1926. 8. Wayne Thorpe, “Syndicalist Internationalism before World War II,” in Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective, edited by Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (Leicester:

Scholar Press, 1990), 249–250. The IWW ultimately narrowly rejected the proposal and blocked MTW efforts to affiliate on its own. 9. This largely follows DeShazo and Halstead, “Los Wobblies Del Sur.” Some material on the Chilean IWW appears in DeShazo’s Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983). In 1936, the MTW reorganized, publishing La Voz del Industrialismo on a press donated by U.S. Wobblies. “Chilean IWW Rebuilds Strength Rapidly after Ibanez Suppression,” Industrial Worker, Aug. 1, 1936. 10. See, e.g., “Valiente actitud que asumen los camaradas del Transporte Marítimo de Norte Américo,” and “Incidente en el vapor ‘Pisagua,’” Nov. 10, 1925; “Su majestad el alcohol,” Aug. 7, 1925. Several articles in the August 7 issue noted that they had been censored by the military. Scattered issues of this newspaper are available; we accessed it through the Labadie Archive at the University of Michigan. 11. Norman Caulfield, Mexican Workers and the State (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1998); Kevin Antonio Aguilar, “The IWW in Tampico: Anarchism, Internationalism, and Solidarity Unionism in a Mexican Port,” in Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW, edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers, and Kenyon Zimmer (London: Pluto Press, 2017). 12. Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront; “Longshore Lads Show Dock Bosses What’s Solidarity,” Industrial Solidarity, June 12, 1920. 13. Catalan-born Pedro Esteve (1866–1925) worked as a typesetter and editor with Barcelona’s El Productor, fleeing to the United States in 1892 after authorities banned the paper. In addition to editing the Italian-language La Questione Sociale when Luigi Galleani was deported, Esteve attended the IWW’s founding convention in 1905 and edited Spanish-language newspapers, including Archiva Social (1893), El Esclavo (1894–1898), El Despertar (1891–1902), and Cultura Obrera. Nicolás Kanellos, “Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals in Early Twentieth Century United States,” in Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent since 1865, edited by James Baughman, Jennifer Ratner- Rosenhagen, and James Danky (Madison: University of

Wisconsin Press, 2015); Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2005), 390. 14. Cultura Obrera referred to the union, in Spanish, as the Firemen’s Union of the Atlantic in its nameplate. The full name was generally used only in English-language copy. Founded in 1902, the union joined the IWW in 1913; the reconstituted ISU firemen’s union joined the uprising that formed the National Maritime Union in 1937. The ISU had parallel organizations representing engine room crews (and separate unions of cooks and seamen) working out of Pacific Coast and Great Lakes ports. It emphasized harmonious relations with employers, respect for contracts, and legislative reform. Weintraub, Andrew Furuseth. 15. “Lo que somos y a lo que aspiramos,” Cultura Obrera, Nov. 4, 1911. Where material appears in both languages, we have used the English-language version; otherwise translations are by the authors. 16. J. Vidal, “Un Triunfo Moral de los Fogoneros,” Cultura Obrera, Nov. 4, 1911. 17. J. Vidal, “Emancipation of the Seamen,” Cultura Obrera, Nov. 11, 1911. 18. “Special Lawrence Issue,” Cultura Obrera, Feb. 24, 1912. That issue is missing from the file; Numbers 19 (March 9) and 20 (March 16) have English- and Spanish-language sections, each with its own nameplate. A two-page Spanish-language edition is in the file for #21. No copies survive for April through November 23, 1912. The paper was still publishing on July 20, as the Industrial Worker reprinted a blistering attack on the limits of craft (rather than industrial) unionism from that issue. George Sykes, “A Word to the Waterfront,” Industrial Worker, Aug. 1, 1912 (reprinted from Labor Culture, the English-language section). The August 22, 1912, Industrial Worker (“Notes on the Transport Strike,” 4) said publication would continue “to keep up the agitation for militant methods and closer federation on the waterfront.” It commended Boston seamen for standing by the strike, condemned ISU officials, and reported that thousands of marchers “chanted a Spanish dirge” during the funeral of Andreas Rodrigues (a striker shot by police). The September 12 Industrial Worker (“Grim Facts Cause Changed Ideas”) reported the

firemen’s decision to join the IWW. Vidal and Vilariño moved to Los Angeles in the aftermath of the defeat, launching the anarchist newspaper Fuerza Consciente. 19. “Longshoremen Join in Shipping Strike,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 1, 1912 (all strikers are Spaniard and Italians, except two oilers); “Longshoremen Win Point” and “Firemen’s Strike Off,” New-York Tribune, July 30, 1912. 20. Coverage ran in English and Spanish from December 9 to December 30, 1911. J. Vidal offered his conclusions on December 30: “[M]y readers can judge for themselves what the International is to the Atlantic Firemen: a burden on their backs; a yoke about their necks; a useless piece of furniture in Labor’s War; a harmless toy with which to attack the bourgeois strongholds.” 21. Arthur E. Albrecht, International Seamen’s Union of America:A Study of Its History and Problems (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1923), 98. Albrecht says most of the IWW’s 5,000 New York maritime members were Spanish firemen and urged ship owners to refuse to allow members of the IWW or other radical organizations to work their vessels. 22. The unsigned article appeared as “Los Nuevos Métodos de Lucha” on December 30, 1911, and as “New Fighting Tactics” on January 6, 1912. 23. Cultura Obrera, Nov. 30, 1912, vol. 2, no. 1. A page 1 editorial, “Hechos, no Palabras,” explained that the paper rejected the authoritarianism of the Rockefellers, Czars, and Gompers of the world, and would spread its message as widely as possible. 24. Juan Martínez, “Para Todos,” Cultura Obrera, Nov. 30, 1912. This was the lead item under the heading “De Los Trabajadores del Mar.” 25. “A los sostenedores de ‘Cultura Obrera,’” April 26, 1913. 26. Other Spanish-language IWW newspapers translated the name as “Trabajadores Industrial del Mundo.” See, e.g., El Rebelde, Aug. 5, 1916. 27. Weintraub, Andrew Furuseth, 101–105, 112–117. ISU officials campaigned to bar “Orientals” from ships and to require 75 percent of all seamen to understand English. Atlantic ISU officials were expelled after they testified against the bill on behalf of Spanish-

speaking members. Andrew Furuseth report, July 26, 1913, in Victor Olander papers, Chicago History Museum, box 84. ISU officials periodically panicked about a SUP defection, but it never considered joining the IWW. It did leave the International for a time when ISU officers interfered in SUP affairs. 28. Stephen Schwartz, Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific (Livingston: Transaction Publishers, 1986), 38. 29. The paper continued serving as the firemen’s organ, covering IWW (and other labor) news and advocating industrial solidarity. On November 12, 1918, a Naval Intelligence report said Esteve remained “in charge of I.W.W. affairs” in New York City until compelled to pull back by the threat of prosecution. The January 20, 1923, edition of Cultura Obrera announced that Esteve would speak on the labor movement at the MTW hall. 30. “Attention. Spanish Seafaring-Men. Attention.” The text includes a handwritten note by G. Brown that it was being “printed in Spanish for the men it is intended for.” Olander Papers, box 86, folder January 1–18, 1916; New York Branch minutes May 29, 1916, July 12, 1916, August 16, 1916; Pat O’Brien to “Dear Comrade,” Aug. 18, 1916, all in Olander Papers, box 86. New York Branch minutes Nov. 21, 1916, Olander Papers, box 87. Five years later, ISU Secretary Thomas Hansen wrote the ISU’s Agent in New Orleans: “I am glad to know that … you will meet [sic] out the proper kind of justice to [the IWW] as time goes on” (Sept. 1, 1921). 31. Hansen to ISU officers and branches, August 15, 1922, Olander Papers, box 89; Boston Branch Minutes, April 18, April 25, and May 3, 1916, Olander Papers, box 86. 32. John Walsh, “Big I.W.W. Parade in Philadelphia,” Solidarity, May 27, 1916. “One of the labor skates said he would not sign any ‘niggers’ in his union, and that the I.W.W. is only a lot of foreigners.” The IWW organized the first integrated longshore union in the United States; given that immigrants dominated the seafarers’ ranks, and the longshoremen were immigrants and African-Americans, the ISU’s position was both backward and impractical. 33. Jack Carney, “I.W.W. Defeats Seamen’s Union and Morgan Line,” Solidarity, June 10, 1916.

34. Thomas Macedo, “What’s Doing in the IWW,” Solidarity, Aug. 19, 1916, 4. The IWW felt strong enough to dispatch organizers to Great Lakes ports, long the ISU officials’ power base. 35. James Phillips, “Successful I.W.W. Strike in Norfolk,” Solidarity, March 24, 1917. 36. Manuel Rey, “Successful M.T.W. Strike in Philadelphia,” 1; Ben Fletcher, “Marine Transport Workers Line-Up in Boston,” 4; Solidarity, April 14, 1917. 37. “Do You Call This a Union?” and James Phillips, “More A.F. of L. Scabbery,” Solidarity, May 5, 1917. Naval Intelligence and FBI files contain several reports of ISU officials denouncing IWW seamen. A Russian-born sailor was interrogated in Baltimore after the ISU reported he was a Wobbly. Ironically, he was a paid-up ISU member. Wm. Doyas, Report 292645, July 24, 1918. 38. Francis Miller, “Atlantic M.T.W. Make Own Menu,” Industrial Worker, Feb. 24, 1917. The same page reports from Philadelphia (Jimmie Burch, “Progress on Atlantic Coast”): “Most of the firemen are lined up with the I.W.W., but there are a lot of sailors that still stick to their International card.” 39. “Importante,” Cultura Obrera, Oct. 6, 1917. 40. Bieito Alonso, “Spanish Anarchists and Maritime Workers in the IWW,” in Cole et al., Wobblies of the World, 95–100. Rey was sentenced to 20 years in prison, publishing several poems in the IWW and anarchist press while in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. He was deported to Spain in 1922, returned to the United States clandestinely, was deported again, returning in 1925 to live in the Stelton anarchist colony as Louis G. Raymond until his death in 1989. 41. IWW newspapers were barred from the mail following U.S. entry into the war, and hundreds of IWW members were imprisoned. H. P. Shaugnessey reports, Aug. 21 and Aug. 23, 1918. Alfaya testified (in Spanish) that he was secretary of the Boston MTW and admitted that he was an anarchist. He did not appear for trial, and a deportation order (to Spain) was issued. Jan. 28, 1919. 42. FBI agent “G. G.” helped copy New York MTW membership records as a precaution against police raids (November 20, 1919). On November 28, he received anarchist publications from a sailor

arriving from Cuba. An 8-page report on MTW efforts in Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore was based on undercover work by a Spanish-speaking agent who joined the union. Commandant, Fifth Naval District, to Director of Naval Intelligence, November 12, 1918. The report notes MTW strength among Spaniards, Mexicans, Peruvians, and Argentinians and says the IWW organizes by infiltrating and propagandizing ship crews and its members serve as “correspondence carriers” between ports. A 54-page report references a complete list of New York City MTW members, ships upon which they worked, and boarding houses and other sites they frequented. Office of Naval Intelligence, “Investigation of the Marine Transport Workers and the Alleged Threatened Combination between Them and the Bolsheviki and Sinn Feiners,” Dec. 23, 1918. It notes East Coast organizing by Cuban, Mexican, and Spanish Wobblies, and asserts that repression destroyed the MTW in New York City: “Membership is now confined chiefly to a Spanishspeaking element,” 34. 43. The 20-page report comprises excerpts from letters about MTW and other IWW organizing efforts. Howard Pfaelzer, “in re: Marine Transport Workers Union, 372 Commercial St., Boston, Mass.,” Nov. 30, 1918. Similar lists were compiled for West Coast seamen, and for Hawaii. 44. Todd Samuel to Frank Burke, Dept. of Investigation, Oct. 10, 1919. 45. “Pushing the Strike to Failure,” New Solidarity, Aug. 9, 1919. 46. J. F. McDevitt, “Strike of the Longhoremen of Local No. 8 of the I.W.W. Marine Transport Workers,” June 8, 1920. FBI reports say ISU firemen provided steam only for unloading perishable cargo. Agent M. F. Malone (“Longshoremen Strike at Pier 19 North Wharves—U.S.S. Osakis,” June 14, 1920) attributed this to a proIWW engineer. His room was searched in the presence of an ISU official and he was admonished. The strike was defeated after five weeks. Four people were killed by scabs, and several were injured. “Stop Violence!!” Longshoremen Strike Bulletin #7, July 1, 1920. 47. Furuseth to Hansen, March 8, 1922, Olander Papers, box 89; Eastern & Gulf Sailor’s [sic] Association, “A ‘Wobbly’ Confession,” Summer 1922, both in Olander Papers, box 89; the IWW responded

to a later edition in 1924: “Just Plain Lies,” Industrial Solidarity, Oct. 29, 1924. 48. Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union No. 510, Exposed! IWW, 1922. The pamphlet refutes Furuseth’s accusations against the IWW. A copy is at www.iww.org (accessed February 16, 2019). 49. Furuseth to Hansen, March 8, 1922; “News from Boston,” The Marine Worker, March 1, 1923; “Seamen’s Big Mass Meeting in Leading Port,” Industrial Solidarity, April 29, 1922; Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer, editors, Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW (Chicago: Lake View Press, 1985), 177– 178. 50. The first surviving issue from 1922 is dated Dec. 2, but also Año 1—No. 13 (Nueva época), indicating that 12 issues had previously been published that year. The front-page “A los compañeros” notes that the paper was forced to skip publication the week before because it could not be distributed in Brooklyn and in the South. “The situation is such that the smallest obstacle can cause death of the newspaper.” 51. A. B. de la Fuente, “A Los Marinos,” Cultura Obrera, Dec. 2, 1922. 52. Francisca Mendoza, “Feminismo Racional,” Cultura Obrera, May 3, 1913 (this was an installment in a continuing series); Lirio Rojo, “Las Sufragistas,” Cultura Obrera, May 16, 1913. 53. “La Mujer,” Cultura Obrera, Aug. 7, 1926. 54. The Sept. 19, 1925, edition reported Esteve’s death. A page 4 letter denounced shipping companies’ insistence that workers buy increasingly miserable jobs. 55. “Wobbly ‘A.B.’ Tells NMU Just What He Thinks of It,” Industrial Worker, May 29, 1937; “To All Marine Transport Workers,” handbill, no date (1936?), IWW Archives, Wayne State University, box 174. 56. “East Coast Solidarity” and “Signs of the Times,” Industrial Worker, Nov. 7, 1936. 57. “United Fruit Vessel Tied Up by MTW in Port of Boston,” Industrial Worker, Nov. 21, 1936; “ISU ‘Union’ Cards Issued Free to Scabs,” “If Maritime Workers Stick, They’ll Win,” “Burns Thug Shoots Eli Haiman, Ernest Orr, in Foiled Kidnap,” Industrial Worker, Nov. 28, 1936; “More Unions Join Maritime Strike,” Industrial Worker, Dec. 5,

1936; “Another IWW Seaman Gives Life to Stop Official Scabbery,” Industrial Worker, Dec. 12, 1936 (see Dec. 26 for report of funeral); “Politicians Wrecking Strike: Sent Stooges to Sea to Scab,” Industrial Worker, Jan. 9, 1937; “MTW Repudiates Skagman’s Lie of IWW Faction in East Coast Maritime Strike,” Industrial Worker, Jan. 16, 1937. 58. “Only One Union in the Marine Industry Is against War and Fascism,” The Marine Worker, May 1, 1936, 4, IWW Archives box 70, folder 35; “I.W.W. Ties Up Fascists’ T.N.T.,” Industrial Worker, Sept. 19, 1936; “New York Union Scabs Used to Man San Jose Fascist T.N.T. Ship,” Industrial Worker, Sept. 26, 1936; “On the Waterfront,” Industrial Worker, July 31, 1937; “Strike All Ships Carrying Fascist Cargo, Says MTW,” Industrial Worker, Sept. 24, 1938. Matthew C. White, “‘The Cause of the Workers Who Are Fighting in Spain Is Yours’: The Marine Transport Workers and the Spanish Civil War,” in Cole et al., Wobblies of the World. 59. Ottilie Markholt, Maritime Solidarity (Tacoma: Pacific Coast Maritime History Committee, 1998), 323; Thompson and Bekken, The IWW, 136, 155–157. 60. Weintraub, Andrew Furuseth, 162; Minutes of the First Convention of the MTW IU 510, Oct. 26–Nov. 6, 1923, IWW Archives, box 70, folder 3. The MTW faced a financial crisis caused by rapid expansion, maintaining sixteen halls in the United States, and ongoing “dissension due to the nefarious activities of certain borers-from-within.” They saw no prospect for cooperating with the ISU, “an organized group of cowardly labor fakers backed to the wall, now trying to maintain their easy living by sending out venomous propaganda against the very men whom they have robbed and exploited for years, who have found that the Marine Transport Workers is their union.” 61. Rosenthal, “Radical Border Crossers,” 57–60.

PART III

Anarquistas on the Frontier

CHAPTER 7

Moving West Jaime Vidal, Anarchy, and the Mexican Revolution, 1904–1918 CHRISTOPHER J. CASTAÑEDA Jaime Vidal set foot in New York City on January 24, 1904, aboard the SS Philadelphia. He had departed Southampton, England, on January 16, and his arrival heralded a new era in Spanish anarchism in the United States. Vidal quickly engaged with New York’s Hispanic anarchists and soon thereafter began establishing new anarchist periodicals in New York and later in San Francisco. He also assisted Mexican revolutionaries in their struggle against Mexican President Porfirio Diaz and his policies.1 As also noted in the essays by Susana Sueiro Seoane and Jon Bekken and Mario Martín Revellado, Vidal’s role in publishing Spanish-language anarchist propaganda in the United States, particularly in New York and later in California, was perhaps second only to that of his Spanish colleague, Pedro Esteve, in the early twentieth century.

Spanish Anarchists and the Mexican Revolution Jaime Vidal was born on January 17, 1878, and grew up in Barcelona. Not much is known about his early life, but he certainly experienced Barcelona’s development as the center of Spanish labor activism, the emerging anarcho-syndicalist movement, and influential radical periodicals including El Productor (The Producer). Barcelona’s Socialist Literary Competitions organized by the group Once de Noviembre (November 11) in memory of the Haymarket Square Martyrs likewise provided public and influential forums for discussion and debate about anarchism and socialism that further imbued the city with ideological ferment.2 Spanish authorities had their eyes on Vidal when he was only a teenager. At the age of eighteen or nineteen, he was at least briefly exiled from Barcelona to London where he lived for an indeterminate amount of time before returning to Spain. One account of his time in London purports that Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo, who worked at a London printing shop during 1897, shared a flat with Vidal. According to this narrative, one night several Spanish exiles who had

been brutally tortured while imprisoned at Barcelona’s Montjuic prison met at Vidal’s apartment along with Angiolillo and discussed those terrible experiences while displaying their wounds. Reportedly, Angiolillo abruptly left the group that night, never to be seen again.3 It is known that Angiolillo subsequently traveled to Spain via Paris and on August 8, 1897, assassinated Spanish Prime Minister Cánovas del Castillo. Vidal later returned to Spain and worked as the secretary for the Federación de Sociedades Obreras de Barcelona (Workers’ Federation of Barcelona).4 Jaime Vidal remained in Spain for several more years. He finally made the decision to leave, and on January 16, 1904, he departed Southampton, England, and headed for the United States, arriving eight days later. Vidal was traveling with Peter Sola; the occupations of both were listed as “shoemaker.” According to the ship manifest, they were in possession of $15.00 and were on their way to visit a friend identified as Antonio Copernelo, living at 238 W. 37th St. at 6th Avenue in New York City.5 Vidal seems to have stayed in New York City for the next two years. There, he quickly made contact with Spanish-speaking anarchists and labor organizers; he also came to the attention of Maurits Hymans. Hymans was an undercover agent working for the U.S. Treasury Service, sending nearly daily reports to John Wilkie, Chief of the Secret Service Division, in Washington, D.C. During October 1906, Hymans went to the offices of La Questione Sociale in Paterson, New Jersey, and listened to the men who were talking about Vidal, who was then living at 37 Liberty Street in Brooklyn, NY. They were discussing an essay Vidal recently had written, an appeal titled “To the Revolutionists of the World,” in which he stated: “Let us raise the spirit of the people and threaten a universal strike, should foreign governments intervene in Russia.” Hymans continued, “the anarchists consider Vidal’s idea a very good one, but fear that he will find no solidarity among the American working people.”6 Spanish counselor officials also began reporting on Vidal and his activities in the United States. On June 6, 1906, one report sent to Madrid stated: “Urgent need to know the whereabouts of Jaime Vidal, anarchist, from Barcelona, twenty-six to twenty-eight years old, shoemaker, tall, pale … full beard … black eyes, decent clothes.

Believed that he left Barcelona intending to go to Paterson.”7 In fact, it was at about this same time that Vidal left New York for California. During the following two years, he traveled through the Midwest and to both San Francisco and Los Angeles, where he lived intermittently. According to historian Jacinto Bassols, Vidal was in San Francisco during 1907 when he met Francisco Basora, a Spanish anarchist, who had a close friendship with Ricardo Flores Magón; they had both lived in Saint Louis, Missouri, the previous year (1906).8 It is likely that through Basora, Vidal was able to first contact Magón. Vidal returned to Los Angeles during the summer of 1907; on August 20, he signed naturalization papers identifying his address as 616 S. Flower Street and his occupation as “cook.” Regularly on the move, as Antonio de Padua Araujo later recalled, Jaime Vidal visited the Magón brothers and Araujo in prison during the Spring of 1909 and subsequently gave “to the worldwide proletariat a sketch of the principles of the revolutionary movement in Mexico.”9 Vidal then returned to New York. On October 13, 1909, the Spanish government executed Francisco Ferrer (Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia) at Montjuic. Ferrer was a prominent Spanish educator and founder of the Escuela Moderna (Modern School) movement in Spain.10 For many years, Ferrer had actively promoted the establishment of secular, libertarian schools, incurring the wrath of the Spanish Church and State. Then on September 1, 1909, Spanish authorities arrested him on charges of instigating the violent summer uprisings, known as the Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) that had taken place in Barcelona. In New York City after Ferrer’s execution, Vidal helped organize a local group of Spanish residents, mostly cigar makers, into the Spanish Pro-Revolutionary Committee to agitate against the Spanish government; the group signed a manifesto published in Mother Earth and also distributed at rallies, some headlined by Emma Goldman.11 With a renewed sense of revolutionary spirit and organization during early 1910, Vidal then established a new paper, Cultura Proletaria (Proletariat Culture) to serve as the propaganda arm of another newly formed group called Solidaridad Obrera (Worker

Solidarity). Cultura Proletaria was published at 310 Fulton Street, which was also the location of the Brooklyn Círculo de Trabajadores, a club frequented by cigar workers, dockworkers, and seaman. Vidal now prioritized the organizing of seaman into the Marine Firemen, Oilers & Watertenders Union, the offices of which were located near the docks at 229 West Street in Manhattan. Spaniards comprised most of the membership of this union, and Vidal became its Secretary and principal spokesperson.12 In addition to labor organizing, Vidal continued to produce propaganda against capitalist institutions as well as the Spanish government. In the August 20, 1910, issue of Cultura Proletaria, Vidal wrote an article titled “Conspirando contra ‘Cultura Proletaria’” (Conspiracy against Cultura Proletaria) that explained the renewed sense of solidarity among New York’s Spanish-speaking workers. He claimed that the Spanish consul had threatened Cultura Proletaria’s editors with deportation if they continued their attacks against [Spanish] institutions.13 Vidal continued, “We have been thrown out of one part of the world and smiling we have continued our emancipatory work elsewhere; Our tyrants believed that our propaganda was rendered useless, and they themselves have helped to extend its rays of action.”14 In response to Vidal’s article, one Cultura Obrera subscriber replied with a letter titled “Carta Abierta Para ‘Cultura’” (Open Letter for Cultura) signed by “Un colonista,” from Bay Ridge, N.Y. This writer applauded Vidal’s article and warned that that the authorities should be very careful what they were doing by continuing to probe and prod.15 Vidal was well aware that the Spanish counsel, Juan Riaño, was keeping track of him. Riaño had been reporting back to the Spanish government in Madrid on both Vidal and his associate Juan Martínez and their activities, including their organizing work for the “Asociación de Fogoneros españoles de Nueva York” (Association of Spanish Seaman in New York) and “la Asociación Francisco Ferrer,” (Francisco Ferrer Association). The counsel reported on the activities of these societies, composed mostly of Spanish and international anarchists.16 One report indicated that Vidal was holding secret meetings at a house in Brooklyn that was publicly

known as a box factory. The surveillance suggested that Vidal was planning to go to Cuba to create an anarchist base there, although he apparently did not make the trip.17 Vidal’s early work in New York and California was certainly followed, if not supported, by Pedro Esteve. Esteve had arrived in the United States during 1892 where he immediately became involved in helping to operate El Despertar. He later moved to Paterson, New Jersey, where he assisted with editorial work at La Question Sociale. In 1906, Esteve had moved again to Tampa to avoid harassment from authorities. While in Tampa, Esteve developed a correspondence with the Flores Magón brothers, during April of 1911, Enrique Flores Magón reported: A new group, consisting entirely of emancipated comrades, by conscious and supportive workers, was installed last March in the city of Tampa, FL, under the title Pro Revolución Mexicana. … Pedro Esteve, old fighter and a libertarian writer, was designated as Corresponding Secretary.18

Mexico and the PLM Following Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War, Spanish anarchists continued to call for social revolution in Spain. Despite Spain’s resolute and humiliating military defeat and subsequent liberation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from what remained of its once globally expansive empire, Spanish King Alfonso XIII remained in power; the Spanish government was relatively stable and in control. At the same time, new battle grounds materialized, particularly in Mexico and Russia. Spanish anarchists in the United States also continued to oppose oppression and inequalities created by capitalism while actively supporting labor organizing—particularly with cigar workers, miners, and seamen, and raising small amounts of money through various anarchist periodicals to support a variety of related causes. Vidal became especially interested in the brewing revolutionary spirit among Mexican activists. He saw in the growing discontent among the poor and oppressed Mexican campesinos the strong potential for widespread social revolution, and a movement was already in place. During 1900, Ricardo Flores Magón, his brother Jesús Flores Magón, and Antonio Horcasitas established

Regeneración, a new “Independent Juridical Journal” to focus on “exposing miscarriages of justice, violations or rights guaranteed by the constitution, and corruption in courts under the porfiriato.”19 As Ricardo Flores Magón took firmer control of the paper, it adopted the more radical motto: “Independent Journal of Combat.” That same year, Regeneración affiliated with the newly created Mexican Liberal Party (PLM) that opposed the policies of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz. Forceful anti-Mexican government articles by both Ricardo Flores and his brother soon attracted the attention of authorities who sought to squelch their writing, sending them to jail.20 This did not intimidate them, and in 1905, all three Magón brothers, Ricardo Flores, Enrique Flores, and Jesús Flores, along with other colleagues, formed a new version of the PLM (Junta Organizadora del Partido Liberal Mexicano), with the stated goal of bringing social and economic reform to Mexico, in opposition to Diaz’s land policies.21 While Magón clearly believed in libertarian principles, he at times purposefully refrained from using the term anarchism in order “to avoid alienating potential supporters” and those who might not understand, or be confused, by the term.22 Colin M. MacLachlan noted that “in 1908 the PLM committed itself firmly, but secretly, to anarchism. … Behind the liberal banner, he [Ricardo Flores Magón] believed he could reach a large audience that otherwise might reject anarchism.”23 Nevertheless, despite Magón’s efforts to distance himself from “anarchy,” Porifiro Diaz pointedly accused Flores Magón of being a “dangerous anarchist” in 1906, attempting to disparage and discredit him and his ideas.24 In seeking to clarify the ideological bent of Regeneración, the 1911 essay by W. C. Owen—the English section editor for the paper —provides a useful description. His essay critiqued socialist Eugene Debs’s position in relation to the anarchist perspective on the Mexican Revolution: “I express, however,” Owen wrote, “the personal opinion that Socialist party leadership today is usually a safe, lucrative and easy profession, and prominence in the Anarchist movement a bed of thorns.”25 In referring to Regeneración, Owen explained:

“Regeneración” itself is neither an Anarchist nor a Socialist paper; it is the organ of a set of men who are doing their best to overthrow the money power that has reduced Mexico to slavery, and are trying to do it in the quickest and most efficacious way. Its editors believe “direct action” is the way. … The labor movement is essentially international, and no uprising in any country can be treated as a thing apart.26 However one might characterize this ideology, it was clearly based on extreme discontent and resistance to the oppressive and repressive status quo. Ricardo Flores Magón recognized the potential for widespread social revolution in Mexico, but he needed support from within his country as well as from the greater labor movement and anarchist network.27 Explicit help for Magón’s efforts might not be forthcoming from socialists, including Debs, who continued to raise the ire of Regeneración’s editors. Responding to one of Debs’s essays published in the International Socialist Review, Owen again lambasted Debs for writing the following critique of Mexico’s landless peasants: If the land can be taken from the rich in this insurrection, so can also the mills, factories, mines, railroads and the machinery of production, and the question is, what would the masses in their present ignorant and unorganized state do with them after having obtained them? It would simply add calamity to their calamities, granting that this impossible feat were capable of achievement.28 For Magón and Regeneración’s editors, Debs—despite his radicalism—seemed unwilling to support their own cause to end economic oppression in Mexico. They disagreed with Debs’s apparent belief that the state or industrialists, even if “well meaning,” could solve Mexico’s severe economic problems. Indeed, the anarchist sensibility called for dismantling the current power structure, and in this context, Debs seemed to be aligning himself with those who believed the masses were incapable of living without organization and direction imposed upon them. This conflict, which was essentially about the efficacy of political and economic authority vested in the elite class, led the Mexican anarchists (even if they didn’t always explicitly identify themselves that way) to look toward the Spanish anarchists who offered an ideology and even

sensibility more compatible to their own, one that called for a social revolution and demolition of the Díaz regime and its policies.

Spanish Anarchists and the Mexican Revolution Jaime Vidal and Pedro Esteve, who were then two of the most influential Spanish anarchists living in the United States, were ready to assist, and each played an instrumental role in connecting the Spanish anarchist network with the Mexican.29 Their efforts included writing and printing essays in support of the Magóns and their resistance efforts as well as collecting funds for them. Esteve, for example, along with many other PLM supporters, regularly sent monetary contributions to the “Grupo Pro-Revolución Mexicana” (Pro-Revolution Mexican Group) that were listed in the paper. In one instance, Esteve collected donations on behalf of the organization at several cigar factories located in Ybor City and sent “cien pesos y seis centavos” (one-hundred pesos and six centavos). In this same issue, among the other contributions was $70.00 from Emma Goldman, collected in San Francisco and Oakland, and an additional $27.35 from Jaime Vidal collected on behalf of Cultura Proletaria.30 In June, Esteve contributed another $48.25, and Regeneración noted that “recent communications from Spain testify to great enthusiasm on the subject of the struggle for industrial emancipation in Mexico.” In July, Esteve sent another $360 collected from Tampa workers, and contributions such as these continued.31 Ricardo Flores Magón’s correspondence with Pedro Esteve further connected the PLM’s cause to the transnational anarchist network. On May 30, 1911, Ricardo Flores Magón wrote to Esteve from Los Angeles: “The fall of Porfirio Diaz and the impotence of Madero for suffocating the revolutionary movement, has opened the eyes of all those who believe that it was only about a mere change of presidents. … Nothing is needed other than an abundance of rifles and good canons to arm the new libertarian columns.”32 Support for the PLM and its struggle against the Mexican government intensified in June, 1911. Later that month, Regeneración printed several stories in the English section showing the strong support for the PLM from New York and New Jersey anarchists and anarchist periodicals. One headline, “Monster Protest

Meeting Called,” advertised an upcoming gathering at Cooper Union on June 26 in New York City to “voice sympathy with the Mexican Revolutionists who are fighting for ‘Land and Liberty.’” Speakers scheduled for this event included Jaime Vidal, Max Baginaski, Joseph Ettor, Harry Kelly, and Alexander Berkman. Although Ricardo Flores Magón was unable to attend, he sent a letter to M. H. Woolman, Secretary of the New York Mexican Revolution Committee, to be read at the protest: The causes that in the United States and European countries have gradually produced the slums, the overflowing prisons and all the mass of misery that accompanies modern life, have operated in Mexico with the swiftness of a cyclone. Within a few short years capitalism has swept our country from beneath our feet and left the great mass of the Mexican people homeless and helpless. … It is not as a Mexican that I appeal to you and to your meeting. It is as one of the world-wide army of the disinherited, whose cause is always and everywhere the same. … it is because we have put up a most gallant fight; it is because we are standing firm and true; it is because our success means the strengthening at all points of the forces that are working so heroically for industrial emancipation and the abolition of poverty.33 Pedro Esteve and Jaime Vidal continued to be reliable and productive collectors and contributors to the PLM.34 In ways perhaps modeled after Cuban separatist efforts to raise funds for Cuba Libre during the 1890s, supporters of a social revolution in Mexico sponsored large meetings and celebrations to both raise money and promote the cause. For example, there were two fund-raising gatherings held in New York late in 1911: “one at the Terrace Lyceum, under the auspices of ‘Liberty Group,’ and the other in Brooklyn, under the auspices of the ‘Avanti Club.’” The attendees of the Liberty Group meeting were Bernard Sernaker, August Lott, and M. H. Woolman, secretary of the Mexican Revolutionary Committee of New York. Attendees of the latter were Jaime Vidal, Alejandro Rodriguez, S. Boris, and Woolman. At both meetings, “Woolman illustrated his speech with a map, being able thereby to

demonstrate to doubters the extent of the struggle for ‘Land and Liberty’ now agitating the entire Mexican Republic.”35 Although Vidal and Esteve had both been supporting the PLM and Magóns for several years, it was only after Ferrer’s execution in Barcelona that Vidal and Esteve officially joined forces. After having lived in Tampa for about five years, Esteve was feeling the heavy hand of surveillance and harassment from the authorities there. He also believed that the anarchist movement in Tampa was in decline, and Vidal was invigorating the Spanish-language anarchist community in New York; Esteve moved back to Paterson. This was a crucial moment for the Spanish-language anarchist press. During the Fall of 1911, Cultura Proletaria had ceased publishing. And from Los Angeles, Regeneración announced the demise of Cultura Proletaria: “Our beloved colleague ‘Cultura Proletaria’ died.” But Regeneración’s editors stated that despite their sadness at losing Cultura Proletaria, a new periodical, Cultura Obrera (Labor Culture), to be edited by Pedro Esteve, would essentially take its place. Cultura Obrera would serve as the propaganda arm of the Marine, Firemen, Oilers & Watertenders Union of the Atlantic, for which Jaime Vidal served as secretary. Cultura Obrera reported extensively on the condition of seaman, cigar makers, and the Mexican revolution among a variety of other topics.36 Initially, Esteve and Vidal worked together on Cultura Obrera. While Cultura Obrera covered a variety of topics, the Mexican Revolution was one that garnered a great deal of attention. In the Fall of 1911, the periodical published an essay, “La Revolución Social en México,” by Ricardo Flores Magón emphasizing the supreme importance of the Mexican Revolution not only to the people directly affected but in the context of history’s greatest revolutions: Neither the Christian movement, the French Revolution, not the Paris Commune nor the latest revolutionary movements in Barcelona, are able to compare in their essence to the revolutionary movement of the Mexican Liberal Party. This movement is, frankly and decidedly, anarcho-socialist. It wants to abolish individual property, authority and dispel religious

prejudice. … Only in Mexico is it possible to attempt a movement of this kind, thanks to the state of authoritarian disorganization in which it is found and the innate communist sentiment, so to speak, in the Indians, who are still most [of] the inhabitants of those lands.37 Continuing on this theme, José Pujal wrote an essay published in the Havana- based periodical ¡Tierra! (Land!) that explained why the Mexican Revolution was unique among revolutions. “The Liberal Mexican Party of Mexico,” he wrote, is the first to put in practice what until now was a theory, ending individual property, religion and the state, all that is the imbalance of justice; why we cannot have either liberty or justice, where there exists unequal conditions. … The greatest thing that we can realize is the equality among all men.38

Brazo y Cerebro (Arm and Brain) y Fuerza Consciente (Conscious Force) Vidal who had played an active role with Cultura Obrera, contributing essays and helping to edit the paper, wanted to be in charge of his own paper, perhaps in part because he and Esteve ultimately had different perspectives. In February 1913, Vidal announced in Cultura Obrera that he was starting a new anarchist newspaper, Brazo y Cerebro (Arm and Brain). The periodical quickly encountered problems, most likely censorship by postal authorities, that were more fully explained in the January 11, 1913, issue of Regeneración in which Vidal wrote an article titled “‘Brazo y Cerebro’ Interceptado.” He attacked what he described as the hypocrisy of freedom of the press in the United States. Vidal charged that, “In the United States of America freedom of the press is written in the Constitution, but despotism is practiced on the publications that attack the present authoritative and exploitative regime.”39 Soon after the demise of Brazo y Cerebro, Vidal initiated a new paper called Fuerza Consciente (Conscious Force) that would “emulate and surpass, if possible” the example set by Brazo y Cerebro; the new paper would be “dedicated to propagating the ideals of anarchism and revolution.” Its offices were initially located at 266 West 154th Street.40

Early in 1913, Regeneración reported on a circular it had received about a proposed new “radical and anti-parliamentarian labor paper” to be published in New York. It isn’t clear if this essay was reporting on Fuerza Consciente, Brazo y Cerebro, or a different paper, but Jaime Vidal was one of principal members of this group. The other signatories on the announcement included Gustavus Myers and Margaret Sanger “among other well-known radicals.” The circular explained the need for a new radical paper to offset the increasing influence of lawyers, in particular: “The so-called radical movement in this country is at present being dominated by a clique of opportunists and lawyers, which threatens to contaminate the entire movement. The inevitable result of this state of affairs is that there is a considerable friction and discontent.”41 W. C. Owen picked up on this thread and continued: “That is putting it mildly, and one sincerely hopes the discontent is deep and bitter.” The essay about the proposed new paper continued: The influence of the clerical element is perhaps even more potent, and ninety-nine and ninety-nine hundredths of that influence is sapping and debilitating beyond expression; for, the clerical mind seeks invariably to compromise, on the one hand, and to dominate on the other. … Furthermore, the commercial influence, which agitates with an eye fixed on the cash-box, is deplorably powerful and most deplorably malevolent.42 Vidal occupies an importance space in the transnational anarchist movement. He moved himself from Spain to both coasts of the United States. Ideologically, he extended the anarcho-syndicalist movement in Barcelona to early-twentieth- century radicalism in the United States and revolution in Mexico. Both Vidal and Pedro Esteve, his older and eloquent colleague, understood the importance of connecting ideas about anarchism developed in Europe with those of the Magóns and other revolutionaries in the Americas. These connections could be made through the press alone, but it was the personal influence of Spanish immigrants such as the energetic Vidal who traveled to California to be closer to the action that facilitated the merging of European and indigenous libertarian ideals. Vidal was ready, willing, and able to support movements that themselves broke boundaries established by European philosophical

anarchists. In viewing the Mexican revolutionary movement, Vidal understood that the ultimate social goal of that movement—uplifting the campesinos—was more important than whether it qualified as a specific kind of anarchist movement within a canonical definition. An excellent example of this perspective appears in an article published in ¡Tierra! and then discussed in Regeneración. The author stated: “Vidal shows in terse, vigorous language that we need not be at all distressed because most of the Mexican revolutionists have not read Grave or Kropotkin; or because, in fact, a large percentage of them can neither read nor write.” “It matters not,” the editor wrote, then quoting Vidal directly, that: The movement of the Mexican peons is not completely Anarchistic … the brains of these strugglers still hold many atavistic prejudices … we have here a Revolution which is purely and simply economic, to satisfy the needs felt by the hungry and dispossessed, with a tendency to develope [sic] into a grand social transformation … instead of criticizing these strugglers, we should encourage them and assist them with all our strength.43 Late in 1913, Vidal again moved from New York to Los Angeles. This time he traveled with his partner, Josephine Cipresso, a young Italian immigrant, and the Spaniard José Vilariño who served for a time as business manager for Fuerza Consciente.44 Regeneración’s editors reported to their readership that Vidal had arrived in Los Angeles and that “we have had the pleasure of meeting at the offices of Regeneración.” The article also indicated that Vidal was bringing his periodical Fuerza Consciente to Los Angeles where he planned to continue publishing it.45 Vidal’s interest in engaging with the Mexican Revolution, however, may well have crossed a different kind of line during the summer of 1913. He had apparently joined a group that wanted to take charge of Regeneración during the incarceration of the Magón brothers. Reportedly, this group that included Rómulo S. Carmona (aka Pilar A. Robledo) had enlisted Jaime Vidal in their plan; assisting the Mexican revolutionaries was one thing but trying take control of their paper was quite another. While Magón and the current editorial group lashed out at the “cowardly conspirators,” they excused Vidal for being merely an unwitting accomplice, describing him as

someone they liked, “a good friend and honorable worker,” who had been misled. Ricardo Flores Magón stated firmly in a response, however, that: “We are perfectly satisfied with the work and of the comrades who are currently in charge and it is not necessary to change anything.”46 This episode didn’t seem to have an immediate effect on Vidal’s relationship with the PLM’s leadership. In fact, Vidal continued to press the case for the Mexican revolutionaries perhaps in ways that only he could. He participated in many “mass meetings” in Los Angeles related to Mexico and Mexican independence. During October 24 and 25 evenings, at Mammoth Hall in Los Angeles, an array of speakers representing the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), the Italian community, and the Mexican Liberal Party gave speeches. Vidal was one of the main speakers at these meetings at which “the speakers generally urged their audiences to help in setting afoot an agitation which shall prevent a repetition of the judicial murders which followed the Haymarket tragedy in Chicago.”47 The focus of these meetings went beyond the Mexican revolution and followed reactionary events in the United States Southwest. For example, he addressed “the unhappy notoriety Texas has achieved in racial prejudice, especially against negroes and Mexicans; together with her record in lynchings.”48 Vidal made an effort at the meetings of both nights to call attention to the ways in which activists on the East Coast had mobilized to support victims of injustice, including Alejandro Aldamas, Joseph Ettor, and Arturo Giovanitti. Ultimately, these meetings sought to raise money for the legal defense of the unfairly accused: “Appeals must be taken … and the lawyers are clamoring for money. Indeed, they have toiled faithfully hitherto for practically nothing.”49 Vidal continued to actively participate in “mass meetings” with William C. Owen and others, including for comrades who had been arrested and thrown in jail in Texas. In addition to their agitation in support of the liberation of men wrongly arrested and imprisoned, they believed that they had to fight against all attempts to smother “the rebellious spirit of thousands of Mexicans employed in the

cotton fields,” among many others.50 A related focus of their attention was on the so-called Rangel-Cline case. During September 1913, a group of men in Texas had decided to join “the battle for Land Liberty” in Mexico. According to the report in Regeneración “they were proceeding peaceably toward the Mexican border when they were attacked by Texas authorities.” In the ensuing confrontation, one of the men, Silvestre Lomas, was killed. During the ensuing fray, a deputy sheriff was also shot and killed by a member of the group who was in turn killed. The next day, a large force of Texas Rangers and others attacked the group before they could reach the Texas-Mexico border. After more shooting that left a young boy dead and four others wounded, the group was arrested and thrown in jail. Regeneración reported that: “BECAUSE OF THE ACT OF THIS ONE MAN OUR 14 COMRADES ARE CHARGED WITH MURDER AND THE AUTHORITIES ARE CLAMORING FOR THEIR LIVES.” This case, known as Rangel-Cline, elicited a great deal of attention and support from Regeneración, as it reflected U.S. complicity with the Mexican government and its policies.51 During the Fall of 1914 in Los Angeles, Vidal worked diligently on Fuerza Consciente, publishing monthly issues on the 15th of October, November, and December 1913, and one published on January 15th, 1914. However, in early 1914, Vidal abruptly moved to San Francisco, to 958 Pacific Street, where one directory listed his occupation as bookseller; his name rarely appears in Regeneración afterward.52 In San Francisco, Vidal’s new periodical advocated, among other anarchist ideals, “free love” and the dissolution of “matrimonial slavery.”53 After relocating to San Francisco, Vidal expressed anger toward the authorities in Los Angeles. He wrote: “Yes, yes, in America there is an inquisition. … In Spain, men were martyred who did not believe in God, heretics of religion; in America men are martyred who do not believe in capital, the rebels who protest against exploitation by the bourgeois.”54 Vidal’s propaganda efforts through Fuerza Consciente halted during the summer of 1914 when postal authorities in San Francisco prevented him from distributing his 26th issue. Vidal wrote a brief essay that was published in Regeneración explaining the situation.

The postal officials claimed that Vidal had used an “immoral” image in the periodical. According to Vidal, the image was simply of a group of revolutionaries in St. Petersburg, naked after they had been executed. He had wanted to publish the photo to show the ruthlessness of the Russian Czar. However, Vidal stated that Fuerza Consciente could not resume publishing until postal authorities in Washington, D.C. allowed it. He was unsure when or if his paper would appear again in print—indeed, it would not continue. In the meantime, Vidal wrote “But we will find a way to continue our work, with other names and other forms.”55 Records indicate that Vidal continued to live in California, but he might have—as he suggested—used other names and other forms of propaganda. It is known that in 1940 he was living in Stockton, California. He died in 1961 and was buried in southern California. Vidal was one of the most active and influential Spanish anarchists living in the United States. He helped to mobilize protests in New York against the Spanish government after the execution of Ferrer, and he worked closely with Pedro Esteve and clearly understood the importance of maintaining and developing the anarchist print network, which he did in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Perhaps most importantly, he extended the reach of Spanish anarchism by actively cooperating with Flores Magón and members of the PLM. Whether Vidal actually disengaged from revolutionary activity after 1917 is unclear—and doubtful—but his life and work clearly demonstrate a profound commitment to writing and disseminating anarchist ideals in the United States and beyond. Notes 1. Jacinto Barrera Bassols, “La biblioteca Sociológica de Regeneración y la red internacional anarquista,” presented at Cultura y Práctica del Anarquismo, desde sus orígenes hasta la Primera Guerra Mundial, Cátedra México-España de El Colegio de México, March 23–24, 2011, 6. José Pujal was a Spaniard who contributed articles to La Unión Ferroviara (Barcelona, 1912–1916) and El Dependiente in Havana. 2. See George R. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the WorkingClass Movement in Spain, 1868–1898 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 115, 116, 136, 147, 160. Thanks also to

Susana Suerio Seoane for sharing her research notes on Jaime Vidal. 3. John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895–1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). José Pujal was a contributor to La Unión Ferroviaria (Barcelona, 1912–1916). 4. “El proletariado español,” Adelante, March 8, 1903. 5. Jaime Vidal, SS Philadelphia Passenger Manifest, January 16, 1904; stamped page 82, line 3; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, 1820–1957 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, roll 427). Accessed through Ancestry.com. 6. Maurits Hymans, Daily Reports, October 20, 1906, Records of the U.S. Secret Service, National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 87. 7. Encargado de Negocios de España to Subsecretario de Estado, June 6, 1906. Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, H 2759, Expediente de Jaime Vidal. 8. Bassols, “La biblioteca Sociológica de Regeneración y la red internacional anarquista,” 8. 9. “La Revolución Social en México,” Regeneración, July 27, 1912. 10. Mark Bray and Robert H. Haworth, eds., Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader (Oakland: PM Press, 2019). 11. “For the Revolution in Spain: An Appeal for Solidarity,” Mother Earth, vol. IV, no. 11 (January 1910), 358–59. Also, Christopher J. Castañeda, “‘Yours for the Revolution’: Cigar Makers, Anarchists, and Brooklyn’s Spanish Colony, 1878–1925,” in Phylis Cancilla Martinelli and Ana Varela-Lago, Hidden Out in the Open: Spanish Migration to the United States (1875–1930) (Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2018), 156–58. 12. See J. Vidal, “Conspirando contra ‘Cultra Proletaria,’” Aug. 20, 1910. The ISU reportedly left the ISU in 1913 and then joined the IWW. See Stephen Schwartz, Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific, 1885–1985 (Piscataway: Transaction Publishers, 1986), 38. See also Nancy A. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s1920s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 214. Hewitt also identifies Jaime Vidal as a member of the Maritime Workers Union.

13. J. Vidal, “Conspirando contra.” 14. Ibid. 15. “Carta Abierta Para ‘Cultura,’” Cultura Proletaria, Sept 3, 1910. The author suspects that the signer, “Un Colonista” of Bay Ridge, was Agustín Castañeda, a member of the Spanish ProRevolutionary Committee who lived in Bay Ridge. 16. AMAE, Madrid, H 2759, Expediente de Jaime Vidal. 17. Report of October 24, 1911 AMAE, Madrid, H 2759. 18. “En Pro de ‘Regeneración,’” Regeneración, April 22, 1911. 19. Chaz Bufe and Mitchell Cowen Verter, eds., Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2005), 32. 20. Ibid., 33, 34. 21. See David M. Struthers, The World in a City: Multiethnic Radicalism in Early Twentieth—Century Los Angeles (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019). 22. Bufe and Verte stated in Dreams of Freedom that Ricardo Flores Magón “never used the word ‘anarchism’ in any published document until after his 1914 release from prison” although Regeneración regularly printed essays referring to anarchists and anarchism as well as anarchist literature (38). 23. Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores Magón in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 6, 7. 24. Bufe and Verter, Dreams of Freedom, 38. 25. W. C. Owen, “Can Debs Champion Real Revolution?” Regeneración, Aug. 26, 1911. 26. Ibid. 27. See Shawn England, “Magonismo, the Revolution, and the Anarchist Appropriation of an Imagined Mexican Indigenous Identity,” in In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History, ed. Geoffrey de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015), 243–260. 28. Wm. C. Owen, “Who Was Lying?” Regeneración, April 25, 1914. 29. Bassols, “La biblioteca Sociológica de Regeneración,” 6. José Pujal was a Spaniard who contributed articles to La Unión Ferroviara

(Barcelona, 1912–1916) and El Dependiente in Havana. 30. “Movimiento de Solidaridad,” Regeneración, May 27, 1911. 31. “Movement of Solidarity,” Regeneración, June 16, 1911. Also see “Even at 100 in the Shade,” Regeneración, July 10, 1911. 32. Ricardo Flores Magón, “La Situación en México,” Cultura Proletaria, June 17, 1911 (the date is unclear, but this appears to be correct). 33. “Monster Protest Meeting Called. New York City to Voice Sympathy with Mexico,” Regeneración, June 24, 1911. 34. “Even at 100 in the Shade,” Regeneración, July 10, 1911. 35. “New York Propaganda,” Regeneración, Nov. 11, 1911. 36. “Cultura Obrera,” Regeneración, Nov. 18, 1911. The issue, dated December 7, 1912, was published at 310 Fulton Street. Cultura Obrera was published from 1911 to 1917 and from 1922 to 1927. 37. Ricardo Flores Magón, “La Revolución Social en México,” Cultura Obrera, Nov. 4, 1911. 38. José Pujal, “A Los Trabajadores De Todo El Mundo,” ¡Tierra! May 18, 1912. 39. Jaime Vidal, “‘Brazo y Cerebro’ Interceptado,” Regeneración, Jan. 11, 1913. 40. J. Vidal, “‘Fuerza Consciente,’” Cultura Obrera, Feb. 15, 1913. 41. “Wanted—Straight Paper,” Regeneración, March 1, 1913. 42. Ibid. 43. “The Revolutionist’s Soul,” Regeneración, May 31, 1913. This essay references the following article: “The Soul of the Mexican Revolution,” ¡Tierra! May 1, 1913. 44. World War I draft registration records indicate that Jaime Vidal was married to Josefine Cipresso in 1918 while living in Los Angeles. The 1920 census indicates that Cipresso was then married to José Vilarino, who was deported circa 1931 for being a Communist. Records indicate that Vidal lived much of his life after 1930 as an itinerant cook in several locations in California until his death in 1961. 45. “Jaime Vidal,” Regeneración, Oct. 4, 1913. 46. Antonio de P. Araujo, “Golpe de Muerte a los Conspiradores,” Regeneración, June 28, 1913.

47. “Campaign Started,” Regeneración, Nov. 1, 1913. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. “An Appeal to All Workers,” Regeneración, Jan. 24, 1914. 52. Struthers, The World in a City, 223–24; Also, Kenyon Zimmer, “The Whole World Is Our Country:” Immigration and Anarchism in the United States (PhD Dissertation: University of Pittsburgh, 2010), 243, 244. Also see Pedro Castillo, “Urbanización, migración y los chicanos en Los Angeles: 1900–1920,” in David R. Maciel, ed., El Mexico Olvidado: La Historia del Pueblo Chicano (El Paso: University of Texas and Ciudad Juarez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juarez, 1996), 367. 53. William Wilson McEuen, “A Survey of the Mexicans in Los Angeles” (Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1914), 93. 54. “La Inquisición en América Obreros Torturados en Los Angeles,” Fuerza Consciente, March 7, 1914. 55. Jaime Vidal, “‘Fuerza Consciente’ Secuestrado,” Regeneración, Sept. 12, 1914. Jaime Vidal, “A los que fueron lectores de ‘Fuerza Consciente,’” March 6, 1915.

CHAPTER 8

Caritina M. Piña and Anarcho-syndicalism Labor Activism in the Greater Mexican Borderlands, 1910–1930 SONIA HERNÁNDEZ On September 20, 1929, Caritina Piña, a Mexicana from the outskirts of Tampico, Mexico, wrote a letter of protest to Judge M. V. Barnhill of Charlotte, North Carolina, and copied President Herbert Hoover. Piña wrote in her capacity as head of correspondence for the Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales (International ProSocial/Political Prisoners Committee), which was an organization created to fight on behalf of political prisoners. Together with other workers from Gastonia, North Carolina, sixteen Mexicans (or possibly Mexican Americans)—including three women and four children—were detained and their “small houses set on fire.” The horrific act was apparently ordered by a local police chief as retaliation in the aftermath of the 1929 Gastonia Strike. The Mexicans and other mill laborers worked for Loray Mill and went on strike to demand higher wages from “various companies” in North and South Carolina. Crafting her petition to demand the release of the workers via the language of family and motherhood, Piña pleaded with Judge Barnhill, explaining that the workers were only asking for a “reasonable … salary … to cover the value of their meals.” What concerned Piña the most was the arrest of women along with their children; for Piña, this violated the sacred and “great human family.”1 The “great human [Mexican] family” was at the heart of reconstruction efforts in the borderlands in the aftermath of the 1910 bloody Mexican Revolution. Piña’s petition was framed in a postrevolutionary rhetoric, which increasingly emphasized the new “modern” role of women. Piña’s role as head of correspondence of the Comité, which was an organization created by Hermanos Rojos, an affinity group of Mexican anarchists from Tampico and the Villa Cecilia area, put her at the center of radical labor politics in the greater Mexican borderlands region. Piña’s intervention in the Gastonia affair was one of several interventions she led in the United States and throughout Mexico. It was through a greater activist network that Piña operated as a transnational cultural labor broker

and found herself at the forefront of one of the most radical labor movements—one that found support among the population at the edges of the Texas-Tamaulipas borderlands. In this way, Piña’s network of anarcho-syndicalists based in Tampico but with reach extending to other parts of Mexico, southern Texas, and the greater United States, as well as across the Atlantic formed part of the larger U.S Hispanic anarchist tradition and thought. Her own commentaries, petitions, editorials in print media of the time including Avante and Sagitario, and role in promoting other anarchosyndicalists’ ideas by forwarding newspapers and other propaganda point to the importance of examining anarcho-syndicalism in a greater transnational context. Further, an examination of Piña’s role in the greater labor movement uncovers how her activism via petitions and correspondence was contradictory and reveals the intersections of gender and anarcho-syndicalism prevalent in labor activism. Her pleas on behalf of laborers were framed and understood within the context of the new postrevolutionary family and the role of women that reflected larger anarcho-syndicalist concerns. Anarchist and anarchist-inspired ideas circulated in the region having been earlier introduced via the cosmopolitan port of Tampico as early as the 1870s. In Mexico, anarchist ideas circulating abroad meshed with localized indigenous roots about people’s right to arable land, fair working conditions, and a dignified way of life.2 Along Mexico’s northern borderlands shared with the United States, profound and long-lasting socioeconomic transformations had taken place in the early twentieth century. Geological discoveries and political economic changes brought a transition from ranching to commercial agriculture, the rise of the petroleum industry, and associated urban growth. In the Mexican Northeast, the concentration of foreign capital was especially palpable; the affluent families of Tampico oil entrepreneurs, mostly foreigners, built mansions that served as prized summer homes. The Gulf of Mexico borderlands including Piña’s hometown of Villa Cecilia also witnessed a surge of migrant workers attracted by the higher wages offered by the oil industry and associated economic sectors.3

Anarchism provided a platform by which regional ideas about worker autonomy and the right to a dignified way of life could be further shaped and shared. Such ideas helped workers make sense of these socioeconomic shifts, which produced a ripe environment for organized labor.4 Anarcho-syndicalism embodied the belief and practice about justice, freedom, and equality; for workers, this was their salvation. Anarcho-syndicalism took on an especially central role in the 1920s. It did so in part because the Mexican Revolution had afforded the citizenry the right to strike and form unions, and granted other general labor concessions. Anarcho-syndicalism flourished in this welcoming environment, which led to Tampico’s status as a sort of ideological hub of the Mexican borderlands. Global and local ideas meshed and clashed taking on a regional character. This was the context in which Piña operated, reaching out beyond her own community to aid workers from other parts of the world, while never physically stepping outside of Mexico. While traditional histories of anarcho-syndicalism in Tampico and in more general labor studies of Mexico and its borderlands have dismissed women adherents, supporters, and active propagandists, or have included them only as footnotes, studies that do incorporate women have not examined the gendered context in which they promoted or articulated their visions and goals.5 However, recent research on women and the role of gender in shaping anarchist communities in other parts of the world and from a transnational perspective help to illuminate how women articulated their subjectivities as women and as activists in labor organizations.6 Piña figured prominently in the leadership of the Tampico labor movement and circulated ideas, all while repackaging them with localized concerns and colored by her own gendered understanding. She sustained and circulated knowledge about labor rights. This is also revealing because her actions spoke against the gendered norms that framed borderlands society in the early 20th century, while also complementing them. Piña’s story also illustrates the way in which nationalisms and state- and nation-centered thinking could and were in fact replicated in transnational contexts and yet were repackaged to make sense of localized concerns. Piña represented an example of a modern, unmarried (at age thirty) woman. I employ

the term modern to signify a postrevolutionary way of thinking that the Mexican state encouraged. This usage builds on the ideas articulated by historians Jocelyn Olcott, Heather Fowler-Salamini, and Patricia Zavella, among others who have examined Mexicanorigin women’s experiences in post-1910 society.7 Despite her role in promoting the ideals of the Mexican state, Piña’s activism was shaped and colored by her own understanding of anarchosyndicalism and community-based ideals that stemmed from the environment in which she grew up and came of age. As seen in other parts of Mexico, Latin America, and the United States, Piña’s actions mirrored those of contemporary female labor activists in other places. She employed the language of motherhood, sisterhood, and compañerismo, and of the “great family” to promote labor rights.8 In this way, Piña modernized gender inequality while simultaneously promoting a more progressive treatment of workers that transcended geopolitical borders. In the case of Piña though, despite the way in which state-level authorities on both sides of the border could and/or in fact perceived her, she defied certain normative expectations for women. While she clearly employed a state-sanctioned language of motherhood, that rhetoric too was recognized by anarchist supporters whose very aspirations were the elimination of state-controlled political processes that had profound consequences for labor. She defied normative gender expectations rooted in nineteenth-century Victorian conceptions of morality and decorum. She was unmarried during her early thirties; living in a Catholic country such as Mexico at that time, she was most likely frowned upon.9 She did not go through proper channels navigating the political system as some of her female contemporaries did to petition for changes in the law. She did not ask for permission to directly write heads of state and, in her perhaps unconscious transnational labor broker role, produced knowledge about the labor movement shaped by her own biases, life experiences, and subjectivity as a woman; she contributed to the aid and release, in some cases, of the libertad of political prisoners in Mexico and the United States. Up until now, Piña’s role as head of correspondence and participation in the Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales that functioned within the Mexican labor circles and, in a more

transnational context, has remained on the margins of Mexican, labor, borderlands, and women’s historiography.

Revolutionary Origins of the Comité The Comité had its origins in revolutionary Mexico. For Mexicans and Mexican Americans, the 1910 Mexican Revolution was the culmination of decades of frustration over lack of political rights, yet it also ushered in a moment of hope for workers and residents who took revolutionary rhetoric and experience to confront the socioeconomic changes unfolding in their respective communities. As the war ended and for decades to come, women, just as their male counterparts, built on the language of the “rights bestowed upon [them] by the Mexican Revolution [1910]” to continue to demand labor rights.10 For women, such momentous change brought the experience of war—fighting with rebels, handling arms and weapons, contributing to news outlets in support or against the war, as well as the pain of losing family members and experiencing sexual assault and harassment by some unscrupulous revolutionaries. Soon after the anarcho-syndicalist Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) was formed by Oaxacan native Ricardo Flores Magón and two of his brothers, Tampico-based Hermanos Rojos (Red Brothers), became affiliated with it. Hermanos Rojos was founded in 1917 and was sympathetic to the PLM’s platform, which “promot[ed] the ideals of liberty” and “f[ou]ght to emancipate all workers.” Hermanos Rojos also adopted the PLM’s pledge to accept all workers “without distinguishing neither nationality nor sex,” and opened its doors to women.11 As explained in other chapters in this anthology, the ideas of the intellectual Ricardo Flores Magón shaped and influenced residents and transients on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican international line. Numerous PLM branches espousing the ideas of magonismo about worker dignity, livable wages, and women’s rights began to dot the landscape along the border by the early 1900s. While no utopia, the self-declared anarcho-syndicalist Hermanos Rojos promoted these ideals in a country that had denied the masses political rights and denied suffrage to women, and in a state that privileged foreign interests over domestic ones.12

The PLM-affiliated Hermanos Rojos attracted women sympathetic to revolutionary ideals. Women had actively participated in the Mexican Revolution along the Texas border, in the Tampico region, and in the central part of the state of Tamaulipas. At least two allfemale PLM affiliated groups operated in south and central Texas, women had also joined the Carrera-Torres brothers (pro-Villa faction) near Tula, and women combatants were among General Lucio Blanco’s constitutionalist army. Near the capital of Tamaulipas, in 1911, women “loaded and discharge[d] weapons” in hopes of effecting change in their communities, one newspaper reported. Together with “their grandfather,” a “group of young women” proceeded to attack a hacienda.13 Given the instability in the region and the historic problem of depressed wages for women in the countryside, the Tamaulipas women decided to attack with “rifles … to get basic supplies” for their survival.14 Hermanos Rojos became a hub for various organizations with libertarian, anarchist orientation as well as with groups and individuals who promoted Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer’s (Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia)’s Rationalist School of Thought.15 Above all, the group’s main methods were in fact syndicalist in nature, that is, the idea of power in collective unity via labor associations was the means with which anarchist ideas were put in practice. Because it represented a more “structural anarchism,” to borrow from the late historian Paul Avrich, anarcho-syndicalism appeared to offer a solution to the growing socioeconomic disparities. Hermanos Rojos, among others, grew out of this early surge movement and fit Avrich’s description of “anarcho-syndicalists, who emerging at the turn of the twentieth century, pinned their hopes on the labor movement.”16 Tampico was in many ways the perfect site for such a strand of anarchism because of its large concentration of free-wage laborers in a foreign-dominated export sector. Anarcho-syndicalism became the vehicle by which workers organized themselves. The town of Cecilia, in the outskirts of Tampico, was home to a large base of dock and oil workers who labored for foreign petroleum corporations. The town had at least one theater where anarchistinspired plays attracted workers and residents tied to this labor force. Hermanos Rojos brought together like-minded individuals, including

Spanish anarchists Román Delgado and Jorge Borrán and Mexicans Pedro Gudiño, Pedro Alfaro, José H. Hernández, and Rafael Altamira, to name a few. Many of these early founding members of Hermanos Rojos had affiliations to the Casa del Obrero Mundial (COM), which became a leading labor organization for a variety of anarcho-syndicalist organizations. Hermanos Rojos and the COM promoted the idea of anarcho-syndicalism as they sought change and worker autonomy through collective organizing. Both organizations had their own elected officers and each was its own entity, and there were numerous moments of collaboration between the two. Many of the COM members were former soldiers who had served during the Revolution.17 Women also participated in the COM; in one of the major strikes organized by oil workers in 1919, as historian Myrna Santiago has written, women from the region “retrieved the confiscated anarchist red-and-black flag,” after federal soldiers had shut down a union hall. The women then “used [the flag] to wrap the body of a dead oil worker.”18 Amidst revolution, workers arrived in Tampico from different parts of the country and the world helping to create one of the most diverse working-class regions in the Americas. The example of a young carpenter from nearby Nuevo León is a case in point. Treviño left his native northern Mexican neighborhood in Nuevo León. He crossed into Texas and remained in San Antonio where he worked for some time. It was there, and not in Mexico, that he met and soon joined the Flores Magón brothers.19 When Treviño arrived in Tampico, he joined the COM.20 As the Hermanos Rojos and the COM continued working on spreading the message of labor rights by the close of the Mexican Revolution, migration to the port city had resumed and oil activities continued. Like Treviño years earlier, a former Zacatecas miner, Esteban Méndez Guerra, migrated to the region. Méndez Guerra had fought on behalf of the Villistas in the Battle of the Ebano over strategic control of the oil fields and soon became involved in the labor movement. According to the anarchist paper Sagitario, an outlet for many of the members of the Hermanos Rojos, a “Comité Pro-Presos” was created by the Hermanos Rojos in 1922.21 It is

unclear at what point Méndez Guerra joined the organization; the historical record points to his involvement as early as 1922. Caritina Piña began to work with Méndez Guerra and became head of correspondence of the Comité sometime in the mid-1920s and maintained a direct line of communication with political prisoners in Mexico and the United States as well as across the Atlantic. Piña was born in the town of Villa Cecilia in 1895. She came of age during the Mexican Revolution, and while we know little about her days during the war, historical records from the state of Tamaulipas and municipal records of Tampico point to her involvement with Méndez Guerra as early as 1923. Piña appears as the head of correspondence in meeting minutes and in correspondence between supporters from Tampico and Texas, Ohio, and New York, among other places.22 Piña kept abreast of labor conditions, detentions, strikes, fundraising events, and the formation of new labor groups irrespective of ideological orientation.23 She engaged with women from different ideological viewpoints because at the very foundation of demands was the right to a dignified way of life. Piña, via the Comité, maintained lists of detainees from San Francisco, California; Folsom and Gastonia, North Carolina; and Centralia, Washington. She also kept up with arrests and detentions of supporters from Argentina, Russia, and other countries.24 Protesting the attacks on free thought, or “libre pensamiento,” the Comité put out a call for unity when activists from Santa Rosalía in Baja California were arrested for “disturbing the public peace and for rebellion.” The detainees included camaradas José Zenon González and the compañera María Mendoza, who along with others, had written anarchist-leaning articles in the newspaper Sembrando Ideas a media outlet for the Gran Sindicato Obrero de Santa Rosalía from Baja California.25 That Piña’s support bypassed ideological boundaries is not unique. Mexico’s female activists from socialist to communists, to anarchosyndicalists, as the research of Jocelyn Olcott and others have demonstrated, could cross political and ideological borders.26

Figure 8.1. Street scene, Tampico, Mexico. Library of Congress. Library of Congress (LOT 11356–29 [P&P;]). Piña also played a role in the greater international solidarity movement that emerged when prominent anarchists and anarchosyndicalist leaders were jailed. The apprehension and later execution of the Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti as well as the detention of the Mexican magonista Librado Rivera created a flurry of ardent petitions, aggressive fund-raising

campaigns, and the reprinting of ideas to further the cause of such political prisoners. New York’s Cultura Proletaria, of which longtime anarchist and Barcelona native Jaime Vidal was a founding member, corresponded with Piña when Rivera was jailed.27 Via Méndez Guerra, Piña had learned about Rivera and, as head of correspondence, she knew about other organizations’ efforts to release Rivera. We know that Piña helped to raise awareness of Rivera’s imprisonment and helped to raise funds in Mexico and the United States via Cultura Proletaria.28 Piña and Tampico locals learned about fellow compatriots’ imprisonment across the border. The news about the release of anarchists Emilio and Aurora Vivas operating in Cleveland, Ohio, was printed in Avante, a newspaper that was operated by Librado Rivera. The Vivas’s newspaper Algo was operating once again, and Rivera and the Tampico supporters asked for donations and instructed readers to send monies to a Cleveland address.29 Piña’s work as head of correspondence also positioned her in the crossroads of Spanish, Mexican, and the more mainstream American anarchist movement. She corresponded with the Spanish anarchist José Lóuzara de Andrés while in Ohio during Librado Rivera’s imprisonment and probably read the lengthy commentaries by him, under the pseudonym R. Lone printed in Avante.30 The case of Sacco and Vanzetti also involved the Mexicans.31 Piña, via the Comité, engaged the Grupo Libertario Sacco y Vanzetti from New York, and in correspondence with the organization, submitted information on the efforts taking place to raise awareness of the Italian anarchists while also alerting the group of other arrests. Her colleague Méndez Guerra had also been imprisoned, and while it was handled as a local case and did not attract the level of international attention as the Sacco and Vanzetti case, Piña played a role in the circulation of knowledge about lesser known labor activists. She heeded the call to “reproduce” news she received about the formation of new labor organizations, poems, and commentaries that underscored the rights of workers “in every free and libertarian and pro-worker press.”32 In correspondence, Piña explained that there were others who remained imprisoned and

fought for justice.33 Moving beyond the confines of Tampico and Villa Cecilia, Piña appealed to a global community to publicly display the struggles of social prisoners of Tampico to the world. She wrote, “this indescribable outrage committed by those eternal detractors of human emancipation … force us to … ask you to make the necessary propaganda and reproduce our manifesto … so as to make it known to all the workers of the entire world the atrocities that are committed on a daily basis against our compañeros and most sincere fighters.”34 Piña’s ideas of social justice then, were framed in class terms but revealed the way in which gender norms of the period were put front and center. Gender equality envisioned by such groups as Hermanos Rojos and the Comité and practiced by its members did not necessarily embody the radical call for gender equity usually found or expressed among anarchists. Hermanos Rojos had specifically pledged (it was its first point) during the same meeting where PLM affiliation had been voted upon that it supported those “who wish to follow the principles of libertarian ideals and who wish to join in the fight to emancipate all workers, without distinction based on nationality nor sex” and it also “pledged its support to the syndicalist struggle and to propagandize the mission of the COM and anarchist groups of … Doña [Villa] Cecilia and Tampico.”35 We know that at least one woman, Luz Gudiño Marin, belonged to Hermanos Rojos (possibly the partner/relative of Pedro Gudiño).36 There were women who were part of other all-female organizations or those with mixed-sex membership who contributed commentaries, essays, and poems in news outlets sponsored by the Hermanos Rojos. While not members of Hermanos Rojos, these contributors played a part in the promotion of anarcho-syndicalist ideas and, while they may not have worn the anarcho-syndicalist badge, they engaged anarchosyndicalist ideas. Too often, historiography has left women out of the official category of anarcho-syndicalists because they did not appear on the lists or rosters of such associations; yet, there were a good number of women who contributed their ideas in writing to anarchist newspapers. In this way, they too helped to sustain and promote— and in some cases—produce knowledge about the labor movement

within the context of sindicalismo and also advanced the mission of Hermanos Rojos’s Comité to free prisoners. Visions of gender equity were articulated in commentaries and essays published in newspapers such as Sagitario, Avante, and Germinal, and in correspondence with labor groups and/or petitions on behalf of imprisoned radical thinkers. The language of modern motherhood and the “revolutionary family” resonated quite strongly in these writings and undergirded the new Mexican state. Yet, the petitions, editorials, poems, and commentaries also reflected anarcho-syndicalist ideals about worker dignity, autonomy, and general labor rights pointing to the contradictory nature of the intersections of gender and political ideology. In most petitions and manifestos calling for support for anarchosyndicalism, a rhetoric of women as partners in the struggle as compañeras colored much of the writings by and on women workers, among them those supporters of Her- manos Rojos and the Comité. The idea and practice of compañerismo was rooted in preColumbian ideas about mutual reciprocity, gender parallelism found in indigenous communities in Mesoamerica, and vecino (kin) culture prominent in the Mexican borderlands, yet by the postrevolutionary period compañerismo became a rhetorical tool with which to promote modern gender relations to reconstruct a war-torn Mexico. Nationally, regionally, and on a more transnational scale, the idea of women as compañeras resonated with a state-centered discourse about women’s place in labor and labor activism. Such rhetoric underscored the role of the “revolutionary family” as reflected in Piña’s petition on behalf of the North Carolina imprisoned labor activists and sought to bring Mexico and Mexicans abroad together to foment Mexican nationalism. In a 1924 manifesto from Mexico City’s Grupo de Propaganda Anárquica, in a sectioned entitled, “A la Mujer,” gender inequality was explained by the writers in the following way: “men and women suffer the effects of the same tyranny” and therefore it was urgent that compañeras “make your sisters, husbands, fathers, and friends organize and help workers from the entire world.”37 There was recognition of unequal wages by the women writers, “we are obreras and because we are women we are paid less as compared to men

and we are made to work more.” The Boletín de Propaganda Anárquica editorial proceeded to explain: “we suffer from the impertinence of foremen or the boss; if we grow weak they will steal our hearts with that same cowardice as our labor is stolen.”38 While it is unclear whether the Mexico City–based Grupo de Propaganda Anárquica collaborated with Hermanos Rojos or the Comité, their editorials and features on women’s role in the larger labor movement were reprinted in Tampico’s anarchist newspapers and reached local audiences. Female readers were urged to cooperate as compañeras despite their status as “inferior to men, humiliated, underappreciated” and to “fight alongside … working brothers” against the greed of capital.”39 Such rhetoric was reproduced in these local outlets and shaped even the most radical of voices of the period. As this essay’s opening anecdote illustrated, Piña, in her role as head of correspondence of the Comité, underscored the role of women and of the “great human family” in her petition to M. V. Barnhill of North Carolina. Sixteen Mexicans—including three women and four children—were detained due to their involvement in a local strike, and rumors circulated that the town police chief ordered their “small houses set on fire.” Piña explained that the workers asked for a “reasonable … salary … to cover the value of their meals,” and asked for the release of the workers.40 Piña, Méndez Guerra, and other members of the Comité called for a meeting in late August of 1929 to discuss actions the group could take on behalf of their fellow workers across the border. The Comité, despite its political tensions with some of the organizations, adhered to the state-level Federación Obrera de Tamaulipas, which adhered to the larger anarchist Confederación General de Trabajadores (CGT), collaborated with “three [of its] organizations” that sent representatives to the August meeting to discuss the status of the North Carolina workers. Attendees agreed to “initiate a campaign against the yanqu[i] authorities … against this criminal act.”41 The Comité members urged all workers to support the cause, given that the “lives of the victims in Gastonia ran the risk and had been threatened with electrocution.”42 Piña focused her energies on freeing imprisoned political prisoners and, despite

organizational/ideological affiliation, she played a pivotal role in aiding detainees to gain their freedom after being imprisoned for promoting ideas that challenged the status quo. As Piña engaged with workers from across the border through written petitions, as in the case of those from Gastonia and other parts of Mexico, she employed the language of the “revolutionary family” underscoring women’s roles as mothers. While it is unclear if Piña was conscious of state-sanctioned discourse or if she co-opted the language to frame her petitions in a more gender-normative manner to appeal to heads of state, as was the case with her petition to an American judge and none other than the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, we know that there was no intermediary and her petitions were her own. Piña underscored women’s maternal position as one of sanctity and as elevating female workers with children to a privileged position. Yet, Piña’s own lived experience signaled a commitment to anarchist ideals. Piña lived in a household comprised of fellow colleagues. The arrangement seemed to mirror the lifestyles of other anarchists like Ethel Duffy Turner, who at one point worked with Regeneración, and lived and worked communally with other colleagues.43 Piña frequently invoked the role of the family and women’s position as mothers and partners to advance women’s rights as well as worker rights. When Piña petitioned fellow workers and the governor of Baja California on behalf of fellow Mexicana Felipa Velásquez, she did so by emphasizing Velásquez’s vulnerable, yet crucial status as a mother. Women’s reproductive power as the reproducers of revolutionary citizens was a virtue touted by the new modern state. Velásquez had been arrested in the presence of her seven children and subsequently deported to the Islas Marias. The Mexicanas from Gastonia, North Carolina, had been detained in the presence of their children (and children themselves were detained), and Velásquez and her children faced the same fate in Baja California. In Piña’s petition on behalf of Velásquez, she privileged Velásquez’s status as a mother and emphasized her responsibility to her children and argued that imprisonment would prevent Velásquez from performing what she described as her “natural” responsibility. She also used the language of motherhood to underscore the cruelty

of such imprisonment as graver than detaining any ordinary (read, male) labor activist.44 The language Piña employed mirrored that which male colleagues who were supportive of the Comité and were members of Hermanos Rojos employed. Jaime Vidal, collaborator of Hermanos Rojos and supporter of the Comité, wrote some of the more radical opinions about women, gender equity, and marriage. In a 1922 issue of Sagitario entitled, “Sin Matrimonio,” (Without Marriage), he explained that it was the anarchists that “are the only ones capable of promoting a truly free love, positioning women on par with men.” Vidal continued, “there are an infinite number of families that struggle because there is no real love only the imposition of a father or a husband. The children, instead of receiving an education, learn how to consider wom[en] as slaves, and once they marry [women], they continue this life which is degrading and despotic.”45 Yet, despite his fiery and seemingly radical call for gender equity, he concluded that anarchists were truly the free ones and it was “anarchists … who positioned women on par with men treating her like an equal being, treating her like a compañera of the reproducer of the species.”46 Thus even in the most radical pleas to consider women as equals, their status as “reproducers” of community, as they bore children— the future workers of the world—was privileged. Like Vidal, Piña also played on the state’s rhetoric that promoted a revolutionary motherhood to produce a new generation of informed, organized citizen-workers that would take pride in a modern and reconstructed Mexico. Only through the (re)production of new, modern, pro-labor children educated in the anarcho-syndicalist tradition would the world become a better place. In Mexican urban centers as well as the countryside, state-led efforts to create a new postrevolutionary government that included women as part of the “modern family” shaped gender politics among activists and labor organizations. As progressive as Piña and her colleagues may have appeared when addressing and promoting labor rights, ideas about gender roles and expectations colored their actions. Just as the new political state had “partnered with women” to promote healthy and strong new and “productive subjects,” so had organized labor. If, as historian Mary Kay Vaughan notes, the

“stabilization and development [of the country, and in the aftermath of war] required the modernization of patriarchy,” then organized labor, even in the more radical anarcho-syndicalist tradition, would also underscore the privileged position of women as reproducers of community, of reproducers of workers. While this “did not mean an end to male privilege or female subordination … it did imply the empowerment of women, particularly in their domestic roles as promoters of the health and education of the family,” and thus of the larger labor family.47 Labor organizations could assume the role of a family with women playing key roles in sustaining a unified, albeit unequal, household. The language and ideas about women’s distinct reproductive roles continued to shape the way in which women and men engaged the larger question of women’s labor. Women were compañeras in the greater struggle for labor rights. Piña’s vision also underscored and promoted the well-being of worker activists. Shaped by her position in a new postrevolutionary Mexican world but influenced by the long history of organized labor along the lines of anarcho-syndicalism, Piña directly helped to sustain the global labor movement helping to promote the idea of free thought in the anarchist—broadly conceived —tradition. Her unique trans-border feminismo not only transcended geopolitical boundaries but consistently invoked the language of worker dignity, even as it underscored women’s privileged position as the reproducers of community. Piña’s activist engagement revealed the intimate relationship between anarchist thought and gender ideas that also pointed to competing ideas about women’s place in anarcho-syndicalist organizations. It demonstrates how women activists were more than mere footnotes in the history of anarcho-syndicalism in Mexico and the United States. As is evident in this brief foray into the activist and transnational feminist labor of Piña, her activism embodied the category-defying nature and fluidity of the borderlands in which she resided. Regardless of the gendered contradictions in Piña’s activism on behalf of political prisoners and fellow workers, her decision to aid others across borders and within Mexico reveals hidden aspects of the idea and practice of transnational libertad in the Americas. Piña’s ideas as reflected in her commentaries and petitions, while rooted in

the Mexican Gulf Coast region, both reflected greater ideas about Hispanic anarchism circulating in other parts of the world more generally, and in the United States more specifically. In this way, Piña operated as not only a liaison between two nation-states but helped to shape the greater labor movement. Notes 1. To M. V. Barnhill (Charlotte, N.C.) from Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales (Villa Cecilia, Tamps.), September 20, 1929, Archivo Histórico de Esteban Méndez Guerra at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, and hereafter cited as AHEM, IIH-UAT. For an examination of the strike in Gastonia, see Gregory S. Taylor, The History of the North Carolina Communist Party (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Piña’s note regarding sixteen Mexican Americans possibly referenced an earlier arrest in the aftermath of the Gastonia Strike; it is possible she did not distinguish between these early arrests and the lone sixteen detainees facing trial by late 1929 (these detainees were not of Mexican origin). 2. For an explanation of various strands of anarchism in ideology and in practice, see Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) among many of his other important works. For the Mexican case, see John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860–1931 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978); James Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan de San Diego, 1904–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); on Communism in Mexico, see Barry Carr, Marxism and Communism in Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992). 3. Myrna Santiago, “Women of the Mexican Oil Fields: Class, Nationality, Economy, Culture, 1900–1938,” Journal of Women’s History vol. 21, no. 1, Spring 2009: 87–110. 4. Sonia Hernández, Working Women into the Borderlands (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2014), chapters 4, 5; María E. Cotera, “Jovita González Mireles: A Sense of History and Homeland,” in Vicki L. Ruiz and Virgina Sánchez Korrol, Latina

Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2005), 162–165. 5. Aurora Mónica Alcayaga Sasso, “Librado Rivera y los Hermanos Rojos en el Movimiento Social y Cultural Anarquista en Villa Cecilia y Tampico, Tamaulipas, 1915–1931,” Tésis Doctoral, Universidad Iberoamericana, 2006; Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class; Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands. For works that examine women’s participation from a gendered perspective, see Clara Lomas, “The Articulation of Gender in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900–1915,” in Ramón Gutiérrez and Genaro Padilla, eds., Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage (Houston: Arte Público Press, 1993); Emma Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano, eds., Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006). 6. See, for example, new work by Devra Weber, “Keeping Community, Challenging Boundaries: Indigenous Migrants, Internationalist Workers, and Mexican Revolutionaries, 1900–1920,” in John Tutino, ed. Mexico and Mexicans in the Making of the United States (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012). 7. Jocelyn Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Post Revolutionary Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); Heather Fowler Salamini, Working Women, Entrepreneurs, and the Mexican Revolution: The Coffee Culture of Córdoba, Veracruz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013); Patricia Zavella, I’m Neither Here nor There: Mexicans’ Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011). 8. Ibid.; see also Susan Besse, Restructuring Patriarchy: The Modernization of Gender Inequality in Brazil, 1914–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1996); Elizabeth Quay Hutchison, “From ‘La Mujer Esclava’ to ‘La Mujer Limón’: Anarchism and the Politics of Sexuality in Early-Twentieth Century Chile,” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 81, no. 3–4: 519–554; Temma Kaplan, “Final Reflections: Gender, Chaos, and Authority in Revolutionary Times,” in Olcott, Vaughan, and Cano, eds. Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, 262.

9. On Piña’s civil status, see “México, Censo Nacional 1930: Caritina M. Piña Index and Images, Family Search,” http://familysearch.org (accessed May 10, 2016). 10. Caso del Sindicato de Obreras de la Fábrica de Camisas “La Palma,” Nov. 12, 1934, Archivo General del Estado de Nuevo León, hereafter cited as AGENL, Junta Local de Conciliación y Arbitraje, hereafter cited as JLCA, caja 34, exp. 8. 11. Aurelio Regalado H., “El Combativo Grupo Hermanos Rojos,” El Sol de Tampico, Nov. 23, 2009. 12. See the various editorials, commentaries, and poems by various members of Hermanos Rojos in Sagitario including “Justicia Igualitaria” and “Esperar,” Sagitario (in some issues, it appears as Sagitario:Mensual Sociológico) no. 4, Año I, Sept, 2, 1922, AHEM, IIH-UAT; Hernández, Working Women into the Borderlands, chapters 1, 2. 13. “Por Aldama,” El Cauterio, Oct. 7, 1911, Hemeroteca, IIH-UAT. 14. Ibid.; For other ways in which women defended themselves, demanded aid, or attempted to negotiate with the state, see Emma Pérez, “‘She Has Served Others in More Intimate Ways’: The Domestic Service Reform in Yucatán, 1915–1918,” in Vicki Ruiz (volume editor) and Chon Noriega (series editor), eds., Las Obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, Aztlán Anthology Series Vol. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, 2000): 41–64. 15. Alcayaga Sasso, “Librado Rivera.” 67. 16. Avrich, “Anarchist Voices,” 6. 17. Carlos González Salas, Acercamiento a la Historia del Movimiento Obrero en Tampico: 1887–1983 (Victoria: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, 1987), 32. 18. Santiago, “Women of the Mexican Oil Fields,” 100; see also Lief S. Adelson on Tampico oil workers’ activism, “Historia social de los obreros industriales de Tampico, 1906–1919,” PhD dissertation, El Colegio de México, 1982. 19. González Salas, Acercamiento, 32–40; Modesto García Flores, Lo Transparente del Poder (Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros de la República Mexicana, 1990), in Archivo Municipal de

Ciudad Madero, hereafter cited as AHMCM. García Flores also writes on Treviño. I thank Rosario Cárdenas Herrera, director of the Archivo Histórico de Cd. Madero for bringing this text to my attention. Cárdenas Herrera is currently the Secretaria General del Sindicato Liberal Democrático de Cd. Madero. 20. González Salas, Acercamiento, 32; Treviño soon lost his job as a local police officer, José Andrade, spotted him and called on authorities after suspecting a group of anarchists, of whom Trevino had been a part. 21. “Pro Presos,” Sagitario, Sept. 2, 1922, no. 4, Año I, AHEM, IIH-UAT; “Comité Pro-Presos,” Sagitario, Sept. 2, 1922, no. 4, Año I, AHEM, IIH-UAT. 22. See minute meetings such as “Citatoria Urgente a Todas las Organizaciones Obreras de la Localidad from Caritina Piña,” June 10, 1930, and other correspondence in the AHEM, IIH-UAT; “Acta de la junta en el salón de actos del H. Sindicato de Obreros y Empleados de la C. de Petroleum La Pierce Oil,” June 16, 1930, AHEM, IIH-UAT; see also the various issues of Sagitario and Avante, also housed in the Hemeroteca of the IIH-UAT. 23. Citatoria Urgente a Todas las Organizaciones Obreras de la Localidad from Caritina Piña, June 10, 1930, AHEM, IIH-UAT; “Acta de la junta en el salón de actos del H. Sindicato de Obreros y Empleados de la C. de Petroleum La Pierce Oil,” June 16, 1930, AHEM, IIH-UAT. For an in-depth discussion of Piña and her larger network of women and men within the context of feminism and transnationalism, see my article, “Revisiting Mexican(a) Labor History through Feminismo Transfronterista: From Tampico to Texas and Beyond, 1910–1940,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Transnational Feminism Special Issue, vol. 36, no. 3 (2015): 107– 136. Piña collaborated with women and men irrespective of ideological and organizational affiliation because of the various issues that affected all women. As Enriqueta Tuñón has written, the Frente Unico Pro-Derechos de la Mujer (FUPDM), organized in 1935, which included over 50,000 women and with female members sympathetic to communist ideas, had placed suffrage as its top priority, but because it also supported a variety of other issues (labor rights, reproductive rights), it could appeal to a cross-class section of

women; Tuñón, “La Lucha Política de la Mujer Mexicana por el Derecho al Sufragio y sus Repercusiones,” in Carmen Ramos Escandón, coord. Presencia y transparencia: la mujer en la historia de México (México: El Colegio de México, 2006), 184–185. 24. “Lista de compañeros presos por cuestiones sociales, que hasta la fecha tenemos conosimiento,” Comité Internacional ProPresos Sociales, n.d. AHEM, Folson and not Folsom is used in the original document; see also James A. Baer, Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015). 25. “Circular núm. 5 A Todos los Trabajadores del Mundo: ¡Salud y Anarquía!” Comité Internacional Pro-Presos,” Sept. 19, 1929, AHEM. 26. Olcott, Revolutionary Women. 27. See Christopher Castañeda’s “Moving West: Jaime Vidal, Anarchy and the Mexican Revolution, 1904–1918,” Chapter 7 in this volume. 28. “Cultura Proletaria de Nueva York,” Avante (Monterrey, Nuevo León), Nov. 19, 1927, pg. 4, Archivo General del Estado de Tamaulipas, hereafter cited as AGET. 29. “Emilia y Aurora Vivas, Libres,”Avante (Villa Cecilia, Tamaulipas), June 15, 1928, http://www.antorcha.net/index/hemeroteca/periodico_avante/11.pdf (accessed Apr. 1, 2017). 30. Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 404, 523, 560. “La Guilda de Amigos del Libro,” Avante (Villa Cecilia), July 15, 1928, http://www.antorcha.net/index/hemeroteca/periodico_avante/13.pdf (accessed Apr. 1, 2017); Sonia Hernández, “Chicanas in the USMexican Borderlands: Transborder Conversations of Feminism and Anarchism,” in Carlos K. Blanton, ed., A Promising Problem: The New Chicana/o History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016). 31. Ibid.; for a global discussion of the Sacco and Vanzetti case and its supporters, see Lisa McGirr, “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Global History,” Journal of American History, vol. 93, no. 4 (Mar., 2007): 1085–1115. 32. “Circular,” Sagitario, Dec. 11, 1924, AHEM, IIH-UAT. 33. Ibid. 34. To “Grupo Libertario Sacco y Vanzetti,” from Caritina Piña, July 6, 1929, AHEM, IIH-UAT.

35. Alcayaga Sasso, “Librado Rivera,” 67. The original source, which includes Hermanos Rojos’ platform/agenda, is Regeneración, as cited by Alcayaga Sasso. 36. I thank César Morado Macías for the clarification on the origins of the name “Luz,” as a predominantly female name in Mexico and in Spain conferred to girls born on the first of June in honor of Nuestra Señora de la Luz. 37. “Boletin de Propaganda Anarquica,” n.d, ca. 1924, Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), hereafter cited as AGN, Dirección General de Gobierno, hereafter cited as DGG. Asunto: Investigaciones políticas y sociales, caja 7, exp. 3. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. To M. V. Barnhill (Charlotte, N.C.) from Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales (Villa Cecilia, Tamps.), Sept. 20, 1929, AHEM, IIH-UAT. Piña’s petition indicated there were Mexicans involved in the strike who were subsequently arrested. Historian Gregory Taylor, in his sweeping account of the Gastonia Strike and larger history of the Communist Party in North Carolina, does not mention the presence of Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans were designated as White (in the census records and in practice, were not perceived as White), and it may explain the absence of Mexican Americans in the historiography of the Gastonia Strike of 1929. 41. “¡Alertas Trabajadores! El Preso Social, ca. 1929 (Órgano del Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales (Villa Cecilia, Tamps.), AHEM, IIH-UAT. 42. Ibid. 43. Claudio Lomnitz, The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón (New York: Zone Books, 2014), 219. 44. “Actas de la junta 16 de junio, 1930,” June 16, 1930, AHEM, IIH-UAT. 45. J. Vidal, “Sin Matrimonio,” Sagitario, Sept. 2, 1922, no. 4, Año I, AHEM, IIH-UAT. 46. Ibid. 47. Mary Kay Vaughan, “Introduction: Pancho Villa, the Daughters of Mary, and the Modern Woman: Gender in the Long Mexican

Revolution,” in Olcott, et al., Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, 28.

CHAPTER 9

Traces of the Revista Única Appearances and Disappearances of Anarchism in Steubenville, 1909–1973 JESSE COHN Yes, we are on the move. … Some anarchists are hanging from the gallows; others fill the prisons; some live in exile; most are emigrants; and the rest are pursued at all times. … —J. Rodolfo Louzára [Jésus Louzara], “En Marcha,” Fuerza Consciente (Mar. 7, 1914): 3 The vibrant transnational print culture created by anarchists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries constituted a bulwark against their assimilation into the dominant political cultures of their native and adoptive countries, linking even isolated carriers of “the Idea” to a global political movement.1 Perhaps few were as isolated as the far-flung colonias (communities) of Asturian and Galician immigrants working in coal camps like Scalp Level, Pennsylvania, or little steel towns like Mingo Junction, Ohio; yet through their newspapers and journals, they participated in nationwide and intercontinental anarchist networks, organized support for an antifascist revolution in the old country, and nourished a shared political culture and sense of identity that would endure across decades, if not generations.2 Tracing the story of one Spanish anarchist settling in the Ohio River Valley serves to illustrate the power of the radical word to traverse space and time. * * * Dated January 1928, the yellowing document from the archives of the Biblioteca Archivo de Estudios Libertarios in Buenos Aires, bearing the title Revista Única (Unique Review or Singular Review), is decidedly “singular”: what presents itself as a periodical is in fact a one-off, never to appear again.3 Its richly illustrated cover (figure 9.1) kindles an instantaneous curiosity; indeed, the image under the elegant art-nouveau typography of the title, in which a young woman holds up a lamp for a young man to read, seems to enact an allegory of fascination, of the invitation to enlightenment. The range of topics

addressed spans sexuality, labor, art, gender, “prejudices and idolatries,” the history of religion, science and technology, and particularly the global rise of fascism. But perhaps the biggest surprise is the announcement that this journal, representing a selection of responses to an encuesta (survey) produced by the Grupo “Los Iconoclastas” (“‘Iconoclasts’ Group”), issues from Steubenville, Ohio, with a population then peaking at a little over 35,000.4

Figure 9.1. Revista Única (January, 1928). Anarchy Archives and Federación Libertaria Argentina/Biblioteca Archivo de Estudios Libertarios.

It is difficult to determine the precise membership of this Grupo, which maintains a studied anonymity in the pages of the Revista Única. Only two names are associated with the production of the journal itself, and these come to light only after some determined searching: the Asturian-born electrician Angel García (ca. 1885– 1960) and—pseudonymously—“R. Lone,” aka steelworker Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés from Galicia (1891–1973).5 One more name found associated with the Grupo “Los Iconoclastas”—Albín García (birth and death dates unknown)—was a coal miner who apparently joined after the launch of the encuesta and the publication of the Revista Única.6 All three were veterans of the Panama Canal project, having worked there as young men. In Panama, Lóuzara joined an anarchist group, the Grupo “Los Invencibles” (“Group of ‘the Invincible Ones’”) and participated in the production of the individualist anarchist journal, El Único.7 How do a bunch of expatriate Spanish anarchists make their way from the Canal Zone to this little Midwestern town, so far away from the great centers of immigrant radicalism? Gradually, it seems. By 1915, Catalan emigré Pedro Esteve (1865–1925), editor of a series of U.S. anarchist newspapers—El Despertar (The Awakening), El Esclavo (The Slave), and finally the weekly Cultura Obrera (Labor Culture)—observed that the support for his current publication was being choked by the readers’ conditions of employment: Cultura Obrera has always been supported by sailors and tabaqueros [cigar-factory workers], and these two trades impose special conditions on the life of a newspaper. Seafarers, when working, can only read the newspaper once in a long while, every three or four weeks, sometimes every two or three months. … The ports of New York, Boston, New Orleans, Norfolk and Philadelphia were enough to keep the workers’ paper going. And a thousand copies would have been enough to satisfy the seafarers. Two or three hundred were enough for the tabaqueros. Since the [cigar] factories, being a little regular, have a lector [one worker hired by the others to read the press aloud to them during the long work day8], the newspaper only gets subscriptions from a few who like to collect them or to read them quietly at home.

Thus, we can only count on them to take collections from time to time in the factories.9 However, new markets were opening up as fresh arrivals, mainly from the Spanish regions of Asturias and Galicia, settled further inland, fleeing waves of poverty, military conscription, the hegemony of the Church, and political repression: Little by little, we discovered that thousands of Spanish- speaking workers who were not engaged in the tobacco industry or maritime transportation had gathered in various parts of the country. We are sending many packages and individual copies to localities of the interior of the republic. 2,500 copies are no longer enough; we need to increase the print run. Cultura Obrera is spreading throughout the country, our emancipatory propaganda is starting to infiltrate the little places where Spanish is spoken. … Cultura is already doing well, in spite of the short span of time since it first entered there, in West Virginia.10 These new readers drew the notice of more conservative eyes as well. Writing for the centrist New York newspaper Las Novedades (The News) in 1916, Alfonso de Castilla described with alarm his discovery of a community of “more than seventy thousand compatriots, abandoned, lost”—“liv[ing] completely alienated from the world, and even more so from the homeland.” These “lost children” of Spain evinced little affection for the government of a fatherland that had so little use for them—indeed, many had migrated there in the wake of enormous retaliatory layoffs following a miners’ strike in the region of Asturias11—and many had lost their church faith along with their jobs and their country. A barber in the company town of Grasselli, West Virginia, told de Castilla that “Cultura Obrera of New York … is our Spanish language textbook. It is not only the journal with the largest circulation, it is, in fact, the only publication in our language that reaches us.”12 Historian Ana Varela-Lago, following Charlotte Erickson, calls these “invisible immigrants”: the tens of thousands who came from Spain, primarily in the first three decades of the twentieth century, overshadowed by the millions of arrivals from Italy and Eastern Europe.13 While the ports of New York, Florida, and Puerto Rico

were the biggest destinations, a surprising number found their way to a region stretching across West Virginia and Ohio, from eastern Pennsylvania to the western shores of Lake Erie, the heart of what is now called—in a name that already signals absence, vanishing, haunting—the Rust Belt. Their patterns of settlement were defined by three overlapping “zonas” (zones): • The “zona minera” (mining zone): an axis of energy-extraction communities running from the bituminous coal mining towns of West Virginia to the anthracite seams of eastern Pennsylvania. • The “zona metalúrgica” (metalworking zone): an axis of steel, aluminum, and zinc foundry communities (from Youngstown, Ohio to the outskirts of Pittsburgh). • The “zona industrial” (industrial zone): an axis of urban and semi-urban factory labor (especially in Detroit, Cleveland, and Akron).14 In the Appalachian coal seams, the metal foundries built on top of them, and to the industries fed by them, Spanish immigrants formed anarchist grupos afines (affinity groups) and associations for propaganda, education, and mutual aid, forming a network of Spanish “colonias,” or communities (table 9.1). These colonias were crisscrossed by anarchist propaganda tours, including, significantly, the 1938 tour undertaken by Félix Martí Ibáñez (1911–1972) and Armando del Moral Vizcaíno (1916–2009) to marshal support for the antifascist war effort in Spain. Eventually (in 1929), an initiative was launched to create a nationwide language federation, the Federación de Grupos Anarquistas de Lengua Castellana en Estados Unidos (Federation of Spanish-Speaking Anarchist Groups in the United States, or F. de GG. AA. de L. C. en EE. UU.). And so it was in Steubenville, situated squarely at the intersection of the three zones of settlement, as Jesús Lóuzara proudly recounted to an interviewer not long before his death, that “with other compañeros, I founded the Federation of Anarchist Groups.”15 However, this nationwide organization did not yet exist in January 1928, even if many of its constituent grupos had already established themselves locally. Indeed, the Revista Única seems to bear few traces of a regional anarchist network; even the identities of its editors are effaced. Table 9.1 Spanish anarchist “colonias” ca. 1919–1949

Location

Anarchist groups and organizations

Jessup, PA

Grupo “Alba Roja” (1930-?); S.I.A. Local 68 (1939) Grupo “Alba Roja” (1930-?); Centro de Estudios Sociales (1931–1937) Grupo “Acracia” (1924–1931) Grupo “Emancipación” (1926) Grupo “Eliseo Reclus” (1933–1938) S.I.A. Local 57; Comité Espanol S.I.A. Local 40 (1939) Comité Español de Ayuda a España Grupo “Los Iguales” (1925); S.I.A. Local 46 Local 33 (1938) S.I.A. Local 39; Comité Juvenil (1938) S.I.A. Local 58 (1938) S.I.A. Locals 54 and 62; “Companeros de Donora” Grupo “Los Invencibles” (1924–1929); Comité de Defensa (1937); Comité Antifascista (1937); S.I.A. Local 23 (1938) Grupo “Floreal” (1929–1931); Centro Instructivo (1928) S.I.A. Local 53 S.I.A. Local 6; Grupo “Libertario” (1938– 1940) Grupo “Los Desheredados” (1926) S.I.A. Local 59 S.I.A. Local 29; Comité Pro Ayuda a España S.I.A. Local 61 (1939) S.I.A. Local 56 (1939); Grupo Femenino (de Local 56) Grasselli (now Anmoore), WV S.I.A. Local 63 (1938) Grupo “Fe y Libertad” (1939–1940) S.I.A. Local 32 (1938) S.I.A. Local 21 (1938) Grupo “Libertarios” (1924); Comité de Defensa; Comité Antifascista (1937); Comité Femenino (1937); S.I.A. Local 55 (1939) S.I.A. Locals 36 and 80; Grupo “Nueva Era” (1927); Cuadro Filodramático “Armonía” de Langeloth; Comité Antifascista

Olyphant, PA Scranton, PA Parsons, PA Wilkes-Barre, PA Bethlehem, PA Mahanoy Plane, PA Shenandoah, PA Homestead, PA Johnstown, PA Universal, PA Ambridge, PA Donora, PA McKeesport, PA Blair Station (now Clairton), PA McComas, WV Beckley, WV Clarksburg, WV Morgantown, WV Bartley, WV Red Jacket, WV Spelter, WV Eastgulf, WV Eccles, WV Welch, WV Moundsville, WV Langeloth, PA (1938) Weirton, WV

S.I.A. Local 18; Comité Pro Ayuda a España; Comité Femenino

Location Steubenville, OH Youngstown, OH Canton, OH

Massillon, OH Cleveland, OH Lorain, OH Detroit, MI

Anarchist groups and organizations Grupo Los Iconoclastas (1925-?); Agrupación Pro Prensa (1928-?); Comité Antifascista (1938); Grupo Antorcha Libre (1940-?) Grupo “La Esperanza” (1924–1926); Grupo “Rayos de Luz” (1931–1934); Grupo “Armonía” (1938); S.I.A. Local 35 (1939) S.I.A. Local 4; Comité Antifascista; Comité de Defensa; Grupo “Libertario” (1939–1940); Comité Auxiliar, Sub Comité Auxiliar (1938); Cuadro Artístico de Cantón (1938); Grupo “Armonía” (1938); Grupo “Isaac Puente” (1934); Grupo “Doctrinas Nuevas” (1925– 1926); Club Cultural de Canton Ohio; Centro Hispano-Americano S.I.A. Local 44; Club Femenino Español S.I.A. Local 67 (1939); Grupo Los Extirpadores (1928–1929); Lumen (1928– 1929); Algo (1928) Algo (1926–1928); Grupo Nuevo Horizonte (1924) Libreria Nuevo Horizonte (1926) S.I.A. Locals 17 (Michigan Ave. and Twentyfourth St.) and 51; Circulo Español (1929); Grupo “Comunismo Libertario” (1934–1935); Club Juventud Libre (1934–1935); Libreria Nuevo Horizonte (1935); Grupo “Cultura Libertaria” (1937?); Grupo Libertad (1940– 196—?)

The publication of such a sophisticated anarchist journal in the middle of rural Ohio is certainly odd, as a glance at Kenyon Zimmer’s data on the U.S. anarchist press confirms: out of 189 titles, 111 were published in coastal cities, particularly New York, and an additional 31 in Chicago. The majority of these were published in the languages of immigrants, drawn to the great urban centers: nearly sixty percent are represented by titles in Italian (46), German (24) Spanish (15), Yiddish (14), and Russian (13). Of the Spanishlanguage titles, more than half (8) are written by and for Mexican and Mexican-American anarchists, largely issuing from the experience of the Mexican Revolution; the Revista Única numbers among the handful that emerged from the smaller stream of immigration from Spain and the former Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico.16 Studies of Spanish-American immigration tend to focus on ports such as New York and Tampa/Ybor City; conversely, one of the only

extant monographs studying immigrant groups in Steubenville omits any mention of the Spanish community, much less the presence of at least three anarchist grupos afines based there, nor the fact that Steubenville hosted the organizing meeting for the F. de GG. AA. de L. C. en EE. UU in 1934.17 How can anarchists be made to disappear? This is a question that has haunted the representatives of the established orders, on and off, over the past two centuries, as it does even now—partly because anarchists threaten this order of appearances when they do appear, and partly because their uncanny ability to vanish also exercises a certain terror. “The S.I.A., apparently, is a ghost,” writes an anonymous member of Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (S.I.A., International Antifascist Solidarity), describing the organization to which he or she belongs: “Who are they? How many?”18 Answers to these questions are still evasive now, nearly eighty years after these words appeared in a journal, Cultura Proletaria: Periódico de ideas, doctrina y combate (Proletarian Culture: A Newspaper of Ideas, Doctrine and Combat, New York, 1927–1953), for several reasons, of which this writer’s strategy—coupling anonymity with publicity—is just one. The words, in an issue dated May 20, 1939, emanate from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, site of S.I.A. Local 57, one of what the writer describes as “hundreds of ghostly bodies” created overnight, in 1937, to support the Spanish revolution, primarily by the efforts of Spanish immigrant workers.19 “Hundreds” appears to be a slight exaggeration; the organization appears to span eighty Locals, although five of these are unaccounted for and more may have existed (table 9.2). A full thirty-three of this total fall within the Rust Belt’s three zones (figure 9.2). With all due respect to the power of capitalism to flatten entire working-class communities, it is quite possible that our own modes of knowledge bear some responsibility for the erasure of their own objects. Many of the place names that populate the lists of donors on the back pages of Cultura Obrera and Cultura Proletaria have vanished from the maps—e.g., Lillybrook, Kleenkoal, Blair Station, Grasselli; what if, as the would-be cartographers of working-class history, we are inadvertently erasing anarchists precisely because their lives are marked by migration and errancy? As Davide Turcato,

an eminent representative of the “transnational turn” in the historiography of anarchism, asks: “Could the seeming appearances and disappearances of anarchist movements be the fault of the historian, not of the movements?” This is precisely the challenge posed by Steubenville, an address criss-crossed by the textual traces of an even earlier wave of vanished immigrant radicals— primarily Italian anarchist workers seeking work in the mines, foundries, and factories. Leaders such as Luigi Galleani (1861– 1931) and Carlo Tresca (1879–1943) passed through on propaganda tours of the region, and Helga Tresca briefly relocated the anarchist newspaper L’Avvenire (The Future)20 to Steubenville, before moving it to New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and then to New York, where it was finally suppressed by the government.21 Italian and Spanish speakers often toured and addressed anarchist meetings together, in acknowledgment of the overlapping lives and interests of their respective “colonies”—transversal relations that tend to be obscured by studies like this one, focused on just one ethnic group.22 Table 9.2 Local branches of Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (S.I.A.) in the U.S. Branches within the industrial-mining-metallurgical region (the three “Zonas”) are boldfaced. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

New York, NY (1) New York, NY (2) Wilkes-Barre, PA Canton, OH Baltimore, MD Beckley, WV Philadelphia, PA Gary, IN Bronx, NY Bridgeport, CT New York, NY (3) St. Louis, MO Buffalo, NY Perth-Amboy, NJ Carteret, NJ Boston, MA Detroit, MI (1) Weirton, WV Dover, NJ

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Tarrytown, NY New Britain, CT San Francisco, CA Massillon, OH Brooklyn, NY Homestead, PA Chicago, IL Danbury, CT Helen, WV Los Angeles, CA (1) Detroit, MI (2) Meriden, CT MacComas, WV Donora, PA (1) Moundsville, WV Homestead, PA (2) Bethlehem, PA Ambridge, PA Morgantown, WV

Branches within the industrial-mining-metallurgical region (the three “Zonas”) are boldfaced. 20 Waterbury, CT 60 New Brunswick, NJ 21 Welch, WV 61 Red Jacket, WV 22 Newark, NJ 62 Donora, PA (2) 23 McKeesport, PA 63 Anmoore, WV 24 White Plains, NY 64 Logan, WV 25 Vacaville, CA 65 Tampa, FL 26 Jersey City, NJ 66 Chicago, IL (2) 27 Ansonia, CT 67 Cleveland, OH 28 Weirton, WV (2) 68 Jessup, PA 29 Bartley, WV 69 (unknown) 30 New York, NY [“Hijos de 70 Los Angeles, CA (2) Asturias”] (3) 31 New York, NY [English71 Bayonne, NJ speaking section] 4) 32 Eccles, WV 72 Torrington, CT 33 Johnstown, PA 73 Mountain View, CA 34 Honolulu, TH [pre-statehood 74 Los Angeles, CA (3) Hawaii] 35 Youngstown, OH 75 (unknown) 36 Langeloth, PA (1) 76 (unknown) 37 Oakley, CA 77 (unknown) 38 Winters, CA 78 Mountain View, CA(2) 39 Universal, PA 79 (unknown) 40 Mahanoy Plane, PA 80 Langeloth, PA (2)

Figure 9.2. (Map and Table) Spanish anarchist “colonias” ca. 1919– 1949. Map data: copyright 2018, Google, INEGI. Another kind of transversality is apparent in the practice of relevo (substitute/relief), as Ana María Varela-Lago explains: “When censorship or outright closure threatened anarchist publications in the peninsula, these used the Spanish anarchist press in the United States to express their views.”23 Conversely, the Revista Única itself was printed in Buenos Aires, at the presses of La Protesta (1903-), which had also printed the Iconoclasts’ Survey, as well as most of the initial responses to its eight points:24 1. On the current problems of anarchism and means to marshal an international anarchist effort against the authoritarian reaction 2. As a principle for organizing societies, is anarchy revolutionary or not? 3. Being a human idea, is anarchy proletarian or not?

4. What guidance should be given to children in the present so that they may forge their own emancipation soon as possible? 5. Which paths do compañeros believe that art should take in America and Europe in order to further saturate the atmosphere with anarchism? 6. What estimation is merited by individualistic tendencies in the labor movement today? 7. What is the value of tradition and to what extent must it be followed? 8. In order to dig deeper and undo old beliefs in petrified minds, could compañeros historicize the origins, bases, and foundations of the Bible? The very purpose of the Iconoclasts’ Survey, upon which the Revista Única constitutes a further collective reflection, is to elicit a global self-assessment of the movement as it stands in 1928. In his “Remarks on the Conclusion of the Iconoclasts’ Survey” in the Revista Única, Lóuzara’s correspondent, friend, and confidant, Max Nettlau (1865–1944), establishes the urgency of the historical context, a “period of fanaticism and violence” marked by infighting, increasing marginalization, and the growing strength of new enemies: In our times, all comradeship seems to have either vanished or hidden itself away and now resides only within the memory of the older generation. Within an increasingly brutal reality, we cling to our fixed opinions. … It would be a miracle if the anarchists were immune to this widespread mentality, to which, fortunately, they do not succumb but which they are affected by—witness the disorientation in the war, the disorientation concerning Bolshevism, the inability to stop fascism, and all of this along with the uncertainty about how to bring an end to this situation, how to present our ideas to the world in a manner that would truly attract attention on a vast scale once more: for it is not enough that the best ideas should remain only in our minds and our books because we don’t know how to make them freely and intelligently accepted by the entire world around us, so that we can carry them out together—or at least win a certain degree of respect and tolerance for these ideas.25

Miguel Giménez Igualada finds reason for optimism in the responses to question 6, concerning the old tensions between individualist and communist tendencies in the movement: “Generally, in the collaborators’ responses, we see … no wish to be exclusive, fractious, and rigidly systematic; on the contrary, what shines forth is mainly the desire to harmonize criteria and unite wills in order to compose a broad, vast and powerful movement.”26 Most assessments, however, are far gloomier: “The entirety of humanity is on the verge of being immersed in the darkest slavery,” declares Gigi Damiani, observing that from Fascist Italy to Bolshevik Russia, “a flowering authoritarianism, destructive of all individual liberty, is found everywhere today and beneath every flag”: “even within the celebrated free American republics, in which, since equality has always been a lie … their relative civil and individual liberties suffer limitations and amputations from one day to the next.”27 Table 9.3 Contributors to the Revista Única and the Encuesta de los Iconoclastas A[driano]. Botelho A[ntonio]. Estévez Antonia Maymón Antonio Reniego Artemis Minerva [Tomás Cano Ruíz] C[amillo]. Berneri C[elestino]. M[enéndez]. Marino Carlos [Charles] Malato Casas D[iego]. A[bad]. de Santillán David Díaz Dionysios [Antonio García Birlán] E. Armand [Ernest Juin] E[milio]. López Arango F[ermín]. Sagristá F[ortunato]. Barthe [Nicolas Barrabes] F[rancisco]. Quintal Federica Montseny G. Durante de Cabarga G[igi]. Damiani G[uillermo]. Durante de Cabarga Han Ryner [Henri Ner] J. Agostinho Neves J[osé]. C. Valadés

Portugal Spain / U.S. Spain Spain Spain Italy Spain / U.S. France Spain Spain / Argentina Spain Spain France Spain Spain Spain Portugal Spain Mexico Italy / Brazil Mexico France Portugal Mexico

J. Martín J. Rodríguez Aragón J.M. Blázquez de Pedro J[osé] Alberola J[uan]. I. Pastor Jean Grave Joaquina Colomer L[uigi]. Bertoni Lu-Chien-Bo [Lu Jianbo] Luigi Fabbri M. Giménez [Miguel Jiménez] M[arc]. Pierrot M. Torres M[anuel]. Buenacasa M[ax]. Pierrot Max Nettlau Palmiro de Lidia [Adrián del Valle] Paul Reclus Pierre Ramus [Rudolf Grossmann] R. Lone [Jesús Lóuzara de Andres] R. Pérez Rudolf Rocker Sebastián Suñé T[omás]. Cano Ruíz Un médico rural [Isaac Puente] W[illiam]. C[harles]. Owen

Spain / U.S. Spain Spain / Panama Spain Spain France Spain Italy / Switzerland China Italy Spain France Spain Spain France Austria / Germany Spain / Cuba France Austria Spain / US France Germany / Britain Spain Spain Spain Britain / U.S.

The Revista Única is virtually an advertisement for the breadth and vastness of the transnational anarchist movement from the very first page, where a table of contents boasts a virtual Who’s Who of the movement in the early 20th century; on the additional list of contributors in the frontispiece, such legendary figures such as Nettlau, Jean Grave, and Federica Montseny rub elbows with a broad crosssection of Spain’s anarchist intelligentsia as well as with other voices from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Italy, England, and the United States (table 9.3). “We, the ‘Iconoclasts,’” the editors announce, “are proud to have concluded this survey … in such a manner that all of these comrades had knowledge of it, in America as well as in Europe, going so far as to arouse the interest of some Asian comrades.”28 From the very first essay—Nettlau’s reflection on the significance of the Iconoclasts’ Survey—this document situates Steubenville at the

center of not only a regional but a global anarchist network to which the Grupo “Los Iconoclastas” are intimately and continuously connected. Lóuzara’s own global connections are considerable in themselves. Between 1912 and 1966, he contributed articles to no fewer than twenty anarchist publications based in Argentina, Cuba, France, Mexico, Panama, Spain, and Venezuela, sustaining correspondences not only with Nettlau (see Jorell A. MeléndezBadillo’s contribution to this volume) but with Pierre Ramus (Rudolf Grossman, 1882–1942), Ricardo Mella (1861–1925), and Diego Abad de Santillán (aka Baudillo Sinesio García Hernández, 1897– 1983), who themselves acted as key nodes or “relays” for intercontinental communication and organizing, as well as with lesser-known militants coordinating transnational support for anarchist prisoners like Simón Radowitzky and Librado Rivera.29 Around the time of the publication of Revista Única, “R. Lone” of Steubenville is listed as the U.S. contact for the Argentine anarchist journals Humanidad (Buenos Aires, 1927–1929) and La Protesta, and with the Grupo “Los Iconoclastas,” he offers those in the vicinity of Steubenville access to a selection of fourteen journals and thirteen newspapers from Spain, Argentina, and the United States.30 In what sense, then, did Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés intend identifying himself as “R. Lone”? His “lonely” form of militancy was, in fact, never solitary; it unfolded in the context of affinity groups, federations, publications, and the counter publics sustained by them, relations of companionship both distant and intimate. Perhaps it reflects the individualism that was central to the Grupo “Los Invencibles” in his Canal Zone days, reflected in the title of their journal, El Único, an homage to Max Stirner’s El Único y su propiedad (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, 1844, translated into English as The Ego and Its Own, but which the publisher suggested could also be rendered as The Lone One and His Property), subsequently echoed in the title of the Revista Única. It is interesting, however, that the play on words in English constituted by “Lone” is modified by the use of the initial “R”: does this suggest that “lone” or “alone” is what we “are”? This, in turn, might recall Lóuzara’s role in creating the Iconoclasts’ Group. In his last interview by

correspondence, Lóuzara told Vladimiro Muñoz that “our group ‘The Iconoclasts’ had about twenty compañeros,” but immediately adds that “the work fell on just two: the one writing and another who has already died.”31 “R. Lone,” then, names an unresolved tension between individuality and community, the singular and the collective. This tension traverses the three zones which intersect in Steubenville, which did not fail to experience the kind of infighting bemoaned by Nettlau. Writing as R. Lone, Jesús Lóuzara feuds in the pages of Cultura Obrera and ¡Tierra! (Havana, Cuba, 1924– 1925) with Antonio Estevez of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, and Manuel Fernández of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, (Jan. 7–Apr. 23, 1925), prompting the editors to warn them: “Understanding that polemics of this kind neither make for good propaganda or education, we will not give more column space to articles of this sort.”32 Albín García reports in Cultura Proletaria on a meeting held in Steubenville to mend fences between the Grupo “Nueva Era” of Langeloth and the Agrupación Pro Prensa following some unspecified rancor between members (Oct. 14, 1928).33 For unspecified reasons, while La Protesta publicizes the Iconoclasts’ Survey and prints thirty-three responses to it, joined to a lesser extent by Generación Consciente (Conscious Generation) and Le Réveil (The Awakening), Cultura Obrera declines to do so.34 A bitter dispute broke out over the political identity of a workers’ “Cultural Center” in McKeesport.35 Conflicts spilled over national and ethnic boundaries as well: Lóuzara/Lone denounces the slander to which the editors of La Protesta (including his friend, Diego Abad de Santillán) are being subjected by a pseudonymous Italian comrade in the newspaper L’Adunata dei Refrattari (Call of the Refractaires), stemming from the fratricidal feud between La Protesta and the friends of the “illegalist” Severino di Giovanni.36 More fundamentally, as a writer for La Protesta observed (in an article reprinted in Cultura Proletaria), the anarchists assembled as the F. de GG. AA. were at odds with one another over their stance toward the U.S. labor movement and its union organizations: fundamentally alienated from “the American Federation of Labor, dominated by the Yankee mentality of utilitarianism and closed to all varieties of social ideas,”

they also found themselves at odds with the Industrial Workers of the World, officially “neutral towards socialist tendencies, but in fact coinciding with the theory of economic power and class dictatorship.”37 Indeed, the pages of Cultura Obrera and Cultura Proletaria are replete with arguments about this question, including heated polemics with the editors of the IWW’s Spanish-language paper, Solidaridad (Solidarity).38 Perhaps most heartbreaking, for Lóuzara, was betrayal at the hands of comrades, detailed in long confessional letters to his friend Nettlau. In 1924, his first compañera, Aurora Álvarez (1895–1981), left Lóuzara, taking with her their children, Rudolph (1914–1980) and Amelia (1918–2007), to join another anarchist compañero in Lorain, Ohio: the individualist metalworker and journalist, Emilio Vivas Manzano (1900–1983). In 1930, Lóuzara reports, his second compañera, Mercedes Fernández (1895–1991), was propositioned in his absence by Celestino Menéndez Marino (1899–1964), a leader of the Grupo “Nueva Era” and secretary of Smeltermen’s Union Local 95 in Langeloth, Pennsylvania. As a result of her refusing Menéndez Marino’s advances, Lóuzara alleges, revenge arrived in the form of “two inspectors from the Pittsburgh office” investigating the allegations of an anonymous informant that Fernández “lacked a passport, and moreover, inculcated a fourteen year old boy … with subversive ideas.”39 Arrested and held on Ellis Island for a month, she was subsequently deported to Spain for more than a year.40 In the meantime, Cultura Proletaria printed an “Important Clarification” issued jointly by the Grupo “Nueva Era,” the Agrupación Pro Prensa, and the Grupo “Floreal” of Blair Station, Pennsylvania, denouncing and denying “letters written and sent by Mercedes Fernández accusing Comrade C. M. Marino and others of certain charges which could not be proven, which cannot be supported with evidence, and which ultimately reduced to personal opinions more or less influenced by personal incompatibilities and misunderstanding of words without knowing their meaning.”41 No reply on Fernández’s behalf was printed. Lóuzara pours out his distress in letters to Nettlau: “The C. Proletaria Group has behaved much worse than the police themselves.”42

“The police themselves,” of course, were not neglectful of the subversives in the Spanish communities, and the imprisonment and deportation meted out to Mercedes Fernández de Lóuzara was not an uncommon occurrence. The very year that Angel García arrived in Steubenville, a few years after Jesús Lóuzara and Aurora Alvarez, saw a massive raid on IWW members in Weirton, just across the Ohio River; one hundred and eighty-six workers were rounded up, “marched … to the public square, [and] forced … to kneel and kiss the American flag.”43 On March 22, 1928, Aurora Álvarez and Emilio Vivas were arrested, jailed, and threatened with deportation for publishing a subversive magazine, Algo (Something), and for protesting the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.44 They had, of course, been required to swear that they were not anarchists as a condition for their naturalization as U.S. citizens; even a purely “philosophical” anarchism could be taken as sufficient legal grounds for deportation where immigrants, suspected a priori of criminal and terrorist tendencies, were concerned.45 Tightening restrictions on immigration in the 1920s reflected a growing nationalist mood, and with Depression, the Bureau of Immigration enjoyed special dispensation to deport immigrants who were blamed for stealing jobs from American citizens.46 The Bureau of Investigation (and after 1935, the Federal Bureau of Investigation) had the immigrant workers of the three zones in its sights as well, including Spanish immigrant organizations with a predominantly anarchist membership such as the Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (SHC, or Confederation of Hispanic Societies).47 In 1940, the FBI opened an investigation into Celestino Marino and fellow “Nueva Era” militant David Alonso.48 Marino, having risen to a prominent position in the CIO-affiliated Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, would experience a vertiginous fall from grace in 1948, blamed in the press for the decision of American Zinc & Chemical to close down its Langeloth operation: “This has been considered one of the nation’s chief left-wing unions, and has been accused repeatedly of Communist domination,” warned the Pittsburgh Press.49 “Premature anti-fascists” were by then already a focus for McCarthyite repression.

There are many ways to make enemies of the State and Capital disappear. In el país del Tío Sam, however, the traditional method of making immigrants disappear has been to make them white and middle-class, or at least, that is the story we tell about it: assimilation into the dominant culture and absorption in the game of private property heals all the wounds inflicted by exclusion and exploitation. To be fair, this is more or less what the obreras conscientes feared all along, that capitalism would, in one way or another, put the workers to sleep. In the Revista Única, a cartoon by Fermín Sagristá, “El interés del populacho” (The Attention of the Rabble) shows a gaggle of children standing raptly before a wall plastered with invitations to consume: publicity for prize fights and pesticides, “aristocratic” dances and mass production of canned food, all eliciting wide-eyed, open-mouthed “interés” (figure 9.3). The artist’s selection of children as the protagonists here might indicate the power of advanced capitalism to reduce adult producers to childlike consumers, or it might more nakedly betray the fear that children would be captured by their own parents’ old nemeses. It is partly in hopes of preventing this scenario that the Spanish communities staged a continuous series of local cultural events— particularly jiras campestres (picnics); veladas (evening variety performances, including dramas, songs, and skits, usually followed by a dance); and giras de propaganda (lectures by touring speakers) —to supplement their print culture. “The fiestas and dances are criticized,” reflected anarchist coal miner Rafael Berezo Paredes (1871–1962) in 1938: [Some] say that while we are enjoying ourselves, back in the Peninsula, they are fighting for their lives against the traitors and fascist murderers. All this, unfortunately, is true. But can we avoid these evils by giving ourselves fully to a sad and painful pessimism? No. … Let us give theatrical performances, dances, rally the youth of this rearguard; not everything has to be sad. Even at the front, after the battle is over and having rested, those who are uninjured, to mitigate their pain, form cliques, tell jokes; some pick up the guitar to play and sing and have fun for a little while, in a cheerful expansion. Youth is life itself; it is bustling and joyful.

Those who say otherwise show that they have forgotten that they were once young themselves, or they are lying to themselves. Deny the young people parties, dances and entertainment, and they will find them for themselves. Where? Where they exist: in “bars,” in gambling, in the brothel, in the cinema. Preventing this is our duty!50

Figure 9.3. Fermín Sagristá, “El Interés del Populacho” [The Attention of the Rabble], Revista Única (January, 1928, p. 28).

Anarchy Archives and Federación Libertaria Argentina/Biblioteca Archivo de Estudios Libertarios. The worries were well founded. In spite of their parents’ efforts to sustain a parallel “proletarian culture” that would keep the young away from bourgeois influences, the children of the miners, metalworkers, and factory laborers, who attended the public schools, were beneficiaries of the same postwar affluence as their parents. As Diego Abad de Santillán described it in 1965: An American proletarian works three times less than before the Haymarket Square rally [of 1886] and earns wages three or four times higher, enjoying a level of comfort which, eighty years ago, even the bourgeois … could hardly know. Our old friend R. Lone, a smelter worker, who in 1886 would have exhausted himself over twelve hours in the factory for pay that would scarcely have allowed him a very poor standard of living now owns a house on the picturesque heights of Steubenville, Ohio, and he owns a car of the latest model and a rich library.51 In the Affluent Society of the postwar period, the force of normalizing institutions—particularly schooling, religion, the military, and media— became all but impossible to resist. The age of steel strikes having passed, Jesús Lóuzara retired from the Follansbee plant with a small ceremony in 1954. Rudolph J. Lóuzara, the son of Jesús and Aurora, attended the public schools, where he joined the cheer squad; his daughter Marsha Ann (1939–1983) married a young Air Force Lieutenant (in a church wedding that surely must have rankled her parents), Anthony Orlando (b. 1938), who went on to fly hundreds of bombing raids on Vietnam (figure 9.4).52 While there is no sign that Rudolph or his descendants ever shared the politics of his parents, his sister Amelia certainly did, at least in her youth. Growing up in Detroit with her mother, Aurora, and her adoptive father, Emilio Vivas, she participated in the big family picnics held to raise money for the anarchist and antifascist cause, and she is listed as “Secretary of Propaganda” for Local 17 of the SIA.53 She married the journalist Armando del Moral, a delegate of the Juventudes Libertarias (Libertarian Youth), who was the son of an anarchist and now had become a refugee.54 In exile, however, with his hopes for a definitive “struggle for true freedom” crushed,

Armando seems to have forsaken old political ties, reinventing himself as a journalist of Spanish-language cinema.55 Starting in 1949, Amelia wrote a celebrity gossip column, “Melie Lou en Hollywood,” for his magazine, La Novela Cine-Gráfica (Cine-Graphic News, Los Angeles, 1947–1964, which subsequently became Gráfica, 1964-).56 Before the arrival of Armando’s obituary in Variety (which reads like a fairy tale of American success—an immigrant escaping from the fascist prison camps to end up hobnobbing with the likes of Liz Taylor and John Wayne in the Hollywood hills!), del Moral rewrote his own memories: the anarchist campaigner from Albacete who declared, a month after the last surrender of Republican forces, “Spain is not dead!” became, in his own memoirs, a “confused” young man of “centrist opinions.”57 In the end, two generations of Spanish anarchists marrying-in would not prove a sufficient barrier against political assimilation: it seems that the children of Armando and Amelia del Moral grew up almost entirely unaware of their parents’ and grandparents’ anarchist past.58

Figure 9.4. Lóuzara family geneogram (anarchist activity is indicated by underlining). Courtesy of the author, Jesse Cohn. Remarkably, none of these defeats, losses, and betrayals seems to have shaken the resolve of Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés. The 1940s mark what appears to have been a period of quiescence for Jesús and Mercedes, perhaps tending after the new family formed by Rudolph and Anna, while Amelia was still active with the Grupo “Cultura Libertaria” formed by Emilio and Aurora in Detroit, at least

until her marriage to Armando del Moral in 1942. It is after Jesús’ retirement in 1954 that we pick up his textual traces once more, as he resumes writing for the Spanish anarchist press in exile: Solidaridad Obrera (Workers’ Solidarity), Nervio: Portavoz de la Regional Andalucía-Extremadura (Spirit: Journal of the AndalusiaExtremadura Regional), the Spanish pages of Le Combat Syndicaliste (Syndicalist Combat), Acción Libertaria (Libertarian Action, Buenos Aires, 1933–1971), Umbral (Dawn, Paris, 1962– 1970), and Cénit (Zenith, Toulouse, 1951–1995). The topics explored by Lóuzara’s late writings range from remembrances of fallen rebels to imperialism in U.S. media coverage, but they were more drawn to meditations on human evolution, the need to support anarchist intellectual work, and paeans to “the love of ideas.”59 The keynote of his prolific late-period writings is sounded by an epigraph to a 1964 article for Le Combat Syndicaliste: “A people without dreamers and utopians is not entitled to a future.”60 Much like the two younger Spaniards who entered exile in the United States in the 1940s, Félix Martí Ibáñez and Armando del Moral (but without the advantages of their social and cultural capital), the older Lóuzara seems to have turned to “culture” as a repository for yearnings that could no longer be expressed in the form of propaganda directed toward a wider, proletarian world. The Mexican revolutionary poet Guillermo Durante de Cabarga (1898–1938) had written, in the closing essay for the Revista Única, that “[o]ur propaganda needs to be suited to the environment in which we operate”: Instead of the heavy, brainy book, full of bitter truths and invective against capital, religions, and the State, let us make the subtle book, the refined book, the enjoyable book which gently suggests our thoughts to others, without abrupt cries of rebellion, infusing minds with sweet love toward a humanity that is more the mistress of itself, more fraternal, freer, and happier. This is not a job for philosophers; it is a job for artists.61 Literary essays and stories for Martí Ibáñez and film journalism for del Moral could substitute for collective action, embodying the anarchist ideal and preserving it under the sign of its cancellation.

Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés died in Steubenville on February 4, 1973. His beloved F. de GG. AA. en L. C. de EE. UU., along with the SIA, were by then indeed ghosts, but his convictions were apparently intact. One of the recurring motifs of his writing, indeed, was consecuencia—translatable as “consistency,” but linked to the notions of “results” (consecuencias) and “achievement” (consecución): “Let us be consistent!” he pleads in the pages of Via Libre. “Ranting and pirouetting in public or in private is easy, but the crucial and difficult thing is to be consistent.” It is with a promise to be “[c]onsistent with anarchist principles” that he announces the inauguration of the Grupo “Los Iconoclastas”; he praises Malatesta as “one of the most tenacious and consistent spokesmen of anarchism” and calls for “more consistency with [our] ideas,” “being consistent with ourselves” by “taking up a firm position.”62 It is consistent with this passion for consistency that one of Lóuzara’s last publications is a denunciation of the inconsistencies [inconsecuencias] of men who, from their earliest age, have been seasoned in our struggles to defend the freedom of the individual, and now leave us with an unheard-of change of course. … [M]any years ago, [Donato] Luben had called this inconsistent type “weathervanes, with no driving goal other than to spin eternally in vicious circles of insatiable egotism.”63 The nineteenth-century libertarian socialist Donato Luben, whom he described, in his last interview, as one of “the three most talented writers of anarchism,” had indeed used a similar phrase in an essay for La Revista Blanca (The White Review) denouncing theism as “a vane turning in obedience to the prevailing wind of the times, trying to adapt to all situations”—in short, radically inconsistent.64 Even in altering the context of the reconstructed quotation from Luben, Lóuzara is establishing his loyalty to the ideas he must have absorbed from writings like this, some sixty-five years earlier. And so, at the end of this life, Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés had fulfilled the injunction he had issued to himself, in the pages of Le Combat Syndicaliste: “Undaunted in the struggle, we must defy every passing storm, resisting the ravages of time and men, as the

mountains resist them. … At your post in the battle, always answer: ¡Presente!”65 Notes I would like to gratefully acknowledge the generous assistance of Jorell Meléndez Badillo, Montse Feu, Morris Brodie, and Kirwin Shaffer. 1. See Jesse Cohn, Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture, 1848–2011 (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2015), Part I, Chapter 1 (“The Reader in the Factory”). 2. The term colony was used in these periodicals to refer to immigrant communities in the United States. 3. “[The] journal … will have only one issue and will be called— REVISTA ÚNICA. ‘Única’ since we will publish just one issue” (R. Lone [Jesús Lóuzara], letter to Max Nettlau, June 18, 1927 [Max Nettlau Papers, International Institute of Social History]). All translations mine unless otherwise noted. 4. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population Bulletin, First Series: United States Summary: Total Population for States and Counties, for Urban and Rural Areas, and for Incorporated Places of 1,000 and Over (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931), 27. 5. Lóuzara used different pseudonyms (José Lóuzara de Andrés, Juan Lóuzara, R. Lone, Rolf Lone, Rudolf Lone, and J. Rodolfo Lone). R. Lone [Jesús Lóuzara], interview with Vladimiro Muñoz, “El pensamiento vivo de José Lóuzara,” Cénit 24.208 (Jan–Mar. 1974): 5904. See also “Nueva revista,” La Revista Blanca 2.6.103 (Sept. 1, 1927): vi. Lóuzara’s years in the Canal Zone and his involvement with the Grupo “Los Invencibles” are documented in his contributions to El Único (Colón, Panama, 1911–1912) and Tierra y Libertad (Barcelona, 1910–1919). 6. Albín García’s contributions of money from Bas Obispo in the Canal Zone (possibly in affiliation with the Grupo “Los Errantes”) are mentioned in the Barcelona anarchist newspaper, Tierra y Libertad (Aug. 28, 1912) and the Cuba-based El Libertario (Dec. 14, 1912). In an issue of Pluma Roja (Feb. 1, 1914), a contribution of $1.50 is acknowledged from Albín García, Daniel Sánches, and Melchor Vázquez in Las Cascadas, Panamá. An issue of Voluntad (Dec. 20,

1915) belatedly acknowledges a $1 contribution from Albín García in Colón, Panamá. In the Dec. 25, 1937, issue of Cultura Proletaria, Albín García is described as an “obrero minero de la zona de West Virginia” and the creator of a new chapter of the SIA. 7. Lone [Lóuzara], interview with Muñoz, 5906. Individualism was a relatively small but vigorous tendency within the anarchist movement, coexisting and overlapping with syndicalist and communist tendencies. 8. The phenomenon of cigar-factory lectores and lectoras has inspired numerous studies; see Araceli Tinajero, El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory Reader (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010). 9. “Lean y obren en consecuencia,” Cultura Obrera 1.3.109 (May 22, 1915): 1. 10. Ibid. 11. Ana M. Varela-Lago, Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles: The Spanish Diaspora in the United States (1848–1948) (Diss., University of California, San Diego, 2008), 152. 12. Alfonso de Castilla, “Los españoles en West Virginia: Descubrimiento de 3000 compatriotas: Un foco de anarquismo, sin cónsul, sin maestro y sin sacerdote,” Las Novedades (Feb. 24, 1916), trans. Veronica Carchedi, in “New Document: Spain’s Lost Children in West Virginia (1916), Part One,” Traces of Spain in the U.S. (Apr. 27, 2014), web. 13. Varela-Lago Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles, 3, 137; Thomas Gene Hidalgo, Reconstructing a History of Spanish Immigration in West Virginia: Implications for Multicultural Education (Diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1999), 193. 14. J. Rebollo, “Impresiones de Scraton [sic], Pa.,” Cultura Obrera 2.3.129 (Feb. 21, 1925): 3; “A Traves de Nuestras Locales,” Cultura Proletaria 12.569 (Mar. 25, 1939): 3; “A Traves de Nuestras Locales,” Cultura Proletaria 10.501 (Dec. 4, 1937): 5. 15. Lone [Lóuzara], interview with Muñoz, 5905. See also Lone [Lóuzara], “A una proposición,” Cultura Proletaria 1.34 (Oct. 29, 1927): 3. 16. Kenyon Zimmer, “American Anarchist Periodical Circulation Data, 1880–1940,” Academia.edu, 2014.

17. James Alfred White, “Immigrants and Immigrant Groups in Steubenville: 1860–1920” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1967). The Grupo “Los Iconoclastas,” appearing in 1925, was joined by the Agrupación Pro Prensa (“Group for Support of the Press”) in 1928 and a Grupo “Antorcha Libre” (“‘Torch of Freedom’ Group”) formed in 1940; see Lone [Lóuzara], “Pro-Comun,” Cultura Obrera (Nov. 28, 1925): 4. Steubenville also hosted meetings of the F. de GG. AA. de L. C. en EE.UU. on Oct. 10, 1937; Oct. 10, 1938; and Apr. 1–2, 1939. 18. “A Través de Nuestras Locales,” Cultura Proletaria 12, no.577 (May 20, 1939): 5. 19. Ibid. 20. Formerly La Plebe (The People), 1907–1909. 21. Nunzio Pernicone, Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2010), 40; Marcella Bencivenni, Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States, 1890–1940 (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 241n22. 22. See, for instance, dispatches from the 1924–1925 propaganda tour jointly undertaken by José Marinero (aka Frank R. López) and Mateo Rico, chronicled in Cultura Obrera. 23. Varela-Lago, Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles,136. 24. Muñoz, “El pensamiento vivo de José Lóuzara,” 5906; D[iego] A[bad] de Santillán, “La Encuesta de Steubenville,” Revista Única (Jan. 1928): 15–16. 25. Max Nettlau, “Algunas palabras con motivo de la conclusión de la Encuesta de los Iconoclastas,” Revista Única (Jan. 1928): 3–4. 26. Miguel Jiménez [Miguel Giménez Igualada], “¡Todo por la anarquía!” Revista Única (Jan. 1928): 28–29. 27. Gigi Damiani, “¡Queramos!” Revista Única (Jan. 1928): 6–7. 28. “Dos Palabras,” Revista Única (Jan. 1928): 2. 29. María Fernanda de la Rosa, “La figura de Diego Abad de Santillán como nexo entre el anarquismo argentino, europeo y latinoamericano, 1920–1930,” Iberoamericana 12.48 (2012): 22–23, 33n21, 34n23; Sonia Hernández, “Chicanas in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands: Transborder Conversations of Feminism and Anarchism, 1905–1938,” A Promising Problem: The New Chicana/o

History, ed. Carlos K. Blanton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 146. 30. Lone [Lóuzara], “Pro-comun,” Cultura Obrera 2.3.169 (Nov. 28, 1925): 4. 31. Lone [Lóuzara], “El pensamiento vivo de José Lóuzara,” 5904. 32. Antonio Estevez, “El neomalthusianismo,” Cultura Obrera 3.124 (Jan. 7, 1925): 3; “Contraréplica,” Cultura Obrera 3.131 (Mar. 7, 1925): 2; “Para un filósofo,” Cultura Obrera 3.138 (Apr. 23, 1925): 2–3; Manuel Fernández, “Contestando,” Cultura Obrera 3.138 (Apr. 23, 1925): 4. 33. Albín García, “Importante reunión,” Cultura Proletaria 2.86 (Oct. 27, 1928): 3. 34. Lone [Lóuzara], “Nuestra Encuesta,” Inquietudes 1.1 (Jan. 1, 1927): 22. 35. Manuel Fernández, “Desde McKeesport, Pa.: Actividades Del ‘Centro Cultural’ de Habla Española,” Cultura Proletaria 8.398 (Dec. 14, 1935): 2. 36. Lone [Louzara], “Obra obstruccionista,” Cultura Proletaria 2.103 (Feb.23, 1929): 3. See also Lone [Lóuzara], letter to Nettlau, Apr. 27, 1929, in which he identifies “Biscuit”—writing also to the journals Eresia (New York, 1928–1932) and Germinal (Chicago, 1926–1930)—as di Giovanni himself. 37. “Comentarios al Pleno,” Cultura Proletaria 2.129 (Aug. 24, 1929): 1–2. 38. See “Claridades,” Cultura Obrera 2.2.104 (Aug. 30, 1924): 3. 39. Lone [Lóuzara], letter to Nettlau, May 12, 1931. 40. Lone [Lóuzara], letter to Nettlau, Dec. 7, 1933. 41. Grupo “Nueva Era,” Agrupación Pro Prensa, and Grupo “Floreal,” “Importante Aclaración,” Cultura Proletaria 3.195 (Dec. 6, 1930): 2. 42. Lone [Lóuzara], letter to Nettlau, May 12, 1931. 43. “I. W. W. Haunt Raided; 186 Made to Kiss Flag, All but Six Driven Out,” Great Falls Daily Tribune (Oct. 8, 1919): 1. 44. “Couple Faces Deportation: Man and Wife, Spaniards, Admit Being Anarchists,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (Mar. 23, 1928): 1; Juan Anido, in Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2005), 396;

“Emilio y Aurora Vivas, Libres,” ¡Avante! 2.8 (June 15, 1928): 1. The anarchist community did rally behind Vivas and Alvarez, holding benefit performances to raise funds for their defense (“Vivas’ Defense Committee,” Algo 9 (July 1928): n.p.; “Cleveland, Ohio,” Cultura Proletaria 2.63 (May 19, 1928): 3). 45. Charles Recht, American Deportation and Exclusion Laws: A Report (New York Bureau of Legal Advice, 1919), 9–12, 31. 46. Varela-Lago, Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles, 156–157, 213– 214. 47. María Ángeles Ordaz Romay, “Las Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas en archivos del FBI: Emigración y exilio español de 1936 a 1975 en EE.UU,” Revista Complutense de Historia de América 32 (2006): 227–247. 48. Subject Index to Correspondence and Case Files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1903–1952, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Roll 3. 49. “Labor Wonders if It Has Pressed Luck Too Far as Burgettstown Loses Payroll,” The Pittsburgh Press (Jan. 15, 1948): 2. 50. R[afael]. Berezo, “Mi disconformidad,” Cultura Proletaria 11.554 (Dec. 10, 1938): 2. 51. D[iego].A[bad].[de] S[antillán], “Hace 80 Años,” Acción Libertaria 31.187 (1965): 4. 52. “Wells High Cheer Leaders,” Steubenville Herald Star (Oct. 9, 1929): 26; “The Social Notebook,” Steubenville Herald Star (Aug. 23 1961): 12; “Capt. Anthony Orlando Will Fly FB III,” Steubenville Herald Star (May 3, 1971): 12. 53. Agrupación Pro-Prensa, “De Steubenville, Ohio,” Cultura Proletaria 8.389 (Oct. 12, 1935): 4. 54. Martí Boscà, José Vicente, and Antonio Rey González, “El viaje de Félix Martí Ibáñez a Norteamérica en busca de apoyos internacionales: agosto-diciembre, 1938,” Ciencia, salud pública y exilio: España, 1875–1939, ed. Josep Lluís Barona (València: Seminari d’Estudis sobre la Ciencia, 2003), 172n6. 55. Armando del Moral, Molinos Sin Mancha (Hollywood, Calif: Orbe Publications, 1973), 14. 56. La Novela Cine-Gráfica 2,24 (1949): 15.

57. “Film journalist Armando del Moral dies: Spaniard helped establish the Golden Globes,” Variety (July 29, 2009); del Moral, “Juveniles por y para la juventud libertarian,” Via Libre 1.5 (May 15, 1939): 4; del Moral, Un genocidio llamado cruzada, unpublished manuscript, qtd. in Conchita Bouza, Luyano-Cuba (July 27, 2009). 58. Personal email, Roger Del Moral, Aug. 2, 2016. 59. J[esús]. Lóuzara, “Rodolfo Rocker ha muerto,” Solidaridad Obrera 14.706 (Oct. 2, 1958): 4; R. Lone [Lóuzara], “Nuestras ideas y sus detractores,” Le Combat Syndicaliste, Supplément Illustré 38.424 (Oct. 20, 1966): 3; R. Lone [Lóuzara], “El cuento de Adán y Eva,” Nervio 15 (Sept. 1959): 2–3; R. Lone [Lóuzara], “Ahora que se habla de contactar intelectuales: una trayectoria,” Le Combat Syndicaliste 36.329 (Dec. 24, 1964): 2; R. Lone [Lóuzara], “El amor a las ideas honra al individuo,” Le Combat Syndicaliste, Supplément Illustré 38.403 (May 26, 1966): 3. 60. Epigraph by J. Brosa in R. Lone [Lóuzara], “Ahora qe se habla de contactar intelectuales: una trayectoria,” Le Combat Syndicaliste 36.329 (Dec. 24, 1964): 2. 61. Guillermo Durante de Cabarga, “Por qué se nos ignora,” Revista Única 36. 62. Lone [Lóuzara], “Seamos consecuentes,” Via Libre 1.9 (Aug. 5, 1939): 6; “El Anarquismo no es un coto cerrado,” Via Libre 1.8 (June 24, 1939): 8; “Pro-comun,” Cultura Obrera (Nov. 28, 1925): 4; “Enrique Malatesta,” Cultura Proletaria 2.120 (June 22, 1929): 2; “Revisionismo?” Cultura Proletaria 2.87 (Nov. 3, 1938): 4; “El Atentado,” Cultura Proletaria 2.126 (Aug. 3, 1929): 3. 63. Lone [Lóuzara], “Inconsecuencias,” Le Combat Syndicaliste, Supplément Illustré 38.392 (Mar. 10, 1966): 3. 64. Lone [Lóuzara], interview with Muñoz, “El pensamiento vivo de José Lóuzara,” 5904; Luben, “Infundios teológicos,” La Revista Blanca 1.4.67 (Apr. 1, 1901): 605–607. 65. Lone [Lóuzara], “El amor a las ideas honra a la individuo,” 3.

PART IV

Imagining a New World

CHAPTER 10

The Anarchist Imaginary Max Nettlau and Latin America, 1890–1934 JORELL A. MELÉNDEZ-BADILLO Comrade Nettlau, I have not called you maestro to demean myself or to put you on a pedestal, I have called you maestro because I really think you are a maestro in every terrain. —Letter from José Lóuzara de Andrés to Max Nettlau, December 17, 1928. Only one man has been seriously worried about compiling and cataloguing a bibliography of anarchism in the international sphere. This man is our old comrade Max Nettlau. —Enrique Nido, Informe general del movimiento anarquista en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: La Protesta, 1923). In 1927, the Argentinian newspaper La Protesta published several essays by anarchist intellectuals from around the world to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. The commemorative supplement was titled Certamen Internacional de La Protesta (La Protesta’s International Contest), and it was a testament to the recognition the newspaper had received in the global radical community. It included literary contributions from Diego Abad de Santillán (1897–1983), José Cayetano Valadés (1901–1976), and Luigi Fabbri (1877–1935), among others. Max Nettlau (1865–1944), the historian known as the Herodotus of Anarchy, used this opportunity to publish an extensive bibliography of anarchism in Latin America.1 This impressive list showcased his meticulous archival obsession, which he had nurtured for almost four decades. The bibliography was organized chronologically and by different forms of print media, with a section dedicated to books and pamphlets and another section to newspapers. Nettlau’s historical methodology mirrored that of a biologist as well as a linguist of his times.2 His formal academic training began in 1882, when he started studying philology. He came of age at a

moment when European scientists traveled to all the corners of the world trying to discover new species to add to an ever-incomplete archive, while disseminating their findings in journals and books.3 After decades of collecting anarchist periodicals, leaflets, and any type of document he could get his hands on, Nettlau published an account of his own travels under the title Libertarian Journey through Latin America. It appeared in Barcelona’s anarchist journal La revista blanca (The White Magazine) in December 1934. “A couple of months ago,” wrote Nettlau, “I made a libertarian and historical journey through Latin America, the continent as well as the islands. It was an imaginary journey, because I have never been to America.”4 Unlike traditional travel writers, Nettlau wrote about Latin America without ever setting foot outside of Europe.5 In a highly globalized world that was interconnected by the migration of bodies, letters, and technologies, he did not have to. As he wrote two years prior to his Libertarian Journey in the Argentinian magazine Nervio (Spirit), “Now you can talk to America and hear its voice without having to leave your house, you just need a good radio.”6 While often overlooked by historians, Latin America played an important role in Nettlau’s effort to historicize anarchism on a global scale. He dedicated many pages to constructing the continent’s anarchist history. As a historian, Nettlau was one of the first intellectuals to propose a systemic and continental approach to historicizing anarchism in the region, a project that would be later taken up by scholars like Carlos Rama, Ángel Cappelletti, and David Viñas. Moreover, as an anarchist, he was a key historical figure in the development of Latin America’s anarchist imaginary. Shortly after the publication of Nettlau’s Contribution to Latin America’s Anarchist Bibliography until 1914 (1927) and A Libertarian Journey through Latin America (1934), they became key documents for the study of Latin American radical history. I will use both publications to advance two arguments. First, through his archival fever, Nettlau not only served as a nexus in the global cartography of radical ideas at the turn of the twentieth century—connecting radicals across continents through correspondence and exchanges in print media—but also deeply influenced our historical understanding of Latin American anarchism. Second, and perhaps

most important for the purposes of this volume, Nettlau considered Hispanic anarchists in the United States as part of his imagined Latin America. Because of his internationalism, Nettlau understood the Latin American continent as an ethnolinguistic entity beyond nationstates. I begin this chapter with a brief biographical sketch and then explore Nettlau’s correspondence with two anarchist activists, José Lóuzara de Andrés (1891–1973) from Steubenville, Ohio, and Enrique Nido (1884–1928) from Rosario, Argentina. I then will explain how Nettlau’s Latin American bibliography and his imaginary journey were part of a larger incomplete project of historicizing the region with the help of activist scholars like Lóuzara and Nido. Albeit incomplete, Nettlau’s intellectual project not only helped shape Latin America’s anarchist historiography, but it also influenced the historical actors that called him a maestro. As Lóuzara wrote in New York City’s Cultura Proletaria, “there is not a single country on earth that has not heard the name of the author who just wrote a biography of Reclús: Nettlau, the erudite.”7

The Herodotus of Anarchy Max Heinrich Hermann Reinhardt Nettlau was born on April 30, 1865, in Neu- waldegg, now part of Vienna, Austria. He began his studies in Berlin in 1882 and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the grammar of medieval Welsh under the title, Studies on the Cymric Grammar. During the 1880s, Nettlau traveled to Great Britain to conduct research, where he joined the Socialist League and met radical German exiles like Johann Most (1846–1906). Although he was still unknown in the international intellectual community, it was during that time that Nettlau started publishing articles, in the Socialist League’s newspaper, The Commonweal, and later edited The Anarchist Labour Leaf. During that same period, he also penned articles in Most’s incendiary paper, Freiheit (Freedom).8 In 1892, Nettlau’s father passed away and he inherited a modest fortune that allowed him to continue pursuing his literary and archival passions without having to worry about academic life. He was also an avid collector of anarchist materials; at times, he had a monthly buying quota of at least 1,000 documents. One of Nettlau’s biographers and a close friend, the historian Rudolf Rocker (1873–

1958), estimated that Nettlau amassed a total of approximately 40,000 documents in his collection. In addition to his anarchist archive, he also embarked on writing a biography of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) that would turn out to be a life project comprised of multiple volumes, manuscripts, translations, and revisions. Nettlau’s research on Bakunin’s works, and later his biographies of famous and not so well-known anarchists, led him to visit libraries in London, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, and Berlin.9 In 1895, he joined the London-based anarchist group Freedom, and two years later, thanks to the encouragement of world-renowned anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus (1830–1905), Nettlau published his first major work: Bibliography of Anarchy. It was an impressive 292-page volume that included details on thousands of anarchist documents from around the world. After its publication, Nettlau’s name became known beyond the European continent. While Nettlau never traveled outside Europe, by the time he published the Bibliography he had already collected a great number of anarchist publications from Latin America. He gathered the data from his research in Europe’s great libraries, along with his sustained correspondence with anarchists in the Americas since the 1890s. As early as 1892, he exchanged papers with Victoriano Díaz, a Cuban anarchist who edited the newspaper Los hijos del mundo, in Havana.10 Likewise, Nettlau received documents and information from European anarchists who had lived in the Americas, including Pedro Esteve (1865–1925), Diego Abad de Santillán (1897–1983), Luce Fabbri (1908–2000), Errico Malatesta (1853–1932), and John Creaghe (1841–1920).11 Nettlau was very critical of his own work and at times failed to recognize its importance. In one instance, in 1924, the Argentinabased anarchist Enrique Nido sent him a copy of his book, General Report of the Argentinian Anarchist Movement. After he read it, Nettlau sent a letter to the author—who later became his very good friend—asking for more details about a congress mentioned in the book. Nido replied: “The information that I mention about the regional anarchist congress in page four of my report was given to me by a comrade, who took it from the Bibliography of Anarchy written by

yourself.”12 By then, Max Nettlau was well known, read, and discussed in Latin America.

Militant Intellectuals Nettlau did not consider himself a militant in the anarchist movement. He argued, “I have never been an active participant in the movement, other than through the articles in which I have spelled out my views. My life has been given over completely to the movement’s history and all of my own views can be found in my writings.”13 Yet, crafting a history of Latin American anarchism was not just part of his historical vocation, it can also be interpreted as a political project. Nettlau felt that World War I greatly weakened the global anarchist movement. “In our times,” he wrote in 1927, “any pleasantness seems vanished or hidden and only resides in the older [militants’] memory.”14 For this reason, Nettlau praised anarchists in the Americas for their efforts in developing international conversations through surveys. From 1926 to 1928, the Spanish-speaking group, Iconoclasta (Iconoclast), from Steubenville, Ohio, conducted an international survey, which was later published in their magazine Revista Única (Unique Magazine). Perhaps the most active member of the Iconoclasta group was José Lóuzara, a metal worker of Spanish descent who signed his correspondence and articles under the pseudonym Rodolfo Lone. As Jesse Cohn’s chapter in this volume demonstrates, Lóuzara was crucial in the creation of Spanish-speaking networks in the United States. Not only was Lóuzara one of the founding members of the “Federation of Spanish-Speaking Anarchist Groups in the United States,’” but he also collaborated with various Spanishlanguage anarchist newspapers there. Lóuzara founded and collaborated in varying degrees with newspapers and journals, such as Aurora (Dawn), Inquietudes (Concerns), Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture), Revista única, and Vía libre (Free Way).15 The latter, for example, was created because Lóuzara felt that anarchists needed to fill the vacuum created by the Spanish Civil War (1936– 1939) for their Spanish-speaking publications in the United States.16 However, Lóuzara’s social sphere was not limited to the country in which he lived. He also collaborated with other international

publications, such as Nervio (Spirit), Ruta (Route), Solidaridad Obrera (Workers’ Solidarity), Tierra y Libertad (Land and Freedom), and Umbral (Dawn), among others.17 Lóuzara was also a frequent collaborator in the biweekly supplement of the Argentinian newspaper La Protesta (The Protest), the world’s longest running Spanish-language anarchist publication. Because of Lóuzara’s active participation in the international anarchist press, Steubenville, Ohio, became a nexus in the global circulation of anarchist ideas. Indeed, when La Protesta’s editorial published Max Nettlau’s biography of Élisée Reclús in 1927, he wrote a short review in New York’s Cultura Proletaria. In it, Lóuzara announced that those interested in acquiring a copy could do so in three different international locations: in Barcelona through La Revista Blanca, in Buenos Aires through La Protesta, and in New York, through Cultura Proletaria. In this way, writing from his home in Steubenville, Ohio, Lóuzara addressed comrades in different cities throughout the Western hemisphere. In a highly globalized age, this posed a problem for authorities. In 1929, after the Italian socialist Fernando de Rosa (1908–1936) attempted to kill Prince Umberto II of Italy in one of his official visits to Belgium, police officers cracked down on European radicals. Among those arrested in Belgium was the famous anarchist Camillo Berneri (1897–1937). When Berneri’s house was raided, police officers found his correspondence with Lóuzara. Consequently, across the ocean, Lóuzara’s home in Steubenville was also raided, and police officers confiscated several of his letters and publications. He was taken to the police station, put under arrest, and interrogated for being an anarchist. Lóuzara was charged with taking part in an international conspiracy, something he laughed off when informed about it. Because he lacked a previous criminal record, Lóuzara was released on bail but put under surveillance. Writing while being a Spanish-speaking anarchist in the United States was, after all, seen as an act of defiance against the state.18 The survey published in the Revista Única was also the product of Lóuzara’s international connections. It was originally conceived as a literary contest and was published throughout several issues of Argentina’s La Protesta. According to the Iconoclasta group, it was an effort to “unite anarchists from both continents.”19 Lóuzara sought

to attract potential participants by offering a prize of $50 to the best contributions of the survey. Nettlau was crucial to the survey’s development and success. Lóuzara sent at least a dozen letters to Nettlau asking him to contact anarchist comrades in different parts of the world. “As you should know,” wrote Lóuzara to Nettlau, “you possess global prestige in the realm of letters and I am sure that those comrades will not deny participation in our survey.”20 Lóuzara sent lists of comrades he wanted Nettlau to contact, shared their addresses, and promised to pay shipping costs. However, the Iconoclasta group was criticized in the international press for lack of transparency. The Russian Jewish anarchist Alexander Schapiro (1882–1946) used the pages of the Italian newspaper Veglia (Vigil) to criticize how the Iconoclasta group handled the survey. According to Schapiro, details about how to answer the survey and specifics about how the $50-prize was going to be awarded were murky.21 Thus, when Lóuzara informed Nettlau that he was going to be awarded the first prize because of all his efforts and his many contributions to the survey, he asked him to keep it a secret.22 Nonetheless, their efforts were fruitful. Some of the collaborators who answered the survey included world-renowned anarchists like Federica Montseny (Spain, 1905–1994), Juan Grave (France, 1854–1939), Miguel Giménez Igualada (Spain/Mexico, 1888–1974), Lu-Chien-Bo (Lu Jianbo, China, 1904–1991), Camillo Berneri (Italy, 1897–1937), and Luigi Fabbri (Italy/Uruguay, 1877– 1935), among others. Nettlau collaborated with the Iconoclasta group and later established a long-lasting friendship with Lóuzara, which was sustained through their correspondence. The latter greatly admired the anarchist historian, referring to him as “maestro,” even when Nettlau complained and disliked the label.23 But, their relation was not only anchored in friendship, solidarity, and internationalism. Lóuzara became an informant and a nexus in the cartography of knowledge weaved by Nettlau. While they talked about personal and movement-related affairs in their correspondence, Lóuzara also supplied Nettlau with firsthand information about the Spanishspeaking anarchist movement in the United States. Likewise, Nettlau

asked for favors, such as finding information about obscure anarchist publications or acquiring copies of recently published journals.24 Both men had great hopes for the usefulness of the Iconoclasta survey. Lóuzara argued, “contests are the best way to get novices interested in the [anarchist] ideal.”25 For Nettlau, on the other hand, surveys were the best way to sustain transnational conversations in the age of print media’s global circulation. In the late nineteenth century, the anarchist movement held various international congresses that allowed for conversations on different theories, strategies, and alternatives. Nonetheless, after the 1900 Paris Congress, Nettlau felt that the global conversation had become taciturn, perhaps due to state repression and World War I (1914– 1917). However, he believed that the Iconoclastas’ survey broke that silence.26 The conversations and debates that originally took place in congresses could now take place in magazines and newspapers. In other words, he envisioned print media as potential public forums for anarchists to imagine other worlds and alternatives. A few years after the Iconoclastas’ effort, the Argentinian leftist journal Nervio conducted a similar survey. As the editors of Nervio collaborated increasingly with anarchist intellectuals, the journal radicalized its tone and adopted an openly anarchist stance.27 In 1933, the editors carried out an international inquiry titled “Our Worldwide Survey, America-Europe.” The survey asked leftist thinkers to answer three specific questions about the possibilities of unifying both continents: 1) what is the position of the Americas visà-vis Europe, and vice versa? 2) what is South America’s specific role in universal culture? and 3) how can both continents be unified? 28 Dozens of intellectuals, including many anarchists, answered the survey, and their responses appeared throughout several issues of the journal. Nettlau’s reply was published first, probably out of respect and because his answer was more elaborate than the rest. Although the word anarchism goes unmentioned in the text, Nettlau’s contribution sketches out his internationalist stance. For him the only thing that really divided the continents was the ocean, which had ceased to be an obstacle because of advances in technology. Nettlau also argued that proximity was not merely

physical, suggesting an idea similar to what Pierre Bourdieu would decades later call “social space.”29 Nettlau stated: “My closest neighbor, depending on his qualities, can be as close or far as all of the Americans.”30 Hence, what defines the level of closeness between people is their affinity and not their physical proximity. Nettlau did not socialize much with his neighbors, but he felt close to the comrades with whom he maintained correspondence around the globe. One of these comrades was the Argentine-based anarchist Enrique Nido.31 Amadeo Lluán, later known as Enrique Nido, was born in Barcelona in 1884. As a declared anarchist, he traveled around Europe to promote libertarian ideas. In 1910, a year after Barcelona’s Tragic Week and the assassination of Francesc Ferrer i Guardia, he migrated and settled in Argentina. Immediately after setting foot in South America, Nido hoped to avenge Ferrer’s death by putting a bomb in the Spanish Consulate in Argentina. Yet things did not go as planned; the bomb exploded in his hand and he suffered serious injuries, including the loss of four of his lefthand fingers. After he served five years in prison, Nido continued to advance the anarchist cause through the publication of newspapers and magazines. In addition, he opened a rational school in Rosario, Argentina, which took up most of his time.32 Nido was not only a militant anarchist but also an intellectual. He published various books on the history of anarchism in Argentina, which he sent to Nettlau and discussed in their letters. Like Lóuzara, Nido respected Nettlau’s work.33 In Rosario, Nido and his comrades tried to emulate Nettlau by organizing a catalog of past publications, events, and names of older militants in order to rescue them from the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, Enrique Nido died shortly after, in 1928. Yet, he embodied the qualities of the militant scholar that Nettlau would theorize about afterward. For Nettlau, the history of Latin American anarchism would only become a reality if militants like Nido or Lóuzara took an active part in its production, incorporating the work of history to their broader political projects.

Historicizing Latin America: An Incomplete Project

Nettlau’s A Contribution to An Anarchist Bibliography of Latin America until 1914 was his first attempt at historicizing Latin America.34 The book’s concluding date was not arbitrary. The start of World War I marked the beginning of Nettlau’s precarious economic life. He wrote, “[after 1914 came] my absolute separation from the South American literature that had interested me since 1890.”35 When the war ended, currency was devalued across the globe, forcing Nettlau to live from his writing, which at times led him to extreme misery. Although he recovered his Latin American documents in 1922, friends and comrades living in London, Paris, Munich, and Vienna kept most of his archival collection.36 By 1924, rumors about Nettlau’s precarious economic situation had spread in Latin American anarchist communities. Out of admiration, several Argentinian anarchists decided to help him. The anarchist group Claridad (Clarity) organized a public fund-raiser at the Teatro Roma in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, the publishing house Argonauta announced that it would be collecting funds through the pages of La Protesta. When Nettlau found out about the efforts to save his library, he was enraged. He felt that the donations only promoted and reproduced corrosive philanthropic and hierarchical relations. To make sure all the collected money was returned, Nettlau authorized his comrade Enrique Nido to serve as his representative in Argentina.37 Although he lived precariously at times, it appears that misery fueled Nettlau’s genius. It was during these years that he was most productive and when he ended up writing various monograph-length works.38 In his contribution to the anniversary issue of La Protesta, Nettlau documented hundreds of anarchist newspapers, books, and pamphlets from throughout the continent. Besides his impressive list of materials, Nettlau also sketched a possible methodology for a Latin American history of anarchism. This, he believed, would inevitably reinvigorate the movement. As he wrote elsewhere in relation to the decreasing influence of anarchism on a global scale after the war, “We carry the 19th century in our bowels. No one can steal the past from us, nor our dreams of the future.”39 Thus, to build

a strong anarchist movement, Nettlau believed that militants needed to “understand past struggles, actions, and histories.”40 For such an undertaking, Nettlau proposed a “systemic research” project. Since material culture had disappeared in most places, he encouraged the creation of surveys as a way of documenting the experiences of older militants who preserved the movement’s local histories. “And only if that sort of local research into anarchist origins were followed up by painstaking local bibliographies,” wrote Nettlau, “only then might Latin America’s anarchist history and bibliography be pieced together.”41 Nettlau envisioned his Latin American bibliographical work as an initial contribution to this project.42 Yet, it was only through the collective effort between the research production of militants and its analysis by critically minded scholars that “one day it will be feasible to seriously tackle this great undertaking that is still needed: The History of Latin America’s Anarchist Movements.”43 It is in this context that Nettlau embarked on his 1934 imaginary trip to Latin America. His Libertarian Journey is written from the point of view of a spectator that, as he confessed, “does not know the continent’s main languages and that knows infinitely little about its inhabitants.”44 It was not to be a history of a particular tradition but of different strands of anarchist thought that had developed in the Americas. This approach was in tune with his idea of respecting the opinion of socialist minorities, or what some scholars have coined as “anarchism without adjectives.”45 It also allowed him to frame his analysis beyond national borders. While he still used the nation-state model to differentiate between movements and organizations, Nettlau also analyzed them from an ethnolinguistic lens. For example, while his imaginary trip started in Cuba, the Spanish-speaking anarchist communities in the United States immediately followed. Nettlau traced the activity of Spanishspeaking anarchists in Florida, New York, New Jersey, and, of course, Steubenville, Ohio. Thus, what defined his conception of Latin America was language and not geographical location. 46 Nettlau dedicated a few paragraphs to the work of Pedro Esteve in the creation of Cultura Proletaria and forged a connection between

anarchists in New Jersey and Florida. Nettlau’s writings were constantly featured in Cultura Proletaria and Lóuzara’s Vía libre. His interventions, which went from ideological treatises against syndicalism to critiques of the Soviet regime became so popular that some texts were attributed to him even when he had not written them.47 For example, in its April 20, 1929 edition, Cultura Proletaria reproduced a letter by Max Nettlau explaining that, contrary to what had been stated in the newspaper, an article published a few weeks earlier under the title of “Anarquismo” (Anarchism) had not been written by him, even if he agreed with most of it.48 In A Libertarian Journey, Nettlau wrote: “The aristocratic approach [to history] is to ignore the great masses and pay heed only to the odd excellence, and that outlook is not ours, for it sees and respects only the grand leaders.” Then he added: “It is the labor of the humble, of the workers, that created the fertile soil where it is feasible for a few fairly great talents to blossom into those rare men of true genius.”49 Nettlau received information that some comrades in Bolivia were trying to translate anarchist works into indigenous languages, such as Quechua and Aymara. But, as he stated: “that was interrupted [by the war between Bolivia and Paraguay], and if not interrupted, I am not aware of its results.”50 Yet, Nettlau mimicked the same aristocratic logic he criticized, albeit on a smaller scale. That is, although he recognized the importance of movements and anonymous actors, he analyzed the history of local anarchist communities through the experiences of specific individuals. For example, his analysis of late-nineteenthcentury Argentina gravitated around Ericco Malatesta and Pietro Gori (1865–1911), and he reproduced a similar logic when looking at other countries: Rafael Barrett (1876–1910) in Paraguay or Ricardo Flores Magón (1874–1922) in Mexico, to name a few. Regarding countries like Chile or Peru, Nettlau argued that because anarchists had dedicated themselves to the labor movement they lacked intellectuals, which in turn “produced a regression in the advancement of ideas.”51 Similarly, his analysis of Spanish-speaking communities was mostly anchored around the figure of Pedro Esteve, perhaps because the information gathered about Spanish-

speaking anarchist activities during the turn of the century might have come from Nettlau’s correspondence with Esteve himself.52 Through the pages of A Libertarian Journey, Nettlau mentions women in passing and only as historical objects not subjects.53 Likewise, his omission of race—he only mentions “slave owners” once but not the slaves themselves—perpetuated an ongoing and perilous myth of racial democracy in the region. Furthermore, the “universal” ideal espoused by Nettlau and his contemporaries needs to be deconstructed as it was a Eurocentric understanding of the world. Although I do not want to question Nettlau’s intentions, it would be useful to problematize the fact that his work was produced within a Western logic of trying to decipher the Latin American other. Understanding anarchism as an heir of European modernity and as a Western enterprise in need of decolonization can help us imagine other networks and possibilities in the present. This should, by no means, preclude the importance of Nettlau’s work. His monumental study of Latin American anarchism represents an invaluable contribution to the region’s historiography, and some of it remains unpublished.54 Nettlau considered his Libertarian Journey a work in progress. While he often promoted historical objectivity and criticized most representations of Latin America as a mixture of reason and fantasy, Nettlau imagined the text as a conversation. In other words, he consciously challenged his own authority by breaking the divide between author and reader. When describing anarchist activities in El Salvador, Nettlau wrote about having found evidence that the son of “one our anarchist predecessors,” the French individualist Anselme Bellegarrigue (182?-?), lived in the country’s capital. Nettlau had written a biographical sketch about Bellegarrigue in the French newspaper Les Temps Nouveaux (The New Times), which he sent to Bellarrigue’s son along with other details of his father’s life. Nettlau concluded: “I do not know if he received it as I never got an answer from him. Maybe someone could get me this information, perhaps some reader from San Salvador.”55 Likewise, when writing about places where he had little to no information of anarchist activities, Nettlau formulated open-ended questions for his readers to answer. “Did socialism or US trade

unionism circulate there [in Puerto Rico]?” “Did Biófilo Panclasta (Vicente Lizcano, [1879–1943]) publish his memoirs as he announced in a pamphlet printed in Bogota in 1932?” “Were anarchists persecuted [after finishing their work] in the Panama Canal?” Scholars have answered most of these questions, but it is nonetheless impressive how Nettlau formulated them from his desk in the first decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, Nettlau traveled throughout Latin America’s anarchist communities without ever setting foot outside of Europe.

The Completion of an Incomplete Project The 1930s saw the rise of fascism in Europe and the crushing defeat of an anarchist revolution in Spain, which Nettlau recalled as some of the most terrible days of his life. In May of 1940, the Nazis confiscated Nettlau’s legendary collection and he died of stomach cancer four years later, thinking that his life’s work had vanished forever. But Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History, to which Nettlau had sold his documents in an act of desperation, was able to recuperate them after the war. Thousands of documents, letters, pictures, newspapers, and unpublished manuscripts serve as a testament of a life dedicated to creating, mapping, and imagining a global history of anarchism.56 Two years after Nettlau’s death, the labor organizer and founder of the New York Teachers’ Guild, Sarah Fanny Simon (1903–1989), published a 21-page article titled “Anarchism and AnarchoSyndicalism in South America” in the Hispanic American Historical Review (Vol. 26, no. 1). It is, to my knowledge, the first published attempt to look at the history of Latin American anarchism through a continental lens. It would take several decades for other scholars to develop other continental histories of anarchism in Latin America. Among them were Alfredo Gómez Muller (1980), David Viñas (1983), Ángel Cappelletti and Carlos Rama (1990), and Luis Vitale (1998). All of them built their analysis on Nettlau’s initial research, even when this went unacknowledged, as in the case of Viñas.57 This does not mean, however, that the historical study of Latin American anarchism was nonexistent before these continental approaches. Since the early years of the twentieth century, anarchist militants have been producing local histories and scholars have been

exploring anarchism in countless books, articles, and pamphlets since the 1960s. Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer have recently documented different trends in Latin America’s anarchist history, from the social history and working-class–oriented frameworks that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, to the more recent cultural and transnational turns in the humanities and social sciences.58 Moreover, it could be said that Max Nettlau was the first intellectual to envision and work toward a continental history of anarchism in Latin America. After Nettlau published his Contribution to Latin America’s Anarchist Bibliography until 1914, it quickly became a foundational text for the study of anarchism in any Latin American country, despite its many absences and silences. I have suggested elsewhere the importance of exploring these gaps to unearth unknown anarchist networks on a global scale. The difficulty lies is recognizing these silences, but once identified, the process of historicizing them can offer different links to the ever-growing study of radical networks. In Puerto Rico, for example, not much is known about a cluster of anarchists that published a newspaper called Voz Humana. Yet, the only surviving copies of the newspaper along with a communiqué announcing its cancelation—now available in microfilm in multiple international libraries—came from Nettlau’s archival collection, because of his interactions with turn-of-thecentury Puerto Rican anarchists.59 While the case of Puerto Rico serves as an example, it was hardly unique, and it represents an open invitation to historians.

Conclusion Although Max Nettlau did not consider himself an active member of the anarchist community (perhaps out of false modesty), he was undoubtedly cherished and well respected. His monumental correspondence with anarchists throughout the continent is evidence of this. Nettlau became a prominent nexus in the global cartography of radical ideas at the turn of the twentieth century.60 For instance, when Lóuzara and the anarchists from Steubenville, Ohio, began putting together their international survey, they turned to Nettlau for help. As the correspondence between Lóuzara and Nettlau

demonstrates, the latter heavily relied in the former’s fame and international contacts to attract potential participants. Nettlau’s influence was not limited to transnational interactions; it was also ideological. His articles were translated, reproduced, and often cited in Hispanic and Latin American anarchist newspapers. It was not uncommon for newspapers like New York City’s Cultura Proletaria or Argentina’s La Protesta to praise Nettlau’s intellectual contributions to anarchist historiography and political thought. Furthermore, as the personal correspondence of Nettlau with Enrique Nido and Lóuzara attests, anarchists in the Americas admired his ideas, which they would circulate locally among their comrades. However, this was not a one-sided interaction. Nettlau put his international contacts at Lóuzara’s service, but he also depended on people like him or Nido to expand his transnational networks. Nettlau often asked them for information about historical events, peoples, or specific issues of obscure newspapers. In a sense, Latin American anarchists became living links in the global network of information that Nettlau had been weaving since the 1890s. It was through such interactions that he began to articulate his continental history of Latin American anarchism. The bibliography published in La Protesta became the archival foundation of the project he later began to develop in An Imaginary Journey. As Nettlau explained, to create such an ambitious history, it was necessary to establish a network of militant activists that would generate local data for historians to analyze later. While his project was not completed, it did set the foundations for future histories of anarchism in the region.61 Even as Max Nettlau’s relation to Latin America has been historiographically overlooked, this chapter has sought to highlight another important aspect of his thought. Following Nettlau, I have analyzed Hispanic anarchists in the United States as part of Latin America. For Nettlau, people like José Lóuzara and Pedro Esteve resided in the United States but were part of Latin America’s broader anarchist tradition. Although Contribution to Latin America’s Anarchist Bibliography and A Libertarian Journey were divided into national units, Nettlau analyzed Latin America through an

ethnolinguistic lens. This allowed him to consider Hispanic, Italian, and Portuguese anarchists in the United States as part of Latin America.62 While his ethnolinguistic approach to the study of movements may seem as a minor contribution when compared to the copious anarchist historiography that has been produced in the last seven decades, it might prove enormous. Perhaps there is much to learn from Nettlau’s internationalist worldview, which allowed him to analyze anarchist interactions beyond national borders. Although he recognized the organizing power of nation-states, he also demonstrated how anarchist movements transgressed them, even if only sometimes in the realm of imagination. Notes The author would like to thank Aurora Santiago-Ortiz, Montse Feu, Chris Castañeda, Kahlilla Chaar-Pérez, and Jesse Cohn. 1. Although the nickname, “Herodotus of Anarchy,” was made known by Rudolf Rocker in the book by the same name, El herodoto de la anarquía (México: Ediciones Estela, 1950), Vladimiro Muñoz argues that it was the Spanish anarchist Vicente Orobón Fernández who first compared Nettlau to Herodotus of Halicarnassus in 1926. See Vladimiro Muñoz, Max Nettlau: Historian of Anarchism, trans. Lucy Ross (New York: Revitionist Press, 1978), 12–13. 2. Bert Altena, “A Networking Historian: The Transnational, the National, and the Patriotic in and around Max Nettlau’s Geschichte der Anarchie,”in Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies, ed. Bantman and Bert Alberta (New York: Routledge, 2015), 62–64. For biographical information, see Rudolf Rocker, Max Nettlau: El Herodoto de la anarquía (México: Ediciones Estela, 1950). Although Max Nettlau’s “Viaje libertario a través de la América Latina” was originally published in Barcelona’s La revista blanca, no. 308–310 (December 14, 21, and 28, 1934), for the purposes of this chapter I am using a version that was revised and commented by V. Muñoz published in the Argentinian magazine Reconstruir, no. 76–78 (1972). 3. See Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008). For more on travel writers, see Lourdes de Ita Rubio and Gerardo Sánchez Díaz,

eds., Humboldt y otros viajeros en América Latina. Michoacán Morelia: UMSNH and Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2006. 4. Nettlau, “Viaje libertario a la América Latina,” Reconstruir no. 76, (1972): 31. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 5. Nettlau, “Contribución a la bibliografía anarquista la América Latina hasta 1914,” in Certamen internacional de La Protesta en ocasión del 30 aniversario de su fundación: 1897–13 de junio-1927 (Buenos Aires: Editorial La Protesta, 1927), 5. 6. Nettlau, “Nuestra encuesta mundial América-Europa,” Nervio vol. 2, no. 13 (May 1932): 26. 7. R. Lone, “La vida de un sabio, justo y rebelde: Max Nettlau y Eliseo Reclús, Cultura Proletaria (Aug. 31, 1927): 3. 8. See Bert Altena, “A Networking Historian,” 62–64; Heiner M. Becker, “Max Nettlau, 1865–1944. The Person,” Introduction to A Short History of Anarchism, by Max Nettlau. (London: Freedom Press, 1996). 9. Rudolf Rocker, En la borrasca: Años de destierro (Buenos Aires: Editorial Tupac, 1949), 74; Rocker, Max Nettlau: El Herodoto de la anarquía; “Chronology of Max Nettlau,” Anarchy Archives, accessed December 8, 2016, http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/nettlau/chronol ogy.html; Margreet Schrevel, “Max Nettlau, 1865–1944,” International Institute of Social History, accessed December 8, 2016, http://www.iisg.nl/collections/nettlau/index.php. 10. Victoriano Díaz to Nettlau, March 22, 1892, File 2275, Max Nettlau Papers, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (hereafter cited as Nettlau Papers). 11. Nettlau, “Contribución a la bibliografía,” 5. 12. Enrique Nido to Nettlau, January 15, 1924, File 900, Nettlau Papers. 13. Max Nettlau, A Contribution to an Anarchist Bibliography of Latin America, trans. Paul Sharkley (California: Kate Sharpley Library, 1995), i. 14. Nettlau, “Algunas palabras con motivo de la conclusión de la Encuesta de los Iconoclastas,” Revista Única, Steubenville, Ohio (January 1928): 3.

15. Miguel Íñiguez, Esbozo de una enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001), 348. 16. R. Lone to Nettlau, April 14, 1939, File 765, Nettlau Papers. 17. Miguel Íñiguez, Esbozo de una enciclopedia, 348. 18. Lone recounted this event in a letter to Nettlau, July 3, 1930, File 765, Nettlau Papers. For more about the tensions between immigration and radicalism, see Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015). 19. Nettlau, “Algunas palabras, 2.” 20. R. Lone to Nettlau, October 11, 1926, File 765, Nettlau Papers. 21. Ibid., January 19, 1927. 22. Ibid., January 10, 1926. 23. Ibid., December 17, 1928. 24. Nettlau asked for information or copies of Pedro Esteve’s journal Único and other publications. See the correspondence between Lone and Nettlau, from September 1927 to January 1928, Nettlau Papers. 25. R. Lone to Nettlau, July 6, 1926, File 765, Nettlau Papers. 26. Nettlau, “Algunas palabras, 4.” 27. Juan Ignacio Sago, “Arte y política. La imagen del grabado y el compromiso político en una revista anarquista: Nervio. Crítica-artesletras (1931–1936).” B.A. Thesis, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2010. 28. Letter from Nervio’s editor to Nettlau, February 16, 1932, File 895, Nettlau Papers. 29. For the theory of social space, see Pierre Bourdieu, “Social Space and Symbolic Power,” Sociological Theory vol. 7, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 14–25. 30. Nettlau, “Encuesta Mundial Europa-América, Dr. Max Nettlau,” Nervio: Crítica, arte y letras Year II, no. 13 (May 1932): 26. 31. En Nettlau’s social habits, see Rocker, En la borrasca, 76–80. 32. Enrique Nido to Max Nettlau, September 14, 1924, File 900, Nettlau Papers; Also, María Fernanda de la Rosa, “Diego Abad de Santillán y su actuación en el anarquismo argentino,” unpublished manuscript, 36, note 73.

33. María Fernanda de la Rosa, ibid. 34. J. C. de Valadés also promoted the idea of a continental history, but his bibliography was composed of documents regarding only Uruguay, Mexico, and Argentina. See, J. C. Valadés, “Documentos para la historia del anarquismo en América,” in Certamen internacional de La Protesta, 83–89. 35. Nettlau, “Contribución a la bibliografía,” 22. 36. Ibid., 33. Bert Altena, “A Networking Historian,” 64. 37. See José M. Fernández to Nettlau, September 22, 1924, File 418, Nettlau Papers. Also, Enrique Nido to Nettlau, September 16, 1924, File 900, Nettlau Papers. 38. See Carlos Díaz, “Sobre Max Nettlau,” Prologue to La anarquía a través de los tiempos, by Max Nettlau (Madrid: Ediciones Jucár, 1977), 10–11. Also, Rocker, Max Nettlau, 218–229. 39. Nettlau, Introduction to A Contribution, i. 40. For more on the development of anarchism during World War I, see Ruth Kinna and Matthew Adams. Anarchism 1914– 1918:Internationalism, Anti-militarism, and War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). 41. Nettlau, “Contribución a la bibliografía,” 33. 42. Nettlau, A Contribution, 2. 43. Nettlau, “Contribución a la bibliografía,” 13, 33. 44. Nettlau, “Viaje libertario,” no. 76, 33. 45. Becker, “Max Nettlau,” xix. Rocker, En la borrasca, 78. Rocker, Max Nettlau, 146–165. 46. Nettlau, “Viaje libertario,” no. 76, 33–34. 47. See Cultura Proletaria (November 24, 1928), 1; (March 16, 1929), 1; (April 6, 1929), 1; (August 3, 1929), 3; (December 28, 1929), 2; (January 11, 1930), 2; (March 22, 1930), 2; (June 14, 1930), 2; (March 21, 1931), 2; (April 2, 1932), 2; and Via Libre (May 1, 1940), 1, 2; (May 15, 1940), 1, 2. 48. “Una carta de Max Nettlau,” Cultura Proletaria (April 20, 1929): 1. 49. Nettlau, A Contribution, 2. 50. Nettlau, “Viaje libertario, no. 76, 39. 51. Ibid.

52. They started corresponding in 1890. See Esteve and Nettlau’s letters in File 363, Nettlau Papers. 53. For an important contribution on the role of women in Latin America’s libertarian movements, see Cristina Guzzo, Libertarias en América del Sur: De la A la Z (Buenos Aires: Libros de Anarres, 2014). 54. For example, Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology just recently published the Mexican chapter of Nettlau’s universal history of anarchism. However, there are parts of the book that have not been published yet. See Nettlau, Actividad anarquista en México: Rhodakanaty y Zalacosta. Ricardo Flores Magón, Regeneración y las insurrecciones por ‘tierra y libertad’. Apuntes sobre la propaganda anarquista y sindical tardía, trans. by Diana Stoyanova Tasseva and Lucrecia Gutiérrez Maupomé (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2008). 55. Nettlau, “Viaje libertario,” no. 78, 42. 56. Rocker, Max Nettlau, 230–287. 57. Alfredo Gómez Muller, Anarquismo y anarcosindicalismo en América Latina: Colombia, Brasil, Argentina y México (Barcelona: Ruedo Ibérico, 1980); David Viñas, Anarquistas en América Latina (México: Editorial Kartún, 1983); Ángel Cappelletti and Carlos Rama, Historia del anarquismo en América Latina (Venezuela: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1990); Ángel Cappelletti, Hechos y figuras del anarquismo hispanoamericano (Madrid: Editorial Madre Tierra, 1990); Luis Vitale, Contribución a una historia del anarquismo en América Latina (Chile: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales Pedro Vuskovic, 1998). 58. Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer, “The Hidden Story Line of Anarchism in Latin American History,” Introduction to In Defiance of Borders: Anarchism in Latin American History (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015), 1–22. 59. Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, “Los ecos del silencio: Dimensiones locales y aspiraciones globales del periódico Voz Humana,” Revista La Brecha Year. II, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 23–27. For a historical analysis of Voz Humana, see Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, Voces libertarias: Los orígenes del anarquismo en Puerto Rico, 3rd ed. (Lajas: Editorial Akelarre and Centro de Estudios e Investigación del Suroeste de

Puerto Rico, 2015); and Kirwin Shaffer, Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897– 1921 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013). See also Communiqué by Grupo Solidaridad, “A los compañeros,” File 3409, Nettlau Papers. 60. Bert Altena calls Max Nettlau “a networking historian. See Altena, “A Networking Historian.” Constance Bantman uses the term “militant go-betweens” to people like Pouget or, in our case, Nettlau, who would forge local and transnational networks. See Constance Bantman, “The Militant Go-between: Émile Pouget’s Transnational Propaganda, 1880–1914, Labour History Review vol. 74, no. 3 (December 2009): 274–287. For global cultures of resistance, see Jessue Cohn, Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture, 1848–2011 (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2014). 61. He did include Mexico in his Geschichte der Anarchie, and that section has been recently translated to Spanish; see Nettlau, Actividad anarquista en México, op cit. 62. Bert Altena has documented a similar organizing pattern in Geschichte der Anarchie. See Bert Altena, “A Networking Historian.”

CHAPTER 11

Reflections of the United States Through the Pages of La Revista Blanca, 1923–1936 MARÍA JOSÉ DOMÍNGUEZ AND ANTONIO HERRERÍA FERNÁNDEZ The Spanish anarchist periodical, La Revista Blanca (The White Magazine), maintained strong connections with the Americas. First, through an international approach, where prominent anarchists living in North America were translated and published in its pages, and secondly, by the exchange of articles, news, and funds raised between it and other sister Spanish anarchist magazines and groups established in the United States. La Revista Blanca was an important part of the Hispanic transnational anarchist print network, but this connection with the United States has not been previously explored in depth. La Revista Blanca’s second period from 1923 to 1936 is of particular importance for understanding the later anarchist movements in the United States, since most studies on the subject focus primarily either on its 19th-century origins or on its progress during the 1920s.1 In that decade through the 1930s, the total number of Spanish immigrants in the United States was estimated to have reached over half a million,2 and the anarchist community was also strong, maintaining a constant population of about 2,500 active Spanish anarchists and over 2,000 Spanish anarchist sympathizers, according to Marcelino García, who was the editor of Cultura Proletaria for over twenty years;3 Cultura Proletaria was then the most well-known Spanish-language anarchist newspaper printed in the United States. The pages of La Revista Blanca show the connections between the sister magazines on both sides of the Atlantic and provide invaluable testimonies and references to the Spanish anarchist communities and groups living in the United States. La Revista Blanca was published in two stages: originally in Madrid from 1898 to 1905 and then in Barcelona from 1923 to 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The founder and editorial head, Joan Montseny, also known as Federico Urales, started the

periodical in collaboration with his wife, Teresa Mañé, who signed her articles under the alias Soledad Gustavo. His daughter, Federica Montseny,4 joined the magazine at the age of eighteen years old, writing articles and publishing her first novel within the pages of the magazine. Aside from their editorial work, they also managed the administration and distribution of the magazine, which included the collection, reception, and allocation of funds toward different anarchist causes. Through the efforts of the Montseny family, La Revista Blanca became the most important anarchist publication in Spain.5 Originally, La Revista Blanca was biweekly, and then it transitioned to a weekly publication. The magazine contained approximately forty pages, depending on the week. Within the magazine’s pages there were different categories and subjects ranging from sociology, to science, and to the arts, among other political topics. The affiliation of the magazine with its anarchist ideology was under surveillance by the authorities and therefore was the target of censorship. The impact of censorship resulted in La Revista Blanca being released only once a month on multiple occasions due to political constraints. This situation led to La Revista Blanca, including the following quotation in several issues, bringing awareness to the readers while trying to protect the printed issue: This magazine is being published following all requisites indicated by the Printing Law, as well as the norms imposed by the Government. Even though it has passed censorship, this does not imply it will be free of accusations. Nevertheless, nobody can retain any issues of this magazine unless it has been previously ordered by the Superior Authorities.6 Regardless of the censorship and the various hardships it suffered, La Revista Blanca became the main anarchist publication in Spain during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The importance of the magazine was not limited to Spain and extended through connections in other countries and anarchist movements abroad, thus becoming part of the anarchist international network. In this context, the pages of La Revista Blanca reflected political opinions, news, and events regarding other anarchist communities outside of Spain.

Spanish anarchist communities, as did other immigrant anarchist communities in the United States, published their own newspapers, typically in Spanish, and they collaborated with La Revista Blanca. During the early 20th century, the most well-known Spanish anarchist newspaper in the United States was Cultura Obrera, (1911–1927), whose editor was Pedro Esteve. After Esteve’s death, the newspaper was reborn as Cultura Proletaria (1927–1953). Other prominent newspapers associated with the Spanish anarchist community in the United States were El Despertar (1891–1902), Brazo y Cerebro (1912), El Corsario (1919), and Revista Única, edited in 1928 by the Iconoclastas Group.7 The expatriate Spanish anarchists in the United States maintained an active flow of news, ideas, and people using La Revista as the main channel through which they communicated. This exchange, in its multiple forms, is depicted in a picture from La Revista Blanca published on September 1, 1933. The photograph shows three sympathizers reading three different anarchist newspapers: Cultura Proletaria, CNT, and El Luchador.8 La Revista Blanca also reproduced news stories originating in the United States, imprinting its own political thought in the process. Additionally, it recalled anniversaries and well-known international anarchist figures to highlight the history of the anarchist movement. The magazine regularly covered the anarchist movement in the United States as well as its most important figures, including Pedro Esteve, who became the most prominent Spanish anarchist in that North American country. Other articles focused on educational models, women’s emancipation, anarchist ideologies, and propaganda. Furthermore, La Revista Blanca distributed materials originating in the United States, including sister magazines and books. These printed materials were aligned with the anarchist ideals of free access to education and culture to the masses.

Pedro Esteve in La Revista Blanca Pedro Esteve (1865–1925) was a profoundly important figure in the establishment and continuity of the transatlantic relationship between Spanish anarchists in the peninsula and those living in the United States.9 He is now generally considered to be the most influential

Spanish anarchist then living in North America,10 but this is a relatively recent development of recovery as Catalan historian Joan Casanovas noted in 1991 that Esteve “is almost absent from both the Spanish and American historiography.”11 In 1902, Pedro Esteve’s name surfaced in the list of publications sold through the administrative offices of La Revista Blanca, when he was already living in the United States. Some of his work sold in Spain through La Revista Blanca included Memorandum, in which he published his memoirs of the International Anarchist Conference celebrated in Chicago in 1893, and his book A propósito de un regicidio (Apropos of a Regicide).12 Both titles were published in Paterson, New Jersey, in the printing press of the newspaper El Despertar (The Awakening, 1891–1902), which Esteve had brought from New York.13 This demonstrates how both anarchist publications, La Revista Blanca in Spain, and El Despertar in the United States, collaborated in order to offer Esteve’s books to a potential market of readers in Spain. A few years later, on April 1,1905, La Revista Blanca mentioned the first two issues of a new Spanish anarchist publication in Paterson, New Jersey. The weekly newspaper was released under the title Doctrina (Doctrine), and, like multiple anarchist publications, it was ephemeral.14 In reference to Doctrina, La Revista Blanca stated: The cover of this magazine reads “P. Esteve, publisher,” and it is subtitled, “Anarchist Socialist.” The first article of the first issue is entitled, “Why We Publish Doctrine,” and states that doctrine and principles are indispensable to men, so that they can be distinguished from things. Then, “Reaffirmations” follows, signed by P. Esteve. The synthesis this article sustains is that anarchy and the anarchists need to return to the first period to start the propaganda again and not to move from purely labor-based territory. His opinion we respect because it does not offend anyone.15 The statements reproduced from Doctrina in La Revista Blanca were followed by an ambivalent response toward Esteve’s judgment. La Revista Blanca disagreed with Esteve’s ideology of a collectively

edited Spanish anarchist press, rather than individual publications, pointing out that he, paradoxically, proclaimed himself as the only editor of Doctrina. In this context, La Revista Blanca was also published thanks to the individual efforts of the Urales family, who did not believe that a sole editor jeopardized the quality and commitment of the magazine. La Revista Blanca responded to Esteve’s opinion in the following manner: The assumption seems unfair and risky to us. … But having an individual editor should not be that serious for the anarchist press, nor will this be the motive for unpleasant discussions among colleagues, mainly when Doctrina shares ostensibly and permanently with its readers that it has an individual editor called P. Esteve, something that the Spanish anarchist press has never done, even when it was edited by individuals more or less full of pride.16 The contacts, discussions, and dialogues between both sides of the Atlantic show the fluidity of communication and the constant debates between the Spanish anarchists on both sides. Sometimes the debates and discrepancies over the direction of anarchism were profound, as Federica Montseny states in the article “Breve historia del movimiento anarquista en EEUU” (Brief History of the Anarchist Movement in the United States). Her words reflect some of the concerns presented in La Revista Blanca. That is the case of the article “Del llamado revisionismo anarquista” (On the So-Called Anarchist Revisionism), published on September 1, 1924. In this article, La Revista Blanca established a political debate with her sister magazine, Cultura Obrera of New York, criticizing her revisionist theories on anarchist ideals.17 Regardless of the debates and possible ideological conflicts between the different Spanish anarchists, La Revista Blanca shows a sense of solidarity that prevailed over internal disputes among its members. That is particularly true concerning the news of the death of Pedro Esteve, which was published October 1, 1925, under the title “Tristes nuevas” (“Sad News”). This article shows how solidarity and respect among the anarchist members overcame any internal dispute. The news of Esteve’s death reached out to La Revista Blanca via London, through Vicente García (1866–1930),18 who was

the primary press correspondent for La Revista Blanca in the United Kingdom and a personal friend of Pedro Esteve.19 Two weeks later, on October 15, 1925, La Revista Blanca dedicated four pages to the memory of Esteve. In large font, the heading announced: “Pedro Esteve ha muerto” (“Pedro Esteve Has Died”).20 In this editorial article, the Spanish anarchist magazine described Esteve as a self-made man; a workman of the printing press who, thanks to his own talent and effort, became the Federal Commission Secretary of the Spanish Regional Federation (antecedent of the working trade unions). The article continued with a short biography, focusing mainly on Esteve’s work as a journalist. La Revista Blanca noted that Pedro Esteve had worked in 1888 as a columnist for El Productor (The Producer, 1887–1893 and 1902–1904), an anarchist newspaper in Barcelona. In December 1891, he began a propaganda tour around Spain, accompanied by his comrade, the Italian Errico Malatesta (1853–1932). In 1892, he migrated to New York, where he escaped from the Spanish authorities, who accused him of initiating labor uprisings in cities such as Jerez in the South of Spain. The essay also summarized how once in New York, he collaborated with the newspaper El Despertar and later founded Cultura Obrera. La Revista Blanca also included portions of Esteve’s writing from his book Reformismo, dictadura, federalismo (Reformism, Dictatorship, Federalism), where he criticized the complacency of North Americans, who left everything in the hands of the government. In the same text, he defended the economic emancipation of women and the Russian model of cooperative management of land, rather than the capitalist agglutination of properties. Finally, Esteve demanded an intensive propaganda effort to awaken the anarchist libertarian ideal in human consciousness: “We should worry about using conferences, newspapers, books, and rationalist schools for enlightening men, women and children’s blinded minds.”21 Written while in the United States, Esteve’s ideas and activities related to those he exercised in the peninsula, where he disseminated anarchist propaganda and thought through his newspapers.

Ferrer School, Excursionism, and Solidarity

Education is one of the pillars of anarchism, rooted in the belief that anarchism should create “rationalist schools for enlightening … children’s minds.”22 Indeed, the editors of La Revista Blanca, Gustavo and Urales, were both teachers who home-schooled their daughter, Federica. Many of their articles highlighted the importance of education as the only way to build an ideal society: We anarchists are fighting for, and proclaiming, the transformation of the current society, so it can be replaced with a more human and equitable one, … a society where work will be a recreation, instead of being a burden, as it is today; A society where there will be no laws other than those of Nature. … But to reach such a desired society only three things are needed, which are: education, education, and education.23 La Revista Blanca rejected traditional educational methods and aimed for a modern pedagogical approach based on those of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909), father of the Ferrer/Modern School, although with some variations. Federica Montseny, for example, defended a pedagogy based on individualism and total freedom of thought, as she stated, “I am sure the pedagogy of the future will create a higher course of ultimate and supreme teaching, which should be called self-discernment and spiritual strength.”24 These ideas generally aligned with those of Ferrer. Ferrer i Guàrdia was a role model for the anarchists in Spain and worldwide. His pedagogical line of work emphasized the process of active learning, moving away from memorization. He refuted the educational establishment and promoted a secular dogma. The name of the pedagogue was evoked over the years in the pages of La Revista Blanca. In “Efemérides del pueblo” (“Today in History”), Gustavo reminded readers that Ferrer i Guàrdia was executed, along with other anarchist prisoners, in Montjuïc (Barcelona) on October 13, 1909.25 Even after his death, some of his ideas continued to be implemented in rationalist schools and later in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Education). It was mainly in the United States where Ferrer’s figure was solidly perpetuated in the Francisco Ferrer i Guàrdia’s Association, established in the meeting of the Liberal Alliance of Harlem on June 3, 1910, nine years after the inauguration of the Modern School in Spain. In Paterson, the

Italian community had its own Squola Moderna Francesco Ferrer by 1915.26 The Ferrer School served a dual purpose. First, it offered a nonreligious coeducation of both children and workers, and second, it became a meeting point for the anarchist community, as described in an article from La Revista Blanca, “Socialistas, libertarios y dictadura capitalista en los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica” (Socialist, Libertarians, and Capitalist Dictatorship in the United States of North America): Two important groups resisted the war turmoil and the Bolshevik oppression: The libertarian group of New York, which had its nucleus in the Modern School (Ferrer School) and was located in the libertarian Stelton colony (New Jersey), and the Spanish group, which promoted the anarchist publications tirelessly, written and edited by Pedro Esteve until his death in 1925.27 Federica Montseny defined pedagogy as “la más transcendente y fundamental de las ciencias” (the most transcendental and fundamental of sciences).28 In her article “Pedagogía homicida” (Homicide Pedagogy), she denounced the suicide of a fourteenyear-old boy in Granada, Spain, after failing an exam. She alleged in this article that exams should be eradicated from schools because they represented a severe apparatus that created an aggressive atmosphere between teachers and students. She compared this teaching methodology with an inquisitorial tribunal that humiliated intelligent disciples. Surprisingly, Montseny used the United States as an example of ideal pedagogy, “The ideal pedagogy, which will undoubtedly be the pedagogy of the future, began already in German and Yankee ‘kindergartens’ and in the great free universities of the countries of the North, and it is exercised equally by the disciple and the teacher.”29 By contrast, Antonio Estévez (1897–1960), an anarchist who migrated to Delaware in 1923 from the Spanish region of El Bierzo, León, held a different opinion.30 Estévez wrote an essay for La Revista Blanca, “La pedagogía yanki” (Yankee Pedagogy). Estévez noted how some Spanish academics wrote misguided articles after visiting schools and universities in the United States for only a day.

Estévez lived in the United States and wanted to depict an accurate image of the American school system to his colleagues in Spain. He openly criticized the brutal teaching methods used in the schools within the United States by comparing them to the old-school Spanish motto, “la letra con sangre entra” (Spare the rod and spoil the child). To validate his point, he gave several examples of the abuses suffered by the students in the American school system: “Last year, in one of Hackensack’s elementary schools in New Jersey, there was a teacher who clenched her nails fiercely into the tender flesh of her disciples, both girls and boys, slapping them and pulling their hair.”31 In his opinion, American schools did not follow an ideal pedagogy, as Montseny pointed out, rather they followed a system that was as bad as existed in the traditional Spanish schools. In this atmosphere, he agreed with Federica Montseny about the necessity of an integral reformation of the educational system. The Modern School represented a new approach to teaching, leaving behind exams, punishments, and textbooks, and following a more hands-on methodology instead. A key element of the Ferrer i Guàrdia active teaching method was learning outside the classroom. Students visited museums and factories and combined school and the natural environment, an aspect shared by Federica Montseny: “Y por única Universidad, el inmenso cuadro de la Naturaleza” (And as the sole University, the immense canvas of Nature).32 Within this context, learning in nature and visiting the countryside were emphasized, which included excursions and trips by both the anarchist schools and the Spanish anarchist cultural groups. This learning model appeared in another article printed in La Revista Blanca, “Excursión de la Escuela Moderna a Badalona” (Excursion of the Modern School to Badalona). The outing was attended by Ferrer i Guàrdia himself on June 15, 1904, to celebrate the end of the academic year: The Modern School solemnly closes the school year with … the excursion or field trip after visiting a factory in the morning, so that the children may confirm in practice the theoretical notions received during the course, and so that they have an exact notion of the pains and fatigues experienced by the workers in industrial manipulations. … Our director and friend Mr. Ferrer, who does

not spare the means when it comes to providing entertainment for the students of the Modern School, gave us a pleasant surprise by hiring a street piano to be brought to the picnic.33 Years later, excursions were also practiced on the other side of the Atlantic. The Modern School movement in the United States also stressed the necessity of learning in a natural environment. An example of this appears on a photo published in the “Excursionism Section” on October 15, 1931, when the Centro de Estudios Sociales (Center of Social Studies) of White Plains, New York, organized an excursion to the canal that connected the Great Lakes. Within the same image, there is a picture caption with the names of the participants, which brings to the foreground the influence of Spanish anarchists in the United States: Starting from the left, the comrades Salvador Espí, Angelina Muller, Roberto A. Müller, partner of E. Bertrán, Eduardo Bertrán, Clotilde Betances and her husband, behind; José Rodríguez, A. Gil, Claro J. Sendón, José Romani and his son, in front of him, and “The Kaiser,” whose name we do not remember.34 Another example is the outing promoted by the group Cultura Proletaria of New York. A picture illustrating this trip was published in La Revista Blanca on December 1, 1931. This image shows a family portrait of five children dressed in white surrounded by vegetation set in the summer. The caption says, “Sweet partner P. García, comrade Sendón and five little ‘flower buds’ in the middle of a forest in New York.”35 Another image published in the same issue of La Revista features the group Cultura Proletaria celebrating an excursion to the shore of the Hudson River in New Jersey. In this photograph, a large group of approximately thirty members, including children, posed in front of the camera.36 The photographs of these anarchists in the United States were similar to those images of the Spanish anarchists in the peninsula. Enjoying nature was a common practice among Spanish anarchists on both sides of the Atlantic. The excursions, aside from holding together the Spanish community, served as a means of raising money for the cause. On November 15, 1933, La Revista Blanca published a one-page article entitled “Crónica de Norteamérica: Festival campestre pro presos

sociales españoles” (“North American Chronicle: Picnic Pro-SpanishSocial-Prisoners”). The article praised the generosity of all attendees, who donated their money and participated in the excursion despite the stormy weather. This chronicle expressed that “never before was the Hispanic element as ready to show solidarity for the fallen as on this occasion. A distance of forty-seven miles was not an obstacle for hundreds of Hispanics to attend and help their brothers, victims of the monarchic-republican-socialist fascism.”37 The funds collected were destined for their comrades across the Atlantic. In Spain, the two years of the First Biennium of the Second Republic (1931–1933) were characterized by multiple reforms and by social insurrections. The Civil Guard repressed anarchist protests and put down strikes by incarcerating, deporting, and even killing protesters.38 A common sentiment of solidarity toward these victims was shared among anarchist members on both sides of the Atlantic. La Revista Blanca expressed the commitment of Hispanic groups in the United States to alleviate the situation of their imprisoned comrades in the peninsula: This attitude clearly demonstrates that the Hispanic element is on the side of the social prisoners, deeply cursing a system that, in order to survive, incarcerates, kills, burns alive, and forces into exile those who loyally and honestly want to implant in Spain the Libertarian Communism.39 To fulfill the economic necessities of the cause, the last section of each issue of La Revista Blanca included the “Editorial Notes,” which detailed the funds collected and how the money would be distributed. Dealing with money was not always an easy task, since the treasurers were in many cases the administrators of the funds. This was the case of the Montseny family, editors of the magazine. Therefore, transparency was fundamental; they mediated capital disputes among members in some instances. For example, on August 15, 1924, the section, “Noticias y observaciones” (“News and Observations”) from La Revista Blanca states: A colleague from the Prisoners Committee of Barcelona has visited us to inquire about the necessity to find out who has been receiving the money for the imprisoned workers since last year; the money amounts [to] several thousand Pesetas, sent from

North and South America. The Prisoners Committee has only received seven dollars from Chicago. Therefore, whoever has sent any money should specify to whom they sent it to.40 An important aspect of fundraising is that the process demonstrates not only the international transactions but also the connections of the magazine. That was the case with New York’s Cultura Proletaria, that in a list published on March 1, 1934, raised 1,451.94 pesetas ($232) for Spanish prisoners.41

Colonias in the United States La Revista Blanca also focused on the development of different anarchist social models in the United States. America in general, and the United States in particular, was perceived as a land of opportunities, a place to establish and develop communal societies. It reflected the interest in those models within the United States. On July 27, 1934, La Revista Blanca identified Home Colony as the first anarchist community in the United States.42 According to La Revista Blanca, this colony was founded in 1897 in the forests of Washington state. However, it was the trip of the Asturian-born Maximiliano Olay [Onofre Dallas] (1893–1941) to the anarchist colony of Sunrise in Alicia, Michigan, on September 14, 1934, that gave an invaluable testimonial account of the insights within this anarchist community. His chronicle, “La colonia Sunrise” (“The Sunrise Colony”), sent from Chicago, revealed some unique aspects of the colony. More than 300 people lived there in 1934, with an additional population of 100 transitory visitors. Under his pen name, Dallas’s words describe the daily activities and the organization of the colony, whose economy was mainly agrarian. Within the community, there was no need for currency that was used only in external transactions. Among the anarchist ideas implemented were the eight-hour daily shifts, no work on Sundays, and the equal distribution of tasks. Nevertheless, Dallas ended his detailed chronicle strongly criticizing the colony’s lack of commitment toward the anarchist ideology and foresaw its decay. La Revista Blanca provides valuable information about a variety of Spanish anarchist groups in the United States, including Cultura Proletaria, Ateneo de Educación Social, Nosotras, Floreal, and the Spanish Workers’ Defense and Publicity Committee. The Ateneo de

Educación Social and Cultura Proletaria were indeed very important for the Spanish community. In fact, Cultura Proletaria, aside from being a group, was also the main Spanish anarchist newspaper in circulation in the United States and succeeded Pedro Esteve’s Cultura Obrera. This publication experienced several censorship challenges during its lifetime, like many other anarchist newspapers in Spain and abroad. In this sense, La Revista Blanca published a clarification regarding the ups and downs faced by Cultura Proletaria on February 15, 1930, under the title “Una aclaración” (“A Clarification”). This note revealed the misleading news, which had appeared in a previous issue of La Revista Blanca, about the closure of the newspaper Cultura Proletaria. The article stated that despite the censorship suffered, the magazine would continue to deliver journals on a weekly basis; the essay was signed by the editors of Cultura Proletaria. On their part, the editors of La Revista Blanca apologized for the misunderstanding and wished a long life to the publication.43 Other groups were not as visible as Cultura Proletaria. That is the case of No- sotras, formed by Spanish anarchist women. La Revista Blanca exposed its existence and its connections. Nosotras joined Cultura Proletaria on their excursions to the countryside, as illustrated in the images belonging to the article “Jornadas proletarias” (“Proletarian Days”),44 written by Antonio Estévez and published on September 1, 1931. In these photographs, there are members of both parties sharing a picnic together. Identifying a group like Nosotras helps to bring forward names and activities developed by the Spanish women’s immigrant community. Apart from Nosotras, the group Floreal surfaced in La Revista Blanca. The name “Floreal” derives from the date of May 1, which follows the month “Germinal,” the first month of spring in the French Republican calendar.45 The genesis of this group appears in the supplement of La Revista Blanca on December 1, 1929. The foundational manifesto was written by the Galician Claro J. Sendón (1897–1937) in Blair Station, Pennsylvania. Sendón migrated to America in the 1920s, but he returned to Spain in the 1930s, participating actively in meetings and speeches with Federica Montseny. His name is mentioned several times throughout the

pages of La Revista Blanca, where he is also linked to Cultura Proletaria and to the Galician Pro-Prisoners Committee in the peninsula. The initial lines of the manifesto state that Floreal is the given name under which, “we, a group of rebels, a group of people against the ruling power, have constituted a libertarian group.”46 This opening letter contextualized the framework from which this group was derived. Similar to other groups, they stressed the necessity to help their imprisoned comrades and criticized the persecution of anarchist members. However, in this case, they not only criticized the so-called capitalist countries but also the recently formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Part of this criticism was due to the persecution of anarchists in the newly formed USSR. In 1919, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were invited by Vladimir Lenin to the USSR but soon were forced into exile in 1921, following the attacks and incarceration of fellow anarchist members in the Soviet Union. Floreal aligned itself with other anarchist groups, like the F.A.I. (Federación Anarquista Ibérica—Iberian Anarchist Federation), and the A.I.T. (Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores—International Association of the Workers), establishing a worldwide solidarity network. As an expat group, they placed themselves as a referral for all “in-need” comrades forced into exile from their countries of origin. Based in the United States, Floreal considered this country as their new promised land despite its paradoxes. This memorandum also requested printed materials from Spanish anarchist publications. They accepted newspapers, flyers, and other propaganda in several languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English. This demonstrated that the Spanish immigrants in the United States were part of a larger community mainly formed by Romance language origins. The Comité de Defensa de los Trabajadores Españoles y de Publicidad de los Estados Unidos de América (Spanish Workers’ Defense and Publicity Committee of the United States of America) was another group promoted by La Revista Blanca. On June 8, 1934, it published a translation of its bylaws originally written in English. These foundational guidelines indicated that Spain was the

reason for the existence of the committee. The manifesto stressed two main aspects: the criticism of the communist “dictatorial” regime in Russia, and the economic cooperation with anarchist prisoners in Spain. All money collected for this cause was sent to their main location at 94 Fifth Avenue, New York City, or to its associated groups: Cultura Proletaria, Freedom Group, Vanguard Group, and Free Workers’ Center Group, all of them located there.

Conclusion News about the United States printed in La Revista Blanca acknowledged an ambivalent sentiment toward the country’s economic establishment. North America was considered the paradigm of capitalism, hence a target of anarchist criticism due to the understanding of capitalism as a means for the privileged minority. Many articles referred to the United States as “Yanquilandia,” a name which implies a negative connotation. Joan Montseny, disguised under the alias “Baturrillo,” and his daughter, Federica, wrote many of these notes and scathing comments. Yet, the articles in La Revista Blanca illustrated the exchange of news and magazines among anarchist publications, and most importantly, the motivations, causes, and some of the daily activities of the Spanish anarchist groups in the United States. La Revista Blanca, like many other anarchist magazines, focused on a global sense of community, emphasizing education, social conscience, and solidarity among the working class. This chapter approaches the transatlantic anarchist connections between the United States and Spain depicted within the pages of La Revista Blanca, specifically during the magazine’s second phase (1923–1936). As described in this essay, La Revista Blanca had strong ties with the anarchist community in the United States. This contact translated into articles, notes, and images that allow the revival of the history of Spanish anarchism in the United States during the first decades of the 20th century. Esteve’s newspapers and the Ferrer pedagogical model expose Spanish anarchist cultural groups and the existing anarchist communes in the United States. Some of the names of the groups mentioned were already well known, but others, for the most part, were anonymous. These groups had a similar way of interacting among themselves as the

ones in the Iberian Peninsula, by organizing outdoor trips, raising funds for the anarchist causes, and reading and distributing anarchist publications in Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic. Reporting on events in the United States in the pages of La Revista Blanca expands our knowledge of anarchism in North America, in general, and specifically of the ongoing movement of Spanish anarchism in the United States. Notes 1. In 1919, the United States passed an immigration law to deport alien anarchists from the United States. One example was the deportation of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, two of the major international leaders of anarchism. 2. Victor Fuentes Hernández, Memorias del Segundo exilio español (1954–2010) (Madrid: Verbum, 2011), 126. 3. Paul Avrich, Anarchist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 392. 4. Federica Montseny Mañé (1905–1994) was the first woman to hold a ministerial position in Spain, becoming Minister of Health and Social Welfare in 1936, during the Spanish Second Republic, under the government of socialist Francisco Largo Caballero (1869–1946). 5. Lily Litvak, Musa libertaria (Madrid: Fundación Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001), 288. 6. This note appears in most issues of La Revista Blanca, although not always in the same page. The quote has been translated by the authors of this chapter from the original source, in Spanish, found in the first page of the magazine published on April 15th, 1925. 7. Beito Alonso Fernández, Obreiros alén mar (Santo Tirso, Portugal: A Nossa Terra, 2006), 117. 8. La Revista Blanca (Sept. 1, 1933), 204. 9. Susana Sueiro Seoane, “Inmigrantes y anarquistas españoles en EEUU (1890–1920),” in Conflictos y cicatrices: fronteras y migraciones en el mundo hispánico, Almudena Delgado Larios, ed. (Madrid: Dykinson, 2014), 273–286. 10. In the words of Susana Sueiro Seoane, “During three decades, Esteve had a continuous and frantic activity, he did a tremendous job broadcasting anarchist ideas among the Spanish, Italian, Cuban,

and Puerto Rican working media. … In Paterson, in New York, in Tampa, in the West mining fields, among textile and tobacco workers, miners, sea men and workers from the docks, he was the most influential Spanish liberal figure,” “Inmigrantes y anarquistas españoles en EEUU (1890–1920),” 12. (Translated from the original citation.) 11. Joan Casanovas i Codina, “Pedro Esteve (Barcelona 1865– Weehauken, N. J. 1925): A Catalan Anarchist in the United States,” Catalan Review vol. v, number 1 (July 1991), 57–77. 12. These titles appear repeatedly in the library lists of several issues of the magazine, under the title “Biblioteca de La Revista Blanca” (“Library of The White Magazine”), for example, in La Revista Blanca (Aug. 15, 1901), inside cover. As a curiosity, Memorandum had a sale price of 1 peseta, and Apropos of a Regicide was sold for 30 cents, in Spanish currency. 13. Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants against the State, Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 65. 14. La Revista Blanca (Apr. 1, 1905), 615–615. There is some discrepancy on dates and titles between what La Revista Blanca published and the information published by Joan Casanova i Codina, who claims that the title was La Doctrina Anarquista Socialista with its first issue on September 15, 1905, instead of April 1 (“Introduction for Pedro Esteve’s Socialismo anarquista: La ley, la violencia, el anarquismo, la revolución social”). Catalan Review vol. III, number 2 (1989), 9–44). 15. La Revista Blanca (Apr. 1, 1905), 615. 16. Ibid., 616. 17. Ibid., 1. 18. La Revista Blanca (Oct 1, 1925), 4. 19. In their book, El anarquismo en Burgos (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2015), Ignacio C. Soriano, Francisco J. Barriocanal, and Fernando Ortega explain how Vicente García Díez Varona would have been touring Spain with Esteve doing some propaganda work in 1891 and 1892, and how García Díez Varona could have visited Esteve in the United States, collaborating with him in El Despertar in 1892.

20. La Revista Blanca (Oct. 15, 1925), 12. 21. Ibid., 13. 22. Ibid. 23. Julio Pi, “La libertad,” La Revista Blanca (Sept. 1, 1925), 38. 24. La Revista Blanca (Sept. 1, 1924), 11. 25. La Revista Blanca (Aug. 1, 1927), 18. 26. Zimmer, Immigrants against the State, 65. 27. La Revista Blanca (July 27, 1934), 581. 28. Federica Montseny, “Pedagogía homicida,” La Revista Blanca (June 15, 1926), 49. 29. Ibid. 30. To know more about this anarchist’s biography and his writings, see Vicente Fernández Vázquez, Antonio Estévez (1897– 1960): Textos literarios y otros escritos (León, Spain: Instituto de Estudios Bercianos, 2015). 31. Suplemento de La Revista Blanca (Oct. 15, 1926), II. 32. La Revista Blanca (June 15, 1926), 49. 33. José Casasola, “Excursión de la Escuela Moderna á Badalona,” La Revista Blanca (July 15, 1904), 47–48. 34. La Revista Blanca (Oct. 15, 1931), 320. 35. La Revista Blanca (Dec. 1, 1931), 406. 36. Ibid., 411. 37. La Revista Blanca (Nov. 15, 1933), 367. 38. The Madrid CNT-AIT official webpage mentions 30 general strikes, 3,600 partial strikes, 400 deaths, 9,000 detentions, and 160 deportations during only the first year and half of the Republic. The worst insurrection started on January 8th, 1933, with 3 weeks of strike throughout the country, intense shootings in Barcelona, and the proclamation of Libertarian Communism in the small Andalusian town of Casas Viejas. The Republican government sent the Assault Guards to contain the uprising, and after a night of fighting, the Guards burned the house where the peasants were hiding. In sum, 22 civilians and 3 guards died in Casas Viejas, either by bullet wounds or incineration. www.madrid.cnt.es/historia/la-cnt-en-lasegunda-republica (access date May 7, 2017). 39. La Revista Blanca (Nov. 15, 1933), 367. 40. La Revista Blanca (Aug. 15, 1924), 38.

41. Suplemento de La Revista Blanca (Mar. 1, 1934), VII. 42. The term colony was used in these periodicals to refer to immigrant communities in the United States. 43. Suplemento de La Revista Blanca (Feb. 15, 1930), X. 44. Antonio Estévez, “Jornadas proletarias,” La Revista Blanca (Sept. 1, 1931), 217. See La Revista Blanca (Aug. 1, 1927), 18, regarding the author of this article. 45. Its name is also linked to the execution of a group of key members in the French Revolution, who were executed in the month of Germinal in 1794. 46. To know more about the life of Claro José Sendón and his writing, see Pepe Sendón, Falando Claro (Galicia: Editorial Alvarellos, 2014).

CHAPTER 12

Transnational Anarchist Culture in the Interwar Period The Magazine Estudios (1928–1937) JAVIER NAVARRO NAVARRO Estudios:Revista Ecléctica (Valencia, 1928–1937) was a Spanish libertarian cultural magazine that had a significant international presence and strong link with the American continent in the early twentieth century. Together with La Revista Blanca (Madrid, 1898– 1905, and Barcelona, 1923–1936), which was analyzed by María José Domínguez and Antonio Herrería Fernández in the previous chapter, Estudios was particularly important because of its diffusion, readership, and prestige among the libertarian, working-class, and freethinking milieu on both sides of the Atlantic. This essay analyzes the unique features of Estudios, its background and its success in general. Through its coverage of a broad range of modern topics including birth control, eugenics, sexual reform, naturism, alternative medicine, criticism of capitalism, and reflection on the future postrevolutionary society, Estudios wove a transnational network that connected militants, writers, scientists, anarchist propagandists, and those who held revolutionary and progressive sensibilities. The American continent was one of the magazine’s main areas of dissemination. Writers from various American countries regularly collaborated with it. Likewise, there was a cultural flow of exchange and information about the work of similar cultural publications or publishing houses in the Americas. Estudios had a stable and solid readership in the United States, with regular points of sales and distribution—especially in New York and Los Angeles. It established connections with Spanish-speaking anarchist groups, especially in New York, and with propagandists, centers, and publications close to its main topics of interest, particularly naturism. It should be noted that the prolific Venezuelan libertarian naturist writer and pacifist Carlos Brandt, who lived in New York, was closely linked to Estudios (as well as with Cultura Proletaria, published in that city). Another important figure who helped to connect Estudios with the United States was José María

Martínez Novella, a Valencian naturopathic doctor who also lived in New York; he wrote essays and collaborated with the magazine on topics such as naturism, science, and sexual reform, reporting on the debates and discussion on these subjects in the States.1 On the other hand, there was ongoing coverage in Estudios of the United States, both in issues related to the journal’s iconic topics (eugenics, for example) and, in general, to the social situation of the country and the crisis of capitalism.

Estudios: Revista Ecléctica: A Cultural Libertarian Project in Spain during the Interwar Period Both Estudios as well as its publishing house were equally significant and original. Edited monthly in Valencia from December 1928 until June 1937, Estudios. Revista Ecléctica was published at the same time as the magazine La Revista Blanca. Both were published not only during the Spanish Second Republic, but also earlier during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Estudios was unique because it contained indepth articles about social and cultural topics not driven by contemporary political developments. Its pages covered a great variety of subjects ranging from pedagogy, science, medicine, health, sexuality, sociology, and economy to art, literature, geography, history, anticlericalism, ethics, and pacifism. Cultural and ethical education of popular classes, understood from a comprehensive approach as it was usually considered by libertarians in that period, was among its main aims. This task was completed by the implementation of a publishing house and a bookshop service that distributed a considerable number of books and leaflets.2 The singularity of Estudios was based on other distinctive features, which made it easily recognizable by Spanish workingclass networks as well as in the Spanishspeaking libertarian and freethinking universe of the 1920s and 1930s. Estudios had actually continued the work of its predecessor, Generación Consciente (1923–1928). In fact, Generación Consciente, at the end of 1928, had to change its name in order to avoid censorship and political prosecution directed at the media that promoted birth control during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.3

Generación Consciente (“Revista Ecléctica”) began publication in 1923, in Alcoi, a Valencian city with an important anarchist and confederal tradition. Among its main aims was the defense of a “conscious maternity,” birth control accessible to workers and physical regeneration of proletarians (attending to a rational control of reproduction that could guarantee optimal life and health conditions) as well as the spread of a new sexual morality far from the one dominant in the bourgeois society. Generación Consciente overcame the coup d’état of Primo de Rivera and found a refuge in its condition as a magazine of theory, culture, and thought (trying to avoid concrete references to the political issues of that time) in order to evade censorship. The magazine’s editors moved to Valencia in 1925 hoping to find a more hospitable publishing location. However, the birthrate policy during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the legal prosecution of those publications that were spreading contraceptive theories and practices forced the magazine to change its name to a more neutral one, Estudios, in December 1928. They preserved the previous subtitle: “Revista Ecléctica.”4 Generación Consciente/Estudios was characterized by a defense of neo-Malthusianism and birth control, eugenics, and “sexual reform,” and it paid specific attention to these subjects. It argued in favor of a double aim: reducing workers’ birthrate and improving their quality (eugenics). It used a hygienist and regenerationist discourse insisting on a new free and lay conception of sexuality detached from procreation. Disseminating these principles to the general public and worker readership was precisely one of the main aims of the magazine’s editors. They also wanted to promote a debate about these ideas inside the labor movement in Spain, especially from the most advanced libertarian sectors who were more sensitive to these questions and were represented by the magazine. Generación Consciente/Estudios became one of the main Spanish publications in the spreading of neo-Malthusianism and eugenics’ theoretical and practical doctrines. The analysis of characteristics of different contraceptive methods as well as the advertisements of its mailorder trade and distribution appeared frequently in the magazine.5

The multifaceted sexual and reproductive topics as well as the fact that the magazine supported naturalism and alternative medicine (it spread the thesis of naturist and anarcho-naturist movements during those years) were the main identity features of Estudios, which were easily recognizable and partially responsible for its success.

Dissemination, Influence, and Prestige of Estudios Estudios had a significant impact on the Spanish libertarian social and cultural context, which also extended to the labor movement and to the popular groups that were related to these subjects and attitudes during the 1930s. The magazine’s importance is evident in its distribution throughout the whole of the Iberian Peninsula as well as in several countries in Europe and in the Americas and also by an increasing circulation that reportedly reached a peak of 70,000. That number most likely reflects sales of some of its annual special issues, but evidence suggests that the average number of copies sold was smaller, perhaps 50,000, which was reduced to 25,000 in 1933, as claimed by Alexander Shapiro, the representative of the International Workers’ Association.6 Importantly, the magazine’s circulation was above the sales volume of similar publications within the libertarian and labor movement in general. Beyond this issue, Estudios became a highly regarded journal inside the Spanish anarcho- syndicalist milieu. Its articles were frequently quoted and became a reference for related publications, which confirms the quality and rigorous perception it enjoyed. It was also regularly talked about and imitated, especially in libertarian circles. Estudios’ message was addressed to popular classes, especially to those who were interested in culture, probably autodidacts and occasionally buyers of books from the magazine’s huge library. It was also addressed to an important sector of young workers who wanted to change their daily lives and mental habits such as their attitudes toward the “sexual problem” (as it was called), relationships between men and women, and naturism. All these subjects played an important role. Later, many former readers mentioned the influence that the magazine had on them and, in general, on many anarchist activists and on trade unionists during those years.

However, this influence was not limited to the libertarian milieu. For the young workers, the magazine was a kind of oracle, a guide that helped them change their own daily lives: their sexual behavior and relationships, alternative medicine, and naturism.7 Estudios’ popular impact in the dissemination of these topical essays was reinforced in different ways. First, there was a tireless effort to distribute books, which had been inherited from the times of Generación Consciente. This was possible in part due to the distribution of the books and leaflets from other related publishing houses: the magazine sold many titles (about 2,000 ca. 1929). A section entitled “Biblioteca de Estudios” published most of the catalogue in its pages. In general, the profile of this corpus was very eclectic in relation to their subjects (highlighting general culture or literature over doctrinal books) and also in relation to the ideology (the editions were not exclusively anarchist and there was a great presence of titles with a general working-class, freethinking, republican, or progressive approach). Likewise, there was a section in the magazine that commented on new bibliography (“Bibliografía”). On the other hand, Estudios had its own publishing house (“Editorial Estudios”) that went on to publish more than one hundred books and leaflets. The library and publishing house not only fulfilled the educative and ideological goals of the journal but also guaranteed its survival during those years, at times due to its increase in sales. Specifically, the Estudios publishing house’s success was achieved by the ability of the staff to pay attention to the varied reading demands of the libertarian and working-class militants, members, and supporters who had an eclectic outlook. In particular, the magazine’s specialization on specific topics (sex education, birth control, or the debate about the role of women in society) provided it with a broader libertarian readership, along with the daily advice it offered on topics such as medicine, naturism, or basic education in general culture. Significantly, one section of the magazine represented an important group of readers who were inherited from the earlier Generación Consciente: the so-called “Consultorios médicos” (“Medical Consultations”). They were open to questions, and doubts,

from its readers and also presented guidance for a great variety of themes. This was not an exclusive feature of Estudios, but the “Consultations” became well known and persisted in its readers’ memories. These sections were about medicine in general or sexuality in particular—as in the famous “Consultorio PsíquicoSexual” (“Psycho-sexual Practice)” that was started in the magazine by the Catalan anarchist psychiatrist Félix Martí Ibáñez in January 1936—or naturism, as was the case of Dr Roberto Remartínez, another regular collaborator of the magazine—and his “Preguntas y Respuestas” section (“Questions and Answers”). Another feature of Estudios that helped it reach this level of success and dissemination was its eclectic orientation, as described in its subtitle. Although it was generally a libertarian journal, doctrinally it was a working-class and revolutionary one in its statements and leading articles—and a declared antifascist newspaper in the international context during the 1930s. The magazine managed to avoid internal disputes raging within the libertarian movement during those years, in part by not holding on to a specific identity. Yet, its educative and formative penchant was a strategic success. In its leading articles, Estudios claimed its “ideological diversity” and its “non-sectarian” purpose. Another reason for the magazine’s success was its striking layout —one of its most renowned features—along with its affordable price and diverse subjects and contents, especially the ones related to sexuality. It was particularly from 1931–1932, thanks to the collaboration of Josep Renau and Manuel Monleón in the cover design (also in the drawings and inner photo montage), that the issues were printed in color, offering photomontages and daring compositions. Some of them were openly ideological and had an increasingly antifascist significance in the 1930s. They also often showed naked photos of women (also in books and leaflets published by Estudios). These photos were no doubt a good allegory of the naturist and regenerationist ideals of the magazine that also helped, on the other hand, to attract readers and became close to the erotic and pornographic publications as in many books and leaflets of that time.8

The Transnational Dimension of Estudios: Rapports with the Americas Estudios joined forces with a wide distribution network. The magazine had always been very well received beyond the Spanish borders since the times of Generación Consciente, which by 1928 had already established nineteen distribution areas outside of Spain covered by press correspondents in the Canary Islands, France, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Colombia, and Paraguay. France and Belgium were the main destinations of the magazine in Europe. However, the Americas became a more obvious and open area for expansion than the European countries, including France or Portugal. Significantly, the cost of the annual subscription of the magazine was the same in Spain, Portugal, and the Americas (6.50 Spanish pesetas), whereas it cost 8 pesetas in the other European countries. In February 1929 (issue No. 66), Estudios pointed out that several copies of the extra issue containing a calendar and published the previous month had been ordered “to be sold at kiosks and bookshops in South America.” Estudios clearly had a large number of readers in the Americas. At one point, more than 20,000 copies were supposedly distributed only in Argentina according to militant sources.9 As evidence of this success, Argentina was repeatedly mentioned in the magazine’s administrative notes. Sometimes, there were more references to Argentina than to many Spanish provinces. A particularly good sign of Estudios reception in the Americas, for instance, was the list of “paqueteros morosos” (“debt courier companies”), that is, magazine sellers far from the origin of the magazine, such as individuals, shops, and associations that did not pay the money back after selling the issues or books and leaflets from the catalogues and fell into debt with the magazine. Estudios constantly complained about these unscrupulous people and also about these circumstances, which were a primary reason for its deficit. By November 1933, the amount of debt the courier companies had incurred was 7,194.30 pesetas, and the magazine’s management decided to publish a list of their names, which is clear evidence of Estudios’ geographical spread in Spain, Europe, North

Africa, and the Americas. This also demonstrates the magazine’s broad distribution in the Americas, which was far beyond any other European country including Portugal and France. Consequently, we can find the sale of the magazine in Argentina, more precisely in Buenos Aires, where there were couriers that had incurred a very high level of debt. The case of Rosario is also significant, likewise General Pico and San Juan; that of Tucuman, Mar de Plata, San Pedro, and Tres Arroyos are less significant. We cannot question the main position Argentina had in this list but we can also find the United States (as we will see later), Peru (Lima, Arequipa, Jauja, Shelby-Huaron), Brazil (Sao Paulo), Mexico (Ciudad de Mexico), Chile (Santiago), and Ecuador (Quito).10 Similarly, there are traces from American readers of Estudios in the magazine’s medical or scientific consultation sections that were opened during its lifetime. There is even a reference to the establishment of a community of Estudios in Argentina, specifically in the Pampa, in General Pico, as far as the beginning of 1936.11 However, the connections and impact that the magazine had in the Americas was extensive. On the one hand, Estudios always showed an interest in American political and social events as well as in cultural and intellectual ones. Some of the main editors, including the well-known Spanish libertarian militant Antonio García Birlán, who oversaw permanent sections such as “Actualidad” (“Current Times”), “Gacetilla” (“Little Gazette”) or “Autores y libros” (“Authors and Books”) and used the pseudonym of Dionysios or Julio Barco, frequently commented on and updated subjects related to the Americas. Another popular Spanish anarchist writer, Manuel Costa Iscar (pseudonym of Manuel Faciabén Esquer), settled in Argentina since the 1920s, supervised a section of the magazine called “Cartas de América” (“Letters from America”). In addition, many libertarian, working-class, and freethinking militants from the Americas collaborated with Estudios. They were doctors, scientists, writers, or just famous propagandists who also contributed to the dissemination of Estudios in that continent. For example, these included doctors and scientists such as Alfonso L. Herrera and Carlos López de Gabriel from Mexico, and Juan Lazarte and Enrique Feinmann from Argentina. Alberto Ghiraldo, Julio R.

Barcos, and Rodolfo González Pacheco were some of the other Argentinian anarchist writers or propagandists collaborating with the magazine, as well as the Venezuelan Carlos Brandt. Also included was the well-known French anarchist Gaston Leval, who lived in Argentina and Uruguay from the mid-1920s. He also collaborated frequently with the magazine during all those years. It was at the end of the 1930s that Estudios announced that the magazine would distribute books from the most important Argentinian anarchist publishing house, the famous La Protesta of Buenos Aires, with the brochure called ¡Huelga de vientres! by Luis Bulffi. Estudios also incurred the same attacks suffered by the Argentinian libertarian movement spokesman and provoked in turn by the police of the dictatorship of General Iriburu after the coup d’état that took place that year.12 There are more than forty references to periodical journals from different American countries that were reported by the magazine in the section called “Bibliografía.” Some examples include the cultural magazines Nosotros, Letras, Claridad, Brújula, Nervio, Sarmiento (Buenos Aires); Sendas Nuevas, Vida Naturista or El Auto Rosarino. Revista de Difusión Cultural, directed by Gaston Leval (Rosario); La Cruz del Sur, La Pluma, Ariel, Alas, Vertical, El Hombre. Periódico Anarquista (Montevideo); La Senda, Juventud, La Sierra (Lima); ProVida. Revista Naturista from La Habana, directed by Aquilino López, which Estudios advertised in some of its issues; Orientación. Seminario Ecléctico, Germinación (San José, Costa Rica); Cultura Venezolana (Caracas); Horizontes (Quito); Páginas Selectas. Revista para todos (Guayaquil), and Crisol. Revista de Crítica (Mexico), were also mentioned several times. Similarly, some issues of American publishing houses were also advertised, which also shows the network linked to Estudios. Significant publishers include: Ediciones Nervio, Argos, Reja, Letras, Tor, Imán, Asociación Racionalista Judía, and Ediciones de La Protesta (Buenos Aires); the Editorial Símbolo (Rosario); Mañana, Facultad (Montevideo) and Ediciones Crisol, Momento, and Editorial de la Federación de Escritores Proletarios (México), among many others, were also mentioned.

Estudios did confront some obstacles in disseminating the magazine in the Americas. They were not only related to its libertarian-oriented ideology but also to its thematic specialization regarding sexual reform, birth control, eugenics, and naturism in addition to the use of feminine nude iconography and nudism, which gave rise to additional problems. In January 1937, the magazine protested against the Cuban and Argentinian governments for prohibiting the publication of some issues of Estudios that were deemed “pornographic.” The magazine’s staff considered this prohibition an “excuse” by governments that had little interest or understanding of Spanish antifascists and republicans in the context of the Spanish Civil War.13

Estudios and the United States Estudios also reached the United States and its Spanish-speaking groups of libertarian, freethinking, and working-class members. In the United States, the magazine had courier companies, reporters, and subscribers inherited from Generación Consciente. It also had generous contributors. For example, in February 1929, the publication claimed to have received a 35-peseta donation from A. Guede, from Scranton (Pennsylvania), to reduce the deficit hanging over it. Six supporters from that city had collected the money.14 In the list of indebted courier companies that Estudios published in November 1933, the United States was the second American country (depending on the number of references on the list), preceded only by Argentina. Next was Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Ecuador. The following are U.S. cities mentioned together with the name of the debtor and the amount owed to the magazine: HOMESTEAD (USA). Juan Bais Ayala (79.65 pesetas) LOS ANGELES (USA). Lorenzo Hernández (215.95 pesetas) LOS ANGELES (USA). M. Flores Cabanillas (241 pesetas) NEW YORK (USA). Librería Cervantes (16 pesetas) NEW YORK (USA). J. A. Pérez, Librería Intuición (85.70 pesetas)15 It is important to note that there was a large amount of debt from courier companies, including one in Los Angeles (one of the biggest on the long list). There were also two indebted New York bookshops: Cervantes and Intuición. Moreover, the list was published again

some months later in March 1934. The two latter bookshops had disappeared from the list, which suggests that the money had been paid. However, the courier companies from Homestead and Los Angeles remained on the list. Estudios’ influence in the United States is reflected in the fact that North Americans regularly sent inquiries to the magazine’s various consultation sections. The most popular one (with the highest number of inquiries) and the longest lasting one during the life of the journal was the section called “Preguntas y respuestas,” which had a medical nature (dealing with diverse questions) and was administered by the naturist doctor Roberto Remartínez. In the July 1931 issue, two inquiries to this section came from readers living in the United States: Leonidas López (Chicago) and Félix Mondoruza (Englewood).16 References in Estudios to other magazines published in these years are also instructive; these were usually announced or reviewed in the section called “Bibliografía.” These references show the contacts and links that the magazine had with the United States, and they provide the information Estudios had about similar magazines that emerged during that time and in general about the activity taking place around similar centers. We can see, for example, the launching of Intuición. Revista mensual de ideas, sociología y crítica constructiva, published in New York and announced by Estudios in December 1929: Each issue of this excellent magazine gives us a nice surprise thanks to its perfect typography, its selected ideological content, as well as its neatness and pleasantness. Intuición will undoubtedly become the magazine we have been in need of having for a long time in the libertarian field in order to purge principles and have healthy and well-focused ideas, as the friends who are in charge of editing have an indomitable will and a wide and well-defined criterion. Giving birth to magazines like Intuición and keeping them alive against the adversity of the moral environment in an essentially materialistic country is not an easy task and it can only be undertaken by a small number of Spaniards who are enthusiastic friends of a sublime ideal. However, we are fully satisfied by witnessing that we are on the

way to do something serious and worthy with Intuición. We hope the magazine will not lack the necessary support and that it flourishes. Our Spanish friends are invited to support Intuición. Address: P. O. Box, 216, Madison Square Station, New York City (USA).17 Some months before, Estudios also announced the launching of another magazine in New York, Minerva, with a specifically naturist nature: Minerva. Revista mensual naturista. Editors can feel proud of this magazine. It is neatly printed and has an exquisite taste, such framework for texts will make readers feel necessarily attracted to from the beginning to the end. There is no doubt about the fact that the manager, Carlos Brandt, one of our friends and collaborators, is focusing his efforts to make this magazine something indispensable for any cultured man. We know he will achieve the aim. We feel attracted to it just by reading the first line of Minerva: “Minerva is a magazine whose aim is the dissemination of physical, moral and intellectual human culture so as humans we can reach a regeneration.” These are just a few words that contain a full program and a beautiful task we have been fighting for, for a long time in our papers. We welcome our sister magazine Minerva and hope it succeeds. Readers who wish to be linked to it can do it through the following address: Minerva Publishing Co., 2130 Broadway, New York (USA).18 The following year (March 1930), Estudios announced the launching of the first issue of another monthly cultural magazine, also based in New York and directed by the Venezuelan libertarian, writer Carlos Brandt: Palas. Revista Mensual Ilustrada. It was also oriented toward naturism and it published a “course of naturopathy” in the first issue.19 The link between these two magazines was Carlos Brandt, a regular collaborator to Generación Consciente and Estudios in a great variety of subjects such as naturism, medicine, history, important authors and celebrities’ profiles, anticlericalism, anarchism, philosophy, music, and literature. The publication considered Brandt a “true counselor of naturism” (No. 69, May 1929). Some of his books were announced and commented on in Estudios, and they

were always praised. Estudios even published two of them: Camino de perfección (Path of Perfection) in 1928 and La belleza de la mujer, Tratado de las proporciones armoniosas del cuerpo humano y de la importancia filosófica, artística y sociológica de la belleza física (The Beauty of Women: Treaty of the Harmonious Proportions of the Human Body and the Philosophical, Artistic and Sociological Importance of Physical Beauty) in 1935—originally published in 1905. Carlos Brandt was an active propagandist of anarchism, naturism, vegetarianism, and pacifism, so he had an intellectual and ideological profile that was very close to Estudios. He was exiled from Venezuela due to political reasons, relating to the years in which the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez took place. His cosmopolitan and migrating character clearly connected with the soul of the magazine. He was a tireless traveler and lived in New York, where most of his intense activity was developed. He kept his connection to Estudios, and the publishing initiatives he started (like the above-mentioned) were similar in lines and themes.20 In May 1929 (No. 82), Estudios announced in its section called “Bibliography” another book by Brandt, El fanatismo religioso (Religious Fanatism), about “the lies and contradictions of the Bible.” It also pointed out that the volume had been published in New York —since “in Spain it would have been impossible”—and orders should be placed through Cultura Proletaria (139, 7th Avenue, New York City, USA). This link is very interesting, as Cultura Proletaria was the most important anarchist journal in Spanish published in the United States, from 1927 through 1953. In turn, it was the heir of the very influential and famous Cultura Obrera, which had been largely directed by Pedro Esteve since 1911 until his death in 1925. Cultura Proletaria, directed by R. A. Muller and especially by Marcelino García, shared many affinities with Estudios, including the collaboration of Carlos Brandt in articles published by the two magazines and in books and pamphlets published by the two publishing houses. Naturism was a particularly important link between New York and Estudios through the naturist doctor José María Martínez Novella. Born in the province of Valencia in 1894, Martinez Novella moved to

America after several trips around Europe, and he trained as a naturopath in the American School of Naturopathy of Benedict Lust in New York. Martínez later established his own clinic in Cranbury, New Jersey, and assumed the management of the Schwei Kert Naturist Sanitarium in Spotswood, also in New Jersey.21 Martínez Novella, who lived in the United States since the 1920s, wrote frequently in Estudios about naturism and sexual reform, as well as medicine, biology, and science in general. His contributions in Estudios were very important, especially in the section “Al día con la ciencia” (“Catching up with science”), along with the Spanish anarchist engineer Alfonso Martínez Rizo, in order to popularize scientific topics among the readers. In his articles, Martínez Novella informed readers about debates, initiatives, or scientific activity in the United States around the mentioned subjects. It is important to note a particular article about eugenics, one of the most recurring topics in Estudios, that was published in 1937. In reference to the question of sterilization as a means of improving the race and the human species, and as a result of the Nazi initiatives in this regard in Germany, Martínez declared himself against it and pointed to sterilization as “a failure and a threat to humanity.”22 These words were significant, because the subject had been debated for many years in Estudios, and the example of some U.S. states had been cited at times, positively in general, although warning about the need for control and supervision.23 Beyond the topic of sterilization, some initiatives carried out in the field of eugenics in the United States, such as the requirement of a premarital medical certificate, were also commented on in Estudios.24 In Estudios, the question of eugenic sterilization included supporters (at least before the Nazi initiatives); among them, the well-known French individualist anarchist and neo-Malthusian Manuel Devaldès. In November 1933, a text by Devaldès was published in the magazine with the title “La esterilización eugénica en Estados Unidos” (Eugenic sterilization in the United States), pointing out that this practice was held in 27 of the 47 American states. Devaldès cited positively the work “of public education” undertaken by The Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena,

California, and was determined to defend the “urgent” implantation of eugenic sterilization in general, following the American example.25 However, the position of Martínez Novella in 1937—he did not allude, as a matter of fact, to the American example in his article— undoubtedly shows a change of direction in the general opinion of Estudios in this respect, which was already marked by the Nazi example. In addition to these issues, Estudios always showed a keen interest in what was happening in the United States during these years, regarding subjects such as labor exploitation or social issues in general related to the economic crisis of capitalism after 1929, as revealed by the references in the articles written by some of their most regular collaborators—Higinio Noja, Gaston Leval, or Marín Civera—or in pieces of information signed by the magazine itself.26

Conclusion: A Libertarian Global Culture Estudios was always a transnational venture. Firstly, it had an ongoing interest in being connected to different ideological and intellectual international movements during the 1920s and 1930s.27 It was very close to libertarian militant networks, including that of anarcho-individualism,28 which was closely affiliated with pacifism.29 Estudios also spread various international initiatives relating to the latter field, as with the War Resisters’ International, for instance. Secondly, the magazine was strongly linked to the international movement for birth control, eugenics, and the sexual reform in the interwar period (for example, through the World League for Sexual Reform, although it kept a polemical relationship with the magazine). Doctors and scientists from different countries contributed essays to the magazine in relation to these and other subjects in the fields of scientific and medical dissemination, or naturism, which was one of the magazine’s principal focuses. The Americas played a major role in the magazine’s impact and dissemination out of Spanish borders. And from a financial point of view, the sales volume of magazines, books, and leaflets contributed to Estudios’ survival. In general, the American continent was a more open area of expansion than Europe, including France. In the case of the United States, the reasons for this expansion were: 1) the

obvious Spanish-speaking community, 2) the existence of strong links between well-known militants and centers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, 3) the presence of Spanish immigrant groups, 4) the presence of migratory libertarians who arrived from Spain and were living in the Americas, and 5) the existence of some sectors of the labor movement or anarchist and freethinking groups of readers who were strongly influenced by Estudios. The presence of American writers in the magazine and of news and information about the Americas, together with the numerous reviews or announcements of periodical publications and books in the United States, clearly confirm the American dimension of Estudios. Although Estudios had a stronger connection to Argentina, the periodical had an important and influential role in U.S. Spanishspeaking communities. The magazine was distributed in the United States, notably in New York and Los Angeles, by militants, supporters, or groups of supporters as well as by bookshops, including Cervantes and Intuición in New York, reaching significant sales rates in relationship to the ones obtained in other American countries, as shown through the lists of debtors published by Estudios. This link already existed with the magazine Generación Consciente, which had nineteen different distribution points outside the Iberian Peninsula: one in the Canary Islands, two in France, thirteen in Latin America, and three in the United States. This reception was facilitated by the presence of some well-known Latin American and Spanish militants, scientists, and writers in the United States. The intense activity that the Venezuelan libertarian, naturist, and pacifist writer, Carlos Brandt, exhibited in the city of New York clearly stands out. He published several cultural magazines that were very similar to Estudios and had a strong naturist character. That same naturist link reflects the activity of the Valencian naturist and libertarian doctor, José María Martínez Novella. He lived in the States and was a regular collaborator in Estudios, with interests including sexual reform or eugenics, medicine, biology, and general science. Martínez Novella reported promptly in the magazine about the debates and activities about these topics in the country. In relation to these debates, for example, the controversy about the efficacy of eugenic sterilization was

echoed in Estudios’ pages and the initiatives carried out in this regard in various American states were cited and commented on during the time the magazine was published. Estudios contributed to the dissemination of subjects and ideas related to libertarian ideology, and it was distributed to the workingclass, progressive, and free-thinking milieu. With reference to birth control, eugenics, sexual reform, naturism, scientific and medical dissemination, pacifism, or social literature, the magazine was a link between European propagandists regarding these campaigns and militants and groups who were sensitive to these subjects in the Americas. There are numerous references to “sister” periodicals or like-minded magazines in the Americas that are included in the journal as well as other books and brochures. All these factors contributed to the consolidation of an ideological and culturalintellectual transatlantic network whose central axis was Estudios during all of its life. Notes 1. Montse Feu notes that Dr. J. M. Martínez Novella was a founder of Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas and contributor to their periodical España Libre. In his writings, he defended communist arguments. For his antifascist work, the Government of the Spanish Republic in exile granted him the title of Caballero de la Orden de la Liberación de España (Knight of the Liberation Order of Spain) in December 1957. 2. For a study of the magazine, see Francisco Javier Navarro, “El paraíso de la razón.” La revista Estudios (1928–1937) y el mundo cultural anarquista (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1997). A facsimile reproduction of the publication on CD in Estudios. Revista Ecléctica. Números 64–165. Valencia, 1928–1937 (Valencia: Faximil Ediciones Digitales, 2007). 3. Estudios 64 (December 1928) and Estudios 86 (October 1930). 4. About Generación Consciente, see José Navarro Monerris, “Generación Consciente. Sexualidad y control de natalidad en la cultura revolucionaria,” in Ayudas a la investigación, 1986–1987. Volumen V (Historia, Literatura, Música) (Alicante: Instituto Juan GilAlbert, 1992), 81–96; Francisco Javier Navarro, “Anarquismo y

neomaltusianismo: la revista Generación Consciente (1923–1928),” Arbor, CLVI, 615 (1997): 9–23. 5. On all these debates, attitudes, and practices in the Spanish anarchism of the first third of the twentieth century there is a significant bibliography. The works of Mary Nash stand out. Among them: Defying Male Civilization: Women in the Spanish Civil War (Denver: Arden Press, 1995) or “La reforma sexual en el anarquismo español,” in El anarquismo español y sus tradiciones culturales, ed. Bert Hofmann, Pere Joan Tous, and Manfred Tietz (Frankfurt-Madrid: Vervuert-Iberoamericana, 1995), 281–296. Also Eduard Masjuán, La ecología humana en el anarquismo ibérico. Urbanismo “orgánico” o ecológico, neomalthusianismo y naturismo social (Barcelona: Icaria, 2000), as well as the investigations and works of Richard Cleminson, among them: Anarchism, Science and Sex: Eugenics in Eastern Spain, 1900–1937 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000). 6. Alexander Shapiro, “Informe sobre la crisis de la CNT” (1933), Estudios de Historia Social 5–6 (April–September 1978): 492. About the number of copies, see Navarro, “El paraíso de la razón,” 68–69. 7. For testimonies of former readers of the publication, see Navarro, “El paraíso de la razón,” 74–82. 8. See Raquel Álvarez Peláez, “Literatura sobre sexo en la España de los años veinte y treinta del siglo XX: entre medicina y pornografía,” in La sexualidad en la España contemporánea (1800– 1950), ed. Jean-Louis Guereña (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 2011); Jean- Louis Guereña, Les Espagnoles et le sexe, XIXe–XXe siècle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013), especially chapter 1: “Le sexe devoilé. Les collections populaires d’éducation sexuelle,” 33–95. 9. “More than twenty thousand issues just for Argentina.” Salvador Cano Carrillo, “Hombres del movimiento libertario. Higinio Noja Ruiz,” Cénit. Revista Bimensual de Sociología, Ciencia y Literatura (Toulouse), 201 (January–March 1972). 10. “A los lectores y amigos de Estudios … Lista de Morosos,” Estudios 123 (November 1933). 11. Estudios 150 (February 1936). 12. Estudios 88 (December 1930). 13. Estudios 160 (January 1937).

14. “Pro Estudios,” Estudios 66 (February 1929). 15. “A los lectores y amigos de Estudios … Lista de Morosos,” Estudios 123 (November 1933). 16. R. Remartínez (doctor), “Preguntas y respuestas,” Estudios 95 (July 1931). Two issues later (97, September 1931) we find another anonymous query coming from “a reader of Lackawanna.” Other examples are in No. 133 (September 1934), in this case by a reader who signed as E. F. C. (USA) and in No. 158 (November 1936), by “a Newyorker.” 17. “Bibliografía,” Estudios 76 (December 1929). 18. “Bibliografía,” Estudios 69 (May 1929). 19. “Bibliografía,” Estudios 79 (May 1930). 20. A Venezuelan monthly journal called Obrero Libre was also published in New York (Brooklyn). It became the official media of the Venezuelan Workers Union and was announced by Estudios 76 (December 1929). 21. Josep María Roselló, La vuelta a la naturaleza. El pensamiento naturista hispano (1890–2000): naturismo libertario, trofología, vegetarismo naturista, vegetarismo social y librecultura (Barcelona: Virus Editorial, 2003), 178–179, 209, 211, 227; José Vicente Martí Boscà, “Estudios: educación sexual, arte, ciencia, cultura general,” in Estudios. Revista Ecléctica No. 64–165. Valencia, 1928–1937 (Valencia: Faximil Ediciones Digitales, 2007). 22. Dr. J. Martínez, “La esterilización como medio de mejorar la raza,” Estudios 162 (March 1937). 23. “Información desde París. Importante debate sobre eugenismo y esterilización,” Estudios 68 (April 1929). 24. Dr. Juan Lazarte, “Significación cultural y ética de la limitación de los nacimientos,” Estudios 121 (September 1933). 25. Manuel Devaldès, “La esterilización eugénica en los Estados Unidos,” Estudios 12 (November 1933). Other individualist—pacifist and libertarian—writers and propagandists, such as the Romanian Eugen Relgis, were also in favor of eugenics sterilization. See: Eugen Relgis, “Humanitarismo y eugenismo. II,” Estudios 123 (November 1933). 26. An example: “Delicias del capitalismo,” Estudios 106 (June 1932).

27. Other well-known international militants who collaborated with Estudios were Gaston Leval, Hem Day, Leo Campion, G. Hardy, Camilo Berneri, Sébastien Faure, Hugo Treni, among others. 28. These included some with a French origin such as Han Ryner, Émile Armand, and others, as well as the Brazilian María Lacerda de Moura. 29. These include Romain Rolland, Han Ryner, Henri Barbusse, and Eugen Relgis.

PART V

Spanish Civil War and Exile

CHAPTER 13

Keepsakes of the Revolution Transnational Networks and the U.S. Circulation of Anarchist Propaganda during the Spanish Civil War MICHEL OTAYEK Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, anarchists gained considerable influence over political and economic affairs in their traditional strongholds of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia. During the early months of the conflict, a revolutionary process was set in motion that included the collectivization of entire sectors of the regional economy. These efforts were largely coordinated by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labor), Spain’s powerful coalition of anarchist trade unions, and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation), a network of affinity groups dedicated to preserving the revolutionary essence of Spanish anarchism. Committed to their radical political agenda, anarchists were nevertheless forced to collaborate with Spain’s Republican government in the fight against the military insurrection that had sparked the civil war, led by Francisco Franco. Throughout the conflict, the CNT-FAI produced an array of propaganda materials in multiple languages to promote their complicated position as adversaries of the fascist uprising against the Republican government and, simultaneously, advocates of a social revolution. The responsibility of circulating these materials across transnational networks of anarchist organizations fell on the CNT-FAI Foreign Propaganda Office, a newly created agency based in Barcelona. An examination of the literature produced by the CNT-FAI during the war—a book of illustrations and a photographic album—shows that although the revolutionary narrative had the power to generate considerable media interest and mobilize public support beyond anarchist circles, the Foreign Propaganda Office failed to capitalize on the strengths of existing networks across the United States at a time of increased collaboration between Hispanic and non-Hispanic anarchist groups. In the pages that follow, I argue that this failure reflects the adverse turn of events in Spain as well as Augustin Souchy’s inability to tap into anarchist groups in the United States

and Canada. As head of the Foreign Propaganda Office, Souchy developed and sought to carry out a propaganda production and distribution strategy that relied heavily on his links to anarchist networks across Europe, particularly in France and Sweden, while all but neglecting the renewed strength of the movement in North America.

Life Showcases the Spanish Revolution On February 22, 1937, the American illustrated weekly Life published a photographic dossier about Barcelona in which the city is presented to the magazine’s readers as “a test tube of revolution.”1 A selection of nineteen black-and-white photographs gives readers a glimpse of the natural and cultural landscape of the cosmopolitan Catalan capital—a “great city of Spain nobody knows” that enjoyed the distinction of being the “greatest industrial city, biggest port, gayest resort, with the densest and most literate population” in the country.2 All the way through, the dossier’s emphasis is on the complexity of Barcelona’s politics as the second largest city of a country submerged in a bitter civil war and, concurrently, the setting of a social revolution “not exactly like any other in history.”3 As related by Life, the revolution underway in Barcelona was the work of “proletarian anarchists and syndicalists” that “to the world’s astonishment” were collaborating with a centerleft regional government whose basis of support resided with “cautious shopkeepers and small farmers.”4 Such an unlikely turn of events was described as, in fact, a natural one because, as noted in the magazine, the Barcelonese “have a capacity for violence, irresponsibility, impossible idealism and gaiety, which they explain as a taste for anarchism.”5 Preceding the photographic dossier, the magazine’s centerspread was a striking double-page feature titled “Revolution in Barcelona” showing full-color illustrations reproduced from an anarchist propaganda book titled Estampas de la Revolución Española 19 de Julio de 1936 (Impressions of the Spanish Revolution July 19, 1936) (figure 13.1). A short text describes the origin of the illustrations, explaining that they were created by a commercial artist as he witnessed “the first skirmishes of the battle between the rebelling

army adherents of Fascist General Franco and the citizens of Barcelona” on the morning of July 19, 1936.6 Back in his studio later that day, the artist finished sketching his scenes from the working classes’ successful defense of the city against the right-wing military insurrection that had sparked the Spanish Civil War. Sometime thereafter, the resulting watercolors were published “by Leftists organization which rule Barcelona” in the volume from which they were reproduced by Life.7 Even as it acknowledges the book’s heavy-handed partisanship, the influential American magazine praises the artist for capturing “with splashing colors and urgent lines, the overpowering enthusiasm of a people fighting for a cause.”8

Figure 13.1. Estampas de la Revolución Española 19 de Julio de 1936 (Impressions of the Spanish Revolution July 19, 1936). Barcelona: Oficina de Propaganda C.N.T.—F.A.I., 1936. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

From the Streets of Barcelona to the Anarchist Printing Press Estampas de la Revolución Española was published in late 1936 by the CNT-FAI Propaganda Offices, a subdivision of the CNT-FAI’s Catalan Regional Committee whose director was the Spanish anarchist journalist Jacinto Toryho (Tierra de Campos, Spain, 1911— Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1989). The sixty-one-page book features thirty illustrations by Sim (José Luis Rey Vila, Cádiz, Spain, 1900— Paris, France, 1983), each one depicting a different scene captured in the streets of Barcelona as the workers repelled the military insurrection. Trained in Barcelona’s Escola d’Arts i Oficis Artístics i Belles Arts (School of Arts, Art Crafts, and Fine Arts), Rey Vila later worked as an illustrator and graphic editor for several magazines, including Ford (Barcelona, 1929–1936), published by the American automaker), Nova Iberia (Barcelona, 1937), and Moments (Barcelona, 1936–1938).9 In the years before the war, he also took on advertising projects for a variety of firms including Santa Eulalia, the city’s most prestigious fashion store. Stylistically, Rey Vila’s magazine work and advertising commissions were consistent with prevailing trends in illustration during the 1930s, often featuring slender, gracefully outlined figures seen from unusual angles that speak to a cinematic sensibility. Hastily sketched from life in black ink and later retouched with watercolors, his revolutionary vignettes have a very different look. Whether a close-up portrait of a young, squared-jaw militiaman or a profile view of a crowd of armed marching women, the combination of broad ink strokes and dramatic watercolor accents lend Rey Vila’s rushed scenes of popular resistance in Barcelona an air of heroic effervescence and historical gravitas. Rey Vila’s pictorial impressions depict the events of a date subsequently commemorated by the anarchist propaganda machine as the birthdate of a long- awaited social revolution. In the months following the military uprising, as the CNT-FAI rose to a position of unprecedented influence over political and economic affairs, their traditional strongholds of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia; entire industries and vast tracts of rural land were taken over and subsequently managed by workers’ collectives. Though pressed into

a tactical arrangement of wartime collaboration with Spain’s Republican government to win the war against their common fascist adversary, anarchists remained committed to their ultimate objective of establishing a radically egalitarian, uncoerced society that would in fact replace the existing bourgeois democratic order. Embraced by its political base of workers and peasants, the CNT-FAI revolutionary agenda was distrusted not only by conservative forces but also by other left-wing factions, particularly Communists who, under Soviet guidelines, maneuvered to derail it. Before their publication by the CNT-FAI in late 1936, Rey Vila had offered his watercolors to the Sindicat de Dibuixants Professionals (SDP, Professional Draftsmen’s Union), which was active in the production of posters and other wartime propaganda materials. Seemingly due to the union’s communist leanings, Rey Vila’s works were rejected. As Miriam Basilio has argued, it is likely that their emphasis on revolutionary zeal, the conspicuous presence of anarchist insignia, and the sketchy rendition of figures—at odds with the formulas of social realist painting favored by Communists—made Rey Vila’s illustrations incompatible with the union’s political preferences.10 Once taken up by the CNT-FAI, his illustrations were used to create Estampas de la Revolución Española, a beautiful spiral-bound book with an introduction and captions in Spanish, English, and French that further stressed the anarchists’ revolutionary aspirations.

Socialist Supporters in the United States Though the total print run of Estampas de la Revolución Española is unknown, its preservation in numerous libraries and archival repositories around the world, and its availability for purchase through secondhand sellers in present times, suggest that it must have numbered in the tens of thousands. Once it was published, the CNT-FAI promoted the album’s sale in street kiosks and through the anarchist press in Spain. Just as importantly, Estampas was also distributed and promoted abroad, including the United States, where it was regularly listed for sale in several anarchist periodicals throughout the Spanish Civil War. Although the album’s rhetorics were decidedly partisan, its partial reproduction in Life—one of the leading picture magazines in the United States, with a weekly circulation at the time of nearly a million copies—speaks to the ability

of the anarchists’ revolutionary narrative to capture the public’s imagination. Furthermore, the conduit by which Estampas made its way to the centerfold pages of the American magazine attests to its ability to mobilize support from groups aligned elsewhere in the Left’s ideological spectrum—particularly those with unfavorable views of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union. Indeed, in the magazine’s photographic credit page, the images are not sourced to an anarchist group but, in fact, to the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), an organization closely related to the Socialist Party of America.11 Among the LID’s most prominent members was Norman Thomas, a renowned writer and activist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. A staunch antifascist and one of the most influential voices in the American antiwar Left, Thomas followed the events in Spain closely, even traveling there in the spring of 1937. Having initially supported the embargo of arm sales imposed upon Spain by the governments of Britain, France, and the United States, he became an ardent campaigner against it once it became clear that Germany and Italy were providing material support to the rebel forces commanded by Franco. Thomas’s dramatic break with his long-held pacifist views reflected a growing conviction by left-wing intellectuals and activists around the world that defeating Franco’s rebellion in Spain represented the last hope to stop the advance of fascism across Europe. In addition to his advocacy for lifting the arms embargo against Spain, Thomas publicly praised the revolutionary efforts of Spanish anarchists. In a tract published by the LID in December 1937, he noted that “the labor unions in Spain in the hour of Franco’s revolt played a part not only in resisting him but in the beginnings of socialization, which has been insufficiently appreciated, and the lessons of which have been as yet inadequately considered by those of us who are interested in the method of achieving social revolution without establishing dictatorship.”12

Augustin Souchy and the CNT-FAI’s Foreign Propaganda Office During the Spanish Civil War, the factions supporting the Republican government sought to propagandize their own position to audiences

in Spain and abroad. Although the Republican government tried to centralize these efforts through the creation of a Ministry of Propaganda and Press in November 1936, socialists, communists, and anarchists continued to run their own propaganda agencies, as did regional governments including Catalonia’s Generalitat. Within the anarchist camp, there was an additional layer of bureaucracy overlap. Indeed, in the early weeks of the war, the CNT-FAI’s Catalan Regional Committee created a Sección de Información Extranjera (Foreign Information Section), which seems to have operated independently from the Propaganda Offices run by Jacinto Toryho.13 The head of this agency was the German anarchist and journalist Augustin Souchy (Ratibor, Germany, 1912—Munich, 1984). A philologist by training who was fluent in as many as eleven languages,14 Souchy was a veteran of the anarcho-syndicalist movement in Germany and one of the early secretaries of the International Workers’ Association. He was also a prolific pamphleteer whose writings were reproduced in the radical press in many countries. Capitalizing on his extensive personal ties to anarchist groups around the world, Souchy immediately set to work on his assignment as head of the newly created agency, putting together a small team of mostly foreign radicals, some of them highly mobile and, like him, well connected to transnational radical networks. The mission entrusted to Souchy was simple, but the odds against it were great. As he later wrote in his autobiography: “Abroad, anarcho-syndicalists were held to be either adherents of violence or solitary utopians. To relay truthful information to the media abroad about current events and the position of anarchosyndicalists was of paramount importance. This task was assigned to me.”15 Headquartered in the fifth floor of the CNT-FAI Regional Committee building at Barcelona’s Via Laietana,16 the agency coordinated the production and international distribution of a wide range of print and audiovisual materials in several languages, including bulletins, pamphlets, illustrated albums, radio dispatches, and films. In time, as the bureau grew, it was renamed Oficina de Propaganda Exterior de la CNT-FAI (CNT-FAI’s Foreign Propaganda Office). One of Souchy’s first undertakings as head of the bureau

was touring several European cities during August and September 1936 to foster closer ties with anarchist organizations there, and to determine the willingness of the local press to provide sympathetic coverage of the anarchists’ revolutionary agenda. Souchy’s written reports from this expedition provide an illuminating overview of the European anarchist movement at the time, with valuable commentary about the strength of groups in different countries.17 In addition to assessing the effectiveness of the limited propaganda materials (mostly films) that the CNT-FAI had managed to circulate abroad up until that point, Souchy also paid close attention to the activities of the Propaganda Commissariat of Catalonia’s Generalitat, which had close ties to Socialists and Communists, and to the degree of influence exerted by Communists in shaping the media coverage of events in Spain and controlling the flow of foreign aid to the Republican cause. Of all the cities visited by Souchy, Paris stood out as the ideal place to centralize the distribution of propaganda materials and the coordination of grassroots aid to Spain. “To avoid the confusion that has plagued the sale and distribution of films to this day, it is necessary that the CNT office to be established in Paris be [solely] responsible for their dissemination,” he wrote in one report, noting that the future office in the French capital should “also establish relations with North America, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic countries, such as Belgium [sic] and South America.”18 Souchy’s reports list other recommendations, including the production of a photographic propaganda album (“sales of which our French comrades have estimated could reach one hundred thousand copies”);19 the drafting of a joint manifesto between the CNT and its socialist counterpart, the Union General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Union of Workers) that could galvanize foreign support to the antifascist struggle across party lines; and the establishment of a CNT delegation in Britain (where “the work … of propaganda and information for the working classes is truly deficient”),20 headed by the influential American anarchist Emma Goldman.21

A Coalition of Anarchist Forces in the United States

As one can surmise from his travel reports, Souchy was convinced that efforts to rally support for Spanish anarchists needed to concentrate on a handful of European countries, particularly France and Sweden, where anarchist groups were better organized and the press appeared more inclined to cover the revolution in Spain. To an extent, his consideration of the United States as a country of secondary relevance to the propaganda efforts of the CNT-FAI may reflect the decline of the North American anarchist movement during the 1930s. As Andrew Cornell has observed, “throughout the decade, [U.S.] anarchists struggled to understand the seismic transformations of the state, and social relations more broadly.”22 In particular, their doctrinal antagonism to the New Deal relief policies carried out by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, generally supported by Socialists and Communists, left anarchists politically isolated. “Small in numbers, and unwilling to collaborate with the rest of the Left, they formed an unpopular front in the war against structural immiseration,” as Cornell argues.23 Still, at what is often described as the twilight of the classical phase of the global anarchist movement,24 the turn of events in Spain led to a brief resurgence of grassroots activism within anarchist groups in the United States. “Recognizing that the conflict represented the movement’s greatest hope for founding a new society based on antiauthoritarian principles,” Cornell notes, U.S. anarchists “mustered what energy they had to support their Iberian comrades.”25 In the United States, support of the Spanish Revolution led to some collaboration between anarchist groups that normally had little interaction with one another. As Russell Blackwell has observed, by the time the war broke out, “the anarchist movement in the United States consisted of a number of groups largely organized around foreign language newspapers and having but minimal coordination of activities.”26 Much of the renewed, collaborative activities of U.S. anarchists during the Spanish Civil War were centered in New York. It was there that a coalition of some of the city’s existing anarchist organizations was formed under the name United Libertarian Organizations (ULO) by initiative of Onofre Dallas (Maximiliano Olay,

Colloto, Asturias, 1893—Chicago 1941), a Spanish immigrant from Asturias who had been designated U.S. representative of the CNTFAI.27 ULO members included the producers of Cultura Proletaria, one of the largest Spanish-language anarchist periodicals in circulation in the United States at the time, with a base of some four thousand subscribers in the 1930s.28 Also represented at the ULO were Jewish, Russian, and Italian immigrant anarchist groups such as the Jewish Anarchist Federation (publishers of Fraye Arberter Shtime), the Russian Federation, Carlo Tresca’s Il Martello Group, and the Vanguard Group, as well as several branches of the Industrial Workers of the World union.29 The ULO’s main activity was the publication of Spanish Revolution, a newspaper that ran biweekly from August 1936 until May 1938. Initially, Spanish Revolution remained close to the CNT-FAI’s official propaganda line, underscoring the social and economic achievements of the revolution in Spain. In time, however, as many began to blame the CNT-FAI leadership’s collaboration with the Republican government for the failure of the revolutionary project, Spanish Revolution gave space to an array of dissident voices that insisted on doctrinal purity.30 The publication of periodicals was central to the grassroots organizing and fundraising strategies of anarchists everywhere. Like most radical publications of the period, Spanish Revolution served as a bulletin board for local engagement opportunities such as public talks, film screenings, and fund-raising functions, as well as a selection of propaganda materials available for sale. Considering the ULO’s proximity to the CNT-FAI’s propaganda bureaucracy, it is surprising that the first mention of Estampas de la Revolución Española in the pages of Spanish Revolution should have been on its April 23, 1937, issue—that is, two months after selections from the album had been reproduced in Life. Advertised as “just received from Spain,” the book is praised as “one of the most beautiful albums it has ever been our pleasure to view,” with “31 soul-stirring water color plates about 10 ½ by 14 inches, the finest examples of the lithographers art, depicting scenes of the revolutionary struggle and

reconstruction.”31 This apparent lack of distribution coordination raises questions about the strength and interconnectedness of transnational anarchist networks in the 1930s. The following section considers some of these challenges as seen from the correspondence between Emma Goldman and Augustin Souchy.

An Ineffective Propaganda Strategy That the ULO should have presumably received copies of Estampas weeks after the album had been prominently featured in Life suggests a lack of coordination in the timely flow of information and materials through the transnational networks Souchy and his team in Barcelona were working to tap into. This impression is confirmed by the extensive wartime correspondence between Souchy and Emma Goldman, in which the American anarchist complains often, and bitterly, about the delay in receiving materials to support her propagandistic efforts in Britain as the CNT-FAI representative there. Their letters also show that, in trying to assess opportunities for grassroots support and favorable press coverage in North America, Souchy relied on Goldman’s familiarity with the radical scene and media environment in the United States and Canada. In turn, Goldman remained frustrated at Souchy’s slowness in engaging English-speaking audiences. “About your decision to begin English publications of pamphlets, ect [sic],” Goldman wrote on June 9, 1937, “it is funny dear Augustine [sic] that you should at last see the urgent need of what I suggested while I was in Barcelona. The only trouble wil [sic] will be I fear that the publication of the pamphlet you propose to do and its shipment will take so long it will be out of date by the time it reaches England or America. For that is exactly what happened with the Albums, the Durruti pamphlet and in fact with everything I implored you to send as quickly as possible.”32 It is worth noting at this point that, as Kenyon Zimmer has argued in his recent volume about Jewish and Italian anarchists in North America, language barriers often stood in the way of coordinated action among groups from different ethnic backgrounds.33 In making sense of Goldman’s suggestions to Souchy, which privileged targeting English-speaking networks over tapping into existing Hispanic anarchist groups in the United States, we must keep in mind Goldman’s own background and her lack of fluency in Spanish.

Determined to help Souchy devise a coherent media strategy in North America, Goldman had offered to reach out to some of her contacts at such prominent publications as the New York Times and the Toronto Star. In a letter dated August 25, 1936, she asks Souchy to send an information package to Simeon Strunsky, a Jewish socialist essayist who worked as an editorialist for the New York Times. “I know him well and I think I could get him to write regularly about Spain … sympathetically and with understanding,” she explains.34 “I am writing him myself this week,” Goldman adds, “to ask him to do his utmost to make the real state of affairs known to America.” As can be assessed by their subsequent correspondence, Goldman’s suggestions to engage the mainstream press in the United States and Canada were not taken up by Souchy and his team. Furthermore, throughout the war, the Foreign Propaganda Office remained incapable of ensuring a steady and well-timed flow of information to its network of North American contacts. Souchy’s indifference to her pleas exasperated Goldman, who on several occasions reached out to other members of the Foreign Propaganda Office seeking to expedite the circulation of desperately needed propaganda materials and stressing the need to better manage their distribution.35 Theoretically, if not in practice, the core of the CNT-FAI’s network in the United States was the ULO, established as previously noted by initiative of Maximiliano Olay. Olay’s appointment as the CNT-FAI representative in the United States, on Goldman’s suggestion,36 seems to reflect that she was able to persuade Souchy that, modest as he may have estimated it to be, some material support for the revolution could be generated in the United States from sympathizers within and beyond Hispanic radical networks. Partly a question of linguistic barriers, as already noted, the lack of coordination across ethnic lines in the dwindling anarchist movement in the United States had been of great concern to Goldman, who, in an October 1934 letter to Olay, had expressed her confidence about his promise as a future organizer. “I feel that you are not so limited by your interest in your own language group to neglect the more important work in the English language,” she noted. “It is for this reason,” she added, “that I depend on you more than on the Jewish

comrades to gather … a group that would really be helpful in organizing meetings and creating a field for our literature. In connection with that the comrades should publish leaflets and manifestos and perhaps sometimes pamphlets that would help pave the way towards a real movement.”37 Olay’s fluency in English and his contacts with non-Hispanic radical groups in the United States were valuable assets for the efforts of Spanish anarchists to coordinate grassroots support in North America.38 As it turns out, however, the ULO failed to become the organizing force it was supposed to have been. Continuing, if irregular, communication between Souchy’s agency in Barcelona and groups scattered across the United States and Canada suggests that support from anarchists in North America materialized rather disjointedly—and, as Andrew Cornell notes, its scope paled in comparison to the mobilizing and fund-raising achievements of U.S. Socialists and Communists on behalf of the Republican cause.39 Notwithstanding the shortcomings of Souchy’s strategy, we must note that Hispanic anarchist networks in the United States and Canada were able to successfully mobilize throughout the war independently from the CNT-FAI, to an important extent through the coordinating agency of the Brooklyn-based Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (SHC, Confederation of Hispanic Societies). Founded in 1936, the SHC brought together Hispanic workers and small business owners of socialist, communist, and anarchist sympathies.40 Other groups engaging Hispanic anarchists in the United States during the war in Spain included the U.S. section of Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA, AntiFascist International Solidarity), an organization founded by the CNT-FAI in mid-1937 and tasked with gathering and distributing international humanitarian aid to anarchist troops in the front and civilians in the rearguard. In contrast to the ULO’s emphasis on the dissemination of propaganda, the activities of the SHC, the SIA, and other groups within and beyond the Hispanic anarchist movement prioritized fund-raising to provide relief to refugees and send aid to Spain.41

Figure 13.2. ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumnias fascistas (Spain? A Picture Book of Horror Tales and Fascist Calumnies), Barcelona: Oficina de Información Exterior de la CNT y FAI, 1937. CRAI Biblioteca Pavelló de la República (Universitat de Barcelona).

A Hapless Endeavor In addition to Souchy’s rather myopic emphasis on French and Swedish anarchist networks, the rapid deterioration of the situation in Spain impaired the CNT-FAI’s efforts to gather support abroad. Such unfortunate confluence of circumstances is exemplified by the troubled history of one of the most arresting objects produced by the agency: a little-known photobook titled ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumias fascistas (Spain? A Picturebook of Horror Tales and Fascist Calumnies) (figure 13.2). With text in four languages—Spanish, French, English, and Swedish

—this richly illustrated book was specifically designed to disprove characterizations of the anarchists’ revolutionary project as an upsurge of uncontrolled violence by the foreign conservative press. As a tool of propaganda, ¿España? employed a simple yet ingenious blueprint of graphic rhetoric. Disproving clippings from such influential newspapers as The Daily Mail, Völkischer Beobachter, L’Action française, and La Stampa—and the caricature of reality they generated—numerous photographs taken in Barcelona as well as towns in the Aragonese front tried to demonstrate the truth of everyday life in anarchist-controlled territories. For example, a headline from the French right-wing daily Le Jour declaring that the anarchist “masters of the city” had turned murder and looting into daily sights—an outrageous claim illustrated by the cartoon of a disheveled, knife-holding CNT-FAI militiaman hounding a terrified woman—is refuted by photographs of Barcelona in peaceful calm, with citizens going about their daily affairs cheerfully and undisturbed (figure 13.3). Following the same formula of visual dialectics, nearly a dozen topics are addressed by the book, including the anarchists’ management of agricultural and economic affairs, the courage of their militias, the sheltering of refugees, the treatment of enemy prisoners, the protection of children, the question of anticlerical violence, and the safeguarding of artistic treasures. Altogether, the forceful triangulation of text, caricatures, and photographs throughout the pages of ¿España? conjures a story of a triumphant social revolution.

Figure 13.3. ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumnias fascistas (Spain? A Picture Book of Horror Tales and Fascist Calumnies), Barcelona: Oficina de Información Exterior de la CNT y FAI, 1937. CRAI Biblioteca Pavelló de la República (Universitat de Barcelona). ¿España? was the photographic album produced in response to buoyant sales forecasts made to Souchy by anarchist organizations across Europe—particularly in France, as previously noted—during his tour of August and September of 1936. A great deal of effort was committed to its production, which was commissioned to the Hungarian-born Jewish photographer Kati Horna (née Katalin Deutsch Blau, Budapest, 1912—Mexico City, 2000). Close associates of the influential Marxist theoretician Karl Korsch, Horna and her then-husband, the Hungarian intellectual Paul Partos (Budapest, 1911—London, 1964) relocated from Paris to Barcelona a few months after the war’s outbreak following offers to join

Souchy’s Foreign Propaganda Office. While Partos was assigned a range of duties, including cowriting a book with Souchy about the collectivization process,42 Horna—who at the time went by the names of Käthe or Catalina Partos—was put in charge of the bureau’s photographic agency. A skillful practitioner, Horna had learned photography a few years earlier at the Budapest studio of the Hungarian master József Pécsi, who specialized in techniques of advertising photography including lighting effects, photomontage, and the juxtaposition of text, images, and design on the printed page. Concerned about the technical shortcomings of some of the materials produced by Spanish anarchists during the early weeks of the war,43 Souchy found in the cosmopolitan photographer—who had lived in Budapest, Berlin, and Paris, and was fluent in several languages—the right combination of talents for the critical task of engaging images and words to story-tell the revolution to readers abroad. Complementing her skills as a photographer, Horna was also politically radicalized and personally committed to the anarchists’ revolutionary struggle, as was her husband.44 Upon arrival in Barcelona in early 1937, Horna went on a tour of Catalonia and Aragon during which she photographed anarchist militias in the front as well as civilian life in the rearguard. After returning to Barcelona, she used many of her photographs to produce the album, which likely involved the participation of other members of the propaganda bureau.45 By April, work had been completed and the photobook was ready to go to print. However, flow on the photobook’s production was disrupted in the wake of the fateful events of May 1937—a series of street clashes in Barcelona that left hundreds killed and wounded, and led to the detention of numerous anarchists. Although a budget had been agreed upon between the bureau and the Barcelona print shop Seix y Barral Hermanos by late May, a final printing order was not issued until late summer. But then, amid a protracted dispute about rising costs—an unfortunate consequence of the ongoing war—printing was not completed until the closing weeks of the year, with albums being finally delivered to the CNT-FAI between December 1937 and February 1938. By the time the Foreign Propaganda Office started dispatching copies of ¿España? abroad, the embattled Republican

government, under increasing pressure from the Soviet Union, had stripped anarchists of their effective power and reversed their economic policies. For all practical purposes, the revolution was finished. The bureau’s painful predicament—the unexpected futility of having put ¿España? together—was described in a March 1938 letter to the print shop: “As per our agreement, the album should have costed 2.15 pesetas and you are now charging us 3.50 pesetas; but the worst is that it’s been delivered with a delay of at least six months, which has impacted our ability to sell it because: (1) we have been forced to stamp it explaining why it’s been delayed; (2) it is now much more difficult to obtain export permits; (3) because of the rise in price, it’s been hard to sell it inside Spain. To this date, we have hardly sold any.”46 Imprinted in some of the copies that were shipped abroad, the stamp alluded to in this letter acknowledged the irrelevance of the photobook: “For reasons beyond our control, this album is going out for sale with a delay of 10 months. Consequently, some of the reproductions within it no longer reflect today’s reality. The reader will appreciate it as if it had been received in early 1937.”

Keepsakes of the Revolution Despite these drawbacks, the Foreign Propaganda Office tried to circulate ¿España? as widely as possible throughout 1938 in the hopes of generating urgently needed revenues. Indeed, at least 7,000 copies were dispatched to individuals and groups in numerous countries. Recipients in the United States included Maximiliano Olay, the SHC, and the editors of Cultura Proletaria, which altogether appear to have received a few hundred copies as shown by extant records preserved in the International Institute of Social History, in Amsterdam. As per a June 1938 letter to the SHC, albums in the United States were to be sold at the equivalent of 10 French francs each (roughly 25 cents at the time).47 In sharp contrast with the enthusiastic reception of Estampas de la Revolución Española, which continued to be advertised in periodicals such as Spanish Revolution long after the events of May 1937, ¿España? seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the United States. Indeed, although copies of the album had been sent to Maximiliano Olay—presumably

to ensure their distribution through the ULO—the album is not even listed in any issue of Spanish Revolution before the publication folded in May 1938. One of the rare mentions of ¿España? in the United States anarchist press I have been able to find during my research is a sales notice in the January 1939 issue of Man! A Journal of the Anarchist Ideal and Movement, a San Francisco monthly founded and edited by the Rumanian-born immigrant Marcus Graham. Listed alongside other titles published by the CNTFAI, ¿España? is succinctly described as “an album depicting the horror tales and fascist calumnies in one page, and on the opposite page the truth.”48 As we have seen, production delays were largely to blame for the ill-timed circulation of ¿España? The photobook’s failure as a tool of radical propaganda, in the United States and elsewhere, contrasts with the remarkable success of Estampas de la Revolución Española in engaging audiences beyond the anarchist movement. It is fascinating that Rey Vila’s illustrations of July 19, 1936, should have continued to interest the public after the short-lived revolutionary order in Spain had come undone. Indeed, unlike other materials produced by anarchists that have faded into obscurity— among them ¿España—Estampas has earned a modest place in the historiography of wartime Spanish visual culture. Most significantly for the purposes of our analysis, a comparative overview of the dissimilar production and circulation histories of ¿España? and Estampas has allowed us to take stock of the inability of Augustin Souchy and his team at the CNT-FAI’s Foreign Propaganda Office to capitalize on the renewed strength and increased collaboration between Hispanic and non-Hispanic anarchist groups in North America during the Spanish Civil War. Notes 1. “The City of Barcelona,” Life, February 22, 1937, 37. 2. Ibid., 38. 3. Ibid., 37. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., 40. 6. “Revolution in Barcelona,” Life, February 22, 1937, 34. 7. Ibid.

8. Ibid. 9. Joan Prados and Jaume Rodon, “José Luis Rey Vila ‘Sim’: Pintor de guerra,” L’A venç 395 (2012), 26. 10. Miriam Basilio, Visual Propaganda, Exhibitions, and the Spanish Civil War (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2013), 30. 11. “Life’s Pictures,” Life, February 22, 1937, 60. 12. Norman Thomas, Democracy versus Dictatorship (New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1937), 30. 13. The extent to which this bureau may have coordinated efforts with Toryho’s is unclear. Records show that while the Foreign Propaganda Office produced its own materials for international circulation, it also distributed some of those created by Toryho’s agency, including Estampas de la Revolución Española. 14. Sam Dolgoff, foreword to Entre los campesinos de Aragón, by Agustin Souchy Bauer (Barcelona: Tusquets Editor, 1977), 7. 15. Augustin Souchy, Beware! Anarchist! A Life for Freedom (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1992), 91. 16. Ibid. 17. Augustin Souchy, “Informe. Viaje a Francia, Holanda, Dinamarca, Suecia, Noruega e Inglaterra. Del 22 de agosto al 1 de octubre, 1936,” and “Informe. Al Comité Económico de Cines, y al Comité Regional de la CNT. de Cataluña,” Federación Anarquista Ibérica Archives, International Institute of Social History. 18. Ibid. 19. Augustin Souchy, “Informe. Viaje a Francia, Holanda, Dinamarca, Suecia, Noruega e Inglaterra. Del 22 de agosto al 1 de octubre, 1936,” Federación Anarquista Ibérica Archives, International Institute of Social History. 20. Ibid. 21. Souchy’s plans also included traveling exhibitions in Spain and abroad and the CNT-FAI’s participation in the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, presumably in parallel to the Spanish Republic’s representation. Some of these ideas were scaled back or discarded following the events of May 1937 and the subsequent political decline of Spanish Anarchists. See Augustin Souchy, “Sugestiones para la propaganda en el extranjero.” Federación Anarquista Ibérica Archives, International Institute of Social History.

22. Andrew Cornell, Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 112. 23. Ibid. 24. Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 3. 25. Cornell, Unruly Equality, 138. 26. Russell Blackwell, “Spanish Revolution bulletin. Introduction,” 1968. Libcom.org. Accessed January 10, 2017. https://libcom.org/library/spanish-revolution-newspaper. 27. Ibid. 28. Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 392. In his interview with Avrich, Marcelino García, editor of Cultura Proletaria, estimated the number of active Spanish Anarchists in the U.S. in the 1920s and ’30s to be around 2,500, to which he added 2,000 nonanarchist Hispanic sympathizers of the anarchist cause. 29. Blackwell, “Spanish Revolution Bulletin, Introduction.” 30. Ibid. 31. Spanish Revolution, April 23, 1937, 1. 32. Emma Goldman to Augustin Souchy, June 9, 1937, Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History. 33. See Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2015). 34. Emma Goldman to Augustin Souchy, August 25, 1936, Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History. 35. For example, Goldman’s letter to Martin Gudell, secretary of the Foreign Propaganda Office, on January 29, 1937: “When I was asked by Souchy and the Comite [sic] to go here [the United Kingdom] for a publicity campaign I understood that the CNT-FAI Bureu [in London] should be a sort of headquarters from which all propaganda and activity was to go. … Now I understand that some people calling themselves Anarchists have ordered the Durruti pamphlets and other things. … It will take a lot of yours or Souchys [sic] time corresponding with these comrades. And worse still Barcelona may never see a penny from the stuff sent.” Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History.

36. Emma Goldman to Augustin Souchy, August 25, 1936, Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History. 37. Emma Goldman to Maximiliano Olay, October 9, 1934, Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History. 38. After spending time in Cuba and Florida, where he worked as a cigar maker and was engaged in radical activism, Olay settled in Chicago, where he ran a translation office. Along with his wife, Anna Edelstein, a Jewish anarchist, Olay was involved with the city’s Free Society Group. He was also a contributor to several anarchist periodicals, including the New York–based Vanguard: A Libertarian Communist Journal. See Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 516. 39. Cornell, Unruly Equality, 138. 40. For a careful examination of the role of the Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas in coordinating the efforts of U.S.-based Spanish anarchist groups during and after the Spanish Civil War, see Montse Feu, España Libre (1939–1977) and the Spanish Exile Community in New York, Ph.D. diss., University of Houston, 2011. 41. I would like to thank Montse Feu for bringing my attention to this difference in priorities between the ULO (and, by extension, the CNT-FAI’s Foreign Propaganda Office) and Hispanic networks operating independently throughout the United States. Montse Feu notes that handing Estampas to Life might have been a strategy to get the propaganda published in the United States. At the time, SHC funds were devoted to getting refugees out of Spain and France. Although Souchy collaborated with the Confederadas and became friends with some of its members, throughout its existence the confederation did not pay for contributions or propaganda. 42. Augustin Souchy and Pablo Folgare, Colectivizaciones. La obra constructiva de la revolución española (Barcelona: Tierra y Libertad, 1937). Pablo Folgare was one of the pseudonyms used by Partos at the time. 43. For example, in a scathing assessment to the CNT-FAI’s Film Committee about the documentary features, Reportaje del movimiento revolucionario en Barcelona, En el frente de Aragón, and Aguiluchos de las FAI, Souchy suggests that “moving forward, every film leaving Spain must show technical perfection. To that end, I propose that no film should leave Spain without first being

examined by foreign comrades, familiar with the mindset of their respective countrymen. The Film Committee must therefore work in close coordination with the Foreign Propaganda Office.” See Souchy, “Informe. Al Comité Económico de Cines.” 44. For more about Kati Horna, including her association with Karl Korsch’s circle and her involvement with Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, see Michel Otayek, “Loss and Renewal: The Politics and Poetics of Kati Horna’s Photo Stories,” in Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press, eds. Christina De León, Michel Otayek, and Gabriela Rangel (New York: Americas Society; Archivo Privado de Fotografía y Gráfica Kati and José Horna, 2017), 20–39. 45. The extent of Horna’s contribution to the photobook’s overall design is not clear. Payroll records show that she was solely in charge of the bureau’s photographic agency. This suggests that she was also likely responsible for design duties, including layout. The identity of the illustrator who created the caricatures reproduced throughout the book remains unknown. 46. Martin Gudell to Industrias Gráficas Seix y Barral, March 12, 1938, Federación Anarquista Ibérica Archives, International Institute of Social History. 47. Martin Gudell to Jesús Arenas, June 16, 1938, Federación Anarquista Ibérica Archives, International Institute of Social History. 48. Since the recovery of wartime Spanish-language anarchist periodicals is still a work in progress, it is possible that future research may lead us to conclude that ¿España? (and indeed, other materials produced by the CNT-FAI propaganda bureaucracy) had in fact a greater impact in North America than seems to be the case based on the archival work I’ve conducted thus far. For a recent overview on Hispanic anarchist periodicals in the United States, see Nicolás Kanellos, “Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals in Early Twentieth-Century United States,” in Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent since 1865, eds. James L. Baughman, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, and James P. Danky (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), 59–84.

CHAPTER 14

España Libre (1939–1977) Anarchist Literature and Antifascism in the United States MONTSE FEU (M. MONTSERRAT FEU LÓPEZ) Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (Confederation of Hispanic Societies, or SHC), an antifascist organization headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, provided political and financial support to refugees of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the underground resistance during the Francisco Franco dictatorship (1939–1975).1 The Confederadas’s periodical, España Libre (Free Spain, 1939– 1977), expressed anarchist and antifascist sentiment mostly through caricatures, essays, news, popular plays, poetry, short stories, and satirical chronicles. This chapter explores the editorial strategies of anarcho-syndicalist Jesús González Malo that focused on (1) print protest, (2) popular empowerment, (3) documentation of Spanish anarchism, and (4) rearticulation of revolution. The periodical’s anarchist contributors supported these goals with literary genres. For example, poet Alfonso Camín denounced Franco’s political repression of Spanish literary icons; José Castilla Morales empowered workers in U.S. exile with antifascist popular plays; Miguel Giménez Igualada published several manuscripts contesting misrepresentations of anarchism; and Félix Martí Ibáñez called for fraternity with others as a way to spark societal change. Although it is generally accepted that the Franco regime’s repression cracked down on workers’ underground resistance, exiled anarchists continued to contribute to the movement’s thought and practice. In the case of España Libre, anarchists’ clear awareness of master narratives marked the periodical’s antifascist literary legacy, which went beyond anarchist circles. Their anarchist and antifascist values are present in their artistic, literary, and editorial careers in the United States, which in turn contributed to building an antifascist American culture.

Denunciation of Civil Rights Infringements in Spain At the turn of the twentieth century, Spanish immigrants arrived in the United States already imbued with radical traditions rooted either in the socialism or anarchism of their homeland. These Spanish

immigrants founded cultural and mutual aid societies in several enclaves across the United States, from large urban cities to smaller rural and mining areas. Moreover, they participated in vigorous transnational and radical countercultures with their own alternative press. During the first decades of the century, the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923–1930) in Spain further radicalized the Spanish diaspora, which overwhelmingly supported the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1936) during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Against the Franco regime, the diaspora’s political activity organized into about two hundred of these organizations, affiliated with the Confederadas. These migrant enclaves and the anarchist and exile networks that extended from Spain, France, Cuba, and Canada, facilitated the safe arrival of Spanish Civil War exiles to the United States. Despite being monitored by the Spanish Consulates and the FBI, Confederadas’s members never ceased organizing various forms of solidarity: they subscribed to España Libre, regularly submitted contributions to the periodical, organized fundraisers, and protested in the streets. España Libre was the only bilingual Spanish- English newspaper published in the United States that specifically fought fascism throughout the years of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.2 The periodical was distributed at newsstands and businesses, and by subscription. Both frequency and circulation were uneven, ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 issues, and from weekly to twice a month.3 Although modest in circulation, its uncensored news from Spain made it required reading in exile circles, and issues were often shared among readers in the United States and abroad, and clandestinely reached Spain. Anarchist contributors were key players in the antifascist protest put forth by España Libre and employed the periodical as a fundamental tool of dissemination, communication, and artistic expression. With a system of covert communication between the United States and Spain, España Libre reported uncensored news about the civil rights infringements in Franco’s Spain. Editor and staff writer Jesús González Malo (1903–1965) was at the forefront of this fight. Since his arrival to New York City in 1940, he served as a staff writer and as editor/director from 1961 to 1965. Before the Spanish Civil

War, González Malo had been president of the Santander Dock Workers Union and editor of the leftist newspaper La Región in Santander, Spain.4 During the war, González Malo fought as a leader of a mixed militia (composed of members from socialist and anarchist unions) in Santander and Barcelona. González Malo’s experience in the Santander port served him well in New York City, where he contacted Spanish sailors at the city docks. Some sailors volunteered to smuggle letters, documents, and copies of España Libre in and out of Spain. To maintain this undercover communication system, he also surreptitiously sought volunteers in Spain.5 While Franco’s regime terrorized the population into submission, these transatlantic undercover reports and publications helped democratic Spaniards resist the regime by learning about its political persecution and enabled the exile diaspora in their publication of the regime’s censored news. Alfonso Camín (1890–1982), who was well known in anarchist circles in the United States, visited España Libre’s headquarters in February 1940, and thereafter the poet regularly published in the periodical in support of González Malo’s mission.6 His poetry fiercely condemned the use of terror against the regime’s dissenters and encouraged resistance with iconic literary symbols. For example, in the poem entitled “Mater Dolorosa” Camín recalled the Spanish icon of liberty, Don Quixote, and imagined him without his spear and, thus, unable to thrust it into the fascists: “I hope one day he recovers his spear / Quijano.”7 When Camín called the knight by his common name, Quijano, it rendered antifascist defeat with painful literary force. Meanwhile the poet felt the need to live in exile and die in liberty elsewhere: “Eternally loving my land / if freedom is nowhere where I was born, / to die in liberty under another sky.”8 For España Libre’s readers, Camín’s literary representations alerted them of the cultural and political loss under fascist Spain.9

Popular Empowerment España Libre not only distributed censored news but also empowered its working-class readers to fight fascism.10 In this regard, González Malo constantly communicated with workers under the regime and published on their vital role for creating societies free

of fascism. Remembering González Malo, a eulogy was written in 1967, two years after his death. It encouraged readers to continue his thought and practice: González Malo was a simple and humble man, but he treasured a titanic spirit. He was an authentic representative of the greatest —we could almost say, the sacred of Spain: the people who work, suffer and never complain … he was able to acquire an uncommon culture, which he put at the service of a noble cause: the struggle for democracy and freedom in Spain and in exile. … Ideologically, he belonged to the libertarian tendency that in Spain has given memorable fighters of the stature of Fermin Salvochea, Anselmo Lorenzo, Francisco Ferrer, Salvador Seguí, Angel Pestaña, Juan Peiro, and Eluterio Quintanilla.11 Beyond the periodical’s desire to document Spain’s rich labor legacy, this praise recalled González Malo’s inclusive interests and desire to liberate workers from any dogma. In exile, González Malo read anarchist thinkers broadly in a search of common ground that would intersect with other progressive and radical movements as a way to grow resistance against fascism. In his service as editor of España Libre and leader of the Confederadas, González Malo maintained an intense correspondence about this postwar adaptation with anarchist and socialist correspondents in France, Latin America, and the United States.12 Rudolf Rocker and Fernando de los Ríos greatly influenced his reformist approach to postwar anarchism, which foresaw a society of workers’ cooperatives and mutual support, free of subjugating ideologies.13 In 1961, González Malo published a forceful article entitled, “Con el mismo espíritu” (With the Same Spirit) in CNT (Paris), which defended this reformist approach to anarchism after the Spanish Civil War: “We cannot affirm our libertarian spirit more clearly, we are staunch supporters of freedom, who, fight tyranny in all its forms and manifestations, without hesitation or delay. Such expressions as ‘just us’ or ‘all or nothing,’ are long gone in our discourse because they deny the libertarian spirit, because they invoke the theory and practice of exclusionism.”14 González Malo reinforced the need to liberate people from dogma and instead foster their individualism, while encouraging dialogue between diverse perspectives. He

exposed the pervasive influence of elitist, nationalist, and dominant representations of popular movements that limited workers’ free will and misrepresented them as unruly and unable to self-organize. González Malo defined himself as an anarcho-syndicalist or a libertarian, specifying that he believed in people and liberty above any ideology. In his capacity as editor of España Libre, González Malo eagerly read the Spanish exile and American progressive periodicals (although in his correspondence he often complained that work and activism left him with little time to read). In his articles, he mentioned these periodicals as sources of documentation of the workers’ fight against fascism. In his manuscripts, González Malo also cited his contemporary and preceding anarchist and anarchosyndicalist thinkers, mainly Mikhail Bakunin, Marín Civera, Joaquín Costa, J. García Pradas, M. González Prada, Peter Kropotkin, Anselmo Lorenzo, Ricardo Mella, Juan Peiro, Ángel Pestaña, Joseph Proudhon, Élisée Reclus, Diego Abad de Santillán, José Viadiu, and Manuel Villar. Spanish Civil War anarchists like González Malo were not anchored in the past. Instead, they adapted in innovative ways to the postwar political context. After World War II, states took a recognized peacetime role when the Allies responded to the fascist threat with “massive mobilization of centralized power” in the service of “freedom and democracy.”15 In these times of “benevolent statism,”16 anarchists in Britain and in the United States rearticulated thought and practice into what has been called “practical” (Ruth Kinna) or “new anarchism” (Benjamin J. Pauli).17 Rather than seeking a revolution that would free people from the authority of the state, the new strategy was based on daily and continuous actions: empowerment of people, realization of the interdependence of resistance groups, the exercise of mutual support and solidarity, use of the legal framework, use of the freedom of speech, playful subversion of accepted standards, and dissemination of creative works as cognitive tools to foresee a free future.18 For González Malo, this reformist anarchism included a coalition with other dissenters fighting fascism. To this effect, González Malo was in constant contact with the underground resistance in Spain, refugees

and exiles abroad, and radicals and progressives in the United States.19 His coalitional efforts were successful: he published uncensored reports about the dictatorship, secured funds, and helped relocate refugees in Mexico and Venezuela. Additionally, González Malo published the manifestos of the underground socialist and anarchist alliance Alianza Sindical Obrera (ASO) in España Libre and secured financial and political aid for them to be sent to Spain. For his determination, González Malo received several warnings from anarchist leaders in France, who reminded him that he had no political endorsement from which to openly support ASO. They felt coalitions would weaken the movement in exile. On February 2, 1964, González Malo defended his tactics in a letter to Ángel Aransaez, regional secretary of the anarchist union National Confederation of Labor (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, CNT), exiled in France: This continuous retreat of our men and this permanent absence of replacements must make us meditate and be impartial. Your father’s work (and I am not mentioning even ours) and the work of so many self-sacrificing comrades is about to fall apart. … The work of our forefathers is being ruined unless we succeed in assessing the facts and adjusting to them.20 In his letter, González Malo proceeded to explain how his editorial approach followed his anarchist refusal of hierarchical power: I am an exponent of a unifying attitude, that ends with the divisions, with the sectarianisms, with the watertight compartments or the laborers’ quarters; as an exile and as a libertarian (partisan of liberty), I think is my duty to place myself in the rearguard of those who in Spain give everything and I should not pretend, under any excuse or circumstance, to direct or call them to account.21 In his book La incorporación de las masas (The Incorporation of the Masses, 1952), González Malo advocated the inclusion of workers in politics.22 In this light, his essays in España Libre proposed an organic, nonhierarchical society, in which people were not misrepresented by elitist ideologues. Instead, he portrayed common people as social actors, conscious of societal rights and

duties and able to confront organized power. To González Malo, the Spanish Civil War proved that self-taught workers had evolved from representation to incorporation into the body politic and were forefront fighters against fascism. González Malo elaborated on this perception of anarchosyndicalism after the war in his regular contributions to anarchist newspapers in Mexico and France.23 He published a recurrent request to free workers of constraining dogmas: “The popular movements must be liberated from all dogmatic subjugation. The philosophy of the masses is eclectic and instinctive.”24 To González Malo, people, skeptical of their leaders, grew cognizant of their interdependency and created a fruitful “unity in independence.”25 In CNT (Mexico), he responded to critics of his reformist approach to anarchism: “We are revolutionaries precisely because we believe in the evolution of society.”26 In another article he concluded: “In this collectivist era, which revolves around the overwhelming advance of the applied sciences and technology for the material development, we need to strengthen both human bonds and theoretical nuances so that spiritual values do not perish. The time of orthodox ideological minorities and narrow nationalisms has ended. Avoiding being inclusive is to commit suicide.”27 The inclusion of workers put forth by González Malo was enforced by the plays of José Castilla Morales (1893–1961), another esteemed Confederadas’s leader. Having migrated from Spain, he worked as an editor and staff writer for several labor newspapers in Cuba before his arrival in New York City in the late 1920s. Since his arrival in the city, Castilla Morales was active in labor organizations in New York City and in the vibrant U.S. Hispanic theater scene. As a playwright, he took charge of most of the Confederadas’s stage productions and successful fundraisers.28 In these efforst of anarchist and antifascist action, literature and humor were fundamental tools. Castilla Morales’s plays were often set in the United States, and his protagonists were workers who sang revolutionary songs and continued to support fellow Spaniards under the dictatorship. For example, his play, Ay Carmela, portrayed the tragic story of Spanish

refugees in the United States.29 In one scene, an American postman read aloud letters in Galician and Italian for the illiterate migrants of the barrio. However, the monolingual postman read these languages in humorous ways. Mispronunciations made the tragic moment laughable. The parody of his limited language skills refocused the narrative from the suffering of the victims of fascism to inclusive experiences for exiles and for Americans. Because of the Franco dictatorship, many Confederadas’s members never returned to their homeland and died without seeing the end of fascism in Spain. Castilla Morales’s popular plays dramatized the exile activism of the confederation and helped his audience develop an awareness of their new Spanish-American identity as part of a transnational resistance to fascism, while keeping alive their origins with popular theater.

Vindicating the Movement Another regular España Libre contributor, Miguel Giménez Igualada (1888–1973), published on the meaning of anarchism in the periodical and wrote several books against the vilification suffered by the anarchist movement under the Franco dictatorship and in the United States during the McCarthy years. Originally from Iniesta, Cuenca, Spain, Miguel Giménez Igualada, CNTer, director of the publishing house Nosotros (Valencia), and staff writer for Al Margen (Barcelona), survived internment camps in France with the help of Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA). While in exile, Giménez Igualada wrote several books about his refugee experience and his understanding of anarchism. In Los caminos del hombre (The Paths of Man, 1961), Giménez Igualada compiled fifty letters written to a fictional friend, Juan, from 1942 to 1960, responding to negative stereotypes about anarchists.30 He justified the title with no reference to anarchism because in the political climate, “the word anarchy causes dread.”31 In the manuscript, Giménez Igualada denied the assumption that anarchism was violent; instead anarchism was “serene in words and fraternal in actions.”32 Anarchists reject violence because it brings tyranny: “We have learned that violence is insurrection, but that was not and will never be revolutionary … because there can be no revolution in the violent

act that brings war and carries terror in its heart, because terror ends only in tyranny.”33 In fact, an anarchist is against any sort of domination, Giménez Igualada explained. People become anarchists “when they refuse in their heart to exercise power over any other human creature.”34 In this respect, Giménez Igualada claimed that anarchism was more than resisting oppression. Anarchism was also a commitment to a harmonious life: “Anarchism, even if it rejects the very concept of government, cannot exist only to critique oppressive forces … rather, it must create an ideal life, first in the imagination and then by living it, an ideal that rises above the din of existence, and makes human existence beautiful.”35 Postwar anarchism was indeed strengthened by the power of imagination. “Slowly but surely, progress rather than regression will assert itself,” he predicted, “harmony will reign in place of violence, and culture will replace avarice. This human revolution is an anarchist revolution because ethics gives it energy and aesthetics guides it. I love it.”36 In a later manuscript, Giménez Igualada defined anarchism as action, but one resulting from introspection: “In the moments of introspection, concentration, meditation, thought; that is to say, in the moments of the depth of life and inner satisfaction and harmony, we all feel capable of acting ethically and beautifully … This deep, vital emotion is what I call anarchist feeling, from which derives anarchist behavior.”37 Therefore, to Giménez Igualada, the anarchist revolution was an evolving process of introspection and ethical action that would break with all forms of oppression and domination.

The Rearticulation of Revolution After the Spanish Civil War, revolution was no longer imminent nor a sudden rupture with the established order. In his letter to Juan Manuel Molina, González Malo explained to the anarchist leader exiled in Toulouse his inclusive perspective: Those who ought to watch over the good name of anarchism, are the first to discredit it, making it appear as a Jacobin idea of the revolution by the revolution. Anarchism, as an ideal, is peace and is cooperation; is work and is progress and therefore is innovative and ready to innovate when necessary. Cooperation not only

among parishioners (who are almost always in intimate wars) but with the other; what a joke is to cooperate with the ally or to live in peace with the coreligionist! The virtue of anarchism, which is more than a philosophy, is an attitude, is to provide peace and cooperation to the stranger, to preach by example the possibility and need to live together and help each other … anarchism must be in the vanguard of progress.38 Beyond advocating for cooperation within the broader resistance to fascism, González Malo was voicing his search for a new meaning of revolution that accounted for people’s ongoing power of the everyday solidarity.39 Félix Martí Ibáñez (1911–1972), a regular España Libre contributor, fictionally recreated this understanding of anarchism by fostering fraternity. Martí Ibáñez served in the Catalonian government representing the Spanish anarchist union CNT as General Director of Public Health and Social Services in Catalonia in 1937. Two years later, he was appointed Undersecretary of Public Health in Spain and was named Director of Wartime Health Education in Catalonia. At the end of the war, Martí Ibáñez exiled to the United States and taught medicine at New York University until his death in 1972. Martí Ibáñez published extensively in España Libre. In the 1940s, he published several essays looking for a reflexive literary voice different from the adventurous and mythical approaches in his two Spanish Civil War novels, Yo, Rebelde (1936) and Aventura (1938). The introspective perspective is visible in his first two short stories published in España Libre, “Presagio de Berchtesgaden” (1940) and “Episodio en Londres” (1940), in which the practice of interconnectedness with others contests the dehumanization of fascism. A prolific fiction writer, Martí Ibáñez’s short stories were compiled in two anthologies: Waltz, and Other Stories (1952)—translated as De noche brilla el sol (1966); and All the Wonders We Seek; Thirteen Tales of Surprise and Prodigy (1963)—translated as Los buscadores de sueños. Trece cuentos de maravilla y prodigio (1964). Most of these stories were first published in the medical magazine MD The Medical Newsmagazine, which Martí Ibáñez cofounded with Henry Welch in New York City in 1957.40 España

Libre’s readers closely followed Martí Ibáñez’s editorial work and authorship in MD because his success publicly testified to the work produced by Spanish radical intellectuals in U.S. exile. Also, Martí Ibáñez’s short stories, although accommodating MD readers’ expectations of literary fantasy and wonder, spoke to Spanish anarchists. For example, his fantastic story, “The Star Hunt,” in All the Wonders We Seek: Thirteen Tales of Surprise and Prodigy, published in 1963, captured the historical expectation of change in Spain. At the time, the dictatorship was losing its strength and students were protesting in the streets. In the story, Don Zoilo Fernández is on his way to return an umbrella to Liza when a small boy asks for help. After several incidents, Don Zoilo and the boy end up in the Galapagos Islands in the company of several runaways. In the same place where Charles Darwin developed his Theory of Natural Selection, characters share their dreams. At the end of the story, Liza explains to Don Zoilo that the magical star on the handle of the umbrella has united strangers in a voyage of self-discovery. Indeed, Don Zoilo has inadvertently carried a star that “blinks the magic light of dreams.”41 The reference to Darwin’s Theory served Martí Ibáñez to symbolically replace competition with solidarity. The story powerfully fictionalized revolution as always present, like a magical guiding star that helps us see otherwise. A nonhierarchical and noncompetitive anarchist disposition facilitated characters’ selfrecognition when they listened to the interconnected nature of their dreams in the islands. Both Martí Ibáñez and González Malo reconsidered revolution in similar ways to today’s critical approaches to the concept, such as one from Simon Springer: The problem with revolution is quite simply that it implies too many things. It is a suggestion that everything needs to be changed, thereby ignoring the prefigurative activities that we are already engaging. It infers a politics of waiting for a swell whereby we may overwhelm the best of oppression, rather than actively working to sever its tentacles of domination wherever they extend into our daily lives. It is also indicative of an implicit vanguardism, whereby “great men” will tell us when it is time, and then lead us into battle. But we don’t need to be led. Instead of waiting for revolution I believe in the power of the everyday, where our

collective undoing of capitalism is an ongoing process of subversion.42 Although anarchists were not anchored in the past, they maintained a central tenet of anarchism: “Oppression can be overcome only by the free action of the oppressed.”43 For this reason, solidarity with people under the Franco regime was the root of González Malo’s fight for Spanish freedom. The editor was against any indoctrination of dissenters in Spain by exiled anarchist leaders: From a purely human and revolutionary point of view, from a strictly libertarian syndicalist point of view, reason is entirely on the side of the comrades in Spain; this is because to them and only to them corresponds the determination of what is to be done there … the rest, to judge with the ideas, the use of an organic history, etc., is to make it easy for our enemies, which are not only Francoism and communism, not even capitalism, but a series of allied circumstances that speculate with this classic lack of confederal and anarchic flexibility, which implies all or nothing.44 Instead, González Malo asked the Spanish diaspora to listen to the needs of people suffering the regime’s repression. In the U.S. exile, the fight for social change involved a nuanced understanding of revolution and freedom for anarchists that accounted for evolutionism rather than imminent insurgency. While some Spanish anarchists were against coalitions, reformist anarchists such as González Malo advocated political alliances with other antifascist groups because they believed in the radical inclusion of all peoples as political actors and the everyday action to guarantee societies free from fascism. Knowing that España Libre reached workers globally, anywhere Spanish Civil War exile associations were found, and clandestinely in Spain, González Malo disseminated Spanish-censored information and fostered solidarity, which continued in the periodical until his last issue published in 1977. His relentless epistolary work facilitated the publication of Spanish-censored news in España Libre and enabled a transnational dialogue about the meaning of anarchism, revolution, and liberty among Spanish exiles and the underground resistance. It provided

an ongoing process of shifting values that ultimately engaged a broader readership for España Libre. With the same vision, the periodical’s anarchist and antifascist literature efficiently articulated alternatives to fascist culture. Camín invocated Don Quixote to inspire freedom fighters to resist. Castilla Morales rooted exiles in the United States and provided readers with a new ethnic yearning in the United States and a transnational interpretation of their antifascism. Giménez Igualada defended anarchism, cognizant that it was perceived in a negative light during the American Red Scare and the Cold War. After the failure of the revolutionary project in Spain, Martí Ibáñez continued to instill in his readers the desire to pursue revolutionary dreams, even if his prefigurative fiction was masked for fantasy-avid MD readers. The political and literary legacies of these activists, editors, writers, and freedom fighters testify to their great contributions to anarchism and antifascism while in exile in the United States. Notes 1. See the list of about 200 affiliated organizations in Montse Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado (1943–1965) (Santander: Colección Cuatro Estaciones, Universidad de Cantabria, 2016). On fund-raising achievements, see Montse Feu, “Transnational Working-Class Women’s Activism in New York’s Confederated Hispanic Societies (1939–1977).” Ed. Glenda Bonifacio, Feminism and Migration: Cross-Cultural Engagements (New York: Springer, 2012), 187–208. 2. There were other antifascist newspapers in the United States. However, none maintained an exclusive focus on Franco’s Spain for thirty-eight years. Edited by noted Spanish socialist Victoria Kent, Ibérica (1953–1974, NYC) was another long-run newspaper sponsored by Spanish exiles. 3. The publication was a weekly from November 1939 to 1953. Editions dropped from weekly to bimonthly in 1962, to monthly in 1963, and finally to one issue every two months in 1967 (Comité Antifascista Español de los Estados Unidos de Norte América and Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas de los Estados Unidos de Norte América). España Libre (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Comité Antifascista

Español de los Estados Unidos, 1939–1977) (Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, University of Houston). 4. “Actividades Sindicales,” La Región, May 3, 1933. 5. See Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia. 6. Camín was a friend of Adrián del Valle (1872–1945), who wrote for anarchist newspapers in Barcelona and Cuba under the pseudonym of Palmiro de Lidia. Del Valle preceded Pedro Esteve (1865–1925) on his route to New York and later became his collaborator. Camín was a regular contributor for the anarchist newspapers Via Libre (Free Route) and Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture). In 1914, Camín returned to Spain to cover the First World War for the Diario de la Marina (La Havana). His poems also appeared in the Spanish-language press. For example, his contributions appear in El Cronista del Valle (The Chronicler of the Valley, 1917–19nn, Bronwsville); Evolución (Evolution, 1916–19nn, Laredo); Gráfico (Graphic, 1927–19nn, New York City); Las Novedades (Novelties, 1909–19nn, New York City); La Prensa (The Press, 1923–1962, San Antonio); and La Voz (1937–1939, NYC). 7. Camín, “Mater Dolorosa,” España Libre, Mar. 17, 1956. 8. Camín, “Camino y Quilla,” España Libre, Aug. 2, 1963. 9. For example, the poet funded a magazine, Norte (North, Madrid and Mexico, 1929–1977), the title of which refers to Asturias, his place of birth in northern Spain. 10. In recognition of his efforts, the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW) granted González Malo the UAW bronze medal while on his deathbed in 1965 (Joaquim Maurín Julià, “Palabras de despedida,” España Libre, Jan. 1966, Suplemento). 11. “Columna de Honor. Jesús González Malo,” España Libre, Jan. 8, 1967. 12. See list of correspondents in Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia, 269–291. 13. In turn, González Malo, along with Diego Abad de Santillán and Lone (Jesús Lóuzara), helped Rocker with translations of his correspondence and writings for the Spanish anarchist movement in exiles. “Querido Rocker,” Solidaridad Obrera (Paris), Sept. 18, 1958. 14. González Malo, “Con el mismo espíritu,” CNT (Paris) Aug. 6, 1961.

15. Benjamin J. Pauli, “The New Anarchism in Britain and the US: Towards a Richer Understanding of Post-War Anarchist Thought,” Journal of Political Ideologies 20.2 (May 2015), 132–153. 16. Ibid., 134. 17. España Libre’s contributors rearticulated anarchism in ways like those described by Andy Cornell, “A New Anarchism Emerges, 1940–1954,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism 5.1 (2011), 105– 132; Pauli, “New Anarchism in Britain and the US, 132–153; and Ruth Kinna, Anarchism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005), 240–246. 18. See Kinna, Anarchism, 231–248. 19. His correspondence archives, of about 4,000 letters, which stretch from 1943 to 1965, show that he contacted more than 200 correspondents in thirty-three different cities. See Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia (2016). 20. Jesús González Malo, Letter to Ángel Aransaez, Feb. 2, 1964, in Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia, 141. 21. Ibid., 142. 22. Jesús González Malo, La incorporación de las masas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Americalee, 1952). 23. España Libre (New York); Comunidad Ibérica and Solidaridad Obrera (México); CNT Francia, España Libre, and El Socialista (Toulouse); and Solidaridad Obrera (Paris). 24. González Malo, “No caben disyuntivas,” España Libre (Paris) July 15, 1956. 25. González Malo, La incorporación de las masas, 10, 41, 217, 435; González Malo, “Rectificaciones de fondo y forma,” Comunidad Ibérica Sept.–Oct. 1963. 26. González Malo, “Somos revolucionarios,” CNT (Mexico) January 1, 1956. 27. González Malo, “Socialismo humanista,” España Libre (Toulouse) May 3, 1959. 28. To learn more about these events, see Feu, “Transnational Working-Class Women’s Activism in New York’s Confederated Hispanic Societies (1939–1977),” and Montse Feu, “José Castilla Morales y España Libre (1939–1977): sátira contra la dictadura de

Francisco Franco desde Henry Street, Brooklyn.” Migraciones & Exilios. Cuadernos AEMIC 14 (2014): 87–104. 29. Although these antifascist plays have been lost, they were reviewed in España Libre, which allows for some recovery of their plots and themes. 30. In exile print culture, the name “Juan” was a codeword for any Spaniard. 31. Miguel Giménez Igualada, Los caminos del hombre (Mexico: Costa-Amic, 1961), 13. 32. Ibid., 11. 33. Ibid., 85. 34. Ibid., 11. 35. Ibid., 29. 36. Ibid., 83–84. 37. Giménez Igualada, Anarquismo, 39. 38. Jesús González Malo, Letter to Juan Manuel Molina Mateo, Jan. 2, 1965, in Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia, 254. Molina Mateo is also known for his pseudonym, Juanel. He is the author of five books about Spanish anarchism, among which Noche sobre España. Siete años en las prisiones de Franco (Mexico: Mex. Editores, 1958), is a testimony of the repression under the regime. 39. Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt’s contrasting notions of “mass anarchism” and “insurrectionist anarchism,” and the evolutionary approach as described by Mark Bray help us understand the Spanish Civil War anarchists’ adaptation in exile. Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt. Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Oakland, Calif.: AKA Press, 2009), 20; Mark Bray, Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street (Washington: Zero Books, 2013), 247–271. 40. MD The Medical Newsmagazine was published monthly, and its 100 high-quality pages were sent to 150,000 doctors in the United States. The MD Canada, MD en Español, MD Pacific, and MD Australia printed 300,000 copies to be sent worldwide. José Vicente Martí and Antonio M. Rey González, “Breve biografía del doctor Félix Martí Ibáñez,” eds. José Vicente Martí and Antonio M. Rey González, Félix Martí Ibáñez, Antología de textos de Félix Martí

Ibáñez (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Cultura, Educació i Esport, 2004), 40. 41. Felix Martí Ibáñez, “The Star Hunt,” in All the Wonders We Seek: Thirteen Tales of Surprise and Prodigy (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1963), 55. 42. Simon Springer, “Anarchist Praxis and the Evolution of Social Change: The Problem with Revolution and Thought,” Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography (accessed Dec. 2016), https://antipodefoundation.org/2016/12/20/the-revolution-ingeographic-thought/. 43. Kinna, Anarchism, 216. 44. Jesús González Malo, Letter to Ángel Aransaez, Feb. 2, 1964, in Feu, Jesús González Malo Correspondencia, 143.

CHAPTER 15

Federico Arcos (1920–2015) An Iberian Anarchist Exile DAVID WATSON For a circle of activists in Detroit who came to identify with anarchist ideals, Federico Arcos Martínez—a veteran of the Spanish Revolution (1936–1939)—was an unforgettable messenger of the anarchist ideal and in many ways a model of political integrity and a life well lived. For my wife and compañera Marilynn Rashid and me, who became lifelong teachers of Spanish, our encounter with Federico Arcos was life-changing in several ways, deepening our relationship to Spain and the Spanish language and informing our political activism and decades-long project of radical journalism and publishing. It also expanded our family and circle of friends to include this émigré and his wife/compañera, Pura Arcos, and others we would meet through them, both in North America and Europe. We would not be who we are without his influence. In 1970, a libertarian broadsheet declared, “The New Left today comes upon Anarchy like Schliemann uncovering Troy.”1 I can testify that that is how it felt. In the early 1970s, a group of friends around radical publishing projects in Detroit, the Black and Red printing collective, and the radical newspaper Fifth Estate, uncovered a trove of anarchist testimony, history, and heroism in great part through our friendship with a veteran of another more recent battle no less mythic and tragic, the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Like others of our generation, we would have inevitably discovered anarchism; it was in the air in the 1960s, and we had already started to look into and appreciate it when we met him. But Federico’s personal testimony, his contacts throughout North America and Europe, and the impressive archive of anarchist documents he was gathering confirmed our discoveries and our intuitions. Though Federico did not contribute directly to the growth of a Hispanic anarchist movement in North America, his friendships with many radical and labor activists in Canada and the United States, as well as with young radical academics and historians, contributed to the spread of

anarchist ideas and knowledge of anarchist history. His friendship with us in the Detroit/Windsor area was also critical to the lifelong radical activism of a number of people here, and politically through our publishing, and organically through our networks, to the spread of anarchist ideas, collectives, and activist strategies throughout the North American radical movement. While never a dominant force in U.S. radical movements, as noted by historian Andrew Cornell, anarchism was particularly influential in some nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century workingclass immigrant communities and radical labor movements. The U.S. anarchist movement arguably reached its peak, however, even before the First World War or shortly after the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. A quarter of a century after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution (1936–1939), Cornell observes, the anarchist movement seemed to be little more than “an anachronism.”2 While pockets of immigrant anarchist communities still existed throughout the United States, the mostly Italian, Spanish, and Jewish enclaves were aging. They looked inward and backward, and their children were not taking up the cause. As the eminent Spanish anarchist activist and journalist Marcelino García told historian Paul Avrich, Spanish anarchists in North America “were largely isolated. We had little contact with other anarchist groups, the biggest mistake we ever made in this country.”3 And yet anarchism reemerged in the 1960s, not only through cultural change but also through the direct influence of older anarchist poets and artists, anarcho- pacifist draft resisters who became civil rights activists, and working-class syndicalists, including IWW veterans on both coasts and in Chicago.4 Indeed, a relative handful of anarchist militants played an important, if not fully visible, role in shaping antiauthoritarian attitudes and strategies of the emerging counter-cultural New Left in the 1960s and after. From this apparent low point of the movements at the turn of the century, the anarchist Ideal found its way into the 1960s New Left and radical politics thereafter.5 The experience of younger radicals sympathetic to anarchism in Detroit followed this development. It was a product of the spontaneous anarchy of the 1960s but also of our direct connections with Spanish anarchism.

“Holy Cities”—Detroit, Barcelona, Troy All great cities produce hybrid fruits from the seed drift bringing new people, new cultures, new ideas to their soil and streets, and so the influence of anarchism and the Spanish Revolution is also a Detroit story. But before the Spanish Revolution became part of our story, it belonged to one of Detroit’s beloved sons, poet Philip Levine.6 Levine would have become, no matter what, a poet of rage and despair, balanced and redeemed by a disillusioned optimism of the will. Many of the best poets of his generation followed this path—the Holocaust and Hiroshima, Vietnam and the Sixties, made this likely. A memorial tribute to the poet after his death in 2015 commented that “in Levine’s best work, the political, the personal, and the poetical seem less intertwined than indivisible.”7 But in his case, there was a direct influence of Spanish anarchism—a Spaniard who had found his way to Detroit after the Spanish Civil War, whose brief interaction with the young Levine in the winter of 1941 proved to be transformative and enduring. Levine’s collection of autobiographical essays, The Bread of Time, describes this man, who worked in a dry cleaning and tailoring shop where young Phil Levine also worked. Politics was in the air, fascism was overtaking Europe and Asia, and the men in the shop—the enterprising Italian owners, a Bulgarian tailor, and a mostly taciturn Spanish presser—argued politics. Levine writes that he has forgotten the Spaniard’s name, but “because of his resemblance to another anarchist who shared his faith in the Spanish working people,” he would later remember him as Cipriano. “He was the first anarchist I met who knew he was an anarchist,” Levine writes, “and the most truly dignified person I’d ever met. … ‘Someday this will all be ours,’ he said into my wide eyes, ‘someday you will see.’ Pared of all excess, he seemed to me the perfect embodiment of the human spirit.”8 Levine’s association with this Cipriano led him to a lifelong affinity with anarchism, Spanish anarchism in particular. In 1965 Levine spent a sabbatical with his family in Barcelona, “the capital of anarchism” as he called it, for a year.9 The fruits of his pilgrimage were many, starting with poems on Spain and the war in several books.10

In Detroit, a generation or so later, my friends and I had our own Cipriano: Federico Arcos, another refugee from the Spanish crucible, and through him we met other anarchists, Spanish and Italian, Bulgarian and French. To us, he seemed to be an Aeneas washed up on the shores of our Strait from a terrible shipwreck, the destruction of a world, and vision that briefly flourished but that might still be. Detroit is a border town, situated on the north shore of the Detroit River, overlooking the smaller industrial town of Windsor, Ontario. A strong swimmer could make it across, though it would be risky; in the first decade of this century an anarchist friend who was a member of our newspaper collective (and who prefers to remain anonymous) crossed the river a number of times in his kayak, avoiding the powerful pull of the freighters, to visit Federico—and to thumb his nose at the border guards. Federico lived on the other side, “south of the border,” as we used to sing jokingly. Our relationship with him was always a question of crossing—crossing generations of history, and crossing an increasingly repressive, militarized border through a gauntlet of cops and controls (figure 15.1).

Figure 15.1. Federico Arcos, joven poeta reading, 1943. Raúl Carballeira/Permission David Watson. “Selfless, sensitive, intelligent” (Abnegado, sensible, e inteligente), as Miguel Iñiguez describes him in Esbozo de una Enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español (Outline for an Historical Encyclopedia of Spanish Anarchism), Federico was a compact, soft-spoken man with a low-key charisma whose stories, optimism, and ideals affected most everyone who came to know

him.11 Federico’s orientation was always existential and ethical. One of his heroes, Tolstoy, declared that “the supreme law of life is love”;12 another, Emma Goldman, said, “Life without an ideal is spiritual death.”13 He was fond of both quotations, and repeated them often. We knew only a little about anarchism in the 1960s and nothing about anarchist antecedents in Detroit or of the sizable number of ethnic anarchists who still lived in the city. In 1969 Fredy and Lorraine Perlman brought situationist and ultraleft/libertarian communist theory and personal experience with the anarchist Living Theater in New York and the French upheavals of 1968. Some of my friends began to collaborate with them at the Detroit Print Coop, and on their publishing project, Black & Red. Soon, the same people, calling themselves the Eat the Rich Gang (ETR), took over the local underground paper, The Fifth Estate, founded in 1965, which was on the verge of going out of business. ETR joined the staff, took over the office in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, stopped accepting advertising and paying salaries, and turned the paper into an explicitly libertarian communist publication. Within a year, The Fifth Estate started receiving unsolicited donations, raised at Italian anarchist cenas (dinners) and picnics on the West Coast, “for the anarchist comrades at Fifth Estate.”14 In 1974 Black & Red, collaborating with Chicago Solidarity, published two anarchist classics long out of print, Boris Voline’s The Unknown Revolution (1917–1921) and Peter Arshinov’s History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918–1921).15 Federico heard about the books, contacted the Perlmans, and started volunteering on Black & Red publications and mailings, becoming a lifelong collaborator and friend. Federico appeared at a moment when my Fifth Estate friends and I were debating with our New Left (and some Old Left) chums about what was happening to the dwindling postSixties movement and how to proceed. He quickly became a local one-man truth squad in the demystification of Hemingway/Lincoln Brigade/Communist Party agitprop—living proof that the Stalinist/Popular Front narratives of the Spanish Civil War were at least worth a more critical look. At conferences and lectures, he was often the one to remind a professor or political hack (sometimes the

same person), “You are talking about the Spanish Civil War, but I saw the Revolution.” Just as almost a century earlier the anarchist labor organizer and publisher Joseph Labadie had become a respected local figure in Detroit, whether people agreed with him or not, Federico became a well-known participant in the labor, peace, and justice movements in Windsor and to some degree in Detroit, even among people who knew little about Spanish history or anarchism. He also became a cherished elder in our loose Detroit/Windsor community of anarchists and anarchy-friendly activists. He made anarchism and anarchist history real to many people and offered a different concept of political outlook, activism, and lifeways they had not previously contemplated. We called him our padre and abuelo (father, grandfather—we used the Spanish) and iaio (grandfather in Catalan) to our children. Many people knew him because they came to interview him and his wife and compañera, Purificación Pérez Benavent (Pura Arcos) —“also a well-known anarchist” (también destacada anarquista), Iñiguez tells us16—for newspaper and journal articles. Others, working on articles and books about anarchist history, came to consult the archive of radical and anarchist materials he gathered over several decades—rare anarchist books, journals, magazines, and newspapers in several languages, as well as photographs and a rich correspondence among anarchists, including much material by and on Emma Goldman. Most also became permanent correspondents, admirers, and friends.

Quijote del Ideal Born in Barcelona in 1920 in an anarchist immigrant family that had come to the city from the Castilian hinterland, Federico grew up in the heavily anarchist working class district of El Clot, a neighborhood that has continued in its own way to represent “Rebel Barcelona,” even recently in community assemblies and protests that anticipated and inspired the U.S. Occupy movement.17 One of his earliest memories was reading the working-class and anarchist newspapers to his father and other neighbors, many of whom were illiterate, when they gathered in their doorways to socialize at the end of the day.

Federico went to work as a cabinetmaker at thirteen, becoming an apprentice at fourteen and later a skilled mechanic. At fourteen, he also joined the anarchist union, the National Confederation of Labor (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, CNT). His father, brothers, and brother-in-law were all CNT members. Federico often talked with great emotion about the working-class community that formed him. In the 1997 film Living Utopia, he recalled: “Neighbors made up one big family. … There was no unemployment benefit, no sickness benefit. … Whenever someone was taken sick, the first thing a neighbor with a little spare cash did was to leave it on the table. … There were no papers to be signed, no shaking of hands. … And it was repaid, peseta by peseta, when he was working again. It was a matter of principle, a moral obligation.”18 To us such stories served not only as links to the glory days of the revolution, but also to that older village community of solidarity and mutual aid described by Kropotkin, the soil in which the revolutionary communitarian ethos came to life. Federico turned sixteen on July 18, the day after the Spanish military in Morocco mutinied against the Republic. When the army occupied Barcelona, “the people struck back”; in a matter of hours, the coup was defeated and the people were running the city.19 In Living Utopia, Federico recalled: “It was as if the whole of Barcelona was pulsing to a single heartbeat, the sort of thing that only happens maybe once in a century. … And, if I may say so, it has left its mark on my life and I can still feel that emotion.” Federico joined the Libertarian Youth (Juventudes Libertarias) of Catalonia and volunteered to fight, but he was told he was too young and that his time would come. With other youths, he formed the youth group Los Quijotes del Ideal, after literature’s greatest idealist, and published a bulletin, El Quijote, which was eventually suppressed by the Republican government for its intransigence. They were, Abel Paz (the pseudonym of Diego Camacho, another Quijote) wrote later, “the left of the ultra-revolutionary left, sailing with our gaze fixed on Utopia.”20 In April 1938, he was sent to the front near Andorra; when he arrived, he ran into an old friend who had no shoes. Federico gave him his extra pair of alpargatas, the cheap cloth slippers worn by the poor. He was issued a rifle and bayonet,

did night watch, and slept in his uniform. “Mice chewed away at my pants,” he told Avrich, adding that the Republican army’s “equipment and clothing left much to be desired.” Assigned to be a soldierteacher (miliciano cultural), he found a blackboard and an illustrated two- volume set of Don Quixote and began to teach the troops to read and write. Federico’s memories—that gift of alpargatas, the salvaged blackboard and copy of the Quixote, the mice chewing at his ragged clothing like the mice in Diogenes’ cell—were reminders of privation and suffering but also of transcendence, solidarity, and beauty. Federico imparted that lost world to us through his witness and his warmth. In November 1938, Federico was deployed to Tortosa, a once beautiful town that lay in ruins on the lower Ebro River, just as the final fascist offensive was about to start. In January 1939, the Republican forces in which he was fighting were overwhelmed and retreated in disarray to Tarragona. Then Tarragona fell. Planes strafed the fleeing columns; the dead—men, horses, mules—lay scattered along the road. “My comrades were dying all around me,” he recalled. He himself was wounded slightly by a piece of shrapnel.21 It was “the death of hope,” one witness recalled,22 a “brutal collapse,” wrote another.23 By January 26, Barcelona had fallen, and a half a million soldiers and civilians were fleeing to France. In February Federico made his way through the high passes of the Pyrenees into France and was sent to a series of internment camps, where the refugees made the best of their situation, organizing cultural events and classes where they taught each other French, science, math (all of which served him later), and other subjects, and where the precious few books they could muster were passed and shared and read aloud. In the camps, he said, “We formed a true community, united by the Ideal and love. Those moments make up … something very intense that endures through the years.”24 In his biography of Federico’s friend Germinal Gracia (who wrote under the pseudonym Víctor Garcia), Carlos Díaz writes of the camps: “And those anarchists of ’39, starving and covered with lice but studying mathematics and philosophy to better serve the ideals of the future they believed in—could any Spaniard of our time

understand them?”25 It was a “sandy tract drenched with sorrow but also solidarity,” Paz wrote later of Argelès sur Mer. “The hundred thousand souls who had inhabited that immense jail, surrounded by barbed wire and sea, wrote one of the most beautiful pages in history of … a communal life free of authority and penal codes.”26 Decades later, Federico’s stories about the thirst for knowledge and devotion to culture in the camps, even after the cataclysm of the war, contrasted strikingly with the cupidity and complacency we discerned in the culture around us. When Federico talked about those days, it was as if he had come bearing a small flame in the cup of his hand, in which one could glimpse the flickering images of revolutionary Barcelona. Other Quijotes made their way out, too. The friendship among these young revolutionaries was so powerful that in 1939 two of them, Camacho and the Argentine Raúl Carballeira, escaped from the camp at Saint Cyprien, risking arrest and other dangers, and sneaked into the camp at Argelès sur Mer, which was, Federico remembered, “nothing but bare sand surrounded by wire [without] sanitary facilities or shelter.”27 Two years later Carballeira would do it again, sneaking from the camp at Argelès to another camp at Barcarès sur Mer to be with Federico—demonstrating, Germinal Gracia wrote later, “the tremendous thirst for friendship and companionship. … To be together in order to share all of the vicissitudes that exile could deal us.”28 These friendships remained deep and unwavering. In 1941, the Vichy government started deporting the Spanish refugees to slave labor camps in Germany, and by 1942 German troops were directly in charge of the area. By 1943, things had become so dangerous that he and others decided to return to Spain; the Spanish regime was calling on exiles to return and report for military service. Upon his arrival, he was jailed and then pressed into military service and sent to Morocco, to Ceuta, for two years. Federico was lucky in Morocco. He learned some Arabic, and he read a lot. Once, after he told the commander he wouldn’t go to church or take communion, instead of punishing him the man assigned him to guard duty on Sunday mornings and later offered him a post at a checkpoint in the mountains, away from the barracks,

where it was quiet and the air was clear. He thought Federico the best man for the job because they needed someone at the checkpoint who would not be afraid to demand that military officers follow checkpoint protocols like everyone else. Federico’s defiance thus worked for him. He also liked to tell a story about how the portrait of Franco that hung in the barracks kept mysteriously disappearing, to the consternation of the commander. They could never catch anyone, and eventually they stopped hanging it there. In 1945, Federico was released from the army and returned to Barcelona, where he started working with the anarchist underground resistance. At a meeting of forty youths “in the mountains” in 1947 or 1948, he told Avrich, he was elected to the secretariat of the Libertarian Youth and issued circulars and organized meetings. “Little by little,” he remembered, “everyone was arrested, except me and the secretary.”29 Federico left for France in 1948 after several of his comrades were arrested and others killed in battles with the police. Later, he crossed back into Spain in a commando group, robbed a factory in the Pyrenees, and turned the funds over to the movement.30 On one foray through the mountains into Spain, he and Marcelino Massana barely escaped freezing to death or being captured before making their way back to Toulouse.31 Beyond the dangers of the underground struggle, it was a punishing time, of “working like a beast, eating little and badly, washing and darning clothes, making economies” even to buy a stamp, as Peirats later described his own situation—Federico’s, too, since at that time in 1949–1950 the two had had to share a bed in a small, cold room where Federico was staying.32

A Quijote in the Americas In May 1952, Federico immigrated to Canada, disembarked in Montreal, and was immediately recruited to work at a Ford auto plant in Windsor as a mechanic. He ended up working most of his life there as a tool and die and metal pattern maker. Known as Fred, he was widely respected in his union local—though sometimes grudgingly by business union “porkchoppers,” to whom he was known to point out, with a certain ferocity, that the union was

established to promote mutual aid among the workers and to advance the cause of an international that humanity would become, not a guild created to carve out a bigger piece of the consumerist bribe. In the beginning, Federico kept a low profile, but in time he began to seek out allies and activities on both sides of the border. In 1955 Federico was riding the Baker Street bus, which traveled from downtown Detroit through the city’s Spanish-speaking (mostly Mexican and Mexican American) neighborhood to the Ford Rouge plant, when he overheard two men speaking Spanish with peninsular accents: Casiano Edo and Francisco (Frank) Riberas, Aragonese anarchists and members of the Grupo Libertad of Spanish anarchists in Detroit. They invited Federico to dinner, and he joined the group, becoming a frequent correspondent to Spanish publications and organizations in Europe and Latin America in its name.33 In 1943 Federico’s friend José Peirats, who was undergoing a difficult, seven-year sojourn in America before returning to France, wrote to his parents: “The nomad always has his eyes on his country of origin.”34 Federico, too, must have struggled in exile at first, including spending thirteen months in a sanatorium with a case of tuberculosis of the kidney before returning to the factory. But like his compañeros, he set out to work; I have a photo of him in the sanatorium, sitting up in bed, a tray or writing table on his lap. After making contact with anarchists in Detroit, he attended the gatherings of the Grupo Libertad and the Italian Gruppo “I Rafrattari.” In 1960 he met Dorothy Rogers and Attilio Bortolotti in Toronto. Rogers gave him papers she had inherited from Emma Goldman, including correspondence with various individuals, and other artifacts, such as Goldman’s old suitcase; Bortolotti, with a formidable history of anarchist activism in Detroit, Windsor, and Toronto behind him, became one of Federico’s best friends.35 At a conference of the Libertarian League in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1960, he formed other lifelong friendships. One new friend was Perry Shumko, who had participated in the Russian Revolution, “an old man near the end of his life,” Federico recalled. “He hugged me and kissed me with tears in his eyes. He saw me as the hope for his ideals.”36 Federico’s influence spread throughout the Americas and Europe through his involvement with the Grupo Libertad, his correspondence

with anarchists in exile, his letters and brief reports to anarchist and other publications, his increasingly valuable archive, and his support for anarchist projects and social justice struggles in Canada and the United States.37 Through him we met the last few members of the Italian circle in Detroit—the Bulgarian Atanas Porezoff and the Italian anarchist barber Peter Puccio—and Jack Edo and Félix Atance, of the younger, second generation.38 We also met Attilio and his wife Libera Bortolotti in Toronto and other remarkable elder anarchists in Miami and on both coasts. Starting in 1983, Marilynn Rashid and I went to France and Spain at different times and met some of Federico’s old compañeros and became friends and collaborators with people there of our generation who were also devoted to the older generation. The Spanish Revolution became a North Star and ongoing point of discussion among us and, with Federico’s help, Black & Red and The Fifth Estate published various books and articles on the subject.39 Federico supported projects in France and Spain along with Edo and Bortolotti. With Peirats, he was a voice for unity and mutual understanding in the CNT and eventually a critic of the armed struggle.40 He agreed with Peirats that anarchists, and the CNT, in particular, should “adapt” to new realities or disappear.41 Unlike some of his contemporaries, whose watches seemed to have stopped when they crossed the Ebro River (as some younger Spanish anarchists ungenerously put it), Federico was able to evolve, although the old truths lived on for him. After retiring from Ford in 1986, he (and sometimes Pura) spoke at conferences and anarchist gatherings, including (in his case) at the 1986 Anarchist Gathering/Haymarket Commemoration in Chicago. He volunteered with the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers and the Windsor Occupational Health Information Service for more than twenty years, educating workers on the dangers of industrial chemicals in production and in the community at large and using his Spanish to work with Mexican migrant workers on Ontario farms. He was able to overcome political differences, working pragmatically for the sake of people in need with people who did not share his Ideal—

even, God forbid, with a man who, he told me, was a Catholic priest, “but a good man and a real human being.”42

Figure 15.2. Federico Arcos in his archive, 2007. 6 Francesc Ríos/Permission Francesc Rios. Inevitably, Federico became more North American in his attitudes and actions. He became Fred to many people—a union militant, peace and justice activist, regular participant in Windsor protests. His old compañeros were passing away, and Barcelona had become a different city. Windsor was home, and toward the end he resisted going back to Spain even to visit. He embraced North American notions of diversity and strongly identified with Native American/First Nations and black liberation struggles. He wore a Joe Hill belt buckle on his belt, and Martin Luther King Jr. and Native activists joined his pantheon of heroes and martyrs along with Durruti and Ascaso. When Federico turned eighty, a friend making a poster in his honor asked me to give him Durruti’s phrase in Spanish, “We carry a new world in our hearts.” (Llevamos un mundo nuevo en nuestros corazones). I told him absentmindedly, “un nuevo mundo,” not “un mundo nuevo,” and the misplaced adjective changed the connotation

from a new world to the New World. Federico chided me gently about the error, but he liked the poster and hung it in his house anyway. Later it seemed to me that he had both in him—Durruti’s utopian future and our American New World as well. When we met him, Federico’s archive was already becoming one of the foremost collections of anarchist materials in North America (figure 15.2). We enjoyed seeing Federico and Pura thanked in books, articles, and blogs by scholars and activists who came to do research in their modest home, and some of them ended up becoming our friends, too. Visitors were always welcomed and fed in the gracious Iberian style, often with a simple but delicious paella that Fede would tell you was Catalan, and that Pura would insist, mischievously (and historically more accurately), was Valencian. We also spent many memorable afternoons around their table. We appreciated his romanticismo, but also her bracing dose of reality about the imperfections of Spanish anarchism, particularly the machismo of the men. He would tell a heroic story about Durruti, and she would remind him that while the CNT and FAI men were in the dining hall eating and giving speeches about the libertarian ideal, the women were cooking in the kitchen (where, given the windy rhetoric, they often preferred to be). This gendered dialectic was likely going on in anarchist households all over France and Spain, too, as younger scholars recovered invaluable testimony of women’s lives and outlooks in the Revolution, and the veterans of Mujeres Libres took charge of their own history. It would come to play an enormous role in the transformation of anarchism, thanks to women like Pura and the willingness of men like Fede, a little chagrined perhaps, to listen. At the end of his life, he worked feverishly to donate and ship his archive of some ten thousand books and documents, many previously unavailable in Spain, to the National Library of Catalonia (Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya). Though he had started out intending to preserve documents on and of Spanish anarchism, the archive also ended up bringing a trove of previously unavailable materials on North American anarchism to Spanish researchers.43

The Golden Age Is within You

Federico’s love of poetry led to Momentos, a small collection of his poems, published in 1976.44 In his poems one feels the grief, the failed dreams, the surge of hope and despair, and the sense of humility and awe at life’s inherent uncertainties. And where he has an answer, it is existential and personal: ¿Qué es un día? ¿Qué es un año? ¿Qué es una vida? Nada. ¿Qué es un recuerdo? Toda un vida. . What is a day? What is a year? What is a life? Nothing. What is a memory? A whole life. And memory, for a man who collected documents so that others might learn about these human ideals—what was a memory? Toda una vida. This was the simple man who had such an enduring and endearing effect on people who met him. Todo un hombre (a real man). In his “Letter to a Friend,” on the meaning of anarchism, he insisted—as he often did—that he was “not good enough” to be an anarchist or revolutionary because “it would be necessary to reach the extreme point of sacrifice and to devote oneself without reservation to doing good.”45 As with Levine, in Federico’s best work, the political, personal, and poetical seemed indivisible. His old friend Diego Camacho once told me, laughing, that Federico was a hopeless romántico, and one might be tempted to see Federico’s claim to be unworthy of el Ideal as romantic. We who knew him did not; we took it as a reminder to keep an eye on our own, mostly untested, self-importance. In any event, it wasn’t merely romantic. He had fought in a revolution and seen it defeated and he had seen the human suffering that followed. And he never forgot his close friends and compañeros who died in the war and after: José Gosalves, a young Quijote who died of an infection in the internment

camp; José Sabaté, Ramón González, and others killed in gun battles with Franco’s cops; and José Pons, Amador Franco, José Pérez Pedrero, captured and executed in Franco’s prisons. And the incandescent Raúl Carballeira—whom he perhaps loved most of all, and for whom he penned a poetic eulogy in Momentos—who, in 1948 at thirty years old, was cornered by the police in Montjuïc and wounded in a shoot-out, and who chose to take his own life rather than surrender.46 I was fortunate to meet Philip Levine a couple of times, to interview him and have a brief correspondence with him.47 Once, after a poetry reading he gave at the University of Michigan, I gave him a copy of The Fifth Estate with the essay, “Letter to a Friend.” Levine later wrote to thank me for the paper, calling Federico’s essay “extraordinary,” adding: “You truly sense the depth of this man’s goodness & why he has come to a vision in which the things of the earth are shared by all. … Unlike Pedro Rojas in the poem I read by Cesar Vallejo [at the poetry reading], this Federico has gotten to the meaning of things. (Vallejo describes Pedro seized by the killers ‘just as he was getting to the meaning of things.’ Most of us are at best getting close all of our lives; Federico arrived.)”48 Federico’s daughter did not become an anarchist. This was largely true in the immigrant anarchist communities in North America and the exile community in France. Peirats worried about this “generational crisis” in 1974. “A movement without reserves, without successors, which is incapable of reproducing itself,” he wrote, “is condemned, either in the short- or the long-term, to decadence and death.”49 Yet most of the people at our potlucks, Federico’s other “children and grandchildren,” as he called us, were activists in different struggles throughout our lives, and many had taken up anarchist and antiauthoritarian strategies and values in the 1960s and 1970s, however eclectically they chose to apply them. More generally, anarchism’s influence on new social movements was clear in the antinuclear upsurge and the punk culture of the late 1970s; in radical ecology movements, infoshops, and zines of the 1980s; and in the free schools, community gardens, and food distribution projects like Food Not Bombs of the 1990s. Antiglobalization activism and Occupy also proved that anarchist

ideas would likely play a permanent part in radical politics in the future. This, too, was the legacy of Federico Arcos and others like him. Sometime in the late 1990s, we started organizing annual potlucks to celebrate Federico’s birthday, often collecting funds for the anarchist movement the way our Spanish and Italian elders had done decades before. At the last one, his memorial in 2015, money was raised in his honor for anarchist prisoners and publications. One of Federico’s most vivid stories was from after the fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939, when the refugees were crossing the Pyrenees, ill and exhausted, some wounded, all dispirited, all unsure of the future. Federico told us on many occasions how, weak with hunger, they gathered acorns to eat and sustained themselves, at least for a while. He added (in the Spanish edition of his interview in Anarchist Voices): “How bitter those acorns were!” Those who have read Don Quixote may remember that since classical times the oak tree has been a symbol of the Golden Age: “Happy the age and happy the times on which the ancients bestowed the name of golden,” Don Quixote tells Sancho, “because the people of those days did not know did not know those two words thine and mine. In that blessed age, all things were held in common. No man, to gain his common sustenance, needed to make any greater effort than to reach up his hand and pluck it from the strong oaks, which literally invited him to taste their sweet and savory fruit. … All was peace then, all amity, all concord.”50 Behind young Fede Arcos, not yet nineteen years old, lay the ruins of revolutionary Spain—one of history’s brief Golden Ages, and one of the most sublime dreams human beings have dreamed. Ahead lay great uncertainty, and—we know now—more violence, more calamities and defeats. But the people who had fought for a new world gathered and ate the acorns and were sustained. In his poem, “To Cipriano, in the Wind,” Philip Levine remembers the humble pants presser, who told him: “Some day the world / is ours, some day you will see.” Soon after, the poet tells us, “the Germans rolled east / into Russia and my cousins died,” but he finds himself repeating Cipriano’s words: “Someday this will all be ours.” And he addresses the anarchist who changed his life:

Come back, Cipriano Mera, step out of the wind and dressed in the robe of your pain tell me again that this world will be ours.51 The supreme law of life is love, said Tolstoy. Our Cipriano, Federico Arcos, had that love in him. It is true that he did not establish institutional structures to carry on the anarchist Ideal, but his life work and his archive in the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona will continue to offer sustenance to scholars and activists looking for keys to open the prison doors and reestablish that new world in our hearts. Federico’s life and ideals continue to remind us, as Rousseau once remarked, that the Golden Age is neither before us nor behind, but within. Like others of his generation, he was living proof that one may lose great historic battles and yet triumph in life. North American anarchist traditions will continue to be sustained by the “intangible reality” of his example. Notes 1. Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), xi. I have not been able to locate the broadsheet Avrich cites. Some passages in this article come from the memorial for Federico Arcos I gave in July 2015. See “Remembering Federico Arcos,” Fifth Estate, Winter 2016, no. 395, https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/395-winter-2016-50thanniversary/remembering-federico-arcos/. Accessed December 19, 2016. 2. Andrew Cornell, Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century (Oakland, Calif.: University of California Press, 2016), 240. See also Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, xi. 3. Marcelino García, interviewed in Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 390–93. 4. For examples of the variety of anarchist movements in the United States, see Tom Goyens, ed., Radical Gotham: Anarchism in New York City from Schwab’s Saloon to Occupy Wall Street (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017). 5. See Avrich, interview with Sam Dolgoff, Anarchist Voices, 425– 28, and Cornell, Unruly, especially 276–90 and his epilogue, “From

the 1970s to Occupy Wall Street,” 291–300. I am grateful to Sylvie Kashdan and Robby Barnes for their insights into, and memories of, intergenerational influences. 6. I owe the title of this section to Philip Levine’s essay, “The Holy Cities: Detroit, Barcelona, Byzantium,” in his The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 33–77. For Barcelona, see also Chris Ealham, Anarchism and the City:Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Barcelona, 1898– 1937 (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2010). 7. Dan Piepenbring, “In Memoriam, Philip Levine, 1928–2015, The Paris Review (The Daily), February 15, 2015, http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/15/philip-levine-19282015/. Accessed December 20, 2016. 8. Levine, Bread of Time, 42–43. The other Cipriano was Cipriano Mera Sanz (1897–1975), an anarcho-syndicalist bricklayer who became an effective general of the Republican army, political prisoner, exile, and once again bricklayer. 9. Ibid., 50. 10. His work influenced by Spanish anarchism includes The Names of the Lost (New York: Atheneum, 1976) and “Francisco, I’ll Bring You Red Carnations,” in 7 Years from Somewhere (New York: Atheneum, 1979). Bread of Time, 57–64. 11. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the Spanish are mine. Miguel Iñiguez, Esbozo de una Enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001), 50. 12. Leo Tolstoy, The Law of Love and the Law of Violence, trans. Mary Koutouzow (New York: Rudolf Field, 1948). Tolstoy, available at http://www.archive.org/stream/lawofloveandthel001362mbp/lawoflov eandthel001362mbp_djvu.txt. Accessed January 12, 2017. 13. Though it can be found endlessly on quote websites on the internet as well as some anarchist sites, I have not been able to determine the provenance of this quotation or even if Goldman said it, but Federico cited it often. 14. “Detroit Seen” (unsigned editorial column), Fifth Estate, October 1976, vol. 12, no. 1 (277), 4. See also Peter Werbe, in Cornell, Unruly Equality, 266–67; Peter Werbe, “History of the Fifth

Estate: The Early Years,” Fifth Estate, Spring/Summer 2005, no. 368–69, 8–20; David Watson, “Notes toward a History of the Fifth Estate,” Fifth Estate, Spring/Summer 2005, no. 368–69, 26–37; Lorraine Perlman, Having Little, Being Much: A Chronicle of Fredy Perlman’s Fifty Years (Detroit: Black & Red, 1989). 15. Chicago Solidarity, another anarchy-oriented group, was influenced by Wobbly old-timers (Cornell, Unruly Equality, 246–51). 16. After becoming a Canadian citizen in 1958, Federico reunited with Pura, who was living in Barcelona, and she came with their tenyear-old daughter to Windsor. Pura does not receive her due in this essay. Federico was much more active in the anarchist milieu, and he lived twenty years after her death, but we admired and loved her, too. She had taught school in an anarchist collective in Valencia during the war, was in Mujeres Libres (Free Women), and collaborated with her compañeras through visits and correspondence until her death in 1995. See the entry on Federico Arcos in Miguel Iñiguez, Enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español, Tomo I (Vitoria: Asociación Isaac Puente, 2008), 50; entry on Pura Pérez Benavent, Tomo II, 1320–21; “Pura Arcos, 1919– 1995,” Fifth Estate, Spring 1996, no. 347, 4; Martha A. Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); and Sara Berenguer, Femmes d’Espagne en lutte (Lyon: Atelier de création libertaire), 2011), 17–22. 17. Abel Paz et al., La Barcelona rebelde. Guía de una ciudad silenciada (Barcelona: Colección Límites/Octaedra, 2003). 18. Juan Gamero and Mitzi Kotnik, Francesc Ríos, and Mariona Roca, directed by Juan Gamero with English subtitles by Paul Sharkey, Vivir la utopia (Barcelona: ARTE/TVE, 1997), https://vimeo.com/channels/juangamero/43639159. Accessed online December 19, 2016. 19. José Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution (Detroit: Dumont Press/Black & Red, n.d.), 105–8. For the response of the youth in Clot, see Abel Paz, “El Bar Montserrat,” in Paz, et al., Barcelona rebelde, 127–29. 20. Abel Paz, Entre la niebla (1939–1942) (Barcelona: Medusa, 1993), 77.

21. For the story of the collapse of the front, the fall of Tarragona and Barcelona, and the flight to France, more detail is given in the Spanish edition of Avrich’s book, with interview material that did not appear in the English edition. See Avrich, Voces anarquistas: Historia oral del anarquismo en Estados Unidos, translated into Spanish by Antonia Ruiz Cabezas (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2004). 22. Eduardo de Guzmán, La muerte de la esperanza (Madrid: G. del Toro, 1973), cited in Chris Ealham, Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2015), 122. 23. Peirats cited in Ealham, Living Anarchism, 122. 24. Avrich, Voces anarquistas, 621. See also Ealham, Living Anarchism, 122–26. 25. Carlos Díaz, Víctor García [Germinal Gracia]: El Marco Polo del anarquismo (Madrid: Ediciones Madre Tierra, 1993), 35–37. See also Víctor García, “Raúl Carballeira,” in García and Felipe Alaiz, La F.I.J.L. [Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias] en la lucha por la libertad (Barcelona: Ediciones F.L. de la C.N.T. de Barcelona, n.d.), 27. 26. Paz, Entre la niebla, 87. 27. Víctor García, “Raúl Carballeira,” in García and Alaiz, La F.I.J.L., 21–22; Paz, Entre la niebla, 65; Federico Arcos, “Germinal Gracia: The Marco Polo of Anarchism” (obituary), Fifth Estate, Winter 1992, vol. 26, no. 3 (338), 10, 20. 28. Garcia, “Raúl Carballeira.” 29. Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 405. 30. In the 1970s, before the death of Franco, Federico remained vague about the details of this adventure—for example, if the money went to the CNT or to the armed underground. Later he spoke more openly, but we failed to ask him about it. 31. On Massana, see Ricard Vargas, “Marcelino Massana ‘Pancho’: La vida de un guerrillero antifranquista,” Portal Libertario Oaca, October 1, 2010, http://www.portaloaca.com/historia/biografias/411-marcelinomassana-qpanchoq-la-vida-de-un-guerrillero-antifranquista.html. Accessed January 24, 2017.

32. Ealham, Living Anarchism, 148. 33. Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 406. My description of this encounter is also based on conversations with Joaquín (Jack) Edo, whom I met through Federico. Born in 1924, Jack is the son of Casiano and Manuela Edo and grew up attending the Spanish School on Saturdays, participating in cultural activities, and learning the libertarian-rationalist ideas imparted by his teachers. This essay is dedicated to Jack, still faithful to el Ideal. 34. Quoted in Ealham, Living Anarchism, 131. 35. Arcos, in Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 406–7. See also “A Relentless Vision (aka The Suitcase): The Legacy of Emma Goldman, Federico Arcos and the Spanish Revolution,” Pacific Street Films, http://www.psfp.com/suitcase.htm. For a piece of the film, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHHchKNfgM4. Accessed December 19, 2016. For Bortolotti, see Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 175–88. 36. Arcos, in Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 406. 37. Describing Federico’s “behind-the-scenes” support of “the anarcho-syndicalist-involved MEI strike in Duluth, Minnesota, and a point-of-production sympathy strike, in Mezzomerico and Novara, Italy, in 1999–2000,” anarchist labor organizer Séamas Cain wrote that “Federico never failed to give us aid, answer our questions, calm and balance our jitters, give us thoughtful advice. He understood the true meaning of the word solidarity.” See his remembrances at http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/395-winter-2016-50thanniversary/remembering-federico-arcos/other-remembrances/. Accessed December 20, 2016. Though he was not as prolific or polished a writer as some of his contemporaries—Camacho, Gracia, and “the Herodotus of the C.N.T.,” Peirats—Federico authored numerous reports for the anarchist press in Europe (under pseudonyms early on) and for his union newsletter. He maintained an active correspondence and wrote many eulogies for comrades and short essays (including two brief, lasting reflections on anarchism and the human condition: “Letter to a Friend” and “‘Man’ and His Judge”), and a monograph on Tolstoy. Federico Arcos, León Nicolayevich Tolstoy (Calgary: Ediciones Escuela Moderna, 1972); “Letter to a Friend,” trans. Marilynn Rashid and David Watson, Fifth

Estate, Fall 2002, vol. 37, no. 3 (358), 45; “‘Man’ and His Judge” (1960), The Anarchist Library, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/federico-arcos-man-and-hisjudge. Accessed December 20, 2016. 38. For Porezoff (1890–1982) and Puccio (1902–1986), see their respective obituaries in Fifth Estate, Fall 1982, vol. 17, no. 3 (310) 8, and Winter/Spring 1986, vol. 20, no. 3 (322), 18. The son of anarchists, Atance was born in 1930 in Canada and returned to Spain with his parents to Aragon during the republic; his family eventually fled to France and later returned to Canada. For Bortolotti, see “Attilio Bortolotti: 1903–1995,” Fifth Estate, Summer 1995, vol. 30, no. 1 (346), 6. 39. See, for example, José Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution (Detroit: Black & Red, n.d.), a collaboration with Dumont Press Graphix (Kitchener) and Solidarity Books (Toronto); David Porter, “Spain ’36,” Fifth Estate, Summer 1986, vol. 20, no. 4 (323); “Los Quijotes: Anarchist Youth Group, Spain 1937,” Fifth Estate, Summer 1989, vol. 24, no. 2 (332), and Martha Acklesberg, “Lessons from Spain’s Mujeres Libres,” Fifth Estate, Spring 2006 (372). 40. Federico Arcos, letter, C.N.T. no 86, September 1995, first fortnight; letter to Marcelino Massana, January 22, 1961. 41. Peirats, letter to Marcos Alcón, 1964, in Ealham, Living Anarchism, 176. 42. See his “Shop Talk” column for a union paper, about the struggles of 4,000 Mexican “seasonal agricultural workers” in the greenhouses of Leamington, Ontario. Fred Arcos, “Mexican Migrant Workers in Canada,” The Scoop, January 2004. 43. To access the collection at Biblioteca de Catalunya, see http://cataleg.bnc.cat/search~S13*cat?/aCol%C2%B7lecci%C3%F3 +d%27Anarquisme+Federico+Arcos+%28Biblioteca+de+Catalunya %29/acolleccio+danarquisme+federico+arcos+biblioteca+de+catalun ya/-3%2C1%2C0%2CB/exact&FF=acolleccio+danarquisme+federico+arcos+b iblioteca+de+catalunya&1%2C3945%2C. Accessed January 12, 2017. On another Spanish website, Memòria Repressiò Franquista (Memory [of] Francoist Repression), a correspondent calls it “a

veritable mine, with materials previously not available in Spain,” and “very useful for those interested in the history of anarchism, especially anarchism in the U.S.A.” See http://memoriarepressiofranquista.blogspot.com/2014/06/el-fondodonado-por-federico-arcos-la.html. Accessed January 12, 2017. Other materials can be found at the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library. See Julie A. Herrada, “An Anarchist’s Suitcase: In Honor of Federico Arcos (1920–2015),” https://www.lib.umich.edu/blogs/beyond-readingroom/anarchists-suitcase-honor-federico-arcos-1920–2015. Accessed February 3, 2019. 44. Federico Arcos, Momentos: Compendio Poético (Detroit: Black & Red, 1976, reprinted 2004). 45. Federico Arcos, “Letter to a Friend.” 46. For Gosalves, sometimes listed as Gonsálvez, and the others see García, “Raúl Carballeira,” 24, 52, 55–56; Arcos, in Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 406; Alaiz, “Amador Franco: Nota Biográfica,” in García and Alaiz, La F.I.J.L., 77. 47. For the interview, see David Watson, “A Lyrical Labor,” The Metro Times (Detroit), November 13–19, 1996. 48. Philip Levine, letter to David Watson, November 27, 2002. The poem is part III in César Vallejo’s España, Aparta de mí este cáliz (1937–1938), (Spain, Take This Chalice from Me [1937–1938]). The poem can also be found translated into English in César Vallejo, The Complete Posthumous Poetry, trans. Clayton Eshleman and José Rubia Barcia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), with section III on p. 239. 49. Peirats, in Ealham, Living Anarchism, 182–83. 50. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Adventures of Don Quixote, trans. J. M. Cohen (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), 85– 86. On oaks in mythology “as the first mothers of men, who fed their offspring on acorns,” see John Stuart Collins, The Triumph of the Tree (New York: Viking Press, 1954), 88. 51. Philip Levine, “To Cipriano, in the Wind,” from One from the Rose (New York: Athenium, 1981), in New Selected Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 218–19.

Epilogue The essays in this volume trace the development of Spanishlanguage anarchist print culture in relation to the United States. As a whole, these chapters provide a historical and ethno-linguistic, rather than national, perspective on how Span- ish-language anarchist print culture responded to social struggles, economic oppression, and political repressions. Despite such obstacles, anarchist periodicals, writers, editors, correspondents, couriers, distributors, and readers established networks for the maintenance and furtherance of transoceanic and transnational flows of information and culture, and they established a level of solidarity among Spanish-speaking peoples promoting social revolution. It might seem reasonable to doubt the overall significance of this network in the United States or its ability to gain widespread public acceptance, but it was, in fact, the perseverance of the anarchist Ideal manifest in print culture (now including digital print) that exhibits the continuity of the struggle for social justice in the modern age, as well as its resistance to assimilation into dominant politics and cultures. The influence of Hispanic thinkers, writers, readers, and operatives in this narrative is undeniable and should be recognized as an integral component of U.S. society, culture, and history. Throughout time and geographies, these anarchist writers, newspapers, and essays have displayed antiauthoritarian, internationalist, and class-struggle ideals that aimed at a selfmanaged, stateless, egalitarian, and collectivized society. The lesser-known anarchist figures recovered in this volume did not work in isolation but rather provided unparalleled articulation of anarchist ideas through their years of printing, editing, and distributing anarchist periodicals in collective and collaborative interaction with other anarchists and like-minded individuals. Hispanic anarchist networks created flexible conditions for individuals to determine their own lives while providing aid to the network. Individuals used their talents for “the Idea” in productive ways. Anarchists not only played an important role in U.S. labor struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but they also contributed to the survival of the libertarian movement in Latin America and Spain by sending money

to support strikers and political prisoners as well as to fund anarchist publications.1 This last role is especially true of Pedro Esteve, Vicente García, Jesús González Malo, Jesús Lóuzara de Andrés, and Antonio Pellicer Paraire. In the twentieth century, Spanish-speaking anarchists were particularly attuned to anarcho-syndicalism and understood labor organizations and unions to be the fundamental centers of selfmanaged production and distribution, as represented in the lives and work of José C. Campos, Pedro Esteve, Jesús González Malo, Caritina Piña, and Jaime Vidal. The recovered historical figures in this volume lived anarchism through complex relationships in their worlds and in combination with other social conflicts such as Cuba Libre, the Mexican Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War, as shown by J. Cerraí, Enrique Creci, Adrián del Valle, Cartina Piña, Maximiliano Olay, Alfonso Camín, Jesús González Malo, Félix Martí Ibáñez, and Federico Arcos. When Hispanic anarchists fought fascism in the mid- and late twentieth century, they continued a commitment to a social revolution that not only challenged the existing dominant power; they also created and maintained a counterculture that fostered the conditions for solidarity and equality. Periodicals were the primary means of protest against inequality and the promotion of social revolution. While some migrants including Pedro Esteve, Jaime Vidal, and Adrial del Valle established papers wherever they lived, others were connected to international organizations such as the CNT, IWW, SIA, among others. In either case, this print culture established a revolutionary counter-culture and a counter-force that empowered members, actively opposed domination and oppression, promoted education and political engagement, provided interconnections across the Atlantic, and encouraged the continual cross-fertilization of ideas of all kind. We also see these themes in relation to progressive twentieth-century social movements including feminism, birth control, and racial/ethnic equality and justice as well as in the discussion of eugenics. There are significant gaps in the recovery archive of Hispanic anarchism as a result of both the anonymity employed by anarchists as a tool against repression and the later lack of academic preservation of their periodicals. However, Hispanic anarchists and

their print networks recovered in this volume effectively embody anarchist transnationalism while the United States, in fact, served as a haven for Hispanic émigrés and their ideas. This volume, therefore, represents an important effort to recover some of the individual anarchists and periodicals as well as the transnational network that connected them. Ultimately, this is a collaborative narrative—a tapestry of print that has recovered a vitally important and powerful linguistic tradition in the United States and the Hispanic World, fighting for social justice through social revolution. In more recent years, debates and conflict regarding immigration, radicaliza- tion and independence movements are often seen as symptoms of modern society out of control—the essays in this volume belie this point: in fact, none of these debates are new, and when we look at the historical continuity of the struggle for social justice through print, we might well find valuable insight on tattered pages of long forgotten anarchist periodicals. Notes 1. See Martin Blatt, “History Workshop on Immigrant Anarchism,” History Workshop 14 (Autumn 1982): 165–168; Ángel Herrerín López and Juan Avilés, El nacimiento del terrorismo en occidente (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2008), 172.

APPENDIX A

Periodicals (selected) Name

English Translation

Location

Years

Acracia

Anarchy

Barcelona, Spain

1886– 1888

Alba Anárquica Alba Anárquica

Anarchic Dawn Anarchic Dawn

Cleveland, OH Monterrey, Mexico

Alba Periódico Libertario Algo

Dawn. Libertarian Periodical Something

Pittsburgh, PA

América

America

Boston, MA

Aurora. Revista quincenal de literatura Avante Avante

Dawn. Bimonthly Magazine of Literature

New York, NY

Ahead Ahead

Monterrey, Mexico Villa Cecilia, Mexico

Bandera Social

Social Flag

Madrid, Spain

Boletín de Información Boletín del Torcedor

Information Bulletin

New York, NY

Rollers Bulletin

Tampa, FL

Boletín. ProVíctimas de Tamaulipas Brazo y Cerebro Cerebro y Fuerza Claridad Proletaria

Bulletin. Pro-Victims of Tamaulipas

Oakland, CA

Arm and Brain Brain and Force Proletarian Clarity

New York, NY El Paso, TX Detroit, MI

Claridad Proletaria

Proletarian Clarity

New York, NY

Cultura Obrera

Labor Culture

New York, NY

Cultura Proletaria

Proletarian Culture

New York, NY

Doctrina Anarquista Socialista

Socialist-Anarchist Doctrine

Paterson, NJ

Lorain, OH Cleveland, OH

1924– 1925 1929– 1931 1926– 1928 1915– 1924 1921– 1924 1927 1928– 1930 1885– 1887 1937– 1938 1923– 1927 Unknown 1912 1913 1938– 1939 1937– 1939 1911– 1918; 1922– 1927 1910– 1911 1927– 1953 1905

Name El Corsario

English Translation The Corsair

Location La Coruña, Spain

Years 1891– 1896 1919 1891– 1902 1894– 1898 1907 1906 1915

El Corsario El Despertar

The Corsair The Awakening

New York, NY New York, NY

El Esclavo

The Slave

Tampa, FL

El Liberal El Mosquito El Pequeño Grande El Perseguido

The Liberal The Mosquito The Big Small The Persecuted

El Productor

The Producer

Del Rio, TX Los Angeles, CA El Río, CA Buenos Aires, Argentina 1890–1897 Barcelona, Spain

El Productor

The Producer

Havana, Cuba

El Proletario El Rebelde

The Proletarian The Rebel

Key West, FL Los Angeles, CA

El Rebelde El Tabacalero España Libre

The Rebel The Tobacconist Free Spain

New York, NY Tampa, FL Brooklyn, NY

Estudios

Studies

Valencia, Spain

Fraternidad Freedom

Fraternity

Boston, MA London, England

Freiheit

Freedom

Frente Popular

Popular Front

London, England New York, NY New York, NY

Fuerza Cerebral. Periódico Anarquista Fuerza Consciente

Brain Force. Anarchist Newspaper

New York, NY

Conscious Force

Generación Consciente Germinal

Conscious Generation

New York, NY Los Angeles, CA San Francisco, CA Alcoy, Spain

Germinal

Tampico, Mexico

Hispania. Sociología Crítica, Arte… Huelga General

Hispania. Sociology Criticism, Art…

New York, NY

1923– 1928 1917– 1918 1927

General Strike

Los Angeles, CA

1914

1887– 1893 1887– 1893 Unknown 1915– 1917 1898 1930 1939– 1977 1928– 1937 1915 1886– present 1879– 1910 1937– 1939 1916 1913– 1914

Name Inquietudes L’Adunata dei Refrattari L’Antorcha L’Avvenire

English Translation Concerns Call of the Refractaires

Location New York, NY New York, NY

The Torch The Future

La Federación La Protesta

The Federation The Protest

La Reforma Social La Revista Blanca

Social Reform The White Magazine

Tampa, FL Steubenville, OH New Kensington, PA New York, NY Tampa, FL Buenos Aires, Argentina 1903–present El Paso, TX Madrid, Spain Barcelona, Spain

La Voz de la Mujer La Voz del Esclavo Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento Las Novedades

The Voice of Women The Voice of Slaves The Sunday Supplemental of Free Thought

El Paso, TX Tampa, FL Madrid, Spain

The News

New York, NY

Le Combat Syndicaliste Le Réveil

Syndicalist Combat

Paris, France

The Awakening

Geneva, Switzerland

Les Temps Nouveaux Liberación Liberación Los Hijos del Mundo Nervio

The New Times

Paris, France

Liberation Liberation The World’s Sons Spirit

Nervio: Portavoz de la Regional AndalucíaExtremadura Nueva Vida Nuevo Ideal

Spirit: Journal of the Andalusia-Extremadura Regional

Boston, MA Ybor City, FL Havana, Cuba Buenos Aires, Argentina 1931–1939 Paris, France

New Life New Ideal

Ybor City, FL Havana, Cuba

Obrero Industrial Obrero Libre Panamérica Pluma Roja

Industrial Worker Free Worker Pan-America Red Writers

Tampa, FL Mayagüez, PR Omaha, NE Los Angeles, CA

Years 1927 1922– 1971 1906 1909– 1917 1900

1915 1898– 1905; 1923– 1936 1907 1900 1883– 1909 1876– 1918 1947– 1982 1900– 1946 1895– 1914 1923 1912 1892

1958– 1960 1924 1900– 1901 1914 1903 1938 1913– 1915

Name Reforma-LibertadJusticia Regeneración

English Translation Reform-Liberty-Justice

Location Austin, TX

Years 1908

Regeneration

Los Angeles, CA

Regeneración

Regeneration

San Antonio, TX

Resurrección Revista Popular Revista Única Revolución

Resurrection Popular Magazine Unique Review Revolution

San Antonio, TX Key West, FL Steubenville, OH Los Angeles, CA

Ruta Sagitario

Route Sagittarius

Caracas, Venezuela Villa Cecilia, Mexico

Solidaridad

Solidarity

Brooklyn, NY

Solidaridad

Solidarity

Chicago, IL

Solidaridad Obrera

Workers’ Solidarity

Toulouse, France

España

Spain

New York, NY

Spanish Labor Bulletin Spanish Labor News Spanish Revolution

New York, NY Chicago, IL

1907– 1918 1904– 1906 1907 1889 1928 1907– 1908 1966 1922– 1927 1928– 1930 1919– 1927 1944– 1961 1937– 1940 1938

New York, NY

1938

New York, NY

The Anarchist Labour Leaf The Commonweal

London, England

1936– 1938 1890

London, England

¡Tierra!

Land

Havana, Cuba

Tierra y Libertad

Land and Freedom

Barcelona, Spain

Tierra. Periódico de Ideas Umbral

Land. Periodical of Ideas

Havana, Cuba

Dawn

Paris, France

Veglia

Vigil

Paris, France

Venezuela Futura Via Libre: Órgano de la Federación Libertaria

Future Venezuela The Road to Freedom: Organ of the Libertarian Federation

New York, NY New York, NY

1885– 1893 1913– 1915 1944– 1988 1930 1962– 1970 1925– 1927 1932 1938– 1940

Name Voluntad

English Translation Willpower

Location New York, NY

Voz Humana

Human Voice

Caguas, PR

Years 1915– 1916 1905– 1906

APPENDIX B

Archives, Digital Databases, and Projects (selected) Acracia Anarchy Archives Archivo electrónico Ricardo Flores Magón Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) Archivo General del Estado de Nuevo León (AGENL) Archivo General del Estado de Tamaulipas (AGET) Archivo Histórico de Esteban Méndez Guerra (AHEM) Biblioteca Digital Hispánica: Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica Bibliothek der Freien Cedall Centre International de Recherches sur l’Anarchisme (CIRA) El Libertario Fragments d’Histoire de la gauche radicale

http://acracia.org http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/ http://archivomagon.net

Mexico City, Mexico

Monterrey, Mexico

Cd. Victoria, Mexico

Cd. Victoria, Mexico

http://www.bne.es/en/Catalogos/BibliotecaDigitalHispanica/Inicio/ http://prensahistorica.mcu.es/es/consulta/busqueda.cmd

http://www.bibliothekderfreien.de/lidiap/eng/index.html http://www.cedall.org/cedall200.htm http://www.cira.ch/catalogue/?lang=en

http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com http://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?rubrique3

Fundació Ferrer i Guàdia Gallica in Bibliothèque nationale de France Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas International Institute for Social History Investigación sobre el anarquismo y la anarquía Kate Sharpley Library Mapping American Social Movements through the 20th Century Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project The Anarchist Library The Libertarian Labyrinth

http://www.ferrerguardia.org http://gallica.bnf.fr

http://www.library.arizona.edu/contentdm/mmap/timeline.html

http://www.historicas.unam.mx/

https://socialhistory.org

http://raforum.site/spip.php?rubrique3

http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net http://depts.washington.edu/moves/index.shtml

https://artepublicopress.com/recovery-project

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/special/index https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org

Contributors is associate professor of communications at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. He is coauthor of The Industrial Workers of the World: Its First 100 Years, coeditor of Radical Economics and Labor, and has authored dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters on the immigrant, labor, and socialist press; newsboys, anarchist economics; the IWW; and other topics. CHRISTOPHER J. CASTAÑEDA is professor of history at California State University, Sacramento. His current research focuses on Spanishlanguage anarchist print culture and US-Hispanic studies. He is the author of “Times of Propaganda and Struggle: El Despertar and Brooklyn’s Spanish Anarchists, 1890–1905” in Radical Gotham: Anarchism in New York City from Schwab’s Saloon to Occupy Wall Street (2017), edited by Tom Goyens, and “‘Yours for the Revolution’: Cigar Makers, Anarchists and Brooklyn’s Spanish Colony, 1878– 1925,” in Hidden Out in the Open: Spanish Migration to the United States (1875–1930), coedited by Phylis Martinelli and Ana VarelaLago (University of Colorado Press, 2018). JESSE COHN, associate professor of English at Purdue Northwest, is the author of Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture, 1848–2011 (2015) and Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics (2006). He is one of the founding members of the North American Anarchist Studies Network and has served as an editorial board member for Continuum Books’ Contemporary Anarchist Studies series, Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies; Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action; and the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 to the Present. MARÍA JOSÉ DOMÍNGUEZ is a PhD candidate in peninsular literature at Arizona State University. She received her Licenciatura in Journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and worked as a journalist in El Mundo, the second largest newspaper in Spain. She was assistant to the editor of Letras Femeninas and her academic articles and reviews have been published in Comedia Performance, Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios, Ámbitos Feministas, and Crítica Bibliographica, among others. Her research JON BEKKEN

focuses on women writers as well as narrative and identity in Early Modern Spain. Other research interests include performance studies and the representation of women in theater during the Golden Age. MONTSE FEU (M. MONTSERRAT FEU LÓPEZ) is assistant professor of Spanish at Sam Houston State University. She is Co-Advisor of the Spanish Master of Arts. Her research focuses on U.S. Spanishlanguage periodicals and the Spanish Civil War exile print culture in the United States. She has authored several articles and book chapters about antifascist and working-class literatures published in periodicals. Her article “The U.S. Hispanic Flapper: Pelonas and Flapperismo in Spanish-language Newspapers 1920–1929” won the Research Society for American Periodicals Prize (2015). She is the author of Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado: Jesús González Malo (1943–1965) (Santander: Colección Cuatro Estaciones, Universidad de Cantabria, 2016). She can be reached at [email protected]. SONIA HERNÁNDEZ is associate professor of history at Texas A&M. A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Hernandez specializes in the intersections of gender and labor in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands, Chicana/o history, and Modern Mexico. She has published in Spanish and English; her most recent book, Working Women into the Borderlands (Texas A&M University Press, 2014) received the Sara A. Whaley Book Prize from the National Women’s Studies Association and the Liz Carpenter Award from the Texas State Historical Association. Dr. Hernández recently completed a booklength monograph on a transnational network of women and men labor activists anchored in Tampico; their activist labor at times complemented, clashed, competed with, or reinforced ideas about women’s rights. She is currently a Fulbright García-Robles Border Scholar in Monterrey working on a book on Anti- Mexican statesanctioned violence and the transnational alliances that emerged in the wake of the near-lynching attempt of Gregorio Cortez in 1901. ANTONIO HERRERÍA FERNÁNDEZ received his PhD from the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University. Some of his areas of expertise are beach tourism in literature and Spanish and Latin-American Modernism. His dissertation is titled “Tourism and Novel: the Coastal Tourist Depiction in the Spanish

Contemporary Novels.” Additionally, he has published numerous articles in different transatlantic magazines. Some of his articles are: “Imperfect Friendships in Guzmán de Alfarache,” “The Great Cosmopolis: the Latin-American Modernist Writers in New York,” and “Dario and Marti in New York,” among others. In parallel, he has been assistant editor for several scholarly literary magazines. MARIO MARTÍN REVELLADO was born in Zamora, Spain, and has a master’s degree in biodiversity management from the Universitat de Barcelona. A participant in the Ateneu Llibertari de Sants and other ateneos, he now lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. JORELL A. MELÉNDEZ-BADILLO is the author of Voces libertarias: Orígenes del anarquismo en Puerto Rico (Secret Sailor Books, 2013; Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo-CNT, 2014; Editorial Akelarre/CEISO, 2015) and coeditor of Without Borders or Limits: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Anarchist Studies (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). He has published book chapters as well as journal and newspaper articles on the topics of anarchism, labor, and radical politics in Puerto Rico. He has been a Ford Foundation Fellow, a UConn Humanities Fellow, and is currently an Assistant Professor of History and a Mellon Faculty Fellow at Dartmouth College. JAVIER NAVARRO NAVARRO is professor in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Valencia (Spain). His research focuses on the social and cultural history of Spanish anarchism. He is the author of the books: El paraíso de la razón. La revista Estudios, 1928–1937, y el mundo cultural anarquista (1997); Ateneos y grupos ácratas (2002); A la revolución por la cultura. Prácticas culturales y sociabilidad libertarias en el País Valenciano, 1931–1939 (2004); Tierra y Libertad. Cien años de anarquismo en España (2010, coauthor); L’Anarchie et le problème du politique (2014, coauthor); Los ateneos libertarios en España (2016); and Valencia, capital de la República, 1936–1937 (2016–2018, three volumes); Tres cosas debe olvidar el anarquista (2018) and Desde los márgenes. Culturas políticas de izquierda en la España contemporánea (2018, coauthor); among other books and articles. He also works on the field of the Spanish Second Republic and Civil War, especially on cultural aspects as well as in the field of the Spanish Second Republic and Civil War, especially on cultural

aspects. He is a member of the Group of Excellence GVROMETEO2016–108, “Grup d’Estudis Històrics sobre les Transicions i la Democràcia” (GEHTID), financed by the Generalitat Valenciana. He can be reached at [email protected]. MICHEL OTAYEK is an art historian specializing in photography and print culture in Latin America. He received his MA in Art History from Hunter College (2012) and his PhD in Spanish and Portuguese from New York University (2019). His research addresses the role of photographic practices in the articulation of political and aesthetic discourse. He has curated and cocurated several exhibitions, including “Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press.” On view at Americas Society (New York) during the fall of 2016, “Told and Untold” was the first exhibit in the United States dedicated to the Hungarian-born Mexican photographer. SERGIO SÁNCHEZ COLLANTES is an associate professor of history at the University of Burgos in Spain. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Oviedo (Spain), with an Extraordinary Doctoral Award. His main lines of research are related to the social, political, and cultural history of modern Spain. He has specialized in the democratic tradition, republicanism, working-class organization, women’s participation in politics and history of the press, all of these mainly during the 19th century. He belongs to the “Historia Sociocultural” (Sociocultural History) Research Group of the University of Oviedo and to the consolidated group “Investigaciones Históricas Andaluzas” (Andalusian Historical Research) of the University of Málaga. KIRWIN R. SHAFFER is professor of Latin American studies at Pennsylvania State University–Berks College in Reading, Pennsylvania. He researches the history of anarchist culture and transnational networks in the Americas with a focus on the Caribbean. His books include Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth- Century Cuba (University Press of Florida, 2005) and republished as Anarchist Cuba: Countercultural Politics in the Early Twentieth Century (PM Press, 2019); Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897– 1921 (University of Illinois Press, 2013); and In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History (University Press

of Florida, 2015/2017), coedited with Geoffroy de Laforcade. He is currently writing a transnational history of Caribbean anarchism that explores links between nodes in Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Panama Canal. SUSANA SUEIRO SEOANE is professor of contemporary history at the National University of Distance Education (UNED) in Madrid. In recent years, she has focused her research on the networks of transnational anarchism during the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries and, especially, in the cultural and social aspects of the anarchist workers who emigrated from Europe to Latin America and the United States. Her recent publications include: “Prensa y redes anarquistas transnacionales. El olvidado papel de J. C. Campos y sus crónicas sobre los mártires de Chicago en el anarquismo de lengua hispana,” in Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea (vol. 36, 2014); “A Stranger in the House: the Latino Worker in the United States in the Transition from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Centuries,” in Enemies Within: Cultural Hierarchies and Liberal Political Models in The Hispanic World. Newcastle, Aldershot, U.K., Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2015; “Anarquistas españoles en Estados Unidos: Pedro Esteve y el periódico El Despertar de Nueva York (1891–1902),” in Julio Cañero (ed.), North America and Spain: Transversal Perspectives. New York, Escribana Books, 2017: 76–86; “El periódico El Esclavo de Tampa y la red anarquista hispano-cubana en los Estados Unidos a finales del siglo XIX”, in Carlos Aguasaco (ed.), Transatlantic Gazes. Studies on the historical links between Spain and North America. Universidad de Alcalá, 2018: 131–140. ALEJANDRO DE LA TORRE is a researcher at the Dirección de Estudios Históricos from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH, México), where he coordinates the projects Culture and Radical Tradition and Recovery and digitalization of anarchist printed materials. His interests include political cartoon and militant graphics of the 19th century, as well as cultural practices of Spanishspeaking anarchism and the construction of international press networks. He has collaborated in the critical edition of Ricardo Flores Magón’s Complete Works, coordinated by Jacinto Barrera Bassols. With Miguel Orduña Carson, he has published the collective books

Cultura política de los trabajadores, México, UNAM, 2008, and Historias de anarquistas. México, INAH/UNAM, 2017. DAVID WATSON is an activist and writer. He was a staff member, writer, and editor of the anarchist journal The Fifth Estate from 1975–2005. His books include Beyond Bookchin: Preface for a Future Social Ecology (Black & Red/Autonomedia, 1996); Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and Its Enemies (Autonomedia, 1997); and En camino a ninguna parte: civilización, tecnología, y barbarie (Salmón, 2018). He has taught high school Spanish, English, and Journalism for thirty-five years before retiring in 2018.

Index Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abad de Santillán, Diego, 163–64, 167–68, 177, 180, 248 Acción Libertaria (Libertarian Action, Buenos Aires), 169 Acracia (Anarchy, Barcelona), 42 Action, L’ (Paris), 96 Acuña, Rosario de, 26, 29 Adunata dei Refrattari, L’ (Call of the Refractaires), 164 Agramonte, Pedro N., 53 Ahrens, Gale, 11 Aldamas, Alejandro, 131 Alfaro, Pedro, 140 Alfaya, Manuel, 109 Alfonso XII, King of Spain, 5, 26 Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, 8, 91, 124 Algo (Something, Vivas brothers), 143, 165 Alianza Sindical Obrera (ASO), 249 Almanaque Civil de Librepensadores (Civil Almanac of Freethinkers), 23 Almanaques del Proletariado (Proletariat’s Almanacs), 39 Alonso, David, 166 A los anarquistas de España y Cuba (To the Anarchists of Spain and Cuba), 23 Altamira, Rafael, 140 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 74–75, 77, 81–82, 90, 93, 105, 107, 111–12, 164 American Legion, 80 American Protective League, 78 anarchism: antiorganizationalism, 89; assassinations as tactic, 100n29; colonialism and, 44; colonias as sites for, 156, 157t, 160; consecuencia principle in, 170; countercultural structures in, 10; Cuban separatism and, 53, 58–61, 68–69; defined, 1; disappearance theme in, 158–60; generational decline of, 167– 69; history of anarchism, 9–11, 158–60, 177–78, 183–85, 187– 88, 259; Iconoclasts’ Survey, 160–64, 162t, 180, 181–83, 188– 89; insurrectionist vs. syndicalist tactics, 4, 89–90; intimate

relations ideal, 132; Magón avoidance of term, 125; nationalist movements and, 68–69; non-canonical anarchism, 130; nonhierarchical social structures, 184, 249–51; post-1960s influences, 270–71; pseudonyms in, 163–64; reformist anarchism, 248–50, 254; social integration and, 86, 249–50, 252–54; Spanish republicanism and, 18–22; as transnational movement, 2–3; utopian culture and, 169–70. See also antianarchist initiatives Anarchist Labour Leaf, The (London, England), 179 anarcho-individualism, 219, 220 anarcho-syndicalism, 56, 136–45, 232, 245, 248–50, 278. See also syndicalism Anarquía, La (Anarchy), 23 Anderson, Benedict, 3 Angiolillo, Michele, 70, 90, 100n24, 122 anti-anarchist initiatives: AFL anti-anarchist stance, 74; anarchist deportations, 77, 79, 165; anti-CMIU violence, 75–76; Bureau of Investigation operations, 165–66; colonias as target, 165–66, 181; Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917–18), 78; Estudios harassment/censorship, 215–16; Ferrer arrest and execution, 91, 123, 128; government treatment of anarchist press, 70; Magón as target, 125; Marie Cooper kidnapping, 73, 80–81; middle-class assimilation and, 166–68, 167; opposition to Florida strikes, 73–74; postal censorship, 109, 129, 132; relevo (substitute/relief) as response, 160; Spain anarchist suppression, 195, 238–41; US Spanish diaspora surveillance, 246; USSR anarchist persecution, 204; Vidal as target, 122. See also Haymarket protests; Red Scare anticlericalism: anticlerical rituals, 29–30; Bardají Mexico accounts, 39–40; diversity in, 21; Ferrer secular school initiative, 123; in Las Dominicales, 6, 18; Luben on theism, 170; in mainstream journalism, 17; in El Progreso, 25; religious heterodoxy and, 27; secular charity and, 24; Spanish federalism and, 19; women’s anticlericalism, 22. See also rationalism antifascism: as anarchist print theme, 154; colonia network and, 153, 156; in Cultura Obrera, 110; in España Libre, 11; IWW

antifascism, 112; Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista, 158; Spanish Civil War and, 187 antimilitarism, 78–79 antiorganizationalism, 89 Antorcha, La (Buenos Aires), 96 Aransaez, Ángel, 249 Archivo Social (Social Archive, Havana), 69 Arcos, Pura (Purificación Pérez Benavent), 254, 262, 268–69, 273n16 Arcos Martínez, Federico: anarchist career, 9, 258–59; Barcelona upbringing, 263; as Detroit resident, 260–62, 261; Grupo Libertad affiliation, 266–67; as poet, 268, 269–70; post-1960s anarchism, 270–71; Spanish resistance period, 4, 263–66, 271; as speaker/archivist, 267–69, 272 Argentina: anarchist periodicals, 281–83; Cultura Obrera contributions, 111; Estudios distribution, 214–15, 220–21; García coverage of, 46; IWW in, 104; Nido rational school, 183; Revista Única contributions, 163 Arshinov, Peter, 262 Asociación, La (The Association, Barcelona), 56 Asociación de Fogoneros españoles de Nueva York (Association of Spanish Seamen in New York), 124 Asociación Francisco Ferrer, la (Francisco Ferrer Association), 124 Asociación Internacional de Trabajodores (International Association of the Workers), 204–5 Astor, William, 59 Aurora, L’ (Dawn, Paterson, New Jersey), 89, 181 Australia, 104, 105 Austria, 163 Avante (Ahead, Villa Cecilia, Mexico), 137, 143–44 Avisador Cubano, El (New York), 54 Avrich, Paul, 11, 140, 259, 264–65 Avvenire, L’ (The Future, Steubenville, Ohio; New Kensington, Pennsylvania; New York City), 160 Baer, James, 11 Baginaski, Max, 127

Bakunin, Mikhail, 5, 37, 96, 179, 248 Baltimore, 93 Bandera Social (Social Flag, Madrid), 40–43, 56–57 Barcelona (Spain): anarchist periodicals in, 45, 281–83; Arcos upbringing, 263; Corpus procession bombing, 90, 99n22, 100n24; as early international worker site, 5, 121; as Hispanic anarchist hub, 2; Life magazine Estampas photo-essay, 4, 228– 29, 231, 234–35; Semana Trájica uprisings, 123, 183 Barcia, Luis, 58, 62–63, 71, 73–74, 76, 80–81 Barcos, Julio R., 215 Bardají, V., 3, 6, 38–42 Barker, Tom, 104 barrel makers, 45 Barrera Bassols, Jacinto, 11, 123 Barrett, Rafael, 186 Barrio, Ángeles, 20 Barrios, Ramón, 79 Basora, Francisco, 123 Becerra, Juan, 28 Bekken, Jon, 7, 87, 121 Belgium, 214 Bellegarrigue, Anselme, 186–87 Berezo Paredes, Rafael, 166–67 Berkman, Alexander, 127, 204 Berneri, Camillo, 181, 182 Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya, 9 Blackwell, Russell, 234 Boletín de Propaganda Anárquica (Mexico City), 145 Bolshevik Revolution, 200 Bolsheviks, 79–81 Boris, S., 128 Borrán, Jorge, 140 Bortolotti, Attilio, 266–67 Boston (Massachusetts), 93, 106, 107 Bourdieu, Pierre, 183 Brandt, Carlos, 209–10, 218–19, 221 Brazo y Cerebro (Arm and Brain, New York), 45, 129, 196

Brooklyn (New York): anarchist periodicals in, 281–83; Círculo de Trabajadores, 123; as Hispanic anarchist hub, 2, 57–58, 61–64, 122, 124, 237, 245; Las Dominicales readership in, 24; Mexican Revolution support in, 128; tobacco workers, 24, 94. See also New York City Buen, Odón de, 21 Camacho, Diego (Abel Paz), 263–65, 270 Camín, Alfonso, 245, 247, 254 Campos, José Cayetano: as anarchist correspondent, 6; anarchosyndicalism and, 278; as Bandera Social correspondent, 42–43; biographical sketch, 53–54; on the Cánovas assassination, 70; on Cuban separatism, 3, 54–55, 58–62; El Despertar founding, 7; Haymarket coverage, 42–43, 56–58; New York City initiatives, 53; obituary, 44–45, 63–64; as El Productor (Barcelona) correspondent, 38, 57; as El Productor (Havana) correspondent, 42–43; typographical union organizing, 55–56; on tyranny, 59 Canalejas, José, 46, 77, 100n29 Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio, 68–70, 90, 122 Capetillo, Luisa, 11, 29, 78 capitalism: Great Depression as failure of, 220; in Mexico, 41, 127; middle-class assimilation and, 166–68, 167; private land ownership, 198; protective legislation and, 106; religious qualities of, 132; as source of inequality, 125–26, 158; US as capitalist paradigm, 205 Cappelletti, Ángel, 178, 187 Carás, Lisardo, 24 Carmona, Rómulo S. (aka Pilar A. Robledo), 131 Carnegie, Andrew, 7 Casa del Obrero Mundial (COM), 140–41 Casanova i Codina, Joan, 11, 196 Casas, Salvador, 69 Casellas, Pedro, 73 Castañeda, Augustín, 134n15 Castañeda, Christopher J., 7, 11, 43, 68 Castilla, Alfonso de, 155–56 Castilla Morales, José, 245, 250, 254 Catecismo Librepensador (Freethinking Catechism, Verea), 26

Cayetano Valadés, José, 177 Cecilia (Mexico), 137, 140 Cénit (Zenith, Toulouse), 169 Cerraí, J., 68 Cervera, Luisa, 29 Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de, 5 Chabrán, H. Rafael, 11 Chaux, Simon, 25 Chicago: Anarchist Conference of 1893, 22, 27, 196; anarchist periodicals in, 158, 281–83; as Hispanic anarchist hub, 2; IWW in, 77, 259; labor protests of 1886, 56; Las Dominicales readership in, 23; Pullman strike, 7. See also Haymarket protests Chíes, Ramón, 21, 24 Chile, 46, 104, 105 China, 163, 182 cigar makers, 7, 27, 54, 71–76, 80, 123, 127, 155. See also tobacco workers Cipresso, Josephine, 130–31 Civera, Marín, 220, 248 civil rituals, 29–30 Claramunt, Teresa, 22 CMIU (Cigar Makers International Union), 72, 74–76 CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo), 9, 196, 227, 233, 248– 52, 263, 267, 269, 278 CNT-FAI (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo-Federación Anarquista Ibérica), 4, 227, 229–41, 269 Cohn, Jesse, 8, 180–81 Colins, Hippolyte, 4 colonias (immigrant labor communities): anarchist network and, 153, 156; antifascist propaganda tours, 153, 156; harassment of, 165–66; local cultural events, 166–67; print culture and, 155– 56; Revista Blanca coverage of, 203–5; Rust Belt area “zones,” 156, 158, 164, 166; transnationalism and, 153, 155–56, 157t, 160 colonias (particular groups): “Ateneo de Educación,” 203–4; “Cultura Libertaria” (Detroit), 169; “Cultura Proletaria,” 203–4;

“Floreal” (Blair Station, Pennsylvania), 157, 165, 203–5; “Los Iconoclastas” (Steubenville, Ohio), 154, 162t, 163–64, 180, 182; “Los Invencibles,” 155, 157t, 163–64; “Nosotras,” 203–4; “Nueva Era” (Langeloth, Pennsylvania), 165–66; “Social,” 203–4 Combate, El (The Fight, San Sebastian and Bilbao), 45 Combat Syndicaliste, Le (Syndicalist Combat, Paris), 169, 170 Comité de Defensa de los Trabajadores Españoles y de Publicidad de los Estados Unidos de América (Spanish Workers’ Defense and Publicity Committee of the United States of America), 205 Comité Internacional Pro-Presos Sociales (International ProSocial/Political Prisoners Committee), 136, 139, 141–47 Commonweal, The (London), 179 communism/Communism: Gastonia strike and, 151n40; McCarthyite repression and, 166; Mexican female activists and, 142–43, 150; Mexican indigenous people and, 129; NMU and MTW membership, 112; in Revista Única survey responses, 161; Russian/Soviet totalitarian communism, 205, 230; SDP propaganda materials and, 230; social realism and, 230; Spanish libertarianism and, 202, 207n38 Comunista, El (The Communist, Puerto Rico), 77 Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. See CNT Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 111, 166 Cooks & Stewards Union, 106 Copernelo, Antonio, 122 Cornell, Andrew, 233–34, 236, 259 Corsario, El (The Pirate, La Coruña, Spain), 45 Corsario, El (The Pirate, New York City), 196 Costa, Joaquín, 248 Costa Iscar, Manuel, 215 Creaghe, John, 180 Creci, Enrique, 69, 81 Crímenes del anarquismo, Los (García, Crimes of Anarchism), 46 Cuba: anarchism in, 2, 44, 63, 74; Cuba Libre movement, 6, 54– 55, 58–61, 128; Cuban and Spanish-born anarchist dynamic, 53–54, 58–60, 68, 71; Cuban War for Independence, 67–68; García coverage of, 46; Hispanic Florida interest in, 68–70;

independence movement, 3, 5, 43–44; rise of antiauthoritarianism, 4–5; sugar estate strikes, 79; US Cuban exile community, 41 Cultura Obrera (Labor Culture, New York City): bookstore service, 96; colonias readership, 155–56; Esteve contributions, 28, 76, 87–90, 96–97, 107; financial and publication issues, 96–97; founding, 87, 89–90, 105, 128; García as contributor, 45, 47; as Hispanic worker voice, 94, 195–96; on insurrectionist tactics, 90; internationalist approach, 106–7, 197–98; ISU funding, 91; IWW alignment with, 107–8; Mexico coverage, 94–95, 128–29; nomadic correspondents for, 48n1; overview of content, 95–96, 110–11; sea-based worker advocacy, 91–94, 105–7; SIA infighting in, 163–64; Spanish anarchist advocacy, 124; tobacco worker organization initiative, 7 Cultura Proletaria (Proletarian Culture, New York City): as anarchist sales outlet, 181; demise of, 128; disappearance theme in, 158; education as theme in, 201–2; as Estudios distributor, 218–19; founding, 123, 195–96; García as contributor, 45, 87, 89; ISU funding, 91; La Revista Blanca as sister magazine, 194; Lóuzara contributions to, 181; LóuzaraFernández harassment and, 165; Nettlau recognition in, 179, 185; political prisoner support, 143–44, 203; Steubenville issues in, 164; ULO Spanish Civil War initiative and, 234, 240 Danky, James P., 2 Debs, Eugene, 125–26 Delgado, Román, 140 del Valle, Adrián (Palmiro de Lidia), 57, 62–63, 69, 71, 73, 95 Demófilo (Lozano, Fernando), 21, 29 Despertar, El (The Awakening, New York City): anticolonialanarchist divisions in, 61–62; Campos contributions, 53, 58, 61; El Esclavo alliance, 70; Esteve as editor, 28, 61, 124, 196–97; founding, 7, 58; Las Dominicales affiliation with, 25; nomadic correspondents for, 48n1; El Rebelde founding and, 62; stature as US Hispanic paper, 196; support for Florida strikes, 73; tobacco worker advocacy, 94 Detroit, 2, 169, 259–60, 261–62, 266, 281–83 Devaldès, Manuel, 219

Díaz, Carlos, 264 Diaz, Porfirio, 121, 125 Díaz, Victoriano, 180 Díaz Cuervo, Gerardo, 30 Doctrina Anarquista Socialista (Socialist-Anarchist Doctrine, Paterson, NJ), 197 Domínguez, María José, 8, 209 Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Las (The Free- Thinking Sunday Magazine, Madrid, Spain), 6, 17–18, 21–27, 30 Duarte, Ángel, 20 Duarte, Inés, 30 Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, 11 Durante de Cabarga, Guillermo, 169 Durio Isabel, 53 Durruti, Buenaventura, 37 Economic Contradictions (Proudhon), 44 Ecuador, 104, 281–83 education: anarchist values and, 95; critique of US education, 200–202; as Cultura Proletaria theme, 201–2; as Estudios theme, 210; Ferrer theory of modern education, 8, 199–202; IWW promotion of, 109–10; as Revista Blanca theme, 196, 199– 202; Spanish republican support for, 19 Engel, George, 6 Engels, Friedrich, 20 England, 163 Era Nuova, L,’ 89 Erickson, Charlotte, 156 Esclavo, El (The Slave, Tampa, FL), 44, 60–61, 68–70 Escuela Moderna, La (Modern School, Valencia), 45 España Libre (Free Spain, Brooklyn, NY), 9, 245–54 Esteve, Maria, 87–88, 111 Esteve, Pedro: anarcho-syndicalism and, 278; on anticlericalism, 21; on citizen associations, 20; on colonias, 155; Cultura Obrera contributions, 28, 76, 87–90, 96–97; death, 111, 198; early anarchist trajectory, 88–89; Ferrer execution and, 91, 128; on freemasonry, 25; Mexican Revolution support, 76, 124, 126–28; as Nettlau colleague, 180, 185, 186, 189; as non-canonical

anarchist, 130; as El Productor (Barcelona) writer, 57; as Revista Blanca contributor, 196–97; stature as Spanishlanguage anarchist, 81, 121; syndicalism of, 97; as Tampa resident, 28; transnational anarchism of, 3, 7, 22, 37, 87, 278; on US democracy, 26–27; as Vidal ally, 124, 133 Estévez, Antonio, 200, 203–4 Estudios (Studies, Valencia, Spain), 8, 96, 164, 209–21 Ettor, Joseph, 127, 131 eugenics, 219–20 Evangelio de nuestro Redentor Jesús, El (The Gospel of Jesus our Redeemer), 27 Fabbri, Luigi, 177, 180, 182 Fanelli, Guiseppe, 5 Faraldo, Antolín, 4 Fascists, 112, 247 Federación, La (The Federation, Barcelona), 5 Federación, La (The Federation, Tampa, FL), 25, 71–72 Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation), 227, 269. See also CNT-FAI Federación de Grupos Anarquistas de Lengua Castellana en Estados Unidos (Federation of Spanish-Speaking Anarchist Groups in the United States, F. de GG. AA. de L. C. en EE. UU.), 156, 158, 164, 170, 180–81 Federación de Sociedades Obreras de Barcelona (Workers’ Federation of Barcelona), 122 Federación de Trabajadores: Semanario Anárquico-Colectivista (Workers Federation: Anarcho-Collectivist Weekly, Montevideo, Uruguay), 56 Federación Regional Española, 5 federalism, 19–20, 31 Feinmann, Enrique, 215 Fernández, Frank, 53–54 Fernández, Mercedes, 165 Ferrer i Guàrdia, Francesc (Francisco Ferrer), 8, 91, 106, 123, 128, 133, 140, 183, 199–202 Feu, Montse, 9, 11 Fielden, Samuel, 57–58

Fifth Estate, The (Detroit), 262, 270 Fischer, Adolf, 6 Flores Magón, Enrique, 125 Flores Magón, Jesús, 125 Flores Magón, Ricardo, 7, 37, 94–95, 97, 123, 125–29, 131, 139– 40, 186 Flores Magón brothers, 96, 97, 125–28, 130–31, 139–40. See also Magonist movement; and individual Flores Magón brothers Florida, 7, 42, 53, 67–70, 74, 76, 78–82, 156. See also Tampa; Ybor City Fowler-Salamini, Heather, 138 France, 21, 46–47, 162, 214, 239, 246, 248, 264–65, 281–83 Franco, Francisco, 8, 227–28, 231, 245–46, 250 freemasonry, 17, 20, 21, 25 freethinking movement, 17–18, 21, 27–31 Freiheit (Freedom, London and New York City), 179 Frente Unico Pro-Derechos de la Mujer (FUPDM), 150n23 Fuerza Consciente (Conscious Force, New York City), 129, 131– 32 Fueyo, José, 73 Gabriel, Pere, 18, 20 Galleani, Luigi, 160 Galveston (Texas), 106, 107 García, Albín, 154–55, 164 García, Angel, 154, 157 García, Marcelino, 87, 194, 259 García, Vicente, 6, 38, 45, 198, 278 García Birlán, Antonio, 215 García Pradas, J., 248 Gastonia strike, 136, 145 Generación Consciente (Conscious Generation, Alcoy, Spain), 96, 164, 210–12. See also Estudios George, Henry, 43 Germany, 105, 163, 200, 219, 231, 265, 271 Germinal, 144 Ghiraldo, Alberto, 215 Gil, José Martínez, 79

Gil Blas (San Antonio, Texas), 25 Gilchrist, Albert, 76 Giménez Igualada, Miguel, 4, 161, 182, 245, 251, 254 Giovanitti, Arturo, 131 Giovanni, Severino de, 164 Glorious Revolution, 5 Goldman, Emma: anticlericalism of, 19; as Arcos influence, 261, 263, 266; British propaganda campaign, 233; Esteve as colleague, 87; Mexican Revolution support, 127; nomadic character of, 37; Souchy correspondence, 235–37; Spanish anarchist support, 123; USSR, 204 Gómez, Juan Vicente, 218 Gómez Muller, Alfredo, 187 Gompers, Samuel, 74–75, 77 González, Julián, 72 González Malo, Jesús, 9, 245–54, 278 González Pacheco, Rodolfo, 215 González Prada, M., 248 Gori, Pietro, 186 Goyens, Tom, 11 Grasselli (West Virginia), 156 Grave, Jean, 96, 130, 163, 182 Gudiño, Pedro, 140 Guerra, Vicente, 24 Guglielmo, Jennifer, 11 Gustavo, Soledad (Teresa Mañé), 22, 45, 195, 199 Haymarket protests, 5, 25, 42–43, 56–58, 68–69, 131, 267 Hernández, José H., 140 Hernández, Sonia, 7 Herrera, Alfonso L., 215 Herrería Fernández, Antonio, 8, 209 Hewitt, Nancy, 76 Hijos del Mundo (Children of the World, Guanabacoa), 67–68, 180 Hispanic identity, 2–3, 12n1, 153 history of anarchism: Hispanic anarchist recovery archive, 278–79; New Left anarchism, 259; 1930s anarchism decline, 233–34; post-1960s anarchism, 270–71; Red Scare (see main heading)

Hoboken (New Jersey), 106 Homestead Steel Mill, 7 Hoover, Herbert, 136, 146 Horcasitas, Antonio, 125 Horna, Kati, 239–40 Houston (Texas), 112 Hymans, Maurits, 122 Iberian Anarchist Federation. See CNT-FAI; Federación Anarquista Ibérica Iglesias, Jesús, 76 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW): as AFL target, 77, 93, 112; Cultura Obrera alignment with, 107–8; F. de GG. AA. and, 164; in Florida, 76–77; Hispanic firemen role in, 103; internationalist approach, 104; ¡Liberación! support for, 77; marine unions relationships, 93–94, 106–12; Mexican Revolution support, 131; as Red Scare target, 78–80, 104–5, 109–12; Spanish MTW involvement, 7; in Tampa, 80 Iñíguez, Miguel, 4, 261–62 Inquietudes (Concerns, New York City), 181 Instrucciones para la celebración y práctica de actos civiles (Instructions for the Celebration and Practice of Civil Acts, Rey Pontes), 27–28 Internacional, El (The International, CMIU, Tampa), 75 internationalism: ethnic prejudice and, 41; global capitalist oppression and, 47, 72, 107; IWW embrace of, 104; La Revista Blanca international approach, 194; libertarian internationalism, 38; MTW advocacy for, 104–5, 112–13; multi-lingual publications, 71, 106, 194; Spanish republicanism and, 19; trans-Caribbean alliance and, 68–69. See also transnationalism International Longshoremen’s Association (ISA), 106–7 International Seamen’s Union (ISU, “the International”), 91, 93, 103–4, 106–12 International Typographical Union (ITU), 55–56 International Workingmen’s Association, 19 ISU. See International Seamen’s Union Italian anarchists, 11, 70–72, 75, 87, 88–89, 131, 163 IWMA (International Working Men’s Association), 5

Jacksonville (Florida), 24 Jewish Anarchist Federation, 234 Justicia Obrera (Labor Justicde, Haro, Logroño), 45 Kanellos, Nicholás, 2 Kelly, Charles, 73 Kelly, Harry, 127 Key West (Florida), 42, 69, 73–74 Kinna, Ruth, 248 Knights of Labor, 43, 106 Korsch, Karl, 239 Kropotkin, Peter, 37, 45, 96, 130, 248, 263 Ku Klux Klan, 111 Labadie, Joseph, 262 Labastida, Pelagio Antonio, 39–40 labor movement: Cuban separatists and, 54–55; eight-hour workday, 5–6, 42, 57; lectors, 78, 94, 155; Nettlau critique of, 186; post-WWI affluence and, 167–68 Laforcade, Geoffroy de, 188 Langeloth (Pennsylvania), 157t, 159t, 164, 165, 166 language: anarchist press languages, 158; indigenous language translations, 186; lectors, 78, 94, 155; Los Angeles Spanishlanguage press, 11; multi-lingual publications, 71, 106, 194, 246; transnational Hispanic identity and, 2–3 Lazarte, Juan, 215 League for Industrial Democracy (LID), 231 Leval, Gaston, 215, 220 Levine, Philip, 260, 270–72 ¡Liberación! (Liberation! Ybor City), 76–77 libertarianism: authority figures in, 86–87; Campos on, 57; Estudios as outlet for, 209–13, 215–16, 220; gendered social justice principles, 144; Hermanos Rojos advocacy, 140; Juventudes Libertarias (Libertarian Youth), 168, 263–64; Nettlau libertarian journey, 178, 185–86; republican freedom myth and, 42; Spanish federalism and, 19–20, 21–22; Spanish libertarianism, 202, 207n38, 247; in Tampa, 28; US Hispanic support for, 278; WWI opposition, 200 Lida, Clara E., 19

Liga de Trabajadores Cubanos de La Habana (Havana League of Cuban Workers), 72 Liga Obrera de Tampa (Tampa Workers League), 72 Lingg, Louis, 57–58 Litvak, Lily, 10 Llano, Antonio, 23 Llunas y Pujals, Josep, 25 Lomnitz, Claudio, 11 London, 38, 45, 47, 69, 89–90, 122, 179, 184, 198, 239 López de Ayala, Ángeles, 29 López de Gabriel, Carlos, 215 Lorenzo, Anselmo, 5, 25, 95–96, 248 Los Angeles, 2, 9, 11, 76, 96, 128, 130–33, 281–83 Lott, August, 128 Lóuzara de Andrés, Jesús “José” (aka “R. Lone”): as anarchist correspondent, 163; consecuencia principle in, 170; family anarchist legacy, 168–69, 168; Federation of Anarchist Groups founding, 156, 180–81; feuds and betrayals and, 164–65; Iconoclasts’ Survey role, 180–83, 188–89; Nettlau friendship, 161, 165, 178–80, 188–89; personal achievements, 167–69; Piña correspondence, 143; as Revista Única editor, 154–55; “R. Lone” pseudonym, 163–64; transnational libertarianism, 278 Lozano, Fernando (Demófilo), 21, 29 Luben, Donato, 170 Luchador, El, 196 Lu-Chien-Bo, 182 MacLachlan, Colin M., 125 Madero, Francisco, 77, 127 Magonist movement, 94–95, 105, 143. See also Flores Magón brothers Malatesta, Errico, 23, 37, 45, 88–90, 97, 170, 180, 186, 198 Malato, Charles, 37, 45, 96 Malo, González, 4, 9, 11, 245–50, 252–54, 278 Man! (San Francisco), 241 Mañé, Teresa (Soledad Gustavo), 22, 45, 195 Marine Firemen, Oilers and Watertender’s Union, 90, 91–93, 105– 7, 123, 128

Marine Transport Workers (MTW, Obreros del Transporte Marítimo), 7, 93, 103–5, 109, 111–13 Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union, 107–8 Marine Worker, The, 112 Marino, Celestino Menéndez, 162t, 165, 166 Martello, Il (New York), 96 Martí, José, 60–61 Martí Ibáñez, Félix, 156, 169–70, 213, 245, 252–54, 256, 278 Martínez, Juan, 106, 124 Martínez, Manuel A., 23 Martínez Novella, José María, 210, 219–21 Martínez Rizo, Alfonso, 219 Martín Revellado, Mario, 7, 87, 121 Marx, Karl, 5 Mascuñana, Jorge, 78 Matos Rodríguez, Félix V., 11 McKeesport (Pennsylvania), 157t, 159t, 164 McKinley, William, 73 Meléndez-Badillo, Jorell, 8, 11 Mella, Ricardo, 96, 163, 248 Méndez Guerra, Esteban, 141, 143, 145 Mercantil Agrícola e Industrial, El (The Agricultural and Industrial Merchant), 25 Mexican Revolution: anarchist press coverage, 4, 7, 47, 94; Florida anarchists and, 76–78, 81; labor provisions gained by, 137–38; postrevolutionary “great family” theme, 136–38, 144– 47; Rangel-Cline case, 132; Vidal embrace of, 121–29, 131, 133; women’s rights gained by, 136–40 Mexico: Bardají accounts of, 39–41; CGT in, 145; Chinese workers in, 41; CNT in, 250; Comité Pro-Presos, 141; Cultura Obrera coverage of, 94–95; García coverage of, 46–47; Grupo de Propaganda Anárquica, 145; Hermanos Rojos, 136–37, 139– 41, 144–46; IWW in, 104; Madero assassination, 77; MTW in, 105; Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), 76, 125–27, 131, 139–40, 144; Porfirian worker suppression, 40; Revista Única contributions from, 163; Tampico-area socioeconomic transformation, 137–38

Mijón, Ventura, 77, 81 mine workers, 88, 95, 153 Mi opinion (Capetillo), 78 Molina, Juan Manuel, 252 Monleón, Manuel, 213 Montenegro, José López, 25 Montseny, Federica, 163, 182, 195, 197, 199–202, 204, 205 Montseny, Joan (Federico Urales; “Baturrillo”), 195, 205 Mora, Francisco, 5 Morago, Tomás, 5 Moral, Amelia del, 168–69 Moral, Armando del, 168–69 Morales Muñoz, Manuel, 19, 21 Moral Vizcaíno, Armando del, 156 Morgan, J. P., 63 Mormino, Gary R., 11 Most, Johann, 179 Motín, El (The Mutiny), 29 Mouroa, Luis, 76 Moya, José, 2 MTW. See Marine Transport Workers Myers, Gustavus, 129 Nakens, José, 29 National Confederation of Labor (Confederación Nacional de Trabajo). See CNT National Maritime Union (NMU), 111–12 naturism, 8, 209–13, 217–19, 221 Nava, Dolores, 29 Navarro, Javier, 8 Nazism, 219–20 Negrín, Alfredo, 75, 79, 81 Nervio: Portavoz de la Regional Andalucía-Extremadura (Spirit: Journal of the Andalusia- Extremadura Regional, Buenos Aires, Argentina), 169, 178, 181, 183 Nettlau, Max, 8, 161, 163–65, 177, 179–89 New Left anarchism, 259 New Orleans, 2, 23, 106

New York City: anticolonial-anarchist divisions in, 61–62; Campos influence in, 53; Cultura Obrera support in, 107; Francisco Ferrer Association, 199–200; Gremio de Obreros de Nueva York (New York Workers’ Union), 54; as Hispanic anarchist hub, 2; IWW influence, 93, 111–12; Las Dominicales readership in, 18, 23–25; marine-workers strike of 1912, 106; Mexican Revolution support in, 128. See also Brooklyn Nido, Enrique (Amadeo Lluán), 177, 179–80, 183–84, 188–89 NMU. See National Maritime Union Noja, Higinio, 220 Norfolk (Virginia), 93 Novedades, Las (The News, New York City), 25, 155–56 Nuevo Ideal, El (The New Ideal, Havana), 44–45, 63, 71, 74 Obrero Industrial, El (The Industrial Worker, Tampa, Florida), 77 oil workers, 141 Olay, Maximiliano (Onofre Dallas), 77, 94, 203, 234, 236, 240–41 Olcott, Jocelyn, 138, 142–43 Otayek, Michel, 8–9 Owen, William C., 125–26, 130–31 Panama, 155 Paraire, Antoni Pellicer, 41, 95, 278 Pardiñas, Manuel, 77, 91, 100n29, 101n43 Parsons, Albert, 6, 43, 58 Partos, Paul, 239 Paterson (New Jersey), 7, 87–89, 97, 122, 124, 128, 196–97, 199 Patria (Partido Revolucionario Cubano), 60–61 Pauli, Benjamin J., 248 Pazos, Genaro, 109–10 Pécsi, József, 239 Peirats, José, 266–67, 270 Peiro, Juan, 248 Pellicer, Rafael Farga, 5 Pellicer Paraire, Antoni, 42, 95, 278 Peña, Sandalio, 24 Pensamiento Contemporáneo, El (Contemporary Thought, New York City), 23 Perlman, Fredy and Lorraine, 261–62

Perseguido, El (The Persecuted, Buenos Aires, Argentina), 45, 47 Peru, 104 Pestaña, Ángel, 248 Philadelphia, 93, 105, 107–10, 112 Pi i Margall, Francesc, 20, 22 Piña, Caritina, 4, 7–8, 136, 138–39, 141–48 Piqueras, José Antonio, 20 Political Contradictions (Proudhon), 44 political prisoner support, 104, 131–32, 136, 139, 141–47, 202–4 Pontevedra (Florida), 23 Porvenir, El (Santiago de Compstea), 4 Porvenir, El (The Future, New York City), 58 Pozzeta, George E., 11 Prat, José, 95–96 Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 210–11, 246 print culture, 2, 10, 78, 86, 94, 153, 155–56, 178, 278 Productor, El (The Producer, Barcelona), 38, 40–43, 45, 48n1, 57, 198 Productor, El (The Producer, Havana), 57 Progreso, El (Progress, New York City), 23, 25, 29 Proletario, Il (Brooklyn), 96 Protesta, La (The Protest, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1903present), 160, 164, 177, 181–82, 184 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 4, 44, 248 Puerto Rico, 21, 75, 77–79, 104 Pujal, José, 129 Pullman Palace Car Company, 7 Questione Sociale, La (Paterson, New Jersey), 88–89, 97, 122, 124 Questión Social, La (New York City), 54 Quijote, El (Barcelona), 263–64 Quintana, Gerardo, 44, 62–64 race: anarchist contempt of racism, 131; Campos tyranny theory and, 59; Cultura Obrera anti-prejudice campaign, 111; Nettlau and, 186; Tampa Citizens Committees violence and, 73; workplace segregation, 99n12, 103 Radowitzky, Simón, 163 Rama, Carlos, 178, 187

Ramos, Dolores, 22 Ramus, Pierre, 163 Rangel-Cline case, 132 Rashid, Marilynn, 258, 267 rationalism: civil registry and, 29–30; Comité Pro-Presos advocacy, 142; Esteve as advocate, 21; Ferrer as advocate, 140; in mainstream journalism, 17; Montenegro as advocate, 25; Nido rational school, 183; as Revista Blanca theme, 199. See also anticlericalism Rebelde, El (The Rebel, New York City), 44, 62–63 Reclús, Élisée, 179, 181, 248 Red Scare (World War I-era), 67, 78–82, 104–5, 109–12. See also anti-anarchist initiatives Red Scare (post-World War II McCarthyism), 166 Regeneración (Regeneration, Los Angeles, California), 76, 125– 28, 129–32, 146 Region, La (Santander, Spain), 246 Religión universal, La (Verea), 26 Remartínez, Roberto, 213, 217 Renau, Josep, 213 República, La (The Republic, New York), 54 republicanism, 17–22, 42 Resistencia, La. See Sociedad de Torcedores de Tampa Réveil, Le (The Awakening, Geneva, Switzerland), 164 Revista Blanca, La (The White Magazine, Madrid and Barcelona): as anarchist sales outlet, 181; colonias coverage, 203–5; coverage of US anarchism, 8, 205–6; education as theme in, 199–202; Esteve importance for, 196–98; Estudios relationship with, 210; García as contributor, 45; Luben on theism, 170; Montseny family stewardship, 195; Nettlau travel writings in, 178; political prisoner support, 202; Tampa subscribers, 27; transnational anarchist connections, 96, 194, 197–98, 205–6 Revista Única (Unique Magazine, Steubenville, OH), 8, 153–54, 154, 160–64, 162t, 169, 180–83, 188–89, 196 Rey, Manuel, 108–9 Rey Pontes, José María, 27–28 Rey Vila, José Luis (“Sim”), 229–30, 241

Ríos, Fernando de los, 248 Rivera, Librado, 143, 163 Road to Freedom (Stelton, New Jersey), 96 Rockefeller, John D., 59 Rocker, Rudolf, 179, 248 Roda, Maria, 87–88, 111 Rodriguez, Alejandro, 128 Rogers, Dorothy, 266 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 233 Rosa, Fernando de, 181 Rosenthal, Anton, 104 Russia, 46, 81, 122. See also Soviet Union Ruta (Route, Caracas, Venezuela), 181 Sacco, Nicola, 143–44, 165 Sagitario (Sagittarius, Villa Cecilia, Mexico), 137, 144, 146–47 Sagra Peris, Ramón de la, 4 Sagristá, Fermín, 166–67, 167 Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP), 108, 112 Salinas, Marcelo, 76–77, 81 Salud y Fuerza (Health and Strength, Barcelona), 45–46 Sánchez Collantes, Sergio, 6 Sanger, Margaret, 129 Santiago, Myrna, 141 Schapiro, Alexander, 182 sea-based workers, 7, 91–94, 103, 105–8, 110, 155 Sembrando Ideas (Gran Sindicato Obero de Santa Rosalía, Baja California, Mexico), 142 Sendón, Claro J., 203–4 Sentiñón, Gaspar, 5 Sernaker, Bernard, 128 Shaffer, Kirwin, 7, 11, 28, 53, 188 Shumko, Perry, 267 SIA. See Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista silk workers, 88 Simon, Fanny, 187 socialism: Barcelona Socialist Literary Competitions, 121; Campos writings and, 44, 57; Debs’s Mexican Revolution writings, 125–

26; freethinking movement and, 17, 21–22, 27; IWW philosophy and, 164; Knights of Labor and, 42–43; MLP anarcho-socialism, 128–29; Nettlau affiliation with, 179, 185, 187; Red Scare and, 80; repression of, 41; Revista Blanca doctrine, 197; socialist supporters in the US, 231; Spanish anarchism and, 19; Spanish UGT propaganda, 233 social realism, 230 Sociedad de Instrucción y Socorros Mutuos Robert Ingersoll (Society of Instruction and Mutual Aid Robert Ingersoll), 24 Sociedad de Torcedores de Tampa-aka, La Resistencia (Tampa Cigar Rollers Society, aka The Resistance), 71–75, 80 Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas (SHC, Confederation of Hispanic Societies), 166, 237, 240, 245–46, 248, 250 Sociedad General de Trabajadores (General Society of Workers), 71 Socorro, R. G., 23–24 Sola, Peter, 122 Solidaridad (Solidarity, IWW), 108, 164 Solidaridad, La (Madrid), 5 Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA, International Antifascist Solidarity), 158, 159t, 168–69, 237, 251 Solidaridad Obrera (Labor Solidarity, Barcelona), 45–46, 181 Solidaridad Obrera (Labor Solidarity, Chicago), 96 Solidaridad Obrera (Workers’ Solidarity, Toulouse, France), 169 Sopelana, Arnaldo, 93 Souchy, Augustin, 228, 232–33, 235–39, 241 Soviet Union, 204, 230, 240. See also Russia Spain: anarchism-republicanism relationship, 18–22; anticlerical solidarity, 21; Canalejas assassination, 77; Cuban and Spanishborn anarchist dynamic, 53–54, 58–60, 68, 71; “double militancy” republicanism, 17; Escuela Moderna movement, 123; Fascist Spain, 247; Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE), 39; Ferrer Modern School, 199; Galician ProPrisoners Committee, 204; Haymarket coverage in, 42; immigration to US, 98n6; libertarianism in, 202, 207n38, 247– 48; Monarchic Restoration of 1875, 21; El Porvenir founding, 4; Social Reforms Commission, 20; syndicalism in, 5; UGT in, 233;

US anarchist correspondents, 6, 36–37; US immigrant labor colonias, 155–56, 157t, 160; US-Spain anti-anarchist collaboration, 122–24; women’s movement in, 29 Spanish American War, 7, 61 Spanish Civil War: as anarchist narrative, 4, 262, 267; antifascism and, 11, 187, 245, 254; Arcos experiences in, 263–65; arms embargo, 231; CNT-FAI and, 4, 227–28, 232–33, 236–41, 237, 251; colonia propaganda tours and, 156; ¿España? Un libro de imágenes sobre cuentos de miedo y calumias fascistas (Spain? A Picturebook of Horror Tales and Fascist Calumnies), 237–38, 238–41; Estampas de la Revolución Española 19 de Julio de 1936 (Impressions of the Spanish Revolution July 19), 228–31, 234–35, 240–41; exiles to US from, 8–9; Federación Anarquista Ibéria (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation), 204, 227; MTW antiFranco actions, 112; organic intellectualism in, 249–50; SHC antifascist support, 166, 237, 240, 245; Soviet involvement, 230, 240; US involvement, 228–29, 229, 231, 233–37; Vía Libre founding and, 181 Spanish Revolution (ULO, New York City), 234–35, 240–41 Spies, August, 6, 57–58 Springer, Simon, 253 St. Augustine (Florida), 74 steel workers, 42, 153 Steubenville (Ohio), 2, 154, 157t, 158–60, 162t, 163–65, 181–82 Stirner, Max, 163–64 Streeby, Shelley, 11 Strunsky, Simeon, 235–36 Struthers, David, 11 Sueiro Seoane, Susana, 7, 22, 57, 104, 121 Sunrise colony (Alicia, Michigan), 203–4 SUP. See Sailors Union of the Pacific Sweden, 105 Swinton, John, 56 Switzerland, 163 syndicalism, 5, 90, 97, 112–13. See also anarcho-syndicalism Tampa (Florida): as anarchist hub, 70, 81; Capetillo influence in, 78; cigar makers, 27; CMIU-recognition strike and, 75–76; Cuban independence support in, 68–69; El Esclavo publication, 68;

Florida strikes of 1899–1901, 71–74; freethinking movement in, 27–31; IWW organizing, 79; Las Dominicales readership in, 23, 25, 28; ¡Liberación! founding, 76–77; Mexican Revolution support in, 76, 124; Ramón Chíes commemoration, 24; Red Scare in, 79– 81; Republican Casino proposal, 30. See also Ybor City Tampico (Mexico), 2, 136–44, 142 Tarrida del Mármol, Fernando, 57, 90, 95 Temps Nouveaux, Les (The New Times, Paris), 46, 96, 186–87 Thomas, Norman, 231 ¡Tierra! (Land! Havana), 45, 74–76, 96, 129, 130, 163–64 Tierra y Libertad (Land and Freedom, Barcelona), 45–47, 48n1, 94, 96, 181 Tinajero, Araceli, 78 tobacco workers: Campos coverage of, 42, 44–45; Cuban revolution and, 70; Cultura Obrera advocacy for, 94; Esteve as organizational leader, 7; Florida strikes of 1899–1901, 71–74; La Federación as newspaper for, 25; Spanish disaster relief and, 24; as Tampa industry, 28–29, 91; Ybor City boycott of 1919, 80. See also cigar makers Tomchuk, Travis, 11 Torre, Alejandro de la, 6, 53 Toryho, Jacinto, 229, 232 transnationalism: anarchism as transnational movement, 2–3; Cuban-creole and Spanish-born anarchist dynamic, 43–44, 53– 54, 58–60, 68, 71; Estudios transnationalism, 213–16, 220; female anarcho- syndicalism and, 142–44, 148; Florida as anarchist hub, 67, 71–72; Florida-Cuba solidarity, 71; immigrant labor colonias and, 153, 155–56, 157t, 160; Latin American anarchy bibliography, 177, 180, 184, 189; Nettlau approach to, 8, 177–78, 185; nomadic anarchist militants, 36–37; print culture and, 2, 10, 178; social benefits from, 11–12; Spanish anarchist correspondents in the US, 36–37; Spanish exile writings, 4; Steubenville transnationalism, 2, 159–60, 163, 181–82; tobacco industry transnationalism, 94; trans-Caribbean union initiative, 79, 81; transnational anarchist political debates, 197–98; transnational technologies, 87, 178; US Spanish republican press and, 22–23, 30–31. See also internationalism

Transport Workers of America, 106 Tresca, Carlo, 160 Tresca, Helga, 160 Truth Seeker, The (New York City), 23 Tuñon, Enriqueta, 150n23 Turcato, Davide, 10, 11, 159 Turner, Ethel Duffy, 146 typographers unions, 55–56 Umberto II, Prince of Italy, 181 Umbral (Dawn, Paris), 169, 181 Único, Él (Panama), 155, 163–64 Unión Obrera (Workers Union, CMIU, Puerto Rico), 75 Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, 166 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). See Russia; Soviet Union United Libertarian Organizations (ULO), 234, 236 United States: “American Dream” motif, 1; American Revolution as anarchist inspiration, 3; anti-anarchist initiatives (see main heading); critique of US education, 200–202; Estudios significance in, 216–20; Gilded Age industrialization, 7; immigrant labor colonias, 153, 155–56, 157t, 160; New Left anarchism, 259; 1930s anarchism decline, 233–34; post-1960s anarchism, 270–71; Red Scare (see main heading); Rust Belt area “zones,” 156, 158, 164, 166; Spanish anarchist views of, 26–27, 205; Spanish Civil War involvement, 228–29, 229, 231, 233–37; Spanish immigration, 194, 246; Spanish-language print culture, 22–23, 277–78 Universal Postal Union, 87 Urales, Federico, 195, 197, 199 Uruguay, 104 Vallina, Pedro, 90 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 143–44, 165 Varela-Lago, Ana, 156, 160 Vaughan, Mary Kay, 147 Veglia (Vigil, Paris), 182 Velásquez, Felipa, 146 Verea, Ramon, 26

Viadiu, José, 248 Vía Libre: Órgano de la Federación Libertaria (The Road to Freedom: Organ of the Libertarian Federation, New York, NY), 170, 181, 185 Vidal, Jaime: anarcho-syndicalism and, 278; Angiolillo relationship with, 100n24; biographical sketch, 121–26, 133; as Cultura Obrera co-founder, 89–90, 106; as Cultura Proletaria cofounder, 143; Ferrer execution and, 91, 123, 128, 133; genderequity principles, 132, 146–47; Mexican Revolution support, 7, 124–28, 133; new journals developed by, 129–30; New York City activism, 121; as non-canonical anarchist, 130; on revolutionary action, 3; Tampa anarchist support by, 78 Vilariño, José, 106, 115, 131 Villar, Manuel, 248 Viñas, David, 178, 187 Vitale, Luis, 187 Vivas, Aurora Álvarez, 143, 165, 168 Vivas Manzano, Emilio, 143, 165, 168 Voline, Boris, 262 Voz del Esclavo, La (The Slave’s Voice, Tampa), 72 Voz del Mar, La (Voice of the Sea, Chile), 105 Voz Humana (Human Voice, Caguas, PR), 188 Washington (Tampa freethinking group), 28–30 Watson, David, 9 Weintraub, Hyman, 112 Weirton (West Virginia), 157 Wilkie, John, 122 Wollman, M. H., 127–28 women: birth control and, 210–11; compañerismo principle and, 144–45; Estudios appeal to, 8, 210–11, 220; eugenics and, 219–20; gendered social justice principles, 144; Grupo “Nosotras,” 203–4; Las Dominicales support for, 29; Mexican “revolutionary family” theme, 136–40, 144–47; Nettlau and, 186; Piña influence and, 7–8, 136, 138–39, 147–48; PLM and Hermanos Rojos support for, 140–41, 144–47; in post-WWI Cultura Obrera, 111; Spanish freethinkers and, 22; suffrage initiative, 150n23; Vidal gender-equity principles, 132, 146–47

World War I, 104, 109, 180, 182–83, 184, 200 World War II, 265 Ybor City (Tampa), 2, 7, 29, 71–72, 76, 78, 80, 127, 158. See also Tampa Zavella, Patricia, 138 Zenon Gonzáles, José, 142 Zimmer, Kenyon, 10, 11, 158, 235

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