Kaufmann

[mariab]

Lynn Cates wrote:
Perhaps the immigration records could be searched?
Oh, this I don't know how to do, Lynn. I've done this only for Naples for the 1810s, where you go to a basement at the Archivio di Stato and grab huge super dusty parchments of applications made by Neapolitan citizens to leave the city to go to Rome (for 3 days) in 1813.
Surely Debs has files on immigration records?
I'll try to finally read the Gavin Bromley piece much later tonight, though. And I'll also try to get hold of the Edoardo Zinna piece on the IWEC.

[lynn cates]

immigration records

Hello Maria.

"Since The Echo cutting is from 1903, maybe this is the wife of the Jacob Schwartz who went to NY with the Russians?"

Makes sense to me. Perhaps the immigration records could be searched?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

To Drebra A:
Thank you SO much, Debs! I had a quick look and both links feature The commonweal from 1885-1890, so no help for checking the no-first-name Schwartz in the 1900s. But I'm sure I'll be checking these newspapers often in the next years to come, so thank you so very much again.

To Lynn and Michael:
Since The Echo cutting is from 1903, maybe this is the wife of the Jacob Schwartz who went to NY with the Russians? Wasn't it you, Lynn, who said that the puzzle must fit together with a nice zip?

To The good Michael:
Actually I have Gavin Bromley's (superlatively praised) article on my computer and I've been meaning to read it since about 2 weeks. I might manage to do this much-much later tonight. Possibly... Plus I have other IWEC-related old articles, sent to me by some very nice people. At some point no doubt I'll manage to read them.

[The Good Michael]

I hope you read this dissertation. Near the bottom is Schwartz' family.

Mike

[lynn cates]

Mrs Schwartz

Hello Maria and Debs. Here is an interesting cutting about a Mrs. Schwartz. Notice that:

1. Her husband went to America.

2. She lives in St. Georges.

Cutting is from The Echo, December 2, 1903.

Cheers.
LC

[Debra A]

Thank you so much for identifying John Williams and for all the information, Debs! By the way, I forgot to ask if The Commnweal is available online (at www.newspaperarchive.com)?

That's ok, Maria.
Re., Commonweal archives. There are selected articles from various years transcribed on this website:

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/commonweal.htm

I don't know what is on there exactly,I haven't checked it out so not sure how useful it will be for you.
The home page Marxists Internet Archive list of archived periodicals, newspapers and journals also contains links to various other newspaper article archives.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/periodicals/archive/index.htm

[mariab]

The Good Michael wrote:
Der Arbeter Fraint is in Yiddish obviously. Can you read the Hebrew script? I haven't been able to find any translations in the latin alphabet.
I've located a lady Jewish translator at Northwestern in Chicago and Lynn has contracted her. Only she happens to be slower that the slowest of snails. (Though it has to be admitted that it's a complex task, apparently.)

[mariab]

Thank you so much for identifying John Williams and for all the information, Debs! By the way, I forgot to ask if The Commnweal is available online (at www.newspaperarchive.com)?
I have a very long but fascinating spy report about Russian/Polish anarchists (called “nihilists“) in Paris, but I'm not sure if it's relevant at this point. I'd rather send over a xerox copy to Lynn than post a translation here. Or what do you think?

[The Good Michael]

Der Arbeter Fraint is in Yiddish obviously. Can you read the Hebrew script? I haven't been able to find any translations in the Latin alphabet.

Mike

[Debra A]

Third spy report (starting from the bottom):
(The Beck anarchist person is mentioned very frequently in the French spy reports. NOTE the mention of a British anarchist named “Williams“ (Wess?).

Paris, May 2, 1905 (from London).
The Russian revolutionaries of London.

On April 30 a gathering organized by the anarchist Russian London group “Solidarity“ took place at the “Black Lion“ in Whitechapel.
Anarchist Beck talked about the horrors of the ongoing war and its consequences, the widows and orphans left with no means, the unemployment leading to hunger, the blackest misery for the workers' class.
He finished his speech by saying:
“Comrades, we should encourage all means for a revolution, to liberate our brothers from the yoke of the vampire who's been sucking our ultimate drops of blood. Down to the Romanoffs and their entire consequences. Hail to the Revolution and to freedom!“
The entire room repeated these cries enthusiastically.
An English anarchist named Williams {Wess?} followed up with a violent but incoherent speech.
He was followed by a Jewish revolutionary named Mosses, who talked about the trade unionist movement and who invited all attendees to participate in tomorrow's demonstration of the people for the 1st of May.
The gathering closed with lighted projections of the Saint Petersburg massacre, the strikes of Lodz, the destruction of the Russian fleet at Port Alfred. The audience departed singing the Internationale.

Hi Maria, no luck with Schwartz in the pamphlets as yet but I think the 'Williams' you mention here is John Williams a prominent British socialist. 'Violent speeches' seem to have been his trademark.
He was very active in 88 and 89, don't have any other dates at the moment.

Socialism in England, 1888 and 1889
Wemyss and March, Francis Wemyss Charleris (1890)

[mariab]

The good Michael wrote:
Another thing going for Israel being your man is that he was said to have had a theatrical look about him. Sounds like oration is a possibility there.
Actually I very thought of that! Another thing going for Schwartz no-first-name possibly being Israel is that the other spy report I found about him (from 1902) calls him “a very skilled orator in Yiddish, Polish, and Hungarian“. Very stupidly I managed to ommit shooting a picture of that report (which incidentally happens to be the most relevant report I encountered), but it was very hectic both days at the Archives Nationales, late afternoon before they closed, and I was using the boxes inofficially, on the slide, as they were ordered by another researcher. But I'll go shoot that missing report in March, plus Debra Arif located a French book (at the British Library) discussing these sources and there's an additional box with more reports on London anarchists mentioned in the book. I'm pretty sure that the spy reports in the new box will continue not mentioning first names, but I hope that Der Arbeter Fraint might mention the entire name for an author of an article or editorial.

[The Good Michael]

I think it is a different Schwartz. The others in the group reported came from Russia. I imagine he would have as well.

Another thing going for Israel being your man is that he was said to have had a theatrical look about him. Sounds like oration is a possibility there.

Good luck,

Mike

[mariab]

The good Michael wrote:
There was a Jacob Schwartz who came to New York about 1900 and was in a group called Frayhayt (freedom). They were arrested and tried. Schwartz was supposedly beaten in prison and died in October 1918.
Thank you for the information, Michael, where do you have this from? Do you have any idea where this Jacob Schwartz was originaly from and what kind of languages did he speak? Unfortunately, our own Schwartz no-first-name was active in London from 1902-1905. At least this part is documented. So it doesn't quite fit with your Schwartz in NY. I'm hopeful that we might find more about Schwartz no-first-name in pamphlets and in Der Arbeter Fraint. If he gave a lot or speeches in Yiddish, he might have written for Der Arbeter Fraint.
Michael, thank you very much for the job offer, but I'm a musicologist and have things kinda planned out for the next years. Incidentally I've just found out about a job in Germany for which I might need to apply, even if it would mess up quite a bit with my other projects. Just what I needed on a Friday night, after a very long day doing bureaucracy and errands.

[mariab]

Hello Lynn.
Why did I expect a Cartesian enumeration of possibilities from you?! But Lynn, this is not a philosophical argument or a mathematical progression. This is ugly reality, in an uglier neighborhood. And I'm afraid optimism has nothing to do with any of this.
Possibilities 1 and 2 (esp. possibility 2) appear to me as realistically very weak.
Point 3 appears to me as a very plausible possibility, in fact I've been thinking a lot about this possibility myself.
Point 4, hmmm... naah, if Schwartz was tight with the IWEC, I'm afraid that the coincidence of his having witnessed an early attack of the very woman who was found unpleasantly dead in front of their very club a bit later on is a coincidence quite a bit hard to swallow.

Lynn Cates wrote:
Just to temper your optimism a bit.
Lynn, I won't be jumping up and down if it turns out that Schwartz lied and BS and Pipeman never existed, and that we'd need to retrace Stride's steps from scratch on the night of September 30, 1888.
Just so you know, I have a couple of ideas of how to research BS and similar assaults in the Old Bailey and the Marlborough courts. It's a long shot, but it can't hurt to try.

[The Good Michael]

There was a Jacob Schwartz who came to New York about 1900 and was in a group called Frayhayt (freedom). They were arrested and tried. Schwartz was supposedly beaten in prison and died in October 1918. It's possible this was the Schwartz as well. Schwartz is such a common name.

Mike