Leonard Dalton Abbott

From Philosopedia

Abbott, Leonard Dalton (1878 - 1953)

An American journalist born in Liverpool, England, Abbott was President of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association (1910) and one of the founders of the Rand School of Social Science. He edited the American memorial volume Francisco Ferrer (1910).

On 1 July 1909 at a Cooper Union meetingin New York City, Voltairine De Cleyre (named by her father, an admirer of Voltaire) talked, as did some anarchists at a meeting about the need to protect the right to free speech. Abott opened the meeting, and according to Charles Willis Thompson,

Last night the most rigidly law-abiding people in the city of New York--we refer, of course, to the Anarchists--got together in Cooper Union to express their indignation over the action of the police in suppressing Emma Goldman every time she tried to talk, and they let Alden Freeman, a Puritan unto the third and fourth generation, preside over them.

It was a funny crowd, viewed from our New York standpoint. Now, normally, you would suppose that a lot of Anarchists would be the most uncontrollable and lawless outfit you would get together. Actually these Anarchists gave any Presbyterian prayer meeting cards and spades on courtesy and decency. If a man tried to get out of there before the meeting was over he sneaked out; he concealed himself; he tried to avoid observation.

It was entirely different from the average Republican or Democratic massmeeting, where as soon as the star speaker has got through everybody rises and makes a sprint for the doorway. And if anybody tried to applaud at the wrong time he was hissed down.

The fuss was over the fact that some time ago, when Emma Goldman went to Harlem and tried to tell an audience that Ibsen had Hauptmann beaten as a dramatist and that Eugene Walter was the hope of the American stage, a lot of policemen chased her off the stage on the theory that Hauptmann was probably an Anarchist because he was Dutch. This outrage had rankled in the minds of the Anarchists, and they had hired Cooper Union for $75 to show that they didn't like it.

Leonard D. Abbott opened the meeting. He is an editor--runs a magazine, in fact. When he got on the platform he confronted the most earnest crowd that has filled Cooper Union in many a day. At the outset they had a line of policemen stationed around the hall, presumably to arrest Emma Goldman if she should get up and erupt some incendiary sentiment such as "Eugene Walter is a great dramatist" - which is about as far as Emma Goldman goes these days.

But Leonard Abbott announced, "right off the bat," that Miss Goldman wasn't going to speak, and wasn't even going to be there, because she would surely be arrested as soon as she opened her mouth, and the promoters of the meeting didn't care for any police interference.

But Leonard Abbott and everybody else who talked last night rubbed in the fact that Miss Goldman would make a speech at 100 West 116th Street on Friday - count it: 100 West - near Lenox avenue - take the subway - you can't miss it.

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