Abraham Isaak

Biography

Isaak worked in a bookstore in Odessa, Ukraine, where he reportedly became a Nihilist. He fled Czarist police for Rio de Janeiro in about 1889. In 1890 he moved to the U.S. and lived in San Francisco before relocating to Portland, Oregon. In Portland Isaak became a member of the Socialist Labor Party and in 1895 founded the anarchist weekly, the Firebrand, with American-born Quaker Abner Pope and Henry Addis. Isaak would embrace anarchism after its followers were expelled following the formation of the Second International in 1889.

Isaak was best known for his editing and publishing the American anarchist weeklies the Firebrand (1895–1897) and Free Society (1897–1904), Isaak was less a theorist than an activist. His acquaintances and friends included the Russian Anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman, along with American attorney Clarence Darrow, Settlement House founder, Jane Addams, and economist Thorsten Veblen.

In 1897, authorities closed the Firebrand and arrested Isaak after its publication of Walt Whitman’s poem, “A Woman Waits for Me,” along with several other articles which authorities deemed “obscene.” Isaak was arrested. Later, awaiting trial and out on bond, the Isaak family moved to San Francisco, where they founded Free Society. The Portland court later dismissed the charges against Isaak, Pope, and Addis.

The Isaaks left San Francisco for Chicago in early 1901 leaving Pete in San Francisco. Seven months later, Isaak was propelled into national headlines after Leon Czolgosz, with no reported anarchist connections, shot U.S. President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. Coincidentally Isaak had met the would-be assassin days earlier in Chicago. Czolgosz’s espousals of violence had aroused the suspicions of Abraham that he was a spy, and prompting Free Society to publish a warning against associating with Czolgosz. Following the shooting the Isaak family and anarchists across the country were arrested and jailed. The Isaaks were released later that September.

Isaak came to regret his move to New York in 1904 where Free Society faced financial problems that forced its closure in November of that year. Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, which first appeared in 1906, was an attempt to fill the anarchists’ subsequent literary void.

Political and ethical beliefs

Isaak only twice referred to his Mennonite past in the Firebrand and Free Society. This extended quote is taken from the former:

“I was born and raised in a community of Mennonites in Russia. These people settled in South Russia after the land had been taken by conquest from the Turks and obtained the privilege from the Russian to manage their own affairs, and as their religion was against civil laws they lived for about 70 years without laws or officers. (I must mention here that these people had been persecuted, executed, burned at the stake, etc. in western Europe and were considered as the lawless, just as the anarchists are today.) There were no beggars, tramps nor thieves among them, and there was never a murder committed, although there were far over 100,000. There were no drunkards yet they had a distillery in their midst and everybody had access to the “brand.” There was a so-called magistrate elected by the communities `to look after the conduct and welfare of the communities,’ as the government expresses it, but in the eyes of the members he was nothing but a mediator between them and the government. These people were all prosperous and happy as long as commercialism did not effect (sic) these communities. They formerly had only produced for their own use as neither cereal nor cattle were saleable. But when wheat raising became profitable, accumulation began; then some invested their money in factories and the “rich and the poor” became distinct–government stepped in, and to-day (sic) there are beggars, thieves and drunkards among them, but I have not heard of a murder yet.”

Although Isaak was an ex-Mennonite, he continued to espouse many traditional Anabaptist principles such as pacifism, mutual aid and socio-economic equality that Anarchist theorists have promoted and that Isaak believed represented the best of his own Mennonite tradition.

Personal life

In 1879, Abraham (or Abe) married Maria Dyck (1861–1934) and had three children: Pete (1880-?), Abe Jr. (1883–1953); and Mary (1885 to 1974). Descendants now live in Vermont and California. He was the second of 12 children born to Abraham Isaak (1832–1898) and Helena Wiebe (1835–1882).

Later life

By 1909, Abraham and Maria Isaak founded the anarchist-inspired Aurora Colony near Lincoln, California, having acquired a 150-acre (0.61 km²) farm with monies Maria inherited from her family. Isaak, whose obituary in a local paper described him as a “colonization representative of Russian citizens living in Chicago and New York,” sold 25 parcels of land to about 19 different families whose lack of farming experience and infighting led to the colony’s demise. The Isaaks and several other families continued to live on their parcels.

Nothing suggests Isaak resumed newspaper work. In fact, he became involved in such establishment organizations as the Farm Bureau and other civic organizations. Maria Isaak died of pneumonia on April 17, 1934; Isaak, according to his death certificate, died of acute pancreatitis on December 10, 1937. Four years before his death Isaak wrote to his friend, Harry Kelly: “First, the railroads took our pears and plums and $70 to boot; the good Lord took our citrus fruit (by frost), and two weeks ago the Bank of Lincoln closed its doors, where we had our last savings….” He concluded: “Some 30 years ago Thorsten Veblen told me in Chicago that the machine would break capitalism sooner than the efforts of revolutionists, and it seems his prediction is coming true.”

Recommended readings on anarchism

Recommended readings on Anabaptist history