Rose
Pastor Stokes was born in Russia
in 1879. The family was very poor and in 1885 moved to the East End
of London. Rose worked in a Whitechapel factory before emigrating
to Cleveland, Ohio. Rose worked in a factory making cigars and also
contributed articles to the Jewish Daily
News.
Rose became involved in radical politics and after moving to New York
joined the Socialist Party. She met
James Phelps Stokes (1872-1960), the New
York millionaire who had joined with Upton
Sinclair, Jack London, Clarence
Darrow and Florence Kelley to form
the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.
After her marriage to Stokes in 1905, Rose remained active in politics
and was one of those involved in the struggle to keep the United States
out of the First World War. James Phelps Stokes
disagreed with her on this issue and was a major factor in the break-up
of the marriage.
In 1917 Rose was arrested and charged under the Espionage
Act. She was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison
for saying, in a letter to the Kansas City
Star, that "no government which is for the profiteers
can also be for the people, and I am for the people while the government
is for the profiteers."
Rose divorced Stokes after becoming what she called: "friendly
enemies". She later married a Greenwich
Village teacher, Issac Romain.
In 1929 Rose was seriously injured when clubbed by police at a demonstration
demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Haiti.
Rose Pastor Stokes developed breast cancer in 1932. She moved to Germany
to have radiation therapy but died in Frankfurt on 20th June, 1933.
Eugene Debs, Max Eastman and Rose
Pastor Stokes
(1)
Eugene Debs, speech in Canton, Ohio (16th
June 1918)
Rose Pastor Stokes! And
when I mention her name I take off my hat. Here we have another heroic
and inspiring comrade. She had her millions of dollars at command.
Did her wealth restrain her an instant? On the contrary her supreme
devotion to the cause outweighed all considerations of a financial
or social nature. She went out boldly to plead the cause of the working
class and they rewarded her high courage with a ten years' sentence
to the penitentiary. Think of it! Ten years! What atrocious crime
had she committed? What frightful things had she said? Let me answer
candidly. She said nothing more than I have said here this afternoon.
I want to admit - I want to admit without reservation that if Rose
Pastor Stokes is guilty of crime, so am I. If she is guilty for the
brave part she has taken in this testing time of human souls I would
not be cowardly enough to plead my innocence. And if she ought to
be sent to the penitentiary for ten years, so ought I without a doubt.
What did Rose Pastor Stokes say? Why, she said
that a government could not at the same time serve both the profiteers
and the victims of the profiteers. Is it not true? Certainly it is
and no one can successfully dispute it. Roosevelt said a thousand
times more in the very same paper, the Kansas City Star. Roosevelt
said vauntingly the other day that he would be heard if he went to
jail. He knows very well that he is taking no risk of going to jail.
He is shrewdly laying his wires for the Republican nomination in 1920
and he is an adept in making the appeal of the demagogue.
Rose Pastor Stokes never uttered a word she did
not have a legal, constitutional right to utter. But her message to
the people, the message that stirred their thoughts and opened their
eyes - that must be suppressed; her voice must be silenced. And so
she was promptly subjected to a mock trial and sentenced to the penitentiary
for ten years. Her conviction was a foregone conclusion. The trial
of a Socialist in a capitalist court is at best a farcical affair.
What ghost of a chance had she in a court with a packed jury and a
corporation tool on the bench? Not the least in the world. And so
she goes to the penitentiary for ten years if they carry out their
brutal and disgraceful graceful program. For my part I do not think
they will. In fact I feel sure they will not. If the war were over
tomorrow the prison doors would open to our people. They simply mean
to silence the voice of protest during the war.
(2)
Daily Chronicle (21st June, 1933)
Two women of world-wide fame
died yesterday - Rose Pastor Stokes (Rose of the Ghetto) and Clara
Zetkin (Red Clara).
Friends of Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes asserted here today that her death
was due to blows from a policeman's truncheon received in this city
a few years ago during a demonstration against the occupation of Haiti
by American Marines. "Rose of the Ghetto" was struck while
attempting to protect a young boy from a policeman".
The daughter of poor Russian immigrants who married the New York millionaire,
Phelps Stokes, was a Communist at the time of her death. Before going
to New York, Rose's family lived in the East End of London, arriving
from Russia with when Rose was seven. She worked as a cigarette-maker
in a Whitechapel factory, often being reduced to the greatest poverty
and semi-starvation.
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