Being the official representative of the paper brought me into contact with all the comrades in town. I visited a number of them every Sunday. I became acquainted with most of them, and developed close relationships with the more active ones. The state of the movement was not great. Everyone said that Philadelphia had once been a fortress of anarchism, having had a whole range of good orators in Yiddish and English. Comrades had been active. They had organized unions of cloak makers, bakers, vest makers, and other trades. They had held anarchist rallies close to City Hall every Sunday, attended by masses of people. Yiddish gatherings had been well attended. But that had all been a long time ago—now there was not a trace of any of it. A couple of speakers died (Wilson and Gratsh); others became estranged from the anarchist movement and went their separate ways (Sh. Prener and Dr. Gordon); still others became doctors and pharmacists (Dr. Max Staler, Dr. Barber, Dr. Gartman, Dr. Segal, Seldes, Joffe, Natasha Notkin, and others). They had become busy people living respectable lives, and more or less kept a distance. The only speakers who remained in the movement were C. Weinberg and old Levin. Compared to years past, our movement was spent.

That was the situation I encountered when I became the official representative of the Fraye arbeter shtime at the end of 1904. After visiting the subscribers and getting to know them, I realized they could be divided into distinct categories. A part of the old guard—a handful of doctors, former speakers—had become dead to the movement. The best we could expect from them was a few pennies and a visit on a festive occasion. On the other hand, the pharmacists, especially Joffe and Natasha Notkin, put their heart and soul into the movement. Joffe’s drugstore, on Third and Bainbridge, was our main meeting place. Then there were the individuals of the old guard, scattered all over town, such as C. Weinberg, Levin, Edelson, Ab. Brandschain, J. S. Prenowitz, Ozer Smolenskin, David Apotheker, L. Wolfson—the latter four being poets and writers, pen in hand.

There were also a number of respectable Jews, shopkeepers, who kept themselves close to our movement: Riklin, Lubarski, Stoffman, Dubin, the brothers Agursky, and others. Also, a bunch of workers and quasi-intellectuals, such as Menkin, Mayer Rozen, Lifshits, the brothers Tsan—people who longed for the good old years, and wanted to see a broad renewal, should somebody take the initiative and start the work.

Among the readers, I also found a small circle of young, energetic workers who were dying for action. Among them were Y. Katz, B. Axler, Y. Vashkovits, Sembat, and especially L. Landau (A. Voliner), who lived in Philadelphia at the time, sewing shirts in Faigin’s historic shop; and wanted to write feuilletons in the Fraye arbeter shtime. We became close friends, and used to spend all our time together, planning a wide range of activities.

The cooperative store gradually ended its agony and folded. A number of its members founded a branch of the Workmen’s Circle and named it Cooperative Branch 81. Among its first members was my humble self. The branch exists under the same name to this day, though few members today are aware of its origins.

During the store’s liquidation, I worked on the committee tasked with closing the accounts. There I discovered two interesting things. The organization had hundreds of members, but the entire capital from membership dues amounted to less than 300 dollars. Most members paid not more than twenty-five or fifty cents. Only two greenhorns—myself and one lady—paid the entire amount of five dollars. On the other hand, the leading spirits of the enterprise, members of the board of directors, owed the store 226 dollars, which they never paid back. The store was built and run without its own capital. It was sentenced to collapse from the very beginning.

The liquidation of the cooperative enterprise gave me the opportunity to dedicate all my free time to work for the Fraye arbeter shtime and the movement, which I found meaningful and fulfilling.

Two older comrades, involved activists from good times past, encouraged me and helped me substantially. H. Wolf would give up one day every week to distribute the London Arbeter fraynd. Every Friday he would come to town from his residence and business in faraway Manayunk to sell some copies at the bakers’union meeting and visit several regular buyers of the paper. The second one was comrade Y. B. Moore, then a manufacturer of women’s clothing, who was always ready to leave the shop and do whatever was necessary for the movement.

The main work, however, was done from then on by the three musketeers—myself, Axler, and Y. Katz. For a good while, we were inseparable in work and friendship.

That winter, our job was to organize several gatherings, lectures, and a traditional “farmers’ ball,” for which we published a “farmer newspaper.” The latter was put together by L. Landau and David Apotheker.

The farmers’ ball was a great success, under the circumstances. It brought in over 200 dollars net profit for the Fraye arbeter shtime, and created a good mood among comrades.

Among the activities that year, I should note our active participation in welcoming “Babushka,” Yekaterina Breshkovskaya, when she came to America accompanied by Dr. C. Zhitlowsky. A gathering was arranged at the Walnut Street Theater for a Sunday afternoon. When I arrived there, I found a packed theater and a huge mass of people outside who could not get in. I consulted with comrade Moore, sent him off to find another venue in the neighborhood, and went to discuss with the speakers a possibility of them addressing a second crowd. Within several minutes, everything was organized thus. People filled the large auditorium on Eighth and Lombard, not far from there, and speakers, one after another, came in from the original theater to address the crowd. Weinberg’s speech at the Walnut Street Theater that afternoon surpassed every other he gave, before or since.

After the rally, a small circle of us close comrades went to the anarchist communist house, where Babushka was staying. There we spent the evening in an atmosphere of wonderful enthusiasm. Babushka, despite her advanced age and a horribly difficult time in the Russian katorga, was young and cheerful in spirit. We sang Russian revolutionary songs together, she danced and kissed young comrades, whose presence inspired in her a new belief in the future of our ideal.

On another occasion, we welcomed in Philadelphia the elder gray-haired leader of the Russian socialist revolutionaries, Nikolai Tchaikovsky. He was one of the most seasoned activists in the Russian revolutionary movement. When Peter Kropotkin returned from Europe in 1872, where he had become a member of the First International, he joined Tchaikovsky’s circle in St. Petersburg. We welcomed the eminent guest at Joffe’s house, where we spent the whole night talking about the prospects for the impending revolution in Russia.

Officially, Tchaikovsky’s mission was to raise money for the movement. His true task, however, was to buy and send arms for revolutionaries to use in our old homeland.