page_title: Alexander Berkman
section_title: Attentat: Frick assassination attempt
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Berkman / Life / Attentat: Frick assassination attempt
caption_attribution_description: Alexander Berkman, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front
context_page_description: Alexander Berkman was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing.
  Berkman was born in Vilnius, Lithuania and immigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick, for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis of his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.
  After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth, and later established his own journal, The Blast. In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia.
context_section_description: In 1892, Berkman, Goldman, and Aronstam relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts, where they operated a successful luncheonette. At the end of June, Goldman saw a newspaper headline that brought to her attention the trio's first opportunity for political action: the Homestead Strike. In June 1892, workers at a steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania were locked out when negotiations between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers failed. Henry Clay Frick, the factory's notoriously anti-union manager, hired 300 armed guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to break the union's picket lines. When the Pinkerton guards arrived at the factory on the morning of July 6, a gunfight broke out. Nine union workers and seven guards were killed in the 12-hour fight.
  Newspapers across the country defended the union workers, and the trio decided to assassinate Frick. They believed the assassination would arouse the working class to unite and revolt against the capitalist system. Berkman's plan was to assassinate Frick and then kill himself; Goldman was to explain Berkman's motives after his death; and Aronstam was to follow Berkman in the event that he failed in his mission. Emulating his Russian idols, Berkman tried to make a bomb, but when that failed, he went to Pittsburgh with the plan to use a handgun.
  Arriving in Pittsburgh on July 14, Berkman sought out anarchists Henry Bauer and Carl Nold. They were followers of Most, but supported the Homestead strike. Berkman had never met either man but counted on their support. Nold invited Berkman to stay with him, and he and Bauer introduced Berkman to several local anarchists.
  Berkman was ready to carry out the assassination on July 21. He wore a new suit and a black derby hat, and in his pockets he had a gun and a dagger fashioned from a steel file. He went to Frick's office and asked to see him, saying he was the representative of a New York hiring agency, but he was told Frick was too busy to meet him. The following night, Berkman checked into a hotel under the name Rakhmetov, his role model from What Is to Be Done? On July 23, he returned to Frick's office. While the attendant told Frick that the New York employment agent had returned to see him, Berkman burst into the office and took aim at Frick's head. After two shots, Berkman was tackled to the ground. Still, he managed to pull out the dagger and stab Frick three times.
  A carpenter who was working nearby heard the commotion and hit Berkman in the head with his hammer, but the blow only stunned him. The gunshots and struggle could be heard and seen from the street, and within minutes Frick's office had attracted all sorts of people, but Berkman continued to resist. A deputy sheriff aimed his gun at Berkman, but Frick said, "Don't shoot. Leave him to the law." As the police led Berkman to the jail, an angry crowd gathered and shouted at Berkman. When he was questioned by police, Berkman said he had arrived in Pittsburgh on July 21 and that he had acted alone. A dynamite capsule was discovered in his mouth after a policeman noticed that he was chewing on something.
  On July 24, a police officer took Berkman for a portrait. He lent Berkman his own tie for the picture. The following day, Aronstam arrived in Pittsburgh with pockets full of dynamite to finish Berkman's botched assassination attempt. Somehow rumors of his arrival had preceded him, and he saw a newspaper headline that read "Was Not Alone. Berkmann  [sic] Had Accomplices in His Mission of Murder. Is Aaron Stamm Here?" Aronstam became frightened, hid the dynamite in an outhouse, and returned to New York.
  Berkman stayed in jail for two months awaiting his trial. He had one hour per day of exercise with other prisoners. They could not understand his motive for the attack on Frick. Surely it must have been a personal dispute or a business quarrel. His explanations were met with condescending smiles. One fellow prisoner, a Homestead worker who was about to stand trial for throwing dynamite at the Pinkertons, told him the workers did no
caption: Berkman's portrait, July 24, 1892
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