Emma Goldman Quotes
You cannot build up a standing army and then throw it back into a box like tin soldiers. Armies equipped to the teeth with weapons, with highly developed instruments of murder and backed by their military interests, have their own dynamic functions.
Goldman, Emma. Preparedness, the Road to Universal Slaughter. Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1915, p. 5.
Greek invaders were marching on Istanbul
In early America, there was great concern about a standing army—a military force that exists and is organized in peacetime. History showed the founding fathers that tyrants who siezed power almost always did so by getting control of the standing army. The logic was if there is no standing army, no one can control it and therefore no tyrant can control the country by force. At the time, however, with oceans protecting us, there was penty of time to mobilize a defensive army should any foreign power invade. However, with modern military technology, and the importantance of retaliation as a protective3 strategy, it is virtually impossible to not have a standing army and stoll be secure.
Washington, although the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, said almost nothing for such was the respect for him that he cou;d sway almost any issue. But the absurdity of limiting the size of the American Army was too much for him, and his clever way of phrasing his concern ended discussion of that idea without any ill feelings.
Congress and most of the Founding Fathers were very distrustful of standing armies. They were aware that standing armies had taken over societies ever since ancient Rome and Julius Caesar.
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
