Apart from the paper’s activity, Berkman’s own group had been holding fund-raising “readings” of the manuscript, and at last a specific day could be announced for the book’s appearance next month, in September. But still Fehler gave no sign of triumph, and Ivarin was puzzled. He had little time for speculating. Mail from readers had been mounting week by week in volume and intensity, and by August, he was reaching a wider readership than ever before in his whole life as writer and editor. The praise, the disapproval, even the abuse was elixir indeed, whether it was evoked by one of “Evan’s articles” or by one of his last-call pieces on Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. Deeply, in the unknown place where generals know a battle is being won, Stefan Ivarin knew he was crossing new lines in his fight to make the Jewish East Side see what America meant by freedom of speech and freedom of the press. “Not afraid to print a book of its enemies—what a country!” one letter ended, with fifteen two-cent stamps enclosed for the book fund.
