For what do you starve?
"Wait… what?" said Johann.
"That's right, you're fired!" yelled the foreman of the factory, Mr. Williams.
"But I had to steal, my family is starving!" he cried in his characteristic German accent.
"Listen here, you Hun! The boss was good enough to give you a job and you waste it. Go!" the foreman's head reddened with rage.
"Don't call me a Hun!" he replied. In his anger, he proceeded to spit at Mr. Williams.
He was thrown out on the street despite pleas of mercy, his sense of sadness greater than his rage. How would he feed his wife and daughter? He feared for them. He had been promised freedom upon entering the country, but had experienced only starvation and racism. Feeling about his pocket, he grasped at some loose change, and decided he would drown his sorrows at the bar, then hang himself, rather than shame himself before his wife. Hell is a preferable home, he silently thought to himself. Suddenly a booming voice broke the sanctity of his thoughts.
"By who's right do they claim to own your produce? Welcome to capitalism, friends. The boss takes your creations and reaps the profits, the landlord bleeds you of your wages, and the taxman takes what is left. You must work until you die for nothing but a pittance. For every dollar you create, the capitalist takes ninety-five cents. Then, when you make your rights known, they call in their minions, the policeman and pinkerton." yelled the street-speaker. A significant crowd had gathered around this interesting woman.
Johann felt himself gravitating towards her. He listened, enraptured to the rest of her speech, then headed towards her to speak.
"What is your name?" he belched out.
"I go by no other name than Anarchist, but you may call me Emma Goldman." she said informally.
"Oh! I've heard things said of you in the newspapers. You are a loose woman; you wish to abolish marriage and family. You are an atheist." He listed.
"I'm all these things, but I am by no means the demon that the reactionaries make me out to be. All I ask for is freedom for the workers. By the way, you are a worker, aren't you?"
"I was, but I was fired today for stealing money from the boss's office." he said sadly.
"You mean for taking what is yours by right? You did no ill, but only what was necessary. What are your plans now?" she asked.
"I will drink and then I will end my life, for it is better to be dead than starving!" he exclaimed.
"May I suggest an alternative? Use the last of your money and buy a gun to kill this boss of yours, and take his money, for it is better to be a murderer than a coward!" she said with a rousing passion that seemed to stir Johann's heart. He preferred this option.
Later that night, shots rang out at the factory. As Johann pulled the trigger, he felt freer than he had ever felt before. Suffice to say, he and his family didn't starve. But they did continue to fight, for they were anarchists, and that is what anarchists do.