“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, “I came here to avoid as much as possible treading on your corns. I had intended to deal only with the basic issue of economics that dictates our lives from the cradle to the grave, regardless of our religion or moral beliefs. I see now that it was a mistake. If one enters a battle, he cannot be squeamish about a few corns. Here, then, are my answers: I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years past been working to undo the botched job your God has made.”
Living My Life, Vol. 1, ch. 16
What follows in the memoir: “The house went frantic.” Because the book was written in France and published in 1931, this is Goldman’s own account of the 1897 evening rather than a transcript taken in the room.
✓Public domain
Living My Life was published in the United States in 1931 by Alfred A. Knopf, in two volumes. A US book of that vintage kept its copyright only if the registration was renewed in its 28th year, and no renewal for this one has been found: Wikisource ↗ hosts the complete text under the PD-US-no-renewal tag, the Online Books Page ↗ lists the 1931 Knopf edition as freely readable in full view at HathiTrust, and Dover reprinted the book unabridged in 1970. On that reading the work has been in the US public domain since 1 January 1960; Goldman died in 1940, so the life-plus-70 term has also run out elsewhere. One caveat we owe you: this rests on the absence of a renewal record in the published indexes, not on a search we were able to run ourselves against the Copyright Office renewal database.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.