Looking for Marie Le Compte

Le Compte belonged to the Socialist Labor Party in the USA and was a delegate to the International Social Revolutionary Congress held in London in 1881. She was in Paris in 1883 when Louise Michel raised the black flag at the hunger march that turned into a riot. Her mention of ‘the black flag of starvation’ and ‘the red flag of revolt’ suggests that anarchists in the 1880s were drawing on the black flag as part of a tradition of working class protest.[1] The letter showed some of her connections and demonstrated that she could write readable radical prose. It made me go looking for more about her. She’s mentioned on the page of the Kate Sharpley Library Wiki devoted to the 1881 Congress.[2] It didn’t take long before I read Paul Avrich’s mention of her in The Haymarket Tragedy as ‘an exotic and somewhat mysterious figure’ who ‘styled herself “Miss Le Compte, Prolétaire.”’ [3] I thought it was understandable that Le Compte remained mysterious to as good a historian as Avrich when his focus was elsewhere. But it seems that plenty of mystery remains.

The American years

Mari Jo Buhle mentioned that Le Compte was ‘secretary of Manhattan’s “American” branch and later acted as assistant editor of the Socialists’ English-language paper the Labor Standard.’ [4] In July 1879 Le Compte addressed striking weavers in Fall River, Massachusetts: ‘if there should not be a strike on this particular point of wages, there should be a strike against homes that are hog-pens.’ The British secularist Holyoake described her as ‘a real Nihilist lady’ and was shocked by her ‘brilliant readiness of invective’. [5] In Fall River she worked on the Labor Standard with George Gunton. Historian Mary Blewett described Le Compte’s involvement in the radical press: ‘M. P. Le Compte, a Nihilist from New York City who had been associate editor of the Labor Standard for two years and had written for Swinton’s New York Sun. She had also lived in New Bedford for a while as a correspondent for Gunton, signed her many articles as “proletaire” and had managed the paper when Gunton was on speaking tours. Gunton’s oldest children knew her well, helping her set type by hand and getting out the weekly editions.’ [6]

1881, London

Le Compte’s mandate for the 1881 Congress recorded that her ‘tongue and pen’ had been ‘devoted to the revolutionary movement’.[7] The report raises many questions. Were there really connections between Molly Maguires and Russian Nihilists in New York? Le Compte was in a position to know, but also in a position where she might think it a good idea to invent such connections. Did she get her confidence in the revolutionary potential of those who’d previously been involved in agitation against Chinese workers in California from Burnette Haskell?[8] 

Max Nettlau said ‘Miss Le Compte was a very well-meaning, but intellectually unsophisticated, young American of French descent who always took what she considered the most revolutionary stance.’ [9] Which is damning with faint praise but he continued ‘More precisely, when I look through the English text, it drew attention to the terrorist-revolutionary tendencies of left-wing elements present in the Irish Land League, among the Pennsylvania miners (the Molly Maguires), etc., and to much extra-legal activity in American working-class life, especially in the West, direct action tendencies, etc., which really existed and temporarily shaped the IWW twenty years later. These tendencies, still present in American workers at that time, to assert their personal independence by all means, were historically probably a remnant of similar tendencies among European artisans in earlier centuries; to present them to the average European worker accustomed to obedience was not in the least inappropriate’.[10]

While in London, Le Compte placed ads in The Radical ‘To the Secretaries of the Working Men’s Clubs and Associations of London. Miss Le Compte, Of the Socialistic Party in America, will have great pleasure in addressing the WORKING CLASSES of this country during her stay here.’ [11] On 4 September 1881 she spoke on ‘the International Association of Working Men’ to the Battersea Liberal Club. In October Christian Socialist (and future Liberal MP) J.C. Durant responded with the gradualist view. ‘That lady suggested that the working classes should meet force by force, and that they should avail themselves of Science in order to procure the most deadly weapons. To talk of meeting force by force was misleading. She supposed that force was already employed to subjugate the working classes. That was not true. The force of the police was exercised for the benefit alike of all honest men’. ‘Working men must be better informed and more unselfish, then they might procure for their children those reforms which were so much needed.’[12]

In October 1881 Le Compte spoke at the Stratford Dialectical & Radical Club on ‘The Revolters of the Seas’. Paul Avrich thought this was ‘a paean to pirates’. [13] Her report suggests that this actually was a discussion of (unless it was an appeal for) ‘a secret society’ to send ‘its members among the steerage passengers of ships to teach them to rebel against the close quarters, the bad air, the bad food and the bad treatment of the ships officials.’[14]

In November 1881 she was on the platform of Henry George meeting on ‘Land and Labour’ in Dublin. Life attacked the ‘shrieking sisterhood’ and lamented their sympathy with the Irish Land League: ‘Few persons, perhaps, ever heard of the American Miss Le Compte; and no one can have regarded with any serious consideration the wild lectures she delivered in London, advocating the use of dynamite as a political weapon. But every one knows what good service, in the service of education Miss Helen Taylor has rendered from her position as a member of the School Board; and her numerous friends and admirers must regret that she should have thought fit to transfer her practical knowledge and experience from a worthy sphere of usefulness to go and help in fostering an unhealthy and lawless agitation in Ireland.’’ [15]

1883, Paris, Berne and translating Bakunin

‘I am feeling terribly the sentence of my dear Louise Michel. It is owing to chance that I am not with her in prison, having been with her on the Esplanade. I was the “Anglaise” who wore the red scarf, and “led,” as they call it, the rioters to pillage the bake-shops and knock the heads off the “St. Josephs,” “Virgin Marys,” and “Infant Jesuses” (horrible monstrosities in plaster that, as an artist, I would clear out of the streets anyway, even if I wasn’t a revolutionist).’[16] 

In Switzerland Le Compte plugged into anarchist networks and began translating Bakunin’s God and the State, aiming to raise funds for Red Cross of the Russian Revolutionary Party (or Red Cross of the People’s Will). Le Compte’s translation was projected to be published by the International Publishing Company. One manuscript went to Nikolai Tchaikovsky in London ‘but still lies in my portfolio without any use on account of want of a courageous publisher in this country’.[17] Another copy was seized by the French police in 1885.[18] In the end, the version serialised in Truth (San Francisco) was translated by ‘Miss K. […] at Le Compte’s suggestion.’ [19] Le Compte did translate Kropotkin’s Appeal to the Young; it was serialised in Truth (San Francisco) and then reprinted in The Labor Enquirer (Denver, Colorado) in January and February 1884.

1884-6, Marseilles

‘Towards the end of 1884, she went to Marseilles at the insistence of Justin Mazade, who had met her in Geneva. Her knowledge of several languages – including Italian, Spanish, English, German, and probably Russian – allowed her to maintain regular correspondence with people all over the world and to facilitate contact between anarchists of different nationalities then living in Marseilles. In 1885, she was a member, alongside Justin Mazade, J. Torrens, and Ugo Parrini, of the editorial staff of the newspaper Le Droit Social (Marseilles, two issues in May and June), whose manager was Alphonse Lauze.’ [20]

In early 1885 she was arrested and books and manuscripts taken. ‘Her home, a boarding house on Rue Molière, was searched twice, and on February 14, 1885, a large quantity of documents in various languages (books, pamphlets, newspapers, and letters) were seized and handed over to the public prosecutor. This search followed a denunciation by her landlady, who had called her a “thief.”’[21] Le Compte reported being out of prison (but still trying to get her documents back) in June.[22]

In August 1885 Le Compte translated Severin Feraud’s letter about the Barcelona congress for Henry Seymour’s The Anarchist. Le Compte was part of Marseilles’ ‘Union of Peoples’ group.[23] In February 1886 Le Compte reported for The Anarchist from a mass meeting in Marseilles. [24]

Final and first mysteries

Le Compte’s biography on Militants-Anarchistes states ‘In 1888, she settled in Aix-en-Provence for a few months, then left the department. Her trail is then lost.’[25] Her last appearance in The Anarchist was an acknowledgement of her New Year greetings for 1888.[26]

In 1893 a brief, mocking piece reprinted in several British papers reported her reappearance in London. ‘Mademoiselle le Compte, the Yankee-French Anarchist, prophetess and agitator, is again in London. The last time the Sibyl was there she rose in a meeting held in the Tottenham Court Road to “say a few words,” and spoke for nearly two hours. Whenever the chairman moved to stop her she pushed him back into his chair. Mademoiselle is “petite, dark-eyed and dark-haired.”’[27]

More questions are thrown up by a much earlier piece. In 1867 Bennet Burleigh produced a long account of the adventures of the ‘bohemian’ journalist Minnie Le Compte.[28] Some of Le Compte’s stories there may need to be taken with a pinch of salt. 

It’s curious how far back it feels to read about things before the Haymarket affair of 1886-7. Le Compte made a mark as a speaker, journalist and translator and operated in various radical networks (socialist, anarchist, Irish nationalist, Russian Nihilist). I can’t claim that at the time she was unknown. Nor that she should be pulled out of her time as someone to celebrate uncritically. Newspapers that I have not looked at must contain more information on her remarkable life. At one time she was a key figure in anarchist networks. Without an obituary the end of her story remains a mystery.

Notes

1, ‘A Very Interesting Letter [Marie Le Compte on flags, Louise Michel, translating Bakunin and Jo Labadie]’ https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/7sqx7x 

2, http://katesharpleylibrary.pbworks.com/w/page/66896462/International%20Revolutionary%20Socialist%20Conference%2C%20London%2014-19%20%20July%201881  

3, Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy, p.56 (1984)

4, Mari Jo Buhle, Women and American socialism, 1870-1920, p.21 (1981)

5, George Holyoake, Among the Americans: And A Stranger in America, p.146-8 (1881)

6, Mary H. Blewett, Constant turmoil : the politics of industrial life in nineteenth-century New England, p.290 (2000)

7, Marie Le Compte at the International Social Revolutionary Congress, mandate and report https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/4qrhd0 

8, See Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy 68-70

9, Max Nettlau, Anarchisten und Sozialrevolutionäre (volume 3 of his Geschichte der Anarchie) p.197 (1931), seen thanks to the Bibliothek der Freien.

10, Max Nettlau, Anarchisten und Sozialrevolutionäre p.205-6.

11, The contact address was 10, Conrad Street, Loddiges Road, Hackney. The Radical 15 Oct. 1881

12, ‘A Reply to Miss Le Compte’ The Radical, Oct. 15, 1881 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/h18c89 

13, Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy p.56

14, Marie Le Compte at the International Social Revolutionary Congress, mandate and report

15, Life, Thursday 17 November 1881. Taylor (1831-1907) was a feminist and socialist.

16, ‘A Very Interesting Letter’

17, Liberty, December 15, 1883 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/benjamin-tucker-liberty-vol-ii-no-15 

18, See ‘Letter from Miss Le Compte [June 1885]’ https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/g1jzwj 

19, See ‘Radical reading: Print culture and the San Francisco labor movement, 1880-1889’ by Marie Louise Silva. https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.ucxp-cm3h 

20, LECOMPTE, Marie, Paula “MINNIE” https://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article10730 

21, LECOMPTE, Marie, Paula “MINNIE”

22, See Letter from Miss Le Compte [June 1885]

23, Anarchism in Spain / Letter from Marie Le Compte [1885] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/jsxnzc 

24, Revolutionary Mass Meeting in Marseilles [1886] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0001qr 

25, LECOMPTE, Marie, Paula “MINNIE”

26, ‘To Correspondents’, The Anarchist, February 1888.

27, Glasgow Evening News, Wednesday November 15, 1893

28, Our New York Letter [Minnie Le Compte in 1867] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/x3fhtp 

Thanks go to everyone who helped.