When the news reached me that my friend and Comrade —Carl Nold was dead I had a feeling as tho a part of my own self was gone. Not that we agreed on everything, or that our opinions had been always in harmony, but after a forty years of friendship and comradship of common fighting and suffering in disappointments and in hopes, I had the feeling that a good part of myself was gone.

Nold was born Sept. 26, 1869 in Weinsberg, South Germany. He came to America in 1883.

One must know the good sides of Carl Nold with all his faults to realize the golden nature of himself. Carl was a joyous Comrade, always good natured, he made friends easy, especially with the women. He was an agitator, a fighter for his convictions, a reciter, and whenever he could start a singing contest he was in it soul and body.

As a young man he realized the truthfulness of Byron’s words: “The worst form of slavery is the slavery of the mind. The man who does not think is the most object slave of nature, and he who does not express his sentiments in declamation and freedom is the vilest Slave of society.”

Carl lived up to this interpretation, and all his life, in prison or outside of prison, he read and studied all valuable books he could get hold of. He had a remarkable memory and recollection. The longest of poems ever written he recited from beginning to end without a flaw.

It was way back in the fall of 1887 when I was sitting in my cockloft in Philadelphia that a knock on the door brought before me two young men who introduced themselves as readers of John Most’s “Fretheit” (Liberty) and said that Most told them: ‘just go to Otto Hermann, he will help and advise you about Philadelphia.’ They were Carl Nold and Herman Kohle.- It did not take long and we were friends. I got them a job in the factory I used to work. Carl was at that time 18 years of age, he studied all anarchistic literature he could lay hand on, he was active in arranging public agitation meetings, distributing leaflets and selling anarchist literature.

After a few years he started the “Grand March” to Pittsburgh, where he became befriended with Henry Bauer, who was an active agitator and seller of anarchist literature of that vicinity. When the Carnegie steel workers went on strike in 1892 Carl became active and distributed with Henry Bauer leaflets calling for mass meetings, mass action and organization. He and Bauer were arrested and put behind bars.

When Carl was freed I tried to have him come to Philadelphia— instead Carl urged me to come to Arkansas to start up a Cooperative Farm. I wasn’t very much enthused over the proposition, because I realized already that the main thing in life is not alone Liberty and Freedom, but the means of life. Still, the coaxmg of Carl led me to pack up with a friend and Comrade in order to find out what this Communistic commonwealth would look like. There were perhaps 200 acres of woods and 40 acres of farm land. But no one of us four men, one woman and three children had money enough to buy tools, to cut down the majestic oak trees and transport the wood to Little Rock for sale. But after six weeks of hardships we all agreed this was the most wonderful time in our life. No one regretted to have been there and we left the solitary abode with a storm of revolutionary songs.. One thing is surely true: the Oak trees of Pulaski County, Arkansas, had never listened to so many revolutionary songs as in those six weeks that we were there. Our Carl was always the leader, after four years and three months of confinement he had the open spaces before him, and he took advantage of that.

Carl stopped at St. Louis. I and my friend went to Chicago—( Galgenhousen we called it then.) Carl was active in St. Louis, he started an anarchist debating club, he was also active in the machinist Union and had the greater part of the membership on the anarchist side. At that time he became befriended with the late Comrade Kate Austin, and for some years he was every summer a guest at Sam Austin’s farm near Caplinger Mills, Mo. He was an enthusiastic reader of Robert Reitzel’s “Arme Teufel,” (The Poor Devil) and at beginning of this century he settled at Detroit, and worked over 25 years for a Scale Company who cheated him out of his pension.

Carl never claimed to be a great orator, but we sent for him in 1889 to make the principle speech at our 11th of November memorial meeting and he came and conquered the whole meeting of over 2000 persons. For some time he was the leading spirit in the anarchistic Group of Detroit and the Modern Sunday School. He was also a member of the Soziale Turn Verein, where he fought many noble battles with the reactionary elements. He came frequently to Chicago, and the first question he asked was always: “Do you have enough wine in your cellar?” He made many friends here, among these were Lucy Parsons, Anna Livshis and others. He was also active for Comrades Isaak’s Free Society, The Freedom, Discontent and other Anarchistic publications.

Carl was very much interested in the Joe Labadie collection at the University of Michigan, (in Ann Arbor) and was befriended with Miss Agnes Inglis, the Librarian of the collection.

Comrade Carl Nold did not claim to be a hero, but he was a sincere fighter against capitalism and the State with its cruel political machinery. No truer words can be said for him than the Freeman’s motto by James Russell Lowell:

We speak the truth and what care we
For hisses and for scorn
While some faint glimmerings we can see
Of Freedom’s coming morn?
Let Liars fear, let Cowards shrink,
Let Traitors turn away;
Whatever we have dared to think
That dare we also say.

I lost a good friend, we lost a good Comrade.