[2] His acquaintances and friends included the Russian anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman.
[3] Isaak came to regret his move to New York in 1904 where Free Society faced financial problems that forced its closure in November of that year.
Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, which first appeared in 1906, was an attempt to fill the anarchists' subsequent literary void.
But when wheat raising became profitable, accumulation began; then some invested their money in factories and the "rich and the poor" became distinct–government stepped in, and to-day [sic] there are beggars, thieves and drunkards among them, but I have not heard of a murder yet.Although Isaak was an ex-Mennonite, he continued to espouse many traditional Anabaptist principles such as pacifism,[6] mutual aid and socio-economic equality that Anarchist theorists have promoted and that Isaak believed represented the best of his own Mennonite tradition.
Four years before his death Isaak wrote to his friend, Harry Kelly: "First, the railroads took our pears and plums and $70 to boot; the good Lord took our citrus fruit (by frost), and two weeks ago the Bank of Lincoln closed its doors, where we had our last savings...." He concluded: "Some 30 years ago Thorsten Veblen told me in Chicago that the machine would break capitalism sooner than the efforts of revolutionists, and it seems his prediction is coming true.