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- The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anarchism and Other Essays, by Emma Goldman
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
- almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
- re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
- with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
- Title: Anarchism and Other Essays
- Author: Emma Goldman
- Posting Date: March 1, 2009 [EBook #2162]
- Release Date: April, 2000
- Language: English
- *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANARCHISM AND OTHER ESSAYS ***
- Produced by Eva. HTML version by Al Haines.
- ANARCHISM AND OTHER ESSAYS
- Emma Goldman
- With Biographic Sketch by Hippolyte Havel
- CONTENTS
- Biographic Sketch
- Preface
- Anarchism: What It Really Stands For
- Minorities Versus Majorities
- The Psychology of Political Violence
- Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure
- Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty
- Francisco Ferrer and The Modern School
- The Hypocrisy of Puritanism
- The Traffic in Women
- Woman Suffrage
- The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation
- Marriage and Love
- The Drama: A Powerful Disseminator of Radical Thought
- EMMA GOLDMAN
- Propagandism is not, as some suppose, a "trade," because
- nobody will follow a "trade" at which you may work with
- the industry of a slave and die with the reputation of a
- mendicant. The motives of any persons to pursue such a
- profession must be different from those of trade, deeper
- than pride, and stronger than interest.
- GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
- Among the men and women prominent in the public life of America there
- are but few whose names are mentioned as often as that of Emma
- Goldman. Yet the real Emma Goldman is almost quite unknown. The
- sensational press has surrounded her name with so much
- misrepresentation and slander, it would seem almost a miracle that,
- in spite of this web of calumny, the truth breaks through and a
- better appreciation of this much maligned idealist begins to manifest
- itself. There is but little consolation in the fact that almost
- every representative of a new idea has had to struggle and suffer
- under similar difficulties. Is it of any avail that a former
- president of a republic pays homage at Osawatomie to the memory of
- John Brown? Or that the president of another republic participates
- in the unveiling of a statue in honor of Pierre Proudhon, and holds
- up his life to the French nation as a model worthy of enthusiastic
- emulation? Of what avail is all this when, at the same time, the
- LIVING John Browns and Proudhons are being crucified? The honor and
- glory of a Mary Wollstonecraft or of a Louise Michel are not enhanced
- by the City Fathers of London or Paris naming a street after
- them--the living generation should be concerned with doing justice to
- the LIVING Mary Wollstonecrafts and Louise Michels. Posterity
- assigns to men like Wendel Phillips and Lloyd Garrison the proper
- niche of honor in the temple of human emancipation; but it is the
- duty of their contemporaries to bring them due recognition and
- appreciation while they live.
- The path of the propagandist of social justice is strewn with thorns.
- The powers of darkness and injustice exert all their might lest a ray
- of sunshine enter his cheerless life. Nay, even his comrades in the
- struggle--indeed, too often his most intimate friends--show but
- little understanding for the personality of the pioneer. Envy,
- sometimes growing to hatred, vanity and jealousy, obstruct his way
- and fill his heart with sadness. It requires an inflexible will and
- tremendous enthusiasm not to lose, under such conditions, all faith
- in the Cause. The representative of a revolutionizing idea stands
- between two fires: on the one hand, the persecution of the existing
- powers which hold him responsible for all acts resulting from social
- conditions; and, on the other, the lack of understanding on the part
- of his own followers who often judge all his activity from a narrow
- standpoint. Thus it happens that the agitator stands quite alone in
- the midst of the multitude surrounding him. Even his most intimate
- friends rarely understand how solitary and deserted he feels. That
- is the tragedy of the person prominent in the public eye.
- The mist in which the name of Emma Goldman has so long been enveloped
- is gradually beginning to dissipate. Her energy in the furtherance
- of such an unpopular idea as Anarchism, her deep earnestness, her
- courage and abilities, find growing understanding and admiration.
- The debt American intellectual growth owes to the revolutionary
- exiles has never been fully appreciated. The seed disseminated by
- them, though so little understood at the time, has brought a rich
- harvest. They have at all times held aloft the banner of liberty,
- thus impregnating the social vitality of the Nation. But very few
- have succeeding in preserving their European education and culture
- while at the same time assimilating themselves with American life.
- It is difficult for the average man to form an adequate conception
- what strength, energy, and perseverance are necessary to absorb the
- unfamiliar language, habits, and customs of a new country, without
- the loss of one's own personality.
- Emma Goldman is one of the few who, while thoroughly preserving their
- individuality, have become an important factor in the social and
- intellectual atmosphere of America. The life she leads is rich in
- color, full of change and variety. She has risen to the topmost
- heights, and she has also tasted the bitter dregs of life.
- Emma Goldman was born of Jewish parentage on the 27th day of June,
- 1869, in the Russian province of Kovno. Surely these parents never
- dreamed what unique position their child would some day occupy. Like
- all conservative parents they, too, were quite convinced that their
- daughter would marry a respectable citizen, bear him children, and
- round out her allotted years surrounded by a flock of grandchildren,
- a good, religious woman. As most parents, they had no inkling what a
- strange, impassioned spirit would take hold of the soul of their
- child, and carry it to the heights which separate generations in
- eternal struggle. They lived in a land and at a time when antagonism
- between parent and offspring was fated to find its most acute
- expression, irreconcilable hostility. In this tremendous struggle
- between fathers and sons--and especially between parents and
- daughters--there was no compromise, no weak yielding, no truce. The
- spirit of liberty, of progress--an idealism which knew no
- considerations and recognized no obstacles--drove the young
- generation out of the parental house and away from the hearth of the
- home. Just as this same spirit once drove out the revolutionary
- breeder of discontent, Jesus, and alienated him from his native
- traditions.
- What role the Jewish race--notwithstanding all anti-semitic calumnies
- the race of transcendental idealism--played in the struggle of the
- Old and the New will probably never be appreciated with complete
- impartiality and clarity. Only now are we beginning to perceive the
- tremendous debt we owe to Jewish idealists in the realm of science,
- art, and literature. But very little is still known of the important
- part the sons and daughters of Israel have played in the
- revolutionary movement and, especially, in that of modern times.
- The first years of her childhood Emma Goldman passed in a small,
- idyllic place in the German-Russian province of Kurland, where her
- father had charge of the government stage. At the time Kurland was
- thoroughly German; even the Russian bureaucracy of that Baltic
- province was recruited mostly from German JUNKERS. German fairy
- tales and stories, rich in the miraculous deeds of the heroic knights
- of Kurland, wove their spell over the youthful mind. But the
- beautiful idyl was of short duration. Soon the soul of the growing
- child was overcast by the dark shadows of life. Already in her
- tenderest youth the seeds of rebellion and unrelenting hatred of
- oppression were to be planted in the heart of Emma Goldman. Early
- she learned to know the beauty of the State: she saw her father
- harassed by the Christian CHINOVNIKS and doubly persecuted as petty
- official and hated Jew. The brutality of forced conscription ever
- stood before her eyes: she beheld the young men, often the sole
- supporter of a large family, brutally dragged to the barracks to lead
- the miserable life of a soldier. She heard the weeping of the poor
- peasant women, and witnessed the shameful scenes of official venality
- which relieved the rich from military service at the expense of the
- poor. She was outraged by the terrible treatment to which the female
- servants were subjected: maltreated and exploited by their BARINYAS,
- they fell to the tender mercies of the regimental officers, who
- regarded them as their natural sexual prey. The girls, made pregnant
- by respectable gentlemen and driven out by their mistresses, often
- found refuge in the Goldman home. And the little girl, her heart
- palpitating with sympathy, would abstract coins from the parental
- drawer to clandestinely press the money into the hands of the
- unfortunate women. Thus Emma Goldman's most striking characteristic,
- her sympathy with the underdog, already became manifest in these
- early years.
- At the age of seven little Emma was sent by her parents to her
- grandmother at Konigsberg, the city of Emanuel Kant, in Eastern
- Prussia. Save for occasional interruptions, she remained there till her
- 13th birthday. The first years in these surroundings do not exactly
- belong to her happiest recollections. The grandmother, indeed, was
- very amiable, but the numerous aunts of the household were concerned
- more with the spirit of practical rather than pure reason, and the
- categoric imperative was applied all too frequently. The situation
- was changed when her parents migrated to Konigsberg, and little Emma
- was relieved from her role of Cinderella. She now regularly attended
- public school and also enjoyed the advantages of private instruction,
- customary in middle class life; French and music lessons played an
- important part in the curriculum. The future interpreter of Ibsen
- and Shaw was then a little German Gretchen, quite at home in the
- German atmosphere. Her special predilections in literature were the
- sentimental romances of Marlitt; she was a great admirer of the good
- Queen Louise, whom the bad Napoleon Buonaparte treated with so marked
- a lack of knightly chivalry. What might have been her future
- development had she remained in this milieu? Fate--or was it
- economic necessity?--willed it otherwise. Her parents decided to
- settle in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Almighty Tsar, and there
- to embark in business. It was here that a great change took place in
- the life of the young dreamer.
- It was an eventful period--the year of 1882--in which Emma Goldman,
- then in her 13th year, arrived in St. Petersburg. A struggle for
- life and death between the autocracy and the Russian intellectuals
- swept the country. Alexander II had fallen the previous year.
- Sophia Perovskaia, Zheliabov, Grinevitzky, Rissakov, Kibalchitch,
- Michailov, the heroic executors of the death sentence upon the
- tyrant, had then entered the Walhalla of immortality. Jessie
- Helfman, the only regicide whose life the government had reluctantly
- spared because of pregnancy, followed the unnumbered Russian martyrs
- to the etapes of Siberia. It was the most heroic period in the great
- battle of emancipation, a battle for freedom such as the world had
- never witnessed before. The names of the Nihilist martyrs were on
- all lips, and thousands were enthusiastic to follow their example.
- The whole INTELLIGENZIA of Russia was filled with the ILLEGAL
- spirit: revolutionary sentiments penetrated into every home, from
- mansion to hovel, impregnating the military, the CHINOVNIKS, factory
- workers, and peasants. The atmosphere pierced the very casemates of
- the royal palace. New ideas germinated in the youth. The difference
- of sex was forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder fought the men and the
- women. The Russian woman! Who shall ever do justice or adequately
- portray her heroism and self-sacrifice, her loyalty and devotion?
- Holy, Turgeniev calls her in his great prose poem, ON THE THRESHOLD.
- It was inevitable that the young dreamer from Konigsberg should be
- drawn into the maelstrom. To remain outside of the circle of free
- ideas meant a life of vegetation, of death. One need not wonder at
- the youthful age. Young enthusiasts were not then--and, fortunately,
- are not now--a rare phenomenon in Russia. The study of the Russian
- language soon brought young Emma Goldman in touch with revolutionary
- students and new ideas. The place of Marlitt was taken by Nekrassov
- and Tchernishevsky. The quondam admirer of the good Queen Louise
- became a glowing enthusiast of liberty, resolving, like thousands of
- others, to devote her life to the emancipation of the people.
- The struggle of generations now took place in the Goldman family.
- The parents could not comprehend what interest their daughter could
- find in the new ideas, which they themselves considered fantastic
- utopias. They strove to persuade the young girl out of these
- chimeras, and daily repetition of soul-racking disputes was the
- result. Only in one member of the family did the young idealist find
- understanding--in her elder sister, Helene, with whom she later
- emigrated to America, and whose love and sympathy have never failed
- her. Even in the darkest hours of later persecution Emma Goldman
- always found a haven of refuge in the home of this loyal sister.
- Emma Goldman finally resolved to achieve her independence. She saw
- hundreds of men and women sacrificing brilliant careers to go V
- NAROD, to the people. She followed their example. She became a
- factory worker; at first employed as a corset maker, and later in the
- manufacture of gloves. She was now 17 years of age and proud to earn
- her own living. Had she remained in Russia, she would have probably
- sooner or later shared the fate of thousands buried in the snows of
- Siberia. But a new chapter of life was to begin for her. Sister
- Helene decided to emigrate to America, where another sister had
- already made her home. Emma prevailed upon Helene to be allowed to
- join her, and together they departed for America, filled with the
- joyous hope of a great, free land, the glorious Republic.
- America! What magic word. The yearning of the enslaved, the
- promised land of the oppressed, the goal of all longing for progress.
- Here man's ideals had found their fulfillment: no Tsar, no Cossack,
- no CHINOVNIK. The Republic! Glorious synonym of equality, freedom,
- brotherhood.
- Thus thought the two girls as they travelled, in the year 1886, from
- New York to Rochester. Soon, all too soon, disillusionment awaited
- them. The ideal conception of America was punctured already at
- Castle Garden, and soon burst like a soap bubble. Here Emma Goldman
- witnessed sights which reminded her of the terrible scenes of her
- childhood in Kurland. The brutality and humiliation the future
- citizens of the great Republic were subjected to on board ship, were
- repeated at Castle Garden by the officials of the democracy in a more
- savage and aggravating manner. And what bitter disappointment
- followed as the young idealist began to familiarize herself with the
- conditions in the new land! Instead of one Tsar, she found scores of
- them; the Cossack was replaced by the policeman with the heavy club,
- and instead of the Russian CHINOVNIK there was the far more inhuman
- slave-driver of the factory.
- Emma Goldman soon obtained work in the clothing establishment of the
- Garson Co. The wages amounted to two and a half dollars a week. At
- that time the factories were not provided with motor power, and the
- poor sewing girls had to drive the wheels by foot, from early morning
- till late at night. A terribly exhausting toil it was, without a ray
- of light, the drudgery of the long day passed in complete
- silence--the Russian custom of friendly conversation at work was not
- permissible in the free country. But the exploitation of the girls
- was not only economic; the poor wage workers were looked upon by
- their foremen and bosses as sexual commodities. If a girl resented
- the advances of her "superiors", she would speedily find herself on
- the street as an undesirable element in the factory. There was never
- a lack of willing victims: the supply always exceeded the demand.
- The horrible conditions were made still more unbearable by the
- fearful dreariness of life in the small American city. The Puritan
- spirit suppresses the slightest manifestation of joy; a deadly
- dullness beclouds the soul; no intellectual inspiration, no thought
- exchange between congenial spirits is possible. Emma Goldman almost
- suffocated in this atmosphere. She, above all others, longed for
- ideal surroundings, for friendship and understanding, for the
- companionship of kindred minds. Mentally she still lived in Russia.
- Unfamiliar with the language and life of the country, she dwelt more
- in the past than in the present. It was at this period that she met
- a young man who spoke Russian. With great joy the acquaintance was
- cultivated. At last a person with whom she could converse, one who
- could help her bridge the dullness of the narrow existence. The
- friendship gradually ripened and finally culminated in marriage.
- Emma Goldman, too, had to walk the sorrowful road of married life;
- she, too, had to learn from bitter experience that legal statutes
- signify dependence and self-effacement, especially for the woman.
- The marriage was no liberation from the Puritan dreariness of
- American life; indeed, it was rather aggravated by the loss of
- self-ownership. The characters of the young people differed too
- widely. A separation soon followed, and Emma Goldman went to New
- Haven, Conn. There she found employment in a factory, and her
- husband disappeared from her horizon. Two decades later she was
- fated to be unexpectedly reminded of him by the Federal authorities.
- The revolutionists who were active in the Russian movement of the
- 80's were but little familiar with the social ideas then agitating
- Western Europe and America. Their sole activity consisted in
- educating the people, their final goal the destruction of the
- autocracy. Socialism and Anarchism were terms hardly known even by
- name. Emma Goldman, too, was entirely unfamiliar with the
- significance of those ideals.
- She arrived in America, as four years previously in Russia, at a
- period of great social and political unrest. The working people were
- in revolt against the terrible labor conditions; the eight-hour
- movement of the Knights of Labor was at its height, and throughout
- the country echoed the din of sanguine strife between strikers and
- police. The struggle culminated in the great strike against the
- Harvester Company of Chicago, the massacre of the strikers, and the
- judicial murder of the labor leaders, which followed upon the
- historic Haymarket bomb explosion. The Anarchists stood the martyr
- test of blood baptism. The apologists of capitalism vainly seek to
- justify the killing of Parsons, Spies, Lingg, Fischer, and Engel.
- Since the publication of Governor Altgeld's reason for his liberation
- of the three incarcerated Haymarket Anarchists, no doubt is left that
- a fivefold legal murder had been committed in Chicago, in 1887.
- Very few have grasped the significance of the Chicago martyrdom;
- least of all the ruling classes. By the destruction of a number of
- labor leaders they thought to stem the tide of a world-inspiring
- idea. They failed to consider that from the blood of the martyrs
- grows the new seed, and that the frightful injustice will win new
- converts to the Cause.
- The two most prominent representatives of the Anarchist idea in
- America, Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman--the one a native
- American, the other a Russian--have been converted, like numerous
- others, to the ideas of Anarchism by the judicial murder. Two women
- who had not known each other before, and who had received a widely
- different education, were through that murder united in one idea.
- Like most working men and women of America, Emma Goldman followed the
- Chicago trial with great anxiety and excitement. She, too, could not
- believe that the leaders of the proletariat would be killed. The
- 11th of November, 1887, taught her differently. She realized that no
- mercy could be expected from the ruling class, that between the
- Tsarism of Russia and the plutocracy of America there was no
- difference save in name. Her whole being rebelled against the crime,
- and she vowed to herself a solemn vow to join the ranks of the
- revolutionary proletariat and to devote all her energy and strength
- to their emancipation from wage slavery. With the glowing enthusiasm
- so characteristic of her nature, she now began to familiarize herself
- with the literature of Socialism and Anarchism. She attended public
- meetings and became acquainted with socialistically and
- anarchistically inclined workingmen. Johanna Greie, the well-known
- German lecturer, was the first Socialist speaker heard by Emma
- Goldman. In New Haven, Conn., where she was employed in a corset
- factory, she met Anarchists actively participating in the movement.
- Here she read the FREIHEIT, edited by John Most. The Haymarket
- tragedy developed her inherent Anarchist tendencies: the reading of
- the FREIHEIT made her a conscious Anarchist. Subsequently she was to
- learn that the idea of Anarchism found its highest expression through
- the best intellects of America: theoretically by Josiah Warren,
- Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner; philosophically by Emerson,
- Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.
- Made ill by the excessive strain of factory work, Emma Goldman
- returned to Rochester where she remained till August, 1889, at which
- time she removed to New York, the scene of the most important phase
- of her life. She was now twenty years old. Features pallid with
- suffering, eyes large and full of compassion, greet one in her
- pictured likeness of those days. Her hair is, as customary with
- Russian student girls, worn short, giving free play to the strong
- forehead.
- It is the heroic epoch of militant Anarchism. By leaps and bounds
- the movement had grown in every country. In spite of the most severe
- governmental persecution new converts swell the ranks. The
- propaganda is almost exclusively of a secret character. The
- repressive measures of the government drive the disciples of the new
- philosophy to conspirative methods. Thousands of victims fall into
- the hands of the authorities and languish in prisons. But nothing
- can stem the rising tide of enthusiasm, of self-sacrifice and
- devotion to the Cause. The efforts of teachers like Peter Kropotkin,
- Louise Michel, Elisee Reclus, and others, inspire the devotees with
- ever greater energy.
- Disruption is imminent with the Socialists, who have sacrificed the
- idea of liberty and embraced the State and politics. The struggle is
- bitter, the factions irreconcilable. This struggle is not merely
- between Anarchists and Socialists; it also finds its echo within the
- Anarchist groups. Theoretic differences and personal controversies
- lead to strife and acrimonious enmities. The anti-Socialist
- legislation of Germany and Austria had driven thousands of Socialists
- and Anarchists across the seas to seek refuge in America. John Most,
- having lost his seat in the Reichstag, finally had to flee his native
- land, and went to London. There, having advanced toward Anarchism,
- he entirely withdrew from the Social Democratic Party. Later, coming
- to America, he continued the publication of the FREIHEIT in New York,
- and developed great activity among the German workingmen.
- When Emma Goldman arrived in New York in 1889, she experienced little
- difficulty in associating herself with active Anarchists. Anarchist
- meetings were an almost daily occurrence. The first lecturer she
- heard on the Anarchist platform was Dr. A. Solotaroff. Of great
- importance to her future development was her acquaintance with John
- Most, who exerted a tremendous influence over the younger elements.
- His impassioned eloquence, untiring energy, and the persecution he
- had endured for the Cause, all combined to enthuse the comrades. It
- was also at this period that she met Alexander Berkman, whose
- friendship played an important part throughout her life. Her talents
- as a speaker could not long remain in obscurity. The fire of
- enthusiasm swept her toward the public platform. Encouraged by her
- friends, she began to participate as a German and Yiddish speaker at
- Anarchist meetings. Soon followed a brief tour of agitation taking
- her as far as Cleveland. With the whole strength and earnestness of
- her soul she now threw herself into the propaganda of Anarchist
- ideas. The passionate period of her life had begun. Through
- constantly toiling in sweat shops, the fiery young orator was at the
- same time very active as an agitator and participated in various
- labor struggles, notably in the great cloakmakers' strike, in 1889,
- led by Professor Garsyde and Joseph Barondess.
- A year later Emma Goldman was a delegate to an Anarchist conference
- in New York. She was elected to the Executive Committee, but later
- withdrew because of differences of opinion regarding tactical
- matters. The ideas of the German-speaking Anarchists had at that
- time not yet become clarified. Some still believed in parliamentary
- methods, the great majority being adherents of strong centralism.
- These differences of opinion in regard to tactics led in 1891 to a
- breach with John Most. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and other
- comrades joined the group AUTONOMY, in which Joseph Peukert, Otto
- Rinke, and Claus Timmermann played an active part. The bitter
- controversies which followed this secession terminated only with the
- death of Most, in 1906.
- A great source of inspiration to Emma Goldman proved the Russian
- revolutionists who were associated in the group ZNAMYA. Goldenberg,
- Solotaroff, Zametkin, Miller, Cahan, the poet Edelstadt, Ivan von
- Schewitsch, husband of Helene von Racowitza and editor of the
- VOLKSZEITUNG, and numerous other Russian exiles, some of whom are
- still living, were members of this group. It was also at this time
- that Emma Goldman met Robert Reitzel, the German-American Heine, who
- exerted a great influence on her development. Through him she became
- acquainted with the best writers of modern literature, and the
- friendship thus begun lasted till Reitzel's death, in 1898.
- The labor movement of America had not been drowned in the Chicago
- massacre; the murder of the Anarchists had failed to bring peace to
- the profit-greedy capitalist. The struggle for the eight-hour day
- continued. In 1892 broke out the great strike in Pittsburg. The
- Homestead fight, the defeat of the Pinkertons, the appearance of the
- militia, the suppression of the strikers, and the complete triumph of
- the reaction are matters of comparatively recent history. Stirred to
- the very depths by the terrible events at the seat of war, Alexander
- Berkman resolved to sacrifice his life to the Cause and thus give an
- object lesson to the wage slaves of America of active Anarchist
- solidarity with labor. His attack upon Frick, the Gessler of
- Pittsburg, failed, and the twenty-two-year-old youth was doomed to a
- living death of twenty-two years in the penitentiary. The
- bourgeoisie, which for decades had exalted and eulogized tyrannicide,
- now was filled with terrible rage. The capitalist press organized a
- systematic campaign of calumny and misrepresentation against
- Anarchists. The police exerted every effort to involve Emma Goldman
- in the act of Alexander Berkman. The feared agitator was to be
- silenced by all means. It was only due to the circumstance of her
- presence in New York that she escaped the clutches of the law. It
- was a similar circumstance which, nine years later, during the
- McKinley incident, was instrumental in preserving her liberty. It is
- almost incredible with what amount of stupidity, baseness, and
- vileness the journalists of the period sought to overwhelm the
- Anarchist. One must peruse the newspaper files to realize the
- enormity of incrimination and slander. It would be difficult to
- portray the agony of soul Emma Goldman experienced in those days.
- The persecutions of the capitalist press were to be borne by an
- Anarchist with comparative equanimity; but the attacks from one's own
- ranks were far more painful and unbearable. The act of Berkman was
- severely criticized by Most and some of his followers among the
- German and Jewish Anarchists. Bitter accusations and recriminations
- at public meetings and private gatherings followed. Persecuted on
- all sides, both because she championed Berkman and his act, and on
- account of her revolutionary activity, Emma Goldman was harassed even
- to the extent of inability to secure shelter. Too proud to seek
- safety in the denial of her identity, she chose to pass the nights in
- the public parks rather than expose her friends to danger or vexation
- by her visits. The already bitter cup was filled to overflowing by
- the attempted suicide of a young comrade who had shared living
- quarters with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and a mutual artist
- friend.
- Many changes have since taken place. Alexander Berkman has survived
- the Pennsylvania Inferno, and is back again in the ranks of the
- militant Anarchists, his spirit unbroken, his soul full of enthusiasm
- for the ideals of his youth. The artist comrade is now among the
- well-known illustrators of New York. The suicide candidate left
- America shortly after his unfortunate attempt to die, and was
- subsequently arrested and condemned to eight years of hard labor for
- smuggling Anarchist literature into Germany. He, too, has withstood
- the terrors of prison life, and has returned to the revolutionary
- movement, since earning the well deserved reputation of a talented
- writer in Germany.
- To avoid indefinite camping in the parks Emma Goldman finally was
- forced to move into a house on Third Street, occupied exclusively by
- prostitutes. There, among the outcasts of our good Christian
- society, she could at least rent a bit of a room, and find rest and
- work at her sewing machine. The women of the street showed more
- refinement of feeling and sincere sympathy than the priests of the
- Church. But human endurance had been exhausted by overmuch suffering
- and privation. There was a complete physical breakdown, and the
- renowned agitator was removed to the "Bohemian Republic"--a large
- tenement house which derived its euphonious appellation from the fact
- that its occupants were mostly Bohemian Anarchists. Here Emma
- Goldman found friends ready to aid her. Justus Schwab, one of the
- finest representatives of the German revolutionary period of that
- time, and Dr. Solotaroff were indefatigable in the care of the
- patient. Here, too, she met Edward Brady, the new friendship
- subsequently ripening into close intimacy. Brady had been an active
- participant in the revolutionary movement of Austria and had, at the
- time of his acquaintance with Emma Goldman, lately been released from
- an Austrian prison after an incarceration of ten years.
- Physicians diagnosed the illness as consumption, and the patient was
- advised to leave New York. She went to Rochester, in the hope that
- the home circle would help restore her to health. Her parents had
- several years previously emigrated to America, settling in that city.
- Among the leading traits of the Jewish race is the strong attachment
- between the members of the family, and, especially, between parents
- and children. Though her conservative parents could not sympathize
- with the idealist aspirations of Emma Goldman and did not approve of
- her mode of life, they now received their sick daughter with open
- arms. The rest and care enjoyed in the parental home, and the
- cheering presence of the beloved sister Helene, proved so beneficial
- that within a short time she was sufficiently restored to resume her
- energetic activity.
- There is no rest in the life of Emma Goldman. Ceaseless effort and
- continuous striving toward the conceived goal are the essentials of
- her nature. Too much precious time had already been wasted. It was
- imperative to resume her labors immediately. The country was in the
- throes of a crisis, and thousands of unemployed crowded the streets
- of the large industrial centers. Cold and hungry they tramped
- through the land in the vain search for work and bread. The
- Anarchists developed a strenuous propaganda among the unemployed and
- the strikers. A monster demonstration of striking cloakmakers and of
- the unemployed took place at Union Square, New York. Emma Goldman
- was one of the invited speakers. She delivered an impassioned
- speech, picturing in fiery words the misery of the wage slave's life,
- and quoted the famous maxim of Cardinal Manning: "Necessity knows no
- law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his
- neighbor's bread." She concluded her exhortation with the words:
- "Ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they
- do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
- The following day she left for Philadelphia, where she was to address
- a public meeting. The capitalist press again raised the alarm. If
- Socialists and Anarchists were to be permitted to continue agitating,
- there was imminent danger that the workingmen would soon learn to
- understand the manner in which they are robbed of the joy and
- happiness of life. Such a possibility was to be prevented at all
- cost. The Chief of Police of New York, Byrnes, procured a court
- order for the arrest of Emma Goldman. She was detained by the
- Philadelphia authorities and incarcerated for several days in the
- Moyamensing prison, awaiting the extradition papers which Byrnes
- intrusted to Detective Jacobs. This man Jacobs (whom Emma Goldman
- again met several years later under very unpleasant circumstances)
- proposed to her, while she was returning a prisoner to New York, to
- betray the cause of labor. In the name of his superior, Chief
- Byrnes, he offered lucrative reward. How stupid men sometimes are!
- What poverty of psychologic observation to imagine the possibility of
- betrayal on the part of a young Russian idealist, who had willingly
- sacrificed all personal considerations to help in labor's
- emancipation.
- In October, 1893, Emma Goldman was tried in the criminal courts of
- New York on the charge of inciting to riot. The "intelligent" jury
- ignored the testimony of the twelve witnesses for the defense in
- favor of the evidence given by one single man--Detective Jacobs. She
- was found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in the penitentiary
- at Blackwell's Island. Since the foundation of the Republic she was
- the first woman--Mrs. Surratt excepted--to be imprisoned for a
- political offense. Respectable society had long before stamped upon
- her the Scarlet Letter.
- Emma Goldman passed her time in the penitentiary in the capacity of
- nurse in the prison hospital. Here she found opportunity to shed
- some rays of kindness into the dark lives of the unfortunates whose
- sisters of the street did not disdain two years previously to share
- with her the same house. She also found in prison opportunity to
- study English and its literature, and to familiarize herself with the
- great American writers. In Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman,
- Thoreau, and Emerson she found great treasures.
- She left Blackwell's Island in the month of August, 1894, a woman of
- twenty-five, developed and matured, and intellectually transformed.
- Back into the arena, richer in experience, purified by suffering.
- She did not feel herself deserted and alone any more. Many hands
- were stretched out to welcome her. There were at the time numerous
- intellectual oases in New York. The saloon of Justus Schwab, at
- Number Fifty, First Street, was the center where gathered Anarchists,
- litterateurs, and bohemians. Among others she also met at this time
- a number of American Anarchists, and formed the friendship of
- Voltairine de Cleyre, Wm. C. Owen, Miss Van Etton, and Dyer D. Lum,
- former editor of the ALARM and executor of the last wishes of the
- Chicago martyrs. In John Swinton, the noble old fighter for liberty,
- she found one of her staunchest friends. Other intellectual centers
- there were: SOLIDARITY, published by John Edelman; LIBERTY, by the
- Individualist Anarchist, Benjamin R. Tucker; the REBEL, by Harry
- Kelly; DER STURMVOGEL, a German Anarchist publication, edited by
- Claus Timmermann; DER ARME TEUFEL, whose presiding genius was the
- inimitable Robert Reitzel. Through Arthur Brisbane, now chief
- lieutenant of William Randolph Hearst, she became acquainted with the
- writings of Fourier. Brisbane then was not yet submerged in the
- swamp of political corruption. He sent Emma Goldman an amiable
- letter to Blackwell's Island, together with the biography of his
- father, the enthusiastic American disciple of Fourier.
- Emma Goldman became, upon her release from the penitentiary, a factor
- in the public life of New York. She was appreciated in radical ranks
- for her devotion, her idealism, and earnestness. Various persons
- sought her friendship, and some tried to persuade her to aid in the
- furtherance of their special side issues. Thus Rev. Parkhurst,
- during the Lexow investigation, did his utmost to induce her to join
- the Vigilance Committee in order to fight Tammany Hall. Maria
- Louise, the moving spirit of a social center, acted as Parkhurst's
- go-between. It is hardly necessary to mention what reply the latter
- received from Emma Goldman. Incidentally, Maria Louise subsequently
- became a Mahatma. During the free silver campaign, ex-Burgess
- McLuckie, one of the most genuine personalities in the Homestead
- strike, visited New York in an endeavor to enthuse the local radicals
- for free silver. He also attempted to interest Emma Goldman, but
- with no greater success than Mahatma Maria Louise of Parkhurst-Lexow
- fame.
- In 1894 the struggle of the Anarchists in France reached its highest
- expression. The white terror on the part of the Republican upstarts
- was answered by the red terror of our French comrades. With feverish
- anxiety the Anarchists throughout the world followed this social
- struggle. Propaganda by deed found its reverberating echo in almost
- all countries. In order to better familiarize herself with
- conditions in the old world, Emma Goldman left for Europe, in the
- year 1895. After a lecture tour in England and Scotland, she went to
- Vienna where she entered the ALLGEMEINE KRANKENHAUS to prepare
- herself as midwife and nurse, and where at the same time she studied
- social conditions. She also found opportunity to acquaint herself
- with the newest literature of Europe: Hauptmann, Nietzsche, Ibsen,
- Zola, Thomas Hardy, and other artist rebels were read with great
- enthusiasm.
- In the autumn of 1896 she returned to New York by way of Zurich and
- Paris. The project of Alexander Berkman's liberation was on hand.
- The barbaric sentence of twenty-two years had roused tremendous
- indignation among the radical elements. It was known that the Pardon
- Board of Pennsylvania would look to Carnegie and Frick for advice in
- the case of Alexander Berkman. It was therefore suggested that these
- Sultans of Pennsylvania be approached--not with a view of obtaining
- their grace, but with the request that they do not attempt to
- influence the Board. Ernest Crosby offered to see Carnegie, on
- condition that Alexander Berkman repudiate his act. That, however,
- was absolutely out of the question. He would never be guilty of such
- forswearing of his own personality and self-respect. These efforts
- led to friendly relations between Emma Goldman and the circle of
- Ernest Crosby, Bolton Hall, and Leonard Abbott. In the year 1897 she
- undertook her first great lecture tour, which extended as far as
- California. This tour popularized her name as the representative of
- the oppressed, her eloquence ringing from coast to coast. In
- California Emma Goldman became friendly with the members of the Isaak
- family, and learned to appreciate their efforts for the Cause. Under
- tremendous obstacles the Isaaks first published the FIREBRAND and,
- upon its suppression by the Postal Department, the FREE SOCIETY. It
- was also during this tour that Emma Goldman met that grand old rebel
- of sexual freedom, Moses Harman.
- During the Spanish-American war the spirit of chauvinism was at its
- highest tide. To check this dangerous situation, and at the same
- time collect funds for the revolutionary Cubans, Emma Goldman became
- affiliated with the Latin comrades, among others with Gori, Esteve,
- Palaviccini, Merlino, Petruccini, and Ferrara. In the year 1899
- followed another protracted tour of agitation, terminating on the
- Pacific Coast. Repeated arrests and accusations, though without
- ultimate bad results, marked every propaganda tour.
- In November of the same year the untiring agitator went on a second
- lecture tour to England and Scotland, closing her journey with the
- first International Anarchist Congress at Paris. It was at the time of
- the Boer war, and again jingoism was at its height, as two years
- previously it had celebrated its orgies during the Spanish-American
- war. Various meetings, both in England and Scotland, were disturbed
- and broken up by patriotic mobs. Emma Goldman found on this occasion
- the opportunity of again meeting various English comrades and
- interesting personalities like Tom Mann and the sisters Rossetti, the
- gifted daughters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, then publishers of the
- Anarchist review, the TORCH. One of her life-long hopes found here
- its fulfillment: she came in close and friendly touch with Peter
- Kropotkin, Enrico Malatesta, Nicholas Tchaikovsky, W. Tcherkessov,
- and Louise Michel. Old warriors in the cause of humanity, whose
- deeds have enthused thousands of followers throughout the world, and
- whose life and work have inspired other thousands with noble idealism
- and self-sacrifice. Old warriors they, yet ever young with the
- courage of earlier days, unbroken in spirit and filled with the firm
- hope of the final triumph of Anarchy.
- The chasm in the revolutionary labor movement, which resulted from
- the disruption of the INTERNATIONALE, could not be bridged any more.
- Two social philosophies were engaged in bitter combat. The
- International Congress in 1889, at Paris; in 1892, at Zurich, and in
- 1896, at London, produced irreconcilable differences. The majority
- of Social Democrats, forswearing their libertarian past and becoming
- politicians, succeeded in excluding the revolutionary and Anarchist
- delegates. The latter decided thenceforth to hold separate
- congresses. Their first congress was to take place in 1900, at
- Paris. The Socialist renegade, Millerand, who had climbed into the
- Ministry of the Interior, here played a Judas role. The congress of
- the revolutionists was suppressed, and the delegates dispersed two
- days prior to their scheduled opening. But Millerand had no
- objections against the Social Democratic Congress, which was
- afterwards opened with all the trumpets of the advertiser's art.
- However, the renegade did not accomplish his object. A number of
- delegates succeeded in holding a secret conference in the house of a
- comrade outside of Paris, where various points of theory and tactics
- were discussed. Emma Goldman took considerable part in these
- proceedings, and on that occasion came in contact with numerous
- representatives of the Anarchist movement of Europe.
- Owing to the suppression of the congress, the delegates were in
- danger of being expelled from France. At this time also came the bad
- news from America regarding another unsuccessful attempt to liberate
- Alexander Berkman, proving a great shock to Emma Goldman. In
- November, 1900, she returned to America to devote herself to her
- profession of nurse, at the same time taking an active part in the
- American propaganda. Among other activities she organized monster
- meetings of protest against the terrible outrages of the Spanish
- government, perpetrated upon the political prisoners tortured in
- Montjuich.
- In her vocation as nurse Emma Goldman enjoyed many opportunities of
- meeting the most unusual and peculiar characters. Few would have
- identified the "notorious Anarchist" in the small blonde woman,
- simply attired in the uniform of a nurse. Soon after her return from
- Europe she became acquainted with a patient by the name of Mrs.
- Stander, a morphine fiend, suffering excruciating agonies. She
- required careful attention to enable her to supervise a very
- important business she conducted,--that of Mrs. Warren. In Third
- Street, near Third Avenue, was situated her private residence, and
- near it, connected by a separate entrance, was her place of business.
- One evening, the nurse, upon entering the room of her patient,
- suddenly came face to face with a male visitor, bull-necked and of
- brutal appearance. The man was no other than Mr. Jacobs, the
- detective who seven years previously had brought Emma Goldman a
- prisoner from Philadelphia and who had attempted to persuade her, on
- their way to New York, to betray the cause of the workingmen. It
- would be difficult to describe the expression of bewilderment on the
- countenance of the man as he so unexpectedly faced Emma Goldman, the
- nurse of his mistress. The brute was suddenly transformed into a
- gentleman, exerting himself to excuse his shameful behavior on the
- previous occasion. Jacobs was the "protector" of Mrs. Stander, and
- go-between for the house and the police. Several years later, as one
- of the detective staff of District Attorney Jerome, he committed
- perjury, was convicted, and sent to Sing Sing for a year. He is now
- probably employed by some private detective agency, a desirable
- pillar of respectable society.
- In 1901 Peter Kropotkin was invited by the Lowell Institute of
- Massachusetts to deliver a series of lectures on Russian literature.
- It was his second American tour, and naturally the comrades were
- anxious to use his presence for the benefit of the movement. Emma
- Goldman entered into correspondence with Kropotkin and succeeded in
- securing his consent to arrange for him a series of lectures. She
- also devoted her energies to organizing the tours of other well known
- Anarchists, principally those of Charles W. Mowbray and John Turner.
- Similarly she always took part in all the activities of the movement,
- ever ready to give her time, ability, and energy to the Cause.
- On the sixth of September, 1901, President McKinley was shot by Leon
- Czolgosz at Buffalo. Immediately an unprecedented campaign of
- persecution was set in motion against Emma Goldman as the best known
- Anarchist in the country. Although there was absolutely no
- foundation for the accusation, she, together with other prominent
- Anarchists, was arrested in Chicago, kept in confinement for several
- weeks, and subjected to severest cross-examination. Never before in
- the history of the country had such a terrible man-hunt taken place
- against a person in public life. But the efforts of police and press
- to connect Emma Goldman with Czolgosz proved futile. Yet the episode
- left her wounded to the heart. The physical suffering, the
- humiliation and brutality at the hands of the police she could bear.
- The depression of soul was far worse. She was overwhelmed by
- realization of the stupidity, lack of understanding, and vileness
- which characterized the events of those terrible days. The attitude
- of misunderstanding on the part of the majority of her own comrades
- toward Czolgosz almost drove her to desperation. Stirred to the very
- inmost of her soul, she published an article on Czolgosz in which she
- tried to explain the deed in its social and individual aspects. As
- once before, after Berkman's act, she now also was unable to find
- quarters; like a veritable wild animal she was driven from place to
- place. This terrible persecution and, especially, the attitude of
- her comrades made it impossible for her to continue propaganda. The
- soreness of body and soul had first to heal. During 1901-1903 she
- did not resume the platform. As "Miss Smith" she lived a quiet life,
- practicing her profession and devoting her leisure to the study of
- literature and, particularly, to the modern drama, which she
- considers one of the greatest disseminators of radical ideas and
- enlightened feeling.
- Yet one thing the persecution of Emma Goldman accomplished. Her name
- was brought before the public with greater frequency and emphasis
- than ever before, the malicious harassing of the much maligned
- agitator arousing strong sympathy in many circles. Persons in
- various walks of life began to get interested in her struggle and her
- ideas. A better understanding and appreciation were now beginning to
- manifest themselves.
- The arrival in America of the English Anarchist, John Turner, induced
- Emma Goldman to leave her retirement. Again she threw herself into
- her public activities, organizing an energetic movement for the
- defense of Turner, whom the Immigration authorities condemned to
- deportation on account of the Anarchist exclusion law, passed after
- the death of McKinley.
- When Paul Orleneff and Mme. Nazimova arrived in New York to acquaint
- the American public with Russian dramatic art, Emma Goldman became
- the manager of the undertaking. By much patience and perseverance
- she succeeded in raising the necessary funds to introduce the Russian
- artists to the theater-goers of New York and Chicago. Though
- financially not a success, the venture proved of great artistic
- value. As manager of the Russian theater Emma Goldman enjoyed some
- unique experiences. M. Orleneff could converse only in Russian, and
- "Miss Smith" was forced to act as his interpreter at various polite
- functions. Most of the aristocratic ladies of Fifth Avenue had not
- the least inkling that the amiable manager who so entertainingly
- discussed philosophy, drama, and literature at their five o'clock
- teas, was the "notorious" Emma Goldman. If the latter should some
- day write her autobiography, she will no doubt have many interesting
- anecdotes to relate in connection with these experiences.
- The weekly Anarchist publication, FREE SOCIETY, issued by the Isaak
- family, was forced to suspend in consequence of the nation-wide fury
- that swept the country after the death of McKinley. To fill out the
- gap Emma Goldman, in co-operation with Max Baginski and other
- comrades, decided to publish a monthly magazine devoted to the
- furtherance of Anarchist ideas in life and literature. The first
- issue of MOTHER EARTH appeared in the month of March, 1906, the
- initial expenses of the periodical partly covered by the proceeds of
- a theater benefit given by Orleneff, Mme. Nazimova, and their
- company, in favor of the Anarchist magazine. Under tremendous
- difficulties and obstacles the tireless propagandist has succeeded in
- continuing MOTHER EARTH uninterruptedly since 1906--an achievement
- rarely equalled in the annals of radical publications.
- In May, 1906, Alexander Berkman at last left the hell of
- Pennsylvania, where he had passed the best fourteen years of his
- life. No one had believed in the possibility of his survival. His
- liberation terminated a nightmare of fourteen years for Emma Goldman,
- and an important chapter of her career was thus concluded.
- Nowhere had the birth of the Russian revolution aroused such vital
- and active response as among the Russians living in America. The
- heroes of the revolutionary movement in Russia, Tchaikovsky, Mme.
- Breshkovskaia, Gershuni, and others visited these shores to waken the
- sympathies of the American people toward the struggle for liberty,
- and to collect aid for its continuance and support. The success of
- these efforts was to a considerable extent due to the exertions,
- eloquence, and the talent for organization on the part of Emma
- Goldman. This opportunity enabled her to give valuable services to
- the struggle for liberty in her native land. It is not generally
- known that it is the Anarchists who are mainly instrumental in
- insuring the success, moral as well as financial, of most of the
- radical undertakings. The Anarchist is indifferent to acknowledged
- appreciation; the needs of the Cause absorb his whole interest, and
- to these he devotes his energy and abilities. Yet it may be
- mentioned that some otherwise decent folks, though at all times
- anxious for Anarchist support and co-operation, are ever willing to
- monopolize all the credit for the work done. During the last several
- decades it was chiefly the Anarchists who had organized all the great
- revolutionary efforts, and aided in every struggle for liberty. But
- for fear of shocking the respectable mob, who looks upon the
- Anarchists as the apostles of Satan, and because of their social
- position in bourgeois society, the would-be radicals ignore the
- activity of the Anarchists.
- In 1907 Emma Goldman participated as delegate to the second Anarchist
- Congress, at Amsterdam. She was intensely active in all its
- proceedings and supported the organization of the Anarchist
- INTERNATIONALE. Together with the other American delegate, Max
- Baginski, she submitted to the congress an exhaustive report of
- American conditions, closing with the following characteristic
- remarks:
- "The charge that Anarchism is destructive, rather than constructive,
- and that, therefore, Anarchism is opposed to organization, is one of
- the many falsehoods spread by our opponents. They confound our
- present social institutions with organization; hence they fail to
- understand how we can oppose the former, and yet favor the latter.
- The fact, however, is that the two are not identical.
- "The State is commonly regarded as the highest form of organization.
- But is it in reality a true organization? Is it not rather an
- arbitrary institution, cunningly imposed upon the masses?
- "Industry, too, is called an organization; yet nothing is farther
- from the truth. Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against
- the poor.
- "We are asked to believe that the Army is an organization, but a
- close investigation will show that it is nothing else than a cruel
- instrument of blind force.
- "The Public School! The colleges and other institutions of learning,
- are they not models of organization, offering the people fine
- opportunities for instruction? Far from it. The school, more than
- any other institution, is a veritable barrack, where the human mind
- is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and
- moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation
- and oppression.
- "Organization, as WE understand it, however, is a different thing.
- It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary
- grouping of energies to secure results beneficial to humanity.
- "It is the harmony of organic growth which produces variety of color
- and form, the complete whole we admire in the flower. Analogously
- will the organized activity of free human beings, imbued with the
- spirit of solidarity, result in the perfection of social harmony,
- which we call Anarchism. In fact, Anarchism alone makes
- non-authoritarian organization of common interests possible, since it
- abolishes the existing antagonism between individuals and classes.
- "Under present conditions the antagonism of economic and social
- interests results in relentless war among the social units, and
- creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a co-operative
- commonwealth.
- "There is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster
- individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of
- individuality. In reality, however, the true function of
- organization is to aid the development and growth of personality.
- "Just as the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their
- latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the
- individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his
- highest form of development.
- "An organization, in the true sense, cannot result from the
- combination of mere nonentities. It must be composed of
- self-conscious, intelligent individualities. Indeed, the total of
- the possibilities and activities of an organization is represented in
- the expression of individual energies.
- "It therefore logically follows that the greater the number of
- strong, self-conscious personalities in an organization, the less
- danger of stagnation, and the more intense its life element.
- "Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without
- discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty:
- a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle
- for the means of existence,--the savage struggle which undermines the
- finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short,
- Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish
- well-being for all.
- "The germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades
- unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and
- discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on the
- part of its members."
- The very considerable progress of Anarchist ideas in America can best
- be gauged by the remarkable success of the three extensive lecture
- tours of Emma Goldman since the Amsterdam Congress of 1907. Each
- tour extended over new territory, including localities where
- Anarchism had never before received a hearing. But the most
- gratifying aspect of her untiring efforts is the tremendous sale of
- Anarchist literature, whose propagandist effect cannot be estimated.
- It was during one of these tours that a remarkable incident happened,
- strikingly demonstrating the inspiring potentialities of the
- Anarchist idea. In San Francisco, in 1908, Emma Goldman's lecture
- attracted a soldier of the United States Army, William Buwalda. For
- daring to attend an Anarchist meeting, the free Republic
- court-martialed Buwalda and imprisoned him for one year. Thanks to
- the regenerating power of the new philosophy, the government lost a
- soldier, but the cause of liberty gained a man.
- A propagandist of Emma Goldman's importance is necessarily a sharp
- thorn to the reaction. She is looked upon as a danger to the
- continued existence of authoritarian usurpation. No wonder, then,
- that the enemy resorts to any and all means to make her impossible.
- A systematic attempt to suppress her activities was organized a year
- ago by the united police force of the country. But like all previous
- similar attempts, it failed in a most brilliant manner. Energetic
- protests on the part of the intellectual element of America succeeded
- in overthrowing the dastardly conspiracy against free speech.
- Another attempt to make Emma Goldman impossible was essayed by the
- Federal authorities at Washington. In order to deprive her of the
- rights of citizenship, the government revoked the citizenship papers
- of her husband, whom she had married at the youthful age of eighteen,
- and whose whereabouts, if he be alive, could not be determined for
- the last two decades. The great government of the glorious United
- States did not hesitate to stoop to the most despicable methods to
- accomplish that achievement. But as her citizenship had never proved
- of use to Emma Goldman, she can bear the loss with a light heart.
- There are personalities who possess such a powerful individuality
- that by its very force they exert the most potent influence over the
- best representatives of their time. Michael Bakunin was such a
- personality. But for him, Richard Wagner had never written DIE KUNST
- UND DIE REVOLUTION. Emma Goldman is a similar personality. She is a
- strong factor in the socio-political life of America. By virtue of
- her eloquence, energy, and brilliant mentality, she moulds the minds
- and hearts of thousands of her auditors.
- Deep sympathy and compassion for suffering humanity, and an
- inexorable honesty toward herself, are the leading traits of Emma
- Goldman. No person, whether friend or foe, shall presume to control
- her goal or dictate her mode of life. She would perish rather than
- sacrifice her convictions, or the right of self-ownership of soul and
- body. Respectability could easily forgive the teaching of theoretic
- Anarchism; but Emma Goldman does not merely preach the new
- philosophy; she also persists in living it,--and that is the one
- supreme, unforgivable crime. Were she, like so many radicals, to
- consider her ideal as merely an intellectual ornament; were she to
- make concessions to existing society and compromise with old
- prejudices,--then even the most radical views could be pardoned in
- her. But that she takes her radicalism seriously; that it has
- permeated her blood and marrow to the extent where she not merely
- teaches but also practices her convictions--this shocks even the
- radical Mrs. Grundy. Emma Goldman lives her own life; she associates
- with publicans--hence the indignation of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
- It is no mere coincidence that such divergent writers as Pietro Gori
- and William Marion Reedy find similar traits in their
- characterization of Emma Goldman. In a contribution to LA QUESTIONE
- SOCIALE, Pietro Gori calls her a "moral power, a woman who, with the
- vision of a sibyl, prophesies the coming of a new kingdom for the
- oppressed; a woman who, with logic and deep earnestness, analyses the
- ills of society, and portrays, with artist touch, the coming dawn of
- humanity, founded on equality, brotherhood, and liberty."
- William Reedy sees in Emma Goldman the "daughter of the dream, her
- gospel a vision which is the vision of every truly great-souled man
- and woman who has ever lived."
- Cowards who fear the consequences of their deeds have coined the word
- of philosophic Anarchism. Emma Goldman is too sincere, too defiant,
- to seek safety behind such paltry pleas. She is an Anarchist, pure
- and simple. She represents the idea of Anarchism as framed by Josiah
- Warrn, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy. Yet she also
- understands the psychologic causes which induce a Caserio, a
- Vaillant, a Bresci, a Berkman, or a Czolgosz to commit deeds of
- violence. To the soldier in the social struggle it is a point of
- honor to come in conflict with the powers of darkness and tyranny,
- and Emma Goldman is proud to count among her best friends and
- comrades men and women who bear the wounds and scars received in
- battle.
- In the words of Voltairine de Cleyre, characterizing Emma Goldman
- after the latter's imprisonment in 1893: The spirit that animates
- Emma Goldman is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his
- slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny--the spirit which is willing to
- dare and suffer.
- HIPPOLYTE HAVEL.
- New York, December, 1910.
- PREFACE
- Some twenty-one years ago I heard the first great Anarchist
- speaker--the inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for
- many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses
- with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never
- be erased from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the
- multitudes who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice!
- Surely they had but to hear him to throw off their old beliefs, and
- see the truth and beauty of Anarchism!
- My one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of
- John Most,--that I, too, might thus reach the masses. Oh, for the
- naivety of Youth's enthusiasm! It is the time when the hardest thing
- seems but child's play. It is the only period in life worth while.
- Alas! This period is but of short duration. Like Spring, the STURM
- UND DRANG period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and
- delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of
- resistance against a thousand vicissitudes.
- My great faith in the wonder worker, the spoken word, is no more. I
- have realized its inadequacy to awaken thought, or even emotion.
- Gradually, and with no small struggle against this realization, I
- came to see that oral propaganda is at best but a means of shaking
- people from their lethargy: it leaves no lasting impression. The
- very fact that most people attend meetings only if aroused by
- newspaper sensations, or because they expect to be amused, is proof
- that they really have no inner urge to learn.
- It is altogether different with the written mode of human expression.
- No one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother
- with serious books. That leads me to another discovery made after
- many years of public activity. It is this: All claims of education
- notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind
- craves. Already this truth is recognized by most modern educators in
- relation to the immature mind. I think it is equally true regarding
- the adult. Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than
- musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought.
- Whether something vital will develop depends largely on the fertility
- of the human soil, though the quality of the intellectual seed must
- not be overlooked.
- In meetings the audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials.
- The speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness
- of the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike
- root. In all probability he will not even do justice to himself.
- The relation between the writer and the reader is more intimate.
- True, books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read
- into them. That we can do so demonstrates the importance of written
- as against oral expression. It is this certainty which has induced
- me to gather in one volume my ideas on various topics of individual
- and social importance. They represent the mental and soul struggles
- of twenty-one years,--the conclusions derived after many changes and
- inner revisions.
- I am not sanguine enough to hope that my readers will be as numerous
- as those who have heard me. But I prefer to reach the few who really
- want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.
- As to the book, it must speak for itself. Explanatory remarks do but
- detract from the ideas set forth. However, I wish to forestall two
- objections which will undoubtedly be raised. One is in reference to
- the essay on ANARCHISM; the other, on MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES.
- "Why do you not say how things will be operated under Anarchism?" is
- a question I have had to meet thousands of times. Because I believe
- that Anarchism can not consistently impose an iron-clad program or
- method on the future. The things every new generation has to fight,
- and which it can least overcome, are the burdens of the past, which
- holds us all as in a net. Anarchism, at least as I understand it,
- leaves posterity free to develop its own particular systems, in
- harmony with its needs. Our most vivid imagination can not foresee
- the potentialities of a race set free from external restraints.
- How, then, can any one assume to map out a line of conduct for those
- to come? We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air,
- must guard against the tendency to fetter the future. If we succeed
- in clearing the soil from the rubbish of the past and present, we
- will leave to posterity the greatest and safest heritage of all ages.
- The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out
- one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or
- personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a
- hater of the weak because he believed in the UEBERMENSCH. It does
- not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this
- vision of the UEBERMENSCH also called for a state of society which
- will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves.
- It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but
- the apostle of the theory "each for himself, the devil take the hind
- one." That Stirner's individualism contains the greatest social
- possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that
- if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated
- individuals, whose free efforts make society.
- These examples bring me to the objection that will be raised to
- MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES. No doubt, I shall be excommunicated as
- an enemy of the people, because I repudiate the mass as a creative
- factor. I shall prefer that rather than be guilty of the demagogic
- platitudes so commonly in vogue as a bait for the people. I realize
- the malady of the oppressed and disinherited masses only too well,
- but I refuse to prescribe the usual ridiculous palliatives which
- allow the patient neither to die nor to recover. One cannot be too
- extreme in dealing with social ills; besides, the extreme thing is
- generally the true thing. My lack of faith in the majority is
- dictated by my faith in the potentialities of the individual. Only
- when the latter becomes free to choose his associates for a common
- purpose, can we hope for order and harmony out of this world of chaos
- and inequality.
- For the rest, my book must speak for itself.
- Emma Goldman
- ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR
- ANARCHY.
- Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
- Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
- "Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
- "Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
- O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
- The truth that lies behind a word to find,
- To them the word's right meaning was not given.
- They shall continue blind among the blind.
- But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
- Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
- I give thee to the future! Thine secure
- When each at least unto himself shall waken.
- Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
- I cannot tell--but it the earth shall see!
- I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
- Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
- JOHN HENRY MACKAY.
- The history of human growth and development is at the same time the
- history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the
- approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the
- Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means
- to stay the advent of the New, in whatever form or period the latter
- may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps into the
- distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and
- hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea. The rack,
- the thumbscrew, and the knout are still with us; so are the convict's
- garb and the social wrath, all conspiring against the spirit that is
- serenely marching on.
- Anarchism could not hope to escape the fate of all other ideas of
- innovation. Indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising
- innovator, Anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and
- venom of the world it aims to reconstruct.
- To deal even remotely with all that is being said and done against
- Anarchism would necessitate the writing of a whole volume. I shall
- therefore meet only two of the principal objections. In so doing, I
- shall attempt to elucidate what Anarchism really stands for.
- The strange phenomenon of the opposition to Anarchism is that it
- brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and
- ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the
- relativity of all things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it
- makes no pretense of knowledge or tolerance. Acting, as it always
- does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a child.
- "Why?" "Because." Yet the opposition of the uneducated to Anarchism
- deserves the same consideration as that of the intelligent man.
- What, then, are the objections? First, Anarchism is impractical,
- though a beautiful ideal. Second, Anarchism stands for violence and
- destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous.
- Both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a
- thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false
- interpretation.
- A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in
- existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing
- conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one
- objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is
- wrong and foolish. The true criterion of the practical, therefore,
- is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish;
- rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the
- stagnant waters of the old, and build, as well as sustain, new life.
- In the light of this conception, Anarchism is indeed practical.
- More than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and
- foolish; more than any other idea, it is building and sustaining new
- life.
- The emotions of the ignorant man are continuously kept at a pitch by
- the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too
- outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents.
- Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial
- bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing
- everything; in short, destruction and violence.
- Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man to know that the
- most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of
- destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating? Nor is he
- aware that Anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's
- forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that
- feed on the life's essence of society. It is merely clearing the
- soil from weeds and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy
- fruit.
- Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than
- to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society,
- proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the bottom of
- any given idea, to examine into its origin and meaning, most people
- will either condemn it altogether, or rely on some superficial or
- prejudicial definition of non-essentials.
- Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every
- proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not
- taxed too much, I also shall begin with a definition, and then
- elaborate on the latter.
- ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social order based on
- liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all
- forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong
- and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
- The new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis of
- life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an
- economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be
- brought about only through the consideration of EVERY PHASE of
- life,--individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well
- as the external phases.
- A thorough perusal of the history of human development will disclose
- two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that are
- only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other,
- but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper
- environment: the individual and social instincts. The individual and
- society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each
- striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and
- importance of the other. The individual and social instincts,--the
- one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth,
- aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for
- mutual helpfulness and social well-being.
- The explanation of the storm raging within the individual, and
- between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. The primitive
- man, unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life,
- felt himself absolutely dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready
- to mock and taunt him. Out of that attitude grew the religious
- concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers
- on high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. All the
- early sagas rest on that idea, which continues to be the LEIT-MOTIF
- of the biblical tales dealing with the relation of man to God, to the
- State, to society. Again and again the same motif, MAN IS NOTHING,
- THE POWERS ARE EVERYTHING. Thus Jehovah would only endure man on
- condition of complete surrender. Man can have all the glories of the
- earth, but he must not become conscious of himself. The State,
- society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: Man can have all
- the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of
- himself.
- Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the
- consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and
- society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void,
- since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination.
- Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely
- in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the individual
- and the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart
- and the lungs: the one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the
- other the repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and
- strong. The individual is the heart of society, conserving the
- essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing
- the element to keep the life essence--that is, the individual--pure
- and strong.
- "The one thing of value in the world," says Emerson, "is the active
- soul; this every man contains within him. The soul active sees
- absolute truth and utters truth and creates." In other words, the
- individual instinct is the thing of value in the world. It is the
- true soul that sees and creates the truth alive, out of which is to
- come a still greater truth, the re-born social soul.
- Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have
- held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces
- for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity,
- Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so
- far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social
- instincts, the individual and society.
- Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of
- human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent
- the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails.
- Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades
- his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out
- of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical,
- so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and
- blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to
- rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says
- Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will
- you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all
- progress.
- Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to
- satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right,
- when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion,
- "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted
- man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face
- toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring,
- devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the
- monster dead.
- "Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist, Proudhon.
- Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the
- accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his
- birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast.
- Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create
- enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows
- that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far
- exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. But what are normal demands to
- an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is
- its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means
- power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to
- enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of
- her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what
- avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are
- wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with
- hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey.
- It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business
- venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged
- in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this
- simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is
- growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year);
- the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever
- getting smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable
- bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime
- of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer
- into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than
- his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the
- products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of
- originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is
- making.
- Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that
- help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to
- live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig
- coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no
- talk of wealth. What he gives to the world is only gray and hideous
- things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too weak to live,
- too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this
- deadening method of centralized production as the proudest
- achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we are
- to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete
- than was our bondage to the King. They do not want to know that
- centralization is not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of
- health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in
- a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.
- Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of production: its goal
- is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the
- individual. Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as "one who
- develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in
- danger." A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of
- society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions
- of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table,
- the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the
- painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,--the
- result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work
- as a creative force. That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic
- arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive
- associations, gradually developing into free communism, as the best
- means of producing with the least waste of human energy. Anarchism,
- however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of
- individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in
- harmony with their tastes and desires.
- Such free display of human energy being possible only under complete
- individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces against
- the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the State,
- organized authority, or statutory law,--the dominion of human
- conduct.
- Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or the
- monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has the
- State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct. "All
- government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not
- whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every
- instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual.
- Referring to the American government, the greatest American
- Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a
- tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself
- unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it
- has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never
- made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even
- the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."
- Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice. With the arrogance
- and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments
- ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses,
- while maintaining themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the
- annihilation of individual liberty. Thus Ouida is right when she
- maintains that "the State only aims at instilling those qualities in
- its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is
- filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to
- clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate
- liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably
- dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which
- there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit,
- and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving
- humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two
- walls."
- Yet even a flock of sheep would resist the chicanery of the State, if
- it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive methods it
- employs to serve its purposes. Therefore Bakunin repudiates the
- State as synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the
- individual or small minorities,--the destruction of social
- relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life
- itself, for its own aggrandizement. The State is the altar of
- political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for
- the purpose of human sacrifice.
- In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker who does not agree that
- government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary ONLY to
- maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient
- in that function only.
- Even George Bernard Shaw, who hopes for the miraculous from the State
- under Fabianism, nevertheless admits that "it is at present a huge
- machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute force."
- This being the case, it is hard to see why the clever prefacer wishes
- to uphold the State after poverty shall have ceased to exist.
- Unfortunately there are still a number of people who continue in the
- fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it maintains
- social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that it
- prevents the lazy man from fleecing his fellows. I shall therefore
- examine these contentions.
- A natural law is that factor in man which asserts itself freely and
- spontaneously without any external force, in harmony with the
- requirements of nature. For instance, the demand for nutrition, for
- sex gratification, for light, air, and exercise, is a natural law.
- But its expression needs not the machinery of government, needs not
- the club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison. To obey such laws,
- if we may call it obedience, requires only spontaneity and free
- opportunity. That governments do not maintain themselves through
- such harmonious factors is proven by the terrible array of violence,
- force, and coercion all governments use in order to live. Thus
- Blackstone is right when he says, "Human laws are invalid, because
- they are contrary to the laws of nature."
- Unless it be the order of Warsaw after the slaughter of thousands of
- people, it is difficult to ascribe to governments any capacity for
- order or social harmony. Order derived through submission and
- maintained by terror is not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the
- only "order" that governments have ever maintained. True social
- harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a society
- where those who always work never have anything, while those who
- never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent;
- hence social harmony is but a myth. The only way organized authority
- meets this grave situation is by extending still greater privileges
- to those who have already monopolized the earth, and by still further
- enslaving the disinherited masses. Thus the entire arsenal of
- government--laws, police, soldiers, the courts, legislatures,
- prisons,--is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the most
- antagonistic elements in society.
- The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to
- diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the
- greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing
- in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital
- punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with
- crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the
- horrible scourge of its own creation.
- Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution
- of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to
- misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people
- are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they
- loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the
- statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does
- society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the
- poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass
- on its way to crime and degradation. Who that knows this terrible
- process can fail to see the truth in these words of Peter Kropotkin:
- "Those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed
- to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on
- humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured
- abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even,
- and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of
- aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and
- there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when
- subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a
- thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the
- entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which
- ought to be brought to an end."
- The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit
- consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and
- expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the
- paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social
- tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the
- occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that
- laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and
- mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production
- fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people
- should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its
- deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to
- make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real
- harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both
- recreation and hope.
- To achieve such an arrangement of life, government, with its unjust,
- arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with. At best it
- has but imposed one single mode of life upon all, without regard to
- individual and social variations and needs. In destroying government
- and statutory laws, Anarchism proposes to rescue the self-respect and
- independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by
- authority. Only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. Only
- in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in
- him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social
- bonds which knit men together, and which are the true foundation of a
- normal social life.
- But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it
- endure under Anarchism?
- Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy
- name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson
- to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak
- authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan,
- the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of
- human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every
- soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?
- John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in
- captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits,
- their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from
- their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow
- space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its
- potentialities?
- Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose,
- alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all
- its wonderful possibilities.
- Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind
- from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from
- the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint
- of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free
- grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social
- wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access
- to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according
- to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.
- This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the
- conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the
- world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious
- observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty
- and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine
- and true in man.
- As to methods. Anarchism is not, as some may suppose, a theory of
- the future to be realized through divine inspiration. It is a living
- force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions.
- The methods of Anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad
- program to be carried out under all circumstances. Methods must grow
- out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of the
- intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual. The
- serene, calm character of a Tolstoy will wish different methods for
- social reconstruction than the intense, overflowing personality of a
- Michael Bakunin or a Peter Kropotkin. Equally so it must be apparent
- that the economic and political needs of Russia will dictate more
- drastic measures than would England or America. Anarchism does not
- stand for military drill and uniformity; it does, however, stand for
- the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that
- hinders human growth. All Anarchists agree in that, as they also
- agree in their opposition to the political machinery as a means of
- bringing about the great social change.
- "All voting," says Thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers, or
- backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never
- exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is doing
- nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of
- chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority."
- A close examination of the machinery of politics and its achievements
- will bear out the logic of Thoreau.
- What does the history of parliamentarism show? Nothing but failure
- and defeat, not even a single reform to ameliorate the economic and
- social stress of the people. Laws have been passed and enactments
- made for the improvement and protection of labor. Thus it was proven
- only last year that Illinois, with the most rigid laws for mine
- protection, had the greatest mine disasters. In States where child
- labor laws prevail, child exploitation is at its highest, and though
- with us the workers enjoy full political opportunities, capitalism
- has reached the most brazen zenith.
- Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for
- which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are
- there for their honesty and good faith? One has but to bear in mind
- the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions
- is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying,
- cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the
- political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete
- demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left
- that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict.
- Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe,
- and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to
- find themselves betrayed and cheated.
- It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in
- the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be
- absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of
- labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. The State is
- the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such there be,
- would either remain true to their political faith and lose their
- economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be
- utterly unable to do the slightest good. The political arena leaves
- one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.
- The political superstition is still holding sway over the hearts and
- minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more
- to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as
- much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands
- for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws
- and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and
- resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man.
- Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and
- courage. In short, it calls for free, independent spirits, for "men
- who are men, and who have a bone in their backs which you cannot pass
- your hand through."
- Universal suffrage itself owes its existence to direct action. If
- not for the spirit of rebellion, of the defiance on the part of the
- American revolutionary fathers, their posterity would still wear the
- King's coat. If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his
- comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.
- True, the trade in white flesh is still going on; but that, too, will
- have to be abolished by direct action. Trade-unionism, the economic
- arena of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action.
- It is but recently that law and government have attempted to crush
- the trade-union movement, and condemned the exponents of man's right
- to organize to prison as conspirators. Had they sought to assert
- their cause through begging, pleading, and compromise, trade-unionism
- would today be a negligible quantity. In France, in Spain, in Italy,
- in Russia, nay even in England (witness the growing rebellion of
- English labor unions) direct, revolutionary, economic action has
- become so strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to
- make the world realize the tremendous importance of labor's power.
- The General Strike, the supreme expression of the economic
- consciousness of the workers, was ridiculed in America but a short
- time ago. Today every great strike, in order to win, must realize
- the importance of the solidaric general protest.
- Direct action, having proven effective along economic lines, is
- equally potent in the environment of the individual. There a hundred
- forces encroach upon his being, and only persistent resistance to
- them will finally set him free. Direct action against the authority
- in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct
- action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code,
- is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.
- Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social
- change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either
- not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that
- revolution is but thought carried into action.
- Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today permeating every
- phase of human endeavor. Science, art, literature, the drama, the
- effort for economic betterment, in fact every individual and social
- opposition to the existing disorder of things, is illumined by the
- spiritual light of Anarchism. It is the philosophy of the
- sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony.
- It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the
- world, and that will usher in the Dawn.
- MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES
- If I were to give a summary of the tendency of our times, I would
- say, Quantity. The multitude, the mass spirit, dominates everywhere,
- destroying quality. Our entire life--production, politics, and
- education--rests on quantity, on numbers. The worker who once took
- pride in the thoroughness and quality of his work, has been replaced
- by brainless, incompetent automatons, who turn out enormous
- quantities of things, valueless to themselves, and generally
- injurious to the rest of mankind. Thus quantity, instead of adding
- to life's comforts and peace, has merely increased man's burden.
- In politics, naught but quantity counts. In proportion to its
- increase, however, principles, ideals, justice, and uprightness are
- completely swamped by the array of numbers. In the struggle for
- supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery,
- deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who
- succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is
- the only god,--Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to
- character, is of no moment. We have not far to go in search of proof
- to verify this sad fact.
- Never before did the corruption, the complete rottenness of our
- government stand so thoroughly exposed; never before were the
- American people brought face to face with the Judas nature of that
- political body, which has claimed for years to be absolutely beyond
- reproach, as the mainstay of our institutions, the true protector of
- the rights and liberties of the people.
- Yet when the crimes of that party became so brazen that even the
- blind could see them, it needed but to muster up its minions, and its
- supremacy was assured. Thus the very victims, duped, betrayed,
- outraged a hundred times, decided, not against, but in favor of the
- victor. Bewildered, the few asked how could the majority betray the
- traditions of American liberty? Where was its judgment, its
- reasoning capacity? That is just it, the majority cannot reason; it
- has no judgment. Lacking utterly in originality and moral courage,
- the majority has always placed its destiny in the hands of others.
- Incapable of standing responsibilities, it has followed its leaders
- even unto destruction. Dr. Stockman was right: "The most dangerous
- enemies of truth and justice in our midst are the compact majorities,
- the damned compact majority." Without ambition or initiative, the
- compact mass hates nothing so much as innovation. It has always
- opposed, condemned, and hounded the innovator, the pioneer of a new
- truth.
- The oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, the
- Socialists included, that ours is an era of individualism, of the
- minority. Only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be
- led to entertain this view. Have not the few accumulated the wealth
- of the world? Are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the
- situation? Their success, however, is due not to individualism, but
- to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass.
- The latter wants but to be dominated, to be led, to be coerced. As
- to individualism, at no time in human history did it have less chance
- of expression, less opportunity to assert itself in a normal, healthy
- manner.
- The individual educator imbued with honesty of purpose, the artist or
- writer of original ideas, the independent scientist or explorer, the
- non-compromising pioneers of social changes are daily pushed to the
- wall by men whose learning and creative ability have become decrepit
- with age.
- Educators of Ferrer's type are nowhere tolerated, while the
- dietitians of predigested food, a la Professors Eliot and Butler, are
- the successful perpetuators of an age of nonentities, of automatons.
- In the literary and dramatic world, the Humphrey Wards and Clyde
- Fitches are the idols of the mass, while but few know or appreciate
- the beauty and genius of an Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman; an Ibsen, a
- Hauptmann, a Butler Yeats, or a Stephen Phillips. They are like
- solitary stars, far beyond the horizon of the multitude.
- Publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality
- inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it
- suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping
- ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a
- result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the
- chief literary output.
- Need I say that in art we are confronted with the same sad facts?
- One has but to inspect our parks and thoroughfares to realize the
- hideousness and vulgarity of the art manufacture. Certainly, none
- but a majority taste would tolerate such an outrage on art. False in
- conception and barbarous in execution, the statuary that infests
- American cities has as much relation to true art, as a totem to a
- Michael Angelo. Yet that is the only art that succeeds. The true
- artistic genius, who will not cater to accepted notions, who
- exercises originality, and strives to be true to life, leads an
- obscure and wretched existence. His work may some day become the fad
- of the mob, but not until his heart's blood had been exhausted; not
- until the pathfinder has ceased to be, and a throng of an idealless
- and visionless mob has done to death the heritage of the master.
- It is said that the artist of today cannot create because
- Prometheus-like he is bound to the rock of economic necessity.
- This, however, is true of art in all ages. Michael Angelo was
- dependent on his patron saint, no less than the sculptor or painter
- of today, except that the art connoisseurs of those days were far
- away from the madding crowd. They felt honored to be permitted to
- worship at the shrine of the master.
- The art protector of our time knows but one criterion, one
- value,--the dollar. He is not concerned about the quality of any
- great work, but in the quantity of dollars his purchase implies.
- Thus the financier in Mirbeau's LES AFFAIRES SONT LES AFFAIRES points
- to some blurred arrangement in colors, saying "See how great it is;
- it cost 50,000 francs." Just like our own parvenues. The fabulous
- figures paid for their great art discoveries must make up for the
- poverty of their taste.
- The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
- That this should be so terribly apparent in a country whose symbol is
- democracy, is very significant of the tremendous power of the
- majority.
- Wendell Phillips said fifty years ago: "In our country of absolute
- democratic equality, public opinion is not only omnipotent, it is
- omnipresent. There is no refuge from its tyranny, there is no hiding
- from its reach, and the result is that if you take the old Greek
- lantern and go about to seek among a hundred, you will not find a
- single American who has not, or who does not fancy at least he has,
- something to gain or lose in his ambition, his social life, or
- business, from the good opinion and the votes of those around him.
- And the consequence is that instead of being a mass of individuals,
- each one fearlessly blurting out his own conviction, as a nation
- compared to other nations we are a mass of cowards. More than any
- other people we are afraid of each other." Evidently we have not
- advanced very far from the condition that confronted Wendell
- Phillips.
- Today, as then, public opinion is the omnipresent tyrant; today, as
- then, the majority represents a mass of cowards, willing to accept
- him who mirrors its own soul and mind poverty. That accounts for the
- unprecedented rise of a man like Roosevelt. He embodies the very
- worst element of mob psychology. A politician, he knows that the
- majority cares little for ideals or integrity. What it craves is
- display. It matters not whether that be a dog show, a prize fight,
- the lynching of a "nigger," the rounding up of some petty offender,
- the marriage exposition of an heiress, or the acrobatic stunts of an
- ex-president. The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater
- the delight and bravos of the mass. Thus, poor in ideals and vulgar
- of soul, Roosevelt continues to be the man of the hour.
- On the other hand, men towering high above such political pygmies,
- men of refinement, of culture, of ability, are jeered into silence as
- mollycoddles. It is absurd to claim that ours is the era of
- individualism. Ours is merely a more poignant repetition of the
- phenomenon of all history: every effort for progress, for
- enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic
- liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass. Today,
- as ever, the few are misunderstood, hounded, imprisoned, tortured,
- and killed.
- The principle of brotherhood expounded by the agitator of Nazareth
- preserved the germ of life, of truth and justice, so long as it was
- the beacon light of the few. The moment the majority seized upon it,
- that great principle became a shibboleth and harbinger of blood and
- fire, spreading suffering and disaster. The attack on the
- omnipotence of Rome was like a sunrise amid the darkness of the
- night, only so long as it was made by the colossal figures of a Huss,
- a Calvin, or a Luther. Yet when the mass joined in the procession
- against the Catholic monster, it was no less cruel, no less
- bloodthirsty than its enemy. Woe to the heretics, to the minority,
- who would not bow to its dicta. After infinite zeal, endurance, and
- sacrifice, the human mind is at last free from the religious phantom;
- the minority has gone on in pursuit of new conquests, and the
- majority is lagging behind, handicapped by truth grown false with
- age.
- Politically the human race would still be in the most absolute
- slavery, were it not for the John Balls, the Wat Tylers, the Tells,
- the innumerable individual giants who fought inch by inch against the
- power of kings and tyrants. But for individual pioneers the world
- would have never been shaken to its very roots by that tremendous
- wave, the French Revolution. Great events are usually preceded by
- apparently small things. Thus the eloquence and fire of Camille
- Desmoulins was like the trumpet before Jericho, razing to the ground
- that emblem of torture, of abuse, of horror, the Bastille.
- Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great
- idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of
- which does not let it move. The truth of this is borne out in Russia
- with greater force than elsewhere. Thousands of lives have already
- been consumed by that bloody regime, yet the monster on the throne is
- not appeased. How is such a thing possible when ideas, culture,
- literature, when the deepest and finest emotions groan under the iron
- yoke? The majority, that compact, immobile, drowsy mass, the Russian
- peasant, after a century of struggle, of sacrifice, of untold misery,
- still believes that the rope which strangles "the man with the white
- hands"[1] brings luck.
- In the American struggle for liberty, the majority was no less of a
- stumbling block. Until this very day the ideas of Jefferson, of
- Patrick Henry, of Thomas Paine, are denied and sold by their
- posterity. The mass wants none of them. The greatness and courage
- worshipped in Lincoln have been forgotten in the men who created the
- background for the panorama of that time. The true patron saints of
- the black men were represented in that handful of fighters in Boston,
- Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and
- Theodore Parker, whose great courage and sturdiness culminated in
- that somber giant, John Brown. Their untiring zeal, their eloquence
- and perseverance undermined the stronghold of the Southern lords.
- Lincoln and his minions followed only when abolition had become a
- practical issue, recognized as such by all.
- About fifty years ago, a meteor-like idea made its appearance on the
- social horizon of the world, an idea so far-reaching, so
- revolutionary, so all-embracing as to spread terror in the hearts of
- tyrants everywhere. On the other hand, that idea was a harbinger of
- joy, of cheer, of hope to the millions. The pioneers knew the
- difficulties in their way, they knew the opposition, the persecution,
- the hardships that would meet them, but proud and unafraid they
- started on their march onward, ever onward. Now that idea has become
- a popular slogan. Almost everyone is a Socialist today: the rich
- man, as well as his poor victim; the upholders of law and authority,
- as well as their unfortunate culprits; the freethinker, as well as
- the perpetuator of religious falsehoods; the fashionable lady, as
- well as the shirtwaist girl. Why not? Now that the truth of fifty
- years ago has become a lie, now that it has been clipped of all its
- youthful imagination, and been robbed of its vigor, its strength, its
- revolutionary ideal--why not? Now that it is no longer a beautiful
- vision, but a "practical, workable scheme," resting on the will of
- the majority, why not? With the same political cunning and
- shrewdness the mass is petted, pampered, cheated daily. Its praise
- is being sung in many keys: the poor majority, the outraged, the
- abused, the giant majority, if only it would follow us.
- Who has not heard this litany before? Who does not know this
- never-varying refrain of all politicians? That the mass bleeds, that
- it is being robbed and exploited, I know as well as our vote-baiters.
- But I insist that not the handful of parasites, but the mass itself
- is responsible for this horrible state of affairs. It clings to its
- masters, loves the whip, and is the first to cry Crucify! the moment
- a protesting voice is raised against the sacredness of capitalistic
- authority or any other decayed institution. Yet how long would
- authority and private property exist, if not for the willingness of
- the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen. The
- Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the
- myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of
- life means the perpetuation of power. And how could the latter be
- acquired without numbers? Yes, power, authority, coercion, and
- dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom, never the free
- unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society.
- Not because I do not feel with the oppressed, the disinherited of the
- earth; not because I do not know the shame, the horror, the indignity
- of the lives the people lead, do I repudiate the majority as a
- creative force for good. Oh, no, no! But because I know so well
- that as a compact mass it has never stood for justice or equality.
- It has suppressed the human voice, subdued the human spirit, chained
- the human body. As a mass its aim has always been to make life
- uniform, gray, and monotonous as the desert. As a mass it will
- always be the annihilator of individuality, of free initiative, of
- originality. I therefore believe with Emerson that "the masses are
- crude, lame, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not
- to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything
- to them, but to drill, divide, and break them up, and draw
- individuals out of them. Masses! The calamity are the masses. I do
- not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet,
- accomplished women only."
- In other words, the living, vital truth of social and economic
- well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the
- non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not
- through the mass.
- [1] The intellectuals.
- THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
- To analyze the psychology of political violence is not only extremely
- difficult, but also very dangerous. If such acts are treated with
- understanding, one is immediately accused of eulogizing them. If, on
- the other hand, human sympathy is expressed with the ATTENTATER,[1] one
- risks being considered a possible accomplice. Yet it is only
- intelligence and sympathy that can bring us closer to the source of
- human suffering, and teach us the ultimate way out of it.
- The primitive man, ignorant of natural forces, dreaded their
- approach, hiding from the perils they threatened. As man learned to
- understand Nature's phenomena, he realized that though these may
- destroy life and cause great loss, they also bring relief. To the
- earnest student it must be apparent that the accumulated forces in
- our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of
- violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in
- storm and lightning.
- To thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel
- intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must
- throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are
- daily made to endure. Indeed, unless we have become a part of
- humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that
- accumulates in a human soul, the burning, surging passion that makes
- the storm inevitable.
- The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest
- against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a
- cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe
- in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing
- is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have
- studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come
- in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their
- super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which
- compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted
- writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders,
- have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these
- men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly
- not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who
- knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause.
- Bjornstjerne Bjornson, in the second part of BEYOND HUMAN POWER,
- emphasizes the fact that it is among the Anarchists that we must look
- for the modern martyrs who pay for their faith with their blood, and
- who welcome death with a smile, because they believe, as truly as
- Christ did, that their martyrdom will redeem humanity.
- Francois Coppee, the French novelist, thus expresses himself
- regarding the psychology of the ATTENTATER:
- "The reading of the details of Vaillant's execution left me in a
- thoughtful mood. I imagined him expanding his chest under the ropes,
- marching with firm step, stiffening his will, concentrating all his
- energy, and, with eyes fixed upon the knife, hurling finally at
- society his cry of malediction. And, in spite of me, another
- spectacle rose suddenly before my mind. I saw a group of men and
- women pressing against each other in the middle of the oblong arena
- of the circus, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, while from all
- the steps of the immense amphitheatre went up the terrible cry, AD
- LEONES! and, below, the opening cages of the wild beasts.
- "I did not believe the execution would take place. In the first
- place, no victim had been struck with death, and it had long been the
- custom not to punish an abortive crime with the last degree of
- severity. Then, this crime, however terrible in intention, was
- disinterested, born of an abstract idea. The man's past, his
- abandoned childhood, his life of hardship, pleaded also in his favor.
- In the independent press generous voices were raised in his behalf,
- very loud and eloquent. 'A purely literary current of opinion' some
- have said, with no little scorn. IT IS, ON THE CONTRARY, AN HONOR TO
- THE MEN OF ART AND THOUGHT TO HAVE EXPRESSED ONCE MORE THEIR DISGUST
- AT THE SCAFFOLD."
- Again Zola, in GERMINAL and PARIS, describes the tenderness and
- kindness, the deep sympathy with human suffering, of these men who
- close the chapter of their lives with a violent outbreak against our
- system.
- Last, but not least, the man who probably better than anyone else
- understands the psychology of the ATTENTATER is M. Hamon, the author
- of the brilliant work, UNE PSYCHOLOGIE DU MILITAIRE PROFESSIONEL, who
- has arrived at these suggestive conclusions:
- "The positive method confirmed by the rational method enables us to
- establish an ideal type of Anarchist, whose mentality is the
- aggregate of common psychic characteristics. Every Anarchist
- partakes sufficiently of this ideal type to make it possible to
- differentiate him from other men. The typical Anarchist, then, may
- be defined as follows: A man perceptible by the spirit of revolt
- under one or more of its forms,--opposition, investigation,
- criticism, innovation,--endowed with a strong love of liberty,
- egoistic or individualistic, and possessed of great curiosity, a keen
- desire to know. These traits are supplemented by an ardent love of
- others, a highly developed moral sensitiveness, a profound sentiment
- of justice, and imbued with missionary zeal."
- To the above characteristics, says Alvin F. Sanborn, must be added
- these sterling qualities: a rare love of animals, surpassing
- sweetness in all the ordinary relations of life, exceptional sobriety
- of demeanor, frugality and regularity, austerity, even, of living,
- and courage beyond compare.[2]
- "There is a truism that the man in the street seems always to forget,
- when he is abusing the Anarchists, or whatever party happens to be
- his BETE NOIRE for the moment, as the cause of some outrage just
- perpetrated. This indisputable fact is that homicidal outrages have,
- from time immemorial, been the reply of goaded and desperate classes,
- and goaded and desperate individuals, to wrongs from their fellowmen,
- which they felt to be intolerable. Such acts are the violent recoil
- from violence, whether aggressive or repressive; they are the last
- desperate struggle of outraged and exasperated human nature for
- breathing space and life. And their cause lies not in any special
- conviction, but in the depths of that human nature itself. The whole
- course of history, political and social, is strewn with evidence of
- this fact. To go no further, take the three most notorious examples
- of political parties goaded into violence during the last fifty
- years: the Mazzinians in Italy, the Fenians in Ireland, and the
- Terrorists in Russia. Were these people Anarchists? No. Did they
- all three even hold the same political opinions? No. The Mazzinians
- were Republicans, the Fenians political separatists, the Russians
- Social Democrats or Constitutionalists. But all were driven by
- desperate circumstances into this terrible form of revolt. And when
- we turn from parties to individuals who have acted in like manner, we
- stand appalled by the number of human beings goaded and driven by
- sheer desperation into conduct obviously violently opposed to their
- social instincts.
- "Now that Anarchism has become a living force in society, such deeds
- have been sometimes committed by Anarchists, as well as by others.
- For no new faith, even the most essentially peaceable and humane the
- mind of man has yet accepted, but at its first coming has brought
- upon earth not peace, but a sword; not because of anything violent or
- anti-social in the doctrine itself; simply because of the ferment any
- new and creative idea excites in men's minds, whether they accept or
- reject it. And a conception of Anarchism, which, on one hand,
- threatens every vested interest, and, on the other, holds out a
- vision of a free and noble life to be won by a struggle against
- existing wrongs, is certain to rouse the fiercest opposition, and
- bring the whole repressive force of ancient evil into violent contact
- with the tumultuous outburst of a new hope.
- "Under miserable conditions of life, any vision of the possibility of
- better things makes the present misery more intolerable, and spurs
- those who suffer to the most energetic struggles to improve their
- lot, and if these struggles only immediately result in sharper
- misery, the outcome is sheer desperation. In our present society,
- for instance, an exploited wage worker, who catches a glimpse of what
- work and life might and ought to be, finds the toilsome routine and
- the squalor of his existence almost intolerable; and even when he has
- the resolution and courage to continue steadily working his best, and
- waiting until new ideas have so permeated society as to pave the way
- for better times, the mere fact that he has such ideas and tries to
- spread them, brings him into difficulties with his employers. How
- many thousands of Socialists, and above all Anarchists, have lost
- work and even the chance of work, solely on the ground of their
- opinions. It is only the specially gifted craftsman, who, if he be a
- zealous propagandist, can hope to retain permanent employment. And
- what happens to a man with his brain working actively with a ferment
- of new ideas, with a vision before his eyes of a new hope dawning for
- toiling and agonizing men, with the knowledge that his suffering and
- that of his fellows in misery is not caused by the cruelty of fate,
- but by the injustice of other human beings,--what happens to such a
- man when he sees those dear to him starving, when he himself is
- starved? Some natures in such a plight, and those by no means the
- least social or the least sensitive, will become violent, and will
- even feel that their violence is social and not anti-social, that in
- striking when and how they can, they are striking, not for
- themselves, but for human nature, outraged and despoiled in their
- persons and in those of their fellow sufferers. And are we, who
- ourselves are not in this horrible predicament, to stand by and
- coldly condemn these piteous victims of the Furies and Fates? Are we
- to decry as miscreants these human beings who act with heroic
- self-devotion, sacrificing their lives in protest, where less social
- and less energetic natures would lie down and grovel in abject
- submission to injustice and wrong? Are we to join the ignorant and
- brutal outcry which stigmatizes such men as monsters of wickedness,
- gratuitously running amuck in a harmonious and innocently peaceful
- society? No! We hate murder with a hatred that may seem absurdly
- exaggerated to apologists for Matabele massacres, to callous
- acquiescers in hangings and bombardments, but we decline in such
- cases of homicide, or attempted homicide, as those of which we are
- treating, to be guilty of the cruel injustice of flinging the whole
- responsibility of the deed upon the immediate perpetrator. The guilt
- of these homicides lies upon every man and woman who, intentionally
- or by cold indifference, helps to keep up social conditions that
- drive human beings to despair. The man who flings his whole life
- into the attempt, at the cost of his own life, to protest against the
- wrongs of his fellow men, is a saint compared to the active and
- passive upholders of cruelty and injustice, even if his protest
- destroy other lives besides his own. Let him who is without sin in
- society cast the first stone at such an one."[3]
- That every act of political violence should nowadays be attributed to
- Anarchists is not at all surprising. Yet it is a fact known to
- almost everyone familiar with the Anarchist movement that a great
- number of acts, for which Anarchists had to suffer, either originated
- with the capitalist press or were instigated, if not directly
- perpetrated, by the police.
- For a number of years acts of violence had been committed in Spain,
- for which the Anarchists were held responsible, hounded like wild
- beasts, and thrown into prison. Later it was disclosed that the
- perpetrators of these acts were not Anarchists, but members of the
- police department. The scandal became so widespread that the
- conservative Spanish papers demanded the apprehension and punishment
- of the gang-leader, Juan Rull, who was subsequently condemned to
- death and executed. The sensational evidence, brought to light
- during the trial, forced Police Inspector Momento to exonerate
- completely the Anarchists from any connection with the acts committed
- during a long period. This resulted in the dismissal of a number of
- police officials, among them Inspector Tressols, who, in revenge,
- disclosed the fact that behind the gang of police bomb throwers were
- others of far higher position, who provided them with funds and
- protected them.
- This is one of the many striking examples of how Anarchist
- conspiracies are manufactured.
- That the American police can perjure themselves with the same ease,
- that they are just as merciless, just as brutal and cunning as their
- European colleagues, has been proven on more than one occasion. We
- need only recall the tragedy of the eleventh of November, 1887, known
- as the Haymarket Riot.
- No one who is at all familiar with the case can possibly doubt that
- the Anarchists, judicially murdered in Chicago, died as victims of a
- lying, bloodthirsty press and of a cruel police conspiracy. Has not
- Judge Gary himself said: "Not because you have caused the Haymarket
- bomb, but because you are Anarchists, you are on trial."
- The impartial and thorough analysis by Governor Altgeld of that
- blotch on the American escutcheon verified the brutal frankness of
- Judge Gary. It was this that induced Altgeld to pardon the three
- Anarchists, thereby earning the lasting esteem of every liberty
- loving man and woman in the world.
- When we approach the tragedy of September sixth, 1901, we are
- confronted by one of the most striking examples of how little social
- theories are responsible for an act of political violence. "Leon
- Czolgosz, an Anarchist, incited to commit the act by Emma Goldman."
- To be sure, has she not incited violence even before her birth, and
- will she not continue to do so beyond death? Everything is possible
- with the Anarchists.
- Today, even, nine years after the tragedy, after it was proven a
- hundred times that Emma Goldman had nothing to do with the event,
- that no evidence whatsoever exists to indicate that Czolgosz ever
- called himself an Anarchist, we are confronted with the same lie,
- fabricated by the police and perpetuated by the press. No living
- soul ever heard Czolgosz make that statement, nor is there a single
- written word to prove that the boy ever breathed the accusation.
- Nothing but ignorance and insane hysteria, which have never yet been
- able to solve the simplest problem of cause and effect.
- The President of a free Republic killed! What else can be the cause,
- except that the ATTENTATER must have been insane, or that he was
- incited to the act.
- A free Republic! How a myth will maintain itself, how it will
- continue to deceive, to dupe, and blind even the comparatively
- intelligent to its monstrous absurdities. A free Republic! And yet
- within a little over thirty years a small band of parasites have
- successfully robbed the American people, and trampled upon the
- fundamental principles, laid down by the fathers of this country,
- guaranteeing to every man, woman, and child "life, liberty, and the
- pursuit of happiness." For thirty years they have been increasing
- their wealth and power at the expense of the vast mass of workers,
- thereby enlarging the army of the unemployed, the hungry, homeless,
- and friendless portion of humanity, who are tramping the country from
- east to west, from north to south, in a vain search for work. For
- many years the home has been left to the care of the little ones,
- while the parents are exhausting their life and strength for a mere
- pittance. For thirty years the sturdy sons of America have been
- sacrificed on the battlefield of industrial war, and the daughters
- outraged in corrupt factory surroundings. For long and weary years
- this process of undermining the nation's health, vigor, and pride,
- without much protest from the disinherited and oppressed, has been
- going on. Maddened by success and victory, the money powers of this
- "free land of ours" became more and more audacious in their
- heartless, cruel efforts to compete with the rotten and decayed
- European tyrannies for supremacy of power.
- In vain did a lying press repudiate Leon Czolgosz as a foreigner.
- The boy was a product of our own free American soil, that lulled him
- to sleep with,
- My country, 'tis of thee,
- Sweet land of liberty.
- Who can tell how many times this American child had gloried in the
- celebration of the Fourth of July, or of Decoration Day, when he
- faithfully honored the Nation's dead? Who knows but that he, too,
- was willing to "fight for his country and die for her liberty," until
- it dawned upon him that those he belonged to have no country, because
- they have been robbed of all that they have produced; until he
- realized that the liberty and independence of his youthful dreams
- were but a farce. Poor Leon Czolgosz, your crime consisted of too
- sensitive a social consciousness. Unlike your idealless and
- brainless American brothers, your ideals soared above the belly and
- the bank account. No wonder you impressed the one human being among
- all the infuriated mob at your trial--a newspaper woman--as a
- visionary, totally oblivious to your surroundings. Your large,
- dreamy eyes must have beheld a new and glorious dawn.
- Now, to a recent instance of police-manufactured Anarchist plots.
- In that bloodstained city, Chicago, the life of Chief of Police
- Shippy was attempted by a young man named Averbuch. Immediately the
- cry was sent to the four corners of the world that Averbuch was an
- Anarchist, and that Anarchists were responsible for the act.
- Everyone who was at all known to entertain Anarchist ideas was
- closely watched, a number of people arrested, the library of an
- Anarchist group confiscated, and all meetings made impossible. It
- goes without saying that, as on various previous occasions, I must
- needs be held responsible for the act. Evidently the American police
- credit me with occult powers. I did not know Averbuch; in fact, had
- never before heard his name, and the only way I could have possibly
- "conspired" with him was in my astral body. But, then, the police
- are not concerned with logic or justice. What they seek is a target,
- to mask their absolute ignorance of the cause, of the psychology of a
- political act. Was Averbuch an Anarchist? There is no positive
- proof of it. He had been but three months in the country, did not
- know the language, and, as far as I could ascertain, was quite
- unknown to the Anarchists of Chicago.
- What led to his act? Averbuch, like most young Russian immigrants,
- undoubtedly believed in the mythical liberty of America. He received
- his first baptism by the policeman's club during the brutal
- dispersement of the unemployed parade. He further experienced
- American equality and opportunity in the vain efforts to find an
- economic master. In short, a three months' sojourn in the glorious
- land brought him face to face with the fact that the disinherited are
- in the same position the world over. In his native land he probably
- learned that necessity knows no law--there was no difference between
- a Russian and an American policeman.
- The question to the intelligent social student is not whether the
- acts of Czolgosz or Averbuch were practical, any more than whether
- the thunderstorm is practical. The thing that will inevitably
- impress itself on the thinking and feeling man and woman is that the
- sight of brutal clubbing of innocent victims in a so-called free
- Republic, and the degrading, soul-destroying economic struggle,
- furnish the spark that kindles the dynamic force in the overwrought,
- outraged souls of men like Czolgosz or Averbuch. No amount of
- persecution, of hounding, of repression, can stay this social
- phenomenon.
- But, it is often asked, have not acknowledged Anarchists committed
- acts of violence? Certainly they have, always however ready to
- shoulder the responsibility. My contention is that they were
- impelled, not by the teachings of Anarchism, but by the tremendous
- pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive
- natures. Obviously, Anarchism, or any other social theory, making
- man a conscious social unit, will act as a leaven for rebellion.
- This is not a mere assertion, but a fact verified by all experience.
- A close examination of the circumstances bearing upon this question
- will further clarify my position.
- Let us consider some of the most important Anarchist acts within the
- last two decades. Strange as it may seem, one of the most
- significant deeds of political violence occurred here in America, in
- connection with the Homestead strike of 1892.
- During that memorable time the Carnegie Steel Company organized a
- conspiracy to crush the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel
- Workers. Henry Clay Frick, then Chairman of the Company, was
- intrusted with that democratic task. He lost no time in carrying out
- the policy of breaking the Union, the policy which he had so
- successfully practiced during his reign of terror in the coke
- regions. Secretly, and while peace negotiations were being purposely
- prolonged, Frick supervised the military preparations, the
- fortification of the Homestead Steel Works, the erection of a high
- board fence, capped with barbed wire and provided with loopholes for
- sharpshooters. And then, in the dead of night, he attempted to
- smuggle his army of hired Pinkerton thugs into Homestead, which act
- precipitated the terrible carnage of the steel workers. Not content
- with the death of eleven victims, killed in the Pinkerton skirmish,
- Henry Clay Frick, good Christian and free American, straightway began
- the hounding down of the helpless wives and orphans, by ordering them
- out of the wretched Company houses.
- The whole country was aroused over these inhuman outrages. Hundreds
- of voices were raised in protest, calling on Frick to desist, not to
- go too far. Yes, hundreds of people protested,--as one objects to
- annoying flies. Only one there was who actively responded to the
- outrage at Homestead,--Alexander Berkman. Yes, he was an Anarchist.
- He gloried in that fact, because it was the only force that made the
- discord between his spiritual longing and the world without at all
- bearable. Yet not Anarchism, as such, but the brutal slaughter of
- the eleven steel workers was the urge for Alexander Berkman's act,
- his attempt on the life of Henry Clay Frick.
- The record of European acts of political violence affords numerous
- and striking instances of the influence of environment upon sensitive
- human beings.
- The court speech of Vaillant, who, in 1894, exploded a bomb in the
- Paris Chamber of Deputies, strikes the true keynote of the psychology
- of such acts:
- "Gentlemen, in a few minutes you are to deal your blow, but in
- receiving your verdict I shall have at least the satisfaction of
- having wounded the existing society, that cursed society in which one
- may see a single man spending, uselessly, enough to feed thousands of
- families; an infamous society which permits a few individuals to
- monopolize all the social wealth, while there are hundreds of
- thousands of unfortunates who have not even the bread that is not
- refused to dogs, and while entire families are committing suicide for
- want of the necessities of life.
- "Ah, gentlemen, if the governing classes could go down among the
- unfortunates! But no, they prefer to remain deaf to their appeals.
- It seems that a fatality impels them, like the royalty of the
- eighteenth century, toward the precipice which will engulf them, for
- woe be to those who remain deaf to the cries of the starving, woe to
- those who, believing themselves of superior essence, assume the right
- to exploit those beneath them! There comes a time when the people no
- longer reason; they rise like a hurricane, and pass away like a
- torrent. Then we see bleeding heads impaled on pikes.
- "Among the exploited, gentlemen, there are two classes of
- individuals: Those of one class, not realizing what they are and what
- they might be, take life as it comes, believe that they are born to
- be slaves, and content themselves with the little that is given them
- in exchange for their labor. But there are others, on the contrary,
- who think, who study, and who, looking about them, discover social
- iniquities. Is it their fault if they see clearly and suffer at
- seeing others suffer? Then they throw themselves into the struggle,
- and make themselves the bearers of the popular claims.
- "Gentlemen, I am one of these last. Wherever I have gone, I have
- seen unfortunates bent beneath the yoke of capital. Everywhere I
- have seen the same wounds causing tears of blood to flow, even in the
- remoter parts of the inhabited districts of South America, where I
- had the right to believe that he who was weary of the pains of
- civilization might rest in the shade of the palm trees and there
- study nature. Well, there even, more than elsewhere, I have seen
- capital come, like a vampire, to suck the last drop of blood of the
- unfortunate pariahs.
- "Then I came back to France, where it was reserved for me to see my
- family suffer atrociously. This was the last drop in the cup of my
- sorrow. Tired of leading this life of suffering and cowardice, I
- carried this bomb to those who are primarily responsible for social
- sufferings.
- "I am reproached with the wounds of those who were hit by my
- projectiles. Permit me to point out in passing that, if the
- bourgeois had not massacred or caused massacres during the
- Revolution, it is probable that they would still be under the yoke of
- the nobility. On the other hand, figure up the dead and wounded on
- Tonquin, Madagascar, Dahomey, adding thereto the thousands, yes,
- millions of unfortunates who die in the factories, the mines, and
- wherever the grinding power of capital is felt. Add also those who
- die of hunger, and all this with the assent of our Deputies. Beside
- all this, of how little weight are the reproaches now brought against
- me!
- "It is true that one does not efface the other; but, after all, are
- we not acting on the defensive when we respond to the blows which we
- receive from above? I know very well that I shall be told that I
- ought to have confined myself to speech for the vindication of the
- people's claims. But what can you expect! It takes a loud voice to
- make the deaf hear. Too long have they answered our voices by
- imprisonment, the rope, rifle volleys. Make no mistake; the
- explosion of my bomb is not only the cry of the rebel Vaillant, but
- the cry of an entire class which vindicates its rights, and which
- will soon add acts to words. For, be sure of it, in vain will they
- pass laws. The ideas of the thinkers will not halt; just as, in the
- last century, all the governmental forces could not prevent the
- Diderots and the Voltaires from spreading emancipating ideas among
- the people, so all the existing governmental forces will not prevent
- the Reclus, the Darwins, the Spencers, the Ibsens, the Mirbeaus, from
- spreading the ideas of justice and liberty which will annihilate the
- prejudices that hold the mass in ignorance. And these ideas,
- welcomed by the unfortunate, will flower in acts of revolt as they
- have done in me, until the day when the disappearance of authority
- shall permit all men to organize freely according to their choice,
- when we shall each be able to enjoy the product of his labor, and
- when those moral maladies called prejudices shall vanish, permitting
- human beings to live in harmony, having no other desire than to study
- the sciences and love their fellows.
- "I conclude, gentlemen, by saying that a society in which one sees
- such social inequalities as we see all about us, in which we see
- every day suicides caused by poverty, prostitution flaring at every
- street corner,--a society whose principal monuments are barracks and
- prisons,--such a society must be transformed as soon as possible, on
- pain of being eliminated, and that speedily, from the human race.
- Hail to him who labors, by no matter what means, for this
- transformation! It is this idea that has guided me in my duel with
- authority, but as in this duel I have only wounded my adversary, it
- is now its turn to strike me.
- "Now, gentlemen, to me it matters little what penalty you may
- inflict, for, looking at this assembly with the eyes of reason, I can
- not help smiling to see you, atoms lost in matter, and reasoning only
- because you possess a prolongation of the spinal marrow, assume the
- right to judge one of your fellows.
- "Ah! gentlemen, how little a thing is your assembly and your verdict
- in the history of humanity; and human history, in its turn, is
- likewise a very little thing in the whirlwind which bears it through
- immensity, and which is destined to disappear, or at least to be
- transformed, in order to begin again the same history and the same
- facts, a veritably perpetual play of cosmic forces renewing and
- transferring themselves forever."
- Will anyone say that Vaillant was an ignorant, vicious man, or a
- lunatic? Was not his mind singularly clear, analytic? No wonder
- that the best intellectual forces of France spoke in his behalf, and
- signed the petition to President Carnot, asking him to commute
- Vaillant's death sentence.
- Carnot would listen to no entreaty; he insisted on more than a pound
- of flesh, he wanted Vaillant's life, and then--the inevitable
- happened: President Carnot was killed. On the handle of the stiletto
- used by the ATTENTATER was engraved, significantly,
- VAILLANT!
- Santa Caserio was an Anarchist. He could have gotten away, saved
- himself; but he remained, he stood the consequences.
- His reasons for the act are set forth in so simple, dignified, and
- childlike manner that one is reminded of the touching tribute paid
- Caserio by his teacher of the little village school, Ada Negri, the
- Italian poet, who spoke of him as a sweet, tender plant, of too fine
- and sensitive texture to stand the cruel strain of the world.
- "Gentlemen of the Jury! I do not propose to make a defense, but only
- an explanation of my deed.
- "Since my early youth I began to learn that present society is badly
- organized, so badly that every day many wretched men commit suicide,
- leaving women and children in the most terrible distress. Workers,
- by thousands, seek for work and can not find it. Poor families beg
- for food and shiver with cold; they suffer the greatest misery; the
- little ones ask their miserable mothers for food, and the mothers
- can not give them, because they have nothing. The few things
- which the home contained have already been sold or pawned. All they
- can do is beg alms; often they are arrested as vagabonds.
- "I went away from my native place because I was frequently moved to
- tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work
- fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. Young
- women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily, for a
- mockery of remuneration. And that happens not only to my fellow
- countrymen, but to all the workers, who sweat the whole day long for
- a crust of bread, while their labor produces wealth in abundance.
- The workers are obliged to live under the most wretched conditions,
- and their food consists of a little bread, a few spoonfuls of rice,
- and water; so by the time they are thirty or forty years old, they
- are exhausted, and go to die in the hospitals. Besides, in
- consequence of bad food and overwork, these unhappy creatures are, by
- hundreds, devoured by pellagra--a disease that, in my country,
- attacks, as the physicians say, those who are badly fed and lead a
- life of toil and privation.
- "I have observed that there are a great many people who are hungry,
- and many children who suffer, whilst bread and clothes abound in the
- towns. I saw many and large shops full of clothing and woolen
- stuffs, and I also saw warehouses full of wheat and Indian corn,
- suitable for those who are in want. And, on the other hand, I saw
- thousands of people who do not work, who produce nothing and live on
- the labor of others; who spend every day thousands of francs for
- their amusement; who debauch the daughters of the workers; who own
- dwellings of forty or fifty rooms; twenty or thirty horses, many
- servants; in a word, all the pleasures of life.
- "I believed in God; but when I saw so great an inequality between
- men, I acknowledged that it was not God who created man, but man who
- created God. And I discovered that those who want their property to
- be respected, have an interest in preaching the existence of paradise
- and hell, and in keeping the people in ignorance.
- "Not long ago, Vaillant threw a bomb in the Chamber of Deputies, to
- protest against the present system of society. He killed no one,
- only wounded some persons; yet bourgeois justice sentenced him to
- death. And not satisfied with the condemnation of the guilty man,
- they began to pursue the Anarchists, and arrest not only those who
- had known Vaillant, but even those who had merely been present at any
- Anarchist lecture.
- "The government did not think of their wives and children. It did
- not consider that the men kept in prison were not the only ones who
- suffered, and that their little ones cried for bread. Bourgeois
- justice did not trouble itself about these innocent ones, who do not
- yet know what society is. It is no fault of theirs that their
- fathers are in prison; they only want to eat.
- "The government went on searching private houses, opening private
- letters, forbidding lectures and meetings, and practicing the most
- infamous oppressions against us. Even now, hundreds of Anarchists
- are arrested for having written an article in a newspaper, or for
- having expressed an opinion in public.
- "Gentlemen of the Jury, you are representatives of bourgeois society.
- If you want my head, take it; but do not believe that in so doing you
- will stop the Anarchist propaganda. Take care, for men reap what
- they have sown."
- During a religious procession in 1896, at Barcelona, a bomb was
- thrown. Immediately three hundred men and women were arrested.
- Some were Anarchists, but the majority were trade unionists and
- Socialists. They were thrown into that terrible bastille, Montjuich,
- and subjected to most horrible tortures. After a number had been
- killed, or had gone insane, their cases were taken up by the liberal
- press of Europe, resulting in the release of a few survivors.
- The man primarily responsible for this revival of the Inquisition was
- Canovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain. It was he who ordered
- the torturing of the victims, their flesh burned, their bones
- crushed, their tongues cut out. Practiced in the art of brutality
- during his regime in Cuba, Canovas remained absolutely deaf to the
- appeals and protests of the awakened civilized conscience.
- In 1897 Canovas del Castillo was shot to death by a young Italian,
- Angiolillo. The latter was an editor in his native land, and his
- bold utterances soon attracted the attention of the authorities.
- Persecution began, and Angiolillo fled from Italy to Spain, thence to
- France and Belgium, finally settling in England. While there he
- found employment as a compositor, and immediately became the friend
- of all his colleagues. One of the latter thus described Angiolillo:
- "His appearance suggested the journalist rather than the disciple of
- Guttenberg. His delicate hands, moreover, betrayed the fact that he
- had not grown up at the 'case.' With his handsome frank face, his
- soft dark hair, his alert expression, he looked the very type of the
- vivacious Southerner. Angiolillo spoke Italian, Spanish, and French,
- but no English; the little French I knew was not sufficient to carry
- on a prolonged conversation. However, Angiolillo soon began to
- acquire the English idiom; he learned rapidly, playfully, and it was
- not long until he became very popular with his fellow compositors.
- His distinguished and yet modest manner, and his consideration
- towards his colleagues, won him the hearts of all the boys."
- Angiolillo soon became familiar with the detailed accounts in the
- press. He read of the great wave of human sympathy with the helpless
- victims at Montjuich. On Trafalgar Square he saw with his own eyes
- the results of those atrocities, when the few Spaniards, who escaped
- Castillo's clutches, came to seek asylum in England. There, at the
- great meeting, these men opened their shirts and showed the horrible
- scars of burned flesh. Angiolillo saw, and the effect surpassed a
- thousand theories; the impetus was beyond words, beyond arguments,
- beyond himself even.
- Senor Antonio Canovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain,
- sojourned at Santa Agueda. As usual in such cases, all strangers
- were kept away from his exalted presence. One exception was made,
- however, in the case of a distinguished looking, elegantly dressed
- Italian--the representative, it was understood, of an important
- journal. The distinguished gentleman was--Angiolillo.
- Senor Canovas, about to leave his house, stepped on the veranda.
- Suddenly Angiolillo confronted him. A shot rang out, and Canovas was
- a corpse.
- The wife of the Prime Minister rushed upon the scene. "Murderer!
- Murderer!" she cried, pointing at Angiolillo. The latter bowed.
- "Pardon, Madame," he said, "I respect you as a lady, but I regret
- that you were the wife of that man."
- Calmly Angiolillo faced death. Death in its most terrible form--for
- the man whose soul was as a child's.
- He was garroted. His body lay, sun-kissed, till the day hid in
- twilight. And the people came, and pointing the finger of terror and
- fear, they said: "There--the criminal--the cruel murderer."
- How stupid, how cruel is ignorance! It misunderstands always,
- condemns always.
- A remarkable parallel to the case of Angiolillo is to be found in the
- act of Gaetano Bresci, whose ATTENTAT upon King Umberto made an
- American city famous.
- Bresci came to this country, this land of opportunity, where one has
- but to try to meet with golden success. Yes, he too would try to
- succeed. He would work hard and faithfully. Work had no terrors
- for him, if it would only help him to independence, manhood,
- self-respect.
- Thus full of hope and enthusiasm he settled in Paterson, New Jersey,
- and there found a lucrative job at six dollars per week in one of the
- weaving mills of the town. Six whole dollars per week was, no doubt,
- a fortune for Italy, but not enough to breathe on in the new country.
- He loved his little home. He was a good husband and devoted father
- to his BAMBINA, Bianca, whom he adored. He worked and worked for a
- number of years. He actually managed to save one hundred dollars out
- of his six dollars per week.
- Bresci had an ideal. Foolish, I know, for a workingman to have an
- ideal,--the Anarchist paper published in Paterson, LA QUESTIONE
- SOCIALE.
- Every week, though tired from work, he would help to set up the
- paper. Until later hours he would assist, and when the little
- pioneer had exhausted all resources and his comrades were in despair,
- Bresci brought cheer and hope, one hundred dollars, the entire
- savings of years. That would keep the paper afloat.
- In his native land people were starving. The crops had been poor,
- and the peasants saw themselves face to face with famine. They
- appealed to their good King Umberto; he would help. And he did.
- The wives of the peasants who had gone to the palace of the King,
- held up in mute silence their emaciated infants. Surely that would
- move him. And then the soldiers fired and killed those poor fools.
- Bresci, at work in the weaving mill at Paterson, read of the horrible
- massacre. His mental eye beheld the defenceless women and innocent
- infants of his native land, slaughtered right before the good King.
- His soul recoiled in horror. At night he heard the groans of the
- wounded. Some may have been his comrades, his own flesh. Why, why
- these foul murders?
- The little meeting of the Italian Anarchist group in Paterson ended
- almost in a fight. Bresci had demanded his hundred dollars. His
- comrades begged, implored him to give them a respite. The paper
- would go down if they were to return him his loan. But Bresci
- insisted on its return.
- How cruel and stupid is ignorance. Bresci got the money, but lost
- the good will, the confidence of his comrades. They would have
- nothing more to do with one whose greed was greater than his ideals.
- On the twenty-ninth of July, 1900, King Umberto was shot at Monzo.
- The young Italian weaver of Paterson, Gaetano Bresci, had taken the
- life of the good King.
- Paterson was placed under police surveillance, everyone known as an
- Anarchist hounded and persecuted, and the act of Bresci ascribed to
- the teachings of Anarchism. As if the teachings of Anarchism in its
- extremest form could equal the force of those slain women and
- infants, who had pilgrimed to the King for aid. As if any spoken
- word, ever so eloquent, could burn into a human soul with such white
- heat as the life blood trickling drop by drop from those dying forms.
- The ordinary man is rarely moved either by word or deed; and those
- whose social kinship is the greatest living force need no appeal to
- respond--even as does steel to the magnet--to the wrongs and horrors
- of society.
- If a social theory is a strong factor inducing acts of political
- violence, how are we to account for the recent violent outbreaks in
- India, where Anarchism has hardly been born. More than any other old
- philosophy, Hindu teachings have exalted passive resistance, the
- drifting of life, the Nirvana, as the highest spiritual ideal. Yet
- the social unrest in India is daily growing, and has only recently
- resulted in an act of political violence, the killing of Sir Curzon
- Wyllie by the Hindu, Madar Sol Dhingra.
- If such a phenomenon can occur in a country socially and individually
- permeated for centuries with the spirit of passivity, can one
- question the tremendous, revolutionizing effect on human character
- exerted by great social iniquities? Can one doubt the logic, the
- justice of these words:
- "Repression, tyranny, and indiscriminate punishment of innocent men
- have been the watchwords of the government of the alien domination in
- India ever since we began the commercial boycott of English goods.
- The tiger qualities of the British are much in evidence now in India.
- They think that by the strength of the sword they will keep down
- India! It is this arrogance that has brought about the bomb, and the
- more they tyrannize over a helpless and unarmed people, the more
- terrorism will grow. We may deprecate terrorism as outlandish and
- foreign to our culture, but it is inevitable as long as this tyranny
- continues, for it is not the terrorists that are to be blamed, but
- the tyrants who are responsible for it. It is the only resource for
- a helpless and unarmed people when brought to the verge of despair.
- It is never criminal on their part. The crime lies with the
- tyrant."[4]
- Even conservative scientists are beginning to realize that heredity
- is not the sole factor moulding human character. Climate, food,
- occupation; nay, color, light, and sound must be considered in the
- study of human psychology.
- If that be true, how much more correct is the contention that great
- social abuses will and must influence different minds and
- temperaments in a different way. And how utterly fallacious the
- stereotyped notion that the teachings of Anarchism, or certain
- exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of
- political violence.
- Anarchism, more than any other social theory, values human life above
- things. All Anarchists agree with Tolstoy in this fundamental truth:
- if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of
- human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not
- do without that life. That, however, nowise indicates that Anarchism
- teaches submission. How can it, when it knows that all suffering,
- all misery, all ills, result from the evil of submission?
- Has not some American ancestor said, many years ago, that resistance
- to tyranny is obedience to God? And he was not an Anarchist even.
- I would say that resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal. So
- long as tyranny exists, in whatever form, man's deepest aspiration
- must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe.
- Compared with the wholesale violence of capital and government,
- political acts of violence are but a drop in the ocean. That so few
- resist is the strongest proof how terrible must be the conflict
- between their souls and unbearable social iniquities.
- High strung, like a violin string, they weep and moan for life, so
- relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a desperate moment the
- string breaks. Untuned ears hear nothing but discord. But those who
- feel the agonized cry understand its harmony; they hear in it the
- fulfillment of the most compelling moment of human nature.
- Such is the psychology of political violence.
- [1] A revolutionist committing an act of political violence.
- [2] PARIS AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
- [3] From a pamphlet issued by the Freedom Group of London.
- [4] THE FREE HINDUSTAN.
- PRISONS: A SOCIAL CRIME AND FAILURE
- In 1849, Feodor Dostoyevsky wrote on the wall of his prison cell the
- following story of THE PRIEST AND THE DEVIL:
- "'Hello, you little fat father!' the devil said to the priest.
- 'What made you lie so to those poor, misled people? What tortures of
- hell did you depict? Don't you know they are already suffering the
- tortures of hell in their earthly lives? Don't you know that you and
- the authorities of the State are my representatives on earth? It is
- you that make them suffer the pains of hell with which you threaten
- them. Don't you know this? Well, then, come with me!'
- "The devil grabbed the priest by the collar, lifted him high in the
- air, and carried him to a factory, to an iron foundry. He saw the
- workmen there running and hurrying to and fro, and toiling in the
- scorching heat. Very soon the thick, heavy air and the heat are too
- much for the priest. With tears in his eyes, he pleads with the
- devil: 'Let me go! Let me leave this hell!'
- "'Oh, my dear friend, I must show you many more places.' The devil
- gets hold of him again and drags him off to a farm. There he sees
- workmen threshing the grain. The dust and heat are insufferable.
- The overseer carries a knout, and unmercifully beats anyone who falls
- to the ground overcome by hard toil or hunger.
- "Next the priest is taken to the huts where these same workers live
- with their families--dirty, cold, smoky, ill-smelling holes. The
- devil grins. He points out the poverty and hardships which are at
- home here.
- "'Well, isn't this enough?' he asks. And it seems as if even he, the
- devil, pities the people. The pious servant of God can hardly bear
- it. With uplifted hands he begs: 'Let me go away from here. Yes,
- yes! This is hell on earth!'
- "'Well, then, you see. And you still promise them another hell.
- You torment them, torture them to death mentally when they are
- already all but dead physically! Come on! I will show you one more
- hell--one more, the very worst.'
- "He took him to a prison and showed him a dungeon, with its foul air
- and the many human forms, robbed of all health and energy, lying on
- the floor, covered with vermin that were devouring their poor, naked,
- emaciated bodies.
- "'Take off your silken clothes,' said the devil to the priest, 'put
- on your ankles heavy chains such as these unfortunates wear; lie down
- on the cold and filthy floor--and then talk to them about a hell that
- still awaits them!'
- "'No, no!' answered the priest, 'I cannot think of anything more
- dreadful than this. I entreat you, let me go away from here!'
- "'Yes, this is hell. There can be no worse hell than this. Did you
- not know it? Did you not know that these men and women whom you are
- frightening with the picture of a hell hereafter--did you not know
- that they are in hell right here, before they die?'"
- This was written fifty years ago in dark Russia, on the wall of one
- of the most horrible prisons. Yet who can deny that the same applies
- with equal force to the present time, even to American prisons?
- With all our boasted reforms, our great social changes, and our
- far-reaching discoveries, human beings continue to be sent to the
- worst of hells, wherein they are outraged, degraded, and tortured,
- that society may be "protected" from the phantoms of its own making.
- Prison, a social protection? What monstrous mind ever conceived such
- an idea? Just as well say that health can be promoted by a
- widespread contagion.
- After eighteen months of horror in an English prison, Oscar Wilde
- gave to the world his great masterpiece, THE BALLAD OF READING GOAL:
- The vilest deeds, like poison weeds,
- Bloom well in prison air;
- It is only what is good in Man
- That wastes and withers there.
- Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
- And the Warder is Despair.
- Society goes on perpetuating this poisonous air, not realizing that
- out of it can come naught but the most poisonous results.
- We are spending at the present $3,500,000 per day, $1,000,095,000 per
- year, to maintain prison institutions, and that in a democratic
- country,--a sum almost as large as the combined output of wheat,
- valued at $750,000,000, and the output of coal, valued at
- $350,000,000. Professor Bushnell of Washington, D.C., estimates the
- cost of prisons at $6,000,000,000 annually, and Dr. G. Frank Lydston,
- an eminent American writer on crime, gives $5,000,000,000 annually as
- a reasonable figure. Such unheard-of expenditure for the purpose of
- maintaining vast armies of human beings caged up like wild beasts![1]
- Yet crimes are on the increase. Thus we learn that in America there
- are four and a half times as many crimes to every million population
- today as there were twenty years ago.
- The most horrible aspect is that our national crime is murder, not
- robbery, embezzlement, or rape, as in the South. London is five
- times as large as Chicago, yet there are one hundred and eighteen
- murders annually in the latter city, while only twenty in London.
- Nor is Chicago the leading city in crime, since it is only seventh on
- the list, which is headed by four Southern cities, and San Francisco
- and Los Angeles. In view of such a terrible condition of affairs, it
- seems ridiculous to prate of the protection society derives from its
- prisons.
- The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most
- thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an
- excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the
- dullest must begin to question its right to exist. The time is past
- when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is
- "ordained by divine right," or by the majesty of the law.
- The widespread prison investigations, agitation, and education during
- the last few years are conclusive proof that men are learning to dig
- deep into the very bottom of society, down to the causes of the
- terrible discrepancy between social and individual life.
- Why, then, are prisons a social crime and a failure? To answer this
- vital question it behooves us to seek the nature and cause of crimes,
- the methods employed in coping with them, and the effects these
- methods produce in ridding society of the curse and horror of crimes.
- First, as to the NATURE of crime:
- Havelock Ellis divides crime into four phases, the political, the
- passional, the insane, and the occasional. He says that the
- political criminal is the victim of an attempt of a more or less
- despotic government to preserve its own stability. He is not
- necessarily guilty of an unsocial offense; he simply tries to
- overturn a certain political order which may itself be anti-social.
- This truth is recognized all over the world, except in America where
- the foolish notion still prevails that in a Democracy there is no
- place for political criminals. Yet John Brown was a political
- criminal; so were the Chicago Anarchists; so is every striker.
- Consequently, says Havelock Ellis, the political criminal of our time
- or place may be the hero, martyr, saint of another age. Lombroso
- calls the political criminal the true precursor of the progressive
- movement of humanity.
- "The criminal by passion is usually a man of wholesome birth and
- honest life, who under the stress of some great, unmerited wrong has
- wrought justice for himself."[2]
- Mr. Hugh C. Weir, in THE MENACE OF THE POLICE, cites the case of Jim
- Flaherty, a criminal by passion, who, instead of being saved by
- society, is turned into a drunkard and a recidivist, with a ruined
- and poverty-stricken family as the result.
- A more pathetic type is Archie, the victim in Brand Whitlock's novel,
- THE TURN OF THE BALANCE, the greatest American expose of crime in the
- making. Archie, even more than Flaherty, was driven to crime and
- death by the cruel inhumanity of his surroundings, and by the
- unscrupulous hounding of the machinery of the law. Archie and
- Flaherty are but the types of many thousands, demonstrating how the
- legal aspects of crime, and the methods of dealing with it, help to
- create the disease which is undermining our entire social life.
- "The insane criminal really can no more be considered a criminal than
- a child, since he is mentally in the same condition as an infant or
- an animal."[3]
- The law already recognizes that, but only in rare cases of a very
- flagrant nature, or when the culprit's wealth permits the luxury of
- criminal insanity. It has become quite fashionable to be the victim
- of paranoia. But on the whole the "sovereignty of justice" still
- continues to punish criminally insane with the whole severity of its
- power. Thus Mr. Ellis quotes from Dr. Richter's statistics showing
- that in Germany, one hundred and six madmen, out of one hundred and
- forty-four criminal insane, were condemned to severe punishment.
- The occasional criminal "represents by far the largest class of our
- prison population, hence is the greatest menace to social
- well-being." What is the cause that compels a vast army of the human
- family to take to crime, to prefer the hideous life within prison
- walls to the life outside? Certainly that cause must be an iron
- master, who leaves its victims no avenue of escape, for the most
- depraved human being loves liberty.
- This terrific force is conditioned in our cruel social and economic
- arrangement. I do not mean to deny the biologic, physiologic, or
- psychologic factors in creating crime; but there is hardly an
- advanced criminologist who will not concede that the social and
- economic influences are the most relentless, the most poisonous germs
- of crime. Granted even that there are innate criminal tendencies, it
- is none the less true that these tendencies find rich nutrition in
- our social environment.
- There is close relation, says Havelock Ellis, between crimes against
- the person and the price of alcohol, between crimes against property
- and the price of wheat. He quotes Quetelet and Lacassagne, the
- former looking upon society as the preparer of crime, and the
- criminals as instruments that execute them. The latter find that
- "the social environment is the cultivation medium of criminality;
- that the criminal is the microbe, an element which only becomes
- important when it finds the medium which causes it to ferment; EVERY
- SOCIETY HAS THE CRIMINALS IT DESERVES."[4]
- The most "prosperous" industrial period makes it impossible for the
- worker to earn enough to keep up health and vigor. And as prosperity
- is, at best, an imaginary condition, thousands of people are
- constantly added to the host of the unemployed. From East to West,
- from South to North, this vast army tramps in search of work or food,
- and all they find is the workhouse or the slums. Those who have a
- spark of self-respect left, prefer open defiance, prefer crime to the
- emaciated, degraded position of poverty.
- Edward Carpenter estimates that five-sixths of indictable crimes
- consist in some violation of property rights; but that is too low a
- figure. A thorough investigation would prove that nine crimes out of
- ten could be traced, directly or indirectly, to our economic and
- social iniquities, to our system of remorseless exploitation and
- robbery. There is no criminal so stupid but recognizes this terrible
- fact, though he may not be able to account for it.
- A collection of criminal philosophy, which Havelock Ellis, Lombroso,
- and other eminent men have compiled, shows that the criminal feels
- only too keenly that it is society that drives him to crime. A
- Milanese thief said to Lombroso: "I do not rob, I merely take from
- the rich their superfluities; besides, do not advocates and merchants
- rob?" A murderer wrote: "Knowing that three-fourths of the social
- virtues are cowardly vices, I thought an open assault on a rich man
- would be less ignoble than the cautious combination of fraud."
- Another wrote: "I am imprisoned for stealing a half dozen eggs.
- Ministers who rob millions are honored. Poor Italy!" An educated
- convict said to Mr. Davitt: "The laws of society are framed for the
- purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and calculation,
- thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights and
- chances. Why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar
- means from those who have taken more than they had a right to?" The
- same man added: "Religion robs the soul of its independence;
- patriotism is the stupid worship of the world for which the
- well-being and the peace of the inhabitants were sacrificed by those
- who profit by it, while the laws of the land, in restraining natural
- desires, were waging war on the manifest spirit of the law of our
- beings. Compared with this," he concluded, "thieving is an honorable
- pursuit."[5]
- Verily, there is greater truth in this philosophy than in all the
- law-and-moral books of society.
- The economic, political, moral, and physical factors being the
- microbes of crime, how does society meet the situation?
- The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several
- changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice, society has
- retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is,
- revenge. It has also adopted the theologic idea; namely, punishment;
- while the legal and "civilized" methods consist of deterrence or
- terror, and reform. We shall presently see that all four modes have
- failed utterly, and that we are today no nearer a solution than in
- the dark ages.
- The natural impulse of the primitive man to strike back, to avenge a
- wrong, is out of date. Instead, the civilized man, stripped of
- courage and daring, has delegated to an organized machinery the duty
- of avenging his wrongs, in the foolish belief that the State is
- justified in doing what he no longer has the manhood or consistency
- to do. The majesty-of-the-law is a reasoning thing; it would not
- stoop to primitive instincts. Its mission is of a "higher" nature.
- True, it is still steeped in the theologic muddle, which proclaims
- punishment as a means of purification, or the vicarious atonement of
- sin. But legally and socially the statute exercises punishment, not
- merely as an infliction of pain upon the offender, but also for its
- terrifying effect upon others.
- What is the real basis of punishment, however? The notion of a free
- will, the idea that man is at all times a free agent for good or
- evil; if he chooses the latter, he must be made to pay the price.
- Although this theory has long been exploded, and thrown upon the
- dustheap, it continues to be applied daily by the entire machinery of
- government, turning it into the most cruel and brutal tormentor of
- human life. The only reason for its continuance is the still more
- cruel notion that the greater the terror punishment spreads, the more
- certain its preventative effect.
- Society is using the most drastic methods in dealing with the social
- offender. Why do they not deter? Although in America a man is
- supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the
- instruments of law, the police, carry on a reign of terror, making
- indiscriminate arrests, beating, clubbing, bullying people, using the
- barbarous method of the "third degree," subjecting their unfortunate
- victims to the foul air of the station house, and the still fouler
- language of its guardians. Yet crimes are rapidly multiplying, and
- society is paying the price. On the other hand, it is an open secret
- that when the unfortunate citizen has been given the full "mercy" of
- the law, and for the sake of safety is hidden in the worst of hells,
- his real Calvary begins. Robbed of his rights as a human being,
- degraded to a mere automaton without will or feeling, dependent
- entirely upon the mercy of brutal keepers, he daily goes through a
- process of dehumanization, compared with which savage revenge was
- mere child's play.
- There is not a single penal institution or reformatory in the United
- States where men are not tortured "to be made good," by means of the
- blackjack, the club, the straightjacket, the water-cure, the "humming
- bird" (an electrical contrivance run along the human body), the
- solitary, the bullring, and starvation diet. In these institutions
- his will is broken, his soul degraded, his spirit subdued by the
- deadly monotony and routine of prison life. In Ohio, Illinois,
- Pennsylvania, Missouri, and in the South, these horrors have become
- so flagrant as to reach the outside world, while in most other
- prisons the same Christian methods still prevail. But prison walls
- rarely allow the agonized shrieks of the victims to escape--prison
- walls are thick, they dull the sound. Society might with greater
- immunity abolish all prisons at once, than to hope for protection
- from these twentieth century chambers of horrors.
- Year after year the gates of prison hells return to the world an
- emaciated, deformed, willless, ship-wrecked crew of humanity, with
- the Cain mark on their foreheads, their hopes crushed, all their
- natural inclinations thwarted. With nothing but hunger and
- inhumanity to greet them, these victims soon sink back into crime as
- the only possibility of existence. It is not at all an unusual thing
- to find men and women who have spent half their lives--nay, almost
- their entire existence--in prison. I know a woman on Blackwell's
- Island, who had been in and out thirty-eight times; and through a
- friend I learn that a young boy of seventeen, whom he had nursed and
- cared for in the Pittsburg penitentiary, had never known the meaning
- of liberty. From the reformatory to the penitentiary had been the
- path of this boy's life, until, broken in body, he died a victim of
- social revenge. These personal experiences are substantiated by
- extensive data giving overwhelming proof of the utter futility of
- prisons as a means of deterrence or reform.
- Well-meaning persons are now working for a new departure in the
- prison question,--reclamation, to restore once more to the prisoner
- the possibility of becoming a human being. Commendable as this is, I
- fear it is impossible to hope for good results from pouring good wine
- into a musty bottle. Nothing short of a complete reconstruction of
- society will deliver mankind from the cancer of crime. Still, if the
- dull edge of our social conscience would be sharpened, the penal
- institutions might be given a new coat of varnish. But the first
- step to be taken is the renovation of the social consciousness, which
- is in a rather dilapidated condition. It is sadly in need to be
- awakened to the fact that crime is a question of degree, that we all
- have the rudiments of crime in us, more or less, according to our
- mental, physical, and social environment; and that the individual
- criminal is merely a reflex of the tendencies of the aggregate.
- With the social consciousness awakened, the average individual may
- learn to refuse the "honor" of being the bloodhound of the law. He
- may cease to persecute, despise, and mistrust the social offender,
- and give him a chance to live and breathe among his fellows.
- Institutions are, of course, harder to reach. They are cold,
- impenetrable, and cruel; still, with the social consciousness
- quickened, it might be possible to free the prison victims from the
- brutality of prison officials, guards, and keepers. Public opinion
- is a powerful weapon; keepers of human prey, even, are afraid of it.
- They may be taught a little humanity, especially if they realize that
- their jobs depend upon it.
- But the most important step is to demand for the prisoner the right
- to work while in prison, with some monetary recompense that would
- enable him to lay aside a little for the day of his release, the
- beginning of a new life.
- It is almost ridiculous to hope much from present society when we
- consider that workingmen, wage slaves themselves, object to convict
- labor. I shall not go into the cruelty of this objection, but merely
- consider the impracticability of it. To begin with, the opposition
- so far raised by organized labor has been directed against windmills.
- Prisoners have always worked; only the State has been their
- exploiter, even as the individual employer has been the robber of
- organized labor. The States have either set the convicts to work for
- the government, or they have farmed convict labor to private
- individuals. Twenty-nine of the States pursue the latter plan. The
- Federal government and seventeen States have discarded it, as have
- the leading nations of Europe, since it leads to hideous overworking
- and abuse of prisoners, and to endless graft.
- Rhode Island, the State dominated by Aldrich, offers perhaps the
- worst example. Under a five-year contract, dated July 7th, 1906, and
- renewable for five years more at the option of private contractors,
- the labor of the inmates of the Rhode Island Penitentiary and the
- Providence County Jail is sold to the Reliance-Sterling Mfg. Co. at
- the rate of a trifle less than 25 cents a day per man. This Company
- is really a gigantic Prison Labor Trust, for it also leases the
- convict labor of Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, Nebraska, and South
- Dakota penitentiaries, and the reformatories of New Jersey, Indiana,
- Illinois, and Wisconsin, eleven establishments in all.
- The enormity of the graft under the Rhode Island contract may be
- estimated from the fact that this same Company pays 62 1/2 cents a
- day in Nebraska for the convict's labor, and that Tennessee, for
- example, gets $1.10 a day for a convict's work from the Gray-Dudley
- Hardware Co.; Missouri gets 70 cents a day from the Star Overall Mfg.
- Co.; West Virginia 65 cents a day from the Kraft Mfg. Co., and
- Maryland 55 cents a day from Oppenheim, Oberndorf & Co., shirt
- manufacturers. The very difference in prices points to enormous
- graft. For example, the Reliance-Sterling Mfg. Co. manufactures
- shirts, the cost of free labor being not less than $1.20 per dozen,
- while it pays Rhode Island thirty cents a dozen. Furthermore, the
- State charges this Trust no rent for the use of its huge factory,
- charges nothing for power, heat, light, or even drainage, and exacts
- no taxes. What graft!
- It is estimated that more than twelve million dollars' worth of
- workingmen's shirts and overalls is produced annually in this country
- by prison labor. It is a woman's industry, and the first reflection
- that arises is that an immense amount of free female labor is thus
- displaced. The second consideration is that male convicts, who
- should be learning trades that would give them some chance of being
- self-supporting after their release, are kept at this work at which
- they can not possibly make a dollar. This is the more serious when
- we consider that much of this labor is done in reformatories, which
- so loudly profess to be training their inmates to become useful
- citizens.
- The third, and most important, consideration is that the enormous
- profits thus wrung from convict labor are a constant incentive to the
- contractors to exact from their unhappy victims tasks altogether
- beyond their strength, and to punish them cruelly when their work
- does not come up to the excessive demands made.
- Another word on the condemnation of convicts to tasks at which they
- cannot hope to make a living after release. Indiana, for example, is
- a State that has made a great splurge over being in the front rank of
- modern penological improvements. Yet, according to the report
- rendered in 1908 by the training school of its "reformatory," 135
- were engaged in the manufacture of chains, 207 in that of shirts, and
- 255 in the foundry--a total of 597 in three occupations. But at this
- so-called reformatory 59 occupations were represented by the inmates,
- 39 of which were connected with country pursuits. Indiana, like
- other States, professes to be training the inmates of her reformatory
- to occupations by which they will be able to make their living when
- released. She actually sets them to work making chains, shirts, and
- brooms, the latter for the benefit of the Louisville Fancy Grocery
- Co. Broom making is a trade largely monopolized by the blind, shirt
- making is done by women, and there is only one free chain factory in
- the State, and at that a released convict can not hope to get
- employment. The whole thing is a cruel farce.
- If, then, the States can be instrumental in robbing their helpless
- victims of such tremendous profits, is it not high time for organized
- labor to stop its idle howl, and to insist on decent remuneration for
- the convict, even as labor organizations claim for themselves? In
- that way workingmen would kill the germ which makes of the prisoner
- an enemy to the interests of labor. I have said elsewhere that
- thousands of convicts, incompetent and without a trade, without means
- of subsistence, are yearly turned back into the social fold. These
- men and women must live, for even an ex-convict has needs. Prison
- life has made them anti-social beings, and the rigidly closed doors
- that meet them on their release are not likely to decrease their
- bitterness. The inevitable result is that they form a favorable
- nucleus out of which scabs, blacklegs, detectives, and policemen are
- drawn, only too willing to do the master's bidding. Thus organized
- labor, by its foolish opposition to work in prison, defeats its own
- ends. It helps to create poisonous fumes that stifle every attempt
- for economic betterment. If the workingman wants to avoid these
- effects, he should INSIST on the right of the convict to work, he
- should meet him as a brother, take him into his organization, and
- WITH HIS AID TURN AGAINST THE SYSTEM WHICH GRINDS THEM BOTH.
- Last, but not least, is the growing realization of the barbarity and
- the inadequacy of the definite sentence. Those who believe in, and
- earnestly aim at, a change are fast coming to the conclusion that man
- must be given an opportunity to make good. And how is he to do it
- with ten, fifteen, or twenty years' imprisonment before him? The
- hope of liberty and of opportunity is the only incentive to life,
- especially the prisoner's life. Society has sinned so long against
- him--it ought at least to leave him that. I am not very sanguine
- that it will, or that any real change in that direction can take
- place until the conditions that breed both the prisoner and the
- jailer will be forever abolished.
- Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
- Out of his heart a white!
- For who can say by what strange way
- Christ brings his will to light,
- Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
- Bloomed in the great Pope's sight.
- [1] CRIME AND CRIMINALS. W. C. Owen.
- [2] THE CRIMINAL, Havelock Ellis.
- [3] THE CRIMINAL.
- [4] THE CRIMINAL.
- [5] THE CRIMINAL.
- PATRIOTISM: A MENACE TO LIBERTY
- What is patriotism? Is it love of one's birthplace, the place of
- childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it
- the place where, in childlike naivety, we would watch the fleeting
- clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place
- where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken
- lest each one "an eye should be," piercing the very depths of our
- little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of
- the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant
- lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother's knee, enraptured
- by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it
- love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious
- recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?
- If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called
- upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into
- factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have
- replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of
- great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of
- sorrow, tears, and grief.
- What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of
- scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest
- anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that
- will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that
- requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the
- making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a
- trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of
- the average workingman.
- Gustave Herve, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a
- superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than
- religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability
- to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard
- thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and
- therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than
- himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in
- the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand,
- is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a
- network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his
- self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
- Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of
- patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is
- divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate.
- Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot,
- consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than
- the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the
- duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die
- in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
- The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course,
- with the result that, from early infancy, the mind of the child is
- poisoned with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French,
- the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood, he
- is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord
- himself to defend HIS country against the attack or invasion of any
- foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a
- greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. It is for
- that purpose that America has within a short time spent four hundred
- million dollars. Just think of it--four hundred million dollars
- taken from the produce of the PEOPLE. For surely it is not the rich
- who contribute to patriotism. They are cosmopolitans, perfectly at
- home in every land. We in America know well the truth of this. Are
- not our rich Americans Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany, or
- Englishmen in England? And do they not squander with cosmopolitan
- grace fortunes coined by American factory children and cotton slaves?
- Yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send
- messages of condolence to a despot like the Russian Tsar, when any
- mishap befalls him, as President Roosevelt did in the name of HIS
- people, when Sergius was punished by the Russian revolutionists.
- It is a patriotism that will assist the arch-murderer, Diaz, in
- destroying thousands of lives in Mexico, or that will even aid in
- arresting Mexican revolutionists on American soil and keep them
- incarcerated in American prisons, without the slightest cause or
- reason.
- But, then, patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and
- power. It is good enough for the people. It reminds one of the
- historic wisdom of Frederic the Great, the bosom friend of Voltaire,
- who said: "Religion is a fraud, but it must be maintained for the
- masses."
- That patriotism is rather a costly institution, no one will doubt
- after considering the following statistics. The progressive increase
- of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world
- during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to
- startle every thoughtful student of economic problems. It may be
- briefly indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into
- five-year periods, and noting the disbursements of several great
- nations for army and navy purposes during the first and last of those
- periods. From the first to the last of the periods noted the
- expenditures of Great Britain increased from $2,101,848,936 to
- $4,143,226,885, those of France from $3,324,500,000 to
- $3,455,109,900, those of Germany from $725,000,200 to $2,700,375,600,
- those of the United States from $1,275,500,750 to $2,650,900,450,
- those of Russia from $1,900,975,500 to $5,250,445,100, those of Italy
- from $1,600,975,750 to $1,755,500,100, and those of Japan from
- $182,900,500 to $700,925,475.
- The military expenditures of each of the nations mentioned increased
- in each of the five-year periods under review. During the entire
- interval from 1881 to 1905 Great Britain's outlay for her army
- increased fourfold, that of the United States was tripled, Russia's
- was doubled, that of Germany increased 35 per cent., that of France
- about 15 per cent., and that of Japan nearly 500 per cent. If we
- compare the expenditures of these nations upon their armies with
- their total expenditures for all the twenty-five years ending with
- 1905, the proportion rose as follows:
- In Great Britain from 20 per cent. to 37; in the United States from
- 15 to 23; in France from 16 to 18; in Italy from 12 to 15; in Japan
- from 12 to 14. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the
- proportion in Germany decreased from about 58 per cent. to 25, the
- decrease being due to the enormous increase in the imperial
- expenditures for other purposes, the fact being that the army
- expenditures for the period of 1901-5 were higher than for any
- five-year period preceding. Statistics show that the countries in
- which army expenditures are greatest, in proportion to the total
- national revenues, are Great Britain, the United States, Japan,
- France, and Italy, in the order named.
- The showing as to the cost of great navies is equally impressive.
- During the twenty-five years ending with 1905 naval expenditures
- increased approximately as follows: Great Britain, 300 per cent.;
- France 60 per cent.; Germany 600 per cent.; the United States 525 per
- cent.; Russia 300 per cent.; Italy 250 per cent.; and Japan, 700 per
- cent. With the exception of Great Britain, the United States spends
- more for naval purposes than any other nation, and this expenditure
- bears also a larger proportion to the entire national disbursements
- than that of any other power. In the period 1881-5, the expenditure
- for the United States navy was $6.20 out of each $100 appropriated
- for all national purposes; the amount rose to $6.60 for the next
- five-year period, to $8.10 for the next, to $11.70 for the next, and
- to $16.40 for 1901-5. It is morally certain that the outlay for the
- current period of five years will show a still further increase.
- The rising cost of militarism may be still further illustrated by
- computing it as a per capita tax on population. From the first to
- the last of the five-year periods taken as the basis for the
- comparisons here given, it has risen as follows: In Great Britain,
- from $18.47 to $52.50; in France, from $19.66 to $23.62; in Germany,
- from $10.17 to $15.51; in the United States, from $5.62 to $13.64; in
- Russia, from $6.14 to $8.37; in Italy, from $9.59 to $11.24, and in
- Japan from 86 cents to $3.11.
- It is in connection with this rough estimate of cost per capita that
- the economic burden of militarism is most appreciable. The
- irresistible conclusion from available data is that the increase of
- expenditure for army and navy purposes is rapidly surpassing the
- growth of population in each of the countries considered in the
- present calculation. In other words, a continuation of the increased
- demands of militarism threatens each of those nations with a
- progressive exhaustion both of men and resources.
- The awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient
- to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. Yet
- patriotism demands still more. The people are urged to be patriotic
- and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their
- "defenders," but even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism
- requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness
- to kill father, mother, brother, sister.
- The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the
- country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman
- knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce
- the foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other's
- interests, do not invade each other. They have learned that they can
- gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war
- and conquest. Indeed, as Carlyle said, "War is a quarrel between two
- thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take
- boys from one village and another village; stick them into uniforms,
- equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against
- each other."
- It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar
- cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great
- and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our
- hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards!
- True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was
- nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher
- Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban
- women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did
- grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely.
- But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war
- came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities
- and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree--it
- suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was
- the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit,
- that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to
- protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened
- by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is
- based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude
- of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in
- the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate
- Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great
- cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.
- Nor do we stand alone in waging war for such causes. The curtain is
- beginning to be lifted on the motives of the terrible Russo-Japanese
- war, which cost so much blood and tears. And we see again that back
- of the fierce Moloch of war stands the still fiercer god of
- Commercialism. Kuropatkin, the Russian Minister of War during the
- Russo-Japanese struggle, has revealed the true secret behind the
- latter. The Tsar and his Grand Dukes, having invested money in
- Corean concessions, the war was forced for the sole purpose of
- speedily accumulating large fortunes.
- The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of
- peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen
- is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life
- fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try
- his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really
- peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations,
- with the result that peace is maintained.
- However, the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any
- foreign danger. It is owing to the dread of the growing discontent
- of the masses and of the international spirit among the workers. It
- is to meet the internal enemy that the Powers of various countries
- are preparing themselves; an enemy, who, once awakened to
- consciousness, will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader.
- The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the
- masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know
- that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and
- tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more
- gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it
- will appeal to the million-headed child.
- An army and navy represents the people's toys. To make them more
- attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are
- being spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of
- the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the
- Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the
- pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco
- spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the
- fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one
- hundred thousand. To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and
- wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to
- get sufficient food. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars
- were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time
- when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the
- country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed
- were ready to sell their labor at any price.
- Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been
- accomplished with such an enormous sum? But instead of bread and
- shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet,
- that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory
- for the child."
- A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of
- civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with
- such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human
- brotherhood?
- We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed;
- we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the
- possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon
- helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch
- anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the
- attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell
- with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful
- nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on
- the necks of all other nations.
- Such is the logic of patriotism.
- Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the
- average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury
- that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself,--that poor, deluded
- victim of superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country,
- the protector of his nation,--what has patriotism in store for him?
- A life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a
- life of danger, exposure, and death, during war.
- While on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco, I visited the
- Presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the Bay and Golden Gate
- Park. Its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens
- and music for the recreation of the weary. Instead it is made ugly,
- dull, and gray by barracks,--barracks wherein the rich would not
- allow their dogs to dwell. In these miserable shanties soldiers are
- herded like cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the
- boots and brass buttons of their superior officers. Here, too, I saw
- the distinction of classes: sturdy sons of a free Republic, drawn up
- in line like convicts, saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant.
- American equality, degrading manhood and elevating the uniform!
- Barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual
- perversion. It is gradually producing along this line results
- similar to European military conditions. Havelock Ellis, the noted
- writer on sex psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject.
- I quote: "Some of the barracks are great centers of male
- prostitution.... The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves
- is greater than we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to
- say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the
- venality of the majority of the men.... On summer evenings Hyde
- Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate are full of guardsmen and
- others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or
- out.... In most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to
- Tommy Atkins' pocket money."
- To what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and
- navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for
- this form of prostitution. The practice is not limited to England;
- it is universal. "Soldiers are no less sought after in France than
- in England or in Germany, and special houses for military
- prostitution exist both in Paris and the garrison towns."
- Had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex
- perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in
- our army and navy as in those of other countries. The growth of the
- standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the
- barracks are the incubators.
- Aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit
- the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. Men, skilled in
- a trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a
- military experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their
- former occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste
- for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them.
- Released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is
- usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom
- either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the
- ranks. These, their military term over, again turn to their former
- life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a
- well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of
- ex-soldiers; while on the other hand, the army and navy are to a
- great extent supplied with ex-convicts.
- Of all the evil results, I have just described, none seems to me so
- detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced
- in the case of Private William Buwalda. Because he foolishly
- believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man
- at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely.
- True, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his
- record was unimpeachable. According to Gen. Funston, who reduced
- Buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or
- an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the
- government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that
- government or not." Thus Funston stamps the true character of
- allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army abrogates the
- principles of the Declaration of Independence.
- What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being
- into a loyal machine!
- In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen.
- Funston tells the American people that the soldier's action was a
- "serious crime equal to treason." Now, what did this "terrible
- crime" really consist of? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of
- fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San
- Francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma
- Goldman. A terrible crime, indeed, which the General calls "a great
- military offense, infinitely worse than desertion."
- Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it
- will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him
- of the results of fifteen years of faithful service?
- Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very
- manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and,
- like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not
- admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his
- own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No,
- patriotism can not admit of that. That is the lesson which Buwalda
- was made to learn; made to learn at a rather costly, though not at a
- useless, price. When he returned to freedom, he had lost his
- position in the army, but he regained his self-respect. After all,
- that is worth three years of imprisonment.
- A writer on the military conditions of America, in a recent article,
- commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in
- Germany. He said, among other things, that if our Republic had no
- other meaning than to guarantee all citizens equal rights, it would
- have just cause for existence. I am convinced that the writer was
- not in Colorado during the patriotic regime of General Bell. He
- probably would have changed his mind had he seen how, in the name of
- patriotism and the Republic, men were thrown into bull-pens, dragged
- about, driven across the border, and subjected to all kinds of
- indignities. Nor is that Colorado incident the only one in the
- growth of military power in the United States. There is hardly a
- strike where troops and militia do not come to the rescue of those in
- power, and where they do not act as arrogantly and brutally as do the
- men wearing the Kaiser's uniform. Then, too, we have the Dick
- military law. Had the writer forgotten that?
- A great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are
- absolutely ignorant on current events, or that, lacking honesty, they
- will not speak of these matters. And so it has come to pass that the
- Dick military law was rushed through Congress with little discussion
- and still less publicity,--a law which gives the President the power
- to turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man-killer, supposedly
- for the defense of the country, in reality for the protection of the
- interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the President
- happens to be.
- Our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in
- America as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in
- the Old World. Two very important facts, however, the gentleman
- forgets to consider. First, that conscription has created in Europe
- a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society.
- Thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the
- army, they will use every possible means to desert. Second, that it
- is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a
- tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by European Powers far
- more than anything else. After all, the greatest bulwark of
- capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined,
- capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men
- are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a
- far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. Is it not a fact that
- during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the
- number of enlistments? The trade of militarism may not be either
- lucrative or honorable, but it is better than tramping the country in
- search of work, standing in the bread line, or sleeping in municipal
- lodging houses. After all, it means thirteen dollars per month,
- three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even necessity is not
- sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of
- character and manhood. No wonder our military authorities complain
- of the "poor material" enlisting in the army and navy. This
- admission is a very encouraging sign. It proves that there is still
- enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the
- average American to risk starvation rather than don the uniform.
- Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that
- patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the
- necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought
- into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed
- nations of the world; a solidarity which represents a greater harmony
- of interests between the workingman of America and his brothers
- abroad than between the American miner and his exploiting compatriot;
- a solidarity which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing
- all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, "Go
- and do your own killing. We have done it long enough for you."
- This solidarity is awakening the consciousness of even the soldiers,
- they, too, being flesh of the flesh of the great human family. A
- solidarity that has proven infallible more than once during past
- struggles, and which has been the impetus inducing the Parisian
- soldiers, during the Commune of 1871, to refuse to obey when ordered
- to shoot their brothers. It has given courage to the men who
- mutinied on Russian warships during recent years. It will eventually
- bring about the uprising of all the oppressed and downtrodden against
- their international exploiters.
- The proletariat of Europe has realized the great force of that
- solidarity and has, as a result, inaugurated a war against patriotism
- and its bloody spectre, militarism. Thousands of men fill the
- prisons of France, Germany, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries,
- because they dared to defy the ancient superstition. Nor is the
- movement limited to the working class; it has embraced
- representatives in all stations of life, its chief exponents being
- men and women prominent in art, science, and letters.
- America will have to follow suit. The spirit of militarism has
- already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that
- militarism is growing a greater danger here than anywhere else,
- because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it
- wishes to destroy.
- The beginning has already been made in the schools. Evidently the
- government holds to the Jesuitical conception, "Give me the child
- mind, and I will mould the man." Children are trained in military
- tactics, the glory of military achievements extolled in the
- curriculum, and the youthful minds perverted to suit the government.
- Further, the youth of the country is appealed to in glaring posters
- to join the army and navy. "A fine chance to see the world!" cries
- the governmental huckster. Thus innocent boys are morally shanghaied
- into patriotism, and the military Moloch strides conquering through
- the Nation.
- The American workingman has suffered so much at the hands of the
- soldier, State, and Federal, that he is quite justified in his
- disgust with, and his opposition to, the uniformed parasite.
- However, mere denunciation will not solve this great problem. What
- we need is a propaganda of education for the soldier: anti-patriotic
- literature that will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his
- trade, and that will awaken his consciousness to his true relation to
- the man to whose labor he owes his very existence.
- It is precisely this that the authorities fear most. It is already
- high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting. No doubt
- they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to read a radical
- pamphlet. But then, has not authority from time immemorial stamped
- every step of progress as treasonable? Those, however, who earnestly
- strive for social reconstruction can well afford to face all that;
- for it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the
- barracks than into the factory. When we have undermined the
- patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for that great
- structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal
- brotherhood,--a truly FREE SOCIETY.
- FRANCISCO FERRER AND THE MODERN SCHOOL
- Experience has come to be considered the best school of life. The
- man or woman who does not learn some vital lesson in that school is
- looked upon as a dunce indeed. Yet strange to say, that though
- organized institutions continue perpetrating errors, though they
- learn nothing from experience, we acquiesce, as a matter of course.
- There lived and worked in Barcelona a man by the name of Francisco
- Ferrer. A teacher of children he was, known and loved by his people.
- Outside of Spain only the cultured few knew of Francisco Ferrer's
- work. To the world at large this teacher was non-existent.
- On the first of September, 1909, the Spanish government--at the
- behest of the Catholic Church--arrested Francisco Ferrer. On the
- thirteenth of October, after a mock trial, he was placed in the ditch
- at Montjuich prison, against the hideous wall of many sighs, and shot
- dead. Instantly Ferrer, the obscure teacher, became a universal
- figure, blazing forth the indignation and wrath of the whole
- civilized world against the wanton murder.
- The killing of Francisco Ferrer was not the first crime committed by
- the Spanish government and the Catholic Church. The history of these
- institutions is one long stream of fire and blood. Still they have
- not learned through experience, nor yet come to realize that every
- frail being slain by Church and State grows and grows into a mighty
- giant, who will some day free humanity from their perilous hold.
- Francisco Ferrer was born in 1859, of humble parents. They were
- Catholics, and therefore hoped to raise their son in the same faith.
- They did not know that the boy was to become the harbinger of a great
- truth, that his mind would refuse to travel in the old path. At an
- early age Ferrer began to question the faith of his fathers. He
- demanded to know how it is that the God who spoke to him of goodness
- and love would mar the sleep of the innocent child with dread and awe
- of tortures, of suffering, of hell. Alert and of a vivid and
- investigating mind, it did not take him long to discover the
- hideousness of that black monster, the Catholic Church. He would
- have none of it.
- Francisco Ferrer was not only a doubter, a searcher for truth; he was
- also a rebel. His spirit would rise in just indignation against the
- iron regime of his country, and when a band of rebels, led by the
- brave patriot, General Villacampa, under the banner of the Republican
- ideal, made an onslaught on that regime, none was more ardent a
- fighter than young Francisco Ferrer. The Republican ideal,--I hope
- no one will confound it with the Republicanism of this country.
- Whatever objection I, as an Anarchist, have to the Republicans of
- Latin countries, I know they tower high above the corrupt and
- reactionary party which, in America, is destroying every vestige of
- liberty and justice. One has but to think of the Mazzinis, the
- Garibaldis, the scores of others, to realize that their efforts were
- directed, not merely towards the overthrow of despotism, but
- particularly against the Catholic Church, which from its very
- inception has been the enemy of all progress and liberalism.
- In America it is just the reverse. Republicanism stands for vested
- rights, for imperialism, for graft, for the annihilation of every
- semblance of liberty. Its ideal is the oily, creepy respectability
- of a McKinley, and the brutal arrogance of a Roosevelt.
- The Spanish republican rebels were subdued. It takes more than one
- brave effort to split the rock of ages, to cut off the head of that
- hydra monster, the Catholic Church and the Spanish throne. Arrest,
- persecution, and punishment followed the heroic attempt of the little
- band. Those who could escape the bloodhounds had to flee for safety
- to foreign shores. Francisco Ferrer was among the latter. He went
- to France.
- How his soul must have expanded in the new land! France, the cradle
- of liberty, of ideas, of action. Paris, the ever young, intense
- Paris, with her pulsating life, after the gloom of his own belated
- country,--how she must have inspired him. What opportunities, what a
- glorious chance for a young idealist.
- Francisco Ferrer lost no time. Like one famished he threw himself
- into the various liberal movements, met all kinds of people, learned,
- absorbed, and grew. While there, he also saw in operation the Modern
- School, which was to play such an important and fatal part in his
- life.
- The Modern School in France was founded long before Ferrer's time.
- Its originator, though on a small scale, was that sweet spirit,
- Louise Michel. Whether consciously or unconsciously, our own great
- Louise felt long ago that the future belongs to the young generation;
- that unless the young be rescued from that mind and soul destroying
- institution, the bourgeois school, social evils will continue to
- exist. Perhaps she thought, with Ibsen, that the atmosphere is
- saturated with ghosts, that the adult man and woman have so many
- superstitions to overcome. No sooner do they outgrow the deathlike
- grip of one spook, lo! they find themselves in the thralldom of
- ninety-nine other spooks. Thus but a few reach the mountain peak of
- complete regeneration.
- The child, however, has no traditions to overcome. Its mind is not
- burdened with set ideas, its heart has not grown cold with class and
- caste distinctions. The child is to the teacher what clay is to the
- sculptor. Whether the world will receive a work of art or a wretched
- imitation, depends to a large extent on the creative power of the
- teacher.
- Louise Michel was pre-eminently qualified to meet the child's soul
- cravings. Was she not herself of a childlike nature, so sweet and
- tender, unsophisticated and generous. The soul of Louise burned
- always at white heat over every social injustice. She was invariably
- in the front ranks whenever the people of Paris rebelled against some
- wrong. And as she was made to suffer imprisonment for her great
- devotion to the oppressed, the little school on Montmartre was soon
- no more. But the seed was planted, and has since borne fruit in many
- cities of France.
- The most important venture of a Modern School was that of the great,
- young old man, Paul Robin. Together with a few friends he
- established a large school at Cempuis, a beautiful place near Paris.
- Paul Robin aimed at a higher ideal than merely modern ideas in
- education. He wanted to demonstrate by actual facts that the
- bourgeois conception of heredity is but a mere pretext to exempt
- society from its terrible crimes against the young. The contention
- that the child must suffer for the sins of the fathers, that it must
- continue in poverty and filth, that it must grow up a drunkard or
- criminal, just because its parents left it no other legacy, was too
- preposterous to the beautiful spirit of Paul Robin. He believed that
- whatever part heredity may play, there are other factors equally
- great, if not greater, that may and will eradicate or minimize the
- so-called first cause. Proper economic and social environment, the
- breath and freedom of nature, healthy exercise, love and sympathy,
- and, above all, a deep understanding for the needs of the
- child--these would destroy the cruel, unjust, and criminal stigma
- imposed on the innocent young.
- Paul Robin did not select his children; he did not go to the
- so-called best parents: he took his material wherever he could find
- it. From the street, the hovels, the orphan and foundling asylums,
- the reformatories, from all those gray and hideous places where a
- benevolent society hides its victims in order to pacify its guilty
- conscience. He gathered all the dirty, filthy, shivering little
- waifs his place would hold, and brought them to Cempuis. There,
- surrounded by nature's own glory, free and unrestrained, well fed,
- clean kept, deeply loved and understood, the little human plants
- began to grow, to blossom, to develop beyond even the expectations of
- their friend and teacher, Paul Robin.
- The children grew and developed into self-reliant, liberty loving men
- and women. What greater danger to the institutions that make the
- poor in order to perpetuate the poor. Cempuis was closed by the
- French government on the charge of co-education, which is prohibited
- in France. However, Cempuis had been in operation long enough to
- prove to all advanced educators its tremendous possibilities, and to
- serve as an impetus for modern methods of education, that are slowly
- but inevitably undermining the present system.
- Cempuis was followed by a great number of other educational
- attempts,--among them, by Madelaine Vernet, a gifted writer and poet,
- author of L'AMOUR LIBRE, and Sebastian Faure, with his LA RUCHE,[1]
- which I visited while in Paris, in 1907.
- Several years ago Comrade Faure bought the land on which he built his
- LA RUCHE. In a comparatively short time he succeeded in transforming
- the former wild, uncultivated country into a blooming spot, having
- all the appearance of a well kept farm. A large, square court,
- enclosed by three buildings, and a broad path leading to the garden
- and orchards, greet the eye of the visitor. The garden, kept as only
- a Frenchman knows how, furnishes a large variety of vegetables for LA
- RUCHE.
- Sebastian Faure is of the opinion that if the child is subjected to
- contradictory influences, its development suffers in consequence.
- Only when the material needs, the hygiene of the home, and
- intellectual environment are harmonious, can the child grow into a
- healthy, free being.
- Referring to his school, Sebastian Faure has this to say:
- "I have taken twenty-four children of both sexes, mostly orphans, or
- those whose parents are too poor to pay. They are clothed, housed,
- and educated at my expense. Till their twelfth year they will
- receive a sound, elementary education. Between the age of twelve and
- fifteen--their studies still continuing--they are to be taught some
- trade, in keeping with their individual disposition and abilities.
- After that they are at liberty to leave LA RUCHE to begin life in the
- outside world, with the assurance that they may at any time return to
- LA RUCHE, where they will be received with open arms and welcomed as
- parents do their beloved children. Then, if they wish to work at our
- place, they may do so under the following conditions: One third of
- the product to cover his or her expenses of maintenance, another
- third to go towards the general fund set aside for accommodating new
- children, and the last third to be devoted to the personal use of the
- child, as he or she may see fit.
- "The health of the children who are now in my care is perfect. Pure
- air, nutritious food, physical exercise in the open, long walks,
- observation of hygienic rules, the short and interesting method of
- instruction, and, above all, our affectionate understanding and care
- of the children, have produced admirable physical and mental results.
- "It would be unjust to claim that our pupils have accomplished
- wonders; yet, considering that they belong to the average, having had
- no previous opportunities, the results are very gratifying indeed.
- The most important thing they have acquired--a rare trait with
- ordinary school children--is the love of study, the desire to know,
- to be informed. They have learned a new method of work, one that
- quickens the memory and stimulates the imagination. We make a
- particular effort to awaken the child's interest in his surroundings,
- to make him realize the importance of observation, investigation, and
- reflection, so that when the children reach maturity, they would not
- be deaf and blind to the things about them. Our children never
- accept anything in blind faith, without inquiry as to why and
- wherefore; nor do they feel satisfied until their questions are
- thoroughly answered. Thus their minds are free from doubts and fear
- resultant from incomplete or untruthful replies; it is the latter
- which warp the growth of the child, and create a lack of confidence
- in himself and those about him.
- "It is surprising how frank and kind and affectionate our little ones
- are to each other. The harmony between themselves and the adults at
- LA RUCHE is highly encouraging. We should feel at fault if the
- children were to fear or honor us merely because we are their elders.
- We leave nothing undone to gain their confidence and love; that
- accomplished, understanding will replace duty; confidence, fear; and
- affection, severity.
- "No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and
- generosity hidden in the soul of the child. The effort of every true
- educator should be to unlock that treasure--to stimulate the child's
- impulses, and call forth the best and noblest tendencies. What
- greater reward can there be for one whose life-work is to watch over
- the growth of the human plant, than to see its nature unfold its
- petals, and to observe it develop into a true individuality. My
- comrades at LA RUCHE look for no greater reward, and it is due to
- them and their efforts, even more than to my own, that our human
- garden promises to bear beautiful fruit."[2]
- Regarding the subject of history and the prevailing old methods of
- instruction, Sebastian Faure said:
- "We explain to our children that true history is yet to be
- written,--the story of those who have died, unknown, in the effort to
- aid humanity to greater achievement."[3]
- Francisco Ferrer could not escape this great wave of Modern School
- attempts. He saw its possibilities, not merely in theoretic form,
- but in their practical application to every-day needs. He must have
- realized that Spain, more than any other country, stands in need of
- just such schools, if it is ever to throw off the double yoke of
- priest and soldier.
- When we consider that the entire system of education in Spain is in
- the hands of the Catholic Church, and when we further remember the
- Catholic formula, "To inculcate Catholicism in the mind of the child
- until it is nine years of age is to ruin it forever for any other
- idea," we will understand the tremendous task of Ferrer in bringing
- the new light to his people. Fate soon assisted him in realizing his
- great dream.
- Mlle. Meunier, a pupil of Francisco Ferrer, and a lady of wealth,
- became interested in the Modern School project. When she died, she
- left Ferrer some valuable property and twelve thousand francs yearly
- income for the School.
- It is said that mean souls can conceive of naught but mean ideas.
- If so, the contemptible methods of the Catholic Church to blackguard
- Ferrer's character, in order to justify her own black crime, can
- readily be explained. Thus the lie was spread in American Catholic
- papers, that Ferrer used his intimacy with Mlle. Meunier to get
- possession of her money.
- Personally, I hold that the intimacy, of whatever nature, between a
- man and a woman, is their own affair, their sacred own. I would
- therefore not lose a word in referring to the matter, if it were not
- one of the many dastardly lies circulated about Ferrer. Of course,
- those who know the purity of the Catholic clergy will understand the
- insinuation. Have the Catholic priests ever looked upon woman as
- anything but a sex commodity? The historical data regarding the
- discoveries in the cloisters and monasteries will bear me out in
- that. How, then, are they to understand the co-operation of a man
- and a woman, except on a sex basis?
- As a matter of fact, Mlle. Meunier was considerably Ferrer's senior.
- Having spent her childhood and girlhood with a miserly father and a
- submissive mother, she could easily appreciate the necessity of love
- and joy in child life. She must have seen that Francisco Ferrer was
- a teacher, not college, machine, or diploma-made, but one endowed
- with genius for that calling.
- Equipped with knowledge, with experience, and with the necessary
- means; above all, imbued with the divine fire of his mission, our
- Comrade came back to Spain, and there began his life's work. On the
- ninth of September, 1901, the first Modern School was opened. It was
- enthusiastically received by the people of Barcelona, who pledged
- their support. In a short address at the opening of the School,
- Ferrer submitted his program to his friends. He said: "I am not a
- speaker, not a propagandist, not a fighter. I am a teacher; I love
- children above everything. I think I understand them. I want my
- contribution to the cause of liberty to be a young generation ready
- to meet a new era."
- He was cautioned by his friends to be careful in his opposition to
- the Catholic Church. They knew to what lengths she would go to
- dispose of an enemy. Ferrer, too, knew. But, like Brand, he
- believed in all or nothing. He would not erect the Modern School on
- the same old lie. He would be frank and honest and open with the
- children.
- Francisco Ferrer became a marked man. From the very first day of the
- opening of the School, he was shadowed. The school building was
- watched, his little home in Mangat was watched. He was followed
- every step, even when he went to France or England to confer with his
- colleagues. He was a marked man, and it was only a question of time
- when the lurking enemy would tighten the noose.
- It succeeded, almost, in 1906, when Ferrer was implicated in the
- attempt on the life of Alfonso. The evidence exonerating him was too
- strong even for the black crows;[4] they had to let him go--not for
- good, however. They waited. Oh, they can wait, when they have set
- themselves to trap a victim.
- The moment came at last, during the anti-military uprising in Spain,
- in July, 1909. One will have to search in vain the annals of
- revolutionary history to find a more remarkable protest against
- militarism. Having been soldier-ridden for centuries, the people of
- Spain could stand the yoke no longer. They would refuse to
- participate in useless slaughter. They saw no reason for aiding a
- despotic government in subduing and oppressing a small people
- fighting for their independence, as did the brave Riffs. No, they
- would not bear arms against them.
- For eighteen hundred years the Catholic Church has preached the
- gospel of peace. Yet, when the people actually wanted to make this
- gospel a living reality, she urged the authorities to force them to
- bear arms. Thus the dynasty of Spain followed the murderous methods
- of the Russian dynasty,--the people were forced to the battlefield.
- Then, and not until then, was their power of endurance at an end.
- Then, and not until then, did the workers of Spain turn against their
- masters, against those who, like leeches, had drained their strength,
- their very life-blood. Yes, they attacked the churches and the
- priests, but if the latter had a thousand lives, they could not
- possibly pay for the terrible outrages and crimes perpetrated upon
- the Spanish people.
- Francisco Ferrer was arrested on the first of September, 1909.
- Until October first, his friends and comrades did not even know what
- had become of him. On that day a letter was received by L'HUMANITE,
- from which can be learned the whole mockery of the trial. And the
- next day his companion, Soledad Villafranca, received the following
- letter:
- "No reason to worry; you know I am absolutely innocent. Today I am
- particularly hopeful and joyous. It is the first time I can write to
- you, and the first time since my arrest that I can bathe in the rays
- of the sun, streaming generously through my cell window. You, too,
- must be joyous."
- How pathetic that Ferrer should have believed, as late as October
- fourth, that he would not be condemned to death. Even more pathetic
- that his friends and comrades should once more have made the blunder
- in crediting the enemy with a sense of justice. Time and again they
- had placed faith in the judicial powers, only to see their brothers
- killed before their very eyes. They made no preparation to rescue
- Ferrer, not even a protest of any extent; nothing. "Why, it is
- impossible to condemn Ferrer; he is innocent." But everything is
- possible with the Catholic Church. Is she not a practiced henchman,
- whose trials of her enemies are the worst mockery of justice?
- On October fourth Ferrer sent the following letter to L'HUMANITE:
- The Prison Cell, Oct. 4, 1909.
- My dear Friends--Notwithstanding most absolute innocence, the
- prosecutor demands the death penalty, based on denunciations of
- the police, representing me as the chief of the world's
- Anarchists, directing the labor syndicates of France, and guilty
- of conspiracies and insurrections everywhere, and declaring that
- my voyages to London and Paris were undertaken with no other
- object.
- With such infamous lies they are trying to kill me.
- The messenger is about to depart and I have not time for more.
- All the evidence presented to the investigating judge by the
- police is nothing but a tissue of lies and calumnious
- insinuations. But no proofs against me, having done nothing at
- all.
- FERRER.
- October thirteenth, 1909, Ferrer's heart, so brave, so staunch, so
- loyal, was stilled. Poor fools! The last agonized throb of that
- heart had barely died away when it began to beat a hundredfold in the
- hearts of the civilized world, until it grew into terrific thunder,
- hurling forth its malediction upon the instigators of the black
- crime. Murderers of black garb and pious mien, to the bar of
- justice!
- Did Francisco Ferrer participate in the anti-military uprising?
- According to the first indictment, which appeared in a Catholic paper
- in Madrid, signed by the Bishop and all the prelates of Barcelona, he
- was not even accused of participation. The indictment was to the
- effect that Francisco Ferrer was guilty of having organized godless
- schools, and having circulated godless literature. But in the
- twentieth century men can not be burned merely for their godless
- beliefs. Something else had to be devised; hence the charge of
- instigating the uprising.
- In no authentic source so far investigated could a single proof be
- found to connect Ferrer with the uprising. But then, no proofs were
- wanted, or accepted, by the authorities. There were seventy-two
- witnesses, to be sure, but their testimony was taken on paper. They
- never were confronted with Ferrer, or he with them.
- Is it psychologically possible that Ferrer should have participated?
- I do not believe it is, and here are my reasons. Francisco Ferrer
- was not only a great teacher, but he was also undoubtedly a marvelous
- organizer. In eight years, between 1901-1909, he had organized in
- Spain one hundred and nine schools, besides inducing the liberal
- element of his country to organize three hundred and eight other
- schools. In connection with his own school work, Ferrer had equipped
- a modern printing plant, organized a staff of translators, and spread
- broadcast one hundred and fifty thousand copies of modern scientific
- and sociologic works, not to forget the large quantity of rationalist
- text books. Surely none but the most methodical and efficient
- organizer could have accomplished such a feat.
- On the other hand, it was absolutely proven that the anti-military
- uprising was not at all organized; that it came as a surprise to the
- people themselves, like a great many revolutionary waves on previous
- occasions. The people of Barcelona, for instance, had the city in
- their control for four days, and, according to the statement of
- tourists, greater order and peace never prevailed. Of course, the
- people were so little prepared that when the time came, they did not
- know what to do. In this regard they were like the people of Paris
- during the Commune of 1871. They, too, were unprepared. While they
- were starving, they protected the warehouses, filled to the brim with
- provisions. They placed sentinels to guard the Bank of France, where
- the bourgeoisie kept the stolen money. The workers of Barcelona,
- too, watched over the spoils of their masters.
- How pathetic is the stupidity of the underdog; how terribly tragic!
- But, then, have not his fetters been forged so deeply into his flesh,
- that he would not, even if he could, break them? The awe of
- authority, of law, of private property, hundredfold burned into his
- soul,--how is he to throw it off unprepared, unexpectedly?
- Can anyone assume for a moment that a man like Ferrer would affiliate
- himself with such a spontaneous, unorganized effort? Would he not
- have known that it would result in a defeat, a disastrous defeat for
- the people? And is it not more likely that if he would have taken
- part, he, the experienced ENTREPRENEUR, would have thoroughly
- organized the attempt? If all other proofs were lacking, that one
- factor would be sufficient to exonerate Francisco Ferrer. But there
- are others equally convincing.
- For the very date of the outbreak, July twenty-fifth, Ferrer had
- called a conference of his teachers and members of the League of
- Rational Education. It was to consider the autumn work, and
- particularly the publication of Elisee Reclus' great book, L'HOMME ET
- LA TERRE, and Peter Kropotkin's GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION. Is it at
- all likely, is it at all plausible that Ferrer, knowing of the
- uprising, being a party to it, would in cold blood invite his friends
- and colleagues to Barcelona for the day on which he realized their
- lives would be endangered? Surely, only the criminal, vicious mind
- of a Jesuit could credit such deliberate murder.
- Francisco Ferrer had his life-work mapped out; he had everything to
- lose and nothing to gain, except ruin and disaster, were he to lend
- assistance to the outbreak. Not that he doubted the justice of the
- people's wrath; but his work, his hope, his very nature was directed
- toward another goal.
- In vain are the frantic efforts of the Catholic Church, her lies,
- falsehoods, calumnies. She stands condemned by the awakened human
- conscience of having once more repeated the foul crimes of the past.
- Francisco Ferrer is accused of teaching the children the most
- blood-curdling ideas,--to hate God, for instance. Horrors!
- Francisco Ferrer did not believe in the existence of a God. Why
- teach the child to hate something which does not exist? Is it not
- more likely that he took the children out into the open, that he
- showed them the splendor of the sunset, the brilliancy of the starry
- heavens, the awe-inspiring wonder of the mountains and seas; that he
- explained to them in his simple, direct way the law of growth, of
- development, of the interrelation of all life? In so doing he made
- it forever impossible for the poisonous weeds of the Catholic Church
- to take root in the child's mind.
- It has been stated that Ferrer prepared the children to destroy the
- rich. Ghost stories of old maids. Is it not more likely that he
- prepared them to succor the poor? That he taught them the
- humiliation, the degradation, the awfulness of poverty, which is a
- vice and not a virtue; that he taught the dignity and importance of
- all creative efforts, which alone sustain life and build character.
- Is it not the best and most effective way of bringing into the proper
- light the absolute uselessness and injury of parasitism?
- Last, but not least, Ferrer is charged with undermining the army by
- inculcating anti-military ideas. Indeed? He must have believed with
- Tolstoy that war is legalized slaughter, that it perpetuates hatred
- and arrogance, that it eats away the heart of nations, and turns them
- into raving maniacs.
- However, we have Ferrer's own word regarding his ideas of modern
- education:
- "I would like to call the attention of my readers to this idea: All
- the value of education rests in the respect for the physical,
- intellectual, and moral will of the child. Just as in science no
- demonstration is possible save by facts, just so there is no real
- education save that which is exempt from all dogmatism, which leaves
- to the child itself the direction of its effort, and confines itself
- to the seconding of its effort. Now, there is nothing easier than to
- alter this purpose, and nothing harder than to respect it.
- Education is always imposing, violating, constraining; the real
- educator is he who can best protect the child against his (the
- teacher's) own ideas, his peculiar whims; he who can best appeal to
- the child's own energies.
- "We are convinced that the education of the future will be of an
- entirely spontaneous nature; certainly we can not as yet realize it,
- but the evolution of methods in the direction of a wider
- comprehension of the phenomena of life, and the fact that all
- advances toward perfection mean the overcoming of restraint,--all
- this indicates that we are in the right when we hope for the
- deliverance of the child through science.
- "Let us not fear to say that we want men capable of evolving without
- stopping, capable of destroying and renewing their environments
- without cessation, of renewing themselves also; men, whose
- intellectual independence will be their greatest force, who will
- attach themselves to nothing, always ready to accept what is best,
- happy in the triumph of new ideas, aspiring to live multiple lives in
- one life. Society fears such men; we therefore must not hope that it
- will ever want an education able to give them to us.
- "We shall follow the labors of the scientists who study the child
- with the greatest attention, and we shall eagerly seek for means of
- applying their experience to the education which we want to build up,
- in the direction of an ever fuller liberation of the individual.
- But how can we attain our end? Shall it not be by putting ourselves
- directly to the work favoring the foundation of new schools, which
- shall be ruled as much as possible by this spirit of liberty, which
- we forefeel will dominate the entire work of education in the future?
- "A trial has been made, which, for the present, has already given
- excellent results. We can destroy all which in the present school
- answers to the organization of constraint, the artificial
- surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life,
- the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose
- ready-made ideas upon them, beliefs which deprave and annihilate
- natural bent. Without fear of deceiving ourselves, we can restore
- the child to the environment which entices it, the environment of
- nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves, and in
- which impressions of life will replace fastidious book-learning. If
- we did no more than that, we should already have prepared in great
- part the deliverance of the child.
- "In such conditions we might already freely apply the data of science
- and labor most fruitfully.
- "I know very well we could not thus realize all our hopes, that we
- should often be forced, for lack of knowledge, to employ undesirable
- methods; but a certitude would sustain us in our efforts--namely,
- that even without reaching our aim completely we should do more and
- better in our still imperfect work than the present school
- accomplishes. I like the free spontaneity of a child who knows
- nothing, better than the world-knowledge and intellectual deformity
- of a child who has been subjected to our present education."[5]
- Had Ferrer actually organized the riots, had he fought on the
- barricades, had he hurled a hundred bombs, he could not have been so
- dangerous to the Catholic Church and to despotism, as with his
- opposition to discipline and restraint. Discipline and
- restraint--are they not back of all the evils in the world?
- Slavery, submission, poverty, all misery, all social iniquities
- result from discipline and restraint. Indeed, Ferrer was dangerous.
- Therefore he had to die, October thirteenth, 1909, in the ditch of
- Montjuich. Yet who dare say his death was in vain? In view of the
- tempestuous rise of universal indignation: Italy naming streets in
- memory of Francisco Ferrer, Belgium inaugurating a movement to erect
- a memorial; France calling to the front her most illustrious men to
- resume the heritage of the martyr; England being the first to issue a
- biography:--all countries uniting in perpetuating the great work of
- Francisco Ferrer; America, even, tardy always in progressive ideas,
- giving birth to a Francisco Ferrer Association, its aim being to
- publish a complete life of Ferrer and to organize Modern Schools all
- over the country; in the face of this international revolutionary
- wave, who is there to say Ferrer died in vain?
- That death at Montjuich,--how wonderful, how dramatic it was, how it
- stirs the human soul. Proud and erect, the inner eye turned toward
- the light, Francisco Ferrer needed no lying priests to give him
- courage, nor did he upbraid a phantom for forsaking him. The
- consciousness that his executioners represented a dying age, and that
- his was the living truth, sustained him in the last heroic moments.
- A dying age and a living truth,
- The living burying the dead.
- [1] THE BEEHIVE.
- [2] MOTHER EARTH, 1907.
- [3] Ibid.
- [4] Black crows: The Catholic clergy.
- [5] MOTHER EARTH, December, 1909.
- THE HYPOCRISY OF PURITANISM
- Speaking of Puritanism in relation to American art, Mr. Gutzen
- Burglum said: "Puritanism has made us self-centered and hypocritical
- for so long, that sincerity and reverence for what is natural in our
- impulses have been fairly bred out of us, with the result that there
- can be neither truth nor individuality in our art."
- Mr. Burglum might have added that Puritanism has made life itself
- impossible. More than art, more than estheticism, life represents
- beauty in a thousand variations; it is, indeed, a gigantic panorama
- of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed
- and immovable conception of life; it is based on the Calvinistic idea
- that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order
- to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every
- natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty.
- Puritanism celebrated its reign of terror in England during the
- sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, destroying and crushing every
- manifestation of art and culture. It was the spirit of Puritanism
- which robbed Shelley of his children, because he would not bow to the
- dicta of religion. It was the same narrow spirit which alienated
- Byron from his native land, because that great genius rebelled
- against the monotony, dullness, and pettiness of his country. It was
- Puritanism, too, that forced some of England's freest women into the
- conventional lie of marriage: Mary Wollstonecraft and, later, George
- Eliot. And recently Puritanism has demanded another toll--the life
- of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Puritanism has never ceased to be the most
- pernicious factor in the domain of John Bull, acting as censor of the
- artistic expression of his people, and stamping its approval only on
- the dullness of middle-class respectability.
- It is therefore sheer British jingoism which points to America as the
- country of Puritanic provincialism. It is quite true that our life
- is stunted by Puritanism, and that the latter is killing what is
- natural and healthy in our impulses. But it is equally true that it
- is to England that we are indebted for transplanting this spirit on
- American soil. It was bequeathed to us by the Pilgrim fathers.
- Fleeing from persecution and oppression, the Pilgrims of Mayflower
- fame established in the New World a reign of Puritanic tyranny and
- crime. The history of New England, and especially of Massachusetts,
- is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into
- despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous
- lies and hypocrisies. The ducking-stool and whipping post, as well
- as numerous other devices of torture, were the favorite English
- methods for American purification.
- Boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of
- Puritanism as the "Bloody Town." It rivaled Salem, even, in her
- cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. On the now
- famous Common a half-naked woman, with a baby in her arms, was
- publicly whipped for the crime of free speech; and on the same spot
- Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hanged in 1659. In fact, Boston
- has been the scene of more than one wanton crime committed by
- Puritanism. Salem, in the summer of 1692, killed eighteen people for
- witchcraft. Nor was Massachusetts alone in driving out the devil by
- fire and brimstone. As Canning justly said: "The Pilgrim fathers
- infested the New World to redress the balance of the Old." The
- horrors of that period have found their most supreme expression in
- the American classic, THE SCARLET LETTER.
- Puritanism no longer employs the thumbscrew and lash; but it still
- has a most pernicious hold on the minds and feelings of the American
- people. Naught else can explain the power of a Comstock. Like the
- Torquemadas of ante-bellum days, Anthony Comstock is the autocrat of
- American morals; he dictates the standards of good and evil, of
- purity and vice. Like a thief in the night he sneaks into the
- private lives of the people, into their most intimate relations.
- The system of espionage established by this man Comstock puts to
- shame the infamous Third Division of the Russian secret police. Why
- does the public tolerate such an outrage on its liberties? Simply
- because Comstock is but the loud expression of the Puritanism bred in
- the Anglo-Saxon blood, and from whose thraldom even liberals have not
- succeeded in fully emancipating themselves. The visionless and
- leaden elements of the old Young Men's and Women's Christian
- Temperance Unions, Purity Leagues, American Sabbath Unions, and the
- Prohibition Party, with Anthony Comstock as their patron saint, are
- the grave diggers of American art and culture.
- Europe can at least boast of a bold art and literature which delve
- deeply into the social and sexual problems of our time, exercising a
- severe critique of all our shams. As with a surgeon's knife every
- Puritanic carcass is dissected, and the way thus cleared for man's
- liberation from the dead weights of the past. But with Puritanism as
- the constant check upon American life, neither truth nor sincerity is
- possible. Nothing but gloom and mediocrity to dictate human conduct,
- curtail natural expression, and stifle our best impulses.
- Puritanism in this the twentieth century is as much the enemy of
- freedom and beauty as it was when it landed on Plymouth Rock. It
- repudiates, as something vile and sinful, our deepest feelings; but
- being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions,
- Puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices.
- The entire history of asceticism proves this to be only too true.
- The Church, as well as Puritanism, has fought the flesh as something
- evil; it had to be subdued and hidden at all cost. The result of
- this vicious attitude is only now beginning to be recognized by
- modern thinkers and educators. They realize that "nakedness has a
- hygienic value as well as a spiritual significance, far beyond its
- influences in allaying the natural inquisitiveness of the young or
- acting as a preventative of morbid emotion. It is an inspiration to
- adults who have long outgrown any youthful curiosities. The vision
- of the essential and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in
- all the world, with its vigor and its beauty and its grace, is one of
- the prime tonics of life."[1] But the spirit of purism has so perverted
- the human mind that it has lost the power to appreciate the beauty of
- nudity, forcing us to hide the natural form under the plea of
- chastity. Yet chastity itself is but an artificial imposition upon
- nature, expressive of a false shame of the human form. The modern
- idea of chastity, especially in reference to woman, its greatest
- victim, is but the sensuous exaggeration of our natural impulses.
- "Chastity varies with the amount of clothing," and hence Christians
- and purists forever hasten to cover the "heathen" with tatters, and
- thus convert him to goodness and chastity.
- Puritanism, with its perversion of the significance and functions of
- the human body, especially in regard to woman, has condemned her to
- celibacy, or to the indiscriminate breeding of a diseased race, or to
- prostitution. The enormity of this crime against humanity is
- apparent when we consider the results. Absolute sexual continence is
- imposed upon the unmarried woman, under pain of being considered
- immoral or fallen, with the result of producing neurasthenia,
- impotence, depression, and a great variety of nervous complaints
- involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life,
- sleeplessness, and preoccupation with sexual desires and imaginings.
- The arbitrary and pernicious dictum of total continence probably also
- explains the mental inequality of the sexes. Thus Freud believes
- that the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the
- inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual
- repression. Having thus suppressed the natural sex desires of the
- unmarried woman, Puritanism, on the other hand, blesses her married
- sister for incontinent fruitfulness in wedlock. Indeed, not merely
- blesses her, but forces the woman, oversexed by previous repression,
- to bear children, irrespective of weakened physical condition or
- economic inability to rear a large family. Prevention, even by
- scientifically determined safe methods, is absolutely prohibited;
- nay, the very mention of the subject is considered criminal.
- Thanks to this Puritanic tyranny, the majority of women soon find
- themselves at the ebb of their physical resources. Ill and worn,
- they are utterly unable to give their children even elementary care.
- That, added to economic pressure, forces many women to risk utmost
- danger rather than continue to bring forth life. The custom of
- procuring abortions has reached such vast proportions in America as
- to be almost beyond belief. According to recent investigations along
- this line, seventeen abortions are committed in every hundred
- pregnancies. This fearful percentage represents only cases which
- come to the knowledge of physicians. Considering the secrecy in
- which this practice is necessarily shrouded, and the consequent
- professional inefficiency and neglect, Puritanism continuously exacts
- thousands of victims to its own stupidity and hypocrisy.
- Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is
- nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism. It is its most
- cherished child, all hypocritical sanctimoniousness notwithstanding.
- The prostitute is the fury of our century, sweeping across the
- "civilized" countries like a hurricane, and leaving a trail of
- disease and disaster. The only remedy Puritanism offers for this
- ill-begotten child is greater repression and more merciless
- persecution. The latest outrage is represented by the Page Law,
- which imposes upon New York the terrible failure and crime of Europe;
- namely, registration and segregation of the unfortunate victims of
- Puritanism. In equally stupid manner purism seeks to check the
- terrible scourge of its own creation--venereal diseases. Most
- disheartening it is that this spirit of obtuse narrow-mindedness has
- poisoned even our so-called liberals, and has blinded them into
- joining the crusade against the very things born of the hypocrisy of
- Puritanism--prostitution and its results. In wilful blindness
- Puritanism refuses to see that the true method of prevention is the
- one which makes it clear to all that "venereal diseases are not a
- mysterious or terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a
- sort of shameful evil branded by purist malediction, but an ordinary
- disease which may be treated and cured." By its methods of
- obscurity, disguise, and concealment, Puritanism has furnished
- favorable conditions for the growth and spread of these diseases.
- Its bigotry is again most strikingly demonstrated by the senseless
- attitude in regard to the great discovery of Prof. Ehrlich, hypocrisy
- veiling the important cure for syphilis with vague allusions to a
- remedy for "a certain poison."
- The almost limitless capacity of Puritanism for evil is due to its
- intrenchment behind the State and the law. Pretending to safeguard
- the people against "immorality," it has impregnated the machinery of
- government and added to its usurpation of moral guardianship the
- legal censorship of our views, feelings, and even of our conduct.
- Art, literature, the drama, the privacy of the mails, in fact, our
- most intimate tastes, are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant.
- Anthony Comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been
- given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest
- creation of nature--the human form. Books dealing with the most
- vital issues of our lives, and seeking to shed light upon dangerously
- obscured problems, are legally treated as criminal offenses, and their
- helpless authors thrown into prison or driven to destruction and
- death.
- Not even in the domain of the Tsar is personal liberty daily outraged
- to the extent it is in America, the stronghold of the Puritanic
- eunuchs. Here the only day of recreation left to the masses, Sunday,
- has been made hideous and utterly impossible. All writers on
- primitive customs and ancient civilization agree that the Sabbath was
- a day of festivities, free from care and duties, a day of general
- rejoicing and merry-making. In every European country this tradition
- continues to bring some relief from the humdrum and stupidity of our
- Christian era. Everywhere concert halls, theaters, museums, and
- gardens are filled with men, women, and children, particularly
- workers with their families, full of life and joy, forgetful of the
- ordinary rules and conventions of their every-day existence. It is
- on that day that the masses demonstrate what life might really mean
- in a sane society, with work stripped of its profit-making,
- soul-destroying purpose.
- Puritanism has robbed the people even of that one day. Naturally,
- only the workers are affected: our millionaires have their luxurious
- homes and elaborate clubs. The poor, however, are condemned to the
- monotony and dullness of the American Sunday. The sociability and
- fun of European outdoor life is here exchanged for the gloom of the
- church, the stuffy, germ-saturated country parlor, or the brutalizing
- atmosphere of the back-room saloon. In Prohibition States the people
- lack even the latter, unless they can invest their meager earnings in
- quantities of adulterated liquor. As to Prohibition, every one knows
- what a farce it really is. Like all other achievements of Puritanism
- it, too, has but driven the "devil" deeper into the human system.
- Nowhere else does one meet so many drunkards as in our Prohibition
- towns. But so long as one can use scented candy to abate the foul
- breath of hypocrisy, Puritanism is triumphant. Ostensibly
- Prohibition is opposed to liquor for reasons of health and economy,
- but the very spirit of Prohibition being itself abnormal, it succeeds
- but in creating an abnormal life.
- Every stimulus which quickens the imagination and raises the spirits,
- is as necessary to our life as air. It invigorates the body, and
- deepens our vision of human fellowship. Without stimuli, in one form
- or another, creative work is impossible, nor indeed the spirit of
- kindliness and generosity. The fact that some great geniuses have
- seen their reflection in the goblet too frequently, does not justify
- Puritanism in attempting to fetter the whole gamut of human emotions.
- A Byron and a Poe have stirred humanity deeper than all the Puritans
- can ever hope to do. The former have given to life meaning and
- color; the latter are turning red blood into water, beauty into
- ugliness, variety into uniformity and decay. Puritanism, in whatever
- expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look
- strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until
- the entire fabric is doomed. With Hippolyte Taine, every truly free
- spirit has come to realize that "Puritanism is the death of culture,
- philosophy, humor, and good fellowship; its characteristics are
- dullness, monotony, and gloom."
- [1] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. Havelock Ellis.
- THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN
- Our reformers have suddenly made a great discovery--the white slave
- traffic. The papers are full of these "unheard of conditions," and
- lawmakers are already planning a new set of laws to check the horror.
- It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted
- from a great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against
- indecency, gambling, saloons, etc. And what is the result of such
- crusades? Gambling is increasing, saloons are doing a lively
- business through back entrances, prostitution is at its height, and
- the system of pimps and cadets is but aggravated.
- How is it that an institution, known almost to every child, should
- have been discovered so suddenly? How is it that this evil, known to
- all sociologists, should now be made such an important issue?
- To assume that the recent investigation of the white slave traffic
- (and, by the way, a very superficial investigation) has discovered
- anything new, is, to say the least, very foolish. Prostitution has
- been, and is, a widespread evil, yet mankind goes on its business,
- perfectly indifferent to the sufferings and distress of the victims
- of prostitution. As indifferent, indeed, as mankind has remained to
- our industrial system, or to economic prostitution.
- Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors
- will baby people become interested--for a while at least. The people
- are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. The
- "righteous" cry against the white slave traffic is such a toy. It
- serves to amuse the people for a little while, and it will help to
- create a few more fat political jobs--parasites who stalk about the
- world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth.
- What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white
- women, but yellow and black women as well. Exploitation, of course;
- the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor,
- thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. With
- Mrs. Warren these girls feel, "Why waste your life working for a few
- shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?"
- Naturally our reformers say nothing about this cause. They know it
- well enough, but it doesn't pay to say anything about it. It is much
- more profitable to play the Pharisee, to pretend an outraged
- morality, than to go to the bottom of things.
- However, there is one commendable exception among the young writers:
- Reginald Wright Kauffman, whose work, THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, is the
- first earnest attempt to treat the social evil, not from a
- sentimental Philistine viewpoint. A journalist of wide experience,
- Mr. Kauffman proves that our industrial system leaves most women no
- alternative except prostitution. The women portrayed in THE HOUSE OF
- BONDAGE belong to the working class. Had the author portrayed the
- life of women in other spheres, he would have been confronted with
- the same state of affairs.
- Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but
- rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should
- pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with
- sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells
- herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. Whether
- our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of
- woman is responsible for prostitution.
- Just at present our good people are shocked by the disclosures that
- in New York City alone, one out of every ten women works in a
- factory, that the average wage received by women is six dollars per
- week for forty-eight to sixty hours of work, and that the majority of
- female wage workers face many months of idleness which leaves the
- average wage about $280 a year. In view of these economic horrors,
- is it to be wondered at that prostitution and the white slave trade
- have become such dominant factors?
- Lest the preceding figures be considered an exaggeration, it is well
- to examine what some authorities on prostitution have to say:
- "A prolific cause of female depravity can be found in the several
- tables, showing the description of the employment pursued, and the
- wages received, by the women previous to their fall, and it will be a
- question for the political economist to decide how far mere business
- consideration should be an apology on the part of employers for a
- reduction in their rates of remuneration, and whether the savings of
- a small percentage on wages is not more than counter-balanced by the
- enormous amount of taxation enforced on the public at large to defray
- the expenses incurred on account of a system of vice, WHICH IS THE
- DIRECT RESULT, IN MANY CASES, OF INSUFFICIENT COMPENSATION OF HONEST
- LABOR."[1]
- Our present-day reformers would do well to look into Dr. Sanger's
- book. There they will find that out of 2,000 cases under his
- observation, but few came from the middle classes, from well-ordered
- conditions, or pleasant homes. By far the largest majority were
- working girls and working women; some driven into prostitution
- through sheer want, others because of a cruel, wretched life at home,
- others again because of thwarted and crippled physical natures (of
- which I shall speak later on). Also it will do the maintainers of
- purity and morality good to learn that out of two thousand cases, 490
- were married women, women who lived with their husbands. Evidently
- there was not much of a guaranty for their "safety and purity" in the
- sanctity of marriage.[2]
- Dr. Alfred Blaschko, in PROSTITUTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, is
- even more emphatic in characterizing economic conditions as one of
- the most vital factors of prostitution.
- "Although prostitution has existed in all ages, it was left to the
- nineteenth century to develop it into a gigantic social institution.
- The development of industry with vast masses of people in the
- competitive market, the growth and congestion of large cities, the
- insecurity and uncertainty of employment, has given prostitution an
- impetus never dreamed of at any period in human history."
- And again Havelock Ellis, while not so absolute in dealing with the
- economic cause, is nevertheless compelled to admit that it is
- indirectly and directly the main cause. Thus he finds that a large
- percentage of prostitutes is recruited from the servant class,
- although the latter have less care and greater security. On the
- other hand, Mr. Ellis does not deny that the daily routine, the
- drudgery, the monotony of the servant girl's lot, and especially the
- fact that she may never partake of the companionship and joy of a
- home, is no mean factor in forcing her to seek recreation and
- forgetfulness in the gaiety and glimmer of prostitution. In other
- words, the servant girl, being treated as a drudge, never having the
- right to herself, and worn out by the caprices of her mistress, can
- find an outlet, like the factory or shopgirl, only in prostitution.
- The most amusing side of the question now before the public is the
- indignation of our "good, respectable people," especially the various
- Christian gentlemen, who are always to be found in the front ranks of
- every crusade. Is it that they are absolutely ignorant of the
- history of religion, and especially of the Christian religion? Or is
- it that they hope to blind the present generation to the part played
- in the past by the Church in relation to prostitution? Whatever
- their reason, they should be the last to cry out against the
- unfortunate victims of today, since it is known to every intelligent
- student that prostitution is of religious origin, maintained and
- fostered for many centuries, not as a shame but as a virtue, hailed
- as such by the Gods themselves.
- "It would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found
- primarily in a religious custom, religion, the great conserver of
- social tradition, preserving in a transformed shape a primitive
- freedom that was passing out of the general social life. The typical
- example is that recorded by Herodotus, in the fifth century before
- Christ, at the Temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, where every
- woman, once in her life, had to come and give herself to the first
- stranger, who threw a coin in her lap, to worship the goddess. Very
- similar customs existed in other parts of Western Asia, in North
- Africa, in Cyprus, and other islands of the Eastern Mediterranean,
- and also in Greece, where the temple of Aphrodite on the fort at
- Corinth possessed over a thousand hierodules, dedicated to the
- service of the goddess.
- "The theory that religious prostitution developed, as a general rule,
- out of the belief that the generative activity of human beings
- possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the
- fertility of Nature, is maintained by all authoritative writers on
- the subject. Gradually, however, and when prostitution became an
- organized institution under priestly influence, religious
- prostitution developed utilitarian sides, thus helping to increase
- public revenue.
- "The rise of Christianity to political power produced little change
- in policy. The leading fathers of the Church tolerated prostitution.
- Brothels under municipal protection are found in the thirteenth
- century. They constituted a sort of public service, the directors of
- them being considered almost as public servants."[3]
- To this must be added the following from Dr. Sanger's work:
- "Pope Clement II. issued a bull that prostitutes would be tolerated
- if they pay a certain amount of their earnings to the Church.
- "Pope Sixtus IV. was more practical; from one single brothel, which
- he himself had built, he received an income of 20,000 ducats."
- In modern times the Church is a little more careful in that
- direction. At least she does not openly demand tribute from
- prostitutes. She finds it much more profitable to go in for real
- estate, like Trinity Church, for instance, to rent out death traps at
- an exorbitant price to those who live off and by prostitution.
- Much as I should like to, my space will not admit speaking of
- prostitution in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and during the Middle Ages. The
- conditions in the latter period are particularly interesting,
- inasmuch as prostitution was organized into guilds, presided over by
- a brothel Queen. These guilds employed strikes as a medium of
- improving their condition and keeping a standard price. Certainly
- that is more practical a method than the one used by the modern wage
- slave in society.
- It would be one-sided and extremely superficial to maintain that the
- economic factor is the only cause of prostitution. There are others
- no less important and vital. That, too, our reformers know, but dare
- discuss even less than the institution that saps the very life out of
- both men and women. I refer to the sex question, the very mention of
- which causes most people moral spasms.
- It is a conceded fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity,
- and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and
- importance of sex. Everything dealing with the subject is
- suppressed, and persons who attempt to bring light into this terrible
- darkness are persecuted and thrown into prison. Yet it is
- nevertheless true that so long as a girl is not to know how to take
- care of herself, not to know the function of the most important part
- of her life, we need not be surprised if she becomes an easy prey to
- prostitution, or to any other form of a relationship which degrades
- her to the position of an object for mere sex gratification.
- It is due to this ignorance that the entire life and nature of the
- girl is thwarted and crippled. We have long ago taken it as a
- self-evident fact that the boy may follow the call of the wild; that
- is to say, that the boy may, as soon has his sex nature asserts
- itself, satisfy that nature; but our moralists are scandalized at the
- very thought that the nature of a girl should assert itself. To the
- moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the
- woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.
- That this is no mere statement is proved by the fact that marriage
- for monetary considerations is perfectly legitimate, sanctified by
- law and public opinion, while any other union is condemned and
- repudiated. Yet a prostitute, if properly defined, means nothing
- else than "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated
- to gain."[4]
- "Those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise
- of the sexual act and make of this a profession."[5]
- In fact, Banger goes further; he maintains that the act of
- prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who
- contracts a marriage for economic reasons."
- Of course, marriage is the goal of every girl, but as thousands of
- girls cannot marry, our stupid social customs condemn them either to
- a life of celibacy or prostitution. Human nature asserts itself
- regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature
- should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality.
- Society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his
- general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman
- are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor and of all
- that is good and noble in a human being. This double standard of
- morality has played no little part in the creation and perpetuation
- of prostitution. It involves the keeping of the young in absolute
- ignorance on sex matters, which alleged "innocence," together with an
- overwrought and stifled sex nature, helps to bring about a state of
- affairs that our Puritans are so anxious to avoid or prevent.
- Not that the gratification of sex must needs lead to prostitution; it
- is the cruel, heartless, criminal persecution of those who dare
- divert from the beaten paths, which is responsible for it.
- Girls, mere children, work in crowded, over-heated rooms ten to
- twelve hours daily at a machine, which tends to keep them in a
- constant over-excited sex state. Many of these girls have no home or
- comforts of any kind; therefore the street or some place of cheap
- amusement is the only means of forgetting their daily routine. This
- naturally brings them into close proximity with the other sex. It is
- hard to say which of the two factors brings the girl's over-sexed
- condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natural thing
- that a climax should result. That is the first step toward
- prostitution. Nor is the girl to be held responsible for it. On the
- contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the fault of our
- lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the
- making; especially is it the criminal fault of our moralists, who
- condemn a girl for all eternity, because she has gone from the "path
- of virtue"; that is, because her first sex experience has taken place
- without the sanction of the Church.
- The girl feels herself a complete outcast, with the doors of home and
- society closed in her face. Her entire training and tradition is
- such that the girl herself feels depraved and fallen, and therefore
- has no ground to stand upon, or any hold that will lift her up,
- instead of dragging her down. Thus society creates the victims that
- it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of. The meanest, most
- depraved and decrepit man still considers himself too good to take as
- his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even
- though he might thereby save her from a life of horror. Nor can she
- turn to her own sister for help. In her stupidity the latter deems
- herself too pure and chaste, not realizing that her own position is
- in many respects even more deplorable than her sister's of the
- street.
- "The wife who married for money, compared with the prostitute," says
- Havelock Ellis, "is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more
- in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master.
- The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, she
- retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled
- to submit to a man's embrace."
- Nor does the better-than-thou woman realize the apologist claim of
- Lecky that "though she may be the supreme type of vice, she is also
- the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, happy homes
- would be polluted, unnatural and harmful practice would abound."
- Moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one-half of the human race for
- the sake of some miserable institution which they can not outgrow.
- As a matter of fact, prostitution is no more a safeguard for the
- purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against
- prostitution. Fully fifty per cent. of married men are patrons of
- brothels. It is through this virtuous element that the married
- women--nay, even the children--are infected with venereal diseases.
- Yet society has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no law
- is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim.
- She is not only preyed upon by those who use her, but she is also
- absolutely at the mercy of every policeman and miserable detective on
- the beat, the officials at the station house, the authorities in
- every prison.
- In a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of
- a "house," are to be found the following figures: "The authorities
- compelled me to pay every month fines between $14.70 to $29.70, the
- girls would pay from $5.70 to $9.70 to the police." Considering that
- the writer did her business in a small city, that the amounts she
- gives do not include extra bribes and fines, one can readily see the
- tremendous revenue the police department derives from the blood money
- of its victims, whom it will not even protect. Woe to those who
- refuse to pay their toll; they would be rounded up like cattle, "if
- only to make a favorable impression upon the good citizens of the
- city, or if the powers needed extra money on the side. For the
- warped mind who believes that a fallen woman is incapable of human
- emotion it would be impossible to realize the grief, the disgrace,
- the tears, the wounded pride that was ours every time we were pulled
- in."
- Strange, isn't it, that a woman who has a kept a "house" should be
- able to feel that way? But stranger still that a good Christian
- world should bleed and fleece such women, and give them nothing in
- return except obloquy and persecution. Oh, for the charity of a
- Christian world!
- Much stress is laid on white slaves being imported into America. How
- would America ever retain her virtue if Europe did not help her out?
- I will not deny that this may be the case in some instances, any more
- than I will deny that there are emissaries of Germany and other
- countries luring economic slaves into America; but I absolutely deny
- that prostitution is recruited to any appreciable extent from Europe.
- It may be true that the majority of prostitutes in New York City are
- foreigners, but that is because the majority of the population is
- foreign. The moment we go to any other American city, to Chicago or
- the Middle West, we shall find that the number of foreign
- prostitutes is by far a minority.
- Equally exaggerated is the belief that the majority of street girls
- in this city were engaged in this business before they came to
- America. Most of the girls speak excellent English, are Americanized
- in habits and appearance,--a thing absolutely impossible unless they
- had lived in this country many years. That is, they were driven into
- prostitution by American conditions, by the thoroughly American
- custom for excessive display of finery and clothes, which, of course,
- necessitates money,--money that cannot be earned in shops or
- factories.
- In other words, there is no reason to believe that any set of men
- would go to the risk and expense of getting foreign products, when
- American conditions are overflooding the market with thousands of
- girls. On the other hand, there is sufficient evidence to prove that
- the export of American girls for the purpose of prostitution is by no
- means a small factor.
- Thus Clifford G. Roe, ex-Assistant State Attorney of Cook County,
- Ill., makes the open charge that New England girls are shipped to
- Panama for the express use of men in the employ of Uncle Sam. Mr.
- Roe adds that "there seems to be an underground railroad between
- Boston and Washington which many girls travel." Is it not
- significant that the railroad should lead to the very seat of Federal
- authority? That Mr. Roe said more than was desired in certain
- quarters is proved by the fact that he lost his position. It is not
- practical for men in office to tell tales from school.
- The excuse given for the conditions in Panama is that there are no
- brothels in the Canal Zone. That is the usual avenue of escape for a
- hypocritical world that dares not face the truth. Not in the Canal
- Zone, not in the city limits,--therefore prostitution does not exist.
- Next to Mr. Roe, there is James Bronson Reynolds, who has made a
- thorough study of the white slave traffic in Asia. As a staunch
- American citizen and friend of the future Napoleon of America,
- Theodore Roosevelt, he is surely the last to discredit the virtue of
- his country. Yet we are informed by him that in Hong Kong, Shanghai,
- and Yokohama, the Augean stables of American vice are located. There
- American prostitutes have made themselves so conspicuous that in the
- Orient "American girl" is synonymous with prostitute. Mr. Reynolds
- reminds his countrymen that while Americans in China are under the
- protection of our consular representatives, the Chinese in America
- have no protection at all. Every one who knows the brutal and
- barbarous persecution Chinese and Japanese endure on the Pacific
- Coast, will agree with Mr. Reynolds.
- In view of the above facts it is rather absurd to point to Europe as
- the swamp whence come all the social diseases of America. Just as
- absurd is it to proclaim the myth that the Jews furnish the largest
- contingent of willing prey. I am sure that no one will accuse me of
- nationalistic tendencies. I am glad to say that I have developed out
- of them, as out of many other prejudices. If, therefore, I resent
- the statement that Jewish prostitutes are imported, it is not because
- of any Judaistic sympathies, but because of the facts inherent in the
- lives of these people. No one but the most superficial will claim
- that Jewish girls migrate to strange lands, unless they have some tie
- or relation that brings them there. The Jewish girl is not
- adventurous. Until recent years she had never left home, not even so
- far as the next village or town, except it were to visit some
- relative. Is it then credible that Jewish girls would leave their
- parents or families, travel thousands of miles to strange lands,
- through the influence and promises of strange forces? Go to any of
- the large incoming steamers and see for yourself if these girls do
- not come either with their parents, brothers, aunts, or other
- kinsfolk. There may be exceptions, of course, but to state that
- large numbers of Jewish girls are imported for prostitution, or any
- other purpose, is simply not to know Jewish psychology.
- Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them;
- besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break
- easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight.
- To ascribe the increase in prostitution to alleged importation, to
- the growth of the cadet system, or similar causes, is highly
- superficial. I have already referred to the former. As to the cadet
- system, abhorrent as it is, we must not ignore the fact that it is
- essentially a phase of modern prostitution,--a phase accentuated by
- suppression and graft, resulting from sporadic crusades against the
- social evil.
- The procurer is no doubt a poor specimen of the human family, but in
- what manner is he more despicable than the policeman who takes the
- last cent from the street walker, and then locks her up in the
- station house? Why is the cadet more criminal, or a greater menace
- to society, than the owners of department stores and factories, who
- grow fat on the sweat of their victims, only to drive them to the
- streets? I make no plea for the cadet, but I fail to see why he
- should be mercilessly hounded, while the real perpetrators of all
- social iniquity enjoy immunity and respect. Then, too, it is well to
- remember that it is not the cadet who makes the prostitute. It is
- our sham and hypocrisy that create both the prostitute and the cadet.
- Until 1894 very little was known in America of the procurer. Then we
- were attacked by an epidemic of virtue. Vice was to be abolished,
- the country purified at all cost. The social cancer was therefore
- driven out of sight, but deeper into the body. Keepers of brothels,
- as well as their unfortunate victims, were turned over to the tender
- mercies of the police. The inevitable consequence of exorbitant
- bribes, and the penitentiary, followed.
- While comparatively protected in the brothels, where they represented
- a certain monetary value, the girls now found themselves on the
- street, absolutely at the mercy of the graft-greedy police.
- Desperate, needing protection and longing for affection, these girls
- naturally proved an easy prey for cadets, themselves the result of
- the spirit of our commercial age. Thus the cadet system was the
- direct outgrowth of police persecution, graft, and attempted
- suppression of prostitution. It were sheer folly to confound this
- modern phase of the social evil with the causes of the latter.
- Mere suppression and barbaric enactments can serve but to embitter,
- and further degrade, the unfortunate victims of ignorance and
- stupidity. The latter has reached its highest expression in the
- proposed law to make humane treatment of prostitutes a crime,
- punishing any one sheltering a prostitute with five years'
- imprisonment and $10,000 fine. Such an attitude merely exposes the
- terrible lack of understanding of the true causes of prostitution, as
- a social factor, as well as manifesting the Puritanic spirit of the
- Scarlet Letter days.
- There is not a single modern writer on the subject who does not refer
- to the utter futility of legislative methods in coping with the
- issue. Thus Dr. Blaschko finds that governmental suppression and
- moral crusades accomplish nothing save driving the evil into secret
- channels, multiplying its dangers to society. Havelock Ellis, the
- most thorough and humane student of prostitution, proves by a wealth
- of data that the more stringent the methods of persecution the worse
- the condition becomes. Among other data we learn that in France, "in
- 1560, Charles IX. abolished brothels through an edict, but the
- numbers of prostitutes were only increased, while many new brothels
- appeared in unsuspected shapes, and were more dangerous. In spite of
- all such legislation, OR BECAUSE OF IT, there has been no country in
- which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part."[6]
- An educated public opinion, freed from the legal and moral hounding
- of the prostitute, can alone help to ameliorate present conditions.
- Wilful shutting of eyes and ignoring of the evil as a social factor
- of modern life, can but aggravate matters. We must rise above our
- foolish notions of "better than thou," and learn to recognize in the
- prostitute a product of social conditions. Such a realization will
- sweep away the attitude of hypocrisy, and insure a greater
- understanding and more humane treatment. As to a thorough
- eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a
- complete transvaluation of all accepted values--especially the moral
- ones--coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery.
- [1] Dr. Sanger, THE HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION.
- [2] It is a significant fact that Dr. Sanger's book has been excluded
- from the U. S. mails. Evidently the authorities are not anxious that
- the public be informed as to the true cause of prostitution.
- [3] Havelock Ellis, SEX AND SOCIETY.
- [4] Guyot, LA PROSTITUTION.
- [5] Banger, CRIMINALITE ET CONDITION ECONOMIQUE.
- [6] SEX AND SOCIETY.
- WOMAN SUFFRAGE
- We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it
- not strange, then, that we still believe in fetich worship? True,
- our fetiches have different form and substance, yet in their power
- over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of
- old.
- Our modern fetich is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet
- achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those
- who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this
- omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that
- divinity!
- Woman, even more than man, is a fetich worshipper, and though her
- idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her
- hands, ever blind to the fact that her god has feet of clay. Thus
- woman has been the greatest supporter of all deities from time
- immemorial. Thus, too, she has had to pay the price that only gods
- can exact,--her freedom, her heart's blood, her very life.
- Nietzsche's memorable maxim, "When you go to woman, take the whip
- along," is considered very brutal, yet Nietzsche expressed in one
- sentence the attitude of woman towards her gods.
- Religion, especially the Christian religion, has condemned woman to
- the life of an inferior, a slave. It has thwarted her nature and
- fettered her soul, yet the Christian religion has no greater
- supporter, none more devout, than woman. Indeed, it is safe to say
- that religion would have long ceased to be a factor in the lives of
- the people, if it were not for the support it receives from woman.
- The most ardent churchworkers, the most tireless missionaries the
- world over, are women, always sacrificing on the altar of the gods
- that have chained her spirit and enslaved her body.
- The insatiable monster, war, robs woman of all that is dear and
- precious to her. It exacts her brothers, lovers, sons, and in return
- gives her a life of loneliness and despair. Yet the greatest
- supporter and worshiper of war is woman. She it is who instills the
- love of conquest and power into her children; she it is who whispers
- the glories of war into the ears of her little ones, and who rocks
- her baby to sleep with the tunes of trumpets and the noise of guns.
- It is woman, too, who crowns the victor on his return from the
- battlefield. Yes, it is woman who pays the highest price to that
- insatiable monster, war.
- Then there is the home. What a terrible fetich it is! How it saps
- the very life-energy of woman,--this modern prison with golden bars.
- Its shining aspect blinds woman to the price she would have to pay as
- wife, mother, and housekeeper. Yet woman clings tenaciously to the
- home, to the power that holds her in bondage.
- It may be said that because woman recognizes the awful toll she is
- made to pay to the Church, State, and the home, she wants suffrage to
- set herself free. That may be true of the few; the majority of
- suffragists repudiate utterly such blasphemy. On the contrary, they
- insist always that it is woman suffrage which will make her a better
- Christian and homekeeper, a staunch citizen of the State. Thus
- suffrage is only a means of strengthening the omnipotence of the very
- Gods that woman has served from time immemorial.
- What wonder, then, that she should be just as devout, just as
- zealous, just as prostrate before the new idol, woman suffrage. As
- of old, she endures persecution, imprisonment, torture, and all forms
- of condemnation, with a smile on her face. As of old, the most
- enlightened, even, hope for a miracle from the twentieth century
- deity,--suffrage. Life, happiness, joy, freedom, independence,--all
- that, and more, is to spring from suffrage. In her blind devotion
- woman does not see what people of intellect perceived fifty years
- ago: that suffrage is an evil, that it has only helped to enslave
- people, that it has but closed their eyes that they may not see how
- craftily they were made to submit.
- Woman's demand for equal suffrage is based largely on the contention
- that woman must have the equal right in all affairs of society. No
- one could, possibly, refute that, if suffrage were a right. Alas,
- for the ignorance of the human mind, which can see a right in an
- imposition. Or is it not the most brutal imposition for one set of
- people to make laws that another set is coerced by force to obey?
- Yet woman clamors for that "golden opportunity" that has wrought so
- much misery in the world, and robbed man of his integrity and
- self-reliance; an imposition which has thoroughly corrupted the
- people, and made them absolute prey in the hands of unscrupulous
- politicians.
- The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to
- tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal
- suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs.
- The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the
- right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the
- right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these
- disastrous results of the twentieth century fetich have taught woman
- nothing. But, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured.
- Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the
- conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither
- physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have
- the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me
- to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has
- failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not
- make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in
- purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to
- credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman's greatest
- misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or
- devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in
- being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies
- and mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a
- right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics
- will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? The
- most ardent suffragists would hardly maintain such a folly.
- As a matter of fact, the most advanced students of universal suffrage
- have come to realize that all existing systems of political power are
- absurd, and are completely inadequate to meet the pressing issues of
- life. This view is also borne out by a statement of one who is
- herself an ardent believer in woman suffrage, Dr. Helen L. Sumner.
- In her able work on EQUAL SUFFRAGE, she says: "In Colorado, we find
- that equal suffrage serves to show in the most striking way the
- essential rottenness and degrading character of the existing system."
- Of course, Dr. Sumner has in mind a particular system of voting, but
- the same applies with equal force to the entire machinery of the
- representative system. With such a basis, it is difficult to
- understand how woman, as a political factor, would benefit either
- herself or the rest of mankind.
- But, say our suffrage devotees, look at the countries and States
- where female suffrage exists. See what woman has accomplished--in
- Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Scandinavian countries, and in
- our own four States, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Distance
- lends enchantment--or, to quote a Polish formula--"it is well where
- we are not." Thus one would assume that those countries and States
- are unlike other countries or States, that they have greater
- freedom, greater social and economic equality, a finer appreciation
- of human life, deeper understanding of the great social struggle,
- with all the vital questions it involves for the human race.
- The women of Australia and New Zealand can vote, and help make the
- laws. Are the labor conditions better there than they are in
- England, where the suffragettes are making such a heroic struggle?
- Does there exist a greater motherhood, happier and freer children
- than in England? Is woman there no longer considered a mere sex
- commodity? Has she emancipated herself from the Puritanical double
- standard of morality for men and women? Certainly none but the
- ordinary female stump politician will dare answer these questions in
- the affirmative. If that be so, it seems ridiculous to point to
- Australia and New Zealand as the Mecca of equal suffrage
- accomplishments.
- On the other hand, it is a fact to those who know the real political
- conditions in Australia, that politics have gagged labor by enacting
- the most stringent labor laws, making strikes without the sanction of
- an arbitration committee a crime equal to treason.
- Not for a moment do I mean to imply that woman suffrage is
- responsible for this state of affairs. I do mean, however, that
- there is no reason to point to Australia as a wonder-worker of
- woman's accomplishment, since her influence has been unable to free
- labor from the thralldom of political bossism.
- Finland has given woman equal suffrage; nay, even the right to sit in
- Parliament. Has that helped to develop a greater heroism, an
- intenser zeal than that of the women of Russia? Finland, like
- Russia, smarts under the terrible whip of the bloody Tsar. Where are
- the Finnish Perovskaias, Spiridonovas, Figners, Breshkovskaias?
- Where are the countless numbers of Finnish young girls who cheerfully
- go to Siberia for their cause? Finland is sadly in need of heroic
- liberators. Why has the ballot not created them? The only Finnish
- avenger of his people was a man, not a woman, and he used a more
- effective weapon than the ballot.
- As to our own States where women vote, and which are constantly being
- pointed out as examples of marvels, what has been accomplished there
- through the ballot that women do not to a large extent enjoy in other
- States; or that they could not achieve through energetic efforts
- without the ballot?
- True, in the suffrage States women are guaranteed equal rights to
- property; but of what avail is that right to the mass of women
- without property, the thousands of wage workers, who live from hand
- to mouth? That equal suffrage did not, and cannot, affect their
- condition is admitted even by Dr. Sumner, who certainly is in a
- position to know. As an ardent suffragist, and having been sent to
- Colorado by the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State to
- collect material in favor of suffrage, she would be the last to say
- anything derogatory; yet we are informed that "equal suffrage has but
- slightly affected the economic conditions of women. That women do
- not receive equal pay for equal work, and that, though woman in
- Colorado has enjoyed school suffrage since 1876, women teachers are
- paid less than in California." On the other hand, Miss Sumner fails
- to account for the fact that although women have had school suffrage
- for thirty-four years, and equal suffrage since 1894, the census in
- Denver alone a few months ago disclosed the fact of fifteen thousand
- defective school children. And that, too, with mostly women in the
- educational department, and also notwithstanding that women in
- Colorado have passed the "most stringent laws for child and animal
- protection." The women of Colorado "have taken great interest in the
- State institutions for the care of dependent, defective, and
- delinquent children." What a horrible indictment against woman's
- care and interest, if one city has fifteen thousand defective
- children. What about the glory of woman suffrage, since it has
- failed utterly in the most important social issue, the child? And
- where is the superior sense of justice that woman was to bring into
- the political field? Where was it in 1903, when the mine owners
- waged a guerilla war against the Western Miners' Union; when General
- Bell established a reign of terror, pulling men out of beds at night,
- kidnapping them across the border line, throwing them into bull pens,
- declaring "to hell with the Constitution, the club is the
- Constitution"? Where were the women politicians then, and why did
- they not exercise the power of their vote? But they did. They
- helped to defeat the most fair-minded and liberal man, Governor
- Waite. The latter had to make way for the tool of the mine kings,
- Governor Peabody, the enemy of labor, the Tsar of Colorado.
- "Certainly male suffrage could have done nothing worse." Granted.
- Wherein, then, are the advantages to woman and society from woman
- suffrage? The oft-repeated assertion that woman will purify politics
- is also but a myth. It is not borne out by the people who know the
- political conditions of Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.
- Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigotted and relentless in
- her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be.
- Thus, in Idaho, she has disfranchised her sister of the street, and
- declared all women of "lewd character" unfit to vote. "Lewd" not
- being interpreted, of course, as prostitution IN marriage. It goes
- without saying that illegal prostitution and gambling have been
- prohibited. In this regard the law must needs be of feminine nature:
- it always prohibits. Therein all laws are wonderful. They go no
- further, but their very tendencies open all the floodgates of hell.
- Prostitution and gambling have never done a more flourishing business
- than since the law has been set against them.
- In Colorado, the Puritanism of woman has expressed itself in a more
- drastic form. "Men of notoriously unclean lives, and men connected
- with saloons, have been dropped from politics since women have the
- vote."[1] Could brother Comstock do more? Could all the Puritan
- fathers have done more? I wonder how many women realize the gravity
- of this would-be feat. I wonder if they understand that it is the
- very thing which, instead of elevating woman, has made her a
- political spy, a contemptible pry into the private affairs of people,
- not so much for the good of the cause, but because, as a Colorado
- woman said, "they like to get into houses they have never been in,
- and find out all they can, politically and otherwise."[2] Yes, and
- into the human soul and its minutest nooks and corners. For nothing
- satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal. And when did
- she ever enjoy such opportunities as are hers, the politician's?
- "Notoriously unclean lives, and men connected with the saloons."
- Certainly, the lady vote gatherers can not be accused of much sense
- of proportion. Granting even that these busybodies can decide whose
- lives are clean enough for that eminently clean atmosphere, politics,
- must it follow that saloon-keepers belong to the same category?
- Unless it be American hypocrisy and bigotry, so manifest in the
- principle of Prohibition, which sanctions the spread of drunkenness
- among men and women of the rich class, yet keeps vigilant watch on
- the only place left to the poor man. If no other reason, woman's
- narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater danger to
- liberty wherever she has political power. Man has long overcome the
- superstitions that still engulf woman. In the economic competitive
- field, man has been compelled to exercise efficiency, judgment,
- ability, competency. He therefore had neither time nor inclination
- to measure everyone's morality with a Puritanic yardstick. In his
- political activities, too, he has not gone about blindfolded. He
- knows that quantity and not quality is the material for the political
- grinding mill, and, unless he is a sentimental reformer or an old
- fossil, he knows that politics can never be anything but a swamp.
- Women who are at all conversant with the process of politics, know
- the nature of the beast, but in their self-sufficiency and egotism
- they make themselves believe that they have but to pet the beast, and
- he will become as gentle as a lamb, sweet and pure. As if women have
- not sold their votes, as if women politicians can not be bought! If
- her body can be bought in return for material consideration, why not
- her vote? That it is being done in Colorado and in other States, is
- not denied even by those in favor of woman suffrage.
- As I have said before, woman's narrow view of human affairs is not
- the only argument against her as a politician superior to man. There
- are others. Her life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred
- her conception of the meaning of equality. She clamors for equal
- rights with men, yet we learn that "few women care to canvas in
- undesirable districts."[3] How little equality means to them compared
- with the Russian women, who face hell itself for their ideal!
- Woman demands the same rights as man, yet she is indignant that her
- presence does not strike him dead: he smokes, keeps his hat on, and
- does not jump from his seat like a flunkey. These may be trivial
- things, but they are nevertheless the key to the nature of American
- suffragists. To be sure, their English sisters have outgrown these
- silly notions. They have shown themselves equal to the greatest
- demands on their character and power of endurance. All honor to the
- heroism and sturdiness of the English suffragettes. Thanks to their
- energetic, aggressive methods, they have proved an inspiration to some
- of our own lifeless and spineless ladies. But after all, the
- suffragettes, too, are still lacking in appreciation of real
- equality. Else how is one to account for the tremendous, truly
- gigantic effort set in motion by those valiant fighters for a
- wretched little bill which will benefit a handful of propertied
- ladies, with absolutely no provision for the vast mass of
- workingwomen? True, as politicians they must be opportunists, must
- take half measures if they can not get all. But as intelligent and
- liberal women they ought to realize that if the ballot is a weapon,
- the disinherited need it more than the economically superior class,
- and that the latter already enjoy too much power by virtue of their
- economic superiority.
- The brilliant leader of the English suffragettes, Mrs. Emmeline
- Pankhurst, herself admitted, when on her American lecture tour, that
- there can be no equality between political superiors and inferiors.
- If so, how will the workingwoman of England, already inferior
- economically to the ladies who are benefited by the Shackleton bill,[4]
- be able to work with their political superiors, should the bill pass?
- Is it not probable that the class of Annie Keeney, so full of zeal,
- devotion, and martyrdom, will be compelled to carry on their backs
- their female political bosses, even as they are carrying their
- economic masters. They would still have to do it, were universal
- suffrage for men and women established in England. No matter what
- the workers do, they are made to pay, always. Still, those who
- believe in the power of the vote show little sense of justice when
- they concern themselves not at all with those whom, as they claim, it
- might serve most.
- The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently,
- altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic
- needs of the people. Thus Susan B. Anthony, no doubt an exceptional
- type of woman, was not only indifferent but antagonistic to labor;
- nor did she hesitate to manifest her antagonism when, in 1869, she
- advised women to take the places of striking printers in New York.[5]
- I do not know whether her attitude had changed before her death.
- There are, of course, some suffragists who are affiliated with
- workingwomen--the Women's Trade Union League, for instance; but they
- are a small minority, and their activities are essentially economic.
- The rest look upon toil as a just provision of Providence. What
- would become of the rich, if not for the poor? What would become of
- these idle, parasitic ladies, who squander more in a week than their
- victims earn in a year, if not for the eighty million wage workers?
- Equality, who ever heard of such a thing?
- Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as
- America. Particularly this is true of the American woman of the
- middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but
- his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality.
- Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the
- most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how
- truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly
- notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact;
- it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does.
- One of the great American women leaders claims that woman is entitled
- not only to equal pay, but that she ought to be legally entitled even
- to the pay of her husband. Failing to support her, he should be put
- in convict stripes, and his earnings in prison be collected by his
- equal wife. Does not another brilliant exponent of the cause claim
- for woman that her vote will abolish the social evil, which has been
- fought in vain by the collective efforts of the most illustrious
- minds the world over? It is indeed to be regretted that the alleged
- creator of the universe has already presented us with his wonderful
- scheme of things, else woman suffrage would surely enable woman to
- outdo him completely.
- Nothing is so dangerous as the dissection of a fetich. If we have
- outlived the time when such heresy was punishable at the stake, we
- have not outlived the narrow spirit of condemnation of those who dare
- differ with accepted notions. Therefore I shall probably be put down
- as an opponent of woman. But that can not deter me from looking the
- question squarely in the face. I repeat what I have said in the
- beginning: I do not believe that woman will make politics worse; nor
- can I believe that she could make it better. If, then, she cannot
- improve on man's mistakes, why perpetuate the latter?
- History may be a compilation of lies; nevertheless, it contains a few
- truths, and they are the only guide we have for the future. The
- history of the political activities of men proves that they have
- given him absolutely nothing that he could not have achieved in a
- more direct, less costly, and more lasting manner. As a matter of
- fact, every inch of ground he has gained has been through a constant
- fight, a ceaseless struggle for self-assertion, and not through
- suffrage. There is no reason whatever to assume that woman, in her
- climb to emancipation, has been, or will be, helped by the ballot.
- In the darkest of all countries, Russia, with her absolute despotism,
- woman has become man's equal, not through the ballot, but by her will
- to be and to do. Not only has she conquered for herself every avenue
- of learning and vocation, but she has won man's esteem, his respect,
- his comradeship; aye, even more than that: she has gained the
- admiration, the respect of the whole world. That, too, not through
- suffrage, but by her wonderful heroism, her fortitude, her ability,
- will power, and her endurance in the struggle for liberty. Where are
- the women in any suffrage country or State that can lay claim to such
- a victory? When we consider the accomplishments of woman in America,
- we find also that something deeper and more powerful than suffrage
- has helped her in the march to emancipation.
- It is just sixty-two years ago since a handful of women at the Seneca
- Falls Convention set forth a few demands for their right to equal
- education with men, and access to the various professions, trades,
- etc. What wonderful accomplishment, what wonderful triumphs! Who
- but the most ignorant dare speak of woman as a mere domestic drudge?
- Who dare suggest that this or that profession should not be open to
- her? For over sixty years she has molded a new atmosphere and a new
- life for herself. She has become a world power in every domain of
- human thought and activity. And all that without suffrage, without
- the right to make laws, without the "privilege" of becoming a judge,
- a jailer, or an executioner.
- Yes, I may be considered an enemy of woman; but if I can help her see
- the light, I shall not complain.
- The misfortune of woman is not that she is unable to do the work of
- man, but that she is wasting her life force to outdo him, with a
- tradition of centuries which has left her physically incapable of
- keeping pace with him. Oh, I know some have succeeded, but at what
- cost, at what terrific cost! The import is not the kind of work
- woman does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. She
- can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive
- anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development,
- her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself.
- First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex
- commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by
- refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by refusing to be a
- servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc.; by
- making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying
- to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities,
- by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public
- condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free,
- will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real
- love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life giving;
- a creator of free men and women.
- [1] EQUAL SUFFRAGE. Dr. Helen Sumner.
- [2] EQUAL SUFFRAGE.
- [3] Dr. Helen A. Sumner.
- [4] Mr. Shackleton was a labor leader. It is therefore self-evident
- that he should introduce a bill excluding his own constituents. The
- English Parliament is full of such Judases.
- [5] EQUAL SUFFRAGE. Dr. Helen A. Sumner.
- THE TRAGEDY OF WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION
- I begin with an admission: Regardless of all political and economic
- theories, treating of the fundamental differences between various
- groups within the human race, regardless of class and race
- distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between
- woman's rights and man's rights, I hold that there is a point where
- these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole.
- With this I do not mean to propose a peace treaty. The general
- social antagonism which has taken hold of our entire public life
- today, brought about through the force of opposing and contradictory
- interests, will crumble to pieces when the reorganization of our
- social life, based upon the principles of economic justice, shall
- have become a reality.
- Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not
- necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor
- does it call for the elimination of individual traits and
- peculiarities. The problem that confronts us today, and which the
- nearest future is to solve, is how to be one's self and yet in
- oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still
- retain one's own characteristic qualities. This seems to me to be
- the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat
- and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet without
- antagonism and opposition. The motto should not be: Forgive one
- another; rather, Understand one another. The oft-quoted sentence of
- Madame de Stael: "To understand everything means to forgive
- everything," has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor
- of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow-being conveys the idea
- of pharisaical superiority. To understand one's fellow-being
- suffices. The admission partly represents the fundamental aspect of
- my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire
- sex.
- Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the
- truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and
- activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers
- should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of
- every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.
- This was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation.
- But the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed
- her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential
- to her. Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an
- artificial being, who reminds one of the products of French
- arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels,
- and wreaths; anything, except the forms which would be reached by the
- expression of her own inner qualities. Such artificially grown
- plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially
- in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life.
- Liberty and equality for woman! What hopes and aspirations these
- words awakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest
- and bravest souls of those days. The sun in all his light and glory
- was to rise upon a new world; in this world woman was to be free to
- direct her own destiny--an aim certainly worthy of the great
- enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and ceaseless effort of the
- tremendous host of pioneer men and women, who staked everything
- against a world of prejudice and ignorance.
- My hopes also move towards that goal, but I hold that the
- emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically applied today,
- has failed to reach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with
- the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she
- really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical, but is,
- nevertheless, only too true.
- What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a
- few States. Has that purified our political life, as many
- well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally, it
- is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease
- to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone.
- Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the
- laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is
- altogether a material one. Politics is the reflex of the business
- and industrial world, the mottos of which are: "To take is more
- blessed than to give"; "buy cheap and sell dear"; "one soiled hand
- washes the other." There is no hope even that woman, with her right
- to vote, will ever purify politics.
- Emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is,
- she can choose her own profession and trade; but as her past and
- present physical training has not equipped her with the necessary
- strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all
- her energy, use up her vitality, and strain every nerve in order to
- reach the market value. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that
- women teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and engineers are
- neither met with the same confidence as their male colleagues, nor
- receive equal remuneration. And those that do reach that enticing
- equality, generally do so at the expense of their physical and
- psychical well-being. As to the great mass of working girls and
- women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of
- freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of
- freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? In
- addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a
- "home, sweet home"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a
- day's hard work. Glorious independence! No wonder that hundreds of
- girls are willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and
- tired of their "independence" behind the counter, at the sewing or
- typewriting machine. They are just as ready to marry as girls of the
- middle class, who long to throw off the yoke of parental supremacy.
- A so-called independence which leads only to earning the merest
- subsistence is not so enticing, not so ideal, that one could expect
- woman to sacrifice everything for it. Our highly praised
- independence is, after all, but a slow process of dulling and
- stifling woman's nature, her love instinct, and her mother instinct.
- Nevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural
- and human than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the
- more cultured professional walks of life--teachers, physicians,
- lawyers, engineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, proper
- appearance, while the inner life is growing empty and dead.
- The narrowness of the existing conception of woman's independence and
- emancipation; the dread of love for a man who is not her social
- equal; the fear that love will rob her of her freedom and
- independence; the horror that love or the joy of motherhood will only
- hinder her in the full exercise of her profession--all these together
- make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom
- life, with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing
- joys, rolls on without touching or gripping her soul.
- Emancipation, as understood by the majority of its adherents and
- exponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless love and
- ecstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart,
- mother, in freedom.
- The tragedy of the self-supporting or economically free woman does
- not lie in too many but in too few experiences. True, she surpasses
- her sister of past generations in knowledge of the world and human
- nature; it is just because of this that she feels deeply the lack of
- life's essence, which alone can enrich the human soul, and without
- which the majority of women have become mere professional automatons.
- That such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those
- who realized that, in the domain of ethics, there still remained many
- decaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man;
- ruins that are still considered useful. And, what is more important,
- a goodly number of the emancipated are unable to get along without
- them. Every movement that aims at the destruction of existing
- institutions and the replacement thereof with something more
- advanced, more perfect, has followers who in theory stand for the
- most radical ideas, but who, nevertheless, in their every-day
- practice, are like the average Philistine, feigning respectability
- and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. There are,
- for example, Socialists, and even Anarchists, who stand for the idea
- that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe
- them the value of a half-dozen pins.
- The same Philistine can be found in the movement for woman's
- emancipation. Yellow journalists and milk-and-water litterateurs
- have painted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of
- the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. Every
- member of the woman's rights movement was pictured as a George Sand
- in her absolute disregard of morality. Nothing was sacred to her.
- She had no respect for the ideal relation between man and woman. In
- short, emancipation stood only for a reckless life of lust and sin;
- regardless of society, religion, and morality. The exponents of
- woman's rights were highly indignant at such representation, and,
- lacking humor, they exerted all their energy to prove that they were
- not at all as bad as they were painted, but the very reverse. Of
- course, as long as woman was the slave of man, she could not be good
- and pure, but now that she was free and independent she would prove
- how good she could be and that her influence would have a purifying
- effect on all institutions in society. True, the movement for
- woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged
- new ones. The great movement of TRUE emancipation has not met with a
- great race of women who could look liberty in the face. Their
- narrow, Puritanical vision banished man, as a disturber and doubtful
- character, out of their emotional life. Man was not to be tolerated
- at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child
- could not very well come to life without a father. Fortunately, the
- most rigid Puritans never will be strong enough to kill the innate
- craving for motherhood. But woman's freedom is closely allied with
- man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to
- overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and
- devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman.
- Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that
- has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and
- woman.
- About fifteen years ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant
- Norwegian, Laura Marholm, called WOMAN, A CHARACTER STUDY. She was
- one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of
- the existing conception of woman's emancipation, and its tragic
- effect upon the inner life of woman. In her work Laura Marholm
- speaks of the fate of several gifted women of international fame: the
- genius, Eleonora Duse; the great mathematician and writer, Sonya
- Kovalevskaia; the artist and poet-nature, Marie Bashkirtzeff, who
- died so young. Through each description of the lives of these women
- of such extraordinary mentality runs a marked trail of unsatisfied
- craving for a full, rounded, complete, and beautiful life, and the
- unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. Through these
- masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the
- higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for
- her to meet a congenial mate who will see in her, not only sex, but
- also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong
- individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her
- character.
- The average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior
- airs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for
- woman as depicted in the CHARACTER STUDY by Laura Marholm. Equally
- impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than
- her mentality and her genius, and who fails to awaken her woman
- nature.
- A rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary
- attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. In the case of the
- modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete
- assertion of her being. For over a hundred years the old form of
- marriage, based on the Bible, "till death doth part," has been
- denounced as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the
- man over the woman, of her complete submission to his whims and
- commands, and absolute dependence on his name and support. Time and
- again it has been conclusively proved that the old matrimonial
- relation restricted woman to the function of a man's servant and the
- bearer of his children. And yet we find many emancipated women who
- prefer marriage, with all its deficiencies, to the narrowness of an
- unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral
- and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature.
- The explanation of such inconsistency on the part of many advanced
- women is to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the
- meaning of emancipation. They thought that all that was needed was
- independence from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more
- harmful to life and growth--ethical and social conventions--were left
- to take care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves.
- They seem to get along as beautifully in the heads and hearts of the
- most active exponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and
- hearts of our grandmothers.
- These internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion
- or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt, or relative of any
- sort; what will Mrs. Grundy, Mr. Comstock, the employer, the Board of
- Education say? All these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of
- the human spirit, what will they say? Until woman has learned to
- defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon
- her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature,
- whether it call for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her
- most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she
- cannot call herself emancipated. How many emancipated women are
- brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly
- beating against their breasts, demanding to be heard, to be
- satisfied.
- The French writer, Jean Reibrach, in one of his novels, NEW BEAUTY,
- attempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. This
- ideal is embodied in a young girl, a physician. She talks very
- cleverly and wisely of how to feed infants; she is kind, and
- administers medicines free to poor mothers. She converses with a
- young man of her acquaintance about the sanitary conditions of the
- future, and how various bacilli and germs shall be exterminated by
- the use of stone walls and floors, and by the doing away with rugs
- and hangings. She is, of course, very plainly and practically
- dressed, mostly in black. The young man, who, at their first
- meeting, was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend,
- gradually learns to understand her, and recognizes one fine day that
- he loves her. They are young, and she is kind and beautiful, and
- though always in rigid attire, her appearance is softened by a
- spotlessly clean white collar and cuffs. One would expect that he
- would tell her of his love, but he is not one to commit romantic
- absurdities. Poetry and the enthusiasm of love cover their blushing
- faces before the pure beauty of the lady. He silences the voice of
- his nature, and remains correct. She, too, is always exact, always
- rational, always well behaved. I fear if they had formed a union,
- the young man would have risked freezing to death. I must confess
- that I can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty, who is as cold
- as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. Rather would I have the
- love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather
- an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the
- father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors,
- than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. If love does
- not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love,
- but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a
- minus.
- The greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies
- in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which
- produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from
- the fountain of life. I once remarked that there seemed to be a
- deeper relationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess,
- ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the
- comfort of those she loved, and the truly new woman, than between
- the latter and her average emancipated sister. The disciples of
- emancipation pure and simple declared me a heathen, fit only for the
- stake. Their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison
- between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number
- of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and
- wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness,
- and simplicity, than the majority of our emancipated professional
- women who fill the colleges, halls of learning, and various offices.
- This does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn
- woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the nursery.
- Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and
- clearer future. We are in need of unhampered growth out of old
- traditions and habits. The movement for woman's emancipation has so
- far made but the first step in that direction. It is to be hoped
- that it will gather strength to make another. The right to vote, or
- equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins
- neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul.
- History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation
- from its masters through its own efforts. It is necessary that woman
- learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as
- far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. It is, therefore,
- far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to
- cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs.
- The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and
- fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and
- be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete
- and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the
- ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is
- synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It will have to do away
- with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and
- woman represent two antagonistic worlds.
- Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let
- us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles
- confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will
- not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great
- thing: to give of one's self boundlessly, in order to find one's self
- richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness, and
- transform the tragedy of woman's emancipation into joy, limitless
- joy.
- MARRIAGE AND LOVE
- The popular notion about marriage and love is that they are
- synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the
- same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on
- actual facts, but on superstition.
- Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as
- the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some
- marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love
- could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few
- people can completely outgrow a convention. There are today large
- numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but
- who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while
- it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is
- equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I
- maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of
- it.
- On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from
- marriage. On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a
- married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close
- examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the
- inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other is far away
- from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without
- which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman
- and the man.
- Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It
- differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is
- more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small
- compared with the investments. In taking out an insurance policy one
- pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue
- payments. If, however, woman's premium is her husband, she pays for
- it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life,
- "until death doth part." Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns
- her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness,
- individual as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his
- sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He
- feels his chains more in an economic sense.
- Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage.
- "Ye who enter here leave all hope behind."
- That marriage is a failure none but the very stupid will deny. One
- has but to glance over the statistics of divorce to realize how
- bitter a failure marriage really is. Nor will the stereotyped
- Philistine argument that the laxity of divorce laws and the growing
- looseness of woman account for the fact that: first, every twelfth
- marriage ends in divorce; second, that since 1870 divorces have
- increased from 28 to 73 for every hundred thousand population; third,
- that adultery, since 1867, as ground for divorce, has increased 270.8
- per cent.; fourth, that desertion increased 369.8 per cent.
- Added to these startling figures is a vast amount of material,
- dramatic and literary, further elucidating this subject. Robert
- Herrick, in TOGETHER; Pinero, in MID-CHANNEL; Eugene Walter, in PAID
- IN FULL, and scores of other writers are discussing the barrenness,
- the monotony, the sordidness, the inadequacy of marriage as a factor
- for harmony and understanding.
- The thoughtful social student will not content himself with the
- popular superficial excuse for this phenomenon. He will have to dig
- deeper into the very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves so
- disastrous.
- Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long
- environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each
- other that man and woman must remain strangers. Separated by an
- insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has
- not the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for,
- each other, without which every union is doomed to failure.
- Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first
- to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not--as the
- stupid critic would have it--because she is tired of her
- responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she
- has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger
- and borne him children. Can there be anything more humiliating, more
- degrading than a life-long proximity between two strangers? No need
- for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. As to
- the knowledge of the woman--what is there to know except that she has
- a pleasing appearance? We have not yet outgrown the theologic myth
- that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man, made out
- of his rib just for the convenience of the gentleman who was so
- strong that he was afraid of his own shadow.
- Perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is
- responsible for her inferiority. At any rate, woman has no
- soul--what is there to know about her? Besides, the less soul a
- woman has the greater her asset as a wife, the more readily will she
- absorb herself in her husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to
- man's superiority that has kept the marriage institution seemingly
- intact for so long a period. Now that woman is coming into her own,
- now that she is actually growing aware of herself as being outside
- of the master's grace, the sacred institution of marriage is
- gradually being undermined, and no amount of sentimental lamentation
- can stay it.
- From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her
- ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed
- towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is
- prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much
- less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan
- of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to
- know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of
- respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which
- is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare
- question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the
- average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is
- kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive
- field--sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only
- to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the
- most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a
- large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical
- suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex
- matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all
- an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up
- because of this deplorable fact.
- If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex
- without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as
- utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness
- consisting of an empty brain and plenty of money. Can there be
- anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman,
- full of life and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her
- most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must
- stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience
- until a "good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife?
- That is precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement
- end except in failure? This is one, though not the least important,
- factor of marriage, which differentiates it from love.
- Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo and Juliet risked the
- wrath of their fathers for love, when Gretchen exposed herself to the
- gossip of her neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions,
- young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, they are taken
- in care by the elders, drilled and pounded until they become
- "sensible."
- The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has
- aroused her love, but rather is it, "How much?" The important and
- only God of practical American life: Can the man make a living? can
- he support a wife? That is the only thing that justifies marriage.
- Gradually this saturates every thought of the girl; her dreams are
- not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of
- shopping tours and bargain counters. This soul poverty and
- sordidness are the elements inherent in the marriage institution.
- The State and Church approve of no other ideal, simply because it is
- the one that necessitates the State and Church control of men and
- women.
- Doubtless there are people who continue to consider love above
- dollars and cents. Particularly this is true of that class whom
- economic necessity has forced to become self-supporting. The
- tremendous change in woman's position, wrought by that mighty factor,
- is indeed phenomenal when we reflect that it is but a short time
- since she has entered the industrial arena. Six million women wage
- workers; six million women, who have equal right with men to be
- exploited, to be robbed, to go on strike; aye, to starve even.
- Anything more, my lord? Yes, six million wage workers in every walk
- of life, from the highest brain work to the mines and railroad
- tracks; yes, even detectives and policemen. Surely the emancipation
- is complete.
- Yet with all that, but a very small number of the vast army of women
- wage workers look upon work as a permanent issue, in the same light
- as does man. No matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught
- to be independent, self-supporting. Oh, I know that no one is really
- independent in our economic treadmill; still, the poorest specimen of
- a man hates to be a parasite; to be known as such, at any rate.
- The woman considers her position as worker transitory, to be thrown
- aside for the first bidder. That is why it is infinitely harder to
- organize women than men. "Why should I join a union? I am going to
- get married, to have a home." Has she not been taught from infancy
- to look upon that as her ultimate calling? She learns soon enough
- that the home, though not so large a prison as the factory, has more
- solid doors and bars. It has a keeper so faithful that naught can
- escape him. The most tragic part, however, is that the home no
- longer frees her from wage slavery; it only increases her task.
- According to the latest statistics submitted before a Committee "on
- labor and wages, and congestion of population," ten per cent. of the
- wage workers in New York City alone are married, yet they must
- continue to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world. Add to
- this horrible aspect the drudgery of housework, and what remains of
- the protection and glory of the home? As a matter of fact, even the
- middle-class girl in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is
- the man who creates her sphere. It is not important whether the
- husband is a brute or a darling. What I wish to prove is that
- marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband.
- There she moves about in HIS home, year after year, until her aspect
- of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow, and drab as her
- surroundings. Small wonder if she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome,
- gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house. She could
- not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go. Besides, a short
- period of married life, of complete surrender of all faculties,
- absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the outside world.
- She becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements,
- dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a weight and a
- bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. Wonderfully inspiring
- atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not?
- But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After
- all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the
- hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of
- children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet
- orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the Society for the
- Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little
- victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care,
- the Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it!
- Marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it
- ever made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and
- put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of
- the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity,
- what does marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to
- "justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however,
- goes not to the child, but to the State. The child receives but a
- blighted memory of his father's stripes.
- As to the protection of the woman,--therein lies the curse of
- marriage. Not that it really protects her, but the very idea is so
- revolting, such an outrage and insult on life, so degrading to human
- dignity, as to forever condemn this parasitic institution.
- It is like that other paternal arrangement--capitalism. It robs man
- of his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in
- ignorance, in poverty, and dependence, and then institutes charities
- that thrive on the last vestige of man's self-respect.
- The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute
- dependent. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her
- social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its
- gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human
- character.
- If motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman's nature, what
- other protection does it need, save love and freedom? Marriage but
- defiles, outrages, and corrupts her fulfillment. Does it not say to
- woman, Only when you follow me shall you bring forth life? Does it
- not condemn her to the block, does it not degrade and shame her if
- she refuses to buy her right to motherhood by selling herself? Does
- not marriage only sanction motherhood, even though conceived in
- hatred, in compulsion? Yet, if motherhood be of free choice, of
- love, of ecstasy, of defiant passion, does it not place a crown of
- thorns upon an innocent head and carve in letters of blood the
- hideous epithet, Bastard? Were marriage to contain all the virtues
- claimed for it, its crimes against motherhood would exclude it
- forever from the realm of love.
- Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of
- hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all
- conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human
- destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that
- poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
- Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains,
- but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has
- subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue
- love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not
- conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has
- been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the
- splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate,
- if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant
- with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to
- make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other
- atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly,
- completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the
- universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.
- If, however, the soil is sterile, how can marriage make it bear
- fruit? It is like the last desperate struggle of fleeting life
- against death.
- Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love
- begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want
- of affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became
- mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock
- enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is
- capable of bestowing.
- The defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood,
- lest it will rob them of their prey. Who would fight wars? Who
- would create wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if
- woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The
- race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the
- priest. The race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a
- mere machine,--and the marriage institution is our only safety valve
- against the pernicious sex awakening of woman. But in vain these
- frantic efforts to maintain a state of bondage. In vain, too, the
- edicts of the Church, the mad attacks of rulers, in vain even the arm
- of the law. Woman no longer wants to be a party to the production of
- a race of sickly, feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings, who have
- neither the strength nor moral courage to throw off the yoke of
- poverty and slavery. Instead she desires fewer and better children,
- begotten and reared in love and through free choice; not by
- compulsion, as marriage imposes. Our pseudo-moralists have yet to
- learn the deep sense of responsibility toward the child, that love in
- freedom has awakened in the breast of woman. Rather would she forego
- forever the glory of motherhood than bring forth life in an
- atmosphere that breathes only destruction and death. And if she does
- become a mother, it is to give to the child the deepest and best her
- being can yield. To grow with the child is her motto; she knows that
- in that manner alone can she help build true manhood and womanhood.
- Ibsen must have had a vision of a free mother, when, with a master
- stroke, he portrayed Mrs. Alving. She was the ideal mother because
- she had outgrown marriage and all its horrors, because she had broken
- her chains, and set her spirit free to soar until it returned a
- personality, regenerated and strong. Alas, it was too late to rescue
- her life's joy, her Oswald; but not too late to realize that love in
- freedom is the only condition of a beautiful life. Those who, like
- Mrs. Alving, have paid with blood and tears for their spiritual
- awakening, repudiate marriage as an imposition, a shallow, empty
- mockery. They know, whether love last but one brief span of time or
- for eternity, it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for
- a new race, a new world.
- In our present pygmy state love is indeed a stranger to most people.
- Misunderstood and shunned, it rarely takes root; or if it does, it
- soon withers and dies. Its delicate fiber can not endure the stress
- and strain of the daily grind. Its soul is too complex to adjust
- itself to the slimy woof of our social fabric. It weeps and moans
- and suffers with those who have need of it, yet lack the capacity to
- rise to love's summit.
- Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the
- mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to
- receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What
- fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even
- approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men
- and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship
- and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent.
- THE MODERN DRAMA: A POWERFUL DISSEMINATOR OF RADICAL THOUGHT
- So long as discontent and unrest make themselves but dumbly felt
- within a limited social class, the powers of reaction may often
- succeed in suppressing such manifestations. But when the dumb unrest
- grows into conscious expression and becomes almost universal, it
- necessarily affects all phases of human thought and action, and seeks
- its individual and social expression in the gradual transvaluation of
- existing values.
- An adequate appreciation of the tremendous spread of the modern,
- conscious social unrest cannot be gained from merely propagandistic
- literature. Rather must we become conversant with the larger phases
- of human expression manifest in art, literature, and, above all, the
- modern drama--the strongest and most far-reaching interpreter of our
- deep-felt dissatisfaction.
- What a tremendous factor for the awakening of conscious discontent
- are the simple canvasses of a Millet! The figures of his
- peasants--what terrific indictment against our social wrongs; wrongs
- that condemn the Man With the Hoe to hopeless drudgery, himself
- excluded from Nature's bounty.
- The vision of a Meunier conceives the growing solidarity and defiance
- of labor in the group of miners carrying their maimed brother to
- safety. His genius thus powerfully portrays the interrelation of the
- seething unrest among those slaving in the bowels of the earth, and
- the spiritual revolt that seeks artistic expression.
- No less important is the factor for rebellious awakening in modern
- literature--Turgeniev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Andreiev, Gorki,
- Whitman, Emerson, and scores of others embodying the spirit of
- universal ferment and the longing for social change.
- Still more far-reaching is the modern drama, as the leaven of radical
- thought and the disseminator of new values.
- It might seem an exaggeration to ascribe to the modern drama such an
- important role. But a study of the development of modern ideas in
- most countries will prove that the drama has succeeded in driving
- home great social truths, truths generally ignored when presented in
- other forms. No doubt there are exceptions, as Russia and France.
- Russia, with its terrible political pressure, has made people think
- and has awakened their social sympathies, because of the tremendous
- contrast which exists between the intellectual life of the people and
- the despotic regime that is trying to crush that life. Yet while the
- great dramatic works of Tolstoy, Tchechov, Gorki, and Andreiev
- closely mirror the life and the struggle, the hopes and aspirations
- of the Russian people, they did not influence radical thought to the
- extent the drama has done in other countries.
- Who can deny, however, the tremendous influence exerted by THE POWER
- OF DARKNESS or NIGHT LODGING. Tolstoy, the real, true Christian, is
- yet the greatest enemy of organized Christianity. With a master hand
- he portrays the destructive effects upon the human mind of the power
- of darkness, the superstitions of the Christian Church.
- What other medium could express, with such dramatic force, the
- responsibility of the Church for crimes committed by its deluded
- victims; what other medium could, in consequence, rouse the
- indignation of man's conscience?
- Similarly direct and powerful is the indictment contained in Gorki's
- NIGHT LODGING. The social pariahs, forced into poverty and crime,
- yet desperately clutch at the last vestiges of hope and aspiration.
- Lost existences these, blighted and crushed by cruel, unsocial
- environment.
- France, on the other hand, with her continuous struggle for liberty,
- is indeed the cradle of radical thought; as such she, too, did not
- need the drama as a means of awakening. And yet the works of
- Brieux--as ROBE ROUGE, portraying the terrible corruption of the
- judiciary--and Mirbeau's LES AFFAIRES SONT LES AFFAIRES--picturing
- the destructive influence of wealth on the human soul--have
- undoubtedly reached wider circles than most of the articles and books
- which have been written in France on the social question.
- In countries like Germany, Scandinavia, England, and even in
- America--though in a lesser degree--the drama is the vehicle which is
- really making history, disseminating radical thought in ranks not
- otherwise to be reached.
- Let us take Germany, for instance. For nearly a quarter of a century
- men of brains, of ideas, and of the greatest integrity, made it their
- life-work to spread the truth of human brotherhood, of justice, among
- the oppressed and downtrodden. Socialism, that tremendous
- revolutionary wave, was to the victims of a merciless and inhumane
- system like water to the parched lips of the desert traveler. Alas!
- The cultured people remained absolutely indifferent; to them that
- revolutionary tide was but the murmur of dissatisfied, discontented
- men, dangerous, illiterate troublemakers, whose proper place was
- behind prison bars.
- Self-satisfied as the "cultured" usually are, they could not
- understand why one should fuss about the fact that thousands of
- people were starving, though they contributed towards the wealth of
- the world. Surrounded by beauty and luxury, they could not believe
- that side by side with them lived human beings degraded to a position
- lower than a beast's, shelterless and ragged, without hope or
- ambition.
- This condition of affairs was particularly pronounced in Germany
- after the Franco-German war. Full to the bursting point with its
- victory, Germany thrived on a sentimental, patriotic literature,
- thereby poisoning the minds of the country's youth by the glory of
- conquest and bloodshed.
- Intellectual Germany had to take refuge in the literature of other
- countries, in the works of Ibsen, Zola, Daudet, Maupassant, and
- especially in the great works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Turgeniev.
- But as no country can long maintain a standard of culture without a
- literature and drama related to its own soil, so Germany gradually
- began to develop a drama reflecting the life and the struggles of its
- own people.
- Arno Holz, one of the youngest dramatists of that period, startled
- the Philistines out of their ease and comfort with his FAMILIE
- SELICKE. The play deals with society's refuse, men and women of the
- alleys, whose only subsistence consists of what they can pick out of
- the garbage barrels. A gruesome subject, is it not? And yet what
- other method is there to break through the hard shell of the minds
- and souls of people who have never known want, and who therefore
- assume that all is well in the world?
- Needless to say, the play aroused tremendous indignation. The truth
- is bitter, and the people living on the Fifth Avenue of Berlin hated
- to be confronted with the truth.
- Not that FAMILIE SELICKE represented anything that had not been
- written about for years without any seeming result. But the dramatic
- genius of Holz, together with the powerful interpretation of the
- play, necessarily made inroads into the widest circles, and forced
- people to think about the terrible inequalities around them.
- Sudermann's EHRE[1] and HEIMAT[2] deal with vital subjects. I have
- already referred to the sentimental patriotism so completely turning
- the head of the average German as to create a perverted conception of
- honor. Duelling became an every-day affair, costing innumerable
- lives. A great cry was raised against the fad by a number of leading
- writers. But nothing acted as such a clarifier and exposer of that
- national disease as the EHRE.
- Not that the play merely deals with duelling; it analyzes the real
- meaning of honor, proving that it is not a fixed, inborn feeling, but
- that it varies with every people and every epoch, depending
- particularly on one's economic and social station in life. We
- realize from this play that the man in the brownstone mansion will
- necessarily define honor differently from his victims.
- The family Heinecke enjoys the charity of the millionaire Muhling,
- being permitted to occupy a dilapidated shanty on his premises in the
- absence of their son, Robert. The latter, as Muhling's
- representative, is making a vast fortune for his employer in India.
- On his return Robert discovers that his sister had been seduced by
- young Muhling, whose father graciously offers to straighten matters
- with a check for 40,000 marks. Robert, outraged and indignant,
- resents the insult to his family's honor, and is forthwith dismissed
- from his position for impudence. Robert finally throws this
- accusation into the face of the philanthropist millionaire:
- "We slave for you, we sacrifice our heart's blood for you, while you
- seduce our daughters and sisters and kindly pay for their disgrace
- with the gold we have earned for you. That is what you call honor."
- An incidental side-light upon the conception of honor is given by
- Count Trast, the principal character in the EHRE, a man widely
- conversant with the customs of various climes, who relates that in
- his many travels he chanced across a savage tribe whose honor he
- mortally offended by refusing the hospitality which offered him the
- charms of the chieftain's wife.
- The theme of HEIMAT treats of the struggle between the old and the
- young generations. It holds a permanent and important place in
- dramatic literature.
- Magda, the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Schwartz, has committed an
- unpardonable sin: she refused the suitor selected by her father. For
- daring to disobey the parental commands she is driven from home.
- Magda, full of life and the spirit of liberty, goes out into the
- world to return to her native town, twelve years later, a celebrated
- singer. She consents to visit her parents on condition that they
- respect the privacy of her past. But her martinet father immediately
- begins to question her, insisting on his "paternal rights." Magda is
- indignant, but gradually his persistence brings to light the tragedy
- of her life. He learns that the respected Councillor Von Keller had
- in his student days been Magda's lover, while she was battling for
- her economic and social independence. The consequence of the
- fleeting romance was a child, deserted by the man even before birth.
- The rigid military father of Magda demands as retribution from
- Councillor Von Keller that he legalize the love affair. In view of
- Magda's social and professional success, Keller willingly consents,
- but on condition that she forsake the stage, and place the child in
- an institution. The struggle between the Old and the New culminates
- in Magda's defiant words of the woman grown to conscious independence
- of thought and action: "...I'll say what I think of you--of you
- and your respectable society. Why should I be worse than you that I
- must prolong my existence among you by a lie! Why should this gold
- upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase
- my infamy? Have I not worked early and late for ten long years?
- Have I not woven this dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built
- up my career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why should I
- blush before anyone? I am myself, and through myself I have become
- what I am."
- The general theme of HEIMAT was not original. It had been previously
- treated by a master hand in FATHERS AND SONS. Partly because
- Turgeniev's great work was typical rather of Russian than universal
- conditions, and still more because it was in the form of fiction, the
- influence of FATHERS AND SONS was limited to Russia. But HEIMAT,
- especially because of its dramatic expression, became almost a world
- factor.
- The dramatist who not only disseminated radicalism, but literally
- revolutionized the thoughtful Germans, is Gerhardt Hauptmann. His
- first play VOR SONNENAUFGANG[3], refused by every leading German
- theatre and first performed in a wretched little playhouse behind a
- beer garden, acted like a stroke of lightning, illuminating the
- entire social horizon. Its subject matter deals with the life of an
- extensive landowner, ignorant, illiterate, and brutalized, and his
- economic slaves of the same mental calibre. The influence of wealth,
- both on the victims who created it and the possessor thereof, is
- shown in the most vivid colors, as resulting in drunkenness, idiocy,
- and decay. But the most striking feature of VOR SONNENAUFGANG, the
- one which brought a shower of abuse on Hauptmann's head, was the
- question as to the indiscriminate breeding of children by unfit
- parents.
- During the second performance of the play a leading Berlin surgeon
- almost caused a panic in the theatre by swinging a pair of forceps
- over his head and screaming at the top of his voice: "The decency and
- morality of Germany are at stake if childbirth is to be discussed
- openly from the stage." The surgeon is forgotten, and Hauptmann
- stands a colossal figure before the world.
- When DIE WEBER[4] first saw the light, pandemonium broke out in the
- land of thinkers and poets. "What," cried the moralists,
- "workingmen, dirty, filthy slaves, to be put on the stage! Poverty
- in all its horrors and ugliness to be dished out as an after-dinner
- amusement? That is too much!"
- Indeed, it was too much for the fat and greasy bourgeoisie to be
- brought face to face with the horrors of the weaver's existence. It
- was too much because of the truth and reality that rang like thunder
- in the deaf ears of self-satisfied society, J'ACCUSE!
- Of course, it was generally known even before the appearance of this
- drama that capital can not get fat unless it devours labor, that
- wealth can not be hoarded except through the channels of poverty,
- hunger, and cold; but such things are better kept in the dark, lest
- the victims awaken to a realization of their position. But it is the
- purpose of the modern drama to rouse the consciousness of the
- oppressed; and that, indeed, was the purpose of Gerhardt Hauptmann in
- depicting to the world the conditions of the weavers in Silesia.
- Human beings working eighteen hours daily, yet not earning enough for
- bread and fuel; human beings living in broken, wretched huts half
- covered with snow, and nothing but tatters to protect them from the
- cold; infants covered with scurvy from hunger and exposure; pregnant
- women in the last stages of consumption. Victims of a benevolent
- Christian era, without life, without hope, without warmth. Ah, yes,
- it was too much!
- Hauptmann's dramatic versatility deals with every stratum of social
- life. Besides portraying the grinding effect of economic conditions,
- he also treats of the struggle of the individual for his mental and
- spiritual liberation from the slavery of convention and tradition.
- Thus Heinrich, the bell-forger, in the dramatic prose-poem, DIE
- VERSUNKENE GLOCKE[5], fails to reach the mountain peaks of liberty
- because, as Rautendelein said, he had lived in the valley too long.
- Similarly Dr. Vockerath and Anna Maar remain lonely souls because
- they, too, lack the strength to defy venerated traditions. Yet their
- very failure must awaken the rebellious spirit against a world
- forever hindering individual and social emancipation.
- Max Halbe's JUGEND[6] and Wedekind's FRUHLING'S ERWACHEN[7] are dramas
- which have disseminated radical thought in an altogether different
- direction. They treat of the child and the dense ignorance and
- narrow Puritanism that meet the awakening of nature. Particularly
- this is true of FRUHLING'S ERWACHEN. Young boys and girls sacrificed
- on the altar of false education and of our sickening morality that
- prohibits the enlightenment of youth as to questions so imperative to
- the health and well-being of society,--the origin of life, and its
- functions. It shows how a mother--and a truly good mother, at
- that--keeps her fourteen-year-old daughter in absolute ignorance as
- to all matters of sex, and when finally the young girl falls a victim
- to her own ignorance, the same mother sees her daughter killed by
- quack medicines. The inscription on her grave states that she died
- of anaemia, and morality is satisfied.
- The fatality of our Puritanic hypocrisy in these matters is
- especially illumined by Wedekind in so far as our most promising
- children fall victims to sex ignorance and the utter lack of
- appreciation on the part of the teachers of the child's awakening.
- Wendla, unusually developed and alert for her age, pleads with her
- mother to explain the mystery of life:
- "I have a sister who has been married for two and a half years. I
- myself have been made an aunt for the third time, and I haven't the
- least idea how it all comes about.... Don't be cross, Mother,
- dear! Whom in the world should I ask but you? Don't scold me for
- asking about it. Give me an answer.--How does it happen?--You cannot
- really deceive yourself that I, who am fourteen years old, still
- believe in the stork."
- Were her mother herself not a victim of false notions of morality, an
- affectionate and sensible explanation might have saved her daughter.
- But the conventional mother seeks to hide her "moral" shame and
- embarrassment in this evasive reply:
- "In order to have a child--one must love--the man--to whom one is
- married.... One must love him, Wendla, as you at your age are
- still unable to love.--Now you know it!"
- How much Wendla "knew" the mother realized too late. The pregnant
- girl imagines herself ill with dropsy. And when her mother cries in
- desperation, "You haven't the dropsy, you have a child, girl," the
- agonized Wendla exclaims in bewilderment: "But it's not possible,
- Mother, I am not married yet.... Oh, Mother, why didn't you tell
- me everything?"
- With equal stupidity the boy Morris is driven to suicide because he
- fails in his school examinations. And Melchior, the youthful father
- of Wendla's unborn child, is sent to the House of Correction, his
- early sexual awakening stamping him a degenerate in the eyes of
- teachers and parents.
- For years thoughtful men and women in Germany had advocated the
- compelling necessity of sex enlightenment. MUTTERSCHUTZ, a
- publication specially devoted to frank and intelligent discussion of
- the sex problem, has been carrying on its agitation for a
- considerable time. But it remained for the dramatic genius of
- Wedekind to influence radical thought to the extent of forcing the
- introduction of sex physiology in many schools of Germany.
- Scandinavia, like Germany, was advanced through the drama much more
- than through any other channel. Long before Ibsen appeared on the
- scene, Bjornson, the great essayist, thundered against the
- inequalities and injustice prevalent in those countries. But his was
- a voice in the wilderness, reaching but the few. Not so with Ibsen.
- His BRAND, DOLL'S HOUSE, PILLARS OF SOCIETY, GHOSTS, and AN ENEMY OF
- THE PEOPLE have considerably undermined the old conceptions, and
- replaced them by a modern and real view of life. One has but to read
- BRAND to realize the modern conception, let us say, of
- religion,--religion, as an ideal to be achieved on earth; religion as
- a principle of human brotherhood, of solidarity, and kindness.
- Ibsen, the supreme hater of all social shams, has torn the veil of
- hypocrisy from their faces. His greatest onslaught, however, is on
- the four cardinal points supporting the flimsy network of society.
- First, the lie upon which rests the life of today; second, the
- futility of sacrifice as preached by our moral codes; third, petty
- material consideration, which is the only god the majority worships;
- and fourth, the deadening influence of provincialism. These four
- recur as the LEITMOTIF in Ibsen's plays, but particularly in PILLARS
- OF SOCIETY, DOLL'S HOUSE, GHOSTS, and AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.
- Pillars of Society! What a tremendous indictment against the social
- structure that rests on rotten and decayed pillars,--pillars nicely
- gilded and apparently intact, yet merely hiding their true condition.
- And what are these pillars?
- Consul Bernick, at the very height of his social and financial
- career, the benefactor of his town and the strongest pillar of the
- community, has reached the summit through the channel of lies,
- deception, and fraud. He has robbed his bosom friend, Johann, of his
- good name, and has betrayed Lona Hessel, the woman he loved, to marry
- her step-sister for the sake of her money. He has enriched himself
- by shady transactions, under cover of "the community's good," and
- finally even goes to the extent of endangering human life by
- preparing the INDIAN GIRL, a rotten and dangerous vessel, to go to
- sea.
- But the return of Lona brings him the realization of the emptiness
- and meanness of his narrow life. He seeks to placate the waking
- conscience by the hope that he has cleared the ground for the better
- life of his son, of the new generation. But even this last hope soon
- falls to the ground, as he realizes that truth cannot be built on a
- lie. At the very moment when the whole town is prepared to celebrate
- the great benefactor of the community with banquet praise, he
- himself, now grown to full spiritual manhood, confesses to the
- assembled townspeople:
- "I have no right to this homage-- ... My fellow-citizens must know
- me to the core. Then let everyone examine himself, and let us
- realize the prediction that from this event we begin a new time. The
- old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying
- propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a
- museum, open for instruction."
- With A DOLL'S HOUSE Ibsen has paved the way for woman's emancipation.
- Nora awakens from her doll's role to the realization of the injustice
- done her by her father and her husband, Helmer Torvald.
- "While I was at home with father, he used to tell me all his
- opinions, and I held the same opinions. If I had others I concealed
- them, because he would not have approved. He used to call me his
- doll child, and play with me as I played with my dolls. Then I came
- to live in your house. You settled everything according to your
- taste, and I got the same taste as you, or I pretended to. When I
- look back on it now, I seem to have been living like a beggar, from
- hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald, but
- you would have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong."
- In vain Helmer uses the old philistine arguments of wifely duty and
- social obligations. Nora has grown out of her doll's dress into full
- stature of conscious womanhood. She is determined to think and judge
- for herself. She has realized that, before all else, she is a human
- being, owing the first duty to herself. She is undaunted even by the
- possibility of social ostracism. She has become sceptical of the
- justice of the law, the wisdom of the constituted. Her rebelling
- soul rises in protest against the existing. In her own words: "I
- must make up my mind which is right, society or I."
- In her childlike faith in her husband she had hoped for the great
- miracle. But it was not the disappointed hope that opened her vision
- to the falsehoods of marriage. It was rather the smug contentment of
- Helmer with a safe lie--one that would remain hidden and not endanger
- his social standing.
- When Nora closed behind her the door of her gilded cage and went out
- into the world a new, regenerated personality, she opened the gate of
- freedom and truth for her own sex and the race to come.
- More than any other play, GHOSTS has acted like a bomb explosion,
- shaking the social structure to its very foundations.
- In DOLL'S HOUSE the justification of the union between Nora and
- Helmer rested at least on the husband's conception of integrity and
- rigid adherence to our social morality. Indeed, he was the
- conventional ideal husband and devoted father. Not so in GHOSTS.
- Mrs. Alving married Captain Alving only to find that he was a
- physical and mental wreck, and that life with him would mean utter
- degradation and be fatal to possible offspring. In her despair she
- turned to her youth's companion, young Pastor Manders who, as the
- true savior of souls for heaven, must needs be indifferent to earthly
- necessities. He sent her back to shame and degradation,--to her
- duties to husband and home. Indeed, happiness--to him--was but the
- unholy manifestation of a rebellious spirit, and a wife's duty was
- not to judge, but "to bear with humility the cross which a higher
- power had for your own good laid upon you."
- Mrs. Alving bore the cross for twenty-six long years. Not for the
- sake of the higher power, but for her little son Oswald, whom she
- longed to save from the poisonous atmosphere of her husband's home.
- It was also for the sake of the beloved son that she supported the
- lie of his father's goodness, in superstitious awe of "duty and
- decency." She learned, alas! too late, that the sacrifice of her
- entire life had been in vain, and that her son Oswald was visited by
- the sins of his father, that he was irrevocably doomed. This, too,
- she learned, that "we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we
- have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It is
- all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. They have no
- vitality, but they cling to us all the same and we can't get rid of
- them.... And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of
- light. When you forced me under the yoke you called Duty and
- Obligation; when you praised as right and proper what my whole soul
- rebelled against as something loathsome; it was then that I began to
- look into the seams of your doctrine. I only wished to pick at a
- single knot, but when I had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled
- out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn."
- How could a society machine-sewn, fathom the seething depths whence
- issued the great masterpiece of Henrik Ibsen? It could not
- understand, and therefore it poured the vials of abuse and venom upon
- its greatest benefactor. That Ibsen was not daunted he has proved by
- his reply in AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.
- In that great drama Ibsen performs the last funeral rites over a
- decaying and dying social system. Out of its ashes rises the
- regenerated individual, the bold and daring rebel. Dr. Stockman, an
- idealist, full of social sympathy and solidarity, is called to his
- native town as the physician of the baths. He soon discovers that
- the latter are built on a swamp, and that instead of finding relief
- the patients, who flock to the place, are being poisoned.
- An honest man, of strong convictions, the doctor considers it his
- duty to make his discovery known. But he soon learns that dividends
- and profits are concerned neither with health nor principles. Even
- the reformers of the town, represented in the PEOPLE'S MESSENGER,
- always ready to prate of their devotion to the people, withdraw their
- support from the "reckless" idealist, the moment they learn that the
- doctor's discovery may bring the town into disrepute, and thus injure
- their pockets.
- But Doctor Stockman continues in the faith he entertains for has
- townsmen. They would hear him. But here, too, he soon finds himself
- alone. He cannot even secure a place to proclaim his great truth.
- And when he finally succeeds, he is overwhelmed by abuse and ridicule
- as the enemy of the people. The doctor, so enthusiastic of his
- townspeople's assistance to eradicate the evil, is soon driven to a
- solitary position. The announcement of his discovery would result in
- a pecuniary loss to the town, and that consideration induces the
- officials, the good citizens, and soul reformers, to stifle the voice
- of truth. He finds them all a compact majority, unscrupulous enough
- to be willing to build up the prosperity of the town on a quagmire of
- lies and fraud. He is accused of trying to ruin the community. But
- to his mind "it does not matter if a lying community is ruined. It
- must be levelled to the ground. All men who live upon lies must be
- exterminated like vermin. You'll bring it to such a pass that the
- whole country will deserve to perish."
- Doctor Stockman is not a practical politician. A free man, he
- thinks, must not behave like a blackguard. "He must not so act that
- he would spit in his own face." For only cowards permit
- "considerations" of pretended general welfare or of party to override
- truth and ideals. "Party programmes wring the necks of all young,
- living truths; and considerations of expediency turn morality and
- righteousness upside down, until life is simply hideous."
- These plays of Ibsen--THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY, A DOLL'S HOUSE, GHOSTS,
- and AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE--constitute a dynamic force which is
- gradually dissipating the ghosts walking the social burying ground
- called civilization. Nay, more; Ibsen's destructive effects are at
- the same time supremely constructive, for he not merely undermines
- existing pillars; indeed, he builds with sure strokes the foundation
- of a healthier, ideal future, based on the sovereignty of the
- individual within a sympathetic social environment.
- England with her great pioneers of radical thought, the intellectual
- pilgrims like Godwin, Robert Owen, Darwin, Spencer, William Morris,
- and scores of others; with her wonderful larks of liberty--Shelley,
- Byron, Keats--is another example of the influence of dramatic art.
- Within comparatively a few years, the dramatic works of Shaw, Pinero,
- Galsworthy, Rann Kennedy, have carried radical thought to the ears
- formerly deaf even to Great Britain's wondrous poets. Thus a public
- which will remain indifferent reading an essay by Robert Owen, on
- Poverty, or ignore Bernard Shaw's Socialistic tracts, was made to
- think by MAJOR BARBARA, wherein poverty is described as the greatest
- crime of Christian civilization. "Poverty makes people weak,
- slavish, puny; poverty creates disease, crime, prostitution; in fine,
- poverty is responsible for all the ills and evils of the world."
- Poverty also necessitates dependency, charitable organizations,
- institutions that thrive off the very thing they are trying to
- destroy. The Salvation Army, for instance, as shown in MAJOR
- BARBARA, fights drunkenness; yet one of its greatest contributors is
- Badger, a whiskey distiller, who furnishes yearly thousands of pounds
- to do away with the very source of his wealth. Bernard Shaw,
- therefore, concludes that the only real benefactor of society is a
- man like Undershaft, Barbara's father, a cannon manufacturer, whose
- theory of life is that powder is stronger than words.
- "The worst of crimes," says Undershaft, "is poverty. All the other
- crimes are virtues beside it; all the other dishonors are chivalry
- itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible
- pestilences; strikes dead the very soul of all who come within sight,
- sound, or smell of it. What you call crime is nothing; a murder
- here, a theft there, a blow now and a curse there: what do they
- matter? They are only the accidents and illnesses of life; there are
- not fifty genuine professional criminals in London. But there are
- millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill-fed,
- ill-clothed people. They poison us morally and physically; they kill
- the happiness of society; they force us to do away with our own
- liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should
- rise against us and drag us down into their abyss.... Poverty and
- slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading
- articles; they will not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at
- them; don't reason with them. Kill them.... It is the final test
- of conviction, the only lever strong enough to overturn a social
- system.... Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the name
- of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments,
- inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders, and set up new."
- No wonder people cared little to read Mr. Shaw's Socialistic tracts.
- In no other way but in the drama could he deliver such forcible,
- historic truths. And therefore it is only through the drama that Mr.
- Shaw is a revolutionary factor in the dissemination of radical ideas.
- After Hauptmann's DIE WEBER, STRIFE, by Galsworthy, is the most
- important labor drama.
- The theme of STRIFE is a strike with two dominant factors: Anthony,
- the president of the company, rigid, uncompromising, unwilling to
- make the slightest concession, although the men held out for months
- and are in a condition of semi-starvation; and David Roberts, an
- uncompromising revolutionist, whose devotion to the workingman and
- the cause of freedom is at white heat. Between them the strikers are
- worn and weary with the terrible struggle, and are harassed and
- driven by the awful sight of poverty and want in their families.
- The most marvellous and brilliant piece of work in STRIFE is
- Galsworthy's portrayal of the mob, its fickleness, and lack of
- backbone. One moment they applaud old Thomas, who speaks of the
- power of God and religion and admonishes the men against rebellion;
- the next instant they are carried away by a walking delegate, who
- pleads the cause of the union,--the union that always stands for
- compromise, and which forsakes the workingmen whenever they dare to
- strike for independent demands; again they are aglow with the
- earnestness, the spirit, and the intensity of David Roberts--all
- these people willing to go in whatever direction the wind blows. It
- is the curse of the working class that they always follow like sheep
- led to slaughter.
- Consistency is the greatest crime of our commercial age. No matter
- how intense the spirit or how important the man, the moment he will
- not allow himself to be used or sell his principles, he is thrown on
- the dustheap. Such was the fate of the president of the company,
- Anthony, and of David Roberts. To be sure they represented opposite
- poles--poles antagonistic to each other, poles divided by a terrible
- gap that can never be bridged over. Yet they shared a common fate.
- Anthony is the embodiment of conservatism, of old ideas, of iron
- methods:
- "I have been chairman of this company thirty-two years. I have
- fought the men four times. I have never been defeated. It has been
- said that times have changed. If they have, I have not changed with
- them. It has been said that masters and men are equal. Cant. There
- can be only one master in a house. It has been said that Capital and
- Labor have the same interests. Cant. Their interests are as wide
- asunder as the poles. There is only one way of treating men--with
- the iron rod. Masters are masters. Men are men."
- We may not like this adherence to old, reactionary notions, and yet
- there is something admirable in the courage and consistency of this
- man, nor is he half as dangerous to the interests of the oppressed,
- as our sentimental and soft reformers who rob with nine fingers, and
- give libraries with the tenth; who grind human beings like Russell
- Sage, and then spend millions of dollars in social research work; who
- turn beautiful young plants into faded old women, and then give them
- a few paltry dollars or found a Home for Working Girls. Anthony is a
- worthy foe; and to fight such a foe, one must learn to meet him in
- open battle.
- David Roberts has all the mental and moral attributes of his
- adversary, coupled with the spirit of revolt, and the depth of modern
- ideas. He, too, is consistent, and wants nothing for his class short
- of complete victory.
- "It is not for this little moment of time we are fighting, not for
- our own little bodies and their warmth; it is for all those who come
- after, for all times. Oh, men, for the love of them don't turn up
- another stone on their heads, don't help to blacken the sky. If we
- can shake that white-faced monster with the bloody lips that has
- sucked the lives out of ourselves, our wives, and children, since the
- world began, if we have not the hearts of men to stand against it,
- breast to breast and eye to eye, and force it backward till it cry
- for mercy, it will go on sucking life, and we shall stay forever
- where we are, less than the very dogs."
- It is inevitable that compromise and petty interest should pass on
- and leave two such giants behind. Inevitable, until the mass will
- reach the stature of a David Roberts. Will it ever? Prophecy is not
- the vocation of the dramatist, yet the moral lesson is evident. One
- cannot help realizing that the workingmen will have to use methods
- hitherto unfamiliar to them; that they will have to discard all those
- elements in their midst that are forever ready to reconcile the
- irreconcilable, namely Capital and Labor. They will have to learn
- that characters like David Roberts are the very forces that have
- revolutionized the world and thus paved the way for emancipation out
- of the clutches of that "white-faced monster with bloody lips,"
- towards a brighter horizon, a freer life, and a deeper recognition of
- human values.
- No subject of equal social import has received such extensive
- consideration within the last few years as the question of prison and
- punishment.
- Hardly any magazine of consequence that has not devoted its columns
- to the discussion of this vital theme. A number of books by able
- writers, both in America and abroad, have discussed this topic from
- the historic, psychologic, and social standpoint, all agreeing that
- present penal institutions and our mode of coping with crime have in
- every respect proved inadequate as well as wasteful. One would
- expect that something very radical should result from the cumulative
- literary indictment of the social crimes perpetrated upon the
- prisoner. Yet with the exception of a few minor and comparatively
- insignificant reforms in some of our prisons, absolutely nothing has
- been accomplished. But at last this grave social wrong has found
- dramatic interpretation in Galworthy's JUSTICE.
- The play opens in the office of James How and Sons, Solicitors. The
- senior clerk, Robert Cokeson, discovers that a check he had issued
- for nine pounds has been forged to ninety. By elimination, suspicion
- falls upon William Falder, the junior office clerk. The latter is in
- love with a married woman, the abused, ill-treated wife of a brutal
- drunkard. Pressed by his employer, a severe yet not unkindly man,
- Falder confesses the forgery, pleading the dire necessity of his
- sweetheart, Ruth Honeywill, with whom he had planned to escape to
- save her from the unbearable brutality of her husband.
- Notwithstanding the entreaties of young Walter, who is touched by
- modern ideas, his father, a moral and law-respecting citizen, turns
- Falder over to the police.
- The second act, in the court-room, shows Justice in the very process
- of manufacture. The scene equals in dramatic power and psychologic
- verity the great court scene in RESURRECTION. Young Falder, a
- nervous and rather weakly youth of twenty-three, stands before the
- bar. Ruth, his married sweetheart, full of love and devotion, burns
- with anxiety to save the young man whose affection brought about his
- present predicament. The young man is defended by Lawyer Frome,
- whose speech to the jury is a masterpiece of deep social philosophy
- wreathed with the tendrils of human understanding and sympathy. He
- does not attempt to dispute the mere fact of Falder having altered
- the check; and though he pleads temporary aberration in defense of
- his client, that plea is based upon a social consciousness as deep
- and all-embracing as the roots of our social ills--"the background of
- life, that palpitating life which always lies behind the commission
- of a crime." He shows Falder to have faced the alternative of seeing
- the beloved woman murdered by her brutal husband, whom she cannot
- divorce; or of taking the law into his own hands. The defence pleads
- with the jury not to turn the weak young man into a criminal by
- condemning him to prison, for "justice is a machine that, when
- someone has given it a starting push, rolls on of itself.... Is
- this young man to be ground to pieces under this machine for an act
- which, at the worst, was one of weakness? Is he to become a member
- of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred ships called
- prisons?... I urge you, gentlemen, do not ruin this young man.
- For as a result of those four minutes, ruin, utter and irretrievable,
- stares him in the face.... The rolling of the chariot wheels of
- Justice over this boy began when it was decided to prosecute him."
- But the chariot of Justice rolls mercilessly on, for--as the learned
- Judge says--"the law is what it is--a majestic edifice, sheltering
- all of us, each stone of which rests on another."
- Falder is sentenced to three years' penal servitude.
- In prison, the young, inexperienced convict soon finds himself the
- victim of the terrible "system." The authorities admit that young
- Falder is mentally and physically "in bad shape," but nothing can be
- done in the matter: many others are in a similar position, and "the
- quarters are inadequate."
- The third scene of the third act is heart-gripping in its silent
- force. The whole scene is a pantomime, taking place in Falder's
- prison cell.
- "In fast-falling daylight, Falder, in his stockings, is seen standing
- motionless, with his head inclined towards the door, listening. He
- moves a little closer to the door, his stockinged feet making no
- noise. He stops at the door. He is trying harder and harder to hear
- something, any little thing that is going on outside. He springs
- suddenly upright--as if at a sound--and remains perfectly motionless.
- Then, with a heavy sigh, he moves to his work, and stands looking at
- it, with his head down; he does a stitch or two, having the air of a
- man so lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a coming to
- life. Then, turning abruptly, he begins pacing his cell, moving his
- head, like an animal pacing its cage. He stops again at the door,
- listens, and, placing the palms of his hands against it with his
- fingers spread out, leans his forehead against the iron. Turning
- from it, presently, he moves slowly back towards the window, holding
- his head, as if he felt that it were going to burst, and stops under
- the window. But since he cannot see out of it he leaves off looking,
- and, picking up the lid of one of the tins, peers into it, as if
- trying to make a companion of his own face. It has grown very nearly
- dark. Suddenly the lid falls out of his hand with a clatter--the
- only sound that has broken the silence--and he stands staring
- intently at the wall where the stuff of the shirt is hanging rather
- white in the darkness--he seems to be seeing somebody or something
- there. There is a sharp tap and click; the cell light behind the
- glass screen has been turned up. The cell is brightly lighted.
- Falder is seen gasping for breath.
- A sound from far away, as of distant, dull beating on thick metal, is
- suddenly audible. Falder shrinks back, not able to bear this sudden
- clamor. But the sound grows, as though some great tumbril were
- rolling towards the cell. And gradually it seems to hypnotize him.
- He begins creeping inch by inch nearer to the door. The banging
- sound, traveling from cell to cell, draws closer and closer; Falder's
- hands are seen moving as if his spirit had already joined in this
- beating, and the sound swells till it seems to have entered the very
- cell. He suddenly raises his clenched fists. Panting violently, he
- flings himself at his door, and beats on it."
- Finally Falder leaves the prison, a broken ticket-of-leave man, the
- stamp of the convict upon his brow, the iron of misery in his soul.
- Thanks to Ruth's pleading, the firm of James How and Son is willing
- to take Falder back in their employ, on condition that he give up
- Ruth. It is then that Falder learns the awful news that the woman he
- loves had been driven by the merciless economic Moloch to sell
- herself. She "tried making skirts ... cheap things.... I never
- made more than ten shillings a week, buying my own cotton, and
- working all day. I hardly ever got to bed till past twelve....
- And then ... my employer happened--he's happened ever since." At
- this terrible psychologic moment the police appear to drag him back
- to prison for failing to report himself as ticket-of-leave man.
- Completely overwhelmed by the inexorability of his environment, young
- Falder seeks and finds peace, greater than human justice, by throwing
- himself down to death, as the detectives are taking him back to
- prison.
- It would be impossible to estimate the effect produced by this play.
- Perhaps some conception can be gained from the very unusual
- circumstance that it had proved so powerful as to induce the Home
- Secretary of Great Britain to undertake extensive prison reforms in
- England. A very encouraging sign this, of the influence exerted by
- the modern drama. It is to be hoped that the thundering indictment
- of Mr. Galsworthy will not remain without similar effect upon the
- public sentiment and prison conditions of America. At any rate, it
- is certain that no other modern play has borne such direct and
- immediate fruit in wakening the social conscience.
- Another modern play, THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE, strikes a vital key
- in our social life. The hero of Mr. Kennedy's masterpiece is Robert,
- a coarse, filthy drunkard, whom respectable society has repudiated.
- Robert, the sewer cleaner, is the real hero of the play; nay, its
- true and only savior. It is he who volunteers to go down into the
- dangerous sewer, so that his comrades "can 'ave light and air."
- After all, has he not sacrificed his life always, so that others may
- have light and air?
- The thought that labor is the redeemer of social well-being has been
- cried from the housetops in every tongue and every clime. Yet the
- simple words of Robert express the significance of labor and its
- mission with far greater potency.
- America is still in its dramatic infancy. Most of the attempts along
- this line to mirror life, have been wretched failures. Still, there
- are hopeful signs in the attitude of the intelligent public toward
- modern plays, even if they be from foreign soil.
- The only real drama America has so far produced is THE EASIEST WAY,
- by Eugene Walter.
- It is supposed to represent a "peculiar phase" of New York life. If
- that were all, it would be of minor significance. That which gives
- the play its real importance and value lies much deeper. It lies,
- first, in the fundamental current of our social fabric which drives
- us all, even stronger characters than Laura, into the easiest way--a
- way so very destructive of integrity, truth, and justice. Secondly,
- the cruel, senseless fatalism conditioned in Laura's sex. These two
- features put the universal stamp upon the play, and characterize it
- as one of the strongest dramatic indictments against society.
- The criminal waste of human energy, in economic and social
- conditions, drives Laura as it drives the average girl to marry any
- man for a "home"; or as it drives men to endure the worst indignities
- for a miserable pittance.
- Then there is that other respectable institution, the fatalism of
- Laura's sex. The inevitability of that force is summed up in the
- following words: "Don't you know that we count no more in the life of
- these men than tamed animals? It's a game, and if we don't play our
- cards well, we lose." Woman in the battle with life has but one
- weapon, one commodity--sex. That alone serves as a trump card in the
- game of life.
- This blind fatalism has made of woman a parasite, an inert thing.
- Why then expect perseverance or energy of Laura? The easiest way is
- the path mapped out for her from time immemorial. She could follow
- no other.
- A number of other plays could be quoted as characteristic of the
- growing role of the drama as a disseminator of radical thought.
- Suffice to mention THE THIRD DEGREE, by Charles Klein; THE FOURTH
- ESTATE, by Medill Patterson; A MAN'S WORLD, by Ida Croutchers,--all
- pointing to the dawn of dramatic art in America, an art which is
- discovering to the people the terrible diseases of our social body.
- It has been said of old, all roads lead to Rome. In paraphrased
- application to the tendencies of our day, it may truly be said that
- all roads lead to the great social reconstruction. The economic
- awakening of the workingman, and his realization of the necessity for
- concerted industrial action; the tendencies of modern education,
- especially in their application to the free development of the child;
- the spirit of growing unrest expressed through, and cultivated by,
- art and literature, all pave the way to the Open Road. Above all,
- the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist
- and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the
- strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the
- powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of
- ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.
- [1] HONOR.
- [2] MAGDA.
- [3] BEFORE SUNRISE.
- [4] THE WEAVERS.
- [5] THE SUNKEN BELL.
- [6] YOUTH.
- [7] THE AWAKENING OF SPRING.
- End of Project Gutenberg's Anarchism and Other Essays, by Emma Goldman
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