{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26600/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26600","id":"gutenberg_26600","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26600","summary":null,"tags":["Anarchism","Anarchism -- Periodicals","Category: Environmental Issues","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Poetry","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Mother Earth"],"text":"Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Martin Pettit and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n+-------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's note:                              |\n|                                                 |\n|Obvious typographical errors have been corrected |\n+-------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\nVol. I.                   MARCH, 1906                   No. 1\n\nMOTHER EARTH\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nP. O. Box            EMMA GOLDMAN, Publisher      10c. a Copy\nMadison Sq. Station, N. Y.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                                         PAGE\n\nMother Earth    E. GOLDMAN and M. BAGINSKI                  1\n\nThe Song of the Storm-Finch    MAXIM GORKY                  4\n\nObservations and Comments                                   5\n\nThe Tragedy of Women's Emancipation    E. GOLDMAN           9\n\nTry Love    GRACE POTTER                                   18\n\nWithout Government    MAX BAGINSKI                         20\n\nVive Le Roi    FRANCES WAULS BJORKMAN                      27\n\nReflections of a Rich Man                                  28\n\nComstockery    JOHN R. CORYELL                             30\n\nDon Quixote and Hamlet    TURGENIEFF                       40\n\nOn the Banks of Acheron    EDWIN BJORKMAN                  42\n\nThe British Elections and the Labor Parties    H. KELLY    44\n\nAnd You?    BOLTON HALL                                    48\n\nNational Atavism    INTERNATIONALIST                       49\n\nMine Owners' Revenge    M. B.                              56\n\nInternational Review                                       58\n\nLiterary Notes                                             61\n\nAdvertisements                                             63\n\n\n\n\n10c. A COPY    $1.00 PER YEAR\n\n\nMother Earth\n\n\nEMMA GOLDMAN, PUBLISHER\nP. O. BOX MADISON SQ. STATION, N. Y. CITY\n\n\nVol. I       MARCH, 1906       No. 1\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMOTHER EARTH\n\n\nThere was a time when men imagined the Earth as the center of the\nuniverse. The stars, large and small, they believed were created merely\nfor their delectation. It was their vain conception that a supreme\nbeing, weary of solitude, had manufactured a giant toy and put them into\npossession of it.\n\nWhen, however, the human mind was illumined by the torch-light of\nscience, it came to understand that the Earth was but one of a myriad of\nstars floating in infinite space, a mere speck of dust.\n\nMan issued from the womb of Mother Earth, but he knew it not, nor\nrecognized her, to whom he owed his life. In his egotism he sought an\nexplanation of himself in the infinite, and out of his efforts there\narose the dreary doctrine that he was not related to the Earth, that she\nwas but a temporary resting place for his scornful feet and that she\nheld nothing for him but temptation to degrade himself. Interpreters and\nprophets of the infinite sprang into being, creating the \"Great Beyond\"\nand proclaiming Heaven and Hell, between which stood the poor, trembling\nhuman being, tormented by that priest-born monster, Conscience.\n\nIn this frightful scheme, gods and devils waged eternal war against\neach other with wretched man as the prize of victory; and the priest,\nself-constituted interpreter of the will of the gods, stood in front of\nthe only refuge from harm and demanded as the price of entrance that\nignorance, that asceticism, that self-abnegation which could but end in\nthe complete subjugation of man to superstition. He was taught that\nHeaven, the refuge, was the very antithesis of Earth, which was the\nsource of sin. To gain for himself a seat in Heaven, man devastated the\nEarth. Yet she renewed herself, the good mother, and came again each\nSpring, radiant with youthful beauty, beckoning her children to come to\nher bosom and partake of her bounty. But ever the air grew thick with\nmephitic darkness, ever a hollow voice was heard calling: \"Touch not the\nbeautiful form of the sorceress; she leads to sin!\"\n\nBut if the priests decried the Earth, there were others who found in it\na source of power and who took possession of it. Then it happened that\nthe autocrats at the gates of Heaven joined forces with the powers that\nhad taken possession of the Earth; and humanity began its aimless,\nmonotonous march. But the good mother sees the bleeding feet of her\nchildren, she hears their moans, and she is ever calling to them that\nshe is theirs.\n\nTo the contemporaries of George Washington, Thomas Paine and Thomas\nJefferson, America appeared vast, boundless, full of promise. Mother\nEarth, with the sources of vast wealth hidden within the folds of her\nample bosom, extended her inviting and hospitable arms to all those who\ncame to her from arbitrary and despotic lands--Mother Earth ready to\ngive herself alike to all her children. But soon she was seized by the\nfew, stripped of her freedom, fenced in, a prey to those who were\nendowed with cunning and unscrupulous shrewdness. They, who had fought\nfor independence from the British yoke, soon became dependent among\nthemselves; dependent on possessions, on wealth, on power. Liberty\nescaped into the wilderness, and the old battle between the patrician\nand the plebeian broke out in the new world, with greater bitterness and\nvehemence. A period of but a hundred years had sufficed to turn a great\nrepublic, once gloriously established, into an arbitrary state which\nsubdued a vast number of its people into material and intellectual\nslavery, while enabling the privileged few to monopolize every material\nand mental resource.\n\nDuring the last few years, American journalists have had much to say\nabout the terrible conditions in Russia and the supremacy of the Russian\ncensor. Have they forgotten the censor here? a censor far more powerful\nthan him of Russia. Have they forgotten that every line they write is\ndictated by the political color of the paper they write for; by the\nadvertising firms; by the money power; by the power of respectability;\nby Comstock? Have they forgotten that the literary taste and critical\njudgment of the mass of the people have been successfully moulded to\nsuit the will of these dictators, and to serve as a good business basis\nfor shrewd literary speculators? The number of Rip Van Winkles in life,\nscience, morality, art, and literature is very large. Innumerable\nghosts, such as Ibsen saw when he analyzed the moral and social\nconditions of our life, still keep the majority of the human race in\nawe.\n\nMOTHER EARTH will endeavor to attract and appeal to all those who\noppose encroachment on public and individual life. It will appeal to\nthose who strive for something higher, weary of the commonplace; to\nthose who feel that stagnation is a deadweight on the firm and elastic\nstep of progress; to those who breathe freely only in limitless space;\nto those who long for the tender shade of a new dawn for a humanity free\nfrom the dread of want, the dread of starvation in the face of mountains\nof riches. The Earth free for the free individual!\n\n                                                          EMMA GOLDMAN,\n                                                          MAX BAGINSKI.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Song of the Storm-Finch[A]\n\nBy MAXIM GORKY\n\n\n     The strong wind is gathering the storm-clouds together\n     Above the gray plain of the ocean so wide.\n     The storm-finch, the bird that resembles dark lightning,\n     Between clouds and ocean is soaring in pride.\n\n     Now skimming the waves with his wings, and now shooting\n     Up, arrow-like, into the dark clouds on high,\n     The storm-finch is clamoring loudly and shrilly;\n     The clouds can hear joy in the bird's fearless cry.\n\n     In that cry is the yearning, the thirst for the tempest,\n     And anger's hot might in its wild notes is heard;\n     The keen fire of passion, the faith in sure triumph--\n     All these the clouds hear in the voice of the bird....\n\n     The storm-wind is howling, the thunder is roaring;\n     With flame blue and lambent the cloud-masses glow\n     O'er the fathomless ocean; it catches the lightnings,\n     And quenches them deep in its whirlpool below.\n\n     Like serpents of fire in the dark ocean writhing,\n     The lightnings reflected there quiver and shake\n     As into the blackness they vanish forever.\n     The tempest! Now quickly the tempest will break!\n\n     The storm-finch soars fearless and proud 'mid the lightnings,\n     Above the wild waves that the roaring winds fret;\n     And what is the prophet of victory saying?\n     \"Oh, let the storm burst! Fiercer yet--fiercer yet!\"\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[A] From \"Songs of Russia,\" rendered into English by ALICE\nSTONE BLACKWELL\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTo the Readers\n\nThe name \"Open Road\" had to be abandoned, owing to the existence of a\nmagazine by that name.\n\n\n\n\nObservations and Comments\n\n\n+The importance+ of written history for the people can easily be compared\nwith the importance of a diary for the individual. It furnishes data for\nrecollections, points of comparison between the Past and Present. But as\nmost diaries and auto-biographies show a lack of straight-forward, big,\nsimple, sincere self-analyses, so does history seldom prove a\nrepresentation of facts, of the truth, of reality.\n\nThe way history is written will depend altogether on whatever purpose\nthe writers have in view, and what they hope to achieve thereby. It will\naltogether depend upon the sincerity or lack thereof, upon the broad or\nnarrow horizon of the historian. That which passes as history in our\nschools, or governmentally fabricated books on history, is a forgery, a\nmisrepresentation of events. Like the old drama centering upon the\nimpossible figure of the hero, with a gesticulating crowd in the\nbackground. Quacks of history speak only of \"great men\" like Bonapartes,\nBismarcks, Deweys, or Rough Riders as leaders of the people, while the\nlatter serve as a setting, a chorus, howling the praise of the heroes,\nand also furnishing their blood money for the whims and extravagances of\ntheir masters. Such history only tends to produce conceit, national\nimpudence, superciliousness and patriotic stupidity, all of which is in\nfull bloom in our great Republic.\n\nOur aim is to teach a different conception of historical events. To\ndefine them as an ever-recurring struggle for Freedom against every form\nof Might. A struggle resultant from an innate yearning for\nself-expression, and the recognition of one's own possibilities and\ntheir attitude toward other human beings. History to us means a\ncompilation of experiences, out of which the individual, as well as the\nrace, will gain the right understanding how to shape and organize a mode\nof life best suited to bring out the finest and strongest qualities of\nthe human race.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+The American Brutus+ is, of course, a business man and has no time to\noverthrow Caesar. Recently, however, the imperialistic stew became hot\nand too much for him. The marriage of Miss Alice Roosevelt produced such\na bad odor of court gossip, as to make the poor American Brutus ill with\nnausea. He grew indignant, draped his sleeve in mourning, and with\ngloomy mien and clenched fists, went about prophesying the downfall of\nthe Republic.\n\nBetween ourselves, the number of those who still believe in the American\nRepublic can be counted on one's fingers. One has either pierced through\nthe lie, all for the people and by the people--in that case one must\nbecome a Revolutionist; or, one has succeeded in putting one's bounty\nin safety--then he is a conservative. \"No disturbances, please. We are\nabout to close a profitable contract.\" Modern bourgeoisie is absolutely\nindifferent as to who is to be their political boss, just so they are\ngiven opportunity to store their profits, and accumulate great wealth.\nBesides, the cry about the decline of the great Republic is really\nmeaningless. As far as it ever stood for liberty and well-being of the\npeople, it has long ceased to be. Therefore lamentations come too late.\nTrue, the American Republic has not given birth to an aristocracy. It\nhas produced the power of the parvenu, not less brutal than European\naristocracy, only narrower in vision and not less vulgar in taste.\n\nInstead of mourning one ought to rejoice that the latest display of\ndisgusting servility has completely thrown off the mantle of liberty and\nindependence of Dame Columbia, now exposed before the civilized world in\nall her slavish submissiveness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+The storm in Russia+ has frightened many out of their warm bed-clothes.\n\nA real Revolution in these police-regulated times. More than one voice\nwas raised against the possibility of a Revolution, and they who dared\nto predict it were considered fit for the lunatic asylum.\n\nThe workingmen, peasants and students of Russia, however, have proven\nthat the calculations of the \"wise\" contained a hitch somewhere. A\nRevolution swept across the country and did not even stop to ask\npermission of those in authority.\n\nAuthority and Power are now taking revenge on their daring sons and\ndaughters. The Cossacks, at the command of the \"good Czar\" are\ncelebrating a bloody feast--knouting, shooting, clubbing people to\ndeath, dragging great masses to prisons and into exile, and it is not\nthe fault of that vicious idiot on the throne, nor that of his advisors,\nWitte and the others, if the Revolution still marches on, head erect.\nWere it in their power, they would break her proud neck with one\nstroke, but they cannot put the heads of a hundred million people on the\nblock, they cannot deport eighty millions of Peasants to Siberia, nor\ncan they order all the workingmen in the industrial districts shot. Were\nthe working bees to be killed, the drones would perish of\nstarvation--that is why the Czar of the Peace Treaty still suffers some\nof his people to live?----\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+In Mayville, Wis.+, a transvaluation society has been formed, the purpose\nof which is, to bring about the transvaluation of all values in matters\nof love and the relations of the sexes. The members of this society are\nto contribute by word and deed towards the breaking of all barriers that\nprevent an ideal and healthy conception of love.\n\nThe president of this society, Emil Ruedebusch, known in this country\nthrough his work, \"The Old and New Ideal,\" which, by the way, was\nconfiscated upon the grounds of obscenity and the author put on trial.\nIt is an undisputed fact that robust, graft-greedy Columbia abhors every\nfree expression on love or marriage. Emil Ruedebusch, like many others\nwho have dared to lift the veil of hypocrisy, was condemned to a heavy\nfine. A second work of the author, \"Die Eigenen,\" was published in\nGermany.\n\nHis idea, that the relation of the sexes must be freed from the\noppressing fetters of a lame morality that degrades every human emotion\nto the plane of utility and purpose, I heartily endorse. His method of\nachieving the ideal seems to me too full of red tape. However, I welcome\nevery effort against the conspiracy of ignorance, hypocrisy and stupid\nprudery, against the simplest manifestation of nature.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation\n\nBy EMMA GOLDMAN\n\n\nI begin my article with an admission: Regardless of all political and\neconomic theories, treating of the fundamental differences between the\nvarious groups within the human race, regardless of class and race\ndistinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between\nwoman's rights and man's rights, I hold that there is a point where\nthese differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole.\n\nWith this I do not mean to propose a peace treaty. The general social\nantagonism which has taken hold of our entire public life to-day,\nbrought about through the force of opposing and contradictory interests,\nwill crumble to pieces when the reorganization of our social life, based\nupon the principles of economic justice, shall have become a reality.\n\nPeace and harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily\ndepend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call\nfor the elimination of individual traits or peculiarities. The problem\nthat confronts us to-day, and which the nearest future is to solve, is\nhow to be oneself, and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with\nall human beings and still retain one's own innate qualities. This seems\nto me the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true\ndemocrat and the true individuality, man and woman can meet without\nantagonism and opposition. The motto should not be forgive one another;\nit should be, understand one another. The oft-quoted sentence of Mme. de\nStael: \"To understand everything means to forgive everything,\" has never\nparticularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to\nforgive one's fellow being conveys the idea of pharisaical superiority.\nTo understand one's fellow being suffices. This admission partly\nrepresents the fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of\nwoman and its effect upon the entire sex.\n\nEmancipation should make it possible for her to be human in the truest\nsense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should\nreach its fullest expression; and all artificial barriers should be\nbroken and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of\ncenturies of submission and slavery.\n\nThis was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. But\nthe results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of\nthe fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her.\nMerely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial\nbeing who reminds one of the products of French arboriculture with its\narabesque trees and shrubs--pyramids, wheels and wreaths; anything\nexcept the forms which would be reached by the expression of their own\ninner qualities. Such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to\nbe found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual\nsphere of our life.\n\nLiberty and equality for woman! What hopes and aspirations these words\nawakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest and bravest\nsouls of those days. The sun in all its light and glory was to rise upon\na new world; in this world woman was to be free to direct her own\ndestiny, an aim certainly worthy of the great enthusiasm, courage,\nperseverance and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men\nand women, who staked everything against a world of prejudice and\nignorance.\n\nMy hopes also move towards that goal, but I insist that the emancipation\nof woman, as interpreted and practically applied to-day, has failed to\nreach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of\nemancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be\nfree. This may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only too true.\n\nWhat has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few\nstates. Has that purified our political life, as many well-meaning\nadvocates have predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally it is really time\nthat persons with plain, sound judgment should cease to talk about\ncorruption in politics in a boarding-school tone. Corruption of politics\nhas nothing to do with the morals or the laxity of morals of various\npolitical personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one.\nPolitics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottoes\nof which are: \"to take is more blessed than to give\"; \"buy cheap and\nsell dear\"; \"one soiled hand washes the other.\" There is no hope that\neven woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics.\n\nEmancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is, she\ncan choose her own profession and trade, but as her past and present\nphysical training have not equipped her with the necessary strength to\ncompete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use\nup her vitality and strain every nerve in order to reach the market\nvalue. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women doctors,\nlawyers, architects and engineers are neither met with the same\nconfidence, nor do they receive the same remuneration. And those that do\nreach that enticing equality generally do so at the expense of their\nphysical and psychical well-being. As to the great mass of working girls\nand women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of\nfreedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom\nof the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? In addition is\nthe burden which is laid on many women of looking after a \"home, sweet\nhome\"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a day's hard work.\nGlorious independence! No wonder that hundreds of girls are so willing\nto accept the first offer of marriage, sick and tired of their\nindependence behind the counter, or at the sewing or typewriting\nmachine. They are just as ready to marry as girls of middle class people\nwho long to throw off the yoke of parental dependence. A so-called\nindependence which leads only to earning the merest subsistence is not\nso enticing, not so ideal that one can expect woman to sacrifice\neverything for it. Our highly praised independence is, after all, but a\nslow process of dulling and stifling woman's nature, her love instinct\nand her mother instinct.\n\nNevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural and\nhuman than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the more\ncultured professional walk of life. Teachers, physicians, lawyers,\nengineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, straightened and proper\nappearance, while the inner life is growing empty and dead.\n\nThe narrowness of the existing conception of woman's independence and\nemancipation; the dread of love for a man who is not her social equal;\nthe fear that love will rob her of her freedom and independence; the\nhorror that love or the joy of motherhood will only hinder her in the\nfull exercise of her profession--all these together make of the\nemancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom life, with its\ngreat clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing joys, rolls on without\ntouching or gripping her soul.\n\nEmancipation as understood by the majority of its adherents and\nexponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless joy and\necstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart,\nmother, in freedom.\n\nThe tragic fate of the self-supporting or economically free woman does\nnot consist of too many, but of too few experiences. True, she surpasses\nher sister of past generations in knowledge of the world and human\nnature; and it is because of that that she feels deeply the lack of\nlife's essence, which alone can enrich the human soul and without which\nthe majority of women have become mere professional automatons.\n\nThat such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those who\nrealized that in the domain of ethics, there still remained many\ndecaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man; ruins\nthat are still considered useful. And, which is more important, a goodly\nnumber of the emancipated are unable to get along without them. Every\nmovement that aims at the destruction of existing institutions and the\nreplacement thereof with such as are more advanced, more perfect, has\nfollowers, who in theory stand for the most extreme radical ideas, and\nwho, nevertheless, in their every-day practice, are like the next best\nPhilistine, feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion\nof their opponents. There are, for example, Socialists, and even\nAnarchists, who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who\nwill grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of a half-dozen pins.\n\nThe same Philistine can be found in the movement for woman's\nemancipation. Yellow journalists and milk and water literateurs have\npainted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of the good\ncitizen and his dull companion stand up on end. Every member of the\nwomen's rights movement was pictured as a George Sand in her absolute\ndisregard of morality. Nothing was sacred to her. She had no respect for\nthe ideal relation between man and woman. In short, emancipation stood\nonly for a reckless life of lust and sin; regardless of society,\nreligion and morality. The exponents of woman's rights were highly\nindignant at such a misrepresentation, and, lacking in humor, they\nexerted all their energy to prove that they were not at all as bad as\nthey were painted, but the very reverse. Of course, as long as woman was\nthe slave of man, she could not be good and pure, but now that she was\nfree and independent she would prove how good she could be and how her\ninfluence would have a purifying effect on all institutions in society.\nTrue, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but\nit has also established new ones. The great movement of true\nemancipation has not met with a great race of women, who could look\nliberty in the face. Their narrow puritanical vision banished man as a\ndisturber and doubtful character out of their emotional life. Man was\nnot to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a\nchild, since a child could not very well come to life without a father.\nFortunately, the most rigid puritanism never will be strong enough to\nkill the innate craving for motherhood. But woman's freedom is closely\nallied to man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters\nseem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love\nand devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman.\nUnfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has\nbrought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman.\n\nAbout fifteen years ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant\nNorwegian writer, Laura Marholm, called \"Woman, a Character Study.\" She\nwas one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness\nof the existing conception of woman's emancipation and its tragic effect\nupon the inner life of woman. In her work she speaks of the fate of\nseveral gifted women of international fame: The genius, Eleanora Duse;\nthe great mathematician and writer, Sanja Kovalevskaja; the artist and\npoet nature, Marie Bashkirzeff, who died so young. Through each\ndescription of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality,\nruns a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete\nand beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the\nlack of it. Through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot\nhelp but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less\npossible it is for her to meet a congenial mate, who will see in her,\nnot only sex, but also the human being, the friend, comrade and strong\nindividuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her\ncharacter.\n\nThe average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior\nairs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for woman,\nas depicted in the \"Character Study\" by Laura Marholm. Equally\nimpossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her\nmentality and genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature.\n\nA rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary\nattributes of a deep and beautiful personality. In the case of the\nmodern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete\nassertion of her being. For over a hundred years, the old form of\nmarriage, based on the Bible, \"till death us do part\" has been denounced\nas an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the\nwoman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands and the\nabsolute dependence upon his name and support. Time and again it has\nbeen conclusively proven that the old matrimonial relation restricted\nwoman to the function of man's servant and the bearer of his children.\nAnd yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage with all its\ndeficiencies to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and\nunendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that\ncramp and bind her nature.\n\nThe cause for such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is\nto be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of\nemancipation. They thought that all that was needed was independence\nfrom external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life\nand growth, such as ethical and social conventions, were left to take\ncare of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. They seem to\nget along beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active\nexponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our\ngrandmothers.\n\nThese internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or\nwhat will mother say, or brother, father, aunt or relative of any sort;\nwhat will Mrs. Grundy, Mr. Comstock, the employer, the Board of\nEducation say? All these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the\nhuman spirit, what will they say? Until woman has learned to defy them\nall, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own\nunrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it\ncall for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious\nprivilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself\nemancipated. How many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge\nthat the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts\ndemanding to be heard, to be satisfied.\n\nThe French novelist, Jean Reibrach, in one of his novels, \"New Beauty,\"\nattempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. This ideal\nis embodied in a young girl, a physician. She talks very clearly and\nwisely of how to feed infants, she is kind and administers medicines\nfree to poor mothers. She converses with a young man of her acquaintance\nabout the sanitary conditions of the future and how various bacilli and\ngerms shall be exterminated by the use of stone walls and floors, and\nthe doing away of rugs and hangings. She is, of course, very plainly and\npractically dressed, mostly in black. The young man, who, at their first\nmeeting was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend, gradually\nlearns to understand her, and recognizes one fine day that he loves her.\nThey are young and she is kind and beautiful, and though always in rigid\nattire, her appearance is softened by spotlessly clean white collar and\ncuffs. One would expect that he would tell her of his love, but he is\nnot one to commit romantic absurdities. Poetry and the enthusiasm of\nlove cover their blushing faces before the pure beauty of the lady. He\nsilences the voice of his nature and remains correct. She, too, is\nalways exact, always rational, always well behaved. I fear if they had\nformed a union, the young man would have risked freezing to death. I\nmust confess that I can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty, who is\nas cold as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. Rather would I have\nthe love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus,\nrather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by\na father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors,\nthan correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. If love does not\nknow how to give and take without restriction it is not love, but a\ntransaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.\n\nThe greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies in\nits artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities which produce\nan emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the\nfountain of life. I once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper\nrelationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess, ever on the\nalert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she\nloved and the truly new woman, than between the latter and her average\nemancipated sister. The disciples of emancipation pure and simple\ndeclared me heathen, merely fit for the stake. Their blind zeal did not\nlet them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely\nto prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in\ntheir veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of\nnaturalness, kind-heartedness and simplicity than the majority of our\nemancipated professional women who fill our colleges, halls of learning,\nand various offices. This does not mean a wish to return to the past,\nnor does it condemn woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the\nnursery.\n\nSalvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and\nclearer future. We are in need of unhampered growth out of old\ntraditions and habits. The movement for woman's emancipation has so far\nmade but the first step in that direction. It is to be hoped that it\nwill gather strength to make another. The right to vote, equal civil\nrights, are all very good demands, but true emancipation begins neither\nat the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul. History tells us\nthat every oppressed class gained its true liberation from its masters\nthrough its own efforts. It is necessary that woman learn that lesson,\nthat she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to\nachieve her freedom reaches. It is therefore far more important for her\nto begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of\nprejudices, traditions, and customs. The demand for various equal rights\nin every vocation in life is just and fair, but, after all, the most\nvital right is the right to love and be loved. Indeed if the partial\nemancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it\nwill have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be\nsweetheart and mother, is synonomous with being slave or subordinate.\nIt will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the\nsexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds.\n\nPettiness separates, breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not\noverlook vital things, because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A\ntrue conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror\nand conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one's self\nboundlessly in order to find oneself richer, deeper, better. That alone\ncan fill the emptiness and replace the tragedy of woman's emancipation\nwith joy, limitless joy.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTRY LOVE\n\nBy GRACE POTTER\n\n\nIn the human heart it lies. The key to happiness Men call the key love.\nIn the sweet time of youth, every man and every maid knows where lies\nthe key that will unlock happiness. Sometimes, they, laughing, hold the\nkey in eager, willing hands and will not put it in the door for very\nbliss and waiting. Just outside they laugh and play and blow wild kisses\nto the world. The whole world of men and women, who in their youth found\nhappiness in just that way, is gathered round to see it found again.\n\nWhen at last the man and maid unlock the door and go in joy to find\ntheir happiness, the men and women who have been watching them bury\ntheir faces in their hands and weep. Why do they weep? Because they are\nthinking that soon other doors in life will be met by this man and maid\nand that there will be no keys to unlock them. They, themselves, could\nfind no key.\n\nThey never thought of trying the key of love in all the doors of life.\nLong and wearily, eyes searching wide, hands eagerly groping, they have\nspent their time trying to find other keys. They have looked for and\nfound knowledge. And tried that. Looked for and found fame. And tried\nthat. Looked for and found wealth. And tried that. Looked for and found\nmany, many other keys. And tried them all. And when at last they have\nlain down on their deathbeds, they have turned gray hopeless faces to\nthe world and died saying, \"We could not find the right key.\"\n\nSome few, some very few, there are, who try the key of love in all\nlife's doors. Radiant, they turn to the men and women about and cry,\n\"Try love! It unlocks all other doors as surely as it does the first in\nlife. Try love!\"\n\nAnd though their fellow beings see that these are the only ones in all\nthe world who find happiness, they turn doubting from them. \"It cannot\nbe,\" they say, \"that the key we used in youth should be used again in\nall the other doors of life.\" And so they keep on trying the keys that\nevery disappointed, dying man calls out in warning voice will fail.\n\nOnly a few there are who learn--a very few--that love unlocks all other\ndoors in life as surely as it does the first. Try love!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n+Japan.+--A new civilization. The land of a new culture! was the cry of\nevery penny-a-liner at the time when she began to display her\nbattleships, cannon, and her accomplished method of drilling her\nsoldiers. They were mocking themselves and did not know how. They talk\nof culture and civilization and their criterion thereof is the\ndevelopment of the technique of murder. Again, Japan a modern state. She\ncan take her place in the ranks of other civilized countries. Rejoice!\nand then learn that victorious Japan is on the threshold of a famine.\nNearly a million people, it is laconically reported, are in danger of\ndying of starvation. Surely, no one will possibly doubt now that Japan\nis a civilized country.\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT GOVERNMENT\n\nBy MAX BAGINSKI\n\n\nThe gist of the anarchistic idea is this, that there are qualities\npresent in man, which permit the possibilities of social life,\norganization, and co-operative work without the application of force.\nSuch qualities are solidarity, common action, and love of justice.\nTo-day they are either crippled or made ineffective through the\ninfluence of compulsion; they can hardly be fully unfolded in a society\nin which groups, classes, and individuals are placed in hostile,\nirreconcilable opposition to one another. In human nature to-day such\ntraits are fostered and developed which separate instead of combining,\ncall forth hatred instead of a common feeling, destroy the humane\ninstead of building it up. The cultivation of these traits could not be\nso successful if it did not find the best nourishment in the foundations\nand institutions of the present social order.\n\nOn close inspection of these institutions, which are based upon the\npower of the State that maintains them, mankind shows itself as a huge\nmenagerie, in which the captive beasts seek to tear the morsels from\neach other's greedy jaws. The sharpest teeth, the strongest claws and\npaws vanquish the weaker competitors. Malice and underhand dealing are\nvictorious over frankness and confidence. The struggle for the means of\nexistence and for the maintenance of achieved power fill the entire\nspace of the menagerie with an infernal noise. Among the methods which\nare used to secure this organized bestiality the most prominent ones are\nthe hangman, the judge with his mechanical: \"In the name of the king,\"\nor his more hypocritical: \"In the name of the people I pass sentence\";\nthe soldier with his training for murder, and the priest with his:\n\"Authority comes from God.\"\n\nThe exteriors of prisons, armories, and churches show that they are\ninstitutions in which the body and soul are subdued. He whose thoughts\nreach beyond this philosophy of the menagerie sees in them the\nstrongest expression of the view, that it is not possible to make life\nworth living the more with the help of reason, love, justice,\nsolidarity. The family and school take care to prepare man for these\ninstitutions. They deliver him up to the state, so to speak, blindfolded\nand with fettered limbs. Force, force. It echoes through all history.\nThe first law which subjected man to man was based upon force. The\nprivate right of the individual to land was built up by force; force\ntook way the claims upon homesteads from the majority and made them\nunsettled and transitory. It was force that spoke to mankind thus: \"Come\nto me, humble yourself before me, serve me, bring the treasures and\nriches of the earth under MY roof. You are destined by Providence to\nalways be in want. You shall be allowed just enough to maintain strength\nwith which to enrich me infinitely by your exertions and to load me down\nwith superfluity and luxury.\"\n\nWhat maintains the material and intellectual slavery of the masses and\nthe insanity of the autocracy of the few? Force. Workingmen produce in\nthe factories and workshops the most varied things for the use of man.\nWhat is it that drives them to yield up these products for speculation's\nsake to those who produce nothing, and to content themselves with only a\nfractional part of the values which they produce? It is force.\n\nWhat is it that makes the brain-worker just as dependent in the\nintellectual realm as the artisan in the material world? Force. The\nartist and the writer being compelled to gain a livelihood dare not\ndream of giving the best of their individuality. No, they must scan the\nmarket in order to find out what is demanded just then. Not any\ndifferent than the dealer in clothes who must study the style of the\nseason before he places his merchandise before the public. Thus art and\nliterature sink to the level of bad taste and speculation. The artistic\nindividuality shrinks before the calculating reckoner. Not that which\nmoves the artist or the writer most receives expression; the\nvacillating demands of mediocrity of every-day people must be satisfied.\nThe artist becomes the helper of the dealer and the average men, who\ntrot along in the tracks of dull habit.\n\nThe State Socialists love to assert that at present we live in the age\nof individualism; the truth, however, is that individuality was never\nvalued at so low a rate as to-day. Individual thinking and feeling are\nincumbrances and not recommendations on the paths of life. Wherever they\nare found on the market they meet with the word \"adaptation.\" Adapt\nyourself to the demands of the reigning social powers, act the obedient\nservant before them, and if you produce something be sure that it does\nnot run against the grain of your \"superiors,\" or say adieu to success,\nreputation and recompense. Amuse the people, be their clown, give them\nplatitudes about which they can laugh, prejudices which they hold as\nrighteousness and falsehoods which they hold as truths. Paint the whole,\ncrown it with regard for good manners, for society does not like to hear\nthe truth about itself. Praise the men in power as fathers of the\npeople, have the devourers of the common wealth parade along as\nbenefactors of mankind.\n\nOf course, the force which humbles humanity in this manner is far from\nopenly declaring itself as force. It is masked, and in the course of\ntime it has learned to step forward with the least possible noise. That\ndiminishes the danger of being recognized.\n\nThe modern republic is a good example. In it tyranny is veiled so\ncorrectly, that there are really great numbers of people who are\ndeceived by this masquerade, and who maintain that what they perceive is\na true face with honest eyes.\n\nNo czar, no king. But right in line with these are the landowners, the\nmerchants, manufacturers, landlords, monopolists. They all are in\npossession, which is as strong a guarantee for the continuance of their\npower, as a castle surrounded by thick walls. Whoever possesses can rob\nhim who possesses nothing of his independence. If I am dependent for a\nliving on work, for which I need contrivances and machines, which I my\nself cannot procure, because I am without means, I must sacrifice my\nindependence to him who possesses these contrivances and machines. You\nmay work here, he will tell me, but only under the condition that you\nwill deliver up the products of your labor to me, that I may trade with\nand make profit on them.\n\nThe one without possessions has no choice. He may appeal to the\ndeclaration of human rights; he may point to his political rights, the\nequality before the law, before God and the archangels--if he wants to\neat, drink, dress and have a home he must choose such work as the\nconditions of the industrial mercantile or agricultural plants impose\nupon him.\n\nThrough organized opposition the workingmen can somewhat improve this\ncondition; by the help of trade unions they can regulate the hours of\nwork and hinder the reduction of wages to a level too low for mere\nliving. The trade unions are a necessity for the workingmen, a bulwark\nagainst which the most unbearable demands of the class of possessors\nrebound; but a complete freeing of labor--be it of an intellectual or of\na physical nature--can be brought about only through the abolition of\nwage work and the right of private ownership of land and the sources of\nmaintenance and nourishment of mankind. There are heart-rending cries\nover the blasphemous opinion that property is not as holy a thing as its\npossessors would like to make it. They declare that possessions must not\nbe less protected than human life, for they are necessary foundations of\nsociety. The case is represented as though everybody were highly\ninterested in the maintenance of the right of private property, whereas\nconditions are such that non-possession is the normal condition of most\npeople.\n\nBecause few possess everything, therefore the many possess nothing. So\nfar as possession can be considered as an oppressive measure in the\nhands of a few, it is a monopoly. Set in a paradox it would read: The\nabolition of property will free the people from homelessness and\nnon-possession. In fact, this will happen when the earth with its\ntreasures shall cease to be an object of trade for usurers; when it\nshall vouchsafe to all a home and a livelihood. Then not only the bent\nbodies will straighten; the intellect free itself as might the bound\nPrometheus rid himself of his fetters and leave the rock to which he is\nchained, but we shall look back on the institutions of force, the state,\nthe hangman, et al, as ghosts of an anxious fantasy.\n\nIn free unions the trades will organize themselves and will produce the\nmeans of livelihood. Things will not be produced for profit's sake, but\nfor the sake of need. The profit-grabber has grown superfluous just as\nhis patron, the state, which at present serves by means of its taxes and\nrevenues, his anti-humanitarian purposes and hinders the reasonable\nconsumption of goods. From the governing mania the foundation will be\nwithdrawn; for those strata in society will be lacking which therefore\nhad grown rich and fat by monopolizing the earth and its production.\nThey alone needed legislatures to make laws against the disinherited.\nThey needed courts of justice to condemn; they needed the police to\ncarry out practically the terrible social injustice, the cause of which\nlay in their existence and manner of living. And now the political\ncorruptionists are lacking who served the above-mentioned classes as\nhelpers, and therefore had to be supported as smaller drones.\n\nWhat a pleasant surprise! We see now that the production and\ndistribution of means of livelihood are a much simpler matter without\ngovernment than with government. And people now realize that the\ngovernments never promoted their welfare, but rather made it impossible,\nsince with the help of force they only allowed the right of possession\nto the minority.\n\nLife is really worth living now. It ceases to be an endless, mad\ndrudgery, a repugnant struggle for a mere existence.\n\nTruth and beauty are enthroned upon the necessity of procuring the means\nof existence in a co-operative organized manner. The social motives\nwhich to-day make man ambitious, hypocritical, stealthy, are\nineffective. One need not sell his individuality for a mess of pottage,\nas Esau sold his primogeniture.\n\nAt last the individuality of man has struck a solid social foundation on\nwhich it can prosper. The individual originality in man is valued; it\nfructifies art, literature, science, which now, in so far as they are\ndependent upon the state and ownership--which is far-reaching--must take\nthe direction of prescribed models that are acknowledged, and must not\nbe directed against the continuance of the leisure classes.\n\nLove will be free. Love's favor is a free granting, a giving and taking\nwithout speculation. No prostitution; for the economic and social power\nof one person over another exists no longer, and with the falling off of\nexternal oppression many an internal serfdom of feeling will be done\naway with, which often is only the reflex of hard external compulsion.\nThen the longing of large hearts may take tangible shape. Utopias are\narrows aimed into the future, harbingers of a new reality.\n\nRabelais, in his description of life in the \"Thelemite Abbey,\" wrote:\n\n\"All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according\nto their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when\nthey thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a\nmind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did\noffer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor do any other thing. In all\ntheir rule and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one\nclause to be observed: 'Do What Thou Wilt.'\n\n\"Because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in\nhonest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth\nthem unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is\ncalled honor. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint\nthey are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble\ndisposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake\noff that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved;\nfor it is agreeable to the nature of man to long after things forbidden,\nand to desire what is denied us. By this liberty they entered into a\nvery laudable emulation, to do all of them what they saw did please one.\nIf any of the gallants or ladies should say, 'Let us drink,' they would\nall drink. If any one of them said, 'Let us play,' they all played. If\none said, 'Let us go a walking into the fields,' they went all. If it\nwere to go a hawking, or a hunting, the ladies mounted upon dainty\nwell-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle, carried on their\nlovely fists either a sparhawk, or a lanneret, or a marlin, and the young\ngallants carried the other kinds of hawks. So nobly were they taught,\nthat there was neither he nor she amongst them, but could read, write,\nsing, play upon several musical instruments, speak five or six several\nlanguages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and\nprose. Never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so\ndexterous and skilful both on foot and horseback, more brisk and lively,\nmore nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons, than\nwere there. Never were seen ladies so proper and handsome, so miniard\nand dainty, less forward, or more ready with their hand, and with their\nneedle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, than were\nthere.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n+A few days ago+ the red ghost of revolution showed itself in the White\nHouse. The President saw it and threatened it with his boxing fists:\n\"What are you looking for here, be off to Russia.\" \"You are comical in\nyour excitement,\" answered Revolution. \"You must know, I am not only\nRussian, I am international, at home here as well as on the other side\nof the great water.\"\n\n+A Proposition.+--Would it not be wiser to explain theories out of life\nand not life out of theories?\n\n\n\n\nVIVE LE ROI\n\n\nBY FRANCES MAULE BJORKMAN\n\n\n     Aye, vive le roi. The King is dead--\n        So move our lives from day to day.\n     The triumph of to-morrow's lord\n        Meets for our former chief's decay.\n\n     Then love and live and laugh and sing--\n        The world is good and life is free--\n     There's not a single care I know\n        That's worth a single tear from me.\n\n     What's love or fame or place or power?\n        What's wealth when we shall come to die?\n     What matters anything on earth\n        So long as only I am I?\n\n     The Joy or grief or love or shame\n        That holds its little hour of sway\n     Is only worth its destined time--\n        What use to try to make it stay?\n\n     Aye, let it go. The monarch dead,\n        A better king our shouts may hail\n     And if a worse--well, still be glad;\n        He too will pass behind the vail.\n\n     They all must pass--fame, joy and love,\n        The sting of grief, the blot of shame;\n     The only thing that really counts\n        Is how we bear the praise or blame.\n\n     I'll take the good the while it lasts\n        And when it goes I'll learn to sing,\n     All eager for the coming joy--\n        \"The king is dead, long live the king.\"\n\n\n\n\nReflections of A Rich Man\n\n\n+If God were not in existence+ we would have to order one from the\nProfessors of Theology.\n\nThe fear, instilled in the majority of the poor, with the God, Devil,\nHeaven and Hell idea, is greater than their dread of a hundred thousand\npolicemen. Had we not given God the place of Chief Gendarme of the\nUniverse, we would need twice as many soldiers and police as we have\nto-day.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+A poor devil+ who owns but one million dollars said to me the other day:\n\"I, in your place, would rather contribute money towards art and\nliterature than to donate it to the Baptist Church.\" What an\nimpracticable fellow! Art and literature, among the common people, only\ntends to cause mischief. They are to remain our privilege. We know the\ndemands of good taste and we can afford to pay for the aesthetic\npleasures of life. The majority is unable to do that; besides, to teach\nthem the beauty of art only means to make them discontented and\nrebellious against our authority.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+I frankly admit+ I never had a great admiration for Jesus of Nazareth. A\nman of disordered circumstances arouses my disgust. Jesus was neither\nengaged in any kind of a business, nor did he possess as much as a bank\naccount, nor even a steady home. He preached to the poor. What for? The\npoor should work and not philosophize. The Scriptures tell nowhere that\nJesus returned the mule, upon which he made his entry into Jerusalem, to\nthe owner, or that he paid him for it. I strongly suspect he did not do\nit. One thing is certain, I never would have taken this dreamer of the\nabolition of profits as my business partner.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+It was very hot+ yesterday. I walked through my park, intending to betake\nmyself to my favorite place for rest and reverie. Suddenly I stood\nstill, arrested by the sight of a man lying under a tree. In my park?\nAnd how the fellow looked! In rags and dirty! I have been told I was\nkind-hearted, and I realized this myself at the moment. I walked over to\nthe man and inquired interestedly: \"Are you ill?\" He grunted in reply.\nThe wretch must have thought, in his sleep, that I was one of his kind.\nMy generosity did not cease. \"If you need money, do not feel shy about\ntelling me. How much do you need. I am the rich X Y Z, who has a\nfabulous fortune, as you have undoubtedly heard.\" At this remark the\nscoundrel turned on the other side, with his back toward me, and said,\nwhile yawning: \"What I want? I want to sleep. Will you be good enough to\nkeep the mosquitoes away for two hours?\" Within five minutes I had my\nservant kick this impertinent and ungrateful wretch out of my park. If\nall of the low class think as this fellow, I fear our charitable efforts\nin their behalf will accomplish little.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n+Eleven million+, nine hundred and seventeen thousand, nine hundred and\nforty-six dollars and fifty-eight cents is what the gallant Gen. Bingham\nasks us for protecting us from each other for the ensuing year. With a\npopulation of four million and 4.50 members to a family, we pay a\nfraction less than $3 per head, and about $13.50 for a family, a year\nfor police protection in this enlightened Christian (750,000 of us are\nJews, but ours is a Christian city) city of ours. I'd give that silver\nwatch of mine away and mind my own business if I thought it would come\ncheaper, but it won't do. H. H. Rogers is my brother and keeper, and he\ninsists he needs protection, and I must pay for it, so what can I do?\nI've told him I'm a peaceful, propertyless man with no higher ambition\nthan to love my fellow-man--and woman, and mind my own business; but his\nreply has invariably been, \"I'm Dr. Tarr, and my system prevails in this\nlunatic asylum!\" I recognize the logic of his argument all right and\ncontinue to pay for his protection and feel grateful for the privilege\nof grumbling a little now and again.\n\n\n\n\nCOMSTOCKERY\n\nBy JOHN R. CORYELL\n\n\nBe it understood that the shocking thing which we know as Comstockery,\ngoes back into the centuries for its origin; being, indeed, the perfect\nflower of that asceticism, which was engrafted on the degraded\nChristianity which took its name from Christ without in the least\ncomprehending the spirit of his lofty conception.\n\nThe man Comstock, who has the shameful distinction of having lent his\nname to the idea of which he is the willing and probably the fit\nexponent, may be dismissed without further consideration, since he is,\nafter all, only the inevitable as he is the deplorable result of that\nfor which he stands; seemingly without any sense of the shame and the\nawfulness of it.\n\nIt may be said, too, in dismissing him, that it is of no consequence\nwhether the very unpleasant stories current concerning him are true or\nnot. It is altogether probable that a man who stands for what he does\nand who glories in proclaiming the things he does, will also do things\nfor which he does not stand and which he does not proclaim. That is a\ncharacteristic of most of us and only proves that, after all, he is not\nless than human.\n\nThe only point that need be made in regard to the man who is proud of\nrepresenting Comstockery is, that if he had not done so, some other lost\nsoul would. In that sad stage of our social growth when death was the\npenalty for most infractions of the law, an executioner could always be\nfound who took pride in his work and who seemed to be beyond the reach\nof the scorn, the abhorrence and the contempt of his fellows.\n\nComstockery, as we know it, is apparently an organized effort to\nregulate the morals of the people. If it were nothing more than this, it\nwould be absurd and negligible, because futile; for what we call morals\nare only the observances which the conditions of life impose upon a\npeople; and an act depends, for its moral status, upon its relation to\nthose conditions. As, for example, horse-stealing in a closely settled\ncommunity, which has its railroads and other means of communication, is\na crime to be punished by a brief period of imprisonment; while in the\nsparsely settled sections of a country, where the horse is an imperative\nnecessity of life, its theft becomes a hanging matter, whatever the\nwritten law for that section of the country may be as to the punishment\nof the crime. And men, brought up in law-abiding communities in the\ndeepest respect for the law, will, under the changed conditions of life,\nnot merely condone the infliction of a penalty in excess of that\nprovided by law, but will themselves assist, virtuously satisfied with\ntheir conduct because the society of which they form a part has decided\nthat horse-stealing shall be so punished. On the other hand, there are\nnumerous laws on the statute books, still unrepealed and unenforceable\nbecause the acts treated of are no longer held to be offences against\nmorality. In other words, the morals of a people can be regulated only\nby themselves.\n\nWhat Comstockery does is bad enough, but its real awfulness lies in the\nfact that it seems to fairly enough represent us in our attitude toward\na certain class of ideas and things. It is the expression of our\nessential immorality--using that word in its conventional sense--having\nits roots deep down in pruriency, hypocrisy and ignorance. Like the\nblush on the cheek of the courtesan, it deceives no one, but is none the\nless a truthful expression, not of the thing it simulates, but of the\ncharacter of the simulator.\n\nComstockery was probably brought to this country by the first\nAnglo-Saxon, whether pirate or minister of the gospel, who set foot on\nthis soil; certainly it was a finely blooming plant on the Mayflower,\nand was soon blossoming here as never elsewhere in the world, giving out\nsuch a fragrance that the peculiar odor of it has become a\ncharacteristic of this land of liberty.\n\nWhen the so-called Comstock laws were passed there was a real disease to\nbe treated: The symptoms of the disease were obscene books and pictures\nwhich were being freely circulated among the children of the land,\nboarding-schools, whether for girls or boys, being fairly flooded with\nthe pernicious literature. The work of confiscation, suppression and of\nimprisonment was done thoroughly and conscientiously, so that in the\ncourse of a comparatively short time it was difficult to find books or\npictures of the kind in question. It is said that the effectiveness of\nthe work done is best shown by the one or more libraries of obscene\nbooks which the society, or some of its officers, have collected.\n\nThe value of the work done and the efficiency of the workers were\nrecognized in the passage from time to time of laws giving extraordinary\npowers not alone to the popularly so-called \"Comstock Society,\" but to\nofficers of the government. A perfect fury of purity took possession of\nour legislators; they were determined to stamp out impurity. And perhaps\nthey were establishing reputations for themselves. It is recorded that\nin the days of the Inquisition men established their orthodoxy by the\nloudness of their cries against heresy; that in the times of the French\nRevolution, men proved their patriotism by making charges of treason\nagainst their neighbors; that practicing polygamists have purified\nthemselves by hounding a theoretical polygamist out of their legislative\nbody. Anyhow, the laws were passed, the thing was done.\n\nAnd what was the thing that was done? A moral Inquisition had been\nestablished. Arguing from a wrong premise a hideous conclusion had been\nreached. It was voiced only a few weeks ago by an official of the\npostoffice in Chicago, when confiscating a publication. He said in\nsubstance, if not literally: \"Any discussion of sex is obscene.\"\n\nThere it is in a few words--a complete and perfect treatise on\nComstockery! In the early days in some parts of New England, a man might\nnot kiss his wife on a Sunday. On common days, the filthy act was\npermissible, but the Sabbath must not be so defiled. And now, any\ndiscussion of sex is obscenity!\n\nPause a while and consider what this means and whither it will lead,\nwhere it has already led. Discussion of sex is obscene; then sex,\nitself, must be obscene; life and all that pertains to it must be\nfilthy. That is, providing it be the life of Man. The sex of flowers may\nbe discussed frankly and freely either for the pleasure of knowledge, or\nin order to use knowledge for the purpose of improving the flower. The\nsex of animals may be discussed; it is discussed in government\npublications and in the many farm journals published throughout the\ncountry, because it is necessary to improve the breed of our domestic\nanimals, because these animals are valuable. But discussion of the sex\nof man is obscene!\n\nThere have been some changes in public sentiment, some changes, perhaps,\nin the grey matter on the judicial bench, since the early days in New\nYork when Comstockery was most rampant: for what was tolerated then is\nnot tolerated now; some things that were judicially wrong then are\njudicially right now. And in this change there is hope and the promise\nof greater change.\n\nIn those early days a confectioner on Fulton street sought to attract\ncustomers by exhibiting in his window a painting by a great artist. If\nmemory serves, it was \"The Triumph of Charles V.\" by Hans Makart.\nFigures of nude females were in the picture, and Comstockery established\nin its censorship of art and solemnly unconscious of its appalling\nignorance, but true to its fundamental pruriency, ordered the picture\nremoved from the window. And it was removed. Just as Boston, finding its\nbronze bacchante immodest, rejected the brazen hussey. And now she\nstands on her pedestal in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, giving\njoy to the beholder, and--not ordered down by Comstockery. Why? And why\nis not the whole museum purged of its nude figures? It is a puzzle not\neven to be solved by the theory of change in public sentiment; for it is\nonly a few months ago that the art censor in chief of Comstockery saw in\nthe window of an art dealer on Fifth Avenue a landscape in which\nfigured several nude children discreetly wandering away from the\nbeholder. The picture was ordered out of the window forthwith. And went.\nA few blocks below, on Broadway, there were then and are now exhibited\nin a window, numerous photographs of nude children, not all of them\ndiscreet as to way of their going. Why? Has the art censor decided that\nthe photographs are innocuous, or that they are art?\n\nBut these instances and the amazing expeditions made by the censor into\nthe realm of literature are hardly more than ludicrous; and they can and\nwill correct themselves. But the frightful results of Comstockery, as\napplied to life and to real purity, cannot be so lightly passed over.\nAnd let it not be forgotten that an indictment of Comstockery is an\nindictment of ourselves, for the prurient, hypocritical, degrading thing\ncan exist not one instant after we have declared that it shall perish.\n\nIt is no exaggeration to say that Comstockery is the arch enemy of\nsociety. It seeks to make hypocrisy respectable; it would convert\nimpurity into a basic virtue; it labels ignorance, innocence; it has\nlegislated knowledge into a crime; and it seeks its perpetuation in the\ndegradation of an enfeebled human race. And that these are not\nover-statements can easily be established to the satisfaction of any\nreasonable mind.\n\nThe most creditable work ever done by Comstockery was the practical\nsuppression and elimination of the obscene book; but when that is said,\nall is said. How worse than fatuous, how absolutely fiendish that\nphysician would be deemed who hid the signs of small-pox with paint and\npowder and permitted his patient to roam at will among his fellows,\nunwarned even of the nature of the fell disease that was devouring his\nlife. Nay, worse! What if the physician should have himself clothed with\nplenary powers and should compel the poor wretch to refrain from making\nhis case known after he had discovered its nature? But this is precisely\nwhat Comstockery does.\n\nThe obscene book was removed from circulation. In other words, the\nsymptom of the disease was hidden. But was anything done to eliminate\nthe disease, or to remove its cause? On the contrary, everything\npossible was done to perpetuate the disease; everything possible was\ndone to prevent anyone who had suffered from the disease or who knew\nanything about it, from imparting his knowledge. For the disease was\nignorance; ignorance of self, of life, of sex. And not only does\nComstockery strive to perpetuate ignorance, not only does it glorify\nignorance and miscall it innocence, not only does it elevate it into a\nvirtue, but it has legislated knowledge into a crime. The offence of the\nbook it had eliminated was not its vicious misinformation, but its use\nof sex as a subject. The postoffice has said that any discussion of sex\nis obscene and the courts have put one noble old man of over seventy\nyears into prison at hard labor, and have punished an aged woman\nphysician in some other way because they sought, in all purity and\nright-mindedness, to help their brothers and sisters to a knowledge of\nthemselves.\n\nIt is true that, at last, there is a rift within the lute; or would it\nbetter be called a leak in the sewer? Comstockery has not quite the\nstanding that it once had. When it was made generally known that a\npostoffice official had said that any discussion of sex was obscene,\nthere followed such a rattling fire of reprobation and condemnation even\nfrom many startled conventionalists, who could support the thing but\ncould not look it in the face, that the maker of the now historic phrase\nwas moved to deny that he had said it officially. In fact, there are\nmany signs, most of them still small, on the distant horizon, it is\ntrue, which indicate that we are becoming alive to the fact that it is\nimperative that sex should be discussed.\n\nThis is an age of radical ideas. Radicalism in politics, in religion, in\nethics is ripe; which is only another way of saying that we are\nbeginning to dare to think. Probably the most apparent, if not the most\nsignificant, sign of the general radicalism, is the tendency to exalt\nthe science of life to an even higher plane than that which it occupied\nin the days of Hellenic supremacy. We are beginning to understand that\nright living is a purely physical matter, and that morals are only laws\nof health; and if there are yet but few who dare take so radical a view\nof morals as that, still there are quite as few who will not admit\nfreely that nothing can be immoral which is beneficial to the human\nbody.\n\nOf course, it is unthinkable, even from the point of view of the most\nconventional of orthodox Christians, that there can be any immorality in\nsex, for sex in itself is absolutely a work of the deity, hence of the\nhighest morality, if it can have any such attribute at all. As well\nmight one give digestion a moral quality. Morality is surely a matter of\npersonal conduct. One may say that it is immoral to eat so much as to\ninjure one's health, but it is not a matter of record that any\nconsiderable body of persons declares the stomach to be an immoral\norgan, or the digestive function to be an immoral one, or any discussion\nof digestion immoral. Then why sex or sex functions?\n\nIt is true that Comstockery has us to designate our legs, limbs, though\nnot at the present time with any legal penalty for not doing so; it\nprescribes the word stomach for polite usage in describing that part of\nthe body which lies subjacent to the actual stomach, anterior to the\nspinal column and posterior to the abdominal wall; it forbids a visible\nbifurcated garment for the \"limbs\" of a female; and it does a variety of\nother absurd things, all going to show that in some singular fashion it\nhas confounded acts with things; as one might call all knives immoral\nbecause a few knives had been used to do murder with.\n\nBy what extraordinary process does Comstockery conjure decency into the\nstomach and indecency into the bowels? But how rejoiced we should be\nthat it is no worse than indecent to speak of the receptacle of the\nintestines by its common name. By some hocus pocus of which Comstockery\nis easily capable it might have been obscene to speak of the digestive\nprocess or of any of the digestive organs. We might easily have been\ntaught that digestion was a moral matter, not to be talked of, not to be\nstudied; ignorance of which was a virtue, knowledge of which a crime.\nAnd then, under those conditions, if a person, possessed of a little\nknowledge such as might have crept stealthily down the ages, were in a\nfine humanitarian spirit to dare to publish some of the things he knew\nin order to help dyspeptic humanity, he would have been robbed of his\nworldly goods and clapped forthwith into jail. Fancy that under such\ncircumstances a man who had lived his three score and ten years and had\nlearned something from his own suffering and experience, something from\nthe secretly imparted information of others, might not say a word to\nhelp his fellows. Is it not too absurd to contemplate without both tears\nand laughter that that man who should plead with his fellow men to\nabstain from habitually living on butter cakes and coffee, should be\ncharged with obscenity and imprisoned in consequence? And imagine some\nsapient postoffice official solemnly declaring that any discussion of\ndigestion is obscene! Consider how the land would be flooded with\nliterature describing the pleasures of gluttony and depicting impossible\ngastronomic feats! Consider, too, trying to cure indigestion and to\nsuppress the orgies of our children in pies, crullers, fritters and\nbutter cakes by the naive device of forbidding all knowledge of the\ndigestive function and making the utterance of the name of a digestive\norgan an obscenity punishable by fine and imprisonment!\n\nDigestion is a matter to be considered in the light of hygiene. So is\nsex. Digestion is not in itself either moral or immoral. Neither is sex.\nBut there is the most hideous immorality in the ascription of obscenity\nto sex, sex function or any phase of sex life. And this is the crime of\nComstockery. It has reared an awful idol to which have been sacrificed\nthe best of our youth; with hypocrisy the high-priest, ignorance the\ncreed, and pruriency the detective.\n\nComstockery strikes at the very root of life. It forbids that we shall\nknow how to live our best; it forbids that we shall know how to save our\nchildren from the perils we have so discreditably passed through; it\nraises barriers of false modesty between parents and children by\nbranding the very science of life an obscenity. Owing to the shocking\nsuggestions of Comstockery all that relates to life is degraded into the\ngutter; and that which would be pure and sweet and wholesome in the home\nor in the school, becomes filthy Comstockery on the snickering lips of\nignorant play-fellows.\n\nThe wonder is that we have endured the nasty thing for so long a time.\nWe have been boys and girls and have gone from our parents to our\nschool-mates and play-fellows for the information to which we are\nentitled by very reason of living, but, more than all; because of our\nneed to live right. We all know the hideous untruths we were told\nbecause of Comstockery; we all know how much we had to unlearn, and how\ngreat the suffering mentally, how great the deterioration physically in\nthe unlearning; we all know our unfitness for parentage at the time we\nentered it; every man knows how the brothels kept open doors and\nbeckoning inmates by the thousand for his undoing. And yet we endure\nit--Comstockery.\n\nIt is such a subtly pervasive thing, this Comstockery, it steals in\nwherever it can and puts the taint of its own uncleanness on whatever it\ntouches. Clothing becomes a matter of Comstockery. We do not always see\nit, but such is the fact. We do not wear clothing for convenience, but\nto cover our nakedness. You see nakedness is obscene. Not in itself, but\nonly in man. You may take a naked dog on the street, but not a naked\nhuman being. The summer previous to the last one was a very hot one in\nNew York, and a poor wretch of a boy of fourteen years of age, being on\nthe top floor of a crowded tenement was half crazed by the heat and the\nlack of fresh air, of which there was absolutely none in the closet in\nwhich he was trying to sleep. He ran down into the street nude at two\no'clock in the morning in the hope of finding a surcease of his\ndistress. A policeman saw him, remembered his blushing Comstockery in\ntime and haled the poor lad off to a cell. The next morning the\nmagistrate in tones of grimmest virtue sent the boy to the reformatory,\nremarking with appropriate jest that the young scoundrel might have\nseven years in which to learn to keep his clothes on.\n\nTheodore Roosevelt, who is at once the greatest President and the wisest\nman of whom we have any record, tells us that we must breed more\nchildren. But how shall our women bear more children, or presently bear\nany, if they are to be continually made more and more unfit for\nmotherhood by the pitfalls into which their ignorance of the science of\nlife leads them? Because of the Comstockery which has its felt grip upon\nour throats we may not instruct the little child in the way of health;\nor if it be said that there is nothing to prevent the parent from\ninstructing the child, yet it must be insisted that the parent has no\nmeans of knowing since Comstockery prescribes ignorance as the only way\nto innocence; and innocent our girls must be at any cost. Besides, the\naverage mother, if she will but admit the truth, is ashamed to talk with\nher daughter about Comstockery things. We all know that this is so. Our\nparents treated us in such fashion, and we are so treating our children.\n\nThe knowledge which each generation acquires at the cost of health, yes,\nat the cost of life even, dies with it, for the most part. The one thing\nwe most need to know is how to live; the science of life begins with\nsex, goes on with sex, ends with sex; but sex we may not discuss; thus\nwe go on in ignorance of life. Shall it remain so? Is Comstockery to be\nour best expression of the most vital matter of existence? Life, sex,\nshould be and is when we recognize it, the purest, sweetest, simplest\nsubject of discussion; and we make of it a filthy jest. We will not tell\nour sons the things we have learned through bitter experience, because\nwe cannot bear the shame of discussing sex subjects with them, because\nof the accursed Comstockery that is within us; but we will go to the\nclub and the bar room, or anywhere behind locked doors in the select\ncompany of our fellows, and there pour out the real essence of our\nComstockery in stories which make a filthy jest of sex. Every man knows\nthis is the truth. Perhaps women, in their Comstockery, know it too. As\nhas been already said, treat digestion as sex is treated, and it will be\nsniggered over behind locked doors in precisely the same way.\n\nLet us rid ourselves of the fatal, prurient restrictions on sex\ndiscussion and in a marvellously short time we shall have a store of\nsweet knowledge on the subject that will enable us to live well\nourselves and fit us to bring into the world such children as will amaze\nus with their health of body and purity of mind. No alteration of the\nfacts of life is necessary, but only a change of attitude. Why, when\nTrilby brought the bare foot into prominence, it was gravely debated\nwhether or not such an indecency should be permitted. It was assumed\nthat a naked foot was indecent. Why a foot more than a hand? Why any one\npart of the body more than another? Comstockery! Comstockery!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nDON QUIXOTE AND HAMLET\n\n\nIn Peter Kropotkin's Book: \"Russian Literature\" (published by McClure,\nPhillips & Company), there is a quotation from Turgenieff's works, which\nshows the Russian poet's genius and psychological insight in all its\nwonderful depth. Here it is:\n\n\"Don Quixote is imbued with devotion towards his ideal, for which he is\nready to suffer all possible privations, to sacrifice his life; life\nitself he values only so far as it can serve for the incarnation of the\nideal, for the promotion of truth, of justice on earth.... He lives for\nhis brothers, for opposing the forces hostile to mankind: the witches,\nthe giants--that is, the oppressors.... Therefore he is fearless,\npatient; he is satisfied with the most modest food, the poorest cloth:\nhe has other things to think of. Humble in his heart, he is great and\ndaring in his mind.... And who is Hamlet? Analysis, first of all, and\negotism, and therefore no faith. He lives entirely for himself, he is\nan egotist; but to believe in one' self--even an egotist cannot do that:\nwe can believe only in something which is outside us and above us.... As\nhe has doubts of everything, Hamlet evidently does not spare himself;\nhis intellect is too developed to remain satisfied with what he finds in\nhimself; he feels his weakness, but each self-consciousness is a force\nwhere-from results his irony, the opposite of the enthusiasm of Don\nQuixote.... Don Quixote, a poor man, almost a beggar, without means and\nrelations, old, isolated--undertakes to redress all the evils and to\nprotect oppressed strangers over the whole world. What does it matter to\nhim that his first attempt at freeing the innocent from his oppressor\nfalls twice as heavy upon the head of the innocent himself?... What does\nit matter that, thinking that he has to deal with noxious giants, Don\nQuixote attacks useful windmills?... Nothing of the sort can ever happen\nwith Hamlet: how could he, with his perspicacious, refined, sceptical\nmind, ever commit such a mistake! No, he will not fight with windmills,\nhe does not believe in giants ... but he would not have attacked them\neven if they did exist.... And he does not believe in evil. Evil and\ndeceit are his inveterate enemies. His scepticism is not\nindifferentism.... But in negation, as in fire, there is a destructive\npower, and how to keep it in bounds, how to tell it where to stop, when\nthat which it must destroy, and that which it must spare are often\ninseparably welded together? Here it is that the often-noticed tragical\naspect of human life comes in: for action we require will, and for\naction we require thought; but thought and will have parted from each\nother, and separate every day more and more....\n\n\n     \"And thus the native hue of resolution\n     Is sickled o'er by the pale cast of thought....\"\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nON THE BANKS OF ACHERON\n\nBy EDWIN BJORKMAN\n\n\nThe air was still and full of a gray melancholy light, yet the waters of\nthe river boiled angrily as if touched by a raging tempest. The billows\nrose foaming above its surface, all white with the whiteness of fear.\nWhen they sank back again, they were black--black as despair that knows\nof no hope.\n\nSteep hills mounted abruptly on either side of the river until they\ntouched the sullen, colorless cloud-banks overhead. Their sides were\nseamed with numberless paths, running on narrow ledges, one above the\nother, from the river's edge to the crest of the hill. Men were moving\nalong those paths: they swarmed like ants across the hillside, but I\ncould not see whence they were coming nor whither they were going. All\nwere pushing and jostling and scratching and howling and fighting. Every\none's object seemed to be to raise himself to the path above his own and\nto prevent all others from doing the same.\n\nDown at the water's edge, they moved in a solid mass, arms pinned down,\nshoulder to shoulder and chest to back. At times a man got an arm out of\nthe press and began to claw the up-turned, tear-stained faces of his\nneighbors in wild endeavors to lift his whole body. But soon his madness\nsubsided, the writhing arm sank back, and the man vanished out of sight.\nThe mass once more moved stolidly, solidly onward. Once in a great while\nits surface of heads would begin to boil like the waters of the river\nnear by, and a man would be spouted into the air, landing on one of the\npaths above. Then each face would be turned toward him for a breathless\nmoment, at the end of which the mass glided slowly onward as before.\n\nThe crush on the paths higher up on the hillside was not so great, but\nthe fighting of man against man was incessant and bitter. I could see\nthem clambering up the steep sides of the ledges, with bleeding nails,\ndistorted features and locked teeth. Waving arms and clutching fingers\npursued them from below; ironshod heels trampled them from above.\nNinety-nine out of the hundred ended their struggles with a fall, and in\ntheir rapid descent they swept others with them. But rising or falling,\nthey all pushed onward, onward--from nowhere to nowhere, as it seemed to\nme. I watched them for hours, for days, for years--always the same\nwandering, the same scrambling, the same tumbling, without apparent\npurpose or result. Then my blood rose hotly to my heart and head. A\nscarlet mist floated before my eyes and my soul swelled within me almost\nunto bursting.\n\n\"Why?\" I cried, and the word rolled back and forth between the hillsides\nuntil its last echo was swallowed by the murmur that hovered over the\nwrathful river. The strugglers on the hillside paths, each and all,\nturned toward me. On every face I read astonishment.\n\n\"Why?\" I yelled at them again, and the sound of my voice lingered above\nthe waters like a distant thunder. Gradually the expression on all those\nstaring faces changed from wonder to scorn. A man on one of the paths\nnear the crest of the hill laughed aloud. Two more joined him. It became\ncontagious and spread like wildfire. All those millions were laughing\ninto my face, laughing like demons rather than men.\n\nMy frown only increased the mirth of that grinning multitude. I shook my\nclenched, up-stretched fists against them. And when at last their\nghastly merriment ceased, I raised my voice once more in defiance.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nAs when on a bleak winter day the black snow clouds suddenly begin to\ndarken the sky, so hatred and rage spread over their faces. Crooked,\nbony fingers were pointed at me. Men leaned recklessly from their narrow\nledges to shout abuse at me. Stones and mud were flung at me. A hundred\narms seized me and tossed my body in a wide curve from the hillside out\nover the river. For one long minute I struggled to keep myself above the\nyawning waters. Then I sank. All grew dark about me. A strange fullness\nin my chest seemed to rise up toward my head. There was a last moment\nof consciousness in which I heard a single word uttered by a ringing,\nbell-like voice that came from within myself. That last word was:\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe British Elections and the Labor Parties\n\nBy H. KELLY\n\n\n\"We are a left-center country; we live by compromise.\"\n\nThe above statement was made by an aged member of Parliament to\nKropotkin some years ago, and the present elections testify strongly to\nthe truth of that remark. For a country which produced the father of\npolitical economy, Adam Smith--for Scotland is included in our\ngeneralization--Robert Owen, the father of libertarian Socialism, which\nin the forties stood almost at the head of the Socialist movement in\nEurope, which has been the scene of so many Socialist and workingmen's\ncongresses and has furnished a refuge for so many distinguished exiles,\nit is passing strange, to say the least, that up to the present no one\nhas been elected to Parliament on a purely Socialist platform; this\nnotwithstanding that, in the elections just past, of forty-three labor\nmembers elected nineteen are members of the Independent Labor Party and\none of the Social Democratic Federation. John Burns was elected to\nParliament just after the great Dock Strike on his trade-union record\nand has been elected regularly ever since, although he has long since\nceased to be a Socialist. Keir Hardie was elected for West Ham as a\nRadical, and when he stood for re-election as a Socialist was defeated.\nIn 1900 he was elected again as member for Merthyr Tydfill, a radical\nmining district in Wales, on a trade union-Socialist platform, and\nundoubtedly received a large number of votes on the ground of having\nbeen a miner once himself. R. B. Cunningham-Graham, probably the ablest\nSocialist who has yet sat in the British Parliament, was elected as a\nRadical, announcing himself a Socialist some time after his election.\n\nThe British workman, true to his traditions, has consistently demanded\ncompromise before electing anyone, and where that has been refused, the\ncandidates have gone down to defeat. Hyndman, founder of the Social\nDemocratic Federation and the ablest Socialist in public life; Quelch,\neditor of \"Justice,\" the official organ of that party, for more than a\ndecade, and Geo. Lansbury, one of their oldest, ablest and most\nrespected members, refused to compromise in the recent election, and\npaid the inevitable penalty. Hyndman's case was really remarkable, he is\na man of exceptional ability, has devoted himself for twenty-five years\nto the Socialist and labor movement, was endorsed by all the labor\nbodies of Burnley, and Mr. Phillip Stanhope, recently created a lord and\none of the ablest Liberal politicians in the country, did him the honor\nof declining to stand against him. Still he was defeated--while\npoliticians of an inferior stamp like John Burns, Keir Hardie, J. R.\nMacDonald and two score of others were triumphantly elected on a labor\nplatform. Therein lies the secret, they were elected on a \"Labor\nPlatform!\" Eight-hour day, trade-union rate of wages, better factory\nlegislation, secular education, annual sessions of Parliament, paid\nmembers, one man, one vote, etc. All excellent things in themselves, but\nnot Socialism and in no way disputing the right of one man to exploit\nanother and leaving untouched the basic principle of Socialism, real\nSocialism, the right of labor to the fruits of its toil.\n\nUnder conditions such as those described, is it to be wondered at that\nmany Anarchists are frankly cynical as to the benefits labor will derive\nfrom the labor parties? There will be at least two, that have suddenly\nforced the gilded doors of the \"Mother of Parliaments\" and about which\nthe guilty middle class grew nervous. We know that men like T. Burt, H.\nBroadhurst, W. Abraham, F. Madison and a score of others are but\nnominal labor men not having worked at their various trades for years\nand are middle class by training and income, that others like Keir\nHardie, J. R. MacDonald, John Ward and many more are at best labor\npoliticians so steeped in political bargaining and compromising that the\nnet results to labor from them will be very small indeed. It is not\nnecessary nor would it be just to question the honesty or well-meaning\nof many of the forty-three labor members, to prove that a distinct\ndisappointment awaits those who elected them. Past history foretells the\nfuture clearly enough. We have seen John Burns, hero of the Dock Strike,\nwho entered Parliament as a Revolutionary Socialist, becoming in a few\nshort years as docile as a lamb to those above him in power and as\nautocratic as a Russian provincial governor to those who needed his\nassistance, finally enter a Liberal Cabinet with the \"hero of\nFeatherstone,\" H. H. Asquith, by whose orders striking miners were shot\ndown in real American fashion, Sir Edward Grey, and other Jingo\nImperialists--and the end is not yet. There are our other friends (?).\nH. Broadhurst, special favorite of the King; W. Abraham, ex-coal miner,\nwho so endeared himself to the coal operators of Wales in his capacity\nas official of the Miners' Union and Scale Committee that when his\ndaughter was married several years ago she received a cheque for L100\nfrom one of the aforesaid operators, and others whom space forbids\nmentioning. Such is the material of which the labor parties now in the\nHouse of Commons is formed, and it requires a violent stretch of\nimagination to see any real, lasting benefit can accrue from the\nforty-three men now sitting there as representatives of the oppressed\nmasses. An inability to see this, however, by no means implies a lack of\ninherent good in the formation of the Labor Representation Committee and\nthe Miners' Federation, their fraternization with the Socialists and the\nforces which impelled that organization and fraternization. It is the\nagitation which preceded it, and we hope will continue, and the growing\ndesire on the part of the workers for a larger share of the product of\ntheir toil and a part in the management of industry that we see hope.\nThe form that movement has taken or the beneficial results from the\nefforts of the elected are details. It is scarcely five years since the\nLabor Representation Committee sprang into existence, and it says much\nfor the solidarity of labor that over a million trade unionists,\nthirteen thousand members of the Independent Labor Party and eight\nhundred Fabians could be got together on a political program in so short\na time.\n\nFor good or ill the British workingman has gone in for political action\nand will have a try at that before he listens to the Anarchists. Slow of\nthought and used to compromise, he is a stern taskmaker and will exact a\nrigid account of the stewardship entrusted to those who sought his\nsuffrage. When the disillusionment comes, as it surely will, real\nprogress may come. The process of disillusionment does not come with\ngeometrical precision. To some it comes over night, to others it is a\nprocess of years, and to some it is denied altogether. For years the\nAnarchists have been scoffed at as impossible dreamers for advocating\nthe General Strike as the only effective means of overthrowing the\npresent system. The glorious fight of the Russian people for freedom has\nchanged all this, and we find even Bebel threatening the German\nGovernment with a general strike if they attempt to withdraw the\nfranchise; and Hyndman, who opposed it for years, has finally admitted\nits effectiveness. The effect has been felt in Great Britain in the\nshape of the unemployed agitations and demonstrations, and although\ntemporarily allayed by the elections, it will blossom forth again.\n\nIf the advent of the Liberal party to power, backed by the Home Rule and\nLabor parties, causes an undoing of the harm of the Balfour-Chamberlain\ngovernment, it will be more than can reasonably be expected. The trade\nunions can never be restored to quite the same legal immunity they had\npreviously. The forty thousand Chinese imported into South Africa to\ntake the places of white miners will remain even if no more are brought\nin. The Education Act, passed with the assistance of the Irish\nArchbishops and attacking secular education, will be amended and not\nrepealed. The endowment of the brewers will continue, and my Lords Bass,\nBurton and the rest will merely await future opportunities to plunder\nthe British public. In short, little constructive legislation, even of\nthat mild and tentative character one might expect from a Liberal party,\nmade up of capitalistic units can be expected after the ten years of\ncorrupt and extravagant rule of this band of modern pirates.\n\nThey who advocate the complete reconstruction of society are under no\nillusions as to the time and trouble required to overcome the\nsuperstitions of the past. Being imbued, however, with the belief in\nwhat Christians call \"the eternal righteousness of their cause,\" they\nmeet the future with smiling face; and far from being downcast over the\nturn of events in Great Britain, see hope in the formation of the Labor\nParties.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nAND YOU?\n\nBOLTON HALL\n\n\n\"What would you do,\" asked the Idealist, \"if you were Czar of Russia?\"\n\n\"I would first abolish monopoly of land, for that is fundamental,\" said\nthe Reformer, \"and then resign. What would you do?\"\n\n\"I would first resign, and then teach the people to abolish monopoly of\nland, the same as now,\" answered the Idealist. \"But what would you do,\nTeacher?\"\n\n\"I would teach the people from the throne that they were oppressed by\ntheir system of monopoly--and by their Czar.\"\n\n\n\n\nNATIONAL ATAVISM\n\nBY INTERNATIONALIST\n\n\nThe Jewish circles in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities of\nAmerica are aroused over the visit of a spectre called Nationalism,\nalias Territorialism. Like all spectres, it is doing a lot of mischief\nand causing much confusion in the heads of the Jewish population.\n\nThe spirit of our ancestor, Abraham, has come to life again. Like\nAbraham, when Jehovah commanded him to go in quest of the promised land,\nthe Jewish Nationalists make themselves and others believe that they\nlong for the moment, when with wife and child and all possessions, they\nwill migrate to that spot on earth, which will represent the Jewish\nState, where Jewish traits will have a chance to develop in idyllic\npeace.\n\nNatural science calls retrogression of species, which shows signs of a\nformer state already overcome, atavism. The same term may be applied to\nthe advanced section of the Jewish population, which has listened to the\ncall of the Nationalists. They have retrogressed from a universal view\nof things to a philosophy fenced in by boundary lines; from the glorious\nconception that \"the world is my country\" to the conception of\nexclusiveness. They have abridged their wide vision and have made it\nnarrow and superficial.\n\nThe Zionism of Max Nordau and his followers never was more than a\nsentimental sport for the well-to-do in the ranks of the Jews. The\nlatter-day Nationalists, however, are bent on reaching those circles of\nthe Jewish race that have so far followed the banner of Internationalism\nand Revolution; and this at a moment when revolutionists of all\nnationalities and races are most in need of unity and solidarity.\nNothing could be more injurious to the Russian revolution, nothing prove\na lack of confidence in its success, so much as the present\nnationalistic agitation.\n\nThe most encouraging and glorious feature of revolutions is that they\npurify the atmosphere from the thick, poisonous vapors of prejudices and\nsuperstition.\n\nFrom time immemorial revolutions have been the only hope and refuge of\nall the oppressed from national and social yokes. The radical\nnationalistic elements seem to have forgotten that all their enthusiasm,\ntheir faith and hope in the power of a great social change, now falters\nbefore the question: Will it give us our own territory where we can\nsurround ourselves with walls and watch-towers? Yes, the very people,\nwho once spoke with a divine fire of the beauty of the solidarity of all\nindividuals and all peoples, now indulge in the shallow phrases that the\nJew is powerless, that he is nowhere at home, and that he owns no place\non earth, where he can do justice to his nature, and that he must first\nobtain national rights, like all nations, ere he can go further.\n\nThese lamentations contain more fiction than truth, more sentimentality\nthan logic.\n\nThe Poles have their own territory; still this fact does not hinder\nRussia from brutalizing Poland or from flogging and killing her\nchildren; neither does it hinder the Prussian government from\nmaltreating her Polish subjects and forcibly obliterating the Polish\nlanguage. And of what avail is native territory to the small nations of\nthe Balkans, with Russian, Turkish and Austrian influences keeping them\nin a helpless and dependent condition. Various raids and expeditions by\nthe powerful neighboring states forced on them, have proven what little\nprotection their territorial independence has given them against brutal\ncoercion. The independent existence of small peoples has ever served\npowerful states as a pretext for venomous attacks, pillage and attempts\nat annexation. Nothing is left them but to bow before the superior\npowers, or to be ever prepared for bitter wars that might, in a measure,\ntemporarily loosen the tyrannical hold, but never end in a complete\noverthrow of the powerful enemy.\n\nSwitzerland is often cited as an example of a united nation which is\nable to maintain itself in peace and neutrality. It might be advisable\nto consider what circumstances have made this possible.\n\nIt is an indisputable fact that Switzerland acts as the executive agent\nof European powers, who consider her a foreign detective bureau which\nwatches over, annoys and persecutes refugees and the dissatisfied\nelements.\n\nItalian, Russian and German spies look upon Switzerland as a hunting\nground, and the Swiss police are never so happy, as when they can render\nconstable service to the governments of surrounding states. It is\nnothing unusual for the Swiss police to carry out the order of Germany\nor Italy to arrest political refugees and forcibly take them across the\nfrontier, where they are given over into the hands of the German or\nItalian gendarmes. A very enticing national independence, is it not?\n\nIs it possible that former revolutionists and enthusiastic fighters for\nfreedom, who are now in the nationalistic field, should long for similar\nconditions? Those who refuse to be carried away by nationalistic phrases\nand who would rather follow the broad path of Internationalism, are\naccused of indifference to and lack of sympathy with the sufferings of\nthe Jewish race. Rather is it far more likely that those who stand for\nthe establishment of a Jewish nation show a serious lack of judgment.\n\nEspecially the radicals among the Nationalists seem to be altogether\nlost in the thicket of phrases. They are ashamed of the label\n\"nationalist\" because it stands for so much retrogression, for so many\nmemories of hatred, of savage wars and wild persecutions, that it is\ndifficult for one who claims to be advanced and modern to adorn himself\nwith the name. And who does not wish to appear advanced and modern?\nTherefore the name of Nationalist is rejected, and the name of\nterritorialist taken instead, as if that were not the same thing. True,\nthe territorialists will have nothing to do with an organized Jewish\nstate; they aim for a free commune. But, if it is certain that small\nstates are subordinated to great powers and merely endured by them, it\nis still more certain that free communes within powerful states, built\non coercion and land robbery, have even less chance for a free\nexistence. Such cuckoos' eggs the ruling powers will not have in their\nnests. A community, in which exploitation and slavery do not reign,\nwould have the same effect on these powers, as a red rag to a bull. It\nwould stand an everlasting reproach, a nagging accusation, which would\nhave to be destroyed as quickly as possible. Or is the national glory of\nthe Jews to begin after the social revolution?\n\nIf we are to throw into the dust heap our hope that humanity will some\nday reach a height from which difference of nationality and ancestry\nwill appear but an insignificant speck on earth, well and good! Then let\nus be patriots and continue to nurse national characteristics; but we\nought, at least, not to clothe ourselves in the mantel of Faust, in our\npretentious sweep through space. We ought at least declare openly that\nthe life of all peoples is never to be anything else but an outrageous\nmixture of stupid patriotism, national vanities, everlasting antagonism,\nand a ravenous greed for wealth and supremacy.\n\nMight it not be advisable to consider how the idea of a national unity\nof the Jews can live in the face of the deep social abysses that exist\nbetween the various ranks within the Jewish race?\n\nIt is not at all a mere accident that the Bund, the strongest\norganization of the Jewish proletariat, will have nothing to do with the\nnationalistic agitation. The social and economic motives for concerted\naction or separation are of far more vital influence than the national.\n\nThe feeling of solidarity of the working-people is bound to prove\nstronger than the nationalistic glue. As to the remainder of the\nadherents of the nationalistic movement, they are recruited from the\nranks of the middle Jewish class.\n\nThe Jewish banker, for instance, feels much more drawn to the Christian\nor Mohammedan banker than to his Jewish factory worker, or tenement\nhouse dweller. Equally so will the Jewish workingman, conscious of the\nrevolutionizing effect of the daily struggle between labor and money\npower, find his brother in a fellow worker, and not in a Jewish banker.\n\nTrue, the Jewish worker suffers twofold: he is exploited, oppressed and\nrobbed as one of suffering humanity, and despised, hated, trampled upon,\nbecause he is a Jew; but he would look in vain toward the wealthy Jews\nfor his friends and saviors. The latter have just as great an interest\nin the maintenance of a system that stands for wage slavery, social\nsubordination, and the economic dependence of the great mass of mankind,\nas the Christian employer and owner of wealth.\n\nThe Jewish population of the East Side has little in common with the\ndweller of a Fifth Avenue mansion. He has much more in common with the\nworkingmen of other nationalities of the country--he has sorrows,\nstruggles, indignation and longings for freedom in common with them. His\nhope is the social reconstruction of society and not nationalistic scene\nshifting. His conditions can be ameliorated only through a union with\nhis fellow sufferers, through human brotherhood, and not by means of\nseparation and barriers. In his struggles against humiliating demands,\ninhuman treatment, economic pressure, he can depend on help from his\nnon-Jewish comrades, and not on the assistance of Jewish manufacturers\nand speculators. How then can he be expected to co-operate with them in\nthe building of a Jewish commonwealth?\n\nCertain it is that the battle which is to bring liberty, peace and\nwell-being to humanity is of a mental, social, economic nature and not\nof a nationalistic one. The former brightens and widens the horizon, the\nlatter stupefies the reasoning faculties, cripples and stifles the\nemotions, and sows hatred and strife instead of love and tenderness in\nthe human soul. All that is big and beautiful in the world has been\ncreated by thinkers and artists, whose vision was far beyond the\nLilliputian sphere of Nationalism. Only that which contains the life's\npulse of mankind expands and liberates. That is why every attempt to\nestablish a national art, a patriotic literature, a life's philosophy\nwith the seal of the government attached thereto is bound to fall flat\nand to be insignificant.\n\nIt were well and wholesome if all works dealing with national glory and\nvictory, with national courage and patriotic songs could be used for\nbonfires. In their place we could have the poems of Shelley and Whitman,\nessays of Emerson or Thoreau, the Book of the Bees, by Maeterlink, the\nmusic of Wagner, Beethoven and Tschaikovsky, the wonderful art of\nEleanore Duse.\n\nI can deeply sympathize with the dread of massacres and persecutions of\nthe Jewish people; and I consider it just and fair that they should\nstrain every effort to put a stop to such atrocities as have been\nwitnessed by the civilized world within a few years. But it must be\nborne in mind that it is the Russian government, the Russian reactionary\nparty, including the Russian Church, and not the Russian people, that\nare responsible for the slaughter of the Jews.\n\nJewish Socialists and Anarchists, however, who have joined the ranks of\nthe Nationalists and who have forgotten to emphasize the fundamental\ndistinction between the people of Russia and the reactionary forces of\nthat country, who have fought and are still fighting so bravely for\ntheir freedom and for the liberation of all who are oppressed, deserve\nsevere censure. They have thrown the responsibility of the massacres\nupon the Russian people and have even blamed the Revolutionists for\nthem, whereas it is an undisputed fact that the agitation against the\nJews has been inaugurated and paid for by the ruling clique, in the hope\nthat the hatred and discontent of the Russian people would turn from\nthem, the real criminals, to the Jews. It is said, \"we have no rights in\nRussia, we are being robbed, hounded, killed, let the Russian people\ntake care of themselves, we will turn our backs on them.\"\n\nWould it not show deeper insight into the condition of affairs if my\nJewish brethren were to say, \"Our people are being abused, insulted,\nill-treated and killed by the hirelings of Russian despotism. Let us\nstrengthen our union with the Intellectuals, the peasants, the\nrebellious elements of the people for the overthrow of the abominable\ntyranny; and when we have accomplished that let us co-operate in the\ngreat work of building a social structure upon which neither the nation\nnor the race but Humanity can live and grow in beauty.\"\n\nPrejudices are never overcome by one who shows himself equally narrow\nand bigoted. To confront one brutal outbreak of national sentiment with\nthe demand for another form of national sentiment means only to lay the\nfoundation for a new persecution that is bound to come sooner or later.\nWere the retrogressive ideas of the Jewish Nationalists ever to\nmaterialize, the world would witness, after a few years, that one Jew is\nbeing persecuted by another.\n\nIn one respect the Jews are really a \"chosen people.\" Not chosen by the\ngrace of God, nor by their national peculiarities, which with every\npeople, as well as with the Jews, merely prove national narrowness. They\nare \"chosen\" by a necessity, which has relieved them of many prejudices,\na necessity which has prevented the development of many of those\nstupidities which have caused other nations great efforts to overcome.\nRepeated persecution has put the stamp of sorrow on the Jews; they have\ngrown big in their endurance, in their comprehension of human suffering,\nand in their sympathy with the struggles and longings of the human soul.\n\nDriven from country to country, they avenged themselves by producing\ngreat thinkers, able theoreticians, heroic leaders of progress. All\ngovernments lament the fact that the Jewish people have contributed the\nbravest fighters to the armies for every liberating war of mankind.\n\nOwing to the lack of a country of their own, they developed,\ncrystallized and idealized their cosmopolitan reasoning faculty. True,\nthey have not their own empire, but many of them are working for the\ngreat moment when the earth will become the home for all, without\ndistinction of ancestry or race. That is certainly a greater, nobler and\nsounder ideal to strive for than a petty nationality.\n\nIt is this ideal that is daily attracting larger numbers of Jews, as\nwell as Gentiles; and all attempts to hinder the realization thereof,\nlike the present nationalistic movement, will be swept away by the storm\nthat precedes the birth of the new era--mankind clasped in universal\nbrotherhood.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMine Owners' Revenge\n\nBY M. B.\n\n\n+Charles H. Moyer+, President of the Western Federation of Miners, William\nD. Haywood, Secretary of that organization, and G. A. Pettibone, former\nmember of the same, were arrested in Denver, February 17th.\n\nThey are accused of having participated in the murder of the ex-Governor\nof Idaho, Mr. Steunenberg. Various other arrests have taken place in\nCripple Creek and Haines, Oregon.\n\nThe events during and after the arrest leave no doubt that the\nauthorities of Colorado and Idaho are in the most beautiful accord in\ntheir attempt to kill the Miners' Union. This accord and harmony is so\napparent that thoughtful citizens cannot fail to see that the\ngovernments of Colorado and Idaho are aiding in the conspiracy of the\nmine owners against the miners.\n\nRequisition papers and a special train seem to have been prepared in\nadvance, for immediately after the arrest they were expelled and taken\nto Boise City, Idaho, and within a few moments the whole matter was\nsettled by the authorities of Colorado, not even pretending to show the\nslightest fairness. Nor did they display the least desire to investigate\nthe grounds upon which requisition papers were granted. This process\nusually takes several days. In the case of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone\na few moments sufficed to close the whole proceedings.\n\nSince the papers were issued before the arrest, it is not at all\nunlikely that the death sentence has already been decided upon.\nOptimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal\nmurder of 1887, that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of\nthe upper ten thousand, is impossible--that the authorities would shrink\nfrom such an outrage, such an awful crime. That which has happened in\nColorado and Idaho warrants no such hope.\n\nThe evidence against the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners\nconsists largely of one individual, who is supposed to have known and\nwitnessed everything. The gentleman seems to fairly long for the moment\nwhen he can take the witness stand and furnish the material that the\nDistrict Attorney needs to prove the guilt of the accused. An expert\nperjurer, it seems.\n\nThe Governor of Idaho, Mr. Gooding, has already given him a good\ncharacter. The man acknowledged his firm belief in the existence of a\nSupreme Being, which touched the governor's heart deeply. Does he not\nknow that it has ever been the mission of the Supreme Being to serve as\nImpresario to Falsehood and Wretchedness?\n\nThe accusation against the three prisoners is the best affidavit of the\nminer magnates of the courageous stand of the Western Federation of\nMiners during the reign of terror of the money powers. For years\neverything was done to disrupt them, but without results. The latest\noutrage is a renewed and desperate attack on that labor organization.\nAre the working people of America going to look on coolly at a\nrepetition of the Black Friday in Chicago? Perhaps there will also be a\nlabor leader, a la Powderly, who will be willing to carry faggots to the\nstake? Or are they going to awaken from their lethargy, ere America\nbecomes thoroughly Russified?\n\n\n\n\nINTERNATIONAL REVIEW\n\n\n+A painting+ from the \"good old times\" represents two peasants wrangling\nabout a cow. One holds on to the horns of the animal, the other tightly\nclutches its tail, a third figure is in a crouched position underneath.\nIt is the lawyer milking the cow, while the other two are quarreling.\nHere we have the beauty of the representative system. While groups are\nbargaining about their rights, their official advisers and lawmakers are\nskimming the cream off the milk. Not justice, but social injustice is\nthe incentive of these worthy gentlemen.\n\nHuman justice, and legal representation thereof, are two different\nthings. One who seeks for a representation places his rights in the\nhands of another. He does not struggle for them himself, he must wait\nfor a decision thereupon from such quarters as are never inspired by\nlove for justice, but by personal gain and profit.\n\nThe working people are beginning to recognize this. It is also beginning\nto dawn upon them that they will have to be their own liberators. They\nhave the power to refuse their material support to a society that\ndegrades them into a state of slavery. This power was already recognized\nin 1789, when, at the French National Convention, Mirabeau thundered:\n\"Look out! Do not enrage the common people, who produce everything, who\nonly need to fold their arms to terrify you!\"\n\nThe General Strike is still at the beginning of its activity. It has\ngone through the fire in Russia. In Spain and Italy it has helped to\ndemolish the belief in the sovereignity of Property and the State.\n\nAltogether the General Strike idea, though relatively young, has made a\ndeeper impression on friend and foe than several million votes of the\nworking people could have achieved. Indeed, it is no joke for the\npillars of society. What, if the workers, conscious of their economic\npower, cease to store up great wealth in the warehouses of the\nprivileged? It was not difficult to get along with the would-be labor\nleaders in the legislative bodies, these worthy ones, experienced\nthrough the practice of manufacturing laws to maintain law and disorder,\nrapidly develop into good supporters of the existing conditions.\n\nNow, however, the workingmen have entered upon the battlefield\nthemselves, refusing their labor, which has always been the foundation\nof the golden existence of the haute volee. They demand the possibility\nto so organize production and distribution as to make it impossible for\nthe minority to accumulate outrageous wealth, and to guarantee to each\neconomic well-being.\n\nThe expropriateurs are in danger of expropriation. Capitalism has\nexpropriated the human race, the General Strike aims to expropriate\ncapitalism.\n\nA new and invigorating breath of life is also felt in this country,\nthrough the formation of the \"Industrial Workers of the World.\" It\nawakens the hope of a transformation of the present trade-union methods.\nIn their present form they serve the money powers more than the working\nclass.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Robert Koch+, the world-renowned scientist, who was awarded the Nobel\nprize in recognition of his work in the direction of exterminating\ntuberculosis, delivered a lecture at Stockholm at the time of receiving\nthe mark of distinction. In the course of his speech he said: \"We may\nnot conceal the fact, that the struggle against tuberculosis requires\nconsiderable sums of money. It is really only a question of money. The\ngreater the number of free places for consumptives in well-equipped and\nwell-conducted hospitals, the better the families of these are\nsupported, so that the sick are not prevented from going to these\nhospitals on account of the care of their relations; and the oftener\nsuch places are established, the more rapidly tuberculosis will cease to\nbe a common disease.\"\n\nWhere are the governments which are supposed to serve as benefactors of\nsuffering mankind? They have milliards at their disposal, but use most\nof it for the maintenance of armies, bureaucracies, police forces. With\nthese vast sums, which they extort from the people, they increase\ninstead of diminish suffering.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+On the 27th of January+ it was 150 years since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart\nwas born. A grandmaster of music, a magician who leads the soul from the\ndepths of life to its sunary heights. Mozart transposed life into music,\nWagner and his pupils transposed problems of life. Wagner questions and\nreceives no answer. Mozart affirms life. His \"Don Juan\" liberates,\n\"Tannhaeuser\" leads into the labyrinth of bothersome renunciation.\n\nThe study of Mozart's biography may be recommended to those who believe\nthat the artistic individuality has freer scope to-day than it would\nhave with communism. Mozart was always forced to look about for patrons\nof his art, for he lacked the means to put his works before the public.\n\nA biographer says of him: \"Mozart's life makes us feel the tragedy of an\nartist's life most painfully. In his youth he was fondled and idealized\nas a wonder child, but his circumstances deteriorated as he matured in\nhis art and the more accomplished the works of his fantasy grew. When he\ndied he left a wife and children behind in great poverty. There was not\nenough money on hand to bury him. The corpse was placed in the potters'\nfield. When his wife, who had been sick at the time of the burial,\nwanted to look up the grave, it could not be exactly designated.\" The\ngenius of the artist, however, permeates the world on waves of light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+The Czar knows+ his mission. He addressed a deputation of peasants from\nthe Province of Kursk thus:\n\n\"My brothers, I am most glad to see you. You must know very well that\nevery right of property is sacred to the State. The owner has the same\nright to his land as you peasants have to yours. Communicate this to\nyour fellows in the villages. In my solicitude for the country I do not\nforget the peasants, whose needs are dear to me, and I will look after\nthem continually as did my late father. The National Assembly will soon\nassemble and in co-operation with me discuss the best measures for your\nrelief. Have confidence in me, I will assist you. But I repeat, remember\nalways that right of property is holy and inviolable.\"\n\nThe commentaries to this fatherly address are furnished by the czaristic\nCossacks who hasten to the peasants' aid with the knout, sword and\nincendiarism.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nLITERARY NOTES\n\n\n     \"Letters of Henrik Ibsen,\" published by Fox Duffield & Co., New\n     York. Price, $2.50.\n\n\nThese letters do not belong among those of great men which prove to be\ndisappointments. In reading them one is not inclined to ask as of\nSchopenhauer's letters, why a philosophic genius of such depth should be\nladen with thousands of philistine trivialities.\n\nIbsen reaches far beyond his surroundings in his letters. What he writes\nis a continual protest against shallowness and mediocrity. The misery of\npetty state affairs, of patriotism with a board on the forehead bothered\nhim greatly. This is shown on every page. Whatever he expresses, he\nalways aims at expanding the horizon; as he himself once remarked: the\nrevolutionizing of brains. His sentiments are European, and he must\noften hear that even the wish for combining the Scandinavian countries\nborders on treason. Thus he becomes a \"solitary soul.\" He has even\nnothing in common with the radicals; he not only hates the state, the\nenemy of individuality, but he is averse to all attempts which aim at\nthe drilling of the masses. He loves Bjoernson as a poet, but he wants to\nhave nothing to do with him as a politician. In a letter to Brandes he\nwrites:\n\n\"Bjoernson says: 'The majority is always right.' And as a practical\npolitician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, must\nof necessity say: 'The minority is always right.' Naturally, I am not\nthinking of that minority of stagnationists who are left behind by the\ngreat middle party, but I mean that minority which leads the van, and\nurges on to points which the majority has not yet reached. I mean that\nman is right who has allied himself most closely with the future.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+\"Under the Wheel\"+ is the title of a German story by Hermann Hesse, in\nwhich he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school\nsystem to fully develop the youth. The characterization of the teachers'\nprofession as Hesse puts it, does not only serve for Germany, but for\nall modern states in which governments strive to train the young for the\npurpose of making patient subjects and hurrah-screaming patriots of\nthem. The author says with fine irony of the teacher: \"It is his duty\nand vocation, entrusted to him by the state, to hinder and exterminate\nthe rough forces and passions of nature in the young people and to put\nin place of them quiet moderation and ideals recognized by the state.\nMany a one who at present is a contented citizen or an ambitious\nofficial, would have become without these endeavors of the school an\nunmanageable innovator or a hopeless dreamer. There was something in\nhim, something wild, lawless, which first had to be broken, a flame\nwhich had to be extinguished. The school must break and forcibly\nrestrict the natural being; it is its duty to make a useful member of\nsociety out of him, according to principles approved by the state's\nauthority. The wonderful work is crowned with the careful training in\nthe barracks.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe regret that several of the contributions, while having merits, were\nnot of the form to be used for a magazine.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBenj. R. Tucker\n\nPublisher and Bookseller\n\nhas opened a Book Store at\n\n225 Fourth Ave., Room 13, New York City\n\n\nHere will be carried, ultimately, the most complete line of advanced\nliterature to be found anywhere in the world. More than one thousand\ntitles in the English language already in stock. A still larger stock,\nin foreign languages, will be put in gradually. A full catalogue will be\nready soon of the greatest interest to all those in search of the\nliterature.\n\n\n     Which, in morals, leads away from superstition,\n     Which, in politics, leads away from government, and\n     Which, in art, leads away from Tradition.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLIBERTY\n\nBENJ. R. TUCKER, Editor\n\n\nAn Anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in Equal Liberty is\nto be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that\nmajority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial\nof Equal Liberty.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAPPRECIATIONS\n\n\n     G. BERNARD SHAW, author of \"Man and Superman\": \"Liberty is a lively\n     paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of\n     discussion to an intolerable deal of balderdash are reversed.\"\n\n\n     WILLIAM DOUGLAS O'CONNOR, author of \"The Good Gray Poet\": \"The\n     editor of Liberty would be the Gavroche of the Revolution, If he\n     were not its Enjolras.\"\n\n\n     FRANK STEPHENS, well-known Single-Tax champion, Philadelphia:\n     \"Liberty is a paper which reforms reformers.\"\n\n\n     BOLTON HALL, author of \"Even As You and I\": \"Liberty shows us the\n     profit of Anarchy, and is the prophet of Anarchy.\"\n\n\n     ALLEN KELLY, formerly chief editorial writer on the Philadelphia\n     \"North American\": \"Liberty is my philosophical Polaris. I ascertain\n     the variations of my economic compass by taking a sight at her\n     whenever she is visible.\"\n\n\n     SAMUEL W. COOPER, counsellor at law, Philadelphia: \"Liberty is a\n     journal that Thomas Jefferson would have loved.\"\n\n\n     EDWARD OSGOOD BROWN, Judge of the Illinois Circuit Court: \"I have\n     seen much in Liberty that I agreed with, and much that I disagreed\n     with, but I never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it,\n     which makes it an almost unique publication.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPublished Bimonthly. Twelve Issues, $1.00\n\nSingle Copies, 10 Cents\n\nAddress: BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, New York City\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nM. N. Maisel's\n\nBOOK STORE\n\n194 E. Broadway\n\nNew York\n\nSpecial Sale\n\n\n+Herbert Spencer.+ The Authorized Copyright Works. (Appleton's edition.)\nFirst Principles, 1 vol.; Principles of Biology, 2 vols.; Principles of\nPsychology, 2 vols.; Principles of Sociology, 3 vols.; Principles of\nEthics, 2 vols. 8vo. 10 vols., cloth, new Published at $20.00. My Price\n$9.50\n\n+Charles Darwin.+ The Authorized Copyright Works. Descent of Man, 1 vol.;\nOrigin of Species, 2 vols.; Emotional Expressions, 1 vol.; Animals and\nPlants under Domestication, 2 vols.; Insectivorous Plants, 1 vol.;\nVegetable Mould, 1 vol.; Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. 10\nvols., cloth, new Published at $25.00. My Price, $9.00\n\nI have only a few series of these sets and will not be able to supply at\nthese prices after stock is gone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+More than 15,000 volumes always on hand.+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFine Sets; Reference Works; General Literature; Scientific,\nPhilosophical, Liberal, Progressive and Reform Books.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost of the Books in stock, new or second-hand, are sold at from 25 to\n75 per cent discount from Publishers price.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Weekly Importations from Germany, Russia, France and England.+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMEETINGS\n\n+Progressive Library+ 706 Forsyth Street. Meeting every Sunday evening.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Hugh O. Pentecost+ lectures every Sunday, 11 A. M., at Lyric Hall, Sixth\nAve. (near 42nd Street.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Brooklyn Philosophical Association.+ Meets every Sunday, 3 P. M., at Long\nIsland Business College, 143 S. 8th Street.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Sunrise Club.+ Meets every other Monday for dinner and after discussion\nat some place designated by the President.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Manhattan Liberal Club.+ Meets every Friday, 8 P. M., at German Masonic\nHall, 220 East 15th Street.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Harlem Liberal Alliance.+ Every Friday, 8 P. M., in Madison Hall, 1666\nMadison Avenue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n+Liberal Art Society.+ Meets every Friday, 8.30 P. M., at Terrace Lyceum,\n206 East Broadway.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Mother Earth\"\n\nFor Sale at all the above\nmentioned places\n\n+10 Cents a Copy+\n\n+One Dollar a Year+","title":"Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":21484}