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_An_
Anarchist Woman
_By_
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD
_Author of "The Autobiography of a Thief,"
"The Spirit of Labor"_
_NEW YORK_
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
_"The best government is that which
makes itself superfluous."_
GOETHE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SCHOOL AND FACTORY 1
II. DOMESTIC SERVICE 12
III. DOMESTIC SERVICE (CONTINUED) 26
IV. ADVENTURES IN SEX 48
V. MARIE'S SALVATION 65
VI. TERRY 73
VII. THE MEETING 94
VIII. THE ROGUES' GALLERY 120
IX. THE SALON 147
X. MORE OF THE SALON 186
XI. THE END OF THE SALON 217
XII. MARIE'S ATTEMPT 239
XIII. MARIE'S FAILURE 261
XIV. MARIE'S REVOLT 280
XV. TERRY'S FINISH 299
PREFACE
It is possible that in fifty years people now called "anarchists" will
have in America as respectable a place as they now occupy in France.
When we are more accustomed to social thought, we shall not regard those
who radically differ from us, as mad dogs or malevolent idiots. We may,
indeed, still look on them as mistaken, but what now seems to us their
insanity or peculiar atrociousness will vanish with our growing
understanding and experience. When we become less crude in civilisation,
they will seem less crude to us. When, with growing culture, we see
things more nearly as they are, the things we see, including the
anarchists, will seem more sympathetic.
This book is not an attempt to justify any person or set of persons. It
is not a political or economic pamphlet. It represents an effort to
throw light on what may be called the temperament of revolt; by
portraying the mental life of an individual, and incidentally of more
than one individual, I have hoped to make more clear the natural
history of the anarchist; to show under what conditions, in connection
with what personal qualities, the anarchistic habit of mind arises, and
to point out, suggestively, rather than explicitly, the nature, the
value, and the tragic limitation of the social rebel.
An Anarchist Woman
CHAPTER I
_School and Factory_
When I first met the heroine of this tale, Marie, she was twenty-three
years old, yet had lived enough for a woman of more than twice her age;
indeed, few women of any age ever acquire the amount of mental
experience possessed by this factory hand and servant girl. She had more
completely translated her life into terms of thought than any other
woman of my acquaintance. She had been deeply helped to do this by a man
of strange character, with whom she lived. She had also been deeply
helped by vice and misery. The intensity of her nature showed in her
anaemic body and her large eyes, dark and glowing, but more than all in
the way she had of making everything her own, no matter from what source
it came. Everything she said, or wrote, or did, all fitted into her
personality, had one note, her note. But perhaps the most intense
quality of all was--and is--this never-failing though gracefully
manifested energy, resulting in unity of character and temperament in
expression. To keep everything in tone is a quality of art; it is also a
sign of great, though not always obvious, energy.
Marie was born in a Chicago slum in 1884. Her mother, half French and
half German, was endowed with cruelty truly international. Her father
was a drunken machinist of German extraction, generally out of a job.
Both the parents beat the little girl, the mother because she was cruel,
the father because he was a beast.
Her earliest memories are connected with the smoky streets of the West
Side. The smell of the Stock Yards suggests her youth to her, as the
smell of walnuts brings back to the more fortunate country man the rich
beauty of a natural childhood. The beatings she received from her
parents and the joy of her escape to the street--these are the strongest
impressions derived from her tender years. To her the street was
paradise; her home, hell. She knew that when she returned to the house
she would find a mother half crazy with poverty and unhappiness and a
father half crazy with drink; and that, if for no other reason than for
diversion and relief, they would beat her.
The authorities finally succeeded in forcing the little girl's parents
to send her to school, where she remained only two years. She was not
quite ten years old at the time, and the memories she has of her school
life are only a trifle less unpleasant than those of her home. The last
day in school especially lives in her recollection; and she thus
described it in a letter to me:
"It was a warm morning toward the end of May, and room seven in the
Pullman School was pervaded with an intense excitement. For soon
examination day would come and the pupils were being prepared for the
occasion. The children fidgeted uneasily in their seats and even the
teacher became nervous and impatient, glancing often at the big clock
which ticked so monotonously and slowly. Soon it would be twelve o'clock
and teacher and pupils would have a respite for a few hours. If only
those stupid children would solve those problems in arithmetic, the most
difficult study, they would not have to stay after school. But it
happened just as the teacher had feared: A dozen children, of whom two
were boys, did not give correct answers. After the school was dismissed
the stupids were ordered to go to the blackboard, and stay there until
they saw the light.
"Meanwhile the teacher sat at her desk with a despairing look on her
face and the general air of a martyr, as she noticed the futile efforts
of those stupid children. But she was evidently determined not to help
them out of their difficulty. After a while, one of the boys solved the
problem and was dismissed. The other children looked at his work and
quickly copied it before the teacher could erase it from the blackboard.
Not I, however, for I was at the other end of the room and my eyes were
weak. I enviously watched the other children leaving the room, until I
was alone with the teacher. I tried the terrible, senseless problem
again and again and became so confused and nervous that I was on the
verge of tears. All the little knowledge I had of mathematics left me
completely. Finally the teacher lost her patience and showed me how to
get the answer.
"'You stupid girl!' she said, 'you will never pass the examination.'
"But I did not care. I ran from the school-house, and on my way home
kept saying to myself: 'I don't have to pass, for I'm going to work next
week, and I'm so glad. Then I'll never, never have to study arithmetic
any more. Oh, how I wish next week were here already.' I was not quite
twelve years old and I would have been working even then if my
prospective employers had not instructed my parents to secure a
certificate showing that I was fourteen years old.
"The next Monday morning, bright and early, with this new certificate,
which was sworn to by my mother and duly attested by a notary, I
presented myself at the office of Messrs. Hardwin & Co., in South Water
Street. They were wholesale dealers in miscellaneous household supplies,
from bird-seed and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the latter the
principal article. Mr. Hardwin, a benevolent looking old gentleman with
a white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the certificate, and patting
stupid me kindly on the head, hired me for two dollars a week, and sent
me upstairs where I was put to work washing old cans collected from the
ash barrels and alleys of the city. After being cleansed, they were
filled with lye, and new covers sealed on them. Then they were covered
with neat white labels, and packed in cases and delivered to all parts
of the United States.
"This sort of work was not what I had expected to do. But I was told by
my mother that all people who worked for their living had to start in
that way, and gradually work themselves upwards. So I waited patiently
for the time when I might, perhaps, secure the position of labelling.
Then, too, I thought that great place would bring an increase of salary,
for I had already learned that the lighter the work, the heavier the
pay.
"About this time the firm received large orders for lye, and all hands
were put to work filling the cans with this corrosive material, for
which purpose rubber gloves were used. As I was the latest addition to
the factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it was easy for the
older and more experienced girls to secure the best gloves for the work.
The old, worn out ones, which were full of holes, fell to me, who was
too young and timid to rebel against these conditions. After a week of
this work my hands were all eaten by the lye and it was torturing agony
to move them in any way. At night my mother used to put salve and
bandages on them, but this treatment was of little avail because the
next day my hands would be covered with that horrible stuff which ate
deeper and deeper, until the pain became unbearable.
"So, one morning, I went to Mr. Hardwin and begged him, with tears in my
eyes, to let me work at something else until my hands were healed. He
looked at my swollen fingers and said: 'My poor girl, you certainly
shall work at something else. I will give you a nice easy job making
bird-seed boxes.'
"I was immediately put at my new work, which seemed really delightful to
me, but I was rather lonely, as I was the only girl on that floor. I
made thousands and thousands of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps
upon the shelves above my head. Directly behind me was a great belt,
connected with the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day long cut out
the round pieces of tin needed to cover the cans of lye after they were
filled. This belt as it whirled round and round made a great noise. But
I soon grew quite used to it. I became like a machine myself. All alone
I sat there, day after day, while the great belt whirred out the same
monotonous song. I kept time to its monotony by a few movements of the
hands endlessly repeated, turning out boxes and boxes and boxes, all
alike. I saw, heard, and felt almost nothing. My hands moved
unconsciously and instinctively. At this time, I think, the first
feeling of profound ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake off I
would at a later time do anything, anything, no matter how violent and
extreme it was. Only at noon time when the whistle shrieked did I seem
alive, and then I was dazed and trembling.
"The great belt then stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate
my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me.
Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were
envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting
this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand,
for I was not much more than twelve years old.
"One morning I was surprised and delighted to see Mr. Hardwin come in
and ask me how my hands were, and if I still suffered much pain. I was
so grateful that tears came to my eyes as I answered. That night I told
my mother what an extremely kind and good man Mr. Hardwin was. He
repeated these visits several mornings in succession, always asking me
how I was getting along, and patting me on the head or shoulder as he
went away. I had been working perhaps two months at this job, when one
morning it happened that I was the first one of the employees to arrive
at the factory. While I was in the dressing-room removing my wraps, a
knock came on the door, and Mr. Hardwin entered. Quickly seizing me in
his arms, he covered my face with kisses, and did not quit until he
heard someone approaching. He left hastily, saying 'Don't tell!' the
only words he uttered during the scene. I was so amazed that I did not
even scream. Nor did I understand, but I did feel troubled and ashamed.
All that morning I was uneasy and nervous, and the following day I
waited outside until some of the girls came, so that I should not have
to go into the factory alone. The day following I received an envelope
with my pay, and was told that my services were no longer required.
"I got a beating at home as a result of my discharge, but as I soon
found another job, my parents became comparatively kind to me again.
This new work was in a candy factory, where I was both startled and
amazed at the way the beautiful, sweet candies were made. I remained
there about six months, when I was discharged because I had been late
several times in one week. The next job was in a brewery, where I
labelled beer bottles. This was the cleanest and most wholesome place I
ever worked in. We had a whole hour for dinner, and the boys and girls
were all so jolly. Nearly every day after lunch we played on mouth
organs and danced on the smooth floor until the whistle blew for work
again. Oh, there, it was good to work! Three times a day each employee
received a bottle of nice cold beer, which, after several hours of hard
work, tasted lovely. The people there seemed to think it was not evil to
be happy, and I naturally agreed with them against the good people
outside. But one ill-fated day my parents heard that a brewery was an
immoral place for a young girl to work in, and that if I remained there
I might lose my character and reputation. So I was taken away and put to
work in another place and then in another, but I am sure that I never
again found a place that I liked half as well as the dear old bottled
beer shop."