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MOTHER EARTH
[Illustration]
P. O. Box 217 EMMA GOLDMAN, Publisher 10c. a Copy
Madison Sq. Station, N. Y. Office: 210 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK CITY
CONTENTS.
PAGE
"To the Generation Knocking at the Door" JOHN DAVIDSON 1
Observations and Comments 2
The Child and Its Enemies EMMA GOLDMAN 7
Hope and Fear L. I. PERETZ 14
John Most M. B. 17
Civilization in Africa 21
Our Purpose MARY HANSEN 22
Marriage and the Home JOHN R. CORYELL 23
The Modern Newspaper 31
A Visit to Sing Sing 32
The Old and the New Drama MAX BAGINSKI 36
A Sentimental Journey.--Police Protection 43
The Moral Demand OTTO ERICH HARTLEBEN 46
Advertisements 62
10c. A COPY $1 A YEAR
MOTHER EARTH
Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature
Published Every 15th of the Month
EMMA GOLDMAN, Publisher, P. O. Box 217, Madison Square Station,
New York, N. Y.
Vol. I APRIL, 1906 No. 2
"TO THE GENERATION KNOCKING AT THE DOOR."
By JOHN DAVIDSON.
_Break--break it open; let the knocker rust;
Consider no "shalt not," nor no man's "must";
And, being entered, promptly take the lead,
Setting aside tradition, custom, creed;
Nor watch the balance of the huckster's beam;
Declare your hardiest thought, your proudest dream;
Await no summons; laugh at all rebuff;
High hearts and you are destiny enough.
The mystery and the power enshrined in you
Are old as time and as the moment new;
And none but you can tell what part you play,
Nor can you tell until you make assay,
For this alone, this always, will succeed,
The miracle and magic of the deed._
[Illustration]
OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS.
Whoever severs himself from Mother Earth and her flowing sources of life
goes into exile. A vast part of civilization has ceased to feel the deep
relation with our mother. How they hasten and fall over one another, the
many thousands of the great cities; how they swallow their food,
everlastingly counting the minutes with cold hard faces; how they dwell
packed together, close to one another, above and beneath, in dark gloomy
stuffed holes, with dull hearts and insensitive heads, from the lack of
space and air! Economic necessity causes such hateful pressure. Economic
necessity? Why not economic stupidity? This seems a more appropriate
name for it. Were it not for lack of understanding and knowledge, the
necessity of escaping from the agony of an endless search for profit
would make itself felt more keenly.
Must the Earth forever be arranged like an ocean steamer, with large,
luxurious rooms and luxurious food for a select few, and underneath in
the steerage, where the great mass can barely breathe from dirt and the
poisonous air? Neither unconquerable external nor internal necessity
forces the human race to such life; that which keeps it in such
condition are ignorance and indifference.
[Illustration]
Since Turgenieff wrote his "Fathers and Sons" and the "New Generation,"
the appearance of the Revolutionary army in Russia has changed features.
At that time only the intellectuals and college youths, a small coterie
of idealists, who knew no distinction between class and caste, took part
in the tremendous work of reconstruction. The revolutionist of those
days had delicate white hands, lots of learning, æstheticism and a good
portion of nervousness. He attempted to go among the people, but the
people understood him not, for he did not speak the people's tongue. It
was a great effort for most of those brave ones to overcome their
disgust at the dirt and dense ignorance they met among the peasants, who
absolutely lacked comprehension of new ideas; therefore, there could be
no understanding between the intellectuals, who wanted to help, and the
sufferers, who needed help. These two elements were brought in closer
touch through industrialism. The Russian peasant, robbed of the means to
remain on his soil, was driven into the large industrial centres, and
there he learned to know those brave and heroic men and women who gave
up their comfort and career in their efforts for the liberation of their
people.
These ideas that have undergone such great changes in Russia within the
last decade should serve as good material for study for those who claim
the Russian Revolution is dead.
Nicholas Tchaykovsky, one of Russia's foremost workers in the
revolutionary movement, and one who, through beauty of character,
simplicity of soul and great strategical ability, has been the idol of
the Russian revolutionary youth for many years, is here as the delegate
of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist party, to raise funds for a new
uprising. He was right when he said, at the meeting in Grand Central
Palace, "The Russian Revolution will live until the decayed and cowardly
regime of tyranny in Russia is rooted out of existence."
[Illustration]
The French have a new President. Loubet was succeeded by Fallières. The
father of the new one was a great gormandizer of Pantagruelian
dimensions. He died of overloading his stomach. The son made his career
like a cautious upstart. He is well enough acquainted with himself to
know that he is not a Machiavelli. Therefore, he does not boast of his
sagacity, but rather of his integrity. A politician is irresistible to a
crowd when he cries out to them: "My opponents express the suspicion
that I am a numskull. I do not care to argue the point with them, but
this I will say by the way of explanation, fellow citizens, that I am a
thoroughly honest man to the very roots of my hair." By this method one
can attain the presidency of a republic.
As Secretary of the Interior, Fallières caused the arrest of the
Socialist poet, Clovis Hugues. At another time he declared: "As long as
I am in office, I will not tolerate the red flag on the open street."
The French bourgeois have found in Fallières their fitting man of straw
for seven years.
[Illustration]
The only genuine Democrat of these times is Death. He does not admit of
any class distinctions. He mows down a proletarian and a Marshall Field
with the same scythe. How imperfectly the world is arranged. It should
be possible to shift the bearing of children and the dying from the rich
to the poor--for good pay, of course.
[Illustration]
Whosoever believes that the law is infallible and can bring about order
in the chaotic social conditions, knows the curative effect of law to
the minutest detail. The question how things might be improved is met
with this reply: "All criminals should be caught in a net like fish and
put away for safe keeping, so that society remains in the care of the
righteous." Hallelujah!
People with a capacity to judge for themselves think differently. Mr.
Charlton T. Lewis, President of the National Prison Association,
maintains:
"Our county jails everywhere are the schools and colleges of crime. In
the light of social science it were better for the world if every one of
them were destroyed than that this work should be continued. Experience
shows that the system of imprisonment of minor offenders for short terms
is but a gigantic measure for the manufacture of criminals. Freedom, not
confinement, is the natural state of man, and the only condition under
which influences for reformation can have their full efficiency....
Prison life is unnatural at best. Man is a social creature. Confinement
tends to lower his consciousness of dignity and responsibility, to
weaken the motives which govern his relations to his race, to impair the
foundations of character and unfit him for independent life. To consign
a man to prison is commonly to enrol him in the criminal class.... With
all the solemnity and emphasis of which I am capable, I utter the
profound conviction, after twenty years of constant study of our prison
population, that more than nine-tenths of them ought never to have been
confined."
Government and authority are responsible for the conditions in the
western mining districts.
Is not the existence of government considered as a necessity on the
grounds that it is here to maintain peace, law and order? This is an
oft-repeated song.
Let us see how the government of Colorado has lived up to its calling
within the last few years. It has permitted that the labor protective
laws that have passed the legislature should be broken and trampled upon
by the mine owners.
The money powers care little for the eight-hour law, and when the mine
workers insisted upon keeping that law, the authorities of Colorado
immediately went to the rescue of the exploiters. Not only were police
and soldiers let loose upon the Western Federation of Miners; but the
government of Colorado permitted the mine owners to recruit an army to
fight the labor organizations. Hirelings were formed into a so-called
citizens' committee, that inaugurated a reign of terror. These legal
lawbreakers invaded peaceful homes during the day and night, and those
that were in the least suspected of belonging to or sympathizing with
the Western Federation of Miners were torn out of bed, arrested and
dragged off to the bull pen, or transported into the desert, without
food or shelter, many miles from other living beings. Some of these
victims were crippled for life and died as a result thereof.
When it became known that the W. F. M. continued to stand erect,
regardless of brutal attacks, it was decided to strike the last violent
blow against it.
Orchard, the man of honor, confessed, and the lawbreakers appealed to
the law against Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone.
This time the government did not hesitate. The eight-hour and protective
labor law was too insignificant to enforce, but to bring the officers of
the W. F. M. to account, that, of course, is the duty and the function
of the State.
There is not the slightest hope that the authorities who, for a number
of years, have permitted the violation of the law, will be put on
trial, but the crime they have perpetrated is a weighty argument in
favor of those who maintain that the State is not an independent
institution, but a tool of the possessing class.
[Illustration]
Many radicals entertain the queer notion that they cannot arrange their
own lives, according to their own ideas, but that they have to adapt
themselves to the conditions they hate, and which they fight in theory
with fire and sword.
Anything rather than arouse too much public condemnation! The lives they
lead are dependent upon the opinion of the Philistines. They are
revolutionists in theory, reactionists in practice.
[Illustration]
The words of Louis XIV, "I am the State," have been taken up as a motto
by the American policeman. One of the New York papers contains the
following account:
"In discharging some seventy prisoners in the Jefferson Market Police
Court yesterday morning, the Magistrate said to the police in charge of
the cases: 'I am amazed that you men should bring these prisoners before
me without a shred of evidence on which they can be held.'"
Such is the blessing of this republic. We are not confronted by one czar
of the size of an elephant, but by a hundred thousand czars, as small as
mosquitoes, but equally disagreeable and annoying.
[Illustration]
Friends of MOTHER EARTH in various Western cities have proposed a
lecture tour in behalf of the magazine. So far I have heard from
Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago. Those of other cities who
wish to have me lecture there, will please communicate with me as to
dates at once. The tour is to begin May 12th and last for a month or six
weeks.
EMMA GOLDMAN,
Box 217, Madison Square Station.
THE CHILD AND ITS ENEMIES.
By EMMA GOLDMAN.
Is the child to be considered as an individuality, or as an object to be
moulded according to the whims and fancies of those about it? This seems
to me to be the most important question to be answered by parents and
educators. And whether the child is to grow from within, whether all
that craves expression will be permitted to come forth toward the light
of day; or whether it is to be kneaded like dough through external
forces, depends upon the proper answer to this vital question.
The longing of the best and noblest of our times makes for the strongest
individualities. Every sensitive being abhors the idea of being treated
as a mere machine or as a mere parrot of conventionality and
respectability, the human being craves recognition of his kind.
It must be borne in mind that it is through the channel of the child
that the development of the mature man must go, and that the present
ideas of the educating or training of the latter in the school and the
family--even the family of the liberal or radical--are such as to stifle
the natural growth of the child.
Every institution of our day, the family, the State, our moral codes,
sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly
enemy; therefore every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and
originality of thought in the individual into a straight-jacket from its
earliest infancy; or to shape every human being according to one
pattern; not into a well-rounded individuality, but into a patient work
slave, professional automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous
moralist. If one, nevertheless, meets with real spontaneity (which, by
the way, is a rare treat,) it is not due to our method of rearing or
educating the child: the personality often asserts itself, regardless of
official and family barriers. Such a discovery should be celebrated as
an unusual event, since the obstacles placed in the way of growth and
development of character are so numerous that it must be considered a
miracle if it retains its strength and beauty and survives the various
attempts at crippling that which is most essential to it.
Indeed, he who has freed himself from the fetters of the
thoughtlessness and stupidity of the commonplace; he who can stand
without moral crutches, without the approval of public opinion--private
laziness, Friedrich Nietzsche called it--may well intone a high and
voluminous song of independence and freedom; he has gained the right to
it through fierce and fiery battles. These battles already begin at the
most delicate age.
The child shows its individual tendencies in its plays, in its
questions, in its association with people and things. But it has to
struggle with everlasting external interference in its world of thought
and emotion. It must not express itself in harmony with its nature, with
its growing personality. It must become a thing, an object. Its
questions are met with narrow, conventional, ridiculous replies, mostly
based on falsehoods; and, when, with large, wondering, innocent eyes, it
wishes to behold the wonders of the world, those about it quickly lock
the windows and doors, and keep the delicate human plant in a hothouse
atmosphere, where it can neither breathe nor grow freely.
Zola, in his novel "Fecundity," maintains that large sections of people
have declared death to the child, have conspired against the birth of
the child,--a very horrible picture indeed, yet the conspiracy entered
into by civilization against the growth and making of character seems to
me far more terrible and disastrous, because of the slow and gradual
destruction of its latent qualities and traits and the stupefying and
crippling effect thereof upon its social well-being.
Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward
making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity
produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting
antagonism with each other.
The ideal of the average pedagogist is not a complete, well-rounded,
original being; rather does he seek that the result of his art of
pedagogy shall be automatons of flesh and blood, to best fit into the
treadmill of society and the emptiness and dulness of our lives. Every
home, school, college and university stands for dry, cold
utilitarianism, overflooding the brain of the pupil with a tremendous
amount of ideas, handed down from generations past. "Facts and data,"
as they are called, constitute a lot of information, well enough perhaps
to maintain every form of authority and to create much awe for the
importance of possession, but only a great handicap to a true
understanding of the human soul and its place in the world.
Truths dead and forgotten long ago, conceptions of the world and its
people, covered with mould, even during the times of our grandmothers,
are being hammered into the heads of our young generation. Eternal
change, thousandfold variations, continual innovation are the essence of
life. Professional pedagogy knows nothing of it, the systems of
education are being arranged into files, classified and numbered. They
lack the strong fertile seed which, falling on rich soil, enables them
to grow to great heights, they are worn and incapable of awakening
spontaneity of character. Instructors and teachers, with dead souls,
operate with dead values. Quantity is forced to take the place of
quality. The consequences thereof are inevitable.
In whatever direction one turns, eagerly searching for human beings who
do not measure ideas and emotions with the yardstick of expediency, one
is confronted with the products, the herdlike drilling instead of the
result of spontaneous and innate characteristics working themselves out
in freedom.
"No traces now I see
Whatever of a spirit's agency.
'Tis drilling, nothing more."
These words of Faust fit our methods of pedagogy perfectly. Take, for
instance, the way history is being taught in our schools. See how the
events of the world become like a cheap puppet show, where a few
wire-pullers are supposed to have directed the course of development of
the entire human race.
And the history of _our own_ nation! Was it not chosen by Providence to
become the leading nation on earth? And does it not tower mountain high
over other nations? Is it not the gem of the ocean? Is it not
incomparably virtuous, ideal and brave? The result of such ridiculous
teaching is a dull, shallow patriotism, blind to its own limitations,
with bull-like stubbornness, utterly incapable of judging of the
capacities of other nations. This is the way the spirit of youth is
emasculated, deadened through an over-estimation of one's own value. No
wonder public opinion can be so easily manufactured.
"Predigested food" should be inscribed over every hall of learning as a
warning to all who do not wish to lose their own personalities and their
original sense of judgment, who, instead, would be content with a large
amount of empty and shallow shells. This may suffice as a recognition of
the manifold hindrances placed in the way of an independent mental
development of the child.
Equally numerous, and not less important, are the difficulties that
confront the emotional life of the young. Must not one suppose that
parents should be united to children by the most tender and delicate
chords? One should suppose it; yet, sad as it may be, it is,
nevertheless, true, that parents are the first to destroy the inner
riches of their children.
The Scriptures tell us that God created Man in His own image, which has
by no means proven a success. Parents follow the bad example of their
heavenly master; they use every effort to shape and mould the child
according to their image. They tenaciously cling to the idea that the
child is merely part of themselves--an idea as false as it is injurious,
and which only increases the misunderstanding of the soul of the child,
of the necessary consequences of enslavement and subordination thereof.
As soon as the first rays of consciousness illuminate the mind and heart
of the child, it instinctively begins to compare its own personality
with the personality of those about it. How many hard and cold stone
cliffs meet its large wondering gaze? Soon enough it is confronted with
the painful reality that it is here only to serve as inanimate matter
for parents and guardians, whose authority alone gives it shape and
form.
The terrible struggle of the thinking man and woman against political,
social and moral conventions owes its origin to the family, where the
child is ever compelled to battle against the internal and external use
of force. The categorical imperatives: You shall! you must! this is
right! that is wrong! this is true! that is false! shower like a violent
rain upon the unsophisticated head of the young being and impress upon
its sensibilities that it has to bow before the long established and
hard notions of thoughts and emotions. Yet the latent qualities and
instincts seek to assert their own peculiar methods of seeking the
foundation of things, of distinguishing between what is commonly called
wrong, true or false. It is bent upon going its own way, since it is
composed of the same nerves, muscles and blood, even as those who assume
to direct its destiny. I fail to understand how parents hope that their
children will ever grow up into independent, self-reliant spirits, when
they strain every effort to abridge and curtail the various activities
of their children, the plus in quality and character, which
differentiates their offspring from themselves, and by the virtue of
which they are eminently equipped carriers of new, invigorating ideas. A
young delicate tree, that is being clipped and cut by the gardener in
order to give it an artificial form, will never reach the majestic
height and the beauty as when allowed to grow in nature and freedom.
When the child reaches adolescence, it meets, added to the home and
school restrictions, with a vast amount of hard traditions of social
morality. The cravings of love and sex are met with absolute ignorance
by the majority of parents, who consider it as something indecent and
improper, something disgraceful, almost criminal, to be suppressed and
fought like some terrible disease. The love and tender feelings in the
young plant are turned into vulgarity and coarseness through the
stupidity of those surrounding it, so that everything fine and beautiful
is either crushed altogether or hidden in the innermost depths, as a
great sin, that dares not face the light.
What is more astonishing is the fact that parents will strip themselves
of everything, will sacrifice everything for the physical well-being of
their child, will wake nights and stand in fear and agony before some
physical ailment of their beloved one; but will remain cold and
indifferent, without the slightest understanding before the soul
cravings and the yearnings of their child, neither hearing nor wishing
to hear the loud knocking of the young spirit that demands recognition.
On the contrary, they will stifle the beautiful voice of spring, of a
new life of beauty and splendor of love; they will put the long lean
finger of authority upon the tender throat and not allow vent to the
silvery song of the individual growth, of the beauty of character, of
the strength of love and human relation, which alone make life worth
living.
And yet these parents imagine that they mean best for the child, and for
aught I know, some really do; but their best means absolute death and
decay to the bud in the making. After all, they are but imitating their
own masters in State, commercial, social and moral affairs, by forcibly
suppressing every independent attempt to analyze the ills of society and
every sincere effort toward the abolition of these ills; never able to
grasp the eternal truth that every method they employ serves as the
greatest impetus to bring forth a greater longing for freedom and a
deeper zeal to fight for it.
That compulsion is bound to awaken resistance, every parent and teacher
ought to know. Great surprise is being expressed over the fact that the
majority of children of radical parents are either altogether opposed to
the ideas of the latter, many of them moving along the old antiquated
paths, or that they are indifferent to the new thoughts and teachings of
social regeneration. And yet there is nothing unusual in that. Radical
parents, though emancipated from the belief of ownership in the human
soul, still cling tenaciously to the notion that they own the child, and
that they have the right to exercise their authority over it. So they
set out to mould and form the child according to their own conception of
what is right and wrong, forcing their ideas upon it with the same
vehemence that the average Catholic parent uses. And, with the latter,
they hold out the necessity before the young "to do as I tell you and
not as I do." But the impressionable mind of the child realizes early
enough that the lives of their parents are in contradiction to the ideas
they represent; that, like the good Christian who fervently prays on
Sunday, yet continues to break the Lord's commands the rest of the week,
the radical parent arraigns God, priesthood, church, government,
domestic authority, yet continues to adjust himself to the condition he
abhors. Just so, the Freethought parent can proudly boast that his son
of four will recognize the picture of Thomas Paine or Ingersoll, or that
he knows that the idea of God is stupid. Or that the Social Democratic
father can point to his little girl of six and say, "Who wrote the
Capital, dearie?" "Karl Marx, pa!" Or that the Anarchistic mother can
make it known that her daughter's name is Louise Michel, Sophia
Perovskaya, or that she can recite the revolutionary poems of Herwegh,
Freiligrath, or Shelley, and that she will point out the faces of
Spencer, Bakunin or Moses Harmon almost anywhere.
These are by no means exaggerations; they are sad facts that I have met
with in my experience with radical parents. What are the results of such
methods of biasing the mind? The following is the consequence, and not
very infrequent, either. The child, being fed on one-sided, set and
fixed ideas, soon grows weary of re-hashing the beliefs of its parents,
and it sets out in quest of new sensations, no matter how inferior and
shallow the new experience may be, the human mind cannot endure sameness
and monotony. So it happens that that boy or girl, over-fed on Thomas
Paine, will land in the arms of the Church, or they will vote for
imperialism only to escape the drag of economic determinism and
scientific socialism, or that they open a shirt-waist factory and cling
to their right of accumulating property, only to find relief from the
old-fashioned communism of their father. Or that the girl will marry the
next best man, provided he can make a living, only to run away from the
everlasting talk on variety.
Such a condition of affairs may be very painful to the parents who wish
their children to follow in their path, yet I look upon them as very
refreshing and encouraging psychological forces. They are the greatest
guarantee that the independent mind, at least, will always resist every
external and foreign force exercised over the human heart and head.
Some will ask, what about weak natures, must they not be protected? Yes,
but to be able to do that, it will be necessary to realize that
education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and
training. If education should really mean anything at all, it must
insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and
tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free
individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make
interference and coercion of human growth impossible.
[Illustration]
HOPE AND FEAR.[A]
(Translated from the Jewish of L. I. PERETZ.)
...My heart is with you.
My eye does not get weary looking at your flaming banner; my ear does
not get tired listening to your powerful song....
My heart is with you; man's hunger must be appeased, and he must have
light; he must be free, and he must be his own master, master over
himself and his work.
And when you snap at the fist which is trying to strangle you, your
voice, and your ardent protest, preventing you from being heard--I
rejoice, praying that your teeth may be sharpened. And when you are
marching against Sodom and Gomorrah, to tear down the old, my soul is
with you, and the certainty that you must triumph fills and warms my
heart and intoxicates me like old wine....
And yet....
And yet you frighten me.
I am afraid of the bridled who conquer, for they are apt to become the
oppressors, and every oppressor transgresses against the human soul....
Do you not talk among yourselves of how humanity is to march, like an
army in line, and you are going to sound for it the march on the road?
And yet humanity is not an army.
The strong are going forward, the magnanimous feel more deeply, the
proud rise higher, and yet will you not lay down the cedar in order that
it may not outgrow the grass?
Or will you not spread your wings over mediocrity, or will you not
shield indifference, and protect the gray and uniformly fleeced herd?
* * *
You frighten me.
As conquerors you might become the bureaucracy: to dole out to everybody
his morsel, as is the usage in the poor-house; to arrange work for
everybody as it is done in the galleys. And you will thus crush the
creator of new worlds--the free human will, and fill up with earth the
purest spring of human happiness--human initiative, the power which
braves one against thousands, against peoples, and against generations?
And you will systematize life and bid it to remain on the level of the
crowd.
And will you not be occupied with regulations: registrating, recording,
estimating--or will you not prescribe how fast and how often the human
pulse must beat, how far the human eye may look ahead, how much the ear
may perceive, and what kinds of dreams the languishing heart may
entertain?
* * *
With joy in my heart I look at you when you tear down the gates of
Sodom, but my heart trembles at the same time, fearing that you might
erect on its ruins new ones--more chilling and darker ones.
There will be no houses without windows; but fog will envelop the
souls....
There will be no empty stomachs, but souls will starve. No ear will hear
cries of woe, but the eagle--the human intellect--will stand at the
trough with clipped wings together with the cow and the ox.
And justice, which has accompanied you on the thorny and bloody path to
victory, will forsake you, and you will not be aware of it, for
conquerors and tyrants are always blind. You will conquer and dominate.
And you will plunge into injustice, and you will not feel the quagmire
under your feet.... Every tyrant thinks he stands on firm ground so long
as he has not been vanquished.
And you will build prisons for those who dare to stretch out their
hands, pointing to the abyss into which you sink; you will tear out the
tongues of the mouths that warn you against those who come after you, to
destroy you and your injustice....
Cruelly will you defend the equality of rights of the herd to use the
grass under its feet and the salt in the ground,--and your enemies will
be the free individuals, the overmen, the ingenious inventors, the
prophets, the saviors, the poets and artists.
* * *
Everything that comes to pass occurs in space and time.... The present
is the existing: the stable, the firm, and therefore the rigid and
frozen--the to-day, which will and must perish....
Time is change--it varies and develops; it is the eternally sprouting,
the blossoming, the eternal morning....
And as your "morning," to which you aspire, will become the "to-day,"
you will become the upholders of the "yesterday," of that which is
lifeless--dead. You will trample the sproutings of to-morrow and destroy
its blossoms, and pour streams of cold water upon the heads that nestle
your prophecies, your dreams, and your new hopes.
The to-day is unwilling to die, bloody is every sunset....
I yearn and hope for your victory, but I fear and tremble for your
victory.
You are my hope, and you are my fear.
[Illustration]
Nietzsche--Zarathustra spake thus: "He who wishes to say something
should be silent a long while." If the makers of public opinion would
only carry out this hint for about a lifetime!
[Illustration]
According to the latest researches, it has been brought to light that
the grim angel who drove Adam and Eve out of Paradise was named
Comstock.
[Illustration]
As long as there are women who must fear to become mothers on account of
economic difficulties or moral prejudices, the emancipation of woman is
only a phrase.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] This sketch the writer had addressed to Jewish Social Democrats.
JOHN MOST.
By M. B.
John Most suddenly died in Cincinnati, March 17. He was on an agitation
trip, and when he reached Cincinnati he took sick with erysipelas and
died within a few days, surrounded by his comrades.
Shortly before that he had the fortune to taste of the kindness and good
breeding of the police once more. Some friends in Philadelphia arranged
a meeting to celebrate Most's sixtieth birthday. He was one of the
speakers; but the police of that city interpreted the American
Constitution, which speaks of the right to free speech and assembly, as
giving the right to forcibly disperse the meeting.
Conscious misrepresentation and ignorance, the twin angels that hover
over the throne of the newspaper kingdom of this country, have made John
Most a scarecrow. Organized police authorities and police justices that
can neither be accused of a surplus of intelligence nor even of the
shadow of love of fairness, made him their target whenever they felt the
great calling to save their country from disaster. Naturally the mob of
law-abiding citizens must be assured from time to time that their
masters have a sacred duty to perform, that they earn the right of
graft.
Most was born at Augsburg, Bavaria, February 5, 1846. According to his
memoirs, he early found it necessary to resist the tyranny of a
stepmother and the miserable treatment of his master. As a bookbinder
apprentice, at a very early age, he took to his heels and went on the
road of the world, where he soon came in contact with revolutionary
ideas in the labor movement that greatly inspired him and urged him to
read and study. It might be more appropriately said that he developed a
ravenous appetite for knowledge and research of all the works of human
science.
At that time socialistic ideas had just begun to exercise great
influence upon the thinking mind of the European continents. The zeal
and craving for knowledge displayed by the working people of those days
can hardly be properly estimated, especially by the proletariat of this
country, whose literature and source of knowledge chiefly consists of
the daily papers. Workingmen, who worked ten and twelve hours in
factories and shops, spent their evenings in study and reading of
economic, political and philosophic works--Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl
Marx, Engels, Bakunin and, later, Kropotkin; also Henry George's
"Progress and Poverty." Added to these were the works of the
materialistic-natural science schools, such as Darwin, Huxley,
Molleschot, Karl Vogt, Ludwig Buechner, Haeckel, that constituted the
mental diet of a large number of workingmen of that period. Just as the
revolutionary economists were hailed as the liberators of physical
slavery, so were the materialistic, naturalistic sciences accepted as
the saviors from mental narrowness and darkness.
Most was untiring in his work of popularizing these ideas, and as he
could quickly grasp things he was tremendously successful in simplifying
scientific books into pamphlets and essays, accessible to the ordinary
intelligence of the working people. He possessed a marvelous memory, and
once he got hold of an amount of data he could easily avail himself of
it at any moment. This was particularly true in the domain of history,
with its compilation of bloodcurdling events, from which he drew his
conclusions of how the human race ought _not to live_.
Together with his journalistic activity, he combined oral propaganda.
His power of delivery was marvelous, and those who heard him in his
early days will understand why the powers of the world stood in awe
before him. He not only had a very convincing way, but he succeeded in
keeping his audiences spellbound or to bring them up to the highest
pitch of enthusiasm.
The scene of his first great activity was in Vienna, where he was soon
met with many indictments and persecutions from the authorities, who
mercilessly pursued him for the rest of his life. After a term of
imprisonment in several American prisons, he went to Germany, where he
became the editor of the "Free Press" in Berlin, but his original and
biting criticism of bureaucracy again brought him in conflict with the
powers that be. The Berlin prison, Ploetzensee, soon closed its doors on
the culprit. Even to-day those who visit that famous institution of
civilization are still shown Most's cell.
At that time Bismarck carried an unsuccessful battle against the power
of the Catholic Church, eager to subordinate her to the State authority.
It happened that the famous leader of the Catholic party, Majunke, was
sent for a term of imprisonment to Ploetzensee. When the prisoners were
led out for their daily walk, the leader of the Reds, John Most, met the
leader of the Blacks, Majunke. The situation was comical enough to cause
amusement to both; both being brilliant, they found enough interesting
material for conversation, which helped them over the dreariness and
monotony of prison life.
Several years later Bismarck succeeded in enacting the muzzle law
against Social Democracy, which destroyed the freedom of the press and
assembly. The question arose then what could be done.
Most had been elected to the Reichstag, representing the famous factory
town Chemnitz, but his experience in Parliament only served him to
despise the representative system and professional lawmaking more than
ever.
When leaders of Social Democracy, like Bebel and Liebknecht, thought it
more expedient to adapt themselves to conditions, Most went to London,
where he continued his revolutionary literary crusade in the "Freiheit."
He came in contact with Karl Marx, Engels and various other refugees who
lived in England. Marx assured Most that his sharp pen in the "Freiheit"
was not likely to cause him any trouble in England so long as the
Conservative party was in power, but that nothing good was to be
expected of a Liberal government. Marx was right. Shortly after Most's
arrival in London his paper was seized and he was arrested on the
indictment for inciting to murder because he paid a glowing tribute to
the revolutionists of Russia, who, on the first of March, 1881, executed
Alexander II. He was tried and sentenced to eighteen months'
imprisonment to one of the barbarous English prisons.
Most gradually developed into an Anarchist, representing Communist
Anarchism, the organization of production and consummation, based on
free industrial groups, and which would exclude State and bureaucratic
interference. His ideas were related to those of Kropotkin and Elisée
Reclus. He often assured me that he considered Kropotkin his teacher,
and that he owed much of his mental development to him.
The next aim of the hounded man was America, but it does not appear that
he was followed across the ocean by his lucky star. He soon was made to
feel that free speech and free press in this great republic was but a
myth. Time and again he was arrested, brutally treated by the police,
and sentenced to serve time in the penitentiary. Added to this came the
fearful attacks and misrepresentations of Most and his ideas by the
press, many of the articles making him appear as a wild beast ever
plotting destruction. The last sentence inflicted upon him was after the
Czolgosz act. He was arrested for an article by the Radical Karl
Heinzen, that had been written many years ago and the author of which
had been dead a long time. The article had not the slightest relation to
the act, did not contain a single reference to the conditions of this
country, and treated altogether of European conditions of fifty years
ago. In the face of this sentence one cannot but help think of Tolstoi's
"Power of Darkness." Only the Power of Darkness in the minds of the
judges before whom Most was tried and the newspaper men, who helped in
arousing public opinion against him, were responsible for the sentence
inflicted upon him.
Taking Most's life superficially, it would appear that his road was hard
and thorny, but looking at it from a thorough view point, one will
realize that all his hardships and injustices had made of him a
relentless, uncompromising rebel, who continued to wage war against the
enemies of the people.
[Illustration]
With but few exceptions the American journalists censure the immoral
profession of "Mrs. Warren." Is it not heavenly irony that God pressed
the headman's sword of morals into the hands of the newspaper writers?
Perhaps the great God Pan thought they would be the fittest to handle
the sword, since they are so intimately associated with mental
prostitution.
CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA.
A large, strong man, dressed in a uniform and armed to the teeth,
knocked at the door of a hut on the west coast of Africa.
"Who are you and what do you want?" said a voice from the inside.
"In the name of civilization, open your door or I'll break it down for
you and fill you full of lead."
"But what do you want here?"
"My name is Christian Civilization. Don't talk like a fool, you black
brute; what do you suppose I want here but to civilize you and make a
reasonable human being out of you if it is possible."
"What are you going to do?"
"In the first place you must dress yourself like a white man. It is a
shame and disgrace the way you go about. From now on you must wear
underclothing, a pair of pants, vest, coat, plug hat, and a pair of
yellow gloves. I will furnish them to you at reasonable rates."
"What shall I do with them?"
"Wear them, of course. You did not expect to eat them, did you? The
first step to civilization is in wearing proper clothes."
"But it is too hot here to wear such garments. I'm not used to them.
I'll perish from the heat. Do you want to murder me?"
"Not particularly. But if you do die you will have the satisfaction of
being a martyr to civilization."
"How kind!"
"Don't mention it. What do you do for a living?"
"When I am hungry I eat a banana; I eat, drink or sleep just as I feel
like it."
"What horrible barbarity! You must settle down to some occupation, my
friend. If you don't it will be my duty to lock you up as a vagrant."
"If I have to follow some occupation I think I'll start a coffee house.
I've got a considerable amount of coffee and sugar stored here and
there."
"Oh, you have, have you? Why, you are not such a hopeless case as I
thought you were. In the first place you want to pay me the sum of fifty
dollars."
"What for?"
"As an occupation tax, you ignorant heathen. Do you expect all the
blessings of civilization for nothing?"
"But I have no money."
"That makes no difference. I'll take it out in tea and coffee. If you
don't pay up like a Christian man, I'll put you in jail for the rest of
your life."
"What is jail?"
"Jail is a progressive word. You must be prepared to make some
sacrifices for civilization, you know."
"What a great and glorious thing is civilization."
"You cannot possibly realize the benefits of it, but you will before I
get through with you, my fine fellow."
The unfortunate native took to the woods and has not been seen
since--_Waverly Magazine_.
[Illustration]
OUR PURPOSE.
By MARY HANSEN.
_I come, not with the blaring of trumpet,
To herald the birth of a king;
I come, not with traditional story,
The life of a savior to sing;
I come, not with jests for the silly,
I come, not to worship the strong,
But to question the powers that govern,
To point out a world-old wrong._
_To kiss from the starved lips of childhood
The lies that are sapping its breath,
And brighten the brief cheerless valley
That leads to the darkness of death;
With reason and sympathy blended,
And a hope that all mankind shall see,
Untrammeled by Creed, Law or Custom--
The attainable goal of the Free._
MARRIAGE AND THE HOME.
By JOHN R. CORYELL.
You remember _Punch's_ advice to the young man about to be
married--don't. There is a jest nearly half a century old, and yet ever
fresh and poignant. Why? Can it be that the secret, serious voice of
mankind proclaims the jest truth in masquerade? Can it be that marriage,
as an institution, has indeed proved itself in experience such a
terrible failure?
We worship many fetishes, we of the superior civilization, and the
institution of marriage is the chief of them. Few of us but bow before
that; before that and the home of which it is the foundation. And I know
what scorn and obloquy and denunciation await that man who stands unawed
before it, seeing in it but an ugly little idol. And I guess what will
be dealt out to him who not only refuses to bow the head, but openly
scoffs. And yet I am going to scoff and say ugly words about this fetish
of ours. I am going to say that it represents ignorance, hides and
causes hypocrisy, stands in the way of progress, drags low the standard
of individual excellence, perpetuates many foul practices.
Let me admit at the outset that I recognize in the institution of
marriage a perfectly legitimate result of the working of the law of
evolution. Of course it is; and the same may be said of everything that
exists whether good or evil. Every vile and filthy thing, crime,
disease, misery, are all equally legitimate products of the working of
this law. Evolution is simply the process of the logical working of
things; it explains how things come to be; and there is nothing in the
nature of the law to enable it to give to its results the hall mark of
sterling. A thing is because of something else that was. Marriage is
because of a primeval club. Man craved woman and he procured her.
Considering the beginnings of the institution of marriage, it is
interesting, if nothing more, to consider the efforts of the priest to
give it an attribute of sanctity, to call it a sacrament. In truth,
marriage is the most artificial of the relations which exist in the
social body. It is a device of man at his worst--a mixture of slavery,
savage egotism and priestcraft. It is indicated by nothing in the
physical constitution of either male or female. It is an anomaly; a
contract which can be freely entered into by the most unfit, but which
cannot be broken, though both parties wish it, though absolute unfitness
be patent, though hell on earth be its result. The pretense must be
abandoned that men and women marry in order to reproduce their kind.
Nothing could be less true. Marriage legalizes reproduction, but is not
caused by desire for it. Marriage is the hard and fast tying together of
a man and a woman without the least regard to moral or physiological
conditions. Marriage may be for pecuniary gain, or for social
advancement; it may be at the will of a controlling parent, or, more
commonly for St. Paul's reason, that it is better to marry than to burn;
but never for the reason that the parties to it are fitted to each other
for parenthood. That supreme consideration not only does not enter into
either the preliminary or after-thought of the matter, but is even held
to be an indecent topic of conversation between persons not already
married to each other.
The constituents of the average marriage are a man over-stimulated
sexually by mystery and ignorance, and a woman abnormally undersexed by
the course of self-repression and self-mutilation which have been taught
her from her earliest childhood as necessities of modesty, purity and
virtue. And then out of the carefully cultivated repugnance of the woman
and the savage, exulting, unrelenting passion of the man are produced
children, frequently welcome, seldom premeditated. And we are asked to
believe that out of such elements are created the best foundation for a
race or nation. Surely, surely, that combination of conditions is the
best for a race or a nation which produces the best individuals; and
quite as surely we should strive to bring about those conditions which
tend to produce the best individuals.