THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FAMILY
Most of the Marxians in America, when confronted with the charge that
they advocate free-love, deny the truth of the accusation, claiming that
it is a base calumny. False and calumnious, indeed, would the charge be,
if it were directed against each individual among the Revolutionists, or
if from its universality exceptions were not made for many, who, not
having as yet accepted the full consequences of International Socialism,
go no further than to cast their votes for the party candidates. For
would it be fair to except no others from condemnation, for among the
dues-paying members of the party are many who are extremely averse to
the system of loose morals that their comrades propose to substitute for
the monogamous form of marriage now in vogue.
Books advocating free-love are advertised in the Socialist press and
receive favorable notice in editorial columns. They have long been on
sale at the leading Socialist book-stores of the country and even at the
National Office of the Socialist Party in Chicago. Finally, the
Revolutionary clubs and locals all over the United States have in their
libraries books on free-love that are standard works on Socialism.
The Marxians, in their endeavors to offset the charge that a free-love
propaganda exists within their party, frequently argue that
prostitution, now so prevalent throughout the world, will under
Socialism no longer remain the dreadful menace to society that it is
today. They attribute the prevalence of this vice principally to
poverty, and argue that in the new state, all persons will be abundantly
supplied with the goods of this world, and consequently no one will be
obliged to indulge in this sin for obtaining a livelihood.
The Reds, therefore, try to dodge the question at issue by leading their
opponents off on a tangent. The real question, free-love, will, however,
by no means be forgotten by us until the Socialists have been shown up
thoroughly. Since the conspirators against family life are so fond of
harping on the matter of prostitution, with a view to drawing critics
away from attacking their doctrine of free-love, the reader will be
shown that even prostitution, instead of decreasing in the Socialist
state, would, together with immorality of every sort, become far more
prevalent under Marxian rule than it is today.
Prostitution and impurities of every sort may, of course, be due to many
different causes. First, let us consider prostitution in connection with
poverty and destitution. The Socialists claim that there will be far
less prostitution in their state since the people, as a whole, will be
supplied more abundantly with the needs of life. This talk about greater
supplies for all in the Socialist state is mere assertion. The Marxians
have never proven that such would actually be the case. If so, where is
their proof? Can they give any convincing argument? Can they name any
country, state or city, where they have ever ruled, in which the people,
as a whole, were better supplied with the needs of life under the red
flag than they were before the Socialist rule began?
The fact is just the contrary. Look at any part of Europe over which the
Socialists have ruled and you will see far greater destitution under
Socialism than there was before. As for places that have never yet tried
Socialism, enough arguments were given in the chapter, "Socialism a
Peril to Workingmen," to show that there would be so many upheavals, so
much turmoil, discontent and strife in a Socialist state, that
production would be at a minimum and entirely insufficient to supply the
needs of the people.
We concede that poverty often leads to prostitution, and this is one
reason out of many for sincerely wishing that our poor people were
better supplied than they now are with the necessities of life. Still it
must not be forgotten that poverty and want are often greater factors in
preventing prostitution than in helping it. Think of the millions of
poor people whose very poverty indirectly makes prostitution and vice in
general less likely by keeping them from immoral theatres, movies,
dances and cabarets and association with bad companions of greater means
who would be attracted by better clothes and greater wealth if these
poor people had them.
Do the Socialists claim that the average poor woman is less moral than
the average rich one? Do not the Marxians know that poverty, rather than
wealth, fosters religion and piety, the greatest of all factors in
keeping persons pure? Do the Reds deny that millions and millions of the
very poorest are chaste? If these souls can remain pure, notwithstanding
their poverty, so, too, can others; and when these others do not remain
pure, usually something other than poverty is the cause, _e.g._,
irreligion, lawlessness or disregard of authority, all of which the
Socialists are advocating, day after day, in their books, pamphlets,
papers and speeches.
Again, Debs and his followers, by having a separate party for
workingmen, are dividing the laboring class against itself, knowing full
well that millions upon millions of decent, honest workingmen will never
join them. And since Socialists are making unjust and impossible
demands, and injecting into labor organizations radical leaders who
cause general distrust and fear, labor cannot succeed in its battles
against the abuses of capitalism nearly as well as it would if all were
united. Hence, because of the existence of the Socialist Party, low
wages still prevail in many cases, with extreme poverty which often
leads to prostitution.
If the Socialists ever gain control of our country they will probably do
so through a revolution. Or they will come into power gradually, by an
increased vote at each election. In the meantime, as victory came near,
there would be business failures by the thousands, owing to the
impending destruction of the existing system of industry and government.
In either case there would be terrible destitution and a great dearth of
the necessities of life. This, according to the Socialists' own
argument, would mean a great increase in prostitution.
It has been proven theoretically in the chapter entitled, "Socialism, a
Peril to Workingmen," and actually by events in Europe, that a Socialist
state, even should it endure, cannot be a success. Hence, were the
Marxian argument about prostitution as strong as the Socialists claim,
picture the immorality among the people where a Socialist government
plunges the industries and sources of production and distribution into
total chaos.
With this refutation of the claim that prostitution would become a very
rare thing under Socialism, the national conspirators must confess that
the same argument they have for years been using to further the
interests of their cause, can with telling effect be turned against
them.
Not alone are the Socialists defeated in their argument that
prostitution would be less prevalent in the Marxian state, but they are
hypocrites in using the argument they do. "The Call," for instance,
which frequently uses the argument which has been refuted, in the
magazine section of its issue of June 8, 1919, published a poem
entitled, "The Harlot," to satisfy its lustful patrons:
"I do not understand you--
I cannot see
How you can lie passive in my arms
When such a passion swells in me....
You lie in my arms--
Your face is close to mine.
I look into your eyes,
Revelation!
And you
Look into mine
Unmoved."
We now return to the question of free-love--we have not forgotten it,
though no doubt the Reds wish we had. Socialists who deny that an active
free-love propaganda exists within their ranks must either confess their
ignorance of what is going on, or plead guilty to the base charge of
deceiving the American people.
The "New Encyclopedia of Social Reform," edited by the Socialist, W. D.
P. Bliss, on page 484 contains an article on the family which reads in
part as follows:
"We then come to the third form of free-love, the free-love theory
par excellence, which is held today by many Socialists, and an
increasing number of radical men and women of various schools of
thought. According to these neither the state nor organized
religion should have aught to do with the control of the family or
of the sexual relation. They would make free-love supreme. They
would have it unfettered by any tie whatsoever. They argue that
compulsory love is not love; that all marriage save from love is
sin; that when love ends, marriage ends."
In another article, on page 1135, under the caption, "Socialism," Bliss
informs us that it is perfectly true that Deville, a French Socialist,
said that "marriage is a regulation of property.... When marriage is
transformed, and only after that transformation marriage will lose its
reason for existence, and boys and girls may then freely and without
fear of censure listen to the wants and promptings of their nature....
The support of the children will no longer depend on the chance of
birth. Like their instruction it will become a charge of society. There
will be no room for prostitution or for marriage, which is in sum
nothing more than prostitution before the mayor."
On page 897 of the old 1897 edition of the "Encyclopedia of Social
Reform," an earlier work edited by W. D. P. Bliss, we are informed that
Socialism would allow all to live in permanent monogamy, but would not
force people to remain married if they were unwilling to do so. "The
Communist Manifesto," the work that made Marx and Engels famous among
Socialists the world over, thus answers the charge made against the
Revolutionists regarding their opposition to monogamy:
"What the communists might possibly be reproached with is that they
desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically
concealed, an openly legalized community of women."
Jules Guesde, a French Socialist, affirms in "Le Catéchisme Socialiste"
that "the family is now only an odious form of property and must be
transformed or abolished."
The French Socialist leader, Jaurés, in a parliamentary speech said that
"They [_i.e._, married men and women] were free to make the marriage and
should in the same way be free to unmake it. In fact, just as the will
of one of the parties could have prevented the marriage, so the will of
one should be able to end it. The power to annul should, of course, be
all the stronger when both parties desire it." It need scarcely be added
that free-love would in most cases begin with the voluntary dissolution
of the marriage ties.
While the program of the French Socialist Party, adopted at Tours in
1902, does not explicitly advocate free-love, still it calls for "the
most liberal legislation on divorce." Ernest Belfort Bax, a prominent
English Socialist, in "Outlooks From a New Standpoint," affirms that "a
man may justly reject the dominant sexual morality; he may condemn the
monogamic marriage system which obtains today; he may claim the right of
free union between men and women; he may contend he is perfectly at
liberty to join himself, either temporarily or permanently with a woman;
and that the mere legal form of marriage has no binding force with him."
["Outlooks From a New Standpoint," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 114 of
the 1891 edition.]
"Prostitution for private gain is morally repellent. But the same
outward act done for a cause transcending individual interest loses its
character of prostitution." [Ibid., page 123.]
"There are few points on which advanced radicals and Socialists are more
completely in accord than their hostility to the modern legal monogamic
marriage." [Ibid., page 151.]
"There are excellent men and women, possibly the majority, born with
dispositions for whom a permanent union is doubtless just the right
thing; there are other excellent men and women born with lively
imaginations and Bohemian temperaments for whom it is not precisely the
right thing." [Ibid., page 157.]
"Herein we have an instance of the distinction between bourgeois
morality and Socialist morality. To the first it is immoral to live in a
marital relation without having previously subscribed to certain legal
formalities.... To the second ... to live in a state of unlegalized
marriage defileth not a man, nor woman." [Ibid., page 158.]
"Socialism will strike at the root at once of compulsory monogamy."
[Ibid., page 159.]
Quotations from this base free-love book will end with the following:
"If it be asked 'is marriage a failure?' the answer of any impartial
person must be 'monogamic marriage is a failure'--the rest is silence.
We know not what the new form of the family, the society of the future
in which men and women will be alike economically free, may involve, and
which may be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile we ought to combat by
every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of the inherent
sanctity of the monogamic principle." ["Outlooks From a New Standpoint,"
by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 160 of the 1891 edition.]
"Outlooks From a New Standpoint," from which these quotations have been
taken, was advertised in the price list of the Social Democratic
Publishing Company of Milwaukee; and though it was sold for a dollar a
copy at Victor Berger's establishment, it has never been used by the
Socialists of America to prove to the world that they do not advocate
free-love.
In view of the fact that "Outlooks From a New Standpoint" was sold at
Berger's own publishing company, it is somewhat surprising to see him,
in the August 10, 1912, edition of his paper, the Milwaukee "Social
Democratic Herald," attacking, in a party squabble, "the men in control
of the 'International Socialist Review,' ... who publish books in
defense of what our enemies call free-love." Further on in the factional
quarrel he writes: "I shall leave out the Christian Socialists entirely.
Many of them are honest in this fight. But these Christian
Socialists--who are only a handful--are being used by cowardly assassins
and practical free-lovers as a cat's paw." Perhaps the Socialist
publishers would be a little more free with their love for each other,
if there was less competition for the silver dollar.
Ernest Belfort Bax in another book, "Religion of Socialism," thus
denounces the present form of family life: "We defy any human being to
point to a single reality, good or bad, in the composition of the
bourgeois family. It has the merit of being the most perfect specimen of
complete sham that history has presented to the world." ["Religion of
Socialism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 141 of the 1891 edition.]
"Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," edited by Ernest Belfort Bax and
William Morris, also advocates free-love, for its authors tell us that
under Socialism "property in children would cease to exist, and every
infant that came into the world would be born into full citizenship, and
would enjoy all its advantages, whatever the conduct of its parents
might be. Thus a new development of the family would take place, on the
basis, not of a predetermined life-long business arrangement, to be
formally and nominally held to irrespective of circumstances, but on
mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at the will
of either party.... There would be no vestige of reprobation weighing on
the dissolution of one tie and the formation of another." ["Socialism,
Its Growth and Outcome," by Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris, pages
299 and 300 of the 1893 edition.]
The "International Socialist Review," December, 1908, states that
"Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," by William Morris and Ernest
Belfort Bax, is "a standard historical work long recognized as being of
the utmost value to Socialists." According to the price list sent out
from the National Office of the Socialist Party this work on free-love
was on sale there for fifty cents a copy. Chas H. Kerr and Company, the
Socialist publishing company of Chicago, in their catalogue advertised
the same book as being one of the most important works in the whole
literature of Socialism, by the two strongest Socialist writers of
England. From these facts the reader may judge for himself whether or
not the Revolutionists of America tell the truth when they claim that
they are not the enemies of the family.
In a speech delivered on November 12, 1907, Henry Quelch, editor of the
Socialist paper, "London Justice," made the following statement: "I do
want to abolish marriage. I do want to see the whole system of society,
as at present constituted, swept away. We want no marriage bonds. We
want no bonds at all. We want free-love."
Edward Carpenter in his book, "Love's Coming of Age," tells us that
"marriage relations are raised to a much higher plane by a continual
change of partners until a permanent mate and equal is found."
That this work on free-love might find a ready market among Socialists,
Chas. H. Kerr and Company advertised it as follows in the "International
Socialist Review," Chicago, December, 1902:
"He [i.e., Carpenter] faces bravely the questions that prudes of
both sexes shrink from, and he offers a solution that deserves the
attention of the ablest leaders of popular thought, while his
charmingly simple style makes the book easy reading matter for any
one who is looking for new light on the present and future of men
and women in their relations to each other."
In a 1912 catalogue the same publishing company volunteered the
information that "'Love's Coming of Age' is one of the best Socialist
books yet written on the relations of the sexes." In a 1917 booklet it
was advertised by the company as being "by far the most satisfactory
book on the relations of the sexes in the coming social order."
Carpenter's work was sold for a dollar a copy at the National Office of
the Socialist Party in Chicago, and yet the Revolutionists persist in
telling us that they do not advocate free-love.
August Bebel, the late leader of the German Socialists, was the author
of a book entitled, "Woman Under Socialism." This work, however, is
better known by the simple appellation, "Woman." A simple quotation will
suffice to show that Bebel, like many other excellent Socialist
authorities, advocates free-love:
"If incompatibility, disenchantment or repulsion set in between two
persons that have come together, morality commands that the
unnatural and therefore immoral bond be dissolved." ["Woman Under
Socialism," by Bebel, page 344 of the 1904 edition in English.]
Bebel's book has had an immense circulation. Over thirty editions have
been issued, and translations have been made into nearly all the
European languages. Before his death in August, 1913, he was the
admiration of millions of the Revolutionists the world over. His book is
considered everywhere as a standard work on International Socialism and
is, of course, on sale with the other free-love publications at the
National Office of the Socialist Party. Chas H. Kerr and Company in 1917
advertised Bebel's work as being one of the greatest Socialist books
ever written.
Frederick Engel's "Origin of the Family," a work that has made its
author famous among Socialists on both sides of the Atlantic, contains
the following statement relative to free-love:
"These peculiarities that were stamped upon the face of monogamy by
its rise through property relations will decidedly vanish, namely
the supremacy of men and the indissolubility of marriage.... If
marriage founded on love is alone moral, then it follows that
marriage is moral only as long as love lasts. The duration of an
attack of individual sex love varies considerably according to
individual disposition, especially in men. A positive cessation of
fondness or its replacement by a new passionate love makes a
separation a blessing for both parties and for society. But
humanity will be spared the useless wading through the mire of a
divorce case." ["The Origin of the Family," by Fredrick Engels,
page 99 of the 1907 translation into English by Untermann.]
"The Comrade," New York, November, 1902, thus commends Engel's book:
"One of the most important issues of that excellent Standard Socialist
Series published by Chas. H. Kerr and Company is 'The Origin of the
Family,' by Fredrick Engels, now for the first time translated into
English by Ernest Untermann. This book, first published in 1884, has
been translated into almost every European language and has long been
regarded as one of the classics of Socialist philosophical literature."
"The Call," New York, February 27, 1910, deems "The Origin of the
Family" worthy of editorial comment: "The one book that contains in
small compass what every woman ought to know is Fredrick Engel's 'The
Origin of the Family.' Every Socialist woman should become a book agent
to sell this book."
"The International Socialist Review," October, 1902, expressed its
admiration of Engel's work by stating that "this book has long been
known as one of the great Socialist classics and has been translated
into almost every other language than English.... The book is really one
of the two or three great Socialist classics; and now that it is in
English, it must find a place in the library of everyone who hopes to
master the real fundamental philosophy underlying Socialism."
"The Origin of the Family," notwithstanding[20] the fact that it
contains matter too foul to comment on, for example a certain comparison
that is made on page 39, was listed with the books sold at the National
Office of the Socialist Party, and at Chas. H. Kerr and Company, the
largest Socialist publishing company in the United States.
Ernest Untermann, the American Socialist who translated Engel's work
into English, writes on page 7 of the preface of the 1907 edition: "The
monogamic family, so far from being a divinely instituted union of
souls, is seen to be the product of a series of material, and in the
last analysis, of the most sordid motives."
Rives La Monte, in "Socialism Positive and Negative," tells his readers
that "from the point of view of this Socialist materialism, the
monogamous family, the present economic unit of society, ceases to be a
divine institution, and becomes the historical product of certain
definite economic conditions. In the judgment of such Socialists as
Fredrick Engels and August Bebel, we shall probably remain monogamous,
but monogamy will cease to be compulsorily permanent." ["Socialism,
Positive and Negative," by Rives La Monte, page 98 of the 1907 edition.]
In the "International Socialist Review," February, 1909, there appears
on page 628 a notice which reads as follows:
"The 'Review' lately returned to a contributor a clever and
readable article in which he emphasized certain absurdities and
miseries of the present marriage system. His letter in the reply to
us raises some interesting questions, and we are glad to publish
it: ... 'It is disappointing to be advised to frankly discuss
subjects of such importance as religion and marriage only in hushed
whispers behind closed doors. In the fear of offending conservative
prejudice on these topics, some Socialists become more conservative
than the bourgeois themselves.... Of course, the main stream and
most important phase of Socialism is the political-economic
agitation, but at the same time the Socialist movement inevitably
brings into being, at least for a great part of its adherents, a
new culture, a new literature, a new art, a new attitude toward sex
relations and religion and individual freedom, a new conception of
life as a whole. In face of this fact it is sickening to see
individuals, whom one knows to be atheists, defending Socialism as
the will of God and the fulfilment of Christianity; and other
individuals, whom one knows to be free-lovers, going out of their
way to defend the home and family against the inroads of
capitalism. Nevertheless such things are seen.... There are
thousands of women who are worn out with the bearing of unwelcome
children on account of ignorance of proper ways of preventing
conception.... If sex life, the personal heart life, of
revolutionists were more free and joyous, if they breathed an
atmosphere of liberty and spontaneity, free from religious and
moral superstitions, if they became now as much like the free
people of the future as possible, would they not be that much more
ardent and joyous and unceasing workers of the Great Revolution?
And if former non-Socialists, especially women who had suffered
grievously from the evils of the marriage system, or been
intellectually blindfolded by religious teaching, were first led
into the light of more emancipated ideas by some of us Socialists,
would not they serve and glorify Socialism forever?... If the
Christian Socialists have a right to their God, and monogamists to
their eternal marriage, then surely in a revolutionary movement
like ours, the complete revolutionists have, to say the least, an
equal right to their agnosticism and their free union."
Clarence M. Meily, before speaking explicitly of free-love, praises lust
and sensuality in the highest terms on page 129 of his book,
"Puritanism": "Freed from the privation of millenniums of unrequited
toil, with the wealth and wonders of the world at its command, it is
fairly certain that the emancipated working class, still wan from its
centuries of service and sacrifice, will take great joy in repudiating,
finally and forever, the fallacies and aberration of asceticism.... Not
the denial of life, but the laudation and triumph of life, will be the
keynote of the new ethics. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye,
the pride of life, will become new formulas, holy and pure in the light
of the perfect development of the whole man, and of all men, to which
the race will dedicate itself."
Meily then approaches the marriage question and says: "The question of
the status of marriage in the new society is one of extreme importance,
since it is here that reactionaries of all sorts center their opposition
to social reconstruction. It is both idle and disingenuous to assert
that marriage as a legal and civil institution is not likely to undergo
profound modification.... The artificial perpetuation of the marriage
tie, in the face of the disinclination of the parties involved to
continue the relation, will cease to be a matter of public concern, or
the occasion of state interference. The dissolution of the marriage
relation will become as purely a personal and private affair as is the
assumption of the relation now. Some sort of registration may be
required for the purpose of vital statistics."
In July 2, 1901, "The Haverhill Social Democrat," apparently without
fear of offending its subscribers, asked: "What is there sacred in the
modern home? Can anything be sacred which is based on a lie or on
impurity, or on ignorance? The marriage system today is based on
impurity, on ignorance and on a big lie."
"The Call," New York, December 4, 1910, tells its readers to "give all
women the vote, and they will strike off the rusty chains that hold them
still in marriage as the property of the man."
That the same paper is very lax as regards the divorce evil, so closely
allied to free-love, is evidenced from the following quotation taken
from the edition of March 30, 1913: "Among the many encouraging signs of
woman's growing strength--of her determination to be at last the captain
of her soul and the master of her faith--are recent divorce
statistics....
"Far from being a sign of moral decadence, the large number of
divorces granted to women is one of the healthiest portents of the
regeneration of the body social....
"The divorced woman is today the connecting link between the
non-resisting, ignorant victim of the past and the self-reliant,
enlightened, eugenically minded woman of the future. The divorce
statistics of the present are perfectly logical and the divorced
woman is a cheering omen, as she fulfils her historic mission."
"The Little Catechism" for the use of the children of Bohemian
Socialists, a book from which we have already had occasion to quote in
the previous chapter, shows us the exceedingly low standard of morality
that is taught to the youthful Revolutionists; for in answer to the
question, "Is adultery a sin?" we are astounded by the boldness of the
reply, "It is not a sin."
We shall finally corroborate our charge that the Revolutionists advocate
free-love by quoting the words of no less an authority than Morris
Hillquit, who concedes in "Everybody's," February, 1914, page 233, that
"Most Socialists stand for dissolubility of the marriage ties at the
pleasure of the contracting parties."
As many Socialist books on free-love have attained a high circulation,
and as they have not been repudiated by the party, but have been praised
and advertised in its newspapers, and, moreover, since these very books
have been sold as standard works both at the National Office of the
party and at the leading Socialist book-stores of America, the only
reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the number of party members
who openly advocate free-love, or at least tacitly approve of its
propaganda, must be in the majority, for otherwise the party would never
tolerate such a condition of affairs within its ranks.
Once the Socialists gain control of a country, as in the case of Russia,
laws legalizing free-love are very soon passed. In the No. 2 edition of
the Los Angeles magazine, "More Truth About Russia," its radical editor
mentions many of the Bolshevist laws on marriage, divorce, etc., in
vogue in Russia. Among them is one fully legalizing free-love, making it
possible for married parties to change partners whenever they wish and
for no other reason than their mutual or individual desire to do so:
"1. Marriage is annulled by the petition of both parties or even
one of them.
"2. The petition is submitted, according to the rules of local
jurisdiction, to the local court.
"Note: A declaration of annulment of marriage by mutual consent may
be filed directly with the department of registration of marriages
in which a record of that marriage is kept, which department makes
an entry of the annulment of the marriage in the record and issues
a certificate.
"3. On the day appointed for the examination of the petition for
the annulment of marriage, the local judge summons both parties or
their solicitors.
"4. Having convinced himself that the petition for the annulment of
the marriage really comes from both parties or from one of them,
the judge personally and singly renders the decision of the
annulment of the marriage and issues a certificate thereof to the
parties."
This chapter shows that free-love filth, to corrupt and demoralize our
people, is being propagated by the Socialist Party of America through
its National Headquarters in Chicago, Berger's publication company in
Milwaukee, Hillquit's "New York Call," and other publishing houses and
papers affiliated with the party. Yet, because the question of the
qualifications of five representatives of this system of abomination to
make laws for the State of New York was so much as raised by a judicial
inquiry in the New York Assembly, that body of legislators has been
assailed and falsely charged with undermining the fundamental principles
of representative government. The ignorance concerning the true
character of the Socialist Party of America is startling.
Is it not time for the American people to awake? Should not every decent
American petition all our legislative bodies, state and national, to
outlaw the Socialist Party of America and curb its iniquitous
propaganda?