 Section 1 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2, April 1906. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2, April 1906. To the Generation Knocking at the Door by John Davidson. Break, break it open, let the knocker rust. Consider no shout not, nor no man's must. But being entered promptly take the lead, setting aside tradition, custom creed. Nor watch the balance of the hucksters beam. Declare your heartiest thought, your protest dream. Await no summons, laugh at all rebuff. High hearts in you are destiny enough. The mystery in the power enshrined in you are old as time and as the moments new. And none but you can tell what part you play. Nor can you tell until you make essay. For this alone, this always will succeed. The miracle and magic of the deed. End of Section 1. Section 2 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2, April 1906. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2, April 1906. Observations and Comments by Emma Goldman. 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. Since Turgenev 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, aestheticism 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 centers, 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 Tchaikovsky, one of Russia's four Morse 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 the Grand Central Palace, the Russian Revolution will live until the decayed and cowardly regime of tyranny in Russia is rooted out of existence. The French have a new president. Louvet was succeeded by Fallier. 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 numbskull. 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, Fallier caused the arrest of the socialist poet Clovis Suga. 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 Fallier their fitting man of straw for seven years. The only genuine democrat of these times is death. He does not admit of any class distinctions. He mows down a proletarian and a marshal field with the same side. 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. 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 safekeeping 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 country 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 enroll him in the criminal class. With all the solemnity and emphasis of which I am capable, I utter the profound conviction after 20 years of constant study of our prison population that more than 9 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 off-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. Higher liens were formed into a so-called citizens committee that inaugurated a reign of terror. These legal law breakers 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 ball 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 thereon. When it became known that the WFM 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 law breakers 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 WFM 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. 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 rouse too much public condemnation, the lives they lead are dependent upon the opinion of the Philistines. They are revolutionists in theory, reactionists in practice. The words of Louis XIV, I am the state, have been taken up as a motto by the American policemen. One of the New York papers contains the following account. In discharging some 70 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. Friends of Mother Earth in various western cities have proposed a lecture tour on 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 lectured 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. Mother Earth, Volume 1, Number 2, April 1906 Section 3, The Child and Its Enemies by Emma Goldman. Is the child to be considered as an individuality or as an object to be molded 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 creates expression will be permitted to come forth toward the light of day, or whether it is to be needed 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 freedom self 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, wandering, 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 hot-house 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 the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another and an 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 dullness of our lives? Every home, school, college, and university stands for dry, cold utilitarianism, over-flooding 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 and 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 mold, 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 herd-like 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 overestimation of one's own value. No wonder public opinion can be so easily manufactured. Pre-digested 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 cells. 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 mold 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 wandering 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 a bridge 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 deaths 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 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 odd 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 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 all together 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's 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 mold and form the child according to their own conception which 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 fervently praise on Sunday, yet continues to break the Lord's commandments the rest of the week, the radical parent who reigns God, priesthood, church, government, domestic authority. Yet continues to adjust himself to the condition he abhors. Just so the free-thought parent can proudly boast that his son of four will recognize the picture of Thomas Payne 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 Parovskaya, or that she can recite the revolutionary poems of Hervek, Freilagrath, or Shelley, and that she will point out the faces of Spencer, Bacchanin, Herman, 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, sad, and fixed ideas, soon grows weary of rehashing the beliefs of its parents, 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 overfed 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 waste factory appealing 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 herd-like 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. Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mike Overby Midland Washington Mother Earth, Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 Section 4 Hope and Fear Translated from the Jewish of L.I. Peretz This sketch the writer had addressed to Jewish social democrats 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 and his life 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 you frighten me I am afraid of the bridle to 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 stronger going forward the magnanimous feel more deeply the proud rise higher 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 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 or the human eye must 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 you will 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 men, 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 today 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 today you will become the upholders of the yesterday of that which is lifeless dead, you will trample the sproutings of tomorrow and destroy its blossoms and pour streams of cold water upon the heads that nestled your prophecies your dreams and your new hopes the today 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 Nietzsche Zarathustra spake thus he who wishes to say something should be silent long while if the makers of public opinion would only carry out this hint for about a lifetime 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 as long as there are women who must fear to become mothers on account of economic difficulties or moral prejudices the emancipation of women is only a phrase end of section 4 section 5 of mother earth volume 1 number 2, april 1906 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon mother earth volume 1, number 2, april 1906 section 5 John Most by M.B John Most suddenly died in Cincinnati, March 17th he was on an agitation trip and when he reached Cincinnati he took sick with erycephalus 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 60th 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 a 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 most was born at Augsburg, Bavaria February 5th, 1846 according to his memoirs he early found it necessary to resist the tyranny of a step-mother 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 conflict 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 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 working men who worked 10 and 12 hours in factories and shops spent their evenings in study and reading of economic, political and philosophical works Ferdinand Lissalle Karl Marx, Engels Bakunin, and later Kropopkin also Henry George's Progress and Poverty added to these with the works of materialistic natural science schools such as Darwin, Huxley Molashot, Carl Watt Ludwig Buchner Hegel that constituted the mental diet of a large number of working men of that period just as the revolutionary economists and 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 and 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 blood curdling 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 audience's spellbound or to bring them to the highest pitch of enthusiasm the scene of his first great activity was in Vienna where he was soon met with events 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 soon closed its doors even today those who visit that famous institution of civilization are still shown most sell 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 Majunk was sent for a term of imprisonment to latency where the prisoners were let out for their daily walk the leader of the reds, John Most met the leader of the blacks Majunk 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 of professional lawmaking more than ever when leaders of social democracy like Bebel and Leibnacht thought it more expedient to adapt themselves to conditions Most went to London where he continued his revolutionary literary crusade in the fry height 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 fry height 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 the liberal party 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 1st of March 1881 executed Alexander II he was tried and sentenced to 18 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 excludes state and bureaucratic interference his ideas were related to those of Propotkin and LSE Reckluse he often assured me that he considered Propotkin 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 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 Zolga's act he was arrested for an article by the radical Carl 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 traded all together the European conditions of fifty years ago in the face of this sentence one cannot but help think of Tolstoy'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 life superficially it would appear that his road was hard and thorny but looking at it from a thorough viewpoint 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 with but few exceptions the American journalists considered 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 End of chapter 5 Recording by John Brandon Section 6 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Larry Wilson Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 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? Set 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 I want here but to civilize you and make a reasonable human being out of you if that 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 under clothing 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 am 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 a 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 knitting took to the woods and has not been seen since Waverly Magazine End of section 6 Section 7 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Josh Kibbe Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 Section 7 For 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 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 End of section 7 Section 8 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Marriage in the Home by John R. Carrell You remember Punch's advice to the young man about to be married? Don't There is a just nearly half a century old and yet ever fresh and poignant Why? Can it be that the secret mysterious voice of mankind proclaims the just truth and masquerade? Can it be that marriage as an institution has indeed proved itself inexperienced such a terrible failure? We worship many fetishes We have the superior civilization and the institution of marriage is the chief of them few of us but bow before that before that in the home of which it is the foundation and I know what's scorn and obliquely 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'm going to scoff and say ugly words about this fetish of ours I'm going to say that it represents ignorance hides and causes hypocrisy stands in the way of progress 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's nothing in the nature of the law to enable it to give to its results the hallmark 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's a device of man at his worst a mixture of slavery savage egotism and priest craft 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 a pecuniary gain or for social advancement it may be at the will of a controlling parent or more commonly for saint paul's reason that it is better to marry than to burn but never for the reason that the parties to it marry each other for parenthood that supreme consideration not only does not enter into either the preliminary or afterthought 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 under sexed by the course of self repression and isolation which have been taught her from her earliest childhood as necessities of modesty purity and virtue 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 then there is home home sweet home the perfect flower we are told that blooms on the fair stem of marriage yet it is the very citadel of ignorance when it should be the school in which are taught the beautiful phenomena of physical life home where the simplest, purest facts of life are converted into a nasty mystery and deliberately endowed with the characteristics of impurity and sin for what else is the meaning of that solemn formula which most of us have been taught that we were conceived in sin what else is the meaning of the hush and blush that go to any reference to sex, sign or manifestation of sex is it not awful beyond the power of words to express that a man and a woman come together in ignorance and beget children who are not even to obtain the benefit of such knowledge as their unfortunate parents pick up by the way but must themselves begin the most responsible functions of life not only in equal ignorance but with an added load of misconceptions sex superstitions immoral dogmas and probably physical disabilities a short time since a father was speaking to me of his son 14 years of age and plainly at an age when some of the beautiful phenomena of sex life were beginning to crowd upon him for notice I asked the man if he had talked with his son about the matter his answer was peculiar only in that he put into words a description of the attitude of the average parent talk to him about that not I let him learn as I did no one ever told me but someone had told him as his unpleasantly reminiscent smile advised me he had been told by ignorant companions by ignorant servants and quite likely by books whose grossness would have been harmless but for the child's piteous ignorance no the man would not talk with his son about such things but he would go into his club and talk into the small hours over a glass of whiskey with his friends there turning the beauty and purity of sex manifestation into shabby jest and impure ridicule he would exchange stories based on sex relation with any stranger with whom he might ride for two hours in a smoking car every man knows that I speak well within bounds and the girl child would have her thus her mother the victim of misinformation and no information of misuse and self mutilation and the sweet privacy of this home which is called the cradle of peace in the nesting place of purity save her by taking warning of her own ruin life and giving her the benefit of such little knowledge as she has gained in physical mental and moral misery we know she does not on the contrary the same terrible old lies are told the same hideous practices are resorted to and another pure creature is launched into that awful life of legalized prostitution which is called marriage motherhood is woman's highest function and moreover it is a function which it is unwise not to exercise for it is infinitely more perilous for a healthy woman not to be a mother than it is her to bear children motherhood too is the most markedly indicated function of a woman's body she is specialized for it it is the thing indicated and yet we never say to a woman be a mother when you will we hold up our hands in horror at the very thought of motherhood itself and we say marry marry anything get another name for yourself merge your very identity into that of some man get a home never mind about children you don't have to have them they have nothing to do with your respectability is it not so is it not so that that woman who prefers her own name and her freedom and who exercises her highest function of motherhood thereby becomes a thing of scorn and contumely and yet how in this world can a woman do a finer wiser, braver truer thing than to bear a child in freedom by carefully chosen father it is true that we have moralists who urge wives to breed for the good of the country but even they while declaring that is the duty of women to have large families roll their eyes in horror at the thought of a woman exercising her plainest right without first having some man whose only interest in the matter is his fee say some magic words over her and her master oh that marriage ceremony and is it not pathetic to hear the women dimly conscious of their backbones declaring that they will not promise to obey they will promise vehemently to love and honor which they absolutely cannot be sure of doing but they refuse to obey the only thing they could safely promise to do and which in fact most of them do for writhe and twist as they may define ever so bravely the conventions of the world are against them and conform they must down down they sink until they are on their knees in the mire of tradition their heads bowed to the ugly little fetish a woman may be a thousand times superior of her husband and yet she must be his slave and what curio fables what transparent lies are told to reconcile the poor slave to her lot a man's rib and she's the weaker vessel nevertheless she is the power behind the throne and if the man possess her does she not equally possess him is not monogamy the mainstay of our morals is not god to be thanked that he has given us light to see the horrors of polygamy oh that shocking thing polygamy how the husbands of the land rise up to defend their firesides from it no smooth shall get into our senate that virtuous senate why if every practicing polygamist went home from the congress there would not be a quorum left to do business monogamy to marriage there is no such condition known in this country of course there may be sporadic cases of it but that is all if monogamy be the practice of the men of this country why the hundreds of thousands of prostitutes why divorces for adultery why those secret establishments were unhappily married men indemnify themselves for the appearance of monogamy by an association which can be ended at will whence come the molados and the half-breeds of all sorts who so credulous as to believe the fable of monogamy what has monogamy or polygamy or polyandry to do with this matter I assume that is undeniable that motherhood is woman's most manifest function if that be so how can there be any more immorality in the exercise of it than in the process of digestion well could be clearer than that a woman has the inherent to bear children if she wish and there is nothing inexperience or morals which demands one father for all her children it should be for her to say whether she will have one father for all her children or one for each and if the question be asked how under such conditions the interest of the children would be safeguarded I ask if they are safeguarded now the right minded man provides as he can for them as would be the case always while the wrong minded man does not now provide properly for them besides is the mother not to be considered do we not all know of women who in widowhood take care of their families do we not know of women who take care of their husbands as well as their children women of course should in any case be economically free but at least let them be sex free let them decide for themselves whether they will have many or few or no children teach women to be economically independent give her the opportunity for full knowledge of all that pertains to motherhood make the motherhood a pure and beautiful manifestation of physical activity if you will but without forgetting that it is only simple and natural avoiding that hysterical glorification of the function in poetry and the hiding of it in actual life as if it were a clean thing but the important matter is to understand that a woman has a right to bear a child if she wish nothing is more distinctly pointed out by the constitution of her body and therefore it is impossible that there can be any immorality in the exercise of the function to put my idea in as few and as bold words as I can motherhood is a right and has no proper relation to marriage is a purely artificial relation and not only is it not justified by its results but distinctly it is discredited by them by it a man becomes a vile hypocrite since he loudly avows a moral standard and a course of conduct which in private by his acts he denies is inputs to scorn by it a woman becomes a slave giving up her rights in her own body submitting to ravishment and becoming the accidental mother unwelcome children by it children are robbed of their plain right to the best equipment that can be given them and which cannot be given them under the prevailing system it is only when a woman is free to choose the father of her child that the child can hope for even a partial payment of the debt that was due it from its parents from the moment they took the responsibility of calling it from the nowhere into the here this doctrine of the responsibility of the parent to the child is comparatively new it goes neither with marriage nor with the home the old and current notion is that the child is a chettle Abraham never offers an apology for making little Isaac carry wood and then mount the sacrificial pile indeed we are asked to marvel at the heroism of the father then we're told that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son as if the child were the property of the parent and yet there must always have been naughty children asking pointed questions for it was long ago found necessary to try to scare them by a divine fulmination honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long it seems that even so long ago parents were afraid they could not win honor from their children Abraham's place was on the pile just as it is the place of the modern parent who looks upon his child as his chettle disposing of him as he will arbitrarily making rules for his conduct which he would not dream of observing for himself stifling his natural demands for knowledge converting what is pure and most beautiful in the world into a mire of filth and ignorance willfully robbing him of his birthright of individuality by forcing him to conform to methods of thought and conduct which his own experience tells him no man can or does conform to from the moment he wins his freedom or learns the hideous lesson of that hypocrisy which he is sure in the end to discover that his father practices what right has any father to make a sacrifice of his child what is his title to the love or gratitude or self abnegation of his child is it that the child is the unconsidered consequence of the legal rape of some poor woman who's been unfitted for the office forced on her by a life mentally dwarfed morally twisted and physically mutilated is it that the child is hailed out of nothingness to be inoculated perhaps with terms of disease in the first instance and then half nourished for nine months in a body which has been robbed of its vitality by the mutilation and torture to which it has been subjected at the behest of fashion the highest duty of a parent is to so treat his child that it will enter upon the struggle of life prepared to obtain the utmost happiness from it if anyone fancies I've been too severe in my structures I would ask him to read what Mrs. Gilman has to say on the subject of home it is true that she does not come to the same conclusions that I do she would have women economically independent and she would have children taken care of by those especially fitted for the task leaving mothers and fathers free to go their ways but how could there be separate ways so long as the slavery of marriage remained woman must be not only economically free but altogether free as I've said motherhood is not an affair of morals it is a function marriage on the other hand is a matter of morals and hideously immoral it is too then why not have motherhood without its immoral artificial adjunct you see I do not ask for easy divorce as a solution of the problem of marriage I set my face sternly against divorce I'm one with the church in that I only demand that there should be no marriage at all that there should be no fastening of lifelong slavery on woman let woman mother children or not as she will let her say who shall be the father of her child and of each child let motherhood be deemed not even honorable but only natural can anyone believe that if men and women were free to decide whether or not they would be parents they would not in the end seeing their duty in the light of their knowledge fit themselves for parenthood before taking upon themselves its responsibilities I would like to say that I have no fear of the odium of the designation of a conno class nor do I quake less someone triumphantly asked me what I will put in place of marriage in the home as well might one demand what I would give in the place of smallpox if I were able to eradicate it I am not concerned to find a substitute for such perversion of sex activity if men and women choose to live together in freedom fathering and mothering their children according to a rule grown out of freedom and directed by expediency I fancy they would be at least as happy as they can be now tied together by a hard unpleasant knot and if an economically free woman chose to have 6 children by 6 different fathers as a wise woman might well do I believe she could be trusted to secure those children from want quite as well as the mother slave of today who bears her children at the will of an irresponsible man and then often enough has to take care of them and him too wealth protects and animates art and literature as the do and livens the fields nonsense wealth animates art and literature as the whistle of the master animates the dog and makes him wag his tail end of section 8 recording by Lynn Handler section 9 of mother earth volume 1 number 2 April 1906 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org mother earth volume 1 number 2 April 1906 section 9 the modern newspaper let me describe to you very briefly a newspaper day figure first then a hastily erected and still more hastily designed building in a dirty paper littered back street of London and a number of shabbily dressed men coming and going in this with a projectile swiftness within this factory companies of printers tensely active with nimble fingers they were always speeding up the printers, ply their type setting machines and cast an arranged masses of metal in a sort of kitchen inferno above which in a beehive of little bits it and scribble there is a throbbing of telephones and a clicking of telegraph instruments a rushing of messengers a running to and fro of heated men clutching proofs and copy then begins a roar of machinery catching the infection going faster and faster and whizzing and banging engineers who have never had time to wash since their birth fly about with oil cans while paper runs off its rolls with a shudder of haste the proprietor you must suppose a swift motor car leaping out before the thing is at a standstill with letters and documents clutched in his hand rushing in resolute to hustle getting wonderfully in everybody's way at the sight of him even the messenger boys who are waiting get up and scamper to and fro sprinkle your vision with collisions curses incoherencies you imagine all the parts of this complex lunatic machine working hysterically towards a crescendo of haste and excitement as the night wears on at last the only things that seem to travel slowly in those tearing vibrating premises of the hands of the clock slowly things draw on toward publication the consummation of all those stresses then in the small hours in the now dark and deserted streets comes a wild whirl of carts and men the place spurts paper at every door bales heaps torrents of papers that are snatched and flung about in what looks like a free fight and off with a rush and clatter east west north and south the interest passes outwardly the men from little rooms are going homeward the printers disperse yawning the roaring presses slacken the paper exists distribution follows manufacture and we follow the bundles our vision becomes a vision of dispersal you see those bundles hurling into stations catching trains by a hair's breadth speeding on their way breaking up smaller bundles of them hurled with a fierce accuracy out upon the platforms that rush by and then everywhere a division of these smaller bundles into still smaller bundles into dispersing parcels into separate papers the dawn happens unnoticed amidst a great running and shouting of boys a shoving through letter slots openings of windows spreading out upon bookstalls for the space of a few hours you must figure the whole country dotted white with rustling papers placards everywhere vociferate the hurried lie for the day men and women in trains men and women eating and reading men by sturdy fenders people sitting up in bed mothers and sons and daughters waiting for father to finish a million scattered people are reading reading headlong or feverishly ready to read it is just as if some vehement jet had sprayed that white form of papers over the surface of the land nonsense the whole affair is a noisy paroxysm of nonsense unreasonable excitement witness mischief and a waste of strength signifying nothing from H.G. Wells in the days of the Comet end of section 9 recording by Stephen Harvey section 10 of Mother Earth volume 1 number 2 April 1906 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Mother Earth volume 1 number 2 April 1906 section 10 a visit to Sing Sing by a moralist I was on away the everlasting decency and affectability of my surroundings bored me on whichever side of me I looked I saw people doing the same things for the same reasons or for the same lack of reasons and these were uninteresting oh said I to myself these are the people of the ruts they that go that way because others have gone they are conforming but there must be some persons who do not conform where are they now you can understand why it was that my thoughts turned toward that monument on the Hudson River and why finally I made up my mind to visit it I knew that neither my citizenship nor yet my philosophic and human interest in the working of that great school would avail to obtain me entrance there so I sought out one of the politicians of my district who at that time at least exercised his activities outside of the walls of the building and I exchanged with him a five dollar bill for an order to admit me the attendant who did the honors of the place for me that these people who are guard alike and who affect the same tonsorial effect are those who have been unskillful in their non-conformity there are prisoners he replied I bit my lip and looked a smug as I remembered one should who as yet has the right of egress as well as ingress in an institution of that character at that moment my eyes fell on a face that seemed familiar to me and as I studied it I saw with surprise that I had come upon a man who had once been a schoolmate of mine now I had always believed that if a person had done wrong he would be conscious of it and that if he were found out he would at least try to appear penitent but in this case my theory did not seem to be working for my former chum whom I remembered as a quiet and obtrusive fellow met my startled glance with a twinkle of suppressed humor I confess that such a blow to my theory filled me with indignation I stepped toward him all my moral superiority betraying itself in the self-satisfied smirk which fixed itself on my face in accordance with the sense of duty which the Philistine feels so keenly in his relations with others why are you here I asked him eh are you not a little impertinent he asked I do not inquire of you why you are here that is obvious to say the least I answered loftily obvious from your faracycle expression perhaps he said good-naturedly but never mind we look at the matter from different points of view to me it is a greater indiscretion to annoy a helpless prisoner with holier-than-thou questions than it would be to attend the charity-ball in pajamas but of course you do not see it in the same light pardon me if I annoyed you I said stiffly don't mention it he replied with the humorous twinkle still playing in his eyes and to prove that I bear no hard feelings I will ask you some questions naturally I was embarrassed at such an exhibition of hardyhood in one of his situation but I said I would be pleased to answer him to the best of my ability it is some time since I was away from this retreat on a vacation he said with an easy assurance that was indescribably shocking to one of correct principles and I would like to know if all the rascals had been put in prison I pushed my insurance policy a little deeper into my pocket and replied with conviction certainly not but you must not forget that no man is guilty until he has been proven so ah yes he said and that a man may pride himself on his honesty on the secure ground that he has not yet reached the penitentiary yes of course you are right but tell me is it true according to a rumour which has reached us in our seclusion that these good Christians pro tem are considering the advisability of having a rat poison served to us in place of the delicious stale bread and flat water which now comprise our bill of fare oh I answered vaguely there are still reformers of all sorts in the world reformers he cried his face lighting up with a new interest ah you mean those profound thinkers who seek to cure every disease of the social body by means of legislation yes yes tell me about them society still believes in them believes in them I cried indignantly surely it does why the great political parties are responding to the cry of the downtrodden masses and oh he said dreamily they are still responding and you mean by still responding I demanded curtly why I remember that in my time too the people always responded the party leaders would say to them that they were in a bad way and needed help and the people would be happy to think their leaders had discovered this then the leaders would wink at each other and jump upon the platforms and explain to the people that what was needed was a new law of some sort the people would weep for happiness at such wisdom and would beg their leaders to get together and make the law and the law that the leaders would make when they got together was one that would put the people still more in their power so that is still going on I recognised that he was ironical but I answered with a sneer the people get what they deserve and what they wish they have only to demand it through the ballot box you know ah yes he murmured with a grin I had forgotten the ballot box dear me how could I have forgotten the ballot box providentially the keeper came to notify me that my time was up and I turned away one more thing cried the prisoner is it still the case that the American people enjoy their freedom best when they are enslaved in some way you are outrageous I exclaimed the American people are not enslaved in any way it is true they are restricted for their own good by those more capable of judging than they that must always be the case I don't know about musty side but I am sure it will always be the case as long as a man's idea of freedom it's his ability to impose some slavish notion on his brother goodbye I said with a recurrence to my smirk a pharocycle pity I am sorry to see you here oh don't be trouble on my account he answered on the whole I am satisfied satisfied? impossible I cried why impossible consider that I shall never again be compelled to associate with the decent honest folk oh I have caused to be satisfied I am here on a life sentence end of section 10 recording by Steven Harvey section 11 of mother earth volume 1, number 2 April 1906 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Campbell Schelp mother earth volume 1 number 2, April 1906 section 11 the old and the new drama by Max Baginski the inscription over the drama in olden times used to be man look into this mirror of life your soul will be gripped in its innermost depths anguish and dread will take possession of you in the face of this rage of human desire and passion go ye atone and make good even Schiller entertained this view when he called the stage a moral institution it was also from the standpoint that the drama was expected to show the terrible consequences of uncontrolled human passion and that these consequences should teach man to overcome himself to conquer oneself his man's greatest triumph this aesthetic tendency, incidentally part of chastisement and acquired resignation one can trace in every investigation of the value and meaning of the drama, though in different forms the avenging nemesis always at the heels of the sinner may be placated by means of rigid self-control and self-denial this too was Schopenhauer's idea of the drama in it his eye perceived with horror that human relation became disastrously interwoven that guilt and atonement made light of the human race which merely served as a target for the principles of good and evil guilt and atonement reign because the blind force of life will not resign itself but, on the contrary is ever ready to yield itself to the struggle of the passions mountains of guilt pile themselves on the top of each other while purifying fires ever flame up into the heavens in the idea that life in itself is a great guilt, Schopenhauer coincides with the teachings of Christ though otherwise he has little regard for them with Christ he recognized in the chastisement of the body a purification of the mind the inner man who thus escapes from close physical intimacy as if from bad company the spiritual man appears before the physical as a saint in the Pharisee in reality he is the intellectual case of the so called bad deeds of the human body it's path indicator and teacher but once the mischief is accomplished he puts on the pious air and denies all responsibility for the deed wherever the idea of guilt the fear of sin prevails the mind becomes traitor to the body I know him not and will have nothing to do with him whenever man entertains the belief in good and evil is bound to pretend the good and do the evil and yet the understanding of all human occurrences begins as with the Zarathustra philosopher beyond good and evil the modern drama is in its profoundest steps in attempt to ignore good and evil in its analysis of human manifestations it aims to get at a complete whole out of each strong healthy emotion out of each absorbing mood that carries and urges one forward from the beginning to the end it represents the world as it reflects itself in each passion in each quivering life not trying to confine into judge to condemn or to praise not acting merely in the capacity of a cold observer but striving to grow in oneness with life to become colour, tone and light to absorb universal sorrow as one's own universal joy as one's own to feel every emotion as it manifests in a natural way to be oneself yet oblivious of self the modern dramatist tries to understand and to explain goodness is no longer entitled to a reward like a pupil who knows his lesson nor is evil condemned to an eternal hell both belong together in the sphere of all that is human often enough it is seen that evil triumphs over good while virtue, ever highly praised in words is rarely practised it is set aside to become dusty and dirty in some obscure corner only at some opportune moment is it brought forward from its hiding place to serve as a cover for some vile deed we can no longer believe that beyond and above us there is some irrevocable, irresistible fate whose duty it is to punish all evil and wrong and to reward all goodness an idea so fondly cherished by our grandfathers today we no longer look for the force of fate outside of human activity it lives and weaves its own tragedies and comedies with us and within us it has its roots in our social, political and economic surroundings in our physical, mental and psychic capacities did not the fate of Cyrano de Bergerac lie in his gigantic nose with others fate lies in their vocation in life in their mental and emotional tendencies which either submerge them into the hurry and rush of a commonplace existence or bring them into the most annoying conflicts with the dicta of society indeed it is often seen that a human being, apparently of a cheerful nature but who has failed to establish a durable relation with society often leads a most tragic inner life should he find the cause in his own inclinations and suffer agonizing reproaches therefrom he becomes a misanthrope if however he feels inwardly robust and powerful living truly if he craves complete assertion of a self that is being hampered by his surroundings at every step he must inevitably become a revolutionist and again his life may become tragic in the struggle with our powerful institutions and traditions the leaden weight of which will apparently not let him soar through space to ever greater heights apparently because it sometimes occurs that an individual rises above the average and waves his colors over the heads of the common herd his life is that of the storm bird anxiously making for distant shores the efforts of the deepest truest and freest spirits of our day tend toward the conscious formation of life toward that life which will make the blind raging of the elements impossible a life which will show man his sovereignty and admit his right to direct his own world the old conception of the drama paid little or no attention to the importance of the influences of social conditions was the individual alone who had to carry the weight of all responsibility but is not the tragedy greater the suffering of the individual increased by influences he cannot control the existing social and moral conditions and is it not true that the very best and most beautiful in the human breast cannot and will not bow down to the commands of the commonplace and everyday conditions out of the anachronisms of society and its relation to the individual grow the strongest motives of the modern drama pure personal conflicts are no longer considered important enough to bring about a dramatic climax a play must contain the beating of the waves the deep breath of life and its strong invigorating breeze can never fail in bringing about a dramatic effect upon our emotions the new drama means reproduction of nature in all its faces the social and psychological included it embraces analysis and enriches all life it goes hand in hand with the longing for materially and mentally harmonious institutions it rehabilitates the human body establishes it in its proper place and dignity and brings about the long deferred reconciliation between the mind and the body full of enthusiasm with the pulse of time throbbing in his veins the modern dramatist compiles mountains of material for the better understanding of man and the influences that mold and form him he no longer presents capital acts extraordinary events or melodramatic expressions it is life in all its complexity that is being unfolded before us and so we come closer to the source of the forces that destroy and build up again the forces that make for individual character and direct the world at large life as a whole is being dealt with and not mere particles formerly our eyes were dazzled by a display of costumes and scenery while the heart remained unmoved this no longer satisfies one must feel the warmth of life in order to respond to be gripped the sphere of the drama has widened most marvelously in all directions and only ends where human limitations begin together with this a marked deepening of the inner world has taken place still there are those who have much to say about the vulgarity contained in the modern drama and how its inaugurators and following present the ugly and untruthful untrue and ugly indeed for those who are buried under a mass of inherited views and prejudices the growth of the scope of the drama has increased the number of the participants therein formerly it was assumed that the fate of the ordinary man the man of the masses was altogether too obscure too indifferent to serve as material for anything tragic those who had never dwelt in the heights of material splendor could not go down to the darkest and lowest abyss because of that assumption the low and humble never gained access to the center of the stage they were only utilized to represent mobs those that were of importance were persons of high position and standing persons who represented wealth and power with superiority and dignity yet with shallow and superficial heirs the ensemble was but a mechanism and not an organism and each participant was stiff and lifeless each movement was forced and strained the old fate and hero drama did not spring from within man into the things about him it was merely manufactured most remarkable incidents unheard of situations had to be invented if only to produce externally an appearance of coinciding cause and effect and not a single plot could be without secret doors and vaults terrible oaths and perjury Gorky, Hauptmann, Gabriel Danunzio and others had brought us nothing else but a liberation from such grotesque ballast from such impossibilities as destroy every illusion as to the life important of a play they would still be entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of posterity but they have done more out of the confusion of trap doors, secret passages, folding screens they have led us into the light of day of undisguised events with their simple distinct outlines in this light the man of the heap gains in life force, importance and depth the stage no longer offers a place for impossible deeds and the endless monologues of the hero the important feature is harmonious concert of action the hero, on a stage that conscientiously stands for real art and aims to produce life is about as superfluous as the clown who amused the audience between the acts in the circle of one star display one cannot help but hail the refreshing contrast shown in the man of destiny by the clevered Bernard Shaw where he presents the legend hero Napoleon as a petty intriguer with all the inner fear and uneasiness of a plotter in these days of concerted energy of the cooperation of numerous hands and brains in the days when the most far reaching effect can only be accomplished through the summons of a manifold physical and mental endeavour the existence of these loud heroes is circumscribed within rather limited lines previous generations could never have grasped the deep tragedy in that famous painting of Millet that inspired Edwin Merckham to write his man with the hoe our generation however is thrilled by it and is there not something terribly tragic about the lives of the great masses who pierce the colossal stone cliffs of the simplin or who are building the Panama Canal and are performing a task that may safely be compared with the extraordinary achievements of Hercules works which, according to human conception, will last into eternity the names and the characters of these workmen are unknown the historians coldly and disinterestedly pass them by the new drama has unveiled this kind of tragedy it has done away with the lie that sought to produce a violent dramatic effect through a plunge from the sublime to the ridiculous those who understand Tolstoy's power of darkness wherein but those of the lowest strata appear will be overwhelmed by the terrible tragedy in their lives in comparison with which the worries of some crowned head or the money troubles of some powerful speculator will appear insignificant indeed that which this master unfolds before us is no longer a plunge from heaven to hell the entire life of these people is an infernal the terrible darkness and ignorance of these people forced on them by the social misery of a dull necessity produces greater soul sensations in the speculator than the stilted tragedy of a corneal those who witness a performance of Gerhard Hauptmann's Hannel and fail to be stirred by the grandeur in depth of that masterpiece regardless of its petty poor house atmosphere deserve to see nothing else than the Wizard of Oz and again is not the long thunderous march of hungry strikers and Zola's as awe-inspiring to those who feel the heartbeat of our age even as the heroic deeds of Hannibal's warriors were to his contemporaries the world stage ever represents a change of participants the one who played the part of leading man in one century may become a clown in another entire social classes and castes that formerly commanded first parts are today utilized to make up stage decorations or as figure aunties plays representing the glory of knighthood or menacingers would only amuse today no matter how serious they were attended to appear once anything lies buried under the bulk of social changes it can affect coming generations only so far as the excavated skeleton affects the geologist this must be born in mind by sincere stage art if it is not to remain in the stifling atmosphere of tradition if it does not wish to degrade a noble method that helps to recognize and disclose all that is rich deep in the human into a commonplace hypocritical and stupid method if the artist's creation is to have any effect it must contain elements of real life and must turn its gaze toward the dawn of the mourn of a more beautiful and joyous world with a new and healthy generation that feels deeply its relationship with all human beings over the universe in a report of the Russian government it is stated that the conduct of the soldiers in the struggles of the streets was such that in no instance did they transgress the limit which is prescribed to them in their oath as soldiers this is true the soldiers oath prescribes murder and cruelty as their patriotic duty if government where it's even an ideal revolutionary government creates no new force and is of no use whatever in the work of demolition which we have to accomplish still less can we count on it for the work of reorganization which must follow that of demolition the economic change which will result from the social revolution will be so immense and so profound it must so change all the relations based today on property and exchange that it is impossible for one or any individual to elaborate the different social forms which must spring up in the society of the future this elaboration of new social forms can only be made by the collective work of the masses to satisfy the immense variety of conditions and needs which will spring up as soon as private property shall be abolished it is necessary to have the collective suppleness of mind of the whole people any authority external to it will only be an obstacle only a tremble on the organic labor which must be accomplished and beside that a source of discord and hatred Crapot King End of section 11 Recording by Campbell Shelp Section 12 of Mother Earth Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Josh Kibbe Mother Earth, Volume 1, Number 2 April 1906 Section 12 A Sentimental Journey Police Protection by Emma Goldman and Max Baginski Chicago's Pride are the Stockyards the Standard Oriole University and Miss Jane Adams It is therefore perfectly natural that the sensibility of such a city would suffer as soon as it became known that an obscure person by the common name of E.G. Smith was none other than the awful Emma Goldman and that she had not even presented herself to Mayor Dunn, the platonic lover of municipal ownership However, not much harm came of it The Chicago newspapers who cherished the truth like a costly jewel made the discovery that the shrewd Miss Smith compromised the number of Chicago's aristocracy and excellencies, among others also a Baron von Schlippenbach consul of the Russian Empire We consider it our duty to defend this gentleman against such an awful accusation Miss Smith never visited the House of the Baron nor did she attend any of his banquets We know her well and it is evident that she never would put her foot on the threshold of a representative of a government that crushes every free breath every free word that sends her very best and noblest sons and daughters to prison or the gallows that has the children of the soil the peasants publicly flogged and that is responsible for the barbarous slaughter of thousands of Jews Miss Jane Adams too is quite safe from Miss Smith True, she invited her to be present at a reception Knowing the weak knees of the soup kitchen philanthropy from past experience Miss Smith called her up on the phone and told her that E.G.S. was the dreaded Emma Goldman It must have been quite a shock to the lady After all one cannot afford to hurt the sensibilities of society so long as one has political and public aspirations Miss E.G. Smith being a strong believer in the prevention of cruelty preferred to leave the purity of the whole house untouched After her return to New York Miss Smith about its business and started on a lecture tour in her own right as Emma Goldman Cleveland Dear old friends and co-workers the work you accomplished was splendid also the comradely spirit of the young but why spoil it by bad example of applying for protection from the city authorities It does not behoove us who neither believe in their right to prohibit free assembly nor to permit it to appeal to them If the authorities choose to do either they really prove their autocracy Those who love freedom must understand that it is even more distasteful to speak under police protection than it is to suffer under their persecution However the meetings were very encouraging and the feeling of solidarity sweet and refreshing Buffalo The shadow of September 6th still haunts the police of that city Their only vision of an anarchist is one who is forever lying and wait for human life Of course very stupid but stupidity and authority always join forces Captain Ward who, with a squad of police came to save the innocent citizens of Buffalo asked if we knew the law and it was quite surprised that that was not our trade that we had not been employed to disentangle the chaos of the law that it was his affair to know the law However, the captain showed himself absolutely ignorant of the provisions of the American constitution Of course, his superiors knew what they were about when they set the constitution aside as old and antiquated and instead enacted a law which gives the average officer a right to invade the head and heart of a man as to what he thinks and feels Captain Ward added an amendment to the anti-anarchist law He declared any other language than English a felony and since Max Baginski could only avail himself of the German language he was not permitted to speak How is that for our law-abiding citizens? A man is brutally prevented from speaking because he does not know the refined English language of the police force In the Goldman delivered her address in English it is not likely that Captain Ward understood enough of that language However, the audience did and if the police of this country were not so bare-faced the savior of Buffalo would have wished himself anywhere rather than to stand exposed as a clown before a large gathering of men and women The meeting the following evening was forcibly dispersed before the speakers that arrived Ignorance is always brutal when it is backed by power Toronto King Edward Hotel, Queen of Victoria and Manicuring Parlor It was only when we read these signs that we realized that we were on the soil of the British Empire However, the monarchical authorities of Canada were more hospitable and much freer than those of our free Republic not to sign of an officer at any of the meetings The city, a grey sky rain storms Although one was reminded of one of Hein's witty, drastic criticisms in reference to a well-known German university town Dogs on the street Hein writes, implore strangers to kick them so that they may have some change from the awful monotony and illness Rochester The neighbourly influence of the Buffalo police seemed to have had a bad effect upon the mental development of the Rochester authorities The hall was packed with officers at both meetings The government of Rochester, however, was not saved The police kept themselves in good order Some of them seemed to have benefited by the lectures That accounts for the familiarity of one of Rochester's finest who wanted to shake him at Goldman's hand E.g., had to decline Baron von Schlippenbach, or an American representative of law and disorder Where is the difference? Syracuse The city where the trains run through the streets With Tolstoy, one feels that civilisation is a crime and a mistake Where one sees nerve-wracking machines running through the streets Poisoning the atmosphere with soft coal smoke What? Anarchists within the walls of Syracuse? Oh, horror The newspapers reported a special session at City Hall How to meet the terrible calamity Well, Syracuse still stands on its old site The second meeting, attended largely by genuine Americans Brought by curiosity perhaps, was very successful We were assured that the lecture made a splendid impression which led us to think that we were probably guilty of some foolishness as the Greek philosopher, when his lectures were applauded would turn to his hearers and ask Gentlemen, have I committed some folly? Ovois E.g., and M.B. End of Section 12 A Sentimental Journey, Police Protection