I5^2(, m :3Kc 3 c D Woman Under Capitalism By HENRY M. TICHENOR, Author of' fK WAVE OF HORROR," THE EVILS Of CAPITALISM," "RIP-SAW MOTHER GOOSE." COPYRIGHT 1912 The National Rip-Saw Publishing Co. SAINT LOUIS,. MISSOUKl Rip-Saw Series No. 16; Price 10c W. m 3 C lOM-9-1-12 arV15326°"™" ""'""'"V Library *N?i!n«VSSS'' capilarism. olrn,anx 3 1924 031 281 169 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Woman Under Capitalism By HENRY M. TICHENOR, Author of "A WAVE OF HORROR," THE EVILS OF CAPITALISM," "RIP-SAW MOTHER GOOSE," etc. COPYRIGHT 1912 The National Bip-Saw Publishing Co. SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI /;-, YOUR SUFFERINGS CAN END!! YOUR MISERY CAN BE GUP! THOSE AWFUL PAINS. Caused by the Stomactf Coming Into too Close Contact with the-Spinal Column, CAN BE ABSOLUTELY BAN- ISHED FOF? ALL TIME TO COWIE! taleS} swaf- boo^, ever. rijortals! It . -_ curg, mag- osteopathy* hot paregoric 'and liost oftered beats: mi netic trea spiPlngs, pi! punjc! .It's tl]J real nectar of the 'gods to ttrliig back me blooming flusJii, ol- radiant health. ^ ' , ' YOtJ.NEED jrP NOW— BY GtHtt. TOU.NEED IT BAD! • Do» 'you arise every morftiog with th^t' awful ^esi!il>]a)dent feel- Are you cross. •IrritabHi; and all out of sorts? "'-'Vj. . V -; " Do you see darlc spots.kiiiij feel gloomy all over your System? t)6 you have queer miseries iand ^tei^l :blue «ll the^Hne? Do you sbrt, of hate- yourself and want to chew the tag with the "old \Woman? Suffering Brothjer — Don't des- pair-T-Xou Can; Be* .Cured, rTour. system has singly ab- sor)iean «.dult "Aom^ each month, costs iMly 50 oeats-^' Four or miore tjvelve jftoiitii^i treatments for" $1.00; - i^;; ■ ;> write: vs for Fi;i,ii particulars and frbr sample: ^rjbai^^ HSNTS WILL BE SENT AT ONCB. ADDRESS ALL GOMMOM^TIONS TO ' .)gf^.\- THE NATIONAL RIP-SAW PBIL WAGNER. ,. . . . . ; ,V. . i ST. IjbtolS, MO. NOTB.^-^l^e -first few doses may cause gripes, but don't be alarmed. Just let 'et gripe. It is nattu-e ridding yon of the poison in yotir system.; 'iAiter the gripes you wHl. experience One last spasm, and come _<>ut-of St: a new. man. > Anofh^;; No^. — If you will send, us "»?, enoiigh to pay for 12 mbnth.s' treatment" for/13 separate patients, ve will 'eeitoyou FREE a great family medicine book by Jaijies CM^l. This t{|j9>i^ alone will tell you how to'isjjre the most chronic and obstinate cases .ait.nt<>es- backtsm, weak backbone, and violent attacks of the, simples wt^en you have, to go to, the polls. .' • - • ^ : Why This is Written. Like millions of others throughout the civilized world, I have grown mighty weary at the attacks that the self- appointed instructors of society have hurled against Socialism. Preachers and politicians who are mentally unahle to put up any kind of an argument on economic questions, and whose galvanized consciences are never disturbed in the least by the debauchery and war of capi- talist-ruled society, have the impudence to charge that Socialism will break up homes and degrade woman. It is the purpose of this pamphlet to show a very small part of the degradation of woman under capitalism. The moral of this purpose is to endeavor to put enough stiffen- ing in the backbone of some humble working women to tell the next capitalist fakir, whether he be a preacher, politician or editor, that talks about Socialism being a curse to woman, to go to the regions that his own creed says is the permanent abode of all liars. Yours for the Revolution, that shall free all the "Working Class from the clutches of the Plunderbund, and which shall give our mothers and sisters every liberty that man shall enjoy. HENRY M. TICHENOR. St. Louis, Mo. THE BLACK FLAG OR THE RED. The pitfalls are behind you — ^it is backwards, or ahead to Labor's Land of Promise with the com- rades of the Red ; the siren song of trimmers is but the poison cup to stupefy your senses while the ban- dits hold you up; they are prowling wolves in sheepskin — ^they are modern Robin Hoods who love you like a brother if you let them take the goods. The call is gone around the world and Labor keeps the tryst-^there is no middle ground to take — it's Mammon or the Christ^^we know no alien clan or clime, the boundaries are fled — ^in the struggle of the ages it's the Black flag or the Red! No com- promise with death and hell, no quarter in the fight, the cunning of the robber class is pitted 'gainst our Might; no matter where the chips may fall, we're hewing to the line— THE FRUIT BELONGS TO LABOR, AND THE EARTH IS YOURS AND MINE! The ghastly ghost of poverty shall stalk the land no more ; forever shall be cast aside the im- plements of war; no longer to the greedy mills shall tread the children's feet; no longer shall star- vation-wage drive maidens to the street; no longer shall the mothers hear the grinding sweatshop call — Great Babylon is tottering. and by God! the beast shall fall! The monster spawn of Mammon shall topple from the throne and Labor, crowned a con- queror, shall come into its own! It's the battle of the ages, and Labor keeps the tryst — ^we meet the issue face to face — ^it's Mammon or the Christ! the old frontiers are vanished and the old ensigns are dead — ^you must choose one or the other, the Black flag or the Red! woman was stoned to death for adultery. Rome and Greece, that knew nothing of Jewish religion or Jewish laws, held woman in the "same contempt that the Jews did. Said Thucydides: "If it is a god who invented woman, whoever he be, let him know that he is the nefa- rious originator of the greatest evil." We have no record of any great teacher protesting against woman's degradation until Jesus appeared. When the woman was about to be stoned to death for adultery, Jesus scathingly rebuked and scattered the men ready to perpetrate the deed. "He that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone at her," was a way of judging woman that man had not thought of, neither does he, as a rule, to this day. The Apostle Paul had little or no respect for woman. When Europe turned from paganism to dogmatic Chris- tianity, woman still remained in her degraded condition. The wives and daughters of the working class — the serfs — were outraged infinitely worse than the enslaved men. One of the most noted of the Christian fathers, Tertul- lian, exclaims: "Woman, you ought to go about clad in mourning and rags, your eyes filled with tears of remorse, to make us forget that you have been mankind's destruc- tion. Woman, you are the gate to hell. ' ' This is only a bold way of expressing the creeds of to-day that charge the "fall" of man to woman. It seems to be the savage nature of man to want to load his sins anywhere but on his own shoulders. We know now, thanks to modern science, that the only fall man ever has had is upward. We know his start was not in Eden, but in the jungle. The Apostle Paul thought that the only safe way to guard against the wickedness of woman was to never get married. Tertullian, already quoted, believed the same way. "Celibacy," he said, "hiust be chose, even though the human race should perish." And another saint, Hieronymous, said, "Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and to sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament." Accord- ing to this, the original reason of , requiring a priest to Woman Under Capitalism. THE STORY OF CLASS RULE The history of class rule, from early barbarism to the present time, has been the history of woman's degra- dation. Man has been a slave, a serf, and an exploited wage earner, owned and controlled by the master class, but woman — as has been truly said — has been the slave of a slave. It certainly requires a monumental nerve for capitalist apologists, in pulpit, platform and press, to charge that Socialism — which is the abolition and end of class^ rule — would "degrade woman." A short resume of the tragic history of our mothers and sisters from the days of the patriarchs till now is sufficient rebuke to all the lies the enemies of Socialism have circulated concex-n- ing the condition of woman under Socialism. Under Socialism woman will be the political and economic equal of man. Under capitalism woman always has been and still is the political and economic slave of man. Capitalist religion and the capitalist state have combined to insult and degrade the mothers of the race. To start with, according to capitalist myth, she was noth- ing but a "rib" taken from her lord and master. All the sins and misfortunes of the world are piled upon her back because she ate an apple. It was woman, accord- ing to the priests, that made man a lost sinner. For this she was cursed. Man should hide his face in shame when he contem- plates this charge that he makes against motherhood. What a noble spectacle it is for man to load all his sins onto woman! For this reason woman became man's pri- vate property. Under the Mosaic laws he could live with her, or divorce her and kick her out of doors at his own pleasure. She was classed with the cattle. The ninth commandment forbids a man to covet his neighbor's wife, his ox or his ass. They were lumped together.^ "Thou shalt not commit adultery" had little or no reference to man. It never has. Under the Mosaic laws, however, a of the patriarchs were the matriarchs*. The mothers were the determining factors of the early social life. With the institution of private property came the laws of inheritance. The father wanted to know who to leave his property to. He must be assured of the paternity of the children. Therefore severe laws of chastity began to be enacted in regard to woman. To further secure her good behavior she became the private property of man. Woman was looked upon as a breeding animal. One of the "first citizens" of the United States has given evi- dence that there are still those who regard her largely in this light. And from the days of the institution of private property, vested in the name of the man, up to the present time, woman has been legally and socially looked upon as man's inferior. Both church and state — the social Siamese twins — have combined to hold her in subjectioii. The plutocratic gentlemen of our present-day pulpit, press and platform worry themselves sick over the forlorn condition our mothers and sisters would be in if they were made man's equal in society. The idea of a woman being politically and economically free still scares the bumptious lords and masters of creation. Woman has enjoyed such a lovely career under the social system of one class ruling another that it would upset the universe to disturb her present status in society. From the day she was made out of Adam's rib — according to the "learned" theologians — woman has been handled with such care and tender- ness that she is liable to break to pieces if she were set free. Man was made big and strong and brainy — ^nobody knows how many loads of mud was consumed in his make-up. But only one measly little bone was used to create his mate. No wonder the poor female of the spe- cies was weak and sinful and fell. Man has saddled woman with all the miseries of his own wild and woolly career. She slipped her footing and the devil's been to pay ever since. She is to blame for every low-down act that has pestered society from creation till now. The •For an exhaustive research of early social life see Morgan's "Ancient Society." Also Bebel's "Woman and Socialism." oflSciate at a marriage ceremony was to have the sin of getting married absolved. Origen, who was one of the leading lights in making our New Testament, and who of all others insisted on dis- carding a hundred and odd gospels then extant (fourth century)', and creating only the four gospels we now have, declared: "Matrimony is impure and unholy; a means of sensual passion." Origen emasculated himself, so he could look with utter contempt upon woman. St. Paul said: "The man is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man." And St. Peter cries, "Wives, obey your husbands!" No wonder the Christian world has for centuries looked upon woman as an inferior creature in the light of these teachings. St. Thomas of Aquino, who lived in the thirteenth century, said: "Woman is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more rapidly only be- cause it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their lords and masters, endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule." ORIGIN OF WOMAN'S SLAVERY. That Christianity and Judaism, as well as Roman paganism, borrowed some of their conceptions from the older religons of India, Babylon and Egypt, is clearly manifested in their similar attitudes toward woman. We read in the ancient Hindu book of Manu : ' ' The cause of dishonor is woman; the cause of hostility is woman; the cause of worldly things is woman ; therefore woman should be shunned." The truth of the matter is, as amply testified by mod- ern investigations, the degradation of woman did not have its origin in any creed or religion. It began with the institution of private property. Religions have sim- ply been formed to fit the ruling class. Before the days 9 istent that show that a tax for redeeming the bride from the "jus primae noctis" still existed in Bavaria in the eighteenth century. In Poland-the noblemen had a legal right to deflour any maiden they pleased, and if her love^ or anybody else protested the law condemned him to receive one hun- dred lashes. In England, until 1870, a man was entitled to all the personal property of his wife. Prior to this period an English woman was a mere cipher before the law. In the year 1888 Bishop J. N. Wood delivered a lecture at West- minster, in which he declared that "as late as a century previous English women had not been permitted to eat at their husband's table, nor to speak until they were spoken to. As a symbol of the husband's power a whip hung over the bed, that the law permitted the man to use on his wife. Only the daughters were required to obey the mother — by her sons she was regarded as a ser- vant." It was not such a very long while ago that the English law was repealed that allowed a husband to thrash his wife with "a stick no thicker than his thumb." No blacker page of capitalist history exists than the degradation of woman. It is only a malicious or else an ignorant scamp that will assert that the liberty that Socialism promises to every member of society, both male and female, will ruin woman. That a large army of our sisters should lead lives of prostitution always has been and is considered natural and necessary by ca-pitalist society. Like war, poverty and disease, it is part of the beautiful arrangement whereby one class rides on the back of another. ^ Prostitution existed in ancient pagan Rome, and it runs full blast in modern "Christian" America. Every intelligent person realizes that prostitution is largely, if not entirely, caused by an abnormal economic system that forces thousands of women and young girls to sell their bodies in order to provide for themselves. A social sys- tem that denies both men and women full opportunity to satisfy the natural needs of body and mind is the prolific source of every kind of crime and vice. earth is cursed up one side and down the other on ac- count of our first sinful grandmother. If it hadn't been for her all the males would have been heavenly saints. Wliat a blessing it is to be able to pile all our wretched- ness upon her. Preachers hand out this package and big, husky men never turn a blush. "Woman," again says St. Paul, "should adorn them- selves with shamef acedness. " To be sure, the miserable creatures. "I suffer not a woman to teach," goes on this same authority. "Adam," he continues, "was not de- ceived, but the woman being deceived was in the trans- gression. ' ' The respectable world owes Charles Darwin a debt of gratitude, if for no other reason than for destroying this absurd and insulting conception of our mothers in the scheme of creation. CAUSES OF PROSTITUTION. The entire history of woman under "Christian" cap- italism is enough to make a savage blush. The "jus primae noctis" (right of the first night) was legally prae- tiped in ' ' Christian Europe ' ' far into the middle ages. The landlord claimed and exercised the right of sleeping with the bride of a peasant the first night of the marriage. The church ruled that this was all right in the sight of God. In fact, the religious Council at Macon, held during the sixth century, seriously discussed the question as to whether woman had a soul or not. It was decided in her favor by a majority of one. In Scotland this right of the landlord to sleep with the peasant bride the first night was modified by King Malcolm III. at the close of the eleventh century by allowing the groom, to pay a mar- riage tax to the landlord. In Germany, according to the records of the Swabian monastery at Adelberg, of the year 1496, a law had been enacted whereby the peasant could redeem his wife from the lust of the feudal loj-d by the payment of a bag of salt and the bride to give what would now be a little over $5 in money, "in a dish large enough that she might sit in it." There are records ex- 11 verge of bankruptcy, sometimes at the verge of imprison- ment, and who wish to be saved, and public officials who have prospects of promotion, but are in need of money; here they come as customers and conclude the marriage bargain. In these marriages it frequently is deemed quite immaterial whether the future wife is young or old, pretty or ugly, well-built or deformed, educated or igno- rant, pious or frivolous, a Christian or a Jewess, provided that she has the money. Money redeems all faults and compensates for the lack of anything else. - According to the German law, procurers are severely punished by im- prisonment. But when parents or guardians barter their children or relatives to some unloved man or woman for life, for the sake of wealth, social position or some other advantage, no public prosecutor may interfere, and yet a crime has been committed. There are many well- organized matrimonial agencies, and any number of pro- curers and procuresses who are searching candidates for the 'sacred wedded state.' * * * During the last few decades the daughters and heiresses of, American millionaires have become special objects of desire to the pauperized European nobility. These American women, on the other hand, have exchanged their millions for the rank and title that are unknown in their own country. A number of communications, published in the German press during the fall of 1889, contained some character- istic information on this subject. According to this a German nobleman living in California had offered his services as a match-maker by advertising in German and Austrian papers. The offers he received in return clearly show the conception prevailing in the circles concerned in regard to the sanctity of marriage and its ethical side. ' ' The church dignitaries that charge that Socialism would destroy the sanctity of the home are time and again guilty of calling upon Almighty God to bless pros- titution as vile as reigns in the red-light districts of our cities. When an American girl sells her body for a gaudy title appended to the person of a blue-blooded de- generate, she stoops to the level of the street-walker. The only "sacred" marriage tie is the bond of love. Women of the working class, under Capitalism, are 10 Says August Bebel ("Woman and Socialism) : "The number of prostitutes increases at the same rate at which the number of working women increases, who find em- ployment in various lines of trade at starvation wages. * * * A letter sent by the chief of police, Bolton, to a factory inspector on October 31, 1865, shows that during the crisis of the English cotton industry, caused by the Civil War in the United States, the number of young prostitutes increased more than during the preceding twenty-five years." All reliable investigators of the cause of prostitution and the white slave traffic in the United States charge the vice to poverty, and ignorance caused by poverty. And yet, in the face of all this, priests and preachers, catering to the money lords that feed them, endeavor to blind the masses to the miserable condition of hundreds of thousands of unfortunate women under capitalism, and shriek their cowardly attacks at the Socialist propo- sition to give woman political and economic liberty. Every libertine, from King Solomon to the white slavei? of to-day, has fed his lust on the hunger cry of enslaved womankind. Capitalism degrades and outrages all humanity — but it doubly degrades and outrages woman. The actual buying and selling of women, like cattle, is prohibited by law these latter days in all civilized countries. But woman is bartered just the same. Again to quote August Bebel, in "Woman and Socialism": "In every large city (in Europe) there are certain places where upon definite days members of the upper classes come together, chiefly for the purpose of match- making. Rightly have these reunions been called the 'matrimonial market;' for, just as on the stock market, speculation and barter dominate, and not infrequently fraud and speculation enter into the dealings. Here we find officers of the army, over head and ears in debt, but possessing some ancient title of nobility ; roues, weakened by a life of debauchery, who seek a wife to nurse them and hope to mend their shattered health in marriage; manufacturers, merchants and bankers, who are at the 13 terror to a single man or woman, or the CURSE of caste distinction pollutes society with its shambles. I read not long ago a write-up by George Allan Eng- land of the life of one of the women wage slaves in a New England cotton mill. It was published in a capitalist paper. The columns of any of the great capitalist dailies contain enough stories of woman's degradation under capitalism to annihilate the whole capitalist system. This was the story of an old woman, Melissa Hodgdon, a weaver in the York mills at Saco, Me. She is 76 years old, "fifty-five of them consecutively passed standing be- tore a cotton loom." The story runs: "Her hands are gnarled and calloused with more than half a century of unbroken labor." "All I'm afraid of," she said, "is that they'll turn me off.. If they'll only let me have my looms, I'm happy. I'd ought to be good for fifteen years yet. J can 't weave as much ejoth now as I used to. Once I could manage six looms. Now four is all I can handle. But that's enough. I make good pay. Why, not very long ago, I got over $14 for only two weeks ' work. And I can most generally manage to average a dollar a day. I get enough to eat and don't often run behind on my rent — ^if they only let me hold my job. I don't have to get up till half-past five. That gives me time enough to cook break- fast before going to the mill at 6 :30. The looms start at 7. We quit at noon and have a whole hour. And in the afternoon we only work from 1 till 6" — and so the life of this old woman runs — unequaled, perhaps, in sadness in all the annals of black slavery. There are other thou- sands like it in the mills and mines. Poor old woman, what expression has life been to her? Listen — here is "contentment with your lot" with a vengeance. Melissa Hodgdon goes on to say: "I guess I get all I earn. Of course, they've got to make some- thing out of it, or they couldn't pay me my dollar a day. THEY know what they can afford. I leave that to THEM. If they'll only let me keep on working till I'm ready to quit everything, and not take my looms away." Her "home" is described — a lone room, up "dingy stairs" in a brick "company block." Her life is told in 12 doomed in unknown quantities to public prostitution. She is doomed, in the high circles of society, to private prostitution. It is only among the working classes, as a rule, that marriage is contracted for love. But capitalism, vile as it is with every form of iniquity, sees to it that the wives of the workers shall be made to suffer. Poverty, the night- mare of our system, curses the homes — or rather the rented tenements — of the only useful class in the world. Capitalism not only dooms the wives of the working classes — ^the majority of the race — to biting poverty, but it reaches out its lustful maw and drags women and chil- dren into its mills, mines and factories, and with starva- tion wage blights and ruins their lives. It is only a hypo- critical preacher, priest or rabbi that can uphold capital- ism in the name of religion. Nobody can have much re- spect for his own mother that can witness the degrada- tion that capitalism inflicts on the mothers of the toilers, and not revolt at the system of profit and plunder that is responsible for the outrage. BLIGHTED LIVES. Of all the crimes of capitalism, and their name is le- gion, none is more brutal than the blight it casts upon the lives of all of us, but especially upon the mothers of the race. Men and women were intended to give full ex- pression to the best that is in them. Capitalism, Avhich is the nearest portrayal of hell, and the Plunderbund, which is the only devil that I ever expect to see, crushes our noblest instincts so that only now and then some soul, either by mere chance of more fortuitous environment, or, more often, through an agony and poverty that few have strength to endure, breaks out of the world-wide slave pen. And yet the trail of the serpent of Mammon is over even the choicest souls. Jesus was a Man of Sor- rows and acquainted with grief. His way was the way through the agony and poverty — that slimy path that girdles the earth and carries destruction in its fetid track. The world has never known the fullness of Life, nor can it know it so long as the SPECTER of WANT strikes 15 \ There are records of savage life where the women and their children were treated more decently and hu- manely than can be found in our "Christianized" Civili- zation. Tacitus, the Roman historian, was among the German tribes of northern Europe before the "Chris- tianized" and civilized capitalist class subdued and "con- verted" them. He writes regarding these "heathen," that "they are the only barbarians who content them- selves with one wife." This surely put to shame some of the old patriarchs who posed — and are still esteemed — as holy men of God. This historian goes on to state: "There nobody laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are not considered a sign of good breeding. ' ' Abraham and his episode with Hagar could hardly have been held up as a worthy example to the Sunday School children of those ancient Germans, had they had Sunday Schools. Tacitus further says: "Tlie youths marry late; therefore they maintain their strength. The maidens, too, are not married hastily, and they are of the same stature as the men, and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of equal age, equally strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is transmitted to the children." Adultery, says Tacitus, was very rare among them. At the same time, just as it is with the civilized men of today, all the guilt and punishment of adultery was piled upon the woman. She was driven naked out of the village. Prostitution was unknown among them, for the simple reason that class rule, which drives mul- titudes of women to poverty and want, did not exist. Those old German tribes never became "good" and "pious" enough to exploit their women and children in factories and mills. They were heathen. It has re- mained for refined "Christians" to perpetrate this out- rage on woman and childhood. It seems too bad that these barbarians were not left alone in their comparative primitive decency. A people without prostitution and child labor would be quite a novelty these days. It is also too bad to think that they have all departed this three words. Work, "Work and then "Work. If you want all of it, and her picture, it is in the Wichita (Kansas) Beacon of November 24, 1911. There is also in the same edition of the Beacon a sermon of Billy Sunday's that completely ignores the Christless social system that out- rages our sisters of the working class, because the lives of the mothers of the working class are of far less value to "Christian" America than Dollars. A blighted life, an old woman, poor, lone and homeless after fifty-five years of incessant toil, frightened in her tottering years at the nightmare of "losing her job" — this is nothing at all, when the Plunderbund figures the profits in the, game. "Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire" — and the divinely planted instinct of that heart crushed in the grinding mills of Mammon. Childhood throbbing with Love and Hope, and infinite Desire — and ground into a dumb slave of the Plunderbund. This is the black horror that Socialism vows shall be destroyed. "Chill Penury repressed their noble rage. And froze the genial current of the soul." Ther6 are women who will read this that can find the tragedy of their own Hves told in these lines of the poet. And the people talk about "Civilization" .and "Christianity" and "Brotherhood of Man" and "Evan- gelizing the Earth" and "Saving Souls" and then uphold the crime of one class doing all the useful work of the world, and another class swiping all the proceeds of that work. Let's settle this thing first. Let's turn the fair land over to the men and women of the WORKING CLASS, to be used and enjoyed by them along with an open invitation to all to join that class. Let's live a decent, Golden Rule life while on earth, and we never need fear about what kind of creatures we will be when we leave here. Let's redeem the women — our mothers and sisters — ^from the misery, degradation and wanton lust of capitalist rule, even if we have to send all the plutocratic churches, that denounce Socialism, to the junk pile to do it. - 17 The nuns shall not roam about but shall be carefully watched, neither shall they live in discord and quarrels with one another, and under no circumstances shall they disobey their mothers superior. "Where they have mo- nastic rules they shall absolutely abide by them. They shall not be given to covetousness, drunkenness or prosti- tution, but shall lead a just and temperate life.' Another ordinance declared: 'If priests keep several wives or shed the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they shall be divested of their priesthood because they are worse than the laity.' The fact that in those days the priests were forbidden to have several wives, shows that in the ninth century polygamy was not rare.- Indeed there were no laws forbidding it. Even later, 'during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it was not considered objectionable to have several wives." WHITE SLAVES IN AMERICA. But this was long ago, you may say, and before Pro- testantism came with its "reformation." All right. Let us come down to our own times and our own country and view the way capitalism treats the women of the working class. Says James Oneal ("Workers in Ameri- can History) : "Much is said by historians regarding the religious ideals which they assume inspired many to come to America. But whatever religious motives may have pos- sessed the ruling classes and the adventurers it is certain that these served as a convenient shield for the visions of plunder that dominated their lives. Thirteen years after the founding of the colony a Dutch ship sailed into Jamestown and sold the first black slaves to Virginia planters. The same year, 1619, Young White Girls Were Shipped From England and Sold as Wives in Jamestown For 120 Pounds of Tobacco, or About $80 Each." Our capitalist historians have been very careful to hide the fact that white slavery existed in the American colonies, and did not cease until some time after the Revolutionary war. Here is an advertisement, ("Workers 16 life and are now enduring the endless torments of hell because they had never been "converted," according to capitalist creeds. There is no disputing the fact that the ruling class has created its god in the image of itself. It is asserted, in the face of history to the contrary, that the established churches have given woman what- evjer she now enjoys in the way of libertyand advance- ment. Bebel has given us a graphic history of woman at a time when the church ruled supreme. He says ("Woman and Socialism) : "The Roman empire at its dissolution had left to Christian Europe all its vices. These were cultivated in Rome and from there penetrated into Germany, fa- vored by association of the clergy with Rome. The numerous clergy, consisting to a great extent of men whose sexual desires were increased to the utmost by a lazy and luxurious life, and who^i celibacy drove to illegitimate or unnatural satisfaction of their desires, transmitted this immorality to all strata of society. The clergy became a pestilential danger to the virtue of women in cities and villages. Monasteries and nunneries — and there were countless numbers of them — frequently differed from public brothels only inasmuch as life within them was still more licentious and dissolute. Crimes, especially infanticide, were frequently committed there with impunity, because only those were permitted to pass judgment who were more often than not connected with the crimes. Sometimes peasants tried to protect their wives and daughters from being seduced by clergymen, by refusing to accept ag pastor anyone who would not consent to keeping a concubine. This circumstance led a bishop of Constance to impose a concubine tax upon the, clergy of his diocese. Such conditions explain the historically authenticated fact, that during the medieval age described by one writer of romance as a pious and virtuous age, for instance in 1414, at the council of Constance, no less than 1500 prostitutes were present. * * * Charlemagne issued an ordinance in the year 802, in which, it says : ' The numjeries shall be closely guairded. 19 crime proceeded. Woman was treated with the same brutality that has always marked capitalist-ruled society. "Sometimes," writes James Oneal, "the man was only required to appear before the parish church and confess his sin, while the woman was given a brutal whipping. In 1649 a woman was given fourteen lashes, while the father of her (illegitimate) child Mas sentenced to build a bridge across a creek." In North Carolina, "if a woman servant gave birth to an illegitimate child she was to serve an additional term (of servitude), and if the Master was the father, then she was sold by the church wardens for the public benefit." "White slavery, as before stated, existed in the colo- nies before the first black slaves were brought here. "The Revolution brought few changes for the better for white slaves. The traffic in them continued and the laws affect- ing them remained on the whole about the same. * * * The registry of redemptioners at Philadelphia shows that the last servant was bound in 1831. In other words, a half century had passed into history since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which declared 'all men are free and equal,' and yet the purchase of white flesh had not become extinct." ("Workers in American History.) Shipload after shipload of white emigrants were brought from Europe and sold into servitude to pay their passage. "Not all those (emigrants) who left Europe did so with the intention of serving a period of years in the colonies to pay for their passage. Many of them, after many sacrifices, saved sufficient sums to pay the expense of the voyage. But ship captains, co-operating with Neu- landers (a company organized for bringing over emi- grants), contrived methods by which they robbed emi- grants of their money and sold them into servitude to pay debts contracted on the voyage. In the" journey from their homes to the ships tolls, fees and duties were ex- acted on their baggage. The baggage itself, often con- taining money or valuables, was either stolen or sent by another boat, leaving the emigrant at the mercy of the ship master. Enormous prices were also charged for 18 in American History, page 55) that appeared in the Virginia Gazette, published at Williamsburg, Va., of July 14, 1737:, "Ran away some time in June last from William Pierce of Nansemond County, near Mr. Theophilus Pugh's, merchant; a convict servant woman, named Winifred Thomas. She is a Welsh woman, short, black haired and young; marked on the inside of her right arm with gunpowder W. T. and the date of the year underneath. She knits and spins, and is supposed to be gone by the way of Cureatuck and Roanoke inlet. Who- ever brings her to her master shall be paid a pistole be- sides what the law allows, paid by William Pierce." Capitalism, whether Roman Catholic, Protestant or heathen, whether ancient, middle-age or modern, out-' rages woman worse than it does its beasts of burden. The recent story of the women wage slaves in the cotton mills at Lawrence, Massachusetts, reeks as brutal so far as woman is concerned as any of the outrages of the past. Here, in the name of the capitalist god Mammon — the or>ly real god that capitalism knows — women were clubbed and beaten because they cried for bread. Gover- nor Poss, of Massachusetts, who poses as a good Chris- tian and a good Democrat — Lord help the combination ! — ordered his thugs to bayonet and outrage women with- out mercy. Under his authority one woman was butch- ered on the street. A little later this same governor had a preacher electrocuted for murder. "Consistency, thou art a jewel!" Here at Lawrence, nursing babies were torn from their mothers' breasts and the mothers locked in dun- geons. Two men, who dared to speak for the outraged wage slaves of the Millionaire Cotton Trust at Lawrence, are hounded to prison by the monster Capitalist class — Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, the latter editor of a labor paper. Capitalism would hang such as these for its own murders. Numerous laws were passed in the early colonies to punish the crime of bastardy — by the pious "pilgrim fathers," from whose ranks the male perpetrators of the 21 Melissa Hodgdon, in the cotton mill at Saco, Maine, is being ground in the mills of Mammon. These white slave women, in the good old Puritan days, where whipped by their masters and mistresses for any trivial offense — or for no offense at all. The capital- ist class were of the same breed that they are now, when a capitalist ruffian sits in the Governor's chair of Massa- chusetts and urges his military thugs to beat and bayonet womanhood in the streets of Lawrence. They were of the same spawn, greedy and savage, that run the great indus- trial State of Pennsylvania or the mills of the south, where women and little girls are ground into dollars because they can be "hired" cheaper than men. H. G. Creel, in the National Rip-Saw of April, 1912, tells the following in his story of the great coal strike in Pennsylvania of 1910: "The very lowest animals respect approaching motherhood. At Rillton, during an eviction, a woman in delicate health, was struck over the abdomen with a pick handle. She died without regaining consciousness and her baby was born dead in the middle of the road. At another eamp a Mrs. Kolonsky, also in delicate health, was chased by one of the mounted police, ridden down and trampled upon. Her baby was born almost imme- diately. She and the little one were buried in the same casket. The fiend who did this was 'No. 4.' More than 600 babies were born during the strike. Eighty per cent of them died. ' ' In the same article the same correspondent tells of another case — only one of many of the kind — ^that of Mrs! Bostwick, whose husband, Frank, had been shot down in his own home by the Pennsylvania Cossacks. "Crazed and unmindful of her condition of undress, Mrs. Bostwick rushed to her husband's side and at- tempted to staunch the flow of blood. She was kicked, cursed and jerked to her feet. Then a heavy chain was twisted and knotted around both wrists, cutting them cruelly. She showed me her arms, and the marks where the links bit into the flesh are still plainly visible. Taken to the front porch, she was detained under guard of one .20 meals, so that the poor wretches thus swindled were sold on their arrival in America to pay for debts forced upon them." "Woman, as has always been her unhappy lot under capitalist rule, suffered the most. These emigrant ships were so crowded and so filthy that fever often broke out and the poor wretches died by the hundreds. ' ' Two thousand died in one year of diseases resulting from overcrowding. One ship sailing in 1730, with 150 emigrants, had only 13 survivors. Another sailed in 1745 with 400 Germans, of whom only 50 lived to see America. Still another, bearing 1500, lost 1100 from deaths on the voyage. Children seldom survived the journey." "Many a time parents are compelled to see their chil- dren die of hunger, thirst or sickness, and see them cast into the water. Few women in confinement escaped with their lives ; many a mother is cast into the water with her child." This last quotation James Oneal takes from Faust, "The German Element," Vol. I, pages 70-71. Oneal has clinched every statement in his book with facts taken from recognized authority. He quotes from Geiser 's ' ' Redemptioners ' ' : "When these slave ships landed at Philadelphia or other ports the scenes were pathetic in the extreme. The immigrants are examined before the ship casts anchor. Those not paying their passage are advertised in the newspapers for sale. Unmarried people of both sexes find ready buyers. Old married people, widows and the fee- ble, are a drug on the market, unless they have healthy children who assume the debts of the parents, which ex- tends the period of their servitude. * * * Batches of twenty-five and fifty are purchased by the hated 'soul drivers' and retailed to wealthy farmers. This auction of white flesh is a common occurrence in Philadelphia and excites no more comment than the sale of hogs." "The widows and the feeble are a drug on the mar- ket" — ^the old, worn-out mothers are useless to the mas- ters. To-day many a weary one of these old mothers is bending with aching back over a wash tub to support her declining years, or, like the^ story elsewhere told of old 23 history of "woman the private property of man" is a beautiful thing, according to Elder Lemmons. He cites that Sarah belonged to Abraham — ^that she was Abra- ham's private property — because God gave her to Abra- ham. God also gave Hagar to Abraham. Abraham owned numerous other women. They were pitiable slaves, forced to submit to Abraham's lust. Rev. Lemmons is afraid that Socialism would destroy man's private ownership of our mothers, wives and daugh- ters. It would. Socialism Destroys Slavery of Every Sort. Slavery so Far Has Only Been Scotched — Social- ism Will Annihilate It. Socialism Will Set "Woman Po- litically and Economically free. She cannot ask for more. Only a brute would offer her less. There are estimated to be about 600,000 prostitutes in the United States, women and girls driven to lives of shame by the lash of poverty. Says Kate Richards O'Hare, in her "Law and the White Slaver:" "If there are hundreds of thousands of prostitutes in our nation, they are prostitutes simply because they were forced to work at wa^es that would not support them and must sell their bodies or starve. * * * Our sons go down to the brothel and there in their warm, fresh youth are con- taminated with germs of the vilest disease known to medical science, the one incurable disease. * * * The disease that not only strikes down its own generation, but lies in wait for generations yet unborn; that loathsome, nameless horror that has killed more men than war, ruined more women's lives, cursed piore babies than any other disease on earth ! Back to the palace, the cottage and the hovel comes this nameless horror, the fruit of prostitution ; back to our innocent daughters through our ignorant sons ; back to our unborn children ; back to curse and maim and slay, and it is we women who suffer most. * * * If I could have one wish fulfilled it would be that all mankind might have one pair of eyes and one pair of ears, that I could force it to go with me to places where the effects of our system are most apparent. To the blind asylum where eyes will never see and hands will grope in everlasting darkness; to the deaf and dumb institute where ears will never hear nor tongues speak ; to imtecile 22 of the deputies. Her requests for clothing were met with sneers and indecent remarks. She did not know if her husband was living or dead, being eared for or tortured by the deputies in the house. At the end of an hour she was allowed to insufficiently clothe herself. A, pair of shoes — ^no stockings — ^were pulled on her feet, and in this condition she was walked half a mile, still chained like a dog, to the company's office. For another hour she was kept there, the center of a grinning circle of twenty depu- ties, who amused themselves by passing vile remarks and torturing her otherwise. At last a whispered word was passed at the door and she was released," Throughout the strike it was the rule to outrage and terrify the wives of strikers. Of the condition of women workers in the iron indus- tries of Pennsylvania, Creel writes: "Probably the most damnable plants visited were those of the Pittsburgh Screw and Bolt Works and the nut and bolt section of the Oliver plant at Pittsburgh. I saw women with gunny sacks for aprons rolling barrels of bolts I could not have handled. It is a stretch of imagination to call them women. They are great female draft animals stalking about in a half-erect position, with hands hardened and blackened all out of semblance to human bodily mem- bers." The capitalist system cares nothing for the homes of the workers, nor for their mothers, wives and daughters. The majority of the working class have no homes — they live in rented tenements — and their mothers, wives and daughters mostly lead forlorn lives. Down in their hearts the ruling class and its lackeys despise woman. One capitalist hireling,* who poses as a religious teacher, and who has written a pamphlet for the purpose of "demolishing Socialism," is brutally frank enough to declare that "God gave to man the woman in the begin- ning, and she, therefore, became his private property. For this reason he can treat her right ; otherwise he would feel toward her entirely different." This latter-day pul- piteer boldly puts woman in the same category with barn- yard animals, so far as her ownership is concerned. The »W. p. Lemmons, "The Evils of Socialism." 25 OUR INDUSTRIAL HELLS. Annie Marion MacLean, professor of sociology in Delphi College, has written a book* that portrays the lives of the women in the industrial mills of America. The author of this book investigated four hundred establish- ments employing 135,000 women in more than a score of our large cities. Rightly does she say the book "should be of interest to those who care at all about the millions of girls who arise early and go forth to a weary day, spent in the main in making things that concern us greatly." The book should be of special interest to the churches that approve of our present capitalist system. Of the great cotton industries in New England this writer says. ' ' Life is grim in the Fall River mills and the women come perilously near having the mien of 'beasts of burden.' " When the women wage slaves of these New England mills revolt at being made like unto beasts of burden, Capitalism sends its armed thugs to subdue them. About 37,000 women work in the shoe factories in this country — about one-third of them being employed at Lynn, Mass. Formerly the New England farmers "who tilled the fields in summer made shoes in winter, and long before the time of the middleman exchanged them for goods at the Boston stores. The men cut, lasted, and at- tached the soles in the shops, while the women bound them in their homes. ' ' Nearly every woman had her shoe basket, containing uppers and linings, and beside her ordinary household duties strove each day to bind a num- ber of shoes. It was in those days that Lucy Lareom wrote her "Hannah." Poor lone Hannah, Sitting at the window binding shoes; Faded and wrinlcled, Sitting stitching in a mournful muse. Bright-eyed beauty once was she, When the bloom was on the tree; Spring and winter Hannah's at the window binding shoes. Then came the big machine ; and the merciless Trust ; and Hannah is now one of the thousands of women wage- slaves, driven spring, summer, fall and winter into the ♦"Wage-Earning Women." The MacMillan Co., N. T. refuges where the idiot and the imbecile mutter and mumble in their degradation; to the insane ward where the insane shriek and beat the bars of their padded cells, or gaze out into a vacant world through vacant eyes; to the free hospital and clinic, to the slum and gutter, to the home and the graveside — yes, and to the fashionable watering places and hot springs where gold can gild but cannot hide bent, distorted bodies and loathsome eating ulcers. Priest and politician, editor and statesman have told women that these things were not of our concern, we must keep ourselves pure and ignorant and trust to the chivalry of man to protect us and our own. 'No concern of ours?' No, possibly not if we are dolls stuffed with sawdust, satisfied with fine phrases, content with false chivalry, willing to be fed on flattery. "Women who have been so fortunate as to annex a biped without feathers who can pay their board bill and supply the requisite amount of jute puffs and hobble skirts, 'have no concern.' But suppose we happen to be women with brains and hearts and souls, women who develop backbone enough not to be compelled to do the 'clinging vine' act, women who are womanly enough to feel for all the race, moth- erly enough to mother all childhood, then have we not the right to protest against the abhorrent demands of capi- talism?" Thousands of married women to-day endure lives of agony under capitalism. Says Edward Carpenter (Love coming of Age). "It is not difficult to see that women -really free would never countenance for their mates the many mean and unclean types of men who to-day have things all their own way, nor consent to have children by such men, nor is it difficult to imagine that the feminine influence might thus sway to the evolution of a more manly- and dignified race than has been disclosed in the last days of commercial civilization. ' ' These silent but suffering wives are forced to en- dure lives of misery and degradation because capitalism has closed the earth and the fullness thereof against them. 27 is dumb as an oyster about proposing any cure for the social diseases she exposes. She suggests everything, from Young Women's Christian Associations to Working Girls' Clubs, to patch up things. She fails to mention what a relief it would be to the working class if the ex- ploiters would get off their backs. Like all capitalist apologists, she evidently assumes that human beings can be robbed of three-quarters of what they produce and still hi happy. In "free" America to-day, with the exception of those few states where universal suffrage exists, we still class woman with lunatics and criminals. They cannot vote — ^they have no voice in the arrangement of the so- ciety under which they live. The growth of liberalism in thought and democracy in government has brought more protection to woman before the law, but she is still in the civilized world an inferior creature to man. But capitalism does not confine its claws to dragging only the women who are "sixteen years of age or over" into its inferno. Not only young boys, but little girls are torn from the nursery and playtime of their lives to feed the lustful money lords. The story of the girl child-slaves — little tots in their "teens" — in the Southern cotton mills is a tragedy more heartrending than the destruction of the Titanic. If capitalism had any humanity or de- cency whatever in its make-up, it would shudder at the sight of the wrecked bodies and souls of mere babes it has made in its mad lust for profit. These little girls are, in many instances, virtually worn-out old women when the blush of maidenhood should adorn their cheeks. They die by the hundreds of anaemias-lack of red blood — before they are thirty. They are simply murdered by the ruling god of gold. The late George Bigelow, formerly a prominent cler- gyman in the Christian Church, and once candidate for governor on the Prohibition ticket in the State of Ne- braska, but who finally, found that the economic life was the determining factor in society and joined the Socialist Party, paid the writer a visit a short time before he died. He had made an extensive investigation of the conditions of child labor in the Southern cotton mills. Once, he nar- 26 grinding shoe factories. Her wages average, for the fifty- two weeks of the year, about $6.00 a week. She is some- times sick and cannot work at all. And capitalism and the capitalist church points with pride to the blessings its reign and-religion have brought to woman. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, of May 17, 1912, I clip the following press dispatch : New York, May 17. — ^Mrs. Hannah Saunders, 75 years old, is dying- in the Fordham Hospital from exposure, the result of sitting for two days on the sidewalk beside her meager household furniture in front of a Third avenue tenement, from which she was dispossessed on Tuesday. Is this case isolated? No. New York City turns more women and children out in the streets because they are unable to pay the rent than the landlords of Ireland evict. At about the same hour that old Hannah Sauuders was dying in Fordham Hospital, Miss Aimee Hutchinson was discharged from her job — which meant her bread and butter— by a well-fed priest who owned the job, because she had shown symptoms of revolt against the enslave- ment of her sex. This is from the New York World : Miss Aimee Hutchinson is the first church-made martyr of the votes for women cause In America. She has been forced by the Rev. Matthew A. Taylor to resign her posi- tion as secretary and teacher in the parochial school of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament because she marched in the suffrage parade up Fifth avenue on May 4. Miss Hutchinson, who has grown from childhood to wo- manhood in the school, feels as if she had been thrust into outer darkness. But in all her distress at leaving the Sis- ters and the pupils, by whom she Is beloved, her adherence to her suffrage principles has not wavered. Her sister teachers were aware of her intention to ap- pear in the parade, but Father Taylor, if he knew, made no sign. After the parade was over he sent for her and said that to him woman suffrage was the open door to Socialism and he did not believe in continiUng its advo- cates in the school. He, therefore, asked for Miss Hutch- inson's resignation and paid her in full till September 1. The "open door to Socialism" was opened still wider by the act of this capitalist priest. There will be a rush of women through that welcome open door in the near future that will wipe away forever the power of any man to deny woman the right to live. There are in the United States, 16 years of age and over, 4,833,630 women wage-earners. In the book men- tioned — ""Wage Earning "Women" — the author, Annie Marion MacLean, tells of the miserable existence of the majority of these women. But, sad to relate, this writer 29 of One who declared that it were better that a millstone were fastened about your neck and you were thrown into the sea than that you offend one of these little ones.* Those that knowingly vote to maintain a system that upholds such atrocities can tag themselves with any relig- ious name they choose. The fact remains that the thing is savagery. It is worse — no savage lives off the labor of his little ones. No wild animal is guilty of the crime. It is only civilized man that stoops to do it. It is not, however, the intent of the rank and file of our citizenship that the woman and her child are outraged by the ruling class. It is the social system that we live under — that allows one class to exploit another class — that is responsible for the crime. It is the ignorance — not the intent— of the working class that makes them tolerate the system. They are hynotized by the myths and lies of their masters, the clergy and the politicians. Home is a sweet word to all of us — sadly sweet to the millions who have no homes — but home is dearer and sweeter to woman that words can express. The divine instinct of motherhood and the sacred mother love of the child, these center and cling about the name of home with all the strength of that love. And these mothers of ours — the mothers of the working class — ^in a large majority of instances — have no homes ! Capitalism has denied homes to *The following lines, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, graphically de- scribe the little girl slaves in the Southern cotton mills: Oh, the silence of the children in the Sunny South to-day, ■ It is sadder than the cry of fettered slaves. Lean and listen, and you will hear the roaring of the mill And the sighing of the winds through open graves; But the voices of the children — they are still — • Oh, the roaring of the mill, of the mill. In this boasted land of freedom they are bonded baby slaves; And the busy world goes by and does not heed. They are driven to the mill just to glut and overfill Bursting coffers of the Plutocrats of Greed. When they perish we are told it is "God's will" — Oh, the roaring of the mill, of the mill. Still from valley, plain and hamlet, lofty steeples proudly rise, And the droning tones of preachers prate of crimes; And the Gospel venders still sell the people of the mill Lakes of fire and fields of glory for their dimes. And they pray beside the graves the children fill — Oh, the roaring ol th« mill, of the mill. 2S rated, he obtained permission to remain over night in one of the mills. Of course, he had to conceal his real mission. He was supposed to be a capitalist looking for profitable investment. These mills run two shifts, day and night. Such state laws as exist in regard to the age of a child before she can be employed are ruthlessly broken. Tender girls seven and eight years of age are as greedily devoured 'by the Plunderbund as their somewhat older sisters. Our ' ' Chris- tian" masters, crazy for gold, care nothing for childhood or womanhood — all they care for is profit. During that night he spent in the mill, George Bige- low saw sights that would make a savage shudder. About midnight these little tots became so sleepy they could hardly keep their eyes open. Nature was crying out against the outrage. The man in charge then proceeded to keep them awake. He went around with pots of black coffee and tin cups and gave it to the little girls to drink. You do not have to be a physician to realize the destruc- tive effects of this upon the children's nerves, when re- peated night after night. The false stimulation did its temporary work, the blinking eyes brightened a bit, and again the tired baby fingers caught the ends of the broken threads upon the loom and deftly tied them together. This continuous watching for broken threads — the quick action needed to tie them — this is the nerve-racking work of the child-slaves in the cotton mills. Along towards morning, a little before daybreak, even the effects of copious draughts of black coffee wore off. Sleepy eyelids again began to droop, weary heads began to nod, little hands moved slower towards the looms and little fingers could scarcely tie the broken threads. Then the brute instinct of Mammon again fought Mother Nature. The same man in charge passed down the line with a bucket of cold water and a dipper and dashed the water in the childrens' faces. The next day Mr. Bigelow found that this man, in charge of the night shift, at the mill, was a superintendent in the Sunday school — a pretended follower and teacher 31 — the Brotherhood of Man. His teachings were garbled and doctored by the priests' that wrote of him years after his tragic death, yet, will we but search, the sweet message that he taught, the burden of his soul, can easily be found. He was not the tortured god of the dogmatic creeds — ^he was the lowly Carpenter, the brother of the workers, the friend of man and the lover of woman. The fallen and outcast Magdalene found in him a comrade, and with the other Mary, and Salome, went weeping to his tomb. ' ' Call no man master," said this sweet-souled Carpenter, "for all ye are brethren." He cared naught for the traditions of the elders or the sacred books. "With him it was, "It is written so and so, but I say unto you something differ- ent." He wrote no book, he formed no creed. He simply trusted that the words he spoke and the dream he dreamed would some day find expression and life in the soul of his class, the working class. For the Father, he said, had anointed him to_bring glad tidings to the proletariat. He had come to set the captive free. Again and again his ten- der heart bled for all who bore the heavy burdens, but with more anguish than all for woman, the doubly chained captive. Had he not defied the biblical laws that con- demned the woman? Ha,d he not scattered the men who would stone her for that, which their very actions proved, they themselves had been guilty of? "I do not condemn thee, go thy way and sin no more," were new words — they' are stUl as new — ^to woman. And to Mary the harlot! She loved him much, be- cause he, in all the woman-hated world, had gladly called her his friend. Take all — all the conflicting words of the men who blindly tried to interpret this Carpenter, and do with them as you will. I care not. The few preserved sentences that fell from his passionate lips — the scathing denunciation of the master class and the infinite love of the outcast — ^these are all I want. I turn from the dogmatic epistles, haK ancient Judaism and half Greek mythology, and I go again with the Carpenter down the beaten path to Bethany, where in an humble home lived Mary and Martha. There I still can hear the music of his voice, the simple story of human love and brotherhood, as on the vine-clad porch he told it time and again to these two - 22 women. And the little children, how they swarmed to meet him. He was their comrade, their lover and the com- panion of their childhood. And now another voice, per- haps more stern than his, cries glad tidings to the woman and her child. It is the world-wide call of Socialism. Women, children, when every chain is broken, yours shall be the greater freedom, for yours has been the greater slavery ! SORROWS OP CUPID. Eight years ago Kate tie 64 -page Dooklet, "WHAT HAPPEteD X0' DAN"— when the great edition was e3diauste(J the book was ex^ panded iliito 112 pages ana called- "The Sorrows of Cu- pid'!; i*henv time would per- mit, Mrs. O'Hare continued, the/work of enlarging and ^ lihproving this beautiful work until now it is a fine large volume of many chap- ters. It; iOpvers the entire .'ease of capitalism from the point of most intense human lnte!»est. Love,— marHage, — home,T— babie's, all the sweet and tender- thoughts that this gifted wrtter has ex- pressed in her many written articles are gathered here; a book that every wife and mother, esei-y husband and father, every lover and maid- en should have by them. • Llffe will be sweeter and richer ; for you when you have read "The Sorrows of Cupid." WORKERS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. James bneal of Terre; Haute, 'Ind.)' spelit seven years of study and research to write a book, "The Workers in American History," telUrig for tBe-firsl; timei the history of the American toiling masses, from the days of Co.l^mlius u.ntjl the Mexican War, This is a wonder- ful book. Either of these great books will be sent pre-paid on receipt of prt&e: ■■■.."-, HBRARi" EDi¥liO!V, PlUK CLOTH BINDISTG, GENUUTE GOLD LEAF eMBOSS1!VG( PINE BOOK PAPER »14)0 SAME, BUT IN PAPER COVERS ...'........ ■.': JSO REMBM6ER— If you are not taking THE NATIONAL. RIP-SAW you are missing something great. The subscrijitlon price is only 50 centSj^a year^-in cluBS' of four (4) or more, 25 o4ntS a year. The Rip>SS,i»« also sells sii^bScriptioil Cards, each card good for tfne year's ■ subscription,- In lots of (our (4) or more at 25 Cents etoh. Ton can sell •tJieSe^oaras any time ;to your friends. They are always good for a year's subsoriptioni , • ,j BUT'liOOK HERE— You can get either oi these above mentioned Ijbotes, bonnd In strong paper cover, retail price 50 cents, by sending in only 12 yearly: subs to the Hlp-SaV, or by buying 12 sub cards. ALMOST EVERYBODY YOTir , ASK WILL TJ^KE THE RIP-SAW— THEY ALL VANT IT.. Just''try;:and see how easy It is to get your nei^'bors . and firiends to take the JSlp-Saw; Do this and get a copy Of Kale Richards O'Hare's or Oneal's book for your library FREE. THE NATIONAL RIP-SAW ■_ ' . ■ ,„'8Ti, LOUIS, MO. Sample Copies Rlp-Saw Sent onrReqnest. ' ■ anantttT prices on "Tke Workers In American History" and ''Tlie Sorrows of Cupid." ■■■■"■'' ■ .,:LIBRARV''EDITIOSf.' ,;'/•■,,,■■; ,-. .,„„' , Five copies, prepaid,' for »4.00» 1« copies, »«»;««», *»^»T.00» 85 eo^tes, not pi^ald, for |a3.75; 50 Ckpples, not prepaid, for 926.00) 100 copies, not prepaid, for'*^7.50. ' ■■> / . IN STRONG PAPER COVERS. ,«,.i „^ Fire copies, prepaid, tor »2.00r 10 copies, prepaldj for |a.50) .ST. copied, not prepaid, for WJ.87J BO copies, not prepaid, for «1S,50| IM copies, not prepaid, for *a3.7B. . .„.*" j