Anarchism and Other Essays
methods; but a certitude would sustain us in our efforts--namely,
that even without reaching our aim completely we should do more and
better in our still imperfect work than the present school
accomplishes. I like the free spontaneity of a child who knows
nothing, better than the world-knowledge and intellectual deformity
of a child who has been subjected to our present education."[5]
Had Ferrer actually organized the riots, had he fought on the
barricades, had he hurled a hundred bombs, he could not have been so
dangerous to the Catholic Church and to despotism, as with his
opposition to discipline and restraint. Discipline and
restraint--are they not back of all the evils in the world?
Slavery, submission, poverty, all misery, all social iniquities
result from discipline and restraint. Indeed, Ferrer was dangerous.
Therefore he had to die, October thirteenth, 1909, in the ditch of
Montjuich. Yet who dare say his death was in vain? In view of the
tempestuous rise of universal indignation: Italy naming streets in
memory of Francisco Ferrer, Belgium inaugurating a movement to erect
a memorial; France calling to the front her most illustrious men to
resume the heritage of the martyr; England being the first to issue a
biography:--all countries uniting in perpetuating the great work of
Francisco Ferrer; America, even, tardy always in progressive ideas,
giving birth to a Francisco Ferrer Association, its aim being to
publish a complete life of Ferrer and to organize Modern Schools all
over the country; in the face of this international revolutionary
wave, who is there to say Ferrer died in vain?
That death at Montjuich,--how wonderful, how dramatic it was, how it
stirs the human soul. Proud and erect, the inner eye turned toward
the light, Francisco Ferrer needed no lying priests to give him
courage, nor did he upbraid a phantom for forsaking him. The
consciousness that his executioners represented a dying age, and that
his was the living truth, sustained him in the last heroic moments.
A dying age and a living truth,
The living burying the dead.
[1] THE BEEHIVE.
[2] MOTHER EARTH, 1907.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Black crows: The Catholic clergy.
[5] MOTHER EARTH, December, 1909.
THE HYPOCRISY OF PURITANISM
Speaking of Puritanism in relation to American art, Mr. Gutzen
Burglum said: "Puritanism has made us self-centered and hypocritical
for so long, that sincerity and reverence for what is natural in our
impulses have been fairly bred out of us, with the result that there
can be neither truth nor individuality in our art."
Mr. Burglum might have added that Puritanism has made life itself
impossible. More than art, more than estheticism, life represents
beauty in a thousand variations; it is, indeed, a gigantic panorama
of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed
and immovable conception of life; it is based on the Calvinistic idea
that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order
to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every
natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty.
Puritanism celebrated its reign of terror in England during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, destroying and crushing every
manifestation of art and culture. It was the spirit of Puritanism
which robbed Shelley of his children, because he would not bow to the
dicta of religion. It was the same narrow spirit which alienated
Byron from his native land, because that great genius rebelled
against the monotony, dullness, and pettiness of his country. It was
Puritanism, too, that forced some of England's freest women into the
conventional lie of marriage: Mary Wollstonecraft and, later, George
Eliot. And recently Puritanism has demanded another toll--the life
of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Puritanism has never ceased to be the most
pernicious factor in the domain of John Bull, acting as censor of the
artistic expression of his people, and stamping its approval only on
the dullness of middle-class respectability.
It is therefore sheer British jingoism which points to America as the
country of Puritanic provincialism. It is quite true that our life
is stunted by Puritanism, and that the latter is killing what is
natural and healthy in our impulses. But it is equally true that it
is to England that we are indebted for transplanting this spirit on
American soil. It was bequeathed to us by the Pilgrim fathers.
Fleeing from persecution and oppression, the Pilgrims of Mayflower
fame established in the New World a reign of Puritanic tyranny and
crime. The history of New England, and especially of Massachusetts,
is full of the horrors that have turned life into gloom, joy into
despair, naturalness into disease, honesty and truth into hideous
lies and hypocrisies. The ducking-stool and whipping post, as well
as numerous other devices of torture, were the favorite English
methods for American purification.
Boston, the city of culture, has gone down in the annals of
Puritanism as the "Bloody Town." It rivaled Salem, even, in her
cruel persecution of unauthorized religious opinions. On the now
famous Common a half-naked woman, with a baby in her arms, was
publicly whipped for the crime of free speech; and on the same spot
Mary Dyer, another Quaker woman, was hanged in 1659. In fact, Boston
has been the scene of more than one wanton crime committed by
Puritanism. Salem, in the summer of 1692, killed eighteen people for
witchcraft. Nor was Massachusetts alone in driving out the devil by
fire and brimstone. As Canning justly said: "The Pilgrim fathers
infested the New World to redress the balance of the Old." The
horrors of that period have found their most supreme expression in
the American classic, THE SCARLET LETTER.
Puritanism no longer employs the thumbscrew and lash; but it still
has a most pernicious hold on the minds and feelings of the American
people. Naught else can explain the power of a Comstock. Like the
Torquemadas of ante-bellum days, Anthony Comstock is the autocrat of
American morals; he dictates the standards of good and evil, of
purity and vice. Like a thief in the night he sneaks into the
private lives of the people, into their most intimate relations.
The system of espionage established by this man Comstock puts to
shame the infamous Third Division of the Russian secret police. Why
does the public tolerate such an outrage on its liberties? Simply
because Comstock is but the loud expression of the Puritanism bred in
the Anglo-Saxon blood, and from whose thraldom even liberals have not
succeeded in fully emancipating themselves. The visionless and
leaden elements of the old Young Men's and Women's Christian
Temperance Unions, Purity Leagues, American Sabbath Unions, and the
Prohibition Party, with Anthony Comstock as their patron saint, are
the grave diggers of American art and culture.
Europe can at least boast of a bold art and literature which delve
deeply into the social and sexual problems of our time, exercising a
severe critique of all our shams. As with a surgeon's knife every
Puritanic carcass is dissected, and the way thus cleared for man's
liberation from the dead weights of the past. But with Puritanism as
the constant check upon American life, neither truth nor sincerity is
possible. Nothing but gloom and mediocrity to dictate human conduct,
curtail natural expression, and stifle our best impulses.
Puritanism in this the twentieth century is as much the enemy of
freedom and beauty as it was when it landed on Plymouth Rock. It
repudiates, as something vile and sinful, our deepest feelings; but
being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions,
Puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices.
The entire history of asceticism proves this to be only too true.
The Church, as well as Puritanism, has fought the flesh as something
evil; it had to be subdued and hidden at all cost. The result of
this vicious attitude is only now beginning to be recognized by
modern thinkers and educators. They realize that "nakedness has a
hygienic value as well as a spiritual significance, far beyond its
influences in allaying the natural inquisitiveness of the young or
acting as a preventative of morbid emotion. It is an inspiration to
adults who have long outgrown any youthful curiosities. The vision
of the essential and eternal human form, the nearest thing to us in
all the world, with its vigor and its beauty and its grace, is one of
the prime tonics of life."[1] But the spirit of purism has so perverted
the human mind that it has lost the power to appreciate the beauty of
nudity, forcing us to hide the natural form under the plea of
chastity. Yet chastity itself is but an artificial imposition upon
nature, expressive of a false shame of the human form. The modern
idea of chastity, especially in reference to woman, its greatest
victim, is but the sensuous exaggeration of our natural impulses.
"Chastity varies with the amount of clothing," and hence Christians
and purists forever hasten to cover the "heathen" with tatters, and
thus convert him to goodness and chastity.
Puritanism, with its perversion of the significance and functions of
the human body, especially in regard to woman, has condemned her to
celibacy, or to the indiscriminate breeding of a diseased race, or to
prostitution. The enormity of this crime against humanity is
apparent when we consider the results. Absolute sexual continence is
imposed upon the unmarried woman, under pain of being considered
immoral or fallen, with the result of producing neurasthenia,
impotence, depression, and a great variety of nervous complaints
involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life,
sleeplessness, and preoccupation with sexual desires and imaginings.
The arbitrary and pernicious dictum of total continence probably also
explains the mental inequality of the sexes. Thus Freud believes
that the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the
inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual
repression. Having thus suppressed the natural sex desires of the
unmarried woman, Puritanism, on the other hand, blesses her married
sister for incontinent fruitfulness in wedlock. Indeed, not merely
blesses her, but forces the woman, oversexed by previous repression,
to bear children, irrespective of weakened physical condition or
economic inability to rear a large family. Prevention, even by
scientifically determined safe methods, is absolutely prohibited;
nay, the very mention of the subject is considered criminal.
Thanks to this Puritanic tyranny, the majority of women soon find
themselves at the ebb of their physical resources. Ill and worn,
they are utterly unable to give their children even elementary care.
That, added to economic pressure, forces many women to risk utmost
danger rather than continue to bring forth life. The custom of
procuring abortions has reached such vast proportions in America as
to be almost beyond belief. According to recent investigations along
this line, seventeen abortions are committed in every hundred
pregnancies. This fearful percentage represents only cases which
come to the knowledge of physicians. Considering the secrecy in
which this practice is necessarily shrouded, and the consequent
professional inefficiency and neglect, Puritanism continuously exacts
thousands of victims to its own stupidity and hypocrisy.
Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is
nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism. It is its most
cherished child, all hypocritical sanctimoniousness notwithstanding.
The prostitute is the fury of our century, sweeping across the