Anarchism and Other Essays
"civilized" countries like a hurricane, and leaving a trail of
disease and disaster. The only remedy Puritanism offers for this
ill-begotten child is greater repression and more merciless
persecution. The latest outrage is represented by the Page Law,
which imposes upon New York the terrible failure and crime of Europe;
namely, registration and segregation of the unfortunate victims of
Puritanism. In equally stupid manner purism seeks to check the
terrible scourge of its own creation--venereal diseases. Most
disheartening it is that this spirit of obtuse narrow-mindedness has
poisoned even our so-called liberals, and has blinded them into
joining the crusade against the very things born of the hypocrisy of
Puritanism--prostitution and its results. In wilful blindness
Puritanism refuses to see that the true method of prevention is the
one which makes it clear to all that "venereal diseases are not a
mysterious or terrible thing, the penalty of the sin of the flesh, a
sort of shameful evil branded by purist malediction, but an ordinary
disease which may be treated and cured." By its methods of
obscurity, disguise, and concealment, Puritanism has furnished
favorable conditions for the growth and spread of these diseases.
Its bigotry is again most strikingly demonstrated by the senseless
attitude in regard to the great discovery of Prof. Ehrlich, hypocrisy
veiling the important cure for syphilis with vague allusions to a
remedy for "a certain poison."
The almost limitless capacity of Puritanism for evil is due to its
intrenchment behind the State and the law. Pretending to safeguard
the people against "immorality," it has impregnated the machinery of
government and added to its usurpation of moral guardianship the
legal censorship of our views, feelings, and even of our conduct.
Art, literature, the drama, the privacy of the mails, in fact, our
most intimate tastes, are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant.
Anthony Comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been
given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest
creation of nature--the human form. Books dealing with the most
vital issues of our lives, and seeking to shed light upon dangerously
obscured problems, are legally treated as criminal offenses, and their
helpless authors thrown into prison or driven to destruction and
death.
Not even in the domain of the Tsar is personal liberty daily outraged
to the extent it is in America, the stronghold of the Puritanic
eunuchs. Here the only day of recreation left to the masses, Sunday,
has been made hideous and utterly impossible. All writers on
primitive customs and ancient civilization agree that the Sabbath was
a day of festivities, free from care and duties, a day of general
rejoicing and merry-making. In every European country this tradition
continues to bring some relief from the humdrum and stupidity of our
Christian era. Everywhere concert halls, theaters, museums, and
gardens are filled with men, women, and children, particularly
workers with their families, full of life and joy, forgetful of the
ordinary rules and conventions of their every-day existence. It is
on that day that the masses demonstrate what life might really mean
in a sane society, with work stripped of its profit-making,
soul-destroying purpose.
Puritanism has robbed the people even of that one day. Naturally,
only the workers are affected: our millionaires have their luxurious
homes and elaborate clubs. The poor, however, are condemned to the
monotony and dullness of the American Sunday. The sociability and
fun of European outdoor life is here exchanged for the gloom of the
church, the stuffy, germ-saturated country parlor, or the brutalizing
atmosphere of the back-room saloon. In Prohibition States the people
lack even the latter, unless they can invest their meager earnings in
quantities of adulterated liquor. As to Prohibition, every one knows
what a farce it really is. Like all other achievements of Puritanism
it, too, has but driven the "devil" deeper into the human system.
Nowhere else does one meet so many drunkards as in our Prohibition
towns. But so long as one can use scented candy to abate the foul
breath of hypocrisy, Puritanism is triumphant. Ostensibly
Prohibition is opposed to liquor for reasons of health and economy,
but the very spirit of Prohibition being itself abnormal, it succeeds
but in creating an abnormal life.
Every stimulus which quickens the imagination and raises the spirits,
is as necessary to our life as air. It invigorates the body, and
deepens our vision of human fellowship. Without stimuli, in one form
or another, creative work is impossible, nor indeed the spirit of
kindliness and generosity. The fact that some great geniuses have
seen their reflection in the goblet too frequently, does not justify
Puritanism in attempting to fetter the whole gamut of human emotions.
A Byron and a Poe have stirred humanity deeper than all the Puritans
can ever hope to do. The former have given to life meaning and
color; the latter are turning red blood into water, beauty into
ugliness, variety into uniformity and decay. Puritanism, in whatever
expression, is a poisonous germ. On the surface everything may look
strong and vigorous; yet the poison works its way persistently, until
the entire fabric is doomed. With Hippolyte Taine, every truly free
spirit has come to realize that "Puritanism is the death of culture,
philosophy, humor, and good fellowship; its characteristics are
dullness, monotony, and gloom."
[1] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. Havelock Ellis.
THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN
Our reformers have suddenly made a great discovery--the white slave
traffic. The papers are full of these "unheard of conditions," and
lawmakers are already planning a new set of laws to check the horror.
It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted
from a great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against
indecency, gambling, saloons, etc. And what is the result of such
crusades? Gambling is increasing, saloons are doing a lively
business through back entrances, prostitution is at its height, and
the system of pimps and cadets is but aggravated.
How is it that an institution, known almost to every child, should
have been discovered so suddenly? How is it that this evil, known to
all sociologists, should now be made such an important issue?
To assume that the recent investigation of the white slave traffic
(and, by the way, a very superficial investigation) has discovered
anything new, is, to say the least, very foolish. Prostitution has
been, and is, a widespread evil, yet mankind goes on its business,
perfectly indifferent to the sufferings and distress of the victims
of prostitution. As indifferent, indeed, as mankind has remained to
our industrial system, or to economic prostitution.
Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors
will baby people become interested--for a while at least. The people
are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day. The
"righteous" cry against the white slave traffic is such a toy. It
serves to amuse the people for a little while, and it will help to
create a few more fat political jobs--parasites who stalk about the
world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth.
What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white
women, but yellow and black women as well. Exploitation, of course;
the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labor,
thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution. With
Mrs. Warren these girls feel, "Why waste your life working for a few
shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day?"
Naturally our reformers say nothing about this cause. They know it
well enough, but it doesn't pay to say anything about it. It is much
more profitable to play the Pharisee, to pretend an outraged
morality, than to go to the bottom of things.
However, there is one commendable exception among the young writers:
Reginald Wright Kauffman, whose work, THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, is the
first earnest attempt to treat the social evil, not from a
sentimental Philistine viewpoint. A journalist of wide experience,
Mr. Kauffman proves that our industrial system leaves most women no
alternative except prostitution. The women portrayed in THE HOUSE OF
BONDAGE belong to the working class. Had the author portrayed the
life of women in other spheres, he would have been confronted with
the same state of affairs.
Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but
rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should
pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with
sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells
herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. Whether
our reformers admit it or not, the economic and social inferiority of
woman is responsible for prostitution.
Just at present our good people are shocked by the disclosures that
in New York City alone, one out of every ten women works in a
factory, that the average wage received by women is six dollars per
week for forty-eight to sixty hours of work, and that the majority of
female wage workers face many months of idleness which leaves the
average wage about $280 a year. In view of these economic horrors,
is it to be wondered at that prostitution and the white slave trade
have become such dominant factors?
Lest the preceding figures be considered an exaggeration, it is well
to examine what some authorities on prostitution have to say:
"A prolific cause of female depravity can be found in the several
tables, showing the description of the employment pursued, and the
wages received, by the women previous to their fall, and it will be a
question for the political economist to decide how far mere business
consideration should be an apology on the part of employers for a
reduction in their rates of remuneration, and whether the savings of
a small percentage on wages is not more than counter-balanced by the
enormous amount of taxation enforced on the public at large to defray
the expenses incurred on account of a system of vice, WHICH IS THE
DIRECT RESULT, IN MANY CASES, OF INSUFFICIENT COMPENSATION OF HONEST
LABOR."[1]
Our present-day reformers would do well to look into Dr. Sanger's
book. There they will find that out of 2,000 cases under his
observation, but few came from the middle classes, from well-ordered
conditions, or pleasant homes. By far the largest majority were
working girls and working women; some driven into prostitution
through sheer want, others because of a cruel, wretched life at home,
others again because of thwarted and crippled physical natures (of
which I shall speak later on). Also it will do the maintainers of
purity and morality good to learn that out of two thousand cases, 490
were married women, women who lived with their husbands. Evidently
there was not much of a guaranty for their "safety and purity" in the
sanctity of marriage.[2]
Dr. Alfred Blaschko, in PROSTITUTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, is
even more emphatic in characterizing economic conditions as one of
the most vital factors of prostitution.
"Although prostitution has existed in all ages, it was left to the
nineteenth century to develop it into a gigantic social institution.
The development of industry with vast masses of people in the
competitive market, the growth and congestion of large cities, the
insecurity and uncertainty of employment, has given prostitution an
impetus never dreamed of at any period in human history."
And again Havelock Ellis, while not so absolute in dealing with the
economic cause, is nevertheless compelled to admit that it is