HE TRUTH les 1. APRIL. 1903 No. 19 Oman Under Socialism m m By Caroline Fairfield Corbin HE TRUTH SOCIETY. 562 Harrison Street. Chicago THE TRUTH Series 1. APRIL. 1903 No. 19 Woman Under Socialism By Caroline Fairfield Corbin THE TRUTH SOCIETY, 562 Harrison Street, Chicago LIST OF PUBLlGflTIONS VOL I. CONTENTS No. 1 — Catholic Church and Marriagre Tie. No. 2 — Socialism. No. 3 — Christian Science. No. 4 — The Gospel ot St. John. No. 5 — Friars in the Philippines. No. 6— The Popes in Rome. No. 7 — Agnosticism. No. 8 — Church or Bible. No. 9 — Pope Leo XIII. No. lO — Confession. Nog. 1 to 10 handled in book form only. SECOND EDITION— PRICE, 30 CENTS Vol. II. No. 11. The Existence of God . Kev. R. F, Clarke No. 12. Christ is God . . . Rev. J. T. Roche No. 13. What You Want No. 14. Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer Pope Leo XIH. No. 15. Mixed Marriage . Rev. Charles Coppens No. 16. Are You Sincere? No. 17. God With Us . . , Pope Leo X HI. No. 18. Had Christ a Mother ? . . . . No. 19. Woman Under Socialism Caroline Fairfield Corbin SINGLE CORtES, Sc S/.OO PER 100 ALL CHECKS AND ORDERS SHOULD BK DRAWN PAYABLE TQ CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY 662 HARRISON STREET CHICAGO WOMAN UNDER SOCIALISM. BY CAROLINE FAIRFIELD CORBIN. The system of economic reform, known under the general name of SociaHsm, has a century or more of history at its back; it has been discussed and advocated by some of the most brilHant minds of Europe during all that time, and more than half a hundred practical experiments of its workings have been made in the United States, yet it is only within the last ten or fifteen years that its doctrines have taken a decided hold upon the intellectual life of the Nation. Even now, though the air is full of the contention concerning ^'the tyranny of capital- ism,/' the ''pauperization of the masses," and ''the infamy of the unearned increment" — catch words which have sprung out of the rather indiscriminate discussion which has been going on — there is still much haziness in the public mind concerning the ultimate ends proposed by Socialism, and the prac- tical means by which they are to be attained. That Socialism and Anarchism are somehow connected, is so obvious to the most careless observer that the words associate themselves without an eflfort. Just what this connection may be, and just what are the 3 points of difference so strongly insisted upon by the leaders of Socialism when they are called upon to define their relationship to those whom they not infrequently designate as their ^'misguided breth- ren/' is a matter not generally made clear; while the industrial and political emancipation of women which is part and parcel of all complete Socialistic schemes, wears an aspect of beneficence towards woman, and is loudly proclaimed as a simple act of justice to the weaker sex, such as only the most hide-bound conservative could have the audacity to challenge. Perhaps I may therefore be pardoned for making a few clear statements concerning the origin and aims of Socialism, substantiating them by reference to the writings of the ablest and best known of Socialistic leaders, and drawing from them only such inferences as shall be perfectly logical, fair and just to all concerned. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, causes quite unlike, brought about in the two coun- tries of England and France, a state of things among the working classes, somewhat similar. In France, the misrule of the Bourbon kings had pro- duced such a state of misery among the poor as had perhaps scarcely a parallel in European history, and the whole fabric of society and government seemed to the philosophers of that time, and not without some show of reason, to be fit only for overthrow 4 and destruction. The proclamation of the American Republic served as the match to the smoldering ex- plosives which the teachings of men like Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopedists had diffused throughout France, and indeed throughout Europe. The flame broke forth in the awful catastrophe known as the French Revolution. In England during the same period the decline of agricultural values, and the introduction of ma- chinery into the factories, had combined to produce a similar state of misery among the poor. The al- most incredible wretchedness and degradation of English agricultural laborers and factory operatives at that time are well set forth by H. M. Hyndman in his volume entitled '^The Historical Basis of So- cialism in England," and substantiated by copious references to official Blue Books. It should be noted also that in both these countries, the church, which represented then far more than it does now, the only recognized form of religious activity, had fal- len into a state of decay and want of spiritual vigor. In spite of the noted divines who here and there cried out against the materialism and immorality of the times, it had brought upon itself the con- tempt of the people, and the wrath and satire of stronger minds. If the philosophers of the latter part of the eighteenth century were the enemies of religion, as many of them were, it was not without some show of justification from the forces which 5 should have Stood for God, for spiritiiaHty, for heaven and heavenly things. It was therefore a revolt against Christianity, against government, a determination to lift up the down-trodden poor to equality with the arrogant rich, to throw off the bonds of superstition, to con- vince the world that humanity was the highest form of existence known to man, and that liberty, equal- ity and fraternity in human relations constituted the best heritage, here and hereafter, of which the human mind had any evidence, which was the ener- gizing motive of the French and English philoso- phers of that time. The French Revolution ran its mad course and gave way to the military reaction of the Napo- leonic period, but the intellectual life of France and England was still permeated by the new sense of brotherhood among men ; a vague outreaching to- wards a community of goods, a community of inter- ests, such as had partially prevailed in some simpler times, such as prophets had foretold were destined to appear again in the millennial future. So in France, St. Simon and Fourier and in England, Owen and Sadler promulgated their ideas and wrought them out as best they could in experi- ments. Germany was more slow to catch the flame be- cause economic conditions there were quite differ- ent; because also the Teutonic mind is in itself less 6 inflammable than that of the Ang-lo-Saxon or the Celtic race. Nevertheless in the same year (1825) that Owen crossed the Atlantic to settle his social- istic colony in the then wilderness of Indiana, Baron Rapp of Germany brought over a company of men and women, mostly of the peasant order, to found a community in Economy, Pennsylvania. Woman's Emancipation. — One serious difficulty had everywhere attended communism, and that was the question, upon what basis to settle the relations between men and women. The Communists of the French Revolution had proclaimed the abolition of marriage and the equality of men and women as re- gards industrial and political rights. That is, wo- men were to engage in all industrial pursuits at equal wages with men, and were to enjoy equal rights to suffrage and political emoluments. There were several good and practical reasons for this so-called emancipation of women. It was clearly seen at that time, and a hundred years of experi- ence has only confirmed the view, that family life and communal life were wholly incompatible. Fam- ily life involves authority over children and respon- sibility for their welfare, but communism proposes to abolish all authority, and to supersede parental control by making children the wards of the State. Besides this, communism abolishes in toto, the right of inheritance, along with that of private property; 7 but when parents have brought up their children in separate homes, and have formed those ties of self- sacrificing love which nature weaves with such incalculable strength about the parental heart, the laws of private possession and inheritance will main- tain themselves with an authority against which the social reformer may rail in vain. Jean Jacques Rousseau, who may almost be called the father of modern communism, saw this very plainly. He had also the courage of his convictions, and carried his five new born children, one after the other, to the turnstile of a foundling hospital. I am aware that this statement has been disputed by Socialists but since he himself declared it true in his writings (see Encyclopedia Britannica article on J. J. Rous- seau) the proof seems incontestible. But to go back to Robert Owen and Baron Rapp and their communistic colonies of 1825. It was impossible for Owen even in the sparsely settled country of Indiana^ to carry out the communistic theory of unauthorized relations between men and women, and State care of children. Civilization simply would not permit it. The next best thing to do, was therefore to break down the marriage laws of the State by a system of easy divorce, and that Owen proceeded to do. Within the lifetime of Robert Owen and his son Robert Dale Owen, it was so far accomplished, that Indiana became a by-word 8 for easy divorce, and set the example which other States have sometimes followed. It should be remembered that the lax divorce laws which have brought so little credit to American legislation were due originally to the direct influence of Com- munism in the person of the two Owens. Baron Rapp took another course. The Shaker Communities which had been founded in 1788, had set him what appeared at that time to be a prac- ticable example of enforcing celibacy among its members and depending for recruits upon the world's people ; and this was the course which Rapp adopted. Like the Shakers, who by the way owed their origin to an entirely different source from the purely communistic colonies, his settlement was financially prosperous and became in time very wealthy. I visited it by invitation in 1853. Baron Rapp was then dead and his daughter, familiarly known as Miss Gertrude, was at the head of af- fairs. I was shown its large plantations, its busy workshops and saw the celibate homes, neat cottages where two or three men or women lived together. The women worked at practically the same tasks as the men, and they were coarse and unlovely. They were already growing old and their discontented mutterings about the theories which had deprived them of the comfort of children in their old age, were not loud, but deep. The colony finally col- lapsed as the Shakers have recently done, because 9 of their inability, in spite of their wealth and the easy lives of their members, to attract new recruits. The world simply wasn't made on the celibate plan. Meantime in Europe the family question would not down. The family was not compatible with the- community, and to abolish it implied so much of open and admitted immorality, that communion came into great disrepute. But the deliberate Ger- man mind had at last taken up the subject of this imperious reform. It was at once the hopelessness of developing the German hausfraii into the full fledged citizeness, and therefore the cry was raised that the new reform was merely economic. It would leave all matters of religion and domestic habits to be settled by the individual, and concern itself only with the Social institutions of the race. The name, Communism, was sloughed oflf, and that of Social- ism substituted;, and it was supposed that at last the whole matter was put upon a practicable basis. This was in 1835. The doctrine of the emancipa- tion of women was, however, steadfastly maintained and the Social Democratic party which is founded upon the teachings of Karl Marx .and is today the dominant Socialist party of Germany, invariably demands in the declaration of principles put forth by its congresses, universal suffrage without dis- tinction of sex. 10 For the next ten or twelve years Ferdinanrl Las- salle, Frederic Fngles, Ro(ll)ertiis, JCarl Marx and many others, all men of brilliant parts and the most revolutionary ideas, kept Europe in a ferment. In 1840, Proudhon, a poor but i^ifted scholar in Paris, full of the iconoclastic spirit of the time, pul^lished his book entitled ''What is Property." The reply "Property is Theft" struck what was the first de- cided note of anarchy in the .£^reat uproar. But Proudhon was an idealist, and while his destructive doctrines added a sharper and more corrosive ele- ment to the theories of revolution already in vogue, it was not till twenty years later, that they found in Michael Bakunin the maddened energy which was to make them practical. To say that Anar- chism is not a phase of Socialism, a form of belief and action purely sympathetic with it, is to contra- dict history. Dr. John Rea (LLD. of Edinburgh), whose volume entitled Contemporary Socialism has been pronounced by a high authority, ''the sanest, most philosophic and altogether most satisfactory treatise which has appeared upon the subject," says of Anarchism : — "It is no new party, however. It is merely the extreme element of the modern Socialistic move- ment. Mr. Hyndman and other Socialists would fain disclaim the Anarchists altogether, and are fond of declaring that they are the very opposites of Socialists, but this contention will not stand. * 11 * * * The mass of the party whose deeds (Imve) made a stir on both sides of the Atlantic, is undoubtedly more Socialistic than the Socialists themselves.'' At this time, however, that is in the early 40's, no great distinction was made between the different wings of the great Revolutionary party. It was all alike bent upon inflaming the discontented and ignorant masses of European countries, to rise in revolution and throw off the yoke of their masters, to grind Governments to powder ; to throw religion, as represented by the church, to the winds, to break asunder every chain of authority civil or religious, which restrained freedom of action, and to return man for man^ to that unfettered liberty which their inflamed imaginations pictured as the original in- heritance of humanity. In 1847 ^ Congress of So- cialists was held in London and Karl Marx and Frederick Engles were commissioned by it to pre- pare a Manifesto of the Communist party, which, says the Encyclopedia Britannica, 'Svas published in most of the languages of Western Europe and is the first proclamation of that revolutionary Social- ism armed with all the learning of the nineteenth century, but expressed with the fire and energy of the agitator, which in the International and other movements has so startled the world.'' It was in fact a wild harangue written with con- summate skill to inflame the passions of an ignorant 12 multitude who were feeling- the pangs of poverty and oppression in their daily lives, and it undoubted- ly had much to do with precipitating the riots and revolutions which tnade 1848 such a year of panic and terror as Europe had not experienced before since 1793. In the year 1848 while all Europe was at a white heat concerning Socialism, two events of interest occurred in the United States. The first was the founding of the Oneida Community in Western New York by John Humphrey Noyes. It was the first community in this country to attempt to carry out the full intent and purpose of Socialism con- cerning the relations between men and women. Noyes writes in his volume entitled A History of American Socialisms as follows: '*We affirm that there is no intrinsic difiference between property in persons, and property in things, and that the same spirit which abolishes exclusive- ness in regard to money, would abolish, if circum- stances allowed full scope to it, exclusiveness in women and children.'' It was to carry out these ideas that the Oneida Community was founded. It prospered financially for nearly thirty years, but was finally, in the old age of John Humphrey Noyes, suppressed as a Community by its indignant neighbors, and now exists as a joint stock company in which marriage X3 rites are observed and the emancipation of women is less discussed than it formerly was. The other event was the calling of the first Wo- man's Rights Convention in thig* country by Eliza- beth Cady Stanton and others. Up to this time Socialism had been a terrifying power in Europe. It had been a leading factor in the greatest political upheaval of modern times, it had shaken thrones, it had overthrown dynasties, it had overshadowed the nations with a fear of repub- licanism which was like the specter of the Brocken, it had become the bete noir of chancelleries, and it had caused the polic,e of Europe more apprehension and taxed its resources more heavily than all other causes combined.. More than this, it had penetrat- ed with its ramifications the entire proletariat of Europe, infusing into it a sense of its own misery, a defiant, desperate determination to right its own wrongs by a revolution of fire and sword, and at the bottom of it all, a nascent idea of brotherhood, of strength in union such as it had never .known before. It was a great work for any propaganda to have wrought, and false as were its premises and mere- tricious its arguments, it had not been without its beneficent results. Practical Results. — In the first place it had so alarmed reckless States and a careless Church that they had begun to look after the condition of their 14 poor with a very sincere and anxious scrutiny. Once shocked into zeal in the cause, philanthropy began such a work of relief and amelioration as the world had never seen before. Scarcely any characteristic of the XIX Century is more notable than its wide and deep study of philanthropic needs and methods. At the outset some confusion was caused by want of discernment between the claims and methods of Socialism and those lines of work along which Christian Civilization had always labored. The dis- tinction was clear and marked, but not all even of the best thinkers of the time were able to see it. Christianity has always been in practice, if not in theory, a believer in the principles of evolution, in the struggle for existence, in progress through effort, in an ever ascending uplift of humanity through a militant strife with opposing evil. So- cialism from the first has been a leveler. It would improve the condition of the poor, the incompetent, the evil disposed by bringing the rich, the strong, the successful down to a common plane. It would emancipate women from the bonds of purity, by bringing them down to the level of promiscuity. Karl Marx and the German school, claim to be scientists and followers of Darwin, but the struggle for existence which is the foundation stone and four square walls of Darwinism, is the extreme form of that competition which Socialism is bent with all its energy upon suppressing; while the survival of the fittest, is in itself the triumph of a class, the apotheosis of inequality. It spans the whole space between those who die because they are too weak to survive, and those who live because they are too strong to die. Instead of a spirit of noble emula- tion and spiritual endeavor, which was ever charac- teristic of Christianity at its best, Socialism breathes rage and defiance towards that which is exalted, and a low, materialistic determination to bring all higher ideas down to its own sordid level. In no respect is this fact more palpable than in its treat- ment of the woman question. To illustrate this, I must beg leave to introduce a few rather lengthy quotations. We have seen already the statement of J. H. Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Com- munity. About the same time, Hasenclever, a lead- ing Socialist member of the German Reichstae, now deceased, said in an address before the German Working Mens Union (I quote Woolsey's ''Com- munism and Socialism'':) ''The woman question would be taken by the de- veloped, or, more correctly speaking, the communis- tic State under its own control — for in this State-, when the community" (composed of individual men and women equally entitled to the privileg-es of citizenship) "bears the obligation of maintaining the children, and no private capital exists, * * * the women need no longer, out of regard for the children, be chained to one man. The bond between 16 the sexes will be simply a moral one, and if the characters did not harmonize could be dissolved/' In his Historical Basis of Socialism in England H. M. Hyndman says (page 452) : ''Thus breaking down and building up go on slowly together, and new forms arise to displace the old. It is the same with the family. That, in the German-Christian sense of marriage for life and responsibility of the parents for fhe children born in wedlock, is almost at an end even now. Divorce and the habitual use of prostitution among men of the upper and middle classes are but symptoms of the complete change in family relations which is going on among the mass of the people. It has been absolutely necessary, as recounted, that the State should step in between parents and children to prevent them from overwork, and to take care that the next generation does not grow up wholly ignorant; meanwhile the connection between the two sexes is^ as official records show us, quite free from any sense of responsibility or permanence among a large portion of the population. Mani- festly when such modifications are taking place, so- ciety is undergoing a great, crucial revolution with- in, which may show itself openly in either five, ten or fifty years, but which cannot in the nature of the case be delayed beyond a calculable period. The social tendencies are clearly developing themselves, n and the next stage of the human race must be a widely extended communism." Fallacy Unmasked. — The fallacy of this gener- alization consists in completely reversing the order of historic facts concerning marriage. Mr. Hynd- man assumes that there has been a time when mar- riage was more successfully upheld as an institution, and the lives of men and women were purer than at the present day, and that the admitted evils of our time are greater and more general than at a former period. The truth is exactly the reverse of this. Bad as may be the state of society at present, since the days of that almost incredible immorality of the heathen world against which Christianity made the first stand, there has never been a time when the moral sense of the world has been so alive to the beneficence of marriage, and the lives of so many men and women have been so faithfully con- formed to it, as during the past century. Even the last fifty years has shown a decided gain in the pub- lic appreciation of the virtue of chastity both in men and women, and though the Socialistic agitation of that time, has undoubtedly, sown much evil seed which it requires the incessant labor of moralists to destroy, the discussion thus set in motion has re- sulted in a greater reverence for the home and a higher appreciation of the virtues enthroned in it, than has ever generally prevailed before, 18 From Bebers ''Frau'' or (English translation) ''Woman, Past^ Present and Future/' it is impossi- ble to make quotations suited to these pages. Suf- fice it to say, that while nothing is said in praise of the purity of womanhood or its elevating influence upon society, or the physical dangers of license, whole pages are given to the exposition of the phy- sical evils of continence, and the crying injustice and cruelty of imposing upon woman any law more authoritative than her own impulses. And Herr Bebel is today the acknowledged leader of German Socialism. With such sentiments openly expounded and pro- mulgated, with the authority of the law over pa- rents, and of parents over their children entirely abrogated, with children turned over to the State for protection and education, what is left of mar- riage and the Christian home? Is there any escape from the conclusion, evidently accepted by these ex- pounders of Socialism, that all relations between men and women would be placed upon the level of those between the ouvrier and the grisette, the Bo- hemian artist and his model, the man of the world and the woman of the half-world? For the loss of her rights and privileges as wife and mother, woman is to be compensated by equal work and equal wages with man, and the right to vote. With even a glimmering of a perception of the changes implied in the social order by the Indus- 19 trial and political equality of woman, is it any won- der that the overwhelming mass of women, as con- ceded on all hands, decline the specious bait of woman suffrage? Certain of the Anglican Clergy have been misled by the fallacious economic doctrines of the Social- ists into calling themselves Christian Socialists, and in Germany also certain Catholic Societies working, and very successfully, to antagonize revolutionary Socialism, have taken the same name. Rae in his ''Contemporary Socialism'" (page 245) to which I have before alluded, says of these: ''Our Christian Socialists in London accept the doctrines of Marx * * * orators at English Church Congresses often speak of Social- ism as if it were a higher perfection of Christianity ; but Catholic Socialists understand their Christianity and their Socialism better than to make any such identification, and regard the doctrines and organi- zation of revolutionary Socialism in the spirit of the judgment expressed in the Pope's encyclical December 28th, 1878, which said, 'So great is the difference between their (the Socialists') wicked dogmas and the pure doctrine of Christ that there can be no greater; for what participation has justice with injustice, or what communion has light with darkness ?' " The suppression of the uprising of 1848 and the subsequent increase of the military and police forces 20 of Europe, led to a change in tactics on the part of the able leaders of the Socialistic party. Revolu- tionary Socialism put on a new face as State So- cialism and the leaders disclaimed any present pur- pose of overthrowing governments by force. Their propaganda of ideas, however, went steadily for- ward. And now we must turn to the development of Anarchism for a moment. W e have said in a previ- ous page, that Proudhonwas the father of the Anar- chistic idea and the famous epigram 'Troperty is theft," or more grammatically expressed, ''Property is stealings,'' the product of his idealizing brain ; but the extreme doctrines to which his statements led of the right, even the duty, of the expropriated to revenge their wrongs by assassination, by dynamite, by poison, by any destructive agency known to man, were first practically urged by Michael Bak- unin. Bakunin was a Russian of the highest aris- tocracy, who for his participation in the German Socialistic movements of 1848, had been exiled to Siberia for twelve years. Upon his return, mad- dened by the treatment he had received, with a vigor which seemed born of the infernal regions, he set about the work of inflaming the passions and stirring up the evil energies of the discontented. The teachings of Socialism had spread through all classes and furnished explosive material ready made to his hand. A party mostly of young men had 21 been seeking to revolutionize Russia in the inter- ests of Constitutional Government. The stern policy of repression practiced upon them made them also fit tools for Bakunin's propaganda of violence, and he became the recognized leader of Nihilism, and through both the Anarchistic and Nihilistic movements the ferment of Socialism is clearly trace- able. There has never been a time when if you struck the Anarchists, the Socialists did not feel the blow. After the Haymarket riot of 1885 English Socialists sent to this country a strong deputation* to work for the release of the condemned Anar- chists, and the whole country owes a debt to the incorruptible Judge Joseph E. Gary, and the then Governor of Illinois, Richard J. Oglesby, who stood like a great rock amid a surging sea against the almost overwhelming influence which Socialism brought to bear upon him. Only those who were nearest to these two men, know the resources of persuasion, of bribery, of threatenings exerted by the power of Socialism in those evil days, or of the unswerving firmness and patriotism with which they were withstood. We have noted in an earlier paragraph that the first Woman's Rights Convention was called in 1848 *This deputation was headed by Dr. Edward Aveling, a leading Lon- don Socialist, and Eleanor, daughter of Karl Marx, the story of whose "free marriage" with its tragical results is told in "One Woman's Ex- perience of Emancipation," published by the Illinois Association Op- posed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. 22 by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others.- In those tumultuous years the intellectual atmosphere of the United States was distinctly sympathetic with that of Europe. It was a time of 'ologies and 'isms. Whoever is familiar with the early history of the Anti-Slavery movement will recall that it was dan- gerously complicated with a party against which its ablest leaders, Charles Sumner, Ralph Waldo Em- erson, Whittier, Frederick Douglass, Lewis Tap- pan, all energetically protested, and that was the clique of Socialistic or Communistic agitators who rallied under the war cry of ''No government,"* and came to be called the No Government party. Its male leaders have mostly dropped out of history, but Fanny Wright, Earnestine L. Rose, and Abby Kelly Foster are still remembered as among the Pioneers of the cause of Woman's Rights. 'Tanny Wright was associated with Robert Dale Owen in the publication in New York of the Free Inquirer, in 1829, and in its columns she attacked religion in every form, marriage, the family and the State" (I quote from Mrs. Rossiter Johnson's book entitled ''Woman and the Republic'') In the Anti- Slavery convention held at London in 1840 this clique was represented by three women, to the dis- *As an indication of the fanatical spirit of the time it may be worth while to record that the phrase was taken from the motto of a certain set of Fourierites which was in full, "No God, no church, no government, no marriage, no money, no meat, no salt, no pepper," a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous for which it would be difficult to find a parallel ! 23 may of the English delegates who promptly voted to exclude them. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, though not a delegate, was present at the conven- tion and took part in the peculiarly feminine tactics by which the excluded women proceeded to make themselves a thorn in the flesh of the convention, and there is no question but her ideas of woman's political rights were gained directly from Socialistic or Communistic sources. For a generation after the Civil War, saner coun- sels prevailed among all so-called reformers, and many women in this decade, are advocates of Wo- man Suffrage who have no suspicion of its origin or tendencies; but the marks of its birth are on it still. Its advocacy of equal industrial rights, its determined attempts to obliterate all differences be- tween the sexes in matters of education and employ- ment, and its frantic setting up of the standard of independence between men and women, in place of that mutual dependence upon each other which is the only possible status in the marriage relation, and the corner stone of the home, all distinctly identify it with its Communistic source. It is not within the scope of this paper to analyze the pretentions of Socialism to economic reform. It is safe to say, however, that there are no prob- lems between Labor and Capital, that cannot be solved, no wrongs to either party that cannot be righted, through the operation of Christian ethics, 24 without overturning the RepubHc, proclaiming Atheism or destroying parental and filial relations. Power of Socialism. — That there are grievous evils both social and economic which must be faced and their solution essayed by the coming generation, no thoughtful observer of the currents of life and thought can deny. Neither would it be wise or just to underrate the power of Socialism. It is probably today, all things considered, the most formidable political influf nee in Europe or America. It holds both continents in a state of siege. It has no armies in the field, no navies upon the high seas, but its assault upon the citadels of thought are everywhere in progress. Not the Parliaments of the world alone, feel its power ; its teachings are widespread in our school and universities, and in many pulpits there are strange departures from the simplicity of the Gospel, which mark the Atheistic, materializing, unspiritual encroachments of Socialism ; while in the factory and the workshop its sway is fast becom- ing autocratic. The political dangers of such a propaganda in a country where the ballot settles all things, are suffi- ciently evident. Especially when it is considered that the balance of power is so often held by a minority well organized and managed, no such force as that which Socialism has developed in this coun- try can be regarded with indiflPerence. The diflFer- 25 ence of a few thousand votes might easily place in the Presidential chair, a man who, by the help of the immense power of presidential patronage and the command of the army and navy, might work changes in our political methods which it would be the work of years to counteract, if the evil could ever be wholly undone. No one understands this better than those Socialist leaders who are working with ceaseless energy to bring about this very re- sult. Nor are the moral and social dangers less grave and imminent. Count Andrew Bernstorff of Berlin, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune of July 21, 1901, speaking of the moral effect of the Socialistic propaganda in Germany, says : ''The indirect in- fluence of Socialism is not easily overestimated. The demoralizing effect in loosening the bonds of au- thority between parents and children, pupils and teachers, masters and servants, has certainly done much to lower the state of national morality.'' To this charge may be added that in our own country the teachings of Socialism have had a most disas- trous effect upon the public mind in regard to per- sonal purity and the sacredness of the marriage re- lations. It is not too much to say that by far the greatest of those influences which tend to justify and facilitate, thoughtless marriages, and easy and frequent divorces, has been that of the Socialistic propaganda. 26 The question of the means by which such de- structive doctrines should be met, becomes one of deep interest. First of all it would seem that since the first aim of Socialism is, by covert means, to overthrow the Republic, the course of the true pa- triot should be, to strengthen the foundation upon which it was originally built, to reaffirm those prin- ciples of constitutignal liberty which our Revolu- tionary fathers bequeathed to us, to the maintenance of which they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor ; in so many instances redeeming those pledges by immortal deeds. And this is not to be done by Fourth of July orations, nor a dis- play of forensic fireworks in the halls of State, but by a careful seeking after the fundamental princi- ples of right, and truth, and justice to all the peo- ple, and an honest painstaking embodiment of them in legislation. Our government was built upon the foundation of equal rights to all, as before the law ; it abjures classes and recognizes only the people, but at the same time it proclaims the right of every man to the fruits of his toil, be it more or less than that of his neighbor, and the right to rise above his original condition as far as his ability and labor can honestly carry him. When legislation is build- ed upon any other than this safe and strong foun- dation it topples, and is open to attacks from both avowed and insidious foes. 27 Religion Needed. — Nor can civilization any- where be firmly established except upon a founda- tion which shall include that true religion which consists in love to God as well as love to man. If in some earlier periods of history, the first of these two propositions has been emphasized to the neglect of a broad humanitarianism, today it would seem that in our deep and altogether laudable zeal for searching into and destroying the evil conditions which afflict the race, we are in danger of neglecting the first half of the great commandment. But be- fore we can even approach the solution of the deep problems of modern life, there must be in the minds of all a sense of the divine power, the divine wis- dom, the divine love, which shall prevent our ac- cepting the tinkering of every crass fanatic as an improvement upon the divine order. Of all the problems to be solved scarcely one is more fundamental than that which is popularly known as the Woman Question. During the past century great changes have been going on in the status of women. Civilization has been exalting her in point of privilege, Socialism has been scouting her privileges and proclaiming her rights. Between the two forces she has reached a point in her evolu- tion where the two ideals of the new woman and the old stand squarely face to face appealing to mankind for approval. In the great, coming social struggle which is to prevail ? 28 The "free wife'' of Socialism assumes no respon- sibilities with marriage, recognizes no motive in it but pleasure. She changes her mates if she chooses, as often as she changes her gowns. She votes, pays taxes, legislates, and pursues an independent career, unhampered by nursery cares, or the duty of train- ing those children which nature, with a grim irony, still insists that this lofty, independent creature shall bear. A parental State which assumes all the other functions of maternity, unfortunately, cannot relieve her of that office. In this, the real crux of the whole matter of emancipation, it is laughably pow- erless. Over against this product of modern economic reform, stands the old-fashioned woman, the wife and mother of the home. She accepts marriage with its outcome of maternity, as a lifelong -respon- sibility, and adjusts her whole life to it, with some dim unuttered sense that the greatest of all earthly undertakings, namely, the continuance of the forces of civilization, is committed to her care. To bear children and rear them to good citizenship is her mission. It is a task that will tax her utmost strength. It makes that unremitting physical toil which the labor market demands, impossible to her. Long absences from home, and absorption in pur- suits alien to it, ruin her career as woman. Justice therefore requires that she should be protected and 3Upporte(i, and civilization and nature have alike 29 decreed that this should be the task of the father of her children. To him, therefore, she cheerfully ^resigns those civic rights which belong to the united family, that she may the m.ore freely give herself to the ceaseless care, the tireless vigils which her voca- tion requires of her, as the mother of the race. In her quiet home-life spiritual visions and intuitions come to her also, which fit her to be the inspirer of man to all good deeds, his helper in every emer- gency, and from the inner sanctuary of the home goes out the light of the true shekinah, illuminating with celestial ray the upward path of the race. So living, she cultivates that spirit of mutual depend- ence and love which constitutes the true life of the home, and is the foundation of that world-wide be- neficence which is the moving spirit of progress, the crowning destiny of the race. It is this spirit alone which can solve all the puzzling questions which the changing conditions incident to progress, bring to the forum of human thought. When home in- fluences are what they should be, the home spirit will rule the world. It will be seen then that true ^ government implies thoughtful care and tenderness for the governed, that the weak are to be treated with the patient mother insight and father care by the strong; that the man whose business is con- ducted in such a manner that it is a source of profit to himself alone, who practices selfishness and in- justice in his daily life, to the degradation and de- 30 moralization of those dependent upon him, is not a useful or honorable factor in the life of the com- munity. He is not livine up to the home spirit, the spirit of fraternal love, and can never know the self respect or the respect of his fellows which comes to him whose whole life is planned along the lines of that beneficence which flows from the heart of the Almighty Father, and is the highest end of being, human or divine. 31 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. To disseminate among Catholics small and cheap devotional works. 2. To assist the uneducated to a better knowledge of their religion. 3. To spread among Protestants information about Catholic Truth. 4. To promote the circulation of good, cheap and popular Catholic books. Lists of publications and all other information regarding the Society may be obtained from the Manager at the Society's Depot, 562 HARRISON STREET. CHICAGO. BRANCH OFFICES OF THE TRUTH SOCIETY MILWAUKEE 387 East Water Street INDIANAPOLIS St. John's Church DUBUQUE 747 Main Street CINCINNATI 7th and Sycamore Streets DETROIT Detroit College, Jefferson Avenue PITTSBURG The Cathedral ST. JOSEPH The Cathedral GREEN BAY The Cathedral FORT WAYNE The Cathedral Note. — Subscriptions and donations should be sent to the Central office, Chicago. Orders will be supplied from, any branch office. . , Subscriptions to the Truth Society are respectfully solicited. Without financial aid the work cannot expand. Send $1.00 or more annually to the Catholic Truth Society, 562 Harrison Street, Chicago. Subscribers receive our pamphlets promptly by mail.