CHAPTER XX THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FAMILY

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Most of the Marxians in America, when confronted with the charge that they advocate free-love, deny the truth of the accusation, claiming that it is a base calumny. False and calumnious, indeed, would the charge be, if it were directed against each individual among the Revolutionists, or if from its universality exceptions were not made for many, who, not having as yet accepted the full consequences of International Socialism, go no further than to cast their votes for the party candidates. For would it be fair to except no others from condemnation, for among the dues-paying members of the party are many who are extremely averse to the system of loose morals that their comrades propose to substitute for the monogamous form of marriage now in vogue.

Books advocating free-love are advertised in the Socialist press and receive favorable notice in editorial columns. They have long been on sale at the leading Socialist book-stores of the country and even at the National Office of the Socialist Party in Chicago. Finally, the Revolutionary clubs and locals all over the United States have in their libraries books on free-love that are standard works on Socialism.

The Marxians, in their endeavors to offset the charge that a free-love propaganda exists within their party, frequently argue that prostitution, now so prevalent throughout the world, will under Socialism no longer remain the dreadful menace to society that it is today. They attribute the prevalence of this vice principally to poverty, and argue that in the new state, all persons will be abundantly supplied with the goods of this world, and consequently no one will be obliged to indulge in this sin for obtaining a livelihood.

The Reds, therefore, try to dodge the question at issue by leading their opponents off on a tangent. The real question, free-love, will, however, by no means be forgotten by us until the Socialists have been shown up thoroughly. Since the conspirators against family life are so fond of harping on the matter of prostitution, with a view to drawing critics away from attacking their doctrine of free-love, the reader will be shown that even prostitution, instead of decreasing in the Socialist state, would, together with immorality of every sort, become far more prevalent under Marxian rule than it is today.

Prostitution and impurities of every sort may, of course, be due to many different causes. First, let us consider prostitution in connection with poverty and destitution. The Socialists claim that there will be far less prostitution in their state since the people, as a whole, will be supplied more abundantly with the needs of life. This talk about greater supplies for all in the Socialist state is mere assertion. The Marxians have never proven that such would actually be the case. If so, where is their proof? Can they give any convincing argument? Can they name any country, state or city, where they have ever ruled, in which the people, as a whole, were better supplied with the needs of life under the red flag than they were before the Socialist rule began?

The fact is just the contrary. Look at any part of Europe over which the Socialists have ruled and you will see far greater destitution under Socialism than there was before. As for places that have never yet tried Socialism, enough arguments were given in the chapter, "Socialism a Peril to Workingmen," to show that there would be so many upheavals, so much turmoil, discontent and strife in a Socialist state, that production would be at a minimum and entirely insufficient to supply the needs of the people.

We concede that poverty often leads to prostitution, and this is one reason out of many for sincerely wishing that our poor people were better supplied than they now are with the necessities of life. Still it must not be forgotten that poverty and want are often greater factors in preventing prostitution than in helping it. Think of the millions of poor people whose very poverty indirectly makes prostitution and vice in general less likely by keeping them from immoral theatres, movies, dances and cabarets and association with bad companions of greater means who would be attracted by better clothes and greater wealth if these poor people had them.

Do the Socialists claim that the average poor woman is less moral than the average rich one? Do not the Marxians know that poverty, rather than wealth, fosters religion and piety, the greatest of all factors in keeping persons pure? Do the Reds deny that millions and millions of the very poorest are chaste? If these souls can remain pure, notwithstanding their poverty, so, too, can others; and when these others do not remain pure, usually something other than poverty is the cause, e.g., irreligion, lawlessness or disregard of authority, all of which the Socialists are advocating, day after day, in their books, pamphlets, papers and speeches.

Again, Debs and his followers, by having a separate party for workingmen, are dividing the laboring class against itself, knowing full well that millions upon millions of decent, honest workingmen will never join them. And since Socialists are making unjust and impossible demands, and injecting into labor organizations radical leaders who cause general distrust and fear, labor cannot succeed in its battles against the abuses of capitalism nearly as well as it would if all were united. Hence, because of the existence of the Socialist Party, low wages still prevail in many cases, with extreme poverty which often leads to prostitution.

If the Socialists ever gain control of our country they will probably do so through a revolution. Or they will come into power gradually, by an increased vote at each election. In the meantime, as victory came near, there would be business failures by the thousands, owing to the impending destruction of the existing system of industry and government. In either case there would be terrible destitution and a great dearth of the necessities of life. This, according to the Socialists' own argument, would mean a great increase in prostitution.

It has been proven theoretically in the chapter entitled, "Socialism, a Peril to Workingmen," and actually by events in Europe, that a Socialist state, even should it endure, cannot be a success. Hence, were the Marxian argument about prostitution as strong as the Socialists claim, picture the immorality among the people where a Socialist government plunges the industries and sources of production and distribution into total chaos.

With this refutation of the claim that prostitution would become a very rare thing under Socialism, the national conspirators must confess that the same argument they have for years been using to further the interests of their cause, can with telling effect be turned against them.

Not alone are the Socialists defeated in their argument that prostitution would be less prevalent in the Marxian state, but they are hypocrites in using the argument they do. "The Call," for instance, which frequently uses the argument which has been refuted, in the magazine section of its issue of June 8, 1919, published a poem entitled, "The Harlot," to satisfy its lustful patrons:

/P "I do not understand you-- I cannot see How you can lie passive in my arms When such a passion swells in me.... You lie in my arms-- Your face is close to mine. I look into your eyes, Revelation! And you Look into mine Unmoved." P/

We now return to the question of free-love--we have not forgotten it, though no doubt the Reds wish we had. Socialists who deny that an active free-love propaganda exists within their ranks must either confess their ignorance of what is going on, or plead guilty to the base charge of deceiving the American people.

The "New Encyclopedia of Social Reform," edited by the Socialist, W. D. P. Bliss, on page 484 contains an article on the family which reads in part as follows:

"We then come to the third form of free-love, the free-love theory par excellence, which is held today by many Socialists, and an increasing number of radical men and women of various schools of thought. According to these neither the state nor organized religion should have aught to do with the control of the family or of the sexual relation. They would make free-love supreme. They would have it unfettered by any tie whatsoever. They argue that compulsory love is not love; that all marriage save from love is sin; that when love ends, marriage ends."

In another article, on page 1135, under the caption, "Socialism," Bliss informs us that it is perfectly true that Deville, a French Socialist, said that "marriage is a regulation of property.... When marriage is transformed, and only after that transformation marriage will lose its reason for existence, and boys and girls may then freely and without fear of censure listen to the wants and promptings of their nature.... The support of the children will no longer depend on the chance of birth. Like their instruction it will become a charge of society. There will be no room for prostitution or for marriage, which is in sum nothing more than prostitution before the mayor."

On page 897 of the old 1897 edition of the "Encyclopedia of Social Reform," an earlier work edited by W. D. P. Bliss, we are informed that Socialism would allow all to live in permanent monogamy, but would not force people to remain married if they were unwilling to do so. "The Communist Manifesto," the work that made Marx and Engels famous among Socialists the world over, thus answers the charge made against the Revolutionists regarding their opposition to monogamy:

"What the communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized community of women."

Jules Guesde, a French Socialist, affirms in "Le CatÉchisme Socialiste" that "the family is now only an odious form of property and must be transformed or abolished."

The French Socialist leader, JaurÉs, in a parliamentary speech said that "They [i.e., married men and women] were free to make the marriage and should in the same way be free to unmake it. In fact, just as the will of one of the parties could have prevented the marriage, so the will of one should be able to end it. The power to annul should, of course, be all the stronger when both parties desire it." It need scarcely be added that free-love would in most cases begin with the voluntary dissolution of the marriage ties.

While the program of the French Socialist Party, adopted at Tours in 1902, does not explicitly advocate free-love, still it calls for "the most liberal legislation on divorce." Ernest Belfort Bax, a prominent English Socialist, in "Outlooks From a New Standpoint," affirms that "a man may justly reject the dominant sexual morality; he may condemn the monogamic marriage system which obtains today; he may claim the right of free union between men and women; he may contend he is perfectly at liberty to join himself, either temporarily or permanently with a woman; and that the mere legal form of marriage has no binding force with him." ["Outlooks From a New Standpoint," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 114 of the 1891 edition.]

"Prostitution for private gain is morally repellent. But the same outward act done for a cause transcending individual interest loses its character of prostitution." [Ibid., page 123.]

"There are few points on which advanced radicals and Socialists are more completely in accord than their hostility to the modern legal monogamic marriage." [Ibid., page 151.]

"There are excellent men and women, possibly the majority, born with dispositions for whom a permanent union is doubtless just the right thing; there are other excellent men and women born with lively imaginations and Bohemian temperaments for whom it is not precisely the right thing." [Ibid., page 157.]

"Herein we have an instance of the distinction between bourgeois morality and Socialist morality. To the first it is immoral to live in a marital relation without having previously subscribed to certain legal formalities.... To the second ... to live in a state of unlegalized marriage defileth not a man, nor woman." [Ibid., page 158.]

"Socialism will strike at the root at once of compulsory monogamy." [Ibid., page 159.]

Quotations from this base free-love book will end with the following: "If it be asked 'is marriage a failure?' the answer of any impartial person must be 'monogamic marriage is a failure'--the rest is silence. We know not what the new form of the family, the society of the future in which men and women will be alike economically free, may involve, and which may be generally adopted therein. Meanwhile we ought to combat by every means within our power the metaphysical dogma of the inherent sanctity of the monogamic principle." ["Outlooks From a New Standpoint," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 160 of the 1891 edition.]

"Outlooks From a New Standpoint," from which these quotations have been taken, was advertised in the price list of the Social Democratic Publishing Company of Milwaukee; and though it was sold for a dollar a copy at Victor Berger's establishment, it has never been used by the Socialists of America to prove to the world that they do not advocate free-love.

In view of the fact that "Outlooks From a New Standpoint" was sold at Berger's own publishing company, it is somewhat surprising to see him, in the August 10, 1912, edition of his paper, the Milwaukee "Social Democratic Herald," attacking, in a party squabble, "the men in control of the 'International Socialist Review,' ... who publish books in defense of what our enemies call free-love." Further on in the factional quarrel he writes: "I shall leave out the Christian Socialists entirely. Many of them are honest in this fight. But these Christian Socialists--who are only a handful--are being used by cowardly assassins and practical free-lovers as a cat's paw." Perhaps the Socialist publishers would be a little more free with their love for each other, if there was less competition for the silver dollar.

Ernest Belfort Bax in another book, "Religion of Socialism," thus denounces the present form of family life: "We defy any human being to point to a single reality, good or bad, in the composition of the bourgeois family. It has the merit of being the most perfect specimen of complete sham that history has presented to the world." ["Religion of Socialism," by Ernest Belfort Bax, page 141 of the 1891 edition.]

"Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," edited by Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris, also advocates free-love, for its authors tell us that under Socialism "property in children would cease to exist, and every infant that came into the world would be born into full citizenship, and would enjoy all its advantages, whatever the conduct of its parents might be. Thus a new development of the family would take place, on the basis, not of a predetermined life-long business arrangement, to be formally and nominally held to irrespective of circumstances, but on mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at the will of either party.... There would be no vestige of reprobation weighing on the dissolution of one tie and the formation of another." ["Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," by Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris, pages 299 and 300 of the 1893 edition.]

The "International Socialist Review," December, 1908, states that "Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome," by William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax, is "a standard historical work long recognized as being of the utmost value to Socialists." According to the price list sent out from the National Office of the Socialist Party this work on free-love was on sale there for fifty cents a copy. Chas H. Kerr and Company, the Socialist publishing company of Chicago, in their catalogue advertised the same book as being one of the most important works in the whole literature of Socialism, by the two strongest Socialist writers of England. From these facts the reader may judge for himself whether or not the Revolutionists of America tell the truth when they claim that they are not the enemies of the family.

In a speech delivered on November 12, 1907, Henry Quelch, editor of the Socialist paper, "London Justice," made the following statement: "I do want to abolish marriage. I do want to see the whole system of society, as at present constituted, swept away. We want no marriage bonds. We want no bonds at all. We want free-love."

Edward Carpenter in his book, "Love's Coming of Age," tells us that "marriage relations are raised to a much higher plane by a continual change of partners until a permanent mate and equal is found."

That this work on free-love might find a ready market among Socialists, Chas. H. Kerr and Company advertised it as follows in the "International Socialist Review," Chicago, December, 1902:

"He [i.e., Carpenter] faces bravely the questions that prudes of both sexes shrink from, and he offers a solution that deserves the attention of the ablest leaders of popular thought, while his charmingly simple style makes the book easy reading matter for any one who is looking for new light on the present and future of men and women in their relations to each other."

In a 1912 catalogue the same publishing company volunteered the information that "'Love's Coming of Age' is one of the best Socialist books yet written on the relations of the sexes." In a 1917 booklet it was advertised by the company as being "by far the most satisfactory book on the relations of the sexes in the coming social order."

Carpenter's work was sold for a dollar a copy at the National Office of the Socialist Party in Chicago, and yet the Revolutionists persist in telling us that they do not advocate free-love.

August Bebel, the late leader of the German Socialists, was the author of a book entitled, "Woman Under Socialism." This work, however, is better known by the simple appellation, "Woman." A simple quotation will suffice to show that Bebel, like many other excellent Socialist authorities, advocates free-love:

"If incompatibility, disenchantment or repulsion set in between two persons that have come together, morality commands that the unnatural and therefore immoral bond be dissolved." ["Woman Under Socialism," by Bebel, page 344 of the 1904 edition in English.]

Bebel's book has had an immense circulation. Over thirty editions have been issued, and translations have been made into nearly all the European languages. Before his death in August, 1913, he was the admiration of millions of the Revolutionists the world over. His book is considered everywhere as a standard work on International Socialism and is, of course, on sale with the other free-love publications at the National Office of the Socialist Party. Chas H. Kerr and Company in 1917 advertised Bebel's work as being one of the greatest Socialist books ever written.

Frederick Engel's "Origin of the Family," a work that has made its author famous among Socialists on both sides of the Atlantic, contains the following statement relative to free-love:

"These peculiarities that were stamped upon the face of monogamy by its rise through property relations will decidedly vanish, namely the supremacy of men and the indissolubility of marriage.... If marriage founded on love is alone moral, then it follows that marriage is moral only as long as love lasts. The duration of an attack of individual sex love varies considerably according to individual disposition, especially in men. A positive cessation of fondness or its replacement by a new passionate love makes a separation a blessing for both parties and for society. But humanity will be spared the useless wading through the mire of a divorce case." ["The Origin of the Family," by Fredrick Engels, page 99 of the 1907 translation into English by Untermann.]

"The Comrade," New York, November, 1902, thus commends Engel's book: "One of the most important issues of that excellent Standard Socialist Series published by Chas. H. Kerr and Company is 'The Origin of the Family,' by Fredrick Engels, now for the first time translated into English by Ernest Untermann. This book, first published in 1884, has been translated into almost every European language and has long been regarded as one of the classics of Socialist philosophical literature."

"The Call," New York, February 27, 1910, deems "The Origin of the Family" worthy of editorial comment: "The one book that contains in small compass what every woman ought to know is Fredrick Engel's 'The Origin of the Family.' Every Socialist woman should become a book agent to sell this book."

"The International Socialist Review," October, 1902, expressed its admiration of Engel's work by stating that "this book has long been known as one of the great Socialist classics and has been translated into almost every other language than English.... The book is really one of the two or three great Socialist classics; and now that it is in English, it must find a place in the library of everyone who hopes to master the real fundamental philosophy underlying Socialism."

"The Origin of the Family," notwithstanding20 the fact that it contains matter too foul to comment on, for example a certain comparison that is made on page 39, was listed with the books sold at the National Office of the Socialist Party, and at Chas. H. Kerr and Company, the largest Socialist publishing company in the United States.

Ernest Untermann, the American Socialist who translated Engel's work into English, writes on page 7 of the preface of the 1907 edition: "The monogamic family, so far from being a divinely instituted union of souls, is seen to be the product of a series of material, and in the last analysis, of the most sordid motives."

Rives La Monte, in "Socialism Positive and Negative," tells his readers that "from the point of view of this Socialist materialism, the monogamous family, the present economic unit of society, ceases to be a divine institution, and becomes the historical product of certain definite economic conditions. In the judgment of such Socialists as Fredrick Engels and August Bebel, we shall probably remain monogamous, but monogamy will cease to be compulsorily permanent." ["Socialism, Positive and Negative," by Rives La Monte, page 98 of the 1907 edition.]

In the "International Socialist Review," February, 1909, there appears on page 628 a notice which reads as follows:

"The 'Review' lately returned to a contributor a clever and readable article in which he emphasized certain absurdities and miseries of the present marriage system. His letter in the reply to us raises some interesting questions, and we are glad to publish it: ... 'It is disappointing to be advised to frankly discuss subjects of such importance as religion and marriage only in hushed whispers behind closed doors. In the fear of offending conservative prejudice on these topics, some Socialists become more conservative than the bourgeois themselves.... Of course, the main stream and most important phase of Socialism is the political-economic agitation, but at the same time the Socialist movement inevitably brings into being, at least for a great part of its adherents, a new culture, a new literature, a new art, a new attitude toward sex relations and religion and individual freedom, a new conception of life as a whole. In face of this fact it is sickening to see individuals, whom one knows to be atheists, defending Socialism as the will of God and the fulfilment of Christianity; and other individuals, whom one knows to be free-lovers, going out of their way to defend the home and family against the inroads of capitalism. Nevertheless such things are seen.... There are thousands of women who are worn out with the bearing of unwelcome children on account of ignorance of proper ways of preventing conception.... If sex life, the personal heart life, of revolutionists were more free and joyous, if they breathed an atmosphere of liberty and spontaneity, free from religious and moral superstitions, if they became now as much like the free people of the future as possible, would they not be that much more ardent and joyous and unceasing workers of the Great Revolution? And if former non-Socialists, especially women who had suffered grievously from the evils of the marriage system, or been intellectually blindfolded by religious teaching, were first led into the light of more emancipated ideas by some of us Socialists, would not they serve and glorify Socialism forever?... If the Christian Socialists have a right to their God, and monogamists to their eternal marriage, then surely in a revolutionary movement like ours, the complete revolutionists have, to say the least, an equal right to their agnosticism and their free union."

Clarence M. Meily, before speaking explicitly of free-love, praises lust and sensuality in the highest terms on page 129 of his book, "Puritanism": "Freed from the privation of millenniums of unrequited toil, with the wealth and wonders of the world at its command, it is fairly certain that the emancipated working class, still wan from its centuries of service and sacrifice, will take great joy in repudiating, finally and forever, the fallacies and aberration of asceticism.... Not the denial of life, but the laudation and triumph of life, will be the keynote of the new ethics. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, the pride of life, will become new formulas, holy and pure in the light of the perfect development of the whole man, and of all men, to which the race will dedicate itself."

Meily then approaches the marriage question and says: "The question of the status of marriage in the new society is one of extreme importance, since it is here that reactionaries of all sorts center their opposition to social reconstruction. It is both idle and disingenuous to assert that marriage as a legal and civil institution is not likely to undergo profound modification.... The artificial perpetuation of the marriage tie, in the face of the disinclination of the parties involved to continue the relation, will cease to be a matter of public concern, or the occasion of state interference. The dissolution of the marriage relation will become as purely a personal and private affair as is the assumption of the relation now. Some sort of registration may be required for the purpose of vital statistics."

In July 2, 1901, "The Haverhill Social Democrat," apparently without fear of offending its subscribers, asked: "What is there sacred in the modern home? Can anything be sacred which is based on a lie or on impurity, or on ignorance? The marriage system today is based on impurity, on ignorance and on a big lie."

"The Call," New York, December 4, 1910, tells its readers to "give all women the vote, and they will strike off the rusty chains that hold them still in marriage as the property of the man."

That the same paper is very lax as regards the divorce evil, so closely allied to free-love, is evidenced from the following quotation taken from the edition of March 30, 1913: "Among the many encouraging signs of woman's growing strength--of her determination to be at last the captain of her soul and the master of her faith--are recent divorce statistics....

"Far from being a sign of moral decadence, the large number of divorces granted to women is one of the healthiest portents of the regeneration of the body social....

"The divorced woman is today the connecting link between the non-resisting, ignorant victim of the past and the self-reliant, enlightened, eugenically minded woman of the future. The divorce statistics of the present are perfectly logical and the divorced woman is a cheering omen, as she fulfils her historic mission."

"The Little Catechism" for the use of the children of Bohemian Socialists, a book from which we have already had occasion to quote in the previous chapter, shows us the exceedingly low standard of morality that is taught to the youthful Revolutionists; for in answer to the question, "Is adultery a sin?" we are astounded by the boldness of the reply, "It is not a sin."

We shall finally corroborate our charge that the Revolutionists advocate free-love by quoting the words of no less an authority than Morris Hillquit, who concedes in "Everybody's," February, 1914, page 233, that "Most Socialists stand for dissolubility of the marriage ties at the pleasure of the contracting parties."

As many Socialist books on free-love have attained a high circulation, and as they have not been repudiated by the party, but have been praised and advertised in its newspapers, and, moreover, since these very books have been sold as standard works both at the National Office of the party and at the leading Socialist book-stores of America, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the number of party members who openly advocate free-love, or at least tacitly approve of its propaganda, must be in the majority, for otherwise the party would never tolerate such a condition of affairs within its ranks.

Once the Socialists gain control of a country, as in the case of Russia, laws legalizing free-love are very soon passed. In the No. 2 edition of the Los Angeles magazine, "More Truth About Russia," its radical editor mentions many of the Bolshevist laws on marriage, divorce, etc., in vogue in Russia. Among them is one fully legalizing free-love, making it possible for married parties to change partners whenever they wish and for no other reason than their mutual or individual desire to do so:

"1. Marriage is annulled by the petition of both parties or even one of them.

"2. The petition is submitted, according to the rules of local jurisdiction, to the local court.

"Note: A declaration of annulment of marriage by mutual consent may be filed directly with the department of registration of marriages in which a record of that marriage is kept, which department makes an entry of the annulment of the marriage in the record and issues a certificate.

"3. On the day appointed for the examination of the petition for the annulment of marriage, the local judge summons both parties or their solicitors.

"4. Having convinced himself that the petition for the annulment of the marriage really comes from both parties or from one of them, the judge personally and singly renders the decision of the annulment of the marriage and issues a certificate thereof to the parties."

This chapter shows that free-love filth, to corrupt and demoralize our people, is being propagated by the Socialist Party of America through its National Headquarters in Chicago, Berger's publication company in Milwaukee, Hillquit's "New York Call," and other publishing houses and papers affiliated with the party. Yet, because the question of the qualifications of five representatives of this system of abomination to make laws for the State of New York was so much as raised by a judicial inquiry in the New York Assembly, that body of legislators has been assailed and falsely charged with undermining the fundamental principles of representative government. The ignorance concerning the true character of the Socialist Party of America is startling.

Is it not time for the American people to awake? Should not every decent American petition all our legislative bodies, state and national, to outlaw the Socialist Party of America and curb its iniquitous propaganda?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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