Mother Earth No. 2, April 1906 Part 1

Mother Earth.

by Various.

Vol. I.

APRIL, 1906.

No. 2.

"TO THE GENERATION KNOCKING AT THE DOOR."

By JOHN DAVIDSON.

_Break--break it open; let the knocker rust; Consider no "shalt not," nor no man's "must"; And, being entered, promptly take the lead, Setting aside tradition, custom, creed; Nor watch the balance of the huckster's beam; Declare your hardiest thought, your proudest dream; Await no summons; laugh at all rebuff; High hearts and you are destiny enough.

The mystery and the power enshrined in you Are old as time and as the moment new; And none but you can tell what part you play, Nor can you tell until you make a.s.say, For this alone, this always, will succeed, The miracle and magic of the deed._

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OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS.

Whoever severs himself from Mother Earth and her flowing sources of life goes into exile. A vast part of civilization has ceased to feel the deep relation with our mother. How they hasten and fall over one another, the many thousands of the great cities; how they swallow their food, everlastingly counting the minutes with cold hard faces; how they dwell packed together, close to one another, above and beneath, in dark gloomy stuffed holes, with dull hearts and insensitive heads, from the lack of s.p.a.ce and air! Economic necessity causes such hateful pressure. Economic necessity? Why not economic stupidity? This seems a more appropriate name for it. Were it not for lack of understanding and knowledge, the necessity of escaping from the agony of an endless search for profit would make itself felt more keenly.

Must the Earth forever be arranged like an ocean steamer, with large, luxurious rooms and luxurious food for a select few, and underneath in the steerage, where the great ma.s.s can barely breathe from dirt and the poisonous air? Neither unconquerable external nor internal necessity forces the human race to such life; that which keeps it in such condition are ignorance and indifference.

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Since Turgenieff wrote his "Fathers and Sons" and the "New Generation,"

the appearance of the Revolutionary army in Russia has changed features.

At that time only the intellectuals and college youths, a small coterie of idealists, who knew no distinction between cla.s.s and caste, took part in the tremendous work of reconstruction. The revolutionist of those days had delicate white hands, lots of learning, aestheticism and a good portion of nervousness. He attempted to go among the people, but the people understood him not, for he did not speak the people's tongue. It was a great effort for most of those brave ones to overcome their disgust at the dirt and dense ignorance they met among the peasants, who absolutely lacked comprehension of new ideas; therefore, there could be no understanding between the intellectuals, who wanted to help, and the sufferers, who needed help. These two elements were brought in closer touch through industrialism. The Russian peasant, robbed of the means to remain on his soil, was driven into the large industrial centres, and there he learned to know those brave and heroic men and women who gave up their comfort and career in their efforts for the liberation of their people.

These ideas that have undergone such great changes in Russia within the last decade should serve as good material for study for those who claim the Russian Revolution is dead.

Nicholas Tchaykovsky, one of Russia's foremost workers in the revolutionary movement, and one who, through beauty of character, simplicity of soul and great strategical ability, has been the idol of the Russian revolutionary youth for many years, is here as the delegate of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist party, to raise funds for a new uprising. He was right when he said, at the meeting in Grand Central Palace, "The Russian Revolution will live until the decayed and cowardly regime of tyranny in Russia is rooted out of existence."

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The French have a new President. Loubet was succeeded by Fallieres. The father of the new one was a great gormandizer of Pantagruelian dimensions. He died of overloading his stomach. The son made his career like a cautious upstart. He is well enough acquainted with himself to know that he is not a Machiavelli. Therefore, he does not boast of his sagacity, but rather of his integrity. A politician is irresistible to a crowd when he cries out to them: "My opponents express the suspicion that I am a numskull. I do not care to argue the point with them, but this I will say by the way of explanation, fellow citizens, that I am a thoroughly honest man to the very roots of my hair." By this method one can attain the presidency of a republic.

As Secretary of the Interior, Fallieres caused the arrest of the Socialist poet, Clovis Hugues. At another time he declared: "As long as I am in office, I will not tolerate the red flag on the open street."

The French bourgeois have found in Fallieres their fitting man of straw for seven years.

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The only genuine Democrat of these times is Death. He does not admit of any cla.s.s distinctions. He mows down a proletarian and a Marshall Field with the same scythe. How imperfectly the world is arranged. It should be possible to shift the bearing of children and the dying from the rich to the poor--for good pay, of course.

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Whosoever believes that the law is infallible and can bring about order in the chaotic social conditions, knows the curative effect of law to the minutest detail. The question how things might be improved is met with this reply: "All criminals should be caught in a net like fish and put away for safe keeping, so that society remains in the care of the righteous." Hallelujah!

People with a capacity to judge for themselves think differently. Mr.

Charlton T. Lewis, President of the National Prison a.s.sociation, maintains:

"Our county jails everywhere are the schools and colleges of crime. In the light of social science it were better for the world if every one of them were destroyed than that this work should be continued. Experience shows that the system of imprisonment of minor offenders for short terms is but a gigantic measure for the manufacture of criminals. Freedom, not confinement, is the natural state of man, and the only condition under which influences for reformation can have their full efficiency....

Prison life is unnatural at best. Man is a social creature. Confinement tends to lower his consciousness of dignity and responsibility, to weaken the motives which govern his relations to his race, to impair the foundations of character and unfit him for independent life. To consign a man to prison is commonly to enrol him in the criminal cla.s.s.... With all the solemnity and emphasis of which I am capable, I utter the profound conviction, after twenty years of constant study of our prison population, that more than nine-tenths of them ought never to have been confined."

Government and authority are responsible for the conditions in the western mining districts.

Is not the existence of government considered as a necessity on the grounds that it is here to maintain peace, law and order? This is an oft-repeated song.

Let us see how the government of Colorado has lived up to its calling within the last few years. It has permitted that the labor protective laws that have pa.s.sed the legislature should be broken and trampled upon by the mine owners.

The money powers care little for the eight-hour law, and when the mine workers insisted upon keeping that law, the authorities of Colorado immediately went to the rescue of the exploiters. Not only were police and soldiers let loose upon the Western Federation of Miners; but the government of Colorado permitted the mine owners to recruit an army to fight the labor organizations. Hirelings were formed into a so-called citizens' committee, that inaugurated a reign of terror. These legal lawbreakers invaded peaceful homes during the day and night, and those that were in the least suspected of belonging to or sympathizing with the Western Federation of Miners were torn out of bed, arrested and dragged off to the bull pen, or transported into the desert, without food or shelter, many miles from other living beings. Some of these victims were crippled for life and died as a result thereof.

When it became known that the W. F. M. continued to stand erect, regardless of brutal attacks, it was decided to strike the last violent blow against it.

Orchard, the man of honor, confessed, and the lawbreakers appealed to the law against Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone.

This time the government did not hesitate. The eight-hour and protective labor law was too insignificant to enforce, but to bring the officers of the W. F. M. to account, that, of course, is the duty and the function of the State.

There is not the slightest hope that the authorities who, for a number of years, have permitted the violation of the law, will be put on trial, but the crime they have perpetrated is a weighty argument in favor of those who maintain that the State is not an independent inst.i.tution, but a tool of the possessing cla.s.s.

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Many radicals entertain the queer notion that they cannot arrange their own lives, according to their own ideas, but that they have to adapt themselves to the conditions they hate, and which they fight in theory with fire and sword.

Anything rather than arouse too much public condemnation! The lives they lead are dependent upon the opinion of the Philistines. They are revolutionists in theory, reactionists in practice.

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The words of Louis XIV, "I am the State," have been taken up as a motto by the American policeman. One of the New York papers contains the following account:

"In discharging some seventy prisoners in the Jefferson Market Police Court yesterday morning, the Magistrate said to the police in charge of the cases: 'I am amazed that you men should bring these prisoners before me without a shred of evidence on which they can be held.'"

Such is the blessing of this republic. We are not confronted by one czar of the size of an elephant, but by a hundred thousand czars, as small as mosquitoes, but equally disagreeable and annoying.

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Friends of MOTHER EARTH in various Western cities have proposed a lecture tour in behalf of the magazine. So far I have heard from Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago. Those of other cities who wish to have me lecture there, will please communicate with me as to dates at once. The tour is to begin May 12th and last for a month or six weeks.

EMMA GOLDMAN, Box 217, Madison Square Station.