The Forerunner Part 139

THE SOCIALIST AND THE SUFFRAGIST

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist: "My cause is greater than yours!

You only work for a Special Cla.s.s, We for the gain of the General Ma.s.s, Which every good ensures!"

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist: "You Underrate my Cause!

While women remain a Subject Cla.s.s, You never can move the General Ma.s.s, With your Economic Laws!"

Said the Socialist to the Suffragist: "You misinterpret facts!

There is no room for doubt or schism In Economic Determinism-- It governs all our acts!"

Said the Suffragist to the Socialist: "You men will always find That this old world will never move More swiftly in its ancient groove While women stay behind!"

"A lifted world lifts women up,"

The Socialist explained.

"You cannot lift the world at all While half of it is kept so small,"

The Suffragist maintained.

The world awoke, and tartly spoke: "Your work is all the same; Work together or work apart, Work, each of you, with all your heart-- Just get into the game!"

COMMENT AND REVIEW

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There is a book which ought to be held in continual prominence by every magazine in the world that appeals particularly to women. It contains a scientific theory of more importance to the world than any put forth since the theory of evolution, and of more importance to women than any ever produced.

It is new, original, wildly startling, intensely significant, and, in the world of ideas, revolutionary in the highest degree.

When this theory is generally accepted, and when the world's ideas have been rearranged in accordance with it, we shall find ourselves looking at a new life--with new eyes.

All our social questions will require new reading, and will find new answers.

It furnishes a key to the whole "woman question," which unlocks every long-barred door and ironbound chest; it cuts the ground from under the feet of the most ancient prejudice, and makes tradition seem but a current rumor of to-day.

This book was published in 1893.

When I read it I was so impressed with its colossal possibility that I went to the publishers and asked to see the reviews--expecting to find some recognition of a world-lifting truth.

I found nothing of the sort. The reviewers reviewed the book in general with respect, with varying insight and intelligence, and one or two dwelt fot a moment on this special theory; but not one recognized its measureless importance.

This is not remarkable. In proportion to the far-reaching value of a truth is the difficulty of popular recognition. With almost all of us the mind is constantly used upon immediate facts and their short-distance relations; a man may be an expert lumber-jack, for instance, or a successful lumber-dealer, yet utterly fail to grasp the importance of forest conservation.

Even those most interested in the woman's movement of to-day were little impressed by this new view.

"What difference does it make?" they said. "We are dealing with conditions of to-day--not with questions of primitive biology!"

Nevertheless, when a great truth is born into the world's mind, it does not die. This, though not widely hailed, has grown and spread and influenced our common thought, and minor books are springing up in its train--among them Thomas's "s.e.x and Society," and my own "Androcentric Culture."

The author of the book, Professor Lester F. Ward, is our greatest Sociologist, and recognized in Europe far more than here--as is quite natural. He now occupies the chair of Sociology at Brown University, in Providence, R. I. His previous books have had wide influence--"Dynamic Sociology" and "Psychic Factors in Civilization"--as well as much current literature in scientific magazines.

The special theory here referred to is, in a word, this:

That the female s.e.x is the present form of the original type of life, once capable in itself of the primary process of reproduction; while the male s.e.x is a later addition, introduced as an a.s.sistant to the original organism, in the secondary process of fertilization.

Most biologists still deny this.

Most readers, not knowing whether it is so or not, will say, "Why is that important?"

It will take time and study to establish the facts; but only a little use of the mind is needed to establish the importance to men and women.

Our ideas are all based on the primal concept expressed in the Adam and Eve story--that he was made first, and that she was made to a.s.sist him.

On this a.s.sumption rests all our social structure as it concerns the s.e.xes.

Reverse this idea once and for all; see that woman is in reality the race-type, and the man the s.e.x-type--and all our dark and tangled problems of unhappiness, sin and disease, as between men and women, are cleared at once. Much, very much, of our more general trouble is traceable tho same source.

You don't see it? Never mind. Read the book; or at least read the great Fourteenth Chapter, which covers the ground.

The book is "PURE SOCIOLOGY," by Lester F. Ward. Published by the MacMillan Co. Price, $4.00.

Make your library get it.

If you can afford to, buy it.

Get up cla.s.ses of women to study it.

Read the whole if it interests you--it is a great Sociology; but every woman who knows how to read ought to read that Fourteenth Chapter.

While going to press the Pure Food Magazine is holding a great Pure Food Exhibition in this city.

At one of the meetings of the Congress of Domestic Science there was a discussion of the Servant Question. A paper was read by a "Mistress,"

and one by a, "Servant." The latter was as nice a girl as one need see; and her paper was intensely practical, full of good sense, well expressed--and short!

Here it is:

"I know I am not equal to the honor of appearing here to-day, and I should like to be able to express myself clearer and better if I only had the power to do so, but I have never spoken before in my life. I have earned my living ever since I was fourteen, both in a factory and as a maid, and I think that I get a better living when I am out at service. I have had good places and some bad ones; kind mistresses, and severe ones. I have pleased some, and others nothing I could do was right. At service we are sure of a good home and much better food and shelter than is the factory girl, but we have not the independence and freedom that is given them, but I do not see how it could be arranged otherwise. But if we could have a quiet spot, so when our work was finished we could have a room to call our own (not the kitchen, where the cook is still busy with the pots and pans), but a little s.p.a.ce where our mothers and friends could come and see us, I am sure that we maids would not abuse that privilege. Also, if you ladies would kindly remember that our time off is our own, and would not say, "I do wish you would not go off to-day, as I need you, but it will be all right, as I will let you off all of to-morrow," and then think that it will be just the same to us. Our time off should be a positive arrangement, as we make our plans for those hours, and to-morrow is not to-day with our friends waiting for us.

"We all hope for a home of our own, and we can only learn from those that we serve; and if only more interest and consideration were shown us, I am sure, we would all do much better work, as we all like to please and we do our best when we are happy and appreciated.

"Unequal wages are a source of discontent, but if we could be taught how to secure the value for our money, to spend with better judgment, even less money would go farther.

"Then, again, if our amus.e.m.e.nts could be arranged so that we could get something decent between nine and ten o'clock at night; but everything is half over, or shut, by that time, and we've nothing to do but walk the streets, sit in the park, drink soda water, or look at moving pictures, until you hate them all, and when Monday morning comes you've spent your money and had nothing. It's a deadly life, and we all look forward to getting out of it soon. Never a minute to call one's own, not often a room or bed to one's self, at the beck and call of somebody night and day, and in many places not even trusted with the things to work with, if there are any."