NEW AMERICA.

 

Morality and Machinery,

(By FREDK. J. BALL, B.A., B.Sc.)

III. 

NEW YORK Jan 4.

We live to-day under the rule of super-craftsmen—economic technicians. He may be the big banker financing the machine, the brain like Ford's that directs it, or the super-engineer who designs it. In either case we call him a technocrat, and our new form of government a technocracy. The day whether of democracy or aristocracy is passing. America is nearing a state of complete technocracy; Germany is on its way and Russia is in a very incipient stage of faith in the machine to extricate it from the morass of the centuries

Opinions radically differ as to the future of civilisation under the rule of the technocrat. The first attitude is that of despair. The machine has placed such unlimited power in the hands of its master, whose moral character and development are not adequate to the new responsibility, that society as we know it will disintegrate. As that tremendous thinker, Spengler, expresses it, the machine will engender such terrific hatred in the heart of the machine slave toward its master that irresistible revolt will blot out of existence the whole "devil's technique," and remould a new world. Or there is Keyserling's dirge of doom for Western civilisation—that the American machine will strike the final deathblow at modern culture; everywhere the beautiful and aesthetic and ancient are in impetuous flight before it. Many of our own thinkers admit that technocracy has caught us entirely unprepared, and that at one end of the scale you have the technocrat, thus far morally unfit to be trusted with such unlimited power, and at the other end a Babbitt—no invention of Sinclair Lewis, but the product of the impact of the new machine on the old religion and psychology. Nor are all the Babbitts in the U.S.A.. for mechanical revolution is girdling the globe, and wherever in any land men see their old faith knocked kite-high and have neither the brains nor the time to evolve a better one, they inevitably become Babbitts, unthinking reflections of their environment. Let other lands, while pitying our multitudes of Babbitts, learn from our experience that unless they culturally, morally, and spiritually prepare for the advancing wave of technocracy they will find themselves living in a world of Babbittry.

Events are forcing us to the conclusion that we cannot run twentieth century machines on a nineteenth century economic morality. The machine demands a higher type of character for its proper use and control that we have at present developed, and if we fail to evolve a new morality, new social standards of character, then the worst anticipations of Spengler and Russell will be tragically realised. In shame we confess that in some dozens of our States we still harness children to our machines, and the machine masters move heaven and earth to hold them there. Not a week passes but we read in our papers some such tale as this—the suicide of a long unemployed father. I take this as an example as it is so poignantly eloquent, the letter of the man's brother: "Should my brother have been treated less kindly than a beast? Was it just, was it Christian, was it ordinary humanity to send him forth to starve? Was there not in the sight of God a contract between my brother's employer and himself that, since he had served so well in the days prosperity, the great corporation should least grant him bread and shelter in evil days?"

Gradually we are getting away from the old idea that immorality is simply a form of sex disobedience, and many of our leading clergy are fearlessly preaching the new morality and the true morality, that any form of wrong or injustice inflicted on the weak or defenceless or unorganised is immorality, equally reprehensible as other forms of depravity and vice. And the wealthy church member who is horrified by the operations of the bootlegger or the latest marital infidelity, but who may be a grafter in politics or pitiless toward those in his power, is now in the way of getting some wholesome teaching from some of the biggest pulpits of the land.

THE RURAL GOSPEL.

The second attitude is that of query. Is a gospel adequate to the hillsides and blue lakes of primitive Galilee a sufficient economic ethic in the new technocracy? Did Christ's social gospel, so perfectly adapted to the agricultural State, ever envisage the day of Smith of Milwaukee, or Ford of Detroit? Tolstoi firmly believed that our sole economic salvation lay in the literal application of the Galilee gospel, though Russia has travelled far since his unfortunate experiment. The question this age must decide is whether an agricultural state gospel is applicable to a machine state civilisation. Is the rule of gold so universal and so utterly deep-seated that there is no hope left for the Golden Rule? Is the profit motive so engrained in human nature that human values must always be subordinated? Must the sublime ideal of the infinite glory and grandeur of human personality be crushed under the wheels of the machine? After two thousand years of the Galilee gospel, is human greed reaching its zenith among Christian nations? In these changing times that demand adaptation, adjustment, and advance are we mumbling old creeds and mediaeval dogmas while society and religion slowly sink to final ruin? Has the "simple gospel" any word in it for the machine master or the machine tender, or is there any hope of mutual co-operation between them? What place has any preachment on resignation to your lot in a land where people are hungry and cold, and yet warehouses burst with cotton and silos overflow with grain? Submission to those in authority has a fine Bible ring; but what if you are a citizen in a Tammany-controlled New York? Has the old Gospel got the power to morally regenerate the machine master and the banker; to direct aright the befuddled capitalist and the mazed economist? So the second attitude is just a great question mark; a wonder at the pathos of conflict between traditionalism and modernism, like that of two motorist, disputing the right of way on a railroad track with an express train thundering down on them at sixty miles an hour. What matter which is right if both be swept into irreparable ruin?

The third attitude, while not immediately optimistic, takes long views, and puts mighty faith in a coming entente between religion, science, and philosophy, which will co-operate in the emancipation of humanity from the thraldom of poverty, disease, exploitation, and injustice. When we remember what human society and human nature were when Christianity first found them and see what they are to-day we must agree that religion does possess some strange genius for human regeneration. That in the long run the gods have always been on the side of the Golden Rule for human relationships, and there is an inflexible moral order and a benevolent Divine Mind back of the universe. That strange leaven that has worked in other great revolutionary periods is working again to-day. The heart of the machine master is undergoing great change; he grows every year more honourable and humane. Never in history have those who control wealth so dedicated it to productive public use, and in the interest of all human values. A new evangel is abroad in the land, and the blind heavings in this country and in that are undeniable indication that humanity, responsive to the new moving spirit, is on the march again, following that upward gleam toward which it has consistently worked for two score milleniums.

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW ) 1932, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28034983

HITLER A MENACE

DRIVING WOMEN BACK TO KITCHEN

German Girls Ready To Sacrifice Independence

Kirche, Kuchen und Kinder!

 Marching girls in "brown shirts"—khaki from head to foot—and a most unattractive khaki, if you can trust the opinion of Mevrow Perk—with the hakenltreuz on the arm, just like the Storm Troops themselves. Striding girls with shining eyes, more than happy, inspired by hysterical devotion to sacrifice all the dreams of the heroines of mankind, all the freedom so bitterly fought for, let it blaze in one grand bonfire of self-abnegation for the fatherland.

For Hitler, the "living saint" —they call him that!—has commanded them to cower once again before those famous "Three K's" of the Kaiser, which, when translated, mean: "Church, kitchen, and children."

Hitler says, "Back to the church; (Not the Church of the Cross, but the church of the swatika.) Back to the kitchen! Back to the children!" Good daughters of Germany will hear and obey; they are not expected to argue.

And in Germany today there are many thousands of these young women—those lithe, adoring, marching girls who have bowed to the decree. No, not bowed, exactly. The uncanny mesmerism of Adolph the Terrible has produced in them a weird exaltation. They hear the doom of women's advance and they cry: "Heil, Hitler."

Thus writes an American Journalist who recently visited Germany.

BACK TO POTS AND PANS

Hail Hitler. Coming from women whose mothers foresaw the complete emancipation of their sex, a position of world equality with man, it brings to mind the shout of the Roman gladiators:
"Hail, Caesar! We who are, about to die salute you!"

The foregoing picture of young German women leaving typewriters and looms to toddle back to pots and pans and humble service in the home, has not been taken entirely from my interview with Mevrow Perk (Mrs. E. S. Perk), recently returned to Boston from the land of the swastika. Other visitors, in recent weeks, have reported the same phenomenon.

And in this year of 1933 it is a phenomenon!

New England women, I suppose, haven't given themselves a whole lot of brain fag over handsome Adolph, except to titter when they look at his dabby moustache and to gasp with horror at the fiendish atrocities of the Nazis. They're thousands of miles from Hitler. How can he possibly mean anything in their lives?

When the more fuzzy-brained citizens of a great republic suggest that what America needs is a pep-them-up dictator (and you and I both have spinsters for a heavy tax (even spinsters with dependents), milking loans—certificates for furniture and such—to girls who'll do a walk-out on their jobs, take husbands, and go in for pot-walloping in a big way.

But, this is an, entering wedge. Openly anti-feminist, he will fight to shove women back into the state of chattel slavery into which he believes they belong. The start made, and the youth of Germany, with his "ideal" of woman, the next step, logically, will be a complete booting of women out of independence.

Mevrow Perk (Mevrow, you see, because her husband is a Hollander) smiles at the dire possibilities. She tells me that she doesn't believe it's possible, even for "Holy Adolph," to stop the advance of women.

"The world always goes forward," she said to me."Nothing stands still.
Nothing goes back. Progress has to be forward."

BACKWARD, MARCH

"But going backward is movement as well as going forward," I agreed. "And it's quite evident that Hitler is convincing women that its progress to go backward. If they believe it. it becomes so, doesn't it? Why is it impossible for women to be reduced to chattels again in the name of a finer and clearer civilization?"

Mevrow Perk admitted that she heard plenty of loose talk in Boston about the advantages of an absolute Meund-Gott regime, when life size portraits of Mussolini are to be found gracing board rooms of many corporations, and when we realize that for several years the murmur has been rising in this country that working women steal jobs from men, with many depression-goofy women joining in in the clamor for a revival of the subjection of women—it isn't particularly hard to see how the push over triumph of Hitler over German feminism threatens to turn back the American clock as well as the German.

Throughout the world today Hitler is the ogre. As a matter of record it was only the other day Al Smith blistered his "stupidity and savagery." For the savagery of the Nazis he may forever be unpopular. But it is easing of women out of employment appreciably cuts down German's male unemployment figures and brings any semblance of prosperity, ONE of Hitler's ideas, at least, may not be yowled down in derision and repugnance by the rest of the world.

THE ENTERING WEDGE

It is not even certain that woman themselves would form a united front to battle against discriminatory legislation in this country.

And yet the right to work and the right to vote are the two fundamental rights which have gradually hoisted women from the status of chattel. Any restriction of either of these rights must necessarily make her once more a two-spot in human affairs.

Hitler has opened the attack. Thus far, as Samuel Untermyer, America's distinguished lawyer and spokesman for the Jewish race, explained the other evening over the radio, he has confined himself to a labelling of women as fit only for child-bearing, for serving man, for being the ever submissive plaything of his sensual hours. He has ordered German women to give up cigarettes, lipstick, and the other surface marks of modernity. He is enticing women away from commercial work. . . It might be so. But even then she shrugged. However, Mevrow Perk is something of a fatalist. She is, of the opinion that whatever happens, the world goes on.

The growth of Hitler's new idea in America would massacre our social scheme almost beyond present-day conception. But grandma, if you ask her for the low-down, may be able to give you an idea. She will be able, perhaps, to give you a snappy picture of the days of her girlhood.

Why is it, do you think, that every family nearly, on the approach of an "interesting event" says, "I hope it's a boy."

Of course, there's the curious family pride in having a male heir to carry on the honored name of Glish. Still, I doubt if most fathers give much thought to that—the average fathers, who never get closer to fame than the telephone book. No, the hope's due to something deeper, more vital.

The world runs on food and shelter. Dollars and cents. In the old days a son was an asset; a daughter just so many pounds of red ink. Son, when he got out of his short pants, could get himself a job and contribute to the family chest. Daughter couldn't. There weren't many jobs for women then, and most of those jobs were common labor propositions.

A woman of the middle class couldn't take that kind of a job without bringing shame on herself and her people, and making the nosy neighbors say, 'tch! tch!" So she stayed at home, lived on father's bounty, until her marriage, which gave her the comfort of being her husband's servant for life.

If she didn't marry she lived in an earthly hell. Only dependents know how much of a hell dependence can be. Conscious all the time that a brother, or a nephew, or an uncle may be thinking of the cost of every slice if bread you eat. Meekly obeying all orders, so that your benefactor may not complain that you're not worth your keep.

IN EVERY MAN

Every man has the makings of a Nazi in him—if you can set fire to these makings.

The Emperor Claudius, at gladiatorial contests, liked to watch the faces of the dying. He took an artistic pleasure in observing the variations of agony. Tell that to the average man and he'll say those were different times, cruel Rome, and all that. And they used to dress men in skins of wild beasts and threw them to bulls maddened by red-hot irons.

Nero lighted his gardens by Christians burning in pitchy skirts. Sometimes it was more fun to see women hacking at each other, so they had women gladiators. One old Roman had a slave slaughtered, off hand like, just to give a yearning guest a nice, bloody show. A Roman lady took it into her head to have an unoffending slave crucified—just a little whim of the moment.

There's the mad craze behind the butcherings and beatings by the Nazis. Every man, Atwell told me, has something of the sadist in him. It's normal enough. So's masochism. Sadism is the love of inflicting pain on others. Masochism's taking pleasure in your own suffering, or enjoying fear. With the average man these primitive impulses are tightly held in restraint by inhibitions built up through the civilizing centuries.

But let them loose—as Hitler let them loose—and look out for Hell on earth!

Right here in Boston these impulses show themselves, among normal people. There's sadism and masochism combined at the auto races. There's the heart-catching thrill of imminent death, and the dizzy enjoyment of the very fear that there's going to be tragedy. When the dare-devil girl high-diver leaps from her sky-high board in flames, there's the same hope-against-hope thrill. When you plunge through the most frightening twist of the roller coaster you're enjoying your own fear.

In small doses, all this is normal enough. But when it runs wild— Well, in America, at present it means a vacation at the Psychopatic. In Germany it means that you stand on the street corner with your arm raised in salute and cry "Heil Hitler!"

FURY OF THE MOB

But how can a man like Hitler turn hundreds of thousands of humans into demons?

Nietzsche, the mad philosopher, urged: "Thou art going to women? Forget not the whip."

It's the beat of an idea, reiterated. It's the psychology of the mob. It's the never-veering positiveness of a wild leader. It's getting on the band waggon and shouting hurray Hitler, to push his followers into joyous participation in excesses, merely has to keep one step ahead of them, show initiative always.

"Look in at a meeting of stock holders of some corporation some time," Atwell suggested. "Watch what happens when the chairman particularly wants some motion passed. As soon as he reads it, he asks for a show of hands by all in favor, and instantly flashes his own hand up. Instinctively other hands start up— and often go up."

Americans have, no especially smug call to believe that, if by some incredible misfortune Hitlerism should furrow into our country, we should not have plenty of cruelties take place. A cult of cruelty is building up plenty fast right now.

The other day in a Boston theatre I saw a newsreel of a hacked man being dragged through the living streets of hate in Havana. The same reel showed a man, hounded to death by the infuriated mob, stumbling over the balcony of his house in a paroxysm of terror while his killers chased him snarling. A few days later I saw another newsreel showing Di Pinedo's plane cracking up and roaring into flames, with a close-up of his fire-thwarted mechanic sobbing in near delirium.

A few years, ago neither of these clips would have got into a projector. I don't know whether they would have been censored or not— I think they would have been—but I do know that it was considered best policy not to show actual death gruesomely. Public reaction was feared.

But now those hacked Cubans are just a thrill, dramatic movie. The flaming of Di Pinedo's plane drew gasps of horror; from the audience, but they enjoyed the fearsome
shock.

In New York they're showing a movie called —with the subtitle, "The Killer who Chuckles over Death." And a recent book review says: "For those who like strong stuff this is an exciting piece of contemporary naturalism, in which blood, lust, torture, agony and violent death follow one another by turns . . . In Book Two a helpless man is beaten up in a police inspector's office . . . There is a seduction scene. And a suicide and a couple of shootings complete the carnage . . . Throughout the book almost all imaginable states are described in a language that is as frank as possible.

SPOKE TOO SOON

Nevertheless, of course, the Boston woman —and the Boston man— will shake their heads, smiling in ridicule, perhaps, at the notion that anything as cruel and stupid as Hitlerism could wreak chaos on a nation where citizens are so proud of their freedom as in the United States.

Well, take a look at what Genevieve Parkhurst, famous student of the woman's movement, said just a few years back—in 1930 — after a trip to Germany :—

"They have a power which is by no means second to that of man. They are fulfilling all the promises which the women of other countries made when they pleaded for the vote and have yet failed to keep. They have made Germany a better world to live in. They stand firm together as women, bulwark of unity, against all attempts at chicanery or charlatanism in government or politics. Their men acknowledge their power and dare not try to thwart it."

The German women were hard and purposeful, she said. The women of America were soft. The pioneering days were far behind, and since those days American women had not had to fight for sustenance. As a real power in the nation's politics, American women were so many ciphers.

It's ironical to think of the switch that time has brought. Hitler has squashed the woman's movement, while in this country many of the ladies hold important government jobs, while one, Frances Perkins, is a member of the Cabinet.

"Under Hitler women are put back 100 years!" one sad-eyed German feminist complains.

And German women, three years ago, were a "bulwark against chicanery and charlatanism." Now they cry, "Heil Hitler!" It's the younger ones, though, who adore him. Their elders see the newly-built civilization crashing about them.

CENTURIES OF SLAVERY

Fifteen hundred years ago, or thereabouts, the women of Rome achieved freedom. And it wasn't small-time stuff. Rome was no trifling ancient-history state, but a greater nation, both in power and comparative area than any nation since have been. Women owned property. Women could divorce undesirable husbands. Then their freedom slipped away from them, and women, until his century was owned by man as slave.

Charles Atwell of the Psychopathic, interested in the baffling twistings of the feminine mind, declares religion did it. Religion lifted woman to the pedestal, made her a gentle meek homebody, and it took fiery-eyed suffragettes to knock her down and make her a person again.

The economic situation now threatens to slip over what religious fervor did centuries ago. Women can choose between independence and men out of work or dependence and men with jobs. For Hitler it's a lot easier than trying to figure out how both sexes can have jobs. Eager to immolate themselves in the cause of "Hitler the Holy" the women—the younger chits—dash to do his bidding. The feminist—it's what they're saying—becomes old-fashioned; the old-fashioned woman, sitting by the fire and meekly obeying her lord and master, becomes the glorious ideal of "advanced womanhood."

EDUCATION FOR GIRLS

The original English colonists, Dean Archer told me, brought to America the old world idea that woman was made to be a sort of domestic drudge to minister to the will and pleasure of man, and that marriage was her only reputable vocation. The education of women was frowned upon. Even in New England, where a school for boys was one of the first thoughts of every newly-established community, there was no provision in such schools for giving girls general idea of what it was all about.

"But New England fathers were not utterly unmindful of the intellectual welfare of their daughters, so we find them apologetically and perhaps furtively arranging to have their daughters attend what were known as 'Dames' Schools,' kept, no doubt, by a spinster or widow. The Quakers, with their alarming ideas of equality of the sexes, where apparently the first to open the doors of their schools to children of both sexes. This was in Philadelphia in 1689, but hard-headed colonists everywhere frowned on the idea.

"It is a singular fact that society in general is so largely governed by age-old prejudices, a custom, whether it be of slavery, polygamy, a caste system of special privileges, or what not is blindly adhere to and will be defended to the death by supposedly intelligent people.

"This truth was strikingly manifested in the long contest for education of women. One of the first communities in the United States, perhaps the first to throw open its grammar schools to girls, was Dorchester. This took place in 174, and then only from June 6 to October 1 of each year—presumably during the summer vacation. Five years later Boston took the radical step of admitting girls to its grammar schools on the same footing as boys."

PIONEER NEW ENGLAND

New England, I think, should be sharply on guard against any attempt such as Hitler's, to smash back the advance of women. New England has always been a pioneer for freedom— a hater of slavery. New England women have dared demand in loud voice what other women have been too timid to ask in whisper. Higher education for women got its great start here and amongst our greatest assets are our colleges for women—Mt. Holyoke, the first women's college in the State. Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe, Jackson, Simmons and co-educational Boston University.

It is impossible to believe that a modern triumph of the Kaiser's "Three K's" now demanded by Adolph Hitler, can come to pass and the education of women survive. Back to the kitchen here, and it's next to a sure thing that beautiful Tower Court at Wellesley could be turned over to a detachment of a dictator's army to be scarred as storm troop barracks — either by dictatorial command or by an economic necessity that would force a college to close its doors.

There's nothing in "education for culture." Not a thing—as yet, anyhow. We educate for profit. We send girls to high schools, our young women to colleges; give them a decent hand-out of what they'll need to take their place in the world of dollars and cents and devil take the hindmost.

Culture's a nice word. But an ermine wrap is a lot cheaper.

Gilgandra Weekly and Castlereagh (NSW : 1929 - 1942), Thursday 30 August 1934, page 10

PERVERTS AND PIETY

Finery, Frivolity, and Frailty.

 The " Will of God" and Wilful Women.

The judicial strictures lately passed on the marked increase in the number of sexual offences in this State, aroused but a passing interest in the public mind. The citizen of to-day recognises—consciously or sub-consciously —that sexual depravity is inseparable from the conditions under which modern society exists. It is also beyond dispute that the vast majority of sexual offences remain undiscovered, and that the offenders who are detected—and punished—are invariably the "bottom dogs" of society. Yet statistics compiled in more congested centres than any existing in this State show that while the so-called "liberal professions" furnish 5 per cent. of ordinary criminals, no less than 12 per cent. of those sentenced for child-violation belong to the professional class. Criminals belonging to this section of society possess, as a rule, ample means and have more facilities for concealing their crimes. Even when a case comes to light the social "pull" of the offender, and the soporific influence of wisely-placed cash, prevents his punishment. Within the past decade more than one clergyman in West Australia has been accused of tampering with female children, and although one of the degenerate men of God was "biffed" severely by an infuriated father, the Law, beyond a burlesque inquiry, took no cognisance of the prurient pranks of the pietistic perverts. Moderation is quite as necessary in sexual enjoyment as it is in the gratification of other human requirements. Yet no more intolerant section of society than the clerical exists to-day. The lack of self-control exhibited daily by pulpitpounders—it is only reasonable to suppose—is not confined to their utterances or actions in public. When the Lord leadeth a man beside still waters and maketh him lie down in green pastures, his lines are mostly cast in pleasant places. Few, if any, have so much idle time, or are thrown so much in the

SOCIETY OF FEMALES

as the practitioners of piety. And the parson is always a privileged person. At Sunday schools, church services, bun-banquets, gingerbeer jollifications, and other wowser festivities, he is, to use a colloquialism, "the white-headed boy." Can it be wondered if, surfeited and palled by superfluity, the sexual provocative offered by the charms of mature womanhood should be replaced by a desire for keener stimulation? Leading authorities on the psychology of sex assert that the man who is a universal favorite with women is invariably a sexual pervert. And, apart from the dictum of science, it is asking too much of the credulity of the average man to ask him to believe that spiritual satisfaction is the only solace sought in the circles of wowserdom.
 A more striking proof of the perverted morality of modern Christians is afforded by the universal recognition that the present form of marriage is inadequate. While it is piously proclaimed that "the sacred tie" is divinely ordained, no social stigma is attached to men who seek illegitimate gratification of their sexual impulses. Yet the intuitive reaching out for the fulfilment of her being—if it is sanctified by a marriage ceremony—is regarded as a sign of inborn depravity in a woman. This peculiar delusion that an ecclesiastical anathema tends to subdue the natural instinct known as sexual impulse, is undoubtedly inherited from

THE PRIESTLY BIGOTRY

of the Middle Ages. It is the purpose of sex to propagate the race. The sex-instinct is a law which Nature demands that every individual must fulfil if his development is to be healthy and normal. Modern Christianity, while providing marriage as a means by which the natural desires may find expression, vaguely recognises the shortcomings of "the sacred tie" by tacitly approving of prostitution. It is, the Biblebanging boneheads deprecatingly declare, a necessary evil. Why it is imperative that, in a community that boasts of its Christian principles, its culture, and its civilisation, a woman should be forced to barter the supreme expression of the sacred passion the wowsers never attempt to explain. Possibly they imagine it is the will of God. Yet it is an irrational Deity if, in bygone ages, He willed that woman should be mastered, violated, and beaten into submission by the stronger animal— man. Was it His will that the natural, healthy, sex-nature of woman should become distorted and stunted by starvation until she was forced to offer her body to her master? Of course, should such be the case, the Divine will, naturally enough, was modified considerably by the march of Occidental conceptions of sexual relationship. He let it be known that modern woman was to be coaxed, flattered, and humored, until she consented to become a pleasant plaything. It is a humbling reflection, but nevertheless a bald and brutal truth, that precisely the same feeling animates the Kimberley aboriginal, who stuns his gin with a waddy, as animates the cultured gentleman of modern civilisation, who places his divinity on a pedestal and worships her. In neither case is she regarded as a comrade, a willing lover, or an individual standing on the same footing as man. She is the slave, or the idol, as the case may be, but ever and always the sexual appendage to man.
It is not to be wondered at that women to-day are not as sweet, as generous, or as wholesome as Nature would have had them. Although the welfare of future generations depends on the purity and intelligence of woman, modern conditions have kept her as ignorant of the great social evils which

MENACE THE NATIONAL HEALTH 

as was her mediaeval sister. Her want of training, and the absence of any decent outlet for the tyrannical insistence of the sex instinct, has left her a sentiment-swamped creature whose outlook on existence is circumscribed by the narrow limits of the ring-fetter of a wife. Should the appalling monotony of work and a little sleep, which is the best bargain of ninetenths of married women, deter her from matrimony, she is looked upon as a naturally vicious woman and, denounced by her own sex for drawing worthy and innocent masculinity down into the depths of iniquity. Mrs. Walter M. Gallichan, in her book, "The Truth About Woman," says: "Idleness, frivolity, and the love of finery are the chief causes of a girl's downfall. The last is a far more frequent and stronger factor in determining towards prostitution than actual want, and one moreover, that is very deeply seated in the feminine character. Women must remember that, if they suffer through men's passion, men suffer no less through women's greed. We have got to remember that if many of our fallen sisters have been seduced by men, at least an equal number of men have received their sexual initiation at the hands of our sex. The seduction of young men by women is often the starting point of a young man's association with courtesans. The majority of prostitutes are simply doing for money what they originally did of their own free will for the excitement and the gain of some small personal gift. A chief cause of prostitution, which has not been sufficiently recognised, is sexual frigidity. This is the clearest explanation of the moral insensibility of the prostitute. I am certain that many of the courtesans I have known have never experienced passion. I believe that the traffic of love's supreme rite means less to them than it would do to me to shake hands with a man I disliked."
 Being a woman, Mrs. Gillichan looks upon "the social evil"

FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

to the mere male. Yet despite the inside knowledge inseparable from her sex, few indeed will believe that a healthy, well-poised girl deliberately chooses a life of shameful barter. Few, very few women reach the brothel in one step, and take that step from choice. Yet although the fair writer will not admit that women instinctively shrink from sex-expression unless it is sanctified by love, she does not hold with any platitudinous piffle about the will of God. In fact, she insists that the ways of wilful woman are the determining factor.

Truth (Perth, WA : 1903 - 1931), Saturday 13 October 1917, page 5

MATING AND MARRIAGE.

MAN-MADE MATERNITY MEASURES.

Sacred Ties and Slip-Knots.

SHIFTING SANDS OF "SEX AND SOCIETY."

Cant and Camouflage of Conventions.

There is a considerable amount of speculation going on at present concerning the changes which are expected as a result of "the greatest war of all times." Some enthusiasts predict a new social era, wherein the lion of capitalism will foregather amicably with the lamb of labor and all men shall be as brothers—neither robbing nor being robbed. A sort of economic elysium, where no one will have too much, and no one too little. Under such a social system each man will "do his bit" for the common weal, and in his spare time smoke the pipe of peace and plenty under his own fig trees, untroubled by tax-gatherers, debt-collectors, penny newspapers, or paranoiac politicians. Sin, or rather crime and criminals, will cease to exist—automatically wiped off the face of the earth. There will be nothing to sin or commit crimes for, these optimistic prophets point out, since want,

THE CHIEF INCENTIVE TO CRIME,

will be unknown save as a dim and unpleasant memory.
While all would hail such a desirable state of affairs with satisfaction, it is well to remember that there are two primal, or instinctive, wants—the food want or hunger, and sex hunger. And since man first shod his tail and started to walk on his hind legs, it is upon these two cravings that every social system has been built. Though food is the first essential, sex hunger is as equally an imperious and persistent craving, and plays such a part in determining the conditions of existence that it is difficult to distinguish which of the twin instincts is the dominant factor in shaping any system of society, it cannot be disputed that since Eve started industrial "problems" by condemning Adam to hustle for a crust—or its equivalent at the time of the eviction—the sex problem has caused man as much worry as the necessity of earning his bread by the sweat of his brow.

LOVELY WOMAN,

in all ages and in all climes, has ever been the prime disturbing factor and the chief source of annoyance to the superior animal—man. The feminine faculty for creating mischief has bred wars, instigated murders, and started rebellions. Since the days when she was clubbed into submission and dragged to the cave of her captor, she likes to feel that she has been mastered, conquered, and taken possession of by—she subconsciously reasons—one who can both protect and provide for her. Nor has this peculiar sort of pride diminished to any great extent under the stress of the alleged civilisation of more recent times. Although marriage by conquest has gone out of fashion, she still pines to be wooed and won, and likes to persuade herself that he who has stormed the citadel of her heart is

"A MAN AMONG MEN."

 The long-haired mate of man, taking her by and large, instinctively admires soldiers, athletes, and fighting men generally; and nothing so lowers a lover in a maiden's eyes than for him to be whipped in a personal encounter with a rival. Whether the best fighters make the best husbands and bread-winners—under modern conditions—is open to doubt. Natural selection possibly may be influenced by what the hereinbefore mentioned optimists call economic considerations. Yet, in vertebrates, it is an undeniable fact that sex and stoush run, so to speak, in double harness. The season of love is the season of battle, and when the fires of sexual ism burn low the torch of Mars flickers and grows dim. This biological peculiarity is referred to by Darwin in his "Descent of Man" where he remarks : "With social animals the young males have to pass through many a contest before they win a female, and the older males have to retain their females by renewed battles. They have, as in the case of mankind,

TO DEFEND THEIR FEMALES

as well as their young from enemies of all kinds, and to hunt for their joint subsistence."
The highest among the social animals, modern man, while he may not have to fight with Nature's weapons, still has to struggle for his female, and, when he has got her, to hunt for their joint subsistence. In fact, he has to hunt so persistently that he is forced to delegate the duty of protecting her "from enemies of all kinds," to large and sinewy policemen whose labors are much lightened by the survival of superstitious beliefs and a firmly-fixed faith in the infallibility of the

CONVENTIONAL MORAL CODE

of the day. The tendency of sexualism and slaughter to go hand-in-hand is noted, also by Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, who says:
"Among the higher animals it is a very general fact that the males fight together for the possession of the females. This leads to the stronger or better-armed males be coming the parents of the next generation. Almost all male animals fight together, and from this very general phenomenon there necessarily results a form of natural selection which increases the vigor and fighting power of the male animal; the weaker being either killed, wounded, or driven away."
Whether the theory that

SEXUAL DESIRE

is the amalgam that unites the golden particles of physical perfection, rigor, bravery, and endurance, is subscribed to or not, it cannot be disputed that in the average female it is an instinctive belief that her sexual favors are a prize for which men must be compelled to struggle. From her knobby-kneed, angular-elbowed, bread-and-butter days the maiden's Prince Charming is ever a doughty doer of gallant deeds—he conquers giants, outwits his enemies, pulverises villains, and is in general an all-round holy terror to all wicked persons whose baleful influence, in the romantic damsel's imagination, prevents the union of two loving hearts. She strives by any and every means that feminine ingenuity can compass to make herself a prize. The birds of the air and the beasts of the forest are laid under contribution to decorate her body with furs and feathers. The bowels of the earth and the depths of the ocean are explored for precious metal and gems to adorn her person. Fashions are designed for the express purpose of providing her with raiment that

"HALF-REVEALS AND HALF-CONCEALS"

her physical charms. From her simpering "school-miss" days she is taught the tricks of provocation, the sly seductive arts that accentuate the lure of sex and arouse in men the passion for possession. Her whole aim in life, until time robs her of her sexual charm, is to make herself so attractive and desirable in the eyes of men that they will deem her favors a sort of victor's bays— the laurel wreath with which gracious Beauty decks the brow of the successful competitor.
While in the male sex hunger is satisfied by the gratification of the appetite, desire in the female is intensified by the stimulation of other instincts connected with the

LONGING FOR OFFSPRING.

 She is dominated by the maternal as well as the sexual instinct, and in her the call of sex is much more insistent than in man. Under the social conditions which prevailed up till the outbreak of war, sex-repression was forced upon unmarried women, and men were bred up in the quite erroneous belief that gifts which did not demand a certain amount of struggle and self-sacrifice were not worth having. And the supreme gift was the monopoly of a woman's sexual favors. That this mental dope—or instilled superstition, formed no part of the moral code of the ruling class has been abundantly exemplified by the periodical scandals provoked by the exposures of the prevalence of name-less vices among the idle rich. Suffering from surfeit, Sassiety folk sought to stimulate the sexual appetite by the means tersely forbidden in Leviticus, chap. 18, verses 22 23. But the perverted practices of "High" society may be dismissed as having no bearing upon the shaping of any social system. They are merely the scum that rises to the surface during the

PROCESS OF PURIFICATION.

 But it was of paramount importance that the majority of the people should hold fast to the belief that sex repression—until ecclesiastic or legal sanction was obtained— was a divine ordination. "Marriage is the basis of the family, the family is the basis of the State," and should marriage be superseded by some more satisfactory scheme of sex relationship, both the present social system and the State are doomed. Yet the marriage-tie has become more and more irksome to the bulk of the people under the conditions imposed upon them by modern civilisation. Woman's sex instinct in particular has never been permitted to find a full and free expression. As before mentioned, she had been taught to regard herself as a prize to be struggled for and sought after, and that inaccessibility was her most potent charm. After marriage her favors were monopolised by one man, and married life has been regarded by woman as her sole refuge, an asylum that offered a shelter from the storm and stress of the struggle for existence.
Yet notwithstanding the fact that an infraction of the moral code—insofar as it concerns the relations of the sexes—

INCURRED SOCIAL OBLIQUY

in the case of a single girl, and forced upon a married woman the necessity of finding other means of securing food and shelter, sex repression in the unmarried, and conjugal fidelity in the married woman, has by no means worked out as the dour, dead-and-gone wowsers who invented our moral codes and social superstitions anticipated. Bastardy laws, and the right of a single woman to sue for prematernity expenses, and divorce laws and the right of a married woman to sue for reparation and maintenance, are merely the tardy recognition of a biological fact. Nature cannot be harnessed by codes, however cunningly contrived, nor can instinct be hoodwinked by the

CAMOUFLAGE OF CONVENTIONS.

As social and industrial conditions in Australia are mostly a reflex of those obtaining in England, the part now being played by the women of Britain is of more than passing interest. Since the outbreak of the war the "sacred bonds of wedlock" have become very elastic. So much so indeed that at the beginning of the present year more divorce petitions were filed in one month— January —than at any time since the passing of the Divorce Act. In February they were higher still, and each month since has shown a further increase. The petitions by husbands outnumber those by wives by five or six to one. And this astounding increase is not due to any sudden or unusual outbreak of immorality among the aristocracy or the idle rich. These petitions were almost all made under what is known as the "Poor Persons Rules" which have been introduced for the special purpose of dealing with

THE MATRIMONIAL TANGLES

of the poorer or wage-earning class. In legal circles a still greater increase is anticipated and more accommodation is being asked for, and the appointment of additional Judges is urged.
 The British Parliament, alarmed no doubt by the swiftly growing tendency of the marriage tie to become a mere slip-knot appointed a Parliamentary committee to investigate and report on the possibilities of "Marriage Law Reform." With a perspicacity unusual in such bodies, the committee recognised the fact that the ease with which the knot was slipped rendered some sort of reform imperative. Getting married must be made as easy as getting unmarried, or the sanctity of the marriage-tie was doomed. The rigmarole of preliminary observances demanded by the law, and the itching palms of the pimps of piety, had made marriage a complicated, expensive, and tedious process, so much so that the wedding ceremony was beginning to be regarded as hardly worth the trouble and expense entailed. The committee therefore urged that—"At the present time while the manhood of the nation has been depleted,

NO OBSTACLES TO MARRIAGE

—such as those which arise from legal technicalities and pecuniary circumstances—should be allowed to remain."
 Whether the committee's efforts to smooth the path to the matrimonial altar (or halter) will save that ancient piece of furniture from being scrapped is uncertain. An entirely new set of conditions has arisen in England since the outbreak of war. Woman has—to an extent hitherto undreamt of—displaced man in the industrial arena. She is doing practically the work of the nation. She will moreover have to keep on doing it as "the manhood of the nation has been depleted" to such an extent that it is estimated that only three girls in every ten in Britain have a chance of getting married. A healthy, well-poised woman who is industrially independent is not, now forced to

REPRESS HER SEXUAL INSTINCT

until, assisted by a parson, she can barter the sole right to her body for food and shelter. That she has recognised this is fairly evident, not only by the unprecedented boom in divorce, but also by the legislative anxiety concerning the marriage-tie. This anxiety is quite understandable when it is remembered that while, as mentioned, marriage is the basis of the family, and the family the basis of the State, its primary purpose was to obtain "legitimate" children. It was with the evolution of private property in lands, dwellings, and cattle, that the idea first originated of a permanent marriage between one man and one woman. Private possessions bred the desire that one's own children should inherit these possessions. Thus the custom of one man taking a woman and

INSISTING UPON A MONOPOLY

of her genial favors sprang up, and has continued with little or no alteration down to the present day. Marriage as a divinely ordained institution is merely moonshine. The cant of monogamy in the churches is disproved by the facts of life in the divorce courts. Nor can the history of prostitution be separated from the history of private property in the earth and the fruits thereof. When the earth and its products came to be privately owned it naturally followed that large numbers of men and women were left without land, homes, or means of subsistence. The men, having nothing else, sold their labor, as also did those of the women whose sexual attraction did not appeal to the owners of things—the master class. Whatever may be the outcome of the

CONFIDENTLY-PREDICTED READJUSTMENT

of the social scheme "after the war," it is fairly certain that marriage—as a monogamous institution—must undergo considerable modifications. Man, hitherto, has had a monopoly of the manufacturing of laws concerning matrimonial matters, and his handiwork entitles him neither to credit for his intelligence nor to respect for his humanity. When woman takes a hand—as she undoubtedly will in the near future—in the shaping of social affairs, she will find little in the existing, or past, legislation governing the relations of the sexes that will be useful as a guide except, perhaps, of what to avoid.

Truth (Melbourne ed.) (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), Saturday 12 October 1918, page 5

RATIONALISM. ITS AIMS AND HISTORY.

SOCIALIST PARTY LECTURE.

 Mr. G. Pearce (secretary of the R.P.A.), delivered an address on the subject of "Rationalism."

"Rationalist," he said, is the latest name assumes by those who question the supernatural authority of the Bible. The Rationalist is the lineal descendant of the infidel, heretic, atheist, free-thinker, and materialist; these changes of name seem to have been prompted largely by the success with which the theologian has grafted on to those names the imputation of vice and immorality. Rationalism, as a word expressing a definite mental attitude, is now becoming widely known through the agency of the Rationalist Press Association, commonly referred to as the R.P.A. This association was formed in London about 17 years ago, with the following objects (a) to stimulate freedom of thought and inquiry into ethics, theology, philosophy, and kindred subjects; (b) to promote a secular system of education, which shall cultivate in the young a moral and intellectual fitness for life; (c) to maintain and assert the same right of propaganda methods as that granted to traditional beliefs and creeds; (d) to publish and distribute books and periodicals designed to promote the above objects.

It had long been evident to workers in this cause that for wider propaganda the spoken word must be supplemented by a systematic issue of the written word, and a glance at the authors and their works, of which over, three million sixpenny reprints have been sold, makes one feel that the R.P.A. was not formed in vain. The list of sixpenny reprints contains the best writings of scientists like Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, and Ray Lankester, of philosophers, such as Spencer, Hume, and Mill, of essayists, such as Matthew Arnold, Emerson, and Lewes, of historians, as Lecky, Bury, and Robertson, of critics as Voltaire, Renan, Andrew Lang, Ingersoll, Leslie Stephen, and Joseph M'Cabe. Many of these names stand high on the honor roll of benefactors of humanity, and if some suggest an aggressive attitude, their provocation has been great, and their books have revolutionised the whole attitude of man in his relation to nature and the Universe, and stand for a broad tolerant propaganda, which appeals to the thinking man.

The founders of the R.P.A., when formulating its objective, defined Rationalism as follows:—"The mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy and ethics, verifiable by experience and independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority." Reason shall be the sole judge; all evidence shall he capable of proof; and the authority due to tradition and ancient usage, or the feeling that it must be true, shall be ignored. This definition is practically an amplification of the motto of the Royal Society of London, formed some 250 years ago "for the improvement of natural knowledge by experiment." To-day fellowship of the Royal Society is an honor bestowed only upon the most eminent contributors to scientific knowledge, and the R.P.A. has addressed itself especially to the work of spreading the results of these researches at the lowest possible cost. Rationalism, being an attitude and not a religion, has no definite dogmas, no Thirty-nine Articles, does not set up any arbitrary system of scientific orthodoxy, but, in so far as "revealed" theological systems seeks to stifle freedom of thought, speech, and writing with the authority of tradition, it connects with them. Every religion sets aside every other religion, the Rationalist only sets aside one more: every believer in a God has denied the thousands of other Gods; the Rationalist only asks for evidence of the existence of that one.
Occasionally a common underlying motive caused the hatchet to be buried for a while, such as a general supplication to God to abrogate the laws of Nature and send rain; or to implore peace through the defeat of an enemy, from whom similar appeals are also issuing in all good faith—a position which must be a trifle disconcerting to the Almighty. Imagine at the present day any theologian willing to publicly pray for three or four hours' delay in the rising of the sun to enable an enemy trench to be occupied! Yet thousands prepared to join in a prayer for rain—the late Government went so far as to set aside a day for the purpose on one occasion—in spite of the fact that the science of meteorology is familiar with all the details that cause, rain, and the fundamental laws which control it are as unbreakable as those which keep the earth revolving. The explanation of this curious inconsistency appears to be that the man, in the street is not as yet as convinced of the operation of unbreakable law in the latter case as he is in the former. It is something more than a coincidence that simultaneously with the rise of the scientific attitude, nearly all the humane and ethical practices of modern civilisation have come into being and replaced such devilish methods of conversion as the tortures of the Inquisition and the burning of heretics and witches.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

From the time of the adoption of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine, and its consequent rise to power, it crushed with an iron hand all speculation not conducive to its own advancement, and all freedom of thought in speech or writing, The following 33 centuries are truly called the Dark Ages, when the power and influence of Christianity, as interpreted by the Church, lay like a pall over Western civilisation, and it is only, as it were, through a rent here and there that we learn of the frightfulness it covered, and of the ignorance and debauchery of spiritual pastors.
And let it not he forgotten that it is due to the working of the spirit of rationalism that the Pankhursts and Thorps of to-day, and all who disturb the popular mind and say unpleasant things about those in authority, are more fortunate than their sisters of 300 years ago.

But if these were the sufferings inflicted on the poor and unfortunate, what of the fate of the intellectuals if the results of their thoughts and experiments tended in the slightest degree to discredit the teachings and dogmas of the Church? The more one ponders over this awful record of burnings and tortures, and the suppression of all speculative research in natural science features that especially mark out those Dark Ages from the time when Constantine made Christianity a State religion, until the seventeenth century, when a revulsion of feeling arose against the inhuman atrocities perpetrated in the name of a loving God and the scientific attitude and freedom of thought began to live again, the more one is convinced that there can be no God as portrayed by the Christian theologians. Only a Devil, and an inconceivably cruel one, could have permitted that long procession of human agony.

Common justice compels us to acknowledge that some of the great teachers within the fold, realising the hypocrisies they labored under, struggled for a more humane interpretation, and that ideal is still being nobly worked for in such movements as, for instance, the Modernist Association in Brisbane and Ethical Churches elsewhere; and if to-day freedom of opinion and the search for knowledge are among our most precious possessions, and indispensable to all progress, it behoves all of us to give our support to movements with that objective

It may be asked, when one contemplates the succession of men of science who have aggressively impeached or merely ignored the claim of theology to authority, why it is that the churches are still so influential and bulk so largely in our social and national life, rivalled only by the continuous picture palaces. Indeed, their power and in tolerance is still manifested in their successful opposition to other forms of entertainment on Sundays; the reading-room of the School Arts is closed on Sundays; the summer band concerts in the Gardens are delayed till church is over, and all efforts for any form of rational Sunday entertainment have been successfully opposed. The secret of this power—disregarding the obvious claim that the position of the Church is maintained by the providence of the Almighty—I believe rests firstly on the early training of the child, and secondly, and in a much less degree, to the appeal the ritual and service of the Church makes to women.

The earliest experience of most of us relates to the comforting prayers of childhood, followed later on by similar religious stories of the "Golden Thread," and the "Throne of Grace," and so on. Our first experience of the mystery and pleasure of music is in most cases the hymns learned at Sun day School, "Here we Suffer Grief and Pain" and "There's a Land of Pure Delight." Kindergarten teachers are well acquainted with the controlling power of music over the infant mind.
These impressions are made on clean, new intelligences straight from nature's laboratory, and thus, with the almost entire absence of any definite instruction in elementary science in our primary schools, color the child's whole attitude to nature and maintain their influence and reality until the battle of life invites a revaluation, from which too many of us shrink and which is rarely completed.

It is false assumption that if our school readers included such subjects, as the origin of man, the evolution of animal and plant life, the age of the earth as told by the rocks, stories of dead and gone civilisations, whose historical remains antedate the biblical creation by thousands of years, and also with the life story of Jesus, the life stories of those earlier pagan Christs, such as Buddha, such knowledge would involuntarily became part of our mental furniture and form the basis of our judgments of all things natural or supernatural. I am of the opinion that, if the spiritual attitude of the two metropolitan papers, the "Standard" and the "Worker," is typical of the spiritual attitude of the Government they have called into power, representation on these lines would not be unsympathetically received. Richard Cobden said he regarded his years of labor in securing the repeal of the corn laws as a light amusement compared with the task of getting priests of all denominations to agree to suffer the people to be educated.

WOMAN.

The second reason I advanced for theological influence to-day is the emotional nature of woman. The Church always adopts the attitude, as the Bishop of London once put it in a sermon, that " Christianity is woman's best friend." Other dignitaries have declared that the Gospels have given woman the position she holds to-day. The majority of women appear content to accept these statements, and to-day quite 75 per cent of the ordinary congregation is composed of women. And if the women follow their emotions in attending church, I feel sure that the younger portion of the other 25 per cent also attend for emotional reasons, though not always of the spiritual type. I can only say that the claim that "Christianity is woman's best friend" is a deliberate perversion of the truth, and in direct opposition to the findings of history.

Nothing impressed the Romans more, in their wars with the northern barbarians than their recognition of the equality of the sexes, the man's reverence for woman, and the woman's sympathy for man, and the high code of morality that was the natural outcome of this well-balanced state of society. In old Japan, before the arrival of Buddhism, men and women were practically equal in their social position; woman's political power was great, nine women had ascended the throne; their women were not inferior to men mentally, morally, or physically; and they distinguished themselves by their bravery on the field of battle. In ancient Egypt the legal status and property rights enjoyed by women gave them a position more free and more honored than in any country to-day. The security of those rights made her the legal head of the household. She inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her own property; before the law she enjoyed the same rights and freedom as man, and was honored in the same way.

Now let us compare these positions with that of the English woman of 60 years ago, after 18 centuries of shepherding by "her best friend." In Boston, in 1850, woman could not hold property, or any public office of trust or power. The status of a married woman was little better than that of a domestic servant, her husband was her lord and master. She even had no legal redress against punishment. Let all women bear in mind that the change between then and now is almost entirely due to the advocacy of "abandoned atheists," such as Owen, Holyoake, Mill, Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, and other freethinkers. The clergy, when not actively opposing this change, kept silence; they never detected any injustice to woman, and only a few could see it when it was pointed out. There were a few honorable exceptions, such as Kingsley and Farrar, who protested against the social injustice to woman.

Further, this attitude of women and children to revealed religion is largely promoted by the peculiar position of many men who have themselves become convinced that "there's nothing in it," but are still obsessed by the idea that it would be very unsafe for women and children to hold this conviction; in other words, that our mothers, wives, and daughters, are only kept honest, chaste, sober, and industrious by the restraint of religion.

We must all realise that a useful and decent life is quite possible without a slavish adoration of the God of the Bible, and quite apart from a hope of His heaven or a fear of His hell. Considerations of space prevent the inclusion of two long paragraphs, one dealing with the destructive nature of modern Biblical criticism, and the other with the attitude of the Church to industrialism.

In conclusion, I wish to emphasise the difference between a knowledge of the findings of science and the spirit of scientific inquiry, the mental attitude that is of so much more importance than a mass of information. Facts may be, and often are, harmonised with our preconceived ideas, and the importance of the more unpleasant ones belittled, but the true scientific spirit is a disinterested search for facts verifiable by experience, without regard to their bearing upon our wishes, hopes, or fears.

Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. ), 1916, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179864011

MODERN AMERICA FROM WITHIN.

By J. K. W. TAYLOR.

THE impossible has happened. An American has publicly, blatantly, and ferociously condemned America —condemned its taste, its morals, its theatres, and its mode of life. With rapier, baton, club, and heavy artillery, George Jean Nathan—for he is the hero in question—assails his countrymen, their drama, their books, their mental insignificance, and their passion for vulgarity as they have never before been assailed, and probably never will be again. And the attack, be it noted, is not on the part of an unknown or an upstart. Granted that he is the personification of egotism, and the world's best exponent of self-praise. Mr. Nathan has a reputation founded upon years of hard work, hard study, and hard fighting for the arts, and the art of the theatre in particular. Not only has he an astonishing grasp of American drama, but he is equally at home in the European and British theatres. Nor do the barriers of language, either international or profane, appeal to have any terrors for him. A Lithuanian play or a Montenegran farce, for example, present no difficulties to him, and before it is produced he knows more about it than the author. Or he says he does, which now-a-days is almost the same thing. Nathan is a human paradox, in that while he professes to be the greatest living champion of art—art in its wider meaning—he has a very poor opinion of its purposes, objectives, and results. In a sense, he is the destroyer of his own arguments and theses—an assassin who kills to satiate his lust for murder. Even the theatre, which he so ardently loves, falls a victim to his sadistic knife. Just listen to him for a moment. Hear what he says in his latest sensational book. "The House of Satan," which Alfred A. Knopf recently published, to the consternation of Americans and the delight of Englishmen.

" Corrupt Drama."

"IT has always been the mission of the theatre," he writes, "to reduce in so far as it lay within its power, the manners and morals of the community. Obviously, I do not speak of the debased uncivilised theatre, but of the theatre that is artistically on the highest and finest level. That for more than two thousand years men who have not taken the trouble to understand the theatre have sponsored the opposite point of view and have seen in the playhouse a medium for the uplifting of the human psyche, and table manners through the operation known a  dramatic catharsis, indicates only that it has taken the twentieth of the centuries to arrive at other astonishing discoveries in the world of high art than the radio, coloured moving pictures, and the Czech drama. "When I speak of the theatre as a corrupter of morals, it is of course as a synonym for drama. And when I speak of drama, I speak at the same time of most of the other arts, for the accomplishment it perhaps not always the intention, of all art is the lowering of human virtue, in the commonly accepted sense of the word, and the conversion of men from metaphysical and emotional Methodism to metaphysical and emotional Paganism . . .the effect of truly great art, I persuade myself to believe, is to induce in the be holder a sense of inferiority, a sense of the pettiness and futility of his own life, and, inducing these, to cause him to try to forget his triviality and despair in rash impudent and deplorable actions, manners and thoughts, which he would otherwise not engage. It stings him to the quick, challenges him, jeers at him, 'Come on worm !' it cries, 'Try to look into paradise !' The worm, humiliated but rambunctious, thereupon digs his toes into the ground, cocks back his head, strains the heavens with his eyes—and has his pocket picked."
After going on to sneer at the popular belief that there is such a thing as "intelligent drama," and proving to his own satisfaction that all fine art not only insults the intelligence, but deliberately spits in the eye of intelligence, the author discusses at embarrassing length the "taste" of the average American citizen. It is doubtful whether so damning an indictment of social decadence has ever been written. 

A Vast " Slaughter-house "

HE compares the United States to a vast slaughter-house of taste unequalled in degree and magnitude anywhere else in the civilised world. It presents an unbroken succession of abattoirs, each bursting with the profits of its depravity. " Not only does he find the news-stands throughout the land stacked with hundreds of periodicals, beside which the cheapest and most vulgar publications of 20 years ago were a symposia of transcendent aesthetics, but he finds the cinema, the radio, and an endless succession of bedroom plays, combining to completely "mormonise" the community. Instancing the plight of the theatre, he emphasises that there is no such institution in America outside of New York. In the season that begin on September 1, 1925 and ended on June 1 1926, just one admittedly good play survived. All the others without exception failed to draw sufficient audiences to keep them going, and had to be recalled and thrown into the storehouse. When the average citizen in the United States goes to the theatre, Nathan tells us, his taste is not for good drama, but for "trash." That trash may take the form of a moving picture, a vaudeville show, or anything, "just so" —so long as it makes no call upon him for imagination, an appreciation of beauty, even a modest amount of intelligence, or an artistic sensitiveness  "above that of a Bologna sausage." Throughout the country countless new vaudeville theatres, as costly and vulgar as the movie palaces, "have sprung up on the graves of dramatic theatres, and nightly discharge their reinforced batteries of concentrated guano against what is left of native theatrical good breeding." In Boston, which all the world was inclined to venerate for its purity of taste, things have come to such a pass we are informed, that no attempt is made any longer to show anything above a third-rate standard. Even good films are not tolerated. A recent investigation by a representative of the New York "World" proved that the literary discrimination of this blue-blooded city is  practically at vanishing point. The books in greatest demand—and those who demand them include doctors, lawyers, teachers, and business men—are those which deal exclusively with Wild West and detective plots. "Confession" books and erotic works treating of sex, are tremendously read, and the favourite "poet" of Boston is Robert Service, whoever that individual may be. Among the works barred by the Public Library are Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" and "Jennie Gerhardt," W. S. Maugham's "Of Human Bondage," and everything written by James Joyce, George Moore, Sherwood Anderson, and Aldous Huxley. Only two copies of Thomas Hardy were sold in this cultured metropolis in the six months from January 1 to July 1. And "what is true of Boston," laments poor Mr. Nathan, "is true of the rest of America. The stars in the nation's flag have slowly turned into so many elk's badges. The taste of the nation has be come the taste of its shoe dealers and bathers. . . . A dirty bedroom farce, an all-star fake, a leg show, a dramatic gim-crack, or a piece of trumpery featuring a conspicuous trouper—these are here and there able to draw audiences outside of New York, Chicago, or one or two other centres, but anything of moderate merit, save, perhaps occasionally, a Walter Hampden Shakespearian troupe, doesn't stand any more chance than a Ku-Kluxer in Siberia. The movies, nine hundred and ninety nine out of every one thousand of which are the veriest dramatic ditch water, have slowly drowned the dramatic taste of the nation until, to-day all that is left of it is a gurgle and a few bubbles.

First Night Audiences.

AND, according to this inspiring critic Mr. George Jean Nathan—somebody by the way, once referred to him as "this Anti-Christ from Baltimore"—these terrible evils are not confined to the stage and screen. They have spread to the front of the house. Contemplate for a moment his vision of a typical first night audience. As we know this particular audience the world over, can usually be depended upon to behave well, dress well, and think well. In most places it is composed of men and women in comfortable circumstances who take an artistic interest in plays and the theatre, even though they sometimes lack discrimination. In America apparently most of these decorous persons went down with Charles Frohman in the Lusitania, for the author frankly states that they are no longer anywhere to be seen. He doesn't profess to know what has really become of them. He merely gives it as a fact that they have disappeared. Their places are now filled, it appears by "others" — unmistakable "others" too. The seats formerly filled by "well-dressed, clean-looking, cultured men and women are now occupied by moving-picture magnates and their agents, groping for possible material for their screens, by sandwich restaurant operators, luxuriating in unaccustomed dinner jackets, and by modistes  . . . . The dots represent an elaboration of the term "modiste," which it would not be modest to quote. Suffice it to say that the completed sentence does not in the least suggest that fashion parlours in the States pride themselves exclusively on their sale of hats and dresses.

For 295 pages Nathan inveighs against the cherished conceits of the United States of America, and there is hardly a complimentary word to be found anywhere. If one liked it would be easy to describe the author as an incorrigible hedonist, but his frankness is irresistible. In spite of the urge to laugh, one goes from chapter to chapter convinced that after all, if there is any truth in these matters, it is as well to feel grateful to a man who is not afraid to "let himself go." For it takes no mean courage for an American to take up the cudgels against his countrymen, and it is so rarely done that the results are not entirely devoid of delight to a citizen of the British Empire, who knows what it is to be criticised from within." 

We are told that both Nathan and Menchen—and they are intellectual twins —"lead the revolt against things as they are." Society can have no objection to a revolution of that kind if it guarantees an improvement. Even if it cannot offer such a guarantee it is at least amusing, and that surely is something to be thankful for in these hard times.

 The Brisbane Courier 26 March 1927,

MODERN MAIDENS.

 

WAILED AT BY THE WOWSERS.

Mouthings of Middle-Aged Misogynists

"Things Were Different in Our Days."

 Mediaeval and Modern Mental Misfits.

Every now and then the platitudinous piffle of some ermined oracle, or theological thunder-thrower, calls public attention towards the mediaeval attitude adopted towards the relations of the sexes by both ecclesiastic and judicial guardians of public morality. The modern code of morals—insofar as that elastic convention concerns sexual matters—seems to cause these elderly and anaemic-minded gentlemen much uneasiness. Immorality, they declare, is increasing at an alarming rate. When they were young, things were different. Women in those days, more especially young women, were different, quite different altogether. They did not stray so frequently into the inviting by-paths that branch off from the straight and exceedingly prosaic highway that ends—or, maybe, begins —at

THE MATRIMONIAL ALTAR. 

Women were modest; they did not seek the company of the opposite sex. They had to be sought, and wooed, and won. 

Putting aside the fact that it has been laid down as an axiom that there is no definite change in morality from age to age, it is, nevertheless, fairly obvious that the strictures of these mentally-decrepit dunderheads are sincere. Their alarmist assumptions concerning the modern maiden's partiality for pleasant sins are based on personal experience. With superb egotism they imagine that the indifferences displayed towards them in their youth by the amateur Delilahs of that period was the common lot of all the young men of that generation. This quaint delusion is not uncommon among elderly folk whose facial landmarks and physical conformation suggest that if it was possible for them to renew their youth, the damsels of to-day would

DISPLAY THE SAME RESERVE

—where the glad eye is concerned—as did the girls of a couple of generations ago.

That the relations of the sexes were controlled by a code of morality akin to the Julian laws when these egotistic old bald-heads were young is absurd. In every age, and in every clime, women have had an instinctive detestation for the "good young man that died" type of masculinity. Strength, energy of character, and courage she admires in her lover—and possible husband—above all other qualities combined. Even the most ethereal and romantic love rests on a physical basis, and vigor, bravery, and endurance yet the glad eye and the inviting smile in the present year of our Lord, even us they were bestowed upon Samson. Who ever heard of a love-sick damsel 

RISKING HER LIFE 

or even her reputation, to mate herself with a sad-eyed sanctimonious snuffler?

Women mobilise in battalions of beauty at all contents of strength and skill to-day, just as they crowded to the Coliseum combats— the Olympian games, and the neolithic war dances. That Might is Right is the eleventh commandment in the private decalogue of femininity, and invariably takes precedence of the other ten in affairs of the heart. Briseis, when her lord and master was slain by Achilles, consoled herself with the reflection that the slayer would follow the custom of the time and take her to his own bed. The Scandinavian battle-maidens—tho Valkyries— mated only with their conquerors. The love affairs of Solomon, David, and other domineering gallants occupy much space in the Old Testament, and among the women of Europe in olden times it was held that it was "Better to be

THE MISTRESS OF A KING

than the wife of a subject." In old stories and ballads the lover galloped off boldly with the lady, and—as with "Young Lochinvar'— found that Beauty welcomed abduction.

The history of the world teems with instances of erotic enthusiasms: love and sexual passion—stimulated or created—music, dancing, painting and other arts. And while every heroic exploit immortalised in song and story can be traced—directly or indirectly—to the impulse of sex, the mouthings of middle-aged misogynists about the immorality of modern times merely indicate that the sins of the fathers, in some instances, are responsible for quaint results. It is a well known fact in sex psychology that there is what is termed a "persistence of fossilised, or atrophied, stages of sexual habit." 

This possibly accounts for the infinitesimal section of the fair sex, who endeavor to mould their lives according to the doctrines enunciated by the   

ELDERLY PULPIT-POUNDERS  

and judicial joltheads who imagine that morality consists of a system of sex-repression. The mental outfit of the woman infected with the belief that the chief human affections and desires are matters for semi-sentimental gigglings, and suggestive secrecy, necessarily provokes peculiar aberrations. It is as natural for such a woman to prevaricate as it is for a man to resent a blow in the face. Her whole sweet and healthy sex nature is stunted and distorted, and she seeks relief in false religious superstition and fads of various kinds. To her the facts of sex are obscenity; but she likes to pray the hypocrite, and under her presence of modesty her thoughts are carnal self-centred and materialistic. She imagines that she should be

PLACED UPON A PEDESTAL

and worshipped—not for her humanity, but for her sex. It is not to be wondered at that she becomes vain, shallow, deceitful, and incapable of meeting a man as an individual standing on the same footing—as a comrade, a friend, and an equal. By the false teaching of her mediaeval-minded mentors she is taught to consider herself as a toy, an idol, or an ornament, and relies on deception a defence against both her female rivals and her lover or husband.

It is women of this type that cause so much domestic unhappiness. The natural exercise of sexual function is a necessity for the healthy development of every individual, whether man or woman, and when the sweet fragile

GIRLY-GIRLY YOUNG THING,

or the lean and prudish spinster, is called upon to take up her maternal duty she is mostly found to be organically incapable. With busts made of adjustable indiarubber, and with narrow or padded hips, her life— unlike the normal healthy minded woman's —is not dominated by sexual instinct and maternity. Should she conceive, the delicate embyro has to be nurtured into life, and afterwards fed and weaned "on the bottle." Can any race hope to maintain its predominance should it

"Reverse the rules that stupid farmers heed,
And mend the stronger by the weakling breed?"

While progress depends as much on mental as on bodily alertness and strength, of what use are the young of such women? Obsessed by

WORN-OUT CREEDS,

they surround themselves with artificial barriers and attempt to suppress the strongest instinct of humanity, with disastrous results. The facts of sex are closely interwoven with existence, and while none wish to pull up the mystic flower of life to see how it grows, the study of life, naked and unashamed, is the best assurance against mental and physical degeneration.

Waxworks and punch-and-judy shows belong to a bygone period, and are not to be brought up-to-date by labelling them afresh as Christianity or social purity. This is the day of surf bathing and picture shows, and a recrudescence of mediaeval habits of thought should be discouraged.

Truth 22 December 1917, 

Insane or Otherwise.

THE PERSECUTION OF CHIDLEY.

                      

By Ajax.

A long series of attempts to persecute an individual and stifle an idea, culminated last week in a verdict to the effect that Chidley was insane.  
Chidley has been before the public for some time. He was formerly arrested on flimsy charges such as vagrancy, indecency, etc. His book was prosecuted ; he was also stopped speaking in the open, and when he engaged a hall, the authorities prohibited the lecture. The police even went so far as to invade his lodgings, seize his lantern pictures and books. He has also been the subject of considerable abuse by people who declare his dress is indecent, yet view with the greatest equanimity the suggestive semi-nude clothes of ballet girls and society snobs.
It appears that medical men do not agree on the question of Chidley's sanity. Apparently he was condemned on the evidence of a medico who thought he was insane. As this person is the same party who quibbled on a former occasion, when Chidley's sanity was questioned, and further happens to be a State official, and as such is doubtless more concerned to conserve certain conservative interests than to give justice to an individual whose ideas are detrimental to medical quacks and kindred harpies who live on the fruits of ignorance and sexual abuse.
In deciding the question of the sanity of an individual, we are treading on delicate and dangerous ground. No authority has yet been able to decide definitely where sanity ceases and insanity begins. In the first place we have to remember that this society inherits and still harbors many superstitions of the past, in spite of the advance of science. Further, our industrial system has a marked tendency to increase insanity ; several mental maladies not previously known can be directly traced to commercialism. Our artificial living and sex abuse, as Chidley clearly shows, still further accentuate mental maladies. Indeed, so eminent a scientist as Professor Lombroso contends that the world is rapidly becoming insane.
In a society containing so many varied mental types and so many complex factors, it is almost impossible to decide who is sane. It is further highly dangerous to the community that a few men (who may represent certain interests or be biased) should have the power to put any person away on the plea of insanity. This is the more glaringly obvious when the person is a thinker and writer, a man whose sanity was never in doubt till he propounded unpopular theories. The public have a right to know the full facts of the case, it is not sufficient to say a doctor thinks a person is insane. Proof is wanting. Unfortunately, although there has been a plenitude of abuse and insinuation, there is a pronounced poverty of proof. Chidley has spoken scores of times and is always ready to answer questions. Critics have had plenty of time to examine his writings and give us something better. Why don't they answer "The Answer?" Especially is it up to the medicoes who declared him mad to prove their case. Surely these monuments of medical learning should have no difficulty in answering a madman. As the authorities seem so anxious to put him away, one would think that the best and fairest way would be to disprove his theory. It can hardly be questioned even by Mother Grundy that we want more knowledge on this sex question, especially during war time when the organs of wowserism are preaching, "Increase, multiply, and replenish the earth." If Chidley had come forward with a theory for improving the breed of pigs, people would have welcomed him with open arms; but be cause he has an idea for improving the stock of humans, especially the swinish, his name is anathema.
While on this question it might not be out of place to briefly consider the theory of celibacy and the working class. Long ago in ancient Greece the stoic philosophers maintained and practised a doctrine very similar to Chidley's. The fine physique of the Greeks was probably due in no small measure to their teaching. In later times the Catholic Church upheld the doctrine of celibacy as opposed to the licentiousness of the middle ages. Although there were black sheep in the fold, there can be no question that the stability of the church and the secret of its power was to a considerable extent due to a comparative lack of sex perversion among its adherents.
Recently such scholars as Edward Carpenter, Annie Besant, and Schoepenhaur, favoured these ideas. To-day the question of sex and celibacy is important for the labour movement, especially as the old economic order is breaking up, such factors as the war, employment of women, the decay of the orthodox idea of marriage and whatnot demand a readjustment of sex relations. Bernard Shaw was right when he said, "Society is not quite sane on the question of sex." There is much to be said in favour of celibacy as opposed to the wholesale prostitution, licensed and unlicensed, that appertains to-day. Moreover, the canting humbug and sentimental slobber doled out to the public by the hired apostles of vested interest on this subject are nauseating in the extreme. If Chidley had published a suggestive love story calculated to excite morbid passions he would, probably have been acclaimed a great novelist, instead he has tried to prove a theory, and stuck to his guns in spite of the jeers of ignorance, the sneers of convention, and the persecution of legalised charlatanism. This conduct is indicative of a firm will and considerable intellect. Not so, think those who live on ignorance and disease, who, if they cannot refute an idea maliciously, persecute the author. One would have thought that alleged intellectual men living in a so-called free and democratic country would be above the medieval and brutal attitude of trying to incarcerate an idea. Being afraid of the idea, like inquisitors they try to bludgeon the man.        
Apart from the injustice and dangerous precedent set up, one questions if these people are quite sane. Still less is it advisable or desirable in the interests of the community that self-styled lunacy experts, whose motive is questionable,whose mental bias is pronounced, and who cling to the insane notion of gaoling an idea, can be trusted with such power over the life of an individual, especially a thinker and writer, who at least is sincere, and whose ideas in the main are correct. Such men are rare in this degenerate age. For that reason, if no other, the public should see to it that Chidley is immediately released.

 Direct Action 26 February 1916,