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(3) There is probably little difference of opinion in regard to the "forces" that now combine to help Spain to continue the war. In the great political campaigns in this country the money lords assist both parties, knowing full well that their interests are secure no matter which side wins; the main thing being to keep the people fighting each other, thereby diverting attention from their real enemies. So now the money power with the governments controlled by them-assist both belligerents, secure in the knowledge that whatever the fortunes of war (or of peace) may be, they themselves will continue to rule and rob the stupid masses so long as they can keep these masses in Ignorance of the real cause of their miseries.
Again I wish to say that I blame no one for taking the side of governmental intervention in the Cuban affair. Were I forty years younger no doubt I would do so too. As late as twenty years ago, even, I took ground in favor of governmental methods of curing the evils of alcoholism. But now, more than fifty years of observation and experience have fully convinced me of the utter futility of all such methods. The greatest enemy, the real enemy, of progress today, next to human ignorance, is governmental authority, and hence so long and so far as we give our sanction to, and our co-operation with, governmental methods, just so long and so far will we be found helping to rivet the chains that now enslave mankind.
The only use I now have for governments of force and authority them all, eliminate them all. Voluntary cooperation, on the basis of equal freedom, is government enough for me.
The war touches us all too nearly to be ignored by Lucifer, but there is not the slightest excuse for personal controversy when discussing the war question. Believing that Lucifer's constituency will sustain the decision I hereby give fair warning and say that dialectical or controversial articles on the war question will be pruned or rejected. M. H.
War and Humanity.
Lucifer aims to be, as far as possible, cosmopolitan; that is non-partisan, non-political, non-secretarian. The words of Thomas Paine: "The world is my country; to do good my' religion," might well be adopted as the motto, the escutcheon or emblem of our Lightbearer.
In accord with the motto, the principle or rule of action thus enunciated, it would seem unwise to revive war memories -memories of the wrongs, the outrages, the humiliations suffered during those terrible four years of the American civil war. The wiser course would seem to be to "let bygones be bygones"-to let all such memories pass into oblivion-the sooner the better for the incoming of the era of peace, of good will and of mutual helpfulness.
But no rule of conduct can be formulated that will cover all cases, and when the government and people of the United States assume the role of teacher of morals-when we as a nation "end our armies and our na vies to teach the Spaniards how to treat their rebellious subjects, it would seem quite right and proper to recall the methods used by our own Federal government only one short generation ago, in its efforts to subdue the rebels against its authority. The old adage, "Physician, heal thyself," and also the injunction, "First cast the beam out of thine own eye," are quite applicable to us when in the role of physicians, preachers and teachers, and for this reason James Beeson has been granted space in this week's Lucifer to give us the benefit of his personal observations as a soldier of the "lost cause."
Various Comments.
BY C. L. R. JAMES.
I think those who attribute to Christianity, either woman's emancipation, with R. B. Kerr, or her bondage, with the author of" Woman, Church and State," have hardly "got the right pig by the ear" - as our forefathers' king, Henry VIII, was wont to classically say. Bachofen, in his volume "Mutterrecht," quite popular nowadays among students of social evolution, shows that women enjoy a great degree of practical independence, owning their children and commonly controlling the purse, during that early stage when marriage by capture is declining and tenure of land in severalty has not become fully established. When, under the Roman republic, it became a fixed custom for every man to exact a dower at marriage, the rights of the woman over her portion gave her a degree of freedom which, as Sir Henry Maine says, "has never been equaled since."
The third golden age of women is now coming in. It is a product of the factory system, which first led to the multiplication of bread-winning pursuits for women, with the necessary results of securing their property rights and enlarging their opportunities for education. It is at its height in "Christian England," because England is the chief manufacturing country.
Cyrus W. Coolridge sees "no reason why we cannot maintain home life," and "finds no charms in substitution of female despotism for male." But I'm afraid he'll have to stand it. Home life will disappear before co-operative housekeeping, as I have frequently tried to show in Lucifer and elsewhere. And then female despotism will be substituted for male so far as all sexual and parental relations are concerned.
The periods in which women were most degraded were-the most primitive, when they were slaves of the horde; next the stage of incipient marriage by capture, when even the slaves of the clan, or prostitutes, were more honored than the captive slave" or wives of individuals; and the age of private houses, or tenure of severalty, which is now giving way to agencies indicated above.
In all these cases it is clear that the basis of woman's status for good or ill was economic. In Huckle's "History of civilization" and in the Manifesto of Frederick Engels and Karl Marx (1847), we may also read what I fully believe to be the truth, that at every stage of human growth, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the only basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained the politcal, intellect, moral and religious condition of the people at the time.
What follows? That attacks on superstition or on sex slavery are futile? In no wise. Such a conclusion would condemn attacks on economic injustice quite as much. For nothing can be more certain than that economic changes are determined mainly by other causes than agitation-that the inventor of the steam engine, has done more to advance them than all the reformers from Spurius Cassius down to Edward Bellamy. The assumptions of theology make it desirable that such publications as the "Investigator" and the "Truth Seeker" should exist. The prejudices which women's emancipation- though due primarily to economic causes-must overcome, render it very desirable that publications specially devoted to sexual freedom should exist. The fact that obsolete economic conditions have created institutions which new ones cannot displace without a tight, render it very important that publications whose object is to attack these institutions should exist. I despise most heartily the do-nothing cant embodied in
the jingle "evolution, not revolution." Revolution is a part of evolution. No abuse ever goes out without something in the nature of a crisis.
This, however, does follow, that we, the agitators, cannot create the births of Time, but only in some measure assist at their delivery. It is well, no doubt, that many agitators do not see this. For each must ride his hobby hard to overcome the prodigious difficulty ill his path. Nevertheless, intelligent progress has brought a large proportion of modern liberals to that point where, like wise physicians, they realize the littleness of what they can actually do and the need of a treatment which shall be largely expectant. And by this enlightenment they gain something, if they do lose something else. Superstitions are immortal. There are none in Christianity but what it borrowed from older systems; and though fiercely assailed since the time of Epicurus, these are all still quite considerably alive. He who, realizing this, and also perceiving
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