Chapter V: Part 5

In other words, what we need is more general enlightenment, greater frankness and, above all, different social and economic conditions. The revolutionary significance of "Damaged Goods" consists in the lesson that not syphilis but the causes that lead to it are the terrible curse of society. Those who rant against syphilis and clamor for more laws, for marriage certificates, for registration and segregation, do not touch even the surface of the evil. Brieux is among the very few modern dramatists who go to the bottom of this question by insisting on a complete social and economic change, which alone can free us from the scourge of syphilis and other social plagues.

MATERNITY

Motherhood to-day is on the lips of every penny-a-liner, every social patchworker and political climber. It is so much prated about that one is led to believe that motherhood, in its present condition, is a force for good. It therefore required a free spirit combined with great dramatic power to tear the mask off the lying face of motherhood, that we may see that, whatever its possibilities in a free future, motherhood is to-day a sickly tree setting forth diseased branches. For its sake thousands of women are being sacrificed and children sent into a cold and barren world without the slightest provision for their physical and mental needs. It was left to Brieux to inscribe with letters of fire the crying shame of the motherhood of to-day.

_Brignac_, a provincial lawyer and an unscrupulous climber for political success, represents the typical pillar of society. He believes implicitly in the supremacy of God over the destiny of man. He swears by the State and the army, and cringes before the power of money. Naturally he is the champion of large families as essential to the welfare of society, and of motherhood, as the most sacred and sole function of woman.

He is the father of three children, all of whom are in a precarious condition. He resents the idea that society ought to take care of the children already in existence, rather than continue indiscriminately breeding more. _Brignac_ himself wants more children. In vain his wife _Lucie_, weakened by repeated pregnancies, pleads with him for a respite.

_Lucie._ Listen, Julien, since we are talking about this, I wanted
to tell you--I haven't had much leisure since our marriage. We have
not been able to take advantage of a single one of your holidays. I
really have a right to a little rest.... Consider, we have not had
any time to know one another, or to love one another. Besides,
remember that we already have to find dowries for three girls.

_Brignac._ I tell you this is going to be a boy.

_Lucie._ A boy is expensive.

_Brignac._ We are going to be rich!

_Lucie._ How?

_Brignac._ Luck may come in several ways. I may stay in the civil
service and get promoted quickly. I may go back to the bar.... I am
certain we shall be rich. After all, it's not much good your saying
so, if I say yes.

_Lucie._ Evidently. My consent was asked for before I was given a
husband, but my consent is not asked for before I am given a
child.... This is slavery--yes, _slavery_. After all you are
disposing of my health, my sufferings, my life--of a year of my
existence, calmly, without consulting me.

_Brignac._ Do I do it out of selfishness? Do you suppose I am not a
most unhappy husband all the time I have a future mother at my side
instead of a loving wife?... A father is a man all the same.

_Lucie._ Rubbish! You evidently take me for a fool. I know what you
do at those times.... Don't deny it. You must see that I know all
about it.... Do you want me to tell you the name of the person you
go to see over at Villeneuve, while I am nursing or "a future
mother," as you call it? We had better say no more about it.

_Brignac_ goes off to his political meeting to proclaim to his constituency the sacredness of motherhood,--the deepest and highest function of woman.

_Lucie_ has a younger sister, _Annette_, a girl of eighteen. Their parents being dead, _Lucie_ takes the place of the mother. She is passionately fond of her little sister and makes it her purpose to keep the girl sheltered and protected from the outside world. _Annette_ arrives and announces with great enthusiasm that the son of the wealthy Bernins has declared his love and asked her to marry him, and that his mother, _Mme. Bernin_, is coming to talk the matter over with _Lucie_.

_Mme. Bernin_ does arrive, but not for the purpose poor _Annette_ had hoped. Rather is it to tell _Lucie_ that her son cannot marry the girl. Oh, not because she isn't beautiful, pure or attractive. Indeed not! _Mme. Bernin_ herself says that her son could not wish for a more suitable match. But, then, she has no money, and her son must succeed in the world. He must acquire social standing and position; that cannot be had without money. When _Lucie_ pleads with her that after all the Bernins themselves had begun at the bottom, and that it did not prevent their being happy, _Mme. Bernin_ replies:

No, no; we are not happy, because we have worn ourselves out hunting
after happiness. We wanted to "get on," and we got on. But what a
price we paid for it! First, when we were both earning wages, our
life was one long drudgery of petty economy and meanness. When we
set up on our own account, we lived in an atmosphere of trickery, of
enmity, of lying; flattering the customers, and always in terror of
bankruptcy. Oh, I know the road to fortune! It means tears, lies,
envy, hate; one suffers--and one makes other people suffer. I have
had to go through it: my children shan't. We've only had two
children: we meant only to have one. Having two we had to be doubly
hard upon ourselves. Instead of a husband and wife helping one
another, we have been partners spying upon one another; calling one
another to account for every little expenditure or stupidity; and on
our very pillows disputing about our business. That's how we got
rich; and now we can't enjoy our money because we don't know how to
use it; and we aren't happy because our old age is made bitter by
the memories and the rancor left by the old bad days; because we
have suffered too much and hated too much. My children shall not go
through this. I endured it that they might be spared.

Learning the price _Mme. Bernin_ has paid for her wealth, we need not blame her for turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of _Lucie_ in behalf of her sister. Neither can _Lucie_ be held responsible for her stupidity in keeping her sister in ignorance until she was incapable of protecting herself when the occasion demanded. Poor _Annette_, one of the many offered up to the insatiable monster of ignorance and social convention!

When _Annette_ is informed of the result of _Mme. Bernin's_ visit, the girl grows hysterical, and _Lucie_ learns that her little sister is about to become a mother. Under the pretext of love and marriage young, pampered _Jaques Bernin_ has taken advantage of the girl's inexperience and innocence. In her despair _Annette_ rushes out in search of her lover, only to be repelled by him in a vulgar and cruel manner. She then attempts suicide by trying to throw herself under the train which is to carry off her worthless seducer. She is rescued by the faithful nurse _Catherine_, and brought back to her anxious sister _Lucie_. _Annette_, in great excitement, relates:

_Annette._ You'll never guess what he said. He got angry, and he
began to abuse me. He said he guessed what I was up to; that I
wanted to make a scandal to force him to marry me--oh, he spared me
nothing--to force him to marry me because he was rich. And when that
made me furious, he threatened to call the police! I ought to have
left him, run away, come home, oughtn't I? But I couldn't believe it
of him all at once, like that! And I couldn't go away while I had
any hope.... As long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was
engaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable ruined girl,
like dozens of others.... My life was at stake: and to save myself I
went down into the very lowest depths of vileness and cowardice. I
cried, I implored. I lost all shame.... What he said then I cannot
tell you--not even you--it was too much--too much--I did not
understand at first. It was only afterwards, coming back, going over
all his words, that I made out what he meant.... Then he rushed to
the train, and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fingers
in the door; and he went and hid behind his mother, and she
threatened, too, to have me arrested.... I wish I was dead! Lucie,
dear, I don't want to go through all that's coming--I am too
little--I am too weak, I'm too young to bear it. Really, I haven't
the strength.

But _Lucie_ has faith in her husband. In all the years of their married life she has heard him proclaim from the very housetops that motherhood is the most sacred function of woman; that the State needs large numbers; that commerce and the army require an increase of the population, and "the government commands you to further this end to the best of your ability, each one of you in his own commune." She has heard her husband repeat, over and over again, that the woman who refuses to abide by the command of God and the laws to become a mother is immoral, is criminal. Surely he would understand the tragedy of _Annette_, who had been placed in this condition not through her own fault but because she had been confiding and trusting in the promise of the man. Surely _Brignac_ would come to the rescue of _Annette_; would help and comfort her in her trying and difficult moment. But _Lucie_, like many wives, does not know her husband; she does not know that a man who is so hidebound by statutes and codes cannot have human compassion, and that he will not stand by the little girl who has committed the "unpardonable sin." _Lucie_ does not know, but she is soon to learn the truth.

_Lucie._ I tell you Annette is the victim of this wretch. If you are
going to do nothing but insult her, we had better stop discussing
the matter.

_Brignac._ I am in a nice fix now! There is nothing left for us but
to pack our trunks and be off. I am done for. Ruined! Smashed! I
tell you if she was caught red handed stealing, the wreck wouldn't
be more complete.... We must make some excuse. We will invent an
aunt or cousin who has invited her to stay. I will find a decent
house for her in Paris to go to. She'll be all right there. When the
time comes she can put the child out to nurse in the country, and
come back to us.

_Lucie._ You seriously propose to send that poor child to Paris,
where she doesn't know a soul?

_Brignac._ What do you mean by that? I will go to Paris myself, if
necessary. There are special boarding houses; very respectable
ones. I'll inquire: of course without letting out that it is for
anyone I know. And I'll pay what is necessary. What more can you
want?

_Lucie._ Just when the child is most in need of every care, you
propose to send her off alone; alone, do you understand, alone! To
tear her away from here, put her into a train, and send her off to
Paris, like a sick animal you want to get rid of. If I consented to
that I should feel that I was as bad as the man who seduced her. Be
honest, Julien: remember it is in our interest you propose to
sacrifice her. We shall gain peace and quiet at the price of her
loneliness and despair. To save ourselves--serious troubles, I
admit--we are to abandon this child to strangers ... away from all
love and care and comfort, without a friend to put kind arms around
her and let her sob her grief away. I implore you, Julien, I entreat
you, for our children's sake, don't keep me from her, don't ask me
to do this shameful thing.

_Brignac._ There would have been no question of misery if she had
behaved herself.

_Lucie._ She is this man's victim! But she won't go. You'll have to
drive her out as you drove out the servant.... And then--after
that--she is to let her child go; to stifle her strongest instinct;
to silence the cry of love that consoles us all for the tortures we
have to go through; to turn away her eyes and say, "Take him away, I
don't want him." And at that price she is to be forgiven for another
person's crime.... Then that is Society's welcome to the new born
child?

_Brignac._ To the child born outside of marriage, yes. If it wasn't
for that, there would soon be nothing but illegitimate births. It
is to preserve the family that society condemns the natural child.

_Lucie._ You say you want a larger number of births, and at the same
time you say to women: "No motherhood without marriage, and no
marriage without money." As long as you've not changed that, all
your circulars will be met with shouts of derision--half from hate,
half from pity.... If you drive Annette out, I shall go with her.

_Lucie_ and _Annette_ go out into the world. As middle-class girls they have been taught a little of everything and not much of anything. They try all kinds of work to enable them to make a living, but though they toil hard and long hours, they barely earn enough for a meager existence. As long as _Annette's_ condition is not noticeable, life is bearable; but soon everybody remarks her state. She and _Lucie_ are driven from place to place. In her despair _Annette_ does what many girls in her position have done before her and will do after her so long as the Brignacs and their morality are dominant. She visits a midwife, and one more victim is added to the large number slaughtered upon the altar of morality.

The last act is in the court room. _Mme. Thomas_, the midwife, is on trial for criminal abortion. With her are a number of women whose names have been found on her register.

Bit by bit we learn the whole tragedy of each of the defendants; we see all the sordidness of poverty, the inability to procure the bare necessities of life, and the dread of the unwelcome child.

A schoolmistress, although earning a few hundred francs, and living with her husband, is compelled to have an abortion performed because another child would mean hunger for all of them.

_Schoolmistress._ We just managed to get along by being most
careful; and several times we cut down expenses it did not seem
possible to cut down. A third child coming upset everything. We
couldn't have lived. We should have all starved. Besides, the
inspectors and directresses don't like us to have many children,
especially if we nurse them ourselves. They told me to hide myself
when I was suckling the last one. I only had ten minutes to do it
in, at the recreation, at ten o'clock and at two o'clock; and when
my mother brought baby to me I had to shut myself up with him in a
dark closet.

The couple _Tupin_ stand before the bar to defend themselves against the charge of criminal abortion. _Tupin_ has been out of work for a long time and is driven by misery to drink. He is known to the police as a disreputable character. One of his sons is serving a sentence for theft, and a daughter is a woman of the streets. But _Tupin_ is a thinking man. He proves that his earnings at best are not enough to supply the needs of an already large family. The daily nourishment of five children consists of a four-pound loaf, soup of vegetables and dripping, and a stew which costs 90 centimes. Total, 3f. 75c. This is the expenditure of the father: Return ticket for tram, 30c. Tobacco, 15c. Dinner, 1f. 25c. The rent, 300f. Clothing for the whole family, and boots: 16 pairs of boots for the children at 4f. 50c. each, 4 for the parents at 8f., total again 300f. Total for the year, 2,600f. _Tupin_, who is an exceptional workman, earns 160f. a month, that is to say, 2,100f. a year. There is therefore an annual deficit of 500f., provided _Tupin_ keeps at work all the time, which never happens in the life of a workingman. Under such circumstances no one need be surprised that one of his children is imprisoned for theft, and the other is walking the streets, while _Tupin_ himself is driven to drink.

_Tupin._ When we began to get short in the house, my wife and I
started to quarrel. Every time a child came we were mad at making it
worse for the others. And so ... I ended up in the saloon. It's warm
there, and you can't hear the children crying nor the mother
complaining. And besides, when you have drink in you, you forget....
And that's how we got poorer and poorer. My fault, if you like....
Our last child was a cripple. He was born in starvation, and his
mother was worn out. And they nursed him, and they nursed him, and
they nursed him. They did not leave him a minute. They made him live
in spite of himself. And they let the other children--the strong
ones--go to the bad. With half the money and the fuss they wasted on
the cripple, they could have made fine fellows of all the others.

_Mme. Tupin._ I have to add that all this is not my fault. My
husband and I worked like beasts; we did without every kind of
pleasure to try and bring up our children. If we had wanted to slave
more, I declare to you we couldn't have done it. And now that we
have given our lives for them, the oldest is in hospital, ruined and
done for because he worked in "a dangerous trade" as they call
it.... There are too many people in the world.... My little girl had
to choose between starvation and the street.... I'm only a poor
woman, and I know what it means to have nothing to eat, so I forgave
her.

Thus _Mme. Tupin_ also understands that it is a crime to add one more victim to those who are born ill and for whom society has no place.

Then _Lucie_ faces the court,--_Lucie_ who loved her sister too well, and who, driven by the same conditions that killed _Annette_, has also been compelled to undergo an abortion rather than have a fourth child by the man she did not love any more. Like the _Schoolmistress_ and the _Tupins_, she is dragged before the bar of justice to explain her crime, while her husband, who had forced both _Annette_ and _Lucie_ out of the house, has meanwhile risen to a high position as a supporter of the State with his favorite slogan, "Motherhood is the highest function of woman."

Finally the midwife _Thomas_ is called upon for her defense.

_Thomas._ A girl came to me one day; she was a servant. She had been
seduced by her master. I refused to do what she asked me to do: she
went and drowned herself. Another I refused to help was brought up
before you here for infanticide. Then when the others came, I said,
"Yes." I have prevented many a suicide and many a crime.

It is not likely that the venerable judge, the State's attorney or the gentlemen of the jury can see in _Mme. Thomas_ a greater benefactress to society than they; any more than they can grasp the deep importance of the concluding words of the counsel for the defense in this great social tragedy.

_Counsel for the Defense._ Their crime is not an individual crime;
it is a social crime.... It is _not_ a crime against nature. It is a
revolt against nature. And with all the warmth of a heart melted by
pity, with all the indignation of my outraged reason, I look for
that glorious hour of liberation when some master mind shall
discover for us the means of having only the children we need and
desire, release forever from the prison of hypocrisy and absolve us
from the profanation of love. That would indeed be a conquest of
nature--savage nature--which pours out life with culpable
profusion, and sees it disappear with indifference.

Surely there can be no doubt as to the revolutionary significance of "Maternity": the demand that woman must be given means to prevent conception of undesired and unloved children; that she must become free and strong to choose the father of her child and to decide the number of children she is to bring into the world, and under what conditions. That is the only kind of motherhood which can endure.

THE ENGLISH DRAMA

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

"I am not an ordinary playwright in general practice. I am a specialist in immoral and heretical plays. My reputation has been gained by my persistent struggle to force the public to reconsider its morals. In particular, I regard much current morality as to economic and sexual relations as disastrously wrong; and I regard certain doctrines of the Christian religion as understood in England to-day with abhorrence. I write plays with the deliberate object of converting the nation to my opinions in these matters."

This confession of faith should leave no doubt as to the place of George Bernard Shaw in modern dramatic art. Yet, strange to say, he is among the most doubted of his time. That is partly due to the fact that humor generally serves merely to amuse, touching only the lighter side of life. But there is a kind of humor that fills laughter with tears, a humor that eats into the soul like acid, leaving marks often deeper than those made by the tragic form.

There is another reason why Shaw's sincerity is regarded lightly: it is to be found in the difference of his scope as propagandist and as artist. As the propagandist Shaw is limited, dogmatic, and set. Indeed, the most zealous Puritan could not be more antagonistic to social theories differing from his own. But the artist, if he is sincere at all, must go to life as the source of his inspiration, and life is beyond dogmas, beyond the House of Commons, beyond even the "eternal and irrevocable law" of the materialistic conception of history. If, then, the Socialist propagandist Shaw is often lost in the artist Shaw, it is not because he lacks sincerity, but because life will not be curtailed.

It may be contended that Shaw is much more the propagandist than the artist because he paints in loud colors. But that is rather because of the indolence of the human mind, especially of the Anglo-Saxon mind, which has settled down snugly to the self-satisfied notion of its purity, justice, and charity, so that naught but the strongest current of light will make it wince. In "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and "Major Barbara," George Bernard Shaw has accomplished even more. He has pulled off the mask of purity and Christian kindness that we may see their hidden viciousness at work.

MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION

Mrs. Warren is engaged in a profession which has existed through all the ages. It was at home in Egypt, played an important rôle in Greece and Rome, formed one of the influential guilds in the Middle Ages, and has been one of the main sources of income for the Christian Church.

But it was left to modern times to make of Mrs. Warren's profession a tremendous social factor, ministering to the needs of man in every station of life, from the brownstone mansion to the hovel, from the highest official to the poorest drag.

Time was when the Mrs. Warrens were looked upon as possessed by the devil,--lewd, depraved creatures who would not, even if they had the choice, engage in any other profession, because they are vicious at heart, and should therefore be held up to condemnation and obloquy. And while we continue to drive them from pillar to post, while we still punish them as criminals and deny them the simplest humanities one gives even to the dumb beast, the light turned on this subject by men like George Bernard Shaw has helped to expose the lie of inherent evil tendencies and natural depravity. Instead we learn:

_Mrs. Warren._ Do you think I did what I did because I liked it, or
thought it right, or wouldn't rather have gone to college and been a
lady if I'd had the chance?... Oh, it's easy to talk, very easy,
isn't it? Here!--Would you like to know what my circumstances were?
D'you know what your gran'mother was? No, you don't. I do. She
called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint,
and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were
sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good looking and well
made. I suppose our father was a well fed man: mother pretended he
was a gentleman; but I don't know. The other two were only half
sisters--undersized, ugly, starved, hard working, honest poor
creatures: Liz and I would have half murdered them if mother hadn't
half murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the
respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability?
I'll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve
hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead
poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed;
but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because
she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard,
and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen
shillings a week--until he took to drink. That was worth being
respectable for, wasn't it?

_Vivie._ Did you and your sister think so?

_Mrs. Warren._ Liz didn't, I can tell you; she had more spirit. We
both went to a Church School--that was part of the lady-like airs we
gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and
went nowhere--and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and
never came back. I knew the schoolmistress thought I'd soon follow
her example; for the clergyman was always warning me that Lizzie 'd
end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all that he
knew about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead factory than
I was of the river; and so would you have been in my place. That
clergyman got me a situation as a scullery maid in a temperance
restaurant where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was
waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo Station--fourteen
hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a
week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me.
Well, one cold, wretched night, when I was so tired I could hardly
keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but
Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of
sovereigns in her purse.

_Vivie._ My aunt Lizzie?

_Mrs. Warren._ Yes.... She's living down at Winchester, now, close
to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies
there--chaperones girls at the country ball, if you please. No river
for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a
first-rate business woman--saved money from the beginning--never let
herself look too like what she was--never lost her head or threw
away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up good-looking she said to me
across the bar: "What are you doing there, you little fool? Wearing
out your health and your appearance for other people's profit!" Liz
was saving money then to take a house for herself in Brussels: and
she thought we two could save faster than one. So she lent me some
money and gave me a start; and I saved steadily and first paid her
back, and then went into business with her as her partner. Why
shouldn't I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high
class--a much better place for a woman to be in than the factory
where Anne Jane got poisoned. None of our girls were ever treated as
I was treated in the scullery of that temperance place, or at the
Waterloo bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them and
become a worn-out old drudge before I was forty?... Yes, saving
money. But where can a woman get the money to save in any other
business? Could you save out of four shillings a week and keep
yourself dressed as well? Not you. Of course, if you're a plain
woman and can't earn anything more: or if you have a turn for music,
or the stage, or newspaper writing: that's different. But neither
Liz nor I had any turn for such things: all we had was our
appearance and our turn for pleasing men. Do you think we were such
fools as to let other people trade in our good looks by employing us
as shop-girls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could trade in
them ourselves and get all the profits instead of starvation wages?
Not likely.... Everybody dislikes having to work and make money; but
they have to do it all the same. I'm sure I've often pitied a poor
girl, tired out and in low spirits, having to try to please some man
that she doesn't care two straws for--some half-drunken fool that
thinks he's making himself agreeable when he's teasing and worrying
and disgusting a woman so that hardly any money could pay her for
putting up with it. But she has to bear with disagreeables and take
the rough with the smooth, just like a nurse in a hospital or anyone
else. It's not work that any woman would do for pleasure, goodness
knows; though to hear the pious people talk you would suppose it was
a bed of roses. Of course it's worth while to a poor girl, if she
can resist temptation and is good looking and well-conducted and
sensible. It's far better than any other employment open to her. I
always thought that oughtn't to be. It can't be right, Vivie, that
there shouldn't be better opportunities for women. I stick to that:
It's wrong. But it's so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the
best of it. But, of course, it's not worth while for a lady. If you
took to it you'd be a fool; but I should have been a fool if I'd
taken to anything else.... Why am I independent and able to give my
daughter a first-rate education, when other women that had just as
good opportunities are in the gutter? Because I always knew how to
respect myself and control myself. Why is Liz looked up to in a
cathedral town? The same reason. Where would we be now if we'd
minded the clergyman's foolishness? Scrubbing floors for one and
sixpence a day and nothing to look forward to but the workhouse
infirmary. Don't you be led astray by people who don't know the
world, my girl. The only way for a woman to provide for herself
decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be
good to her. If she's in his own station of life, let her make him
marry her; but if she's far beneath him, she can't expect it--why
should she? It wouldn't be for her own happiness. Ask any lady in
London society that has daughters; and she'll tell you the same,
except that I tell you straight and she'll tell you crooked. That's
all the difference.... It's only good manners to be ashamed of it;
it's expected from a woman. Women have to pretend a great deal that
they don't feel. Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the
truth about it. She used to say that when every woman would learn
enough from what was going on in the world before her eyes, there
was no need to talk about it to her. But then Liz was such a perfect
lady! She had the true instinct of it; while I was always a bit of a
vulgarian. I used to be so pleased when you sent me your photographs
to see that you were growing up like Liz; you've just her lady-like
determined way. But I can't stand saying one thing when everyone
knows I mean another. What's the use in such hypocrisy? If people
arrange the world that way for women, there's no use pretending that
it's arranged the other way. I never was a bit ashamed really. I
consider that I had a right to be proud that we managed everything
so respectably, and never had a word against us, and that the girls
were so well taken care of. Some of them did very well: one of them
married an ambassador. But of course now I daren't talk about such
things: whatever would they think of us.

No, it is not respectable to talk about these things, because respectability cannot face the truth. Yet everybody knows that the majority of women, "if they wish to provide for themselves decently must be good to some man that can afford to be good to them." The only difference then between _Sister Liz_, the respectable girl, and _Mrs. Warren_, is hypocrisy and legal sanction. _Sister Liz_ uses her money to buy back her reputation from the Church and Society. The respectable girl uses the sanction of the Church to buy a decent income legitimately, and _Mrs. Warren_ plays her game without the sanction of either. Hence she is the greatest criminal in the eyes of the world. Yet _Mrs. Warren_ is no less human than most other women. In fact, as far as her love for her daughter _Vivian_ is concerned, she is a superior sort of mother. That her daughter may not have to face the same alternative as she,--slave in a scullery for four shillings a week--_Mrs. Warren_ surrounds the girl with comfort and ease, gives her an education, and thereby establishes between her child and herself an abyss which nothing can bridge. Few respectable mothers would do as much for their daughters. However, _Mrs. Warren_ remains the outcast, while all those who benefit by her profession, including even her daughter _Vivian_, move in the best circles.

_Sir John Crofts_, _Mrs. Warren's_ business partner, who has invested 40,000 pounds in _Mrs. Warren's_ house, drawing an income of 35 per cent. out of it in the worst years, is a recognized pillar of society and an honored member of his class. Why not!

_Crofts._ The fact is, it's not what would be considered exactly a
high-class business in my set--the county set, you know.... Not that
there is any mystery about it: don't think that. Of course you know
by your mother's being in it that it's perfectly straight and
honest. I've known her for many years; and I can say of her that
she'd cut off her hands sooner than touch anything that was not what
it ought to be.... But you see you can't mention such things in
society. Once let out the word hotel and everybody says you keep a
public-house. You wouldn't like people to say that of your mother,
would you? That's why we're so reserved about it.... Don't turn up
your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would your Newnhams and
Girtons be without it?... You wouldn't refuse the acquaintance of my
mother's cousin, the Duke of Belgravia, because some of the rents he
gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldn't cut the Archbishop of
Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have
a few publicans and sinners among their tenants? Do you remember
your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by my
brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent. out of a factory with 600
girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on.
How d' ye suppose most of them manage? Ask your mother. And do you
expect me to turn my back on 35 per cent. when all the rest are
pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such fool! If you're
going to pick and choose your acquaintances on moral principles,
you'd better clear out of this country, unless you want to cut
yourself out of all decent society.... The world isn't such a bad
place as the croakers make out. So long as you don't fly openly in
the face of society, society doesn't ask any inconvenient questions;
and it makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are no
secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses. In the
society I can introduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far
forget themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your
mother's.

Indeed, no lady or gentleman would discuss the profession of _Mrs. Warren_ and her confrères. But they partake of the dividends. When the evil becomes too crying, they engage in vice crusades, and call down the wrath of the Lord and the brutality of the police upon the Mrs. Warrens and her victims. While the victimizers, the Crofts, the Canterburys, Rev. Gardner--_Vivian's_ own father and pious mouthpiece of the Church--and the other patrons of _Mrs. Warren's_ houses parade as the protectors of woman, the home and the family.

To-day no one of the least intelligence denies the cruelty, the injustice, the outrage of such a state of affairs, any more than it is being denied that the training of woman as a sex commodity has left her any other source of income except to sell herself to one man within marriage or to many men outside of marriage. Only bigots and inexperienced girls like _Vivian_ can say that "everybody has some choice. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, according to her taste."

It is astonishing how little education and college degrees teach people. Had _Vivian_ been compelled to shift for herself, she would have discovered that neither rag-picking nor flower-selling brings enough to satisfy one's "taste." It is not a question of choice, but of necessity, which is the determining factor in most people's lives.

When Shaw flung _Mrs. Warren_ into the smug midst of society, even the educated Vivians knew little of the compelling force which whips thousands of women into prostitution. As to the ignorant, their minds are a mental and spiritual desert. Naturally the play caused consternation. It still continues to serve as the red rag to the social bull. "Mrs. Warren's Profession" infuriates because it goes to the bottom of our evils; because it places the accusing finger upon the sorest and most damnable spot in our social fabric--sex as woman's only commodity in the competitive market of life. "An immoral and heretical play," indeed, of very deep social significance.

MAJOR BARBARA

"Major Barbara" is of still greater social importance, inasmuch as it points to the fact that while charity and religion are supposed to minister to the poor, both institutions derive their main revenue from the poor by the perpetuation of the evils both pretend to fight.

_Major Barbara_, the daughter of the world renowned cannon manufacturer _Undershaft_, has joined the Salvation Army. The latter lays claim to being the most humane religious institution, because--unlike other soul savers--it does not entirely forget the needs of the body. It also teaches that the greater the sinner the more glorious the saving. But as no one is quite as black as he is painted, it becomes necessary for those who want to be saved, and incidentally to profit by the Salvation Army, to invent sins--the blacker the better.

_Rummy._ What am I to do? I can't starve. Them Salvation lasses is
dear girls; but the better you are the worse they likes to think you
were before they rescued you. Why shouldn't they 'av' a bit o'
credit, poor loves? They're worn to rags by their work. And where
would they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on we're no
worse than other people? You know what ladies and gentlemen are.

_Price._ Thievin' swine!... We're companions in misfortune,
Rummy....

_Rummy._ Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?

_Price._ No: I come here on my own. I'm goin' to be Bronterre
O'Brien Price, the converted painter. I know wot they like. I'll
tell 'em how I blasphemed and gambled and wopped my poor old
mother--

_Rummy._ Used you to beat your mother?

_Price._ Not likely. She used to beat me. No matter: you come and
listen to the converted painter, and you'll hear how she was a pious
woman that taught me me prayers at 'er knee, an' how I used to come
home drunk and drag her out o' bed be 'er snow-white 'airs, and lam
into 'er with the poker.

_Rummy._ That's what's so unfair to us women. Your confessions is
just as big lies as ours: you don't tell what you really done no
more than us; but you men can tell your lies right out at the
meetin's and be made much of for it; while the sort o' confessions
we az to make 'as to be whispered to one lady at a time. It ain't
right, spite of all their piety.

_Price._ Right! Do you suppose the Army'd be allowed if it went and
did right? Not much. It combs our 'air and makes us good little
blokes to be robbed and put upon. But I'll play the game as good as
any of 'em. I'll see somebody struck by lightnin', or hear a voice
sayin', "Snobby Price: where will you spend eternity?" I'll 'ave a
time of it, I tell you.

It is inevitable that the Salvation Army, like all other religious and charitable institutions, should by its very character foster cowardice and hypocrisy as a premium securing entry into heaven.

_Major Barbara_, being a novice, is as ignorant of this as she is unaware of the source of the money which sustains her and the work of the Salvation Army. She consistently refuses to accept the "conscience sovereign" of _Bill Walker_ for beating up a Salvation lassie. Not so _Mrs. Baines_, the Army Commissioner. She is dyed in the wool in the profession of begging and will take money from the devil himself "for the Glory of God,"--the Glory of God which consists in "taking out the anger and bitterness against the rich from the hearts of the poor," a service "gratifying and convenient for all large employers." No wonder the whisky distiller _Bodger_ makes the generous contribution of 5000 pounds and _Undershaft_ adds his own little mite of another 5000.

_Barbara_ is indeed ignorant or she would not protest against a fact so notorious:

_Barbara._ Do you know what my father is? Have you forgotten that
Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you remember how we
implored the County Council to stop him from writing Bodger's Whisky
in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor drink-ruined
creatures on the embankment could not wake up from their snatches of
sleep without being reminded of their deadly thirst by that wicked
sky sign? Do you know that the worst thing that I have had to fight
here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger with his whisky,
his distilleries, and his tied houses? Are you going to make our
shelter another tied house for him, and ask me to keep it?

_Undershaft._ My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary article.
It heals the sick-- ... It assists the doctor: that is perhaps a
less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to
millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were
quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night
that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.

_Mrs. Baines._ Barbara: Lord Saxmundham gives us the money to stop
drinking--to take his own business from him.

_Undershaft._ I also, Mrs. Baines, may claim a little
disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the widows and
orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces with shrapnel and poisoned
with lyddite! the oceans of blood, not one drop of which is shed in
a really just cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants
forced, women and men, to till their fields under the fire of
opposing armies on pain of starvation! the bad blood of the fierce
cowards at home who egg on others to fight for the gratification of
national vanity! All this makes money for me: I am never richer,
never busier than when the papers are full of it. Well, it is your
work to preach peace on earth and good will to men. Every convert
you make is a vote against war. Yet I give you this money to hasten
my own commercial ruin.

_Barbara._ Drunkenness and Murder! My God, why hast thou forsaked
me?

However, _Barbara's_ indignation does not last very long, any more than that of her aristocratic mother, _Lady Britomart_, who has no use for her plebeian husband except when she needs his money. Similarly _Stephen_, her son, has become converted, like _Barbara_, not to the Glory Hallelujah of the Salvation Army but to the power of money and cannon. Likewise the rest of the family, including the Greek Scholar _Cusins_, _Barbara's_ suitor.

During the visit to their father's factory the Undershaft family makes several discoveries. They learn that the best modern method of accumulating a large fortune consists in organizing industries in such a manner as to make the workers content with their slavery. It's a model factory.

_Undershaft._ It is a spotlessly clean and beautiful hillside town.
There are two chapels: a Primitive one and a sophisticated one.
There's even an ethical society; but it is not much patronized, as
my men are all strongly religious. In the high explosives sheds they
object to the presence of agnostics as unsafe.

The family further learns that it is not high moral precepts, patriotic love of country, or similar sentiments that are the backbone of the life of the nation. It is _Undershaft_ again who enlightens them of the power of money and its rôle in dictating governmental policies, making war or peace, and shaping the destinies of man.

_Undershaft._ The government of your country. I am the government of
your country: I, and Lazarus. Do you suppose that you and a half a
dozen amateurs like you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble
shop, can govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do
what pays us. You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace
when it doesn't. You will find out that trade requires certain
measures when we have decided on those measures. When I want
anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is
a national need. When either people want something to keep my
dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in
return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers, and
the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman. Government
of your country! Be off with you, my boy, and play with your
caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great leaders
and burning questions and the rest of your toys. I am going back to
my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.... To give
arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect
of persons or principles: to Aristocrat and Republican, to Nihilist
and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and Catholic,
to burglar and policeman, to black man, white man, and yellow man,
to all sorts and conditions, all nationalities, all faiths, all
follies, all causes and all crimes.... I will take an order from a
good man as cheerfully as from a bad one. If you good people prefer
preaching and shirking to buying my weapons and fighting the
rascals, don't blame me. I can make cannons: I cannot make courage
and conviction.

That is just it. The Undershafts cannot make conviction and courage; yet both are indispensable if one is to see that, in the words of _Undershaft_:

"Cleanliness and respectability do not need justification: they
justify themselves. There are millions of poor people, abject
people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people. They poison us
morally and physically: they kill the happiness of society: they
force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural
cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into
their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. I had
rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be a murderer than a
slave, I don't want to be either; but if you force the alternative
on me, then, by Heaven, I'll choose the braver and more moral one. I
hate poverty and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever."

_Cusins_, the scientist, realizes the force of _Undershaft's_ argument. Long enough have the people been preached at, and intellectual power used to enslave them.

_Cusins._ As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual man weapons
against the common man. I now want to give the common man weapons
against the intellectual man. I love the common people. I want to
arm them against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary
man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who, once in
authority, are the most dangerous, disastrous, and tyrannical of all
the fools, rascals, and impostors.

This thought is perhaps the most revolutionary sentiment in the whole play, in view of the fact that the people everywhere are enslaved by the awe of the lawyer, the professor, and the politician, even more than by the club and gun. It is the lawyer and the politician who poison the people with "the germ of briefs and politics," thereby unfitting them for the only effective course in the great social struggle--action, resultant from the realization that poverty and inequality never have been, never can be, preached or voted out of existence.

_Undershaft._ Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to
your sermons and leading articles: they will not stand up to my
machine guns. Don't preach at them; don't reason with them. Kill
them.

_Barbara._ Killing. Is that your remedy for everything?

_Undershaft._ It is the final test of conviction, the only lever
strong enough to overturn a social system, the only way of saying
Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools loose in the street; and
three policemen can scatter them. But huddle them together in a
certain house in Westminster; and let them go through certain
ceremonies and call themselves certain names until at last they get
the courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools become a
government. Your pious mob fills up ballot papers and imagines it is
governing its masters; but the ballot paper that really governs is
the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it.... Vote! Bah! When you
vote you only change the names of the cabinet. When you shoot, you
pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and
set up new. Is that historically true, Mr. Learned Man, or is it
not?

_Cusins._ It is historically true. I loathe having to admit it. I
repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your nature. I defy you in every
possible way. Still, it is true. But it ought not to be true.

_Undershaft._ Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! Are you going to
spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists? Turn
your oughts into shells, man. Come and make explosives with me. The
history of the world is the history of those who had the courage to
embrace this truth.

"Major Barbara" is one of the most revolutionary plays. In any other but dramatic form the sentiments uttered therein would have condemned the author to long imprisonment for inciting to sedition and violence.

Shaw the Fabian would be the first to repudiate such utterances as rank Anarchy, "impractical, brain cracked and criminal." But Shaw the dramatist is closer to life--closer to reality, closer to the historic truth that the people wrest only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

JOHN GALSWORTHY