Chapter II: Part 2

We meet them on her birthday. They are waiting for her brother’s return from the outside world in celebration of the day. The girl, filled with wonder at the beauty of life, with thankfulness for her recovered health, stands looking out of the window while her father plays Brahms’ Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 6. A woman passing in the street attracted by the music looks up and their eyes meet. In the woman’s eyes is the misery of all the fallen women since the creation, and it seems to the girl to carry a direct appeal for help. The music stops, and to her questioning the father tells her of her mother’s life of sacrifice for these erring sisters and of her death from a broken heart. It is the girl’s first knowledge of evil. Just here her brother comes.

In her joy over his return the woman is forgotten, but while they are at the birthday supper the woman comes in with her message of the misery of the lives of her lost sisters; her plea for a union between man and woman that is mental and spiritual, beyond the physical, and her demand for the love and pity of the girl’s innocence for her companions.

Were this scene handled by any less masterly hand than Mr. Kennedy’s it would be impossible; but in his messenger we find again that same note of mysticism that has characterized his other plays. We cannot, however, but sympathize with the girl’s brother in his indignation that his sister should have the veil so ruthlessly torn from her eyes. Surely we can teach our girls the sanctity and beauty of marriage without taking away their joy in living.

Approach the problem, however, from whatever road we will, it always comes back to the one fundamental question—What right have parents to let their children grow to manhood or womanhood without the knowledge that is their right?

During the past few seasons we have had many plays on sex problems. Some of them have been strong, virile, excellently written, from both an acting and a literary point of view, but they have failed to waken in their hearers any sense of personal responsibility towards the problem presented. This is due mainly to the fact that they have dealt with unusual situations or a too sordid group. The average listener feels sorry for the victim with the same impersonal feeling that is aroused by the reading of similar horrors in the daily press.

But this is not so in Cosmo Hamilton’s strong play—The Blindness of Virtue. The scene is laid in the vicarage of a small rural parish outside of London—but it might as truly be outside of New York. The Reverend Harry Pemberton and his wife, lovable examples of the broad human element of the church, in their zeal to do their duty by God’s unfortunate children are leaving to a very lonely life their one child, a girl just reaching womanhood, anxious to try her wings, to be doing, to be helping, but sheltered by her parents from any conflict with the world and its problems.

Into this household comes young Archie Graham, sent down by his father, the minister of education, to read with the vicar. Archie is given a thoroughly bad character by this father, who has been too busy legislating for the education of the masses to have had time to help in the development of his motherless son.

By the second act a charming love interest has developed between the boy who, under the warmth of the vicar’s trust and companionship, has grown every inch a man, and the girl—unconscious on her part, realized on his as something to be worthy of.

In this act, Mary Ann Lemmins, a village girl, who was lost eight months previous, comes to see the vicar.

_The Vicar_: “Why didn’t he marry you, Mary Ann?”

_Mary Ann_: “’E ’a got a wife. I was to blame fer this, ’e
said. Me knowing nothing—’e explained it all right to me—Me
knowing nothing, and what it all meant—brought it about. If I’d
a bin told when I was old enough to understand I should a sent
him away ’e says, double quick, and saved ’im and me and the
little one. ’E says as how if we was taught to think, and knew
as much as the man, there’d be very little of this ’ere trouble
fer us. It’s the mother first, ’e says, and then us, who is ter
blame.”

With his eyes opened to what a parent’s responsibilities should be, the vicar calls his wife and begs that she give Effie the knowledge which would protect her. The mother brings every old-time argument behind which false modesty has hidden for years to prove that Effie should not be told. “Girls must learn for themselves. My mother never told me.” Only when he insists that if she does not tell Effie he will, does she agree to do so that night. She delays, however, and a few mornings later the father finds Effie in Archie’s bedroom, quite innocently come to hear of his trip to London the previous day. The vicar, refusing to believe that his daughter, knowing what he thinks her mother has told her, could have come to the room voluntarily, accuses the boy of having enticed her there. A violent quarrel between the two men ends the act. But in the last act the vicar learns that the young people have acted innocently, and it all ends happily.

The play is beautifully written, the characters so human, so lovable, that one feels grateful to Mr. Hamilton for having introduced us to them. It is by far the strongest and most convincing appeal for sex education that has yet been written for the stage. One cannot imagine any parent who has been blind to his duty, as had been the vicar, not crying with him, “My child might have been Mary Ann.”

The Blindness of Virtue should do much good. It might be considered the cause to effect as shown in Brieux’ Damaged Goods.

OLIVE CROSBY.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN BOSTON

The Women’s Municipal League of Boston. 300 pp.

Some excitement has been aroused in the ranks of those who are interested in vocational guidance to youths by the conclusion of several students of the subject that young people between fourteen and sixteen need to be guided into further training rather than into gainful occupations. If this conclusion be correct a distinct service will be rendered by listing and analyzing existing opportunities for vocational training. Without committing itself to either point of view, the Women’s Municipal League of Boston has pioneered by compiling a handbook of such opportunities in that city.

For the purposes of this book vocational training is defined as “any education the controlling purpose of which is to fit for profitable employment.” It is obvious that in any attempt to analyze and discriminate among agencies offering vocational education, the value of the work will be determined largely by the manner in which it is conducted. The investigations for this treatise were done mainly by students from Harvard, Radcliffe and Wellesley Colleges, from the School for Social Workers, and from Boston University. Their work, says the preface, was closely supervised. A tentative chart made from the written reports of the students was subjected to the comparative scrutiny of the heads of all the schools concerned. Before the final charts were made conferences were held with experts in each type of education listed.

Besides an alphabetical list of 292 subjects taught in vocational schools and classes in Boston, the book contains classified information regarding professional schools, commercial schools, industrial schools and schools for training in the household arts. Both public and private schools are included. Among industrial schools are included pre-vocational, manual training, trade, technical and other improvement schools. With regard to each school the book tells briefly its purpose, courses, admission requirements, tuition, season, and what the school undertakes in the way of placing its students.

A supplement lists organized opportunities for training for the physically handicapped in Massachusetts, opportunities for vocational training in settlements and other social centers and organized opportunities for finding employment.

WINTHROP D. LANE.

SOCIALISM SUMMED UP

By MORRIS HILLQUIT. The H. K. Fly Co. 110 pp. Price $1.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $1.06.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIALISM

By ALLAN L. BENSON. B. W. Huebsch. 188 pp. Price $1.00; by mail
of THE SURVEY $1.10.

SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE

By SAMUEL P. ORTH. Henry Holt. 352 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.62.

MY LIFE

By AUGUST BEBEL. The University of Chicago Press. 343 pp. Price
$2.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.14.

FURTHER REMINISCENCES

By H. M. HYNDMAN. The Macmillan Co. 545 pp. Price $5.00; by
mail of THE SURVEY $5.20.

THE LARGER ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM

By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING. The Macmillan Co. 406 pp. Price
$1.50; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.63.

The chapters of Mr. Hillquit’s summary of the principles of Socialism and the industrial conditions, which, in his opinion, make its coming inevitable, appeared in the _Metropolitan Magazine_. As its name indicates, this little book of 110 pages makes no original contributions to the subject; in it one of the best known of American Socialists presents in a style which, though dry, is easy to understand, the forces that have made Socialists; their aims; the program of practical reform through legislation favored by the party; something of the accomplishments of international Socialism; and a short resume of its history in America. Socialism, as presented by Mr. Hillquit, is a purely political movement. The best presentation of its immediate aims and its methods of accomplishing them is given in the chapter entitled Political Program.

* * * * *

Mr. Benson’s book, The Truth About Socialism, covers the same ground as Mr. Hillquit’s and was written originally for _Pearson’s Magazine_. It is more picturesque and readable in style, as Mr. Benson is magazine writer even before Socialist, and deals with the subject less methodically.

An introductory chapter covers the general principles of Socialism and succeeding chapters deal with the objections to Socialism. Further chapters take up its bearing on the vital questions of the day and contrast the radical and the Socialist plans of meeting these problems. As for the practical method of attaining the industrial commonwealth, Mr. Benson appears to favor compensation for industries taken over by the government and the payment to employes in these industries of wages commensurate with their services.

Neither Mr. Hillquit’s nor Mr. Benson’s book are intended to cover the subject thoroughly or to do more than is the legitimate function of magazine articles—to arouse the reader’s interest so that he will himself attempt to learn more.

* * * * *

Mr. Orth in Socialism and Democracy in Europe, has presented a good review of the accomplishments of international Socialism under the dominance of an opportunist parliamentarian policy. He has well presented the relations, conscious and unconscious, of the practical evolutionary Socialism of today with the radical or liberal movements of the various European countries. The mass of facts which he has gathered together into small compass bear careful study. They cover the development of radicalism, political Socialism and syndicalism in France; of the co-operative and political sides of the Belgian Socialist movement as well as their frequent use of the direct action of the general strike to gain political rights; the development of the German Socialist movement in the political field and the German trade union movement; and the history of the Independent Labor Party and of the liberalism of Lloyd-George in England.

Such a book as Mr. Orth’s tends to confirm the more inflexible theorists of the class struggle in their contention that Socialism should, if it is to retain its separate existence as a revolutionary movement, be able to suggest the rough outlines of an industrial commonwealth of the future which shall be convincingly different from the bureaucratic “Socialistic” state toward which Mr. Orth evidently believes the Socialist and radical movements of the various European countries are moving. Constructive Socialism has, up to this time, meant the outlining of the successive steps in a program looking toward the Socialist state. Now that many of the “immediate demands” of Socialist platforms have been taken over by other parties, the next step for Socialists is to show what is the social structure toward which they are working.

* * * * *

In My Life, the first volume of his autobiography, August Bebel, the most prominent figure in the German Socialist movement, covers in Germany practically the same period that the first volume of H. M. Hyndman’s reminiscences, reviewed on this page, covers in England. It stops in 1878 with the beginning of the persecution of Socialists and with reform legislation by the government, dictated by the ideas of the Socialist Lasalle and prompted partly by the fear of Socialism, then at their height.

Autobiography is not history, but it throws an invaluable sidelight on history. Supplemented by the compact review of the history of that period of German Socialism in Professor Orth’s book. Bebel’s life becomes absorbingly interesting. It tells of his own development, of his practical work in the non-Socialist German labor movement and of his conversion to Socialism. Last of all comes his subsequent part in the struggle between the opportunist Socialism of Lasalle and the revolutionary Socialism of Marx, ending in that compromise between the two wings in 1875 which made the modern German movement. Equally interesting is the story of the first acts of Bismarck’s bitter persecution of Socialism, which had much to do with bringing these two wings together and which gave its greatest impetus to the growth of the party’s membership in Germany.

Some of the details of the persecution are worth repeating. In 1878 two attempts were made on the emperor’s life. Neither was by a Socialist but they were used, nevertheless, as an excuse for persecution. The first effort to suppress Socialism by legislation was a failure, but the government found other means of making it undesirable to belong to the party. Under laws of _lese majeste_ and other laws, in the first half of 1878 the prison sentences of Socialists arrested in a certain section of North Germany amounted to 500 or 600 years. Bebel gives the following general account of conditions:

“Thousands and thousands of workers who were known to be Social
Democrats were summarily dismissed. The newspapers published in
their advertisement columns declarations signed by working-men
who engaged themselves for the future not to join any Socialist
organization, not to buy or read Social-Democratic papers,
not to pay contributions for Social-Democratic purposes. This
terrorism on the part of the employers became so violent that
our papers advised members to sign anything they were asked to
sign, but afterwards to do as they liked, because, in face of
such terrorism, they were not bound to keep such pledges. This
terrorism even went farther; patriotic houseowners gave notice
to their Social-Democratic tenants, and restaurant-keepers who
for years had been only too glad to have Social-Democrats for
their customers asked them to keep off their premises.”

The pre-Socialist period of Bebel’s life is no less interesting than his part in the movement. His vivid account of the bitter poverty of his childhood—the days when his “highest ambition was to be able to eat his fill of bread and butter”—is almost enough to account for his subsequent development into a revolutionary Socialist. Throughout almost the whole period covered by this volume, indeed, Bebel combined a bitter struggle for the livelihood of his family with a keen and unrelenting fight to establish a state of society which should do away with poverty.

* * * * *

The second volume of the memoirs of that old warhorse of English Socialism, H. M. Hyndman, is as delightfully readable as was the first, published a year ago. It is not, like Bebel’s life, an orderly record of his activities as a Socialist propagandist, for this is but one, though the most important, side of Hyndman’s life. From the time he lost his hereditary fortune because of his espousal of Socialism he has been a hard working but unfortunately not a very successful business man and at the same time an indefatigable Socialist agitator.

In his judgment of people and events he sometimes shows flashes of insight; though he is by no means judicial but always dogmatic, “opinionated,” and not infrequently wrong-headed. In his facts, though he has a marvelous store of knowledge—frequently indeed, inside information—he is often inaccurate.

In no affairs but those of America, however, are his facts fundamentally wrong, and this complete and amusing ignorance of American affairs he shares with a large part of the English press. Of those few American Socialists whom he happens to know personally his characterizations are interesting. Among them is William D. Haywood, who in his opinion is the “most thorough-going and one of the most determined working-class leaders I have ever met, and I have come across a good many.”

An illustration of Hyndman’s tendency to be “opinionated” is his attitude toward the worldwide movement of which Haywood is the American representative. “Syndicalism,” he says, “is scarcely worth criticizing,” and his whole criticism of the philosophy of the new labor movement runs in this vein. Nevertheless, he is appreciative of the personality and influence of the leading exponent of syndicalism in England, Tom Mann, whom he regards “as the boldest, most vehement, and most stirring agitator and organiser” he has ever known.

In the great English strikes of the last two years Hyndman was evidently less impressed than most observers by the solidarity of the workers, and he even appears to criticize the democratic control of those strikes which was their other distinguishing characteristic. Perhaps this is because he himself has always been somewhat autocratic in his leadership of the Social-Democratic federation, and thus tends to regard leaders as unduly important.

Of late years Hyndman’s name has been associated with his struggle, contrary to all Socialist precedent, for a large navy and a citizen army to handle a possible German attack on England. His defense of this stand, based largely on conditions existing at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, is not entirely convincing, especially in view of the aggressive action that the German Social Democracy has taken recently in preventing warlike preparations on the part of Germany. In this connection his appreciation of the leader of the German Social Democracy, who is the subject of the German autobiography just reviewed, is well worth quoting. “I have rarely met,” he says of Bebel, “any one who had done so much to be proud of who was so simple and modest in his private conversation, or who took so little upon himself in his every-day intercourse with his fellows. His influence over his own party was obviously quite unbounded. The voluntary respect paid to Bebel was in fact a tribute paid through him to their own organization and themselves, of whom he was the acknowledged representative.”

* * * * *

For the second time William English Walling has made a notable contribution to the literature of Socialism. In his earlier book, Socialism as It Is, he discussed the various and often contradictory lines of thought and policy which have crept in and divided the Socialist movement as organized in the political and economic fields. His contention there was that the struggle of Socialism today is not against capitalism but against bureaucratic State Socialism. Not the least important thing he attempts in the present volume, The Larger Aspects of Socialism, is to differentiate the philosophies underlying revolutionary Socialism and State Socialism.

This volume, like the earlier books, is not based so much on Mr. Walling’s own interpretation of “all the great modern forces, thought, science, art, religion and humanity’s conquest of the universe,” as on quotations from recognized authorities on these subjects. Mr. Walling shows how all modern thought is tending toward a new philosophy of civilization, without which political and economic Socialism could never be attained. Socialism: a New Civilization is his subject. Throughout all aspects of this subject he identifies the pragmatic philosophy with Socialism. This identification he supports by quotations not only from pragmatic but from the writings of the fathers of Socialism. Briefly stated, this philosophy holds man to be, for human purposes, not for purposes of abstract thought, the centre of the universe. Society in its view is meant for the protection of man, so that each individual shall be enabled not to “serve the state”—this is the State Socialist philosophy—but to be free and to reach his own fullest development. The various aspects of this idea Mr. Walling considers under the headings science, evolution, biology, morality and various aspects of sex. What he regards as the chief reactionary influences of the present civilization he considers in chapters on religion, education and the abuse of history, and he brings out strongly the charge that the class education of the present day is the greatest of impediments to the new civilization, and that the invasion of education—that is, the invasion of the minds of the mass of the people—by the new ideas is necessary before Socialism can prevail.

With the dominance of this new philosophy in all lines of human thought Mr. Walling believes that for the first time human society, bent upon the perfection of the individual, will be guided by other than involuntary forces. It will be determined not by natural forces or by the brute force of class rule, but by the creative intelligence of humanity exercised on environment purposefully for the good of its members. “With socialism,” he quotes Marx as saying, “real history begins.” For its contribution of a new social philosophy he holds Socialism, not as it is generally regarded, constructive of the future on the foundation of the past, but rather creative of a future society which has nothing in common with the past.

MARY BROWN SUMNER.

A SUNNY LIFE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF SAMUEL JUNE BARROWS

By ISABEL C. BARROWS. Little, Brown & Co. 323 pp. Price $1.50;
by mail of THE SURVEY $1.62.

This is the story of a rarely beautiful and many-sided life. It shows us the little boy becoming a wage-earner at eight to help his widowed mother; joining the church at fifteen and doing volunteer religious work among the sailors on the docks, who mounted the boy on a barrel to talk to them, and loved “the little barrel preacher”; becoming one of New York’s best short-hand reporters; at twenty-one taking the city editor’s place on the _Tribune_ during the regular editor’s vacation; marrying at twenty-two; coming in close touch with great issues at the national capital as private secretary to William H. Seward, secretary of state; earning his way through the Harvard theological school by adventurous trips with General Custer and others as correspondent for the New York _Tribune_; pastor for four years of the historic First Congregational (Unitarian) Church of Dorchester, Mass.; editor for sixteen years of the _Christian Register_; congressman for one term, full of manifold service; finally secretary, for ten years, of the New York Prison Association, a leading penologist, securing important improvements in the laws, and doing more than any other one man toward changing American prisons from brutalizing dungeons to great reformatories.

The story of his life is vividly and lovingly told by the gifted wife who was the close associate of his labors for forty-three years. The book includes also extracts from his writings and letters; hymns that he composed, words and music; and a number of memorial tributes. It is enriched with sixteen photographs. This intimate narrative will have deep interest for all who knew and loved Mr. Barrows.

Mr. Barrows fought many good fights, but kept his sweetness and serenity through all. As Rabbi Wise said of him: “He was no man’s foe, but always the foe of wrong.” His legislative successes were won by hard, clean work.

“An acquaintance said to him, ‘Mr. Barrows, if you want to
get that [probation] bill made into a law, you will have to
put your temperance scruples into your pocket and give the
newspaper men a champagne supper.’... That was not the method
of this hard-working total abstainer. Instead, he made eleven
trips to the capital that winter, interviewed personally
every member of the committees having the bill in charge,
convinced each one individually of its importance, converted
the governor, wrote editorials week after week for the leading
papers in New York, and so directed public intelligence and
sympathy that the bill was passed without a dissenting vote.”
He was wise enough to see that “the forces which develop
virtue are more potent in reducing crime than the forces which
suppress vice.”

He had a singular catholicity. As national prison commissioner, as representative of the United States at the International Prison Congress and the Interparliamentary Union for Arbitration, as a student of foreign prisons and an attendant at many national and international gatherings, he traveled widely and met all sorts and conditions of men, and he met them all on the same simple human footing, from a king or president down to the street gamins to whom he taught new games of jackstones while waiting for a belated car. He had friends of all nationalities, and carried a brotherly heart toward all races and colors. He knew a dozen languages, and kept on learning fresh ones after he was sixty.

He was many-sided, not only in his accomplishments, but in his devotion to good causes—peace, equal suffrage, temperance, social purity, kindness to animals, and justice for the Indian, the Negro, the persecuted Armenian, the Russian struggling for freedom. Full of talent, he “never had time to make money”; and he was fortunate in having a wife as variously gifted and unconventional as himself—one who could aid him in every way, from making a complete suit of clothes for him when he was a poor theological student, or carpentering a drawer to hold his music, to taking his place at the editorial desk in his absence, and going, after his death, to Paris as the representative of the United States government to explain his plans for the great International Prison Congress of which he was the president-elect. Never a rich man, he always led a rich life; and this record of it will go on helping humanity long after he has passed away from earth.

ALICE STONE BLACKWELL.

COMMUNICATIONS

WHO?

TO THE EDITOR:

(_On seeing the White Slave by Abastenia St. Leger Eberle._)

This is the man that sells women’s souls into hell fire. Who is the buyer?

LOUISE W. KNEELAND.

THE WHITE SLAVE

[_Concerning the reproduction, on the cover of the May magazine number of THE SURVEY, of Miss Eberle’s sculpture of that name._]

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

I have to ask that you will remove my name and cancel my subscription to your publication, THE SURVEY.

I was educated as an artist; have studied from the nude under Bonnat in Paris, and am by no means “squeamish;” but I am altogether unwilling to expose myself to the risk of having any such picture as appears upon the cover of THE SURVEY for the week of May 3 sent into my home at the risk of its being seen by my four sons, the eldest of whom is a Methodist clergyman, and the three others of whom are under age.

I saw the statue of “a Gorilla carrying off a woman,” when it was first exhibited and much criticized, even at the time, in Paris—when it was first exhibited in the Paris salon.

The “idea” of this cover is, evidently, taken from that statue, but for offensiveness this goes it 500 per cent better.

WOODBURY G. LANGDON.

Morristown, N. J.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

As a subscriber and one who highly appreciates the work of THE SURVEY, permit me to express my surprise and criticism on the lack of good judgment and good taste that permitted the design on the cover of the number just out, May 3. In my opinion, the aims and purposes of such a magazine as THE SURVEY in endeavoring to meet and counteract the evils of the day are not furthered by such sensational eye pictures as this, and moreover, it has the characteristics of brutality and indecency, I am sure, from the point of view of a large number of your readers, and might have the result of lessening their opinion of your good judgment and taste in your manner of approaching this subject and others you are dealing with. I will offer no excuse for thus expressing my opinion sincerely, as I will assume that you desire to have such from your subscribers and readers.

J. B. NOEL WYATT.

Baltimore.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

In addition to an unusually valuable list of articles, permit me to thank you for the cover of the issue of May 3. The picture is profoundly educational, and those who have had some dealing at close quarters see in this picture of the White Slave a finished sermon on the subject.

RUDOLPH I. COFFEE.

[Member Pittsburgh Morals Commission and Rabbi.]

Pittsburgh.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

For the enclosed, please send me a copy of your issue of May 3, with the White Slave picture on cover.

Allow me to congratulate you for giving that group just the prominent place you did.

[REV.] ELIOT WHITE.

Rahway, N. J.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

As a regular subscriber, reader and admirer of your magazine and its valued work, I must earnestly protest against the outside cover of your May 3 issue. With several boys in my family, the only way I could lay the issue on my library table was _after_ tearing off the cover, which is certainly glaringly offensive. We oppose (or should do so) indecent bill-board, newspaper advertising, etc., and therefore should not offend ourselves, _no matter what the motive_. Trust thee will be guarded for the future.

WILLIAM HAGER.

Lancaster, Pa.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

As friends of THE SURVEY and of what it stands for, allow us to write our protest against placing such a subject as the White Slave on the outside cover of your issue of May 3, Vol. XXX, No. 5.

The publication of such a subject, treated in a sensational way with a conspicuous background, on the cover of any magazine seems to us ill-advised, and especially so on one which finds its way into private houses where decency and modesty are inculcated.

As your paper is to a certain degree technical, intended to be read chiefly by social workers who are cognizant of these conditions, the _inside_ of its covers is excusable, but its _outside_, open to the observation of all, young and old, should to our minds be severely censured.

Please bring up this matter before your board of Survey Associates.

L. E. OPDYCKE and
EDITH OPDYCKE.

New York.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

Thank you for the frontispiece on THE SURVEY of May 3. The beast carrying the woman did effective service in the Atlanta campaign, but this picture of a low human brute hawking into slavery a poor little immature girl will, I believe, be yet more effective in rousing the sluggish consciences of our American people. If it is art to use the pencil or the graver’s tool to portray sin in such a manner as to apply the lash to conscience, then I prefer this, under the existing dreadful conditions of tolerance of vice, to the Venus de Milo, and I thank the courageous artist who so consecrates her talents to the highest possible service of humanity.

A picture of this kind will do more to instruct my daughters and my sons as to the dangers which surround them and their obligations to help the down-trodden daughters of the poor than many arguments. Thank God we have brought these reptiles out into the open where we can handle them with due violence, and we can now place the responsibility where it belongs—on our churches.

Can you loan me the original to make a lantern slide to use in my public talks on vice?

HOWARD A. KELLY, M. D.

Baltimore.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

I cannot forbear making a protest against the horrible and suggestive picture, which you have printed on the cover of your issue of May 3, Vol. XXX, No. 5. It is a picture calculated to suggest ideas which the whole country nowadays is trying to suppress. Teaching young people the facts of life is one thing—doubtless necessary. Making public the fact that there are people wicked enough to pander to vicious men is also, I am sure, necessary for efforts to suppress this traffic; but it is very demoralizing to send out broadcast and publicly such pictures as this. It shows that the familiar speaking and writing of this white slave—so called—traffic has blunted the judgment as to fitness and decency that this picture is displayed in this public way.

Miss Robins’ book, My Little Sister, is a true picture doubtless. She seems to affirm so with great confidence, but it will do more harm than good I fear in arousing evil thoughts and an unwholesome curiosity in the minds of young people in whose hands it falls. Published first in a reputable magazine, and then hawked about in trains, etc., recommended in your magazine, which claims to be devoted to the improvement of morals, it will do a great deal of harm. At the rate you are going on in freedom of speech and discussion of filth which should not even be named when young and inexperienced people can hear, you will soon be advising a moving picture of what goes on in the dens of vice in order to teach young people what they should _not_ do.... This artist must have allowed her imagination to go deep into the haunts of vice before she made this statue.

—— ——

Newport, R. I.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

I do wish to express my extreme regret that you should have made public such a picture as appears on the cover of your issue of May 3. It ought never in my opinion to have been allowed to pass through the mail.

The readers of THE SURVEY do not need any such reminder of the horrors of the white slave traffic, and to others, especially to young people and indifferent persons who are likely to pick up the magazine at random, such a picture with its unmistakable suggestions cannot fail to be demoralizing.

I find that other readers of THE SURVEY here hold the same opinion.

—— ——

Newport, R. I.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

As a subscriber to THE SURVEY and as one who has always tried to further its influence and increase its circulation, I beg to gravely remonstrate against your cover design of the issue of May 3.

Had you seen fit to place this most loathsome picture within the pages of your magazine, it would possibly have served a sufficient purpose, but to place it where it cannot fail to be seen by innocent children makes this issue unfit to appear in any home and appears to be, therefore, not only an instance of bad taste, but of bad morals.

Such lurid and outrageous efforts to excite the hysterical side of public opinion, pitifully defeat their aims and appear to be most unworthy of THE SURVEY’s standards.

LUCIA H. K. SHERMAN.

San Francisco.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR:

Kindly send to us C. O. D., twenty-five copies of THE SURVEY, cover page of which contains the cut of a figure portraying the white slave traffic. The date and number cannot be furnished as the magazine has been loaned and we do not know to whom it was given.

We hope to secure, from the distribution of this issue among the ladies who are interested in social service, quite a number of subscriptions.

JOHN L. GREEN.

[Superintendent Mississippi Children’s Home Society.]

Jackson, Miss.

* * * * *

One or two of these protests are so unrestrained that the temptation is strong to reply without mincing matters. Others are so moderate that they must provoke the respect of people who hold different opinions. In the same way we trust that those who break with the editor of THE SURVEY on the reproduction of Miss Eberle’s statue, or on its use as a cover, will regard that use as a considered act.

Unquestionably there is a cleavage of judgment in the matter of public education as to the social evil and its prevention. It is not THE SURVEY’S purpose to overemphasize the vice situation. But it is a part of our regular service in the field of preventive social measures to keep our readers thoroughly alive to the movements to protect girls and boys from ruin and disease, for that, as we see it, is of the very essence of the present discussion of commercialized prostitution.

In Miss Eberle’s statuette, the White Slave, and in Elizabeth Robins’ book, My Little Sister, art and literature have this spring added fire and conviction to the abolition movement against prostitution—that “twin of slavery, as old and outrageous as slavery itself and even more persistent,” to use Miss Addams’ phrase.

So we printed a photograph of the White Slave on our cover as a challenge to public conscience searching. And we printed a review of My Little Sister, in which Mrs. Laidlaw brought out the American aspects of the story of the sheltered little English girl who was kidnapped.

In the same issue was a ringing report of how the newly enfranchised women of San Francisco forced a reluctant Legislature to pass a bill which will close the notorious “red light district.” More than that, these women of the California Civic League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union are caring for the helpless girls thrown out of the segregated district, befriending them and putting them on their feet again. It was the kind of story that led a subscriber to write the other day: “Every time I read an issue of THE SURVEY I feel like getting right up and _doing_ something worth while for somebody.”

On another page, A. Leo Weil, the militant president of the Pittsburgh Voters League, entered a plea for a special body of men in every city to deal with vice. And a physician in a New York village told how the local doctors, aghast at the amount of social disease among the young people of their little community—their own sons among the rest—banded together to wipe it out.

Up to the time of going to press it had been expected that Mr. Kneeland’s incisive analysis of commercialized prostitution in New York, made for the Bureau of Social Hygiene, would have been released by the Century Company by May 3, so that his findings could be added to this group of articles.[2] All this was in THE SURVEY’S spirit of facing hard facts for the sake of the future, and in line with its editorial policy with respect to this special subject: i.e. of banking up material rather than stringing it along.

Here, then, in a field to which THE SURVEY bears special obligation, at a time when we were handling a group of articles interpretative of that obligation, was a piece of sculpture with the same message—with a thought-compelling quality which “linked it as a social force,” as Miss Merriman rightly pointed out, “with, say, the dispassionate but terrible report of the Chicago Vice Commission.”

Of course, the strength in such a challenge to public conscience-searching lies in its exceptionalness—repetition would dull its edge. There is no prospect of another such cover in the months ahead; we know of no “sermon in stone” of like calibre. For the same reason, when such an exceptional work does appear, our course is clear: we should bring it out.

Those moralists who feel that the work was suggestive read into it something which is not there. It is not unclean.

Those artists who have criticised the group on the ground that the woman’s figure alone should have been done—that, in other words, the sculptor should have abstracted all the pathos and beauty possible from the situation, but not the horror—miss its social message.

Those parents who protest against it as opening a dark world to sheltered members of their households must make the same protest against the sermon which would do more than skim the surface of the moral needs of a community; against the general periodical which would broach these things in ways specific enough to be helpful; against the play like Damaged Goods, which puts the consequences of evil living in human terms; for in all these audiences are there likely to be young people. And after all, in all these fields, we are not at this stage faced with the choice between home education and public education, but of rousing the home.

While the leaders in sex hygiene are bound to have a difficult task on their hands in restraining unscientific and slap-dash agencies who assume to give public instruction, the fact remains that the larger and most difficult task of those leaders is still that of arousing the public, a general and wide-spread process of education both as to the things that should be known and as to the need for knowing them. The reason for this is that the old policies of reticence have failed—failed so far that not only has America contributed nothing to the solution of a world-old problem, but has imported new commercialized phases of it and let them become rampant, to bring destruction and disease to thousands.

At such a juncture THE SURVEY must give respectful hearing to those whose outlook is personal, but must draw its counsels rather from those who bring larger measure of social experience to the question—from superintendents of orphanages,[3] who know what the old policies of ignorance have cost in the lives of boys and girls; from neurologists, who see the after consequences of that same ignorance; from reformatory heads; from educators; from physicians.

Without the fact of commercialized vice such a searching piece of work as Miss Eberle’s would lack truth; without the added fact that such vice exists, not merely because of the greed and lust of men, but because of the inertia, the reticence, the acceptance of things as they are by people who, if they aroused themselves, could put an end to it, it would lack occasion.

If such conditions exist, then it has blazing truth and insistent occasion and like Nast’s cartoons it may well be looked back upon as a crashing social force breaking through the crusts of toleration and neglect.

If such conditions exist—if they exist because the public does not know, or knowing, does not act; if the public’s ignorance or inaction is due in whole or in part to the benumbing effects of these same policies on journalism, on the church, and on the other channels of enlightenment—then it is the part of THE SURVEY of all journals, standing as it does midway between the doctor, the social investigator, the criminologist and the general public, to bring out the truth and to bring it out in ways that will strike fire.

If under such promptings THE SURVEY uses the White Slave, then it should use it in such a way as to cleave through to the widest circle of its audience. Hence the cover. Probably in all his long pastorate, Henry Ward Beecher was never more criticized than when he emphasized the auction of two fugitive slave girls at the Broadway Tabernacle. Those who in his day were shocked at what they felt to be sensationalism and the desecration of God’s temple have given way in the passage of time to those who see that the desecration was mankind’s in the toleration of slavery itself.

Dr. Abbott in his life of Beecher says:

“He believed that thousands who would regard with apathy if not
complacency the slave system at a distance, would regard with
abhorrence the reform of an individual slave girl to a life of
enforced sin and shame....

“He said: ‘The very men who give counsel and zeal and money
_against_ the unseen slave of the South irresistibly pity the
particular fugitive whom they may _see_ running through the
North.’

“Had he been inclined to defend his method from those who
criticized it as sensational, he might have referred them to
the methods used by the Hebrew prophets, who taught so often
and so effectually by dramatic object-lessons.”

New times bring new needs.

Miss Eberle has modeled the auction block of a new slavery.

In the Brooklyn _Eagle_ of April 21 appeared a powerful sermon by Dr. Hillis from Dr. Beecher’s old pulpit on social diseases and heredity, in which such strong language as the following was used in speaking of the “conspiracy of silence”: “It is a guilty, cruel, dastardly, damnable silence on the part of preacher, teacher and parent.”—Ed.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] See Rockefeller Report on Commercialized Vice. THE SURVEY, May 24, p. 257.

[3] See Post-graduates of the Hired Man, by R. R. Reeder, superintendent of New York Orphanage, Hastings on Hudson, who is the educator and foster father to 250 boys and girls. THE SURVEY, March 8, p. 816.

THE PATERSON STRIKE

TO THE EDITOR:

For a number of years I have been a reader and subscriber of THE SURVEY and it both shocks and pains me to find that THE SURVEY has apparently taken a biased view of the strike here in Paterson. I understand that several SURVEY investigators have been to Paterson before preparing the news items on pages 81-82 and 83 in your issue of April 19. These investigators did not call upon those in our city to whom it seems to me they should naturally have turned, the Charity Organization Society. If they had, they would not have made some of the glaring and ill-advised statements contained in your editorial.

They would have been better posted as to the type of looms which they have called multiple or automatic looms throughout the article. Both names so far as applied to silk are erroneous. All broad silk looms with few exceptions are supplied with either side or center filling stop motions. This stops the loom when the thread in the shuttle breaks. This has been common for years and does not constitute an automatic loom. Some looms have been equipped with warp stop motions, stopping the loom when a warp end breaks. This does not constitute an automatic loom. An automatic loom is one in which either the shuttle, which has already been filled with new thread, or quill or bobbin changes automatically. It would also very likely be equipped with both warp and filling stop motions. Such looms as last mentioned have never proven satisfactory on silk.

In the article you make certain statements but have not made them clearly. As your paper is read by many charitable and philanthropic people, it is hardly fair to the charitable and philanthropic people of Paterson to have such statements as you have made concerning Paterson go forth to the world without objections on our part. You have not made clear the meaning of the three and four loom system. The word system, as used here, has an arbitrary meaning and means one weaver to three or four looms. You state that Paterson is “importing” the four loom system. This is not true because there is nothing to import.

You further made a statement that competition between Pennsylvania and New Jersey is over. This is not so, it is just as keen today as ever. You further make a statement that great factories are equipped with automatic looms in Pennsylvania, four of these looms being operated by one boy or girl.[4] Can you name a single mill where this is so? I have been fifteen years calling on the silk mills and I have yet to learn of an automatic loom being used to weave silk or where four looms are operated by a boy or girl. You further make a statement that weavers are required to tend three looms. I think this is wrong. There is no question but that they could operate three to four looms of their own free will, but there is no compulsion about it.[5]

In quoting from the _Paterson Evening News_ you infer that an additional strain is placed on a weaver in taking care of three or four looms. If this is so, it remains to be proven. I have talked about this with a number of weavers and they state that they have not noticed this fact, if it is one. You further imply that it will change the character of work in Paterson if the three and four loom system is put in operation. I think this is a mis-apprehension because only about 40 per cent of the looms of Paterson, of which there are about 16,000 would be affected in any way by this so-called three and four loom system. As you quoted, in a statement made by the silk manufacturers, only a percentage of these would be affected because many plain looms have jacquards mounted over them and the manufacturers have never attempted to run more than two looms of this nature to one weaver, nor does the so-called three and four loom system reduce the wages. I know of one mill in this town that is in operation today despite the fact of the strike where sixteen looms are being operated by three weavers. One of these weavers in this particular mill has been operating four looms since last October and her earnings have averaged over $75 every two weeks.

Further along you say the multiple looms are large and equipped with automatic devices and can only be installed in large mills. This is absolutely incorrect. There is nothing to prevent a small mill from using any loom that is now manufactured. The smaller mill, in only a few cases, has so far taken over jacquard weaving which is the most intricate of all the weaving, and requires the most skill, and as intimated, is largely confined to the large factories. The smaller mills are mostly equipped with plain looms. Quite a few of these are mills running three to four looms to a weaver.

In making your contrast of the average wages paid in Paterson and the average paid in Pennsylvania, have you been fair? According to the reports which I have, the weavers of Paterson earn on an average about $12.55 a week and I am afraid in taking your Pennsylvania average you included all classes of textile workers, including the very low paid help in throwing mills, so cutting the average Pennsylvania wage down.[6]

The employers have not refused to confer with their employes except that they have rightly refused to treat with the Industrial Workers of the World agitators towards this settlement. You have not made clear the doctrines or propaganda of the Industrial Workers of the World whom you have called Industrial Socialists. The Socialists as you know have repudiated Haywood. Your statements in regard to the arrest of William D. Haywood and his subsequent release when arrested on March 30 are correct. I sincerely hope that you will immediately send other investigators to Paterson who will call on the Charity Organization Society and the ministers who formed the committee invited to the aldermanic meeting, Rev. A. H. Stein, Rev. D. S. Hamilton, Rev. W. C. Snodgrass, Rev. J. F. Shaw and Dr. Jones. I would also suggest some of the business men of the town whose stores you could enter along Main street or Market street. I would suggest William Wieda; John C. Mason, Quackenbush & Co.; A. P. Van Saun, Van Dyk Furniture Co.; Ex-Judge Francis Scott; Ex-Judge James Inglis; John W. Ferguson; H. H. Parmelee; Hamilton Trust Co.; Edward T. Bell, First National Bank; and Wm. H. Blauvelt, Second National Bank.

I would suggest that you call attention to the articles in The Survey of May 4, 1912 and April 6, 1912 telling about the Industrial Workers of the World. I am also enclosing an article written by Lincoln Steffens in the Globe and Commercial Advertiser of March 29, 1912.

Will you kindly publish this letter in fairness not only to Paterson but to the “things” THE SURVEY stands for, as your news items contain so many technical errors which have a vital bearing to a certain extent on this strike?

W. L. KINKEAD.

[Secretary Central Charities Committee.]

Paterson, N. J.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] See Note A below.

[5] See Note B below.

[6] See Note C below.

* * * * *

[THE SURVEY is more than willing to accept Mr. Kinkead’s corrections as to looms and textile processes, for his business is mill machinery. It does not quite agree with him, however, as to the importance of the matter, since the technical terms were incidental merely to the subject of the strike.

Three points in Mr. Kinkead’s letter should perhaps be footnoted: