Part 4

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.