Omaha daily bee., 1906-11-25

ganda; II is part of the normal develop
meut OF the existing social and economic
system. 1t makes for sterilization, for
furtive wantonness and dishonor. The
existing system produces no remedies at
lall Prominent people break out ever and
again into vehement seedlings Of this phe-
nomenon; the nFwEpapers and magazines
rCverberate Race Suicide, but there is no
sign whatever in the statistical curves Of
the smallest decimal per cent Of response
to these exhorta tons.
Our existing sexual order IN q system In
decay. What are the alternatives 10 ha
steady process Of collapse2 That b the
jquestion we have to ask ourselves To
heap foul abuse, as many quite honest but
terror stricken people seem disposed to DO,
on any one who attempts TO discuss any
alternative is simply to accelerate this
process; To me II seems there are three
main directions alone which things may
go in the future and between which
rational men have TO choose
/ The hrst Is to regard the present process
las inevitable and moving toward the elm
ination Of weak and gentle types, to clear
Ione's mind Of the prejudices Of ones time
and to contemplate a disintegration Of all
the realities of the family into an epoch
lof free love, mitigated by mercantile ne
cessities and a few transparent hypocri-
sizes. Wealthy men will be found to live
lives of irresponsible polygamy; poor men
will do what they can; woman's life will
cline in numbers and perhaps IN quality.
NTo guard against the idiotically mischiev-
ious quoter who lies In wait for all social
ist writers let me say at once that this
state of affairs Is anti-socialist Is, l be
lieve, socially destructive, and does not
commend itself to me at ALL
The second direction is toward reac-
ton, an attempt to return to the simple
old conceptions OF our past to the patri-
archal family, that is to say, of the mid
~ =
ton of such a liberal as Mr.. G. X. Ches-
tertOn or such a conservative as Lord
Hugh Cecil, and to be also as much idea
as there is underlying most TRADES against
modern morals. The rights of the parent
will be insisted on and restored, and the
iparent means pretty distinctly the father.
Subject to the influence Of a powerful and
well organized Church, q rejuvenescent
Church, he is to resume that control over
wife and children of which the modern
State has partially deprived him. The
development of secular educauon is TO De
arrested, particular stress is. to be laid
uDou the wickedness Of any Intervention
with natural reproductive processes, the
spread of knowledge in certain directions
is to be made criminal, and early mar
riages are to be encouraged.
The third direction is toward the deyel-
oninp conventions of socialism. And II
must he confessed at once that these, as
steadily and methodically they emerge
present themselves as being in many as
pects novel and untried. They are as un-
tested and in many respects as alarming
as steam traction or iron shipping was
in 1890. They display clearly ana unani-
biguouslv principals already timidly ad-
mitted in practice and sentiment to-day;
but as vet admitted only confusedly and
amidst a cloud of contradictions.
PAY FOR THE MOTHER.
Now. what sort Of contract will the So
cialist state require for marriageE Here
lagain there are perfectly clear ana SIM
pie principles. Socialism states definitely
what almost everybody recognizes nova
idays with greater or less clearness, and
that is the concern Of the State for chill
Idrep. The children people bring into the
world can be no more their private CON
cern entirely than the disease germs they
disseminate or the noises man makes
lin n thin hoored fat. Socialism says bold
Ily the State is the over-parent, the outer
Iparent People rear children for the State
and the future; if they do that well they
do the whole world a service, and deserve
.luaympnt Just as much as IL they built
bridge or raised a crop of wheat; If they
do it unpropitiously and lily they have
ldore the world an injury. Socialism de-
MES altogether the right OF any one to
beget children carelessly and pror1iscu-
louSly. and for the prevention OF disease
aud evil births alike the socialist Is pre-
lpared for an insistence upon selt-restraint
quite beyond the current practice. At
present we deal with all that sort Of thing
as an infringement of private proprietary
rights; the socialist holds that II - the
world that is injured.
1t follows that motherhood ls regarded
lby the socialists as benefit to society,
duty done. il may be In many cases
duty full of pride and happiness that Is
lbeside the mark. The State will pay for
children born legitimately in the mar
I,;,,o ;t mill A NTH
healthy and successful offspring will draw
a wage for each one OF them from the
state so long as they go on well. 1t will
be her wage. Under the State she will
control her child's upbringing. How far
her husband will share in the power of
direction is a matter Of detail upon which
lopinion may vary, and does very widely
among socialists. l suppose for the most
part they incline to the conception Of
Joint control.
So the mOnstrous injustice Of the pres
ent time, which makes a mother depen-
dent upon the economic accidents of her
man, which plunges the best Of wives and
the most admirable of children into abject
poverty if he happens to die, which visits
his sins Of waste and carelessness upon
them far more than upon himself will dis
Iappear. SO, too, the still more mOnstrous
absurdity Of women discharging their su-
lpreme social function, bearing and rear
ing children in their spare time, as il were
while they earn their living by contrib
uting some half mechanical element to
some trivial industrial product, will dis
appear.
That is the gist of the socialist attitude
toward marriage; the reputation of pri-
yate ownership Of women and children,
and the payment Of mothers. Partially but
already very extensively sOciaiistic ideas
have, spread through the whole body Of
our community; they are the saving ele-
ment in what would otherwise be a moral
catastrophe, and the socialist simply puts
with precise definition the conclusions 10
which all but foolish, ignorant, base or
careless people are moving teven when
they are moving thither with averted
faces)
Already we have the large, still incom-
plete edifce OF free education and a
great mass of legislation against child
- labor: we have free baths, free play
grounds, free Libraries; more and more
I'd, people are coming to admit the social ne
ut cessity Of saving our children from the
es- private enterprise Of the milkman who
lie. does not sterilize his cans, from the pri-
Ier vate enterprise Of the employer who takes
to them on at small wages at thirteen OF
I'm fourteen 10 turn them back on our hands
he as ignorant hOOlgans and social wastrels
les at eighteen or twenty.
he But the Straightforward payment to the
ay mother still remains TO be brought within