The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-04-14

giving his ideas of our social condi-
ton. We publish it as written, with
out alteration or comment:
Richmond, Ind.
L. 5. \. Planet Number
1852.
My Dear Friend III Mars:
To you who champion individual
liberty, to you who taught me the
sweet spirit of love for all that is nat
ural and emancipatory, to you my life
long comrade, | indite this letter writ
ten upon a planet which you have
classed as number 1852 in the scale of
size and Importance.
What excites both pain and humor
in me is the spirit of vanity and con-
ceit found here. That men should
hate one another because Of difference
of opinion about old exploded creeds
astonishes me. That they should feel
themselves superior to others because
they own a four-wheeled car run by
grease set on fire, makes me laugh;
and the vain attitude of men and
women over the possession of dirt and
wood which they call real estate, fills
me with the laughter of Robelair.
However vanity is the finest comedy
after all. / see such spectacles as
this: Men pumping hot air into bub-
bles and balloons of religious beliefs,
like sailors working the pumps to
keep an old ship from sinking, while
the rats have all quietly escaped on
the drift, and | see men vainly trying
to adjust old notions conceived ages
ago upon a couple, social condition,
a condition as far removed from the
old as Mars is from this planet.
This attempt to make the modern
conform to the ancient under the
guise of divine authority, produces
what? You ask with your spirit of
inquiry. A few brave men and women
who act naturally are called bad
while the faithful to tradition, re-
framing from honesty and candor for
social and business reasons, become
hypocrites and towards and pass cur
rent as good citizens.
Life here is the same in principle
as life elsewhere on all Of the inhabi-
ted planets. To you and me, being
freed from the nightmare of the past,
life is good Thus, with my conception
of the unity of life, its oneness, and
its majestic harmony seem as whole,
/ could not comprehend what was
meant by total depravity" and mat
ural sim" said TO be inherited from two
persons who acted naturally long ago.
Nor could | understand the fire insur-
ance policy which requires that you
join something to escape wrath
which | neither comprehend. To hear
that condemned which seems as joy
Gus to me as the natural song of the
birds, is painful. The result of this
is a society of emascu-
lated anthropoids whose chief b%si-
ness is TO whine and shrek that all of
the natural impulses of the heart and
brain are carnal, and that the only
escape from something dreadful is to
join their brigade and act as they do.
One of them recently said, publicly
that as there were two persons in the
town who had not ''joined" there We're
therefore two goddess and hopeless
souls So | see before me men and
women who sorely stand in need OF
from conventional slav-
ery-a slavery as cruel and binding as
any other Here you find slaves afraid
TO speak the truth, afraid to be nat
ural, afraid to go up against tradi-
ton Why? Because there is a diff
ference between right and proper
SO they continue in wronging them
selves. they continue to live in the
shackles of fear. So long as men
think conforming to a conventional
standard is higher than doing sim
pie right, so long will they be slaves.
To us MartianS marriage is a matter
of natural selection, freed from false
and traditions. 1t
is a matter of. love and mutual con-
sent and is affected by the law of re-
pulsion or attraction. There is no
beauty or value in marriage except
when it is voluntary union; officers,
priests or preachers cannot invest it
with greater sacredness than do love
and conscience We believe that the
human heart can be trusted and that
individual sovereignty is the sole au-
thority in matters of the heart. HUI
man nature goes more swiftly to order
and refinement if LETT free from
prohibition and artificial restrictions
and interferences. Legislatures can
not make the pure in heart or compel
loyalty where there is none. What is
divided cannot be Joined by cere-
mony. nor can what is joined by an
eternal law be put asunder.
Why dear friend, | have just read .
an English novel. The Ordeal of Rich
ard Feveral," by George Meredith. |
The sacrifice of the sweet young girl |
Clare in marriage TO an old man whom
she abhorred is one of the most tragic |
pictures | ever saw. 1t was so re-
voting that | grew sick. And yet it
was right" Her mamma, his family, |
her friends, all Joined in the hideous /
sacrifice She died very soon, which /
was human, for society could no long
er make her "a living sacrifice for the
good of society,"" In situations like this .
the authorities and the leaders" /
cry out against any legal separation, /
saying that marriage is a holy ordi i
nance" As we are perfectly free in I
Mars and are emacipated from this /
antique slavery, we are spared the ag- /
the long leafed yellow pine of South I
or,, tIaI1a-9,a which was 3cIxnOW led o.