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Show WOMEj AND SOCIALISM. A select coterie,, of progressive women of advanced ad-vanced vi'.ws, the gChicngo Inter-Ocean tells us, have- established a fflub i t that great city7is headquarters head-quarters for the diseimination of socialistic doctrines doc-trines among women. They contend that socialism alone offers the only remedy for most of the wrongs and domestic miseries which afflict sadly the members mem-bers of their sex in Europe and America. We are not told the nature of the wrongs and miseries of which the members of the club complain, but we feel satisfied that if there be one class of human beings which, for its own sake and through pure self interest, ought to beware' of socialism, it is that class whose members are known to pious writers as the "devout female sex." It demands no very intimate knowledge of ancient history to realize and deplore the melancholy state and degradation deg-radation of women before the establishment of Christianity, and one needs no prophetic gift to foresee what their condition will be if respect for the doctrines of Christianity disappear from the thoughts of the women of our country. In the socialistic cult and demoralization of established order there is little place and apparently no veneration vene-ration for the weaker sex and the recent examples of well known socialists, and the uncovering of their domestic lives, furnish ample proof of this. The disgusting and : shameful familiarity of Gorky with the woman he brought to America to fill the place of the wife he threw aside, the immoralities im-moralities of Ferdinand P. Earle, lately in the public eye, the repudiation of his lawful wife by Jack London and the slurring and insulting attitude atti-tude of Bernard E. Shaw toward marriage and its sacramental obligations ought to convince intelligent in-telligent manhood, and much more intelligent womanhood, wo-manhood, that socialism is a pitiful substitute for Christianity. Gorky explains his outrageous violations viola-tions of decency on the grounds that his way of living liv-ing is common in Europe among his socialistic companions and associates and that America is prudish and "behind the times." Earle, also a pronounced pro-nounced socialist, deliberately sends his wife with her child back to her father and mother so that he can live with his "affinity," and he defends his brutality and his lust because his conscience acquits ac-quits him of dishonor, and as he contends, he is independent of, or above, public opinion. In opposition to the contention of the socialists social-ists and anarchists that the world is in a condition condi-tion of industrial slavery and that things are going go-ing from bad to worse the moral, social and educational edu-cational status or position of men and women in industrial centers and in rural districts has improved im-proved steadily, and we draw attention to the fact that in those countries least contaminated by the septic influence of socialism the status of woman is the highest and reverence and respect for her character the more sincere. While it is not openly included with other revolutionary rev-olutionary doctrines, the degradation of woman, from the attitude of socialists themselves, must necessarily follow. In tne theoretical state of socialism, so-cialism, the sanctity and inviolability of marriage hold no place, and if Ve are to judge the heresy of socialism by the practices of its adherents, women e little more than chattel property, which, in , tne, according to the examples of communism be the property of all. The marriage vow is. . ntirely incompatible with either free love, or indeed in-deed any love at all, that does not find its defensive defen-sive shield in the sacramental and legal recognition jof matrimonial rights. The women who consort with the most sensational sensa-tional of the socialists those who get most into print are either lost to all shame or are satisfied to share their lord's affection with his horse or his dog, and they profess meek acquiescence when cast off with the easy formula of socialistic usage. Whatever of good there nyty be in socialism as an industrial and political expedient it can never be accepted by the state or society at large, for it is indisputable that it makes for the abject degradation degrada-tion of women. |