Three Women

F. Guy Davis, Chicago:

There is one kind of worker active in the life of today whose work is not often regarded in the light of art. There is a good reason for this in the fact that the work they are attempting is so vast and vague in character that many people do not even know it is being undertaken. They cannot understand effort on such a scale that the final completed work, if it is ever to be completed, will be nothing less than a new social order, a new conception of social values, actualizing itself in the shape of finer cities and grander and braver citizens on a world scale.

There are various groups of men and women in this work of reconstruction, some compactly organized, others not, some more militant in their attitude and some less so, but all tending in the same direction toward a better, freer, and fuller social life. This movement is confused and uncertain as far as a definite structural goal is concerned because of the contradictory and sometimes seemingly antagonistic elements that go to make it up. Some of the groups have specific architectural plans which they defend with the artist’s passion against all other plans, or against no plan; but the movement as a whole is pragmatic and makes its plans as it goes along, and whatever may be the outcome the aim is at a better world, a world of beauty and goodness in the deepest meaning of those terms.

If the modern feminists understood great women, which they do not often do, they would contend that there is a great significance in the fact that three women stand out prominently in this movement and in a measure at least are representative of three groups which more or less dominate the whole. Listing them according to age,—for on any other basis comparisons are difficult, each being effective in her own sphere,—Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn are social artists, working in different directions, yet in the same direction, now seeming to exclude each other entirely, and now, no doubt, sustaining each other in spirit across the separating gaps in the common purpose, just as old age, middle age, and youth do sometimes in life, or just as three mountains may have separate and distinct characters and yet be a part of the same range.

Old Mother Jones is a “character.” In her eighty-two years she has seen life’s storm, has lived its hope, fear, love, and hate, and has mastered it. She will die happy with the knowledge that she did her part in the fight for better things, which she may not see but which she believes are coming.

Emma Goldman is at the height of her creative effort, breaking down the stone walls of prejudice and superstition, freeing minds from the grip of the past, preparing the soil for new harvests of life and beauty. She sees mankind on the rack in the agony of a herculean struggle. Giant social forces jostle each other in their efforts for recognition in her consciousness. Her attitude toward the revolutionary movement reminds one of the picture of the Earth in Meredith’s poem Earth and Man—“Her fingers dint the breast which is his well of strength, his home of rest.” She senses the stirring of new life in the race’s womb and she fears a bit, for she sees clearly the possibilities of a tragic miscarriage or a premature birth.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is the young Diana of the labor movement. Strong, full of hope, past the fear which accompanies all beginnings, facing the future with the courage and confidence of a youth fully launched on its career and enjoying the sense of growing understanding and power.

The redeemers of life are those in whose natures this spirit of the creator lives, whether it expresses itself in the labor movement or in the studio; and there is a significance in the fact that all three of these leaders come from one class, the workers. The interest in the movement is not by any means confined to the laboring classes, so-called, but the real dynamic power back of the movement, the steam which drives it on, does come from this class; and it is more than a coincidence that these three women should all belong to it, for the vital power, the staying quality which is the condition of real leadership, seems to have been nearly cornered by the laboring elements.

Mother Jones has broad organizational affiliations. The great massive groups which go to make up the American Federation of Labor are with her, generally speaking, and lend her moral support and financial aid. Her own age and the splendid organization of her mentality are in keeping with the corresponding qualities in the A. F. of L.

Emma Goldman stands alone as far as organizations are concerned, like so many great artists in other fields, always an isolated figure of heroic beauty, always the creator, lifting the world in spite of itself.

Miss Flynn is a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, that body of roughneck rebels which carries such promising seeds in its revolutionary young heart. Her youth and promise symbolize the possibilities of the I. W. W.

But to return to the idea of the social artist. What splendid compensations there must be in their work! To feel that they are part of an historic movement for a new world of beauty and harmony, such as the utopians have dreamed of through all history from Plato to Bellamy and Howells, a work which accelerates its speed and power as it draws more and more to its ranks the idealists of all countries and all classes. Is it not better for them that they know they will probably not see its completion, that it may take centuries? They will never be disillusioned as long as they hold to the inner faith. “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive”—and here surely is a journey, the end of which will not be reached tomorrow. As to the ultimate outcome, why doubt it? The race has millions of years ahead of it.

On the personal side each one of the three has her own unique charm. Mother Jones is a mother indeed. Her attitude toward “her boys” is more than motherly; it is grand-motherly. The sweetness and childishness of age, however, a sort of a sunset glow of real warmth and virility radiates from her. She enjoys the privileges of age, and they are many to those who know how to accept them gracefully as she does. Miss Flynn enjoys the privileges of youth, which she likewise accepts with a poise and an ease all her own. Emma Goldman has neither the privileges of youth nor those of age. She is at that point in her development when in the nature of life she must meet the challenge of the outer world alone, when “the soul is on the waters and must sink or swim of its own strength.” And yet, no doubt because of this very fact, she craves companionship with a passion that sometimes has a quality of blue flame. Middle age has few privileges and many responsibilities. Life is fair, however, to the normal individual. It pays in advance to youth and afterward as well to age, but it demands service of those who are in their prime.

To understand these personalities and others of their kind is to understand much of life, possibly as much as the individual consciousness in its present form can ever understand. To know of their struggles is to feel that one knows history in the making. It is not necessary to endorse, but to fail to catch the spirit of their work is to be unprepared for the possible changes which seem to be more or less imminent in the social and industrial U. S. A. as in the world at large.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Advertisements were collected at the end of the text.

The table of contents on the title page was adjusted in order to reflect correctly the headings in this issue of The Little Review.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. All other changes are shown here (before/after):