The truth about socialism

by Allan L. Benson

That if women were given the power to support themselves decently and comfortably outside of the home, they would at once desert their children, their husbands and “destroy the family.”

Socialists believe women can safely be trusted with enough money to live on. Yet the word “trust,” as here used, is not quite the word. Socialists do not believe it is within their province either to trust or to distrust women. Socialists believe economic independence is a right that women should demand and get, rather than a privilege that man should grant or deny, as he may see fit. If women do well with economic independence, well and good. If they do ill with it, still well and good. If they have not yet learned to use economic independence, they cannot begin learning too quickly, nor can they learn except by trying to use it.

In any event, Socialists do not claim the right of guardianship over women. They do not believe any human being, regardless of sex, has a right to coerce another when that other is not invading the rights of some other. They believe that women to-day are being coerced. Coerced by poverty. Coerced by fear of poverty. Coerced by men who presume upon their own economic independence and the economic dependence of women. They cite, as proof of their beliefs, the growing number of divorces, together with the fact that women are the applicants for most of the divorces.

And, the astounding circumstance about all of this is that because Socialists hold these views, they are denounced by rich grafters and their retainers as “destroyers of the family,” and “free-lovers.”

The Socialists have said no more than Herbert Spencer said about the folly of trying to promote happiness with coercion. They say that weakness pitted against strength and dependence against independence invite coercion—no more in a family of nations than in a family of individuals; that a woman whose economic dependence prevents her from doing what all of her instincts call upon her to do is coerced. Here is what Herbert Spencer says in Social Statics (p. 76):

“Command is a blight to the affections. Whatsoever of beauty—whatsoever of poetry there is in the passion that unites the sexes, withers up and dies in the cold atmosphere of authority. Native as they are to such widely-separated regions of our nature, Love and Coercion cannot possibly flourish together. Love is sympathetic; Coercion is callous. Love is gentle; Coercion is harsh. Love is self-sacrificing; Coercion is selfish. How then can they co-exist? It is the property of the first to attract, while it is that of the last to repel; and, conflicting as they do, it is the constant tendency of each to destroy the other. Let whoever thinks the two compatible imagine himself acting the master over his betrothed. Does he believe that he could do this without any injury to the subsisting relationship? Does he not know rather that a bad effect would be produced upon the feelings of both by the assumption of such an attitude? And, confessing this as he must, is he superstitious enough to suppose that the going through of a form of word will render harmless that use of command which was previously hurtful?”

Nobody ever called Spencer a “destroyer of the home,” or a “free-lover” for that. Yet, if Spencer meant anything, he meant that coercion is primarily wrong because it deprives the individual of the right to be guided by his own judgment. Socialists contend that women have a right to be guided by their own judgment, even if they make mistakes. Men do so. Women rebel against the denial of their equal right. They rebel against the coercion that is worked against them by their inability to earn decent, comfortable livings outside of their homes. Socialists say the family can never be what it might be or what it should be so long as this warfare continues. They say that since the weak never coerce the strong, there should be no economically weak members of the community. Men and women should both be economically independent. Each is likely to treat the other better if they are so.

Francis G. Peabody, Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard, has been as fortunate as Spencer in escaping the charge of being a “destroyer of the family” and a “free-lover.” The professor is quoted in the press as follows:

“One thing is certain, the family is rapidly becoming disorganized and disintegrated.... Divorces are being granted at an ever-increasing rate. It may be computed that if the present ratio of increase in population and in separation is maintained, the number of separations of marriage by death would at the end of the twentieth century be less than the number of separations by divorce....

“Owing to industrial life, the importance of the family is already enormously lessened. Once every form of industry went on within the family circle, but as the methods of the great industry are substituted for work done in the home, the economic usefulness of the family is practically outgrown.”