Again, Debs and his followers, by having a separate party for workingmen, are dividing the laboring class against itself, knowing full well that millions upon millions of decent, honest workingmen will never join them. And since Socialists are making unjust and impossible demands, and injecting into labor organizations radical leaders who cause general distrust and fear, labor cannot succeed in its battles against the abuses of capitalism nearly as well as it would if all were united. Hence, because of the existence of the Socialist Party, low wages still prevail in many cases, with extreme poverty which often leads to prostitution.
If the Socialists ever gain control of our country they will probably do so through a revolution. Or they will come into power gradually, by an increased vote at each election. In the meantime, as victory came near, there would be business failures by the thousands, owing to the impending destruction of the existing system of industry and government. In either case there would be terrible destitution and a great dearth of the necessities of life. This, according to the Socialists' own argument, would mean a great increase in prostitution.
It has been proven theoretically in the chapter entitled, "Socialism, a Peril to Workingmen," and actually by events in Europe, that a Socialist state, even should it endure, cannot be a success. Hence, were the Marxian argument about prostitution as strong as the Socialists claim, picture the immorality among the people where a Socialist government plunges the industries and sources of production and distribution into total chaos.
With this refutation of the claim that prostitution would become a very rare thing under Socialism, the national conspirators must confess that the same argument they have for years been using to further the interests of their cause, can with telling effect be turned against them.
Not alone are the Socialists defeated in their argument that prostitution would be less prevalent in the Marxian state, but they are hypocrites in using the argument they do. "The Call," for instance, which frequently uses the argument which has been refuted, in the magazine section of its issue of June 8, 1919, published a poem entitled, "The Harlot," to satisfy its lustful patrons:
/P "I do not understand you-- I cannot see How you can lie passive in my arms When such a passion swells in me.... You lie in my arms-- Your face is close to mine. I look into your eyes, Revelation! And you Look into mine Unmoved." P/
We now return to the question of free-love--we have not forgotten it, though no doubt the Reds wish we had. Socialists who deny that an active free-love propaganda exists within their ranks must either confess their ignorance of what is going on, or plead guilty to the base charge of deceiving the American people.
The "New Encyclopedia of Social Reform," edited by the Socialist, W. D. P. Bliss, on page 484 contains an article on the family which reads in part as follows:
"We then come to the third form of free-love, the free-love theory par excellence, which is held today by many Socialists, and an increasing number of radical men and women of various schools of thought. According to these neither the state nor organized religion should have aught to do with the control of the family or of the sexual relation. They would make free-love supreme. They would have it unfettered by any tie whatsoever. They argue that compulsory love is not love; that all marriage save from love is sin; that when love ends, marriage ends."
In another article, on page 1135, under the caption, "Socialism," Bliss informs us that it is perfectly true that Deville, a French Socialist, said that "marriage is a regulation of property.... When marriage is transformed, and only after that transformation marriage will lose its reason for existence, and boys and girls may then freely and without fear of censure listen to the wants and promptings of their nature.... The support of the children will no longer depend on the chance of birth. Like their instruction it will become a charge of society. There will be no room for prostitution or for marriage, which is in sum nothing more than prostitution before the mayor."