With one of the best organized state party’s in the country, the Washington Socialist Party’s ‘Commonwealth’ newspaper’s special women’s edition hosts a page of communications by Local Women Correspondents from around the state with Hortense Wagenknecht, the State Women’s Secretary, on ‘Why I Am a Socialist.’

‘Why I Am A Socialist’ by Local Woman Correspondents from The Commonwealth (Everett). No. 132. July 10, 1913.

WHY I AM A SOCIALIST.
(Effie Armstrong, Local Charleston.)

I am a socialist because I am a mother; and through that connecting link which nature implanted in the heart of every normal woman, we socialist women can reach the mothers when the fathers are inaccessible.

An appeal to the children’s interests will stick and rankle, when their own needs would be passed by as “As it was, is now, and ever shall be” as long as THEY live.

The recent proof given in Seattle that white slavery [prostitution] is actually reaching into our schools for our girls will open many a mother’s eyes as nothing else could, and the country school is not safer than the city.

When Jacob Furth was sentenced at Bellingham to a year’s imprisonment for having dishonestly and deliberately planned to ruin farmers and small merchants that HE might profit by it, he whined, “I’m seventy; I’m too old,” and his sentence was revoked. Did “Mother” Jones in West Virginia whine “I’m eighty: my health will be ruined” when she was sentenced to jail by the greatest travesty of justice that ever disgraced a country? Not much. Her defiant “You may kill my body, but you can’t kill my spirit,” crowns her for all time A MOTHER, fighting for her endangered children. Let us do likewise.

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A VERY GOOD PLAN.
(Eliza Lamkin, Lyman.)

I would like to tell through your paper of a plan I have to reach my women friends who have not yet seen what socialism means to them and their families, and who have no doubt had their minds prejudiced against it until they will not read socialist literature (as I once was). I have envelopes addressed to different friends, and when I read a little article or story, or news item even, which I think might help to open their minds to the great light of socialism, into the envelope it goes of the one in my judgement it will be the most likely to appeal. And I warn you, my non-socialistic friend, I am watching your conversation at all times to find an opening where something will fit in and then will try to drive the wedge home. And if you do not get many clippings it is because my supply of those I think will fit your case is short or postage not plentiful.

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WOMEN WORK.

Aberdeen, Wash.

Hortense Wagenknecht, Everett, Wash.

Dear Comrade. I was instructed by the “Progressive Woman’s Club” to write to you in regards to our club. It was organized by Comrade Anna Maley as a study club for non-socialist women. In this way we are able to reach women who will not go to hear lectures or street agitators, and we have succeeded in getting several to join our local and a number interested in socialism. Although the club is not connected with the local we are sure we do better than if connected with it. We meet every two weeks at one of our lady comrade’s residences. We have a membership of thirty-three and each one acts as a committee of one and each endeavors to get one of her neighbors to go as a visitor. We serve lunch furnished by the members of the club. The collection is taken for the purpose of buying socialist literature. If you think favorably of our club we will be glad to receive any suggestion that would tend to further the progress of the club.

Yours fraternally, MRS. ADA MCGREGOR, Corresponding Secretary. 716 First Ave.

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THE DIFFERENCE.
(By Mrs. Landerholm, LaCentre.)

Many years ago home in Sweden, when I was a young girl, a lady of the higher society said to me in a conversation regarding marriage: “A married life is happier than a single life, if the man and woman sympathize with each other, but if they don’t, it is better to be alone.” That lady had the experience of a happy married life, and how could it be anything else? Her husband was a good, loving man, he had a big yearly income, a good home, two loving children, several servants, and she could order her coachman whenever she pleased to drive up right to the doorsteps with a fine team and carriage and take her out together with some of her friends for a ride. Yes, even your writer had the honor to make her company a few times. What can a woman wish for more than such a home? But here is anotherview of married life. A young man and woman happen to be acquainted and are married. The couple belong to the working class. The man starts out working for wages and right there turns their pathway into the dark valley of misery. The home is often only a rough shanty and the home life will often be in accordance with such a home. Children come one after another to make the couple happy, but how often it turns out the other way! The man as well as the woman and children become slaves of the present system, sympathy and harmony fade away in the struggle for a living, and the home will only be a slave-pen–and why? Because the working class are too ignorant to understand their own good. They keep on year after year to make their masters more and more rich, and so they become poorer every day they live, and when they become old they have nothing for all their trouble in life. And now in the name of common sense and for your own happiness, we socialists ask all the slaves of the present system to wake up from your deep and deadly) slumber of some thousands of years, and throw off your chains of ignorant wage-slavery and be free.

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THE REASONS.
(By Mrs. Elizabeth Andrak of Local Parkland.)

There is every reason in the world why women should be socialists. I know of no organization in which we may express ourselves and work in the interest of humanity as we can in the socialist movement.

When we, the workers, get the full product of our labor we will be rich. Woman can be a wife and mother in the full sense of the word, the same can be said of man. Our homes will be homes indeed; the children will be delighted to come home. I am not so sure that they are always delighted to come home now, because when they do they find their parents over worked and always have something to worry about.

We, the people, will be the government as we are in the socialist movement. We will make our own laws and working plans. We will study and teach the laws of nature instead of the laws of man. And instead of scheming to save a dollar we will be scheming how to get the best out of life when the dollar will be at hand.

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FIFTY-NINE YEARS OLD AND STILL ACTIVE.
(Fanny M. Rodman.)

Nothing insures the perpetuity of a government but justice to those governed.

The socialist party is the first political party to declare for the FULL and EQUAL RIGHTS of woman in national and state governments.

Why should woman join the socialist party?

Because it is the first political party declaring for full rights of suffrage for woman in the national and the state governments.

I have always thought that the Sunday propaganda meeting is an important factor in our movement and have chided those calling themselves socialists because they don’t feel and obligation to attend even a part of the time. The wife of our local editor, Mrs. H.D. Jory and her daughter, Mrs. H.D. Stone, are members of the local. Mrs. Stone works on the paper, as does her husband. They are loyal socialists, and attend Sunday meetings and the business meetings.

I prize far more the glorious goal which scientific socialism sets before us than stopping by the way to contend for inconsequential points that don’t help us even if we gain them. I have said to different ones that it is time to begin our campaign with the view of putting up an entire socialist ticket.

I am distributing literature all the time. I find the colored women all want to vote and ready to read the socialist literature. Many of the colored people take the local socialist paper, and have done a good share toward its support.

Comrade Jory and his family have sacrificed everything for the great cause. One of our best members recently left for Florida, one who always went down into his pocket. Here’s hoping to have a better prospect to write you next time.

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Mrs. Hortense Wagenknecht, State: Women’s Correspondent:

Dear Comrade,

In compliance with your request for something for the “Women’s Edition,” I submit the enclosed item. I am greatly pleased to see this agitation for more women members. I would like to hear the plans of some of the locals for interesting the women. The women here had charge of arrangements for the lecture by Comrade Snow on the 7^th inst, and handled it so well that there were about two hundred people out, including the children. We opened the meeting with a short program of songs and recitations by the children, then came the lecture, after which we served refreshments. Later the floor was cleared and the young people were permitted to dance for a short time. You will probably think this was considerable trouble but it has gotten so we can’t get over thirty or forty people out to a lecture as the class line is very tightly drawn here, so we thought we would employ radical methods. We sprung the speaker as a surprise. We consider it a success. Hope to have a picnic next time.

Yours for the revolution,

VIOLA M. O’REILLY, L.W.C.

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PRAISEWORTHY WORK.
(By Viola O’Reilly, Buckley.)

The campaign for more socialist women in the party which is now being carried on is distinctly a praiseworthy one. There are many good reasons why women ought to be in the party, but to my way of thinking the best reason is because women are the teachers of the world. Father is a notorious philosopher, but when it comes to teaching the kiddies, oh, well, you know mother seems to have the knack for that. My observations have taught me that the class-conscious children come from the homes of class-conscious mothers. Very seldom indeed do you find children of indifferent mothers interested in the socialist cause, notwithstanding the fact that father may be the terror of the lives of his fellow-workmen as an agitator. I fully realize the drawbacks women have in getting out to meetings too, for where there are four small children as in most families, one of them is usually sick or there is some reason why mother must stay with them. For this reason the men comrades should arrange interesting discussions for every meeting so the women would feel repaid for making an effort to get out. Once they become interested no meeting will be dull.

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Dear Comrade

I want to let you know how we are carrying on the work among the women of our town.

We elected a woman’s propaganda committee consisting of three lady members. The local ordered 1,000 assorted leaflets for women from the national office, which are being distributed from house to house. The latter part of May we had an entertainment, the program consisting of music, singing, reading and recitations. We succeeded in getting out a large number of women to this. After the program Comrade Mary McNamara gave a talk on “the public school system.” The audience was well pleased with the affair. Some women cannot be induced to come to a speakers’ meeting, but they will come to an entertainment, and I think it is a good idea to always have someone present who can address them on some interesting subject.

BERTHA ZEITZ, Secy.

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MY REASON WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE SOCIALISTS.

Capitalist society is the destroyer of the individual. Under the profit-making system we have only masters on the one side and herds of dependent toilers on the other, and in the great industrial nations there is a decreasing individualization of man. Indeed, it is doubtful if there exists in the world at wholly developed individual. The lives of those who have and who have not are alike swallowed up in a needless struggle for physical existence. Capitalism is a violent coercion of the individual and the end thereof is social disintegration and universal delirium, for whenever industrial development begin under capitalism there the decay of man begins. It is the capitalist increase that is making this world a desperate shambles and filling the minds of men with despair as to the human future. It is through capitalist centralization that men are herded in the dirt, the disease, the ugliness of tenements, of factories and mining shanties. It is through capitalism that so many millions of children never behold the green fields nor anything but the dilapidation, the barrenness, the dumb and helpless sorrows of congested industrial populations. And it is socialism that will restore greenness and gladness to the earth, that will release children from the blight and brutality of modern industry and give them back the joys of life and put flowers in their hands and their cheeks.

MRS. MARY GAST, Tenino, Wash.

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WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE COME SOCIALISTS.
(Jessie S. Swope, Otter Creek Local, Toledo, Wash.)

There are many reasons why women should become socialists; in fact, socialism should appeal to woman more than to anyone else, because she is doubly enslaved. She must be governed by laws she has had no voice in making: if she has property she must pay taxes, in many cases having nothing to say as to how much she shall be taxed or how the money raised by taxation shall be used. Up to eighty years ago women could vote nowhere except to a very limited extent in Sweden. Woman has been the slave of the human race from its early foundation. She is also the slave of economic conditions, being forced to leave her home, to seek employment in the various industries in order to supply the necessaries of life for herself and children, and in many cases wages are so low that many thousands are driven to prostitution as the only way to escape starvation. Socialism stands ready to set woman free. Socialism offers the ballot to woman as the surest means of protection. Socialism will make her economically independent that she may no longer be driven by circumstances beyond her control. Socialism will abolish war, and that should appeal strongly to the mothers of the race. Socialism offers every advantage to women; it will lift her up and the whole race with her. Come, my sisters, you cannot afford to wait. You need socialism and socialism needs you. Enlist in the greatest movement for the uplift of humanity that ever shook the world.

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TO THE WOMEN VOTERS OF BANGOR.
(Mattie Allison Martin.)

Some time ago there was a socialist lecture at the schoolhouse by one of our ablest speakers. Not a woman in Bangor, save myself, was there to hear it. Some of your husbands and some of your sons were there, but NOT ONE of you. When I saw two dozen or more men there and only one woman I thought, is it because women care less for liberty than do men, or is it because they are prejudiced against the socialist movement? Is it because they think they know all about the socialist movement, or is it because they believe what our enemies have told them about it? Perhaps some “good” republican or democrat has told you we want to break up your home. Well, he told you the truth for once, for we would be glad, so glad, to see your shacks and your log huts and your tents torn down and give you the opportunity to build a REAL house.

Did you ever see people work harder than we socialists do to make homes out of a stump patch? Did you ever notice that there is but one house in or near Bangor that deserves the name and it belongs to a socialist?

How many homes are there in Bangor where father, mother and all the children are living together in comfort and luxury? Can you say your homes are unbroken when your husbands and your sons and daughters have to be away from you day after day and year after year, in order to make a living? Can you even say they are FREE when they have to ask a boss for a job? Oh, yes, I remember that old lie about “free love” too, but I didn’t think you would believe it. I gave you credit for having better sense.

You may believe it means dividing up after all. Let me ask you a question. Are we not already dividing up when we send our eggs and other produce to Seattle and the transportation companies and the commission men take yes, TAKE such a “rake-off” that there is hardly a living left for us poor farmers who work so hard to produce it?

It is these grafters and the big capitalists who rob the wage-working class of millions every year that we propose to get rid of. How shall we get rid of them, do you ask? By taking the POWER TO ROB away from them, and giving the working class the POWER TO KEEP what it produces. Do you know, friends, that we are the only political party that believes in giving woman the SAME rights and ALL the rights that men have? That we are the only party that is trying to abolish the liquor traffic and the white slave traffic and child labor and war?

Do you think I am telling you a plain lie when I say these things, or do you think we are dreaming? Well, it may prove to be a dream unless you and the rest of the workers help to make it a reality.

Are any of you willing to help? Are you even willing to learn what socialism really means? I wonder what each of you would say to me if I asked you why you were absent from our meeting. Of course there are many excuses you might make, but would you tell me the REALLY REAL reason? Do you know, ladies, I sometimes think you have allowed yourselves to become prejudiced against us that you would rather believe what others say about us than to believe what we say. Of course some of you may have a really GOOD reason for not attending our meetings. I am not saying that you had not. But doesn’t it look a little suspicious and don’t you think you would have managed to come out if it had been election day and a socialist ticket in the field?

MATTIE ALLISON MARTIN, Women’s Local Correspondent.

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WOMEN COMRADES.

Boost the Lyceum Course.

Will the National Lyceum course be a success this coming season? Up to now it has only been a partial success, for financially it has been a failure, a miserable failure. As a means of propaganda it has no equal at the present time.

We will all agree that in the past money has been spent that could have been saved. There are no mistakes until we make them. By making mistakes we learn to avoid them. That which seems most sensible to us at present may look exceedingly foolish one year hence. Then let us not lay blame for past mistakes upon the lyceum manager.

Had we all worked together as we now realize we should have done, what would have been the result? A financial success, of course. And who would have claimed the credit? You and you and you. And who gets the blame for the lyceum’s financial failure? The manager? Please be fair, just admit that it must be you and you and you.

The national committee at its meeting discussed the National Lyceum bureau for hours. Then it decided to continue it for another season, it being our greatest and most effective means of educating not only non-socialists, but party members as well. But it was also admitted that the success of the lyceum depended NOT upon the efforts of the manager, but upon the united efforts of every man and WOMAN in our national socialist party.

Then let us remember our mistakes so that we can avoid them in this coming season’s work, and let us put forth every effort to make the lyceum for 1913-1914 a howling success. In our propaganda and in our fight against IGNORANCE we forget our small differences. We fight together for the same goal, the emancipation of the working class.

Let us build perfect what we have started rather than tear down for some other untried method of reaching those we MUST educate. Let us use our most valuable weapon, the National Lyceum bureau to aid us in our conquest. It is financially within the reach of many locals. Let each agree to take the course and then let us all work hard for its success. WORK, not TALK. Women comrades, LET US DO OUR PART. OUR part consists in DOING ALL WE CAN.

HORTENSE WAGENKNECHT, State Correspondent for Washington, Box 491, Everett.

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A START.

Bremerton, Wa., July 7, 1913. To the Woman’s State Correspondent:

Dear Comrade, Will you please send me all the information possible in regards to the lady socialist study clubs or societies?

The women of the Bremerton local have started a study club. As yet they have not organized, but will wait for information from you.

We had our first meeting June 27 at Evergreen Park, at which nineteen persons were present. Several very good papers were given, also two little talks. The ladies felt real enthusiastic over the idea of forming a club.

Our next meeting is to be held July 11 and we wish to organize. If it is possible I would like to hear from you before that time; also please send us some literature if possible. I remain yours for the revolution,

GLADYS A. LIBBY, Women’s Correspondent.

Access to full issue: https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=COMMONW19130710