A peculiarity of the controversy that has arisen in these columns over maternal rights is the theological temper in which most of my critics approach the subject. There seems to be a sort of ill-suppressed rage at the thought that I should dare to utter such shocking sentiments in behalf of the rights of mothers. Mr. Matter is surprised, Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Fisher are considerably startled, and, as for Mr. Badcock, he simply cannot contain himself. Up to the advent of Mr. Lloyd, whose letter is the last that I have received, Mr. Byington alone seemed to have preserved his equanimity and to be willing to discuss the matter on a purely rational basis, without insinuation or apparent suspicion that I was no longer possessed of the most ordinary instincts of humanity. Which is passing strange. For, if my Congregationalist friend Byington had angrily told me that my views are an invention of the devil and can be held only by a man who is either stony-hearted or a coward, such an assault upon my personality would have seemed to me quite in keeping with the theology he professes, but I confess I did not expect to be thus pilloried by my Egoistic friend Badcock. However, let it not be supposed that it is my intention to protest against these epithets. Will Mr. Badcock and the rest please consider, from this out, that I am a fiend incarnate, with an alligator hide and a craven soul? The admission of this fact makes it unnecessary to further discuss it, and the space thus saved can be devoted, with more profit, to the argument proper. The question, then, is, not whether the editor of Liberty is sensitive or callous, courageous or cowardly, man or demon, but whether a mother is the rightful owner of her infant child, and as such may do with it as she will; and I must ask my critics to confine themselves to the question.
The ground thus cleared, I may now with Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Matter, and Mr. Badcock, in so far as they appeal to reason. Mr. Lloyd’s argument is that certain rules of conduct are conducive to happiness and therefore expedient; that Anarchists view equal liberty as the principal of these expedient rules; and that an Anarchist consequently has no right to invade a child. I might, if it were necessary, disprove here, in a direct manner, the proposition that an Anarchist has no right to invade any individual. But this is needless. I have only to call Mr. Lloyd’s attention to the fact that we are discussing the question, not of what an Anarchist has a right to do, but of what a mother has a right to do. Apparently he has forgotten for the moment that not all mothers are Anarchists. I remind him, then, that some mothers, and even a vast majority of mothers, are Archists and do not consider equal liberty expedient. They consider authority expedient and the right rule of conduct in the nature of things; and, hence, by Mr. Lloyd’s own argument, they are not called upon, so far as any right in the nature of things is concerned (and this is the sort of right to which Mr. Lloyd refers), to refrain from invading anybody. Now, as I do not suppose that Mr. Lloyd means to countenance the absurdity of denying absolute control of children to Anarchist mothers will allowing it to Archist mothers, he must, in order to prove his case, prove that it is the duty, not simply of Anarchists, but of every person, to refrain from invasion. Which he cannot do, because, while basing his own duty in this respect upon his own view of expediency, he cannot refuse to allow others to make their opposite views of expediency the basis of a right to invade. I am far from denying that there is a reality in this matter of expediency, independent of individual opinion; but it is a long way from this admission to the affirmation that a man is in duty bound to do that which he considers inexpedient. It being the most obvious of truths that every one must judge of expediency for himself, no Egoist can logically deny that every organism has the right to act as it thinks best, so far as its might will allow. Might is the measure of right everywhere and always, until, by contract, each contracting party voluntarily agrees to measure his right thenceforth, not by his might, but by the equal liberty of those whom he has contracted to protect. So here we are, back again to the régime of contract; and, as Mr. Lloyd is logical enough to perceive that, if contract determines rights, my position regarding parents and children is invulnerable, I have no further quarrel with him, unless he shall take issue with what I have said above.
Nevertheless, before ending with him, I will consider briefly certain other features of his letter. His analogy between the cripple and the child sustains rather than overthrows me, for his cripple makes a contract, and I as strenuously defend the liberty of the child in whom the idea of contract has dawned as I declare the slavery of the child to whom contract is not yet possible. All his remarks about the child as a dependent individual apply only to what I call the self-emancipated child. He attributes to his dependent individual the right of secession. What is secession, I should like to know, if not self-emancipation? The very idea of secession implies some conception of contract, however crude. Nothing that Mr. Lloyd says meets the case of the real infant.
Just for fun,—though it is apart from the issue,—I note Mr. Lloyd’s ridiculous distinctions in regard to his contract with the cripple. He thinks he may say what the cripple shall eat, because he supplies his food, and may say what he shall wear, because he dresses him. This distinction is not intrinsic. The nature of the cripple’s obligations to Mr. Lloyd depends entirely on the terms of the contract. The contract might provide that Mr. Lloyd may say what the cripple shall wear, because he supplies his food, and may say what he shall eat, because he dresses him. The distinction which Mr. Lloyd draws reminds me forcibly of the foolish doctrine that physical force must be met with physical force, and moral force with moral force. Of course, there is no reason at all for this. There is, to be sure, an excellent reason for using moral force as much as possible and physical force as little as possible. It would be an excellent thing to meet all kinds of force with moral force, if we could successfully do so. But moral force often fails, and, as the failures generally occur when it is used against physical force, it then becomes necessary to resort to physical force. That is the whole of it. The idea that there is intrinsic propriety in meeting force with another force like it in kind is purely fanciful. Merely verbal similarities often lead us to assume fitnesses that have no real existence. This tendency is revealed in Mr. Lloyd’s contract with the cripple. The implication seems to be that it would be illegitimate for the cripple to undertake to dress to Mr. Lloyd’s liking in return for an undertaking on the part of Mr. Lloyd to supply the cripple with such food as the cripple may desire. The mental disposition which impels a man to dictate to others their duty in the nature of things, may very naturally impel him to prescribe the forms of contract into which others may enter.
Mr. Lloyd tells us that, when his views prevail, parents, when begetting a child, will know that they are not producing property. Yes; and, when communism prevails, farmers, when planting potatoes, will know that they are not producing property. Yet this does not seem to be an imperative reason for excluding potatoes from the property sphere.
He further tells us that the parent, having forced dependent life upon the child, is an invader, if refusing support to this dependent individual.
He might have added with as much force that the stock-breeder, having forced dependent life upon a calf, is an invader, if refusing to support it. Yet I can hardly suppose that Mr. Lloyd, who is so fond of killing birds, would refuse to let the stock-breeder kill his calf. Moreover, he is guilty here of flagrant contradiction. If the parent absolutely owes support to the child because of forcing life upon it, then the child owes nothing to the parent in return for its support. But Mr. Lloyd has previously said that, in return for its support, the child owes it to the parent to consent to follow the parent’s command as to what it shall eat and wear. If the man who utters these two propositions in the same breath is not a mental suicide, what is he?
And again: That a child is property is absurd. If property, then a slave. A doctrine that establishes slavery in Anarchy is certainly sufficiently reduced to an absurdity.
Slavery in Anarchy an absurdity! Will not the animals be slaves under Anarchy? Wherein does the undeveloped child differ from the animals? In its possibilities, does Mr. Lloyd answer? But the ovum in a woman’s body has the same possibilities. Is it not her property? Slavery in Anarchy, instead of an absurdity, is a necessity. Property in any living creature means slavery in the ordinary snese. If, however, we take Colonel Greene’s metaphorical, but much more rational, definition of slavery, then there can be no slavery in Anarchy, even though infants are property. What is it to be a slave?
asks Colonel Greene. And he answers: It is to see the Blazing Star and not be permitted to follow it.
Now, Anarchy will recognize no property in any being that can see, even dimly, the Blazing Star. But a baby has not the faintest glimpse of the Blazing Star, and, therefore, in the more philosophic sense of the term, property in babies is not slavery.
But Mr. Lloyd argues further that, if his child is his property at birth, it is his property forever, or until he sells it or gives it away. And Mr. Matter, making the same point, declares: My property cannot outgrow its condition.
That a mother may sell or give away her child prior to its self-emancipation follows from my position beyond a doubt. I informed my critics in advance that I perceive the consequences of my doctrine and accept them all and that, if they would refute me, they must do so by finding the flaw in my argument rather than by stating the corollaries of my conclusion. My warning, however, seems not to have had the slightest effect on them. And little wonder! It is so much easier to look horrified at a deduction which is startling because unusual than it is to find a defective link in a flawless logical chain!
But in their eagerness to point out dire and awful consequences my critics go too far. It does not follow from my doctrine, and it is not true, that property cannot outgrow its condition. If the theory of evolution be true, things and beings similar to those which constitute property today have, in the course of ages and by a process of development, resulted in the beings who are today proprietors. I suppose that Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Matter will not deny that the organ-grinder owns his monkey and his monkey’s offspring, and can give monkey and offspring to his son. It is possible, then, that for generations and centuries and æons this monkey’s descendents may be handed down as the property of this organ-grinder’s descendants. But, if the organ-grinder is himself the descendent of another branch of the monkey family (as is now generally believed), then it is not impossible that the descendents of the monkey which he owns will, some millions of years hence, have developed to such a degree that they will insist on grinding organs for themselves. In that case what will have become of the organ-grinder’s property? Obviously it will have outgrown its condition. It will have passed from the category of the owned into the category of the owners. And similarly every normal child outgrows its property status. It cannot be laid down as an absolute law that what is once property is always property.
Moreover, this doctrine, which Mr. Matter insists upon so emphatically at the end of his letter, is flatly contradictory of the position which he takes at the beginning of his letter. I quote his words: The nation recognized the black man as property, and he was. Later they agreed that he was not, and he was not.
This being so, how can it also be true that what I own once is always mine, unless I sell it
? Yet both of these assertions are made by Mr. Matter in the same letter. Perhaps he will answer that his meaning is that property can be unmade only by the power that made it, and not by any growth or act of its own. But such an answer will not hold, for Mr. Matter will have to admit that the black men would as truly have ceased to be property if they themselves, in spite of the nation, had risen in successful rebellion. Nor can he deny that, if the nature emancipation of children by development should not be recognized, the children themselves would ultimately compel its recognition, and would thus cease to be property,—to say nothing of the further fact that, even though they did not compel recognition of their liberty, they would sooner or later be freed from their property status by the mortality of their proprietors, who could bequeath their children only to the children themselves. And in this connection I again make the point that no Anarchist will deny a mother’s right to commit suicide during pregnancy. To admit this is to declare her the owner of the child in her womb. But, according to Mr. Matter and Mr. Lloyd, if the child is once her property, then it is always her property,—a conclusion which carries these gentlemen even further than I ask them to go. All these considerations combine to expose the ridiculous weakness of the reasoning that, if a child is once property, it must be property as long as it lives.
I cannot take Mr. Matter seriously when he pretends that I have asked him or any one to disprove that children are actually property. He has no ground for supposing me to be so ignorant of the institutions under which I live as to believe that existing law recognizes property in children. It must be perfectly clear to any reader who is familiar with the way in which the English language is used that my declaration that children are property was intended to be understood simply as a declaration that children will be property after a scientific understanding of what ought to be recognized as property has been reached. It was not in my thought to propose a discussion on any other question than that framed by Mr. Matter himself: Shall we consider children property or not?
But I cannot agree with Mr. Matter that this question is one to be answered in an arbitrary fashion. The manner in which he writes of it leaves on me the impression that he denies any property principle, any rational test of property, and holds that we are to adjudge this to be property and that not to be property in a more or less hap-hazard manner, or, at best, in obedience to our whims or inclinations or sympathies. I, on the other hand, hold that the defensive social contract should be made for a specific purpose,—namely, to secure the contracting parties in the control of their persons and of the results of their efforts; that the security of each contracting individual is best to be attained by making the contract as universal as its nature will permit; that therefore an invitation to join in the contract should be extended to all persons capable of entertaining the idea of contract; that this invitation should be a standing one; and that the entire universe, exclusive of the parties to the contract and those who are qualified to become parties to it, should be considered appropriable by these actual and possible contractors, for their enjoyment and the expenditure of their productive efforts. This seems to me a rational and scientific, as opposed to an emotional or whimsical, determination of the domain of property, and I offer it as my main answer to the attitude assumed by Mr. Matter, supplementing it with a short examination of his separate criticisms.
He is wrong in supposing that I would have allowed the slave-owner to retain the negro infants at the time of the emancipation of the slaves. The fact that the slave-owner bought them would not weigh with me, unless the first sale of them was originally made by their rightful owners, their mothers; and such, of course, was not the case. I would have restored these infants to their mothers wherever possible. I accept, too, the argument that by a parity of reasoning the slaves were entitled to their other creations,—namely, their clothes and the plantations. I would have awarded them these also, and, it appearing that Mr. Matter would not have done so, it is my turn to be surprised.
The question: Why not follow the line of least resistance?
indicates an entire misapprehension of the law governing that matter. Evidently Mr. Matter thinks that one may follow the line of least resistance, or not, as he chooses. Of course, the fact is that every one does follow the line of least resistance, and cannot do otherwise. I find the path of least resistance in the effort to discover and expound sociological truth rather than in the attempt to conciliate public opinion. I do not busy myself with public opinion at all.
The man who demands equal freedom demands it at once for the whole human family, regardless of age, color, or sex.
I could as truly say that the man who demands equal freedom demands it at once for every living creature, regardless of age, color, sex, structure, nature, or habits. If I deny equal freedom in drawing the line at children, Mr. Matter denies it in drawing the line at animals. The phrase equal freedom
means nothing in itself. It must always be so qualified, either expressly or tacitly, as to show for whom equality of freedom is demanded. Any qualification of this kind will show a limit somewhere. The issue, as stated in a foregoing paragraph, is whether my limit is more or less rational than Mr. Matter’s.
When we, as Anarchists, grant each other the right to live, to be free from physical injuries inflicted by invaders, why can we not also grant it to children?
This begs the question. I deny the possibility of invading the undeveloped child. The outsider who uses force upon the child invades, not the child, but its mother, and may rightfully be punished for so doing. The mother who uses force upon her child invades nobody. If Mr. Matter means to ask why we should not secure children against maternal force, I answer that we should not because to do so would be exactly contrary to the purpose of the defensive contract, which is to secure to all persons contracting, or qualified to contract, in the control of the results of their efforts.
Neither society or the father has the right to inflict physical pain on any human beings.
If this be true, then it is certain that society has no right to physically punish a cruel mother. I point this out simply as one of Mr. Matter’s inconsistencies, not endorsing the proposition myself
If a child wishes to leave its parents at any age, let it go.
So say I. The child that wishes to leave its parents in any more deliberate sense than that of obeying an instinct to flee from an impending blow is necessarily a child capable of entertaining the idea of contract. This consideration has no bearing upon the status of the infant.
A child is under no obligation to receive blows from its parents.
Who has denied it?
By recognizing a child’s right to life and physical safety we have the means of preventing the torturing and killing of an infant.
Are you sure, Mr. Matter? We recognize, do we not, an adult’s rights to life and physical safety? Do we succeed thereby in preventing murder? Possibly we lessen the number of murders, though even that is not certain. I have seen it plausibly argued that our laws against murder increase the number of murders. However, I am not opposing the punishment of murderers. I simply wish to point out that it does not follow that children are better treated because not considered the property of their mothers. Personally, I think they would be better treated were they so considered. But, if the reverse were the case, it would not follow that it is the part of wisdom to deny property in children, any more than it would be expedient to abolish property in horses if cruelty to horses could thereby be lessened. Cruelty either to horses or to children is a very deplorable thing, but a certain degree of it is preferable to some other things that pretty surely result from unprincipled legislation.
In answer to another correspondent I dealt in the last issue of Liberty with the argument now advanced by Mr. Matter regarding the treatment to be administered to the individual who invades a cruel parent. Mr. Matter tells me that, to be consistent, I must convict of murder in the first degree a man who kills a father in the act of killing his child. Very well; I promise that, if I am ever on a jury in such a case, I will be consistent. I promise also to show such degree of leniency in fixing the punishment as the circumstances seem to require. Mr. Matter thinks it will take many years to find a jury constituted of men like myself. For once Mr. Matter is right. It will also take many years to establish Anarchism.
No one ever heard of a man risking his life to save a sack of potatoes.
I do not know whether this is true or not. At any rate, many a man, in a burning building, has foolishly risked and lost his life in an attempt to save his hat. But let us admit Mr. Matter’s statement. Even if true, it has no pertinence. If I said that children and potatoes are equally valuable property, then the statement of Mr. Matter would have some force. But I have said nothing of the kind. My contention is a very different one,—namely, that children should be considered property, just as potatoes are considered property.
Would you object, under equal freedom, to the organization of a society to protect, free of charge, the persons and property of those not able to, or even not willing to
[protect themselves, I suppose Mr. Matter means]? No, provided such persons understand what a contract is.
If you find no fault with such a society, why should it not also protect children?
There is no reason why it should not protect children who understand what a contract is. It should not protect children who do not understand what a contract is, because in so doing it would deny the right of mothers to control property legitimately acquired in the domain identified above as the domain of property.
Are you able to decide at what age or condition children are no longer property?
As well as Mr. Matter is able to decide at what age or condition a child may buy or sell a house. The age varies according to precocity. The matter is one for the jury in any given case of complaint.
Should a child be an idiot or a cripple, it must forever remain property.
No. If an idiot, it must remain property until its owner abandons it. If merely a physical cripple, its property status does not differ from that of a normal child.
So much for Mr. Matter. And now that I am ready to confront my irate English comrade, I find myself at the limit of my time and space. Mr. Badcock must wait until the next issue of Liberty. And I must ask my critics to refrain from writing further until my next article has appeared.