Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.

Socialism and Motherhood

Spargo, John

John Spargo

(American Socialist writer and lecturer, born in England, 1876)

THE MESSAGE of Socialism is a message of Life and Liberty and Love. It promises to destroy the political, social, and economic disabilities imposed upon womanhood; to give the mothers of the race equal freedom with the fathers of the race. It pledges itself to destroy those conditions of life and labor which weaken the mothers and deny to their babies the right to be well born. It claims for every child all the advantages of healthful and beautiful environment. It would destroy the dread fear of want which drives the mother from the service of her child into the service of a great factory. It would bestow upon every child, as its rightful heritage, opportunity to develop all its powers. It would apply the principles of the family to the state. It would abolish the body and soul debasing labor of children, and give to the little ones their Kingdom of Laughter and Dreams. It would end the waste of human lives by poverty, and make true wealth possible for all. It would put an end to war—the war of classes as well as the war of nations—and organize and direct the genius and power of the race, now so largely given to destruction, to the enrichment of life for all and the realization of Human Brotherhood.

Socialism comes to the mother as an Angel of Light and Life, bearing the torch of a great hope. “I am Life Abundant,” cries the angel, “and I bring you as gifts the Freedom and Opportunity and Joy and Peace for which you have prayed. See, my Sister, Mother of Men, all these are yours if you will put forth your hand and receive them.”